The more the program is worked out the more the value of the symbolism

(whose types can always remain the same in spite of changes in their

appearance) changes into that of the functional symbolism in the narrower

sense; for the functional symbolism in the restricted sense is that which

copies the actual play of forces in the psyche.

To the functional symbolism of actual forces belong, e.g., in large part

the faces in my lecanomantic experiments, although they also contain

program material; further, in purest form, the previously related

autosymbolic vision of the mountains. The progress of a psychoanalytic

treatment is, apart from the program connections, generally copied in the

dream in correspondence to the momentary psychic status, and therefore

actually and functionally. It is quite probable that the progress of the

mystical work is represented to the mystic in his phantasying (dreams,

visions, etc.) in a symbolic manner. But when one happens upon written

phantasy products of the mystics, of course only he who has mystical

experiences of his own can venture to say whether a program symbolism or

an actually functional symbolism is exhibited. For example, I make no

judgment on the degree of actuality in the anagogic symbolism of the

parable.

C. Regeneration.

In the favorable issue of introversion, i.e., when we conquer the dragon,

we liberate a valuable treasure, namely, an enormous psychic energy, or,

according to the psychoanalytic view, libido, which is applicable to the

much desired new creation (as the titanic aspect of which we recognize the

“reforming”). The symbolic type, either openly or hiddenly expressed, of

the setting free of an active libido, is birth. A libido symbol with the

characteristic of active life comes out of a mother symbol. (The former is

either explicitly a child or even a food, or it is phallic or animal. Zbl.

Psa., III, p. 115.) As the mystic is author of this, his birth, he has

become his own father.

Introversion (seeking for the uterus or the grave) is a necessary

presupposition of regeneration or resurrection, and this is a necessary

presupposition of the mystical creation of the new man. (John III, 1-6):

“There was a man of the Pharisees named Nicodemus, a ruler of the Jews.

The same came to Jesus by night [introversion] and said unto him, ‘Rabbi,

we know that thou art a teacher come from God; for no man can do these

miracles that thou doest except God be with him.’ Jesus answered and said

unto him, Verily, verily, I say unto thee, Except a man be born again, he

cannot see the kingdom of God. Nicodemus saith unto him, How can a man be

born when he is old? Can he enter the second time into his mother’s womb

and be born? Jesus answered, Verily, verily, I say unto thee, Except a man

be born of water and of the Spirit, he cannot enter into the kingdom of

God. That which is born of the flesh is flesh, that which is born of the

Spirit is spirit.”

Water is one of the most general religious mother symbols (baptism). With

the earliest alchemists the brazen man becomes silver, the silver man,

gold, by being dipped in the holy fountain.

A mythological representation of introversion with its danger and with

regeneration was given previously [see Vishnu’s adventure]. Detailed

examples follow; first the Celtic myth of the birth of Taliesin.

In olden times there was a man of noble parentage in Peelyn named Tegid

Voel. His ancestral country was in the center of the lake of Tegid. His

wife was called Ceridwen. Of her he had a son, Morvram ap Tegid, and a

daughter, Creirwy, the fairest maiden in the world. These two had another

brother, the ugliest of all beings, named Avagddu. Ceridwen, the mother of

this ill favored son, well knew that he would have little success in

society, although he was endowed with many fine qualities. She determined

to prepare a kettle [introversion] for her son, so that on account of his

skill in looking into the future [Siddhi] he should find entrance into

society. The kettle of water began to boil [cooking of the child in the

uterus vessel] and the cooking had to be continued without interruption

till one could get three blessed drops from the gifts of the Spirit

[treasure]. She set Gwyon, the son of Gwreang of Llanveir, to watch the

preparation of the kettle, and appointed a blind man [mutilation or

castration] named Morda to keep alight the fire under the kettle, with the

command that he should not permit the interruption of the boiling for a

year and a day. [Cf. the activity of the wanderer in the parable, Sec. 14

ff.] Meanwhile Ceridwen occupied herself with the stars, watched daily the

movement of the planets, and gathered herbs of all varieties that

possessed peculiar powers [Siddhis]. Towards the end of the year, while

she was still looking for herbs, it happened that three drops of the

powerful water flew out of the kettle and fell on Gwyon’s finger. They

scalded him and he stuck his finger in his mouth. As the precious drops

touched his lips all the events of the future were opened to his eyes, and

he saw that he must be on his guard against Ceridwen [dreaded mother]. He

rushed home. The kettle split into two parts [motive of the tearing apart

of the uterus], for all the water in it except the three powerful drops

were poisonous [danger of introversion], so that it poisoned the chargers

of Gwyddno Garantur, which were drinking out of the gutter into which the

kettle had emptied itself [the flood]. Now Ceridwen came in and saw that

her whole year’s work was lost. She took a pestle and struck the blind man

so hard on the head that one of his eyes fell out on his cheeks. “You have

unjustly deformed me,” cried Morda; “you see that I am guiltless. Your

loss is not caused by my blunder.” “Verily,” said Ceridwen, “Gwyon the

Small it was that robbed me.” Immediately she pursued him, but Gwyon saw

her from a distance and turned into a hare and redoubled his speed, but

she at once became a hound, forced him to turn around and chased him

towards a river. He jumped in and became a fish, but his enemy pursued him

quickly in the shape of an otter, so that he had to assume the form of a

bird and fly up into the air. But the element gave him no place of refuge,

for the woman became a falcon, came after him and would have caught him

[forms of anxiety]. Trembling for fear of death, he saw a heap of smooth

wheat on a threshing floor, fell into the middle of it and turned into a

grain of wheat. But Ceridwen took the shape of a black hen, flew to the

wheat, scratched it asunder, recognized the grain and swallowed it

[impregnation, incest]. She became pregnant from it and after being

confined for nine months [regeneration] she found so lovely a child

[improvement] that she could no longer think of its death [immortality].

She put it in a boat, covered it with a skin [skin = lanugo of the fœtus,

belongs to the birth motive], and at the instigation of her husband cast

the skiff into the sea on the 29th of April. At this time the fish weir of

Gwyddno stood between Dyvi and Aberystwyth, near his own stronghold. It

was usual in this weir every year on the 1st of May to catch fish worth

100 pounds. Gwyddno had an only son, Elphin. He was very unfortunate in

his undertakings, and so his father thought him born in an evil hour. His

counselors persuaded the father, however, to let his son draw the weir

basket this time, to try whether good luck would ever be his, and so that

he might yet gain something with which to go forth into the world. On the

next day, the 1st of May, Elphin examined the weir basket and found

nothing, yet as he went away, he saw the boat covered with the skin rest

on the post of the weir. One of the fishermen said to him, “You have never

been so unlucky as you were to-night, but now you have destroyed the

virtue of the weir basket,” in which they always found a hundred pounds’

worth on the first of May. “How so?” asked Elphin. “The boat may easily

contain the worth of the hundred.” The skin was lifted and he that opened

it saw the forehead of a child and said to Elphin, “See the beaming

forehead.” “Beaming forehead, Taliesin, be his name,” replied the prince,

who took the child in his arms and because of his own misfortune, pitied

it. He put it behind him on his charger. Immediately the child composed a

song for the consolation and praise of Elphin, and at the same time

prophesied to him his future fame. Elphin took the child into the

stronghold and showed him to his father, who asked the child whether he

was a human being or a spirit. Whereupon he answered in the following

song: “I am Elphin’s first bard; my native country is the land of the

cherubim. The heavenly John called me Merddin [Merlin] and finally, every

one, King: Taliesin. I was nine months in the womb of my mother Ceridwen,

before which I was the little Gwyon, now I am Taliesin. With my Lord I was

in the world above, and fell as Lucifer into the depths of hell. I carried

the banner before Alexander. I know the names of the stars from north to

south. I was in the circle of Gwdion [Gwydi on] in the Tetragrammaton. I

accompanied the Hean into the valley of Hebron. I was in Canaan when

Abraham was killed. I was in the court of Dve before Gwdion was born, a

companion of Eli and Enoch. I was at the judgment that condemned the Son

of God to the cross. I was an overseer at Nimrod’s tower building. I was

in the ark with Noah. I saw the destruction of Sodom. I was in Africa

before Rome was built. I came hither to the remains of Troy (i.e., to

Britain, for the mystical progenitor of the Britons boasted a Trojan

parentage). I was with my Lord in the asses’ manger. I comforted Moses in

the Jordan. I was in the firmament with Mary Magdalene. I was endowed with

spirit by the kettle of Ceridwen. I was a harper at Lleon in Lochlyn. I

suffered hunger for the son of the maiden. I was in the white mountains in

the court of Cynvelyn in chains and bondage, a year and a day. I dwelt in

the kingdom of the Trinity [Tri-unity]. It is not known whether my body is

flesh or fish. I was a teacher of the whole world and remain till the day

of judgment on the face of the earth. [Briefly, Taliesin has the ubiquity

of [Symbol: Mercury].] I sat on the shaken chair at Caer Seden [Caer Seden

is probably the unceasingly recurrent cycle of animal life in the center

of the universe.], which continually rotates between the three elements.

Is it not a marvel that it does reflect a single beam?” Gwyddnaw,

astonished at the evolution of the boy, requested another song and

received the answer: “Water has the property of bringing grace; it is

profitable to devote one’s thoughts aright to God; it is good warmly to

pray to God, because the grace which goes out from him cannot be thwarted.

Thrice have I been born; I know how one has to meditate. It is sad that

men do not come to seek all the knowledge of the world, which is collected

in my breast, for I know everything that has been and everything that will

be.” (Nork. Myth. d. Volkss., pp. 662 ff.)

The story of Taliesin closely harmonizes with that of Hermes in the

Smaragdine tablet. Nork makes some interesting observations, which besides

the nature myth interpretation, contains also an allusion to the idea of

spiritual regeneration.

I have already mentioned that the uterus symbol is frequently the body

cavity of a monster. Just as in the previous myth the hero by introversion

gets three marvelous drops, so in the Finnish epic Kalevala, Wäinämöinen

learns three magic words in the belly of a monster, his dead ancestor

Antero Wipunen. The gigantic size of the body of the being that here and

in other myths represents the mother, has an infantile root. The

introverting person, as we know, becomes a child. To the child the adults,

and of course, the mother, are very large. For the adult, who becomes a

child and revives the corresponding images, the mother image may easily

become a giant.

Stekel tells (Spr. d. Tr., p. 429) of a patient whose dreams show uterus

and regeneration phantasies in concealed form, that he, advised of it by

Stekel, mused upon it some minutes and then said, “I must openly confess

to you these conscious phantasies. I was 13 years old when I wished to

become acquainted with an enormously large giantess, in whose body I might

take a walk, and where I could inspect everything. I would then make

myself quite comfortable and easy in the red cavern. I also phantasied a

swing that was hung 10 m. high in the body of this giantess. There I

wanted to swing up and down joyfully.” This patient had carried over the

original proportion of fœtus and mother to his present size. Now that he

was grown up, the body in which he could move had to be the body of a

giantess.

We shall now not be surprised at the flesh mountain Krun of the mandæan

Hibil-Ziwâ saga or similar giant personalities. Hibil-Ziwâ descended into

the world of darkness in order to get the answer to a question (i.e., once

more the treasure in the form of a marvelous word). He applied in vain to

different persons, but always had to go deeper and finally came to Krûn,

from whom he forced the magic word.

The treasure or wonder working name comes from the depths according to the

hermetic cabbalistic conception also. David is supposed to have found at

the digging of the foundation of the temple, the Eben stijjah, Stone of

the Deeps, that unlocked the fountain of the great deep (I Mos., VII, 11,

and VIII, 12) and on which the Sêm ha-mephorás, the outspoken name (of

God) was inscribed. This stone he brought into the holy of holies, and on

it the ark of the covenant was set. Fearless disciples of wisdom entered

at times into the sanctuary and had learned from the stone the name with

its combinations of letters in order to work wonders therewith.

In cases where the uterus is represented by the body cavity of a monster

the rebirth occurs most frequently by a spitting forth. Also the breaking

forth by means of tearing apart the uterus occurs, and in every case it

has the significance of a “powerfully tearing of oneself away,” the

burning of bridges behind one, the final victory over the mother. To the

descent into the underworld (introversion) corresponds, as characteristic

of the subsequent rebirth, the rising to the light with the released

treasure (magic word as above, water of life, as in Ishtar’s hell journey,

etc.).

A frequently used symbol for the released libido is the light, the sun.

Reborn sun figures, in connection with a daily and yearly up and down, are

also quite general. That the released libido appears thus may have several

reasons. External ones, like the life-imparting properties of the sun,

invite comparison. Then the parallel light = consciousness. [Also that

higher or other consciousness that is mediated by the mystic religious

work; for which expressions like illuminate, etc., are sufficiently

significant. On this topic see my essay, Phant. u. Myth. (Jb., II, p.

597).] and also inner reasons, i.e., such as rest upon the actual light

and warmth sensations, which occur, as literature and observations show,

in persons who are devoted to spiritual training. Here the occasion may be

offered to the mystic to utilize for conscious life and action, functions

that hitherto had been unconscious. Of the appearance of light in the

state of introversion, the histories of saints and ecstatics, and the

autobiographies of this kind of men are full. An enormous number of

instances might be given. I shall rest content with recalling that

Mechthildis von Magdeburg has entitled her revelations: “A flowing Light

of my Godhead” (“Ein vliessend Lieht miner Gotheit”), and with adding Jane

Leade’s words: “If any one asks what is the magic power [sought by the

reborn] I answer, ‘It is to be compared to a wonderfully powerful

inspiration to the soul, to a blood, coloring and penetrating and

transmuting the inner life, a concentrating and essentially creative light

and fire flame.’ ”

The Omphalopsychites or Hesychiasts, those monks who dwelt in the Middle

Ages on Mount Athos, were given the following instructions by their Abbot

Simeon: “Sitting alone in private, note and do what I say. Close thy doors

and raise thy spirit from vain and temporal things. Then rest thy beard on

the breast and direct the gaze with all thy soul on the middle of the body

at the navel. [See Note G.] Contract the air passages so as not to breathe

too easily. Endeavor inwardly to find the location of the heart, where all

psychic powers reside. At first thou wilt find darkness and inflexible

density. When, however, thou perseverest day and night, thou wilt,

wonderful to relate, enjoy inexpressible rapture. For then the spirit sees

what it never has recognized; it sees the air between the heart and itself

radiantly beaming.” This light, the hermits declare, is the light of God

that was visible to the young men on Tabor.

Yoga-Sutra (Patanyali, I, 36) says: “Or that sorrowless condition of mind,

full of light (would conduce to samadhi).” And the commentator Manilal

Nabubhai Dvivedi remarks upon this: “The light here referred to is the

light of pure sattva. When the mind is deeply absorbed in that quality,

then, indeed, does this condition of light which is free from all pain

follow. Vachaspatimisra remarks that in the heart there is a lotus-like

form having eight petals and with its face turned downward. One should

raise this up by rechaka (exhalation of the breath) and then meditate upon

it, locating therein the four parts of the pranava, viz., a, u, m, and the

point in their several meanings. When the mind thus meditating falls in

the way of the susumna, it sees a perfect calm light like that of the moor

of the sun, resembling the calm ocean of milk. This is the jyotis, light,

which is the sure sign of complete sattva. Some such practice is here

meant....” The similarity to the instruction of the Abbot Simeon is

evident.

