ONE FAMILY PLAN
Alchemy
It exists everywhere in nature but it is regarded as worthless. Made of animal, vegetable, and mineral; body, soul, and spirit; of fire and water: a stone, and yet no stone, known to all, yet unknown. Both despised and held dearly... it is the Philosopher's Stone, the turning of base metals into Gold, the turning of our flesh into the Divine: it is Alchemy.
Both unity and order, of which the universe is made, is found in a substance known as First Matter. Without qualities and properties, it holds all qualities and properties. When all has been stripped away, it is the substance that is left.
Fire, air, water, and earth, in this given order, are the four elements from which the universe was created, brought to life as the Word breathed upon them, each combining two of the four primary qualities in all things: hot, cold, wet, and dry. Fire... hot and dry; Air... hot and wet; Water... cold and wet; Earth... cold and dry. All things consist of these four elements in various proportions. In becoming ash, fire loses its heat and is cold and dry. Water, cold and wet, is morphed into air as a vapor, thus becoming hot and wet when it is heated. As Gold and metals of all kinds, all of the four elements in various proportions, one can be changed into the other through heating and cooling, drying and liquefying: a process known as transmutation. Fire as electricity, Air as the gaseous state, Water as the liquid state, and Earth as the solid state, the four elements are four conditions through which energy can exist.
Base metals are imperfections in nature. Being of less value, it is necessary to perfect the metal, as nature is always striving for perfection. When base metal is turned to pure Gold, it is thought to be freed of impurities.
Mankind and animals both are made of the same four elements, all things containing energy. Alchemy is the study of life itself, its symbolism reaching far beyond the inanimate, as there is no clear distinction between either. In the same way the child springs forth from the womb, so metals spring forth from the earth. As mercury unites with sulphur in the ore: "The sulphur behaves like the male seed and the mercury like the female seed in the conception and birth of a child." (Eliade, The Forge and the Crucible, 47) It is the parallel in metallic life and human life that is engaged in Alchemy.
To begin, one must reduce the base metal to First Matter. As the characteristics are stripped away, the spark of life is released much as a man's soul is released upon death. Next, the spark of life is recombined with the First Matter, producing the metallic embryo, which will naturally strive for perfection, attaining the Divine, becoming the perfect Gold, the Stone.
There is a Divine Light, or a Living Self, a Luminous Self that comprises the Astral Body in each of us. It is called "Pneuma" ... breath or spirit... of the New Testament. It is in addition to the solids and liquids of which the body is made. "Cohesive pneuma" holds it together, "vital pneuma" animates it and "rational pneuma", existing only in creatures which think, gives it a mind. Rational pneuma is the Stoic equivalent of the spark fallen from heaven. It survives the death of the body, when it returns as a fiery vapor to its original source in the sky. This source is the universal pneuma, the substance which binds all things together in unity, the One. (Toulmin and Goodfield, Architecture of Matter, 89-100)
The alchemist believes that all matter contains a pneuma, or spirit, identified as Mercury (God of intelligence, rational pneuma). Its bright appearance is the Divine Light and, being liquid, it is the life-principle of metal. Life is carried in the liquids, i.e. rainwater, sperm, and blood. If metals live, surely Mercury moves about for this reason. It is a metal and yet a liquid, a liquid and yet it leaves no trace of wet. The masculine-feminine, or the hermaphrodite, the philosopher's mercury is ideal, identified with the very Spirit of God.
God made First Matter, darkness, as the earth was without form and void:
"And the earth was without form, and void; and darkness was upon the face of the deep. And the Spirit of God moved upon the face of the waters." (Gen 1.2)
It condensed into waters upon which the Holy Spirit moved. The watery First Matter, animated by the Spirit, was molded into a pattern containing the possibility of all things.
The Stone is the ideal Philosopher's Gold, the product of the combination of Philosopher's Sulfur and Mercury in perfect balance. It is the reconciliation of opposites.
