Green Earth Foundation Essays by Ralph Metzner

Alchemy, descended from shamanism, is the ancient art and science of elemental transformation. The historian of religion Mircea Eliade posited in his book The Forge and the Crucible that alchemy grew historically out of the work of shamanic miners, smiths and metallurgists. They were the masters of fire, who knew how to extract metals (like copper, tin, iron, gold, silver) from stone, blend them into alloys such as bronze, and make tools (like adz, hammer, plow), weapons (like spear, sword, dagger, shield) and ornaments (like necklace, bracelet, crown, ring). In the archaic and classical period the knowledge of metal-working, because of its obvious connection to power and wealth, was preserved in secrecy and handed down in craft-guilds from master to student. Such technical knowledge was regarded as magical by ordinary people, because it seemed to involve inexplicable mastery of natural forces. The crafts of masonry, which uses mineral stones in building, and medicine, which uses mineral extracts in healing (as well as metal tools in surgery), were parallel and associated secret societies. All three movements developed an esoteric component concerned with practices of spiritual self-transformation.

A popular misconception is that alchemy was solely and futilely concerned with the transmutation of base metals to gold. In actuality, it is clear from alchemical writings that the main focus of most alchemical practicioners was healing and what we would nowadays call psychotherapy: the transmutation of the physical and psychic condition of the human being – starting with oneself. The archaic worldview was holistic – the physical, psychic, spiritual and cosmic dimensions of life were seen in their wholeness, not as separate fields. As such, alchemy can be considered a specialized extension of the shamanic traditions of healing and transformation dating from the Old Stone Age. Shamans too had specialized knowledge of plants and mineral substances, including crystals, and secret initiatory knowledge of the spiritual dimensions. They negotiated with the normally inaccessible spirits of nature and the ancestors on behalf of their clients.

Alchemists, like shamans, worked with spirits, in particular the spirits of the elements (air, fire, earth and water) and certain deities (Hephaistos for the Greeks, Vulcanus for the Romans) that were the guides and teachers of mining and smithing. In Germanic-Norse mythology, the spirits of stone, metal and fire were called the “black elves” (Schwarzalben) or dwarves. These dwarves, like the giants who are the spirits of vast natural aggregates like mountains, forests, rivers and storms, were neither benevolent nor malevolent toward humans. They were said to have their own agenda, neutral in regard to human welfare or survival. But one could communicate with them and learn from them, if one had the access codes, so to speak. We can see in this ancient mythic conception an understanding of the principle that the knowledge of natural forces and tools is morally neutral: it can be used for good, in the service of the Divine and of life; but when used for personal aggrandizement, domination and enrichment at the expense of others, it becomes sorcery, the “dark side”.

Oversimplifying somewhat, one could say that alchemy and yoga are the Western and Eastern extensions and developments of Paleolithic shamanism respectively: all three are systematic technologies of physico-psychic-spiritual transformation. Alchemy does exist in the Indian spiritual tradition: it is called rasayana, “the way of cultivating essence (rasa)”, and is an integral part of ayurvedic healing and tantric yoga. Alchemy is also known in Chinese Taoism, where it is an integral aspect of the Taoist preoccupations with longevity (called “immortality”) and the yogic practices of recycling sexual energies for regeneration. It appears that in the Indian and Chinese traditions, physical, psychic and spiritual transformation all remained more connected, even although sub-schools and movements arose which focussed on one or another aspect. In the West, the psychic and spiritual aspects of human elemental transformation experienced an amazing flowering in the Hermetic traditions which arose in Egyptian, Hellenistic and Arabic lands during the classical era, and flourished well into medieval times in Christian Europe. It was then suppressed, along with astrology, magic and witchcraft (the mostly feminine herbal medicine traditions) during the advent of the scientific, experimental method – leaving only chemistry, divorced from all psychic and spiritual considerations, as the inheritor of this ancient holistic science and art.

