“Esoteric alchemy was based on the idea that Man as base metal could be transformed into gold—i.e. that Man could become, by some knowledge and the practice of it, turned into gold. This was esoteric alchemy.” Maurice Nicoll
The True Work: Transforming Man
“In the alchemical teaching, which dealt apparently with turning lead into gold, but which really dealt with changing Man himself into a new being, there is always this idea of a retort, something that cannot be penetrated by wrong influences, something that brings together all the essential parts of the man, through a certain friction transforming them into a new body.” Maurice Nicoll, Psychological Commentaries, p813.
“One ancient teaching of esotericism was given under the name of Hermes. From this arose the term ‘hermetically sealed’ which was used in esoteric alchemy. Esoteric alchemy was based on the idea that Man as base metal could be transformed into gold—i.e. that Man regarded as some metal, say lead, as he is at his present stage, could become by some knowledge and the practice of it turned into gold. This was esoteric alchemy.” Commentaries, p862.
The Alchemical Furnace of Consciousness
“Hermeticism is an athanor (‘alchemical furnace’) erected in the individual human consciousness, where the mercury of intellectuality undergoes transmutation into the gold of spirituality.” Meditations on the Tarot, p194.
“Practical Hermeticism is alchemy. The ideal of Hermeticism is essentially and fundamentally the alchemical ideal. This means to say: the more one becomes truly human, the more one manifests the divine element underlying human nature, which is the ‘image and likeness of God’ (Genesis i, 26). The ideal of abstraction invites human beings to do away with human nature, to dehumanise. In contrast, the ideal of alchemical transformation of Hermeticism offers to human beings the way to the realisation of true human nature, which is the image and likeness of God. Hermeticism is the re-humanisation of all elements of human nature; it is their return to their true essence.” Valentin Tomberg, Meditations on the Tarot, p96.
The Great Alchemical Operation
“The ‘good news’ that the world received more than nineteen centuries ago is in no way that of successful surgical operation of freedom from suffering; … but rather it is that of resurrection—the great alchemical operation of the successful transmutation of the human being. Liberation through spiritual surgery.” Meditations on the Tarot, p451.
Marriage of Opposites
“The marriage of opposites is a principle of universal significance. This is not a compromise that one contrives, but rather the cross and the magic of the cross. It is thus that the ‘true Self’ is united to the ‘lower self’ in the human being, where the ‘lower self’ is the cross of the ‘true Self’ and the ‘true Self’ is the cross of the ‘lower self’. The two poles of the human being then live in the presence of one another, the result of which is an alchemical process of gradual approach to one another.” Meditations on the Tarot, p454.
“The magic of the cross, alchemy operating in the ‘marriage of opposites’, is therefore the sole hope for the world, for mankind and for its history. And it is precisely this principle of the ‘marriage of opposites’ which underlies Hermcticism. This is why it rejects the principle of divorce and war—the surgical principle—in practice as well as in theory, spiritually, morally and intellectually. The soul of Hermeticism is that ‘nothing should be lost…all should have eternal life’ (John vi, 39-40).” Meditations on the Tarot, p455.
The Lost Sheep as Alchemical Process
“The parable of the lost sheep is well known. One generally understands it as portraying the care of the good pastor for the particular soul—and without doubt it does this. Nevertheless, one can, by analogy, apply it also to the inner life of the soul—its desires, aspirations, vices and virtues. If one does this, if one considers—by analogy—each particular force in the soul as a ‘sheep’, one arrives at the understanding that the soul’s faults and vices are not, fundamentally, monsters but rather, lost sheep. Thus, the eagerness to dominate, the desire to submit the will of other people to one’s own is, fundamentally, a sheep which is lost. For at the root of the desire to dominate is found the dream of unity, union, the harmony of a choir. It is a ‘sheep’. But instead of seeking the realization of the dream of harmony by way of love, the will seeks to realize it by way of compulsion. This is a sheep that has lost its way. In order for it to return to the ‘flock’, the fundamental will underlying the desire to dominate must be imprinted with the understanding that it is in the domain of love and not in that of commandment that it will find what it is seeking. Here is the return of the lost sheep—the alchemical process of transmutation of a ‘base metal’ into ‘gold’.” Meditations on the Tarot, p455
Hierarchy of Condensation
“Modern science has come to the understanding that matter is only condensed energy—which, moreover, was known by alchemists and Hermeticists thousands of years ago. Sooner or later science will also discover the fact that what it calls ‘energy’ is only condensed psychic force—which discovery will lead in the end to the establishment of the fact that all psychic force is the ‘condensation’, purely and simply, of consciousness, i.e. spirit. Thus, it will be known for certain that we walk not thanks to the existence of legs, but rather that legs exist thanks to the will for movement, i.e. that it is the will for movement which has fashioned the legs so as to serve as its instrument. Similarly, it will be known that the brain does not engender consciousness but that it is the latter’s instrument of action.” Meditations on the Tarot, p574.
The Union of Wisdom
“The twenty-first Arcanum of the Tarot is therefore that of the Hermeticist’s method of sacrificing the intellect to spirituality in such a way that it grows and develops instead of becoming enfeebled and atrophied. It is the Arcanum of the marriage of opposites (coniunctio oppositorum, i.e. the conjunction of opposites)—namely discursive intellectuality and illuminative spirituality; or, in other words, it is the alchemical work of the union of human wisdom, which is folly in the eyes of the God, with divine wisdom, which is folly in the eyes of man, in such a way that the result is not a double folly but rather a single wisdom which understands both that which is above and that which is below.” Meditations on the Tarot, p605.
Logion 61
Yeshua says…
Two will be resting on a bed.
One will die, the other will live.
Salome said,
“Then how is it, Sir,
that you, coming from the one Source,
have rested on my couch and eaten at my table?”
Yeshua said to her,
“I am he who has appeared to you
out of the Realm of Unity,
having been granted
that which belongs to my Father, its Source.”
“I will be your student!” she exclaimed.
“Then I say this to you:
if you become whole you will be full of Light.
If you remain fragmented darkness will fill you.”
Logion 106
Yeshua says…
When you are able to transform two into one,
then you will become a “Son of Humanity,”
and it will be possible for you
to say to a mountain, “Move,” and it will move.
Page numbers for Maurice Nicoll refer to Psychological Commentaries on the Teachings of Gurdjieff and Ouspensky (Eureka Editions:2020) unless stated otherwise.
Quotations from the Gospel of Thomas are from Lynn C Bauman, Ward J Bauman, Cynthia Bourgeault, The Luminous Gospels (Praxis 2008)
Valentin Tomberg, Meditations on the Tarot, Jeremy Tarcher, 1985
Read the Impression introducing the GosRpel of Thomas
Read the Impression on Meditations on the Tarot.
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