Among the various reasons for the notable differences between astrological prescriptions are those deriving from the tact char a propitious dare tor one particular individual may not be propitious for anor'ner; the different ascendent of each individual constitutes, strictly speaking, a factor of primary importance.
Correspondences, Times, anti Rites
503
Cf. R, Steiner, Inti intenbc\\-rufit:sdn, 66-82, 116-26.
504
We might again recall in this regard the wards ot Agrippa (3.36) who, with Geber, teaches "that one cannot excel in the alchemic art without knowing its principles in himself"; cf. this Taoist text: "The five elements that operate in nature, creating and destroying, also operate in the mind, objectifying the same nature. So the whole world lies [potentially] in Our hands.’ (Yin fu Ching, 1.2).
n In this case the hermetic multiplication is equivalent tu the "univocal generation’' abour which Agrippa says (Dc occulta phihsophia, 3.36): "In this un{vocal procreation the son is like the father in every respect and, engendered according ro his kind, in the same way as the parent. And this offspring is the power of the Word formed hy the mens, a Word well received in a subject ritually prepared, as a seed by a matrix, for the generation and birth. 1 say well disposed and rituallyprepared, because all things do not participate in rhe word in the same way. . .And these are secrets too recondite by nature to be bruired further m public.” Tire designation "sons of Hermes’’ rakes us back to the same idea, with the warning that, here "1 lermes" should nor be considered an actual historical personage, but rhe special spiritual influence that defined the initfatic chain and the organization. In the important work of A. David-Neel, Initiations lamaiques (Paris, 1930), there is ample information about these procedures that are states practiced in Tiber an esoteric ism.
510
[The calling down of the Holy Ghost in the Mass, who [hereupon changes the bread and wine into the body and blood of Christ.—Trans.]
511
In alchemy reference is also made to die opposite possibility, that is to say, to desaturate die substances by releasing their vital principles: as when we think of a supernatural nourishment based not so much on physical nutriments as—above all - on the nutritive virtues supposed to be dissociable from the physically and psychically aspirable parts, (Cf, Della Riviera, Mvnda magicu. 150).