Symbols ana a

" Livrc des balances, CAM, 3:148.
" Lure de Crates, CAM, 3:52.


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The Alchemical Colors an A Multipl ication
"descend,’' multiplication can also be called the "circulation" of the substance that, by the power of Fire, is obtained in the hermetically sealed vessel—seven times, according to some authors—which subsrance, when subtilized into vapor, is raised, condenses upon touching the upper part of the vessel or achanor, and is reprecipitated in rhe form of a sublimate rhat transmutes a part of the remains below as caput morfuum. When because of the. greater heat the substance reascends, it transports this part wirh it, in order then to be condensed and redescend with an even more energetic "tinting power," which in turn acts on a further part of the substance, and so on successively. We have spoken of this merely chemical symbolism before.
Returning to the symbolism of the passage through the planets, Basil Valentine shows us the whole process in the following apocalyptic form: "Then the old world will fade away and a new world will take its place, and every planet will spiritually consume the other, in such a way that the strongest, having fed on the orhers [see below: the reduction of rhe subsolar planets through the agency of those of the higher symmetries], will be the only ones that remain, and two and three [the two expresses the generic principle of opposition, while the three is the number of planers in each group: "fa, Cf and 9, C] will be conquered by the One alone [the final simplicity, corresponding to the state beyond the Seven].”^{434 435} We can also quote the following passage of Boehme, concerning the moment when "Mercurius judged in the Sulfur Saturni is transmuted according to the lust for liberty”: "The cadaver is raised up in a new body with a beautiful white color.
. . . The Materia delays resolving and when it has been made desirous again [reference to the impulse that leads to further contact] the Sun rises from it . . . in rhe Center of Saturn, with Jupiter, Venus and the seven forms. And it is a new Creation, solar, white and red, majestic, luminous, and fiery.¹¹
Rrtrus Bonus has this to say: "The ancient alchemists, thanks to the recogni­tions of their art, were well informed about the end of the world and the resurrec­tion of the dead: because the Soul unites again, for eternity, with its original Body. The Body becomes completely glorified and incorruptible, so incredibly subtle that it can penetrate all densities. . . . The ancient philosophers saw the Universal Judgment within the operations of their art, that is to say, in the germination and birth of the Stone, because in it occurs the union of the Soul to glorify with its original body, in an ’erernal glory.’’’⁴³⁶ According to Michael Maier the last phase is a sempiternal fire, the rubedo, whose emblem is the circle in which rhe perfect triangle of the Body, Soul, and Spirit can be found.⁴³⁷