Newbie Question
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I know I could search this forum for my answers but I thought if I could get some of the more experienced Alchemists here to define the answer in one place it would help me and hopefully others, greatly.
Would you summarize what Alchemy is?
Thank you,
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Alchemy, in its broadest sense, is the practice of transmuting base metals into Gold, or transmuting man into 'more than man'. In Qabalistic terms, it is the elevation of man to the Sephirah ha-Tiphareth & in Magickal terms it is the experience of the Knowledge & Conversation of one's Holy Guardian Angel which, in eastern terms, is the equivalent of Samhadi.
616
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93 Cliff Oth.
Yes, in it's broadest sense it is all of what KRVB MMShCh desfribed.
There is more to the spiritual side of Alchemy though.
Turning base metals into Gold, etc. Are ciphered terms for what the Alchemist is looking for, or trying to achieve.Look into the mantra [Om mani padme hom], or in other words, "Hail the jewel in the lotus"
In a more sophisticated sense It refers to Tantra, and/or sex magick.
The philosophers stone. The great Elixir, and Amrita.There are, however, many different opinions on what "Alchemy" is.
This is just one:-)93 93/93.'.
James*
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There are two separate alchemical traditions, the Egyptian and the Chinese.
The Egyptian tradition is what we generally know as Alchemy today. It worked on two practical levels, but thought they were the same - metallurgy and organic chemistry. Through a combination of both they hoped to:
- Transmute metals from one element to another, hoping to make gold.
- Achieve immortality.
- Cure all diseases.
Of these three, the first was most important, the Chinese concerned themselves with immortality more.
Early alchemical texts have little or no spiritual content, but over the millenia the idea grew that in order for transformation and purification to take place in the substances being handled, a parallel process had to happen in the alchemist. Alchemy literally means "The Egyptian Art" (from the Arabic term for Egypt - Al Khem - the Black Land). Alchemical texts were translated first into Greek, then into Arabic, and then into modern tongues. All concepts of "spiritual alchemy" are later, any connection with Tantra a mis-use of terms (though the content of "tantric alchemy" and similar mixtures is valid).
Rather than quibble about terms, nowadays very few "alchemists" actually work with metals with regards to turning base metals into gold, though alchemical medicine is still being produced. It is also important to realise that when practical results were successful, they got hived off into Chemistry, leaving alchemy only with things difficult or impossible to achieve. The principles of brewing, distillation of spirits, dyeing cloth and creating perfumes were all originally alchemical (Comte de Saint Germain made a fortune from cloth dyes).
Jung realised that certain processes were encoded in alchemical symbolism, but the sexual/magical aspects have only recently been experimented with. Whether these were really there, say, two centuries ago, never mind three millenia, is speculation, not fact - but it works. So even if someone reads into a text "use the products of a man having sex with a woman having her period" when the old text was just hiding a commercial process like "mix Mercury with Rust" it is the result that matters, not the historicity.
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I would add to the above that because any form of chemistry involves mixing substances and, usually, applying heat, almost any chemical process can be reads as a sex manual with the right (or wrong) mindset. Take this interpretation:
"Lie your partner down, inflame her by light corporal punishment, then roughly enter her, have sex vigorously for many hours, drain off the fluids and, when drunk after five days, you will attain a very different level of consciousness"
Original (I'm making this up though):
"Let the opal be heated in the dew, softened and then broken when the opal becomes the onyx, keep for five days and imbibe. Thus shall the delirium of Demeter be achieved."
Fair enough?
It's how you make beer.