SECTION III

THE HERMETIC ART
ANY one that makes a thorough study of the al- chemistic literature must be struck with the religious seriousness that prevails in the writings of the more important authors. Every k' master " who enjoyed the highest honor among his fellows in the hermetic art has a certain lofty manner that keeps aloof from the detailed description of chemical laboratory work, although they do not depart from the alchemistic technical language. They obviously have a leaning toward some themes that are far more important than the production of a chemical preparation can be, even if this is a tincture with which they can tinge lead into gold. Looking forth to higher nobler things, these authors, whose homely language fre- quently touches our feelings deeply, make the reader notice that they have nothing in common with the sloppy cooks who boil their pots in chemical kitchens, and that the gold they write about is not the gold of the multitude; not the venal gold that they can exchange for money. Their language seems to sound as if they said, " Our gold is not of this world." Indeed they use expressions that can with absolute clearness be shown to have this sense. Au- thors of this type did not weary of enjoining on the
146
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novices of the art, that belief, scripture and right- eousness were the most important requisites for the alchemistic process. [With the sloppers it was in- deed a prime question, how many and what kinds of stoves, retorts, kettles, crucibles, ores, fires, etc., in short, what necessary implements they needed, for the great work.]
He whose eyes are open needs no special hints to see, in reading, that the so-called alchemistic pre- scriptions did not center upon a chemical process. A faint notion of the circumstance that even in their beginnings, alchemistic theories were blended with cosmogonic and religious ideas, must make it quite evident that, for example, in the famous Smaragdine Tablet of Hermes [Its real author is unknown.] a noble pillar of alchemy, something more must be contained than a mere chemical recipe. The lan- guage of the Smaragdine tablet is notoriously the most obscure that the hermetic literature has pro- duced; in it there are no clear recommendations to belief or righteousness; and yet I think that an un- prejudiced reader, who was not looking specially for a chemical prescription, would perceive at least a feeling for something of philosophy or theology.
[i.] Verum, sine mendacio, certum et veris- simum: [2.] Quod est inferius est sicut quod est superius, et quod est superius est sicut quod est in- ferius, ad perpetranda [also: penetranda, praepa- randa] miracula rei unius. [3.] Et sicut res omnes fuerunt ab uno, meditatione unius: sic omnes res natae fuerunt ab hac una re, adaptatione [adop-
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done]. [4.] Pater ejus est Sol, mater ejus est Luna. [5.] Portavit illud ventus in ventre suo. [6.] Nutrix ejus terra est. [7.] Pater omnis Te- lesmi totius mundi est hie. [8.] Virtus ejus integra est, si versa fuerit in terram. [9.] Separabis ter- ram ab igne, subtile ab spisso, suaviter, magno cum ingenio. [io/] Ascendit a terra in coelum, ite- rumque descendit in terram, et recipit vim supe- riorum et inferiorum. [n.] Sic habebis Gloriam totius mundi. Ideo fugiet a te omnis obscuritas. Haec est totius fortitudinis fortitudo fortis, quia vincet omnem rem subtilem, omnemque solidam [solidum] penetrabit. [12.] Sic mundus creatus est. [13.] Hinc erunt adaptationes mirabiles, quarum modus est hie. [14.] Itaque vocatus sum Hermes Trismegistus, habens tres partes philoso- phiae totius mundi. [15.] Completum est quod dixi de operatione Solis.
Translation: [i.] It is true, without lies and quite certain. [2.] What is lower is just like what is higher, and what is higher is just like what is lower, for the accomplishment of the miracle of a thing. [3.] And just as all things come from one and by mediation of one, thus all things have been derived from this one thing by adoption. [4.] The father of it is the sun, the mother is the moon. [5.] The wind has carried it in his belly. [6.] The earth has nourished it. [7.] It is the father [cause] of all completion of the whole world. [8.] His power is undiminished, if it has been turned towards the earth. [9.] You will separate the earth from
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fire, the fine from the coarse, gently and with great skill. [10.] It ascends from the earth to the sky, again descends to the earth, and receives the powers of what is higher and what is lower, [n.] Thus you will have the glory of the whole world, and all darkness will depart from you. It is the strength of all strength, because it will conquer all the fine and penetrate all the solid. [12.] Thus the world was created. [13-] From this will be wonderful appli- cations of which it is the pattern. [14.] And so I have been called Hermes, thrice greatest, possessing three parts of the knowledge of the whole world. [15.] Finished is what I have said about the work of the sun.
Sun and gold are identical in the hieroglyphic mode of expression. Whoever seeks only the chemi- cal must therefore read : The work of gold, the pro- duction of gold; and that is what thousands and mil- lions have read. The mere word gold was enough to make countless souls blind to everything besides the gold recipe that might be found in the Smarag- dine tablet. But surely there were alchemistic mas- ters who did not let themselves be blinded by the word gold and sympathetically carried out still fur- ther the language of the Smaragdine tablet. They were the previously mentioned lofty-minded men. The covetous crowd of stoppers, however, adhered to the gold of the Smaragdine tablet and other writ- ings and had no appreciation of anything else. For a long time alchemy meant no more for modern his- torians.
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The fact that modern chemical science is sprung from the hermetic works, — as the only branch at present clearly visible and comprehensible of this misty tree of knowledge, — has had for result that in looking back we have received a false impression. Chemical specialists have made researches in the hermetic art and have been caught just as completely in the tangle of its hieroglyphics as were the blind seekers of gold before them. The hermetic art, or alchemy in the wider sense, is not exclusively limited to gold making or even to primitive chemistry. It should, however, not be surprising to us who are acquainted with the philosophical presuppositions of alchemy, that in addition to the chemical and me- chanical side of alchemy a philosophical and religious side also received consideration and care. I think, however, that such historical knowledge was not at all necessary to enable us to gather their pious views from the religious language of many masters of the hermetic art. However, this nai've childish logic was a closed book to the chemists who made histori- cal researches. They were hindered by their special knowledge. It is far from my purpose to desire in the least to minimize the services that a Chevreul or a Kopp has performed for the history of chemis- try; what I should like to draw attention to is merely that the honored fathers of the history of chemistry saw only the lower — " inferius " — and not the higher — " superius " — phase of alchemy, for exam- ple, in the Smaragdine tablet; and that they used it as the type of universal judgment in such a way that
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it needed a special faculty for discovery to reopen a fountain that had been choked up.
I now realize that the poets have been more for- tunate than the scientists. Thus Wieland, who, for example, makes Theophron say in the Musarion (Book II) :
The beautiful alone Can be the object of our love.
The greatest art is only to separate it from its tissue . . . For it [the soul] nothing mortal suffices, Yea, the pleasure of the gods cannot diminish a thirst That only the fountain quenches. So my friends That which other mortals lures like a fly on the hook To sweet destruction
Because of a lack of higher discriminative art Becomes for the truly wise A Pegasus to supramundane travel.
But the poets usually speak only in figures. I will therefore rest satisfied with this one example.
The service of having rediscovered the intrinsic value of alchemy over and above its chemical and physical phase, is to be ascribed probably to the American, Ethan Allen Hitchcock, who published his views on the alchemists in the book, " Remarks upon Alchemy and the Alchemists," that appeared in Bos- ton in 1857, and to the Frenchman, N. Landur, a writer on the scientific periodical " L'Institut," who wrote in 1868 in similar vein [in the organ " L'In- stitut," ist Section, Vol. XXXVI, pp. 273 ff.], though I do not know whether he wrote with knowl- edge of the American work. Landur's observations
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are reported by Kopp (Alch., II, p. 192), but he does not rightly value their worth. It need not be a reproach to him. He undertook as a chemical specialist a work that would have required quite as much a psychologist, a philosopher or a theologian.
