Alchemy and its different paths of approach
Often we meet studious circles debating about the reality of a spiritual alchemy which could exist independently of another alchemy that they call "practical" or "operative". These adversaries, although mutually bonded in Hermes, offer burning feuds on this subject and the absence of all temperance pushes them to close the debates, each group rejoining his side, well determined to protect their respective doctrine, Internal Magistery against External Alchemy clearly separated. These illegitimate disagreements serve to prove an ignorance and incomprehension of what true Alchemy is.
The hermetic Quest, which can be qualified as a rational mysticism, requires such diligent research in the understanding of the treatises, that this continuous and applicated study, associated to a patient and methodical work on determined matters, allows the Laureate to pin-point and focalize his mind on a unique aim, the Philosophers' Stone, which has for consequence to cause a letting-go by lassitude of psychism in the domain of speculations, bringing man back, naturally and progressively, at the center of his Being. The Self is thus recovered and can resplend in the continuation of this metanoïa. It is almost useless to point out that the ungrateful study of Alchemy could be none other than vain without the appropriated help of a Friend of the Art having reached Adepthood, as this Path of Knowledge is arduous, where the adjective hermetic is perfectly appropriated to qualify this divine Science of the Liberation of Spirit.
If cohorts of investigators, from the uneducated to the scholar, vehemently engage themselves in these debates playing with concepts which augment incessantly in quantity and intensity, redoubling in rhetoric to serve their egos so as to shine in public, this simply proves that their hermetic foundations are stale. The principal cause is this primal incomprehension of Alchemy which brings them to elaborate different ingenious assumptions to fill in the vacant void left by their plain ignorance. So was born Alchemy called spiritual, modern and futile invention, in the attempt of appropriating itself a Science which fails them but which attracts lust in men that show themselves as geniuses who believed they could decipher the mysteries which humanity thought unfathomable and get drunk off of this deception. They abuse the credulous agitating their misleading knowledge in the form of elitist speeches, that cover especially a formidable occasion for these new gurus in difficulty for recognition, to walk about their fantasies of greed to be one day considered as master torchbearers in a non-codified environment, very little explored and unknown in its alchemical reality. When hermeticism is confined to this occult and mysterious domain, there unconsciously develops a supernatural field of lawlessness where all control is operated by the powerful, the resounding, the dazzling, values which find themselves to the opposite of those natural qualities of an Alchemist who wants but detachment, humbleness and charity.
Numerous are the scientists and philosophers who interested themselves in vain in the alchemical hermeneutics and in the practical processes transmitted by the Ancients. Some concluded with excessive speed that Alchemy was a proto-chemistry. For our part, we place ourselves with Fulcanelli, who already treated the subject in the Dwellings of the Philosophers, when he said : "Since Lavoisier, all the authors who have written on the history of chemistry agree to profess that our chemistry comes by direct affiliation from old alchemy. Consequently, the origin of the one is confused with that of the other, to such an extent that modern science would owe the positive facts on which it is built to the patient labor of the ancient alchemists. This hypothesis, to which we could only have given a relative and conventional value, being regarded today as demonstrated truth, alchemical science, stripped of its own foundation, loses everything liable to motivate its existence, justify its reason for being. Thus, seen from a distance, under legendary mists and the veil of centuries, it only offers a vague, nebulous form, without consistency. An imprecise ghost, a lying specter, the marvelous and deceiving chimera indeed deserves to be relegated to the rank of illusions of yesteryear, of false sciences... learned men who have in good faith espoused or propagated this hypothesis deluded themselves by ignorance or a lack of penetration. Understanding only in part the books they studied, they mistook appearance for reality. Let us clearly state, since so many educated and sincere people seem unaware of the fact, that the real ancestor of our modern chemistry is ancient spagyrics and not the hermetic science itself. There is indeed a profound abyss between spagyrics and alchemy."
There exists therefore two major and sterile currents, that monopolize the discussions and vainly deliberate in multiple controversies. A modern spiritualizing movement which picks up in magnitude in the 60's simultaneously with the blossoming of the "new age", this syncretism of esoteric practices, altered and blurred in their vitalities. Robert Ambelain is its dignified french representative in his spiritual Alchemy, the inner path of 1961, which perfectly synthesizes what we just laid down. The author himself embodies the consecutive drifts caused by the multiplicity of mystical paths which present themselves to the investigator during his inner Quest, and distracts from desired unity, into bringing man to collect degrees within numerous freemasonic temples and lodges, rosicrucian or martinist, while multiplying esoteric knowledge in the desire to master Kabbalah, theurgy, tarot, astrology, geomancy... Ambelain is but a follower, since we owe the fatherhood of this aberration that wishes to condense all esoteric disciplines into a unique teaching emasculated to theosophers and occultists of the latter 19th century, whose representatives were Blavatsky, Eliphas Levi, Papus, Sedir, Stanislas de Guaïta ; Albert Poisson and Jollivet de Castellot concerning Alchemy, the list is non exhaustive. What vanity could have moved them, these distraught seekers, claiming to possess Knowledge whereas ignoring all about the reality of the Self, their own Identity, by objectifying their approach which should have stayed inner ? An example of turn-around appears to us in the life of René Guénon when he turned himself away from the bubbling of the french occultist movement to progressively embrace Sufism.
