14. Water Alchemy
It cannot be interrupted, nor can it originate in the middle. If this happened, no one could call it water any longer. From the fast roar of waves, to the slow and imperceptible rustle of a puddle, it was shaken at the origin. And the shaking continues in its midst. From here, the ancient ritual of libations. The role of water in Alchemy is to return the spirit to its earth. Once contaminated by water, earth acquires the property of “flowing”, and, consequently, it takes on the solvent function of water. The whole operation is called “returning the spirits to the earth”. Mind, the deities were called “those who flow”.
15. Earth Alchemy
Alchemists knew very well that the earth was not the center of the cosmos. But they also believed that the center of the earth was the receptacle of stellar influences. This made the earth their alchemical “stove”, their athanor, the place where the sidereal Spiritus Mundi was embodied, the place where everything met. Ultimately, the place where everything became “terrestrially adapted”. Alchemical earth is supreme, not because it is made of earth or stone, but because it “repeats” the universe. The alchemist’s quintessential earth is Mercurius, which can emerge from many alchemical paths. It is said that stellar influences are stored there.
Ultimately, only the Earth, or what exists in the world of living things, can unite heaven, sky, and earth, since the earth contains the sky. In fact, for alchemists, it is from matter that we manage to “grasp” the spirit. However, with the strange circumstance that only the sky can continually generate the Earth. Yet, Earth is the secret refuge and the “storehouse” of the stars.
16. Fire Alchemy
Yet we can define it as ‘that which gives a form’. More than an element, it is a directive Greek mythology charges Hephaestus with the task of increasing the intensity of Zeus’s feeble cosmic fire. Are we talking about fire as a principle or ordinary fire, the kind that burns, so to speak? If alchemical works are accomplished through burning fire, it is because we need to generate changes in the state of matter, thus bringing to the surface the spirit of the world, the Spiritus Mundi. As for the other fire, that produced by the “seed” of time, we only know that it is the “carrier” of information, uncontrollable and growing, symbolically represented by ordinary fire. Although it is called a “spark”, it needs to be “swollen” by the moon and amplified on earth.
17. The Four Elements
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18. Alchemical Timing & Astronomical Code
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