Your kind enquiry has found me in a verbose mood and I shall take great joy in describing to you our faith, our ways and the manner in which we use the Glyph as the basis for our rites of attainment. Know you that we are clearly of a Christian stripe and have endeavored to build our lives upon the true and valuable principles given unto us by the example of our Lord and Saviour, Yeshua Ben Miriam, whom you call by the name "Jesus Christ". For inspiration we have the gospels themselves and (thanks to the great proliferation of ancient wisdom to be had today) the key works of those who did indeed walk with the Lord in those lands far away and long ago. What was lost for 1900 years following the infernal council of Trento is now found and proves sufficiently to this writer that the Truth cannot die.

I suppose we should begin in the greatest places and move unto the least spaces, so I should turn your attention to the preponderance of that whom we call God, the Almighty, Pantokrator, the Spiral architect.. It is from God that all things come, whether we think of these things as ultimately Good or Evil, and it is to God that all things yearn to return. We hold that God so loved his Creation that he wears it as spirit wears flesh and as flesh wears clothing, and breathes life into it eternally. While God has no particular countenance, or gender or race, we can only assume that by God's desire was the Universe made (and all other universes, perhaps, as modern thinkers suggest) and by God's Love is it sustained. As such, the universe is God, even if we do not always think of it as "Good". What can we make then of the notions of Good and Evil to which we so endeavor to attach ourselves, and by which to guide our conduct.?

It is our belief that Men and Women cannot truly know what is right and what is wrong except by listening to the counsel of God in out hearts and souls and to be aware that as Good as we endeavor to be, we are no more perfect than a sparrow or a lion. I have a cat which simply tortures whatever hapless mouse has become her prey that particular day, letting some scamper off after a round of brutal terrorizing, devouring others piece by piece, even while still alive. Is my cat Evil? No, for Chestnut (that is her name) is made by God and acting in accordance with the nature God gave her. She pours love forth on her progeny and simply adores whomever might come to call in my study, not to mention my own humble self. She is a beast and beasts operate on principles of God-given necessity as we all do until we have become sufficiently wise to consider a different course and to fathom the outcomes of our decisions, whatever they may be. For now she is a cat, but some day she will be another being, and one capable of divining a better way of life to follow. In like manner, I am a man who has become sufficiently wise to contemplate the nature of Good and Evil (and I think they might as well be called "knowledge" and "ignorance") and to choose a course as best I may, knowing full well that one day I will become another sort of being, and one capable of divining a better way of life to follow. We share a fragile boat called "Life". Too, what was virtue a few hundred years ago seems the most pitiful meanness in the light of this day, so I suppose we can call that a sort of progress.

We do not believe, therefore, that there is a Great Devil such as Satan or Lucifer and such a silly notion is clearly the product of ignorant and disordered minds that cannot grasp (or face) the true depths of depravity to which a Man or a Woman might sink. In our universe, there is only God, God sending God's Love and Light and Word spiraling down through the aeons. Some of us believe that those things we think of as "Evil" are those things that are necessary to bring being into the world, as William Blake has said (and to which Chestnut will attest) "the lust of the goat and the pride of the lion is the handiwork of God". The Goat needs that lust to bring more goats into the world and to serve the directive written in the tiniest spaces of it's flesh, and the lion needs his "pride" (ahem) for much the same reason. Those who believe this see this bestial nature as being the work of God, but not an end in itself, for at some length, the Lion will become wise and will learn a better way to earn his keep, just as we Men and Women must ultimately do the same. What terrible things we once had to do in defense of our tribes, our families and ways of life we will one day abandon as we learn the wisdom to accomplish these ends by more congenial means. I think it will be a long time before we put that man on this earth, but I have a great faith that it will one day happen and that I will be there to see it or hear of it or to be inspired by the knowledge of it, in one form or another.

