The Principles of Alchemy

To Franz alchemy was a meditative practice. Fie would sit for hours in his study reading his books, and sometimes he would just sit and contemplate one of the illustrations. On several occasions it was an illustration that seemed to open an inner door in his mind and allowed him to travel to a spiritual dimension. Once there, he was able to hold conversations with ancient alchemists and philosophers and sometimes even with angels. 

It is not surprising that the word gibberish originally referred to texts written by the medieval Arabic alchemists Jabir, known in Latin as Geber. Many people find alchemy a daunting and confusing subject, and this impression is not entirely unfounded. Every alchemist explained his or her work in personal terms and symbols that were 

Luckily, however, most alchemists agreed on several basic concepts and principal stages of the Great Work. These evolved over the centuries but remained framed by a mystical, mathematical system of number symbolism derived from the school of Pythagoras. Evidence of this structure is in the following quote from an alchemical text called Rosarium Philosophorum  

Make a round circle out of the man and woman, and draw out of it a quadrangle, and out of the quadrangle a triangle, make a round circle, and thou shalt have the Stone of the Philosophers.1 

The basic principles of alchemy are associated with numerical symbolism. The following topics are in numerical order. 

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This Translation of Sections of the Nineteenth-Century German Alchemist Gottlieb Latz Monumental Work Die Alchemie Deciphers the Chemical Formula Hidden Within the Tablet That Openly Demonstrates All the Principles of Alchemy. Contents Translator s Preface by Dennis William Hauck Foreword by Dr. Gottlieb Latz Chapter One The Origin of the Emerald Tablet Chapter Two The Ancient Arcana Revealed Chapter Three First Revision The Tabula Smaragdina Chapter Four Second Revision The Tabula Hermetica Chapter Five Third Revision The Tabula De Operatione Solis... 

Spagyric formulas are based upon the principles of alchemy. The term... 

As far as objectivity was concerned, he was even more cautious. When, indeed, one remembers that the most striking practical application to life of the doctrine of objective certitude has been the conscientious labors of the Holy Office of the Inquisition, one feels less tempted than ever to lend the doctrine a respectful ear (pp. 21, 23). What one does for good reason and with a sense of objective certainty, in other words, follows from a willingness to believe in something. The same rule applies regardless of whether one s willingness to believe embraces doctrines of religion, the principles of alchemy, or the precepts of scientific method. 

The commentary can be divided into two main parts. The first part (chapters 2-6, 10, and portions of chapters 19 and 20) deals with the principles of alchemy and with the ritual aspects of its practice, such as the transmission of the texts, the entrance into sacred space and time, and various precepts and rules. The second part (chapters 7-9, 11-18, and the remaining portions of chapters 19 and 20) is concerned with the compounding of elixirs and with descriptions of their ingredients. The main sources are Ge... 

It is Luther s mode of interpretation, however, that facilitated the development of his alchemical theosophy of Christ as the Ruah-Elohim, the quintessential Spirit of Nature and the creative Principle of alchemy. Metaphors of Christ as the philosopher s stone had been... 

Includes (I. A ) Understanding Reality A Taoist Alchemical Classic, A Tenth-Century Text on the Principles of Inner Alchemy The Inner Teachings of Taoism, The Essentials of Self- Transformation According to the Complete Reality School of Taoism, with Commentary by Liu I-Ming Practical Taoism A Collection of the Most Accessible of the Texts on Inner Alchemy... 

The Tower of Alchemy is filled with intensely valuable occult principles, which are so often omitted, distorted, or unknown by other authors. The author also provides the reader with a series of exercises, which take the aspirant well beyond the scope of intellectual theory by actively involving the various levels of the personality in the practical application of the alchemical wisdom. It reveals a living tradition, whose aim is real transformation, not the mere accumulation of facts... 

Alchemical theories are central to the middle ages and the Renaissance. Chaucer and Shakespeare were heavily steeped in the subject, and it still exerts a fascination today. This is a scholarly and accessible introduction to Western European alchemy, and to the iconography of Alchemical works from antiquity to the rise of chemistry. It includes an illustrated glossary of Alchemical terms and biographies of major alchemists. It is intended for students of medieval and Renaissance art, literature and history art historians and anyone with a general interest in the history and principles of alchemy or medieval culture... 

In accordance with our primary object as stated in the preface, we shall confine our attention mainly to the physical aspect of Alchemy but in order to understand its theories, it appears to us to be essential to realise the fact that Alchemy was an attempted application of the principles of Mysticism to the things of the physical world. The supposed analogy between man and the metals sheds light on what otherwise would be very difficult to understand. It helps to make plain why the alchemists attributed moral qualities to the metals — some are called "imperfect," "base" others are said to be "perfect," "noble." And especially does it help to explain the alchemistic... 

Later in the history of Alchemy, the mercury-sulphur theory was extended by the addition of a third elementary principle, salt. As in the case of philosophical sulphur and mercury, by this term was not meant common salt (sodium chloride) or any of those... 

Correctly speaking, there is no such thing as "Modem Alchemy" not that Mysticism is dead, or that men no longer seek to apply the principles of Mysticism to phenomena on the physical plane, but they do so after another manner from that of the alchemists. A new science, however, is bom amongst us, closely related on the one hand to Chemistry, on the other to Physics, but dealing with changes more profound and reactions more deeply seated than are dealt with by either of these a science as yet without a name, unless it be the not altogether satisfactory one of "Radioactivity." It is this science, or, perhaps we should say, a certain aspect of it, to which we refer (it may be fantastically) by the expression "Modem Alchemy" the aptness of the title we hope to make plain in the course of the present chapter. 

The first great step taken in the path which led from alchemy to chemistry was the substitution of one Principle, the Principle of Phlogiston, for the three Principles of salt, sulphur, and mercury. This step was taken by concentrating attention and investigation, by replacing the superficial examination of many diverse phenomena by the more searching study of one class of occurrences. That the field of study should be widened, it was necessary that it should first be narrowed. 

STAR [Astre], In the terminology of Alchemy this represents the igneous, fixed substance, which is the principle of multiplication, representing the extension and generation of everything. This substance always herself tends towards generation, but this only occurs once she is excited by celestial heat, which is found everywhere. 

The name Adam in Hebrew signifies red earth, but what is this earth actually It is that which the Alchemists sought, and it follows that the Great Work was not the secret of metallic transmutation—a trivial and accessory result—but the Universal Secret of Life. The Universal Secret which was sought by mystic Alchemy was more truly that of the life of life it was the quest of transmutation in God. It was the quest for the middle point of ttansformation, at which point light becomes matter and condenses into an earth containing within itself the principle of motion and of life.. . . ... 

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