The Alchemical Process

Hermetic Alchemy – Science and Practice

'Thou shalt separate the earth from the fire, the subtle from the gross, suavely, and with great ingenuity. It ascends from earth to heaven, and descends to earth again, and receives the strength of the superiors and of the inferiors,'

These words of the Emerald Tablet summarize the whole alchemical process. Up to this point, these lessons have given you some account of the forces and materials utilized in the Great Work. From this lesson up to the completion of the course we shall be concerned with the actual performance of the work.

The Pythagorean Triangle, shown on page 77, is an important alchemical symbol. It relates to the statement that the First Matter, and the work which modifies that Matter, is ONE, which is also THREE, FOUR and FIVE. The same idea is suggested in another form by the Great Pyramid, a UNITY which is also THREE, FOUR and FIVE because the Pyramid shows the number 3 by its triangular faces, the number 4 by its square base, and the number 5 by the four sides and base and also by the four corners of the base plus the single point at the apex. Note, in passing, that to gain the top of the Pyramid is to reach this single point, at which the sides and the sloping boundary lines converge, so that symbolically the ascent of the Pyramid, as a symbol of the Great Work represents the attainment of the UNITY which is the synthesis of the powers represented by the four faces, which correspond to the four alchemical elements.

In the Pythagorean Triangle the number 3 is represented by the descending line attributed to Osiris the Father. The base line, that of Isis the Mother, represents the number 4. The ascending hypotenuse, dedicated, to Horus the son of Osiris and Isis, stands for the number 5. The sum of these three lines is twelve units of equal length, corresponding to the twelve equal sides of a dodecagon, which is the Geometrical figure symbolizing the twelve signs of the zodiac. To these twelve units must be aided, the unity of the triangle itself, so that this Pythagorean figure really conceals the mystical number 13, the sum of 1, 3, 4, 5. So also the elements of the Pyramid, added to the ONE which is the Pyramid itself, give the number 13.

This is the number which represents the Sun and the twelve zodiacal signs through which the solar energy manifests. 13, too, is the number of the Self, expressing its One Life through the twelve areas of human personality corresponding to the twelve signs. Hence 13 is the number of Spiritual Israel, shadowed by the Biblical account of the physical Israel, expressing the life of the patriarch Jacob through that of the twelve tribes. Hercules and his twelve labors express the same idea. So do Jesus and his twelve disciples. So do the heavenly Jerusalem of the Book of Revelation, with its twelve gates and its twelve foundations, and with its walls each 12,000 furlongs in length. So, too, does the great Seal of the United States, which has at its center a pentagram surrounded by twelve others, the thirteen stars arranged to form the macrocosmic star, or hexagram. The six pointed star, in turn, is the mathematical basis for the geometrical representation of the symbolic cube of space, to which are assigned the twenty-two Keys of Tarot. The number 13 is connected with this, too, because every cube has exactly thirteen axes of symmetry.

In Qabalah the number 13 means Unity and Love, as you have learned in other lessons. It is also the number of a verb meaning 'to separate, to remove, to take away,' HGH, hawgaw – which means also 'to ponder, to imagine.' Again, 13 is the number of IBA, yaba, 'He shall come.' This verb is associated with the noun ShILH, Shiloh, which adds up to 345, and refers to the Messiah.

The outcome of the alchemical process gives the alchemist a consciousness of the Oneness of All, from which there follows a development of that genuine love of his fellows which is rooted in his perception of the fact of human brotherhood. At the same time, the alchemical process requires analysis, or separation, and this analysis is an act of the mind. It is the work of alchemical Mercury, an indispensable preliminary to the synthesis which makes possible the manifestation of the New Man, of whom it is said, 'He shall come.'

Here Tarot students will remember that THE FOOL looks upward, toward the corner of the picture corresponding to that which in Keys 10 and 21 of this part of the key is the location of the head of a man, representing the zodiacal sign Aquarius. Since Aquarius is the 11th sign, it corresponds to the 11th house of the horoscope, representing friends, hopes and wishes of the native. Furthermore, in some old versions of Tarot, the zero card is named THE ALCHEMIST to show that the goal of the Great Work is the full perfection of man himself, and also that it has a definite connection with the Aquarian Age.

