Alchemy

Etymology

The word alchemy comes from the Arab word of obscure origin: الكيمياء, (Al-kimia), which indicates the Philosopher's stone. He came in French at the 14th century while passing through Spanish and the Catalan (fine of the 13th century by Raymond Lulle), then medieval Latin ( alchemia ). The words alchemy and chemistry remained synonymous until the 18th century and the appearance of the modern Chimie.

For its origin various assumptions were made: The dictionary Littré (1872-1877) brought closer “chemistry” and “alchemy” to “juice”, supposing that one thus originally indicated “art relating to juices”. The philologist Hermann Diels in his Antike Technik (1920) there saw the " Fusion". For the chemist and historian of the sciencs Edmund Oscar von Lippmann (1857-1940) and the philologist Wilhelm Gundel (1880-1945), Kimiya would come from the Egyptian Kam-it or Kem-it, " Noir" , which would evoke " The Noire" Earth;. For the Moslems (cf: Encyclopedia of Islam) Al-Kimiya evokes the " Noir" , with however the complementarity of a synonym, Al-iksir; " Elixir"

Definitions

According to Andre Savoret, " Traditional alchemy is the knowledge of the laws of the life in the man and the nature and the reconstitution of the process by which this life, adulterated ici-bas by the adamic fall, lost and can find its purity, its splendor, its plenitude, and its prerogatives primordiales"

According to Rene Alleau, " it is advisable especially to regard alchemy as an experimental religion, concretes, whose end was the illumination of the conscience, the “delivery of the spirit and of the body” Thus alchemy belongs it rather to the history of the religions that to the history of the sciences"

According to Serge Hutin “the alchemists gave each other readily the title of philosophers, and, in fact, they were “philosophers” of a particular kind who said agents of Science par excellence, containing the principles of all the others, explaining nature, the origin and the raison d'être of all that exists, reporting the origin and the destiny of the whole universe”.

According to Francoise Bonardel " The alchemical corpus would have indeed been only one immense and redundant “receipt” whose watchword would have been transmutation or one of its close equivalents, with what the scholastic spirit prefers the concept of Transsubstantiation, frequently used also when is considered the similarity between body of Pierre and body of Christ. Also the launched order is it pressing only for whoever does not seize how much more imperative still is the latent call to the change in any matter, and whose alchemical “philosophy” wanted that God has a relay and not an obstacle with the hello in creation. And this is why the “receipt” is well the mode of expression of a philosophy not to be it, but iteration between its multiple states, therefore also of the obliged itinérance of the Artist undertaking in company of his “Matter” and of Nature a voyage in the form of tribulations often associated with the conquest of the Golden Fleece by Jason".

According to Bernard Gorceix, " If alchemy could develop so vigorously in Christian Europe, if the treaties which carried the echoes of these spiritualities extra-Christian women could acquire such an audience, it is that the aforementioned tradition found topics that Christianity, in a doctrinal preoccupation with a synthesis, had driven back and forgotten This reproach which addresses the orthodoxe church to Western Christianity: that to have forgotten the insoluble report/ratio of the history of the fall and the redemption of the nature".

The diagram is the same one for the former alchemists:

"There is no difference between the eternal birth, rehabilitation, and the discovery of the philosopher stone. All having left eternity, all must go back there of same a façon"

the cosmopolitan had as objective to create what it called a “company of philosophers”, a small network of scientists, intended to inform the students of this art, network of which it was regarded as one of the elements, with the service of the next one: “After having run lengthily the unknown seas of the philosophy of old, us fortunately arrived here at the port Nothing appeared surer to me than to establish between us a certain company of philosophers, of which none in truth was known in particular”

According to Zosime, “Hermes and Zoroastre declared that the race of the philosophers is above the destiny, since he are not delighted by good fortune only he exempts. They are rather Master of the pleasures and are not victim of the demons which it sends This is why Hésiode shows Prométhée warning Épiméthée which answers: 'Takes guard to accept the present of Zeus. Isolated-T '. He thus advises with his brother to refuse thanks to philosophy the present of Zeus, i.e. destiny”.

Presented like such, alchemy claims to hold the secrecy of universal medicine able to look after all the living beings, and to prolong the Vie beyond the ordinary natural limits.

History

The origins of alchemy are discussed.

Mircea Eliade which is opposed to the Positivisme of its time, refuses the idea according to which alchemy would be only one proto-chemistry, while revealing the relationship between the local alchemy and myths, and by releasing from the archetypic constants universal.

The popular belief which, wrongly, classified it in proto-chemistry, comes primarily from a mistake in interpretation of Berthelot with. Francoise Bonardel goes even further, and speaks about a true handling operated by certain historians about. But the popular beliefs have the thick skin, and this one, in spite of work which reflects it with evil, remains anchored still well in the cultural bosom of the history of chemistry. The majority of the authors of whom studied alchemy thoroughly present it like a theology, or a philosophy of Nature (for this reason, certain former alchemists gave each other the title of “only true philosophers”):

Antiquity

China:

In the ancient China, alchemy is already attested to the IV E (Serge Hutin advances that alchemy was already practiced in China in 4500 av. JC). The research of the remedies of immortality is the great project since the period of the Royaumes combatants. The sovereigns make confidence with the way of the magicians and immortal the, and these “magicians” are often alchemists. The first emperor of the dynasty of the Qin organizes a forwarding on the legendary island of Penglai Shan. This account speaks about transmutation into gold and lengthening of the life by alchemical practices. Within the framework of legendary China, Rene Alleau considers the analogy between Hermes Trismégiste and the yellow emperor, assumption which would make us go back to the thousand-year-old III° before JC. On a strictly historical level, the alchemical knowledge is established, for China, at the end of first front millenium JC. The first known Chinese alchemical treaty is Baopuzi neipian written by Ge hong (283-343 ap J. - C.)

Africa:

Although one knows only few things about the possibility of an alchemical tradition in Africa, certain elements bring some indices, relative at the origins of the metallurgy in this continent. Rene Alleau considers the analogy symbolic system of the Cabires and the former blacksmiths of the Black Africa

India:

In India, the practices Shiva ïques and tantric S also follow the alchemical screen. Shiva (active ingredient of the Sulfur) fertilizes Çakti (passive principle Mercuriel) to give to the follower the body Diamant Foudre, become in occident the Philosopher's stone. The equivalent of alchemy names Rasâyana, and pleasing towards an elixir of long life named Ausadhi.

The origins of alchemy in India were amply discussed. According to A.B. Ketith, Lüders, J. Ruska, Stapleton, R. Müller, E. Von Lippman, being based on the late arrival of alchemy in the Indian literature, they are Arabic who would have introduced alchemy in India. Eliade, thinks to him that alchemy in India is attested well before the Arab invasion, and disputes these assumptions so much for geographical reasons than for mentions made in texts much older:

Presence of the tantrism in areas geographical little touched by Islamism
Presence of the " Mercure" in the Indian literature attested in a way formal to the 4° century after JC and possible before the 3° century before JC.
Presence of many relative texts to alchemy in the Buddhist literature starting from the 2° century after JC, therefore well before the Arab influence

According to Eliade (and on the basis of very restrictive search criterion centered on the only screen “chymic”, or worse, exclusively “mercurielle”), alchemy would be attested in India in an unquestionable way as from the 2nd century after J. - C., and perhaps at the 3rd century before JC. If, on the other hand, a broader filter is substituted, if one makes use of the same criteria which make it possible to affirm with certainty that, for example, Greek mythology is a particular expression of the alchemical knowledge - he is not an alchemist who does not find his small there -, one showed again a quite former time then, that of Védas: Coomaraswamy for example established the correspondence between the binomial Lord Gauvain/green Chevalier in the legend of the knights of the roundtable, and the Indra/Namuci binomial which dates from Rig-véda. This episode inserts to us on one level in an alchemical universal sequence, that of the dismemberment: “Indra enters in scene to fight the dragon, which it names Namuci, Makha or Vritta. It then dismembers Titan which retained in him the hidden potentialities, it releases water or makes spout out the light It is as by this kiss as Indra drinks Summoned it; the brandy that the witch draws from the well to offer it to the hero who agrees to embrace it is not other than the beverage of immortality, than one obtains after having put at died the Draconian heart”.

