EAVES-DROPPINGS
Five and forty apprentice masons out of work!
Fifteen fellow-craftsmen out of work!
Three Master Masons out of work!
All these sat on their haunches waiting The Report of the Sojourners; for THE WORD was lost.
This is the Report of the Sojourners: THE WORD was LOVE;23 and its number is An Hundred and Eleven.
Then said each AMO;24 for its number is An Hundred and Eleven.
Each took the Trowel from his LAP,25 whose number is An Hundred and Eleven.
Each called moreover on the Goddess NINA;26 for Her number is An Hundred and Eleven.
Yet with all this went The Work awry; for THE WORD OF THE LAW IS QELHMA.
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COMMENTARY (ND)
The title of this chapter refers to the duty of the Tyler in a blue lodge of Freemasons.
The numbers in paragraphs 1 to 3 are significant; each Master-Mason is attended by 5 Fellow-Crafts, and each Fellow-Craft by 3 apprentices, as if the Masters were sitting in pentagrams, and the Fellow-Craftsmen in Triangles. This may refer to the number of manual signs in each of these degrees.
The moral of the chapter is apparently that the mother-letter is an inadequate solution of the Great Problem. is identified with the Yoni, for all the symbols connected with it in this place are feminine, but is also a number of Samadhi and mysticism, and the doctrine is therefore that Magick, in that highest sense explained in the Book of the Law, is the truer key.
NOTES
(23) L = 30, O = 70, V = 6, E = 5 = 111.
(24) A = 1, M = 40, O = 70 = 111.
(25) The trowel is shaped like a diamond or Yoni. L = 30, A = 1, P = 80 = 111.
(26) N = 50, I = 10, N = 50, A = 1 = 111. |