Hermetic Philosophy and Alchemy.doc

Mary Anne Atwood Hermetic Philosophy and Alchemy ~
A Suggestive Inquiry into the Hermetic Mystery
with a Dissertation on the more Celebrated of the Alchemical Philosophers
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Part I
An Exoteric View of the Progress and Theory of Alchemy
Chapter I ~ A Preliminary Account of the Hermetic Philosophy, with the more
Salient Points of its Public History
Chapter II ~ Of the Theory of Transmutation in General, and of the First
Matter
Chapter III ~ The Golden Treatise of Hermes Trismegistus Concerning the
Physical Secret of the Philosophers' Stone, in Seven Sections
Part II
A More Esoteric Consideration of the Hermetic Art and its Mysteries
Chapter I ~ Of the True Subject of the Hermetic Art and its Concealed Root. Chapter II ~ Of the Mysteries
Chapter III ~ The Mysteries Continued
Chapter IV ~ The Mysteries Concluded
Part III
Concerning the Laws and Vital Conditions of the Hermetic Experiment
Chapter I ~ Of the Experimental Method and Fermentations of the Philosophic
Subject According to the Paracelsian Alchemists and Some Others
Chapter II ~ A Further Analysis of the Initial Principle and Its Education
into Light
Chapter III ~ Of the Manifestations of the Philosophic Matter
Chapter IV ~ Of the Mental Requisites and Impediments Incidental to
Individuals, Either as Masters or Students, in the Hermetic Art
Part IV
The Hermetic Practice
Chapter I ~ Of the Vital Purification, Commonly Called the Gross Work
Chapter II ~ Of the Philosophic or Subtle Work
Chapter III ~ The Six Keys of Eudoxus
Chapter IV ~ The Conclusion
Appendix
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Part I
An Exoteric View of the Progress and Theory of Alchemy

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Chapter I
A Preliminary Account of the Hermetic Philosophy, with the more Salient
Points of its Public History
The Hermetic tradition opens early with the morning dawn in the eastern
world. All pertaining thereto is romantic and mystical. Its monuments,
emblems, and numerous written records, alike dark and enigmatical, form one
of the most remarkable episodes in the history of the human mind. A hard
task were it indeed and almost infinite to discuss every particular that
has been presented by individuals concerning the art of Alchemy; and as
difficult to fix with certainty the origin of a science which has been
successively attributed to Adam, Noah and his son Cham, to Solomon,
Zoroaster, and the Egyptian Hermes. Nor, fortunately, does this obscurity
concern us much in an inquiry which rather relates to the means and
principles of occult science than to the period and place of their reputed
discovery. Nothing, perhaps, is less worthy or more calculated to distract
the mind from points of real importance than this very question of temporal
origin, which, when we have taken all pains to satisfy and remember, leaves
us no wiser in reality than we were before. What signifies it, for
instance, that we attribute letters to Cadmus, or trace oracles to
Zoroaster, or the kabalah to Moses, the Eleusian mysteries to Orpheus, or
Freemasonry to Noah; whilst we are profoundly ignorant of the nature and
true beginning of any one of these things, and observe not how truth, being
everywhere eternal, does not there always originate where it is understood? We do not delay, therefore, to ascertain, even were it possible, whether
the Hermetic Science was indeed preserved to mankind on the Syriadic
pillars after the flood, or whether Egypt or Palestine may lay equal claims
to the same; or, whether in truth that Smagardine table, whose singular
inscription has been transmitted to this day, is attributable to Hermes or
to any other name. It may suffice the present need to accept the general
assertion of its advocates, and consider Alchemy as an antique arifice
coeval, for aught we know to the contrary, with the universe itself. For
although attempts have been made, as by Herman Conringius (1), to slight it
as a recent invention, and it is also true that by a singularly envious
fate, nearly all Egyptian record of the art has perished; yet we find the
original evidence contained in the works of A. Kircher (2), the learned
Dane Olaus Borrichius (3), and Robert Vallensis in the first volume of the
Theatrum Chemicum (4), more than sufficient to balance every objection of
this kind, besides ample collateral probability bequeathed in the best
Greek Authors, historical and philosophic.
In order to show that the propositions we may hereafter have occasion to
offer are not gratuitous as also with better effect to introduce a stranger
subject, it will be requisite to run through a brief account of the
Alchemical philosophers, with the literature and public evidence of their
science; the more so, as no one of the many histories of philosophy
compiled or translated into our language advert to it in such a manner as,
considering the powerful and widespread influence this branch formerly
exercised on the human mind, it certainly appears to deserve.