Mésopotamie, Babylon (Old Iran/Iraq):

With the the Middle East, large Babylon also knows alchemy (see Mircéa Eliade, Babylonian Cosmologie and alchemy ). The ancient Iran contains in its mythology the paramount man and his dismemberment. The Zervanisme speaks about inconditionné, creative and destroying time, that P. Raymond-Oursel identifies in Greek Cronos. According to Eliade, Zoroastrisme has " used the values antiquated of the sacrifice in two intentions, eschatologic and cosmogonic. The texts pehlevis evoke the final sacrifice in which will take part Ohrmazd and Amesha Spenta, and after which the men will ressusciteront and become immortal, and the entire universe will be radically regenerated Yasna is primarily a sacrifice of haoma accomplished in front of fire”.

According to Gorceix, the traces of the Iran antique are definitely perceptible in the development of the alchemical texts: “The corruption of the matter would not be also tragic at Dorn or F. Keiser without the remote echoes - insofar as it is admitted or disputes that Syria and Iran are the cradle of the spagyrie - of a Zervanisme and a diffuse mazdeism: Ahrisman poisons and soils the vegetation and water well differently than the Elohim and Lucifer! Pessimistic and gnostic theologies could not, in Alexandria as in Byzance, that to corroborate the articles of Pimandre on the consequences of the sin of the paramount man. The revalorization of the role, the mission, the ministry for the man point out more the Iranian syntheses than the Genesis: plowing is more close relative of Gayômart than of Adam”.

ancient Egypt:

In old Egypt, one finds already the Ouroboros, symbol of the principle first of alchemy, “solve & coagulated”, as well as the principle of the first stage, the Dissolution, recognized by the alchemists as being the allegory of the dismemberment (see Fulcanelli), here that of Osiris (that Greek mythology will begin again like the dismemberment of Dionysos - Zagreus, or that of Orphée).

The large trap door in which fall the laymen is to confuse the hermetic corpus with the Egyptian tradition, within the meaning of ancient Egypt, which is a serious anachronism (of one or two millenia), since one knows today that the corpus is a late text, writing around second century a. J. - C., influenced by heteroclite traditions, of which the Greek tradition (see hereafter " Egypt gréco-romaine").

Nevertheless, a great number of convergent elements are recognizable in the Cosmogonie of ancient Egypt, mainly in the liturgical sources. Here what F. Daumas says to us; " Here a text of Edfou commenting on the role of Ogdoade in creation Within the paramount Ocean appeared the emerged ground Then came a button from lotus from where dwarf emerged, auxiliary female necessary, which Re saw and wished. From their union was born Thot which created the world by the Thot verb took such an importance that, little by little, one came from there to call it twice “large and worthy”. The Greeks compared it to their Hermes and described it as “Trimégiste”. He reached us under his name a whole Greek collection of treaties known as hermetic, which contain the systematic talk of its theology at the time late. One wanted to make of it the Greek translation of Egyptian works, similar to those which announce Clément of Alexandria. It is difficult to show similar thesis; but, at sides of theories which appear neoplatonicians, it is certain that the hermetic corpus is deeply influenced by the Egyptian thought, so much so that one could make a very provided comment of its text with fragments only borrowed from originals hiéroglyphiques" .

Greece:

According to the methodology of approach, relative being studied of the origin of alchemy in Greece, one can distinguish 3 distinct sources, though probably interlaced:

mythology

The references to the Greek Mythologie are so bulky in all the alchemical literature which it is useless to extend on the question. This leaves think that mythology was a mode of expression which dealt with same the research topics as medieval alchemy, topics that our medieval recognized without sorrow. Some of these topics were studied by scholars of the 20th century, academics or traditionalists:

In Greece, in Argonautiques of Apollonios of Rhodos (295-215 av. J-C), it is Hermes which changes the Golden Fleece. The parallel of the Argo with the Saint-Vessel charged with Graal will be made with the Middle Ages.

the metallurgy

This way was explored by Rene Alleau in the middle of the 20th century.

philosophy

Greek philosophy, in particular that of Aristote, had a fundamental influence in the development of medieval alchemy, in particular at the S, period during which the scholastic had created a sufficiently rich speculative field so that the first alchemists draw their material there (see below the paragraph “birth of medieval alchemy”).
Egypt gréco-Roman:
The school of Alexandria, probably the most fertile center of all Antiquity, had also its intellectual guides in alchemy (Zosime, Synésius, Olympiodore the alchemist). It is, indirectly, by this intermediary which alchemy took its medieval form in Europe, where it was introduced by the Arab channel. Arabic themselves knew it of share the culture alexandrine, when they settle in Egypt at the 7th century. The school of Alexandria knew an expansion of hermetic texts, 20000 according to Jamblique at the second century. Alchemy was formed there with the confluence of heteroclite currents. It seems nevertheless which it is with the Christian gnosis that alchemy owes its complexity. A great number of medieval hermetic texts in Europe will be of inspiration alexandrine.

Hermes, and the problem of its multifonctionality

It is little of gods who threaded through the filters of the centuries, to arrive intact at the 20th century. If Hermes is those there, it is because it is carrying an ambiguity which makes it slip on a broad pallet which goes from the role of God until that of an alchemical function. He is before a a whole theological function, with the philosophical direction, where, just like Christ, he is compared to the Logos. Antoine Faivre made a masterly study on the ambiguity of Hermes. Making the difference between the myth and the mythical one, it will make the nuance between " God with the Caduceus, and Hermes Trismégiste, three times large, legendary author of the writings called hermetica". The term “Trimégiste” (qualified by faivre of Mercury precipitation in the history) related to Hermes appears only at the second century ap JC, and one associated as well the ternary alchemical one to him, the 3 levels of the world (Céleste, Terrestre and Infernal), the 3 reigns natural (Minéral, Végétal, Animal), the 3 alchemical principles (salt, sulfur, mercury), the successive Trinité, or 3 historical reigns, of which the first was Hénoch. Hermes history will be born starting from 640 ap JC, when Arabic discovers the building Abou Hermes with Memphis where it would have found a revelation, the treasure of Alexandre (of which the oldest known version is Arab - she belongs to a treaty of Gabir - date of the 8th century), containing famous “the Table of emerald”. The problem still became more and more complex when, in 1460, a monk brings Macedonia the “Hermeticum Corpus”, judicious to be written by Hermes, at the court of Florence. Marsile Ficin, at the request of Cosme de Médicis, translates it into urgency, and Pic of Mirandole, by combining it with the Kabbale, will create the origin of the hermetico-kabbalistic tradition. In 1614, Isaac Casaubon shows that these texts do not have anything Egyptian, and that they date from first centuries a. J. - C. It is known today that the Hermeticum Corpus, published under the author “Hermes Trimégiste”, has nothing to do with any Hermes. It is necessary thus to distinguish 4 levels from Hermes:

God Hermes, of Olympe, popularized in Greek mythology
Hermes Trismégiste, legendary author of treaty, historicized starting from the 2° century ap JC
theological Hermes, within the meaning of Greek philosophy, compared to the Logos
the Mercury (alchemy), central and operational function of the development of the philosopher's stone

