long life or the powder of projection, advised them to seek for the
Philosophal _Stone_.
The Ancients adored the _Sun_, under the form of a black Stone, called
Elagabalus, or Heliogabalus. The faithful are promised, in the
Apocalypse, a white Stone.
This Stone, says the Masters in Alchemy, is the true _Salt_ of the
philosophers, which enters as one-third into the composition of Azoth.
But Azoth is, as we know, the name of the grand Hermetic Agent, and the
true philosophical Agent: wherefore they represent their Salt under the
form of a cubical Stone.
The Philosophal Stone is the foundation of the Absolute philosophy, the
Supreme and unalterable Reason. Before thinking of the Metallic work,
we must be firmly fixed on the Absolute principles of Wisdom; we must be
in possession of this Reason, which is the touchstone of Truth. A man
who is the slave of prejudices will never become the King of Nature and
the Master of transmutations. The Philosophal Stone, therefore, is
necessary above all things. How shall it be found? Hermes tells us, in
his "Table of Emerald," we must separate the subtile from the fixed,
with great care and extreme attention. So we ought to separate our
certainties from our beliefs, and make perfectly distinct the respective
domains of science and faith; and to comprehend that we do not know the
things we believe, nor believe anything that we come to know; and that
thus the essence of the things of Faith are the unknown and indefinite,
while it is precisely the contrary with the things of Science. Whence we
shall conclude, that Science rests on reason and experience, and Faith
has for its bases sentiment and reason.
The Sun and Moon of the Alchemists concur in perfecting and giving
stability to the Philosophal Stone. They correspond to the two columns
of the Temple, Jachin and Boaz. The Sun is the hieroglyphical sign of
Truth, because it is the source of Light; and the rough Stone is the
symbol of Stability. Hence the Mediæval Alchemists indicated the
Philosophal Stone as the first means of making the philosophical gold,
that is to say, of transforming all the vital powers figured by the six
metals into Sun, that is, into Truth and Light; which is the first and
indispensable operation of the Great Work, which leads to the secondary
adaptation, and enables the creators of the spiritual and living gold,
the possessors of the true philosophical Salt, Mercury, and Sulphur, to
discover, by the analogies of Nature, the natural and palpable gold.
To find the Philosophal Stone, is to have discovered the Absolute, as
all the Masters say. But the Absolute is that which admits of no errors,
is the Fixed from the Volatile, is the Law of the Imagination, is the
very necessity of Being, is the immutable Law of Reason and Truth. The
Absolute is that which IS.
To find the Absolute in the Infinite, in the Indefinite, and in the
Finite, this is the Magnum Opus, the Great Work of the Sages, which
Hermes called the Work of the Sun.
To find the immovable bases of true religious Faith, of Philosophical
Truth, and of Metallic transmutation, this is the secret of Hermes in
its entirety, the Philosophal Stone.
This stone is one and manifold; it is decomposed by Analysis, and
re-compounded by Synthesis. In Analysis, it is a powder, the powder of
projection of the Alchemists; before Analysis, and in Synthesis, it is a
stone.
The Philosophal Stone, say the Masters, must not be exposed to the
atmosphere, nor to the gaze of the Profane; but it must be kept
concealed and carefully preserved in the most secret place of the
laboratory, and the possessor must always carry on his person the key of
the place where it is kept.
He who possesses the Grand Arcanum is a genuine King, and more than a
king, for he is inaccessible to all fear and all empty hopes. In all
maladies of soul and body, a single particle from the precious stone, a
single grain of the divine powder, is more than sufficient to cure him.
"Let him hear, who hath ears to hear!" the Master said.
The Salt, Sulphur, and Mercury are but the accessorial elements and
passive instruments of the Great Work. All depends, as we have said, on
the internal Magnet of Paracelsus. The entire work consists in
_projection_: and the projection is perfectly accomplished by the
effective and realizable understanding of a single word.
There is but a single important operation in the work; this consists in
_Sublimation,_ which is nothing else, according to Geber than the
elevation of dry matter, by means of fire, with adhesion to its proper
vessel.
