Hermetic, Alchemical, and Rosicrucian Literature: Rescuing a Lost Doctrine

One reason alchemical language is so obscure and contradictory is because it was developed, in part, to describe psychological and physical changes involving states of consciousness that totally defy description. Only a few of these states, such as the "peacock's tail," can be deemed objective; hence the impossibility of simple, straightforward terms, and the reluctance to color the reader's expectations overmuch. The mystical artwork of the alchemists- arguably why their legacy survives- better communicates the truth than do the innumerable tracts on antimony, sulfur, and the like. Often an author will slip just a few valid sentences into a whole manuscript; sometimes even these "by contraries" as one artist observed. "Where we have spoken openly we have said nothing."

Moreover, a long series of charlatans and honestly deceived impostors have confused things almost beyond recognition. The situation today may be grasped by the fact that a "responsible" scholar like Jean-Pierre Mahe can get away with the cavalier claim, or boast, that "becoming immortal is just a matter of will" - and this in an introduction to his translation of the Definitions of Hermes Trismegistus to Asclepius, a short but important work which states unequivocally: "You do not have the power of becoming immortal." Mahe also informs us that "the disciple who wants to strengthen his mind should first of all learn to see, or contemplate, God." Which is at odds, again, with the Definitions: "[God] is not visible, but evident within the visible." But we may forgive his confusion, since he also says knowledge "consists in believing" and that "reasonable speech" is gained by reading "no longer extant" textbooks.

Mind you, this represents the more serious side of things, appearing in a scholarly volume entitled The Way of Hermes; at the other end, we have clowns like Franz Bardon (The Key to the True Hermetics) advising students to light matches telekinetically. In between lie a variety of literature and organizations arrogating the name of Hermes, usually while doing disservice to it. For example, the self-styled "Three Initiates" are long on philosophy, but completely absent on practice and on God. Waite, while ostensibly serious, can be credulous beyond measure with his powders, projections, and transmutations. There is a mountain of dross.

Here the distinction between Hermetism, or the teachings of the Corpus Hermeticum, and Hermeticism, designating virtually everything else, is helpful, because the Corpus is the primary and authoritative text in the canon, and, in sharp contrast to alchemical books, is completely free of obscurity. It contains a succinct and satisfying spiritual teaching that stresses direct experiential knowledge of God: "This is the only salvation for man: knowledge of God." This is the simplest, yet narrowest standard in determining the authority of a text which purports to be alchemical. Can it reasonably be inferred that the author knows, or has known, God? "Who can measure the joy of a man when he obtained a knowledge of his Creator?" asks the Casket.

In this respect, the principal authorities - though in many ways polar opposites - are Paracelsus and Francis Bacon. Whatever his faults, Theophrastus was, in Jung's words, a "spiritual impulse" that really found no direct successor, until Francis, born of the "virgin" Elizabeth, inherited the mantle and used it to produce the Rosicrucian and alchemical manuscripts that flooded Europe in the early 17th century. A Golden and Blessed Casket of Nature's Marvels (1608), cited above, is a series of Paracelsian treatises describing in candid personal detail Bacon's rejection of Aristotle and Plato, and his eventual discovery of hermetic philosophy. Because of its importance it is worth quoting at length:

Now, the First is the Common Philosophy of Aristotle, of Plato, and of our own time, which is but a Cagastrian Philosophy, Speculation, and Phantasy, with which, even at the present day, all the Schools are filled, and by which they are befouled, and beloved youth thereby led astray. The same is inane, erroneous, empty chatter; and far removed from the foundation of Truth. Even at the present day it is blasphemously defended, tooth and nail, with all sorts of opinions, ideas, imaginations, and erroneous thoughts of the old heathen (who were held to be Sages), which were accepted as the Truth...

This Philosophy, although, from my youth up, it was earnestly and diligently inculcated, and forced upon me, in the Schools (as unfortunately occurs to others at the present day), yet, by special interposition of the Holy Spirit, it became so suspected by me that I never would, nor could, torture my head, mind, and soul with it, nor persuade my heart that the same was a sacred thing, nor cleave unto it as others did; but, according to my childish judgment, let the matter rest there until, about the year 1587 or 1588, another philosophy came into my hands. At the same time I had, in my own mind, firmly resolved not to remain the least among my fellow scholars, but in due time to graduate in advance of them all.

But it has pleased God otherwise in His Divine Providence, and all sorts of impediments on the part of my superiors hindered the course of my studies, until at last, in 1587-88, the books and writings of Theophrastus, of Roger Bacon, and of M. Isaac the Hollander, fell into my hands....

The dates 1587-88, given twice, are relevant to both the Rosicrucian movement and the Shakespeare authorship question; thus a little later on we read "I turned my attention for some years to poetry."

Some texts published after Bacon's death (itself something of a mystery), such as the works of Eugenius Philalethes, most likely owe their origin to him as well. Philalethes abounds with allusions to "noble Verulam" and "that discreet gentleman of the Mancha." In the Magia Adamacia, Bacon gives his mature assessment of Paracelsus:

"And here without any partiality I shall give my judgment of honest Hohenheim. I find in the rest of his works, and especially where he falls on the Stone, a great many false processes, but his doctrine of it in general is very sound. The truth is he had some pride to the justice of his spleen, and in many places he hath erred of purpose, not caring what bones he threw before the schoolmen, for he was a pilot of Guadalcanar and sailed sometimes in his rio de la recriation."