Matters of Good and Evil being thus detailed, I suppose you should desire to know what we think of Our Lord and of his family and what we think of our many wayward brothers who have carried this fitful spark into our own day. We shall not mince words here, for we are unanimous on most points and at times quite vocally so. It is our opinion that what has survived unto our day as the Christian faith is little more than a parcel of damaged goods, by and large unfit to transmit the holy gnosis to more than the few, earnest souls who desire to seek it with all their hearts, their religion not withstanding. O, were there a wider path than that given unto man these many years! We speak here of the many errors into which the Church of the most Holy has fallen and I am at no great pain to enumerate those that come most quickly to mind. I shall state them and give to you their remedy as we practice it:

1. "Salvation is for the Faithful in Christ alone." That is to say that it is Faith that redeems the soul and that Works have little or nothing to do with the matter. Too, there is the implication that salvation is reserved for Christians and is denied to Pagans, Jews, Moslems, Unbelievers and the like. The Lord was clear on this point, and it is this clarity that most alarmed the Pharisee and Sadducees of that time: Salvation is available to every living soul, whether they believe in Our Lord or not. Salvation is available to Men, Women and all beings equally, and consists of coming into a conscious awareness of the true nature of their being, which is to say that they who realize that they are part of God are walking in the path of God. Our Lord has shown us several ways in which this may be accomplished and there are many others. This blasphemy is the work on the Mistaken One, whom the Essenes called the Liar, and whom the modern faith calls Paul or Saul of Tarsus. A true representative of Our Lord would not commit the grievous sin of denying another his path to God by insisting that there is one and only one path, typically that of the zealot him or herself. It is written that there are as many paths to God as there are souls of living beings-and there is only one way. There is much wisdom in that.

2. "Faith is all, Works are naught. " One must understand that the political machinations that were taking place at the time of the formation of the Christian Church allowed any number of unwholesome individuals to carve out social and political structures for their most immediate material gain, and in so doing this Biggest of Lies was told. I assure you that what evil you do in this world remains in this world and is never undone, even if you are "forgiven" for having brought it into being. This notion quickly brought us into a situation where every manner of evil could be done and then "forgiven" in the wink of an eye (or the chanting of a prayer, or the drop of a coin). It is the lowest common denominator of psychology at work here, the undying question of: "How does this profit me?" Truly, the question should be "How can I undo what I have wrongly done?" We believe (as do the ancients from the East) that there is a balance to be kept in the World and there is much Evil to be unmade. When one brings Evil into the world, one must bring a counteracting force of Good into the world to balance it (or better yet, not bring evil into the world at all-but what creature is so perfect?) If I carelessly break a man's leg, I might fancy that I have been forgiven by Our Lord or by God, but the man's leg is still broken. Nay, I must nurse him, or failing that, nurse another until the debt is paid. And yet this seems too simple a contract, for someone else might break that man's leg, and I shall volunteer to nurse him in that instance as well, for evil was done to him by another and it may as well fall to myself to help redress the imbalance. In a large sense, all the evil that has ever been done in the past is the work cut out for us today and into the future, for our fulfillment of being is in redressing all the evil ever done until all is undone and we have no option but to be gathered up into God.

3. "Our Lord died on the cross for our sins." It is our belief that Our Lord lived and died in such manner as to perfectly illustrate, nay--illuminate, our paths through this Life. The souls of those who came before Jesus are in much the same state as those who came after, and those who know Jesus are in no better grace than those who will never hear his name. If we tell another about Our Lord it is not to terrify him or her into joining our cause, but to hold up an example of a life lived by a man who knew that he was a living Child of God and who knew that his Wife, his Child, his Brothers, Sisters and associates too were living, vital flames burning in the lamps of the heavens eternally, working to liberate all from suffering. As Our Lord allowed his mortal body to be nailed to the cross and hung there to die (or to live as some suggest-we do not believe it truly matters) so have we all allowed our spirits to be nailed to these rude "crosses" of flesh that creep and ache about the earth for a short time. His passion was for Life and Love, and to willingly give all he possessed that all might live in bliss, and to give us courage to do the same. Our Lord is therefore not the object of worship, an especial instance of divinity and we cannot treat him as such. As the venerable Buddha pointed to the moon only to see his followers bow to his finger, so do our Christian brethren so err. Only God is worthy of worship, even as all "gods" of all nations are but masks of the One Spirit.

