Chapter 106. The Royal Art: Alchemy and Astrology in the Western Esoteric Tradition

Kabbalah and Hermetic theology supplied the Western esoteric tradition with its metaphysics. Alchemy and astrology were its operative arts: alchemy worked on matter, astrology read the heavens. Both rest on the axiom ascribed to Hermes, “What is below is like that which is above.” Both passed from Hellenistic Egypt through Arabic learning into Latin Europe. Both were later taken into Rosicrucian and Masonic symbolism. The sources in the library divide on how alchemy should be read. One school reads it as proto-chemistry concerned with real transmutation. The other reads it as a symbolic language of inner transformation. This chapter sets out both readings and names the authors behind each.

The Emerald Tablet and the Greco-Arabic transmission

The founding text is the Tabula Smaragdina. The library’s compilation of translations summarises the work of Holmyard, Ruska and Needham. The Tablet “probably first appeared in the West” in Latin versions of the pseudo-Aristotelian Secretum Secretorum, translated by Johannes Hispalensis around 1140. Its earliest Arabic witnesses are a version attributed to Jabir and one appended to the Book of the Secret of Creation of “Balinas” (Apollonius), which may date “as early as 650” and was “definitely finished by the Caliphate of al-Ma’mun (813–33).” Ruska suggested an origin further east, and Needham proposed China [Multiple Translations, The Emerald Tablet of Hermes, #50982, “History of the Tablet”]. The versions differ in substance. The Jabir text reads: “That which is above is from that which is below, and that which is below is from that which is above, working the miracles of one.” Isaac Newton’s translation (c. 1680) reads: “That wch is below is like that wch is above that wch is above is like yt wch is below to do ye miracles of one only thing” [Multiple Translations, The Emerald Tablet of Hermes, #50982, “Translations From Jabir ibn Hayyan”; “Translation of Isaac Newton”]. Redgrove gives the legend in his version of the thirteen sentences. Alexander the Great found “the tomb of Hermes in a cave near Hebron,” with the text inscribed “in Phoenician characters.” The Tablet ends: “Therefore am I called Hermes Trismegistus, possessing the three parts of the philosophy of the whole world” [Redgrove, Alchemy: Ancient and Modern, #38930, §30]. Manly P. Hall holds that the Tablet “is in reality a chemical formula of a high and secret order” [Hall, The Secret Teachings of All Ages, #45649, “The Theory and Practice of Alchemy”].

The Greek alchemy of Egypt reached Islam through translation. Redgrove calls Zosimus of Panopolis, who “flourished in the fifth century,” “a master of the Art,” and notes that “only fragments remain” [Redgrove, Alchemy: Ancient and Modern, #38930, §31]. The chemist H. S. El Khadem reports that “an Arabic translation of a Greek text by Zosimos was found in a copy of a book entitled ‘Keys of Mercy and Secrets of Wisdom,’ written by the twelfth century alchemist Al-Tughra’i.” One part of the book is headed “From Keys of Wisdom by Zosimos” [El Khadem, A Translation of a Zosimos’ Text in an Arabic Alchemy Book, #38726, Abstract].

Geber, the Stone and Redgrove’s theory of origins

Redgrove (first edition 1910) proposes that alchemy “originated in the attempt to demonstrate the applicability of the principles of Mysticism to the things of the physical realm.” He argues that this hypothesis “brings into harmony the physical and transcendental theories of Alchemy” [Redgrove, Alchemy: Ancient and Modern, #38930, ch. I §11]. He criticises chemists who “label it nonsense” and mystics who “take a purely transcendental view of the subject, forgetting… that the alchemists were, for the most part, concerned with operations of a physical nature” [Redgrove, Alchemy: Ancient and Modern, #38930, Preface]. In the preface to the second edition he reports a welcome “change in the attitude of the educated world towards the old-time alchemists” [Redgrove, Alchemy: Ancient and Modern, #38930, Preface to the Second Edition].

