xtended in psychoanalysis (namely by C. G. Jung) to the impelling
power of psychic phenomena in general. Libido would therefore be the inner
view of what must in objective description be called "psychic energy." How
it could be given this extension of meaning is seen when we know the
possibilities of its transformation and sublimation, a matter which will
be treated later.] Now if the libido symbol raised up for an ideal is
placed too nakedly before the seeker, the danger of misunderstanding and
perversion is always present. For he is misled by his instincts to take
the symbol verbally, that is, in its original, baser sense and to act
accordingly. So all religions are degenerate in which one chooses as a
libido symbol the unconcealed sexual act, and therefore also a religion
must degenerate, in which gold, this object of inordinate desire, is used
as a symbol.

What impels the seeker, that is, the man who actually deserves the name,
in masonry and in alchemy, is clearly manifested as a certain
dissatisfaction. The seeker is not satisfied with what he actually learns
in the degrees, he expects more, wants to have more exhaustive
information, wants to know when the "real" will be finally shown.
Complaint is made, for example, of the narrowness of the meaning of the
degrees of fellowship. Much more important than the objective meaning of
any degree is the subjective wealth of the thing to be promoted. The less
this is, the less will he "find" even in the degrees, and the less
satisfied will he be, in case he succeeds in attaining anything at all. To
act here in a compensating way is naturally the task of the persons that
induce him. But it is the before mentioned dissatisfaction, too, which
causes one to expect wonderful arts from the superiors of the higher
degrees; an expectation that gives a fine opportunity for exploitation by
swindlers who, of course, have not been lacking in the province of
alchemy, exactly as later at a more critical time, in the high degree
masonry. Who can exactly determine how great a part may have been played
by avarice, ambition, vanity, curiosity, and finally by a not
unpraiseworthy emotional hunger?

The speculators who fished in the muddy waters of late rosicrucianism put
many desirable things as bait on the hook; as power over the world of
spirits, penetration into the most recondite parts of nature's teachings,
honor, riches, health, longevity. In one was aroused the hope of one of
these