reveal to thee the most recondite mysteries, and show thee, as in a glass, the whole work and laboratory

of the most secret nature. Hermes, therefore, recommends him who is rational, and desires the further instruction of his reason, to shut himself within, away from the distractions of sense and this lifes ignorance, and learn to open to himself the door of a higher consciousness, lest in the outward acceptation of words or things he should be deceived. Having premised thus much, he proceeds to detail the process by which the spirit is carried on from each succeeding dissolution into a more perfect form of being. (20) These images, indicating the mode of rational operation with the freed spirit and its soul, will appear inevitably obscure. The entire process is repeated many times before perfection is arrived at; and instructions for each, according to the arising phenomena, are given by the scholiast at full length. (21) A shadowy darkness passes always along with the philosophic body, moving in its own light until it is thoroughly purified from sensual defilements. Now that the clearness may be manifest throughout without obscurity, says the scholiast, the body must be repeatedly opened and made thin after its fixation and dissolved and putrefied, and as the grain of wheat sown in the earth putrefies before it springs up into a new growth or vegetation, so our Magnesia, continues he, being sown in the Philosophic Earth, dies and corrupts, that it may conceive itself anew. It is purifies by separation, and is dissolved, digested, and coagulated, sublimed, incerated, and fixed by the reciprocated action of its own proper Identity, as agent and patient, alternating to improve. The water spoken of by Hermes is the passive spirit, the redness is its soul, and the earth begot betwixt them is the substance or body of both --- the spirit thereafter penetrates the body, and the body fixes the spirit --- the soul being conjoined, tinges the whole of its proper color, whether white or red. This process is given in the following enigma, by the excellent author of the Aquarium Sapientum, or Water Stone: --Spiritus ipse datur pro tempore corpori, at ille Exhilarans Animam Spiritus arte cluet. Spiritus ille Animan subito si contrahit ad se, Nullum se abjungit segregat aque suo. Tunc tria consistent et in una sede morantur, Donec solvatur, nobile corpus, opus. Putrescat nec non moriature, separate istis: Temporeat elapso Spiritus atque Anima Aestu convenient extremo sive calore, Quisquw suam sedem cim gravitate tenet. Integritas praesto est, nulla et perfectio desit Amplis laetitiis glorificatur opus. See the Scholium, and Aquarium Sapientum, Musaeum Hermeticum. (22) Here again the allusions will appear willfully obscure to the uninitiated, for the master presupposes not only a knowledge of the Matter, but of the Vessel also in which it is scientifically concocted; but we must pass on. The life of the coal is fire, which being extinct, becomes a dead body; nor of coal alone, but of other things light is the life, and it is heat that conserves it. But the essence of life, says the scholiast, is nothing else than a pure, naked, unmingled Fire; not that indeed which is corrupting and elementary, but that which is subtle, celestial, and generating all things. The same is of metals their first matter containing the three principals, the Salt, Sulfur, and Mercury, of which so much has been spoken and ignorantly misapplied. By the crowned king, Hermes signifies the first manifested resplendence of the vital tincture; the well is, as the catholic spirit of life, inexhaustible; at the bottom, or center rather, of which subsists the occult Causality of all; even from this, the true efficient wheel, is drawn, according to tradition, that auripigment of philosophers which is the multiplicative virtue of their stone. When thou shalt see thy exaltations to return, teaches the adept, and by continuance of them on they body, light shall begin to appear with such admirable colors as never were seen by the eye of man in so little a room before; then rejoice, for now our king hath