Hermetism and gnosis

Gnostic hermetism is doctrines appeared under the influence of the literature diffused under the name of the “Trimégiste”, presented as initiated by God (Us, Agathos Daimôn) it having transmitted itself to Hermes. Festugières distinguishes philosophical hermetism according to 2 antagonistic currents, “according to whether it is connected with wisdom or the gnosis, the hellenism or Eastern mysticism”. The wise one (within the meaning of Greek philosophy) there is opposed to the hermetist and the gnostic one. For the wise one, the world bad, but is lived like a fate of the universal order. For the gnostic one, " the world is bad, God cannot thus be the direct author about it: creation is due to second God, demiurge. This dualism carries infinite consequences, the movement first of the suffering man is to revolt against this god who makes it suffer the true god lets himself see only by revelation, with a small number of elected officials As this world is bad, it is vain to work with a better organization of the human society One meets in hermetism a whole doctrines of the faith: the faith is the essential condition of the gnose". These doctrines will marry with Christianity to give the Christian gnosis. in spite of an apparent disparity, the gnosis will have, in all its expressions, a common point: the demiurge, bad or inefficient god, and doctrines of individual hello (Knowledge, Gnôsis) to escape to him. Thus Hermes finds itself in the gnostic literature in the form of the Logos, like noticed it Jack Lindsay: " The creative voice of Thoth became under the influence of the hellenistic thought the creative wisdom of God, Sophia, which became the Logos, the verb or the reason of Philon, the neoplatonicians and finally of the chrétiens". This latent dualism of the hermetism, which Festugière had raised, takes at F. Bonardel the expression of a transcended Manicheism which would have reached its finality

The Middle Ages

It is at the 12th century, that appears a capital text, the Table of emerald , Axiome basic of all the medieval alchemists), that the popular belief will allot to Hermes (it is known today that the “emerald table”, known as tabula smaragdina , is in fact the final part of a treaty named “the book of the secrecy of the creation and technique of Nature”, written under the reign of the Khalife Ma' Mûn in 833, to see on this subject Henry Corbin Histoire of Islamic philosophy ).

Graal and alchemy

The myth of the Graal would find its origins in the Celtic legend of the cauldron of the Dagda. Markale recorded a great diversity of alchemical references in the old Celtic literature, and considered the operative way at these people. The first mention of Graal appears in France by Chrétien of Troyes, influenced by the “Celtic sources” of English origin by which Geoffroy de Monmouth will introduce the “Matière of Brittany”. The vase collecting the blood of Christ was not the first representation of Graal, it was that of Robert de Boron, which had not followed that of Christian of Troyes, itself having seen it like a dish, containing a fish. Wolfram von Eschenbach imagines it in " Pierre" fallen from the sky.

Often classified among the pupils of the school of Chartres, where it remained, Jean de Salisbury will influence the thought of Albert Large the, itself having for pupil Saint Thomas d' Aquin: These three names are enough to summarize the birth of medieval alchemy, if one forgets the expansion of authors who reflect in place the philosophico-theological context of the previous century. Because the scholastic was initially a mosaic of very disparate thoughts, which makes difficult its approach. But it is Albert the Large one, whom Gilson regards as the father of the modern Philosophy which will set up all the philosophical material used by saint Thomas d' Aquin as well as other fields of opening. Consequent alchemical works were:

Albert Large the: De Alchimia
Holy Thomas d' Aquin: Treaty of the Philosopher's stone
Holy Thomas d' Aquin: Aurora Consurgens

the school of Oxford, scientific traditionalism

It is under the influence of Robert Grossetête, chancellor of the Université of Oxford, and translator of Ethics with Nicomaque , and of Pierre de Maricourt, which was born the very singular thought from Roger Bacon, " who announces Francis Bacon and Rene Descartes ". Its approach of the scholastic completely differs from that of Albert the Large one or Holy Thomas: it subordinates the canon law and philosophy to theology, by borrowing the doctrines of the verb from the augustiniens and from Saint Bonaventure. He is the inventor of " science expérimentale". It is the encyclopedic extent of its work which brings it to alchemy, like a subject among others: " The considerations in which it takes pleasure on alchemy and astrology show that before the philosophers of the Rebirth it believes in the possibility of making some leave sciences positives". 2 alchemical documents are allotted to him:

a " Letter on the wonders of Nature and Art
a compilation of treaties in its " Mirror of alchimie"

, the apogee

Alchemy starts to take its distances with the Église, on which it had occurred and which had up to that point tolerated it. The reform prepares, the doctrines theosophic S appear, the Illuminisme develops. The purely theological approach becomes ambivalent to be moulted in analogical description. The divine grace reflects the stone, the speech takes several significances: theological, metaphysical and physical. Alchemy, struck Heresy, is based in secret doctrines to escape its torturer. One needs from now on a scholarship and a capacity of understanding to hear the texts masked under thick veils. It is in this context that will be born the most important expansion of texts from all the Western history, but also most obscure. The most characteristic authors are Guillaume de Loris ( Romance of the Rose ), Flamel, Ripley, Bernard de Trévise, Isaac Dutch, Paracelse, John Dee, Denis Zachaire, the abbot Trithème, Solomon Trismosin, Basile Valentine, Kunrath. At that time, the capital of alchemy is Prague, and about all the scholars converge there. This city will play the part of Alexandria in Antiquity.

, decline

With the Rebirth, the Age of Enlightenment, and the advent of the materialism, will develop during these three centuries a Schisme which one could call " secularity métaphysique". Successes of the Cartesian and Kantian approaches propagate the idea that Nature is conceivable in its form observed, measurable, independently of a causality which would transcend it. Science was born. Even if large alchemists still mark this time (English Eyrénée Philalèthe (in first half of the 17th century), the Swiss doctor Jean-Frederic Schweitzer known as Helvétius at the end of the 17th century, Jean-Baptiste Alliette (1738 - 1791), known as Etteilla () at the 18th century, Albert Poisson at the end of the 19th century, even if certain scientists still defend the hermetic principles (Leibniz, Newton), alchemy is gradually comparable with a proto-chemistry, to end up seeing its death warrant signed by Lavoisier. At the 19th century, the few residual alchemists are regarded as curiosities, vestiges one completed time old.

Freemasonry seizes alchemy

Medieval alchemy and freemasonry have a common origin: the century of the cathedrals. First is attested by the important carved iconography due to the appearance of the first schools, in particular the École of Chartres, second is attested… by its name! It is there a mystery which retained only little attention, and which however remains fundamental: why a movement whose name (the Franc-maçonnerie) returns to the century of the cathedrals, even if it is by its connotation supporter of corporatism, put more than 5 centuries to appear? What brings to the basic question: Who encodé hermetic symbolism in the cathedral? The alchemist or the mason (because if it is the mason, it becomes, by definition of the symbol that it encode, an alchemist)? 2 assumptions can come to mind, although there is to date no element to decide:

the masons, anxious to escape “hunting for the witches”, chose the same strategy as the alchemists (to pass for smoky chemists or swindlers driven by only venality), melted themselves among them, or remained simply secret, and showed themselves with the first break, during the time which follows the rebirth.
the movement maconnic would be late, and would have carried out “recovery with wrong way”.

There did it have a bond between the collapse of alchemy and the appearance (“official”, traçable, from 17th & 18th century) of the Franc-maçonnerie? The opinions which lean for a decline of masonry, a wobbly masonry, hardly created, are numerous among the authorized analysts, them:

Pierre Dujols chooses a degeneration of masonry, as an agent of the mystery of Graal
Oswald Wirth goes even further, and speaks about ritual reduced in order to put itself at the range of a comprehension in sorrow.

