Author : Don Karns
What is Alchemy? When we think of Alchemy generally what comes to mind is the image of a medieval mad scientist surrounded by flasks filled with vile foaming liquids, trying feverishly to transform lead into gold. There is a record of obscure formulas and processes for transforming the nature of material substances, but the alchemists writings were deliberately obscure in order to hide the true nature of their work from people who would misunderstand and misuse it. The true Alchemy involves the whole being of the Alchemist. The transformation of physical substances echoes a profound transformation of consciousness within the Alchemist himself.The Emerald Tablet, a Hermetic text said to contain the essence of the alchemic "work" states: "As above, so below. As below, so above." It is this correspondence and interrelatedness of the spiritual and material, the inner and outer, the body and mind, that is at the heart of Alchemy. The "great work" of the Alchemist is to create a synthesis of these apparently opposite values through a process of purification and sublimation which would result in the creation of the Philosophers Stone, the material substance symbolic of the truth beyond duality.The essence of material life is transformation. Consider the plant absorbing energy from the sun and transmuting it into sugar, starch and protein, and these substances when eaten are transformed into blood and tissue etc. in our bodies. Our life is intimately connected with all life. The relevance of alchemy for us today, I believe, is in helping us bridge the gap between our mental and physical worlds. We have become so habituated to mentally abstract ourselves from the life process we fail to feel and appreciate the wonder and exquisite unity of all life. We have lost touch with the vital essence of things.When we see a tree we relate to it as a static object, we don't enter into relationship with it as a function vital to, and inherent in, our own life. The scientific model, which grew out of the mental approach to life, has created many technological "miracles" but manipulating natural laws from the "objective" point of view always results in some form of pollution.R.A. Schwaller de Lubicz in his book The Temple of Man states: "Only one thing is real - the function... It is knowable only by it's identity with the same vital function innate in ourselves. As soon as we want to define it, we petrify it, we make it a "science." ...science in general can be nothing but the science of corpses of phenomenon."Alchemy is Life. Life lived consciously as the totality of our experience, subjective and objective, in deep feeling and appreciation, in humility and profound wonder in the magic of Being.Don Karns is an internet enthusiast and his current project is www.arkofalchemy.com featuring topics such as www.arkofalchemy.com">alchemy and www.arkofalchemy.com">astrology
Keyword : Alchemy, transformation, hermetic, emerald tablet
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