The discoveries made by the acute Hitchcock are so important for our analysis, that a complete ex- position of them cannot be dispensed with. I should like better to refer to Hitchcock's book if it were not practically inaccessible.
We have heard that the greatest stumbling block for the uninitiated into the hermetic art lay in the determination of the true subject, the prima materia. The authors mentioned it by a hundred names ; and the gold seeking toilers were therefore misled in a hundred ways. Hitchcock with a single word fur- nishes us the key to the understanding of the hermetic masters, when he says: The subject is man. We can also avail ourselves of a play on words and say the subject or substance is the subject.
The uninitiated read with amazement in many al- chemists that " our subjectum," that is, the mate- rial to be worked upon, is also identical with the vessel, the still, the philosopher's egg, etc. That becomes intelligible now. Hitchcock writes (H. A., p. 117) very pertinently: " The work of the alche- mists was one of contemplation and not a work of the hands. Their alembic, furnace, cucurbit, retort, philosophical egg, etc., etc., in which the work of fermentation, distillation, extraction of essences and
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spirits and the preparation of salts is said to have taken place was Man, — yourself, friendly reader, — and if you will take yourself into your own study and be candid and honest, acknowledging no other guide or authority but Truth, you may easily dis- cover something of hermetic philosophy; and if at the beginning there should be * fear and trembling ' the end may be a more than compensating peace."
The alchemist Alipili (H. A., p. 34) writes: " The highest wisdom consists in this, for man to know himself, because in him God has placed his eternal Word. . . . Therefore let the high inquirers and searchers into the deep mysteries of nature learn first to know what they have in themselves, and by the divine power within them let them first heal them- selves and transmute their own souls, ... if that which thou seekest thou findest not within thee, thou wilt never find it without thee. If thou knowest not the excellency of thine house, why dost thou seek and search after the excellency of other things? The universal Orb of the world contains not so great mys- teries and excellences as does a little man formed by God in his own image. And he who desires the primacy amongst the students of nature, will no- where find a greater or better field of study than himself. Therefore will I here follow the example of the Egyptians and . . . from certain true experi- ence proclaim, O Man, know thyself; in thee is hid the treasure of treasures."
A seminalist has concluded from this that the
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prima materia is semen, a stercoralist, that it is dung. George Ripley describes the subject of the philoso- pher's stone as follows :
" For as of one mass was made the thing,
Right must it so in our praxis be,
All our secrets of one image must spring;
In philosophers' books therefore who wishes may see,
Our stone is called the less-world, one and three."
The stone is therefore the world in little, the microcosm, man; one, a unity, three, 5 mercury, /£ sulphur, © salt, or spirit, soul, body. Dichot- omy also appears, mercury and sulphur, which can then generally be rendered soul and body. One au- thor says, " We must choose such minerals as con- sist of a living mercury and a living sulphur; work it gently, not with haste and hurry." [Cf. Tabula Smaragdina 9, " suaviter " . . .]
Hitchcock (H. A., p. 42) : "The 'one' thing of the alchemists is above all man, according to his nature [as a nature] essentially and substantially one. But if the authors refer to man phenomenally they speak of him under different names, indicating different states as he is before or after ' purification ' or they refer to his body, his soul or his spirit under different names. Sometimes they speak of the whole man as mercury, . . . and then by the same word perhaps they speak of something special, as our mer- cury which has besides, a multitude of other names . . . although men are of diverse dispositions and temperaments, some being angelic and others satanic,
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yet the alchemists maintain with St. Raul that ' all the nations of men are of one blood,' that is, of one nature. And it is that in man by which he is of one nature which it is the special object of alchemy to bring into life and activity; that by whose means, if it could universally prevail, mankind would be con- stituted into a brotherhood."
The alchemist says that a great difficulty at the outset of the work is the finding or making of their necessarily indispensable mercury, which they also call green lion, mercurius animatus, the serpent, the dragon, acid water, vinegar, etc.
What is this mysterious mercury, susceptible to evolution, lying in mankind, common to all, but dif- ferently worked out? Hitchcock answers, con- science. Conscience is not equally " pure " with all men, and not equally developed; the difficulty of discovering it, of which the alchemists tell, is the difficulty of arousing it in the heart of man for the heart's improvement and elevation. The starting point in the education of man is indeed to awaken in his heart an enduring, permanent sense of the absolutely right, and the consistent purpose of adher- ing to this sense. It is above all one of the hardest things in the world " to take a man in what is called his natural state, St. Paul's natural man, after he has been for years in the indulgence of all his passions, having a view to the world, to honors, pleasures, wealth, and make him sensible of the mere abstract claims of right, and willing to relinquish one single passion in deference to it." Surely that is the one
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great task of the educator; if it be accomplished, the work of improvement is easy and can properly be called mere child's play, as the hermetics like to call the later phases of their work. (H. A., pp. 45 ff.)
No one is so suspicious and so sensitive as those whose conscience is not sensitive enough. Such peo- ple who wander in error themselves, are like porcu- pines : it is very difficult to approach them. The al- chemists have suitable names for them as arsenic, vipers, etc., and yet they seek in all these substances, and in antimony, lead, and many other materials, for a true mercury that has just as many names as there are substances in which it is found; oil, vine- gar, honey, wormwood, etc. Under all its names mercury is still, however, a single immutable thing. It was also called an incombustible sulphur for whoever has his conscience once rightly awakened, has in his heart an endlessly burning flame that eats up everything that is contrary to his nature. This fire that can burn like " poison " is a powerful medi- cine, the only right one for a (morally) sick soul.
Conscience in the crude state is generally called by the alchemists " common quicksilver " in contrast to " our quicksilver." To replace the first by the sec- ond and, according to the demands of nature, not forcibly, is the one great aim that the hermetics fol- low. This first goal is a preparation for a further work. Whither this leads we can represent in one word — " God "• — and even here we may be struck with the " circular " character of the whole hermetic work, since the heavenly mercury that is necessary
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to the preliminary work, to the purification, is yet itself a gift of God; the beginning depends on the end and presupposes it. The symbol of the prima materia is not without purpose a snake that has its tail in its mouth. I cannot, in anticipation, enter into the problem that arises in this connection; only let it be understood in a word that the end can soar beyond the beginning as an ideal.
What is to be done with the messenger of heaven, mercury, or conscience, when it has been discovered? Several alchemists give the instruction to sow the gold in mercury as in the earth, " philosophic gold " that is also called Venus-love. Often the New Tes- tament proves the best commentary on the hermetic writings. In Corinthians III, 9, ff., we read: " Ye are God's husbandry, ye are God's building. According to the grace of God which is given unto me as a wise master builder, I have laid the founda- tion and another buildeth thereupon. For other foundation can no man lay than that is laid, which is Jesus Christ. Now if any man build upon this foundation gold, silver, precious stones, hay, stub- ble. . . . Every man's work shall be made manifest . . . because it shall be revealed by fire ; and the fire shall try every man's work of what sort it is." And Galatians VI, 7 ff . : " For whatsoever a man soweth, that shall he also reap. For he that soweth to his flesh shall of the flesh reap corruption; but he that soweth to the Spirit shall of the Spirit reap life ever- lasting. And let him not be weary in well doing; for in due season we shall reap if we faint not." The
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spirit to which it is sowed there is $ , mercury, and the gold that will come out is to be proved in the fire.
