AN ALCHEMIST’S PRIMER

Fundamentals of Esoteric Transformation

By Manly P. Hall
AN ALCHEMIST’S PRIMER: FUNDAMENTALS OF ESOTERIC TRANSFORMATION
Copyright © 2009 by the Philosophical Research Society, Inc.

All Rights Reserved. This book or parts thereof, may not be reproduced in any form without written
permission from the publisher.

Compiled from the Manly P. Hall Lecture Note archive:

‘Alchemy, Sacred Science of Transformation’ (copyright © 1977)

Esoteric Alchemy: Transformation of Attitude’ (copyright © 1986)
‘Psychological Aspects of Alchemy’ (copyright © 1979)
‘Did the Alchemists Practice Yoga Discipline?’ (copyright © 1979)

Cover Art: “Alchemical Waterbath” (Geber)

Interior Art: “Celentano Diagrams” (Vallis Novi, 1606) - with text by Manly P. Hall (copyright ©
1989)

Edited by Maja D’Aoust-Nakamura, M.A. (PRS Librarian)

Layout & Design for this 2009 Edition by Paul Kjell Austad

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CHAPTER ONE
THE SACRED SCIENCE OF TRANSFORMATION

Alchemy has fascinated the human mind for at least three or four thousand years, and while it is
still a very complicated situation, advancements in various sciences have had a bearing upon our
interpretation of the alchemical theory.
Alchemy is based primarily upon one concept, namely, that an element can be transformed into
another element. In other words, it is possible to take various substances, by art change them and by
so doing accomplish any one of a number of symbolic or literal ends, one of which was the
transmutation of base metals. Another was the transmutation of artificial precious stones so that they
became identical with the genuine stones. A third end was the creation of a universal medicine by
which all diseases could be treated, this medicine itself having as its primary objective the
transmutation of the elements within the body of man.
During early times, both in China and in India, alchemical experiments are recorded. These
experiments used very largely cinnabar which took the place of the mercury of Western alchemical
experimentation. The Egyptians are said to have created alchemical formulas and to have carried on
various experiments by burying substances in the desert sand, using the sand as a furnace or heating
agent; by so doing they were able to cause the substance in a crystal egg to germinate. All these
speculations are duly recorded in various books on the subject, and for a long time they were
unquestioned. It was assumed that the science was literal, factual, and quite possible. There are a
number of historical accounts of the transmutation of metals in public assembly with many witnesses.
This type of thinking continued to grow and interest the public mind to well into the seventeenth
century, a most critical period in Europe for it was during the seventeenth century that there was an
almost complete reformation of knowledge. During this period the medievalism gradually faded out,
humanism arose against scholasticism, and the modern methods of thinking became dominant. In a
very short time the old ways were lost forever, but there arose a tremendous revival of alchemy, and
between around 1575 and 1675 the greater part of alchemical literature that we know today was
published. Not only were the books strange, complex, and mysterious, but they were often illustrated
with incredible and fantastic diagrams, figures, and symbols, seemingly derived from ancient
theology, perhaps Greek or Roman, or perhaps even more remote as in East Indian and Chinese.
Certainly the dragon appears, the many-headed deities of India are there, and a very interesting and
remarkable school of graphic representation came to illustrate the recondite and mysterious writings
of the various alchemical masters.
The alchemical revival mingled with the streams of Rosicrucianism which first appeared in
Europe about 1610. A number of the alchemists were identified with the Rosicrucian Society and
many works by the early Rosicrucian apologists referred directly to alchemy. The mystics of the
period, like Boehme, combined astrology, alchemy, Rosicrucianism and many other types of
symbolism.
The alchemists of the seventeenth century were generally persecuted or ignored or made to feel
that they were of little value. A few native princes of the small European principalities hired
alchemists in the hope of making gold, but about the only productive report that we have is that they
helped to discover the Dresden porcelain which did make gold for a number of people. Behind this
entire subject there seems to lie some form of important meaning, a meaning that has eluded us and is
now just beginning to be recognized. It seems inevitable that the alchemical processes were
representative of psychological and physiological processes in man and nature, There is no doubt in
the world that many of the alchemists were simply social chemists whose primary purpose was to
reform human society and transmute the base objectives of the average person into pure and proper
objectives suitable to protect society. These alchemists were united in secret orders, worked largely
behind the scenes, and had very little public recognition. They were influenced by chemists from
Arabia, Turkey, and North Africa. We know that it was in these areas that Paracelsus studied and
returned to Europe with his famous contributions to medicine, one of the most important being his
development of the use of mercury in various drug compounds. Finally his contributions elevated him
to the position that Garrison gives him in his history of medicine, namely, that he was the foremost
figure in pharmacology in Europe.
Paracelsus, Boyle, van Halmark (who discovered illuminating gas) were alchemists. Alchemists
made many useful discoveries outside of the specialized field with which they were concerned. A
large number of the early alchemists were religious people, monks, priests, bishops, and connected in
one way or another with holy orders. Many of them undoubtedly worked on the speculation that
alchemy was a spiritual science. Among those who took the religious turn of mind we realize that
perhaps the most important was the use of alchemical symbols as in the case of Nicholas Vernow to
ornament the fronts of churches in which it was assumed that the whole secret was placed upon the
reredos or altar or upon the building facade. I visited the Church of the Innocents in Paris where the
famous figures of Flornow were supposed to have been drawn, but unfortunately the church is gone,
There are a few columns with partial figures in the gardens of one of the museums, I think the Cine in
Paris but others, the great gates of Notre Dame were originally, it is said, not only covered with
alchemical symbols but were cast in bronze by the devil himself, so the spirit of evil got mixed up in
it somewhere. On the other hand, nearly every major cathedral in Europe has at least one legend in
which infernal powers helped to complete the building, so it is not a unique situation.
One thing perhaps that would help us in this study is the realization that there was in early days,
prior to the rise of the Ottoman Empire, direct communication between Europe and Asia Along the
caravan routes in China, along the silk roads, and through the oasis of the desert of Gobi, merchants
traveled with their wares all the way across Asia and Asia Minor to sell their goods in the forum of
Rome and in the great market places of Etruscia and other cities. There is no question that Europe at
an early date was aware of Asiatic culture, nor that Egypt was aware of Asiatic culture, and that these
various foreign powers had an influence on the rise of alchemy in Europe It is quite possible we are
dealing largely in alchemy with what the Asiatic mind refers to as Yoga. There was a distinct
discipline, a sacred science of human regeneration, and this sacred science, being in conflict with the
church and being contrary to the accepted policies of European thinkers, was held in secret and was
represented symbolically by chemistry It is obvious that the tremendous control or influence of
alchemy on European thinking from probably 500 B.C. to 1700 A.D. must certainly have something
behind it other than chimera. It could not have been a complete delusion, and even the greatest
adversaries of the subject were uncertain into which direction the final solution would lead. Actually,
therefore, if we assume that the original purpose of alchemy was the perfection of man, the restoration
of the human being to his divine estate, we can realize why some alchemists used early Old
Testament structure for their guide, One alchemist pointed out that the canticles of Solomon contained
a complete exposition of the alchemical process. Another was equally certain that the best key to the
transmutation of metals was The Lord’s Prayer. Now this type of reference should have caused a
glimmer of realization in the public mind because it was obvious that these Biblical references,
dealing directly with man himself, could hardly be assumed to deal only with chemical substances.
Gradually, up to and into the seventeenth century, the emphasis was more and more upon the solution
of the human problem, and alchemy became a forerunner of political reformation and the
establishment of democracy in the Western world. Alchemy became a new concept of healing based
more and more upon natural methods. It was also a secret art of internal transmutation by processes of
meditation, prayer, various disciplines upon the mind and emotions, and by the gradual transformation
of mental attitudes so that the mind no longer interfered with the ultimate objective of evolution,
namely, the production of the consciously enlightened person.
Alchemy might approach the subject by means of a series of archetypal diagrams or figures. Where
do the symbols of alchemy originate? Like all symbols, they have to originate within man himself, and
like all other symbols they arise from various interpretations of environmental circumstances.
Symbols are adapted from nature, but each adaptation shows a certain originality bestowed by the
human mind itself. We have in alchemy a series of basic dream symbols, archetypal symbols, or
symbols based upon the collective subconscious of the race. These symbols in their various forms
have appeared in slightly modified form all over the world, producing the complicated and enduring
artistry of world symbolism. World symbolism has affected every religion of mankind, most
philosophies, practically all art and, to a great degree, it has overshadowed all political institutions.
By means of symbolism the human mind is persuaded to focus its attention upon various mysteries in
order that it may solve them, the assumption being that the symbol has a meaning, that if this meaning
can be found it unlocks the door, that the symbol can be unlocked only by the interpreter himself, and
that the meaning may not necessarily be the same meaning for any two persons. In opening the symbol
door and in determining its meaning for him personally, the individual makes a major revelation of his
own inner life. He tells more about himself this way than he can possibly tell by strict analysis under
some psychological directive The symbol is forever calling out of man some part of his own
subjective potential thinking power.
Leaf 1 | To the king and queen shall a son be born, without equal in all the world, the
Philosopher’s Stone “... the Prime Material of all metals.”
 Most of the symbols were originally derived from mathematics, anatomy, physiology, or from the
various forms in nature. Scientists and students, examining nature, found every natural thing to be a
vast symbol; also that the physical world which projects its appearance upon us is a collective
symbol made up of countless small symbols fitted together like the elements in a cell or a miniature
unit of life in one of its forms. Now the fact that the whole world is a symbol, forever coaxing us to
interpret it, should naturally result in a tremendous revelation of man’s internal potential instead of
merely a concept of industrial exploitation. Every forest has suggested a new source of wood, every
river a new source of electrical energy, every ocean a new place for sewage. Everything that we
interpret out of nature at the present time is what we would term utilitarian but, for the most part, it is
not practical at all. The symbol has drawn out of us the level of interpretation upon which we are
functioning and the only solution to this unfortunate situation is that the individual’s level of
interpretation has to be raised in some way. The alchemists attempted to do this by spiritualizing their
symbols and reminding the beholder or the student or the disciple of the dignity of the sacred art, and
that the purpose of these symbols is not universal prosperity but universal integrity. The integrity
factor was probably just as necessary then as it is today. European countries were no less corrupt than
the modern nations of the world. Most of them were ruled by petty despots who exploited their
subjects in every possible way, so the idea of a new way of life suitable to the enhancement of man’s
natural dignity was most attractive.
One of the immediate by-products of this same system, arising from the same pressures in England
and on the continent, and illustrated by the same engravers, was the cycle of the Utopias, the Utopian
or perfect or highly advanced social order. All of the Utopias that were presented during the early
seventeenth century were essentially socialistic. They were Utopias of equality, of equal opportunity,
equal responsibility. Some of them went so far as to become involved with Andreae and his
Christianopolis, with ideas of pensions for the widow and the fatherless, various institutions to
protect those who were sick or injured, all to be maintained by the community through dues and the
contributions of the citizens. It was a beginning of a new way of life. In the midst of this, one of the
key figures in the whole problem, Lord Bacon, laid the foundations that we now call the basis of
modern industrialism, He began to perceive the inevitable rise of a productive society and that man’s
advancement, so far as his living conditions were concerned, depended upon the advancement of his
own skills and the training of his mind into the search for everything that could be known by man;
what could be useful to man was to be isolated and developed These things all took place within the
period of twenty-five years and that some very pressureful projects lay behind the surface is difficult
to doubt
Assuming that alchemy was in some way concerned with the life of the individual, transmutation as
it was termed by the alchemists would be more or less equivalent with our idea of human progress,
spiritual integrity, self improvement, the unfoldment of man’s internal qualities. Secret societies
existed throughout the ancient, medieval and early modern worlds for the very purpose of
perpetuating the disciplines of the ancient mysteries concerning these matters, and these disciplines
descended to the seventeenth century alchemists. They were a group of persons who were trying to
transform the self into the living vessel in which the various experiments were to take place. While
there are many hints of this, to state it too broadly would have been to create religious conflicts, von
Welling points out that the alchemists had several parallel lines of interest, that the transmutation of
ignorance into wisdom is a kind of psychological chemistry, that there are laws governing it, and that
these laws must be obeyed. The transmutation or transformation of a corrupt state into an ideal
government is a scientific process dealing with the chemistry of human relationships; not only an
exact science, but an achievable end.
Transmutation of the religious situation is more or less relevant to us, We have many faiths that
remain isolated; therefore, they are the elements of a compound, but a compound which has never
been brought together, organized, and the elements transmuted so that out of the many comes the one
which is the soul of them all. The alchemists were concerned with the creation or the revelation of a
universal religious dispensation which was not to be created by killing off all believers except their
own, but by putting together all the elements of believing into one great new alchemical fusion so that
no longer the separate parts were even discernible, only the essence or final substance remained.
According to the von Welling school of thought, that which is true in moral, spiritual, mystical, and
religious matters must also be true physically. If you can take the base substances of man’s society and
restore the rites and mysteries of the golden age, there can be a physical transmutation of matter, for
“as above, so below.” The law of analogy declares that what can be accomplished in the soul can be
also accomplished in the body. The process of digestion was used as illustration, example, and proof
of alchemy.
Leaf 4 | The panel across the body reads, “The Book of life and true Treasury of the World.”
 Having come to this type of conclusion, the alchemical philosophers gradually gained new estate
when it became obvious that they were custodians of an exact spiritual science. This spiritual science
has again been variously interpreted. Viewed by some as a control of magnetic fields or the electrical
background of nature, there are others who feel that it has to do with psychic revelations, There are
many different points of view on the matter, but in all of them a metaphysical or mystical factor is
present. If the alchemist was actually a mystic (many of them are known to have been mystics) and his
system was that of an internal reformation, the basic material upon which he worked was usually
symbolized as a tree with the, seven planets on its branches. This arboretum of the chemistry was the
symbol of Nature and Nature’s product.
The alchemist was described in his own writing as a secretary of Nature. He was not someone
breaking away from the rules of life; he was simply following Nature’s way, because he recognized
that everywhere in nature transformation is taking place mysteriously. In one alchemical design
Nature is shown walking along in a forest at night, leaving footprints behind her, and a wise old man
with a lamp is following in the footsteps, implying that Nature holds a key which solves the mystery.
In a book on trees in our library there is a plate of a tree accompanied by the words, “Man plants the
seed; Pluvius, the god of waters and rains, nourishes; and God bringeth the harvest.” This was another
statement of the concept underlying alchemy. Alchemy was forever a following in the way of Nature,
a following in the way of virtue or integrity, man performing certain actions, these actions in turn
resulting in a kind of harvest according to natural law. The alchemist did not talk of miracles; to him
the miracle was nothing but the fulfillment of the universal purpose relating to a thing, It was a perfect
manifestation of law, and a perfect example of man’s obedience to law.
The seven different planets with their symbols formed a kind of basic laboratory structure. These
seven planets, as we know in astrology, represent the tempers, the humors, the natures, and the
various attributes of the seven aspects or powers of the human soul. The soul manifesting from within
the individual was described by Pythagoras and Plato as an oczoic, or eight-faced symmetrical solid
of which the seven ordinary manifestations constituted the seven planets, and the eighth aspect was
reproduction or the ability to reproduce itself. Man’s imagination is represented by the moon, his
inquisitiveness and mental alertness by mercury. Venus represents his emotional quotient, the sun his
individuality or the self behind it all. Mars represents the passions and the ambitions; Jupiter the
judgment and also escape from the temptations of authority and power. Saturn represents
discrimination, philosophical thoughtfulness, meditation and realization. These aspects of the human
mind are also represented by certain metals, for there was a metal assigned to each of the planets.
Silver was assigned to the moon, gold to the sun, lead to Saturn; each of them had its metal
correspondence, In addition, each element was assigned its vowel, its sound, its color, its number,
and its form. These seven symbols became a kind of alchemy of alchemy and are observable
throughout the whole history of the subject,
The human being manifests these attributes in varying degrees and intensities. In some people the
imagination, signified by the Moon, is strong; in others it is not. In some people the imagination is
more or less optimistic; in others it is pessimistic. Some are hopeful, some are fearful, and all are
torn by the excesses of whatever emotional or imaginative factor is dominant, Mercury is the symbol
of inquisitiveness, the search for knowledge, the communication of ideas. It is language, it is graphic
in all forms; it is the presentation of what we believe so that others may comprehend it. However, this
is subject to all kinds of abuses and misuses. The individual may be like the Chinese artist who paints
the picture because he cannot help painting the picture, or he may paint a picture as so many
Westerners do, because he thinks he can sell the picture. These are different levels of motivation. The
individualistic power of the sun may cause an individual to be strong and personally secure, or it may
change him into an autocrat and a despot whose security leads him to believe that he is empowered to
enslave others.
These seven symbolic metals, elements, and substances within the human psyche presented the
alchemist with his primary problem: how to reconcile all of these different attributes and aspects;
how to get imagination to work cooperatively with ambition so that one does not lead the other further
and further into tragedy; how to call upon the resources of these different factors and, presuming they
could be melded together into one substance, what kind of faculty would they be? Would they
represent one common knowing? Would they bring the mind to its highest possible potential level so
that instead of the mind being a tumbling ground for conflict, it would be a coordinated instrument to
penetrate into the mysteries of the unknown? How to dispose of opinion so as to lift the individual
from his own notion into a closer communion with value and reality?
The alchemists finally came to a decision that makes us almost suspect that they had strong Asiatic
influence. They concluded that the body of these elements cannot be reconciled, nor can they be
confined Tin, gold, silver, mercury, and iron can be combined but will never result in anything except
another alloy of one nature or another without any essential improvement or elevation of
consciousness. The same situation applies to the combination of the various elements of man’s
personality. The first step, therefore, in the uniting of these principles is that the individual himself
must reduce each of these symbolic planetary elements to its own primary nature. As a spirit it can be
combined; as a body it cannot. Therefore, each of these elements must be freed of all its dross parts.
Imagination had to be reduced to its own seed. It had to be freed and left as a power without an area
of abuse or misinterpretation with which it had surrounded itself. The power of the faculty itself had
to be released entirely from its addictions, involvements, and corruptions, and to be so trained that it
could not again be over-influenced by bad neighbors. To get the imagination in this condition
obviously would require some form of meditative discipline. Something would have to be done to
clear the imagination without destroying it. Imagination must be reconciled with all of the other
elements to make this new and mysterious elixir The only way that has ever been found to accomplish
this type of thing is by transcending or suspending the faculty itself, which is a problem involved in
Eastern metaphysics and meditation disciplines.
