The shield colours in the above diagram signify the transformation of the human shadow/soul/ primal life force essence. They are seen psychically as fluorescent colours, starting with green, then blue and finally crimson. They correspond to the interaction with the 3 Mothers, Water, Air, and Fire.

Also known as 'Nirvana' or nothingness where the soul is purged of everything ready for the return to God, but in a most unexpected way.  Considering, the Emerald Tablet says:

 8. It ascends by means of earth into heaven and again it descends into the earth, and retakes the power of the superiors and of the inferiors.

9. Thus, you have the glory of the whole world.

It is suggesting, once Heaven has been reached the natural cycle, makes all things to descend again, as Basil Valentine is suggesting we see into the purified Earth to find the secret stone.

The jewels of immortality we are after, are always guarded by a dragon (an old one). Just as in Tolkien’s, The Hobbit, the quest was to enter a dragon’s cave and take that which was the precious, away from the golem (personal shadow, negative ego). I am convinced that western alchemy tradition has been left alone, due to its mystical complexity, from being tampered and distorted by interpretations. It draws inspiration heavily from the Hebrew collection of mystical commentaries, The Zohar, which is responsible for the tree of life matrix, the Kabbalah, describing the fiery action  of the three mothers purifying the Earth element.

Apart from the chemical implications of what the green vitriol is, after reading Daniel Pinchbeck's excellent book on 2012, I was inspired to explain weird green visions I have had in a different light.

What is the genuine green vitriol of the alchemists? We are led more closely to an understanding by trying to understand the meaning of the word 'vitriol'. 'Vitriolum' is a contraction of the initial letters of the following Latin sentence:

Visita Interiora Terrae Rectificando Inveniens Occultum Lapidem Veram Medicinam. Or in one of the possible translations:

 "See in the interior of the purified earth, and you will find the secret stone, the true medicine".

Thus the fluoro-green coloured vitriol was a code name for the original substance of the starting crude prima material of the philosopher's stone, the lost divine sparks, the life force of the human shadow/soul.

What is the genuine green vitriol of the alchemists? Answer, it is you, your shadow.

 I have read the above quote for years and misunderstood its real meaning, ‘till very recently experiencing lack of sleep due to cancer pain. One of many pain fever delirium’s with eyes shut, horrible moving fluorine green images set against a black background would constellate merging in and out with ghoulish faces in my mind’s eye of the astral gloom of my being.

“ABHORRENT“, by Brian William Hastings

–Prospero, in the TEMPEST.

Green Death, by Odilon Redon 1905.

 According to Carl Jung, green-gold is the colour that alchemists saw as an expression of the life spirit permeating man and matter.

C.G. Jung identified "The Emerald Tablet" with a table made of green stone, which he encountered in the first of a set of his dreams and visions beginning at the end of 1912, and climaxing in his writing the Seven Sermons to the Dead in 1916. Contemporary rendering of Latin text:

1. True, without error, certain and most true

2. That which is above is as that which is below, and that which is below is as that which is above, to perform the miracles of the one thing.

3. And as all things were from [the] one, by [means of] the meditation of [the] one, thus all things of the daughter from [the] one, by [means of] adaptation.

4. Its father is the sun, its mother[,]the moon, the wind carried it in its belly, its nurse is the earth.

5. The father of all the looms of the whole world is here.

6. Its power is integrating if it be turned into earth.

7. Separate the earth from the fire, the fine from the dense, delicately, by [means of/to] the great [together] with capacity.

8. It ascends by [means of] earth into heaven and again it descends into the earth, and retakes the power of the superior[s] and of the inferior[s].

9. Thus[,] you have the glory of the whole world.

10. Therefore may it drive out of you, all obscurity.

11. This is the whole of the strength of the strong force, because it overcomes all fine things, and penetrates all the complete.

12. Thus[,] the world has been created.

13. Hence they were wonderful adaptations, of which this is the manner.

14. Therefore[,] I am Hermes the Thrice Great, having the three parts of the philosophy of the whole world.

15. What I have said concerning the operation of the Sun has been completed.

 

The Emerald Tablet, also known as Smaragdine Table, Tabula Smaragdina, or The Secret of Hermes, is an ancient text purporting to reveal the secret of the primordial substance.  It claims to be the work of Hermes Trismegistus "Hermes the Thrice-Great", a legendary Egyptian sage or god.



