Alchemy is physics.
And physis, since alchemists define it as a “living organism”.
Alchemy could be compared to physics practiced with bare hands – within the reach of the Neolithic, so to speak – but still physics. This strange art/discipline tends to work in a strange way, to the point that its goals seem alien to common belief.
However, nature’s intervention…
… has been concealed under a mountains of symbols.
Today, we can only observe the immense amount of direct and indirect references as “sediments” piled up on the alchemical corpse, almost like ornaments capable of still signaling its burial.
The enigma of the three salts.
The secret name, the sacred name, the public name.
A theurgic mystery that alchemists translated into the lexical tradition of the three salts. The concept of a “third between the two” expands the boundaries of alchemy to the heart of theurgy.
Alchemy as a sacrifice.
Alchemists defined their sacrifice a “little genesis”.
The separation of philosophical disciplines has relegated the sacrifice of metals to an inferior rank. Yet, metals and humans both possess a “little individual alchemist” that the Greeks called Pneuma, the Neoplatonists Ochêma, and the Theosophists the Etheric Body.
Alchemy as a banquet.
Yet, “sacrifice” was the metaphor of a banquet.
A ritual banquet that the earth offered to the sky and that sky could not refuse, thereby finding mutual sustenance. The banquet/encounter – from which the deities could not escape – it is still evident in the final part of the alchemical works. In fact, the Great Opera seems aimed at opening a “private channel” that, at the level of human senses, could unexpectedly be based on sound.
Ultimately, everything can only be understood in its entirety.
Beyond the knowledge acquired from individual sciences, and despite philosophical views continuing to fluctuate from one system to another, we are left with the task of understanding, unless we transform ancient learning into meaningless chaos.
Métis
Her name meant Wisdom, but also a skill – or the intelligence of cunning – Métis was exercised on very different levels, but always for practical purposes: the bricklayer, the politician, the helmsman, the weaver. All protean realities that did not lend themselves to the immutable reasoning of abstract philosophical conjecture, and one which philosophers hastened to reject as ‘non-knowledge’. Even today it is incomprehensible to us that ancient symbolism is based on the practice of ancient crafts. Furthermore, the scholar must accept that a good percentage of esoteric symbolism reflects the science of matter, i.e. Alchemy.
Theurgy
If the word Alchemy is relatively recent, so is the word Theurgy. First attested in the fragmentary Chaldean Oracles and widely respected and used by later Neoplatonic philosophers, the meaning of Theurgy is disputed. Although it means “work of God” or “divine work”, it also designates a set of ritual routines coupled with a lifestyle based on ethical and intellectual practices. The aim of Theurgy was contact, assimilation, and, ultimately, union with what was defined as “divine”. In some ancient cultures Theurgy was considered such a complex discipline that it became a “sacred game”. Indeed, an actual “sacred hunt”, given the difficulty for the deities to capture a human being.
Sacred Game
Had it not been a real sacred game, we need to deepen why the ancient Celtic and Hittite deities who presided over the Chthonic world were often portrayed with gaming boards. However, the prohibition of practicing on the ritual board for purely recreational purposes was well known. It is easy to say that the gambling part of this priestly game soon entered the popular imagination: a ritual that puts the living in contact with the underworld can only be defined as “taking a huge risk” or at least “enduring a great fright”. Which humans, needless to say, find very exciting