Hermetic Philosophy and Alchemy - A Bardon Companion

Of the phenomena of light, electricity, magnetism, etc., great account is taken at the present day; both
to exhibit them, and to apply their various potencies to the affairs of life: but of the real source of these
potencies, or of the true efficient in any case, nothing is known. The beam has been tried and tortured,
through prismatic glasses and crystals, every chemical agent has been exhausted upon it, and electrical
machines have been instituted to trap the fluid, but in vain. The learned are free to admit that, though
they have discovered much of the mysterious influences of light, the more is discovered the more
miraculous do they appear. --- It has passed through every test without revealing its secrets, and even
the effects which it produces in its path are unexplained problems still to tax the intellects of men (45).
These phenomena are effects then of a Cause unknown, and that very unknown Cause it was the
alleged object of the Hermetic experiment to prove. Shall we no therefore revert t the inquiry, and
search to ascertain whether, recovering the ancient method of philosophizing, we may advance by it to
the same end?
Truth is no where manifested upon the earth, because her forms or sulfurs are perplexed, and the
passive spirit of nature is included and impure. She is moreover specified elsewhere, and does not
consequently, as a true passive, reflect without truly to itself. But by the Hermetic dissolution the right
recipient is said to be obtained, the pure is separated from the impure, the subtle from the gross, and
the agent and the patient are one identity, as in the Emerald Table it is graven, --- That which is below
is as that which is above, and that which is below is as that which is above, for the performing of the
miracles of the One Thing whence all the rest proceed by adaptation. --- And on this unitary basis of
production the metamorphosis of species is not so ridiculous. Have we not example in the common
process of fermentation, the mild juice of grapes converted into wine, and milk into butte and cheese
and whey; and these each proceeding out of one thing without requiring the addition of anything
different: but only by operation of their own ferment they become changed into different specific
natures? Just so is the Vital Spirit said to be, by the art of Alchemy, promoted from one form of being
into another by its won prepared must or leaven; and as such, in turn, it reacts convertively on the
elements of its original extraction; having previously passed on, through many stages, from
imperfection to perfection. Analogy of this, likewise, we have in the animal kingdom; caterpillars
changing their neuter forms quiescently, and becoming winged moths. There remains the great
difference, however, that whereas, in these familiar examples, imprisoned nature rests necessarily
within the limiting law of her species; the will of the philosophic Proteus is free to be drawn without
hindrance to form itself about the universal magnet of its own infinite self-multiplicative Light; which
being transmuted, transmutes; and multiplying, multiplies its proper substance freely, in proportion to
the virtue which it has acquired in the fermentation. And hence it may be better conceived, perhaps,
how this fermented Spirit or Stone, (as in the crystalline perfectness of its essence it has been called,)
when brought into contact with the crude life of nature whence it sprung, transmutes, i.e., attracts the
same away from other forms into intimate coalescence with its own assimilative light. And
notwithstanding metals and all things in the world, as the adepts say, derive their origin from the same
Spirit, yet nothing is reputed so nearly allied to it as gold; for in all other metals there is some
impurity, and therefore a certain weight is lost in transmuting from them; but in gold there is none, but
the Formal Light is wholly swallowed up in it without residue, dissolving intimately, gently, and
naturally, as they compare it to ice in warm water; an excellent simile, by the way, inasmuch as the
commingling natures differ in state only and were originally one. And I say to you, adds Sendivogius,
that you must seek for that hidden thing, out of which is made, after a wonderful manner, such a
moisture or humidity which doth dissolve gold without violence or noise, but sweetly and naturally; if
you find this out you have that thing out of which gold is produced by nature. And although all metals
have their origin from thence, yet nothing is so friendly to it as gold; it is even like a mother to it; and
so finally I conclude (46).
And the method of working to this discovery, and to supply the deficiency of Form to the purified
body of the Spirit, is described as the same in each of the three kingdoms of nature: the preparation
only being diversified according to the variety of things indigent or intended to be changed. And if the
Art has been more frequently proved in the mineral kingdom than in the other two, we learn that this
has happened, not because the power is limited here, or because adepts have desired gold above every
other good, but because the metalline radix first presents itself in the experimental process, and is most