What is ALCHEMY?
A Treatise on Alchemy in Four Parts
Part #1
In the simplest possible terms, Alchemy is a praxis which seeks to understand the relationship between Consciousness (“I AM”) and Matter.
Of course alchemy is easy to dismiss as ‘just’ pre-scientific chemistry, concerned only with bubbling potions in vain attempts to ‘transmute metals’.
We can equally pour scorn upon it as poetic New-Age nonsense referring only to allegories and metaphors about ‘personal growth’, that are best discarded for more modern technologies of the Psyche.
But, I hope to demonstrate, Alchemy is in fact something more profound and coherent than either of those.
Throughout human history, alchemy has been concerned with the essential relationship between the immaterial and the material – the Spiritual and the Physical.
It has sought to bring about – via experimentation – understanding of how human beings can fully participate in the tremendous powers of transformation apparent in Nature.
That which is below corresponds to that which is above, and that which is above corresponds to that which is below, in the accomplishment of the miracle of One Thing
~ Paracelsus
That miraculous ‘One Thing’ spoken of in the Emerald Tablet is, in fact, you.
Consciousness1
LIFE ITSELF.
The Point in the Circle, The Above and Below
The Point in the Circle, infinitesimally contracted and Infinitely Expanded at the same time.
Pulsing out Time and Space, in, out, create, maintain, destroy, 1-and-2-and-1-and-2-and…so on.
These are both considered to be essential aspects of the Self, The Above / Superior Self and the Below / inferior self.
You, as a cartographer between the Infinite and the Infinitesimal, making your own maps of meaning, and seeking your own progress.
The Above can be thought of as the Kosmos/Self –
all that Can Be, Unidentified, The Infinite Self, Imaginal, Unbound
The Below can be thought of as the creation/self –
all that is, experienced, the finite self, manifest, bound in the Real
That’s You, from the Above to the Below.
Capable of either, or both.
Circle/point.
Utriusque capax.1
This Association or Relationship between the Infinite and the infinitesimal– an association we refer to as Consciousness – which is your experience – is this Self/self.
The Infinite contracted to the infinitesimal, in order to adopt a point of view.
From the Self to the self, creating everything in between.
E=mc² | Mind blowing physics
Your current ‘experience’ is the ‘m’ part of the interchangeable equation E=mc², which basically says ‘matter is energy slowed down to nothing, and energy is matter (mass) accelerating to infinity 2
I am. I Will be.
Selfhood.
That creepy, undeniable Is-ness of your basic conundrum.
Nothing like a photon of light. A bit like a chimpanzee, but significantly different in important ways 3
Taken from an Infinite source – the Kosmos – and reduced to a little bounded manifestation with a point of view, and yet able to relate to its association with the Infinite, the unbounded.
Another way to put this – germane to Tarot study – would be the 10 considering its origin as the 1 (out of 0). 4
So.
The ‘You’ I am referring to when I say “that’s You” is not the you in your little body with your daily toils, alive now, and certainly not the entire Universe throughout space-time – which would be a bit silly and hugely cumbersome – but the association between finite and Infinite, which association can only be experienced by the finite, as Consciousness, in the ever-present Now of Infinite Creation.
Pop! Here it all is!
All at Once!
Always with the Trinities : 3 fundamental qualities
Alchemists posit that everything in existence, all Being, has 3 fundamental qualities, with the first 2 absolutely co-dependent, and necessitating and naturally crystallizing, the third – through their innate, eternal action- in-union, which is to Transform.
These are referred to – deliberately confusingly – as Sulfur, Mercury and Salt.
As familiar as these common enough substances may be to a modern – and even medieval – sensibility, alchemists were speaking about something very specific when using these code-words in their manuscripts.
The ‘Substances’ they referred to were not so common, or simple to identify.
Hidden from the profane and the inquisitive alike, but right in plain view if you happen to have the Key…
A Key which Tarot very readily supplies, for the initiated.
We’ll discuss them individually in parts 2, 3 and 4😊
This, by the way – the process of breaking a large subject down into more easily digestible chapters – is an example of Solve – to Dissolve.
Editing them and then drawing a Finale or Conclusion from all the scattered information, carefully selected for relevance and insight, is an example of Coagula – to Coagulate.
The entire process of Solve et Coaguala which so obsessed the alchemists, was – both literally and also abstractly – the process of Analysis and Synthesis.
Proto-Science (but so much more…)
We can clearly see that this is proto-science, the beginnings of what would later be thoroughly codified as the scientific method.
Thesis – Antithesis – Analysis – Synthesis
You should start with a ‘material’ – like a human Being. Or a plant. Or a metal. Or a mineral.
You choose.
Analysis (Solve) reduces that material into its vital, constituent ‘parts’.
Afterwards, ‘heat’ is applied to this ‘solution’, provoking further transformation. The finer, essential elements can be distilled from the grosser, superfluous ‘heavy’ elements.
Synthesis (Coagula) reforms the material into it’s now separated constituents, leaving the essential, and discarding the impurities and contaminants.
You therefore end with a ‘material’ which has revealed its Essence, Spirit and Matter.5. At this stage, you have discarded all but the vital and the pure constituents of that Being, that material, whatever you were studying.
Let us – as surely the Alchemists have cried! – PULL OURSELVES TOGETHER!
This was indeed the aim of our alchemical ancestors. They were compelled to study the transformation of something into something else.
Into something purer, better refined, and more essential – a truer expression of an essence.
Perhaps even the essence itself.
You needed a royal license to practice alchemy legally, and for the aristocracy it was of course a desire to artificially manufacture gold, carefully regulated.
But behind this materialism, a deeply spiritual aim motivated many of its most famous devotees.
Footnotes
The Above is represented in the Thoth tarot as Nuit, arching her back around Infinite Space.
She is the Circle, Infinite, Encompassing All.
An Inner World without Boundary, ‘the Macrocosm’, the Ideal.
The Below is represented in the Thoth tarot as Hadit, the infinitesimal point, lacking dimension.
He is the Dot, Compressed to a tiny Nothing, Individual.
The bounded World of phenomena, ‘the Microcosm’, the Manifest.
Both symbols are present on Atu XX, The Aeon (the Judgment) – which destroys ‘the four elements’ and the ‘time-and-space’ created by Atu I, The Magus, re-initiating the whole cycle of creation-destruction.
They show up individually on other cards, for the sharp-eyed 😉
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