Purpose divine

It is generally agreed that the study of chemistry in the classical world originated in Hellenistic Egypt. But how it arose, for what purpose the chemical experiments were performed, and what sort of legacy these left to the European West, are matters that have never been fully understood. In this new examination of the evidence, particular attention has been paid to the apparent ritual use of experiments in what became known as the Divine and Sacred Art, and to the transmission of the recipe literature."... 

Go to him always with a question held in your mind. Every journey must have a purpose. When before him, hold your question gently, then reach out in mind and spirit to him, the Dweller on the Mountain, Menes, the Hermit, the Magus of Power. Expand your aura to encompass him and he will embrace you within his. Then, as your mental concept is put forth in this way, you will find that it is being adjusted and altered to another pattern, as the mind of Menes informs it, until there wells up in your own mind the knowledge of what must be done by you in order to bring this teaching into actual use and power. It is a high telepathic communion, mind to mind, whose effects will work out in whatever problems you may have placed before the Hermit, the personification of the Divine Will. 

And since the form of putrefaction was the form in which the metal united with the materia prima, as maternal, for the purpose of rebirth, the putrefied form was equated with semen the entrance of the semen into the alchemical retort or furnace was equated with the divine marriage the retort or furnace itself was equated with the maternal womb and the cooking of the metal in the retort or furnace was equated with gestation. ... 

This illustration from four dimensions, suggesting other illustrations derivable from mathematics, may serve a double purpose in our present investigation. On the one hand it may lead us to vaster views of possible circumstances and existence on the other hand it may teach us that the conception of such possibilities cannot, hy any ditect path, bring us closer to God. Mathematics may help us to measure and weigh the planets, to discover the materials of which they are composed, to extract light and warmth from the motion of water and to dominate the material universe but even if by these means we could mount up to Mars or hold converse with the inhabitants of Jupiter or Saturn, we should be no nearer to the divine throne, except so far as these new experiences might develop in our modesty, respect for facts, a deeper reverence for order and harmony, and a mind more open to new observations and to fresh inferences from old truths. 

In both papers Johnson speaks of the Mazatee practice of consuming an infusion of a plant known as hierba Muria for divination purposes. This is surely the plant that we have called hojas de Muria, leaves of the Virgin Mary, and that has lately been named Salvia divinomm Epling Jbtiva we suppose it is the pipiltzintzintli of Colonial Nahuatl. 

The use of the mushrooms for purposes of divination is accepted as a matter of fact. Demonstrations of its capacity to bring about states of higher vision have been convincingly made. A double telepathic experience was reported by the psychiatrist Dr. Margaret A. Paul under the mushroom Aman-... 

Thus far the Bardo Thodol is, as Dr. Evans-Wentz also feels, an initiation process whose purpose it is to restore to the soul the divinity it lost at birth. 

In this fire, they say, purify Mercury, and mortify it for the purposes of our Art. The Mercury which lies "hidden in this water," or Fire, is therein FIXED OF ITSELF. Now we are getting towards the Light We are plainly told that the Fire IS a kind of Water (remember, alchemists "burn with Water"), and in this very Fire-Water, Mercury itself becomes decomposed, clarified, coagulated and fixed with indelible, living DIVINE FIRE, of that kind which God has placed in the Sun itself. 

Then came the Renaissance, a period of the recovery of ancient learning and of an unstoppable flow of new observations and new ideas, often emerging from or inspired by the old. Lucretius was rediscovered, and so was Epicurus. Greek atomism became fashionable at the French court. But just as Aristotle in the twelfth and thirteenth centuries had had to be interpreted and modified so as to be reconciled with Christianity, so too did atomism in the seventeenth century. Gassendi undertook the Christianization of atomism. Atoms, he explained, were not eternal but created by God. Their movement in the void was not random but the result of their God-given initial motions, which made them agents of divine purpose. 

When the Conquistadores subdued the Aztecs, early chroniclers recorded that the Indians made religious and medicinal use of peyote, another psychoactive plant named tlitliltzin, and a small lentil-like seed called ololiuqui. The third, alleged to have been used also for purposes of divination, came from a vine known in the Ndhuatl language as coaxihuitl (or "snakeplant ). 

As for epend snuff, they declare that this "was employed ritualistically for diagnosis and treatment of disease, prophecy, divination, and other magico-religious purposes. Indians under the effects of this Virola resin... 

There is only the One Thing, The Celestial Fire, and we all have a part to play on its journey of self-realization. The Great Work is about following Nature and helping Nature in this unfoldment. The Celestial Fire is often termed The Divine Will. Our own Will is the reflection of this Fire which drives all of creation. Discovering our True Will or Purpose and fulfilling that purpose is the highest accomplishment of the alchemist and service to Nature. 

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