Why did there have to be a metalworker on the staff of priests in an ancient Syrian temple?
I didn’t know that, it sounds intriguing. What was his role?
Apparently he was the priest responsible for pouring libations.
As an alchemist, I am not at all surprised.
Where was that celebrant supposed to pour molten metal?
He didn’t pour molten metal on anything, don’t worry. But the metallurgic operation was intended to cause a physical reaction in the environment, and beyond the matter itself. Ultimately, given the “metallic” context, a very rapid one.
I always thought that the word fire was only symbolic in Theurgy. I’m referring to the common fire, the one that burns.
While in Alchemy we have a list of four effective fires. One of which actually burns, but all of them can smelt metals.
Is this supposed to be the Alpha and Omega of Alchemy?
No, this is just the first essential step. And we can’t even call it Alpha. Because if we don’t know the extent of the circle, we can’t even close it. But give me some more details on the metalwork thing in that list of officiants.
Well, little is known about it. Anyway, investigating the presence of the term nsk in the ceremonial staff list of a temple of the supposed Assyrian era, a philologist, Theodor H. Gaster, suggests that the priest’s ritual was not limited to pouring libations. And that’s because the term used to describe him was nsk, meaning ‘metal smelter’. However, his role must have been similar to pouring libations.
When Hermes seeks a wife, he turns to a girl named Philology.
Hermes is the alchemists’ Greek god, in fact.
Hermes is not the alchemists’ god; he is Alchemy itself. If Athena is the goddess of pure wisdom, Hermes/Mercury is the context, the key assumption, and the main element. If we don’t understand Mercury, we will never understand Alchemy. But let’s go deeper into Philology.
Theodor H. Gaster provides some further clues from tablets and inscriptions from surrounding areas. Obviously, they are clues, not certainties.
Most of ancient wisdom is about clues. And enigmas. For example, have you ever wondered what really lay behind the rituals of libation, that’s to say the ceremonial pouring of liquids from a particular cup, essentially to attract the deities?
I guess what you said, that is, attracting deities.
In my opinion, this is the true alchemical Alpha and Omega: attracting deities. An invitation they cannot refuse.
Like an ancient sacrifice, after all. A metal sacrifice?
No, not at all. Operations with metals are ultimately instantaneous changes of state, which profoundly affect the immediate atmosphere, or area of
Perhaps it’s unrelated, but it reminds me of the strange processing of an ancient Egyptian incense, known as Kyphi. It was apparently left in a closed box in the desert to improved its aroma.
Not to improve the aroma, but to increase it, alchemically speaking. With your intuition you have given us a glimpse of what the fusion of a metal and an aromatic resin left to sublimate inside a closed hot box can have in common. The main clue, however, the one that should attract an alchemist’s attention, is the cultural context in which these two seemingly banal and innocuous oddities occurred: Assyria, Mesopotamia, and Egypt, the declared source of the alchemical craze in Baroque-era Europe.
Are you suggesting investigating changes in the state of matter?
Of course, not everything in alchemical work is based on changes in the state of matter. But they play a crucial role in all paths, dry or humid. Roughly speaking, the so-called “struggle within the four elements” partly expresses the search for continuous changes of state: sudden in the metallurgical path, and continuous in the humid one. All this was called “movement” in Alchemy. To the point that, for alchemists, Alchemy is the art and science of movement. Of course, today’s science tells us that changes in the state of matter cause great disturbances in electron clouds.
Not everything… partly… Do you mean that you are about to say something, but you’re note sure if it’s true so you don’t wanna take responsability about it?
I don’t mean that, or perhaps only partially. In reality, alchemists should be like those great actors who have the ability to improvise lines within a given script. In fact, alchemists must know where each of their moves leads. Everything must be aimed at realizing the philosophical egg, not “let’s proceed chemical reaction by chemical reaction, and see what happens”. Like great chefs, they have a precise idea of
So, if there is no Alchemy first, there can be no Theurgy afterwards. It may be hard to digest…
Mind, however, not to imagine Alchemy only and exclusively as described in the treatises of the iatrochemists of the Renaissance and Baroque ages. It is quite obvious that the Assyrians, Mesopotamians and Egyptians would have had a hard time recognizing their sacred art in the complex and exhausting works of the alchemists of later ages. Incidentally, the meaning of the term “sacred art” in ancient times was so different from the “chemical” meaning of later eras that it left modern people confused.
Tell me, then, what did Sacred Art mean to the ancients?
It was the Neoplatonist Proclus who collected the ancient definition of “sacred art” and revealed that with this term the ancients meant the “art of sound”.
But then, what is the point of alchemists working if it’s enough to just play music or sing?
No. It’s about producing, by imitation, what nature wants and waiting for a response. But we will see this topic later.
It seems like a pretty hopeless situation.
For the minset of an achiever, yes. But let’s start instead from the mental form of a Neolithic man. For instance, let’s talk about dew.