The Hermetic Art.
Any one that makes a thorough study of the alchemistic literature must be
struck with the religious seriousness that prevails in the writings of the
more important authors. Every “master” who enjoyed the highest honor among
his fellows in the hermetic art has a certain lofty manner that keeps
aloof from the detailed description of chemical laboratory work, although
they do not depart from the alchemistic technical language. They obviously
have a leaning toward some themes that are far more important than the
production of a chemical preparation can be, even if this is a tincture
with which they can tinge lead into gold. Looking forth to higher nobler
things, these authors, whose homely language frequently touches our
feelings deeply, make the reader notice that they have nothing in common
with the sloppy cooks who boil their pots in chemical kitchens, and that
the gold they write about is not the gold of the multitude; not the venal
gold that they can exchange for money. Their language seems to sound as if
they said, “Our gold is not of this world.” Indeed they use expressions
that can with absolute clearness be shown to have this sense. Authors of
this type did not weary of enjoining on the novices of the art, that
belief, scripture and righteousness were the most important requisites for
the alchemistic process. [With the sloppers it was indeed a prime
question, how many and what kinds of stoves, retorts, kettles, crucibles,
ores, fires, etc., in short, what necessary implements they needed, for
the great work.]
He whose eyes are open needs no special hints to see, in reading, that the
so-called alchemistic prescriptions did not center upon a chemical
process. A faint notion of the circumstance that even in their beginnings,
alchemistic theories were blended with cosmogonic and religious ideas,
must make it quite evident that, for example, in the famous Smaragdine
Tablet of Hermes [Its real author is unknown.] a noble pillar of alchemy,
something more must be contained than a mere chemical recipe. The language
of the Smaragdine tablet is notoriously the most obscure that the hermetic
literature has produced; in it there are no clear recommendations to
belief or righteousness; and yet I think that an unprejudiced reader, who
was not looking specially for a chemical prescription, would perceive at
least a feeling for something of philosophy or theology.
[1.] Verum, sine mendacio, certum et [verissimum]: [2.] Quod est inferius
est sicut quod est superius, et quod est superius est sicut quod est
inferius, ad perpetranda [also: penetranda, praeparanda] miracula rei
unius. [3.] Et sicut res omnes fuerunt ab uno, meditatione unius: sic
omnes res natae fuerunt ab hac una re, adaptatione [adoptione.]. [4.]
Pater ejus est Sol, mater ejus est Luna. [5.] Portavit illud ventus in
ventre suo. [6.] Nutrix ejus terra est. [7.] Pater omnis Telesmi totius
mundi est hic. [8.] Virtus ejus integra est, si versa fuerit in terram.
[9.] Separabis terram ab igne, subtile ab spisso, suaviter, magno cum
ingenio. [10.] Ascendit a terra in coelum, iterumque descendit in terram,
et recipit vim superiorum et inferiorum. [11.] Sic habebis Gloriam totius
mundi. Ideo fugiet a te omnis obscuritas. Haec est totius fortitudinis
fortitudo fortis, quia vincet omnem rem subtilem, omnemque solidam
[solidum] penetrabit. [12.] Sic mundus creatus est. [13.] Hinc erunt
adaptationes mirabiles, quarum modus est hic. [14.] Itaque vocatus sum
Hermes Trismegistus, habens tres partes philosophiae totius mundi. [15.]
Completum est quod dixi de operatione Solis.
Translation: [1.] It is true, without lies and quite certain. [2.] What is
lower is just like what is higher, and what is higher is just like what is
lower, for the accomplishment of the miracle of a thing. [3.] And just as
all things come from one and by mediation of one, thus all things have
been derived from this one thing by adoption. [4.] The father of it is the
sun, the mother is the moon. [5.] The wind has carried it in his belly.
[6.] The earth has nourished it. [7.] It is the father [cause] of all
completion of the whole world. [8.] His power is undiminished, if it has
been turned towards the earth. [9.] You will separate the earth from fire,
the fine from the coarse, gently and with great skill. [10.] It ascends
from the earth to the sky, again descends to the earth, and receives the
powers of what is higher and what is lower. [11.] Thus you will have the
glory of the whole world, and all darkness will depart from you. It is the
strength of all strength, because it will conquer all the fine and
penetrate all the solid. [12.] Thus the world was created. [13.] From this
will be wonderful applications of which it is the pattern. [14.] And so I
have been called Hermes, thrice greatest, possessing three parts of the
knowledge of the whole world. [15.] Finished is what I have said about the
work of the sun.