4. "Christ did not partake in marriage, Mary Magdalene was a whore, etc." This is by far the most pernicious and deadly error, and has resulted in the veritable enslavement of more than half the human race. I cannot count the times I have asked brethren of other churches the real significance of the derisive biblical remarks concerning Our Lord's habit of eating at the table with Women, the poor and those others referred to by his society as the underclass-it is truly significant. The Lord's mission, as we have intimated above was to uproot the law to the extent that he would have us believe that the Law is for All. Salvation was held by Our Lord to be available to Men as well as to Women, to Gentile as well as to Jew and to that end he took Mary Magdalene for his wife (as does every man and woman take a mate for much the same reason and in similar faith.). The persistent notion that she was a woman of ill repute is a blatant fabrication of a particular church father in the earliest days of the faith. No sacred scripture claims her to be anything other than a Woman, the consort of Our Lord, the vessel of his Blood and Being. She was called "a sinner" and nothing more. As if the references in the common gospels were not enough, the Nag Hammadi and related documents makes their relationship quite clear, as do the remarks made concerning the sacraments, the greatest of which occurs in the context of marriage.

5. "Paul carried Christ's word to Rome." I should think it would be clear that Paul carried Paul's word to Rome, even if he never did set foot therein. Paul's misrepresentation of Our Lord's life and works are as legendary as they are exaggerated. As much a misogynist as a zealot, Paul did all in his power to glorify Our Lord in his own absurd way, despite repeated attempts to set him straight in the matter, and the Faith has suffered from his poison since the day the first ear was turned to hear his words. Renounced and rejected by our familiar brothers (whom are called the Essenes), this man has single-handedly done all but destroy the Word of Our Lord. Paul, why hast thou persecuted us so? Given this state of affairs it seems only natural that we should revile him given every opportunity, but the Lord has instructed us otherwise in this and every other, similar manner. It is on account of this instruction that we pray that God forgives Paul and finds a place in his heart wherein he might truly dwell. This is what is meant by our manner of saying the Lord's Prayer, where it is said to "Forgive the deceiver".

6. "The accepting of the commandments of men over the commandments of God." Men are ready to accept what seems easy to them and so it is a simple matter to fall into error. While very few men and women find it particularly difficult to refrain from murder or adultery or the bearing of false witness against their neighbor there are but a handful who can manage to keep the Sabbath in the manner in which it was commanded-on Saturday, that is. Our Lord kept the Sabbath holy from the sun's setting on Friday night to the same time on the following night and so did all Christians and Jews until the days of Constantine, who commanded otherwise. Too, it was Constantine who formed that most un-Christian of holy days upon the occasion of the winter's solstice, merely to allow the faith to spread more effectively among the soldiers of his army, most of whom were accustomed to worship Mithras on that day (and holy is that mask of God.) It is much the same with the matter of diet. Most of us take for our dietary injunction the remarks made in Genesis that God has given us the fruits of the earth and the grains of the field "that they should be as meat", but we are not hard and fast in such a matter. This is not true for the rest of the kosher practices, however, which we keep very strictly in the manner given in the books of Moses. That being said, I should note that we do not practice the sacrifices in the manner of the Jews of old, for we do not live in their times nor keep their precise covenant with God. Many of us believe that these covenants were poorly understood by the people to whom they were given, as are those in our own times-we do the best we are able, yes? . As Our Lord upset the law to give us a better way to God, so do we gladly cast that aside, just as we have cast aside the disrespect of our Sisters and of the beasts of the field who share in Creation equally with us. Those who do partake of the flesh of our animal brothers do so in strict accordance with our law, which has been framed to respect the dignity and divinity of all.

