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AMPHITHEATRUM SAPIENTIAE AETERNAE

 by Heinrich Khunrath
Hamburg, 1595
Four Circular Plates engraved by Paullus van der Doort
Laboratory drawing by Hans Vredman de Vries (1527-1604)
© 1999, 2000 by the Board of Regents of the University of Wisconsin System

UNDER CONSTRUCTION

One way to spiritualize matter is the Science of the Key.

I is the creative principle, the first unity. From the I arises the A, spirit and the O, matter. By means of the three vowels spiritual currents are stimulated. We very frequently find these two signs, I and A, represented in images in ancient Freemasonic literature, and less frequently the O.

Two very good illustrations of the vowels are found in the 1619 Hannover edition of Heinrich Khunrath's Amphitheatrum Sapientiae Aeternae. Khunrath was a physician in Dresden. He already secured imperial permission to publish the book from the then mint-master of the elector by the name of Sebottendorf in 1598, although the work did not appear until three years after Khunrath's death. His lodge-brother, Erasmus Wolfart, provided for the publication. The three vowels are found on the first table which shows two crossed torches in the middle: the A, over these is an owl, as a symbol of wisdom. The owl is wearing glasses: the O. To the right and left are two lights, which indicate the I. The inscription below reads:

What's the use of torches, light or glasses
If the people don't want to see?

Khunrath indicates the way in the following words: "Consider why you have come into the world: to learn to know GOD, yourself and the spiritual world." You arrive at this --

I. through prayer in the oratory
II. through work in the laboratory

That is the highest philosophy.

An illustration which shows us how the vowels are represented by the hands is found on another page of the same work.

-- The Practice of the Ancient Turkish Freemasons: The Key to the Understanding of Alchemy, by Baron Rudolf von Sebottendorf

Heinrich Khunrath, Amphitheatrum sapientiae aeternae [Hamburg: s.n., 1595] is an alchemical classic, the best known of Heinrich Khunrath's works. The work is infused with a strange combination of Christianity and magic, illustrated with elaborate, hand-colored, engraved plates heightened with gold and silver. The tension between spirituality and experiment, and the rich symbolism of Khunrath's writings and their engravings brought condemnation of the book by the Sorbonne in 1625, and now attracts attention from scholars.

Located in the Duveen Collection in the Department of Special Collections, University of Wisconsin-Madison, this is a rare copy of the first edition of this work, published probably in Hamburg in 1595. There are several other editions, some with additional plates, though lacking in general the generous margins and hand-coloring of the copy in Madison. Only two other copies of this first edition, described by Denis Duveen as "one of the most important books in the whole literature of theosophical alchemy and the occult sciences," are known to exist.

With funding generously provided by the Brittingham Fund, the Department of Special Collections has undertaken the construction of this Web-based introduction to Heinrich Khunrath's Amphitheatrum sapientiae aeternae (1595). Because the engraved illustrations are packed with symbolic as well as textual information arrayed either on radii or concentric circles, we have provided for close-up examination of important iconographic features, and also transcribed the engraved text surrounding the circular images. A version of the text on all four engraved plates, encoded according to TEI (Text Encoding Initiative) standards, is forthcoming.

Table of Contents:

  • Plates

Alchemist's Laboratory

Surrounding the circular image of the alchemist's laboratory and oratory is engraved text.

Homo toto corde, tota anima, omnibus uiribus, et omni mente, diuina gratia stimulante et mouente, (est enim Dei misericordis donum) studens yhvh[1] agnoscere, se ipsum (cognitione sui) abnegare, et mundum (cognitione quoque luminis naturae) contemnere immundum:

[Google translate: A man with his whole heart, whole soul, with all our strength, and to every mind, by divine grace and the instigation of moves, (for it is the gift of God most merciful) yhvh striving to acknowledge himself (knowledge of) to deny, and the world (also light the knowledge of nature) unclean to despise:]

1. Stola integritatis Christianae candida, hoc est simplicitate, recto et probitate, sancte amictus; ueritatisque diuinae zona lumbis succinctus aurea, et sceptro Christianae libertatis imperatorio, mundo uidelicet, diabolo ac carnis concupiscentiis atque affectibus dominando, in hanc scenam mundanam progrediens.

[Google translate: Integrity of the Christian white robe, that is simplicity, the nominative case and integrity, of the holy attire; girded about the loins with a girdle of gold ueritatisque divine, Christian liberty, scepter, and the empire, namely the world, the devil and the lusts of the flesh and emotions sway, on this worldly stage to proceed further.

2. Anulo assistentiae gratiae Diuinae admonitorio, uirtuosae uidelicet catholicaeque promissionis, ab ipso, in cuius ore non inuentus fuit dolus, datae, dicentis, Amen, amen dico uobis, si quid petieritis Patrem in nomine meo, dabit uobis, petite et accipietis: digito anulari decoratus.

[Google translate: Ring insurance admonitorio to divine grace, namely virtuous catholicaeque of promise, by him, in whose mouth was no guile was found, given to them, saying, Verily, verily, I say unto you, Whatsoever ye shall ask the Father in my name, will give you, ask and you shall receive: the finger with the RING-MAKER.]

3. T, uere catholici signatura, mitrae, aut laminae aureae sacerdotalis, coronaeue regiae loco, hominis interioris fronte, diuinitus notatus, et ceu obtectus atque ornatus.

[Google translate: T, truly Catholic Signatura, bonnets, with plates of gold, or priestly, royal coronaeue place, the inner man, the forehead, divinely noted, and as covered by its treasures and ornaments.]

4. Aqua lachrymarum paenitentialium et nouae oboedientiae benedicta, aspersorio crucis ac tribulationum uere hyssopico, Christiane aspersus.

[Google translate: Tears of penance for water and blessed the new obedience, truly hyssopico aspersorio with crosses and tribulations, sprinkled with the Christian.]

5. Cui, ante mentis suae, Deo, coniunctae atque unitae, oculos, e collo dependet, in tabulis cordis sui, a lethiferis peccatorum sordibus puri ac mundi, uere aureis, flagrantissimi amoris Diuini cinabrio, fidei sincerae penicillo indelibiliter depictus, nec non malleo spei firmae fortiter impressus yehoshua Christos, Deus et homo, crucifixus; pentagrammos yhvh tetragrammos ipsissimus character, et figura paternae hypozateôs siue subsisentiae: sigillum Patris, imago non tantum, uel eikôn sed et apaugasma et uerus gloriae Patris splendor, Dei uerbum, Dei uirtus, et Dei sapientia incarnata. En, signaculum, uincens ac fugans partes aduersas! Pentaculum et quinque literarum ac uulnerum, uerbi mirifici mirificum! Almadel uirtuosum!

[Google translate: To whom, before the of his mind, God, joined together and united, the eyes, from his neck depends, in the tables of his heart, from the pure filth of sins and the world's lethiferis, truly golden, divine love cinabrio his ardent, sincere faith indelibiliter brush painted, he would not be impaired with the hammer of hope strongly imprinted on yehoshua Christos, God and man, was crucified; pentagrammos yhvh tetragrammos ipsissimus a character, and the figure of his father's or hypozateôs subsisentiae: seal of the Father, not only the image, or eikôn apaugasma and true but also the splendor of the Father of glory, the Word of God, the power of God and of God the wisdom incarnate. Behold, a seal, and scatters uincens parts and adversity! Pentaculum and the wounds and five letters, the word wonderfully wonderful! Almadel virtuous!

6. Circulo yhvh igneo, gladio uerbi Diuini ancipiti, candidae et uiuae fidei in Christum manu, Deo eam mouente et regente, ducto, inclusus eoque contra portas inferni, tutore Elohim Zebaoth omnipotente, inuictissime munitus.

[Google translate: Yhvh a fiery circle, two-edged sword of the word divine, bright and living faith in the hand of Christ, and God was governing it moves, drawing, and so shut up against the gates of hell, guardian Almighty Elohim of Hosts, protected by the invincible.

7. Iramentum, ob foedus et pactum conuentionis, cum Spiritu sapientissimo optimo, potentissimo, infinito, zelote, quo ei triuni, se triunum totum corpore, spiritu, et anima, mancipauit, in perpetuum indissolubile, ceremoniis sanctissimis, in baptismate Christiano, iuxta et fluminis lotione sacri aquosa, et flatus unctione sacrosancti oleosa, semel sancte praestitum, fideliter seruans: datamque illi ipsi fidem, qui sanguine eum redemit suo (cui tu, inquam, chirographarius debitor sanguine uicissim obligatus tuo) nefarie non soluens.

[Google translate: Iramentum, because of his covenant and the covenant conuentionis, when the Spirit of wisdom and the best, most powerful, the infinite, the Zealot, which triuni him, he triunum the whole body, spirit, and soul, devoted, for ever indissoluble, most holy ceremonies, in the Baptism the Christian, and of the river, according to lotione sacred watery, oily substances and breath of the anointing of the Most Holy, holy once performed, faithfully keeper: datamque, these very men the faith who redeemed him his blood (to whom you, I say, a debtor chirographarius bound to turn your blood) is not unfolding wickedly.

2. THE LEFT OUTER WING. The left side shows the scene which is described in the Gospel of St. John, 18/1-11, and of St. Luke, 22/49-51.

It is evening, the moon is half hidden behind a cloud, and the whole scene is composed in two great groups. Above, Jesus, surrounded by His captors, has fallen to His knees; His calm self-possession is sharply contrasted with the excited tumult of those who have captured Him. The humble posture, the crossed hands submissively folded, all express His readiness to be bound, and to accept the burden of the cross.

The scene shown in the lower half of this picture presents a complete contrast to that described above. St. Peter is brandishing his sword, in order to hack off the ear of Malchus. Above, the yoke is accepted -- here there is resistance to it. There, there is love, patience, devotion, here there is violence. It is significant that a brook separates the two scenes. It is the Cedron, but it represents the boundary between two worlds. We hear the first, and particularly well articulated sentence of the fundamental theme of this triptych: What position do I take up when I confront the forces of opposition in a moral situation? The second sentence: How can I place myself at the service of what is good? a question which inevitably now arises within the beholder, Bosch deals with much less obviously in the inner pictures.

A chalice is shown at the top of a steep mountain in the background -- the vessel of salvation. The body of Jesus, whose Passion has begun, is the holy chalice, in which Christ will go through death and resurrection: this vessel has also been called the Holy Grail.

On the left a bowed figure is creeping away, hands folded in prayer, and carrying a money bag over its back: it is Judas. This small detail points to a specific conception of the painter, deviating from the idea, which is commonly held, that in Judas we see only an ordinary betrayer. Judas expected that Jesus would prove Himself to be the Messiah who had been announced to the Jewish People, and who should re-establish its dominance and found a new terrestrial kingdom. He felt that he must accelerate events, and betrayed the Saviour in order that he might the sooner become a witness to His triumph. He was unable to imagine a suffering God, only a triumphant one. Now he prays that the heavenly hosts should come to the rescue.

Beneath the scene with St. Peter there appear two "butcher birds" or red-backed shrikes, as we might expect. [For Bosch this bird is the bird of death. Between them lie parts of a skeleton. These symbols tell us that where there is violence, and the use of the sword the butcher bird, violent death, is king. At the same time the two shrikes make the point that the events portrayed are taking place on the anniversary night of that event in Egypt when the Angel of Death, also known as the Destroying Angel, went abroad. The lantern that Malchus had held has fallen to the ground; the small flame is flickering: the spiritual light of Judaism is about to go out. At the side we see the Book of Life, in which all deeds on earth are written down. Below this stands a duck; it is the symbol of education. Its introduction here signifies that wherever men are educated the story of events of this night will be taught.

The garment of a youth who has fled naked, is lying on the shore of the brook, and hangs in the water. The main theme of this panel is, as already mentioned: How do I face up to what is good, and what is my attitude to what is evil?

--
The Pictorial Language of Hieronymus Bosch, by Clement A. Wertheim Aymes

8. Lampade atque candelis, luminis de lumine aeterno, semper ardentibus, in mente sua Diuinitus accensis, illuminatus.

[Google translate: Lamp and the candles, light the light of eternity, is always burning in their mind divinely were on fire, lightened.]

9. Holocaustum, quod yhvh spiritum optimum maximum non despiciet, spiritum contribulatum uidelicet, et cor contritum, illi eidem, piae deuotionis orationisque ardentis, ad Deum uolantium, suffumigatione, lotis et animi et linguae manibus patienter sacrificans.

[Google translate: Holocaust, that the spirit of the best yhvh despise not the greatest, namely, a spirit troubled, and the heart is contrite, the same to him, burning prayer of his pious devotion to God flying, suffumigatione, having washed his hands and mind and tongue, the sacrificer patiently.]

10. Propositione denique, non temere quauis, leui, scurrili aut inani, uerum licita, honesta, et propterea Deo non aduersa, sibique ipsi, aut proximo suo; maxime utili necessariaue, menti supplici et a lethiferis peccatorum sordibus poenitentialiter defaecatae (quae uera charta uirginea, pura et munda, est Theosophorum, non cacomagorum) calamo cogitationum integrarum imaginationumque rectarum ex desiderii sciendi cinabrio ardentissimi, firmiter inscripta; et Altissimo, eleuationis in eum annuntiatione, submisse oblata: in ieiunio Christiano, tam a concupiscentiis affectibusue uitiosis, quam a superfluo corporis cibo, genubus et cordis et corporis humiliter flexis, deque optato (Diuina clementia) beate impetrando, indubitanter sperans: in sacello, siue adyto, oratorii, monastico, aut quasi eremitico, ad yhvh pro sapientia sancta, mane uigilans, et ore ac corde Chrizophoros, cruciformiter hoc est in spiritu et ueritate, sine intermissione.

[Google translate: Finally, Proposition, we can not quauis, light, scurrilous, or empty, but lawful, honorable, and therefore not God, against adversity, they them to himself, or his neighbor, especially useful necessariaue, a humble mind and from the filth of sins lethiferis poenitentialiter has been clarified (which is true uirginea the paper, pure and clean, is THEOSOPHY, not cacomagorum) of the lines from the pen of the thoughts of the perfect imaginationumque cinabrio by its most ardent desire of knowing, firmly inscribed, and the Most High, the announcement eleuationis in him, humble offerings: in the Christian fasting, both from the concupiscences affectibusue vicious than from the surplus food of the body, humbly on bended knees and heart and body, and the longed-(Divine clemency) of the Blessed to be obtained, undoubtedly hoping that: in the chapel, or shrine, oratory, monastic, or as if eremitical, to the holy yhvh on behalf of wisdom, in the morning awake, heart, and with a Chrizophoros, cruciformiter that is, in spirit and the truth, without ceasing.

