CHAPTER I.

Of the Experimental Method and Fermentation of

the Philosophic Subject, according to the

Paracelsian Alchemists and some others.

Naturam in primis imitabere in arte, magister.
Hanc massam exterior tentum calor excitat ignis ;
iEthereo interior sed perficit omnia fotu.

Tractotus Aureus — Scholium, cap. i.

IT is not less the tendency of the Greek philo-
sophy to substantialize life, than to free the
conscious being from corporeal dependency ; in
considering mind apart from its material organs,
they by no means make it appear therefore as an
abstract conception, or inferential only, as with
modern metaphysics is the case ; but as an
absolute substratal matter also of existence.

On just such a foundation do the Alchemists
establish their Free Masonry ; claiming like
extreme attributes and miraculous origin for their
first matter, as do the Greeks, for that ethereal
hypostasis we were before discussing. A few also
profess, with the same admirable earnestness, to
have observed in the experimental development
of their own internal being, the whole procedure
of the occult nature into evidence, with her uni-
versal efficient by the Light of Wisdom thenceforth
revealed.

In ignorance of the means by which such a
spectacle was obtained, they may continue un-
accredited, for their assertion is at variance with
the judgment of common sense, neither does it
belong to the natural order of mental experience ;
nevertheless, since the whole of the Hermetic
philosophy, and every tradition of occult science,
depend immediately therefrom, for our under-
taking's sake, it will be requisite to consider

272 Laws and Conditions.

this, their Initial Principle, more particularly, and
how possibly it became known in its first arcane
descent and emanation.

We have already endeavoured to prepare a way
in part, showing the imperfection of the natural
Spirit in this world, the occupation of its Light,
and the vital alteration that was deemed necessary
and operated in the Mysteries upon those who
were desirous of wisdom and immortality in the
awakening conscience of a divine life within. Let
us examine yet further into the Method of this
Vital Experiment, that, before proceeding to
unfold the Art in actual practice, we may under-
stand the Principles ; and be enabled, from out
the many clouds of sophist^ in which it is
enveloped, to distinguish that Light and virtue of
true Chemistry, by which the ancients were
assisted : — that deformed and limping (Edipus
for example ; so that he was able to vanquish the
Metaphysical Monster, and enter in with her to
the Temple of Truth.

And here, preliminarily, we may remark with
how much propriety the Egyptians placed the
Sphinx in the vestibule of Isis, who is the same
with Minerva and that Wisdom we are investi-
gating ; for what the natural intelligent Spirit is
in man, that Ether is in the universe ; and this
intelligence, phantastic as it is and drawn without,
may be called the vestibule of Reason, which is,
as it were, the temple of that Intellectual Illumina-
tion which proceeds, when the conditions are duly
offered, from the Divinit}^ within. In our vestibule,
therefore, the Phantastic Spirit, which is the natural
vehicle of our life, is situated ; and in a similar
manner the commonly diffused Ether is as a vesti-
bule or vehicle in respect of the universal soul of the
world, which is occultly suspended in Nature, and
may be called her temple ; as an outward shadow,
guarding the Light within of both worlds, so is
that Ether then the Sphinx of the Universe.

Experimental Method. 273

And she is all things passively which the internal
light is impassively. By her animal form, com-
bined with the human face and summit, is indicated
the twofold capability and diffusion of such a life ;
for she is the summit of the irrational mind relying
on instinct, and the basis whereon to build the
rational and transcend opinion in indivisible
science. Her wings are images of the elevating
power which the imagination possesses, by which
likewise she is rendered capable of divine assimi-
lation and of returning within and upward to a
region of vivid intellection everywhere resplendent
with light.1

Such was the Door-keeper of the Egyptian Mys-
teries ; agreeably also do we find the art of
Alchemy directed upon the same enigmatical
source.

A nature to search out which is invisible,
Material of our Mais try a substance insensible.

This Material, whilst }^et immanifest, they
worked, and worked with by itself alone ; joining
self to self, as the advice runs — vita vitam concipit,
natura naturam vincit ac superat, patefacit, gignit
et renovat ; item natura natura la?tatur et emen-
detur ;2 as men also now prove, mesmerising one
another, but without the important knowledge
how to alter and amend the Thing. This Mesmer-
ism, in respect of our Mystery then, may be
regarded as a first key which, opening into the
vestibule, affords a view within the sense's prison,
but of the labyrinth of life only. Facts vary at the
circumference, and appear often so contradictory
that reason is at a loss, even if otherwise admitted
capable, for stable materials whereon to base
judgment ; and each succeeding theory yields to
some unforeseen diversity of the Spirit's mani-

1 See Taylor's Notes to his Pausanias ; an admirable extract
from Lasus Hermonseus concerning the Sphinx, vol. hi.

2 Arnoldi Rosarium, Democritus et alii in Turba Philosoph-
orum ; De Lapidis Physici Condit. cap. hi.

274 Laws and Conditions.

festation. If the ancients had known the inner life
only as it is now known, if they had mistaken
dreams for revelations, instinct for intellectual
vision, and insensibility for the highest good, and
so left Nature to dream on and take her rest
without exerting a thought to probe or prosper
her ability, then they would have been just such
inconsiderable heathens as the world has taken
them for ; the Sphinx had never owned her
mastery or yielded to theirs her wary wit ; then
they would have been, as we, servants, not
masters ; plodding interpreters of effects, without
power or prescience. But it was all otherwise, as
will one day be perceived ; their philosophy as far
exceeded ours in substance and objective certainty,
as it does avowedly in scope, beauty and intel-
lectual promise.

It may be considered that the discovery of Vital
Magnetism is young, and has had no time to grow
up into a science ; that it is the business of a
philosopher to observe and gather facts from
without patiently and compare experiences ; and
we do not object but admit that it is a way ; but
whether it is the best way, or surest, to find the
truth eventually we doubt : a long way we all
know it to be — laborious and not very cheering,
if we regard the point to which it has hitherto
attained in the most intelligent and experienced
hands. Or how should they attempt to theorise
about a revelation that is above their own ? ; as
well might we presume to estimate the worth of a
treasure that is unseen, as to judge of spiritual
causes from remote effects. Is not experience the
basis of true knowledge, and rational experiment
the proper road to attain it ? How then can we
hope for an understanding of spiritual causes
without entering in upon the proper ground of
their experience ? Verily, says the adept, as long
as men continue to lick the shell after their
fashion, presuming to judge of hidden celestial

Experimental Method. 275

things which are shut up in the closet of the matter,
and all the while perusing the outside, they can do
no otherwise than they have done ; they cannot
know things substantially, but only describe them
by their outward effects and motions, which are
subject and obvious to every common eye.3

But be the modern method of experimenting as it
may, right or wrong, according to opinion, the
ancients did not choose it ; but adopted a different
one in their philosophy ; which we, observing the
imperfect fruits of the inductive sciences generally,
and that facts accumulated about them for ages,
having failed in every instance to yield the satis-
faction which reason requires, are more particu-
larly desirous to examine at the present time,
if perad venture philosophy might hope with advan-
tage to return with her instruments to work as
formerly on the a priori ground. It has lain a long
while uncultivated, and indigenous weeds and
briers have sprung up over, so that it is difficult,
on first view, to believe that it ever yielded foreign
fruits ; but patience, and the possibility granted,
we will endeavour to clear a path, by the help of
evidences that yet remain, many and curious,
about the riches of Wisdom and those living waters
that abound in Paradise, compassing about too
that land of Havilah where good gold is ;4 the
Tree of Life also, and Knowledge, and other
precious things wonderfully adumbrated about the
penetralia of True Being. — Surely there is a vein
for the silver, says Job, and a place for gold where
they fine it. Iron is taken out of the earth, and
brass is molten out of the stone. As for the earth,
out of it cometh bread : and under it is turned up
as it were fire. And the stones of it are the place of
sapphires : and it hath dust of gold. There is a path
which no fowl knoweth, and which the vulture's eye
hath not seen : the lion's whelps have not trodden

3 Vaughan's Anima Magia Abscondita, p. 8.

4 Genesis, chap. ii. ver. 10, and following.

276 Laws and Conditions.

it, nor the fierce lion passed by. He putteth forth
his hand^u^oxi the rock ; he overturneth the moun-
tains by the roots. He cutteth out rivers among the
rocks ; and his eye seeth every precious thing. He
bindeth the flood from overflowing ; and the thing
that is hid bringeth he forth to light. But where
shall Wisdom be found ? and where is the place of
understanding ? Man knoweth not the price
thereof ; neither is it to be found in the land of the
living. Whence then cometh Wisdom ? and
where is the place of understanding ? Seeing it is
hid from the eyes of all living, and kept close from
the fowls of the air. God under standeth the way
thereof. For he looketh to the ends of earth, and
seeth under the whole heaven ; to make the weight
for the winds ; and he weigheth the waters by
measure. When he made a decree for the rain and
a way for the lightning and thunder : then did he
see it, and declare it ; he prepared it, and searched
it out. And unto man he said, Behold, the fear of
the Lord, that is Wisdom ; and to depart from evil
is Under standing. b

Let us then, investigate a means for the dis-
covery of Wisdom, as the ancients declare to be
right and profitable, and believe that he spoke well
and summarily who said, that " the first step in
philosophy is to set the mind a-going."

As we are informed that the conduct of the
Mysteries was uniform and entirety scientific ; so
likewise philosophers insist that, in the Hermetic
art, theory ought to precede practice ; and that,
before the Spirit can be expected to 3deld any
rational or pure effects, she must be made to
conceive them : the right way and object of investi-
gation being well understood. — Dwell not alto-
gether in the practice, says the adept, for that is
not the way to improve it : be sure to add reason
to thy experience, and to employ thy mind as well

5 Job, chap, xxviii.

Experimental Method. 277

as thy hands,6 So wrote Vaughan in 1650 ; and,
to the same effect, artists of every age : and, in the
sequel of this inquiry, we may understand Why ;
and why we have no such miracles as those which
are related of the saints and apostles in former
times who received the gift of healing from their
Lord. Is it not obvious to common sense, that he
that would heal others, or hope to impart any
superior efficacy, should first of all heal or be
healed himself ? Take first the beam from out
thine own eye, and then thou mayest see clearly to
take out the moat that is in thy brother's eye : and
again, is it not written, — Physician heal thyself ;
Prepare thy work without, and make it fit for
thyself in the field ; and afterwards build thy
house.7 If, then, we go out at once to throw our
common life to common lives, what wonder we
have only common results ? That much depends
upon the quality of the life imparted, general
observation teaches ; and with what sure corres-
ponding consequences the moral leaven is attended
may be understood, in a degree, by the recipient
in the mesmeric trance. But the spontaneous
fermentation which the Vital Spirit undergoes,
and the change that is thereby effected in the
Passive Subject, is not taken advantage of in
modern practice, or pushed to the uttermost ;
much less is understood, that exact art of grafting
and transplanting which the ancients practised,
and by means of which a growth and sublimation
of the Spirit was effected, even to a third, fourth,
and fifth degree of concentrated essentiality in as
many representative vessels or forms.

