Kamala Jnana puts on display the whole Main Work piece showing color passages from black to red through white. Just the subject of Artephius Secret Book.
Only from these snapshots, taken in the Temple of Ajunta, and published in Kamala Jnana’s Dictionnaire de Philosophie Alchimique Editions Argentière, limited edition, 1959? – 1967?, we knew, and saw, that Secret Fire did really exist.
In fact these pictures put on display a live Secret Fire metamorphosis.This caused Kamala gaining an awesome relevance in twenty first century Alchemy. Back then we were in the fabulous sixties. A decade where all was daringly easy.
Nevertheless the story of these photos publication was not a smooth one. At first only a written description by Roger Caro in “Concordances Alchimiques ou la Grande Oeuvre Photographié” 1968 ( Roger Caro has been said to be the man in the beginning of the gallery) was available . While the very pictures had been cautiously set apart for a strict and carefully chosen audience of researchers. Only some ten years ago, as I remember right, they have been widely presented to a large public and can be unified with Caro commentaries. It was the concomitant internet boom that brought Kamala Jnana’s pictures to be discovered by the many.
But hermetic world took its revenge, as usual, and Kamala Jnana has been refused to enter in hermetic books listings for years. What are the reasons for this banning? Well…..Alchemy produced in Temple of Ajunta has not been judged scholar enough. Generally speaking, it is very difficult to find out something about Kamala Jnana in a symbolism specialized book, site or blog. I mean, the real problem when dealing with these photos, is that they have the tricky tendence to make symbolism obsolete. To amend, Temple of Ajunta members wording is cryptic.
Rubellus Petrinus once said that he got deeply shocked at the first sight of kamala Jnana’s photos. His masters attending and classics reading never succeded in teaching him a quite acceptable concept of Secret Fire working. Before his eyes there was the whole alchemical Metamorphosis show.
However, Alchemy before your eyes can be a very tough challenge even for people skilled in the Art, as confirmed by the same Rubellus. Indeed very few of the researchers and would be alchemists that tried to imitate Kamala Jnana have succeeded, not only to come to his full transmutation, but even to achieve the same rotation of colors. As a matter of fact kamala Jnana’s photos do show too less features to work on it.
When compared with Pretiosissimum Donum Dei drawings (2), concerning alike alchemical phases, you could have already noticed that Kamala’s lack the necessary laboratory details. But that will the subject of next posts. Now, as suggested by my title, here we are to celebrate Secret Fire and its at last visible Metamorphosis. My aim here is to provide a mind mapping to be at hand. So I will not heavy burden pictures above with quotes, but just the one from Pontanus, one of Donum Dei commenter ” Whiten the black and redden the white. That’s all the Magisterium”.
The Kamala Jnana Photos I chose are number 14 for blackness, 25 for whiteness and 33 for redness. As stated above, we are before the Main Work. A work quite exclusively performed by Secret Fire. After a Labors of Hercules positive conclusion. That’s to say after Mercurius Philosophorum is being obtained and then doubled in our vessel (see an Opus Magnum scheme). Inside a (stoppered) vessel Mercurius philosophorum is getting black and turns into Primitive Mercurius, than getting white ( inside an open vessel) and turn to White Sulphur to finally Red Sulphur. This phase is what both Kamala Jnana and Archarion called “ Solve et Coagula”. In my opinion this wording is too much confusing, since a chemical solve et coagula has already taken place in Labors of Hercules. Anyway check Opus Magnum scheme and look at the middle of the scheme. Kamala Jnana’s pictures represent this piece of work. After Mercurius Philosophorum (3) and Mercurius Duplicatus (4).
As we go in Alchemy key concepts we will notice that is just symbolic lexicon to complicate things. And rule of three, of course.
Back to the materias inside vessel, no matter whatever chemical compositions are, for we always have the same colors rotation from blackness, to whiteness and finally redness. If one might suppose a strong oxidation ( and probably it is) in black phase, what about with white and red? Definitely something strange is happening before our eyes.
To be continued at Kamala Jnana, from Black to White.
- See also Artephius, Secret Fire and Secret Book ;
- Pretiosissimum Donum Dei, or a very pretious God’s present. A valuable iconography taken by numerous authors. The most famed is Georges Aurach’s. The one shown above is not complete but wonderfully fits its role. Probably its unknown ( to me) author is from Polish or Bohemian school, XVII century;
- Mercurius Philosophorum, see Basilius Valentinus Azoth ;
- Mercurius Duplicatus, see Atalanta Fugiens & Mercurius Duplicatus ;