Bibliodyssey has a collection of 14 weird alchemy emblems, which were published in the German picture book Emblemata Nova in 1617. These emblems combined symbols that the reader was expected to decipher, although accompanying captions and poetry helped a little. A commenter called them "flash cards for the insane"! Link
Bibliodyssey has a collection of 14 weird alchemy emblems, which were published in the German picture book Emblemata Nova in 1617. These emblems combined symbols that the reader was expected to decipher, although accompanying captions and poetry helped a little. A commenter called them "flash cards for the insane"! Link
The uninitiate are basically animals, unconsciously driven by instinct and consciously unaware of their own motives.
The conscious mind suffers a phenomenal transparency that does not afford the conscious mind direct insight into its own operation, but alchemical transmutation allows this to happen. Alchemy then is a system of anagogical procession through symbolism, a symbolism that acts on the conceptual architecture of the initiates mind.
The first phase of realization is called "Nigredo" (The Blackening), the second phase is called "Albedo" (The Whitening), lastly "Rubedo" (The Redening). This can be seen as a parellel of other systems like; Jacob's Ladder, Dante's Divine Comedy (Inferno, Purgatorio, Paradiso), etc...
"The alchemcial process
is a method for self knowledge
that the soul undergoes
far outside its realm of existence."
- Marry Anne Atwood