CHAPTER III.

Of the Manifestation of the First Matter, and its
Information by Light.

Wisdom is poured forth like water, and glory faileth not
before Him for ever. — Book of Enoch, c. xl. v. 1.

LET us now conceive the Vital Spirit theurgi-
cally purified and freed through sacrifice
of all foreign attractions, revolving about its
centre and having power active and passive in
hypostatic union always about to generate the
infinite fulness which it contains and draws ; as
even now we approach, carrying along with us the
body of our Sphinx, subdued and contrite, to the
gate of the first Adytum ; where we would con-
template awhile, in the vestibule, admiring at the
Tears of Isis, even that blessed Water which
Nature sheds divinely for the world. For not all
was vaporous vision, as we have shown, or mere
ideality on the internal ground ; but experience
there was present with power and effect in sub-
stance to bear it witness.

It was scarce day when, all alone,

I saw Hyanthe and her throne ;

In fresh green damasks she was drest,

And o'er a saphir globe did rest.

This slippery sphere when I did see,

Fortune, I thought it had been thee ;

But when I saw she did present

A majesty more permanent,

I thought my cares not lost, if I,

Should finish my discoverie.

Sleepy she looked to my first sight,
As if she had watched all the night.
And underneath her hand was spread
The white supporter of her head :
But at my second studied view,
I could perceive a silent dew
Steal down her cheeks ; least it should stayne

372 Laws and Conditions.

Those cheeks, where only smiles should reign,
The tears streamed down for haste, and all
In chains of liquid pearl did fall.
Fair sorrows; and more dear than joys,
Which are but emptie ayres and noise ;
Your drops present a richer prize,
For they are something like her eyes.

Pretty white Fool ! why hast thou been
Sullied with tears and not with sin ?
'Tis true ; thy tears like polished skies,
Are the bright rosials of thy eyes ;
But such strange fates do them attend,
As if thy woes would never end,
From drops to sighs they turn, and then
Those sighs return to drops again :
But whilst the silver torrents seeks
Those flowers that watch it in thy cheeks,
The white and, red Hyanthe wears,
Turn to rose water all her tears.

Have you beheld a flame that springs
From incense, when sweet curled rings
Of smoke attend her last weak fires,
And she all in perfumes expires ?
So died Hyanthe ; here, said she,
Let not this vial part from thee,
It holds my heart, tho' now 'tis spilled,
And into waters all distilled,
'Tis constant still : trust not false smiles,
Who smiles and weeps not, she beguiles.
T\ay trust not tears ; false are the few,
Those tears are many that are true,
Trust me, and take the better choyce,
Who hath my tears can want no joyes.1

When divine Causes and human Conditions
which are assimilated to them are co-ordinate to
one and the same end, the perfection of such works
overflowing returns a pure and most bright reward.

Ite profani ! Fanum est fanum
Nihil ingreditur profanum.

For thought does not move, passing its own essence
into feeling in vain ; but mercy imparts the bene-
fits and gifts of the most exquisite sacrifice.

Nor less instructive than elegant is the following
Prosopopoeia of the Stone.

1 Vaughan's Co? him Terrse, p. 93, &c.

Manifestation of the Matter. 373

In nomine Dei viventis et vivificautis .

Terra mihi corpus, vires mihi praestitit ignis :
Alta domus quaere- , sedes est semper in imc- :
Et me perfundit qui me cito deserit humor.

Sunt mihi sunt lacrymae, sed non est causa doloris ;
Est iter ad coelum, sed me gravis impedit aer :
Et qui me genuit, sine me non nascitur ipse.

Pulvis aquae tenuis, modico cum pondere lapsus,
Sole madens, aestate fiuens, in frigore siccus,
Flumina facturus, totas prius occupo terras ;

Mira tibi referam nostrae primordia vitae :
Nondum natus eram, nee eram turn matris in alvo.
Jam posito partu, natum me nemo videbat.

Non possum nasci, si non occidero matrem :

Occidi matrem, sed me manet exitus idem.

Id mea mors patitur, quod jam mea fecit origo.

Vita mihi mors est, morior si caepero nasci :
Sed prius est fatum lethi quam lucis origo ;
Sic solas manes ipsos mihi duco parentes.

Magna quidem non sum, sed inest mihi maxima virtus,
Spiritus est magnus, quam vis in corpore parvo,
Nee mihi germen habet noxam, nee culpa rubor em.

Ambo sumus lapides, una sumus, ambo jacemus ;
Quam piger est unus, tantum non segnis it alter ;
Hie manet immotus non deserit ille moveri.

Findere me nulli possunt, praecidere multi :
Sed sum versicolor, albus quandoque futurus
Malo manere niger, minus ultima fata verebor.

Nulla mihi certa est, nulla est peregrina figura.
Fulgor inest intus, radianti luce coruscus,
Qui nihil ostendit, nisi si quid viderit ante.

Non ego continuo morior dum spiritus exit.

Nam redit assidue, quam vis et saepe recedat :

Et mihi nunc magna est animae, nunc nulla facultas.

Plus ego sustinui quam corpus debuit unum.
Tres animas habui, quas omnes intus habebam.
Dicessere duae, sed tertia poene secuta est.2

This marvellous subsistence of the Vital Princi-
ples in their extreme separation by Art has been
already noticed, and will be in the Practice more
particularly hereafter. It may be sufficient for the

2 Theatrum Chemicum, vol. iii. p. 763.

374 Laws and Conditions.

present to observe, that great care and diligence
is needed at this juncture to apply the three! old
secret of the Art ; so that the hypostatic principles
of attraction and repulsion and circulation may be
brought into a perfect equilibriate accord, the one
no more acting than the other is resisting in the
ethereal bond. — Seek Three in One, and again seek
One in Three, dissolve, congeal : and remember,
says Khunrath, most carefully to observe the
threefold law of the composition, otherwise the
animated spirit cannot be conjoined to the body,
nor, on the other hand, will the body be reunited
to the spirit. Which process, however, being rightly
gone through from the beginning — the new Chaos
of the Universal Nature of the new world will then
appear to be unfolded and separated. Apply no
manual labour, but when you shall have enacted
the separation, — (motum in te, experis internum
et pro gaudio, lachrymabis !) — thou wilt surely
understand that the original sin has been removed
— separated by the Fire of Divine love in the
regeneration of the three principles — body, soul,
and spirit. I write not fables : With thy hands
thou shalt touch, and with thy eyes thou shalt see
Azoth ! The Universal ! which alone, with the
internal and external fire in harmonious sympathy
with the Olympic Fire, is sufficient for thee : by
inevitable necessity, physico-chemically united
for the consummation of the Philosopher's Stone.3
When in the last extreme of tribulation and
departing life, the returning faith and desire of the
Passive Spirit attracts the Soul again into herself,
the first link in the chain of the magnetic series
moves : then the Divine Fiat comes mercifully
to bless the union, and a new hypostasis is created
out of the darkness to abide : the fiery soul suffers
itself again to be imprisoned, as by a lawful magic,
in the liquid crystal of the understanding ether ;
and the light which is in her then streams forth
3 Khunrath, Amph. Sap. Etern., Isag. in fig. cap. viii.

Manifestation of the Matter. 375

brightly rejoicing in her Paradise Regained. Then
it is Lux manifeste et visibilis ad oculum, as the
adept says, in which state it is first made subject
to the artist.

Mars et Venus, ou plutot Mars par Venus, en fait
une fort noble medicine et precieuse, qui a le
grain fixe solaire ; et ces deux font ensemble le
mariage si celebre aupres des amateurs de la
sagesse : pendant leur Conjonction, il s'eleve une
vapeur tres spiritueuse et necessaire a un grand
ouvrage : il f aut prendre cette vapeur avec des
filets bien subtils : dans le reste on trouve un
vitriol bien beau, dont on tire par des operations
fort subtiles et de difficulte decouverte, un souphre
solaire ou or philosophique vivant.4 — Which subtle
device of Vulcan most profoundly hidden unless
the artist shall have rightly conceived either by
spiritual aid or himself experimenting in a triune
furnace spherically round, his labours are declared
to be vain, even though working in the right
material, if he cannot cause it to appear. If the
horse's strength be yet denied, in vain he will
strike upon the mountain, the flinty conscience
yields no chalybeate, feels no contrition, but by
the fiery well-tempered steel.

Hand licet altaris latices haurire salubres

Cui scelerum viru mens moribunda tumet :
Divino calice abstineat, ne cordis ad arcem

Pervehat arcanam potio iniqua luem.
Diffluat in lacrymas vehemens quas fervor amoris

Elicit, et fletu diluat ante scelus.
Culpa sciens lacrymas non tota est conscia, viru
Gemma oritur, fcedi filia pulchra patris.
Gutta fluens oculis velut Indicus unio fiet

Ut medicina reo, sic pretiosa Deo.
Post lacrymas e fonte potest haurire salutem :

Qui non flet moritur ; ne moriare, fleas.5

All is sown under the cross and completed in its
number — Darkness will draw over the face of the

4 Mystere de la Croix, chap. xiii.

5 Orpheus Eucharisticus Emblema LVI. — Apodosis.

376 Laws and Conditions.

Abyss, Night, Saturn and the Antimony of the
Wise will be present, Obscurity and the Head of
the Crow in the various hour of conjunction ; and
all the colours of the world will be apparent ; also
Iris, God's messenger, and the tail of the peacock ;
as the rainbow through the falling drops, reflects
the sunbeam in the apparent ether after the storms
are overpast and the dark clouds are dispersed,
the same beautiful token of reconciliation is made
apparent in the Microcosmic Heaven ; the fire
and water are commingled, and, falling together
under the cross, germinate, and the beautiful
Ideal of Harmon}^ is born of the Spirit.

In cruce sub sphera venit Sapientia vera.