Sun and gold are identical in the hieroglyphic mode of expression. Whoever
seeks only the chemical must therefore read: The work of gold, the
production of gold; and that is what thousands and millions have read. The
mere word gold was enough to make countless souls blind to everything
besides the gold recipe that might be found in the Smaragdine tablet. But
surely there were alchemistic masters who did not let themselves be
blinded by the word gold and sympathetically carried out still further the
language of the Smaragdine tablet. They were the previously mentioned
lofty-minded men. The covetous crowd of sloppers, however, adhered to the
gold of the Smaragdine tablet and other writings and had no appreciation
of anything else. For a long time alchemy meant no more for modern
historians.
The fact that modern chemical science is sprung from the hermetic
works,—as the only branch at present clearly visible and comprehensible of
this misty tree of knowledge,—has had for result that in looking back we
have received a false impression. Chemical specialists have made
researches in the hermetic art and have been caught just as completely in
the tangle of its hieroglyphics as were the blind seekers of gold before
them. The hermetic art, or alchemy in the wider sense, is not exclusively
limited to gold making or even to primitive chemistry. It should, however,
not be surprising to us who are acquainted with the philosophical
presuppositions of alchemy, that in addition to the chemical and
mechanical side of alchemy a philosophical and religious side also
received consideration and care. I think, however, that such historical
knowledge was not at all necessary to enable us to gather their pious
views from the religious language of many masters of the hermetic art.
However, this naïve childish logic was a closed book to the chemists who
made historical researches. They were hindered by their special knowledge.
It is far from my purpose to desire in the least to minimize the services
that a Chevreul or a Kopp has performed for the history of chemistry; what
I should like to draw attention to is merely that the honored fathers of
the history of chemistry saw only the lower—“inferius”—and not the
higher—“superius”—phase of alchemy, for example, in the Smaragdine tablet;
and that they used it as the type of universal judgment in such a way that
it needed a special faculty for discovery to reopen a fountain that had
been choked up.
I now realize that the poets have been more fortunate than the scientists.
Thus Wieland, who, for example, makes Theophron say in the Musarion (Book
II):
The beautiful alone
Can be the object of our love.
The greatest art is only to separate it from its tissue ...
For it [the soul] nothing mortal suffices,
Yea, the pleasure of the gods cannot diminish a thirst
That only the fountain quenches. So my friends
That which other mortals lures like a fly on the hook
To sweet destruction
Because of a lack of higher discriminative art
Becomes for the truly wise
A Pegasus to supramundane travel.
But the poets usually speak only in figures. I will therefore rest
satisfied with this one example.
The service of having rediscovered the intrinsic value of alchemy over and
above its chemical and physical phase, is to be ascribed probably to the
American, Ethan Allen Hitchcock, who published his views on the alchemists
in the book, “Remarks upon Alchemy and the Alchemists,” that appeared in
Boston in 1857, and to the Frenchman, N. Landur, a writer on the
scientific periodical “L’Institut,” who wrote in 1868 in similar vein [in
the organ “L’Institut,” 1st Section, Vol. XXXVI, pp. 273 ff.], though I do
not know whether he wrote with knowledge of the American work. Landur’s
observations are reported by Kopp (Alch., II, p. 192), but he does not
rightly value their worth. It need not be a reproach to him. He undertook
as a chemical specialist a work that would have required quite as much a
psychologist, a philosopher or a theologian.
The discoveries made by the acute Hitchcock are so important for our
analysis, that a complete exposition of them cannot be dispensed with. I
should like better to refer to Hitchcock’s book if it were not practically
inaccessible.
We have heard that the greatest stumbling block for the uninitiated into
the hermetic art lay in the determination of the true subject, the prima
materia. The authors mentioned it by a hundred names; and the gold seeking
toilers were therefore misled in a hundred ways. Hitchcock with a single
word furnishes us the key to the understanding of the hermetic masters,
when he says: The subject is man. We can also avail ourselves of a play on
words and say the subject or substance is the subject.