Orans, audit, uidet, obseruat, yhvh mirabilis, uocem mirificam, mirabiliter sonantem, tonantem et loquentem, in

[Google translate: Praying, hears, sees, observe, yhvh wonderful, wonderful voice, sounding wonderfully, thunder and speaking, in the]

Sanctissima Scriptura;
historice; siue
literaliter;
moraliter;
tropologice;
anagogice;
physice;
typice;
cabalice;
theosophice;

[Google translate: The Most Holy Scripture;
historically; or
literally;
morally;
ALLEGORICALLY;
anagogical;
physically;
types are ye;
cabalice;
theosophice;]

Natura; Macro kai Microcosmôs;
theosophice;
physice;
physicomedice;
physicochemice;
physicomagice;
hyperphysicomagice;
cabalice;

[Google translate: Nature; Macer kai microcosm;
theosophice;
physically;
physicomedice;
physicochemice;
physicomagice;
hyperphysicomagice;
cabalice;]

Semet Ipso;

[Google translate: Himself Him;]

Secundam Animam, in mentis, Deo iunctae, aut luce Diuina illuminatae, speculo: idque tam dormiendo, quam uigilando: ut testes quoque conscientiae propriae mille, ueritatem perhibentes, iuxta Legem in cordibus nostris, Diuinitus scriptam.

[Google translate: According to the soul, in the mind, grew up alongside God, or Divine light illuminated, a mirror, and that so while asleep, than uigilando: that a thousand witnesses of their own conscience also, witness the truth, according to the law in our hearts, the divinity written.]

Per caelum, per terram, per aerem, [2] ignes, nubes, uentos, saxa, gemmas, lapides, mineralia: per Animalia, terrestria, aquatica et uolatilia: per uegetabilia omnia, per herbas, semina, ligna, uirgulta, fructus: per numeros, literas, puncta: per hominem, secundum corpus et corporis partes, et spiritum, qui (et in corpore et sine corpore) naturaliter familiaris, homunculusque sophorum est per lapidem philosophorum et dum praeparatum, et quando regeneratione glorificatus est. Immo, per creaturas omnes, etiam inuisibiles, hoc est non physicas, ut sunt, totae caelestis et infernalis exercituum spiritualium militiae, angeli uidelicet boni et mali: et per omnia, quae a uisibilibus, hoc est, physicis orta sunt creaturis, siue per se ea sunt naturalia, siue artificis manu industriosa affabre elaborata: tamquam per media, nobis apte inseruientia, quibus diuina humanitus sentiamus. O quam mirabilis uox Dei in omnibus, per omnia, ad omnes! In usum hunc, ut yhvh uoluntatem, de praeteritis, praesentibus atque futuris (iuxta Dei uoluntatem) quibuscumque, sine fallacia recte sciamus, cognoscamus ac praeuideamus: Et, in Natura constituti, supra Narturam (Deo duce) nos ipsi dominemur: resque ipsas haud difficile efficiamus et peragamus, quarum causae (saepissime etiam naturales) a sapientibus mundi huius ignorantur, ob idque peritissimis in profana philosophia uiris etiam admirandas, et non credendas, sapientiae aeternae cultoribus atque alumnis fidelibus dilectis, solum cognitas et dignas. In summa: potest Theosophus quae uult; uult autem quae Deus Ipse. In Deo possunt [3] omnia. En secretum, ubi, quibus auxiliis, cur, quomodo, quando, credenti nil impossibile!

[Google translate: By heaven, by the earth, through the air, fire, clouds, winds, rocks, gems, rocks and minerals: by animals, earthly things, namely pure water and the birds: uegetabilia by all things, through the grass, seeds, wood, uirgulta, as a fruit: by the numbers, letters, the points; by the Man, according to the body and parts of the body, and spirit, who (and without the body and in the body) naturally intimate friend, and while homunculusque sage is prepared by the philosophers stone, and when the regeneration is glorified. Indeed, by all creatures, even invisible, that is not physical, as they are, they wholly celestial and infernal hosts of spiritual service, namely the angels of good and evil: and through all, which is from the visible, that is, physical creatures arose, or per se are those natural things, or the hand of the architect's HARD-WORKING artistically worked out: as if through the media, particularly appropriate for us waiting, which we think the divine human. Oh, how wonderful voice of God in all things, in all things, to all! In this use, as yhvh will, of past, present, and future (according to the will of God) to all, without the deceitfulness of rightly we may know, know, and praeuideamus: And, in nature constituted Narturam above (under the command of God) we ourselves have dominion: the ease made it difficult not and carried out to make, the causes of which (very often also natural) from the wise of this world are not known, also because of the wonderful men and competent in the secular philosophy, and not to be believed, the worshipers of the eternal wisdom, and faithful, beloved of students, the only known and worthy. In a word: He will which can THEOSOPHY; He will, however, which is God Himself. In God, can be [3] all things. See, the secret, where, many auxiliary, why, how, when, nothing impossible to him that believeth!

"Human beings may come into existence without natural parents. That is to say, such beings grow without being developed and born by a female organism; by the art of an experienced spagyricus (alchemist). The generatio homonculi has until now been kept very secret, and so little was publicly known about it that the old philosophers have doubted its possibility. But I know that such things may be accomplished by spagyric art assisted by natural processes. If the sperma, enclosed in a hermetically sealed glass, is buried in horse manure for about forty days, and properly 'magnetised' it begins to live and to move. After such a time it bears the form and resemblance of a human being, but it will be transparent and without a corpus. If it is now artificially fed with the arcanum sanguinis hominis until it is about forty weeks old, and if allowed to remain during that time in the horse-manure in a continually equal temperature, it will grow into a human child, with all its members developed like any other child, such as could have been born by a woman; only it will be much smaller. We call such a being a homunculus, and it may be raised and educated like any other child, until it grows older and obtains reason and intellect, and is able to take care of itself. This is one of the greatest secrets, and it ought to remain a secret until the days approach when all secrets will be known."

Paracelsus has been reproached for his belief in the possibility of generating homunculi; but a deeper insight into the processes of Nature will show that such a thing is not necessarily impossible. Modern authorities believe it to be not impossible. Moleschott thinks that we may perhaps yet succeed in establishing conditions by which organic forms can be generated; Liebig is of the opinion that chemistry will yet succeed in making organic substances by artificial means. Goethe says in his "Faust": --

"And such a brain, that has the power to think,
Will in the future be produced by a thinker."

Where no germ is present such a generation would certainly be impossible; but chickens can be artificially hatched out, and perhaps homunculi may be developed. There seem to be some historic evidences that such things have been accomplished, as the following account will show: --

In a book called "The Sphinx," edited by Dr. Emil Besetzny, and published at Vienna in 1873 by L. Rosner (Tuchlauben, No. 22), we find some interesting accounts in regard to a number of "spirits" generated by a Joh. Ferd, Count of Kueffstein, in Tyrol, in the year 1775. The sources from which these accounts are taken consist in masonic manuscripts and prints, but more especially in a diary kept by a certain Jas Kammerer, who acted in the capacity of butler and famulus to the said Count. There were ten homunculi or, as he calls them, "prophesying spirits" preserved in strong bottles, such as are used to preserve fruit, and which were filled with water; and these "spirits" were the product of the labour of the Count J. F. of Kueffstein (Kufstein), and of an Italian Mystic and Rosicrucian, Abbe Geloni. They were made in the course of five weeks, and consisted of a king, a queen, a knight, a monk, a nun, an architect, a miner, a seraph, and finally of a blue and a red spirit. "The bottles were closed with ox-bladders, and with a great magic seal (Solomon's seal?). The spirits swam about in those bottles, and were about one span long, and the Count was very anxious that they should grow. They were therefore buried under two cart-loads of horse-manure, and the pile daily sprinkled with a certain liquor, prepared with great trouble by the two adepts, and made out of some ‘very disgusting materials.' The pile of manure began after such sprinklings to ferment and to steam as if heated by a subterranean fire, and at least once every three days, when everything was quiet, at the approach of the night, the two gentlemen would leave the convent and go to pray and to fumigate at that pile of manure. After the bottles were removed the 'spirits' had grown to be each one about one and a half span long, so that the bottles were almost too small to contain them, and the male homunculi had come into possession of heavy beards, and the nails of their fingers and toes had grown a great deal. By some means the Abbe Schiloni provided them with appropriate clothing, each one according to his rank and dignity. In the bottle of the red and in that of the blue spirit, however, there was nothing to be seen but 'clear water'; but whenever the Abbe knocked three times at the seal upon the mouth of the bottles, speaking at the same time some Hebrew words, the water in the bottles began to turn blue (respectively red), and the blue and the red spirits would show their faces, first very small, but growing in proportions until they attained the size of an ordinary human face. The face of the blue spirit was beautiful, like an angel, but that of the red one bore a horrible expression."

"These beings were fed by the Count about once every three or four days with some rose-coloured substance which he kept in a silver box, and of which he gave to each spirit a pill of about the size of a pea. Once every week the water had to be removed, and the bottles filled again with pure rain-water. This change had to be accomplished very rapidly, because during the few moments that the spirits were exposed to the air they closed their eyes, and seemed to become weak and unconscious, as if they were about to die. But the blue spirit was never fed, nor was the water changed; while the red one received once a week a thimbleful of fresh blood of some animal (chicken), and this blood disappeared in the water as soon as it was poured into it, without colouring or troubling it. The water containing the red spirit had to be changed once every two or three days. As soon as the bottle was opened it became dark and cloudy, and emitted an odour of rotten eggs."

"In the course of time these spirits grew to be about two spans long, and their bottles were now almost too small for them to stand erect; the Count therefore provided them with appropriate seats. These bottles were carried to the place where the Masonic Lodge of which the Count was the presiding Master met, and after each meeting they were carried back again. During the meetings the spirits gave prophecies about future events that usually proved to be correct. They knew the most secret things, but each of them was only acquainted with such things as belonged to his station: for instance, the king could talk politics, the monk about religion, the miner about minerals, &c.; but the blue and the red spirits seemed to know everything. (Some facts proving their clairvoyant powers are given in the original.)"

"By some accident the glass containing the monk fell one day upon the floor, and was broken. The poor monk died after a few painful respirations, in spite of all the efforts of the Count to save his life, and his body was buried in the garden. An attempt to generate another one, made by the Count without the assistance of the Abbe, who had left, resulted in failure, as it produced only a small thing like a leech, which had very little vitality, and soon died."

"One day the king escaped from his bottle, which had not been properly sealed, and was found by Kammerer sitting on the top of the bottle containing the queen, attempting to scratch with his nails the seal away, and to liberate her. In answer to the servant's call for help, the Count rushed in, and after a prolonged chase caught the king, who, from his long exposure to the air and the want of his appropriate element, had become faint, and was replaced into his bottle not, however, without succeeding to scratch the nose of the Count."

It seems that the Count of Kufstein in later years became anxious for the salvation of his soul, and considered it incompatible with the requirements of his conscience to keep those spirits longer in his possession, and that he got rid of them in some manner not mentioned by the scribe. We will not make an attempt at comment, but would advise those who are curious about this matter to read the book from which the above account is an extract. There can be hardly any doubt as to its veracity, because some historically well-known persons, such as Count Max Lamberg, Count Franz Josef v. Thun, and others, saw them, and they possessed undoubtedly visible and tangible bodies; and it seems that they were either elemental spirits, or, what appears to be more probable, homunculi.

-- The Life of Philippus Theophrastus Bombast of Hohenheim Known by the Name of Paracelsus and the Substance of his Teachings, by Franz Hartmann, M.D.

1. Cui est mens sana in corpore sano. [4]

[Google translate: To whom is a healthy mind in a sound body.]

2. Cum sophistis non ambulans, sed sanctissimae ueritatis catholicae semitae firmiter insistens, inque ea animo constanti, ad finem usque impetrationis, perseuerans: Dei enim zelotis donum hoc.

[Google translate: When the sophists is not walking, but the ways of the Catholic truth of the Most Holy insistens firmly, and in her constant mind, till the end impetrationis, but enduring: jealous of God for this gift.]

3. Curarum temporalium uanitantibus et phantasiis, splendidisue mundi huius immundi sapientiae miserae miseriis, et uere nugis ac fabulis cito transitoriis, haud implicitus, uerum in sapientiae aeternae meditationibus et laboribus diu noctuque totus.

[Google translate: Uanitantibus temporal cares and delusions, splendidisue unclean wisdom of this world the misery of miseries, and a byword to quickly and truly transitory trifles, not entangled with, but in the meditations of eternal wisdom and labors day and night all.]

4. Doctus a Deo solo, praeceptore omnium sapientum catholico, dierum Antiquissimo, et errare nescio, iuxta uoluntatem suam liberrimam, uel immediate, uel mediate, quod est, per Magistrum, spiritualem aut corporeum, nuntium yhvh bonum: Et per libros, puta, sanctissimae scripturae, atque Naturae; etiam Naturae interpretum chartaceos: quorum, quinam authentici sint, solus, cum Ignis examine, Dei spiritus in eo dextre iudicans, sit censor omnium aequissimus.

[Google translate: Learned from God alone, the wise teacher of all the Catholic, the most ancient of days, and I know not to go astray, according to his most free will, or immediately, or mediately, that is, the Master, the spiritual or corporeal, the message of the good yhvh: And by means of books, for example, the Most Holy Scripture, and to nature; also CHARTACEOUS interpreters of nature, whose, who are authentic, alone, with the examination of fire, the Spirit of God in him dexterously judging, that most just of all is the censor.]

[Queen of Sweden] Christina's fourth and last entry in Rome took place on 22 November 1668. As in 1655 she rode through Porta del Popolo in triumph. Clement IX often visited her; they had a shared interest in plays, and Christina established Rome's first public theatre in a former jail, Tor di Nona, which now belonged to an order of monks. When the pope suffered a stroke in late 1669, she was among the few he wanted to see at his deathbed. On 9 December he died, and the new pope, Clement X, worried about the influence of theatre on public morals. When Innocent XI became pope, things turned even worse; he made Christina's theatre into a storeroom for grain, although he had been a frequent guest in her royal box with the other cardinals. He also forbade women to perform with song or acting, and the wearing of decolleté dresses. Christina considered this sheer nonsense, and let women perform in her palace. In her basement there was a laboratory, where she and Cardinal Azzolino experimented with alchemy. She also wrote - an autobiography, essays on her heroes Alexander the Great and Julius Cæsar, as well as correspondence with the learned around Europe – and acted as patron to musicians such as Alessandro Scarlatti and Arcangelo Corelli, who dedicated his first work, Sonata da chiesa opus 1, to her.

In February 1689, the 62-year-old Christina fell seriously ill, receiving the last rites. Pope Alexander VIII was too ill to pay her a visit, but sent his regards. She seemed to recover, but in the middle of April she got pneumonia and a high fever. On her deathbed she sent the pope a message asking if he could forgive her insults - which he could. Cardinal Azzolino stayed at her side until she died on 19 April 1689.

-- Christina, Queen of Sweden, by Wikipedia


Decio Azzolino (April 11, 1623 – June 8, 1689), generally known as the Younger, was an Italian cardinal.

