On the other hand, there is nearly always a close connection made between Enoch (Idris) and Elijah (Ilyas), both of whom were taken up to heaven without passing through bodily death, (NA: It is said that they are to appear on earth again at the end of the cycle; they are the two “witnesses” mentioned in Revelation, Chap. 11.) and the Islamic tradition places both in the sphere of the sun. Similarly, according to the Rosicrucian tradition, Elias Artista, who presides over the Hermetic “Great Work,” (NA: He incarnates as it were the nature of the “philosopher’s fire,” and according to the Bible narrative, the Prophet Elijah was taken up to heaven on a “chariot of fire”; this is related to the “fiery vehicle” (taijasa in the Hindu doctrine) which in the human being corresponds to the subtle state.) has his dwelling place in the “SOLAR CITADEL,” which is moreover the abode of the “Immortals” (in the sense of the Chirajlvis of Hinduism, that is, beings “endowed with longevity,” whose life lasts throughout the whole cycle (NA: Let us recall also, from the alchemical point of view, the correspondence between the sun and gold, which Hinduism denotes as “mineral light”; the aurum potabxk (drinkable gold) of the Hermetists is moreover the same as the “draft of immortality,” which is also called “liquor of gold” in Taoism.)) and which represents one of the aspects of the “Center of the World.” All this is certainly worth reflecting on, and if one adds also the traditions, from almost all parts of the world, that liken symbolically the sun itself to the fruit of “the Tree of Life,” one will perhaps understand the special relationship between the solar influence and Hermetism, inasmuch as the essential aim and end of Hermetism, as of the “Lesser Mysteries” of antiquity, is the restoration of the human “primordial state.” Is this not the “SOLAR CITADEL” that, according to the Rosicrucian doctrine, is to “descend from Heaven to earth at the end of the cycle, in the form of the Heavenly Jerusalem,” realizing the “squaring of the circle” according to the perfect measure of the “golden reed”? Essays: Hermes