“Again and again and again. A transmutation is required to effect the spiritualization of matter. Whenever living beings disappear, they leave behind a subtle essence, or ‘body’, which in esoteric Islam is called the jism mithali. Solve et coagula, dissolve and coalesce, in other words, ‘to make of the body a spirit and of the spirit a body.’ This is the basis of al-Kimia, nothing more simple can define the term. One and one do not make two, the One divides and multiplies, yet remains One. There is nothing lost by dying; spirit and matter constantly transmute in form and formlessness”