Meaning of YHVH on Temperance

Abrac

Sometimes all it takes is a single sentence to open up a concealed mystery. In Waite's Secret Tradition in Alchemy, Appendix 4, p. 404, he describes an image from a Hermetic document entitled Janitor Pansophus; Manly P. Hall calls the image the "Grand Rosicrucian Alchemical Formula." In Waite's description of the image he says:

"To indicate that it is a Divine Work, the Eternal Father, represented by the Hebrew Tetragram, is shewn at the apex;"​

I believe this gives an important clue to one of Waite's primary meanings for the YHVH on Temperance's breast. Its presence has always been a bit of a mystery to me with no real satisfactory explanation. Waite may have explained it in his own words above. It indicates Temperance's work is a Divine one, i.e., a work of Grace as opposed to a natural or human working. I can also see how it might represent Divine Grace working in cooperation with human effort. :)



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