This is the union supersentient, the nuptials
sublime, Mentis et Universi ; the Thought solitary
unites itself to the non-being, or simple Under-
standing of its ether, and proceeds into simul-
taneous subsistence with exuberance of power.
This is the marriage, by the ancients so many times
prefigured, of Peleus and Thetis, of Earth and
Heaven, when the gods, attended with all their
attributes, come together in divine hilarity ; of
Bacchus and Ariadne ; of Jason with Medea, when,
after many trials and risk of life, he gained with
her the golden fleece from Colchos. Lo ! behold I
will open to thee a mystery, cries the Adept, the
bridegroom crowneth the bride in the North ! — In
the darkness of the North, out of the crucifixion of
the cerebral life, when the sensual dominant is
occultated in the Divine Fiat and subdued, there
arises a Light wonderfully about the summit,
which, wisely returned and multiplied according
to the Divine blessing, is made substantive in life.

In Arsenic sublimed there is a way streight,
Wyth Mercury calcined, nyne tymes hys weight,
And grownd together with the Water of Myght,
Which beareth ingression of Lyfe and Light.
And anon, as they together byne,
AJle runny th to Water bryght and schene ;

Manifestation of the Matter. 377

Upon this fire the}' grow together
Till they be fast and flee no whyther :
Then feed them forth with thine own Hand,
With meat and bread, tyll they be strong,
And thou shalt have a good Stone.6

Our golden water, says the adept, is not found
in wells, nor in profundities, but in higher places,
and as the inhabitants of the Canary Islands draw
sweet water from the tree tops, so is ours taken
from the higher parts of the world ; for Mercury,
being ripe, arises to her superior habitation.7 Exalt
her, and she shall promote thee : she shall bring
thee to honour when thou dost embrace her ; she
shall give to thy head an Ornament of Grace ; a
Crown of Glory shall she deliver unto thee.8 Return
then, O my son, reiterates the Hermetic Master,
the coal being extinct in life, as I shall note to thee ;
and henceforth thou art a Crowned King, resting
over the Fountain and drawing from thence the
Auripigment, dry without moisture : now I have
made the heart of the hearers hoping in thee to
rejoice, even in their eyes beholding thee in
anticipation of that which thou possessest. Rejoice
now, therefore, O son of Art ! who hast the Sun
for thy Diadem and the Moon Crescent for thy
Garland.9

Ce qui a ete attire doit etre cuit si long temps
d'une certaine mainere de repetition, jusqu'a ce
qu'il montre les couleurs de Fare en ciel ; signe de
grace et de reconciliation ; et que les goutes pesantes
tombent dans le fond du vase recipient ; quasi
comme un mercure commun distille : ce qui vous
donnera un Ophihalmique et Antiepileptique mer-
veilleux ; et meme quelque chose de plus si le
Seigneur vous ouvre les yeux. Cet ouvrage s'appelle
Aimantique.10

6 Pierce, the Black Monk, on the Elixir.

7 Mercury's Caducean Rod, sub init.

8 Proverbs of Solomon, iv. 8, 9.

9 Tract. Aur., cap. ii., and Ripley Revived.
10 Mystere de la Croix, chap. xiii.

378 Laws and Conditions.

Lastly, says Khunrath, after the ashy colour,
and the white, and the yellow, thou shalt behold
the Stone of Philosophers ; our King and Lord of
hosts go forth from the chamber of his glassy
sepulchre, into this mundane sphere, in his glorified
body, regenerate and in perfection perfected ; as a
shining carbuncle, most temperate in splendour ;
and whose parts, most subtle and most pure, are
inseparably blent together in the harmonious rest
of union into one.11

It is an adopted maxim with the Adepts that
they who sow in tears whall reap in joy. For he
that re-enters liberated and with the prepared
Light of intellectual faith, mourning, and, like
another Achilles, conscious of self-sacrifice, to
besiege the fortress of Self -Will in life, prevailing at
length through death and every obstacle, the
Divine Will favouring, is not only promoted
through the whole identity, and converted to the
proper virtue and perfection of its root ; but there,
likewise, to increase, triumph, and multiply,
according to the hermaphroditic virtue of its
conceived Law. So life is perfected in Wisdom,
and the Will springs up in Paradise with fair
golden fruits.

Corpus solutum est aqua perennis cougelans Mercuriura
perpetua congelatione.

Never grudge, then, that thou hast destroyed thy
gold, says Eirenseus, for he that thus destroys
loseth it not, but soweth good seed in good earth,
from whence he shall receive it again with one
hundred-fold increase.12 Whereas he that saves
his gold, that is to say, remains satisfied in the
first-fruits of his reason, loses his labour, and is
deceived, like Midas, and dismayed for want of
understanding and faith in the destination of
Causes.

11 Khunrath, Amph. Sap. Etern., chap, viii., Isag. in tier.

12 Ripley Revived, pp. 108, 198.

Manifestation of the Matter. 379

But if any one here demand, how that which is
destroyed should be capable of increase, and how
the newly implanted motive takes root in life?,
the Apostle has best answered it ; as concerning
the mystery of the resurrection, he shows, by the
common analogy of nature, the Law to be such.
Behold, says he, that which is sown is not quick-
ened except it die ; and that which is sown is not
the body that shall be, but mere grain, as it may
be of wheat or any other grain. — The germ of all
Being is indeed corrupted before it is brought
forth, and seeds spring up not as seeds merely,
but into a perfect resemblance of their developed
stock ; yet it is not anything the more bettered in
its kind, but the process of vital melioration is
further exemplified in the fermentive art, where,
by a contrition and fretting of their elementary
particles, natures are transformed, and their bodies
spiritualized and preserved by the assimilating
must or leaven. So in man, — there is a natural
body and there is a spiritual body. Howbeit that
is not first which is spiritual, but that which is
natural, and afterwards that which is spiritual. —
The Rational Light, once discovered and -set in
motion, acuates the Spirit, and the Spirit, in its
turn penetrating, overcomes the corporeal, which
is the sensual dominant, in the regeneration ; and
so swallows up the same, that it is glorified and
transfigured, occult ating the body in more lumi-
nous manifestation. — Know ye not how a little
leaven leaveneth the whole lump ? Purge out
therefore the old leaven, that ye may be a new
lump, as ye are unleavened.13

Solve et Coagula, reiterates the Benedictine
Monk, Dissolve and Coagulate ; after putre-
faction succeeds generation, and that because of
the inco?nbustihle sulphur that heats or thickens the
coldness and crudities of the quicksilver, which
suffers so much thereb}^, that at last it is united
13 1 Corinthians, xv. 6, 7.

380 Laws and Conditions.

to the sulphur and made one body therewith. And
these, viz., the fire, air, and water, are contained
in one vessel in their earthly vessel, i.e. in their
gross body or composition ; and I take them and
then I leave them in one alembic, where I decoct
and snblime them, without the help of hammer,
tongs, or file ; without coals, smoke, or fire, or
bath ; or the alembics of the sophisters. For I have
my heavenly fire, which excites and stirs up the
elemental one, according as the matter desires a
more becoming agreeable Form.14 And the Light is
made manifest in great darkness, viz., in the con-
trition or distress of the sensible nature in the
conscience, where a peculiar motion is present ;
even then, as Jacob Bohme says, cometh the Power
of Christ in the midst of such a motion. And,
further, of the noble tincture arising in the light,
he says — It cometh forth from anguish into the
meekness of the light and springeth forth afresh
through the mortifying anguish,15 as a life having
another property, where the property of the fire is a
desiring, and thereby it altracteth the virtue of the
Light into itself, and maketh it an essence, viz.,
Water. — Common chemistry is not without an
analogy of this kind, by the condensation of light
producing it into a fluid form. But herein are the
two forms : one according to the source of the fire,
which is red, and therein the virtue, viz., sulphur
is ; and the other is like a thin meekness, yet
having co-essentiality, is water, which is the
desiring tincture ; and both of which contracting
together into one, are converted into Blood. Now
the original in the blood, viz. fire, which is its
warmth, is life ; and in the virtue of the warmth,
the Thin Water of Life proceedeth ; one virtue
proceedeth forth from another, and the virtue

14 Mehung in Vaughan's Coelum Terrae, p. 122.

15 And, therefore, Hermes says, that the sure quality of the
golden matter and the nature thereof is not sweetness, &c.,
cap. 7.

Manifestation of the Matter. 381

doth always re-assume that which goeth forth.
And this is the true Spirit which is born of the
Soul, wherein is the Image of God, and the Divine
Virgin of God's wisdom consisteth. For all under-
standing and knowledge lieth in this Spirit ; it
hath the senses and the noble life, which uniteth
it with God : for this Spirit is so subtle that it can
enter into God, if it resigneth itself up to Him ;
and, casting away the cunning fire of its own soul,
putteth its will into God ; then it dwelleth with Him
in power, and is clothed with the Divine Essen-
tiality.1*

And this Essentiality it is which qualifies the
true Adept ; which sanctifies even as it qualifies,
infusing true goodness into every life that it has
once adorned. It is this material of the Corner-
stone which links reason to Divinity, Theology to
the subtle philosophy of the middle ages, and
made the vulgarly contemned Art of Alchemy to
be honoured and holy. — It is sown in corruption,
It is raised in incorruption ; It is sown in dishonour,
It is raised in glory ; It is sown in weakness, It is
raised in power ; It is sown a natural body, It is
raised a spiritual body. The first man is of the
earth, earthy ; the second man is the Lord from
heaven.17

And this is that great and miraculous mystery of
our Image, which it behoves us to reflect into,
rather than profanely to discuss ; that we may
know our true selves, and what Adam, even our
Father is ; and what the Son ; and, without error
or presumption, that Holy Spirit which fabricates
all things, and sustains all by the Word of his
Power. —

Non poterit ilia dare qui non habet : habet autem nemo, nisi
qui jam cohibitis elementis, victa natura superatis ccelis, prope
suos Angelos, ad ipsum Archetypum isque transcendit ; Cujus
tunc Cooperator effectus potest Omnia.

