SECTION II

THE GOAL OF THE WORK
IN the preceding section the symbolism and the psychology of the progress of the mystic work has been developed more or less, but certainly not to the end. Regeneration is evidently the beginning of a new development, the nature of which we have not yet closely examined. Nothing has yet been said definitely about the later phases of the work and about its goal. I am afraid that this section, al- though it is devoted chiefly to the goal of the work, cannot elucidate it with anything like the clearness that would be desirable. To be sure the final out- come of the work can be summed up in the three words: Union with God. Yet we cannot possibly rest satisfied with a statement that is for our psy- chological needs so vague ; we must endeavor to com- prehend the intimate nature of the spiritual experi- ences that we have on the journey into the unsearch- able ; although I must at the outset point out that at every step by which the symbolism of the mystics leads us towards regeneration, we run the risk of wandering away from psychology, and that in the following we shall all too soon experience these devi- ations. We shall have to transplant ourselves un-
336
THE GOAL OF JHE WORK 337
critically at times, into the perceptual world of the hermetics, which is, of course, a mere fiction, for in order to do it rightly we should have to have a mystical development behind us [whatever this may be] ; one would have to be himself a " twice born." One thing can be accepted as true, that a series of symbols that occur with striking agreement among all mystics of all times and nations is related to a variety of experiences which evidently are common to all mystics in different degrees of their develop- ment, but are foreign to the non-mystics (or more exactly to all men, even mystics, who have not at- tained the given level).
With this premise I will take up the question of the goal of alchemy (mysticism). In this I follow in general the train of thought of Hitchcock, with- out adhering closely to his exposition. (I cite H. A. = Hitchcock, Remarks upon Alchemy.)
The alchemistic process is, as the hermetics themselves say, a cyclical work, and the end resides to a certain degree in the beginning. Here lies one of the greatest mysteries of the whole of alchemy, although the meaning of the language is to be under- stood more or less as follows. If, for example, it is said that whoever wishes to make gold must have gold, we must suppose that the seeker of truth must be true (H. A., p. 67) ; that whoever desires to live in harmony with the conscience must be in harmony with it, and that whoever will go the way to God, must already have God in himself. Now when the conscience, wherein the sense of right and justice has
338 PROBLEMS OF MYSTICISM
existence, becomes active under the idea of God, it is endowed with supernatural force and is then, as I understand it, the alchemists' philosophical mer- cury and his valued salt of mercury. It is no less his sovereign treacle, etc. (H. A., p. 53). The progress of the work points to some kind of unity as the goal which, however, very few men attain except in words (H. A., p. 157). The hermetic writers set up the claim to a complete agreement in their teachings, but this agreement is restricted to some principles of vital significance in their doctrine, which have reference almost exclusively to a definite practice; probably to a complete setting to work of the consciousness of duty, which is what Kant claims to do with his categorical imperative : " An unrea- soning, though not unreasonable, obedience to an experienced, imperious sense of duty, leaving the re- sult to God; and this I am disposed to call the Way."
Do thy duty!
Ask not after the result of thy doing! Without dependence thereon carry out that which is thy
duty! Whoever acts without attachment to the world, that man
attains the loftiest goal.
And the like in many places in the Bhagavad-Gita.] Now the end is perhaps the fruit of this obedi- ence. It may be that the steady preservation of the inward unity, which regards with composure all external vicissitudes, leads man finally to some special experience, by which a seal of confirmation is set
THE GOAL OF [THE WORK 339
upon what was first a mere trust in the ultimate bless- ing of rectitude (H. A., p. 128). The hermetic philosophers would have the conscience known as the Way or as the base of the work, but with regard to the peculiar wonder work of alchemy (transmuta- tion) they place the chief value on love; it effects the transformation of the subject into the object loved (H. A., p. 132).
Arabi : " It is a fundamental principle of love that thou becomest the real essence of the beloved (God) in that thou givest up thy individuality and disappearest in him. Blessedness is the abiding place of the divine and holy joy." (Horten, Myst., I, p. 9.)
Similarly we find in the yoga primers that the spirit, by sinking into an object of perception, be- comes identical with the object. The object need not be the very highest, but a gradation is possible. Arabi, too, recognizes a gradation of objects, as they correspond, as correlates of sinking or surrender, to the different mystical states. [Colors, etc., of al- chemy.] Two passages of Arabi may be quoted: " My heart is eligible for every form [of the reli- gious cult] ; for it is said that the heart (root: kalaba = overturn, to alter oneself) is so called from its continual changing. It changes in accordance with the various (divine) influences that it feels, accord- ing to the various states of the mystical illumination. This variation of experiences is a result of the vari- ation of the divine appearances, which occur in its inmost spirit. The law of religion (theology)
340 PROBLEMS OF MYSTICISM
speaks of this phenomenon as the changing and metamorphizing in the forms (of living and being). Gazelles are the objects of the mystic's love. In one of his poems he says: "And surrender your- selves to play in the manner of lovely maidens with buxom breasts and enjoy the luxuriant willows in the manner of the female gazelles." In his commentary on this passage he says: " ' Play ' denotes the vari- ous states of the mystic, to which he is advanced when he passes from one divine name to another." (Horten, Myst., I, pp. n, 13, ff.)
It is the ethical ideal of the mystic, more and more to put off the limited ego, and to take on in its place the qualities of God, in order to become God.
When with Arabi the theme of an ode is " Through asceticism, fervent yearning after God and patience in suffering, man becomes God or ac- quires divine nature" (Horten, Myst, I, p. 16), then this goal is identical with that of the alchemis- tic transmutation; the base metal acquires (after purification, refining, etc.) by virtue of the tincturing with the Philosopher's Stone the nature of gold, i.e., the divine nature.