What is certain, to be shown by a freemason, and not of least, it is that, in spite of a restricted inheritance symbolic system, and with the pretense hermetism disjoins, the ritual maconnic is based on an alchemical base: " Symbolism maconnic indeed constitutes a strange assembly of traditions borrowed from old initiatory sciences. It takes account of the kabbalistic value of the crowned numbers and regulates the ceremonial according to the same principles of the Magic. But it is the philosophical alchemy which presents with masonry the analogies more striking. There is, of share and others, identity of esotericism, the same initiatory data resulting in borrowed allegories, the ones with the metallurgy, and the others with art to build. FM is not, from this point of view, that a transposition of the alchimie".

The 20th century, alchemy reappears of its ashes

New works, new initiates:

In 1926 appears, in the general indifference, a work entitled the Mystery of the cathedrals writes by a total unknown, in addition anonymous, some Fulcanelli. This figure will become during the 20th century a true legend, on the way to exceed the myth of Faust. Some Canseliet, which would have been its pupil, will come to blow the heat and the cold on this character, who, according to the legend, would have profited from the “gift of God”, immortality (he would have been seen in Spain 113 years old). Fulcanelli and Canseliet are two authors having published some works of a titanic scholarship in comparison with alchemy, true synthesis of all alchemical knowledge and which would be enough by themselves according to the most faithful partisans. Are also contemporary authors, Roger Caro, founders of a spiritual minority the universal Église of the new alliance , Kamala Jnana and Jean Clairefontaine, moreover can be all the same person.

entirely re-examined Considerations:

Richard Charon gives a report on a notorious renewed interest starting from the beginning 20th, where “One sees to be interested in alchemy not only occultists of all horizons, but also of the writers, a certain part of the middle-class which attended the literary living rooms, and particularly the medical environment which since the end of the previous century made support, in its faculties, a great number of theses in medicine. ” This author drew up a list of works, catalogs and re-examined, published for the first time or republished, of 1900 to 1995, more than 3000 titles relating to alchemy, lists that it estimates nonexhaustive. He gives a report on a work of greater width undertaken by the English Alen Pritchard

In 1953 Rene Alleau published in the editions of Midnight a fundamental work: Aspects of traditional alchemy with a foreword of Eugene Canseliet. It is besides Alleau which, in 1948, pronounced conference series on the alchemy to which André Breton assisted, and which had a deep repercussion on the leader of the surrealist ones. One owes to the same author the collection Bibliothica hermetica

In parallel, the Anthropologie takes steps of giant. Mircea Eliade, Anthropologue and historian of the religions of the 20th century, develops in Forgerons and alchemists the idea that alchemy, far from being the stammering ancestor of chemistry, represents a very complex system of knowledge whose origin is lost in the mists of time, and commun run with all the cultures. It develops the idea, according to the analogy of the macrocosm and microcosm, that the physical transformations of the matter would be the representations of the methods of the ancestral rites, in their universal screen: Torture - initiatory Death - Resurrection. In " a field truly anthropologique" the work of Gilbert Durand is also located; " By highlighting the function euphémisante of imagination, and more generally of any process of symbolization, he sees in this exorcism of the time and dead the starter of what the alchemists named transmutation". Gilbert Durand collaborated in the collection " books of the hermétisme".

alchemy is invited in the procession of the psychoanalysis:

At the beginning of the 20th century, the Psychanalyse made loans in the mythological world, so much so that some could rise against an abusive demonstration by the symbol, qualified Scolastique freudienne . This tendency of call to the symbol was naturally to thrive during the century, and alchemy ends up infiltrating the Sorbonne, via one of its eminent professors, Gaston Bachelard. Meanwhile, C.G. Jung refers such to the alchemical methods and their iconographies that it devotes a whole work to it. Even if the approaches of Jung and Bachelard diverge on the bottom, the call to alchemy found its continuators, like Marie-Louise Von Franz or Etienne Perrot.

the academics lean seriously on the question

In spite of the sulfur odor which emanated from its reputation of stove setting, in spite of its general collapse at the 19th century, and of all the demonstrations which were judicious to come to end, alchemy continued to be maintained during the 20th century. This paradox shocked some spirits, so much so that the question started by interesting the academic world.

Bernard Gorceix, one of the academics who considered this paradox, started by inventorying all cultural heaviness, the gap open, institutional, even institutionalized, which it met: " In its first historians (of alchemy), the contempt for all the speculations, rejected with the row of darknesses, of “be delirious mystico-allegorical”, posted itself with best consciences Of, the alchemical tradition flowers with an astonishing power. It is enough to consult the catalogs of the large libraries. This tradition - would not be this that within sight of the material importance of its documents - requires a considerable rehabilitation. Out of France, in the Anglo-Saxon countries S especially, the rehabilitation is quite committed. In France, whereas the Spagyrie accompanies the European intellectual life by the time of the cathedrals at the age of the man, the great syntheses hardly quote it. It is always relegated to the row of Chimère, marginal madness, momentary mislaying. Tough are the prejudices. We do not have any scientific, complete and serious history, of the alchemical tradition between the Middle Ages and times modernes" .

In general, the university world, that which studied the question, was relatively being wary with regard to alchemy, qualifying the doctrines of “Occulte” or “declining Syncrétisme”. Their studies made it possible to replace the church in the middle of the village, by an erudite dissection of the texts, by allotting the many composite elements to their source. However, their approach was judged, by another academic, too dependant on a subjacent cultural environment, and, in addition, specifically centered on a particular aspect of alchemy, hermetism alexandrine.

The academic who spent the most time on the subject was probably, in France, the professor Antoine Faivre. In addition to its “institutional fastenings”, he will be director of a collection dedicated to the subject, the books of hermetism, at Albin Michel, where will appear studies very thorough on particular aspects of the subject, studies framed by a committee of prestigious academics. Even if Faivre is very miserly of its opinion - it is understood that its notoriety confines it to state only facts -, though certain indications give an orientation (Fulcanelli has its sympathy), it will have contributed to make measure the depth of the subject.

Very other is the approach of Francoise Bonardel, and more clearly committed. Intrigued by the " mode of propagation" alchemy (mode which it subdivides in three categories, contagion, transmission and radiation), it employs the same mode of investigation that uses the Arithmétique, the Ppdc (lowest common denominator), in order to release an irreducible core from it, that it names the “operational core”, to be appropriate “with Halleux that the idea of transmutation was in germ in a thought which admitted the fundamental unit of the matter and which regarded any technique as a Mimesis of nature likely to join and to even exceed its model”. By this approach, it ends up discovering the wire of ARIANE, a recognizable unit structure in spite of the judicious smoke screens to cover it, structure which it restores in an anthology respecting " character fundamentally anhistoric of the alchimique" spirit;. By discovering the object melted in the Image of Epina L, Bonardel restores… another image of Épinal.

A celebrity until one does not wait in alchemical interpretation was Heidegger. And due, its expression, with the pretense completely foreign with the usual alchemical terminology (for the principle, to see the lower study: “The pure speculation like seeks in nonalchemical work”), remains, according to Bonardel, in conformity with the hermetic speculation: “Of all the Herméneute S contemporaries, Heidegger is probably that at which the hermetism, released from any traditional doctrinal reference, abroad with any logical formalization, finds its expression the most purified, as a way, and even as a simple trace of a possible way, meditation with listening to be it likely to occur through the étants”. One will recognize here the definition of the alchemy advanced by Bonardel (see the introduction of this article), in particular " mode of expression of a philosophy not to be it, but iteration between its states multiples" , which Heidegger names “the étants”.

Jung: psychoanalyze and alchemy

The description of a convergent symbolism alchemical in distant civilizations in time and space, also led the psychoanalyst Carl Gustav Jung to be interested in these contents as revealing of a form of Inconscient collective.

