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 stroemen Das sich anfuellet und doch ruhig dasteht Wer so in sich die Wuensche laesst verschwinden, Der findet Ruhe—nicht wer ihnen nachgibt."

Above I have compared the lion of the parable to the Sphinx of OEdipus, 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 cooeperation 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 (OEdipus 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 OEdipus 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 Mueller: "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.

Irenaeus 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]." Irenaeus 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 cooeperate. 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.