This once famous Art, then, has been represented both as giving titles and
receiving them from its mother land, Cham; for so, during a long period,
according to Plutarch, was Egypt denominated, or Chemia, on account of the
extreme blackness of her soil: --- or, as others say, because it was there
that the art of Vulcan was first practiced by Cham, one of the sons of the
Patriarch, from whom they thus derive the name and art together. But by the
word Chemia, says Plutarch, the seeing pupil of the human eye was also
designated, and other black matters, whence in part perhaps Alchemy, so
obscurely descended, has been likewise stigmatized as a Black Art (5).
Etymological research has doubtless proved useful in leading on and
corroborating truths once suggested, but it is not a way of first
discovery; derivations may be too easily conformed to any bias, and words
do not convey true ideas unless their proper leader be previously
entertained. Without being able now, therefore, to determine whether the
art gave or received a title from Cham, the Persian prince Alchimin, as
others have contended, or that dark Egyptian earth; to take a point of
time, we may begin the Hermetic story from Hermes, by the Greeks called
Trismegistus, Egypt's great and far-reputed adeptest king, who, according
to Suidas, lived before the time of the Pharoahs, about 400 years previous
to Moses, or, as others compute, about 1900 before the Christian era (6).
This prince, like Solomon, is highly celebrated by antiquity for his wisdom
and skill in the secret operations of nature, and for his reputed discovery
of the quintessential perfectibility of the three kingdoms in their
homogeneal unity; whence he is called the Thrice Great Hermes, having the
spiritual intelligence of all things in their universal law (7).
It is to be lamented that no one of the many books attributed to him, and
which are named in detail by Clemens Alexandrinus, escaped the destroying
hand of Dioclesian (8); more particularly if we judge them, as Jamblicus
assures us we may, by those Asclepian Dialogues and the Divine Poimander,
which yet pass current under the name of Hermes (9). Both are preserved in
the Latin of Ficinus, and have been well translated into our language by Dr
Everard. The latter, though a small work, surpasses most that are extant
for sublimity of doctrine and expression; its verses flow forth eloquent,
as it were, from the fountain of nature, instinct with intelligence; such
as might be more efficacious to move the rational skeptic off from his
negative ground into the happier regions of intelligible reality, than many
theological discourses which, of a lower grade of comprehension, are unable
to make this highly affirmative yet intellectual stand. But the subjects
treated of in the books of the Poemander and Asclepias are theosophic and
ultimate, and denote rather our divine capabilities and promise of
regeneration than the physical ground of either; this, with the practical
method of alchemy being further given in the Tractatus Aureus, or Golden
Treatise, an admirable relic, consisting of seven chapters, attributed to
the same author (10). The Smaragdine Table, which, in its few enigmatical
but remarkable lines, is said to comprehend the working principle and total
subject of the art, we here subjoin: from the original Arabic and Greek
copies, it has been rendered into Latin by Kircher as follows: ---
Tabula Smaragdina Hermetis / The Smaragdine Table of Hermes
"True, without error, certain and most true; that which is above is as that
which is below, and that which is below is as that which is above, for
performing the miracles of the One Thing; and as all things were from one,
by the mediation of one, so all things arose from this one thing by
adaptation; the father of it is the Sun, the mother of it is the Moon; the
wind carries it in its belly; the nurse thereof is the Earth. This is the
father of all perfection, or consummation of the whole world. The power of
it is Integral, if it be turned into earth. Thou shalt separate the earth
from the fire, the subtle from the gross, gently with much sagacity; it
ascends from earth to heaven, and again descends to earth: and receives the
strength of the superiors and of the inferiors --- so thou hast the glory
of the whole world; therefore let all obscurity flee before thee. This is
the strong fortitude of all fortitudes, overcoming every subtle and
penetrating every solid thing. So the world was created. Hence were all
wonderful adaptations of which this is the manner. Therefore I am I called
Thrice Great Hermes, having the Three Parts of the philosophy of the whole
world. That which I have written is consummated concerning the operation of
the Sun".
This Emerald Table, unique and authentic as it may be regarded, is all that
remains to us from Egypt of her Sacred Art. A few riddles and fables, all
more or less imperfect, that we