ARTICLE/INSIGHT/ALCHEMY

THE ALCHEMICAL JOURNEY TO TRANSFORMATION

By Gerry Taylor-Wood

Thousands of years ago a young man named Balinas quested for the truth.  He asked the age old and timeless questions, who made me, why am I here, what am I to do? 

His parents tired of his relentless questioning.  They took him to doctors and priests yet none could answer his profound enquiries. 

Finally his Father becomes infuriated thinking his son was insane.  They argue and Balinas leaves home and goes to the village square.  In the centre there is a statue of Hermes and in total despair he slumps to the ground beneath the stony statue.  Day turns to night and he falls into a deep sleep.

The next day he leaves, wandering the hills and woodlands always searching, searching for answers.  Months pass and then years.  No one and nothing tell him of the truth of his existence; who, why, what?

Finally in utter despair he returns to his village, disillusioned.  He rests at the feet of the statue of Hermes.  A hundred times he has seen a sign on the statue, “The Answer Lies Beneath My Feet”.

In a flash he sees the light!  Balinas has been sitting AT Hermes feet – he must dig BENEATH his feet to find out what lies within.

Furiously ploughing down beneath the statue, a door is revealed and behind it a tunnel.  But a wind is blowing so strong, any light is extinguished.  An apparition appears and tells him to place a candle in a glass globe.  Credence is given to this being the first ever lantern.

Returning to the tunnel he presses on deeper and deeper inside, illumined by the lamp.

Finally he enters an underground chamber.  Before him is the mummified corpse of Hermes holding the EMERALD TABLET*MORE.  Beneath Hermes feet are many ancient scrolls, thousands of years old.  The Emerald Tablet is said to have been brought to earth by beings from an advanced planet, aliens or angels.

The scrolls contained wisdom from the beginning of time on alchemy, astrology, astronomy, science, mathematics, philosophy. 

ALL the answers to ALL of his questions were here.

Balinas leaves the cave an enlightened man.  He promptly becomes a vegetarian and spends the rest of his life assisting others on their Path to Illumination.

The central teaching of the Emerald Tablet is;

AS ABOVE SO BELOW, THUS THE MIRACLE OF ONENESS IS ACCOMPLISHED

This is the central truth of alchemy and astrology and all philosophies.  Alchemy and astrology were once the same subject until a split occurred, some say in the middle ages when the astrologers looked ‘up’ to the heavens and read the stars, and the Alchemists looked ‘down’ into the earth utilizing metals in their craft.

Astrologer’s considered seven planets in their craft, alchemists seven metals.  These align to the seven Chakras, seven colours of the rainbow, seven Archangels in Angelology and is the bases for numerous wisdom teachings.

OUR NATURE MAKES PERFECT WHAT NATURE MAKES

The Alchemists would strive for perfection out of the chaos of the Mind of God.

Carl Jung, the famous psychologist took up the quest to assist our understand of Alchemy in the early part of the last century.  He saw the journey from Saturn through all seven planets to the Sun as a parallel to the Alchemist’s journey from Lead, or base metal to Gold.  And this he asserted was the journey of the evolution of the soul – from shadow to Enlightenment.  A stairway in the psyche that literally takes us all the way to heaven.

Alchemists existed throughout all cultures both East and West.  Among there famous there stands Sir Isaac Newton, Galileo, Martin Luther, Nicholas Flamell, Fulcanelli whose remarkable work on the sacred geometry of Cathedrals is a revelation.

In Paris alone there were over 500,000 alchemists at one time.  Prague in Czechoslovakia
with its ‘Golden Alley’ of Alchemists is central to the quest to comprehend alchemy.

Today we reap the benefits of their turbulent past, as many fell victim to religious persecution as we tread our own Path to alchemical transformation.