The true medicine, according to the Paracelsians,
is bound in man, shut up as it may be milk,
within the hard and solid nut : and as fire which
lies hidden in fuel, unless it be ignited, is good for
nothing, so our fire of life (called Antimony by

6 Vaughan's Lumen de Lumine, p. 18.

7 Wisdom of Solomon, and in Proverbs, chap. xxiv.

278 Laws and Conditions.

adepts) can effect nothing comparatively excellent
whilst it is immured. When, however, by a due
purgation, the pure life is separated, as metal from
the dark and sordid ore, it will flow forth, as is
declared, " a pure panacea from the god of Light."

As all things are proved by fire, so also, are we
told, the trial of the knowledge of physic is to be
made by fire ; physic and pyrotechny, says
Crollius, cannot be separated ; for the natural
inbred chemist teaches to segregate every mystery
into its own reservacle, and to free the medicine
from those scurvy envelopes wherein naturally it
is wrapped, by a due separation from the impuri-
ties and filthy mixtures of superficial external
elements ; that the pure crystalline matter may be
administered to our bodies ; and therefore a
physician should be born of the light of grace and
spirit of the invisible divinity.8 Wherewith a man
no longer asks, What is it ? How can this be ? or
Whence come such salutary effects ? For it feels
itself move in conscious virtue from its own source
being allied, as an efflux of that living light which
can move mountains to its faith.

To find this Light, and to free it from captivity,
was the practice of physicians in the middle
periods, for curing bodily ills, and administering to
the defects of age. But the Theurgic Art professed
a power of purifying and informing the Mind
much more beneficial and lasting than this per-
taining to the mortal body, and far advanced
beyond that object ; approaching more nearly,
as it would seem, toward a fulfilment of the perfect
doctrine of regeneration preached by Jesus Christ
and his apostles, than any other known ; for, by
an effectual baptismal purification, they also
prepared the way, and by a gradual subjugation
of the passions and adaptation of the subordinate
powers to reason, the whole hypostasis was con-

8 See Crollius' Philosophy, The True Physic, chap. i. Also
B. Valentine's Chariot of Antimony, p. 42, &c.

Experimental Method. 279

verted finally through faith into the identity
of substant light within.

And it appears that, in order to discover this
Reason, men had in former times the faith to put
the question to Nature rationally : not rudely
indeed, or, as is with modern chemistry the
fashion, to demolish her edifices and burn her out
of life and home ; but they knocked, as was bid
them, and the doors being opened from within,
they enjoyed and took advantage of their entrance
as lawful guests : and, when all was ready, and
they were admitted to the inner chamber, we
observe them still, not so much engaged in noting
phenomena, or looking about for facts to furnish
private judgment ; but more becomingly inquisi-
tive, addressing themselves to nature, and admiring
there where they found her happily exalted above
them, sphered in the magian circle of her own
light : not stupidly gazing either, but speculative
how they might approach nearer and become
worthy of the knowledge and familiarity of that
light. For they were not content with first
phenomena, nor did Theurgists disturb the divine
intellect about trifling concerns ; but they con-
sulted it about things which pertain to purification,
liberation, as Iamblicus tells us, and the salvation
of life. Neither did they studiously employ them-
selves in questions which are indeed difficult, yet
useless, to mankind ; but, on the contrary, they
directed their attention to things which are bene-
ficial to life, and such as tend towards the dis-
covery of truth.9

No man enters the magian' s school, it seems, but
he wanders awhile in the region of chimeras ; and
the inquiries which he makes before attaining to
experimental knowledge are many, and often
erroneous.10 But investigation, once begun in a

9 See Iamblicus de Mysteriis, sect. vii. cap. viii.
10 See Vaughan's Lumen de Lumine, p. 40, &c. B. Valen-
tine's Chariot sub initio, Norton's Ordinal, c. iv. &c.

280 Laws and Conditions.

right rectifying spirit, enters ; as adepts who
having set the chain of vital causes in action,
succeeded in tracing them to their last efficient link
in Deity ; whence surveying, they were enabled,
under the divine will, to work such perfection in
things below as are supernatural to this life, and
greater than the natural intellect is able to con-
ceive. For the Central Light and Wisdom was all
their aim, and the way to it was all the revelation
they valued or asked for, until the hidden Divinity
was moved into experience and made manifest in
effect and power.

But what say our (Edipus distillers of this Ether,
the instructive Alchemists ? Lay the line to thy
thoughts and examine all patiently, and infer from
experience, and thou art in the way to become
infallible. Take hold of that Rule which God hath
given thee for thy direction, by which thou mayest
discern the right from the wrong. Seek not for that
in nature which is an effect beyond her strength ;
you must help her, that she may exceed her
common course, or all is to no purpose ; for the
Mercury of the Wise comes not but by help of
ingenuity and industry.11 But he that devoteth
himself to philosophy, says Crollius, and shall
sincerely and as he ought come to the inner rooms
of nature b}^ a holy assiduity of preparations,
joining thereto diligent contemplation of natural
causes, and withal shall refuse no pains or diffi-
culties to get experience by the industry of his
handywork, he shall, if the grace of the most High
be infused into him, bring forth far greater things
out of this open bosom of nature than they seem
to promise at first sight.12 To the same effect Van
Helmont writes, that the attainment of the Tree
of Life is laborious, and the fruit of intellectual

11 Lumen de Lumine, page 39. Lullii Theoria et Practica,
cap. lxviii et lxxxviii.

12 See the Admonitory Preface of Oswald Crollius, page x.

Experimental Method. 281

research.13 Excellent, also, is this advice of Basil
Valentine, and instructive to the point : Learn
and look for the first foundation, says the monk,
which nature holds concealed ; search for it even
with thine own eves and hand, in order that thou
may est be able to philosophise with judgment and
build upon the impregnable rock ; but, without
this discovery, thou wilt continue a vain and
phantastic trifler, whose discoursings, without
experience, are built upon sand. Let not any one
imagine either that we can be satifised with mere
words, who rather exact documents proved by
experience, in which we are bounden to have faith.14

Such are a few of the preliminary lessons of
adepts, in which they all agree •that the way to
Wisdom is by patience and rational inquiry. Some
scattered specimens of the kind we have remarked
in the writings of Lully, and Michael Maier and
others, to which in the Practice we shall have
occasion to allude. That they did not investigate
trifling matters is indeed obvious, but diligently,
from the first, concerning the intimate causes of
things ; and how they might themselves enter
into the fundamental experience, their anxiety
is manifest and the truly philosophic inclination
of their mind.

But the contemplation which absolves the
Second part of our admonition is celestial, con-
tinues the monk Basil, and to be understood with
spiritual reason ; for the circumstances of every-

13 Oreatrike, p. 631, 710., &c. 4to.

14 Disce igitur, disputator mi, et inquire primum funda-
mentum ipsis oculis et manu, quod natura secum fert abscond-
itum : sic demum prudenter, et cum judicio inexpugnabilem
Petram sedificare poteris. Sine hoc autem vanus et phantasti-
cus nugator manebis, cujus sermones absque ilia Experientia
supra arenam solum fundati sunt. Qui autem sermocination-
ibus suis et nugis me aliquid docere vult, is me verbis tantum
nudis non pascat, sed Experientiae factum documentum simul
sit prsesto oportet, sine quo non teneor verbis locum dare,
tidemque iis adhibere, &c.

282 Laws and Conditions.

thing cannot be perceived any other way than
by the spiritual cogitation of man, considering how
nature may be helped and perfected by resolution
of itself, and how the destruction and compaction
are to be handled, whereby under a just title,
without sophistical deceits, the pure may be
separated from the impure.15 For it is no graft
from this life that enters into the divine founda-
tion, nor any arbitrary instinct ; natural reason,
even the most acute, is dull here comparatively,
and inoperative, and stands in the Philosophic
Work, albeit necessary, as a mere circumstantial
aid on the threshold of the divine inquiry, as it
were an iron key, intended to unlock the golden
treasury of light within. And no sooner, we are
informed, has it done this, and, further extricating
itself, helped to introduce the spiritual intellect
into self-knowledge, than this latter, returning with
power upon the life without, proceeds to analyze
and revolutionize, proving all, as may be said,
chemically by the fiery essence of its newly
conceived Law. It is this vital perscrutinator,
the internal fire of the sulphur of thy water, as
Eirenseus calls it, that, investigating scientifically,
operates the whole change. And it is happily pro-
vided against intruders, lest the casket should be
rifled of its rich offering, that they only who have
obtained this passport can attain to the Magistery
of life ; since they only, literally speaking, can
enter in through the narrow gate, as in the Mys-
teries we have already described. And the dis-
covery is difficult, and reputed tedious by many
who ha\e spared no labour either of body or mind
in the research — reclusa resedet longius, as the
poet says ; it is far off, gotten in the penetralia,
as it were, the flower of human intellect, triply
imprisoned in the dark body's hold. This it is
the business of the philosopher to open and set
free ; and this is the security, that he must be a
lover of Wisdom who can set her free.

15 B. Valentine's Chariot of Antimony, sub initio.

Experimental Method. 283

Our fire is the true sulphur of Gold, says Eiren-
seus, which in the hard and dry body is imprisoned
but by the mediation of our water it is let loose, by
rotting the moles of the body (i.e., of the ethereal
body) under which it is detained ; and after
separation of the elements (of the same body) it
appears visibly in our Third Menstrual. But the
means to discover this is not a light work, it
requires a profound meditation : for this is the
seed of Gold, involved in many links, and held
prisoner, as it were, in a deep dungeon ; he that
knows not our two first menstruals is altogether
shut out from attaining to the sight of this Third
and last : yet he who knows how to prepare the
first water, and to join it to the body in a just
pondus, to shut it up in its vessel philosophically,
until the infant be formed, and, what is greater
than all, to govern his fire dexterously, so as to
cherish internal heat with external, and can wait
with patience till he see signs ; he shall perceive
the first water will work on the body till it hath
opened the pores and extracted partly the tincture
of Sol. Take counsel ; be not so careful of the fire
of the Athanor as of your internal Fire. Seek it
in the house of Aries, and draw it from the depths
of Saturn ; let Mercury be the interval, and your
signal the Doves of Diana.16

On some such errand, we may remember, the
Sybil sends iEneas, that, from out many entangle-
ments and obscurity, he may discover and bring
to her the Golden Bough, well directing him how
to look from beneath upwards, and take it in hand.

Alte vestiga oculis ; et rite repertum,
Carpe manu ; namque Ipse volens facilisque sequetur,
Si te fata vocant ; aliter, non viribus ullis
Vincere, nee duro poteris convellere ferro.17

So Orpheus, in his Argonautics, leading to the
Cave of Mercury, exhorts mankind how they
ought to act and study there.

16 See Ripley Revived, pages 263, 266, 69.

17 iEneid, lib. vi. 145.

284 Laws and Conditions.

At quaeeunque virum ducit prudentia cordis
Mercurii ingredier speluncam plurima ubi ille
Deponit bona, stat quorum praegrandis acervus
Ambabus valet hie manibus sibi sumere, et ista
Ferre domum, valet hie visitare incommoda cuncta.