The alchemists speak of men very often as of metals. Before I cite from the work of Johann Isaak Hollandus on lead, I call to mind that lead, ^ , bears the name of Saturn. The writing of Hollan- dus could quite as well be called a treatise on man- kind as on lead. To understand this better, be it added that man in a state of humility or resignation must specially be associated with lead, the soft, dark metal.
The publisher of the English translation of J. I. Hollandus, which is dated 1670, addresses the reader as follows: " Kind reader, the philosophers have written much about their lead, which as Basilus has taught, is prepared from antimony; and I am under the impression that this saturnine work of the present philosopher, Mr. Johann Isaak Hollandus, is not to be understood of common lead . . . but of the lead of the philosophers."
And in Hollandus himself we read: "In the name of God, Amen. — My child, know that the stone called the Philosopher's Stone comes from Saturn. And know my child as a truth that in the whole vegetable work [vegetable on account of the symbolism of the sowing and growing] there is no higher or greater secret than in Saturn. [Cf. the previously cited passage from Alipili.] For we find, ourselves, in [common] gold not the perfection that is to be found in Saturn, for inwardly he is good
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gold. In this all philosophers agree ; and it is neces- sary only that you reject everything that is su- perfluous, then that you turn the within outward, which is the red; then it will be good gold. [H. A., p. 74, notes that Hollandus himself means the same as Isaiah L, 16. " Wash you, make you clean; put away the evil of your doings from before mine eyes," etc.] Gold cannot be made so easily of anything as of Saturn, for Saturn is easily dissolved and con- gealed, and its mercury may be more easily extracted from it." [That means therefore that the con- science easily develops after the destruction of super- fluities or obstacles in the plastic lead man.] " And this mercury extracted from Saturn is purified and sublimated, as mercury is usually sublimed. I tell thee, my child, that the same mercury is as good as the mercury extracted from gold in all operations." [Herein lies, according to H. A., an allusion to the fact that all men are essentially of one nature, inas- much as the image of God dwells in them all.]
" All these strange parables, in which the philoso- phers have spoken of a stone, a moon, a stove, a vessel, all of that is Saturn [i.e., all of that is spoken of mankind] for you may add nothing foreign, out- side of what springs from himself. There is none so poor in this world that he cannot operate and promote this work. For Luna may be easily made of Saturn in a short time [here Luna, silver, stands for the affections purified] ; and in a little time longer Sol may be made from it. By Sol here I under- stand the intellect, which becomes clarified in proper-
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tion as the affections become purified. ... In Saturn is a perfect mercury; in it are all the colors of the world, [that is, the whole universe in some sense lies in the nature of man, whence have pro- ceeded all religions, all philosophies, all histories, all fables, all poesy, all arts and sciences.]" (P. 77.)
Artephius [Hapso] : " Without the antimonial vinegar [conscience] no metal [man] can be whit- ened [inwardly pure], . . . This water is the only apt and natural medium, clear as fine silver, by which we ought to receive the tinctures of Sol and Luna [briefly, if also inexactly, to be paraphrased by soul and body], so that they may be congealed and changed into a white and living earth." This water desires the complete bodies in order that after their dissolution it may be congealed, fixed and coagulated into a white earth. [The first step is purification, releasing, that is, otherwise also conceived as calci- nation, etc. ; it takes place through conscience, under whose influence the hard man is made tender and brought to fluidity.]
" But their [sc. the alchemists] solution is also their coagulation; both consist in one operation, for the one is dissolved and the other congealed. Nor is there any other water which can dissolve the bodies but that which abideth with them. Gold and silver [Sol and Luna as before] are to be exalted in our water, . . . which water is called the middle of the soul and without which nothing can be done in our art. It is a vegetable, mineral, and animal fire,
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which conserves the fixed spirits of Sol and Luna, but destroys and conquers their bodies; for it an- nihilates, overturns and changes bodies and metallic forms, making them to be no bodies, but a fixed spirit."
;' The argentum vivum [living silver] is ... the substance of Sol and Luna, or silver and gold, changed from baseness to nobility.
" It is a living water that comes to moisten the earth that it may spring forth and in due season bring forth much fruit. . . . This aqua vitae or water of life, whitens the body and changes it into a white color. . . .
" How precious and how great a thing is this water. For without it the work could never be done or perfected; it is also called vas naturae, the belly, the womb, receptacle of the tincture, the earth, the nurse. It is the royal fountain, in which the king and queen [ O and D ] bathe themselves ; and the mother, which must be put into and sealed up within the belly of her infant, and that is Sol himself, who proceeded from her, and whom she brought forth; and therefore they have loved one another as mother and son, and are conjoined together because they sprang from one root and are of the same sub- stance and nature. And because this water is the water of the vegetable life, it causes the dead body to vegetate, increase and spring forth, and to rise from death to life, by being dissolved first and then sub- limed. And in doing this the body is converted into
a spirit and the spirit afterwards into a body. . . .
" Our stone consists of a body, a soul, and a spirit.
" It appears then that this composition is not a work of the hands but a change of natures, because nature dissolves and joins itself, sublimes and lifts itself up, and grows white being separated from the feces [these feces are naturally the same that Hol- landus notes as the "superfluities"]. . . . Our brass or latten then is made to ascend by the degrees of fire, but of its own accord freely and without vio- lence. But when it ascends on high it is born in the air or spirit and is changed into a spirit, and be- comes a life with life. And by such an operation the body becomes of a subtile nature and the spirit is incorporated with the body, and made one with it, and by such a sublimation, conjunction and raising up, the whole, body and spirit, is made white." (H. A., p. 87.)
For elucidation some passages from the Bible may be useful. Colossians II, 1 1 : " In whom also ye are circumcised with the circumcision made with- out hands, in putting off the body of the sins of the flesh by the circumcision of Christ." Psalm LI, 7 : " Wash me and I shall be whiter than snow." I Corinthians vi, 1 1 : u But ye are washed, but ye are sanctified, but ye are justified in the name of the Lord Jesus." Romans vin, 13: "For if ye live after the flesh, ye shall die; but if ye through the Spirit do mortify the deeds of the body, ye shall live." John IV, 14: " But whosoever drinketh of
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the water that I shall give him, shall never thirst; but the water that I shall give him shall be in him a well of water springing up into everlasting life." [In IV, 10, living water is mentioned.] John xii, 24 ff. : "... Except a corn of wheat fall into the ground and die [Putrefactio] it abideth alone; but if it die it bringeth forth much fruit. He that loveth his life shall lose it and he that hateth his life in the world shall keep it unto life eternal."
Romans vi, 5 ff. : " For if we have been planted together in the likeness of his death, we shall be also in the likeness of his resurrection. Knowing this, that our old man is crucified with him [I must men- tion here that the hieroglyph for vinegar is Hh] that the body of sin might be destroyed. . . ."
