Every century and upon every continent a handful of
exceptional men are born who possess the innate ability to read the
signatures of nature directly, to see immediately into the mystery of
continuous creation and to know pristine reality revealed by the power of
imaginal identification. Such vision differs radically from twentieth
century pedestrian academic mentality. These sages have bequeathed us a
legacy of artifacts fine as the thread of Ariadne in the form of the good
texts of Hermetic Alchemy. These tomes speak from the vein of the forge and
the crucible, a mother load in the vast mine of collective imagination about
mankind's origin and ultimate destiny. They articulate with artful genius
the same message of the hero's journey embodied in the great world myths. A
generation ahead of mythic Cadmus, a generation behind Homer's Ulysses,
Jason's quest for the Golden Fleece constitutes a fabulous example of the
archetypal process of Nature referred to in the Emerald Tablet of Hermes
Tristmegistus as "the operation of the Sun".
The greatest alchemical adepts, Artephius, Nicholas Flamel,
Salomon Trismosen, Michael Maier, Philalethes, Dom Pernety and Fulcanelli
among many others have spoken at once with pornographic explicitness and
again with exasperating obliqueness about the bench-top laboratory
manipulations revealed in the circumstances of Jason's voyage. Joscelyn
Godwin in his brilliant forward to Antoine Faivre's contemporary survey,
The Golden Fleece and Alchemy remarks that C. G. Jung anchors Jason's
argo along with the Hermetic great work solely to the psychic level of
personality integration while ignoring how, why, what and with what, adepts
actually do in their laboratories. Faivre too, pays gross negligence to this
central aspect of the royal art which concerns itself with a combination of
prayer, study and working hands-on directly with matter. "ORA, LEGE, LEGE,
LEGE, RELEGE, LABORA ET INVENIES", declares the motto of the Mutus Liber
of 1677, "Pray, Read, Read, Read, Read Again and You Shall Find".
Western alchemy represents a highly specialized version of
the age old quest for mystical communion with the essential archetypal
process of Nature. Adepts seek to recapitulate this process with
symbolically affective laboratory gestures, chemical manipulations and of
course, with the indispensable cooperation of providence. But what do they
actually do in their laboratories?
Betty Dobbs in her monumental study, The Foundations of
Newton's Alchemy or The Hunting of the Green Lyon, addresses this
central issue of laboratory procedures in their 17th century European
context better than any modern professional scholar. She explains that
adepts worked their methodologies with simple manipulations and a few key
materials. She provides an excellent translation of Sir Isaac Newton's
Clavis, a recipe that entails the chief substances symbolized in the Jason
myth.
According to the myth, Chrysomellos, the winged ram sent by
beneficent Olympian deities rescues a child from the homicidal plot of his
stepmother, carrying him safely to the eastern shores of the Black sea. Here
the miraculous ram becomes a sacrifice, its fleece hung upon an oak tree in
a grove sacred to Ares and guarded by a dragon. The scenario refers
metaphorically to the descent of the Divine from above the highest sepheroth,
Kether, down the Kabbalistic tree of life to the lowest sepheroth, Malkuth,
Earth in the presence of the element Antimony, who's vital spirit,
philosophic mercury, remains still in tact. Matter has become the prison of
spirit. Insightful wisdom and artful alchemical manipulation may release it.
Renaissance alchemists represented antimony by the symbolic
rams horns that also identify the zodiac constellation Ares. Antimony, a
metalloid or semi-metal was perceived as below lead in an infant or
childhood state in the natural process of metallic evolution fully mature in
the element gold. It was also symbolized as a cross above a circle which
additionally identified Earth, the divinely perfect circle of gold buried
under the cross of nature upon which man is crucified.
Gold, more than a metaphor, blatantly and beautifully bears
the solar signature. Its perfect state defies oxidation or attack by any
single acid giving way only to aqua regia, a combination of nitric and
hydrochloric acid. Luster and permanence testify to its Divinity within the
confines of the metallic realm.
Ares, known to the Romans as Mars, also indicates the element
Iron, rich in philosophical sulfur, the source principle of the luminous
animating functional fire of Nature. It comprises the compliment of
philosophic mercury. Iron finds use in purifying stibnite, the chief ore of
antimony in the classic reduction process: Sb2S3 + 2 Fe = 2Sb + Fe2S3 .
