| THE BOOK WHICH IS CALLED THE TABLETS OF AETH THE SACRED SCROLL WHICH IS CALLED THE TABLETS OF AETH NOW FOR THE FIRST TIME TRANSCRIBED FROM THE ASTRAL RECORDS AND DONE INTO A BOOK, By ZANONI TO WHICH IS ADDED A SERIES OF INTERPRETATIVE REFLECTIONS FOR THE SPIRITUAL MEDITATION OF THE FAITHFUL |
FOREWORD |
Thy temple is the arch Of yon unmeasured sky;
Thy Sabbath the stupendous march Of grand eternity.
To my Brothers and Sisters of the Hermetic Brotherhood of Luxor:
GREETING--For some years it has been my desire to leave a spiritual legacy to the many devoted friends and
followers who have braved so much amid present truth and error for my sake. In choosing the present work for such a
purpose, I have had in view the deeper spiritual needs of the soul--the prophetic element of the interior spirit, which
can best exalt itself through the contemplation of Nature's arcane symbolism of the starry heavens--not the material
expression of the glittering splendors of the midnight sky, but the spiritual soul-pictures of those blazing systems that
reveal to the seeing eye the shining thrones of THE RULERS--the Powers that Be.
Ever since the dawn of intellectual human life upon our Mother Earth, long before the days of the cave man, or even
the first frost that heralded the coming of the Ice Age, souls have hoped and hungered and souls have quailed and
fallen in their struggles with the mysteries of God. But ever and anon some bright flower of the race has gained the
spiritual victory. A Messianic soul has responded to aspirations of a great-hearted, great-souled woman, pregnant with
spiritual yearnings beyond her race, and she has unconsciously blessed her kind for the generations yet to come with
that incarnated mystery--THE SON OF GOD. Blessed, O Woman, is thy patient mission on the earth, and transcendent
are the holy mysteries of thy maternity. Every human birth is a Divine miracle in humanity, performed by the
Motherhood of God.
Hence it is that, from the earliest ages of life, triumphant souls have stormed the gates of the sanctuary and
penetrated Nature's most occult mysteries and there recorded their spiritual victories. Amid these sacred records lies
one great scroll, that none but the brightest and bravest may read.
This sacred scroll, sealed with the seven mystic seals of the heavens, contains The Tablets of Aeth, a record of the
soul's experiences upon the planes of both conscious and sub-conscious life-spirit and matter, that are expressed in a
series of universal symbols, which manifest to the seer the processes of creative life, of spiritual cause with material
effect. And, finally, the mystery of the seven vials and the seven stars of Saint John are written therein; for the Tablets
are the hieroglyphic keys which unlock the realities of truth involved within the unrealities of external life, and open up,
to the aspiring soul, inconceivable vistas of knowledge yet possible of realization, within the Divine womb of the
uncreated Aether.
Myriads of exalted spirits, who have toiled for the treasure which doth not corrupt, have added, and are adding, their
portion of personal conception to this universal conception of life, so that the sacred symbols themselves, inscribed
upon these imperishable Tablets, ARE EVOLUTIONARY--are slowly unfolding through the eons of time, and revealing
wider and yet deeper processes of the light, life, and love, of the Motherhood of God.
Therefore, all Divine revelation of infinite truth is limited and finite as to its conception, when revealed through a finite
capacity. All Divine truths are universal; all personal conceptions of such truths are limited; hence springs the
unquenchable fountain of the ONE eternal truth, eternally repeating itself, in cosmic as in human life, by the
progressive unfoldment of Nature's unlimited potentialities.
"The outward doth from the inward roll,
And the inward dwells in the inmost soul."
The true poet is always a seer, and he might have added that the INMOST SOUL is the uncreate, and, the yet
uncreated itself, lies buried in the ever eternal beyond; hence the immortality of the human spirit.
This sacred astral scroll, rightly and reverently studied by the disciple of the higher law, becomes a boundless source
of knowledge and inspiration. There is no mood of the mind or yearning of the soul that cannot be satisfied and
refreshed from this inexhaustible fountain of spiritual truth, no passion of the human heart that cannot be eased of its
burden and soothed of its pain. Its spiritual refreshment falls like the dew from heaven upon those who are weary and
heavy laden with the trials and sufferings of external life.
Accept it, then, even as it is given unto you. My friends and brethren, accept it as Zanoni's last work on earth--his
legacy to you, and may the spirit of the All-Father-Mother, the ineffable spirit of Life, Light, and Love,--the Unknowable,
whom men call God, rest upon you and be with you now and forever.
