THE MORNING OF THE MAGICIANS

LOUIS PAUWELS & JACQUES BERGIER


An alchemist at the Café Procope, in 1953 / Conversation about Gurdjieff / A man who claims to know that the philosopher's stone is a reality '/ Bergier takes me at full speed in a funny shortcut / What I see frees me from the stupid contempt of progress / Our ulterior motives on alchemy: neither revelation nor trial and error / Short meditation on the spiral and hope.

It was in March 1953 that I first met an alchemist. This happened at the Procope café which, at that time, experienced a short revival. A great poet, when I was writing my book on Gurdjieff, arranged this meeting for me and I was to see this singular man often without however discovering his secrets.

I had primary ideas about alchemy and alchemists, drawn from popular imagery, and I was far from knowing that there were still alchemists. The man who sat across from me at Voltaire's table was young and elegant. He had strong classical studies, followed by studies in chemistry. Currently, he earned his living in commerce and frequented many artists, as well as some people of the world.

I do not keep a diary, but I do, on a few important occasions, write down my observations or my feelings. That night, when I got home, I wrote this:

“How old can he be? He says thirty-five years. It confuses. The white hair, curly, cut on the skull like a wig. Many deep wrinkles under a rosy flesh, in a full face. Very few gestures, slow, measured, skilful. A calm, sharp smile. Laughing eyes, but laughing in a detached way. Everything expresses another age. In his remarks, not a crack, a gap, a fallout; of presence of mind. There is a sphinx behind this affable timeless face. Incomprehensible. And that's not just my impression. AB, who has seen him almost every day for weeks, tells me that he has never, for a second, caught him lacking "superior objectivity." “Which makes him condemn Gurdjieff:

“1° Whoever feels the need to teach does not fully live his doctrine and is not at the peak of initiation.
“2° At the school of Gurdjieff, there is no material intercession between the student who has been persuaded of his nothingness and the energy he must manage to possess in order to pass into being. real. This energy — "this will of the will", says Gurdjieff — the student must find it in himself, only in himself. However, this approach is partially false and can only lead to despair. This energy exists outside of man, and it is a question of capturing it. The Catholic who swallows the host: ritual capture of this energy. But if you don't have faith? If you don't have faith, have a fire: it's all alchemy. A real fire. A material fire. Everything begins, everything happens through contact with matter.
“3° Gurdjieff did not live alone, always surrounded, always in a phalanstery.

"There is a path in solitude, there are 'rivers in the desert'. There are neither paths nor rivers in man mixed with others.

“I ask questions about alchemy that must seem sickeningly stupid to him. He shows nothing of it and replies:

“Only matter, nothing but contact with matter, work on matter, work with the hands. He insists a lot on this:

“Do you like gardening? That's a good start, alchemy is comparable to gardening.
“Do you like fishing? Alchemy has something in common with fishing.

“A woman's work and a child's game.

“Alchemy cannot be taught. All the great literary works that have passed through the centuries bear part of this teaching. They are the work of grown men—really grown men—who spoke to children, while respecting the laws of adult knowledge. One never finds a great work lacking on “principles”. But the knowledge of these principles and the way that leads to this knowledge must remain hidden. However, there is a duty of mutual assistance for primary researchers.

"Around midnight, I ask him about Fulcanelli (the author of the Mystery of the Cathedrals and the Philosopher's Mansions.), and he gives me to understand that Fulcanelli is not dead:

“One can live, he told me, infinitely longer than the unawakened man imagines. And you can completely change your appearance. I know it. My eyes know. I also know that the philosopher's stone is a reality. But this is a different state of matter than the one we know. This state allows, like all the other states, measurements. The means of work and of measurement are simple and do not require complicated apparatus: woman's work and child's play...'

He adds:
'Patience, hope, work. And whatever the job, you can never work enough.
“Hope: in alchemy, hope is based on the certainty that there is a goal. I would not have begun, he says, if it had not been clearly proved to me that this goal exists and that it is possible to attain it in this life. »

This was my first contact with alchemy. If I had approached it through the grimoires, I think my research would hardly have gone far: lack of time, lack of taste for literary erudition. Lack of vocation too: this vocation which seizes the alchemist, while he is still unaware of himself as such, at the moment when he opens, for the first time, an old treatise. My vocation is not to do, but to understand. Is not to realize, but to see. I think, as my old friend André Billy says, that "understanding is as beautiful as singing", even if the understanding should only be fleeting (1). I'm a man in a hurry, like

1. In his Reading jail, Oscar Wilde discovers that the inattention of the mind is the fundamental crime, that extreme attention reveals the perfect harmony between all the events of a life, but undoubtedly also, on a greater plan, the perfect harmony between all the elements and all the movements of Creation, the harmony of all things. And he exclaims: “All that is understood is good. It's the most beautiful word I know.

I am a man in a hurry, like most of my contemporaries. I had the most modern contact with alchemy: a conversation in a bistro in Saint-Germain-des-Prés. Then, when I tried to give a fuller meaning to what this young man had said to me, I met Jacques Bergier, who did not emerge dusty from an attic lined with old books, but from places where the life of the century s is concentrated: laboratories and information offices. Bergier was also looking for something along the path of alchemy. It was not to make a pilgrimage in the past. This extraordinary little man, all occupied with the secrets of atomic energy, had taken this path as a shortcut. I flew, clinging to his coattails, among the venerable texts designed by wise lovers of slowness, drunk with patience, at supersonic speed. Bergier had the confidence of some of the men who still practice alchemy today. He also had the ear of modern scholars. I soon acquired the certainty, with him, that there are close links between traditional alchemy and avant-garde science. I saw intelligence build a bridge between two worlds. I stepped onto this bridge and saw that it held. I felt a great happiness, a deep relief. Having long taken refuge in anti-progressive Hindu thought, Gurdjieffien, seeing today's world as the beginning of an Apocalypse, no longer waiting, with great despair, an ugly end of time and not very assured in the pride of being apart, here I saw the old past and the future joining hands. The metaphysics of the alchemist several thousand years old hid a technique finally understandable, or almost, in the twentieth century. The terrifying techniques of today opened up a metaphysics almost similar to that of ancient times. False poetry, my withdrawal! The immortal souls of men threw the same fires on each side of the bridge. The terrifying techniques of today opened up a metaphysics almost similar to that of ancient times. False poetry, my withdrawal! The immortal souls of men threw the same fires on each side of the bridge. The terrifying techniques of today opened up a metaphysics almost similar to that of ancient times. False poetry, my withdrawal! The immortal souls of men threw the same fires on each side of the bridge.

I come to believe that men, in the very distant past, had discovered the secrets of energy and matter. Not only by meditation, but by manipulation. Not only spiritually, but technically. The modern mind, by different paths, by the long unpleasant roads, in my eyes, of pure reason, of irreligiosity, with different means and which had long seemed ugly to me, was preparing in its turn to discover the same secrets. He wondered about it, he was enthusiastic and worried at the same time. He stumbled over the essential, just like the spirit of high tradition.
I then saw that the opposition between millennial "wisdom" and contemporary "madness" was an invention of intelligence that was too weak and too slow, a product of compensation for an intellectual incapable of accelerating as hard as his time requires.

There are several ways to access essential knowledge. Our time has its own. Ancient civilizations had theirs. I'm not just talking about theoretical knowledge.
I saw finally that, the techniques of today being more powerful, apparently, than the techniques of yesterday, this essential knowledge, which undoubtedly had the alchemists (and other sages, before them), would arrive until to us with still more force, more weight, more dangers and more demands. We reach the same point as the Ancients, but at a different height. Rather than condemning the modern mind in the name of the initiatory wisdom of the Ancients, or rather than denying this wisdom by declaring that real knowledge begins with our own civilization, it would be appropriate to admire, it would be appropriate to venerate the power of the spirit which, under different aspects, passes again by the same point of light while rising in spiral. Rather than condemn, repudiate, choose, it would be appropriate to love. Love is everything: rest and movement at the same time.
We are going to submit to you the results of our research on alchemy. These are, of course, only sketches. We would need ten or twenty years of leisure, and perhaps faculties that we do not have, to make a really positive contribution to the subject. However, what we have done, and how we have done it, makes our little work very different from hitherto books on alchemy. There will be few clarifications on the history and philosophy of this traditional science, but some glimmers on unexpected relationships between the dreams of the old "chemical philosophers" and the realities of current physics. Suffice to say right away our ulterior motives:

Alchemy, in our opinion, could be one of the most important residues of a science, a technique and a philosophy belonging to a submerged civilization. What we have discovered in alchemy, in the light of contemporary knowledge, does not invite us to believe that such a subtle, complicated and precise technique could have been the product of a “divine revelation” that fell from the sky. It is not that we reject any idea of ​​revelation. But we have never noticed, by studying the saints and the great mystics, that God speaks to men the language of technique: “Place your crucible under the polarized light, O my Son! Wash the slag with tri-distilled water. »

Nor do we believe that the alchemist's technique could have developed by trial and error, tiny tinkerings of the ignorant, fantasies of maniacs of the crucible, until arriving at what must be called an atomic disintegration. We would rather be tempted to believe that alchemy resides in the remains of a vanished science, difficult to understand and use, the missing context. From these debris, there is necessarily trial and error, but in a determined direction, there is also an abundance of technical, moral, religious interpretations. Finally, for the holders of this debris, there is the imperative need to maintain secrecy.

