Central Sun has reflected itself upon the Moon so that this orb of night can still give light to his feet, and he knows he walks in the Divine Light because he finds it reflected within him.

The dog symbolizes a friend who, being servile, cringes and flatters and bays at the light of truth, yet is ready to attack at a moment's notice. The wolf is his own animal nature, subdued but not domesticated. The point on the Path of Attainment symbolized by this card is where the Initiate must descend into hell, whose Threshold is guarded by the threeheaded dog Cerberus.1 One aspect of this hell represents the confusion, opposition and antagonism into which the Initiate must descend as he begins to withdraw from his former activities in the world. From this point of view the first head of the dog represents the tendency of the world to bark at, ridicule and bite every one who takes this important step. The second head represents servile devotion to home, housekeeping, family duties, business affairs or any other thing of a purely worldly nature when it is permitted to check the Soul's ongoing. The third head represents all hard, preconceived and limited understandings of truth which insist upon truth being interpreted according to certain set rules and laws, which at this point confronts and tempts the Initiate to consider that the particular experiences he has passed through must be experienced by all. Since they have been his means of advance he is tempted to assert that his way is the only way. As we step across the portal of our higher life we find many saying: "Are not these traits admirable and are not the tasks of the outer life necessary?" They are indeed, yet like Hercules we must bring Cerberus up out of the lower life and without using weapons, i. e., without killing out any of these animal traits, must make him follow at heel and submit to a new master, our True Self, instead of Pluto the god of the lower regions.

1 See pages 102-4.

The crab is a symbol of the Great Mother (Cancer-the breasts) and in this card we find it just emerging from the water (sea of humanity, also the great deep of ignorance). As the eighteenth card corresponds with the zodiacal sign Aquarius, and as the Aquarian Age, into which humanity has recently entered, is the Woman's Age, that which is symbolized by the crab woman, motherhood, et cetera-must emerge from the sea of ignorance and illusion and take its true place in the world. We also find that the true Aquarian should be one who has reached 18 or who has perfected his Initiation on the physical plane; who has imbibed sufficient nourishment from the breasts of the Great Mother to sustain him on his lonely way; who is now ready to step out from the sea of humanity as more than man and with his Staff in hand tread the Path of 18, the Second Initiation. At this point only too often the Great Mother-love seems to be immersed in the waters or only just crawling out of them. Now he is treading the Path alone through showers of blood, but later he will see the Mother as the Holy Ghost, the Comforter. Then he will lift the jar of water and pour it forth for humanity and for the world and go on his way rejoicing.

The Aquarian has only now awakened to the fact that the Path of the Senses is the path of bloody sacrifice; that the Moon drips blood; that the wolf and dog dispute his ongoing. But the true Aquarian is the Captain of the Host. He has the strength of Hercules to bring Cerberus out of the lower regions and make him a faithful friend to guard his ongoing, while the wolf he will drive back into its own place of manifestation and hold it in leash.

Another meaning given by Papus to this card is "Chaos." But it is Chaos as it begins to fall away at the word of command given by the awakened Soul through the force of the Creative Light. While it is the end or final point of the Divine Materialization, as Papus puts it, yet we would rather hold to the idea that it is the beginning of redemption; in fact it is the turning point in evolution. The Path of the Senses winds back and

forth around the Straight and Narrow Way of Divine Realization, and at 18 the Initiate, like Hercules, has found his strength and has seized the Rod of Power and started out in earnest to perform the 12 tasks which constitute his Initiation or to correlate with and master the 12 signs of the zodiac with their forces. Then indeed he becomes the Captain to lead rather than a slave to follow.