Symbols ana a

Forty-Five
KDoaileoqe of
cbe rod ado cbe
cRluo1cy
1

• 
  et us move on now to some references co the final stage
  
• 
  of che work: transmutation.
  

In the Corpus Hcrmecicum a "Robe of Fire” is men­tioned, which the intellectual being O dons when it has been liberated from the body and which could never be endured here below. For a single spark of this fire would suffice to destroy the Earth [were it not for the guardianship of Water], yet it is said that it is just the absence of this Fire chat prevents the soul from completing the divine tasks.⁴⁴⁸ The Art—as we have seen—is directed, on the other hand, precisely toward making che organism strong enough to support this fiery element, whence the alchemical adage: "Mastery has been achieved when the Matter has reached perfect union with its mortal poison."
More specifically we can say that the true cause of all corruption is often the abnormal manifestation of a power higher than what the rigid circuits of the body can handle. Therefore, once the body’s organization has arrived at its fulfillment it is disinte­grated, consuming itself little by little, which is what death means for whomever has
not assimilated the inner nature of this flame and has not transferred his form^{449 450} into it.
The Corpus Hermeticum teaches that for any body to become permanent it must be transformed—but, unlike mortal bodies, the transformation of immortals is not accompanied by dissolution:² precisely because the soul has been united with the "dissolvent” and with it has designed and established the nature of the new individu­alization, ⁴⁵¹in whatever form of existence it may manifest or maintain. For which it has been said that the adept of yoga will not suffer any destruction, not even in the final dissolution—maha-pralaya— as laid down in the traditional doctrine of the cycles.
If the teXog, the final goal, is the sense that colors this development in its entirety, there is nothing better than the nature and dignity of the Red Work to help us penetrate the spirit of the hermetic Work.
Tliis is especially so when we come to the problem of immortality. The hermetic Work carried to the Red stage is related to the supreme "supercosmic” conception of immortality. This conception is not easy to understand for a civilization that has long bst it; God understood theistically as a "being” and our identification with char being serve as limits beyond which it is absurd to imagine or to wane anything else. But in the initiatic teaching the supreme state lies beyond being and nonbeing. According to the cosmic myth of the cycles, in this nondifferentiation, which is identical to the absolute transcendence, even this personal God Himself and all his Heavens are reabsorbed in the moment of the "Great Dissolution.”⁴⁵² The ultimate perfection of the Work, which has been at­tained when the Earth has been entirely dissolved and united with the "Poison,” means to have succeeded in reaching this outermost limit. At that point no further "reabsorption” is possible. The royal initiate, garbed in Red, is a survivor who remains, even (as in the myth of the cycles) when worlds, men, and Gods go under.
There is a measure of legitimacy in connecting the White Work and the Red Work, respectively, to initiation into the Lesser and Greater classical Mysteries. The promise of both was immortality, which is, let us reiterate, something positive and very different from the vague "spiritualist” conception of simple survival. But the first immortality was only such in terms of "life,” even Cosmic Life, and therefore, ultimately, a conditional immortality linked to manifestation. The second, that of the Greater Mysteries, was a "supercosmic” immortality in the sense just indicated, and it was in the Greater Mysteries that use of the royal symbolism predominated.
Another point: It is interesting to note chat in hermetism the White Work is always subordinate to the Red Work, and as a consequence the Light is subordi­nated to the Fire. This is no mere variation of symbols, but an eloquent signature for the. experienced eye, because the hierarchical associations of such symbols within other traditions are the opposite, and not by accident. It can be observed that where White and Light take primacy they denote a spirituality that may eventually also have an initiatory character, but which falls predominantly within the boundary of contemplation, "knowledge,” and wisdom, and so is nearer the sacerdotal tradition chan the royal.⁴⁵³ But when the Red and Fire take primacy, they are indications of the Royal Mystery and the magical tradition in the higher sense. In hermetism the larcer primacy is clear.
Let us now pass on to the human analogy. The Orient knew long ago the ideal of the one for whom there no longer exists either this shore nor the other, nor both together—who, without fear of any kind, has forsaken his human chains, has broken his chains to the divine and has been delivered from all chains: the Hero, whose path is known neither to Gods nor to men.⁴⁵⁴ But behind the hermetic symbolism of the Androgyne and "Lord of the Two Natures” we can discern a very similar conception of the adept. As we have seen before, the "race of hermetic Philosophers,” says Zosimos, is autonomous, above destiny, without king (because it itself is royal). According to the Corpus Hermcticum, the double nature, far from being an imperfection, is considered the expression of a power that is beyond mortal and immortal. It is said time and again in the texts, that the Son engendered by the Royal Art is nobler, greater, and more powerful chan his cosmic progenitors, Heaven and Earth. He is called magnipoiens; he holds in his hands the sceptres of the spiritual kingdom and the temporal kingdom, and has wrested the glory of the world and has made of himself his own subject;⁴⁵⁵ he has been crowned eternal King, says the Chymica vannus⁴⁵⁶ He is ''the one who Lives,” because in the act of receiving the "tincture” of the Fire—death, evil, and darkness flee from him: his light is living and resplen­dent.^{457 458} Hero of Peace whom the world awaits, known as the seven-timcs-purged by Fire, there is none like him and he is the conqueror of all red Gold;¹¹ his might is sovereign over all his brothers;⁴⁵⁹ he has been called all things, every­thing in everything, the very "Prima Materia” itself;⁴⁶⁰ and accordingly, say "Hermes” and Chymes the ^tfpiov (Powder of Projection) possesses the "great Pan, ” the Mystery "sought for eons and now found at last, ”
