Alchemy and Gender

by Jani Farrell Roberts. c2000

An extract from her book "Seven Days: Tales of Magic, Sex and Gender."

There was never a time when it was not more obvious that magic and science were not opposed than the Renaissence. Such men as Isaac Newton were noted scientists, members of magical societies and deeply interested in alchemy. Today, in our post-Rationalist world, we still suffer from a presumption that came with the rationalist ideology. This is the ultimately unscientific belief that because we do not yet know how something works, it cannot exist. Yet there are many that will testify to phenomena that are yet not understood by science. For example, one day, when I was walking along a wild part of the Welsh coastline, the thought suddenly came to me that a certain friend was about to phone me. I switched on my mobile phone and then thought "It will ring within 20 seconds". I laughed at my own presumption - and it rang. In Bristol my friend had just come home, thought he must phone me, and phoned me. It was the first time he had tried to phone me that day and my phone had been switched off until that time. Such events are now a frequent part of my life - the more so since I started to listen more to instincts. I see magic not as irrational but as seeking to utilise and discover the limits of the human powers to detect and influence events around us. This includes by using mental means as well as by working with our links to the natural world around us - including to the creating Force or Persons. For me there should be no conflict between magic and science. Both work experimentally. Both are techniques for working with and understanding the same natural world

The alchemists were also of great influence in this period and drew on an ancient tradition common to Egypt, India and China. The poem called the "Hermaphrodite Child of Sun and Moon" spoke of alchemy as a process whereby opposites were joined together, including male and female, in order to achieve "gold" or spiritual perfection. They believed that spiritual processes were reflected in nature - and thus they thought it legitimate to mix chemistry and mysticism. The following is an extract from this poem.

Alchemy

Turns the swan into a

Salamander abruptly.

She feasts on

Heat

And lives in flames,

Blood-Red in colour,

Nourished by the glowing embers:

Those who bow to her rule,

(Like the Pelican

Who gives all to his young):

Will see the Salamander

Develop their

Strength and Virtue,

But she only appears to those who

Understand 7 stars:

She opens up

The 7 gates for us.

My species gives me a grey belly,

but I'm neither male nor female.

Rather, I have both genders.

My flesh and blood prove it.

My blood is male, my flesh female.

The power of both is spiritual.

I have both male and female organs.

So people call me a hermaphrodite.

My treasure is the Earth Element,

where there are minerals, metals, and such.

Yet I'm nothing that you may suppose.

I am One Substance by my nature.

In my metal form I am simultaneously

hot and cold, wet and dry.

Just One Thing under the Sun

Its Possession is the secret of making Gold.

Its form is both male and female.

Its nature is both hot and cold.

Its nutrients pour out,

Its male part, solid,

Its female part, liquid.

Its unity makes it the beginning and the end.

Its state changes from male to female:

Dissolving, putrefying, purifying, coagulating,

Until the golden Child appears.

Its milk feeds the Child anew,

And lets you immediately repeat the Work,

Until everything flows and penetrates.

Then fine gold accumulates,

Its Spiritual Body turns acid.

Its Colours have to be made ready for the Work:

But be righteous and guard against sins,

And God will grant you this treasure:

Its colour will eventually turn red,

And then remember to thank the Lord.

The Jewish mystical practice of the Qabbalah was reinterpreted in the light of alchemism. The spheres through which divine energy descended to the earth and returned were supported on two sides by the pillars of Severity and Mercy. Between them was the column that balanced these energies - that of Harmony or Beauty crowned with the highest of all spheres, that of Kether, the first emanation from the godhead. These two pillars became emblems of Freemasonry under the names of Jachin and Boaz. They were said to be the two pillars in front of Solomon's Temple. These two signified in their union in the temple, the unity required for contemplation.

Lord Admiral Charles Howard was among the many influential Grand Masters of Freemasonry at the time when Francis Thynne, 1543-1608, the Lancaster Herald and a student of Druidry and Egyptian magic, wrote of the Quabalah as "the most profound knowledge" and John Dee as "the learned Quabalist". The Society of the Rosie Cross (the Rosicrucians) may have influenced Shakespeare's work. His play "Midsummer's Nights Dream" started where a Rosicrucian play "The two Kinsmen" finished.

A French historian, President de Thon, recorded in 1598 a confession about the secret societies reportedly given without torture by Beumont, a man already sentenced for magical practices: "He held commerce with aerial and heavenly spirits" and confessed that "schools and professions of this noble art had been frequent in all parts of the world and still were in Spain, Toledo, Cardona, Grenada and other places; that they had also been very celebrated in Germany but here for the most part failed since Luther had sowed the seeds of his heresy.... that in France and England it was still secretly preserved as it were by tradition in the families of certain gentlemen so only the initiated were admitted into the sacred rites." He also mentioned that John Dee and others in England had at Hallow E'en 1590; "entered the circle for necromantic spells". (Ref. Ron Heiser. The Impact of Freemasonry on Elizabethan literature.)

Women were discriminated against in some of these orders. Freemasonry at first admitted a few women, but from early in the 18th century excluded them. The Rosicrucians were more balanced but when I read the documents produced by the men of the Renaissance revival, it was evident that many were dominated by male interests and approaches. I found them mostly heavy, full of hierarchical ranks and to excessively exalt reason over emotion. Much of their work had nothing of the sparkle and taunts of the Beguine women mystics although sometimes there were lovely gems. It would not be until the late 19th century that women started to take their place in new magical orders that catered for both genders such as the OTO, Golden Dawn and Wicca in the 20th Century.