Hidden Symbolism of Alchemy and the Occult Arts Part 21

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 trans.m.u.tation]. And after I was brought there I saw the patriarchs or arch fathers and all the great philosophers, who had been taught by G.o.d 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 G.o.d 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 G.o.d 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 s.p.a.ce, 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 G.o.d? 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 G.o.dhead, 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 sh.e.l.l or body of mine, and says that I have not yet stepped out the bounds and sphere of his dominion. The external man is encompa.s.sed by hunger and thirst, heat and cold [ant.i.theses 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 G.o.d 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 G.o.d in newness of spirit." (L. G. B., I, pp. 50 ff.)

[Here we have then the requirement to become wholly dead to the realm of sin, in order to be able to rise fully to the ethical ideal. The question whether this is possible in life remains open, to be sure. In symbolism this mystical death and the union with the highest spirit was represented symbolically in the highest degree of freemasonry. The representative of the Highest is the Master degree of the M. v. St. and he fills the dead, as it were, with his life, as the raising takes place (H in H, F against F, K against K, etc.), like the reviving of the child by Elijah (I Kings XVIII, 21). As for the necessary decay of the body before the raising ("The skin leaves," etc.) let us quote the pa.s.sage, L. G. B., I, pp. 271 ff.: [the divine word speaks] "Know ... that I have not left thee without a potent and rich talent which lies in thine own keeping, although deep hidden and covered with a threefold covering (Exod., x.x.xIX 34, Num. IV, 5, 6), which must be removed before thou canst see this costly garment. The first covering is the coa.r.s.e dark appearance of this earthly realm ... the second is the fast-binding [directed upon the mundane] reason ... the third is the baser natural senses.... Provided that thou thoroughly determine with the firm resolution to break through these three obstacles, thou wilt come to the golden ma.s.s.... While it is given to ye then to know where the treasure really lies [Seeking out of the grave. The three murderers, who have hidden the corpse, are these very 'three obstacles.']

and you have my spirit on this, which will not alone seek for it but will with the hand of its strength strongly cooperate with you; [To revive the mystical dead.] so resolve as united in the spirit ... to break through that and to break it up, which lies as a covering over this princely being.... Pray and do not only wait [no idle mysticism] but struggle and work until you have released, set free and liberated this power hidden in a prison; which may be exalted upon the throne of empire, since in truth my spirit as well as yours has. .h.i.therto not been displaced from its kingdom except by force and unrighteousness." [With reference to the raising (cf. L. G. B., III, pp. 87, 91); in that place three degrees of mystical development are described in the similitude of three altars.

Under the last altar, which is built of quadrangular stones, in which one can see his own face as in mirrors, lies the life trampled to death, which will again be wakened.]

"Knowest thou not, I was asked, that the law of sin has the mastery as long as it [the body with its selfish tendencies] lives? So that the spirit clearly bore witness and gave me to understand that nothing could make me worthy of this marriage with the Lamb [unio mystica] except an absolute death, since he wedded only the maidenly spirit, to be one flesh with him, [H in H, F against F, etc.] and by so doing changed it into his own pure manhood. [Humanity.] And this is the generation or birth to an actively self-sufficient being, which rises out of the old one. For just as the grain of wheat perishes or dies in the earth and comes into a new life, just so it goes also with the arising and the growing up of the new creation, which in truth is Christ our life, whose appearance will put an end to the sins in us. For, dear one, what has brought on the curse, care, trouble, misery, weaknesses, which press and torture the poor man in this fallen state of his but the departing from G.o.d? And as long as he is in this condition, he is a debtor to sin and under its dominion; which subjects him to all affliction and misery, which are wont to follow the footsteps of those who live in the elemental flesh. Now without doubt it is good and joyful tidings to hear of a possibility of drawing out and putting off this body of sins; and in truth the prophet who has arisen in me has prophesied that such a day was at hand. Be dismayed at it, ye that are the wounders and despisers of this grace; which I see is now near being revealed, for the bridal garments are being prepared ... [Cf. the end of the parable.] O Wisdom, the preparation and ordering of the bridal garments is given in charge to you alone, which shall be of divers colors, with which the king's daughter, [a.n.a.logue of the king's son, the improved son figure of the parable.] who is entrusted to thy teaching and instruction, may be distinguished from all others, and known [as redeemed]." (L. G. B., I, pp. 51 ff., wherewith the magic journey is ended.)

