Encyclopedia of Occult Scienses vol.VII Alchemy And High Magic

Chapter  III

Alchemy

THIS chapter will be relatively short. Not that Alchemy, which we classify between Low Magic and High Magic, is not of enormous interest, especially since the attempts at bringing it up to date made by Poisson, Tiffereau and especially by Jollivet-Castelot, the general secretary of the Alchemist Association of France, the editor of the review called Hyperchemistry, and the author of numerous books on the subject.

Not that it does not contain most interesting information, for we must not forget that it formed part of Hermetism and was called the Great Art. But Alchemy requires very abstruse studies which are outside the scope of our popular Encyclopaedia. In order to deal with it appropriately we should have to do so very thoroughly, and that would entail a course of study of very advanced science of interest to only a few who are already prepared for it by preliminary work. If these latter wish to go into the matter thoroughly, they would do well to study the special books, some of which are mentioned in the note at the foot.[1] Here we will confine ourselves to saying what is Alchemy, stating its fundamental ideas and summing up its ancient and modern claims.

In the preface which Dr. Encausse (Papus) wrote for How to become  an Alchemist by Jollivet-Castelot, the former first of all shows that it is a mistake to believe that Alchemy is but the stammer of Chemistry. In olden times men in fact studied nature in its body, its life and its spirit. The study of the Body taught the laws of universal organisation; the study of Life enabled the laws of transformation (including for instance the law of transmutation of metals) to be grasped ; the study of the Spirit led to the power of creation.

Now from the 15th and 16th centuries onward official science confined itself to the study of the Body, and left the study of Life and of the Spirit to the so-called Occult Sciences. And Alchemy is the study of these metaphysics forgotten and despised by Chemistry. In reality the three steps of knowledge are :—Chemistry (for the beginner), Alchemy (for the initiate), Hermetic Philosophy (the Supreme Science).

* * *

The main students of Alchemy were :—Albert the Great, Roger Bacon, Raymond Lullius and Arnauld de Villeneuve in the 13th century, Nicholas Flamel and Basil Valentine in the 14th and 15th, Paracelsus in the 16th, Van Helmont and Helvetius in the 17th, Pernety in the 18th, Cambriel, Louis Lucas, Albert Poisson, Papus, Marc Haven, Strindberg, Tiffereau, Emmens, Barlet, Stanislas de Guai'ta and Paul Sedir in the 19th. At the present day Mr. Jollivet-Castelot is its most distinguished representative.

The Church, so severe with Sorcerers, was less so with Alchemists and secretly protected them. Several Popes studied the subject, especially Sylvester II, Honorius III, Urban V, Leo III (the author of the Enchiridion); also various Hermetist Bishops, such as Denis the Areopagite, Saint Cesaire, Bishop of Arles, Saint Malachi, Bishop of Annagh, Synesius, Bishop of Ptolemais, Nicephorus, Patriarch of Constantinople, Cardinal Ailly, Chancellor of the University of France, Cardinal Cusa, Bishop of Caserti, etc.: further the Jesuits Kircher and Postel, the Benedictine Trithemus, Monarchs such as Alphonso X, King of Spain, Charles V, King of France, Rudolph II, German Emperor, vast numbers of scientists in addition to the five or six mentioned above, such as Kelloe, Lazarellas, Palinginesis, Michael Scott, Petrus de Zalento, etc., the Arabs Avincenna, Hamel, Artephius and very many others.

* * *

Alchemists acknowledge the unity of matter, and in this respect are in agreement with the most eminent of official scientists. They base their atomic system on Ether, the universal fluid (the astral light of the Kabbala), and on the principle of evolution. According to them matter is composed of molecules divided into infinitesimal particles, called atoms, which again are but one degree removed from Ether; hence matter is compact energy which in the last resort is able to dissolve itself into free energy, into force.[2] In truth for the Alchemist energy and matter are but one and the same thing which in short is Substance, in the philosophical meaning of the word.

Thus Substance is All, is One, the Principle, the Absolute. And this One is divided into three :—Intelligence (or force), Energy, Matter.

The Ether contains all the etherial vortices (atomic, cyclonic, electric collections of particles) and is endowed with evolution. All bodies are made of atoms identical but variously grouped, all are polymetrical modifications of the same element.

It is therefore not surprising that Alchemists should claim that theoretically (and practically, say some of them) it is possible to make gold, that is to extract from other chemical bodies certain atoms and so to group these latter that they shall -in fact constitute gold. It would be just as easy artificially to make Iron, Sulphur or Lead, by arriving at the grouping of the atoms of which they are naturally composed.

* * *

The Kabbala also teaches a Unitarian doctrine. Its data are adapted to the three planes of Nature (mental, astral, material). Hermetism therefore gives its keys kabbalistically. The Alchemist— even in modern days—is always a priest who bases his physical or moral work on the Primordial Genesis which is none other than Taroc. Taroc and Kabbala are therefore synonymous. And the Alchemist sees a fatidic connection between the Great-Work and the astral influences, kabbalistic geometry and numbers. These connections are subtle. We do not go into them here as we do not wish to com- plicate our subject matter.

Neither shall we deal with the discipline which, according to Jollivet- Castelot, the Alchemist must undergo and which he extracts from the interpretation of leaves 8 to 14 of the Taroc, just as he extracts the principles of Alchemy from its first seven leaves and its practice from leaves 15 to 22. Thus the whole cycle of the major arcana of the Taroc (the first 22, there being 78 in all ) corresponds to the Science of Alchemy. This is called the Alchemical Taroc.

So also it would take too long to follow him in his remarks on the Philosopher's Stone, the Universal Panacea and Palingenesis which constituted and still constitute the three fundamental researches of Alchemy.

