Palingenesis, Seeds in the Wind

An alchemist cannot fail to notice at least three similarities: the belief that in the mineral salts of human bones lies the residual spark for the “reconstruction” of the individual; the final intervention of the world of sound; the idea that an intact metal experiences the death of its soul as when it is reduced to its Prima Materia (or death of the metal) its soul experiences the end of its corporeal integrity has so many similarities with Heraclitusʼ idea that we experience the death of souls as souls experience our death.

This ancient idea goes beyond the modern granite belief in the separation between consciousness and objects.

For alchemists, the secret of everything lies in the “connections” and the substances that compose them.

So do we want to go back to introducing the anatomy of an alchemical machine? If you want, step back to Alchemy & Light, Introduction. But then you’ll come to the page dedicated to “death”.

This seems like a topic that should be further developed in The Subtlety of the Exact Proportions. It is undeniable, however, that death and rebirth have to do with generation and corruption, condensation and rarefaction, almost like a metal.

The seed/spark must be somehow amplified into a ray, and the practice, as far as metals are concerned, is highly “disrespectful”: they are killed. It is clear that palingenesis and metempsychosis of biological beings could not be so crude.

In fact, the alchemists began to think that the very few successes of resurrection from biological ashes were due to chance, but since chance does not exist, to nature.

Nature could provide the exact proportions between sky and earth. Which the alchemist called “proportions” between fixed and volatile. But which in reality was not a chemical proportion. See The Subtlety of the Exact Proportions.

We can only say that alchemists see “nature” as something not fleeting, but flowing. And this makes a world of difference. Note that I wrote “nature” in quotation marks. If I had meant generic nature, I wouldn’t have done so.

See Alchemy & Light, Introduction, and Alchemy & Light, Known Authors.

As we shall see in The Subtlety of the Exact Proportions, the search for the measures was not chemical – which would not have been impossible to discover with a little practice – but physical, in the sense of ritual. In fact, it was about the exact proportions between “Sky” and “Earth”. Where, by sky we mean a symbol of the element fire and by earth a symbol of the element water. We’ll see what this is about later.

In fact, to resurrect a corpse from the grave, even metallic, at least an embryo will be needed.

Here, a sacred libation cannot be read as an ordinary salt.

I am convinced that some form of water, however, had to be present at the ceremony.

It has been handed down to us that the Egyptian rituals of “making a god” also included rites of “opening the mouth”. As we can see, this is far from the work of obtaining the resurrection of a metal.

We were taught that the Mercurius, obtained after exhausting volatilizations (in the humid path) or after dangerous fusions and separations (in the metallurgical path) contained within itself the embryo of the raw metal or earth. At most we were able to guess what it was in the transmutation phase (see Transmutation of Metals).

It is beginning to become clear that the Prima Materia is a set of different factors, which are able to convey a “message”.

Many alchemists did not identify gold with the Prima Materia of metals, but with the seed of metals. In fact, for them, the transmutation of common metals into gold was equivalent to a sowing. See Transmutation of Metals.

It is difficult to think that Ariadne’s thread was made of tangible matter, when the initiate who had to enter the labyrinth (in this case, Theseus) could not be made of tangible matter other than the wind. The Mysteries of Demeter say: No one can enter the labyrinth with the body, but only in the form of wind.

Yet when we are born, we forget everything. Unless… we get the help of someone’s memory, which is not us of course.

There is little else to add to this statement. One might only wonder whether “music” and “soul” should be taken literally or whether there is a whole range of analogies. In any case, a beautiful union.

Not only was great importance given to sound, but also great attention was paid to the perpetuation of details of sound tonality. Some of these rituals were performed on exact imitations.