He who desires to attain to the understanding of the Grand Word and the
possession of the Great Secret, ought carefully to read the Hermetic
philosophers, and will undoubtedly attain initiation, as others have
done; but he must take, for the key of their allegories, the single
dogma of Hermes, contained in his table of Emerald, and follow, to class
his acquisitions of knowledge and direct the operation, the order
indicated in the Kabalistic alphabet of the Tarot.
Raymond Lulle has said that, to make gold, we must first have gold.
Nothing is made out of nothing; we do not absolutely _create_ wealth; we
increase and multiply it. Let aspirants to science well understand,
then, that neither the juggler's tricks nor miracles are to be asked of
the adept. The Hermetic science, like all the _real_ sciences, is
mathematically demonstrable. Its results, even material, are as rigorous
as that of a correct equation.
The Hermetic Gold is not only a true dogma, a light without Shadow, a
Truth without alloy of falsehood; it is also a material gold, real,
pure, the most precious that can be found in the mines of the earth.
But the living gold, the living sulphur, or the true fire of the
philosophers, is to be sought for in the house of Mercury. This fire is
fed by the air: to express its attractive and expansive power, no better
comparison can be used than that of the lightning, which is at first
only a dry and earthly exhalation, united to the moist vapor, but which,
by self-exhalation, takes a fiery nature, acts on the humidity inherent
in it, which it attracts to itself and transmutes in its nature; after
which it precipitates itself rapidly toward the earth, whither it is
attracted by a fixed nature like unto its own.
These words, in form enigmatic, but clear at bottom, distinctly express
what the philosophers mean by their Mercury, fecundated by Sulphur, and
which becomes the Master and regenerator of the Salt. It is the AZOTH,
the universal magnetic force, the grand magical agent, the Astral light,
the light of life, fecundated by the mental force, the intellectual
energy, which they compare to sulphur, on account of its affinities with
the Divine fire.
As to the Salt, it is Absolute Matter. Whatever is matter contains salt;
and all salt [nitre] may be converted into pure gold by the combined
action of Sulphur and Mercury, which sometimes act so rapidly, that the
transmutation may be effected in an instant, in an hour, without fatigue
to the operator, and almost without expense. At other times, and
according to the more refractory temper of the atmospheric _media,_ the
operation requires several days, several months, and sometimes even
several years.
Two primary laws exist in nature, two essential laws, which produce, by
counterbalancing each other, the universal equilibrium of things. These
are fixedness and movement, analogous, in philosophy, to Truth and
Fiction, and, in Absolute Conception, to Necessity and Liberty, which
are the very essence of Deity. The Hermetic philosophers gave the name
_fixed_ to everything ponderable, to everything that tends by its
natural to central repose and immobility; they term _volatile_
everything that more naturally and more readily obeys the law of
movement; and they form their stone by analysis, that is to say, by the
volatilization of the Fixed, and then by synthesis, that is, by fixing
the volatile, which they effect by applying to the fixed, which they
call their salt, the sulphurated Mercury, or the light of life, directed
and made omnipotent by a Sovereign Will. Thus they master entire Nature,
and their stone is found wherever there is salt, which is the reason for
saying that no substance is foreign to the Great Work, and that even the
most despicable and apparently vile matters may be changed into gold,
which is true in this sense, that they all contain the original
salt-principle, represented in our emblems by the cubical stone.
To know how to extract from all matter the pure salt concealed in it, is
to have the Secret of the Stone. Wherefore this is a Saline stone, which
the Od or universal astral light decomposes or re-compounds: it is
single and manifold; for it may be dissolved like ordinary salt, and
incorporated with other substances. Obtained by analysis, we might term
it _the Universal Sublimate:_ found by way of synthesis, it is the true
_panacea_ of the ancients, for it cures all maladies of soul and body,
and has been styled, _par-excellence_, the medicine of all nature. When
one, by absolute initiation, comes to control the forces of the
universal agent, he always has this stone at his disposal, for its
extraction is then a simple and easy operation, very distinct from the
metallic projection or realization. This stone, when in a state of
sublimation, must not be exposed to contact with the atmospheric air,
which might partially dissolve it and deprive it of its virtue; nor
could its emanations be inhaled without danger. The Sage prefers to
preserve it in its natural envelopes, assured as he is of extracting it
by a single effort of his will, and a single application of the
Universal Agent to the envelopes, which the Kabalists call _cortices_,
the shells, bark, or integuments.