He, therefore, who wishes to partake of many
goods, let him approach to the Cave of Mercury,
which, according to the Hermetic interpretation,
is Taenerus, the most hidden vapour of life : let
him enter with a prudent motive, well under-
standing and allied to what he seeks ; and that
which he shall bear away from thence, Centaur-
like, in both his Hands, will be the mineral radix
and true matter of the Hermetic Art. But if he
have not a right mind, and unless the predestinated
conditions and the order of operation be observed ,
all will be vain ; for the power will remain hidden,
despite of every effort, in a pusillanimous uncon-
genial soul. Nescit Sol comitis non memor esse sui ;
Ignire ignis amat, non aurificare sed, aurum. Fire
loves fire, say they, not to make gold, but to
assimilate it. Take, . therefore, that body which
is. gold, (not a brazen ferment), and throw it into
Mercury — such a Mercur}^ as is bottomless, or
whose centre it can never find, but by discovering
its own.18

This is the art of (Edipus, which, well conducted
with the Sphinx, ends in her subjugation ; in other
words, the Ethereal Spirit abandons her phantasy,
and yields the clear light of understanding to him
who, having been duly educated and singled out,
knows how and wherewith to investigate her
peculiar essence. Thus, Synesius says — Intellect
above all things separates whatever is contrary
to the true purity of the phantastic Spirit ; for it
attenuates this spirit in an occult and ineffable
manner, and extends it to Divinity.19 But the

18 See Ripley Revived, page 206. Maieri Atalanta Fugiens,
Emblema xviii. Lumen de Luruine, p. 97.

19 See the extract from Synesius de Somniis, in Taylor's
Proclus on Euclid.

Experimental Method. 285

natural Intellect cannot do this, neither compre-
hending properly, or being conceived of the Spirit ;
neither is its essence so acutely penetrative as to
operate the change required. Salt is good, but if
the Salt have lost its savour wherewith shall it
be seasoned ?

And here the common difficulty ensues, as lan-
guage becomes less and less adequate to convey to
the natural understanding the truth alleged. To
conceive at once the free perspicacity which experi-
ence and long study bestowed on those men, their
assertion of the magic action of mind in her own
spheres, the efficient force of an individual freed
will upon the vehicle of its motive cause, separ-
ating, refining, and transmuting it from an impure,
dull consistency to the clear light of universal
intelligence, is arduous to the unaccustomed mind ;
and in this age, which is without a witness, without
experimental knowledge, we should say, of true
causality, most especially adverse ; yet it will be
necessary, having so far ventured, to discuss the
point ; and, as well as we may be enabled, to sub-
stantialize without deforming this Intellectual
Science.

It may be remembered, in a former citation from
his book to the Athenians, Paracelsus saying, that
Separation is the greatest miracle in philosophy,
and that magic the most singular by which it is
effected ; very excellent for quickness of penetration
and swiftness of operation, the like whereof Nature
knows not. Now this Separation, of which he speaks,
and of which all the Hermetic Masters speak,
appears to be identical with that which is described
as taking place in the Mysteries, when the great
ordeals are passed through during the decom-
position and death of the natural life. The analogy
bears throughout from the beginning in suffering,
succedent dread, dissolution, and corruption, to
the final resurrection of the pure Ether into Light.
This Separation is indeed the primary object of the

286 Laws and Conditions.

Art which, continues our doctor, if it were divinely
done by God alone, it would be to no purpose to
study after it ; but there is a free power in the
creature to its mutual affection and destruction ;
and, again — The free will flourisheth and is con-
versant in virtue, and is either friend or foe in our
works ; but that is the sequestatrix, which gives
to every thing its form and essence ;20 which is the
part especial of Intellect, that same perscrutinating
Intellect which Hermes speaks of,21 and where in
the Smaragdine Table it is written — Separabis,
Thou shalt separate the earth from the fire, the
subtle from the gross, gently, with much sagacity ;
it will ascend from earth to heaven, and again
descend from heaven to earth, and will receive
the strength of the Inferiors and of the Superiors :
this is the strong fortitude of all fortitudes, over-
coming every strong and penetrating every solid
thing : therefore let all obscurity flee before thee ;
so the world was created, and hence are all
wonderful adaptations of which this is the manner.22
So passing wonderful is it said by the same reputed
author, in the Asclepius, that man should be able
not only to find the Causal Nature but to effect it.23
Nor ought we, therefore, taking into considera-
tion the human agency, to understand this decom-
ponency of life in a mechanical sense, or in any
ordinary way of dissolution ; but, according to the
literal wording of the Table, we observe Mind
to be the true Separator, the efficient as well as the
regimen of the work, into which, as before shown,
no foreign admixture is allowed to enter. And
thus we are given to understand that the know-
ledge of the elements of the ancient philosophers
was not corporally or imprudently sought after,
but is through patience and Wisdom to be dis-

20 First Book to the Athenians, text 9 and 10.

21 Tractatus Aureus, cap. ii.

22 Tabula Smaragdina Hernietis.

83 Asclepius, cap. xiii., see motto on title page.

Experimental Method. 287

covered according to their causes and their occult
operation ; for their operation truly is occult,
since nothing is discovered except the matter be
decomposed, and because it is not perfected unless
the whole introversion is passed through. — Auditor,
understand, reiterates the great Master ; let
us use our Reason — consider all with the most
accurate investigation, the whole matter I know
to be One only Thing.24

And as folly, and phantasy, and passion are
modes of being of the One Thing, and Reason is
another ; and as the phantasy, if suffered to
prevail, will convert all to her own folly in the
internal life ; so may we judge contrariwise,
that this Reason gaining the ascendancy, would
gather all up, as a ferment, into the superior
essence and traction of her own Light. This Lully
intimates ; and Arnold, and Bacon, and Geber,
with the rest, abundantly celebrating the virtues
of their Head Stone.25

But if anyone should be further disposed to
question their doctrine or demur about the
physical efficacy of this Reason, let him for a plea
only regard the image of it in this life. What else
is it but reason, that enables us to analyze and
judge opinion, to govern our passions, and separate
facts from falsehood in the understanding ? And
with the logical faculty, is there not a universal
evidence which subsists by faith, an independent
standard by which all things are measured and
proven in life ? Considering this standard of our
common faith, abstractedly a prior necessity of
being also, will be understood, an infinite suffi-
cience, magnitude and eternity of duration ; and
thus obtaining a glance only of the antecedent, we
find less difficulty in imagining the superior virtue

24 Tract. Aur. cap. iv.

25 See Lullii Theoria et Practica, et Arbor Sciential, Brancha
Human. Arnoldi Speculum, Geber Invest, of Perf.; and again
in Manget, Sumantur Lapis in capitulis notus, &c.

288 Laws and Conditions.

of that which is the Reason of our Rule ; well
remembering that it is of this the ancients speak,
calling it Wisdom, Intellect, Gold, Sol, Sulphur,
Tincture. Intellectus naturam habens subtilem ad
intelligendum res intelligibiles, participat, cum
entibus intensis et cum entibus extensis, viz.,
cum intenso calore corporis, cum quo conjunctus
est et cum intensa bonitate sustentata in suis
intensis concretis.26 For it is Light indeed, and an
occult splendor of existence transcendently pure ;
and as the luminary of the sensible world purifies
and subtilizes the gross parts of matter, and by a
natural chemistry sublimes and converts the
varied elements of earth, so are we taught to
conceive of the Intellectual sun ; for those things
which the natural reason as an image enacts
theoretically, this supernatural reason is said to
do as an archetype essentially ; separating and
rejecting the false forms and elementary qualities
which supervene through generation, assimilating
the whole inferior life by continual trituration
of its foreign tincture, and imparting, according
to its paradigmatic virtue, perfection to such
faculties as are indigent by pure infusion of
Itself to the passiried Spirit throughout, even as
light through the open atmosphere is everywhere
seen diffusing itself invigorating and manifesting
all. The following remarkable extract from the
lost works of Anaxagoras, one of the earliest of
the Greek Hermetic School, further exemplifying
the nature of such an Intellect, confirms what has
been said above of its efficient operation. The
passage, as preserved by Simplicius, is given in a
note to Aristotle's Metaphysics, by Taylor, page 7,
and runs thus : —

26 Lullii Arbor X. Scientiae, p. 99, de Intellectu qui est
Brancha Spiritualis Arboris Humanalis. See also in Plotinus'
Select Works, a very beautiful treatise on the Gnostic Hypo-
stasis.

Experimental Method. 289

Intellect is infinite and possesses absolute power,
and is not mingled with any thing ; but is alone
itself by itself. For if it were not by itself, but
were mingled with something else, it would
participate of all things, for in every thing there
is a portion of every thing ; and things mingled
together would prevent it from having a similar
dominion over things, as when alone by itself.
For it is the most attenuated and pure of all
things. It likewise possesses an universal know-
ledge of every thing, and is in the highest sense
powerful. Whatever soul possesses greater or
lesser, over all these Intellect has dominion.
Every thing, too, that comprehends or contains
is subject to its power ; so that it even compre-
hends the Principle itself. And first of all indeed,
it began from that which is small to exercise its
comprehending power, but afterwards it com-
prehended more and more abundantly ; Intellect
also knew all that was mingled together, and
separated and divided, together with what they
would in future be, what they had been, and what
they now are. All these Intellect adorned in an
orderly manner, together with this circular enclo-
sure which is now comprehended by the stars, the
sun, and the moon, the air and the ether, which
are separate from each other. But this compre-
hending Intellect made things to be separated ;
and separated the dense from the rare, the hot
from the cold, the lucid from the dark, and the dry
from the moist. There are many parts indeed of
many things ; but in short no one thing is singular
by itself except Intellect. Every Intellect too is
similar, both the greater and the lesser ; but no
other thing is similar to another.27

That is to say, no other faculty is universal, or

of itself alone consciously distinguishable except

this root of reason which is truly catholic ; and

so by the microcosmic experiment into It, the

27 Aristotle's Metaphysics, note, page 7.

290 Laws and Conditions.

knowledge of the macrocosmic Cause also was
derived. For in the Hermetic process they are
seen to co-operate ; and all that Anaxagoras here
speaks of as relatively past, has been described as
present by philosophers on the internal ground.
Else, how should men have asserted about
Intellect and the rational faculty such things as by
no means belong to the natural revelation of it, if
they had not known another and proved the work
divine ? No one could assert them now. Some
believe, indeed, that mind is nothing really but an
elaboration of the brain, a resulting phenomenon
of organization. Sensible evidence favours such
an opinion, for life is nowhere seen apart by itself,
but follows constantly as a result of material
generation in order of effect of cause ; and human
reason, as a ray of light, reflected apart from its
originating focus, is halting and impotent in
respect of nature, and unconscious of its First
Source.

There is a piece of Egyptian mythology, related
by Eudoxus in Plutarch, concerning Jupiter, that
his feet had grown together and that he was forced
to live in solitude, and ashamed of himself as it
were ; until at length Isis, pitying his forlorn
condition, succeeded in cutting them asunder, and
so restored him to himself and to society. And this,
continues the scholar, is designed to represent to
us that the mind and reason of the Supreme God,
which in nature is invisible and dwelling in
obscurity, by being put in motion becomes known,
and proceeds to the production of other beings.28
And this, too, is an allegory of the Art, in which
the purified spirit or intelligence, that is Isis, by
dissolving the vital medium, opens the occult
source, and draws the Voluntary Efficient upward
into intellectual reminiscence. And this one thing
is to be consummated, that man may know him-
self ; whence, what for, and whereto, he is allied. —
23 See the Treatise De Iside et Gsiride.

