Book Co., Chicago).

(4i)

Introduction.

The experimental hypnotisation of subjects, the entrance-
merit of mediums and the induced extension of psychical
faculty from them to produce abnormal phenomena,
the deflation of such persons by the extrusion of the stuff
that goes to the making of seance-room " materialisations,' r
— what are these but examples a rebours of that " philo-
sophical separation " of the gross from the subtle nature
already spoken of as a preliminary necessity to the
Hermetic work ? Exponents of modern psychical re-
search have regarded such mediumistic faculties as
indications of racial progress, as the budding of new and
higher powers in man, and imagine such demonstrations
to be useful contributions to science and our knowledge
of truth. With such opinions the uniform teaching of
all Hermetists and profound students of the science of
self-knowledge is at sharpest issue, (and this independently
of abstract thinkers like Hegel and some of his school
who have reached a like conclusion). It regards them
not as progressive but as retrograde, as a reversion to-
ancestral types of subconscious faculty now superseded
by consciousness and therefore on no account to be
encouraged. It views man, i.e., the soul or true ego
of man, as in process of restoration from the terrible
calamity of his " fall," in the course of which process
development under the operation of the forces and laws
of nature has partially redeemed him from chaos and
disorder and brought him to a point from which, by the
right application of his intelligence and will, he can
co-operate in effecting his complete reintegration. But
to reverse this process by inhibiting his normal conscious-
ness and remitting into its pre-natal fluidity what, after
reonian labour, has at last been brought thereout into
individuality and fixation in physical conditions with a
view to still further progression, is a crime against the
natural order and involves those who indulge in it in
consequences not physically apparent but entailing
expiation and suffering in planes upon which the protection
of the physical body will be wanting. The late Professor
Tyndall spoke more truly than he knew, and would have
been endorsed by every Hermetist, when he described
enquiry into these phenomena as intellectual adultery, —
the very term in which intercourse with the astral is

(42)

Introduction

frequently referred to in the Scriptures ; they belong to
the sphere of mental and spiritual anarchy, to the
' sphynx's lair," as the old sages have called it, the
great deep of the feculent astral-zone of impure
unconditioned ether into which are gathered all the lees
and shells and reflections of our collective thoughts and
passions and where they continue to display a simulation
of intelligent life. f Facts," as Mrs. At wood would
frequently describe these manifestations, ' but false
facts," i.e., having no true relation to the natural order
we now live in.

Obviously there is grave peril in the exercise, by an
irresponsible, uninstructed, or morally unfit person, of
the will that puts a patient into a condition exposing him
to unsuspected influences and force currents. " Will (as
Early Magnetism explains) is itself the simple substanti-
ality of all things, the omnia in omnibus, unparticled,
homogeneous, one, in and above all created things ; and
the projected personal will of the magnetiser will affect
his patient in proportion alike to its power, its purity or
impurity, and its righteous or sinister motive. Trans-
ported by and through the universal etheric medium
to the patient, that will is efficacious for good or evil ;
a vacuum is inevitably created somewhere by those trifling
with the magnetic trance, which must in due time be
expiated by its effects. Let none therefore presume to
play idly with it, for to do so and to degrade it to selfish
ends is perchance with the keys of heaven to unlock
the easier gates of hell, so specifically does the intention
immediately image its principle in act. Springing
directly from ourselves, this highly effective agent flows
forth, as the mind directs, to good or evil, and imposes,
in sure consequences on him who wields it, its inherent
accountability."

Much is said in this volume of " the manual work,"
the use of the hand — "the obstetric hand" — as the
tractive instrument for conducting the operator's efficient
will an J manipulating the patient's psychical organism.
The ordinary reader will be surprised at the suggestion
of spiritual development being dependent upon or con-
trollable by manual influence. Yet every one knows the
unspoken language, and the attraction or repulsion

(43)

Introduction.

communicable by a casual touch or shake of the hand,
whilst the " royal touch " for curative and the " laying
on of hands " for consecrational purposes are still relics
of a science which has long passed beyond the recognition
of our cheap modern wisdom. From the mural decoration
of ancient temples it is evident that batteries of hands were
employed in the course of theurgic work, just as in a
less intelligent way the same practice is nowadays
applied in promoting spiritistic experiments. Egyptian
frescoes, Indian idols, and Gnostic and early Christian
art also contain many allusions to manual influence ard
display arms and hands in magnetic postures ; each finger,
even, having its different hieroglyphic, suggesting that
the application of the projected influence was modifiable,
like the stops of a musical instrument, by skilled operators;
the whole hand being generally extended for healing or
blessing, the thumb and two first fingers only being
employed when the image suggests rather will or power.
Strabo and Diodorus relate the fame of the mystical and
healing cults called the Dactyli Idcei, literally the " fingers
of Mount Ida," whilst alike in pagan, Hebrew and Christian
literature references to the mystical power of the hand
continually crop up. " Palmaque nobilis terrarum dominos
cvehit ad deos " ; ' Prosper Thou the work of our hands
upon us ; yea, prosper Thou our handiwork ; ' He
teacheth my hands to war and my fingers to fight" ;
* ' Thou shalt learn that thy own right hand can save thee" ;
" Pull not upon thyself destruction with the work of your
hands " ; " If I forget thee, Jerusalem, let my right hand
forget its cunning," — and so on in scores of passages
ordinarily supposed to be but figurative yet alluding to a
literal manual exercise of an occult nature. And in the
chief office of the Latin Church is not still the initial
requirement of him who would serve the altar and minister
in the things of the spirit that he be of " clean hands
and a pure heart " ? Mind (ma?ias, mens) and hand (manus)
are intimately and organically connected, the latter being
the executive instrument of the former ard the subtle
purveyor of its secret motives and intentions. The
degree of intelligence in the natural world, physiologists
tell us, is indicated by that of the development of the
prehensile organ, and in man alone is to be found the

(44)

Introduction.

*

fully developed hand. '' Nature has no hands,*' say the
Hermetists. implying that she can never regenerate
herself or her offspring but must in the long run be assisted
to that end by the only one of her children who possesses
them. And, Mrs. Atwood adds, " the hand outward is
an image of the invisible hand, its clothing, which accord-
ing to its attainment (i.e., the perfection of its own nature)
works effects. The hands of the ether are its transverse
poles, which are formed by the divine differentiation
everywhere, and are in man ' natural fire,' i.e., the fire
of the Ether in our life organism."*

By the manuductive art alluded to in this volume,
therefore, the ether universally diffused in Nature but
individualised in the human organism was polarised,
nucleated, and finally elicited into objective form ; the
consciousness of the subject operated upon was awakened
upon the plane of it by inhibiting the sense activities
and exalting his attention to the plane of the pure
magnetic element, the world of cosmic ideation. There,
according to the power by which it could be held and
the degree to which it was lifted, it would function in
transcendence of every physical limitation and with a
range of vision and a lucidity of perception into the
interiors and causes of thingsf, co-extensive with that
supra- natural Light with which it had become identified.
From that high level, too, the epopt would be able to
give his perceptions utterance, to speak oracularly, and
to proclaim divine truths and monitions ; to which
source and method are to be ascribed the Oracles of
antiquity (e.g., the well known Chaldean Oracles), the
Platonic myths, and the inspired pronouncements or
' prophecies " collected in the Hebrew Scriptures and
prefaced by ' Thus saith the Lord," — the formula
indicating their oracular origin. Striving ever after
greater purification in himself and his co-operators, so
that his own perviousness to the Divine Light and the
measure of their understandings might correspondingly
be enhanced, the epopt would be able clearly to discern
whatever obstructive imperfections and etheric disorder

* Appendix p. 596 post.

t As alluded to in the well-known Lucretian lines "Felix qui
potuit rerum cognoscere causas," etc.

