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The aphorism of Hermes Trismegistus, "As Above So Below", is a great Cosmic Law and a chief tenet of Alchemy teachings and traditions. The work of Paracelsus, the physician and Alchemist, influenced Dr. Bach who developed the flower essences infused with the spiritual and elemental forces of Nature to help heal the human spirit. Carl Jung viewed Alchemy as a transformative process, an archetypal system of psychological symbols. The Grail energy for the Alchemists was intimately connected with the integrity, immutability, and immortality of Materia Prima, First Matter, the chalice cauldron of unlimited potent potentialities and primal prescience. Over the millenium, different categories of Alchemy have developed including: Egyptian, European, Jewish, Christian, Gnostic, Islamic, Chinese, Hindu, Hermetic, Mystical, Metaphysical, Personal, Psychological, Shamanic, and Quantum. Many original Alchemy books had allegorical writings and illustrations that were symbolic and deliberately obscure, requiring considerable effort to glean their meaning and intent. Even today writings on practical Alchemy are rare since the core Alchemical Teachings are passed on by the Alchemist through oral traditions.
The quest for the Philosopher's Stone, the "Magical Touchstone" of immortality through purity and perfection, has long been the Arcana and the Elixir that will infuse the Below with the Above, making the mundane divine. At its core, Alchemy is the transformational process of imbuing matter with spirit, awaking potent potentialities, and manifesting the intrinsic absolute within extrinsic relativity. Webster' Ninth New Collegiate Dictionary defines alchemy as: [ME alkamie, alquemie, fr. MF or ML; MF alquemie, fr. ML alchymia, fr. Ar al-kimiya, fr. al the + kimiya al-chemy, fr. LGk: chemeia] a medieval chemical science and speculative philosophy aiming to achieve the transmutation of the base metals into gold; the discovery of the universal cure for disease; and the discovery of a means to indefinitely prolong life; a power or process of transforming something common into something special; an inexplicable or mysterious transmuting].
Clearly it is difficult to neatly delineate, describe, or demarcate Alchemy.
Alchemy is not only an ancestral science to chemistry, medicine, philosophy,
psychology, and quantum physics; it is also an integral part of many religious,
spiritual, and magical traditions. Since Alchemy focuses on the multiplicity of manifest creation as well as
the matrix of interpenetrating, unmanifest latencies, no linear, one dimensional
definition will suffice... Continue on
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