The third chapter typifies the operations of the dual sign of Gemini.
From these verses it may be learned that this Gemini chapter depicts the spirit's strivings through the temporal experiences of birth and death, through darkness and light, and through all the interplay of forces on this, the plane of opposites. They are the experiences belonging to the cycle of separation, when the spirit learns the lessons that are to be derived from that shadow of the good which man calls evil. Even the processes of Initiation or Illumination are governed by the ebb and flow of invisible tides of magnetic power around the globe, for "to everything there is a season, and a time to every purpose under Heaven."
Gemini is particularly the sign correlating to the teacher Hermes Trismegistus of Egypt, typified by the planet Mercury. Gemini is symbolized by two upright pillars connected by a cross beam at the top. The candidate for Initiation must pass between the two columns of the Temple in his search for Light. He cannot do this, however, until he has established within himself the twofold power which the pillars represent, namely, the feminine and masculine potencies of Aries and Taurus. "Two are better than one; because they have a good reward for their labour.... And if one prevail against him, two shall withstand him; and a threefold cord is not quickly broken." (Ecclesiastes, 4:9, 12) Passing between the two pillars, the Mystic Mason who has the balance of the two discovers the Keystone of the Arch. "The threefold cord is not quickly broken."
Above our current cycle of the transitory is heard the voice of Spirit urging the return to the eternal realms of Reality. Let peace and tranquility prevail when evil presents itself, knowing that when the time is ripe, the evil will be eliminated: "for there is a time for every work" — a lesson taught by the Supreme Master, Christ Jesus, in the parable of the wheat and the tares which were allowed to grow together until the harvest.
Neglect of this consideration is one of the reasons that many neophytes fail to demonstrate the higher soul powers. They are not patient, they will not wait for the harvest season, but recklessly gather, or try to gather, the wheat before it is ripe and hence find themselves with an armful of tares and unripe wheat — negative psychism and evil karma — instead of the ripe wheat, or Initiation, which they desired. "The hour knoweth no man," said the Christ; and Ecclesiastes voices a similar warning: "No man can find out the work that God maketh from the beginning to the end."
"The work" of God is not, however, something wholly alien to human consciousness, albeit when the consciousness can grasp this Work, it is no longer human; yet as a very shadow may give some idea of the object which casts it, so may human consciousness form a concept of the Work of God from its projected "shadow." The ethers which interpenetrate the heart contain a record of all the experiences of the spirit from the very beginning of evolution, and a forecast of the ultimate glorious goal when our evolutionary course is run. So minute to human consciousness is this divine record that it is likened to a "seed" and yet within this dimensionless seed-atom the Scroll of the Gods exists. In the Bible it is called the Book of Life. When the power is developed to read in this minute but all-encompassing Book then, like Solomon the Initiate King, Wisdom is attained and from its supernal height may be seen the Song of Gemini with the Teacher's words: "I know that there is no good in them but for a man to rejoice, and to do good in his life." (Ecclesiastes 3:13) This is the song of ultimate conquest: duality exists for him no longer; good and evil, light and shadow are merged into One, the Duad has once again become the Monad. All is one and all is good.
This verse contains the keynote of Cancer, the mystic sign of spiritual ecstasy and heavenly vision, the Door that leads into the glories of Initiation. A field symbolizes the feminine aspect of God, Love. Love is the field wherein the laborer is found worthy of his hire, and if his work merits so much he is given the "wages of the master" and taught how "to travel in foreign countries." The king himself is served by the field.
Cancer is ruled by the Moon (alchemically, silver), and associated with it is the celestial Hierarchy. Cancer is therefore the sign of the Teacher who reflects (lunar Angels) spiritual Wisdom upon the Earth even as the Moon reflects sunlight during the dark hours of the night.
The exalted development that is sought by the aspirant must contain nothing of the personal. Where any element of selfishness enters in, the self becomes the slayer of the Real. This is the lesson of Cancer, the sign of universal Mother Love, the ocean of Life. It is pre-eminently the sign of Mother Nature, and the aspirant who attunes himself to its celestial vibrations enters into the Spirit of Nature and is at one with the purpose of evolution. He finds himself as he loses himself in the solitudes of woods and fields, the great surge and roar of the oceans, the peaceful hum of a bee-laden garden, and to his interior vision is vouchsafed the Vision of Nature's Soul in the glorious angelic Hierarchies.
— Corinne Heline