Thy Sabbath the stupendous march Of grand eternity.
To my Brothers and Sisters of the Hermetic Brotherhood of Luxor:
GREETING--For some years it has been my desire to leave a spiritual legacy to the many devoted friends and
followers who have braved so much amid present truth and error for my sake. In choosing the present work for such a
purpose, I have had in view the deeper spiritual needs of the soul--the prophetic element of the interior spirit, which
can best exalt itself through the contemplation of Nature's arcane symbolism of the starry heavens--not the material
expression of the glittering splendors of the midnight sky, but the spiritual soul-pictures of those blazing systems that
reveal to the seeing eye the shining thrones of THE RULERS--the Powers that Be.
Ever since the dawn of intellectual human life upon our Mother Earth, long before the days of the cave man, or even
the first frost that heralded the coming of the Ice Age, souls have hoped and hungered and souls have quailed and
fallen in their struggles with the mysteries of God. But ever and anon some bright flower of the race has gained the
spiritual victory. A Messianic soul has responded to aspirations of a great-hearted, great-souled woman, pregnant with
spiritual yearnings beyond her race, and she has unconsciously blessed her kind for the generations yet to come with
that incarnated mystery--THE SON OF GOD. Blessed, O Woman, is thy patient mission on the earth, and transcendent
are the holy mysteries of thy maternity. Every human birth is a Divine miracle in humanity, performed by the
Motherhood of God.
Hence it is that, from the earliest ages of life, triumphant souls have stormed the gates of the sanctuary and
penetrated Nature's most occult mysteries and there recorded their spiritual victories. Amid these sacred records lies
one great scroll, that none but the brightest and bravest may read.
This sacred scroll, sealed with the seven mystic seals of the heavens, contains The Tablets of Aeth, a record of the
soul's experiences upon the planes of both conscious and sub-conscious life-spirit and matter, that are expressed in a
series of universal symbols, which manifest to the seer the processes of creative life, of spiritual cause with material
effect. And, finally, the mystery of the seven vials and the seven stars of Saint John are written therein; for the Tablets
are the hieroglyphic keys which unlock the realities of truth involved within the unrealities of external life, and open up,
to the aspiring soul, inconceivable vistas of knowledge yet possible of realization, within the Divine womb of the
uncreated Aether.
Myriads of exalted spirits, who have toiled for the treasure which doth not corrupt, have added, and are adding, their
portion of personal conception to this universal conception of life, so that the sacred symbols themselves, inscribed
upon these imperishable Tablets, ARE EVOLUTIONARY--are slowly unfolding through the eons of time, and revealing
wider and yet deeper processes of the light, life, and love, of the Motherhood of God.
Therefore, all Divine revelation of infinite truth is limited and finite as to its conception, when revealed through a finite
capacity. All Divine truths are universal; all personal conceptions of such truths are limited; hence springs the
unquenchable fountain of the ONE eternal truth, eternally repeating itself, in cosmic as in human life, by the
progressive unfoldment of Nature's unlimited potentialities.
"The outward doth from the inward roll,
And the inward dwells in the inmost soul."
The true poet is always a seer, and he might have added that the INMOST SOUL is the uncreate, and, the yet
uncreated itself, lies buried in the ever eternal beyond; hence the immortality of the human spirit.
This sacred astral scroll, rightly and reverently studied by the disciple of the higher law, becomes a boundless source
of knowledge and inspiration. There is no mood of the mind or yearning of the soul that cannot be satisfied and
refreshed from this inexhaustible fountain of spiritual truth, no passion of the human heart that cannot be eased of its
burden and soothed of its pain. Its spiritual refreshment falls like the dew from heaven upon those who are weary and
heavy laden with the trials and sufferings of external life.
Accept it, then, even as it is given unto you. My friends and brethren, accept it as Zanoni's last work on earth--his
legacy to you, and may the spirit of the All-Father-Mother, the ineffable spirit of Life, Light, and Love,--the Unknowable,
whom men call God, rest upon you and be with you now and forever.
| INTRODUCTION TO THE BOOK WHICH IS CALLED "THE TABLETS OF AETH," WHEREIN ARE DESCRIBED THE FORMULAS OF MEDITATION THE FORMULAS OF MEDITATION, TO THE DRAGON, FOUNTAIN OF YOUTH |
"When first, a musing boy, I stood beside
Thy starlit shimmer, and asked my restless heart
What secrets Nature to the herd denied,
But might to earnest hierophant impart;
When lo! beside me, around and o'er,
Thought whispered, 'Arise, O seeker, and explore.' "
he Tablets of Aeth are the culminating expression of symbolical ideas, and the studious meditation thereof is to be
approached and continued in this wise:
First, commit to memory, as near as may be, all the ideas involved in the astrological laws and principles laid down in
"The Science of the Stars," formulated in the second part of "The Light of Egypt," Vol. I, especially as regards the
symbolism there given and manifestation thereof on the intellectual plane. Mentally digest these aspects of truth most
thoroughly.
