Text source AMBIX Volume 37 March 1990

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AMBIX VoL 37 Part I March 1990

THE STUDY OF SPIRITUAL ALCHEMY MYSTICISM GOLD-MAKING ANDESOTERIC HERMENEUTICS

By DANIEL MERKUR

IN 1845 Baron Karl von Reichenbach a German industrialist and research chemistpublished his pioneering studies of what has since come to be termed parapsychologyReichenbach claimed that all physical bodies have invisible force fields that are visible tosensitives in Mesmeric trances When examined as they occur in crystals these force fieldsare bipolar They feel cool and-1Rpearblue at one pole but lukewarm and yellow-red at theother Reichenbach termed the force Odic after the Scandinavian god Odin andidentified Mesmers Animal Magnetism with itI Although Reichenbach presented himselfas a scientist several motifs that I have cited may be alchemical Since the Romansidentified Odin with Mercury an Odic force is Hermetic by definition AgainReichenbachs discussion of crystal is notable In the Gold- und Rosenkreuz a developmentof the alchemical tradition of Paracelsus and Boehme in late eighteenth century Germanythe insignia of the ninth and highest degree Majus consisted ofa gleaming and fiery Urimand Thummim and Schemhamphorash2 It is at least probable that the German alchemistsnamed their engraved brooches in allusion to their use in crystal-gazing or scrying Thebiblical Urim and Thummin or high priests breastplate had been used in divination (Ex28 15-30) and the English import of the Gold- und Rosenkreuz system by the HermeticOrder of the Golden Dawn3 associated Rosicrucianism with crystal-gazing4 Crystal alsoalluded to salt which in Paracelsian alchemy designated the quintessence

Complementing Reichenbachs early efforts Mary Anne South later Mary AnneAtwood addressed the historical dimension of the problem A Suggestive Inquiry in to theHermetic Mystery published anonymously in 1850 claimed that both the EleusinianMysteries and alchemy secretly concerned the quintessence or ether the substance of whichsouls are composed Texts manifestly discussing the transmutation of base metal into goldwere to be interpreted as secret allegories of the souls perfection through Mesmerism5

With Reichenbachs failure to win the approval of scientists Atwoods book foundappeal chiefly among occultists It was endorsed by Eliphas Levi in 18556and embraced inthe 1880s by members of the Hermetic Order of the Golden Dawn an English occult societywhose teachings have since come to dominate Western esotericism Some Golden Dawnmembers understood spiritual alchemy as the conjuring of spirits7 Others regardedalchemical mysticism as a metallic symbolism for cabalistic magic8 Although these occulttraditions come to the same thing it is clear that they were not originally alchemical In theI talian Renaissance spirit conjuring was known to be a cabalistic practice newly importedfrom Judaism9 where its antecedents can be traced for over a milleniumlO The associationof alchemy with spirit conjuring possibly originated in the Elizabethan period when DrJohn Dee and Edward Kelly happened to engage in both practices 1 1 The syncretism ofalchemy and cabalism was accomplished no later than the pseudonymous 1612 publicationof the Alchemical Hieroglyphics of Nicholas Flamel 12

Historians of chemistry seeking to date the origin of spiritual alchemy have followeddifferent paths to the same eraJohn Read named Paracelsus in the sixteenth century as the

Department of Religion Syracuse University 50 I Hall of Languages Syracuse New York 13244- I 170

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AMBIX VoL 37 Part I March 1990

THE STUDY OF SPIRITUAL ALCHEMY MYSTICISM GOLD-MAKING ANDESOTERIC HERMENEUTICS

By DANIEL MERKUR

IN 1845 Baron Karl von Reichenbach a German industrialist and research chemistpublished his pioneering studies of what has since come to be termed parapsychologyReichenbach claimed that all physical bodies have invisible force fields that are visible tosensitives in Mesmeric trances When examined as they occur in crystals these force fieldsare bipolar They feel cool and-1Rpearblue at one pole but lukewarm and yellow-red at theother Reichenbach termed the force Odic after the Scandinavian god Odin andidentified Mesmers Animal Magnetism with itI Although Reichenbach presented himselfas a scientist several motifs that I have cited may be alchemical Since the Romansidentified Odin with Mercury an Odic force is Hermetic by definition AgainReichenbachs discussion of crystal is notable In the Gold- und Rosenkreuz a developmentof the alchemical tradition of Paracelsus and Boehme in late eighteenth century Germanythe insignia of the ninth and highest degree Majus consisted ofa gleaming and fiery Urimand Thummim and Schemhamphorash2 It is at least probable that the German alchemistsnamed their engraved brooches in allusion to their use in crystal-gazing or scrying Thebiblical Urim and Thummin or high priests breastplate had been used in divination (Ex28 15-30) and the English import of the Gold- und Rosenkreuz system by the HermeticOrder of the Golden Dawn3 associated Rosicrucianism with crystal-gazing4 Crystal alsoalluded to salt which in Paracelsian alchemy designated the quintessence

Complementing Reichenbachs early efforts Mary Anne South later Mary AnneAtwood addressed the historical dimension of the problem A Suggestive Inquiry in to theHermetic Mystery published anonymously in 1850 claimed that both the EleusinianMysteries and alchemy secretly concerned the quintessence or ether the substance of whichsouls are composed Texts manifestly discussing the transmutation of base metal into goldwere to be interpreted as secret allegories of the souls perfection through Mesmerism5

With Reichenbachs failure to win the approval of scientists Atwoods book foundappeal chiefly among occultists It was endorsed by Eliphas Levi in 18556and embraced inthe 1880s by members of the Hermetic Order of the Golden Dawn an English occult societywhose teachings have since come to dominate Western esotericism Some Golden Dawnmembers understood spiritual alchemy as the conjuring of spirits7 Others regardedalchemical mysticism as a metallic symbolism for cabalistic magic8 Although these occulttraditions come to the same thing it is clear that they were not originally alchemical In theI talian Renaissance spirit conjuring was known to be a cabalistic practice newly importedfrom Judaism9 where its antecedents can be traced for over a milleniumlO The associationof alchemy with spirit conjuring possibly originated in the Elizabethan period when DrJohn Dee and Edward Kelly happened to engage in both practices 1 1 The syncretism ofalchemy and cabalism was accomplished no later than the pseudonymous 1612 publicationof the Alchemical Hieroglyphics of Nicholas Flamel 12

Historians of chemistry seeking to date the origin of spiritual alchemy have followeddifferent paths to the same eraJohn Read named Paracelsus in the sixteenth century as the

Department of Religion Syracuse University 50 I Hall of Languages Syracuse New York 13244- I 170

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36 DANIEL MERKUR

originator of a form of alchemy that had both chemical and spiritual ingredients 13Citing theexample of Jacob Boehme F Sherwood Taylor maintained that alchemical terminologywas used in purely mystical writings as early as the sixteenth century 14 The occulthistorian Arthur Edward Waite pointed to Boehmes contemporaries Henry Khunrath andthe anonymous author of the treatise concerning Mary of Alexandria with a fewRosicrucian philosophers 15

I suspect however that the openly acknowledged alchemical mysticism of the HighRenaissance had more esoteric antecedents in the Late Middle Ages From its Hellenisticorigins Western alchemy had depended on the four physical elements earth water air andfire Aristotles theory of a fifth element did not enter alchemical tradition until the medievalLatin period Aristotles Metaphysics was translated from Greek to Latin circa 121016

Alchemists were not at first concerned with its theory that the substance of starlight was afifth element ether For example the Summa of the Latin Geber a highly influentialpseudonymous work that appeared toward the close of the thirteenth century17 mentionsthe fifth essence only in passing

In Animals and other Living Things there is (according to the Opinion of Many)a Soul which is from the Occult Recesses of Nature as from a Quintessence or fromthe first Mover 18

Neither the living soul nor its substance were pertinent to the concerns of alchemists whoworked with the inanimate and often exclusively with the inorganic Alchemists adhered tothe theory of four elements and generally mentioned the fifth essence only as metaphorBecause it descended from the heavens ie from the top of the alchemical apparatus fifthessence served as a secret name for the newly discovered distillate alcohol

Alchemists began to treat the notion of a fifth element as a serious postulate only in themiddle of the fourteenth century Anticipating Paracelsus by nearly two centuries John ofRupescissas Consideration of the Fifth Essence may have been the first text to introduce thedoctine that there is a fifth essence to each thing he refered to alcohol 19Also influential wasa commentary by Ortolanus on the Emerald Tablet of Hermes In his preface Ortolanusdiscussed the fifth essence as a term for aqua ardens burning water or alcohol20 but his textof the Emerald Tablet permitted a significantly different inference A crucial line in the Arabicversion cited by Jabir ibn Hayyan reads That which is above is from that which is belowand that which is below is from that which is above 21The text means that vapors abovederive from solids below but presently condense to fall below once more The same sense isconveyed in one of the three Latin renderings These things below with those above andthose with thesejoin forces again The other Latin versions have different implications Theformulation Whatever is below is similar to that which is above22 is likely derivative of themore famous rendition of Ortolanus Quod est superius est sicut quod inferius et quod inferius estsicut quod est superius23 That which is above is as that which is below and that which is belowis as that which is above Ortonalus commentary interpreted the text in the traditionalmanner as a reference to solids and vapor-he wrote earth and spirit24 However hisphrasing has since supported other interpretations that postulate a supernal plane ordimension of existence that is in parallel with the physical universe

An unmistakeably mystical theory of ether was advanced late in the fourteenth centuryby Thomas of Bologna who contrasted the conventional search for the fifth essence in thepotency of combustibles ie in alcoholic spirits with his own investigation of the force of

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THE STUDY OF SPIRITUAL ALCHEMY 37

things indissolubly joined In his conception the fifth essence was apparently responsiblefor imparting form to minerals25 Rupescissas account of the fifth essence was plagiarized inlate fourteenth or early fifteenth century writings falsely attributed to Raymond Lul126 Ageneration later Marsilio Ficino identified spirit the substance on which his magicdepended with the fifth essence27

Let me underscore this last point The Renaissance practice of occult syncretism whosebeginning D P Walker and Frances A Yates traced to Ficino in the mid-fifteenth century28built on a prior innovation in alchemy Once alchemists postulated a fifth essence as thesubstance of souls and the Platonic World of Forms they inaugurated a search for itstheoretic understanding and practical technology The search led to magic and mysticismpseudo-Lullism and the Renaissance revivals of Hermetism Orphism Cabala Druidismetc

In the nineteenth century historians of chemistry incorrectly assumed that because theartificial manufacture of gold is not chemically possible alchemists must without exceptionhave been liars frauds and swindlers The hypothesis precluded serious investigation of thealchemists belief-systems Even the occult historian Arthur Edward Waite who himselfcomposed a work of spiritual alchemy29 insisted that the historical alchemists had beenchemists rather than mystics3o

Only in 1925 did Arthur John Hopkins suggest that alchemists had been sincere in theirefforts He argued that Western alchemy had originated as an extention of the dyeing oftextiles in a deliberate attempt to color inexpensive metals for the costume jewelry trade InHellenistic Egypt precious metals were routinely given superficial surface colors by meansof bronzes Gold for example was bronzed purple and silver black The Leyden papyrusX31 which is dated to the 3rd century explains how to produce similar bronzes in basemetals Hopkins urged that these procedures which are plainly stated in a metallurgicaltext should be used to interpret the cryptic references to changes in color in alchemical textsAlchemists continued to make cryptic references to the same color changes through theseventeenth century and in the context of classical Greek physics changing the color of ametal constituted its transmutation32

F Sherwood Taylor built on Hopkins color theory but he argued that alchemistsreferences to changes in color pertained to the productions of alloys rather than superficialbronzes Taylor also emphasized that alchemical gold was believed to be genuine Naturalvariations in the quality of different gold ores combined with limited refining and assayingtechniques to produce a considerable variation in the quality of natural gold Alchemicalgold was often indistinguishable Taylor foumiddotnd that the Hellenistic texts contain fourtechniques for producing gold-resembling alloys but only one combined metallurgy withreligious imagery philosophy and an esoteric literary style Equally uniquely its procedureinvolved distillation a process that alchemists apparently invented but kept secret Stillswere first used for non-alchemical purposes in the West some seven centuries after theirearliest description in alchemical texts In Taylors view the alchemical traditioncommenced no later than the third century in the person of Maria the Jewess whomZosimos of Panopolis (circa 300 CE) credited with the introduction of the still33

Among later alchemists those who adopted empirical andor innovative attitudes tochemical experimentation -eg the Persian schools ofJ abir ibn Hayyan and al-Razi andthe later Paracelsians of Europe- have attracted most of the attention of historians ofchemistry We remain middotcomparatively ignorant of Muslim alchemy in Egypt and the

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DANIEL MERKUR

Mediterranean basin where gold-making antiquarian Hellenism andpseudepigraphywere prominent 34PosSIbly because they are repetitive monotonous and boring the gold-making recipes in European alchemical literature have not been systematically explicatedeither Under the circumstances historians of chemistry have rarely given more thancursory attention to the relation of spiritual alchemy and the chemistry of gold-makingTaylor was an important exception He described alchemical spirituality as an expression of

wonderful analogies between the great world with its seasons and growth anddeath and generation and the process of the alchemical work It is a sort ofrejoicing in the wonderful phenomena of chemical change35

A related understanding informs H J Sheppards persuasive demonstrations that themain source from which alchemical mysticism derived was Gnosticism 36 Shepparddefined mysticism as ideas of a supra-rational nature concerning the origin nature anddestiny of the soul 37His views come to close agreement with Taylors position howeveronce we allow that alchemists routinely interpreted correspondences among events in thecosmos the chemical apparatus and the soul

I must emphasize however that historians of science have consistently employed theterm mysticism in reference to any unscientific or religious point of view The term is usedvery differently by occult writers on spiritual alchemy and confusion regarding the term hasrepeatedly concealed disagreements of substance For present purposes mysticism will bedefined in keeping with its technical usage by historians of religion as the practice andideology of religious uses of alternate psychic states38 Religious evaluations of chemicalevents as demonstrated by Taylor and Sheppard are instances of religious philosophy butnot of mysticism

The psychologist Carl G Jung attempted to reconcile the divergent views of occultistsand chemists39 Although Jung acknowledged that some alchemists had engaged inchemical activities he maintained that a parallel psychic process had been the moreimportant activity4o The psychic process took the form of mystical visions

While working on his chemical experiments the operator had certain psychicexperiences which appeared to him as the particular behaviour of the chemicalprocess41 During the practical work certain events of an hallucinatory or visionarynature were perceived which cannot be anything but projections of unconsciousconten ts42

InJungs view the visions were induced while alchemists watched the alchemical processesin their apparatus Once the visions commenced the hallucinatory materials obliterated thefield of sense perception The alchemists no longer saw the chemical processes The symbolsthat they presented in their writings were products exclusively of their visionary states

Unfortunately Jung almost completely ignored the efforts of Hopkins and Taylor toreconstruct the chemistry of alchemical gold-making and he almost never recognizedreferences to chemistry as references to chemistry Jung was presumably unable to do so Asproof texts for his hypothesis that hallucinations obliterated and replaced sense perception ofthe chemical apparatus Jung cited passages43 that refer to my understanding sometimes toshapes that were discerned in the swirling vapors at the top of the apparatus and in othercases to discoloration of the metals on the shelf of the apparatus when the corrosive vapors

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THE STUDY OF SPIRITUAL ALCHEMY 39

ate into their surfaces44 These passages provide no evidence whatever of hallucinatory orvisionary experiences that obliterated sense perception of the alchemical apparatus Quiteto the contrary the passages prove that alchemists observed the chemical processes in theirequipment

The historian of religions Mircea Eliade offered a radically different interpretation ofalchemical mysticism He argued that the religious understanding and veneration ofmetallurgy still extant in non-literate cultures was consistent with and anterior to thereligio-philosophic understanding of alchemy in its Chinese Indian and Greek origins Aswell Eliade suggested that Greek alchemy had been influenced not only by classical Greekphilosophy but also by the Hellenistic mystery religions Alchemy was in effect a mysteryreligion in which matter had the role of the god

I t is the mystical drama of the God - his passion death and resurrection -which isprojected on to matter in order to transmute it the alchemist treats his Matter asthe God was treated in the mysteries45

Eliades link to mysticism was necessarily speculative We know that initiation into theMysteries consisted of participation in the passion death and resurrection ofa God but weare ignorant of the manner of participation Eliade was willing however to conjecture thatthe sufferings death and resurrection of the god already known to the neophyte as a myth oras authentic history were communicated to him during initiations in an experimentalmanner 46 Eliade noted the initiatory visions in which shamans suffer die and resurrect47

In The Visions of Zosimos the alchemist reported visions with similar motifs butthedeathsand resurrections were not his own Rather he projected on to Matter the initiatoryfunction of suffering 48 In all Eliade concluded that the opus alchymicum had profoundanalogies with the mystic life 49 but he stopped short of asserting that analogy impliedidentity

Even with its qualification Eliades contention remains speculative No differently thanalchemy Christianity adopted language and symbolism from the Hellenistic mysteries butit would be absurd to suggest that imitatio Christi has invariably consisted of a visionaryexperience of crucifixion and resurrection

Moreover even if initiatory ecstasies of death and resurrection were traditional featuresof alchemical mysticism-as is today claimed orally by some occult traditions-it wouldsuffice to postulate their innovation during the medieval Latin period Not only caninitiatory death be traced from the pagan portions of the Welsh Mabinogion through thePerlesvaus version of the Grail romance over a century before the better known Sir Gawainand the Green Knight50 but the quest of the Holy Grail is as a wholemiddota8hristianized version ofthe otherwordly journey to the home of the Welsh god Bran51 In the early thirteenthcentury within a decade of the composition of the Perlesvaus alchemical symbolism wasused knowingly in both the Tristan of Gottfried von Strassburg52 and the Parzival of Wolframvon Eschenbach53 The influences may have been reciprocal The Grail mysticism ofArthurian romance may have contributed to spiritual alchemy It is unnecessary to assumea legacy from the Hellenistic mystery religions

Because no one has ever established that alchemical mysticism existed in antiquity it isnot adequate to assume that alchemical symbolism can be taken to refer either to man orto a mineral substance 54 The methodological premise has not been earned Where analchemical document pertains to metallic alchemy we have no necessary evidence that it

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pertains to anything more The student of alchemical literature is consequently engaged in ahermeneutic akin to psychoanalysis the interpretation of symbolic materials in terms of anexpected subtext In alchemy the expected subtext happens to be the chemistry of gold-making How precisely was the Great Work performed

Taylors reconstruction of the process55 is I suggest very nearly correct The basicequipment was a reflux apparatus termed a kerotakis I t consisted of a closed chamber with ashelf (or hook) in its middle On the shelf were placed the metals to be treated copper leadperhaps also gold and silver Other ingredients were placed on the bottom of the chamberSulphur is frequently mentioned but we do not know what was actually intended by theterm56 When the base of the kerotakis was heated the ingredients inside the bottom of thechamber turned to smoke and vapor which singed the outer surfaces of the metals on theshelf accomplishing melanosis blackening A small vent hole permitted heated air toescape near the top of the apparatus but the vapors condensed on a condensing cover Thecondensate fell to the bottom of the kerotakis vaporized anew and attacked the metals~onceagain Leucosis whitening referred to the corrosive action of the vapors on the metals Theprocess was allowed to continue until the solids of the shelf were thoroughly discolored andpermeated with corrosion The heat was then increased and the metals gently roasted Theannealing which yielded a soft heavy yellow alloy was termed xanthosis yellowing

An alternate means of whitening also mentioned by Taylor57 involved use of a stilltermed an alembic In this distillation procedure once the gases had singed the outer surfacesof the metals and risen to the top of the apparatus they were led out through a pipe andcooled Taylor assumed that distillation precipitated an effiorescence of salts but I suggestthat distillation yielded both a solid and a fluid solvent The solid was returned to the fluid inthe chamber yielding an acid of greater intensity than before This acid was then applied tothe solid metals on the shelf

Taylor was unable to explain the significance of iosis which may mean either impartingthe color of a violet (ion) or removal of rust or tarnish (ios) 58Hopkins argued that iosisoriginally pertained to the dyeing of textiles the color of royal purple The term wassecondarily applied to the violet bronzing of gold Among other proof texts Hopkinsconvincingly cited a passage in which Maria the Jewess described the violet bronzing ofalchemical gold59 However The Visions of Zosimos (and many later texts) associatedreddening (an alternate of empurpling) with the distillation of the salt60 I conclude thatsome alchemists sought to produce gold that had a purple bronze while others sought goldthat had its natural yellow color In the latter event iosis was necessarily metaphor Achange of color was no longer of reference The term instead referred to a change in potencyfrom common to royal the production of the solid necessary to transform a weak acid into astrong one

Let us apply these considerations to an early example of Greek alchemy The bulk of Isisthe Prophetess to her Son Horus consists of metallurgical recipes that are ignorant of distillationThe archaic recipes are prefaced however by a narrative whose orientation is alchemical

Isis the prophetess to her son Horus You decided my son to set out and go to battlewith the infidel Typhon for the throne of your father Myself I went to Hermonthisa town (where one practices) the sacred art of Egypt I stayed there some time In thecourse of events and the necessary revolution of the spheres one of the angels whoreside in the first firmament saw me from above and wanted to unite with me Headvanced intending to arrive at his goal but I refused to yield wanting to learn from

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him the preparation of gold and silver When I questioned him he told me that hewas not permitted to explain in this regard in view of the high importance of thesemysteries but that the following day a greater angel the angel Amnael would comeand would be able to provide me with the answer to the question

He told me that he [Amnael] would carry a sign on his head and would display asmall vase that was not covered with pitch [but] full of transparent water He wouldbe able to reveal the truth