But patient effort is requisite. Precipitancy is as great an evil as inactivity. It is, to use the lan- guage of the alchemists, just as bad to scorch the tender blossoms by a forced and hasty fire (that in spite of its intensity may be merely a straw fire), as to let go out the fire which should be continuously kept alight, and to let grow cold the materia. The process of distillation is to be accomplished slowly,
THE GOAL OF [THE WORK 341
so that the spirits may not escape. That which rises as steam through the " heating " in the " recepta- cle " (i.e., in man) is the soul rising into the higher regions. Distilling like rain drops [destillare = drop down], it brings each time to the thirsting materia a divine gain. But this process is not to be overdone, for the thirsting earth must be gently in- stilled with the heavenly moisture of the water of life : the process of " imbibition."
The metallic subject must be gently dissolved in its own natural water (conscience), not with power- ful media, not with corroding acids, which the fool- ish employ in order to reach the goal in a hurry, for by such means he either spoils the materia or pro- duces a merely superficial action. Senseless asceti- cism and the like are just as objectionable as the im- petuous enthusiasm (which we called straw fire here). The ethical work of alchemy as of com- mon life is a sublimation; it is important that the materia takes up at any time only as much as it can sublimate. We may also conceive it in this way. The materia is to be moistened only with the water that it can utilize after the solution has taken place (i.e., keep in enduring form, absorb into their na- ture). Compare in this connection the words of Count Bernhard von Trevis : " I tell you assuredly that no water dissolves any metallic spices by a natu- ral solution, save that which abides with them in matter and form, and which the metals themselves, being dissolved, can recongeal." (H. A., pp. 189
*•).
342 PROBLEMS OF MYSTICISM
The passage " slowly and quite judiciously " of the Smaragdine tablet will now be fully appreciated.
The desired completion or oneness should be a state of the soul, a condition of being, not of know- ing. The means that lead to it presuppose in the neophyte something analogous to religious faith, and because the conditions of the mastery appear to the neophyte to contradict nature or each other, the mys- tical experiences that are derived from it are called " supernatural." The " supernatural " is, however, only an appearance, which results when we conceive nature too narrowly, as when we see in her merely the totality of bodies. If we mean by nature the possibility of life and activity, then that which ap- pears supernatural must be counted as nature. The expressions natural and supernatural are but means of the thinking judgment, they are preliminaries which have a certain justification but only so long as they are an expression for a stage of knowledge. The initially supernatural resolves itself in nature, or better, Nature is raised to divinity. If the natu- ral and the supernatural are symbolized, the one being described as sulphur and the other as mercury, then the disciples of philosophy, under the obliga- tion to think things and not merely names, are finally brought, during the process of search, to a recog- nition of the inseparableness of both in a third some- thing which may be called sun; but as all three are recognized as inseparably one, the termini can change places until finally an- inner illumination takes place. " Those that have never had this experience
343
are apt to decry it as imaginary, but those who enter into it know that they have entered into a higher life, or feel themselves enabled to look upon things from a higher point of view. To use what may seem to be a misapplication of language: it is a super- natural birth, naturally entered upon." (H. A., p. 229.) When the alchemists speak of philosophical mercury and philosophical gold, they mean some- thing in man and something in God that finally turns out to be the One. " By this symbolism the alche- mists escape the difficulty of treating the subject in ordinary language. The learner must always return to nature and her possibilities for the sense of the derived symbols, and to it the hermetic masters also continually direct him." (H. A., pp. 232 ff.) If the true light has risen in the hearts of the seekers, kindled from within (although apparently by a mira- cle from without) " the sulphur and mercury become one, or are seen to be the same, differing only in a certain relation; somewhat as the known and the unknown (and the conscious and the unconscious) are but one, the unknown decreasing as the known increases, and vice versa." (H. A., p. 235.)
One alchemist teaches: " Consider well what it is you desire to produce, and according to that regu- late your intention. Take the last thing in your intention as the first thing in your principles. . . . Attempt nothing out of its own nature [then follow parables that grapes are not gathered from thistles, etc.]. If you know how to apply this doctrine in your operation as you ought, you will find great bene-
344 PROBLEMS OF MYSTICISM
fit, and a door will hereby be opened to the discovery of greater mysteries." Actually there is a greater difference between one who seeks what he seeks as an end, and one who seeks it as a means to an end. To seek knowledge for riches is a very different thing from seeking riches (or independence) as an instrument of knowledge. In the study in question the means and the end must coincide, i.e., the truth must be sought for itself only. (H. A., p. 238.) In the book, " De Manna Benedicto," we read: " Whoever thou art that readest this tractate, let me exhort thee that thou directest thy understanding and soul more toward God for the keeping of his commandments, than toward love of this art [sc. its external portions], for although it be the only, indeed the whole wisdom of the world, it is yet powerless in comparison with the divine wisdom of the soul, which is the love towards God, in the keeping of his commandments. ... Hast thou been covetous, pro- fane one? Be thou meek and pious and serve in all lowliness the glorious creator; if thou art not deter- mined to do that, thou art employed in trying to wash an Ethiop white."
Desire is, as some ancient philosophers think, the root of all affects, which manifest themselves in pairs. Joy corresponds to desire fulfilled, sorrow to the obstructed or imperiled fulfillment; hope is the expectation of fulfillment, fear the opposite, etc. All the pairs of opposites are in some degree super- ficial, something that comes and goes with time, while the essential remains, itself invisible and without re-
THE GOAL OF THE WORK 345
lation to time — a perpetual activity, an ever endur- ing conation as it was formerly called. (It is the libido of the psychoanalysis. In its manifestations it is subjected to bipolarity, as Stekel has named the inevitable pairs of opposites.)