Green Lion: The stem and root of the radical essence of the metals and the soul, and raw crude and unpurified energy of nature and the soul’s human shadow. Symbol of the living life force sought in the First Matter. The beginning of the work, a fluoro-green energy is seen with eyes shut, in the astral gloom. It is the Shekhina, lifespark trapped in the Earth element, entombed by ghouls and gnomes, reflected off your own personal destructive energy. It is this which is watched and seen to change colour as the soul transforms. In the tattwa colour cards system, the process starts at its crudest with the  flouro-yellow/green of the earth element, and reaches the blue of the air element, making this very bright fluoro-green, which is when enough freedom has been leveraged from the gnome elementals to see your own soul energy, hence the green lion. Then, the green advances into the red of fire, cancelling each other out into a purple, black void of the quintessence, signaling the soul’s freedom from entombment by the earth elementals, and complete escape from the Earth element and entry into the element of Water, the alchemical symbol of the living lifeforce spark sought in the First Matter. This image can be used to indicate a beginning of the work on a practical or physical level within the Earth element, both doing practical, creating an elixir or tincture, as well as a mandala for meditation, to begin the process of cleansing the soul or body of the spiritual alchemist, in the Ninth Astral Plane, also known as 'Nirvana' or nothingness, where the soul is purged of everything, ready for the return to God.

 

The following insight on the earth elementals is from reading Daniel Pinchbeck’s excellent, 2012, The Return of Quetzalcoatl, page 140.

 

According to Rudolf Steiner,” gnomes and ghouls of the mineral earth element always work beneath the surface of the planet in earth mineral layers and take on a similar role in our dream lives. The gnomes are at work in our psychic soul life in our subconscious depths. Anyone who gets to the stage of experiencing dreams in full consciousness on falling asleep is well acquainted with the gnomes. Steiner noted, for somebody unprepared, the experience would be an alarming one; at the moment of falling asleep he would behold a host of goblins coming toward him…

The form in which they would appear would be reflections, images of the qualities of the individual concerned, that work as forces of destruction. He would perceive all the destructive forces within him, all that continually destroys.” If we were able to remain conscious of what we dreamed, what we would perceive would be a kind of entombment by gnomes in the astral world.

Gnomes

Behind the more innocent appearing children’s book characters of gnomes hide more sinister forces, which shamanic cultures hold responsible for soul theft. The whole purpose of alchemy and the western mystery tradition comes to a final focus of reclaiming the lost human shadow soul from the Earth elementals.

 At the age of 45 I was diagnosed with a terminal cancer, and given 8 years to live.

As I write, I am now in my seventh year. I will spare you from the obvious pain and depressing details, but preserve the lessons I learnt in an orgiastic synchronicity of revelations unto my predicament.

 Because of the pain, I could not properly sleep for the first two years. Friday and Saturday nights were the worst. In the beginning of one of many fever deliriums with eyes shut, horrible  fluorine green images set against a black background would constellate, merging in and out with ghoulish faces in  my mind’s eye of the astral pits of my being.  I totally agree that these are only seen as reflections of my own destructive energies, as Daniel correctly states in part 3 of chapter two, Lucifer and Ahriman. I felt I was abandoned inside the intestines of something bigger. Forced to watch a cosmic play within the astral gloom and being squeezed along by a cosmic peristalsis along with these astral ghouls. For two slow years I had noticed the horrible process was making slow progress. Then a faint background image which I mistook for a frightening shape in my fear and ignorance. It was appearing now not of the green fluoro colour of the horror faces, but a  fire of golden crimson, in symbol of the alchemist’s mercury or the philosopher’s stone. If I focused upon this symbol with all my pathetic strength, which was really weakness, the ghouls would diminish and the intensity of the symbol’s fire would appear to come closer, and a positive, uplifting, illuminating commentary about its meaning would communicate itself as joy to me.

 I did not know it then, but it was what the Jews call the Shekhina (there is fire). Something they too only discovered through extreme suffering.
The Zohar says the more a male (yang) soul sins, the further away the Shekhina (Divine Feminine Fire) moves from that soul. My suffering had produced an alchemical calcining of my destructive energies, and the positive progressive direction my yang soul had taken, within the astral gloom, had allowed Her to draw closer.

The jewels of immortality we are after, are always guarded by a dragon (an old one). Just as in Tolkien’s, The Hobbit, the quest was to enter a dragon’s cave and take that which was the precious, away from the golem (personal shadow, negative ego).

 
 The  jewels of immortality are the  fire of the Shekhina,  your own opposite Yin soul, trapped and held captive by the dragon, which is the personal destructive energy. The cave is the Earth element and other elementals, negative yin seeking their opposite, your own unbalanced negative yang soul.

 

Notice that the jhin gnomes and greys never steal hippies and yin yang balanced people. They are only after the negative opposite,which they lack, the male biased yang souls. 

 Remembering that, I was saved from the astral gloom of ghouls by regaining my yin opposite fire, the Shekhina. This is the true medicine.

On what is eating us all:

The Sick Rose

Obscure poems and sayings which meant nothing before were now making real sense.

The culmination of the suffering consciously in the astral gloom process I went through was to become totally nauseated by the extreme bias of my own male yang soul. In the Naked Lunch, Burroughs is playing shooting games and killing his female partner (yin self).What was suggested by our contemporary William, William Burroughs, in his novel, The Naked Lunch, he tried to generate a sense of a state of total emergency, while you can still act against the etheric and astral parasites. Giant insects, which he called Martins, are stealing your Orgons (life force). So that you would never notice them doing it, they give you a false emotional mood, which makes you hate silence (the void) and stillness. To counteract the void’s silence and the capacity for self-reflection, this mood always keeps you busy and makes you feel safe in a white kitten fantasy. -William Burroughs Reader p.202- 217

Back to page 140 of Daniel Pinchbeck’s 2012…  I have another insight to contribute: The initial stage of the Bardo, in the Tibetan Book of the Dead, IS THE SAME EXPERIENCE as Rudolf Steiner’s jhin and gnomes description of conscious dreaming, as an entombment by gnomes in the astral world. It is curious to note, that in most mythological history of all cultures, it is always the same dynamic; in the dark earth elementals, the jhin or yin gnomes are only stealing yang, male biased human souls of either sex.  If a soul energy is in perfect equilibrium, it is free of the dark yin of the earth elementals.

Sophie Scholl stood up against the Nazi’s for exterminating the protesters, the ill, deformed, and Jews, for the rich contribution “the suffering” could make for better understanding of humanity. My own suffering has yielded riches which only those who have encountered similar suffering would see as riches.

The Pit

The Pit of karmic destruction, for an alchemist, holds an exciting confirmation of the years of struggle and work. The green lion and the green lifespirit reveal a historic starting point for transformation of the personal shadow’s most destructive soul energy. It is identical to the concept of the Buddhist Wheel of Life and Death. The dead experience the processing by the four elements, in the Bardo of becoming, where they are purified by the fire of the elements, toward the soul’s liberation; and an exact parallel process is described in European alchemy, starting with the fluoro-green lion.

Our soul is reborn in hell, the pit. The virginal birth of our soul is purified in the Earth element, by living in the human body and voluntary, conscious suffering; recognising one’s own destructive energies as the crude green lion, we have the eyes to discover the greatest secrets, purified earth. This is an actual place, lying lower than the first plane. It is darker,  more loathsome than the lowest of the astrals. This is the place we, on earth, call 'Hell', although it bears no resemblance to the hell depicted in the Bible and taught to us by church leaders and parents. Only the very greatest evil part of each person can find itself there, evil that has practically lost its semblance to humanity; it is a composite etheric shadow form resulting from the lost souls of past incarnations.

 Dante’s nine levels of hell are three elements: water, air, fire, working in their destructive modality. Here, the function of the divine fire is reversed from creative construction of immortality, to perform destruction of the energy of the negative ego; transmutation of the crude, raw life force within the Earth.  Nature provides extensive examples of sustainability being facilitated by balance. Each individual self-judges themself, as it is they who’ve chosen to assemble qualities of equilibrium of opposites or imbalance, which perishes of itself.

Divine humour has its joking quality, hide away; Alchemy’s biggest secrets in the pit of hell, the destructive energies of the Earth Element… among the patriarchal ghoulish gnomes.

 Where the upper octave is inhabited by peaceful deities, teaching wisdom to the voluntary initiate, who engages the divine fire, as a peak experience of continuously unfolded revelation, the pit contains wrathful deities, earth elementals, charged with the karmic destruction of involuntary individuals’ negative, male-biased ego, by the very same divine fire assembling the immortal body. Where the stages of intensity of the initiating fire are gauged by the elements water, air, fire, so the levels in the pit serve the same initiatory function.

 All mystical texts agree that every individual, at some point in their soul’s past evolution,  pass through destructive energies of the pit, according to their individual correction required.

