ALCHEMICAL
LABORATORY
BULLETINS
Vol. II, No. 12
1972
ANNOUNCEMENTS
EUROPEAN SEMINAR
We have received questions as to lower priced hotel accommodations in Stuttgart, Germany during the convention. The preliminary prospectus mentions only the Hotel Zeppelin, within walking distance of the convention center, a first class accommodation. Those desiring middle or lower class hotels can have rooms including breakfast from $7.00 on up, per person.
Detailed information is contained on the reservation card which will be mailed to those who have requested them as soon as they reach us from Germany, which will be shortly.
We are sorry not to have mentioned this in the tentative program.
INDEX
Announcements
When Was, I Born?
Study Tour
Parsifal Performance
Both Sides of Alchemy
Class Schedule for 1973
Questions and Answers
Parachemy
WHEN WAS I BORN?
As we go to press we have not received our copies of "When Was I Born?" As soon as we receive them, we shall mail them at once to those who have placed their orders.
STUDY TOUR
A verbal confirmation or declaration of intention to participate in the Study Tour does not suffice to reserve a seat for the tour.
PARSIFAL PERFORMANCE
Please do not count on obtaining tickets for the Parsifal Performance after November 1st. To obtain tickets, while in Bayreuth, for the performance is an impossibility.
The Alchemical Laboratory Bulletin is a quarterly publication of the Paracelsus Research Society, P. O. Box 6006, Salt Lake City, Utah, 84106, U.S.A. Annual subscription $6.00. This price includes one complimentary copy to be mailed to an institution of learning or as otherwise designated by the subscriber. Individuals and institutions unable to pay the annual subscription fee may upon verification of their request, receive the Bulletin gratis. Copyrighted and printed in the U.S.A.
Both Sides of Alchemy
Again and again we are asked the same question, in essence: "If alchemy is evolution why separate the inner alchemy from the ourter?" First there can be no separation of alchemy because alchemy presents itself as dual. There is a mental and physical aspect of alchemy. They belong to alchemy in itself, as the dual aspect of the inner and outer man are to be found as a unit.
Waite in his Azoth states under the heading of the subject or matter of the philosophers: "No alchemical book has ever revealed the materials on which alchemy operated for the transmutation of the metallic natures. This is not because the materials have been named, but because they have never been really described. Every new writer has given them a new name, and everyone in assigning their qualities has contradicted one, more than one, or all of his predecessors. We have stated this plainly before, and we again state it plainly so that there may be no possibility of misconception, and that no person may be so distraught as to undertake at our instance the discovery of the physical Stone of the philosophers. The exoteric chemistry of today, were it brought to believe that transmustation has occurred in the past, would consider the secrecy of the adepts as a foolish and culpable thing, but it will be seen from foregoing remarks that the veritable initiates, in our conception, did well to conceal, even in announcing, their discovery. They had found in their process the complete vanity and worthlessness of material riches; the desire for wealth and its amenities had melted under fire in their crucibles; the ambition which henceforth seems to have ruled in their lives was to subsist without ostentation, and to keep the 'Grand Secret:' To them the conception of a rich alchemist was more mad than an 'undevout astronomer.' Let us hear Eirenaeus Philalethes appraising the gold which he pretended to manufacture. 'I wish gold and silver were as mean in esteem as earth. ... I disdain, loathe, and detest the idolizing of silver and gold, by which the pomps and vanities of the world are celebrated. Ah, filthy evil! Ah, vain nothingness! ... I do hope and expect that within a few years money will be as dross; and that prop of the anti-Christian beast will be dashed to pieces. The people are mad, the nations rave, an unprofitable weight is set up in the place of God.' Nor is the true philalethes' alone in the violence of his disdain.
"Thus even for the physical alchemists, who never pretended to work otherwise than in metals,the chief end of attainment was that they might 'enjoy this gift of God secretly. The annals of the science contain no record of an adept who has amassed wealth, a fact which is explicable on two hypotheses only--that which regards the enquiry as a delusion or an imposture, but with this we are in nowise concerned; and that which regards transmutation as the lowest achievement of the arcane knowledge, the veil chosen by the Wise as a cloak to their ulterior designs. This is our standpoint, and regarded in this light, initiation into the lesser mystery involved at least a theoretical acquaintance with the possibilities beyond, while that acquaintance inevitably destroyed the desire for material wealth.
