#world of illusion

The eyes symbolize duality, the left eye is solar- sensitive to the negative, the right eye is lunar- sensitive to the positive and affirmative, they cross the information to produce the correct mental image of space. 
They symbolize the experimentation of consciousness in a universe of contrasts and to find the truth by comparison of the opposite sides. 
The eyes react to the active light of the sun, producing in our mind the true light, the luminous vital energy, an invisible light that makes possible the intelligence and the understanding of reality.

For the ancient Egyptians the Eye is the meaning of the Sun, the source of life, it acts and perceives its light and color-vibrations and transmits it to our mind the intensity and strength of the fire. The eyes are the nerve-endings that sense the divine will, the intensity of the light, the strength of God that the Egyptians called Phi (divine power). The force that condenses the spirit into matter, giving it a place to the universe, the place of experimentation from consciousness and awareness. The eyes are the only nerves that come out to the surface of our body and so we can observe the function of life through them. The eyes are flourishing within spheres filled with a white crystalline liquid.

This image depicts the Philosopher’s Hand revealed. Alexander Roob would write of it, “This is the hand of the philosophers with their seven secret signs, to which the ancient sages were bound.” To the initial adept, it is closed as a fist and can only be properly opened to reveal its mysteries to the right individual and under the right circumstances.

The Crown(Thumb): 
From a Kabbalistic standpoint, the crown is symbolic of Kether, the source of all creation and the first Sephira on the Tree of Life. It also emits pure, radiant and absolute light. The powerful representation of saltpeter.

The Star (Index): The Universal Light which permeates the universe and reveals the truth of all heavenly and celestial wonders. The all penetrating representation of vitriol.

The Sun (Middle): Brilliantly shining, the sun is like the abstract mind, whose light extends past all borders and limitations of darkness, allowing us to extend past the conventional and examine the secrets and mysteries of our existence. The luminous representation of sal ammoniac.

The Lantern (Ring): The illumination provided by the concrete mind. Human knowledge and wisdom, guiding us always, provides us with the light and guidance to seek the greater truths. The gleaming representation of alum.

The Key (Pinky): The key which reveals the secrets of all the mysteries. The tool necessary to unlock the æther body, with the ability to access the transcendent reality. The lock-and-key representation of common salt.

The fish, representing Mercury and its bed of flames as sulfur begins the process through which each of the fingers bears a key to the completion of the great work.

Rebis

The Rebis may seem an awkward figure. Dom Pernety defines Rebis as: “The Matter of the Wise in the first operation of the Work. The mineral spirit rough like water, as the good Trévisan tells us, mixes itself with its bodies in the first brew in the process of dissolving. That is why it is called Rebis, because it is made of two things, male and female, solvent and solvable bodies, which basically is but one thing and one matter.”
Your normal consciousness is the matter, and is the male aspect, fixed in this physical reality. When directing your attention inwards, your consciousness feels more subtle, like water, in the beginning, and it compared to the female. Nevertheless it is still the same you, just two different aspects of your consciousness. When you meditate the everyday physical consciousness dissolves and becomes more fluid when attention shift towards the inner consciousness.
The Rebis is a clear androgyny figure, not always named as such. However the male-female aspects are always clearly visible.

This mandala has definite Rosicrucian connections in that it appeared in Theophilus Schweighart’s Speculum Sophicum Rhodo-Stauroticum of 1618, the TITLE page of which indicates that the book was in harmony with ‘the enlightened Fraternity of the Christian Rose-Cross’.

The mandala indicates the threefold nature of Alchemy.

On the summit of a hill stands a tent or tabernacle bearing upon its top the four lettered name of God. Within this tent an alchemist who is 'with God’ (cum Deo) works the Spiritual Alchemy through inner prayer, contemplation of the Divine, and aspiration. This is the higher ‘Work’ (Ergon).

Below, within the hill in two grottos ,the parergon or 'subsidiary work’ is undertaken.

On the left, Soul Alchemy is portrayed, while on the right is Physical Alchemy.

The work of Soul Alchemy is shown symbolically by the male figure wading through the waters of the unconsciousness in his Soul, bearing a pot (the vessel of his consciousness) and a spoon with which to fill this. One of the tasks of Soul Alchemy is to inwardly experience and bring into consciousness that which resides in the unconscious sphere within. This process involves a Soul purification through meditative exercises, symbolized by the bucket in which some clothes are being washed, and the rain which falls and washes clean. The unconscious element in the Soul is in a sense the prima materia of the work of Soul Alchemy.