Next day before the sun was neared its course the angel Amnael appearedgreater than the first Taken by the same desire with my regard he descendedtowards me He did not stay immobile but hastened to where I held myself And I Idid not stop asking him the question

And when he delayed (to answer me) I did not yield a bit But I resisted his desireuntil he let me see the sign which he had on his head and transmitted to me withoutreserve and with sincerity the mysteries that I sought

At last he showed me the sign and began the revelation of the mysteries Offeringoaths he expressed himself this way I adjure you by heaven earth light anddarkness I adjure you by fire water air and earth I adjure you by the height of theheaven by the depth of the earth and of Tartaros I adjure you by Hermes byAnubis by the roaring of Kerberos by the serpent who guards the temple I adjureyou by the Ferry and by the Boatman of the Acheron I adjure you by the ThreeFates by the Furies and by the Sword

After all these oaths he demanded that I communicate nothing to anyonewhatever except my beloved and legitimate son so that you might be he and he youSo then observe in passing ask the farmer Acharantos and learn from him what issown and what is harvested and you will learn from him that the man who sowswheat also harvests wheat and the man who sows barley also harvests barley

The adepts having participated in the divine power and having recourse todivine assistance clarified by virtue of the question (of Isis) they must makepreparations with certain metallic minerals without using other substances Now the mystery has been revealed 61

The revelation of an alchemical secret by a spirit is a leitmotif of Greco-Egyptianalchemy In Physika kai Mystica pseudo-Democritos raises the ghost of his teacher in order tolearn a posthumous secret62 In The Visions of Zosimos Agathodaemon the Good Spiritexplains the alchemical process to Zosimos in his dream-visions63 The significance of themotif was preserved in a historical notice of Maria the J ewess by the Muslim alchemist ibnUmail

MARlY A also said The Water which I have mentioned is an Angel and descendsfrom the sky and the earth accepts it on account of its (the earths) moistness

(As for her statement regarding the Angel) She meant by this the DivineWater which is the Soul She named it Angel because it is spiritual and becausethat Water has risen from the earth to the sky of the Birba (ie from the bottom tothe top of the Alembic)

And as for her statement (The Water) descends from the sky she meant by thisits return to their Earth 64

One sourceof Isis the prophetess was aJewish midrash Expanding on the biblical accountof an ante-deluvial period when fallen angels mated with the daughters of men (Gen 6 1-4)the midrash accounted for the origin of alchemy through revelation by an angel namedAmnael 65 As the midrash was reworked in Isis the prophetess the Egyptian goddess has beeneuhemerized and identified as the woman whom Amnael approached The alchemicalcipher also depends on the well known Hellenistic identification of Isis with the earth66 Isis

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symbolizes the copper-lead metals The approach of the first angel whom she is able torefuseuro corresponds to the initial attack of smoky vapors the blackening Amnael the angelwhose advances she welcomes at a price symbolizes the corrosive vapors that attack themetals accomplishing the whitening The vase that Amnael exhibits presumably signifies astill The vessel has not been coated with pitch in the sense that it has not been involved inthe blackening yet it is filled with transparent waters meaning vapors The sign onAmnaels head whose display coincides with Isiss surrender to his lust alludes to thediscoloration of the vapors upon their corrosive contact with the metals

Since alchemists understood a change of metallic colors as the death of one form and thebirth of another a passing reference to a sword-in the last of Amnaels oaths-sufficed tosignify the death-dealing agency of heat The text does not otherwise allegorize the increaseof heat necessary to transform the corroded metals into a gold-resembling alloy Instead ofadescription of Isis and Amnael in the heat of union becoming Horus the text identifiesAmnael and Horus and otherwise refers chastely to a secret communication involving IsisThe secret we are also told is that what one sows is what one harvests In other words withthe attack of the vapors on the metals the chemical ingredients of alchemical gold are allpresent

Rather than spiritual alchemy Isis the Prophetess to her Son Horos is distinguished by aniconoclastic irreverence for religion There is much in the text that is meant to be absurdThe great mother goddess of Egypt is merely a mortal prophetess and she is seduced by aJewish angel Mercenary in her morality she is a willing party to her seduction providingonly that she is told the alchemical secret of silver and gold For his part the Jewish angeltakes noJewish oaths He swears by the four elements and otherwise by a variety of Egyptianand Greek numina Finally Isis no sooner swears an oath of secrecy than she breaks it bywriting the text that we are reading

These calculated insults to Greco-Egyptian religion are all present in the manifest levelof the text The subtext adds the further sacrileges that Isis and Amnael are names formineral substances Heaven and Tartaros name the top and the bottom of the alchemicalapparatus The serpent who guards the temple is the pipe leading from the apparatus to thedistillation equipment These uses of religious language are reductive They interpret thedivine and angelic as mere terminology for the physical and material

So far is Isis the prophetess from spiritual alchemy that it may conceivably be the work of anatheist It is equally possible however that the author was devoutly religious A willingnessto satirize Egyptian Greek and Jewish mythologies would not necessarily have beeninconsistent for example with Maria the Jewesss interpretation of scientific creativity asdivine revelation Zosimos of Panopolis quoted her as having said

Here is what God said Know that according to experience in burning copper (first)the sulphur produces no effect But ifinstead you burn sulphur (first) then not onlydoes it render the copper without stain but it also makes it approach gold67

Although Western mystics generally sought creative inspirations for the purpose ofscriptural exegesis alchemists may certainly have desired revelations concerning both theSacred Art and its literature

On investigation the term spiritual alchemy proves to refer to two distinct traditionsa religio-philosophical understanding of chemical change that was integral to Westernalchemy from the Hellenistic period onward and a mysticism of Western European origin in

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the thirteenth or fourteenth century The founders of Greek alchemy Maria theJewess andZosimos of Panopolis were almost certainly mystics but two early instances do notconstitute a tradition Definitive conclusions on Arabic alchemy remain premature68 I addhowever that I have yet to encounter any mysticism prior to the interface with the LatinWest

Because gold-making was a constant of the literature from Hellenistic times onward twopuzzles remain acute A reader had already to have been initiated orally into the secret ofgold-making ifshe or he were to be able to make sense of the texts Why write at all69Againone Hellenistic gold-making recipe was rephrased in thousands upon thousands of textswhen a single tract would have sufficed the needs of gold-makers Why write so many texts inso many different ways

Alchemical literature is I suspect a type of cipher The secret chemistry of the GreatWork was its pre-supposition Whatever in an alchemical text refers to gold-making is not thesecret message of the text but only its place of concealment It is only after penetrating anddiscounting the esoteric discussion of the Great Work that it becomes possible to detectmiddotthepresence of further literary materials that do not pertain to the Great Work Sometimes thereare passages a sentence or a paragraph or two in length that have nothing to do with theGreat Work In other cases attention must be given to gratuitous choices of symbols Inboth cases the esoteric account of the Great Work amounts to a haystack in which the readermust seek a needle

NOTES

1 Karl von Reichenbach The Odic Force Letters on Od and Magnetism trans F D OByrne (London Hutchinsonamp Co 1926 rpt New Hyde Park NY University Books 1968) pp 14-16 93 30--34

2 Christopher McIntosh The Rosy Cross Unveiled The History Mythology and Ritual of an Occult Order(Wellingborough UK Aquarian Press Ltd 1980) pp 82 89 90

3 lVfcIntosh p I 124 Frederick Hockley The Rosicrucian Seer Magical Writings of Frederick Hockley edJohn Hamill (Wellingborough

UK Aquarian Press 1986)5 A Suggestive Inquiry into the Hermetic Jystery with a Dissertation on the more celebrated Alchemical Philosophers being an

attempt towards the Recovery of the Ancient Experiment of Nature (London Trelawney Saunders 1850) Atwood p 80refered explicitly to the New Imponderable or Od-ic Force

6 Eliphas Levi Transcendental Magic Its Doctrine and Ritual trans A E Waite 2nd ed (London 1923) pp 343-47 Ellic Howe ed The Alchemist of the Golden Dawn The Letters of the Revd W A Ayton to F L Gardner and Others 1886-

1905 (Wellingborough UK Aquarian Press 1985) pp 50--5I

8 Francis King ed Astral Projection Ritual Magic and Alchemy Golden Dawn Material by S L MacGregor Mathers andOthers (Rochester VT Destiny Books 1987) p 177 Israel Regardie The Philosophers Stone A ModernComparative Approach to Alchemy from the Psychological and Magical Points of View (London Rider amp Co 1938)

9 Frances A Yates Giordano Bruno and the Hermetic Tradition (London Routledge amp Kegan Paul 1964) pp97-104

10 Peter Schafer Gershom Scholem Reconsidered The Aim and Purpose of Early Jewish Mysticism The Twelfth SacksLecture delivered on 29th May 1985 (Oxford UK Oxford Centre for Postgraduate Hebrew Studies 1986)

I I Arthur Edward Waite trans The Alchemical Writings of Edward Kelly (1893 rpt London Robinson amp Watkins1973) Meric Casaubon ed A True and Faithful Relation of What Passedfor many Years Between Dr John Dee andSome Spirits (London D lVIaxwell amp T Garthwait 1659 rpt Glasgow Antonine Publishing Co 1974)The association can also be found in Act III Scene i of Shakespeares First Part of King Henry IV For Hotspuralchemy and spirit conjuring are distinct for Glendower they are a single practice Neither Worcester norlVfortimer is able to follow the conversation of the two initiates

12 Nicholas Flamel The Alchemical Hieroglyphics Which Were Caused to be Painted Upon an Arch in St Innocents ChurchYard in Paris trans Eirenaeus Orandus (1624 rpt Berkeley Heights NJ Heptangle Books 1980)

13middot John Read Through Alchemy to Chemistry A Procession of Ideas and Personalities (London G Bell amp Sons 1957) pp24-25

14 F Sherwood Taylor The Alchemists (1952 rpt St Albans UK PaladinGranada Publishing Ltd 1976) p174middot

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44 DANIEL MERKUR

15 Arthur Edward Waite Lives of the Alchemystical Philosophers (London G Redway 1888) p 3616 Lynn Thorndike A History of Magic and Experimental Science During the First Thirteen Centuries of Our Era (New

York amp London Columbia University Press 1923) Vol II p 3 I317 Lynn Thorndike A History of Magic and Experimental Science Volumes III and IV Fourteenth and Fifteenth Centuries

(New York amp London Columbia University Press 1934) Vol III p 4118 The Works of Gebermiddot Englished by Richard Russell 1678 a New Edition introd EJ Holmyard (LondonJ M Dent

amp New York E P Dutton 1928) p 3919 Thorndike Vol III pp 357-60 Robert P Multhauf The Origins of Chemistry (London Oldbourne 1966) pp

211-220 Thorndike Vol III p 17821 E J Holmyard The Emerald Table Nature 112 (1923) 52622 Tenney L Davis The Emerald Table of Hermes Trismegistus Three Latin Versions Which Were Current

Among Later Alchemists journal of Chemical Education 3 (1926) pp 874-523 Robert Steele amp Dorothea Waley Singer The Emerald Table Proceedings of the Royal Society of Medicine 21

(1928)48649224 Davis p 86925 Thorndike Vol III p 61526 Ibid Vol IV pp 37-43 Multhauf pp 180 n 6 21227 D P Walker Spiritual and Demonic Magic From Ficino to Campanella (London Warbug Institute University of

London 1958 rpt Notre Dame University of Notre Dame Press 1975) p 828 Daniel P Walker Spiritual and Demonic Magic idem The Ancient Theology Studies in Christian Platonism from the

Fifteenth to the Eighteenth Century (London Gerald Duckworth amp Co Ltd 1972) Frances A Yates GiordanoBruno and the Hermetic Tradition (London Routledge amp Kegan Paul Ltd 1964) idem The Occult Philosophy in theElizabethan Age (London Routledge amp Kegan Paul 1979) idem Lull amp Bruno (London Routledge amp KeganPaul 1982)

29 Arthur Edward Waite Azoth or The Star in the East (London Theosophical Publishing Society 1893)30 Waite Lives of the Alchemystical Philosopohers idem The Secret Tradition in Alchemy Its Development and Records

(London Kegan Paul Trench Trubner amp New York A A Knopf 1926) Reviewing the latter in Nature 118

(Dec 18 1926) p 870 Holmyard wrote Mr Vaite has in short finally and irretrievably demolished thefantastic thesis set up by Mrs Atwood and others and has proved beyond refutation that early and medievalalchemy was almost entirely concerned with physics or physic

3 I Earle Radcliffe Caley The Leyden Papyrus X An English Translation with Brief Notes journal of ChemicalEducation 3 (1926) 1149-1166

32 Arthur John Hopkins Bronzing Methods in the Alchemistic Leyden Papyri The Chemical News 85 (1902)49-52 idem Earliest Alchemy The Scientific Monthly 6 (1918) 510-37 idem A Modern Theory of AlchemyIsis 7 (1925) 58-76 idem Transmutation by Color A Study of Earliest Alchemy Studien zur Geschichte derChemie Festgabe Edmund O v Lippman ed Julius Ruska (Berlin Julius Springer 1927) idem Alchemy Child ofGreek Philosophy (New York Columbia University Press 1934) idem A defence of Egyptian alchemy Isis 28(1938)424-31 idem A study of the Kerotakis Process as given by Zosimus and later alchemical writers Isis29 (1938) 326-54

33 F Sherwood Taylor A Survey of Greek Alchemy journal of Hellenic Studies 50 (1930) 109-139 idem TheOrigins of Greek Alchemy Ambix I (1937) 30-47 idem The Alchemists On Maria see Raphael Patai Mariathe Jewess-Founding Mother of Alchemy Ambix 29 (1982) 177-97

34 One must also beware errors in existing scholarship Seyyed Hossein Nasr Science and Civilization in Islam (1968rpt New York New American Library 1970) p 248 n I acknowledged that his own discussions of spiritualalchemy in the history of Islam were informed by Titus Burckhardts view of spiritual alchemy UnfortunatelyBurckhardts Alchemy Science of the Cosmos Science of the Soul trans William Stoddart (1967 rpt BaltimorePenguin Books Ltd 1971) is among the more theologically innovative-and historically anachronistic-accounts of alchemy presently available

35 Taylor The Alchemists pp 56-5736 H J Sheppard Gnosticism and Alchemy Ambix 6 (1957) p 10 I

37 Ibid p 8838 Mysticism used to be synonymous with grace and spirituality but the latter have gained broader

meanings in recent years Grace may now be any act of providence while spirituality though it continues torefer to a practice or discipline may designate intense worship moral fastidiousness or asceticism rather thanmysticism As there is no danger of confusion however there seems no need to replace the phrase spiritualalchemy by alchemical mysticism

39 Psychological approaches to alchemy had earlier been advanced by Ethan Allen Hitchcock Remarks uponAlchemy and the Alchemists (Boston Crosby Nichols 1857) Herbert Silberer Hidden Symbolism of Alchemy and theOccult Arts (Originally titled Problems of Myslicism- and Its Symbolism) trans Smith Ely Helliffe (1917 rpt NewYork Dover Publications 1971) and Regardie The Philosophers Stone

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THE STUDY OF SPIRITUAL ALCHEMY 37

things indissolubly joined In his conception the fifth essence was apparently responsiblefor imparting form to minerals25 Rupescissas account of the fifth essence was plagiarized inlate fourteenth or early fifteenth century writings falsely attributed to Raymond Lul126 Ageneration later Marsilio Ficino identified spirit the substance on which his magicdepended with the fifth essence27

Let me underscore this last point The Renaissance practice of occult syncretism whosebeginning D P Walker and Frances A Yates traced to Ficino in the mid-fifteenth century28built on a prior innovation in alchemy Once alchemists postulated a fifth essence as thesubstance of souls and the Platonic World of Forms they inaugurated a search for itstheoretic understanding and practical technology The search led to magic and mysticismpseudo-Lullism and the Renaissance revivals of Hermetism Orphism Cabala Druidismetc

In the nineteenth century historians of chemistry incorrectly assumed that because theartificial manufacture of gold is not chemically possible alchemists must without exceptionhave been liars frauds and swindlers The hypothesis precluded serious investigation of thealchemists belief-systems Even the occult historian Arthur Edward Waite who himselfcomposed a work of spiritual alchemy29 insisted that the historical alchemists had beenchemists rather than mystics3o

Only in 1925 did Arthur John Hopkins suggest that alchemists had been sincere in theirefforts He argued that Western alchemy had originated as an extention of the dyeing oftextiles in a deliberate attempt to color inexpensive metals for the costume jewelry trade InHellenistic Egypt precious metals were routinely given superficial surface colors by meansof bronzes Gold for example was bronzed purple and silver black The Leyden papyrusX31 which is dated to the 3rd century explains how to produce similar bronzes in basemetals Hopkins urged that these procedures which are plainly stated in a metallurgicaltext should be used to interpret the cryptic references to changes in color in alchemical textsAlchemists continued to make cryptic references to the same color changes through theseventeenth century and in the context of classical Greek physics changing the color of ametal constituted its transmutation32

F Sherwood Taylor built on Hopkins color theory but he argued that alchemistsreferences to changes in color pertained to the productions of alloys rather than superficialbronzes Taylor also emphasized that alchemical gold was believed to be genuine Naturalvariations in the quality of different gold ores combined with limited refining and assayingtechniques to produce a considerable variation in the quality of natural gold Alchemicalgold was often indistinguishable Taylor foumiddotnd that the Hellenistic texts contain fourtechniques for producing gold-resembling alloys but only one combined metallurgy withreligious imagery philosophy and an esoteric literary style Equally uniquely its procedureinvolved distillation a process that alchemists apparently invented but kept secret Stillswere first used for non-alchemical purposes in the West some seven centuries after theirearliest description in alchemical texts In Taylors view the alchemical traditioncommenced no later than the third century in the person of Maria the Jewess whomZosimos of Panopolis (circa 300 CE) credited with the introduction of the still33

Among later alchemists those who adopted empirical andor innovative attitudes tochemical experimentation -eg the Persian schools ofJ abir ibn Hayyan and al-Razi andthe later Paracelsians of Europe- have attracted most of the attention of historians ofchemistry We remain middotcomparatively ignorant of Muslim alchemy in Egypt and the

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Mediterranean basin where gold-making antiquarian Hellenism andpseudepigraphywere prominent 34PosSIbly because they are repetitive monotonous and boring the gold-making recipes in European alchemical literature have not been systematically explicatedeither Under the circumstances historians of chemistry have rarely given more thancursory attention to the relation of spiritual alchemy and the chemistry of gold-makingTaylor was an important exception He described alchemical spirituality as an expression of

wonderful analogies between the great world with its seasons and growth anddeath and generation and the process of the alchemical work It is a sort ofrejoicing in the wonderful phenomena of chemical change35

A related understanding informs H J Sheppards persuasive demonstrations that themain source from which alchemical mysticism derived was Gnosticism 36 Shepparddefined mysticism as ideas of a supra-rational nature concerning the origin nature anddestiny of the soul 37His views come to close agreement with Taylors position howeveronce we allow that alchemists routinely interpreted correspondences among events in thecosmos the chemical apparatus and the soul

I must emphasize however that historians of science have consistently employed theterm mysticism in reference to any unscientific or religious point of view The term is usedvery differently by occult writers on spiritual alchemy and confusion regarding the term hasrepeatedly concealed disagreements of substance For present purposes mysticism will bedefined in keeping with its technical usage by historians of religion as the practice andideology of religious uses of alternate psychic states38 Religious evaluations of chemicalevents as demonstrated by Taylor and Sheppard are instances of religious philosophy butnot of mysticism

The psychologist Carl G Jung attempted to reconcile the divergent views of occultistsand chemists39 Although Jung acknowledged that some alchemists had engaged inchemical activities he maintained that a parallel psychic process had been the moreimportant activity4o The psychic process took the form of mystical visions

While working on his chemical experiments the operator had certain psychicexperiences which appeared to him as the particular behaviour of the chemicalprocess41 During the practical work certain events of an hallucinatory or visionarynature were perceived which cannot be anything but projections of unconsciousconten ts42

InJungs view the visions were induced while alchemists watched the alchemical processesin their apparatus Once the visions commenced the hallucinatory materials obliterated thefield of sense perception The alchemists no longer saw the chemical processes The symbolsthat they presented in their writings were products exclusively of their visionary states

Unfortunately Jung almost completely ignored the efforts of Hopkins and Taylor toreconstruct the chemistry of alchemical gold-making and he almost never recognizedreferences to chemistry as references to chemistry Jung was presumably unable to do so Asproof texts for his hypothesis that hallucinations obliterated and replaced sense perception ofthe chemical apparatus Jung cited passages43 that refer to my understanding sometimes toshapes that were discerned in the swirling vapors at the top of the apparatus and in othercases to discoloration of the metals on the shelf of the apparatus when the corrosive vapors

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THE STUDY OF SPIRITUAL ALCHEMY 39

ate into their surfaces44 These passages provide no evidence whatever of hallucinatory orvisionary experiences that obliterated sense perception of the alchemical apparatus Quiteto the contrary the passages prove that alchemists observed the chemical processes in theirequipment

The historian of religions Mircea Eliade offered a radically different interpretation ofalchemical mysticism He argued that the religious understanding and veneration ofmetallurgy still extant in non-literate cultures was consistent with and anterior to thereligio-philosophic understanding of alchemy in its Chinese Indian and Greek origins Aswell Eliade suggested that Greek alchemy had been influenced not only by classical Greekphilosophy but also by the Hellenistic mystery religions Alchemy was in effect a mysteryreligion in which matter had the role of the god

I t is the mystical drama of the God - his passion death and resurrection -which isprojected on to matter in order to transmute it the alchemist treats his Matter asthe God was treated in the mysteries45