He was born at Fermo, the son of Pompeo Azzolino and Giulia Ruffo, and great-nephew of Cardinal Decio Azzolino the Elder. He received doctorates in philosophy, juridics and theology from Fermo University. These skills among others led to him becoming the principal Vatican decoder, the person who cracked the ciphers most high-profile people used in their letters. In 1654 because of this service he rendered to the pope he was created a Cardinal of Sant'Adriano al Foro (Curia Julia), Rome.

He was the leader of the liberal movement Squadrone Volante as well as Christina of Sweden's representative within the Catholic Church. After her death, Azzolino inherited numerous of her artworks, including Correggio's Danaë and Titian's Venus and Adonis.

He died in Rome and is buried in the oratorium of the Church of Santa Maria in Vallicella.

It is thought that he and Christina were in love with one another although their relationship was never made public.

-- Decio Azzolino, by Wikipedia


The so called Squadrone Volante (`Flying Squad') was a seventeenth-century independent and liberal cardinal movement within the Catholic Church. The Squad, protected by Christina of Sweden and led by Cardinal Decio Azzolino, was highly involved in European politics in the second half of the century. The election of Pope Clement IX seems to have been mastered by the Squad.

-- Squadrone Volante, by Wikipedia

5. Mancipium aliorum, praesertim hisce bonis ac donis indignorum, arbitrii et pecuniae non existens, uerum per se utcumque diues, ut de uictu et amictu non sit sollicitus honesto. Nam impossibile, indigentem, aut non liberum, posse philosophari. Ars libera, liberum et totum uult hominem.

[Google translate: Slave of others, especially in recent good and the gifts of the scandalous, and-will and money, not existing, but in some way by himself rich, and honorable as of food and clothing, is not worried. For impossible, indigent, free or not, the ability to philosophize. Free art, free, and wants the whole man.]

6. Practicus manualis in physicochemiae laboribus multum exercitatus atque expertus.

[Google translate: In the practical manual labors physicochemiae much exercised, and the test.]

7. Naturam, ducem sophis omnibus fidam, ut Theosophiae amator, hoc est, philosophus, noscens, et oboedienter obseruans.

[Google translate: Nature, a leader all the sage still faithful to Rome, as a lover of Theosophiae, that is, a philosopher, knowing, and obediently observing.]

8. Eamque blande, (quia minister) et lente (quia actio eius lentissima) ducendo, non ui aut ira (ut hostis) cogendo, in principiis naturalibus, arte studiosa, prudenter imitans.

[Google translate: And brings it down pleasantly, but (because the minister) and take slowly (because the action of his lentissima) leading, not by violence, or anger (as an enemy) forced to in principles of natural things, a zealous art, imitating prudently.]

9. Labore industrioso experientiae deditus, et sapientiae uerae fructus, bona intentione sapienter eis utendi, hoc est riuulos fraterne emittendi, fontem, in timore Dei, solus retinendi, (quod eleemosynarii Dei, in hospitali hoc magno, est officium) hilari animo, et uultu sereno (yhvh nutu) patienter expectans.

[Google translate: HARD-WORKING devoted to labor experience, and wisdom is the fruit of true, a good intention of using them wisely, that is a brotherly streams profession, the fountain, in the fear of God, the only one to keep, (which eleemosynarii of God, in this great hospital, is a duty) with a joyful heart, and a calm countenance (by the will of yhvh) patiently waiting for.]

10. Non secretarius publicus, sed Harpocrates existens, Deoque immortali, pro bonis ac donis tantis ac tam paternis, quieto et gaudio et silentio (ne sibi ipsi periculum accersat, aliisque maleficii ansam praebeat, et propterea ira yhvh misere consumatur) gratias immortales agens.

[Google translate: Secretary not the public, but existing Harpocrates, Deoque, immortal, for so great and so good and the gifts of his father's, and in silence at rest, and joy (that they had not summon the midst of danger, and other give rise to crime, and therefore is consumed with anger yhvh miserably) thanks to the immortal agent.]

Ptolemaic bronze Harpocrates as the child Horus (Gulbenkian Foundation, Lisbon)

In late Greek mythology as developed in Ptolemaic Alexandria, Harpocrates is the god of silence. Harpocrates was adapted by the Greeks from the Egyptian child god Horus. To the ancient Egyptians, Horus represented the new-born Sun, rising each day at dawn. When the Greeks conquered Egypt under Alexander the Great, they transformed the Egyptian Horus into their Hellenistic god known as Harpocrates, a rendering from Egyptian Har-pa-khered or Heru-pa-khered (meaning "Horus the Child").

-- Harpocrates, by Wikipedia

Alchemia (qua, in percontandis libri Naturae secretis, ars non sagacior ulla) laborans, a yhvh ex merae misericordiae suae fonte largissimo, gratis et dono accipit, lapidem philosophorum, in corpore suo glorificato, hoc est regeneratum et plusquamperfectum: ad usum, ut tradiderunt sapientes, atque artis huius artifices (quibus credendum) expertissimi.

[Google translate: Alchemia (which, in the inquiries of the secrets of the book of nature, art does not make any sagacior) pains, from the mere yhvh from the broadest source of his mercy, freely and receives the gift, the stone of the philosophers, glorified in His Body, that is, and the re-plusquamperfectum: for use, as handed down to wise, and artisans of this art (which to be believed) had found it.]

Diuinum;

[Google translate: divine;]

Est enim urim urim, per quod, praesente et thummim, yhvh ter maximum de maximis et abstrusis, cabalice dat Theosopho responsa, loquitur, et uocem emittit suam. Re uera amphitheatrum bonitantis, sapientiae, atque omnipotentiae Dei immensum, magnumque in nos benignitatis suae testimonium! Et abyssus miraculorum ac secretorum Dei, in Natura, profundissima, libros sanctissimae Scripturae et Naturae, realiter exponens. Ex cuius contemplatione accurata, tamquam per gradum supinum atque altum, in yhvh agnitionem; pronum et obuium, in Naturae et nostri ipsius cognitonem ueram atque perfectam, theosophice conscendimus, et naturaliter ac sensibiliter trahimur. Mysteriorum quoque altissimorum personae et officii yehoshua Christou crucifixi, et sacramentorum atque articulorum fidei Christianae ordine omnium, quotquot sunt, typica, sufficiens tamen et sensibilis, repraesentatio. Quemadmodum abundanter et satis luculenter demonstrari potest, a sapientiae aeternae amico, in physicochemia fideliter exercitato.

[Google translate: For it is the Urim Urim, through which, in the presence and Thummim, yhvh three times the greatest of the greatest and obscure, cabalice THEOSOPHY gives answers, he speaks, and he sent forth his voice. Re bonitantis true, an amphitheater, wisdom, and immense of God's omnipotence, his kindness to us a great testimony! And the abyss of secrets and the miracles of God, in Nature, the deepest, most holy books of Scripture and of Nature, really explaining. Of his contemplation of an accurate-as if by the degree of supine, and high, in the yhvh knowledge, prone and appeared in his cognitonem of nature and our true and perfect, theosophice ascend together, and naturally and sensibly drawn. The mysteries of the person and also the highest office yehoshua Christou crucified, and the sacraments, and the subordination of all the articles of the Christian faith, as many as are typical, a sufficient, however, and sensible, representation. As can be demonstrated clearly and sufficiently abundantly, from the wisdom of eternal friend, in the physicochemia faithfully practiced.]

Microcosmicum;

[Google translate: Microcosmicum;]

Naturae lumen (et externe et interne rite adhibitus) in hominis mente, mirifice accendit. Cur non? Cum ipse ipsa sit lux Naturae, coruscans in tenebris Mundi. Quod in te orto, intelliges, quid motus sit sapientium perpetuus, ab insipientibus iamdiu insipienter quaesitus, at nondum inuentus, nec in omne aeuum, ab eis, aut sic, inueniendus. Spiritus malignos, ab obsessis, expellit et arcet. Quidni? Sunt in Natura potentiae particulares, quibus cedunt malignae potestates: cur non et uniuersali? Nec potest auctor confusionis ferre symmetriam. ingenium (usu medico) acuit et nobilitat: sic et memoriam sublimem, ac prudentiam conciliat. Hilaritatem perpetuam, (absente uiolentia externa) et audaciam honestam (quae animi Fortitudo est) mire excitat. Restaurationis ac conseruationis nostrae est uerissima medicina, catholica: morbos et mentis, et spiritus, et corporis, hoc est tam externos, quam internos (Deo annuente) omnes, pseudomedicis incurabiles, uirtuose propellens: et hominem totum, praedispositum usque ad uitae terminum, a Deo sibi praedestinatum, et ingenio et corpore uegetum ac ualentem, conseruans.

[Google translate: Light of nature (internally and externally and has been used properly) in man's mind, and kindles wonderfully. Why not? When he is the light of the very nature, flashing in the darkness of the world. That is in thee a quarrel broke out, understand, what the wise movement is perpetual, foolishly had long been sought by a fool, but not yet found, nor in all aeuum, from them, or so, found. The evil spirits, from the besieged, and drives out the castle. Why not? There are in the particular nature of the power, which yield an evil powers: why did not the universal? Nor can it be to bear the author of confusion symmetry. genius (the use of a physician) and sharpening the nobility, so sublime, and a memorial, and prudence's support. Perpetual mirth, (in the absence of external violence) and audacity honest (which is the fortitude of the soul) a cause of intense excites. And the restoration of the preserve is true of our medicine, catholic, and diseases of the mind, and spirit, and body, Such a view is external, than the internal (making a sign to God) all pseudomedicis incurable, propellens virtuous, and the whole man, even to the praedispositum life term, from the God predestinated to himself, and the skill of uegetum and body, and able, conseruans.]

Macrocosmicum;

[Google translate: Macrocosmicum;]

Metalla, rite fermentatus, transmutat inferiora in superiora, et in forma et in esse, secundam ueritatem, cum lucro ingente. Hinc diuitiae immensae, paupertatem fugantes, et omnia quae auro et argento parantur. Gemmas ex silicibus non sophisticas, sed genuinas ac ueras facit: et, ex cristallo, rubinum carbunculumue lucentem splendore magno: uitrum malleabile reddit.[5] Ex margaritis multis, unam artificiose constituit. Azoth Lapidis huius, hoc est mercurius Philosophorum, corpora in primam materiam reducit; (est enim materia prima, forma catholica animata) et metalla, (ut ipse uidi) cristallum, gemmas, perlas, silices, ac lapides (etiam microcosmi) omnes, nec non mineralia, uere potabilia reddit. Animalia a morbis liberat; inque uigore uirtutis suae conseruat. Vegetabilia fere emortua, essentia simplicium specifica fermentatus, et methodice eisdem applicatus, uiuificat refocillatque, humidum illis (humido permanente catholico) corroborando natiuum, et ab interitu (in hac instantia) uindicat imminente. In lampade conueniente, aqua eius permanens artificiose accensa, in perpetuum permanenter ardet.

[Google translate: Metals, duly fermentation, changes the lower to the higher, and in the form and in being, the second the truth, with the immense profits. Hence the immense riches, poverty, fugantes, are being leveled, and all that gold and silver. Gems from the rocks is not sophistry, but the genuine and true doth: and, from the crystal, the ruby ​​carbunculumue enlightens the splendor of great uitrum malleabile renders. [5] From many pearls, artfully appointed one. Azoth of this stone, that is Mercury philosophers, reduces the bodies in the first matter; (for it is prime matter, the Catholic form of living beings) and metals, (as he saw) crystal, gems, Perle, flint, and stones (even a microcosm) all, nor minerals is not, truly makes DRINKABLE. Animals from illness and is set free; and in preserves the vigor of his virtue. Plants, almost dead, the essence of the simple specific fermentation, and applied the same methodical, refocillatque is brought to life, the moist them (wet or permanent Catholic) corroborate born, and from the death (in this instance) entirely releases imminent. In a suitable lamp, water artificially set on fire by his permanent, permanently burns for ever.]

Azoth was considered to be a universal medicine or universal solvent sought in alchemy (similar to other alchemical idealized substance, alkahest, that like azoth was the aim, goal and vision of many alchemical works it was to achieve). Its symbol was the Caduceus and so the term, which being originally a term for an occult formula sought by alchemists much like the philosopher's stone, became a poetic word for the element mercury, the name being originally derived from Arabic al-zā'ūq "the mercury".

Azoth is the essential agent of transformation in alchemy. It is the name given by ancient alchemists to Mercury, the animating spirit hidden in all matter that makes transmutation possible. The spelling consists of the initial letter of the English, Greek and Hebrew alphabets followed by the final letters of the English alphabet (Z), the Greek alphabet (Omega) and the Hebrew alphabet (Tau). The word comes from the Arabic az zÄ'uq which means "Mercury." The word occurs in the writings of many early alchemists, such as Zosimos, Mary the Jewess, Olympiodorus, and Jabir ibn Hayyan (Geber). The word Azoth is also related to the Ain Soph (ultimate substance) of the Kabbalah. In his masterwork The Secret Teachings of All Ages. Manley P. Hall explained this connection: "The universe is surrounded by the sphere of light or stars. Beyond that sphere is Schamayim, who is the Divine Fiery Water, the first outflow of the Word of God, the flaming river pouring from the presence of the eternal mind. Schamayim, who is this fiery Androgyne, divides. His Fire becomes Solar fire and his Water becomes Lunar water in our universe. Schamayim is the Universal Mercury or Azoth -- the measureless spirit of life. That original spiritual fiery water comes through Eden ("vapor" in Hebrew) and pours itself into the four main rivers of the four Elements. This comprises the River of Living Water -- the Azoth -- or fiery mercurial essence, that flows out from the throne of God and Lamb. In this Eden (vaporous essence or mist) is the first or spiritual Earth, the incomprehensible and intangible dust out of which God formed Adam Kadmon, the spiritual body of man, which must become fully revealed through time." In his book Transcendental Magic, Eliphas Levi wrote: "The Azoth or Universal Medicine is, for the soul, is supreme reason and absolute justice; for the mind, it is mathematical and practical truth; for the body it is the quintessence, which is a combination of gold and light. In the superior or spiritual world, it is the First Matter of the Great Work, the source of the enthusiasm and activity of the alchemist. In the intermediate or mental world, it is intelligence and industry. In the inferior or material world, it is physical labor. Sulfur, Mercury, and Salt, which, volatized and fixed alternately, compose the Azoth of the sages. Sulfur corresponds to the elementary form of Fire, Mercury to Air and Water, Salt to Earth." Known as the Universal Solvent, Universal Cure, and Elixir of Life (elixir vitae), the Azoth is said to embody all medicines, as well as the first principles of all other substances. The 16th century alchemist Paracelsus was said to have achieved the Azoth, and in portraits of him carrying his sword, the inscription "Azoth" can be seen on the pommel or handle. It is said he kept the infallible remedy handy in a concealed compartment in the handle in case he needed it in an emergency or if he was injured in a fight. He said it was the "counter poison" to any physical, mental, or spiritual threat. As the Universal Life Force, the Azoth is not only the animating energy (spiritus animatus) of the body but is also the inspiration and enthusiasm that moves the mind. In the cosmos and within each of us, the Azoth is the mysterious evolutionary force responsible for the relentless drive towards physical and spiritual perfection. Thus, the concept of the Azoth is analogous to the light of nature or mind of God. Because the Azoth contains the complete information of the whole universe, it is also used as another word for the Philosopher's Stone. One of the hints for the preparation of the Stone is Ignis et Azoth tibi sufficiunt ("Fire and Azoth are sufficient"). There are scores of esoteric drawings depicting the Azoth and how it is used in the Great Work of alchemy. Examples include the Azoth of the Philosophers of Basil Valentine and the Hieroglyphic Monad of Dr. John Dee.