(45)

Introduction.

still lingered in them or in his own grosser organism, to
give directions for improving the interior conditions of
his collaborators, to clarify and rearrange the ethers
composing them, — to " take out the mote from his own
eye " (or interior mirror of spiritual perception) arid
" pull out the beam from his brother's," as a well-known
text explicitly alludes to the process we are describing ;
for, as it is also written, the light of the body (i.e., the
sense-consciousness) being the " eye " (or soul), if the
*' eye " were single (a pure mirror to the Divine principle)
the bodily consciousness also would become correspond-
ingly full of the supernal illumination. Further, the epopt
could discriminate (as we find the Apocalyptic seer doing
in addressing the seven " churches," or assemblies of
Hermetic adepts) as to the measure of spiritual fervour,
torpor, disinterestedness or self-centredness character-
ising a particular group of workers at the regenerative
science, and give advice as to including or excluding
individuals with a view to perfecting the purpose to which
they aspired and securing the conditions best suited to
achieving it. But when himself sufficiently integrated
in the supernatural principle, — being " in the spirit in
the Lord's day " (or supreme degree of consciousness) —
under the magnetising control of the operator, it became
possible also (and here is a great wonder) for the patient
to reverse the process and himself to act as the agent -
force, to re-act upon, magnetise and entrance his
magnetiser, and call him up into co-consciousness and
identic relations with himself in the supreme Light.

It came to be the view of the learned authoress of this
volume (though she developed it after the book was
composed*) that no utterance or revelation to physical

* It is much to be regretted that Mrs. Atwood's life-long studies,
reflections and insight into the subject mentioned in this paragraph
were never reduced by her into form for publication. They would
have contributed perhaps the most enlightening volume of theological
instruction and biblical exegesis of our time. She refrained from
doing so from the same reasons as have been given for wishing to
suppress this present volume and because, as her life advanced, she
despaired of finding a sympathetic audience for considerations she
held too profound and sacred for the public thought and superficial
criticism of the day. Her private utterances and papers (the latter
now in my care) provide, however, material from which one day,
perhaps, her ideas may be reconstructed, at least, in outline. Only
her own deep knowledge and grasp of the subject could do it adequate
justice.

(46)

Introduction.

man from the true plane of Divine Spirit (with which of
course astral communications or manifestations must
in no way be confused) has ever been made, or is even
oapable of reception by our normal benighted brain-
intelligence, save in conditions, such as are here referred
to, of entrancement on the part of individuals segregated
and dedicated for that purpose, and whose sense-liberated
consciousness has been intromitted by the Hermetic
method to the Mount of vision, whence have been pro-
claimed those " sermons on the mount " (as in the Gospels
and the dialogues of Hermes Trismegistus and his " son '
or pupil in the treatise known as the " Divine Pyman-
der") and prophetic books to which, under the names
" Holy Scripture" and 'Oracles of God," supreme
authority and reverence have always been accorded.
Indeed she concluded that our Scriptures are almost
wholly records of visions and utterances derived from
these methods and that they contribute a collection of
" oracles" uttered in secret sanctuaries which for cen-
turies laboured to establish effective relations between
the Divine Principle and this fallen corrupt external
plane, and at last, after prolonged attempts and many
failures, testified to in the narratives themselves and
easily discernible to instructed perception, succeeded in
establishing conditions in which became possible the
manifestation of Christ Jesus our Lord, the prototypal
reintegrate Man, the second and regenerate Adam and
first-fruits of them that sleep in that deep torpor of
spiritual nescience into which the primal and generic
Adam fell, but from which in the fulness of time, the
faithful promise ran, he should be awakened.

Such, then, in outline, was the Hermetic " Great Work v
of human regeneration and the finding of that philosophical
stone and elixir, — that root of immortal being by the
appropriation of which the simulation of life constituting
our present precarious existence can be transmuted and
made whole. It was occultism in its highest and only safe,
wise and justifiable form. Contrast it with the spurious
occultism, the psychic vivisection and astral trafficking,
the magic, hypnotism, and " spiritualistic " mediumism,
which in all ages have dogged it as its shadow, and one
realises the deprecation with which an informed mind

(47)

Introduction.

must needs regard irresponsible experimentation with
Nature's and our own hidden potentialities undertaken
by those uninstructed in their operation and without that
basis of religious philosophy and personal sanctification
which alone justifies the pursuit of the subject. Alike
in intention and method the true science was constructive,
reintegrative ; founded on sure, traditional wisdom and
sound principle, and applied to the highest of interests.
It was under the control of masters enlightened in regard
to the conditions in which the experiment might be
attempted and the limits to which it might be proceeded
with in individual cases. To magnetise a duly prepared
patient and intromit him into interior planes is easy ; to
control him when there and know how far he might go
with safety to his organism as a whole, to recall him
from the bliss of pure being through the astral region,
' the valley of the shadow of death," to the prosaic
sense-world, is another matter, and inability to preserve
the patient's vital bond and organic integrity involves
no small moral responsibility ;

Facilis descensus Averni ;
Sed revocare gradus, superasque evadere ad auras,
Hie labor, hoc opus est.

The spurious occultism of to-day, on the other hand, is
de-individualising, disruptive of the human personality
and consciousness as hermetically sealed by the provi-
dential order. It deals not. with the plane of the One
pure Element, but with that fluidic region biblically
called " the waters under the earth " because it is infra-
terrestrial in the cosmical order and of a lower stage of
development than even physical matter. It creates
lesions in the psj^chic nature, opening gates — which who
shall shut ? — admitting into the organism the adulterate
ether and its illusions, and resulting in infestment and
obsession by any intelligent or quasi- intelligent denizen
of that turbid, densely populated sphere. Not there or
by such methods is the Stone of the Philosophers to be
discovered, any more than it is by physical methods.
But we commend the reader again to the words of the
enlightened Boehme : — " Therefore, sir, do not trouble
and toil yourself in the manner and way you mention y
with any gold or minerals ; it is all false. The best im

(48)

Introduction.

heaven and in the world above and below must be
ingredient to it, which is far off and nigh at hand. The
place is everywhere where it may be had ; but every one
is not fitted and prepared for it ; neither doth it cost any
money but what is spent upon the time and bodily
maintenance ; else it might be prepared with two florins,
and less. The world must be made heaven, and heaven
the world ; it is not of earth, stones or metals, yet it is
the ground of all metals ; but a spiritual being, environed
with the four elements, which also changeth the four
elements into one ; a doubled mercury, yet not quicksilver
or any other mineral or metal. The work is easy and the
art is simple ; a boy of ten years might make it ; but
the wisdom therein is great and the greatest mystery.
Every one must seek it for himself ; it behoves us not
to break the seal of God, for a fiery mountain lieth
before it at which I myself am amazed and must wait
whether it be God's will."*

To the reflective mind certain questions will needs now
arise which deserve exhaustive answer, whereas but the
briefest consideration can here be accorded them. If
this be the science of human regeneration as taught and
practised for the advancement of a few specially qualified
individuals, is that science now valid and operative ; or
is it obsolete, needless ? What virtue can so austere,
difficult and transcendental a subject have for the multi-
tude ? How is it to be viewed in the light of Christian
religion and Christian conceptions of soteriology ; how
relatable to the redemption of humanity as a whole ?

Now religion's essential purpose being, as has been
previously said, to promote human regeneration, no
means conducing to that end can be deemed at any time
superfluous or abrogated. A particular method suited
to certain circumstances or individuals, however, is not
necessarily the sole or the only efficacious one. Although
it has a long history, at no time was the Hermetic method
either suited to the comprehension of or employed for
other than a few ardent, qualified individuals ; it was a
method of forced intensive spiritual growth, fitted for
isolated adventurers, but beyond the compass of the

* 23rd Epistle (1649 edition).

