The First Dictum.
Iximidrus, of highest regard among those gathered together, is the first speaker. He testifies that the beginning of everything is always the same. He doesn't appear to explain this any further. Instead he instructs those present as to the nature of the Elements of Fire, Air and Water.
Fire, according to Iximidrus, is hot and dry. Fire is so hot and dry it would consume everything were it not for the Element of Air. The enemy of Fire, which is Water, is cold and wet. It is so cold and wet it would destroy everything were it not for Air. It is the warm and moist Element of Air that acts as the mediary between Water and Fire.
The message here is that three things are the beginning of everything. Those three things are Fire, Air and Water. Fire and Air are friendly to each other. Water and Air are friendly to each other. But, Fire and Water are opposites and they are not friendly to each other. The beginning of everything is this duality of opposites and the peaceful mediator between them.
In Alchemy they are the three parts of creation. Furthermore, these three things together are the spirit and life in all creatures. The spirit and life force in all creatures is called Mercury in alchemical texts. Mercury is the first alchemical element. The other two are Sulphur and Salt. Mercury is the spirit of living creatures and it is composed of mediating Air and the opposites of Fire and Water.
In the Kaballah these three concepts are expressed as the first three spheres on the Tree of Life. These three spheres form the First World of the Kaballah, the World of Archetypes which is the home of the spirit of every living thing. Within our own World of Archetypes is our own spirit or life force. Within the Divine World of Archetypes resides the Divine Spirit.
Iximidrus claims that it is the Fire which creates this spirit by drawing something out of the Air. The Kaballah agrees but in a different manner. Air is the first sphere and Fire the second. Thus Air gives part of itself to the second sphere and the second sphere becomes Fire. The nature of Fire comes from the Air according to both Kaballah and Alchemy. Thus Air is the first element and Fire the second. Or, is it?
The group of alchemists assembled tell Iximidrus he has well described the Element of Fire. This is according to one group of commentators on the Turba Philosophorum. Another group believes it is Pythagorus himself who summarizes the comments of the Turba. Thus they believe the running commentary is given by Pythagoras on behalf of the assembled alchemists. Either way, the master and the disciples agree with what Iximidrus said: Fire draws something from Air and forms the spirit or life force for all things.
The Second Dictum
Exumedrus believes the work of Fire is improved by the Element of Air. He
doesn't tell us that Air is both warm and moist but he suggests it because Air
is the intermediary between Fire and Water. Air grows warm and becomes
cold and reminds him of Spring.
Much more could have been said about Air, but it was not necessary since the
first speaker had already spoken of it. What the first speaker said is that Air
comes between Fire and Water to warm of cold Water and cool the hot Fire and to
balance the wetness of \Water with the dryness of Fire.
In the Kaballah, Water is born in Air, and Water gives birth to Fire. This mean
our emotions are born in our thoughts; and it's our emotions that give birth to
our desires and passions.
On the Tree of Life, Air is above and Fire and Water are beside each other. This
symbolism is not unlike the alchemical symbolism that places Air between Fire
and Water. In both cases the Fire and Water would destroy each other if they
were to come together without Air between them. Opposites combine to form
the nothing from which they both came.
Air, then is warm and moist and it mediates between Fire and Water protecting
each from the other. One can only wonder how many Alchemists started out as
either Fire or Water and became the Air.
The Third Dictum
Anaxagoras tells us that what the Divine created was weight and proportion.
Today we would say the Divine created matter and space. Then he explains that
matter is the Element of Earth and the Element of Earth contains the other three
Elements. Today we would say the same thing.
Anaxagoras then explains the rank of the Elements from the rarest to the least
rare. Fire, he claims, is the rarest because it is hot and dry. Air is
next as it is warm and moist. Water follows since it is cold and moist.
Earth is the least rare because it is cold and dry. In other words hot is
rarer than cold and moist is rarer than dry.
What he doesn't explain is that hot is energy in the form of desires, drives,
ambition and cold
is a lack of these things. Certainly in life we find this to be true.
Few people are hot with ambition and desire. Many people lack the drive
of ambition and the passion of desire.
According to this ancient teaching, moist is energy in the form of love,
acceptance, forgiveness and compassion. On the other hand, dry is the
absence of these things. Anaxagoras claims the largest group of humanity
falls under the heading of cold and dry meaning they are of the Element of
Earth and they lack both drive and compassion. Indeed, that probably does
describe the majority of this world's population.
Next he feels are the people with feelings of love and compassion but who lack drive and ambition. These are the Water people, they are of the Element of Water. Fewer people belong to the Element of Water than the Element of Earth. But fewer still belong to the Element of Air which is warm and dry. Air people according to this paradigm are almost or partly ambitious and they are compassionate and loving.
The rarest Element of all, the rarest group of people on this planet are
ambitious without compassion. Sadly, as we look around the corporate world
today, we must wonder if Fire isn't more common than either Air or Water today.
But in the time of the Turba, it may well be that ambitious people lacking
compassion were rare indeed. In any event, the Turba - the group of
experts there assembled - agreed with what he had to say.
Thankfully, we are each a blend of these four Elements as Pythagoras himself
concludes. We are a mixture of desire and lack of desire, compassion and
lack of compassion. Some of us tend to be more of one Element than
another. As we will see later, a perfect mixture of all four Elements is
the goal of Pythagoras. For it is this perfect mixture that becomes the
fifth element, the quintessence (the fifth essence), the Element of Spirit.