As of imagination, so of all the others, the individual’s emotions, represented by Venus, cannot be
melded into a compound while these emotions themselves are excessive. The principle behind
emotion has to be redirected, The alchemists believed that in principle all faculties will cooperate, In
essence all aspects of thought are from one life power. The various faculties that we possess have
been differentiated from one energy. Therefore, they can be restored to one energy, or brought back to
unity or union or, as the Indians call it, Yoga. Once these have been brought back to their fundamental
unity, they can be redirected into a different pattern of process. They can be changed; the whole
outlook can be changed and the whole reason for things can be changed. These faculties can be
allowed to move out again into manifestation without conflict and in perfect harmony with the divine
plan of things. Having struggled along for centuries thinking with divided faculties, man must come in
the end to recognize that in the union of these faculties as one agent, he is then able to think with the
mind of God.
To create a technique for such a procedure, it was necessary to use all kinds of symbols derived
from many sources. Most of these symbols go back to the Greeks, the Pythagoreans, Platonic, and
Neo-Platonic mysteries and, of course, one of the most basic of these is the natural division of man
himself into spirit, soul, and body. In the old alchemical symbolism, spirit is represented by the Sun,
body by the Moon, and the soul or mind by Mercury Gold is the element of the Sun, silver the element
of the Moon, and quicksilver the element of Mercury. The alchemists assumed that Mercury was the
common solvent, that Mercury could accept into itself other substances, It was therefore a reconciler
and on this basis Mercury arises as the mind, the peculiar power to learn, the learning becoming the
reconciler of all things In the mind man can heal all the wounds of society. In his inner life he can
think through and realize the need for certain major changes in his way of life. We can see this even in
modern society with more and more individuals thinking seriously about finding ways to solve
difficulties.
Leaf 5 | The first operation: the Solar-Bird battles with the Earth-Serpent, who, tearing out its own
entrails, gives them to the bird.
 Now Mercury as the solvent, symbolizing the soul, the mind, or the individuality implies another
aspect of alchemy, namely that the soul or psychic field is actually the mysterious vessel within which
the alchemical experiment must be performed, for in the soul the spiritual resources and the bodily
resources find common ground, and the reconciliation of spirit and matter must always be soul. In the
soul medium between the two there must gradually arise a compatibility; this compatibility really
results in the increase of the majesty and dignity of the psychic life which gradually becomes more
and more beautifully represented until in the end the soul, achieving its full development and bearing
witness as being the child of the Sun and Moon, or spirit and body, rises to its supreme, unfolded, and
enlightened dignity in the symbol of the Messiah. To the alchemists Christ was the end of the great
chemical experiment, Christ was the symbol of the completely balanced and reorganized soul power
in which all of the seven elements making up the objective world were reconciled, transformed, and
transmuted by a mystery of transubstantiation.
Therefore, the soul power is the thing that the individual is striving for. He is seeking to achieve
soul mastery over matter, over body. He feels that this is the reason for his original creation, namely
that he might truly be the gardener in the garden of the Lord, that he might be the faithful and good
shepherd, that he might do all things wisely and well. To achieve this he must perfect the inner
structure of his own nature from which comes the impulse to do well. As man’s soul becomes more
luminous his native attitudes are transformed and changed.
In the alchemical story we have constant references to the mysterious old alchemist sitting in his
gloomy laboratory, with his bellows and a charcoal fire, or perhaps huddled over a little clay furnace
in which he is attempting to preserve his sacred experiment. He is here and he has waited for years,
like Michael Sendivogius, and the final secret of it all eludes him, He goes so far and he can go no
further. He knows in his own soul that there is that one final step to reality. He has read all the books,
but he has read them with the wrong eyes of course in some cases he has been imposed upon, for as in
other vocations there were also false alchemists. He has failed in studying the great masters to let the
true meaning, and in the midst of his dejection and sometimes discouragement and tragic frustration, a
stranger comes into his laboratory, a person he has never met before. This stranger was known to the
alchemists of Europe as Helias Artista, Helius the Artist. He was the perfect alchemist, the master of
all alchemists. And he was the one who rewarded the faithful seeker who had been honorable and
sincere in all matters by whispering to him the next step, that which he had not yet learned or
accomplished, all this under the obligation of extreme discretion. Then Helias Artista vanished and
was never seen again in that particular laboratory, but records in old literature tell us that Helias
Artista is mentioned by Paracelsus, he is mentioned by several other of the alchemists as being the
wandering saint, or the wandering sage of alchemy, the perfect master of the mysteries. This Helias
Artista seems to have a certain bearing upon what we call perhaps today the teacher image in man.
The teacher image in man appears in art and literature everywhere. It is Gurnemanz in the story of
Parsifal. It is the aged, learned seer, the scholar; in art he appears in the vestments and appearance of
the great scholar or philosopher. We may think of him as a kind of Plato; in the Orient they would
think of him as a great Buddhist Arhat, or perhaps one of the great disciples of Confucius. He is the
venerable symbol of the final communication of the secret of immortality, the one who must bring the
final crowning of the effort. There is almost no doubt that he represents the divine power, the God
power, in man, blessing the labor and releasing itself into manifestation when the disciple is ready.
This gives us one of the great Hermetic axioms, “When the disciple is ready, the master is there, for
the readiness is within ourselves and the mastery is within ourselves.” When we have reached a point
where we deserve the next step, it is always conveyed to us, usually by an archetypal symbol,
sometimes by a new point of view. We have read the sacred text a thousand times, we have examined
the learned work a hundred times, but suddenly, as we go through one of these works for the
hundredth and first time, the meaning dawns upon us, and the dawning of the meaning is what Boehme
called the Aurora, or the sunrise, The dawning of the meaning is the reward to the individual of
having brought the experiment to the next degree below that which the dawning represents. When he
has reached the point where the dawning must be next, it comes; and this is the crown of the adept in
alchemy. He then possesses the secret and by extension can use this secret in whatever manner he sees
fit; but before he has achieved it he has seen what fitness is, and would be incapable by his own
integrity of misusing or corrupting or compromising the wisdom which he has received.
Thus we might assume for general practices and purposes that there have always been and always
will be a certain number of these alchemical adepts in society. We do not know who they are. Some
of them may have little laboratories here and there, or a furnace in the backyard, but we do not know
them. Wherever they are or whatever they are doing, if they are the true alchemists they are primarily
concerned with the regeneration of the base metals of their own natures. They are hard at work
accomplishing for themselves what no psycho analyst could possibly accomplish for them. They have
realized in following the very ancient tradition that the only way man can get out of his dilemma is to
outgrow it. He cannot be saved by political policies. He cannot have a just government until he
governs himself justly, These realizations flowing in upon the beginner or the novice in these matters
is reminiscent of the lines from Omar Khayam’s Rubiyat: “And from my base metal shall be filed the
key.” It is from our own base substances that the alchemical elixir must be found. As gold is a tiny
vein in the rock, so in alchemy true individuality is a tiny vein in the base substance of man’s
exaggerated egoism, his tremendous destructive ambition, and his remorseless determination to
succeed at all cost; yet somewhere in that base substance is the true principle that has been misused
but which can be restored.
Leaf 6 | The secrets of the great Stone: fire lives on air, air on water, water on earth, and thus the
Stone lives peacefully on all the pure elements. The text declares that by putting fire beneath the
symbolic figure it is possible to extract therefrom the sun and the moon.
 The seed of the metals equates with the Buddhist seed of Chinese Buddhism, for these seeds
represent internal integrity by means of which and from which grow the great jewel trees that shade
the worlds of paradise. Every individual has the seed of eternity in himself; every being, every
creature has all the elements of the great alchemical experiment within his own nature. He contains
within himself the seed of his own immortality, the substance of his own divinity, and all of the
faculties and powers necessary to sow this seed in good soil, water it, fertilize it, take care of it,
bring it to flowering and to fruit, and finally to gather the harvest. This is man’s internal potential, but
he has ignored it. The alchemists of Europe did what the mystics of Asia did, they set aside a kind of
life which they held to be devoted to the primary purpose of salvation, not only salvation for
themselves but ultimately and actually salvation for all that lived. Not only must the individual gain
the power to transmute his own nature but he must become an active agent in the transmutation of
human society. The final end is social justice, and the immediate end is adjustment with society so
that the individual can live and work and fulfill his purpose without being completely tormented by
environmental processes.
We all realize that there is a great deal of trouble in the world and most people also realize, if they
think for a moment, that as individuals they are not going to solve that trouble. They are going to be
fortunate indeed if they are able to maintain their own integrity through this trouble. So that instead of
taking on continuously the negative pressures of the outside, we may be like the alchemist who retires
to the little laboratory of his own inner life and there labors to accomplish that which is most
necessary, realizing that as he labors in secret, so in due time he will be rewarded openly. He retires
perhaps into the most intimate laboratory that he has—his home—and here he starts working with the
alchemical factors of human relationship He has to deal with all kinds of problems, but before he can
solve any of them he must find their common denominator and that is the idea of reducing them to their
seed or to their principle, as in the alchemical thinking. He must find the common ground upon which
all things can be built, and to find the common ground he must go deeper and deeper within himself.
The common ground cannot be found by winning an argument, nor the ultimate enlightenment of his
family achieved by constant pressure and endless strife. In a sense his family represents the
alchemical laboratory. It is the most intimate to himself next to his own body, and in his own thinking
and in his own life he has to work with this. After he has gone a certain distance he will begin to
realize that the increase of his own consciousness will show him how to solve problems which, at the
moment, are not solvable. He is now in a state of confusion because he is also confused internally; but
the confusion around him can only be overcome by the organization of that which is within him, He
can never defeat the confusion by screaming against it, but he can integrate against it until it seems to
fade away and no longer has much meaning, So everything on the outside is governed from the in side
of the individual, and alchemy must therefore be the science of developing and strengthening the
inside so that it can accomplish its perfect work.
There are many interesting books of alchemical symbols. Some of them, like the Liber Mutus, are
books written without words, the silent books consisting of nothing but pictures representing the
various degrees of the experiments, based on the assumption that the picture would reveal that which
was intended. A book like this is almost identically the equivalent of an Eastern mandala, or
meditation figure. By the mandala figure the novice is introduced into the mystical inner structure of
nature so that he may begin to obey its laws and will find fulfillment in obedience-rather than in
disobedience. While man does not understand his world he will fight against it and regard it as
outrageous; but when he understands the world, internally, he will then labor with it for the common
good. The Liber Mutus contains a number of diagrams that are very similar to the Eastern mandalas
and the work of Henri Khunrath is another example of very strange and curious diagrams of the
greatest practical significance. Actually, the mandala of the crucifixion of Christ in space is an almost
absolute reproduction of one of the Eastern figures. The symbolization of it is through a mental,
internal experience, the alchemist having come to the realization of the nature of the work and having
gradually taken hold of the symbolic elements, the alphabet of the art, so that he begins to understand
what each symbol stands for. By then quietly meditating upon the design, he organizes its resources
and brings it together in a pattern. He is able to rescue from within himself faculties to interpret that
pattern. He begins to warm up or stimulate the inner potential of himself to understand reality, to take
hold of things and penetrate their appearances to the final experience of their meaning. All of this is
perhaps the very soul and substance of alchemy.
Leaf 7 | The seated figure holding aloft a hammer is described as breaking hard stone, while the
words beside the man with the retort read: “Breaking of stone our replenishment.”
 As for the physical side of it, presuming that the individual has accomplished all of the things that
we have suggested, the alchemist would probably again take reference to the Bible where he would
say that the final proof of the physical experiment is found in the words: “Seek ye first the kingdom of
heaven and its righteousness, and all other things shall be added unto you.” The alchemist, therefore,
is assured (and many of them were monks and religious people) that if he achieved the inner mystery,
the fulfillment of the outer part would be inevitable. But practically every charlatan in alchemy has
determined primarily to achieve the physical purpose first. His primary interest has been to make
gold, or perhaps one of the other aspects of it, such as a medicine against illness. He has wanted the
physical effect first, but because the physical effect was not intended to be first, when he starts to
study and explore the various texts, he comes upon a dilemma, his own internal resources cannot
discover the correct instructions. The words may be there, but the meaning eludes him because the
meaning is not part of his own present spiritual integrity. He hopes that he can follow literally some
formula, but is nearly always disappointed, He cannot perform the physical experiment correctly until
the inner power of his consciousness has shown him the perfect arrangement of all involved elements,
Theoretically, the adept in alchemy (and, incidentally, the term “adept” used in alchemy is almost
identical with that used in Oriental philosophy; sometimes arhat or mahatma), having the internal
ability by the power of energy alone to transform things after he has achieved his true enlightenment,
would not have to make gold in a bottle because by will and yoga he could project it whenever he
wanted to, However, this is only when he has attained the highest degree of individual integration and
a degree of spiritual insight which will probably result in the fact that gold is of no importance to him,
By the time he can make it he does not care because in getting there he has fulfilled the great
experiment, he has transformed his own base metals into true gold and has become the living, radiant
principle called the philosopher’s stone. He is the ruby diamond, the integrated being as indicated by
his magnetic field which shows all the prismatic lights and shadows of the diamond. Another school
of alchemy has to do with the magnetic field itself, the assumption that the retort is the aura, that
within the retort of the magnetic field of the individual all of the alchemical processes of regeneration
occur, even as in the larger aura, the retort of the solar system, all the transformations of solar process
take place. The aura is a kind of a vessel of glass, similar to the one in which it is said Merlin the
magician went to sleep in the legends of King Arthur. It is the glass which contains the homunculus, or
the synthetically created human being.
The magnetic field is itself composed of the seven planetary rays, each one of them now no longer
associated with the planet but associated with a rate of vibration, with a color energy, with a certain
purpose in the body, and each one working through a vortex in the physical body taking care of some
of the important processes of human function. If this magnetic field of the body is damaged in one way
or another, then as shown through the Kilner screens and other research including considerable
clairvoyant investigation, the magnetic field is a strange battleground of conflicts and shows the
inconsistencies and the in temperance of the individual. The magnetic field is actually damaged by
alcohol and narcotics and also is hurt by the tremendous intensity of man’s attitudes. The chronic
worrier, the chronic complainer, the individual who never thinks anything is good enough for him all
set up patterns in the magnetic field, and gradually this field, which should be a beautiful chemical
vessel in which the great experiment of mutation takes place, becomes a mass of psychochemical
confusion.
This, then, becomes in a sense the retort, and the alchemist has as one of his projects to clear up
this magnetic field, to clear the Augean stables as Hercules was supposed to do. The labors of
Hercules are the labors of the arhat or the adept. Actually, as we bring our lives into integration,
coordination, and into honorable relationships, the magnetic field begins to clear and then we will
note that this has a direct effect upon health, It is believed in the Orient and also in Europe that some
of the alchemical adepts and yoga mystics lived for hundreds of years without any apparent aging.
This was because the magnetic field was cleared from all corruption, The magnetic field energies
were available with out interference and without pollution to maintain the structure of the physical
body and its etheric double.
As long as the magnetic field is well-charged and its energies are used properly, it will very
largely protect the body from almost any ailment except an actual accident. But if the magnetic field is
corrupted in itself by the seven planetary faculties, by greed or by imagination to the point of illusion,
by ambition beyond reasonable ends, by egotism too strong represented by the sun, all of these
damage the magnetic field, for each one of these changes the basic color of the magnetic aura. The
basic color of Jupiter will be a lovely shade of blue but, when ambition comes, it becomes dirty and
murky, and this dirty, murky color is like smog, It is corruption, the pouring of destructive elements
into the magnetic field through the attitudes of its owner. When it is necessary for this energy to flow
into the body, it flows in corrupted and out of this corruption may come obstruction of function or
depletion of function which in turn produces sickness.
Maintenance of the magnetic field in perfect poise is tremendously important and when these
magnetic elements are brought into harmony, when the seven rays are in perfect harmony, then we
have the magnetic field of the illumined or enlightened person, of which of course the star of
Bethlehem is a symbol. The auras around the bodies of saints and all the splendors reflected through
the light of a great cathedral window, these things represent the magnetic field when it has been
brought into order and proper control by the person who owns it. Alchemy is the transformation and
transmutation of the psycho chemical elements within the individual. If he achieves this first, there is
no reason to question those alchemists who declared that the physical experiment of transformation
could be achieved. By this physical process of transformation they may also have meant the
possibility of renewing the body periodically by means of specially prepared remedies; these
remedies being largely, if not entirely, the periodic release of magnetic force by which the body could
be continually strengthened and improved. The individual could renew himself for great lengths of
time as long as there was no conflict in his own nature nor division in his own resources until all the
faculties combine, we cannot have the perfect union. Until all nations combine, we cannot have a
perfect government. Until all levels of society unite in common purpose, we cannot have a secure
state or society in man, until his faculties are in constructive agreement and unite to cooperate for the
ends or purposes necessary for the human being—until then there cannot be a healthy person or a
successful human society, nor can the individual escape from the longings, yearnings, and loneliness
which are symbols of isolation.
The entire secret of alchemy is therefore on several levels, but I think the great alchemists—
Basilius Valentinus, Raymond Lully, Paracelsus, Michael Sendivogius, George Ripley, all of the great
alchemists from all times did definitely imply, and sometimes obviously stated, that their art was
sacred, that it had come to them from the land of Khem, al-chem-y, divine chemistry, Khem being the
ancient name for Egypt. Further, that this science was intended to be used only by the God-loving and
the God-fearing, that it was a mystery of which the death and resurrection of Christ became
symbolical, and the seven elements, by means of which the transmutation of the metals and substances
were to be achieved, were also parallel with and symbolically expressed through the seven
sacraments.
 These are all ways toward salvation and each is a symbolical, prayerful, meditational step
combined in a perfect scientific pattern so carefully scientifically laid out that we cannot but believe
that there was a definite, organized science of salvation, and that it is perhaps high time in our modern
world that we rediscover this and realize that while we have sciences for all kinds of lesser
purposes, the science of the perfection of man is the most important science of all. It has always been
the most difficult to attain, but those who have attained it have attained to the end which the whole
world is seeking, that is, universal peace, universal truth, and life everlasting These are the great
goals, and all other things are merely secondary In order to achieve these goals the individual must
gradually, in one way or another, accept the challenge of self-discipline and the challenge of
dedication to the best possible use of the faculties and powers which he possesses.
 CHAPTER TWO
THE TRANSFORMATION OF ATTITUDES

