The Two Aspects of the Great Work

Excerpt from "From the Menhir to the Cross"

André Savoret




Analytical knowledge is the opposite of real knowledge. The key to the latter is the realization of the Holy Spirit. For this Spirit to dwell in us, we must renounce the impure spirit, the false light of the "spiritus mundi".

It is written in genesis that the spirit shadowed the primordial waters, enveloped by the dark Abyss.

We must replenish this virgin water (Dwelling of the Holy Spirit, say the litanies) by purifying our mind and forgetting the jumble of indigestible knowledge with which we have soiled the mirror of our imagination. We will then be in mental darkness, since we will no longer draw from this sphere the elements of analytical knowledge, the poisonous fruits of the tree of science.

It is in this night, in this state of spiritual nudity of interior simplification, that the spirit will be able to descend and inform, again, the microcosmic chaos.

What do the masters of alchemy tell us?

“To bring back an appropriate earth to its primordial chaotic state, to obtain the virgin earth of the wise, a sensitive aspect of the universal substance”.

This virgin earth is the medium, the matrix, the white nurse. Then animate this virgin land with the help of the universal spirit, specialization of the Ruach Elohim of Genesis. "

It is this same process which constitutes the general mode of spiritual alchemy and the particular mode of accession to true Knowledge:

Bring the mind back to the simplicity of the first substance. Into this void the spirit will descend, in order to inform it.

Here lies a double pitfall: First, man must choose his Master and serve only him. However, too often, he gives himself, but with reluctance, he wants and does not want, sometimes says yes, sometimes no, most often, perhaps. This is the place to recall the beautiful words of the Tao: To have little faith is to have no faith, and this one, which is similar to it: Off THE WAY, everything is out of the way.

Then, man is the closed field where the Holy Spirit and the impure spirit clash. He must therefore watch over his desires, because according to the orientation and the quality of the desire, one or the other of these spirits will make his home in him; in other words, in this virgin land where every seed can bear fruit according to its kind, a branch of the tree of Life or a branch of the tree of science will sprout, in accordance with the secret motive of man.

We can understand here how much, without the help of Heaven, the Great Spiritual Work can be dangerous, and what seductions will be implemented so that it brings us death instead of life.

Now, help from Heaven comes to those who sincerely ask for it. Hence the need for prayer, the principle of which is an act of humility.

Without humility such work leads directly to spiritual death, for every feeling of pride is a sign of the Evil One. With humility, this work leads to the reception of the Holy Spirit, to definitive illumination, provided that one does not forget the essential Commandment: Love of neighbour.