TEMPERANCE BECOMES THE REVERSER
The androgynous figure of the Reverser, formerly Temperance, is at once the simplest and most meaningful Book in the entire Book of T projected by the Nameless One. Early versions of Temperance sometimes showed the angelic being proceeding from the sun, wearing a golden robe to indicate that it was not an earthly creature who poured water from one vessel into another one. The meaning of Temperance must be studied in connection with the Reverser, for the reversal essentially has to do with the reversal of flows.
The Reverser Correctly Channels Flow.
The Reverser stands upon the ground but the landscape is of no importance except to indicate that the figure is upon the earth, not in the sky. The androgynous being, who is the fruit of Unity or the joining of the conscious and unconscious elements of the One Being, therefore the whole fruit – the apple of the right lower corner of the Virgin Book, and the apple at the feet of the Donor – receives a descending stream of water in its right, uplifted hand, and from its left hand pours a descending stream of fire.
Water and fire have constantly and consistently been emphasized throughout the Books of T.
Above the Reverser’s head is the sun, and across the face of the sun is seen a hawk. The hawk is related to Horus, the Egyptian hawk-headed sun god, son of Osiris and Isis. Horus was more than the physical son of Osiris and Isis; he was symbolically their at-one-ment. Therefore, he is the son who has become his own father and mother, and he is also the Sun.
The Mother, be it remembered, “Is busy creating the Sun”.
Her creation was dual; the spark or star upon her breast of Beingness which became the Virgin, or the Sun; and the physical son within her womb. Her creation was at once spiritual and physical.
The Reverser expresses both. The Reverser may also be considered the joining of the Mother and the Speaker, for the Sun – son is what the Mother created and the Speaker spoke, or outed. In this sense, the figure of the Reverser, like that of the Virgin, represents a birth. But what is this birth?
It is another kind of birth.
It is the birth of a new consciousness.
This new consciousness depends upon the correct channelling of flow.
Water was poured from one vessel to another one by Temperance.
Water is that which was formerly held in the cup of Spirit.
But now the over-turned cup pours down light, which is fire, not water.
Water is flow and it is the Feeler’s ocean of feeling. Water is blessing. Water is cleansing. Water is baptism. Without water there can be no life. Water is the down-pouring of Spirit shown in the Book of the Way-Shower. It is that which was given by the Donor. The break-through was earned. The right hand of the Reverser is receptive. The receptive right hand of the Reverser is essential to the down-flow of water, for if there were none to receive it, it could not be given.
The right hand is the masculine hand, that which, in the Mother, held the lightning bolt of Zeus. The channelling in the body has been reversed. The right hand has become receptive, the left hand projective.
The Speaker has asked that it – the downpouring of Spirit and correct channelling of flow – be given; but that which he asked was already given, for it had been earned.
“Ask and Ye shall receive”.
Nothing can be given unless it is asked for. A channel must exist or nothing can be given.
In the Way-Shower Book, the city was sleeping.
There was a showering, a downpouring from the heavens of light and water. The cock crowed, announcing the break-through, but none as yet heard his heralding.
The Reverser is the awakened One who has heard the cock’s crowing.
From the left hand of the Reverser descends the stream of fire. The water, received in the right hand, is channelled through the Reverser’s body and thus is transmuted to the descending stream of fire in the left hand. This says that the Reverser has become the down-pouring cup of light or fire, the Holy Grail, the essence, the elixir.
The fire is purification. The fire is initiation. The fire is the purified fire of the heart.
The fire that descends as a flow from the left hand of the Reverser is, however, not the mortal fire of earthly burning. It is not the fire that burned in the vat of the Deliverer. It is the electric fire that resulted from the drinking of the cup of fire of the Deliverer which transformed the human heart into the shimmering heart of the Speaker.
The fire itself went through a transforming process when drunk by the Seeker. And the Changer, after all, followed upon the Deliverer. The Changer, that Mighty Alchemist, re-shaped the glowing stream of fire.
And now, with the Reverser, it descends to earth as a constant sacred stream.
This fire is the nameless, indescribable elixir.
It is the Divine.
No words exist for this state. It can only be experienced by those who have come to It.
The Reverser Correctly Channels Flow.
Where Temperance poured water from one vessel to another – the down-flow of spirit, received, but transferred back and forth without becoming the divine fire – the Reverser is the converter. Even as the flow of water can be harnessed to produce electricity, thus functions the Reverser.
The figure of the Reverser is related to the Virgin, the mandala of Beingness, in that he-she is that which the Virgin was dancing into manifestation. And even as the Virgin meant birth, the Reverser speaks of another kind of birth.
The Reverser, above all, is a statement of the coming uniting of principles of the One in Man, or the Self, with the One Being: or God.
It is the birth of the Divine.