http://www.twingroves.district96.k12.il.us/renaissance/University/Alchem…
Painting by Joseph Wright of Derby (1734-97) The Alchymist in Search of the Phiosophers’ Stone discovers Phosphorus

The Alchemic tradition

The Alchemic tradition arose in the ancient Egypt, and became part of the esoteric wisdom of the Greeks, Chinese, Arabs and Indians. In Europe, the first alchemical text was a twelfth century translation of the Arabic Book of the Composition of Alchemy by Robert of Chester.
The first teacher Alchemists refer to is Hermes Trismegistos, an Egyptian initiate whom the Egyptians identified with Thoth, the scribe of the Gods, and the Greeks identified with Hermes, messenger of the Gods.
Other important Alchemists from the past are Solomon, Pytagoras, Socrates, Plato, and Anaxagoras. From later times came F. Bacon and Parcelsus.


 

Alchemy

Alchemy had a peak in Europe in the middle-age, probably because the church did not allow the freedom of thought sincere spiritual development requires.
As an example: Dream interpretation was a sin, all communication with God should go through the Pope!
Jung believed that alchemy stood as the shadow in compensatory relationship to Christianity. Christianity one-sided dogma and inability to unite the opposites had alienated us from our natural roots in the unconscious
In his autobiography Jung relates how during a period of several years in the middle of his life he was exposed to a "confrontation with the unconscious", coming to him as strange and very powerful images, dreams, and fantasies which rose up uncontrollable into his awareness. He soon noticed that "Analytical psychology coincided in a curious way with alchemy".

 

The Alchemists speak in chemistry - type language, but the meaning is metaphoric for inner work:
Aurum nostrum non est aurum vulgum�
"Our gold is not the common gold"

Some important Alchemic concepts:

The hermetic vessel or retort

This retort is the human bodies

(Physical, etheric, astral, mental and spiritual).

The alchemic way of using the retort aims at splitting up the wrongly connected aspects, and refines them, and then let the refined substances reform in higher ways.
The Alchemists attempted to integrate and transform the four elements. (Earth, water, fire and air).They needed to be integrated because in the normal condition of man they are in a state of conflict and confusion.

 

The alchemic process:
Nigredo - Albedo - Rubedo

Nigredo: Alchemists referred to the initial state, before the refinement had succeeded, as ordinary man, chaos, Massa confusa or Prima Materia or Nigredo (black).
This is the disorganised and inharmonious state an everyday person is in, with inner wars between morality and drive, between courage and cunningness etc.
Albedo: The phase where the union of opposites, starts, hieros gamos, the union of all opposites being the goal
Rubedo: Is the harvest, the opening into the Philosophers stone, the phase of gold. The union of opposites has succeeded, and as a result, the Self becomes realised.

 

"Dissolve et coagulate"
Dissolve and crystallise

Through a repeated process of "Dissolve et Coagulate"
the end purpose was the Lapis or the "Philosophers Stone"
Transform yourself into living Philosophical Stones!

Gerhard Dorn 16th century alchemist

Carl Jung suggests that the achievement of Lapis or the Philosophers stone is the same as, the achievement of unification with Christ, and means that the alchemists had succeeded not only to redeem themselves - but rather: - To redeem God from matter -


 

The Alchemic Marriage

Mostly based on the description in Jes Bertelsen: Drømme Chakrasymboler og Meditation

And in Peter O’Conor: Understanding Jung

The Alchemic Marriage is an allegoric tale about the transformation of an individual via processes in the chakra system. It is written approximately 1614 by Valentin Andreas under the false name Christiani Rosenkreutz.
We move or develop because where we are, is seen as not what we want, not satisfactory, not the truth. It starts with a feeling of something wrong or missing in our everyday life, - on the root chakra level.


 

Muladhara or root

On the wedding-night the king, queen and their family are beheaded by a black executioner (the shadow). The executioner himself is beheaded. Somebody places all the bodies in 7 coffins. The king and queen are symbols of where the main, the “rulingâ€? energy is directed in our everyday living. Job, career, family and so on. The executioner is the shadow, the unconscious but powerful forces lying as rigid structures in body and psyche.

The coffins are by boat transported to an island on which a
7 storey tower is placed.

The people handling the process are given one of three gifts to help them: Wings, a ladder or a rope. The wings symbolises feminine energy and Ida, the rope, masculine energy and Pingala. The ladder, androgynous energy and Susumna. The feminine energy works with the flow, the masculine is directed, goal oriented, the androgynous represent initiation, something that happens, that we can not plan.
This depicts the three ways of development:
Tantra, Yoga and Initiation.

 

Swadhistan or hara

There is a hole in the ceiling in each floor in the tower. And by means of either wings, rope or ladder, the helpers get the 7 coffins up on 2’ floor in the tower.
Here the bodies of the royal family and of the shadow are placed together in some closed container in which some sort of circulation is maintained.
This is symbolised by an artesian well flowing with water in a closed circuit.
The system is heated.