The uninitiated read with amazement in many alchemists that “our
subjectum,” that is, the material to be worked upon, is also identical
with the vessel, the still, the philosopher’s egg, etc. That becomes
intelligible now. Hitchcock writes (H. A., p. 117) very pertinently: “The
work of the alchemists was one of contemplation and not a work of the
hands. Their alembic, furnace, cucurbit, retort, philosophical egg, etc.,
etc., in which the work of fermentation, distillation, extraction of
essences and spirits and the preparation of salts is said to have taken
place was Man,—yourself, friendly reader,—and if you will take yourself
into your own study and be candid and honest, acknowledging no other guide
or authority but Truth, you may easily discover something of hermetic
philosophy; and if at the beginning there should be ‘fear and trembling’
the end may be a more than compensating peace.”
The alchemist Alipili (H. A., p. 34) writes: “The highest wisdom consists
in this, for man to know himself, because in him God has placed his
eternal Word.... Therefore let the high inquirers and searchers into the
deep mysteries of nature learn first to know what they have in themselves,
and by the divine power within them let them first heal themselves and
transmute their own souls, ... if that which thou seekest thou findest not
within thee, thou wilt never find it without thee. If thou knowest not the
excellency of thine house, why dost thou seek and search after the
excellency of other things? The universal Orb of the world contains not so
great mysteries and excellences as does a little man formed by God in his
own image. And he who desires the primacy amongst the students of nature,
will nowhere find a greater or better field of study than himself.
Therefore will I here follow the example of the Egyptians and ... from
certain true experience proclaim, O Man, know thyself; in thee is hid the
treasure of treasures.”
A seminalist has concluded from this that the prima materia is semen, a
stercoralist, that it is dung.
George Ripley describes the subject of the philosopher’s stone as follows:
“For as of one mass was made the thing,
Right must it so in our praxis be,
All our secrets of one image must spring;
In philosophers’ books therefore who wishes may see,
Our stone is called the less-world, one and three.”
The stone is therefore the world in little, the microcosm, man; one, a
unity, three, [Symbol: Mercury] mercury, [Symbol: Sulphur] sulphur,
[Symbol: Salt] salt, or spirit, soul, body. Dichotomy also appears,
mercury and sulphur, which can then generally be rendered soul and body.
One author says, “We must choose such minerals as consist of a living
mercury and a living sulphur; work it gently, not with haste and hurry.”
[Cf. Tabula Smaragdina 9, “suaviter” ...]
Hitchcock (H. A., p. 42): “The ‘one’ thing of the alchemists is above all
man, according to his nature [as a nature] essentially and substantially
one. But if the authors refer to man phenomenally they speak of him under
different names, indicating different states as he is before or after
‘purification’ or they refer to his body, his soul or his spirit under
different names. Sometimes they speak of the whole man as mercury, ... and
then by the same word perhaps they speak of something special, as our
mercury which has besides, a multitude of other names ... although men are
of diverse dispositions and temperaments, some being angelic and others
satanic, yet the alchemists maintain with St. Paul that ‘all the nations
of men are of one blood,’ that is, of one nature. And it is that in man by
which he is of one nature which it is the special object of alchemy to
bring into life and activity; that by whose means, if it could universally
prevail, mankind would be constituted into a brotherhood.”
The alchemist says that a great difficulty at the outset of the work is
the finding or making of their necessarily indispensable mercury, which
they also call green lion, mercurius animatus, the serpent, the dragon,
acid water, vinegar, etc.
What is this mysterious mercury, susceptible to evolution, lying in
mankind, common to all, but differently worked out? Hitchcock answers,
conscience. Conscience is not equally “pure” with all men, and not equally
developed; the difficulty of discovering it, of which the alchemists tell,
is the difficulty of arousing it in the heart of man for the heart’s
improvement and elevation. The starting point in the education of man is
indeed to awaken in his heart an enduring, permanent sense of the
absolutely right, and the consistent purpose of adhering to this sense. It
is above all one of the hardest things in the world “to take a man in what
is called his natural state, St. Paul’s natural man, after he has been for
years in the indulgence of all his passions, having a view to the world,
to honors, pleasures, wealth, and make him sensible of the mere abstract
claims of right, and willing to relinquish one single passion in deference
to it.” Surely that is the one great task of the educator; if it be
accomplished, the work of improvement is easy and can properly be called
mere child’s play, as the hermetics like to call the later phases of their
work. (H. A., pp. 45 ff.)