' We will confine ourselves to saying that Alchemy and occult Therapeutics are two sister-branches of the same science—Hermetism. The Hermetist studied transmutation as well as the panacea whose object was healing by acting on the astral, that is to say on the initial cause of the ill; and looked at in this light the word panacea loses its absurd meaning of a remedy for all ills; the hermetist did in fact search for a drug sufficiently powerful to restore the circulation, the vital balance, and thus to act beneficently on the whole organism ; this may be a chimera, but it is not nonsense.

Besides is the Electro-Homoeopathy of some modern physicians so different ? And what is Metallotherapy ? We quote in this connection a passage by Jollivet-Castelot in New Horizons (December 1908):— " Alchemists were all agreed that Gold healed, that Gold was the greatest of all Great Remedies ; and they sought to administer it in powders, in solutions.

" The Matter of the Great-Work, mixed with a liquid, liquefied, constituted the Elixir, the celebrated Elixir of long life which was to produce marvellous results. This is mentioned in all the pamphlets of the time ; it aroused as much interest as the Philosopher’s Stone itself; and legend relates that Nicholas Flamel and his wife Pernella, having drunk it, went to live for ever on an enchanted isle.

" Well, is it not curious and suggestive that modem Medicine— following in this all the scientists of to-day, whatever branch of science they may study—at last proclaims, tacitly at least, the depth and the truth of ancient ‘ occult ’ science and makes use itself of its wonderful revelations ?

Just as the chemists at present recognise the Unity of Matter which has always been maintained by all the Alchemists, so also the doctors of the great medical schools possess themselves of the old prescriptions which point to Metallotherapy as the sanest and the safest treatment.

* * *

Besides, Metallotherapy and Electrotherapy—no doubt identical, since metals in contact with the skin produce currents—are quite obviously the best treatment in the case of neuropathy, of hysteria, or nervous phenomena of any kind whatever.

Mr. Bury described the sesthesiogenic effect of the application of certain metals to the skin.

Mr. Landouzy reported the case of lethargic sleep induced by the nearness of a magnet; Dumontpallier and Pitres mention cases of sleep and waking brought about by metallic contact.

At the Salpetridre numerous researches were made by Charcot, which went to prove the powerful influence of a magnet on patients suffering from hysteria.

But it is especially to Professor H. Durville that the great honour belongs of having studied in detail and with remarkable ability the various influences of the magnet; he has created the true theory of magnetism which is undoubtedly an agent derived from electricity or a form of this latter energy scattered and latent in all bodies and centralised by certain metals of which it constitutes the soul perhaps, certainly the medical value.

As to the Philosopher’s Stone, we know that it was a chemical compound which had the power of transmuting metals into gold (Great-

Work) or into silver (Little-Work). Bose de Veze claims that it has actually been found, Van Helmont that he has seen and touched it in the form of a saffron coloured powder. Dr. Emmens has even sent to America ingots of Argentaurum, a precious substance which he had succeeded in making. As we have seen above, Papus said that this magical powder was called Elixir or Universal Panacea when it was taken inwardly. In short it was merely a condensation of the vital energy into a minimum of matter.

We shall say nothing of Palingenesis, by means of which Alchemists claimed that they could produce a living being, plant, animal or human (the homunculus).

But is it a matter for laughter ?

We look at a back number of the Matin and find the following over the signature of Dr. Stephane Leduc, Professor at the Medical School of Nantes :—

" Life presents itself to us as the result of two physical forces, one active, the osmotic pressure which puts the various molecules into motion ; the other passive, the resistance of the plasma and the membranes to this motion. The inequalities of the resistance of the latter to their reparation or union seem to be the cause of the chemical and electrical reactions of life, of nutrition, of assimilation and dis- assimilation.

" I have been able by means of physical forces to reproduce the form of various cellular tissues constituting living beings, and the cells so obtained turn out to have the same main functions as the living cell. In 5 or 10 per cent, gelatine solutions it is possible to obtain a cellular tissue. Each cell has its covering membrane, its protoplasm, its nucleus. By using salt water as plasm and drops of the same salt water coloured with a different extract, entirely liquid cells are obtained. I have produced liquid cells with liliary extensions. These cells have the double current of osmosis and molecular meta- bolism ; when dried up their movements stop ; they then present the image of the latent life of seeds and infusoria, for their movements start again as soon as the necessary humidity is restored to them.

" I have reproduced by intussusception of organism and growth phenomena of nutrition which up to the present were considered as characteristics of life. Crystals grow by juxtaposition, as does a wall by the bricks placed on it. Up to now living beings alone have grown by intussusception, that is to say by mixing to the whole of their substance the substance absorbed. In trying to copy the physical conditions of life, I have produced artificial seeds made of one third of copper sulphate and two thirds of sugar with sufficient water to make them into grains; I sow these seeds into an artificial plasm made of water, gelatine, ferrocyanide of potassium and a little salt; the seed surrounds itself with a membrane of copper sulphate which is pervious to the water and the salts, but impervious to the sugar which sets up inside it a strong osmotic pressure owing to which the seed swells, germinates and grows, sending out rhizomes and roots, then vertical stems which may rise to a height of 12 inches ; these stems, simple or branched, sometimes have lateral leaves ; they have terminal organs in the shape of thorns, balls, ears, tendrils, etc. These growths have a circulation apparatus in which the sugar and the membranogenous substance rise, like the sap in the plant, to a height up to 12 inches. When a stem is broken during the growth, the pieces reunite ; a scar is formed and the growth starts again. These growths are sensitive to all physical and chemical influences, to heat, cold, variations of concentration, chemical poisons. But physiology is wrong in saying that sensitiveness or irritability, that is to say the power of reacting to impressions coming from outside, are characteristic of life. This sensitiveness is a general property of matter; it would be impossible to find an instance of action without reaction; the very pavement responds