Now, just as the ascending hypotenuse of a Pythagorean Triangle, united to the base line at its lowest point, separates itself more and more from that base line until at its upper end it joins the top point of the line which is attributed to Osiris, the Father, so in the alchemical process, though the work begins at the level of the physical universe, and is never disconnected from that firm foundation, the analytical operations remove us farther and farther from the limitations of the physical until, at last, we are united consciously with the generating POINT whence all forms originate.

The numbers representing the degrees of the angles of a Pythagorean Triangle correspond to Hebrew and Greek words connected with the Great Work. The line of three units meets that of four units to form a right angle of 90 degrees, and the number 90 is that of the word, Mem, 'water,' one of the commonest names for the First Matter. The same word is illustrated by the 12th Tarot Key, which Eliphas Levi explains as symbolizing the adept bound by his engagements. The number of this Key, 12, is connected with the alchemical process because the

Great Work has 12 stages. 90, furthermore, is the number of Tzaddi, corresponding to the sign Aquarius, which as we have just seen, is connected with the objective of the Great Work, described by Levi as 'the full and complete conquest of man's faculties and of his future.' This conquest is made possible by mental processes summed up in the symbolism of Key 17, which corresponds to the letter Tzaddi. Even in Christian Gnosticism we have a hint of the same notion, for Irenaeus tells us that 17 is the number of God's people, or Spiritual Israel; that is, perfected humanity.

In a Pythagorean Triangle, the line which has four units meets the line of five units to form an angle of 37 degrees. In Hebrew, the number 37 is that of the noun HBL, Abel, the proper name of Adam's second son, understood to be a type of the Messiah to whom the mystical name Shiloh is given elsewhere. The basic meanings of this word are breath and transitoriness. As a common noun, abel is that which echoes through the Book Ecclesiastes as 'vanity.' It refers to the embodiment of the Life-Breath in living forms, none of which is permanent until the final goal of the Great Work, signified by the upper end of the line of five units, has been reached.

In Greek, as Bond and Lea have shown in their studies of numbers in the New Testament, all names and epithets of Jesus are multiples of 37. Thus Iesus is 888, or 24x37 and 'Iesous Christos', which has THIRTEEN letters in its Greek spelling, is 2368, or 64x37. Furthermore, 64, the square of the Hermetic and

Dominical number 8, is also the number of the Green noun Alethia, Truth. In Hebrew, the number of the letter-name Aleph, ALP, is 111, or 3x37; so that 37 is directly related to the Qabalistic meaning of the Tarot Key which is sometimes named THE ALCHEMIST, and which portrays the forces used in the Great Work as well as its main objective.

Finally, where the hypotenuse of five units joins the vertical line of three units, the angle formed contains 53 degrees. We have already seen that this number is directly connected with alchemy. It represents the noun GN, Gan, signifying the 'Garden,' or the the state of Edenic freedom which typifies success in the Great Work. It is the number of noun ChMH, khammaw, Sun; and the Great Work is known as the Operation of the Sun in the Emerald Tablet. Futhermore, as has been shown in lesson 1, this word CHMH is a component part of the ancient Hebrew spelling of of alchemy, ALCHMH. And again, 53, as you will remember, is the number of the word ABN, ehben, Stone. Thus it represents the Philosopher's Stone, as the final attainment of the Great Work; and now this word ABN are conjoined the words AB, Ab, Father, referring to Osiris, and BN, Ben, Son, referring to Horus.

