ABSTRACT
Wei Po-yang states that "when the brain is properly tended for the required length of time, one will certainly attain the miracle." 255 References to the brain are also found in Greek alchemy, an especially large role being played by the λίθος ¿γκίφαλος (brain-stone), which was equated with the λίθος ον λίθος (stone that is no stone).256 The latter is one of the terms Zosimos uses for the brain; he also calls it "not given and given by God," and the "Mithraic secret." 257 The treatise on the "Stone of Philosophy" says that "alabaster is whitest brain stone." 258 In the Table of Symbols in Penotus the brain is correlated with the moon, the mystery of baptism, and the "infernal gods." 259 The new moon signifies the albedo and the white stone; 2β0 baptism has its parallel in the children of the King of the Sea, who were imprisoned in the glass-house at the bottom of the sea and transformed; 2el the infernal gods can be correlated with the brain as the seat of consciousness and intelligence, for consciousness leads an "ungodly" existence, having fallen away from the divine totality.262
