HERMETIC INTERPRETATION OF SCRIPTURE.

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ages, perhaps, to effect. The alchemist is supposed to be superior to Nature to that extent, that he can pass through it (that is, through its appearances), and work on it, and in it, on the other side. It is here-in this true Anima Mundi, or "Soul of the World”—that the alchemist, or Rosicrucian, regathers the light dispersed or shaken-out of its old broken forms. Gold is the flux of the sunbeams or of light, suffused invisibly and magically into the body of the world. Light is sublimated gold, rescued magically, by invisible stellar attraction, out of the material depths. Gold is thus the deposit of light, which of itself generates. Light in the celestial world, is subtle, vaporous, magically exalted gold, or "spirit of flame." Gold draws and compels inferior natures in the metals, and, intensifying and multiplying, converts into itself. It is a part of the first - formed "Glory" or "Splendour," of which all objects and all souls are points or parts.

Gassendus asserts that when the Rosicrucians teach that the "Divinity " is the "Light" or the "Realisation of Creation," displayed from the beginning (A) to the end (2) of the whole visible or comprehensible frame, they mean that the Divine Being is not possible or existent, according to human idea, unless "He," or the "Original Light," is manifested or expressed in some special "comprehensible" other light or form. The "Second" reflects the glory of the "First Light," and is that in which the "First" displays. This second light, or Anima Mundi, is "Manifestation," or the "Son as proceeding from the Father." This synthesis is the light,* breath, life, aura, or Sacred Spirit. It is the solar or golden alchemical soul, which is the sustainment and perfection of every thing.

*The pendulum of the world beats between inspiration and expiration. This is the breath of the angels, who "burn and glow" (scriptural expression), in the pulsative access and re-inforcement of the "soul of the world." This "breath of the angels" is made human in the mechanism of the heart, and is eternal; but becomes personal and limited in the "world of man"-down, in inhalation, to a point, and up, in exhalation, from that point. So Jacob Bohm.

All lies between hermetic rarefaction and condensation,mortal and spiritual both.

"Is not the Devil the 'Deep Darkness,' or 'Matter'? the 'terra damnata et maledicta,' which is left at the bottom of the process of the Supreme Distiller, who condenses and evokes the 'Light' from out of it? Is not 'Lucifer' the 'Lord of the False Light,' and the 'Splendours of the Visible World'? Can the Prince and Ruler of this Relegate or Lower World soar with his imitations ? Can the Adversary' pass into the 'Region of God's Light'? Can he rise anew to combat in that Heaven where he has already encountered the 'Mighty Ones' who have driven him down; and can he there spread again, like a cloud, his concentrate darkness ?" The Cabalists and Talmudists aver that Scripture, history, fable, and Nature, are alike obscure and unintelligible without their interpretation. They aver that the Bible is the story of heavenly things put forward in a way that can be alone comprehensible by man, and that without their Cabala, and the parables in which they have chosen to invest its revelation, not religion only, but even familiar Nature, the Nature of Things and of Men — is unintelligible.

It has been a common opinion, and it so remains, that there is no such thing as the Philosopher's Stone, and that the whole history and accounts of it are a dream and a fable. A multitude of ancient and modern philosophers have thought otherwise. As to the possibility of metals transmuting from one into the other, and of the conversion of the whole material into gold, Libavius brings forward many instances in his treatise De Naturâ Metallorum. He produces accounts to this effect out of Geberus, Hermes, Arnoldus, Guaccius, Thomas Aquinas (Ad Fratrem, c. i.), Bernardus Comes, Joannes Rungius, Baptista Porta, Rubeus, Dornesius, Vogelius, Penotus, Quercetanus, and others. Franciscus Picus, in his book De Auro, sec. 3, c. 2, gives eighteen instances in which he saw gold produced by alchemical transmutation. To those who allege the seeming impossibility, he rejoins, that difficult things always

PROCESS OF METALLIC CONVERSION.

315 seem at first impossible, and that even easy things appear impracticable to the unskilled and unknowing.

