ame knowledge
of the true mystery and the same keys of knowledge that unlock the
Paradise of Joy, as the patriarchs and prophets of holy scripture
possess." And in another place, "Believe that your (the R. C. [Symbol:
cross]) palace or abode is situated at the confines of the earthly
paradise [locus voluptatis terrestris]...." In our parable it is a
paradise of joy [pratum felicitatis] where the wanderer meets the company
into which he desires admission. He must undergo examinations like every
neophyte. The collegium sapientiae of the parable refers to the
rosicrucian Collegium Sancti Spiritus, which is actually named in another
passage of the book that contains the parable.

The blood of the lion, which the wanderer gets by cutting him up, refers
to the rose-colored blood of the cross that we gain through deep digging
and hammering. The wanderer picks roses and puts them in his hat, a mark
of honor. The master is generally seen provided with a hat in the old
pictures. "Rose garden" (the garden of the parable is quadrangular) was a
name applied apparently to alchemistic lodges. The philosophical work
itself is compared to the rose; the white rose is the white tincture, the
red rose is the red tincture (different degrees of completion that follow
the degrees of black). They are plucked in the "alchemistic paradise," but
one must set about it in obedience to nature. Basilius Valentinus in the
third of his twelve keys writes of the great magisterium: "So whoever
wishes to compare our incombustible sulphur of all the wise men, must
first take heed for himself, that he look for our sulphur in one who is
inwardly incombustible; which cannot occur unless the salt sea has
swallowed the corpse and completely cast it up again. Then raise it in its
degree, so that it surpass in brilliance all the stars of heaven, and
become in its nature as rich in blood, as the pelican when he wounds
himself in his breast, so that his young may be well nourished without
malady to his body, and can eat of his blood. [The pelican possesses under
its bill a great pouch in which he can preserve food, principally fish. If
he regurgitates the food out of his crop to feed his young he rests his
bill against his breast. That gave rise to the belief that it tore open
its breast in order to feed its young with its blood. From early times the
pelican is therefore used as a symbol of Christ, who shed his blood for
mankind. The alchemists represented the philo