Article: al-Kimia, the Sacred Art
by John Eberly

© Copyright 1995, 1996, 1997, 2000, John Eberly. All rights reserved.

Reprinted from Issue 17 of The Stone

"al-Kimia, the Sacred Art" is culled from Chapter 9 of John Eberly’s book al-Kimia: The Mystical Islamic Essence of the Sacred Art of Alchemy, Anamnesis Press, 1995, available directly from the author at 11105 S. Partridge Rd, Partridge, KS 66567.

"This gold is our male, and it is sexually joined to a more crude white gold -- the female seed: the two together being indissolubly united, constitute our fruitful Hermaphrodite." - Philalethes

It is common when reading alchemical texts for the reader to observe consistent references to the practice of al-Kimia as "our art", "this art" or "the art" or descriptions of the way to accomplish an alchemical process: "by art" or "with art." This use of the term art refers to the alchemist's understanding not only of the concepts and theories of all the Arts, but also implies the plastic applications involved in undertaking any actual work of art.

This is the Ars Magna in which there is no context concerning the word art that cannot be applied also to the whole concept of Alchemy. The Arts in the modern world have been specialized and separated into arbitrary categories; whereas the art of al-Kimia, which encompasses these categories and beyond, has remained all-inclusive.

What follows is a brief discussion on the subject of color, followed by an equally cursory glance at some of the arts of antiquity and some of their apparent relationships with al-Kimia and esoteric Islam. The correspondences drawn are at times broad; it should become obvious that this subject generally deserves more time and space than is admitted in the present study.

With some variation the primary colors usually correspond to the four active elements found in al-Kimia: Fire/Red, Air/Yellow, Water/Green, and Earth/Blue. Fire is hot and dry, Air is hot and wet, Water is cold and wet, and Earth is cold and dry.

The Resala-ye lama'at was resala-ye estelahat of ‘Iraqi edited by Dr. Javad Nurbakhsh, states:

"Redness represents strength in the traveling of the Path.
Yellowness is said to represent weakness in the traveling of the Path.
Blueness is said to represent the blending of loving-kindness (mahabbat) with whatever is other than loving-kindness.
Greenness represents absolute perfection."(l)

By dividing them into seven: the group of four primaries already mentioned representing Nature, and another three that relate to Spirit, usually white, black and orange (or sandalwood); by assigning these colors to the planets that rule each day of the week, an alchemical marriage is performed which is closely related to the marriage of the quaternary of the elements Fire, Air, Water, and Earth, and the principal ternary Sulphur, Mercury, and Salt.

In classical alchemical terminology, the Nigredo or black stage of the alchemical work is generally associated with putrefaction. The Albedo or white stage is most often associated with a step in the calcination process although it may obviously have other connotations as well. The Rubedo stage represents the formation of the Red Solar Stone or the Red Sulphur, the kibrit al-ahmar.

It is interesting that with few exceptions, the Sun is identified with the male and the Moon with the female. (2) In the symbolism of al-Kimia the former represents sulphur and the later mercury. When these two are joined in marriage, the Conjunctio is achieved, the spiritualization of the material. The Sun is symbolic of the Light of God, which reflects brightly upon the Moon, symbolized by the heart or qalb in Sufism. The mirror heart of the mystic manifests and embodies the light or Nur of the Divine.

Isaac Newton, an oft forgotten practitioner of Alchemy, in 1666 found that when white light passed through a prism, it divided into bands of color that make up the visible spectrum. This led to the theory of color as light vibrating at different wavelengths, which when combined produce a white light.

Henry Corbin in his essay "The Realism and Symbolism of Colours in Shi'ite Cosmology" in the book of his collected essays entitled Temple and Contemplation, (3), describes the color theory of the Shi'ite alchemist Shaykh Muhammad Karim-Khan Kirmani (d. 1870). In this Shaykh's view, which is clearly Platonic, color exists as an archetype. Yet like all archetypes which proceed from the One source they exist potentially in this union and therefore exist before they are manifested as colors discernible to our physical eyes. Perhaps from the point of view of Unity these two theories have more in common than initially "meets the eye."