There is yet a third component: salt
"The world is as God created it. In the beginning He made it into a body, which consists of four elements. He founded this primordial body on the trinity of mercury, sulphur and salt, and these are the three substances of which the complete body consists. For they form everything that lies in the four elements, they bear in them all the forces and faculties of perishable things. In them there are day and night, warmth and coldness, stone and fruit, and everything else, still unformed." (Paracelsus, Selected Writings, 88)
It is the attempt to reconcile the four elements with three (mercury, sulphur, and salt) and two (opposites, i.e. night and day) that occupied the alchemist. With the 4, the 3, and the 2 having become 1, the riddle of the sphinx is solved. Man becomes the Stone, One with the universe.
Whereas man's threefold nature, or 3 parts, are body, soul (emotions, desires), and spirit (inspiration, insight, imagination), in metals it is body (salt – inert, passive, and female), soul (fiery sulphur, burning passions, male), and spirit (mercury - opposites of sulphur and salt, bisexual... corresponding to the mind of man). As the soul descends through the spheres, the spirit remains hidden within the soul. After death, the soul rises again, shedding its accumulated layers (skins) one by one. Eventually the whole soul is peeled away and the spirit is reconciled with God.
The One is the All is the Stone. It is the perfected whole person, the divine, often identified with Christ, both God and man. Christ is the Stone as the divine being within us all. Each will crucify and resurrect this divine being in him or herself, attaining the kingdom of heaven on earth and beyond. It is a spiritual journey. The alchemist finds the Stone, becomes the Stone, and the mysteries are unraveled. It is the unveiling of symbols and paradoxes.
All things being derived from such, it is the reducing of the raw materials to a watery state. According to Plato and Aristotle, metals are formed through the congealing of water in the earth. This reduction into water is a returning to First Matter, the first step in freeing the metal from defects of its growth in the earth in order to purify, a turning of our days to gold. It is the symbolic returning to the womb in order to deal with the origins of our defects. It is the bitter water, the philosophical mercury (true insight), with a danger of mental collapse:
"It is bitter indeed to discover behind one's lofty ideals narrow, fanatical convictions, all the more cherished for that, and behind one's heroic pretensions nothing but crude egotism, infantile greed, and complacency. This painful corrective is an unavoidable stage in every therapeutic process." (Jung, Mysterium Coniunctionis, 256)
The bitter water brings forth the stage of separation, the drawing forth of oil and water, which can only occur naturally in God. It is the separating of the raw material's original components, the four elements, or mercury (cold and wet, vaporous and moist exhalation) and sulphur (hot and dry, Aristotle's smoky and dry exhalation) ...together producing the four primary qualities on which the elements are based. Sulphur embodies fire (hot and dry) and mercury embodies water (cold and wet), thus the Stone is made of fire and water. Separation divides the raw material into mercury, sulphur, and salt (spirit, soul, and body).
It is Christianity's refining of metals (torment):
The Greek word Basinizo from which torture and torment come is defined as testing metals "by the touchstone, which is a black siliceous stone used to test the purity of gold or silver by the colour of the streak produced on it by rubbing it with either metal." (Thayer and Smith, New Testament Greek Lexicon).