We think that our civilization, reaching a knowledge which was perhaps that of a previous civilization, in other conditions, with another state of mind, would perhaps have the greatest interest in questioning seriously the ancient to hasten its own progress.

Finally, we think this: the alchemist at the end of his "work" on matter sees, according to the legend, a kind of transmutation taking place within himself. What happens in his crucible also happens in his conscience or in his soul. There is a change of state. All the traditional texts insist on this, evoking the moment when the "Great Work" is accomplished and when the alchemist becomes an "awakened man". It seems to us that these old texts thus describe the end of all real knowledge of the laws of matter and energy, including technical knowledge. It is towards the possession of such knowledge that our civilization is rushing. It does not seem absurd to us to think that men are called upon, in the relatively near future, to "change state", like the legendary alchemist, to undergo some transmutation. Unless our entire civilization perishes a moment before reaching the goal, as other civilizations may have disappeared. Still, in our last second of lucidity, would we not despair, thinking that if the adventure of the mind repeats itself, it is each time at a higher degree of the spiral. We would defer to other millennia the care of carrying this adventure to the final point, to the motionless center, and we would engulf ourselves with hope. would we not despair, thinking that if the adventure of the mind repeats itself, it is each time at a higher degree of the spiral. We would defer to other millennia the care of carrying this adventure to the final point, to the motionless center, and we would engulf ourselves with hope. would we not despair, thinking that if the adventure of the mind repeats itself, it is each time at a higher degree of the spiral. We would defer to other millennia the care of carrying this adventure to the final point, to the motionless center, and we would engulf ourselves with hope.

II
A hundred thousand books that no one questions / A scientific expedition to an alchemical country is requested / The inventors I Delirium by mercury / A ciphered language / Was there another atomic civilization? / The batteries of the Baghdad museum / Newton and the great initiates / Helvetius and Spinoza in front of the philosopher's gold / Alchemy and modern physics / A hydrogen bomb on a kitchen stove / Materialize, hominize, spiritualize.

More than one hundred thousand alchemical books or manuscripts are known. This enormous literature, to which quality minds, important and honest men have devoted themselves, this enormous literature which solemnly affirms its attachment to facts, to experimental realities, has never been explored scientifically. The reigning thought, Catholic in the past, rationalist today, has maintained around these texts a conspiracy of ignorance and contempt. A hundred thousand books and manuscripts may contain some of the secrets of energy and matter. If it's not true, they claim it, at least. Princes, kings and republics have encouraged countless expeditions to distant lands, financed scientific research of all kinds. Never has a team of cryptographers, historians, linguists and scholars, physicists, chemists, mathematicians, biologists, been brought together in a complete alchemical library with a mission to see what is true and usable in his old treatises. This is inconceivable. That such closures of the mind are possible and lasting, that very civilized human societies and apparently, like ours, without prejudices of any kind, can forget in their attic one hundred thousand books and manuscripts bearing the label: "Treasure », here is what will convince the most skeptical. that we live in the fantastic. has been brought together in a complete alchemical library with the mission of seeing what is true and usable in its old treatises. This is inconceivable. That such closures of the mind are possible and lasting, that very civilized human societies and apparently, like ours, without prejudices of any kind, can forget in their attic one hundred thousand books and manuscripts bearing the label: "Treasure », here is what will convince the most skeptical. that we live in the fantastic. has been brought together in a complete alchemical library with the mission of seeing what is true and usable in its old treatises. This is inconceivable. That such closures of the mind are possible and lasting, that very civilized human societies and apparently, like ours, without prejudices of any kind, can forget in their attic one hundred thousand books and manuscripts bearing the label: "Treasure », here is what will convince the most skeptical. that we live in the fantastic.

The rare research on alchemy is done, either by mystics who ask the texts for confirmation of their spiritual attitudes, or by historians cut off from all contact with science and technology.

The alchemists speak of the need to distil a thousand and a thousand times the water which will be used to prepare the Elixir. We heard a specialized historian say that this operation was insane. He knew nothing about heavy water and the methods used to enrich simple water into heavy water. We have heard a scholar affirm that the indefinitely repeated refining and purification of a metal or a metalloid does not in any way change the processes of this one, it was necessary to see in the alchemical recommendations a mystical apprenticeship of patience, a gesture ritual comparable to the ginning of the rosary. It is however by such a refining by means of a technique described by the alchemists and which one names today "the fusion of zone", that the germanium and the pure silicon of the transistors are prepared. We now know, thanks to this work on transistors, that by thoroughly purifying a metal and then introducing a few millionths of a gram of carefully chosen impurities, we give the treated body new and revolutionary properties. We do not want to multiply the examples, but we would like to make it clear how desirable a truly methodical examination of the alchemical literature would be. It would be a huge job, requiring decades of work and dozens of researchers from all disciplines. Neither Bergier nor I could even sketch it, but if our big clumsy book could some day persuade a patron to allow this work,
By studying the alchemical texts a little, we found that these are generally modern compared to the time when they were written, whereas the other works of occultism are in retreat. On the other hand, alchemy is the only para-religious practice that has really enriched our knowledge of reality.

Albert the Great (1193-1280) succeeded in preparing caustic potash. He was the first to describe the chemical composition of cinnabar, white lead and minium.
Raymond Lully (1235-1315) prepared potassium bicarbonate.

Theophrastus Paracelsus (1493-1541) was the first to describe the hitherto unknown zinc. He also introduced the use of chemical compounds into medicine.

Giambattista della Porta (1541-1615) prepared tin oxide.

Jean-Baptiste Van Helmont (1577-1644) recognized the existence of gases.

Basil Valentin (whose true identity no one ever knew) discovered sulfuric acid and hydrochloric acid in the 17th century.

Johann Rudolf Glauber (1604-1668) found sodium sulphate.

Brandt (died 1692) discovered phosphorus.

Johann Friedrich Boetticher (1682-1719) was the first European to make porcelain.

Blaise Vigenère (1523-1596) discovered benzoic acid.

Such are some of the alchemical works which enrich humanity at a time when chemistry is progressing (Cf. The Mirror of Magic, by Kurt SELIGMANN. Editions Fasquelle, Paris.). As other sciences develop, alchemy seems to follow and often precede progress. Le Breton, in his Clefs de la Philosophie Spagyrique, in 1722, speaks of magnetism more than intelligently and frequently anticipates modern discoveries. Father Castel, in 1728, when ideas about gravitation were beginning to spread, spoke of it and of its relationship with light in terms which, two centuries later, would strangely echo the thought of Einstein:

“I said that if we took away the gravity of the world, we would at the same time take away the light. For the rest, light and sound, and all other sensible qualities are a continuation and as a result of the mechanics and consequently of the gravity of natural bodies which are more or less luminous or sonorous, according to whether they have more gravity and of spring.

In the alchemical treatises of our century, one sees frequently appearing, earlier than in the academic works, the latest discoveries of nuclear physics, and it is probable that the treatises of tomorrow will mention the most abstract physical and mathematical theories that exist . .

The distinction is clear between alchemy and false sciences such as dowsing which introduces waves or rays into its publications after official science has discovered them. Everything could invite us to think that alchemy is likely to make an important contribution to the knowledge and techniques of the future based on the structure of matter.

We have also noted, in the alchemical literature, the existence of an impressive number of purely delusional texts. We have sometimes wanted to explain this delusion by psychoanalysis (Jung: Psychology and Alchemy, or Herbert Silberer: Problems of Mysticism). More often, as alchemy contains a metaphysical doctrine and supposes a mystical attitude, historians, the curious and above all occultists have persisted in interpreting these demented remarks in the sense of a supra-natural revelation, of an inspired vaticination. On closer inspection, it seemed reasonable to us to hold, alongside technical texts and wisdom texts, demented texts for demented texts. It also seemed to us that this insanity of the adept experimenter could find a material, simple, satisfactory. Mercury was frequently used by alchemists. Its vapor is poisonous and chronic poisoning causes delirium. Theoretically, the containers used were absolutely hermetic, but the secret of this closure is not given to every follower, and madness could have invaded more than one “chemical philosopher”.