The light and sun symbolism in alchemistic writings is everywhere used;

yet gold also = sun, indeed the same sign [Symbol: Gold] serves for both.

I should like to call attention incidentally to a beautiful use of the sun

symbol in “Amor Proximi,” which differs slightly from the more restricted

gold symbolism. On p. 32 ff. we read: “See Christ is not outside of us,

but he is intimately within us all, but locked up, and in order that he

may unlock that which is locked up in us, did he once become outwardly

visible, as a man such as we are, the hard sin enclosure excepted, and of

this the [Symbol: Gold] in this world is the true copy, which quickly

convinced the heathens from the beginning of the world that God must

become man even as the light of nature has become a body in the [Symbol:

Gold]. Now the [Symbol: Gold] is not alone in the firmament outside of all

other creatures, but it is much more in the center of all creatures but

shut up, but the external [Symbol: Gold] is as a figure of Christ, in that

it unlocks in us the enclosed [Symbol: Gold], as its image and substance,

just as Christ does, through his becoming man, also unlock in us the image

of God. For were this not so, then the sphere of the earth would approach

in vain to the [Symbol: Gold] in order to derive its power from it, and

nothing at all would grow from the accursed [Symbol: earth]. [The symbol

[Symbol: earth] means earth.] So the [Symbol: earth] shows us that

inasmuch as it approaches near to the [Symbol: Gold] it is unlocked, so

we, too, approaching Christ, shall attain again the image of God; then at

the end of time this [Symbol: earth] will be translated into the point of

the sun [in Solis punctum] [Cf. what has been said about the point in the

[Symbol: Gold].];” and still farther on: “Ye see that the [Symbol: earth]

turns to the sun, but the reason ye know not; if the earth had not in the

creation gone out of the Solis punctum, it could not have turned and

yearned according to its magnetic manner, so this turning around shows us

that the world was once renewed, and in its beginning, as [Symbol: Gold]

is punctum; it desires to return, and its rest will be alone in that;

therefore the soul of man is also similarly gone out of the eternally

divine sun, towards which it also yearns....”

Our parable, to which I should like now to revert, appears in a new light.

It would be a waste of time to lead the reader once more through all the

adventures of the wanderer. He again, without difficulty, will find all

the aforesaid elements in the parable, and will readily recognize the

introversion and rebirth. I therefore pick out for further consideration

only a few particular motives of the parable or alchemy which seem to me

to require special elucidation.

We should not forget the singular fact that after the introversion, at the

beginning of the work of rebirth, a deluge occurs. This flood takes place

not merely in the alchemistic process (when the bodies undergo

putrefaction in the vessel and become black), but we see the mythic

deluges coming with unmistakable regularity at the same time, i.e., after

the killing of the original being (separation of the primal parents,

etc.), and before the new creation of the world by the son of God. Stucken

(SAM., p. 123): “We see corroborated ... what I have already emphasized,

that on the appearance of the flood catastrophe the creation of the world

is not yet finished. Even before the catastrophe there was indeed an earth

and life on it, but only after the flood, begins the forming of the

present Cosmos. Thus it is in the germanic Ymir-saga, and in the

Babylonian Tiamat-saga, in the Egyptian and likewise in the Iranian.” What

may the flood be in the psychological sense. Dreams and poetry tell us, in

that they figure the passions in the image of a storm-tossed sea. After

the introversion, whose perils have already been mentioned, there is

always an outbreak of the passions. Not without consequences is the Stone

of the Deeps elevated, which locks the prison of the subterranean powers.

(Cf. Book of Enoch, X, 5, and passim.) The point is to seize the wildly

rushing spirits and to get possession of their powers without injury. The

entire inundation must, in the philosophical vessel, be absorbed by the

bodies that have turned black, and then it works on them for the purpose

of new creation, fructifying them like the floods of water upon the earth.

It does no damage to the materia only then, when it is actually black

(stage of victory). If this happens, it (the materia) is in contrast to

the waters raging over it, like an ocean which suffers no alteration by

the influx of waters. “Like an ocean that continually fills itself and yet

does not overflow its boundaries, even with the inflowing waters, so the

man acquires calm, into whom all desires flow in similar wise, and not he

who wantonly indulges his desire.” (Bhag. Gita, II, 70. Latin: translated

by Schlegel: German [Schroeder].)

“Wer wie das Meer in das die Wasser strömen

Das sich anfüllet und doch ruhig dasteht

Wer so in sich die Wünsche lässt verschwinden,

Der findet Ruhe—nicht wer ihnen nachgibt.”

Above I have compared the lion of the parable to the Sphinx of Œdipus, and

on the other hand, it appears from later deliberation that it (the lion)

must be the retrogressive element in men, which is to be sacrificed in the

work of purification. Now I find several remarks of Jung (Psychology of

the Unconscious) that mediate very well between both ideas. Even if I do

not care to go so far as to see in the animal only the sexual impelling

powers, but prefer to regard it rather as the titanic part of our

impulses, I find the conception of the author very fortunate. The Sphinx,

that double being, symbolizes the double natured man, to whom his

bestiality still clings. Indeed it is to be taken exactly as a functional

representation of the development of reason out of the impulses (human

head and shoulders growing out of an animal body).

The homunculus motive would likewise have to be regarded in a new light. I

have said that the mystic was his own father; he creates a new man

(himself) out of himself with a merely symbolic mother, therefore with

peculiar self-mastery, without the coöperation of any parents. That means

the same thing as the artificial creation of a man. We recognize therefore

the anagogic significance of the homunculus, the idea of which we found

closely interwoven with alchemy in general. This connection also has not

escaped Jung, though he takes it one-sidedly and draws a too far-reaching

conclusion. He points to the vision of Zosimos, where, in the hollow of

the altar he finds boiling water and men in it, and remarks that this

vision reveals the original sense of alchemy, an original impregnation

magic, i.e., a way in which children could be made without a mother. I

must observe that the hermetic attempt to get back to Adam’s condition has

some of the homunculus phantasy in it. Adam was regarded as androgyne, a

being at once man and woman, but sufficient in himself alone for

impregnation and procreation. Welling says in his Opus mago-cabbalisticum,

“This man Adam was created, as the scripture says, i.e., of the male and

female sex, not two different bodies but one in its essence and two in its

potentiality, for he was the earth Adamah, the red and white [Symbol:

Sulfur] the spiritual [Symbol: Gold] and [Symbol: Silver], the male and

female seed, the dust of the Adamah from Schamajim, and therefore had the

power to multiply himself magically (just as he was celestial) which could

not indeed have been otherwise, unless the essential masculinity and

femininity were dissociated.” I am reminded in this connection that

Mercury is also bisexual; the “materia” must be brought into the

androgynic state “rebis.” The idea of hermaphroditism plays a well known,

important part in mythology also.

* * * * *

We have explained why phantasy creations carry two meanings, the

psychoanalytic and the anagogic, apparently fundamentally different, even

contradictory, and yet, on account of their completeness, undeniable. We

have found that the two meanings correspond to two aspects or two

evolutionary phases of a psychic inventory of powers, which are attached

as a unity to symbolic types, because an intro-determination can take

place in connection with the sublimation of the impulses. When we

formulated the problem of the multiple interpretation, we were struck with

the fact that besides the two meanings that were nominally antipodal in

ethical relations, there was a third ethically indifferent, namely, the

natural scientific. Apart from the fact that I have not yet exhausted the

anagogic contents of our material and so must add a number of things in

the following sections, I am confronted with the task of elucidating the

position of the nature myth portion. That will necessarily be done

briefly.

In the case of alchemy the natural scientific content is chemistry (in

some degree connected with physics and cosmology), a fact hardly requiring

proof. The alchemistic chemistry was not, to be sure, scientific in the

strict modern sense. In comparison with our modern attitudes it had so

much mythical blood in it that I could call it a mythologically

apperceiving science, wherein I go a little beyond the very clearly

developed conception of Wilhelm Wundt (Volkerps. Myth. u. Rel.) regarding

mythological apperception, from a desire for a more rigid formulation, but

without losing the peculiar concept of the mythical or giving it the

extension it has acquired with G. F. Lipps. Alchemy’s myth-like point of

view and manner of thinking is paralleled by the fact that it was

dominated by symbolic representation and the peculiarities that go with

it. [The concept of the symbol is here to be taken, of course, in the

wider sense, as in my papers on Symbolbildung (Jb. ps. F., II-IV).]

The choice of a symbol is strongly influenced by what strongly impresses

the mind, what moves the soul, whether joyful or painful, what is of vital

interest, in short, whatever touches us nearly, whether consciously or

unconsciously. This influence is shown even in the commonplace instances,

where the professional or the amateur is betrayed by the manner of

apperceiving one and the same object. Thus the landscape painter sees in a

lake a fine subject, the angler an opportunity to fish, the business man a

chance to establish a sanitarium or a steamboat line, the yachtsman a

place for his pleasure trips, the heat tormented person a chance for a

bath, and the suicide, death. In the symbolic conception of an object,

moreover (which is much more dependent on the unconscious or uncontrolled

stimulation of the phantasy that shapes the symbol), the choice from among

the many possibilities can surely not fall upon such images as are

unsympathetic or uninteresting to the mind. Even if we consciously make

comparisons we think of an example mostly from a favorite and familiar

sphere; when something “occurs” to us there is already evidenced some part

of an unconscious complex. This will become elaborated in the degree that

the phantasy is given free play.

The raw product then, of the symbol-choosing phantasy of the individual

(“raw,” i.e., not covered for publicity with a premeditated varnish) bears

traces of the things that closely concern the person in question. (“Out of

the fulness of the heart the mouth speaketh”—even without premeditation.)

If we now start from a spiritual product which is expressed in symbols

(mythologically apperceived), and whose author we must take to be not an

individual man but many generations or simply mankind, then this product

will, in the peculiarities of the selection of the symbol, conceivably

signify not individual propensities but rather those things that affect

identically the generality of mankind. In alchemy, which as a

mythologically apperceiving science is completely penetrated by symbols,

we regard as remarkable in the selection of symbols, the juxtaposition of

such images as reflect what we have, through psychoanalysis, become

acquainted with, as the “titanic” impulses (Œdipus complex). No wonder!

These very impulses are the ones that we know from psychoanalytic

investigations as those which stand above all individual idiosyncracies.

And if we had not known it, the very circumstances of alchemy would have

taught us.

The familiar scheme of impulses with its “titanic” substratum, which is

necessarily existent in all men (although it may have been in any

particular case extraordinarily sublimated) comes clearly to view in

individual creations of fancy. It must be found quite typically developed,

however, where a multitude of men (fable making mankind) were interested

in the founding, forming, polishing and elaborating of the symbolic

structure. Such creations have transcended the merely personal. An example

of this kind is the “mythological” science of alchemy. That we are

repelled by the retrograde perspective of the types residing in its

symbols (and which often appear quite nakedly) comes from the fact that in

the critic these primal impulse forms have experienced a strong

repression, and that their re-emergence meets a strong resistance

(morality, taste, etc.).

The much discussed elementary types have therefore insinuated themselves

into the body of the alchemistic hieroglyphics, as mankind, confronted

with the riddles of physico-chemical facts, struggled to express a mastery

of them by means of thought. The typical inventory of powers, as an

apperception mass, so to speak, helped to determine the selection of

symbols. A procedure of determination has taken place here similar to that

we might have noticed in the coincidence of material and functional

symbolism in dreams. Here again appears the heuristic value which the

introduction of the concept of the functional categories had for our

problem.

The possibility of deriving the “titanic” and the “anagogic” from the

alchemistic (often by their authors merely chemically intended) allegories

is now easily explained. We can work it out, because it was already put in

there, even if neither in the extreme form of the “titanic” (i.e., the

retrograde aspect), nor in that of the “anagogic” (the progressive

aspect), but in an indeterminate middle stage of the intro-determination.

What gave opportunity for this play of symbolism was an effort of

intelligence directed toward chemistry. The chemical content in alchemy

is, so to speak, what has been purposely striven for, while the rest came

by accident, yet none the less inevitably. So then natural philosophy

appears to be the carrier, or the stalk on which the titanic and the

anagogic symbolism blossoms. Thus it becomes intelligible how the

alchemistic hieroglyphic aiming chiefly at chemistry, adapted itself

through and through to the hermetic anagogic educational goal, so that at

times and by whole groups, alchemy was used merely as a mystical guide

without any reference to chemistry.

What we have found in alchemy we shall now apply to mythology where

analogous relations have been indicated. [The apperception theory here

used should not be confused with the intellectual theory (of Steinthal)

which Wundt (V. Ps., IV2, pp. 50 ff.) criticised as the illusion theory. I

should be more inclined to follow closely the Wundtian conception of the

“mythological apperception” (ibid., pp. 64 ff.) with particular emphasis

on the affective elements that are to work there. With Wundt, the affects

are really the “actual impulse mainsprings” and the most powerful stimuli

of the phantasy (ib., p. 60). “The affects of fear and hope, wish and

desire, love and hate, are the widely disseminated sources of the myth.

They are, of course, continually linked with images. But they are the ones

that first breathe life into these images.” I differ from Wundt in that I

have more definite ideas of the origin of these affects, by which they are

brought into close connection with the frequently mentioned elementary

motives.] Modern investigation of myths has, in my opinion, sufficiently

shown that we are here concerned with a nucleus of natural philosophy

(comprehension of astral and even of meteorological processes, etc.)

around which legendary and historical material can grow. As has been shown

by two fairy tales and as I could have abundantly shown from countless

others, the psychoanalytic and the anagogic interpretations are possible

alongside of the scientific. [We can criticise Hitchcock for having in his

explanations of fairy tales considered them only in their most developed

form, and not bothered about their origin and archaic forms. And as a

matter of fact the more developed forms permit a very much richer anagogic

interpretation than the archaic. But that is no proof against the

interpretation, but only establishes their orientation in the development

of the human spirit. The anagogic interpretation is indeed a prospective

explanation in the sense of an ethical advance. Now the evolution even of

fairy tales shows quite clearly a progression towards the ethical; and

inasmuch as the ethical content of the tale grows by virtue of this

evolution, the anagogic explanation is in the nature of things able to

place itself in higher developed tales in correspondingly closer

connection with mythical material.] I adduce here only one example, namely

the schema that Frobenius has derived from the comparison of numerous sun

myths. The hero is swallowed by a water monster in the west [the sun sets

in the sea]. The animal journeys with him to the east (night path of the

sun apparently under the sea). He lights a fire in the belly of the animal

and cuts off a piece of the pendant heart when he feels hungry. Soon after

he notices that the fish is running aground. (The reillumined sun comes up

to the horizon from below.) He begins immediately to cut his way out of

the animal, and then slips out (sunrise). In the belly of the fish it has

become so hot that all his hair has fallen out. (Hair probably signifies

rays.) Quite as clear as the nature myth purport, is the fact that we have

a representation of regeneration, which is quite as conceivable in

psychoanalytic as in anagogic explanation.