I Corinthians xv, 42 ff. : " It is sown in corrup- tion, it is raised in incorruption. It is sown in dis- honor, it is raised in glory. ... It is sown a natu- ral body, it is raised a spiritual body. . . . The first Adam was made a living soul, the last Adam was made a quickening spirit. . . . We shall all be changed. . . . For this corruptible must put on in- corruption, and this mortal must put on immortal- ity."
I Corinthians xv, 40 ff. : " There are celestial bodies and bodies terrestrial. . . . There is one glory of the sun and another glory of the moon."
Ephesians II, 14 ff. : " For he is our peace, who hath made both one, and hath broken down the mid- dle wall of partition between us, having abolished in his flesh the enmity, even the law of commandments
1 64 PROBLEMS OF MYSTICISM
contained in ordinances; for to make in himself of twain one new man, so making peace, and that he might reconcile both unto God in one body by the cross, having slain the enmity thereby."
If we note the two contraries that are to be united according to the procedure of the hermetic philoso- phers with O and D [sun and moon, gold and sil- ver, etc.] and represent them united with the cross + we get ^ ; i.e., V , the symbol of mercury. This ideogram conceals the concept, Easter. All these ideas, as we know, did not originate with Chris- tianity.
II Corinthians v, I : " For we know that if our earthly house of this tabernacle were dissolved, we have a building of God, an house not made with hands, eternal in the heavens."
John vii, 38: "He that believeth on me . . . out of his belly shall flow rivers of living water."
I mention right here that the hermetic philoso- phers do not pursue speculative theology, but that, as is clearly evident from their writings, they made the content of the religious doctrine a part of their life. That was their work, a work of mysticism. Everything that the reader is inclined to conceive in the passages above, as probably belonging merely to the other life, they as Mystics, sought to repre- sent to themselves on earth, though without preju- dice to the hope of a life beyond. I presume that they therefore speak of two stones, a celestial and a terrestrial. The celestial stone is the eternal blessed- ness and, as far as the Christian world of ideas is
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considered, is Christ, who has aided mankind to at- tain it. The terrestrial stone is the mystical Christ whom each may cause to be crucified and resurrected in himself, whereby he attains a kingdom of heaven on earth with those peculiar qualities that have been allegorically attributed to the philosopher's stone. Therefore the terrestrial stone is called a reflection of the celestial and so it is said that from lead, etc., the stone may be easily produced and " in a short time," i.e., not only after death.
At any rate in primitive symbolism there seems to be a religious idea at the bottom of the recommenda- tion to use the sputum lunae (moon spittle) or sperm astrale (star semen), star mucus, in short of an efflux from the world of light above us, as first ma- terial for the work of our illumination. [In many alchemistic recipes such things are recommended. Misunderstanding led to a so-called shooting star substance being eagerly hunted for. What was found and thought to be star mucus was a gelatinous plant.] So it is in this passage from John ix, 5, ff. : " As long as I am in the world I am the light of the world. When he [Jesus] had thus spoken, he spat on the ground and made clay of the spittle and anointed the eyes of the blind man with the clay, and said unto him, Go, wash in the pool of Siloam [which is by interpretation : Sent] . He went his way, there- fore, washed, and came seeing." The transference of a virtue by the receiving of a secretion is a quite common primitive idea.
As Michael Maier (Symbola Aureae Mensae Lib.
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XI) informs us, Melchior Cibinensis, a Hungarian priest, expressed the secrets of the forbidden art in the holy form of the Mass. For as birth, life, exal- tation, suffering in fire and then death were, as it were, ascribed to the Philosopher's Stone in black and gloomy colors, and finally resurrection and life in red and other beautiful colors, so he compared his preparation with the work of the salvation of man (and the "terrestrial" stone with the "celestial" stone), namely, with the birth, life, suffering, death and resurrection of Christ. (Hohler, Herm. Phil., p. 156.) The making of the Philosopher's Stone is, so to speak, the Imitation of Christ.
Hitchcock (H. A., p. 143) believes that Irenaeus Philaletha has clearly alluded in a passage of his writings to the two mental processes, analysis and synthesis, which lead to the same end. ' To seek the unity through Sol, I take it, is to employ the in- tellect upon the Idea of Unity, by analysis that termi- nates in the parts; whereas to study upon Mercury, here used for nature at large, is to work synthetically, and by combining the parts, reach an idea of the unity. The two lead to the same thing, beginning as it were from opposite extremes; for the analysis of any one thing, completely made, must terminate in the parts, while the parts, upon a synthetical con- struction, must reproduce the unity. One of the two ways indicated by Irenaeus is spoken of as a hercu- lean labor, which I suppose to be the second, the reconstruction of a unity by a recombination of the parts, which in respect to nature is undoubtedly a
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herculean undertaking. The more hopeful method is by meditation, etc.
Some of the writers tell us to put " one of the bodies into the alembic," that is to say, take the soul into the thought or study and apply the fire (of intel- lect) to it, until it " goes over " into spirit. Then, " putting this by for use," put in " the other body," which is to be subjected to a similar trial until it " goes over " also ; after which the two may be united, being found essentially or substantially the same.
The two methods of which Irenaeus speaks are also called in alchemy (with reference to chemical procedures) the wet and the dry ways. The wet way is that which leads to unity through mental elab- oration. The philosophy of the Indian didactic poetry Bhagavad-Gita also knows the two ways and calls them Samkhya and Yoga.
"Thinking (Samkhya) and devotion (Yoga) separate only
fools, but not the wise. tWhoever consecrates himself only to the One, gets both
fruits. Through thinking and through devotion the same point is
reached, Thinking and devotion are only One, who knows that, knows
rightly." [Bh-G. V. 4*1.
" Samkhya " and " Yoga " have later been elab- orated into whole philosophical systems. Orig- inally, however, they are merely " different methods of arriving at the same end, namely the attainment of the Atman [all spirit] which on the one hand is
1 68 PROBLEMS OF MYSTICISM
spread out as the whole infinite universe and on the other is to be completely and wholly found in the inner life. In the first sense Atman can be gained by meditation on the multiplex phenomena of the uni- verse and their essential unity, and this meditation is called Samkhya [from sam -f khya, reflection, medi- tation] ; on the other hand, Atman is attainable by retirement from the outer world and concentration upon one's own inner world and this concentration is called Yoga. (Deussen, Allg. Gesch. d. Phil., I, 3, p. 15.)
For the practice of alchemy a moral behavior is required, which is hardly necessary as a precondition of merely chemical work. The disciple of the art is to free his character, according to the directions of the masters from all bad habits, especially to abjure pride, is diligently to devote himself to prayer, per- form works of love, etc. ; no one is to direct his senses to this study if he has not previously purified his heart, renounced the love of worldly things, and sur- rendered himself completely to God. (Hohler, Herm. Phil., pp. 62 ff.)
The stoppers, who strive to make gold in a chemi- cal laboratory often waste in it their entire estate. The adepts, however, assure us that even a poor man can obtain the stone; many, indeed, say the poor have a better materia than the rich. Rom. n, 1 1 : " For there is no respect of persons with God." Matth. xix, 24 : " It is easier for a camel to go through the eye of a needle than for a rich man to enter into the kingdom of God." The alchemist
THE HERMETIC ART 169
Khunrath says somewhere, the cost of making gold amounts to thirty dollars; we understand this when we remember that Jesus was sold for thirty pence.
Ruland (Lex., p. 26) defines alchemy very finely: [In reference to Tab. Smar., 9] " Alchemy is the separation of the impure from a purer substance." This is quite as true of the chemical as of the spir- itual alchemy.