In another book by Henry Corbin titled The Man of Light in Iranian Sufism, (4) one finds another alchemist, the Sufi master and founder of the Kobrawiyya Order, Abo'l-Jannab Najmo'd-Din ebn 'Omar al-Kobra (b. 1145 A.D.). Kobra formulated a theory based on tajalli or theophany, in which a person becomes a receptacle for divine perceptions by developing specifically the sensory and supersensory organs of perception.

Another work on Kobra edited by F. Meier titled Fawaih al-gamal wa fawatih al-galal, states Kobra's description of this theory in action:

"When you see before you a vast expanse opening out toward the distance, there is clear air above you and you see on the far horizon colors such as green, red, yellow, and blue, know that you are going to pass through that air to where those colors are. The colors pertain to spiritual states. Green is the sign of life of the heart (this being the highest state). The color of pure fire indicates the life of spiritual concentration' (himma), which denotes power (of actualization). If this fire be dark, that betokens the fire of exertion and shows the seeker to be weary and afflicted after the battle with the lower ego and the Devil. Blue is the color of the life of the ego. Yellow is the color of lassitude. Al these are supra-sensory realities that speak with him who experiences them in the two languages of inner tasting (dhawq) and visionary apperception. These are two reliable, mutually corroboratory witnesses: what you behold with inner vision you also experience within yourself, and what you experience inwardly you also behold with inner vision." (5)

When the Man of Light approaches the color green, he sees a circular Sun-like countenance, which Kobra recognizes:

"This face is, in reality, your own face and this sun is the Sun of the Spirit which oscillates within your body. Then your entire body is immersed in purity, and at that moment you see before you a person made of light, who generates lights. The spiritual traveler, too, then experiences his entire body as generating lights. It may be that the veil will fall from all individuality, so that you see totality through the totality of your body. The faculty of inner vision is opened first in the eyes, then the face, then the breast, then in the whole body. This person of light in front of you is called by the People (Sufis) the 'Suprasensory Guide', and is also known as the 'Suprasensory (Personal) Master' or the 'Suprasensory Scales (of Judgment)."' (6)

The unity of the warp and the weave of the beautifully designed carpets of the Middle East make use of color theory much in the same way that Persian miniatures are conceived and produced. The art of dyeing fabric utilizes a process of tincturing the color from plants and other substances and thus stands as one of the original alchemical manipulations of Nature.


Much has been written on the esoteric arts of Islam which include calligraphy, architecture, miniatures, and book illumination, which often incorporate elaborate calligraphy including the arabesque. In general, Islamic artwork denies the human physical form in favor of the geometric. Stylized flora and other creaturely forms derived from Nature are, however, often considered acceptable and not in danger of "idolization".

The unique exceptional beauty of the Persian miniature is usually found accompanying historical text or poetry. The letters written by al-Hallaj were said to have been illuminated and colored upon precious material. Manichaean illuminated holy books belong to this tradition as well as early Christian iconography.

Tradition tells us that when Muhammad ordered the removal of all idols from the holy Kaaba, the original temple believed to have been built by Abraham in Mecca, the inside walls were covered with paintings of pagan deities also destined to be painted over. Muhammad placed his hands over an icon of the Virgin Mary and the child Jesus and also a tiny painting presumed to be of Abraham. These were spared the blank painted overlay.

Two authors, often identified with the Traditional school, S. H. Nasr and Titus Burckhardt have written many works on the subject of Islamic art including the former's Islamic Art and Spirituality, and Knowledge and the Sacred; and the later's Mirror of the Intellect, and Sacred Art in East and West. (7) These distinguished scholars have each treated at length the importance of the Void in Islamic art which is considered as negative space in the West. (8)

The Void, which is at once dynamic and stable, is the perfect model for the ground of all being, the place wherefrom all things proceed and recede (or re-seed) in Absolute Unity. The Void is related to both fana (annihilation) and baqa (subsistence) in Sufism, and the path of via negativa in Christianity. It is the silence of the sages, the blank tablet awaiting revelation. It is represented by the "whiteness" of which ‘Iraqi says: "(Whiteness) represents the integrity achieved through complete attention to God and severance from what is other than God." (9)

The Void then, considered "hidden treasure", wishes to be revealed by imagery, cipher, and symbol; in a conscious form.