Bombastus, it is said, received his knowledge from Sufis in Constantinople. This is not surprising, considering the stream of genuinely gnostic Sufi literature over the years. Furthermore it accords with Christian Rosenkreutz at "Damcar," which some have Damascus, but which I read Samarkand. Here is what one Rosicrucian- probably Bacon - says:

"It is true indeed, that their Knowledge at first was not purchased by their own Disquisitions, for they received it from the Arabians, amongst whom it remained as the Monument and Legacy of the Children of the East. Nor is this at all improbable, for the Eastern Countries have always been famous for Magical and Secret Societies. Now am I to seek how far you will believe me in this, because I am a Christian; and yet I doubt not but that you will believe a Heathen, because Aristotle was one."

Sir Richard F. Burton called Sufism the "eastern parent of Freemasonry," presumably on the basis of the oft-alleged but rather tenuous Templar-Rosicrucian-Masonic lineage. Though undoubtedly one of history's great scholars, Burton's claim is somewhat diminished in credibility by his arrogating the title "Master Sufi" while harboring agnostic reservations, an utter contradiction in terms. At any rate, today Freemasonry (what I know of it) seems heavily ritualistic in the abstract, not really in the concrete as, for example, a Sufi zikr. True gnosis tends to de-emphasize ritual: "There is one way to worship God: be not evil." Thus the Corpus. It is likely that the Masons possess some true Hermetic technique and 4th- (and possibly 5th-) dimensional facility, but as Gurdjieff said, there is really only self-initiation.

Some of the best alchemical books are not often mentioned in connection with the subject: Gargantua and Pantagruel and The Labyrinth of the World and the Paradise of the Heart are two cherished classics which are very explicit, especially on the process and stone. Matthew 17, which deals with the Transfiguration, contains a subtle hint: "often he falls into fire, often into water." Perhaps surprisingly, the earliest symbolic references to the alchemy occur in Gilgamesh and the book of Exodus, both of which feature a plant of immortality, or burning bush, meeting with a brazen serpent. Macevilley notes this motif resurfacing in the Mahabharata, and speculates a shamanic drug plant. Curiously, we see the same set of symbols employed again in the Aphorismi Urbigerani, an alchemical tract published in 1690 but probably composed earlier, again by Bacon:

"Since our subject cannot be called the fiery Serpent of the Philosophers, nor having the power of overcoming any created thing, before it has received such Virtue and Quality from our Green-Dragon, and the Universal Menstrum, by which itself is first overcome, devoured, and buried in their Bowels, out of which being born again, 'tis made capable of the same..."


This small passage actually says a great deal about alchemy, and it is evident from earlier passages that the "Green-Dragon" signifies cannabis:

"This Green Dragon is the natural Gold of the Philosophers, exceedingly different from the vulgar, which is corporeal and dead, being come to the period of its Perfection according to Nature, and therefore uncapable of generating, unless it be first generated itself by our Mercurial Water; but ours is spiritual, and living, having the generative Faculty in itself, and in its own Nature, and having received the Masculine Quality from the Creator of all things.
Our Gold is called Natural, because it is not to be made by Art, and since it is known to none, but the true Disciples of Hermes, who understand how to separate it from its original Lump, 'tis also called Philosophical; and if God had not been so gracious, as to create this first Chaos to our hand, all our Skill and Art in the Construction of the great Elixir would be in vain."

As the long-esteemed Turba says, "The whole work is in the vapor and the sublimation of water." If this is something of an overstatement, it accords with the Atalanta Fugiens:

"Three things suffice for the work: a white smoke, which is water; a green Lion, which is the ore of Hermes; and a fetid water... the stone, known from the chapters of books, is white smoke and water."

The Book of Morienus, though probably not so old as it pretends, is still fairly authoritative and has it thus:

"The entire accomplishment of this operation consists of the red vapor, the yellow vapor, the white vapor, the green lion, ocher, the impurities of the dead and of the stones, blood, and foul earth."

About our "foul earth" it was well said, that "whosoever understands not this dunghill, horsebelly, and moist fire, shall labour in vain, and shall never attain this Science." Figulus says, "roast and boil it in the warmth of the horse's belly." Horsebelly indeed; whence arises all discussion of digestion, bowels, feces and so forth. Here we could speak at length on the properties of water, cannabis, tobacco, tea (green and senna teas notably), coffee, yogurt and kefir, psyllium fiber, alcohol (as a solvent), fasting, sunlight, music and vibration, the Om syllable, the Hu syllable, and other such, but we consider it sufficient to notify the reader of their use. Trial and observation; do not weary, follow nature, balance fire with water, pound, roast, persevere. I am no astrologer, but recently the horsebelly was so bad that I checked the position of the planets and found a strong concentration of Sun, Moon, Mercury, Venus, and Saturn in Virgo (which supposedly corresponds to the bowels), with the moon obstructing the sun, which seemed to make sense. As the moon passed into Libra, things got better and my perseverance was rewarded with an intense mystical event.