No one is so suspicious and so sensitive as those whose conscience is not
sensitive enough. Such people who wander in error themselves, are like
porcupines: it is very difficult to approach them. The alchemists have
suitable names for them as arsenic, vipers, etc., and yet they seek in all
these substances, and in antimony, lead, and many other materials, for a
true mercury that has just as many names as there are substances in which
it is found; oil, vinegar, honey, wormwood, etc. Under all its names
mercury is still, however, a single immutable thing. It was also called an
incombustible sulphur for whoever has his conscience once rightly
awakened, has in his heart an endlessly burning flame that eats up
everything that is contrary to his nature. This fire that can burn like
“poison” is a powerful medicine, the only right one for a (morally) sick
soul.
Conscience in the crude state is generally called by the alchemists
“common quicksilver” in contrast to “our quicksilver.” To replace the
first by the second and, according to the demands of nature, not forcibly,
is the one great aim that the hermetics follow. This first goal is a
preparation for a further work. Whither this leads we can represent in one
word—“God”—and even here we may be struck with the “circular” character of
the whole hermetic work, since the heavenly mercury that is necessary to
the preliminary work, to the purification, is yet itself a gift of God;
the beginning depends on the end and presupposes it. The symbol of the
prima materia is not without purpose a snake that has its tail in its
mouth. I cannot, in anticipation, enter into the problem that arises in
this connection; only let it be understood in a word that the end can soar
beyond the beginning as an ideal.
What is to be done with the messenger of heaven, mercury, or conscience,
when it has been discovered? Several alchemists give the instruction to
sow the gold in mercury as in the earth, “philosophic gold” that is also
called Venus-love. Often the New Testament proves the best commentary on
the hermetic writings. In Corinthians III, 9, ff., we read: “Ye are God’s
husbandry, ye are God’s building. According to the grace of God which is
given unto me as a wise master builder, I have laid the foundation and
another buildeth thereupon. For other foundation can no man lay than that
is laid, which is Jesus Christ. Now if any man build upon this foundation
gold, silver, precious stones, hay, stubble.... Every man’s work shall be
made manifest ... because it shall be revealed by fire; and the fire shall
try every man’s work of what sort it is.” And Galatians VI, 7 ff.: “For
whatsoever a man soweth, that shall he also reap. For he that soweth to
his flesh shall of the flesh reap corruption; but he that soweth to the
Spirit shall of the Spirit reap life everlasting. And let him not be weary
in well doing; for in due season we shall reap if we faint not.” The
spirit to which it is sowed there is [Symbol: Mercury], mercury, and the
gold that will come out is to be proved in the fire.
The alchemists speak of men very often as of metals. Before I cite from
the work of Johann Isaak Hollandus on lead, I call to mind that lead,
[Symbol: Saturn], bears the name of Saturn. The writing of Hollandus could
quite as well be called a treatise on mankind as on lead. To understand
this better, be it added that man in a state of humility or resignation
must specially be associated with lead, the soft, dark metal.
The publisher of the English translation of J. I. Hollandus, which is
dated 1670, addresses the reader as follows: “Kind reader, the
philosophers have written much about their lead, which as Basilus has
taught, is prepared from antimony; and I am under the impression that this
saturnine work of the present philosopher, Mr. Johann Isaak Hollandus, is
not to be understood of common lead ... but of the lead of the
philosophers.”
And in Hollandus himself we read: “In the name of God, Amen.—My child,
know that the stone called the Philosopher’s Stone comes from Saturn. And
know my child as a truth that in the whole vegetable work [vegetable on
account of the symbolism of the sowing and growing] there is no higher or
greater secret than in Saturn. [Cf. the previously cited passage from
Alipili.] For we find, ourselves, in [common] gold not the perfection that
is to be found in Saturn, for inwardly he is good gold. In this all
philosophers agree; and it is necessary only that you reject everything
that is superfluous, then that you turn the within outward, which is the
red; then it will be good gold. [H. A., p. 74, notes that Hollandus
himself means the same as Isaiah L, 16. ‘Wash you, make you clean; put
away the evil of your doings from before mine eyes,’ etc.] Gold cannot be
made so easily of anything as of Saturn, for Saturn is easily dissolved
and congealed, and its mercury may be more easily extracted from it.”
[That means therefore that the conscience easily develops after the
destruction of superfluities or obstacles in the plastic lead man.] “And
this mercury extracted from Saturn is purified and sublimated, as mercury
is usually sublimed. I tell thee, my child, that the same mercury is as
good as the mercury extracted from gold in all operations.” [Herein lies,
according to H. A., an allusion to the fact that all men are essentially
of one nature, inasmuch as the image of God dwells in them all.]