The term was considered by occultist Aleister Crowley to represent a unity of beginning and ending by tying together the first and last letters of the alphabets of antiquity[1]; A/Alpha/Alef (first character of Latin, Greek & Hebrew), Z (final character in Latin), O as Omega (final character in Greek) and Th as Tau (final character in Hebrew). In this way permeation and totality of beginning and end was symbolised to consider the supreme wholeness and thus the universal synthesis of opposites as a 'cancellation' (i.e. solvent) or cohesion (i.e. medicine), and in such a way is similar to the philosophical "absolute" of Hegel's dialectic. Crowley further made reference in his works referring to Azoth as "the fluid." calling it the universal solvent or universal medicine of the medieval alchemical philosophers, and him in the same place purporting these two seeming opposites as its lauded function to those said demographics, accentuating Crowley's personal psychology about the pervasive properties he ascribes it in his work and terminology/mythos as a unifier or unification of a certain extreme instance beholden to a contradict nature, so seen being unreconcilable a nature if otherwise sought apart of the philosophical ideal of Azoth. Whether it is thought to be a material quality or spiritual one.

An interesting fact is that in some languages, especially Slavic but some others as well (e.g. Italian, French), azoth is the name for nitrogen, but the etymology is different (in Italian it's "azoto" which comes from the Greek ἀ+ζωή "no life").

-- "Azoth," by Wikipedia

Corollaria duo:

[Google translate: Two corollaries:]

Primum. Ihsuh Christi crucifixi, saluatoris totius humani generis, id est, Mundi minoris, in Naturae libro et ceu speculo, typus est seruator Mundi maioris, hoc est Philosophorum Lapis. Quare, ex Lapide hoc, Christum naturaliter agnoscito; et, ex Christo, Lapidem Philosophorum theosophice discito. Ita, Antiquitas pia et religiosa, de Maschiah promisso, etiam ab, in et ex Natura, est certior facta. Sit Ethnicus, aut Turca, sanctissimam Scripturam (Deus!) nihili aestimans, ex Naturae libro, ad sensum et rationem, potest conuinci ueritatis, atque (diuina cooperante gratia) conuerti ad Christianismum. Sic et Iudaeus.

[Google translate: In the first place. Ihsuh of Christ crucified, the Saviour of the whole human race, that is, less of the world, in the book, and of nature as a mirror, the major type of the world were saved, that is the philosophers stone. Why, from this stone, naturally recognize Christ, and, of Christ, philosophers stone theosophice learn. Thus, a devout and religious antiquity, Maschiah of promise, even by, within and out of Nature, is more certain than deeds. Let the heathen, or Turkey, the Most Holy Scripture (Deus!) no account value on the book of nature to the sense and reason, can convicts of truth, and (co-operation of divine grace) turned to Christianity. So, too, a Jew.

Secundum. Qui, mysteria sanctissimae Scripturae, probe didicerit quoque legere in libro Naturae, ac semet ipso; et contra: Is sapientiae aeternae thesaurorum erit inuentor mirificus. Liber enim explicat librum. Placuit Deo mirabili mirabilis hic et dicendi et docendi modus: placeat idem et mihi et tibi. Ensoph! Ensoph! Ensoph!

[Google translate: According to. One who, for the mysteries of the Most Holy Scripture, also learned to read well in the book of nature, and, himself, and in contradiction to: This will be the inventor of the treasures of eternal wisdom wonderful. For the book explains the book. It pleased God, a wonderful wonderful here and speaking and teaching mode: the same and he may please with me and you. Ensoph! Ensoph! Ensoph!

Hence Non-being is “Absolute Being,” in esoteric philosophy. In the tenets of the latter even Adi-Budha (first or primeval wisdom) is, while manifested, in one sense an illusion, Maya, since all the gods, including Brahma, have to die at the end of the “Age of Brahma”; the abstraction called Parabrahm alone — whether we call it Ensoph, or Herbert Spencer’s Unknowable — being “the One Absolute” Reality. The One secondless Existence is adwaita, “Without a Second,” and all the rest is Maya, teaches the Adwaita philosophy.

-- The Secret Doctrine -- The Synthesis of Science, Religion, and Philosophy, by Helena Petrovna Blavatsky

Aenigma: Omnia in omnibus primum, omni tertio tradidit (ex omni primo secundo) omnia in omnibus primum secundum, ut inde omnia in omnibus et omnia (catholice) agnosceret, cognosceret ac possideret. Quod nomen eius, si nosti? consilium audi: Ambula in uiis doctrinae atque legum amphitheatri huius, et yhvh omnia paterne docebit.

[Google translate: Enigma: All in all the first, all delivered the third (the first out of every second) according to the first all in all, so that from thence all in all and all things (Catholic) would acknowledge, it would know and possess. That his name, if thou knowest? to hear the advice: Walk in the ways of doctrine and the laws of this amphitheater, and all His Father's will teach yhvh.]

Omnia ad yhvh Dei optimi maximi solius honorem, laudem ac gloriam; potentiamque, sapientiam, et bonitatem, agnoscendam atque celebrandam: Proximi egeni, et proprios usus, et in tempore, et in aeternum, innumerabiliter salutares: Diaboli uero istiusque squamarum putidarum, despectum summum, ac detestationem aeternam.

[Google translate: All the great and good of God alone yhvh to the honor, praise and glory and power, wisdom, and goodness, acknowledge, and celebrate: Next to the needy, and for their own uses, and in time, and for ever, countless number of salutary: but the devil's filthy istiusque scales, the highest contempt, and detestation of the eternal.]

Hallelu-iah: Hallelu-iah: Hallelu-iah: Phi, Diabolo.

[Google translate: Hallelu-iah: Hallelu-iah: Hallelu-iah: Phi, the devil.]

 This “golden” number, 1.61803399, represented by the Greek letter Phi, is known as the Golden Ratio, Golden Proportion, Golden Mean, Golden Section and Divine Proportion. It was written about by Euclid in “Elements” around 300 B.C., by Luca Pacioli, a contemporary of Leonardo Da Vinci, in "De Divina Proportione" in 1509, by Johannes Kepler around 1600 and by Dan Brown in 2003 in his best selling novel, “The Da Vinci Code.”
-- Goldennumber.net

Henricus Khunrath Lips. Theosophiae amator, et medicinae Doctor, Dei gratia, inuentor. Paullus uander Doort [Paulus vander Doort], Antverpien. Scalpsit, Hamburgi. Anno a Christo nato 1595. Mense Septembri.

[Google translate: Henry Khunrath Boston. Theosophiae a lover, and Doctor of medicine, the grace of God, the inventor. Paullus uander Door [Paul Vander Door], Antverpien. Scalpsit, Hamburg. In the year 1595 from the birth of Christ. In the month of September.]

_______________

Notes:

[1] Tetragammon.

[2] per aeuas added on the perimeter, manu secunda.

[3] The edition of 1653 extends this abbreviation to potest, which is incorrect with the plural subject. We interpret the macron as representing merely that an abbreviation has been formed from a word beginning in p and ending in t. Either potest or possunt would fit this interpretation, but possunt is grammatically correct.

[4] Cf. Juvenal X.

[5] The edition of 1653 changes the period to a colon.


Hermaphrodite

Surrounding the circular image of the hermaphrodite is engraved text

Naturam nosce, uniuersaliter, et particulariter; ex libro sanctissimae Scripturae: Naturae ipsius, qui est, et Mundus maior, totus: et Mundus minor, hoc est homo, puta, secundum et corpus et spiritum suum: denique, aut mediate, ex angelis bonis, aut immediate, in speculo mentis tuae purgatae, ex Deo Ipso: theosophice; physice; physicomedice; physicochemice; physicomagice; hyperphysicomagice; cabalice.

[Google translate: Nature knows universally, and particularly of the Most Holy Scripture from the book: nature of Him who is, The World and greater, all: The World and less, this is a man, for example, and according to their own spirit and the body: in short, or mediately, from the angels of good, or immediately, in a mirror of your mind are cleansed, from God Him: theosophice; physically; physicomedice; physicochemice; physicomagice; hyperphysicomagice; cabalice.

I. Lapis Philosophorum est. Hunc, enim,

[Google translate: Philosophers stone is. This man, for]

1. Experientia, rerum omnium, etiam sola, sufficiens magistra, infallibiliter attestatur: cui refragari, nonne esset plus quam stultum? Hunc (ab aliis tamen praeparatum) uirtuose efficacem uidit, et Pontifex Romanus, et Caesarea Maiestas: uiderunt et Reges, orbis terrarum, non pauci; nec non Imperii Romani Electores nonnulli: uiderunt et Principes aliquot, Comites, Barones, Nobiles, et, (propter uirtutem atque doctrinam) a nobilibus proximi, Doctores: immo ex omni gente, Iudaica, Ethnica, et Christiana, etiam Turcica, statuque ac ordine, passim, multi; tam Ecclesiastici quam Politici, literati pariter atque illiterati, oculis (obstupescentes Naturae, per artem, miraculo) uiderunt, manibusque tetigerunt, suis. Sciens loquor. Hos omnes cito testes: tu physicochemiaemastix, eos interroga, in subsidium ueritatis, ueritatis amantes, rem ita habere, testabuntur lubentes.

[Google translate: The experience, of all things, even alone, a sufficient teacher, he infallibly bears witness: to which frustrates, is it not more than would be a fool? This (however, prepared by others) saw the virtuous effective, and the Roman Pontiff and, Caesarea and Majesty: they saw and the kings, the world, not a few, nor of the Roman Empire, not Electors some: and they saw a number of princes, earls, barons, nobles, and, (for the sake of virtue, and learning) from the nobles of our neighbor, Doctors: nay, from every nation, Jewish, pagan, and Christian, also Turkish, statuque and order in all directions, many, both ecclesiastical and politique, literati, and illiterate as well, his eyes (obstupescentes nature, by art, miracle) they saw by their hands, they touched, their. Knowing I speak. Quickly that all these witnesses: physicochemiaemastix you, ask them, the relief of truth, lovers of truth, to have a point, testabuntur great pleasure.]

2. Ratio, uera et certa, dux fida Sophorum, grauiter confirmat: quam, angustia loci huius addere impedit; alius et amplior, promptissimam, admisit.

[Google translate: The reason, true and certain, Sophus loyal to the leader, gravely confirms it: how to add anguish of this place is an obstacle to the other and larger, most ready, she has lost.]

3. Sapientes, tot ac tanti, auctores grauissimi, (quorum, hac de re, passim extant monumenta) uno, harmonice, ore, etiam iureiurando sanctissimo, non temere asseuerarunt: qui omnes ueridici (quia uiri docti et boni) tamdiu et sunt et habentur, donec de eis contrarium, sufficienter, fuerit probatum. At quando? Cumque artifici cuiuis in sua arte sit credendum, cur non potius, ea in re, fides erit adhibenda illis, quam ignorantibus? Omnium enim artifices, et optime et uerissime, de sui operis ratione, disserere, loqui et iudicare sciunt.

[Google translate: Wise men, so many and so great, was very much the authors, (of whom, in this regard, extant monuments in all directions) one, harmoniously and with the mouth, even the most holy oath, we can not asseuerarunt: Who will have all ueridici (for the learned and good men) and they are so long and are, them until the contrary is sufficiently, it has been proved. But when? And when the artist in his own art which is to be believed, why not rather, that in reality, to be used will be the faith of them, than who did not know? For all artists, and very well and verily, by reason of his work, discuss, and to judge know.]

4. Natura, Dei in huius machina Mundi, numquam otiosa ministra, multis, in operationibus suis, (ut tradiderunt Theosophi et confirmarunt experti) uiis ac modis, diu noctuque[1] nobis fideliter suadet, fidemque, de eo, facit firmam. Natura parens, de filio catholico, catholice testatur, suo.

[Google translate: Nature, of God in the machine of this world, the minister never idle, often, in their operations, (as they delivered them unto THEOSOPHY experienced and confirmed) and the ways ways, day and night [1] urges us faithfully, and faith, of him, the firm makes. The nature of a parent, of the Son of the Catholic, Catholic testifies his or her own.

5. Mens, humani animi scintilla altior et lucidior, diuina ac immortalis, quam Deus id generis donauerit conditione, ut ex insito sibi Naturae suae desiderio, quibuscumque possit uiribus, ad summa et optima tendat, indefinenter appetit: quem appetitus boni (est enim a Deo) stimulum, quam animi (sciunt non nisi experti) irrequietudinem, quod desiderium ardens, Lapidem Philosophorum habendi, si in rerum natura non esset, Deus Ipse, etiam iis, (de uitiosis sermo hic non est) qui prudentiores, sapientiores et religiosiores aliis sunt, aut fuere, frustra indidisset. Atqui nihil frustra!

[Google translate: The mind, the mind of the human spark of higher and more lucidly, by divine and immortal, something of that kind which God grant condition that implanted themselves from the nature of his desire, can be any strength to the highest and the best things to tend to, indefinenter desires of Him whom the desire for good (for it is from God) the sting, mind (experienced only they know) irrequietudinem, that burning desire, to be regarded as philosophers stone, if in the nature of things would not be God himself who, for them too, (this is not the word of the vicious), who is wiser, wiser and more godly than others, or having been in vain indidisset. But nothing in vain!

6. Consensus typicus, uere admirandus, (in Natura) Lapidis huius, cum sanctissima Triunitate diuina; cum toto Vniuerso creato; nec non logÙ Dei incarnato, hoc est Maschiach promisso et misso, religionisque Christianae Sacramentis atque mysteriis tam altis et profundis, uerum esse, credere ac fateri, omnes sanae mentis, iuste compellit. Si loquor absque ueritate, erubescam. Iudicent, non nisi scientes.

[Google translate: The consent of the symbol, truly admired, (in nature) of this stone, when the Most Holy Triunitate divine accoutrements with the whole created PRANK not of God incarnate, that is Maschiach and promise, sent upon the mysteries of the Sacraments, and so high and the depths of the Christian religion, was only right that, to believe and to confess, all of sound mind, compels us to do justly. If I speak the truth, without, be ashamed. To judge, knowing only.

