Hidden Symbolism of Alchemy and the Occult Arts

The tradition of craftsmanship in metallurgy, an art that was practiced from the earliest times, was during the speculative period of human culture, saturated with philosophy. Especially was this the case in Egypt, where metallurgy, as the source of royal riches and especially the methods of gold mining and extraction, were guarded as a royal secret. In the Hellenistic period the art of metal working, knowledge of which has spread abroad and in which the interest had been raised to almost scientific character, was penetrated by the philosophical theories of the Greeks: the element and atom ideas of the nature-philosophers and of Plato and of Aristotle, and the religious views of the neoplatonists. The magic of the orient was amalgamated with it, Christian elements were added—in brief, the content of the chemistry of that time, which mainly had metallurgy as its starting point, took a vital part in the hybrid thought of syncretism in the first centuries after Christ.

As the chemical science (in alchemy, alkimia, al is the Arabic article prefixed to the Greek χημεία) has come to us from the Arabs (Syrians, Jews, etc.) it was long believed that it had an Arabian origin. [pg 113] Yet it was found later that the Arabs, while they added much of their own to it, still were but the preservers of Greek-Hellenistic knowledge and we are convinced that the alchemists were right when they indicated in their traditions the legendary Egyptian Hermes as their ancestor. This legendary personage is really the Egyptian god Thoth, who was identified with Hermes in the time of the Ptolemies. He was honored as the Lord of the highest wisdom and it was a favorite practice to assign to him the authorship of philosophical and especially of theological works. Hermes' congregations were formed to practice the cult, and they had their special Hermes literature.2 In later times the divine, regal, Hermes figure was reduced to that of a magician. When I speak, in what follows, of the hermetic writings I mean (following the above mentioned traditions) the alchemic writings, with, however, a qualification which will be mentioned later.

The idea of the production of gold was so dominant in alchemy that it was actually spoken of as the gold maker's art. It meant the ability to make gold out of baser material, particularly out of other metals. The belief in it and in the transmutability of matter was by no means absurd, but rather it must be counted as a phase in the development of human thought. As yet unacquainted with the modern doctrine of unchangeable elements they could draw no [pg 114] other conclusion from the changes in matter which they daily witnessed. If they prepared gold from ores or alloys, they thought they had “made” it. By analogy with color changes (which they produced in fabrics, glass, etc.) they could suppose that they had colored (tinctured) the baser metals into gold.

Under philosophical influences the doctrine arose that metals, like human beings, had body and soul, the soul being regarded as a finer form of corporeality. They said that the soul or primitive stuff (prima materia) was common to all metals, and in order to transmute one metal into another they had to produce a tincture of its soul. In Egypt lead, under the name Osiris, was thought to be the primitive base of metals; later when the still more plastic quicksilver (mercury) was discovered, they regarded this as the soul of metals. They thought they had to fix this volatile soul by some medium in order to get a precious metal, silver, gold.

That problematic medium, which was to serve to tincture or transmute the baser metal or its mercury to silver or gold, was called the Philosopher's stone. It had the power to make the sick (base) metal well (precious). Here came in the idea of a universal medicine. Alchemy desired indeed to produce in the Philosopher's Stone a panacea that should free mankind of all sufferings and make men young.

It will not be superfluous to mention here, that the so-called materials, substances, concepts, are found employed in the treatises of the alchemists in [pg 115] a more comprehensive sense, we can even say with more lofty implications, the more the author in question leans to philosophical speculation. The authors who indulged the loftiest flights were indeed most treasured by the alchemists and prized as the greatest masters. With them the concept mercury, as element concept, is actually separated from that of common quicksilver. On this level of speculation, quicksilver (Hg.) is no longer considered as a primal element, but as a suprasensible principle to which only the name of quicksilver, mercury, is loaned. It is emphasized that the mercurius philosophorum may not be substituted for common quicksilver. Similar transmutations are effected by the concept of a primal element specially separated from mercury. Prima materia is the cause of all objects. Also the material from which the philosopher's stone is produced is in later times called the prima materia, accordingly in a certain sense, the raw material (materia cruda) for its production. But I anticipate; this belongs properly to the occidental flourishing period of the alchemy of scholasticism.

A very significant and ancient idea in alchemy is that of sprouting and procreation. Metals grow like plants, and reproduce like animals. We are assured by the adepts (those who had found it, viz., the panacea) in the Greek-Egyptian period and also later, that gold begets gold as the corn does corn, and man, man. The practice connected with this idea consists in putting some gold in the mixture that is to be transmuted. The gold dissolves like a seed [pg 116] in it and is to produce the fruit, gold. The gold ingredient was also conceived as a ferment, which permeates the whole mixture like a leaven, and, as it were, made it ferment into gold. Furthermore, the tincturing matter was conceived as male and the matter to be colored as female. Keeping in view the symbol of the corn and seed, we see that the matter into which the seed was put becomes earth and mother, in which it will germinate in order to come to fruition.