(49)

Introduction.

average man, for whom assuredly other provision existed.
The exercise of ecclesiastical authority since the sup-
pression of the Mysteries and the Gnosis, as also the
conditions of European civilisation, have tended to rele-
gate Hermetism into abeyance as far as all public
knowledge goes. But that it has, nevertheless, not
passed into entire suspense during that epoch is evident
from such records of individuals who have worked in it
in isolation and extreme secrecy as are to be found cited
in this volume. There are grounds, however, for sug-
gesting that the Hermetic science has been known and
practically applied both in certain Orders within the
Christian Church and in secret organisations without it,
but again only in a most limited way and in such seclusion
as has prevented information of it reaching the outside
world. For those wishing to press enquiry upon this
point, perhaps the best evidence, if they care to accept it
as such, that the " Royal Art " has never been withdrawn
from human service, and that its principles still hold valid
and are administered for the benefit of those worthy
to be called thereto, is to be found in that treatise of
invaluable information and suggestiveness previously
referred to, Eckhartshauseu's The Cloud upon the
Sanctuary. This work must be left to speak for itself,
with the recommendation that the closest attention should
be accorded it and with the opinion that, now that it has
been brought from obscurity and made publicly available,
that treatise is one which will exercise a growing and
eventually wide-spread influence upon religious thought
and doctrine in the future.

But the larger question, what provision exists for the
regeneration of collective humanity, — the vast myriads
of those beyond whose present reach and capacity so
advanced and exotic a doctrine as this must always be ? —
opens up considerations of both temporal and spiritual
history that can receive here but the briefest mention.

The pre-Christian Mysteries provided, in various parts
of a semi-barbaric world, instruction in and facilities for
spiritual advancement for such as were desirous and
capable of it, and they carried the process of regeneration
to such an extent as was feasible for the time being. For
many centuries their enlightened magi and seers, among

(50)

Introduction.

whom are to be numbered those of the Holy Assembly of
Tsrael some of whose records form the prophetic and
wisdom books of our Old Testament, laboured continually
and consistently, and in conscious co-operation with
fellow- workers upon withdrawn planes of existence,
towards the creation in the physical world of conditions
in which the task of collective human regeneration might
become possible. From their own spiritual lucidity, from
their contact with interior planes and their knowledge
of the operation of spiritual evolution, they were assured
that in due course those conditions would be attained
and their aspirations be gratified. As evidenced, for
example, by such words as those to be found in the hymn
of Eupolis, dating from the 5th Century B.C. —

And yet a greater Hero far,

(Unless great Socrates could err)

Shall rise to bless some future day

And teach to live and teach to pray.

Come, Unknown Instructor, come !

Our leaping hearts shall make Thee room ;

and by many passages in our own Scriptures, all the
hierarchs, oracles, prophets of the various Mystery
Schools, expressing in different places a common doctrine
in alternative forms, concurred in declaring the advent
•of a Revealer in whom the regenerative science would
receive its full and final expression and in whom w^ould
be co-ordinated and summed up all antecedent systems.
' The divine agents of the ancient alliance (says
Eckhartshausen of the relation of the pre-Christian to
the Christian school of spiritual science) hitherto repre-
sented only specialised perfections of God* ; a powerful
movement was required which should show all at once,
.all in one. An universal type appeared, which gave the
touch of perfect unity to the picture, which opened a
fresh door and destroyed the number of human bondage.
The law of love began when the image emanating from
Wisdom itself showed to man all the greatness of his
being, vivified him anew, assured him of his immortality,
and raised his intellectual status that it might become
the true temple for the spirit. This chief Agent of all, this
Saviour of the world and Universal Regenerator, claimed

* The Epistle to the Hebrews is full of intimations on this subject.

(51)

Introduction.

man's whole attention to the primitive Truth whereby
he might preserve his existence and recover his former
dignity. Through the conditions of His own abasement
He laid the foundation of the redemption of man and
promised to accomplish it completely one day through
Hi:* Spirit."*

Here, briefly and in terms that are theological rather
than philosophical as their author intends them to be,
is expressed a fact which is not, as it is to the average
religious mind of to-day, merely a matter of faith, nor an
arbitrary Divine intervention into the world's life, but
one all the conditions for the occurrence of which were
fore-known and duly prepared for by adepts skilled in
philosophic mysticism and in the principles of a sacred
science with which conventional theology has long lost
all touch. The long hoped for, long worked for, result
was at last achieved. The 'second Adam" became
manifested ; generated out of the corruption of the first.
Not merely subjectively, as perceived in lucid conditions,
as had alone been possible up to then, but in actual
objective form Man Regenerate appeared. The Word
was made flesh in a single prototypal Person. The supra-
natural Principle, along with its inseparable vehicle,
the one pure primal Element, became, in that one
Personality, grafted upon the maculate animal-human
principle and nature, absorbing and transmuting the latter
and establishing thenceforward a permanent inviolable
nexus between the Divine Order and an apostate race.
By man had come " death" (lapse into spiritual uncon-
sciousness) and now in the person of a first-fruits of
them that slept, by man also had come the resurrection
from that death. In Adam all had died from pure being
into a mere travesty of it ; in Christ the whole race was
to be made alive and at length restored to its original
condition. Henceforth this, the first completely and
perfectly regenerated Man, was to be the Universal
Regenerator.

In virtue then of this supreme Fact of human history,
the pre-Christian science of regeneration became relegated
into relative, but not into absolute, abeyance. For the
function of the Great Regenerator was not to destroy

* The Cloud upon ike Sanctuary, letter II.

(52)

Introduction.

existing methods, but to fulfil, extend and universalise ;
a doctrine specialised, suited but to the few and taught in
secret, was made accessible and, at least in an elementary
A\ay, comprehensible to all. He proclaimed that, lifted
up before the eyes and imaginations of the whole world,
He would draw all men unto Him ; exhibiting to them,
in the pageant of His dying life, a process which, duly
contemplated and faithfully followed even by the simplest
son of the first Adam, would infallibly promote his
reintegration. Thenceforth no segregation in an isolated
community Avas essential, no erudition in the philosophy
of the sages and mystical wisdom of the Mystery-cults,
no forced spiritual growths artificially induced by the
arcane science of adept occultists. Life, lived where one
stands, was henceforth to serve as one's preparation for
the knowledge of divine things and as one's purgative
discipline for advancement therein, but life viewed
from a new standpoint and actuated by a fresh outlook
and inspiration ; the world itself a sacramental and
sufficient temple of the Mysteries ; and the only necessary
manual of initiation, a few pages of narrative by which
even the rudest would be refined and the simplest
intellect find instruction suited to its capacity, entitled
' The New Testament of our Lord and Saviour Jesus
Christ."

Hermetism, we have shewn, was a science of applied
magnetism, one by which an adept operator, employing a
manual process, magnetically unsealed the organism
of his duly prepared subject and intromitted his con-
sciousness into its hypostatic Light. But this being the
function of an individual operator upon an individual
subject, a like relation must needs exist between a
Universal Regenerator and collective humanity. And
such, assuredly, is the case between Christ and all those
souls who consent to submit themselves to His magistery,
which in its interior effects upon the individual (for
merely intellectual acceptance of certain credal proposi-
tions counts for nothing if unattended with an organic
change of heart and life-quality) is nothing other than a
work of magnetism influencing the ethers or subtler
elements of human personality. In other words, Christian-
ity in its intention and effect is Hermetism, but Hermetism

(53)

Introduction.

diluted and diffused, universalised, placed at the disposal of
all according to their respective capacity and recipiency ; a
science of interior life adapted to every grade of under-
standing, simple to the simple, profound in its implications
and arcana for the intellectually or spiritually advanced.
Even in its most elementary presentation, even as crudely
proclaimed by the street-religionist and pulpit-evangelist,
it invites to a " conversion," to a cedisposing of the mind
away from external and in the direction of interior
interests ; which " conversion " is a rudimentary form
of that " philosophical separation " of the sensuous from
the spiritual inculcated in a more advanced way by those
farther upon the path of regenerative science ; whilst
the great sacramental offices of those churches which
perpetuate the catholic tradition in elaborated fulness
are entirely framed towards imposing such a discipline
upon the individual as the Hermetic doctrine inculcates
in a more emphasised form. To an observant eye the
correspondence between the exoteric catholic doctrine
and the disciplines arcani of the Hermetic system is
easily traceable, the differences between them consisting
but in form and expression and in the fact that the former
is intended for the spiritual neophyte and to give the
mind of the average man a set in the required direction,
whilst the latter is for the advanced disciple who is
prepared to specialise in, and devote himself wholly to,
the task of the Great Work.

