Part III: Concerning the Laws and Vital Conditions of the Hermetic Experiment
Chapter 3: The Manifestation of the First Matter, Part 1
Introduction: The Hermetic art transforms the soul’s purified essence, the First Matter, into radiant divine light, uniting it with eternity. This chapter unveils the alchemical process of manifesting this sacred spark, guided by poetic visions and Theurgic rites.
The Tears of Isis
The soul’s essence, purified through Theurgic sacrifice, emerges as the “First Matter,” a radiant spark ready to unite with divine light. Vaughan’s poetic vision of Hyanthe, adorned in green damasks and shedding tears of pearl, symbolizes this essence—a divine water flowing from the soul’s contrite heart. These “Tears of Isis” are not mere illusion but a tangible force, bearing the soul’s truth in a crystalline vial, as pure as the philosopher’s stone.
This sacred water, born of divine sorrow, transforms chaos into harmony. As Hyanthe’s tears turn to rose water, the soul’s purified essence becomes a “silver torrent,” reflecting divine light and preparing the way for eternal union.
The Alchemical Transformation
The alchemical process, guided by reason and faith, dissolves the soul’s illusions to reveal its radiant core. Hermes instructs, “Dissolve the stone with pure water, not common, but a subtle fountain that sparks life.” This process—solution, sublimation, and fixation—purifies the soul’s essence through fire, as Khunrath describes: “Seek Three in One—body, soul, spirit—united in harmonious accord.” The soul, like a phoenix, rises from its ashes, radiant and reborn.
Eirenaeus advises, “Sow your gold in good earth, for he who destroys it reaps a hundredfold increase.” This sacrifice, like Achilles’ triumph, transforms the soul into a crowned king, adorned with the Sun’s diadem and the Moon’s crescent, radiating divine light.
The Divine Marriage
The culmination is a sacred union, the “marriage of Peleus and Thetis,” where the soul’s essence weds divine light. In this “Microcosmic Heaven,” colors of the rainbow signal reconciliation, as the soul’s purified spark, like a carbuncle, shines with eternal splendor. This divine light, born from the crucible of sacrifice, fulfills the Hermetic quest, uniting the soul with the universal source in a radiant dance of love.
Closing: This chapter unveils the First Matter’s transformation into divine light, a sacred marriage of soul and eternity. The journey into its practical alchemy deepens in our next post, unveiling further secrets of this sacred art.
Homo Sapiens: In the Maelstrom by Stanislaw Przybyszewski and translated by Joe E Bandel
“But you are fighting windmills. Do you believe that Napoleon is a great person for me? He is only that for you because he showed you with what ruthlessness and brutality one may proceed when it comes to satisfying one’s greed…”
Falk stared at him with feverish tension. But he did not grasp what the other said. And suddenly he saw Czerski’s face as if he had never seen it before!
“Strange, strange,” he murmured, staring incessantly at Czerski. He moved quite close to Czerski and spoke quite softly.
“See, you will commit crimes, no, no! don’t get upset. Understand me correctly, I mean what our society calls crimes. I know it. I suddenly saw it now. I believed you were sick or ate opium, now I know it. How? Suddenly. All at once. All political criminals get the same expression. I saw Padlewski in Paris, you know, he murdered the Russian ambassador… I saw him three hours before…
Falk sat down again. For a moment everything went dark before his eyes. But it passed immediately.
When you murder, you naturally have motives for it. Yes, I know, you have great love and great pity. And in what do the roots of your great pity stick? Only in the greed to realize the purpose you have before your eyes. In what does your greed differ from mine? Ha, ha, you don’t even listen to what I say, your
gaze is a thousand miles from here… Ha, ha, you don’t need to listen to it at all, but just tell me, in what will your crime then differ from mine? In that my crime remains unpunished, and you are punished with death. But I have the torment, and you have the happiness of sacrifice, yes—of sacrifice, Falk cried out.
Czerski started.
“What did you say now?”
“You have the happiness of sacrifice! And I have the torment.” Falk fell exhausted back into the chair.
“Naturally you will say I got all that from Nietzsche. But that is not true. What Nietzsche says is as old as the bad conscience is old…”
He straightened up again, his state bordered on ecstasy.
“You said you spit on all this. Didn’t you say so? Well, approximately so. And I agree with you! This with the overman… Ha, ha, ha… Nietzsche teaches that there is no good and no evil. But why should the overman suddenly be better than the last human? Ha, ha, ha… Why is the criminal more beautiful than the martyr who perishes out of pity? Where does the valuation between beautiful and ugly suddenly come from? Why? Oh, I love great suffering beauty, I love ascetic beauty… Ha, ha; I perhaps loved Janina because she is so extraordinarily thin… What do I know? Everything is nonsense! I spit on all that, I spit on the overman and on Napoleon, I spit on myself and the whole life…”
He looked around confused and suddenly became very serious, but then he began to speak again, quickly, hastily; he tumbled over himself, it seemed to him as if he could not say enough.