"But the larger proportion of genuine.alchemical literature is concerned, in our opinion, with a spiritual as well as a physical work, and the true adepts were Mystics in the pneumatic sense before they became alchemists. Their knowledge was perpetuated by inheritance from a certain Holy
Assembly, or resulted from contact therewith, and their operations, like their works, are to be understood in two senses. It is easy to distinguish these Masters among the TURBA PHILOSOPHORUM, for they invariably say that the achievement of alchemy is philosophical gold, and not gold of the mines, whereas the physical school of adeptship worked upon common gold, and is not backward in assuring us of the fact. To this class belonged George Starkey, and the MARROW OF ALCHEMY is a typical work within its own division. From writers of the higher degree we may select an initial definition:
"'The gold of the Philosophers is a heavenly substance; it is heaven, and the rays of the sun. It is the most eminent medicine. It has in itself all the stars of heaven and all the fruits of earth.' These are words borrowed from the higher alchemists. We may compare them with a passage from the interior philosopher, Jacob Boehme: 'He in whom this spring of divine power flows carries within himself the divine image and the celestial substantiality. In him is Jesus born of the Virgin, and he shall not die in eternity. 'Heaven and earth with all their inhabitants, and, moreover, God Himself is in man. From the correspondences between these passages, it is easy to reach a conclusion as to the nature of the Gold of the Philosophers regarded from the standpoint of Basil Valentine, Eugenius Philaleehes, Khunrath, aild Alexander Seton."
We see that Waite is trying to find the connecting link from the inner to the outer. With Eirenaeus Philalethes he descries the search for Gold, because Philalethes had found that it was only a way of proving the laws involved. But without this proof alchemy would not have been proven on both planes of awareness. On the other hand, if we let a fairly contemporary speak such as Archibald Cockren, we find that the outer approach leads to the inner and will reveal its supplementary opposite according to the law of duslity.
*Cockren says: "The practice of alchemy in the laboratory has been a far from easy task, as those who have at any time studied literature on the subject will fully appreciate. It is only by continuous experiment and constant comparison with alchemistic writings that the present results have eventually been attained, and looking back on the years of persistence in the face of the countless difficulties and failures which ever confront the would-be alchemist, one can well question the wisdom of pursuing such a course. At last, however, it does seem that these labors may not have been entirely in vain, for from these experiments has gradually emerged the vision of the benefit this art could be to man who, in his present state of imperfection, with its a~companying suffering of mind and body, would seem to require some assistance on his way through life."
"As I have said, I believe that in this art lies man's salvation from sickness and disease, and the secret of his ultimate perfection, but needless to say in order to utilize to the full the physical benefits of alchemistic research, man must undertake the transmutation of certain baser elements in his emotional and mental make-up. With this process of psychological transmutation I do not propose to deal for the moment, but I am convinced that in this present age of chaos, when new ideas, new values, and, as I believe, new understanding are coming into being, it may be possible that some of these more unorthodox conceptions will meet with less opposition and more sympathy than previously. Since the complete destruction of all those conditions which in the nineteenth century seemed so permanent and immovable, man has been far less inclined to reject out of hand any idea which may be put before him. For this reason I write down my findings of an age-old truth in the belief that it is a task destiny has sent me, and whether my words be accepted or not lies not with me but with those to whom they are addressed."
"Come with me, therefore, to my little laboratory with its array of alembics, crucibles, and sandbaths, and hear something of the struggles of the would-be alchemist and of the mysteries he seeks to unravel.
"After a careful study of Basil Valentine's 'Triumphal Chariot of Antimony,' I decided to make my first experiments with antimony. I soon found, however, that on arriving at a crucial point, the key had almost invariably been deliberately withheld, and a dissertation on theology inserted in its place. Gradually, however, I came to realize that the theological discourse was not without object, but actually the means of veiling a valuable clue of some kind. After much labor, a fragrant golden liquid was finally obtained from the antimony, although this was merely a beginning. The alkahest of the alchemist, the First Matter, still remained a mystery.
"Then followed processes with iron and copper. After purification of the salts or vitriol of these metals, of calcintion, and the obtaining of a salt from the calcined metal by a special process, followed by careful distillation and re-distillation in rectified spirits of wine, the oil of these metals was obtained, a fewr drbps of which used singly, or in conjunction, proved very efficacious in cases of anemia and debility which the ordinary iron medicine failed to touch.
"The conjunctiqn of iron and copper proved to be an elixir of a very stimulating and regenerating character the action being such as to clear the body of toxins, and I well remember on taking a few drops one evening that the prospect of a spell of fairly strenuous mental work, even after a really laborious day, seemed to hold no terrors for me!
