ESSENTIAL ALCHEMY

André Savoret

1963


In one of the precious pamphlets he had published under the generic title of "Chemical Essays", the Rosicrucian D'Eckhartshausen expresses himself thus:

“The gold I seek is Truth, my silver is Wisdom, and my philosopher's stone is the knowledge of my nothingness and of the omnipotence of God in the depths of nature”.

Those seduced by the physical aspect of the work, this beautiful golden mirage, refraction of a distant oasis where very few will quench their thirst, will not fail to take this assertion for a simple oratorical precaution, in a work dealing with a obvious mastery of metal production. Those, on the other hand, who see in alchemy only a technique of a psychic or spiritual order, these will be tempted to find in the indications of the followers only symbols to be deciphered in allegorical mode, and will easily doubt the results. obtained in the laboratory.

Both will be in error, although not in the same error. “Ora et labora”, say and repeat the authors. Alchemy is, indeed, as much of the laboratory as of the oratory.

Leading the animal kingdom to perfection and working to make the "old man" the "new Adam" are two aspects of one and the same Wisdom, reflecting the same Law, the universality of which far exceeds such particular attainments as metallic transmutation, the development of psychic faculties and the cure of the most serious illnesses.

I would even say that these obtainings, - which have nothing allegorical about them - are not the supreme goal of alchemy, can even sometimes make us forget it, and offer only a secondary interest.

Just as the mystic must not linger to pick the flowers with which his arid road adorns himself from time to time, he must not take pleasure in these resting places-traps which were formerly included under the name of "charismas", so the alchemist is urged by his own transitory results, urged to forget that he too has a rendezvous with the Absolute. Material gold and spiritual gold are obtained by an analogous and transportable process in all the domains where we can have access, but woe if the first causes the second to be forgotten or neglected!

Undoubtedly the process or the set of processes that the Rose-Croix call the Ergon and that the Ancients called the work of the Phoenix, this process which is part of one of the seventy codes of initiation contained in the Gospel, according to the word of Sédir, would not have known a publicity, sometimes a little rowdy, and would not have been proposed to so many researchers, without the contribution of the Parergon, in other words of the metallic transmutation.

However difficult the task of coming to the end of the “Labors of Hercules”, that is to say the preparation of the future mineral embryo, it is almost child's play compared to the labors of the spiritual work. And its results - tangible if only in hope - provide those who have embarked on this path with comfort, enthusiasm, precious points of reference, which galvanize courage and sustain ambitions from which the "old man is not always missing.

Nothing and no one progresses except through suffering. And, in a certain respect, the "laboring" alchemist is the "executioner out of compassion" of his matter. The Law is one, it is understood, but when it is a question, for the essential work, of becoming one's own executioner, of operating on oneself the mortifications, the sublimations and the purifications which one applied to metals - which certainly did not require so much - is a completely different matter!

The great Alchemical Law, as I said, applies to all areas of creation, purifying the impure and bringing the imperfect to perfection. And I don't think there were many humans, even among the alchemists, to fathom its breadth and depth.

Saint Paul states it in the famous passage where he says that what is sown corruptible must be reborn incorruptible. Christ specifies the intangible necessity of this when he responds to the initiates of Eleusis with the very words of their mysteries: "If the grain does not die, it remains sterile". This Law, the key to what is called "alchemy" here, is also the key to many things which are also so many alchemies - except for the name. Its secret fire is Love and its matter is everything that has received life and light from the Word.

Alchemy, the transformation, cell by cell, after countless deaths and countless resurrections, of this perishable body into a glorious body. Alchemy, the refinement of a sensitivity to the painful reagent of trials. Alchemy, the hard work of the artist in the incessant effort to bring the work closer to the ideal glimpsed. Alchemies, grafts, cuttings, the inseminations of the horticulturist or the nurseryman, to make from the wild and acrid fruit a succulent and tasty fruit or from a wild flower some marvel of color, shape and perfume But the highest alchemy, as we know, is that which has the Word, Jesus, as its operator, his love as its agent, and our imperfect soul as its subject. Let us reread the parable of the vine and the branches, all these comparisons borrowed from the vegetable kingdom, and we will end up making true alchemy, living science, which only the living can practice, an idea that is not too disproportionate. Push further? Only one way! The Rose-Croix kept it in the practice of the Imitation. All of us, who do not have the particular vocation which makes the Rose-Croix, we have that of the Gospel, proposed to all, followed by very few. So, if we persevere in patience and humility - these two qualities of which the alchemists say that the first is the "ladder of the Sages" and the second the "gate of their Garden" - we will no longer have one. "idea", however lofty, however just it may be, but it is the Spirit who will reveal to us the very essence and, as a result, the infinity of its adaptations.

Because, as the Chinese sages say: "When you know the mother, you know the children".