Even in some of its rites the Christian Church preserves
reminders of the magnetic manual work of the Hermetists,
as in the laying on of hands and the consecration of the
sacramental elements ; what is " transubstantiation '
but the alchemic transmutation postulated by the
Hermetic teaching ? So also in its doctrinal terminology.
Of the Universal Regenerator it teach?s that He " sitteth
at the right hand of the Father, whence He shall come
to judge the quick and the dead." We shall interpret
these metaphors but truly if for (( sitteth at " we read
" is," or " has become," the Efficient Hand, the divine
executive agent for effecting the regeneration of our race,
and if we recognise that " judging the quick and the dead "
implies no post mortem or post mundane judicial inquiry
into individual merits, as is often supposed by the unwise,

(54)

Introduction.

but a persistent, present " separation," in the philosophic
sense, of the vital and fatal qualities of those magnetic
ethers which permeate our being and indeed constitute
the metaphysical basis of our lives. Just as the magnetising
hand of the Hermetic adept was held above, and con-
trolled the will of, the disciple, lifting his consciousness
beyond the bondage of sense, so now a Hand has been
lifted over collective humanity, the tractive action of
which is subtly, but surely, drawing all men unto Him
and constraining their wills into union with that of the
Great Magnetiser. No one may presume to define the
measure of His magnetic action in individual cases, but
its influence is specially emphasised and noticeable in
those lives which have passed into public notoriety as
having been turned and devoted exclusively to con-
templation of the person and symbolic life-story of
Christ. A St. Francis or St. John of the Cross, a Ruys-
broeck or a St. Theresa, to take but ready examples
from the abundant annals of the dedicated life, exhibits
and records precisely the same psychical features and
organic changes as the Hermetic system testifies to.
The language they employ is not of course Hermetic
and doubtless the limits of ecclesiastical authority
prevented the Great Work from reaching the fulness of
attainment predicated by the hermetic hypothesis and
achieved by some of the Hermetists. But although
recorded in terms sanctioned by their Church, their
teaching undoubtedly demonstrates that their devotion
to Christ produced in them that very alchemic trans-
mutation of both their interior and exterior natures at
which Hermetism aimed. They too passed through their
purifications, through those infernal regions of conscious-
ness which the Hermetist describes but which the Christian
aspirant to regeneration calls the " dark night of the
soul."' They too emerged on the farther side thereof
into the world of absolute Light and pure Being, and
returned out of their trances, rapts and ecstasies to
reassume the seals of their mortal bondage. They too
learned how to separate the gross from the subtle in
themselves and to distinguish between the elementated
matter of this world and the prima materia, the root-
substance of Life ; and though they spoke of the latter

(55)

Introduction.

.--
as " infused grace " and " lumen glorice " we still recognise

in these terms a reference to the One Element whose

purity, invoked and imbibed into their organisms

(especially in the Eucharist), transmuted not merely their

minds, passions and emotions but even their physical

flesh-cells and tissues. 0 Salutaris Hosiia ! exclaimed

another of them — St. Thomas of Aquin — of this saving

sustenance and salt of life which repolarised their

carnality and refashioned the image of the earthy into

that of the heavenly, visibly radiating from their persons ,

as we are often credibly assured, in nimbi and aureoles

of supranatural light, and so strongly tincturing their

persons that even their cast-off bodies of mortality failed

to follow the natural process of corruption.

' The most pious and experienced among the Adepts

(says our authoress)* do not demur to compare

the phenomena of their work to the Gospel tradition and

our human redemption ; . . . . their magistery not only

corresponds, but is in very deed a type and promise and

foundation of our Christian creed." If Hermetism

promised the finding of the Philosopher's Stone, so also

does the Christian doctrine : ' To him that overcometh

I will give a white stone." And if the Hermetic way

seem strange or alien to the modern aspirant to that

Stone, let him refer to an alternative way, leading to the

same term, as it has been described by a great Christian

who probably never heard of Hermetism — John of

Ruysbroeck; in his treatise De Calculo, " The Book of

the Sparkling Stone."

We have but scant place left for dealing with the lesser
and subsidiary aspect of Alchemy, but indeed it calls for
little mention. Popular ignorance regards Alchemy as
the fumbling beginnings of an unenlightened age towards
the modern science of inorganic chemistry, and views
with contempt the reputed efforts of these by-gone
experimenters to produce gold and transpose one metal
into another. .In part this contempt is justified ; there
certainly have been many greedy, foolish persons and
charlatans who made endeavours and professions in
this direction, and we need waste no words in considering
them. On the other hand, and as this volume will

* p. 520, post ; and c.f. p. 278.

(56)

Introduction.

demonstrate, it is undoubtedly true that experimentation
towards the metamorphosis of physical metals has been
undertaken, and successfully, by not a few whose names
fall within the genuine Hermetic tradition ; and students
of alchemical literature have been warranted in finding
that the subject of Alchemy discloses two aspects, the
simply material and the religious, sometimes in com-
bination, at others separately. The findings of some of
these students may be cited, though they are divergent
and display very inadequate understanding of the real
nature of Alchemy itself.

" The dogma that Alchemy was only a form of chemistry is
untenable by anyone who has read the work of its chief professors.
The doctrine that Alchemy was religion only, and that its chemical
references were only blinds, is equally untenable in the face of
history, which shows that many of its most noted professors were
men who had made important discoveries in the domain of common
chemistry and were in no way notable as teachers either of ethics
or religion."*

Another writer affirms the curious and wholly unjustified
opinion that :

" Alchemy had its origin in the attempt to apply, in a certain
manner, the principles of Mysticism to the things of the physical
plane."f

and still another :

" If the authors of the Suggestive Inquiry and of Remarks on
Alchemy and the Alchemist* had considered the lives of the sym-
bolists, as well as the nature of their symbols, their views would
have been very much modified ; they would have found that the
true method of Hermetic interpretation lies in a middle course ....
the great alchemical theorem is one of universal development,
which acknowledges that every substance contains undeveloped
resources and potentialities, and can be brought outward and
forward into perfection. They (the generality of Alchemists)
applied their theory only to the development of metallic substances
from a lower to a higher order, but we see by their writings that
the grand hierophants of Oriental and Western alchemy alike were
continually haunted by brief imperfect glimpses of glorious
possibilities for man, if the evolution of his nature were accom-
plished along the lines of their theory. "J

These findings strongly favour the supposition that
inorganic chemistry of a crude kind gave birth to, or
at least came within the ambit of, Hermetism. On the

* The Science of Alchymy, Spiritual and Material, by Sapere Aude,
1893. (Theosophical Publishing Society), p. 3, 4.

+ Alchemy, Ancient and Modern, bv H. S. Redgrove, B.Sc, F.C.S.,
1911 (W. Rider and Sons, Ltd.), page 8.

% Lives of Alchemystical Philosophers, by A. E. Waite, 1888,.
p. 30, 31.

(57)

Introduction.

other hand, an opposite finding is advanced in a work
published but a few years after the Suggestive Inquiry
and often associated with it as one of almost equal value.
The work in question is the just quoted Remarks upon
Alchemy and the Alchemists, by E. A. Hitchcock (Boston,
1857), and its subtitle sufficiently suggests its line of
exposition by " indicating a method of discovering the
true nature of Hermetic Philosophy and showing that
the Philosopher's Stone had not for its object the discovery
of an Agent for the transmutation of metals."