The fool’s bridge, in the pit between water and air, is a grace, a last chance of escape, and crossing to the return cycle, which reflects the same opportunity missed in the above octave. At this point exist the Fundamentalist traditions, perched upon a precipice of final destruction.  Here there is no circulation of energies, as in the upper circle, with so little contact and comparison with the upper energies allowing any warning of impending destruction, due to excessive imbalance. The qualities of duality are, at this point, at maximum effect and are self reinforcing to justify a precarious position, whose real predicament is only redeemed by a divine shock.

The destruction of the natural world and the hundreds of issues which bring us closer to annihilation, like a runaway train, are there to facilitate the foundation of the soul. Instead of the mythical dying god phenomenon, we are encountering, in a contemporary way, something more close and intimate; the dying planet. Our soul is being evoked by the display of death before us. For those who have been holding on to their ignorance and avoiding the cosmic evolutionary purpose, symbolised in the Kabbalah, where the micro man and the cosmic man are one, denial of this relationship increases planetary disequilibrium.

The soul, during its earthly stay, weaves its garment, which it is destined to wear after death, in the lower Paradise. Only the souls of sinners are naked, or the garment they weave in time and out of time has holes in it. After death, the various parts of the soul have accomplished their mission and return to their original location; but those who have sinned are purified by the fiery stream.

p.248,  Gershom Shalom, Major Trends In Jewish Mysticism.

Jesus said: "Let him who seeks, continue seeking until he finds. When he finds, he will become troubled. When he becomes troubled, he will be astonished, and he will rule over the All." - The Gospel of Thomas, verse 2

…and as long as you do not have the wisdom to die, to become, you will only be a sad guest on this dark earth.  - Goethe

The descent into the subconscious is not without dangers. In the psychological sense, it can result, for example, in schizophrenia. In mythology, the hero penetrates the underworld to fight monsters and demons. The Great Mother appears to him, in the image of a terrible being, wrathful deity, often as the Ruler of Death. For his courage and bravery, the Great Mother, as goddess of fertility, offers him hidden treasure and great knowledge and wisdom.

    In alchemy, when working with (symbolic) metals, Lead is used as initial material. The alchemists say that in lead there is a demon, who can cause insanity. Lead, as a metal, is under the rulership of Saturn, god of suffering, melancholy and depression, who causes ailments and devilish visions of ghouls, and your own personal shadow, the green life spirit.

  Here,  Lead is symbolic of the human shadow. Lead, the most impure metal, needs to be transformed into the pure metal, gold. In general, lead means impurity, the impure body, or impure man. The metal lead is the most unbalanced of all metals; its toxicity upon ingestion is its inherent electron shortage, needing a quench from the availability of electrons within the body. The individual with lead poisoning dies by having all their antioxidants consumed by the lead. The action of the lead seeking to balance its inequilibrium is the same as the initiate seeking its opposite to balance itself. The alchemical process stabilizes lead by feeding it what it lacks.

He who wants to enter the divine realm, first must enter his mother’s body, and die herein. - Paracelsus  

Carl Gustav Jung said: " He who looks in the mirror of the water, first sees his own image. He who looks at himself, risks to meet himself. The mirror does not flatter, it shows accurately what is reflected in it, namely that face that we never show the world because we hide it by the persona, the mask of the actor. This is the first test of courage on the inner path, a test, which is enough to frighten most people, because the encounter with oneself belongs to those unpleasant things, one avoids as long as one can project the negative onto the environment."

"If the man [the soul] had not separated from the woman [the spirit], he would not die with the woman.
His separation became the beginning of death.
Because of this, Christ came to repair the separation which was from the beginning, and again unite the two, and to give life to those who died as a result of the separation and unite them."
- The Gospel of Philip 70:9-22

To the Degree We Are Willing to Give Up of Ourselves, to that Degree We Have Life

Watch the movie about the life of jazz musician, singer Ray Charles, to get some idea of what I mean as he battled his inner demons. Some readers may complain that my message is too depressing, constantly asking you to look at your garbage.  The reason for this is, the only way to get to heaven, is to go through hell first.  I have already provided a positive framework which is meant to function as a safety net to catch all the pieces, when you fall apart exploring the dark self. Author Janov, in his primal therapy, made the mistake of not providing a positive context, before opening up to your demons. Safety first, when dealing with explosives, is common sense. It is because of this inherent danger that mystical traditions refuse to give it to the masses. The secrecy was to protect the immature and naïve; you had to be an old soul, or at least forty years of age. Also, to provide maximum attention and care, they would only share the fire mysteries with one individual at a time, per teacher. The aborigines stayed years with initiates to get them through safely. It’s about getting down into the core of our problems.  Any medical, emotional, financial disturbances we are now experiencing stems from a core issue reflected as a medical, emotional, financial image. It means going through a door we don’t know exists. It requires digging and pushing through the dark to find that door. It can feel claustrophobic, dark, eerie. But when we find that door - and break it open - on the other side is our personal heaven.
 