The task is to dissolve the bodies and concentrate the fluid resulting from the process.
This is an alchemic retort, the fire of awareness, of meditation.

Psychological it means that important projections in the principle of
Two (duality) and three (Body, mind spirit), can be contained, is not projected.
In alchemy it is often described as a dangerous process of observing a retort with fire under, to make sure the fire is constant, even and not to much or too little.

 

Manipura or solar plexus

A golden ball, which the helpers arrived at with the aid of wings, rope or ladder, is seen hanging in the centre of the 3’ rd floor, and the concentrated fluid from Swadhistana or hara is poured into it.
The 3’ rd floor consists of an open room, the walls alternate between being a window and being a mirror. The mirrors and windows are arranged in such a way that they amplify and direct the sunlight coming through the windows, directing the light towards the golden ball. The light and heat that is generated this way is very powerful.

After some time is the golden ball cut open with a diamond, and inside is a snow-white egg.

The ball is golden because it is a symbol of the meditative process, turning the energy in on itself, not projecting.
The task on the solar plexus level is to see clearly all the drives and emotions we have, hidden in the depth of our body and mind., We can then start meditating on our emotions and drives, see them for what they are, but keep clear of identifications with them.
What we identify with, we live out.
What we do not identify with, what we can stay a witness to, we can transform.

The ram as a symbol of sacrifice

In the third major chakra, the solar plexus chakra, the fire element and the symbolism of sacrificial animals, (lamb, ram, bull), is combined
The transition of consciousness from tha hara chakra to the solar plexus chakra is not easy and cannot happen without a sacrifice.
One has to sacrifice the safety and unconsciousness which is connected to living an emotional life. You have to be willing to give up your projections upon others, and strive to own them yourself.
To live without questioning ones emotions, to live in sympathy or antipathy, to divide the world in black and white, good and bad, in what you like and what you don’t like, this emotional lifestyle provides safety and predictability.
Nevertheless, if you want to advance in your development, then this unconsciousness has to be sacrificed.
In dreams involving sacrifices of animals, the symbolism reflects the identification and attachment to the emotions (=animals). This identification has to be sacrificed in order to avoid dulling the consciousness by emotions, projections of emotional energy, antipathies and sympathies
Emotionality is like a pendulum. If it swings out in sympathy, inevitably it later on has to swing equally much the opposite direction, to negativity. Freedom, non-attachment is to keep it quiet.

Edited from workshop notes from Jes Bertelsen 1978 1986

Anahata or heart

The snow white egg is lifted one more storey up, placed in a copper-container with a gentle fire underneath, and is staying there until the egg hatches.
The bird coming out of the egg is first black (nigredo), then white (albedo), and at last it has all the colours of the rainbow.
Copper symbolise energy that no longer is too fixed, the energy is conductive. A blockage or an attitude is ready to be transformed.
The heart centre is said to be the centre of the Self. Development has reached a degree, where there no longer are larger areas that are rigid mentally or emotionally, the energy can relatively free circulate in our total system.

 

Vishudi or throat

The rainbow-coloured bird is moved up a storey, and placed in a sort of bath, rinsed and warmed in a milk-like fluid. The colourful feathers disappear. The resulting fluid (The milk and the dissolved feathers), is concentrated into a blue stone. This stone the colours the bird blue.
The throat has to do with a higher creativity and faith, so only here, on this level of consciousness, when we in glimpses can open up to these energies, we can transcend our physical mother, our original source of "milk" and get our nourishment from the Heavenly Mother, then and only then rightly trusting that cosmos will care for us.


 

Ajna or 3’eye

The blue bird is lifted to next level, and drinks from a crystal-well flowing with blood. The bird bites a snake; the snake bites its own tail, and is half inside a skull, half outside, coming in and out through the eyeholes. The snake also drinks from the blood, and, after being bitten by the bird, hides inside the skull. In order to proceed now, the blue bird must be killed.
The blue bird symbolises higher intuitive processes in organic interaction with the physical human. The aurobos-snake is the energy relating to actual seeing. The transformation of energy and attitudes that have happened up to now will actually disturb the physical seeing.

The bird must be killed because it represents (among other things) our attachment to development, and thus represents a "becoming", a duality. This duality can only be solved by killing the attachment.


 

Sahasrara or crown

The alchemic process here has to do with enlightenment, and we therefore have to approach it in a humble acknowledgment of the restrictions this give to our understanding, and the work we have in front of us before this is personally relevant.
The blue bird is killed, its ashes are moisturised and the substance formed into two small humans. The meditative warmth transforms them so they become crystal-like, transparent.
Later they become alive, and it is now obvious that the king and queen we first met at the root chakra level, have been reborn, and the marriage is celebrated.
The crown chakra has to do with enlightenment the consciousness of a Christ or a Buddha, the absolute, crystal-clear continuous being in God, here symbolised by the union of the crystal-like king and queen, the two nadir’s, Ida and Pingala. Being crystal-like, there are nothing hidden, and they are united in marriage.