Newton spent years of study and labor working out the details
of this reaction and its product at the root of animated philosophic
mercury. Small iron nails are heated red hot in a crucible. Powdered
antimony ore is added along with saltpeter and tartar to serve as fluxing
agents. After several fulminating episodes sponsored by repeated additions
of saltpeter the molten material is poured into a conical mold. Pure
antimony sinks to the bottom topped off by a layer of scoria which easily
separates after cooling. Signs of correct crystal purity include a star
pattern on the surface of the antimony, hence the name star martial regulus.
In a major episode exactly reminiscent of Cadmus, Jason must
sow serpents teeth into a field. From these seeds spring an army of ghost
warriors who fight each other to death. The seed of gold, the serpent teeth
are extracted from the layer of scoria above the purified antimony, the
mercurial serpent, using sal ammoniac, ammonium chloride in the procedure of
sublimation. This seed after purification is then sewn into meticulously
prepared philosophical mercury. This metallic mixture then sealed
hermetically in a flask undergoes a long gradually heated fermentation.
Color changes clearly mark the major stages of this incubation along with
the emergence and dissolution from the molten mass of many strange forms
described metaphorically in the Jason myth as a battle of ghost warriors.
Newton and other adept authors describe these forms as fast growing metallic
trees. An anonymous contemporary operator recently perceived these forms as
rapidly sprouting heads of cauliflower that soon dissolved back into the
putrefying chaos contained in his hermetic flask.
The ultimate product of this labor mythically known as the
golden fleece refers to the philosopher's stone. This red powder projected
into molten base metal effects an apparently miraculous transmutation into
gold. Recent discoveries by Stan Tenen and others, (Gnosis No. 3 and
28) of the geometric revelation hidden in the Torah's Hebrew letter code
that model mathematically the fractal process of a seeds germination into
fruit containing self propagating seed within itself, illuminates this
alchemical gesture of projection. During this gesture rearrangement of base
metal subatomic particles catalyzed by the propagated potency of Divine
Presence unfolding flower-like from the philosopher's stone, creates a well
known wonder of alchemy.
This wonder of alchemy testifies with unquestionable proof to
the level of personality integration achieved by the operator. Unlike the
vague proofs of successful psychotherapy the adept has a tangible token
artifact. Alchemy of the forge and crucible variety thus embodies the
profound idea of sacred science. Our late twentieth century civilization
moves ever closer to the rediscovery of this tradition. Yet the only way to
exhaustively understand the symbolic implications of the Jason myth in its
alchemical context is to become an alchemist and to execute the great work.
But does salvation require a laboratory? The archetypes
projected into external substance may be manipulated at a strictly internal
level. The symbols of western alchemy occur in familiar forms in Tantric
Yoga. The European "Royal Art" of alchemy pursues the same goal as the Royal
Raja Yoga of India. In the most remote past European and Hindu cultures
sprang from a single root whose core experience of Gnosis presented itself
in myths and related esoteric disciplines of spiritual reintegration.
J. Nigro Sansonese, a contemporary yogin as well as professor
of math and physics delivers a brilliantly argued thesis in his recent
The Body of Myth. Expanding the tradition of C.G. Jung and Joseph
Campbell he explicates the anatomic, physiologic and neurologic basis of the
great world myths. Such myths trek out the physical geography of man's body
as the spiritual current moves up the spinal ladder of ascending attention
to culminate in the ecstatic rapture of gnosis.
According to Sansonese myths reveal in esoteric language the
stages of bodily transformation leading to contemplative trance. He includes
an entire chapter on Jason and the Argonauts. Jason's ship, the argo refers
to the cranium. The fifty argonauts represent the five senses withdrawn from
fragmented external experience yet focused on the inward journey into
trance. Two of these argonauts, the Dioscuri, Castor and Pollux are esoteric
descriptions of alternate nostril breathing.
The rowing contest between Jason and Hercules constitutes a
further example of alternate nostril breathing just previous to the
experience of trance symbolized as the heros collapse from exhaustion into
unconsciousness. The author speaks from his own experience of meditative
absorption when he describes minutely perceptible changes in the sutures and
sinuses of the skull during breathing which correlate to elements of the
stages in the argonauts' journey.
Finally Sansonese dissects the name "Jason" to reveal its two
syllable nature as an onomatopoeic rendering for the physical gesture of
respiration. Convincing evidence appears in the ancestral lineage of Jason.
His great-grandfather was Aeolus, god of the wind. Also relevant are yogic
breathing exercises that assign onomatopoeic syllables to inspiration and
expiration such as HAM-SA, SO-HAM or SI-VA. These arguments might seem
eccentric and vague. Perhaps only another yogin could appreciate their depth
and profoundness.
