The Way of the Crucible

PREFACE

Many people today believe alchemy is just a psychological metaphor concerning the reintegration of our fractured psyche with no basis in the physical world. But any alchemist worth his salt would beg to differ. Alchemy is the ancient sacred science concerned with the mysteries of life and consciousness, not just in our own psyche but reflected throughout all of Nature.

I've been exploring alchemy for most of my life and especially its practical applications here in the world around us. The ancient sages advise us that understanding the workings of Nature in this world will aid in our understanding of more subtle realms from which Nature derives.

Perhaps I should start at the beginning and tell you how this book came about.

As a young boy, I had a fascination with rocks and minerals. I had collected an extensive array of interesting specimens and was constantly searching for more. It didn't take long to find out that there were things you could do to rocks in order for them to reveal their names. Scratch them on a tile plate, treat them with acid, mix them with common salts and heat them with a candle flame directed by a blowpipe; this was all great fun to me.

I scoured the local library for information on other experiments with minerals and quickly discovered the world of the alchemists. The artwork and mystic symbols struck a deep chord inside of me, and little did I know it would blossom into a guiding force that would follow me the rest of my days.

Very soon, I had commandeered my older brother's chemistry set and established a small laboratory in the comer of my bedroom. I studied all the texts about alchemy that I could find, but everyone seemed to be reticent and secretive about practical works.

I filled the house with dense white smoke a time or two, and blew a hole in the ceiling (honest, Dad, it was an accident), which prompted my parents to have me relocate my growing laboratory into a wooden shed we had in the backyard. That was perfect; now I had four times as much room! By the age of fourteen, I had constructed a gas fired furnace and tried my hand at distilling the mineral acids from copper sulfate and potassium nitrate, the vitriol and niter of the ancient sages. Imagine my joy when I successfully smelted lead from a lump of galena and later copper from a piece of malachite. Still, this was just chemistry and the secrets of the alchemist continued to elude me.

I began to study the writings of witches, wizards and astrologers to gain an understanding of the secretive language of the alchemists and became quite good at casting and interpreting horoscopes, brewing potions and casting a spell or two. My studies lead me into herbology and the mystical Qabalah as well as the higher magics of the Middle Ages.

By the end of high school, I was fully enmeshed in the teachings of The Golden Dawn as presented by Israel Regardie; in fact I devoured all of Regardie's writings. In one of his works, The Philosopher's Stone, I gained new insights into the world of alchemy, but most importantly a name, Frater Albertus of the Paracelsus Research Society in Salt Lake City, Utah. I was in college now, ostensibly earning a degree in chemistry but not learning what I was really interested in.

After purchasing The Alchemist's Handbook by Frater Albertus, I realized that here was a man teaching the very things I had been searching after. I quickly applied for admission to the classes offered at the Paracelsus Research Society, which later became Paracelsus College, recognized by the State of Utah.

In April of 1974, I attended the first of seven 2-week intensive training courses in the Hermetic Arts taught by Frater Albertus, one of the most well-known practical alchemists of the 20th century. My life changed entirely; I dropped out of college, moved to the primitive heart of Idaho, and devoted my time to the study and practice of alchemical works. I even worked underground in an antimony mine, an important resource for the practical alchemist.

In the third year of classes, Frater Albertus announced that Paracelsus Laboratories (Paralab) was being formulated and would soon be opening its doors. Paralab was to begin preparing herbal and mineral materials in the alchemical tradition and offer them for research and use in the alternative healthcare fields that were beginning to emerge at that time. At the end of class, we were allowed some private one on one talks with Frater Albertus. I expressed a burning desire to work at Paralab, and Frater Albertus encouraged me to return to school and finish my degree in chemistry; my work at Paralab would be waiting.

By 1979 I had received a bachelor's degree in chemistry and immediately moved to Utah.

In June of that year I was hired as the Chief Chemist at Paralab and for the next several years worked closely with Frater Albertus to develop a line of products derived from the mineral world.

Paralab proved to be a little ahead of its time and by 1983 was all but officially closed. With the passing of Frater Albertus in 1984, both Paralab and Paracelsus College closed their doors and the students seemed to be dispersed to the four winds.

I disappeared from the area for many years and pursued alchemical research privately. Being employed as a chemist allowed me to have access to state of the art chemical instrumentation by which I could follow alchemical experiments in ways undreamed of by the ancient masters of the Art. Over the years I have been able to amass a wealth of analytical data on a wide range of alchemical products, a task Frater Albertus charged me with many years ago and something I had always planned on publishing at a future date.