The pairs of opposites have been noticed in the Hindu doctrine of salvation exactly as in alchemy. Alchemistic hieroglyphics we know are rich in [am- biguous] expressions for a hostile Dyas (couple), with whose removal a better condition first com- mences, although at the outset it is actually requisite for the achievement of the work. In the Bhagavad- Gita the pairs of opposites play a great part. The world is full of agony on account of the pairs of opposites, which are to be found everywhere. Heat, cold; high, low; good, evil; joy, sorrow; poor, rich; young, old; etc. The basis of the opposites is formed by the primal opposition Rajas-Tamas. To escape from it in recognizing the true ego as supe- rior to it and not participating in it, is the foremost purpose of the effort toward salvation. So who- ever has raised himself above the qualities of sub- stances is described as having escaped from op- posites.
" Contact of atoms is only cold and warm, brings pleasure
and pain, They come and go without permanency — tolerate them O
Bharata.
The wise man, whom these do not affect, O mighty hero, Who bears pain and pleasure with equanimity he is ripening
for immortality." (II, 14 ff.)
346 PROBLEMS OF MYSTICISM
The spirit, the true ego, is raised above the agi- tation of the qualities of nature :
" Swords cut him not, fire burns him not,
Water wets him not nor does the wind wither him.
Not to be cut, not to burn, not to get wet, not to be with- ered,
He is constant, above everything, continuous, eternal im- movable." [II 23 ft]
This characterization sounds almost like the de- scription of the mercury of the philosophers, which is indestructible, a water that does not wet, a fire that does not consume.
Hermes on the human soul : " The accidents re- siding in the material substances have never sympa- thized with each other, but on the contrary have always been in opposition and in mutual conflict. Guard thyself O soul from them and turn away from them. . . . Thou O soul art of one nature, but they are manifold; thou art but one with thy- self; they are, however, in conflict with each other. [Psychoanalytically regarded, to the soul is here as- signed the property which is desired but is not pres- ent, while that which is undesired but actually present in the soul (inclination and disinclination) is pro- jected into the external world.] . . . How long O soul wilt thou yet be needy, and flee from every sen- sation to its opposite, now from warmth to cold, now from cold to warmth, now from hunger to satiety, now from satiety to hunger?" (Fleischer Herm. a. d. Seele, pp. 14 ff.) "Be thou O soul regardful
THE GOAL OF THE WORK 347
of the behavior in this world, yet not as a child with- out understanding who when one gives him to eat and acts leniently towards him is satisfied and cheer- ful, but when one treats him severely cries and is bad, indeed begins to weep while laughing and when he is satisfied begins again to be bad. This is not worthy of approbation but rather a mongrel and blameworthy behavior. The world O soul, is so organized as to unify exactly these* opposites; good and evil, weal and woe, distress and comfort, and contains types of ideas that have the effect of waking the soul and making it aware of itself, so that as a result it gains reason that illumines and consummates knowledge, i.e., wisdom and knowledge of the true nature of things. For this purpose alone has the soul come into the world, to learn and experience; but it is like a man that comes to a place to become acquainted with it and know its conditions, but then gives up the learning, inquiring and collecting of in- formation, and diverts his spirit by reaching after luxury and the enjoyment of other things, and in so doing forgets to acquire that which he was to strive for." (L. c., pp. 8 ff.)
I return to the psychological point of view of our friend Hitchcock: " Desire and love are almost synonymous terms, for we love and seek what we desire, and so also we desire and seek what we love; yet neither love nor desire is by any necessary con- nection directed to one thing rather than another, but either under conditions suitable to it may be di- rected to anything. From which it follows that it
348 PROBLEMS OF MYSTICISM
is possible to make God as the Eternal, its object, or call it truth and we may see that its enjoyment must partake of its own nature. Now we read that it is not common for man to love and pursue the good and the true because it is the good and true ; but we call that good which we desire and there lies the great mistake of life. From all which we may see that vast consequences follow from the choice of an object of desire, which as we have said, may as easily be an eternal as a transient one. We should be on guard against a too mechanical conception of these things. By so doing we should depart too greatly from the point of view of the true alchemists. One author tells of the significant advance that he made from the time when he discovered that nature works 'magically.' ' (H. A., Hitchcock's Remarks upon Alchemy, pp. 294 ff.)
Aversion and hate, the opposites of desire and love, are not independent affections but depend upon the latter. There is only the one impulsion of de- mand that strives for what satisfies it and repulses what conflicts with it. " If then desire is turned to one only eternal thing, then, since the nature of man takes its character from his leading or chief desire, the whole man is gradually converted to, or, as some think, transmuted into that one thing." (H. A., pp. 295 ff.) ^
The doctrine naturally presupposes the possibility, already mentioned, of a schooling of the will, yet it will still be necessary to fix it upon a definite object. The love of the transitory finds itself deceived be-
THE GOAL OF THE WORK 349
cause the objects vanish, while the desire itself, the conation (or in psychoanalytic language the libido), continues forever. For this everlasting desire only an everlasting object is suitable. An object of that kind is not to be found in the external world. We can only withdraw the outer object and offer ideals in exchange. The moment that this withdrawal of external objects takes place the libido begins, as it were, to eject itself as an object; in the ideal we give it a nucleus for this process, in order that it may form the new object around it and water it with its own life. So in a " magic " way a new world is formed whose laws are those of the ideal. The formation of the new world (new earth and new heaven, new Jerusalem, etc. ) occurs frequently in the symbolic language of mysticism.
The laws of the ideal and consequently of the new world are determined by the nature of the ideal. Not every one is proved everlastingly suitable.