The foregoing mutually conflicting theories are in-
capable of reconciliation and they all fall lamentably
short of that clear grasp and comprehension of the
Hermetic doctrine held by the authoress of the present
volume. Her incomparable comprehension of the subject
and her profound insight and intellectual grip of onto-
logical truth enthrone her upon a level of authority
immeasurably higher than that of critics and expositors
with whom Alchemy has been a subject of but casual
literary interest rather than, as with her, of exclusive and
absorbing moment. It will be as well therefore to cite a
few of her own deliberated dicta as to what Alchemy is
and what it is not. and what its relation is to the chemistry
of physical substances. Her comment upon Hitchcock's
book (inscribed by her in a copy of it) is that it is " a
moral theory of interpretation, leading to a religious
conclusion ; true and forcible, but without discernment
of the Hermetic method or process of Divine assimilation,"
— a judgment in itself displaying fulness of knowledge as
against tentative hypothesis and speculation. But in
regard to the physical or chemical interpretation of
Alchemy, her mind may be deduced from the following
assertions of hers : —

Alchemy is philosophy ; it is the philosophy, the finding of
The Sophia in the mind.

Alchemy is an universal art of vital chemistry which by
fermenting the human spirit purifies and finally dissolves it,
opening the elementary germ into new life and consciousness ; and
the Philosopher's Stone is the efflux of such a life, drawn to a
focus and made manifest as a concrete essence of Light, which
essence is the true Form or Idea of Gold. The process takes place
in and through the human body in the blood, changing the
relation of its component parts or principles, and reversing the
circulatory order, so that, the sensible medium becoming occult,
the inner source of its vitalitv is awakened and the consciousness

(58)

Introduction.

at* the same time being drawn centrally conies to know and feel
itself in its own true source, which is The Universal Centre and
Source of all things.

The metals of the philosophers are th<> ethorial metals, its
(the ether's) progressive stages, its processes, the arising of the
ether from and through its lower to its higher forms and qualities.

The terms salt, sulphur, mercury, which are in use among the
alchemists as denoting vital principles, though set down as
" barbarous " by Dr. Martensen* and others who have not been
practically conversant with the subject, are contrariwise found to
be scientifically appropriate by students in the schools who have
accepted them for continuous instruction in the Divine Art of
prototypic Assimilation. The terms Magnesia, Antimony, Vitriol,
Arsenic of the Wise, etc., also, as belonging primally to etherial
nature, were not borrowed by Alchemists from vulgar chemistry,
but by this from those who were interiorly conversant with such
products, and they employed them to conceal rather than to reveal
this science to their compeers.

The conclusion of the matter, then, is this. Far from
Alchemy " having its origin", as one writer cited above
ineptly suggests, in the application of a mystical doctrine
to physical things, physical Alchemy has been a result and
a by-product of the original doctrine ; an after-growth
and to some extent a perversion of it, an adaptation —
evidenced chiefly in the middle ages — to inorganic
material of a principle originally applied exclusively
to the spiritual nature of man. Alchemy considered as
inorganic chemistry is certainly not the Hermetism
enshrined in the imagery of the Odyssey or the sixth
.^neid, or that taught in the ancient myths and Mysteries,
or that testified to by Plato and the Platonists, or veiled
in the glyphs of the Bible. But it is the fate of every lofty
truth, on percolating from its first shelter into universal
knowledge, to become materialised and to degenerate
into base uses. White magic by its perversion in unworthy
hands becomes inverted into black magic. The high
spiritual mythos, intended in the world's earlier and wiser
days to raise the imagination Godwards, becomes in later
centuries regarded as the foolish fable of barbarians and
made the subject of jest and pantomime to pleasure
modern minds infinitely more benighted still. Sacred
Gnosis, once kept concealed from the profane, is to-day
exploited by theologians with a remarkable faculty for

* Late Metropolitan Bishop of Denmark ; author of " Jacob Boehrr.e "

and other works.

(59)

Introduction.

yielding to the temptation to turn bread into stones.
And similarly the science of the alchemic metamorphosis
of man's nature from a carnal to a divinised state ter-
minated eventually in laboratory experiments in physics.
But true Alchemy looked within. Chemistry looks
without, and the modern world's quest of externals has
so diverted attention from internals, which a wiser age
deemed alone worth interrogating, that the study of the
latter has nowadays become accounted the pastime of
fools.

There is little doubt that Alchemy was a betrayed
science. Some of its processes — such as the method of
inducing the magnetic trance and promoting psychic
lucidity — leaked out into the world from backsliding
disciples of arcane science and garrulous assistants at its
operations. The development and exercise of a certain
measure of psychic faculty would readily enable the
possessors of it to attain introspection into, and effect
molecular transposition in, inert material, in a way exciting
incredulity in the ordinary man who knows nothing of
occult possibilities. And the quickening of lead into silver
or of iron into gold by such means merely testifies to the
application of the same methods as those employed by
an oriental fakir of to-day who intensfies the growth of a
seed into a fruited mango-tree within a few minutes.
In every member of each kingdom of Nature — mineral,
vegetable, animal, human, — resides a life-germ or vital
seed common to that kingdom but encrusted with certain
alien accretions arresting the full development of that
germ and determining its species. The same germ that
informs lead informs gold also ; but that in the former
metal has undergone an arrest conditioning it as lead,
whilst in the latter the germ having had greater scope
for expansion has become conditioned as gold. Gold
being the head of the family of metals, the ne plus ultra
of development of the life-germ in the metallic kingdom,
lead and other baser metals were its poor relations.
But remove those extraneous superfluities in lead which
arrest its life-germ's expansion, effect a purification of it
that will purge it of its gross accretions — as is possible
with the help of intermolecular psychic vision — and the
lead's life-germ will forthwith advance up the family-tree

(60)

Introduction.

iind become silver or gold according to the measure of
the removal of the impurities ; whilst gold itself, sub-
jected to the same process, is capable of being quickened
to a finer quality than that in which it is normally found,
as is alleged of the coins made from gold produced by
Raymond Lully in the Tower of London, still extant
.specimens of which display greater purity than the modern
metallurgist can account for or reproduce.*

Man, the universe's epitome, comprises in himself all
the kingdoms of Nature, and in the regression of con-
sciousness through which an individual subjected to the
magnetic trance would pass, contact would first and
most easily be established with the simplest and most
•elementary of those kingdoms— the mineral. That,
however, was no resting-place for him whose aim was the
regeneration of his entire nature and who aspired so to
quicken the germ of divine life in himself and rectify
his own impurities and imperfections that he might
' take his manhood into God." But when he undertook
visitare interiora terrae, it was open to him, if he so pleased,
to linger there, to explore the physical world from within
it (as modern science explores it only from without) and
to manipulate the metaplrysical forces determining its
normal external guise. And doubtless many did linger
there, content to push the experiment no farther. And
to such would seem attributable that school and aspect
of Alchemy which are associated with physical trans-
mutation only, though this phase of it is to be regarded
.as but a vestibule to those inner courts wherein the great
prizes of Hermetic science were to be won. To the
thorough -going Hermetist the achievement of physical
wonders was indeed possible, and, when called for in
altruistic interests, undoubtedly indulged in ; but they
•constituted but the negligible minutice of the wisdom after
which he really aspired. In like manner we relegate here,
as did the writer of the Suggestive Inquiry, this aspect
of the subject to an altogether subordinate position.

Even in this secondary aspect, the Alchemical writers
took the closest precautions to conceal the methods
of their art, to elude unqualified enquirers and to mislead
wrongly-motived emulators, by recording their knowledge

* See pp. 3(>-7, post.

