There is a ritual procession, led by the Virgin carrying a small chest. Inside the chest is a vessel, that was laid inside a larger vessel full of holes, into which she pours the fluids that were prepared yesterday. This was boiled by the lamps of the Virgin’s maidens, and then poured onto the 6 corpses, turning them all to liquid. When all the liquid was done flowing and recollected in a different vessel (a still), the Virgin brought in a gold sphere and let this liquid run onto the sphere, making it very heavy. The sphere was removed from the room and after 15 minutes, the men were instructed to climb to the third level.
This room was filled with windows and mirrors and the golden sphere hung in the center of the room, collecting the light of the sun, “everywhere there were suns, but the sphere in the center shone even brighter, so that like the sun we could not bear to look at it for a moment.” The windows were then closed to allow the sphere to cool and the men were given breakfast, which means that the sun shining on the sphere was morning sun, and I would speculate that this sun, being the rebirth of the day, holds much more power than the one that sets in the evening, bringing the death of the day. After breakfast, the sphere was hoisted down onto the floor, and a sharp diamond was used to cut it open. Inside was a large, snow-white egg. The Virgin took it away and then the men were told to climb to the fourth level.
Here they “found a great copper vessel filled with yellow sand, warmed by a gentle fire, in which the egg was buried so as to come to full maturity.” The bird inside soon hatched, looking happy but bloody and unformed. Remember the little baby thing that becomes Voldemort in Goblet of FIre or the baby thing that Harry encounters at King’s Cross in Deathly Hallows? This new thing can go two ways, and in the Chymical Wedding, they go the good way and nurture the new bird, feeding it the blood of the beheaded people diluted with water. The bird grew quickly, turning black and wild, then white and tame, and finally, with its third and final meal, colored, beautiful and quite friendly. From the description, it sounds like it was turned into a peacock:
With the Peacock stage, the alchemist has entered into the inner experience of the astral world, which initially appears as ever shifting patterns of colour. This experience is often symbolised in alchemy by the appropriate image of the peacock’s tail with its splendid iridescence of colour. In terms of this series of five stages, the turning point is reached with the Peacock. Up until this point the alchemist has experienced aspects of his being which he was formerly unconscious of – the etheric forces and the astral body. Essentially these experiences have happened to him, although he had to make himself open to the experiences through entering into the initial Black Crow state, however, in order to progress he must begin to work upon his inner being. (from here)
After climbing to the fifth level, they give the bird a bath that looks like a milk bath, which the bird enjoyed, but during which causes the bird to lose all its feathers and become as smooth as a human, coloring the water blue. While the bird flew around the room, the water was boiled away until what was left in it turned into a blue stone, which was crushed and then painted onto the bird’s skin. Now the bird can join the Blue Man Group. It’s head was kept white. The Virgin leaves with the bird and they are told to climb to the sixth level.
Here there is an altar that is identical to the one in the King’s dining hall onto which the bird is set, becoming a 7th object. It drank from the crystal fountain and pecked at the white snake. The sphere rotated three times, each time the clock striking the hour (1, 2, then 3), and the bird lays its head on the book, and was beheaded by one of the men chosen by lot. It didn’t bleed until they cut open its breast. Christian describes its blood as a fountain of rubies. The dead bird mess is cleaned off the altar and the bird is burned to ashes (sound a bit phoenix-like?) along with a small tablet. The fire is lit from the taper on the altar. The ashes are purified several times over and then stored in a book made of cypress wood.
The Virgin then splits the group. A small number, including Christian are told to go one way and the rest to go another. She couches this action by making it seem as though the smaller group is less worthy for the work to be performed, which turns out to be far from true! They are led up a small stair to the seventh story and met with the Warder sitting around a furnace. The Virgin brings in the ashes and leaves to tend to the larger group. This group’s work was to “saturate the ashes with our previously prepared water until they became a thin paste . Then we set the material on the fire until it was well heated. While it was hot, we poured it out into two little forms or molds, and let it cool slightly.” They open the molds and see a little boy and girl, each four inches long, fleshlike, but with no life. They drop drops of the bird’s blood into these little images mouths and they began to grow (like those little sponge capsule toys of children that you drop into water and they expand). Christian exclaims, “Would that all painters could have been here, to be ashamed of their art in the face of these creations of Nature!” But are they really creations of Nature if they are chemically constructed?
The images are laid onto a table covered with white velvet and covered with white sheets. Christian believes them to be more beautiful than Venus. There then is a magic trick that helps the souls enter the bodies: The table is surrounded by torches, and the Virgin and musicians come in to prepare the bodies. 6 maidens come in each carrying a large trumpet wrapped in a green material like a wreath. A trumpet is set into each mouth, so that the wider part faces a hole in the ceiling. As soon as the wreath material is lit, the hole in the ceiling opens and a bright stream of fire shoots through the tube and into the body. This is repeated three times on each image. Remember those 7 flames Christian saw arrive at the tower? Presumably, these are the same flames. Pure, lit consciousness. The bodies are then laid on a bed to sleep.
The Virgin checks on the other group, who are convinced they are doing the better work, working with gold. “They also had a portion of the ashes, and were firmly convinced that the whole bird was provided for the sake of gold, and that thus the dead bodies would be brought back to life.
Cupid enters and wakes up the two sleepers, who are then dressed in outfits that look like they are made of soft crystal by the Virgin. This group led the newly born Royals downstairs to the ship and they sailed off with some maidens and Cupid.
The groups were brought back together for a nice dinner, then were given a tour of the tower by the Warder, who had many things to show them. They toured until they dropped and called it a night.
I would like to add here, that there are seven levels of Dante’s Purgatorio devoted to the levels of suffering and spiritual growth, between the Ante-Purgatory at the base of Mount Purgatory and the top, which is Earthly Paradise. If I had more time, it would be worth comparing each terrace of Purgatory to each level of these towers.