7. Denique, (cum Creator, etiam ex creatura, teste Diuino Paulo, ad Romanos I. uelit cognosci) Deus et potuit et uoluit (uelle testatur experientia) organis suis, quibusdam, (non enim uni dat cuncta Deus) inde usque a Mundi initio, benigne largiri et adhuc uult, (quoniam in aeternum misericordia eius) ut nimirum, quaenam sit mira Creatoris sapientia, potentia infinita, benignitas immensa etc. hoc est qualis sit Deus Ipse, typo mirifico, ex creatura, non quidem, ex Mundo maiore, per se solum uel simpliciter, et partibus eius, passim, particulari cognitione, uerum quoque, ex Mundi maioris filio, (artis, hoc est physicochemiae interpretamento) in subiecto catholico, catholice, abundantius et explicatius, humano generi, coram, innotescat: indeque yhvh[2] Triunum, auctorem tanti boni ac doni, clarius discat agnoscere, admirari et uenerari solum, animo collaudare grato, profundius meditari, ipsique inseparabiliter coniungi, et reuniri.

[Google translate: Finally, (with the Creator, even in the creature, divine as a witness, Paul, I. would wish to be known to the Romans) could be the God and and we wish to (wish to experience testifies) their organs, in some, (for he gives all to one God) on until the world from the beginning, kindly and still wants to bestow on, (his mercy endureth for ever) that of course, what is the wonderful wisdom of the Creator, an infinite power, gentleness, etc. immense. what manner of man this is God himself who, WONDERFUL type, from the creature, not of all, from the greater world, or simply through himself alone, and of its parts, in all directions, the particular knowledge, but also, the major son of the world, (art, that is physicochemiae translation ) in a subject in a Catholic, Catholic, are much more and explained, the human race, before, be made known to this reason yhvh Triunum, the author of so great a gift of good and, clearly, learn to acknowledge, admire and honored with alone, praise with grateful mind, to meditate deeply, and they are inseparably united, and reuniri.

II. Quid est Lapis Philosophorum?

[Google translate: What is the philosophers stone?]

Lapis Philosophrum est ruah elohim Ruach Elohim, (qui incubabat aquis, Gen. 1.) Caelo mediante (yhvh solo, ex mera bonitate sua, ita uolente) conceptus, et corpus, uerum ac sub sensus cadens, factus, in utero protÙtokou (Chaeos creati) Mundi maioris, uirgineo, terra, nimirum, uacua atque inani, et aqua: natus in lucem Macrocosmou filius, aspectu (coram insipiente) uilis, deformis, et quasi in nouissimis: consubstantialis, tamen, similisque parenti, catholicus, triunus, hermaphroditos, uisibilis, tactu, auditu, olfactu, et gustu sensibilis, localis atque finitus: manifestatus, regeneratorie, a semet ipso, artis physicochemicae obstetricia manu, in corpore, suo, semel assumpto, glorificato: ad commodum siue usus, propemodum infinitos, et microcosmo et macrocosmo, in triunitate catholica, mirifice salutares.

[Google translate: Ruach Elohim, Elohim, is ruah Philosophrum stone, (who incubabat the waters, Gen.. 1.) Through the medium of Heaven (yhvh alone, out of pure goodness of their own, thus willing) concept, and the body, under the true and the sense of falling, being made, in the womb protÙtokou (Chae created) of greater world, uirgineo, the earth, of course, a deserted and empty, and the water: the son born in the light Macrocosmou in sight (before the foolish man) vile, ugly, and as in the last: one being with, nevertheless, similar parent, a Catholic who has triunus, hermaphrodites, visible, touch, hearing, smell, taste and sensible, and the local finite: manifested regeneratorie, from Himself, art physicochemicae midwife hand, in the body, his, once, taking with them, glorified: for the comfort or the use of, nearly infinite, and a microcosm and macrocosm, in the Catholic triunitate, wonderfully salutary.

 It is not the One Unknown ever-present God in Nature, or Nature in abscondito, that is rejected, but the God of human dogma and his humanized “Word.” In his infinite conceit and inherent pride and vanity, man shaped it himself with his sacrilegious hand out of the material he found in his own small brain-fabric, and forced it upon mankind as a direct revelation from the one unrevealed space. The Occultist accepts revelation as coming from divine yet still finite Beings, the manifested lives, never from the Unmanifestable one life; from those entities, called Primordial Man, Dhyani-Buddhas, or Dhyan-Chohans, the “Rishi-Prajapati” of the Hindus, the Elohim or “Sons of God,” the Planetary Spirits of all nations, who have become Gods for men.

***

The Ah-hi (Dhyan-Chohans) are the collective hosts of spiritual beings — the Angelic Hosts of Christianity, the Elohim and “Messengers” of the Jews — who are the vehicle for the manifestation of the divine or universal thought and will. They are the Intelligent Forces that give to and enact in Nature her “laws,” while themselves acting according to laws imposed upon them in a similar manner by still higher Powers; but they are not “the personifications” of the powers of Nature, as erroneously thought. This hierarchy of spiritual Beings, through which the Universal Mind comes into action, is like an army — a “Host,” truly — by means of which the fighting power of a nation manifests itself, and which is composed of army corps, divisions, brigades, regiments, and so forth, each with its separate individuality or life, and its limited freedom of action and limited responsibilities; each contained in a larger individuality, to which its own interests are subservient, and each containing lesser individualities in itself.

***

Jehovah — esoterically (as Elohim) — is also the Serpent or Dragon that tempted Eve, and the “Dragon” is an old glyph for "Astral Light" (Primordial Principle), “which is the Wisdom of Chaos.”

***

Here we find the unmistakeable echo of the Archaic Secret Doctrine, as now expounded. Only the latter does not place at the head and Evolution of Life “the Father,” who comes third and is the “Son of the Mother,” but the “Eternal and Ceaseless Breath of the All.” ... If the student bears in mind that there is but One Universal Element, which is infinite, unborn, and undying, and that all the rest — as in the world of phenomena — are but so many various differentiated aspects and transformations (correlations, they are now called) of that One, from Cosmical down to microcosmical effects, from super-human down to human and sub-human beings, the totality, in short, of objective existence — then the first and chief difficulty will disappear and Occult Cosmology may be mastered. All the Kabalists and Occultists, Eastern and Western, recognise (a) the identity of “Father-Mother” with primordial AEther or Akasa, (Astral Light); and (b) its homogeneity before the evolution of the “Son,” cosmically Fohat, for it is Cosmic Electricity. “Fohat hardens and scatters the seven brothers” (Book III. Dzyan); which means that the primordial Electric Entity — for the Eastern Occultists insist that Electricity is an Entity — electrifies into life, and separates primordial stuff or pregenetic matter into atoms, themselves the source of all life and consciousness. “There exists an universal agent unique of all forms and of life, that is called Od, Ob, and Aour, active and passive, positive and negative, like day and night: it is the first light in Creation” (Eliphas Levi’s Kabala): — the first Light of the primordial Elohim — the Adam, “male and female” — or (scientifically) electricity and life.

***
The “three and seven” strides refer to the Seven spheres inhabited by man, of the esoteric Doctrine, as well as to the Seven regions of the Earth....Esoteric philosophy alone explains it clearly, and the Zohar laid it down very philosophically and comprehensively. It is said and plainly demonstrated therein that in the beginning the Elohim (Elhim) were called Echod, “one,” or the “Deity is one in many,” a very simple idea in a pantheistic conception (in its philosophical sense, of course). Then came the change, “Jehovah is Elohim,” thus unifying the multiplicity and taking the first step towards Monotheism. Now to the query, “How is Jehovah Elohim?” the answer is, “By three Steps” from below. The meaning is plain. They are all symbols, and emblematic, mutually and correlatively, of Spirit, Soul and Body (man); of the circle transformed into Spirit, the Soul of the World, and its body (or Earth). Stepping out of the Circle of Infinity, that no man comprehendeth, Ain-Soph (the Kabalistic synonym for Parabrahm, for the Zeroana Akerne, of the Mazdeans, or for any other “Unknowable”) becomes “One” — the Echod, the Eka, the Ahu — then he (or it) is transformed by evolution into the One in many, the Dhyani-Buddhas or the Elohim, or again the Amshaspends, his third Step being taken into generation of the flesh, or “Man.” And from man, or Jah-Hova, “male female,” the inner divine entity becomes, on the metaphysical plane, once more the Elohim.

The Kabalistic idea is identical with the Esotericism of the Archaic period. This esotericism is the common property of all, and belongs neither to the Aryan 5th Race, nor to any of its numerous Sub-races. It cannot be claimed by the Turanians, so-called, the Egyptians, Chinese, Chaldeans, nor any of the Seven divisions of the Fifth Root Race, but really belongs to the Third and Fourth Root Races, whose descendants we find in the Seed of the Fifth, the earliest Aryans. The Circle was with every nation the symbol of the Unknown — “Boundless Space,” the abstract garb of an ever present abstraction — the Incognisable Deity. It represents limitless Time in Eternity. The Zeroana Akerne is also the “Boundless Circle of the Unknown Time,” from which Circle issues the radiant light — the Universal Sun, or Ormazd] — and the latter is identical with Kronos, in his AEolian form, that of a Circle. For the circle is Sar, and Saros, or cycle, and was the Babylonian god whose circular horizon was the visible symbol of the invisible, while the sun was the one Circle from which proceeded the Cosmic orbs, and of which he was considered the leader. Zero-ana, is the Chakra or circle of Vishnu, the mysterious emblem which is, according to the definition of a mystic, “a curve of such a nature that as to any, the least possible part thereof, if the curve be protracted either way it will proceed and finally re-enter upon itself, and form one and the same curve — or that which we call the circle.” No better definition could thus be given of the natural symbol and the evident nature of Deity, which having its circumference everywhere (the boundless) has, therefore, its central point also everywhere; in other words, is in every point of the Universe. The invisible Deity is thus also the Dhyan Chohans, or the Rishis, the primitive seven, and the nine, without, and ten, including, their synthetical unit; from which it steps into Man. Returning to the Commentary (4) of Stanza IV. the reader will understand why, while the trans-Himalayan Chakra has inscribed within it image_il | image_il | image_il (triangle, first line, cube, second line, and a pentacle with a dot in the centre thus: image_il, and some other variations), the Kabalistic circle of the Elohim reveals, when the letters of the word image_il (Alhim or Elohim) are numerically read, the famous numerals 13514, or by anagram 31415 — the astronomical [[pi]] (pi) number, or the hidden meaning of Dhyani-Buddhas, of the Gebers, the Geborim, the Kabeiri, and the Elohim, all signifying “great men,” “Titans,” “Heavenly Men,” and, on earth, “the giants.”

***

The seven Layu centres are the seven Zero points, using the term Zero in the same sense that Chemists do, to indicate a point at which, in Esotericism, the scale of reckoning of differentiation begins. From the Centres — beyond which Esoteric philosophy allows us to perceive the dim metaphysical outlines of the “Seven Sons” of Life and Light, the Seven Logoi of the Hermetic and all other philosophers — begins the differentiation of the elements which enter into the constitution of our Solar System. It has often been asked what was the exact definition of Fohat and his powers and functions, as he seems to exercise those of a Personal God as understood in the popular religions. The answer has just been given in the comment on Stanza V. As well said in the Bhagavadgita Lectures, “The whole Kosmos must necessarily exist in the One Source of energy from which this light (Fohat) emanates.” Whether we count the principles in Kosmos and man as seven or only as four, the forces of, and in, physical Nature are Seven; and it is stated by the same authority that “Pragna, or the capacity of perception, exists in seven different aspects corresponding to the seven conditions of matter” (Personal and impersonal God). For, “just as a human being is composed of seven principles, differentiated matter in the Solar System exists in seven different conditions” (ibid). So does Fohat.  He is One and Seven, and on the Cosmic plane is behind all such manifestations as light, heat, sound, adhesion, etc., etc., and is the “spirit” of Electricity, which is the Life of the Universe. As an abstraction, we call it the One Life; as an objective and evident Reality, we speak of a septenary scale of manifestation, which begins at the upper rung with the One Unknowable Causality, and ends as Omnipresent Mind and Life immanent in every atom of Matter. Thus, while science speaks of its evolution through brute matter, blind force, and senseless motion, the Occultists point to intelligent Law and sentient Life, and add that Fohat is the guiding Spirit of all this. Yet he is no personal god at all, but the emanation of those other Powers behind him whom the Christians call the “Messengers” of their God (who is in reality only the Elohim, or rather one of the Seven Creators called Elohim), and we, the “Messenger of the primordial Sons of Life and Light.”

***

It comes to this: Mankind in its first prototypal, shadowy form, is the offspring of the Elohim of Life (or Pitris); in its qualitative and physical aspect it is the direct progeny of the “Ancestors,” the lowest Dhyanis, or Spirits of the Earth; for its moral, psychic, and spiritual nature, it is indebted to a group of divine Beings, the name and characteristics of which will be given in Book II. Collectively, men are the handiwork of hosts of various spirits; distributively, the tabernacles of those hosts; and occasionally and singly, the vehicles of some of them. In our present all-material Fifth Race, the earthly Spirit of the Fourth is still strong in us; but we are approaching the time when the pendulum of evolution will direct its swing decidedly upwards, bringing Humanity back on a parallel line with the primitive third Root-Race in Spirituality. During its childhood, mankind was composed wholly of that Angelic Host, who were the indwelling Spirits that animated the monstrous and gigantic tabernacles of clay of the Fourth Race built by (as they are now also) and composed of countless myriads of lives. This sentence will be explained later on in the present Commentary. The “tabernacles” have improved in texture and symmetry of form, growing and developing with the globe that bore them; but the physical improvement took place at the expense of the spiritual inner man and nature. The three middle principles in earth and man became with every race more material; the Soul stepping back to make room for the physical intellect; the essence of elements becoming the material and composite elements now known.

Man is not, nor could he ever be, the complete product of the “Lord God”; but he is the child of the Elohim, so arbitrarily changed into the singular masculine gender. The first Dhyanis, commissioned to “create” man in their image, could only throw off their shadows, like a delicate model for the Nature Spirits of matter to work upon. (See Book II.) Man is, beyond any doubt, formed physically out of the dust of the Earth, but his creators and fashioners were many. Nor can it be said that the “Lord God breathed into his nostrils the breath of life,” unless that God is identified with the “One Life,” Omnipresent though invisible, and unless the same operation is attributed to “God” on behalf of every living Soul —or Nephesch, which is the vital Soul, not the divine Spirit or Ruach, which ensures to man alone a divine degree of immortality, that no animal, as such, could ever attain in this cycle of incarnation. It is the inadequate distinctions made by the Jews, and now by our Western metaphysicians, who, not knowing of, and being unable to understand, hence to accept, more than a triune man — Spirit, Soul, Body — thus confuse the “breath of life” with immortal Spirit. This applies also directly to the Protestant theologians, who, in translating verse 8 of Ch. III. in the Fourth Gospel, have entirely perverted the meaning. Indeed the verse is made to say “The wind bloweth where it listeth,” instead of “the Spirit goeth where it willeth,” as in the original and also in the translation of the Greek Eastern Church.