The second current which can be qualified as modern, even though it picked up its extent in the 17th century, is that of scientists whose diplomas sufficed to give weight to their scholarly and learned speeches when most did nothing but skim over our discipline, set upon the pre-requisite that all Alchemy is but deception. Lemery's century, to whom we certainly owe the first treaty of chemistry in 1675, "Chemistry course, containing the methods to make operations used for medicine, by a simple way, with reasoning upon each operation, for the instruction of those who want to apply themselves to this science." ("Cours de chimie, contenant la manière de faire les opérations qui sont en usage dans la médecine, par une méthode facile, avec des raisonnements sur chaque opération, pour l’instruction de ceux qui veulent s’appliquer à cette science"), could have annihilated our Art if it wasn't undoubtedly alive, animated, and tenacious, resurrecting episodically by the grace of new Adepts successful in deciphering and worthily embodying the Hermetic doctrine. Indeed, the Alchemist's purpose was never to make common gold, as the uninformed scientists suggest, but to produce the Philosophers' Stone and that difference remains significant. Yet the nature of this Stone must be clearly identified, which bears the mark of the Sun, and this appears to us outside of their reach. This is where the uncertainty of some who pointlessly rattle themselves opposes itself to the real motives of the Adepts, giving birth to doubt in the head of the astray profanes who attempt to follow with trouble the workings of our Science, underestimating all the importance of this bringing to light. Because the first Alchemist who hadn't yet any name nor any label, questioned himself on his becoming facing his demise that he met with everyday and that brought him close to a certain death. From then on, this anguished man, lost in our hostile world, rapidly understood that he was an exceptional creature in the universe, capable to create, communicate, and overall, susceptible to transform things around him to help him live and blossom. This man also understood he would need all his strength to surpass the obstacles harmful to his development. He then attempted to think about what he lacked at first and what could quickly prevent it. He could see that his body, and the external attacks he suffered, seriously weakened him and constituted a primordial weakness that equally touched his spirit by subduing his psyche. A man in good health is a strong man, joyful, who projects himself in the future and finds the desire to reproduce himself in order to share this universal happiness. Whereas a man diminished in his vitality feels certain means abandoning him and he lives this withdrawal as a failure, feeling truncated in his integrity. If we took this man's place, we wouldn't care less about a golden and shiny piece of metal, certainly surprising by its properties, but which would be of no use for our survival and would not offer us any answer concerning our becoming, or shall we say to be correct, concerning the reality of the Here and the now.
Reading this article, the reader shouldn't conclude with haste that we deny the reality of the Stone of Conversion, fruit of the Tree of science, whose use is limited to the Transmutation of common metals. Simply, we want to sensitize the Laureate on the importance of detaching himself from the golden mirages concentrated in the research of the chrysopeia which could lead him away from obtaining the biotic medicines, first gratifying acquisitions considered in the theoretical order of the operations which mark out the Magistery.
Our overview of the hermetic societal microcosm wouldn't be complete, although we grant that our presentation is prompt, if we omitted to mention the modernist Puffers who are timidly starting to stand out, unfortunately imitating their elders. For the most part, they are influenced with the current of occultist and theosophic ideas from their predecessors which we mentioned, recognizing themselves amongst others from the fictive Rosy-Cross association. Unlike the two other movements, these apprentice alchemists practice pretty intensely but are qualified as puffers, or blowers (bellowers) because besides the fact that they vulgarly use bellows to feed oxygen to the destructive fire and coals which smolder under their athanors, they brew much wind in vain speculations, the most important in the dogmas which seem to rule their decadent exercise is the possibility to produce the Philosophers' Stone from any realm, according to various procedures, such as acetates, urine, blood, realgar, antimony, cinnabar, iron, lead, dew, etc. This proliferation of improper materials in our Work is very well proof that they just quickly overflew the writings of the Philosophers to make such a mistake, forgetting what Morien says about this "... What i have said is true. Because the whole Magistery is made up of one thing, and there is but only one path, and one way of doing it...". It is them, diverting our Science from its principle which is Metallic as many Ancients profess, aware and competent, which should normally estrange us from all vegetal matters, animal, and even minerals in the strict sense of the word, as Valois suggests in (La Clef du secret des secrets) the Key of the secret of secrets : " Because he-the Divine- knows how to penetrate the secret in our consciences and foresees the overflows which are ordinarily brought by authorities and riches of worldly men, consequently is it given by Him only to those who are worthy of such a great Treasure; namely of the humbles of heart, patient and charitable. Thereby these Virtues will lead you to this high secret, provided that you know the metallic principles and the operations of Nature; because by this same Nature you will be illuminated, provided you are in good graces." This lapidary remark deserves a salutary pause doubled with a meditation from the Student. We are striking here the first gordian knot of the Magistery that all sensed seeker will be in the obligation to unravel by electing the realm on which he will work at his Magistery hoping to penetrate Nature's secrets. It is misunderstanding the hermetic theory to falsely delay oneself from another realm than that of the mineral-metallic, righteously qualified as mineral.
But ultimately what astonishes us, are not these wanderings, attributable to an excessive vanity which propels these sorcerers with poor inspiration into Practice, but only their equivocal spiritual approaches, because most praise an exceeding of Awakening, considering the Self as a relative step to their intrinsic developments. Cruel vanity, expressing itself through an excessive love of themselves, which encloses them in the game of multiplicity, retrograding these rogue souls to the kingdom of matter where they position themselves dangerously as psychic individualities, acting on the object by interposition of an image of deity. They only aspire to supernatural powers to act according to their own will, imagining a singular animated vessel to travel through worlds of the supra-sensible, not being conscious that they are abusing themselves under phantasmagorical contemplations very distant from the reality of an Awakening, true and accomplished.
By Jean de Lisle-Deyfran