Eos is the Greek goddess of dawn and brings morning light to the world; Theia is a titan, daughter of the sky Ouranos and the earth Gaea; Artemis, the nocturnal huntress, is the light of the moon. You alchemist, what do you say?
Three lights, three salts, three airs, three spirits, three Mercurii, three Sulphurs. Now I’ll ask you a question: find me the middle one.
I can’t find the middle one in a list of three.
Three is not a list!
If three isn’t a list, what is?
Three is two plus a riddle.
Then, I ask you to find the enigmatic light in a group of three lights.
The light that holds together the light of sky and the light of earth is the light of the enigma.
Why besides the light of sky and the light of earth there should be a third that unites them?
You chose the word “unite”, very superficially. I used “hold together”, which is a very different concept.
So let’s talk about this “middle” between the two. I’m just asking you if among the three lights I listed at the beginning, one can be defined as “in between” the two.
Those three deities you mentioned above are not a list but a ladder. A gradation with invisible steps, which are in fact dangerous to venture upon.
Why should it be dangerous to venture there? And why should the “middle” steps be invisible?
Only Theurgy should answer this question. In fact, it is theurgists who created chaos. We alchemists sat quietly working on metals. Because, keep this in mind, metals are the good on the face of the earth.
Alchemist, metals are not the good on the face of the earth. They are inert, they cannot defend themselves: the alchemist arrives and snatches them from their torpor.
I disagree with this. Let’s say that the metals are entirely traversed by a channel directly connecting the sky, from which the metals originate, to the earth, where the metals found their settlement. They are not as readily available as air, for example.
We’re talking about light…
I disagree with this. Let’s say that the metals are entirely traversed by a channel directly connecting the sky, from which the metals originate, to the earth, where the metals found their settlement. They are not as readily available as air, for example. Definitely, to cut short, in the twenty-first century, we have to call things by their names: we’re talking about photons. And maybe other particles too.
To tell the truth, I thought that alchemists did not go beyond the crude level of electrons. But let’s not digress, tell me about the middle ground between the two.
There are no middle lands, but there are “entities” that possess something of both. In Alchemy, we work through gradations of density. Thus, we recognize the existence of an unmanageable light, like fire, and a light so earthly that it can be worked in a flask.
Obviously you’re talking about the particles that are in these raw materials…
… and which alchemists call “vessel“? It could be, but I’m not sure. When we talk about fire, it’s not fire; when we talk about earth, it’s not earth. No, it’s too superficial to reduce everything to vessels, as the alchemists of the Baroque age loved to do. For example, they called the luminous body around the bodies “watery light”.
It seems very understandable to me to call the medium between fire and earth “watery”.
You’re completely off track. There will come a time when you’ll realize you’re lost. Keep in mind that this isn’t what we commonly think. We are not finished yet, because this “watery light” also makes our first skin
A light that covers us like a skin is perfectly imaginable…
This skin is not a “dress”, a protective crust. It is an organ.
Of course, skin is an organ, like the lungs, the heart…
No! It’s an organ. Be careful of double meanings. Before going any further, Light in Alchemy and alchemical light are not synonymous, or at least they are only partially so for us moderns if we take into consideration the photon and its amazing world. But alchemists often confused these two “lights”, or even three if they added the kind of flashes and colors seen in their laboratories. Those who did not confuse them were the ancient philosophers and priests of ancient religions: they truly anticipated many discoveries about the incredible world of subatomic particles.
In fact, I’m lost. Let’s go back to the “watery light” which makes our first skin
Also called Mummy or Vesica Piscis, the fish bladder, it is the luminous envelope that surrounds every living being. Luminous because it belongs to the “light” not because it is necessarily bright (even if someone can see it).
In fact as far as I know, the words “mummy” and “fish bladder” have in common only the concept of an envelope…
Both mummies and fish bladders have a weak point: they can be cut. Despite this, or perhaps precisely because of this, they represent a fitting metaphor for the light of the middle.
The middle light can be cut… interrupted, perhaps.
Stop calling it the middle light. As for the interruption, it can certainly be easily interrupted.
I guess, just what the superstitious ancients cut with swordʼs blows…
Since you express yourself visually, I will use the metaphor of painting. As painters have long learned, space is not simple absence, but has the dignity of an entity in itself. What lies between one object and another, in a pictorial composition, is as important as the objects themselves. For a physicist, space is the canvas on which reality is painted.
The Pythagoreans are said to speak of a space of relevance between unit points. The overall space occupied by the points was the number, and a precise geometric figure had to correspond to it. Would it be reasonable to call it “space-light of numbers”? Let it be understood that no Pythagorean or ancient philosopher used the definition “space-light of numbers”, but only I for convenience.
As an alchemist, I can only think of numbers in relation to rhythm… and you’ll ask me what I mean. I’d like to try to relate this to the definition of “watery light” that would compose this first “luminous” skin. I say this because I’m thinking of a light that perhaps can’t be seen with the eyes, but with the ears.
Could a supposed alchemical prism have something to do with that strange form of energy known as Eloptic?
In the 1950s, strange energies were a very fertile field of research, which we will not investigate further since everyone, once they have an idea of the alchemical principles, can investigate on their own, but, since light and optical instruments are involved here, it is worth at least mentioning. The word Eloptic is taken from the first two letters of electricity and the word optic, because this energy seems to have some, but not all, of the characteristics of both those forms of energy. Its discoverer Thomas G. Hieronymous in 1956 literally says: “Eloptic energy radiates from or is in some manner given off from, or forms a force field around, everything in our material world under normal conditions at ordinary room temperature and without any treatment of any kind”. These words, if true, seem to really fit Alchemy. As for any “tools” that might be peculiar to it, the author reveals that: “Eloptic energy can be conducted along light rays, focused with lenses, refracted with a prism and its effect implanted upon photographic film”.
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