In a parallel between the old and new royal art, I cannot overlook the French masonic writer Oswald Wirth, who has worked in the same province. I agree with him in general; although much of his method of interpretation seems to me too arbitrary. I have already called attention to several passages from W. S. H. on the preparation of the subject [i.e., the uninitiated]. I will endeavor to outline the contents of the rest of the work according to the ideas of Wirth. Having given up himself, the Subjectum is overcome in the philosophic egg [preparation chamber, i.e., sch. K.] by sadness and suffering. His strength ebbs away, the decomposition begins; the subtle is separated from the coarse. [Smaragdine tablet.] That is the first phase of the air test. After descending to the center of the earth [Visita interiora terrae, etc.—Smaragdine tablet, 6, 8.] where the roots of all individuality meet, the spirit rises up again [Smaragdine tablet, 10.] released from the caput mortuum, which is blacked on the floor of the hermetic receptacle. The residuum is represented by the cast-off raiment of the novice. Laboriously now, he toils forward in the darkness; the heights draw him on; escaping hell he will attain to heaven. His ascent up the holy mountain is hindered by a violent storm; he is thrown into the depths by the tempest: a symbol of circulation in the closed vessel of the alchemists, which vessel corresponds to the protected lodge. During the circulation the volatile parts rise and fall again like rain, which is symbolized by the tears upon the walls. To be sure, it is not here that the neophyte is subjected to the water test, and if a confusion is possible on this point it comes from the fact that all the operations of the great work go on in one vessel, while the masonic initiation is completed in a suite of different rooms, so that the symbolic series here suffers disintegration. The circulating water, which soaks into the pores of the earthly parts of the subject, purifies it more and more, so that it goes from gray through a series of colors (peacock’s tail) to white. In this stage the material corresponds to the wise man who knows how to resist all seduction. Yet we are not to be satisfied with this negative virtue; the fire test (we should remember that the four tests by the elements were to be found in the parable also) is still to be gone through, the calcination, which burns everything combustible. After the calcination there is a perfectly purified salt [Symbol: Salt] of absolute transparence. So long as the novice has not attained this moral clearness, the light cannot be vouchsafed to him. In brief, in the first degree, the main thing is the comprehensive purification. The salt layers must be made crystal clear, that surround the inner sulphur [Symbol: Sulphur] like a crust and hinder it from its free radiation. Sulphur is to be regarded as a symbol of the expansive power, as individual initiative, as will.