"I was a hidden treasure and I loved to be known, so I created the world so that I might be known." -hadith qudsi

The alchemist is the consummate artist who reveals God to Himself by ultimately acting as a nabi, a prophet sent to himself from Himself. By anamnesis or self-remembering his Divine origin, he recalls and activates this cosmic presence and purpose. He is a spiritual evolutionist working on, at least, the physical plane.

Thoth-Hermes (Mercury) traditionally is considered to be the intermediary or originator of all language, of all arts and sciences, all alphabets, in short, the angel or god-like messenger of all symbolic knowledge emanating from God. An alchemist is the one who reveals by art the Hermetic identity realized by remembrance, or zikr, the Word, or Name of God.

In their texts, Islamic alchemists rarely depend on symbol beyond what is found naturally occurring in revelatory language. The practice of using secret symbols and alphabets, however, abounds in the alchemical texts found in Europe in the Middle Ages. The origins of these practices may be traced directly to early Hermeticism and consequently to systems such as jafr.

In the middle period in European history, alchemical art most often takes the form of engravings, emblems, and paintings which are frequently incorporated in illuminated texts. Contemporary scholar Stanislas Klossowski de Rola has accomplished much in renewing interest in these arts with his books The Golden Game: Alchemical Engravings of the Seventeenth Century, and Alchemy: The Secret Art. Adam McLean's work in this vein is also worthy of note, especially his commentaries, which are most "illuminating." His entire Magnum Opus Hermetic Sourceworks series is highly recommended.

Perhaps the doctrinal non-human-formal rigidity of the arts of Islam forced the hand of artistic total abstraction, based in greater part on a geometry in which a continually diminishing variable approaches zero as its limit, the Void.

What comes out of the "Void from which all things proceed" in the general world of abstract figurative arts must remain the subject of large, unwieldy art history tomes.

It is necessary to look at a few broadly related abstract forms and attempt to attribute at least part of their symbolic significance to al-Kimia, the Sacred Art.

The Ishtar Gate from Babylon, Iraq (c. 575 B.C.) was one of the eight gates Leading into the city of Babylon, where Nebuchadnezzar built his palace complete with the ziggurat which is considered to have been the Biblical Tower of Babel.

The gate, which has been restored and installed in the Vorderasiatisches Museum in Berlin, is faced with beautiful glazed brick in a background of royal blue with geometric ornamentation in white and gold. Widely spaced stylized bulls and dragons in raised relief are composed of several separately molded and glazed bricks.

According to Babylonian tradition, the goddess Ishtar, who is identified with the planet Venus, which governs both love and war, descended to Hades to get the water of life with which she restored to life the dead Thammuz. Thammuz is then described as dwelling in the midst of a great tree at the center of the earth. The description of the divine which descends, the reference to calcination (Hades), and the return with the elixir (the water of life) for the dead one resurrected to life at the point of the divine center, and the tree of knowledge which may be identified as the Tuba, evokes a striking alchemical allegory.

The arabesque and the geometrical intricacy of Islamic art which has its spiritual/material antecedent in the weaver's loom is related to the Animal Style of the "Barbaric" European nomads. The Animal Style influenced the illuminated complexity of some Hiberno-Saxon art, especially illuminated gospels such as the Irish Book of Kells (c. A.D. 760-820). The hide and seek aspect of this artistic development has affinity with the Islamic Void from which exegesis, and for that matter its opposite concealment, proceeds. Again, a point of reference may be the use of jafr in the interpretation of al-Qu’ran, however; the concept of a divinity which is hidden and also at times revealed is complex and indeed the original model.