On the physical theory, Redgrove sets out pseudo-Geber’s doctrine. The imperfect metals “were to be perfected or cured by the application of ‘medicines.'” The first order of medicine brings about only a temporary change, and the second makes a permanent but incomplete one. The third order is the Stone: “every Preparation, which, when it comes to Bodies, with its projection, takes away all Corruption, and perfects them.” The white stone transmutes metals into silver and the red into gold [Redgrove, Alchemy: Ancient and Modern, #38930, ch. II §23]. Redgrove also reports Berthelot’s finding that the Latin Summa Perfectionis is “a forgery of the fourteenth century.” He adds that the genuine Arabic Jabir “give[s] no warrant for believing that the famous sulphur-mercury theory was due to this alchemist” [Redgrove, Alchemy: Ancient and Modern, #38930, §32].

Paracelsus and the turn to medicine

The library’s histories of alchemy mark Paracelsus (1493–1541) as the turning point. Neil Powell opens his chapter on the medieval masters with the newly appointed city physician of Basel standing in the city square beside a brass pan of burning charcoal: “In one hand he held a book of the works of Avicenna, and in the other the works of Galen. Then he thrust them into the fla[mes].” Powell describes the three principles “known as mercury, sulfur, and salt, and… sometimes referred to as the tria prima.” For his own healing alchemy Paracelsus “coined the word ‘spagyric’,” and “Paracelsus’ main aim in alchemy was to use its methods to prepare medicines” [Powell, Alchemy The Ancient Science, #67902, “The Medieval Masters”]. R. Krebs’s encyclopedia credits him with challenging Galen’s humoral theory and pioneering iatro-chemistry [Krebs, Encyclopedia Scientific Principles, Laws and Theories, vol. 2, #26311, “Paracelsus”]. John Read’s history gives the fullest account. Alchemical theory “was essentially static throughout the medieval period” until Paracelsus added “to sulphur and mercury of a third principle, which he called ‘salt’.” Read notes that “until the day of Descartes, in the seventeenth century, men drew no rigid distinction between matter and mind” [Read, From Alchemy to Chemistry, #42870, ch. II “The Tria Prima of Paracelsus”]. At Basel in 1527, inspired by Luther’s burning of the papal bull, Paracelsus celebrated his appointment “by publicly consigning the venerated writings of Galen and Avicenna to the flames.” Read judges that “the significance of Paracelsus in alchemy lies in his vigorous insistence that its true object was to prepare healing drugs and not to make gold… Here came at last, after a thousand years,” a parting of the ways. The new iatro-chemistry “was destined to flourish until about the end of the seventeenth century, while the old alchemy simultaneously fell into a slow decline” [Read, From Alchemy to Chemistry, #42870, ch. VII “The Parting of the Ways”]. Alexandrian treats the same moment as a revolt in Renaissance medicine. He notes that Paracelsus called himself the “Christ of medicine” and founded a reforming current with followers into the twentieth century [Alexandrian, Istoria filozofiei oculte, #9675, “Medicina spagirică”].

Boehme and Fludd: alchemy as theosophy

Redgrove places Jacob Boehme apart from the laboratory tradition: “Jacob Boehme was an alchemist of a purely transcendental order… he employed the language of Alchemy in the elaboration of his system of mystical philosophy.” For Boehme “the Philosopher’s Stone… is the Spirit of Christ which must ‘tincture’ the individual soul.” He quotes him: “The Phylosopher’s Stone is a very dark disesteemed Stone, of a Gray colour, but therein lyeth the highest Tincture” [Redgrove, Alchemy: Ancient and Modern, #38930, ch. IV §56]. Robert Fludd’s Mosaicall Philosophy (Latin, Gouda, 1638; English, 1659) is a Hermetic-Kabbalistic physics. It sets out to demonstrate “that God is that pure and catholic Unity, which includes and comprehends in itself all multiplicity.” It describes how “that amiable and bright emanation of vivifying Love” drove darkness from “the obscure Chaos,” so that “a World might be made of nothing” [Fludd, Mosaical Philosophy, #70536, Section II, Book I, chs. 1–3]. Alexandrian classes Paracelsus, Fludd and van Helmont as “operators” who carried Kabbalistic techniques into medicine and into the exploration of the invisible [Alexandrian, Istoria filozofiei oculte, #9675, “Misterele Cabalei”].

