Symbols ana a

Tkirteen
cbe “pouR”
1t> CO AO
Che quaternary division derives directly from the already explained ternary division, but within the middle term Spirit:, which is the source of the subtle life-giving ener­gies, we can distinguish between two aspects. The first refers to a group of forces undergoing the ascent of the "Body” principle, which are stuck to the Body as to their lodestone and nourished by the Body as the flame is nourished by the firewood from which it comes forth and which, little by little, it consumes. The second aspect refers to a group of forces conforming, on the other hand, to the idea of the "Soul" principle, which to a certain degree, transmits to them its "solar” quality.
Alchemically speaking, the Spirit is Mercury. Thus, we shall also encounter within the sign of this symbolic substance a bipartite division into V and The second of these symbols corresponds to the Double Mercury or Androgyne, possessing the nature of fiery or burning Water, expressions that betray their identity with the Fire or Soul principle. And in fact its symbol is obtained from that of ordinary Mercury $ by the substitution of the sign of Aries T, or Sulfur in the pure state, for that of the rising Moon Thus life forces are interpenetrated by a masculine spiritual quality, which reveals the rising of ©, the Gold or Soul Having said this we can proceed to explain the quartering as follows:
In man, before everything else, there is a terrestrial being, also called a Saturnian being, or simply Saturn. It is through him the "Earth" force acts, which determines
and maintains the density or heaviness ("our lead’’—pdXifioq qpirspo^—in a quite specific sense). This is the hard and tangible animal body and manifests itself principally through the element of calcium (bones), and also through horny mate­rial, cartilage, tendons, etc. Sub specie inteiiorkatis this entity is seen as the power of devouring and yearning (the voracious desiccation and greedy atidicy of "dry land," in the alchemical jargon), the root of all thirst and desire. The titanic, tellurian element that is spoken of in Orphism refers to this entity, which is also the primordial principle of individuation, it is the ''fixed" par excellence: and even though it is the eternal matrix of individual bodies, at the same time, since they are so ephemeral, it appears as the God who after having created them, devours them. It is the hermetic exegesis of Saturn's double aspect, king of the "Golden Age’’ (we shall see that this is related, among other things, to the primordial spiritual state of corporeality) and devourer of his own sons.
In the second place we have an aquatic ("fluid") or Lunar entity: that is, of Mercury, or Mercury in a limited sense and Moon. Here we must refer to the general notion of the double: the Egyptian Ka, the "wind of the bones” and the Ob of Hebrew esotericism, the Etruscan lasa, the Hindu "subtle form” (suitshmasdrird) and prana, etc. It is the life of the Saturn-body entity by virtue of which, it is considered as the carrier of the various racial energies, the genetic inheritance of our "primordial forefathers" (the relationship between the "double” and the totem among primitives).^{129 130} That for which the first entity is the skeleton, for this second entity is the white nervous and glandular system through which a plasmodic influence is exercised. With regard to consciousness it represents the treshhold over which the exterior penetrates into the interior: Mercury is the seat of the senses, the mirror in which are illuminated the phantasms of things (whence its connection to tine power of the imagination),^{131 132} both when they are produced through the first being (normal physical perception) and when they are produced directly (paranormal psychic perception).
Then we have the Mercury united with the Fire, a more subtle "fluid” entity, less corporeal, more specialized by an intimate interpenetration with the soul principle, as we explained in discussing the $ symbol. On the other hand, as fire on contact with water results in the gaseous or airy state, so this entity which the ancients frequently designated as body or igneous form, we must recognize as the correspondence to the Air element A, understood as a blockage of the pure Fire power A. The latter, represented by red blood, provides the vital or animal heat and all power of movement, just as the preceding $ is the principle of "etheric light” diffused In the senses and vitalizing the white nerves.
Finally, we have the inteffectual entity, which is the Sun and Gold in man. It is the center 0, the principle of spiritual stability, radiant and not inert, primary origin of everything that through $ and £ arrives at the telluric union, to move it and make it alive in a higher sense. In itself supra-individual, it gives rise to individuality, the ego-function. It is the vovg, according to the Hellenic mystery conception; the first power of Fire (the "Fire of the Stone” of the Arab alchemical texts); the. ''stable and not falling soul” of Agrippa.⁴ In the Corpus Hermeticum it is called "incorporeal essence, neither moved by anything, nor in anything, nor towards anything, nor for anything, because it is a primary force, and what precedes has no need of anything following”; "an essence that possesses its own end in itself”'"¹ is identified with this same principle.^{133 134}
Such are the Four in man—and such are the seats wherein knowledge of the hermetic Elements can take place. They have different forms, but they are present and active in man simultaneously, the first in a spatial way, the other three in a nonspatial way, like different states of the body (in the ordinary sense) and of physical matter. The normal man does not have any distinct knowledge of them: in him they are experienced in a confused way in a general sensation (coenesthesis), which is illuminated in the form of sensory phantasms and reflected images and very rarely in actions of the igneous principle or of concentric (cyclopedic) solar vision (referring to the "third eye” of Oriental tradition). It is the impure state of the "mixed," the obscurity of the "tomb of Osiris” (Osiris - ©) and according to the expressions of the texts, the indistinguishable quality of "our philosophic chaos,” in which, whoever surrenders himself to the hermetic Art, must extract the individual natures spagyrically. Only then emerge the four possibilities as glimpses and reintegrations in metaphysical contact with the Elements. It goes without saying that the organic systems (skeletal, nervous, and blood) brought Into contact with the different entities, are not these entities, but manifestations, apparitions of them in the heart of the saturnian terrestrial being. In alchemical terms this last is the "thickened” (or gross); the conjunction of the rest is the "subtle” or "volatile” (in the broad sense): Earth and Heaven.
So, "Like knows like.” Thus, as long as man is amalgamated with the Earth entity, he will know nothing more than the Earth aspect of things and beings—their physical and sense aspect. Likewise, in the lunar entity taken from the "tomb,”
naked, he would know Water, not the vulgar water, but the luminous and perma­nent Water of the Sages, and everything would be conceived as a kind of "Water” (subtle perception); and the Air and things ruled by Air--"Eagles”—would be known in the $ entity; and finally, in its own center, reintegrated in the solar purity of ©, "soul standing and not falling,” a simple and universal vision, the "cyclical” or "cyclopic” vision would be enclosed in the interior of the "Fire Spheres.” There the Homeric "Staff of Hermes" would be in operation, at whose contact everything is transmuted into the state of symbolic Gold (in this context, this is the passage from the common perception of the world to that of the—Kdapoq voj]Tog— intelligible world).¹³⁵
A final point regarding the hermetic symbolism of colors. After black, which is appropriate for Earth, the obscure Lead, and Saturn, we have the white of $ the Moon or Venus,¹³⁶ the red of <£, and the golden color of ©. As we shall see, to each one of these colors corresponds a phase of the hermetic work that focuses precisely on the principle in question. Moreover, the symbol also encompasses the four kingdoms of Nature, considered as symbols and manifestations of corresponding forces. In the telluric entity man contains in himself the mineral kingdom; in the lunar, "our Water” entity he contains the vegetable kingdom (whence the reason for the permutation of the white color for the green of vegetability); in the igneous, the animal kingdom; and finally in order to represent himself and nothing but himself there is the intellectual or "incombustible Sulfur” entity ©.
Within the framework of the world vision to which hermetism pertains, there are simulcaneously real, magical, and symbolic correspondences; kingdoms of nature, states of matter, systems of corporeality, and human consciousness consid­ered as different manifestations of the same metaphysical principles.