It was once pointed out by Raymond Lully, one of the great early alchemists, that the tragedy of the
concept of alchemy was the transmutation of metals. The history of alchemy divides into two distinct
branches that have descended from antiquity, possibly originating in Egypt. The word “Chem” in both
chemistry and alchemy is an ancient name for Egypt. “Al” is divine or sacred and we find it used in
the Bible in such terms as “Alevin.” Of course the Deity of Islam is Allah. The divine prefix would
indicate that alchemy is a spiritual art, a divine secret science.
The great texts of alchemy have come principally from the hermetic background at the beginning of
the Christian era and probably there were alchemical schools in Alexandria at that time. There are
also early records of alchemy in China and in India. It seems that from very far back there has
descended a double concept of chemistry: physical chemistry having to do with those areas of
knowledge which are now considered scientific, and spiritual chemistry which was definitely a
sacred art.
In practice, the difference in these two systems was summarized rather well by Paracelsus when
he pointed out that the alchemical transmutation was impossible unless the alchemist himself was in
the process of transformation. Today chemistry is largely dominated by the profit concept, the idea of
wealth. All kinds of chemical experiments are being made for various reasons, some of them very
good, some of them very dangerous, but always with a certain concept of return in material wealth for
the good or the evil that is done. Chemistry is largely a material art, dominated by scientific inquiry
and not in any way involving any necessary spiritual overtones. The chemist does not have to be a
person of great faith, does not have to believe in metaphysical or mystical procedures. He is simply
working with physical tests and physical texts.
The alchemist, on the other hand, has an entirely different perspective. Most of the alchemists were
pious people, convinced that their advancement of science was a spiritual contribution to the well
being of society and concerned with the development of their own inner lives. Jakob Boehme used a
number of alchemical terms in his mystical writings and these have been confusing to modern students
of his work. Actually the use given by Boehme in most cases probably is the original intended usage,
namely, that alchemy is a great system of human regeneration, having nothing whatsoever to do with
the advancement of worldly goods or worldly position.
In Europe, the alchemists were persecuted and in many cases put to the rack and tortured to death,
because the rulers or avaricious leaders wanted the secret of gold making. The moment the alchemist
began to publicize this part of his belief, he immediately opened himself to persecution, so that the
gold making as a science brought many of the alchemists to destruction. Also, the manufacture of gold
or any other precious substance without control by the state could result in the bankruptcy of the
world. In a good number of cases, when an alchemist died all the surrounding chemists made a bid for
his widow so that they could marry her and so gain the secrets. Most of this, however, had a rather
sad ending because nobody seems to know exactly what the formulas really were.
 Leaf 8 | Under the sun, moon, and Mercury are the words “Three” and “One.” To the left is
written: “If you who read shall have known this figure, you will possess the whole science of the
the Stone.” Beside the child is the sentence: “The son of the moon would throw the Stone into the
fire — his mother.” Above the flaming basket is written: “I am the true Stone.”
 The question then remains: can gold actually be manufactured? Not whether it should be or not, but
can it be? I think the answer has to be in the affirmative. It can be. It also is obvious from recent
experimentation that the subject could be advanced. But this is not the real purpose of alchemy and
where the chemists get together to raise their own level of economic living, the scientists run into a
very desperate prostitution.
The ancient alchemists were using symbols at a very early date. In many cases the symbols were
accepted as literal pictures, but this has led to further confusion. We know, for instance, that in ancient
alchemy the great retort in which all the experiments were being made was a symbol for the solar
system itself, viewed as a globe within which all the chemistries and alchemies of existence were
taking place. The ancients believed that this world in which we live is a great theatre of mysteries,
the secrets of which have never been solved. Actually, the world is strangely complete within itself,
containing everything necessary for the infinite perpetuation of itself. This condition remains rather
peaceful and natural until human ambition and avarice take over. The ambition of the average modern
person is involving fame, distinction, or wealth. Therefore, he immediately is using knowledge for the
formation directly or indirectly of gold. He may not make the gold in the retort but he will sell secrets
or scientific formulas which will bring him rich financial rewards.
We might ask: what harm is this? One of the reasons it is extremely dangerous is because the
moment we begin to experiment with the basic laws of existence we are very apt to forget their own
integrities. Natural laws have to be obeyed and we are not interested in obeying natural laws but in
changing them to fit our conveniences. We want to use natural law to exploit the universe in which we
live and as a result we are constantly in trouble and in the same dilemma that burdened the alchemist.
Many years ago there was an amateur alchemist here in Los Angeles. He was a delightful old
German gentleman and for a prosaic living he worked in a cheese factory, but he was experimenting
on the side throughout most of his life, trying to work out some strange and mysterious formulas that
had descended to him from the past. Before passing on some years ago, he donated most of his
alchemical books to our library. He was certain there was an answer but that he had not been able to
live long enough to find it.
Another acquaintance engaged in alchemical speculation followed every rule in the book he could
find, and of course soon found that every book had a different set of rules. This was confusing and
frustrating to him He bought a lot of apparatus and instruments, followed hunches and hints, and was
always on the verge of a great discovery that never happened. What he did not have was a deep,
abiding love of God, faith, or mankind. He was simply an intellectual, convinced that a science could
be made to work. What the science meant in terms of his own character never seemed to occur to him.
In the alchemy of China and India the symbolism moves from chemistry to all kinds of vibratory
patterns. In China, alchemy was tied in with music and the musical scale, the harmonics of life. The
ancient Greeks of the Pythagorean period combined all their knowledge of cosmogony and the actual
reformation of man into a great mathematical formula which was never to be taken literally but was to
become almost like a mantra, a sacred statement which, if obeyed, could produce tremendous results.
Hermetic philosophy also became involved in alchemy. The hermeticists of Alexandria followed a
mysterious being known to them as Hermes Trismegistus, or Hermes the Thrice Great. Who he was,
when he lived, no one seems to know. Whether he was a production of symbolism or perhaps a great
alchemical adept of some ancient time, we do not know, but in hermeticism we begin to sense the
beginning of the transmutation of man as the essential purpose of the great alchemical procedure.
In Europe, in addition to their other problems, it was necessary for the alchemists to be careful in
the promulgation of some of these beliefs because of the bitter opposition of the clergy. The clergy
sensed the fact that in some way alchemy was a religion and they were therefore quite sure it had to
be included among the heresies. As a result, however, of the motion of Arabic knowledge into
Europe, the alchemical secrets passed into the keeping of persons like Paracelsus, Khunrath, and
Valentine, and these persons gained their knowledge of the alchemical processes largely from
Constantinople and Baghdad. This, of course, meant still more that the knowledge had to be held in
secrecy against the persecutions and martyrdoms that were popular in Europe at that time.
In many parts of the world, alchemy was recognized for what it actually was: a series of symbols
intended to convey a major operation concerning the transmutation of man himself. Without this
transmutation, none of the great good things we dream of can come about. The elixir of life or
philosopher’s stone was that power by means of which all good things could come to pass, wherein
all errors and forms of ignorance could be overcome and the individual could gain complete control
of not only his own life but the laws governing it.
Therefore, we come to the particular question that seems to be very much in the medieval
alchemical tradition—that is—is there any proof of transmutation? Is there any actual evidence of
things being completely altered? Has there ever been a scientist that could completely alter anything?
He could modify it, improve it to a degree, and could destroy it always. But the process of actual
transformation of a thing from what it is to something totally different, this has been a question of
concern in alchemical researches for ages. The evidence for transmutation is extraordinarily simple:
the answer lies in the human body itself.
Our principal interest now is to try to understand something of the alchemical theory, What is
alchemy in the terms of modern man? Certainly we recognize it as a principle of transformation. And
perhaps one of the easiest ways to approach this is by direct reference to the human body. The
process of nutrition as it takes place in man, including digestion and as simulation, is a problem in
transformation. The supreme alchemy with which we are confronted in daily living is this problem of
food digestion. Here miracles happen that we have no explanation for. Here energies are reduced to
their basic principles and redistributed through the body in a manner so extraordinary that it is
wonderful there could be even one undevout dietitian or nutritionist. We recognize, therefore, that
Nature is forever transforming things, and man himself is no exception to the general rule. The human
being is in a constant process of mental, emotional, or physical transformation. But transformation can
be regarded on several levels. A number of the early alchemists declared the Holy Bible to be the
great text of alchemy and that the life of Christ was the complete and perfect account of
transformation, Several of the early priestly alchemists were very outspoken in their rejection of
physical chemistry as the true meaning of their art. Roger Bacon, on one occasion, said, “Woe, woe to
the goldmakers,” that this entire alchemical science had to do with something far more important than
the transformation of metals to enrich the various pocketbooks of Europe. But up to now there has
been very little clue as to what the original meaning might be, why it was not simply a matter of the
transformation of metals.
 Leaf 9 | “... without the light of the Moon the Sun does not heat the earth and that into the Moon
the Sun emits its fruits.” Whoever believes in and possesses the true herb of the philosophers shall
be [spiritually] rich. “Understand thoroughly what the man has in either hand to be enlightened.”
 The process of digestion of food requires the transformation of elements. It requires an almost
instantaneous adaptation of certain principles to special usages for which they were not originally
intended. It is possible, therefore, for food which is taken in to, in some way, maintain a life principle
which is not a food and not in the body otherwise, but is used to nourish the life or principle in the
human being. The bread, butter, vegetables, fruit, milk and other foods keep alive something that is not
any of them, which throughout life will continue to cause the heart to beat, to circulate the blood, to
nourish the functions of the human being until the end of life. Out of what goes into him comes out of
him arts, sciences, poetry, music, philosophy, religion, and economics, they all come out of someone
who is nourished by the food, the atmosphere around him, water, the rays of the planets, and the light
of the sun and moon. The symbolism of the wedding of the sun and moon in alchemy is very important,
not because there will be a wedding in the sky of the two luminaries, but because of the union of the
principles for which they stand inside of the human body.
Thus, there is the amazing evidence of the one life flowing behind all forms and made available
through nutrition to every creature. From the harvests in the fields a world is nourished, and those
who absorb these harvests become proficient in many forms of activity.
In the Christian doctrine of the Eucharist, the divine blood parallels in alchemy the elixir of life.
How this divine blood operates is not clear to many people, but in some mysterious way universal
life supports the life of people, people who may never be aware of the source of their own nutrition
and in a mechanistic era such as ours do not care about the source of their nutrition.
Out of this has come a new concept of nutrition, a concept involving vitamins, proteins,
carbohydrates, an entire system of nutrition based upon the development of highly specialized
nutrients from the various food materials we eat. All these nutrients have something to do with the
maintenance of the various structures of the human body. In this sense, there is an acceptance of
alchemy without any understanding of it. Here there is the realization that nutrition does do the work,
but how and why it does it and how one general type of nutrition can maintain an infinite diversity of
creatures is another situation that is difficult to understand.
The nutrition must be conditioned to the creature which is receiving the nourishment, So we have
within our own bodies an extraordinary laboratory, a laboratory the mysteries of which we have not
begun to touch. Someone can prescribe various materials for our common nutrition and for special
emergencies that arise, but prescribing them is not creating them, and prescribing them is not
understanding them. We have simply come to know that certain materials have certain effects and we
depend upon them to maintain the procedures which we hope will strengthen and lengthen our life
expectancies.
Immortal life is one of the beliefs of alchemy and there are a number of very quaint and unusual
concepts about this matter. Some of these concepts are difficult to understand even now, but we know
that they definitely believed that there were in the world a few individuals who had solved the
mystery of alchemy. The master of all the alchemists was Elias Artista, the most celebrated of all the
hermetic adepts and philosophers. No one really knew him, although we do have two or three early
books in the library in which alchemists described a meeting with him. The symbol of the perfect
alchemist, Elias Artista had a number of disciples who came very close to him in achieving the ends
which he sought. His powers were such that he would appear in laboratories where worthy persons
had worked very hard for years and give them a hint or a little advice to advance their researches,
only to disappear and to never be seen by them again. He appeared in many nations in many different
guises and spoke many languages. He is supposedly an eternal person, living on and on because there
was nothing in him that could cause him to die; death has to be the result of causes. Life expectancies
are increasing constantly, but life expectancies to reach a phenomenal extension of time are now
either a phenomena in themselves, the result of very serious scientific conditioning, or constitutional
ability to adapt nutrition over a longer period of time than is possible for most people.
The alchemists pointed out that the beginning of the alchemical experiment was to remove all
friction from life. By friction is meant wear and tear. Now what is wear and tear? To most people it
means doing the things they have to do and have no particular interest in doing. Wear and tear is also
the result of the lack of control of the mental, emotional and physical activities of the individual. All
of these activities use energy. A large part of the energy we use we waste. We are not conserving it,
not taking care of this mysterious vitality that comes to us. We are allowing it to be expended in all
kinds of use less ways. Of course we have to make physical adjustment for employment, but it is not
the work necessarily that is the greatest cause of problems; it is the attitude toward the work. It is the
lack of enthusiasm, the lack of recognition of significance of the things that we do that depress us.
Emotional relationships out of hand can become a terrible enemy to vitality. Worry, fear, anxiety—all
of these use up part of this alchemical nutrition that is constantly being made within ourselves. If we
waste it we can no longer have it. If we use it unwisely it is dissipated. And to maintain artificial
attitudes will gradually undermine the necessary functions of the body.
The alchemist first of all declared that the master of all arts was God. Deity was in a sense the
extra-personal perfect alchemist because in Deity all things continue according to the Divine Will.
How this Will operates, man does not know, but he does recognize, if he is mystically inclined, that
there is a tremendous background of eternal wisdom behind the happenings in nature. Deity becomes
the perfect force behind generation and regeneration. Deity brings forth the seed, the plant, the flower
and the fruit. And then that seed becomes the next generation of the same.
Alchemical symbolism is strange and obscure but well worth trying to understand. We must begin
with what the alchemist begins with: base metals. We must begin with things as they are here. We
cannot build our alchemical formulas from elements or substances not available to us. The beginning
is to recognize that the first operation is a transmutation of physical factors, elements, and properties;
in other words, purification. If it is mercury, it must be purified. If it is sulphur, it must be purified. If
it is salt, it must be purified. And if it is man, he must be purified. Everything begins with the
purification or removal of the dross which limits the value and survival of elements, principles, and
substances.
 Leaf 16 | “... the spirits are freed by the death in the bodies. You will ride with that death with a
scythe.” Over the scythe is written: “Subject to the Sun, the Moon, and Azoth, complete the Work.”
This figure is called ‘Laton’ for it looks black in the vessel and is the beginning of corruption.
 The alchemist starts with the concept of a pure material with which to work. He is given various
clues and keys on how to achieve this pure material. He might assemble it under certain aspects of
planets or wait until the moon shines upon the water before he uses it in his test tubes. He may do all
kinds of things. First he must purify by gathering his materials from pure sources as much as he can.
Most of the great experiments of Paracelsus and many others were possible because of the pure high
atmosphere of the Alps where materials were uncontaminated and grew to the fullness of themselves.
In their day there was no smog or congestion. These pure materials, having been found, became the
basic elements in which they worked.
The same problem applies to the individual. The alchemist must first purify his own body and his
own nature. Until the body is cleansed, its various processes cannot be refined. While all the
integration and organization of his abilities and capacities, the improvement of his nature through
learning, meditation and contemplation all lead up to, contribute to, and make possible a final internal
illumination, the final secret has to come from inside. Therefore, everything has to be refined until the
soul of itself is available, and in man it is his own soul; until this is available, he labors in vain.
Those efforts that have to contribute to this progress must be considered as disciplines or as first
steps toward achievement. They represent first of all man’s recognition of his responsibility to the life
principle which exists in him and in which he exists. This principle is divine, sacred, and the most
valuable and mysterious thing in the whole world. Unless the individual is true to this basic principle
in his own life and way of living and thinking, he cannot hope to advance in the cause of spiritual
alchemy. For achievement he must do everything possible to make his own life reasonable and
normal.
This does not mean that he has to depart from society or go into some refuge near the top of the
Alps, but there must be an establishment of basic harmony within himself. Harmony is the proof of the
compatibility of the elements. Harmony is the ability of different chemical elements to work together,
only possible when they are purified—in their gross form they will never be compatible. Salt and
sulphur in the form of the physical elements available for purchase can never be compatible. It is
necessary to cleanse them both, refine them, and remove from them those elements which are the
cause of conflict. It is not the essence of the sulphur or salt that is the problem; it is the crystallization
around them which comes into conflict with other similar crystallizations. The alchemist must put his
own house in order; he is actually searching for something that is in its substance and essence
completely sacred. Therefore, any other consideration is going to damage his probabilities of getting
it.
The alchemical procedure most commonly known is related to one of two distinct ends: one the
creation of the philosopher’s stone; the other the brewing of the philosophical medicine—the elixir of
life. The stone in itself represents the body of wisdom purified; the universal medicine represents the
soul. The medicine of immortality must be derived from things that have a birth and death of
themselves. In other words, the nutrition that is given off may cause the primitive element to be lost,
but its power goes on. It does not die; it simply reincarnates on a higher level. When we take into
ourselves basic elements they are reborn in us and therefore pass through a process of evolution as
they are used by the human being to maintain the economy of life.
The alchemist must first find a quiet place to work; he must have his little laboratory. To the
ancient alchemists the laboratory was a furnace, a fireplace with some bottles and a few old books to
guide his way. The meaning of the laboratory for us is actually a body free from interference and
confusion that we can retire into when we so will. In other words, the laboratory is our own internal,
that part of ourselves which is always capable of being reduced to a harmonious situation. The
personal life must be basically harmonious. Many people feel that this is not possible, that there is no
answer to all these grievances and griefs that beset us and affect us. But the alchemist says you are
after the most valuable thing in the world and if you are hoping to get it you must earn it by making
adjustments that will never be required of anyone except for this purpose.
To create a quiet place within the self for the contemplation of the symbols of regeneration is very
vital. This does not mean, however, that the person has to become a constant celled monk or
mysterious acolyte. He does not have to retire from life; he simply has to retire from confusion. He
has to reject the idea of confusion within himself. The acceptance of confusion is a form of ignorance.
It is not real, but we all are subject to it. Confusion also means waste of energy, waste of time,
depletion and inability in that state to contact a deeper and higher part of ourselves.
The alchemists used as the symbol of their achievement the lamb with the cut throat and the blood
pouring from it, because of the idea of man being saved by the blood of the lamb. The blood of the
lamb in this case is actually the eucharistic vitality which arises from the absolute sacrifice of all
forms of negation and the purification of the life that flows through us through the wonderful
possibilities of the Infinite. The body can be considered alchemically the power of the moon. The
