even in their literal sense, that is, as chemical elements. But as long as these elements are separated and scattered the stone is said to be in a powder which is blown hither and thither by every wind of desire. Only when the Initiate lays hold on Wisdom and controls the breath in his own body, can he find all these elements. Through the control of the breath in his body he can ultimately correlate with and control the winds of the Cosmos, so that it shall be said of him as of Jesus: "What manner of man is this, that even the winds and the sea obey him!" Even though they are scattered as a fine powder, the gathering of these grains of Wisdom is the first alchemical step for one who seeks after Wisdom, for Wisdom is made up of many little things (powder) through the conquering of which he builds the Philosopher's Stone. So shall he gather this powder step by step, cement its particles with the Elixir of Life-with love, devotion and persistence-until he reaches the nineteenth step where all shall emerge from the retort of life's experiences as a bright and shining Stone. He will then have accomplished the Great Work and gained the Mastery of the Sun. "Wisdom resteth in the heart of him that hath understanding." 5

Again the Philosopher's Stone is man and woman sublimed and transfused by the mystical union of spiritual forces and not merely sexual union; for there are energies and forces on all planes to sublime and transmute ere it is possible for them truly to become the Philosopher's Stone.

The Hermetic Philosophers declare that in the making of this stone there are two essential laws which balance, one against the other, for the stone can be produced only by the universal equilibrium of forces. These two laws are fixity and motion. All that which in its nature tends toward control, rest and immobility is called feminine and fixed. Hence a true woman should be the fixed principle, that is, she should be serene, poised, quiet, free from fear and fixed in faith

5 Proverbs, xiv, 33.

upon the divine overshadowing mother-love which is the crown of womanhood. Man stands for the volatile or the principle of motion and activity. He should be always the active, moving power in all things, while woman should be the inspirer. Man is the executive whose active brain gathers the inspiration of the woman and translates it into understanding, ready to be manifested as accomplishment. On the other hand, woman should be the intuitive heart that weighs, ponders and decides on that which man gathers from the outer world.

But the philosophers tell us that to make this stone the fixed must become the volatile, and the volatile become fixed. From this paradox we can see that both man and woman must concede to each other the power of entering the other's sphere of action; that is, the man must cultivate all the feminine virtues of love, sympathy, restfulness, quiet power, intuition and synthesis, while woman must cultivate the masculine qualities of will, courage, judgment and activity of mind. Each must become the complement of the other, combined in the retort of life to produce a new substance. They must stand together through all the vicissitudes and changes that are needed to harmonize, combine and transmute each into pure gold and both into the one Philosopher's Stone on which the Great Temple of the New Age can be built, with love as the Universal Medicine or Elixir of Life.

We can now understand what is indicated by the Nineteenth Path as set forth in the Sepher Yetzirah, namely, “the Intelligence of all the activities of the spiritual beings;" for we have seen that 19 represents the blending of all the positive and negative activities. First it is the gathering together of the forces produced in the mind of man by all his experiences in the outer world; the efforts he has made to rule himself and the experiences of his faculties and the wisdom resulting therefrom; for Wisdom is not an accumulated knowledge of things, but is the result of understanding the experiences gained from the things accomplished and the mistakes made.

Wisdom is also gained by observing and studying others and learning from their experiences. Exactly as the Philosopher's Stone is said to be produced from powder (fine dust) so is Wisdom gained by the coalescence of the fine grains of experience.

Kabalistically 19 is called the Luna Flame, and is sacred to the moon. This sounds like a contradiction, but it is not; for the Luna Flame is the force of the Sun which has given its light to the moon. Hence 19 is the Flame of the Spiritual Sun which has given its light to man as Wisdom. And only as the Spiritual Sun is reflected in him can he show forth his Spiritual Light.

CHAPTER XXXIX.

The Nineteenth Letter. QOPH (P).

"He produced Qoph, predominant in Mirth, crowned it, combined and formed with it Pisces in the Universe, Adar in the Year, and the spleen of Man."-Sepher Yetzirah, 25.

The nineteenth Hebrew letter is Qoph (Q) one of the 12 simple letters. Its meaning is the back of the head or the base of the brain (the cerebellum) in which are situated the functions of coordination and balance. Hieroglyphically Qoph expresses a sharp weapon, something that is able to penetrate or cut asunder. In this respect, taking the cerebellum as a clue, this sharp weapon would be coordination or power of balancing the good and the evil. Also we know that one of the dominant forces of the sign of Pisces, with which Qoph is connected, is the power, through thought and understanding, to cut deeply into the mysteries of life. Mirth, too, is a great balancing power, for one who can see a joke often saves the day. The spleen of man contains the center which connects his physical body with the astral world and it requires much balanced power of understanding to coordinate with its activities.

Again we are told by Papus that this sharp weapon is "everything that is useful to man; defends him; makes an effort for him. The Qoph is therefore a particularly comprehensive, astringent, and cutting sign."1 We know of no sharp weapon given to man that can accomplish all this save the awakened power of discriminative thought.

This letter is the fulfillment in natural progression of the letter He (5) Universal Life; Cheth (8) Evolution of nature and man; Kaph (11) assimilated life, and Qoph (19) material existence reflecting spiritual purification, or man and woman consciously building up in the universe, because they

1 Tarot of the Bohemians, 179.