Second, carry forward the same course of mental training with regard to the preceding chapters in this volume, from
No. 1 to No. 12. There are thirteen chapters, but No. 13, the last one, being "The Penetralia," should not be included
in this course, but, rightly used, should be reserved as the last and final revelation for spiritual contemplation.
The twelve chapters just mentioned continue the great astral laws given in "The Light of Egypt," Vol. I, from this plane
to that of the soul life of the human monad (both prior to and after human incarnation). At this point we leave the finite
and step into the realms of the infinite. From the sphere of limitations which surround the microcosm we enter the
starlit path of the macrocosm, and here, with the illimitable ocean of eternal life sweeping onward before us, we hear
the first strains of the Grand March of the Universe burst forth from the organs of God! The suns of creative life swell
the infinite chorus of sound; archangels swing their fiery batons to the march of the heavenly host; and all earthly
sound has ceased. We are absorbed in the music of the spheres.
We are now in the realm of universals, the domain of living realities. The Tarot of Mother Nature revolves before us,
revealing her mystic meanings to the soul. All ideas are symbols, and symbols are reservoirs for the conservation of
thought. And this is a very truth: Even so on earth as it is in heaven.
The Tablets of Aeth, then, constitute a spiritual astrology, a spiritual science of the stars, void of mathematics, yet
possessing all the exactitude of figures, constructed on the principles of astronomy, yet expressed by the methods of
the Kabbalah.
The transmission of spiritual truth from inward to outward form, though differing according to the age in which it is
expressed, is ever the same in principle. And in the same way that the sacred clavicula of Solomon became the Tarot
of Bohemian gypsies, so did the Tablets of Aeth manifest their mysteries in the starry science of Chaldean lore. But
there is this sharp line of demarcation between them, namely, the Tablets of Aeth deal with universal human life and
nature, with infinite principles from which all finite laws radiate. The Tablets of Aeth express and symbolize the cause.
All other mundane systems of occult study, astronomical or metaphysical, are spirito-natural effects, the individual
intellectual fruits, gathered from the one universal tree of knowledge. Uncreated, Unlimited Potentiality, is the one
impersonal truth shining forever in the Great White Light of God. All the laws, powers, and principalities, manifested in
the moving Universe, are but the colored rays, blazing with glorious life through the prisms of matter.
Having stated thus much, the neophyte will perceive in what meditative sphere of thought the Tablets may be used.
The method of study is, as shown, a purely synthetic deduction of human ideas from spiritual symbols of universal
principles. The Tablets themselves constitute a grand arcane Tarot of man, God and the universe, and of all the
powers that dwell therein. They may be studied singly, as, for instance, meditating upon some one great universal
idea or principle; or they may be studied in trines, as they appear in each separate book, or chapter, or as squares,
like two, five, eight, eleven, or as the seal of two trines, one, three, five, seven, nine, eleven, with No. twelve in the
center, as the revealer of the mystery. And, finally, they may be contemplated as the Grand Oracle of Heaven, in the
following manner:
Make a circle of the tablets, as you would with a pack of Tarot cards, beginning with No. 1, on the eastern horizon, and
proceeding in the exact opposite order from a figure of the heavens--No. 2, being on the Twelfth House, No. 3, on the
Eleventh, and {} on the M. C. of the figure, as in the Astro-Masonic chart, given in the second part of "The Light of
Egypt," Vol. I, and so proceed with the rest of the twelve tablets of the stars. This figure will represent the potentialities
of the macrocosm, the starry signs symbolizing the possibilities of things past or to be, and the rulers the active
executors thereof. Study the figure in all its aspects as such, first singly, tablet by tablet, then as a whole--the cosmos.
Next, place the ruler of any given tablet at the side of the Mansion, and try to penetrate its various meanings, powers
and possibilities. Then proceed the same with a trine and a square, and, last, with all the rulers, in the order of their
celestial lordship of the signs, each in his appointed place, as a whole Arcana.