Thus there is a confident tone, a hope in that which loses itself in the infinite. But Leade suspects that it is an unattainable ideal and knows what regulative import it has: "Ah, who up to this hour has traveled so far, and what are all our realized gifts until we have reached this goal [union with the Divinity]. Can our plummet even sound it and explore in the deep abyss, the matchless wonder of the immeasurable being? And because the revolving wheel of my spirit has found no rest in all that it has seen, known, possessed and enjoyed, it stretched its errant senses continuously towards what was still held back, and kept, by the strong rock of omnipotence; to struggle towards which with a fresh attack I resolutely determined, and would be sent away with nothing less than the kingdom and the ruling power of the Holy Ghost." (L. G. B., I, p. 87.)

In a parallel between the old and new royal art, I cannot overlook the French masonic writer Oswald Wirth, who has worked in the same province. I agree with him in general; although much of his method of interpretation seems to me too arbitrary. I have already called attention to several pa.s.sages from W. S. H. on the preparation of the subject [i.e., the uninitiated]. I will endeavor to outline the contents of the rest of the work according to the ideas of Wirth.

Having given up himself, the Subjectum is overcome in the philosophic egg [preparation chamber, i.e., sch. K.] by sadness and suffering. His strength ebbs away, the decomposition begins; the subtle is separated from the coa.r.s.e. [Smaragdine tablet.] That is the first phase of the air test.

After descending to the center of the earth [Visita interiora terrae, etc.-Smaragdine tablet, 6, 8.] where the roots of all individuality meet, the spirit rises up again [Smaragdine tablet, 10.] released from the caput mortuum, which is blacked on the floor of the hermetic receptacle. The residuum is represented by the cast-off raiment of the novice. Laboriously now, he toils forward in the darkness; the heights draw him on; escaping h.e.l.l he will attain to heaven. His ascent up the holy mountain is hindered by a violent storm; he is thrown into the depths by the tempest: a symbol of circulation in the closed vessel of the alchemists, which vessel corresponds to the protected lodge. During the circulation the volatile parts rise and fall again like rain, which is symbolized by the tears upon the walls. To be sure, it is not here that the neophyte is subjected to the water test, and if a confusion is possible on this point it comes from the fact that all the operations of the great work go on in one vessel, while the masonic initiation is completed in a suite of different rooms, so that the symbolic series here suffers disintegration. The circulating water, which soaks into the pores of the earthly parts of the subject, purifies it more and more, so that it goes from gray through a series of colors (peac.o.c.k's tail) to white. In this stage the material corresponds to the wise man who knows how to resist all seduction. Yet we are not to be satisfied with this negative virtue; the fire test (we should remember that the four tests by the elements were to be found in the parable also) is still to be gone through, the calcination, which burns everything combustible. After the calcination there is a perfectly purified salt [Symbol: Salt] of absolute transparence. So long as the novice has not attained this moral clearness, the light cannot be vouchsafed to him. In brief, in the first degree, the main thing is the comprehensive purification. The salt layers must be made crystal clear, that surround the inner sulphur [Symbol: Sulphur] like a crust and hinder it from its free radiation. Sulphur is to be regarded as a symbol of the expansive power, as individual initiative, as will. Mercury stands opposite to it as woman does to man, as that which goes to the subject from without, or as absolute receptivity. Salt is midway between both; in it the equilibrium between [Symbol: Sulphur] and [Symbol: Mercury] is found. It is a symbol of what appears as the stable being of man. In the first degree the purification of the salt is worked out for the release of the sulphur. The red column J corresponds to the red sulphur, by which symbolically the novices get their reward. For the rest, the first degree is satisfied with getting the novices to see the universal light (the blazing star). (W. S.

H., pp. 88-92.)

The fire test takes place in the second degree. The fiery sulphur must be worked out or rather sent out and used for work. The field of activity of the member proportions itself, as it were, according to the expansion or range of its sulphurous radiation. At this time the member enters into a relation of such intensified activity with the world that the intellectual grasp [which corresponds to the [Symbol: Mercury] = princ.i.p.al] acquires from it a new illumination [blazing star], and breaks away for a connection of the will, which was at first merely individual, with the collectivity. To me at least that appears to be the sense of the figurative but not quite clear exposition of W. S. H., pp. 952-962, which I have, for the sake of exactness, given in the original text. [See Appendix, Note I.] As soon as the crude stone is cut and polished we have no longer to work inward but outward. What we are to accomplish so creatively would be insignificant if we did not know the secret of borrowing power from a power that apparently lies without us. Where do these mysterious powers work if not at the pillar B, whose name means: i.