"But still the alkahest remained an enigma, and so further experiments were made with silver and mercury. For those with silver, fine silver was reduced with nitric acid to the salts of the metal, carefully washed in distilled water, sublimated by special process, finally yielding up a white oil which had a very soothing effect on highly nervous cases.
"In the case of mercury, the metal on being reduced to its oil, produced a clear crystalline liquid with great curative properties, but unlike common mercury, no poisonous qualities.
"After this I decided to work upon fine gold-gold, that is, without any alloy. This was dissolved in Aqua Regia and reduced to the salts of gold; these were washed in distilled water, which in its turn was evaporated in order to remove its very caustic properties. It was at this point that a very real difficulty arose, for when these salts of gold lose their acidity, they slowly but surely tend to return to their metallic form again. Nevertheless, an elixir was finally produced from them by distillation, although even then a residue of fine metallic gold remained behind in the retort.
"Having got so far I realized that without the alkahest of the philosophers the real oil of gold could not be obtained, and so again I went back and forth in the alchemists' writings to obtain the clue. The experiments which I had already made considerably lightened my task, and one day while sitting quietly in deep concentration the solution to the problem was revealed to me in a flash, and at the same time many of the enigmatical utterances of the alchemists were made clear."
"Here, then, I entered upon a new course of experiment, with a metal for experimental purposes with which I had had no previous experience. This metal, after being reduced to its salts and undergoing special preparation and distillation, delivered up the Mercury of the Philosophers, the Aqua Benedicta, the Aqua Celestis, the Water of Paradise. The first intimation I had of this triumph was a violent hissing, jets of vapor pouring from the retort and into the receiver like sharp bursts from a machine-gun, and then a violent explosion, whilst a very potent and subtleodor filled the laboratory and its suroundings. A friend has described this odor as resembling the dewy, earth on a June morning, with the hint of growing flowers in the air, the breath of the wind over heather and hill, and the sweet smell of the rain on the parched earth.
"Nicholas FEamel, after searching and experimenting from the age of twenty, wrote when he was eighty years old:
"'Finally I found that which I desired, which I also soon knew by the strong scent and odor thereof.'
"Does this not coincide, this voice from the fourteenth century, with my own description of the peculiar subtle odor? Cremer, also writing in the early fourteenth century, says:
"'When this happy event takes place, the whole house will be filled with a most wonderful sweet fragrance, and then will be the day of the nativity of this most blessed preparation'."
In the foregoing we see from direct quotations the different approaches to the same subject. The inner aiming at the transmutation of man into a superior being with the help of the outer by the restoration of faults from within. Cockren aptly states and we requote him: "At last, however, it does seem that these labors may not have been entirely in vain, for from these experiments has gradually emerged the vision of the benefit this art could be to man who, in his present state of imperfection, with its accompanying suffering of mind and body, would require some assistance on his way through life."
This is what the P.R.S. is trying to do. To be of assistance with what alchemy has to offer to both the inner and outer man as a combination or the sum total during his existence while in the flesh upon this earth, right here and now.
*Alchemy Rediscovered and Restored by A. Cockren.
Class Schedule for 1973
New Zealand |
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January 8 -20 |
Prima |
2 weeks |
January 21 - 27 |
Secunda |
1 week |
January 28 - February 3 |
Tertia |
1 week |
February 4 -1 0 |
Quarta |
1 week |
Australia |
||
February 18 - March 3 |
Prima |
2 weeks |
March 4 - 10 |
Secunda |
1 week |
March 11 - 17 |
Quarta |
1 week |
U.S.A. (Tenative) |
||
March 25 - April 7 |
Prima |
2 weeks |
April 8 - 21 |
Secunda |
2 weeks |
April 22 - May 5 |
Tertia |
2 weeks |
May 14 - 26 |
Quarta |
2 weeks |
Europe |
||
June 10 - 23 |
Prima |
2 weeks |
June 24 -0 July 7 |
Secunda |
2 weeks |
July 8 - 21 |
Tertia |
2 weeks |
July 22 - August 4 |
Quarta |
2 weeks |
August 9 - 11 |
Alchemical Congress |
(Seminar) |
August 13 - 25 |
Tour |
U.S.A. (tenative) |
||
October 21 - November 3 |
Quinta |
2 weeks |
November 4 - 17 |
Sexta |
2 weeks |
November 18 - December 1 |
Septa |
2 weeks |
Students attending classes in the states are requested to bring their own face cloths and towels. Other essentials and bed linens are supplied. Also arrival times should be scheduled after 2 p.m. on Sundays and departures as soon as feasible after the last Saturday morning class.