" Those that dedicate themselves to the gods and fathers, pass over to the gods and fathers,
Spirit worshipers to the spirits, whoever honors me, comes to me."
says the Highest Being to Arjuna in the Bhagavad- Gita (IX, 25). The mystic is in the position from the moment of regeneration, to create in himself a new world with laws that he may, to a certain extent, himself select. Fortunate is he who makes a good selection. Every one is the architect of his own for- tune. This is most true when after introversion the
350 PROBLEMS OF MYSTICISM
power of self determining one's own destiny is di- rected toward the most intensive living. The for- mation and cultivation of the new earth is a begin- ning that is rich with significant consequences. The alchemists speak of a maidenly earth or a flaky white earth (i.e., crystalline) as a certain stage in the work. This is probably the stage that we are examining now, the stage of the new, still undevel- oped earth that is now to be organized (according to the conceived ideal). The soil is crystalline be- cause the old earth was dissolved and has been freshly formed from the solution. The crystalliza- tion corresponds to regeneration. The " white earth " probably corresponds to the " white stone," which is the first stage of completion after the blacks (first mystical death, putrefaction, trituration, or contrition). In the white earth a seed is sown. We shall hear of it later.
If the work is not to make men unserviceable and is not again to bring them into conflict with the de- mands of life, so that all the effort would have been fruitless, the new world must be organized in such a way that it is compatible with the demands of real life. In other words, the ideal that regulates the new world must be an ethical one. The mystic who wishes to be freed from contradictions will have to follow his conscience as a guide, and not the unex- plored but the explored conscience. He cannot es- cape it in the long run (the magicians that defy it are, as the legend informs us, finally torn to pieces by the devil) ; it is better for him to get upon its
THE GOAL OF THE WORK 351
side and so turn the conflict in his favor. It appears that this manly attitude would have a marvelous inner concord as a result and outwardly, a remark- able firmness of character. It is not my object to decide what metaphysical significance the strength- ening through mysticism of the ideal (God in me) may have.
' Take, O soul, not the unworthy and common as a model, for such use and word will adhere to thee finally as a nature opposed to thine own. By this means, however, the strong impulse itself towards union with thy nature and to the return into thy home goes astray. Know that the exalted and ma- jestic Originator of things, is himself the noblest of all things. Take then the noble things as a model, in order by that means to get nearer thy Creator on the path of elective affinity. And know that the noble attaches itself to the noble and the vulgar to the common." (Fleischer, Herm. a. d. Seele, p. 18.)
What is to be sown in the new earth is generally called love. A crop of love is to arise; with love will the new world be saturated; its laws will be the laws of love. By love a transmutation of the sub- ject is to take place. One alchemist (quoted in H. A., pp. 133 ff.) writes as follows:
" I find the nature of Divine Love to be a perfect unity and simplicity. There is nothing more one, undivided, simple, pure, unmixed and uncompounded than Love. . . .
" In the second place I find Love to be the most
352 PROBLEMS OF MYSTICISM
perfect and absolute liberty. Nothing can move Love, but Love ; nothing touch Love, but Love ; nor nothing constrain Love, but Love. It is free from all things; itself only gives laws to itself, and those laws are the laws of Liberty; for nothing acts more freely than Love, because it always acts from itself, and is moved by itself, by which prerogatives Love shows itself to be allied to the Divine Nature, yea, to be God himself.
" Thirdly, Love is all strength and power. Make a diligent search through Heaven and Earth, and you will find nothing so powerful as Love. What is stronger than Hell and Death? Yet Love is the triumphant conqueror of both. What more for- midable than the wrath of God? Yet Love over- comes it, and dissolves and changes it into itself. In a word, nothing can withstand the prevailing strength of Love : it is the strength of Mount Zion, which can never be moved.
" In the fourth place: Love is of a transmuting and transforming nature. The great effect of Love is to turn all things into its own nature, which is all goodness, sweetness, and perfection. This is that Divine power which turns water into wine; sorrow and anguish into exulting and triumphant joy; and curses into blessings. Where it meets with a bar- ren and heathy desert, it transmutes it into a para- dise of delights; yea, it changeth evil into good, and all imperfection into perfection. It restores that which is fallen and degenerated to its primary beauty, excellence and perfection. It is the Divine Stone,
THE GOAL OF THE WORK 353
the White Stone with the name written upon it, which no one knows but he that hath it. [Cf. Rev. II, 17. " He that hath an ear, let him hear what the Spirit saith unto the churches; To him that overcometh will I give to eat [nutritio] of the hidden manna, and will give him a white stone, and in the stone a new name written, which no man knoweth saving he that receiveth it." Also ill, 12: "Him that overcometh will I make a pillar in the temple of my God, and he shall go no more out: and I will write upon him the name of my God, and the name of the city of my God, which is new Jerusalem, which cometh down out of heaven from my God: and I will write upon him my new name." Cf. also xix, 12, and xxi, 2. The White Stone with the new name is also joined with the new earth. Because of this it is important that the new Jerusalem is " pre- pared as a bride adorned for her husband."] In a word, it is the Divine Nature, it is God himself, whose essential property it is to assimilate all things with himself; or [if you will have it in the scripture phrase] to reconcile all things to himself, whether they be in Heaven or in Earth; and all by means of this Divine Elixir, whose transforming power and efficacy nothing can withstand. . . ." (H. A., pp.
133 «•) At the end of the work there ensues the union of
sun and moon, typifying God and man. As in the Vedanta the teaching of the holy books of India, the Upanishads, so in alchemy, the difference between the one soul and the All Soul is of no importance.
354 PROBLEMS OF MYSTICISM
For every one who succeeds in overcoming the fun- damental error, in which we are all implicated, the difference vanishes, and the two things previously separated coalesce. In reality there is only the one thing: God.
Irenaeus writes: ". . . The fire of nature as- similates all that it nourishes to its own likeness, and then our mercury or menstruum vanishes, that is, it is swallowed by the solar nature [The soul of man dissolves and is taken up by the divine or All Soul] and all together make but one universal mercury [All Soul] by intimate union. And this mercury is the material principle of the Stone; for formerly, when it was compounded of three mercuries, [namely, when they thought they had to distinguish spirit, soul and body, or some other division in it] then Soul, world and God were, for example, to be thought of, or as they are called in Soeta-svatara- Upanishad V, Enjoyer, Object of Enjoyment, and Inciter.
