Anatomy of an Alchemical Machine

4. Alchemy is Physics, not Chemistry. But we can’t figure out what it is.

It was Fulcanell who wrote (or rather Canseliet for him): “Alchemy is physics, not chemistry, which should become very evident in the final stages of the Great Work”. Many know what he meant, but no one has understood why. Starting from the assumption that alchemical texts were often written by laypersons through suggestions-conjectures-assignments, and imagining them as climbers on a cold, windy night of solitude-resilience-resourcefulness desperately seeking any certainty that would save their task, we can easily understand how, in any given era, the hold they cling to is the science of the times in which they/we live. The astonishing thing is that, whatever the state of the art of science, those “inspired” are almost always right: Alchemy adapts to everything, and everything adapts to Alchemy.

Particles, quasi-particles, wave functions, spintronics, and fields. Apparently, everything goes.

5. Destruction and Immortality in Alchemy

Although only memories remain, alchemists cannot help but notice the similarities between the philosophical theories of palingenesis and metempsychosis of humans and that of metals. As long as metals are involved, alchemists dare to claim their resurrection and immortality, but few reach that final stage that reveals the analogy between metals and beings endowed with DNA. Once that veil has been lifted, alchemists will be able to understand the reason for the beginning: that is, Nigredo, the perfect black, the foundation of Alchemy. Of the many legends circulating about the longevity – or even immortality – of mythical alchemists we have no reliable biographical documentation. Of those registered in the birth and death lists, one can only observe an average longevity, with average illnesses, heart attacks and accidents. Nevertheless, alchemists do believe that they follow the great chains synchronisms, which, ultimately, appears to them as an acceptable transmutation.

From death and a kind of rebirth, the circle that alchemists close in the word “transmutation”.

6. The Enigma of the Three Salts: Ladders, Chains, Archetypes, Canons and Processions.

Alchemical doctrine descends directly from ancient cosmogonies, that is, from a swarming and coming and going of entities and densities within and outside of which anything can happen. Chains and densities where contacts count more than individualities and where the ascent-descent fades into a cosmogony that the alchemists thinks they can travel almost entirely. If the world of metamorphosis is to be self-constituting, disorder cannot exist and everything must be codified and weighed. Alchemists call Mercurius, Sulfur and Salt/Body the steps of their cosmogonic ladder.

Preliminary notes on Mercurius, Sulfur, and Salt or Body

7. The Foundation of Alchemical Symbolism

Since a caste of scientists did not yet exist, the ancients used a strange lexicon to explain or memorize rather complex phenomena. They had to draw vocabulary from the human activities – as well as social customs – of their time in the same way that scientists use terminology that today may seem exhaustive to us, but may become obsolete and obscure in a few decades. So, Doubles, Seeds, Unions, Births, and Processions became the basis of alchemical symbolism. The archaic lexicon is now so distant from our modern way of life that it seems not only alien but also irritating. For example, take the amount of female nudity or fairly explicit sexual acts or physiological acts in general used as valid allegories of alchemical operations so fundamental as to represent true Arcana.

Behind the archaic alchemical symbolism lies the very old-fashioned popular imaginary.

8. Flow and Reflux of the Philosophical Sea

X

X

Pages: 1 2 3 4 5 6 7