Hidden Symbolism of Alchemy and the Occult Arts Part 18

Do thy duty!

Ask not after the result of thy doing!

Without dependence thereon carry out that which is thy duty!

Whoever acts without attachment to the world, that man attains the loftiest goal.

And the like in many places in the Bhagavad-Gita.

Now the end is perhaps the fruit of this obedience. It may be that the steady preservation of the inward unity, which regards with composure all external vicissitudes, leads man finally to some special experience, by which a seal of confirmation is set upon what was first a mere trust in the ultimate blessing of rect.i.tude (H. A., p. 128). The hermetic philosophers would have the conscience known as the Way or as the base of the work, but with regard to the peculiar wonder work of alchemy (trans.m.u.tation) they place the chief value on love; it effects the transformation of the _subject_ into the _object_ loved (H. A., p. 132).

Arabi: "It is a fundamental principle of love that thou becomest the real essence of the beloved (G.o.d) in that thou givest up thy individuality and disappearest in him. Blessedness is the abiding place of the divine and holy joy." (Horten, Myst., I, p. 9.)

Similarly we find in the yoga primers that the spirit, by sinking into an object of perception, becomes identical with the object. The object need not be the very highest, but a gradation is possible. Arabi, too, recognizes a gradation of objects, as they correspond, as correlates of sinking or surrender, to the different mystical states. [Colors, etc., of alchemy.] Two pa.s.sages of Arabi may be quoted: "My heart is eligible for every form [of the religious cult]; for it is said that the heart (root: kalaba = overturn, to alter oneself) is so called from its continual changing." It changes in accordance with the various (divine) influences that it feels, according to the various states of the mystical illumination. This variation of experiences is a result of the variation of the divine appearances, which occur in its inmost spirit. The law of religion (theology) speaks of this phenomenon as the changing and metamorphizing in the forms (of living and being). Gazelles are the objects of the mystic's love. In one of his poems he says: "And surrender yourselves to play in the manner of lovely maidens with buxom b.r.e.a.s.t.s and enjoy the luxuriant willows in the manner of the female gazelles." In his commentary on this pa.s.sage he says: " 'Play' denotes the various states of the mystic, to which he is advanced when he pa.s.ses from one divine name to another." (Horten, Myst., I, pp. 11, 13, ff.)

It is the ethical ideal of the mystic, more and more to put off the limited ego, and to take on in its place the qualities of G.o.d, in order to become G.o.d.

When with Arabi the theme of an ode is "Through asceticism, fervent yearning after G.o.d and patience in suffering, man becomes G.o.d or acquires divine nature" (Horten, Myst., I, p. 16), then this goal is identical with that of the alchemistic trans.m.u.tation; the base metal acquires (after purification, refining, etc.) by virtue of the tincturing with the Philosopher's Stone the nature of gold, i.e., the divine nature.

But patient effort is requisite. Precipitancy is as great an evil as inactivity. It is, to use the language of the alchemists, just as bad to scorch the tender blossoms by a forced and hasty fire (that in spite of its intensity may be merely a straw fire), as to let go out the fire which should be continuously kept alight, and to let grow cold the materia. The process of distillation is to be accomplished slowly, so that the spirits may not escape. That which rises as steam through the "heating" in the "receptacle" (i.e., in man) is the soul rising into the higher regions.

Distilling like rain drops [destillare = drop down], it brings each time to the thirsting materia a divine gain. But this process is not to be overdone, for the thirsting earth must be gently instilled with the heavenly moisture of the water of life: the process of "imbibition."

The metallic subject must be gently dissolved in its own natural water (conscience), not with powerful media, not with corroding acids, which the foolish employ in order to reach the goal in a hurry, for by such means he either spoils the materia or produces a merely superficial action.

Senseless asceticism and the like are just as objectionable as the impetuous enthusiasm (which we called straw fire here). The ethical work of alchemy as of common life is a sublimation; it is important that the materia takes up at any time only as much as it can sublimate. We may also conceive it in this way. The materia is to be moistened only with the water that it can utilize after the solution has taken place (i.e., keep in enduring form, absorb into their nature). Compare in this connection the words of Count Bernhard von Trevis: "I tell you a.s.suredly that no water dissolves any metallic spices by a natural solution, save that which abides with them in matter and form, and which the metals themselves, being dissolved, can recongeal." (H. A., pp. 189 ff.)

