Those who have learnt vertical respiration whilst living will be spared from the "sting of death".

The essence of vertical respiration is the alternation between prayer and benediction.

This respiration is the state of soul designated as "freedom in God". II Corinthians iii.17

Horizontal respiration – love of Nature, love of one’s neighbour, love of Angels, etc

Vertical respiration – purification (by divine breath), illumination (by divine light), mystical union (in divine fire)

Triple love of neighbour, triple love of God

History has a diurnal (exoteric) aspect and a nocturnal (esoteric) aspect. When the Gospel was preached by the light of day its nocturnal rays effected a profound transformation of Buddhism.

The "great chariot", the mahayana of Buddhism, rises itself towards the divine breathe – the mercy which moves above the waters.

The "little chariot", the hinayana aspires towards the end of respiration; its aim is to be drowned in the waters of peace.

MELCHIZADEK appointed to plenitude, to respiration. The anointed king, the Emperor, is appointed to the day.

The question of the third post, he who is appointed to the night

The ideas relating to this post will be approached in the ninth Letter.

In Israel there were three higher posts – king, priest and prophet. A matter of posts not of persons.

The Pope represents another category of truth and another criterion of truth than the scientific truth and criterion. For him "true" is that which comprises "harmonious respiration". "False" is that which upsets the harmony of spiritual respiration. The heliocentric view of the cosmos contrasted with the geocentric view. The earth sanctified by the blood of Christ thus rendered central.

Another example (regarding that which comprises harmonious respiration) from the domain of esoteric experience. Reincarnation is a fact of experience. Buddha recognised the fact but considered it regrettable. He taught with the aim of putting an end to reincarnation.

Buddha recognised reincarnation as a fact and denied it as an ideal. Reincarnation commenced only after the Fall and it will cease with Reintegration. Not eternal, therefore not an ideal.

Only that which is ideal is true for him.

The wound in question is that of the Sacred Heart. It is mercy and truth that came out of the wound as blood and water that were not mixed.

The Evangelist has seen the fact, and he knows what he wants to say as a symbol of the spiritual reality of the wound.

Eliphas Levi and Josephin Peladan added their conviction that it is the Universal or Catholic Church which represents for humanity the decad or fullness of manifest unity.

But as the will is never entirely pure it is necessary that the five dark currents inherent in the human will are paralysed or "nailed". The five wounds, the five vacuities are filled by will from above. This is the principle of magic of the pentagram of five wounds.

The head does not bear the fifth wound because it bears the crown of thorns given to the human being since the beginning of human history. The "thorns" of the crown centre function as the "nails" of objectivity. Thought is the organ of truth.

It is the will which allows the desire for personal greatness. The fifth wound – of organic humility – is found in the heart. One can in no way think without the heart – the activating principle of thought.

From the point of view of the active will the head is an instrument or "limb" of the heart.

The vow of obedience is the practice of silencing personal desires, emotions and the imagination in the face of reason and conscience.

Whoever recognises God, obeys.

Such obedience as is practised in religious orders and the Catholic spiritual knighthood is a form of training of the will with a view to riveting the will-to-greatness // chela – guru relationship // Hassidim tzadik //startzy – disciples

The universal formula of obedience is: Fiat voluntas tua.

The vow of poverty is the practice of inner emptiness, which is established as a consequence of the silence of personal desires, emotions and imagination so that the soul is capable of receiving from above the revelation of the word, the light and the life.

A story introduced which makes evident the practical spiritual meaning of poverty.

The story of the four brothers who sought the greatest treasure

The vow of chastity means to say the putting into practice of the resolution to live according to solar law, without covetousness and without indifference. The foundation of the heart is love.

Chastity is the state of the human being where the "twelve-petalled lotus is awakened and becomes the sun of the microcosmic "planetary system". anahata When the heart is awakened the three centres below it begin then to function in conformity with the life of the heart.

The ideal of chastity triumphs over sterility and indifference.

The practice of chastity bears equally on all domains where there is a choice between solar law and all sorts of dulling intoxications that drown the conscience of the heart. All fanaticism sins against chastity.