In this connection belongs also the ancient alchemic symbol of the philosopher's egg. This symbol is compared to the “Egyptian stone,” and the dragon, which bites its tail; consequently the procreation symbol is compared to an eternity or cycle symbol. The “Egyptian stone” is, however, the philosopher's stone or, by metonomy, the great work (magnum opus) of its manufacture. The egg is the World Egg that recurs in so many world cosmogonies. The grand mastery refers usually and mainly to thoughts of world creation. The egg-shaped receptacle in which the master work was to be accomplished was also known as the “philosophical egg” in which the great masterpiece is produced. This vessel was sealed with the magic seal of Hermes; therefore hermetically sealed.

A wider theoretical conception, originating with the Arabs, is the doctrine of the two principles. They were retained in the subsequent developments and further expanded. Ibn Sina [Avicenna, 980-ca. 1037] taught that every metal consisted of mercury [pg 117] and sulphur. Naturally they do not refer to the ordinary quicksilver and ordinary sulphur.

The amount of material that could be adduced is enormous. It is not necessary, however, to consider it. What I have stated about the beginnings of alchemy is sufficient in amount to enable the reader to understand the following exposition of the alchemic content of the parable. And what I must supply in addition to the alchemic theories of the time of their prevalence in the west, the reader will learn incidentally from the following analysis.

In concluding this preliminary view I must still mention one novelty that Paracelsus (1493-1541) introduced into the theory. Ibn Sina had taught that two principles entered into the constitution of metals. Mercury is the bearer of the metallic property and sulphur has the nature of the combustible and is the cause of the transmutation of metals in fire. The doctrine of the two principles leads to the theory that for the production of gold it was necessary to get from metals the purest possible sulphur and mercury, in order to produce gold by the union of both. Paracelsus now adds to the two principles a third, salt, as the element of fixedness or palpability, as he terms it. According to my notion, Paracelsus has not introduced an essential innovation, but only used [pg 118] in a new systematic terminology what others said before him, even if they did not follow it out so consistently. The principles mercury, sulphur and salt—their symbols are [Symbol: Mercury], [Symbol: Sulphur] and [Symbol: Salt]—were among the followers of the alchemists very widely used in their technical language. They were frequently also called spirit, soul and body. They were taken in threes but also as before in twos, according to the exigencies of the symbolism.

The alchemists' usual coupling of the planets with metals is probably due to the Babylonians. I reproduce these correspondences here in the form they generally had in alchemy. I must beg the reader to impress them upon his memory, as alchemy generally speaks of the metals by their planetary names. According to the ancient view (even if not the most ancient) there are seven planets (among which was the sun) and seven metals.

Relative to the technical language, which I must use in the following discussion also, I have to make a remark of general application that should be carefully remembered. It is a peculiarity of the alchemistic [pg 119] authors to use interchangeably fifty or more names for a thing and on the other hand to give one and the same name many meanings. This custom was originally caused partly by the uncertainty of the concepts, which has been mentioned above. But this uncertainty does not explain why, in spite of increase of knowledge, the practice was continued and purposely developed. We shall speak later of the causes that were active there. Let it first be understood merely that it was the case and later be it explained how it comes about that we can find our way in the hermetic writings in spite of the strange freedom of terminology that confuses terms purposely and constantly. Apart from a certain practice in the figurative language of the alchemists, it is necessary, so to speak, to think independently of the words used and regard them only in their context. For example, when it is written that a body is to be washed with water, another time with soap, and a third time with mercury, it is not water and soap and mercury that is the main point but the relation of all to each other, that is the washing and on closer inspection of the connection it can be deduced that all three times the same cleansing medium is meant, only described three times with different names.

The alchemistic interpretation of our parable is a development of what its author tried to teach by it. We do not need to show that he pursues an hermetic aim, for he says so himself, and so do the circumstances, i.e., the book, in which the parable is found. In this respect we shall fare better in the alchemistic [pg 120] exposition than in the psychoanalytic, where we were aiming at the unconscious. Now we have the conscious aim before us and we advance with the author, while before we worked as it were against his understanding, and deduced from the product of his mind things that his conscious personality would hardly admit, if we had him living before us; in which case we should be instructing him and informing him of the interpretation afforded by psychoanalysis.

In one respect we are therefore better off, but in another we are much worse off. For the matter in which we previously worked, the unconscious, remains approximately the same throughout great periods; the unconscious of the wanderer is in its fundamentals not very different from that of a man of to-day or from that of Zosimos. [Zosimos is one of the oldest alchemistic writers of whom we have any definite knowledge—about the 4th century.] It is the soul of the race that speaks, its “humanity.” Much more swiftly, on the contrary, does objective knowledge change in the course of time and the forms also in which this knowledge is expressed. From this point of view the conscious is more difficult of access than the unconscious. And now we have to face a system so very far removed from our way of thinking as the alchemistic.