Brazen Serpent

--translated and with an introduction by Timothy W. Hogan/ Chevalier Emerys, Grand Master, O.S.T.I.

Originally published in French, this fabled Rosicrucian text has been newly translated and presented in an exquisite new edition:

• lovingly hand-bound in fine leather
• with watered silk end-papers
• new color illustrations
• a silk ribbon marker
• stamped in gold relief 

Unavailable in an authorized version for decades, this new edition presents one of the most important intiatic texts of the twentieth century.  The story is related through deep allegorical language, replete with esoteric symbolism which will be readily apparent to students of Rosicrucianism, Martinism, and Freemasonry.

"A secret meeting in Rome! The title surprises and intrigues one's curiosity.  In the final analysis, I could not have given this work a more appropriate one. Only one other might have been used and I did chose it in the beginning, but to have called this story "The Cardinal in White", as I had the intention of doing, would have run the risk of some regrettable confusion. My intention is, truly, to tell of my meeting with a great man whose unique stature in the invisible empire of initiation is such that he fills a pivotal role, and I was not able to clothe him with a higher or more appropriate title than that of the "White Cardinal".

But the great Gustave Meyring had already, in his time, reported the extraordinary message of a "White Dominican". Further, the term "Cardinal" has taken a meaning much more precise in relation to a religious hierarchy in the See of which my Cardinal had never entered in any way. The fact, also, that all, may have happened in Rome, required the prudence of not using a term which might be misunderstood and thus was born the different and less compromising title of this manuscript.

Then, here once more, I must clothe with words that which my only remembrance is of sentiment and emotion, and then to transmit to others the message instilled in my soul by a rare experience. The hour has come to reveal without betraying much and to give without abandoning anything. This task would be impossible if it did not deal with knowledge and perhaps wisdom. These are the only domains where the transmission is so absolute that self becomes self and when the unity is realized, he who gives takes part in his own gift. To share a secret is without doubt, esoterically, to delegate a certain power, a form of authority which is acted upon in our name, because, for the initiate, the secret is the very condition of the sacred mystery and of the ancient powers in which he has been admitted to take part. But to share a secret is, above all, to give to others the essential implements which will permit them individually to manufacture the key opening the sublime portal of the realized consciousness where the emerging self is regenerated and forever raises itself...

I am going to relive with you, certain exciting circumstances. I would have said "an adventure" if this word had not, in our day, lost its profound meaning of the exceptional occurrence, yet all in our universe is so exceptional for those who know how to see and experience, that the qualification here does not have any importance. These circumstances, this adventure can, at the end of your reading, become yours, as they are mine, for they are placed, "beyond time and space" where they are unfolded. They are, in fact, latent in each of us, and the exterior element, that which is produced in the phenomenal world, only fulfills the function of stimulation or awakening. The spark is thrown out; facts capable of an illusory "outside" enflame the permanent reality in us and illumine our consciousness. We learn nothing, for all is within ourselves, but the veil cannot be torn aside except by the strange and irreplaceable action on us of the exterior world such as it is realized by us, however unreal it may actually be. In this regard, my secret meeting in Rome has caused to resound afresh the echo of a hidden wisdom at the heart of the divine essence which I carry within myself just as you carry it within you, and I have gathered together, on the subjective plane, a little more light and peace. It will be the same for you, as I would wish it to be. You can, by means of this recital, make my Roman adventure your adventure for, after all, the message which I have collected is destined for you and it is you, each one of you, who waits at this very instant for a secret interview, with a sage, an initiate, a master .. . The Cardinal in White."

My dearest wish will always be that this manuscript may be for you a source of inspiration and a constant encouragement to carry on your efforts within the work of the Rose-Croix tradition, towards the greater light and Peace Profound."

Raymond Bernard

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