RAJAS: The vegetal nature shown by movability. (Sulphur, in alchemy.)

(See also: RAJAS, Magick, Mysticism, Mysticism Dictionary, Body Mind and Soul, )

SATTVAS: The animal nature as lit by balance, harmony, luminosity. The  guna of transcendence. (In alchemy: mercury.)

(See also: SATTVAS, Magick, Mysticism, Mysticism Dictionary, Body Mind and Soul, )

MERCURY

Alchemical mercury is the universal aspect of a substance, as distinguished from its individual character (sulphur). For instance, in herbal alchemy, mercury is always methyl alcohol, which is the "spirit" that is equally obtainable from all plants. Whereas the plant's oil or "elixir" is always unique. In mineral alchemy, mercury is quicksilver. In animal alchemy, mercury is consciousness (or the élan vital).

(See also: MERCURY, Magick, Mysticism, Mysticism Dictionary, Body Mind and Soul, )

Asch Metzareph (Hebrew, Jewish). The Cleansing Fire, a Kabbalistic treatise, treating of Alchemy and the relation between the metals and the planets. [w.w.w]

(See also: Asch Metzareph, Theosophy, Spirituality, Body mind and Soul, Spiritual Dictionary, )

Adamic Earth (Alch.). Called the "true oil of gold" or the "primal element" in Alchemy. It is but one remove from the pure homogeneous element.

(See also: Adamic Earth, Theosophy, Spirituality, Body mind and Soul, Spiritual Dictionary, )

Lapis philosophorum (Latin). The "Philosopher’s stone"; a mystic term in alchemy, having quite a different meaning from that usually attributed to it.

(See also: Lapis philosophorum, Theosophy, Spirituality, Body mind and Soul, Spiritual Dictionary, )

Balahala The fifth degree in the inferior Egyptian Mysteries; instruction in alchemy under the tuition of Horus was the principal feature of this degree, the word being chemia (Khemi was the old name of Egypt).

(See also: Balahala, Mysticism, Mysticism Dictionary, Occultism, Occultism Dictionary)

OCCULT ("hidden, concealed"): Secret, esoteric; term used for magick and other esoteric arts and sciences, such as astrology or alchemy.

(See also: OCCULT, Magickal Traditions, Magickal Paths, Paganism, Pagan Dictionary)

HANSA (KALAHAMSA)

White goose or swan, vehicle of the Asvins. Corresponds in the West to the pelican of alchemy.

(See also: HANSA, KALAHAMSA, Magick, Mysticism, Mysticism Dictionary, Body Mind and Soul, )

SANKHYA

The ancient Hindu philosophy which exerted the strongest influence on Buddhism. Created by Kapila in 600 B.C., it reveals how the Kosmos has been engaged in a dualistic war between Prakriti (physical nature, matter or reality) and Purusha ("Person," Soul of the Universe, Archetypal man, Brahma, spirit, etc.). In the end, Purusha and Prakriti must be re-united in order to set in motion the world's evolution. Essential teaching is also encountered in Zoroastrianism, Gnosticism and contemporary psychiatry. The hallmarks of Prakriti, as follows, are known as gunas and they can be related perfectly to Alchemy:

TAMAS: The mineral nature characterized by heaviness, inertia,  indifference, inactivity, and delusion. (Salt, in alchemy.)

RAJAS: The vegetal nature shown by movability. (Sulphur, in alchemy.)

SATTVAS: The animal nature as lit by balance, harmony, luminosity. The  guna of transcendence. (In alchemy: mercury.)

(See also: SANKHYA, Magick, Mysticism, Mysticism Dictionary, Body Mind and Soul, )

Mater (Latin) Mother; used in the categories of alchemy as one of the triad flamma, natura, mater; corresponding to sulphur, mercury, salt; or to spirit, water, and blood. Also used in conjunction with other names, meaning mother.

(See also: Mater, Mysticism, Mysticism Dictionary)

Mysterium Magnum (Latin). "The great Mystery", a term used in Alchemy in connection with the fabrication of the "Philosopher’s Stone" and the " Elixir of Life".

(See also: Mysterium Magnum, Theosophy, Spirituality, Body mind and Soul, Spiritual Dictionary, )

Magnum Opus (Latin) The great work; in medieval and modern times an alchemical term for the making of the philosopher's stone and the elixir of life; an achievement which, as with alchemy generally, may be regarded as being accomplished either in the laboratory of human nature among the elements of man's constitution, or in a brick and mortar laboratory with chemicals.