The search for the origins of the highly abstract and so-called monstrous symbolic bestiaries of the illustrated alchemical texts of Medieval Europe may begin where the art of al-Kimia as we know it began, in ancient Kem (Egypt).

In Kem a prelogical hieroglyphic picture script carries a series of meaningful correspondences in silence with alchemical emblem texts, such as the Mutus Liber by Altus (1677). (10) When an attempt is made to decipher this silent correspondence we are inevitably confronted with the larger mystery of our own symbolic existence. When reason is confounded in this way a void appears which may precipitate revelation.

The contemporary West places emphasis upon literal meaning in the interpretation of two-dimensional and three-dimensional art. According to this viewpoint Art must exist by explanation only, and this process is defined absolutely by the choice and the arrangement of language. If the explanation is satisfactory, then a confident explanation follows that attempts to resolve what the work of art might "mean". In the end, this art criticism only serves to perpetuate itself by verbal expression, an oral and consequentially literal supposition of meaning in which symbol refers to symbol and serves language and logic but by no means brings about a complete understanding (which must include a "non-understanding'') of the artwork.

What stands under the surface, at the same time it exists on the surface for the organs of perception, is essentially a non-verbal experience, a silent recognition by spirit of symbol. The act of looking then becomes a means to activate a form of spiritual participation in which subject and object become One. in this perception in which the external experience joins with the internal consciousness is found pure form devoid of the processes of verbal expression, memory, and even creative imagination. To participate with image it is not a simple matter of the visual contemplation of the object, but also a search for the artist, the gesture of the hand, the thought behind the gesture, the alchemical process of looking and transforming Nature into Art.

Students of revelatory texts, including all good alchemical texts, do well to slowly savor even the image of a single word and to look at the text again and again at different intervals of time to gain the basic intent of the artist/author, the gesture of grace, which is only relevant to the present moment.

"A single cup is sufficient to reveal the flavor of a wine, and a single word from a hesychast can reveal to those with taste his whole inner condition and activity." (11)
-John Climacus

Of course, hieroglyphics often accompany larger paintings as a running pictographic text, and to carry on the initial comparison, certainly most alchemical engravings are found in text books. Consider Michael Maier’s (1568-1622) remarkable Atalanta Fugiens, (12) which combines fifty outstanding engravings with fifty accompanying epigrams in Latin with their own translation in German verse, with fifty fugues which musically correspond to the artwork and the text!

With the incredible bias of the English language ill-fitted to a scarcely glimpsed and much less understood (since the deciphering of the Rosetta Stone in 1821) Egyptian world-view based on formal intuition, now let us, like so many amateur Egyptologists, forge ahead blindly through the corridors of time and space to the image of the Sphinx, that most ancient and silent of sages, who, as Fulcanelli says of Nature generally: "...does not open the door of the sanctuary indiscriminately to everyone." (13)

The Sphinx, a hybrid of man and beast shall be the symbol, the model for this next step of our study. This monumental sculpture, inscrutable and still as stone, was and presumably remains a central symbol of Kem, or part of a "text" of al-Kimia which can be deciphered and read by adepts much like the sculpture and architecture of the French cathedrals examined by Fulcanelli. (14) Tehuti or Thoth, the figure associated with Hermes in ancient Egypt, is himself depicted as a hieroglyphic Ibis-headed hybrid.

Certainly the Pyramids are early al-Kimical symbols which culminate in the point of divine origin (15) and then proceed downward, like the rays of the Sun (Ra) in the expansive gesture of the Divine Mercy (ar-Rahman). The symbol of the triangle is synonymous with sulphur, or Sol, the Sun, which ancient Egyptians believed was coalesced in the earth as metallic gold.

The ziggurats of early Mesopotamia served a different and yet similar function as artificial mountains, high places designed for ritual worship in which proximity encouraged the union of participant and deity.

