LESSON 14
Rulers II and III
During the following week, study the description of the Rulers presented below while you keep practicing your journaling and magical Rites.
Ruler of the Second Zone
The Ruler of the Second Zone is an intelligence of Prudence and Joy. It inspires feelings of happiness and delight, while protecting the soul from the corrosion of sorrow and suffering. This Ruler's power of Joy makes it a patron of celebrations, parties and mirthful gatherings, as well as a spirit of good humor and fun. It favors the arts and all activities that aim at producing beauty and enjoyment.
As an intelligence of Prudence, the Second Ruler favors knowledge, forethought and preparedness. It is a patron of language and science, planning, strategy, and divine protection. It also has an aspect of trickery and cunning, skills that can be very effective in protecting yourself against intelligences and events that could bring bad outcomes and grief.
Finally, the Second Ruler is a patron of health and healing. Health is a fundamental resource to avoid suffering and promote joy, so this Ruler favors a prudent preservation of physical, mental, and spiritual health, as well as the combating of illnesses.
Ruler of the Third Zone
The Third Ruler is an intelligence of Temperance and Wholeness. The Tormentor of the Third Zone poses a constant danger to your physical and psychic energy reserves: through the exacerbation of desires, it works to deplete your capacity for choosing where to invest your available energy. In order to be able to realize your vision for a better life, you need to spend a lot of physical and mental energy on imagining the things you want, planning on how to achieve them, attention to details and prevention of accidents, labor, or even simply keeping up the intense desire for them. By getting sidetracked with less important things, simply because they piqued your attention or elicited your desire for them, you will instead spend some of that energy--which is NOT infinite--on things that do not contribute to the results you really want. Such is the daily action of the Third Tormentor, always stealing your energy with a number of pitfalls and tricks--the Guile of the Desires.
The Third Ruler is a promoter of the above mentioned energy and a protector against the theft of the Third Tormentor. It is an intelligence of pleasure and comfort in the lower cosmos, of pleasurable experiences through the senses, of the restoring and nurturing power of a sensuous and relaxed relationship with the world. However, this Ruler leads you into the pleasures of small things rather than the ecstatic experiences of excess, being an equal enemy of asceticism and dissolute hedonism. On the one hand, it is an erotic intelligence that nurtures the psychic energy, the libido, through restful, relaxing, pleasurable, enjoyable experience. On the other hand, it conserves energy by favoring simplicity and contentment, by tempering sex with the intimacy of home life and family, and by inspiring sobriety. This Ruler's counsel to weaken the energy of the Third Zone is summed up by its magical motto: Nihil Nimis.