16 Bohme's Turned Eye, Quest. 37.

17 1 Corinthians, xv. 42, &c.

382 Laws and Conditions.

For the soul, being in such a condition, associates
with her Efficient, and he who perceives himself
so to associate will have a similitude of It with
himself. .And if he further passes from himself as
an image to the Archetype, he will then attain the
end of his progression. And when falling off from
the vision of God, if he again excites the virtue
which is in himself and perceives himself to be
perfectly adorned, he will again, says the Platonic
Successor, be elevated, through virtue proceeding
to Intellect and Wisdom, and afterwards to the
Principle of things.

Vaughan, in his Ani?na Magia, has well de-
scribed the Hypostatic Metamorphoses ; and how
the Light, striking in a rapid coruscation from the
centre to the circumference, depends from the
solitary unit through the surrounding vapour, in a
vital magnetical series ; where the celestial nature,
he says, differs not in substance from the aerial
spirit but only in degree and complexion ; and the
aerial differs from the aura or material efflux of
the soul in constitution only and not in nature : so
that These three, being but One substantially,
admit of a perfect hypostatic union, and may be
carried by a certain intellectual Light into the
supreme horizon, and so swallowed up of immor-
tality.— Behold I show }^ou a mystery, says the
Apostle, we shall not all sleep, but we shall be
changed ; in a moment, in the twinkling of an eye,
at the last trump (for the trumpet shall sound) and
the dead shall be raised incorruptible, and we shall
be changed. For this corruptible must put on
incorruption, and this mortal must put on immor-
tality.18

And know, says Roger Bacon, that it is impos-
sible for you to attain this immortal essentiality,
unless you become sanctified in mind and purified
in soul, so as to be united to God, and to become
one spirit with Him. But if you revolve these my
18 1 Corinthians, xv. 51, &c.

Manifestation of the Matter. 383

instructions in your mind, you may obtain the
knowledge of the beginning, the middle, and the
end of the whole work. And you will perceive such
a subtlety of Wisdom, and such a purity of matter,
as shall amply replete your soul, and fill you with
satisfaction. And when you shall appear thus
before the Lord, He will open to you the gates of
His treasure, the like of which is not to be found
on earth. Behold, I show you the fear of the Lord,
and the love of Him, with unfeigned obedience ;
nothing shall be wanting to them that fear the
Lord, who are clothed with the excellency of His
holiness : To whom be all praise.19

For as in the Beginning there was said to be one
only matter of all things, so in this imitative
process all diversities of things are seen to proceed
from and return to this only One ; which is called
a conversion of the elements, and a conversion of
the elements in this respect is just to make actives
passive and passives active ; the occult becoming
manifest and the manifest occult in inverse order
of conception. And he, says Sendivogius enigmati-
cally, who knows how to congeal water with heat,
and to join a spirit thereto, shall certainly find out
a thing more precious than gold, and everything
else. Let him therefore cause that the spirit be
separated from the water, that it may putrefy and be
like a grain. Afterwards the fceces being cast away,
let him reduce and bring back the spirit again from
the deep into water and make them be joined again,
for that Conjunction will generate a branch of unlike
shape to its parents.20

In such a process it was that the Quadrature
of the Circle was supernaturally demonstrated ;
which naturally it cannot be ; and in no other way
but by a transmutation of the hypostatic relations,
as in a circulating medium making passives active

19 Rogeri Bachonis Radix Mundi, lib. iii.

20 Sendivogius, New Light, Treatise v. ; Khunrath, Amph.
Sap., cap. viii.

384 Laws and Conditions.

and actives passive. In the first conjunction the
Spirit predominates ; in the second the Soul, i.e.,
its Light ; which two are, by adepts, called
Mercury and Gold, and the activity of mercury
over gold in the first place is because the formal
virtue of Sol is sealed ; his sulphur is imprisoned,
so that he is not aware of it, does not feel or know
himself, as we may say, until penetrated by the
Mercurial Spirit, then he sends forth his Light ; to
which the Mercury, in turn becoming passive,
conceives and bears an offspring more perfect than
•either parent. And when that light is again taken
and given to a proper recipient, it is made a
thousand times more fit and apt to bring forth
excellent and abundant fruits.

Fac ex mare et foemina cireulum ; incle quadrangulum ; hinc
triangulum, fac cireulum, et habebis lapidem philosophorum.21

For beyond all the four precedent degrees of per-
fection there is made a Fifth Essence, which
neuter from all, yet partaking of all in perpetuity
of union, the Ethereal Quadrangle becomes a Circle
of golden light in eternity ; being advanced into
the order of spirits permanent, which, though th.ey
have bodies, yet are not subject to those laws of
gross corporeity which fetter bodies unregenerate.
And therefore the philosopher's Mercury is a sys-
tem of wonders ponderous, fixed, and, as a petri-
faction from water is, exquisitely compact ; yet
penetrative withal and communicative of tincture ;
for it can pass, as it were, in the twinkling of an
eye to the very centre, and, projected on the im-
perfect metal of any life, dissolves it, drawing away
the very foundation into itself. Thus the author of
Lucerna Salis describes the gold of the Wise to be
by no means vulgar gold ; but it is a certain water
clear and pure, on which is borne the lightning
of the Lord ; and it is from thence that all things
receive their life. And this is the reason, con-

21 Maieri Atalanta Ftigiens, Emblema xxi.

Manifestation of the Matter. 385

tinues he, why our gold is become spiritual ; by
means of the spirit it passeth through the Alembic,
its earth remaining black, which however did not
appear before, but now dissolves itself and becomes
a thick water. The which desires a more noble life,
to the end it may be able to rejoin itself. By reason
of the thirst it has, it dissolves and is dissevered,
which benefits it very much ; because if it did
not become water and oil, its spirit and soul could
not unite nor mingle with it, as it then does ; and
in such a manner that of them One Thing is made
which rises to a consummate perfection ; the parts
thereof being so firmly joined together that they
can never after be separated.22

This then is the Conjunction in which all the
mysteries of the Microcosm have their consum-
mation— the true circulated Form of Gold ; the
Conjunction, by Ripley called tetraptive, that so
highly commended fountain of Pythagoras, and
Divine Tetractys.

Whence all our Wisdom springs, and which contains
Perennial Nature's fountain, cause, and root.23

Tetractys, fourfold, drawn from three heads by

the obstetric hand of the physico-chemical Art

and without possibility of dissolution any more ;

for those principles so joined together of God, man

cannot any more put asunder.

There is no light but what lives in the Sun,
There is no sun but which is twice begott ;
Nature and Arte the parents first begonne :
By Nature 'twas but Nature perfects not.

Arte then, what Nature left, in hand doth take,
And out of one a twofold worke doth make.

A twofold work doth make, but such a work

As doth admitt Division none at all,

(See here wherein the secret, most doth lurke,)

Unless it be a mathematical.

It must be tivo yet make it one and one,
And you do take the way to make it none.

22 Lucerna Salis, p. 39 ; from the Latin verse, Aurum
Sapientum, &c.

23 Iamblicus's Life of Pythagoras, chap, xxviii.

386 Laws and Conditions.

Lo here, the primar secret of this Arte,
Contemne it not but understand it right,
Who faileth to attaine the foremost part,
Shall never know Arte's force or Nature's might.
Nor yet have power of one and one, so mixt,
To make by one fixt, one unfixed fixt.24

Here again the geometric method of procedure
with the Metaphysical Embryo, through its com-
plex parts, is epigrammatically symbolized by
Michael Maier.

Foemina masque unus fiant tibi circulus, ex quo
Surgat habens aequum forma quadrata latus.

Hinc Trigonum ducas, omni qui parte rotundam
In sphseram redeat : tum Lapis ortus erit.

Si res tanta tuse non mox venit obvia menti,
Dogma Geometrse si capis, Omne scies.25

He therefore who discovers the Quadrature, and
on this ground is able to demonstrate it, will have
a reward sufficient without the University patron-
age or a more laborious proof. For having resolved
all sorts and ideas of things, all thoughts, passions,
and actions to one and the same Principle, he will
not alone have that Principle, and be able to com-
pose and renumerate every former particular out
of the same ; but, according to the philosophic
report, he will be percipient of the most beautiful
and Universal Mystery of Nature ; having before
himself, as in a glass, the great Archetypal Law of
Light, in which are all things causally ranged in
the order in which they were originally distributed
and set apart. As, in the Pimander and Book of
Wisdom, we read, — The whole world is before thee,
O God ! as a little grain of the balance, as a moment
of the little tongue in the weights and scales, and as
a drop of the dew that faileth in the morning upon
the earth.26— Perfect in the Microcosmic Unit as
in the total Deity of the Great World. For no
sooner, it is said, does the Divine Light pierce to
the bosom of the matter, but the pattern of the

24 Enigma Philosophicum, Ashmole's Theatrum, p. 423.

25 Maieri Atalanta Fugiens, Epigramma xxi.

26 Chap, xi., ver. 22.

Manifestation of the Matter. 387

whole universe appears in those Subject Waters,
as an image in a glass, conceived and divided forth
in all the vastness of ideal distinction and efful-
gence upon that glorious metaphysical height
where the Archetype shadows the intellectual
spheres.

