the coarse sand and ashes cannot
be illumined by the sun, so the SUN of righteousness cannot illumine the
old Adam. It is then that the sand and ashes [the old Adam] are melted in
the [Symbol: fire] [of the [Symbol: cross]] again and again, that a pure
glass [a newborn man] is made of it; so the [Symbol: gold/sol] can easily
shoot its rays into and through it and therefore illumine it and reveal
the wonder of its wisdom. So man must be recast in [Symbol: cross]
[Symbol: fire] [cross-fire], so that the rays of both lights can penetrate
him; otherwise no one will become a wise man." (P. 96 ff.)

Beautiful expositions of alchemy that readily make manifest the mystical
content are found also in the English theosophists Pordage and his
followers, in particular Jane Leade (both 17th century). Their language is
clearer and more lucid than Jacob Boehme's. Many passages appropriate to
this topic might be here cited; but as I shall later take up Leade more
fully, I quote only one passage from Pordage (Sophia, p. 23):

"Accordingly and so that I should arrive at a fundamental and complete
cleansing from all tares and earthiness ... I gave over my will entirely
to its [wisdom's] fiery smelting furnace as to a fire of purification,
till all my vain and chaff-like desires and the tares of earthly lust had
been burnt away as by fire, and all my iron, tin and dross had been
entirely melted in this furnace, so that I appeared in spirit as a pure
gold, and could see a new heaven and a new earth created and formed within
me."

Out of all this, taken in conjunction with the following chapter, it will
be evident and beyond question that our Parable must also be interpreted
as a mystical introduction.

Section IV.

Rosicrucianism And Freemasonry.

The previous chapter has shown that there was a higher alchemy--it was
furthermore regarded as the true alchemy--which has the same relation to
practical chemistry that freemasonry has to practical masonry. A prominent
chemist who had entered into the history of chemistry and that of
freemasonry once wrote to me: "Whoever desires to make a chemical
preparation according to a hermetic recipe seems to me like a person who
undertakes to build a house according to the ritual of Freemasonry."

The similarity is not a chance one. Both external and internal relations
between alchemy and freemasonry are worthy of notice. The connection is
partly through rosic