Tell me about those transmutations that take place “before the eyes and ears of the alchemist”.
Within each stage of the alchemical operations, one encounters what are termed “processions”—akin to those witnessed in reality, where the figures in the parade resemble one another, save for minor details. It should be noted that there are three such fundamental alchemical stages, or operations. Examples of these details within a procession include the rotation of colors characteristic of the via humida (moist/humid path). The processions of one phase differ from those of the next; in this case, alchemists speak of “Ladders”. To emphasize the necessary continuity, the term “chains” is used, wherein the junction between links represents both the symbiosis and the separation between them. At one end of the chain, linked to it only most tenuously—so tenuously, in fact, that it is not even officially part of it—lies the alchemist’s ultimate goal: the “Archetype”. All these “movements” are grouped by alchemists under the definition of “Perennial Metamorphosis”.
Delving deeper into the concept of chains, should we understand the Mercurius/Sulfur/Salt-Body triad in descending order of density? So, would Mercurius be the progenitor?
From the standpoint of abstract thought, it would be a simple matter to mentally trace an ascending and descending diagram of perfect, ideal chains of connection. But in Alchemy, it is very different.
I seem to understand that the alchemists “borrowed” the vocabulary of the Neoplatonists to explain—or veil—the hierarchical scale, imagined as a concatenation of infinite alchemical operations from the heavens, skies and earth.
Your way of expressing yourself is already abstractly philosophical. In reality, alchemists have the entire series of operations right before their eyes—pursued, moreover, along many different paths. It is, therefore, certainly a hierarchical scale conceived as a chain of infinite alchemical operations involving the heavens, firmaments, and the earth, yet carried out through the transformation of what is excessively volatile into what is fixed and earthly. The chain of transmission is intended to bring the subtle cosmic fire down to earth. The operations begin with the extraction of the solvent-magnet Mercurius, which in turn extracts the spark known as Sulfur. Together, they solidify into the Salt-body. And so on, ad infinitum.
Iamblichus describes ancient Egyptian theurgy as a swarming and teeming of beings, on a scale of densities. Is there a similar concept in Alchemy?
Even in alchemy, there is a scale of density from the heavens to the sky to the earth, which can be well represented by the image of a chain where the points of contact between one ring and another are where everything happens. More precisely, the rings should be rendered as “repeating mirrors” where the sequence of the Mercurius/Sulfur/Salt-Body triplet doubles infinitely from the most ineffable of the heavens, and skies, down to the earth, in an increase in density and consistency.
All this clashes with our modern cultural concept of the void between one object and another.
This cultural gap only leads us to conceive of a void between objects and beings that we cannot fill and, consequently, many processes seem disconnected. The very essence of Alchemy is a firm belief in the absence of these imaginary voids between beings and objects.
A fluid swarming that brings to mind the concept of continuum in mathematics. However, in mathematics, what we actually know is only the discrete, even though the behavior of discrete series of numbers must mostly be analyzed using the notion of continuum.
You expressed yourself using mathematical—and therefore abstract—jargon. I hardly know how to replay. Within the reality of their laboratories, if alchemists were to adopt the conventional school of thought that posits a void between objects and beings, their laboratory processes would appear disjointed. In fact, the very essence of alchemy lies in the firm conviction that no such imaginary voids exist between beings and objects. Let us start by talking about the pneuma of the ancient Greeks, instead.
Dionysus is the pneuma that generates and fertilizes. Horned Dionysus, the bull-god…
Dionysus is intriguing, but let us descend into the alchemist’s “infernal” world. From the alchemists’s point of view, pneuma is not only “spirit” but also air and what it can capture. The primary purpose of alchemical works was to enter and exit the world of air.
If I really have to simplify to the extreme—and in philosophy that is never a good thing—nothing seems more appropriate to me than Iamblichus’s concept of the ochema. The soul does not travel, but the Pneuma expands or contracts—meaning it is the Pneuma that travels. That is, provided we wish to identify the pneuma with the ochema, of course…
Thank you—it is truly interesting—but an alchemist cannot follow you there; he/she must remain close to the ground. Let us speak instead of Proclus and his divisions of the pneuma. It is said that alchemists are forbidden the immaterial and immutable, even hypercosmic, the first vehicle of souls, what Proclus calls augoeides ochêma. It is the third vehicle of the souls, the “kingdom” of the alchemists: Ostreoides ochêma, Proclus’s name, was the earthly body. Between the forbidden world and the world of the alchemists was the pneumatic vehicle, pneumatikon ochêma. It comprises what the soul carries with it on its journey from the immaterial to the material.
Who dictates these prohibitions?
By those who want to stay close to the ground so as not to lose their minds.
You don’t just want peace of mind; you have intentionally mixed up the terms. So, let’s sort things out a bit: number one, the immaterial and immutable, hypercosmic element—that is, the first vehicle of souls, what Proclus defines as the augoeides ochêma; number two, the pneumatic vehicle, the pneumatikon ochêma, which comprises what the soul carries with it on its journey from the immaterial to the material; number three, the third vehicle of souls, the ostreoides ochêma—according to Proclus’s terminology—namely, the earthly body. How can we translate this list into the alchemical nomenclature of Mercurius, Sulfur, and Salt—or body?
You have just made an ordered list of the vehicles of the souls, according to the Neoplatonist Proclus. Simply put, we cannot translate this list into the alchemical nomenclature of Mercurius, Sulfur, and Salt—or body.
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