The phenomenon that alchemists always sought to explain using the physics of their time was the “reciprocity” between us and the cosmos. Robert Fludd’s gears are one example. Today alchemists have adopted a modern language and represent the reciprocity with “fields”.
It is truly surprising that the average alchemist is prone to a frenzy over every shift in the techno-scientific imaginary. During Fulcanelli’s era—the Roaring Twenties—the typical alchemist drew upon the imagery of atomic energy. Long before that, spanning the Baroque period and the eighteenth century, the prevailing metaphor was mechanics: the solar system was a machine, the water circuit a hydraulic system, and the human body a thermal system. At the time, it was perfectly adequate to represent the interactions between human beings and the cosmos using cogs and gears extending from inside the skull all the way to the Sun (beyond that point, the description became too complex). In the most ancient times, the models were fire, wind, the ocean, thunder, breath, and the heartbeat. Today, string theory has just gone out of fashion – and it’s a pity, since it was almost convincing, as well as fascinating. We have already moved on to quantum physics. That said—and indulging in the habit of the typical alchemist myself—I find the theory of “fields” truly fascinating and illuminating when it comes to describing the “reciprocity” between us and the cosmos. Perhaps this is because I have read so many essays on the subject that they have actually shaped the explanatory lens through which I view Alchemy today?
How did Plotinus’s saying: “The soul is not in the body, but the body is in the soul” influence the concept of “field” in Alchemy?
Indeed, Plotinus’s statement—”The soul is not in the body, but the body is in the soul”—alters the modern perception of the entire paradigm of Baroque hermetic science, as it establishes the concept of the “field”. For without understanding alchemical “fields”, it is impossible to understand Alchemy.
Can you better explain the concept that in Alchemy everything happens nearby?
In laboratory Alchemy we can notice how great effects occur around and in the vicinity of officially “worked” materials. This also happens for alchemists and their environment. A very striking example is that small aurora – very similar to aurora borealis/australis – that appeared next to the Philosophical Egg when the Last Cooking went terribly wrong.
Was it perhaps for the “field” reason that the places where alchemical works of a certain importance were carried out had to be abandoned soon after?
Legends, traditions and historical curiosities seem to confirm this. For example, Testamentum Fraternitatis Roseae et Aureae Crucis prescribes it among the obligations.
For ancients, the void didn’t exist, but the densities of a continuum…
The ancients were so sure that there was a dense continuum between objects that many superstitions led to “cutting with swords and knives”.
Today, in quantum field theory, even empty space is an exciting place to be.
The overall minimum energy wave function is the one in which every single mode has the lowest possible energy. It is a single state, which physicists today call“vacuum”. When quantum field theorists talk about a vacuum, they are not referring to an empty room, or even to a region of interplanetary space devoid of matter. What they mean is “the minimum energy state of a quantum field theory”.
Superstitions aside, it seems almost just a different lexicon between ancient alchemists and modern physicists. In fact, alchemists, did not imagine a static soul-field, but one in constant movement.
Soul-field movement? Do you mean like a machine?
In the worldview of the ancient Greeks, the concepts of “motor” and “movement” held a sacred significance—certainly not the mechanical-utilitarian one we attribute to them today. One need only consider the abundance of devices found in temples that “imitated” the motive power of the gods; Hephaestus, Athena, and Hera were deities who generated movement. To better explain this movement—which originated in the recesses of the cosmos—we might say that the motive force of the soul is “attractive” in nature, much like the pull of a magnet on iron.
This doesn’t surprise me, in fact for Thales the soul was so mixed everywhere that all things were full of deities.
For alchemists, the soul is mixed in the universe like natural magnets. In addition to the theories of “movement” and “magnet”, in Alchemy we also talk about the theory of “bait”.
What’s the difference between magnets and baits in Alchemy?
can answer with an example: common fire (not the element) is sometimes used as bait for the Spiritus Mundi, given the similarity of “growth”, in fact, the baroque alchemists spoke of similarity of form, of movement, of function. Ultimately, the word bait is very specific and different from magnet: a bait is certainly useful to the fisherman who wants to catch a fish from the water (always keeping in mind that the symbol of the sea indicates the ocean of forces that move around the alchemist). The word magnet instead defines the existence of a specific channel. Specially, we will see later how Mercurius acts as a magnet for both the Spiritus Mundi and the stars.
Previous: Physics in Alchemy, Particles and Wave Functions
Next: Physics in Alchemy, the Relevance of Sound
Main Index: 4. Alchemy is Physics, not Chemistry. But we can’t figure out what it is.