“All these strange parables, in which the philosophers have spoken of a
stone, a moon, a stove, a vessel, all of that is Saturn [i.e., all of that
is spoken of mankind] for you may add nothing foreign, outside of what
springs from himself. There is none so poor in this world that he cannot
operate and promote this work. For Luna may be easily made of Saturn in a
short time [here Luna, silver, stands for the affections purified]; and in
a little time longer Sol may be made from it. By Sol here I understand the
intellect, which becomes clarified in proportion as the affections become
purified.... In Saturn is a perfect mercury; in it are all the colors of
the world, [that is, the whole universe in some sense lies in the nature
of man, whence have proceeded all religions, all philosophies, all
histories, all fables, all poesy, all arts and sciences.]” (P. 77.)
Artephius [Hapso]: “Without the antimonial vinegar [conscience] no metal
[man] can be whitened [inwardly pure].... This water is the only apt and
natural medium, clear as fine silver, by which we ought to receive the
tinctures of Sol and Luna [briefly, if also inexactly, to be paraphrased
by soul and body], so that they may be congealed and changed into a white
and living earth.” This water desires the complete bodies in order that
after their dissolution it may be congealed, fixed and coagulated into a
white earth. [The first step is purification, releasing, that is,
otherwise also conceived as calcination, etc.; it takes place through
conscience, under whose influence the hard man is made tender and brought
to fluidity.]
“But their [sc. the alchemists] solution is also their coagulation; both
consist in one operation, for the one is dissolved and the other
congealed. Nor is there any other water which can dissolve the bodies but
that which abideth with them. Gold and silver [Sol and Luna as before] are
to be exalted in our water, ... which water is called the middle of the
soul and without which nothing can be done in our art. It is a vegetable,
mineral, and animal fire, which conserves the fixed spirits of Sol and
Luna, but destroys and conquers their bodies; for it annihilates,
overturns and changes bodies and metallic forms, making them to be no
bodies, but a fixed spirit.”
“The argentum vivum [living silver] is ... the substance of Sol and Luna,
or silver and gold, changed from baseness to nobility.
“It is a living water that comes to moisten the earth that it may spring
forth and in due season bring forth much fruit.... This aqua vitæ or water
of life, whitens the body and changes it into a white color....
“How precious and how great a thing is this water. For without it the work
could never be done or perfected; it is also called vas naturae, the
belly, the womb, receptacle of the tincture, the earth, the nurse. It is
the royal fountain, in which the king and queen [[Symbol: Sun] and
[Symbol: Moon]] bathe themselves; and the mother, which must be put into
and sealed up within the belly of her infant, and that is Sol himself, who
proceeded from her, and whom she brought forth; and therefore they have
loved one another as mother and son, and are conjoined together because
they sprang from one root and are of the same substance and nature. And
because this water is the water of the vegetable life, it causes the dead
body to vegetate, increase and spring forth, and to rise from death to
life, by being dissolved first and then sublimed. And in doing this the
body is converted into a spirit and the spirit afterwards into a body....
“Our stone consists of a body, a soul, and a spirit.
“It appears then that this composition is not a work of the hands but a
change of natures, because nature dissolves and joins itself, sublimes and
lifts itself up, and grows white being separated from the feces [these
feces are naturally the same that Hollandus notes as the
‘superfluities’].... Our brass or latten then is made to ascend by the
degrees of fire, but of its own accord freely and without violence. But
when it ascends on high it is born in the air or spirit and is changed
into a spirit, and becomes a life with life. And by such an operation the
body becomes of a subtile nature and the spirit is incorporated with the
body, and made one with it, and by such a sublimation, conjunction and
raising up, the whole, body and spirit, is made white.” (H. A., p. 87.)
For elucidation some passages from the Bible may be useful. Colossians II,
11: “In whom also ye are circumcised with the circumcision made without
hands, in putting off the body of the sins of the flesh by the
circumcision of Christ.” Psalm LI, 7: “Wash me and I shall be whiter than
snow.” I Corinthians VI, 11: “But ye are washed, but ye are sanctified,
but ye are justified in the name of the Lord Jesus.” Romans VIII, 13: “For
if ye live after the flesh, ye shall die; but if ye through the Spirit do
mortify the deeds of the body, ye shall live.” John IV, 14: “But whosoever
drinketh of the water that I shall give him, shall never thirst; but the
water that I shall give him shall be in him a well of water springing up
into everlasting life.” [In IV, 10, living water is mentioned.] John XII,
24 ff.: “... Except a corn of wheat fall into the ground and die
[Putrefactio] it abideth alone; but if it die it bringeth forth much
fruit. He that loveth his life shall lose it and he that hateth his life
in the world shall keep it unto life eternal.”