Tu cuncta superno
Ducis ab exemplo pulchrum pulcherrimus ipse
Mundum mente gerens, similique in imagine formas.27

Tell me, ye celestial powers ! How first the gods
and world were made ? The rivers and boundless
sea with its "raging surge ? How the bright shining
stars and the wide stretched heaven above, and all
the gods that spring from them, givers of good
things ? First of all existed Chaos ; next in order
the broad bosomed Matter ; and then Love
appeared, the most beautiful of the Immortals.
Of Chaos sprung Erebus and dusky night, and of
Night came Ether and smiling Day.28

The theogony of Hesiod, though long esteemed a
mere poetical fiction, was accepted by the ancient
philosophers, who quote his language ; and the
Epic Cycle is said, by the Platonists, to include the
true philosophic secret of the creation. And when
set in comparison with the Alchemical descriptions,
the above passage appears indeed to be very

27 And this appearance of the Universal Idea in the mind is
singularly corroborated in that spiritual analysis of ordinary
bodies which Paracelsus and Van Helmont allude to, saying,
that by separation of their parts the specific impress is to be
perceived in the vessel containing the decomposed spirit, and
that the whole creature may be also resuscitated from thence —
these are the words of Marcus, in his Defensio Idearum
Operatricium. Quid quseso dicerunt hi tanti philosophi, si
plantam quasi momento nasci in vitreo vase viderent, cum
suis ad vivum coloribus, et rursum interire, et renasci, idque
quoties, et quando luberet ? Credo daemonum arte magica
inclusum dicerent illudere sensibus humanis. Such an impress,
however, whether real or fictitiously represented, would be
but as a secondary vestiment or witness of that which is
in the Archetypal mind creatively efficient.

28 Hesiod, Epic Cycle, The Weeks and the Daj^s.

388 Laws and Conditions.

regular and correct ; as also the continued imagery
of the poet, indicative of the several estates of the
Ethereal Quintessences arising one above another,
called forth by the light and heat of the superin-
cumbent mind, as posterity from a common
parent. Indeed, the more closely we compare the
cosmogonies of the ancients, the more consistent
do they appear one with another, and less so with
the commonplace imagination of things : inso-
much that the learned have judged them to be
copied from some one original, or that the Mosaic
was the only revealed truth of all. We -are not dis-
posed to rest anything on our own assertion, but
neither should we be less inclined to reverence
the received Scripture, if it should prove, at any
time, that those agreeing with it, were not bor-
rowed ; but all originated from the same divine
source.

In the Beginning — in that inane Identity — from
that silent dead obscurity — when as yet nothing is
fashioned in the dissolute chasm of life — the
Divine Will, then alone operating, says the Kabal-
istic Interpreter, produces itself into a material
form and recreation. — Behold, I deliver thee of an
awful birth and progeny of the ever living God,
revealed only to the favourites of Heaven and
ministers of His Mysterious Will.29

And these were a part of the lesson taught by the
Memphian prophet to the young Aspirant to the
priesthood, even the most hidden mysteries of
God's creation. And how did he teach ? By words
merely, or signs, or traditional authority ? Or, if
none of these can truly teach the understanding ;
shall we say, more probably, by passing it inwards
to the evolution of its proper mystery, thence to
emanate and recreate ? When the initiated poet
Ovid sat down to write his Fasti, he was inspired,
as he declares, by that same universal deity of
the two-faced Janus.

29 Blackwell's Mythology, letter vii.

Manifestation of the Matter. 389

Me Chaos antiqui, nam res sum prisca, vocabant.

Adspice, quam longi temporis acta canam.
Lucidus hie Aer, et, quae tria corpora restant,

Ignis, aquae, tellus, unus acervus erant.
Ut semel haec rerum secessit lite suarum,

Inque novas abiit massa soluta domos ;
Flamraa petit altum ; propior locus aera cepit :

Sederunt medio terra fretumque solo.
Tunc Ego, qui fueram globus, et sine imagine moles,

In faciem redii dignaque membra Deo.
Nunc quoque, confusie quondam nota parva figime,

Ante quod est in me, postque, videtur idem.
Accipe, qusesita? qua1 caussa sit altera forma? ;

Hanc simul ut noris, officiumque raeura ;
Quidquid ubique vides, ccelum, mare, nubila, terras,

Omnia sunt nostra clausa patentque Manu.30

When the primaeval parent of Chaos, hoary, as
the Egyptian figure runs, with unnumbered ages,
was first moved by the breath of Erebus, she
brought forth her enormous first-born Hyle, and,
at the same portentous birth, the amiable Eros,
chief of the Immortals. They were no sooner come
to Light than they produced an infinite offspring,
various and undefined at first, but afterwards
fountains of Being. And know, consecrated
Youth, adds the metropolitan of Memphis, that
ere this fair universe which thou beholdest ap-
peared ; ere the sun mounted on high, or the moon
gave her paler light ; ere the vales were stretched
out below, or the mountains reared their towering
heads ; ere the winds began to blow, or plants had
sprung forth out of the earth ; while the heavens
yet lay hid in the mighty mass, or ere a star had
darted to its orb ; the various parts of which this
wondrous frame consists lay mingled and inform,
brooding overwhelmed in the Abyss of Being.
There it had lain for ever, if the breath of the tre-
mendous spirit that dwells in the Darkness had not
gone forth and put the lifeless mass in agitation.

30 Ovidii Fastorum, lib. i. 104.

390 Laws and Conditions.

Sine hunc divino semine fecit
Tile opifex rerum, mundi melioris origo :
Sive recens tellus seductaque nuper ab alto
JEthere, cognati retinebat semina coeli ;
Quam satus lapeto mistani fluvialibus undis
Finxit in efngiem moderantum cuncta deorum.31

It was then the congenial parts began to dissever
from their heterogeneous associates, and to seek a
mutual embrace : Matter appeared : and insepar-
able from it attraction instantly began to operate.
O ! who can unfold or sufficiently declare the
strife ineffable, the unutterable war, that attended
their operation.32— -To whom hath the root of
Wisdom been revealed, or who hath known her
wise counsels ? unto whom hath the knowledge of
Wisdom been made manifest ? and who hath
understood her great Experience ? There is One
Wise and greatly to be feared, the Lord sitting
upon his throne. He created her and numbered her,
and poured her out upon all his works. She is with
all flesh according to his gift, and he hath given her
to them that love him.33

And Solomon, with matchless eloquence and
beauty that remains unrivalled, celebrates the
revelation of that Living Light which became
known to him, with the mysteries of universal
creation, not by outward teaching or rational
inference from effects, but by the Conscious
Intuition, as he relates it, of one only night.
God hath given to me, says the Wise King, a cer-
tain knowledge of the things that are, namely, to
know how the world was made, and the operations
of the elements. The beginning, ending, and midst
of the times ; the alterations and turning of the
sun ; and the changes of the seasons. The circuits
of years and position of the stars. The natures of
living creatures and the furies of wild beasts, the
violence of winds and the reasonings of men ; the

31 Ovid. Metam., lib. i.

32 Blackwell's Mythology, letter vii.

33 Ecclesiasticus, i. 6, 7, 8, &c.

Manifestation of the Matter. 391

diversities of plants and the virtues of roots. And
all such things as are either secret or manifest,
them I know. For Wisdom, which is the Worker
of all things, taught me. In her is an understanding
spirit — holy, only begotten, manifold, subtle,
lively, clear, undefiled, plain, not subject to hurt,
loving the thing that is good : quiet, which cannot
be letted, ready to do good, kind to man, steadfast,
free from care, having all power, overseeing all
things, and going through all understanding, pure
and most subtle spirits.34

And such a Wisdom (shall we not believe it ?)
was the worthy object of all Hermetic Philosophy,
and the miraculous substance of its transmutative
Stone. Or what, do we ask, is the Philosopher's
Stone ? The philosopher's stone, says the mysteri-
ous adeptist, is Ruach Elohim, which moved upon
the face of the waters, the firmament being in the
midst, conceived and made body, truly and sensibly,
in the virgin womb of the greater world, viz., that
Earth which is without form and water. The Son,
born into the light of the macrocosm, mean and
of no account in the eyes of the vulgar, consub-
stantial nevertheless, and like his father the lesser
world, setting aside all idea of anything individu-
ally human : universal, triune, hermaphrodite ;
visible, sensible to hearing, to smell, local and finite;
made manifest by itself regeneratively by the obstetric
hand of the Physico-Chemical Art : glorified in his
once assumed body, for benefits and uses almost
infinite ; wonderfully salutary to the microcosm
and to the macrocosm in universal triunity.
The Salt of Saturn, the Universal son of Nature,
has reigned, does reign, and will reign naturally
and universally in all things ; always and every-
where universal through its own fusibility, self-
existent in nature. Hear and attend ! Salt, that
most ancient principle of the Stone ; whose
nucleus in the Decad guard in holy silence. Let him
34 Wisdom of Solomon, vii. 9.

392 Laws and Conditions.

who hath understanding understand ; I have
spoken it — not without weighty cause has Salt been
dignified with the name of Wisdom : than which,
together with the Sun, nothing is found more
useful.35

But what explanation is this ? it will be objected;
a baffling about of terms, ignotum per ingotius.
Truly, and thus it has been the custom of philo-
sophers to ring the changes from Wisdom to their
Stone, and from the Stone to Wisdom, through
every imaginable note and echoing cadence in
variation, round to the same again : but the
world has become no wiser for their song. For
how hardly should words avail, even the most
significant, to convey a tangible idea of that which
is beyond and inverse to all sensible experience ;
which is neither hard nor soft, nor tangible nor
visible, nor comprehensible by common sense,
until thought, by understanding (as light by the
focus of the familiar lens, producing combustion),
has brought it forth into effect and flame ?

Thus considering the inverse problem, analogi-
cally however, we arrive at a more familiar con-
ception as reason assists the imagination to a
solution of its own intimate mystery in life.

The centre of every Being is a spirit from the
original of the world ; and the separation of this is
constantly enacted in generation, whence every
creature is brought through experience into life and
operation. And so far we stand even now in the
great mystery, in the Mother of all Beings ; but by
the corporeal, i.e., the sensual principle which is
predominant in the mundane conception, the
divine original is obscured and separated off from
the consciousness ; and the individual subsists,
as a distinct self-spiration, severation, or outbirth,
as it were, from that Fontal Reason whence it
springs. But in the regeneration this Reason is said
to be discovered, as, upon the dissolution of the
35 Khunrath, Amphitheat. Sap. Etern., Isag. in fig.

