Alchemical Processes: From Putrefaction to Divine Birth

dies; everything that is dead putrefies and finds new life" Pernety, 1758. With Putrefaction one must witness a return of consciousness to a primordial state, before the fall and every materialization. It is said that the Alchemist must become crude again. He must become a child again. The term "to become crude again" has various meanings, generally it is associated with the symbol of the Fountain of Youth. This symbol implies the alchemist's communication with the Waters in a not yet differentiated state, with pure Mercury so that consciousness itself, through the action of this water, results as "rejuvenated" that is, as it was before "aging" and falling into matter. Sometimes it is said that metals that are "dead" (individuated) must be made crude again and thus become "alive" according to a technique we will see later.

7 THE DIVINE DAWN AND THE BIRTH OF THE CHILD

The product of this process is a new birth. No longer a material birth but a spiritual birth. The alchemist finds a new mother: Isis-Urania of the ancient mysteries, the Holy Spirit that acts in Mary, the mother of God. Jesus answered him: «Truly, truly I tell you that if one is not born again he cannot see the kingdom of God». Nicodemus said to him: «How can a man be born when he is already old? Can he enter a second time into his mother's womb and be born?» Jesus replied: «Truly, truly I tell you that if one is not born of water and Spirit, he cannot enter the kingdom of God. That which is born of flesh, is flesh; and that which is born of the Spirit, is spirit. Do not marvel if I told you: "You must be born again". The wind blows where it wants, and you hear its sound, but you know neither where it comes from nor where it goes; so it is with everyone who is born of the Spirit».

In this phase the Alchemist experiences the divine birth in his own heart, a grafting of the Christ Word in the heart. The descent of Grace is accompanied by an Angelic presence that prepares the Divine presence that will be grafted into the divine child. This is the culmination of mystical life, it is the first vision of the Grail that starts the quest for the Grail. It is the beginning of the White Work.

Part II WHITE WORK OR FORMATION OF THE ENTITY OF LIGHT AND POWER

8 THE GUARDIAN

At a certain point in the dissolution process the Alchemist has a very edifying but not exactly pleasant encounter which is the infamous encounter with the Guardian of the Threshold. The alchemist sees himself, as in a mirror, sees the specter of himself as materialized in an entity external to him, the alchemist sees himself as he has conceived himself consciously and unconsciously. It is as if in this fluidic matter an echo of all the conscious and unconscious conceptions of the alchemist had been formed. To this entity the Alchemists have given various names, sometimes diplomatic like mirror of art, loyal servant, subject of the wise or first old man who must become cherub according to the alchemical motto "yesterday's old man is tomorrow's cherub". But sometimes they have indicated it with less complimentary terms: sometimes it is represented as a scaly vase, sometimes as shadow of the body, sometimes as vampire, sometimes as a black dragon, covered with scales, often covered with red dots, with a penetrating, nauseating and toxic odor to which one must cut off the head so as not to be poisoned by it. When the alchemists speak of scales of this black dragon, they say they refer to the fact that this dragon is as if covered by a black layer of coarse, hard, leprous impurities that must be freed, because they form like an obstacle for the Alchemist since, being heavy, they prevent him from accessing the higher and subtler spiritual planes and obscure his vision of clear spiritual light. If the vision of this entity and its transmutation process are treated, outside of alchemical symbols and with a correct interpretation of a Christic character, in the 10th Notebook of Archeosophy, the way to operate this inner change in one's own soul and make it pass from an egocentric state to a theocentric state is instead described in the 11th Notebook of Archeosophy which deals with mystical Ascesis and meditation on the heart. Here then is the reason for the alchemical motto "yesterday's old man who must become tomorrow's cherub", or "the Old Man who must become the new". When they refer to the penetrating and nauseating odor they want to imply an emanation from it of an irrational and ancestral state of terror to which the alchemist must immediately cut off the head so as not to come out terrorized. Frantz Hartmann in The Secret of the Great Work identifies this entity, which he calls "Guardian of the Threshold", as the main matter of the work, identifies it as the means but also the main obstacle in the realization of the Great Work. "when the dark fetid spirit is repelled, so much so that neither the odor nor the dark color remains, then the body becomes luminous, the soul rejoices with it the spirit" Comario.

9 THE EAGLES OF PHILALETHES, THE DOVES OF DIANA

Actually even the previous operations are sometimes understood as sublimations: "Know that all operations called putrefaction, solution, coagulation, ablution and fixation, consist in sublimation alone" Arnaldus of Villanova. The difference between these first sublimations and the subsequent ones seems however to be the result: in the first the alchemist remains at the black color and thus cannot see the light, while in the second the alchemist manages to rise up to white. Let us try to better understand the meaning of these sublimations that sometimes also go under the name of "production of Silver" or also "flights of Eagles". The idea seems to be very simple: in the image, reported above, there are doves that rise to the sky carrying ampules and other doves that descend to earth bringing back new ampules. The doves or eagles that fly would represent according to some interpreters the spirit that, having freed the fetid spirit from its shells