Romans VI, 5 ff.: “For if we have been planted together in the likeness of
his death, we shall be also in the likeness of his resurrection. Knowing
this, that our old man is crucified with him [I must mention here that the
hieroglyph for vinegar is [Symbol: Vinegar]] that the body of sin might be
destroyed....”
I Corinthians XV, 42 ff.: “It is sown in corruption, it is raised in
incorruption. It is sown in dishonor, it is raised in glory.... It is sown
a natural body, it is raised a spiritual body.... The first Adam was made
a living soul, the last Adam was made a quickening spirit.... We shall all
be changed.... For this corruptible must put on incorruption, and this
mortal must put on immortality.”
I Corinthians XV, 40 ff.: “There are celestial bodies and bodies
terrestrial.... There is one glory of the sun and another glory of the
moon.”
Ephesians II, 14 ff.: “For he is our peace, who hath made both one, and
hath broken down the middle wall of partition between us, having abolished
in his flesh the enmity, even the law of commandments contained in
ordinances; for to make in himself of twain one new man, so making peace,
and that he might reconcile both unto God in one body by the cross, having
slain the enmity thereby.”
If we note the two contraries that are to be united according to the
procedure of the hermetic philosophers with [Symbol: Sun] and [Symbol:
Moon] [sun and moon, gold and silver, etc.] and represent them united with
the cross [Symbol: +] we get [Symbol: Mercury with a sun]; i.e., [Symbol:
Mercury], the symbol of mercury. This ideogram conceals the concept,
Easter. All these ideas, as we know, did not originate with Christianity.
II Corinthians V, 1: “For we know that if our earthly house of this
tabernacle were dissolved, we have a building of God, an house not made
with hands, eternal in the heavens.”
John VII, 38: “He that believeth on me ... out of his belly shall flow
rivers of living water.”
I mention right here that the hermetic philosophers do not pursue
speculative theology, but that, as is clearly evident from their writings,
they made the content of the religious doctrine a part of their life. That
was their work, a work of mysticism. Everything that the reader is
inclined to conceive in the passages above, as probably belonging merely
to the other life, they as Mystics, sought to represent to themselves on
earth, though without prejudice to the hope of a life beyond. I presume
that they therefore speak of two stones, a celestial and a terrestrial.
The celestial stone is the eternal blessedness and, as far as the
Christian world of ideas is considered, is Christ, who has aided mankind
to attain it. The terrestrial stone is the mystical Christ whom each may
cause to be crucified and resurrected in himself, whereby he attains a
kingdom of heaven on earth with those peculiar qualities that have been
allegorically attributed to the philosopher’s stone. Therefore the
terrestrial stone is called a reflection of the celestial and so it is
said that from lead, etc., the stone may be easily produced and “in a
short time,” i.e., not only after death.
At any rate in primitive symbolism there seems to be a religious idea at
the bottom of the recommendation to use the sputum lunæ (moon spittle) or
sperm astrale (star semen), star mucus, in short of an efflux from the
world of light above us, as first material for the work of our
illumination. [In many alchemistic recipes such things are recommended.
Misunderstanding led to a so-called shooting star substance being eagerly
hunted for. What was found and thought to be star mucus was a gelatinous
plant.] So it is in this passage from John IX, 5, ff.: “As long as I am in
the world I am the light of the world. When he [Jesus] had thus spoken, he
spat on the ground and made clay of the spittle and anointed the eyes of
the blind man with the clay, and said unto him, Go, wash in the pool of
Siloam [which is by interpretation: Sent]. He went his way, therefore,
washed, and came seeing.” The transference of a virtue by the receiving of
a secretion is a quite common primitive idea.
