The Quickening: ARTificial Gnosis -Mercurial Psychopomps/Egyptian Alchemy/Chinese Elixer/Aristotle

Alchemy, an ancient art form, is about understanding and harnessing nature’s patterns. It originated in Egypt and was later developed by Aristotle, who believed everything is made of elements that can change. His student, Alexander the Great, used this knowledge to conquer lands and establish a city where knowledge from East and West merged, leading to a golden age. Alchemy, which can be both creative and destructive, has influenced our world in many ways, from technology to medicine, showing the power of human imagination to shape the world.
The ancient Egyptians used symbols from nature, like the dung beetle, to represent concepts like transformation and resurrection. They also practiced mummification, not for immortality, but as an art form and a way to preserve the body. They used practical methods, like lead-based eyeliner to ward off infections, and created beautiful artifacts from materials like lapis lazuli. However, much of their knowledge was lost when libraries in Alexandria and Baghdad were burned, showing a historical pattern of suppressing or destroying accumulated wisdom.
Zosimos, an ancient alchemist, believed that all substances, including metals, had a spiritual element. He used processes like boiling and melting to release this spirit, a concept that became the foundation of spiritual alchemy. This idea, although not accepted by modern science, suggests a divine spark exists in everything, guiding our actions and forms. Zosimos’ work, which combined art and science, has greatly influenced our understanding of alchemy and the interconnectedness of all things.
This text discusses the concept of alchemy, particularly the role of mercury in the process and its potential to drive people mad. It explores the idea of receiving messages or “downloads” from higher forces and how these can influence our actions and outcomes. The text also delves into the history of alchemy, mentioning figures like Hermes and Jabir IBN Hay, and their contributions to the field. Lastly, it discusses the spiritual aspect of alchemy, suggesting that the process of transmutation can bring about personal growth and self-discovery.
The 16th-century artwork, Splendor Solis, is a mysterious piece created by an anonymous artist. It’s believed to symbolize the transformation of a person from being controlled to becoming independent, similar to the alchemical process of turning lead into gold. The artwork is open to interpretation, and its meaning can change over time as the viewer changes. An interesting detail in the artwork is a depiction of Alexander the Great and Diogenes, symbolizing humility and the ability to create something from nothing.

Something from nothing, accelerated evolution, order from chaos. The transmutation of a substance is substantial change. Mankind is a co creator and this world is his canvas to be painted by her creative force. It is no wonder that the most elusive and mysterious art form in our short history is synonymous with nature. Expedited. To study the route that nature takes and understand it enough to aim it in your favor is alchemy an art that is lost but not dead. Lost because how quickly we forget. Not dead because it can’t die. Stars have turned primordial matter into gold long before man and will long after.

The laws of nature are immortal and the quickening of it is available to any conscious being wise enough to see its patterns, making alchemy the foundation of both science and self realization. The origins of alchemy are shrouded in the secrets of ancient Egypt or chem. Hence its namesake as the art of Egypt. Not to be confused with chemistry, the art of Egypt can be studied through speculation, of course, and we will open that door after our intro. But for a concrete precursor, let’s only go back to the 4th century BCE. Aristotle proposed that all things are made of elements.

Safe to say he nailed it. At the time they pretty much just had the five ranging between the gross and the sudden. A world composed of elements meant that things were subject to change, just as nature does, but by the will of self intellect. To Aristotle, the term substantial change meant that things could be either generated or corrupted. It was axiom that the gross contained the subtle and thus the subtle or numa could be extracted or released from the gross, then tuned, refined and reinstated. Aristotle of course, acquired a myriad variety variety of pupils throughout his career.

But of all his students, one in particular seemed hyper capable in harnessing Atot’s philosophies of science, literature, wisdom and tactics. Knowledge that could be applied to any aspect of life, including militarization. Recognizing the overachieving prowess of the student, Aristotle insisted that he maintain an understanding rather than an understanding of these teachings. Basically, if you’re going to learn the ways of nature’s place book, please be cool and don’t do anything crazy with it. But the relationship between said student and Aristotle slowly dissipated over time as the student went on to create pharmakon, a chemical derivative so destructive that it engulfs flames onto anything it touches, burning it to its core.

