y had the queen announced the truth, but also had
omitted to describe the greater part of it as it seemed to those
that know it. For there was no end of gold and noble carbuncle
there; rejuvenation and restoration of natural forces, and also
recovery of lost health, and removal of all diseases were a common
thing in that place. The most precious of all was that the people
of that land knew their creator, feared and honored him, and asked
of him wisdom and understanding, and finally after this transitory
glory an everlasting blessedness. To that end help us God the
Father, Son and Holy Ghost. Amen.

The author of the preceding narrative calls it a parable. Its significance
may have indeed appeared quite transparent to him, and he presupposes that
the readers of his day knew what form of learning he masked in it. The
story impresses us as rather a fairy story or a picturesque dream. If we
compare parables that come nearer to our modern point of view and are
easily understood on account of their simplicity, like those of Ruckert or
those of the New Testament, the difference can be clearly seen. The
unnamed author evidently pursues a definite aim; one does find some unity
in the bizarre confusion of his ideas; but what he is aiming at and what
he wishes to tell us with his images we cannot immediately conceive. The
main fact for us is that the anonymous writer speaks in a language that
shows decided affinity with that of dreams and myths. Therefore, however
we may explain in what follows the peculiarly visionary character of the
parable, we feel compelled to examine it with the help of a psychological
method, which, endeavoring to get from the surface to the depths, will be
able to trace analytically the formative powers of the dream life and
allied phenomena, and explain their mysterious symbols.

I have still to reveal in what book and in what circumstances the parable
appears. It is in the second volume of a book "Geheime Figuren der
Rosenkreuzer aus dem 16ten und 17ten Jahrhundert," published at Altona
about 1785-90. Its chief contents are large plates with pictorial
representations and with them a number of pages of text. According to a
note on the title page, the contents are "for the first time brought to
light from an old manuscript." The parable is in the second volume of a
three-volume series which bears the subtitle: Ein gueldener Tractat vom
philosophischen Steine. Von einem