Eliades link to mysticism was necessarily speculative We know that initiation into theMysteries consisted of participation in the passion death and resurrection ofa God but weare ignorant of the manner of participation Eliade was willing however to conjecture thatthe sufferings death and resurrection of the god already known to the neophyte as a myth oras authentic history were communicated to him during initiations in an experimentalmanner 46 Eliade noted the initiatory visions in which shamans suffer die and resurrect47

In The Visions of Zosimos the alchemist reported visions with similar motifs butthedeathsand resurrections were not his own Rather he projected on to Matter the initiatoryfunction of suffering 48 In all Eliade concluded that the opus alchymicum had profoundanalogies with the mystic life 49 but he stopped short of asserting that analogy impliedidentity

Even with its qualification Eliades contention remains speculative No differently thanalchemy Christianity adopted language and symbolism from the Hellenistic mysteries butit would be absurd to suggest that imitatio Christi has invariably consisted of a visionaryexperience of crucifixion and resurrection

Moreover even if initiatory ecstasies of death and resurrection were traditional featuresof alchemical mysticism-as is today claimed orally by some occult traditions-it wouldsuffice to postulate their innovation during the medieval Latin period Not only caninitiatory death be traced from the pagan portions of the Welsh Mabinogion through thePerlesvaus version of the Grail romance over a century before the better known Sir Gawainand the Green Knight50 but the quest of the Holy Grail is as a wholemiddota8hristianized version ofthe otherwordly journey to the home of the Welsh god Bran51 In the early thirteenthcentury within a decade of the composition of the Perlesvaus alchemical symbolism wasused knowingly in both the Tristan of Gottfried von Strassburg52 and the Parzival of Wolframvon Eschenbach53 The influences may have been reciprocal The Grail mysticism ofArthurian romance may have contributed to spiritual alchemy It is unnecessary to assumea legacy from the Hellenistic mystery religions

Because no one has ever established that alchemical mysticism existed in antiquity it isnot adequate to assume that alchemical symbolism can be taken to refer either to man orto a mineral substance 54 The methodological premise has not been earned Where analchemical document pertains to metallic alchemy we have no necessary evidence that it

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DANIEL MERKUR

pertains to anything more The student of alchemical literature is consequently engaged in ahermeneutic akin to psychoanalysis the interpretation of symbolic materials in terms of anexpected subtext In alchemy the expected subtext happens to be the chemistry of gold-making How precisely was the Great Work performed

Taylors reconstruction of the process55 is I suggest very nearly correct The basicequipment was a reflux apparatus termed a kerotakis I t consisted of a closed chamber with ashelf (or hook) in its middle On the shelf were placed the metals to be treated copper leadperhaps also gold and silver Other ingredients were placed on the bottom of the chamberSulphur is frequently mentioned but we do not know what was actually intended by theterm56 When the base of the kerotakis was heated the ingredients inside the bottom of thechamber turned to smoke and vapor which singed the outer surfaces of the metals on theshelf accomplishing melanosis blackening A small vent hole permitted heated air toescape near the top of the apparatus but the vapors condensed on a condensing cover Thecondensate fell to the bottom of the kerotakis vaporized anew and attacked the metals~onceagain Leucosis whitening referred to the corrosive action of the vapors on the metals Theprocess was allowed to continue until the solids of the shelf were thoroughly discolored andpermeated with corrosion The heat was then increased and the metals gently roasted Theannealing which yielded a soft heavy yellow alloy was termed xanthosis yellowing

An alternate means of whitening also mentioned by Taylor57 involved use of a stilltermed an alembic In this distillation procedure once the gases had singed the outer surfacesof the metals and risen to the top of the apparatus they were led out through a pipe andcooled Taylor assumed that distillation precipitated an effiorescence of salts but I suggestthat distillation yielded both a solid and a fluid solvent The solid was returned to the fluid inthe chamber yielding an acid of greater intensity than before This acid was then applied tothe solid metals on the shelf

Taylor was unable to explain the significance of iosis which may mean either impartingthe color of a violet (ion) or removal of rust or tarnish (ios) 58Hopkins argued that iosisoriginally pertained to the dyeing of textiles the color of royal purple The term wassecondarily applied to the violet bronzing of gold Among other proof texts Hopkinsconvincingly cited a passage in which Maria the Jewess described the violet bronzing ofalchemical gold59 However The Visions of Zosimos (and many later texts) associatedreddening (an alternate of empurpling) with the distillation of the salt60 I conclude thatsome alchemists sought to produce gold that had a purple bronze while others sought goldthat had its natural yellow color In the latter event iosis was necessarily metaphor Achange of color was no longer of reference The term instead referred to a change in potencyfrom common to royal the production of the solid necessary to transform a weak acid into astrong one

Let us apply these considerations to an early example of Greek alchemy The bulk of Isisthe Prophetess to her Son Horus consists of metallurgical recipes that are ignorant of distillationThe archaic recipes are prefaced however by a narrative whose orientation is alchemical

Isis the prophetess to her son Horus You decided my son to set out and go to battlewith the infidel Typhon for the throne of your father Myself I went to Hermonthisa town (where one practices) the sacred art of Egypt I stayed there some time In thecourse of events and the necessary revolution of the spheres one of the angels whoreside in the first firmament saw me from above and wanted to unite with me Headvanced intending to arrive at his goal but I refused to yield wanting to learn from

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THE STUDY OF SPIRITUAL ALCHEMY

him the preparation of gold and silver When I questioned him he told me that hewas not permitted to explain in this regard in view of the high importance of thesemysteries but that the following day a greater angel the angel Amnael would comeand would be able to provide me with the answer to the question

He told me that he [Amnael] would carry a sign on his head and would display asmall vase that was not covered with pitch [but] full of transparent water He wouldbe able to reveal the truth

Next day before the sun was neared its course the angel Amnael appearedgreater than the first Taken by the same desire with my regard he descendedtowards me He did not stay immobile but hastened to where I held myself And I Idid not stop asking him the question

And when he delayed (to answer me) I did not yield a bit But I resisted his desireuntil he let me see the sign which he had on his head and transmitted to me withoutreserve and with sincerity the mysteries that I sought

At last he showed me the sign and began the revelation of the mysteries Offeringoaths he expressed himself this way I adjure you by heaven earth light anddarkness I adjure you by fire water air and earth I adjure you by the height of theheaven by the depth of the earth and of Tartaros I adjure you by Hermes byAnubis by the roaring of Kerberos by the serpent who guards the temple I adjureyou by the Ferry and by the Boatman of the Acheron I adjure you by the ThreeFates by the Furies and by the Sword

After all these oaths he demanded that I communicate nothing to anyonewhatever except my beloved and legitimate son so that you might be he and he youSo then observe in passing ask the farmer Acharantos and learn from him what issown and what is harvested and you will learn from him that the man who sowswheat also harvests wheat and the man who sows barley also harvests barley

The adepts having participated in the divine power and having recourse todivine assistance clarified by virtue of the question (of Isis) they must makepreparations with certain metallic minerals without using other substances Now the mystery has been revealed 61

The revelation of an alchemical secret by a spirit is a leitmotif of Greco-Egyptianalchemy In Physika kai Mystica pseudo-Democritos raises the ghost of his teacher in order tolearn a posthumous secret62 In The Visions of Zosimos Agathodaemon the Good Spiritexplains the alchemical process to Zosimos in his dream-visions63 The significance of themotif was preserved in a historical notice of Maria the J ewess by the Muslim alchemist ibnUmail

MARlY A also said The Water which I have mentioned is an Angel and descendsfrom the sky and the earth accepts it on account of its (the earths) moistness

(As for her statement regarding the Angel) She meant by this the DivineWater which is the Soul She named it Angel because it is spiritual and becausethat Water has risen from the earth to the sky of the Birba (ie from the bottom tothe top of the Alembic)

And as for her statement (The Water) descends from the sky she meant by thisits return to their Earth 64

One sourceof Isis the prophetess was aJewish midrash Expanding on the biblical accountof an ante-deluvial period when fallen angels mated with the daughters of men (Gen 6 1-4)the midrash accounted for the origin of alchemy through revelation by an angel namedAmnael 65 As the midrash was reworked in Isis the prophetess the Egyptian goddess has beeneuhemerized and identified as the woman whom Amnael approached The alchemicalcipher also depends on the well known Hellenistic identification of Isis with the earth66 Isis

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symbolizes the copper-lead metals The approach of the first angel whom she is able torefuseuro corresponds to the initial attack of smoky vapors the blackening Amnael the angelwhose advances she welcomes at a price symbolizes the corrosive vapors that attack themetals accomplishing the whitening The vase that Amnael exhibits presumably signifies astill The vessel has not been coated with pitch in the sense that it has not been involved inthe blackening yet it is filled with transparent waters meaning vapors The sign onAmnaels head whose display coincides with Isiss surrender to his lust alludes to thediscoloration of the vapors upon their corrosive contact with the metals

Since alchemists understood a change of metallic colors as the death of one form and thebirth of another a passing reference to a sword-in the last of Amnaels oaths-sufficed tosignify the death-dealing agency of heat The text does not otherwise allegorize the increaseof heat necessary to transform the corroded metals into a gold-resembling alloy Instead ofadescription of Isis and Amnael in the heat of union becoming Horus the text identifiesAmnael and Horus and otherwise refers chastely to a secret communication involving IsisThe secret we are also told is that what one sows is what one harvests In other words withthe attack of the vapors on the metals the chemical ingredients of alchemical gold are allpresent

Rather than spiritual alchemy Isis the Prophetess to her Son Horos is distinguished by aniconoclastic irreverence for religion There is much in the text that is meant to be absurdThe great mother goddess of Egypt is merely a mortal prophetess and she is seduced by aJewish angel Mercenary in her morality she is a willing party to her seduction providingonly that she is told the alchemical secret of silver and gold For his part the Jewish angeltakes noJewish oaths He swears by the four elements and otherwise by a variety of Egyptianand Greek numina Finally Isis no sooner swears an oath of secrecy than she breaks it bywriting the text that we are reading

These calculated insults to Greco-Egyptian religion are all present in the manifest levelof the text The subtext adds the further sacrileges that Isis and Amnael are names formineral substances Heaven and Tartaros name the top and the bottom of the alchemicalapparatus The serpent who guards the temple is the pipe leading from the apparatus to thedistillation equipment These uses of religious language are reductive They interpret thedivine and angelic as mere terminology for the physical and material

So far is Isis the prophetess from spiritual alchemy that it may conceivably be the work of anatheist It is equally possible however that the author was devoutly religious A willingnessto satirize Egyptian Greek and Jewish mythologies would not necessarily have beeninconsistent for example with Maria the Jewesss interpretation of scientific creativity asdivine revelation Zosimos of Panopolis quoted her as having said

Here is what God said Know that according to experience in burning copper (first)the sulphur produces no effect But ifinstead you burn sulphur (first) then not onlydoes it render the copper without stain but it also makes it approach gold67

Although Western mystics generally sought creative inspirations for the purpose ofscriptural exegesis alchemists may certainly have desired revelations concerning both theSacred Art and its literature

On investigation the term spiritual alchemy proves to refer to two distinct traditionsa religio-philosophical understanding of chemical change that was integral to Westernalchemy from the Hellenistic period onward and a mysticism of Western European origin in

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the thirteenth or fourteenth century The founders of Greek alchemy Maria theJewess andZosimos of Panopolis were almost certainly mystics but two early instances do notconstitute a tradition Definitive conclusions on Arabic alchemy remain premature68 I addhowever that I have yet to encounter any mysticism prior to the interface with the LatinWest

Because gold-making was a constant of the literature from Hellenistic times onward twopuzzles remain acute A reader had already to have been initiated orally into the secret ofgold-making ifshe or he were to be able to make sense of the texts Why write at all69Againone Hellenistic gold-making recipe was rephrased in thousands upon thousands of textswhen a single tract would have sufficed the needs of gold-makers Why write so many texts inso many different ways

Alchemical literature is I suspect a type of cipher The secret chemistry of the GreatWork was its pre-supposition Whatever in an alchemical text refers to gold-making is not thesecret message of the text but only its place of concealment It is only after penetrating anddiscounting the esoteric discussion of the Great Work that it becomes possible to detectmiddotthepresence of further literary materials that do not pertain to the Great Work Sometimes thereare passages a sentence or a paragraph or two in length that have nothing to do with theGreat Work In other cases attention must be given to gratuitous choices of symbols Inboth cases the esoteric account of the Great Work amounts to a haystack in which the readermust seek a needle

NOTES

1 Karl von Reichenbach The Odic Force Letters on Od and Magnetism trans F D OByrne (London Hutchinsonamp Co 1926 rpt New Hyde Park NY University Books 1968) pp 14-16 93 30--34

2 Christopher McIntosh The Rosy Cross Unveiled The History Mythology and Ritual of an Occult Order(Wellingborough UK Aquarian Press Ltd 1980) pp 82 89 90

3 lVfcIntosh p I 124 Frederick Hockley The Rosicrucian Seer Magical Writings of Frederick Hockley edJohn Hamill (Wellingborough

UK Aquarian Press 1986)5 A Suggestive Inquiry into the Hermetic Jystery with a Dissertation on the more celebrated Alchemical Philosophers being an

attempt towards the Recovery of the Ancient Experiment of Nature (London Trelawney Saunders 1850) Atwood p 80refered explicitly to the New Imponderable or Od-ic Force

6 Eliphas Levi Transcendental Magic Its Doctrine and Ritual trans A E Waite 2nd ed (London 1923) pp 343-47 Ellic Howe ed The Alchemist of the Golden Dawn The Letters of the Revd W A Ayton to F L Gardner and Others 1886-

1905 (Wellingborough UK Aquarian Press 1985) pp 50--5I

8 Francis King ed Astral Projection Ritual Magic and Alchemy Golden Dawn Material by S L MacGregor Mathers andOthers (Rochester VT Destiny Books 1987) p 177 Israel Regardie The Philosophers Stone A ModernComparative Approach to Alchemy from the Psychological and Magical Points of View (London Rider amp Co 1938)

9 Frances A Yates Giordano Bruno and the Hermetic Tradition (London Routledge amp Kegan Paul 1964) pp97-104

10 Peter Schafer Gershom Scholem Reconsidered The Aim and Purpose of Early Jewish Mysticism The Twelfth SacksLecture delivered on 29th May 1985 (Oxford UK Oxford Centre for Postgraduate Hebrew Studies 1986)

I I Arthur Edward Waite trans The Alchemical Writings of Edward Kelly (1893 rpt London Robinson amp Watkins1973) Meric Casaubon ed A True and Faithful Relation of What Passedfor many Years Between Dr John Dee andSome Spirits (London D lVIaxwell amp T Garthwait 1659 rpt Glasgow Antonine Publishing Co 1974)The association can also be found in Act III Scene i of Shakespeares First Part of King Henry IV For Hotspuralchemy and spirit conjuring are distinct for Glendower they are a single practice Neither Worcester norlVfortimer is able to follow the conversation of the two initiates

12 Nicholas Flamel The Alchemical Hieroglyphics Which Were Caused to be Painted Upon an Arch in St Innocents ChurchYard in Paris trans Eirenaeus Orandus (1624 rpt Berkeley Heights NJ Heptangle Books 1980)

13middot John Read Through Alchemy to Chemistry A Procession of Ideas and Personalities (London G Bell amp Sons 1957) pp24-25

14 F Sherwood Taylor The Alchemists (1952 rpt St Albans UK PaladinGranada Publishing Ltd 1976) p174middot

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15 Arthur Edward Waite Lives of the Alchemystical Philosophers (London G Redway 1888) p 3616 Lynn Thorndike A History of Magic and Experimental Science During the First Thirteen Centuries of Our Era (New

York amp London Columbia University Press 1923) Vol II p 3 I317 Lynn Thorndike A History of Magic and Experimental Science Volumes III and IV Fourteenth and Fifteenth Centuries

(New York amp London Columbia University Press 1934) Vol III p 4118 The Works of Gebermiddot Englished by Richard Russell 1678 a New Edition introd EJ Holmyard (LondonJ M Dent

amp New York E P Dutton 1928) p 3919 Thorndike Vol III pp 357-60 Robert P Multhauf The Origins of Chemistry (London Oldbourne 1966) pp

211-220 Thorndike Vol III p 17821 E J Holmyard The Emerald Table Nature 112 (1923) 52622 Tenney L Davis The Emerald Table of Hermes Trismegistus Three Latin Versions Which Were Current

Among Later Alchemists journal of Chemical Education 3 (1926) pp 874-523 Robert Steele amp Dorothea Waley Singer The Emerald Table Proceedings of the Royal Society of Medicine 21

(1928)48649224 Davis p 86925 Thorndike Vol III p 61526 Ibid Vol IV pp 37-43 Multhauf pp 180 n 6 21227 D P Walker Spiritual and Demonic Magic From Ficino to Campanella (London Warbug Institute University of

London 1958 rpt Notre Dame University of Notre Dame Press 1975) p 828 Daniel P Walker Spiritual and Demonic Magic idem The Ancient Theology Studies in Christian Platonism from the

Fifteenth to the Eighteenth Century (London Gerald Duckworth amp Co Ltd 1972) Frances A Yates GiordanoBruno and the Hermetic Tradition (London Routledge amp Kegan Paul Ltd 1964) idem The Occult Philosophy in theElizabethan Age (London Routledge amp Kegan Paul 1979) idem Lull amp Bruno (London Routledge amp KeganPaul 1982)

29 Arthur Edward Waite Azoth or The Star in the East (London Theosophical Publishing Society 1893)30 Waite Lives of the Alchemystical Philosopohers idem The Secret Tradition in Alchemy Its Development and Records

(London Kegan Paul Trench Trubner amp New York A A Knopf 1926) Reviewing the latter in Nature 118

(Dec 18 1926) p 870 Holmyard wrote Mr Vaite has in short finally and irretrievably demolished thefantastic thesis set up by Mrs Atwood and others and has proved beyond refutation that early and medievalalchemy was almost entirely concerned with physics or physic

3 I Earle Radcliffe Caley The Leyden Papyrus X An English Translation with Brief Notes journal of ChemicalEducation 3 (1926) 1149-1166

32 Arthur John Hopkins Bronzing Methods in the Alchemistic Leyden Papyri The Chemical News 85 (1902)49-52 idem Earliest Alchemy The Scientific Monthly 6 (1918) 510-37 idem A Modern Theory of AlchemyIsis 7 (1925) 58-76 idem Transmutation by Color A Study of Earliest Alchemy Studien zur Geschichte derChemie Festgabe Edmund O v Lippman ed Julius Ruska (Berlin Julius Springer 1927) idem Alchemy Child ofGreek Philosophy (New York Columbia University Press 1934) idem A defence of Egyptian alchemy Isis 28(1938)424-31 idem A study of the Kerotakis Process as given by Zosimus and later alchemical writers Isis29 (1938) 326-54

33 F Sherwood Taylor A Survey of Greek Alchemy journal of Hellenic Studies 50 (1930) 109-139 idem TheOrigins of Greek Alchemy Ambix I (1937) 30-47 idem The Alchemists On Maria see Raphael Patai Mariathe Jewess-Founding Mother of Alchemy Ambix 29 (1982) 177-97

34 One must also beware errors in existing scholarship Seyyed Hossein Nasr Science and Civilization in Islam (1968rpt New York New American Library 1970) p 248 n I acknowledged that his own discussions of spiritualalchemy in the history of Islam were informed by Titus Burckhardts view of spiritual alchemy UnfortunatelyBurckhardts Alchemy Science of the Cosmos Science of the Soul trans William Stoddart (1967 rpt BaltimorePenguin Books Ltd 1971) is among the more theologically innovative-and historically anachronistic-accounts of alchemy presently available

35 Taylor The Alchemists pp 56-5736 H J Sheppard Gnosticism and Alchemy Ambix 6 (1957) p 10 I

37 Ibid p 8838 Mysticism used to be synonymous with grace and spirituality but the latter have gained broader

meanings in recent years Grace may now be any act of providence while spirituality though it continues torefer to a practice or discipline may designate intense worship moral fastidiousness or asceticism rather thanmysticism As there is no danger of confusion however there seems no need to replace the phrase spiritualalchemy by alchemical mysticism

39 Psychological approaches to alchemy had earlier been advanced by Ethan Allen Hitchcock Remarks uponAlchemy and the Alchemists (Boston Crosby Nichols 1857) Herbert Silberer Hidden Symbolism of Alchemy and theOccult Arts (Originally titled Problems of Myslicism- and Its Symbolism) trans Smith Ely Helliffe (1917 rpt NewYork Dover Publications 1971) and Regardie The Philosophers Stone

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Mediterranean basin where gold-making antiquarian Hellenism andpseudepigraphywere prominent 34PosSIbly because they are repetitive monotonous and boring the gold-making recipes in European alchemical literature have not been systematically explicatedeither Under the circumstances historians of chemistry have rarely given more thancursory attention to the relation of spiritual alchemy and the chemistry of gold-makingTaylor was an important exception He described alchemical spirituality as an expression of

wonderful analogies between the great world with its seasons and growth anddeath and generation and the process of the alchemical work It is a sort ofrejoicing in the wonderful phenomena of chemical change35

A related understanding informs H J Sheppards persuasive demonstrations that themain source from which alchemical mysticism derived was Gnosticism 36 Shepparddefined mysticism as ideas of a supra-rational nature concerning the origin nature anddestiny of the soul 37His views come to close agreement with Taylors position howeveronce we allow that alchemists routinely interpreted correspondences among events in thecosmos the chemical apparatus and the soul

I must emphasize however that historians of science have consistently employed theterm mysticism in reference to any unscientific or religious point of view The term is usedvery differently by occult writers on spiritual alchemy and confusion regarding the term hasrepeatedly concealed disagreements of substance For present purposes mysticism will bedefined in keeping with its technical usage by historians of religion as the practice andideology of religious uses of alternate psychic states38 Religious evaluations of chemicalevents as demonstrated by Taylor and Sheppard are instances of religious philosophy butnot of mysticism