A napalm that couldn’t be extinguished by water, much less put out by the old stop, drop and roll. He created charioteers that were not human, but instead hollo iron shells that Inflicted terror onto enemies by mechanical missiles of reactant naphtha compounds, gushing death onto surprised armies who were surely expecting to fight a hand to hand weapons battle with other people. The former student went on to conquer the land of Kem, our Egypt, sprouting opportunity to take over the entire Indian subcontinent and on into Asia and Africa. For lack of a better description, he took over the world, induced substantial change to the face of the earth ever since.

In the land of Khem, once considered a reflection of heaven on earth, a city was established in his name. The city of Alexander the Great catalyzed a trade post of the arts and muses of both word and spirit. As the library of Alexandria, Egypt had been infiltrated and usurped. And now the rest of the world would soon experience what is known as the age of discovery. As this melting pot of knowledge took form, everyone and their mother wanted to get their hands on this leaked wisdom of sacred Egypt. Like sun and moon, a union of opposing forces.

In this case Eastern tradition and western philosophy. There conjoined and birthed a golden dawn, A pale egg richly fertilized and preparing to hatch a spectacle of potential for the entire world. Except Florida, probably. Now, is this a good or a bad thing? On one hand we see a misuse of great knowledge rivaling like what Hollywood has done with free Masonic symbols. On the other hand, a dam broke open the mighty secrets of Egyptian pharaohs to the rest of the world, except Florida, still to this day a beautifully ironic example of order from chaos. Either way it is viewed, one thing is absolutely certain.

The world around Aristotle’s teachings funneled through the psyche of one hyper capable mind and transformed the very substance of society from utterly basic to undeniably illuminated. In a very short period of time, the knowledge or mercury passed down from the exalted Aristotle ignited through the chaos of war, that is the heat and sulfur of Alexander, and caused the salt of the earth to disperse, separate and recoagulate into something new, something exciting, something that would be called a golden age. Alchemy is a science made animate, tinged with spirit and art. And sometimes art is destructive. Hence the blessing and curse of the born alchemist to bend the cosmos with the will of industrious human imagination.

A blessing we are all still cursed with today. Or a curse we are blessed with, depending on how full your cauldron is. That is, depending on the contents of the barrel that you live in. If you ask a practitioner the definition of alchemy, expect a slight hesitation before you get an answer. This hesitation is not Confusion, but instead a moment of reverence owed to the breadth of an art form that, like Mercury, is known to drive its clinician mad. Because the alchemist bears a curse, at least in his initial stages, a curse of curiosity and vehement thirst for understanding how nature works.

The way to understand it is to replicate it and become that very process. Thus nature coming. To understand nature like how a scientist is the universe studying itself, but different in that the transformation of natural matter into man made creation is not just to study the process happening, but also to become a co creator with big guns upstairs and yield a work of art or artificial nature captured and framed in a unit, beautified or like a painter, is nature capturing itself, but different in that the goal of the alchemist is to truly replicate, thus recreate the ways of the natural world, rather than only illustrate.

The average person might not know it, but the art science of alchemical transmutation has certainly beautified our mundane world through its technology. And by technology, I do mean technology. Fire can transform sand into glass, then stained for vibrant color. So a wall, once an absolute barrier, can now capture a wonderful view for the eyes to see. Copper and other valuable minerals are extracted from raw earth and designated a task. Now mechanisms can be conductive and malleable. Noise can be charted out and categorized as sounds set to various pitches. So the ears can now perceive personality and emotion through song, some better than others.

Colored oils and textures can be organized into various forms as paints to please the eyes. Naturally occurring compounds can be combined to heal the body as medicine. Chemical gateways of mind expanding implications can be extracted from a case Asia strain and other plants, then purified to be injected or ingested and straight catapult someone up into the higher realms for self disclosure of unseen worlds and the beings that inhabit them. And of course, the life force chi, prana, soul, or whatever word you’d like best, can be temporarily extracted from the salt of the earth body, then infused with beauty and certitude, splendor and grace, before being cast back in in order to live a better life suited to the practitioner.

We’ll cover that last one in depth here, coming up. But first let’s get to know what we are looking at. Because in all cases and many other examples missed, we imitate the effortless action of natural creation and hasten it to perfection in order to evolve and surpass the ordinary self we are born to. If pollinated correctly, ordinary matter can bloom with unexpected vitality. There is a reason that seeds grow best in the dark. Rain and Manure. There is no better example of lead into gold and the dangers of that process than the origins of our initial quote today.

