Symbols ana a

^For the Black head of which "the ancients speak as the foundation that underlies substance,” cf Zosimos, CAG, 2:223.

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^Cf. Levy-Bruhl, L'aine primitive (Paris, 1927), 238 -49.

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^Whence Agrippa (Dc occulta philosophic 2:28), lias the imagination correspond to Water and simple

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Earth feelings.

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¹ Ibid., 3:44.
•’ 'treated under The Virgin of the World, 3 (text in Mead, 239 , 245).

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^The lines of this four-part division follow Kremmerz, Fascicolo D della Miryam and I dialoghi sullcrmctismo (Sipidcto, 1929), 6-7, 11, 116. We have chosen to give them directly, to make it easier for rhe reader to find the best way to explain the meanderings of symbolism in the texts.

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^In the literature the differentiation between y and 5 is often shown by the symbol of two "fnnies'’ or "vapors," one white and the other red, ot quite simply by two stones, one red and the other white, which are liberated from the stone (the body), by the two trees, one lunar, the other solar (cf. the Cosmopolite; Braccesco, Clef tie la grande science, etc,), by the two Mercuries, occidental and oriental, one of them Spirit and the other corresponding to the Soul, The last is poison, unless mitigated— "chilled’’—by the other Mercury y {CMA, 3-208); poison, devouring fire, and also (Promethean) vulture are equivalents in the tradition, for which, cf. Corpus HeruiCticum (10.17-18): "When the intellectual principle [V0Vi0] is liberated from the body of Earth, it is immediately reclothed in its tunic of Fire, which it could not save (integrally], while inhabiting this Earth body, since the Earth does not support Hre . . . with the result that Water [ y ] surrounds the Earth and forms a bulwark to protect ir from rhe Fire.” Cf. also Agrippa (De occulta philosophia, 3:37): "The soul in its descent reclothes itself in a celestial and aerial corpuscle, which some call the etheric vehicle, and others the chariot of rhe soul - by means of which the Soul is infused first in the central point ot rhe heart, which is the center of the human body, and from there expands into every part and member; which it does by uniting its chariot with the natural heat ( $ ) by means of the heat of the Spirit generated by the heart; and by means of this heat ir is immersed in the humors [ y ] through which it accedes to the members, in the same way that the hear of the Fire attaches itself to the Air and Water, although reaching the Water [ y ] by the Air [ $ ]." For other references of correspondences with the blood, etc., cf. CMA (Syrian text) 2:315; Livre dOstanes, CMA, 3:120; Corpus Hermeticum, 10.13; Zosimos, C4G, 2:133; De signatura U, §10; Livre du merenre oriental, CMA, 3:212, etc. In Boehme we can point out a very expressive symbolism; rhe etheric body y is compared to an "oil," in which bums the igneous quality ^ becoming splendor, light of life, "life of joy thar exalts everything.” Every sickness is but a ’’venenious corruption’’ of this oil—upon extinguishing its light, the body decomposes. Concerning the "aqueous” alteration of this oil by the "Fall,” about which Boehme also speaks (De signatura, 6, §§3, 23, 25, 28; 7, §2); see below.

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