CHAPTER XI

* ONVERT the elements,” says Arnold, “ and
you will find what you seek; for our operation is nothing else than a mutation of natures, and the method of conversion in our Argent Vive is the reduction of natures to their first root.”
Conversion is a curious word, and is usually taken to mean a changing from one state or thing to another. The ordinary meaning of the Latin converto from which it is derived is to turn round, and we take it that when the Alchemists spoke of this conversion as part of the process, they meant that for a true and perfect mani- festation the natural order of procedure ought to be turned round or introverted. It also implies the sense con-version, meaning the imposing of a Higher Order on one’s own nature, but this is rather the object than the method.
Now the natural procedure is the descent into matter and the ascent out of it, while the Hermetic process involves an inversion, or more properly a conversion or turning round of this, so that by con- verting you reduce it back into its first original, but
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and experience, bringing it back again afterwards into a fresh reunion with its caput mortuum.
This, of course, foreshadows the two remaining processes, of the Subtle Work, but as we have already pointed out, there is no exact and sharp division anywhere, as each stage, after the first, involves both those which have preceded it and those which are to follow.
It is not, therefore, necessary to linger over this process, but to pass on to the next stage, Separation, of which Paracelsus says that it is “the greatest miracle in philosophy, and that magic the most singular by which it is accomplished ; very excellent for quickness of penetration and swiftness of operation, the like whereof Nature knows not.”
In one of his indirect allusions to this part of the work, Vaughan, in the introduction to his Anthropo- sophia, tells us that the soul “‘ Hath many ways to break up her house, but her best is without a disease. This is her mystical walk, an exit only to return. When she takes the air at this door, it is without prejudice to her tenement.”
Sendivogius, in his New Light of Alchemy, says that “The searcher of this Sacred Science knows that the soul in man, the lesser world or microcosm, substituting the place of its centre, is the king, and is placed in the vital spirit in the purest blood. That governs the mind, and the mind the body; but this same soul...
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which operates in the body, governing all its motions, hath a far greater operation out of the body, because out of the body it absolutely reigns.”
And Vaughan, in the latter part of the Anthropo- sophia Theomagica, confirms this, telling us that where- as while enclosed in the body she imagines whatever she will, ‘‘ If she were once out of the body she could act all that she imagined: ‘In a moment,’/¢an Agrippa, ‘ whatsoever she desires, that shall follow.’ In this state she can ‘ act upon the macrocosm,’ make general commotion in the two spheres of air and water, and alter the complexions of times. Neither is this a fable, but the unanimous finding of the Arabians, with the two princes Avicebron and Avicenna. She hath then an absolute power in miraculous and more than natural transmutations. She can in an instant transfer her own vessel from one place to another. She can— by an union with universal force—infuse and communi- cate her thoughts to the absent, be the distance never so great. Neither is there anything under the sun but she may know it, and—remaining only in one place— she can acquaint herself with the actions of all places whatsoever. I omit to speak of her magnet, wherewith she can attract all things—as well spiritual as natural. ‘Finally ’”’ (says Agrippa) “‘‘ there is no work in the whole course of Nature, however arduous, however excellent, however supernatural it may be, that the human soul, when it has attained the source of its 102
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divinity—which the Magi term the soul standing and not falling—cannot accomplish by its own power and apart from any external help.’ But who is he—amidst so many thousand philosophers—that knows her nature substantially and the genuine, specifical use thereof? This is Abraham’s ‘ great secret, wonderful exceedingly, and deeply hidden, sealed with six seals, and out of these proceed fire, water and air, which are divided into males and females.’”” (Sepher Yetzirah, Cap. 111, sect. 2.) ‘‘ We should therefore pray continually that God would open our eyes, whereby we might see to employ that talent which He hath bestowed upon us but lies buried now in the ground and doth not fructify at all. He it is to whom we must be united by ‘an essential compact’ and then we shall know all things ‘show forth openly by clear vision in the Divine Light.’ ”
Vaughan, apart from his great admiration of those whom he terms “ The most Illustrious and Truly Regenerated Brethren R.C.,” was a great adherent of Agrippa, and we may therefore venture to give an ex- tract from this source, which we do not find in Vaughan’s works. It is taken from the Third Book of Occult Philosophy, and bears immediately upon our context.
He tells us that the soul of man, being estranged from the corporeal senses, adheres to a divine nature from which it receives those things which it cannot
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search into by its own proper power: for when the mind is free, the reins of the body being loosed, and going forth as out of a close prison, it transcends the bonds of the members, and, nothing hindering, being stirred up in its proper essence comprehends all things. And therefore was man said to be made in the express image of God, seeing that he contains the Universal Reason within himself, and has a corporeal similitude also with all. Whosoever, therefore, shall know him- self, shall know all things in himself, but especially he shall know God, according to whose image he was made.
This, then, we may conclude, is the Death alluded to by Pythagoras in the Eighth Dictum of the Turba, where he says that it “‘ consists in the separation of the soul from the body.”
We are thus led to a plain understanding of one of the profound mysteries of Alchemy, perhaps the greatest and most profound, continually revealed by them, and as continually obscured again, but quite unmistakable if we do not wilfully refuse to see. And as it deals with the mantic states of mystic trance, it was usually accompanied by stringent warnings as to its dangers.
