Faith! This is the one most necessary key for unlocking the Temple doors behind which are the eternal glories. "According to thy faith be it unto you!" Yet faith is not the growth of an hour, nor yet of a day. It is attained by a very slow and gradual process, in which the expanding consciousness learns to "try the Lord" again and again, and to know the method of His working. In the various Psalms we may follow the aspirant's development of the faith which becomes power. Until faith is achieved, the aspirant progresses but slowly along the Path. Faith once gained, his feet are winged, and the way seems short. In the 3rd Psalm we read:

I laid me down and slept;
I awakened; for the Lord (Law) sustaineth me.
I will not be afraid of ten thousands of the people
That have set themselves against me round about.

   The 3rd Psalm is used as a prayer for protection against enemies, and in the time of Queen Elizabeth of England it was employed for help against the Spanish Armada. Paul spoke with literal exactness when he said that faith is a substance. The eye of Spirit sees that this is a truth. As a man's faith increases, so does his own high good manifest increasingly; and the joy of this consciousness finds expression beautifully in the Faith Psalms, as here in the 28th and 31st:

Blessed be the Lord (Law)
Because he hath heard the voice of my supplications.
The Lord is my strength and my shield;
My heart hath trusted in him, and I am helped;
Therefore my heart greatly rejoiceth;
And with my song will I praise him.
In thee, O Lord (Law), do I take refuge;
Let me never be ashamed;
Deliver me in thy righteousness.
Thou art my rock and my fortress;
Therefore for thy name's sake lead me and guide me.
I will dwell in thy tabernacle forever;
I will take refuge in the covert of thy wings.
For thou, O God, hast heard my vows;
Thou hast given me the heritage of those that fear thy name.

   Similar expressions are contained in the 62nd Psalm: "My rock and my salvation," "my high tower, I shall not be moved ... .. wait thou in silence for God only," etc. By expressing faith such as these words convey, there is an almost instantaneous manifestation of the heavenly archetype (which is all-good) in the illusory world of phenomena.

   To "dwell in the Tabernacle" has the same esoteric meaning as "to dwell in the Temple," namely, to hold the consciousness steadfast in meditation on the cosmic verities. Thus in Psalm 26,

Lord, I have loved the habitations of thy house and
the place where thine honour dwelleth.
My foot standeth in an even place, in the congregation
will I bless the Lord (Law).

   And in the 125th Psalm:

They that trust in the, Lord
Are as Mount Zion, which cannot be moved, but abideth forever.
As the mountains are round about Jerusalem,
So the Law is round about his people.

   The 46th Psalm:

God is our refuge and strength,
A very present help in trouble.
Therefore will we not fear, though the Earth do be removed,
And though the mountains be shaken into the heart of the sea,

   The perfect flowering of the power of faith finds expression in the 91st Psalm, which is also one of the astrological Psalms, and may be meditated upon for the purpose of establishing at-one-ment with the cosmic Powers; thus:

   Verses I and 2 invoke the Hierarchy of Aries which manifests the initial Power of Godhead:

He that dwelleth in the secret place of the Most High
Shall abide under the shadow of the Almighty.
I will say of Jehovah, He is my refuge and my fortress;
My God, in whom I trust.

   This is the prayer for purity, service and sacrifice which brings liberation from the bondage of material consciousness, and resurrection into the New Heaven and the New Earth. According to ancient tradition, God created the world when the Sun was in Aries, and Adam when the Sun stood in Taurus. Taurus is the sign of the fruitful and cultivated land. In verses 3 and 4 we read,

For he will deliver thee from the snare of the fowler,
And from the deadly pestilence.
He will cover thee with his pinions,
And under his wings shalt thou take refuge.

   These lines have reference to the great protective and feminine principle signified by the planet Venus, which rules Taurus, and to the ministry of the Lords from Venus.

   Through the division and separativeness ushered in by the Hierarchy of Gemini man came to know both good and evil, truth and falsity, in order that through experience he might learn true discrimination. Evil is no part of the consciousness of the illumined one. He remains centered in the Most High, and therefore in verses 5 to 8 we read,

Thou shalt not be afraid for the terror by night,
Nor for the arrow that flieth by day;
For the pestilence that walketh in darkness,
Nor for the destruction that wasteth at noonday.
A thousand shall fall at thy side,
And ten thousand at thy right hand;
But it shall not come nigh thee.
Only with thine eyes shalt thou behold,
And see the reward of the wicked.

   "Thou O Jehovah, art my refuge. Thou hast made the Most High thy habitation" (verse 9) invokes the Hierarchy of Cancer, the sign of new life, the consciousness lifted into the Mansions prepared by God for His children. This is the spiritual Idea of home, the cosmic archetype of habitations, or Mansions.

   The Leo Hierarchy is invoked in verse 10: "There shall no evil befall thee. Neither shall any plague come nigh thy tent." The Lords of Leo are great Angels of Light and Fire who dwell in the esoteric Light which is to be kindled within the heart of the new race and which will herald the return of the Christ unto His own. This Light constitutes an aura of protection through which no evil can penetrate.

   Verse 11 invokes the immaculately wise and bright Angels of Virgo who through various messengers have revealed the ideal of the Immaculate Conception to mankind. "For he will give his Angels charge over thee, to keep thee in all thy ways." It is the ultimate attainment of the new race man which is portrayed in the human lives of Earth's highest Initiates, Jesus, Mary and Joseph.

