| First Matter In order to achieve any goal in alchemy the base metal must first be reduced to base matter. The metal, or physical form is stripped away and the spark of life hidden within it is released. In the individual this process can come about in many ways including last life death, nervous breakdowns, prolonged illness, near-death experiences and the sudden, great realizations and occurrances that shake the world as we know it. These occurrances make one begin again because the realization is thrust upon the person that the world was not at all what it seemed. After achieving first matter, the life-spark is recombined with the First Matter producing an embryo which has the natural propensity to become gold in its striving for perfection. This is new birth or rebirth into the physical world. In the end of the trying purification the most special step of all is taken and the stone is achieved.
The difficulty of alchemy is that the student is never told which base metal to work on. Of course, once the student has decided to work on themself, the decision a bit easier. Wandering still occurs, because the journey itself is always up to the student. Trial and error. The alchemist is both the vessel and the material of the work. And there is some hope of being able to affect the physical world as a result also. In the beginning material goods, comfort, and a happier existence are often the golden carrots moving the animal forward.
The operations are slow and taxing and one process may have to be repeated hundreds of times before it is completed and the lesson is understood. Knowledge is the key to the work. However, knowledge of the books, maths, sciences was not all that is meant. There is also knowledge that makes no sense at all in a logical framework. There are the goals of the heart and the needs and growth of the soul the letting go of certain enforced ideas that no longer are necessary. This great thirst for knowledge exists none-the-less and many go forward absorbing as much information as they can. | The Symbolic Steps of Alchemy One of the Graeco-Egyptian alchemists, Zosimos of Panopolis writes in A.D. 300 about a dream. In the dream, he saw a priest sacrificing at the top of fifteen steps. He heard the priest say, “I have accomplished the action of descending the fifteen steps towards the darkness, and the action of ascending the steps towards the light. The sacrifice renews me, rejecting the dense nature of the body. Thus consecrated by necessity, I become spirit.�?nbsp; From The Black Arts | |
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