Sitting 05 - Chapter 02 Nature Language of Alchemy 10th Dec, 2014

Study Circle 05 on 

Alchemy - Science of the Cosmos, Science of the Soul

by Titus Burckhardt  (Fons Vitae 1997, USA)

Reading Chapter 02
Nature & Language Of Alchemy

Conducted by:

Taimoor K. Mumtaz (Director)

Raheel Ahmed (Coordinator Sacred Psychology Program)

Extract 

CHAPTER 2

NATURE AND LANGUAGE OF ALCHEMY

' In my book on the principles and methods of sacred art I more than once had occasion to refer to alchemy, by way of comparison, when considering artistic creation as it appears within a sacred tradition, not from the point of view of its outward aesthetic aspect, but as an inward process whose goal is the ripening, ‘transmuta­tion’, or rebirth of the soul of the artist himself. Alchemy too was called an art — even the ‘royal art’ (ars regia) — by its masters, and, with its image of the transmutation of base metals into the noble metals gold and silver, serves as a highly evocative symbol of the inward process referred to. In fact alchemy may be called the art of the trans­mutations of the soul. In saying this I am not seeking to deny that alchemists also knew and practised metallurgi­cal procedures such as the purification and alloying of metals; their real work, however, for which all these procedures were merely the outward supports or ‘opera­tional’ symbols, was the transmutation of the soul. The testimony of the alchemists on this point is unanimous.'

Date: Wednesday 10th December 2014

Time:  6: 30 pm

Venue: Hast-o-Neest (31-G, Gulberg II)

Participants: Kausar Ali, Irshad-ul-Mujeeb, Farhan Khan, Mubarika, Mehr, Anum, Saba, Uzair, Mian farooq, Shaihan, Zoya, Taimoor, 

Contact: 0300 849 3170