“I have told no one what I tell you. I admire you, I love you. Do you know why? You are the only one who has ceased to be himself… Yes, you and Olga—you both. I love you both for the sake of your love. And I love great love. That is the only feeling I love and admire. Don’t you hear how my heart beats, don’t you feel how my temples throb… But to love, one must have your faith, yes, the faith that has no purpose, only love, love, love is!.. He, he, he… I love, I admire, I crawl on my knees before this love that is the great faith. It is
so strange that precisely you, you levellers, you compassionate ones are the overmen! Faith, love makes you so mighty and so strong. I am the human on the extinction list. I am the last human. See: in the Polynesian archipelago there is a wonderful human race that will no longer exist in thirty, fifty years. It is dying out from physical consumption. My race is dying from physical phthisis. The lung of the brain, faith is rotted, eaten away…
Falk suddenly began to laugh.
“Ha, ha, ha… I had a friend. He was also such an overman as I. He was not as strong as I, and so he died from the debaucheries. When he was dead, I went to a café to think about death and to make clear to myself that he was really dead. I met there a fat and greasy medic who had muddled with us. I said to him: Gronski is dead. He thought a little. Then he said: I could imagine that. Why? I said. One must have principles, was the answer. One must have principles. If one has principles, one does not perish. But to have principles, one must believe, believe…
He suddenly straightened up and stood long almost unconscious. “It is my despair that speaks through me,” he finally said…
You are right, Czerski—the whole life, this disgusting life of the worm that eats in the flour, the life of small love… You are the first I have seen who has thrown that away, who has forgotten that… For you there are not these commandments for whose sake I suffer, because you are too great for that…
Falk suddenly seized his hand and kissed it. Czerski jerked violently and tore his hand away.
Falk looked at him long without saying a word, then sat down again. It seemed to him as if the fever had suddenly left him. He also didn’t quite know exactly what he had said or done.
Czerski was unusually pale. “Why did you come here?”
His voice trembled.
Falk looked at him calmly. They looked into each other’s eyes for probably a minute.
“I swear to you,” he finally said, “that I came for no small motives.”
“Is it true?”
“Yes, it is true.”
Czerski walked uncertainly back and forth a few times.
“I retract everything unpleasant I said to you—his voice was very soft, he seemed to have great difficulty fighting down his excitement. You are no scoundrel, Falk. Forgive me that I wanted to insult you.”
He went to the window.
A long pause ensued. Suddenly Czerski turned around.
“I didn’t know you,” he said harshly, “I believed you were unscrupulous… I wrote everything to Janina’s brother because I had promised him to watch over her. And now I have something else to think about.”
“You wrote to Stefan Kruk?” “Yes.”
Falk looked at him indifferently.
“Hm, perhaps you did well… But now farewell Czerski. I am glad that we do not part as enemies.”
Homo Sapiens: In the Maelstrom by Stanislaw Przybyszewski and translated by Joe E Bandel
Sacrifice was ridiculed because it is so infinitely hard to sacrifice oneself, because it costs so much struggle and despair. You say: I! But what is your I? Is it not perhaps an antidote against a bad conscience? Your I is only there so that you can transgress the small law that regulates your small desires… You, you, Falk, you are despite your self-glorifying individualism a small person. In what has your life exhausted itself if not in debauchery and sexual desire… Well, I do you wrong, you have done much, but was it not because you found a kind of atonement in it, tell me Falk, was it not to calm your bad conscience?
He stood almost threateningly before him, but sat down again immediately. “Why I you concerned about me?. I have nothing to do with you. I sit here ten hours and think that I have nothing more to do with you all. I have nothing personal about me anymore. My soul has widened, infinitely widened… You naturally don’t know what humanity is, because your lying brain, this flexible instrument in the service of your digestion, has made a concept of humanity, yes a concept, to be able to conveniently dissect, unravel and dispute it away. I don’t know this concept, but I know humanity as the root of my soul, I feel it with every beat of my heart, as the basic feeling that the sacrifice I bring to millions from my self is something else than the crawling and sweating and running after a woman. But now go Falk, I want to be alone before my departure. Just think that you are a small person, and you should have been one of the greatest. You, yes, you; you should have become one.”
Falk felt deeply shaken. But in the same moment a cynical shame overcame him that he let himself be shaken, it seemed to him as if his brain grinned at his helplessness.
“Do you eat opium?” he asked half unconsciously. Czerski looked at him seriously.
“Your brain is shameless,” he said slowly and almost solemnly. “Shameless!” Falk ducked under this look and these words. He stared at Czerski ashamed, he clearly felt two souls stretching up against each other.
“Yes, my brain is shameless.”
But immediately he regained his superiority. The cynical soul triumphed. He adjusted himself, smiled scornfully and said:
“It is very beautiful what you said there. Your criticism of our society was very good, although you did not go beyond what Nietzsche says in his *Zarathustra*, yes, the Nietzsche you so despise.”
He was silent for a moment to see how that would affect Czerski.
But Czerski seemed not to listen to him at all. He turned his back to him and looked out the window.
Falk was not surprised at all about it, he even brooded that he was not upset about it. He suddenly became sad and serious.
When he began to speak again, it was only to hear himself speak.