As eternal cause contains that trinity. Whoever finds in it the Brahma as the kernel, Resolves himself in it as a goal, and is freed from birth."
Cf. also Deussen, Syst d. Ved., p. 232, and Sutr. d. Ved., pp. 541 ff. : "Frequently we are told of the connection of the highest with the individual soul, and then again of a splitting up [conditioned by them] inside the Brahma, by virtue of which their two parts are mutually opposed and limited. Both of these things happen, however, only from the
THE GOAL OF THE WORK 355
standpoint of the distinctions [upadhi]. . . . .There were two which were superficial (in that they formed an unjustified opposition) and the third es- sential to Sol and Luna only, not to the Stone; for nature would produce these two out of it by arti- ficial decoction. . . . [These distinctions depend on ignorance, after throwing off which the individual is one with the highest. The connection of the indi- vidual soul with Brahman is in truth its entering into its own self, and the division in Brahma is as unreal as that between space in general and space within the body.] But when the two perfect bodies are dissolved [prepared for the mystical work] they are transmuted with the mercury that dissolved them, and then there is no more repugnancy in it; then there is no longer a distinction between superficial and essential. And this is that one matter of the stone, that one thing which is the subject of all won- ders. When thou art come to this then shalt thou no more discern a distinction between the Dissolver [God] and the dissolved [soul] . . . and the color of the ripe sulphur [the divine nature] inseparably united to it will tinge your water [soul]." Irenaeus says that the two bodies, Sol and Luna, are com- pared by the alchemists to two mountains, first be- cause they are found in mountains, and second by way of opposition: "For where mountains are highest above ground, there they lie deepest under- ground," and he adds: 'The name is not of so much consequence, take the body which is gold [i.e., here the consummate man] and throw it into mer-
356 PROBLEMS OF MYSTICISM
cury, such a mercury as is bottomless [infinite], that is, whose center it can never find but by discovering its own." (H. A., 283 ff.)
In reference to these and similar expressions of the alchemists, Hitchcock rightly calls our attention to Plotinus, who writes, for example (Enn., VI, 9, 10) : " We must comprehend God with our whole being, so that we no longer have in us a single part that is not dependent upon God. Then we may see him and ourselves as it beseems us to see, in radi- ant beams, filled with spiritual light, or rather as pure light itself [notice this fullness of light] with- out weight, imponderable, become God or rather being God. Our life's flame is then kindled; but if we sink down into the world of sense, it is as if ex- tinguished. . . . Whoever has thus seen himself will, then, when he looks, see himself as one who has become unified, or rather he will be united to him- self as such a one and feel himself as such. Pos- sibly one should not in this case speak of seeing. But as regards the seen, if we can indeed distinguish the seeing and the seen, and not rather have to de- scribe both as one, which is, to be sure, a bold state- ment, then the seeing really does not see in this con- dition, nor does he differentiate two things, nor has he the idea of two things. He is, as it were, an- other; he ceases to be himself, he belongs no longer to himself; arriving there, he has ascended unto God and has become one with him, as a center that coin- cides with another center; the two coinciding things are here one, and only two when they are separated.
THE GOAL OF THE WORK 357
In this sense we speak of the soul's being another than God."
I recall also the passage in Amor Proximi where it is said that the earth will again be placed in Solis punctum. The center of the sun [God] is to be seen in the symbol O. We now understand the mystical difference between the hieroglyphs O and O> between gold and alum. In order to express in the mercury symbol $ the accomplished union (rep- resented by +) of O and D, which takes place through the newly discovered central point, the sym- bol 5 is also used.
I have mentioned the vedantic teachings, whose agreement with alchemy has also been noticed by Hitchcock. It takes emphatically the point of view of the " non-existence of a second." Multiplicity is appearance; the difference between the individual soul and the All Soul depends upon an error which we can overcome. The goal of salvation is the ascent into the universal spirit Brahma (in the nir- vana of the Buddhists there is the same thought). Whoever has entered into the highest spirit, there is no longer any " other " for him. Brhadaranyaka- Upanishad, IV, 3: (23) " If he does not then [The man in the deep sleep (susupti),] see, he is yet seeing although he sees not, for there is no inter- ruption of vision for the seeing, because he is im- perishable; but there is no second beside him, no other different from him that he could see. (24.) If he does not smell, he is yet smelling although he smells not, for there is for the smelling [person] no
358 PROBLEMS OF MYSTICISM
interruption of smelling because he is imperishable ; but there is no second thing beside him, no other thing different from him that he could smell. . . . (32.) He stands like water [i.e., so pure] seer alone and without a second ... he whose world is Brahm. This is his highest goal, this is his high- est fortune, this is his highest world, this is his highest joy; through a minute particle of only this joy the other creatures have their life."
If I compare the hermetic teachings on the one hand with the vedanta, and on the other with the Samkhya-Yoga, I do not lose sight of the funda- mental antagonism of both — Vedanta is monistic, Samkhya is dualistic — but in appreciation of the doctrine of salvation which is common to both. That the mystic finds the same germ in both systems is shown by the Bhagavad-Gita. For him the theo- retical difference is trivial, whether the materia is dissolved as mere illusion, when he has attained his mystic goal, or whether, as an eternal substance, it is as something overcome, simply withdrawn, never more to be seen. According to the Samkhya doc- trine, too, the saved soul enters into its own being, and every connection with objects of knowledge ceases.
In Yogavasistha it is written : " So serene as would the light appear if all that is illumined, i.e., space, earth, ether, did not exist, such is the isolated state of the seer, of the pure self, when the threefold world, you and I, in brief, all that is visible, is gone. As the state of a mirror is, in which no reflection
THE GOAL OF THE WORK 359
falls, neither of statues nor of anything else — only representing in itself the being [of the mirror] — such is the isolation of the seer, who remains without seeing, after the jumble of phenomena, I, you, the world, etc., has vanished." (Garbe, Samkhya-Phil., p. 326.)
