6. Soul, Spirit, Matter and Body in Alchemy or playing with fire.
Alchemists play like children with Soul, Spirit, Matter and Body of metals, of winds and underground waterways, of the moon and the sun, and of stars of course. No one knows the boundaries between soul and spirit like an alchemist, or sees the formation of the body from matter. But, above all, no one can witness the spectacle of the entrance into a private channel, where a small genesis is said to take place. With metals, everything seems simple and so inviting. Until we reach very dangerous thresholds, where, either by fate or wisdom, we decide to stop, and to have borne witness to the simple human condition. As with so many things in life, going is exciting, returning safe and sound is magnificent.
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7. The Foundation of Alchemical Symbolism
Since a caste of scientists did not yet exist, the ancients used a strange lexicon to explain or memorize rather complex phenomena. They had to draw vocabulary from the human activities – as well as social customs – of their time in the same way that scientists use terminology that today may seem exhaustive to us, but may become obsolete and obscure in a few decades. So, Doubles, Seeds, Unions, Births, and Processions became the basis of alchemical symbolism.
Behind the abstruse alchemical symbolism lies the reason for many operations.
8. Can we Extend the Concept of Banquet and Sacrifice to the Alchemy of Metals?
Pull out the body from that which has a body and give a body to that which has no body. This sentence extracted from Turba Philosophorum dates back to the Middle Ages, yet, besides depicting Alchemy in its essence, it was rarely cited in baroque treatises. Perhaps for fear of attracting the attention of the Catholic Inquisition – but the Protestant one was not much different – the alchemists limited themselves to focusing on the formula “extraction of the metallic soul by means of the spirit/dissolvent and re-introduction into a renewed and purified metallic body“. A very spagyric and not very alchemical conclusion to the Opus Magnum, the great work. In fact, the revelations about the Last Cooking left many alchemists astonished and disoriented. The sacrificial victim is always the body, and it wasn’t a mere matter of cleaning it of waste, however metallic it was.
In Construction
- The Foundations of Alchemical Symbolism, Banquets and Sacrifices
9. Synchronicity, Archetypes, Codes and Mapping in Alchemy
In Construction
10. Flow and Reflux of the Philosophical Sea
In Construction
In Construction
- Stellar Alchemy, the Aerial Ropes
- Stellar Alchemy, the Signatures Palace
- When the Stars Overshadow the Sun
- The Cold and Dark Sun: The Spark
- The Sun as Aura Shaker
- Apollo, the Sun as Middle Note
- Solar Alchemy: Pulvis Solaris, The Solar Dust
- Planets, the Whirling Nature of the Sun
- Planets, Bells
- Lunar Alchemy
- Air is Moved by That which Moves
- Air, the Substrate between Sky and Earth
- Air Alchemy, the Dust
- Air Alchemy, the Fabric
- Water, the Origin of Everything
- Water Alchemy
- Earth is a Sediment of Air and Water
- Earth Alchemy
- Fire Alchemy
- The Struggle Within the Four Elements: Where Nature Hides Its Seeds
- Alchemical Timing & Astronomical Code
- Differences between Alchemy and Spagyrics
- Concordances and Differences between Alchemy and Ancient Ordinary Chemistry
- Before Preparatory Work, Spiritus Mundi
- Before Preparatory Work, Magnetization
- First-Preparatory Works, Introduction
- First-Preparatory Works, Eagle Wings or Volatilization
- Second-Main Work, the Rotation of Colors
- The Third Work and the Last Cooking
- Concordances and Differences between the Humid and Dry Path
- Gold & Alchemy, or Adorn with a Star Ray
- Gold & Alchemy, Apples to Stop Atalanta
- Gold & Alchemy, Potable Gold
- Alchemy Resounds
- What is the Philosophers Stone?
- The Genesis on a Small Scale
- Transmutation of Metals
- Alchemy and Electricity
- Short Art Ars Brevis
- The Enigma of the Three Salts, i.e. the Alchemical Physis
- Inner Alchemy
X. The Didactic Path Explained in Baroque Texts: Before Preparatory Works
In Construction
In Construction
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X. The Didactic Path Explained in Baroque Texts: First Preparatory Works
In Construction
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X. The Didactic Path Explained in Baroque Texts: Second-Main Work
In Construction
Cohobating the Above with the Below. The Rotation of Colors
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