“You are right, my brain is shameless because it cannot grasp that your feeling ‘humanity’ has no causes, no causes that are not grounded in some experience. But that is how my brain is, it takes your soul state under the magnifying glass and analyzes it. You sat in prison. The woman you loved treacherously forgot you. Your loneliness, your bitterness, your pain and your despair finally produced this selfless surrender. So is your humanity not a lie, a great lie to save yourself from despair, is that not a lie to break the pain that caused these terrible torments, a lie of your physique in need of rest and recovery? You are now happy with your great lie and I am unhappy because my lie is small. But what does great mean? What small? My God, the concepts are lost to me, I usually don’t judge from a logical standpoint either. I know very well that the soul does not follow logical principles… But what did I want to say?… Yes, right…
Czerski suddenly turned around. “Do you want tea?”
“Yes, give tea, much tea… Yes! You condemn me, you called me a scoundrel. Isn’t that so, you did it? Why did you call me that? Because in my destructions sex was a motive. I speak destructions because the case with Janina is not the first. No…
He drank the tea hastily. The fever began to dominate him.
“Sex was the motive. Good! But—” again he lost the thread of thought; he thought long, then suddenly started triumphantly.
“Look at Napoleon. He is a classic example for all such cases.”
His face shone.
“You smile! No, I don’t want to compare myself with Napoleon at all. I only weigh motives against each other. What were his motives?… He, he: some say he was like the thunderstorm that cleans the air. But it is a ridiculous comparison. That the thunderstorm cleans is only accidental, if it weren’t, we would have to assume a providence, a pre-established harmony. He, he… those are only false conclusions. Give me another glass of tea.
Napoleon had to have motives though. Well: ambition for example. But what is ambition? You don’t believe that ambition is a fact… but—does that interest you?
“Speak only, that seems to calm you.”
“Yes, you have a splendid psychological eye. It actually calms me. So ambition is something enormously composite. A thousandfold parallelogram of forces, if you want. It is no basic drive like hunger and sex are. It is something that has developed from the basic drives. All these motives have the common root in the basic drives. They are only derivations, development and differentiation phenomena…
Falk laughs nervously.
“So see, see: all emotional motives have biologically and psychologically the same value because they come from the same root. He, he… those are special theories, they don’t have to be correct at all. I only wanted to prove to you that my action motives do not lag behind Napoleon’s in value at all.
In most cases, however, the motives are unknown, one doesn’t know why one does this or that… Well yes…
Falk had great difficulty concentrating. He literally suffered from thought flight.
Yes, so, the motives from which Napoleon destroyed can also only be derived sex drives… Isn’t that so? We can assume that as probable. But then you will say there is a great difference, to conquer a world and to make a girl unhappy… He, he, he… So you reproach me that I am too small a criminal? For to conquer a world one must destroy a world, and I have only destroyed a few girls. Now you will naturally say: Napoleon made a world happy. But in his thoughts, God knows, there was no intention to make a world happy. He did everything because he had to do it. In the psychic fact there is no purpose of consciousness at all. The brain only lies that in afterwards…
Part III: Concerning the Laws and Vital Conditions of the Hermetic Experiment
Chapter 1: The Experimental Method and Fermentation, Part 4
Introduction: The Hermetic art transforms the soul through a dynamic interplay of reason and wisdom, purifying its essence to unite with the divine. This section explores the alchemical process of balancing active and passive intellects, symbolized as the Sun and Moon, to awaken divine light within.
The Transformative Power of Reason
Alchemists teach that reason, when purified, becomes the soul’s guiding light, overcoming the illusions of passion and fantasy. As Plotinus suggests, one begins with a “portion of gold”—a spark of divine intellect—that grows through patient purification. Anaxagoras describes this intellect as infinite and pure, separating opposites (dense from rare, hot from cold) to create harmony. This “true Light,” the alchemical Sulphur, refines the soul’s raw essence, transforming it into a radiant vessel.
The soul’s journey, like Achilles’ triumph after Patroclus’ death, requires sacrificing the lower nature. Poetic myths—Hercules, Aeneas, Orpheus—symbolize this heroic will, dissolving sensory bonds to awaken divine virtue. Palingenius’ verse captures this: “Drown the youth in Stygian waters, dissolve his taint, and a golden spirit rises, perfecting all it touches.” This death and rebirth mirror the alchemical process, where the soul’s essence is reborn through purification.
The Sun and Moon of Alchemy
The Hermetic art balances the active intellect (Sun) and passive understanding (Moon) to achieve transformation. Hermes instructs, “Mortify two Argent vives together—the Sun’s radiant force and the Moon’s reflective wisdom—to create a unified spirit.” Plutarch notes, “The Moon reflects reason’s works, while the Sun’s strength overcomes all obstacles.” Synesius adds, “The lower eyes (senses) close when the higher eyes (intellect) see, alternating contemplation and action.”
This interplay, like Isis aiding Osiris, ensures the soul navigates chaos without succumbing to confusion. The Moon’s passive intelligence unravels obstacles, guiding the Sun’s active will to the divine source. As the Emerald Tablet declares, “That which is above is as that which is below,” uniting these forces creates a miraculous offspring—a soul refined into divine harmony.