Contemporary scholars have barely touched the
phenomenological relationship between yoga and alchemy. Certainly they
pursue identical goals. Mircea Eliade in his now classic encyclopedic
survey, Yoga: Immortality and Freedom, includes a brief chapter on
yoga and alchemy. He notes that there are certain moments when the "osmosis"
between these two disciplines is perfect.
The Hermetic scholar, Manly Palmer Hall speculates on the
etymology of the symbolic rose of the Rosicrucians derived from Ras, wisdom
or Ros, dew which recall Rasayana,the Ayurvedic science of longevity
involving alchemically produced herbal and metallic medicines but more
specifically "rasum", the nectar of immortality produced in the brain.
Normally this secretion is destroyed by normal body function but yogic
manipulations such as the headstand and kerchari mudra preserve and
cultivate this substance.
During kerchari mudra, the tongue, artificially lengthened
over years of ardent discipline inserts back and up into the nasal passage
to block the normal flow of rasum. Such a practice is thought to function
like the golden fleece to preserve health and even restore lost youth.
The greatest Hindu sages write about the spiritual
accomplishment of Gnosis using the metaphor of the philosopher's stone.
Jnaneshwar (1275-1296) certainly one of the foremost saints of the past
millennium wrote an exquisite commentary on the Bhagavad Gita, Hinduism's
central scripture. He composed this work at the age of fourteen, without
formal education by direct knowledge resulting from Divine grace. He
describes with unparalleled depth the symptoms of bodily transformation
effected by the yogic process of spiritual awakening. His commentary
contains no less than 17 references to the philosopher's stone that
explicitly transmutes base metal into gold. Often these references describe
the way divine grace transforms its recipient.
The seventh century South Indian sage, Thirumoolar in his
classic, Thirumandiram, an esoteric masterpiece of 3000 verses,
explains man's path to immortal divinity. In verse 2709 he declares that the
name of God, Siva, is an alchemical vehicle that turns the body into
immortal gold. His poetry resonates with the deathless nature of spiritual
attainment.
Another great South Indian saint, Ramalinga Swamigal
(1823-1874) dissolved his perfected body into blinding white light just as
another earlier sage, Manickavasagar had done in the seventh century. As a
child Ramalingar delivered brilliant scriptural discourses and commentaries
without any formal education. He too claimed direct knowledge bestowed by
divine grace. In his classic testimony, The Divine Song of Grace,
Ramalinga describes the transmutation of his dense physical body into a body
of light:
"Oh God! The Eternal Love, just to bestow upon me the golden
body, You,
Universal Love, have merged with my heart, allowing yourself to be infused
in me.
Oh Supreme Love, You with the Light of Grace have alchemised my body".
Canto 6, Chapter 1, Verse 480
This verse resounds with the import of the gesture of
alchemical projection where a minute quantity of the philosopher's stone
transmutes molten base metal into gold. Ramalinga's body cast no shadow and
attempts to photograph him revealed only his clothing. The esoteric level of
such accomplishment defies any attempt at vain academic analysis.
So too, a deeper understanding of the quest of Jason and the
Argonauts defies the limit of ivory tower scholarship. The golden fleece
beckons to every man as a road map of the soul's origin and ultimate
destiny. Exhaustive study of the map will always be an optional first step.
Genuine accomplishment emerges only when we take up the quest and join Jason
on his hero's journey.
SELECTED BIBLIOGRAPHY:
Dobbs, Betty Jo Teeter, The Foundations of
Newton's
Alchemy or The Hunting of the Green Lyon.
Cambridge, 1975
Faivre, Antoine, The Golden Fleece and Alchemy, SUNY, Albany, N.Y.
1993
Jnanadeva, Sri, (Jnanashwar), Bhavartha Dipika, also known as the
Jnanashwari, Samata, Madras, 1954
Natarajan, B., editor-translator, Thirumoolar's Thirumandiram, ITES,
Madras,1979
Pernety, Antoine-Joseph, An Alchemical Treatise on the Great Art,
Weiser, York Beach, ME. 1995
Sansonese, J. Nigro, The Body of Myth: Mythology, Shamanic Trance and the
Sacred Geography of the Body, Inner Traditions International, Rochester,
VT. 1994
Srinavasan, C., An Introduction to the Philosophy of Ramalinga,
Ilakkia Nilayam, Tiruchi, 1968.
Borrowed
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Joseph Caezza