Experimental Method. 291

All is one soul, says the Magian, but reason, unless
it be illuminated, is not free from error, and Light
is not given to reason except God impart it ; for
the first Light is in God, far exceeding all under-
standing.29 And Aristotle says, That Intellect must
be assumed which is most perfectly purified ; the
knowledge of which must be sought for in spirit or
spirits, by him who aspires to obtain it. For this
indeed is pure, and possesses an ineffable beauty,
because it is nothing but Intellect. For the beauty
of Spirit is the highest beauty when it energizes
intellectually, without error, and purely ; and it
knows things not as discovered by human labour,
but as they are unfolded by the Divine will.30 The
Alexandrian Plotinus also speaking of such Intel-
lect, describes the material of it as beautiful, and
as far surpassing ordinary intelligence, as para-
digms are wont to do the images which represent
them ; and the soul receives with it, he says, a
sudden Light, and this Light is from Intellect, and
is also It.31

It would be mere perplexity, and evince a want
of rational perception, to regard this Reason
therefore as inessential ; or as arbitrar}7, either in
operation or event ; since, in our mere individual
consciousness it is the foundation of all law — the
only unerring necessity of faith in this life ; the
luminous revelation of which in a purified human
intelligence, is that perfect beginning of Wisdom,
which is half of the perfect whole.

Dimidium facti qui bene ccepit habet, says the
philosopher ; for a small grain of the metaphysical
ferment leavens the whole lump. And as the
grain of wheat is putrefied in the earth, and after-

29 Agrippa's Third Book of Occult Phil. chap, xliii.

30 This passage is taken from one of those singularly instruct-
ive treatises attributed to Aristotle by his Arabian compilers,
as rendered by Taylor, from the Latin of Albertus Magnus
in his Dissertation, book iii.

31 Plotinus, Select Works on the Gnostic Hypostasis, &c

292 Laws and Conditions.

wards by the vital force becomes growing wheat,
terminating and multiplying in the f ermental form
inbred, so the metaphysical graft, already purified
and passed the fire, re-enters to redeem its con-
genital life, and finally by assimilation transmutes
all into the substance of its own Aurific Light.

During the process of working this leaven, many
phenomena arise, and those wonders which, having
been variously observed, are described and poet-
ized ; for this acute discriminative sulphuric Spirit
occasions a putrefaction of the philosopher's
Mercury, i.e., of the impure vapour of life, into
which it enters, so that all the elements are in
commotion, raging, swelling, and rolling like a
tempestuous sea ; darkness, made visible by the
appearing light, shrinks more and more condensing ;
and falsehood, as it were, trembling for her king-
dom, puts on every sinister guise, to combat and
eclipse the living truth, as, increasing in power and
armed with bright effulgence, it arises, threatening
to dissipate the total fabric, and dissolve its very
foundation.

So did the armour of Achilles, while yet far off he
only showed himself, dismay the assembled hosts
of Troy ; that shield so ominous in its device,
breastplate, and helmet's crest of gold,forged by
Vulcan, at Thetis' s prayer for her hero in Olympus ;
wherewith he single-handed overcame them all —
gods, men, and rivers — triumphant in the divine
fury which roused him to the fight.32 And here the
poetic allegory likewise is apparent ; Achilles
does not appear at all in arms, nor has he these,
until after Patroclas, his bosom friend, is slain ;
just as Misenus' funeral rites must be celebrated
before ^Eneas is allowred to journey to the infernal
shades.33 Peculiar too the rites are, which the

32 See Iliad, book x. Apollon. Rhodius Argonaut, lib. ii.

So the gloomy god

Stood mute with fear to see the golden rod, &c.

33 iEneid, lib. vi. 149

Experimental Method. 293

Sybil enjoins, and the sacrifices to be made to
those remains, as at the pile of Patroclus, set on
the sea-shore. Let it not be believed that Virgil
on this or on any other occasion was so servile an
imitator, or that either poet is relating events of
human history, or magnifying the heroes of a
common fight ; but Virgil and Homer agree in this,
that they adopted the same theme, had witnessed
the same heroic conflict, the same summary action
of Divine vengeance and mysterious metamor-
phosis of life ; their warriors, therefore, are demi-
gods divinely tutored and sustained — free from
the dilemma of earthly difficulties, and in their
strength and use of it sublime. If tradition was
useful to supply their imagery, the incidents are
nevertheless woven into a mystical accord, and
natural probability and the relations of time are
unscrupulously sacrificed to the report of Truth.
And they who have partaken of the same mystic
knowledge from the Greeks — Plato, Proclus, Por-
phyry, to Faber, Tollius, and Michael Maier, the
golden chain of Hermetic philosophers — unani-
mously tracing even through minutest incidents
their allusion, — have claimed those poets for their
own. Skilfully, doubt not, they have delineated
the most poetical of Arts ; and the admiring world
has listened, but without understanding ; and may
long continue to do so : — Yet we will proceed : —
For the friends of those heroes must die indeed,
as they are said to do — those bosom friends — and be
lamented ; for the celestial medial life which, in the
order of divine rites, precedes the heroic work, is by
necessity cut off, even in its prime ; when perfected
at all points, is shut up and buried ; all but the
hallowed memory burning to retrieve. Thus the
excellent poet Manzoli, whose assumed name of
Palingenius denotes one regenerated, divulges the
artificial method in the few following lines : —

294 Laws and Conditions.

Hunc juvenem Arcadium, infidum, nimiumque fugacem,
Prendite, et immersum Stygiis occidite lymphis.
Mox Hyales gremio impositum, Deus excipiat quern
Lemnia terra colit, sublatumque in cruce figat.
Tunc sepelite utero in calido et dissolvite putrem,
Cujus stillantes artus de corpore nostro,
Spiritus egredius penetrabit, et ordine miro,
Paulatim extinctum nigris revocabit ab umbris
Aurata indutum chlamyde, argentoque nitentem ;
Projicite hunc demum in prunas, renovabitur alter
Ut Phoenix, et quae tangit perfecta relinquet
Corpora, Naturae leges et fcedera vincens :
Mutabit species paupertatemque fugabit.34

Which has been rendered thus : —

Take this Arcadian slippery lad that's apt to fly,

And in the glittering Stygian lake, drowned let him die,

The set on Hyale's lap, let Lemnos' God

Take him to feed, and crucify the lad.

Then in a warm womb placed, his taint dissolve,

Whose dropping limbs a spirit shall devolve,

To him and penetrate ; and strangely so,

Dead by degrees, shall bring to life anew

All clad in robes of gold and silver hue.

Cast him again on hot coals, Proteus like

Hell be renewed, and all he touches make

Most perfect ; nature's laws and promises excel,

Species he'll change and poverty repel.

Nothing is done radically to meliorate the Vital
Spirit previous to this dissolution of the first medial
life ; so Hyanthe died, so Hylas at the fountain,
Adonis, Misenus, Elpenor, Patroclus, too, before
the heroic virtue was brought into act. It needs a
motive and excitation ; and this is given by arti-
fice of the Divine Law depriving it when in full
vigour of its Understanding Light. So Eurydice was
lost to Orpheus and Proserpine by Pluto's strata-
gem, whom the goddess Ceres too bewails ; for the
identical dilemma is common to these all, who
personate the wanderings and anguish of Intellect
so artificially isolated on the plain of Truth.

34 Capricornus — 214.

Experimental Method. 295

Tis not in fate th' alternate then to give,
Patroclus dead, Achilles hates to live.
Let me revenge it on proud Hector's heart,
Let his last spirit smoke upon my dart ;
On these conditions will I breathe, till then
I blush to walk among the race of men.35

Nor all in vain was that vindictive will conceived
or those heroic tears, though Pope has rendered
them " unavailing." Not so the master. Nor is
anything, we believe, in that so lengthened Iliad of
woes unpurposed, or with all its inconsistencies,
untrue : but in those particulars above all sug-
gestive, which are to common sense least bent ;
such weeping warriors, so much brave reserve,
such radiant armour, such a magic strength of
hand, and eye, and voice, to kill and terrify whole
armies and convulse the elements, belongs but to
one race, one cause, one conflict ; Divinity mingles
but in one, the war of life. And for this cause the
Heroic Will enters in, self-sacrificing, and stirs up
the bitter waters, to redeem and reinstate the
kingdom lost. But Achilles, too, must die and
suffer, as was predestinated, before the fatal gates,
as iEneas leaves the dedicated bough in Tartarus.
For how otherwise should that which is sown be
quickened unless it die ? Does not the grain
putrefy in the moist earth before it springs ? So
each succeeding life must die, as transplanted in
the next, it dissolves, corrupts, and rises into a
better form. For when thou sowest, as the great
Apostle says, thou sowest not that body that
shall be ;36 but it is the Law especial of spiritual
generation that the parent is bettered in the off-
spring, even to the fourth generation, or fifth, if
this happily should be attained. — There is an
earthly body and there is a spiritual body — the
terrestrial is bettered in the celestial, and the
celestial, descending and overcoming, is conceived

35 Pope's Homer's Iliad, book xviii. xx. to c. also Fawkes'
Apollonius Rhodius Argonautics, book i. He too Alcides, &c.

36 St. Paul to the Corinthians, 1st ep. xv. 37.

296 Laws and Conditions.

into the divine. No man ascends up into heaven
but he who came down from heaven, even the son of
man which is in heaven. This is the true Light which
lighteth every man that cometh into the world,
which in the Saviour was perfected ; one ray of
which is able to cleanse this leprous life of ours,
and convert it to the purest spiritual extreme.

Cujus de lumine lumen
Omne micat ; sine quo tenebrescunt lucida, de quo
Lucescunt tenebrse atque inamcense noctis imago.

Speaking of the Intellectual Essence, Plotinus
writes to the effect that we should not at first hope
to obtain the universal subject, but through the
medium of an image, and be satisfied — such is his
expression — with a certain portion of gold, as a
representative of universal gold,37 and therefore
Anaxagoras says, it begins from that which is
small to exercise its comprehending power. Ramus,
non arbor — The bough, not the whole tree, is to be
taken. For, in however small a proportion, if the
reason be but pure, it will penetrate according to
its purity, and gather growth ; but if it be not
pure, in other words, if the motive be not universal,
it must be returned, to work, and resolve, and
meditate, and prove, until it finds experience at
length in the supreme Unity of its Law. To find
the true Separator is described, in fact, as the
greatest difficulty ;38 as we may remember also in
Virgil, the tree is hid.

Hunc tegit omnis
Lucus et obscuris claudunt convallibus umbrae.

The tree of life covered over, indeed, with the
dark oblivion of this natural outbirth, is latent and
difficult to find, even for him who has already passed
the turbulent waters of the senses' medium and
sees within. For it lies not in art merely, or in
natural cunning, but with the celestial instinct

37 Select Works ; Ennead, v. lib. viii.

38 L. Comitibus Metallar. Nat. Oper. lib. iv. cap. vii ;
Chrysopsea lib. ii.

Experimental Method. 297

only to reveal ; that subtle Maternal intelligence
which originally conceived it, and can alone lead
into the yet more central, antecedent Paternal,
light of life.

Maternas agnoscit aves lsetusque precatur,
Este duces, O, si qua via est, cursumque per auras
Dirigite in lucos, ubi pinguem dives opacat
Ramus humum.39

Thus has the premeditation of the Divine Art
been poetized ; and the discovery of that heroic,
separable, triply refined intellectual purpose, which
has been so often and under so many names
personified — -Hercules, Jason, Lynceus, Perseus,
Cadmus, GEdipus, Dionysius, Achilles, Bacchus,
Amphiaraus, our Son, as Hermes calls him, born
a king who, taking his tincture from the fire, passes
through darkness, and death, and Stygian waters.
This is that prolific Mustard-seed, and Light of
divine Faith, which being the proper substance
of the thing hoped for, penetrates into the yet
unseen reality of life ; it is this, which, visiting the
interior rectifying, discovers the occult Stone —
the hidden Medicine. Such was the Caduceus of
Hermes — the Golden Bough, the ferrying Cup of
Hercules, and all the golden passports admitting
to those realms, so dangerous to folly, and delight-
ful to Wisdom recovering her lost Efficient in the
Light of life.

