THE GREAT WORK, AIM AND MEANS

André Savoret



It would seem, at first sight, that the accomplishment of the classic Great Work - here I mean to speak only of metallic alchemy - constitutes the sole and final goal of the adept's labor and the reward for his long and hard labors. . To make gold almost at will, thanks to the Stone, and to prolong life in full euphoria well beyond the common term, by means of the Elixir, such is the double ambition of the beginner, in front of whom opens the path, rather thorny , that he decided to follow.

This view is all the more widespread because there are few qualified authors who do not confirm it, explicitly or implicitly.

Perhaps it is permissible, however, to draw readers' attention to a few texts, giving another story.

To all Lord, all honor: in the text of the Emerald Table, attributed to Hermes Trismegistus, it is said, incidentally: "Here is the origin of innumerable adaptations, the mode of which is given above". In another work attributed to the same author (one lends only to the rich), it is stated that all the sciences and all the arts have their principle in his aphorisms.

But it is Fulcanelli who has most openly expanded on this point, as on quite a few others, with this concern not to deceive, which characterizes him so highly.

On the occasion of the passage from the Common Mercury to the Philosophical Mercury, he mentions the Artifice, never revealed, which ensures its realization. And he adds: "...it marks the crossroads where alchemical science diverges from chemical science. Applied to other bodies, it provides, under the same conditions, as many unforeseen results, substances endowed with surprising qualities. This unique and powerful means thus allows a development of an unsuspected scale, by the multiple new simple elements and the compounds derived from these elements, but whose genesis remains an enigma for the chemical reason. If we have penetrated into this reserved domain of hermetics, it is because we wanted to show 1° that alchemy is a true science,capable, like chemistry, of extension and progress, and not the empirical recipe for a secret of the manufacture of precious metals... 4° Finally, that the innumerable properties, more or less marvelous, attributed en bloc by philosophers to the only philosopher's stone, each belong to the unknown substances obtained starting from materials and chemical bodies, but treated according to the secret technique of our magisterium. " but treated according to the secret technique of our magisterium. " but treated according to the secret technique of our magisterium. "

(Note from LAT: The quotation from Fulcanelli presented by Savoret, above, is taken from the "Philosopher's Residences", section IV of the chapter devoted to Louis d'Estissac. Savoret voluntarily omits points 2° and 3° from the demonstration of Fulcanelli , which he considers useless about him)

That is teaching a lot in a few words!

And I will only add one thing, which is that the Druid alchemists, possessors of the "means" of which Fulcanelli speaks, also applied it to the vegetable kingdom. They drew from him, from the mistletoe of oak, an elixir which, prepared in a certain way, constituted a veritable panacea, or almost, capable of radically curing ailments as formidable as tuberculosis or the plague. Prepared in another way, the same substance constituted the elixir of Knowledge. The account of the solemn mistletoe gathering, as related by Pliny the Elder, and the Legend of Taliesin, relates to these two aspects of the same compound.

Allow me only to refer the inquisitor of science to these two very instructive texts, without pushing the indiscretion so far as to point out to him where and in what way they are.

But, what follows from the above? It is because the realization of the Great Work, the apparent goal of hermetic labor, is basically only the means, or, if you will, the preface.

Adeptship begins there, but does not end there at the same time. The result obtained, however magnificent it may be, is only the opening of the doors of the Temple of true Gnosis. This end is, incredibly perhaps, paradoxically in any case, a beginning.

And, it must be admitted that this Beginning leads to almost indescribable achievements since the consummate Adepts have passed them over in silence or have contented themselves with allusions as brief as they are enigmatic.

But, it goes without saying that at this level, material alchemy joins spiritual alchemy. In the Foreword to his Chemical Essaysmost sacred and highest in physical nature in profane hands. I therefore hold it to be true temerity to want to attain the holiness of nature (which is known to very few) without having first endeavored to attain the holiness of the Grace within. "

The distance is less great between the profane and the hermeticist in possession of the Stone, than between this hermeticist and the perfect Adept that such possession will have to make of him, if he knows how to make himself worthy of it.


At least that is my belief.