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As to this, a very learned admirer of the Jewish Esotericism tells us that “the Kabala says expressly that Elohim is a ‘general abstraction’; what we call in mathematics ‘a constant co-efficient’ or a ‘general function’ entering into all construction, not particular; that is, by the general ratio 1 to 31415, (the astro-Dhyanic and) Elohistic figures.” To this the Eastern Occultist replies: Quite so, it is an abstraction to our physical senses. To our spiritual perceptions, however, and to our inner spiritual eye, the Elohim or Dhyanis are no more an abstraction than our soul and spirit are to us. Reject the one and you reject the other — since that which is the surviving Entity in us is partly the direct emanation from, and partly those celestial Entities themselves. One thing is sure; the Jews were perfectly acquainted with sorcery and various maleficent forces; but, with the exception of some of their great prophets and seers like Daniel and Ezekiel (Enoch belonging to a far distant race and not to any nation but to all, as a generic character), they knew little of, nor would they deal with, the real divine Occultism, their national character being averse to anything which had no direct bearing upon their own ethnical, tribal, and individual benefits — witness their own prophets, and the curses thundered by them against the “stiff-necked race.” But even the Kabala plainly shows the direct relation between the Sephiroth, or Elohim, and men.

***

The well-known Kabalistic aphorism runs: — “A stone becomes a plant; a plant, a beast; the beast, a man; a man a spirit; and the spirit a god.” The “spark” animates all the kingdoms in turn before it enters into and informs divine man, between whom and his predecessor, animal man, there is all the difference in the world. Genesis begins its anthropology at the wrong end (evidently for a blind) and lands nowhere.  Had it begun as it ought, one would have found in it, first, the celestial Logos, the “Heavenly Man,” which evolves as a Compound Unit of Logoi, out of whom after their pralayic sleep — a sleep that gathers the cyphers scattered on the Mayavic plane into One, as the separate globules of quicksilver on a plate blend into one mass — the Logoi appear in their totality as the first “male and female” or Adam Kadmon, the “Fiat Lux” of the Bible, as we have already seen. But this transformation did not take place on our Earth, nor on any material plane, but in the Spacial Depths of the first differentiation of the eternal Root-matter. On our nascent globe things proceed differently. The Monad or Jiva, as said in “Isis Unveiled,” vol. i., p. 302, is, first of all, shot down by the law of Evolution into the lowest form of matter — the mineral. After a sevenfold gyration encased in the stone (or that which will become mineral and stone in the Fourth Round), it creeps out of it, say, as a lichen. Passing thence, through all the forms of vegetable matter, into what is termed animal matter, it has now reached the point in which it has become the germ, so to speak, of the animal, that will become the physical man. All this, up to the Third Round, is formless, as matter, and senseless, as consciousness. For the Monad or Jiva per se cannot be even called spirit: it is a ray, a breath of the Absolute, or the Absoluteness rather, and the Absolute Homogeneity, having no relations with the conditioned and relative finiteness, is unconscious on our plane. Therefore, besides the material which will be needed for its future human form, the monad requires (a) a spiritual model, or prototype, for that material to shape itself into; and (b) an intelligent consciousness to guide its evolution and progress, neither of which is possessed by the homogeneous monad, or by senseless though living matter. The Adam of dust requires the Soul of Life to be breathed into him: the two middle principles, which are the sentient life of the irrational animal and the Human Soul, for the former is irrational without the latter. It is only when, from a potential androgyne, man has become separated into male and female, that he will be endowed with this conscious, rational, individual Soul, (Manas) “the principle, or the intelligence, of the Elohim,” to receive which, he has to eat of the fruit of Knowledge from the Tree of Good and Evil. How is he to obtain all this? The Occult doctrine teaches that while the monad is cycling on downward into matter, these very Elohim — or Pitris, the lower Dhyan-Chohans — are evolving pari passu with it on a higher and more spiritual plane, descending also relatively into matter on their own plane of consciousness, when, after having reached a certain point, they will meet the incarnating senseless monad, encased in the lowest matter, and blending the two potencies, Spirit and Matter, the union will produce that terrestrial symbol of the “Heavenly Man” in space — perfect man. In the Sankhya philosophy, Purusha (spirit) is spoken of as something impotent unless he mounts on the shoulders of Prakriti (matter), which, left alone, is — senseless. But in the secret philosophy they are viewed as graduated. Though one and the same thing in their origin, Spirit and Matter, when once they are on the plane of differentiation, begin each of them their evolutionary progress in contrary directions — Spirit falling gradually into matter, and the latter ascending to its original condition, that of a pure spiritual substance. Both are inseparable, yet ever separated. In polarity, on the physical plane, two like poles will always repel each other, while the negative and the positive are mutually attracted, so do Spirit and Matter stand to each other — the two poles of the same homogeneous substance, the root-principle of the universe.

***

We now return to the consideration of material evolution through the Rounds. Matter in the second Round, it has been stated, may be figuratively referred to as two-dimensional. But here another caveat must be entered. That loose and figurative expression may be regarded — in one plane of thought, as we have just seen — as equivalent to the second characteristic of matter corresponding to the second perceptive faculty or sense of man. But these two linked scales of evolution are concerned with the processes going on within the limits of a single Round. The succession of primary aspects of Nature with which the succession of Rounds is concerned, has to do, as already indicated, with the development of the “Elements” (in the Occult sense) — Fire, Air, Water, [221] Earth. We are only in the fourth Round, and our catalogue so far stops short. The centres of consciousness (destined to develop into humanity as we know it) of the third Round arrived at a perception of the third Element Water. [222] Those of the fourth Round have added earth as a state of matter to their stock as well as the three other elements in their present transformation. In short, none of the so-called elements were, in the three preceding Rounds, as they are now. For all we know, fire may have been pure akasa, the first Matter of the Magnum Opus of the Creators and “Builders,” that Astral Light which the paradoxical Eliphas Levi calls in one breath “the body of the Holy Ghost,” and in the next “Baphomet,” the “Androgyne Goat of Mendes”; air, simply Nitrogen, “the breath of the Supporters of the Heavenly Dome,” as the Mahometan mystics call it; water, that primordial fluid which was required, according to Moses, to make a living soul with. And this may account for the flagrant discrepancies and unscientific statements found in Genesis. Separate the first from the second chapter; read the former as a scripture of the Elohists, and the latter as that of the far younger Jehovists; still one finds, if one reads between the lines, the same order in which things created appear — namely, Fire (light), Air, Water, and man (or the Earth). For the sentence: “In the beginning God created Heaven and Earth” is a mistranslation; it is not “Heaven and Earth,” but the duplex or dual Heaven, the upper and the lower Heavens, or the separation of primordial substance that was light in its upper and dark in its lower portions — or the manifested Universe — in its duality of the invisible (to the senses) and the visible to our perceptions. God divided the light from the Darkness (v. 4); and then made the firmament, air (5), “a firmament in the midst of the waters, and let it divide the waters from the waters,” (6), i.e., “the waters which were under the firmament (our manifested visible Universe) from the waters above the firmament,” or the (to us) invisible planes of being. In the second chapter (the Jehovistic), plants and herbs are created before water, just as in the first, light is produced before the Sun. “God made the Earth and the Heavens and every plant of the field before it was in the Earth and every herb of the field before it grew; for the Elohim (‘gods’) had not caused it to rain upon the earth, etc.” (v. 5) — an absurdity unless the esoteric explanation is accepted. The plants were created before they were in the earth — for there was no earth then such as it is now; and the herb of the field was in existence before it grew as it does now in the fourth Round.

***

[T]en, or the perfect number applied to the “Creator,” the name given to the totality of the Creators blended by the Monotheists into One, as the “Elohim,” Adam Kadmon or Sephira — the Crown — are the androgyne synthesis of the 10 Sephiroth, who stand for the symbol of the manifested Universe in the popularised Kabala. The esoteric Kabalists, however, following the Eastern Occultists, divide the upper Sephirothal triangle from the rest (or Sephira, Chochmah and Binah), which leaves seven Sephiroth.

***

Now, what “god” is meant here? Not God “the Father,” the anthropomorphic fiction; for that god is the Elohim collectively, and has no being apart from the Host. Besides, such a god is finite and imperfect. It is the high Initiates and Adepts who are meant here by those men “few in number.” And it is precisely those men who believe in “gods” and know no “God,” but one Universal unrelated and unconditioned Deity.

***

“And God said, Let there be a firmament. . .” (v. 6), and “God,” the second, obeyed and “made the firmament” (v. 7). “And God said let there be light,” and “there was light.” Now the latter does not mean light at all, but in the Kabala, the androgyne “Adam Kadmon,” or Sephira (Spiritual light), for they are one; or, according to the Chaldean “Book of Numbers,” the secondary angels, the first being the Elohim who are the aggregate of that “fashioning” god. For to whom are those words of command addressed? And who is it who commands? That which commands is the eternal Law, and he who obeys, the Elohim, the known quantity acting in and with x, or the coefficient of the unknown quantity, the Forces of the one Force.

***

In the cosmogonies of all the nations it is the “Architects” synthesized by Demiurgos (in the Bible the “Elohim”), who fashion Kosmos out of Chaos, and who are the collective Theos, “male-female,” Spirit and matter. “By a series (yom) of foundations (hasoth) the Alhim caused earth and heaven to be” (Gen. ii., 4). In the Bible it is first Alhim, then Jahva-Alhim, and finally Jehovah —after the separation of the sexes in chapter iv. of Genesis. It is noticeable that nowhere, except in the later, the last Cosmogonies of our Fifth race, is the ineffable and unutterable Name — the symbol of the Unknown Deity, which was used only in the Mysteries — used in connection with the “Creation” of the Universe. It is the “Movers,” the “Runners,” the theoi (from [[theein]], “to run”), who do the work of formation, the “Messengers” of the manvantaric law, who have now become in Christianity the “messengers” (malachim); and it seems the same in Hinduism or early Brahmanism. For it is not Brahma who creates in the Rig Veda, but the Prajapati, the “Lords of Being,” who are the Rishis; the word Rishi (according to Professor Mahadeo Kunte) being connected with the word to move, to lead on, applied to them in their terrestrial character, when, as Patriarchs, they lead their hosts on the Seven Rivers.

-- The Secret Doctrine -- The Synthesis of Science, Religion, and Philosophy, by Helena Petrovna Blavatsky

III. Quare dicitur Lapis, et cur Philosophorum?

[Google translate: It is therefore said stone, and why philosophers?]

Lapis, cur proprie dicatur, quodque nomen eius, quo apud caecum uulgus nominatur. Deus Ipse, ob causas certas, in scriptis sapientiae antistitum traditas, grauiter prohibuit cuiuis reuelare. Quamobrem et cuncti philosophi citius mori uoluerunt, quam artis secretum hoc secretissimum diuulgare. Adducam tamen ipsos, philosophice loquentes: quia, inquiunt, ut lapidum est quoque generatio et regeneratio eius: ex humido, nimirum, uiscoso et glutinoso, et terreno[3] sicco. Et: quod coctione sua (quae incrassando procedit) in lapidem permanenter fixum (quique ut lapis teratur) induretur. Lapis et non lapis, uere dicunt philosophi. Responsum clarius, maneat alta mente repostum.[4] Porro: Philosophorum est, non sapientiae uerae osorum: Sapientium, non insipientium; non idiotarum; non contra conscientiam uitiosorum. Solus Theosophus fortunatus.

[Google translate: The stone, why is properly called, and that his name, which in a blind man named mob. God himself who, due to causes of sure, given in the writings of bishops of wisdom, whose gravely forbade to reveal. For this reason, philosophers and all wanted to die more quickly, than this secret of the secret art diuulgare. However, I will bring them, philosophically speaking, because, they say, such as stones is also his generation and regeneration: from the moisture, of course, uiscoso and glutinous, and of earthy out. And, that his coctione (which proceeds incrassando) permanently fixed on the stone of (as stone and who other) harden them. The stone and not a stone, truly say of the philosopher. The answer is more clear, the mind remains high FAR. Moreover, philosophers, not those that hate, true wisdom: the wise, not foolish, not an uninitiated person, not against his conscience vicious. The only fortunate THEOSOPHY.]

IV. Quid est ruah elohim Ruach Elohim, qui incubabat aquis, Gen. 1.?

[Google translate: What is Elohim ruah Ruach Elohim, who incubabat the waters, Gen.. 1.?

ruah elohim Ruach Elohim est spiritus, spiraculum, anhelitus yhvh sancti sanctus, uapor uirtutis Dei omnipotentis, et emanatio quaedam fecunditatis uitalis, primi summique motoris uiuifica atque uirtuosa, e profundissimo Diuinitatis suae recessu; idearum, uidelicet, siue exemplarium, specierum, rationum seminariarum, primordialium et radicalium, uoluntatum opificum et causarum effectricum, in archetypi mente (hokhmah Hhochmah[5] in sapientia, bonitate eius causante eas) conceptarum atque praeexistentium, rerum omnium, in Mundo postea futuro, producendarum et fiendarum. Quae (Elohim, creatore ac conditore, uerbo suo, dicente ac praecipiente. Gen. 1.) res omnes, quas extare uoluit, in hoc theatro Mundano, produxerunt, esseque fecerunt: in globo sublunari, uestitae terra et aqua, hylÍ siue materia prima, communi et uniuersali, Caeli interuentu. Addo: Ruach Elohim est morphÍ siue forma rerum omnium interna, ousiÙdÍs et essentialis; Mundi anima uniuersalis: uirtus substantialis, per se subsistens, causa omni creaturae Mundi huius subsistendi: essentia (quia increatus) uere quinta: et (ut uoce dicam usitatissima) ipsissima substantificaque rerum Natura. Vnus (essentia et numero) hic Dei spiritus est; una, uniuersitatis conspicuae et corporeae huius unius, anima catholica: polupoikilos tamen, hoc est multiformis (Sap. 7.22. Ephes. 3.10.) et uariae eius radii atque scintillae, per totius ingentem materiei primae massae molem, hinc inde dispersae ac dissipatae; inque Mundi partibus, disiunctis etiam, et loco et corporis mole, nec non circumscriptione, postea separatis, disiunctim et separatim, innumerae, unius animae uniuersalis scintillae, nunc etiam inhabitantes. Vnus in multiplicitate: multiplex in unitate. Grata Deo in pluribus unitas. Et contra.