The psychologist Carl G Jung attempted to reconcile the divergent views of occultistsand chemists39 Although Jung acknowledged that some alchemists had engaged inchemical activities he maintained that a parallel psychic process had been the moreimportant activity4o The psychic process took the form of mystical visions

While working on his chemical experiments the operator had certain psychicexperiences which appeared to him as the particular behaviour of the chemicalprocess41 During the practical work certain events of an hallucinatory or visionarynature were perceived which cannot be anything but projections of unconsciousconten ts42

InJungs view the visions were induced while alchemists watched the alchemical processesin their apparatus Once the visions commenced the hallucinatory materials obliterated thefield of sense perception The alchemists no longer saw the chemical processes The symbolsthat they presented in their writings were products exclusively of their visionary states

Unfortunately Jung almost completely ignored the efforts of Hopkins and Taylor toreconstruct the chemistry of alchemical gold-making and he almost never recognizedreferences to chemistry as references to chemistry Jung was presumably unable to do so Asproof texts for his hypothesis that hallucinations obliterated and replaced sense perception ofthe chemical apparatus Jung cited passages43 that refer to my understanding sometimes toshapes that were discerned in the swirling vapors at the top of the apparatus and in othercases to discoloration of the metals on the shelf of the apparatus when the corrosive vapors

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THE STUDY OF SPIRITUAL ALCHEMY 39

ate into their surfaces44 These passages provide no evidence whatever of hallucinatory orvisionary experiences that obliterated sense perception of the alchemical apparatus Quiteto the contrary the passages prove that alchemists observed the chemical processes in theirequipment

The historian of religions Mircea Eliade offered a radically different interpretation ofalchemical mysticism He argued that the religious understanding and veneration ofmetallurgy still extant in non-literate cultures was consistent with and anterior to thereligio-philosophic understanding of alchemy in its Chinese Indian and Greek origins Aswell Eliade suggested that Greek alchemy had been influenced not only by classical Greekphilosophy but also by the Hellenistic mystery religions Alchemy was in effect a mysteryreligion in which matter had the role of the god

I t is the mystical drama of the God - his passion death and resurrection -which isprojected on to matter in order to transmute it the alchemist treats his Matter asthe God was treated in the mysteries45

Eliades link to mysticism was necessarily speculative We know that initiation into theMysteries consisted of participation in the passion death and resurrection ofa God but weare ignorant of the manner of participation Eliade was willing however to conjecture thatthe sufferings death and resurrection of the god already known to the neophyte as a myth oras authentic history were communicated to him during initiations in an experimentalmanner 46 Eliade noted the initiatory visions in which shamans suffer die and resurrect47

In The Visions of Zosimos the alchemist reported visions with similar motifs butthedeathsand resurrections were not his own Rather he projected on to Matter the initiatoryfunction of suffering 48 In all Eliade concluded that the opus alchymicum had profoundanalogies with the mystic life 49 but he stopped short of asserting that analogy impliedidentity

Even with its qualification Eliades contention remains speculative No differently thanalchemy Christianity adopted language and symbolism from the Hellenistic mysteries butit would be absurd to suggest that imitatio Christi has invariably consisted of a visionaryexperience of crucifixion and resurrection

Moreover even if initiatory ecstasies of death and resurrection were traditional featuresof alchemical mysticism-as is today claimed orally by some occult traditions-it wouldsuffice to postulate their innovation during the medieval Latin period Not only caninitiatory death be traced from the pagan portions of the Welsh Mabinogion through thePerlesvaus version of the Grail romance over a century before the better known Sir Gawainand the Green Knight50 but the quest of the Holy Grail is as a wholemiddota8hristianized version ofthe otherwordly journey to the home of the Welsh god Bran51 In the early thirteenthcentury within a decade of the composition of the Perlesvaus alchemical symbolism wasused knowingly in both the Tristan of Gottfried von Strassburg52 and the Parzival of Wolframvon Eschenbach53 The influences may have been reciprocal The Grail mysticism ofArthurian romance may have contributed to spiritual alchemy It is unnecessary to assumea legacy from the Hellenistic mystery religions

Because no one has ever established that alchemical mysticism existed in antiquity it isnot adequate to assume that alchemical symbolism can be taken to refer either to man orto a mineral substance 54 The methodological premise has not been earned Where analchemical document pertains to metallic alchemy we have no necessary evidence that it

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DANIEL MERKUR

pertains to anything more The student of alchemical literature is consequently engaged in ahermeneutic akin to psychoanalysis the interpretation of symbolic materials in terms of anexpected subtext In alchemy the expected subtext happens to be the chemistry of gold-making How precisely was the Great Work performed

Taylors reconstruction of the process55 is I suggest very nearly correct The basicequipment was a reflux apparatus termed a kerotakis I t consisted of a closed chamber with ashelf (or hook) in its middle On the shelf were placed the metals to be treated copper leadperhaps also gold and silver Other ingredients were placed on the bottom of the chamberSulphur is frequently mentioned but we do not know what was actually intended by theterm56 When the base of the kerotakis was heated the ingredients inside the bottom of thechamber turned to smoke and vapor which singed the outer surfaces of the metals on theshelf accomplishing melanosis blackening A small vent hole permitted heated air toescape near the top of the apparatus but the vapors condensed on a condensing cover Thecondensate fell to the bottom of the kerotakis vaporized anew and attacked the metals~onceagain Leucosis whitening referred to the corrosive action of the vapors on the metals Theprocess was allowed to continue until the solids of the shelf were thoroughly discolored andpermeated with corrosion The heat was then increased and the metals gently roasted Theannealing which yielded a soft heavy yellow alloy was termed xanthosis yellowing

An alternate means of whitening also mentioned by Taylor57 involved use of a stilltermed an alembic In this distillation procedure once the gases had singed the outer surfacesof the metals and risen to the top of the apparatus they were led out through a pipe andcooled Taylor assumed that distillation precipitated an effiorescence of salts but I suggestthat distillation yielded both a solid and a fluid solvent The solid was returned to the fluid inthe chamber yielding an acid of greater intensity than before This acid was then applied tothe solid metals on the shelf

Taylor was unable to explain the significance of iosis which may mean either impartingthe color of a violet (ion) or removal of rust or tarnish (ios) 58Hopkins argued that iosisoriginally pertained to the dyeing of textiles the color of royal purple The term wassecondarily applied to the violet bronzing of gold Among other proof texts Hopkinsconvincingly cited a passage in which Maria the Jewess described the violet bronzing ofalchemical gold59 However The Visions of Zosimos (and many later texts) associatedreddening (an alternate of empurpling) with the distillation of the salt60 I conclude thatsome alchemists sought to produce gold that had a purple bronze while others sought goldthat had its natural yellow color In the latter event iosis was necessarily metaphor Achange of color was no longer of reference The term instead referred to a change in potencyfrom common to royal the production of the solid necessary to transform a weak acid into astrong one

Let us apply these considerations to an early example of Greek alchemy The bulk of Isisthe Prophetess to her Son Horus consists of metallurgical recipes that are ignorant of distillationThe archaic recipes are prefaced however by a narrative whose orientation is alchemical

Isis the prophetess to her son Horus You decided my son to set out and go to battlewith the infidel Typhon for the throne of your father Myself I went to Hermonthisa town (where one practices) the sacred art of Egypt I stayed there some time In thecourse of events and the necessary revolution of the spheres one of the angels whoreside in the first firmament saw me from above and wanted to unite with me Headvanced intending to arrive at his goal but I refused to yield wanting to learn from

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THE STUDY OF SPIRITUAL ALCHEMY

him the preparation of gold and silver When I questioned him he told me that hewas not permitted to explain in this regard in view of the high importance of thesemysteries but that the following day a greater angel the angel Amnael would comeand would be able to provide me with the answer to the question

He told me that he [Amnael] would carry a sign on his head and would display asmall vase that was not covered with pitch [but] full of transparent water He wouldbe able to reveal the truth

Next day before the sun was neared its course the angel Amnael appearedgreater than the first Taken by the same desire with my regard he descendedtowards me He did not stay immobile but hastened to where I held myself And I Idid not stop asking him the question

And when he delayed (to answer me) I did not yield a bit But I resisted his desireuntil he let me see the sign which he had on his head and transmitted to me withoutreserve and with sincerity the mysteries that I sought

At last he showed me the sign and began the revelation of the mysteries Offeringoaths he expressed himself this way I adjure you by heaven earth light anddarkness I adjure you by fire water air and earth I adjure you by the height of theheaven by the depth of the earth and of Tartaros I adjure you by Hermes byAnubis by the roaring of Kerberos by the serpent who guards the temple I adjureyou by the Ferry and by the Boatman of the Acheron I adjure you by the ThreeFates by the Furies and by the Sword

After all these oaths he demanded that I communicate nothing to anyonewhatever except my beloved and legitimate son so that you might be he and he youSo then observe in passing ask the farmer Acharantos and learn from him what issown and what is harvested and you will learn from him that the man who sowswheat also harvests wheat and the man who sows barley also harvests barley

The adepts having participated in the divine power and having recourse todivine assistance clarified by virtue of the question (of Isis) they must makepreparations with certain metallic minerals without using other substances Now the mystery has been revealed 61

The revelation of an alchemical secret by a spirit is a leitmotif of Greco-Egyptianalchemy In Physika kai Mystica pseudo-Democritos raises the ghost of his teacher in order tolearn a posthumous secret62 In The Visions of Zosimos Agathodaemon the Good Spiritexplains the alchemical process to Zosimos in his dream-visions63 The significance of themotif was preserved in a historical notice of Maria the J ewess by the Muslim alchemist ibnUmail

MARlY A also said The Water which I have mentioned is an Angel and descendsfrom the sky and the earth accepts it on account of its (the earths) moistness

(As for her statement regarding the Angel) She meant by this the DivineWater which is the Soul She named it Angel because it is spiritual and becausethat Water has risen from the earth to the sky of the Birba (ie from the bottom tothe top of the Alembic)

And as for her statement (The Water) descends from the sky she meant by thisits return to their Earth 64

One sourceof Isis the prophetess was aJewish midrash Expanding on the biblical accountof an ante-deluvial period when fallen angels mated with the daughters of men (Gen 6 1-4)the midrash accounted for the origin of alchemy through revelation by an angel namedAmnael 65 As the midrash was reworked in Isis the prophetess the Egyptian goddess has beeneuhemerized and identified as the woman whom Amnael approached The alchemicalcipher also depends on the well known Hellenistic identification of Isis with the earth66 Isis

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symbolizes the copper-lead metals The approach of the first angel whom she is able torefuseuro corresponds to the initial attack of smoky vapors the blackening Amnael the angelwhose advances she welcomes at a price symbolizes the corrosive vapors that attack themetals accomplishing the whitening The vase that Amnael exhibits presumably signifies astill The vessel has not been coated with pitch in the sense that it has not been involved inthe blackening yet it is filled with transparent waters meaning vapors The sign onAmnaels head whose display coincides with Isiss surrender to his lust alludes to thediscoloration of the vapors upon their corrosive contact with the metals

Since alchemists understood a change of metallic colors as the death of one form and thebirth of another a passing reference to a sword-in the last of Amnaels oaths-sufficed tosignify the death-dealing agency of heat The text does not otherwise allegorize the increaseof heat necessary to transform the corroded metals into a gold-resembling alloy Instead ofadescription of Isis and Amnael in the heat of union becoming Horus the text identifiesAmnael and Horus and otherwise refers chastely to a secret communication involving IsisThe secret we are also told is that what one sows is what one harvests In other words withthe attack of the vapors on the metals the chemical ingredients of alchemical gold are allpresent

Rather than spiritual alchemy Isis the Prophetess to her Son Horos is distinguished by aniconoclastic irreverence for religion There is much in the text that is meant to be absurdThe great mother goddess of Egypt is merely a mortal prophetess and she is seduced by aJewish angel Mercenary in her morality she is a willing party to her seduction providingonly that she is told the alchemical secret of silver and gold For his part the Jewish angeltakes noJewish oaths He swears by the four elements and otherwise by a variety of Egyptianand Greek numina Finally Isis no sooner swears an oath of secrecy than she breaks it bywriting the text that we are reading

These calculated insults to Greco-Egyptian religion are all present in the manifest levelof the text The subtext adds the further sacrileges that Isis and Amnael are names formineral substances Heaven and Tartaros name the top and the bottom of the alchemicalapparatus The serpent who guards the temple is the pipe leading from the apparatus to thedistillation equipment These uses of religious language are reductive They interpret thedivine and angelic as mere terminology for the physical and material

So far is Isis the prophetess from spiritual alchemy that it may conceivably be the work of anatheist It is equally possible however that the author was devoutly religious A willingnessto satirize Egyptian Greek and Jewish mythologies would not necessarily have beeninconsistent for example with Maria the Jewesss interpretation of scientific creativity asdivine revelation Zosimos of Panopolis quoted her as having said

Here is what God said Know that according to experience in burning copper (first)the sulphur produces no effect But ifinstead you burn sulphur (first) then not onlydoes it render the copper without stain but it also makes it approach gold67

Although Western mystics generally sought creative inspirations for the purpose ofscriptural exegesis alchemists may certainly have desired revelations concerning both theSacred Art and its literature

On investigation the term spiritual alchemy proves to refer to two distinct traditionsa religio-philosophical understanding of chemical change that was integral to Westernalchemy from the Hellenistic period onward and a mysticism of Western European origin in

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THE STUDY OF SPIRITUAL ALCHEMY 43

the thirteenth or fourteenth century The founders of Greek alchemy Maria theJewess andZosimos of Panopolis were almost certainly mystics but two early instances do notconstitute a tradition Definitive conclusions on Arabic alchemy remain premature68 I addhowever that I have yet to encounter any mysticism prior to the interface with the LatinWest

Because gold-making was a constant of the literature from Hellenistic times onward twopuzzles remain acute A reader had already to have been initiated orally into the secret ofgold-making ifshe or he were to be able to make sense of the texts Why write at all69Againone Hellenistic gold-making recipe was rephrased in thousands upon thousands of textswhen a single tract would have sufficed the needs of gold-makers Why write so many texts inso many different ways

Alchemical literature is I suspect a type of cipher The secret chemistry of the GreatWork was its pre-supposition Whatever in an alchemical text refers to gold-making is not thesecret message of the text but only its place of concealment It is only after penetrating anddiscounting the esoteric discussion of the Great Work that it becomes possible to detectmiddotthepresence of further literary materials that do not pertain to the Great Work Sometimes thereare passages a sentence or a paragraph or two in length that have nothing to do with theGreat Work In other cases attention must be given to gratuitous choices of symbols Inboth cases the esoteric account of the Great Work amounts to a haystack in which the readermust seek a needle

NOTES

1 Karl von Reichenbach The Odic Force Letters on Od and Magnetism trans F D OByrne (London Hutchinsonamp Co 1926 rpt New Hyde Park NY University Books 1968) pp 14-16 93 30--34

2 Christopher McIntosh The Rosy Cross Unveiled The History Mythology and Ritual of an Occult Order(Wellingborough UK Aquarian Press Ltd 1980) pp 82 89 90

3 lVfcIntosh p I 124 Frederick Hockley The Rosicrucian Seer Magical Writings of Frederick Hockley edJohn Hamill (Wellingborough

UK Aquarian Press 1986)5 A Suggestive Inquiry into the Hermetic Jystery with a Dissertation on the more celebrated Alchemical Philosophers being an

attempt towards the Recovery of the Ancient Experiment of Nature (London Trelawney Saunders 1850) Atwood p 80refered explicitly to the New Imponderable or Od-ic Force

6 Eliphas Levi Transcendental Magic Its Doctrine and Ritual trans A E Waite 2nd ed (London 1923) pp 343-47 Ellic Howe ed The Alchemist of the Golden Dawn The Letters of the Revd W A Ayton to F L Gardner and Others 1886-

1905 (Wellingborough UK Aquarian Press 1985) pp 50--5I

8 Francis King ed Astral Projection Ritual Magic and Alchemy Golden Dawn Material by S L MacGregor Mathers andOthers (Rochester VT Destiny Books 1987) p 177 Israel Regardie The Philosophers Stone A ModernComparative Approach to Alchemy from the Psychological and Magical Points of View (London Rider amp Co 1938)

9 Frances A Yates Giordano Bruno and the Hermetic Tradition (London Routledge amp Kegan Paul 1964) pp97-104

10 Peter Schafer Gershom Scholem Reconsidered The Aim and Purpose of Early Jewish Mysticism The Twelfth SacksLecture delivered on 29th May 1985 (Oxford UK Oxford Centre for Postgraduate Hebrew Studies 1986)

I I Arthur Edward Waite trans The Alchemical Writings of Edward Kelly (1893 rpt London Robinson amp Watkins1973) Meric Casaubon ed A True and Faithful Relation of What Passedfor many Years Between Dr John Dee andSome Spirits (London D lVIaxwell amp T Garthwait 1659 rpt Glasgow Antonine Publishing Co 1974)The association can also be found in Act III Scene i of Shakespeares First Part of King Henry IV For Hotspuralchemy and spirit conjuring are distinct for Glendower they are a single practice Neither Worcester norlVfortimer is able to follow the conversation of the two initiates

12 Nicholas Flamel The Alchemical Hieroglyphics Which Were Caused to be Painted Upon an Arch in St Innocents ChurchYard in Paris trans Eirenaeus Orandus (1624 rpt Berkeley Heights NJ Heptangle Books 1980)

13middot John Read Through Alchemy to Chemistry A Procession of Ideas and Personalities (London G Bell amp Sons 1957) pp24-25

14 F Sherwood Taylor The Alchemists (1952 rpt St Albans UK PaladinGranada Publishing Ltd 1976) p174middot

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44 DANIEL MERKUR

15 Arthur Edward Waite Lives of the Alchemystical Philosophers (London G Redway 1888) p 3616 Lynn Thorndike A History of Magic and Experimental Science During the First Thirteen Centuries of Our Era (New

York amp London Columbia University Press 1923) Vol II p 3 I317 Lynn Thorndike A History of Magic and Experimental Science Volumes III and IV Fourteenth and Fifteenth Centuries

(New York amp London Columbia University Press 1934) Vol III p 4118 The Works of Gebermiddot Englished by Richard Russell 1678 a New Edition introd EJ Holmyard (LondonJ M Dent

amp New York E P Dutton 1928) p 3919 Thorndike Vol III pp 357-60 Robert P Multhauf The Origins of Chemistry (London Oldbourne 1966) pp

211-220 Thorndike Vol III p 17821 E J Holmyard The Emerald Table Nature 112 (1923) 52622 Tenney L Davis The Emerald Table of Hermes Trismegistus Three Latin Versions Which Were Current

Among Later Alchemists journal of Chemical Education 3 (1926) pp 874-523 Robert Steele amp Dorothea Waley Singer The Emerald Table Proceedings of the Royal Society of Medicine 21

(1928)48649224 Davis p 86925 Thorndike Vol III p 61526 Ibid Vol IV pp 37-43 Multhauf pp 180 n 6 21227 D P Walker Spiritual and Demonic Magic From Ficino to Campanella (London Warbug Institute University of

London 1958 rpt Notre Dame University of Notre Dame Press 1975) p 828 Daniel P Walker Spiritual and Demonic Magic idem The Ancient Theology Studies in Christian Platonism from the

Fifteenth to the Eighteenth Century (London Gerald Duckworth amp Co Ltd 1972) Frances A Yates GiordanoBruno and the Hermetic Tradition (London Routledge amp Kegan Paul Ltd 1964) idem The Occult Philosophy in theElizabethan Age (London Routledge amp Kegan Paul 1979) idem Lull amp Bruno (London Routledge amp KeganPaul 1982)

29 Arthur Edward Waite Azoth or The Star in the East (London Theosophical Publishing Society 1893)30 Waite Lives of the Alchemystical Philosopohers idem The Secret Tradition in Alchemy Its Development and Records

(London Kegan Paul Trench Trubner amp New York A A Knopf 1926) Reviewing the latter in Nature 118

(Dec 18 1926) p 870 Holmyard wrote Mr Vaite has in short finally and irretrievably demolished thefantastic thesis set up by Mrs Atwood and others and has proved beyond refutation that early and medievalalchemy was almost entirely concerned with physics or physic

3 I Earle Radcliffe Caley The Leyden Papyrus X An English Translation with Brief Notes journal of ChemicalEducation 3 (1926) 1149-1166

32 Arthur John Hopkins Bronzing Methods in the Alchemistic Leyden Papyri The Chemical News 85 (1902)49-52 idem Earliest Alchemy The Scientific Monthly 6 (1918) 510-37 idem A Modern Theory of AlchemyIsis 7 (1925) 58-76 idem Transmutation by Color A Study of Earliest Alchemy Studien zur Geschichte derChemie Festgabe Edmund O v Lippman ed Julius Ruska (Berlin Julius Springer 1927) idem Alchemy Child ofGreek Philosophy (New York Columbia University Press 1934) idem A defence of Egyptian alchemy Isis 28(1938)424-31 idem A study of the Kerotakis Process as given by Zosimus and later alchemical writers Isis29 (1938) 326-54

33 F Sherwood Taylor A Survey of Greek Alchemy journal of Hellenic Studies 50 (1930) 109-139 idem TheOrigins of Greek Alchemy Ambix I (1937) 30-47 idem The Alchemists On Maria see Raphael Patai Mariathe Jewess-Founding Mother of Alchemy Ambix 29 (1982) 177-97

34 One must also beware errors in existing scholarship Seyyed Hossein Nasr Science and Civilization in Islam (1968rpt New York New American Library 1970) p 248 n I acknowledged that his own discussions of spiritualalchemy in the history of Islam were informed by Titus Burckhardts view of spiritual alchemy UnfortunatelyBurckhardts Alchemy Science of the Cosmos Science of the Soul trans William Stoddart (1967 rpt BaltimorePenguin Books Ltd 1971) is among the more theologically innovative-and historically anachronistic-accounts of alchemy presently available