(61)

Introduction.

and experiments in the most baffling crypticism. In
compiling their crabbed treatises, however, their purpose
was not to provide text-books for a public unripe to
appreciate, and unfitted to be trusted with, knowledge
easily abused and, in its abuse, fraught with immeasurable
consequences alike temporal and spiritual ; for the basal
forces of Nature are not, like her exteriorised aspects, the
fit subject for the uninstructed and morally unfitted
empiricist. They did not wear their knowledge upon
their sleeve for the daws of criticism to peck at, but
compiled their writings as memorials for themselves
and their kinsmen in the science, as landmarks of accom-
plishment and guide-posts to others who might come to
pursue the same path and who might be counted upon
to discern the signata behind the signa and to detect the
true facts suggested within statements often purposely
designed even to mislead the incompetent. There is no
uniformity in their cryptic terminology ; words signifying
'one thing with this writer mean otherwise with that, and
different writers describe the work at different stages
and upon different planes ; yet there is no inconsistency,
nor does the enlightened eye find difficulty in the apparent
contradictions. Accordingly, no common canon of inter-
pretation can be applied whereby to unlock their records.
In Alchemy and its literature no passage is open from
particulars to universals. The student will beat his brains
in vain who seeks to learn Alchemy by inductive methods
and to determine Hermetic truth in the way in which the
exoteric science of to-day aspires to do. But let the eye
of his mind be opened in the universal and the puzzles
and conflicting particulars in the records will forthwith
leap into order, significance and clear-speaking, and it
will become plain why the Alchemical writers could
write only as they did.*

* It may be recorded here that an Alehemical Society existed in
London for two years (1913-14) for the purpose of studying and elucid-
ating the subject and the texts of the Alchemists. Its published
Transactions (with one exception, a paper by Madame de Steiger) evince
but an academic interest in the subject and show no comprehension of
its vital intention or its practical methods. They suggest, moreover,
what has been stated above to be a futile project — that no headway
can be made in expounding Alchemy until its cryptic texts have been
decoded and a standard of interpretation established. The Society
now apppears to have become defunct.

(62)

Introduction.

This book then, as its name imports, is indeed an
inquiry full of suggestiveness. Its modest authores-
might have given it a title more correspondent with the
authoritativeness of its utterance, for she is indis-
putably our chief exponent of the Hermetic and Alchemic
Mystery, and compared with her there is indeed no other
that counts at all. But clear-sighted and masterly a>.
was her grasp of the subject, self-assert iveness was not
in her nature and she preferred to put forth her work
in the form of a suggestive hint to those few who are
prepared to accord to the science of life deeper reflection
than does the light-hearted and self-satisfied multitude,
and who are discontent with conventional conclusions
thereupon. Modern science has been directed solely
to investigating the exterior of things, in the vain hope
of determining the ultimate secrets of existence by the
patient accumulation and co-ordination of details
observed by the outward eye and reflected upon by the
unenlightened brain-intelligence. Religious thought, also,
has in the main proceeded upon purely exoteric lines
and has accordingly resulted in producing conditions
of arid formalism and incredible doctrine from which the
truly heart-hungry turn in revolt. Both are in conflict
with the religio-philosophy and ontologic wisdom —
now accounted foolishness — of an ancient and more
enlightened past, to a reconsideration of which all
thoughtful minds, and in particular the modern physicist,
psychologist, philosopher and theologian, are here invited ;
a wisdom inculcating that that Truth towards which all
honest research, however misguided, is directed is not,
as is so often misconceived, something indeterminate,
progressive, enlarging evolutionary with our own
evolution, but something predetermined, static, permanent
— sicut erat in principle-, et nunc, et semper ; something
from which our race in its self-blindedness and foolishness
has deflected and wandered away, yet to the search for
which, when its outw^ard-looking energies fail in their
vain quests, it will return through sheer exhaustion,
to find that the kingdom of Truth is within and not
without us.

As we have seen, the book was withdrawn by its
authoress in diffidence of her own powers and distrust

(63)

Introduction.

of the capacity of the contemporary public to appreciate
or profit by it. That was nearly seventy years ago, and
since that time much has happened to secure for the'
volume a wider range of influence and a deeper appre-
ciation than ever it had the chance of previously. Habent
fata sua libelli ; and it was not, I think, the destiny of
such a treatise as this to perish at its birth, but rather,
when the time should be more ripe for it, to re-emerge
from its obscurity and assert that influence which its
great merits are capable of exercising. With that clear/
sure, prophetic vision with which its writer, then youthful,
penetrated the tendencies of modern world-movements
and conditions, she discerned the impending catastrophe
to human society and institutions through which we are
now passing ;* and the prognosis she then formed became
but the more fully confirmed in her later years and was
constantly reuttered by her privately up to the time of
her death but a few years ago. Her forewarnings, based
as they were upon accurate perception of the working
of metaphysical forces concealed from external observa-
tion, has proved true. But she foresaw also that 'out of
the general shipwreck new conditions would arise resulting
in an abandonment of modern methods of research and
a reversion to the wisdom of an earlier age, and that a
time would arrive when Hermetism ' the mother of
sciences, will come forth, and greater things be discovered
than have been hitherto." To that end she wrote her
book, hoping that " this incentive to enquiry might not
be inopportunely offered, to advance the foremost
intellect, and fix its dominion in. the self-discovery of
truth." And to that end, and that so great a talent may
not be wasted, her book is now re-issued at a time
marking the break-up of one age and the dawn of another.
Were one able equally with her to see into the hidden
springs of events, it might be found not fortuitous that
its re-issue has been arrested — as from various causes
it has been — until now, but that it synchronises with a
renascence of the world and has a significance accordingly.

Walter L. Wilmshurst.
Oledholt, H udders field,
February, 1918.

* See pp. 534-5, post.

(64)

PREFACE TO ORIGINAL EDITION.

THE PREFACE.

TjlROM remote Antiquity, and through suc-
-*- cessive intervals in the [higher spheres of
mind, the tradition of an Art has circulated ;
but so dark and enigmatical as to evade vulgar
apprehension entirely and baffle the most acute.

There is doubtless some temerity in making
choice of an obsolete subject, and circumstances
have conspired to render Alchemy above every
other liable to mistrust ; the transmutation of
metallic species has seemed impossible, and the
pretensions of this science in general are at
variance with inductive probability and observed
fact.

But many things have in like manner been
considered impossible which increasing knowledge
has proved true, and others which still to
common sense appear fictitious were believed
in former times, when faith was more enlightened
and the sphere of vision open to surpassing
effects. Daily observation even now warns us
against setting limits to nature ; as experiments
multiply, probabilities enlarge in practical life,

VI THE PREFACE.

and, like a swelling flood, obliterate the old land-
marks, as they sweep along rapidly to fulfil their
destined course.

Thus truth progresses openly in spite of scep-
ticism, when her advocates bear witness to-
gether, and over the mists of error and false
interests establish her domain. Few, however,
have a spontaneous disposition to study, and
many have not acquired the aptitude ; so that
we frequently observe, where labour of thought
is a condition, the greatest benefits are slighted
and prejudicially deferred. The notion of a
mystery is above all things obnoxious to modern
taste ; as who will now believe either that there
has been any truth of importance known which
is not publicly declared, or worth knowing that
he cannot understand ? Every pretension of the
kind has been repudiated, therefore, with all such
investigations as are not immediately profitable
and appreciable by common sense.

In former times ; even when philosophy flou-
rished in Greece, Eg}rpt, and in Europe, during
the earlier ages of Christianity, when no pains
were spared to improve the understanding and
educate the rational faculties to their utmost
limit of energy and refinement ; even then the
study of the Hermetic Science was confined to
a very few : and though their names still live
most famous in the history of philosophy, and

THE PREFACE. Vll

are held in traditionary honour to this day, yet
the source of their Wisdom, the Art which made
them great, and good, and memorable, has
passed into oblivion — the very style has become
obsolete ; and, but for those lasting theories and
solemn attestations which they have bequeathed,
the Experiment of the Causal Nature and its de-
veloping medium would have been left without
a clue of retracement, or relic even for surmise.