Today, take a risk and open your heart to a trusted friend. Tell them things about yourself you’ve never dared tell anyone before. Make yourself vulnerable and allow the Light to rest on those darkened parts of your consciousness where your door is hiding. 

In alchemy, the entrance into the subconscious is represented by the entrance into caves, by reports of travels to the underworld, or strange parts of the world. Another important representation is the king who is taking a bath. The consciousness is the king, and the bath or bath water is the subconscious.

By bathing, he enters into the subconscious. In alchemical terms he is being permeated by the water (aqua permanens) or quicksilver of his own feminine. Anyone who claims to perform alchemy, yet remains biased toward patriarchal values, lies to themselves.

Another symbol is the ‘coniunctio’ (conjunction) or ‘conceptio’ (conception), which primarily takes place in water, in a spring or a fountain. The queen then represents the feminine water, the subconscious.

Primitive people performed their initiations in darkness or under the ground, like in caves. In Egypt, initiations were performed in the pyramids or in underground crypts of the temples. In Persia it was mostly in caves, with native Indians it is special huts. The Mythras mysteries were conducted in temples built underground. The initiation itself was symbolized by the penetration of the belly of the Great Mother, or of the body of a sea monster or wild animal.

    In Greek mythology, Orpheus descended into the Hades, to look for Eurydice (symbol of his lost soul). The Indian god Krishna descended into the hells to look for his six brothers (the six chakras, Krishna being the crown chakra). There is a legend, that after his death, Jesus descended into the realm of Satan to save the soul of Adam (the pure man).

 Going into the subconscious also means to go into the collective consciousness we all share. In Greek mythology there was  Tartaros, a name originally used for the entire underworld. Tartaros is the psychic world deep in man, where all those nasty emotions reside, like the lust for murder and destruction; thirst for blood, fear, hate, revenge; the lust for power, melancholy and so on. It is not easy to admit to oneself, but they all reside in ourselves. Because we don’t like it, we have cut ourselves off from being aware of this dark realm. We have repressed all our dark emotions into this deep realm of Tartaros. This is the heritage of man, dating from ancient times.

    The task of man is to feel and be responsible for all his emotions, not to repress them, but to change and transmute them into higher feelings. Repression chains man to the very objects of repression, but purification will transmute them to positive elements, bringing him closer to his true essence. So long as we do not take up the Great Work, pain and misery will disturb our lives. We have to face the mythical monsters in the depths of our subconscious and shed light on them. As they are part of being human, we cannot discard them, but we can control them, master them, learn from them, and transform them into servants of the Divine. The monsters are not monsters by themselves. They are just characteristics of human nature which have become distorted. We can rectify them and make them shine in their original beauty.

    This task is not for the would-be initiate. It is only for the brave who dare to face the darkness of the soul. Many will fail in their courage and return home. Thus the pilgrim is not going on an easy path, as the world of pleasure is not his anymore. He has chosen the path of Arete (goddess of Virtue), leading him through many dangers and difficult paths, in solitude and starvation, but eventually he becomes immortal. He who will lose life, will gain it.

 Before the rise of modern science, strong distinctions between fact and fantasy, or between religion and science, were not drawn.  Thus, there was no "natural science", as we understand it today.  Though inquiry may have dealt with the properties of matter and its manipulation, these properties were presumed to have abstract and spiritual dimensions which are not observable or measurable.  So alchemy was science and mysticism in one; and while its factual basis has been surpassed by modern science, its mystical and spiritual aspects remain.

