Alchemy is perhaps the most misrepresented, misunderstood and yet influential modes of thought in recent millennia. Developed alongside Hermeticism, alchemy is a methodology by which the soul of the practitioner is "transmuted" into a higher form through a process of repeated distillation, reconstitution and observation. This very process, while considered by many to be esoteric, would later become the Scientific Method and the impetus for both the Western world's Renaissance and "Enlightenment".
I myself am not a particularly dogmatic individual and do not subscribe to any organized religion, but many have confronted me about my personal beliefs and thus I decided to create a series dedicated to refining this much-obscured method of thinking. Together you and I will go through the 7 Alchemical Processes in the hopes of reaching a much higher level of understanding than we both held once, just as our ancestors had done before us. The process of alchemical transmutation, which will be surprisingly familiar to many, is as such:
- Calcination
- Dissolution
- Separation
- Conjunction
- Fermentation
- Distillation
- Coagulation
This first lecture will attempt to summarize the idea of Calcination - the reduction of raw matter through heat. Not only will we discuss the typically over-generalized history of alchemy and its ideological companion, Hermeticism, but the hope is to also greatly expand one's worldview and historical perspective so as to better understand the concepts to come. Not every idea presented herein will be comfortable to everyone, but I assure you is based in solid history, research and the dedicated work of thousands before me.
With that said, let's get Calcinated....
Hermeticism is a religious tradition that arose alongside Christianity and Gnosticism early in the Common Era. Unlike these contemporary religions with their own prophets and newly developed methods of thinking, however, Hermeticism claims its roots extend all the way back to the dawn of civilization itself.
Such claims of antiquity stem from the fact that Hermeticism was actually an amalgamation of ancient Egyptian and Greek philosophical, metaphysical and scientific ideas that had been passed down through countless generations in the ancient past. While sections of the famous Corpus Hermetica were written by Greeks at around 300 CE, many of the ideas found within date back much further than this. For example the use of spells and doctrines for the transmutation of the soul (perhaps the most fundamental principle of Hermetics) had been developed in Egyptian Book of the Dead as early as 1,800 BCE. Worship of Thoth, the central deity of Hermeticism, dates back to between 6,000 and 3,000 BCE.(1)
As the civilizations of Greece developed around 1,000 BCE they began to exchange ideas with their Egyptian neighbors across the Mediterranean Sea. Greek society at this time was without a deep history of its own and thus it became deeply inspired from and influenced by the Egyptians. By the time of Pythagoras in 500 BCE it was fairly common for the brightest and boldest of Greeks to travel to Egypt and partake in their "mystery schools" as a form of higher education. Some of the greatest thinkers in Greek history who learned from these mystery schools include not just Pythagoras but also the likes of Democritus,(2) Plato and Aristotle. Such was the respect for the Egyptians that even the most prolific Greek, Alexander the Great, constructed the world's most complete library in Egypt rather than his native land.(3)
In this time Egypt was known Khemet and eventually these teachings would become known as "Al-Khemet - Aramaic for "from the Black Land". Not only would this become the origin of the word "alchemy" but also the term "black magick". In the beginning "black" magick referred not to the moral alignment of the practitioner or work, but rather the black sands of the Nile for which the Egyptians themselves had named their country.
By the time of Plato in the 4th Century BCE these mystery schools began to find their way into mainstream Greek society. Plato is widely credited as having introduced the classical elements of Earth, Wind, Fire, Water and Spirit. While the classical elements were prevalent in the Western world as Pythagoras' "regular solids", these same ideas were known to the ancients since pre-history in what we would recognize as dice.(4)
In addition to the regular solids figures like Pythagoras brought ideas such as metempsychosis, or the "transmigration of the soul", which would become essential to Hermetic and alchemical processes. Figures like Plato and Aristotle would build upon these concepts including such ideas like transmigration of the soul in one's own lifetime rather than solely in the afterlife. All in all, however, such ideas were fairly commonplace in Egyptian mystery religions long before Greek philosophers planted these seeds into Western thought.
Before long the Greeks began to homogenize their religious beliefs with the Egyptians. Thoth, the Egyptian god of wisdom, writing, messages, mathematics and essentially alchemy, became almost synonymous with the Greek god Hermes. So strong was the similarity that by 300 BCE the Greek Empire had successfully renamed the Egyptian city dedicated to Thoth as Hermopolis. During this time there are even references to Thoth-Hermes as a combination of both figures that was worshiped there.(5)
During the turn of the Common Era the Greeks would develop this syncretic concept further into what became known as Hermes Trismegistus (or Thrice-Great Hermes). These would also be the formative years of the Hermetica, a series of writings which were then attributed to Hermes Trismegistus. This choice to credit Hermes or Thoth with the authorship of a text was fairly common, however, as during this time Egyptians credited Thoth with all writing, philosophy, science and magick as many Greeks did with Hermes. The first mention of Hermes Trismegistus specifically and his body of work seems to come from the Greek philosopher Plutarch in the 1st Century CE.(6)
The Hermetica itself became the core principles of the Hermeticists. Hermes Trismegistus taught that by knowing the "Three Parts of the Wisdom of the Whole Universe" one could transmute the soul to a higher form. The Three Parts of the Wisdom were alchemy, astrology and theurgy, or the act of evoking gods.
What exactly is meant by a higher form of soul may be up for debate, but Greeks, Egyptians and Hermeticists alike were profoundly influenced by ideas of reincarnation and the idea that souls are able to persist after death. The Book of the Dead, for instance, is a personalized set of instructions for an individual to carry out in their afterlife so as to return in a superior form without getting lost in the land of the dead (or "Duat"). It was commonly believed by these cultures that deeds performed in life had influence on where the individual's soul was destined and that positive outcomes in the afterlife could only be readily attained through good works and diligent improvement of one's self while alive.