Inner alchemy against the laboratory

The twentieth century made the spiritual reading systematic. Herbert Silberer’s Hidden Symbolism of Alchemy and the Occult Arts (English 1917) takes an old alchemical “Parabola” and reads it psychoanalytically. Its translator, Smith Ely Jelliffe, presents it as a contribution to “paleo-psychology,” linking “the unconscious of present day mankind” to medieval thought through the principle of “sublimation” [Reference book: Silberer, Hidden Symbolism of Alchemy and the Occult Arts, Preface and Part I]. Adam McLean’s study course goes the other way. He warns students against forcing “an interpretation onto the alchemical emblem” from “modern ideas from psychology, kabbalah, tarot, eastern philosophy, or western occultism.” For McLean, emblems are “not textual information encoded in symbols” but “dynamic gateways, before which we can stand and allow ourselves to enter into an inner dialogue with the imagery” [McLean, Study Course on Inner Alchemy and Alchemical Symbolism, #45246, Lesson 7]. His lessons teach the student to tell the dragon from the snake, ouroboros and salamander. A many-headed dragon’s heads “can correspond to the three principles (salt, sulphur mercury), the four elements or the seven planets” [McLean, Lesson 13: The Dragon, #45244].

Jean Dubuis stands for the surviving laboratory tradition. His publishers urge students to master plant spagyrics before the Mineral Alchemy course, which works through alkahests, the vinegar of antimony, metallic oils and “Separation of the Three Elements.” It pairs each operation with a numbered meditation and joins “Oratory; Laboratory” [Dubuis, Mineral Alchemy, #67098, vol. 1, Index of Lessons]. Alexandrian adds that while Berthelot was studying Arabic alchemy “as one studies a dead language,” a group of French alchemists was still at work on the Great Work. One of them, Jollivet-Castelot, wrote in 1897 that “for Hermetic philosophy, chemistry is a laboratory apprentice’s science” [Alexandrian, Istoria filozofiei oculte, #9675, “Alchimia triumfătoare”].

Astrology: from Babylon to Ficino’s Florence

The reference shelf finds “the oldest undisputed evidence of the use of astrology as an integrated system” in the first dynasty of Babylon. By the end of the seventeenth century heliocentrism had “undermined the theoretical basis of astrology” [Wikipedia: History of astrology]. Julia and Derek Parker describe the Babylonian omen series Enuma Anu Enlil, “over 7000 astrological articles recorded on 70 tablets.” They credit the Persians with “inventing” the four elements later built into the scheme by Ptolemy. They also note that Islamic astronomy drew on Greek, Indian and Sasanian sources [Parker, Istoria Astrologiei, #44582]. Alexandrian credits Ptolemy’s Tetrabiblos with unifying earlier beliefs through the six aspects. He says European astrologers relied on Ptolemy “until the middle of the seventeenth century” [Alexandrian, Istoria filozofiei oculte, #9675, “Astrologia”].

The Arabic Picatrix links astrology to Renaissance magic. Yates calls it “an extremely comprehensive treatise on sympathetic and astral magic, with particular reference to talismans,” and finds Ficino’s planetary healing images, such as “a king on a throne, in a yellow garment, and a crow and the form of the Sun,” strikingly close to images in it (see Chapter 105) [Yates, Giordano Bruno and the Hermetic Tradition, #42768, chs. III–IV]. The library’s Atallah translation gives, in its chapter “Planets’ Stones and Picture Drawings,” an image for each planet compiled from Apollonius and other sources [Ghayat al-Hakim, Picatrix, #53503, Book II ch. 10]. The Church’s response was uneven. The Parkers record that Peter of Abano’s bones were exhumed and burned by the Inquisition, though for theological speculations rather than for astrology. They describe Cecco d’Ascoli as “the only astrologer burned by the Inquisition” [Parker, Istoria Astrologiei, #44582]. Astrology also served politics. The Parkers trace it from the emperors to Elizabeth I, Himmler and Reagan. They report that the astrologer Frau Ebertin warned in 1923 that Hitler “could expose himself to danger through lack of prudence” before the Munich putsch. They also report that the physician-astrologer Karl-Gunther Heimoth, a friend of Ernst Röhm, was killed with him in June 1934 [Parker, Istoria Astrologiei, #44582].