Not the squirrels found, but the literal dead Sea that preserved them. If Mother Gaia herself is an alchemist, then the Dead Sea is easily one of her laboratories. Like Dexter’s, tampering in her lab can prove extremely dangerous for the curious. This chemical pool of death and decay, charged with ions and toxic compounds like of beautiful crystals, was a storehouse of medicinal and therapeutic applications since biblical antiquity. This dangerously deadly place was considered a paragon of paradoxical solvents yielded by nature. Ancient people marveled in wonder as to how the earth could birth such a fantastic contradiction, but also sought after how to harness its death and decay for life for their benefit.

Just as Mother Gaia does with her body, the tangible earth. It is no wonder this death puddle was chosen to safeguard the most sacred text known to man, the Dead Sea Scrolls. The author or secreteer surely knew that whoever so found these scriptures would have to be both courageous enough to explore this grumpy ass pond and innovative enough to survive the excavation. But to explore the true roots of this art science, we will have to go way further back until we are seemingly underground in the dark, piercing the black soils of both time and secrecy. From the scarab allegory to Blue Lotus, the oldest forms of alchemical transmutation are found in Egypt.

Look at this hieroglyph. Every time I do it reminds me of the cornerstone law, that is to bear the serpent with its fruit. It’s a verb, kepper. And depending on its use could mean to come into being, to create or be created or to transform. Its pictogram was selected straight out of nature’s playbook, a dung beetle. Fun fact. If you say kepper juice three times fast, Dr. Zahi Hawass forfeits another debate to Graham Hancock and Robert Schock. Calm down the friends. Now this magical beetle buddy of the booty creates new life from waste utilizing collected dung.

It creates a cocoon for its young to be buried in sand, whereupon arises a form of resurrection. Its eggs hatch and are nourished by the very cocoon they are buried in. The feces used were rolled into a perfect and polished sphere, adding art and beauty to the mix. The implications of alchemy are self evident here and need not be expounded. But the ancient Egyptians took the mythic image a step further, creating an entire miscape allegory for this little guy. The itty beetle butt buddy is represented by Khepri, who generated the creative act of the physical world.

Khepri rolled primal matter along the river of the underworld at night so the sun could hatch from it. Each morning, the hatchling sun would grow strong to its zenith or noon position, and then grow weaker into old age as it descended into death. Once again, the sphere rolls and the sun rotates just as this cycle performs its routine of life from death. Capri, being not subject to corruption, was driven to repeatedly resurrect the world of temporality. In this perpetuated cycle, the parable is clear. The divine tendency has always been to turn death into life, lead into gold, and chaos into order in the most creatively efficient way possible.

And where not possible, life finds a way. This pendant was found in the tomb of Tutankhamun at great lengths and effort. By that I mean, if you think the mummy movies are complete fiction, google what happened to all of the men who broke into that tomb. Or you can see my take on it in this episode preferred, because the most exaggerated thing in the movie is showing Brendan Fraser like this after we grew up on Encino man and expecting us not to turn out at least a little gay. Speaking of mummies, it is assumed that mummification was a futile mortal attempt at immortality.

This nonsensical assumption is fueled by our own fear of physical mortality. The finer nature of the personhood had already left the body. The soul came unhinged from its vessel. So worldly needs of survival would obviously might no longer be necessary. Mummification seems rather to be an approximation of Khepri’s work and immunity to decay. Simply put, it was an art form, a way to beautify something that was dead and no longer any good. Just like the scarab dung beetle, they were turning waste into art. They would refine a silver alloy into a toxic byproduct called mania or red lead dye to encircle the outside of the mummy.

Professional scholars and Egyptologists attribute this bright red coloring to warding off evil spirits or whatever other superstitious rituals they pin on our ancient ancestors. But the red lead was much more likely an effective deterrent to pests that would otherwise eat away at the corpse. On that note, a lot of what the Egyptians did was for practical utility like this. It’s so often the ones writing the history books who cling to these weird superstitions and then pin it on the ancient people who they’re writing about. It may be projection of their own fears and superstitions, I don’t know.