[Google translate: ruah Ruach Elohim, Elohim, is the Spirit, the breath, breath yhvh holy of holies, uapor virtue of Almighty God, and fruitfulness of life a kind of emanation, the first mover summique uiuifica, and virtuous, from the deepest recesses of His divinity; ideas, namely, whether of copies, and species, accounts of the seminary, primordial and radical, which creates wills and causes of workers, the archetype in the mind (hokhmah Hhochmah in wisdom, in His goodness causing them), and pre-existing conceived, of all things, afterwards in the world of the future, and the production would be accomplished. Which (Elohim, the Creator and the Creator, his word, and the order says. Gen. 1.) All things, which there willed it, the theater in this worldly, brought forth, esseque that they had done in the sphere sublunari, earth and water, clothing, or prime matter hylÍ, and the common and universal, the intervention of heaven. Addo: morphÍ Ruach Elohim, or is the form of all things internal, and essential ousiÙdÍs; the universal soul of the world: the substantial virtue, self-subsisting, the cause of subsistence to every creature of this world: the essence (for the uncreated) truly the fifth: and (as common voice shall I say) very substantificaque nature of things. One (and number of the essence) of God's Spirit is here, one, this one man's uniuersitatis visible and material, the soul of the Catholic: polupoikilos, however, that is the manifold (Wis 7.22. Eph. 3.10.) And various were his rays, and sparks, the whole matter a great a cake of the first mass, scattered and broken off, here and there; and in parts of the world, also separated, and in place of the body and in bulk, not the boundaries of separate afterwards, separately and individually, innumerable, universal sparks of one soul, even now the inhabitants. One in the complexity of the: manifold in the unit. Grateful to God in the unity of the majority of cases. And the other side.]

V. Quid est Caelum?

[Google translate: What is heaven?]

Caelum est spiritus aethereus corporalis, uel corpus aethereum spirituale, corruptioni non obnoxium, totius Mundi machinam permeans: superius, uerbo Domini, firmatum, hinc Firmamentum; inferius, massae sublunari toti incorporatum: unius eiusdemque et essentiae et substantiae Caelum unum, id quod inferius, et id quod superius. Illud physicochemia potest manifestari.

[Google translate: ETHEREAL heaven is the spirit of the body, the body of ethereal or spiritual, is not subject to corruption, permeans the engine of the whole world: above, the word of the Lord, so fixed, hence the firmament; below, a cake of the whole incorporated sublunari: heaven and substance and essence one and the same one, that which is below, and that which above. Physicochemia that can be manifested.

Mor Isaac (See Kircher’s OEdipus, vol. ii., p. 425) shows the ancient Syrians defining their world of the “Rulers” and “active gods” in the same way as the Chaldeans. The lowest world was the Sublunary — our own — watched by the “Angels” of the first or lower order; the one that came next in rank, was Mercury, ruled by the “Archangels”; then came Venus, whose gods were the Principalities; the fourth was that of the Sun, the domain and region of the highest and mightiest gods of our system, the solar gods of all nations; the fifth was Mars, ruled by the “Virtues”; the sixth — that of Bel or Jupiter — was governed by the Dominions; the seventh — the world of Saturn — by the Thrones. These are the worlds of form. Above come the four higher ones, making seven again, since the three highest are “unmentionable and unpronounceable.” The eighth, composed of 1,122 stars, is the domain of the Cherubs; the ninth, belonging to the walking and numberless stars on account of their distance, has the seraphs; as to the tenth — Kircher, quoting Mor Isaac, says that it is composed “of invisible stars that could be taken, they said, for clouds — so massed are they in the zone that we call Via Straminis, the Milky Way”; and he hastens to explain that “these are the stars of Lucifer, engulfed with him in his terrible shipwreck.” That which comes after and beyond the tenth world (our Quaternary, or the Arupa world), the Syrians could not tell. “All they knew was that it is there that begins the vast and incomprehensible ocean of the infinite, the abode of the true divinity without boundary or end.”...

[A] triangle, which is the first of all rectilineal figures, is included in a ternary, and receives its form according to that number; and was considered by the Pythagoreans to be the creator of all sublunary things....

Hippocrates said that number seven “By its occult virtues tended to the accomplishment of all things, to be the dispenser of life and fountain of all its changes.” The life of man he divided into seven ages (Shakespeare), for “As the moon changes her phases every seven days, this number influences all sublunary beings,” and even the Earth, as we know. With the child, it is the teeth that appear in the seventh month and he sheds them at seven years; at twice seven puberty begins, at three times seven all our mental and vital powers are developed, at four times seven he is in his full strength, at five times seven his passions are most developed, etc., etc. Thus for the Earth. It is now in its middle age, yet very little wiser for it. The Tetragrammaton, the four-lettered sacred name of the Deity, can be resolved on Earth only by becoming Septenary through the manifest triangle proceeding from the concealed Tetraktis. Therefore, the number seven has to be adopted on this plane. As written in the Kabala “The greater Holy Assembly” v. 1161: — “For assuredly there is no stability in those six, save (what they derive) from the seventh. For all things depend from the seventh.”...

Pythagoras, and after him Philo Judaeus, held the number 12 as very sacred. “The dodecahedron is a perfect number.” It is the one among the signs of the Zodiac, Philo adds, that the sun visits in twelve months, and it is to honour that sign that Moses divided his nation into twelve tribes, established the twelve cakes (Levit. xxiv., 5) of the shewbread, and placed twelve precious stones around the ephod of the pontiffs. (See De Profugis.)...

But number seven, or the heptagon, the Pythagoreans considered to be a religious and perfect number. It was called “Telesphoros,” because by it all in the Universe and mankind is led to its end, i.e., its culmination (Philo. de Mund. opif.). Being under the rule of seven sacred planets, the doctrine of the Spheres shows, from Lemuria to Pythagoras, the seven powers of terrestrial and sublunary nature, as well as the seven great Forces of the Universe, proceeding and evolving in seven tones, which are the seven notes of the musical scale. The heptad (our Septenary) was regarded “as the number of a virgin, because it is unborn” (like the Logos or the “Aja” of the Vedantins); “without a father or a mother, but proceeding directly from the Monad, which is the origin and crown of all things.” (Pythag. Triangle, p. 174.)

-- The Secret Doctrine -- The Synthesis of Science, Religion, and Philosophy, by Helena Petrovna Blavatsky

VI. Quomodo Ruach Elohim, Caelo mediante, conceptus, et uerum corpus, ac sub sensus cadens, factus etc.?

[Google translate: How Ruach Elohim, through the medium of Heaven, the concept, the body and true, and under the sense of falling, etc. was made?]

Extrema, sine medio, eoque conueniente, coniungi, copulari atque uniri non posse, est unanimis uere philosophantium uox atque consensus. Ruach Elohim, spiritus, (essentia diuinus) increatus, simplicissimus, omnis corporeae molis expers, sponte et per se mobilis, polupoikilos hoc est multiformis, aut formarum plenus, immo ipsissima rerum Forma: Et, Abyssus tenebrosa, triuna, uidelicet, Caelum, terra inanis et uacua, et aqua, Ens a Deo Ipso (cuius solius est proprium ktizein, creare) -- ex nihilo, hoc est de nullo substantiali, aut per se existente materiali principio, primum creatum, corporeum, confuse mixtum, materia ad motum, per se, inefficax: re uera, si quid, extrema sunt. Caeli igitur, medii, extremorum amborum suo modo (quia corpus spirituale, et spiritus corporalis) participis, (yhvh solius uoluntate benigna) interiectu. Ruach Elohim (descendendo demittendoque se per circumferentias partesque abditissimas omnes, et dispergendo in imum uel meditullium, scintillas radiosue fecunditatis suae) ad centrum usque penetrabat, in ens illud creatum, totum: massamque illam seu molem ingentem, rudem, (chaos) confusam atque informem, Mundi futuri seminarium, hylÍn siue materiam lutosam, uirgineam, (nondum enim neque conceperat, neque produxerat antea) forma (semet ipso) sic informauit, et anima animabat impraegnabatque purissima: permeabat, replebat, calorem infundebat, uiuificabat et fecundabat, quod erat Tohu ua Bohu, uacuum atque inane: illuminabat, quod erat tenebrosum; distinguebat, confusum; ornabat, rude ac impolitum; ordinabat indigestum et incompositum: inque eius utero, hoc est centro (cuius et totum adhuc hodie mouet, sustentat atque conseruat) intimoue (spiritu aethereo, Caelo uidelicet, ut dictum, intermediante) concipiebatur, et corpus siue corporeus factus, atque concretus est.

[Google translate: The last point, without an intermediary, and so a suitable, united, joined, and can not be united, is truly of one mind with a philosophical voice, and consent was given. Ruach Elohim, the spirit (divine essence) uncreated, the most simple, devoid of all corporeal mass of their own accord and of itself the thing moved, that is polupoikilos of the manifold, or full of forms, and even very form of things: And, deep dark, triuna, namely, heaven, the earth empty and deserted, and the water, being from God Him (who solely own ktizein to create) - out of nothing, that is because of no substantial, or existing material per se the beginning, the first creature, corporeal, mixed confusedly, to the movement of the matter, per se, ineffective: true thing, if anything, the last are the. Of heaven, then, middle, of the extremes of both in their own way (for a spiritual body, the body and the spirit of) participant, (yhvh alone will kindly) interval. Ruach Elohim (descending parts of the circumference of abditissimas demittendoque itself through all, and scatter in the bottom or meditullium, sparks radiosue fruitfulness of his own) to the center until penetrabat, in being created it, the whole: it massamque or mass of huge and rude, (chaos), and the formless confused, world to come, the seminary, or hylÍn muddy matter, uirgineam, (For as yet he had conceived nor, nor prolonged before) the form of (himself), so informauit, and the soul pure animabat impraegnabatque: permeabat, filled, heat poured out, and uiuificabat fecundabat, which was Tohu ua Bohu, vain and empty: illuminated, which was full of darkness; discriminating, confused; distinction, crude, and rudely; undigested and unadorned ordained: and in her womb, that is the center (and the whole of which moves To this day, sustains, and preserves) intimoue (spirit ethereal, namely heaven, as stated above, intermediante) conceived, and the body or had become corporeal, and is concrete.

VII. Quomodo et ubinam natus in lucem macrocosmou filius, etc.?

[Google translate: How and where was born the son of macrocosmou into the light, etc.?

E semine et sanguine parentis formatus, et ex utero eius, in lucem, naturaliter exclusus: in terra catholica sancta, quam etiamnum feliciter inhabitat, in Saturnio regno: et quamuis mundo ludibrium immundo, in conspectu tamen sapientis pretiosissimus. Catholicus: corpus enim habet catholicon, de hylÍ, puta, primordiali, in statu adhuc uniuersali; non ut (Deo sic ordinante) rerum ceterarum, globi sublunaris, corporum materia, in statu speciali aut particulari, a scintillis Animae Mundi specialium aut particularum propietatum, specificata et (ut ita dicam) particularisata. Vniuersalis quoque conditionis est eius spiritus; uniuersalis et anima, quae scintilla animae mundi catholicae catholica, hoc est uniuersalis naturae proprietatis et operationis. Catholicismus hic solus locum habet: particularimus est soloecismus. Catholicon, non nisi ex catholico. Valeant igitur et discendant procul hinc materiae specialis siue particularis naturae omnes. Addo: Hanc unicam solamque ob causam, per et ex se, potens et solus sufficiens (regeneratus post passionem suam) in fructus entis primi, creati, catholici, speciales aut particulares, tamquam in consanguineos suos, (hinc disce, cur Lapis uegetabilis, animalis, et mineralis.) uires exercere mirificas, catholice, suas, numero simul, omnes. Triunus: Vnus, in composito hoc est in toto: et, quod extra uel citra hunc, non sit alius, in uirtute mirifica, huic similis. Triunus: in substantia, essentia et hypostasi aut subsistentia: tribus distinctis et natura diuersis. Vnde Lapis noster diuinus, caelestis, terrenus. Et, quod ex sale, mercurio et sulphure in Lapidem sit compositus triunum. De ceteris in definitione, uerba praesupponunt mentem.

[Google translate: E formed the seed parent, and from blood, and from her womb, for a light, naturally, excluded: in the land of the holy Catholic, which still dwells happily, Saturnia in the kingdom: and though the world mockery of the unclean, in the sight of the wise man, however, pretiosissimus. Catholic: the body, because he has Catholicon, the hylÍ of, for example, primordial, universal in the state still not that (God, so issues) of other things, sublunaris globe, bodies matter, in the state of special or particular, sparks from the soul of the world, or of special particles propietatum, specified and (so to speak) particularisata. Universal condition is also his spirit, and the universal soul, which the Catholic spark of the soul of the Catholic world, that is the universal nature of property and of operation. This is the only place Catholicismus has particular solecism. Catholicon, only by the Catholic. Away, then, and all of a particular nature or a special matter discendant far from here. Addo: solamque for this single cause, by and of itself, sufficient and only able to (after his passion has been regenerated) in the primary kind of being the fruit of, created, Catholics, special, or particular, as it were in his blood relatives, (hence learn, why uegetabilis stone, animal, and mineral.) exercise a wondrous strength, Catholic, their number at the same time, all. Triunus: One, that is, in the whole in the composite, and which was without this or on this side, there is no other, in the power with a wonderful, like this. Triunus: in substance, essence and hypostasis or subsistence: the nature of the three are distinct and different. The stone is why our divine, heavenly, is earthly. And, which is from the salt, Mercury and brimstone in the stone is composed triunum. In the definition of as concerning other words, how presuppose mind.

In traditional prescriptive grammar, a solecism is something perceived as a grammatical mistake or absurdity, or even a simply non-standard usage. The word was originally used by the Greeks for what they perceived as mistakes in their language.

-- Solecism, by Wikipedia

VIII. Quomodo manifestatus regeneratorie, etc.?

[Google translate: How regeneratorie manifested, etc.?]

In regimine triuno. Tu, fili doctrinae, figuram praesentem accurate contemplare, et quodnam sit in opere physicochemico catholico hoc, regimen primum, quodque secundum, philosophice intelleges: de tertio audi. In hoc fit lapidis, cum Mundo maiore, in partibus illius, inseparabilis unio: quae est et dicitur fermentatio. Mysterium harmonicum nota: Quod in cabala est hominis ad monadis simplicitatem reducti, cum Deo unio; id in physicochemia est lapidis plus quam perfecti, cum Macrocosmo, in partibus eius, et quae ex eo sunt, fermentatio. Et, sicuti homo unitus Deo, ratione Dei fit qua Deus humanus aut homo diuinus hoc est qua deificatur; quare et potest quae uult; uult autem quae Deus Ipse: ita et Lapis Philosophorum Mundo maiore, in partibus illius, fermentatus, ratione fermenti transformat se in quodcumque uoluerit, operaturque pro naturis omnium diuersis diuersimode omnia, in omnia, et coaequat se omnibus, cunctis, singulis ac uniuersis. Nonne omnia nomen eius?

[Google translate: In the government of triuno. Thou, O son of doctrine, the figure carefully contemplate the present, and what is in the work of the Catholic physicochemico this, the governance of the first, and that the second, philosophically understand: hear from the third. This is done in stone, with the greater world, in the parts of that, inseparable union: which is the fermentatio and it is said. The mystery of the harmonious note: That in the cabala is the simplicity of the monad to the man to retreat, the union with God, that in more than a stone's physicochemia perfect, with the macrocosm, in the parts thereof, and which are from the fact, fermentatio. And, as a man united to God, which God becomes the human aspect of God or in man, which deify that is divine, and therefore can right what he wishes and; He will, however, which is God himself, so do the world a major philosophers stone, in the parts of that, fermentation, leaven transforms himself by reason of in whatever he wishes, of all the different natures diuersimode operaturque for all things, in all things, and up to a standard oneself to all men, all, to every one and all. Are they not all his name?