QUESTIONS and ANSWERS
QUESTION NO. 104-How can the P.R.S. waive dormitory fees to students and even give them money to live on during their study periods when the P.R.S. Student Laboratory Fund is insufficient at times--as I was told in a letter received not long ago from a fellow student? What percentage of students do receive assistance?
Answer: During the spring quarter here in the U.S. during 1972, about 78% of the students paid their dormitory fee while 22% had their's waived. The money for students who need help during study periods does not come from the Student Laboratory Fund.
QUESTION NO. 105--Do you believe in materialization of objects by magical (I have no better word) means? Such as getting food out of the air, etc.?
Answer: In New Delhi, India, I was introduced to a high governmental official. While discussing various topics of interest he related to me in a matter of fact manner that he was witness many times to such phenomena.
During his term of Postmaster General in India, Mr. Bhola told me personally that he was well acquainted with a Sadhu who could produce by the art of materialization various kinds of fruits, rings, jewels, food, such as warm pudding, in such a quantity that when given to the many people present, they all had enough to eat. The name of the Sadhu who lived in a small temple and became his friend and regular visitor to his house was ... (name omitted)
Mr. Bhola told me he witnessed the materializations himself and this is how they were formed. The Sadhu tipped his hands and had a cloth or piece of paper placed over them. While Mr. Bhola held his hands underneath the hands of the Sadhu, which he gently opened, the materialized objects fell into his (Mr. Bhola's) hands, for him and all present to see, handle, taste and experience.
Yes, these things are possible and those who are able to produce such phenomina do so by the application of the laws involved and knowledge of them.
These can be learned and one may become quite efficient in them. An artist who devotes his entire life and energy to his calling will excel therein, be it in the fine arts or any endeavor. It is a matter of learning the laws involved and mastering them first, such as becoming adept in the expert handling of an instrument that produces great results, requires much practice. Some may be mediocre while a few show outstanding results above others. Even if such are called psychic phenomena, they are not such in the ultimate sense because they manifest on the material plane and are physical manifestations. True psyhic phenomena does manifest on its own plane and should not be confused with materializations as the name indicates. Materialization is a natural physical phenomena, no matter if produced by the slow process of natural evolution or by artificial means shortcutting the appearance of natural phenomena. We repeat: all such are natural physical phenomena and not psychic phenomena.
QUESTION NO. 106-Some time ago it was mentioned that in Antimony lies the key to open all the other metals. Can you elaborate a little on this at this time? Would this be in connection with the antimonial vinegar?
Answer: Yes.
QUESTION Nd. 107---Can I make glass of Antimony without the addition of borax with my natural gas Fisher burner? If not, would the burner shield and/or the enclosure help?
Answer: It has been done. Anything to obtain a higher degree of heat would help.
QUESTION NO. 108--The following in my notes appears to be contraditoryr
1. When all that which has been created reaches its stage of perfection, then the time will come when there will be a new earth.... All that was imperfect will have to give way to perfection. Perfection is the outcome of a predestined cause.
2. No guarantee that product is a perfect one even though the outcome, the result, is pre-ordained.
Would you please comment further on the above.
Answer: The ultimate aim of nature is perfection of all its creative efforts. As to your No. 2 there seems to be a misunderstanding. What was meant was that under identical conditions we have identical results. This means an attempt to prove thereby the perfect outcome is not guaranteed because under identical conditions you may make the same mistake every time and with the same mistakes have an identical result, which does prove that you have not the perfect result you were after because it was a miss-take. You missed the perfection you were after by making identically the same mistake.
QUESTION NO. 109--Some old alchemists claim that Tartar contains the four elements of fire, air, water, and earth. Does P.R.S. Research indicate that this is true?
Answer: Yes, so does all substance.
QUESTION NO. 110--Would you please comment on the difference between Spiritus Mundi and Primz Materia?
Answer: Spiritus Mundi is the spirit of this earth, while Pima Materia is the primal substance out of which all manifestations occur. Also known by the alchemists as their "Gur."
