The Ancient Tradition is seen in works of art (e.g. in paintings of Poussin and Guercino and Rene' d'Anjou) as the river Alphaeos in beautiful Arcadia, where its course often remains underground or in deep gorges or ravines and from where in the days of the end it shall come forth according to prophecy.

Its name hints at its source, the Alpha and Omega who is the well-spring of this water of life - which also is called the Wisdom of the Just (Lk. 1:17). It is the antipode to classicism, to the heritage of Hellas and Rome which does not know the Name of the LORD. The prime source of the Wisdom of the Just is in the creation record of Genesis as shown in the main section of this treatise.

This wisdom was preserved through the ages - besides by Jewish alchemists - by the members of the pietist, or charitable societies, who followed James 1:27, "to visit the fatherless and the widows in their affliction, and to keep himself unspotted from the world". Now in order to visit, or more correctly, to oversee those afflicted with illness, they knew that they must have the knowledge of the mysteries, for because of the expenses and the horrors of the secular treatments (which has not changed much today as the devastations of orthodox medical cancer treatment show, see also Mk.5:26) they had decided to heal the sick themselves.

So they called upon heaven for this knowledge and searched and studied, and their calling and efforts were answered. For they bad kept themselves unspotted from the world by avoiding the snares of greed and fame of the wise and prudent, and they would receive the secrets of eternity.

Goethe, the German philosopher-poet, writes in his eighth book of "Dichtung Und Wahrheit", and also in his diary, how he was cured almost in an instant when he was close to death from advanced pulmonary consumption and from a painful and feverish abdominal infection (apparently an appendicitis) by a Dr. Metz, whom he refers to as "also one of the pious". This was over two hundred years ago.

At that time about twenty years old, Goethe and his friend, Johann Heinrich Merck, a pharmacist who founded the Merck pharmaceutical firm, then were invited to join the society of the pious. They played around with this idea, and Goethe relates some of the society's elementary teachings. Yet, at last they lacked the resolve to go on. Only much later did they realize the relevance of this matter and set out to search for it. But its source, their friends of the society, all were in their graves.

The FOUR WORLDS of the Ancient Wisdom also are seen in the facade - besides in its layout of Nave, Choir, Sanctuary, and Tabernacle - of the Gothic cathedral of France. There (above the crypt which shows demons and vices, symbolizing our Fifth World of the Illusions) we will see at the west front over the main portal the Messiah as the King of kings, which symbolizes His future rulership over the MATERIA TERTIA, the Fourth World of Perfection and Restoration - a pattern which is repeated in the transepts. The keyword here is Malkôoth or Mâlkooth, meaning Kingdom.

This the Fourth World of Perfection, of course, is symbolized by the earth, which shall be made perfect to become His kingdom.

In the next story, right above the portal, there is the rose window or head window. It shows the MATERIA SECUNDA as an orb in the Third Phase of Formation, its keyword being Y'sôwdh and meaning Foundation: "Mine hand also hath laid the foundation of the earth" (Is.48:13), and that was carried out in the Third Phase