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Article: The Unspoken Essential
by Joseph Caezza
© Copyright 1996, 1997, Joseph Caezza.. All
rights reserved.
Reprinted from Issue 17 of The Stone
"Our Great Work is not
technology but perception refined beyond the labor of applied artistic intensity
to the level of pious contemplation and exalted prayer." ... Joseph Caezza
I recall with great joy the event of Manfred Junius's first American Alchemical
class at the Texas home of Hans Nintzel in July of 1990. German born Junius, the
author of the now classic Practical Handbook Of Plant Alchemy had spent
18 years as professor of Biology at the University of Calcutta in India where he
also won the Sangitacharya, the highest title awarded to a student of classical
Hindustani music. Junius mastered Ayurvedic medicine as a student of the
internationally known authority, Dr. Bhagwan Dash and furthered his knowledge of
the western Hermetic tradition with the Swiss Alchemist Augusto Pincaldi. Hans
Nintzel, who has yet to be recognized for his efforts to preserve our tradition,
put together a one of a kind teaching event featuring this towering pinnacle of
Alchemical wisdom.
Many former students of Frater Albertus were momentarily reunited. Albertus's Alchemist's
Handbook remains an outstanding guide to the laboratory operator. An
explosive energy echoed through the intense dialogue of attendees. People of the
most diverse backgrounds indulged the precious opportunity to share personal
experiences. The air resonated with tales of power and healing miracles. As a
seed only germinating our organization, The Philosophers Of Nature, marked a
great stride in its embryonic growth in the presence of warmth and nourishment.
I recall the veteran Alchemist, Art Kunkin, interrupting Junius's lecture to
explain that beyond all the brilliant discourse there was an unspoken essential
to the Great Work. This essential by its very nature can not be explicated. One
either knows it or one does not.
Kunkin, the founder of the notorious L.A. Free Press of the sixties went
on to pursue a distinguished career as an esotericist. He studied alchemy with
Frater Albertus, served as librarian at Paracelsus College and more recently
assumed temporary leadership of the Philosophical Research Society after the
death of its legendary founder, Manley Palmer Hall. Perhaps it was his personal
experience in the Tibetan Alchemical Tradition of Bon Dzog Chen that caused Art
to make his remark about the unspoken essential. What was he talking about? No
one seemed to know.
Classical Hermetic texts refer cryptically to the "Materia Prima", the
obvious starting point of the Great Work. The nature of this material is not
communicable. Lao Tzu tells us "The name that can be named is not the Name.
The way that can be walked is not the Way. (1)" Adepts emphasize that the
materia prima is everywhere to be found and at all times available yet
overlooked by the multitudes as useless.
Martinus Rulandus's classic Lexicon of Alchemy, (1612) presents fifty
different descriptions of the materia prima. The present edition of this tome
lists an additional eighty-four names of this ambiguous yet essential starting
point of alchemical manipulation.
"The matter of the Magnum Opus is the subject on which the philosophers
exercise their practical science. All who have written on this art have
concealed the true name of this matter, as the chief key of chemistry. Having
potentially all the qualities and properties of elementary things, they have
given it names of all kinds of things. It is the fifth element, a quintessence,
the material beginning and end of all things (2)".
Morienus, twelfth century Christian anchorite describes the nature of the
materia prima to the Arab King Khalid:
Morienus: "As an authority has said, it is therefor both rich and poor, for
the generous and the greedy, for him who runs and him who sits. It is cast in
the streets and trampled in the dung. But let none take pains to extract it.
Fools have often wasted much zeal on the dung in hopes of extracting it. But
they have acted in ignorance. The wise know that this unique thing is hidden and
that it is what contains the four elements within itself having power over
them."
King Khalid said: "Tell me where the sources of this thing are, whence it
may be gathered as there is need of it."
But Morienus fell silent and casting his gaze downward, reflected deeply for
some time. Then he raised his head and spoke: "Truly, this matter is that
created by God which is firmly captive within you yourself inseparable from you,
wherever you be, and any creature of God deprived of it will die. "...