From some authors it might be deduced that only during Aries, Taurus, and Gemini can the work be performed; many texts, such as the Hermetic Triumph and the Rosicrucian Aphorisms and Process allude to this either verbally or in imagery. Perhaps spring being the time of generation, is what they had in mind; but sunlight is much more than disinfectant.


Obviously a great many things contribute to the success of our endeavors. We would be remiss in failing to mention extensive, perhaps excessive, experimentation with LSD and DMT (both N,N and 5-MEO varieties). DMT has been shown to help in stimulating the pineal gland. Cubensis and especially panaeolus mushrooms are also an excellent aid. Other studies helpful in developing inner consciousness include (but are certainly not limited to) music, astronomy, sacred geometry, philosophy, literature and poetry, spiritual literature, yoga (bhakti, raja and jnana especially), meditation and and other spiritual techniques or disciplines. I would emphasize study over meditation, but experience in quieting the mind is definitely helpful. David Wilcock has said that the chakras seem to represent different levels of activity of the soul; this, in our experience, approximates the truth better than images of spinning energy-wheels in the body. However, at some point a forceful direction of energy into the head "chakras" must be made. Two features stand out in these higher energy centers: the desire to know God, and the desire to work (what Gurdjieff called "being-partkdolg-duty").


The sex question is summed up well in the Casket: "Bacon and Raymundus Lullius both testify that unless purification and solution be effected, the menstruum will not be worth a fig." Or else Philalethes: "I move in the sphere of generation, and fall short of that test of Heraclitus: 'dry light is best soul.'" We confess, that at times the energy builds to such a degree that one must have recourse to orgasm for release; one author mentions "frequent bleeding" in reference to this. The "menstrual blood of the sordid whore," which Newman reads "the metalline form of antimony," actually has a psychological and physiological meaning here. Good luck.

Mention should be made to be wary of 4th-dimensional experiences, because there is a great deal of corruption and nefarious activity still to be cleared here on Earth. As Paul says, "we do not wrestle against flesh and blood, but against principalities, against powers, against the rulers of the darkness of this age, against spiritual hosts of wickedness in the heavenly places." Concerning the reptilians, the "generation of vipers" of John, the Corpus says:

When the soul which has entered a human body remains evil, it does not taste immortality nor partake of the Supreme Good. Being dragged away it turns back on its journey to the reptiles, and that is the condemnation of the evil soul.


Inevitably challenges and trials will beset the student; as the Turba says, "Woe to you who seek the very great and compensating treasure of God!" The related questions of will and renunciation are relevant here, but can only be addressed individually.


A last word, on the fabled "Emerald Tablet." Evidently it is in private hands; until it can be produced, we must regard the fantastic legends surrounding it with at least some degree of skepticism. More importantly, its oft-parroted "as above, so below" is a problem the philosopher John Pontanus complains of, and a point on which the Corpus differs in several places: "This is the difference between the like and the unlike, and the inferiority of the unlike compared to the like." "Evil's country is the earth, but not the cosmos as some blasphemously affirm." This is an important point, so I will defer to Bacon:

There are many Platonics -- and this last century hath afforded them some apish disciples -- who discourse very boldly of the similitudes of inferiors and superiors; but if we thoroughly search their trash it is a pack of small conspiracies... It is excellent sport to hear how they crow, being roosted on these pitiful particulars, as if they knew the universal magnet which binds this great frame and moves all the members of it to a mutual compassion. This is an humour much like Don Quixote, who knew Dulcinea but never saw her.


And now, not wishing to rest on my own authority, here is a selection of excerpts conveying the theory and practice of the Hermetic art. Having sold most of my library, I cannot be as thorough as I would like, but hopefully this will help. I should acknowledge Adam Maclean; though we differ on many points, he has done an invaluable service in making many rare texts available online.



Hermetic Philosophy and Process




His deficiency is ignorance, his plenitude is the knowledge of God.

Definitions of Hermes Trismegistus to Asclepius


Knowing God is the aim and goal of all human life.

Vivekananda


This is the only salvation for man: knowledge of God.

Corpus Hermeticum


The Sufi is he who aims, from at first, at reaching God, the Creative Truth.

Al-Hallaj


Released from greed, fear, anger,
absorbed in me and made pure
by the practice of wisdom, many
have attained my own state of being.

Bhagavad-Gita



Then in due order, they ascend to the Father and they surrender themselves to the powers, and becoming the powers they are merged in God. This is the end, the Supreme Good, for those who have had the higher knowledge: to become God.

Corpus Hermeticum


True ecstasy is the conjunction of light with light, when the soul of man meets the Divine Light.

Abdu'l-Qadir Al-Gilani


Knowledge of God has come to us, and therefore ignorance has been banished. Experience of joy has come to us, and therefore, O son, sorrow will flee to those who give place to it.

Corpus Hermeticum


There is not in the world a kind of life more sweet and delightful than that of a continual walk with God. Those only can comprehend it who practice and experience it; yet I do not advise you to do it from that motive.

Brother Lawrence


You too put your best foot forward. If you do not wish to, then follow your fantasies. But if you prefer the secrets of the love of your soul you will sacrifice everything. You will lose what you consider valuable, but you will soon hear the sacramental word "Enter."

