The Drawing Back of the Veil: An Explanation of Symbols in the Hierologium

Concerning Palingenesis.

Arise and be enlightened, for your light has come.

Palingenesis is regeneration; it is [the return] to a new and better life from a pristine state. Behold! Whither all things tend in nature and grace alike; but now, first summon your mind to yourself, you who have been called to the knowledge of this very thing in the mysteries, so that you may see in yourself a living image of the entire mystical operation which this form places before your eyes in symbols and pictures. Recall now, when all things that have been handed down to you thus far concerning the occult discipline reach their term, and you will discover the greatest consensus. For since grace and nature walk one and the same path, it is also necessary that they arrive at one and the same term. You are of the highest origin, and existing as a substance from the purest light, you have your mind, gifted with the life of the spirit of the Creator's truth, and called by the Word of God to its own subsistence. But having descended into these tenebrous regions, you have assumed a thick corporeality, and your spirit, bound by these heavy chains, cannot act freely, nor can it elevate itself to God and recover its pristine happiness, unless its chains—by which it is bound to the earth and sensual things—have been loosed. See what death and putrefaction accomplish in you. Death loosens the bonds of spirit and body, so that the spirit may betake itself to the place whence it derives its origin—namely, to the spirituality kindred and familiar to it—[while] the body, in the bosom of the common mother, which is the earth, puts off whatever stain has settled upon it through putrefaction. But to what does putrefaction lead? It truly transfigures all things, and what emerges from it is indeed a new and much more illustrious creature. Where, indeed, the body has laid aside the thick nature of the elements, and has become spiritual by the virtue of fire, so that it may be a fit habitation for the glorified spirit: behold, the great revolution of things is at hand, the universal Palingenesis, where the spirit will be joined again to its body, and the body, united with the spirit, will shine in supreme glorification. See how close your confession is joined with the mystical operation. And thus, in the first creation of this world, the operation which I have just described—and which consists in the separation of the elements through putrefaction, which was done by the virtue of fire, and in the conjunction of the elements, which fire likewise perfected—was produced as a glorious and resplendent world. A similar revolution is at hand in a future time for this world, when the great week is completed, in the great Sabbath. It has passed into thick materiality and has associated with itself a dark nature in dark regions. But it will not remain as it was when it submerged. The divine hand always works for its glorification through continuous imbibitions and irrigations, where, as one fire confounds its virtue, every corporal stain will have been removed, and the renewed and glorified

world will arise. And this is universal palingenesis. See how the whole marvelously conspires with its parts. O! You, who have been distanced from God through sin, have lost blessed knowledge and the living life, and have become corporal; how greatly you are elevated through repentance, which consumes putrefaction in contrition, and the spiritual baptism, which is the baptism of fire, in water [leading] to the knowledge whose work of light, added to the spark almost extinguished in you, is rekindled, and you become a new creature, which knows God and returns to God. And this is Palingenesis, which grace begins and completes. See also in this symbol which the table exhibits, what will happen in the mystical operation. It is true palingenesis, and the resuscitation of the dead. Arise and be enlightened, for your light has come. The matter has been committed to the earth, where death and putrefaction may exercise all their power; but when death has perfected a plenary solution through fire, the son of the external light is to be resuscitated. Do not fear. The bird could not fly away; the fire has indeed feathered it. The way is plenary solution and perfect separation, when now palingenesis begins. But it begins only and is completed through imbibition, which is baptism. With baptism perfected, the new creature is present. The end of all the operations of God is glorification. The way, to which all things tend in a natural mode, leads to perfection. Here is the guidance which you ought to follow, so that you may ascend to the perfection set before you. Deliver to death, and O dead man, arise. The doctrine of the Magistery is absolute.

Concerning the White and the Red.

A circular emblem showing a resurrected figure (Christ-like) rising from a tomb or vessel, holding a banner of victory. A serpent or dragon is at the base. Red frame.

The most perfect color is the nigredo. You have seen thus far how nature and grace institute their operations, how you also ought to act, so that you may make that which is imperfect perfect, that which is corporal spiritual, that which was vile and abject glorious. But let me first lead you to the mediator in grace, so that you may see the same mystery in faith accomplished, which nature transmits in visible and palpable sight. A greater consensus could not be found, and indeed the mystical doctrine is the key to all secrets, divine and human, heavenly and infernal, spiritual and corporal. This supreme spirit descended into this corporeality and associated with itself a thick and visible body, so that it might be the savior of the body of the world. But through death, the divine spirit was separated from the body, and the body, depurated in the sepulcher for three days from the thick elemental materiality, was joined to the spirit in the resurrection, and body and spirit together passed into heaven, and was elevated to the right hand of God. This, the double table also places before your eyes in the mystical operation. While it ascends the first degree of glorification in whiteness, the son of light, resuscitated from the dead, acclaims to you: