H. Stanley Redgrove

“ The outer world appeared to him rather as a discordant chaos, the mere sport and plaything of the gods. The theory of the uniformity of Nature—that Nature is ever like to herself—the very essence of the modern scientific spirit, had yet to be born of years of unwearied labour and unceasing delving into Nature's innermost secrets. Only in Mathematics—in the properties of geometrical figures, and of numbers—was the reign of law, the principle of harmony, perceivable. ”

“ The alchemists held that the metals are one in essence, and spring from the same seed in the womb of nature, but are not all equally matured and perfect, gold being the highest product of Nature’s powers. In gold, the alchemist saw a picture of the regenerate man, resplendent with spiritual beauty, overcoming all temptations and proof against evil; whilst he regarded lead—the basest of the metals—as typical of the sinful and unregenerate man, stamped with the hideousness of sin and easily overcome by temptation and evil ”

“ Contradictory ideas from different compartments will then present themselves to consciousness at the same moment of time, and the result of the perception of their contradictory nature will be mental anguish and turmoil, persisting until one set of ideas is conquered and overcome by the other, and harmony and unity are restored.
It is true of all of us, then, that we seek for Unity—unity in mind and life. Some seek it in science and a life of knowledge; some seek it in religion and a life of faith; some seek it in human love and find it in the life of service to their fellows ”

“ It is a regrettable fact that the majority of works dealing with the subject of Alchemy take a one-sided point of view. The chemists generally take a purely physical view of the subject, and instead of trying to understand its mystical language, often (I do not say always) prefer to label it nonsense and the alchemist a fool. On the other hand, the mystics, in many cases, take a purely transcendental view of the subject, forgetting the fact that the alchemists were, for the most part, concerned with operations of a physical nature. ”

“ III. MEDICINE AND MAGIC
THERE are few tasks at once so instructive and so fascinating as the tracing of the development of the human mind as manifested in the evolution of scientific and philosophical theories. And this is, perhaps, especially true when, as in the case of medicine, this evolution has followed paths so tortuous, intersected by so many fantastic byways, that one is not infrequently doubtful as to the true road. ”

“ I have briefly and simply set forth to you the perfect analogy which exists between our earthly and chemical and the true and heavenly Stone, Jesus Christ, whereby we may attain unto certain beatitude and perfection, not only in earthly but also in eternal life. ”

“ And whether or not the desire for material wealth was a secondary object, the true aim of the genuine alchemist was a much nobler one than this as one of them exclaims with true scientific fervour: "Would to God... all men might become adepts in our Art—for then gold, the great idol of mankind, would lose its value, and we should prize it only for its scientific teaching." ”

“ For if it be true, as all must admit, that the unknown can only be explained in terms of the known, then the universe must either be explained in terms of man—i.e. in terms of will or desire—or remain incomprehensible. That is to say, a philosophy must either be anthropomorphic, or no philosophy at all.
Thus a metaphysical scrutiny of the results of modern science leads us to a belief in God. But man felt the need of unity, and crude animism, though a step in the right direction, failed to satisfy his thought, long before the days of modern science. ”

“ He who held the key to one problem held the key to all three, provided he understood the analogy between matter and spirit. The point is not, be it noted, whether these problems are in reality one and the same; the main doctrine of analogy, which is, indeed, an essential element in all true mystical philosophy, will, we suppose, meet with general consent; but it will be contended (and rightly, we think) that the analogies drawn by the alchemists are fantastic and by no means always correct, though possibly there may be more truth in them than appears at first sight. ”

“ Many the methods, right and wrong; many the terms under which the One is conceived, true and false—in a sense, to use the phraseology of a bygone system of philosophy, we are all, consciously or unconsciously, following paths that lead thither or paths that lead away, seekers in the quest of the Philosopher's Stone.
Let us, in these excursions in the byways of thought, consider for a while the form that the quest of fundamental unity took in the hands of those curious mediaeval philosophers, half mystics, half experimentalists in natural things—that are known by the name of "alchemists." ”

“ The alchemist was certainly a fantastic evolutionist, but he was an evolutionist, and, moreover, he did not make the curious and paradoxical mistake of regarding the fact of evolution as explaining away the existence of God—the alchemist recognised the hand of the Divine in nature—and, although, in these days of modern science, we cannot accept his theory of the growth of metals, we can, nevertheless, appreciate and accept the fundamental germ-idea underlying it. ”