Now I cannot approve of the attempt of many psychoanalysts to treat as a

negligible quantity or to ignore altogether the scientific content (nature

nucleus) of the myths which has been so well substantiated by the newer

research, even though it is not so well established in the details. [I

have uttered a similar warning in Jb. ps. F., IV (Princip. Anreg.) and

previously, in Jb. ps. F., II (Phant. u. Myth), have advocated the

equality of the natural philosophical and the psychological content. Now I

observe with pleasure that very recently an author of the psychoanalytic

school is engaged on the very subject that I have recommended as so

desirable. Dr. Emil F. Lorenz, in the February number of _Imago_, 1913,

treats the “Titan Motiv in der allgemeinen Mythologie” in a manner that

approaches my conception of it. In the consideration of human primal

motives as apperception mass, there is particularly revealed a common

thought in the primitive interpretation of natural phenomenon.

Unfortunately the article appeared after this book was finished. So even

if I am not in a position to enter into this question, I will none the

less refer to it and at the same time express the hope that Lorenz will

further elaborate the interesting preliminary contribution, communicated

in the form of aphorisms, as he terms it.] The inadmissibility of these

omissions arises from the vital importance and gripping effect of the

objects thus (i.e., mythologically) regarded by humanity (e.g., of the

course of the sun, so infinitely important for them in their dependence

upon the moods of nature). If then, on the one hand, it will not be

possible for the psychoanalyst to force the nature mythologist out of his

position and somehow to prove that any symbol means not the sun but the

father, so on the other hand the nature mythologist who may understand his

own interpretations so admirably, must not attack the specifically

psychological question: why in the apperception of an object, this and not

that symbolic image offers itself to consciousness. So, for instance, why

the sunset and sunrise is so readily conceived as a swallowing and

eructation, or as a process of regeneration. Yet Frobenius (Zeitalt. d.

Sonneng., I, p. 30) finds the symbolism “negligible.”

It is also conceivable that the obtrusive occurrence of incest, castration

of the father, etc., should make the mythologists ponder. It was bias on

the part of many of them to be unwilling to see the psychological value of

these things. I must therefore acknowledge the justice of Rank’s view when

he (Inz-Mot., p. 278) says in reference to the Œdipus myth (rightly, in

all probability, interpreted by Goldziher as a sun myth): “Yet it is

indubitable that these ideas of incest with the mother and the murder of

the father are derived from human life, and that the myth in this human

disguise could never be brought down from heaven without a corresponding

psychic idea, which may really have been an unconscious one even at the

time of the formation of the myth, just as it is with the mythologists of

today.”

And in another passage (pp. 318 ff.): “While these investigators (astral

and moon mythologists) would consider incest and castration operative in

an equal or even greater degree than we do, as the chief motives in the

formation of myths in the celestial examples only, we are forced by

psychoanalytical considerations to find in them universal primitive human

purposes which later, as a result of the need of psychological

justification, have been projected into the heavens from which our myth

interpreters wish in turn to derive them. [Whether such a need of

justification has had a share in the formation of myths appears to me

doubtful or at any rate not demonstrable. At all events in so strongly

emphasizing these unnecessary assumptions and conceiving the projection

upon heaven of the mundane psychological primal motives as an act of

release, we hide the more important cause for concerning ourselves with

heaven, namely the already mentioned vital importance of the things that

are accomplished there. Now the fact that the primal motives cooperate in

the symbolical realization of these things, implies no defense directed

against them. A better defense would be to repress them in symbolism than,

as really happens, to utilize them in it.] These interpreters, for

example, have believed that they recognized in the motive of dismemberment

(castration) a symbolic suggestion of the gradual waning of the moon,

while the reverse is for us undoubted, namely, that the offensive

castration has found a later symbolization in the moon phases. Yet it

argues either against all logic and psychology, or for our conception of

the sexualization of the universe, that man should have symbolized so

harmless a phenomenon as the changes of the moon, by so offensive a one as

the dismemberment or castration of the nearest relative. So the nature

mythologists also, and Siecke in particular, have thought that primitive

man has ‘immediately regarded’ the (to him) incomprehensible waning of the

moon as a dismemberment, while this is psychologically quite unthinkable

unless this image, which is taken from earthly life, should have likewise

originated in human life and thought (phantasy).”

It is indeed never conceivable that men would have chosen for the natural

phenomenon exactly these titanic symbols, if these had not had for them a

special psychic value, and therefore touched them closely. If any one

should object that they would not have “chosen” them (because they did not

purposely invent allegories, as was formerly thought), I should raise the

contrary question: Who has chosen them? I will stick to the word “choose”

for a choice has taken place. But the powers that arranged this choice

lived and still live in the soul of man.

The conception advocated by me gives their due to the nature mythologists

just as much as to the psychologists that oppose them. It reinstates,

moreover, a third apparently out-worn tendency [the so-called degeneration

theory] that sees in the myth the veiling of ancient priestly wisdom. This

obsolete view had the distinction that it placed some value, which the

modern interpreters did not, on the anagogic content of the myths (even if

in a wrong perspective). The necessity of reckoning with an anagogic

content of myths results from the fact that religions with their ethical

valuations, have developed from mythical beginnings. And account must be

taken of these relations. In the way in which the older interpretations of

myths regarded the connection, they pursued a phantom, but their point of

view becomes serviceable as soon as it reverses the order of evolution. It

is not true that the religious content in myths was the priestly wisdom of

antiquity, but rather that it became such at the end of the development.

My conception shows further that the utmost significance for the

recognition and comparison of the motives (corresponding to the

psychological types) attaches to the material so brilliantly reconstructed

by Stucken and other modern investigators, but not the convincing evidence

which some think they find there for the migration theory, as against the

theory of elementary thoughts.

With regard to the possibly repellent impression derived from the notion

of an unconscious thought activity of the myth forming phantasy, I should

like to close with these words of Karl Otfried Müller: “It is possible

that the concept of unconsciousness in the formation of myths will appear

obscure to many, even mysterious ... but is history not to acknowledge the

strange also, when unprejudiced investigation leads to it?”

Section II.

The Goal Of The Work.

In the preceding section the symbolism and the psychology of the progress

of the mystic work has been developed more or less, but certainly not to

the end. Regeneration is evidently the beginning of a new development, the

nature of which we have not yet closely examined. Nothing has yet been

said definitely about the later phases of the work and about its goal. I

am afraid that this section, although it is devoted chiefly to the goal of

the work, cannot elucidate it with anything like the clearness that would

be desirable. To be sure the final outcome of the work can be summed up in

the three words: Union with God. Yet we cannot possibly rest satisfied

with a statement that is for our psychological needs so vague; we must

endeavor to comprehend the intimate nature of the spiritual experiences

that we have on the journey into the unsearchable; although I must at the

outset point out that at every step by which the symbolism of the mystics

leads us towards regeneration, we run the risk of wandering away from

psychology, and that in the following we shall all too soon experience

these deviations. We shall have to transplant ourselves uncritically at

times, into the perceptual world of the hermetics, which is, of course, a

mere fiction, for in order to do it rightly we should have to have a

mystical development behind us [whatever this may be]; one would have to

be himself a “twice born.” One thing can be accepted as true, that a

series of symbols that occur with striking agreement among all mystics of

all times and nations is related to a variety of experiences which

evidently are common to all mystics in different degrees of their

development, but are foreign to the non-mystics (or more exactly to all

men, even mystics, who have not attained the given level).

With this premise I will take up the question of the goal of alchemy

(mysticism). In this I follow in general the train of thought of

Hitchcock, without adhering closely to his exposition. (I cite H. A. =

Hitchcock, Remarks upon Alchemy.)

The alchemistic process is, as the hermetics themselves say, a cyclical

work, and the end resides to a certain degree in the beginning. Here lies

one of the greatest mysteries of the whole of alchemy, although the

meaning of the language is to be understood more or less as follows. If,

for example, it is said that whoever wishes to make gold must have gold,

we must suppose that the seeker of truth must _be_ true (H. A., p. 67);

that whoever desires to live in harmony with the conscience must be in

harmony with it, and that whoever will go the way to God, must already

have God in himself. Now when the conscience, wherein the sense of right

and justice has existence, becomes active under the idea of God, it is

endowed with supernatural force and is then, as I understand it, the

alchemists’ philosophical mercury and his valued salt of mercury. It is no

less his sovereign treacle, etc. (H. A., p. 53). The progress of the work

points to some kind of unity as the goal which, however, very few men

attain except in words (H. A., p. 157). The hermetic writers set up the

claim to a complete agreement in their teachings, but this agreement is

restricted to some principles of vital significance in their doctrine,

which have reference almost exclusively to a definite practice; probably

to a complete setting to work of the consciousness of duty, which is what

Kant claims to do with his categorical imperative: “An unreasoning, though

not unreasonable, obedience to an experienced, imperious sense of duty,

leaving the result to God; and this I am disposed to call the Way.”

Do thy duty!

Ask not after the result of thy doing!

Without dependence thereon carry out that which is thy duty!

Whoever acts without attachment to the world, that man attains the

loftiest goal.

And the like in many places in the Bhagavad-Gita.

Now the end is perhaps the fruit of this obedience. It may be that the

steady preservation of the inward unity, which regards with composure all

external vicissitudes, leads man finally to some special experience, by

which a seal of confirmation is set upon what was first a mere trust in

the ultimate blessing of rectitude (H. A., p. 128). The hermetic

philosophers would have the conscience known as the Way or as the base of

the work, but with regard to the peculiar wonder work of alchemy

(transmutation) they place the chief value on love; it effects the

transformation of the _subject_ into the _object_ loved (H. A., p. 132).

Arabi: “It is a fundamental principle of love that thou becomest the real

essence of the beloved (God) in that thou givest up thy individuality and

disappearest in him. Blessedness is the abiding place of the divine and

holy joy.” (Horten, Myst., I, p. 9.)

Similarly we find in the yoga primers that the spirit, by sinking into an

object of perception, becomes identical with the object. The object need

not be the very highest, but a gradation is possible. Arabi, too,

recognizes a gradation of objects, as they correspond, as correlates of

sinking or surrender, to the different mystical states. [Colors, etc., of

alchemy.] Two passages of Arabi may be quoted: “My heart is eligible for

every form [of the religious cult]; for it is said that the heart (root:

kalaba = overturn, to alter oneself) is so called from its continual

changing.” It changes in accordance with the various (divine) influences

that it feels, according to the various states of the mystical

illumination. This variation of experiences is a result of the variation

of the divine appearances, which occur in its inmost spirit. The law of

religion (theology) speaks of this phenomenon as the changing and

metamorphizing in the forms (of living and being). Gazelles are the

objects of the mystic’s love. In one of his poems he says: “And surrender

yourselves to play in the manner of lovely maidens with buxom breasts and

enjoy the luxuriant willows in the manner of the female gazelles.” In his

commentary on this passage he says: “ ‘Play’ denotes the various states of

the mystic, to which he is advanced when he passes from one divine name to

another.” (Horten, Myst., I, pp. 11, 13, ff.)

It is the ethical ideal of the mystic, more and more to put off the

limited ego, and to take on in its place the qualities of God, in order to

become God.

When with Arabi the theme of an ode is “Through asceticism, fervent

yearning after God and patience in suffering, man becomes God or acquires

divine nature” (Horten, Myst., I, p. 16), then this goal is identical with

that of the alchemistic transmutation; the base metal acquires (after

purification, refining, etc.) by virtue of the tincturing with the

Philosopher’s Stone the nature of gold, i.e., the divine nature.

But patient effort is requisite. Precipitancy is as great an evil as

inactivity. It is, to use the language of the alchemists, just as bad to

scorch the tender blossoms by a forced and hasty fire (that in spite of

its intensity may be merely a straw fire), as to let go out the fire which

should be continuously kept alight, and to let grow cold the materia. The

process of distillation is to be accomplished slowly, so that the spirits

may not escape. That which rises as steam through the “heating” in the

“receptacle” (i.e., in man) is the soul rising into the higher regions.

Distilling like rain drops [destillare = drop down], it brings each time

to the thirsting materia a divine gain. But this process is not to be

overdone, for the thirsting earth must be gently instilled with the

heavenly moisture of the water of life: the process of “imbibition.”

The metallic subject must be gently dissolved in its own natural water

(conscience), not with powerful media, not with corroding acids, which the

foolish employ in order to reach the goal in a hurry, for by such means he

either spoils the materia or produces a merely superficial action.

Senseless asceticism and the like are just as objectionable as the

impetuous enthusiasm (which we called straw fire here). The ethical work

of alchemy as of common life is a sublimation; it is important that the

materia takes up at any time only as much as it can sublimate. We may also

conceive it in this way. The materia is to be moistened only with the

water that it can utilize after the solution has taken place (i.e., keep

in enduring form, absorb into their nature). Compare in this connection

the words of Count Bernhard von Trevis: “I tell you assuredly that no

water dissolves any metallic spices by a natural solution, save that which

abides with them in matter and form, and which the metals themselves,

being dissolved, can recongeal.” (H. A., pp. 189 ff.)

The passage “slowly and quite judiciously” of the Smaragdine tablet will

now be fully appreciated.

The desired completion or oneness should be a state of the soul, a

condition of being, not of knowing. The means that lead to it presuppose

in the neophyte something analogous to religious faith, and because the

conditions of the mastery appear to the neophyte to contradict nature or

each other, the mystical experiences that are derived from it are called

“supernatural.” The “supernatural” is, however, only an appearance, which

results when we conceive nature too narrowly, as when we see in her merely

the totality of bodies. If we mean by nature the possibility of life and

activity, then that which appears supernatural must be counted as nature.

The expressions natural and supernatural are but means of the thinking

judgment, they are preliminaries which have a certain justification but

only so long as they are an expression for a stage of knowledge. The

initially supernatural resolves itself in nature, or better, Nature is

raised to divinity. If the natural and the supernatural are symbolized,

the one being described as sulphur and the other as mercury, then the

disciples of philosophy, under the obligation to think things and not

merely names, are finally brought, during the process of search, to a

recognition of the inseparableness of both in a third something which may

be called sun; but as all three are recognized as inseparably one, the

termini can change places until finally an inner illumination takes place.

“Those that have never had this experience are apt to decry it as

imaginary, but those who enter into it know that they have entered into a

higher life, or feel themselves enabled to look upon things from a higher

point of view. To use what may seem to be a misapplication of language: it

is a supernatural birth, naturally entered upon.” (H. A., p. 229.) When

the alchemists speak of philosophical mercury and philosophical gold, they

mean something in man and something in God that finally turns out to be

the One. “By this symbolism the alchemists escape the difficulty of

treating the subject in ordinary language. The learner must always return

to nature and her possibilities for the sense of the derived symbols, and

to it the hermetic masters also continually direct him.” (H. A., pp. 232

ff.) If the true light has risen in the hearts of the seekers, kindled

from within (although apparently by a miracle from without) “the sulphur

and mercury become one, or are seen to be the same, differing only in a

certain relation; somewhat as the known and the unknown (and the conscious

and the unconscious) are but one, the unknown decreasing as the known

increases, and vice versa.” (H. A., p. 235.)

