For male and female have from of old been regarded as one body, not from any external or visible consideration, but on account of the ardor of that mutual love which naturally draws them together into one; and as the male and female seed jointly represent the principle of propagation, so also the sperm of the matter out of which our Stone is made can be sown and increased. There are in our substance two supplementary kinds of seed, from which our Stone may be prepared and multiplied.
If you are a true lover of our Art, you will carefully weigh and ponder these words, lest, with other sophisticators, you fall into the dangerous pit prepared by the common enemy of man. But whence are you to obtain this seed? This question you may most easily answer by asking yourself another question. What do you want to develop from this seed, and what use do you wish to make of it? There can be no doubt, then that it must be the root, or first substance, of metals, from which all metals derive their origin. It is, therefore, necessary that we should now proceed to speak of the generation of the metals.
– Basil Valentine
Alchemy is Al-Chemy. Al is Allah, or El, the God of Light. Therefore, Alchemy is the Chemistry of God. True Alchemy does not have to do with what the scholar at your local academic institution may tell you it is. Intellectuals who have no practical alchemical experience state that Alchemy is the chemical proto-science that existed before the development of the scientific method. The esoteric philosophy rejects that definition because Alchemy is not concerned with turning physical lead into gold. The esoteric philosopher has been caught saying, “
Chemistry is the bastard child of Alchemy” because in many ways chemistry was born from those who did not understand what Alchemy actually was. Chemistry and Alchemy serve different purposes.
Alchemy is a divine science, chemistry is a natural science. Chemistry studies matter while alchemy works to transform it. Chemistry cannot make new life – even an
in vitro fertilization needs an egg and sperm from parents. Alchemy, however, works with the egg and sperm directly in the Interior Lab (physical body). Therefore only alchemy can create life and it can transform creation itself; it is an exact science to transmute the psychological lead into the finest quality gold. The wise man throughout history has known Alchemy is a spiritual allegory for a revolutionary psychology that first burns the ego into ashes and later raises the Phoenix, the Christified Soul. There are many historical alchemists, but not all of them were true alchemists. Some of them knew the key, and some of them did not know the key. The key of alchemy is sex and the work of the Inner Lab takes place within the sexual act itself.
To read the works of Paracelsus, Nicolas Flamel, Basil Valentine, and many others requires the Alchemical Key to extract any true knowledge out of them. These venerable men wrote in deep symbolic terms. Thus, its meaning has always been hidden.
To each creature God gave its own seed, wherewith to propagate its kind, that in this way there might always be an increase of men and animals, plants and metals. Man was not to be able to produce new seed: he was only permitted to educe new forms of life out of that which already existed. The creating of seed God reserved to Himself For if man could create seed he would be equal to the Creator.
Know that our seed is produced in the following way. A celestial influence descends from above, by the decree and ordinance of God, and mingles with the astral proper ties. When this union has taken place, the two bring forth a third namely, an earth-like substance, which is the principle of our seed, of its first source, so that it can shew an ancestry, and from which three the elements, such as water, air, and earth, take their origin. These elements work underground in the form of fire, and there produce what Hermes, and all who have preceded me, call the three first principles, viz., the internal soul, the impalpable spirit, and visible bodies, beyond which we can find no earlier beginning of our Magistery.
In the course of time these three unite, and are changed through the action of fire into a palpable substance, viz., quicksilver, sulphur, and salt. If these three substances be mixed, they are hardened and coagulated into a perfect body, which represents the seed chosen and appointed by the Creator. This is a most important and certain truth. If the metallic soul, the metallic spirit, and the metallic form of body be present, there will also be metallic quicksilver, metallic sulphur, and metallic salt, which together make up the perfect metallic body.
If you cannot perceive what you ought to understand herein, you should not devote yourself to the study of philosophy.
– Basil Valentine
We see here that we are speaking about the seed; sex.
The three principle Alchemical elements are Mercury (Quicksilver), Sulfur, and Salt. These three elements constitute the Water, the Fire, and the Earth. The Water is the
Ens Seminis (the sexual energy), the Fire is the Fohat, the Spirit (INRI: Fire Renews Nature Incessaintly). These elements must be worked in cooperation with each other in order to perform the Great Work. We must remember that Mercury (Hermes) is the messenger of Christ; thus astrologically he is the closest one to the Sun. The Mercury (sexual energy) must be transformed into the Sulfur (the spirit) through the medium of the Earth (salt; the physical body). The Sulfur must fecundate the Mercury to regenerate the Earth. We heat the mercury in order to purify it. The erotic coals of sexual alchemy burn away the psychological impurities of the aspirant.