Attar


But the rational soul who wearied herself in seeking - she learned about God. She labored with inquiring, enduring distress in body, wearing out her feet after the evangelists, learning about the Inscrutable One. She found her rising. She came to rest in him who is at rest. She reclined in the bride-chamber. She ate of the banquet for which she had hungered. She partook of the immortal food. She found what she had sought after. She received rest from her labors, while the light that shines forth upon her does not sink.

Authoritative Teaching


It would be the same at the end of the journey,
If you came at night like a broken king,
If you came by day not knowing what you came for,
It would be the same, when you leave the rough road
And turn behind the pig-sty to the dull facade
And the tombstone. And what you thought you came for
Is only a shell, a husk of meaning
From which the purpose breaks only when it is fulfilled
If at all.

Four Quartets


Hermes: Therefore, O Tat, God has given the Word to all men to partake in, but not so with Nous. He was not jealous, for jealousy of any one does not originate from there, but is created in the souls of men who have no Nous.
Tat: Then why, O father, has God not given to everyone a share of Nous?
Hermes: He willed, my son, to set it up as a prize before souls.

Corpus Hermeticum


When one attains the release called the Beautiful, at such a time he knows in truth what Beauty is.

The Samyuta


Those who have attained union have nothing
but the inward eye and the divine lamp-
they have been delivered of signs and roads.

Rumi


Make thine eye single, and thy body will be full of light.

Jesus




Whoever, then, by God's mercy attains a divine birth is freed from the bodily senses and is made whole by these powers. He knows himself and rejoices.

Corpus Hermeticum


Most assuredly, I say to you, unless one is born again, he cannot see the kingdom of God.

Gospel of John


The light of this knowledge is the gift of God, which by His will He bestoweth upon whom He pleaseth. Let none therefore set himself to the study hereof, until having cleared and purified his heart, he devote himself wholly unto God, and be emptied of all affection and desire unto the impure things of this world.

The Hermetic Arcanum


Tat: In the general lectures, O father, you spoke in riddles about the divine nature without shedding any light. You haven't revealed anything when you say that nobody can be saved before rebirth. After you had spoken to me when we were crossing the desert, I sought your help and asked to learn the teaching on rebirth, for this, above all, I did not know, and you said: "When you are ready to become a stranger to the world I shall bestow it upon you." I am ready now and my mind is set firmly against the beguilement of the world.

Corpus Hermeticum


Rather, the kingdom is inside of you, and it is outside of you. When you come to know yourselves, then you will become known, and you will realize that it is you who are the sons of the living father. But if you do not know yourselves, you dwell in poverty and it is you who are that poverty.

Gospel of Thomas


Tat: O father, you are giving me answers which are impossible and contrived. I would like to make a frank reply to this: I have become a stranger in my father's family! Do not refuse me, father; I am your true son; tell me fully the way of rebirth.
Hermes: What shall I say, my son? I have only this to tell: I see within me a formless vision born by the mercy of God. I have come out of my former self into an immortal body. I am not now what I was before. For I have been born in Nous. Such a thing is not taught, nor can it be seen by the physical body. So I have no interest in my former physical form, for I am without color and cannot be touched or measured; I am a stranger to these. Now you see me with your eyes, as something you understand through body and sight, but I am not now beheld with these eyes, O son.

Corpus Hermeticum


He who will know our great Power will become invisible, and fire will not be able to consume him. But it will purge and destroy all your possessions.

The Concept of Our Great Power


Those that hold public Honours and Offices or be always busied with private and necessary occupations, let them not strive to attain unto the acme of this Philosophy; for it requireth the whole mans, and being found, it possesseth him, and he being possessed, it debarreth him from all other long and serious employments, for he will esteem other things as strange, and of no value unto him.

The Hermetic Arcanum


If everybody knew it, all work and industry would cease...

Paracelsus


Those seated in knowledge neither please the multitude nor does the multitude please them. They seem to be mad and have become a laughing stock; they are hated and despised and may even be put to death.

Corpus Hermeticum


Jesus said, "Become passers-by."

Gospel of Thomas


The Sufi is separated from mankind and united with God, as God has said, "And I chose thee for Myself," that is, He separated him from all others.

Al-Shibli


For, son, it is impossible to be governed by both, by the mortal and the divine. There are two kinds of beings, the embodied and the unembodied, in whom there is the mortal and the divine spirit. Man is left to choose one or the other, if he so wishes. For one cannot choose both at once; when one is diminished, it reveals the power of the other.
Thus this power, the choice of the better, not only happens to be the most glorious for him who chooses, in that it unites man with God, but it also shows reverence to God. The inferior choice has destroyed man.

Corpus Hermeticum


No one can serve two masters; for either he will hate the one and love the other, or else he will be loyal to the one and despise the other. You cannot serve God and mammon.

Gospel of Matthew


To conclude I would have my Reader know, that the Philosophers finding this life subjected to Necessity, and that Necessity was inconsistent with the Nature of the Soul, they did therefore look upon Man, as a Creature originally ordained for some better State than the present, for this was not agreeable with his spirit.

Preface to the Rosicrucian Manifestos


Having thus raised themselves, they see the Supreme Good, and realizing that, they regard their time spent here as a misfortune.

Corpus Hermeticum


The true Sage, though he owns the Stone, does not care to prolong his life.