It is Christianity's furnace of affliction:
"And the words of the LORD are flawless, LIKE SILVER purified in a crucible, LIKE GOLD REFINED SEVEN TIMES." (Psalm 12:6) "See, I have refined you, though NOT AS SILVER; I HAVE TESTED YOU IN THE FURNACE OF AFFLICTION." (Isaiah 48:10) "THE CRUCIBLE FOR SILVER AND THE FURNACE FOR GOLD, BUT THE LORD TESTS THE HEART." (Prov 17:3)
It is the bitter water
"And when they came to Marah, they could not drink of the waters of Marah, for they were bitter..." (Ex 15:23)
"He hath filled me with bitterness, he hath made me drunken with wormwood." (Lam 3:15) "...and many men died of the waters, because they were made bitter." (Rev 8:11)
"I said in mine heart concerning the estate of the sons of men, that God might manifest them, and that they might see that they themselves are beasts." (Ecclesiastes 3:18)
The alchemist has now reached the first form, prior to its imperfections, consisting of First Matter (dead, featureless mass from which all characteristics are removed) and the animating spark of life. Next, the material must be killed, thus releasing the life-spark. It is completed by subjecting it to heat. As the material is rotting, the process is termed putrefaction. The vapor (life-spark, spirit, philosopher's mercury) is released and putrefaction is accompanied by a foul odor, the grave stench, termed the nigredo, or black stage (Raven's Head, Black Sun, Black Crow, Crow's Head). Black as it is, the putrefying First Matter is potentially the Philosopher's Stone. "I am black, but comely, O ye daughters of Jerusalem" (Song of Solomon 1.5)
The rotting, or putrefaction, is a necessary precondition of life. As a seed falls to the earth, it must die and rot, thus releasing the new life principle (Death in the Tarot). The essential preliminary to rebirth is death. "Thou fool, that which thou sowest is not quickened, except it die..." (1 Cor 15.36) "...Except a corn of wheat fall into the ground and die, it abideth alone: but if it die, it bringeth forth much fruit." (John 12:24)
It is during this spiritual rot that the spark of life abandons the soul (the Hanged Man). This original self (First Matter) dies in the agony of nigredo. It is paralleled with the Crucifixion, by which the God-man rose to life. It is the snake nailed to a cross: "And as Moses lifted up the serpent in the wilderness, even so must the Son of man be lifted up..." (John 3.14)
Now dead, the healing illumination comes forth, the descent of the philosophical mercury, true inspiration… the Divine Spark. The Vapor released during putrefaction hovers over the black material as the Holy Spirit moved upon the waters, penetrating and animating the First Matter, thereby creating the embryo that will grow into the Stone. It is the transformation of bread and wine into the Body and Blood of Christ.
The Vapor, or Spirit, is liquefied, saturating the First Matter while the vessel is heated. It is the alchemical "bath of rebirth" through "water and the spirit" "...Except a man be born of water and of the Spirit, he cannot enter into the kingdom of God." (John 3.5)
It is the Living Water: "He that believeth on me, as the scripture hath said, out of his belly shall flow rivers of living water." (John 7.38) "For the Lamb which is in the midst of the throne shall feed them, and shall lead them unto living fountains of waters: and God shall wipe away all tears from their eyes." (Rev 7.17)
As the Spirit and the First Matter join, a white solid crystallizes out of the watery material within the vessel, corresponding to the appearance of dry land's emerging on the third day (coagulation or congelation). This white solid is the White Tincture which turns all things to silver. It is the White Stone at the 2nd stage (albedo, whitening). "To him that overcometh will I give to eat of the hidden manna, and will give him a white stone, and in the stone a new name written, which no man knoweth saving he that receiveth it." (Rev 2.17)
The New Self, the New Earth, the White Stone appearing out of the waters: it is peace, happiness, and freedom from conflict. Silver being the metal of the moon, the White Stone shines in our being as the moon in the night sky, turns the darkness to silver.
The final stage leads to rubedo (the red dawn), heralding the coming of the sun, that dazzling light of a new day. Cibation is the materials being "fed with milk and meat moderately" nourishing the embryonic Stone as the feeding of a baby. The qualities of purity, stability, and ability (to convert base metals to gold), is added. In exaltation, the Stone's components are harmonized and unified. The heat of the furnace is raised to its highest intensity as the Philosopher's Stone, the True Stone, the perfect red god, the Red Tincture, the Red Elixir, the One emerges.
"He ordered the furnace heated seven times hotter than usual" (Dan 3:19)
"The words of the LORD are pure words: as silver tried in a furnace of earth, purified seven times." (Psalm 12:6)
"The precious sons of Zion, comparable to fine gold, how are they esteemed as earthen pitchers, the work of the hands of the potter!" (Lam 4.2)
"I counsel thee to buy of me gold tried in the fire, that thou mayest be rich; and white raiment, that thou mayest be clothed, and that the shame of thy nakedness do not appear; and anoint thine eyes with eyesalve, that thou mayest see." (Rev 3.18)
"And I looked, and behold a white cloud, and upon the cloud one sat like unto the Son of man, having on his head a golden crown, and in his hand a sharp sickle." (Rev 14.14)
"...and the city was pure gold, like unto clear glass." (Rev 21.18)
"I will make a man more precious than fine gold..." (Isaiah 13:12)