The Alchemical truth is truth about the Breath. It is truth learned by experimental work and the basis of this work is analysis, or the separation of earth from fire, of gross appearance from subtle energy. Thus the sages all tell that dissolution is the secret of the Great Work, and that secret is symbolized in Tarot by the Key named

Death, which bears the number 13. In our physical and mental analyses we discover, sooner or later, that the power in nature which is astrologically attributed to the sign Scorpio is what 'ascends from earth to heaven and descends again to earth, and receives the strength of the superiors and of the inferiors.' This, too, is shown in the symbolism of the first Tarot Key, for THE FOOL or THE ALCHEMIST is there shown with a phallic wand and wallet over his right shoulder, and in the version of this Key familiar to you the white sun in the upper right hand corner of the design occupies the position assigned to the Eagle of Scorpio on the 10th and 21st Keys.

The Scorpio force is the reproductive power, not by any means localized in the physical reproductive organs, as many persons foolishly suppose, but actually present throughout nature, so that 'it swims with fishes in the sea, and flies with the birds in the air,' as one alchemical writer puts it. This is the force described in a Rosicrucian text as being 'set up for the ruin of many and the salvation of some.' The same treatise says; 'To the crowd this matter is vile.' It is at once the Scorpion of death, the Serpent of wisdom, and the Eagle of aspiration.

The Life-Breath, which is both HBL, 37, and RVCH, Ruach, the pure Spirit, is not only creative and formative, but is also essentially reproductive. Even on the inorganic plane of physical manifestation we see at work the laws of chemical affinity and gender which are part of the expression of this reproductive power. From these lowest expressions, up to the very highest, the same power is at work. Furthermore, 'lowest' is only a relative term. It does not mean 'less valuable' but should be understood in the same sense as when we speak of 'low' notes in the musical scale. Our first concern is with these lower, or slower, rates of vibration.

Thus it is recorded of St. Germain that he had unusual gifts as a painter, and that his canvasses glowed with colors unknown to the palettes of other artists of the period. The same adept is reported to have possessed a secret for perfecting precious stones, so that he was able to remove flaws from diamonds, emeralds and rubies, thus greatly enhancing their value. Whatever we think of the literal truth of these stories, they do indicate a fact that unusual command of the forms of physical substance is among the powers of the perfected alchemist.

Such a man sees the physical universe with other eyes, with other brain-cells than the man who is still part of the crowd of the unknowing, ignorant misinterpreters of Mother Nature. He is functioning by the means of a different body-chemistry. He is, to be sure, still a member of genus homo, but he is truly of a different physical and mental species from the person who looks with aversion upon the physical plane because he regards it as his enemy. The alchemist is of a different species, also, from him who dreams vainly that the physical plane is a non-entity, and takes refuge from reality by asserting that he possesses powers which he cannot possibly exercise.

An alchemist knows that the states of physical existence are REAL. He knows them as beneficent expressions of a law he is glad to obey, as forms of a power he is free to utilize so long as he does obey. In the 'kingdom of stone,' he discerns 'the marvelous seed of stars,' and he effects whatever transmutations and transformations he decides upon – not by claiming omnipotence for himself, but by so adjusting himself that through his organism the One Power which IS omnipotence takes form according to mental patterns which he recognizes as being among that One Power's possibilities.

Human recognition of the way the One Power can work is an essential part of the process whereby the One Power does work. Such recognition is the expression of laws which are as truly in operation in the mineral kingdom as anywhere else. It is not that mind is made to 'dominate matter.' It is that the orderly process by which form is manifested is at work everywhere, and needs to be recognized and followed. And it is not too much to say that from the point-of-view of alchemy, human personality may justly be regarded as being an invention of the Life-Power brought into manifestation to the end that through its instrumentality effects may be produced in the world of relative manifestation which could not otherwise come into actual expression.

Obedience to chemical laws is therefore the prerequisite to success in alchemical works. This obedience is briefly summarized by the symbols of the four Tarot suits on the MAGICIAN'S table. The making of the New Man, of whom it is said, 'He shall come,' is the real alchemical process, and it begins with right use of physical materials: Food (pentacles), Air (swords), Water (cups), and Light (wands). All these are forms of the ONE THING. All are physical presentations of the Quintessence, or Spirit. Unless your first experiments be with these materials, of which it is truly said that they are all veils of that First Matter 'which all behold but few perceive,' do not expect that you will be advanced to the higher grades of alchemical initiation.