The Heroic Will’s Triumph
The alchemical process requires a disciplined will, as seen in Aeneas’ quest for the golden bough or Hercules’ labors. The soul, guided by reason, overcomes the “turbulent waters” of sensory illusions, achieving a celestial state. Proclus explains, “The prophetic power unfolds truth, while the arrow-darting power subdues chaos, establishing unity.” This unified will, strengthened by wisdom, transforms the soul into a vessel of divine light, as Solomon’s proverb affirms: “Two are better than one, for their labor yields great reward.”
Closing: This section unveils the Hermetic art’s balance of active and passive intellects, purifying the soul to reveal divine light. The alchemical journey of fermentation deepens in our next post, unveiling further secrets of this sacred practice.
Homo Sapiens: In the Maelstrom by Stanislaw Przybyszewski and translated by Joe E Bandel
“That’s why it must be eliminated, just as one eliminates madmen who commit crimes without knowing it.”
“So only the harmful consequences decide about crime?” “Yes.”
“But suppose you blow up a factory for the sake of the idea and thereby plunge hundreds of families into misery, then you commit a crime because the consequences are criminal.”
“No! For thereby I bring my idea closer to realization and I bring millions happiness. When Christ spread his teaching, he knew very well that thousands of his followers would be sacrificed, so he delivered them to certain ruin to bring millions salvation.”
“You believe in God?” Olga asked absentmindedly. Czerski suddenly fell into great excitement.
“I believe in Jesus Christ, the God-man… But don’t interrupt me. I have the right to it, nature taught it to me. What decides about the pleasantness of a feeling? Not that it is pleasant in itself.
The habituation to opium is very painful at first, only in length becomes pleasure. So only the duration of the same decides about the final nature of the feeling. It is self-evident that the first consequences of a factory explosion are unpleasant, but…”
“So you will shrink from no crime?”
“No, no crime,” he interrupted her eagerly, “I will shrink from no action that guarantees my idea victory.”
“And if your idea is false?”
“It is not false, for it is built on the only truth we have: love.”
“But if your means are false?”
“They cannot be false, for their motives are love. By the way, I don’t want to resort to these means at all, even if I should hold it necessary. I have no program like the anarchists. I want to commit no act of violence so as not to be counted to a party that has violence in its program.”
“Out of vanity?”
“No; out of caution, only out of caution, so that the anarchists, thus a party, do not believe they have the right to regard my act as the consequence of their program.”
“You are ambitious.”
“No! But I am only in my act. I have only one right, and that is: to be. And my being is my act. Yes, I have an ambition if you want to call it so: to be, to be through my act. I am not as soon as I execute foreign commands.”
“Those are old thoughts, dear Czerski.”
“I don’t know if they are old, I got them in prison and so they are my own. I thought them out with great effort. I was not used to thinking as long as I was in the party. Now I have detached myself from everything to be alone and determine my act with my own thoughts.”
“And if you hadn’t got the money from Falk, would you have taken it?”
“Yes.”
“And what do you want to do now?”
“I want to teach people to sacrifice themselves.”
Olga looked at him questioningly.
“To be able to sacrifice oneself: that is the first condition of every act. I will teach the enthusiasm of sacrifice.”
“But to sacrifice oneself, one must first believe in the purpose of sacrifice.”
“No! The sacrifice does not spring from faith, but from enthusiasm. That is it precisely. See, all previous parties have faith but no enthusiasm. No, they have no faith, they have only dogmas. Social democracy has died in dogmatic faith. Social democracy is what every religious community is: it is faithful without enthusiasm. Is there a person who would go into the fire for his God? No! Is there a social democrat who would plunge into ruin without reservation, without hesitation, for his idea? No! They all have the calm, comfortable certainty of faith; their dogmas are iron truths for whose sake one, God knows, need not get excited. But I want to create the fiery, glowing faith, a faith that is no longer faith because it has no purpose, a faith that has dissolved in the enthusiasm of sacrifice.”
He suddenly fell into an ecstatic state. His eyes shone and his face transfigured itself peculiarly.
“So you speculate on the fanaticism of hate in the masses.”
“Fanaticism of love,” he said radiantly, “fanaticism of love for the infinity of the human race, love for the eternity of life, love for the thought that I and humanity are one, inseparably one…”
He varied the thought in the most diverse expressions.
“I will not say: Sacrifice yourselves so that you and your children become happy, I will teach anew the happiness of sacrifice in itself. Humanity has an inexhaustible capacity to sacrifice itself, but the fat church and fat socialism destroyed that. Humanity has forgotten the happiness of sacrifice in the fat, disgusting dogmatic faith. The last time it tasted it in the great revolutions, in the Commune—purposeless, only out of love for sacrifice, to enjoy once more the infinite happiness of purposeless selflessness… And I will bring this happiness back to memory through my act…”
He suddenly stopped and looked at Olga suspiciously.
“You probably believe I am a mad fantasist?”
“It is beautiful, very beautiful what you said there—I understand you,” she said thoughtfully.