In any grave crisis of mental or physical affairs, wherein nations, and not individuals, are concerned, the tablets may
be used as a celestial scheme of the heavens, thus: Cast a figure of the heavens for the Sun's first entry into the sign
Aries at the vernal equinox, calculated for the meridian of the capital city of the country under consideration. Degrees
and minutes are not wanted. Then place the twelve tablets in place of signs, exactly as they would occur in an
astrological figure. Then place the rulers of the Sun, Moon and planets therein (each having its own tablet), as they
are found to be situated in an ephemeris for the time of the figure. This done, study the whole from a spiritual
standpoint as the causes and ultimates of the crisis, according to astro laws.
The foregoing simple directions will, I think, be sufficiently plain for all purposes, never forgetting that this holy study is
not a system of divination, as commonly understood, but of Divine revelation, in its highest and most holy religious
sense. Long study and most reverent meditation will be required to master this mystery, and many errors of judgment
will occur to the beginner.
The interpretative reflections are added for the purpose of guiding and guarding the spiritually untrained seer from
possible error in fundamental conceptions only. They must not by any means be taken as a complete revelation of the
tablets, but only as a series of skeleton keys by means of which all things may be revealed to the earnest seeker
thereof. To have added more than is given would only be to defeat the object of this work. Each seeker for the truth
must excavate the mines of knowledge, and dig further into this universal well of truth for himself.
Remember that all interpretation will be personal to each student. Of no one can it be affirmed, "thou hast said," and
so endeth the matter. Not so. To each, according to his talent, shall the mysteries of the kingdom be revealed, to
every one according to his humility, spiritual light, and merit. But from the arrogant, the selfish, and spiritually proud,
shall all things be taken away, and truth shroud herself in the veil of delusion. In simplicity of mind, then, and purity of
soul, approach the Holy of Holies. "Suffer little children to come unto Me," saith a messenger of the Most High, "for of
such is the Kingdom of Heaven." Verily, therefore, I say unto you, that not until you can look upon all the works of
Nature--beauty in her nakedness or vice and crime in their repulsiveness, with pure thought and holy feeling, can you
inherit eternal life.
Here endeth the introduction to the book which is called "The Tablets of Aeth."
Thy starlit shimmer, and asked my restless heart
What secrets Nature to the herd denied,
But might to earnest hierophant impart;
When lo! beside me, around and o'er,
Thought whispered, 'Arise, O seeker, and explore.' "
he Tablets of Aeth are the culminating expression of symbolical ideas, and the studious meditation thereof is to be
approached and continued in this wise:
First, commit to memory, as near as may be, all the ideas involved in the astrological laws and principles laid down in
"The Science of the Stars," formulated in the second part of "The Light of Egypt," Vol. I, especially as regards the
symbolism there given and manifestation thereof on the intellectual plane. Mentally digest these aspects of truth most
thoroughly.
Second, carry forward the same course of mental training with regard to the preceding chapters in this volume, from
No. 1 to No. 12. There are thirteen chapters, but No. 13, the last one, being "The Penetralia," should not be included
in this course, but, rightly used, should be reserved as the last and final revelation for spiritual contemplation.
The twelve chapters just mentioned continue the great astral laws given in "The Light of Egypt," Vol. I, from this plane
to that of the soul life of the human monad (both prior to and after human incarnation). At this point we leave the finite
and step into the realms of the infinite. From the sphere of limitations which surround the microcosm we enter the
starlit path of the macrocosm, and here, with the illimitable ocean of eternal life sweeping onward before us, we hear
the first strains of the Grand March of the Universe burst forth from the organs of God! The suns of creative life swell
the infinite chorus of sound; archangels swing their fiery batons to the march of the heavenly host; and all earthly
sound has ceased. We are absorbed in the music of the spheres.
We are now in the realm of universals, the domain of living realities. The Tarot of Mother Nature revolves before us,
revealing her mystic meanings to the soul. All ideas are symbols, and symbols are reservoirs for the conservation of
thought. And this is a very truth: Even so on earth as it is in heaven.
The Tablets of Aeth, then, constitute a spiritual astrology, a spiritual science of the stars, void of mathematics, yet
possessing all the exactitude of figures, constructed on the principles of astronomy, yet expressed by the methods of
the Kabbalah.
The transmission of spiritual truth from inward to outward form, though differing according to the age in which it is
expressed, is ever the same in principle. And in the same way that the sacred clavicula of Solomon became the Tarot
of Bohemian gypsies, so did the Tablets of Aeth manifest their mysteries in the starry science of Chaldean lore. But
there is this sharp line of demarcation between them, namely, the Tablets of Aeth deal with universal human life and
nature, with infinite principles from which all finite laws radiate. The Tablets of Aeth express and symbolize the cause.
