Introduction to Alchemy

how kamee so how did alchemy start where did it come from or what are the origins of this thing anybody who's studying it might already know that most of the Western tradition which is what we're following when we're researching alchemy for the most part has its origins in Egypt and we know that because all the other alchemists throughout time tell us that our art comes from Egypt and it's also prevalent in the name we can see it in the name alchemy because we have au which is an Arabic prefix which means the but then Kimia or what was derived from the word chem which is the ancient name for the land of Egypt so we can see that even with the word alchemy it's the art of Egypt and the Arab extolled us that in his word so our our starting story or our story starts I should say in Egypt and from there we have alchemy as coming from the god Thoth so the Egyptians had all of these deities these gods but they called them netters and netters were there were nature spirits so they were archetypes of nature there were forces of nature so naturally these things just exist since deities or these archetypes these patterns and this particular pattern the archetype of Thoth or the nature spirit or deity that was embodied as Thoth he was the father or the founder of alchemy he gave to man all kinds of arts and scientists like writing and music and geometry and different kinds of mathematics so he he is the fourth forefather of alchemy and our story really starts with him from there in that time in Egypt we also have the Greeks coming down through the Mediterranean Sea and they're mingling with the Egyptians they're sharing information they're learning from each other and they all kind of believe in this polytheistic deity concept where there's multiple gods that rule over the forces of nature and make things be what they are and function the way they are so in the Greek tradition their version of Thoth was known as Hermes so Hermes was also said to be the founder or the father of alchemy and many texts have been attributed to Hermes throughout time and they have all come together to make what is called the corpus Hermeticum which is a key foundational book in the study of alchemy and was passed around all through the ancient ages kind of as like their version of a Bible I suppose it's like a religious text that teaches them the rules and the laws of the universe so from the Greek tradition we have Hermes being the father of alchemy and this is also why today we can hear of alchemy as referred to as the hermetic art so the hermetic art where the arts of Hermes or you also hear him referred to as Hermes Trismegistus Hermes the three times great so the hermetic art Thoth alchemy all of these things have their origins in that ancient place in Egypt and it's been passed down throughout time from the Egyptians to the Greeks from the Greeks into the Arab speaking countries the Persian empires and then eventually over into the European countries and during the Renaissance we see a lot of activity without coming from here though if we want to understand what it is that alchemy is we have to know what did the founding fathers believed it to be how did they describe their art in their practice so we can go and we can look at that text that starts off this journey and alchemy and if studying alchemy you'll run into it it's known as the Emerald Tablet and it's attributed to Hermes or some people also attribute it to Thoth since they are the same deity so the Emerald Tablet of Hermes is said to hold the entirety of the philosophy and practice of alchemy and that if you understand this text you can decode all the secrets of nature and really start to engage in the alchemical art so we look into that Emerald Tablet we can now understand how it is that this founding father Hermes or Thoth believed his art to be so I would like to ask that guy at first I'm going to do that by reading this text looking at the Emerald Tablet and it's a short text it has several paragraphs in it but I'm just going to focus on the first top paragraph which goes on to say that that which is above corresponds to that which is below and that which is below corresponds to that which is above and the accomplishment of the miracle of the one thing so that's kind of the first opening lines the Emerald Tablet and surprisingly within that little paragraph we have the entirety of the out chemical art defined perfectly for us a just night might not be totally clear at the moment so to understand what he's talking about we need to know what did this person or what did these alchemists believe and understands the above and the below to be how are they related how are they corresponding and how is the two of them together creating this accomplishment which is this one thing so by exploring the above and below we can start to pull apart and dissect this small paragraph in this definition for what it is that alchemy is according to the traditional alchemical philosophies so the above and the ancient world was known to many religions and spiritual practices as the heavens it was the sky it was the vaulted ceiling that contained the Sun in the moon and the stars and the planets it was an infinite landscape in heaven of course is the abode of God this invisible creator that we cannot really see feel touch here but we know he's there and we see his presence in all things so it's the abode of God it's the eternal infinite scape that God resides in and from where he projects his creations so it's an invisible place it's a place that exists inside you know according to Jesus he says the kingdom of heaven within you so it's the inside as well so the above is the heavens it is the sky it is the cosmos in that infinite expression of the universe and it is the internal landscape of the soul where we find the Creator so that's how they viewed the above and contrast the below is the earth and it's here it is this physical manifestation it is the land of mortals it is the place where God places his creations it's physical form and matter you know it's the density so these two things according to the Emerald Tablet correspond and correspond comes to us from a Latin word two words together cor and respond you know I'm paraphrasing here because they pronounced it differently but to correspond with something means to be in union with it to come together again and pledge that unity so really a union means that to perceived separate things are actually one thing they are united they're together they are one so the Emerald Tablet is telling us that the above and the below they correspond they're really the same thing just may be perceived as different and together these two perceived things they accomplish the one thing so what is that one thing how do we finish this off how do we understand what Hermes or Thoth is trying to tell us about what alchemy is so to understand the one thing we also have to delve into alchemical theory and principle and alchemists believed that all things were created from one thing by one thing and they called that thing the Prima Materia the first matter it was the source of everything the source of life and everybody in their alchemical practices we're searching for this Prima Materia so the one thing is the Prima Materia but that one thing was believed to express itself as three things so this is where we get the concept of a Trinity in all these different religions or medicinal practices you know you see it in Chinese medicine you see it in Christianity you see it in Ayurveda it's all over the place these three things these three principles that point to the one thing so alchemy has its three principles its Trinity this one thing is expressing as these three to us a principle is a foundational