Your success depends on your learning to separate the subtle, etherial forms of life-essence from the gross forms in which nature presents them to you. Your own body is the alchemical athanor or furnace. The Stone is represented by the Hebrew word ABN, so that in Tarot it is represented by the Keys named THE FOOL, THE MAGICIAN, and DEATH.

Dissolution is the secret of the work. Superconsciousness, typified by THE FOOL, is now and ever shall be an inseparable part of your make-up. Depend on it. The intellectual self-consciousness symbolized by THE MAGICIAN is yours wherewith to discriminate between those forms of physical manifestation which can be utilized for the Great Work and those which are relatively useless. The Imaginative Intelligence symbolized by Key 13 is yours also. By means of it, you may so modify your sub-consciousness that every cell in your body will thrill with the sense of its marvelous reproductive power, until you come to realize that within you is the potency which shall enable you to reproduce within the field of your personal existence the Life-power's inherent command over physical forms.

'Suavely, and with great ingenuity,' remember. Not in haste. Not with impatience. Calmly and sweetly, resting secure in the absolute certainty that, even here and now, on the physical plane, your every thought and action rests on the secure foundation of Eternal Being. Approach the Great Work in this spirit, and you shall inevitably attain to its perfection.

From what has been said thus far, it should be evident that the earlier stages of the alchemical work are directed toward a change in the alchemist's own organism. This should provide you with a standard of judgment to protect you against alchemical imposters, who assert that the Philosophers' Stone is a mere physical object which may be made by any person if only he knows the proper ingredients, and how to combine them. He who says this is either self-deceived, or else a wilful imposter. Genuine sages never make this claim. A careless reader of Sendivogius, or Paracelsus, or D'Espagnet, or Flamel might suppose these adepts were speaking of an actual objective stone. Closer examination of their writings dispels this error.

On the other hand, those who, like Ethan Allen Hitchcock, or Mrs. Atwood, maintain that alchemy is aimed only at the regeneration of human consciousness, are also missing the mark. When one is perfect in the alchemical work he can really make the Stone of the Wise, and, by means of it, he can change actual base metals, or even the refuse of the earth, into gold (should there be any good reason for so doing.) By means of the Stone, moreover, a true alchemist is able to prolong the life of man's body far beyond the usual time allotted to our sojourn on this planet.

Perfect mastery of the alchemical process puts the successful artist in a position which enables him, at will, to alter the electronic structure of any portion of the physical universe. The process, nevertheless, has for its primary object the mental and physical transmutation of the alchemist himself. And the one laboratory in which the entire operation is performed is the human body.

The Great Work itself requires certain physical materials. These, as we have said, are light, air, water and food. It is to food that the books refer when they say the materials for the work are inexpensive, so that a sufficient supply may be bought for three florins (about $1.50), or may even be secured for nothing if the artist is willing to soil his hands.

No book tells just what these materials are. No book can. Not only because the foodstuffs are such commonplace ones that nobody would believe them to be the true materials, but also because for every operator the formula varies. This variation depends basically on his physical condition at the time of beginning the work. It is also determined by his chemical type, by his particular constitution. This is shown in various ways, among others, by the planetary positions and aspects of his natal horoscope.

It is possible and permissible, however, to indicate why and how foodstuffs are the materials. What an alchemist has first of all to establish is a certain chemical balance in his physical body. This involves the supply of due proportions of 12 chemicals. These are: 1. fluoride of lime; 2. phosphate of magnesia; 3. sulphate of potash; 4. phosphate of soda; 5. sulphate of lime; 6. silica; 7. phosphate of lime; 8. sodium chloride; 9. phosphate of iron; 10. phosphate of potash; 11. sulphate of soda; 12. chloride of potash.