The word “alchemy” comes from the Arabic al kimiya – “the science of the black earth land”. Kam, or Kem, “Black Earth”, was the ancient Egyptian name for their land, referring to the very fertile black earth along the Nile after the seasonal floods. It was the land of the Black Goddess (Nut, Isis, Hathor), who transmuted into the Black Madonna in Christian times. The name points to the Egyptian origin of alchemy. In the Hellenistic period, Hermes (Thoth to the Egyptians, Mercury to the Romans) emerged as the main deity or spirit guide of the alchemical work of transformation. Thoth (or Tjehuti) was the scientist, scribe and record keeper among the gods. Hermes/Mercury was the divine messenger, carrying knowledge between the divine and human worlds – thus the practice of divination. Mercury the metal, also called quicksilver, because of its highly mobile, fluid characteristics, became symbolically associated with the mind or awareness. Like quicksilver, the mind can slip and slide to strange elusive places, but it can also shine with sparkling brilliance. In addition to Hermes the god, there was also a legendary human spiritual teacher, called Hermes Trismegistos (“Three-fold Great Hermes”) who initiated a whole school of secret knowledge of self-transformation practices. The secrecy was so profound that the term “hermetically sealed” is still the symbolic expression of absolute secrecy. The teachings of the school were not secret arbitrarily or for reasons of power and control, as sometimes assumed: rather, they were secret, like esoteric yogic and shamanic practices are kept secret, because misuse of the knowledge by those motivated by greed or power could have harmful consequences.

European alchemy became known as the Hermetic tradition: while one strand of this knowledge stream concerned itself with the transformation of physical matter, the making of tools, medicines and instruments, the esoteric, mystical core of it were the practices of psychospiritual self-transformation. Because of the persecutory dominance of the Catholic Church, such practices, like the practices of shamanic witchcraft, were shrouded in secrecy. Texts were written and illustrated, but in a symbolic code, the keys to which were largely lost, and which therefore became increasingly garbled. It remained to C.G. Jung and his followers, in the 20^th century, to recover the lost language of alchemy and re-interpret it as referring to psychospiritual transformation using symbolic and imaginal processes. Four of the twenty or so volumes of Jung’s Collected Works, are essentially alchemical texts: Psychology and Alchemy, Alchemical Studies, Aion and Mysterium Coniunctionis. In such works Jung interprets the opus or work of alchemy as being the individuation process – moving toward wholeness; the alchemical vessel, or athanor, is the psyche, both individual and collective, in which these transformative processes are taking place. From my studies of Alchemical Yoga, the working with light-fire energies, akin to Indo-Tibetan and Chinese practices, I would add only that the alchemical vessel should be understood to refer also to the physical body and subtle energy-field, and not merely the mental-emotional psyche, -- in other words, the entire set of interrelated energy-systems constituting the human being. The human energy-systems, which can also be thought of as “personality systems”, are the multi-layered vessel, container, body, or sheath (koshas in Yoga) for the immortal Soul, Spirit, or Essence.

In tracing the historical roots of alchemy to shamanic knowledge-seeking traditions I asked myself what happened to the understanding and practice of altered states of consciousness – the “shamanic journey” to acquire healing knowledge and power, -- the central technical process in shamanism. We must remember that shamanic practices arose in hunter-gatherer societies, particularly among hunters. Thus the metaphor of the journey -- riding on an animal or transformed into one -- is a natural choice to describe the process of divination – which is seeking knowledge for healing or guidance.

The first alchemists, by contrast, were craftsmen (they called themselves artists) in the fields of mining and smithing, as well as, to a lesser extent, health practicioners using herbs, plants and fungi. So their preferred term for the work of self-transformation, was in fact opus - “the work”. They also referred to it as the Art, or Our Art. The various operations of the alchemical work and art are metaphors for the intentional processes of self- transformation, at the mental, emotional, perceptual and physical levels. For example, the operation called solutio or “dissolving,” which was represented in alchemical literature by the image of a man sitting in a hot tub, is a metaphor for the process of dissolving the physico-psychic armoring and defensive structures that block and distort the flow of life energy. The purification of substances using fire or heat is metaphor for the refinement of thought and perception using the purification methods of yogic inner fire (called purificatio) The operation of coniunctio, the conjunction of Sun and Moon, or King and Queen, to which Jung devoted his most massive tome, is a metaphor for the integration of masculine and feminine energies, or animus and anima, within the psyche. The Jungian psychotherapist Edward Edinger, in his book Anatomy of the Psyche, offers insightful interpretations and symbolic elaborations of these alchemical operations and others, including calcinatio, coagulatio, mortificatio, purificatio, sublimatio and separatio.