One alchemist teaches: “Consider well what it is you desire to produce,

and according to that regulate your intention. Take the last thing in your

intention as the first thing in your principles.... Attempt nothing out of

its own nature [then follow parables that grapes are not gathered from

thistles, etc.]. If you know how to apply this doctrine in your operation

as you ought, you will find great benefit, and a door will hereby be

opened to the discovery of greater mysteries.” Actually there is a greater

difference between one who seeks what he seeks as an end, and one who

seeks it as a means to an end. To seek knowledge for riches is a very

different thing from seeking riches (or independence) as an instrument of

knowledge. In the study in question the means and the end must coincide,

i.e., the truth must be sought for itself only. (H. A., p. 238.) In the

book, “De Manna Benedicto,” we read: “Whoever thou art that readest this

tractate, let me exhort thee that thou directest thy understanding and

soul more toward God for the keeping of his commandments, than toward love

of this art [sc. its external portions], for although it be the only,

indeed the whole wisdom of the world, it is yet powerless in comparison

with the divine wisdom of the soul, which is the love towards God, in the

keeping of his commandments.... Hast thou been covetous, profane one? Be

thou meek and pious and serve in all lowliness the glorious creator; if

thou art not determined to do that, thou art employed in trying to wash an

Ethiop white.”

Desire is, as some ancient philosophers think, the root of all affects,

which manifest themselves in pairs. Joy corresponds to desire fulfilled,

sorrow to the obstructed or imperiled fulfillment; hope is the expectation

of fulfillment, fear the opposite, etc. All the pairs of opposites are in

some degree superficial, something that comes and goes with time, while

the essential remains, itself invisible and without relation to time—a

perpetual activity, an ever enduring conation as it was formerly called.

(It is the libido of the psychoanalysis. In its manifestations it is

subjected to bipolarity, as Stekel has named the inevitable pairs of

opposites.)

The pairs of opposites have been noticed in the Hindu doctrine of

salvation exactly as in alchemy. Alchemistic hieroglyphics we know are

rich in [ambiguous] expressions for a hostile Dyas (couple), with whose

removal a better condition first commences, although at the outset it is

actually requisite for the achievement of the work. In the Bhagavad-Gita

the pairs of opposites play a great part. The world is full of agony on

account of the pairs of opposites, which are to be found everywhere. Heat,

cold; high, low; good, evil; joy, sorrow; poor, rich; young, old; etc. The

basis of the opposites is formed by the primal opposition Rajas-Tamas. To

escape from it in recognizing the true ego as superior to it and not

participating in it, is the foremost purpose of the effort toward

salvation. So whoever has raised himself above the qualities of substances

is described as having escaped from opposites.

“Contact of atoms is only cold and warm, brings pleasure and pain,

They come and go without permanency—tolerate them O Bharata.

The wise man, whom these do not affect, O mighty hero,

Who bears pain and pleasure with equanimity he is ripening for

immortality.” (II, 14 ff.)

The spirit, the true ego, is raised above the agitation of the qualities

of nature:

“Swords cut him not, fire burns him not,

Water wets him not nor does the wind wither him.

Not to be cut, not to burn, not to get wet, not to be withered,

He is constant, above everything, continuous, eternal immovable.”

[II 23 ff.]

This characterization sounds almost like the description of the mercury of

the philosophers, which is indestructible, a water that does not wet, a

fire that does not consume.

Hermes on the human soul: “The accidents residing in the material

substances have never sympathized with each other, but on the contrary

have always been in opposition and in mutual conflict. Guard thyself O

soul from them and turn away from them.... Thou O soul art of one nature,

but they are manifold; thou art but one with thyself; they are, however,

in conflict with each other. [Psychoanalytically regarded, to the soul is

here assigned the property which is desired but is not present, while that

which is undesired but actually present in the soul (inclination and

disinclination) is projected into the external world.] ... How long O soul

wilt thou yet be needy, and flee from every sensation to its opposite, now

from warmth to cold, now from cold to warmth, now from hunger to satiety,

now from satiety to hunger?” (Fleischer Herm. a. d. Seele, pp. 14 ff.) “Be

thou O soul regardful of the behavior in this world, yet not as a child

without understanding who when one gives him to eat and acts leniently

towards him is satisfied and cheerful, but when one treats him severely

cries and is bad, indeed begins to weep while laughing and when he is

satisfied begins again to be bad. This is not worthy of approbation but

rather a mongrel and blameworthy behavior. The world O soul, is so

organized as to unify exactly these opposites; good and evil, weal and

woe, distress and comfort, and contains types of ideas that have the

effect of waking the soul and making it aware of itself, so that as a

result it gains reason that illumines and consummates knowledge, i.e.,

wisdom and knowledge of the true nature of things. For this purpose alone

has the soul come into the world, to learn and experience; but it is like

a man that comes to a place to become acquainted with it and know its

conditions, but then gives up the learning, inquiring and collecting of

information, and diverts his spirit by reaching after luxury and the

enjoyment of other things, and in so doing forgets to acquire that which

he was to strive for.” (L. c., pp. 8 ff.)

I return to the psychological point of view of our friend Hitchcock:

“Desire and love are almost synonymous terms, for we love and seek what we

desire, and so also we desire and seek what we love; yet neither love nor

desire is by any necessary connection directed to one thing rather than

another, but either under conditions suitable to it may be directed to

anything. From which it follows that it is possible to make God as the

Eternal, its object, or call it truth and we may see that its enjoyment

must partake of its own nature. Now we read that it is not common for man

to love and pursue the good and the true because it is the good and true;

but we call that good which we desire and there lies the great mistake of

life. From all which we may see that vast consequences follow from the

choice of an object of desire, which as we have said, may as easily be an

eternal as a transient one. We should be on guard against a too mechanical

conception of these things. By so doing we should depart too greatly from

the point of view of the true alchemists. One author tells of the

significant advance that he made from the time when he discovered that

nature works ‘magically.’ ” (H. A., Hitchcock’s Remarks upon Alchemy, pp.

294 ff.)

Aversion and hate, the opposites of desire and love, are not independent

affections but depend upon the latter. There is only the one impulsion of

demand that strives for what satisfies it and repulses what conflicts with

it. “If then desire is turned to one only eternal thing, then, since the

nature of man takes its character from his leading or chief desire, the

whole man is gradually converted to, or, as some think, transmuted into

that one thing.” (H. A., pp. 295 ff.)

The doctrine naturally presupposes the possibility, already mentioned, of

a schooling of the will, yet it will still be necessary to fix it upon a

definite object. The love of the transitory finds itself deceived because

the objects vanish, while the desire itself, the conation (or in

psychoanalytic language the libido), continues forever. For this

everlasting desire only an everlasting object is suitable. An object of

that kind is not to be found in the external world. We can only withdraw

the outer object and offer ideals in exchange. The moment that this

withdrawal of external objects takes place the libido begins, as it were,

to eject itself as an object; in the ideal we give it a nucleus for this

process, in order that it may form the new object around it and water it

with its own life. So in a “magic” way a new world is formed whose laws

are those of the ideal. The formation of the new world (new earth and new

heaven, new Jerusalem, etc.) occurs frequently in the symbolic language of

mysticism.

The laws of the ideal and consequently of the new world are determined by

the nature of the ideal. Not every one is proved everlastingly suitable.

“Those that dedicate themselves to the gods and fathers, pass over

to the gods and fathers,

Spirit worshipers to the spirits, whoever honors me, comes to me.”

says the Highest Being to Arjuna in the Bhagavad-Gita (IX, 25). The mystic

is in the position from the moment of regeneration, to create in himself a

new world with laws that he may, to a certain extent, himself select.

Fortunate is he who makes a good selection. Every one is the architect of

his own fortune. This is most true when after introversion the power of

self determining one’s own destiny is directed toward the most intensive

living. The formation and cultivation of the new earth is a beginning that

is rich with significant consequences. The alchemists speak of a maidenly

earth or a flaky white earth (i.e., crystalline) as a certain stage in the

work. This is probably the stage that we are examining now, the stage of

the new, still undeveloped earth that is now to be organized (according to

the conceived ideal). The soil is crystalline because the old earth was

dissolved and has been freshly formed from the solution. The

crystallization corresponds to regeneration. The “white earth” probably

corresponds to the “white stone,” which is the first stage of completion

after the blacks (first mystical death, putrefaction, trituration, or

contrition). In the white earth a seed is sown. We shall hear of it later.

If the work is not to make men unserviceable and is not again to bring

them into conflict with the demands of life, so that all the effort would

have been fruitless, the new world must be organized in such a way that it

is compatible with the demands of real life. In other words, the ideal

that regulates the new world must be an ethical one. The mystic who wishes

to be freed from contradictions will have to follow his conscience as a

guide, and not the unexplored but the explored conscience. He cannot

escape it in the long run (the magicians that defy it are, as the legend

informs us, finally torn to pieces by the devil); it is better for him to

get upon its side and so turn the conflict in his favor. It appears that

this manly attitude would have a marvelous inner concord as a result and

outwardly, a remarkable firmness of character. It is not my object to

decide what metaphysical significance the strengthening through mysticism

of the ideal (God in me) may have.

“Take, O soul, not the unworthy and common as a model, for such use and

word will adhere to thee finally as a nature opposed to thine own. By this

means, however, the strong impulse itself towards union with thy nature

and to the return into thy home goes astray. Know that the exalted and

majestic Originator of things, is himself the noblest of all things. Take

then the noble things as a model, in order by that means to get nearer thy

Creator on the path of elective affinity. And know that the noble attaches

itself to the noble and the vulgar to the common.” (Fleischer, Herm. a. d.

Seele, p. 18.)

What is to be sown in the new earth is generally called love. A crop of

love is to arise; with love will the new world be saturated; its laws will

be the laws of love. By love a transmutation of the subject is to take

place. One alchemist (quoted in H. A., pp. 133 ff.) writes as follows:

“I find the nature of Divine Love to be a perfect unity and simplicity.

There is nothing more one, undivided, simple, pure, unmixed and

uncompounded than Love....

“In the second place I find Love to be the most perfect and absolute

liberty. Nothing can move Love, but Love; nothing touch Love, but Love;

nor nothing constrain Love, but Love. It is free from all things; itself

only gives laws to itself, and those laws are the laws of Liberty; for

nothing acts more freely than Love, because it always acts from itself,

and is moved by itself, by which prerogatives Love shows itself to be

allied to the Divine Nature, yea, to be God himself.

“Thirdly, Love is all strength and power. Make a diligent search through

Heaven and Earth, and you will find nothing so powerful as Love. What is

stronger than Hell and Death? Yet Love is the triumphant conqueror of

both. What more formidable than the wrath of God? Yet Love overcomes it,

and dissolves and changes it into itself. In a word, nothing can withstand

the prevailing strength of Love: it is the strength of Mount Zion, which

can never be moved.

“In the fourth place: Love is of a transmuting and transforming nature.

The great effect of Love is to turn all things into its own nature, which

is all goodness, sweetness, and perfection. This is that Divine power

which turns water into wine; sorrow and anguish into exulting and

triumphant joy; and curses into blessings. Where it meets with a barren

and heathy desert, it transmutes it into a paradise of delights; yea, it

changeth evil into good, and all imperfection into perfection. It restores

that which is fallen and degenerated to its primary beauty, excellence and

perfection. It is the Divine Stone, the White Stone with the name written

upon it, which no one knows but he that hath it. [Cf. Rev. II, 17. ‘He

that hath an ear, let him hear what the Spirit saith unto the churches; To

him that overcometh will I give to eat [nutritio] of the hidden manna, and

will give him a white stone, and in the stone a new name written, which no

man knoweth saving he that receiveth it.’ Also III, 12: ‘Him that

overcometh will I make a pillar in the temple of my God, and he shall go

no more out: and I will write upon him the name of my God, and the name of

the city of my God, which is new Jerusalem, which cometh down out of

heaven from my God: and I will write upon him my new name.’ Cf. also XIX,

12, and XXI, 2. The White Stone with the new name is also joined with the

new earth. Because of this it is important that the new Jerusalem is

‘prepared as a bride adorned for her husband.’] In a word, it is the

Divine Nature, it is God himself, whose essential property it is to

assimilate all things with himself; or [if you will have it in the

scripture phrase] to reconcile all things to himself, whether they be in

Heaven or in Earth; and all by means of this Divine Elixir, whose

transforming power and efficacy nothing can withstand....” (H. A., pp. 133

ff.)

At the end of the work there ensues the union of sun and moon, typifying

God and man. As in the Vedanta the teaching of the holy books of India,

the Upanishads, so in alchemy, the difference between the one soul and the

All Soul is of no importance. For every one who succeeds in overcoming the

fundamental error, in which we are all implicated, the difference

vanishes, and the two things previously separated coalesce. In reality

there is only the one thing: God.

Irenæus writes: “... The fire of nature assimilates all that it nourishes

to its own likeness, and then our mercury or menstruum vanishes, that is,

it is swallowed by the solar nature [The soul of man dissolves and is

taken up by the divine or All Soul] and all together make but one

universal mercury [All Soul] by intimate union. And this mercury is the

material principle of the Stone; for formerly, when it was compounded of

three mercuries, [namely, when they thought they had to distinguish

spirit, soul and body, or some other division in it] then Soul, world and

God were, for example, to be thought of, or as they are called in

Soeta-svatara-Upanishad V, Enjoyer, Object of Enjoyment, and Inciter.

As eternal cause contains that trinity.

Whoever finds in it the Brahma as the kernel,

Resolves himself in it as a goal, and is freed from birth.”

Cf. also Deussen, Syst. d. Ved., p. 232, and Sutr. d. Ved., pp. 541 ff.:

“Frequently we are told of the connection of the highest with the

individual soul, and then again of a splitting up [conditioned by them]

inside the Brahma, by virtue of which their two parts are mutually opposed

and limited. Both of these things happen, however, only from the

standpoint of the distinctions [upadhi].... There were two which were

superficial (in that they formed an unjustified opposition) and the third

essential to Sol and Luna only, not to the Stone; for nature would produce

these two out of it by artificial decoction.... [These distinctions depend

on ignorance, after throwing off which the individual is one with the

highest. The connection of the individual soul with Brahman is in truth

its entering into its own self, and the division in Brahma is as unreal as

that between space in general and space within the body.] But when the two

perfect bodies are dissolved [prepared for the mystical work] they are

transmuted with the mercury that dissolved them, and then there is no more

repugnancy in it; then there is no longer a distinction between

superficial and essential. And this is that one matter of the stone, that

one thing which is the subject of all wonders. When thou art come to this

then shalt thou no more discern a distinction between the Dissolver [God]

and the dissolved [soul] ... and the color of the ripe sulphur [the divine

nature] inseparably united to it will tinge your water [soul].” Irenæus

says that the two bodies, Sol and Luna, are compared by the alchemists to

two mountains, first because they are found in mountains, and second by

way of opposition: “For where mountains are highest above ground, there

they lie deepest underground,” and he adds: “The name is not of so much

consequence, take the body which is gold [i.e., here the consummate man]

and throw it into mercury, such a mercury as is bottomless [infinite],

that is, whose center it can never find but by discovering its own.” (H.

A., 283 ff.)