body being subject to all kinds of digestive and assimilative processes, the lunar energies work for
the maintenance constantly of the peace of the flesh, and the individual has to cooperate consciously
with this process if he wishes to proceed further.
The alchemist usually makes a disheartening discovery, at least at the beginning. It is that,
essentially speaking, the body, which is the earth of the alchemical experiment, did not really do him
very much harm in the first place. It was not the flesh but the dweller in the flesh that was giving
trouble nearly always. The flesh was the victim, the daily scourge. It was being constantly beaten like
some faithful animal by the ambitious, self-centered driver. The next thing was to determine what this
driving force was, and that meant getting into the fire principle, or the emotions.
Leaf 18 | The tree surmounted by the Sun and Moon is accompanied by the words: “When the Stone
is dead, that is changed to water, in this tree it will produce flowers.” Beneath Aristotle and the
prostrate human figure is a quotation from the Emerald Tablet: “He who makes everything
descend from heaven to earth, and then ascend from earth to heaven, has information about the
Stone.”
 Emotion is life. The energy behind emotion is magnificent, it is divine; but the use to which we put
it is miserable in most cases. When we get mad, angry, or jealous, our ambitions run wild. We do not
like people or things. We cannot stand the daily problems of life and become beautifully and
systematically neurotic. With all these disagreements within ourselves, our emotions are constantly
battling us with negative thoughts. There is also the temptation: if I am going to put this much effort
into it, what am I going to get for it? This is one of the major temptations. Those working truly for the
good of the great alchemical mystery will be concerned only with the fact that it is the spiritual and
moral necessity of their lives.
The negative emotional factor which beats the body and uses up a very large part of the energy the
body is able to manufacture is a constant wasting of life. It is a wasting of the Divine Power. Behind
this problem lie thousands of years of tradition. We have always supposed that when we were
unpleasant we had a right to be. We have also believed that when we wanted to think ill of a person it
was our privilege. If we wanted to be angry and go into warfare, that was also a right that was
inalienable. Out of the emotional excess on the personal level are all the temper fits, poutings and
psychoses we most dread. On the larger world field of the great alchemical retort this misuse of the
emotional energy is war, crime, and all the difficulties that we most fear. We need to rid ourselves of
our own conflicts, hurt feelings, offenses, those things we want to do which we know that we cannot,
and the extravagance that demands we accomplish the incredible, or be miserable. We have to get our
own attitudes and our emotions down where they are reasonable.
One of the best uses of emotion is through the arts and music, but in the ordinary commonplace of
things it is the qualities of kindness, affection and compassion. Where these attitudes increase strongly
there is a change in body chemistry and the emotions no longer persecute the body nor offer the body
on the altar of private ambitions. They no longer destroy, cause the nursing of grievances nor the
waste of time and energy in dwelling on past events. The thing of value from the past is experience,
which is helping to make us better now. The emotions can be beautiful, and emotions that are beautiful
are well worth cultivating, but they must be sincere, real, and within a natural pattern of normalcy.
Even the best emotion gets into trouble if it becomes hysteria.
While the emotions sit around making trouble for the body, the mind arrogantly stands up and
makes trouble for both. The mind sets the body in great habits, and these habits are mostly
unreasonable. The mind is the final basis of career. It is that which we learn to do well so that we can
get rich doing it; the mind is planning forever to make a millionaire out of the body. Another problem
of the mind is that it argues and debates. If it is not up to its neck in politics, regardless of whether any
of the candidates are worth voting for, the mind is the basis for telling other people how to live, even
though the person does not know how himself. And the mind is that which comes to the conclusion
that the more we accumulate, the happier we are, when every day this is proving to be an absolute
falsehood.
The mind needs to be brought down to where it was intended to be: a sort of psychological
bookkeeper. The mind is not the master of life, although we have allowed it to become such. The
mind is simply a very useful secretary, able to keep the ledgers balanced. While we are giving all the
minds courses in computerization, it is going to be a long time before we can use these computers to
find out what is wrong with ourselves. We may sometime, it may be someday that we will have to
fight it out with the computers because they may be more right than we are. In any event, the mind is a
constant cause of agitation. Its ambitions and appetites know no bounds and very often it forms a
difficult and unfortunate partnership with the emotions. When the emotions justify an unfortunate
attitude, there is definitely a bad situation. When the emotions tire the mind, that is one trouble; when
the mind rationalizes the emotions, that can be another. The solution of these problems is the gradual
recognition of the ascent of the being through these conditions.
The stories in the great system of the ancient mysteries: the rites of Eleusis and Dionysus, the rites
of Horus and Isis, the rites of Buddha in India, China, and Japan, these were always arranged in three
basic steps, and these three basic steps represent the three great levels of the personality, that part of
ourselves of which we have some inkling but very little understanding. They will also become the
basic bulwark degrees of Freemasonry, and many fraternal orders have this same trichotomy of rituals
and symbols. The three together constitute what might be termed the visual or tangible temples.
In the body, these three powers are the grand masters of life, the ones upon which nearly everyone
depends for survival, continuance, and the fulfillment of purposes. When something cannot be solved
physically, we try to solve it emotionally. If that fails, we try to explain it or rationalize it mentally. If
all of these fail, we are at a kind of wit’s end. We simply drop back sometimes, feeling there is no
answer, and turn to the more familiar things. Those of an idealistic nature look beyond and see above
these three steps something else, perhaps God, realizing there is something they still have to transcend
more than they assumed necessary. But for our personality and for the experiments of salt, sulphur and
mercury, there is the threefold body and the auric or magnetic field in which it functions.
The magnetic field is very curious because it is also a mass of chemical factors, a constantly
changing compound of interactive energies. The magnetic field is like a bottle that is being violently
shaken after a whole group of materials have been put into it. Looking at these situations
symbolically, the magnetic field is a bottle containing the three parts of our lower nature, each one of
which has a magnetic overtone. When we begin to realize this we begin to see that we have
interactions here as well as in the body. We have to explain, for instance, why a temper fit can cause a
headache, or why indigestion can result in serious emotional complexes. The answer is that the
troubles arise in the difficulties in the auric or magnetic field, due to intemperance of attitudes. If an
individual is angry, the magnetic field blazes up and really practically burns out most of the other
values, for the moment at least. If the individual is depressed, the magnetic field fades down to a
shadow. If an individual is in the presence of contagion and is healthy, the magnetic field can protect
him from infection. If, however, he is depleted and in the presence of contagion, he may catch the
ailment.
The magnetic field is in constant motion, made up of emotion forms, thought forms, and bodily
essences. If there is any deceit or falseness in the personality, it will show in the magnetic field,
although the individual may try to talk himself out of the problem. A temper fit can only be justified if
it does not result in trouble in the magnetic field. The magnetic field is not interested in excuses or
explanations, but in the chemical interaction of values. When a value is perverted or misused, the
magnetic field bears witness. The moment it bears witness its resources are depleted and the
individual does not feel so well.
Little by little, abuse of the various emotions, thoughts, and bodily functions will result in the
exhaustion of the magnetic field. When that exhaustion is complete, the individual simply leaves this
world. He cannot function if the energy fields do not sustain him. Thus, it is very important to
maintain harmony. One of the great principles of Pythagoras was that the world had to be maintained
as a musical instrument, that it had to be in harmony always. And the individual in his personal life is
also a musical instrument. He is the vina of Siva, the mysterious instrument that plays the majestic
music of life. If he mistakes his destiny or misuses his power, he is in trouble.
Now most of the alchemists got about to the point where they were beginning to sense some of
these values. Having gone as far as the mind could take them, they found themselves at the entrance to
a promised land which they could not enter into. They did not know how to handle that which lay
beyond. They had listened carefully and, as Faust in his library, had read all the great books. They
had studied all the mysteries, but there at last they stood with all their lore, fools no wiser than
before. The great search ended in frustration, not in the great reward for which they had hoped. The
only answer to this was to do what Lully, Valentine, and Khunrath and many others did, check over
what had happened. What did happen? Why this sudden block that is impossible for most people to
get through? The final realization was that this block was the absence of a faculty higher than the
mind. The mind could go only a certain distance. Even the most beautifully trained mind could not
fulfill the ultimate. There had to be something higher than the mind, without which the great
experiment could not be performed.
When Elias Artista visited the alchemists he sometimes gave them a small amount of transmuting
powder. He put it in his ring or he made a tiny vial which was worn around the neck, and one grain of
this powder could transmute a thousand times its own weight into solid gold. There was a lot of talk
about that and the grains were few, but it was known that in some cases they existed. It is believed
that Roger Bacon offered to finance the Crusades for England as the result of the ability to transmute
base metal into gold suitable to be minted. The legends and fables continue, but the main story seems
to be that Elias Artista, or one like him, appeared at the proper moment to give some type of
instruction, something more than the alchemist alone had achieved. Elias never appeared unless the
disciple was in every way worthy. He would never help any alchemist out of his own mistakes, but he
would help him to progress beyond a sincere effort to a greater degree of accomplishment.
In the alchemical tradition, there were seven stages of adepts and masters relating to the science. It
was a long journey at best, but a journey where every step brought with it a greater sense of inner
security and sincerity. With the beginning of the fourth step, under the leadership of a guide or by
means of the mysterious tincture, the alchemist received his first evidence that he was ultimately
going to succeed. He received the inner message that the labor was not in vain. It was from a hope in
the first three to a kind of mysterious, mystical certainty in the fourth level that made it possible for
him to go on.
On this fourth level of alchemy we find the life of Christ is an alchemical formula. We also find,
according to the cabalists, that the Song of Solomon is also purely a chemical formula in disguise. But
the Christian formula of the Christ mystery places Christ as the final achievement of the universal
medicine. In the alchemical symbols, pictures of Christ and saints appear in the bottles to indicate that
this was the intention of the story, although most people did not realize its import.
In the fourth step is the beginning of an integrated mystical experience. In other words, the fourth
step was the awareness of the soul. It was what in Indian philosophy is the Buddhic state. It is the
state of the individual suddenly becoming rational inside himself, achieving a sense of reality
superior to thought, and also becoming for the first time capable of directing his own efforts by the
very Divine Power within him which he was seeking to release into manifestation. In the ancient
hermetic mysteries the soul was the symbol of the Elias Artista, the adept. It was the one power in
man capable of becoming the internal instructor, capable of becoming the source of inner
enlightenment that cannot fail.
In alchemy, the cultivation of this soul power is perhaps most clearly defined in the writings of
Boehme, the German theologian mystical shoemaker who was one of the greatest mystics of the
Protestant world. Boehme was the one who finally realized that within himself was the adept. The
adept was not someone wandering around outside, but the adept self, more or less in the same spirit
of the leadership that we find in the psychology of Carl Jung where the inner teacher becomes the
symbol of the master alchemist.
At this particular phase, light begins to shine from within and clarify. The eye begins to see through
the blind spot in its center. The world becomes more and more translucent, the elements more and
more understandable. Instead of seeing nothing but bodies, the intuitive mind gradually learns to
concentrate on qualities. The intuitional mystical experience is one in which the individual sees things
as they are and not as he has thought them to be. He sees not with mortal eyes but from an inner vision
which projects a higher level of sight. To make it a little clearer, all things that exist have not only the
visible forms of their existence, but invisible forms. Each rock and pebble, each twig and flower, is
not only a physical thing but a metaphysical thing. With the mind, emotion, and body we see the
physical thing. With the psychic power of the soul we see the psychic bodies of these things, the
magnetic fields of them, and become aware of their degree of growth in the development of their
potential. We also become able to watch clearly the result of combining them. We see the
compatibilities and incompatibilities. We see the elements that work together and the works that
cannot be reconciled.
As we work with the soul eye, we slowly become aware of the universal soul. For the first time
we are capable of seeing the quality of life. This is well noted in some of the early visions of the
Platonic writers and many other mystics who were able to behold the invisible shapes of things, and
in seeing their shapes behold their natures. While the physical body cannot change greatly, the psychic
centers within the body are in constant motion and agitation. It is then also possible for the alchemist
to discover something that perhaps he had never fully realized before. He may have believed it, but
believing and knowing are two different things. He now knows that no matter what he sees or
examines, there is nothing in the entire universe that is not alive. Even the grain of sand is a living
mystery. Everything is alive, and in the great aliveness of things the magnetic fields of all these
different forms gather in the magnetic atmosphere of the universe. It is a very great and important
subject for careful study.
With the beginning of this dimension of value, the alchemist begins to discover how to accomplish
the mutations which are necessary to his art. He knows the principle of sublimation. He knows the
cycles of recapitulation that have to be used because gradually he sees that alchemy is only a
symbolic representation of the entire process of universal activity. Everything is part of the same
great pattern, and this pattern unfolds as we become capable of understanding it. The pattern is never
more nor less, but our relation to it is forever changing as a result of personal growth.
Finally the individual through an intuitive process forms a reunion with the divine part of himself.
Having formed this union with the divine part of himself, he then goes on to the further steps of the
great transmutations, finding himself gradually lifted up into the hierarchies of life but never,
however, for personal gain, never for glory, never for wealth, and never to escape pain. The pains
and sufferings we have are the impairments which by our own policy we know no better. They are
processes of growth which Nature has presented to us for contemplation and which we must face,
whether they are happy or not.
In time, we find the part of alchemy in the great universal plan of things. We find the planet itself is
in a state of constant alchemical transformation. We know that the solar system is moving from one
level of evolution to another and the whole cosmos is coming more and more into perfect harmony
with its own rules. The different forms of life have a tendency as time goes on to be absorbed into
higher forms of life. It is not that sometime our planet will disappear or go forever and we will cease
because of it, but that evolution is a growing, and when we outgrow the experiences that we are
facing in the twentieth century, we will no longer be subject to the confusion and sorrow of these
experiences.
We have to solve problems. The alchemist’s problem was to solve the mystery of himself. He had
to find ways to outgrow his own limitations and various systems have been advanced by that.
Religion and philosophy have attempted the same thing and science will someday attempt it because
science will have instruments by means of which many of the great mysteries of antiquity can be
solved. Regardless of the motive behind it or the methods used, the solution is the gradual
transformation called transmutation, multiplication, and finally projection of the great work.
This is a marvelous wonder world of forces and values which work together with the music of the
spheres, as Pythagoras called it, a universe of infinite integrity, infinite beauty, and infinite wonder, a
universe which exists within ourselves as a potential of all of these things, for there is nothing in the
universe that is necessary to man that he does not possess. And it is perfectly possible to conceive the
ultimate unity of man and the universe, not by his ceasing to be himself but by outgrowing what he has
come to consider himself, another problem that we all have to face.
We all think of ourselves as we are. We look around us and we see our clothing, friends,
associates, and limit ourselves to the kind of creature we seem. On the mental and emotional levels of
vision we see the inside the way we think it is. We look inside and we see ourselves as a more or
less complicated mass of conflicts and contradictions. We realize that we are nothing to brag about, if
we want to be really honest about it. But we can always think of something to brag about. All these
infirmities, weaknesses, limitations are taken for granted; the individual is what he is. He is going to
be here a little while and then he is going to leave. Where he is going, most people are not very sure.
But in any event we take this selfness as it is to be ourselves. This selfness is the thing we have given
the name John Doe to, and whenever someone says “John Doe” we stand up. We recognize ourselves
as a separate entity somewhere in the world of creatures, and it never occurs to the average person
that there is any real reason that he should be anything but what he appears to be. There is no reason
why he should give up all his pleasures for something he does not understand. There is no reason to
assume that he can ever be anymore than he is.
It is from that standpoint we are locked in the lowest level of achievement. About the only other
answer seems to be to try to make as it is as comfortable as possible. We do not want to suffer more
than we have to. We do not want to do anything that is going to in convenience us. We want to go
along as well as we can until we leave. But this, of course, is a lack of aspiration, and there has to be
some aspiration, or nothing works. Therefore, it becomes very necessary for the individual to sense
that there is something more he can become, or he will stay the way he is. No amount of education can
get him out of it because education can only help the mind, but the mind cannot get at the facts.
Out of growth, friendship, kindness, experience particularly, we need to release the soul power,
the overself of Emerson. We have to release this inner superiority and give the best of ourselves
immediate rulership over the rest of ourselves. Plato says that in the philosophic empire the wisest
lead. Those not so wise are still wise enough to follow honorably. To the individual, the best part of
himself must be the leader of the rest, for the moment he rests leadership upon any contaminated level
of his own consciousness, he is in trouble. The alchemist was a kind of a being apart, a natural
mystic, and there were many mystics who were not alchemists but were also on the same general
level. There is a small part of society, unfortunately small, that has discovered within itself the need
for growth, the need to become more, aware that there are certain nagging questions that need to be
answered in order to live well now.
We need to increase in all these values in order to make life in this world suitable to us. We have
to try to find the answers to war and corruption. We realize that as we are now, even though we may
never be in a war ourselves, we are in a war and conflict with our neighbors and our families and
within the biological structure of our own bodies.
Something has to be done to arbitrate these things. The way of arbitration is a slow process of
discipline by means of which we ascend the three personality factors of our lives and come into
harmony with the fourth level. This in the ancient astronomy was the level of the sun, the fourth orbit.
The wedding of the body and the psyche, or soul, was called by the alchemists the marriage of the sun
and moon.
Alchemy is actually a dedicated effort to find out where we come from, why we are here, and
where we are going. It is also a science by which all sciences built in selfishness can be rededicated
to the common good of humanity. It is a way of applying all that we know to all the problems that we
must solve. Step by step, we become more knowing, more useful, and more helpful, becoming better
citizens here and, whether we realize it or not, better citizens of Eternity.
Alchemical symbolism is a lovely metaphysics, a gracious and beautiful approach to one of the
great problems of daily existence. Every individual in his own personal life can be an alchemist, a
worker with the divine chemistries of living. He can work with the chemistry of adjustments with
society, he can work and discipline his own nature, he can develop integrities and kindliness, and
gradually transmute his life from a self-centered effort to succeed into a soul-centered effort serving
the great cause of life.
As these changes take place the individual will find that he is being transmuted. He is being
changed from a mortal creature to the divine being which was always there, always within him, but
which was locked out. There is a life growing up within that has to grow to know, has to develop its
own potentials in order to be able to learn, and which in one way or another through the problems of
life will ultimately be impelled to dedicate itself to the service of that which it needs to know.
 Leaf 19 | To the right of the seated man: “I am neither tree nor animal, nor stone nor vegetable,
but the Philosopher’s Stone, trampled on by men, cast into the fire by my father, and in fire I
rejoice.” Below the man is the Philosophic Egg containing the words: “It is the end in which the
beginning resets.” The capital ‘T’ stands for ‘Tincture.’
CHAPTER THREE
PSYCHOLOGICAL ASPECTS OF ALCHEMY