The principles and grounds for concluding that there may be such an art possible as alchemy we shall sum up as follows. Firstly, it is assumed that every metal consists of mercury as a common versatile and flexible base, from which all metals spring, and into which they may be ultimately reduced by art. Secondly, the species of metals, and their specific and essential forms, are not subject to transmutation, but only the individuals; in other words, what is general is abstract and invisible, what is particular is concrete and visible, and therefore can be acted upon. Thirdly, all metals differ, not in their common nature and matter, but in their degree of perfection or purity towards that invisible "light" within everything, or celestial "glory" or base for objects, which has " "matter as its mask. Fourthly, Art surmounteth and transcendeth Nature; for Art, directed upon Nature, may in a short while perfect that which Nature by itself is a thousand years in accomplishing. Fifthly, God hath created every metal of its own. kind, and hath fixed in them a principle of growth, especially in the perfect metal gold, which is the master of the material, and which in itself has magnetic seed, or magic light, an unseen and heavenly power, unknown in this world, but which can by art be evoked, be made to inspire and multiply and take in all matter.

It is said of the alchemical philosophers, that no sooner did they attain this precious "Stone" or "Power,” than the very knowledge of it, in the magic surprise at its existence, delighted them more than aught that the world could give. They made greater use of it in its supernatural effects upon the human body than in turning it upon the base matter, to make "gold" of this latter which they treated with contempt. And in answer to those who would ask what was the reason that those supposed greatest of all philosophers did not render themselves and their friends rich by a process so speedy and thorough, it was rejoined, that they wanted not, that they were satisfied in the possession of the

ability, that they lived in the mind, that they rested satisfied in theory and declined practice, that they were so overcome and astonished at the immensity of the power accorded by God's grace to man, that they disdained to become goldmakers to the greedy, or suppliers to the possible idle and mischievous needy, and that they were afraid to be made the prey and sacrifice of avaricious, cruel tyrants; which would be but too surely their fate if they were, through vain-glory, or temptation, or avoidable effects of force, to make known their wondrous gifts, or to disclose or betray the fact of the supernatural method of their existence — clearly at the safest in being disbelieved, and being looked upon as lie or delusion.

Therefore these conclusive reasons, and others similar, impelled the Society to hide from the world, not only their stupendous art, but also themselves. They thus remained (and remain) the unknown, "invisible," "illuminated" Rosicrucians, or Brethren of the Rosy Cross; regarding whose presence and intentions no one knows anything, or ever did know anything, truly and in reality, although their power has been felt in the ages, and still remains unsuspectedly conspicuous: all which we think we have in some measure proved. And shall still farther establish (we hope), before we arrive at the end of our book.

The Crux-Ansata.

CHAPTER THE THIRTY-THIRD.

ROSICRUCIAN

CELESTIAL' AND TERRESTRIAL.” (MEANS OF INTERCOMMUNICATION.)

ONSCIENTIOUS readers will thank the man who states accurately that which they agree with, but will be almost equally grateful to the man who states clearly what they most dissent from. What they want is either truth or error; not a muddle between them."

The reason of the real superlative importance of the ideas entertained by people respecting the Rosicrucians, is that they were REALLY magical men, appearing like real men ;— carrying, in very deed, through the world eternally forbidden secrets-safe, however, in the fact that they were sure never to be believed. De Quincey, who has written the most lucid and intelligible (until this present work) speculation concerning these profoundest of mystics; and which account, though (most naturally) humanly lucid and intelligible -groping as it were at the claims of these men-is yet as far from the truth and as different to the real beliefs of the Rosicrucians as darkness is from light;-De Quincey says, in exemplification of the grandeur of their mystery *" To be hidden amidst crowds is sublime. To come down hidden amongst crowds from distant generations is doubly sublime."

* In the London Magazine of 1821; reprinted, corrected, enlarged, and greatly improved in the last edition of his collected works in volumes, published by Groombridge, Paternoster Row. DE QUINCEY, Vol. 6. "Secret Societies," p. 235.