Kamala Jnana displays the whole Main Work piece showing color passages from black to red through white. Just the subject of Artephius’s 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? – In 1967?, we knew and saw that Secret Fire did exist.
These pictures put on display a live Secret Fire metamorphosis. This caused Kamala to gain extraordinary 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 at the beginning of the gallery) was available. At the same time, the very pictures had been cautiously set apart for a strict and carefully chosen audience of researchers. Only ten years ago, as I remember right, they were widely presented to a large public and can be unified with Caro commentaries. The concomitant internet boom brought Kamala Jnana’s pictures to be discovered by many.
But the hermetic world took its revenge, as usual, and Kamala Jnana has been refused to enter hermetic book listings for years. What are the reasons for this banning? Well… Alchemy produced in the Temple of Ajunta has not been judged scholarly enough. Generally speaking, finding something about Kamala Jnana in a symbolism-specialized book, site, or blog isn’t easy. When dealing with these photos, the real problem is that they have the tricky tendency to make symbolism obsolete. To amend, the Temple of Ajunta members’ wording is cryptic.
Rubellus Petrinus once said he was shocked at first sight of Kamala Jnana’s photos. His master attending and classics reading never taught 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 Art, as confirmed by the same Rubellus. Indeed, few researchers and would-be alchemists that tried to imitate Kamala Jnana have succeeded, not only in coming to his complete transmutation but even in achieving the same rotation of colors. Kamala Jnana’s photos do show too few features to work on it.
Compared with Pretiosissimum Donum Dei drawings (2) concerning similar alchemical phases, you could have already noticed that Kamala lacks the necessary laboratory details. But that will be the subject of the following posts. Now, as my title suggests, 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 heavily burden the pictures above with quotes, but just the one from Pontanus, one of Donum Dei’s commenters,” Whiten the black and redden the white. That’s all the Magisterium”.
I chose the Kamala Jnana Photos 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 Labor of Hercules positive conclusion. That’s to say, after Mercurius Philosophorum is obtained and doubled in our vessel (see an Opus Magnum scheme). Inside a (stoppered) vessel, Mercurius philosophorum gets black and turns into Primitive Mercurius, then gets 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”. I think this wording is too confusing since chemical solve et coagula have already taken place in the Labors of Hercules. Anyway, check the 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 into Alchemy’s key concepts, we will notice that it is just a symbolic lexicon to complicate things. And the rule of three, of course.
Back to the material inside the vessel, no matter the chemical composition, we always have the same color rotation from black to whiteness and, finally, redness. If one might suppose strong oxidation ( and probably it is) in the black phase, what about with white and red? 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 precious God’s present. A valuable iconography taken by numerous authors. The most famous is Georges Aurach’s. The one shown above is not complete but wonderfully fits its role. Probably is unknown ( to me) author is from a Polish or Bohemian school, XVII century;
- Mercurius Philosophorum, see Basilius Valentinus Azoth ;
- Mercurius Duplicatus, see Atalanta Fugiens & Mercurius Duplicatus ;