(5) it out of the æons of the Fate and lead it up into all the æons [above], it giving to every region its apology and the apology of all the regions and the seals to the tyrants of the king, the Adamas. And it giveth the apology of all the rulers of all the regions of the Left,--whose collective apologies and seals I will one day tell you when I shall tell you the expansion of the universe. "And moreover those receivers lead that soul to the Virgin of Light and that soul giveth the Virgin of Light the seals and the glory of the songs of praise. And the Virgin of Light and also the seven other virgins of the Light together prove that soul and find together their signs in it and their seals and their baptisms and their chrism. And the Virgin of Light sealeth that soul and the receivers of the Light baptize that soul and give it the spiritual chrism; and every one of the virgins of the Light sealeth it with her seals. "And moreover the receivers of the Light hand it over to the great Sabaōth, the Good, who is at the gate of the Life in the region of those of the Right, who is called 'Father.' And that soul giveth him the glory of his songs of praise and his seals and his apologies. And Sabaōth, the Great and Good, sealeth it with his seals. And the soul giveth its science and the glory of the songs of praise and the seals to the whole region of those of the Right. They all seal it with their seals; and Melchisedec, the great Receiver of the Light who is in the region of those of the Right, sealeth that soul and all the receivers of Melchisedec seal that soul and lead it into the Treasury of the Light. "And it giveth the glory and the honour and the laud of the songs of praise and. all the seals of all the regions of the Light. And all those of the region of the Treasury of the Light seal it with their seals and it goeth unto the region of the Inheritance."

(38) "As for that which was within it, the leaves of bark or rind, were engraven and with admirable diligence written, with a point of iron, in fair and neat Latin letters colored. It contained thrice seven leaves, for so were they counted in the top of the leaves, and always every seventh leaf there was painted a virgin and serpent swallowing her up. In the second seventh, a cross where a serpent was crucified; and the last seventh, there were painted deserts, or wildernesse, in the midst whereof ran many fair fountains, from whence there issued out a number of serpents, which ran up and down here and there. Upon the first of the leaves, was written in great capital letters of gold, Abraham the Jew, Prince, Priest, Levite, Astrologer, and Philosopher, to the Nation of the Jews, by the Wrath of God dispersed among the Gauls, sendeth Health. After this it was filled with great execrations and curses (with this word Maranatha, which was often repeated there) against every person that should cast his eyes upon it, if he were not Sacrificer or Scribe.

(7) "This is the oath: I adjure you who will read this holy book, by heaven and earth and fire and water and seven rulers of substance and the creative spirit in them and the god not conceived and the self-conceived one and the one who has been conceived, that you guard what Hermes has communicated. God will be at one with those who keep the oath and everyone we have named, but wrath will come upon each of those who violate the oath. This is the perfect one who is, child."

(42) Leaf 26. This page, which concludes that part of the Hermetic manuscript bearing the symbols of the Secret Work, contains a number of emblems not directly correlated. At the top is the head of the King--the most common of alchemical figures. To the right of the King is an alchemical vessel designated the Hermetic Seal. Below is the head of a ferocious bird, here designated a griffon. To the left of the King is a headless figure elevating a Sun, or spiritual face. This figure is the world, which must be headless, since its spiritual and rational part is not material and consequently, is invisible. Below is a circle unaccompanied by descriptive matter. Directly under the King's head is a vase of flowers, in which rises the golden plant of the Philosophers. At the bottom of the page is additional alchemical equipment, this also being termed a Hermetic Seal.

(42) Evidence points to the existence of a group of wise and illustrious Fratres who assumed the responsibility of publishing and preserving for future generations the choicest of the secret books of the ancients, together with certain other documents which they themselves had prepared. That future members of their fraternity might not only identify these volumes bur also immediately note the significant passages, words, chapters, or sections therein, they created a symbolic alphabet of hieroglyphic designs. By means of a certain key and order, the discerning few were thus enabled to find that wisdom by which a man is "raised" to an illumined life.

