Never again alone...

It came as I droned aloud the ninth verse of that primal lay, and I knew amidst my shudders what it meant. For he who passes the gateways always wins a shadow, and never again can he be alone. I had evoked- and the book was indeed all I had suspected. - H. P. Lovecraft, The Book

Image: Sleeping Prophet, by Jenny Sargeant

Lo, there it is.

This excerpt is beautiful. It's dark and twisted, but I realized from it today that Lovecraft really did understand the core tenets of the Great Work. He just expressed them darkly. Whether he knew the occult mysteries from his studies, as I suspect, or if it was a revelation from the spirit realm that passed into his dreams, I don't know, but regardless, the occult mysteries are there.

Take the above quote, for example. Clearly, he's talking about getting a familiar spirit as a result of accomplishing a ritual. Those who have been through the Knowledge and Conversation with the Holy Guardian Angel rituals will feel a resonance, I think, with this passage. From the moment you pass through the Gate, you are never alone.

Which Gate? I think the Gate the guy in the story passed through was the Gate of Saturn. He undergoes a spiritual transformation that leaves him with a wider lens through which to see time. He saw more of the immediate past and the immediate future in each passing moment:

Nor could I ever after see the world as I had known it. Mixed with the present scene was always a little of the past and a little of the future, and every once-familiar object loomed alien in the new perspective brought by my widened sight.

And of course, it was a horror story, so it had to focus on the spooky possibilities. We can extrapolate and see it through the lens of the seven heavens, and clearly the shift in his perception of Time would indicate a Saturnine initiation. I myself have experienced this altered sense of time after working in Saturn. It's as if the past and future are overlapping everything we see.

Regardless, he passed through a Gate and received a spiritual companion as a result of his efforts.

In a way, I can see the spirits that represent the spheres I have been initiated into, hovering around me as I type. They are present and real, but muted, as if they were waiting for me to call on them. I feel their radiant power in my temple space, and I wonder if they come with me to work, and I'm just unaware because I'm distracted by the "Office" reality I get immersed in five days a week. Oh no, I'm not bitter about that.

(Side note: I went on a beautiful vacation for the Fourth of July. Three days of oceanic bliss, and then I went back to work. That's got to be the most terrible ending to any story, "and then he went back to work." Unless it was something he liked doing. Which clearly does not apply to me. Magic has been done. Results should be in by Wednesday.)

I think they are always with me, and they seem to be agreeing that they are. It is part of the License to Depart, after all, that they come again when called. It's as if they have left a spirit from their legions on call to bring them when needed. And to work with me as necessary on tasks within their abilities.