yet closely examined. Nothing has yet been
said definitely about the later phases of the work and about its goal. I
am afraid that this section, although it is devoted chiefly to the goal of
the work, cannot elucidate it with anything like the clearness that would
be desirable. To be sure the final outcome of the work can be summed up in
the three words: Union with God. Yet we cannot possibly rest satisfied
with a statement that is for our psychological needs so vague; we must
endeavor to comprehend the intimate nature of the spiritual experiences
that we have on the journey into the unsearchable; although I must at the
outset point out that at every step by which the symbolism of the mystics
leads us towards regeneration, we run the risk of wandering away from
psychology, and that in the following we shall all too soon experience
these deviations. We shall have to transplant ourselves uncritically at
times, into the perceptual world of the hermetics, which is, of course, a
mere fiction, for in order to do it rightly we should have to have a
mystical development behind us [whatever this may be]; one would have to
be himself a "twice born." One thing can be accepted as true, that a
series of symbols that occur with striking agreement among all mystics of
all times and nations is related to a variety of experiences which
evidently are common to all mystics in different degrees of their
development, but are foreign to the non-mystics (or more exactly to all
men, even mystics, who have not attained the given level).

With this premise I will take up the question of the goal of alchemy
(mysticism). In this I follow in general the train of thought of
Hitchcock, without adhering closely to his exposition. (I cite H. A. =
Hitchcock, Remarks upon Alchemy.)

The alchemistic process is, as the hermetics themselves say, a cyclical
work, and the end resides to a certain degree in the beginning. Here lies
one of the greatest mysteries of the whole of alchemy, although the
meaning of the language is to be understood more or less as follows. If,
for example, it is said that whoever wishes to make gold must have gold,
we must suppose that the seeker of truth must _be_ true (H. A., p. 67);
that whoever desires to live in harmony with the conscience must be in
harmony with it, and that whoever will go the way to God, must already
have God in himself. Now when the conscience, wherein the sense of right
and justice has existence, becomes ac