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The Alchemy Key.pdf - Veritas File System

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terms, it is the combat of the Knight (Secret Fire) with Stibnite (the<br />

Dragon), which, after much purification: 836<br />

is born the astral stone, shining as pure as silver, and which<br />

appears to be signed, bearing the imprint of its nobility, its stamp<br />

(a claw) ... a sure indication of the union and peace between fire<br />

and water, between earth and air.<br />

<strong>The</strong> hundred-headed hydra is just the same as the dragon. It is<br />

also called the Old Serpent, Lord of the Abyss, Leviathan, Lotan, Shaitan,<br />

Tiamat, Forsaker, Abandoner and Cthulhu. Sufi and Muqarribun writings<br />

make use of the term Abandoner referring to the power of Tajrid and<br />

Tafrid, which mean outward detachment and interior solitude<br />

respectively. <strong>The</strong> Greeks use the word Apollyon, Abaddon in Hebrew. 837<br />

In Pompeii, this menacing dragon is shown both as a crocodile in<br />

the Villa of the Mysteries and the sea monster ketos in the legend of<br />

Andromeda and Perseus in the Mythological Room of the Imperial Villa<br />

at Boscotrecase. 838<br />

Nicholas Poussin’s 1633 painting <strong>The</strong> Companions of Rinaldo,<br />

now in the Metropolitan Museum of Art in New York, shows the<br />

Christian knights Carlo and Ubaldo confronting the same fearsome<br />

dragon. This has the same meaning as the two warring knights in the<br />

Merchant’s Chapel of St Peters Church in Malmo, Sweden. Below them<br />

is a large picture of St George and the Dragon.<br />

A recent interpretation of the story of St George is George Lucas’<br />

blockbuster film Star Wars (1977). Initially, many studios rejected the<br />

script. It went on to gross two hundred million dollars and become the<br />

envy of the industry. Star Wars even redefined cinema in the twentieth<br />

century and became a popular trilogy. In the film, Daath-vader, so named<br />

after Daath meaning man’s knowledge, is man’s base nature or the Lover,<br />

balanced by his pure Son Luke Skywalker. Daath and Luke are two sides<br />

of the same coin. Swords of Light consummate their battle. Only<br />

initiates of the ancient Jedi Knights could wield these swords. So<br />

enduring and popular was the theme that George Lucas’ used it once more<br />

in 1999, with the first of three prequels of a new Star Wars Trilogy.<br />

George Lucas is not alone in using this age-old theme. Michael Douglas’<br />

film <strong>The</strong> Game is an initiation sequence. Douglas conceals the dragon in<br />

a place worthy of the erudite complexity of Shakespeare.<br />

Gnostic Christianity modified the alchemy of the Greater<br />

Mysteries in a very imaginative way. <strong>The</strong> Gnostics believed that the<br />

achievement of virtue over the ignorance and moral vice of one’s own<br />

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