Object of alchemy

General information

The alchemists were supposed to seek the trade secret of the Philosopher's stone, or “philosopher's stone”, supposed being able to transmute the base metals into Or, or money. But behind hermetic texts made up of symbols hiding their direction with the layman, the alchemists were interested rather in the Transmutation of the heart, i.e. with the spiritual awakening. One speaks then about " mystical alchemy ". More radical still, the Ars Magna, another branch of alchemy, has as an aim the transmutation of the alchemist himself into a kind of superman to the quasi-unlimited capacity. Alchemy has neo-platonist aspects thus, separating high and pure materials their impure and corrupted equivalents. However, the alchemical search of the first times, that of the elixir, can be simply therapeutic; what explains the importance of Arab medicine in the development of alchemy. It is known indeed that the Arab doctors will develop a therapeutic complex, inventing the medications extremely sophisticated (without being necessarily effective), and of the processes of transformation of the natural products (like distillation, the Alambic being an invention of the Arab world). The philosopher stone, the elixir, these finalities of the alchemical attempts is also Panacée S, universal drugs. In this direction, even if alchemy is not a direct ancestor of chemistry, one observes at Paracelse a transition between alchemy and chemistry by what the Swiss doctor called Iatrochimie.

Alchemy was supposed to operate on a Materia preceded , First Matter, in order to obtain the philosopher stone able to carry out “projection”, i.e. the transformation of the base metals into gold.

Three principles found the metaphysics of alchemy: the salt , the sulfur and the mercury , corresponding respectively to the driving, emotional, and intellectual center.

The three phases of obtaining the salt are distinguished by the color which the matter takes progressively: work with the black, the white, the red. They correspond to three types of chemical handling: black (carbonization), red (incandescence by spontaneous ignition), white (repeated calcination and scrubbing).

It is by the extraction that one obtains the Soufre (alchemy) and by fermentation-distillation-correction, the mercury, salt being obtained by calcination. Note that the alchemists believed that while making burn or heat things, they would make them pure because they wanted to eliminate the phlogistique one, fluid which was “materially” heat. The “chemical weddings” whose result is the stone or the elixir operate between sulfur and salt by the mediation of mercury.

Alchemy at present continues to fascinate certain researchers. According to certain modern alchemists, it uses energies of the life to transmute metals; this energy would be drawn also from the alchemist himself. Thus only an intelligent living being could carry out alchemical operations. To want to automate the alchemical processes would not thus be used for nothing.

The Philosopher's stone

Speculations on the alchemical purpose

the Philosopher's stone like cosmogonic genesis

The alchemists speak commonly, at the beginning of work, of the black color, associated with Saturn, and primitive Chaos, " where the seeds of all things are confused and mélangées". To reorder this chaos was the mission of the alchemist, this is why those did not hesitate to call upon the biblical genesis.

the Philosopher's stone like chemical purpose: the Philosopher's stone

Results with the height of the theory?

Far from confining itself with simple speculations on the finality of this art, and with opposite course to an exclusively book knowledge, the alchemical literature contains interesting indications on what could be its intermediate or final practical aspects. Although it is often delicate, even impossible, to check the authenticity of these dires, it is advisable nevertheless to quote certain possibilities appearing in the works:

An increased clearness

It is advisable here to make an interesting connection with an old symbol, since authors as the Cosmopolitan bound alchemy with ancient philosophy. This symbol is the Owl, or the Chouette, the emblem of the Collection Budé of the editions “the Beautiful Letters”, which was the symbol of the Greek philosophers, who estimated to have the capacity of " to distinguish in the obscurité". On this subject, Bernard Husson recorded this capacity like a possible pragmatic prerogative of the alchemist: " This design is already explicitly evoked in several Sonnet S of the speech : " Whoever can taste its pure liquor and world, it feels to grow in its eyes a great clearness and to develop of all obscurité" " Also, when the clearness of the high knowledge decorates the spirit developed with the old fog, of vulgar doctrines, he sees all, and nothing is secret as well can he estre in the world as he ignore" . It is about a knowledge infused and immediate, illuminative and nonrational and discursive, sudden and instantanée".

Universal medicine

to see on this subject, Elixir of long life and Panacea

**the Body of the diamond-lightning .**

Mircéa Eliade highlighted the reports/ratios of the Yoga tantric with Western alchemy: " The Vajrayâna tantric aimed at getting a “diamond body”, incorruptible, withdrawn from becoming. Like the alchemist, the yogin operates transformations by the “substance”, and this one, in India, is the work of Prakrti or çakti. Yoga tantric thus amorçait fatally an alchemical prolongation: on the one hand while controlling the secrecies of the çakti, the yogin manages to control its “transformations”, and the transmutation of metals into gold is registered rather early among the traditional Siddhi; in addition, the “diamond body” of the vajrayanists, the Siddha-deha of the Hathayogin S is not without resemblance to the “body of glory” of the alchemists occidentaux" . Julius Evola gives a report on an interior fire, the fire of the " transformation of the burning flesh into torches which Enoch " undergoes; , which is " a fire coming from its own body which threatens of the dévorer". One is tempted here besides to make the bringing together with the " fire of the dedans" of Carlos Castaneda, Illumination which invade the body of Don Juan and those of its team when they left this world with their physical body. Evola insists of course the déconditionnant aspect of this function, without however that the external physical aspect is faded. In the tantric tradition, the body becomes a “Siddha-rûpa”, body of the diamond-lightning; in Tibetan it “Ja-is read” (Body rainbow).

Some words on the legend of the immortal ones

Faust

The Count of Saint-Germain

It is not the place to try a biography of the count, already object of quantities of works, the majority whimsical. Some words will be enough, for the remainder, to refer to the quoted works. Known in France in 1758, following business connection with marquis of Marigny (brother of Mrs. de Pompadour which will introduce later the count to Louis XV in the apartment of the duchess of Chateauroux), the count of Saint-Germain appears in the history in 1745, date before which to date there does not exist any accredited historical testimony. In second half of the 18th century, historical testimonys are sufficiently many and reliable to attest the existence of the count, although his name is a forgery, as it will say it besides itself. Its reputation will be extremely contrasted, between the whimsical swindler and the brilliant artist. It will be then the blackout between 1773 and 1776, date on which it reappears in Leipzig, under the name of the Count de Welldone, where the court of Dresden tried to benefit from its culture of " chimiste". It is at that time that its reputation began from " magicien" and of " holder; of elixir of long vie". He dies officially on February 27th, 1784 with Eckernfoerde. It is at this moment which the “legend begins”. In spite of the mention of his death on the parochial register, Maurice Magre indicates that no tomb existed in Eckernfoerde with its name. Many witnesses, some satisfied, others less, others still whimsical, false or built of all parts, will see it episodically appearing, creating this impenetrable historico-legendary fusion where it is as trying to rock in blind adhesion as in systematized skepticism.