In 2003 I received a request to give a short presentation on practical alchemy at a local Healing Center here in the Pacific Northwest. The time scheduled was for a three-hour talk; however, it stretched into five hours and at the end even-one excitedly requested a second class so we could continue. Eventually it turned into three six-hour classes that have been well received in various locations around the area for the past five years.

During that time I received so many requests from students for a text they could follow along with that I decided to write Real Alchemy as a primer and introduction to the much larger work I had planned to publish all along; this is that book.

Herein you will find a wealth of information concerning the practical art and science of alchemy that makes this arcane subject accessible to the modem student.

INTRODUCTION

Our first book, Real Alchemy, provides a glimpse into the general theory and practices surrounding the Art of Alchemy as handed down in the Western World. With that groundwork laid, this second work delves more deeply into the why of the how behind laboratory alchemy and elaborates in greater detail on some of the mineral works of Alchemy both ancient and modem. Modem Alchemy? Yes, Alchemy has been an evolving, practical art for over two thousand years as an exploration of Nature, Reality, and Perfection of Self.

Today, there are many students, practitioners and resources available on the Hermetic Arts worldwide and the number is growing.

Alchemy has been called the Perennial Philosophy because all throughout history it has seen many revivals, followed by periods when it was subdued, even outlawed in some countries.

The practice of alchemy requires the participation of many different levels of reality. These constitute the many paths of the path, active at the physical, mental, and spiritual levels. They must all work together in unison because they are extensions of each other.

The language, symbolism and operative principles of alchemy rely on what is known as The Law of Correspondences. The macrocosm and microcosm are intimately linked and inseparable. As the Emerald Tablet of Hermes says:

That which is above is like unto that which is below, and that which is below is like unto that which is above.

In alchemical texts, one thing may be called by many different names, or many different things are called by the same name.

A key to much of this confusion can be found in the language of astrology, the sister science of alchemy. In times past, it was necessary to conceal one's involvement in the hermetic arts by the use of a code. The indelible symbols of the heavens provided just such a ready made code.

Astrology teaches that everything on earth has its correspondence in the sky, and everything in the sky has its correspondence on the earth.

A thing on earth is said to be ruled by a planet or sign in the heavens. This planet or sign rules other things on the earth having the same vibratory quality. The substance, principle, or quality designated by an alchemist may be called by the name of any one of the various objects ruled by the same astrological influence. Thus did the alchemists write and think in the language of celestial correspondences. Things on one plane correspond to definite things on another plane, which may be determined through their astrological rulership. Everything in existence on any plane vibrates in its inner nature to some astrological tone.

Paracelsus stated this principle of correspondence very concisely in his work titled Paragranum.

If I have manna in my constitution, I can attract manna from heaven. Melissa is not only in the garden, but in the air and in heaven. Saturn is not only in the sky, but also deep in the earth and in the ocean. What is Venus but the Artemisia that grows in your garden? What is iron but Mars? That is to say Venus and Artemisia are both the products of the same essence, and Mars and iron are both manifestations of the same cause. What is the human body but a constellation of the same powers that formed the stars in the sky? He who knows what iron is, knows the attributes of Mars. He who knows Mars, knows the qualities of iron. What would become of your heart if there were no Sun in the universe? What would be the use of your Vasa Spermatica if there were no Venus? To grasp the invisible elements, to attract them by their material correspondences, to control, purify and transform then by the living power of the spirit—This is true alchemy.

Alchemy is not just a psychological process, nor is it a simple spiritual allegory, or an outdated chemical demonstration. It is a harmonious blending of physical and subtle forces, linked together through hidden correspondences, which lifts the subject, be it man or metal, to a more evolved state of being.

This is Nature's intention all along; the artist follows nature's lead and seeks to assist her works and accelerate the process.

Alchemy

What is alchemy and where did it all start? The origins of alchemy are presently lost to us in the mists of prehistory; perhaps they will be rediscovered in some future time. The traditions have been passed down to us through several thousand years of practitioners and there are many theories as to when and where it all began. A gift of the Gods, a gift from angelic beings, remnants from an ancient advanced culture, a spiritual knowledge passed down by numerous patriarchs of several religions, the list goes on. Where and when are of lesser importance to us compared to the message itself. The alchemist Eireneaus Philalethes, writing in the late 1600s, put the whole matter to rest very simply, saying:

If it is founded on the eternal verities of Nature, why need I trouble my head with the problem whether this or that antediluvian personage had a knowledge of it? Enough for me to know that it is now true and possible, that it has been exercised by the initiated for many centuries, and under the most distant latitudes; it may also be observed that though most of these write in an obscure, figurative, allegorical, and altogether perplexing style, and though some of them have actually mixed falsehood with truth, in order to confound the ignorant, yet they, though existing in many series of ages, differing in tongue and nation, have not diversely handled one operation, but do all exhibit a most marvelous and striking agreement in regard to the main features of their teaching—an agreement which is absolutely inexplicable, except on the supposition that our Art is something more than a mere labyrinth of perplexing words.

