Eighteen

SHADOW, ASHES, AND REMAINS

In order to return to life, the dead must die. The symbolism of death, in general, can be referred to "sleep" as we have shown, and since sleep or dreaming is the state of ordinary consciousness within the body, that would seem to affirm the id in a more soteriologico-religious sense than initiatic—the body as evil, the fall and negation of the spirit.

References to this are not lacking, to be sure. In the Corpus Hermeticum—to begin with that—the body acquires the label of burden or prison. And every soul does find itself so laden and enchained: "But even underneath this burden, the soul struggles and thinks, though these are not the same kinds of thoughts that it would have if it were detached from the body"; instead of "energies" it knows only sensations and passions that proceed from the body. It is for this reason that as a prerequisite for the acquisition of illumination or Gnosis, hatred for the body is recommended. And it is said: "But first thou must tear off from thee this cloak which thou wearest, this cloak of ignorance, origin of every evil, chain of corruption, tangle of darkness, living death, sensation’s corpse, the tomb that thou draggest along with thee, the robber in thine own house who through the things he loveth, hateth thee, and through the things he hateth bears thee malice."¹ Here, in any case, the symbols of garment, cloak, tomb, death, and darkness (shadow) are clearly employed in the same sense that they must be given when they appear in the enigmas of technical alchemical literature.

Here are some "shadow" correspondences: "The bodies [in the sense of the subjects over which the Opus will be exercised] all have a shadow and a black substance that must be extracted."² Speaking of the symbolical Copper—the red' dish yellow "metal" nearest to being transmuted into Gold—Agathodaimon says: "The soul is the most subtle part, that is, the tinctural spirit [which acts in the same way a tint or tincture diffuses its 'color’ into all parts]; the body is that heavy, earthy thing pledged to darkness."³ Zosimos counsels to work it through until the copper has no more darkness:⁴ "Expel the shadow of the Copper," repeat the Arabs.⁵ "The Copper has passed to white" [stage of consciousness] and has been liberated from the dark . . . stripped of its black color, it has abandoned its opaque and heavy body"⁶ Comarius, speaking of a "dark spirit" that oppresses bodies repeats almost verbatim what is said in the Corpus Hermeticum. He says: "Body [in the primordial sense], Spirit and Soul are all debilitated because of the shadow that falls over them."⁷ Pelagius adds that only when the Copper has become shadowless can it "color" all kinds of bodies, something which, as we shall see, coincides more or less with the goal of the Art.⁸ Even more explicitly, the Cosmpolite says that it is a question of clearing up the darkness and coming to see that Light of Nature that has escaped our notice; because in our eyes, the body is the shadow of nature.⁹

If these allusions were not subject to any deeper meaning, they would have a suspicious character from the initiate’s point of view. Since the body, in a wide sense, is the expression and at the same time the basis of individuation, it is a question of overcoming an escapist and mystical-pantheistic tendency pertaining more to the world of religions than to that of the initiates. But a series of expressions of very different spirit are regularly found in the hermetic doctrine.

For example, for those of us who know what "Salt" is—what does an expression like this, from the De pharmaco catholico mean: "Without Salt we could not make the Philosophers Stone," or this: "Metallic Salt is the Philosopher’s Stone"? According to the symbolism of "distillations," the dregs are what remains after the spirit has been extracted, that is to say, they are the body, from which is also taken, among other possible meanings, the symbol of the "ashes"—by analogy, that is, as residue without any more Fire. But the surprising thing is that "dregs," "ashes," and "remains" alike are valued as something precious that the "Son of the Art" must guard against underestimating and throwing away, because it is precisely from them—it is declared—that the Gold is made, or rather, the ashes are the Gold, the true Gold, not the vulgar Gold, but the "Philosopher’s Gold." "In the ashes remaining in the bottom of the tomb," Artephius¹⁰ says, for instance, "are found the diadem of our King." And d’Espagnet says: "The earth at the bottom of the cup is the true mine of the Philosophers’ Gold, the Fire of Nature and Heaven."¹¹ Zosimos ascribes to the residue of the burnt matters, the dross, the "power of everything [παντὸς ἐνεργεια:]" and adds, "Know that the ashes constitute all the mystery, which is why the Ancients speak of the black Lead, which is the basis of substance."¹² As we know, such lead corresponds to the "sacred black Stone" which, according to John the Alchemist,¹³ confers "skill" on the masters; it corresponds to Saturn, about which Boehme says: "Paradise is still in this world, but man is very far from it, so long as he fails to regenerate himself. And this is the Gold hidden in Saturn";¹⁴ it corresponds to Earth, about which the Hermetic Triumph says: "When by distillation, we extract the Water, which is the Soul and the Spirit [here Water is an all-inclusive symbol for everything that is not Earth],¹⁵ the body remains at the bottom of the vessel, as a dead Earth, black and vile, which nevertheless must not be disdained . . . the remains of Earth are converted into a true essence, and who would take anything away from our subject, knows nothing of [hermetic] Philosophy."¹⁶ And we also quote the words of the Emerald Tablet: "The power of the Telesma is not complete if it is not converted into Earth." We might also recall Olympiodorus: "Dregs and ashes are the oracle revealed by the demons"; in the Book of El Habir:¹⁷ "The Redness [which is the final stage of the process, equivalent to and ] neither appears nor seems to exist outside these precious cinders," and so on.