i. d. St.? In the north directed on the contrary towards the moon, whose soft feminine light it reflects, it corresponds to [Symbol: Mercury], which unceasingly flows towards all being, in order to support its central fire, [Symbol: Fire]. The exaltation of the latter leads to the fire test, the idea of which Wirth seems to take in strictly occult form, in the manner of Eliphas Levi. Finally, a circulation takes place, in that the individual will seeks like a magnet to draw the divine will, always falls down again, rises, however, and so on in cycles, till both meet in the "philosophical fire." It is the cycle of which we read in the Smaragdine Tablet. The incombustible essence that comes forth from the fire test is the phnix (a figure much used by the alchemists). The member has the task of changing himself into the phnix. Not only [Symbol: Fire] belongs to the work, however, but also the act must be guided by intelligence; activity and receptivity must complement each other. Therefore the member has to know both pillars thoroughly. And therefore he becomes also the already mentioned androgynous material, Rebis. That is only to be attained when the elemental propensities are overcome, therefore the figure Rebis is represented as standing on the dragon. (W. S. H., pp. 96-101.)

What will the master do now? He will identify himself with the Master Builder of all worlds, in order to work in him and through him. When any one says that that is mysticism, he is not wrong. Being developed on the three successive ways of purgatio, illuminatio, and unio, this mysticism is no less logical than the religious mysticism that with its mortifications, if it were only rightly understood, would accomplish the same purpose. Mortification is, as the word itself says, the endeavor for a certain kind of death. Twice is the mason enjoined to die; at the beginning in the preparation room and at the end at the final initiation into the inmost chamber. The second death corresponds to the perfection of the grand mastery. It signifies the complete sacrifice of his personality, the renunciation of every personal desire. It is the effacement of that radical egotism that caused the fall of Adam, in that he dragged down spirituality into corporeality. The narrow pusillanimous ego melts into nothing before the high impersonal self, symbolized by Hiram. The mythical sins of the eternal universal human Adam are thus expatiated. The architect of the temple is to the Grand Master Builder of All Worlds (G.

B. a. W.) just what in Christian symbolism the Word become flesh is to the Eternal Father. In order to carry on the work of the universal structure with advantage the Master must enter into the closest union of the will with G.o.d. No longer a slave in anything he is the more a master of all, the more his will works in harmony with the one that rules the universe.

"Placed between the abstract and the concrete, between the creative intelligence and the objective creation, man thus conceived, appears like the mediator par excellence, or the veritable Demiurge of the gnostics."

Yet it is not enough that he gets light from its original source, he must also be bound by endless activity to those whom he is to lead. The necessary bond is sympathy, love. "The master must make himself loved and he can only succeed by himself loving with all the warmth of a generosity extending even to absolute devotion, even to the sacrifice of himself."

The pelican [We are already acquainted with this hermetic bird.] is the hieroglyph for this loving sacrifice without which every effort remains vain. (W. S. H., p. 105.)

The master's degree, this necessarily last degree, corresponds to an ideal that is set us as a task: we must strive towards it even if its realization is beyond our powers. Our temple will never be finished, and no one expects to see the true eternal Hiram arise in himself. (W. S. H., p. 94.)

We find also in Wirth, how the work is divided into three main steps, which begin with the purifying, turn towards the inner soul, and end with the death-resembling Unio Mystica; here we find, too, in the last degree the unattainable ideal, which like a star in heaven shall give a sure course to the voyage of our life. The viewing of the exalted anagogic conception as a perspective vanishing point, makes allowance for the possible errors of superposition in the anagogic aspect of the elementary types.

The tripart.i.te division, which we meet in the great work, shows the frequently doubted inner qualification of the three degrees of freemasonry. As they answer a need, they have again prevailed, although they were not existent in the masonic form of the royal art at the beginning (about two centuries ago); I say "again," because similar needs have already earlier produced similar forms. (Cf. L. Keller's writings.) Whether we consider ethical education in general or the intensive (introversion) form of it, mysticism, we have in either case a process of development, and degrees are necessary to express it symbolically. The effort, appearing from time to time, to multiply the degrees has been justified. We can divide what is divided into three sections into seven also (7 operations in alchemy, 7 levels of contemplation, 7 ordinations, etc.), although it is not really needed. But the idea of abolishing the three degrees can only arise from a misapprehension of the value of the existing symbolism. That masonry is a union of equal rights is not affected by the presence of the degrees, provided that their symbolic significance is not overstepped. The degrees form a const.i.tuent part of the symbolic custom itself and like it are to be intangible.