The pa.s.sage "slowly and quite judiciously" of the Smaragdine tablet will now be fully appreciated.

The desired completion or oneness should be a state of the soul, a condition of being, not of knowing. The means that lead to it presuppose in the neophyte something a.n.a.logous to religious faith, and because the conditions of the mastery appear to the neophyte to contradict nature or each other, the mystical experiences that are derived from it are called "supernatural." The "supernatural" is, however, only an appearance, which results when we conceive nature too narrowly, as when we see in her merely the totality of bodies. If we mean by nature the possibility of life and activity, then that which appears supernatural must be counted as nature.

The expressions natural and supernatural are but means of the thinking judgment, they are preliminaries which have a certain justification but only so long as they are an expression for a stage of knowledge. The initially supernatural resolves itself in nature, or better, Nature is raised to divinity. If the natural and the supernatural are symbolized, the one being described as sulphur and the other as mercury, then the disciples of philosophy, under the obligation to think things and not merely names, are finally brought, during the process of search, to a recognition of the inseparableness of both in a third something which may be called sun; but as all three are recognized as inseparably one, the termini can change places until finally an inner illumination takes place.

"Those that have never had this experience are apt to decry it as imaginary, but those who enter into it know that they have entered into a higher life, or feel themselves enabled to look upon things from a higher point of view. To use what may seem to be a misapplication of language: it is a supernatural birth, naturally entered upon." (H. A., p. 229.) When the alchemists speak of philosophical mercury and philosophical gold, they mean something in man and something in G.o.d that finally turns out to be the One. "By this symbolism the alchemists escape the difficulty of treating the subject in ordinary language. The learner must always return to nature and her possibilities for the sense of the derived symbols, and to it the hermetic masters also continually direct him." (H. A., pp. 232 ff.) If the true light has risen in the hearts of the seekers, kindled from within (although apparently by a miracle from without) "the sulphur and mercury become one, or are seen to be the same, differing only in a certain relation; somewhat as the known and the unknown (and the conscious and the unconscious) are but one, the unknown decreasing as the known increases, and vice versa." (H. A., p. 235.)

One alchemist teaches: "Consider well what it is you desire to produce, and according to that regulate your intention. Take the last thing in your intention as the first thing in your principles.... Attempt nothing out of its own nature [then follow parables that grapes are not gathered from thistles, etc.]. If you know how to apply this doctrine in your operation as you ought, you will find great benefit, and a door will hereby be opened to the discovery of greater mysteries." Actually there is a greater difference between one who seeks what he seeks as an end, and one who seeks it as a means to an end. To seek knowledge for riches is a very different thing from seeking riches (or independence) as an instrument of knowledge. In the study in question the means and the end must coincide, i.e., the truth must be sought for itself only. (H. A., p. 238.) In the book, "De Manna Benedicto," we read: "Whoever thou art that readest this tractate, let me exhort thee that thou directest thy understanding and soul more toward G.o.d for the keeping of his commandments, than toward love of this art [sc. its external portions], for although it be the only, indeed the whole wisdom of the world, it is yet powerless in comparison with the divine wisdom of the soul, which is the love towards G.o.d, in the keeping of his commandments.... Hast thou been covetous, profane one? Be thou meek and pious and serve in all lowliness the glorious creator; if thou art not determined to do that, thou art employed in trying to wash an Ethiop white."

Desire is, as some ancient philosophers think, the root of all affects, which manifest themselves in pairs. Joy corresponds to desire fulfilled, sorrow to the obstructed or imperiled fulfillment; hope is the expectation of fulfillment, fear the opposite, etc. All the pairs of opposites are in some degree superficial, something that comes and goes with time, while the essential remains, itself invisible and without relation to time-a perpetual activity, an ever enduring conation as it was formerly called.

(It is the libido of the psychoa.n.a.lysis. In its manifestations it is subjected to bipolarity, as Stekel has named the inevitable pairs of opposites.)

The pairs of opposites have been noticed in the Hindu doctrine of salvation exactly as in alchemy. Alchemistic hieroglyphics we know are rich in [ambiguous] expressions for a hostile Dyas (couple), with whose removal a better condition first commences, although at the outset it is actually requisite for the achievement of the work. In the Bhagavad-Gita the pairs of opposites play a great part. The world is full of agony on account of the pairs of opposites, which are to be found everywhere. Heat, cold; high, low; good, evil; joy, sorrow; poor, rich; young, old; etc. The basis of the opposites is formed by the primal opposition Rajas-Tamas. To escape from it in recognizing the true ego as superior to it and not partic.i.p.ating in it, is the foremost purpose of the effort toward salvation. So whoever has raised himself above the qualities of substances is described as having escaped from opposites.