35 Taylor The Alchemists pp 56-5736 H J Sheppard Gnosticism and Alchemy Ambix 6 (1957) p 10 I

37 Ibid p 8838 Mysticism used to be synonymous with grace and spirituality but the latter have gained broader

meanings in recent years Grace may now be any act of providence while spirituality though it continues torefer to a practice or discipline may designate intense worship moral fastidiousness or asceticism rather thanmysticism As there is no danger of confusion however there seems no need to replace the phrase spiritualalchemy by alchemical mysticism

39 Psychological approaches to alchemy had earlier been advanced by Ethan Allen Hitchcock Remarks uponAlchemy and the Alchemists (Boston Crosby Nichols 1857) Herbert Silberer Hidden Symbolism of Alchemy and theOccult Arts (Originally titled Problems of Myslicism- and Its Symbolism) trans Smith Ely Helliffe (1917 rpt NewYork Dover Publications 1971) and Regardie The Philosophers Stone

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ate into their surfaces44 These passages provide no evidence whatever of hallucinatory orvisionary experiences that obliterated sense perception of the alchemical apparatus Quiteto the contrary the passages prove that alchemists observed the chemical processes in theirequipment

The historian of religions Mircea Eliade offered a radically different interpretation ofalchemical mysticism He argued that the religious understanding and veneration ofmetallurgy still extant in non-literate cultures was consistent with and anterior to thereligio-philosophic understanding of alchemy in its Chinese Indian and Greek origins Aswell Eliade suggested that Greek alchemy had been influenced not only by classical Greekphilosophy but also by the Hellenistic mystery religions Alchemy was in effect a mysteryreligion in which matter had the role of the god

I t is the mystical drama of the God - his passion death and resurrection -which isprojected on to matter in order to transmute it the alchemist treats his Matter asthe God was treated in the mysteries45

Eliades link to mysticism was necessarily speculative We know that initiation into theMysteries consisted of participation in the passion death and resurrection ofa God but weare ignorant of the manner of participation Eliade was willing however to conjecture thatthe sufferings death and resurrection of the god already known to the neophyte as a myth oras authentic history were communicated to him during initiations in an experimentalmanner 46 Eliade noted the initiatory visions in which shamans suffer die and resurrect47

In The Visions of Zosimos the alchemist reported visions with similar motifs butthedeathsand resurrections were not his own Rather he projected on to Matter the initiatoryfunction of suffering 48 In all Eliade concluded that the opus alchymicum had profoundanalogies with the mystic life 49 but he stopped short of asserting that analogy impliedidentity

Even with its qualification Eliades contention remains speculative No differently thanalchemy Christianity adopted language and symbolism from the Hellenistic mysteries butit would be absurd to suggest that imitatio Christi has invariably consisted of a visionaryexperience of crucifixion and resurrection

Moreover even if initiatory ecstasies of death and resurrection were traditional featuresof alchemical mysticism-as is today claimed orally by some occult traditions-it wouldsuffice to postulate their innovation during the medieval Latin period Not only caninitiatory death be traced from the pagan portions of the Welsh Mabinogion through thePerlesvaus version of the Grail romance over a century before the better known Sir Gawainand the Green Knight50 but the quest of the Holy Grail is as a wholemiddota8hristianized version ofthe otherwordly journey to the home of the Welsh god Bran51 In the early thirteenthcentury within a decade of the composition of the Perlesvaus alchemical symbolism wasused knowingly in both the Tristan of Gottfried von Strassburg52 and the Parzival of Wolframvon Eschenbach53 The influences may have been reciprocal The Grail mysticism ofArthurian romance may have contributed to spiritual alchemy It is unnecessary to assumea legacy from the Hellenistic mystery religions

Because no one has ever established that alchemical mysticism existed in antiquity it isnot adequate to assume that alchemical symbolism can be taken to refer either to man orto a mineral substance 54 The methodological premise has not been earned Where analchemical document pertains to metallic alchemy we have no necessary evidence that it

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pertains to anything more The student of alchemical literature is consequently engaged in ahermeneutic akin to psychoanalysis the interpretation of symbolic materials in terms of anexpected subtext In alchemy the expected subtext happens to be the chemistry of gold-making How precisely was the Great Work performed

Taylors reconstruction of the process55 is I suggest very nearly correct The basicequipment was a reflux apparatus termed a kerotakis I t consisted of a closed chamber with ashelf (or hook) in its middle On the shelf were placed the metals to be treated copper leadperhaps also gold and silver Other ingredients were placed on the bottom of the chamberSulphur is frequently mentioned but we do not know what was actually intended by theterm56 When the base of the kerotakis was heated the ingredients inside the bottom of thechamber turned to smoke and vapor which singed the outer surfaces of the metals on theshelf accomplishing melanosis blackening A small vent hole permitted heated air toescape near the top of the apparatus but the vapors condensed on a condensing cover Thecondensate fell to the bottom of the kerotakis vaporized anew and attacked the metals~onceagain Leucosis whitening referred to the corrosive action of the vapors on the metals Theprocess was allowed to continue until the solids of the shelf were thoroughly discolored andpermeated with corrosion The heat was then increased and the metals gently roasted Theannealing which yielded a soft heavy yellow alloy was termed xanthosis yellowing

An alternate means of whitening also mentioned by Taylor57 involved use of a stilltermed an alembic In this distillation procedure once the gases had singed the outer surfacesof the metals and risen to the top of the apparatus they were led out through a pipe andcooled Taylor assumed that distillation precipitated an effiorescence of salts but I suggestthat distillation yielded both a solid and a fluid solvent The solid was returned to the fluid inthe chamber yielding an acid of greater intensity than before This acid was then applied tothe solid metals on the shelf

Taylor was unable to explain the significance of iosis which may mean either impartingthe color of a violet (ion) or removal of rust or tarnish (ios) 58Hopkins argued that iosisoriginally pertained to the dyeing of textiles the color of royal purple The term wassecondarily applied to the violet bronzing of gold Among other proof texts Hopkinsconvincingly cited a passage in which Maria the Jewess described the violet bronzing ofalchemical gold59 However The Visions of Zosimos (and many later texts) associatedreddening (an alternate of empurpling) with the distillation of the salt60 I conclude thatsome alchemists sought to produce gold that had a purple bronze while others sought goldthat had its natural yellow color In the latter event iosis was necessarily metaphor Achange of color was no longer of reference The term instead referred to a change in potencyfrom common to royal the production of the solid necessary to transform a weak acid into astrong one

Let us apply these considerations to an early example of Greek alchemy The bulk of Isisthe Prophetess to her Son Horus consists of metallurgical recipes that are ignorant of distillationThe archaic recipes are prefaced however by a narrative whose orientation is alchemical

Isis the prophetess to her son Horus You decided my son to set out and go to battlewith the infidel Typhon for the throne of your father Myself I went to Hermonthisa town (where one practices) the sacred art of Egypt I stayed there some time In thecourse of events and the necessary revolution of the spheres one of the angels whoreside in the first firmament saw me from above and wanted to unite with me Headvanced intending to arrive at his goal but I refused to yield wanting to learn from

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him the preparation of gold and silver When I questioned him he told me that hewas not permitted to explain in this regard in view of the high importance of thesemysteries but that the following day a greater angel the angel Amnael would comeand would be able to provide me with the answer to the question

He told me that he [Amnael] would carry a sign on his head and would display asmall vase that was not covered with pitch [but] full of transparent water He wouldbe able to reveal the truth

Next day before the sun was neared its course the angel Amnael appearedgreater than the first Taken by the same desire with my regard he descendedtowards me He did not stay immobile but hastened to where I held myself And I Idid not stop asking him the question

And when he delayed (to answer me) I did not yield a bit But I resisted his desireuntil he let me see the sign which he had on his head and transmitted to me withoutreserve and with sincerity the mysteries that I sought

At last he showed me the sign and began the revelation of the mysteries Offeringoaths he expressed himself this way I adjure you by heaven earth light anddarkness I adjure you by fire water air and earth I adjure you by the height of theheaven by the depth of the earth and of Tartaros I adjure you by Hermes byAnubis by the roaring of Kerberos by the serpent who guards the temple I adjureyou by the Ferry and by the Boatman of the Acheron I adjure you by the ThreeFates by the Furies and by the Sword

After all these oaths he demanded that I communicate nothing to anyonewhatever except my beloved and legitimate son so that you might be he and he youSo then observe in passing ask the farmer Acharantos and learn from him what issown and what is harvested and you will learn from him that the man who sowswheat also harvests wheat and the man who sows barley also harvests barley

The adepts having participated in the divine power and having recourse todivine assistance clarified by virtue of the question (of Isis) they must makepreparations with certain metallic minerals without using other substances Now the mystery has been revealed 61

The revelation of an alchemical secret by a spirit is a leitmotif of Greco-Egyptianalchemy In Physika kai Mystica pseudo-Democritos raises the ghost of his teacher in order tolearn a posthumous secret62 In The Visions of Zosimos Agathodaemon the Good Spiritexplains the alchemical process to Zosimos in his dream-visions63 The significance of themotif was preserved in a historical notice of Maria the J ewess by the Muslim alchemist ibnUmail

MARlY A also said The Water which I have mentioned is an Angel and descendsfrom the sky and the earth accepts it on account of its (the earths) moistness

(As for her statement regarding the Angel) She meant by this the DivineWater which is the Soul She named it Angel because it is spiritual and becausethat Water has risen from the earth to the sky of the Birba (ie from the bottom tothe top of the Alembic)

And as for her statement (The Water) descends from the sky she meant by thisits return to their Earth 64

One sourceof Isis the prophetess was aJewish midrash Expanding on the biblical accountof an ante-deluvial period when fallen angels mated with the daughters of men (Gen 6 1-4)the midrash accounted for the origin of alchemy through revelation by an angel namedAmnael 65 As the midrash was reworked in Isis the prophetess the Egyptian goddess has beeneuhemerized and identified as the woman whom Amnael approached The alchemicalcipher also depends on the well known Hellenistic identification of Isis with the earth66 Isis

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symbolizes the copper-lead metals The approach of the first angel whom she is able torefuseuro corresponds to the initial attack of smoky vapors the blackening Amnael the angelwhose advances she welcomes at a price symbolizes the corrosive vapors that attack themetals accomplishing the whitening The vase that Amnael exhibits presumably signifies astill The vessel has not been coated with pitch in the sense that it has not been involved inthe blackening yet it is filled with transparent waters meaning vapors The sign onAmnaels head whose display coincides with Isiss surrender to his lust alludes to thediscoloration of the vapors upon their corrosive contact with the metals

Since alchemists understood a change of metallic colors as the death of one form and thebirth of another a passing reference to a sword-in the last of Amnaels oaths-sufficed tosignify the death-dealing agency of heat The text does not otherwise allegorize the increaseof heat necessary to transform the corroded metals into a gold-resembling alloy Instead ofadescription of Isis and Amnael in the heat of union becoming Horus the text identifiesAmnael and Horus and otherwise refers chastely to a secret communication involving IsisThe secret we are also told is that what one sows is what one harvests In other words withthe attack of the vapors on the metals the chemical ingredients of alchemical gold are allpresent

Rather than spiritual alchemy Isis the Prophetess to her Son Horos is distinguished by aniconoclastic irreverence for religion There is much in the text that is meant to be absurdThe great mother goddess of Egypt is merely a mortal prophetess and she is seduced by aJewish angel Mercenary in her morality she is a willing party to her seduction providingonly that she is told the alchemical secret of silver and gold For his part the Jewish angeltakes noJewish oaths He swears by the four elements and otherwise by a variety of Egyptianand Greek numina Finally Isis no sooner swears an oath of secrecy than she breaks it bywriting the text that we are reading

These calculated insults to Greco-Egyptian religion are all present in the manifest levelof the text The subtext adds the further sacrileges that Isis and Amnael are names formineral substances Heaven and Tartaros name the top and the bottom of the alchemicalapparatus The serpent who guards the temple is the pipe leading from the apparatus to thedistillation equipment These uses of religious language are reductive They interpret thedivine and angelic as mere terminology for the physical and material

So far is Isis the prophetess from spiritual alchemy that it may conceivably be the work of anatheist It is equally possible however that the author was devoutly religious A willingnessto satirize Egyptian Greek and Jewish mythologies would not necessarily have beeninconsistent for example with Maria the Jewesss interpretation of scientific creativity asdivine revelation Zosimos of Panopolis quoted her as having said

Here is what God said Know that according to experience in burning copper (first)the sulphur produces no effect But ifinstead you burn sulphur (first) then not onlydoes it render the copper without stain but it also makes it approach gold67

Although Western mystics generally sought creative inspirations for the purpose ofscriptural exegesis alchemists may certainly have desired revelations concerning both theSacred Art and its literature

On investigation the term spiritual alchemy proves to refer to two distinct traditionsa religio-philosophical understanding of chemical change that was integral to Westernalchemy from the Hellenistic period onward and a mysticism of Western European origin in

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the thirteenth or fourteenth century The founders of Greek alchemy Maria theJewess andZosimos of Panopolis were almost certainly mystics but two early instances do notconstitute a tradition Definitive conclusions on Arabic alchemy remain premature68 I addhowever that I have yet to encounter any mysticism prior to the interface with the LatinWest

Because gold-making was a constant of the literature from Hellenistic times onward twopuzzles remain acute A reader had already to have been initiated orally into the secret ofgold-making ifshe or he were to be able to make sense of the texts Why write at all69Againone Hellenistic gold-making recipe was rephrased in thousands upon thousands of textswhen a single tract would have sufficed the needs of gold-makers Why write so many texts inso many different ways

Alchemical literature is I suspect a type of cipher The secret chemistry of the GreatWork was its pre-supposition Whatever in an alchemical text refers to gold-making is not thesecret message of the text but only its place of concealment It is only after penetrating anddiscounting the esoteric discussion of the Great Work that it becomes possible to detectmiddotthepresence of further literary materials that do not pertain to the Great Work Sometimes thereare passages a sentence or a paragraph or two in length that have nothing to do with theGreat Work In other cases attention must be given to gratuitous choices of symbols Inboth cases the esoteric account of the Great Work amounts to a haystack in which the readermust seek a needle

NOTES

1 Karl von Reichenbach The Odic Force Letters on Od and Magnetism trans F D OByrne (London Hutchinsonamp Co 1926 rpt New Hyde Park NY University Books 1968) pp 14-16 93 30--34

2 Christopher McIntosh The Rosy Cross Unveiled The History Mythology and Ritual of an Occult Order(Wellingborough UK Aquarian Press Ltd 1980) pp 82 89 90

3 lVfcIntosh p I 124 Frederick Hockley The Rosicrucian Seer Magical Writings of Frederick Hockley edJohn Hamill (Wellingborough

UK Aquarian Press 1986)5 A Suggestive Inquiry into the Hermetic Jystery with a Dissertation on the more celebrated Alchemical Philosophers being an

attempt towards the Recovery of the Ancient Experiment of Nature (London Trelawney Saunders 1850) Atwood p 80refered explicitly to the New Imponderable or Od-ic Force

6 Eliphas Levi Transcendental Magic Its Doctrine and Ritual trans A E Waite 2nd ed (London 1923) pp 343-47 Ellic Howe ed The Alchemist of the Golden Dawn The Letters of the Revd W A Ayton to F L Gardner and Others 1886-

1905 (Wellingborough UK Aquarian Press 1985) pp 50--5I

8 Francis King ed Astral Projection Ritual Magic and Alchemy Golden Dawn Material by S L MacGregor Mathers andOthers (Rochester VT Destiny Books 1987) p 177 Israel Regardie The Philosophers Stone A ModernComparative Approach to Alchemy from the Psychological and Magical Points of View (London Rider amp Co 1938)

9 Frances A Yates Giordano Bruno and the Hermetic Tradition (London Routledge amp Kegan Paul 1964) pp97-104

10 Peter Schafer Gershom Scholem Reconsidered The Aim and Purpose of Early Jewish Mysticism The Twelfth SacksLecture delivered on 29th May 1985 (Oxford UK Oxford Centre for Postgraduate Hebrew Studies 1986)

I I Arthur Edward Waite trans The Alchemical Writings of Edward Kelly (1893 rpt London Robinson amp Watkins1973) Meric Casaubon ed A True and Faithful Relation of What Passedfor many Years Between Dr John Dee andSome Spirits (London D lVIaxwell amp T Garthwait 1659 rpt Glasgow Antonine Publishing Co 1974)The association can also be found in Act III Scene i of Shakespeares First Part of King Henry IV For Hotspuralchemy and spirit conjuring are distinct for Glendower they are a single practice Neither Worcester norlVfortimer is able to follow the conversation of the two initiates

12 Nicholas Flamel The Alchemical Hieroglyphics Which Were Caused to be Painted Upon an Arch in St Innocents ChurchYard in Paris trans Eirenaeus Orandus (1624 rpt Berkeley Heights NJ Heptangle Books 1980)

13middot John Read Through Alchemy to Chemistry A Procession of Ideas and Personalities (London G Bell amp Sons 1957) pp24-25

14 F Sherwood Taylor The Alchemists (1952 rpt St Albans UK PaladinGranada Publishing Ltd 1976) p174middot

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44 DANIEL MERKUR

15 Arthur Edward Waite Lives of the Alchemystical Philosophers (London G Redway 1888) p 3616 Lynn Thorndike A History of Magic and Experimental Science During the First Thirteen Centuries of Our Era (New

York amp London Columbia University Press 1923) Vol II p 3 I317 Lynn Thorndike A History of Magic and Experimental Science Volumes III and IV Fourteenth and Fifteenth Centuries

(New York amp London Columbia University Press 1934) Vol III p 4118 The Works of Gebermiddot Englished by Richard Russell 1678 a New Edition introd EJ Holmyard (LondonJ M Dent

amp New York E P Dutton 1928) p 3919 Thorndike Vol III pp 357-60 Robert P Multhauf The Origins of Chemistry (London Oldbourne 1966) pp

211-220 Thorndike Vol III p 17821 E J Holmyard The Emerald Table Nature 112 (1923) 52622 Tenney L Davis The Emerald Table of Hermes Trismegistus Three Latin Versions Which Were Current

Among Later Alchemists journal of Chemical Education 3 (1926) pp 874-523 Robert Steele amp Dorothea Waley Singer The Emerald Table Proceedings of the Royal Society of Medicine 21

(1928)48649224 Davis p 86925 Thorndike Vol III p 61526 Ibid Vol IV pp 37-43 Multhauf pp 180 n 6 21227 D P Walker Spiritual and Demonic Magic From Ficino to Campanella (London Warbug Institute University of

London 1958 rpt Notre Dame University of Notre Dame Press 1975) p 828 Daniel P Walker Spiritual and Demonic Magic idem The Ancient Theology Studies in Christian Platonism from the

Fifteenth to the Eighteenth Century (London Gerald Duckworth amp Co Ltd 1972) Frances A Yates GiordanoBruno and the Hermetic Tradition (London Routledge amp Kegan Paul Ltd 1964) idem The Occult Philosophy in theElizabethan Age (London Routledge amp Kegan Paul 1979) idem Lull amp Bruno (London Routledge amp KeganPaul 1982)

29 Arthur Edward Waite Azoth or The Star in the East (London Theosophical Publishing Society 1893)30 Waite Lives of the Alchemystical Philosopohers idem The Secret Tradition in Alchemy Its Development and Records

(London Kegan Paul Trench Trubner amp New York A A Knopf 1926) Reviewing the latter in Nature 118

(Dec 18 1926) p 870 Holmyard wrote Mr Vaite has in short finally and irretrievably demolished thefantastic thesis set up by Mrs Atwood and others and has proved beyond refutation that early and medievalalchemy was almost entirely concerned with physics or physic

3 I Earle Radcliffe Caley The Leyden Papyrus X An English Translation with Brief Notes journal of ChemicalEducation 3 (1926) 1149-1166

32 Arthur John Hopkins Bronzing Methods in the Alchemistic Leyden Papyri The Chemical News 85 (1902)49-52 idem Earliest Alchemy The Scientific Monthly 6 (1918) 510-37 idem A Modern Theory of AlchemyIsis 7 (1925) 58-76 idem Transmutation by Color A Study of Earliest Alchemy Studien zur Geschichte derChemie Festgabe Edmund O v Lippman ed Julius Ruska (Berlin Julius Springer 1927) idem Alchemy Child ofGreek Philosophy (New York Columbia University Press 1934) idem A defence of Egyptian alchemy Isis 28(1938)424-31 idem A study of the Kerotakis Process as given by Zosimus and later alchemical writers Isis29 (1938) 326-54

33 F Sherwood Taylor A Survey of Greek Alchemy journal of Hellenic Studies 50 (1930) 109-139 idem TheOrigins of Greek Alchemy Ambix I (1937) 30-47 idem The Alchemists On Maria see Raphael Patai Mariathe Jewess-Founding Mother of Alchemy Ambix 29 (1982) 177-97

34 One must also beware errors in existing scholarship Seyyed Hossein Nasr Science and Civilization in Islam (1968rpt New York New American Library 1970) p 248 n I acknowledged that his own discussions of spiritualalchemy in the history of Islam were informed by Titus Burckhardts view of spiritual alchemy UnfortunatelyBurckhardts Alchemy Science of the Cosmos Science of the Soul trans William Stoddart (1967 rpt BaltimorePenguin Books Ltd 1971) is among the more theologically innovative-and historically anachronistic-accounts of alchemy presently available