Finally, we were struck by the cryptogram aspect of alchemical literature. Blaise Vigenère, whom we mentioned earlier, invented the most perfected codes and the most ingenious methods of ciphering. His inventions in this matter are still used today. However, it is likely that Blaise Vigenere came into contact with this science of numbers while trying to interpret alchemical texts. It would be appropriate to add to the teams of researchers that we would like to see united, specialists in deciphering.

"In order to give a clearer example, writes René Alleau (Aspects de l'Alchimie Traditionnelle. Editions de Minuit, Paris.), we will take that of the game of chess, of which we know the relative simplicity of the rules and elements as well as the indefinite variety of combinations. If we suppose that the whole of the acroamatic treatises on alchemy presents itself to us as so many parts annotated in a conventional language, we must first admit, honestly, that we do not know both the rules of the game, and the figure used. Otherwise, we affirm that the cryptographic indication is composed of signs directly understandable by any individual, which is precisely the immediate illusion that a well-composed cryptogram must cause.

"Apparently, these messages are only addressed to other players, to other alchemists whom we must believe already possess, by some means different from the written tradition, the key necessary to the exact comprehension of this language. »
As far back as one goes in the past, one finds alchemical manuscripts. Nicolas de Valois, in the 15th century, deduced from this that the transmutations, the secrets and the techniques of the release of energy were known to men even before writing. Architecture preceded writing. It may have been a form of writing. We also see alchemy very intimately linked to architecture. One of the most significant texts of alchemy, whose author is Mr. Esprit Gobineau de Montluisant, is entitled: “Very curious explanations of the enigmas and hieroglyphic figures which are at the great portal of Notre-Dame de Paris. Fulcanelli's works are devoted to the "Mystery of the Cathedrals" and detailed descriptions of the "Philosopher's Residences".

Newton believed in the existence of a chain of initiates stretching back in time to very remote antiquity, who would have known the secrets of the transmutations and disintegration of matter. The English atomic scientist Da Costa Andrade, in a speech delivered to his peers on the occasion of Newton's tercentenary, in Cambridge, in July 1946, did not hesitate to suggest that the inventor of gravitation may have belonged to this channel and had revealed to the world only a small part of his knowledge:

"I cannot," he said (Newton Tercentenary Celebrations. University of Cambridge, 1947.), "hope to convince skeptics that Newton had powers of prophecy or special vision which would have revealed to him atomic energy, but I I will simply say that the sentences that I am going to quote go far beyond, in the thought of Newton speaking of alchemical transmutation, the anxiety of an upheaval in world trade as a result of the synthesis of gold. Here is what Newton writes:
"How mercury can be so impregnated has been 'kept secret by those who knew' and is probably a doorway to something nobler (than the 'making of gold') which cannot be communicated without "the world running into immense danger, if the writings of Hermes are true. »

“And further still, Newton writes: “There are other “Great Mysteries” than the transmutation of metals if the “great masters do not boast. They alone know "these secrets." “

As you reflect on the deeper meaning of this passage, remember that Newton speaks with the same reluctance and the same warning caution about his own discoveries in optics. From what past would these great masters invoked by Newton come, and from what past would they themselves have drawn their science?

“If I climbed so high, says Newton, it is because I was on the shoulder of the giants. Atterbury , a contemporary of Newton, wrote:

“Modesty teaches us to speak with respect about the Ancients, especially when we do not know their works perfectly. Newton, who knew them almost by heart, had the greatest respect for them and considered them men of profound genius and superior minds who had carried their discoveries of all kinds much further than we can imagine. appears now, by what remains of their writings. There are more ancient works lost than preserved and perhaps our new discoveries are not worth our old losses. »

For Fulcanelli, alchemy would be the link with civilizations submerged for millennia and ignored by archaeologists. Of course, no reputable serious archaeologist and no historian of equal reputation will admit the existence in the past of civilizations possessing science and techniques superior to ours. But advanced science and techniques simplify the apparatus to the extreme, and the vestiges are perhaps before our eyes, without our being able to see them as such. No serious archaeologist or historian, who has not received advanced scientific training, will be able to carry out excavations likely to shed some light on this. The compartmentalization of disciplines, which was a necessity of fabulous contemporary progress,

We know that it was a German engineer, in charge of building the sewers of Baghdad, who discovered in the bric-a-brac of the local museum, under the vague label "objects of worship", electric batteries manufactured ten centuries before Volta, under the Sassanid dynasty.

As long as archeology will be practiced only by archaeologists, we will not know if the “mists of time” were dark or luminous.

“Jean-Frédéric Schweitzer, known as Helvétius, a violent opponent of alchemy, reports that on the morning of December 27, 1666, a stranger came to his home (We borrow this story from the work of Kurt SELIGMANN, already quoted.). He was a man of honest and serious appearance, and of authoritative demeanor, dressed in a simple coat, like a Mennonite. Having asked Helvetius if he believed in the philosopher's stone (to which the famous doctor replied in the negative), the stranger opened a small ivory box "containing three pieces of a substance resembling glass or the opal”. Its owner declared that it was the famous stone, and that with such a small quantity, he could produce twenty tons of gold. Helvetius held a fragment in his hand, and, having thanked the visitor for his kindness, he begged him to give him a little. The alchemist refused abruptly, adding with more courtesy that, for all the fortune of Helvetius, he could not part with the smallest parcel of this mineral, for some reason he was not permitted to disclose. Asked to provide proof of his statements, by carrying out a transmutation, the stranger replied that he would come three weeks later, and would show Helvetius something likely to astonish him. He returned punctually on the appointed day, but refused to operate, saying he was forbidden to reveal the secret. He condescended, however, to give Helvetius a small fragment of the stone, "no larger than a mustard seed."

“Here is even what is enough for you. “

Our scientist then had to admit that on the first visit from the stranger, he had succeeded in appropriating some particles of the stone and that they had changed the lead, not into gold, but into glass. "You should have protected your booty with yellow wax," replied the alchemist, "that would have helped him to penetrate the lead and transform it into gold." The man promised to come back the next morning at nine o'clock and perform the miracle—but he didn't come, and neither did the day after. Seeing this, Helvetius' wife persuaded him to attempt the transmutation himself:

“Helvetius proceeded in accordance with the foreigner's directives. He melted down three drachmas of lead, wrapped the stone in wax, and dropped it into the liquid metal. It turned to gold! “We took it immediately to the goldsmith,” who declared it to be the finest gold he had ever seen, “and he offered fifty florins an ounce. Helvetius, in concluding his report, tells us that the gold ingot was still in his possession, tangible proof of the transmutation. "May the Holy Angels of God watch over him (the 'anonymous' alchemist) as a source of blessings to 'Christendom.' Such is our constant prayer, for him and for "us." »

“The news spread like wildfire. Spinoza, whom we cannot count among the naïve, wanted to have the end of the story. He visited the goldsmith who had appraised the gold. The report was more than favorable: during the merger, silver incorporated into the mixture had also turned into gold. The silversmith, Brechtel, was coiner for the Duke of Orange. He certainly knew his trade. It seems difficult to believe that he could have been the victim of a subterfuge, or that he wanted to deceive Spinoza. Spinoza then went to Helvetius who showed him the gold and the crucible which had been used for the operation. Scraps of the precious metal still adhered to the inside of the container; like the others, Spinoza was convinced that the transmutation had really taken place.
Transmutation, for the alchemist, is a secondary phenomenon, carried out simply as a demonstration. It is difficult to form an opinion on the reality of these transmutations, although various observations, such as that of Helvetius or that of Van Helmont, for example, seem striking. One can allege that the art of the conjurer is limitless, but four thousand years of research and a hundred thousand; volumes or manuscripts would they have been devoted to a fraud? We are proposing something else, as we will all see; on time. We offer it timidly, because the weight of? the acquired scientific opinion is formidable. We will try to describe the work of the alchemist, which results in the manufacture of the "stone" or "powder of projection", and we will see that the interpretation of certain operations clashes with our current knowledge of the structure of matter. But it is not obvious that our knowledge of nuclear phenomena is perfect, definitive. Catalysis, in particular, can intervene in these phenomena in a way still unexpected for us [Work is in progress, in various countries, on the use of particles (produced by powerful accelerators) to catalyze the fusion of hydrogen.].
It is not impossible that certain natural mixtures produce, under the effect of cosmic rays, large-scale nucleo-catalytic reactions, leading to a massive transmutation of elements. This should be seen as one of the keys to alchemy and the reason why the alchemist repeats his manipulations indefinitely, until the moment when the cosmic conditions are met.