The symbols of all the lofty spiritual religious communities, for which the royal art presents itself as a paradigm or exemplar, put before us, as it were, types of truth. Single facts which the symbols may signify (or that could be read into the symbols) are not the most important, but rather the totality of all these meanings. The totality (which can be acquired only by a sort of integration) is something inexpressible; and if it also succeeded in expressing this inexpressible, the words of the expression would be incomprehensible to any finite spirit, as the individual facts are.

The symbols are the unchangeable, the individual meanings are the variegated and the changeable. [As for the masonic symbolism in particular, I am in agreement with Robert Fischer (Kat. Erl., III, fin.).

"Freemasonry rests on symbols and ceremonies; in that lies its superior t.i.tle to continued existence. They are created for eternal verities and peculiarly adapted thereto; they are fitted to every grade of culture, indeed to every time, and do not fall like other products of the time, a sacrifice to time itself.... Therefore a complete abolition of our symbols can meet with a.s.sent as little as an enfeeblement of them can be desired.

Much more must we strive in order that a clear understanding may sift out the abstract, corresponding to our spiritual eye, from the concrete necessary for our physical eye, so that the combined pictures shall be resolved in the simple fundamental truths. By this means the symbols attain life and motion and cannot be put down for things that decay with time."] Therefore the symbols should never be changed in favor of a particular meaning, which becomes the fashion (or be brought closer to it over and above the given relation). What is to be maintained through variations of meaning, is not the meanings but the symbols themselves.

To each person symbols represent his own truth. To every one they speak a different language. No one exhausts them. Every one seeks his ideal chiefly in the unknown. It matters not so much what ideal he seeks, but only that he does seek one. Effort itself, not the object of effort, forms the basis of development. No seeker begins his journey with full knowledge of the goal. Only after much circulation in the philosophic egg and only after much pa.s.sing through the prism of colors does that light dawn which gives us the faint intimation of the outline of the prototype of all lesser ideals. Whoever desires hope of a successful issue to this progress must not forget a certain gentle fire that must operate from the beginning to the end, namely Love.

Whom these teachings cheer not, Deserves not to be a man.

NOTES.

Note A (80). I put here not merely those comparisons of motives which are alike at the beginning, but also those that are important for our further consideration. My rendering of them is partly abridged. Signs of similarity are, as Stucken explains, not employed to express an absolute congruence, but predominantly in the sense of "belongs with" or "or is the alternate of." Stucken's comparison I, A, goes: Moses in the ark = spark of fire in the ark = Pandora's books = Eve's apple; I, B: Moses in the ark = the exposed = the fatherless = the persecuted = the deluge hero [the one floating in the ark]. II, A: Eve's apple = Moses in the ark = Onan's seed = fire = soma = draught of knowledge, etc. III, B: Tearing open of the womb = decapitation or dismemberment = exposure = separation of the first parents. IV, B: The dismembered [man or woman] = the rejuvenated = the reborn [m. or w.]. VI, A: Potiphar motive = separation of first parents = Onan motive. VII, A: The wicked stepmother = Potiphar's wife = man eater.

VII, B: Flight from the "man eater" = flight from Potiphar's wife = flight from the wicked stepmother = separation of the first parents = magic flight. IX, A: The first parents = magic flight. IX, A: The killed ram = Thor's ram = Thyestes' meal = soma. XIII, A: The exposed = the persecuted = the dismembered child = the slain ram-the helpful animal. XIX: The Uriah letter = the changed letter = word violence [curse = blessing]. XX: Scapegoat = ark. XXVIII: Wrestling match = rape of women = rape of soma = opening of the chest [opening of the hole] = rape of the garments [of the bathing swan ladies]. XXIX: Castration = tearing asunder [consuming] of the mother's body = the final conflagration = the deluge. x.x.xIII, A: Dragonfight = wrestling match = winning of the offered king's daughter = rape of the women = rape of fire = deluge. XL, A: Incest motive = Potiphar motive. XL, B: Incest = violation of a [moral] prohibition. XL, C: Seducer [male or female] to incest = "man-eater." XLIV, A: The father who rejects the daughter = "man eater." XLIV, B: Separation of the first parents = refusal of the daughter [refusal of the "king's daughter" promised to the dragon fighter] = subst.i.tution. XLV, A: Sodomy = subst.i.tution = rape = parthenogenesis = marriage of mortal with the immortal = seduction = adultery = incest = love = embraces of the first parents = wrestling match. Otherwise is marriage of mortal with the immortal = incest = separation of the first parents. (SAM Book 5.)