He was silent long.
“Yes, you are right that those are old thoughts,” he said suddenly. “They touch in many ways what Falk expressed at the congress in Paris. I would have liked to kiss his hand then…”
He suddenly became very restless.
“But it did not become a life matter for him. His brain figured it out. His heart caught no fire… No, no—how is it possible to have such thoughts and not perish with shame that one can say all that cold and calm… See, that is the shamelessness of his brain, that it cannot shudder at it. His brain is shameless… He is a—an evil person. He is not pure enough for his ideas. One must be Christ, yes, Jesus Christ, the God of humans, the holy source of willingness to sacrifice.”
“You have changed very much, Czerski. By the way, I didn’t know you. Kunicki slandered you. I will think much about what you said…”
Olga stood up and looked at him shyly.
Over his face lay a transfigured glow. She had never seen anything like it.
“Take care of yourself, Czerski. You look very sick.” “No, I am not sick. I am happy.”
He thought long.
“Yes, yes,” he said suddenly, “yesterday I was still a small person. But now it is over, it is past…”
Part II: A More Esoteric Consideration of the Hermetic Art and Its Mysteries
Chapter 4: The Mysteries Concluded, Part 4
Introduction: The ancient mysteries reach their pinnacle as the soul ascends to divine union, becoming an intellectual beacon of eternal wisdom. This section unveils the final Theurgic rites, uniting the soul with the divine through love, faith, and harmony.
The Divine Union Through Theurgic Rites
Theurgic rites transcend mere intellectual thought, uniting the soul with the divine through sacred media. Iamblichus explains, “Divine union is not achieved by thought alone, as theorists might assume, but through ineffable rites and symbols known only to the gods. These Synthemata, divine aids, perform their work autonomously, moved by the gods’ will, not our intellect.” The Chaldaic Oracle declares, “I revolve these in my mind’s sacred temples, extending sparkling fire to put the symbol of variety into the mind, guiding it to the incorruptible pattern of the divine.”
These rites awaken the soul’s latent wisdom, transforming it into an “Intellectual World.” Porphyry notes, “When the soul’s inferior powers align with reason, they venerate it, dissolving their own motions in its presence.” This harmony, unlike the anarchy of natural life where selfish motives dominate, establishes a divine monarchy where all faculties follow the rational will, mirroring the cosmic order.
The Fire of Divine Wisdom
Sendivogius describes fire as the purest element, infused with divine majesty, carrying the soul’s rational essence. “God created the soul as a tree of knowledge, clouded by oblivion. Only through purity can it approach the divine fire, which no mortal eye can penetrate without dissolution.” This fire, calm and vital in its divine state, moves only by God’s will, stirring the soul’s faculties into universal harmony, as a king’s court moves with his command.
The alchemists’ “Salt of Wisdom” and “Mercury of Philosophers” is this purified essence, the soul’s hidden light. Morien tells King Calid, “This mastery is God’s secret, entrusted to prophets whose souls rest in paradise.” The soul, purified through rites, becomes a radiant vessel, reflecting the divine unity that sustains all creation.
The Final Contemplation
The initiated, perfected through Theurgic rites, contemplate the divine unity, the “Paternal Port.” Proclus explains, “The soul, assimilated to the intelligible universe, meets the Maker, united through intellectual vision, not opinion or syllogistic thought. This is the discovery of the Father—light conjoined with light, more beautiful than Elysium’s visions.” The soul, shedding multifarious knowledge, rests in silent faith, love, and hope, uniting with the ineffable One.
Plato’s method of divine intuition—through love, hope, and faith—guides the soul to this unical silence. Proclus urges, “Remove all variety, let the universe be still within, and commune with the Ineffable.” This is the alchemical stone, the soul’s radiant essence, seated in its divine throne, harmonizing all creation in eternal light.
Closing: Chapter 4 concludes the mysteries, uniting the soul with the divine in a radiant intellectual vision. The journey’s transformative implications unfold further in our next post, revealing new depths of the Hermetic art.
Homo Sapiens: In the Maelstrom by Stanislaw Przybyszewski and translated by Joe E Bandel
In short, even if the comparison limps and makes absolutely no claim to exactness, the brain is deceived and lied to and learns only later, after it has summed up what happened, that it was deceived.
But with that the refined cruelty is not yet at an end.
With the poorly functioning brain is still connected a cute stuff of conscience, trained for millennia to cause torment for the sins that nature commits.
He, he, a quite unbelievable refinement… But with that the thing is not yet at an end.
Through a peculiar trick nature has drilled into the fool of a human that it is a tremendous advantage to have brain and conscience.
For what distinguishes the human from the animal? The human knows what he does…
Falk listened. Won’t a laughing fit soon overwhelm him?
The human got the brain so that he might recognize God namely nature, thank him for his benefactions…
No! I must stop. Otherwise I really run the risk of getting laughing cramps.
By thunder! What a refined rogue trick. To be thanked for the brain, and on top of that for the conscience, this beautiful dung heap on which nature dumps its villainies.
No, no! I thank you for the brain, the conscience and such knowledge apparatuses. Oh, I would rather descend to the bacillus.