Modern Science has hitherto thrown no light
on the Wisdom of x\ntiquity ; our discoveries
have neither added to nor taken any part from
it— being of another order, and, as it were, of
another world. No consideration of period or
place is sufficient to account for the difference ;
the very ground of human knowledge would seem
to have changed.

The philosophy of modern times, more espe-
cially that of the present day, consists in ex-
periment and such scientific researches as may
tend to ameliorate our social condition, or be
otherwise useful in contributing to the ease and
indulgences of life ; whereas, in the original ac-
ceptation, philosophy had quite another sense :
it signified the Love of Wisdom. And the doc-
trine of Wisdom, as delivered to us by the
Hebrew and best Ethnic writers, is in no re-
spect extrinsical or dependant on externals, but
professes to be based on Causal Experience,

Vlll THE PREFACE.

obtained by a systematic disciplining and effec-
tual conversion of the Rational Faculty, up to
an Intuition of Universal Truth in its own con-
scious Identity or Self-knowledge.

Many great and lasting theories hav^e been
based on this ground, supported by much vene-
rable testimony and rational evidence ; and, al-
though variously taught by individuals of the
different schools, it preserves the same native
simplicity unchanged, from the remote antiquity
of Zoroaster and the Jewish Kabalah, through
the enigmas and fables of the Egyptians, the
Orphic Mysteries and Symbols of Pythagoras,
up to the more scientific and full development
of Plato and his brilliant disciples of the Alex-
andrian School.

These continued to regard the human mind as
an imperfect embryo, separated off from its an-
tecedent Law ; and, by this common outbirth into
individual life, so made subject to the delusions
of sense and phantasy, as to be incapable of true
progress or wisdom until it had been rectified
and re-related, as they assure us, even in this
world it may be, by certain artificial aids and
media, and made conformable to the Divine vision
in truth, whence it sprang. And this was, in
fact, though Peripatetics have wandered, the true
initiatory object and comprehending whole of
ancient philosophy ; namely, to turn the eye of

THE PREFACE. ix

mind away from sensibles and fix its purified re-
gard on the Supreme Intelligible Law within.

We are well aware that this kind of philosophy
is obsolete ; that the capacity of man is con-
sidered unequal to the discovery of essential
Causes ; and that all pretensions to interior illu-
mination have appeared fanciful, and are lightly
esteemed in the comparison with modern ex-
perimental science. It may be a question how-
ever whether thev, who have determined thus,
were competent judges ; whether they have at
all entered upon the ground of the ancient doc-
trine to prove it, or studied so far as even to sur-
mise the Method by which the ancients were
assisted to propound the mystery of the Causal
Principle in life.

It has been repeatedly shown, and may be
very evident to those who have considered the
subject, that our faculties for knowledge, in
common with the whole human characteristic,
are by nature imperfect ; and that sensible evi-
dence fluctuates so with its objects, that we are
unable to rise above a relative certainty, either
in respect of those things which are around us
or of the nature of our own Being. The more we
reflect, indeed, the less conviction do we meet ;
since everything, whether abstract or actual, in
respect of human reason, is mere phenomenon,
which, being thus naturally placed alone with-

X THE PREFACE.

out a proper intimate assurance in this life,
limits, rather than confirms, the evidence of the
senses and other faculties. For the Law of
Reason is absolute, and demands a satisfaction
superior to that which sensibles or any thing
extraneous can offer ; hence the diversities of
opinion, and the sceptical result, which modern
metaphysics have arrived at, in the various sys-
tems of Locke, Hume, Condillac, Kant, and
others, by different roads ; and, as it were, with-
out the suspicion, following Reason into her own
ultimate defect ; as able to prove all things sub-
jectively inferior, yet wanting the proper objec-
tive— self-demonstrative light.

Lord Bacon — perspicuously regarding the ex-
ternal and internal worlds as divulsed in this way,
without apparent means of intrinsical reunion,
and concluding also from the fruitlessness of the
Aristotelian philosophy (then long since fallen
off from its original intention, and degenerated
into a mere metaphysical pla3^ground), that the
inquisition of mind in its fallen state was and
must for ever remain barren and inconclusive —
condemned the method ; and, forsaking it en-
tirely himself, proposed a strictly scientific ex-
periment of external nature, vigorously hoping
by such means, and by aid of proceeding induc-
tion, to penetrate from without the circumfe-
rential compound of Nature into her Formal
Centres.

THE PREFACE. XI

But how very distant his followers, even at
this late day, are from such a goal, or from any
rational idea of carrying experiment at all into
the central ground, is shown in the strong out-
working spirit of the age, which, notwithstanding
all its abundance of facts, — dead, living, and
traditional — has not advanced one step in Causal
Science. Effects indeed are found to indicate
their Causes, and so we infer many things, and
progress externally ; but no one particular of
nature is the more intrinsically understood ; or
as respects ourselves, are we become better or
wiser from all that has been bequeathed, or ever
shall be, by such continual experimenting and
superficial facts accumulated on from henceforth
to the world's end.

For, as the author of the Novum Organwn,
in the Preface, himself observes, the edifice of
this universe is, in its structure, as it were, a la-
byrinth to the human intellect that contemplates
it ; where there are many ambiguous ways, de-
ceptive similitudes of things and signs, oblique
and complicated windings, and knots of nature's
everywhere presenting themselves to view ; fur-
thermore, the senses, as he admits, are fallacious,
the mind unstable and full of idols ; and all
things are presented under a glass, and, as it
were, enchanted.

Xll THE PREFACE.

If, therefore, the journey is to be made per-
petually through a labyrinth so obscure and
difficult, as that which the Chancellor describes,
under the uncertain light of sense, sometimes
shining and sometimes hiding itself through and
in the woods of experience and particulars ; a
dreary prospect truly is presented, and one
promising about as little success to the traveller
as he has actually arrived at now, after the lapse
of many centuries of persevering toil and expecta-
tion— still, in the same maze of external nature,
dissatisfied and unhappy, amidst the passing
images of his own outward creation ; without
a ray of the First Light to guide him into the
inner courts of a more certain and sublime
experience.

Or how should any stable science arise out
of the aggregate of particulars ? The common
analysis of bodies does not discover their unity,
nor is the most scientific synthesis of hetero-
geneous atoms found to yield any vital effect. The
free Spirit of Nature flies before all our destroying
tests and crucibles ; and, taking refuge in her
own Identity, subtly eludes the hopes and active
efforts of the inductive mind. May not the
same objection, therefore, equally apply to this
method of philosophizing as its great advocate
opposed to the syllogistic scheme of Aristotle ;
namely, that it works confusedly, and suffers
Nature to escape out of our hands ?

THE PREFACE. xiir

Such being the defective result of natural
experiment, conducted as it ordinarily is through
the Macrocosm, without the discovery of life ;
and since the evidence of modern metaphysics,
attempting to enter theoretically, falls short of
human faith, and is bounded in this ; may it not
be worth while to inquire, once more, parti-
cularly concerning the doctrine of the ancient
Sages, how their pretensions to superior Wisdom
were founded, and so practically set forth, from
the Ontological ground ? For it has been acknow-
ledged by opponents, and must be very evident
to all, that the discovery of Causes would be
of all parts of Science the most worthy to be
sought out, if it were possible to be found :
and, as regards the possibility, are they not
truly said to be ill discoverers that conclude
there is no land when they can discern nothing
but sea ?