None of these materials are properly adapted to the uses of the physical body in their inorganic forms, but if they are taken into the system as organic compounds, in food, they are the precise materials required for the performance of the Great Work. Most of the foods rich in them are found in the vegetable kingdom. This explains the alchemical statement that you can get them for nothing if you are willing to soil your hands. They grow in the earth.

Remember, however, that you will be unable to recognize these materials until you have discovered the First Matter. This discovery is direct, first-hand perception of a fact in nature. The fact in question is that everything is made of fiery, scintillating points of electric energy.

For most persons who study these lessons it may be said that this is no more than theory. For the few scientists who are competent to conduct the difficult laboratory experiments on which is based the modern theory of the electrical constitution of matter, it may be said to be an indirect experience. For an alchemical adept the First Matter is something directly perceived without the mediation of any instrument but the human body.

Thus the discovery follows a change in the alchemist's body, and it is with this change that the first stages of the alchemical process have to do. These we are now considering. The organic changes are brought about by psychological means. The immediate agent is the sub-consciousness, since sub-consciousness builds the body, maintains its functions, and determines its chemistry. Sub-consciousness built your baby body before you were born, and transformed it into the body you are using now. The same sub-consciousness, under the direction of alchemical Mercury, the Magician of Tarot, can change your present physical instrument into the kind of body which will enable you to perceive the First Matter.

Next, the first steps in your practical work will be explained.

Sub-consciousness works according to mental patterns impressed on it by the conscious mind. Hence the picture of THE FOOL is important to every would-be alchemist because it is a symbolic pattern of the type of expectancy which stimulates the response of sub-consciousness. Whatever you are in the habit of thinking is inevitably a suggestion to sub-consciousness. Whatever pictures frequently occupy your attention act as suggestions also. Thus even a person ignorant of the meaning of the details of Tarot symbolism will undergo some change of consciousness if he looks at the pictures every day. And not only a change of consciousness, but also a change in the structure and chemistry of his body, too.

From now on, you will find it advantageous to look, every day, at the complete tableau of the twenty-two Keys, laid out in three rows of seven, from left to right, beginning with Key 1. The top row will contain the Keys 1 to 7, the second row Keys 8 to 14, and the bottom row Keys 15 to 21. Key 0 should be placed immediately above THE EMPEROR. The Tarot Tableau contains, among other things, symbolic summary of the alchemical process, and because it influences sub-consciousness directly, it may be utilized to modify the structure and chemistry of the body through the suggestive effect it has on this deeper level of mental activity.

Every day, too, you should work with the colors and sounds of the seven interior stars, or alchemical metals in the following order: Saturn, blue-violet, A; Sun, orange, D; Mars, red, C; Jupiter, violet, A-sharp; Venus, green, F-sharp; Moon, blue, G-sharp; Mercury, yellow, E. Intone the sounds three times each using the syllable AUM pronounced for this purpose Ah-oom. The intonations need not be loud.

We come now to the consideration of certain facts about the plant-world, because conscious knowledge of these facts will strengthen your sub-conscious recognition that all natural forces are at work according to certain specific numbers and rhythms. It is absolutely necessary to have specific information of this kind. Knowledge precisely like this is the intellectual basis for the marvels accomplished by alchemists and magicians. For it should be apparent to all students of the Tarot that the first and most important teaching of this symbolic book is that the transforming agency is the self-conscious, intellectual mind, pictured as The MAGICIAN. The forces at work, to be sure, are sub-conscious, but the direction of these forces is from the self-conscious level, and necessitates conscious knowledge of certain definite laws of number and geometry.

In India, today, certain schools of occultists specialize in this phase of knowledge. Examples of their intricate geometrical diagrams, called Mandalas, occasionally find their way into the Western world, but most of them are jealously guarded. Ancient Egypt had the same secret, and it was used in building the pyramids and other sacred structures of that land. The Greeks possessed it also, and their most beautiful statues and buildings embody these rhythmic proportions which pervade nature. Western architecture, especially religious architecture, utilizes the same laws of number and proportion. Recently, through the work of such men as Samuel Coleman and Jay Hambidge, some of these ancient principles have been rediscovered and applied to various forms of design.

