can tell? Most significant is the connection of the 7 steps of development with the infusion of the nature myth in the alchemistic theories of “rotations.” For the perfection of the Stone, rotations (i.e., cycles) are required by many authors, in which the materia (and so the soul) pass through the spheres of all the planets. They have to be subjected successively to the domination (the regimen) of all seven planets. This is related to the ideas of those neoplatonists and gnostics according to which the soul must, on its way (anodos) to its heavenly home, i.e., to its celestial goal, pass through all the planetary spheres and through the animal cycle. (Cf. Bousset, Hauptpr. d. G., pp. 11 and 321.) I observe, moreover, a thoroughly vivid representation of this very theme in the good old Mosheim, Ketzergesch., p. 89 ff. Also in the life of the world, if it is completely lived, man passes through, according to the ideas of the old mystery teachings, the domination of the seven planets. The anagogic meaning of rotation may be that of a collection of all available (seven in number) powers, in order finally to rise as a whole, to God. More important, or at any rate more easily comprehensible, appears to me the trichotomy necessarily resulting from the course of the mystical work, a triplicate division that results in the three main phases, black, white, and red. The black corresponds to introversion and to the first [mystic] death, the white to the “new earth,” to freedom or innocence, red to love, which completes the work. This general arrangement does not prevent the symbols from being often confused by the alchemistic authors. There are gradations between the main colors, all kinds of color play; in particular the so-called peacock’s tail appears, which comes before the stable white to indicate the characteristic gayness of color of visionary experiences, and which marks the stage of introversion.