In reference to these and similar expressions of the alchemists, Hitchcock

rightly calls our attention to Plotinus, who writes, for example (Enn.,

VI, 9, 10): “We must comprehend God with our whole being, so that we no

longer have in us a single part that is not dependent upon God. Then we

may see him and ourselves as it beseems us to see, in radiant beams,

filled with spiritual light, or rather as pure light itself [notice this

fullness of light] without weight, imponderable, become God or rather

being God. Our life’s flame is then kindled; but if we sink down into the

world of sense, it is as if extinguished.... Whoever has thus seen himself

will, then, when he looks, see himself as one who has become unified, or

rather he will be united to himself as such a one and feel himself as

such. Possibly one should not in this case speak of seeing. But as regards

the seen, if we can indeed distinguish the seeing and the seen, and not

rather have to describe both as one, which is, to be sure, a bold

statement, then the seeing really does not see in this condition, nor does

he differentiate two things, nor has he the idea of two things. He is, as

it were, another; he ceases to be himself, he belongs no longer to

himself; arriving there, he has ascended unto God and has become one with

him, as a center that coincides with another center; the two coinciding

things are here one, and only two when they are separated. In this sense

we speak of the soul’s being another than God.”

I recall also the passage in Amor Proximi where it is said that the earth

will again be placed in Solis punctum. The center of the sun [God] is to

be seen in the symbol [Symbol: Gold]. We now understand the mystical

difference between the hieroglyphs [Symbol: Gold] and [Symbol: Alum],

between gold and alum. In order to express in the mercury symbol [Symbol:

Mercury] the accomplished union (represented by +) of [Symbol: Gold] and

[Symbol: Silver], which takes place through the newly discovered central

point, the symbol [Symbol: Mercury] is also used.

I have mentioned the vedantic teachings, whose agreement with alchemy has

also been noticed by Hitchcock. It takes emphatically the point of view of

the “non-existence of a second.” Multiplicity is appearance; the

difference between the individual soul and the All Soul depends upon an

error which we can overcome. The goal of salvation is the ascent into the

universal spirit Brahma (in the nirvana of the Buddhists there is the same

thought). Whoever has entered into the highest spirit, there is no longer

any “other” for him. Brhadaranyaka-Upanishad, IV, 3: (23) “If he does not

then [The man in the deep sleep (susupti),] see, he is yet seeing although

he sees not, for there is no interruption of vision for the seeing,

because he is imperishable; but there is no second beside him, no other

different from him that he could see. (24.) If he does not smell, he is

yet smelling although he smells not, for there is for the smelling

[person] no interruption of smelling because he is imperishable; but there

is no second thing beside him, no other thing different from him that he

could smell.... (32.) He stands like water [i.e., so pure] seer alone and

without a second ... he whose world is Brahm. This is his highest goal,

this is his highest fortune, this is his highest world, this is his

highest joy; through a minute particle of only this joy the other

creatures have their life.”

If I compare the hermetic teachings on the one hand with the vedanta, and

on the other with the Samkhya-Yoga, I do not lose sight of the fundamental

antagonism of both—Vedanta is monistic, Samkhya is dualistic—but in

appreciation of the doctrine of salvation which is common to both. That

the mystic finds the same germ in both systems is shown by the

Bhagavad-Gita. For him the theoretical difference is trivial, whether the

materia is dissolved as mere illusion, when he has attained his mystic

goal, or whether, as an eternal substance, it is as something overcome,

simply withdrawn, never more to be seen. According to the Samkhya

doctrine, too, the saved soul enters into its own being, and every

connection with objects of knowledge ceases.

In Yogavasistha it is written: “So serene as would the light appear if all

that is illumined, i.e., space, earth, ether, did not exist, such is the

isolated state of the seer, of the pure self, when the threefold world,

you and I, in brief, all that is visible, is gone. As the state of a

mirror is, in which no reflection falls, neither of statues nor of

anything else—only representing in itself the being [of the mirror]—such

is the isolation of the seer, who remains without seeing, after the jumble

of phenomena, I, you, the world, etc., has vanished.” (Garbe,

Samkhya-Phil., p. 326.)

In the materia (prakri) of the Samkhya system reside the three qualities

or constituents already familiar to us, Rajas, Tamas, and Sattva. Whoever

unmasks these as the play of qualities, raises himself above the world

impulses. For him, as he is freed from antagonisms, the play ceases. When

a soul is satiated with the activity of matter and turns away from it with

disdain, then matter ceases its activity for this soul with the thought,

“I am discovered.” It has performed what it was destined to perform, and

withdraws from the soul that has attained the highest goal, as a dancing

girl stops dancing when she has performed her task and the spectators have

enough. But in one respect matter is unlike the dancing girl or actress;

for while they repeat their performance at request, matter “is tenderly

disposed like a woman of good family,” who, if she is seen by a man,

modestly does not display herself again to his view. This last simile is

facilitated in the original texts by the fact that the Sanskrit for soul

and man has the same phonetic notation (pums, purusa). (Garbe, l. c., pp.

165 ff.)

In comparing the common mystic content of Vedanta and Samkhya-Yoga with

alchemy, I avoid the difficulty involved in establishing a detailed

concordance of the hermetic philosophy with one or another system. An

inquiry into this topic would result differently according to which

hermetic authors we should particularly consider.

It is probably worthy of notice that the Yoga-Mystics, like the

alchemists, are acquainted with the idea of the union of the sun and the

moon. Two breath or life currents are to be united, one of which

corresponds to the sun, the other to the moon. The expression Hathayoga

(where hatha = mighty effort. Cf. Garbe, Samkhya and Yoga, p. 43) will

also be interpreted so that Ha = sun, tha = moon, their union = the yoga

leading to salvation. (Cf. Hatha-Yoga-Prad., p. 1.)

The union of two things, the sun with the moon, the soul with God, the

seer with the seen, etc., is also taught by the image of the connection of

man and woman. That is the mystic marriage (Hieros gamos), a universally

widespread symbol of quite supreme importance. In alchemy the last

process, i.e., according to the viewpoint of representation, the

tincturing or the unification, is quite frequently represented in the

guise of a marriage—sometimes of a king and a queen. We cannot interchange

this final process with the initial one of introversion, which (as a

seeking for the uterus for the purpose of a rebirth) is likewise readily

conceived of as a sexual union. If the symbol of coitus was conceivable

there, so here, too, the same symbol is appropriate for the representation

of the definite union with the object longed for.

It is quite suggestive to associate the anagogic idea of the _Unio

mystica_, precisely on account of the erotic allegory, with the primal

motive of sexual union (with the mother) instead of with the wish to die,

as I have done at another place. It may be that the primal erotic power

supplies something for the accomplishment of this last purpose; it may be

that all powers must coöperate. If I now still abide by my original

exposition, this happens because it appears to me that the symbolism

emphasizes the going over of the one into the other more than the

attainment of the sexual goal; and even in the cases where the unio

mystica is described as a sexual union. We should not forget that the

sexual gratification is to be regarded also as a kind of annihilation. It

is a condition of intoxication and of oblivion or perishing. It is this

side of the sexual procedure that the symbolism of the unio mystica

particularly emphasizes.

Brhadaranyaka-Upanisad, IV, 3, 21: “... For even as one embraced by a

beloved woman has no consciousness of what is within or without, so the

spirit, embraced by the most percipient self (prajena almana, i.e., the

Brahm), has no knowledge of that which is external or internal. That is

its form of existence, in which it is characterized by stilled desire,

even its own desire is without desire and separated from sorrow.” This

passage treats of the deep sleep (susupti) which is regarded as a passing

union with the highest spirit, and so, as essentially the same as the

definitive _unificatio_. Sleep is the brother of death. Susupti is,

furthermore, conceived only as a preliminary; a German mystic would call

it a foretaste of the definitive ascent into Brahm.

In the parable the unio mystica appears twice represented, once in that

the king and queen are represented as the bridal couple, and the second

time when the king, i.e., God, takes the wanderer up into his kingdom.

The attainment of an inner harmony, of a serene peace, is what, as it

seems to me, is most clearly brought out as the characteristic of the

final unificatio—not merely by the Hindus or Neoplatonists, but also by

the Christian mystics and by the alchemists.

Artephius is quoted by H. A., p. 86, as follows: “... This water [water of

life] causes the dead body to vegetate, increase and spring forth, and to

rise from death to life by being dissolved first, and then sublimed. And

in doing this the body is converted into a spirit, and the spirit

afterwards into a body; and then is effected the amity, the peace, the

concord and the union of the contraries.”

Similarly Ripley (H. A., p. 245): “This is the highest perfection to which

any sublunary body can be brought, by which we know that God is one, for

God is perfection; to which, whenever any creature arrives in its kind

[according to its nature], it rejoiceth in unity, in which there is no

division nor alterity, but peace and rest without contention.”

The final character of the completed philosopher’s stone makes it

conceivable, that, as the hermetic masters say, it is made only once by a

man and then not again. The Stone is an absolutely imperishable Good; but

if it should be lost it is surely not the right stone.

I have now to offer some conjectures regarding further interpretations of

the two and the three principles [Symbol: Gold] and [Symbol: Silver],

namely [Symbol: Sulfur] [Symbol: Mercury] [Symbol: Salt]. We are aware of

a general difference. I add now first the remark of Hitchcock that the

“two” things are to be regarded as an antithesis: _natura naturans_ and

_natura naturata_. We might intellectually conceive the [Symbol: Mercury]

(mercury) given by many writers at the beginning of the work as a double

one, on the one hand as nature and on the other as our world picture. We

cause it to work on our [Symbol: Sulphur] (sulphur), i.e., on our

affectivity by which the [Symbol: Sulphur] is purified and dissolved, for

it is compelled to adapt itself to the requirements of the world laws. But

by this means a new world picture is produced, for the former had been

influenced by the unclarified [Symbol: Sulphur]; our affective life limits

our intellectual. The new world picture or the newly gained [Symbol:

Mercury] we combine with our [Symbol: Sulfur] and so on, until finally

after a gradual clarification nature and our world picture harmonize. Then

there are no longer two mercuries but only one; and the sulphur, our

completed subject, has become more or less a unity. Now we may advance to

the unification of the two clarified things, which in this stage are

called [Symbol: Gold] and [Symbol: Silver]. Now subject and object are

bound together and man enters, as is so wonderfully expressed in

Chandogya-Upanisad, VIII, 13, as a being adapted into the unadapted

(uncreated-primordial) world of Brahma. [Symbol: Sol] and [Symbol: Luna]

may, to be sure, be conceived also as the love of God towards man and the

love of man towards God. The different masters of the art are the same in

different ways in that the one sees more the intellectual, the other the

emotional. They describe different sides or aspects of the same process,

for which we do not indeed possess appropriate concepts, and whose best

form of expression is through symbols. The sign [Symbol: Sol] is then

neither = subject nor love but just = [Symbol: Sol], i.e., a thing to

which we may approximate nearest by a form of integration of all partial

meanings. In view of the fact that [Symbol: Sulfur] and [Symbol: Mercury]

are contrasted at the beginning of the process also as body and soul, we

can, by making [Symbol: Sulfur] = passions and [Symbol: Mercury] =

knowledge (reason) conceive the rest thus: [Symbol: Sulfur] is to be

purified by an exalted [Symbol: Mercury] (in distinction from the common

[Symbol: Mercury], called also “our” [Symbol: Mercury]), and so to be

purified by a higher knowledge. From [Symbol: Sulfur] is developed (i.e.,

it unmasks itself to the initiated as) [Symbol: Luna], i.e., Maya, the

object, that in its difference from the subject is mere illusion; and from

[Symbol: Mercury] comes [Symbol: Sol], the Brahm or subject, and now the

_unio mystica_ can take place. Another use of symbolism is the one by

which we are able to concoct gold out of sulphur; from the affects we

derive, through purification, love (toward God). The spirit [Symbol:

Mercury] exalts [raises] the antithesis [Symbol: Sol] and [Symbol: Luna]

(soul and body) in such a way that finally it simply opposes itself as

subject and object. (Cf. H. A., pp. 143 ff.)

Sometimes the making of gold is described as an amalgamation; from the raw

material, [Symbol: Sol] is derived by an amalgamation with [Symbol:

Mercury] [quicksilver]. That naturally signifies the search for the Atman

or highest spirit in man by means of contemplation, which belongs to

[Symbol: Mercury], the [act of] knowing.

With regard to the trinity [Symbol: Sol] [Symbol: Luna] [Symbol: Mercury]:

The solar divinity [creating, impregnating] in man is [Symbol: Sulfur]

that by its triangle moreover marks the fiery nature [Symbol: Sulfur];

that which is comprised in the bodily nature, the terrestrial is [Symbol:

Salt] salt, which is also represented as a cube, like the element earth.

The two can be called [Symbol: Sol], anima, and [Symbol: Luna], corpus.

The celestial messenger who appears as a mediator for the antithesis is

the conscience [Symbol: Mercury], who has his constant influx from God,

the real [Symbol: Sol], and is therefore a divine spirit. We have then the

triad Spiritus, anima, corpus [[Symbol: Mercury] [Symbol: Sol] [Symbol:

Luna]] or, because [Symbol: Mercury] is to be regarded as a mediator,

[Symbol: Sol] [Symbol: Mercury] [Symbol: Luna]. The intervention of the

[Symbol: Mercury] effects the previously mentioned exaltation of [Symbol:

Sol] and [Symbol: Luna] or of [Symbol: Sulfur] and [Symbol: Mercury]

(crude state) to [Symbol: Sol] and [Symbol: Luna].

In view of the difficulty of the mystic work that attempts to accomplish a

sheerly superhuman task, it is not surprising that it cannot be finished

in one attempt but requires time. It necessitates great persistence. In

the life of the mystic the states of love and aspiration for God alternate

with those of spiritual helplessness and barrenness. (Horten, Myst., I, p.

9.)

Arabi sings in his ode on man’s becoming godlike: “[1] O thou ancient

temple. A light has arisen for thee (you) that gleams in our hearts. [2]

To thee I lament the wilderness that I have traversed, and in which I have

poured forth an unlimited flood of tears. [3] Neither at dawn nor at dusk

do I get repose. From morning until evening I fare on my way without

ceasing. [4] The camels go forth on their journey at night; even if they

have injured their feet, they still hasten. [5] These (mighty) riding

camels bore us to you (probably God) with passionate longing, although

they did not hope to attain the goal....” The riding camels signify the

longing of the mystics for God. “It seeks and strives ceaselessly,

although its powers are drained by the difficulties of the search.”

(Horten, l. c., p. 16 ff.)

Many degrees or stations are to be gone over on the difficult way, yet

zeal is to abide constant in all circumstances. [The idea of the ladder

set up to heaven, of steps, etc., is universal in religions.] In general

seven such steps are distinguished. In Khunrath, e.g., the citadel of

Pallas has seven steps. Paracelsus (De Natura Rerum, VIII), following a

favorite custom, gives seven operations of the work. “... It is now

necessary to know the degrees and steps to transmutation, and how many

they are. These steps are then no more than seven. Although some count

still more, it should not be so. For the most important steps are seven.

The further ones, however, which might be reckoned as steps are comprised

under the others, which are as follows: calcination [sublimation],

dissolution, putrefaction, distillation, coagulation, and tincturing.

Whoever passes over these seven steps and degrees comes to such a

marvelous place, where he sees much mystery and attains the transmutation

of all natural things.” In the “Rosarium” of Johannes Daustenius [Chap.