Philalethes, Metamorphosis of Metals

Franz Hartmann, the German occultist and author of numerous works in the latter half of the 1800s, described alchemy in the following words:

Alchemy is a Science of Soul that results from an understanding of God, Nature, and Man. A perfect knowledge of any one of them cannot be obtained without the knowledge of the other two, for these three are one and inseparable. Alchemy is not merely an intellectual but a spiritual science, because that which belongs to the spirit can only be spiritually known. Nevertheless, it is also a science dealing with material things, for spirit and matter are only two opposite manifestations or poles of the eternal One.

Alchemy in its more material aspect teaches how minerals, metals, plants, animals, and men may be generated or made to grow from their seeds. In other words, how that generation, which is accomplished during long periods of time in the due course of the action of evolution and natural law, may be accomplished in a comparatively short time, if these natural laws are guided and supplied with the proper material by the spiritual knowledge of man.

Alchemy is also an art, and as every art requires an artist to exercise it, likewise this divine science and art can be practiced only by those who are in possession of the divine power necessary for that purpose. It is true that the external manipulations required for the production of certain alchemical preparations may, like an ordinary chemical process, be taught to anybody capable of reasoning. However, the results that such a person would accomplish would be without life, for only he in whom the true life has awakened can awaken it from its sleep in matter and cause visible forms to grow from the primordial Chaos of nature.

Alchemy in its highest aspect deals with the spiritual regeneration of man and teaches how a god may be made out of a human being or, to express it more correctly, how to establish the conditions necessary for the development of divine powers in man.

From Alchemy by Franz Hartmann

Throughout much of its long history, alchemy has been described as the quest for the Philosopher's Stone, that mystical agent of transformation; the medicine of men and of metals. For as the alchemists agree, the intention of Nature is that all metals attain to the state of gold, the perfect and incorruptible metal. Through the Law of Correspondences, this attainment is true for all three kingdoms and planes of existence.

Alchemy is the art of perfecting the metals, say the ancient sages; not only the metals of the forge, but those same metallic essences as reflected in our constitution. We see a shadowy reflection of this connection in our daily speech, such as having a heart of gold, or nerves of steel, or a cast iron stomach. Each of our experiences in life can be attributed to the metals, from the leaden heaviness of grief, sorrow and poverty to the power and prestige of gold. Our attitude to the experience will determine whether it shines with metallic value or becomes tarnished by corruption.

The Philosopher's Stone is said to heal metals of their diseases, which are the source of their corruptibility, and remove the impurities that hinder their perfection into gold.

In addition to the Stone of the Wise is the preparation of the Elixir of Life, said to confer a long and healthy life to the one who partakes of it; health not only of the body but of the mind and spirit. After obtaining our gold, we would certainly want to live long enough to enjoy it to the fullest.

The goal of the alchemist is the search for perfection, bringing health on all levels, body, soul, and spirit; complete freedom from disease coupled with longevity and spiritual clarity. For man or metals, this is the real transmutation, this is the Great Work of the alchemist.

The alchemists admonish us to follow Nature, for Nature generously provides for all her creations. However, Nature has all of time to bring things to their destined state of perfection. The alchemical art is concerned with helping this transformation along more quickly, whether it be the perfection of metals or of ourselves.

Frater Albertus defined alchemy very succinctly as consciously assisted evolution and raising the vibrations. It is simply following Nature's own laws, but we must come to an understanding of what these laws are before we can be of assistance.

The work of the alchemist is concerned with the preservation of vitality and consciousness within his subject and ultimately provoking its evolution into a more refined being.

The changes we see in the laboratory do not take place without a corresponding change of conditions on other planes of existence.

The crude body of matter is a reflection of its disorganized and immature spiritual counterpart. The processes of alchemy seek to remove the hinderances to this spiritual maturity, leading to the formation of an incorruptible spiritual body and its reflection in the outer world.