Manifestation of the Matter. 393

natural life, it arises through the self-perceivance,
with creative attributes and powers. Let us hear
the testimony of Hermes concerning his own inti-
mate experience in the divine Pcemander, set
forth as follows : —

My thoughts, being once seriously busied about
the things that be, and my understanding lifted
up, — all my bodily senses being entirely holden
back ; me thought I saw one of an exceeding great
stature, and infinite greatness, call me by name,
and say to me, What wouldst thou hear and see ?
And what wouldst thou understand to learn and
know ? Then said I, Who art thou ? I am, quoth
he, Pcemander, the Mind of the Great Lord, the
most mighty and absolute Emperor. I know what
thou wouldst have, and I am always present with
thee. Then, said I, I would learn the things that
are, and understand the nature of them, and know
God. How ? said he. I answered, that I would
gladly hear. Then, said he : Have me again in
thy mind, and whatsoever thou wouldst learn, I
will teach thee.

When he had thus said, he was changed in his
Idea or Form, and straightway, in the twinkling
of an eye, all things were opened to me ; and I saw
an infinite Light, all things were become Light, both
sweet and exceeding pleasant. And I was wonder-
fully delighted in the beholding it. But after a
little while, there was a darkness made in part,
coming down obliquely, fearful and hideous, which
seemed unto me to be changed into a certain moist
nature unspeakably troubled, which yielded a smoke,
as from fire ; and there proceeded a voice unutter-
able, and very mournful, but articulate : insomuch,
that it seemed to have come from the Light. Then
from that Light a certain holy Word joined itself
unto Nature, and out flew the pure and unmixed fire
from the moist nature upward on high. It was exceed-
ing light, sharp, and operative withal, and the air,
which was also light, followed the spirit, and

394 Laws and Conditions.

mounted up with the Fire (from the earth and
water created below) insomuch that it seemed to
hang and depend upon it ; and the earth and water
stayed by themselves, so mingled together, that
the earth could not be seen for the water ; but they
were moved because of the Spiritual Word that
was carried upon them.

Then said Pcemander unto me, Dost thou under-
stand this, and what it meaneth ? I shall know,
said I. Then said he, / am that Light, the Mind,
thy God, who am before that moist nature, that
appeareth out of the darkness, and that bright
and lightful Word from the Mind is the Son of God.
How is that ? quoth I. Thus, replied he, under-
stand it. That which, in thee, seeth and heareth
the Word of the Lord, and the Mind, the Father,
God, differ not one from another, and the union of
these is life. I thank thee : But first, said Pce-
mander, Conceive well the Light in thy Mind, and
Know It.

And when he had thus said, for a long time, we
looked stedfastly one upon the other, insomuch that
I trembled at his Idea or Form : But when he
nodded to me, I beheld in my mind the Light that
is innumerable, and the truly indefinite ornament
or world, and that the fire is comprehended or con-
tained in and by a most great Power, and con-
strained to keep its station.

These things I understood, seeing the Word of
Poema?ider, and when I was mightily amazed, he said
again unto me ; Hast thou seen that Archetypal
Form, which was before the inter minated and
infinite beginning ? But whence, quoth I, or
whereof are the elements of nature made ? Of the
Will and Counsel of God, he answered, which taking
the Word and beholding the beautiful world in the
Archetype thereof, imitated it, and so made this
world by the same principles and vital seeds, or
soul-like production of itself. And straightway, God
said to the Holy Word, increase increasingly, and

Manifestation of the Matter. 395

multiply in multitude, all ye my creatures, and
workmanships. And let him that is endued with
Mind know himself to be immortal ; and that the
cause of death is the love of body, and let him learn
all things that are of which he is made. If therefore
thou learn in this way, and believe thyself to be of
the Life and Light, thou shalt pass back into Life.

But tell me more, 0 my mind ! how shall I go
into Life ? God saith, let the man endued with Mind,
mark, consider, and know himself well. Have not
all men a mind ? Have a heed what thou sayest,
for I, the Mind, come into men that are holy and
good, and pure and merciful, and that live piously
and religiously, and my presence is a help unto
them ; and forthwith they know all things, and
lovingly, they supplicate and propitiate the Father,
and blessing Him, they give Him thanks and sing
hymns unto Him ; being ordered and directed by
filial affection and natural love ; and before thev
give up their bodies to the death of them, they hate
their senses, knowing their works and operations ; or,
rather, I, that am the Mind itself, will not suffer
the works or operations which belong to the body
to be finished in them ; but being the Porter and
Door-keeper, / shut up the entrance of evil, and cut
off the thoughtful desires of filthy works. But to
the foolish, and evil, and wicked, and envious, and
covetous, and murderers, and profane, / am far off,
giving place to the revenging Demon, which, apply-
ing unto him the sharpness of fire, tormenteth such
a man sensibly, and armeth him the more to all
wickedness, that he may obtain the greater
punishment ; and such a one never ceaseth unful-
fillable desires, and insatiable concupiscences, and
always fighting in darkness ; for the Demon
afflicts and torments him, continually increasing
the Fire upon him more and more.

Thou hast, 0 Mind, said I, most excellently
taught me all things, as I desired ; but tell me
moreover, after the return is made, what then ?

396 Laws and Conditions.

First of all, in the resolution of the material body
of sense, this body itself is given up to alteration,
and the form which it hath becometh invisible ;
and the idle manners are permitted and left to the
Demon, and the senses of the body return into their
fountains (in the circulation) ; being parts, and are
again made up into operations ; and anger and
concupiscence remain lowest in the irrational life,
and the rest strive upward by harmony ; until,
being naked of all operations, it cometh to the
eighth sphere, which is Intellect, having its proper
power and singing praises to the Father, with the
things that are. And all they that are present
rejoice and congratulate the coming of It, being
made like to Him with whom It converseth ; It
heareth also the powers that are above the eighth
nature, singing praises to God in a certain voice
that is peculiar to them, and then in order they
return to the Father and to themselves.

When Pcemander had thus said to me, he was
mingled among the Powers, but I, giving thanks,
and blessing the Father of all, rose up and being
enabled by Him, and taught the nature of the
Whole, and having seen the greatest Spectacle, I
began to preach unto men the beauty and fairness
of piety and knowledge ; and, becoming a guide
unto many, I sowed in them the words of Wisdom.
And in myself I wrote the bounty and beneficence
of Pcemander, and being filled with what I most
desired, I was exceeding glad. — For the sleep of
the body was the sober watchfulness of the Mind;
and the shutting of my eyes the true Sight ; and
my silence great with child and full of good ;
and the pronouncing of my words the blossoms and
fruits of good things. — And thus it came to pass,
and happened unto me by Pcemander, the Lord
of the Word, whereby I became inspired by God
with the Truth. For which cause with my soul
and whole strength, I give praise and blessing
unto God the Father. — Holy is God the Father of

Manifestation of the Matter. 397

all things ! Holy is God whose will is performed
and accomplished by His own Powers ; Holy is
God that determine th to be known ; and is known
of his own, and those that are His ! Holy art thou,
that by thy Word hast established all things ! Holy
art thou, of whom all nature is the Image ! Holy
art thou, whom nature hath not formed ! Holy
art thou, that art stronger than all strength ! Holy
art thou, that art greater than all excellency !
Holy art thou, that art better than all praise ! O
thou unspeakable ! unutterable ! to be praised
in silence. I beseech thee that I may never err
from the knowledge of thee ; look mercifully upon
me and enable me, and enlighten with thy grace all
that are in ignorance, the brothers of my kind, but
thy sons. Therefore I beseech thee, and bear
witness, and go into the Light and Life. Blessed
art thou, O Father ! Thy man would be sanctified
with thee, as thou hast given him all Power.36

To such testimony we are unable to add any-
thing that would render the operative revelation
of Intellect more obvious, or its experimental
knowledge more credible to the uninitiated. They
who cannot imagine will disbelieve without ex-
perience ; but others there may be, at this day
even, in whom the flame of thought burns broad
and clear, who having within them a substantial
evidence of the thing hoped for, will believe and
know too, long before sensible observation shall
have forced the many to a faith which, in the
Intuition alone, is blessed. But if any one wish
to discover the First Principle, according to the
doctrine of the ancients, he must be theurgically
prepared, and pass through many preliminary
ordeals, corrosive tests, and fiery solutions and
dissolutions refining, in order to raise himself to
That which is the most united in nature, and to
its Flower, and That through which it is Deity ;
by which it is suspended from its proper fountain,

36 The Divine Poemander of Hermes Trismegistus, book ii.

398 Laws and Conditions.

and connects and causes the Universe to have a
sympathetic consent with Itself. — And if he called
them gods unto whom the Word of God came,
and the Scripture cannot be broken, say ye of Him
whom the Father hath sanctified and sent into the
world, thou blasphemest, because I said I am
the Son of God ?37 Does not all our unbelief, as the
common faith, arise in ignorance ? For at present
there is no profound understanding of the Scrip-
tures ; nor does any look, as Agrippa says, under
the Bark of the Law. But even unto this dayy
when Moses is read, the veil is upon their heart.
Nevertheless, when it shall turn to the Lord,
says the Apostle, the veil shall be taken away.
For the Lord is that Spirit, and where the Spirit of
the Lord is, there is liberty. We all, with open
face beholding, as in a glass, the glory of the Lord,
are changed into the same image from glory to
glory, even as by the Spirit of the Lord.38 Un-
happy, truly therefore he is said to be, who regards
the Law as a mere simple recital, or in the light of
an ordinary discourse, for, if in truth it were nothing
more than this, one could even be composed at
this day more worthy of admiration. In order to
find such mere words, observes the Kabalist, we
have only to turn to the legislators of this world,
who have frequently expressed themselves with
more grandeur and grace. It would suffice to
imitate them, and make expedient laws after their
fashion. But it is not thus ; each word of the Law
has a meaning and cloaks a mystery entirely
sublime. The story of the Law is the vestment of
the Law ; unhappy he, who mistakes the vestment
for the Law itself. The wise attend not to the outer
clothing of things, but to the body which it covers ;
the sages and servants of the Supreme King, those
who dwell on the heights of Sinai, are occupied
only about the Soul, which is the basis of all the

37 St. John's Gospel, x.

38 1 Corinth, hi. 15, &c.

