THE HANGED MAN.
And then I saw a man in terrible suffering, hung by
one leg, head downward, to a high tree. And I heard the
voice:—
"Look! This is a man who saw Truth. Suffering awaits
the man on earth, who finds the way to eternity and to
the understanding of the Endless.
"He is still a man, but he already knows much of what
is inaccessible even to Gods.
And the incommensurableness of the small and the great in his
soul constitutes his pain and his golgotha.
"In his own soul appears the gallows on which he
hangs in suffering, feeling that he is indeed inverted.
"He chose this way himself.
"For this he went over a long road from trial to trial,
from initiation to initiation, through failures and falls.
"And now he has found Truth and knows himself.
"He knows that it is he who stands before an altar
with magic symbols, and reaches from earth to heaven;
that he also walks on a dusty road under a scorching sun
to a precipice where a crocodile awaits
him; that he dwells with his mate in paradise under the shadow
of a blessing genius; that he is chained to a black cube under
the shadow of deceit; that he stands as a victor for a moment in
an illusionary chariot drawn by sphinxes; and that with a
lantern in bright sunshine, he seeks for Truth in a desert.
"Now he has found Her."