But I digress. After being gilded with Inscriptions. The mummy and its worldly possessions were buried together to act as an anchor for the soul. So if needs be that the pharaoh would have to come back to the Earth realm to recite deeds into the mortal playing field. He could follow that tether back to his birthplace. Boy, that certainly didn’t help my former point one bit. In other words, the ghost could easily find its way home. Adorable, right? Yeah, it’s real cute. Until you find yourself dearly holding on to your grandpa’s keepsakes and then keep wondering why your house seems haunted.

Stop trapping your g paw, Brittany. Scatter those ashes in a river somewhere and sage your damn living room. You’re freaking the cat out. Speaking of the toxicity of lead, another misconception is the whole eyeliner thing. We tend to assume it was for decorative purposes only. Nope. Although lead is toxic when ingested. Unless in good old American gasoline, of course, then it’s perfectly safe. It was lead, then uranium, before fluoride. Now, rather, Egyptian eyeliner was an artificial derivative created by artisans that when applied to the skin, would stimulate the body’s immune system. Applied to the eyes, it would ward off sinus infections during the marshy seasons of the high Nile.

If you’re wondering how we know this, well, it’s what they wrote in the recipe books on papyri, demonstrating not only how to concoct this mascara, but also making clear the dangers of it if it’s ingested, if it’s misused. What’s also made clear by all this is that we today tend to assume things at face value, too often skipping out on the details, the painstakingly written out and left behind codexes for us to learn from. And here we are today, still running around with eyeliner that has no practical function besides bringing out the blue in your eyes against the backdrop of those new banks you’ve been rocking.

Speaking of blue, your girl’s favorite crystal, lapis lazuli, was considered as decorative as gold as far back as the fourth dynasty Egypt, inspiring that perfect opposing color combination of gold and blue that works really nicely. And on that note, we’ve all heard that the ancients couldn’t see blue because they didn’t have a word invented for it yet. I don’t know if that’s true or not, but 4th dynasty Egyptians could see it, and they just thought it was the beast. Tits. Another alchemical process written about in the coffer text indicates a gold kombucha tincture that was drank by a pharaoh in order to activate his plasmatic body and render it into a viral format to be catapulted into the stars by the Great Pyramid working as an actual machine device to join into union with the Netter.

It’s a great story, and you’ll know all about it if you peep this episode right here. When it comes to the art of transformation and thus resurrection, we often see this concept represented by the Djed Pillar glyph. Looking at this symbol, though, it really does look a lot more like a technology than it does a symbol. It kind of looks like some kind of why does this look so damn familiar? But just like anything that reaches the utmost heights of good, this would all come to an end, as we saw in our intro today. But don’t worry, it gets worse.

If you know where this is going, type C3 in the comments Cause the Library of Alexandria, built in the remnant footprint of Khem, and one of the few good things to come out of this brutal concrete was ordered to be burned to the ground by Emperor Diocletian shortly after the outlawing of all alchemical practices. It is unclear what the Emperor wanted to prevent, but it is rumored that the dismantling of knowledge would stop a potential uprising of power among the people of Egypt, and the most efficient and expedited form that a revolution could possibly take on would be through the art science of alchemy.

Why does this sound familiar? The entendre is intended, but I digress, because this famous incident was not isolated. Another vast but lesser known library of knowledge was collected from various parts of the world and stored in Baghdad. Greek, Indian, Sasanian and Babylonian codices were translated into Arabic by astute scholars and bound into manuscripts to be kept safe and also provide a center of scholarship and experimentation, a fun place of unhinged science with the rules of mis frizzle meant to further quicken the knowledge of mankind. But when the Mongol section Baghdad in the 13th century, it also burned to the ground, just like its big brother in Alexandria.

Paper is like super flammable. Damn, should have wrote it on emerald. He’s coming up, by the way. But these reoccurring events of burning books is proof of either one of two things A that time truly does work in cycles and not a linear progression or b that human beings really do have a collective issue with great knowledge amassed. Heartbreaking really, that throughout history, when a path opens up for common civilians to dip their feet into knowledge of the great mysteries, some or another form of authority or kingship swoops in to stamp it out, if not steal it away to hide in their own vault we see you with your damn skyfish hat.

You ain’t cute. It almost seems on purpose. Perhaps the Great Filter we talked about here really is the same below as it is above. Alexandria was a hotbed for esoteric study. Reflective speculation of science and spirit went hand in hand with the industrial utility of alchemy. Everything it had to offer was destroyed. But fortunately for us, it wasn’t the only spot with alchemical sprouts emerging into the light of day. In Panopolis, an alchemist named Zosimos did work and his writings survived this prohibition. Zosimos used metaphors and symbolism to illustrate the art of transmutation. It might be speculated that the concept of fusing creative artisan forms with the stark science practiced was owed to women.

