Hidden Symbolism of Alchemy and the Occult Arts - Herbert Silberer (great reads .TXT) 📗

order to acquaint me with the difficulties and troubles that one must first overcome before one finds the way of virtue.”] She is apprehensive that she must, lacking the wonderful key, now grope all her days in darkness ... never find the gate. “While I, now overpowered with fear and horror at all this, was plunged [Symbols and processes in the sch. K. Roll of the terrible Br. It is probably well founded psychologically, a fact that I should like to emphasize in opposition to Fischer, Kat. Erl., I, on Question 7.] into a deep silence and stillness, the word of wisdom itself was revealed to me and said: ‘O deeply searching spirit, be not surprised that you have not realized your hopes for so long a time. So far you have been with many others caught in a great error, yet as you know and are sorry for your error, I will apprize you what sort of a key it must be.... And although this wonderful Key of Wisdom is a free gift, it will yet come to be of [pg 382] high value to you, O searching spirit, when once you obtain it.’ ” Nevertheless wisdom goes about and looks for those who deserve it, [Nothing being made of nothing, the point of departure of the philosophic work is the finding and choice of the subject. The material to work upon, say the alchemists, is quite common and is met with everywhere. It is necessary only to know how to distinguish it, and that is where all the difficulty lies. We continually experience it in masonry, for we often initiate the profane, whom we should have rejected had we been sufficiently clear sighted. Not all material is good to make a mercury. The work can succeed only if we succeed in finding a suitable subject; so masonry makes many inquiries before admitting a candidate to the tests. (W. S. H., p. 87.)] She does this so as to write herself on the inner walls of their hearts and in each and every one meet their thoughts which wait upon her laws and counsel, [Obedience of apprentices. The laws of wisdom are meant.] and brings a kingdom with it which will be well worth sacrificing everything for. [Laying aside of all metal. The newly admitted brother is “through his unclothing” (which probably belongs here) to represent mankind symbolically, as he comes from the hand of nature, and to remind us that the freemason, in order to be continuously mindful of the fulfillment of his duty must be able to rid himself of all fortuitous externalities. See Note H at end.] But the greatest and most distinguished master work, says wisdom, consists alone in your keeping your [pg 383] spirit disciplined and learned, and making it a skilled worker or artist, to give it knowledge of what material, as well as in what number, weight and measure [Surveying, geometry.] to make this pure key, which [material] is the bright pure divinity in the number three, the mighty in truth.... It is distinguished as a surpassingly mighty glory and lordliness which sits in a circle of heaven within the hearts of men. [The connection of circle (doubly significant) and heart is interesting. As is well known the circle is placed on the bleeding left breast. In the old English ritual the touching with the point of an instrument (sword or the like) is proved “Because the left breast is nearest to the heart, so that it may be so much the more a prick in my conscience as it then pricked my skin.”] It does with the plumbline of its power measure the temple and inner court with those who worship there. [The line in connection with the temple: the “binding” on a carpet; an image of the curtain string in the holy of holies in Solomon's temple. “Just as this ribbon holds and closes the curtain, so an indissoluble bond unites and holds together all free and accepted Masonic brothers (also those who worship therein).” This is wisdom's key [Surveying, Geometry.] which will make our hands drop with sweet smelling myrrh upon the handles of the lock (Solomon's Song, V, 5). When now I opened your secret gate with this key, my soul failed within me and I had no strength in me, the sun of reason and the moon of my extended senses were confounded and vanished. I knew nothing by myself of [pg 384] the active properties of nature and the creature. “What have you seen as ...?” “Nothing that reason can grasp.”] The wheel of motion stood still and something else was moved by a central fire, so that I felt myself turned into a bright flame. Whereupon this word came to me: This is nothing else than the gate of my everlasting depths; can you stay in this fiery region, which is wisdom's dwelling and abode, in which it meets holy remote spirits and gives them a fiery principle? For if thou canst take heed such that thou comest hither at its order; then no secret shall be kept from thee. So far I have been permitted to approach the entrance to your house, where I must still stay until I hear further from you what is to be done. (L. G. B., I, pp. 17-19.)

[As we hear it is therefore right to keep the spirit corrected and disciplined. “Why came ye ... to subdue my passions—to subject my will....” We see two triads. A divine three (3 great lights), and then sun, moon and central fire, which second three can be called the lesser lights, as the “M. v. St.” appears as a central fire. If we remember that the didactic voice proceeds, according to this symbolism, from a fire or light (Wisdom), this light is identical with the M. v. St. in the function, and it is determined by exactly that. The central fire is naturally also the blazing star. This stands on the tapis between sun and moon and it is designed to illuminate the innermost space of the temple. From alchemy we are well acquainted with [Symbol: Sun], [Symbol: Moon] and an intermediate and mediating light, namely [Symbol: Mercury]. This [pg 385] light can be also symbolized as [Symbol: Star of David]. To the alchemistic point of view correspond quite closely the three great lights of the Freiburg Ritual, God, man and St. John's light. This (the [Symbol: mercury]) is the intelligence and the talent in men which creates all science and shows us the truth. It is “the only authority that the freemason has to recognize unconditionally, namely, the divine ordinance in his own heart, the celestial fire in his ego.”]