Though the dictionary defines divination as “the art or act of foretelling future events by alleged supernatural agency,” this is a misleading definition. I would define it as the practice of seeking healing, insight and guidance from higher dimensional, inner sources commonly called the spirit world or divine world (hence the term divination). In most people’s minds, the concept of divination involves symbolic systems such as the Tarot, the I Ching, the Nordic Runes, astrology, or the reading of patterns of stones or bones. These can be considered divination accessories or tools. The esssential process in divination involves a querent asking questions and the diviner obtaining answers, by non-rational, non-analytical means. In the inner traditions of shamanism and alchemy the querent and the diviner are one and the same person, accessories are dispensed with, and one taps into direct intuitive knowing -- about the past, the hidden present or probable futures. Modern individuals, trained in a scientific outlook, often shy away from divinatory practices, fearing to give any credence to what they consider ignorant supersition.

It should be understood though that divination about the future, also known as augury, prophecy, presentiment, foresight, or visioning is not foretelling or predicting. The future, unlike the past, is probabilistic and the visions sought in a vision quest or entheogenic ceremony are not inner movies passively received – they are instructions or guidance involving the individual in possible or likely future situations. Ordinary people, especially business people, do this kind of anticipation or projection of future trends all the time – and there are scientific books and conferences about various approaches to doing this, called forecasting, scenarios, trend analysis and the like. The chief difference in shamanic, hermetic and other esoteric traditions is that one goes into a mild altered state to do the divinatory questioning, attempting to rise out of the inevitably limited, normal time-space framework of the querent. In the shamanic knowledge-seeking and visionary traditions one poses questions to the spirits with which one is allied; or, we could say psychologically, the questions are addressed to the Higher Self.

So alchemical divination is divination focussed on questions of personal and collective transformation, in relation to the past, the hidden present and the probable paths to the future. It uses alchemical symbolism to frame the question and answer process; and it uses alchemical light-fire yogic methods to clarify perception. Divinatory questions about healing always involve looking into the past, to diagnose or find the causal root of illness, pain, trauma or unresolved problem. We may look, as Western medicine does, for the cause of infection, or germ, or virus, or bacteria or wounding or trauma – where something came into the system that was disruptive. Or we may look, as many indigenous traditions do, for the causal link to deliberate sorcery or the splitting off of a psychic identity fragment. The past pain or trauma then needs to be integrated into one’s present reality and sense of self, for the healing process to be complete. So healing or therapy involves a double process: regression, for diagnosis and catharsis; and then recollection or remembering, for integration.

A completely parallel situation obtains for the vision- or guidance-seeking process of future divination. One “looks ahead”, down the probability lines of time-and-space, and then brings the visionary inspiration back into the present to be integrated into one’s present sense of self. The young child who envisions him/herself as a doctor in the future, will then need to take the steps, one by one, that lead to being trained in medicine – thereby realizing his vision, his dream. I have come to see anamnestic regression, or memory work, as essentially similar and parallel to divinatory foresight, or visioning work. Maybe memory and visioning are the same brain-mind function – just looking in two different directions, like the two-faced Roman deity Janus – the god of passageways and doorways.

One particular variant of divinatory seeing is “remote viewing,”, which has attracted some notoriety because of its apparent use by the American military in espionage and psychic warfare. In remote viewing an individual attempts to clairvoyantly “see” across the barriers of space and time, toward a pre-determined target, unknown to the remote viewer or the tester. There is no personal involvement or relevance of the target to the individual. In divination the intention or question of the divination guides the process, and that makes it totally personal. The questioner seeks answers to personal questions of the past or the future. In both processes, meditative, centered states are used to facilitate transcending the space-time boundaries.