There are also forms of practical occultism which lend themselves to the pursuit of an unhealthy intoxication. Quotation from L’occulte catholique Josephin Peladan

These three vows constitute the sole known and indispensable method which leads to the five wounds. It is not a matter of the virtues of humility, poverty and chastity but rather of their practice. It is the effort which counts.

Such is the answer to the question: How does one acquire the five wounds? Now follows the answer to the question: How does the magic of the sacred pentagram of the five wounds operate?

It is the purity of the will which constitutes the basis of the magic of the sacred pentagram of five wounds. It accomplishes the living presence of the good alongside the consciousness of the subject of the operation. The good is only present, or it is not. The five wounds assure the presence of the good, i.e. the presence of pure will from above.

The following is an episode which is found in the "Considerations on the Stigmata of St. Francis" and which is well suited to serve as a key to the problem with which we are occupied.

The episode introduced: How St. Francis appeared to a certain Franciscan friar who had prayed to have revealed to him the secret words the Seraphim had spoken to St. Francis when he gave him the stigmata.

The narrative concluded and its transmission.

Let us now analyse the narrative from the point of view of the magic of the sacred pentagram of the five wounds.

The stigmata given to St Francis are of a spiritual as well as a corporeal nature, for their virtue continues after his death. He is able to lead souls back to paradise. It is only by virtue of his stigmata that Jesus Christ prior to his resurrection was able to lead souls back to paradise. Only by virtue of his stigmata that St Francis is able to lead each year all souls bound to him by a spiritual tie to paradise.

Let us now consider the practical meaning of the terms "limbo", "purgatory" and "paradise".

Their practical meaning is not spatial but refers to states of the human being – in body, soul and spirit. Experience supplies us with the keys of analogy to understand these ideas on all planes and at every level of their application.

"Limbo" is the virginal state of physical and psychical health that Nature – outside and within ourselves – can offer us from itself without the assistance of supernatural or divine grace. The same state is known as sattva, one of the three gunas.

Concerning the experience relating to "purgatory", it comprises all purging – suffering – physical, psychic and spiritual.

We already experience here below a foretaste of "purgatory" and of "paradise".

The magic of the sacred pentagram of five wounds "leads souls out of limbo and purgatory and conducts them to paradise". It makes heaven present in "limbo" and "purgatory".

The magic of the five wounds operates by the presence of the reality of the superhuman spiritual world by means of the wounds. Concerning the ritual or technical side of the magic of the sacred pentagram with five wounds

The quinternary "united and bound to the decad" of which Saint-Martin speaks is therefore the quinternary or pentagram of five wounds.

But I shall not say, as radically as Saint-Martin does that the quinternary separated from the decad is absolutely evil.

In any case the pentagram, other than that of the five wounds, is not the sign of "black magic", but rather that of arbitrary magic or "grey magic", if you wish. Because it is the sign of the power of the personality as such – which is inevitably a mixture of good and evil. Oswald Wirth on the nature of the individual will and its artificial development

The Will of The Intelligence of

they do not in any way correspond to the division of magic into "white magic" and "black magic". The two forms of the pentagram refer to human electricity of the head and of the legs which has nothing to do with horns. Therefore, let us not be afraid of the reversed pentagram, or depend too much on the upright pentagram.

The spiritual history of mankind – the way from the cross>the pentagram>the hexagram. It is the school of obedience, poverty and chastity. It is the divine, magical operation where love is attained through faith by means of hope.

But the hierarchical is eternal and obedience is indispensable. Now new hierarchical orders are beginning to be established replacing obedience by tyranny and dictatorship. Hosea ix 7

Now the post of Pope in the spiritual history of mankind is that of guardian of the sacred pentagram of the five wounds. The function and the mission of the post of the Pope

The post of Pope or the Holy See is a formula of divine magic – just as the post of Emperor is – in the history of humanity. The post of Pope was founded upon the quality of Petrus. Matthew xvi, 18

The five "gates of hell" shall not prevail against the formula of the five wounds. And these wounds are the "keys to the kingdom of heaven".

The divine magical power of these keys is such that whatever is bound by their virtue on earth will be bound in heaven and that whatever is loosened by their virtue on earth will be loosened in heaven.