The objection is: if transmutations of this nature are possible, what becomes of the energy liberated? Many alchemists; should have blown up the city they inhabited and some, tens of thousands of square kilometers of their homeland at the same time. Many and immense disasters; should have happened.

The alchemists answer: it is precisely because such catastrophes have taken place in the distant past that we-.. fear the terrible energy contained in matter and that we keep our science secret. Also, the “Grand; Work” is achieved in progressive phases and he who, after decades and decades of manipulation and asceticism, learns to unleash nuclear forces, learns; also what precautions should be observed to avoid the danger.

Valid argument? Maybe. Physicists today admit that, under certain conditions, the energy of a; nuclear transmutation could be absorbed by special particles which they call neutrinos, or anti-neutrinos. Some proof of the existence of the neutrino seems to have been made. There are maybe types of transmutation which; release little energy, or in which the released energy goes away in the form of neutrinos. We will come back to this question.

M. Eugène Canseliet, a disciple of Fulcanelli and one of the best current specialists in alchemy, came to a halt on a passage from a study that Jacques Bergier had written as a preface to one of the classic works of the World Library. It was an anthology of 16th century poetry. In this preface, Bergier alluded to the alchemists and their desire for secrecy. He wrote: “On this particular point, it is difficult not to agree with them. If there is a process for making hydrogen bombs on a cooking stove, it is much better that this process not be revealed. »
Mr. Eugène Canseliet then replied: “Above all, we shouldn't take that for a joke. You are right, and I am well placed to say that it is possible to achieve atomic fission starting from a relatively common and cheap ore, and that by a process of operations requiring nothing else. nothing but a good chimney, a coal melting furnace, a few Meker burners and four bottles of butane gas. It
is not excluded that one can, even in nuclear physics, obtain important results by simple means. It is the direction of the future of all science and all technology.
x< We can do more than we know”, said Roger Bacon. But he added this word which could be an alchemical adage: “Although everything is not permitted, everything is possible. »

For the alchemist, it must be constantly reminded, power over matter and energy is only an accessory reality. The real goal of alchemical operations, which are perhaps the residue of a very ancient science belonging to a submerged civilization, “is the transformation of the alchemist himself, his accession to a higher state of consciousness. The material results are only the promises of the final result, which is spiritual. Everything is directed towards the transmutation of man himself, towards his divinization, his fusion in the fixed divine energy, from which radiate all the energies of matter. Alchemy is this science "with conscience" of which Rabelais speaks. It is a science which materializes less than it hominizes, to use an expression of Father Teilhard de Chardin, who said: “True physics is that which will manage to integrate the total Man into a coherent representation of the world. »

“Know, wrote a master alchemist (“La Tourbe des Philosophes” in. “Bibliothèque des Philosophes Chimiques” 1741.), know all of you, Investigators of this Art, that the Spirit is everything, and that if in this Spirit, there another similar Spirit has locked itself in, everything profits from nothing. »

III
Where we see a little Jew preferring honey to sugar '/ Where an alchemist who could be the mysterious Fulcanelli speaks of the atomic danger in 1937, describes the atomic pile and evokes vanished civilizations / Where Bergier cuts out a safe with a torch and carries a bottle of uranium under his arm / Where an unnamed American major searches for a permanently passed out Fulcanelli / Where Oppenheimer sings a duet with a Chinese sage of a thousand years ago.

It was 1933. The little Jewish student had a pointed nose, wearing round glasses behind which gleamed cold, agile eyes. On his round skull was already sparse hair like a chick's down. A frightful accent, aggravated by hesitations, gave to his remarks the comic and confusion of the paddling of ducks in a puddle. When we got to know him a little better, we had the impression that a bulimic, tense, sensitive, madly fast intelligence danced in this ungraceful little fellow, full of mischief and a childish clumsiness to live with, like a big red balloon. held by a thread around a child's wrist.

“So you want to become an alchemist? asked the venerable professor of the student Jacques Bergier, who lowered his head, seated on the edge of the armchair, a briefcase stuffed with paperwork on his knees. The venerable was one of the greatest French chemists.

"I don't understand you, sir," said the student, annoyed.

He had a prodigious memory, and he remembered having seen, at the age of six, a German engraving representing two alchemists at work, in a mess of retorts, tongs, crucibles, bellows. One, in rags, was watching a fire, his mouth open, and the other, beard and wild hair, was scratching his head, staggering in the depths of the shambles.

The professor consulted a file:

“During your last two years of work, you were especially interested in Mr. Jean Thibaud's free nuclear physics course. This course does not lead to any diploma or certificate. You express the desire to continue on this path. I would still have understood, if need be, this curiosity on the part of a physicist. But you are destined for chemistry. Are you, by any chance, planning to learn how to make gold?
'Sir,' said the Jewish student, raising his small, greasy, unkempt hands, 'I believe in the future of nuclear chemistry. I believe that industrial transmutations will be realized in the near future.

“That sounds crazy to me. , - But Sir... "

Sometimes he would stop at the beginning of a sentence and start repeating that beginning, like a broken phonograph, not because of absence, but because his mind was going to take an unavowable detour in the direction of poetry. He knew thousands of lines by heart, and all of Kipling's poems:

They copied all they could follow But they couldn't catch up with my mind So I left them panting and thinking A year and a half back...

“But sir, even if you don't believe in transmutations, you should believe in nuclear energy. The enormous potential resources of the kernel...

— Ta, ta, ta, said the professor. It's primary and childish. What physicists call nuclear energy is an integration constant in their equations. It's a philosophical idea, that's the thing. Consciousness is the main driving force of men. But it's not consciousness that keeps the locomotives running, is it? So, dreaming of a machine powered by nuclear energy... No, my boy. The boy swallowed his saliva.

“Come back to earth and think about your future. What pushes you, for the moment, because you do not seem to me to have come out of childhood, is one of the oldest dreams of men: the alchemical dream. Reread Berthelot. He has well described this chimera of the transmutation of matter. Your grades aren't very, very bright. I will give you a piece of advice: get into the industry as soon as possible. Do a sugar campaign. Three months in a sugar factory will put you back in touch with reality. You need it. I speak to you like a father. »

The unworthy son thanked him with a stutter, and left, face to the wind, his big towel at the end of his short arm. He was stubborn: he said to himself that he should take advantage of this conversation, but that honey was better than sugar. He would continue to study the problems of the atomic nucleus. And he would read about alchemy.

This is how my friend Jacques Bergier decided to pursue studies deemed useless and to complete them with other studies deemed delusional. The necessities of life, the war and the concentration camps, kept him somewhat away from nucleonics. He did, however, make some contributions that are esteemed by specialists. During his research, the dreams of alchemists and the realities of mathematical physics intersected more than once. But in science there have been great changes since 1933, and my friend felt less and less that he was sailing against the tide.
From 1934 to 1940, Jacques Bergier was the collaborator of André Helbronner, one of the remarkable men of our time. Helbronner, assassinated by the Nazis in Buchenwald in March 1944, had been the first university professor in France to teach chemistry-physics. This frontier science between two disciplines has since given birth to many other sciences: electronics, nucleonics, stereotronics (Stereotronics is a brand new science that studies the transformation of energy in solids. One of its applications is the transistor.). Helbronner was to receive the grand gold medal of the Franklin Institute for his discoveries on colloidal metals. He was also interested in gas liquefaction, aeronautics and ultraviolet rays.

In 1934, he devoted himself to nuclear physics and had set up, with the help of industrial groups, a nucleonic research laboratory where results of considerable interest were obtained until 1940. Helbronner was also an expert with the courts for all matters relating to the transmutation of the elements, and it is thus that Jacques Bergier had the opportunity to meet a certain number of false alchemists, crooks or enlightened, and a true alchemist, a true master.

My friend never knew the real name of this alchemist, and if he knew he would be careful not to give too many clues. The man we are talking about had disappeared a long time ago, without leaving any visible traces. He went into hiding, having voluntarily cut all the bridges between the century and him. Bergier thinks only that it was the man who, under the pseudonym of Fulcanelli, wrote around 1920 two strange and admirable books: Les Demeures Philosophales and Le Mystere des Cathédrales. These books were published by Mr. Eugène Canseliet, who never revealed the identity of the author (These two works have been republished by the Omnium Littéraire, 72, Champs-Elysées, Paris. The first edition dates from 1925. It had been out of print for a very long time and the curious bought the rare copies in circulation for tens of thousands of francs.). They are certainly among the most important works on alchemy. They express sovereign knowledge and wisdom, and we know of more than one great mind who reveres the legendary name of Fulcanelli.