As Michael Maier (Symbola Aureae Mensae Lib. XI) informs us, Melchior
Cibinensis, a Hungarian priest, expressed the secrets of the forbidden art
in the holy form of the Mass. For as birth, life, exaltation, suffering in
fire and then death were, as it were, ascribed to the Philosopher’s Stone
in black and gloomy colors, and finally resurrection and life in red and
other beautiful colors, so he compared his preparation with the work of
the salvation of man (and the “terrestrial” stone with the “celestial”
stone), namely, with the birth, life, suffering, death and resurrection of
Christ. (Höhler, Herm. Phil., p. 156.) The making of the Philosopher’s
Stone is, so to speak, the Imitation of Christ.
Hitchcock (H. A., p. 143) believes that Irenaeus Philaletha has clearly
alluded in a passage of his writings to the two mental processes, analysis
and synthesis, which lead to the same end. “To seek the unity through Sol,
I take it, is to employ the intellect upon the Idea of Unity, by analysis
that terminates in the parts; whereas to study upon Mercury, here used for
nature at large, is to work synthetically, and by combining the parts,
reach an idea of the unity. The two lead to the same thing, beginning as
it were from opposite extremes; for the analysis of any one thing,
completely made, must terminate in the parts, while the parts, upon a
synthetical construction, must reproduce the unity. One of the two ways
indicated by Irenaeus is spoken of as a herculean labor, which I suppose
to be the second, the reconstruction of a unity by a recombination of the
parts, which in respect to nature is undoubtedly a herculean undertaking.
The more hopeful method is by meditation, etc.”
Some of the writers tell us to put “one of the bodies into the alembic,”
that is to say, take the soul into the thought or study and apply the fire
(of intellect) to it, until it “goes over” into spirit. Then, “putting
this by for use,” put in “the other body,” which is to be subjected to a
similar trial until it “goes over” also; after which the two may be
united, being found essentially or substantially the same.
The two methods of which Irenaeus speaks are also called in alchemy (with
reference to chemical procedures) the wet and the dry ways. The wet way is
that which leads to unity through mental elaboration. The philosophy of
the Indian didactic poetry Bhagavad-Gita also knows the two ways and calls
them Samkhya and Yoga.
“Thinking (Samkhya) and devotion (Yoga) separate only fools, but
not the wise.
Whoever consecrates himself only to the One, gets both fruits.
Through thinking and through devotion the same point is reached,
Thinking and devotion are only One, who knows that, knows
rightly.”
Bh-G. V. 4ff.
“Samkhya” and “Yoga” have later been elaborated into whole philosophical
systems. Originally, however, they are merely “different methods of
arriving at the same end, namely the attainment of the Atman [all spirit]
which on the one hand is spread out as the whole infinite universe and on
the other is to be completely and wholly found in the inner life. In the
first sense Atman can be gained by meditation on the multiplex phenomena
of the universe and their essential unity, and this meditation is called
Samkhya [from sam + khya, reflection, meditation]; on the other hand,
Atman is attainable by retirement from the outer world and concentration
upon one’s own inner world and this concentration is called Yoga.”
(Deussen, Allg. Gesch. d. Phil., I, 3, p. 15.)
For the practice of alchemy a moral behavior is required, which is hardly
necessary as a precondition of merely chemical work. The disciple of the
art is to free his character, according to the directions of the masters
from all bad habits, especially to abjure pride, is diligently to devote
himself to prayer, perform works of love, etc.; no one is to direct his
senses to this study if he has not previously purified his heart,
renounced the love of worldly things, and surrendered himself completely
to God. (Höhler, Herm. Phil., pp. 62 ff.)
The sloppers, who strive to make gold in a chemical laboratory often waste
in it their entire estate. The adepts, however, assure us that even a poor
man can obtain the stone; many, indeed, say the poor have a better materia
than the rich. Rom. II, 11: “For there is no respect of persons with God.”
Matth. XIX, 24: “It is easier for a camel to go through the eye of a
needle than for a rich man to enter into the kingdom of God.” The
alchemist Khunrath says somewhere, the cost of making gold amounts to
thirty dollars; we understand this when we remember that Jesus was sold
for thirty pence.
Ruland (Lex., p. 26) defines alchemy very finely: [In reference to Tab.
Smar., 9] “Alchemy is the separation of the impure from a purer
substance.” This is quite as true of the chemical as of the spiritual
alchemy.
