THE MYSTERY OF THE ALCHEMIST
There are very few occult students today who have not heard of the
alchemist, but there are very few who know anything about the strange men
who lived during the Middle Ages and concealed under chemical symbolism
the history of the soul. At a time, when to express a religious thought
was to court annihilation at the stake or wheel, they labored silently
in underground caves and cellars to learn the mysteries of nature which
the religious opinions of their day denied them the privilege of doing.
Let us picture the alchemist of old, deep in the study of natural lore.
We find him among the test tubes and retorts of his hidden laboratory.
Around him are massive tomes and books by ancient writers; he is a
student of nature’s mystery, and has devoted years, lives maybe, to the
work he loves. His hair has long since grayed with age.
By the light of his little lamp he reads slowly and with difficulty the
strange symbols on the pages before him. His mind is centered upon one
thing, and that is the finding of the Philosopher’s Stone. With all
the chemicals at his command, their various combinations thoroughly
understood, he is laboring with his furnace and his burners to make of
the base metals the Philosopher’s Gold. At last he finds the key and
gives to the world the secret of the Philosopher’s Gold and the Immortal
Stone. Salt, sulphur, and mercury are the answer to his problem; from
them he makes the Philosopher’s Stone; from them he extracts the Elixir
of Life; with the power that they give him he transmutes the base metals
into gold. The world laughs at him, but he goes on in silence, really
doing the things the world believes impossible.
After many years of labor he takes his little lamp and silently slips
away into the Great Unknown. No one knows what he has done, or the
discoveries that he has made, but he, with his little lamp, still
explores the mysteries of the universe. As the close of the fifteenth
century clouded him with mystery, so the dawn of the twentieth century
is crowning him with the glory of his just reward, for the world
is beginning to realize the truths he knew, and to marvel at the
understanding which his years of labor had earned for him.
Man has been an alchemist from the time when he first raised himself,
and with the powers long latent pronounced himself as human. Experiences
are the chemicals of life which the philosopher is experimenting with.
Nature is the great book whose secrets he seeks to understand through her
own wondrous symbolism. His own Spiritual Flame is the lamp by which he
reads, and without this the printed pages mean nothing to him. His own
body is the furnace in which he prepares the Philosopher’s Stone; his
senses and organs are the test tubes, and incentive is the flame from
the burner. Salt, sulphur, and mercury are the chemicals of his craft.
According to the ancient philosophers, salt was of the earth earthy,
sulphur was a fire which was spirit, while mercury was nothing, only a
messenger like the winged Hermes of the Greeks. His color is purple,
which is the blending of the red and the blue--the blue of the spirit and
the red of the body.
The alchemist realizes that he himself is the Philosopher’s Stone, and
that this stone is made diamond-like when the salt and the sulphur, or
the spirit and the body, are united through mercury, the link of mind.
Man is the incarnated principle of mind as the animal is of emotion.
He stands with one foot on the heavens and the other on the earth. His
higher being is lifted to the celestial spheres, but the lower man
ties him to matter. Now the philosopher, building his sacred stone,
is doing so by harmonizing his spirit and his body. The result is the
Philosopher’s Stone. The hard knocks of life chip it away and facet it
until it reflects lights from a million different angles.
[Illustration: The Five Pointed Star:
This picture, known to all Masons, is that of the Soul. It is the Star of
Bethlehem, which heralds the coming of the Christ within. The two clasped
hands are the spirit and body united in the marriage of the Lamb. It is
from the union of the higher with the lower that the Christ is born.]
The Elixir of Life is once again the Spirit Fire, or rather the fuel
which nourishes that fire, and the turning of the base metal into gold
is accomplished when he transmutes the lower man into spiritual gold.