One of the first individuals to be truly identified as an "alchemist" was a Greek by the name of Zosimos of Panopolis. Zosimos lived in 300 CE and is credited with a text known as the Cheirokmeta, or "things made by hand". The Cheirokmeta included some of the earliest references to the transmutation of metals which would later become a hallmark of alchemy in Medieval Europe. What many still don't realize, however, is that such transmutation was a metaphor for the transmutation of the soul.
Here are some words to demonstrate credited to Zosimos himself:
The symbol of chemistry is drawn from the creation by its adepts, who cleanse and save the divine soul bound in the elements, and who free the divine spirit from its mixture with the flesh.
As the sun is, so to speak, a flower of the fire and (simultaneously) the heavenly sun, the right eye of the world, so copper when it blooms—that is when it takes the color of gold, through purification—becomes a terrestrial sun, which is king of the earth, as the sun is king of heaven.
Source: Modern Psychology: November 1940-July 1941: Alchemy, vol. 1-2
Zosimos is also crucial to the history of alchemy in that he makes one of the earliest recorded references to its connections with Judaism, including that the Jews had obtained knowledge of alchemical processes from the Egyptians.(7) Later this shared knowledge between the Greeks, Egyptians and Jews would become a much more significant area of study for alchemists.
Despite the interconnectedness of these cultures, between the Classical Hellenistic Greek period and the Italian Renaissance many Western scholars have a large gap when describing alchemy and Hermeticism. By all means, however, these may have been some of the most active years in terms of alchemical experimentation and development and are critical when discussing the overall subject.
Khalid ibn Yazid, a legendary figure in Middle-Eastern history, is credited with being the first Muslim alchemist during the 7th Century CE. Yazid began what would become a long tradition of Muslim efforts to translate and preserve alchemical writings.(8)
Around 100 years later Abu Bakr ibn Zakariya al-Razi wrote an original and highly influential treatise on the creation of medicines titled Sirr al-asrar, or Secret of Secrets. Al-Razi was not only an alchemist but is considered to this day to be the father of pediatrics and is one of the most prolific doctors from antiquity.(9)
Soon after, at around the 10th Century CE, Muhammed ibn Umail al-Tamimi began also composing original works on alchemy. Ibn Umail was perhaps the most clearly influenced by the Egyptians and directly references them in his texts.(10) Perhaps Ibn Umail's most prolific text was al-Ma al-Waraqi wa'l-Arḍ an-Najmiya, or The Silvery Water and the Starry Earth. European writers had translated this text into Latin and it became a foundational part of alchemy in Medieval Europe.(11)
Despite the efforts of the Muslim alchemists, however, Europeans would largely be unaware of alchemy as a legitimate practice until the Italian Renaissance. In 1460 CE at the behest of Cosimo de Medici, the most powerful and wealthy individual in Italy aside from the Pope, scholars began to translate the Corpus Hermetica from Greek. So important was the translation of these texts that Cosimo demanded it be completed before his scholars could translate the works of Plato.(12)
By the beginning the 15th Century a Swiss doctor known as Paracelsus began to use the Hermetic principles to formulate medicines and argued that this was the ultimate purpose of alchemy. Paracelsus is credited with coining the term "spagyric" which roughly translates from Greek to "I extract".(13) Spagyrics involves the use of the 3 Primal Alchemical Properties - Salt, Mercury and Sulphur - in various combinations to extract and distill essences of plant or mineral material. Paracelsus' work in the field of spagyrics and medicine earned him a great deal of respect from within the medical science community and his remedies were even directly referenced in the 17th Century by the Royal College of Physicians in London. To this day Paracelsus is also credited with inventing chemical therapy and urinalysis as well as developing a biochemical theory of digestion.(14)
Soon after in the 17th Century CE arguably the most eminent alchemist of all time was born - Sir Isaac Newton. Despite being known for his Principia Mathematica which laid the foundation for nearly all modern science and mathematics, Isaac Newton's true passion was for the study of alchemy and Hermetic tradition. One of the most famous examples of this passion was Newton's successful recreation of Diana's Tree - an alchemical experiment which demonstrates how silver can "grow" into a tree-like form using a solution of mercury and silver nitrate.(15)
At around the same time as Newton a tradition built upon Hermeticism known as Rosicrucianism began to take hold of European society. Rosicrucianism was itself an amalgamation of Christian and Hermetic beliefs and practices that also borrowed a great deal from the Jewish mystic system known as Kabbalah. Despite its relative secrecy, Rosicrucianism was supported by and in turn influenced such major European Enlightenment figures as Johannes Kepler, John Dee and Tycho Brahe.(16)
To this day Heremeticism and the bulk of alchemical ideas and philosophy are carried on by largely Rosicrucian orders. Perhaps the most famous of these is the Hermetic Order of the Golden Dawn which included such notable 20th Century figures as Aleister Crowley, S.L. MacGregor Mathers and W. B. Yeats. Although in recent years the Golden Dawn has made much of its knowledge accessible to the public, the majority of Hermetic and alchemical texts still remain without a readily accessible source or translation.
This leads us to this 21st Century compendium - Corpus Hermetica Novus - which is an attempt to recapture these mystifying and ancient ideas and pass them on as comprehensively as possible to the next generation of philosophers and alchemists.
"If thou but settest foot on this path, thou shalt see it everywhere." - Hermes Trismegistus