XVII] the seven steps are represented as follows: “And then the corpus [1]

is a cause that the water is retained. The water [2] is the cause of

preserving the oil so that it is not ignited on the fire, and the oil [3]

is the cause of retaining the tincture, and the tincture [4] is a cause of

the colors appearing, and the color [5] is a cause of showing the white,

and the white [6] is a cause of keeping every volatile thing [7] from

being no longer volatile.” It amounts to the same thing when Bonaventura

describes septem gradus contemplationis [seven steps of contemplation],

and David of Augsburg [13th century] the “seven steps of prayer.” Boehme

recognizes 7 fountain spirits that constitute a certain gradation and in

the yoga we also find 7 steps, which are described in the “Yoga Vasistha”

(cf. Hath. Prad., pp. 2 ff). It may easily happen that the domination of

the number 7 is to be derived from the infusion of the scientific

doctrines (7 planets, 7 metals, 7 tones in the diatonic scale) and yet it

may depend on an actual correspondence in the human psyche with nature—who

can tell? Most significant is the connection of the 7 steps of development

with the infusion of the nature myth in the alchemistic theories of

“rotations.” For the perfection of the Stone, rotations (i.e., cycles) are

required by many authors, in which the materia (and so the soul) pass

through the spheres of all the planets. They have to be subjected

successively to the domination (the regimen) of all seven planets. This is

related to the ideas of those neoplatonists and gnostics according to

which the soul must, on its way (anodos) to its heavenly home, i.e., to

its celestial goal, pass through all the planetary spheres and through the

animal cycle. (Cf. Bousset, Hauptpr. d. G., pp. 11 and 321.) I observe,

moreover, a thoroughly vivid representation of this very theme in the good

old Mosheim, Ketzergesch., p. 89 ff. Also in the life of the world, if it

is completely lived, man passes through, according to the ideas of the old

mystery teachings, the domination of the seven planets.

The anagogic meaning of rotation may be that of a collection of all

available (seven in number) powers, in order finally to rise as a whole,

to God.

More important, or at any rate more easily comprehensible, appears to me

the trichotomy necessarily resulting from the course of the mystical work,

a triplicate division that results in the three main phases, black, white,

and red. The black corresponds to introversion and to the first [mystic]

death, the white to the “new earth,” to freedom or innocence, red to love,

which completes the work. This general arrangement does not prevent the

symbols from being often confused by the alchemistic authors. There are

gradations between the main colors, all kinds of color play; in particular

the so-called peacock’s tail appears, which comes before the stable white

to indicate the characteristic gayness of color of visionary experiences,

and which marks the stage of introversion.

If one put into the center of vision, as goal of the work, the recovery of

the harmonious state of the soul, one might express oneself about the

three primary colors as follows: The paradisical state demands absolute

freedom from conflict. We can attain this only by completely withdrawing

from the external world whatever causes conflict in connection with the

external world, so that there comes to pass with regard to it, a

thorough-going indifference. This indifference is the black. The freedom

from conflict (guiltlessness) in the now newly beginning life is the

white. Previously, at the disintegration (rotting) of the material, one

constituent part was removed and taken away. That is, the libido becomes

free (love). It is gradually alloyed with the white material, which is dry

(thirsty without thirst); sown in the white ground. Life is without

conflict now drenched with love, red. This true red thus attained is

permanent because it is produced [in contrast to mere instruction] from

the heart of hearts, the roots of innermost feeling, which is subjected to

no usury.

The mystical procedure can be realized in different degrees of intensity.

The lowest degree is as a program with the mere result of a stimulation;

the highest degree is a final transmutation of the psyche. If this goal is

attained in life, we have acquired the terrestrial stone. In contrast, the

celestial stone belongs with the eschatological concepts and the celestial

tincture is the apokatastasis.

It is an interesting question whether the resolution of conflicts, with

evasion of the process in the outer world, cannot be accomplished

subjectively, by battles with symbols (personifications) and in symbols,

thus amounting to an abbreviation of the process. Theoretically this is

not impossible, for the conflicts do not indeed lie in the external world,

but in our emotional disposition towards it; if we change this disposition

by an inner development, the external world has a different value for the

libido.

“The projection into the cosmic is the primal privilege of the libido, for

it naturally enters into our perception through the gates of all the

senses and apparently from without, and actually, in the form of the

pleasure and pain qualities of perception. These, as we all know, we

attribute without further deliberation to the object, and their cause, in

spite of philosophical deliberation, we are continually inclined to look

for in the object, while the object is often hopelessly innocent of it.”

(Jung, in Jb. ps. F., III, p. 222; with which compare the Freudian

transference concept and Ferenczi’s essay on “Introjektion und

Ubertragung,” in Jb. ps. F., I, p. 422.) Jung calls attention to the

frequently described immediate projection of the libido in love poetry, as

in the following example from the Edda (H. Gering):

“In Gymer’s Courtyard I saw walking

The maiden, dear to me;

From the brightness of her arms glowed the heavens,

And all the eternal sea.”

The mystic looks for the conflicts that he desires to do away with, in

man, the place where they really exist. With this theoretical presumption

the possible objection against all mysticism is averted, namely that it is

valueless because it rests merely upon imagined experiences, upon

fanaticism. This objection, though not to be overlooked, does not apply to

mysticism, which accomplishes an actual ethical work of enduring value—but

to the other path that issues from introversion, namely magic (not to

mention physical and spiritual suicide). This is nicely expressed, too, in

an allegorical way by saying that magically-made gold melts, as the story

goes, or turns into mud (i.e., the pretended value vanishes in the face of

actuality) while “our” alchemistic gold is an everlasting good. The yoga

doctrine, too, describes Siddhi (those imaginary wonders in which the

visionary loses himself) as transitory, only salvation alone, i.e., the

mystical goal being imperishable.

As for the metaphysical import of the mystical doctrine, I might maintain

that the psychoanalytic unmasking of the impelling powers cannot prejudice

its value. I do not venture at all upon this valuation; but for the very

purpose of bringing into prominence a separate philosophical problem, I

must emphatically declare that if psychoanalysis makes it conceivable that

we men, impelled by this and that “titanic” primal power, are necessitated

to hit upon this or that idea, then even if it is made clear what causes

us to light upon it, still nothing is as yet settled as to the value for

knowledge of the thing discovered.

I am so far from wishing to derive a critique of the metaphysical import

of the doctrine from psychoanalytic grounds alone, that I felt called upon

to make claim only to a synthesis for the merely psychological

understanding of mystic symbolism, a synthesis which I have attempted to

block out as well as I was able in the present Part III of my book.

Section III.

The Royal Art.

It has been mentioned that the work of perfecting mankind might be

realized in different degrees of intensity, which might extend from

complete living realization to mere sympathy without any clear

comprehension. The psychic types in which the realization is achieved are,

it may be said, identical.

These typical groups of symbols that the mystic [I draw a certain

distinction between the mystes and the mystic. The latter is a mystes who

makes a system of what he has realized.] produces as a functional

expression of his subjective transformation, can be thought of as an

educational method applied to arouse the same reactions in other men. In

the group of symbols are contained more or less clearly the already

mentioned elementary types as they are common to all men; they strike the

same chords in all men. Symbolism is for this very reason the most

universal language that can be conceived. It is also the only language

that is adapted to the various degrees of intensity as well as to the

different levels of the intro-determination of living experience without

requiring therefore a different means of expression; for what it contains

and works with are the elementary types themselves [or symbols which are

as adequate as possible to them] which, as we have seen, represent a

permanent element in the stream of change. This series of symbols is quite

as useful to the neophyte as to the one who is near to perfection; every

one will find in the symbols something that touches him closely; and what

must be particularly emphasized is that the individual at every spiritual

advance that he makes, will always find something new in the symbols

already familiar to him, and therefore something to learn. To be sure,

this new revelation is founded in himself; but there results for the

uncritical mind (mythological level) the illusion that the symbols (e.g.,

those of the holy scripture) are endowed with a miraculous power which

implies a divine revelation. [Cf. the concept of the origin of the symbol

in my essay, Phant. u. Myth.] Because of a similar illusion, e.g.,

Jamblichus posits demons between gods and men, who make comprehensible to

the latter the utterances of the gods; the demons, he thinks, are servants

of the gods and execute their will. They make visible to men in works and

words the invisible and inexpressible things of the gods; the formless

they reveal in forms and they reveal in concepts what transcends all

concepts. From the gods they receive all the good of which they are

capable, partially or according to their nature, and share it again with

the races that stand below them.

I said above, every one will find something appropriate to himself in the

symbols, and I emphasized the great constancy of the types fast rooted in

the unconscious, types which impart to them a universal validity. The

divine is revealed “only objectively different according to the

disposition of the vessel into which it falls, to one one way, another to

another. To the rich poetical genius it is revealed preeminently in the

activity of his imagination; to the philosophical understanding as the

scheme of a harmonious system. It sinks into the depths of the soul of the

religious, and exalts the strong constructive will like a divine power.

And so the divine is honored differently by each one.” (Ennemoser, Gesch.

d. M., p. 109.) “The spiritual element of the inheritance handed down by

our fathers works out vigorously in the once for all established style....

On the dark background of the soul stand, as it were, the magic symbols in

definite types, and it requires but an inner or outer touch [E.g., by

religious observances.] to make them kindle and become active.” (Ib., p.

274.) “The unconscious is common to all mankind in an infinitely greater

degree than the content of the individual consciousness, for it is the

condensation of the historically average and oft-repeated.” (Jung, Jb. ps.

F., III, pp. 169 ff.)

Whoever allows the educative symbols to work upon him, whether he sees

only darkly the ethical applications typified in them, or clearly

perceives them, or completely realizes them in himself, in any case he

will be able to enjoy a satisfying sense of purification for his earnest

endeavor in an ethical direction. The just mentioned dim perception

(probably the most frequent case), does not exclude the existence of very

clear ideas in consciousness; the person in question generally considers

his ideas, although they are only masks in front of the absolute ideal, as

the ultimate sense of the symbol, thus accepting one degree of

significance for the complete meaning. Every one approximates the ideal as

he can; the absolute ideal through his ephemeral, but attainable ideal.

The highest being speaks in the inexhaustible Bhagavad-Gita:

“More trouble have they who devote themselves to the invisible;

By physical beings the invisible goal is attained only with

difficulty.

[XII, 5.]

God is the all. Hard is it to find the noble man who recognizes

this.

Those whom greed robs of knowledge go to other gods,

Cleave to many rulers—their own nature rules them,

And whatsoever divinity one strives to honor in belief,

I respect his belief and direct him to the right place.

If he strives in firm belief towards his divinity’s favor and

grace,

Then shall he in part get what he wants, for I gladly put good in

his way.

Yet the result is but limited in the case of those of limited

sensibility.

He finds the gods who honors them. Who honors me, attains to me.”

[VII, 19-23.]

If above I derived the instructive group of symbols from a mystic, that is

not to say that it must be precisely so. I brought out this case among

possible cases only for the reason that the mystic is the one who carries

out most strenuously the ethical work of purification, and under such

conditions as are most favorable to a suggestive group of symbols, and in

particular those rich in characteristic types. Bear in mind the founders

of religion. (They do not always have to be individuals—schools, myths.)

There are, however, others than the religiously inspired natures, who are

preëminently endowed to produce suggestive symbol groups with anagogic

value; the artists. I suspect that it would prove that the purifying

(cathartic) action of a work of art is the greater the more strongly the

anagogic symbolism (the groups of types that carry it) is developed, or in

other words, the more they express a tendency to a broadening of the

personality. This tendency, to which belong the motives of the denial of

the selfish will (father figure) of the love that is connected with

sacrifice (incest motive, regeneration) of the devotion to an ideal

(longing for death), etc., is manifested in the artist as also in the

devout observer of the work of art in his very devotion to it. Being lost

in a work of art appears to me essentially related both to introversion

and to the unio mystica.

I have already spoken of the creations of the myth forming imagination and

its anagogic import. In alchemy, to which I wish now to return, the

mythical and the individual images meet in the most vivid way, without

destroying each other.

In regard to the high ethical aspirations of alchemy, we understand that

as a mystic art it preserves those attributes of a royal art which it

seems to have had at first merely as gold making and magic. In fact what

art may more justly be called royal than that of the perfection of

mankind, that art which turns the dependent into the independent, the

slave into a master? The freeing of the will in the mystic (and in every

ethical) process has already, I believe, been commented on enough to be

comprehensible. And the power of rule that has been extolled as a magical

effect of the Philosopher’s Stone lies in the harmonizing of the

individual will with that of the world or with God’s will. In the new

birth—so remarks Jane Leade casually—we acquire a magic power; this occurs

“through faith, that is, through the harmony of our will with the divine

will. For faith puts the world in our power, inasmuch as the harmony of

our will with the divine has the result of making everything ours or

obedient to us. The will of the soul, when it accords wholly with the

divine, is no longer a naked will lacking its raiment, power, but brings

with it an invincible omnipotence.”

To-day, too, there is a royal art. Freemasonry bears this name. Not only

the name but its ethical ideal connects it with the spirit of the old

alchemy. This statement will probably be contradicted and meet the same

denial as did once the ideas of Kernning [J. Krebs], although I think I am

on different ground from that of this poetic but, in my eyes, all too

uncritical author. Keep in mind the historical treatment mentioned in Part

I, Section 4, and furthermore do not forget the psychological basis of our

present modes of viewing things.

[If I wished to compare the ethical aims of both in general terms, I

should run the risk of unduly expatiating on what is easily understood.

Robert Fischer describes freemasonry as a society of men who have set

themselves the severe task of a wise life and labor as the most difficult

task, of self-knowledge, self-mastery and self-improvement,—tasks that are

not finished in this life but only through death prepare us for the stage

where the true consummation begins. These beautiful and straightforward

words could just as well stand in an alchemistic discussion on the

terrestrial and celestial. But this will suffice.]

And now permit me to present the following portrayals by Jane Leade

[English mystic of the 17th century. She belonged to the philadelphian

society founded by Pordage.] which I reproduce here with a few words of

comment, and take them as an illustration of the beautiful spiritual union

of the serious hermetic with the new royal art. The reader can draw his

own conclusions. The passages are taken from Leade’s “Garten-Brunn” (L. G.

B.). References to Wirth are to the “Symbolisme Hermétique” (W. S. H.) of

this modern author.

This mystic who is sunk in deep meditation on the noble Stone of divine

Wisdom, has a vision of Sophia (Wisdom) at which she is startled. “Soon

came the voice and said: Behold I am God’s everlasting handmaid of wisdom,

whom thou hast sought. I am now here to unseal for thee the treasures of

the deepest wisdom of God, and to be to thee even that which Rebecca was

to her son Jacob, namely, a true, natural mother. For from my body and

womb shalt thou be born, conceived and reborn.” (L. G. B., I, p. 14.)

Leade is much rejoiced that the “morning star from on high” has sought

her, and secludes herself for the following days to await further

developments. She has still more visions of the crowned queen of heaven

and was asked whether she had the desire to be taken up into the celestial

company. She proves herself of constantly devoted will and from this time

wisdom speaks to her as an inner illumination. (L. G. B., I, p. 15 ff.)

[Retirement is a precondition of introversion and of withdrawal into

oneself. The uninitiated who is to be admitted is, to use the language of

alchemy, the subjectum, in whom the process of purification is to be

perfected. The alchemists put the subjectum into a narrow vessel so as to

be hermetically sealed from the outer world. There it is subjected to

putrefaction as in a grave. Introversion leads into the depths of one’s

very heart. “Where were you formed?” “In my heart [or inner man].” “Where

after this?” “In the Way to the Lodge.” “What determined you...?” “My own

free and unconstrained will.” The uninitiated are recommended to take

counsel seriously with regard to their important resolution. “Why are

you...?” “Because I was in darkness and desired light.” The death symbol

in the sch. K. is later to be considered. I can naturally go into a few

only of the analogies. The informed reader will largely increase the

number of parallels very easily.]