The New Chemical Light


Therefore I praised the dead who were already dead, more than the living who are still alive. Yet, better than both is he who has never existed, who has not seen the evil work that is done under the sun.

Ecclesiastes


Evil's country is the earth, but not the cosmos as some blasphemously affirm.

Corpus Hermeticum


There are many Platonics -- and this last century hath afforded them some apish disciples -- who discourse very boldly of the similitudes of inferiors and superiors; but if we thoroughly search their trash it is a pack of small conspiracies... It is excellent sport to hear how they crow, being roosted on these pitiful particulars, as if they knew the universal magnet which binds this great frame and moves all the members of it to a mutual compassion. This is an humour much like Don Quixote, who knew Dulcinea but never saw her.

Coelum Terrae


Let us give up long and useless discourse. We must come to know these two: the created and the Creator, for between them there is no third.

Corpus Hermeticum


Knowledge acquired by external means will never reveal the Truth.

Al-Ghazzali


Their knowledge contents itself with the husk, that is, the futile scanning of the exterior; but does not penetrate the inner kernel which is the all-pervading glory of God.

The Labyrinth of the World and the Paradise of the Heart


For if there were not so many books put forward by ignorant writers, many thousands of persons who at the present moment are hopelessly floundering about in a sea of specious book-learning would have been led by the light of their own unaided intellects to the knowledge of this precious secret; they are prevented, these many years, from seeing the plain truth by a vast mass of printed nonsense which commands their reverence, because they do not understand it.

The Only True Way


I stood as if petrified. For there Bion sat still, Anacharsis strolled about, Thales flew, Hesiod plowed, Plato chased ideas in the air, Homer sand, Aristotle disputed, Pythagoras kept still, Epimenides slept, Archimedes tried to push the earth away, Solon was composing laws and Galen prescriptions, Euclid was measuring the hall, Cleobus was peering into the future, Periander was defining duties, Pittacus was waging war, Bias was begging, Epictetus was serving, Seneca, sitting among tons of gold, was extolling poverty, Socrates was confiding to everybody that he knew nothing, Xenophon, on the contrary, was promising to teach everything to everybody, Diogenes, peering out of his barrel, was deriding all passersby, Timon was cursing all, Democritus was laughing at it all, Heraclitus, on the contrary, was weeping, Zeno was fasting, Epicurus was feasting, while Anaxarchus was holding forth that all these things were only apparent, not real.

The Labyrinth of the World and the Paradise of the Heart



I listened to them for a long time (for I was pleased with their discourse) till I thought that some were talking rather wildly, not in regard to the substance and the method, but as concerns parables, similitudes, etc., which were the figments of Aristotle, Pliny, and others. When I heard these things, I could no longer contain myself, and, like Saul among the prophets, I began to give my opinion, and to refute those futile assertions by arguments drawn from experience and reason. Some of them agreed with me, and began to test my knowledge with many questions. But I was so well grounded that I stood the test to the admiration of all. They all marveled at the soundness of my knowledge, and affirmed with one voice that I should be received into their fellowship. These words filled me with great joy. But they said I could not be their Brother until I knew their Lion, and his internal and external properties.

The Golden Tract


You will see marvelous signs of this Green Lion, such as could be bought by no treasures of the Roman Leo. Happy he who has found it and learned to use it as a treasure!

Paracelsus


Beloved Masters and friends, we, with others, have to complain not a little that, although innumerable devilish philosophers have written about the Universal medicine and the Philosopher's Stone, yet both Heathens and Christians have left us true writings, which godless Cacophonists and pseudo-sophists have, for the most part, either wholly kept back or altered.

We have further to complain of those who mutilate and falsify the works of true seekers after natural Wisdom and Art, for I have clearly discovered defects, alterations, and foreign matter in the Triumphal Chariot of Fr. Basilius, and also in the writings of A. von Suchten and Theophrastus. More especially, dear Friends, have we to complain of the devilish cunning way in which the works of Theophrastus have hitherto been suppressed, only a few of which (and those to be reckoned the very worst) having appeared in print... Particularly his theological works (because they annihilate the godless, and do not suit children of this world - belly servers, deceived by the devil), have hitherto been totally suppressed.

But, at the Last Day, before the Judgment Seat of Christ, I, together with all true sons of the doctrine, shall demand an account of them for having stolen, sold, divided, and shut Truth away in boxes, walls, and vaults, and behind locks and bolts.

A Golden and Blessed Casket of Nature's Marvels


The Lord said, "Whatever is born of truth does not die. Whatever is born of woman dies."

The Dialogue of the Savior


Since Nous conceives speech in silence, only that speech which comes from silence and Nous is salvation. But speech which comes from speech is only perdition; for by his body man is mortal, but by speech he is immortal.

Definitions of Hermes Trismegistus to Asclepius


Let us pray, my father: I call upon you, who rules over the kingdom of power, whose word comes as a birth of light. And his words are immortal. They are eternal and unchanging.

Discourse on the Eighth and Ninth


God has made the universe, and He has created all that is in it; He has stretched out the heavens and founded the earth. What His heart conceived came to pass straightaway, and when He had spoken His word came to pass, and it shall endure forever.