Why the hermetic philosophers write not literally but in figures may be accounted for in several ways. We should first of all remember that because of their free doctrine, which was indeed not at variance with true Christianity but with the narrow-minded church, they had to fear the persecution of the latter, and that for this reason they veiled their teachings. Hitchcock notices also a further point. The alche- mists often declare that the knowledge of their secret is dangerous (for the generality of people). It ap- pears that they did not deem that the time was ripe for a religion that was based more on ideal require- ments, on moral freedom, than on fear of hell fire, expectation of rewards and on externally visible marks and pledges. Besides we shall see later that a really clear language is in the nature of things neither possible nor from an educational point of view to be recommended.
Still the mystical purpose of the authors of those times when the precautionary measures were not nec- essary appears clearer under the alchemistic cloth- ing, although no general rule applying to it can be set forth. Other reasons, e.g., intellectual and con-
i7o PROBLEMS OF MYSTICISM
ventional ones, influenced them to retain the sym- bolism.
Very clearly mystical are the writings of a num- ber of hermetic artists, who are permeated by the spiritual doctrine of Jacob Boehme. This theoso- phist makes such full use of the alchemistic symbol- ism, that we find it wherever we open his writings. I will not even begin to quote him, but will only call the reader's attention to his brief and beautifully thoughtful description of the mystical process of moral perfection, which stands as " Processus " at the end of the 5th chapter of his book, " De Signa- tura Rerum." (Ausg., Gichtel Col., 2218 f.)
An anonymous author who has absorbed much of the " Philosophicus Teutonicus," wrote the book, " Amor Proximi," much valued by the amateurs of the high art. It does not require great penetration to recognize this pious manual, clothed throughout in alchemistic garments, as a mystical work. The same is true of the formerly famous " Wasserstein der Weisen " (ist ed. appeared 1619), and similar books. Here are some illustrative pages from " Amor Proximi " :
" This V [V of life] is now the creature not foreign or external but most intimate in every one, although hidden. . . . See Christ is not outside of us, but intimately within us, although hidden." (P.
32-)
" Whoever is to work out a thing practically must
first have a fundamental knowledge of a thing; in order that man shall macrocosmically and magically
THE HERMETIC ART 171
work out the image of God, all God's kingdom, in himself; he must have its right knowledge in him- self. . . ." (P. 29.)
" Christ is the great Universal; [The Grand Mas- tery is also called by the alchemists the " universal " ; it tinctures all metals to gold and heals all diseases (universal medicine) ; there is a somewhat more cir- cumscribed " particular," which tinctures only a spe- cial metal and cures only single diseases.] who says: ' Whoever will follow me and be my disciple (i.e., a particular or member of my body) , let him take up his *%* and follow me. Thus one sees that all who desire to be members of the great universal must each partake according to the measure of his suffer- ing and development as small specific remedies." (Pp. 168 ff.)
" Paracelsus, the monarch of Arcana, says that the stars as well as the light of grace, nowhere work more willingly than in a fasting, pure, and free heart. As it is naturally true that the coarse sand and ashes cannot be illumined by the sun, so the SUN of right- eousness cannot illumine the old Adam. It is then that the sand and ashes [the old Adam] are melted in the A [of the >J«] again and again, that a pure glass [a newborn man] is made of it; so the O can easily shoot its rays into and through it and therefore illumine it and reveal the wonder of its wisdom. So man must be recast in ^ A [cross-fire], so that the rays of both lights can penetrate him; otherwise no one will become a wise man." (P. 96 ff.)
Beautiful expositions of alchemy that readily make
172 PROBLEMS OF MYSTICISM
manifest the mystical content are found also in the English theosophists Pordage and his followers, in particular Jane Leade (both I7th century). Their language is clearer and more lucid than Jacob Boehme's. Many passages appropriate to this topic might be here cited; but as I shall later take up Leade more fully, I quote only one passage from Pordage (Sophia, p. 23) :
" Accordingly and so that I should arrive at a fun- damental and complete cleansing from all tares and earthiness ... I gave over my will entirely to its [wisdom's] fiery smelting furnace as to a fire of puri- fication, till all my vain and chaff-like desires and the tares of earthly lust had been burnt away as by fire, and all my iron, tin and dross had been entirely melted in this furnace, so that I appeared in spirit as a pure gold, and could see a new heaven and a new earth created and formed within me."
Out of all this, taken in conjunction with the fol- lowing chapter, it will be evident and beyond ques- tion that our Parable must also be interpreted as a mystical introduction.
THE previous chapter has shown that there was a higher alchemy — it was furthermore regarded as the true alchemy — which has the same relation to practical chemistry that freemasonry has to practical masonry. A prominent chemist who had entered into the history of chemistry and that of freemasonry once wrote to me : :' Whoever desires to make a chemical preparation according to a hermetic recipe seems to me like a person who undertakes to build a house according to the ritual of Freemasonry."
The similarity is not a chance one. Both exter- nal and internal relations between alchemy and free- masonry are worthy of notice. The connection is partly through rosicrucianism. Since the Parable, which shall still be the center of our study, belongs to rosicrucian literature (and indeed is probably a later development of it), it is fitting here to examine who and what the Rosicrucians really were. We cannot, of course, go into a thorough discussion of this unusually complex subject. We shall mention only what is necessary to our purpose. I shall not, however, be partial, but treat of both the parties which are diametrically opposed in their views of the problems of rosicrucian history. It will be shown
173
i74 PROBLEMS OF MYSTICISM
that this disagreement fortunately has but small in- fluence upon our problem and that therefore we are relieved of the difficult task of reaching a conclusion and of bringing historical proof for a decision which experienced specialists — of whom I am not one — • have so signally failed to reach.
Rosicrucians are divided into those of three pe- riods, the old, who are connected by the two chief writings, " Fama " and " Confessio," that appeared at the beginning of the iyth century; the middle, which apparently represents a degeneration of the original idealistic league, and finally, the gold crossers and rose crossers, who for a time during the 1 8th century developed greater power. The last Rosicrucians broke into freemasonry for a while (in the second half of the eighteenth century) in a man- ner almost catastrophic for continental masonry, yet I observe in anticipation that this kind of rosi- crucian expansion is not immediately concerned with the question as to the original relation of freema- sonry and rosicrucianism. We must know how to distinguish the excrescence from the real idea. Rosi- crucianism died out at the beginning of the I9th cen- tury. The rosicrucian degrees that still exist in many systems of freemasonry (as Knight of the Red Cross, etc.) are historical relics. Those who now parade as rosicrucians are imposters or imposed on, or societies that have used rosicrucian names as a label.
