Intro to Alchemy: the Hermetic Art of Transformation
Tuesday, November 25th, 2008
Like all things of Hermetic extract, alchemy hails from Egypt, and its recorded origins can be traced back to the late antique world. The etymology of the name ‘alchemy’ is not clear – it may have referred to Egypt as the “black land” (chemia) or perhaps to the first stage of the alchemical work, nigredo (blackness) (1, 2). The beginnings of alchemy are shrouded in mystery, but it is known that, by 300-400 AD, Greek alchemists such as Pseudo-Democritus, Zosimos and Synesius were writing about the process of gold-making in mystical, obscure terms.
Alchemy has survived throughout the centuries based on a few fundamental concepts, which I have summarized as:
1. the tradition that viewed gold as the highest, and purest of metals.
2. the belief that matter was not inert, but continuously transformed itself into something ‘higher’. Thus all metals would eventually become gold, given enough time.
3. human beings could hasten the work of nature, transforming metals into gold by means of an intermediary substance called the Philosopher’s Stone. This Stone was seen as not only bettering metals but human beings as well, lengthening life and curing illnesses (3).
4. the process of going to the heart of matter and enacting its change was seen as something sacred or even mystical; thus there was a fundamental participation of the alchemist in the work resulting in an inner change as well as an outer one.