The Alchemist knows that the Mercury, the Sulfur and the Salt are always interacting, it is therefore necessary to work these elements. If the Alchemist does not properly work the Mercury, it becomes Dry Mercury. The Dry Mercury is the ego. The Dry Mercury creates Arsenic Sulfur, or passionate fire, egoic-fire: desire, lust, etc. Let us remember that the sexual energy (fire) is always in movement, either regeneratively or degeneratively, thus, the Mercury will fecundate the Sulfur positively (Metallic Spirit) or negatively (Arsenic Sulfur).
The strength of all powers is sex.
Separate that spirituous earth (the Essence or Buddhata) from the dense or crude (ego) by means of a gentle heat (of sexual alchemy), with much attention.
In great measure it ascends from the earth up to heaven, and descends again, newborn, on the earth, and the superior and the inferior are increased in power.
By this wilt thou partake of the honours of the whole world. And (psychological) Darkness will fly from thee.
This is the strength of all powers. With this thou wilt be able to overcome all things and transmute all what is fine and what is coarse
– Hermes Trismegistus
Hermes is the founder of Alchemy in this civilization.
The Bible is an Alchemical discourse. The Bible begins with the Water (
Genesis; Hydro-
gen and Oxy-
gen). Water is the source of all creations, which is why in order create, Jehovah Elohim moved over the Genesiac waters. It is stated in the Bible that Peter walked on the waters. What does it mean to walk on the waters? Practical analysis exuberantly qualifies that to walk on the waters of life is to transform the impressions of life.
When someone gives us an ugly, or hateful impression, the sleeping consciousness, the Dry Mercury, responds with more hate. However, if one sacrifices their own desire to act negatively, to instead act with compassion, that liberates energy that allows for a psychological transformation. The transformation of impressions is Alchemy.
The impressions, the sensations, must be worked with. Do not throw out or reject the sensations of life. Sensation itself is neither good nor evil. Only the mind is good or evil. We must comprehend our sensations. We have to work with the water (Genesis, creative energy, sexual energy) to walk on the water.
Without comprehension, we fall into the waters. The mind has been stuffed to the brim with false concepts (Dry Mercury) throughout the many lives it has lived. Meditate on the complexity of the mind. One will realize that it is impossible that such an intricate, dense, and complicated labyrinth of an “I” could not be developed in the short number of years accumulated in a single life. The ultra complexity of our own psychology is due to the complication of many lives, not just a single life. Because of our endless convolutions of ego, we contain many concepts in the mind that do not have any reality. The mind we have is full of doubt, uncertainty, criticism, arrogance, fear, pride, etc., etc., but, nowhere in the mind will knowledge be found. Knowledge belongs to the consciousness.
Nevertheless, we must use the mind as the practical instrument that it is. The mind was not constructed to serve doubt, or hate, or pride or lust into the world. The mind is just a tool, a binary operator that divides the Is from the Is Not. The mind labels everything as what it is, and by the absence of a label, what it is not. In the end, we have nothing more than concepts and labels. Consciousness, on the other hand, acquires knowledge through experience. The mind works through the consciousness. The fuel of the mind is the consciousness. When the consciousness gets trapped in the concepts of the mind, the ego is the result.
The waters of life are triumphantly walked upon when the consciousness is in complete equilibrium. To identify with the impressions of life is failure. When we fall into the waters of life, then we become a servant of nature. The true King of Creation is that person who nature serves. In order to conquer nature, we must conquer our own interior nature. If we are slaves to our own nature, if we contain the ego, then we remain servants of nature, within and without. Moses was a true magician, a King of Nature. This is how he parted the waters.
An esoteric application of the waters of life brings us to sex. The water is in synthesis the Sexual Waters. When Jesus walked on the waters, he told us that we must have willpower over the sexual waters: the ability to command our animal intellect, our animal emotion and our animal sexuality, instead of being commanded
by them. It was Peter who followed because it is he who represents the Philosophical Stone (Peter = Cephas = Stone) spoken of by the Alchemists. When one purifies themselves through alchemy, they form a solid foundation (Yesod) for the awakening of consciousness. The Great Arcanum is the dual nature of the
Key of Peter that Dante speaks of.