Many serious scholars doubt that the old Rosicru- cians ever existed as an organized fraternity. I re-
ROSICRUCIANISM 175;
fer to the article Rosenkreuz in the " Handbuch der Freimaurerei " (Leaning) , where this skeptical view is dominant. Other authors, on the contrary, be- lieve in the existence of the old order and think that the freemasons who appeared in their present form in 1717 are the rosicrucians persisting, but with changed name. Joh. Gottl. Buhle, a contemporary of Nicolai, had already assumed that the rosicrucian Michael Maier introduced rosicrucianism into Eng- land, and that freemasonry began then especially with the cooperation of the Englishman Robert Fludd (1574-1637). Ferdinand Katsch warmly defended the actual existence of the old rosicrucian fraternity with arguments, some of which are dis- puted. He names with certainty a number of people as " true rosicrucians," among them Julianus de Campis, Michael Maier, Robert Fludd, Frisius or Frizius, Comenius (Katch, p. 33). Rosicrucianism turned into freemasonry for practical reasons. As the most outstanding imposters represented them- selves as rosicrucians this name was not conserved. The wrong was prevented, in that the true rosicru- cians withdrew as such and assumed a different dress. Generally we imagine a different origin of free- masonry. We are accustomed to look for its be- ginnings in practical masonry, whose lodges can be traced back to the fourteenth century. The old un- ions of house builders were joined by persons who were not actual workers but lay members, through whom spiritual power was added to the lodges. At the beginning of the eighteenth century the old work-
176 PROBLEMS OF MYSTICISM
ing masonry was transformed into the spiritual sym- bolical freemasonry, but with a continuance of its forms. At that time in London the building lodges had diminished to four. These were united on June 24 (St. John's Day), 1717, and chose Anton Sayer for their grand master. That is the origin of Free- masonry as it exists to-day.
This derivation is and will be considered unsatis- factory by many, however much it may satisfy the merely documentary claims. The attempt to make it better required an inventive phantasy and this was not always fortunate in its attempts. The rosicru- cian theory cannot be dismissed off hand, especially if we conceive it in a somewhat broader sense. In agreement with Katsch, Hohler (Herm. Phil., p. 6) recalls how generally people were occupied in the 1 6th and I7th centuries in the whole of western Eu- rope with cabala, theosophy, magic (physics), as- trology and alchemy, and indeed this held true of higher and lower social strata, scholars and laymen, ecclesiastic and secular. " The entire learned the- ology turned on cabala. Medicine was based on theosophy and alchemy and the latter was supposed to be derived from theosophy and astrology." Hohler, in one respect, goes further than Katsch and conjectures: "Freemasonry had its roots in the chemical societies of the i6th and I7th centuries, in which all those things were fostered that constituted the science of that day." This theory is incompar- ably more open to discussion than if one attempts to confine the origin to the insecure base of rosicrucian-
ROSICRUCIANISM 177
ism. We shall learn to appreciate more fully the significance of the chemical societies.
In connection with the question, important for us, as to the position of the alchemy of the rosicrucians (whether they lived only in books or as an actual brotherhood), it is worth while to glance at the literature.
Joachin Frizius, whom some think identical with Fludd, writes in the " Summum Bonum, quod est verum Magiae, Cabalae, Alchymiae, verae Fratrum Roseae Crucis verorum subjectum" (first published in Frankfort, 1629) :
"Aben ( 13K ) means a stone. In this one cabalistic stone we have the Father, Son and Holy Ghost . . . for in Hebrew Ab ( 3 8 ) means Fa- ther and Ben ( 13 ) Son. But where the Father and Son are present there the Holy Ghost must be also. . . . Let us now examine this Stone as the foundation of the macrocosm. . . . Therefore the patriarch Jacob spake, * How dreadful is this place. ;This is none other but the house of God,' and rose up and took the stone that he had put for his pillow and poured oil upon the top of it, and said, * This stone that I have set for a pillar shall be God's house, etc.' If therefore a God's house, then God is in that place or else his earthly substance. Here it was that the patriarch, as he slept on this stone, con- served something divine and miraculous, through the power of that spirit-filled stone which in its cor- poreality is similar to the relation of the body to the soul. But the spiritual stone was Christ; but Christ
178 PROBLEMS OF MYSTICISM
is the eternal wisdom, in which as the scripture says are many mansions, which are undoubtedly distin- guished on account of the different grades of grace and blessedness. For blessedness follows wisdom or knowledge, the higher and more we know the farther we go towards the Godhead." (Summ. Bon., pp. 17 ff.)
" Thereupon it clearly appears who this macro- cosmic Stone Aben . . . really is, and that his fiery spirit is the foundation stone of all and given for all (sit lapis seu petra catholica atque universalis) . . . which was laid in Zion as the true foundation, on which the prophets and the apostles as well have built, but which was also to the ignorant and wicked builders a stumbling block and bone of contention. This stone therefore is Christ who has become our Cornerstone. . . ." (Summ. Bon., p. 19.) " If we consider now the stone Aben in its significance for the microcosmos ... we shall soon be sure that as a stone temple of God it can have no less value for every outer man in so far as the Holy Ghost also reserves a dwelling in him forever." (Summ. Bon., p. 20.)
" That is also the reason why the stone Aben ap- pears in double form (quod ambae petrae), that is, in the macrocosmic and in the microcosmic. . . . For the spiritual stone is Christ that fulfills all. So we also are parts of the spiritual stone and such are also living stones, taken out of that universal stone (a petra ilia catholica excisi). . . ." (Summ. Bon., p. 20.) Here again we have the alchemistic dis-
ROSICRUCIANISM 179
tinction between the universal and the particular, and the like distinction is also expressed by the opposi- tion of the celestial and the terrestrial stones. The second chapter of I Peter speaks of the living stone. I Corinthians x, 4, says likewise : " And did all drink of that spiritual Rock that followed them and that Rock was Christ." Alchemistically expressed it is called aurum potabile (drinkable gold).
" But," now you ask, " where then is all the gold with which those alchemists [Fama] glitter so fa- mously?" So we answer you. . . . "Our gold is indeed not in any way the gold of the multitude, but it is the living gold, the gold of God. ... It is wis- dom, which the psalmist means, Ps. XII, 6, * The words of the Lord are pure words as silver tried in a furnace of earth, purified seven times.' If you now wish ... to put before yourself the true and actual animal stone, then seek the cornerstone, which is the means of all change and transformation, in, yourself." (Summ. Bon., pp. 34 ff.)
" Finally the brother works towards the consum- mation of his labors in the form of a master builder (denlque sub architecti figura operatur f rater ad hums opens perfectionem) . . . . Only for the bet- ter carrying out of our building and thereby to attain the rose-red bloom of our cross concealed in the cen- ter of our foundation ... we must not take the work superficially, but must dig to the center of the earth, knock and seek." (Summ. Bon., p. 48; Trans. Katsch, pp. 413 ff.) Just after that he speaks of the three dimensions, height, depth, and
1 8o PROBLEMS OF MYSTICISM
breadth. The masonic symbolism is accompanied clearly enough in the " Summum Bonum " by the al- chemistic. Notice the knocking and seeking, and what is mentioned in the doctrines about the form of the Lodge. Immediately thereafter is a prolix dis- cussion of the geometric cube.
Frizius and Fludd contribute also a letter supposed to have been sent by rosicrucians to a German candi- date. It says, " Since you are such a stone as you desire, and such a work . . . cleanse yourself with tears, sublimate yourself with manners and virtues, decorate and color yourself with the sacramental grace, make your soul sublime toward the subtile meditation of heavenly things, and conform yourself to angelic spirits so that you may vivify your molder- ing body, your vile ashes, and whiten them, and in- corruptibly and painlessly gain resurrection through J[esus] C[hrist] O[ur] L[ord]." In another pas- sage : " Be ye transformed, therefore, be ye trans- muted from mortal to living philosophic stones."
