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In addition to the three fundamental colors—black, white, and red—others are also found within the literature. Essentially there are seven in all, which brings us back to the planetary correspondences mentioned before (chapter 14). But as for their place in the Work more than one interpretation is possible.
For Flamel, for example, the appearance of seven colors expresses the operation of the Spirit that adapts itself to the body by means of the soul;¹ the colors are equivalent to the seven colors of the rainbow appearing after the Hood as a sign of the alliance between ''Earth" and "Heaven’’—after the black raven did not return and the white dove flew back with the olive branch.² Thus the colors are so many phases of the physical regeneration that follow the rebirth in the Water. The opening of the seven doors or seven seals, the passage through the seven planets, the knowledge of the seven gods or seven angels, the ascension into the seven heavens and the various septenary figurations whose possible reference to the seven ^{428 429} "centers of life" in the body-all these correspond to the hermetic colors, which express the successive Tylngs" and "untyings" of the "knots" of the telluric being as it is worked by the Fire power.
Among other things, here we can discover the alchemical process of multipli­cation at work, which happens when, instead of a gradual total transformation, the conquest of one principle or spiritual state comes first. This principle or state is then "multiplied'’ by the transmutation of other natures into its own. As one flame ignites another flame, so one awakening awakens another. Such "multiplication" can be quantitative, when the resultant new elements do not change the nature of the function in which they are resolved (they do not lead, for example, from the 'White to the Red, but they infuse the white quality to successive orders of principles); or it can be qualitative, when said new elments are instead such that, to dominate them, the function that invests them must itself be transformed and pass through "exaltation” (exaleatio) into another higher function.’’ it is said, in any case, that "if we are satisfied to arrive at the perfect white or red without making any 'multiplications,' then we have settled for very little, because the multiplica­tions build up a treasure and growth of power approaching the infinite,"^{430 431 432} a saying that refers to the teaching chat the Spirits, although they may have attained the strength ot physical entities, multiply and teach their maximum intensity only when they combine with living bodies."’
Expressive symbols for multiplication, in the texts, are the allegories of person­ages (especially the King) who give their own "flesh" (their own nature) to other personages—frequently these are six or seven—which represent the principles that must undergo the transmutation; that is, each of the Six or Seven ask the One (a King on a throne, in the illustration of the Margarita pretiosa) for a kingdom or crown, that is, for the conquered and spiritually revived quality of royal Gold or the Sun.
Flamel, on the other hand,⁴³³ associating multiplication with the symbol of the