"Contact of atoms is only cold and warm, brings pleasure and pain, They come and go without permanency-tolerate them O Bharata.

The wise man, whom these do not affect, O mighty hero, Who bears pain and pleasure with equanimity he is ripening for immortality." (II, 14 ff.)

The spirit, the true ego, is raised above the agitation of the qualities of nature:

"Swords cut him not, fire burns him not, Water wets him not nor does the wind wither him.

Not to be cut, not to burn, not to get wet, not to be withered, He is constant, above everything, continuous, eternal immovable."

[II 23 ff.]

This characterization sounds almost like the description of the mercury of the philosophers, which is indestructible, a water that does not wet, a fire that does not consume.

Hermes on the human soul: "The accidents residing in the material substances have never sympathized with each other, but on the contrary have always been in opposition and in mutual conflict. Guard thyself O soul from them and turn away from them.... Thou O soul art of one nature, but they are manifold; thou art but one with thyself; they are, however, in conflict with each other. [Psychoa.n.a.lytically regarded, to the soul is here a.s.signed the property which is desired but is not present, while that which is undesired but actually present in the soul (inclination and disinclination) is projected into the external world.] ... How long O soul wilt thou yet be needy, and flee from every sensation to its opposite, now from warmth to cold, now from cold to warmth, now from hunger to satiety, now from satiety to hunger?" (Fleischer Herm. a. d. Seele, pp. 14 ff.) "Be thou O soul regardful of the behavior in this world, yet not as a child without understanding who when one gives him to eat and acts leniently towards him is satisfied and cheerful, but when one treats him severely cries and is bad, indeed begins to weep while laughing and when he is satisfied begins again to be bad. This is not worthy of approbation but rather a mongrel and blameworthy behavior. The world O soul, is so organized as to unify exactly these opposites; good and evil, weal and woe, distress and comfort, and contains types of ideas that have the effect of waking the soul and making it aware of itself, so that as a result it gains reason that illumines and consummates knowledge, i.e., wisdom and knowledge of the true nature of things. For this purpose alone has the soul come into the world, to learn and experience; but it is like a man that comes to a place to become acquainted with it and know its conditions, but then gives up the learning, inquiring and collecting of information, and diverts his spirit by reaching after luxury and the enjoyment of other things, and in so doing forgets to acquire that which he was to strive for." (L. c., pp. 8 ff.)

I return to the psychological point of view of our friend Hitchc.o.c.k: "Desire and love are almost synonymous terms, for we love and seek what we desire, and so also we desire and seek what we love; yet neither love nor desire is by any necessary connection directed to one thing rather than another, but either under conditions suitable to it may be directed to anything. From which it follows that it is possible to make G.o.d as the Eternal, its object, or call it truth and we may see that its enjoyment must partake of its own nature. Now we read that it is not common for man to love and pursue the good and the true because it is the good and true; but we call that good which we desire and there lies the great mistake of life. From all which we may see that vast consequences follow from the choice of an object of desire, which as we have said, may as easily be an eternal as a transient one. We should be on guard against a too mechanical conception of these things. By so doing we should depart too greatly from the point of view of the true alchemists. One author tells of the significant advance that he made from the time when he discovered that nature works 'magically.' " (H. A., Hitchc.o.c.k's Remarks upon Alchemy, pp.

294 ff.)

Aversion and hate, the opposites of desire and love, are not independent affections but depend upon the latter. There is only the one impulsion of demand that strives for what satisfies it and repulses what conflicts with it. "If then desire is turned to one only eternal thing, then, since the nature of man takes its character from his leading or chief desire, the whole man is gradually converted to, or, as some think, trans.m.u.ted into that one thing." (H. A., pp. 295 ff.)