More interesting, and more in connection with this article, “traditionalist is the approach”. According to Heim, the Count of Saint-Germain belonged to the brotherhood rosicrucian, as well as strict observance of Germany " founded by the baron de Hund, who succeeded Marschall de Bieberstein like large provincial Master of the VII° province of the rite écossais" . It is also the position of Stanislas de Guaita. However, so De Guaita reduces the enchantments of the Count of Saint-Germain to a simple capacity of poetic and charismatic storyteller - endowed for the violin but surely not immortal, he sees it as the frightening outpost of a project of which it is advisable to say a word: The thesis of Guaita leaves the principle that on ashes about the temple reconstituted a secret masonry, on the basis of cabin on 2 levels, whose objective, multi-secular revenge, were to thrive to end up decapitating the royalty, a intention which will have spent five centuries to be carried out. It is based on certain indiscretions of the history which preceded the event. On the basis of this assumption, the count of Saint-Germain would have been only one of the emissary preparing the ground, and its `gold' would have been only the investment of the colossal fortune of the cabins. Jules Doinel also concludes in this direction, although, contrary to Guaita, it readily lends to the count all his panoply of supernatural prerogatives: " There are strong reasons to believe that the count of Saint-Germain was one of the most powerful demons missionaries of Satan It had been seen has several places at the same time It dominates the occultism of the 18th failing century. All that there is the hostile one with the church and monarchy groups around him. The cabins multiply, enlightened pullulate. Mesmer, Saint Martin's day, Puységur, Cagliostro, Weishaupt, Cazotte are as many black stars. But especially it prepares the revolution, visits Voltaire Vieilli, slips at the court and tests its seductions there on all and on all, arrives to the queen and advises to him the innocent frivolity which will be to him fatale". A similar thesis was supported by the Tastavin historian: " The famous Saint-Germain of the sect of enlightened was the organizer of the coup d'etat of 1762 which initially cost the emperor Pierre III the throne, the life ensuite".

If the maconnic membership of the count of Saint-Germain to the network of the time hardly any more poses of doubts, remains to study its quality of alchemist. For that, 3 approaches of study were considered:

Its education: this original and daring approach, directed towards one unknown period of the biography of Saint-Germain, his childhood, was tried by Paul Chacornac, who appears rather convincing, and, to date, was not refuted: He concludes that the most probable origin of the Count of Saint-Germain would be the Spanish nobility, thesis which Heim will validate later. By carrying out steppings on recurring declarations of the Count of Saint-Germain, compared to some " vides" corresponding history, Chacornac arrives at the following conclusion: The count of Saint-Germain would have been the son of Amirante de Castille and the queen dowager of Spain, Marie-Anne de Neubourg, relegated in exile, after the death of Amirante, as a safety measure, Philippe V, of Tolède to Bayonne in 1706. Chacornac extrapolates the birth date of the count about 1698. As of his more young age, the count is in escape, his head put at price; in spite of its “illegitimacy”, it can claim under " Prince d' Espagne". It goes down from the famous line of Médina-Céli. The dukes of medinaceli lived in the castle of the city of the same name, castle which was replaced by the ducal palate. This village abounds with alchemical representations (see photo opposite), which gives a serious indication on the culture of this family. There is to date no certainty on the passage of the count of Saint-Germain in this place, although the local rumor leans in this direction. In continuation, Chacornac puts forth the assumption that the count, young child, were deposited for his education by the count de Cifuentès, with the monastery of Montserrat, high mystical place of Spain, " school bénédictine very devoted to the chimie". There too, no possibility of checking, the files of the monastery were burned by the Napoleonean army in 1811. Nevertheless, one can rely on the emblem of the monastery, visible outside the Gothic cloister, a saw dividing a mountain in two, symbol which any alchemist would identify with the separation of matéria PRIMA. Others possibiltés were advanced by Chacornac, as the influence of the large-duke of Tuscany, or the indirect infuence of Cosme III, with its experiments on the nature of diamond.

Its writings:

Its declarations:

Remain the crucial question: Did the count of Saint-Germain become immortal, and, if necessary, which was its form of immortality? History not allowing to decide, within sight of inextricable the imbroglio of contradictory testimonys and interests concerned, and the history not being competent to come to a conclusion about a purely esoteric thesis, some scholars came to a conclusion about a “traditional” plan strictly. Such was the case of Chacornac, as a whole followed in its conclusions by Heim: Heim, which takes again the thesis of Chacornac, without seeking to invalidate it, quotes 3 forms of immortality:

- " The persistence of an individuality in the same body envelope beyond the human existence normale"
- " The persistence of an aggregate of psychic elements in several successive body forms and even simultanées"
- " the persistence of an individuality in the subtle world without passing by body death, the body form being transmuée"

According to the analyst of these 2 authors, the count of Saint-Germain belonged to the second category

The immortal ones in the Chinese tradition

It is dynasty of Song which the most important methods of alchemical work reached us. The most fundamental text, though now mainly lost, is Xiuzhen (culture of truth), compilation started towards the end of the IX° century. This compilation, as well as other related texts, defined alchemy as a whole of precepts (gymnastic, respiratory, sexual) intended to nourish the " principle vital" , preceding a perfect symbiosis between alchemy and medicine. The zhenren, true man, become the top pyramidal of a scale of longevity, and can live " 10000 sui" (1 sui = 360 days), according to the principle: " If the original breath remains, then the body too. If the body remains, then the spirit too. Once these 3 principles are established, then my vital force remains in me and not in the ciel".

Methods

Agents of the alchemical theater

As a esoteric Knowledge, the alchemical texts have the characteristic to be coded. It is a question of a Of knowing which is transmitted only under certain conditions. The codes employed by the former alchemists were intended to prevent the laymen from reaching to their knowledge. The use of a voluntarily obscure poetic language, in charge with allegories and figures rhetorics, and of polyphony (see languages of the birds) had the aim of holding the access to knowledge with those which would have intellectual qualities to decipher the enigmas posed by the authors and the Sagesse not to let itself mislead by the many traps that these texts conceal.

The obscure agent

The first steps in the alchemical search are done in a morbid environment where the corpses are spanned, the corbels are crossed and one breathes the stinking odor of the putrefaction. One could speak about Satanisme, if however one could take his distances compared to the usual cultural understanding of this word, a primary education antagonism with the Christianisme, or a fashion for rebellious teenager. Satan is expressly quoted by Fulcanelli which establishes to him correspondences with Saturn, Osiris, (see paragraph `the Philosopher's stone like cosmogonic genesis') as for the attributes determined by the color of this phase, the Noir, is associated with the Mort: “It is on this stone that Jesus built his church. And the medieval Francs-maçon S followed the divine example. But before being cut to be used as a basis for the work of Gothic art, as well as to the philosophical work of art, one often gave to the stone rough, impure, material, coarse, the image of the devil”.

The simple visit of these macabre places is insufficient; The alchemical murder is obligatory, or else one does not reach at the following stage. “It is necessary to kill sharp for ressusciter the it dead one”, old alchemical proverb city by Fulcanelli, which illustrates the dialog of the alchemist wandering with the monster captive of the obscure cave: “It is necessary that you hear that I am descended from the celestial areas and fell ici-bas, in these caves of the ground. I do not wish anything more than to go back there. And the means this of making, it is that you kill me, and then that you me ressuscites, and of the instrument that you will kill me, you will ressusciteras me. Like known as the white dove, that which killed me will revive me”.

This principle was transposed at the chemical level as of the school from Alexandria: " We have a “letter of Ostanès with Pétasios “, which was deliberately written in an obscure style. It relates to the manufacture of divine water, by carrying out various operations in a Alambic out of glass produces It keep silent living it and ressuscite it dead One ms Arab, entitled “the 12 chapters by Ostanès the philosopher, on the Philosopher's stone”, deserves some comments: “Among the epithet S which are allotted to him, one finds: running water, eternal water, the fire which consumes, the tender stone, the sharp one, the fugitive one, supreme glory, the degraded ignominie As it is expensive for that which knows it. Each day and everywhere, this cry is heard: O presses researchers, takes, kills to me then burns me to me, because then I will live again and I will enrich whoever killed me”. The initiatory concept of the tests S and the death-rebirth is applied to the alchemical bodies during their transformation the assertion concerning the ignored Omniprésence Water and of Pierre was a commonplace throughout the history of the alchimie".

