" by the Sacraments of the
Manifested Order (Phaneia), and the substance thus "enformed" was
finally "assumed," "translated," "transformed," what you will, in a
mode utterly beyond all symbol and image by the "descent" of the Divine
"Grace," "First Concept," "Ennead and Monad Without Seal-Mark,"
"Barbelo" (again what you will), and given final "Re-birth in the Light
of the Mind." To form an Ideal community of this kind, a community of
gods in God, by a series of grades or steps, places of "Repentance" or
"change" slowly taken, was, I believe, the purpose of those responsible
for the original of the present MS. "They began from the base upwards
that the building might unite them to their companions"--souls that in
aeonian bliss beheld the Face of God unveiled. Into this building plan
the Neophyte was initiated to give thereto his soul and body as a
willing oblation and sacrifice. It seems a reasonable suggestion to
offer that this document consists of a series of meditations and
spiritual exercises given to the candidate before one of the inner
"initiations" or sacramental "starts" that was consummated beyond the
veil of signs and symbols. For such an end not only Faith, not only a
reasonable Foundation in an accepted philosophy, that of Plato, but an
Imagination intensified into intuition was needed. Hence these strange
hieroglyphs on the expressed veil. The Child of Fire must behold
rising within himself from the Immeasurable Abyss of Godhead the
five-rayed morning star of Love, Faith, Hope, Gnosis, and Peace, the
herald of the Perfect Dawn of a New Birth.

Possibly "Propator," "Autopator" and "Protogennetor" may also have been
the official designations of hierophants in the sacramental side of
some "Mystery" consummated in solitude, from which the candidate
returned an "Epopt."

(35) _Cp._ Ps. 104:1, 2: "Thou art clothed with honour and majesty: who
coverest thyself with light as with a garment."

(36) This hymn or prayer seems to be an invocation to the "Dark Ray" on
behalf of the candidate (and also for the building up of the "Ideal
Order"). The consummation, beyond all signs and images, is in the
hands of God alone. A "start" may be effected by duly qualified
hierophants under certain conditions, but the crown "Pantelos" is given
by the "Father of all Fatherhood" alone.

(37) This looks as if in this system the Fruit of the Pleroma was also
the Father of the Fullnesses. The phrase "He made a world and