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If I now still abide by my original exposition, this happens because it appears to me that the symbolism emphasizes the going over of the one into the other more than the attainment of the sexual goal; and even in the cases where the unio mystica is described as a sexual union. We should not forget that the sexual gratification is to be regarded also as a kind of annihilation.

The fathers, saith Trelcatius, had not only respect to those five words, “For this is my body,” dum eucharistiam fieri dixerunt mystica precc, invocatione nominis divini, solemni benedictione, gratiarum actione. 2.

There is a feminine tenderness and sensuality in it, which modestly and unconsciously longs for a UNIO MYSTICA ET PHYSICA, as in the case of Madame de Guyon. In many cases it appears, curiously enough, as the disguise of a girl's or youth's puberty; here and there even as the hysteria of an old maid, also as her last ambition. The Church has frequently canonized the woman in such a case.

Being lost in a work of art appears to me essentially related both to introversion and to the unio mystica. I have already spoken of the creations of the myth forming imagination and its anagogic import. In alchemy, to which I wish now to return, the mythical and the individual images meet in the most vivid way, without destroying each other.

Andreoni, famous throughout Italy for his editions of the classics, was a man of liberal views and considerable learning, and in his private room were to be found many prohibited volumes, such as Beccaria's Crime and Punishment, Gravina's Hydra Mystica, Concini's History of Probabilism and the Amsterdam editions of the French philosophical works.

"Let me show you," said in his turn M. Bruno, "guides wisely marked out for the soul which escapes from itself, and will attempt to climb the eternal mountains," and he handed to Durtal the "Lucerna Mystica" of Lopez Ezquerra, the quartos of Scaramelli, the volumes of Schram, the "Christian Asceticism" of Ribet, the "Principles of Mystic Theology" of Father Seraphin.