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{Illustration facing next page: Multi-color lithograph or metal plate resist work, effect like flat watercolors with heavy flat black and metalic overprinting. Colors include white, metallic silver, metallic gold, burnt orange, chinese red, grayish blue, dull medium brown (always associated with gold), straw yellow and dull veridian. There are seven figures on a dull black field:
At the upper right is a figure similar to Blake's Urizon, but not holding a compass. The figure is shown in head, arms and either part trunk or left knee (obscured by the beard). There is a radiant of sharp petals of silver on white behind the head (five only are visible clearly, but parts of two others peak from the locks of hair). The hair of the head streaks out horizontally in four or more locks of gold and silver on white, accented in black. The face is closed eyed, done in red-orange stippling for the flesh with the features defined in gold and silver. The arms extend outward and very slightly downward, in silver accented by gold on white. The hands are displayed on the side, thumbs to the fore and held palm toward the bottom; they are suggestive of crab claws. The full beard dashes to the left in the picture, and is done in silver over white, accented mostly in gold but with some black accents near the chin. This figure emerges behind and above a loose tumble of ribbon done in brown-gold striations and scrolling. The Hebrew alphabet is done in silver on the ribbon, starting at the upper left with Taw and ending just above the pendant tip with Aleph thusly: Taw Shin, scroll up, Resh through Peh, scroll down, back scroll, scroll up to front, Ayin through Nun, scroll down to left again, back scroll, scroll up to front, Hebrew on this front Kaph to left, Yod to center, Tet to right, scroll down to left, Lamed, ribbon crushed at next level, Mem on left, Chet to right, scroll up out of crush below with Zain at a diagonal top to right on scroll, scroll down with face still presented, Vau to left and Heh to right, scroll crushed below, below this crush is a frontal fold, scrolled up from the left, down to the right and surmounted by the Hebrew letters left to right: Dalet through Aleph, below this the ribbon whirls in a downward left spiral horn of two loops to a point. ---- try reading that in one breath!
Ranked on the right edge in a column occupying the center half of the edge is a column of seven silver stars of seven points each, one point to top.
At the lower right, just above the tip of the serpent's tail (described below) is a lion of Assyrian style between two outward arched cresents. The lower crescent is golden and the lion's only visible hind foot rests on the center of the crescent. The upper crescent is silver and gripped by the lion's left paw at the lower horn. The face of the lion is directly at but not touching the center of this crescent. The right paw of the lion touches the lower quarter of this crescent with talon tips only. These two crescents are so aligned that their horn tips could be connected by parallel lines about 45 degrees from the horizontal, upper to the left and lower to the right. The lion is green on white with gold accents, tail arched upward in a crescent and tipped in gold. The eye is red and the tongue extends in red as well. There are black accents about the edges of the mane and below the chin.
At the lower left, framed by the serpent to left and below, is an Assyrian winged bull, flank view and facing right. The fore quarters stand on a silver sphere, while the hind quarters stand on a gold cube in parallel projection with the full face to the lower left. The Assyrian king's head is crowned and bearded as usual and colored in orange and and gold over yellow. There are two silver horns issuing from the back of the head and angling upward just above and past the temples --- the horns are bull-like otherwise, and are only slightly curved. The wings form a bundle, more tucked under the back of the hair like a newspaper under an elbow than naturally rooted. These wings show only on the facing side, are blue and gold on white and have the usual shape for an Assyrian bull otherwise. They are fully as thick as the body and extend above it. The fore quarters are leonine in red and gold over orange. The hind quarters are taurian in gray brown over white. The bull is male, with a taurian tail hanging down below the hooves. The hind hooves are gold. The "saddle" of the bull is done in orange plates on gold. Across the bottom and on the left side is a predominantly red-orange serpent with yellow scutes divided by orange. The scales on the back are represented in red dots on orange and defined by silver and red. Eye in blue. Teeth dog-like in blue with black boning. The body makes seven tight loops separated by arcs on the left of the illustration, curves to make two and a half undulations across the bottom and arches downward in a semicircle at the upper left corner. Flames in yellow and red are associated with the head as: Three flames accented gold brown in the shape of the Hebrew letter Shin above head, directly above brow and eye. One flame from nostril, slanting upward toward top center of plate. One flame accented in gold brown pendant to chin like an old man's beard. A gout of flame in four points issues triangularly downward from the mouth, and this is divided by a very forked tongue in gold brown (divides 1/8 inch from mouth and extends one inch past division point) such that the two outer points of flame are separated from the two inner by the fork. A golden dodecagram (twelve pointed star) in a ring is directly below the serpent's head, situated such that the tongue of the serpent frames the upper arc of the ring and the head of the serpent appears in medium coeli like a nemesis above the wheel of fortune. The ring is divided into twelve silver and twelve brown-gold bands, with a red zodiacal symbol over each gold and silver band, gold to widdershins and silver to deosil. The star in the center points to each symbol. Aries is at top and the rest proceed Deosil around the ring.
In center is a star surmounted by the eye in the triangle. The star is in two modes: A large gold star of six narrow points with point to top is on top of a smaller silver star of six narrow points with two points dead horizontal. The silver star and the gold star create a sort of compass rose, and the silver star has its points filled with gold. The triangle is centered in the golden star, equilateral and apex at top. The triangle is gold with silver edging. The eye is a Horus left, gold on white. There are three silver teardrops edged in white depending from the vertices of the triangle and oblating toward the eye. Between eye, sides of triangle and tears are three sets of three each white rays, they touch nothing and the center ray in each set is very short.
The plate origin is identified under the lower right as: "CARL HENTSCHELL, LTD ENG; LONDON, E.C."