Zosimos worked with both men and women to perfect his craft, something that shouldn’t be surprising if one is to stick to the truest roots of alchemy that require the uniting of both male and female elements. This turn in history became the backbone of what is now considered the laboratory setting for alchemical transit. By destroying a substance with chaos, like boiling, melting, pressurizing and evaporating, they would release the finer spirit of the metal substance. The idea that all substance had a spirit or pneuma, was a nod to the prior work and philosophy of Aristotle model, but also held gnostic ideals about primal matter containing a divine spark leftover from a one supreme architect, a divine spark that we inherited from source, running through or bypassing the demiurgos imitation God that works to keep us in a material only reality and spark unrealized.

The idea that this divine spark existed and could be refined and tuned became the cornerstone of spiritual alchemy. Now this is certainly one of those things that the materialist dogmatic science of today cannot prove, or at least refuses to investigate due to fear of being seen playing the fool. But it is self evident to the individual felt within or simply known to each person, but impossible to hold, measure, convey or even describe to another person. What is also self evident is that this divine spark runs nature. We see its emergent intelligence all around us in all life forms as they adapt to their environment, which is also driven by this divine spark.

To describe it would be as futile as asking a fish to describe water. Yet it can be seen clearly in any and all things, living or not. Watch a bee colony build a hive and observe that they are one and the same organism as the flowers that play their counterpart. Watch the crystalline patterns taken on by water as it freezes into flakes and I mean check this out. 1. 1, 2, 3, 5, 8, 13, 8. And so on. Back down. Fibonacci sequence. So your hand alone and how it has been designed to function is the proof that something somewhere decided that we take on this form.

Because it certainly isn’t one individual human that decided to have thumbs any more than a single bee decides to create hexagons, or a drop of water decides to freeze form flakes from this same blueprint. No, these activities and all surrounding activities are evidence of a primordial intelligence guiding our form and actions as a collected whole. So if it is everywhere, truly piercing the entire material world, why would it not include the mineral world? I believe it’s the 16th repentance of the Sophia in the Gnostic Gospel that describes her pleading out to the light to not only save her, but but to save all of the components with her that are within her, associated with the mineral world and all life forms within.

Completely isolated from that. We have the work of Bentoff that we’ve covered recently, who he describes a primordial type of intelligence or coherence within the mineral world. The only reason the activity of this microcosm is not self evident is simply because it is too small and slow moving to detect with the human eye. In other words, the divine does its work in the molecular realm as well. We just can’t see it from here. For Zosimos, this science was to be written and illustrated, thus left behind for us to find, replicate and expound upon. What better way to do this than to creating literal art for the eye to feast on? So when it comes to sulfur and mercury in a lab setting, old Simo killed two birds with one stone and created a type of colored wax that became encaustic paint.

We owe a lot to alchemy. I mean, look at Newton. Today’s scientists revere Newton as the greatest of all time, and he was a stone cold old alchemist. And so it was hypothesized that like the human being, anything with a body must also have its counterpart spirit, a living conscious life force that all things have in common, like a collective mind. If an utterly mundane mineral substance, like a base metal, could be chemically changed to its core of its elements, then imagine what kind of change could occur if the same philosophy was applied to the human form concerning the psyche, a distillation of self with a capital S.

The best way to go about this was through a coagulation of art and medicine. This is where an unexpected part of the world chimes in to pay itself. Sixth Sense concerning the art science of alchemy, the practice of the west goes hand in hand with the philosophy of the east in a concept that we call the Tao. Dallas alchemists, known as fang shi, or magician technicians for our Tech9 fans out there, produced elixirs for health, longevity and transcendence. Seemingly contrary, yet quite the opposite. Knowing the Dao showed Eastern masters of Zen the way for scientific speculation about spiritual harmonization of both medicine and meditation.

Eminem for short. If you want that joke was dumb, we’ll take that. The external elixir to be consumed was called weight, whereas the internal elixir was known as naidin. You might guess by looking at modern Western healthcare that one is only as good as the latter. Ancient Taoists observed that those who sat and contemplated the effects of the medicine would experience the same results as those who ingested it. We know this today to be called the placebo effect that oftentimes proves even more efficient than physical medicine. And why wouldn’t it? After all, it is direct and instant.