“ It is ever a conjunction between male and female in a mystical sense; it is ever the bringing together by art of things separated by an imperfect order of things; it is ever the perfection of natures by means of this conjunction. But if the mystical work of alchemy is an inward work in consciousness, then the union between male and female is an union in consciousness; and if we remember the traditions of a state when male and female had not as yet been divided, it may dawn upon us that the higher alchemy was a practice for the return into this ineffable mode of being. ”

“ Correctly speaking, there is no such thing as “Modern Alchemy”; not that Mysticism is dead, or that men no longer seek to apply the principles of Mysticism to phenomena on the physical plane, but they do so after another manner from that of the alchemists. A new science, however, is born amongst us, closely related on the one hand to Chemistry, on the other to Physics, but dealing with changes more profound and reactions more deeply seated than are dealt with by either of these; a science as yet without a name, unless it be the not altogether satisfactory one of “Radioactivity.” ”

“ Indeed, if we may judge by the esteem in which the Hermetic maxim, "What is above is as that which is below, what is below is as that which is above, to accomplish the miracles of the One Thing," was held by every alchemist, we are justified in asserting that the mystical theory of the spiritual significance of Nature—a theory with which, as we have seen, is closely connected the Neoplatonic and Kabalistic doctrine that all things emanate in series from the Divine Source of all Being—was at the very heart of alchemy. ”

“ This synthesis of chemistry with medicine was of very great benefit to each science; new possibilities of chemical investigation were opened up now that the aim was not purely alchemistic. Paracelsus’s central theory was that of the analogy between man, the microcosm, and the world or macrocosm. He regarded all the actions that go on in the human body as of a chemical nature, and he thought that illness was the result of a disproportion in the body between the quantities of the three great principles—sulphur, mercury, and salt—which he regarded as constituting all things ”

“ Men before him had experimented, but none seemed to have realised the importance of the experimental method. Nor was he, of course, by any means the first mathematician—there was a long line of Greek and Arabian mathematicians behind him, men whose knowledge of the science was in many cases much greater than his—or the most learned mathematician of his day; but none realised the importance of mathematics as an organon of scientific research as he did; and he was assuredly the priest who joined mathematics to experiment in the bonds of sacred matrimony. ”

“ IX. THE QUEST OF THE PHILOSOPHER'S STONE
THE need of unity is a primary need of human thought. Behind the varied multiplicity of the world of phenomena, primitive man, as I have indicated on a preceding excursion, begins to seek, more or less consciously, for that Unity which alone is Real. And this statement not only applies to the first dim gropings of the primitive human mind, but sums up almost the whole of science and philosophy; for almost all science and philosophy is explicitly or implicitly a search for unity, for one law or one love, one matter or one spirit. ”

“ I would suggest, in conclusion, that there is nothing really opposed to the spirit of modern science in the thesis that "all experience is magic, and only magically explicable." Science does not pretend to reveal the fundamental or underlying cause of phenomena, does not pretend to answer the final Why? This is rather the business of philosophy, though, in thus distinguishing between science and philosophy, I am far from insinuating that philosophy should be otherwise than scientific. ”

“ Indeed, the attitude of mind I have referred to is not restricted to primitive man; how many people to-day, for instance, just accept sex as a fact, pleasant or unpleasant according to their predilections, never querying, or feeling the need to query, its why and wherefore? It is by no means surprising, that when man first felt the need of satisfying himself as to the origin of the universe, he should have done so by a theory founded on what he knew of his own generation. ”

“ Woman is a road whereby man travels either to God or the devil. The problem of sex is a far deeper problem than appears at first sight, involving mysteries both the direst and most holy. It is by no means a fantastic hypothesis that the inmost mystery of what a certain school of mystics calls "the Secret Tradition" was a sexual one. At any rate, the fact that some of those, at least, to whom alchemy connoted a mystical process, were alive to the profound spiritual significance of sex, renders of double interest what they have to intimate of the achievement of the Magnum Opus in man. ”