This vertical separated Light then we take
henceforth to be the true alterative principle in
the Divine Art, — The Alchemists are excessively
wary in speaking of it, as they are indeed concern-
ing the human circumstances of the mystery
throughout. For as we may by this time perceive,
it is no common light that enters into Divinity, but
a congenial ray ; a Power which glancing forth
from the capable will of such only as are divinised,
is essentially Divine. The persevering Trevisan
worked for upwards of half a century in vain, until

39 Mneid, lib. vi. 138, 193.

298 Laws and Conditions.

he found this ; and Pontanus in his Epistle con-
fesses how he erred two hundred times, experi-
menting even after he had attained a general
knowledge of the matter and method of its use, never
correctly divining the Identity of the singular
thing itself. Seek therefore, he says, writing to his
friend, seek to know this Fire with all thy soul,
that so thou mayest attain to thy desire ; for it is
the key of all the philosophers which they have
never openly revealed. But profound meditation
alone can give it to thee, so thou mayest discern,
and not otherwise.40 Other examples we have in
Zachary, and in Flammel ; who, after he was
conversant in the matter, and had both fire and
furnace indicated to him by Abraham the Jew,

wandered in the wilderness of uncertaintv for three

t/

several years. Madathan, another celebrated adept,
practised for five years together unsuccessfully,
until at last, he says, after the sixth year, I was
entrusted with the Key of Power, by a secret
revelation from Almighty God.41 Contemplate
therefore and observe, says Basil Valentine, these
things diligently, for in the preparation of Anti-
mony consists the Key of Alchemy, and this
principal key is of great concern. Be it known,
moreover, that our stone of Fire (which is Anti-
mony) ought to be boiled and maturated with the
corporeal fire of the microcosm, for at the farewell,
or he plus ultra, of the operative fire of the macro-
cosm, the fire of the microcosm doth begin the
production of a new species of generation ; and,
therefore, let no man wonder at this coction.42
And believe not only Basil, says Kirchringius, but
me ; with the same faith and sincerity, affirming

40 See Pontanus Epistle in Theat. Chem.

41 Post sextum annum clavis potential per arcanam revela-
tionem ab omnipotente Deo mihi concredita est, &c»; see
Museum Hermeticum, Lumen de Lumine, p. 67.

42 Chariot of Antimony, p. 24 ; Stone of Fire, pp. 160, 168 ;
Idem, p. 24 ; also Dyon. Zachary Opusculum, part ii.; Lucerna
Satis, p. 64, &c.

Experimental Method. 299

to you that this first key is the principal part of
the whole Art ; this opens the first gate, this will
also unlock the last, which leads into the palace of
the king. Believe not only, but consider and
observe. Here you stand in the entrance ; if you
miss the door, all your course will be error ; all
your haste ruin ; and all your wisdom foolishness.
He who obtains this key and knows the method,
which is called Manual Operation, by which to
use it, and hath strength to turn the same, will
acquire riches, and an open passage into the
mysteries of chemistry.

Sophistry, it will be observed therefore is no
leader in this Art, or avarice, or ignorance ; but he
who presumes without the revelation of the Divine
Light to introduce his own blind purpose, instead
of conditionating and inquiring patiently, will be
in danger of falling into infinite snares. The Law
of Nature, being simple and harmoniously framed,
will baffle him and rise up in judgment against
his generation, and condemn him to wander in the
labyrinth alone. Hence, all the care that is taken
to train the true Inquisitor, that he may obtain
the passport clear, as we have shown it ; that he
may know what, and where, and how he ought
to obey, and inquire, and will, and hope.

And it is therefore declared to all lovers of Art,
says Jacob Bohme, whose Separator is an artist
of great subtlety in them, that they first seek
God's love and grace, and resign up themselves
to become wholly one with that : else all their
seeking is but a delusion, or a courting of a shadow,
and nothing is found in any fundamental worth,
unless one doth entrust another with somewhat.
The which is forbidden to the children of God in
whom the grace is revealed, that they cast not
pearls before swine, upon the pain of eternal
punishment ; only it is freely granted to them to
declare the light, and to show the way of attaining
the pearl : but to give the divine Separator into

300 Laws and Conditions.

the bestial hand is prohibited, unless a man know-
eth the way and will of him that desires it.43

We do not see either that it is exactly possible to
give into such possession that which is divine ;
except, indeed, the Theosophist alludes to a
mediate occupation. And this brings us to consider
more particularly the representative understand-
ing, measure, and guardian of the Light ; for, as
we may remark in the fables, the heroic adventurer
with all his divine equipment, though he loses his
first companion, never goes through the labours
alone ; but is aided by stratagem and wise counsel
in the way. Without Ariadne's conduct, Theseus
could not have tamed the Minotaur ; or Jason, but
for the ready counsel and assistance of Medea,
have obtained the fleece ; Eurystheus sets Her-
cules to the performance of each separate labour ;
his mother aids Achilles ; Minerva, Ulysses ; and
the Sybil accompanies iEneas through the infernal
shades. In Alchemy, too, the Moon is singularly
honoured ; for it is the Passive Intelligence which,
freed by art and set in conjunction, responds to
the Will of her seeking Reason ; discovers the
way of progress, unravelling the context of each
involuted thought, and setting aside obstacles
with utmost discretion, passes with him through
the abyss, as it were the very kingdom of con-
fusion, triumphant over all and unconfounded.
It is from within that the knowledge springs
together with the true efficient, (which are indeed
one in principle, but in their practical operation
and for the sake of offspring are distinguished and
separately represented in the Art), revealing at the
same time their origin, essence, and destination.
The mode of analysis however is directed, and the
means for the most part provided by the Passive
Understanding gotten in transcendental contem-
plation of herself. Istud est vas Hermetis, quod

43 See Bohme's Epistles ; and to the same effect on The
Turned Eye ; printed with the rest of his works, in 4to.

Experimental Method. 301

Stoici occultaverunt, et non est vas nigrom-
anticum sed est mensura ignis tut.44

Both therefore have to be prepared — the spirit-
ual agent and the spiritual patient — according to
those words of the Smaragdine Table ; That which
is above is as that which is below, and that which
is below is as that which is above, for performing
the miracles of the One Thing whence all the rest
proceed by adaptation. It is not lawful therefore,
in this work, to conjoin unlike natures ; but, in
order to bettering in the offspring equal Spirits are
allied ; as Hermes says, both need the help one of
the other, for the precepts demand a medium ;45
that as the crude natural life was in the first
place bettered in the natural, so the supernatural
may be so much further advanced within them-
selves, even to the order of bodies permanent,
being changed from a corporeal to a spiritual
extreme :

Ouvrier, sur tout aye cure
Que F art imite la nature,
1/ externe feu de charbon
Rend la matiere alteree,
Mais F interne et Y a3theree
Faira ton ouvrage bon.46

The fire of the natural life stirs up and, being
manumitted, alters ; but the internal alone is
able, being purified, to perfect the work begun ;
according to that other saying of the sage — Si
pariat ventum valet auri pondera centum — if wind
be made of gold it is worth an hundredfold. Let
us be careful therefore to distinguish, in our
conception, the pure from the impure, the rectified
spirit of universal reason and its intelligence from
the gross ether and perplexed understanding of
this mundane sphere. For there cannot come of
any thing that virtue which it has not ; though
that which it has indeed may be improved and

44 Maria Practica, in fine.

45 Tract. Aureus, cap. ii.

46 Tract. Aureus, Scholium, cap. i.

302 Laws and Conditions.

magnified. And therefore it behoves us to mortify
two Argent vives together, says Hermes ; both
to venerate and to be venerated, viz., the Argent
vive of Auripigment and the Oriental Argent
vive of Magnesia.47

Sol meus et radii sunt in me intime, Luna vero pro-
pria meum lumen est, omne lumen superans j et bona
mea omnibus bonis meliora sunt. protege me et prote-
gam te3 largiri, vis, mihi meum ut adjuvem te.48

These are they which sound the depths together ;
the Sun and Moon, philosophical. And as the
influence of the Moon, says Plutarch, seems to
reflect the works of reason, and to proceed from
Wisdom, so the operations of the Sun are seen
to resemble those strokes which by mere dint of
strength and force bear down all before them.
You also have been initiated in those Mysteries
in which there are two pairs of e}^es, and it is
requisite that the pair which are beneath should
be closed when the pair that are above them per-
ceive, and when the pair above are closed those
which are beneath should be opened. Think
therefore, says Synesius, explaining the same
Egyptian Mythology of Isis and Osiris, that this is
an enigma indicative of contemplation and action ;
the intermediate nature alternately energising
according to each of these.49 Proclus, also dividing
the Apollonical Intellect, remarks that the pro-
phetic power unfolds the simplicity of truth and
takes away the variety of that which is false ; but
the arrow-darting power exterminates everything,
furious and wild, and prepares that which is orderly
and gentle to exercise dominion, vindicating to
itself Unity.50

47 Tract. Aur. cap. iii.

48 Idem, cap. iv.

49 See Extracts from his treatise on Providence, at the end
of Plotinus' Select Works, by Taylor, p. 531 ; and Plutarch,
Isis and Osiris, circa mediam.

50 Proclus on the Theology of Plato — Scholia on the Cratylus,

Experimental Method. 303

Power alone, indeed, if destitute of the ruling aid
of Wisdom, would be borne along with violence,
mingling and destroying all things ; yet nature
will not move by mere theory either, and Intellect
is therefore useless for the purposes of action when
deprived of the subserviency of the Hands. But
these two concurring, Wisdom with Power in
action, all things become possible ; and in such a
subtle and firm texture of divine splendor and
prophetic companionship, the Will may descend
in safety to the abodes of Power. A wise man is
strong, says the wise king, and knowledge in-
creaseth strength. Two are better than one,
because they have a good reward for their labour ;
as in water face answers to face, so the heart of
man to man.51

By mutual confidence and mutual aid
Great deeds are done and great discoveries made,
The wise new prudence from the wise acquire,
And one brave hero fans another's fire.52

And as the Rational Efficient, armed with a
bright intelligence, discovers the evil of its first
conception, now appearing manifold within the
veil, it proceeds even to a dissolution of the Vital
Bond, continually imaging its revelation in act.

