Alchemical fire shares much with the Tibetan Buddhist notions of Primordial Field and Clear Light; and in physics terms with our biophotonic nature. photonichuman.50megs.com

The Secret Fire Part III

How do we find this fire or this image that dwell within us?

Our Fire needs to be worked on and tended to; it must be cared
for and fanned into flames. It needs to be awakened through psychic
exercise and mystical zeal. Vigil must be kept through aspiration,
prayer, invocation, visualization, concentration, imagination, tantric
breathing, longing and love for that which is the Divine in oneself.


What happens to us when we awake this fire in us?

From a Mithrian Ritual

" Oh Primal Origin of my originator; Thou Primal Sub­stance of my
substance; First Breath of breath that is in me; First Fire, God-given
for the Blending of the blend­ings in me, of fire in me... . Translate me
now... by virtue of the Deathless Spirit . . . in order that I may become
re­born in Mind. . . . Initiate, that the Holy Breath may breathe in me;
in order that I may admire the Holy Fire."

Translate me now, means convert me, transform me, transmute me,
which is the power of the alchemists Stone.

How does our fire transform or transmute us?

Thomas Aquinas says, " The Stone is One, the medicine is one,
to which we add nothing, only in preparation removing superfluities. "
Such is the magic operation of our fire. It is a purifying and life giving
substance which needs our assistance. When we let it express itself it
will do all the work in her nature.

How would we then remove the darkness from this lantern ?

We would have to raise the intensity of our fire by kindling it, fanning
it and tending to it. Our Fire would then do all the work that is in its
nature for us. Our Fire would burn away the dross, the impurities, the
sooth and the darkness.

The Turba Philosophorum, it says of the Stone, " Cook it, therefore till
it be deprived of blackness, and whiteness appear."

Solomon Trismosin in Splendor Solis says " Heat turns every black
thing white." All we need to do is purify our consciousness with the
"Secret Fire".

So how do we find this Secret Fire?

Simon Magus, the great magician says, " The hidden aspect of the
fire are concealed in the manifest, and the manifest is produced in
the hidden". The closest thing to us that is manifest is our body and
Our Fire is concealed within it.

Georgius Venetus says, " Whosoever liveth, doth subsist by virtue
of its inward heat."

Basil Valentine says, " Natural heat preserves the life of man.
If his body loses its natural heat his life has come to an end".

Paracelsus says that life is a process of combustion. He said,
"if I said I cannot burn, it is as much as if I said, I cannot live."


In "Alchemy Unveiled" By Johannes Helmond,
This inner fire is called the Fire of Nature__

" The Fire of Nature is the Central-Fire of the Philosophers, which is
hidden in the Earth, and is also called the Central-Sun. "

" It is a fire, solar by nature, yet a little coarser than that (the fire) of the
heavenly Sun. This is why it is also called the Son of the Sun. He is the
archeus of nature who moves and digests the matter, when he is given
his Freedom; he does all the work in her (nature). In the interim, the
Central-Fire lies hidden under a hard shell, still weak and unable. It is
only a Fire in potentia, that will show its power as soon as it is awakened
through the external Fire. The Alchemists call it IGNIS, or at times, call it
their red Lion or Gabritius. It is the fire of the gold, the true goldsulphur,
the soul of the elements, the light of nature. Without its influ­ence, the
intelligence would be weak, the power of the imagina­tion would be
dead, the spirit would be unfruitful and the body would be lifeless."

He continues to say,
" The Son of the Sun deserves to be drawn out of the darkness;
to purify him and to bring him to a more mature position."

In alchemy we come to many references to darkness as the Saturnian
aspect of our being, this is nothing else than our unconscious aspect of
our being as is related to the soul being subdued by matter as the
hardness of our minerality, meaning our terrestrial aspect, the body.
The inner light is being imprisoned in the very depths of our being very
much as being locked up in the darkness of a dungeon. To be liberated
from this darkness are man's deepest desires.

This is a very traditional concept as far as the Hermetic Philosophy is
concerned and goes back to ancient of times. But let us look at the words
of a modern psychologist.

Carl Jung says,
"I understood that within the soul from its primordial beginnings there
has been a desire for light and an irrepressible urge to rise out of the
primal darkness. The longing for light is the longing for consciousness. "

Rosicrucian say that, "Light is an attribute of Being, for Being is always
luminous in the radiation of its energy caused by its ceaseless effort to be."

We have often heard it said that God is light. This is more than just a
metaphor. It is very striking when we consider that in mysticism it is said
that God is absolute, and in science and physics it is said that light absolute.
In mysticism it is said that God lies beyond the manifested world of matter,
shape or form, beyond space and time, In science and physics, so does light.
Our capacity for consciousness, then, truly must be an experience of that
which is the divine ?

TO BE CONTINUED

Steve Kalec