The Dragon

 
While common man looks to blame other people and blame fate, noble man looks for the fault within himself. - I Ching

    In alchemy, the dragon corresponds closely with what Carl Gustav Jung called the Shadow. The Shadow is the name for a collection of characteristics and impulses which could be conscious, but which are denied. At the same time, we recognize and see them in other people. Some examples of the Shadow are: egotism, laziness, intrigues, unreal fantasies, indifference, or being obsessed by money and possessions. The Shadow is the inferior being in us, desiring what we do not allow, ourselves, because it is uncivilized, because it is incompatible with society’s rules and with the image of our ideal personality. It is all that what we are ashamed of. The dragon always resides in caves, and thus in the earth, the underworld, and the subconscious. When the dragon leaves his cave, he devours virgins. It is our inner emotional dragon destroying our virgin consciousness, as when he appears in the consciousness, expressing negativity like envy, jealousy, hatred, and so forth.

    The dragon is never satisfied. He ever wants more treasures, more virgins. Is this not a true image of common man? Consciousness and alertness are enchanted by the dragon. The mythological dragon has the power to enchant, to hypnotize with his voice the brave knight who dared to challenge him. The dragon can also impose riddles in which the knight gets lost.

If we want to save the pureness of consciousness (the virgin), then the dragon has to be killed. Actually this expression is not quite right. In a few tales where the dragon is conquered and made tame, he is penetrated by a lance with an iron point. Iron is always regarded a special metal, as it is found in meteorites. As the metal associated with Mars, iron has an active, destructive force. The lance, as a phallic symbol, is the alchemical ‘secret[sacred] fire’. The penetration of ‘the body’ (here the dragon) with a lance is the penetration of physical matter with the alchemical fire. In the same manner, the Greek god of the Sun, Apollo, penetrated the Python of Delphi, with arrows, and let the Python rot away next to the temple. Since then this place is called Pytho (putrefaction). Putrefaction is the first phase of the great Work.

 The dead dragon undergoes a transmutation.

The dead dragon is not an end, but the beginning of the Great Work.

From the dead dragon, vapors and volatile substances arise, often seen in alchemical images. In other terms, the Earth is partly being transformed into Water, it ascends as vapor.

 Some sources say, that in the head of the dragon is a stone, a clear reference to the rough stone, or ‘prima mater’ (first matter).

 Killing the dragon also refers to a cosmic and personal happening. It is the penetration of the ‘prima mater’, as primal ocean, or primal chaos, the green life-spirit (human shadow), by the secret fire or the divine spirit. The fiery serpent emanates fire and light into the primal waters. When the dragon (or serpent, as the cat of Ra, the Sun God, cut off the head of the serpent Apophis), is killed, the original chaos ceased and the process of cosmic evolution started. When this happens the colour of the life-spirit changes to blue, signifying it has been lifted an octave out of the pit of the earth element and across the rainbow bridge (royal arch), into the feminine mysteries of the air element.

(Johann Daniel Mylius, Philosophia reformata, Frankfurt, 1622)

    A monk in meditation in an earthen crevice, shows that alchemy was in first instance a spiritual practice. The two bird-figures are the soul and spirit

 Psychologically, nigredo is a process of directing oneself to find self-knowledge. A problem is given full attention and reduced to its core. This is not done so much in an intellectual way, but rather by feeling the emotions. By really going into to it, one causes putrefaction, the decomposition of that in which one had been stuck. The confrontation with the inner reality is often painful, and can lead to depression. But once in the depth of the darkness, with the discovery of the seed of the problem, the seed in the ‘prima mater’, the white light is born (albedo, whiteness, the next phase). A state of rest arises. Insight into the problem has been gained, it has been worked out emotionally, knowledge arises on how to handle it in a more positive way and build a more pure attitude. Alchemists talked about unraveling ‘the mixture’(man with all his complexities) in order to return to the germ. "That from which a thing has been made in a natural way, by that same thing it must return to a dissolved state into its own nature. Everything has to be dissolved and reduced into that form from which it arose." (Anton Joseph Kirchweger, 1728)

‘Matter’ has to be stripped of its superfluities in order to arrive at the center, which contains all the power of ‘the mixture’. The seed is the essence, and contains all essential powers of the body. One is to go to the center of problems, the center of emotion, center of self. Here is the power of transformation.

 Saturn is the planet that rules nigredo. Saturn, alchemical symbol is used, like Mercurius, as a symbol of chaos, the prima mater, as rough stone, as the philosopher’s stone. These are all symbols for man at the beginning of the alchemical process. Saturn, with his traditional scythe and hourglass, is the god of death and putrefaction, from which new life will arise. The scythe is another tool for penetration, as is the lance and the sword. Saturn is the philosopher’s Lead. He is the god that can cause melancholy and devilish visions. ‘Melancholia’ is another term for nigredo. As melancholy can arise when alchemically working on oneself, the alchemists advised the use of music to lift the soul.