In the materia (prakri) of the Samkhya system re- side the three qualities or constituents already fa- miliar to us, Rajas, Tamas, and Sattva. Whoever unmasks these as the play of qualities, raises himself above the world impulses. For him, as he is freed from antagonisms, the play ceases. When a soul is satiated with the activity of matter and turns away from it with disdain, then matter ceases its activity for this soul with the thought, " I am discovered." It has performed what it was destined to perform, and withdraws from the soul that has attained the highest goal, as a dancing girl stops dancing when she has performed her task and the spectators have enough. But in one respect matter is unlike the dancing girl or actress; for while they repeat their performance at request, matter " is tenderly dis- posed like a woman of good family," who, if she is seen by a man, modestly does not display herself again to his view. This last simile is facilitated in the original texts by the fact that the Sanskrit for soul and man has the same phonetic notation (pums, purusa). (Garbe, 1. c., pp. 165 ff.)
In comparing the common mystic content of Ve- danta and Samkhya-Yoga with alchemy, I avoid the difficulty involved in establishing a detailed con-
360 PROBLEMS OF MYSTICISM
cordance of the hermetic philosophy with one or another system. An inquiry into this topic would result differently according to which hermetic au- thors we should particularly consider.
It is probably worthy of notice that the Yoga- Mystics, like the alchemists, are acquainted with the idea of the union of the sun and the moon. Two breath or life currents are to be united, one of which corresponds to the sun, the other to the moon. The expression Hathayoga (where hatha = mighty ef- fort. Cf. Garbe, Samkhya and Yoga, p. 43) will also be interpreted so that Ha = sun, tha = moon, their union = the yoga leading to salvation. (Cf. Hatha-Yoga-Prad., p. i.)
The union of two things, the sun with the moon, the soul with God, the seer with the seen, etc., is also taught by the image of the connection of man and woman. That is the mystic marriage (Hieros gamos), a universally widespread symbol of quite supreme importance. In alchemy the last process, i.e., according to the viewpoint of representation, the tincturing or the unification, is quite frequently repre- sented in the guise of a marriage — sometimes of a king and a queen. We cannot interchange this final process with the initial one of introversion, which (as a seeking for the uterus for the purpose of a re- birth) is likewise readily conceived of as a sexual union. If the symbol of coitus was conceivable there, so here, too, the same symbol is appropriate for the representation of the definite union with the object longed for.
THE GOAL OF THE WORK 361
It is quite suggestive to associate the anagogic idea of the Unio mystica, precisely on account of the erotic allegory, with the primal motive of sexual union (with the mother) instead of with the wish to die, as I have done at another place. It may be that the primal erotic power supplies something for the accomplishment of this last purpose; it may be that all powers must cooperate. If I now still abide by my original exposition, this happens because it ap- pears to me that the symbolism emphasizes the going over of the one into the other more than the attain- ment of the sexual goal; and even in the cases where the unio mystica is described as a sexual union. We should not forget that the sexual gratification is to be regarded also as a kind of annihilation. It is a condition of intoxication and of oblivion or perish- ing. It is this side of the sexual procedure that the symbolism of the unio mystica particularly empha- sizes.
Brhadaranyaka-Upanisad, IV, 3, 21 : ". . . For even as one embraced by a beloved woman has no consciousness of what is within or without, so the spirit, embraced by the most percipient self (pra- jena almana, i.e., the Brahm), has no knowledge of that which is external or internal. That is its form of existence, in which it is characterized by stilled desire, even its own desire is without desire and sepa- rated from sorrow." This passage treats of the deep sleep (susupti) which is regarded as a passing union with the highest spirit, and so, as essentially the same as the definitive unificatio. Sleep is the
362 PROBLEMS OF MYSTICISM
brother of death. Susupti is, furthermore, con- ceived only as a preliminary; a German mystic would call it a foretaste of the definitive ascent into Brahm.
In the parable the unio mystica appears twice represented, once in that the king and queen are rep- resented as the bridal couple, and the second time when the king, i.e., God, takes the wanderer up into his kingdom.
Th attainment of an inner harmony, of a serene peace, is what, as it seems to me, is most clearly brought out as the characteristic of the final unifi- catio — not merely by the Hindus or Neoplatonists, but also by the Christian mystics and by the alche- mists.
Artephius is quoted by H. A., p. 86, as follows: ". . . This water [water of life] causes the dead body to vegetate, increase and spring forth, and to rise from death to life by being dissolved first, and then sublimed. And in doing this the body is con- verted into a spirit, and the spirit afterwards into a body; and then is effected the amity, the peace, the concord and the union of the contraries."
Similarly Ripley (H. A., p. 245) : " This is the highest perfection to which any sublunary body can be brought, by which we know that God is one, for God is perfection; to which, whenever any creature arrives in its kind [according to its nature], it re- joiceth in unity, in which there is no division nor alterity, but peace and rest without contention."
The final character of the completed philosopher's stone makes it conceivable, that, as the hermetic
THE GOAL OF THE WORK 363
masters say, it is made only once by a man and then not again. The Stone is an absolutely imperishable Good; but if it should be lost it is surely not the right stone.