Vestiges of the same secret, naturally, are to be found in Freemasonry, some of them attributed to Pythagoras who required knowledge of geometry from all his pupils. Thus it is not surprising that the Great Seal of the United States, designed by men who had been strongly influenced by Freemasonry, is actually a Hermetic document. For these principles of proportion are actually present on this symbolic statement of the hopes and aspirations of these revolutionists who thought of themselves as the founders of a new world order.

The Rosicrucian literature, ancient and modern, is full of diagrams exhibiting these proportions. Indeed, there are several Rosicrucian alchemical treatises in which almost nothing of value is to be gleaned from the words of the text, which are merely a blind or excuse for publishing the diagrams in which the real significance is to be found. Manly Hall, with fine discrimination has reproduced many of these diagrams in his Encyclopaedia of Masonic and Hermetic Symbolism.

The most important application of these numerals and geometrical proportions is not to lifeless statues, painted counterfeits of life, or buildings of wood and stone. The same laws govern the structure of the human organism, the relations of its parts, the very chemistry of the body. When a knowledge of these fundamental proportions is impressed on sub-consciousness through conscious recognition, this knowledge begins to modify the body-building processes.

There are certain great numbers and rhythms in nature that affect you every moment of your life. By coming to recognize them as part of your make-up, you will subtly change the assimilative, eliminative, and other chemical functions of your body. Understand this well. You do not receive this knowledge simply as information. It is an integral part of the alchemical process itself, which is performed, you will remember, by the aid of Mercury, that is, by the aid of self-conscious mental states. It will help to adjust your whole life to the harmonies of being.

Among the most primitive forms of plant-life are the diatoms, minute one-celled water-plants, of which thousands of species have been classified. In a single drop of fresh or salt water one may find diatoms which show all the characteristic number-rhythms of nature. Samuel Coleman, in Natures Harmonic Unity, gives numerous illustrations which he analyzes, showing that the triangle, the square, the pentagon and pentagram, the hexagon and hexagram, and the octagon are the determining geometrical elements of these tiny plants. He shows also that the angles and lines of these microscopic members of the vegetable kingdom are the precise angles and lines utilized in the planning of the Parthenon, in the construction of the Great Pyramid, and in the composition of innumerable works of the world’s greatest artists.

In the higher orders of plant life it has been found that the buds appear in order, leaves follow in regular sequence, and flowers are put forth, not only at the appointed season, but at the appointed part of the plant. Not a leaf varies from its proper position, not a bud from its regular order, any more than a planet varies from its orbit. Leaves are arranged spirally round the stem in the same way that planets revolve round the sun.

In the blossoming of a flowering plant, each series or whorl, which is just a complete spiral cycle, is arranged on the principle of alternation. If a flower has five sepals, or parts of the calyx, it has five petals of the corolla, alternating with the sepals. The same flower will have five, ten or twenty stamens, and five, or some multiple of five, in the pistils. This is the proportion found in all members of the rose family. In a similar way, arrangements of three or its multiples are seen in the flowers of endogens such as palms and lilies. Among flowerless plants, such as mosses, lichens, seaweeds and fungi, the parts of the fructification are in twos and fours or in multiples of these.

Thus the lowest order of plants corresponds to the number 4; the typical number of plants without branches, and with parallel leaf-veins, such as the grasses, the lily and the palm, is 3; and the highest class of plants, with two cotyledons, branches, and reticulated leaf-veins, such as the apple, rose, oak, and so on, has 5 for its number type. Therefore the lowest order of plants might be represented by the base of a Pythagorean triangle, or 4; the mediate order, which includes lilies, palms, and all kinds of grain, could be represented by the vertical line of 3 units. In this connection, observe that Osiris, the Egyptian deity assigned to this line of the triangle, is a corn-spirit, and note that almost all the plants which are in this classification have in symbolism a distinctly masculine significance. Finally, the highest orders of the plant-world are numerically related to the line attributed to Horus, that of five units, the ascending hypotenuse of five units.