External Influences

Nature has a rhythm—there are cycles within cycles occurring all around us at all times, like a symphony; everything is in motion, everything vibrates. The seeming differences between things are entirely due to varying rates and modes of vibration. The alchemist seeks to follow Nature and keep in time with the music, the constant flow of consciousness.

In the laboratory, we can control many of Nature's processes at our whim, but there are certain external influences we have no control over which are also important to the alchemical art. The Earth radiates a living field of energy and is constantly rained down upon with the energies of the cosmos.

The influence of the Sun and Moon are especially important to the alchemist; they are the outer garment of the spiritual fire, the Celestial Fire, we seek to incorporate into our matter, or we seek to awaken the inherent fire already residing within.

As a practical example, during the processes involving the deliquescence of salts, this is not just a simple dissolution of the matter; instead we seek to infuse into our subject the life energy radiating from earth, and the celestial fire raining down from the heavens. The medium of exchange for this is the moist vapor which surrounds and permeates our planet. Water is the carrier of these subtle energies. This vapor is the exhalation of the earth, or Spiritus Mundi, the Cosmic Breath.

Our matter draws in this energy, concentrating and condensing it into a vehicle we can work with. The ancients called a properly prepared salt a magnet, which becomes the vehicle for the vital essence infused into it by the process of deliquescence.

Although our deliquescence process is of a relatively short duration, we have the option of selecting the timing of celestial events and catching a favorable wind. Think about plants, getting infused all year to develop their healing potentials and then think about minerals getting infused for millions of years, and you will understand why the sages have all claimed that the most powerful medicines are to be found in the mineral realm.

Cycles of the seasonal energies/elemental influence

In laboratory works, we try to keep within Nature's cyclic flow of energy by timing operations compatible to the season.

The cycle of the seasons, the pulse of Nature, is the first and most obvious of the external influences which affect alchemical works. The practical alchemist can learn a great deal by working in a garden and observing the course of Nature throughout the year.

The positive phase of the year, from the spring equinox to the autumn equinox, is dominated by the Volatile, active elements of Air and Fire. During this time the vital essence and Celestial Fire are actively on the rise. This is the time to begin new works. The deliquescence of salts to capture Celestial Fire, processes of exaltation such as distillation and sublimation, regeneration by cohobation and circulations are all favored at this time of the year.

The negative phase of the year, running from the autumn equinox through winter to the spring equinox, is dominated by the Fixed energies of Water and Earth. The life force begins to hibernate and things start to fall apart. This is a time for works of fermentation, putrefaction, incineration and calcination. A time to separate the pure from the impure. It is also a time to work on salts by dissolution and recrystallization.

Each day of the week is under the rule of a particular plane tan' energy; in fact our names for the days are derived from the planets themselves or from the names of gods and goddesses associated with the planet. These associations are shown in the table below.

Laboratory works can be favorably enhanced by keeping within the timing of a compatible planetary energy flow. For example, if we are working with a Venus ruled herb, we should schedule the various operations to be performed on Fridays. In a more generalized way, we might take advantage of the Moon's influence over liquids to perform dissolutions or the fiery nature of Mars to calcine a material, or the cold, limiting qualities of Saturn to crystallize a salt.

The cyclic manifestation of planetary energies are also broken down into hourly effects, and even into minutes and seconds of planetary influence. However, as a practical limit, consideration of planetary hours is as far as we need to go.

The concept of planetary hours derives from the ancient Chaldean astrologers who divided the time from sunrise to sunset into twelve equal segments called the day hours, and from sunset to sunrise into twelve segments called the night hours. The progression of these hours is always the same, running from Saturn to the Moon in the same order as the spheres arise on the Qaballistic Tree of Life. Thus we have the following order: Saturn, Jupiter, Mars, Sun, Venus, Mercury, Moon, then back to Saturn again and the cycle repeats. The first hour after sunrise is always ruled by the same planet that rules that particular day, and thus it is an especially powerful time for working with that planet's energies.

The traditional method for calculating the planetary hours involves finding the times of sunrise and sunset for a specific location and dividing that interval by twelve to obtain the length of the planetary hour for that day. The length of these hours changes by about four minutes each day, being longer in the summer and shorter in the winter. As mentioned, the first hour of the day belongs to the planet which governs the day, and then the succeeding hours follow the order given above.

The same process is applied to the time interval between sunset and sunrise, to obtain the night hours. It all seems like a nightmare of calculation, but there are tables and programs you can find on the Internet which do all the work for you; all you have to know is what day it is and where in the world you are.

There is an easier method which is popular among many artists and was the method favored by Frater Albertus at the Paracelsus College. The method derives from