Sentience is direct and instant without the need of being carried and transported through the tangible body. We don’t know what placebo is because we don’t know what consciousness is outside of negating it with a fanciful mouth noise. In the west, we attribute the placebo effect to accidental happenings. Not the Taoist alchemists, though they naturally took hold the reins of this miracle and put it to use. We can’t do that here because, well, it’s free of cost. Oh. Supposed to do a manual bass drop, but new studio Instead of waiting in bypass to the feng shi, it was through sheer mental will that the medicine worked to a desired result.

The fire that burns is the fire that transforms. Thus obvious to the Taoists, the higher soul, ether or spirit fire could easily transform whatever happens to be going on here in the gross realms of biology. We can activate the soul to have the body running on full pistons. An art form itself that is as nature is to like nature, a force put into motion by literal art on paper. In other words, the contemplation of art in conjunction with meditation on the body will bring ample health to any practitioner not plagued with self doubt. This became a pictorial language that we might compare to spoken allegory.

Look at this painting. It’s obviously a place, artistically speaking. It’s a mystical landscape, subtle and simple, yet clear. But it is something else, isn’t it? When we look closer, we see it is also the human form. The various activities happening within the setting are representative of the harmonious interlocking mechanisms of our anatomy working together while perfectly in sync. David Brafman does a fine job of contemplative communication concerning this composition on canvas. My alliteration is getting out of control. The spleen, called the place of great simplicity, is inhabited by the Jade Maiden of great yin, of obscure brilliance.

Her husband is the Lord of the Dao, who lives in the gallbladder called the purple Chamber. Their offspring is the perfected cinnabar child, perched at the entrance to the stomach. This vast immortal bureaucracy of Zion occupied the ethereal cosmos of the landscape of the natural world. Some dwelled within the body, awaiting activation. Through the contemplative naiadan, one transcends to a sufficient state of comprehending the nature of those Hissian to tap their divine power. Some of these body immortals are depicted emerging from vapors, rising from a vessel not unlike a genie from a bottle. Could the Chinese Hessian and Arabic jinn indeed be etymologically related? Both Wayiden, the external elixir, and the Naidin, its internal counterpart, conceptualized the body as a laboratory of nature in miniature.

The empirical proof of the laboratory’s experiment success was health, longevity, and ultimately immortality. In Hindu astronomy, the Buddha was considered Mercury, the celestial body whose personification is symbolic for the communion between the higher mind and us animals. Down here, there is no wonder that the element called Mercury is a key for transmutation in the alchemical process and in a Lovecraftian sense is known to drive the experiencer completely mad. When we receive messages, often called downloads in our modern age, we don’t hesitate to implement change into our current laboratory of life. Those sensitive enough to perceive the subtle, or practitioners who work to tune themselves to the harmony of invisible influence, they have this in common.

When the advice comes from the utmost high forces unknowable, our conscience takes hold of the wheel and changes our dharma. Dharma is actions, and karma is the result. In case Sean is watching. Whether this is jinn of Arabic lore, messenger angels of Christian lore, Thoth and friends of Egyptian lore, Hessian of the Chinese viracocha, and so on. Yada, yada. Pick your favorite. The finer realities of higher realms seem to communicate with us in the same way, no matter what names each culture gives them, these divine messengers are called the psychopomp of mythology. And I could not have chosen a tackier name if I tried.

And that will segue us into the philosophy of the greatest OG alchemist himself. Thrice greatest, actually, and a channel favorite. Let’s once again pay a visit to big Hermdog team, it is difficult to capture the vast vastness of personhood that is Hermes when it comes to alchemy without sounding redundant and repeating cliche in this echo chamber we call the Internet. So perhaps we need a solid, concrete modern comparison before diving in. A lesser known figure who is also considered the father of alchemy was called Jabir IBN Hay. I don’t know. You pronounce it. Modern historians have suggested that Jabir may have been just as fantastic as the tales in the Thousand and One Nights.