Manifestation of the Matter. 399

rest; which is the Law itself ; so that the}^ may
be prepared at length to contemplate and know
that Soul which breathes in the Law.39 Without
which nothing is truly known; whose Experience is
All. Moreover, says St. Paul, I would not that ye
should be ignorant, how that all our Fathers were
under the cloud, and all passed through the sea ; and
were all baptized unto Moses in the cloud and in the
sea ; and did all eat the same spiritual meat, and
did all drink the same spiritual drink : for they
drank of -that spiritual rock that followed them :
and that rock was Christ.**

And I advise thee, my son, says the Saint
Synesius, to make no account of other things ;
labour only for that Water which burns to black-
ness, dissolves and congeals. It is that which
putrefies and causes germination, and therefore I
advise thee that thou wholly employ thyself in the
coction of this water, and demur not at the expense
of time ; otherwise thou shalt gain no advantage.
Decoct it gently by little and little, until it have
changed its false tincture into a perfect form of
light ; and have great care at the beginning, that
thou burn not its flowers and its vivacity, and mak
not too much haste to come to an end of thy work.
Shut thy vessel well that it may not breathe out,
so that thou mayest bring it to some effect ;42 and
note that to dissolve, to calcine, to tinge, to whiten,
to renew, to bathe, to wash, to coagulate, to imbibe,
to decoct, to fix, to grind, to dry and to distil are
all one, and signify no more than to decoct nature
until such time as she be perfected. Note further,
that to extract the soul, or the spirit, or the body,
is nothing else than the aforesaid calcinations in

39 Zohar, part iii. fol. 152, verso ; Frank, p. 165 ; Origen
Homil. 7, in Levit.

40 1 Cor. x. 1, 2, 3, 4.

41 See Lumen de Lumine. p. 66. Norton's Ordinal, cap. iii.

42 Eirenseus's Experiments, at the end of his Ripley Revived,
p. 6; &c. Norton, &c.

e

41

400 Laws and Conditions.

regard they signify the operation of Venus. It is
through the fire of the extraction of the soul that
the spirit comes forth gently ; understand me,
the same also may be said of the extraction of the
soul out of the body, and the reduction of it
afterwards upon the same body ; until the whole
be drawn to a commixion of the four elements, and
so that which is below, being like that which is
above, there are made manifest two luminaries, the
one fixed, the other not ; whereof the fixed which
is the male remains below, and the volatile remains
above, moving itself perpetually, until that which
is below rises upon that which is above, and all
being substantiated, there then issues forth an
incomparable Luminary.43

That was the Experiment that led our Fathers
into Experience, and illumination in the Divine
Antecedent of all life. And if experience be truly,
as it is said to be, the proper test of philosophy, then
was not theirs the right and true philosophy with
Christian regeneration for its most worthy end ?
That was the Art of Democritus commemorated by
Lord Bacon in a passage before quoted, but which,
for its value's sake, we take leave to recite — That if
any skilful minister of nature shall apply force to
matter, and by design torture and vex it in order
to its annihilation, it, on the contrary, being
brought under this necessity, changes and trans-
forms itself into a strange variety of shapes and
appearances ; so that at length, running through
the whole circle of transformations and completing
its period, it restores itself, if the force be continued.
And that method of binding, torturing, and detain-
ing will prove most effectual and expeditious
which makes use of manacles and fetters ; that
is to sa}f, lays hold of and works upon matter in
the extremest degrees.44 That is, in the last exigence

43 From Synesius' True Book concerning the Philosopher's
Stone, in fine.

44 Bacon's Wisdom of the Ancients, Fable of Proteus.

Manifestation of the Matter. 401

of life ; when it is about to be born again from out
the oblivion of this world and its defilements, by
attraction of the recreative Light within.

Then she is Isis, the Divine I am, by the Greeks
called Myrionymous, or the goddess with a
thousand names ; hereby to denote the capacity
with which such a Matter is endowed of under-
standing, and of being converted to all or any of
the Forms or degrees of specific Law, which it
may please the Supreme Reason to impress upon
her. As respects herself, she is Nothing ; — no one
apostate particular, — neither animal nor vege-
table nor mineral apart ; but, — pre-existent to
them all, — she is the mother of all ; and her birth,
according to the Adepts, is singular and not with-
out a miracle. Her very complexion is miraculous
and different from every other whatsoever, and
that which she brings forth by the Fire of nature
lawfully conceived, is Orus, the Philosophic Sun.
And hence, and from the whole above, we may
have gathered some approximating idea of the
multinominal goddess appearing as she was de-
scribed by the initiated, who celebrated her
Mysteries in the Eleusinian fane, and further, as
follows, by one of the no less intimately experi-
enced fraternity of the Rosy Cross.

I am a Goddess for beauty and extraction,
famous, born out of our oivn proper sea, which
compasseth the whole earth, ancLis ever restless.
Out of my breasts I pour forth milk and blood ; boil
these two till they are turned into silver and gold.
0, most excellent subject ! out of which all things
in the world are generated, though at the first sight
thou art poison adorned with the name of the
flying eagle ; thou art the First Matter : the Seed
of Divine benediction, in whose body there is heat
and rain ; which notwithstanding are hidden from
the wicked, because of thy habit and virgin ves-
tures, which are scattered over the whole world.
Thy parents are the Sun and Moon (philosophical) ;

402 Laws and Conditions.

in thee there is water and wine, and gold also, and
silver upon the earth, that mortal man may rejoice.
After this manner God sends us his blessing and
wisdom with rain, and the beams of the sun, to the
eternal glory of his name. But consider, 0 man,
what things God bestows upon thee by these means.
Torture the Eagle till she weeps ; and the Lion
being weakened, bleeds to death. The blood of this
Lion incorporated with the tears of the Eagle is
the treasure of the whole earth. These creatures
used (in their circulatory course) to devour and
kill one another ; but notwithstanding this their
love is mutual, and they put on the property and
nature of a Salamander ; which, if it remains in
the fire without any detriment, cures all the
diseases of men and metals. After that the ancient
philosophers had perfectly understood this subject
they diligently sought in this mystery, for the
centre of the middlemost tree in the Terrestrial
Paradise, entering in by five litigious gates.
The first gate was the knowledge of the true matter,
and here arose the first, and that a most bitter
conflict. The second was the preparation by which
the matter was to be qualified, that they might
obtain the embers of the eagle and the blood of the
lion. At this gate there is a most sharp fight, for
it produceth water and blood, and a spiritual bright
body. The third gate is the fire which conduceth
to the maturity of the medicine. The fourth gate
is that of multiplication and augmentation in which
proportions and iveights are necessary. The fifth
and last gate is projection. But most glorious, full,
rich, and highly elevated is he who attains but
to the fourth gate ; for he has got an universal
medicine for all diseases. This is the great character
of the book of Nature, out of which her whole
alphabet doth arise. The fifth gate serves only
for metals. This mystery, existing from the founda-
tion of the world and the creation of Adam, is
of all others the most ancient ; a knowledge which

Manifestation of the Matter. 403

God Almighty, by his Word, breathed into nature ;
a miraculous power, the blessed Fire of Life ; the
transparent carbuncle and red gold of the Wise
men, and the divine benediction of this life. But
this mystery, because of the malice and wickedness
of men, is given only to few ; notwithstanding it
lives and moves every day in the sight of the whole
world, as it appears also by the following parable :
I am a poisonous dragon, present everywhere,
and to be had for nothing. My water and my fire
dissolve and compound ; out of my body thou
shalt draw the green and red lion ; but if thou dost
not exactly know me, thou wilt with my fire destroy
thy five senses. A most pernicious quick-poison
comes out of my nostrils, which hath been the
destruction of many. Separate, therefore, the
thick from the thin artificially, unless thou dost
delight in extreme poverty. I give thee faculties
both male and female, and the powers both of
heaven and earth. The mysteries of my art are to
be performed magnanimously and with great
courage, if thou wouldest have me overcome the
violence of the fire, in which attempt many have
lost their labour and their substance. / am the
Egg of Nature, known only to the Wise, such as are
pious and modest, who make of me a little world.
Ordained was I, by the Almighty God, for men ;
but though many desire me, I am given only to a
few, that they may relieve the poor with my
treasures, and not set their mind on gold that
perisheth. I am called of the philosophers Mercury :
my husband is Gold philosophical. I am the Old
Dragon that is present everywhere on the face
of the earth. I am father and mother, youthful
and antique, weak yet powerful, life and death,
visible and invisible, hard and soft, descending to
the earth and ascending to the heavens, most high
and most low, light and heavy. In me the order
of nature is oftentimes inverted in colour, number,
weight, and measure. I am, within, the Light of

404 Laws and Conditions.

nature ; I am dark and bright ; I spring from the
earth and I come out of heaven ; I am well known
and yet a mere nothing ; all colours shine in me
and all metals, by the beams of the Sun ; I am
the carbuncle of the Sun, a most noble clarified
Earth, by which thou mayest turn copper, iron,
tin, and lead into most pure gold.45

Involve we then our thoughts, if we would
intrinsically conceive the wonderful Nature that is
set before us ; and in however small a proportion
the grain of faith be naturally allotted, if it be
but real, let us believe in it, and nourish and
educate, that it may increase with knowledge, and
finally prove its own reward in practical experi-
ence : without faith, without the ideal conception,
nothing is or can be proven ; for is not this, in fact,
the leader of all experimental inquiry ? The faith
we invite is no blind credulity, but such a liberty
of thought, as, bearing its own evidence inde-
pendently of common observation, can glance
beyond this boundary into the integral probability
of Life. Such a faith, however small or insufficient
of itself, will lead on, by a proper pursuit, unto the
thing hoped for, and bring to evidence the occult
Causality of Nature : and be it for gold, then, or
science, or health, or higher purity and wisdom,
that he is inquiring on this basis — we repeat it —
the percipient right-believer will not be deceived.
The Matter of all things is One and proved simple
in the experience ; throughout all her various
manifestations — as agent, patient, hot, cold, dry,
moist ; by whatever colour, quality, or species
designated — whether singular or plural in mani-
festation, Nature remains one and the same
Unknown Identity through all ; neither water,
air, earth nor gold is absolutely compact, every
tyro in chemistry concludes they are no elements ;
but Her, the true element, they have never

45 As given in the Coelum Terra? of Vaughan, from the Latin
original of the Fraternity.

Manifestation of the Matter. 405

found ; for she eludes their tests and closest
vessels ; all except those of her own ethereally
wise construction, in which she bears her Universal
Offspring, hermetically sealed through the flood
and wreck of this dissolute existence to a resur-
rection always glorious, and immortal at last.