The doctrine naturally presupposes the possibility, already mentioned, of a schooling of the will, yet it will still be necessary to fix it upon a definite object. The love of the transitory finds itself deceived because the objects vanish, while the desire itself, the conation (or in psychoa.n.a.lytic language the libido), continues forever. For this everlasting desire only an everlasting object is suitable. An object of that kind is not to be found in the external world. We can only withdraw the outer object and offer ideals in exchange. The moment that this withdrawal of external objects takes place the libido begins, as it were, to eject itself as an object; in the ideal we give it a nucleus for this process, in order that it may form the new object around it and water it with its own life. So in a "magic" way a new world is formed whose laws are those of the ideal. The formation of the new world (new earth and new heaven, new Jerusalem, etc.) occurs frequently in the symbolic language of mysticism.

The laws of the ideal and consequently of the new world are determined by the nature of the ideal. Not every one is proved everlastingly suitable.

"Those that dedicate themselves to the G.o.ds and fathers, pa.s.s over to the G.o.ds and fathers, Spirit worshipers to the spirits, whoever honors me, comes to me."

says the Highest Being to Arjuna in the Bhagavad-Gita (IX, 25). The mystic is in the position from the moment of regeneration, to create in himself a new world with laws that he may, to a certain extent, himself select.

Fortunate is he who makes a good selection. Every one is the architect of his own fortune. This is most true when after introversion the power of self determining one's own destiny is directed toward the most intensive living. The formation and cultivation of the new earth is a beginning that is rich with significant consequences. The alchemists speak of a maidenly earth or a flaky white earth (i.e., crystalline) as a certain stage in the work. This is probably the stage that we are examining now, the stage of the new, still undeveloped earth that is now to be organized (according to the conceived ideal). The soil is crystalline because the old earth was dissolved and has been freshly formed from the solution. The crystallization corresponds to regeneration. The "white earth" probably corresponds to the "white stone," which is the first stage of completion after the blacks (first mystical death, putrefaction, trituration, or contrition). In the white earth a seed is sown. We shall hear of it later.

If the work is not to make men unserviceable and is not again to bring them into conflict with the demands of life, so that all the effort would have been fruitless, the new world must be organized in such a way that it is compatible with the demands of real life. In other words, the ideal that regulates the new world must be an ethical one. The mystic who wishes to be freed from contradictions will have to follow his conscience as a guide, and not the unexplored but the explored conscience. He cannot escape it in the long run (the magicians that defy it are, as the legend informs us, finally torn to pieces by the devil); it is better for him to get upon its side and so turn the conflict in his favor. It appears that this manly att.i.tude would have a marvelous inner concord as a result and outwardly, a remarkable firmness of character. It is not my object to decide what metaphysical significance the strengthening through mysticism of the ideal (G.o.d in me) may have.

"Take, O soul, not the unworthy and common as a model, for such use and word will adhere to thee finally as a nature opposed to thine own. By this means, however, the strong impulse itself towards union with thy nature and to the return into thy home goes astray. Know that the exalted and majestic Originator of things, is himself the n.o.blest of all things. Take then the n.o.ble things as a model, in order by that means to get nearer thy Creator on the path of elective affinity. And know that the n.o.ble attaches itself to the n.o.ble and the vulgar to the common." (Fleischer, Herm. a. d.

Seele, p. 18.)

What is to be sown in the new earth is generally called love. A crop of love is to arise; with love will the new world be saturated; its laws will be the laws of love. By love a trans.m.u.tation of the subject is to take place. One alchemist (quoted in H. A., pp. 133 ff.) writes as follows:

"I find the nature of Divine Love to be a perfect unity and simplicity.

There is nothing more one, undivided, simple, pure, unmixed and uncompounded than Love....

"In the second place I find Love to be the most perfect and absolute liberty. Nothing can move Love, but Love; nothing touch Love, but Love; nor nothing constrain Love, but Love. It is free from all things; itself only gives laws to itself, and those laws are the laws of Liberty; for nothing acts more freely than Love, because it always acts from itself, and is moved by itself, by which prerogatives Love shows itself to be allied to the Divine Nature, yea, to be G.o.d himself.

"Thirdly, Love is all strength and power. Make a diligent search through Heaven and Earth, and you will find nothing so powerful as Love. What is stronger than h.e.l.l and Death? Yet Love is the triumphant conqueror of both. What more formidable than the wrath of G.o.d? Yet Love overcomes it, and dissolves and changes it into itself. In a word, nothing can withstand the prevailing strength of Love: it is the strength of Mount Zion, which can never be moved.

