Symbols ana a

* CAG, .3:62, 63. ^e CAG, 3:97
' Agrippa, bpistohe, 3:56. ^s Livrc de Crates, CMA, 3:57
^y B, Treviso, Philosophic des metaux, BPC, 2:385. See Agrippa (De occulta phihsnphia, 3.2) concerning the hiding of the doctrine and the secret that "must he kept in the heart”: "It is a sin to divulge to the public in writing the doctrine of those secrets that must only be transmitted orally down through the ranks of rhe Sages. . . . The gods themselves detest things exposed to the public and profane, and love things kept secret: so each experience of magic flees from the public, wants to remain unknown, is forrified by silence and destroyed by declaring it and does nor produce the complete effect. , . It is agreed that the operator be discreet and reveal to no one either his work, or the place, time or the goal being pursued, except to his master or his coadjutor, who must also be faithful, believing, taciturn and worthy of such knowledge through nature or cultivation."
¹⁰ When some texts speak of "election,” "grace,” "divine inspiration," and die like, almost always thev must be understood as a religious version of the brusque and unintentional character that some experiences can present.


20Q

Silence anti the Tradition

hermetic Philosophers themselves, of the direct transmission of the secret on the part of a master, there is the matter of one of the powers proceeding from the her­metic reintegration chat we have hinted at above: the projection into the spirit of anorher a given psychic state, which in this case is a state of illumination. This corresponds, however, to one of the meanings of the "multiplication” symbolism: the transmutation that multiplies the quantity of the precious substance because it induces in other bodies the quality of this one, can be interpreted equally from the point of view of the "intitiation by transmission” on the part of a master. To trans­form the base metals into Silver and Gold is the equivalent, from this point of view, of transmitting to others the interior state relative to the White Work or the Red: that is to say, to initiate into the Minor Mysteries (those of the Mother or the Moon) or the Greater Mysteries (those of Amun or the Sun).
What has been said about the "transmission of the secret” being conferred only on the "worthy” need not be interpreted moralisticaffy. It has to do with the fact that the consciousness of the one who is to be transformed has to be at the level of readiness to enter the new state and to be transformed within it; or else, either the operation will fail, or it could well provoke violent and dangerous dissociations in the natural unity of the different components of the person. Regardless of the so-called natural dignity that must be attributed to privileged qualities preserved in the higher castes of antiquity, there remains the aforementioned fact that certain moral qualities, apart from their ethical value, produce in the person who cultivates them certain subtle, objective conditions that are propitious for the "transforma­tion.” So much for the "acquired dignities.”
In this same order of things it is also necessary to remember another interpre­rat ion of the hermetic prescription, according to which the projection only happens with "heated metals.” Here the metals are the candidates for initiation and allude to an intense emotional vibration, which itself constitutes an inclination to tran­scendence through, so to speak, an ambience propitious to the reception of the initiating teacher being transmitted to an action of the student and fully completed in the transformation that this produces,^{11 509}
Finally, we must mention something that will leave many perplexed: the elixir of longevity and the powder of projection, not as symbols of spiritual powers, but as real substances. Here there comes into play the supernatural possibility already alluded to (see page 194) of attracting to or liberating from one's own being certain subtle forces and of connecting them to specific physi­cal materials that are charged with them objectively in the form of spiritual condensers, This possibility is confirmed by all magical traditions (in primitive people we find the idea of the supersaturations of mana that things or persons can bear), and betrayed by the positive religions themselves as necessary pre­requisites of the powers that they attach to rites of consecration and the like.
This means that these substances converted into an "elixir of life" or "pow­der of projection" are no longer mere physical substances; despite the fact that a chemical analysis would not reveal any supplementary quality in them, these substances have received an occult "vitalization” in relation to a "direction ot effectiveness" determined by means of a certain rite (recall the Rite of Epiclesis^{510 511} in the ancient Church), which in turn presupposes the existence of a person capable of being raised to transcendent states. The supernatural action of such substances is not considered completely automatic, ex opere. operato. A certain degree of exaltation and disposition is always necessary in the person for or in whom they must act, in order to awaken and transfer to his being the force that, it is hoped, above all will then be that which will act objectively.¹³
From this can be deduced some interesting consequences about the fact that the "powder of projection," understood to be a real substance and when uti­lized in a certain manner, produces the chemical transformation of the metals into gold, whereas when it is used on man can equally serve as one of the means—a dangerous one if the subject is not "prepared according ro the rice." as Agrippa says, or there is no one to help him—of producing in him the "separation."⁵¹² Generalizing this idea we arrive at the hermetic concept of the Universal Medicine fully capable of acting in an analogous way on the three kingdoms of nature, to overcome imperfection, infirmity, and "privation.”
The renovation and prolongation of physical life ("physical immortality" is, naturally, an absurdity) assumes thereby the character of one of the possible symbols of: a spiritual reintegration. Thus various traditions teach that the ter­restrial life becomes shorter the farther man is removed from the primordial state. And even among certain primitive peoples there persists the idea that death in general is always a violent event, an act against nature.