ALCHEMY AND ASTROLOGY 255 



see in it anything that has ever been written down, said, 

 or spoken in the past, and also see the person who said 

 it, and the causes that made him say what he did, and 

 anything, however secret it may have been kept." ^ 



" Such mirrors are made of the electrum magicum; they 

 are made of the diameter of about two inches. They are 

 to be founded at a time when a conjunction of Jupiter 

 and Venus takes place, and moulds made of fine sand are 

 used for that purpose. Grind the mirrors smooth with 

 a grindstone, and polish them with tripoli, and with a 

 piece of wood from a linden-tree. All the operations 

 made with the mirror, the grinding, polishing, &c., should 

 take place under favourable planetary aspects, and by 

 selecting the proper hours three different mirrors may 

 be prepared. At a time of a conjunction of two good 

 planets, when at the same time the sun or the moon 

 stands on the ' house of the lord of the hour of your 

 birth,' the three mirrors are to be laid together into pure 

 well-water, and left to remain there for an hour. They 

 must then be removed from the water, enveloped in a 

 linen cloth, and be preserved for use."^ 



Palingenesis 



Nothing in Nature is dead, and alchemy does not 

 deal with inanimate things. The old alchemists were 

 believers in the possibility of spontaneous generation, and 

 by the action of psychical powers they created forms in 

 which life became manifest. They could generate living 

 beings in closed bottles, or by the Palingenesis * of plants 

 or animals, cause the astral form of a plant or an animal 



* That is to say, you may come en rapport with the astral light, which 

 is the sensorium of the world, and in which the ** memory" or impression 

 of everything is preserved. 



' It would be useless to give detailed descriptions of processes that can- 

 not be followed out by any one who does not possess the necessary magic 

 (magnetic) power, and those who possess the power will hardly require 

 such descriptions, in which allegories are strangely mixed with truths, 



* See Appendix, 