All other mundane systems of occult study, astronomical or metaphysical, are spirito-natural effects, the individual
intellectual fruits, gathered from the one universal tree of knowledge. Uncreated, Unlimited Potentiality, is the one
impersonal truth shining forever in the Great White Light of God. All the laws, powers, and principalities, manifested in
the moving Universe, are but the colored rays, blazing with glorious life through the prisms of matter.
Having stated thus much, the neophyte will perceive in what meditative sphere of thought the Tablets may be used.
The method of study is, as shown, a purely synthetic deduction of human ideas from spiritual symbols of universal
principles. The Tablets themselves constitute a grand arcane Tarot of man, God and the universe, and of all the
powers that dwell therein. They may be studied singly, as, for instance, meditating upon some one great universal
idea or principle; or they may be studied in trines, as they appear in each separate book, or chapter, or as squares,
like two, five, eight, eleven, or as the seal of two trines, one, three, five, seven, nine, eleven, with No. twelve in the
center, as the revealer of the mystery. And, finally, they may be contemplated as the Grand Oracle of Heaven, in the
following manner:
Make a circle of the tablets, as you would with a pack of Tarot cards, beginning with No. 1, on the eastern horizon, and
proceeding in the exact opposite order from a figure of the heavens--No. 2, being on the Twelfth House, No. 3, on the
Eleventh, and {} on the M. C. of the figure, as in the Astro-Masonic chart, given in the second part of "The Light of
Egypt," Vol. I, and so proceed with the rest of the twelve tablets of the stars. This figure will represent the potentialities
of the macrocosm, the starry signs symbolizing the possibilities of things past or to be, and the rulers the active
executors thereof. Study the figure in all its aspects as such, first singly, tablet by tablet, then as a whole--the cosmos.
Next, place the ruler of any given tablet at the side of the Mansion, and try to penetrate its various meanings, powers
and possibilities. Then proceed the same with a trine and a square, and, last, with all the rulers, in the order of their
celestial lordship of the signs, each in his appointed place, as a whole Arcana.
In any grave crisis of mental or physical affairs, wherein nations, and not individuals, are concerned, the tablets may
be used as a celestial scheme of the heavens, thus: Cast a figure of the heavens for the Sun's first entry into the sign
Aries at the vernal equinox, calculated for the meridian of the capital city of the country under consideration. Degrees
and minutes are not wanted. Then place the twelve tablets in place of signs, exactly as they would occur in an
astrological figure. Then place the rulers of the Sun, Moon and planets therein (each having its own tablet), as they
are found to be situated in an ephemeris for the time of the figure. This done, study the whole from a spiritual
standpoint as the causes and ultimates of the crisis, according to astro laws.
The foregoing simple directions will, I think, be sufficiently plain for all purposes, never forgetting that this holy study is
not a system of divination, as commonly understood, but of Divine revelation, in its highest and most holy religious
sense. Long study and most reverent meditation will be required to master this mystery, and many errors of judgment
will occur to the beginner.
The interpretative reflections are added for the purpose of guiding and guarding the spiritually untrained seer from
possible error in fundamental conceptions only. They must not by any means be taken as a complete revelation of the
tablets, but only as a series of skeleton keys by means of which all things may be revealed to the earnest seeker
thereof. To have added more than is given would only be to defeat the object of this work. Each seeker for the truth
must excavate the mines of knowledge, and dig further into this universal well of truth for himself.
Remember that all interpretation will be personal to each student. Of no one can it be affirmed, "thou hast said," and
so endeth the matter. Not so. To each, according to his talent, shall the mysteries of the kingdom be revealed, to
every one according to his humility, spiritual light, and merit. But from the arrogant, the selfish, and spiritually proud,
shall all things be taken away, and truth shroud herself in the veil of delusion. In simplicity of mind, then, and purity of
soul, approach the Holy of Holies. "Suffer little children to come unto Me," saith a messenger of the Most High, "for of
such is the Kingdom of Heaven." Verily, therefore, I say unto you, that not until you can look upon all the works of
Nature--beauty in her nakedness or vice and crime in their repulsiveness, with pure thought and holy feeling, can you
inherit eternal life.
Here endeth the introduction to the book which is called "The Tablets of Aeth."
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The Light Of Egypt: Tablets Of Aeth