(9) "And after this the servitors seal them one to the other with all the seals which the rulers have given them. [And] they seal the day on which they have taken up their abode in the womb of the woman,--they seal [it] on the left hand of the plasm; and they seal the day on which they have completed the body, on the right hand; and they seal the day on which the rulers have handed it over to them, on the middle of the skull of the body of the plasm; and they seal the day on which the soul hath come forth out of the rulers, they seal it on the [left of] the skull of the plasm; and they seal the day on which they kneaded the members and separated them for a soul, they seal it on the right of the skull of the plasm; and the day on which they have bound the counterfeiting spirit to it [the soul], they seal on the back of the skull of the plasm; and the day on which the rulers have breathed the power into the body, they seal on the brain which is in the midst of the head of the plasm and also on the inside [? the heart] of the plasm; and the number of years which the soul will spend in the body, they seal on the forehead which is on the plasm. And so they seal all those seals on the plasm. I will tell you the names of all these seals at the expansion of the universe; and after the expansion of the universe I will tell you wherefor all hath come to pass. And, if ye could understand it, I am that mystery. "Now, therefore, the servitors complete the whole man. And of all these seals with which they have sealed the body, the servitors carry the whole peculiarity and bring it to all the retributive rulers who [are] over all the chastisements of the judgments; and these hand it over to their receivers, in order that they may lead their souls out of the bodies,--they hand over to them the peculiarity of the seals, in order that they may know the time when they are to lead the souls out of the bodies, and in order that they may know the time when they are to bring to birth the body, so that they may send their servitors in order that they may draw near and follow the soul and bear witness of all the sins it shall do,--they and the counterfeiting spirit,--on account of the manner and way, how they shall chastize it in the judgment.

(27) When the seventh seal was broken there was silence for the space of half an hour. Then came forth seven angels and to each was given a trumpet. When the seven angels sounded their trumpets--intoned the seven-lettered Name of the Logos--great catastrophes ensued. A star, which was called Wormwood, fell from heaven, thereby signifying that the secret doctrine of the ancients had been given to men who had profaned it and caused the wisdom of God to become a destructive agency. And another star--symbolizing the false light of human reason as distinguished from the divine reason of the initiate--fell from heaven and to it (materialistic reason) was given the key to the bottomless pit (Nature), which it opened, causing all manner of evil creatures to issue forth. And there came also a mighty angel who was clothed in a cloud, whose face was as the sun and his feet and legs as pillars of fire, and one foot was upon the waters and the other upon the land (the Hermetic Anthropos). This celestial being gave St. John a little book, bidding him eat it, which the seer did. The book is representative of the secret doctrine--that spiritual food which is the nourishment of the spirit. And St. John, being "in the spirit," ate his fill of the wisdom of God and the hunger of his soul was appeased.

(85) The book to which this is the introduction is dedicated to the proposition that concealed within the emblematic figures, allegories, and rituals of the ancients is a secret doctrine concerning the inner mysteries of life, which doctrine has been preserved in toto among a small band of initiated minds since the beginning of the world. Departing, these illumined philosophers left their formulæ that others, too, might attain to understanding. But, lest these secret processes fall into uncultured hands and be perverted, the Great Arcanum was always concealed in symbol or allegory; and those who can today discover its lost keys may open with them a treasure house of philosophic, scientific, and religious truths.

(5) "Write an oath in the book, so that those who read the book may not use the wording for malicious purposes or to subvert fate. Rather, they should submit to the law of god and not transgress whatsoever, but in purity ask god for wisdom and knowledge. And whoever will not be conceived in the beginning by god develops through the general and instructional discourses. Such a person will not be able to read what is written in this book, even though the person's conscience is pure within and the person does nothing shameful and does not go along with it. Rather, such a person progresses by stages and advances in the way of immortality, and so advances in the understanding of the eighth that reveals the ninth."

(10) This book is most secret. Do not let it be seen by any man, for it is forbidden to know it. Let it be hidden. It is called the book of the mistress of the hidden abode. This is the end

(19) Chapter XII. In concluding our Confessio, we earnestly admonish you to cast aside the worthless books of pseudo-alchemists and philosophers (of whom there are many in our age), who make light of the Holy Trinity and deceive the credulous with meaningless enigmas. One of the greatest of these is a stage player, a man with

(16) In 1609 Henry Khunrath's Amphitheatrum Sapientiæ Æternæ was published. Eliphas Levi declared that within its pages are concealed all the great secrets of magical philosophy. A remarkable plate in this work shows the Hermetic sciences being attacked by the bigoted and ignorant pedagogues of the seventeenth century. In order to express his complete contempt for his slanderers, Khunrath made out of each a composite beast, adding donkey ears to one and a false tail to another. He reserved the upper part of the picture for certain petty backbiters whom he gave appropriate forms. The air was filled with strange creatures--great dragon flies, winged frogs, birds with human heads, and other weird forms which defy description--heaping venom, gossip, spite, slander, and other forms of persecution upon the secret arcanum of the wise. The drawing indicated that their attacks were ineffectual. Poisonous insects were often used to symbolize the deadly power of the human tongue.

(1) "Child, copy this book for the temple at Diospolis in hieroglyphic characters, and call it the Eighth Reveals the Ninth."

(4) "'In the first is the whole glory of all the names of all mysteries and all emanations of the orders of the spaces of the Ineffable.

