De phanrtaco catholico 2, §§3, 4; cf. 3, fl4. Equivalent teaching: "Take, special care that rhe diluvian Waters do nor suffocate the Fire of Earth" (Triomphc Hcrmctiquc, 306). Cf. Dialogue dcMarie er Aros, BPC, 1:79.
183
Zacharias, Philosophic naturdk dei metaux. 2,534. Cf. Turba, BPC, 2:7
184
,wAurora, 10, §50.
185
These last terms in the alchemical jargon should he taken in a double sense, including that which obtains in expressions like "solving a problem" and "dissolving a bond.’’
186
Introitus aperzus, chap. 1.
187
The thing to understand about symbols is chat they sometimes have very different meanings, which are not necessarily concradicrory hut may derive from quite different points of view. So the "fixed'1 can symbolize the body in relation to "volatility” and to the subtlety of the vital principles, hut at the same time, as in this case, it can also symbolize the Soul considered in its stability and identity, in the fact of its constituting a stable point and a center confronting the universal Life and its undetermined possibilities and also the becoming of the elements.
In Hippolytus, Philosnphumcna, .1.10; cf. Heraclitus (frag. 68 Diels) "For souls, to become water is death ”
196
A passage from Plotinus (Enneads 6.4.14) explains the teaching: "It has occurred to the Higher Man to want to be in addition someone else, and on encountering us . he has united lumself to us and us to him ... As wirh one voice and wirh a single word, the car that hears and receives makes another elsewhere, because from that active power [of the spoken word] is born a hearing that has present in itself this power in [its] action; so we have become two together, and no longer what we were apart or what we have added, only that the higher man is "asleep and as though not present,” For the corresponding myth in Buddhist teaching, cf. our work The Doctrine ot the Awakening (London, 1951).
197
Dc signarura, 14, §6; 15, §§b-8; 4, §28; 5, §15.
198
In Adam, says Boehnie (Aurora, 11, §62). it was Nitre, or the active force of personalization, which struggled with the "Fountain of Life.”
199
b Gichtel, Thcosophia praccica 1, §§19 20; .1, §§66-70; 6, §§45-46. The symbolism of the magnet in some cases can be applied to the power of the Body that has attracted the soul, tying it to itself. The resultant state is equivalent to the ahamkara in Hindu tradition, by means of which the ego makes its own the characteristics that come to it trom the Body.
200
A correlation between "thirsr” or "desire" and the failure of a "Titanic" adventure can be found in Orphism. The inscription of the Lamina Turii If reads: "1 am of your blessed race [Uranian—ipoi y^voq oupaviov, Lamim lAtelia). Bur Moira and the flashing lightning bolt struck me and withered me.” The sudden fulmination hurled at the Titans on the part of Zeus as well as the "aridity” causes the "thirst that parches and consumes me” from the Lamina Pecdia, which can be quenched only by the Waters of Mnemosyne, reserved for initiates. Mcxaphysically to interpret such thirst as desire, however, one would have had to recognize rhat it is not so much the effect as the cause of the Titans being crushed by lightning. But it must be noted thar the hermetic "purification" that fetches the primordial states back from those it has degenerated is also sometimes called "fulmination” (cf. for example, Perncty, Diccionnaire. 175),- the awakening of the central puwer that acts in the Opus Magnus is often compared to a "lightning flash” that suddenly destroys every "imperfect metal," i.e., every individual essence not qualified to pass the test rhar it confronts now for rhe second time.
201
'' Aurora, 16. §5, 21, §69
202
Triomphe Henmriquc, BPC, 2:185, 201. Cf. also the dialogue following the text, where the three kinds of Gold are mentioned (3:231 If.).
203
P. Negri (Imroduzione alls, magia, 2:76ff.) has also indicated such a correspondence etymologically, breaking it into Sac-limits and conferring on the urnus terminal the same value that di-urnus and nocr- urnus possess, the root sat coinciding with the Sanskrit word that means "being” and which figures in the Hindu designation of the corresponding "Golden Age” of Hesiod: Satya-Yuga or Krira-Yuga.