In the " Clavis Philosophiae et Alchymiae Flud- danae " (published in Latin in 1633), are passages like the following: " Indeed every pious and right- eous man is a spiritual alchemist. . . . We under- stand by that a man who understands not only how to distinguish but with the fire of the divine spirit to separate [spagiric art] the false from the true, vice from virtue, dark from light, the uncleanness of vice from the purity of the spirit emulating God. For only in this way is unclean lead turned into gold." (P. 75.) " If one now ventures to say that the
ROSICRUCIANISM 181
Word of Christ or the Holy Ghost of wisdom dwells in the microcosmic heaven [i.e., in the soul of man] we should not decry the blind children of the world as godless and abandoned. [But certainly the di- vine spirit is, as is later averred, the rectangular stone in us, on which we are to build.] This divine spark is, however, continuous and eternal; it is our gold purchasable of Christ. ... So it happens in accordance with the teachings of Christ, or the Word become flesh, that if the true alchemists keep on seek- ing and knocking, they attain to the knowledge of the living fire." (P. 81.) So again the important knocking and seeking of masonic symbolism, and this indeed, for the purpose of learning to know a fire.
In reference to the really elevating thoughts of the " Summum Bonum," Katsch, enthusiastic about these ideas, exclaims: "What language, what an unflinching courage, what a dignified humility. Even the most reluctant will not be able to avoid the admission that here quite unexpectedly he has . . . met the original and ideal form of freemasonry."
The comparison of masonry and alchemy remains true even if we work more critically than Katsch, who is accused of many inaccuracies. I recall for instance the later researches of the thorough and far- seeing Dr. Ludwig Keller.
For the illumination of the darkness that has spread over the past of freemasonry, Keller shows us (B. W. and Z., pp. i, 2) the rich material of symbolism that is offered the diligent student, first of all in the very copious literature, printed matter,
182 PROBLEMS OF MYSTICISM
and especially in the manuscripts, that is known by the name of Chemistry or Alchemy.
In the symbols of the alchemists, the rosicrucians, the Lodges, etc., " we meet a language that has found acceptance among all occidental peoples in analogous form, not indeed a letter or word lan- guage, but a language nevertheless, a token or a sym- bol language of developed form, which is evident even in the rock temples of the so-called catacombs, once called latomies and loggie. The single images and symbols have something to say only to the per- son who understands this language. To the man who does not understand it, they say nothing and are not expected to say anything."
In reference to the symbol and image language, which was comprehensible only to the initiated, we think naturally of the ancient mysteries. The reli- gious societies of the oldest Christians, in the cen- turies when Christianity belonged in the Roman Em- pire to the forbidden cults, found a possibility of existence before the law in the form of licensed so- cieties, i.e., as guilds, burial unions, and corporations of all sorts. The primitive Christians were not the only forbidden sects that sought and found this re- course. Under the disguise of schools, trade unions, literary societies, and academies, there existed in the jurisdiction of the Roman Empire, and later inside of the world church, organizations that before the law were secular societies, but in the minds of the initiated were associations of a religious character. Within these associations there appeared very early
ROSICRUCIANISM 183
a well developed system of symbols, which were adopted for the purpose of actually maintaining, through the concealment necessitated by circum- stances, their unions and their implements and cus- toms — symbols that they chose as cloaks and that in the circle of the initiated were explained and inter- preted according to the teachings of their cult.
Valuable monuments of this symbolism are pre- served in the vast rock temples that are found in Egypt, Syria, Asia Minor, Sicily, and the Apennine peninsula, in Greece, France, and on the Rhine, and these vaults, which in part also served the early Christians as places of worship, show in their images and records and in their architectural form so close a resemblance that they must be acknowledged as the characteristic of a great religious cult extending over many lands, which has had consistent traditions for the use of such symbols and for the production of these structures.
Many of these symbols, it should be noted in pass- ing, are borrowed from those tokens and implements of the building corporations, which were necessary to the completion of their buildings (Keller, 1. c., p. 4). An important part was played even in the early Christian symbolism by the sacred numbers and the figures corresponding to them, a group of educational symbols which we find likewise in the Pythagorean and platonic schools. It is known that the symbolical language of the subterranean rock temples, some of which were used by the earliest Christians for their religious worship, are closely
1 84 PROBLEMS OF MYSTICISM
connected with the pythagorean and platonic doc- trines. From the year 325 A. D. on, every departure from the beliefs of the state church was considered a state offense. So those Christians who retained connection with the ancient philosophic schools were persecuted. In the religious symbol language of the church, the sacred numbers naturally began to dis- appear from that time. In the writings of Augus- tine begins the war on the symbolic language, whose use he declared a characteristic of the gnostics. In spite of the suppression the doctrines of the sacred numbers continued through all the centuries in reli- gious use, in quiet but strong currents which flowed beside the state church. The sect names, which were invented by polemic theology for the pur- pose of characterizing methods that were regarded as imitations of the gnostics, are of the most varied kinds ; it may be enough to remember that in all those spiritual currents, that like the old German mysti- cism, the earlier humanism, the so-called natural phi- losophy, etc., show a strong influence of platonic thinking, the doctrines of the sacred numbers recur, in a more or less disguised form, but yet clearly rec- ognizable. (Keller, Heil. Zahl., p. 2.)
As the old number symbolism constitutes a part of the hieroglyphics of alchemy, I shall pause a mo- ment to consider them. The use of mathematical and geometrical symbols proceeds from the use of the simplest forms, points and lines, but in all cases where the object is not a representation in the flat but in space, both the points and lines are replaced by
ROSICRUCIANISM 185:
plastic forms, i.e., forms of cylinders, spheres, bars, rings, cubes, etc. From this point it was but a short step to the use of trees, leaves, flowers, implements, and other things that showed similarities in form. Pillars are specially noticeable for the symbolism of the ceremonial chamber. In all cases where points and lines occur in images and drawings, pillars are found in the plastic representation of thoughts and symbols. They form the chief element of the or- ganization of cults in academies and museums, and justify the names of colonnade, stoa, portico, and loggia, which occur everywhere; besides the special designation like Owcvs cuo^os, etc.
For symbolism, too, which served as the charac- terization of the forms of organization* and the building up of the fraternity into degrees, lines were useless, but in place of lines and points are found plastic forms which were at their disposal in car- penters' squares, crossed bars, etc. (Keller, 1. c., p. 10.)
As the circle symbolized the all and the eternal or the celestial unity of the all, and the divinity, so the number one, the single line, the staff or the scepter, represented the terrestrial copy of the power, the ruling, guiding, sustaining and protecting force of the personality that had attained freedom on earth.
The sun or gold symbol O corresponds in alchemy to the divine circle and the same circle occurs in other symbols of the art, as in 9 $ , etc.
Duality, the Dyas, represents in contrast to the celestial being the divided terrestrial being that is
1 86 PROBLEMS OF MYSTICISM
dominated by the antagonism of things and is only a transitory, imperfect existence; the opposites, fluid and solid, sulphur and mercury, dry and wet, etc.