It has become apparent that the alchemists were certainly mystics and that they had used the
symbolism of chemistry to describe or explain mystical experiences which occurred within
themselves. They were searching for the chemistry of human regeneration. They believed that there
must be some medicine that would cure the sickness of the soul and, by so doing, would restore the
health of the body. It is quite likely that the alchemists were influenced, to a measure at least, by
traditions that had come from Asia, and there axe elements in alchemical symbolism which suggest
that the designers of such devices were aware of yoga and other Oriental philosophical disciplines.
Alchemists, of course, like most other mystics, divide into several classes, both of skill and of
integrity. There is no doubt that there was considerable charlatanism in the field. Many pretenders
simply filched from their victims in exchange for formulas that would never work. Some of the
alchemists now honored record that they were deceived and duped for fifty years before the true
secret was given to them. Another problem was the lack of a common language. This had to be
corrected by the introduction of a philosophical alphabet of symbols. Also, there are a number of
alchemical tracts in cipher and later, when the seventeenth century began to develop elaborate
cryptography in similitude of the Baconian situation, many ciphers were inserted in books without the
knowledge of the original authors. This type of thing scattered the ideas but left them comparatively
incomplete and imperfect. In addition a great many later books were back-dated to add to their
authority and many artificial alchemists were invented who never existed except for the pamphlets
published under their names. Many of the very great scholars of the past of the caliber of Pythagoras,
Aristotle, and Plato were listed among the alchemists although no direct labors in chemistry had been
attributed to them.
The greater of the alchemists in the period to which we refer were themselves quite convinced and
inserted into their books remarks and recommendations that indicate clearly that the making of
artificial gold was not their objective, but all other higher purposes were eclipsed by the glamour of
potential wealth. Flamel, the famous French alchemist, was apparently successful in the actual
physical transmutation of base metals, but he used all of that which he had manufactured by such
means to build churches, cloisters, and retreats for the religious. Others also apparently had success
at times and almost always the sincere alchemist devoted his entire manufacturing to charity and
works of Godly piety.
Basil Valentine, probably the most quoted of the alchemists, declared definitely that the
manufacturing of gold, the transmutation of physical metals, or the development of a chemical elixir of
life was not the legitimate end of alchemy, and in one place in his book on the twelve keys he says,
“Woe unto the goldmakers.” Yet he was their patron saint. The only answer is that some of these
searchers were aware of the essential purpose and that actually the elaborate formulas of alchemical
transmutations merely clothed and concealed references to the mystery rituals of classical antiquity.
Some of these rituals of alchemy were nothing but the Eleusinian mysteries transferred to the level of
chemistry. Just as the Dionysian artificers took the great laws of the universe and incorporated them
into the science of architecture, so the alchemists incorporated their understanding of the universal
purpose in the language of chemistry.
If the making of gold was not their primary purpose, then as several of them, including von
Welling, point out, that which is true on one level of life is also true on other levels of life. If metals
can be refined and purified, bodies can be refined and purified. If physical gold can be manufactured,
the same applies to spiritual gold. As metals can be refined and sublimated, so also can human nature
be refined and sublimated. All of these were one set of laws operating upon several levels of activity.
When Alexander opened the tomb of Hermes he found in it the celebrated Emerald Tablet on which
was inscribed the law of analogy: “That which is above is like unto that which is below. That which
is inferior is like unto that which is superior.” Thus a law was established that dominated human
thinking for thousands of years, namely, that there are parallels and analogies by means of which we
can discover hidden things through the understanding of revealed things, that through the study of the
solar system we can understand man, and by understanding man, we can discover the cosmos. These
analogies seem to have been worked into the alchemical presentation.
If the original purpose of alchemy was the sublimation of human character, then we can understand
why it was also necessary to keep this information more or less secret. At a time when theology was
bitterly opposed to practically all mystical and philosophical speculation and it was hoped and
assumed by the church that the pagan mysteries were gone forever, it would have been dangerous and
even fatal to have it realized or recognized that these old teachings had survived under another name,
that they were still functioning as originally, but that their outward form had been altered to protect
them from the tyranny of their time. Therefore, underneath the outward semblance of alchemy was a
universal religious point of view, a philosophy which could be interpreted in various ways, none of
which was exactly orthodox. To have this recognized or realized would have been to subject
hundreds of sincere and dedicated persons to the dangers of the inquisition. It was, therefore, prudent
to remain silent and to clothe wherever possible the original teachings in a garb that would appear
innocent and, if possible, in close conformity with prevailing social mores of one kind or another.
Some of the alchemists have admitted frankly that their principal textbook was the Bible. At first
this does not seem especially reasonable, but with careful thought it could well be sustained. The
favorite book of the Old Testament for alchemists was the clavicle of Solomon, or the Song of
Solomon the King. In this the alchemists found the complete formula for regeneration of metals. They
also found the life of Christ as substantially contained in the Four Gospels to be a perfect
representation of the procedures by which chemistry advanced various elements toward ultimate
perfection through death and resurrection. With this type of nomenclature the alchemists could be a
little more open in their terminology, but still it was necessary to be extremely discreet.
It would be interesting indeed if it gradually came to light that the revival of alchemy today is
essentially a revival of the ancient mystery system, and that step by step we are getting closer to the
original intent of the subject. We know that in Egypt, which was apparently the motherland of
alchemy, that the Egyptian Mysteries were very highly scientific structures concerned with all of the
advancements of arts and sciences. The mystery ritual, especially of the Osirian cycle, had to do with
the death and resurrection of a deity. In alchemy, the principal theme is the death and resurrection of
the spirit of metals. Now this spirit of metals was recognized in several ways. Alchemy pointed that
out in saying: “When we refer to gold, we do not mean common gold; when we refer to mercury, we
do not mean common mercury; nor is our sulphur the common sulphur, lead, zinc, iron, copper, brass,
as we use these terms, are not the common substances that appear in trade and in the marketplace.”
They were particular kinds of metals, and these particular kinds of metals built up around a composite
thought, namely, that the bodies of metals cannot be truly fused or brought together. The metal in its
objective material form cannot be united with the objective material form of another metal. They can
be brought together in a physical compound. The gold can be modified with silver, or the lead can be
given additional strength by the adding of some other material, zinc. But these combinations are not
the fusings that the alchemists were concerned with. Before it is possible to bind together the spirits
of metals, their bodies must be overcome, their forms must be gradually sublimated, for it is only in
the spirit that any two substances can become one. As long as they are not in the spirit they may be
brought close to each other but they can never become one substance.
The Oriental philosophies which may have contributed to alchemy recognized the human body as
the alchemical retort, the furnace, or any of the equipment used in alchemy. In many cases the old
vessels which appear in the diagrams are roughly in the shape of the human body, but not much detail
is added for fear that the secret would be more easily noticed. Within this miniature laboratory which
we call man all the processes of the universe appear in miniature. There is no element in the universe
that is not present in man. There is no process in the universe which does not in some way affect the
function of the human personality. Therefore, because man is a miniature of all things, it is perfectly
possible through the careful study of man to discover the nature of every major level of existence
around us. It is also possible through the study of man to discover the science by means of which the
human being can be brought up to a state of relative perfection.
Leaf 20 | At the top is written: “Rains are made by six stars.” The two sentences about the figure
read: “Remember Mercury, for ashes thou art and unto ashes thou shalt return. I thirst and am
dead.” Above the seven globes at the left is the admonition: “If he thirst, give him a drink and he
shall live.”
 In the last twenty-five years the mental phase of alchemy has been gaining general favor. We are
still confronted with one of the most complicated mysteries that man has ever faced, the mystery of his
own thinking. The mind is some kind of a retort or bottle, and within this something is bubbling most
of the time, but what it is, why it bubbles and what it achieves, and how it can be controlled and
directed, these are questions that have never yet been satisfactorily answered.
Nature assists in gradually evolving living things to the revelation of their own potentials. Nature
is forever improving life; by various devices it is raising the levels of the consciousness of created
things. As this is Nature’s slow but inevitable purpose, the alchemist says that it is the part of the
chemist to be a secretary of Nature, that in its turn art perfects nature. Art in this sense refers to
enlightened purpose. It is the individual learning through a measure of internal expansion how to
cooperate with the processes of his own growth and to anticipate and advance these purposes more
rapidly than in the slow and clumsy way in which Nature is forced to operate. If, therefore, there is a
way that man can cooperate with the Divine Plan, this is the science of growth by which growth is
advanced, just as a gardener in a garden by cooperating with the development of the plants and trees
is able to help them to perfection, preserve them against danger, and cause them to become more
healthy and beautiful. Such was largely the policy of Luther Burbank whose primary interest was to
help the plants to be themselves, release their own internal values, and protect this growth from the
interference and corruption of circumstances. The alchemists had this basic motivation, namely that
they were there to find out what Nature wanted and by so doing to become masters of life’s most
essential science.
Today we think of science rather differently. We think of science as perfecting all kinds of
branches of learning. We think of science as advancing technologically in a number of divided and
sometimes conflicting spheres of activity, but to the alchemist, science, wisdom, and all the higher
attributes of man’s nature existed primarily for one purpose: to help the individual to discover the
laws governing his own existence. His science was to discover the law, his philosophy to apply it to
himself, and his religion to live according to the law. These rather simple principles were more or
less interdenominational, and interdenominational thinking was not popular in the seventeenth century.
Actually, however, the whole problem was on the level we now term psychological. The
psychological level itself is merely, of course, a veil, a term for a degree of insight according to a
new point of view or, perhaps more correctly, rediscovering the old point of view and adapting it to
modern considerations. In any event, contemporary psychology is discovering that man is far more
than the comparatively simple creature he was long suspected of being. Man is not simply a being full
of pressures, neuroses, antagonisms, concerns, appetites, and opinions, but a mysterious being.
Whether this being is identical with the body and co-eternal with it has not yet been fully decided by
all authorities, but it is generally agreed that, whatever be the source of it, there is a part of man that
is transphysical, a part of him aside from flesh, bone, muscle, lymph, and the like, a part actually
superior to the known functions of his body. This superior part seems to inhabit the body and, as Jung
defines, it is the person in the body.
A lot of thought has been given to the body and we have developed a whole defensive mechanism
to take care of it. Practically all of our social benevolences are directed toward the body, to feed it,
to house it, to support its needs economically, to take care of its health, to provide it with old age
securities, to see that it is able to make its way in life by educating that part of it which is referred to
as the brain or the mind. This problem was well stated by Socrates in one of his discussions.
Alcibiades, one of his favorite friends and disciples, was an extravagant young man, rather lacking in
the essentials of philosophic integrity. One day Alcibiades was wearing a very elaborate gilded and
bejeweled dagger in his sash. Socrates looked at it for a moment and remarked to Alcibiades, “It is a
pity to have a dull blade in such a beautiful sheath.” It seems this was said in the hope that Alcibiades
would get the hint.
No matter what we do with the body, it is a pity if the person in the body is neglected. We cater to
all the appetites except the aspirations, and these we neglect. We are content to see that the body is
comfortable even if the soul within it is in a state of desperate misery. We like to assume, of course,
that the misery of the soul is because of its bodily condition, and that therefore if we can clear up the
chilblains the rest will cure itself, but it does not work. Some of the world’s handsomest and most
healthy people have been in the deepest trouble, and some that were very unprepossessing in
appearance have become the universal benefactors of mankind. Aesop, the slave, was a hunchback,
but his wisdom will never cease to enthrall us with his fables and legends. Homer and Socrates were
pigeon-chested, and Steinmetz was a hunchback; yet these things did not prevent the inner life from
coming through, whereas in many cases outer amiability and a passable personality become
substitutes for character, to the detriment of all concerned.
In alchemy it is assumed that within the person there is a psychic integration, a soul if you wish to
call it such, superior to the body but largely imprisoned within it, carrying in its own nature the better
part of the human being. The soul is the link between spirit and body, between God and man, between
heaven and earth, between divinity and nature. In man, this soul is his most vital and valuable
possession. It is that part of himself upon which the well-being of all the rest depends. Yet in many
instances the very existence of it is denied. The individual does not like to be burdened by the small,
still voice of conscience when he has something else on his mind, nor to listen to his own integrities,
especially if they conflict with his ambitions or his worldly goods. The soul, or the psychic part of
man, has been recognized as a mysterious factor by means of which the superior and inferior natures
are united, the tie that binds together the corporeal and the incorporeal.
The nature of the soul is discussed at some length in the writings of the Platonists and the
Neoplatonists, who considered it as the archetypal symbol of beauty. According to the Pythagoreans it
is a perfectly symmetrical, eight-sided, geometric solid, an octahedron. The soul is equally beautiful
on all levels of existence. On the mental level it is wisdom; on the emotional, harmony; and on the
physical, perfect proportion. In terms of morality it is virtue and on the level of human relations it is
integrity. The aspects of the soul are revealed through the planets, constellations, and elements of the
solar system. All the kingdoms of nature release aspects of the soul’s power and are embodiments of
psychic beauty. The seven races of mankind, the seven kingdoms of nature, the liberal arts and
sciences, the notes of the musical scale are all revelations of soul power. On the religious level the
seven spiritual virtues and the seven deadly sins are related to the use and abuse of psychic power.
The metals of alchemy, the chakras of yoga, and the seals of Revelation bear witness to the psychic
energy. The eighth power of the soul is its procreative energy by which the vehicles of its purposes
are perpetuated and, through an evolutionary process, gradually release the harmony of the soul into
mortal manifestation. It is said that the soul nourishes itself from its own nature and that the human
being sustains his own soul power by intuitively recognizing the celestial beauties manifested through
creation and the divine sublimity which abides forever in a state of perfect harmony. In alchemy the
soul is symbolized as the universal medicine, the philosophical gold, and the ruby diamond.
There has been a great deal of comment as to why the ancients put the earth in the center when that
was not really where it belonged. It was assumed they knew no better. This has been worn rather thin,
however, because Pythagoras nearly six hundred years before the Christian era pronounced that all
the planets in their chariots circled around the blazing altar of the sun. They were definitely aware of
this as were the Hindus much earlier, but used the geocentric system when calculating the influence of
planets on material nature and man. The reason for this is obvious: in the psychic integration of man,
the geocentric system is a perfect diagram of the relationships between the various elements and
levels of soul power. These relationships were represented by the planets which, in turn, were the
Greek or Latin deities and these, in turn, were the names given by the alchemists to the metals that
were necessary for the transmutation processes. Thus we stand in the midst of a compound diagram
which sets forth very clearly not only the purpose for which man was intended, but also the way in
which this purpose could be most likely attained in ordinary daily experience.
Among the symbols of the chemists three stood out. They were the three substances: salt, sulphur,
and mercury. These three substances were associated in alchemy, sulphur with the sun, the moon with
silver or salt, and the planet Mercury with its own element, mercury or quick-silver. Why should the
sun, moon, and mercury be so very important in this procedure? Because in alchemy they became the
symbols of the Holy Trinity. The Divine Power was God, sulphur; the material power was the earth,
salt; and between these was the soul. Between spirit and body stood the soul, mercury, which in turn
developed a specialized symbolism in the hermetic arts where it was associated with Hermes
Trismegistus, the mysterious adept of the hermetic art. In Egypt, in the Latin or Roman period, it was
Sulphermes Trismegistus, and of course Hermes was the Greek form of the word mercury, or the deity
Mercury. The hermetic arts, there-fore, are the arts of Mercury, and mercury was to these ancient
chemists the symbol of the solvent. Mercury was necessary to combine metals. Mercury was
necessary in their philosophy to hold together or to become a kind of mordant which accepted into
itself both sulphur and salt and brought them together in an indissoluble compound.
In the Bible we find the statement: “Ye are the salt of the earth.” At one time the Romans actually
paid their soldiers with salt. The word “salary” in Latin means salt, and that is the origin of our word
“salary.” Also, the references to salt, “If the salt has lost its savor, wherewithall shall it be salted,”
“the salt of salvation,” and the division of society above and below the salt—all of these are carry
overs to very ancient thinking. However, in all substance we discover that salt is absolutely necessary
to salvation, and that the word “salvation” itself, like “salary,” means preservation by salt, the sal
being salt at the beginning of the word. The symbolism of salt can be lifted up from the common
shaker salt (with or without iodine) which we use today, to a more intriguing thought, namely, that
there is within the human being the mystery of the salt. In a Moslem world no one who receives salt at
a meal can then be injured by the host. Preservation is through the exchange of salt, which is the most
solemn of all bonds. Salt, therefore, becomes a symbol of the common virtues of life. Man is saved by
his integrity, his honesty, his kindness, his various activities. He must earn his bread with the sweat of
his brow. He must derive from nature the substance for his own material survival, and the whole
problem of material survival becomes involved in the mystery of salt.
Sulphur is an entirely different type of agent, less referred to in the non-mystical writings, but we
know that it was essential to the development of a great many products of antiquity. Sulphur became
the symbol of physical fire captured in a substance. The element of sulphur, the metal of sulphur, or
the fumes of sulphur, sulphuric acid, all represented fire captured in a physical substance. This fire
also represented the spirit in man—a spiritual principle captured in a material substance. It is not like
salt which rises from the earth but like the fire of heaven which descends from the sky. The whole
spiritual mystery of man was contained in the concept of sulphur. Sulphur was fire, the symbol of
captured fire suspended. It could come out anytime as when it is struck with a sulphur match. It is fire
held in suspension, fire captured as though frozen into a material thing. The ancients used it to
represent the spirit life in all living things, it corresponded to God, the Father, whereas salt was God,
the Holy Spirit, for it was this Holy Spirit that at the Pentecost miracles provided them with the salt
of salvation. They were then to realize and understand that they were the salt of the earth, which
meant necessary to the survival of life. Even in the desert places, in the jungles, in the wilderness, the
salt lick where animals go to get the absolutely necessary salt is usually an area of truce. Animals
otherwise incompatible meet side by side to partake of the necessary salt of life.
Perhaps the most interesting symbolism is connected with mercury. Mercury was the god of
communication; somewhat involved in gossip which is one of the probabilities of his intimate
association with newscasting. In any case he was referred to as the messenger of the gods. In
chemistry, mercury was a very powerful and essential spirit. In the form of Hermes, which was his
Greek and original name, he bad a great deal more importance than in his Latin form. The Latins were
not philosophers and were not much concerned with the deeper mysteries of life. They were tolerant
in religion so long as men paid their taxes. However, in the transition of the deities from their Greek
to Latin forms, a considerable amount of valid symbolism was lost. Cronus who became Saturn is a
far more important philosophic symbol as Cronus than he is as Saturn. Zeus who became Jupiter lost
much of his stature in the transformation and Hermes, who became Mercury, was deprived of most of
his esoteric significance. Hermes was a term or a name for the enlightener, the spirit of truth, reality,
factuality and actuality, the reconciler of opposites. He was the symbol of all things brought to a
common understanding, a common ground not by the individual descending to the level of those less
than himself, but enclosing all levels within a higher self in which each had its proper place. Hermes
did not make the doctrine so simple that the foolish could understand, but developed a means of
expressing truth so simple that the wise and the simple could understand equally. It was a part of
Mercury to overcome or clarify all mysteries, to establish the true path or the true course of
procedure. Therefore, as Nebo he was the illuminator of the Babylonians, as Thoth he was the wise
scribe of the gods of Egypt, and as Hermes he was the mysterious patron of the science of
transformation or of the regeneration of all forms of life.
A science was formulated and the pattern was supplied by chemistry. It became the skeleton or
framework around which a special philosophical technique was developed, the purpose of this
technique being, first of all, the purification of man, then the unfoldment and purification of the reason,
and finally the assimilation of the individual into the universal. These three steps related to the three
parts of the Trinity, representing the three kingdoms of heaven, earth, and hell which were found in the
ancient writings, hell being essentially the world in which we live now. Plato points out clearly that
men do not go to purgatory when they die, but come to it when they are born. This is the world of
punishment, the world of karma; but it is also the great laboratory in which the alchemical experiment
of universal brotherhood is in the process, for the laws governing human relationships are as exact as
those to be found in electronics, chemistry, or architecture.
To symbolize these laws was set up what is called the L’Escalier des Sages, the ladder of the
sages, a ladder connecting heaven and earth. This ladder was marked with the orbits of the planets in
ancient times, ascending from the surface of the physical earth to the interior surface of the sphere of
the fixed stars. This was also the mysterious burden of the Book of Revelation with its seven seals, its
seven trumpets, its seven vials, and the seven churches which are in Asia. The septenary of the
planets was adapted into alchemy where the great book of chemistry was said to be sealed with seven
seals. This is the book that was before the throne of God and the lamb in the Book of Revelation.
Tracing the old mysteries back to their Egyptian and Greek beginnings, we realize that they were
veiled, not only with one veil but with many veils. Sir Edwin Arnold points out in his poem, The
Light of Asia:

Veil upon veil we lift to find

Veil upon veil behind.

The many veils are actually not veils thrown over the structure, but veils within ourselves by
means of which our power to interpret is highly individualized and not found to be exactly the same in
any two persons. In any event, the veils of the mysteries, the key to the regeneration process, was the
major purpose of alchemical exploration and research.
The danger of the quest for physical gold was pointed out by the alchemists, and they go into this a
little more psychologically also. Why do we want to grow? Why does the average individual want to
be better than he is? Why are we concerned with becoming spiritual and what are our motivations?
Here we are warned to carefully study the physical aspects of our purpose. Do we really want to be
spiritual primarily in order that we may be free from the limitations of ordinary living? Do we want
to be better so that we can transcend our lessons rather than learn them? Are we hoping to be freed
from the law of cause and effect by a meditative discipline? Are we really thinking of advancing
ourselves? Do we think of spirituality as bringing with it prosperity and all the blessings of material
advantage? If so, then we are in violation of the intent of Raymond Lully and the other great
alchemists because we are working toward physical objectives, which is not the true goal. When we
leave here we must leave all physical possessions behind as well as our opinions, attitudes, careers,
and other distinctions we have gained. These are only part of our estate and the part that is most
vulnerable to time. The material goal was considered the false end, and the alchemical transmutation
was not to be performed for any essentially physical purpose, which was considered by the
alchemists as a profanation of the art. Unfortunately in our contemporary society this is an attitude
very few people can completely escape and one in which theology has become ensnared, because it
does not know how to inspire an individual to live a virtuous life unless it promises him heaven if he
does and threatens him with perdition if he does not. This leaves the individual still advancing his
own cause; trying to escape eternal damnation or trying to meet the requirements of eternal salvation
without understanding either one.
The sphere of mercury also symbolizes the soul or psychic sphere itself and in the alchemical
tradition the goal to be attained is a peculiar psychic integrity achieved by complete detachment from
self-purpose. Practically everything we think about involves self in some form, its purposes or
projects. Most people if they could eliminate thoughts of self would probably lapse into some form of
unconsciousness because they really have little else on their minds beyond some aspect of self. The
problem of eliminating self-interest becomes the key to final integrity. We experience repeatedly that
people who are really quite advanced in their thinking axe by no means above taking advantage of
someone else and are also unable to control a bad disposition. When they feel they are injured they
fight back, compounding the felony. They do not really have the inner discretion, discrimination, and
strength to live the harmless life; the impersonal life of virtue.
The way in which the ancients tried to direct their disciples was through the process of wisdom,
and as the material world is the sphere of activity, the mental life of the individual is the sphere of
wisdom. Here he gradually comes to know why certain principles are true. He also becomes aware
that these principles are immutable, therefore that it is inevitable that he will have to obey them, and
there is no longer the power of choice for the wise person to put off his virtues until tomorrow
because today he has some vices he would like to exercise. Wisdom largely removes self-interest
because it places all things on the level of universal interest. Wisdom brings justice and justice
establishes the reign of Divine Purpose over mundane affairs. Through the alchemy of transformation,
the Mercury principle is gradually transformed into its spiritual equivalent symbolized by Hermes,
for Hermes was actually the hidden god of wisdom, the mysterious power that spoke for the Eternal.
It was in this divine wisdom that the word was made flesh and the invisible power of truth was made
apparent to man, but he has to learn to see it. It is wisdom that opens his eyes so that he can see the
reality of the truths which are suspended as “effulgent blossoms from Heaven,” as Plotinus says.
The spirit itself is the eternal flame that never burns out. Like sulphur, it is fire captured in the most
remote parts of space. Fire held so in suspension that whenever a light is lit anywhere in the world
the flame rises, but where is the flame before the lamp is lit? The flame does not arise from nothing
but is always there. Spirit is the flame that is there but is unknown until the flint and the steel or the
match brings it into manifestation. Spirit becomes the ultimate source of all, the unmoved mover of all
things. It becomes the symbol of the final state of spiritual enlightenment. It is also the true symbol or
the true mystery of the philosopher’s stone, for the philosopher’s stone or the fire diamond is the fire
of earth burned out in the fire of heaven. To discover this, to compound the diamond of the wise
requires, therefore, perfect control of the physical aspects of life, the perfect unfoldment of the
psychological levels of life, and finally ultimate perfect identification with the Divine Principle of all
things. We can think about God and in this we fulfill the lower aspects. We can think with God, and
thus assume the next higher level of our spiritual association.
The alchemist now uses all kinds of fantastic dream symbols to represent the infinite diversity of
the compounds of human nature, for each individual is a formula in himself, a patterned relationship
between the elements which compose his nature. Each individual is the sum of what he has achieved,
and stands on the threshold of further achievement. Each individual brings with him into the present
life the unfinished business of the past and must establish the unfinished business of the future. Every
part of life is perfectly within a pattern of regulation and law.
 Leaf 24 | “I, the bird [the adept], speak into thine ears from the Sun, the Moon, and the Azoth. The
work is perfected with little labor.” The text to the right reads: “This is my beloved Son whom I
saw and loved. If he be resurrected, He will remain at home, and in that house the spirit will be the
soul and the body; for Mercury may be called the son of the Sun and the Moon.”
 Mercury, being the symbol of wisdom and of the soul, has another factor also involved in it, what
St. Paul calls “charitas” and which we have translated as “love.” The soul is the love principle. The
soul achieves all its purposes through reconciliations. It is that which places an instinct of
understanding and togetherness above all the separations of life. It is an emotional approach to reality.
It is sympathy, it is compassion, it is understanding and forgiveness. Practically all of the virtues,
qualities and dispositional factors given in the Sermon on the Mount will be found as part of the
soul’s chemical mechanism. Love is a chemical. Relationships of human beings are chemical
combinations, but all these chemical combinations are merely names for psychical associations. They
are parts of the inner life coming forth into manifestation through conditioned physical organisms.
This inner life is divided into numerous forms, similitudes, and likenesses represented by symbolical
forms.
If, then, we want to be private alchemists in our own little worlds, the first thing we have to do is
to purify metals so that it is possible for them to be brought into unity. If for the word “metals” we
psychologically give the term “opinions,” we might not be very far from it. Opinions will separate us
forever. The only solution to opinionism is to penetrate its surface to points of reconciliation.
Opinions are the peculiar intensities of individuals, but all opinions are reconciled in fact. When the
truth of the matter is known, opinions lose their power to disturb. Much of the tyranny and activism of
today, as well as the confusion of society, is the result of groups or individuals pressing their own
interpretations of things, believing that they are right and others are wrong, believing they have causes
to defend and, at the same time feeling justified in variously offending other causes. All these are
what Heraclitus calls “the falling sickness of the reason.” They are attitudes and opinions. Now the
first step of this transmutation process is to gradually reduce opinionism. The individual should not
have any opinion unless he is qualified. There has long been talk that there should be a license on
opinions, and that the individual who is to have opinions should pass an examination, prove that he is
qualified, and then become an official, recognized, honored opinionist. But before he could get the
certificate he would realize he must stop having opinions at all, that he must have facts. Imagination,
prejudice, And all these little imps that come out of bottles in a mysterious way interfere with the
simple judgment by means of which very often the child is correct and the mature person is wrong.
The first part of purifying the metals is to use Mercury, the mind, as a means of bringing things
together, creating cooperation rather than competition in all fields including learning. The moment we
see better than the division we achieve unity. One of the highest attributes of the rind is to discover
the identity of the truth in all things. Having done this we might say that having saved ourselves from
the conflict of attitudes and ideas and having discovered a truth that is larger than all of them, we can
then live in comparative peace with our neighbor. We can understand him better, realizing for perhaps
the first time that it is the measure by which we understand that, in turn, we shall be understood.
The next step is for the individual to take care of the objective life of his environment, his business
problems, his home, his family, his social responsibilities. He gains the providence to administer his
estate and things of this nature, which are all part of his material life. If he can put these in order he
will relieve his psychic integration of the terrific stress of misunderstood and misdirected activities.
He will find that it is not necessary for him to spend most of his leisure time worrying himself to
exhaustion. He will realize that he does not have to become disgruntled or irritated or antagonistic.
These emotions help to lock the psyche further away, sicken it, and set up vibrations in it which must
later come forward as another type of karma. By quietly, lovingly, and wisely administering his
mortal affairs he begins to release the soul from the burdens of the non-tranquilities of the flesh. As
soon as the false life fades, there is a chance for the true life to shine, and in the life which has been
brought to peace and harmony, the power of the soul begins to manifest and the matter of
transformation or transmutation is advanced. Gradually the soul, radiating out from itself through a
personality which is no longer in a battlefield condition, begins to move from the inside. It begins to
bring with it greater personal experience of insight. The soul, released from bondage to the
obstructions of the body, is capable of bestowing upon the mind, and later, through the mind upon the
brain, the so-called mystical experience which is the experience of the victory of the inner over the
outer. This is the labor of the great alchemical rotations. This is represented by patterns of creatures,
of winged beings, of birds and of animals, and of various degrees of fomentation within bottles. The
bottle is the psychic self, the aura, the magnetic field, within which these transformations take place.
The final form of the transformation is, of course, the perfect stone. When the perfect stone is
found, the true diamond is seen in the alchemical tradition as part of the emanational or magnetic
field. The great chemistry takes place in the aura, in that part of the body which is super physical. The
alchemy becomes a pattern of color, of mysterious forms that rise and fall like thought forms in the
mind. It is a constant motion of light, each light being a chemical element, and each chemical element
being a divine or human attribute. These working together gradually break up their inharmonious
patterns. The heavy colors fall away; the rotations are continued through disciplines such as
meditation which is a rotation of psychic metals, until finally the magnetic field becomes as it is
shown in the highest diagrams of alchemy, a beautiful, luminous area in which the phoenix, or
sometimes the symbol of the risen Christ, is placed. In the alchemical test tubes there are many
diagrams showing Christ rising from the test tube, as the symbol of the final revelation of the true
mystery of Christ. This, of course, is what Paul calls “the Christ in you, which is the hope of glory.”
And it is also Paul who says, “If this Christ be lifted up, it shall raise ail men unto it.” This is a
perfect alchemical parallel for it represents the power of salvation raised from the level of physical
salt to the level of spiritual salvation or the salt of the earth.
The alchemists, then, have these steps which their symbolism implies. Today most psychologists
and psychiatrists are actually burdened to death with the psychotics they have to work with, because
in that field it is practically impossible for anyone to work twelve months a year many hours a day
with the mentally infirm without becoming ill themselves. This is a desperate situation for which
there has been no broad pattern of therapy. The successful broad pattern of therapy must call forth a
realization of the laws governing human behavior. No individual can be better than his own conduct.
If he wishes to improve he must improve his relationships with life. Selfishness, self-centeredness,
egoism, unreasonable ambition, these can never be gratified. There is no way to guarantee that the
person will achieve peace by getting what he desires. The moment he gets what he thinks he desires,
the desire fails and he turns his attention to something else. He is forever searching to have more than
he has, when his only true and proper quest is to become more than he is. Until this is recognized all
of the higher forms of knowledge must fail, because knowledge cannot pass in a pure state through a
corrupt vessel, and man must begin by making himself worthy by cleansing the inside of his own cup,
The mystical alchemists were just simply people who were trying to get started in the right
direction. They wanted to find ways in which to discipline or unfold their own natures and they were
able, as Boehme was, to take the attitude that they could not kill out their faults with a club nor, like
St. George, slay the dragon with a sacred lance. The point of insight is much simpler than this and the
strange thing is that truth is no respecter of human knowledge. Truth is not limited to the intellectual
nor to the individual who may have spent his life searching for it. Truth is actually an experience of
normalcy. The child can come closer to it than the aged, and both the child and the aged are closer to
it than those in the prime of life because in the prime of life our physical attachments are very intense.
The child can apply the principles that lead to emancipation pore easily very often than the highly
educated and skilled adult because it begins with childlikeness. We are reminded that the kingdom of
heaven is the kingdom of children, and the child heart, the child mind, is allowed to express its
natural feelings. In a small child until it is spoiled by worldly associations, these natural feelings are
most always essentially good-natured. When just by being good-natured one can get one foot on the
ladder, it is a simple matter to do the self-disciplines that are gentle and subtle and lead to a kindlier
way of life. One can simply refuse gently and quietly to hold attitudes that are unkind, critical,
competitive, violent, or intolerant, prejudiced. Many people do this most easily by making these
adjustments religious virtues, feeling in this way that they keep faith with God. Keeping faith with
God in simple and little things is the beginning of the victory of the soul over self. It is the beginning
of the process of transformation, also especially the beginning of the path of transmutation of the
metals. We say a person of courage is a man of metal, and we say also that the metals represent all the
different degrees and phases of human insight. One of the metals in one man may cause him to play the
piano, in another to be an expert at golf, in a third to be a great surgeon, and in another a musician or
an artist. These are the metals which must be fused together by consciousness to become the perfect
integrated structure of the soul, for all skills, abilities, aspirations, visions, and inventions arise in the
soul. The soul, when it takes over the metals, takes over all of the different departments of life over
which the metals symbolically preside. From within, then, we control all the aspects of our own
potentials and axe able to gradually unfold soul power. When we have unfolded the soul power of
things, we then have “the powder of projection.”
The powder of projection was said to be a mysterious substance, by means of which one unit, one
gram of this powder could transmute hundreds of pounds of base metal into pure gold. It is rather
obvious what this mysterious thing is, one gram of which can work such a miracle. One interpretation,
of course, is that it is intuition or common sense, the use of which will transmute almost all mistakes
into virtues, if one is careful and thoughtful; but the powder of projection is also insight. It is the
power for the individual to achieve the transmutation of all externals, transforming them from the base
substances. Through experiences which have been obstacles we find the ways of our own growth.
This powder of projection transforms a universe of mistakes we think we see into a universe of
divine order, which is there whether we see it or not. This powder of projection, then, allows us to
face life in terms of the Universal Plan rather than in the terms of our own personal ambitions. Behind
world problems such as we see today is the eternal working of an eternally benevolent purpose and
those who cannot see this are sorely troubled; but when insight arises within, one grain of insight can
transform the whole world pattern into what it really is, the constant unfoldment of eternal principles
through time and space.
Thus alchemy becomes a kind of mystical philosophy with many levels and stages. There are many
details that only very careful study and meditation will reveal. There is no doubt that it is the large
pattern which has been partly discovered in modern psychology and psychiatry but which can never
be perfectly known in this world until the professor, the teacher, or the system itself is tied directly to
the human soul and the Divine Power from which this soul is suspended. We can never have a perfect
psychology unless it is founded in religion, and we can never have a perfect psychological religion
unless it is supported by psychology and defended by conduct.
Leaf 25 | The Queen calls herself “The mother of the Sun, the sister of the Moon, and the servant
and spouse of Mercury.” Above her is stated that in the beginning of the book it was written of her
that from her maternal breasts she nourishes the Sun. On the right she is made to exclaim: “I
cannot be crowned unless these sons of mine become ashes.
CHAPTER FOUR
THE YOGA OF ALCHEMY