Note B (128). That the ideas of gold and offal lie very near each other is shown in numerous forms and variations in myth, fairy tale and popular superst.i.tion. I mention above all the figure of the ducat or gold-dropper which has probably been attenuated from a superst.i.tion to a joke, and around it are gathered such expressions as "he has gold like muck," "he must have a gold dropper at his house"; then the description of b.l.o.o.d.y hemorrhoids as golden veins; the fabulous animals that produce as excrement gold and precious things. Here belong also the golden a.s.s [K. H.

M., No. 36], which at the word "Bricklebrit" begins "to spew gold from before and behind," or [Pentam., No. 1], at the command, "arre cacaure,"

gives forth gold, pearls and diamonds as a priceless diarrhea. [Arre is a word of encouragement like our get-up; cacuare is derived naturally from cacare, kacken = to cack, perhaps with an echo of aurum, oro, gold.] It occurs frequently in sagas that animal dung, e.g., horse manure, is changed into gold as, inversely, gold sent by evil spirits is easily turned [again] into dung. Gold is, in the ancient Babylonian way of thinking, which pa.s.ses over into many myths, muck of h.e.l.l or the under world. If a man buried a treasure so that no one should find it, he does well to plant a cactus on the covered [treasure] as a guardian of the gold, according to an old magical custom. An attenuation of the comparison dung = gold seems to be coal = gold. In Stucken we find the comparison excrement = Rheingold = sperm [S. A. M., p. 262] and connected with it [pp. 266 ff.] a ma.s.s of material mythologically connected with it. I mention the similar parallels derived from dream a.n.a.lysis (Stekel, Spr. d.

Tr., pa.s.sim), further in particular the psychologically interesting contributions of Freud on "a.n.a.l character" (Kl. Schr., pp. 132 ff.) like Rank's contribution. (Jb. ps. F., IV, pp. 55 ff.)

Note C (280). According to Jung it is a characteristic of the totality of the sun myth which relates that the "fundamental basis of the 'incestuous'

desire is not equivalent to cohabitation, but to the peculiar idea of becoming a child again, to return to the parents' protection, to get back into the mother again in order to be born again by the mother. On the way to this goal stands incest, however, i.e., necessity in some way to get back into the uterus again. One of the simplest ways was to fructify the mother and procreate oneself again. Here the prohibition against incest steps in, so now the sun myths and rebirth myths teem with all possible proposals as to how one could encompa.s.s incest. A very significant way of encompa.s.sing it is to change the mother into another being or rejuvenate her, in order to make her vanish after the resulting birth [respective propagation], i.e., to cause her to change herself back. It is not incestuous cohabitation that is sought, but rebirth, to which one might attain quickest by cohabitation. This, however, is not the only way, although perhaps the original one." (Jung, Jb. ps. F., IV, pp. 266 ff.) In another place it is said: The separation of the son from the mother signifies the separation of man from the pairing consciousness of animals, from the lack of individual consciousness characteristic of infantile archaic thought. "First by the force of the incest prohibition could a self-conscious individual be produced, who had before been, thoughtlessly one with the genus, and only so first could the idea of the individual and conclusive death be rendered possible. So came, as it were, death into the world through Adam's sin. The neurotic who cannot leave his mother has good reason; fear of death holds him there. It appears that there is no concept and no word strong enough to express the meaning of this conflict.

Whole religions are built to give value to the magnitude of this conflict.

This struggle for expression, enduring thousands of years, cannot have the source of its power in the condition which is quite too narrowly conceived by the common idea of incest; much more apparently must we conceive the law that expresses itself first and last as a prohibition against incest as a compulsion toward domestication, and describe the religious system as an inst.i.tution that most of all takes up the cultural aims of the not immediately serviceable impulsive powers of the animal nature, organizes them and gradually makes them capable of sublimated employment." (Jb. ps.

F., IV, pp. 314 ff.)