“ We often hear religious but non-scientific men complain because scientific and perhaps equally as religious men do not in their books ascribe the production of natural phenomena to the Divine Power. But if they were so to do they would be transcending their business as scientists. In every science certain simple facts of experience are taken for granted: it is the business of the scientist to reduce other and more complex facts of experience to terms of these data, not to explain these data themselves. ”

“ As a matter of fact, how ever, all these excursions have been undertaken with one and the same object in view, that, namely, of understanding aright and appreciating at their true worth some of the more curious byways along which human thought has travelled. It is easy for the superficial thinker to dismiss much of the thought of the past (and, indeed, of the present) as mere superstition, not worth the trouble of investigation: but it is not scientific. There is a reason for every belief, even the most fantastic, and it should be our object to discover this reason. ”

“ PYTHAGORAS was not merely a mathematician, he was first and foremost a philosopher, whose philosophy found in number the basis of all things, because number, for him, alone possessed stability of relationship. As I have remarked on a former occasion, "The theory that the Cosmos has its origin and explanation in Number... is one for which it is not difficult to account if we take into consideration the nature of the times in which it was formulated. The Greek of the period, looking upon Nature, beheld no picture of harmony, uniformity and fundamental unity. ”

“ One wonders how far the fact that human and animal seed is fluid influenced the alchemists in their choice of mercury, the only metal liquid at ordinary temperatures, as the seed of the metals. There are, indeed, other good reasons for this choice, but that this idea played some part in it, and, at least, was present at the back of the alchemists' minds, I have little doubt. ”

“ By mystical theology I mean that system of religious thought which emphasises the unity between Creator and creature, though not necessarily to the extent of becoming pantheistic. Man, mystical theology asserts, has sprung from God, but has fallen away from Him through self-love. Within man, however, is the seed of divine grace, whereby, if he will follow the narrow road of self-renunciation, he may be regenerated, born anew, becoming transformed into the likeness of God and ultimately indissolubly united to God in love. ”

“ As I said, all virtue, power, and knowledge which man has from God was believed to descend to him by way of these angelical hierarchies, step by step; and thus it was thought that those of the lowest hierarchy alone were sent from heaven to man. It was such beings that white magic pretended to evoke. ”

“ The most philosophic account of metallic seed is that, perhaps, of the mysterious adept "EIRENAEUS PHILALETHES," who distinguishes between it and mercury in a rather interesting manner. He writes: "Seed is the means of generic propagation given to all perfect things here below; it is the perfection of each body; and anybody that has no seed must be regarded as imperfect. Hence there can be no doubt that there is such a thing as metallic seed.... All metallic seed is the seed of gold; for gold is the intention of Nature in regard to all metals. ”

“ X. THE PHALLIC ELEMENT IN ALCHEMICAL DOCTRINE
THE problem of alchemy presents many aspects to our view, but, to my mind, the most fundamental of these is psychological, or, perhaps I should say, epistemological. It has been said that the proper study of mankind is man; and to study man we must study the beliefs of man. Now so long as we neglect great tracts of such beliefs, because they have been, or appear to have been, superseded, so long will our study be incomplete and ineffectual. ”

“ But that is the business of philosophy. The task science attempts is the simpler one of the correlation of natural phenomena, and in this effort leaves the ultimate problems of metaphysics untouched. A universe, however, whose phenomena are not only capable of some degree of correlation, but present the extraordinary degree of harmony and unity which science makes manifest in Nature, cannot be, as in animism, the product of a vast number of inco-ordinated and antagonistic wills, but must either be the product of one Will, or not the product of will at all. ”

“ I think, indeed, that in the modern theories of energy and the all-pervading ether, the etheric and electrical origin and nature of matter and the evolution of the elements, we may witness the triumphs of mysticism as applied to the interpretation of Nature. Whether or not we shall ever transmute lead into gold, I believe there is a very true sense in which we may say that alchemy, purified by its death, has been proved true, whilst the materialistic view of Nature has been proved false. ”

“ Alchemy, so to speak, was generated and throve in a dim religious light. We cannot open a book by any one of the better sort of alchemists without noticing how closely their theology and their chemistry are interwoven, and what a remarkably religious view they take of their subject. ”

“ Mystical theology teaches that the powers and life of the soul are not inherent in it, but are given by the free grace of God. Neither, according to the alchemists, are the powers and life of nature in herself, but in that immanent spirit, the Soul of the World, that animates her. ”