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ADDITIONAL NOTES. 435
NUMBER II. (p. 18).
It is the sign of Mercury, but its position in the twelfth
clavis of Basil Valentine indicates a further and more
arcane importance.
" The vivific gold, the vivific sulphur,
or the true fire of the philosophers, is to be sought in the
house of Mercury" says Eliphas Levi (" Mysteries of Magic,"
p. 202). The " sulphur, mercury, and salt of the philo-
sophers," says the same adept, " condensed and volatilized
by turns, compose the azoth of the philosophers." The
alchemical " balm of sulphur," according to the Baron
Tschoudy's " Catechism for the Grade of Adept, or Sublime
and Unknown apprentice Philosopher" (see "L'Etoile
Flamboyante "), is identical with the " radical moisture,"
which is also the mercury of the philosophers, the base of
every species in the three kingdoms of Nature, but more
particularly the seed and base of metals when it is pre-
pared philosophically by the extraction of what is superflu-
ous and the addition of what is wanting for the performance
of the Hermetic opus. On this point, see Pernetz, " Dic-
tionnaire Mytho-Hermetique."
NUMBER III. (p. 57).
This is a common and significant superstition. Perhaps
it originated in the Phoenix legend ; it is dear to mystical
writers, at any rate, and has prompted some curious and
abstruse reasoning.
The bee is especially a subject of folk-
lore, and is a symbol of the ungenerating and sexless spirit
of man, which yet presents itself to the mind under a male
aspect.