Note D (274). Jung divides the libido into two currents lengthwise, one directed forward, the other backward: "As the normal libido is like a constant stream, which pours its waters into the world of reality, so the resistance, dynamically regarded, is not like a rock raised in the river bed, which is flowed over and around by the stream, but like a back current flowing towards the source instead of towards the mouth. A part of the soul probably wants the external object, another part, however, prefers to return to the subjective world, whither the airy and easily built palaces of the phantasy beckon. We could a.s.sume this duality of human will, for which Bleuler from his psychiatric standpoint has coined the word ambitendency, as something everywhere and always existing, and recall that even the most primitive of all motor impulses are already contradictory as where, e.g., in the act of extension, the flexor muscles are innervated." (Jb. ps. F., IV, p. 218.)

Note E (279). Of the wonderful abilities that pa.s.s current as fruits of the yoga practice, the eight grand powers [Maha-siddhi] are generally mentioned: 1. To make oneself small or invisible [animan], 2, 3. to acquire the uttermost lightness or heaviness [laghiman, gariman], 4. to increase to the size of a monster and to reach everything even the most distant, as e.g., to the moon with the tips of the fingers [mahiman or prapti], 5. un.o.bstructed fulfillment of all wishes, e.g., the wish to sink into the earth as into water and to emerge again [prakamya], 6. perfect control over the body and the internal organs [isitva], 7. the ability to change the course of nature [vasitva], and 8. by mere act of will to place oneself anywhere [yatra kamavasayitva]. Besides these eight marvelous powers many others might be named, which are partly included in the above; such an exaltation of sensitiveness that the most remote and imperceptible images, the happenings in other worlds on planets and stars, as also the goings on in one's own interior and in other men's are perceived by the senses; the knowledge of the past and the future, of previous existences and of the hour of death; understanding the language of animals, the ability to summon the dead, etc. These miraculous powers, however, suffer from the disadvantages of being transitory, like everything else won by man through his merit-with the exception of salvation. (Garbe, Samkhya and Yoga, p. 46.)

Note F (305). Jung (Jb., Ill, p. 171) refers to Maeterlinck's "inconscient superieur" (in "La Sagesse et la Destinee") as a prospective potentiality of subliminal combinations. He comments on it as follows: "I shall not be spared the reproach of mysticism. Perhaps the matter should none the less be pondered: doubtless the unconscious contains the psychological combinations that do not reach the liminal value of consciousness.

a.n.a.lysis resolves these combinations into their historical determinants for that is one of the essential tasks of a.n.a.lysis, i.e., to render powerless by disconnecting them, the obsessions of the complexes that are concurrent with the purposeful conduct of life. History is ignorant of two kinds of things: what is hidden in the past and what is hidden in the future. Both are probably to be attained with a certain measure of probability, the former as a postulate, the latter as a historical prognosis. In so far as to-morrow is contained in to-day, and all the warp of the future already laid, a deepened knowledge of the present could make possible a more or less wide-reaching and sure prognosis of the future. If we transfer this reasoning, as Kant has already done, to the psychologic, the following things must result; just as memory traces, which have demonstrably become subliminal, are still accessible to the unconscious, so also are certain very fine subliminal combinations showing a forward tendency, which are of the greatest possible significance for future occurrences in so far as the latter are conditioned by our psychology. But just as the science of history troubles itself little about the future combinations which are rather the object of politics, just so little are the psychological combinations the object of the a.n.a.lysis, but would be rather the object of an infinitely refined psychological synthesis, which should know how to follow the natural currents of the libido. We cannot do this, but probably the unconscious can, for the process takes place there, and it appears as if from time to time in certain cases significant fragments of this work, at least in dreams, come to light, whence came the prophetic interpretation of dreams long claimed by superst.i.tion. The aversion of the exact [sciences] of to-day against that sort of thought-process which is hardly to be called phantastic is only an overcompensation of the thousands of years old but all too great inclination of man to believe in soothsaying."

Note G (317). The umbilical region plays no small part as a localization point for the first inner sensations in mystic introversion practices. The accounts of the Hindu Yoga doctrine harmonize with the experiences of the omphalopsychites. Staudenmaier thinks that he has, in his investigations into magic, which partly terminated in the calling up of extremely significant hallucinations, observed that realistic heavenly or religious hallucinations take place only if the "specific" nerve complexes [of the vegetative system] are stimulated as far down as the peripheral tracts in the region of the small intestine. (Magie als exp. Naturw., p. 123.) Many visionary authors know how to relate marvels of power to the region of the stomach and of the solar plexus. In an essay on the seat of the soul, J.

