12. The Great Work-a

DISCITE CRUX THE Great Work is, before all things, the creation of man by himself, that is to say, the full and entire conquest of his faculties and his future; it is especially the perfect emancipation of his will, assuring him universal dominion over Azoth and the domain of Magnesia, in other words, full power over the Universal Magical Agent. This Agent disguised by the ancient philosophers under the name of the First Matter, determines the forms of modifiable substance, and we can really arrive by means of it at metallic transmutation and the Universal Medicine. This is not a hypothesis; it is a scientific fact already established and rigorously demonstrable. Nicholas Flamel and Raymond Lully, both of them poor, indubitably distributed immense riches. Agrippa never proceeded beyond the first part of the Great Work, and he perished in the attempt, struggling to possess himself and to fix his independence. Now, there are two Hermetic operations, the one spiritual, the other material, and these are mutually dependent. For the rest, all Hermetic science is contained in the doctrine of Hermes, which is said to have been originally inscribed upon an emerald tablet. Its first articles have been already expounded, and those follow which are concerned with the operation of the Great work: “Thou shalt separate the earth from the fire, the subtle from the gross, gently, with great industry. It rises from earth to heaven, and again it descends from heaven to earth, and it receives the power of things above and of things below. By this means shalt thou obtain the glory of the whole world, and all darkness shall depart from thee. It is the strong power of every power, for it will overcome all that is subtle and penetrate all that is solid. Thus was the world created.” To separate the subtle from the gross, in the first operation, which is wholly inward, is to liberate the soul from all prejudice and all vice, which is accomplished by the use of Philosophical Salt, that is to say, wisdom; of Mercury, that is, personal skill and application; finally, of Sulphur, representing vital energy and fire of will. By these are we enabled to change into spiritual gold things which are of all least precious, even the refuse of the earth. In this sense we must interpret the parables of the choir of philosophers, Bernard Trevisan, Basil Valentine, Mary the Egyptian and other prophets of alchemy; but in their works, as in the Great Work, we must separate skillfully the subtle from the gross, the mystical from the positive, allegory from theory. If we would read them with profit and understanding, we must take them first of all as allegorical in their entirety, and then descend from allegories to realities by the way of the correspondences or analogies indicated in the one dogma: That which is above is proportional to that which is below, and reciprocally. The word ART when reversed, or read after the manner of sacred and primitive characters from right to left, gives three initials which express the different grades of the Great Work. T signifies triad, theory and travail; R, realization; A, adaptation. In the twelfth chapter of the “Ritual”, we shall give the processes of adaptation in rise among the great masters, especially that which is contained in the Hermetic Fortress of Henry Khunrath. We may refer our readers also to an admirable treatise attributed to Hermes Trismegistus and entitled “Minerva Mundi.” It is found only in certain editions of Hermes and contains, in allegories full of profundity and poetry, the doctrine of individual self-creation, or the creative law consequent on the harmony between two forces which are termed fixed and volatile by alchemists, and are necessity and liberty in the absolute order.