A Glass, Darkly

Letter II : The High Priestess

From Letter II: The High Priestess

“The second Arcanum, the High Priestess, is that of the reflection of the pure act of the first Arcanum …”

So writes Our Dear Unknown Friend at the beginning of his corresponding letter.

The Sacramental nature of the Christic Revelation is presented to us in the first of the Churches sacraments; Baptism. It is the generative act of the Spirit upon the face of the formless waters in Genesis. It is the Holy Spirit that overshadows the Blessed Virgin Mary (Mary means ‘bitter waters’, for indeed they are bitter until they receive the sweetness of the Spirit). So too, the words and flowing waters of the Sacrament of Baptism. But there is required also a corresponding inner baptism of the man, for universal correspondence is the principle of Sacramentality and must be brought to harmonious accord at all levels of reality. All the more so in man who is the fractal centre of all things.

The waters of the soul must reflect the Spirit. Our Dear Unknown Friend writes:

“… Water must become a perfect mirror of the divine Breath instead of being agitated by disturbances of the imagination, passions and personal desire.”

The stillness of the waters of the soul, free of the aforementioned disturbances, provide for a pure reflection. But the stillness is not a stagnation, this would be the waters of death.

For when the Spirit moves on the face of the waters of the soul the waters flow with a dynamic stillness, as it were, that is, an actionless action.

From The Apocalypse of St. John Ch 22 V 1:

“And he showed me a river of water of life, clear as crystal, proceeding from the throne of God and of the Lamb.”

The river of revelation ‘proceeds’ from the throne, the point of divine authority. There is a movement of sorts, but the waters are as of crystal.

There is something to be said here of the analogy of physical, psychic and spiritual with calcification, liquidity, and crystallisation; though I am sure my ability to articulate it sufficiently would be lacking. All the more interesting because Our Dear Unknown Friend uses the term ‘crystallisation’ though in a negative sense and in opposition to ‘radiation’. Yet, writes later that indeed there is Holy crystallisation, as such, provided it is from “above below”.

It is interesting to note, also, that in the West baptism usually utilises the pouring of water upon the head of the catechumen whereas in the East they are submerged into a body of water. The life giving waters from above and the emergence of the initiate from the waters of death in the other. It would seem most fitting if the two were utilised simultaneously.

The mystery of the Church, her Sacramental nature, is none other than this; SHE is the reflection of Christ, his eternal High Priestess. She the Gnosis of the God-man as He is the Gnosis of the Father. She the body, He the head.

This extends to all of creation which awaits restoration through the coming of the Sons of God that it may no longer be the lens through which Christ is seen “as through a glass, darkly” or through an enigmatic riddle, through symbol, but face to face. A face which, as Meister Eckhart has said “the eye through which I see God is the same eye through which God sees me.”