The central theme of the sixth Arcanum is therefore that of the practice of chastity.

This is the formula of chastity in love. It is the formula of Adam-Eve.

And the celibacy of monks and nuns? How does the formula of chastity ‘Adam-Eve’ apply here?

Love is strong as death. Those of us who hear within ourselves the flame of the memory of Eden cannot forget it. The true celibate bears witness to the eternity of love, just as the miracle of true marriage bears witness to its reality.

The Unknown Friend addressed. Life is profound.

Nietzsche felt this and knew how to express it in his "Song of the Night". It is the same arrow which brings about true celibacy as well as true marriage.

And charity, the love of one’s neighbour? What is its relationship with the love who’s prototype is given by the formula "Adam-Eve"?

We are surrounded by innumerable living and conscious beings – visible and invisible.

It appears to us that they have a less real existence and that they are less living than we ourselves. That one qualifies this illusion as "egocentricity" or "egoism", or "ahamkara" (the illusion of self), or the "effect of the primordial Fall", does not matter.

Now, to feel something as real in the measure of its full reality is to love.

"Paradise" is therefore at one and the same time the fundamental layer of our soul and a cosmic sphere. It is the realm of beginning, and therefore of principles.

The Christian doctrine and experience of grace expresses the very essence of chastity, just as it also contains the principles of poverty and obedience.

Here we have chastity, poverty and obedience underlying the Christian doctrine and experience of grace. One does not initiate oneself; one becomes initiated.

Grace . . . are we not tired of the age-old repetition of this subject in Sunday sermons in church . . . Does it not presume too little of his character to invite him to renounce the magnificent magical quaternary – "to dare, to will, to be silent, and to know" – for the whining Kyrie eleison?

There is nothing more banal than the rising of the sun which repeats itself day after day throughout innumerable millions of years.

Similarly, air is necessary in order to breath and to live. Is not the air which surrounds us a perfect analogy for the gratia gratis data – for gratuitously bestowed grace?

Can one produce artificially intellectual, moral or artistic inspiration? Can the lungs produce the air which they need for respiration?

Now, the principle of grace underlies earthly life as well as spiritual life. The very process of breathing teaches the law of obedience, poverty and chastity, i.e. it is a lesson (by analogy) in grace. Conscious breathing in of the reality of grace is Christian Hatha- yoga

With respect to the magnificent quaternary of traditional magic: "to dare, to will, to be silent and to know, it is formulated mutandis mutates – by the Master in the following way: (Matthew vii, 7-8)

It is a matter of daring to ask, of the will to seek, of being silent in order to knock and of knowing when it is opened to you.

This is the formula of the synthesis of effort and grace, of the principle of work and that of receptivity, and lastly of merit and gift. There is certainly THE WORK in Hermeticism, and this work is the child of grace and effort.

Dear Unknown Friend, if you have knowledge of theology, you will recognise here the pure and simple doctrine of the Catholic Church concerning the relationship between work and grace. You find here again the rejection of Pelagianism, according to which it is only work (or effort) which counts, and also of Luther’s Protestantism, according to which it is only grace which counts. You find here the doctrine of the Catholic Church – natura vulnerata non deleta - is also implied.

Thus, does Christian Hermeticism simply borrow the fundamental principles of its Hermetic-philosophical teaching from Catholic theology?

It should not be forgotten that Christian Hermeticism is not a religion apart. It is the connecting link (hyphen) between mysticism, gnosis and magic expressed through symbolism - symbolism being the means of expression of the dimension of depth and height (and therefore of enstasy and ecstasy), of all that is universal (which corresponds to the dimension of breath, and of all that is traditional (corresponding to the dimension of length). Ephesians iii, 18-19 This is the complete formula of initiation.

Now, in aspiring to knowledge and experience of the depth and height of Universal Christianity, Hermeticism borrows nothing and cannot borrow anything form the Church, since it is nothing other, and is unable to be anything other, than an aspect of the Church itself, namely the aspect of its dimension of depth and height. For the Church is not only universal and traditional but also profound and sublime. Take for example De triplici via ("The Threefold Way") by St. Bonaventura. Let us therefore take heed of all those who know through experience instead of for erudition and theoretical speculation.

