Alchemy

Comment by Ian Ellis on November 24, 2008 at 3:45pm

What is a good introduction to alchemy?

Comment by Vanese Va Voom on April 22, 2009 at 5:17pm

Rosicrucian alchemy quotes


These blear'd eyes
Have wak'd to read your several colours, sir,
Of the pale citron, the green lion, the crow,
The peacock's tail, the plumed swan.

Thou hast descry’d the flower, the sanguis agni?

Ben Jonson
The Alchemist


Three things suffice for the work: a white smoke, which is water; a green Lion, which is the ore of Hermes, and a fetid water… the stone, known from the chapters of books, is white smoke and water.

Michael Maier
Atalanta Fugiens



Of this self-same body, which is the matter of the Stone, three things are chiefly said; that it is a green Lion, a stinking Gum, and a white Fume.
Having twelve pounds of Green Lion thus brought into gum, thou mayst believe…

St. Dunstan (pseudo) Philosophia Maturata


A green Gum called our green Lyon, which Gum dry well, yet beware thou not burn his Flowers nor destroy his greenness.

Sir George Ripley
The Bosome-Book of Sir George Ripley


You will see marvelous signs of this Green Lion, such as could be bought by no treasures of the Roman Leo.

Paracelsus
The Treasure of Treasures


Beware therefore of many, and hold thee to one thing. This one thing is naught else but the lyon greene..

Bloomfield’s Blossoms

I know well this Lyon Greene…

Hunting of the Greene Lyon


Upon the delicate leaves thereof it retaineth for our use that sweet heavenly honey which is called the manna, and, although it be of a gummy, oily, fat, and greasy substance, it is, notwithstanding, unconsumable by any fire.

Rabelais
Gargantua and Pantagruel


This is called the blessed stone; this earth is white and foliated, wherein the Philosophers do sow their gold…
The fourth color is Ruddy and Sanguine, which is extracted from the white fire only.

Jean d’Espagnet
The Hermetic Arcanum


O how many are the seekers after this gum, and how few there are who find it! Know ye that our gum is stronger than gold, and all those who know it do hold it more honorable than gold… Our gum, therefore, is for Philosophers more precious and more sublime than pearls…

Turba Philosophorum


Therefore I affirm that the Universal Medicine for bodies is the philosophic gold, after it has been separated and drawn to the highest state of perfection. Our common gold has absolutely nothing in common with the philosophic gold we use to begin our task. In that respect common gold is dead and clearly useless.

Philip a Gabella
Consideratio Brevis


By gold I mean our green gold- not the adored lump, which is dead and ineffectual.

Thomas Vaughan
Aula Lucis

Take the fire, or quicklime, of which the philosophers speak, which grows on trees, for in that God himself burns with divine love.

Gloria Mundi


It appears then that this Stone is a Vegetable, as it were, the sweet Spirit that proceeds from the Bud of the Vine…

Count Bernard Trevisan
Verbum Dismissum


Trust my word, seek the grass that is trefiol. Thou knowest the name, and art wise and cunning if thou findest it.

The Sophic Hydrolith


You ought to know concerning the Quintessence, that it is a matter little and small, lodged and harbored in some Tree, Herb, Stone, or the like…

The Tomb of Semiramis


It contains the fire of Nature, or the Universal Spirit; with Air as its vehicle it contains Water, which must be separated in the beginning of the work, and also earth which remains behind in the form of caput mortuum, where the fire has left it, and is the true Red Earth wherein the fire dwelt for a while. The subject, duly collected, should not be less than eight nor more than sixteen ounces: place it in a china or glazed basin and cover it loosely to keep the dust out.

Sigismond Bacstrom
Rosicrucian Aphorisms and Process


Long have I had in my nostrils the scent of the herb moly which became so celebrated thanks to the poets of old… this herb is entirely chemical. It is said that Odysseus used it to protect himself against the poisons of Circe and the perilous singing of the Sirens. It is also related that Mercury himself found it and that it is an effective antidote to all poisons. It grows plentifully on Mount Cyllene in Arcadia…

Michael Maier
Septimana Philosophica


Our secret fire, that is, our fiery and sulfurous water, which is called Balneum Mariae… this water is a white vapor.

The Secret Book of Artephius


Know the secret fire of the wise, which is the one and sole agent efficient for the opening, subliming, purifying, and disposing of the material.

Letter to the True Disciples of Hermes


Study, then, this fire, for had I myself found it at the first, I should not have erred two hundred times upon the veritable material.

Comment by Vanese Va Voom on April 22, 2009 at 5:19pm

To Ian, I liked http://www.amazon.com/Emerald-Tablet-Alchemy-Personal-Transformation/dp/0140195718/ref=sr_1_1?ie=UTF8&qid=1240442267&sr=8-1

Comment by Michael L. Lewis on June 6, 2010 at 4:46pm

I would like to heartily recommend the three books by Wor.: Bro.: Timothy Hogan, all available at Amazon.com. "Revelation of the Holy Grail", written under the name Chevalier Emerys; "Alchemical Keys to Masonic Ritual"; and "The 32 Secret Paths of Solomon. Brother Hogan is an amazingly qualified Mason and Knight Templar and a practicing Master Alchemist. In addition to his books, he has written a number of articles which are available on his website and Facebook page. I know of no more interesting and authoritative esoteric Mason; I have read all his books three times and plan on many more rereads! S&F,

Bro.: Michael L. Lewis, MM, 32nd, RAM, KT, 6=5 RR et AC.