I have now to offer some conjectures regarding further interpretations of the two and the three prin- ciples O and D, namely O> 5 0. We are aware of a general difference. I add now first the remark of Hitchcock that the " two " things are to be re- garded as an antithesis : natura naturans and natura naturata. We might intellectually conceive the S (mercury) given by many writers at the beginning of the work as a double one, on the one hand as nature and on the other as our world picture. We cause it to work on our ^ (sulphur), i.e., on our affectivity by which the ^ is purified and dissolved, for it is compelled to adapt itself to the requirements of the world laws. But by this means a new world picture is produced, for the former had been influ- enced by the unclarified 4^ ; our affective life limits our intellectual. The new world picture or the newly gained % we combine with our 4^ and so on, until finally after a gradual clarification nature and our world picture harmonize. Then there are no longer two mercuries but only one ; and the sulphur, our completed subject, has become more or less a unity. Now we may advance to the unification of the two clarified things, which in this stage are called O and D . Now subject and object are bound to- gether and man enters, as is so wonderfully expressed in Chandogya-Upanisad, VIII, 13, as a being
364 PROBLEMS OF MYSTICISM
adapted into the unadapted (uncreated-primordial) world of Brahma. O and )> may, to be sure, be conceived also as the love of God towards man and the love of man towards God. The different mas- ters of the art are the same in different ways in that the one sees more the intellectual, the other the emo- tional. They describe different sides or aspects of the same process, for which we do not indeed pos- sess appropriate concepts, and whose best form of expression is through symbols. The sign O is then neither = subject nor love but just — G, i.e., a thing to which we may approximate nearest by a form of integration of all partial meanings. In view of the fact that O> and $ are contrasted at the beginning of the process also as body and soul, we can, by making^, = passions and £ = knowledge (rea- son) conceive the rest thus: ^ is to be purified by an exalted V (in distinction from the common $, called also " our" iS ), and so to be purified by a higher knowledge. From /£, is developed (i.e., it unmasks itself to the initiated as) D , i.e., Maya, the object, that in its difference from the subject is mere illusion; and from V comes O, the Brahm or sub- ject, and now the unio mystica can take place. An- other use of symbolism is the one by which we are able to concoct gold out of sulphur; from the affects we derive, through purification, love (toward God). The spirit $ exalts [raises] the antithesis O and 5 (soul and body) in such a way that finally it simply opposes itself as subject and object. (Cf. H. A., pp. 143 ff.)
THE GOAL OF THE WORK 36$
Sometimes the making of gold is described as an amalgamation; from the raw material, O is derived by an amalgamation with % [quicksilver]. That naturally signifies the search for the Atman or high- est spirit in man by means of contemplation, which belongs to $ , the [act of] knowing.
With regard to the trinity O D $ : The solar di- vinity [creating, impregnating] in man is ^ that by its triangle moreover marks the fiery nature ^ ; that which is comprised in the bodily nature, the ter- restrial is © salt, which is also represented as a cube, like the element earth. The two can be called O, anima, and D , corpus. The celestial messenger who appears as a mediator for the antithesis is the con- science $ , who has his constant influx from God, the real O, and is therefore a divine spirit. We have then the triad Spiritus, anima, corpus [SOD] or, because $ is to be regarded as a mediator, 0 $ D . The intervention of the $ effects the previously men- tioned exaltation of O and D or of Q and $ (crude state) to O and D .
In view of the difficulty of the mystic work that attempts to accomplish a sheerly superhuman task, it is not surprising that it cannot be finished in one at- tempt but requires time. It necessitates great per- sistence. In the life of the mystic the states of love and aspiration for God alternate with those of spir- itual helplessness and barrenness. (Horten, Myst., I, p. 9.)
Arabi sings in his ode on man's becoming godlike : " [i] O thou ancient temple. A light has arisen
366 PROBLEMS OF MYSTICISM
for thee (you) that gleams in our hearts. [2] To thee I lament the wilderness that I have traversed, and in which I have poured forth an unlimited flood of tears. [3] Neither at dawn nor at dusk do I get repose. From morning until evening I fare on my way without ceasing. [4] The camels go forth on their journey at night; even if they have injured their feet, they still hasten. [5] These (mighty) riding camels bore us to you (probably God) with passionate longing, although they did not hope to attain the goal. . . ." The riding camels signify the longing of the mystics for God. " It seeks and strives ceaselessly, although its powers are drained by the difficulties of the search." (Horten, 1. c., p. i6ff.)
Many degrees or stations are to be gone over on the difficult way, yet zeal is to abide constant in all circumstances. [The idea of the ladder set up to heaven, of steps, etc., is universal in religions.] In general seven such steps are distinguished. In Khunrath, e.g., the citadel of Pallas has seven steps. Paracelsus (De Natura Rerum, VIII), following a favorite custom, gives seven operations of the work. ". . . It is now necessary to know the degrees and steps to transmutation, and how many they are. These steps are then no more than seven. Although some count still more, it should not be so. For the most important steps are seven. The further ones, however, which might be reckoned as steps are com- prised under the others, which are as follows : calci- nation [sublimation], dissolution, putrefaction, dis-
THE GOAL OF THE WORK 367
tillation, coagulation, and tincturing. Whoever passes over these seven steps and degrees comes to such a marvelous place, where he sees much mystery and attains the transmutation of all natural things." In the " Rosarium " of Johannes Daustenius [Chap. XVII] the seven steps are represented as follows: " And then the corpus [i] is a cause that the water is retained. The water [2] is the cause of preserving the oil so that it is not ignited on the fire, and the oil [3] is the cause of retaining the tincture, and the tincture [4] is a cause of the colors appearing, and the color [5] is a cause of showing the white, and the white [6] is a cause of keeping every volatile thing [7] from being no longer vola- tile." It amounts to the same thing when Bonaven- tura describes septem gradus contemplationis [seven steps of contemplation], and David of Augsburg [i3th century] the "seven steps of prayer." Boehme recognizes 7 fountain spirits that consti- tute a certain gradation and in the yoga we also find 7 steps, which are described in the " Yoga Vasistha " (cf. Hath. Prad., pp. 2 ff). It may easily hap- pen that the domination of the number 7 is to be derived from the infusion of the scientific doctrines (7 planets, 7 metals, 7 tones in the diatonic scale) and yet it may depend on an actual correspondence in the human psyche with nature — who can tell ? Most significant is the connection of the 7 steps of development with the infusion of the nature myth in the alchemistic theories of " rotations." For the perfection of the Stone, rotations (i.e., cycles) are
368 PROBLEMS OF MYSTICISM
required by many authors, in which the materia (and BO the soul) pass through the spheres of all the planets. They have to be subjected successively to the domination (the regimen) of all seven planets. This is related to the ideas of those neoplatonists and gnostics according to which the soul must, on its way (anodos) to its heavenly home, i.e., to its celestial goal, pass through all the planetary spheres and through the animal cycle. (Cf. Bousset, Hauptpr. d. G., pp. n and 321.) I observe, more- over, a thoroughly vivid representation of this very theme in the good old Mosheim, Ketzergesch., p. 89 ff. Also in the life of the world, if it is com- pletely lived, man passes through, according to the ideas of the old mystery teachings, the domination of the seven planets.