6. "The Revelation of St. John is a document relevant to a future time when Jesus will come again." Please be aware that the contents of this book have at times been available and not available to professors of the Faith. It's inclusion or lack of inclusion in the sacred canon has long been politically motivated, the most recent and enduring inclusion doing the most damage down into our own times. The misunderstanding of this text is perhaps one of the greatest errors of all, for it has shaped the word of Our Lord into the most effective lie imaginable. Please understand that John of Patmos was a true Christian soul and that he earnestly desired to spare his brothers and sisters the wrath he knew was issuing from the Rome of his day, notably the man whose number is six-hundred, three-score and six: the Emperor Nero. It was Nero in those dark times who lit the parties in his gardens by the flaming mounds of our brethren, and it was he who forbid the unlicensed mercantile transactions of Jew, Christian and Gentile alike and it his threat that John addresses. It was John who gave us the true story of Our Lady's flight across the middle of the world (an echo of her father-in-law's sudden journey scarcely forty years earlier) and it was John who gave us the span and measure of the sacred Glyph as we have come to know of it. Rest assured that Jesus will come again, as he has always come and as he has promised to come again as many times as it takes to steer men from the course of utter annihilation; as many times as it takes to put the First Man on the Earth. Rest assured that Jesus is among us even now, just as he ever was.

Dear brother, I think I have outlined the grossest of errors of our wayward brethren in as much detail as my time will permit, so let us turn to the more positive aspects of my life here in this world.

I am a man of some years, blessed by a loving wife, an adoring bestiary and a feast of friends upon which we shower what Love our poor spirits can muster, for we have no other earthly children. I live in a small community of like-minded folks in a society of friends dedicated in one way or another to Our Lord and Lady. All in all, there are but a few thousand of us, and only a few called to the innermost vehicle of our worship, rather like the monks and nuns of old or like the closest followers of Guatama Buddha in our day. The majority of us live in the world, work and play in the world and keep the peace of Our Lord and Lady in our hearts as best we can amidst the maelstrom of opinion that roams the world. Some of us, astride the chariot of our heart's desire, ride close to the sun and would uphold the strictest observances, keeping the fires burning, the lamps lit. Those of us in our cloister hold all things in common, giving unto Caesar what is Caesar's while giving unto our Lord's what is all of ours to give. Those among us who are brave enough to live in the world send their children to live here that they may be educated in our ways by our most direct example. Here, they participate in agriculture, finance, the arts, as well as the more traditional studies. By our example they learn our ways and our methods for keeping order and peace among us in hopes that these lessons will be carried through them into the world. All may enter our halls and work here for the greater good of our Brothers and Sisters (and that means Everyone) when they feel so called and all may leave when the need takes them. It is here that we care for our sick, heal those that we might, and comfort those who come to pass into the Great Light. We welcome others into the world when we can, but that cannot happen as often as we would desire, for that is the way of our world at this time.

Our rites are simple and eloquent and address the supernal Trinity in the form we feel most appropriate to our station. Have you any study in the arcane arts? From your letter and your lights, I assume you have. Certainly, you know that our wayward brothers by and large envision God as a trinity of Father, Son and Holy Spirit. Perhaps you know that the Jews of old, as well as many of the magi of this day envision divinity as a word ("logos" if you read Greek) of 4 letters, each representing a different relationship of the human spirit to the cosmos: (or is it the other way around? Does it matter?) Father, Son, Mother, daughter. We conceive of divinity as a trinity of three immanent forms, modeled on the family of our Lord: we conceive of Our Lord as the Light of the Sun, the Living Lord of Light and Inspiration-the Shining One, as Shin is descended into Yod-Heh-Vau-heh: he is YHShVH. His bride is the Dark and sublime Goddess, whose name is that of the sea-blessed Mare, MARIA. They are the perfect union of the opposites in the World and in the Heavens, like the Yin and Yang of our Eastern brothers, and the model for our lives as we can live them. From their blessed union has come the Sacred Child, who is but a bold euphemism for the perfected Man or Woman, whom some of us call Wo/man (for their progeny is many and of both genders) and whom some simply call Child. The Child is the drop of blood at the tip of the Lance that must find the Grail. The Child is Hope in Life everlasting. The Child is mother and father again, begetter of the child and the Worker that executes the plan of the Spiral Architect. The Child is the Mirror of our souls. The Child is everywhere and anywhere, visiting all with equal joy, whether we are blessed by the flesh with his likeness or whether we encourage his presence in the world through whatever means is at our disposal. The Child is the light of our life-always was-always will be-whomever it may be.

We keep the five sacraments of Our Lord, as best we understand them. They are: the Baptism, the Chrism, the Eucharist, the Redemption, and the Bridal Chamber, of which it is written:

   "Christ came to rectify the separation...and join the two
    components; and to give life unto those who had died by
    separation and join them together. Now a woman joins with
    her husband in the bridal chamber, and those who have
    joined in the bridal chamber will not reseparate."