He destroys without torment and without pangs of conscience.
The clever Herr Professor who wanted to teach the human the overman! Well! he would go under on the second day from his excess of brain and conscience!
Falk actually saw himself on a stage, he found that not at all strange, on the contrary: very pleasant. He loved to be noticed. Then he had the pose of a significant person, no, no pose: only a quite natural appearance of a significant person, just as the audience wishes to see a significant person.
By the way, esteemed audience, I commit the nonsense of personifying nature, and that is the first step to forming a God. He giggled. The God, ha, ha, ha, that the liberal, free-thinking bourgeoisie had abolished. The free-thinking audience—oh God, I suffocate,—German free-thinking with twenty seats in the Reichstag.
No! How he could amuse himself royally!
He suddenly started. Otherwise he used to calm himself with such self-conversations, to forget, but this time it didn’t succeed. On the contrary: the unrest seized him anew, surprisingly, from behind, with new violence.
But to the devil, what then? What will, what can happen?
He had to absolutely prevent it. He must not go under. Not yet. No, he had to hold Czerski back, explain the whole thing to him in detail, prove with reasons, set forth with invincible arguments that he was completely in error if he wanted to hold him responsible. That was ridiculous. If he wanted to punish the lie, he had to somehow get at nature and damage her… Yes, he had to convince the stupid Czerski that he had indeed acted as a knowing tool, but absolutely without any responsibility, something like a bacillus or something similar.
Yes, make clear, convince… perhaps in the following way:
Falk coughed. He clearly saw Czerski opposite him. Strange this hallucinatory quality of his thoughts. That is naturally the beginning of the end. Diagnostically very valuable these pronounced hallucinations that do not disturb at all. See, dear Czerski, I am now a thousand times calmer than a few hours ago… Yes, naturally.
Again he drank a full glass.
Are you impatient, Czerski? Well, we can begin. I am not in a hurry because I must touch on certain intimate things that thinking about is absolutely no pleasure.
You wrinkle your forehead. But my God, don’t you have any interest in psychological analyses? Regret, regret… I am a quite engaged soul researcher… He, he, he… I believe I committed all my villainies, as you like to call my actions, out of a certain psychological curiosity, a curiosity that for example distinguished the illustrious spirit of the liberal bourgeoisie, Herr Hippolyte Taine. You know, the gentleman who wanted to set up a distillery for virtues. Splendid idea, to produce virtues in the same masses as vitriol. He, he, he… That’s how the liberal spirits are!… Oh, oh, what they don’t all know and can do! But please, sit down, otherwise your knees will dissolve, as Homer says. A cigarette perhaps? Maybe a glass of cognac? You don’t drink? Yes, naturally, you are a philanthropist, and as such you walk on the highest heights of humanity, thus disdain the bodily pleasures. Ha, ha, ha… Now excuse me, don’t take it badly. I just cannot understand how a person who has a brain can get along without alcohol… You violate a natural compensation duty.
Why? Why? But that is quite clear. The primeval human, the brainless human, thus a Homo who is not yet sapiens, and consequently not capable of regulating his feelings, is subject spontaneously to certain emotional outbursts that one calls enthusiasm, ecstasy, suggestibility etc. It is a process that has certain similarity with so-called pathological processes, thus for example a mania. Something seizes the brain with terrible violence, makes blind to all reasons, incapable of any calculation, one becomes like a bull with a blinker tied on. But this ecstatic blindness gives an unheard-of power that actually created our civilization. See, this fanatical, straight-line blindness drove the masses to Jerusalem, it kindled the religious wars, it stormed Bastilles, won constitutions, it erected barricades and secured impunity for the roguish press pirates… That is the enthusiasm of rage that gave a Samson the power to put a whole army of Philistines to flight with a donkey’s jawbone and on the other hand brought Herr
Ravachol to the idea of transporting pious bourgeois souls to Abraham’s bosom: the bourgeois love the almighty Lord, they should thank Ravachol that they so suddenly get to behold the face of God in joy… Oh, oh—you laugh, Herr Czerski, one didn’t suspect you of anarchistic hobbies for nothing.
So this enthusiasm is an extremely important factor in nature’s household, but we are no longer capable of it. The sober reason of the free-thinking bourgeoisie has killed it. But we, yes we have the obligation to be guardians of this holy enthusiasm. But how to produce it if it is not there? Naturally through alcohol. See, Suvorov, he understood it. His armies got as much to drink before every battle as they wanted, that’s why they performed miracles of bravery… the Prussian war ministry should consider this circumstance.
I babble, you say? That is very stupidly said. You are probably also such a liberal brain to whom the small things appear ridiculous? But we came off our main theme. So Herr Taine, isn’t it? He has quite the same psychological curiosity as I… Do you know how he does it? He is in a society. He sees a person who has a character head, character head I read namely twice daily in the Berliner Tageblatt. The organ of the liberal bourgeoisie says it of every minister, provided he resembles a sheep. Otherwise it only says sharply cut profile, as if carved from marble, sometimes also antique etc. Herr Taine sees the sheep face. He immediately becomes distracted. He wanders around like a lunatic until he suddenly steps on the feet of the character head in question. But one knows that it is Herr Taine, and one is very pleased about it. Herr Taine notes in his notebook. First quality: great gentleness. Actual milieu: end of the eighteenth century.