“Could he, writes M. Eugène Canseliet, having reached the pinnacle of knowledge, refuse to obey the orders of Destiny? No one is a prophet in his own country. This old adage perhaps gives the occult reason for the upheaval caused in the solitary and studious life of the philosopher by the spark of revelation. Under the effect of this divine flame, the old man is entirely consumed. Name, family, country, all illusions, all errors, all vanities crumble into dust. And from these ashes, like the phoenix of poets, a new personality is reborn. So, at least, the philosophical tradition would have it.

“My master knew it. He disappeared when the fateful hour sounded, when the sign was accomplished. Who would dare to evade the law? Myself, despite the heartbreak of a painful but inevitable separation, if the happy advent happened to me today which compelled my master to flee the homage of the world, I would not act otherwise. M.

Eugène Canseliet wrote these lines in 1925. The man who left it to him to edit his works was about to change in appearance and environment. In 1937, one afternoon in June, Jacques Bergier thought he had excellent reasons to think that he was in the presence of Fulcanelli.

It was at the request of André Helbronner that my friend met the mysterious character, in the prosaic setting of a test laboratory of the Société du Gaz de Paris. Here is the exact conversation:

“Mr. André Helbronner, whose assistant I believe you are, is researching nuclear energy. Mr. Helbronner was good enough to keep me informed of some of the results obtained, and in particular of the appearance of the radio-activity corresponding to polonium, when a wire of bismuth is volatilized by an electric discharge in deuterium at high pressure. You are very close to success, like some other contemporary scholars. May I allow myself to warn you? The work you and your fellows engage in is terribly dangerous. They don't put you at risk alone. They are fearsome for all mankind. Unleashing nuclear energy is easier than you think. And the artificial radioactivity produced can poison the atmosphere of the planet in a few years. Also, atomic explosives can be made from a few grams of metal, and raze towns. I tell you straight out: alchemists have known this for a long time. »
Bergier tried to interrupt by rebelling. Alchemists and modern physics! He was about to launch into sarcasm when his host interrupted him:

"I know what you're going to say to me, but it's pointless." Alchemists did not know the structure of the core, did not know electricity, had no means of detection. So they could not operate any transmutation, so they could never release nuclear energy. I will not try to prove to you what I am going to declare to you now, but I ask you to repeat it to Mr. Helbronner: geometrical arrangements of extremely pure materials are sufficient to unleash the atomic forces, without the need for using electricity or the vacuum technique. I will then confine myself to giving you a short reading. »

The man took Frédéric Soddy's work, The Interpretation of Radium, from his desk, opened it and read:

"I think that there have been civilizations in the past which have known the energy of the atom and that a misuse of this energy has totally destroyed.
Then he resumed :

“I ask you to admit that a few partial techniques have survived. I also ask you to reflect on the fact that the alchemists mixed moral and religious concerns with their research, while modern physics was born in the 18th century from the amusement of a few lords and a few wealthy libertines. Science without conscience... I thought I was doing the right thing by warning a few researchers here and there, but I have no hope of seeing this warning bear fruit. Besides, I need not hope. Bergier always had to keep in mind the sound of this precise, metallic and dignified voice.

He allowed himself to ask a question:

“If you're an alchemist yourself, sir, I can't believe you spend your time trying to make gold, like Dunikovski or Dr. Miethe. For a year, I have been trying to document myself on alchemy, and I swim among charlatans or interpretations that seem fanciful to me. You, sir, can you tell me what your research consists of?
— You are asking me to sum up in four minutes four thousand years of philosophy and the efforts of my whole life. You also ask me to translate into plain language concepts for which plain language is not made. All the same, I can tell you this: you are aware that, in progressing official science, the role of the observer is becoming more and more important. Relativity, the uncertainty principle, show you to what extent the observer intervenes today in phenomena. The secret of alchemy is this: there is a way to manipulate matter and energy in such a way as to produce what modern scientists would call a force field. This field of forces acts on the observer and puts him in a privileged situation in front of the universe. From this privileged point, he has access to realities that space and time, matter and energy, usually hide from us. This is what we call the Great Work.

"But the philosopher's stone?" The making of gold?

“These are only applications, particular cases. The main thing is not the transmutation of metals, but that of the experimenter himself. It is an ancient secret that several men per century find.

"And what becomes of them then?"

“Maybe I will find out one day. »

My friend was never to see this man again, who left an indelible mark under the name of Fulcanelli. All we know of him is that he survived the war and disappeared completely after the Liberation. All searches failed to find him ("The opinion of the most educated and the most qualified is that the one who hid himself, or still conceals himself today under this famous pseudonym of Fulcanelli, is the most famous and undoubtedly the only true alchemist (perhaps the last) of this century where the atom is king.” Claude d'Ygé, journal Initiation et Science, n° 44, Paris.).

Here we are now on a morning in July 1945. Still skeletal and pale, Jacques Bergier, dressed in khaki, is cutting a safe with a blowtorch. It's one more avatar. In recent years, he has successively been a secret agent, terrorist and political deportee. The safe is in a beautiful villa on Lake Constance, which was owned by the director of a large German trust. Cut up, the safe reveals its mystery: a bottle containing an extremely heavy powder. On the label: “Uranium, for atomic applications. This is the first formal proof of the existence in Germany of an atomic bomb project sufficiently advanced to require large quantities of pure uranium. Goebbels was not entirely wrong when, from the bombed-out bunker, he circulated through the ruined streets of Berlin the rumor that the secret weapon was about to burst in the faces of the "invaders." Bergier reported the discovery to the Allied authorities. The Americans were skeptical and declared any investigation into nuclear energy irrelevant. It was a feint. In fact, their first bomb had exploded in secret, at Alamogordo, and an American mission led by the physicist Goudsmith was, at this very moment, in Germany, looking for the atomic pile that Professor Heisenberg had built before the collapse. of the Reich. The Americans were skeptical and declared any investigation into nuclear energy irrelevant. It was a feint. In fact, their first bomb had exploded in secret, at Alamogordo, and an American mission led by the physicist Goudsmith was, at this very moment, in Germany, looking for the atomic pile that Professor Heisenberg had built before the collapse. of the Reich. The Americans were skeptical and declared any investigation into nuclear energy irrelevant. It was a feint. In fact, their first bomb had exploded in secret, at Alamogordo, and an American mission led by the physicist Goudsmith was, at this very moment, in Germany, looking for the atomic pile that Professor Heisenberg had built before the collapse. of the Reich.

In France, we didn't know anything formally, but there were clues. And in particular this one, for the wise people: Americans bought all the manuscripts and alchemical documents at exorbitant prices.

Bergier made a report to the provisional government on the probable reality of research on nuclear explosives both in Germany and in the United States. The report was probably thrown away, and my friend kept his bottle and waved it in people's faces saying, "Do you see that? All it takes is a neutron to pass inside for Paris to jump! This little fellow with a comical accent definitely had a taste for jokes and one marveled that a deportee fresh out of Mauthausen had retained so much humor. But the joke suddenly lost all its salt on the morning of Hiroshima. The telephone started ringing incessantly in Bergier's room. Various competent authorities were requesting copies of the report. The American intelligence services asked the holder of the famous bottle to meet urgently a certain major who did not want to say his name. Other authorities demanded that the bottle be immediately removed from the Paris area. In vain, Bergier explained that this bottle certainly did not contain pure uranium 235 and that, even if it did, the uranium was undoubtedly below critical mass. Otherwise, it would have exploded long ago. They confiscated his toy and he never heard of it again. To console him, they sent him a report from the “Direction Générale des Etudes et Recherches”. That was all that this organization, emanating from the French secret services, knew about nuclear energy. The report bore three stamps: "Secret", "Confidential", "Not to be distributed". It contained only clippings from the journal Science et Vie.

All that remained for him, to satisfy his curiosity, was to meet the famous anonymous major whose adventures Professor Goudsmith has related in his book Alsos. This mysterious officer, endowed with dark humor, had camouflaged his services in an organization for the search of the graves of American soldiers. He was very agitated and seemed to be hounded by Washington. He first wanted to know everything that Bergier had been able to learn or guess about the German nuclear projects. But above all it was essential for the salvation of the world, for the Allied cause and for the advancement of the major, that Eric Edward Dutt and the alchemist known by the name of Fulcanelli should be found urgently.