(See also: Magnum Opus, Mysticism, Mysticism Dictionary, Occultism, Occultism Dictionary)

Bacon, Roger (1214?-1294) English philosopher and natural scientists, Franciscan monk who experimented with alchemy and optics and was accused of practicing black magic. Confined in Paris by his order for ten years over heretical writings, and later again from 1278-92. {IU; SD; BCW}

(See also: Bacon, Roger, Mysticism, Mysticism Dictionary, Occultism, Occultism Dictionary)

Athenagoras Second century Christian apologist and philosopher, said to have been influenced by Ammonius Saccus and to have been "thoroughly instructed in the Platonic philosophy, and comprehended its essential unity with the oriental systems" (Wilder, New Platonism and Alchemy, p. 3-4) (BCW 14:305-8).

(See also: Athenagoras, Mysticism, Mysticism Dictionary, Occultism, Occultism Dictionary)

Spiritus (Latin) Breath, air, spirit; in medieval European alchemy it corresponds with fire and sulfur in the triad of sulfur, mercury, and salt -- or spirit, soul, and body. With the Nazarenes, the female aspect of the anima mundi, the manifested part as contrasted with its unmanifest or divine aspect.

(See also: Spiritus, Mysticism, Mysticism Dictionary, Body mind and Soul)

Adamic Earth or Adam's Earth The "original matter" of alchemy; undifferentiated matter on our plane. Called the true oil of gold or the primal element in alchemy, "it is but one remove from the pure homogeneous element" (TG 6). It is the "next-door neighbor to the alkahest, and one of the most important secrets of the alchemists. . . . 'it would explain the eagles of the alchemists, and how the eagles' wings are clipped,' a secret that it took Thomas Vaughan (Eugenius Philalethes) twenty years to learn" (IU 1:51).

(See also: Adamic Earth, Adam's Earth, Mysticism, Mysticism Dictionary, Occultism, Occultism Dictionary)

Alchemists; From Al and Chemi, fire, or the god and patriarch, Kham, also, the name of Egypt.

The Rosicrucians of the middle ages, such as Robertus de Fluctibus (Robert Fludd), Paracelsus, Thomas Vaughan (Eugenius Philalethes), Van Helmont, and others, were all alchemists, who sought for the hidden spirit in every inorganic matter.

Some people -  nay, the great majority - have accused alchemists of charlatanry and false pretending. Surely such men as Roger Bacon, Agrippa, Henry Khunrath, and the Arabian Geber (the first to introduce into Europe some of the secrets of chemistry), can hardly he treated as impostors -  least of all as fools.

Scientists who are reforming the science of physics upon the basis of the atomic theory of Democritus, as restated by John Dalton, conveniently forget that Democritus, of Abdera, was an alchemist, and that the mind that was capable of penetrating so far into the secret operations of nature in one direction must have had good reasons to study and become a Hermetic philosopher. Olaus Borrichius says that the cradle of alchemy is to be sought in the most distant times. (Isis Unveiled).

Alchemy ; in Arabic Ul-Khemi, is, as the name suggests, the chemistry of nature. Ui-Khemi or Al-Kimia, however, is only an Arabianized word, taken from the Greek chemeia, (chemeia) from cumoz -  "juice", sap extracted from a plant.

Says Dr. Wynn Westcott: "The earliest use of the actual term ‘alchemy’ is found in the works of Julius Firmicus Maternus, who lived in the days of Constantine the Great. The Imperial Library in Paris contains the oldest-extant alchemic treatise known in Europe;it was written by Zosimus the Panopolite about 400 A.D. in the Greek language, the next oldest is by Eneas Gazeus, 480 A.D."

It deals with the finer forces of nature and the various conditions in which they are found to operate. Seeking under the veil of language, more or less artificial, to convey to the uninitiated so much of the mysterium magnum as is safe in the hands of a selfish world, the alchemist postulates as his first principle the existence of a certain Universal Solvent by which all composite bodies are resolved into the homogeneous substance from which they are evolved, which substance he calls pure gold, or summa materia. This solvent, also called menstvuum universale, possesses the power of removing all the seeds of disease from the human body, of renewing youth and prolonging life. Such is the lapis philosophorum (philosopher’s stone).