^LIA LJELlA CRISPIS.

Nee vir, nee mulier, nee androgyna,
Nee paella, nee juvenis, nee anus,
Nee casta, nee meretrix, nee pudica.,

Sed omnia !
Sublata neque fame, neque ferro, neque
Veneno, sed omnibus !
Nee coelo, nee terris, nee aquis,

Sed ubique jacet !

LUCIUS AGATHO PRISCUS.

Nee maritus, nee amator, nee necessarius,
Neque mcerens, neque gaudens, neque flens,

Hanc
Neque molem, neque pyramidem, neque sepulcrum

Sed omnia
Scit et nescit cui posuerit
Hoc est sepulcrum certe, cadaver
Non habens, sed cadaver idem,

Est et sepulcrum !

^LIA LiELlA CRISPIS.

Nor male, nor female, nor hermaphrodite,
Nor virgin, woman, young or old,
Nor chaste, nor harlot, modest hight,

But all of them 3^011 're told —
Not killed by poison, famine, sword,
But each one had its share,
Not in heaven, earth, or water broad

It lies, but everywhere !

LUCIUS AGATHO PRISCUS.

No husband, lover, kinsman, friend,

Rejoicing, sorrowing at life's end,

Knows or knows not, for whom is placed

This — what ? This pyramid, so raised and graced.

This grave, this sepulchre ? 'Tis neither,

'Tis neither — but 'tis all and each together.

Without a body I aver,

This is in truth a sepulchre ;

But notwithstanding, I proclaim

Both corpse and sepulchre the same !

406 Laws and Conditions.

All is identical — need we repeat it ? — in the
Universal Identity, and every possible assertion
of it will be true, and the reverse in annihilation.
All life, body, soul, and spirit — the three hypo-
static relations — are born in it, one out of another :
conjoin, die, and are mortified, one within the
other : are fortified and increased, the one bv the
other ; differing only, in respect one from the other,
as agent, patient, and that universal offspring
which is the All in all, without foreign admixture :
as it is written, — Thou hast disposed all things, in
number, and weight, and measure. — For these are
the length, and breadth, and profundity of Nature,
which the Spirit in her emanative Law displays ;
from the point proceeding into the line, from the
root into the square superficies, and from the
square by multiplication into that cubic form
which is the supernatural foundation of the New
plrysical Whole.

The battle's fought, the conquest won,

The Lyon dead revived ;
The Eagle's dead which did him slay,

And both of sense deprived.
The showers cease, the dews, which fell

For six weeks, do not rise ;
The ugly toad, that did so swell,

With swelling, bursts and dies.
The Argent field with Or is stained,

With violet intermixed ;
The sable blacke is not disdained

Which shows the spirit's fixed ;
The compound into atoms turned,

The seeds together blended,
The flying soul to th' earth returned,

The soaring bird descended.
The king and queen contumulate,

And joined as one together,
That which before was two by fate

Is tyed, which none can sever.
The king is brother to his wife,

And she to him is mother ;
One father is to both, whose life

Depends upon each other.
The one when dead, the other dies.

Manifestation of the Matter. 407

And both are laid in grave ;
The coffins one in which both lies,

Each doth the other save :
Yet each the other doth destroy,

And yet both are amended ;
One without th' other hath no joy,

Both one, of one descended.
Twice forty days do come and go,

To which twice five are added ;
These do produce a perfect crow,

Whose blackness cheers hearts sadded ;
Twice fifteen more produce a dove,

Whose wings are bright and tender ;
Twice ten more make the soul above

To need no fire defender ;
For soul and body so combine,

The spirit interceding,
Tincture to give of silver fine,

The soul, the body, inleading.
Also such fixity to add

Against the flames prevailing,
Which may the chymist make full glad,

The sophister still failing,
Who seeks in fancies for to find

Our Art so much concealed,
Not duly weighing in his mind

That 't is a fountain sealed,
Which one thing only can unlocke ;

This one thing learn to know,
Lest you the same event should mock,

That these same lines do show.46

The same tradition of the manifold powers and
preservation of the One Thing runs in symbol
throughout the Gentile Mythology, and the Arkite
Mysteries have reference to the physical secret of
the regeneration throughout. The god, dead and
revived, is a principal character in all their cere-
monial rites — Cadmillus amongst the Cabiri, Atys
in Phrygia, Adonis in Lydia, Osiris amongst the
Egyptians.

Once too by Thee, as sacred poets sing,
The heart of Bacchus, swiftly slaughtered king,
Was saved in iEther when, by fury fired,
The Titans fell against his life conspired ;

46 Eirenseus's Ripley Revived, p. 188, &c

408 Laws and Conditions.

And with relentless rage and thirst for gore

Their hands his members into fragments tore.

But ever watchful on thy Father's will,

Thy power preserved him from succeeding ill ,

Till from the secret counsels of his Sire,

And born from Semele thro' heavenly fire,

Great Dionysius to the world at length

Again appeared with renovated strength.

Once too thy warlike axe with matchless sway

Lopped from their savage necks the heads away

Of furious beasts, and thus the pests destroyed

Which long all -seeing Hecate annoyed.

By thee benevolent, great Juno's might

Was roused to furnish mortals with delight ;

And thro' life's wide and various range 'tis thine r

Each part to beautify with arts divine.

Invigorated hence, by thee we find

A demiurgic impulse in the mind ;

Towers proudly raised and for protection strong,

To thee dread guardian Deity belong.

As proper symbols of th' exalted height,

Thy series claims amidst the courts of Light.47

All the heroes are reported to have passed
thrugh an ordeal of the same kind ; — Cadmus,
Deucalion, Osiris, Bacchus, Hercules, Orpheus, &c.
— and to have gained wonderful powers and ad van-
tages thereby. All their adventures, indeed, are
so many records of the difficulties and dangers
that the soul must endure overcoming her house-
hold enemies within the stronghold of life.
Nor are they few, but many and fearful ones that
have to be encountered ; for those passions,
desires, vices, which to our deadened conscience
are trifling and palliable, when viewed within the
senses' prison, by the revealed light of equilibriate
justice, are monstrous ; and, without metaphor, in
their imaged atmosphere appear terrific : and in
the divine language of Pcemander, do force the
inwardly placed man to suffer sensibly. For they
do not suddenly depart, or easily, even from him
in whom the exemplary virtue is revealed ; butr
as we may remember in the early tradition of the

47 Proclus's Hymn to Minerva, by Taylor, in his Sallust.

Manifestation of the Matter. 40S>

Mysteries, the material infiictors are roused to
vengeance by the decrees of fate against the rebels
of her laws ; nor is it any trifling exertion which
the will has to make to overcome the compact
which it has made with sense ; but herein consists
the meritorious struggle of the powers, until, by
artificial force of heat and exhalation, the Light,
so long hidden and enshrined in the Archeus,
comes forth as a dry splendour, surviving through
all. And this is that Tincture of the Sapphiric Mine
before alluded to, and that Subtendent which is
found seminally equal to the whole of the parts
whence it is derived. In hdc aqua rosa latet hieme ;
in this water, when destruction has done its worst
with the elements of life, the principle of all is
artificially preserved, as Noah in the Ark, who,
surviving, was able to renew all things out of the
remnant of creation that was saved therein ; that
elect remnant, worthy the sacrifice that was made
even of the whole corruptible humanity, that has
power to reproduce all and each with tenfold
perfection and increase out of itself.

Thus Wisdom is the perpetual theme of early
poetry, and though unknown to modern philosophy
the ground of ancient science ; of theology, the
true End and proper subject of Divinity. For this
Wisdom is the vehicle of the Catholic Reason in
Identity, the bearer and measure of the Demiurgic
Fire — that Fire which the sensual conception
occultates, and so forciblv restricts, that man does
not suspect it even ; but in his willing thraldom,
fancies himself at liberty, not knowing in truth
what it is to be free as when, the integral efficience
of this Identity set in motion, effects follow the
voluntary Axle in a necessitous full accord. — That
was free Will, not the motiveless chimera which
human fancy has been prone to coin, but the
operative Almighty Magnet freed from Tartarean
bondage and obscurity, and drawn upward to the
glorious consciousness of the revolving Light above.

410 Laws and Conditions.

And the whole secret of this discovery, it would
seem, consists in the sanguinar}^ circulation of the
Vital Spirit ; in which there is a threefold Law, as
before explained, which has to be revolutionized
also in three periods ; called by the Alchemists,
for certain accurate reasons, Altitude, Latitude,
and Profundity : Altitude and Profundity, being
united at their extreme poles, make Latitude ; and
so the wheel of Life is turned about : the Profund-
ity is the subjective life, the water that is below;
the Altitude is the objective Light, the ether that
is above ; and the conflux of these two is in a Calx,
out of which, as from a rocky fountain, the
physical Tetractys springs through the contrite
experience into life, with attributes prolific and
enduring fruits.

