Symbols ana a

^u CMA, 3:95, 114.
¹⁷ Cf. also CAG 2:287 88, 313. 337; CMA, 2:37, 38; Livre dc El Hahir, CMA, 3:88.
^1S CAM, 3:119-20; Cf. d’Espagnet (Arcanum hcrmcucae, BCC, 2, §52): "The garden of the Hesperides is guarded by a horrible dragon; at the entrance there is a fountain of the clearest living-Water, issuing from seven sources and pouring our in all directions. Have the dragon drink this water according to die magic number of three times seven (the seven referring to the three principles) until, inebriated, he divests himself of his soiled garment.”
over seven doors . . . corresponding to the seven heavens, over the sensory world, over the twelve houses [the zodiac or forces of animal vitality]. . . . And over them rises the Eye of the invisible senses, the Eye of the Spirit, which is present and in all places. This perfect Spirit is seen in the power ol which everything is comprised.¹⁶⁰
In sum: in hermetism, the number seven, according to traditional esoteric teaching, expresses transcendent forms, nonhuman forms of consciousness and energy that stand at the foundation of ''elemental" things. The possibility of a double relationship to these forms explains the doctrine of the two septenaries, one bound to necessity and the other opening to freedom.¹'"’ The state of physical embodiment in which man finds himself is ried to the mystery of this septenary differentiation and, through the "centers of life/’ also contains the double power of the keys of "locking" and "unlocking,” of the hermetic solve and coagula. Purifi­cations, distillations, circulations, divestments, calcinations, solutions, ablutions, killings, baths, rectifications, etc., all relate more or less directly to the number seven. In the technical hermetic literature they express the work assigned to the powers through their transition from one mode of being to another, which is "nonhuman.”
And so we have moved from the doctrinal part of hermetism and entered the terrain of practice. But before proceeding we shall set down a series of ideas and symbols that will allow us to clarify the essence of the hermetic work.