These are twofold, for not the least among them are those which await the unenlightened experimenter, who, not understanding the nature of the trance state that he endeavours to induce, adopts methods that are undesirable in the extreme. Following these are the
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dangers that await even the aspirant who may have discovered the right road, but penetrates, as it were, into a strange country of whose ways and inhabitants he is completely and woefully ignorant.
So great are both these categories, that we do not feel justified in pursuing our inquiry further without devoting some small space to a consideration of them.
‘Among the first class of risk that we have enumerated is that of being misled into the supposition that mes- merism or hypnotism has anything to do with the sacred trance. At first sight this is quite a plausible hypothesis, and some modern writers have devoted considerable space to elaborating the remarks of the Alchemists concerning the ‘‘ Work of the hands” into arguments in favour of such a supposition.
We cannot too strongly repudiate and condemn any such suggestion, which, to our way of thinking, 1s pestilent in the extreme, sapping, as it does, the very faculty which it is most desirable should be fostered in the subject, the Will, which is the precious Salt, Lead or Saturn of the Adepts. Apart from which the states of lucidity achieved by such methods differ fundamentally from those at which we are aiming.
Neither can we admit as much more desirable the practice of inducing auto-hypnotic states by the pro- longed staring at talismans and symbols, or in placing these upon the forehead in an attempt to obtain visions. Allied with these methods, we would also strongly
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discourage the student from such other methods as gazing into crystals, bowls of water or ink, magical mirrors and the like, which may, indeed, produce in certain subjects a degree of mediumship, but nothing more, and mediumship is not what we are seeking.
Lastly, and most emphatically, we would warn any. one against attempting any of the invocations or evocations of talismanic and ceremonial magic as set forth in the textbooks and grimoires dealing with this subject. The results, if any are achieved—and un- fortunately they can be—are likely to be exceedingly unpleasant and dangerous.
Even where the results obtained by the methods outlined in the three preceding paragraphs are not actually dangerous, they are not likely to be useful, but, on the contrary, are almost certain to be mis- leading. In illustration of which statement we will quote a few extracts from Jamblichos, who, in his work on the Egyptian Mysteries, deals exclusively with Theurgic Magic.
He tells us that “‘ When there occurs some errancy in the theurgic technique ”—as when, for example, some published textbook on Magic is used, which, if it be not purely evil, is admittedly defective somewhere —‘‘the Images which ought to be at the Autopsia are not, but others of a different kind. ‘These, the in- feriors, assume the guise of the more venerable orders, and pretend to be the very ones which they are 106
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counterfeiting, and there will be a great mass of falsehood flow forth from the perversion.
“We say the same things now in regard to phan- tasms or apparitions. For if these are not themselves genuine, but others of the kind are so, that really exist, they certainly will not be among the self-revealing spirits, but are of the kind that display themselves ostentatiously as genuine. ‘These participate in decep- tion and falsehood after the manner of the forms that appear in mirrors, and attract the understanding to no good purpose in regard to matters . . . that will be among fraudulent deceptions. ...On the other hand the gods and those that come after the gods reveal true likenesses of themselves, but never project apparitions such as are formed in water or in mirrors.
*¢ Thou mayst not associate in the mind the spectacles of the gods that are superlatively efficacious with the apparitions got up by technical magic. For the latter have neither the energy nor the essence nor the genuineness of the objects that are beheld, but only project bare phantasms that seem real.
““T shall wonder if any one of the theurgic priests who behold the genuine, ideal forms of the gods should consent to allow them at all. For why should anyone consent to take idola or spectral figures in exchange for those that have real being, and be carried from the very first to the last and lowest? Do we not know that all things which are brought into view by
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such a mode... are really phantoms of what 1s genuine, and that they appear good to the seeing, but never are really so?
“The individual creating the spectral figures employs in his procedures neither the revolutions of the heavenly bodies nor the powers that exist in them by nature; and in short he is not able to come in contact with them. But as he follows an art, and does not proceed theurgically, he deals with the last and most inferior emanations, manifestly, from their nature, about the extreme part of the universe.
“The projector of spectral figures trusts in spectres destitute of soul, only animated with the outward appear- ance of life, holding together externally a framework of diversified complexion, and absolutely ephemeral in duration. Nothing of the things thus fashioned by man is unalloyed and pure. ‘They are wanting in all, being brought together from manifold and incom- patible substances. When any such multitude of auras accumulated from many sources has been mingled together, it is shown to be feeble and fleeting. They vanish more quickly than the idola seen in mirrors. For when the incense is placed upon the altar, the figure is immediately formed from the vapour as it is carried upwards, but when the vapour becomes mingled and dispersed into the whole atmosphere, the idolon is immediately dissolved and not a trace of it remains.
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‘Why then should this juggling be desired by the man that loves manifestations that are true? If they know that these things about which they are engaged are structures formed of passive material, the evil would be a simple matter. . . . But if they hold to these spectral figures as to gods, the absurdity will not be utterable in speech or endurable in act. For into such a soul the divine ray never shines ; for it is not in the nature of things for it to be bestowed upon objects that are wholly repugnant, and those that are held fast by dark phantasms have no place for its reception. Such-like wonder-making with phantasms will, there- fore, be in the same category with shadows that are very far from the truth.”
The second class of dangers should be tolerably obvious from what we have already indicated, but not the least of them is illusion. As, however, we shall have to deal with these in our consideration of the nature of the trance state, we will not now dwell further upon them.
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