The origin of the alchemical tradition is obscure, but we know that it existed among most ancient
cultures. It probably reached Europe from Oriental sources, especially from the Hindu system of raja
yoga. The Oriental concept of personal transformation is certainly the basis of the Western idea of
transmutation. The end of raja yoga was the release of the divine principle in man from the
impediments of mind, emotion, and the sensory perceptions. The yogic doctrines were perpetuated in
the teachings of the Buddhists and Jains, and numerous mystically oriented groups. Their Western
equivalents are the Pythagorean disciplines, Rosicrucian mysticism, and the secret doctrine of
alchemy. The Neoplatonists maintained that the inner life of the unenlightened individual was
obscured by the deficiencies of human nature. Contemplation, meditation, and retrospective
techniques combined with personal purity could enable the soul to rise triumphantly from the tomb of
flesh and be united forever with the blessed gods. It is in this sense that we wish to examine Western
alchemy as a secret science of redemption concealed behind an elaborate pageantry of chemical
formulas. As the ends to be attained are the same in East and West, each can be used to interpret the
other.
The disciplining of the inner life is a universally accepted prerequisite for enlightenment, and the
fact that systems arising in all parts of the world show a basic unity in their structures, some feel, may
be due to the inner experience of the individual himself. As we search for enlightenment, our intuitive
faculties more or less reveal the direction that we must take. The instruction seems to come from
within ourselves-not necessarily as a formal statement but as an instinct to do those things which are
most likely to improve the health and comfort of the inner life. Also, there is a belief with some pretty
strong circumstantial support of a migration of doctrines. We have come to assume that East and West
were separate until comparatively recent times, that Western people have little or no knowledge of
the Orient, and that Oriental people had practically no insight into the Western concept of living. This
is a combination of ignorance and arrogance. The truth of the matter is, there has only been one world
for a very long time and there has never been a time when there has not been a broad circulation of
ideas.
We know that as early as the fourth or fifth century B.C., Buddhist and Hindu priests visited
Athens. They came along the same path that later other monks from Asia journeyed. They walked
across the Gobi Desert. They traveled through all the mysterious jungles of Hindustan. They came
through Kashmir and through Pakistan, and finally arrived at the Near East where they mingled their
personal pilgrimage with the caravan routes. These scholars also brought back to Asia a great deal of
interesting information, and by the beginning of the Christian era it is reasonably certain that the more
informed Orientals were well aware of the directions of Western philosophical and religious
thinking. We have several accurate accounts of pilgrims who made the journey back and forth at a
comparatively early date, far before the famous journey of Sir Marco Polo.
Also there seems to be a combination of circumstances that centered around the crusades. For the
European mind the crusades opened the door of the Near East and the Far East, for that matter to
Western Europe, for the first time. Up to the days of the crusades, maps of the world had practically
no markings for Asia at all. Civilization was Mediterranean, and the rest of the world was in
barbarism or savagery. Western peoples were not much interested in the beliefs of any group except
themselves, regarding their own culture as divinely established and spiritually ordained. They had
what they considered to be an adequate philosophy of life, in fact, the only true one-so the thoughts
and opinions and attitudes of others were not too important to them through the early centuries of
European growth.
Occasionally minds, searching for greater insight, did break away, and there are evidences that
Greek and Latin physicians visited Baghdad and other centers of Near Eastern culture. Along the
course of merchandising came an exchange of ideas. The Roman court wanted the silks of China.
Nearly all luxury loving Europeans had a deep desire for the beauties and artistries of the East and
made arrangements to get them. The merchants from the East told stories of their world and explained
their beliefs, and other merchants from the West traveling Eastward also carried various tidings to the
countries of Asia. So there was an early exchange that perhaps came to its period of greatest volition
at the time of the crusades.
It will be remembered that one of the charges against the crusaders was that they worshiped a
three-headed deity. This three-headed deity, as represented in some of the earlier texts, was
startlingly similar to the great Trimurti in the caves of Elephanta in the harbor of Bombay, India.
There seems to be no doubt that the Shiva of Elephanta was carried to Europe without adequate
explanation or the explanations were held in secret, and it thus appeared as a fantastic idol with the
returning crusaders. For their opinions on these subjects and other heretical thoughts which seemed to
imply Oriental thinking, the crusaders were virtually exterminated. But the exchange still went back
and forth, although on a limited level, and there seems to be no reason to question that some
Europeans were aware of Eastern thinking at a comparatively early date.
The European situation was rather well-locked within itself until the time of the Protestant
Reformation. This was the first breakthrough in which the rights of the individual to think and believe
according to his own dictates were protected. In fact, it was about that time these rights were even
recognized to exist. A powerful theocracy had controlled the thinking of Europe, but after the
Reformation the infallibility of religious beliefs was strongly undermined and, following the
Reformation also, there arose not merely one Protestant group, but a galaxy of Protestant sects,
beliefs, and various larger and smaller sects.
This brings us perhaps to the beginning of the seventeenth century which is without question one of
the most important in the history of civilization. It was in the seventeenth century that what we call
today the modern world was born. It was preceded by the years of exploration and colonization, but
these in turn had added a new dimension to man’s thinking, the realization that there were other lands
besides his own and other peoples outside of the circle of his immediate understanding and insight.
What was perhaps more embarrassing was the realization that these people were highly cultured and
highly civilized and had arts and sciences and crafts comparatively unknown in Europe.
The seventeenth century gave us of course a new look at philosophy. This new look was
spearheaded by such minds as Descartes and Bacon, and from the concepts of these men humanism
gained vast encouragement. This was also the time when Harvey discovered the circulation of the
blood. It was the time in which the solar system became more or less identified along the lines we
know today. It was a period of greater educational liberalism. In this century, also, we have the
beginning of the great Utopian cycles. There had been earlier works on the subject, but these had little
effect. The new world of the Western Hemisphere and the new perspective on European culture
resulted in the rise of idealistic Utopian visions of wide variety and of varying degrees of
specialization. The Utopians simply stated in substance the conviction that man had a purpose, that it
was possible to live better, that it was possible to correct faults and evils of society, and that
righteous and dedicated individuals could create a universal reformation. Some of these were
persecuted for their beliefs and many of these early Utopians were forced into secrecy; others broke
through and migrated to the Western Hemisphere where Utopian movements were established before
the end of the seventeenth century.
There were also other factors that were beginning to introduce themselves along mystical lines.
Nearly every religion has passed through several stages of development and in the beginning
orthodoxy dominated. Gradually the human mind rebelled against the boundaries placed by orthodoxy
upon the function of the human mind. This rebellion resulted in a new interpretation of theological
concepts, an escape from literalism into theological and mystical speculation. In this period we find
early in the seventeenth century the rise of the Rosicrucian mystics followed by several different sects
of mystical thinkers and culminating in the writings of Jacob Boehme, in whose works practically
every system of European mysticism was involved in one way or another.
This was also the great day of alchemy. There had been earlier works, but most of those that were
considered very early were actually back-dated, and the works themselves were more recent than the
title pages might indicate. By the seventeenth century we find the emergence of a distinct alchemical
tradition, presented in two ways: through books and through pictures. Nearly all chemists were
involved in the art of diagraming, and also in the creating of appropriate emblems, under which to
conceal their actual purposes. These emblems probably belonged again to two general classes; those
that represented facts or ideas which could be communicated but which for safety might be at least
slightly veiled, and the other group consisting of ideas that could not be ordinarily communicated and
could only be passed from one person to another upon a level of symbolism. It was hoped that the
beholder would experience within himself the true meaning of the symbols with which he was
confronted in his research.
The alchemists no doubt began in Arabia, Persia, and other Aryan and Far Eastern countries.
China, too, began by thinking seriously of the transmutation of physical metals. They were interested
perhaps not entirely in metallic transmutation, but in the development of the mysterious illusive
universal medicine for the sicknesses of mankind. Many of the alchemists were physicians, and most
of them had discovered that the existing pharmacopoeia was inadequate. They were confronted every
day with ailments with which they could not successfully cope. The sick were not recovering as one
might hope, and neither the remedies nor the prayers were producing the desired results. It was
circumstances of this nature that sent Paracelsus to the Near East in search of new remedies and new
formulas for correcting the ordinary ills of the flesh; probably especially vital at a time when the
average life expectancy was less than forty years. The alchemists, however, gradually divided into
two schools, one that might be termed materialistic, and the other idealistic. In this respect alchemy
was not so very different from modern knowledge as we have it today. In present society practically
all forms of information are subject to two general interpretations, one which might be considered
factual, and the other as hopeful, something good to be gained, something more than the surface
appearance of the so-called facts. Man has never been satisfied with facts. He wanted to know the
truths behind them, and the realities behind these truths. The alchemists at an early time, therefore—in
the seventeenth century, at least—certainly developed an elaborate religious, philosophical, chemical
heraldry. They developed all kinds of strange symbols which were later to be considered important
on a psychological level, symbols that might arise in the subconscious of the individual, and passing
through him might bring from his own depths information valuable to his surface consciousness.
These symbols were never completely organized, as far as we know, in Western thinking. They were
diffuse in many ways, but through them came a number of obvious imageries that do have a consistent
pattern, many of which show definite Oriental influence.
Now the alchemist had, of course, two concerns. One was to advance his knowledge, and the other
was to protect himself and his family from persecution. Persecution was not always based upon
disbelief. It was not always assumed that alchemy was the work of evil spirits or anything of that
kind. Persecution might only mean that an avaricious prince would put an alchemist in prison for
years in order to force him to reveal the secrets of his magical art. To protect themselves against such
dangers the alchemists were extremely reticent and kept their better findings mostly to themselves, or
presented them so fantastically that the average materialist simply did not believe there was any truth
in the subject. They were so successful that up to around fifty years ago the average person had no
particular interest in alchemy, but considered it the mad mother of chemistry and assumed that all
alchemists were either deluded or fraudulent. We now realize that this was not true, but we also
realize how protective such sophistry could be in a time when human life was not valued with much
respect.
The objectives of the alchemists were partly religious and partly secular. Many of the alchemists
of note were monks, coming from cloisters or religious houses of one kind or another. They were by
nature a scholarly group and mingled their mystical speculations with those alchemists of a more
physical focus, including physicians, professors, educators, and chemists. These mingling together
produced a fantastic literature almost unbelievable. These alchemist mystics, or as they have been
called with some propriety “alchemistical philosophers,” turned to the engraver for assistance.
Engravings of the most interesting and elaborate kind are found in the writings of such great names of
the period as Robert Flood, Count Michael Maier, and the various disciples of Basil Valentine and
Raymund Lully, These diagrams must have been in some way controlled. True, most of the publishing
houses of Europe kept engravers as part of their establishment, but you could not expect the average
engraver to pick up a text, read it, and then make the proper engraving to carry the full meaning of the
idea. These engravings were often decorated with extremely abstruse symbols. They often made use
of chemical forms and diagrams which would not normally be within the scope of the average artist.
We may therefore assume with some reality that the designs were submitted to the engravers, and that
while the artists put the finishing touches on these pictures, they were working from various master
plans, various symbolic materials provided for their use. Thus alchemy began to descend through two
distinct series of procedures-the written word and the picture or emblem. The spoken word was not
much used, being rather too dangerous.
As we examine the content of these various writings, we come upon a series of intimations that
perhaps have never been fully appreciated except by one or two writers of the nineteenth century who
began to suspect the truth. One of the most common things we find in the writings of the earlier
seventeenth century alchemists is a brief statement to the effect that the transmutation of physical
metals was not the object of alchemy and, as one writer points out in an all chemical treatise, “Woe,
woe, woe unto the goldmakers.” Now if the physical transmutation of metals was not the goal, what
was it? If it was not the end of alchemy to produce a medicine for the healing of material ills, of what
medicine did they write? And if it is also true that their experiments were not intended to take flaws
out of diamonds and other precious stones, what flaws did they take out, and from what? The answer
remained comparatively obscure all through the seventeenth century, but again and again the
intimations indicate that alchemy was basically a spiritual art associated with the concept of a
universal reformation of mankind.
When the first edition of the Fama Fraternitatis of the Rosicrucians was issued, a short treatise by
Sir Johann Bocalini was appended to the end of this work. Bocalini was an Italian architect who was
also much of a humanist and a social dissenter. He wrote brilliantly and was assassinated for his
efforts. But Bocalini’s article is entitled The Universal Reformation of Mankind. This universal
reformation was also the keynote of the Utopians. It became the most powerful force in the concept of
the later humanists. A universal reformation of mankind! How was it to be effected? Some felt that the
best way was to find a deserted spot and start a new civilization. Others believed, however, that this
reformation could be achieved by the individual in his own social pattern and, furthermore, that the
rise of a new mystical meaning to life would gradually change the political face of society.
If this alchemy was a science of universal reformation, what would such a reformation mean?
From the Utopians themselves, some other paralleling mystical groups, and from some of the more
devout religious sects that arose out of this concept (such as the Quakers, the Amish, the Moravians,
and the Mennonites) it became clear that this reformation was to be a new relationship-not only
between human beings, but between human beings and God. The purpose was to establish a world
according to the Divine Will, and not contrary to it. In a mysterious way Deity became in a sense the
foundation for the enlightened commonwealth.
The ideas of an enlightened commonwealth were old by the time the seventeenth century broke in
Europe, and probably one of the great sources of this entire philosophy was China where the writings
of Confucius had been included among the most important documents of the democratic concept of
life. There was every possibility that a little of the Confucian method reached Rome along with the
silks, satins, and baubles of the East, Perhaps only a stray hint reached a few, but this stray hint found
fertile ground and created speculation that later broke forth in the realization that it was possible for
human beings to build a spiritual life while still in the flesh. It was not necessary to wait until some
where beyond the grave and then hope that one might be included among the blessed, but something to
be done now, something to be accomplished here. The vision of this and the reason for it seems to
have gradually matured-not through contact with outside forces but by the individual becoming
increasingly aware of the dreams, ideals, and convictions of his own inner life. While these were
completely blocked, he lived in a world of acceptances, but when he began to think and had the
freedom to think, he began to live in a world of doubts. He began to doubt the inevitability of the
conditions under which he was living, the divine right of kings, that all knowledge was contained in
ancient works. There were things to be achieved, new work to be done, and new visions were needed
to stimulate man in his search for reality.
The alchemists were probably the first to integrate the concept of human improvement into a
science. They had already taken the science of chemistry and from it extended alchemical
speculations which they regarded as equally scientific. To them, in fact, alchemy was far more
scientific than chemistry. We might doubt that today because of our tremendous addiction to all forms
of chemical and electronic research. But to these older thinkers, value was not to be measured in
terms of merely physical achievement. Growth was not the perpetuation of the status quo. Growth was
to become better, and unless the arts and sciences helped people to become better human beings, their
essential value was lost. The alchemists, therefore, created a science for bettering the life of the
individual. They wanted him to live closer, not only to his own heart’s desire but perhaps above it,
and finally come to live close to the Divine desire. This infers the science of salvation. Unless there
was a scientific procedure of some kind, unless the way of growth could be ordered, brought into a
useful and workable pattern, then the whole structure was left in the keeping of a few mystics or
psychics with their own private revelations.
In Asia it was already assumed long ago that not only was the science of salvation real, but it was
the greatest of all the sciences, the most important, and the most practical. The individual in the
contemporary Western world does not think of science as primarily intended to unfold his own inner
life, but in terms of increasing the comfort of his environmental existence. The individual is not so
much concerned in being good as he is in being rich. He wants all the luxuries and pleasures
available and would like to remain the same and enjoy them. It has never occurred to him that his
ability to attain peace of mind, security, health, and all these desired things is built by personal
discrimination, self discipline, and a sincere effort to redeem the inconsistencies of his various
emotions and thoughts.
In the Oriental philosophies of Yoga and Vedanta the mysteries of the chakras equate with the
Seven Seals of Revelation, and the Seven Seals of Revelation equate with the seven sacred metals of
the alchemical transmutation. In the practice of Yoga it is very important first of all to recognize that
the purpose is not to gain power in order to dominate someone else nor to become free of the
responsibilities of living. It is a way ordained by Deity by means of which the wanderer returns home
to the spiritual homeland from which he came. It is a part of a journey toward reality, toward the self,
toward the Infinite, which we are all seeking to understand.
In alchemy, the quietude is the same as that recommended for Yoga, to find a quiet place. In Tibet,
there used to be an old monastery where they had an unusual way of training an acolyte in quietude.
They had him sit under the temple bell and rang it all the time until most people would have gone
completely crazy. He was supposed to sit there and attain peace. He must reach a point where the
clanging would mean absolutely nothing or in which finally he was able to hear in this clanging the
voice of God. There had to be a complete indifference to interruption. Indifference did not mean to
neglect duties but to endure abuses of all kinds. The alchemist also had to learn to achieve an absolute
quietude that was not negative. He was not looking for a psychic revelation but simply finding the
peace which is the foundation of growth. After a certain amount of time in this allotted labor, he was
able to quiet his nature and release from it certain basic powers already available to him because he
also had within himself the seven seals of revelation in the forms of the vital organs, the various
ductless glands, the various systems of the body, the composition of the blood, and the orifices of the
heart. It is in this septimate cave of the heart that the great mysteries are revealed. The heart becomes
also part of the alchemical paraphernalia by means of which the individual receives finally the full
support.