35 Taylor The Alchemists pp 56-5736 H J Sheppard Gnosticism and Alchemy Ambix 6 (1957) p 10 I

37 Ibid p 8838 Mysticism used to be synonymous with grace and spirituality but the latter have gained broader

meanings in recent years Grace may now be any act of providence while spirituality though it continues torefer to a practice or discipline may designate intense worship moral fastidiousness or asceticism rather thanmysticism As there is no danger of confusion however there seems no need to replace the phrase spiritualalchemy by alchemical mysticism

39 Psychological approaches to alchemy had earlier been advanced by Ethan Allen Hitchcock Remarks uponAlchemy and the Alchemists (Boston Crosby Nichols 1857) Herbert Silberer Hidden Symbolism of Alchemy and theOccult Arts (Originally titled Problems of Myslicism- and Its Symbolism) trans Smith Ely Helliffe (1917 rpt NewYork Dover Publications 1971) and Regardie The Philosophers Stone

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pertains to anything more The student of alchemical literature is consequently engaged in ahermeneutic akin to psychoanalysis the interpretation of symbolic materials in terms of anexpected subtext In alchemy the expected subtext happens to be the chemistry of gold-making How precisely was the Great Work performed

Taylors reconstruction of the process55 is I suggest very nearly correct The basicequipment was a reflux apparatus termed a kerotakis I t consisted of a closed chamber with ashelf (or hook) in its middle On the shelf were placed the metals to be treated copper leadperhaps also gold and silver Other ingredients were placed on the bottom of the chamberSulphur is frequently mentioned but we do not know what was actually intended by theterm56 When the base of the kerotakis was heated the ingredients inside the bottom of thechamber turned to smoke and vapor which singed the outer surfaces of the metals on theshelf accomplishing melanosis blackening A small vent hole permitted heated air toescape near the top of the apparatus but the vapors condensed on a condensing cover Thecondensate fell to the bottom of the kerotakis vaporized anew and attacked the metals~onceagain Leucosis whitening referred to the corrosive action of the vapors on the metals Theprocess was allowed to continue until the solids of the shelf were thoroughly discolored andpermeated with corrosion The heat was then increased and the metals gently roasted Theannealing which yielded a soft heavy yellow alloy was termed xanthosis yellowing

An alternate means of whitening also mentioned by Taylor57 involved use of a stilltermed an alembic In this distillation procedure once the gases had singed the outer surfacesof the metals and risen to the top of the apparatus they were led out through a pipe andcooled Taylor assumed that distillation precipitated an effiorescence of salts but I suggestthat distillation yielded both a solid and a fluid solvent The solid was returned to the fluid inthe chamber yielding an acid of greater intensity than before This acid was then applied tothe solid metals on the shelf

Taylor was unable to explain the significance of iosis which may mean either impartingthe color of a violet (ion) or removal of rust or tarnish (ios) 58Hopkins argued that iosisoriginally pertained to the dyeing of textiles the color of royal purple The term wassecondarily applied to the violet bronzing of gold Among other proof texts Hopkinsconvincingly cited a passage in which Maria the Jewess described the violet bronzing ofalchemical gold59 However The Visions of Zosimos (and many later texts) associatedreddening (an alternate of empurpling) with the distillation of the salt60 I conclude thatsome alchemists sought to produce gold that had a purple bronze while others sought goldthat had its natural yellow color In the latter event iosis was necessarily metaphor Achange of color was no longer of reference The term instead referred to a change in potencyfrom common to royal the production of the solid necessary to transform a weak acid into astrong one

Let us apply these considerations to an early example of Greek alchemy The bulk of Isisthe Prophetess to her Son Horus consists of metallurgical recipes that are ignorant of distillationThe archaic recipes are prefaced however by a narrative whose orientation is alchemical

Isis the prophetess to her son Horus You decided my son to set out and go to battlewith the infidel Typhon for the throne of your father Myself I went to Hermonthisa town (where one practices) the sacred art of Egypt I stayed there some time In thecourse of events and the necessary revolution of the spheres one of the angels whoreside in the first firmament saw me from above and wanted to unite with me Headvanced intending to arrive at his goal but I refused to yield wanting to learn from

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him the preparation of gold and silver When I questioned him he told me that hewas not permitted to explain in this regard in view of the high importance of thesemysteries but that the following day a greater angel the angel Amnael would comeand would be able to provide me with the answer to the question

He told me that he [Amnael] would carry a sign on his head and would display asmall vase that was not covered with pitch [but] full of transparent water He wouldbe able to reveal the truth

Next day before the sun was neared its course the angel Amnael appearedgreater than the first Taken by the same desire with my regard he descendedtowards me He did not stay immobile but hastened to where I held myself And I Idid not stop asking him the question

And when he delayed (to answer me) I did not yield a bit But I resisted his desireuntil he let me see the sign which he had on his head and transmitted to me withoutreserve and with sincerity the mysteries that I sought

At last he showed me the sign and began the revelation of the mysteries Offeringoaths he expressed himself this way I adjure you by heaven earth light anddarkness I adjure you by fire water air and earth I adjure you by the height of theheaven by the depth of the earth and of Tartaros I adjure you by Hermes byAnubis by the roaring of Kerberos by the serpent who guards the temple I adjureyou by the Ferry and by the Boatman of the Acheron I adjure you by the ThreeFates by the Furies and by the Sword

After all these oaths he demanded that I communicate nothing to anyonewhatever except my beloved and legitimate son so that you might be he and he youSo then observe in passing ask the farmer Acharantos and learn from him what issown and what is harvested and you will learn from him that the man who sowswheat also harvests wheat and the man who sows barley also harvests barley

The adepts having participated in the divine power and having recourse todivine assistance clarified by virtue of the question (of Isis) they must makepreparations with certain metallic minerals without using other substances Now the mystery has been revealed 61

The revelation of an alchemical secret by a spirit is a leitmotif of Greco-Egyptianalchemy In Physika kai Mystica pseudo-Democritos raises the ghost of his teacher in order tolearn a posthumous secret62 In The Visions of Zosimos Agathodaemon the Good Spiritexplains the alchemical process to Zosimos in his dream-visions63 The significance of themotif was preserved in a historical notice of Maria the J ewess by the Muslim alchemist ibnUmail

MARlY A also said The Water which I have mentioned is an Angel and descendsfrom the sky and the earth accepts it on account of its (the earths) moistness

(As for her statement regarding the Angel) She meant by this the DivineWater which is the Soul She named it Angel because it is spiritual and becausethat Water has risen from the earth to the sky of the Birba (ie from the bottom tothe top of the Alembic)

And as for her statement (The Water) descends from the sky she meant by thisits return to their Earth 64

One sourceof Isis the prophetess was aJewish midrash Expanding on the biblical accountof an ante-deluvial period when fallen angels mated with the daughters of men (Gen 6 1-4)the midrash accounted for the origin of alchemy through revelation by an angel namedAmnael 65 As the midrash was reworked in Isis the prophetess the Egyptian goddess has beeneuhemerized and identified as the woman whom Amnael approached The alchemicalcipher also depends on the well known Hellenistic identification of Isis with the earth66 Isis

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symbolizes the copper-lead metals The approach of the first angel whom she is able torefuseuro corresponds to the initial attack of smoky vapors the blackening Amnael the angelwhose advances she welcomes at a price symbolizes the corrosive vapors that attack themetals accomplishing the whitening The vase that Amnael exhibits presumably signifies astill The vessel has not been coated with pitch in the sense that it has not been involved inthe blackening yet it is filled with transparent waters meaning vapors The sign onAmnaels head whose display coincides with Isiss surrender to his lust alludes to thediscoloration of the vapors upon their corrosive contact with the metals

Since alchemists understood a change of metallic colors as the death of one form and thebirth of another a passing reference to a sword-in the last of Amnaels oaths-sufficed tosignify the death-dealing agency of heat The text does not otherwise allegorize the increaseof heat necessary to transform the corroded metals into a gold-resembling alloy Instead ofadescription of Isis and Amnael in the heat of union becoming Horus the text identifiesAmnael and Horus and otherwise refers chastely to a secret communication involving IsisThe secret we are also told is that what one sows is what one harvests In other words withthe attack of the vapors on the metals the chemical ingredients of alchemical gold are allpresent

Rather than spiritual alchemy Isis the Prophetess to her Son Horos is distinguished by aniconoclastic irreverence for religion There is much in the text that is meant to be absurdThe great mother goddess of Egypt is merely a mortal prophetess and she is seduced by aJewish angel Mercenary in her morality she is a willing party to her seduction providingonly that she is told the alchemical secret of silver and gold For his part the Jewish angeltakes noJewish oaths He swears by the four elements and otherwise by a variety of Egyptianand Greek numina Finally Isis no sooner swears an oath of secrecy than she breaks it bywriting the text that we are reading

These calculated insults to Greco-Egyptian religion are all present in the manifest levelof the text The subtext adds the further sacrileges that Isis and Amnael are names formineral substances Heaven and Tartaros name the top and the bottom of the alchemicalapparatus The serpent who guards the temple is the pipe leading from the apparatus to thedistillation equipment These uses of religious language are reductive They interpret thedivine and angelic as mere terminology for the physical and material

So far is Isis the prophetess from spiritual alchemy that it may conceivably be the work of anatheist It is equally possible however that the author was devoutly religious A willingnessto satirize Egyptian Greek and Jewish mythologies would not necessarily have beeninconsistent for example with Maria the Jewesss interpretation of scientific creativity asdivine revelation Zosimos of Panopolis quoted her as having said

Here is what God said Know that according to experience in burning copper (first)the sulphur produces no effect But ifinstead you burn sulphur (first) then not onlydoes it render the copper without stain but it also makes it approach gold67

Although Western mystics generally sought creative inspirations for the purpose ofscriptural exegesis alchemists may certainly have desired revelations concerning both theSacred Art and its literature

On investigation the term spiritual alchemy proves to refer to two distinct traditionsa religio-philosophical understanding of chemical change that was integral to Westernalchemy from the Hellenistic period onward and a mysticism of Western European origin in

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the thirteenth or fourteenth century The founders of Greek alchemy Maria theJewess andZosimos of Panopolis were almost certainly mystics but two early instances do notconstitute a tradition Definitive conclusions on Arabic alchemy remain premature68 I addhowever that I have yet to encounter any mysticism prior to the interface with the LatinWest

Because gold-making was a constant of the literature from Hellenistic times onward twopuzzles remain acute A reader had already to have been initiated orally into the secret ofgold-making ifshe or he were to be able to make sense of the texts Why write at all69Againone Hellenistic gold-making recipe was rephrased in thousands upon thousands of textswhen a single tract would have sufficed the needs of gold-makers Why write so many texts inso many different ways

Alchemical literature is I suspect a type of cipher The secret chemistry of the GreatWork was its pre-supposition Whatever in an alchemical text refers to gold-making is not thesecret message of the text but only its place of concealment It is only after penetrating anddiscounting the esoteric discussion of the Great Work that it becomes possible to detectmiddotthepresence of further literary materials that do not pertain to the Great Work Sometimes thereare passages a sentence or a paragraph or two in length that have nothing to do with theGreat Work In other cases attention must be given to gratuitous choices of symbols Inboth cases the esoteric account of the Great Work amounts to a haystack in which the readermust seek a needle

NOTES

1 Karl von Reichenbach The Odic Force Letters on Od and Magnetism trans F D OByrne (London Hutchinsonamp Co 1926 rpt New Hyde Park NY University Books 1968) pp 14-16 93 30--34

2 Christopher McIntosh The Rosy Cross Unveiled The History Mythology and Ritual of an Occult Order(Wellingborough UK Aquarian Press Ltd 1980) pp 82 89 90

3 lVfcIntosh p I 124 Frederick Hockley The Rosicrucian Seer Magical Writings of Frederick Hockley edJohn Hamill (Wellingborough

UK Aquarian Press 1986)5 A Suggestive Inquiry into the Hermetic Jystery with a Dissertation on the more celebrated Alchemical Philosophers being an

attempt towards the Recovery of the Ancient Experiment of Nature (London Trelawney Saunders 1850) Atwood p 80refered explicitly to the New Imponderable or Od-ic Force

6 Eliphas Levi Transcendental Magic Its Doctrine and Ritual trans A E Waite 2nd ed (London 1923) pp 343-47 Ellic Howe ed The Alchemist of the Golden Dawn The Letters of the Revd W A Ayton to F L Gardner and Others 1886-

1905 (Wellingborough UK Aquarian Press 1985) pp 50--5I

8 Francis King ed Astral Projection Ritual Magic and Alchemy Golden Dawn Material by S L MacGregor Mathers andOthers (Rochester VT Destiny Books 1987) p 177 Israel Regardie The Philosophers Stone A ModernComparative Approach to Alchemy from the Psychological and Magical Points of View (London Rider amp Co 1938)

9 Frances A Yates Giordano Bruno and the Hermetic Tradition (London Routledge amp Kegan Paul 1964) pp97-104

10 Peter Schafer Gershom Scholem Reconsidered The Aim and Purpose of Early Jewish Mysticism The Twelfth SacksLecture delivered on 29th May 1985 (Oxford UK Oxford Centre for Postgraduate Hebrew Studies 1986)

I I Arthur Edward Waite trans The Alchemical Writings of Edward Kelly (1893 rpt London Robinson amp Watkins1973) Meric Casaubon ed A True and Faithful Relation of What Passedfor many Years Between Dr John Dee andSome Spirits (London D lVIaxwell amp T Garthwait 1659 rpt Glasgow Antonine Publishing Co 1974)The association can also be found in Act III Scene i of Shakespeares First Part of King Henry IV For Hotspuralchemy and spirit conjuring are distinct for Glendower they are a single practice Neither Worcester norlVfortimer is able to follow the conversation of the two initiates

12 Nicholas Flamel The Alchemical Hieroglyphics Which Were Caused to be Painted Upon an Arch in St Innocents ChurchYard in Paris trans Eirenaeus Orandus (1624 rpt Berkeley Heights NJ Heptangle Books 1980)

13middot John Read Through Alchemy to Chemistry A Procession of Ideas and Personalities (London G Bell amp Sons 1957) pp24-25

14 F Sherwood Taylor The Alchemists (1952 rpt St Albans UK PaladinGranada Publishing Ltd 1976) p174middot

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44 DANIEL MERKUR

15 Arthur Edward Waite Lives of the Alchemystical Philosophers (London G Redway 1888) p 3616 Lynn Thorndike A History of Magic and Experimental Science During the First Thirteen Centuries of Our Era (New

York amp London Columbia University Press 1923) Vol II p 3 I317 Lynn Thorndike A History of Magic and Experimental Science Volumes III and IV Fourteenth and Fifteenth Centuries

(New York amp London Columbia University Press 1934) Vol III p 4118 The Works of Gebermiddot Englished by Richard Russell 1678 a New Edition introd EJ Holmyard (LondonJ M Dent

amp New York E P Dutton 1928) p 3919 Thorndike Vol III pp 357-60 Robert P Multhauf The Origins of Chemistry (London Oldbourne 1966) pp

211-220 Thorndike Vol III p 17821 E J Holmyard The Emerald Table Nature 112 (1923) 52622 Tenney L Davis The Emerald Table of Hermes Trismegistus Three Latin Versions Which Were Current

Among Later Alchemists journal of Chemical Education 3 (1926) pp 874-523 Robert Steele amp Dorothea Waley Singer The Emerald Table Proceedings of the Royal Society of Medicine 21

(1928)48649224 Davis p 86925 Thorndike Vol III p 61526 Ibid Vol IV pp 37-43 Multhauf pp 180 n 6 21227 D P Walker Spiritual and Demonic Magic From Ficino to Campanella (London Warbug Institute University of

London 1958 rpt Notre Dame University of Notre Dame Press 1975) p 828 Daniel P Walker Spiritual and Demonic Magic idem The Ancient Theology Studies in Christian Platonism from the

Fifteenth to the Eighteenth Century (London Gerald Duckworth amp Co Ltd 1972) Frances A Yates GiordanoBruno and the Hermetic Tradition (London Routledge amp Kegan Paul Ltd 1964) idem The Occult Philosophy in theElizabethan Age (London Routledge amp Kegan Paul 1979) idem Lull amp Bruno (London Routledge amp KeganPaul 1982)

29 Arthur Edward Waite Azoth or The Star in the East (London Theosophical Publishing Society 1893)30 Waite Lives of the Alchemystical Philosopohers idem The Secret Tradition in Alchemy Its Development and Records

(London Kegan Paul Trench Trubner amp New York A A Knopf 1926) Reviewing the latter in Nature 118

(Dec 18 1926) p 870 Holmyard wrote Mr Vaite has in short finally and irretrievably demolished thefantastic thesis set up by Mrs Atwood and others and has proved beyond refutation that early and medievalalchemy was almost entirely concerned with physics or physic

3 I Earle Radcliffe Caley The Leyden Papyrus X An English Translation with Brief Notes journal of ChemicalEducation 3 (1926) 1149-1166

32 Arthur John Hopkins Bronzing Methods in the Alchemistic Leyden Papyri The Chemical News 85 (1902)49-52 idem Earliest Alchemy The Scientific Monthly 6 (1918) 510-37 idem A Modern Theory of AlchemyIsis 7 (1925) 58-76 idem Transmutation by Color A Study of Earliest Alchemy Studien zur Geschichte derChemie Festgabe Edmund O v Lippman ed Julius Ruska (Berlin Julius Springer 1927) idem Alchemy Child ofGreek Philosophy (New York Columbia University Press 1934) idem A defence of Egyptian alchemy Isis 28(1938)424-31 idem A study of the Kerotakis Process as given by Zosimus and later alchemical writers Isis29 (1938) 326-54

33 F Sherwood Taylor A Survey of Greek Alchemy journal of Hellenic Studies 50 (1930) 109-139 idem TheOrigins of Greek Alchemy Ambix I (1937) 30-47 idem The Alchemists On Maria see Raphael Patai Mariathe Jewess-Founding Mother of Alchemy Ambix 29 (1982) 177-97

34 One must also beware errors in existing scholarship Seyyed Hossein Nasr Science and Civilization in Islam (1968rpt New York New American Library 1970) p 248 n I acknowledged that his own discussions of spiritualalchemy in the history of Islam were informed by Titus Burckhardts view of spiritual alchemy UnfortunatelyBurckhardts Alchemy Science of the Cosmos Science of the Soul trans William Stoddart (1967 rpt BaltimorePenguin Books Ltd 1971) is among the more theologically innovative-and historically anachronistic-accounts of alchemy presently available

35 Taylor The Alchemists pp 56-5736 H J Sheppard Gnosticism and Alchemy Ambix 6 (1957) p 10 I

37 Ibid p 8838 Mysticism used to be synonymous with grace and spirituality but the latter have gained broader

meanings in recent years Grace may now be any act of providence while spirituality though it continues torefer to a practice or discipline may designate intense worship moral fastidiousness or asceticism rather thanmysticism As there is no danger of confusion however there seems no need to replace the phrase spiritualalchemy by alchemical mysticism

39 Psychological approaches to alchemy had earlier been advanced by Ethan Allen Hitchcock Remarks uponAlchemy and the Alchemists (Boston Crosby Nichols 1857) Herbert Silberer Hidden Symbolism of Alchemy and theOccult Arts (Originally titled Problems of Myslicism- and Its Symbolism) trans Smith Ely Helliffe (1917 rpt NewYork Dover Publications 1971) and Regardie The Philosophers Stone

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him the preparation of gold and silver When I questioned him he told me that hewas not permitted to explain in this regard in view of the high importance of thesemysteries but that the following day a greater angel the angel Amnael would comeand would be able to provide me with the answer to the question

He told me that he [Amnael] would carry a sign on his head and would display asmall vase that was not covered with pitch [but] full of transparent water He wouldbe able to reveal the truth

Next day before the sun was neared its course the angel Amnael appearedgreater than the first Taken by the same desire with my regard he descendedtowards me He did not stay immobile but hastened to where I held myself And I Idid not stop asking him the question

And when he delayed (to answer me) I did not yield a bit But I resisted his desireuntil he let me see the sign which he had on his head and transmitted to me withoutreserve and with sincerity the mysteries that I sought

At last he showed me the sign and began the revelation of the mysteries Offeringoaths he expressed himself this way I adjure you by heaven earth light anddarkness I adjure you by fire water air and earth I adjure you by the height of theheaven by the depth of the earth and of Tartaros I adjure you by Hermes byAnubis by the roaring of Kerberos by the serpent who guards the temple I adjureyou by the Ferry and by the Boatman of the Acheron I adjure you by the ThreeFates by the Furies and by the Sword

After all these oaths he demanded that I communicate nothing to anyonewhatever except my beloved and legitimate son so that you might be he and he youSo then observe in passing ask the farmer Acharantos and learn from him what issown and what is harvested and you will learn from him that the man who sowswheat also harvests wheat and the man who sows barley also harvests barley

The adepts having participated in the divine power and having recourse todivine assistance clarified by virtue of the question (of Isis) they must makepreparations with certain metallic minerals without using other substances Now the mystery has been revealed 61

The revelation of an alchemical secret by a spirit is a leitmotif of Greco-Egyptianalchemy In Physika kai Mystica pseudo-Democritos raises the ghost of his teacher in order tolearn a posthumous secret62 In The Visions of Zosimos Agathodaemon the Good Spiritexplains the alchemical process to Zosimos in his dream-visions63 The significance of themotif was preserved in a historical notice of Maria the J ewess by the Muslim alchemist ibnUmail

MARlY A also said The Water which I have mentioned is an Angel and descendsfrom the sky and the earth accepts it on account of its (the earths) moistness

(As for her statement regarding the Angel) She meant by this the DivineWater which is the Soul She named it Angel because it is spiritual and becausethat Water has risen from the earth to the sky of the Birba (ie from the bottom tothe top of the Alembic)

And as for her statement (The Water) descends from the sky she meant by thisits return to their Earth 64