Beloved brother, advises the experienced and
earnest Bohme, if you would seek the Mystery,
seek it not in the outward spirit ; you will there
be deceived, and attain nothing but a glance of
the mystery ; enter in even to the Cross, then seek
gold and you will not be deceived. You must seek
in another world for the pure child that is without
spot ; in this world you find only the drossy
child, that is altogether imperfect ; but go about
it in a right manner ; enter in even to the cross in
the Fourth Form, there you have Sol and Luna
together ; bring them through an anguish into
death, and bruise that composed magical body

51 Proverbs, chap. xxiv. xxvii. Eccles. iv.

52 Iliad, book x. 265.

304 Laws and Conditions. .

so long until it becomes again that which it was
before in the centre of the will ; and then it
become th magical and hungry after nature. It is a
longing in the eternal desire, and would fain have
a body ; give it Sol, viz., the soul, that conjoining
they may conceive a body according to that soul.
So the Will springs up in Paradise with fair golden
fruits. We speak not here of a glass or image, but
of gold, whereof men vaunt themselves, their
idol god.53

In such few words does the Theosophist com-
prehend the end and beginning of the Sacred Art,
the sum of the divine Intention and its vital fruits ;
for by death and contrition of the agent in the
patient, and vice versa, the old life is finally
crucified ; and out of that crucifixion, by reunion
of the principles under another law, the new life
is elicited ; which life is a very real and pure
Quintessence, the Mercury so much sought after,
even the Elixir of Life ; which needs only the
corroborative virtue of the Divine light which it
draws, in order to become the living gold of the
philosophers, transmuting and multiplicative—
the concrete form of that which in the dead metal
we esteem — . 0 Nature, the most magnanimous
creatrix of natures ! cries the Master, which
containest and separatest all things in a middle
principle ! Our stone comes with Light, and
with Light it is generated ; and then it brings forth
the clouds, or darkness, which is the mother of all
things.54

Let us pause here, then, to consider what it was
the philosophers really searched for and discovered
in this Stone ; that we may be prepared to learn
some more definite particulars of their practice,
and in what condition the vital elements are placed
during their experiment and recreation. We have
seen that, next to the first preliminaries, the object

53 Forty, Quest. 17, &c.

54 Tractatus Aureus, cap. iii.

Experimental Method. 305

was to produce an alteration in the Vital Spirit
and that this was operated by a true Rational
Analysis, which, repeatedly passed through, leads
on to a dissolution of the whole natural born
hypostasis, and is the condition proper to induce a
new life and growth into consciousness. That which
they sought after, and profess accordingly to have
discovered, therefore, is this miraculous principle
of regeneration ; by which the relationships of the
vital elements are exchanged ; the sensible
medium, which in this present birth is dominant,
being made occult ; and the occult supernatural
reason of life, which is catholic, becoming majiifest
in self-evidence and power.

And this is the true way and means by which the
metaphysical body of gold will be made profitable,
and in no other way, as the adepts teach ; but by
taking that body, when it is found, and joining it
with a spirit which is consanguineous and proper
to it, and circulating these two natures one upon
the other, until one have conceived by the other. —
Pinge duos Angues, cries Cornelius Agrippa ; or,
to proceed in the more suggestive language of his
ingenious disciple — Take our two serpents, which
are to be found everywhere on the face of the earth ;
they are a living male and a living female (under-
stand in relation to the spirit always without all
corporeal allusion) ; tie them in a love knot and
shut them up in the Arabian Car aha. This is the
first labour ; but the next is more difficult. Thou
must incamp against them with the fire of nature,
and be sure thou dost bring thy line round about.
Circle them in, and stop all avenues, that they find
no relief. Continue this siege patiently, and they
turn into an ugly venomous black toad ; which will
be transformed to a horrible devouring dragon,
creeping and weltering in the bottom of her cave,
without ivings. Touch her not by any means, con-
tinues the adept, not so much as with thy hands,
for there is not upon earth such a vehement

306 Laws and Conditions.

transcendant poison. As thou hast begun so
proceed, and this dragon will turn into a swan, but
more white than the hovering virgin snow when
it is not yet sullied with the earth. Henceforth
I will allow thee to fortify thy fire, till the Phoenix
appears. It is a red bird of a most deep colour with
a shining fiery hue. Feed this bird with the fire
of his father and the ether of his mother; for the
first is meat, the second is drink, and without this
last he attains not to his full glory. Be sure to
understand this secret ; for fire feeds not well unless
it be first fed. It is of itself dry and choleric, but a
proper moisture tempers it, gives it a heavenly
complexion and brings it to the desired exaltation.
Feed thy bird then as I have told thee, and he will
move in his nest, and rise like a star of the firma-
ment. Do this, and thou hast placed nature in the
horizon of Eternity. Thou hast performed that
command of the Kabalist, Unite the end to the
beginning as the flame is united to the coal ; for the
Lord is superlatively one and admits of no second.55
Consider what it is you seek : }^ou seek an indis-
soluble, miraculous, transmuting, uniting union ;
but such a tie cannot be without the first unity.
For to create and to transmute essentially and
naturally without violence is the proper office of
the first power, the first wisdom and the first love.
Without this love the elements will never be
married ; they will never inward and essentially
unite ; which is the end and perfection of magic.56
Thus Vaughan : the italics, copied from the
original, serve well to denote where a latent mean-
ing is implied and those analogies which are aptly
referrible throughout the process. The following
verses translated from the Aquarium Sapientiim
of about the same period, may help to elucidate
the subject further and lead on the discerning mind.

55 Liber Jezirah, cap. i. Fige finem in principio sicut flam-
mam prunse conjunctam, quia Dominus superlative unus, et
non tenet secundum.

56 Vaughan, Lumen de Lumine, -p. 62, and following.

Experimental Method. 307

The spirit is given to the body for a time,

And that refreshing spirit washes the soul by art ;

If the spirit suddenly attracts the soul to itself ;

Then nothing can separate it from itself ;

Then they consist in Three and yet abide in one seat,

Until the noble body is dissolved, and putrefy and separate

from them ;
Then after some time the spirit and soul come together
In the extreme or last heat, and each maintains its proper

seat in constancy. .
Then, nothing wanting, an entire sound estate and perfection

is at hand,
And the work is glorified with great joy.57

This is the constant doctrine and rule of the
regeneration of light out of darkness, of life from
death ; the solution of the sense-born spirit and
its subsequent sublimation, by a preponderant
affinity artificially endowed, into the transparent
glory of its prototypic form. And thus we learn
from adepts, though particulars vary, that
nature was not proved by them at random ;
for neither does she move by theory only or mere
mechanic art, but by rational experiment and the
light of faith, which, entering, stirs up the inward
oppressed fire of the chaotic natural-born life, and
endeavours to convert, as it were, by a pure con-
science, moving the matter to a contrite state ;
which at length penetrating to meet the self-willed
Identity within, is arrested, and the contest of
good and evil commences in the soul, each striving
for the ascendant, until the latter prevailing for a
period (such being the necessitous decree) an
eclipsation of the light takes place, and a dissolu-
tion of its body, as was before shown. And, as we
read in the fable, Typhon killed Osiris, his uterine
brother, and scattered his members to the four
winds and usurped his rightful throne ; but Isis,
re-collecting, hides them in a chest : just so the
ethereal Irypostasis is divided against itself and
brought to a separation even as these three ; the
soul, the spirit, and the body principle ; the
57 Aquarium Sapientum, in Mus. Herm. The Enigma.

308 Laws and Conditions.

paternal, maternal, and proceeding substance of
life ; sulphur, mercury, salt. The sulphur, which
is the soul and golden ferment, being dislocated in
its purpose by the opposive will, is carried aloft to
float upon the ethereal waters, whilst these continue
to tear, decoct, and soften the sensual dominant
and make it more fit for the returning reason and
understanding to work upon ; for it is brought to
an extremity indeed, and made to feel the want of
the light it had rejected. The light moreover
ascending carries with it a ferment al odour of the
body, which by the divine Art also is so contrived
in order that the soul may not depart altogether
into the region of nonentity. Thus Hermes — Take,
my son, the flying bird and drown it flying, then
divide and cleanse it from its filth which keeps it
in death ; expel this and put away all pollution,
that it may live and answer thee, not b}^ flying
away indeed but truly by forbearing to fly.58 And
all the while, during this period of the severation,
a wonderful coction is described as going on, the
earth is overflown with waters, the two great lights
are eclipsed, the air is darkened, and all things are
in confusion and disorderly relation, by reason of
the successive passion and prevalence of the vital
principles one over another ; for the balance is so
maintained that they can neither be said properly
to die or live according to that descriptive Proso-
popoeia of the Stone.

Non ego continue morior dum spiritus exit,

Jam redit assidue quamvis et saepe recedit

Et mihi nunc magna est anima, nunc nulla facultas.

Plus ego sustinui quam corpus debuit unum,
Tres animas habui, quas omnes intus habebam,
Discessere dua3, sed Tertia pcene secuta est, &c.

I am not dead although my spirit's gone,
For it returns, and is both off and on,
Now I have life, now I have none ;

58 Tract. Aur. cap. h.

Experimental Method. 309

I suffered more than one could justly do,
Three souls I had, and all my own ; but two
Are fled ; the third had almost left me too.59

Unremitting care and attention are enjoined at
this critical juncture, lest either of the dissolute
elements should escape from its legitimate attrac-
tion, and the property of the Spirit, which is as yet
indifferent to life or death, should by force of too
strong a fire, as Lully explains, be dissevered from
the body, and the soul thenceforth depart into
the region of her own sphere. And therefore he
says. — Let the heavenly power or agent be such in
the place of generation, or mutation, that it may
alter the humidity from its earthly complexion to a
fine transparent form or species.60

But we are not yet proposing to exhibit the
Practice, but only to understand it. Previous,
therefore, to the birth and fruits of spiritual
increase, it may be expedient briefly only to con-
sider the intermediate stages of the abyssal
regeneration and contest of the Metaphysical
Embryo before it is born into the perception by
the eye of sense. Entering it for the dissolution,
adepts describe it indeed as the greatest poison —
a most potent, destroying, wilful ens of fire ; for
the contrary will of the whole dissolving life is
loosened by it, which actuates it exceedingly, the
one being natural and the other a fire against
Nature ; conjoining together, they make a con-
flagration more fiercely consuming than any
elemental flame ; and being of equal origin, they
prey upon each other incombustibly, and by so
much the more increasing as they draw together
in might. And as the fable further relates of the
Egyptian monarch, that his hair was suffered to

59 Theat. Chem. Tom. iii. p. 764. Processus Chimica, Carmen
Elegans, v. x. and xi., Vaughan's Magia Admica.

60 See his Theoria et Practica, and in the Testament, where
he writes, Si cum igne magno operatus fueris proprietas nostri
spiritus, &c; and again, Ubi artista regulam singulari diligentia
observare debet, &c. Sal Lumen ; Nuysement, p. 133, &c

310 Laws and Conditions.

grow whilst yet he tarried in Ethiopia ; so this fire
is suffered to grow profusely, shooting forth all
his Satanic radiance in personality and act, until the
time for his mortification is ripe and ready at hand.
Adepts call him the Green Lion, Typhon, Fire-
drake ; or, during the mortification, he is their
venomous Black Toad ; for the newly roused
Efficient is exceeding wrathful, as we before hinted,
reducing the foreign body of Light, which is Osiris,
to a mere vapour, called by philosophers, on
account of its origin, the Four Winds, which,
condensing together at the top of the vessel in
form of drops, runs down continually, day and
night, without ceasing.61 So Sendivogius, in witty
discourse of his, relates that Sal and Sulphur meet-
ing together at a certain fountain began to fight, and
Sal gave Sulphur a mortal wound, out of which
wound, instead of blood, came forth, as it were,
most white milk, and it became to be a great river.62

For first the sun in hys uprysing obscurate
Shall be, and passe the waters of Noa's nude,
On erth whych were a hundred days continuate
And fifty, away or all thys waters yode,
Ryght so on our waters, as wise men understode,

Shall pass : that thou, wyth David, may say

Abierunt in sicco flumina, &c.63

This is commonly called the Gate of Putrefaction,
and its entrance is described as dark, with Cim-
merian windings, and continual terrification of the
Spirit ; but the cause of the dissolution appears to
proceed from the action of the vital heat stirred
up artificially within the blood, and which being
so continuously triturated, ignites and opens for
itself a passage, endeavouring forthwith to absorb
the circulating light by the efflux of its own abun-
dant chloric spirit being transfixed. And all this
while it is that the powers of the Philosophic
Heaven are so wonderfully shaken and defiled ;

61 See Ripley, Second Gate, Of Solution, and in Ripley Revived.

62 New Light of Aleh. ; Discourse of Sulphur.

63 Ripley's Fifth Gate, Of the Putrefaction, v. 12.

Experimental Method. 311

for, as the French adept phrases it, The two iragons
do bite one another very cruelly, and never leave
off from the time they have seized one another,
till by their slavering venom and mortal hurts they
are turned into a gory blood, and then, being
decocted totally in their own venom, are turned
into a Fifth Essence.