In the symbol of the trinity, which frequently oc- curs in the form of a triangle (three points united by three straight lines), is shown how the divided and sensuous nature is led by the higher power of the number 3 to a harmony of powers and to a new unity. The symbol of reason attaining victory over matter becomes visible. A representation of trinity is possible by means of the conventional cross. We can see in it two elements of lines which by their uni- fication or penetration give the third as the point of intersection. More generally the cross is conceived as quinity (fiveness) — i.e., 4-{-iness (in alchemy four elements which are collected about the quinta esentia). A cross in which unity splits into duality so that trinity results, is Y, which is called the forked cross. From unity grows duality, that is, nature divides into spirit and matter, into active and pas- sive, necessity and freedom. The divided returns through trinity to unity. In alchemy we have the symbol REBIS, the hermaphrodite with the two heads. The ancient symbol was later conceived, by purposive concealment or by more accidental inter- pretation, as the letter Y, just as the symbol of the three lines A or A and the like gradually appears to have become an A, as it is found frequently in the catacombs. Keller refers (1. c., p. 14) also espe- cially to the reduplication of the carpenter's square, which is found likewise in the old Latomies (Gk. =j
ROSICRUCIANISM 187
quarries) and has the appearance of two intersecting opened circles. I do not need to call attention to the masonic analogue; in alchemy we have here the in- terpenetration of A and V , i.e., & , which is among others the symbol for the material of the stone. [A and V are the symbols for the elements fire and water. Fire and water, however, mean also the famous two opposites, that are symbolized quite as well by warm and cold, red and white, soul and body, sun and moon, man and woman.] With re- gard to the six points, in alchemy & is also called chaos in contrast to $ , which denotes cosmos, just as alum O on account of its lack of a center (God, belief, union), is incomplete beside O. In the cata- combs the triangle is found also in multiple [five fold] combination, $ .
Four lines, somewhat in the form of a rectangle, define the limited space of the terrestrial world with the accessory meaning of the holy precinct, house, temple. In masonry, n is well known as the lodge. The rectangle is related to the cube. I mention therefore in this place the cubic stone, the mighty masonic symbol, whose equivalent in alchemy will be discussed.
By a commonly used change of significance the number 5 is symbolized by 5-leaved plants (rose, lily, vine) . " The flowers, however, and the garden in which they grow, early served as symbols of the Fields of the Blessed or the ' better country ' in which dwell the souls passing through death to life ; in antithesis to the terrestrial house of God, the
1 88 PROBLEMS OF MYSTICISM
temple built with hands, which was represented by the rectangle D> the holy number 5 denoted the celestial abodes of the souls that had attained per- fection, and therefore represented both the House of Eternity or the City of God and the Heavenly Jerusalem. The holy pentagram in the form of the rose, not only in the ancient but in the early Chris- tian world, decorated the graves of the dead, that in their turn symbolized the gardens of the blessed. And the significance that the academies and loggia attributed to the pentagram placed in the rose is ex- plained by the fact that their religious festival was closely connected with this emblem. Already in the ancient world at the festival of St. John, the rose feast or rhodismus or Rosalia was celebrated, at which the participants adorned themselves with roses and held religious feasts." (Keller, 1. c., p. 21.)
As already mentioned, the cross, i.e., the Greek crow with its four equal arms, expresses the number five. It is interesting that already in the ancient number symbolism, rose and cross appear united, a fact which I mention here in view of the later con- nection of these two objects.
The semicircle or moon is an emblem of borrowed light. Besides the circles or spheres, the symbols of eons (divine beings, powers) that are enthroned in the ether as eternal beings, the human soul — the psyche or anima, which does not coincide with reason or the purified soul — appears as a broken circle. As the sun and its symbol, the ragged circle, sym- bolize the eternal light, the half circle is, as it were,
ROSICRUCIANISM 189
the symbol of that spark of light that slumbers in the soul of man, or, as the alchemists often say, the hidden fire that is to be awakened by the process. If we reflect that in this symbolism the cross ex- presses a penetration, the alchemic symbol $ is ex- plained. It is now quite interesting that the like connection appears in the subterranean places of wor- ship in this form £ (1. c., p. 27). Keller calls it a symbol of the all and the soul of man.
The number 7 (seven planets, etc.) also is of some importance in the old latomies. It is noteworthy besides that sun and moon usually appear as human forms; the sun wears on its head a crown or garland or beaming star, while the moon image is wont to carry the symbol D . Alchemy, too, likes to repre- sent O and D as human, and indeed frequently as crowned figures, sometimes as a royal bridal couple.
The ancient lore of the sacred numbers breathes a spirit that may be embodied in the following words : The soul of man, which through resignation or meek- ness, as they used to say then, is impelled onward to purity and union with the Eternal, has in itself a higher life, which cannot be annihilated by death. The doctrine of the infinite value of the soul . . . and of God's entering into the pure soul of man forms the central point of the thought of religious fellowship. Neither for sacrifice, which the state religions practice, nor for the beliefs in demons, by which the masses are controlled, nor for the idea of priesthood as means of salvation, was there a place in this system, and not a trace of such a belief
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is demonstrable in this religion of wisdom and vir- tue. (1. c., p. 33.)
Besides the early Christian ideal, which recog- nized and encouraged the connection between the teachings of Christ and the ancient wisdom of pla- tonism, there was in early times another which em- phasized and endeavored to develop the antithesis more than the connection. From the time when the new Christian state church came to life, and sacri- ficial religion and the belief in devils and the priest- hood were restored, a struggle of life and death de- veloped between the church and the so-called philo- sophic schools. " The fraternity saw that it had to draw down the mask still further over its face than formerly, and the * House of the Eternal,' the 4 Basilika,' the ' Academies,' and the * Museums ' be- came workshops of stone cutters, latomies, and log- gia or innocent guilds, unions, and companies of every variety. But all later greater religious move- ments and tendencies which maintained the old be- liefs, whether they appeared under the names of mysticism, alchemy, natural philosophy, humanism, or special names and disguises, as workshops or so- cieties, have preserved more or less truly the doc- trine of the " sacred numbers " and the number sym- bolism, and found the keys of wisdom and knowl- edge in the rightly understood doctrine of the eter- nal harmony of the spheres." (Keller, 1. c., p. 38.)
Keller derives modern freemasonry from the acad- emies of the renaissance, which, as we have just heard, continued the spirit of the ancient academies.
ROSICRUCIANISM 19 1
Now it is interesting that the later branches of these religious societies (after the renaissance) took among others the form of alchemy companies and further that such fraternities or companies [as are not called alchemical], still employed symbols that we recognize as derived from alchemy. The hiero- glyphics of alchemy appear to be peculiarly appro- priate to the religious and philosophic ideas to be treated of. Rosicrucianism was, however, one of the forms into which alchemy was organized. It is further important that in just those societies of the beginning of the seventeenth century which outsiders called " alchymists " or " rosicrucians," the charac- teristic emblems of the old lodge appeared, as, for instance, the circle, the cubic stone, the level, the man facing the right, the sphere, the oblong rectangle (symbol of the Lodge), etc. (Keller, Zur Gesch. d. Bauh., p. 17.) These " alchymists " honored St. John in the same way as can be shown for the com- panies of the fifteenth century. I need not mention that modern masonry, in its most important form, bears the name of Masons of St. John.
From the beginning of the iyth century attempts were made inside the fraternity, as the company so- cieties working in the same spirit may be called, to bring to more general recognition a suitable name for this company, which could also form a uniting bond for the scattered single organizations. The leaders knew and occasionally said that a respected name for the common interest would be advantage- ous. This view appears especially in the letters of
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Comenius. It was then indeed an undecided ques- tion what nation should place itself at the head of the great undertaking. (Keller, in the M. H. der