On the right, in the domain of Physical Alchemy, the Alchemist is portrayed with his furnaces and vessels, working to grasp ’Nature through the Art’. He has achieved a degree of success and clasps the flask, in which the essence of his labours is contained, to his bosom. The four lettered name of God also makes its appearance in his realm, following the maxim 'as Above, so Below’. (T.S.C. is probably Theophilus Schweighardt Constantiensem.)

These lower realms are cut off within the body of the mountain from the higher Spiritual Alchemy, but they are linked by the winged Female Sophia figure supported upon a column stating 'This is Wisdom*. This figure represents the spiritual potentiality in the Soul. Flowing into her being are the energies of the Solar and Lunar Archetypes which give rise to the gestation of the Soul Child, the slowly developing spiritual perception of the Alchemist.

Thus there is united the outward striving of the triple Wale figures in the three realms of Alchemy with the threefold Female figure, which indicates the inner sensitivity and open receptivity also necessary for the Alchemist’s development.

If we study Plato and other philosophers of old, we may readily perceive that while the ʺirrational soul,ʺ by which Plato meant our astral body, or the more ethereal representation of ourselves, can have at best only a more or less prolonged continuity of existence beyond the grave; the divine spirit — wrongly termed soul, by the Church — is immortal by its very essence.
If the life‐principle is something apart from the astral spirit and in no way connected with it, why is it that the intensity of the clairvoyant powers depends so much on the bodily prostration of the subject? The deeper the trance, the less signs of life the body shows, the clearer become the spiritual perceptions, and the more powerful are the soulʹs visions. The soul, disburdened of the bodily senses, shows activity of power in a far greater degree of intensity than it can in a strong, healthy body.

-Isis Unveiled H. P. BLAVATSKY

“Everything in the Universe, throughout all its kingdoms, is conscious: i.e., endowed with a consciousness of its own kind and on its own plane of perception.”
― Helena Petrovna Blavatsky

ʺIn our dreams,ʺ says Paracelsus, ʺwe are like the plants, which have also the elementary and vital body, but possess not the spirit. In our sleep the astral body is free and can, by the elasticity of its nature, either hover round in proximity with its sleeping vehicle, or soar higher to hold converse with its starry parents, or even communicate with its brothers at great distances. Dreams of a prophetic character, prescience, and present wants, are the faculties of the astral spirit. To our elementary and grosser body, these gifts are not imparted, for at death it descends into the bosom of the earth and is reunited to the physical elements, while the several spirits return to the stars. The animals,ʺ he adds, ʺhave also their presentiments, for they too have an astral body.ʺ

Isis Unveiled 
BY H. P. BLAVATSKY

Both the magic mirror and the crystal ball are symbols little understood. Woe to that benighted mortal who accepts literally the stories circulated concerning them! He will discover—often at the cost of sanity and health—that sorcery and philosophy, while often confused, have nothing in common. The Persian Magi carried mirrors as an emblem of the material sphere which reflects Divinity from its every part. The crystal ball, long misused as a medium for the cultivation of psychical powers, is a threefold symbol: (1) it signifies the crystalline Universal Egg in whose transparent depths creation exists; (2) it is a proper figure of Deity previous to Its immersion in matter; (3) it signifies the ætheric sphere of the world in whose translucent essences is impressed and preserved the perfect image of all terrestrial activity.

— Manly P. Hall; The Secret Teachings of all Ages

In ancient Egypt dwelt the great Adepts and Masters who have never 
been surpassed, and who seldom have been equaled, during the 
centuries that have taken their processional flight since the days of the Great Hermes. In Egypt was located the Great Lodge of Lodges of the Mystics. At the doors of her Temples entered the Neophytes who 
afterward, as Hierophants, Adepts, and Masters, traveled to the four 
corners of the earth, carrying with them the precious knowledge which they were ready, anxious, and willing to pass on to those who were ready to receive the same. All students of the Occult recognize the debt that they owe to these venerable Masters of that ancient land. 

The Kybalion. 
Chapter I. 
THE HERMETIC PHILOSOPHY.