Other symbols have this same meaning. When the body is associated with Gold, there will also be attributed to the body a masculine value.¹⁸ And also: "Who would become Master of the Work, and seeks anything other than this Stone, will be as one who wants to climb a ladder without rungs, and who, as that is impossible, would dash his head to the ground."¹⁹ In the same way, Della Riviera has the "magical hero" derive from "Hera," out of the Earth, which the Chymica vannus describes as "the egg of the Phoenix."²⁰

Alongside the idea that this individuation that is sustained by the body (the black Stone is the basis of the substance) must be dissolved indiscriminately into the All, there are also other kinds of evidence. It is said of the divine Water that it "dissolves and returns the metals to this crude state, but conserving them always in their own specie [that is, in their own individuality] . . . without these bodies being destroyed in any way, except to receive a regeneration and new form, nobler and more excellent than they possessed before."²¹ It is not a question of "destroying but of improving," says The Thread of Ariadne.²² "It is incorrect to call this the transmutation of metals, because in truth it is a matter of the purgation, fixation, coloration and perfection of imperfect metals." And "even if our Gold is not the vulgar Gold, it is nevertheless found in the vulgar Gold"; the fruit of "our work is extracted from ordinary Gold and Silver."²³ And in Pelagius and the Letter from Isis to Horus it is said that Gold is the seed of Gold: as who sows wheat, has wheat come up and harvests wheat,²⁴ and so the "species" is preserved. There is a continuity. The central modality of remains (which in its vulgar form is manifested by the human personality), and the operation does not "alter" it.

We meet the same idea again in the symbolism of the circulations. The "vessel" in which the work is completed—the aludel, the athanor—must remain hermetically sealed until the completion of the Great Work. This has been laid down by all the authors. But it follows then that the subtle part of the "compound," also called "angel,"²⁵ is separated from the dense and corporeal under the heat of the fire, affording it no power to escape. Pressing against the upper wall of the closed container, it is obliged to condense anew and return below, as a distillation that will act on the residue to transform it. It is a fundamental principle of the Art that the spirit must not fly out and escape, under pain of losing what was supposed to be achieved. Artephius says: "Do not let the spirit exhale, because if it escapes from the vessel, your work will be completely destroyed."²⁶

That is the reason why Fires that are too violent are ill-advised: because the force of the spirits would break the vessel and every benefit would be lost;²⁷ because of this, others insist likewise on the thickness of the glass of the flask and on the perfectly "hermetic" seal. And it is advisable to rush immediately to the aid of the Body when the Soul is stretched by having loosened its bond: otherwise "the Soul will abandon its terrestrial company to resolve into another element,²⁸ which is not the objective that is being pursued. This is expressed in similar fashion by Zacharias: "It is necessary to remain attentive and vigilant in order not to miss the precise moment of the birth of our Mercurial Water, with the end of reuniting it with its body, that until now we have called yeast or leavening and which from now on we shall call Venom."²⁹ The word venom refers to the point at which the principle of the work is manifested as a transcendent and dissolving power with respect to the personalized individual states. And Boehme says: "If the spirit flees from its prison, lock it back in again."³⁰