Egyptian Book of the Dead


Asclepius: Your words are irrefutable, O Trismegistus. So what shall we say is the space in which everything is moved?
Hermes: It is bodiless, Asclepius.
A:But what is the bodiless?
H: Nous, the Word, emerging out of what which is whole, entire and complete; Nous containing itself, unembodied, steadfast, unaffected, and impalpable, itself standing by itself, containing and preserving all beings, whose glories are the Supreme Good, truth, the origin of breath, the origin of soul.
A: What then is God?
H: He is not any one of these, but He is the cause of their existence, the cause and existence of everything and of every individual.

Corpus Hermeticum


Moreover, all that has been made, is visible, but he himself is invisible.

Corpus Hermeticum


No one has seen God at any time.

Gospel of John


Though I am unmanifest, fools
think that I have a form,
unaware of my higher existence,
which is permanent and supreme.

Bhagavad-Gita




For the Supreme Good has no form and leaves no mark. Thus it is like unto itself, but unlike all else. What is unembodied, can never be seen by a body.

Corpus Hermeticum


This is the Supreme Good, this is God. Therefore, do not call anything else good since then you blaspheme, and do not ever call God anything but good, since then again you blaspheme.

Corpus Hermeticum


Jesus said to him, Why callest thou me good? There is none good but one, that is, God.

Gospel of Mark


Nothing evil or shameful can be ascribed to the Creator.

Since God is not the cause of evils, we are to blame, preferring these things to what is good.

There is one way to worship God: be not evil.

Greed, the root of all evil, is the error of man; it is the absence of goodness.

Corpus Hermeticum


The Fear of the Lord is the beginning of our Work, and the end Charity, and love of our Neighbor.

The Tomb of Semiramis


The desire of power in excess caused the angels to fall; the desire of knowledge in excess caused man to fall; but in charity there is no excess, neither can angel or man come in danger by it.

Francis Bacon


Having in our Travels fortuned to meet with some Persons of true Principles in Philosophy and Religion, we could not but embrace them and instruct them towards its farther Perfection, which cannot be attained without the true knowledge of our Celestial Art, by which comprehending all the Mystery of Mysteries, we learn also how to serve God in Faith and Truth. And since we have no Obligation to any living Soul for the knowledge, we possess, having attained it all by the only Blessing of Almighty God on our Industry and Expenses: being therefore at more liberty than those, who receive such a Favor from us, or some other Adept, 'tis our Determination, whenever, we meet with Persons so qualified, always to do the same. Wherefore being at present in England, though we are no Native of this Kingdom, we think it necessary to set forth these Aphorisms in the English Tongue, not in the least doubting, but that the Knowing, minding only the Sense, will easily pardon any Impropriety, they may find in our Expressions: and when Providence shall carry us into any other Country, we, having attained to some competent knowledge of most European Languages, shall again take care to publish them in the Speech of the Place, where we shall be, that we may the sooner obtain the effect of our Desires, which aim at nothing, but the undeceiving of the World by setting down certain and evident Marks, distinguishing the Worthy from the Unworthy, and at the bringing of Men to leave their unnecessary Forms, by instructing them in the true way of Serving God, being the only means to render them happy both in this World, and the next.

Aphorismi Urbigerani



Then many rejoiced that the holy Brotherhood of the Rose had openly and liberally shared its treasures and approaching, bought the wares. All articles put up for sale were enclosed in painted boxes, bearing attractive inscriptions such as: Good Guide to the Large and the Small Cosmos; A Harmony of the Two Worlds; The Christian Cabala; The Case of Nature; The Castle of Primordial Matter; The Divin Magic; The General Tri-Trinity; The Triumphal Pyramid; Hallelujah; and so forth. But the buyers were forbidden to open the boxes. For the efficacy of the secret wisdom was said to be so powerful that it operated by penetration, and would evaporate if the boxes were opened. Nevertheless, some of the more inquisitive could not refrain from opening their boxes and found them entirely empty! Thereupon, they showed them to others, who also opened their boxes and likewise found nothing. Then they raised a cry of "Fraud! Fraud!" and assaulted the dealer with fury. He attempted to pacify them by saying that the most secret part of the mystery consisted in the fact that these things were invisible to all save the sons of science; and since barely one out of a thousand possessed the proper qualifications, he, the dealer, was not to blame.

The Labyrinth of the World and the Paradise of the Heart


For what ye seek is not of small price. Woe unto you who seek the very great and compensating treasure of God!

Turba Philosophorum


Some foolish Operators pretend, that our Great Elixir is to be prepared in a very easie manner, and without any trouble at all, to whom we will with our Master Hermes briefly answer, That such Impostors neither know our Matter, nor the right Preparation of it. Yet we do not deny, but any Healthy Person, of what Age soever he may be, may undergo all our Herculean Labors, necessary to the Performance of it.

Aphorismi Urbigerani


We have in these times many things
Which were invented by the Ancients
Which we admit and experiment with
And readily allow them to pass
Which if rightly looked at
Are hardly to be comprehended by human mind.

Ara Foederis Theraphici


The happy success depends on the subject being good, from a young man, if possible from a Jovial Temper or Choleric, in good health, collected in a proper season...

Rosicrucian Aphorisms and Process


The Hermetic Art consists in the true Manipulation of our undetermined Subject, which before it can be brought to the highest degree of Perfection, must of necessity undergo all our Chemycal Operations.