Alchemy first penetrated into Europe through Geber, the great Arabian sage and philosopher, in the eighth century of our era; but it was known and practised long ages ago in China and in Egypt, numerous papyri on alchemy and other proofs of its being the favourite study of kings and priests having been exhumed and preserved under the generic name of Hermetic treatises. (See "Tabula Smaragdina"). Alchemy is studied under three distinct aspects, which admit of many different interpretations, viz.: the Cosmic, Human, and Terrestrial. These three methods were typified under the three alchemical properties - sulphur, mercury, and salt.

Different writers have stated that there are three, seven, ten, and twelve processes respectively; but they are all agreed that there is but one object in alchemy, which is to transmute gross metals into pure gold. What that gold, however, really is, very few people understand correctly. No doubt that there is such a thing in nature as transmutation of the baser metals into the nobler, or gold. But this is only one aspect of alchemy, the terrestrial or purely material, for we sense logically the same process taking place in the bowels of the earth. Yet, besides and beyond this interpretation, there is in alchemy a symbolical meaning, purely psychic and spiritual.

While the Kabbalist-Alchemist seeks for the realization of the former, the Occultist-Alchemist, spurning the gold of the mines, gives all his attention and directs his efforts only towards the transmutation of the baser quaternary into the divine upper trinity of man, which when finally blended are one. The spiritual, mental, psychic, and physical planes of human existence are in alchemy compared to the four elements, fire, air, water and earth, and are each capable of a threefold constitution, i.e., fixed, mutable and volatile.

Little or nothing is known by the word concerning the origin of this archaic branch of philosophy; but it is certain that it antedates the construction of any known Zodiac, and, as dealing with the personified forces of nature, probably also any of the mythologies of the world; nor is there any doubt that the true secret of transmutation (on the physical plane) was known in days of old, and lost before the dawn of the so-called historical period. Modern chemistry owes its best fundamental discoveries to alchemy, but regardless of the undeniable truism of the latter that there is but one element in the universe, chemistry has placed metals in the class of elements and is only now beginning to find out its gross mistake.

Even sonic Encyclopedists are now forced to confess that if most of the accounts of transmutations are fraud or delusion, "yet some of them are accompanied by testimony which renders them probable. . . By means of the galvanic battery even the alkalis have been discovered to have a metallic base.

The possibility of obtaining metal from other substances which contain the ingredients composing it, and of changing one metal into another . . . must therefore be left undecided. Nor are all alchemists to be considered impostors. Many have laboured under the conviction of obtaining their object, with indefatigable patience and purity of heart, which is earnestly recommended by sound alchemists as the principal requisite for the success of their labours."

(Pop. Encyclop.)

(See also: Alchemists, Theosophy, Spirituality, Body mind and Soul, Spiritual Dictionary, )

Occultist. One who studies the various branches of occult science. The term is used by the French Kabbalists (See Eliphas Lévi’s works). Occultism embraces the whole range of psychological, physiological, cosmical, physical, and spiritual phenomena. From the word occultus hidden or secret. It therefore applies to the study of the Kabbalah, astrology, alchemy, and all arcane sciences.

(See also: Occultist, Theosophy, Spirituality, Body mind and Soul, Spiritual Dictionary, )

Magnum Opus (Latin). In Alchemy the final completion, the "Great Labour" or Grand Œuvre; the production of the "Philosopher’s Stone" and "Elixir of Life" which, though not by far the myth some sceptics would have it, has yet to be accepted symbolically, and is full of mystic meaning.

(See also: Magnum Opus, Theosophy, Spirituality, Body mind and Soul, Spiritual Dictionary, )

Bono, Peter. A Lombardian; a great adept in the Hermetic Science, who travelled to Persia to study Alchemy. Returning from his voyage he settled in Istria in 1330, and became famous as a Rosicrucian. A Calabrian monk named Lacinius is credited with having published in 1702 a condensed version of Bono’s works on the transmutation of metals. There is, however, more of Lacinius than of Bono in the work. Bono was a genuine adept and an Initiate ; and such do not leave their secrets behind them in MSS.

(See also: Bono, Peter, Theosophy, Spirituality, Body mind and Soul, Spiritual Dictionary, )