The idea as a form, as a messenger of God flying from the Void to the Earth may be considered in the concept of an angel. Birds are also traditional symbolic intermediaries between the material and spiritual worlds. The union of the idea of bird with angel in Mazdean Iran becomes, in later usage, an emblem of the Holy Spirit. (16)

At the gate of the Palace of King Sargon II, are found large relief sculptures of lion-like beings with the bodies of bulls, diagonally elevated wings, and human heads with long curly beards and many-tiered divine headdresses. Compare these wonderful and fantastic beings with the image found in a version of the Ripley Scrowle drawn by James Standysh in the 16th century on page 96 of Stanislaw de Rola's Alchemy: The Secret Art, which bears a caption that begins: 'The bird of Hermes is my name..."

The "Night Journey", or Mi'raj; the ascension of Muhammad to the "Lote tree of the uttermost limit," the nearest proximity allowed to being in the presence of God, was accomplished by his riding a fantastic horse-like being with wings called al-Buraq. This mount was supplied by the Archangel Jabriel. In India, al-Buraq is depicted with the face of a woman and the tail of a peacock and has been described as being symbolic of the intellect. The peacock is also an alchemical symbol for the multiple color changes which occur during the purification of the base material.

River deities and other "monsters of the imagination" found throughout antiquity are subtle links between the spiritual and material. In Greek mythology the Chimera is a fire-breathing monster with a lion's head, a goat's body, and a serpent's tail. It is said that the Sphinx, and the Nemean Lion, which Heracles killed as his first labor, were the offspring of the Chimera and Orthos, a two-headed dog killed by Heracles in the course of completing his tenth labor.

Pan, the god of pandemonium, panic, and pantheism was the offspring of Hermes and Dryope, a nymph of Lemnos who was changed into a tree; she is also associated with a fountain called Pegae. Pan is described as a being part-man and part-goat, who invented the flute with seven reeds, signifying the seven planetary spheres. The name Pan signifies the All, and his domain is at once universal and particularly identified with Nature in the wild. His sun-like face and upturned horns, which represent the traditional symbol of the moon, remind one of the Crescent (moon) and Star (sun), the central symbol(s) of Islam. The embodiment of symbolism found in Pan makes him the perfect image of the philosophic Mercury, which is at once solar and lunar. For a wonderful representation of Pan, see the illustration by an anonymous artist of the 14th century reproduced on page 75 of Alchemy: The Secret Art by Stanislas Klossowski de Rola.

Gargoyles in Medieval cathedrals have often been thought of as reminders of Hyle or Chaos, and the presence of the irrational as the basis or intrinsic element of an otherwise reasonable order.

The lofty position of these hybrids on the tops of the cathedrals Fulcanelli defines as virtual textbooks of Alchemy, however, suggests that they also may symbolize steps in the process or even the completion of the Work, the new thing, the marriage of opposites which spiritually transforms Nature and resolves all conflict, all duality. In his masterwork Le Mystere des Cathedrales, (17) Fulcanelli identifies a figure in stone as The Alchemist in the vicinity of the highest part of the main axis of the North tower of the cathedral of Notre Dame in Paris. On page 14 of the book entitled Notre Dame de Paris is found a photo with a broader angle than the plate containing Fulcanelli's Alchemist in Le Mystere des Cathedrales. In this photo we see that The Alchemist is situated next to the sculpture of a curious Gargoyle with the head of a dog or lion and the claws of an eagle; a muscular human frame and prominent feminine breasts.

Plate two of a group of four plates from Steffan Michelspacher's Cabala, Speigel der Kunst und Nature, (Augsburg, 1616) contains a hybrid beast with three feminine udders which also bears the characteristics of the Four Holy Living Creatures: the Bull's horns, the Man's face, the Lion's body, and the Eagle's talons.

In the text attributed to Hermes Trismegistos titled The Poimondres (19), there are several references to the bisexuality of God and the sacred androgynous nature in which mind (nous) is male and substantive, while thought (epinoia and ennoia) as process, is considered female. The conjunction of the two sexes becomes a sacrament of the heavenly love found in all beings, indeed, found in all of creation.

Paracelsus defines the Rebis as a bisexual thing combining the two antitheses in the highest and most desirable degree of the process of transmutation-totality.