One sourceof Isis the prophetess was aJewish midrash Expanding on the biblical accountof an ante-deluvial period when fallen angels mated with the daughters of men (Gen 6 1-4)the midrash accounted for the origin of alchemy through revelation by an angel namedAmnael 65 As the midrash was reworked in Isis the prophetess the Egyptian goddess has beeneuhemerized and identified as the woman whom Amnael approached The alchemicalcipher also depends on the well known Hellenistic identification of Isis with the earth66 Isis

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symbolizes the copper-lead metals The approach of the first angel whom she is able torefuseuro corresponds to the initial attack of smoky vapors the blackening Amnael the angelwhose advances she welcomes at a price symbolizes the corrosive vapors that attack themetals accomplishing the whitening The vase that Amnael exhibits presumably signifies astill The vessel has not been coated with pitch in the sense that it has not been involved inthe blackening yet it is filled with transparent waters meaning vapors The sign onAmnaels head whose display coincides with Isiss surrender to his lust alludes to thediscoloration of the vapors upon their corrosive contact with the metals

Since alchemists understood a change of metallic colors as the death of one form and thebirth of another a passing reference to a sword-in the last of Amnaels oaths-sufficed tosignify the death-dealing agency of heat The text does not otherwise allegorize the increaseof heat necessary to transform the corroded metals into a gold-resembling alloy Instead ofadescription of Isis and Amnael in the heat of union becoming Horus the text identifiesAmnael and Horus and otherwise refers chastely to a secret communication involving IsisThe secret we are also told is that what one sows is what one harvests In other words withthe attack of the vapors on the metals the chemical ingredients of alchemical gold are allpresent

Rather than spiritual alchemy Isis the Prophetess to her Son Horos is distinguished by aniconoclastic irreverence for religion There is much in the text that is meant to be absurdThe great mother goddess of Egypt is merely a mortal prophetess and she is seduced by aJewish angel Mercenary in her morality she is a willing party to her seduction providingonly that she is told the alchemical secret of silver and gold For his part the Jewish angeltakes noJewish oaths He swears by the four elements and otherwise by a variety of Egyptianand Greek numina Finally Isis no sooner swears an oath of secrecy than she breaks it bywriting the text that we are reading

These calculated insults to Greco-Egyptian religion are all present in the manifest levelof the text The subtext adds the further sacrileges that Isis and Amnael are names formineral substances Heaven and Tartaros name the top and the bottom of the alchemicalapparatus The serpent who guards the temple is the pipe leading from the apparatus to thedistillation equipment These uses of religious language are reductive They interpret thedivine and angelic as mere terminology for the physical and material

So far is Isis the prophetess from spiritual alchemy that it may conceivably be the work of anatheist It is equally possible however that the author was devoutly religious A willingnessto satirize Egyptian Greek and Jewish mythologies would not necessarily have beeninconsistent for example with Maria the Jewesss interpretation of scientific creativity asdivine revelation Zosimos of Panopolis quoted her as having said

Here is what God said Know that according to experience in burning copper (first)the sulphur produces no effect But ifinstead you burn sulphur (first) then not onlydoes it render the copper without stain but it also makes it approach gold67

Although Western mystics generally sought creative inspirations for the purpose ofscriptural exegesis alchemists may certainly have desired revelations concerning both theSacred Art and its literature

On investigation the term spiritual alchemy proves to refer to two distinct traditionsa religio-philosophical understanding of chemical change that was integral to Westernalchemy from the Hellenistic period onward and a mysticism of Western European origin in

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THE STUDY OF SPIRITUAL ALCHEMY 43

the thirteenth or fourteenth century The founders of Greek alchemy Maria theJewess andZosimos of Panopolis were almost certainly mystics but two early instances do notconstitute a tradition Definitive conclusions on Arabic alchemy remain premature68 I addhowever that I have yet to encounter any mysticism prior to the interface with the LatinWest

Because gold-making was a constant of the literature from Hellenistic times onward twopuzzles remain acute A reader had already to have been initiated orally into the secret ofgold-making ifshe or he were to be able to make sense of the texts Why write at all69Againone Hellenistic gold-making recipe was rephrased in thousands upon thousands of textswhen a single tract would have sufficed the needs of gold-makers Why write so many texts inso many different ways

Alchemical literature is I suspect a type of cipher The secret chemistry of the GreatWork was its pre-supposition Whatever in an alchemical text refers to gold-making is not thesecret message of the text but only its place of concealment It is only after penetrating anddiscounting the esoteric discussion of the Great Work that it becomes possible to detectmiddotthepresence of further literary materials that do not pertain to the Great Work Sometimes thereare passages a sentence or a paragraph or two in length that have nothing to do with theGreat Work In other cases attention must be given to gratuitous choices of symbols Inboth cases the esoteric account of the Great Work amounts to a haystack in which the readermust seek a needle

NOTES

1 Karl von Reichenbach The Odic Force Letters on Od and Magnetism trans F D OByrne (London Hutchinsonamp Co 1926 rpt New Hyde Park NY University Books 1968) pp 14-16 93 30--34

2 Christopher McIntosh The Rosy Cross Unveiled The History Mythology and Ritual of an Occult Order(Wellingborough UK Aquarian Press Ltd 1980) pp 82 89 90

3 lVfcIntosh p I 124 Frederick Hockley The Rosicrucian Seer Magical Writings of Frederick Hockley edJohn Hamill (Wellingborough

UK Aquarian Press 1986)5 A Suggestive Inquiry into the Hermetic Jystery with a Dissertation on the more celebrated Alchemical Philosophers being an

attempt towards the Recovery of the Ancient Experiment of Nature (London Trelawney Saunders 1850) Atwood p 80refered explicitly to the New Imponderable or Od-ic Force

6 Eliphas Levi Transcendental Magic Its Doctrine and Ritual trans A E Waite 2nd ed (London 1923) pp 343-47 Ellic Howe ed The Alchemist of the Golden Dawn The Letters of the Revd W A Ayton to F L Gardner and Others 1886-

1905 (Wellingborough UK Aquarian Press 1985) pp 50--5I

8 Francis King ed Astral Projection Ritual Magic and Alchemy Golden Dawn Material by S L MacGregor Mathers andOthers (Rochester VT Destiny Books 1987) p 177 Israel Regardie The Philosophers Stone A ModernComparative Approach to Alchemy from the Psychological and Magical Points of View (London Rider amp Co 1938)

9 Frances A Yates Giordano Bruno and the Hermetic Tradition (London Routledge amp Kegan Paul 1964) pp97-104

10 Peter Schafer Gershom Scholem Reconsidered The Aim and Purpose of Early Jewish Mysticism The Twelfth SacksLecture delivered on 29th May 1985 (Oxford UK Oxford Centre for Postgraduate Hebrew Studies 1986)

I I Arthur Edward Waite trans The Alchemical Writings of Edward Kelly (1893 rpt London Robinson amp Watkins1973) Meric Casaubon ed A True and Faithful Relation of What Passedfor many Years Between Dr John Dee andSome Spirits (London D lVIaxwell amp T Garthwait 1659 rpt Glasgow Antonine Publishing Co 1974)The association can also be found in Act III Scene i of Shakespeares First Part of King Henry IV For Hotspuralchemy and spirit conjuring are distinct for Glendower they are a single practice Neither Worcester norlVfortimer is able to follow the conversation of the two initiates

12 Nicholas Flamel The Alchemical Hieroglyphics Which Were Caused to be Painted Upon an Arch in St Innocents ChurchYard in Paris trans Eirenaeus Orandus (1624 rpt Berkeley Heights NJ Heptangle Books 1980)

13middot John Read Through Alchemy to Chemistry A Procession of Ideas and Personalities (London G Bell amp Sons 1957) pp24-25

14 F Sherwood Taylor The Alchemists (1952 rpt St Albans UK PaladinGranada Publishing Ltd 1976) p174middot

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44 DANIEL MERKUR

15 Arthur Edward Waite Lives of the Alchemystical Philosophers (London G Redway 1888) p 3616 Lynn Thorndike A History of Magic and Experimental Science During the First Thirteen Centuries of Our Era (New

York amp London Columbia University Press 1923) Vol II p 3 I317 Lynn Thorndike A History of Magic and Experimental Science Volumes III and IV Fourteenth and Fifteenth Centuries

(New York amp London Columbia University Press 1934) Vol III p 4118 The Works of Gebermiddot Englished by Richard Russell 1678 a New Edition introd EJ Holmyard (LondonJ M Dent

amp New York E P Dutton 1928) p 3919 Thorndike Vol III pp 357-60 Robert P Multhauf The Origins of Chemistry (London Oldbourne 1966) pp

211-220 Thorndike Vol III p 17821 E J Holmyard The Emerald Table Nature 112 (1923) 52622 Tenney L Davis The Emerald Table of Hermes Trismegistus Three Latin Versions Which Were Current

Among Later Alchemists journal of Chemical Education 3 (1926) pp 874-523 Robert Steele amp Dorothea Waley Singer The Emerald Table Proceedings of the Royal Society of Medicine 21

(1928)48649224 Davis p 86925 Thorndike Vol III p 61526 Ibid Vol IV pp 37-43 Multhauf pp 180 n 6 21227 D P Walker Spiritual and Demonic Magic From Ficino to Campanella (London Warbug Institute University of

London 1958 rpt Notre Dame University of Notre Dame Press 1975) p 828 Daniel P Walker Spiritual and Demonic Magic idem The Ancient Theology Studies in Christian Platonism from the

Fifteenth to the Eighteenth Century (London Gerald Duckworth amp Co Ltd 1972) Frances A Yates GiordanoBruno and the Hermetic Tradition (London Routledge amp Kegan Paul Ltd 1964) idem The Occult Philosophy in theElizabethan Age (London Routledge amp Kegan Paul 1979) idem Lull amp Bruno (London Routledge amp KeganPaul 1982)

29 Arthur Edward Waite Azoth or The Star in the East (London Theosophical Publishing Society 1893)30 Waite Lives of the Alchemystical Philosopohers idem The Secret Tradition in Alchemy Its Development and Records

(London Kegan Paul Trench Trubner amp New York A A Knopf 1926) Reviewing the latter in Nature 118

(Dec 18 1926) p 870 Holmyard wrote Mr Vaite has in short finally and irretrievably demolished thefantastic thesis set up by Mrs Atwood and others and has proved beyond refutation that early and medievalalchemy was almost entirely concerned with physics or physic

3 I Earle Radcliffe Caley The Leyden Papyrus X An English Translation with Brief Notes journal of ChemicalEducation 3 (1926) 1149-1166

32 Arthur John Hopkins Bronzing Methods in the Alchemistic Leyden Papyri The Chemical News 85 (1902)49-52 idem Earliest Alchemy The Scientific Monthly 6 (1918) 510-37 idem A Modern Theory of AlchemyIsis 7 (1925) 58-76 idem Transmutation by Color A Study of Earliest Alchemy Studien zur Geschichte derChemie Festgabe Edmund O v Lippman ed Julius Ruska (Berlin Julius Springer 1927) idem Alchemy Child ofGreek Philosophy (New York Columbia University Press 1934) idem A defence of Egyptian alchemy Isis 28(1938)424-31 idem A study of the Kerotakis Process as given by Zosimus and later alchemical writers Isis29 (1938) 326-54

33 F Sherwood Taylor A Survey of Greek Alchemy journal of Hellenic Studies 50 (1930) 109-139 idem TheOrigins of Greek Alchemy Ambix I (1937) 30-47 idem The Alchemists On Maria see Raphael Patai Mariathe Jewess-Founding Mother of Alchemy Ambix 29 (1982) 177-97

34 One must also beware errors in existing scholarship Seyyed Hossein Nasr Science and Civilization in Islam (1968rpt New York New American Library 1970) p 248 n I acknowledged that his own discussions of spiritualalchemy in the history of Islam were informed by Titus Burckhardts view of spiritual alchemy UnfortunatelyBurckhardts Alchemy Science of the Cosmos Science of the Soul trans William Stoddart (1967 rpt BaltimorePenguin Books Ltd 1971) is among the more theologically innovative-and historically anachronistic-accounts of alchemy presently available

35 Taylor The Alchemists pp 56-5736 H J Sheppard Gnosticism and Alchemy Ambix 6 (1957) p 10 I

37 Ibid p 8838 Mysticism used to be synonymous with grace and spirituality but the latter have gained broader

meanings in recent years Grace may now be any act of providence while spirituality though it continues torefer to a practice or discipline may designate intense worship moral fastidiousness or asceticism rather thanmysticism As there is no danger of confusion however there seems no need to replace the phrase spiritualalchemy by alchemical mysticism

39 Psychological approaches to alchemy had earlier been advanced by Ethan Allen Hitchcock Remarks uponAlchemy and the Alchemists (Boston Crosby Nichols 1857) Herbert Silberer Hidden Symbolism of Alchemy and theOccult Arts (Originally titled Problems of Myslicism- and Its Symbolism) trans Smith Ely Helliffe (1917 rpt NewYork Dover Publications 1971) and Regardie The Philosophers Stone

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DANIEL MERKUR

symbolizes the copper-lead metals The approach of the first angel whom she is able torefuseuro corresponds to the initial attack of smoky vapors the blackening Amnael the angelwhose advances she welcomes at a price symbolizes the corrosive vapors that attack themetals accomplishing the whitening The vase that Amnael exhibits presumably signifies astill The vessel has not been coated with pitch in the sense that it has not been involved inthe blackening yet it is filled with transparent waters meaning vapors The sign onAmnaels head whose display coincides with Isiss surrender to his lust alludes to thediscoloration of the vapors upon their corrosive contact with the metals

Since alchemists understood a change of metallic colors as the death of one form and thebirth of another a passing reference to a sword-in the last of Amnaels oaths-sufficed tosignify the death-dealing agency of heat The text does not otherwise allegorize the increaseof heat necessary to transform the corroded metals into a gold-resembling alloy Instead ofadescription of Isis and Amnael in the heat of union becoming Horus the text identifiesAmnael and Horus and otherwise refers chastely to a secret communication involving IsisThe secret we are also told is that what one sows is what one harvests In other words withthe attack of the vapors on the metals the chemical ingredients of alchemical gold are allpresent

Rather than spiritual alchemy Isis the Prophetess to her Son Horos is distinguished by aniconoclastic irreverence for religion There is much in the text that is meant to be absurdThe great mother goddess of Egypt is merely a mortal prophetess and she is seduced by aJewish angel Mercenary in her morality she is a willing party to her seduction providingonly that she is told the alchemical secret of silver and gold For his part the Jewish angeltakes noJewish oaths He swears by the four elements and otherwise by a variety of Egyptianand Greek numina Finally Isis no sooner swears an oath of secrecy than she breaks it bywriting the text that we are reading

These calculated insults to Greco-Egyptian religion are all present in the manifest levelof the text The subtext adds the further sacrileges that Isis and Amnael are names formineral substances Heaven and Tartaros name the top and the bottom of the alchemicalapparatus The serpent who guards the temple is the pipe leading from the apparatus to thedistillation equipment These uses of religious language are reductive They interpret thedivine and angelic as mere terminology for the physical and material

So far is Isis the prophetess from spiritual alchemy that it may conceivably be the work of anatheist It is equally possible however that the author was devoutly religious A willingnessto satirize Egyptian Greek and Jewish mythologies would not necessarily have beeninconsistent for example with Maria the Jewesss interpretation of scientific creativity asdivine revelation Zosimos of Panopolis quoted her as having said

Here is what God said Know that according to experience in burning copper (first)the sulphur produces no effect But ifinstead you burn sulphur (first) then not onlydoes it render the copper without stain but it also makes it approach gold67

Although Western mystics generally sought creative inspirations for the purpose ofscriptural exegesis alchemists may certainly have desired revelations concerning both theSacred Art and its literature

On investigation the term spiritual alchemy proves to refer to two distinct traditionsa religio-philosophical understanding of chemical change that was integral to Westernalchemy from the Hellenistic period onward and a mysticism of Western European origin in

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the thirteenth or fourteenth century The founders of Greek alchemy Maria theJewess andZosimos of Panopolis were almost certainly mystics but two early instances do notconstitute a tradition Definitive conclusions on Arabic alchemy remain premature68 I addhowever that I have yet to encounter any mysticism prior to the interface with the LatinWest

Because gold-making was a constant of the literature from Hellenistic times onward twopuzzles remain acute A reader had already to have been initiated orally into the secret ofgold-making ifshe or he were to be able to make sense of the texts Why write at all69Againone Hellenistic gold-making recipe was rephrased in thousands upon thousands of textswhen a single tract would have sufficed the needs of gold-makers Why write so many texts inso many different ways

Alchemical literature is I suspect a type of cipher The secret chemistry of the GreatWork was its pre-supposition Whatever in an alchemical text refers to gold-making is not thesecret message of the text but only its place of concealment It is only after penetrating anddiscounting the esoteric discussion of the Great Work that it becomes possible to detectmiddotthepresence of further literary materials that do not pertain to the Great Work Sometimes thereare passages a sentence or a paragraph or two in length that have nothing to do with theGreat Work In other cases attention must be given to gratuitous choices of symbols Inboth cases the esoteric account of the Great Work amounts to a haystack in which the readermust seek a needle

NOTES

1 Karl von Reichenbach The Odic Force Letters on Od and Magnetism trans F D OByrne (London Hutchinsonamp Co 1926 rpt New Hyde Park NY University Books 1968) pp 14-16 93 30--34

2 Christopher McIntosh The Rosy Cross Unveiled The History Mythology and Ritual of an Occult Order(Wellingborough UK Aquarian Press Ltd 1980) pp 82 89 90

3 lVfcIntosh p I 124 Frederick Hockley The Rosicrucian Seer Magical Writings of Frederick Hockley edJohn Hamill (Wellingborough

UK Aquarian Press 1986)5 A Suggestive Inquiry into the Hermetic Jystery with a Dissertation on the more celebrated Alchemical Philosophers being an

attempt towards the Recovery of the Ancient Experiment of Nature (London Trelawney Saunders 1850) Atwood p 80refered explicitly to the New Imponderable or Od-ic Force

6 Eliphas Levi Transcendental Magic Its Doctrine and Ritual trans A E Waite 2nd ed (London 1923) pp 343-47 Ellic Howe ed The Alchemist of the Golden Dawn The Letters of the Revd W A Ayton to F L Gardner and Others 1886-

1905 (Wellingborough UK Aquarian Press 1985) pp 50--5I

8 Francis King ed Astral Projection Ritual Magic and Alchemy Golden Dawn Material by S L MacGregor Mathers andOthers (Rochester VT Destiny Books 1987) p 177 Israel Regardie The Philosophers Stone A ModernComparative Approach to Alchemy from the Psychological and Magical Points of View (London Rider amp Co 1938)

9 Frances A Yates Giordano Bruno and the Hermetic Tradition (London Routledge amp Kegan Paul 1964) pp97-104

10 Peter Schafer Gershom Scholem Reconsidered The Aim and Purpose of Early Jewish Mysticism The Twelfth SacksLecture delivered on 29th May 1985 (Oxford UK Oxford Centre for Postgraduate Hebrew Studies 1986)

I I Arthur Edward Waite trans The Alchemical Writings of Edward Kelly (1893 rpt London Robinson amp Watkins1973) Meric Casaubon ed A True and Faithful Relation of What Passedfor many Years Between Dr John Dee andSome Spirits (London D lVIaxwell amp T Garthwait 1659 rpt Glasgow Antonine Publishing Co 1974)The association can also be found in Act III Scene i of Shakespeares First Part of King Henry IV For Hotspuralchemy and spirit conjuring are distinct for Glendower they are a single practice Neither Worcester norlVfortimer is able to follow the conversation of the two initiates

12 Nicholas Flamel The Alchemical Hieroglyphics Which Were Caused to be Painted Upon an Arch in St Innocents ChurchYard in Paris trans Eirenaeus Orandus (1624 rpt Berkeley Heights NJ Heptangle Books 1980)

13middot John Read Through Alchemy to Chemistry A Procession of Ideas and Personalities (London G Bell amp Sons 1957) pp24-25

14 F Sherwood Taylor The Alchemists (1952 rpt St Albans UK PaladinGranada Publishing Ltd 1976) p174middot

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15 Arthur Edward Waite Lives of the Alchemystical Philosophers (London G Redway 1888) p 3616 Lynn Thorndike A History of Magic and Experimental Science During the First Thirteen Centuries of Our Era (New

York amp London Columbia University Press 1923) Vol II p 3 I317 Lynn Thorndike A History of Magic and Experimental Science Volumes III and IV Fourteenth and Fifteenth Centuries

(New York amp London Columbia University Press 1934) Vol III p 4118 The Works of Gebermiddot Englished by Richard Russell 1678 a New Edition introd EJ Holmyard (LondonJ M Dent

amp New York E P Dutton 1928) p 3919 Thorndike Vol III pp 357-60 Robert P Multhauf The Origins of Chemistry (London Oldbourne 1966) pp

211-220 Thorndike Vol III p 17821 E J Holmyard The Emerald Table Nature 112 (1923) 52622 Tenney L Davis The Emerald Table of Hermes Trismegistus Three Latin Versions Which Were Current

Among Later Alchemists journal of Chemical Education 3 (1926) pp 874-523 Robert Steele amp Dorothea Waley Singer The Emerald Table Proceedings of the Royal Society of Medicine 21

(1928)48649224 Davis p 86925 Thorndike Vol III p 61526 Ibid Vol IV pp 37-43 Multhauf pp 180 n 6 21227 D P Walker Spiritual and Demonic Magic From Ficino to Campanella (London Warbug Institute University of

London 1958 rpt Notre Dame University of Notre Dame Press 1975) p 828 Daniel P Walker Spiritual and Demonic Magic idem The Ancient Theology Studies in Christian Platonism from the

