the Equinox - The Hermetic Library

THE HERMIT
WITH the seventh stage in the Mystical Progress of Frater P.
we arrive at a sudden and definite turning-point.
During the last two years he had grown strong in the
Magic of the West. After having studied a host of mystical
systems he had entered the Order of the Golden Dawn, and it
had been a nursery to him. In it he had learnt to play with the
elements and the elemental forces; but now having arrived at
years of adolescence, he put away childish things, and stepped
out into the world to teach himself what no school could teach
him,—the Arcanum that pupil and master are one!
He had become a 6°=5°, and it now rested with him, and
him alone, to climb yet another ridge of the Great Mountain
and become a 7°=4°, an Exempt Adept in the Second Order,
Master over the Ruach and King over the Seven Worlds.
By destroying those who had usurped control of the Order
of the Golden Dawn, he not only broke a link with the
darkening past, but forged so might an one with the gleaming
future, that soon he was destined to weld it to the all
encircling chain of the Great Brotherhood.
The Golden Dawn was now but a deserted derelict, mastless,
rudderless, with a name of opprobrium painted across its
battered stern. P. however did not abandon it to to cast himself
helpless into the boiling waters of discontent but instead, he
leapt on board that storm-devouring Argosy of Adepts which
was destined to bear him far beyond the crimsoning rays of
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