Directory of the Alchemy Lab Website

Stellar Path

Contents

INTRODUCTION TO ALCHEMY

THE EMERALD TABLET

 OPERATIONS OF ALCHEMY

FAMOUS ALCHEMISTS

ORIGINAL ALCHEMY TEXTS

SPIRITUAL ALCHEMY

PRACTICAL ALCHEMY

ALCHEMY OF HEALTH

PERSONAL ALCHEMY

SHAMANIC ALCHEMY

The Chemical Arcana

HERMETIC ALCHEMY

Alchemy Resources

LEARN MORE ABOUT ALCHEMY

   

   INTERNET RESOURCES

    

UTILITIES & FREE STUFF

LUNAR PATH

STELLAR PATH

What Is Alchemy?

The goal of alchemy was simply hastened perfection, inner and outer, the divinization of matter and man. This idea is certainly not strange to any craftsman. “When a man undertakes to create something,” wrote Paracelsus, “he establishes a new heaven, as it were, and from it the work that he desires to create flows into him.” In order that it may be expressed, that it may resound, the Word must be made flesh; immortality must be incarnated outwardly in gold and inwardly in the development of a subtle body within this ordinary body: the “glorious body” or “diamond body” of oriental tradition, the “spiritual body ” of the Christian.

This “becoming” is what alchemy is about. Its process can also be expressed by the traditional formulas of initiation: the suffering, death, and resurrection of the god or the neophyte, represented by the substances in the crucible or by the material of the craftsman — the symbolic formula of transformation. Whether raw material, base metal, divine or human spirit, there must be the suffering of purification and separation. The patience that is the quality more vital to the craftsman is, in the final analysis, no other than this suffering, as it applies to the process of creation operating in and upon the artisan himself Latin patiens  from pati, to suffer). 
And as the alchemical substance is “punished,” so is the craftsman’s material: clay is pounded; flax beaten; wool teased, carded, and twisted; metal softened and struck. The substance, whether material or human, must change its character, be torn into separate elements in order to be reformed into something other — it must “die” in order to be reborn.

History of Alchemy from Ancient Egypt to Modern Times

To most of us, the word “alchemy” calls up the picture of a medieval and slightly sinister laboratory in which an aged, black-robed wizard broods over the crucibles and alembics that are to bring within his reach the Philosopher’s Stone, and with that discovery, the formula for the Elixir of life and the transmutation of metals. But one can scarcely dismiss so lightly the science — or art, if you will –that won to its service the lifelong devotion of men of culture and attainment from every race and clime over a period of thousands of years, for the beginnings of alchemy are hidden in the mists of time. Such a science is something far more than an outlet for a few eccentric old men in their dotage.

What was the motive behind their constant strivings, their never-failing patience in the unravelling of the mysteries, the tenacity of purpose in the face of persecution and ridicule through the countless ages that led the alchemists to pursue undaunted their appointed way? Something far greater, surely, than a mere vainglorious desire to transmute the base metals into gold, or to brew a potion to prolong a little longer this earthly span, for the devotees of alchemy in the main cared little for such things.

The accounts of their lives almost without exception lead us to believe that they were concerned with things spiritual rather than with things temporal. They were men inspired by a vision, a vision of man made perfect, of man freed from disease and the limitations of warring faculties both mental and physical, standing godlike in the realization of a power that even at this very moment of time lies hidden in the deeper strata of consciousness, a vision of man made truly in the image and likeness of the One Divine Mind in its Perfection, Beauty, and Harmony.

To appreciate and understand the adepts’ visions, it is necessary to trace the history of their philosophy. So let us for step back into the past to catch a glimpse of these men, of their work and ideals, and more important still, of the possibilities that their life-work might bring to those who today are seeking for fuller knowledge and wider horizons.