Dutt, whom Helbronner had been called upon to investigate, was a Hindu who claimed to have access to very old manuscripts. He claimed to have drawn from it certain methods of transmutation of metals and, by a condensed discharge through a conductor of tungsten boride, obtained traces of gold in the products collected. Similar results were to be obtained much later by the Russians, but using powerful particle accelerators.

Bergier could not be of much help to the free world, to the Allied cause and to the advancement of the major. Eric Edward Dutt, collaborator, had been shot by French counterintelligence in North Africa. As for Fulcanelli, he had definitely passed out.

However, the major, in gratitude, sent to Bergier, before publication, the proofs of the report: On the Military Use of Atomic Energy, by Professor HD Smyth. It was the first real document on the matter. However, in this text, there were strange confirmations of the statements made by the alchemist in June 1937.

The atomic pile, an essential tool for the manufacture of the bomb, was indeed only "a geometric arrangement of extremely pure substances". In principle, this tool, as Fulcanelli had said, used neither electricity nor the vacuum technique. The Smyth report also alluded to radiant poisons, gases, radioactive dust of extreme toxicity, which it was relatively easy to prepare in large quantities. The alchemist had spoken of a possible poisoning of the entire planet.

How could an obscure, isolated, mystical researcher have foreseen, or known all this? “Where does this come from, soul of man, where does this come from? »
Leafing through the proofs of the report, my friend also remembered this passage from De Alchimia by Albert the Great:

"If you have the misfortune to introduce yourself to princes and kings, they will never stop asking you: well, master, "how is the Work going?" When will we finally see "something good?" And in their impatience they will call you rogue and scoundrel and cause you all kinds of inconvenience. And if you don't get it right, you'll feel the full effect of their anger. If you succeed, on the contrary, they will keep you in their house in perpetual captivity with the intention of making you work for their profit. Was that why Fulcanelli had disappeared and why the alchemists of all times had jealously guarded the secret?

The first and last advice given by the Harris papyrus was: “Shut your mouths! Shut the mouths! Years after Hiroshima, on January 17, 1955, Oppenheimer was to declare: "In a profound sense that no cheap ridicule can erase, we scholars have known sin." And a thousand years before, a Chinese alchemist wrote:

“It would be a terrible sin to reveal to the soldiers the secret of your art. Be careful ! That there is not even an insect in the room where you work! »

IV
The modern alchemist and the spirit of research / Description of what an alchemist does in his laboratory / The indefinite repetition of the experiment / What is he waiting for? / The preparation of darkness / Electronic gas / Dissolving water / Is the philosopher's stone energy in suspension? / The transmutation of the alchemist himself / Beyond begins true metaphysics.

The modern alchemist is a man who reads treatises on nuclear physics. He takes it for granted that even more extraordinary transmutations and phenomena can be obtained by relatively simple manipulations and equipment. It is among contemporary alchemists that we find the spirit of the isolated seeker. The preservation of such a spirit is precious in our time. Indeed, we have come to believe that the progress of knowledge is no longer possible without numerous teams, without enormous equipment, without considerable funding. However, the fundamental discoveries, such as, for example, radioactivity or wave mechanics, were made by isolated men. America, which is the country of great teams and great means, today delegates agents around the world in search of original spirits. The director of American scientific research, Dr. James Killian, declared in 1958 that it was harmful to trust only collective work and that it was necessary to appeal to solitary men with original ideas, Rutherford carried out his major work on the structure of matter with tin cans and bits of string. Jean Perrin and Mme Curie, before the war, sent their collaborators to the Flea Market on Sundays to look for some equipment. Of course, the laboratories with powerful tools are necessary, but it would be important to organize a cooperation between these laboratories, these teams, and the solitary originals. However, the alchemists will shirk the invitation. Their rule is secrecy. Their ambition is spiritual. “There is no doubt, writes René Alleau, that alchemical manipulations serve as a support for an interior asceticism. If alchemy contains a science, this science is only a means of accessing consciousness. It is therefore important that it not spread outside, where it would become an end.

What is the alchemist's material? That of the researcher in high-temperature mineral chemistry: furnaces, crucibles, scales, measuring instruments, to which have been added modern accessible devices for detecting nuclear radiation: Geiger counter, scintillometer, etc.

This material may seem ridiculous. An orthodox physicist would not admit that it is possible to manufacture a neutron-emitting cathode with simple and inexpensive means. If our information is correct, alchemists succeed. At the time when the electron was considered the fourth state of matter, extremely expensive and complicated devices were invented to produce electronic currents. After which, in 1910, Elster and Gaitel showed that it was enough to heat lime in a vacuum to a dark red color. We don't know everything about the laws of matter. If alchemy is a knowledge ahead of ours, it uses simpler means than ours.

We know several alchemists in France and two in the United States. There are some in England, Germany and Italy. EJ Holmyard says he met one in Morocco. Three wrote to us from Prague. The Soviet scientific press seems to make much of alchemy today and undertakes historical research.

We shall now, for the first time, we believe, attempt to accurately describe what an alchemist does in his laboratory. We do not claim to reveal the entire alchemical method, but we believe we have, BUT this method, some glimpses of some interest. We do not forget that the ultimate goal of alchemy is the transmutation of the alchemist himself, and that the manipulations are only a slow journey towards the "deliverance of the spirit". It is on these manipulations that we are trying to provide new information.

The alchemist first, for years, deciphered old texts where "the reader must enter without Ariadne's thread, plunged into a labyrinth where everything has been consciously and systematically prepared in order to throw the layman into a inextricable mental confusion”. Patience, humility and faith brought him to a certain level of understanding of these texts. At this level, he will be able to really begin the alchemical experience. This experience, we are going to describe it, but we are missing one element. We know what happens in the alchemist's laboratory. We don't know what is going on in the alchemist himself, in his soul. It could all be connected. It may be that spiritual energy plays a role in the physical and chemical manipulations of alchemy. It may be that a certain way of acquiring, concentrating and directing the spiritual energy is essential to the success of the alchemical "work". This is not certain, but we cannot, in such a delicate subject, not reserve its part to the words of Dante: "I see that you believe these things because I tell you, but you do not know. not the why, so that to be believed they are no less hidden. » so that to be believed they are none the less hidden. » so that to be believed they are none the less hidden. »

Our alchemist begins by preparing, in an agate mortar, an intimate mixture of three constituents. The first, which accounts for 95%, is an ore: an arsenic pyrite, for example, an iron ore containing in particular arsenic and antimony as impurities. The second is a metal: iron, lead, silver or mercury. The third is an acid of organic origin: tartaric or citric acid. He will grind by hand and mix these constituents for five or six months. Then he heats it all up in a crucible. He gradually increases the temperature and makes the operation last about ten days. He must take precautions. Toxic gases are released: mercury vapor and above all arsenious hydrogen which has killed more than one alchemist from the start of the work.

He finally dissolves the contents of the crucible with an acid. It was while looking for a solvent that the alchemists of the past discovered acetic acid, nitric acid and sulfuric acid. This dissolution must take place under polarized light: either weak sunlight reflected on a mirror, or moonlight. It is now known that polarized light vibrates in one direction only, while normal light vibrates in all directions around an axis.

It then evaporates the liquid and recalcines the solid. He will repeat this operation thousands of times, for several years. For what ? We do not know it. Perhaps waiting for the moment when the best conditions will be met: cosmic rays, terrestrial magnetism, etc. Perhaps in order to obtain a "fatigue" of matter in deep structures that we still do not know. The alchemist speaks of "sacred patience", of slow condensation of the "universal spirit". There is surely something else behind this para-religious language.

This way of operating by repeating the same manipulation indefinitely may seem insane to a modern chemist. The latter was taught that only one experimental method is valid: that of Claude Bernard. This method proceeds by concomitant variations. The same experiment is repeated thousands of times, but each time varying one of the factors: proportions of one of the constituents, temperature, pressure, catalyst, etc. We note the results obtained and we identify some of the laws that govern the phenomenon. It is a proven method, but it is not the only one. The alchemist repeats his manipulation without varying anything, until something extraordinary happens. He believes, deep down, into a natural law somewhat comparable to the "principle of exclusion" formulated by the physicist Pauli, Jung's friend. For Pauli, in a given system (the atom and its molecules) there cannot be two particles (electrons, protons, mesons) in the same state. Everything is unique in nature: "Your soul is like no other..." This is why we pass suddenly, without intermediary, from hydrogen to helium, from helium to lithium, and so on. immediately, as indicated, for the nuclear physicist, by the Periodic Table of the Elements.

When a particle is added to a system, this particle cannot assume any of the states existing inside this system. It takes on a new state and the combination with the already existing particles creates a new and unique system.

