In this work the encasing of one idea within another--from the very beginning a favourite device of the Romanticists--takes the form of everything circling round a central mystery, the mystery of the secret society; we penetrate ever farther and farther in, but as we do so, it seems to retreat from us. The Order of the Templars has its own particular mysteries, and we witness every detail of the initiation of the neophytes into these--in gloomy vaults, with all the paraphernalia of colossal skeletons, cryptic books, curtains, swords, palms, &c., &c. The meaning underlying it all is: "_Aus Blut und Dunkel quillt Erlösung_" (From blood and darkness issues redemption). But the order of Knights Templar is only a branch order; the great mother-order, "_das Thal_" (the Vale), is in possession, as we learn in the second part of the work, of all the higher mysteries and the higher power. But its inmost mystery, too, is only the purely negative idea of renunciation and sacrifice. Hidden voices proclaim "in a hollow, chanting tone"-- "Alles ist zum Seyn erkoren, Alles wird durch Tod geboren, Und kein Saatkorn geht verloren. "Wer durch Blut und Nacht geschwommen, Ist den Aengsten bald entnommen, Blutiger, sei uns willkommen!"[20] We gain some idea of the extent to which the mysteries are utilised in the elaboration of stage decoration and costumes from the fact that in the twelfth scene of the fifth act, which consists of sixty-four lines, only six are dialogue, the remainder being devoted to directions regarding "a great burial mound, covered with roses, with transparencies of an angel, a lion, a bull, and an eagle, disposed at the four corners"--the costumes to be worn by the dignitaries of the "Vale," of which some are to be cloth of gold, some silver, some sky blue, some blood red--and the incense, the harps, the bells, the crowns and crowns of thorns, the banners, and the "colossal statue of Isis," required in the scene.