"In the fourth place: Love is of a trans.m.u.ting and transforming nature.

The great effect of Love is to turn all things into its own nature, which is all goodness, sweetness, and perfection. This is that Divine power which turns water into wine; sorrow and anguish into exulting and triumphant joy; and curses into blessings. Where it meets with a barren and heathy desert, it trans.m.u.tes it into a paradise of delights; yea, it changeth evil into good, and all imperfection into perfection. It restores that which is fallen and degenerated to its primary beauty, excellence and perfection. It is the Divine Stone, the White Stone with the name written upon it, which no one knows but he that hath it. [Cf. Rev. II, 17. 'He that hath an ear, let him hear what the Spirit saith unto the churches; To him that overcometh will I give to eat [nutritio] of the hidden manna, and will give him a white stone, and in the stone a new name written, which no man knoweth saving he that receiveth it.' Also III, 12: 'Him that overcometh will I make a pillar in the temple of my G.o.d, and he shall go no more out: and I will write upon him the name of my G.o.d, and the name of the city of my G.o.d, which is new Jerusalem, which cometh down out of heaven from my G.o.d: and I will write upon him my new name.' Cf. also XIX, 12, and XXI, 2. The White Stone with the new name is also joined with the new earth. Because of this it is important that the new Jerusalem is 'prepared as a bride adorned for her husband.'] In a word, it is the Divine Nature, it is G.o.d himself, whose essential property it is to a.s.similate all things with himself; or [if you will have it in the scripture phrase] to reconcile all things to himself, whether they be in Heaven or in Earth; and all by means of this Divine Elixir, whose transforming power and efficacy nothing can withstand...." (H. A., pp. 133 ff.)

At the end of the work there ensues the union of sun and moon, typifying G.o.d and man. As in the Vedanta the teaching of the holy books of India, the Upanishads, so in alchemy, the difference between the one soul and the All Soul is of no importance. For every one who succeeds in overcoming the fundamental error, in which we are all implicated, the difference vanishes, and the two things previously separated coalesce. In reality there is only the one thing: G.o.d.

Irenaeus writes: "... The fire of nature a.s.similates all that it nourishes to its own likeness, and then our mercury or menstruum vanishes, that is, it is swallowed by the solar nature [The soul of man dissolves and is taken up by the divine or All Soul] and all together make but one universal mercury [All Soul] by intimate union. And this mercury is the material principle of the Stone; for formerly, when it was compounded of three mercuries, [namely, when they thought they had to distinguish spirit, soul and body, or some other division in it] then Soul, world and G.o.d were, for example, to be thought of, or as they are called in Soeta-svatara-Upanishad V, Enjoyer, Object of Enjoyment, and Inciter.

As eternal cause contains that trinity.

Whoever finds in it the Brahma as the kernel, Resolves himself in it as a goal, and is freed from birth."

Cf. also Deussen, Syst. d. Ved., p. 232, and Sutr. d. Ved., pp. 541 ff.: "Frequently we are told of the connection of the highest with the individual soul, and then again of a splitting up [conditioned by them]

inside the Brahma, by virtue of which their two parts are mutually opposed and limited. Both of these things happen, however, only from the standpoint of the distinctions [upadhi].... There were two which were superficial (in that they formed an unjustified opposition) and the third essential to Sol and Luna only, not to the Stone; for nature would produce these two out of it by artificial decoction.... [These distinctions depend on ignorance, after throwing off which the individual is one with the highest. The connection of the individual soul with Brahman is in truth its entering into its own self, and the division in Brahma is as unreal as that between s.p.a.ce in general and s.p.a.ce within the body.] But when the two perfect bodies are dissolved [prepared for the mystical work] they are trans.m.u.ted with the mercury that dissolved them, and then there is no more repugnancy in it; then there is no longer a distinction between superficial and essential. And this is that one matter of the stone, that one thing which is the subject of all wonders. When thou art come to this then shalt thou no more discern a distinction between the Dissolver [G.o.d]

and the dissolved [soul] ... and the color of the ripe sulphur [the divine nature] inseparably united to it will tinge your water [soul]." Irenaeus says that the two bodies, Sol and Luna, are compared by the alchemists to two mountains, first because they are found in mountains, and second by way of opposition: "For where mountains are highest above ground, there they lie deepest underground," and he adds: "The name is not of so much consequence, take the body which is gold [i.e., here the consummate man]