This he does by study and love. Thus he is building within himself the
lost panacea for the world’s woe. The turning of the base metal into gold
can be called a literal fact, as the same chemical combination which
spiritually produces gold, will also do this physically. It is a known
fact that many of the ancient alchemists really did create the precious
metal out of lead, alloy, etc. But it was upon the principle that all
things contain some part of everything else; in other words, every grain
of sand or drop of water has in some proportion every element of the
universe therein. Therefore the alchemist did not try to make something
from nothing, but rather to extract and build that which already was, and
this the student knows is the only possible course of procedure.
Man can create nothing from nothing, but he does contain within, in
potential energy, all things; and like the alchemist with his metals,
he is simply working with that which he already has. The living
Philosopher’s Stone is a very beautiful thing. Indeed, like the fire
opal, it shines with a million different lights, changing with the mood
of the wearer. The transmuting process, whereby the spiritual fire
passing through the furnace of purification radiates from the body as the
soul body of gold and blue, is a very beautiful one.
[Illustration: The Marriage of the Sun and Moon:
This takes place in man when the heart and mind are joined in eternal
union. It occurs when the positive and negative poles within are united,
and from that union is made the Philosopher’s Stone.]
The Masons have among their symbols that of a five-pointed star with
two clasped hands within it, and in that we have the mystery of the
Philosopher’s Stone. The clasped hands represent the united man in which
the higher and the lower are working for their mutual betterment, by a
co-operative rather than a competitive system. The five-pointed star is
the soul body, born of this co-operation; it is the living Philosopher’s
Stone, more precious than all the jewels of earth. From it pour the
rivers of life spoken of in the Bible; it is the Star of the Morning that
heralds the dawn of Mastery, and is the reward that comes to those who
follow in the footsteps of the ancient alchemist.
It is well for the student to realize that the alchemy of life produces
in natural sequence all of the states of progression which are explained
in the writings of the alchemist, until finally the sun and the moon are
united as described in the Hermetic Marriage, which is, in truth, the
marriage of the body and the spirit for the mutual development of each
other. We are the alchemists who centuries ago carried on in secret our
studies of the soul, and we still have the same opportunity that we had
then, even more than then, for now we can state our opinions with little
danger of personal injury. The modern alchemist thus has an opportunity
that his ancient brother never had. On a busy street corner he daily sees
nature’s experiments carried on. He sees the mixing of metals, and from
the everyday book of life, through the power of analogy, he may study
Divinity. Through experience and often suffering the steel of his spirit
is tempered by the flame of life. As the moon in the zodiac touches off
like a fuse the happenings of life, so his own desires and wishes touch
off the powers of his soul, and the experiences may be transmuted into
soul qualities when he has developed the eye which enables him to read
the simplest of all books--everyday life.
[Illustration: The Pillars of the Temple:
These pillars symbolize the heart and mind, the positive and the negative
poles of life. Those who would enter the temple must pass BETWEEN
the pillars. Every extreme is dangerous. It is the point between all
poles that is safe to stand upon. You cannot enter the temple by the
development of either the heart or mind alone, but only by the equal
development of both.]
The alchemist of today is not hidden in caves and cellars, studying
alone, but as he goes on with his work, it is seen that walls are built
around him, and while he is in the world, like the master of old, he is
not of it. As he goes further in his work, the light of other people’s
advice and outside help grows weaker and weaker, until finally he stands
alone in darkness, and then comes the time that he must use his own lamp,
and the various experiments which he has carried on must be his guide.
He must take the Elixir of Life which he has developed and with it fill
the lamp of his spiritual consciousness, and holding that above his head,
walk into the Great Unknown, where if he has been a good and faithful
servant, he will learn of the alchemy of Divinity. Where now test tubes
and bottles are his implements, then worlds and globes he will study, and
as a silent watcher will learn from that Divine One, who is the Great
Alchemist of all the universe, the greatest alchemy of all, the creation
of life, the maintenance of form, and the building of worlds.
[Illustration: The Serpent:
This is the serpent crown of the ancient Gods. It shows that the two
paths or parts of the spirit fire have been united. This crown is the
symbol of mastery and the union takes place within the student when the
life forces are lifted to the brain.]