We like to think that the physician can cure us, that our health depends upon the physician. This
may to a measure be true physically, and it may now be partly true mentally, but in the larger picture
of things-in the great plan of human unfoldment, health, happiness, and well-being arise within the
individual as the result of a definitely enlightened course of procedure. He is not merely the victim of
environment, that is, in the sense of society; he is the victim of an unregenerated environment within
himself. Alchemy in seeking to create the enlightened person obviously was approaching a highly
mystical point of view.
Perhaps one of the most tangible evidences of an East/West connection was in the concept of the
adept. In Europe it was believed that certain great masters of the mysteries of transmutation had
achieved an almost divine estate. These Europeans based their interpretations and their views on
these subjects upon biblical factors, especially certain of the patriarchal descriptions of The Old
Testament. One of the greatest of the European adepts was Elias the Artist. No one knew who he was,
actually. No one knew where he came from. No one knew where he would go. He was a wanderer
upon the surface of the earth, with only one purpose in mind; namely, to enlighten the qualified
disciples in the mysteries of regeneration. He might come to some alchemist’s laboratory in the dead
of night. He could pass through doors without opening them. He was invisible unless he wished to be
seen. But if he found a consecrated and dedicated disciple with the right internal motives and with at
least a glimmering of the true understanding, he would instruct him, show him how to advance his
labors, bless him, and depart.
The story of the Western adept is completely parallel to that of the Eastern adepts. Adepts in the
East were called “arhats” and the term is now so interchangeable that a number of Oriental scholars
translating derivatives of the word “arhat” in various languages simply call them adepts. The word
means that one was sufficient, but in the mystical way of thinking it implies a great deal more. All
through Eastern philosophy—Hinduism, Buddhism, Taoism, and even Shintoism—the legends of the
saintly ones who came to bless the labors of the sincere, the mysterious sages who were interceptors
between God and man possessing miraculous powers were commonly disseminated. Some of these
adepts or arhats were believed to have been the original disciples of Buddha who were to remain on
earth until the coming of the Lord Maitreya. Regardless of what they are called—whether they be
arhats of Buddhism or the mahatmas of Hinduism—their function was identical in meaning, substance,
and essence with the European adept.
It is quite possible to assume that both of these systems were founded upon what might be termed
an adept tradition, and as we explore this again another dichotomy arises: who is the adept? The
definition from one system of thought is that the adept is a person representing a graduate from the
school of human life—one who has gone as far as human skills and abilities can go, and who has
unfolded his inner resources as far as possible without ceasing to be a human being. The other
concept is that the adept is the adept self in each of us, the superior part of our own intuitive life. The
arhat or adept is the instructor within each of us, the aged sage shining actually even through the eyes
of the newborn babe, for in each of us is a source of enlightenment. This source is invisible but it is
revealed to us through occasional experiences or circumstances. These may include visions or
dreams. They may include an apperceptive realization of instruction we receive from other people.
But actually the meaning arises within ourselves. The meaning is inevitable because we are all so
endowed. If the individual misunderstands, if he perverts the beliefs that he holds to be true or falls
victim to the delusions of his own nature, then the adept or arhat or teacher fades away, and grotesque
imagery takes the place. But this grotesque imagery again is an interpretation at a psychic level of his
own nature. Some Asiatics are quite convinced that the arhat is within us along with the other parts of
the kingdom of heaven. The more mystically inclined are more inclined to view the full chemistry or
machinery of existence as an internal experience of the human consciousness. So here we have again
a very strong parallel between Eastern and Western thinking, a parallel that might well be more than
accidental or coincidental.
Christian mysticism, even within the structure of the early church, was recognized. It was realized
that certain devotional attitudes produced extensions of consciousness. It was this circumstance really
that justified the entire concept of the canonization of saints. The saint is the individual who has had
an inner experience of truth or of God, and has therefore become endowed with certain powers or
internal capacities which can be used for the general service of mankind. The Christian mystic found
his way usually to his experience through the transformation of character. He must practice the virtues
of his faith. The nominal believer might expect nothing even if he visited such great healing shrines as
Lourdes. Unless the inner life was quickened, the power of outer phenomena to be changed by the
inner consciousness remained untouched. But we find in the history of the saints, from the Golden
Legend on to the present time, that they were mostly people apart who had recognized certain values
and placed themselves under programs of extreme austerity.
Some of these programs appear very excessive to us today. We do not like to think that religion
requires such dedication or renunciation, and for the average believer it probably does not, but for
those who wish to transform religion into a mystical experience, changes must take place within
consciousness. The individual must gradually refine and reorganize his life. He must relieve his
personality of its burden of worldliness. If he does not do so, the inner life cannot become dominant
in him. So the disciplines of religion everywhere have to do with the vows of humility, obligations of
poverty, and constant remembrance of charity. The individual must feel as though of himself he is
nothing, or very little. He must lose all arrogance, all material ambition, all effort to justify his own
mistakes, and all effort to escape the responsibility of the burdens which he has brought upon himself.
He must renounce the patterns of conduct which tie him tightly to a materialistic way of life.
This was true in the middle ages, and it is true today, and all during this time the so-called major
religious bodies, while they will admit this, have made no grand effort to transform their moralism
into a scientific procedure. They have not attempted to do more than to recommend those pieties and
virtues which have descended as statutes of the faith. The alchemists, apparently, had a different
attitude about it. They were sincerely convinced that this improvement of the person through certain
disciplines indicated, at least in part, the nature of these disciplines. And this was the same
everywhere. The Hindu, the Moslem, the Buddhist, the Shintoist, all are expected to make the same
changes in themselves, regardless of the school they belong to. The Moslem has to bathe himself
before he worships; so does the Shintoist. Everywhere cleanliness, not only of body but of spirit, is a
requirement. Nearly all of these older religions also featured vigils. The American Indian practiced
vigil. Vigil was the practice of going out alone into the wilderness, the forest, or the desert, and sitting
down quietly, relaxing all human attitudes and emotions; then prayerfully asking to be shown the way
of salvation. Our Indian shaman practiced this for ages, long before we came here. The search for
truth was a search into loneliness of mind, the gradual relaxing away from the illusions and delusions
of personal existence; also, a relaxing away from the concept of the omnipotence of the human mind
itself. These vigilists did not go out to think, they went out to know; to know they were quiet, and in
this quietude the voices of the old and the true came to them. They heard wonderful things. They
experienced strange sights and lights within themselves, after which they then returned and served
their peoples with greater integrity and ability.
Now if this was the way of the American Indian, the Hindu, the Oriental, the Moslem, the
sanctified Christian, the dedicated orthodox Jew, the way in simple still followed by aboriginal tribes
of Africa, and still the way of the Eskimo, we must realize that this is the one path that has always
appeared as the solution to the ultimate state of human ignorance. Ignorance is not solved by learning,
but by waiting quietly and peacefully for the coming of the presence of truth. Alchemy, taking this for
granted, followed also in the Indian and Oriental systems. The alchemist established certain patterns,
by means of which it was more simple for the follower to obey the rules and the instructions.
The Greeks had what they called the “probationary rites of catharsis.” To enter the temple, to join
the priesthood, to become accepted into an esoteric school, the beginning was cleanliness. The body
must be purified of all destructive elements, the habits must be modified, the mind and emotions must
be cleaned-refreshed and washed in the waters of baptism—and the soul itself must be dedicated to
truth. Without these aspects of the matter, the individual would remain locked in the narrow world of
material purposes. He might aspire, he might hope, but he had to center his hopes probably upon
conditions beyond the grave which he might earn while here. The alchemists believed with the
ancients that enlightenment does not depend upon death, and that the individual can know the inner
world of this universe without waiting until he casts off the corporeal fabric.
We see gradually arising a group of patterns in the West which correspond to the mandalas of
Eastern mysticism. A mandala is a meditation symbol- actually an eternal and inevitable design which
has descended, verified, sustained, and supported by generations of mystics. The mandala is
something which intrigues the mind, which impels the mind to search for resources within itself. To
understand, the individual must bestow upon the symbol the meaning which he has in his own nature.
If his nature is true, then the meaning will be correct; if it is not true, he is then subject to the
infirmities of his own limitations.
In the Orient the mandala designs are means of visualizing conditions or states of consciousness
which are themselves not visible to the profane sight of man. The great Buddhist mandalas of the
Shingonshu are universe emblems. They reveal the structure of the Infinite itself, not scientifically but
mystically. There is no way in which science with its present limitations can actually prove or
disprove the mysterious symbolism of the mandala. It is something that can be only known intuitively
by the individual who has earned the right to know and has become capable of knowing; he is
following the ancient traditional disciplines which alone can point the way. The mandala primarily is
a symbol not only of the universal diffusion but of the universal politics. The mandalas of Buddhism
generally depict what was called “the great commonwealth,” “the great commune.” The universe is
represented as a commune, a community. It is no longer regarded as divided into heaven and earth, for
they are both parts of the same community. The invisible world is no longer referred to as a kingdom
but as a community. It is a vast number of beings working together for a common purpose. It is one
universal life flowing into manifestation through an infinite diversity of forms, but it is one life,
moved by one life, dedicated to one purpose, and in his meditation the mystic becomes ever more
aware that he is a citizen of this commune, of this vast commonwealth of purpose. This has a tendency
to reduce the mistakes that he will make in daily life. It is modifying to his ambitions. It reveals to him
the difference between what is important and what is not important. It makes it simple for him to give
up certain material pleasures in order that he may grow inwardly and know a joy or peace that the
world cannot bestow.
There is much to indicate that this mandala system came through into Europe. During the
seventeenth century a very interesting alchemical work was published in Europe called The Liber
Mutus or The Book Without Words. It was a series of pictures with no text, and this series of pictures
opens with a diagram which very closely resembles the mandala. From there on it takes the whole
problem through the world of chemistry, but the reader is to understand that this chemistry is a
ternunology, something by means of which an alchemical meaning will become evident to those who
are worthy of it. It is like the mysterious little Book of Revelation which cannot be nibbled at the
edges, but must be swallowed whole-without awareness of its total meaning, each page tells nothing
in itself. This book without words can be traced through a large variety of doctrines and beliefs, for
many of the greatest secrets of ancient wisdom were communicated by books without words.
The disciplines of alchemy would seem to imply that there was a secret art known and, strangely
enough, so widely that it was almost an open secret- something many had heard of, but something few
had ever done anything about. It was as though they looked into depths they had never traveled, and as
the depths appeared strange, distant, and dangerous, were not in a hurry to attempt to explore.
Some of the stories of alchemy are quite interesting, and they tell us more and more of the secret
workings of these philosophers. They were called philosophers by fire, and of course fire is the
symbol of purification. They were also philosophers by water, and water again is a symbol of
purification. So man is purified by two agents: fire and water. The fire purifies his inner life; the
water cleanses his outer life. The cleansing of the outer life is implied by baptism, but the cleansing
of the inner life by the mystery of the priesthood of Melchizedek is purification by fire. Fire and water
became the great symbols of alchemy, and these in turn were symbolized by the sun and the moon.
Now the sun and the moon represent in alchemy two elements that must be finally brought into
equilibrium. As they say, fire must burn in the water without destroying it, and the water must be cast
upon the fire without quenching it. The combination of the fire-water was of course also referred to in
the Egyptian mysteries, and we find it in many of the early rites of the Christian church.
Here we have it seems also a symbol of the two great mandalas, or shingons. One of these
mandalas is the cosmic figure; the other is the individual or mortal figure. They are like two halves of
one totality, and the two paintings are always hung together, one symbolizing the exploration of the
inner self, the quest by fire, the search for light, and the effort to become one with the eternal flame
which is the life of all things; the other is a constant reminder of our material and mortal
responsibilities. In Christian terminology, the cosmic mandala might be likened to the kingdom of
heaven, whereas the terrestrial mandala would be the utopian commonwealth, based upon the
symbolism of the way of heaven applied to all the deeds and conduct of men. This concept meant an
equilibrium that had to be discovered, and to the alchemist the beginning of the journey was
equilibrium. Socrates has stated it earlier: “In all things not too much.” The equilibrium of alchemy
was to bring into final and complete harmony the two paths of life: the visible and the invisible, the
spiritual and the material. Conflict between them must end. There is no rivalry, as the Chinese point
out, between heaven and earth, and in their art, heaven and earth are always compatible. Heaven is
always superior and beautiful. The earth always lies beneath heaven, and is also beautiful. The
beauties of the earth are reflections of the beauties of heaven. The beauties of man’s outer life are
reflections of the integrity of his inner life. These two must finally become completely reconciled so
that there can be no conflict between them.
In the Chinese concept also somewhere in this pattern is inserted the figure of a human being—
perhaps a hermit sitting in his little hut by the roadside, or a pilgrim walking along, leaning upon his
staff. He is a comparatively insignificant symbol in terms of the magnitude of the other two. But this
little pilgrim walking along is the arhat, he is the adept, he is the mahatma, he is the dweller between
heaven and earth. He is what the Greeks called the “hero” of the order of Achilles and Odysseus.
This little being that we see here who seems so inconspicuous is really the point of union between the
two great powers, fire and water. Within himself, within the retort of his own consciousness, the great
experiment must be perfected. It is in himself that the medicine of eternal life must be perfected. He
stands between heaven and earth. He stands between the two great polarities of existence. He is the
symbol of the power of the human being to absorb into himself and to reconcile within himself all of
the diversities and conflicts of existence. Only when this is accomplished does he achieve peace, for
to the human being peace is the fulfillment of heaven and earth in himself.
Thus man arises as the retort of the alchemical laboratory. Within himself these transformations
must take place, and the fire that burns under the retort is the fire of aspiration and spirit. The
transformations take place under the discipline of the fire and the law, and finally in the fulfillment of
it all there arises within him, in his own life and substance, the mystery of the rose diamond, the stone
that cuts all things, but which nothing can divide. This, incidentally, is the name of one of the Buddha
sutras—the diamond cutter. This parallel is almost too close to be considered incidental or
accidental.
Having come to the conclusion that there was such a path, the disciple was then taught one way or
another to find the rose, and he learned as he went along that others had preceded him. He was
following in a path that had been well trodden in the course of ages, and along that path were all
kinds of markers and guide lines much as the monuments, paintings, sculptures, and devices which
Bacon describes in the great castle or temple of Solomon in his story of The New Atlantis. These
mysterious imageries remind the true seeker that there have been others, and that they have all left for
him guide marks, they have all left for him their mandalas. Some have written them in books, some
have made them in paintings, some have composed them into music, some have preached them with
the wisdom of the saviors, and others of these revelations have been embodied into the scriptures of
humanity. But always those advancing have been given rules, guidelines, and if the advance is correct,
the rules will be revealed through the symbols of these rules. If, however, the individual has falsely
started, then he will always falsely interpret, and in order to get away from false starts there is the
need for a tremendous humility, a tremendous simplicity, for the soul itself must teach man to take his
first step. The first step must come from within and must be taken with faith, only with a little hope
but never with audacity.
This arrangement of symbols is also a pattern found in Zen for we know that Zen is subtly divided
into grades, that those practicing it can be distinguished from each other by the degrees of insight
which they have attained. This insight is always toward purification, it is always not to learn more
that is true primarily, but to believe less and less what is not true. It is a peculiar thing-one does not
build truth; one removes error, and truth remains. The substance of truth cannot be added to for it
stands eternal; but we can reduce within ourselves those factors which make the experience of truth
difficult or impossible. Little by little we cut away the stone that is not necessary, and in the end we
have the beautiful image of reality. So in alchemy, it was not the primary end that the individual
should become more and more wise in his own conceit. It was not that he should master more and
more of worldly knowledge, but that he should begin to understand that worldly knowledge is a
mandala, that all knowledge that is material is merely a picture, a symbol which must be interpreted
or misinterpreted according to the capacity of the interpreter.
Everything that happens to us every day has a true meaning and a false meaning, and we should
prepare ourselves to distinguish between them. In the same way, the alchemist in his laboratory,
following the instructions of the various masters whom he recognizes, might even begin by assuming
that he must do exactly the literal things that are disclosed in the writing, or he must begin to consider
the possibility of secret meaning, a meaning above that of the ordinary mortal experience of humanity.
Actually, of course, it is almost a double procedure. The alchemist was a chemist. He did understand
chemistry, but he understood chemistry back in those days as very few modern chemists understand it
today. He recognized it to be nothing but a revelation of the working of the Divine Plan. He
recognized that the supreme chemist was God, that the supreme master of the arts of transformation
was truly Deity or one of the great teachers that Deity had appointed. Therefore, he used his chemistry
as his first clue to the meaning of things.
Let us take another parallel which might get a little closer to our present concern. Most people
today know a little about astronomy. In fact, in many of the alchemical diagrams astronomical
elements are strongly featured. We know something of the great mandala which we call the cosmos,
we recognize many of its operations and we are exploring it with a tenacity that perhaps is excessive
in consideration of the results we hope to attain. At any rate, we are groping out there, not to
understand primarily, but to discover, and the things that we discover we record, but their meaning we
do not dare even to suggest. If we were mystics we might still be astronomers and thereby be better
mystics, as the chemist is a better alchemist, but unless astronomy is ensouled by a vision of the
eternal meaning of things, unless the universe becomes a symbol and evidence of Divine Power
eternally operating, we have very little spiritual consolation and very little incentive to moral and
ethical improvement. We begin to look at all phenomena as simply factual, mechanical truth and the
universe a vast machine. Under such conditions, all of the integrities have been sacrificed because we
did not develop enough internal power to understand them. So the chemist has the same problem in
alchemy. He has to learn how to understand chemistry, and when he began to understand it, began to
recognize its full meaning and its implication to himself and to human society and to the whole world,
he inevitably became an alchemist-because he suddenly realized that all these material things are but
the shadows of true values. The tremendous truths that we are all seeking are concealed behind the
very perishable forms of material creation.
Thus the alchemist grew from within himself, and we find that in many of the old alchemical
diagrams the alchemist is seated very quietly, pensively, perhaps in an old chair and around him are
all the accumulated instruments of his art. The retorts and vials and bottles, the furnaces, the distilling
apparatus surround him and he is seated in the midst of them in an attitude of musing. Perhaps he was
simply trying to be still enough to find out what his own equipment meant, that beyond the obvious is
always the meaningful. This also is the great gift that Oriental philosophy has given the world:
namely, this continuous effort to discover true meaning and that this true meaning, when it is
discovered, is a revelation of the will of God.
The arts and sciences are sacred—music, literature, all these forms of man’s knowledge are
symbols of sacred truths. The fact that they are symbols does not mean that there is anything
essentially wrong with them. If an individual wants to enjoy music, why shouldn’t he? It has no
negative effect upon him, if it is good music. But at the same time, the mystery of music does not end
with this type of appreciation. This is the beginning. If he did not like it, he would not listen. But as he
goes on and becomes a musicologist, something else happens. There is an unfolding of musical
consciousness within himself, and by means of this musical consciousness he finds a much larger and
more inspiring response to music in his own personal life. The same is true wherever we enter into
mystical relationships with reality. These relationships become the basis of an enlargement of internal
resource.
In the last few years we have begun to re-explore alchemy, and while there are still a few gold
hunters among us, the majority of those interested in the subject today are not interested in becoming
simply practical chemists with a secret knowledge. We are beginning to recognize that somewhere in
the machinery of our own natures there has to be a means of transforming universal reality into
practical, workable truths. Someway we must build upon a plan, and this plan is the mandala, and it is
also the great scheme of alchemy. It is the rotations and revolutions of elements. It is the selection of
the proper materials and their use.
In alchemy one of the interesting statements was that the most priceless material is that which we
throw away, that we cast aside that which would be the most useful to us. This I think also has a
parallel in the spiritual and religious teaching of the idea that the meek shall inherit the earth, or that
which is seemingly very humble shall be exalted. The thing we have a tendency to throw away might
be the folk values which we all possess. We are perhaps born wiser than we will ever be after that
first day. We are born without error. We are born with the simple integrities that make life livable:
friendship, love, respect, veneration. We are born into the possibility of companionship, of mutual
labor, of cooperation, of patience, and insight. These are the common things that simple people are
born with, and these are the things that the so called wise are most likely to throw away, for in the
process of attaining sophistication we create an entirely new standard of relationships, a standard
which has little foundation in the natural inclinations of human beings to be useful and helpful to each
other. Here perhaps is also the secret of folk art- its integrity. If we sacrifice integrity for skill or for
wealth or for power, we have thrown away something we regard to be worthless and which is the
most priceless thing in the whole world. To reclaim that which we have wasted, to restore that which
we have thrown away, is itself a very definite discipline.
Through the long procedures which are called the rotations of alchemy, these disciplines are
brought to our attention. We are invited not only to become better chemists, in a sense, but to interpret
all arts and sciences as instruments of human regeneration and contributions to the universal
reformation of mankind. If we take this attitude towards these things, we will become very much
wiser than we are today.
Among some alchemical writings there are also references to the Bible, and some of these
references are quite intriguing. One alchemist was convinced that the life of Christ could be
chemically interpreted as the key to the production of gold. He believed that the procedures of
chemistry were adequately followed psychologically in the life of Jesus. Whether he wanted to say
that the life of Jesus was the foundation of alchemy or whether that it was merely the justification of
alchemy or an example of it, the truth is that he believed he could trace step by step the alchemical
technique in the various incidents in the life of Christ, including the miracles and the Sermon on the
Mount. It might very well be true in the higher sense of a mandala, or it might very well be true that in
the person of Jesus, Christianity has exemplified those processes of life by which the mortal condition
of man may be regenerated. Other alchemists found great consolation in the canticles of Solomon, the
story of Solomon the King. In this work Solomon was considered to be the alchemist, and the dark
maiden of Jerusalem the dark material from which the transmutations were to be made. In Solomon,
the wisest of all kings, the great transmutation was accomplished by the ultimate unselfishness of his
own love. Actually, therefore, every type of book and of valid reading that we have tells the same
story. All the non-valid reading which we have is a warning that we are on the wrong track, whether
we recognize it or not.
There is much to indicate that a meditative discipline similar to that of Yoga was known to the
alchemists, and that they closely followed the ancient Asiatic technique relating to the release of
spiritual potential as set forth in the ancient Hindu doctrines. Such discipline when practiced by
properly qualified individuals overcomes the common faults of mankind and gradually releases
internal integrity. The disciple learned to relax away from the tyranny of his own ignorance, attained
internal quietude, and was able to follow the biblical admonition, “Be still and know.” In due course
this unfolding consciousness led him from one degree of insight to another until finally he
accomplished within himself the universal reformation of his own nature. Coming into a state of
enlightenment, the alchemist attained adeptship, and the term adept in this case was equivalent to that
of the Oriental sage who was referred to as a mahatma or great soul.
It is becoming increasingly evident that the alchemistical philosophers were very wise people.
They gave us a Western way of discipleship based upon a profound knowledge of divine and natural
law. If present research trends reveal the true import of alchemy, we may hope that the path of
unfoldment which they devised can be gradually applied directly to the solution of world problems.
There are many base elements in modern society which must be transmuted if civilization is to
endure. An ever increasing group of thoughtful persons are seeking self-improvement and ardently
desire to be of assistance to those around them. As this has always been the true path which humanity
must follow. Eastern mysticism and Western alchemy are dedicated to the same end. Secrets of human
regeneration have descended to us from many cultures and older civilizations. It is our privilege to
accept truth regardless of its source, overcome credal differences, and unite our energies toward the
accomplishment of the “great work.”
ABOUT THE AUTHOR

Manly P. Hall founded the Philosophical Research Society, Inc., a non-profit organization in 1934,
dedicated to the dissemination of useful knowledge in the fields of philosophy, comparative religion,
and psychology. In his long career, spanning more than seventy years of dynamic public activity, Mr.
Hall delivered over 8000 lectures in the United States and abroad, authored over 150 books and
essays, and wrote countless magazine articles.

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