At the center of the planets, with the emblem of the universal empire 6 in his hand, one text puts these words into his mouth: "Radiating great brilliance, 1 have conquered all my enemies, and from one 1 am become many, and from many, one, descended from an illustrious lineage ... 1 am one and many are in me [unum ego sum, et muki in me)”⁴⁶¹—whence it is clear that the initiatic "we” (which can be associated with the pluralis majescatis, the royal or pontifical plural) expresses a state of consciousness that is no longer that of a particular being, but that which reigns over the possibility of multiple individual manifestations.
In particular, the assimilation to the "body” state corresponding to the Aris­totelian "pure forms” or to the "angels” of Catholic theology is the same as expressed in hermetism, since in this "the enlightened man will not be less than the celestial spirits, will be in all and for all like them "in one impas­sible and incorruptible Body.”¹-¹ "A new glorified soul will be united to the
immortal and incorruptible body: thus will be made a new heaven.”⁴⁶²
And in one of the Gnostic-Mystery traditions there is a similar symbolism in "the tunic of Tyrrhenian purple,” "scintillating and flaming, incapable of change or alteration⁴⁶³ and over which neither heaven itself nor the zodiac have power; whose radiant splendor and bright lustre convey to one a supercelestial aura⁴⁶⁴ which, on being made known, amazes, terrifies, and makes one tremble all at the same time.”⁴⁶⁵
Finally, now that we have given the sense of the ultimate union of the natures, or triunity, we will cite an ancient text characteristic of Comarius. The first thing mentioned is the "shadow,” because of which die "Body Spirit and Soul are debilitated” (cf. the Ttevia as a srare of "privation"); the "dark spirit, made of vanity and flabbiness," an obstacle to the attainment of the Whiteness, and an image of the phantom created by the body; and finally, the character of that which is divine or sulfurous, consisting in the power by means of which "the Spirit acquires a Body and mortal beings acquire an [immortal) Soul, being dominated and dominating at the moment of receiving the spirit [or Mercury) which emerges from the substances [when it is liberated from these conditions).” After which, the text continues:
When the dark and fetid spirit has been rejected, to the point where neither its smell nor (.lark color can any longer be perceived, then the Body becomes luminous, the Soul rejoices, and with it the Spirit. Tire darkness having fled from che Body, the Soul calls out to this now luminous Body and says to it: "Awake from the depths of Hades and rise from the darkness! Awake and break away from the darkness! Truly thou hast assumed the spiritual and divine state. The voice of resurrection has spoken; die Pharmakon of Life has penetrated thee.” Moreover, the Spirit [in die text the symbol of Cinnabar, the red sulfur of mercury, appears here) rejoices in turn in the Body [ "ft, Lead), just as in the Soul [ C, Silver) in the body [ O, Gold) in which it resides.⁴⁶⁶ This runs with joyous
precipitation to embrace it—does embrace it and then the darkness ceases to dominate it, because it has reached the Light [ T\ the sign of the Sulfur in a nascent state, that is, before its passage to the amalgams]. The Body does not (any longer] support its separating from the Spirit (as happens in death], and takes pleasure, in the permanence ( (D, the Gold] ol the Soul,²¹ which, al ter having seen the Body hidden by the darkness, is now full of light ( *Y\ Sulfur in its nascent state]. And the soul is united to it, after which it has become divine with respect to it, and lias taken residence in it. Once die Divine Light has been assumed, once the darkness has fled from it, the three are united in tenderness [perhaps in the sense of "tenuousness" as the first dissolving of the dense—in the text, the Mercury sign as the Greek letter p (mu) interpreted by Bert he lot as an amalgam of Mercury]: Body ( ©, Gold], Soul [ Mercury]²² and Spirit (Cinnabar],
They are transformed into one. And in such (unity) die Mystery is hidden. With their union, the mystery is completed. 'Hie dwelling place lias been sealed, and a statue, has been erected, full ol light and divinity. Insofar as the Fire (TV Sul I ur in the nascent stage] has united and transmuted them, and they have departed from its bosom [sign of the ios of die Copper).²³
In the interest ol rendering everything clear in this text, the reader may put to the test what he has learned of that which has been revealed up to this point.
In general, the hermetic achievements have various levels of permanence. "To fix,’’ in such a sense, can also have the special meaning of appropriating, in a stable way the stages reached by the operations of the Art. Thus Geber distinguishes between a "medicine" of first, second, and third grade.²⁴ The first has merely a momentary action, as in the case of anything that can be attained by violent methods with a blow of the hand. The second produces an incomplete transforma­tion, as in the case where spiritual states do not succeed in producing the corre­sponding body transformations. The last is the "total medicine," which acts integrally with a permanent transformation.
here, means Mercury united with Sulfur ( $ ) in the organic compound. Notice also that the Body in the vulgar Mercury function is combined with Lead, but in its Soul function with Gold.

21.