The anagogic meaning of rotation may be that of a collection of all available (seven in number) powers, in order finally to rise as a whole, to God.
More important, or at any rate more easily com- prehensible, appears to me the trichotomy necessarily resulting from the course of the mystical work, a triplicate division that results in the three main phases, black, white, and red. The black corre- sponds to introversion and to the first [mystic] death, the white to the " new earth," to freedom or innocence, red to love, which completes the work. This general arrangement does not prevent the sym- bols from being often confused by the alchemistic authors. There are gradations between the main colors, all kinds of color play; in particular the so-
THE GOAL OF THE WORK 369
called peacock's tail appears, which comes before the stable white to indicate the characteristic gayness of color of visionary experiences, and which marks the stage of introversion.
If one put into the center of vision, as goal of the work, the recovery of the harmonious state of the soul, one might express oneself about the three primary colors as follows: The paradisical state demands absolute freedom from conflict. We can attain this only by completely withdrawing from the external world whatever causes conflict in connection with the external world, so that there comes to pass with regard to it, a thorough-going indifference. This indifference is the black. The freedom from conflict (guiltlessness) in the now newly beginning life is the white. Previously, at the disintegration (rotting) of the material, one constituent part was removed and taken away. That is, the libido be- comes free (love). It is gradually alloyed with the white material, which is dry (thirsty without thirst) ; sown in the white ground. Life is without conflict now drenched with love, red. This true red thus attained is permanent because it is produced [in con- trast to mere instruction] from the heart of hearts, the roots of innermost feeling, which is subjected to no usury.
The mystical procedure can be realized in different degrees of intensity. The lowest degree is as a program with the mere result of a stimulation; the highest degree is a final transmutation of the psyche. If this goal is attained in life, we have acquired the
370 PROBLEMS OF MYSTICISM
terrestrial stone. In contrast, the celestial stone be- longs with the eschatological concepts and the celes- tial tincture is the apokatastasis.
It is an interesting question whether the resolu- tion of conflicts, with evasion of the process in the outer world, cannot be accomplished subjectively, by battles with symbols (personifications) and in symbols, thus amounting to an abbreviation of the process. Theoretically this is not impossible, for the conflicts do not indeed lie in the external world, but in our emotional disposition towards it; if we change this disposition by an inner development, the external world has a different value for the libido.
" The projection into the cosmic is the primal privilege of the libido, for it naturally enters into our perception through the gates of all the senses and apparently from without, and actually, in the form of the pleasure and pain qualities of percep- tion. These, as we all know, we attribute without further deliberation to the object, and their cause, in spite of philosophical deliberation, we are con- tinually inclined to look for in the object, while the object is often hopelessly innocent of it." (Jung, in Jb. ps. F., Ill, p. 222; with which compare the Freudian transference concept and Ferenczi's essay on " Introjektion und Ubertragung," in Jb. ps. F., I, p. 422.) Jung calls attention to the frequently described immediate projection of the libido in love poetry, as in the following example from the Edda (H. Gering) :
THE GOAL OF THE WORK 371
" In Gymer's Courtyard I saw walking
The maiden, dear to me;
From the brightness of her arms glowed the heavens,
And all the eternal sea."
The mystic looks for the conflicts that he desires to do away with, in man, the place where they really exist. With this theoretical presumption the possi- ble objection against all mysticism is averted, namely that it is valueless because it rests merely upon imag- ined experiences, upon fanaticism. This objection, though not to be overlooked, does not apply to mys- ticism, which accomplishes an actual ethical work of enduring value — but to the other path that issues from introversion, namely magic (not to mention physical and spiritual suicide). This is nicely ex- pressed, too, in an allegorical way by saying that magically-made gold melts, as the story goes, or turns into mud (i.e., the pretended value vanishes in the face of actuality) while " our " alchemistic gold is an everlasting good. The yoga doctrine, too, de- scribes Siddhi (those imaginary wonders in which the visionary loses himself) as transitory, only sal- vation alone, i.e., the mystical goal being imperish- able.
As for the metaphysical import of the mystical doctrine, I might maintain that the psychoanalytic unmasking of the impelling powers cannot prejudice its value. I do not venture at all upon this valu- ation; but for the very purpose of bringing into prominence a separate philosophical problem, I must
372 PROBLEMS OF MYSTICISM
emphatically declare that if psychoanalysis makes it conceivable that we men, impelled by this and that " titanic " primal power, are necessitated to hit upon this or that idea, then even if it is made clear what causes us to light upon it, still nothing is as yet set- tled as to the value for knowledge of the thing dis- covered.
I am so far from wishing to derive a critique of the metaphysical import of the doctrine from psy- choanalytic grounds alone, that I felt called upon to make claim only to a synthesis for the merely psychological understanding of mystic symbolism, a synthesis which I have attempted to block out as well as I was able in the present Part III of my book.