This phase, mysterious with the Layman, was variously expressed by the alchemists, of chemistry until the Contes. Bonardel made of it a collection in a chapter named “Nigrum Nigrius Nigro”. Let us quote here a wink with ancient philosophy, formulations pointing out work `generation and corruption' of Aristote: “It is not possible that it is made any generation without corruption”, or a homage to old: “Avicenne, treating moisture and of all its effects, known as that one sees initially some blacknesses This is why the old wise ones says that the form and the matter relieved of their force first and filled with putrefaction will be seen among same darkness shaking to the king of the ground that they will thus intend to shout: ' That which will repurchase me constraint of this corruption must live with me with perpetuity, and reign glorious in clearness over my royal seat'. ”.

This myth of a light (the alchemists also speak about separation), of a gold, a son, a water, a fire, a safety, of a redemption, preserved in darkness, a darkness which does not intend to release it, or captive of the stinking matter and immonde, is truly universal. With the light, the alchemists will be able to substitute “Wire for it”, residing in power within “the virgin who must give birth to One cannot better define the direction esoteric of our black virgins; it appear the primitive Earth”. Canseliet expresses it in terms chymic: “Such is well our manure, that the philosophers indicated by the black sulfur expressions, tomb of the king, corbel, Saturn… They estimated it justifiably, like a gift of the creator, and they affirmed that, without an inspiration of the sky, one could never recognize, in this disinherited, repulsive magma of aspect, the Gift of God”. The old texts, such as for example in the Gnosis, spoke about a captive light: “Darkness is a frightening water; the light and the breath were attracted there and took the nature of this element there. Darkness implements all the springs to retain in them the glare and the spark of the light with the good odor of the Pneuma”.

Coomaraswamy associates the original murder with the doctrines of the sacrifice, and believes in the universality of the myth that it distinguishes in the Rig-Véda: “Satan is commonly conceived like a nahash or a dragon One can show, according to Rig-Véda, that God in the ténèbre is designed in a form which is neither angelica, nor human, but animal, in particular like a snake or a dragon the creative act involves the Mutilation, or the transformation of the snake. The determination and the identification of this paramount unit are considered on the one hand like a voluntary sacrifice, and other as obtained by the violence exerted by the desire of life of the powers of the light That which studies the Mythologie, the Folklore S and the Fairy tales will find in these principles an invaluable means to recognize and to bring closer the various forms which this universal Mythe takes If the husband is obscure when it wears clothing of his wife, itself becomes resplendent when she takes off her dark dress. This separation of the sky and the ground carried out by the sacrifice is the essential act of creation. It when sacrificing it is done an offering that the powerful Sky-Father tears off entreinte”. This mythological constant, with a demon, or an obscure matter, imprisoning a latent principle, was associated by Eliade so that it calls, in Eastern mythology, the " Gods lieurs"

Agents in the classicism chymic

Attention not to confuse the allegorical symbol with the chemical symbol. Alchemical mercury is not chemical mercury.

Materia preceded, mercury, sulfur and salt is the principal agents.

A restricted group actors

Matter with the thousand names

Thousand names but never the good, or, at least, as say the alchmists, never the name in the " language vulgaire". To prevent that this name is offered to the laymen, it carries all possible names, and will not appear, under its vulgar name, in any work of alchemy. But the difficulties do not stop there. In order to make the bag of nodes even more impenetrable, the alchemists voluntarily omitted to specify that the aforementioned matter changed and was never the same one according to the degree of advance of the operations. Thus the same name can qualify two completely different “objects” or two “subjects”. The subject of the ones is not necessarily that of the others.

Rene Alleau distinguished this subtlety perfectly: " The general information of the authors not giving any precision on the “subject of wise”, nor on the first operations of the philosopher's stone, this systematic omission causes to cause an inextricable confusion in the spirit of the layman who confuses the raw material and the first mercury, or common mercury. Almost all the treaties start indeed at the beginning of the second work, and seem to suppose completed the first preparation. In this direction, the enigma of the raw material is knowingly covered by the enigma with Mercury, so that, even if this one is guessed, one discovers only the terms of the problem arising from that-là".

Fulcanelli, for example, gets busy to multiply the indications, but its indications seem to relate to the initial subject, within the meaning of the first operation, although he informs the reader of the trap relating to the state of the matter. Synésius rather seems to describe the matter in its advanced state. The matter with the miles names, term employed by Francoise Bonardel, remains a enigma at double bottom. This author, an academic érudite as regards alchemy, summarizes the problems as follows: “Because if the force of alchemy lies well in the only mercury of the philosophers, as proclaimed it very early Albert Large the (1193-1280), it is that the substance mercurielle, par excellence protean, is then considered either as a materia PRIMA in which is latent all virtualities (of which that of sulfur), or, after preparation, like double mercury (or hermaphrodite) in which was consumed and fixed the union of the 2 principles”.

The transmutation

The transmutation literally

Although certain famous alchemists claimed to make a success of the operation of Transmutation into Or, it is admitted today that it is chemically impossible but physically realizable. The track is however not completely abandoned, work on the cold Fusion continues although discussed. Gold like other metals being simple elements (see the periodic Table of the elements), only a nuclear Reaction, modifying the cores Atom S themselves, would allow the production of Or. The cost of this Transmutation is, with the currently known techniques, much higher than the value of produced gold.

It does not remain about it less than alchemy fascinated philosophical and scientists of all times, such Roger Bacon (1220 - 1292), Paracelse (1493 - 1541) or Isaac Newton (1643 - 1727).

Among the most famous alchemists, it is advisable to quote Nicolas Flamel (1330 - 1417), which one claimed that he drew an immense fortune from his experiments of Transmutation. This fortune would have been used to build many hospitals and churches. However, the origin of its richness remains mysterious and, after its death, of many people sought her Philosopher's stone in vain. Its tomb with the father lachaise with bets is hagiographal representing the process alchimiquet.

The transmutation in its mythological base

Speculative alchemy

Terminology and methods of expression

The presupposed popular ones leave think that the descriptive terminology of alchemy is reduced to a semantics owner in parachemical matter (sulfur, mercury, salt, metals, Antimoine etc). Very often, are not classified of category “alchemy” the doctrines supported by a different vocabulary. It is there one of the greatest errors than make the laymen.

2 distinct reasons are found, though perhaps complementary, for which the alchemical texts are also impenetrable:

1/ An objective of natural selection

In its broadest direction, alchemy wants to be descriptive great principles of the universe. The alchemists name themselves “only true philosophers”, and work in an absolutely élitiste spirit, estimating that only the worthy and penetrating spirits must have access to the results of their investigations. Thus the great principles of alchemy are not only coded, but take also multiple forms of expression, even are strewn with deliberated errors.

In all the history of humanity, one finds texts which follow the descriptive methods of medieval alchemy, the latter, like being indicated besides in the history, which a girl of the aforesaid texts. Besides the authors arrived at the comprehension of art like to sail on remote references to the pretense of the parachemical concepts. An informed spirit becomes perfectly able to recognize in ancient texts the principles that itself explains under a very different Terminologie.

This principle of multiple expression pushed the stopper very far, so much so that it interlaced its supports, for example mythology, with the history. Besides that poses a true problem with the Historien S, Théologie NS, Exégète S, because while giving a significance Allégorique to the texts concerned, it calls from there into question the historical authenticity (if the exit of Egypt orchestrated by Moïse represents the descritif one of a principle, it is the historical existence of Brace which is threatened). Curiously, the Archeology sorrow very often to confirm a historical authenticity (and even manages from there to refute it) relative to a text asserted by alchemy like allegory (in the example of Brace, one knows now that old Egypt did not have slaves Sémite S)

2/ An unexpected help: obligation to rock in a state of consciousness modified

It is there an assumption which was very seriously considered by certain analysts: the alchemical talk, mixing the poetic character and, at the same time, the technical precision of the texts, the whole in protean expressions, would oblige the reader to take distances compared to its surrounding culture, by reports/ratios with the “methods of time”, to rock in a kind of state of consciousness modified, without which its chances of comprehension would be quasi-null:

According to Michel Bittern: " The alchemical language is an instrument of an extreme flexibility, which makes it possible to describe operations with precision all while locating them compared to a general design of reality. It is what makes its difficulty and its interest. The reader who wants to include/understand the use of only one word in a precise passage can reach that point only while reconstituting little by little an old mental architecture. He obliges thus with the alarm clock of the areas of conscience obscurcies".

