(16) The essay published in French by Alexandre Lenoir in 1809, while curious and original, contains little real information on the Tablet, which the author seeks to prove was an Egyptian calendar or astrological chart. As both Montfaucon and Lenoir--in fact all writers on the subject since 1651--either have based their work upon that of Kircher or have been influenced considerably by him, a careful translation has been made of the latter's original article (eighty pages of seventeenth century Latin). The double-page plate at the beginning of this chapter is a faithful reproduction made by Kircher from the engraving in the Museum of Hieroglyphics. The small letters and numbers used to designate the figures were added by him to clarify his commentary and will be used for the same purpose in this work.

(14) Concerning the astral-light bodies of flowers, James Gaffarel, in 1650, wrote the following: "I answer, that though they be chopt in pieces, brayed in a Mortar, and even burnt to Ashes; yet do they neverthelesse retaine, (by a certaine Secret, and wonderfull Power of Nature), both in the Juyce, and in the Ashes, the selfe same Forme, and Figure, that they had before: and though it be not there Visible, yet it may by Art be drawne forth, and made Visible to the Eye, by an Artist. This perhaps will seem a Ridiculous story to those, who reade only the Titles of Bookes: but, those that please, may see this truth confirmed, if they but have recourse to the Workes of M. du Chesne, S. de la Violette, one of the best Chymists that our Age hath produced; who affirmes, that himselfe saw an Excellent Polich Physician of Cracovia, who kept, in Glasses, the Ashes of almost all the Hearbs that are knowne: so that, when any one, out of Curiosity, had a desire to see any of them, as (for example) a Rose, in one of his Glasses, he tooke That where the Ashes of a Rose were preserved; and holding it over a lighted Candle, so soone as it ever began to feele the Heat, you should presently see the Ashes begin to Move; which afterwards rising up, and dispersing themselves about the Glasse, you should immediately observe a kind of little Dark Cloud; which dividing it selfe into many parts, it came at length to represent a Rose; but so Faire, so Fresh, and so Perfect a one, that you would have thought it to have been as Substancial, & as Odoriferous a Rose, as growes on the Rose-tree." (Unheard-of Curiosities Concerning Talismanical Sculpture of the Persians.)

(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.

(5) Flowers were chosen as symbols for many reasons. The great variety of flora made it possible to find some plant or flower which would be a suitable figure for nearly any abstract quality or condition. A plant might be chosen because of some myth connected with its origin, as the stories of Daphne and Narcissus; because of the peculiar environment in which it thrived, as the orchid and the fungus; because of its significant shape, as the passion flower and the Easter lily; because of its brilliance or fragrance, as the verbena and the sweet lavender; because it preserved its form indefinitely, as the everlasting flower; because of unusual characteristics as the sunflower and heliotrope, which have long been sacred because of their affinity for the sun.

(45) Wreaths were worn during initiation into the Mysteries and the reading of the sacred books to signify that these processes were consecrated to the deities. On the symbolism of wreaths, Richard Payne Knight writes: "Instead of beads, wreaths of foliage, generally of laurel, olive, myrtle, ivy, or oak, appear upon coins, sometimes encircling the symbolical figures, and sometimes as chaplets upon their heads. All these were sacred to some peculiar personifications of the deity, and significant of some particular attributes, and, in general, all evergreens were Dionysiac planes; that is, symbols of the generative power, signifying perpetuity of youth and vigor, as the circles of beads and diadems signify perpetuity of existence. (See Symbolical Language of Ancient Art and Mythology.)

(32) As the legend of CHiram Abiff is based upon the ancient Egyptian Mystery ritual of the murder and resurrection of Osiris, it is natural that the sprig of acacia should be preserved as symbolic of the resurrection of CHiram. The chest containing the body of Osiris was washed ashore near Byblos and lodged in the roots of a tamarisk, or acacia, which, growing into a mighty tree, enclosed within its trunk the body of the murdered god. This is undoubtedly the origin of the story that a sprig of acacia marks the grave of CHiram. The mystery of the evergreen marking the grave of the dead sun god is also perpetuated in the Christmas tree.

(14) The lotus was also a universal motif in Egyptian art and architecture. The roofs of many temples were upheld by lotus columns, signifying the eternal wisdom; and the lotus-headed scepter--symbolic of self-unfoldment and divine prerogative--was often carried in religious processions. When the flower had nine petals, it was symbolic of man; when twelve, of the universe and the gods; when seven, of the planets and the law; when five, of the senses and the Mysteries; and when three, of the chief deities and the worlds. The heraldic rose of the Middle Ages generally has either five or ten petals thereby showing its relationship to the spiritual mystery of man through the Pythagorean pentad and decad.