That bores you, Herr Czerski? Well I only wanted to prove to you that my psychological method differs essentially from Taine’s.
So I am a married man. Happy? No! Unhappy? No! What then?
But do you really not want to drink a glass of cognac? It is good when one is nervous. That dampens the depressive states, increases the life energy, makes the whole organism more capable of performance.
“You don’t want to? Well, then your health.”
Falk drank.
“Hm, hm… How should I even begin?” He walked up and down.
Part II: A More Esoteric Consideration of the Hermetic Art and Its Mysteries
Chapter 4: The Mysteries Concluded, Part 2
Introduction: The ancient mysteries culminate in the soul’s radiant ascent to divine union, transforming it into a vessel of eternal wisdom. This section explores the Elysian Fields, where the purified soul merges with the divine, guided by sacred rites and illuminated by love’s harmony.
The Elysian Ascent
Virgil’s Aeneid depicts Aeneas entering “joyful places, green groves, and blessed abodes, bathed in ethereal purple light, with their own sun and stars.” This Elysian realm, the alchemists’ garden, is a divine meadow of ideas where the soul, purified, finds its true home. Flammel describes it: “The philosophers’ garden, where the sun lingers with sweet dew, bears trees and fruits nourished by pleasant meadows. Seek the mountain of the seven metals, where a royal herb triumphs—mineral, vegetable, saturnine.” Vaughan adds, “This delicate region, the rendezvous of spirits, lies in heaven’s suburbs, where ideas descend and take form.”
This is the “Pratum” of the Oracle, the enclosed garden of Solomon, where divine light restores the soul’s harmony. Heraclitus notes, “We live their death, and die their life,” as the soul, dead to earthly senses, awakens in divine consciousness. The Rosicrucian text speaks of “seven mystic mountains” where roses and lilies bloom, the Sapphiric Mine’s tincture purifying the soul’s chaotic essence into a radiant vessel.
The Vision of Divine Wisdom
Proclus explains, “The plain of truth expands to intelligible light, splendid with divine illuminations. The meadow is life’s prolific power, generating all forms and reasons.” This Elysian state, the alchemists’ “Athanor” or furnace, kindles a new world within the soul. St. Augustine describes three visions: external (sensory), imaginative (internal), and anagogic (intellectual), where the soul, purified, beholds divine light. Porphyry likens it to a fountain scattering streams inward, uniting the self-knowing and self-known in eternal harmony.
Apuleius’ encounter with Isis reveals this truth: “I am nature, parent of all, queen of elements, supreme divinity. I rule the heavens, seas, and realms below, venerated in manifold forms. Moved by your prayers, I am present, bringing a salutary day. Dedicate your life to me, and you will live gloriously under my protection, adoring me in the Elysian Fields.” The soul, shedding its beastly guise through sacred rites, becomes a vessel of divine light, extending life beyond fate through obedience and chastity.
The Purified Soul’s Triumph
The soul, purified in the mysteries, becomes a “gas-lamp” of divine light, not a mere crystal but a vessel sustaining eternal flame. Apuleius continues, “You roll the heavens, illuminate the sun, govern the world, and tread on Tartarus. Stars, gods, and elements obey your decree.” This universal nature, accessible through purification, restores the soul’s original light, granting wisdom, health, and eternal life. The alchemists’ stone, born of this process, is the soul’s radiant essence, uniting all in divine love.
Closing: Chapter 4 concludes the mysteries, unveiling the soul’s ascent to divine union in the Elysian Fields, radiant with eternal wisdom. The journey into this sacred art’s implications continues, promising further revelations in our next post.
Part II: A More Esoteric Consideration of the Hermetic Art and Its Mysteries
Chapter 3: The Mysteries Continued, Part 4 and Chapter 4: The Mysteries Concluded, Part 1
Introduction: The ancient mysteries guide the soul through chaos to divine wisdom, culminating in a radiant ascent. This section completes the purificative descent and begins the journey to divine union, unveiling the soul’s eternal essence.
Chapter 3: The Divine Light Revealed
Psellus distinguishes two visions in the mysteries: “suspection,” deceptive apparitions born of the soul’s passions, and “superinspection,” the perception of pure, formless divine light. The Chaldaic Oracle advises, “When you see a fire without form, shining through the world’s depths, hear its voice.” This sacred light, untainted by illusion, is the soul’s true essence, as an Indian text echoes: “Know all appearances as the mind’s delusion; the First Cause is in all yet beyond all.” The Zohar and Deuteronomy warn against imaging this formless divinity, emphasizing its transcendence.
Modern skeptics dismiss these visions as mere astronomical displays, but the ancients saw them as profound truths, not trifling shows. Proclus describes the soul’s awe before this light: “Beauty astonishes, converting the soul to itself, revealing the divine within the temple’s sanctum.” Apuleius recounts, “I saw the sun at midnight, adoring the gods above and below,” a vision beyond sensory grasp. Plato adds, “A sudden light, like a leaping fire, kindles in the soul, nourishing itself.” This is the alchemical stone, the “crystalline rock” of the Apocalypse, radiating divine wisdom.