According to Rene Alleau: " The alchemists veiled not without relevant reasons of which one of most important had to be than the neophyte was in the logical obligation to reform his understanding the profane while yielding with a series of excercices mental domninés by coherence and on-rational of the symbols no moment, alchemy does not separate it the transformations from the conscience of the operator of those of the matière"

Works containing a description of the alchemical process

The majority of the works of alchemy base itself on at least one of the supports below:

Accounts epic

Example: The King Arthur, dying, is transferred onto the island of Avalon where will be carried out its resurrection. Description: The passage of work to the black with work with the white would represent.

Greek mythology

Example: In Callimaque, Astéria, the celestial island, becomes Délos, the floating island. Description: The viscous matter, very invaluable, floating would represent on surface, that the alchemist must carefully separate. The voyage of the Argonautes, another example, whose objective is the appropriation of the Golden Fleece, is one of the fundamental texts to which the alchemists refer.

Greek philosophy

Certain philosophical texts, before incomprehensible, take an unexpected relief under the alchemical reading (example: Héraclite, saying “the fire which comes will separate any thing” or work from Aristote Of the generation and corruption )

Religious texts

The New Testament is often quoted by the alchemists (example: the star which guides the Magi represents the sign who will lead to the child philosophal), as well as the Old Testament (the separation of water of the Genesis or the crossing of the Red Sea by Moïse is the principle of the initial separation of the elements).

Popular tales

Certain initiates would have encrusted with great alchemical secrecies in popular tales. For example, the epopee of Pinocchio (which one also finds during in the Old Testament - Jonas and the whale) recalls the whole of work, until the Philosopher's stone (the puppet which becomes boy). Or, " White pink and red rose " brothers Jacob and Wilhelm Grimm.

The popular folklore and traditions

The wafer of the kings of the Epiphany would be an excellent example of popular ultra expression of a fundamental alchemical principle (see on this subject the analysis of Fulcanelli). It would describe the capture of the element redeemer within paramount chaos.

Poetry

In particular works of Gerard de Nerval and Rimbaud particularly Vowels (1871).

The pure speculation like seeks in nonalchemical work

One should not therefore thinking that all is alchemy, very far is necessary some. The texts respecting the hermetic code completely are rare, because the initiates were rare. Generally, in fact texts vulgar, unspecified were used and in which only some insertions of an initiatory nature were made. It is then necessary to have at least the level of amateur informed to be able to suspect them then of separating them.

There is extremely to bet besides that good number of texts were not detected yet like resulting from alchemical knowledge, because the investigators on the matter were always very reduced, being given the level of necessary culture high. Nevertheless, a reader of talent could always discover a treasure carefully hidden by old which would bring new lights on Article.

A word also, very important, on the nonintentional alchemical expression. Alchemy being a description of the Universe, it is perfectly realizable, for an not-alchemist completely being unaware of on the matter, to arrive, by an approach of a different angle which would be clean for him, in a description in conformity with the alchemical tradition. It “would be enough” for that its approach leads to description, or at least with the presentiment, of a “universal truth”.

Example in philosophy, Albert Caraco describes the “change of sensitivity” as being safety of the man (what corresponds besides exactly to the base of the doctrines of Carlos Castaneda, the movement of the point of assembly). We find here, by analogy, the “alchemical Solve”, which is the base of the beginning of “Work”. Naturally, only the brains of an exceptional capacity of penetration, or those which were initiated, even initiated themselves on old texts, are able to be included in this category. Far from being to neglect, this aspect of the alchemical expression is perhaps most important of all, because it makes it possible to place a pragmatic and comprehensible concept on an absolutely impenetrable traditional terminology.

In this category, one can also put some of the new supports of expression (cinema, cartoons). In the first shutter of Matrix , the simulator of matrix, where the drive of Néo is carried out, where one can violate the rules (physical), we find exactly the analogy of the active matter, sulfurous, which will fertilize the passive matter, mercurielle. In film of Stanley Kubrick, 2001, the odyssey of space , one finds the screen of the ancient epopee (that Joseph Campbell analyzed in the heroes are eternal ): departure of the hero, fights against the mythological monster, stage which alchemy compares to the production of the solvent (see Fulcanelli), initiation of the hero, return of the hero to his region of origin.

Operative alchemy

Mythological laboratory at the alchemical laboratory

The mythological laboratory in hermetism alexandrine

Hermetism alexandrine considered that the alchemical transformation was to take place on the son of God, Monogène. These doctrines come us from some Nikothéos. But it is Zosime which is most explicit, on the conceptualization of the laboratory relating to the son of God, as a principle: " In fact, the external man is a bond like says it Hésiode, the bond by which Zeus blocked Prométhée. Then Zeus sent another bond, Pandore, that the Hebrews named Eve. At one moment, Prométhée resembles the heart, another with intellect, another still with the flesh. Indeed, Us, our God, declares: “The son of God shows himself as it wishes it with each man”. And to date and until the end of the world, it comes to those which are his in secrecy, advises them to separate them from their Adam who plugs them. Thus from it went away, until comes Daïmon, imitator and perfidious, by naming itself the son of God. But they become wiser since they receive in them that which is really the son of God, they deliver their own Adam to him so that it kills it (1) It exists 2 kinds of convenient dyeings: one of it, that of the substances, let us daïmons them which supervise each place transmitted it to their priests. the other, those of the pure and natural dyeings, was consigned by Hermes on the stêlaï. As for the grounds themselves, Hermes their gave a secret name, “stable”, and revealed the various colors. These dyeings act naturally, but they are under the yoke of the terrestrial Daïmon S. However, if somebody after being initiated drives out these daïmons, it will obtain the desired result (2) These dyeings have then faculty to deteriorate large or an minor amount owing to the fact that one as well obtains them in the furnaces of glass as in large or small crucibles, and in various instruments via fires or the forces of those (3) " . He concludes by his " design of alchemy idéale" , whose finalization would be " Baptème of Kratêr" (see on this subject the paragraph on Graal).

Vulcan (mythology) Cauldron of Gundestrup

Alchemical laboratory at the Chemical laboratory

The chemical laboratory must enormously with alchemy. So much so that some qualified the alchemy of proto-chemistry. It is not stripped of base, even if the object of alchemy (philosopher stone and the transmutation of metals) and that of chemistry (the study of the composition, reactions and chemical and physical properties of the matter.) are really distinct. Techniques and ustensils of alchemy, used by scientists (newton, etc.) before the scientific method, continues to be used nowadays. Among these large alchemists who contributed to chemistry comptemporaine, it is advisable to quote Marie Jewish the to which have attribute the invention of the Bain-marie, of the Kerotakis and the Tribikos.

Alchemy also allowed discoveries of new materials and proceeded, such as Johann Friedrich Böttger Co-D-inventor of the Porcelaine.

Finally alchemy with also assured perpetuation instruments, the such Still, largely used in the alchemical laboratory.

Dry roads, or royal roads

The wet process, long and tiresome

Or drinkable gold.

Appendices

Random links:

Godiva | Felix Vallotton | Matthes Bender | Nello and the dog of Flandres | Radenkovac