(41) "The fourth and fifth leaves therefore, were without any writing, all full of fair figures enlightened, or as it were enlightened, for the work was very exquisite. First he painted a young man with wings at his ancles, having in his hand a Caducean rod, writhen about with two serpents, wherewith he struck upon a helmet which covered his head. He seemed to my small judgment, to be the God Mercury of the pagans: against him there came running and flying with open wings, a great old man, who upon his head had an hour glass fastened, and in his hand a book (or syrhe) like death, with the which, in terrible and furious manner, he would have cut off the feet of Mercury. On the other side of the fourth leaf, he painted a fair flower on the top of a very high mountain which was sore shaken with the North wind; it had the foot blue, the flowers white and red, the leaves shining like fine gold: and round about it the dragons and griffons of the North made their nests and abode.

(12) The Rosicrucians used a garland of roses to signify the same spiritual vortices, which are referred to in the Bible as the seven lamps of the candlestick and the seven churches of Asia. In the 1642 edition of Sir Francis Bacon's History of Henry the Seventh is a frontispiece showing Lord Bacon with Rosicrucian roses for shoe buckles.

(221) 196 To say: O N.t (Crown of Lower Egypt), O 'Inw (Crown of Lower Egypt), O Great One (Crown of Lower Egypt), 196 O Great-in-magic (Crown of Lower Egypt), O Nsr.t (Uraeus), 197 make thou the terror of N. to be like the terror of thee; 197 make thou the awe of N. to be like the awe of thee; 197 make thou the respect for N. to be like the respect for thee; 197 make thou the love for N. to be like the love for thee; 197 make thou that his `b-sceptre be at the head of the living; make thou that his m-sceptre be at the head of the spirits; 197 make thou that his blade be firm against his enemies. 198 O 'Inw-Crown, thou has come forth from him as he came forth from thee. 198 The great 'I.t has given birth to thee, the 'I.t-wt.t has adorned thee; 198 the 'I.t-wt.t has given birth to thee, the great 'I.t has adorned thee, 198 for as for thee, thou art like Horus, who fought in protection of his eye.

(1) IN his well-known work, The Rosicrucians, Their Rites and Mysteries, Hargrave Jennings reproduces five Qabbalistic charts which he declares to be genuine Rosicrucian drawings. He gives no information concerning their origin nor does he attempt an elucidation of their symbolism. A recent writer who reproduced one of these charts correlated it to the emblematic tomb of Father C.R.C., thus exposing the true nature of Christian Rosencreutz.

(1) NUMEROUS volumes have been written as commentaries upon the secret systems of philosophy existing in the ancient world, but the ageless truths of life, like many of the earth's greatest thinkers, have usually been clothed in shabby garments. The present work is an attempt to supply a tome worthy of those seers and sages whose thoughts are the substance of its pages. To bring about this coalescence of Beauty and Truth has proved most costly, but I believe that the result will produce an effect upon the mind of the reader which will more than justify the expenditure.

(10) This remarkable example of the use of the tree in symbolism is from the Chateau de Pierrefonds in the little town of Pierrefonds, northern France. The eight side branches end in conventional cup-like flowers, from each of which rises the body of a knight carrying in his hand a ribbon bearing his name. The central stem is surmounted by a larger flower, from which emerges the body of King Arthur himself. The tree is a favorite motif in heraldry. The one trunk with its multitude of branches caused the tree to be frequently used in diagramming family lineage, from which practice has arisen the custom of terming such tables "family trees."

(44) "If you wish to inspect the orgies of the Corybantes, " writes Clement, "Then know that, having killed their third brother, they covered the head of the dead body with a purple cloth, crowned it, and carrying it on the point of a spear, buried it under the roots of Olympus. These mysteries are, in short, murders and funerals. [This ante-Nicene Father in his efforts to defame the pagan rites apparently ignores the fact that, like the Cabirian martyr, Jesus Christ was foully betrayed, tortured, and finally murdered!] And the priests Of these rites, who are called kings of the sacred rites by those whose business it is to name them, give additional strangeness to the tragic occurrence, by forbidding parsley with the roots from being placed on the table, for they think that parsley grew from the Corybantic blood that flowed forth; just as the women, in celebrating the Thcsmophoria, abstain from eating the seeds of the pomegranate, which have fallen on the ground, from the idea that pomegranates sprang from the drops of the blood of Dionysus. Those Corybantes also they call Cabiric; and the ceremony itself they announce as the Cabiric mystery."