Vaughan calls this the “star-fire of nature,” ignited by uniting heaven and earth, transforming the soul into a “new world.” The alchemists’ “Prester” or “Saturnian Salt” is this fiery spirit, the eternal center of life, as John’s Gospel proclaims: “In Him was Life, and the Life was the Light of men.” This light, hidden in darkness, is known only to those who subdue their will to divine wisdom, achieving the alchemical perfection that multiplies the soul’s divine essence.
Chapter 4: The Ascent to the Elysian Fields
Hercules’ final labor in the Hesperidian region symbolizes the soul’s ascent to divine union. Olympiodorus explains, “The Islands of the Blessed, rising above the sea, represent a state transcending earthly life—the Elysian Fields.” Hercules, dragging Cerberus from hell, liberates the soul through a threefold evolution, freeing it from sensory bonds to live in divine light. His golden apples, rewards of sacred labors, signify the soul’s perfected wisdom, unlike Theseus, detained by earthly passions.
The descent to Hades is easy, but the ascent is arduous, as Homer’s cave in Ithaca illustrates: “The northern gate is for souls descending to generation; the southern, for immortals ascending to divinity.” Only a purified, immortal essence can pass through this narrow gate, achieving eternal consciousness.
Closing: Chapter 3 concludes the mysteries’ purificative descent, revealing the soul’s divine light through chaos. Chapter 4 begins the ascent to divine union, promising further revelations of the soul’s eternal essence in our next post.
Part II: A More Esoteric Consideration of the Hermetic Art and Its Mysteries
Chapter 3: The Mysteries Continued, Part 3
Introduction: The ancient mysteries guide the soul through a transformative descent into its chaotic depths, purifying it to unite with divine wisdom. This section unveils the perilous journey past deceptive visions, culminating in the revelation of the soul’s true essence.
The Transformative Descent
The mysteries’ purificative rites lead the soul into Tartarus, a realm of primal chaos, described by Virgil as a dark cave where “the ground trembles, hills shake, and dogs howl as the Goddess approaches.” This is the soul’s confrontation with its deepest, unpurified essence, the alchemists’ “Black Saturn” or “hidden Stone,” fetid yet vital. A Rosicrucian allegory illustrates: “At the earth’s center lies a mountain, invisible, guarded by beasts and birds. A great wind shakes it, an earthquake overthrows debris, and a fire consumes earthly rubbish, revealing a treasure—the exalted tincture that could turn the world to gold if it were worthy.”
This descent, though fraught with terror, is essential. The initiate, armed with rational will, faces lions, dragons, and monstrous apparitions—illusions of the soul’s unpurified spirit. As the biblical account of Elijah echoes, “The Lord is not in the wind, earthquake, or fire, but in the still, small voice that follows.” After the chaos, a great calm reveals the day-star, dispelling darkness and unveiling the soul’s divine essence.
The Alchemical Purification
Hermes instructs, “Take the watery, corrupted nature, a coal holding fire, and purify its redness until it shines.” This purification, visiting “the interiors of the earth rectifying,” transforms the chaotic spirit into the philosopher’s stone, a medicine for life. Porphyry declares, “The purified soul must associate with its Generator, gaining scientific knowledge of true being.” Plato warns that without firm reason, the soul risks being overwhelmed in Hades, absorbed by delusions. Only by resisting these temptations can it ascend to Elysium’s divine light.
Alchemists describe this spirit as a “thick fire” imprisoned in incombustible moisture, needing dissolution to reveal its radiant core. Vaughan notes, “This mineral nature, ever-changing like clouds, is persecuted by reason’s light, revealing a starry seed, heavy yet luminous.” This is the “Salt of Saturn,” the ancient Demogorgon, a primal essence that, when purified, becomes the soul’s eternal source.
The Final Initiation
Stobaeus records, “In death and initiation, the mind is agitated with errors, wanderings, and darkness. On the verge, all is horror—trembling, sweating, affrightment. Then, a divine light shines, revealing flowery meadows and sacred visions. Free and crowned, the initiate walks among the blessed.” This mirrors alchemy’s “happy gate of blackness,” where dissolution reveals the soul’s true life. Porphyry explains, “Nature binds the body to the soul, but the soul can dissolve its own bond, returning to its divine source without destroying the body.”
The initiate, guided by the “golden bough” of rational intellect, navigates this chaos to unite with the divine. Apuleius recounts, “I approached death’s threshold, trod Proserpine’s realm, and returned through all elements, seeing the sun at midnight and adoring the gods. Though heard, you must remain ignorant of these truths.” This ineffable experience, known only through direct participation, reveals the soul as both seeker and sought, united with its divine source.
Closing: This section unveils the mysteries’ descent through chaos, purifying the soul to unite with divine wisdom. The journey toward this ineffable truth continues, promising deeper revelations of the Theurgic art in our next post.
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