That was the Water so much magnified by the
wise Adepts, the miraculous product of the spirit-
ual poles of mind in sublime conjunction at their
source ; this was their Stilla roris, Lac Virginia,
Elixir, Aqua Vitce, Azoth, Prima Materia Lapis
et Bebis, regenerate in its once assumed body,
visible, tangible, and sensible to every sense,
local and finite, made manifest of itself regenera-
tively, by the obstetric hand of the physico-
chemical art for benefits and uses almost infinite.

Fresher liquor there is none to taste,
And it will never consume nor waste ;
Tho' it be occupied evermore,
It will never be less in store ;
Which Democrit named to his intent,
Lux umbra carens, Water most orient ;
And Hermes said, no liquor so necessary,
As was water of crude Mercury :
And this shall stand, said that noble clerke,
For the Water within our werke.48

Another Tablet is here which Philosophy once
erected to the memory of her early friend.

48 See Norton's Ordinal, chap. iv.

Manifestation of the Matter. 411

Blessed be thou, Experience !

Full mighty is thy Influence,

Thy wondrous works record full well,

In world of worlds where thou dost dwell ;

In earth, in heaven, and in hell.

That thou art the very same,

That didst from nothing all things frame ;

Wherefore, now blessed be thy name !

By whose pure and simple Light,

All creation sprung forth Bright,
Flames and floods began to roar,
And to present their hidden store
Of spirits, that sing evermore,
All glory and magnificence,
All humble thanks and reverence,
Be given to Experience !

To that most Sapient,

The High Omnipotent !
That said, Be It, and it was done,
Our earth, our heaven, were begun ;
I am, quoth she, the most in might,
In word, in life, and eke in light,
In mercy and in judgment right.
The Depth is mine, so is the Height,
The Cold, the Hot, the Moist, the Dry,
Where all in all is, there Am I.
What thing can tell when I began, or where I make an end,
Wherewith I wrought, and what I mought, or what I did intend

To do, when I had done

The work I had begun ?
For when my Being was alone,
One Thing I made when there was none ;
A mass confused and darkly clad,
That in itself, all Nature had
To form and shape the good and bad ;
And then, as time began to fall,
It pleased me the same to call,
The first Material Mother of all.
And from that lump divided I foure sundry elements,
Whom I commanded for to reigne in divers regiments ;

In kind they did agree,

But not in qualitye.
Whose simple substance I did take,
My seat invisible to make ;
And of the qualities compound,
I made the starry sky so round,
With living bodies on the ground,
And blessed them infinitely,
And bade them grow and multiply !

412 Laws and Conditions.

One Thing was first employed,
Which shall not be destroyed ;
It compasseth the world so round,
A matter easy to be found :
And yet most hard to come by :
A secret of secrets pardye,
That is most vile and least set by,
But it's my love and darling,
Conceived with all living thing,
And travels to the world's ending.
A childe begetting his own Father, and bearing hys Mother,
Killing himself to give life and light to all other,
Is that I meane,
Most milde and most extreme.
Did not the world that dwelt in me
Take form and walk forth visibly ;
And did not I then dwell in It,
That dwelt in me for to unite,
Three Powers in one seat to sit.49

And these are the Three continually noted in
Alchemy, the Sulphur and Mercury and Salt, the
active and the passive, and the resulting experience
of life. The first, in the regeneration, is the Word
of God independent without all human will,
miraculously conceived and confessed divine in
the new birth : The second is of the Humanity, i.e.,
of the selfhood, prepared and sanctified ; and the
result of these two in unison is the Bodily Substance
of things thenceforth created. By a severance
from real being, non-being, that is to say Matter,
is produced ; and the sacrifice that is gratefully
provided of the material nature in their reunion, as
supplying body to the Divine, excites the Powers to
participation, conceives them when they accede,
and consciously unfolds them into visibility and
act. And hence we may be enabled to conceive
perhaps, in a measure at least, how the microcos-
mical tradition arose, how the human hypostasis
becomes, through a self-perceivance, into universal
intelligence, and of its own voluntary resignation,
from the nothingness of self oblivion, to be the All,
precedent to that wherein is all. For with the
49 See Ashmole's Theat.r page 336 ; Experience and Philosophy.

Manifestation of the Matter. 413

desire of rest and contact, there is a power of
accession, and with accession a sufficience, opera-
tive and universal.

Come and see, says the Rabbi in Zohar, Thought
is the Prinicple of all that is ; but it is at first
Unknown and shut up in itself. When the Thought
begins to develop itself forth, it arrives at that
degree when it becomes Spirit. Arrived at this
estate, it takes the name of Intelligence, and is no
longer as before it was shut up in itself. The Spirit,
in its turn, develops itself in the bosom of the
mystery with which it is surrounded ; and there
proceeds a voice which is the reunion of the
celestial choirs, a voice which rolls forth in distinct
utterance articulate, for It comes from the Mind.50

Thought is the principle of all that is.
Magnificent, yet impervious assertion, shall we
say ? or what conceptive height may struggle to
confirm it ? What imagination strong or hardy
enough to glance into the full faith ? To Be the
Understanding of that Light, of which all Nature
is the Efflux, to move One with the First Mover,
and Be His Will, who is at once the Antecedent
and Final Cause of all ? We cannot, profanely as
we live without the knowledge of ourselves, attain
to the Divine Idea ; either to entertain or think
It self- actively is impossible. For the Thought
which is of God creative is the inversion of our
thought ; and to know Him in It is self-annihila-
tion in the life which is eternal.

Yet if thou wilt even break the Whole, instructs
Pcemander, and see those things that are without
the world, thou ma3^est. Behold how great power
and swiftness thou hast ! Consider that which
contains all things, and understand that nothing
is more capacious than that which is incorporeal,
nothing more swift, nothing more powerful ; but it
is most capacious, most swift, and most strong.
And judge of this by thyself, assimilating, for the
50 Part i. 246 verso ; Frank, part ii. p. 191.

414 Laws and Conditions.

like is intelligible by the like'. Increase thyself into
an immeasurable greatness, leaping beyond every
body, and transcending time, become Eternity, and
thou shalt understand God. If thou art able to be-
lieve in thyself, that nothing is impossible, but per-
ceivest thyself to be immortal, and that thou canst
understand all things, every art, every science,
and the manner and custom of every living thing ;
become higher than all height, lower than all depth,
comprehend in thyself the qualities of all the
creatures ; of the fire, the water, the dry, and the
moist, and conceive likewise that thou canst at
once be everywhere, in the sea and in the earth :
Thou shalt at once understand thyself, not yet
begotten, in the womb, young, old, to be dead,
the things after death and all these together, as also
times, places, deeds, qualities, or else thou canst
not yet understand God. But if thou hast shut up
thy soul in the body, to abuse it ; and say, I under-
stand nothing, I can do nothing, I am afraid of the
sea, I cannot climb up into heaven, I know not
who I am, I cannot tell what I shall be ; what
hast thou to do with God ? For thou canst under-
stand none of those fair and good things, and It is
the greatest evil not to know God. But to be able
to know, and to will, and to hope, is the straight
way and the divine way proper to the Good ; and
it will meet thee everywhere thereafter and every-
where be seen of thee, plain and easy, even when
thou dost no longer expect or look for it. It will
meet thee waking, sleeping, sailing, travelling by
night and by day, when thou speakest and when
thou keepest silence. For there is nothing which is
not the Image of God.51

But the exemplary Logos is hidden, — slain from
the foundation in the exterminating fiat of our
Identity ; and the occultation of this does not take
place therefore, but in two poles or principles
diametrically reverse. We must pass the eternal
51 Hermes' Divine Pcemander, book x.

Manifestation of the Matter. 415

wheel of the vicissitudes of things, from the mani-
fest created individuality, back into the Initial
germ ; through all ages, all revolutions and the
infinitude of soul experience, until life, as an ocean
tide flowing to its extreme boundary, returns to
refund its treasu^ again in its First Source. Most
mighty and surpassing magic of Reflection.— - And
thou august Mother of all things, Divine Experi-
ence.— Thought emanating Light, as by Intelli-
gence excruciated, Life springs forth with motion,,
feeling itself to Be. — In the which affirmation, in
the Divine I am, is by the Kabalah signified the
Substant Unitv of all that is ; the fountain of
Universal Nature and her Exemplary Law, the
source of so mairy miracles and magical accord-
ances, as of every natural and supernatural in-
crease—where Experience is present with Power,
and Effect in substance to bear them witness —
where Wisdom is poured forth like Water and
Glory faileth not before Him for ever.

For visibles here are said verily to spring out of
that which is invisible, as from the precedent
nothingness Something is produced ; and thus the
recreation was seen to be a stupendous meta-
physical birth out of the Infinite into Light,
according to that notable saying of the Sybil in
Boissard,

Verbum invisibile fiet palpabile et germinabit ut Radix.

Ought we not therefore to take That which is
impalpable and imperfectly conceived at first, and
work faithfully, as the philosopher tells us, until it
be the Divine pleasure to make it appear ; to
dissolve, coagulate, resolve, refine, and regulate,
until Reason becoming a bright Light in the
periphery of her fiery essence remains immortal,
and is the Mistress of Life.

Hie est Mercurius noster nobillissimtjs, et Deus nun-

QUAM CREAVIT REM NOBILIOREM SUB CCELO PRiETER ANIMAM
RATIONALEM.

416 Laws and Conditions.

And here the External and Internal Worlds
were seen to blend together in confluent harmony,
proving and establishing each other, and leaving
reason nothing more to doubt of, or the senses to
desire, but a fulfilment under the Universal Law.

417