QUESTION NO. 111--This question may perhaps best be discussed in private: We do not have the 'idea' as to how alchemy can correct an emotionally unstable personality, especially one that is not capable of any but the most basic functions. Especialy how can alchemy transmute a schizophrenic personality such as this one exhibited in the past. How does alchemy transmute a traumatic experience that has all but destroyed the ego. It has been this one's personal experience on the road to recovery as a functioning entity that the analyst can do absolutely nothing for the patient except act as a sounding board or mirror and that the patient has to do ALL the work on themselves. In analysis the underlying cause is found and not removed but transmuted or changed. A simple example would be an alcoholic. Once an alcoholic lears why he drinks he no longer has to exert any Will in order to keep 'on the wagon,' the impulse simply has been removed or rather transmuted. It has been our experience further that the 7 sins--pride, lust of the flesh, anger, etc, are neurotic and that a completely emotionally stable individual is incapable of them and since alchemy transmutes these sins also --there has to be as you said a psycho-analysis going on in the lab, but the questibn is how? This question is of vital importance to this one for obvious reasons.
Answer: The psycho-analysis going on in the lab--the human--is of a two-fold nature. First the Ego has to be found before it can be destroyed. What is the Ego? There are many interpretations. In essence it concerns the Self and Selfconsciousness. It is the consciousness of the Self as having being. There is only one self--"one's self," but it has dual attributes brought about by previous experiences. These can be either or both positive and negative. The results of such experiences reveal themselves as opposites. It is here where the one gains the upper hand and wants to destroy the other. All this is found in the conscience. The word translated means going with knowledge we have. We are dealing therefore knowlingly--even if we have temporarily forgotten some of it--with previous experiences. When trying to recall, and total recall is not possible, frustration sets in. This is where the splitting begins. One part is trying to remember, the other is incapable, so our memory fails us. The consciousness is trying to put all available fragments together and the result is mentally confusing-- fastening with or the joining of what we know with what we don't know. Latin con--, and fusus--meaning to combine. This is combining "with" out order or clearness -with whatever is available to come to a conclusion. A completely stable individual should be able to transform the so-called seven cardinal sins into their virtues. This psychoanalysis is the outcome of a self-willed pattern of life, the creative effort from within to will. Then truly we have overcome and "Do as thou wilt shall be the whole of the law--for love is the law. Love under will.
We either will love or hate, all depends on our will to do.
A schizophrenic personality is fighting a battle of love against hate or inversely. And as long as hate, even for our own self--"Oh, I just hate myself for it--who has not heard such an expression before, finds a place within us, it will continue to create the split personality. But the moment we begin to love--not just to like--the good to be found within us, without conceit, then the battle is as good as won. This is the psychoanalysis of the Self by the Self in its own laboratory where relief and eventually the cure for all our ills will be found.
QUESTION NO. 112--In response to the many questions desiring more information about Parachemy and the Fellowships, we give the following:
Answer: Parachemy will replace the Alchemical Laboratory Bulletins with more comprehensive literature than presently available in the Bulletin. At the same time it will contain announcements, questions, and answers concerning the P.R.S. It is strictly a Paracelsus Research Society Publication.
The objective is to present detailed information of former and present day laboratory results and theoretical spagyric-alchemical treatises. These will appear with annotations and/or explanations applicable to our times, particularly in cases where the cumbersome and archaic terminology, so all prevailing in ancient and medieval texts, is used.
The objective of the Fellowships is to enable serious students and researchers to gain access to available laboratory records of the P.R.S. and to exchange their findings and/or results with the P.R.S. and associates.
The yearly fee is $25.00 which includes a subscription to Parachemy. Those receiving Fellowships have the privilege of their articles appearing in Parachemy with a priority over other contributors.
Students attending P.R.S. classes will receive a free Fellowship for the year of their attendance, commencing with 1973, and pay only the yearly Parachemy subscription rate of $7.50. The institutional and library fee is $10.00 per year.
Research reports and other related pertinent information is available only to those who are admitted to the Fellowship. A Fellowship does not constitute a P.R.S. membership.
Anyone applying for a Fellowship must fill out an application, which will be mailed upon request, and submit same with the fee. If not accepted the fee will be returned within 10 days.
We would like to emphasize again that the special privileges quoted above are available only to those who receive their Certificate of Fellowship, and only for the year in question. Such information, to the best of our knowledge, is not available anywhere else on the scale offered by the P.R.S. Those attending classes or coming to the P.R.S., who have a Fellowship, have access, under supervision, to available laboratory results actually on hand at the P.R.S. in conformity with the stipulations found on the application blank.
Parachemy
With this issue we conclude the publication of the Alchemical Laboratory Bulletins. As of January 1, 1973, an enlarged and more informative version of the Bulletin will appear as a Journal entitled "Parachemy."
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