Equinox of the Gods chapter8

In this revelation is the basis of the future Aeon. Within the memory of man we have had the
Pagan period, the worship of Nature, of Isis, of the Mother, of the Past; the Christian period,
the worship of Man, of Osiris, of the Present. The first period is simple, quiet, easy, and
pleasant; the material ignores the spiritual; the second is of suffering and death: the spiritual
strives to ignore the material. Christianity and all cognate religions worship death, glorify
suffering, deify corpses. The new Aeon is the worship of the spiritual made one with the
material, of Horus, of the Child, of the Future.

Isis was Liberty; Osiris, bondage; but the new Liberty is that of Horus. Osiris conquered her
because she did not understand him. Horuse avenges both his Father and his Mother. This
child Horus is a twin, two in one. Horus and Harpocrates are one, and they are also one with
Set or Apophis, the destroyer of Osiris. It is by the destruction of the principle of death that
they are born. The establishment of this new Aeon, this new fundamental principle, is the
great work now to be accomplished in the world.

FRATER PERDURABO, to whom this revelation was made with so many signs and wonders,
was himself unconvinced. He struggled against it for years. Not until the completion of His
own initiation at the end of I909 did he understand how perfectly he was bound to carry out
this work. Again and again He turned away from it, took it up for a few days or hours, then
laid it aside. He even attempted to destroy its value, to nullify the result. Again and again the
unsleeping might of the Watchers drove Him back to the work; and it was at the very moment
when He thought Himself to have escaped that He found Himself fixed for ever with no
possibility of again turning aside for the fraction of second from the Path.

The history of this must one day be told by a more vivid voice. Properly considered, it is a
history of continuous miracle. Enough if it is now said that in this Law lies the whole future: it
is the Law of Liberty, and those who refuse it proclaim themselves slaves, and as slaves shall
they be chained and flogged. It is the Law of Love, and those who refuse it declare
themselves to be the children of hate, and their hate shall return upon them and consume
them with its unending tortures. It is the Law of Life, and those who refuse it shall be subject
to death; and death shall catch them unawares. Even their life shall be a living death. It is the
Law of Light, and those who refuse it thereby make themselves dark for ever.

Do what thou wilt shall be the whole of the Law! Refuse this, and fall under the curse of
destiny. Divide will against itself, the result is impotence and strife, strife-in-vain. The Law
condemns no man. Accept the Law, and everything is lawful.

Refuse the Law, you put yourself beyond its pale. It is the Law that Jesus Christ, or rather the
Gnostic tradition of which the Christ-legend is a degradation, attempted to teach; but nearly
every word he*1* said was mininterpreted and garbled by his enemies, particularly by those
who called themselves his disciples. In any case the Aeon was not ready for a Law of
Freedom. Of all his followers only St. Augustine appears to have got even a glimmer of what
he meant.

A further attempt to teach this law was made through Sir Edward Kelly at the end of the
sixteenth century. The bondage of orthodoxy prevented his words from being heard, or
understood. In many other ways has the spirit of truth striven with man, and partial shadows
of this truth have been the greatest allies of science and philosophy. Only now has success
been attained. A perfect vehicle was found, and the message enshrined in a jewelled casket;
that is to say, in a book with the injunction "Change not as much as the style of a letter." This
book is reproduced in facsimile, in order that there shall be no possibility of corrupting it.
Here, then, we have an absolutely fixed and definite standpoint for the foundation of an
universal religion.

We have the Key to the resolution of all human problems, both philosophical and practical. If
we have seemed to labour at proof, our love must be the excuse for our infirmity ; for we
know well that which is written in the Book:

"Success is your proof."

We ask no more than one witness; and we call upon Time to take the Oath, and testify to the
Truth of our plea.