Up the steps my master guided me
Benevolently, saying: “Ask him now,
In all humility, to turn the key.”
Falling devoutly at his holy feet,
In mercy’s name I begged to be let in;
but, first of all, three times I smote my breast.
Then with the sword he traced upon my brow
the scares of seven P’s. “Once entered here,
be sure you cleanse away these wounds,” he said.
Ashes, or earth when it is dug up dry-
this was the color of the robe he wore;
he reached beneath them and drew out two keys.
One key was silver and the other gold;
first he applied the white one, then the yellow-
with that the gate responded to my wish.
“Whenever either one of these two keys
fails to turn properly inside the lock,
and angel said, “the road ahead stays closed.”
One is more precious, but the other needs
wisdom and skill before it will unlock,
for it is that one which unties the knot.
I hold these from Peter, who advised:
‘Admit too many, rather than too few,
If they but cast themselves before your feet.’”
– Purgatory Canto IX
The seven P’s remind us of the Seven Sins, the mark of the beast. They are upon our head, in other words, our mind, our ego. The ego is the seven headed dragon that must be beheaded. The wound that must be washed is our own ego.
The key is twofold, meaning Man and Woman. Man is solar, Gold. Woman is Lunar, silver. Peter was crucified, inverted, reminding us that we must descend to the Ninth Sphere. The Ninth Sphere of the Tree of Life is literally sex (birth, Yesod), and the Ninth Sphere of Hell is the sphere of final destruction (of ego). The Key of Peter is the synthesis of death and birth, the movement of opposite extremes. The Key of Peter is sex.
The Cross of the Christ is sex: it is the cross of the Lingam-Yoni. The occultist knows that to reference the cross means we must work with the Sexual Creative Force.
We have to descend before we ascend. In other words, Jesus had to die before going to Heaven. Likewise Osiris, Orpheus and Hercules had to descend before ascending because the Drama of the Christ resounds itself in every culture. The descent is into Hell with Lucifer. Lucifer is the temptation of Christ, but, without Lucifer-Prometheus, there is no Light. Without the fire of temptation there is no triumph of light. Satan himself is within our infraconsciousness, our own personal inferno. Prometheus is bound the hard rock of sex. When we “whitewash” the dark brass into immaculate whiteness, then Satan-Lucifer (sexual desire) transforms into Venus-Lucifer (Love). Then, Prometheus’ torment ends because Hercules (Christ) saves him!
The Key is therefore sexual, and in order to transform the sexual energy we must not waste it. The Key of Alchemy, the Supreme Secret of all traditions, of the Masons, the Rosicrucians, all authentic Initiatic orders, the Gnostics, the Egyptians, the Tibetans, the White Lodges of all times is the following:
Inmisium membrum virilin vaginae femina, sine ejaculatium seminus. “The connection of the phallus and uterus without the ejaculation of semen.” This is how we transform Water into Wine!
Jung used this method in secret during the latter years of his life.
When the virile member is placed within the yoni a certain type of energy is manifested. This is the Holy Spirit, the Creator-Destroyer. When this manifestation is not wasted in a moment of passion, when it is not lost in animal sexuality and fornication, this energy can be used in the self realization of the being. It is White Sexual Magic, Urdhvarata, Maithuna. This act is terribly divine and the one who intelligently makes use of it can create themselves anew.
There may be a disucssion thread at this forum on the topic of sex and spirituality- a large complex topic in itself. the writings you provided above are suggestive of certain Tantric practices whithin both Hindu and Tibetan Buddhist practice-the "left-hand path." Certainly, Vajradhara would be better informed than me to elucidate that history, but my limited understanding re these traditions' actual use of sexualized practice, was that it was seldom suggested to practitioners and when used used only by those who had already progressed quite far spiritually due to the difficulty in using the strong desires of sexuality in a transmuted way to further enlightenment-i.e., it may only reinforce lust not enlarge awareness without a very developed awareness to begin with. I'm not aware that Jung ever attempted to use such practices though like many luminaries in authority, including Christian clergy and Buddhist monks, had lapses of ethics when it came to sex, sleeping with a number of his "discliples." However, unlike Freud who spek of "libido" or a sexualized energy being the primary emotional force propelling personality development, Jung did not give primacy to sexual energy. It seems though that no matter how "evolved" the individual, sexual energy often is a problematic one to manage approriately throughout life.