Modern astrology moves toward psychology. Dane Rudhyar proposes a “person-centered” and “transpersonal” astrology. He describes it as “not… a bigger and better kind of astrology; it is ‘more-than-astrology’,” a “transformative process” rather than Jung’s “healing way” [Rudhyar, The Astrology of Transformation, #67654].

Alchemy and the stars in Pike’s Masonry

Albert Pike takes both arts into the Scottish Rite. In the Master Mason degree he writes: “Masonry, like all the Religions, all the Mysteries, Hermeticism and Alchemy, conceals its secrets from all except the Adepts and Sages, or the Elect, and uses false explanations and misinterpretations of its symbols to mislead those who deserve only to be misled.” A few pages earlier he writes: “Gold, to the eyes of the Initiates, is Light condensed” [Pike, Morals and Dogma, #378717, Degree III]. In the Knight of the Sun degree he gives the Great Work “a threefold signification… religious, philosophical, and natural.” He reads its prima materia as “the Sulphur, Mercury, and Salt, which by turns volatilized and fixed, compose the AZOTH of the Sages.” He adds that the alchemists gave “their Sulphur, represented by the Baphomet of the Temple, that goat’s head which brought into such disrepute the occult Mediæval associations” [Pike, Morals and Dogma, #378717, Degree XXVIII]. He also quotes a Scottish Elder Master ritual in which “the true process for the transmutation of metals” lies in Salt, Sulphur and Spirit, symbolised by three golden basins [Pike, Morals and Dogma, #378717, Degree XXVIII].

Pike’s astral reading of the Mysteries comes from Porphyry. In the Mithraic cave “the Persians… fixed the seat of that God, Father of Generation… near the equinoctial point of Spring.” The cave “displayed the zodiacal and other constellations, and marked gates at the four equinoctial and solstitial points… whereat souls enter into and escape from the world of generations.” His index adds “Mithras, the Sun God of the Persians, born in a cave at Winter” (p. 587) and “on 25th December was celebrated the birth of” Mithras (p. 406). He links Serpentarius, “identical with Æsculapius,” to the descent of Osiris in the autumn signs [Pike, Morals and Dogma, #378717]. In Pike, alchemy and astrology become two keys to one concealed religion of Light.

Key points

• The Emerald Tablet reached Latin Europe c. 1140 from Arabic sources that may date to the seventh to ninth centuries. Its key line reads “from” in the Jabir version and “like” in Newton’s.
• El Khadem documents a Zosimos text translated into Arabic by the twelfth-century Al-Tughra’i, physical evidence of the Greek-to-Arabic transmission.
• Redgrove derives alchemy from mysticism applied to matter and sets out pseudo-Geber’s three orders of “medicine.” He reports Berthelot’s exposure of the Latin Geber as a fourteenth-century forgery.
• Read, Powell and Krebs present Paracelsus’s tria prima (mercury, sulphur, salt), his burning of Galen and Avicenna at Basel and his medical aim as the turn toward iatro-chemistry. Read calls it “a parting of the ways” after “a thousand years.”
• Boehme used alchemy as a language for Christian mysticism, with the Stone as the Spirit of Christ. Fludd built a Mosaic-Kabbalistic physics.
• Silberer reads alchemy psychoanalytically, while McLean refuses to import outside meanings. Dubuis keeps laboratory practice and pairs it with meditation.
• Astrology runs from Babylon through Ptolemy and the Picatrix to Rudhyar. The Parkers document its political uses up to Nazi Germany.
• Pike says Masonry “like… Hermeticism and Alchemy, conceals its secrets,” calls gold “Light condensed,” and reads the Mithraic cave as a zodiacal map of souls.