Why the hermetic philosophers write not literally but in figures may be
accounted for in several ways. We should first of all remember that
because of their free doctrine, which was indeed not at variance with true
Christianity but with the narrow-minded church, they had to fear the
persecution of the latter, and that for this reason they veiled their
teachings. Hitchcock notices also a further point. The alchemists often
declare that the knowledge of their secret is dangerous (for the
generality of people). It appears that they did not deem that the time was
ripe for a religion that was based more on ideal requirements, on moral
freedom, than on fear of hell fire, expectation of rewards and on
externally visible marks and pledges. Besides we shall see later that a
really clear language is in the nature of things neither possible nor from
an educational point of view to be recommended.
Still the mystical purpose of the authors of those times when the
precautionary measures were not necessary appears clearer under the
alchemistic clothing, although no general rule applying to it can be set
forth. Other reasons, e.g., intellectual and conventional ones, influenced
them to retain the symbolism.
Very clearly mystical are the writings of a number of hermetic artists,
who are permeated by the spiritual doctrine of Jacob Boehme. This
theosophist makes such full use of the alchemistic symbolism, that we find
it wherever we open his writings. I will not even begin to quote him, but
will only call the reader’s attention to his brief and beautifully
thoughtful description of the mystical process of moral perfection, which
stands as “Processus” at the end of the 5th chapter of his book, “De
Signatura Rerum.” (Ausg., Gichtel Col., 2218 f.)
An anonymous author who has absorbed much of the “Philosophicus
Teutonicus,” wrote the book, “Amor Proximi,” much valued by the amateurs
of the high art. It does not require great penetration to recognize this
pious manual, clothed throughout in alchemistic garments, as a mystical
work. The same is true of the formerly famous “Wasserstein der Weisen”
(1st ed. appeared 1619), and similar books. Here are some illustrative
pages from “Amor Proximi”:
“This [Symbol: water] [[Symbol: water] of life] is now the creature not
foreign or external but most intimate in every one, although hidden....
See Christ is not outside of us, but intimately within us, although
hidden.” (P. 32.)
“Whoever is to work out a thing practically must first have a fundamental
knowledge of a thing; in order that man shall macrocosmically and
magically work out the image of God, all God’s kingdom, in himself; he
must have its right knowledge in himself....” (P. 29.)
“Christ is the great Universal; [The Grand Mastery is also called by the
alchemists the ‘universal’; it tinctures all metals to gold and heals all
diseases (universal medicine); there is a somewhat more circumscribed
‘particular,’ which tinctures only a special metal and cures only single
diseases.] who says: ‘Whoever will follow me and be my disciple (i.e., a
particular or member of my body), let him take up his [Symbol: cross] and
follow me.’ Thus one sees that all who desire to be members of the great
universal must each partake according to the measure of his suffering and
development as small specific remedies.” (Pp. 168 ff.)
“Paracelsus, the monarch of Arcana, says that the stars as well as the
light of grace, nowhere work more willingly than in a fasting, pure, and
free heart. As it is naturally true that the coarse sand and ashes cannot
be illumined by the sun, so the SUN of righteousness cannot illumine the
old Adam. It is then that the sand and ashes [the old Adam] are melted in
the [Symbol: fire] [of the [Symbol: cross]] again and again, that a pure
glass [a newborn man] is made of it; so the [Symbol: gold/sol] can easily
shoot its rays into and through it and therefore illumine it and reveal
the wonder of its wisdom. So man must be recast in [Symbol: cross]
[Symbol: fire] [cross-fire], so that the rays of both lights can penetrate
him; otherwise no one will become a wise man.” (P. 96 ff.)
Beautiful expositions of alchemy that readily make manifest the mystical
content are found also in the English theosophists Pordage and his
followers, in particular Jane Leade (both 17th century). Their language is
clearer and more lucid than Jacob Boehme’s. Many passages appropriate to
this topic might be here cited; but as I shall later take up Leade more
fully, I quote only one passage from Pordage (Sophia, p. 23):
“Accordingly and so that I should arrive at a fundamental and complete
cleansing from all tares and earthiness ... I gave over my will entirely
to its [wisdom’s] fiery smelting furnace as to a fire of purification,
till all my vain and chaff-like desires and the tares of earthly lust had
been burnt away as by fire, and all my iron, tin and dross had been
entirely melted in this furnace, so that I appeared in spirit as a pure
gold, and could see a new heaven and a new earth created and formed within
me.”
Out of all this, taken in conjunction with the following chapter, it will
be evident and beyond question that our Parable must also be interpreted
as a mystical introduction.