CHAPTER XIIl

E now come to the last of our three stages of
the Subtle Work, which we have termed Reunion. This process is also the Alchemical Coagula- tion and the fixing of the volatile. As the Smaragdine | Tablet says, “ The power of it is integral if it be turned into earth.” And Senior, that “the highest fume should be reduced to the lowest; for the divine water is the thing descending from heaven, the reducer of the soul to its body, which it at length revives.”
And Trismosin, after discussing the putrefaction and decoction, quotes Hermes as saying, “It 1s indeed needful that at the end of this World, Heaven and Earth should meet and come home.” And again, in the Fourth Parable of his Splendor Solis, he quotes Senior thus: “* The Spirit dissolves the body and in the Dissolution extracts the Soul of the Body, and changes this body into Soul, and the Soul is changed into Spirit, and the Spirit is again added to the Body, for thus it has stability.”
Khunrath, likewise, in his Amphitheatrum informs us concerning the whole of the second or Subtle Work 118
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as follows: “In the Second Operation, which takes place in one circular, crystalline vessel, justly propor- tioned to the quality of its contents, also in one theosophic, cabalistically sealed furnace or Athanor, and by one fire, the body, soul and spirit, externally washed and cleansed and purged with the most accurate diligence and Herculean labours, and again compounded, commingle, rot of themselves and without manual co-operation, by the sole labours of nature, are dissolved, conjoined and reunited; and thus the fixed becomes volatile wholly ; these three principles also are of themselves coagulated, diversifiedly coloured, calcined and fixed; and hence the world arises renovated and new.”
While Eudoxus, in his Fourth Key—if we may be pardoned for thus multiplying authorities—says : “The Fourth Key of the Art is the entrance to the Second Work (and a reiteration in part and develop- ment of the foregoing): it is this which reduces our Water into Earth; there is but this only Water in
the World, which by a bare boiling can be converted
into Earth, because the Mercury of the Wise carries in its centre its own Sulphur which coagulates it. The terrification of the Spirit is the only operation of this work. Boil them with patience ; if you have proceeded well, you will not be a long time without perceiving the marks of this coagulation ; and if they appear not in their time they will never appear; because it is an
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undoubted sign that you have failed in some essential thing in the former operations ; for to corporify the Spirit, which is our Mercury, you must have well dissolved the body in which the Sulphur which coagulates the Mercury is enclosed. But Hermes assumes that our mercurial water shall obtain all the virtues which the philosophers attribute to it if it be turned into earth. An earth admirable is it for fertility—the Land of Promise of the Wise, who, knowing how to make the dew of Heaven fall upon it, cause it to produce fruits of inestimable price. Culti- vate then diligently this precious earth, moisten it often with its own humidity, dry it as often, and you will no less augment its virtue than its weight and its fertility.”
And this in part is the meaning of the fable of Osiris, who, his parts having been gathered together again and preserved in a chest floating upon the waters of the Nile for a time, emerged therefrom resuscitated, and came forth immune from all ills or harm and beyond all comparison more powerful than before. ,
In short this reunion is the key to the Mystical Rebirth in the deathless Solar Body, admirably preluded in a quotation from the lost Gospel of Phillip given by Epiphanius, “I have united myself, assembling myself together from the four quarters of the universe, and joining together the members that were scattered 120
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abroad,”’ and elaborated in the Apocalypse in the allegory of the birth of the Man-child.
For the whole process we have been studying is manifestly connected with the attainment by the soul of the candidate to the highest level to which his spiritual development can aspire, and by the absorption of the soul when in this state of all the wisdom, power and purifying energy which it can assimilate. It then returns to the body, which is its proper earth, purging it by the radiations of the energy thus acquired.
This process being constantly repeated, the level is gradually raised, for the purging at each return ensures further projection at the next solution, which is the augmentation of the power of the stone which is so much spoken of in the later stages of the work.
Thus the purifying and vivifying energy is absorbed in ever increasing amounts, while at the same time the power of maintaining the contacts is steadily developed, which also assists in the general growth of the soul.