You are no doubt familiar with these forms as they run like a wild fire through the history of Man and Woman and are part of the psyche of our kind. There are very few variations, once one has the opportunity to examine them at length. There is little else to say about these five sacraments except that they are the outward and symbolic expression of our ascent into godhood and are referred to by some as the House of Aspiration, and by others as the Seat of Mercy. I should not say more, except to remind you that the Kingdom if God is within you and you must be as a Child to enter into it. You should know that the miracles ascribed to Our Lord are miracles that you may freely perform (as he did indeed command) as you feel so moved by the Good Spirit, when you are so able and that you should do so despite the nails that might be gathered against your name, in his name, Selah.

At last, me must speak of the Glyph and of the Lord's Prayer, as we say it here.

Let me say this about the former:

        "After this I looked, and, behold, a door was opened in
    heaven: and the first voice which I heard was as it were of a
    trumpet talking with me; which said, Come up hither,  and I
    will show thee things which must be hereafter.
        
        "And immediately I was in the spirit: and, behold, a throne
    was set in heaven, and one sat on the throne.
        
        "And he that sat was to look upon like a jasper and a sardine
    stone: and there was a rainbow round about the throne, in sight
    like unto an emerald.
 	
        "And round about the throne were four and twenty seats: and
    upon the seats I saw four and twenty elders sitting, clothed in
    white raiment; and they had on their heads crowns of gold.
        
        "And out of the throne proceeded lightnings and thunderings
    and voices: and there were seven lamps of fire burning before the
    throne, which are the seven Spirits of God.
        
        "And before the throne there was a sea of glass like unto
    crystal: and in the midst of the throne, and round about the
    throne, were four beasts full of eyes before and behind.
        
        "And the first beast was like a lion, and the second beast
    like a bull, and the third beast had a face as a man, and the
    fourth beast was like a flying eagle.
        
        "And the four beasts had each of them six wings about him;
    and they were full of eyes within: and they rest not day and
    night, saying, Holy, holy, holy, Lord God Almighty, which was,
    and is, and is to come.
	
        "And when those beasts give glory and honour and thanks to
    him that sat on the throne, who liveth for ever and ever,
  	
        "The four and twenty elders fall down before him that sat on
    the throne, and worship him that liveth for ever and ever, and cast 
    their crowns before the throne, saying,

        "Thou art worthy, O Lord, to receive glory and honour and
    power: for thou hast created all things, and for thy pleasure
    they are and were created."

For thine is the glory and Thy Glory is mine.

There is much hidden in these words, but as an astute student of the Arts Divine you will doubtless recognize your familiar Glyph cast upon this chapter of this book. For we see it girt about with the glory of the seven powers of the celestial sphere, just as you have built the same seven temples to those same seven spirits in your understanding. See too, that the Cherubim that attend the throne in their places, watchful ever of the World that supports the Throne (or is that the other way 'round as well?) are present and accounted for. At last, note the gathering of elders (or "seniors" in some versions you may have seen, lingua Roma antiqua,) and know that like the disciples of Our Lord, they were chosen of the twelve tribes and of these twelve tribes were chosen their heads, male and female were they chosen after the manner of our physical manifestation, each to a part of the sky. Of the tribes, one gave us the law-givers and for their sign they choose the Scales. Another gave us the fruits of the plow, and unto them belongs the sign of the Bull. Another gave us the grain and unto them is given the sign of the Virgin and so forth throughout the heavens, just as it is done on this Earth. In each tribe we find the Mother and the Father, without which the tribe would have no issue or sustenance, and so each tribe is the living spirit of Our Lord and Our Lady, from whom comes all sustenance of flesh and of Spirit.

I must leave you now, for the oil in my lamp has long dried and the wick is burning only upon the spirit of my praise of these mysteries, holy art even their shadows! Let Our Lord live in you and bless you and your Lady and your Child for ever. May your seed find fertile ground in the hearts of men who are not yet even born. Pray with me:

Your brother in the Light,

Frater Lucis in Umbra Est