Fifteenth to the Eighteenth Century (London Gerald Duckworth amp Co Ltd 1972) Frances A Yates GiordanoBruno and the Hermetic Tradition (London Routledge amp Kegan Paul Ltd 1964) idem The Occult Philosophy in theElizabethan Age (London Routledge amp Kegan Paul 1979) idem Lull amp Bruno (London Routledge amp KeganPaul 1982)

29 Arthur Edward Waite Azoth or The Star in the East (London Theosophical Publishing Society 1893)30 Waite Lives of the Alchemystical Philosopohers idem The Secret Tradition in Alchemy Its Development and Records

(London Kegan Paul Trench Trubner amp New York A A Knopf 1926) Reviewing the latter in Nature 118

(Dec 18 1926) p 870 Holmyard wrote Mr Vaite has in short finally and irretrievably demolished thefantastic thesis set up by Mrs Atwood and others and has proved beyond refutation that early and medievalalchemy was almost entirely concerned with physics or physic

3 I Earle Radcliffe Caley The Leyden Papyrus X An English Translation with Brief Notes journal of ChemicalEducation 3 (1926) 1149-1166

32 Arthur John Hopkins Bronzing Methods in the Alchemistic Leyden Papyri The Chemical News 85 (1902)49-52 idem Earliest Alchemy The Scientific Monthly 6 (1918) 510-37 idem A Modern Theory of AlchemyIsis 7 (1925) 58-76 idem Transmutation by Color A Study of Earliest Alchemy Studien zur Geschichte derChemie Festgabe Edmund O v Lippman ed Julius Ruska (Berlin Julius Springer 1927) idem Alchemy Child ofGreek Philosophy (New York Columbia University Press 1934) idem A defence of Egyptian alchemy Isis 28(1938)424-31 idem A study of the Kerotakis Process as given by Zosimus and later alchemical writers Isis29 (1938) 326-54

33 F Sherwood Taylor A Survey of Greek Alchemy journal of Hellenic Studies 50 (1930) 109-139 idem TheOrigins of Greek Alchemy Ambix I (1937) 30-47 idem The Alchemists On Maria see Raphael Patai Mariathe Jewess-Founding Mother of Alchemy Ambix 29 (1982) 177-97

34 One must also beware errors in existing scholarship Seyyed Hossein Nasr Science and Civilization in Islam (1968rpt New York New American Library 1970) p 248 n I acknowledged that his own discussions of spiritualalchemy in the history of Islam were informed by Titus Burckhardts view of spiritual alchemy UnfortunatelyBurckhardts Alchemy Science of the Cosmos Science of the Soul trans William Stoddart (1967 rpt BaltimorePenguin Books Ltd 1971) is among the more theologically innovative-and historically anachronistic-accounts of alchemy presently available

35 Taylor The Alchemists pp 56-5736 H J Sheppard Gnosticism and Alchemy Ambix 6 (1957) p 10 I

37 Ibid p 8838 Mysticism used to be synonymous with grace and spirituality but the latter have gained broader

meanings in recent years Grace may now be any act of providence while spirituality though it continues torefer to a practice or discipline may designate intense worship moral fastidiousness or asceticism rather thanmysticism As there is no danger of confusion however there seems no need to replace the phrase spiritualalchemy by alchemical mysticism

39 Psychological approaches to alchemy had earlier been advanced by Ethan Allen Hitchcock Remarks uponAlchemy and the Alchemists (Boston Crosby Nichols 1857) Herbert Silberer Hidden Symbolism of Alchemy and theOccult Arts (Originally titled Problems of Myslicism- and Its Symbolism) trans Smith Ely Helliffe (1917 rpt NewYork Dover Publications 1971) and Regardie The Philosophers Stone

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the thirteenth or fourteenth century The founders of Greek alchemy Maria theJewess andZosimos of Panopolis were almost certainly mystics but two early instances do notconstitute a tradition Definitive conclusions on Arabic alchemy remain premature68 I addhowever that I have yet to encounter any mysticism prior to the interface with the LatinWest

Because gold-making was a constant of the literature from Hellenistic times onward twopuzzles remain acute A reader had already to have been initiated orally into the secret ofgold-making ifshe or he were to be able to make sense of the texts Why write at all69Againone Hellenistic gold-making recipe was rephrased in thousands upon thousands of textswhen a single tract would have sufficed the needs of gold-makers Why write so many texts inso many different ways

Alchemical literature is I suspect a type of cipher The secret chemistry of the GreatWork was its pre-supposition Whatever in an alchemical text refers to gold-making is not thesecret message of the text but only its place of concealment It is only after penetrating anddiscounting the esoteric discussion of the Great Work that it becomes possible to detectmiddotthepresence of further literary materials that do not pertain to the Great Work Sometimes thereare passages a sentence or a paragraph or two in length that have nothing to do with theGreat Work In other cases attention must be given to gratuitous choices of symbols Inboth cases the esoteric account of the Great Work amounts to a haystack in which the readermust seek a needle

NOTES

1 Karl von Reichenbach The Odic Force Letters on Od and Magnetism trans F D OByrne (London Hutchinsonamp Co 1926 rpt New Hyde Park NY University Books 1968) pp 14-16 93 30--34

2 Christopher McIntosh The Rosy Cross Unveiled The History Mythology and Ritual of an Occult Order(Wellingborough UK Aquarian Press Ltd 1980) pp 82 89 90

3 lVfcIntosh p I 124 Frederick Hockley The Rosicrucian Seer Magical Writings of Frederick Hockley edJohn Hamill (Wellingborough

UK Aquarian Press 1986)5 A Suggestive Inquiry into the Hermetic Jystery with a Dissertation on the more celebrated Alchemical Philosophers being an

attempt towards the Recovery of the Ancient Experiment of Nature (London Trelawney Saunders 1850) Atwood p 80refered explicitly to the New Imponderable or Od-ic Force

6 Eliphas Levi Transcendental Magic Its Doctrine and Ritual trans A E Waite 2nd ed (London 1923) pp 343-47 Ellic Howe ed The Alchemist of the Golden Dawn The Letters of the Revd W A Ayton to F L Gardner and Others 1886-

1905 (Wellingborough UK Aquarian Press 1985) pp 50--5I

8 Francis King ed Astral Projection Ritual Magic and Alchemy Golden Dawn Material by S L MacGregor Mathers andOthers (Rochester VT Destiny Books 1987) p 177 Israel Regardie The Philosophers Stone A ModernComparative Approach to Alchemy from the Psychological and Magical Points of View (London Rider amp Co 1938)

9 Frances A Yates Giordano Bruno and the Hermetic Tradition (London Routledge amp Kegan Paul 1964) pp97-104

10 Peter Schafer Gershom Scholem Reconsidered The Aim and Purpose of Early Jewish Mysticism The Twelfth SacksLecture delivered on 29th May 1985 (Oxford UK Oxford Centre for Postgraduate Hebrew Studies 1986)

I I Arthur Edward Waite trans The Alchemical Writings of Edward Kelly (1893 rpt London Robinson amp Watkins1973) Meric Casaubon ed A True and Faithful Relation of What Passedfor many Years Between Dr John Dee andSome Spirits (London D lVIaxwell amp T Garthwait 1659 rpt Glasgow Antonine Publishing Co 1974)The association can also be found in Act III Scene i of Shakespeares First Part of King Henry IV For Hotspuralchemy and spirit conjuring are distinct for Glendower they are a single practice Neither Worcester norlVfortimer is able to follow the conversation of the two initiates

12 Nicholas Flamel The Alchemical Hieroglyphics Which Were Caused to be Painted Upon an Arch in St Innocents ChurchYard in Paris trans Eirenaeus Orandus (1624 rpt Berkeley Heights NJ Heptangle Books 1980)

13middot John Read Through Alchemy to Chemistry A Procession of Ideas and Personalities (London G Bell amp Sons 1957) pp24-25

14 F Sherwood Taylor The Alchemists (1952 rpt St Albans UK PaladinGranada Publishing Ltd 1976) p174middot

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44 DANIEL MERKUR

15 Arthur Edward Waite Lives of the Alchemystical Philosophers (London G Redway 1888) p 3616 Lynn Thorndike A History of Magic and Experimental Science During the First Thirteen Centuries of Our Era (New

York amp London Columbia University Press 1923) Vol II p 3 I317 Lynn Thorndike A History of Magic and Experimental Science Volumes III and IV Fourteenth and Fifteenth Centuries

(New York amp London Columbia University Press 1934) Vol III p 4118 The Works of Gebermiddot Englished by Richard Russell 1678 a New Edition introd EJ Holmyard (LondonJ M Dent

amp New York E P Dutton 1928) p 3919 Thorndike Vol III pp 357-60 Robert P Multhauf The Origins of Chemistry (London Oldbourne 1966) pp

211-220 Thorndike Vol III p 17821 E J Holmyard The Emerald Table Nature 112 (1923) 52622 Tenney L Davis The Emerald Table of Hermes Trismegistus Three Latin Versions Which Were Current

Among Later Alchemists journal of Chemical Education 3 (1926) pp 874-523 Robert Steele amp Dorothea Waley Singer The Emerald Table Proceedings of the Royal Society of Medicine 21

(1928)48649224 Davis p 86925 Thorndike Vol III p 61526 Ibid Vol IV pp 37-43 Multhauf pp 180 n 6 21227 D P Walker Spiritual and Demonic Magic From Ficino to Campanella (London Warbug Institute University of

London 1958 rpt Notre Dame University of Notre Dame Press 1975) p 828 Daniel P Walker Spiritual and Demonic Magic idem The Ancient Theology Studies in Christian Platonism from the

Fifteenth to the Eighteenth Century (London Gerald Duckworth amp Co Ltd 1972) Frances A Yates GiordanoBruno and the Hermetic Tradition (London Routledge amp Kegan Paul Ltd 1964) idem The Occult Philosophy in theElizabethan Age (London Routledge amp Kegan Paul 1979) idem Lull amp Bruno (London Routledge amp KeganPaul 1982)

29 Arthur Edward Waite Azoth or The Star in the East (London Theosophical Publishing Society 1893)30 Waite Lives of the Alchemystical Philosopohers idem The Secret Tradition in Alchemy Its Development and Records

(London Kegan Paul Trench Trubner amp New York A A Knopf 1926) Reviewing the latter in Nature 118

(Dec 18 1926) p 870 Holmyard wrote Mr Vaite has in short finally and irretrievably demolished thefantastic thesis set up by Mrs Atwood and others and has proved beyond refutation that early and medievalalchemy was almost entirely concerned with physics or physic

3 I Earle Radcliffe Caley The Leyden Papyrus X An English Translation with Brief Notes journal of ChemicalEducation 3 (1926) 1149-1166

32 Arthur John Hopkins Bronzing Methods in the Alchemistic Leyden Papyri The Chemical News 85 (1902)49-52 idem Earliest Alchemy The Scientific Monthly 6 (1918) 510-37 idem A Modern Theory of AlchemyIsis 7 (1925) 58-76 idem Transmutation by Color A Study of Earliest Alchemy Studien zur Geschichte derChemie Festgabe Edmund O v Lippman ed Julius Ruska (Berlin Julius Springer 1927) idem Alchemy Child ofGreek Philosophy (New York Columbia University Press 1934) idem A defence of Egyptian alchemy Isis 28(1938)424-31 idem A study of the Kerotakis Process as given by Zosimus and later alchemical writers Isis29 (1938) 326-54

33 F Sherwood Taylor A Survey of Greek Alchemy journal of Hellenic Studies 50 (1930) 109-139 idem TheOrigins of Greek Alchemy Ambix I (1937) 30-47 idem The Alchemists On Maria see Raphael Patai Mariathe Jewess-Founding Mother of Alchemy Ambix 29 (1982) 177-97

34 One must also beware errors in existing scholarship Seyyed Hossein Nasr Science and Civilization in Islam (1968rpt New York New American Library 1970) p 248 n I acknowledged that his own discussions of spiritualalchemy in the history of Islam were informed by Titus Burckhardts view of spiritual alchemy UnfortunatelyBurckhardts Alchemy Science of the Cosmos Science of the Soul trans William Stoddart (1967 rpt BaltimorePenguin Books Ltd 1971) is among the more theologically innovative-and historically anachronistic-accounts of alchemy presently available

35 Taylor The Alchemists pp 56-5736 H J Sheppard Gnosticism and Alchemy Ambix 6 (1957) p 10 I

37 Ibid p 8838 Mysticism used to be synonymous with grace and spirituality but the latter have gained broader

meanings in recent years Grace may now be any act of providence while spirituality though it continues torefer to a practice or discipline may designate intense worship moral fastidiousness or asceticism rather thanmysticism As there is no danger of confusion however there seems no need to replace the phrase spiritualalchemy by alchemical mysticism

39 Psychological approaches to alchemy had earlier been advanced by Ethan Allen Hitchcock Remarks uponAlchemy and the Alchemists (Boston Crosby Nichols 1857) Herbert Silberer Hidden Symbolism of Alchemy and theOccult Arts (Originally titled Problems of Myslicism- and Its Symbolism) trans Smith Ely Helliffe (1917 rpt NewYork Dover Publications 1971) and Regardie The Philosophers Stone

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44 DANIEL MERKUR

15 Arthur Edward Waite Lives of the Alchemystical Philosophers (London G Redway 1888) p 3616 Lynn Thorndike A History of Magic and Experimental Science During the First Thirteen Centuries of Our Era (New

York amp London Columbia University Press 1923) Vol II p 3 I317 Lynn Thorndike A History of Magic and Experimental Science Volumes III and IV Fourteenth and Fifteenth Centuries

(New York amp London Columbia University Press 1934) Vol III p 4118 The Works of Gebermiddot Englished by Richard Russell 1678 a New Edition introd EJ Holmyard (LondonJ M Dent

amp New York E P Dutton 1928) p 3919 Thorndike Vol III pp 357-60 Robert P Multhauf The Origins of Chemistry (London Oldbourne 1966) pp

211-220 Thorndike Vol III p 17821 E J Holmyard The Emerald Table Nature 112 (1923) 52622 Tenney L Davis The Emerald Table of Hermes Trismegistus Three Latin Versions Which Were Current

Among Later Alchemists journal of Chemical Education 3 (1926) pp 874-523 Robert Steele amp Dorothea Waley Singer The Emerald Table Proceedings of the Royal Society of Medicine 21

(1928)48649224 Davis p 86925 Thorndike Vol III p 61526 Ibid Vol IV pp 37-43 Multhauf pp 180 n 6 21227 D P Walker Spiritual and Demonic Magic From Ficino to Campanella (London Warbug Institute University of

London 1958 rpt Notre Dame University of Notre Dame Press 1975) p 828 Daniel P Walker Spiritual and Demonic Magic idem The Ancient Theology Studies in Christian Platonism from the

Fifteenth to the Eighteenth Century (London Gerald Duckworth amp Co Ltd 1972) Frances A Yates GiordanoBruno and the Hermetic Tradition (London Routledge amp Kegan Paul Ltd 1964) idem The Occult Philosophy in theElizabethan Age (London Routledge amp Kegan Paul 1979) idem Lull amp Bruno (London Routledge amp KeganPaul 1982)

29 Arthur Edward Waite Azoth or The Star in the East (London Theosophical Publishing Society 1893)30 Waite Lives of the Alchemystical Philosopohers idem The Secret Tradition in Alchemy Its Development and Records

(London Kegan Paul Trench Trubner amp New York A A Knopf 1926) Reviewing the latter in Nature 118

(Dec 18 1926) p 870 Holmyard wrote Mr Vaite has in short finally and irretrievably demolished thefantastic thesis set up by Mrs Atwood and others and has proved beyond refutation that early and medievalalchemy was almost entirely concerned with physics or physic

3 I Earle Radcliffe Caley The Leyden Papyrus X An English Translation with Brief Notes journal of ChemicalEducation 3 (1926) 1149-1166

32 Arthur John Hopkins Bronzing Methods in the Alchemistic Leyden Papyri The Chemical News 85 (1902)49-52 idem Earliest Alchemy The Scientific Monthly 6 (1918) 510-37 idem A Modern Theory of AlchemyIsis 7 (1925) 58-76 idem Transmutation by Color A Study of Earliest Alchemy Studien zur Geschichte derChemie Festgabe Edmund O v Lippman ed Julius Ruska (Berlin Julius Springer 1927) idem Alchemy Child ofGreek Philosophy (New York Columbia University Press 1934) idem A defence of Egyptian alchemy Isis 28(1938)424-31 idem A study of the Kerotakis Process as given by Zosimus and later alchemical writers Isis29 (1938) 326-54

33 F Sherwood Taylor A Survey of Greek Alchemy journal of Hellenic Studies 50 (1930) 109-139 idem TheOrigins of Greek Alchemy Ambix I (1937) 30-47 idem The Alchemists On Maria see Raphael Patai Mariathe Jewess-Founding Mother of Alchemy Ambix 29 (1982) 177-97

34 One must also beware errors in existing scholarship Seyyed Hossein Nasr Science and Civilization in Islam (1968rpt New York New American Library 1970) p 248 n I acknowledged that his own discussions of spiritualalchemy in the history of Islam were informed by Titus Burckhardts view of spiritual alchemy UnfortunatelyBurckhardts Alchemy Science of the Cosmos Science of the Soul trans William Stoddart (1967 rpt BaltimorePenguin Books Ltd 1971) is among the more theologically innovative-and historically anachronistic-accounts of alchemy presently available

35 Taylor The Alchemists pp 56-5736 H J Sheppard Gnosticism and Alchemy Ambix 6 (1957) p 10 I

37 Ibid p 8838 Mysticism used to be synonymous with grace and spirituality but the latter have gained broader

meanings in recent years Grace may now be any act of providence while spirituality though it continues torefer to a practice or discipline may designate intense worship moral fastidiousness or asceticism rather thanmysticism As there is no danger of confusion however there seems no need to replace the phrase spiritualalchemy by alchemical mysticism

39 Psychological approaches to alchemy had earlier been advanced by Ethan Allen Hitchcock Remarks uponAlchemy and the Alchemists (Boston Crosby Nichols 1857) Herbert Silberer Hidden Symbolism of Alchemy and theOccult Arts (Originally titled Problems of Myslicism- and Its Symbolism) trans Smith Ely Helliffe (1917 rpt NewYork Dover Publications 1971) and Regardie The Philosophers Stone

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THE STUDY OF SPIRITUAL ALCHEMY 45

40 Carl Gustav Jung Psychologie und Alchemie (Zurich Rascher verlag 1944) ET = Psychology and Alchemy 2nd edtrans R F C Hull (1952 rpt Princeton Princeton University Press 1968) p 34

41 Ibid p 245middot42 Ibid p 25043 Ibid pp 245-25044 Cf Hopkins Alchemy pp 112-1545 Mircea Eliade The Forge and the Crucible trans Stephen Corrin (London Rider amp Company 1962 rpt New

York Harper amp Row Publishers 197I) pp 149-5046 Ibid p 14947 Ibid p 15048 Ibid p 15149 Ibid p 16550 Patrick K Ford trans The Mabinogi and other Medieval Welsh Tales (Berkeley University of California Press

1977) pp 69-70 163 Nigel Bryant The High Book of The Grail A translation of the 13th century romance of Perlesvaus(Cambridge D S Brewer amp Totowa NJ Rowman amp Littlefield 1978) pp 90-1John Gardner The CompleteWorks of the Gawain-Poet In a Modern English Version (Chicago University of Chicago Press 1965) pp 230-44

5 I Roger Sherman Loomis The Origin of the Grail Legends Arthurian Literature in the Middle Ages A CollaborativeHistory ed Roger Sherman Loomis (Oxford Clarendon Press 1959) pp 274-94

52 Gottfried von Strassburg Tristan with the surviving fragments of the Tristan of Thomas trans A T Hatto(Harmondsworth Penguin Books Ltd 1960) Susan L Clark The Poetics of Conversion Number Symbolism andAlchemy in Gotifrieds Tristan (Bern Peter Lang 1977)

53 Wolfram von Eschenbach Parzival trans A T Hatto (Harmondsworth Penguin Books Ltd 1980) Henryand Renee Kahane with Angelina Pietrangeli The Krater and the Grail Hermetic Sources of the Parzival (Urbana ampChicago University of Illinois Press 1965)

54 Eliade The Forge and the Crucible p 15255 Ibid pp 47-50 cr Hopkins Alchemy pp ro8-9 114-556 Taylor The Alchemists p 4457 Ibid p 5058 Ibid p 49middot59middot Ibid p 99middot60 Hopkins Alchemy p 85 identifies ios with the Philosophers Stone ie salt61 Isis to Her Son Horus (Paris mss 23271478 CE Paris mss 2250 17th century) Marcellin Berthelot Collection

des Anciens Alchiomistes Grecs 3 vols (1888 rpt Osnabruck Otto Zeller 1967) vol II pp 28-31 vol III pp31-33

62 Taylor Origins of Greek Alchemy pp 37-863 Taylor The Alchemists pp 57-6064 H E Stapleton G L Lewis amp F Sherwood Taylor The Sayings of Hermes Quoted in the MA AL-WARAQI

of Ibn Umail Ambix 3 (1949) 71 The Arabic language compilation was probably assembled around the tenthcentury

65 Moshe Idel The Origin of Alchemy According to Zosimos and a Hebrew Parallel Revue des Etudes juives 145(1986) 117-24

66 Plutarch De Iside et Osiride 3267 Zosimos Sur la Mesure du Jaunissement (St-Marc Venice mss 11th century Paris mss 2327 1478 CE

Paris mss 2329 16-I7th centuries Paris mss 2249 16th century) Berthelot Vol II p 182 Vol III p 18068 I am open to the possibility that future research on Ismaili mysticism with its microcosm-macrocosm

correspondences may discover the origin of spiritual alchemy69 Taylor The Alchemists p 56