The numerical arrangements which regulate the scales of every bud, the order of the bracts, and the place of every leaf on every plant have been found to bear a correspondence to the series of numbers: 1, 2, 3, 5, 8, 13, 21, 34, 55, etc., in which any two numbers added together will give the succeeding number.

Botanists classify these different arrangements by using fractions, thus: 1/2, 1/3, 2/5, 3/8, 5/13, 8/21, 13/34, 21/55, and so on. The same fractions express the law which governs the comparative periods of revolution of the planets of our solar system by pairs. The revolution of Uranus is a close approximation to 1/2 that of Neptune. That of Saturn is 1/3 that of Uranus. Jupiter's revolution is 2/5 of Saturn's. The revolution of the asteroids is 3/8 that of Jupiter. Mars revolves in 5/13 of the time taken by the asteroids. The same principle gives the fraction 8/13 for the earth, the fraction 13/21 for Venus, and 13/34 for Mercury. One need not be a botanist or an astronomer to grasp the deeper significance of these correlations. They establish beyond question the fact that one changeless law of proportion pervades the universe.

When you have found the First Matter, say the alchemists, the Great Work is 'woman's work, and child's play.' Careless readers get the impression that the alchemical operation is easy after one discovers the First Matter. True, the work is neither difficult nor expensive. Yet these words of the sages have a more recondite meaning.

The alchemical Woman is what the ancient Egyptians called Isis. She is represented by the base of a Pythagorean triangle. In Tarot She appears eleven times, in Keys 2, 3, 6, 8, 11, 13, 15, 16, 17, 20 and 21. In six Keys (2, 3, 8, 11, 17 and 21) she is the only human figure in the symbolism.

She is the recorder of the law, the form-giving mother, the tamer of the turbulent forces of the animal kingdom, the preserver of balance, the unveiler of truth and the unveiled truth itself, the eternal dancer partly hid by the cyclic forms of cosmic expression. Her vision of the higher levels of being is reflected into our human consciousness as a quiet pool reflects the sun. Long has she been held captive and under a curse so that she must die and be reborn before her powers may find complete expression. Because she has been subject to the Man, she has been brought lower than the animal by the Man's false knowledge. Because of that same erroneous knowledge she has been crowned with a false authority, not her own, and this must be destroyed before her real powers and real worth may be made manifest. Yet through her, and her activities, release shall come.

The Alchemical Child is what the Egyptians called Horus, represented by the five-unit hypotenuse of a Pythagorean triangle. He is asleep in the mineral kingdom. In the plant world he begins to dream. In the animal kingdom he dreams on, sometimes half awake. In man he wakens, and begins to realize the meaning of his life. Yet has he an even higher destiny to fulfill. For the alchemical Child is not merely man. He is Man-God, destined to attain to perfect union with his Father; and in that union the alchemical work will be complete.

In Tarot, this Child is foreshadowed by Key 3, for it is he that the pregnant mother depicted there is already forming in the secret depths of her own body. He is promised again by the mountain behind the LOVERS. This is a symbol often employed to represent pregnancy, but it also indicates the idea of attainment, and the fact that the alchemical attainment is a physical work, perfected by the integration of the One Force, when it is turned into earth. The perfect manifestation of the alchemical Child is represented by Key 12, for when the Child is full-grown, he reverses the usual order of things and establishes his perfect mastery through his unwavering obedience to the ALL. In Key 19 you see him exercising his new powers, and in union with his liberated counterpart, the other half of himself, departing from the limitations of sense knowledge and dancing in the fairy ring of the truly magical life. Finally, in Key 20, he rises with his Father and Mother from the limitations of three-dimensional existence to share with them the freedom of the fourth dimension and the immortality of the Perpetual Intelligence.

The alchemical Woman is the One Worker. Through long aeons has she been at her endless labor, spinning, weaving, making the garments of form in which the One Life clothes itself. In her loom the tapestry of manifestation has been woven. She is the keeper of the patterns of all possible forms.

