Divine Chamber

To travel a particular pathway, go to the starting hall, via the Chamber of Indwelling and the Great Hall of Tiphareth, and there reverence the divine (symbolized by the altar s lamp) by the appropriate title within... 

Chambers, J. D., ed. The Divine Pymander and Other Writings of Hermes Trismegistus. 

In the 1 century a.d., Plutarch, then the high priest at the temple, left records on how the oracle worked. He described the descent of the priestess into a small chamber where she would breathe divine, sacred vapors and enter a trance. Then the Pythia would return to sit on a stool with a basin of water held in one hand and a sprig of olive in the other... 

Directions for building the alchemical laboratory, which is typically called Chamber of the Elixirs (danshi or danwu), are found in both the Reverted Elixir in Nine Cycles and the Flower of Langgan. According to the Reverted Elixir in Nine Cycles an adept retires to a mountain after he has received the method and has performed the purification practices. He builds the laboratory (here called Chamber of the Divine Stove, shenzao wu) and places the furnace lu) inside it, with an iron stand to hold the crucible. The adept should make sure that the Chamber does not touch the ground and is not built over an old well or a tomb ... 

Build the Chamber of the Divine Stove near an east-flowing stream. The Chamber should be forty feet long, twenty feet wide, and its foundation should be four feet from the ground. Eirst dig the earth for a few feet if you do not find an old well or a tomb, you can raise the foundation there. The Chamber should have three doors, facing south, east, and west. Place the stove in the center, with the mouth facing west. Arrange an iron stand inside the stove and set the crucible on it, so that it is nine inches from the... 

Flesh Child (Rouzi), Double Indigo (Lanlan) Be my friend, stay here and be my envoy I want to obtain the Divine Elixir of the Great One and ingest it Let me live a long life Do not leave my body Constantly reside within the Palace of the Purple Chamber, joined with the Dao (Laozi zhongjing, sec. 28)... 

On the Lead Elixir see above in the present chapter. On the transmission of the Reverted Elixir in Nine Cycles and on the Chamber of the Divine Stove see pp. 80-81 and 95-96, respectively. 

Discussing the lush interiors of The Visionary, Ligeia, and The Fall of the House of Usher, Ketterer, New Worlds for Old, p. 66, argues that Poe s rooms often serve as machines for transport to an arabesque or intermediate realm. Henri Justin, Poe dans le Champ de la Vertige Des Contes a Eureka, I Elaboration des Figures de I Espace (Paris Klincksieck, 1991), likewise follows the motif of the construction of the chamber in several of Poe s works, linking it to the maelstrom and the heart divine of Eureka. 

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