B. van Helmont a.s.sures us that there is a stronger feeling in the upper orifice of the stomach than in the eye itself, etc.; that the solar plexus is the most essential organ of the soul. He recounts the following experience. In order to make an experiment on poisonous herbs he made a preparation of the root of aconite [Aconitum napellus] and only tasted it with the tip of his tongue without swallowing any of it. "Immediately," he says, "my skin seemed to be constricted as with a bandage, and soon after, there occurred an extraordinary thing, the like of which I had never experienced before. I noticed with astonishment that I felt, perceived and thought no longer with my head, but in the region of my stomach, as if knowledge had taken its seat in the stomach. Amazed at this unusual phenomenon, I questioned myself and examined myself carefully. I merely convinced myself that my power of perception was now much stronger and more comprehensive. The spiritual clearness was coupled with great pleasure. I did not sleep nor dream, I was still temperate and my health perfect. I was at times in raptures, but they had nothing in common with the fact of feeling with the stomach, which excluded all cooperation with the head. Meantime my joy was interrupted by the anxiety that this might even bring on some derangement. Only my belief in G.o.d and my resignation to his will soon destroyed this fear. This condition lasted two hours, after which I had several attacks of giddiness. I have since often tried to taste of aconite, but I could not get the same result." (Van Helmont, Ortus Medic, p. 171, tr. Ennemoser, Gesch. d. Mag., p. 913.)

Note H (381). For the old as for the new royal art the material is man, as man freed from all framework. "Not man of the conventional social life, but man as the equally ent.i.tled and equally obligated being of divine creation, enters the temple of humanity with the obligation always to remain conscious of his duty and to put aside everything that comes up to hinder the fulfillment of the highest duty." (R. Fischer.) Compare with this what Hitchc.o.c.k says of the material of the Philosopher's Stone: "Although men are of diverse dispositions ... yet the alchemists insist ... that all the nations of men are of one blood, that is, of one nature; and that character in man, by which he is one nature, it is the special object of alchemy to bring into life and action, by means of which, if it could universally prevail, mankind would be const.i.tuted into a brotherhood." (H. A., pp. 48 ff.) [The tests] ... "begin with the stripping of the metals. Now alchemy recommends, once the propitious matter is seen, carefully examined and recognized, to clean it externally for the purpose of freeing it of every foreign body that could adhere accidentally to its surface. The matter, in fine, should be reduced to itself. Now it is an absolutely a.n.a.logous matter that the candidate is called to strip himself of everything that he possesses artificially; both it and he ought to be reduced strictly to themselves. In this state of primitive innocence, of philosophic candor retrieved, the subject is imprisoned in a narrow retreat where no external light can penetrate. This is the chamber of meditation which corresponds to the matras of the alchemist, to his philosophic egg hermetically sealed. The uninitiated finds there a dark tomb where he must voluntarily die to his former existence. By decomposing the integuments that are opposed to the true expansion of the germ of individuality, this symbolic death precedes the birth of the new being who is to be initiated." (W. S. H., pp. 87 ff.)

Note I (411). As to the Chamber of the Companion hung in red, it represents the sphere of action of our individuality, measured by the extent of our sulphurous radiation. This radiation produces a kind of refractive [refringent] medium, which refracts the surrounding diffused light [[Symbol: Mercury] is meant] to concentrate it on the spiritual nucleus of the subject. Such is the mechanism of the illumination, by which those benefit who have seen the blazing star shine. Every being bears in himself this mysterious star, but too often in the condition of a dim spark hardly perceptible. It is the philosophic child, the immanent Logos or the Christ incarnate, which legend represents as born obscurely in the midst of the filth of a cave serving as a stable. The initiation becomes the vestal of this inner fire [Symbol: Sulfur]; archetype or principle of all individuality. She knows how to care for it as long as it is brooded in the ashes. Then she devotes herself to nourishing it judiciously, to render it keen for the moment when it finally should overcome the obstacles that imprison it and seek to hold it in isolation.

It means, as a matter of fact, that the Son is put en rapport with the external [Symbol: Mercury], or in other words, that the individual enters into communion with the collectivity from which he comes.

BIBLIOGRAPHY.

OLD. (Before 1800.)

Agrippa ab Nettesheym, Henricus Cornelius, Opera.