Achieving Quintessence is the basis of most systems of alchemy today.
The Fourth Dictum
Pandolfus counters that Air is a subtle part of Water and cannot be separated
from it. This means that behind every emotion is a thought that cannot be
separated from the emotion. If Air was not a part of Water according to
Pandolfus, then the Earth could not exist. If Air was not a part of our emotion
(Water), then we could not manifest anything in our lives. The Turba agrees.
Pandolfus continues by saying the thought behind the emotion in the things that
are manifested is what keeps those things manifested. Withdraw the thought
behind the emotion and manifested things be overrun with emotions. What he is
saying is that all the things we manifest in our lives we manifest with our
emotions. And, all of our emotions are based in a thought.
This works to our advantage if we're manifesting something in our lives we don't
want like an
illness. Find the emotion under the illness, and the thought behind that emotion
and you have the ability to unmanifest the illness. But it can also work to our
disadvantage if we decide to remove a thought from an emotion that supports
something in our lives that we really like. For example, we decide we don't like
our work and our lack of emotion for our job causes us to unmanifest that job.
It would have been better to have a thought about changing our work and
manifesting what we really love to do.
He concludes that thoughts and ideas are the mediators between our emotions and
the things we manifest in our lives. Our thoughts and ideas are also the
peacekeepers between our emotions and our desires. Without Air in the form of
intentions and beliefs, our emotions and desires would destroy each other.
Without intention and belief we destroy both our desires and our compassion.
This is a caution to pay attention to our intentions and our beliefs.
As you read the rest of the Fourth Dictum, consider upper Air as beneficial
intentions, nurturing beliefs and positive thoughts. At the same time, consider
lower Air as harmful intentions, hurtful beliefs and negative thoughts.
This is one way of looking at the Element of Air as it interacts with the other
three mundane elements.
The Fifth Dictum
The Fifth Dictum is short and to the point. Arisleus says the Earth is
not flat. Scientists proved him right several centuries later. Thus it always is
with mystics and metaphysicians. The things they see and understand are not the
things science has proven. They see the things science is yet to prove.
Then Arisleus testifies that the Divine is unique, the Divine was not born, but
is. After the Divine, Arisleus says Fire and Earth are most important. He
justifies Earth as being important because Earth sustains all things. Fire, he
says rules the Earth.
What he means is that Earth is matter, it is the only Element that is matter;
and Fire is energy. Earth is solids, liquids and gasses, plasma and
everything but energy. Fire is all energy. He doesn't address this
issue, but if these things are true, we're left to wonder what Air and Water
are.
Modern science has taught us that Earth is solids, Water is liquids, Air
is gasses and Fire is plasma. Energy appears to be what we call the
Spiritual Element or the Fifth Element. But that may only be an
appearance.
The Sixth Dictum
Lucas claims that all living things that exist were created from the four
Elements that have been defined. These Elements are the four natures of Alchemy
and we call them Air, Water, Fire and Earth.
To the Turba this truth is self-evident. But a very curious thing happens. A
student of Lucas applauds his teacher, gets verbally attacked by another student
and is defended by his mentor. Politics. The Turba obviously felt the
young man should have kept his mouth shut. Politics affects even the best of us.
The teacher should applaud the student. When a student applauds his teacher such
applause is taken poorly by other students. Polishing the teacher's apple
is not politically wise.
According to many different alchemical schools, different species are created by
different combinations of the four mundane elements. The fifth element,
the Spirit Element, is the life force within all things. In Spiritual Alchemy
exactly what those combinations are is of little interest. What is of paramount
interest is how we combine those four Elements to achieve the Philosopher's
Stone. How we change our lead (ignorance) into copper (Divine Acceptance),
silver (Divine Forgiveness) and gold, (Divine Unconditional Love).
The Seventh Dictum
In the Seventh Dictum of the Turba, Lucusta describes the five senses. His
description is typical of the Pythagorean Philosophy which is: Sight
distinguishes white from black. Hearing discriminates between good and bad
words. Smell separates wholesome odors from fetid ones. Taste
discriminates between sweetness and bitterness. Touch discriminates smooth
from rough. He could have said sight discriminates all color, hearing all
sounds, smell all odors, taste all things and touch all varieties of heat, cold,
rough, smooth, and hard or soft. But in the language of his time, that's
exactly what he did say.
To understand the sublime that cannot be identified by these five senses, he
speaks of the two dense things and two rare things. Earth and Water are dense or
feminine Elements according the Pythagoras and that leaves Fire and Air as the
rare or masculine Elements. Some say that means a good man is a rarity, but good
women abound.
The sublime creature referenced in his discussion is the Divine. The Divine is
that subtle being that has no denseness. That means the Divine has no physical
presence and no emotions or relationships as we know them. The Divine emotion
will be explained later as being unconditional love, acceptance and forgiveness.
The Divine relationships will be explained as being relationships with parts of
the Divine. These parts are the whole of the Creation. The Divine expressed in
the physical is also the Creation.
The inference here is the Divine is both Air and Fire. Air you may recall is the world of thoughts and ideas or the World of the Mind. Fire is our passions, desires and intentions or the World of Intentions. The Divine is a Mind with Intentions. Thus there is a creation. For without a Mind and Intentions, there would be nothing. Without thought and intention nothing happens.
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