Symbols ana a

Della Riviera, Mondo magko, 90-92

J, V Andreae, Chemical Wedding, chap. 5.

Philalcrhes, Inrroitus appertus, §6.

CAG, 2-397

E Cumont, Les mysteres de Mithra, 137-38,

rising out of die separation, "rapacious spirits unleashed in the magical world”;⁹ and it is also the extermination of every last one of the armed warriors who, in the myth of Jason, are born on the Field of Mars, where the extracted teeth of the Dragon have been sown.¹⁰


331
Finally, in mystical terms, Gichtel speaks of the danger that appears at the moment when the power of the Virgin is transmitted to the "Igneous Soul,” because this last may then depart from humility and equanimity and fall back in love with itself , turning thereby into an egotistic and puffed-up demon. Nor can the Virgin help because her husband (the Soul) can neither be liberated nor dissolved, but always becomes only more fiery and exalted, and repels anything chat is not fire; so that Sophia retreats into her principle of Light and darkens the fire of the soul, which thereupon falls into the state of "sin."^{330 331}
It is a matter then of allusions to what can be derived from the dregs and elements that have not been reduced to "ashes" (such that they can no longer be "rekindled”) that have been left behind when the deeper forces emerge from the V life, reinforcing and multiplying—and being unable to stop reinforcing and multi­plying—everything they encounter. In the wet path, the separation would not take place until there is nothing left but the pure ego principle to be invested and transported. On the dry path this would be when this same principle has reduced its own nature to a "quintessence’’ of all the superior $ faculties, suitably equili­brated and purified.
We might, at this point, recall the disconcerting caveat that Andreae issues concerning the "trial of the balance"—which indicates precisely in what sense the polarization of the power, by virtue of the greater "weight,’’ is produced. He said, "You must know that, no matter what path you have chosen, by virtue of an immutable destiny you may not abandon your decision and go back without running into the greatest peril of your life. . . . If you have not purifed yourself completely, the wedding will be for ill.” And in the moment of trial he warns; "If anyone now in this company is not completely sure of himself, he should quickly depart . . . because better is it to flee than to take on what is beyond one’s strength.”¹²
In this sense, apart from the differences between paths, the texts are in accord about the necessity for a preparation of the substances. In the Work no substances will be utilized as they are, but only prepared (whittled down) substances. A
recurrent theme in alchemy is "getting rid of the heterogeneous parts”: everything that is not itself or that is an irrational interference of one faculty with another.
A second theme is the denudation, which extracts and isolates the useful elements. The initiate’s use of the symbol of "nudity," on the other hand, is traditional.¹^ We must, nevertheless, emphasize two different understandings of the hermetic "garments” and their ".stripping": the first refers precisely to the ascetic preparation, to the innermost simplification of the soul which, while the general conditions of the human state of existence remain, must be returned to itself.; the second refers to a plane of reality and corresponds to the separation, understood as the putting into action of the consciousness and the power under­neath its garments that now represent the conditions of the same general human corporeality ¹⁵ For example, Philo ot Alexandria (Leg. alleg. §13) calls die "naked" chose who, "abandoning the life of death and participating in immortality," are the only ones who "contemplate the ineffable mysteries," The renouncing ot the possession of "dor lies" and "ornaments" can be equivalent to the precept of poverty, which then is elevated to an initiatory meaning. In a gnostic testament we find an important connection between nudity and spiritual virility— ios or vTrya—relative to the "Gate of Heaven,” "reserved only tor pneumatic men." "On entering, rhey cast off their clorhes and become bridegrooms, having obtained rhe virility [read fiaAniv and not AajOefv] ot die Virgin Spirit" in which the Mercury in "white" is easily recognizable (Hippolytus, Pfalnsnphumeiiu, 5 8). Ch, also. Plotinus (Hnneads. 1.6.7): "Those who ascend by the rungs ot the sacred Mysteries are purified and drop their vestments which had covered them, and go forth naked "