Aphorismi Urbigerani


If you don't first hate your body, son, you cannot love your Self. If you love your Self you will have Nous, and having Nous you will partake of knowledge.

Corpus Hermeticum


But truth is so great a thing that we ought not to despise any medium that will conduct us to it.

Michel de Montaigne


In this Pantagruelion have I found so much efficacy and energy, so much completeness and excellency, so much exquisiteness and rarity, and so many admirable effects and operations of a transcendent nature...

Gargantua and Pantagruel


It is the same stone which is able to cure every day whatever illnesses and sorrows there might be.
It is the same stone which can increase the gratitude of mankind and take away all manner of evil.
It is the stone which can make men feel younger and desire to produce new fruit.
It is the same which can, through the Providential Will of God, bring about life where there was death.
It is the same which enables man to walk with angels and converse with spirits.

Arcana Divina


"But where is the stone to be found?"
"It is prepared here," he answered.
"In these small kettles?" I exclaimed.
"Yes."

The Labyrinth of the World and the Paradise of the Heart



It is this most famous medicine which philosophers have been wont to call their Stone, or Powder. This is its fount and fundament, and the Medicine whereby Aesculapius raised the dead. This is the herb by which Medea restored Jason to life.

A Golden and Blessed Casket of Nature's Marvels


Long have I had in my nostrils the scent of the herb moly which became so celebrated thanks to the poets of old... this herb is entirely chemical. It is said that Odysseus used it to protect himself against the poisons of Circe and the perilous singing of the Sirens. It is also related that Mercury himself found it and that it is an effective antidote to all poisons. It grows plentifully on Mount Cyllene in Arcadia...

Septimana Philosophica


You ought to know concerning the quintessence, that it is a matter little and small, lodged and harbored in some Tree, Herb, Stone, or the like...

The Tomb of Semiramis


It appears then that this Stone is a Vegetable, as it were, the sweet spirit that proceeds from the Bud of the Vine joined in the Work, fixed and whitening as is said in the Green Dream, wherein after the Text of Alchemy is very notably described the practice of this Vegetable Stone to those who wisely discern the Truth, which for certain reasons and just cause I forbear to set down here.

Verbum Dismissum


Of this self-same body, which is the matter of the Stone, three things are chiefly said: that it is a green Lion, a stinking Gum, and a white Fume...
Having twelve pounds of Green Lion thus brought into gum, thou mayst believe...

Philosophia Maturata


A green Gum called our green Lyon, which Gum dry well, yet beware thou not burn his Flowers nor destroy his Greenness.

The Bosome-Book of Sir George Ripley


O how many are the seekers after this gum, and how few there are who find it! Know ye that our gum is stronger than gold, and all those who know it do hold it more honorable than gold... Our gum, therefore, is for philosophers more precious and sublime than pearls...

Turba Philosophorum


This is called the blessed stone; this earth is white and foliated, wherein the Philosophers do sow their gold...
The fourth color is Ruddy and Sanguine, which is extracted from the white fire only.

The Hermetic Arcanum


Take the fire, or quicklime, of which the philosophers speak, which grows on trees, for in that God himself burns with divine love.

Gloria Mundi


He looked, and behold, the bush burned with fire, and the bush was not consumed. And Moses said, I will now turn aside, and see this great sight, why the bush is not burnt.

Exodus


Upon the delicate leaves thereof it retaineth for our use that sweet heavenly honey which is called the manna, and, although it be of a gummy, oily, fat and greasy substance, it is, notwithstanding, unconsumable by any fire.

Gargantua and Pantagruel


Fire is a sterile essence, the duration of the immortal bodies and the destruction of the mortal: an infertile substance, in as much (it belongs to) the destructive fire which makes (things) disappear; and the perpetuation of the immortal, since what cannot be consumed by fire is immortal and indestructible, but the mortal can be destroyed by fire.

Definitions of Hermes Trismegistus to Asclepius





But here we speak of natural death philosophically, which is only a natural consumption of moisture and heat, as is demonstrated by a lighted lamp.

A Golden and Blessed Casket of Nature's Marvels


It contains the fire of Nature, or the Universal Spirit; with Air as its vehicle it contains Water, which must be separated in the beginning of the work, and also earth which remains behind in the form of caput mortuum, where the fire has left it, and is the true Red Earth wherein the fire dwelt for a while. The subject, duly collected, should not be less than eight nor more than sixteen ounces: place it in a china or glazed basin and cover it loosely to keep the dust out.

Rosicrucian Aphorisms and Process


Another burned his eyes out, and was thus unable to supervise the calcination and the fixation: or bleared his sight with smoke to such an extent that before he cleared his eyes the nitrogen escaped. Some died of asphyxiation from the smoke. But for the greatest part they did not have enough coal in their bags and were obliged to run about to borrow it elsewhere, while in the meantime their concoction cooled off and was utterly ruined. This was of very frequent, in fact of almost constant, occurrence. Although they did not tolerate anyone among themselves save such as possessed full bags, yet these seemed to have a way of drying up very rapidly, and soon grew empty: they were obliged either to suspend their operations or to run away to borrow.