The numerous express declarations that are
to be met with in those early writers, the
Greeks especially, that they were not alone
able, but very general]} had passed beyond the
world of appearances in which we range into
the full Intuition of Universal Truth, are, to say
the least, remarkable. The liberal allowance of
imagination and mere verbiage, which ignorance
once ascribed to these men, has no doubt
deterred many, and may continue to delay
rational inquiry ; but can never explain away their

XIV THE PREFACE.

clear language of conviction, or nullify those
solemn assertions of experience in the Divine
Wisdom, and surpassing knowledge, which occur,
in one form or other, at almost every page of
their transmitted works. Neither are the defi-
nitions we gather of this Wisdom so incomplete,
or ambiguous, that they can be possibly referred
to any science or particular relation of science,
physical or metaphysical, preserved to these
times. But the Wisdom they celebrate is, as
we before observed, eminently inverse ; con-
sisting not in the observation of particulars,
neither in polymath^, nor in acuteness of the
common intellect, nor in the natural order of
understanding at all ; but in a conscious develop-
ment of the Causal Principle of the Universal
Nature in Man.

For man, say they, is demonstrated to be an
epitome of the whole mundane creation, and
was generated to become wise above all terres-
trial animals ; being endowed, besides those
powers which he commonly exerts, and by means
of which he is able to contemplate the things
which exist around him, with the germ of a
higher faculty, which, when rightly developed
and set apart, reveals the hidden Forms of
manifested Being, and secrets of the Causal
Fountain, identically within himself. Nor this
alone ; not only is man reputed able to discover

THE PREFACE. XV

the Divine Nature, but, in the forcible language
of the Asclepian Dialogue, to effect It ; and in
this sense, namely, with respect to the Catholic
Reason which is latent in his life, man was once
said to be the Image of God.

It appears, moreover, those ancients were not
enlightened on the a priori ground alone, but
the same power of Wisdom was confirmed in
external operation, in many surpassing effects of
spiritual chemistry, and in the asserted miracle
of the Philosopher's Stone. And here, though
it has seemed a stumbling-block to unbelievers,
and we anticipate for our advocac}^ the utmost
scorn ; yet, with this theosophic doctrine of
Wisdom, the tradition of Alchemy runs hand
in hand. It is this which, occultly permeating
throughout, gives substance to the transcendental
theme, and meaning to the subtle disquisitions
of the middle ages — this it was which filled
the acute intellect of that period with ardour
and admiration. It was this which inspired
Albertus Magnus, Aquinas, Roger Bacon, the
fiery Lully, and his preceptor Arnold di Villa -
Nova, Ficinus, Picus di Mirandola, Spinoza,
Reuchlin, the Abbot Trithemius, Cornelius
Agrippa, and all the subsequent Paracelsian
School. It is this which, under another title,
Plato celebrates as the most efficacious of all
arts, calling it Theurgy and the worship of the

XVI THE PREFACE.

gods ; this Pythagoras practised in his school,
and the Chaldaic Oracles openly proclaim, an-
nouncing the efficacy of material rites in procuring
divine assimilation ; these the Alexandrian
Platonists continuously pursued in their Mysteries,
which Proclus, Plotinus, Jamblicus, and Synesius
have explained in their records, tracing the same
to the most remote antiquity in Egypt, as being
the prime source and sanctuary of the Hermetic
Art.

It is generally known that Alchemy once
ranged high amongst the sciences ; a belief in
the Philosopher's Stone and metalline trans-
mutation was, only a few centuries ago, current
in the world : now it is regarded as a vain chimera ;
a name of obloqu}^ and indifferent contempt.
And, but that it serves the occasion of the
novelist to strike the chords of human sympathy
for an interval into unison with the responsive
mystery within, or that modern Chemistry,
willing to magnify herself, it may be, at some
inaugural meeting or country lecture, vouch-
safes to introduce her antique progenitor, arrayed
forth in all the phantasmagoria of imputed
folly, as a contrasting background to her own
so vastly superior and growing importance ;
were it not, we mean that Alchemy now and
then affords a subject of jest or amusement to
modern self-complacency, it would be a word

THE PREFACE. XVli

as obsolete in our vocabularies as the true root
and explanation are in our minds.

Many circumstances have contributed to this,
which in the progress of inquiry may become
apparent ; the peculiar treatment of the subject
by philosophers, the fraudulent interpolations of
pretenders, falsifying their assertions and insti-
tuting errors of their own, and surmises as facts,
with endless enigmatical disguises, these have
repelled credence, while trivial interpretations
have thrown a slur over the whole. But of all
obstacles to the discovery of truth, indifference
has been the most complete : vain is the tradition
of Wisdom ; the offering of so much assiduous
labour, the attestations of scientific experience
are vain if there be none found to listen or follow
in the pursuit, but men have been content to pass
on incredulous, without a thought of inquiry,
though the possibility held out was the greatest
in philosophy, where reason opposes nothing
and the promise is divine.

It is true, the modern study of mankind has
not been man ; but does it follow hence that
the Wisdom of the ancients was nugatory, or
that the Hermetic Experiment into Life was
impossible because it is unknown ? Having
ourselves benefited by inquiry, or at least
imagining that we have learned something in this
particular research, we propose the same to

XV111 THE PREFACE.

others, in hope that our suggestive advocacy
may either receive confutation, if erroneous ; or
become established in the result. That the
subject is worthy of investigation from the
highest order of minds, we feel no hesitation in
affirming ; to them it has always proved
attractive ; for reason, perceiving effects, desires
to know causes, and is rarely incredulous in the
pursuit.

It is especially towards the analysis of this
Causal Experiment, therefore, that the present
Inquiry is directed, as being in due order to
begin with, the foundation of that luminous
fabric of Wisdom which we shall endeavour
practically, and for the discovery's sake, to
depict. For since Ontology is despaired of
by modern metaphysics, and reason is unable
in this life to substantiate its own inference —
although clearly perceiving the Antecedent neces-
sity, it cannot pass into an absolute consciousness
of the same ; — if, therefore, the sublime capability,
above referred to, yet subsists in man and is
really educible, it must be under the guidance
of another Method and by the revelation of
another Law. What was the Experiment
which led our fathers into experience and
self-knowledge in the Divine Antecedent of all
life ? This we desire to learn ; and, for the
sake of the liberal and sincere lovers of truth,

THE PREFACE. xlx

now offer the guidance by which we have our-
selves been led along, pleasurably and with
satisfaction, to explore the mystic laboratory of
creative Light ; opening a way also by which
they may be enabled fully to co-operate and
follow Art into the living sanctuary of Nature.

If some particulars should seem obscure in
the early introduction, as it is indeed difficult to
unfold things so far out of the way of ordinary
thought, we hope not to be judged rashly, but
after a fair consideration of the whole. In
tracing the Hermetic tradition through many
venerable sources, it has been our endeavour, as
plainly and practically as the nature of the
matter would permit, to explain the occult
ground, and, by the help of theory supporting
evidence, to persuade the studious that the Art
of Alchemy, as it was anciently practised in the
East, in the Egyptian temples, amongst the
Hebrews and Early Greek Nations, and bv the
Mystics of the Middle Ages, was a true Art ;
and that the Stone of Philosophers is not a
chimera, as it has been represented in the world
to be ; but the wonderful offspring of a Vital
Experiment into Nature, the true foundation of
Ancient Wisdom and her supernatural fruit.

What, if our subject be the world's ridicule ;
and its professors rank with the ignorant as
insane or impostors ? In choosing it popularity
was not the motive ; but we have written for the

XX THE PREFACE.

Truth's sake and for the liberal inquirer, from
whom alone we may anticipate either credit or
favour ; and if we succeed only in drawing a very
few discerning intellects aside from the broad
stream of popular dereliction, by the light of
Ancient Widsom into its faith, the undertaking
will not prove ungrateful, or have been concluded
in vain.

"I toill not stoearc to make jjou giuc crcbtnrc,
$ut a philosopher mate here ftnoc an ebibencc
ODf the tretnih ; anb for men that be Ian
1 skill not greatln tohat then sain"

CONTENTS.