    Saturn is also a god of fertility. Thus, "our black earth is fertile earth"; an alchemical expression to express the transformation of death into new life, which is also clearly depicted in the thirteenth tarot card. The putrefaction is a necessary phase to start a new beginning. Life itself is a cycle of death and birth, ever creating new life, giving man the opportunity to work on himself and strive to improve his condition.

 The alchemists say that nigredo lasts forty days. Forty days has a symbolic value. Jesus fasted for forty days in the desert. There are forty days of fasting between Easter and Ascension Day. The Israelites wandered for forty days in the desert. Saint Antonius spent forty years in the Sahara desert, being plagued by visions of extreme erotic scenes and devils.

The symbol of the peacock’s tail was chosen because of the many colorful and brilliant ‘eyes’. It is said that originally they were the eyes of the Greek Argus, whose name means ‘he who sees everything’. Argus was a very strong giant with a hundred eyes, of which, at all times, fifty were open and fifty were sleeping. He was decapitated by Hermes. Hera, the mother goddess, placed the eyes on the tail of her favorite bird, the peacock.

    The phase of the many colors is also symbolized by the rainbow, or the goddess of the rainbow, Iris, messenger of the gods, particularly between Zeus and the mortals.

    The peacock’s tail can have two meanings in the Great Work. It can be the collection and totality of all colors in the white light. Remember, the white light refers to the second stage, albedo, or whiteness. In this sense the peacock was seen as a royal bird in ancient times, and it corresponded with the phoenix.

Being deep in nigredo, a white light appears. We have arrived at the second stage of the Great Work: albedo, or whiteness. The alchemist has discovered within himself the source from which his life comes forth. The fountain of life from which the water of life flows forth giving eternal youth.

    The source is one: male and female are united. In alchemical images we see a fountain from which two streams of water flow into one basin.

    Albedo is the discovery of the hermaphroditic nature of man. In the spiritual sense, each man is a hermaphrodite. We can also see this in the first embryonic phase of the fetus. There is no sex until a certain number of weeks after conception.

    When man descended into the physical world, his body entered a world of duality. On the bodily level this is expressed by the sexes. But his spirit is still androgen, it contains duality in unity. Its unity is not bound to space, time nor matter. Duality is an expression of unity in our physical world… it is temporal and will eventually cease to exist. When male and female are united again one will experience true self. The Conscious and subconscious are fully united.

    Albedo happens when the Sun rises at midnight. It is a symbolic expression for the rising of the light at the depth of darkness. It is the birth of Christ in the middle of the winter. In the depth of a psychological crisis, positive change happens.

Albedo is also represented by Aurora, Roman goddess of dawn. Her brother is Helios, Sun. With a play of words, Aurora was connected with Aurea Hora, ‘the hour of gold’. It is the supreme state of conscious. Pernety (1758): "When the Artist (Alchemist) sees the perfect whiteness, the Philosophers say one is to destroy the books, they’ve become superfluous.”

(L'Aurore, Henri de Linthaut)

     Albedo, symbolized by Aurora, dawn, morning star (Venus-Aphrodite), and the Sun rising up from the Philosopher's Sea, has a special place in the Great Work. In ancient times, Lucifer was identified with the planet Venus. Originally, Lucifer had a very positive meaning. In the Bible we find 2 Petrus 1:19 "…till the day arrives and the morning star rises in your hearts". In Revelation 12:16 Christ says: "I am the shining morning star". Here Christ identifies himself with the Lucifer! We find the same in mystic literature. In ancient times, Lucifer was a positive light being. It was just one man who changed all that, when a certain Hieronymous read a phrase from Jesaja 14:12 (Jesaja, talking to a sinful king of Babylon): "How did you fall from heaven, you morning star, you son of the dawn; how did you fall to earth, conqueror of people". Hieronymous used this phrase to identify Lucifer with the dragon thrown out of heaven by Michael. By the interpretation of this one man, Lucifer was tuned from a shining light being into the darkest devilish being in the world.

    We find Lucifer, in alchemy, associated with impure metals polluted by rough sulfur. It means that the light, being Lucifer in ourselves, is polluted by what the alchemists call ‘superfluities’, ‘dross’, caused by man himself.

