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

I have been dead, and behold, I have been made alive. When it reaches the highest degree of perfection, it shines in redness. "My beloved is red, chosen before thousands." But note this for yourself, which I said before: that blackness is the most perfect color. It so willed, for nature has cast into it [everything], and it concludes in itself all things which must later come to be and appear, nor will anyone be able to arrive at whiteness and redness except through blackness.

Initiation began with the black color; from there it arrived at the white and the red. But blackness is as the weak, [while] whiteness and redness are the highest. The lowest and the highest cannot coexist unless something is present to join both. All things were covered by obscurity in the beginning, and [there was] confusion with the elements in the first creation; [it] had to undergo the natural mountain through purification, [for] all things were clothed in blackness, and black was the covering under which nature perfected its work. But when, in the future palingenesis, the face of the earth shall be renewed, all things shall shine in the highest brilliance. But see what intervenes. Where, indeed, the earth was separated from the waters and was irrigated from above through continuous imbibitions, [it] flourished, [and] all things were clothed most delightfully, and flowers of every kind and color appeared on the earth. Surely you will not be able to arrive at whiteness in the mystical work except through various and many colors. The first offspring of blackness is greenness, which transfigures itself into a sky-blue and yellow color. Truly, there will not be even a single particle of matter which tends toward perfection that, when exposed to the sun's splendor, does not shine in the greatest variety of colors. Yet these do not appear unless you have turned the same labor by whose aid you first produced the black color. But when the diverse colors cease through continuous washings, whiteness appears, shining with such brilliance that it is scarcely [possible to look] at the rays of the sun. Mars, however, and corruption consume the white splendor again, and while it has assumed a fiery nature through fiery irrigations, the great work reddens, similar to the kermes-berry upon which the sun sheds its rays. The sea, however, bears the symbol of the moon, where it gleams in redness. Attend studiously! Where you see white, the matter has cast [it] upon you; where it is valid toward the sun, which is the character of gold, it is valid only toward the moon, which is the symbol of silver. But when you have joined the moon with the matter in perfect whiteness, finally the serum, macerated and joined with the matter through the pristine solution and reunion, having been brought along the path to perfection by all the lesser metals, will communicate the nature of the moon. But it can do nothing in the work of the sun. But if, indeed, you join the sun with the matter in redness, so that the seed of the sun is macerated again together with it, and it enjoys [this], and through separation and reunion it ascends on the path of nature to the highest and reddening perfection, it will also communicate the nature of the sun to all the inferior metals so that it produces perfection. And this revelation is the revelation of the arcane and the hidden, yet it is true wisdom, which you had to know concerning the work of the sun and the moon, so that from there you may be able to ascend to those things which are higher and look more to a spiritual than a bodily nature. One thing, however, I see born: Baptism. Surely you will be able to accomplish nothing without baptism. Baptism in water washes away and purifies bodily filth that had been stained; Baptism in fire and spirit makes the spirit clearer, and communicates a fiery and spiritual nature to the spirit, so that it may shine in the highest and primordial virtue, which is the virtue of fire.

Concerning the Mediator.

She is no longer veiled, but naked and open she appears, judging that she has cast off all that corporeality. For a veil is corporeality—I speak, however, of the corporeality that creates thick matter; for spirits also have their own corporeality. Here, however, where the mystical and great work gleams in the highest red without the admixture of sun or moon, it has cast off the veil of thick corporeality, and nature presents herself naked for you to embrace. The blue cloak, however, hints at a celestial and spiritual nature. [She] is endowed with the greatest natures of God. And in the desert, her perfection was consummated. One, however, is the only mediator, and the same who [is] the gates and bars of the spiritual nature, and consequently [is] established as mediator between heaven and earth, having the keys of the upper and the lower. You have known the key of the lower; you have also known the key of the upper. But now, with the tension of the mind, receive the completion of the mysteries, and incline your ear to the revelation which I make, desiring to provide [knowledge] to you concerning the occult spirituality. O son! Corporeality and spirituality differ only in degree, and where you have a mediator who causes your corporeality to be elevated and makes spirituality approach you, you have reached the highest and loftiest summit to which you will be able to ascend in this bodily life. It is necessary, however, that the mediator have the nature of both [realms] between which he desires to intercede to complete the mediation. That which can elevate and exalt your corporeality is the matter itself, [once] purified, where it shines in redness without any exotic admixture. But beware lest it be too fiery and spiritual, otherwise it will not do the same, which it never does [when] tempered to all [things] with which it communicates itself, and with a single blow, as it were, it would destroy and consume your whole bodily [nature]. Join it to the earth, and cause both to ascend to perfection and be renewed in the work of the sun and moon through solution and conjunction, and the fire injected [into the] great [work] will comfort your eye, and [there will be] pure spirits standing by you, partakers of the nature of their corporeality.