To Saturn, Mars with bond of love is tied,

Who is by him devoured of mighty force,

Whose spirit Saturn's body doth divide,

And both combining yield a Secret Source

From whence doth flow a Water wondrous bright

In which the Sun doth set and lose his light.64

There is a profound mystery couched in these
light words ; for as there was darkness upon the
Abyss when the Divine Spirit moved upon the
Waters' face, so in the hyperphysical work is it
seen to be, when the swifter current of the Infernal
motive wheel surmounts and eclipses the Divine
Light in the circulation. And, moreover, there is
the tempter Evil of the Son of Man made manifest,
and in all its reality the original Sin with a more
appalling possibility, to be met only by voluntary
sacrifice and humiliation of the Selfhood under the
exemplary cross of Christ. For is it not written,
He shall overflow the channels, and go over all the
banks : and he shall pass through Judah ; he shall
overflow and go over, he shall reach even to the
neck ; and the stretching out of his wings shall
fill the breadth of thy land, 0 Emanuel ?65

There is, say the Alchemists, nothing of an
unclean nature that enters into the composition
of the Stone, except One thing, which is the Instru-
ment moving the gold to putrefy ; and in this
respect (for it is the very grave of the rational
light) it is called by them Typhon, Satan, Aqua-
fcetida, Ignis Gehenna, Mortis Immundities, &c.
And because the philosophers are obscure

64 Eirenaeus, Marrow of Alchemy, book hi. v. 35.

65 Isaiah, chap. viii. ver. 8. See also the book of Jehior of
the Fire and its Mystery, chap. xi.

312 Laws and Conditions.

concerning this principle, lest the rational inquirer
should be led into troublesome error by their
sophistication, we are induced to dwell rather and
explain at length that, though impure in the
beginning, and manifestly evil, it is nevertheless a
necessary ingredient, and when finally brought
through the natural Alembic, and returned, it
constitutes the force and integral perfection of
the Divine Superstructure. And although Sulphur
and Mercury, says the Adept, should be already
described and known, yet without Salt no man
can attain to this Sacred Science.66 Hermes, allud-
ing to the same, says — The Dragon dwells in all
the threefold nature, and his houses are the dark-
ness and blackness that is in them ; and while this
fume remains they are not immortal. But take away
the cloud from the water, the blackness from the
sulphur, and death from the faeces, and by disso-
lution thou shalt obtain a triumphant gift, even
that in and by which the possessors, live.67 And
although Hermes does not speak of it openly,
because the root of this Science is a deadly poison,
yet I protest to you, says Maria laconically, that
when this poison is resolved into a subtle water,
it coagulates our Mercury into most pure silver
to all tests.68 But whilst it remains in the natural
state, in the evil of its original conception, no
good can come until it is overtaken and resolved.

Then lyke as sowles after paynes of purgatory
Be brought into Paradyce, where ys joyful lyfe,
So shall our stone after hys darknes in purgatory
Be purged, and joyned in elements without stryfe
Rejoicing in the beauty and whytenes of his wyfe,
And pass fro' the darknes of purgatory to lyght
Of Paradyce, in whytenes Elixir of great myght.
And like as yse to water doth relent,
Whereof congealed it was by violence of greate cold,
When Phoebus yt smyteth wyth hys beams, influent,

66 Sendivogius, New Light ; Discourse of the Three Principles.

67 Tractatus Aureus, cap. ii.

68 Maria, Practica, circa finem.

Experimental Method. 313

Ryght so to water minerall reduced ys our gold,
As wryteth plainly Albert, Raymond and Arnolde,

Wyth heat and moisture by Crafte occasionate

Wyth congelation of the Spyrite.69

By crafte occasionate, he says, because, it is by
the attractive grace of the connate spirit that the
self-willed agent is finally seen to be subdued and
betrayed to self-mortification, as it were, by a
conscience moving contrite in the Law of her
Light : here, therefore, Sol being eclipsed, the
Lunar Vulcan acts a principal part, as Isis in the
Mysteries, where she is also called Athena, to
express that self-motion and intelligence with
which this Spirit is endowed. In like manner they
gave to Typhon, in this predicament, the name
of Seth, Bebo, and like words, as Plutarch explains,
importing a certain violent, forcible restraint,
contrariety, and subversion, all which Osiris, i.e.,
the Divine Light, suffers in passing through the
voluntary axle in the regeneration ; but tempered
by the benign offices of Isis, he, Typhon, is like-
wise gradually enthralled, and the opposive princi-
ples are, through her artful intercession, finally
reconciled, and remain together, circulating with
her in equilibriate accord.

Canst thou draw out Leviathan with an hook ?
or his tongue with a cord which thou lettest down ?
Canst thou put an hook into his nose ? or bore his
jaw through with a thorn ? Will he make many
supplications unto thee ? Will he speak soft words
unto thee ? Will he make a covenant with thee .?
Wilt thou take him for a servant for ever ? Wilt
thou play with him as with a bird ? Wilt thou bind
him for thy maidens ? Shall the companions make
a banquet of him ? Shall they part him among the
merchants ? Canst thou fill his skin with barbed
hooks, and his head with fish spears ? Lay thy
Hand upon him, remember the battle and
do no more. Behold, the hope of him is in vain.

69 Ripley's Fifth Gate, Of the Putrefaction.

314 Laws and Conditions.

Yet shall not one be cast down even at the sight
of him ? None is so fierce that dare stir him up :
who then is able to stand before me ? Who hath
prevented me, that I should repay him ? What-
soever is made under the whole heaven is mine.
I will not conceal his parts nor his comely pro-
portion. Who can discover the face of his garment ?
or who can come to him with his double bridle ?
WTho can open the doors of his face, his teeth are
terrible round about. His scales are his pride,
shut up together as with a close seal. One is so
near to another, that no air can come between
them. They are joined one to another, they stick
together, that they cannot be sundered. By his
neesings a light doth shine, and his eyes are like
the eyelids of the morning. Out of his mouth go
burning lamps, and sparks of fire leap out. Out
of his nostrils goeth smoke, as out of a seething pot
or cauldron. His breath kindleth coals, and a flame
goeth out of his mouth. In his neck remaineth
strength, and sorrow is turned into joy before him.
The flakes of his flesh are firm in themselves ; they
cannot be moved. His heart is as firm as a stone ;
yea, as hard as a piece of the nether millstone.
When he rouseth up himself, the mighty are afraid :
by reason of the breakings they purify themselves.™
The sword of him that layeth at him cannot hold :
the spear, the dart, nor the habergeon. He esteem-
eth iron as straw, and brass as rotten wood. The
arrow cannot make him flee, sling stones are turned
with him into stubble. Darts are counted as
stubble ; he laugheth at the shaking of a spear.
Sharp stones are under him : he spreadeth sharp
pointed things upon the mire . He maketh the
deep to boil like a pot : he maketh the sea like a
pot of ointment. He maketh a path to shine after
him ; one would think the deep to be hoary. Upon
earth there is not his like, who is made without fear.

70 See Maieri Atalanta Fugiens, Emblema xi. Dealbate
Latonam et rumpite libros, &c.

Experimental Method. 315

He beholdeih all high things : he is a king over all
the children of Pride.11

Much might be added, and innumerable simili-
tudes belonging both to this rebellious Principle
and to that identical representative of him which
the Divine Art requires, in order that his stolen
forces may be drawn forth and spent in the san-
guinary conflict which he provokes in life. Just as
in the Egyptian relics he is so frequently seen
depicted with all the emblems of grace and power
in human semblance, fiercely seated between his
circumventing foes. For the Orient Animal must
be stripped of his skin, not with arrows or clubs,
but with the Hand, as Adepts say ; the whole
garment of Light must be dissected, shorn, and
the signal of victor}^ be heroically transferred.
Animal de Oriente pelle sua leonina spoliari debet
ej usque alee evanescere atque turn simul ingredi
magnum oceani salum cumque pulchritudine
iterum egredi, &c.72 But we must proceed ; giving
only, by way of recreation, this Philalethean Lion
Hunt from Maiden in part, and the Cosmopolite
Eirenaeus.

HUNTING THE GREENE LYON.

All hail to the noble companie

Of students in holi Alkimie ;

Whose noble practise doth them teach

To veil their art wyth mysty speech :

Mought yt please your worshipfulnes,

To hear my idle soothfastnes,

Of that stronge practise I have seene

In hunting of the Lyon Greene,

Whose color doubtless ys not soe

As that your wisdom well doe know ;

For no man lives that ere hath seene

Upon foure feet a lyon greene.

But our lyon wanting maturitie,

Is called greene for his unripenes trust me ;

And yet full quickly he can run

And soon can overtake the Sun ;

And suddenly can hym devoure

71 Job, chap. xli.

72 Maieri Hierog. Egypt. Gra-c, p. 222

316 Laws and Conditions.

If they be both shut in one towere

And hym eclipse that was so brighte

And make thys red to turn to white
By virtue of his crudytie.
And unripe humors whych in hym be ;
And yet within hym he hath such heate
That when he hath the Sun upeate,
He bringeth hym to more perfection
Than ere he had by Nature's only sanction.

Who then so'ere would win eternal fame
Must learn this Lyon Greene to tame.
But this before by Art he can attain
To study hym to know, he must be fain.
Nor ys it, trust me, for a stupid fule,
Nor yet for one brought up in vulgar schule :
I shall hym therefore lively out pourtray,
Least from thys banquet 3^011 go leane away.
With mind attentive, to my words give heed,
Least you instead of meat on fancies feed :
This horrid beast, which we our Lyon call,
Hath many names, that noe man shall
The truth perceive, unless that God direct
And on his darkened minde a Lig;ht reflecte.
'Tis not because this subject doth consist
Of animal components (he that list
May well conceive) that we do therefore use
The name of beasts ; nor is it to abuse
The readers ; he whoever soe doth think,
With stupid sots himself doth thereby link.
But it's because of the transcend ant force
It hath ; and for the rawness of its source,
Of whych the lyke is nowhere to be seene,
That yt of us is named the Lyon Greene.
Now hsten, and I shall to you disclose
The secret, whych tymes past hath, like a rose,
Been hedged so in on every side with briars,
That few could pluck yt at their heart's desires.
There is a substance of metalline race,
If you the matter view, whose louring face
A sophister would at first sight so scare,
That he yt to approach would never dare ;
The form that's visible is very vile,
And doth metallyne bodies so defile,
That none to see yt, could be brought to think
That thence should spring bright Phoebus' pearly drink ;
And yet, O strange ! a wonder to relate,
At this same spring naked Diana sat,
Who horned Actaeon for hys venturous peeping.

Experimental Method. 317

This spring two dreadful beasts have in their keeping

Whych drive away rash searchers to their woe,

Them to enchant, the Art who do not know.

Yet further, for to answer your desire,

I say, this subject never felt the fire

Of sulphur metalline, but ys more crude

Than any minerall, which doth elude

The unwary, and in fire fugitive

'Tis found ; th' impure away the pure doth drive,

And its components are a Mercury

Most pure, tho' tender, with a Sulphur dnT

Incarcerate, which doth the flux retaine.

And as in shackles doth the same detaine.

This Sulphur with malignant qualities

Doth so the Mercury infect whych with yt lies,

That tho' they have no fundamental union,

Yet hereby is debarred the sweete communion,

Whych otherwise would surely intercede

Between thys virgin nymph, which we call Leade,

And her dear sister, whych in silver streams

Runs down abundantly ; then should the beams

Of bright Apollo course the dews whych fall

From these commixed waters, from the tall

Aspiring mountain, gliding thro' the vales,

Fire to conceive of Nature, whych avails

To warm the bath for Sol, in whych he may

Descend and wash, and wyth fair Phoebe play.

Till flesh and youth renewing, they be able

To shine with glory, aye multiplicable.

Know then this Subject, whych the base

Of all our secret ys. and it uncase ;

And choose what thou shalt finde of meanest pi ice :

Leave sophisters, and following my advice,

Be not deluded ; for the truth is one,

'Tis not in many things, this is Our Stone :

At first appearing in a garb defiled,

And, to deal plainly, it is Saturn's childe.

His price is meane, his venom very great

His constitution cold, devoid of heat.

Altho' 'tis mixed with a sulphur, yet

This sulphur is combustible ; to get

Another Sulphur metalline and pure,

And mix with the Mercurial parts be sure ;

This Sulphur in the house of Aries seek,

There shall you find it ; this will be the Greek

Alcides, who with Jason journey took

To Colchos ; this it is whych never book

As 37et revealed ; and yet I will proceede,

318 Laws and Conditions.

And greater mysteries unfold with speede.

Our Subject, it is no ways malleable,

It is metalline and its colour sable,

With intermixed argent, whych in veins

The sable field with glittering branches stains ;

The pure parts from the impure thou shalt never

With fire or common water here dissever,

Nor with the hardest iron dig it thence,

For steel, 'gainst this affordeth no defence ;

So easily as any little boy

A giant can suppress, this can destroy

Alcides' breastplate, with his target stout,

And put opposing armies to the rout

Of swords and spears, 0 wondrous force ! and yet

The sages this have seen, when they did sit

In council how this finy they might tame,

Which (as unparalleled) they then did name

Their Lyon Greene ; they suffered him to prey

On Cadmus Sociates ; and when the fray

Was over, they with Dian's charms hym tyed,

And made hym under waters to abide.

And washed hym cleane, and after gave hym wings,

To fly, much like a dragon, whose sharp springs

Of Fiery Waters, th' only way was found

To cause Apollo his harp strings to sound.

This is the true nymphs' bathe which we did search and try,

And proved to be the wise man's Mercury.

The evil of the Original Sin being overcome by so
many subtle stratagems, the New Life thence arises
whose quintessential virtue, imperishable and per-
petually victorious, is the Corner Stone or first
Material foundation of the Hermetic Art : known,
as the adept says, only to the Wise, because they
alone can know it who have it in themselves. The
irrational and frivolous-minded cannot receive
this truth, because it depends exactly upon the
knowledge of That which is most abstruse in them.
The example given of Cadmus, from the Greek
fable, identifies him with Jason, Orpheus, iEneas,
and the rest, who represent the Rational Ferment ;
the associates are taken to signify the other
faculties of the mind originally attendant on this,
but which are drawn away afterwards into the
vortex of the Opposive Principle, rapidly attracting

Experimental Method. 319

them when it is freed, and, revelling with which,
it becomes satiated and more easily ensnared. As
it is told of Saturn, likewise, that he was inebriated
when he was bound in fetters by his son ; and by
the advice of the goddess, too, according to
Orpheus, the subtle stratagem was contrived.

When stretched beneath the lofty oaks you view
Saturn, with lioney of the bees produced,
Sunk in ebriety ; fast bind the god.

For the Saturnian Will, being allowed to revel
without limitation or rational restraint, through-
out the subordinate faculties, becomes intoxicated ;
his desires are more than satisfied, and, as the
image runs, from the effect he sleeps. It is then the
watchful eye of Intellect, well advised and able,
prepares to cut him off, and drawing forth all his
brazen strength, plants it in the newly-furrowed
soil, whence springs another armament, which, still
rebellious, contending with each other for the self-
same Stone, are by it once more annihilated and
again raised up. So the Bath of Diana is prepared
out of the blood of many battles, where the inno-
cents suffer for the guilty, and many barbarous
images befall, until the Identical Spirit arises,
pure, bright, and contrite, from its primaeval
element, and free in legal subordination only to
its own perfect Law.

The matter first of metals Mercury
A moisture is which wetteth not the hand
Yet flows, and therefore is named water dry,
The vulgar is at every one's command,
But this is not the water we desire,
For in our water is our secret fire.

This Matter while its life it did retain,

Was apt all metals e'en to procreate,

The life when gone, then dead it doth remain

Till a new soul shall it reanimate.

This Matter is to metals all of kin
All which do hide a Mercury within.

He then who knows the parts of Mercury
And can its superfluities decrease,

320 Laws and Conditions.

And with true sulphur it can vivify ;

For dead it is, though, fluent, he with ease
May gold unlock and after recongeal
Both to an Essence which all griefs can heal

Lo ! here a spring of wealth, a Tree of Life,
No wealth so great, no sickness here is rife,
Here in a map, thou seest the creatures all
Abridged, and reduced to their perfection.
Here thou beholdest in a Subject Small,
From this world's misery a full protection.

O Mercury, thou wonder of the world !

How strange thy nature is and how compact !

A body dost possess which doth enfold

A Spirit inexpressible to act,

Our mysteries ; this only we desire,
This is our water, this our secret fire.

For Argent Vive is gold essential
Only unripe, which, if thou canst prepare
By art, it gives the secret menstrual :
The mother of our Stone which is so rare.

Our oil, our unguent, and our marchasite ;

Which we do name also our fountain bright.

0 crystal fountain ! which with fourfold spring
Runs down the valleys with its pearly drops
Distilling, with the which our noble king
Is washed and carried to the mountain tops,

Where he the virtue of the Heavens receives,
Which never after him, when fixed, leaves.

This is our May-dew which our earth doth move
To bring forth fruit, which fruit is perfect gold :
This is our Eve, whom Adam doth so love,
That in her arms his soul, strange to be told,

He doth receive, who erst as dead was seen,
And quickened first appears in colours green.

How this ? Even thus, in Saturn there is hid

A soul immortal which in prison lies,

Untie its fetters, which do it forbid

To sight for to appear, then shall arise
A Vapour shining, like pearl orient,
Which is our Moon and sparkling Firmament.73

By such a vital and mysterious process is the
First Matter of the adepts said to be generated and

73 Eirenaeus, Marrow of Alchemy.

Experimental Method. 321

produced by an emancipation of the Fontal Source ;
and this is Diana, and that refulgent Light which
eclipses every other light but that of its proper
Reason, and strikes the irrational intruder blind.
For she is the wholeness of the Fundamental Nature
at once personified, the knot and link of all the
elements of being, inferior as well as superior,
which she contains within herself. — A light more
splendid than the Sun and gold, and more beautiful
than the Moon or silver, and more diaphanous than
the purest crystal ; inasmuch transcendant, says
the acute Helvetius*74 that that most recreant
Beauty can never be blotted out from my mind,
though it should be rejected by all, and disbelieved
by fools and the illiterate. For though our Art
is unknown, we do assert, according to experience,
that this mystery is to be found ; but only with
the great Jehovah saturninely placed in the centre
of the world. There, within most intimately, the
Abyss of the Spagiric artifice is disclosed ; there,
as in a crystalline diaphaneity, the Miracle of the
whole world. There, in that region, no longer
fabulous but by art made natural, is seen the
Salamander casting out the etherial waters, and
washing himself in the flames ; there the river
Numitius, in which iEneas, bathing, was absolved
from his mortality, and by command of Venus was
transformed into an immortal god. There, also, is
Eridanus, and that Lydian river Pactolus trans-
muted into gold as soon as Mygdonian Midas had
washed himself in the same. Also, as in a beauti-
fully pictured series, there is displayed every
mythological antique device ; Apollo and the
Muses, and Parnassus and the Fountain struck
from Pegasus, and the fountain of Narcissus, even
Scylla washing in the flood, beneath the fervent
rays of the meridian sunbeams ; there, too, the
blood of Pyramis and Thisbe, which turned the
white mulberries to a deeper die. The blood of

74 Vitulus Aureus.

322 Laws and Conditions.

Adonis transformed by Venus into an anemone
rose ; that blood, too, of mighty Ajax, out of
which sprung the fairest hyacynthine flower.
There also are the drops of water decocted by
Medea, out of which such a verdure sprang up
suddenly to cover the bleached earth ; and that
potion which the enchantress boiled out of so many
herbs gathered three days before the full moon,
for the healing of Jason, when that hero had grown
infirm. The gardens of the Hesperides, also, are in
Elysium ; and here Hippomanes runs the race
with Atalanta, and vanquishes by stratagem of
the golden fruit. Here, too, magnanimous Hercules,
having burnt all his maternal bod}^ upon a pile of
wood, revives entire and incombustible, as the
Phoenix on her pyre, and is changed into the
likeness of an immortal god.

Such are a very few of the games and choice
spectacles which tradition commemorates as insti-
tuted by Wisdom, for the benefit of souls emerging
from Lethe and Egyptian darkness to the glorious
liberty of the Freed Will in life. And it is that
kindling of Divine Ecstasy, in connection with
its Source, that attracts the whole phenomenon of
nature to its desire, and works the total miracle of
the Hermetic Art in life, exalts Mind by the under-
standing of Causes, and confirms it. But in the
summary language of the Greek saint (since here
it becomes us not to assert) : Know, says Synesius,
that the Quintessence and hidden thing of our
Stone is nothing else than our viscous celestial and
glorious soul, drawn by our magistery out of its
mine, which engenders itself and brings itself forth,
and that Water is the most sharp vinegar, which
makes gold to be a pure spirit — nay, it is that
Blessed Nature which engenders all things ; but,
by usurpation, in each particular universally and
without return.

These plain words, supporting the evidence which
has gone before, will leave less doubt, if we yield

Experimental Method. 323

them credence, with respect to the method and
true basis of the Hermetic experiment ; reason,
aided b}^ a perspicuous imagination, will attain
readily to the idea, and research may further assist
the faithful to confirm it. We cannot, however,
quit a subject, the preliminaries of which are so
important to establish, without adverting to
certain Kabalistic and other Greek concordances,
in the hope that their separate witness may tell
favourably towards the development of this
Material of Mind.

324