In this lesson, I have shown how simple are the elements of these patterns. A cross, a triangle, a square, a pentagon, a hexagon and an octagon. These, and the circle, provide all the geometrical patterns for the manifold forms of the physical world.

By the proportions contained in these simple figures all force relations in the universe are determined. When the Cosmic Mother begins her work, nebulae form themselves into solar systems by an interplay of activities measurable by the lines and angles which these figures display. Gravitation, most mysterious of all, operates by a law patterned on these forms. Sound vibration, both in pitch and volume, is determined by the same principles. All the play of light and color follows the same laws of form. Atom mates with atom to build a universe, and wherever anything comes into physical manifestation, these same proportions are the basic patterns.

Through it all, the animating impulse in the play of the alchemical Child, always potentially one with his eternal Father. His Mother sets the patterns, but his is the life which flows into them and gives form and body to them in the mineral kingdom. In the plant world it is his life, now finding greater freedom of movement, greater variety of form and color, and even the beginnings of feeling and sensation.

Then comes the working of that same play of the One Life through the animal kingdom. Always the basic patterns are the same. Wherever your eyes rest on an animal, you are looking at a form which yields to the analyst the fundamental circle, with its two diameters making the equal-armed cross shown on the breast of the HIGH PREISTESS. All the relations of that form are determined by combinations of the square, the pentagon, and the octagon.

Wherever you look, you will see forms in which the proportions of the figure Jay Hambidge called the Rectangle of the Whirling Square are the determining elements (please see the front piece of this book).

Here is an example from conchology showing the geometric construction of a large family of sea-shells. The spirals of this shell are exactly as pictured, and they are the logarithmic spirals which are the basis of all form, since such spirals are developed by the nebulae whence solar systems are evolved.

Throughout the animal kingdom proportions like these are to be found. Bees and wasps build their nests on strict geometric principles. Thus the naturalist, Reaumur, measuring the angles in the cells of a honeycomb, found, after submitting the problem to a geometer who had no clue as to the object Reaumur had in mind, that bees invariably builds their houses according to angles which give the greatest strength, involve the use of the least possible expenditure of time.

From the tiny diatom to the lordly lion, and thence up to man, the alchemical Woman works with the same patterns. Wherever there have been wise men, they have seen these patterns and have left records of what they saw, records in books, like the words of alchemists and magicians, and the mysterious diagrams with which they illustrate their writings; records in the pictorial symbolism of Tarot, which have power to initiate and keep going the formative process which carries these patterns into human embodiment, thus changing an ordinary human personality into an adept; records in stone like the pyramids and temples of the world.

Even the proportions of the Tarot pictures themselves are influenced by one of the basic cosmic patterns. Draw diagonals from corner to corner in the rectangular frame of any of these pictures, including the title in the rectangle. You will find that the diagonals make two equilateral triangles, point to point. The proportions of this rectangular frame are thus shown to be precisely the same as those of the rectangle formed on the Tree of Life by the paths connecting either the second, third, fourth and fifth Sephiroth, or those connecting the fourth, fifth, seventh and eighth Sephiroth. On the Tree of Life the long sides of this rectangle cross the Tree horizontally, and the short sides are vertical, but the proportions are exactly the same.

This is not the place to discuss the intricacies of its occult meaning. We speak of it only to add weight to the other testimonies we have given you concerning the fundamental importance of number and geometry in alchemy and magic. These mathematical principles are those whereby the Life-power manifests itself in physical forms. Since magic and alchemy have for their objects the determination of form, these are the patterns which are the real keys to the alchemical process.

Recognize them at work in the world around you. Find them in the structure of your own body. From this recognition will come, as a result of its influence on subconsciousness, the builder of all forms, an actual reconstruction of your physical vehicles, both gross and subtle. Then in you will the Child be born, the Child whose destiny is union with his Father, the Child who is Master of all things in heaven and on earth.