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t the beginning of the previous chapter we men­tioned that there are different interpretations of the seven. These differences also have to do with part of the disagreement over the order of the planets as given in various texts. This inconsistency, when not a question of distortions, proceeds either from the desig­nation of different terms and symbols for the same things, or from an actual difference of the methods followed. When we speak of the seven "centers of life” we must also bear in mind that present in each are the forces of the others alongside its own, which is the dominant one.⁴³⁸ Thus, by way of a given method or of a temperament more akin to one of the secondary energies than to the dominant one, there can be produced in a given center the awakening of a principle that normally should correspond to another center? so chat one planet in the symbolism may take the place ol another. So, for example, that same tiny luz to which we have alluded (see page 172, note 15), from which "the body sprouts or recreates itself in resurrection” according to the qabalistic tradition Agrippa refers to (and in full accord with the analogous Hindu teaching), is situated in the mystic region of the sacrum—but in certain Teraphim figures is found between the two eyes and also in the heart. So one and the same force, or state, is manifested in different centers.
Della Riviera gives the following order: Saturn, Jupiter, Mars, Earth, Venus,
Moon, and Sun ^{439 440} The interpretation is double and depends on whether it is a question of the dry path, that is, of a continuous line of purification and transfor­mation up to the light form (Moon) and then to the Sun—or a question of phases succeeding to a preliminary realization of the Sun, in the sense of the grades of resurrection that the Sun itself works through when it goes to work on Saturn, the Body (or Earth), In this instance Saturn generates, as die myth says, the different gods (corresponding to the planets) and rises finally to the absolute perfection of the Sun or Gold, wherein, by "the removal of all their infirmities, impurities and heterogeneous ingredients," the "magic metals"^{441 442 443} are transformed.
Pernety provides this order: Lead (Saturn, black), Tin (Jupiter, gray), Silver (Moon, white), Copper (Venus, reddish-yellow), Iron (Mars, rust), Purple, and Gold (Sun, red).'¹ Here it is clear that the planers and the metals correspond to the phases of the diminishing of the darkness (from black to gray to silver) and of progressive ignification (orange, rust, red).
In Philalethes, the Lordship of Mercury rakes first place as the "Labor of Hercules," of "separation" whereby the Gold ”is stripped of its gilded garments," "the breaking of the Lion by such a struggle that he is reduced to the greatest debility." The rulership of Saturn follows, the black color, and here "the Lion is dead." Jupiter comes next, die God that dethroned Saturn, who now approaches but the first traces of the albedo- The immaculate white is the domain of the Moon. Venus follows—going from the white to the green—expressing the first symbolic plant growth from the Earth-body’s cohesion, which rises up as freed of the impure hear of the dead Lion. The green rhen becomes sky blue, turning livid and changing to reddish brown, then pale purple, colors that indicate the iosis or combustion that begins to be produced within the heart of $ But now Mars intervenes, virile and ironlike, to produce the desiccation: "Here the Matter is enclosed and .sealed in die bowels of her son and purified until having cast out of the composition all impurity and having replaced it with eternal purity": it is the color orange (which in Fernery corresponds to rust). Finally the Lord­ship of the Sun is reached, in which "from thy Materia a light hardly to be imagined will irradiate," which after three days becomes the most intense red.¹

In the ancient Hellenistic tradition transmitted by Stephanos,⁶ the order varies again. The sidereal regions, associated with the gods and sacred metals, have the following order: Saturn (Lead, Jl ), Jupiter (Bronze, 2J. ), Mars (Iron, (f ), Sun (Gold, © ), Venus (Copper, Q ), Mercury ( $ ), Moon (Silver, C ), Tills disposition can be turned around, however, according to a symmetry that has the Sun in the center with Saturn, Mars, and Jupiter above it as a triad of masculine divinities, with Venus, Mercury, and Moon below it in a triad of feminine deities (Mercury being the "Lady of the Philophers”), as in the diagram reproduced below. The spiritual itinerary so to speak, then proceeds in a spiral: starting from a higher masculine god, It descends to join the symmetrical feminine divinity, then rises again and arrives finally at the center occupied by the Sun. The rising and falling movement that unites the symmetrical pairs corresponds, thus, to the successive sublimations and precipitations also circulating within the enclosed athanot: a descent to the "Infernal," where each "Arsenic” encounters a Water with which by dissolution, recomposition, and resurrection, prepares it to be converted into a metal each time closer to the Gold.
It is a peculiar "coincidence” that this same disposition of the planets is found in Gichtel, the same spiral journey beginning with Saturn "fa and ending in the Sun ©; an itinerary we have already interpreted (see pages 57-58) in its other possible sense as an involutional process. We know, however, that Gichtel connects each planet or god to a specific region of the body and we have remarked how these regions correspond, if we refer them to points on the spinal column, to approxi­mately the places that Hindu esotericism assigns to the seven "centers of life."
The Spiral also allows us to express in synthesis the whole process of the Art if we. consider it to have a double course: centripetal from "fa to ©, and centrifugal from © to Jl. In the first case, the upper triad expresses the elements of the vulgar state that are covered in "shadow,” which encounter in their respective lower elements their liberating "dissolution,” If we base ourselves on the teaching of Macrobius (Commentanum in somnium Scipionis), Saturn fa, corresponds to the mcelligcntia—TO d£COpi]TiKOV and to the ratiacinatio—rd Xoyiordv—which in constructs a dwelling place for the life in the Mercury and starts the movement of the wheel that elevates it to but greater anguish, where Mars furnishes the Mercury with the fiery Soul. In Mars the more sublime life is enkindled, dividing into two essences: a body of love and a spirit of fire. The life of love [the sympathetic power of attraction and of the penetration ot the 3 ] descends into the fiery interior effervescence and is manifested in all its beauty; but Mercury gobbles up this Venus. The Child then turns into a black raven, and Mars oppresses Mercury to ics annihilation. Then the four elements are liberated from it and the Sun gathers up the Child and presents it in its virgin body to the pure Element. The light has shone in the quality of Mars, in this is born the true life of the Unique. Element, against which no Cholerand no Death can stand.” These expressions can be interpreted in various ways: possibly also from the perspective of the episodes of the White work alone,