[2 Pisces]
This friend, how would you know him? His name is a mystery but his
number is that of a famous seal. How can one describe him?
Maybe like the pilot of the everlasting Ark of Noah, impassive like
a pillar on his white rock looking beyond the black rock towards the south.
[3 Aries]
In my arduous search I was trying to hack a way with my sword through the
dense vegetation of the woods. I wanted to reach the place of the
'Sleeping BEAUTY' in which some poets can see the QUEEN of a lost
kingdom. Desperate to find the way I was aided by the parchments of
my friend, they were for me like the thread of ARIADNE.
[4 Taurus]
Thanks to him, from now on with a watchful eye I could make steady
progress. I can find the 64 scattered stones of the perfect cube which the
Brothers of the BEAUTY of the black wood had scattered when they fled from
the white fort while they were being persued by the usurpers.
[5 Gemini]
Reassemble the scattered stones and, working with square and
compass, put them back in order; find the line of the
meridian in going from East to West, then looking from South
to the North and finally in all directions to find the looked-for
solution. Station yourself in front of the fourteen stones
making a cross. The circle is the ring and crown and the crown
forms the diadem of the Queen of the Castle.
[6 Cancer]
The Mosaic tiles of this sacred place alternate black or white and
JESUS, like ASMODEUS observes their alignments. I seem incapable of
seeing the summit of the secret place of the Sleeping Beauty. Not being
HERCULES with magical power how do I solve the mysterious symbols
engraved by the witnesses of the past. In the sanctuary however, is the
font, fountain of love, of those who believe reminding us of these words
'BY THIS SIGN YOU WILL CONQUER'.
[7 Leo]
I am aware of the scent of the perfume which impregnates the sepulchre of
the one I must release. Long ago her name was ISIS, Queen of the
benevolent springs, COME TO ME ALL YOU WHO LABOUR AND ARE
HEAVY LADEN AND I WILL GIVE YOU REST. Others knew her as MAGDALENE
with the celebrated vase full of healing balm. The initiates know her to
be NOTRE DAME DES CROSS.
[8 Virgo]
I was like the shepherds of the celebrated painter POUSSIN puzzled
by the enigma of 'ET IN ARCADIA EGO'. Would the voice of the blood
form an image of our ancestral past. Yes, a light of inspiration floods
my mind; now I understand. I know now the fabulous secret and what
is more amazing is that when the four knights moved, one of the
horses left four hoofprints in the rock. Here is the sign which
DELACROIX has given in one of the three paintings in the Chapel
of Angels. There is the seventh sentence which a hand has
traced: 'DELIVER ME OUT OF THE MIRE, AND LET ME NOT SINK. Two times
I.S. embalming and embalmed. Miraculous vessel of the eternal White
Lady of Legends.
[9 Libra]
I began my journey in shadows and completed it in the light. At
the window of the ruined house I look across the trees denuded
by Autumn. At the summit of the mountain, the cross stood out
from the crest of the midday sun. It was the fourteenth and
highest of all with 35cm. Here, then, is my knight's tower on
the circuit of the divine horseman of the abyss.
[10 Scorpio]
There is a celestial vision for the one who recalls the four tasks
of EM. SIGNOL around the line of the meridian; the same Choir (heart)
of the sanctuary from which radiates the source of love for one another.
I turn looking at the rose of P then to that of the S. Then from the S to
the P until my mind is dizzy. The spiral in my mind becomes like a
monstrous octopus expelling its ink, the shadows absorb the light. I
put my hand to my mouth, biting my palm, maybe like OLIER in his coffin.
Curses, I know the truth, HE HAS PASSED, in doing GOOD as did HE of
the flowery tomb. But how many have pillaged the HOUSE, leaving only
embalmed corpses and a number of metal things they could not carry?
What strange mystery is concealed in the new Temple of SOLOMON, built
by the children of ST. VINCENT?
[11 Ophiuchus]
Cursing the profane in their ashes and those who follow their
ways; returning from the darkness while making the gesture of horror
at the abyss into which I had plunged. Here is the proof that I knew the
secret of the Seal of SOLOMON and I had visited the secret
places of this QUEEN. Take Heed my friend, do not add or take
away one iota; think and think again, the base lead of my
words may contain the purest gold.
[12 Sagittarius]
Returning again to the white hill, the sky opens its
floodgates. Close to me a presence, its feet in the water,
like one who has just received the mark of baptism, I turn away
again to the east, facing me I see unwinding endlessly by his coils, the
enormous RED SERPENT mentioned in the documents, rigid and bitter,
the huge, unleashed beast at the foot of the white mountain beast becomes
scarlet with anger.
[13 Capricorn]
My emotions are elated, DELIVER ME OUT OF THE MIRE, immediately I
woke up, my dream is over. I meant to tell you that it was a
dream I had on this 17th JANUARY, the day of Saint SULPICE, but the
nightmare persisted. On reflection, I wish I had told it to you
as a fairytale by PERRAULT. In the pages which follow, dear reader, are
the results of a dream which nursed me from the bizarre to the unknown.
LET HE WHO HAS THE UNDERSTANDING USE IT WITH WISDOM.