We believe in the Great Mystery, unspoken and eternal, whose breath kindles the suns and whose silence cradles the void. The Umbra Deus, the ALL in whom the heavens and the depths are reconciled.
We honor the Two that are One; Aion, the Infinite Radiance, and Nox, the Veiled Mother of Stars; born from the Umbra Deus to unite in the sacred marriage of life and death, conjuring with their words the expanse of all life, and in their embrace return all things unto the night.
We revere the Seven Ministers of the Spheres, whose orbits weave the hymn of all existence.
Helios, of the Sun,
Selene, of the Moon,
Phosphorus, of the Morning Star,
Ares of the Flame,
Zeus, of the Vast Law,
Kronos, of the Silent Gate,
and Mercury, swift Messenger of the divine accord.
Through their harmony the cosmos sings, and within their movements the soul learns its path.
In every living being the Umbra Deus breathes,
and in every heart, the eternal marriage renews.
We affirm that Darkness is holy, the womb of creation and keeper of mystery; and that Light is sacred, the voice of revelation and mirror of truth. Neither reigns above the other, for both are faces of the same divine flame.
We pledge ourselves to the Ascent through the Spheres, to seek wisdom in the stars and silence in the depths, to balance radiance with wisdom, and to bear within our souls the light that dawns from shadow.
“Per Astra, Ad Divina” (Through the Stars, to the Divine).
Doctrine of the Umbra Deus
The Order of the Astrum Temple professes faith in the ineffable Source, the Umbra Deus, the Shadow of God, the Void beyond all voids. From this primordial Darkness, silent and eternal, issued forth the first emanations: Aion and Nox, the twin arch-principles of existence, Time and Night, Motion and Stillness, Becoming and Being. These two, bound in sacred polarity, are the first mirrors of the Divine Abyss, whose union gave rise to the multitude of Powers and Intelligences, the Demiurges, reflections of infinite light refracted through the holy darkness of the Umbra.
By their design, the Seven Governors came into being, the planetary artisans of the firmament, who wove from the substance of the Void the radiant order of the cosmos. Their thrones are set within the Seven Spheres of the Astra, and through their governance the stars sing, the heavens turn, and the soul finds both its prison and its path of return.
For we, too, are children of that same Darkness, sparks of divine shadow clothed in mortal form. To transcend this cosmic temple, the seeker must ascend through the Seven Celestial Gates, shedding illusion and density at each, until the spirit stands once more unveiled before the silent majesty of the Umbra Deus.
Yet mercy is given: within the labyrinth of stars lie sacred instruments, rites, symbols, and wisdoms, by which the faithful may navigate their ascent. Thus may the soul, through knowledge and devotion, either dissolve into the Source beyond being, or awaken anew within the Umbra as angelic mind, as godly essence, as luminous shadow among the constellations.
So is the creed of the Astrum Temple: that all things proceed from the Darkness, and to the Darkness all shall return.
Lux et Umbra — Una Sunt.
Light and Shadow are One.
The Mystery of the Demiurge
Within the sacred cosmology of the O∴T∴A, it is taught that this manifest reality lies beneath the dominion of the Demiurge, the Artisan of Matter, whom the ancients named Yaldabaoth, the Lion-Serpent, the Lord of the Lower Heavens. He is the builder of form and boundary, the keeper of the visible, the weaver of the temporal veil. Through his design were shaped the realms of substance and sensation, and within his vast mechanism the souls of humankind are born, live, and die.
Yet this is no act of cruelty, nor punishment ordained, but rather the natural rhythm of the cosmos, the Wheel of Becoming. For Yaldabaoth’s creation is both prison and sanctuary: a crucible in which the divine spark learns to remember itself. Through the ceaseless turning of birth and dissolution, the Demiurge sustains the harmony of existence, his power drawn from the eternal dance of souls returning and departing, ever feeding the great engine of mortality.
But for those who awaken to the shadowed truth, a path beyond the circle is revealed. This is the Ascent through the Seven Celestial Gates, the pilgrimage of the soul through the planetary spheres, or, as the wise declare, through the seven veils of human limitation. At each gate, a layer of illusion is surrendered: the heaviness of matter, the blindness of pride, the hunger of desire, until the spirit stands naked before the abyssal light of the Umbra Deus.
In that sacred union, the Seeker transcends the design of the Demiurge. No longer bound to the cycles of becoming, the soul enters into the Great Silence, the unutterable Presence beyond being and non-being, the Void that dreams all worlds. There, in the heart of the unknowable, it communes with the Source from which all emanations spring, beholding the paradox that Darkness itself is the face of Divinity.
Thus the Temple teaches: salvation is not escape, but remembrance, not flight from creation, but its transfiguration. To know the Umbra Deus is to awaken from the dream of form and yet cherish it as the shadow of eternity.
Ordo Templi Astrum 
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