Fulcanelli refers to the Rebis as, "...a double matter, at once both dry and humid, the amalgam of philosophic gold and mercury, a combination which has received a double occult property, exactly equilibrated, from nature and from art." (20)

The alchemical marriage of philosophical sulphur and mercury, sun and moon, as a central symbol of Alchemy is often depicted in paintings found in later European texts by a two-headed human being with the sexual apparatus of both male and female. This is the symbol, the culmination of the union of opposites in the coitus, the compelling force at work in the universe, Eros.

Concerning the erotism which mixes the forces of death and life in a sensual form of the creative act crystallized in the image of the androgyne or hermaphrodite, a term which comes from the joining of Hermaphroditos, the son of Hermes and Aphrodite, the goddess of Love, with the body of the nymph Salmacis, George Bataille says:

"It is the common business of sacrifice to bring life and death into harmony, to give death the upsurge of life, life the momentousness and the vertigo of death opening on to the unknown. Here life is mingled with death, but simultaneously death is a sign of life." (21)

This sacrifice of a most intimate aspect of presumed individuality for the sake of the creation of the truly individual perfected nature is the holy art and union of life in which each part is invited to participate and join with the whole in the unity which denies all opposition.

The art of al-Kimia is nothing if not an articulation and manipulation of this basic and naturally sacred process.

Notes To Chapter Nine

1. 'Iraqi. Resala-ye lama'at was resala-ye estelahat, Ed. by Dr. Javad Nurbakhsh. Tehran, 1974. See also the 12 vol. encyclopedia: Sufi Symbolism by Dr. Javad Nurbakhsh for a thorough examination of virtually all aspects of the science of Sufi symbolism.
2. However, this is not always the case. See: "The Marriage of Sun and Moon" by Arthur Verluis in 'Avaloka, A Journal of traditional Religion and Culture', Vol. IV, No. 1 & 2, pages 30-39.
3. See: Henry Corbin, Temple and Contemplation. KPI. London, 1986, Chapter One.
4. See: Henry Corbin, The Man of Light In Iranian Sufism. Shambala. Boulder, 1978.
5. See: F. Meier. Fawaih al-gamal wa fawatih al-galal. 1963.
6. Ibid., pages 31-32.
7. See: John Eberly, al-Kimia: The Mystical Islamic Essence of the Sacred Art of Alchemy, Bibliography.
8. See: Nasr's essay "The Significance of the Void in Islamic Art" and also Burckhardt's essay "The Void in Islamic Art".
9. See: the first section of Note 1.
10. See: Adam McLean. A Commentary on the Mutus Liber. Phanes, Grand Rapids, 1991.
11. St. John Climacus. The Ladder of Divine Ascent. Palest Press. Ramsey, 1982. pg. 273. A hesychast is one who is master of the 'prayer of the heart' or the 'Jesus prayer' which works on the inner being of the Christian practitioner much in the same way as the zikr in Sufism, or the Hindu mantra.
12. See: al-Kimia: Bibliography.
13. Mary Sworder. Fulcanelli Master Alchemist: Esoteric Interpretation of the Hermetic Symbols of the Great Work. A Translation of Fulcanelli’s Le Mystere des Cathedrales. Brotherhood of Life. Albuquerque, 1984, page 175.
14. Ibid.
15. See: al-Kimia: Chapter Eight, "Shu'ayb ibn al-Husayn al'Ansari Abu Madyan" for the symbolism of Mount Qaf, and also see: al-Kimia: the "Preface".
16. For the related symbols of the Phoenix and the Simorgh see Chapter Eight, Note 23, and text.
17. See: Note 13 above, plate in-between pages 72 and 73.
18. Winston, Richard, Notre Dame de Paris. Newsweek. New York, 1971.
19. Hermes Trismegistos. Corpus Hermeticum, "Libellus".
20. See: Note 13 above, page 160.
21. Bataille, George. Erotism: Death and Sensuality. City Lights. San Francisco, 1986, page 91.

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