(20) This plate, which is the key to mystic Christian alchemy, is missing from almost every copy of the Theatrum Chemicum Britannicum, a work compiled by Elias Ashmole and containing about a score of pieces by English poets treating of the Philosopher's Stone and the Hermetic mysteries. In view of the consistent manner in which the plate disappeared, it is possible that the diagram was purposely removed because it revealed too plainly the Rosicrucian arcana. Worthy of notice also is the care with which owners' names have been effaced from early books pertaining to alchemy and Hermeticism. The original names are usually rendered illegible being covered with heavy ink lines, the procedure often seriously defacing the volume, While an occasional exception is found, in practically every instance the mutilated books either deal with Rosicrucianism or contain cryptic writings of suspected Rosicrucian origin. It is presumed that this Practice of obliterating the owners names was to prevent the early Rosicrucians and Hermetists from being discovered through the volumes composing their libraries. Elias Ashmole's plate shows the analogies between the life of Christ and the four grand divisions of the alchemical process. Herein is also revealed the teaching that the Philosopher's Stone itself is a macrocosm and a microcosm, embodying the principles of astronomy and cosmogony, both universal and human.

(10) The publication of this manuscript places at the student's disposal the most profound secrets of the Hermetic Art. At first the task of decipherment may seem hopeless and the superficially-minded will be tempted to scoff at the possibility of real knowledge being perpetuated in such unconventional fashion. The scoffer will not realize that one of the purposes of the document is to awaken ridicule and thus preserve more effectually its arcana from the profane. A few sheets (such as those here reproduced) represent the life work of one who has consecrated himself to the task of tearing aside the veil of the World Virgin. Years of research and experimentation, days of incessant labor, nights of prayer and meditation, and at last comes the realization of accomplishment! This is the real story told by the grotesque figures drawn so painstakingly upon the faded, worm-eaten pages. Those who have glimpsed the greater realities of being realize that the fundamental verities of life find at best only imperfect expression through physical symbols. Only those who have passed through the travail of spiritual birth can adequately comprehend and properly reverence the pathetic efforts to portray for others that knowledge necessarily locked within the heart of the one who knows.

(1) (Now these are the names which I will give from the Boundless onward. Write them with a sign, that the Sons of God may be revealed from here on. This is the name of the Immortal: aaa , ōōō ; and this is the name of the Voice, for the sake of which the Perfect Man hath set himself in motion: iii . And these are the interpretations of the names of these mysteries: the first [name], which is aaa , its interpretation is fff ; the second, which is mmm or ōōō, its interpretation is aaa ; the third, which is ps ps ps , its interpretation is ooo ; the fourth, which is fff , its interpretation is nnn ; the fifth, which is ddd , its interpretation is aaa . He on the throne is aaa . This is the interpretation of the second: aaaa , aaaa , aaaa ; this is the interpretation of the whole name.)

(16) Chapter IX. We have a magic writing, copied from that divine alphabet with which God writes His will upon the face of celestial and terrestrial Nature. With this new language we read God's will for all His creatures, and just as astronomers predict eclipses so we prognosticate the obscurations of the church and how long they shall last. Our language is like unto that of Adam and Enoch before the Fall, and though we understand and can explain our mysteries in this our sacred language, we cannot do so in Latin, a tongue contaminated by the confusion of Babylon.

(34) Peculiar symbolical head- and tail-pieces also mark the presence of cryptograms. While such ornaments are found in many early printed books, certain emblems are peculiar to volumes containing Baconian Rosicrucian ciphers. The light and dark shaded A is an interesting example. Bearing in mind the frequent recurrence in Baconian symbolism of the light and dark shaded A and the hog, the following statement by Bacon in his Interpretation of Nature is highly significant: "If the sow with her snout should happen to imprint the letter A upon the ground, wouldst thou therefore imagine that she could write out a whole tragedy as one letter?"

(8) "The Cryptomenysis and Cryptography of Gustavus Selenus in nine books, to which is added a clear explanation of the System of Steganography of John Trithemius, Abbot of Spanheim and Herbipolis, a man of admirable genius. Interspersed with worthy inventions of the Author and others, 1624." The author of this volume was believed to be Augustus, Duke of Brunswick. The symbols and emblems ornamenting the title page, however, are conclusive evidence that the fine hand of the Rosicrucians was behind its publication. At the bottom of the picture is a nobleman (Bacon?) placing his hat on another man's head. In the oval at the top of the plate, it is possible that the lights are beacons, or a play upon the name Bacon. In the two side panels are striking and subtle "Shakespearian" allusions. On the left is a nobleman (possibly Bacon) handing a paper to another man of mean appearance who carries in his hand a spear. At the right, the man who previously carried the spear is shown in the costume of an actor, wearing spurs and blowing a horn. The allusion to the actor blowing his horn and the figure carrying the spear suggest much, especially as spear is the last syllable of the name "Shakespeare."