The following hymn was given first in Fosforos book VI, Legifer & Clavis Magica. In the brotherhood celestial hymns practice, it is used as the Friday prayer. In it, we approach together the two aspects of Lucifer: bright and black, the power of manifestation and of uncreation, the male and the female, the virgin – which in occult symbolism means the pristine essence of aether – and the mother – the world matrix or the astral space.
In the English version of Fosforos, the name “Bythos” was left out where it stands in the original Finnish version, after the “Mother of All Ideas.” When translating, I thought that it might be too hard to understand the Gnostic Abyss, Bythos, who is masculine, being also the “mother.” But times have changed after that, and I trust that the original form of the prayer has become more understandable because of this recent cultural shift. The careful play between the polarities is, after all, everywhere in this hymn.
I have made some additions to the short commentary published with the prayer in Fosforos. These added comments are placed in brackets.
Hymn to the Son of Dawn
Lucifer, you are my love,
you are the understanding in me.
You are the beauty in all that is beautiful,
the Bringer of Light and the Mother of Darkness,
the Serpent and the Star,
the Flame and the Soul of the Deep.
Through you have all beings been made,
to you will everything return.
O Holy Virgin, hear me, O Mother of All Ideas, [Bythos,]
you who gave birth to Ophiomorphos our redeemer.
Beyond all manifestation I see your perfection,
the light within the bosom of purest night.
Anima mea desideravit te in nocte,
sed et spiritu meo in praecordis meis
de mane vigilabo ad te.
Anael, Hagiel, Sarabocres,
numquid post ortum tuum praecepisti
diluculo et ostendisti aurorae locum suum.
Te adoro, Magister noster,
plenum gratiae et veritatis.
In caelum conscendam super astra Dei.
Amen, Amen, Ameth.
[Lucifer, you are my love = This is the uniting principle between the Venus aspects emphasized in exoteric and esoteric models. In both the exoteric “angel of love” interpretation and the esoteric “angel of inner consciousness,” Venus comes to model the aspirant’s inner counterpart, the soul, as anima/ animus. Venus-Lucifer is both the source of one’s ability to feel love and the innermost object of that love.]
[Understanding in me = The core of one’s intelligence. Not the formal reason, but its deeper abstract connection to one’s sense of unity and integrity, which alone makes cosmos understandable.]
The beauty in all that is beautiful = The whole concept of beauty would be incomprehensible were there not manas within us. The lower brain intelligence sees the whole world as mechanics within which there is no meaning in beauty; only the higher intelligence understands that reality is an aesthetic and harmonious whole of creative and not mechanical powers.
The Bringer of Light = The Son of Dawn, born out of buddhi or understanding; the flame of intelligence that makes the buddhic light understandable by bringing it into manifestation.
The Mother of Darkness = From its feminine nature manas is the birth-giver of the subconscious, for it teaches the human being via the play of opposites; not because of its own choice but because the personality is unable to understand the world in any other way but by the pairs of opposites before it joins with the higher self.
The Serpent = The Serpent of Eden, giver of knowledge, the sacred fire of the spinal column that awakens the consciousness.
The Star = Our goal and the incentive of our ideology, an idea. The pentagram. Also the planet Venus. [Strong connection to the “earth-fallen star” of Azazel. Lucifer and Azazel are Latin and Hebrew aspects of the same Promethean “redeemer,” the Left Hand Path figure of Christus Mysticus, the master within.]
The Soul of the Deep = The actual meaning of creation as a creation of a new consciousness.
Through you have all beings been made = All creation comes to being via “the third Logos” or manas. [Cf. John 1:3-4.]
Holy Virgin = Manas itself can never be stained or changed, though its manifestations in matter (the personality created by the consciousness) do change. [Aether i.e., the original astral substance: the form of matter which itself remains its original purity even when it has given birth to its offspring, the coagulated matter, which seemingly replaces it in physical being.]
Mother of All Ideas = All thoughts originate from manas.
You who gave birth to Ophiomorphos our redeemer = Ophiomorphos is the “serpent-formed” savior, the Serpent Christ, the guide of man.
Anima mea desideravit… = “With my soul have I desired thee in the night; yea, with my spirit within me will I seek thee early.” [Isaiah 26:9. The soul seeks its union with the inner master even while living in the night of physical incarnation, to be wholly united with it when the night is over and the spiritual sun once again rises – in death, which is the name for final initiation.]
Numquid post ortum tuum… = “Hast thou commanded the morning since thy days; and caused the dayspring to know his place?” [Job 38:12. As said, this daybreak is the dawn of initation by gnosis, i.e. becoming a true human being after the long night of bestial semi-humanity.]
Te adoro… = I adore you, my Master, full of joy and truth.
In caelum conscendam… = “I will ascend into heaven, above the stars of God.” The innermost home of the soul of man is even farther away than the loftiest of all forms (archetypal ideas represented by stars).
Salome 