Alchemical Studies

I engaged in a study of alchemical literature beginning in 1974, continuing on up until about 1980. Alchemy can be a mighty deep pit, similar in some ways to a Black Hole – if you find yourself drawn in too closely, it can be difficult to pull yourself out again. Or, if you prefer a less politically correct metaphor, it can be a real Tar Baby…

Alchemy as a historically documented human discipline began a few centuries before the Christian Era. At its core was the belief that man could refine and perfect raw elements into a more sublime form. The process by which one did this involved a combination of both physical and psychical manipulations.

It’s quite clear in the early writings that "true" alchemy was never so much about turning lead into gold, or in creating an actual Philosopher’s Stone that could literally transmute base elements into a pure, all-healing substance. Rather, it was all about finding the hidden spiritual essence within the human operator. The Great Work (Magnus Opus) was intended to extract one’s better spirit from the baseness of the physical world, thereby facilitating a closer union with the Godhead – an apocatastasis. The physical manipulations that were involved merely represented a means of focusing the movement of the intellect toward this goal – an analogic, meditative aid. You’ll recognize at once the gnostic basis for early alchemy: through knowledge comes salvation.

My jumping off point was several works by Carl Jung, notably Mysterium Coniunctionis and Alchemical Studies (Collected Works of C.G. Jung Vol.13). Working my way back to the source documents, I soon discovered that the overall subject of alchemy is way too complex and convoluted to absorb in any generalized way. But Jung was particularly struck by the existence of a specific, deep archetypal concept of a "quaternity" in the human mind. This was based on his own case studies in his private psychiatric practice. Now, to be a true archetype, it must be something that’s innate inside all humans and ancient at its root. Sure enough, this 4-fold notion was reflected in many of the original alchemical texts. The proper alchemical synthesis of "the 4" would result in a unique amalgam, a quintessence – 5^th element – divine by its nature, a pure Ideal in the Platonic sense.

As an alchemical exercise simple enough for me to attempt, I worked to identify some of these 4-fold archetypal sets, and to arrange their members in the proper relationship to each other based on their individual characteristics. The original "starting material" (prima materia) for alchemists was construed to be some corrupted combination of Earth, Water, Air, and Fire. These elemental constituents each may be proscribed with their own innate physical characteristics:

Characteristic	Earth	Water	Air	Fire
Weight	Heaviest	Heavy	Light	Lightest
Temperature	Cold	Cool	Warm	Hot
Speed	Slowest	Slow	Moderate	Fast
Moistness	Dry	Wet	Moist	Arid
Activity	Stable	Mutable	Permeating	Frenetic
Attitude	Practical	Emotional	Intellectual	Creative

Et cetera. Other quaternities can be arranged in their appropriate orders with respect to the above 4 base elements, by comparing their own described characteristics. So I got something like this:

Quaternity	Earth/Terra	Water/Aqua	Air/Aeris	Fire/Ignis
Progression	1	2	3	4
Baseball Hits	Single	Double	Triple	Home Run
Cardinal Points	North/Nether	East/Aurora	South/Sol	West/Hesperus
Color	Black	Blue	Yellow	Red
Tarot Suits	Pages/Pentacles	Queens/Cups	Knights/Swords	Kings/Wands
Modern Card Suits	Diamonds	Hearts	Spades	Clubs
Alchemical Creatures	Gnomes	Undines	Sylphs	Salamanders
Alchemical Stages	Nigredo/ Melanosis	Leucosis/ Dealbatio	Xanthosis/ Citrinitas	Iosis/ Rubefactio
Forms of Love	Sex	Eros	Philia	Agape
Winds	Septentrio	Oriens	Meridies	Occidens
Modern Elements (Etymology)	Nitrogen  (Saltmaker)	Hydrogen (Waterborn)	Oxygen (Acid Maker)	Carbon (Live Coal)
Brain Waves	Delta (0.5-3.5 Hz)	Alpha (7-13 Hz)	Beta (13-25 Hz)	Theta (3.5-7 Hz)
DNA	Guanine/Guano (C5H5N5O)	Adenine/Nephros (C5H5N5)	Cytosine/Kytos (C4H5N3O)	Thymine/Thymos (C5H6N2O2)
Kabala 1	Power/ Gebhurah	Wisdom/ Chochma	Intelligence/ Binah	Greatness/ Gedulah
Kabala 2	Body	Understanding	Mind	Will
Mesopotamian Gods	Enlil	Boaz	Jakin	Ea
Archons	Sabaoth	Iao	Adonai	Ialdabaoth
Spirit	Faith/Pistis	Hope/Elpis	Love/Agape	Knowledge/Gnosis
Personality 1	Melancholic	Phlegmatic	Choleric	Sanguine
Personality 2	Driver	Amiable	Analytical	Expressive

Et cetera again. You can invoke other quaternities, and by the process of thinking carefully and clearly about what each unit’s characteristics are, place them in proper arrangement in the above table.

And what exactly was I doing when I did this? I was waking myself up to think about the meaning of things that otherwise just occupied dead space in my brain. How is each concept of a set linked to the rest? By what progressive path may each of the concepts be understood, overtaken and ultimately overcome? How do the features of each concept relate to the structure of my own beliefs and personality? What is the common thread that binds them together? How do I synthesize a quintessence from them – and, in so doing, achieve that sublime amalgam in myself? For that is the end product of alchemy.

Today, 25 years later, I don’t consciously think much anymore about alchemy. I consider myself lucky to have evaded its snare. But there is something left of our early courtship. For example, to this day, I tend to like pictures of dragons. And I find I can reduce the complexity of modern life into much simpler frames of reference. To me, that’s worth any amount of transmuted gold.