Hermetic Alchemy

[Gemstone]

Thank you Theurgy for interesting posts and links!

Have you tried using chinese herbs for tinctures/elixirs?

[Cheshire Cat]

I want to ask if someone studied the Book of Lambsprinck and what you can say about the author and his science.

 

http://www.levity.co...y/lambtext.html

Edited December 5, 2012 by DAO rain TAO

[theurgy]

Thank you Theurgy for interesting posts and links!

Have you tried using chinese herbs for tinctures/elixirs?

 

I haven't used strictly chinese herbs per se but the process would be the same. Always make sure to do your research on any plant you intend to use and obtain details from someone with direct experience.

 

That said, I am about to make some tinctures of Reishi mushroom and Fo-Ti and I will provide an update on the results when they are in.

[theurgy]

I want to ask if someone studied the Book of Lambsprinck and what you can say about the author and his science.

 

http://www.levity.co...y/lambtext.html

 

The Book of Lambspring is an important alchemical symbolic text and will provide initiatic inner experiences if worked with sincerely over time. These will provide further insights into alchemical operations. If you are interested in this work, why not meditate on the images? Print them out, hang them on your wall and try to relate to what messages the text is communicating through the images and symbols. Higher concepts require higher language and this is provided by alchemical books of symbols such as the Book of Lambspring.

[Gemstone]

I haven't used strictly chinese herbs per se but the process would be the same. Always make sure to do your research on any plant you intend to use and obtain details from someone with direct experience.

 

That said, I am about to make some tinctures of Reishi mushroom and Fo-Ti and I will provide an update on the results when they are in.

Please do! I would like to hear about it.

I also think that Goji would produce a good amount of alchohol..

To bad I don´t have space (or time) to put up a lab.

But it is on my list!

[RiverSnake]

An excellent discussion on Alchemy in the Wester Tradition enjoy: http://deeper-down-the-rabbit-hole.com/2013/04/episode-100-christopher-bradford-discusses-alchemy/

 

My 2 cents, Peace

[Jonas]

Actually,in my understanding, Hindu Tantra, Daoist Alchemy and Western Alchemy and even cabbalistic alchemy traditions, authentic shamanic tradition with rebirth and initiations, old hermetic "snake / fire - cults" all had the same basic knowledge.

 

Those who say alchemy is about collecting material things, herbs and elements are wrong.

 

Those who interpret alchemy in purely symbolical philosophical, metaphysical and psychological terms are equally wrong on the other end of the extreme.

 

Alchemy is about the practical inner transformation of man to a "reborn heavenly man". Even the historical Jesus Christ taught about this knowledge. He is said to have said to the scholastic priest Nicodemus something like “Unless we become like children again, reborn again as it were from a mother’s womb, we will not enter into the Kingdom of heaven”. Compare this to the Daoist Explanations of our Prenatal Nature (as opposed to the created postnatal ego-nature, which must melt down and leave place for the prenatal / childlike one).

 

So this is my understanding of Western Alchemy and alchemy in general:

 

The laboratory is the body. The Lead and Mercury is different states of the inner energies. However Mercury takes a special place in that it is involved as the medium or Agent that is involved in all stages. It’s the Daoist Chi equivalence.

 

The vessels of the alchemist’s laboratories are inner centers / cauldrons where transformation of energy takes place.

 

We beging by lead, that is the lead of our ego, personality, mind, heavier elements. It ends with Gold as the “Inner Golden Embryo”.

 

And mercury is the "secret agent" that will assist transforming the lead to gold.

 

The Sulphur is nothing but the inner fire. In Daoism sometimes referred to "pure yang-fire", in hindu traditions to Kundalini. It is when the inner sexual waters (mercury, Jing ji) "cooks" and steams up the Sushumna (spine). This is the result of mixing Water with Fire (heating and purifying the water). This is just the beginnings of a series of alchemical transformation resulting in the birth of the Golden Embryo of Child (Tipheret initiation in the Kabbalistic tradition). The "Red King". The birth of Christ in the stable among the animals is a total analogy for this, just that the Alchemists referred to the Inner Christ (the Saviour within, the Daoists Spiritual Embryo), not the historical person.

 

To know more about the real application of this process, just read the Excellent books "Lu K'Uan Yu - Taoist Yoga - Alchemy and Immortality" (a very advanced book belonging to the Single Cultivation tradition). Also for a more practical understanding of the basic steps please read Taoist secrets of Love by Mantak Chia. Those two books are a must to read for everyone on the Tao Bum Formus in my opinion. (However be careful to physically manipulate the Chi, Mantak Chia himself took back the “milliondollarpoint” practice where you should stop semen by the fingers, but the basic practice and knowledge therein is fantastic).

 

There we understand the Great Significance of the Jing Ji energy (our sexual energy) and the great caution and respect we ought to have of this transformational energy.

 

The reason for the medieval western alchemists to express themselves in so obscure terms was that anything spiritual but the scholastic Christian teachings were officially forbidden. Knowledge outside that was associated with sorcery and witchcraft and was sometimes persecuted with death. So they had to work under the somewhat silly and humorous pretext that they actually were trying to manufacture physical gold in a physical laboratory from ordinary materials like coal, stones, etc. The authorities were pleased with this, since they could expect a lucrative outcome from this. But at the same time the texts can be translated to processes in our body. It is a very genial camouflage.

 

Some alchemists that had gone very far in their own transformation really had developed the immortal fetus not to be a little fetus anymore but a “grown up King”. That is they had created a spirit capable of extraordinary things and some of them really was producing real gold from other metals. There is namely a law that a body created / coming from higher energy planes has power over laws of the lower planes.

 

Normally when a person have certain healing energies he really makes them from alchemical transformations but he uses them in an early stage before the immortal spirit is created. And the powers of such person are limited to some qualities. The reason why so few accomplish the Work is it is required very high degree of self-control, level of practice and sincerity. However the true practice is not so hard, but it is more about always keeping yourself in balance not to destroy the process.

 

So the western alchemists said to work With Nature Trough Art. It means that Nature (the transformational processes in the body) will do it all but not without the work of Skillful Means (application of the art).

 

This is at least my understanding and experience!

[taiji_cat]

The secret of alchemy is this- there is a way of manipulating matter and energy so as to produce what modern scientists call a field of force. This field acts on the observer and places him in a privileged position within the universe. From this position he has access to the realities which are ordinarily hidden from us by time and space, energy and matter. This is what we call The Great Work"

-Fulcanelli

 

Edited July 9, 2013 by taiji_cat