For the alchemist, just as there are no two alike souls, two alike beings, two alike plants (Pauli would say: two alike electrons), there are no two alike experiences. If you repeat an experiment thousands of times, something extraordinary will eventually happen. We are not competent enough to prove him right or wrong. We content ourselves with noting that a modern science: the science of cosmic rays, has adopted a method comparable to that of the alchemist. This science studies the phenomena caused by the arrival, in a detection device or on a plate, of particles of tremendous energy coming from stars. These phenomena cannot be obtained at will. Must wait. Sometimes, we record an extraordinary phenomenon. It was thus that in the summer of 1957, during the research carried out in the United States by Professor Bruno Rossi, a particle animated by a formidable energy, never recorded before, and perhaps coming from another galaxy as our Milky Way, impressed 1,500 counters at a time in a radius of eight square kilometers, creating in its path a huge sheaf of atomic debris. No machine can be designed capable of producing such energy. Never such an event had taken place, in scholarly memory, and we do not know if it will take place again. It is an exceptional event, of terrestrial or cosmic origin, influencing his crucible, that our alchemist seems to be waiting for. Perhaps he could shorten his wait by using more active means than fire, for example by heating its crucible in an induction furnace by the levitation method (1), or by adding radioactive isotopes to its mixture. He could then do and redo his manipulation, not several times a week, but several billion times a second, thus multiplying the chances of capturing the "event" necessary for the success of the experiment. But the alchemist of today, like that of yesterday, works in secret, poorly, and considers waiting a virtue. thus multiplying the chances of capturing the "event" necessary for the success of the experience. But the alchemist of today, like that of yesterday, works in secret, poorly, and considers waiting a virtue. thus multiplying the chances of capturing the "event" necessary for the success of the experience. But the alchemist of today, like that of yesterday, works in secret, poorly, and considers waiting a virtue.

1. This method consists of suspending the mixture to be melted in a vacuum, out of any contact with a material wall, by means of a magnetic field. It is then melted by a high frequency current. The American weekly Life, in January 1958, published very beautiful photos of an oven of this kind, in action.

Let's continue our description: after several years of always the same work, day and night, our alchemist finally considers that the first phase is over. He then adds an oxidant to his mixture: potassium nitrate, for example. In his crucible there is sulfur from pyrite and charcoal from organic acid. Sulphur, coal and nitrate: it was during this manipulation that the ancient alchemists discovered gunpowder.

It will start dissolving again, then calcining, relentlessly, for months and years, waiting for a sign. On the nature of this sign, the alchemical works differ, but it is perhaps that there are several possible phenomena. This sign occurs at the time of a dissolution. For some alchemists, it is the formation of star-shaped crystals on the surface of the bath. For others, a layer of oxide appears on the surface of this bath, then tears, revealing the luminous metal in which seem to be reflected, in reduced image, sometimes the Milky Way, sometimes the constellations (Jacques Bergier declares having attended to this phenomenon).
This sign received, the alchemist withdraws his mixture from the crucible and “lets it ripen”, sheltered from air and humidity, until the first day of the next spring. When he resumes operations, these will aim at what is called, in the old texts, “the preparation of darkness”. Recent research into the history of chemistry has shown that the German monk Berthold Le Noir (Berthold Schwarz), who is commonly credited with inventing gunpowder in the West, never existed. He is a symbolic figure of this "preparation of darkness".

The mixture is placed in a transparent container, made of rock crystal, closed in a special way. There are few indications on this closure, called Hermès closure, or hermetic. The work now consists of heating the container by measuring the temperatures with infinite delicacy. The mixture, in the closed container, still contains sulphur, carbon and nitrate. It is a question of bringing this mixture to a certain degree of incandescence while avoiding an explosion. Cases of alchemists being seriously burned or killed are numerous. The explosions that occur in this way are particularly violent and generate temperatures which, logically, we could not expect.

The aim is to obtain, in the container, an "essence", a "fluid", which alchemists sometimes call "the raven's wing".

Let's explain about it. This operation has no equivalent in modern physics and chemistry. However, it is not without analogies. When a metal such as copper is dissolved in liquid ammonia gas, a dark blue color is obtained which turns black for high concentrations. The same phenomenon occurs if one dissolves in liquefied ammonia gas hydrogen under pressure or organic amines, so as to obtain the unstable compound NH, which has all the properties of an alkali metal and which, for this reason, it was called "ammonium". There is reason to believe that this blue-black coloration, which makes one think of the "crow's wing" of the fluid obtained by the alchemists, is the very color of the electronic gas. What is "electronic gas"? It is, for modern scientists, the set of free electrons which constitute a metal and ensure its mechanical, electrical and thermal properties. H corresponds, in today's terminology, to what the alchemist calls the "soul" or even the "essence" of metals. It is this soul or this “essence” which emerges in the hermetically sealed and patiently heated receptacle of the alchemist.
He heats, lets cool, heats again, and this for months or years, observing through the rock crystal the formation of what is also called "the alchemical egg": the mixture changed into a blue-black fluid . He finally opens his container in the dark, in the light of this kind of fluorescent liquid alone. Upon contact with air, this fluorescent liquid solidifies and separates.

He would thus obtain entirely new substances, unknown in nature and having all the properties of pure chemical elements, that is to say, inseparable by chemical means.

Modern alchemists claim to have thus obtained new chemical elements, and this in ponderable quantities. Fulcanelli would have extracted from one kilo of iron, twenty grams of a completely new body whose chemical and physical properties do not correspond to any known chemical element. The same operation would apply to all elements, most of which would result in two new elements per processed element.
Such an affirmation is likely to shock the laboratory man. Currently, the theory does not make it possible to foresee other separations of a chemical element than these:

— The molecule of an element can assume several states: ortho-hydrogen and para-hydrogen, for example.

— The nucleus of an element can assume a certain number of isotopic states characterized by a number of different neutrons. In lithium 6, the nucleus contains three neutrons, and in lithium 7, the nucleus contains four.

Our techniques, to separate the various allotropic states of the molecule and the various isotopic states of the nucleus, require the implementation of an enormous amount of equipment.

The means of the alchemist are, in comparison, derisory, and he would achieve, not a change of state of matter but the creation of a new matter, or at least a decomposition and recomposition different from the matter. All our knowledge of the atom and the nucleus is based on Nagaoka and Rutherford's “Saturnian” model: the nucleus and its ring of electrons. It is not obvious that, in the future, another theory will not lead us to realize changes of states and separations of chemical elements inconceivable at this moment.

So our alchemist opened his rock crystal container and obtained, by cooling the fluorescent liquid in contact with air, one or more new elements. There are still slags. These slags, he will wash them, for months, with tri-distilled water. Then he will keep this water away from light and temperature variations.

This water is said to have extraordinary chemical and medical properties. It is the universal solvent and elixir of long life of tradition, the elixir of Faust (Professor Ralph Milne Farley, United States Senator and Professor of Modern Physics at West Point Military School, has drawn attention to the fact that some biologists believe that aging is due to the accumulation of heavy water in the body. The alchemists' elixir of long life would be a substance that selectively eliminates heavy water. Such substances exist in water vapour. Why wouldn't they exist in liquid water treated in some way? But could a discovery of this importance be propagated without danger? Mr. Farley imagines a secret society of 'immortals, or quasi-immortals, existing for centuries and reproducing by cooptation. Such a society, which would not meddle in politics and would not intervene in the affairs of men, would have every chance of going unnoticed…),
Here, the alchemical tradition seems in harmony with avant-garde science. For ultra-modern science, in fact, water is an extremely complex and reactive mixture. Researchers studying the question of trace elements, and in particular Doctor Jacques Méntroit, have found that practically all metals are soluble in water in the presence of certain catalysts such as glucose and under certain temperature variations. Water would also form real chemical compounds, hydrates, with inert gases such as helium and argon. If we knew which constituent of water is responsible for the formation of hydrates in contact with an inert gas, it would be possible to stimulate the solvent power of water and thus obtain a truly universal solvent. The very serious Russian magazine Savoir et Force wrote in its number 11 of 1957 that one day this result could be achieved by bombarding water with nuclear radiation and that the universal solvent of the alchemists would be a reality before the end of the century. And this review foresaw a number of applications, imagined tunnel breakthroughs by means of an activated water jet.
Our alchemist therefore now finds himself in possession of a certain number of simple bodies unknown in nature and of a few vials of an alchemical water capable of prolonging his life considerably by rejuvenating the tissues.

He will now try to recombine the single elements he obtained. He mixes them in his mortar and melts them at low temperatures, in the presence of catalysts on which the texts are very vague. The more one advances in the study of alchemical manipulations, the more the texts are difficult to decipher. This work will take him several more years.