Many scholars and elders among the booksellers think this man Jabir never existed. The name of his foundational alchemical authority is attached to over 3,000 books books. Jabir reportedly became revered for his visionary unification of science and spirituality. While untangling jumbled strands of sources to trace the true identity of the Father of Chemistry might be an exercise in futility, the influence of the scientific works written under his name is certainly clear. In both the Kitab al Aida or Book of Clerk Clarification and the Kitab al Jahir Book of Stones, Jabir explains the natural creation of minerals with simple clarity.

The subterranean core of our world is composed of mercury and sulfur fueled by elemental forces. Mercury coheres with sulfur in various proportions, thus forming all metals and minerals. The prophet process is modeled on vegetal growth. Inorganic matter could be cultivated just like organic plant life. For the followers of Jabir, coagulation was the key to chemical creation and generation. The precept, of course, was observed in earlier Greek natural philosophy. Formulated as glyceros, the quality of unctuous moisture that allowed matters matter to cohere. This applied not just to minerals, but to all life. Plato invoked this as the quality of sinews that allow them to bind the body together, as does Aristotle in discussing animal life and growth.

According to Jabarian alchemy, moisture’s unctuous quality yields recombination. Moisture, moisture, moistness, damp, moist. This laboratory work had medicinal promise. Purifying materials by vaporizing them and capturing their distilled essence recalled the goal of trapping the spirit of life in a bottle, that is manufacturing and elixir. Elixir of vitality. The alchemical process of coagulation also offered significant applications to artistic practice. Tiberian texts such as the Kitab al Dura al Makanuna. I’ll put the spelling on the screen or Book of the Hidden Pearl, he wrote. Quite a few describe the production of colored glass and artificial gemstone. Jaberian geological research on volcanic deposits also yielded Manganese compound additives that enhanced transparency in glass.

If we set aside the impact that this kind of alchemy had on art and medicine, we see attributes of a character that easily parallel Hermes. A, his name is attributed to thousands of manuscripts by anonymous authors, and B historians agree that he had extraordinary capabilities. That is, if he literally existed at all. You see, Hermes, T, like the alchemical symbols that he invented, might also be a unit of art painted by us via brushstroke of the collected unconscious, a literal parable as an archetype of its own accord. But this doesn’t make his wisdom any less real.

Just like an oil painting is not an enchanting landscape in the literal sense, but instead points our attention to the very enchanting landscape landscape that it represents. The image of Hermes points us directly to wisdom. Like the Buddha who points to the moon, reminding us to not look at his finger, to not confuse the pointer with the pointed too. We tend to become so enthralled with these realized beings that we often look to them instead of the great art art work that they are encouraging us to witness firsthand, encouraging us to witness with them, to bear witness alongside them.

In this way, our favorite psychopimps are works of art that break the fourth wall coming to life through us. And why not? We painted the picture, we are alive, and the only separation between the observer and the observed is illusion. It’s about time we realized that there are more than one version of alive. And frankly, like the Fermi paradox, it’d be a lot weirder if there weren’t. It only seems that way to us because the version of alive that we are familiar with by no coincidence, happens to be the one that we are haunted with. Hey, the one we see is the one we be.

I need to fix that sentence. Looking to the art for answers rather than what it represents is just like looking at the finger instead of what it’s pointing to. This is a soft core version of idolatry if you break it down. This is why it’s important to note that that statues, paintings and engravings of divinity are not to be confused with literal divinity. Moses got real hot when he seen his peeps act this way toward a golden calf. A story that in the eyes of Christians, makes guilty by association anyone who enjoys decorative items of the Buddha, Buddha, Gadesh, or whatever other common ones that we’ve all seen that only and simply inspire the environment that they decorate.

God forbid we have a conversation piece that isn’t repping a Caucasian Jesus eating a chick fil a Does he look hungry for chicken nuggies? I think he needs a snack. Besides, Mary Magdalene, units of inspiring decor are not to be confused with. With items of worship, like the image of Christ dying on the cross, just because they are made up of things that can be sculpted and looked at. In fact, and more importantly, it should be expressed that the crucifix itself also only aims the viewer in the direction of Christ. You don’t pray to the item you pray with or through it.

Otherwise, there are some much deeper issues to address. The point is, we should look at what Hermes is pointing to. After all, he is a psychopom and thus only the messenger. This alchemical transmutation from base metal into gold’s deepest secret is that the base metal is turning the mind and body of man to its next graduation point and its next spiritual initiation into an angel. So this alchemical transmutation will take place inevitably within the body, mind, and within even our anatomy at Mount Pineal. Which is why you see Jacob wrestling an angel at Mount Pineal. That’s actually where the coagulation process becomes ignited, created, perfected, and activated through the third eye region.

