Hi,
it's a damn old thread, but somebody dug it up. I don't know if it's really still of interest (at least Pierre got in touch), but I'll answer here because I feel like it:
I'm sorry, I must disagree with you Pierre. Even if it has a seductive romantic sound: the alchemist does not steal fire from heaven, he redeems it so that it can redeem him, stealing it would mean profaning and humiliating it, you understand?
Well, for the alchemist there is no strict, Cartesian separation of spirit and matter, and thus no clear dividing line between them. So, the transition from one to the other does not happen suddenly, but very gradually. Sometimes something is still matter, but at the same time it is already spirit, or on the other hand, it is indeed still spirit, but also already matter. When we make spirit into matter, we also make matter into spirit, this process only takes place simultaneously and in both directions.
No alchemist despises matter, because all matter is sacred to him, he recognizes in its center the hidden word, pure information, which flows incessantly from the source of the original spirit and fills the whole space from the upper to the lower, the whole space between spirit and soul or Yin and Yang. The alchemist calls this underlying stream the heavenly or astral spirit and compares it to a sea of glass in which two miraculous fishes swim. The ancient Chinese sages speak of the Dao (Tao), the essence of the primal spirit, experienced as being and life, invisibly contained in the light of the sky.
It is the root of heaven and earth and there is nothing in this world that would not be a part of it, be it form, matter or energy. It fills the whole space like a holy, secret word and flows through us too, silently and softly, like a gentle, celestial and not burning fire. Together with the moonlight, it is reflected in the crackling white snow, wafts with the light wind over mountains and valleys, and of the morning, when the sun touches the horizon, it moistens the whole earth softly with the dew, comforting all creatures. Out of this being, this pure, living information, an unceasing language or divine message addressed to us, we hypostasize the whole experiential world. For all things only take shape in the eye of the beholder.
But for any reason his revelation eludes us - either because we have lost the gift of right recognize, or because we have not yet found it (Buddha cites karmically conditioned ignorance as the cause, whereby knowledge can only be attained in riddance) - and through this process of perception we distort his actual being, profane his glory and hide it under an illusory outer shell. And it is precisely there, under this shell in its innermost core, where the pure, original essence of itself is hidden, that the alchemist seeks it and brings it out, in order to give it back its true form and divine attribute. But he cannot reach it in every matter without further ado, but only there, where he finds its inner being unmixed and completely pure.
And because matter is sacred to the alchemist, and he knows that in its center lies hidden the key of all glories and all magnificence, he approaches it with reverence and submits to the wisdom that lives within it. As her devoted servant and loving friend, he finally accomplishes the work by leading her to marriage with the upper wisdom. This work is a sacred work, no matter what the Keepers of the confessions say about it, and that, my dear friends, is the core of it all, just this you need to bloody grasp!
:cool:
sl
