gold [i.e., here the consummate man]
and throw it into mercury, such a mercury as is bottomless [infinite],
that is, whose center it can never find but by discovering its own." (H.
A., 283 ff.)

In reference to these and similar expressions of the alchemists, Hitchcock
rightly calls our attention to Plotinus, who writes, for example (Enn.,
VI, 9, 10): "We must comprehend God with our whole being, so that we no
longer have in us a single part that is not dependent upon God. Then we
may see him and ourselves as it beseems us to see, in radiant beams,
filled with spiritual light, or rather as pure light itself [notice this
fullness of light] without weight, imponderable, become God or rather
being God. Our life's flame is then kindled; but if we sink down into the
world of sense, it is as if extinguished.... Whoever has thus seen himself
will, then, when he looks, see himself as one who has become unified, or
rather he will be united to himself as such a one and feel himself as
such. Possibly one should not in this case speak of seeing. But as regards
the seen, if we can indeed distinguish the seeing and the seen, and not
rather have to describe both as one, which is, to be sure, a bold
statement, then the seeing really does not see in this condition, nor does
he differentiate two things, nor has he the idea of two things. He is, as
it were, another; he ceases to be himself, he belongs no longer to
himself; arriving there, he has ascended unto God and has become one with
him, as a center that coincides with another center; the two coinciding
things are here one, and only two when they are separated. In this sense
we speak of the soul's being another than God."

I recall also the passage in Amor Proximi where it is said that the earth
will again be placed in Solis punctum. The center of the sun [God] is to
be seen in the symbol [Symbol: Gold]. We now understand the mystical
difference between the hieroglyphs [Symbol: Gold] and [Symbol: Alum],
between gold and alum. In order to express in the mercury symbol [Symbol:
Mercury] the accomplished union (represented by +) of [Symbol: Gold] and
[Symbol: Silver], which takes place through the newly discovered central
point, the symbol [Symbol: Mercury] is also used.

I have mentioned the vedantic teachings, whose agreement with alchemy has
also been noticed by Hitchcock. It takes emphatically the point of view of
the "non-existence of a second." Multiplicity is appearance; the
dif