He would thus obtain, we are assured, substances absolutely resembling known metals, and in particular metals which are good conductors of heat and electricity. These would be alchemical copper, alchemical silver, alchemical gold. Conventional tests and spectroscopy would not reveal the novelty of these substances, and yet they would have new properties, different from those of known metals, and surprising.

If our information is correct, alchemical copper, apparently similar to known copper and yet very different, would have an infinitely low electrical resistance, comparable to that of the superconductors which the physicist obtains near absolute zero. Such copper, if it could be used, would revolutionize electrochemistry.

Other substances, born of alchemical manipulation, would be even more surprising. One of them would be soluble in the glass, at low temperature and before the moment of fusion of this one. This substance, on touching the slightly softened glass, would disperse inside, giving it a ruby ​​red color, with mauve fluorescence in the dark. It is the powder obtained by grinding this modified glass in the agate mortar, which the alchemical texts call the "powder of projection" or "philosopher's stone". “In what, writes Bernard, Count of Marche Trévisane, in his philosophical treatise, is accomplished this precious Stone surmounting all precious stones, which is an infinite treasure to the glory of God who lives and reigns eternally. »

We know the marvelous legends which attach themselves to this stone or "powder of projection" which would be able to ensure transmutations of metals in ponderable quantities. In particular, she would transform certain base metals into gold, silver or platinum, but this would only be one aspect of her power. It would be a kind of reservoir of nuclear energy in suspension, manageable at will.

We are going to return later to the questions posed to the enlightened modern man by the manipulations of the alchemist, but let us stop where the alchemical texts themselves stop. Here is the "great work" accomplished. There occurs in the alchemist himself a transformation which these texts evoke, but which we are unable to describe, having only faint analogical glimpses of it. This transformation would be like the promise, through a privileged being, of what awaits all of humanity at the end of its intelligent contact with the earth and its elements: its fusion in Spirit, its concentration in a fixed spiritual point and its connection with other foci of consciousness throughout the cosmic spaces. Gradually, or in a sudden flash, the alchemist, says the tradition, discovers the meaning of his long work. The secrets of energy and matter are revealed to him, and at the same time the infinite perspectives of Life become visible to him. He possesses the key to the mechanics of the universe. He himself establishes new relations between his own now animated spirit and the universal spirit in eternal progress of concentration. Are certain radiations of the projection powder the cause of the transmutation of the physical being?

The manipulation of fire and of certain substances thus makes it possible not only to transmute the elements, but also to transform the experimenter himself. This, under the influence of the forces emitted by the crucible (i.e. radiation emitted by nuclei undergoing structural changes), enters another state. Mutations take place in him. His life is prolonged, his intelligence and his perceptions reach a higher level. The existence of such “mutants” is one of the foundations of the Rose-Croix tradition. The alchemist passes to another state of being. He finds himself hoisted to another level of consciousness. He alone finds himself awake, and all the other men, it seems to him, are still asleep. He escapes the ordinary human, like Mallory, on Everest, disappears,

"The Philosopher's Stone thus represents the first step that can help man to rise towards the Absolute (René ALLEAU: Preface to the work of M. Le Breton: The Keys to Spagyric Philosophy. Editions Caractères, Paris. ). Beyond that, the mystery begins. On this side, there is no mystery, no esotericism, no other shadows than those projected by our desires and especially our pride. But, as it is easier to be satisfied with ideas and words than to do something with one's hands, one's pain, one's fatigue, in silence and in solitude, it is also more convenient to seek in the thought said "pure" a refuge, to fight hand to hand against gravity and the darkness of matter. Alchemy forbids any such escape to its disciples. It leaves them face to face with the great riddle... It only assures us that if we fight to the end to extricate ourselves from ignorance, truth itself will fight for us and ultimately conquer all things. Then perhaps the TRUE metaphysics will begin. »

V
There is a time for everything / And there is even a time for times to come together.

The old alchemical texts assure that in Saturn are the keys of matter. By a singular coincidence, everything we know today in nuclear physics is based on a definition of the "Saturnian" atom. The atom would be, according to the definition of Nagaoka and Rutherford, “a central mass exerting an attraction, surrounded by rotating rings of electrons”.

It is this "Saturnian" conception of the atom which is accepted by all the scientists of the world, not as an absolute truth, but as the most effective working hypothesis. It is possible that it will appear, to physicists of the future, as a naïveté. Quantum theory and wave mechanics apply to the behavior of electrons. No theory and no mechanics accurately account for the laws that govern the nucleus. We imagine that it is composed of protons and neutrons, and that's it. Nothing specific is known about nuclear forces. They are neither electric nor magnetic nor gravitational in nature. The last hypothesis retained links these forces to intermediate particles between the neutron and the proton, which are called mesons. It only satisfies the expectation of something else. In two years or in ten years, the hypotheses will undoubtedly have taken other directions. However, it should be noted that we are in an era where scientists have neither quite the time nor quite the right to do nuclear physics. All the efforts and all the material available are concentrated on the manufacture of explosives and the production of energy. Basic research is pushed into the background. The urgent thing is to make the most of what we already know. Power matters more than knowledge. It is this appetite for power that the alchemists seem to have always carefully avoided. it should be noted that we are in a time when scientists have neither quite the time nor quite the right to do nuclear physics. All the efforts and all the material available are concentrated on the manufacture of explosives and the production of energy. Basic research is pushed into the background. The urgent thing is to make the most of what we already know. Power matters more than knowledge. It is this appetite for power that the alchemists seem to have always carefully avoided. it should be noted that we are in a time when scientists have neither quite the time nor quite the right to do nuclear physics. All the efforts and all the material available are concentrated on the manufacture of explosives and the production of energy. Basic research is pushed into the background. The urgent thing is to make the most of what we already know. Power matters more than knowledge. It is this appetite for power that the alchemists seem to have always carefully avoided. Basic research is pushed into the background. The urgent thing is to make the most of what we already know. Power matters more than knowledge. It is this appetite for power that the alchemists seem to have always carefully avoided. Basic research is pushed into the background. The urgent thing is to make the most of what we already know. Power matters more than knowledge. It is this appetite for power that the alchemists seem to have always carefully avoided.
Where are we ? Contact with neutrons makes all elements radioactive. Nuclear test explosions poison the planet's atmosphere. This poisoning, which progresses geometrically, will madly increase the number of stillborn children, cancers, leukaemias, will spoil the plants, upset the climates, produce monsters, break our nerves, suffocate us. Governments, whether totalitarian or democratic, will not give up. They will not give up for two reasons. The first is that popular opinion cannot be seized of the question. Popular opinion is not at the level of planetary consciousness that it would take to react. The second is that there is no government, but limited companies with human capital, in charge,

Now, if we believe in historical fatality, we believe that it is itself only one of the forms of the spiritual destiny of humanity, and that this destiny is beautiful. We therefore do not think that humanity will perish, even if it should suffer a thousand deaths, but that through its immense and appalling pains, it will be born—or reborn—to the joy of feeling “on the move”.

Will nuclear physics, oriented towards power, as Mr. Jean Rostand says, “waste the genetic capital of humanity”? Yes, maybe, for a few years. But we cannot help imagining science becoming able to untie the Gordian knot it has just tied.
Currently known methods of transmutation do not make it possible to suppress energy and radioactivity. These are narrowly limited transmutations, the harmful effects of which are unlimited. If the alchemists are right, there are simple, inexpensive, and safe ways to produce massive transmutations. Such means must go through a "dissolution" of matter and its reconstruction in a state different from the initial state. Nothing in current physics allows us to believe it. Yet this is what alchemists have been saying for millennia. Now, our ignorance of the nature of nuclear forces and of the structure of the nucleus obliges us not to speak of radical impossibilities. If alchemical transmutation exists, is that the nucleus has properties that we do not know. The stakes are high enough for a really serious study of alchemical literature to be attempted. If this study does not lead to the observation of irrefutable facts, there is at least some chance that it suggests new ideas. And these are the ideas that are most lacking in the present state of nuclear physics, subject to the appetite for power and dozing under the enormity of the material.

We begin to glimpse infinitely complicated structures inside the proton and the neutron, and that the so-called “fundamental” laws, such as, for example, the principle of parity, do not apply to the nucleus. We begin to speak of an "antimatter", of the possible coexistence of several universes within our visible universe, so that everything is possible in the future and in particular the revenge of alchemy. It would be beautiful and in keeping with the noble maintenance of alchemical language, if our salvation were to take place through spagyric philosophy. There is time for everything, and there is even a time for times to come together.