Several weeks later Leade hears again the voice of wisdom. It said to her: “Separate thyself and withdraw from thy animal sensuous life, it is too coarse. I cannot appear till that is completely lost and vanished.” [The alchemistic separation (separatio) and the masonic taking off of parts of their clothing. I have already made the most necessary remarks about it. We have to be freed from the things which, as in the eclectic ritual “much retard the soaring of the spirit and chain man to the earth.” It has an expressly programmatical meaning (anticipating a later phase) when, e.g., the system of the Grand Lodge goes back, for the deprivation from the metal, to “the temple of Solomon that was built of fully prepared stones, just as they were brought, etc.,” so that no metal work was needed.] A short time after Leade is again driven to search after the secret being. Wisdom requires it to know itself apart from its creature existence. “Whereupon I was surrounded by gently burning flames that consumed and burned all thistles, thorns and accursed fluxes [the ‘superfluities’ of alchemy] which would [pg 386] put themselves forward.... Therefore Wisdom let her voice be heard and said: ‘O thou troubled spirit, I am now come to tell thee what was required of thee, as I have not refrained from saying to thee, even at the beginning of my discourse with thee, what it would cost thee to attain this key. [First programmatically shown. The actual process will then follow.] I say to thee, God requires a sacrifice of thee. Understand me then, thou hast an earthly element that has spread and covered [Like a garment.] thee, and consequently has got the upper hand and mastery of thee; these thrones and powers [king or father figure] must, however, be overthrown and their place found no more. Thou hast deeply mourned that thou hadst to do without the ever near communion or union with God thy Creator, [Only the masters sit near the sun.] but be not surprised at that. The cause lies here in complete extinction because you are not yet deceased and dead completely in the mystical manner. [Complete extinction first results in the third degree.] This is the first baptism that you must experience, but ah, how many have rushed into this too abruptly, because they have not given their earthly selfishness a single mortal blow right to the heart. [The circle or sword placed on the left breast alludes merely to the process of the clearing of conscience. Here the whole ego is not yet annihilated.] So I recommend to thee my flaming sword. Be courageous and let it achieve complete execution in the field of nature [The weed in the field is exterminated where, as [pg 387] Jane Leade frequently says, ears of corn are to grow.] or banish completely all young or old, and turn from life toward death whatever in you does not bear my mark and name that is my image.’ ” [From this the psychological sense of the countersign is recognized. In connection with the field we are reminded especially of Shibboleth (Judges XIII, 6: The Ephraimites who could not speak it had to die). Leade often mentions the Ephraimites. Directly pertinent to the above passage is, of course, Revelations, passim.] (L. G. B., I, pp. 21 ff.) The earthly is, as it were, to be sacrificed to God as a burnt offering or melted away in a fiery furnace, in a vessel of the purest metal. [Probably it will not be superfluous to remark that in the Bible the first worker in all kinds of metal was Tubal Cain, whose name is a password.] Jane Leade finds “the conditions or circumstances which thou [Wisdom] requirest of me to be very hard; especially do I find myself still dwelling in the offspring of a mortal shadow, where whole millions of spirits tempt me and employ all their ability and strength to hinder and hold me back from the high and noble exaltation and aspiration, [The seductive and restraining voices in the circuitous way or on the way to the Lodge according to the eclectic ritual. The band corresponds to the mortal shadow.] while I, alone and seeing the receptacle and fire before me, stood in thought about it and pondered the matter, and was willing, like Isaac, to ask, But where is the lamb? [The apron is of lamb's fleece.] She [Sophia = [pg 388] Wisdom] answered my unspoken question with these words: You yourself must be the paschal lamb that shall be slain. Thereupon I was instructed to say or to beg: Then give yet this life pulse a stroke so that it may completely return. And as I stretched out my neck, so to speak, to the love flaming sword, I felt that a separation or beheading had taken place. [Note the baring of the neck, the guttural and its meaning given according to the content of the old form of oath. The fate of the traitor befalls the man who is slain at this point; he has been a traitor to the inner true man. It is here the place to bear in mind the descending scale of marks (guttural, pectoral, stomachal). Man is to be transmuted on rectangular principles, or in the language of alchemy, is to be tinctured with the divine tincture. This tincturing seizes first the most spiritual and advances steadily until the whole man is transformed. The trichotomy corresponds to the Platonic (and alchemistic) tripartite division of the powers of the soul. Plato distinguishes the reasoning soul, which he places in the head, the intellectual in the breast, and the affective in the abdomen. The entire soul, even the vegetative, is to be illuminated by the highest light. If we assume that it is more than a pretty picture, Staudenmaier's view becomes of interest, namely that man may have an extraordinary spiritual perfection in bestowing consciousness through practice upon the centers that ordinarily work vegetatively without consciousness. In this way he gains power over a whole army of working powers that otherwise escape [pg 389] him. Staudenmaier's own experiences teach that all the dangers of introversion are connected with