The Labyrinth of the World and the Paradise of the Heart


Our secret fire, that is, our fiery and sulfurous water, which is called Balnaeum Mariae... this water is a white vapor.

The Secret Book of Artephius


Know the secret fire of the wise, which is the one and sole agent efficient for the opening, subliming, purifying, and disposing of the material.

Letter to the True Disciples of Hermes


Study, then, this fire, for had I myself found it at the first, I should not have erred two hundred times upon the veritable material.

The Secret Fire


No philosopher has ever openly revealed this secret fire, and this powerful agent, which works all the wonders of the art.

The Hermetic Triumph


Mercury, i.e. the white flower, can be used and applied to the tinctures of all planets.

The Little Peasant


These blear'd eyes
Have wak'd to read your several colours, sir,
Of the pale citron, the green lion, the crow,
The peacock's tail, the plumed swan.

Thou has descry'd the flower, the sanguis agni?

The Alchemist



You will see marvelous signs of this Green Lion, such as could be bought by no treasures of the Roman Leo. Happy he who has found it and learned to use it as a treasure!

The Treasure of Treasures


Beware therefore of many, and hold thee to one thing; this one thing is naught else but the lyon greene...

Bloomfield's Blossoms


By gold I mean our green gold- not the adored lump, which is dead and ineffectual.

Aula Lucis


Therefore I affirm that the Universal Medicine for bodies is the philosophic gold... Our common gold has absolutely nothing in common with the philosophic gold we use to begin our task. In that respect common gold is dead and clearly useless.

Consideratio Brevis


"This stone is of a delicate touch, and there is more mildness in its touch than in its substance... of sweet taste, and its proper nature is aerial. "

Khalid said: "Tell me of its odor, before and after its confection."

"Before confectioning, its odor is very heavy and foul.

"I know of no other stone like it nor having its powers. While the four elements are contained in this stone, it being thus like the world in composition, yet no other stone like it in power or nature is to be found in the world, nor has any of the authorities ever performed the operation other than by means of it. And the compositions attempted by those using anything else in this composition will fail utterly and come to nothing.
"The thing in which the entire accomplishment of this operation consists of the red vapor, the yellow vapor, the white vapor, the green lion, ocher, the impurities of the dead and of the stones, blood, and foul earth.
"Begin in the Creator's name, and with his vapor take the whiteness from the white vapor.
"The whole key to the accomplishment of this operation is in the fire, with which the minerals are prepared and the bad sprits held back, and with which the spirit and body are joined.
"In answer to your question about the white vapor, or virgin's milk, you may know that it is a tincture and spirit of those bodies already dissolved and dead, from which the spirits have been withdrawn. It is the white vapor that flows in the body and removes its darkness, or earthiness, and impurity, uniting the bodies into one and augmenting their waters.
"Without the white vapor, there could have been no pure gold nor any profit in it."

The Book of Morienus



When our Chaos or Celestial Water has purified itself from its own gross and palpable Body, it is called the Heaven of the Philosophers, and the palpable Body the Earth, which is void, empty, and dark: And if our Divine Spirit, which is carried upon the Face of the Waters, did not bring forth out of the palpable Body that precious Metalic Seed, we should never be able by any Art whatsoever to go on any farther with the perfect Creation of our Microcosm according to our intent.

Aphorismi Urbigerani


Q: How is gold formed in the bowels of the earth?

A: When this vapour, of which we have spoken, is sublimed in the centre of the earth, and when it has passed through warm and pure places, where a certain sulpherous grease adheres to the channels, then this vapour, which the Philosophers have denominated their Mercury, becomes adapted and joined to this grease, which it sublimes with itself; from such amalgamation there is produced a certain unctuousness, which, abandoning the vaporous form, assumes that of grease, and is sublimised in other places, which have been cleansed by this preceding vapour, and the earth whereof has consequently been rendered more subtle, pure, and humid; it fills the pores of this earth, is joined thereto, and gold is produced as a result.

Alchemical Catechism



Then sublimation takes place, the Universal Spirit forsakes the dead body the red earth, ascends and descends invisibly and now produces general colours of large extent; one day the globe is black, some days after it becomes olive-green; after that sky-blue and beautiful parrot-green; then again purple or violet and crimson, mostly in general colours all round the globe, with beautiful small gold, silver, green, and purple spots in the neck, like a Peacock's Tail or a Rainbow. Sometimes it looks like polished copper, then like polished steel, and sometimes like bell-metal.

Rosicrucian Aphorisms and Process


Looking about me by this light, I saw an astounding and most wonderful spectacle, beyond the powers of my description. I shall but adumbrate it partly. I saw this world before me as an enormous and immense clock, composed of various visible and invisible parts, but made entirely of glass, transparent and brittle; it exhibited a thousand, nay a thousand thousand larger and smaller rods, wheels, hooks, teeth, and notches, all in motion and oscillation, one within another; some moved noiselessly, others with some friction or grating. In the center was placed the principal, although invisible wheel, from which motion was transmitted in an incomprehensible way to all the rest of the machinery. For the spirit of the wheel was imparted to all the others and dominated them; and although it seemed to me impossible fully to comprehend it, nevertheless I saw plainly and distinctly that it really occurred.

The Labyrinth of the World and the Paradise of the Heart