Jane Leade seeks in the spirit for the key that can open the entrance into

the great secret that lies deep hidden within her. Her effort to reach the

holy city is great but at first ineffectual. [One is not admitted without

further effort.] She wanders around the city and finds no entrance. [Way

to the Lodge—“Why have they not led you the nearest way to the Lodge?” “In

order to acquaint me with the difficulties and troubles that one must

first overcome before one finds the way of virtue.”] She is apprehensive

that she must, lacking the wonderful key, now grope all her days in

darkness ... never find the gate. “While I, now overpowered with fear and

horror at all this, was plunged [Symbols and processes in the sch. K. Roll

of the terrible Br. It is probably well founded psychologically, a fact

that I should like to emphasize in opposition to Fischer, Kat. Erl., I, on

Question 7.] into a deep silence and stillness, the word of wisdom itself

was revealed to me and said: ‘O deeply searching spirit, be not surprised

that you have not realized your hopes for so long a time. So far you have

been with many others caught in a great error, yet as you know and are

sorry for your error, I will apprize you what sort of a key it must be....

And although this wonderful Key of Wisdom is a free gift, it will yet come

to be of high value to you, O searching spirit, when once you obtain

it.’ ” Nevertheless wisdom goes about and looks for those who deserve it,

[Nothing being made of nothing, the point of departure of the philosophic

work is the finding and choice of the subject. The material to work upon,

say the alchemists, is quite common and is met with everywhere. It is

necessary only to know how to distinguish it, and that is where all the

difficulty lies. We continually experience it in masonry, for we often

initiate the profane, whom we should have rejected had we been

sufficiently clear sighted. Not all material is good to make a mercury.

The work can succeed only if we succeed in finding a suitable subject; so

masonry makes many inquiries before admitting a candidate to the tests.

(W. S. H., p. 87.)] She does this so as to write herself on the inner

walls of their hearts and in each and every one meet their thoughts which

wait upon her laws and counsel, [Obedience of apprentices. The laws of

wisdom are meant.] and brings a kingdom with it which will be well worth

sacrificing everything for. [Laying aside of all metal. The newly admitted

brother is “through his unclothing” (which probably belongs here) to

represent mankind symbolically, as he comes from the hand of nature, and

to remind us that the freemason, in order to be continuously mindful of

the fulfillment of his duty must be able to rid himself of all fortuitous

externalities. See Note H at end.] But the greatest and most distinguished

master work, says wisdom, consists alone in your keeping your spirit

disciplined and learned, and making it a skilled worker or artist, to give

it knowledge of what material, as well as in what number, weight and

measure [Surveying, geometry.] to make this pure key, which [material] is

the bright pure divinity in the number three, the mighty in truth.... It

is distinguished as a surpassingly mighty glory and lordliness which sits

in a circle of heaven within the hearts of men. [The connection of circle

(doubly significant) and heart is interesting. As is well known the circle

is placed on the bleeding left breast. In the old English ritual the

touching with the point of an instrument (sword or the like) is proved

“Because the left breast is nearest to the heart, so that it may be so

much the more a prick in my conscience as it then pricked my skin.”] It

does with the plumbline of its power measure the temple and inner court

with those who worship there. [The line in connection with the temple: the

“binding” on a carpet; an image of the curtain string in the holy of

holies in Solomon’s temple. “Just as this ribbon holds and closes the

curtain, so an indissoluble bond unites and holds together all free and

accepted Masonic brothers (also those who worship therein).” This is

wisdom’s key [Surveying, Geometry.] which will make our hands drop with

sweet smelling myrrh upon the handles of the lock (Solomon’s Song, V, 5).

When now I opened your secret gate with this key, my soul failed within me

and I had no strength in me, the sun of reason and the moon of my extended

senses were confounded and vanished. I knew nothing by myself of the

active properties of nature and the creature. “What have you seen as ...?”

“Nothing that reason can grasp.”] The wheel of motion stood still and

something else was moved by a central fire, so that I felt myself turned

into a bright flame. Whereupon this word came to me: This is nothing else

than the gate of my everlasting depths; can you stay in this fiery region,

which is wisdom’s dwelling and abode, in which it meets holy remote

spirits and gives them a fiery principle? For if thou canst take heed such

that thou comest hither at its order; then no secret shall be kept from

thee. So far I have been permitted to approach the entrance to your house,

where I must still stay until I hear further from you what is to be done.

(L. G. B., I, pp. 17-19.)

[As we hear it is therefore right to keep the spirit corrected and

disciplined. “Why came ye ... to subdue my passions—to subject my

will....” We see two triads. A divine three (3 great lights), and then

sun, moon and central fire, which second three can be called the lesser

lights, as the “M. v. St.” appears as a central fire. If we remember that

the didactic voice proceeds, according to this symbolism, from a fire or

light (Wisdom), this light is identical with the M. v. St. in the

function, and it is determined by exactly that. The central fire is

naturally also the blazing star. This stands on the tapis between sun and

moon and it is designed to illuminate the innermost space of the temple.

From alchemy we are well acquainted with [Symbol: Sun], [Symbol: Moon] and

an intermediate and mediating light, namely [Symbol: Mercury]. This light

can be also symbolized as [Symbol: Star of David]. To the alchemistic

point of view correspond quite closely the three great lights of the

Freiburg Ritual, God, man and St. John’s light. This (the [Symbol:

mercury]) is the intelligence and the talent in men which creates all

science and shows us the truth. It is “the only authority that the

freemason has to recognize unconditionally, namely, the divine ordinance

in his own heart, the celestial fire in his ego.”]

Several weeks later Leade hears again the voice of wisdom. It said to her:

“Separate thyself and withdraw from thy animal sensuous life, it is too

coarse. I cannot appear till that is completely lost and vanished.” [The

alchemistic separation (separatio) and the masonic taking off of parts of

their clothing. I have already made the most necessary remarks about it.

We have to be freed from the things which, as in the eclectic ritual “much

retard the soaring of the spirit and chain man to the earth.” It has an

expressly programmatical meaning (anticipating a later phase) when, e.g.,

the system of the Grand Lodge goes back, for the deprivation from the

metal, to “the temple of Solomon that was built of fully prepared stones,

just as they were brought, etc.,” so that no metal work was needed.] A

short time after Leade is again driven to search after the secret being.

Wisdom requires it to know itself apart from its creature existence.

“Whereupon I was surrounded by gently burning flames that consumed and

burned all thistles, thorns and accursed fluxes [the ‘superfluities’ of

alchemy] which would put themselves forward.... Therefore Wisdom let her

voice be heard and said: ‘O thou troubled spirit, I am now come to tell

thee what was required of thee, as I have not refrained from saying to

thee, even at the beginning of my discourse with thee, what it would cost

thee to attain this key. [First programmatically shown. The actual process

will then follow.] I say to thee, God requires a sacrifice of thee.

Understand me then, thou hast an earthly element that has spread and

covered [Like a garment.] thee, and consequently has got the upper hand

and mastery of thee; these thrones and powers [king or father figure]

must, however, be overthrown and their place found no more. Thou hast

deeply mourned that thou hadst to do without the ever near communion or

union with God thy Creator, [Only the masters sit near the sun.] but be

not surprised at that. The cause lies here in complete extinction because

you are not yet deceased and dead completely in the mystical manner.

[Complete extinction first results in the third degree.] This is the first

baptism that you must experience, but ah, how many have rushed into this

too abruptly, because they have not given their earthly selfishness a

single mortal blow right to the heart. [The circle or sword placed on the

left breast alludes merely to the process of the clearing of conscience.

Here the whole ego is not yet annihilated.] So I recommend to thee my

flaming sword. Be courageous and let it achieve complete execution in the

field of nature [The weed in the field is exterminated where, as Jane

Leade frequently says, ears of corn are to grow.] or banish completely all

young or old, and turn from life toward death whatever in you does not

bear my mark and name that is my image.’ ” [From this the psychological

sense of the countersign is recognized. In connection with the field we

are reminded especially of Shibboleth (Judges XIII, 6: The Ephraimites who

could not speak it had to die). Leade often mentions the Ephraimites.

Directly pertinent to the above passage is, of course, Revelations,

passim.] (L. G. B., I, pp. 21 ff.) The earthly is, as it were, to be

sacrificed to God as a burnt offering or melted away in a fiery furnace,

in a vessel of the purest metal. [Probably it will not be superfluous to

remark that in the Bible the first worker in all kinds of metal was Tubal

Cain, whose name is a password.] Jane Leade finds “the conditions or

circumstances which thou [Wisdom] requirest of me to be very hard;

especially do I find myself still dwelling in the offspring of a mortal

shadow, where whole millions of spirits tempt me and employ all their

ability and strength to hinder and hold me back from the high and noble

exaltation and aspiration, [The seductive and restraining voices in the

circuitous way or on the way to the Lodge according to the eclectic

ritual. The band corresponds to the mortal shadow.] while I, alone and

seeing the receptacle and fire before me, stood in thought about it and

pondered the matter, and was willing, like Isaac, to ask, But where is the

lamb? [The apron is of lamb’s fleece.] She [Sophia = Wisdom] answered my

unspoken question with these words: You yourself must be the paschal lamb

that shall be slain. Thereupon I was instructed to say or to beg: Then

give yet this life pulse a stroke so that it may completely return. And as

I stretched out my neck, so to speak, to the love flaming sword, I felt

that a separation or beheading had taken place. [Note the baring of the

neck, the guttural and its meaning given according to the content of the

old form of oath. The fate of the traitor befalls the man who is slain at

this point; he has been a traitor to the inner true man. It is here the

place to bear in mind the descending scale of marks (guttural, pectoral,

stomachal). Man is to be transmuted on rectangular principles, or in the

language of alchemy, is to be tinctured with the divine tincture. This

tincturing seizes first the most spiritual and advances steadily until the

whole man is transformed. The trichotomy corresponds to the Platonic (and

alchemistic) tripartite division of the powers of the soul. Plato

distinguishes the reasoning soul, which he places in the head, the

intellectual in the breast, and the affective in the abdomen. The entire

soul, even the vegetative, is to be illuminated by the highest light. If

we assume that it is more than a pretty picture, Staudenmaier’s view

becomes of interest, namely that man may have an extraordinary spiritual

perfection in bestowing consciousness through practice upon the centers

that ordinarily work vegetatively without consciousness. In this way he

gains power over a whole army of working powers that otherwise escape him.

Staudenmaier’s own experiences teach that all the dangers of introversion

are connected with such a training, and it may easily happen that we are

defeated by the spirits that we invoke, instead of becoming their masters.

The absolute mastery of the rational ego is, however, evidently the

foundation of the ethical work of perfection. Kenning’s doctrine is

related to the theories of Staudenmaier.] Oh, how sweet and pleasant it is

to perceive the life blood flowing into the fountain of the same divinity

from which it came.” Whereupon wisdom opened more of her secrets to her.

(L. G. B., I, p. 24.)

It may be that this is the most suitable place to mention another series

of visions (apropos of the building of the tabernacle, L. G. B., I, pp. 24

ff.): “It [the holy ark] is an impregnable fortress and tower, so go thou

not out [so says Wisdom], but bind thyself and ally thyself here as a

disciple, to hold out to the end, then thou wilt be learned in the lofty

spiritual art of the everlasting mystery, and be instructed how this

incomparable composition or medicine of the healing elixir and balsam of

life is prepared. Above all thou must enter a bond of silence and vow to

reveal it to no one outside of your fellow learners, who are called

together near and with you, to work at this very art. [I hardly need to

mention the duty under oath, but will only call attention to the group of

the three virtues of the newly entering: attentiveness, silence,

fidelity.] Further thou must completely bide the definite time and year of

it, in all fidelity and patience indefatigable, until thou succeedest in

making this oil as well, and preserve it in the beautiful snow-white

alabaster box of consummate nature, and art as fit and perfect as thy

instructress.”

I continue in the earlier series of forms. Jane Leade is required by

wisdom to follow her. “But all of a sudden I was surprised by a mighty

enemy, who pressed me hard while he accused and complained that I was

breaking the laws of nature, to which I was still bound because I had an

external body, for whose elemental wants I must take reasonable care, ...

as all my neighbors in the world did, who were under the rule of the grand

monarch of the [worldly calculating] reason, under whose scepter

everything must mortify what lives in the sensual animal life....” [The

man who lives only for the satisfaction of physical needs cannot serve our

purpose.... There is a higher life than that to which millions are chained

like an animal. To this higher life the Master is to devote himself, and

to it he is metaphorically initiated in the admission. Common nature, the

prince of this world, strives against these requirements.] “Yes,” says the

prince of the earthly life, “how wilt thou turn aside from my laws and

throw thy brother’s yoke from thy neck?” Leade turns to her mother,

Wisdom, who promises her to take God’s advice how the enemy could be

driven away. The proof should be that they were traitors to the crown, to

honor, and to the lordship of the lamb; they would soon be handed over to

justice. (L. G. B., I, pp. 27 ff.) [Cf. on the one hand, in connection

with “accused and complained,” think of the murderer of the royal

architect. As this is the inner man, both belong together. The “prince of

this world” turns the tables on his accusation; psychologically quite

justifiably.]

After various exhortations Jane Leade receives from Wisdom a book which

she, Wisdom, must read from, “in order to explain to you one letter after

another, [Spelling.], especially you do not yet know the number which

makes up your new name. And as long as you do not see that, what kind of

right and title can you advance for the rest of the entire mastery that is

developed there?” (L. G. B., I, p. 36.) It refers to a transmutation of

the man, which cannot happen all at once; “so highly important a change,

that it could not take place without a passing through many distant

degrees.” (L. G. B., II, p. 78.)

We come to a section that is inscribed, “The Magic Journeys.” [Probably I

shall hardly need now to refer to the meaning of the journey.] It contains

all the other phases of the mystical work. “During my spiritual journey to

the land of all blessed abundance, a magic outline of it was placed before

my eyes, while I was brought to a door which was so low and narrow that I

could enter it only by creeping through on my knees, so that it also

required great effort and trouble. [Obstacle of the door.] And so I was

led farther till, after some time, I came to another door, which was

indeed narrow enough but somewhat more comfortable to go through than the

first. As I thus proceeded, I came finally to a door that had two valves,

one of which opened itself, and was quite right in height and width for my

size, and also admitted me to a place of which I could find neither

beginning nor end. And I said, ‘What am I doing here alone?’ Whereupon my

invisible guide who had led me through these three doors or gates replied

that still others would come after me, when they should hear that there

was anywhere so great a country that was to be possessed by new

inhabitants, and that should be filled and blessed also with all kinds of

goods.” (L. G. B., I, p. 40.) [The three gates refer not merely to the

three degrees, but have still for themselves another analogue in the

initiation. In the old English system the aspirant knocks, because the

door offers him a resistance, on the backs of the three officials. They

are, as it were, the spiritual doors of the brotherhood. The resistance,

and how it is gradually presented in Leade’s description, is readily

understood psychologically; the nature of the aspirant is the more adapted

the further he advances on his work.]

