ALCHEMICAL THEORY OF CREATION

Paul Sedir (Yvon LeLoup)

In addition to the many hieroglyphs and symbolic figures with which the alchemists have sprinkled their books, we have the good fortune to possess the source from which they drew their science and their art: it is the Emerald Tablet. Without lingering over discussing the age and authenticity of this monument, we will reproduce everything related to the subject of our study, and we will complete this quotation with a few brief comments.

The best French version of this old text is that given by the very learned and much regretted Marquis de Guaita in his last book, the Key to Black Magic ; here are the extracts, according to the Latin version of Henri Khunrath:

"It is true (in principle), it is certain (in theory), it is real (in application): That what is below (the physical and material world) is like what is above (analogous and proportional to the spiritual and intelligible world) and what is above as what is below (complementary reciprocity) for the accomplishment of the miracles of the unique thing (supreme law by virtue of which the harmonies of the universal creation are perfected in its unity) .

"And just as all things were done of one (performed, brought about, under one principle), through the mediation of one (by the ministry of one agent), so all things were born from this same one thing, by adaptation (or by a kind of copulation).

"The Sun (condenser of positive irradiation or of Light to red, od) is its father (active producing element of this agent); the Moon (mirror of negative reverberation or of Light to blue, ob) is its mother; the wind (ambulatory etheric atmosphere) carried it in its womb (served it or serves it as a vehicle). The earth (considered as a type of centers of material condensation) is its nurse (the athanor of its elaboration) .

"This is the father (producing element) of the universal Telesma (perfection, final goal to be reached) of the entire World (of the living Universe).

"Her power (force of creative exteriorization, the river Phishôn of Moses) is complete (perfect, accomplished; fully deployed until total fulfillment). When she has metamorphosed (literally: when she has turned) in Earth (Aretz of Moses, condensed and specified substance, ultimate form of creative exteriorization, sensible matter)."

Six hundred pages later, the same author will provide us with other clarifications: "Like all schools of Occultism, the alchemists taught, as we have said, the unity of substance under the multiplicity of phenomenal appearances.

Sensible matter, diverse and multiform, was for them only a more or less durable illusion, prolonged in various convertible modes: transmutations, in their system, consisted in the passage from one of these modes to another. They knew three generative principles of things manifested and four elements of manifestation.

Sulphur, Mercury and Salt: thus they named their three principles; Fire, Air, Water and Earth: these were the emblems of their four elements.

Sulphur, Mercury and Salt corresponded to what they still called: innate fire, radical humidity and essential base of bodies. Let's translate:

- the sulfur principle of the form;
- mercury, principle of substantiation
- and salt, the mixed principle of objective manifestation.

The Sulphur-principle will therefore be, according to the naive saying of an ancient alchemist: "the celestial fire which, introducing itself into the lower seeds, arouses and makes appear the interior form of the deepest of matter, with all its ornament and its crew; and this is how generation is made by means of this celestial fire, and as all elementary things here below depend on it, as on their true source and origin.

This old author is no less explicit when he defines the Mercury-principle: "The radical humidity of all things, which in chemistry is called Mercury, is the moist substance, first born in the seed of all things; on which the natural fire or vital breath acts to push its soft and hidden forms into the treasure of its abyss I call abyss the virtues and properties of this spirit of life which it has almost infinite, to draw from all kinds of shapes."

The Salt-principle, says Pierre-Jean Fabre again, is the fundamental seat of all nature in general and in particular; it is the point and the center where all the celestial and elementary virtues and properties meet and terminate... Principle of corporification, which is the knot and the bond of the other two sighs and mercury and gives them body, and thus makes them appear visibly in the eyes of everyone."

Thus, adds Guaita, "the three Principles in their universal significance, are neither the bodies vulgarly called sulfur, mercury and salt, nor any analogous substance, which falls under our senses. We must see in them the three complementary aspects of a same essence, generative of material things; the three terms of polarization of the occult virtuality about to manifest themselves, passing from potency to act.

Conceived in their operational synthesis, the Principles together represent the energy that produces bodies. Considered separately, they are reduced to pure abstractions, for they exist only through each other.

Thus, to sum up for us, the Alchemists, and I understand by this term the philosophers of fire born in Europe as well as those of India, Tibet or China, recognize the existence, in the act of creation, of the following principles, determined by way of experimental analogy:

1. Fire, fermentative and vivifying principle, immeasurable latent heat, first cause, which reigns over everything, by everything and in everything. This universal agent is sulphur.

2. An essential essence, principle of humidity, darkness, passivity, matter and putrefaction. It is Mercury formed of air and water.

3. An effect proceeding from the reaction of the two preceding ones, resulting in the animation of matter and the development of the three periods of its innumerable cycles. It is the salt formed from the Earth; the means of all copulation, the fermentative state in which Generation and Putrefaction end.

Thus in all things is found the following quaternary: the Principle, end and complement of all production, as much in the order of the universes as in that of the stones. The Agent, source of all existence, emanating from the precedent. The Middle, source of all mixes, through the interaction of matter and form.

The Patient, summary and common link, field of action of the first three terms.

These four Modes are found both in the principle of things, and in their constitution, their generation, so that everything can be summarized by the following table:

	PRINCIPLE	GENDER	CONSTITUTION	ELEMENTS	QUALITIES
	THINGS	THINGS	THINGS
FATHER	Principle (effect)	Generation	uncreated heat	Fire	Hot
SON	Agent	Putrefaction	Seed	Air	Humid
MIND	AVERAGE	Fermentation	Sperm envelope	Earth	Dry
VIRGIN	Patient	Chaos	Radical wet	Water	Cold