"What more can I tell you? For this matter comes from you, who are yourself
its source, where it is found and whence it is taken, and when you see this your
zeal for it will increase. Consider this, and you will find that it is
true" (3).
Creation is continuous. At each moment the universe coagulates and dissolves.
That moment of imbalance between past and future, that critical cubic centimeter
of Divine possibility is a moment of instability where we perform our Alchemy
outside of time and the normal succession of nature. Moments of eternity,
ruptures sponsored by profoundly deepened perception create gaps in the normal
sensual experience where we may commune with that essential archetypal process
of nature. Such communion will inspire us to execute the proper gesture in the
appropriate milieu at the correct time.
Our Great Work is not technology but perception refined beyond the labor of
applied artistic intensity to the level of pious contemplation and exalted
prayer. We read the texts not for the sake of discovering recipes or techniques
but rather to cultivate mystic perception. Thus the texts are ends in themselves
and the greatest adepts have most often been monastic representatives of the
traditional religions.
The attributes of stone, concrete stoneness, its density, concentration and
passiveness provide the best description of this amplified qualitatively
enhanced perception. This underlying substratum of consciousness supports the
sensual experience of life. What are the senses and who do they inform? The
elegant relation between senses and elements too often eludes us. Sight
perceives fiery light. Smell perceives air. Taste perceives water. Touch
perceives earth. The ear perceives quintessential harmony. Hence adepts admonish
us to concentrate and purify the four elements because nothing is separate
outside of our sense perception.
An appropriately applied Alchemical perception allows the normal space time
continuum, the veritable fabric of the universe, to snag within our Hermetically
sealed vessel. An opening is created. This rupture facilitates a moment of
eternity within the nuclear structure of the worked substance.
Perception is reality. Alchemical consciousness has no toleration for the false
separation of experience into subject and object. We must learn to see with our
hearts.
The heart sees where the mind is blind. The senses must be reeducated. To truly
"know" our worked materials we must identify with them to the extreme
of coital fusion. The consequences of this union constitute a creative state
analogous to the origin of the universe. Here is the ONE that is ALL. Hortulanus
explains: "Our stone is made the same way the universe is created."(4)
The Sri Yantra of Tantrism is a living signature of this concept.
Our first duty after Divine invocation involves observance of the laws and
ordering principles of Nature; Sulfur, Mercury, Salt and their corresponding
elements: Fire, Air, Water and Earth.
The next step referred to by the great Benedictine Monk, Basil Valentine, as
"the true and unadulterated preparation" concerns the familiar
laboratory manipulations. Our applications must correspond accurately to the
deepest laws of Nature. The perception of the operator must be as pure as
possible. Attention must be powerfully applied to the creative process.
Concentration must be highly focused. Then the subatomic level of the materials
worked transforms. The worked materials behave in a radically different way.
Apparently dead matter revives enlivened not by our efforts but with the
indispensable aide of Providence. The archetypal process of Nature now reveals
herself in the well-known color changes that marked the stages of the Great
Work. Live natural color is always only a cyclical happening that defines the
stages of natural growth. Our incubating Hermetically sealed flask displays the
classic pattern of creative unfolding as the ordering principles of Nature are
brought to the surface of perception.
Our error remains our radically incomplete habit of perception. Such habit
separates us from the fullest possible experience of the world. Could this be
the unspoken essential of the Great Work?
REFERENCES
1. Lao Tzu; Tao Te Ching, The Texts of Taoism, The
Sacred Books of China, trans. James Legge, Ed., Max Muller, Vol. 39, Oxford
University Press, 1891
2. Rulandus, Martinus; Lexicon Of Alchemy (1612) Frankfurt, Zachariah
Palthenus, pg. 220
3. Stavenhagen, Lee; trans. A Testament Of Alchemy, Brandeis University
Press, (1974), pg. 27
4. Internet resource: http://www.colloquium.co.uk/alchemy/hortulan.html
Chapter XI
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