In such a manner, by successive stages, the aspirant is said to progress towards union with his Higher Self, and because of these various stages of development, there were different forms of the sacred rites. This not unnaturally adds to the difficulties of gleaning any information relative to them, for the records do not in any way plainly set them forth by stages, but
intermingle the accounts the one with the other, as 121
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the Alchemists at all events admit quite openly, so that their meaning shall remain unintelligible to those without the Key.
We have above mentioned the augmentation of the stone, which we have seen to be intimately connected with the constant repetitions of the process. Eudoxus is quite definite in this assertion, saying in his Sixth Key that “The Multiplication of the Stone is by reiteration of the same operation, which consists but in opening and shutting, dissolving and coagulating, imbibing and drying; whereby the virtues of the Stone are infinitely augmentable.”
The others are unanimous in their agreement with this thesis, and indeed it should be so obvious to the ordinary intelligence that we will waste no more time on it.
It will perhaps be of assistance to the student in the course of his own researches if we devote some small space to the consideration of some of the commoner terms in use among the Alchemists, and in so doing we shall in a measure recapitulate and review what has gone before.
And if it should seem to anyone that according to our description of it, the work is shorter than they expected, it must not be forgotten that the fermentative process of the first work—and indeed all the processes of both works—has to be gone over again and again, repeatedly and with the greatest care. Hence the 122
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Alchemists’ command to the student to dissolve, distil, incerate, calcine, sublime, and fix the Occult Nature, and hence are we told that the Gold is to be tried seven times in the fire, so that the initial process alone comprises a death, a resurrection, a purification, a separation, an exaltation and a sublimation.
And in passing through the various stages, the First Matter, the Mercury of the Adepts, the Quintessence, is alluded to under a multitude of terms and by a variety of descriptions. As Agmon says in the conclud- ing section of the Turba, which Arnold de Villa Nova borrowed for his Speculum, “It is also a stone and not a stone, spirit, soul and body ; it is white, volatile, concave, hairless, cold, and yet no one can apply the tongue with impunity to its surface. If you wish that it should fly, it flies; if you say that it 1s water, you speak the truth; if you say that it is not water, you speak falsely. Do not then be deceived by the multi- plicity of names, but rest assured that it is one thing, unto which nothing alien is added. Investigate the place thereof, and add nothing foreign. Unless the names were multiplied, so that the vulgar might be deceived, many would deride our wisdom.”
At times it is called an essential oil; at others a sharp vinegar; again a Dragon, a Chameleon, a Phoenix, a Salamander. Sometimes it is mineral, sometimes vegetable, sometimes animal ; now it is Fire or Light, then Earth, Air or Water; at other times it is Magnesia,
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Azoth, Antimony, Ether or Ens. Frequently it is resolved into its elements, or three component parts, Salt, Sulphur and Mercury, which are Spirit, Soul and Body ; Active, Passive and Resultant ; Father, Mother and Son; Attraction, Repulsion and Circulation.
Planetary terms are frequently used. ‘The Sun for the Active, the Moon for the Passive; Saturn for the Self-willed Life, the Will at one stage of the operation ; Venus, the Celestial Light of Nature ; Vulcan, motion.
Again Salt is Will at another stage, whose analogue is Weight. The Brazen Body is the impure, natural born Spirit. The Orient Animal is the Will clothed in Light, which the Oracle describes as ‘“‘ Having put on the complete armed vigour of resounding Light, with triple strength fortifying the Soul and Mind.”
The principle of Body is severally referred to as Caput Mortuum, Pigmy, Diadem of Body and Duenech.
The Vulture, Crow and Raven are synonymous terms for the Spirit of Life, though they appear to be used as indicative of different stages in the process, just as are the various colours so often alluded to.
The Philosophic Earth is that where the Magnesia, Terra Adamica or Red Root is sown; where it dies and corrupts in order that it may renew itself as Salt. And here there appears to be a manifest contradiction, for the Earth of the Wise is another name for Mercury ; but this is nevertheless explicable, seeing that it 124
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conceives into itself the very seed, sperm or ferment by which it is nourished and brought to perfection.
The Red and White are Soul and Spirit, which emerge in union from the blackness of the mystical death, and we are told that when the Artist sees it he knows that he has the Great Arcanum.
Many interesting points arise from the consideration of Water, Air and Fire, and with these we will deal in the next chapter.
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