truth so when you've used up all your cognitive reasoning and you can no longer intellectually reduce the meaning or purpose of something you hit a dead end then you have hit the dead end of the reasoning power and you've come to a foundational principle of foundational truth there's three things in the alchemical tradition that were inside all of all of everything all creation so everything in creation is made out of these three principles every Rock plant every animal every star every person everything has these three principles at its core and they named these principles that give them code words the code word for the first principle was sulfur it's a little triangle with a cross underneath it to symbolize it and the hieroglyph for the symbol holds all the information but that's can be reserved for another conversation where we can go into debunking kind of all the symbolism and what it means but sulfur was the first principle and sulfur was a code word for the soul the second principle is known as mercury and that was a code word for the spirit and the third principle was the salt which was a code word for the body so if we want to understand what the one thing is we have to understand it's three principles it's three truths and if we are to understand the three principles we have to know what a body a soul and a spirit are so each of these things has all these different ways of describing it and if you ask any one person what is a soul what is a spirit you'll get different definitions and most of those definitions won't agree but many of them will also paint the soul in the spirit as being the same things but by looking into the definitions we can see exactly what these things are and it's really easy to just go and look up you know what is the body what is the soul in a dictionary and you can get these same definitions that I'm using right now so the first one should be easy the first principle of a body which is the alchemical salt because you see bodies all day every day you know you have a body you interact with other bodies you can move this body this body can pick up another body and move it from place to place so the body is pretty obvious we see it hear it feel it know it interact with it every single day but when you go and define it it becomes a little bit more elusive as to what it really is so the definition for a body is a material structure that embodies or gives concrete reality to something abstract sounds pretty straightforward but it gets a little weird if you're paying attention because it says that the body is something that is giving a concrete reality to something that is actually not real an abstract an abstract is just an idea so a body is making an idea be perceived as concrete as real as actually here but that's not really the case so ideas are being structured and embodied according to the definition of body and where do ideas come from and that goes exactly into our next principle so if our first principle assault is just ideas being structured well then our next one leads into mercury which is the spirit where do ideas come from well the Spirit is defined as the mind very easily by most dictionaries and the mind of course is what generates mental activity and thoughts and ideas come from the mind so the spirit is the mind the mind is generating thoughts those thoughts are being structured and they give the perception of a form a concrete reality which is the body so really the body is just structured thought patterns and nothing more and we're perceiving it to be real so from there if we are going to understand the next principle beyond spirit what is sulfur what is the soul what we can look into our definition of spirit which is the mind and the mind is defined as an inherent Faculty of consciousness so that points to the final Prince the mind is an inherent power or faculty of consciousness so consciousness inherently has the power to think thinking can be structured and those thoughts can be embodied to give the concrete reality or appearance to an idea so soul or sulfur becomes consciousness spirit mercury the mind is our second principle and then the third principle salt of the body is just structured thought thought forms so when we look at all three of these principles and we go back to our first one the soul consciousness if you go and you define the word soul soul is defined as the actuated cause so that pretty much sums it up right there like sulfur soul consciousness is defined as the actuated cause of what of everything it's the actual cause it inherently starts thinking and the thinking generates the form that it is perceived to embody so that also points back to that one thing that we found in the Emerald Tablet that one thing the Prima Materia well if it is believed to be the source if it is believed to be the thing that all life is coming from and is giving life and giving manifestation in reality it's the backing to it all it's the foundation to it all if that thing is the actuated cause the Prima Materia well we find that soul has the damn same definition the actuating cost so we know that Seoul and Prima Materia are now the same thing so the soul or the consciousness must be the one thing so if we go back and look at the Emerald Tablet now and we know the above to be the heavens and the inside invisible infinite landscape which is the source of the below then it must be the actuated cause of the manifestation so it is the soul so the above is consciousness and it corresponds or relates to the below which is the manifestation and the body so now we can redefine alchemy and we can know what Hermes or Thoth is telling us in the Emerald Tablet and I'd like to define it nice and simply by saying that alchemy is the understanding of the relationship between consciousness and matter so that should be our standard definition for alchemy now we now know of all of its three principles how the mind body or how the soul the mind and the body all come together and they make this one thing this one experience and that experience is from the soul that soul as the Prima Materia and when you learn about alchemy and engage enough me do alchemy what you're doing is you're applying your understanding of how consciousness relates to matter how does it relate to matter through the mind mercury because we know that soul generates the mind the mind inherently has the power to think and that generates matter or the impression of perceived form so soul and matter are joined together by their bridge which is mercury in mythology mercury is the Roman version of Hermes so now we have mercury Hermes and Thoth are all the same guy they're all the same deity the same archetype and mercury as we can see in our three principles is defined as the mind so the mythology points to this also being true mercury was said to be the messenger of the gods he traveled back and forth between the realm of the gods in the eternal places the infinite abode the heavens that they lived in he traveled from there down to earth the physical manifestation and he was the messenger of the gods he bridged the gap between mortal man and immortal deity so mercury the mind he Hermes Thoth all of these things the same thing are how consciousness and matter are related they're related through the mind so that means that the hermetic art alchemy is really a science of mind it's an understanding of how consciousness relates to matter which means we have to understand how the mind operates when we understand how the mind operates we can begin to do alchemy as people say engage in alchemy apply alchemy outside of ourselves and inside of ourselves

Channel: Kymia Arts

Views: 1,392,138

Keywords:

Id: O6e8iTxKNlE

Length: 18min 16sec (1096 seconds)

Published: Wed Sep 21 2016