   Verse 12: "They shall bear thee up in their bands, lest thou dash thy foot against a stone" is the invocation to Libra, whose Hierarchy is representative of the principle of Balance, or Equilibrium, in the universe. It is a prayer for the power of right choice, for the equilibrium between head and heart preclude the possibility of mortal errors. By this is attained the blending of intellect with wisdom which we call intuition. The Angels are the symbol of such intuition, and they "shall bear thee up lest thou dash thy foot against a stone" (intellectual concept unillumined by the Spirit).

   The mortal intellect, or brain consciousness, is just as material to the spiritual discernment as the rocks and stones by the wayside. It has been said, and truly, that the material world is "the outer crust of the mind." A material world presupposes a material mind. A destructible and illusory world presupposes a destructible and illusory mind. In Spirit, the shadow is dissolved by Light; unreality yields to Reality.

   The invocation to the Hierarchy of Scorpio, pointing the way of regeneration, is found in verse 13: "Thou shalt tread upon the lion and adder; the young lion and the serpent shalt thou trample under foot." The lion symbolizes the mastery of the great fire force in the body. The adder or dragon represents this force when uplifted and manifested on higher (mental) creative levels through the regenerative and transmutative processes. This ideal is presented pictorially by St, John as the Woman clothed with the Sun and standing with the Moon-dragon under her feet.

   The Hierarchy of Sagittarius is invoked in verse 14: "Because he hath set his love upon me, therefore will I deliver him. I will set him on high, because he hath known my name." The Hierarchy of Sagittarius bestowed upon man the priceless gift of the higher mind, without which he could never rise out of the mortal intellect with its materialistic trends. It is our Jacob's ladder whereon the Angels of spiritualized consciousness ascend and descend. Having ascended this ladder the Adept is throned on high and knows the Name — that is, the true nature and power of the Most High God, who is the Reality of the universe.

   The Hierarchy of Capricorn is invoked in the 15th verse. It is they who aid man to transmute the desire nature whereby the infant Christ is released from the manger. There is then room and to spare at the Inn (head). The ego is fully responsive to the impacts of the spiritual universe around him, and all-good is the signature of life on every plane: "He shall call upon me, and I will answer him, and I will be with him in trouble."

   Aquarius is the sign of the Son of Man. It rules the Angelic Hierarchy which is familiar to Christians in sacred art and literature, for these Angels work closely and intimately with man. Their promise is, "I will deliver him and honor him"; while the Hierarchy of Pisces — our own humanity — is indicated in the final verse: "And show him my salvation." This salvation is the immortality won after cycles of suffering and tears, and signifies the kingdom which is found when all else is abandoned, and which includes the true delights of everyman's heart.

   So complete is the aura of protection created by the twelvefold rhythms of the 91st Psalm that one meditating upon its inner significance will demonstrate ever increasing dominion over things external.

   The other Songs of Faith calling for special mention are Psalms 56 and 57. In these Psalms we are taught that the testing ground of faith is sorrow and hardship. "They are many that fight proudly against me. [But] what time I am afraid I will put my trust in thee." "This I know, that God is for me. In God have I put my trust, I will not be afraid; What can man do unto me?" And again: "In the shadow of thy wings I take refuge, until these calamities be overpast."

   The power of faith having been achieved, the aspirant must learn humility. Faith and humility are by no means synonymous. It is possible to have one and not the other, for faith triumphant may lead to vanity, and humility may lead to self-disparagement, discouragement, and even apostasy.

   The 75th Psalm exhorts in the light of the immutable Law of Causation:

Lift not up your horn on high;
Speak not with a stiff neck.
For neither from the east, nor from the west,
Nor from the south, cometh lifting up (promotion)
But God is the judge. He putteth down one and setteth up another.
In the hand of the Lord (Law) there is a cup, and the wine foameth;
It is full of mixture, and he poureth out of the same,
Surely the dregs thereof, all the wicked of the earth shall drain them, and drink them.

   There is a humility that is born of weakness, and another that is born of power. Only the truly great can be truly simple. Such was the singer of the 131st Psalm:

. . . My heart is not haughty, nor mine eyes lofty;
Neither do I exercise myself in great matters,
Or in things too wonderful (high) for me.
Surely I have stilled and quieted my soul;
Like a weaned child with his mother
Like a weaned child is my soul within me.

   And again, in the 115th Psalm:

Not unto us, O Lord not unto us,
But unto thy Name give glory,
For thy lovingkindness mercy and for thy truth's sake.
The heavens are the heavens of the Lord:
But the earth hath he given to the children of men.
The Law shall increase you more and more, you and your children.

   In the Psalm of the Night-Watch (the 8th) mentioned above, we find the same beautiful humility voiced:

When I consider thy heavens, the work of thy fingers,
The moon and the stars, which thou hast ordained;
What is man that thou art mindful of him?
AND the son of man that thou visitest him?
For thou hast made him but little lower than the Angels,
And crownest him with glory and honor

   The crown of gold which is placed upon the head of the king, as mentioned in this Psalm, is the crown of auric glory, called in the East the thousand-petalled lotus; and all kingly crowns known to princes and kings on earth are mere shadows of this celestial crown, which was in early times worn by the rulers of the Order of Melchizedek. It is the sign of the Priest-King, and is destined to be worn by every human being.

 — Corinne Heline