Hieroglyphically to express this law of prudence, they gave their
Mercury, personified in Egypt as Hermanubis, a dog's head; and to their
Sulphur, represented by the Baphomet of the Temple, that goat's head
which brought into such disrepute the occult Mediæval associations.
Let us listen for a few moments to the Alchemists themselves, and
endeavor to learn the hidden meaning of their mysterious words.
The RITUAL of the Degree of Scottish Elder MASTER, and Knight of Saint
Andrew, being the fourth Degree of Ramsay, it is said upon the
title-page, or of the Reformed or Rectified Rite of Dresden, has these
passages:
"O how great and glorious is the _presence_ of the Almighty God which
gloriously _shines_ from between the Cherubim!
"How adorable and astonishing are the _rays_ of that glorious _Light_,
that sends forth its bright and brilliant beams from the Holy Ark of
Alliance and Covenant!
"Let us with the deepest veneration and devotion adore the great Source
of Life, that Glorious Spirit Who is the Most Merciful and Beneficent
Ruler of the Universe and of all the creatures it contains!
"The secret knowledge of the Grand Scottish Master relates to the
combination and transmutation of different substances; whereof that you
may obtain a clear idea and proper understanding, you are to know that
all matter and all material substances are composed of combinations of
three several substances, extracted from the four elements, which three
substances in combination are, _Salt, Sulphur_, and _Spirit_. The first
of these produces _Solidity_, the second _Softness_, and the third the
_Spiritual_, vaporous particles. These three compound substances work
potently together; and therein consists the true process for the
transmutation of metals.
"To these three substances allude the three golden basins, in the first
of which was engraved the letter M. in the second, the letter G. and
in the third nothing. The first, M. is the initial letter of the Hebrew
word _Malakh_, which signifies _Salt_; and the second, G. of the Hebrew
word _Geparaith_, which signifies _Sulphur_; and as there is no word in
Hebrew to express the vaporous and intangible _Spirit_, there is no
letter in the third basin.
"With these three principal substances you may effect the transmutation
of metals, which must be done by means of the five points or rules of
the Scottish Mastership.
"The first Master's point shows us the Brazen Sea, wherein must always
be rain-water; and out of this rain-water the Scottish Masters extract
the first substance, which is Salt; which salt must afterward undergo a
_seven-fold_ manipulation and purification, before it will be properly
prepared. This seven-fold purification is symbolized by the Seven Steps
of Solomon's Temple, which symbol is furnished us by the first point or
rule of the Scottish Masters.
"After preparing the first substance, you are to extract the second,
Sulphur, out of the purest gold, to which must then be added the
purified or celestial Salt. They are to be mixed as the Art directs, and
then placed in a vessel in the form of a SHIP, in which it is to remain,
as the Ark of Noah was afloat, one hundred and fifty days, being brought
to the first damp, warm degree of fire, that it may putrefy and produce
the mineral fermentation. This is the second point or rule of the
Scottish Masters."
If you reflect, my Brother, that it was impossible for any one to
imagine that either common salt or nitre could be extracted from
rain-water, or sulphur from pure gold, you will no doubt suspect that
some secret meaning was concealed in these words.
The Kabalah considers the immaterial part of man as threefold,
consisting of NEPHESCH, RUACH, and NESCHAMAH, _Psyche, Spiritus_, and
_Mens_, or _Soul, Spirit_, and _Intellect_. There are Seven Holy
Palaces, Seven Heavens and Seven Thrones; and Souls are purified by
ascending through Seven Spheres. A _Ship_, in Hebrew, is _Ani_; and the
same word means _I, Me_, or _Myself_.
The RITUAL continues:
"Multiplying the substance thus obtained, is the third operation, which
is done by adding to them the animate, volatile _Spirit_; which is done
by means of the water of the Celestial Salt, as well as by the Salt,
which must daily be added to it very carefully, and strictly observing
to put neither too much nor too little; inasmuch as, if you add too
much, you will destroy that growing and multiplying substance; and if
too little, it will be self-consumed and destroyed, and shrink away, not
having sufficient substantiality for its preservation. This third point
or rule of the Scottish Masters gives us the emblem of the building of
the Tower of Babel, used by our Scottish Masters, because by
irregularity and want of due proportion and harmony that work was
stopped; and the workmen could proceed no further.