This illustration accompanies the next entry, and is read with it in clock-wise fashion starting from the upper right. The illustration is known as "The Regimen of Seven".}
He slayeth Sir Argon le Paresseux.
Now Brother Perardua, though he was but a Zelator of our ancient Order, had determined in himself to perform the Magnum Opus, and to procure for himself one grain of the Power, one minim of the Elixir, and the Tincture of Double Efficacy. Not fully did he yet comprehend the Mysterium of our Art, therefore imposed he upon himself the painful sevenfold regimen. For without the Bell of Electrum Magicum of Paracelsus how should the adept even give warning to the Powers of the Work of his entry thereunto?
Yet our brother, being of stout heart --- for he had been a soldier in many distant lands --- began right cheerfully. His head that was hoary with eld he crowned with five petals of white lotus, as if to signify the purity of his body, and went forth into that place where is no field, nor any furrow therein; and there he sowed a scroll that had two and twenty seeds diverse.
He slayeth Sir Abjad the Saracen.
Nor for all his care and labour could he gather therefrom more than seven plants, that shone in the blackness; and {89} each plant beareth a single blossom that hath seven petals --- one would have thought them stars; for though they were not of a verity in themselves brilliant and flashing, yet so black was that wherein they grew that they seemed brighter than suns. And these were placed one above the other in a single line and straight, even according to the seven centres of his intention that he bare about him in the hollow tube that hath thirty and two joints.
He slayeth Sir Amorex le Desirous.
These plants did our brother Perardua pluck, as the mystic rites ordain; and these did he heat furiously in his alembic, yet with vegetable heat alone, while he kept them ever moist, dropping upon them of his lunar water, whereof he had three and seventy minims left of the eight and seventy that his Father had given him; and these he had borne upon a camel through the desert unto this place where he now was, which is called the Oasis of the Lion, even as the whole Regimen that in the end he accomplished is in the form of a Lion.
This then his Lion waxed exceeding thirsty, and licked up all that dew. But the fire being equal thereunto, he was not discomforted.
He slayeth Sir Lionel the Warder of the Marches.
So now indeed he had wrought the first Matter to a pitch of excellence beyond the human; for without trouble was his tincture thus beautiful. First, it had the crown and horns of Alexander the mighty king; also it had wings of fine sapphire; its fore part was like the Lion, whereby indeed it partook of the highest Virtue, and its hinder quarters were as a bull's. {90} Moreover it stood upon the White Sphere and the Red Cube; and it is not possible for any Elixir to exceed this, unless it be by Our path and working.
He slayeth Sir Merlin the Wizard.
Yet our brother Perardua --- and by now he was right skilful at the athanor! --- determined to attain to that higher Projection of our art. Therefore he subtly prepared a Red Dragon, or as some alchemists will have it, a Fiery Flying Serpent, whereby he should eat up that Sphinx of his, that he had nourished with such ingenium and care.
Now this Red Dragon hath seven fiery coils, proper to the seven silver stars. Also was his head right venomous and greedy, and eight flames were about it; for that sphinx had two wings and four feet and two horns; but the Serpent is one, even as the King is one.
He slayeth the Great Dragon called Stooping or Twisted.
Now then is this work utterly burnt up and abolished in that tremendous heat that is in the mouth and belly of the Dragon; and that which cometh forth therefrom is in no wise that which went in. Yet are these twelve the children of those two-and twenty. So when he had broken the cucurbite, he found therein no trace of the seven, but a button of fused gold --- as we say, for it is not gold. ...
Now this button hath twelve faces, and angles twenty-four salient and reentrant; and Our Egyptian brethren have called it the Pavement of the Firmament of Nu. {91}
He slayeth King Astur of the Arms Argent.
Now this metal is not in any wise like unto earthly metals; let the brethren well beware, for many false knaves be abroad. Three things be golden: the mineral gold of the merchant, that is dross; the vegetable gold that groweth from the seed of the scroll by virtue of the Lion; and the animal gold that cometh forth from the regimen of the Dragon, and this last is the sole marketable gold of the Philosopher. For, behold, an Arcanum! I charge you, keep secret this matter; for the vile brothers, could they divine it, would pervert it.
This mineral Gold cannot be changed into any other substance by any means.
This Vegetable Gold is fluidic; it must increase wonderfully and be fixed in the Perfection of the Sphinx.
But this our Animal Gold is to this mighty pitch unstable, that it can neither increase nor decrease, nor can it remain that which it is, or seemeth to be. For even as a drop of glass unequally cooled flieth at a touch into a myriad fine particles, so also at a touch this gold philosophical dissolveth his being, ofttimes with a great and terrible explosion, ofttimes so softly and subtly that no man may perceive it, be he never so acute, nay, as a needle for sharpness or for fineness as a spyglass of the necromancers!
Yet herein lieth the core of the matter that in this explosion aforesaid naught whatever is left either of the seven or the twelve or of the three Mother seeds that lie concealed therein. But in a certain mystical way the Other Ten are shadowed forth, though dimly, as if the Brazen Serpent had become a {92} Sword of Lightning. Yet is this but a glyph; for in truth there is no link or bond between them. For this Animal gold is passed utterly away; there is not any button hereof, nor any feather of the Wings of the Sphinx, nor any mark of the Sower or of the Seed. But at that Lightning Flash all did entirely disappear, and the Cucurbite and the Alembic and the Athanor were shattered utterly ... and there arose That which he had set himself to seek; yea, more! a grain of the Powder, and three minims of the Elixir, and Six drachms of the Tincture of Double Efficacy.
... Yet the brethren mocked him; for he had imperilled himself sore; so that unto this hour hath the name of Perardua been forgotten, and they that have need to speak of him say in right joyance Non Sine Fulmine.
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