In many of the modern theosophic introversion methods, borrowed from the Hindu yoga doctrines, we find the exhortation to attach no importance to the marvels appearing beside the real prize, indeed to regard them as a pernicious by-product. The Hindu doctrine calls them Siddhi. Walter Hitton speaks of them as “inferior subordinate matters.” From the description of them it appears that they are phantastic appearances, which partly flatter the wish for power, partly other wishes. [See Note E at the end of this volume.] The Siddhi are qualified to captivate weak minds with their jugglery. Erotic experiences are connected very easily with them because, going over into the regressive phase, they show their “titanic” countenances. I have with some daring, but not without right, just cited the Siddhi as the anagogic equivalent of autoerotism. The regressive phase, however, appears as soon as one indulges in the gratification of the Siddhi. It is not the Siddhi themselves that are the evil (I regard them indeed as anagogic), but the losing of oneself in them. They can be both divine and diabolic. That depends on one’s attitude towards them. In the result of introversion, the diabolic mysticism is opposed, as we saw, to the divine. The true mysticism is characterized by the extension of personality and the false by the shrinking of personality. We can also say, by an extension or shrinking of the sphere of interest that determines the socially valuable attitude. I say advisedly “sphere of interest,” for mysticism in the end will not merely fulfill the social law without love, but it labors for the bringing out of this very love. It is not satisfied with superficially tincturing the substance into gold (i.e., among other meanings, to get man to do good externally); but it would change the substance completely, make it gold through and through (i.e., to orient the entire impulse power of man for good, so that he desires this good with the warmth of love and therefore finds his good fortune in virtue). Only the good and not the good fortune is chosen as the leading star, as I must note in order to avoid a misconception about the hermetic procedure. Happiness arises only at a certain point, and seems to me like a fruit ripened in the meantime. The most subtle representatives of this doctrine among the alchemists are not so far, after all, from the Kantian ethics. Alchemistic ethics presupposes that there is an education, an ennobling of the will. The person that wills can learn to encompass infinitely much in his ego. [Cf. Furtmüller (Psychoanalyse und Ethik, p. 15): “The individual can ... make the commands of others his own.” He quotes Goethe (Die Geheimnisse): From the law which binds all being The man is freed who masters himself.