"Next comes the fourth operation, represented by the Cubical Stone,
whose faces and angles are all equal. As soon as the work is brought to
the necessary point of multiplication, it is to be submitted to the
third Degree of Fire, wherein it will receive the due proportion of the
strength and substance of the metallic particles of the Cubical Stone;
and this is the fourth point or rule of the Scottish Masters.
"Finally, we come to the fifth and last operation, indicated to us by
the Flaming Star. After the work has become a duly-proportioned
substance, it is to be subjected to the fourth and strongest Degree of
fire, wherein it must remain three times twenty-seven hours; until it is
thoroughly glowing, by which means it becomes a bright and shining
tincture, wherewith the lighter metals may be changed, by the use of one
part to a thousand of the metal. Wherefore this Flaming Star shows us
the fifth and last point of the Scottish Masters.
"You should pass practically through the five points or rules of the
Master, and by the use of one part to a thousand, transmute and ennoble
metals. You may then in reality say that your age is a thousand years."
In the oration of the Degree, the following hints are given as to its
true meaning:
"The three divisions of the Temple, the Outer Court, Sanctuary, and Holy
of Holies, signify the three Principles of our Holy Order, which direct
to the knowledge of morality, and teach those most practical virtues
that ought to be practised by mankind. Therefore the Seven Steps which
lead up to the Outer Court of the Temple, are the emblem of the
Seven-fold Light which we need to possess, before we can arrive at the
height of knowledge, in which consist the ultimate limits of our order.
"In the Brazen Sea we are symbolically to purify ourselves from all
pollutions, all faults and wrongful actions, as well those committed
through error of judgment and mistaken opinion, as those intentionally
done; inasmuch as they equally prevent us from arriving at the knowledge
of True Wisdom. We must thoroughly cleanse and purify our hearts to
their inmost recesses, before we can of right contemplate that _Flaming
Star_, which is the emblem of the Divine and Glorious Shekinah, or
presence of God; before we may dare approach the Throne of Supreme
Wisdom."
In the Degree of The True Mason [_Le Vrai Maçon_], styled in the
title-page of its Ritual the 23d Degree of Masonry, or the 12th of the
5th class, the Tracing-board displays a luminous Triangle, with a great
Yōd in the centre.
"The Triangle," says the Ritual, "represents one God in three Persons;
and the great Yōd is the initial letter of the last word.
"The Dark Circle represents the Chaos, which in the beginning God
created.
"The Cross within the Circle, the Light by means whereof He developed
the Chaos.
"The Square, the four Elements into which it was resolved.
"The Triangle, again, the three _Principles_ [Salt, Sulphur, and
Mercury], which the intermingling of the elements produced.
"God _creates_; Nature _produces_; Art _multiplies_. God created Chaos;
Nature produced it; God, Nature, and Art, have perfected it.
"The Altar of Perfumes indicates the _Fire_ that is to be applied to
Nature. The two _towers_ are the two furnaces, moist and dry, in which
it is to be worked. The bowl is the mould of oak that is to inclose the
philosophal egg.
"The two figures surmounted by a Cross are the two vases, Nature and
Art, in which is to be consummated the double marriage of the white
woman with the red Servitor, from which marriage will spring a most
Potent King.
"Chaos means universal matter, formless, but susceptible of all forms.
Form is the Light inclosed in the seeds of all species; and its home is
in the Universal Spirit.
"To work on universal matter, use the internal and external fire: the
four elements result, the _Principia Principiorum_ and _Inmediata_;
Fire, Air, Water, Earth. There are four qualities of these elements--the
warm and dry, the cold and moist. Two appertain to each element: The dry
and cold, to the Earth; the cold and moist, to Water; the moist and
warm, to the Air; and the warm and dry, to Fire: whereby the Fire
connects with the Earth; all the elements, as Hermes said, moving in
circles.
"From the mixture of the four Elements and of their four qualities,
result the three Principles,--Mercury, Sulphur, and Salt. These are the
philosophical, not the vulgar.
"The philosophical Mercury is a _Water_ and SPIRIT, which dissolves and
sublimates the Sun; the philosophical _Sulphur_, a _fire_ and a Soul,
which mollifies and colors it; the philosophical Salt, an _Earth_ and a
BODY, which coagulates and fixes it; and the whole is done in the bosom
of the _Air_.