Comment by Vanese Va Voom on June 6, 2010 at 5:42pm

Thanks Michael
Will check them out : )

Comment by Mark Griffith on June 7, 2010 at 11:01pm

I assume though that the Ben Jonson quote is hostile to alchemy. Wasn't his play 'The Alchemist' a satire, and an attack on alchemy & magic in general?

Comment by Michael L. Lewis on June 8, 2010 at 12:25am

A good general intro to Alchemy, including Spagyria: "The Path of Alchemy" by Brother Mark Stavish, available at Amazon.com...

Comment by William John Meegan on November 2, 2010 at 7:54pm

Of late as I contemplate the wording of the sacred scriptures, right now the sixth day of creation, I notice a peculiarity in the wording of the text, an oscillating process, that apparently explains the Tai Chi (Ying Yang) symbol to a level of thought that I never considered before.

First of all, it is a given, that Yahweh (material) and Elohym (spiritual) are in an eternal game of ‘give and take (ping pong, yoyo, seesaw, breathing in and out)’ and this is not necessary wrong but rather the way we spiritual beings live out our lives in the material world as human beings.

Each of the words of scriptures has symbolic values that are meaningless in and of themselves but from grand conceptual patterns they allow us as human beings to have glimpses into our spiritual nature. Words like astrology have meaning in the secular mundane sense but have a totally different meaning from a scriptural sense as articulated in the scriptural sense: meaning that Astrology has the meaning of being outside of time and being natural law and the opposite of the material understanding of things.

There is a system of cycles I call the Cycles of Divine Creation that explain more plainly what I am about to discuss without their actual present in this discussion. These cycles are going to be the focus of the second chapter of my revised work.

Vs. 24 of the first chapter of Genesis Elohym is saying let the earth (soul/psyche) bring forth the animals (Astrology: i.e. natural law and wisdom). This is from a natural array from the origin of all life: God.

Vs. 25 Yahweh counteracts that command in Elohym’s stead when he ‘MADE’ the animals after their kind. Human reasoning and logic and common sense has entered the fray. Not understanding the natural law it attempt to do so but convolutes what he does know.

As you can see one deity allows creation to exist naturally but the other wants to ‘MAKE’ it from a material perspective. From the Tai Chi point of view the natural would be LIGHT and the black dot would be DARK. Yahweh inserts into the mix of the symbol the word KIND. This is poison in the ointment so to speak. In the cycles this word KIND translates to Quadruplicities, which convolutes the original order of Astrology from a Calendar 1-12: January to December perspective rather than from a Zodiacal one: Aries to Pisces.

Vs. 26. Yahweh wants to MAKE Adam (man) by combining male and female. Thus Yahweh makes the dark area of the Tai Chi symbol.

Whereas, to counter act that and place a white dot into the mix of the dark side of the Tai Chi symbol, in the same verse, Elohym gives Adam DOMINION over this convoluted way of thought with the animals (Astrology) to work his way out of his erroneous thought pattern.

Vs. 27 Elohym counters, Yahweh’s forming Adam by combining male and female, by SEPARATING (Bara) Adam into male and female by expanding the white area from out of the depths of the dark area of the Tai Chi symbol as if this was an oscillating process.

Vs. 28 However, Yahweh counters that, with a black dot in the white area of the Tai Chi symbol expanding out and engulfing the white area, by allowing Adam to subdue the earth (psyche). This is the most diabolical of verses because to SUBDUE the psyche (EARTH) is to place rules and regulations and all sorts of morals, ethics and legalisms upon the activities of the soul/psyche. The psyche would not be able to twitch without violating one of these codes of laws: hence the psyche in eternal guilt for doing what is biologically natural. YAHWEH is after all the lawgiver.

Vs. 29 In turn Elohym expands the white dot to engulf the whole of the dark area of the Tai Chi by giving Adam the vegetation to eat, which is a direct inference to study the Eleusinian mysteries. Since the Goddess Demeter (Elohym) rules the harvest this symbolism of vegetation as representing the Eleusinian mysteries is a given. This is especially so since it has a direct relationship to the overall plan pattern of the first four chapters of Genesis with the CYCLES OF DIVINE CREATION and the natural array of the Zodiac Cycle.

Vs. 30 Yahweh expands the black dot in the white area of the Tai Chi symbol by throwing a monkey wrench into the mix by allowing the animals of Astrology from the convoluted mix to have access to the Eleusinian mysteries as was allowed in ancient Greece. Meaning that the entire population eventually had access to the Eleusinian mysteries and this is why mankind ended up losing its secrets.

Vs. 31 Yahweh the MAKER of everything not SEPARATER calls everything he MADE GOOD as Elohym did in the first four chapters of Genesis, which combined is the LIGHT of creation.

Here I have tried to demonstrate the give and take of scriptural writing but in a very real sense it is unfair to present it this way because you really do need to see the cycles and understand how the Eleusinian mysteries interplay with a text that is not associated with such materials.

However, my only concern in given this brief analysis of the sixth day of creation was to demonstrate how and why the Tai Chi symbol is suppose to work.

Comment