And so this is the precipice point of the great work that takes place within the spiritual reconfiguration of man. But this is the deepest secret. So what that means is that it gets encoded and it gets scaled, as above, so below, as within, so without, as the universe, so the soul. So this transmutation takes place on all levels. It’s just the ones that we know the least about are the ones that happen to be the most divine. Whether you are molding, sculpting, or. Or painting something by hand, or writing literature, music, or an essay, fluent with rhetoric, or raising children, interacting with friends and co workers all the way to how you put your socks in the top drawer to hide your cubensis.

Artistic creation has a way of unintentionally bringing up repressed psychological content up to the surface. I want to say that again. Artistic creation has a way of unintentionally bringing repressed psychological content up to the surface. The way that you are down in your core. Your stone is going to show its beautiful face or rear its ugly head through this medium. We hear the phrase remember who you are so often that it has become cliche. That is, if we even know where to start. With the exception of deep meditation, the quickest way to see a clear view of that inner self, hidden from the world, hidden from yourself, is through the alchemy of art.

We will unintentionally hide archetypal symbolic meaning in our artwork. And then we can step back and look at it eye level, our conscious level. All right, I’ll see you later. Bye. We see the results of our honest work and make decisions about what to do better next time. This transmutation goes much deeper than the art itself, because slowly but surely, the medium that’s being transformed is the self. You. If there’s a perfect example of an artistic endeavor that depicts the transmutation of a person from animalistic system controlled slave to a righteous path walking king of sovereignty, look no further than the alchemical plates of Splendor.

Solis, the creator of this staggeringly gorgeous 16th century example of Renaissance art, is just as mysterious as the plates themselves, because despite the work being absolutely incredible, they chose to remain anonymous. He or she chose to not take credit for this work, making it a truly selfless deed, a nameless unit of service to mankind. Ra. The deeply allegorical artwork depicts detailed instructions on the great work transmuting primal matter into the philosopher’s stone. Skinner maintains that it represents literal lead into gold, while Jung insists that it, and many others like it, represents the same happening, but within us that is the brutal refinement of the self.

I personally choose to side with Uncle Carl on this, but that’s not the point, though. No single person, neither man nor I, can possibly tell you with definitive certainty what this means and that that is kind of the point. There will be as many interpretations of this work of art as there are people to gawk over it. Congratulations. You get to decide what it is. And your personal yield from it will change over time because you yourself will be different each time that you look at it. And I would love to talk tell you my personal example of this real quick true story.

When I wrote the intro for this episode, I paced around my house wrestling with doubts as to whether or not to use it for this episode. Wrestling because I felt certain about the rhetoric and how it pertains to my own personal view of alchemy, but uncertain because the story of Alexander the Great is not generally associated with the subject of alchemy, if at all. So I thought, maybe I’ll change the entire intro entirely to something about the Splendor Solus. Basically, I let my doubt override my gut instinct about the intro, and I was about to scrap it.

So, investigating the Splendor Solace for an inspiring lead, I found something eerily unexpected. So at the very bottom of plate four, called the Solar King and the Lunar Queen, for obvious reasons, there is something dark, pale, and far less obvious than the colorful spectacle above. The bottom left depicts a battle raging, possibly alluding to a battle within. But then, in the center is a king crowned as a result of that battle. This king was Alexander the Great. And if that didn’t give me the heebie jeebies enough. The third section in the bottom right depicts Alexander the Great visiting in great reverence and admiration, a homeless man living in a barrel.

And the man living in the barrel is none other than Diogenes the cynic. I was floored. Some viewers might already know the charm of this bottom depiction is that it represents the humbling of Alexander. Basically, Alex showed up to town one day in a huge, glorious spectacle, boasting about being the new king. And in response to this gloating, the homeless Diogenes responded with the equivalent of neat, now please move out of my sunlight. Indicating that he was not nervous or impressed by the great king, but also, and more importantly, that even in his decidedly homeless state, he needed nothing from the king, and the king had nothing to offer him.

Because Diogenes, another man not generally associated with alchemy, already knew how to create something from nothing. Sa.
[tr:tra].