“This idea and apparition and the account and explanation following

thereupon were very powerful; so that I entered into the thoughts of it

ever deeper, ... so that I ... also might perceive the explanation and

meaning of the gates. For although my spirit saw naught but an infinite

spaciousness [compare previous pages] I perceived and felt [Infinite

spread of the lodge in accordance with the examination.] still the blowing

of so fragrant and refreshing a breeze, as if all kinds of flowers

actually stood blooming there. [Does the question as to the mason’s wind

belong here psychologically? In any case the pleasant breeze comes from

the east. Jane Leade often describes her flower garden as oriental.

Psychologically and mythologically the breeze has the value of a spermatic

symbol. Anagogically it is concerned with the bestowing of a power or (to

retain the procreation metaphor) the impregnation with such a power.]

Therefore this word was revealed and spoken to me: ‘This is space and

place where the love realm is to arise and become verdant with its natural

inhabitants, who have laid aside their crass self-love [selfishness] and

left it behind them, as it might not come here; even as it is the one

which makes the entrance so narrow and crowded....’ Hereupon I saw in my

spirit unexpectedly different persons, modified out of measure in their

bodies, and they were so highly versed in this mystery that they breathed

forth such a spirit from them that they could give being and existence to

everything that they willed and desired. At times they spread golden tents

and went in and out of them, at other times in places that appeared to be

quite waste and desolate they made wonderful plants and trees to grow up,

which actually offered their perfect fruit that appeared in a bright

golden radiance; of which it was related that they were the magical

nourishment and food on which the inhabitants of this land were supposed

to live.” [We may also say the masters of the art cultivate an

uncultivated people, and provide spiritual nourishment at the drawing

table.] “And although at my first entrance here it seemed that I saw

nothing, yet I did see after a few moments this whole spacious place

filled with spirits of so high a degree that they attracted me at once.

Thereupon they set me divers philosophical questions [Catechizing.] which

I did not understand. So one of them in a very friendly manner offered to

instruct and teach me; said further that he would teach me the secret of

their art.... Accordingly he brought me into a magnificent tent, and

requested me to wait there so that I might advance into the pure acts or

works of faith, because I would succeed thereby in becoming an adept in

this high philosophy. Now when, thereupon, Wisdom herself appeared to me,

I asked her who it was that had set me the philosophical questions?

Whereupon she answered me that they were the old and last living worthies,

and they were the believing holy ones, taught by her in her inward and

outward divine magic stone; and that the time was coming in which she

desired to make new artists and poets in this theosophic wisdom, who

should give a form to the things that had been so odiously disgraced and

lay under a cloud of contempt, ignorance and disgrace. Especially, no

other way besides this could be found than that the deep mine, in which

the treasure had lain hidden so long, should be broken open and unsealed.

[The lost that must be found again is called in freemasonry the master

word. The master wandering has the object of seeking what was lost there

[in the East] and has [partly] been found again.] Hereupon the apostle

John [Well beloved] spoke to me, to whom the secret was well known, and

who was the person who had spoken so kindly to me before, with these

words: ‘Just as a natural stone, so is there also a spiritual stone which

is the root and the foundation of all that the sons of art have brought

visibly into being and into the light. And just as the external is

corporeal, and consists in work of the hands, and consumes a great amount

of time before it can be brought to perfection, so also is the internal

elaborated from degree to degree....’ Therefore I begged and asked the

angel John in what manner I might go to work, to work out the same?” The

“angel John” accorded her the permission. Just as a furnace is used for a

chemical preparation, so also a furnace is necessary for the preparation

of the spiritual Philosopher’s Stone. This outer furnace is, however, the

corporeal man, in which “the fire seeds of pure divinity itself are

kindled by the essence of the soul, when he finds for it a hallowed and

properly prepared vessel. The materia in which one must labor or work is

the divine salt, which is placed in a pure clear crystalline glass, the

pure spirit. Further shouldst thou know, that this divine salt is

concealed in all men.” (L. G. B., I, pp. 40-43.)

Here I must insert the discussion of the salt (also salt stone) and its

effect. We must understand clearly that the salt stone of this symbolism

is the same as the cubical stone of the masonics. That the salt is

hieroglyphically represented by a cube, I have already shown. The concept

stone is the parting of the ways for two symbol groups of similar meaning,

both of which Jane Leade uses. The one group is the chemical preparation,

as the angel John just now described it; the other is the treatment of the

stone as a building stone (which is to be dressed, etc.) found in other

passages from Jane Leade, namely, in connection with the building of a

temple, a sanctuary, the New Jerusalem. Important use is made of men as

building stones preëminently in her “Revelation of Revelations.” This one

passage from L. G. B. (II, p. 138) may be quoted: “Who will now blow this

trumpet of mine that they may break loose from their iron yokes and bonds

and come hither, so that they may become worthy to be built in as well-cut

pillars for the temple of wisdom.” The quadrangular form is several times

mentioned also. Jane Leade is quite right when she says that the divine

salt, the cubic stone, lies concealed in all men; the unprepared man is

the crude stone and in him lies to be developed (potentially not actually)

the cubic. In the preparation of the stone, the alchemistic as well as the

building stone, it depends on the clearing away of the disturbing

elements, not on ornamentation. The purification (rectificatio,

purificatio, etc.) of the alchemistic stone exactly corresponds to the

working over the raw stone with the pick. Crystallization produces the

regular form; fixation, the density. The projection corresponds to the

employment in the building of the temple (which appears infrequently in

symbolism). Probably the most appropriate place for these passages (L. G.

B., I, pp. 131 ff.) is in connection with this mention of building. “Only

have faith, so I will go before you and reveal my name and show you the

foundation of it [the city], wherefrom your strength increases and your

victorious power shall be known. But who must be your architect to

instruct you in this foundation work of yours but this Wisdom who was with

the great God Jehovah from eternity, who gave you existence and being from

the breath of the eternal Will? Therefore thus and in such manner the

motivating power of the will must result and proceed.... Come therefore to

me and I will show you where all these foundation stones lie. Look and see

the material of the treasure in the circumference of your new earth....

Here you might spy out or find this foundation, [Cf. what was said

previously about the new earth], for which purpose will be given to you

the golden measuring line, or the plummet of my spirit.” [The master

stands on the pillar of strength. Jehovah was the last master word.]

We stopped where the angel John says we should know that the divine salt

is hidden in all men. It goes on: “but it has lost its power and savor,

and such is the principle of light that includes all other principles,

because man, although quite unknown to himself, is an abstract and concept

in brief of all worlds. Therefore he may find in himself all that he

seeks; only it cannot happen before the salt alone, which has lain as

dead, has been again raised to life through Christ the Freestone (who

calcines the black to a jasper brilliance and to a beautiful whiteness).

This is the true theosophic medicine, which indeed gradually, or little by

little, works out of itself, from itself, and into itself, even as a grain

of wheat which when it is sown does, by the coöperation of the sun and the

outer planets, forms itself into a body. Only one has to watch and pay

attention so that no birds of prey come and pick it up [Cf. Figure 3, p.

199] before it comes to its maturity and full time. For just such a state

[as with the grain of wheat] exists in the case of the gold stone, which

lies hidden in the foundation of nature, is nourished by the warm fiery

influence of the divine sun and through the moist seeds of the spiritual

Luna [sperma luna] is watered, which makes it grow through the inner

penetration and union of the planetary powers of the higher order, which

draw the weaker and lower into themselves, impregnate and swallow them.

Whereby the mastery is obtained over all that is astral and elemental. In

this manner the beloved John revealed to me the nature of the royal stone,

as it was revealed to him in the island of Patmos (there by him was

brought forth what he possessed in the spirit). And he told me further

concerning this: that where the universal or general love is born in any

one, such would be the true signature and token that this seraphic stone

would there be formed and take to itself a bodily shape.” (L. G. B., I, p.

44).

[Here we meet clearly the trinity [Symbol: Sun] [Symbol: Philosopher’s

Stone] [Symbol: Moon], sun, moon, and as an outgrowth of both the [Symbol:

Philosopher’s Stone] gold stone, the Philosopher’s Stone, which unites in

itself the [Symbol: Gold] and [Symbol: Silver] or which is the same

[Symbol: Fire] and [Symbol: Water]. It is therefore not at all a mistake

to see in the [Symbol: Water] a union of action and reaction. The G must

be conceived in the anagogic sense, as the genesis of the Philosopher’s

Stone or as regeneration.] In L. G. B., I, p. 147, I find also this

remarkable passage: “The word of Jesus was revealed to me in the following

manner: O you that wait upon Jerusalem. Through what gate have you

entered? And what have you seen here that you are so desirous of living

here? Have you not been taken in by the fire flaming eye? [The eye is the

flaming star. In L. G. B., I, p. 196, is found the representation of a

face that is equivalent to the eye. A moon is added to it. The eye

[Symbol: Gold] is, as it were, the sun to this moon.] so that you intend

not to go out again from here, till you get another heart [The pectoral

learns who approaches to the flaming star.] which never could be

completely changed?... O then be therefore wise, and await your nuptial

spirit [Genesis] and the garment of the power unfailing. [i. i. d. St.] No

one can ever get that outside of this treasure city, for in this Zion all

must be born anew....” [Oswald Wirth regards the alchemistic concept Rebis

as the expression of the perfect degree of community. “The initiated, who

becomes in some way androgynous, because he unites the virile energy with

the feminine sensitiveness, is represented in alchemy by the Rebis [from

res bina, the double thing]. This substance, at once male and female, is a

mercury [Symbol: Mercury] animated by its sulphur [Symbol: Sulphur] and

transformed by this act into Azoth [Symbol: Mercury], i.e., into this

quintessence of the elements [fifth essence] of which the flaming star is

the symbol. It should be noted that this star is always placed in such a

way that it receives the double radiation of the male sun [Symbol: Gold]

and the female moon [Symbol: Moon]; its light is thus of a bisexual

nature, androgynous or hermaphrodite. The Rebis corresponds otherwise to

the matter prepared by the final work, otherwise called the journeyman who

has been made worthy to be raised to the mastery.” (W. S. H., p.99.)]

But to return to Jane Leade’s magical journey. “Hereupon I was moved

(because I well knew and was certain that this heavenly stone already had

its birth and growth in me) [Rebirth = the cubical stone’s change from

potentiality to actuality] with great frankness to ask whether my external

furnace [her own body] would keep so long, and not perish [die] before the

stone would have attained its perfection. Whereupon this dear saint [John]

said to me in answer: Worry and trouble not yourself about this but be

only patient in hope; for the true philosophic tree is grown and in a fair

way to produce ripe fruit.” (L. G. B., I, pp. 44 ff.) The preparation of

the stone is now described by John according to the well known outlines.

For “said Wisdom and the apostle John to me: Henceforth you shall be

brought to the old worthy heroes of the faith who have [The masters too.]

effected projection with the stone [= the work of transmutation]. And

after I was brought there I saw the patriarchs or arch fathers and all the

great philosophers, who had been taught by God himself both in the earlier

and in the later times. After that I was led into a darkness and gloom,

which was of itself changed by a magic power into a clear silver light.”

(L. G. B., I, p. 46.) Several other allegories follow for the changing

activity, as described already (L. G. B., I, p. 41). John explains that

all the wonders were accomplished with the stone of wisdom and that

whoever has worked out this stone in himself is marked as one sealed

[Sigillum, Hermetes, Sealing with the Trowel, mark of salvation, Mark

Mason.] of God with the power from above.

A further communication of the preceding vision [sc. Magic Journey] gives

the following additional information: “The Word came to me and said: The

love bond between God and thee must not be loosened but tightly knotted.

Meanwhile the spirit is the only eternal substance and property in which

thou must labor and toil. That it may then cling to you so fast and

strongly that it may draw thee quite closely to it and may establish thee

within the circle of the immeasurable love; from which enmity is sundered,

and the curse of the elements is separated and wholly taken away. O go in,

go, I say, into it, for this is the infinite space, that thou hast seen,

and which is to be found inside the third door. [Does this need any

explanation?] This invisible love bond will perfect thee through the first

gate, which is so narrow and low, and therefore also through the other two

gates; in case that thou wilt yield everything in thee completely in all

its length and breadth so that it may be able quickly to raise thee. For,

dear one, what is to return thee so mightily to the desired enjoyment of

all abundance and good as the love of God? Therefore be strong and

courageous in love, in going through these divers gates, and fear not any

attack of the adversary till thou hast entered this hallowed country and

art wedded therein to thy beloved.”

A complaint that was made of Wisdom by her pilgrim: “Meanwhile as I lay in

my deep struggle, came there a spirit of prayer down, who made an earnest

supplication and unutterable sighing, rise towards heaven, [The

lamentation at the grave of the Master.] which as I felt most clearly,

penetrated and broke through the gate of the eternal profound, so that my

spirit had an entrance to the secret chamber of pure godhead, wherein I

had audience and complete freedom to pour out my lamentations and show my

wounds and tell who had pierced me. For each and every hand was against

me, let fly their stinging arrows at me, and burdened and oppressed still

more that which hung already, dropping blood, upon the cross, and cried

and said, Crucify, crucify her, make her really feel death in the

dying.... I was in violent birth travail. All woes and onsets, however,

made a greater opening for the birth of life, and gave me an entrance into

the holy place, wherein first I heard the eternal tones. And then after

this, as I gained the strength to be in a pleasant quiet, I was in a clear

water, [Tears.], in which no mud nor any refuse arose; also no implement

was lifted to any work there, nor was any noise nor uproar heard.” [Just

as in the building of Solomon’s temple.] (L. G. B., I, p. 48.)

Now Leade hears the comforting voice of the “Bridegroom” (the unio

mystica) which brings to her view the perfection she has striven for, and

commands her to touch no unclean spirits of this world. [Gloves.] Only

what is detached from sin may come near him. The bridegroom is answered by

Leade’s soul-spirit: “Lord, how can this be done? For although I have had

a great longing towards this ministration [the holy service] that I might

be ever near thee, the spirit of this world [See previous.] has made claim

to this shell or body of mine, and says that I have not yet stepped out

the bounds and sphere of his dominion. The external man is encompassed by

hunger and thirst, heat and cold [antitheses of the Hindu philosophy],

which are wont to entangle his external senses in such things as are

external, in such a way that no one can live in such pure abstraction and

seclusion, until he is relieved of and freed from all care for the

external body. This is what I bewailed with tears, and expressly asked God

whether it was not possible for the eternal mind and spirit to supply all

necessaries for the bodily part without aid of the spirit of reason, who

is king in that realm where malediction rules?” [In other words, whether

it was not possible in the living life to be released from contradiction

(as it is called in the Bhagavad-Gita), to quite tear away the bonds of

animal sensuous being, and definitively allow the eternal principles to be

active. The question is whether the terrestrial stone is, in its complete

perfection, on the whole possible, whether the ethical ideal in absolute

purity can be pragmatically realized.]

“Whereupon after a short blocking and stilling of my external senses, I

received this answer [of the Bridegroom]; that this could not be until a

complete death of the body of sin was suffered, showing me that which is

written in the 6th verse of the seventh chapter of Romans, that after that

was perished and dead, wherein we were held, we should serve God in

newness of spirit.” (L. G. B., I, pp. 50 ff.)