(30) The symbolism of the acacia is susceptible of four distinct interpretations: (1) it is the emblem of the vernal equinox--the annual resurrection of the solar deity; (2) under the form of the sensitive plant which shrinks from human touch, the acacia signifies purity and innocence, as one of the Greek meanings of its name implies; (3) it fittingly typifies human immortality and regeneration, and under the form of the evergreen represents that immortal part of man which survives the destruction of his visible nature; (4) it is the ancient and revered emblem of the Mysteries, and candidates entering the tortuous passageways in which the ceremonials were given carried in their hands branches of these sacred plants or small clusters of sanctified flowers.

(2) No better way can be found of introducing to the "Royal Art" a seeker after the mysteries of symbolical philosophy than to place at his disposal an actual example of alchemical writing. The text of this manuscript is as enigmatic as are its diagrams; but to him who will meditate upon the profound significance of both, the deeper issues of mysticism in due time will be made clear. An unknown person through whose hands this manuscript passed wrote thus of it:

(11) Leaf 1. The top line reads: "Our earliest medicine was made of natural objects." About the king and queen appears the statement that to them a son shall be born "in two trees of the vine," resembling his father and without equal in all the world. About the vase is written: "Green and white." "The vase flame color, the flowers green." "Our water, our silver." The lines below read: "The material of the Philosopher's Stone is that thick, viscous water, which either heat or cold congeals. It is Mercury boiled down and thickened, cooked in neutral earth with sulphurous heat and is called the Prime Material of the metals. In caverns yet dark, and forbidding mountains, if a Stone be found which a thousand years ago Nature made out of her fruits, it will bring him that has it out of trouble. * * * Listen carefully to all my verses; I speak them without veil and without deception.

(33) The Turbæ Philosophorum is one of the earliest known documents on alchemy in the Latin tongue. Its exact origin is unknown. It is sometimes referred to as The Third Pythagorical Synod. As its name implies, it is an assembly of the sages and sets forth the alchemical viewpoints of many of the early Greek philosophers. The symbol reproduced above is from a rare edition of the Turbæ Philosophorum published in Germany in 1750, and represents by a hermaphroditic figure the accomplishment of the magnum opus. The active and passive principles of Nature were often depicted by male and female figures, and when these two principle, were harmoniously conjoined in any one nature or body it was customary to symbolize this state of perfect equilibrium by the composite figure above shown.

(4) Certainly they crossed the sea when they came there to the East, when they went to receive the investiture of the kingdom. And this was the name of the Lord, King of the East, where they went. When they arrived before Lord Nacxit, which was the name of the great lord, the only supreme judge of all the kingdoms, he gave them the insignia of the kingdom and all its distinctive symbols. Then came the insignia of Ahpop and Ahpop-Camhá, and then the insignia of the grandeur and the sovereignty of the Ahpop and the Ahpop-Camhá. And Nacxit ended by giving them the insignia of royalty, which are: the canopy, the throne, the flutes of bone, the cham-cham, yellow beads, puma claws, jaguar claws, the heads and feet of the deer, dais, snail shells, tobacco, little gourds, parrot feathers, standards of royal aigrette feathers, tatam, and caxcon. All the foregoing they carried, those who came after going to the other side of the sea to receive the paintings of Tulán, the paintings, as these were called, in which they wrote their histories.

(12) In his Disquisitions upon the Painted Greek Vases, James Christie presents Meursius' version of the occurrences taking place during the nine days required for the enactment of the Greater Eleusinian Rites. The first day was that of general meeting, during which those to be initiated were questioned concerning their several qualifications. The second day was spent in a procession to the sea, possibly for the submerging of a image of the presiding goddess. The third day was opened by the sacrifice of a mullet. On the fourth day the mystic basket containing certain sacred symbols was brought to Eleusis, accompanied by a number of female devotees carrying smaller baskets. On the evening of the fifth day there was a torch race, on the sixth a procession led by a statue of Iacchus, and on the seventh an athletic contest. The eighth day was devoted to a repetition of the ceremonial for the benefit of any who might have been prevented from coming sooner. The ninth and last day was devoted to the deepest philosophical issues of the Eleusinia, during which an urn or jar--the symbol of Bacchus--was exhibited as an emblem of supreme importance.