    Mercury and Lucifer are one and the same. One talks about Mercury when he is pure; it is the white sulphur, the fire in heaven. As ‘spiritus’ he gives life. As ‘spiritus sapiens’ he teaches the alchemist the Great Work. Lucifer is the impure Mercury. Lucifer is the morning star fallen from (the golden) heaven. He descended into the earth and is now present in all humans. Lucifer is Mercury mixed with impure elements. He, dissolved ‘in sulfur and salt’, ‘is wrapped with strings’, ‘darkened with black mud’. Keep in mind we are always talking about our consciousness. Lucifer represents our everyday consciousness, all the (psychological and other) complexes have clouding our pure consciousness, Mercury.

    The light of Mercury appears as Lucifer, a distortion caused by impurities, giving an impression of what alchemists call ‘red sulfur’. Red sulfur of Lucifer, traditional devil, is actually an illusion. It does not exist by itself, it is only an image, a distorted image of Mercury. We ourselves caused the impurities, the blackness, that veils our true light-being.

    Red sulfur is the same as what is called Maya in eastern, Indian philosophies. Maya is the world of illusions, the veil preventing us from seeing and experiencing true reality, where eternal light is. By the impurities of Maya, man has become ignorant. He has forgotten his origin and thinks he is in a world which in actuality is an illusion.

(Philosophia reformata, Johann Mylius, Frankfurt, 1622)

     The union of the Red King with the White Queen, symbolic of the union of male-female, albedo-rubedo. In other words, having attained albedo (having discovered the divine light in oneself), 'spirit' must be fixed (the descending eagle), resulting in rubedo. The two lions with one head signifies the unified nature attained. Out of its mouth flows the water of life.

Rubedo is the continuation of albedo. That is why they are often seen connected with each other, like the White Queen and Red King. Once the inner light has been discovered, it must be made into the only reality in consciousness. After descent into the subconscious, into darkness, underworld, we find Light, volatile Spirit. Now the volatile Spirit, Quicksilver, has to be fixed, coagulated. This means that our consciousness, our attention, must completely penetrate the subconscious, soul, everything that lies hidden in ourselves. By doing this we fix (that is, bring it into consciousness) the volatile and make it durable. When everything in ourselves has been purified and the Light appears, we have to fix this Light and make it durable, so it remains always present. White sulfur, attained during albedo, is also called, "the bodies composed of pure essence of the metals". The metals are the contents of the soul, and now they have been reduced to pure essence. The soul has been penetrated with pure light. The alchemist has to make it permanent.

    In the eastern philosophies rubedo corresponds with the formation of the ‘diamond body’, a term fitting, for the pure and permanent Stone of the Philosophers.

When rubedo has been realized, the alchemist has accepted his spiritual inheritance. He has become what he always has been, yet never knew, he was. He has realized his divine essence while still in his physical body. It is the same as what the gnostici called pneuma, the divine spirit in each man, concealed in the deep darkness of the world, to be made conscious again. When rubedo is manifest, man is master of physical and spiritual, of self.

When the unification of all energies of the four aspects of totality has been achieved, a new state of being arises that is no longer subject to changes. Chinese alchemy calls it the ‘diamond body’, which corresponds with the ‘corpus incorruptibile’ (untouchable body) of the European alchemy. It is also the same as the ‘corpus glorificationis’ (glorified body) of the Christian tradition.

    In yogic traditions, rubedo corresponds to unification of spirit in man, called atman, with brahman. Atman is a part of brahman. Brahman is the soul of the All, it is the breath or the energy flowing through you and giving you life and consciousness. Atman is the individual self, brahman is the univerself self.

    "As the body used to be slow, rough, impure, dark and destructible, because it lacked power and energy, so rebirth unifies it with the soul and spirit; vivified and volatile, light and penetrating, pure, refined and clear, overflowing with energy, indestructible and full of energy, and it is able to maintain this." (Franciscus Kieser, +/_1600).

The Quintessence Wedding Process

 

The seven basic types of hybrids are humanoid bodies with the Head of
the Deity depicted as:

1. Bird (Falcon, Eagle Hawk, Ibis)
2. Lion (Cat, Lion)
3. Dog (Jackal, Dog)
4. Ram (normally always with horns)
5. Bull (Cow, Bull usually with horns)
6. Serpent (snake, crocodile or lizard)
7. Scarab (beetle)

from   http://www.touregypt.net/godsofegypt/

Each type is also generally associated to one of the seven ruling
planets and seven planetary metals.