But let us return to the Theme of Temptation.

Let us ponder, therefore, on the notion of "egregore" with a view to understanding better what the antichrist is – this important and enigmatic figure of esotericism and Christian Hermeticism, who is at the same time the source of the temptation in the wilderness.

Quotations from La Kabbale pratique by Robert Ambelain.

Here is a singular mixture of true and falsehood.

No, there are superhuman spiritual entities which are not artificially engendered, but which manifest themselves and reveal themselves. But this phantom has nothing to do either with the soul itself or with the subtle bodies with which the soul is clothed in addition to the physical body.

Now, to say that the Mystical Church or the Body of Christ, for example, is an egregore is to advance the thesis that it is a phantom engendered by millions of cells.

And the phantom of humanity has appeared to many others. He appeared also to the Son of Man in the desert. This was the meeting of divine Law made flesh and the law of the serpent – biological and historical evolution – made soul.

Hunger of the spirit, the soul and the body is the experience of emptiness or poverty. It is therefore the vow of poverty which is put to the test when "the tempter came and said to him: (Matthew iv.3) – this is the very essence of the aspiration of humanity in the scientific epoch, namely victory over poverty. Synthetic . . .

"Command these stones to become bread" this is the formula of evolution in the sense of "transformism" belonging to the mentality of some academics.

The operation proposed by the tempter is at the same time the dominant motif of the doctrines overrunning the world today which regard the economic life as primary and the spiritual life as its epiphenomenon or as an "ideological structure" upon the economic base. That which is below is primary and that which is above is secondary, since it is matter which engenders spirit – such is the dogma commonly underlying "economism" and "transformism", and the statement made by the tempter to the Son of Man. (Matthew iv.4)

Let us ponder on this formula.

It expresses in the first place, the essence of the vow of poverty. For the vow of poverty is to live as much from the word which comes from the mouth of God as from the bread which enters the mouth of man.

(Matthew iv, 5-7) This is the "groping trial" to which natural evolution owes much, which speaks this time. Because evolution proceeds gropingly from form to form, trying and rejecting, then trying anew . . . The world of evolution . . . is the work of a really vast intelligence and a vast resolute will pursuing a definite aim determined by the method of "trial and error". It is the serpent who is the "prince of this world", and who is the author and director of the purely biological evolution following the Fall. An exhortation to read The Phenomenon of Man by Pierre Teilhard de Chardin – the world of evolution is the work of the serpent of paradise, and that it is only since the prophetic religions (of which there were many) and Christianity that the "good news" (evangelion) of another way than that of the evolution of the serpent exists.

Now, the tempter proposed to the Son of Man the method to which he owes his existence: the trial. "Throw yourself down and it will be seen if it is true that you are the Son of God and that you are not as I am, the son of evolution, son of the serpent." This was the temptation of chastity. For as we have shown above, the spirit of chastity excludes all trial.

Just as the first two temptations are directed at the vows of holy poverty and holy chastity, so is the third temptation (according to the Gospel of Matthew) directed at the vow of holy obedience. This time it is a matter of the will-to-power, the Nietzschean Wille zur Macht. Matthew iv, 8-10

Let us note the elements of the temptation: the very high mountain, all the kingdoms of the world and their glory, worship of he who has the power to rise to the top of the mountain and there to give possession of everything in the kingdom of his world.

It is a matter therefore, of accepting the ideal of the superman ("fall down and worship me"), who is the summit of evolution. . . Now, the choice here is between the ideal of the superman, who is "as God", and God himself.

Holy obedience is therefore faithfulness to the living God himself; revolt, or disobedience is the decision taken in favour of the superman, who personifies the will-to-power.

The sixth Arcanum of the Tarot "The Lover", although it puts in relief only the temptation of chastity, evokes the whole range of ideas of the three temptations and the three vows . . .

But what is the immediate consequence of resisting temptation? (Matthew iv. 11)

This response belongs to the range of ideas and facts of the seventh Arcanum of the Tarot "The Chariot" whose Card represents a man standing on a triumphal chariot drawn by two horses.