"From these three Principles result the four Elements duplicated, or the
Grand Elements, _Mercury, Sulphur, Salt_, and _Glass_; two of which are
volatile,--the Water [Mercury] and the Air [Sulphur], which is oil; for
all substances liquid in their nature avoid fire, which takes from the
one [water] and burns the other [oil]; but the other two are dry and
solid, to wit, the Salt, wherein Fire is contained, and the pure
_Earth_, which is the Glass; on both of which the Fire has no other
action than to melt and refine them, unless one makes use of the liquid
alkali; for, just as each element consists of two qualities, so these
great duplicated Elements partake, each of two of the simple elements,
or, more properly speaking, of all the four, according to the greater or
less degree of each,--the Mercury partaking more of the Water, to which
it is assigned; the Oil or Sulphur, more of the Air; the Salt, of the
Fire; and the Glass, of the Earth; which is found, pure and clear, in
the centre of all the elementary composites, and is the last to
disengage itself from the others.
"The four Elements and three Principles reside in all the Compounds,
Animal, Vegetable, and Mineral; but more potently in some than in
others.
"The Fire gives them Movement; the Air, Sensation; the Water, Nutriment;
and the Earth, Subsistence.
"The four duplicated Elements engender THE STONE, if one is careful
enough to supply them with the proper quantity of fire, and to combine
them according to their natural weight. Ten parts of Air make one of
Water; ten of Water, one of Earth; and ten of Earth, one of Fire; the
whole by the Active Symbol of the one, and the Passive Symbol of the
other, whereby the conversion of the Elements is effected."
The Allusion of the Ritual, here, is obviously to the four Worlds of the
Kabalah. The ten Sephiroth of the world Briah proceed from Malakoth, the
last of the ten Emanations of the world Aziluth; the ten Sephiroth of
the world Yezirah, from Malakoth of Briah; and the ten of the world
Asian, from Malakoth of Yezirah. The Pass-word of the Degree is given as
_Metralon_, which is a corruption of METATRON, the Cherub, who and
Sandalphon are in the Kabalah the Chief of the Angels. The Active and
Passive Symbols are the Male and Female.
The Ritual continues:
"It is thereby evident that, in the Great Work, we must employ ten parts
of philosophical Mercury to one of Sun or Moon.
"This is attained by _Solution_ and _Coagulation_. These words mean that
we must dissolve the body and coagulate the spirit; which operations are
effected by the moist and dry bath.
"Of colors, _black_ is the Earth; _white_, the Water; _blue_, the Air;
and _red_, the Fire; wherein also are involved very great secrets and
mysteries.
"The apparatus employed in 'The Great Work' consists of the Moist bath,
the Dry bath, the Vases of Nature and Art, the bowl of oak, _lutum
sapientiœ_, the Seal of Hermes, the tube, the physical lamp, and the
iron rod.
"The work is perfected in seventeen philosophical months, according to
the mixture of ingredients. The benefits reaped from it are of two
kinds--one affecting the soul, and the other the body. _The former
consist in knowing God, Nature, and ourself_; and those to the body are
wealth and health.
"The Initiate traverses Heaven and Earth. Heaven is the World manifest
to the Intelligence, subdivided into Paradise and Hell; Earth is the
World manifest to the Senses, also subdivided into the Celestial and
that of the Elements.
"There are Sciences specially connected with each of these. _The one is
ordinary and common; the other, mystic and secret_. The World cognizable
by the Intellect has the Hermetic Theology and the Kabalah; the
Celestial Astrology; and that of the Elements, Chemistry, which by its
decompositions and separations, effected by fire, reveals all the most
hidden secrets of Nature, in the three kinds of Compound Substances.
This last science is styled 'Hermetic,' or 'The operating of the Great
Work.'"
The Ritual of the Degree of Kabalistic and Hermetic Rose, has these
passages:
"The true Philosophy, known and practised by Solomon, is the basis on
which Masonry is founded.
"Our Ancient Masons have concealed from us the most important point of
this Divine Art, under hieroglyphical characters, which are but enigmas
and parables, to all the Senseless, the Wicked, and the Ambitious.