IX. Quod est commodum illud, et quinam usus, etc.?

[Google translate: What is the advantage of it, and who uses, etc.?]

Operatur secundum corpus, spiritum et animam, in corpus spiritum et animam, Mundi utriusque catholice omnia. Et hoc, proiectionis usu; quae nil aliud, quam Lapidis, Mundo utrique, artificialis applicatio. Vsus eius quoque triunus, quia diuinus, Micro et Macrocosmicus: physice, physicomedice, etc. ut supra. Vide figuram quartam.

[Google translate: He works, according to the body, spirit and soul, into the body of the spirit and the soul, both of the world all things Catholic. And this, the use of the projection, which are nothing else than stone, the world of both parties, the application of the work of art. Whately, he also triunus, because divine, and Micro Macrocosmicus: physically, physicomedice, etc.. as above. See the figure of the fourth.]

X. Potestne Lapis Philosophorum multiplicari?

[Google translate: Can He not be multiplied philosophers stone?]

Tradunt sapientes, quod sic. In qualitate et in quantitate: Estque nil quam operis physicochemici, catholici, cum Lapide glorificato ante fermentationem, in Azoth iterum soluto, per regimen secundum, reiteratio; Quoque saepius reiteratur, eo citius et perfectius, opus absoluitur: idque sic in infinitum.

[Google translate: Wise men say, that it is. In quality and in quantity: there is nothing of the work than physicochemici, Catholics, glorified with the stone before the fermentation, again in the dissolution of the Azoth, by the government of the second, reiteratio; Also often repeated, the more quickly and more perfectly, the work of absoluitur: and so on to infinity.]

Corollaria, Colophonis loco addita, duo:

[Google translate: Corollaries, Colophon place were added, and two things:]

1. Expensae operis huius totius, ad fermentationem usque completi (uictu et amictu exceptis) ad summum non excedunt ualorem 30 talerorum: sciens loquor, a sciente fraterne edoctus. Erant secus statuentes.

[Google translate: The expenses of the work of the whole, to the fermentation completely fulfilled (with the exception of food and clothing) to the highest do not exceed 30 ualorem talerorum, knowing that I speak, having been taught by the knower fraternal. There were otherwise, when they had set.

"Someone knows the love by which he loves more than [he knows] the brother whom he loves."

The whole passage that follows after these words, concerning the certainty of knowing that one has love (whether love here be understood in reference to the created habit or to the uncreated love), may be explained in terms of the way something is called "certain in itself" as opposed to being certain on the part of the knower. But the act of love is known [not only in itself, but] also on the part of the knower, yet whether it proceeds from such a habit remains uncertain....

"That text declares openly enough that the opinion that the very same fraternal love is not only from God but also is God, is proclaimed with great authority."

(The other phrase found in that place, "for fraternal love is that by which we love each other," is parenthetical.) Now fraternal love is said to be God by a causal predication, in the manner in which Dionysius says, in chapter 4 of The Celestial Hierarchy, that "the divine being is the being of all things," because every being is drawn forth from him and patterned after him.

-- On Love and Charity: Readings from the Commentary on the Sentences of Peter Lombard, by Saint Thomas Aquinas, translated by Peter A. Kwasniewski

2. Quemadmodum bonorum mundanorum pars decima solet impendi Deo, in causis piis; nouem uero usui mundano: ita, in contrario, Theosophum decet, decimam dumtaxat Lapidis huius partem, usibus impendere munandis, nouem uero reliquas soli Deo, in proximo, egeno. Quod eleemosynarii Dei, in hospitali hoc magno, est proprium. Sigillum naturae et artis, simplicitas.

[Google translate: As part of the tenth of worldly goods is usually expended to God, in cases pious; nine worldly use, but I will now, in the opposite, THEOSOPHY fitting, only the tenth part of this stone, to expend munandis uses, and nine, however, the rest to God alone, in the next, the needy. That eleemosynarii of God, in this great hospital, is a property. Seal of nature and art, the simplicity.]

Dixi.

[Google translate: I said.]

Henricus Khunrath Lips. Theosophiae amator, et Medicinae Doctor, Dei gratia, inuentor, Paullus uander Doort [Paulus vander Doort], Antverpien, scalpsit, Hamburgi, Anno a Christo nato 1595. Mense Iulio.

[Google translate: Henry Khunrath Boston. Theosophiae a lover, Doctor and medicine, the grace of God, the inventor, Paullus uander Door [Paul Vander Door], Antverpien, scalpsit, Hamburg, in the year 1595 from the birth of Christ. In July.]

_______________

Notes

[1] Cf. Tac. Ann. 15.12.

[2] Tetragammon.

[3] Editions of 1595 and 1653: terreo.

[4] Cf. Verg. Aen. 1.26.


The four, the three, the two, the one

Surrounding the circular image of the the Four, the Three, the Two, the One is engraved text.

Decebit nos, igitur, prius pie lotos atque paenitentialiter purgatos, offerre, supplicesque, fide sincera, commendare deificae luci, et tunc, illam sapientiae aeternae, desuper rorantem mannam, supercaelestisque nectaream, et aquae et ignis, pluuiam, sicut stillicidia stillantia super terram, in corda, animas, uires mentesque nostras, hoc est in corpus, spiritum et animam, siue ternarium Microcosmicon renatum, descendentem, praeclusis sensibus seditiosis, mente quieta affectuque omni puro, fixe durantibus, tam immediate quam mediate, iuxta et dormientes ac uigilantes, patienter expectare; et sic, diuinitus, accendi; illustrari; illuminari; sanctificari; yhvh[1] frui; diuina pati; immo, in Deum, ineffabiliter, rapi; et quasi deificari. Laudantes interdum et adorantes (in soliloquiis, praesertim, iisque quotidianis, ut plurimum, matutinis) id pelagus misericordiae immensum, oceanuumque bonitatis omnis infinitum; ex quo, non tantum uerbi mirifici yehoshua Christou crucifixi, et sacrorum yhvh nominum atque uerborum omnium (quae, quoad nos, mansiones sunt sensibiles Diuinitatis, nec non memoracula nos docentia: stimulantia quoque, adiuuantia et eleuantia appetitum animae, mentisque, in nobis, operationem admirandam, in nosmet ipsos et extra nos, uirtuose promouentia) numen designantium et simul exhibentium; uerum etiam mirabilium omnium (facit enim yhvh mirabilia solus) ad nos usque deriuantur radii, destillant fluenta, et diuinissimi emanant riui. O felix terque quaterque felix, in admirationem, meditationem, amorem et perceptionem horum, qui rapitur. Numen, sic, summum, realiter praesens sentiemus; yhvh mirabilem, et in nobis, et in natura, et in scriptura, mirifice loquentem, ueridice audiemus, sufficienter uidebimus, fructuose obseruabimus; angelos bonos, nobis amice assistentes, nos fideliter monentes. yhvh iussu benigno familiariter docentes, atque in uiis nostris tuto ducentes, sine fallacia experiemur. Humi, igitur, procidentibus nobis, hic hymnus, aliique huic non ab similes, Ionico modulamine et accentu, sacris animi concitandi causa, debito, proferendus est:

[Google translate: Decebit us, therefore, before, and having washed them with godly paenitentialiter cleared, to offer, as suppliants, sincere faith, to commend the deifying light, and at that time, that of eternal wisdom, the dripping manna from above, supercaelestisque nectar, and water and fire, rain, a drop stillantia upon the earth, in the hearts, souls, and minds of our strength, that is into the body, the spirit and the soul, or three Microcosmicon born again, coming down, shut seditious senses, all with a pure mind and feeling quiet, fixedly during its course, both immediately and mediately, in accordance with, and watching and sleeping, patiently to wait on and so, divinely, lighted; illustrated; enlightened, sanctified; yhvh to enjoy; to suffer divine things, for one, against God, ineffably, steal, and as it were, deified. Sometimes in praise and those who worship (in the soliloquies, especially, and those daily, for the most part, rising in the morning) that the main mercy immense, oceanuumque all infinite goodness, from which, not only of the word wonderfully yehoshua Christou crucified, and the sacred words, and names of all yhvh (which, as long as us, are sensible mansions of divinity, nor the teacher does not memoracula us: the instigation of, too, and help eleuantia appetite of the soul, the mind, in us, admire the operation, in ourselves and outside of us, virtuous promouentia) designating and divinity are presenting at the same time, but also of all wonders (yhvh wonderful things for it makes us the only) to us in the deriuantur rays, destillant streams, and streams of the divine they emanate. O happy thrice and four times happy, in admiration, meditation, love and perception of these, who is carried away. Deity, thus, the summit, the feel is really present; yhvh wonderful, and in us, and in nature and in writing, speaking wonderfully, we will hear ueridice sufficiently we shall see, have benefited from obseruabimus; the good angels, to us, Friend, assistants, who warns us faithfully. yhvh by order of a familiar kind, teaching, and leading safety in our streets, without the deceitfulness of experience. On the ground, therefore, they fell to us, the same hymn, not from this and other similar, Ionic accent and music, to inspire the mind the sacred cause, due to utter is:]

Rei omnis generatorque opifexque,
Superum rex, genii lux, hominum spes,
Tremor umbris tenebrosi Phlegethontis,
Amor incredibilis caelicolarum,
Pauor inuincibilis Tartareorum,

[Google translate: Generatorque opifexque all be guilty of,
King of the gods, genii light, men hope,
Dread Phlegethontis shadows of darkness,
Incredible love citizen of heaven,
They were inuincibilis of Hell,]

Celebris religio terrigenarum,
adonai avinu elohenu
Basileus, Pantokrator, Prôtogenethlos

Deus unus, Deus idem, Deus alme
Veniens desuper, illabere nobis.

[Google translate: The religion of famous human being,
Adonai, avinu elohenu
Basilea, Pantokrator, Prôtogenethlos
One God, as God, the God of fostering
Coming from above, SLIDE ]

Tu, Tu, Tu,
Huc sedeto;
Immota commoueto;
Quae falsa sint moneto;
Quae uera sint doceto;

[Google translate: You, You, You,
To this sit;
Commoueto unmoved;
What money are false;
What to be true and make disciples of;]

V. Angelloi, a nobis, ad yhvh et inde, ad nos, uolitantes, Reuerentia Tremorque sunto.

[Google translate: Angelloi, by us, to the yhvh and thence, to us, uolitantes, shall be held Tremorque reverence.]

VI. Erga illos, secundum notam probationem, iucunda oboedientia, esto.

[Google translate: Toward them, according to the brand experience, and take delight in obedience, let him be.]

VII. Sacra, quorum mysteria, sic tractaturi, uenitis; palam dignis, clam prophanis, sunto.

[Google translate: Sacred, the mysteries of which, so to treat, Come; worthy openly, secretly profane things, shall be held.]

Te ipsum nosce, ex libro Sanctissimae Scripturae; Naturae totius Vniuersi, qui est, et Macrocosmos totus, et Microcosmos, siue tu ipse, secundum et corpus, et spiritum tuum; denique et mentis tuae, Deo coniunctae; theosophice; physice; physicomedice; physicochemice; physicomagice; hyperphysicomagice; cabalice.

[Google translate: Know thyself, from the book of the Holy Scripture, and the nature of the whole al men, who is, and the whole macrocosm and microcosm, or you yourself, the second and the body, and thy spirit, and finally, and of thy mind, united to God; theosophice; physically; physicomedice; physicochemice; physicomagice; hyperphysicomagice; cabalice.]

yhvh nosce, ex Sanctissima Scriptura; creatura; etiam ex Se Ipso; et quidem, luce sua, in mente tua, immediate oborta; theosophice; naturaliter; cabalice.

[Google translate: yhvh knows from the Most Holy Scripture a creature, and is also from Himself: and truly, with their light, in your mind, immediately arose; theosophice; naturally; cabalice.]

Henricus Khunrath Lips. Theosophiae amator et Medicinae Doctor, Dei gratia, inuentor. Paulus vander Doort. Antverp. scalpsit, Hamburgi, anno a Christo nato, 1595. Mense Maio.

[Google translate: Henry Khunrath Boston. Theosophiae a lover of Doctor and medicine, the grace of God, the inventor. Paul Vander Door. Antwerp. scalpsit, Hamburg, in the year by Christ-born, 1595. The month of May.]

_______________

Note

1. Tetragammon.


Cosmic Rose

Surrounding the circular image of the cosmic rose is engraved text.

kadosh kadosh kadosh adonai yhvh [1] ts’va-ot
Qui erat; qui est; qui erit;
pleni sunt caeli, plena est omnis terra,
maiestate gloriae eius:
haleluyah haleluyah haleluyah

[Google translate: Adonai, kadosh kadosh kadosh yhvh ts'va-OT
Who was, who is he that shall be;
they are full of heaven, is full of all the earth,
majesty of his glory:
haleluyah haleluyah haleluyah]

Pronouncing the tetragrammaton: Adonai

In  the Masoretic Text the name YHWH is vowel pointed as יְהֹוָה, pronounced YAH-HO-VAH in modern Hebrew, and Yəhōwāh in Tiberian vocalization. Traditionally in Judaism, the name is not pronounced but read as Adonai, "my Lord" during prayer, and referred to as HaShem, "the Name" at all other times. This is done out of hesitation to pronounce the name in the absence of the Temple in Jerusalem, due to its holiness.

-- Names of God in Judaism, by Wikipedia

I. Lauamini, mundi estote.

[Google translate: Have their, be clean.]

II. yhvh unum, omnium effectorem; ceteras potestates, ministras habetote.

[Google translate: yhvh one, effective of all the other powers, have the ministers.]

III. Ad primum uota precesque ad inferiores hymni sunto.

[Google translate: Shall be held to the first vows, prayers and hymns to the lower.]

IV. Quod, si forte, petitio ad inferiores, processerit, nisi sub modo delegatae, a primo, administrationis, intentio non esto.

[Google translate: That, if perchance, the petition to the lower, should proceed only under a delegated, from the first, administration, the intention be not.]

Henricus Khunrath Lips. Theosophiae amator, et Mediciniae Doctor, Dei gratia, inuentor. Paullus vonder doort [Paulus vander Doort], Antverp. scalpsit Hamburgi. Anno a Christo nato 1595. Mense April.

[Google translate: Henry Khunrath Boston. Theosophiae a lover, and Mediciniae Doctor, the grace of God, the inventor. Paullus vonder Door [Paul Vander Door], Antwerp. scalpsit Hamburg. In the year 1595 from the birth of Christ. In the month of April.]

Note

[1] Tetragammon.