Something's burning somewhere, or did burn, once.

As Above, So Below

Aleister Crowley, The Book of the Law

Artist: Pool Paolini

S O L V E - E T - C O A G U L A

I always was fascinated by modern human civilisation. All the wonders we build, all the frontiers we surpass as a technocratic civilization, it's really something. It's very interesting to see how far we went from medieval alchemy to modern scientific method, from potions and astrology to chemistry and astrophysics and still, subliminally, the progress what we often do not understand feels like magic to us. As Artur C. Clarke once stated "Any sufficiently advanced technology is indistinguishable from magic". And it's fascinating how there is still a chunk of society that tend to fear and demonise everything they do not understand, and it seems it always was like that, from medieval inquisition to modern times. Maybe one day we will stop to try burning everything we do not understand... I hope so... 😅

For more of the art stuff I do feel free to check out my instagram & artstation

𝔰𝔬𝔩𝔳𝔢 𝔢𝔱 𝔠𝔬𝔞𝔤𝔲𝔩𝔞

Commission for @krickis! Check out Solve et Coagula on AO3!

Pink Hello Kitty Baphomet sketch by me🎀

'SOLVE ET COAGULA'

I reach the altar of fire And I deposit the golden dagger On the ashes of the victims

Behold the lighted dust like familiar smoke When corpses breathe

Solve et Coagula

The Wheel of Time - Season 2, Ep 1

The Wheel of Time is back! Let's see if the series is still incorporating literary alchemy. (I've not read the books, so I'm looking at the TV series only.)

In Episode 2, Egwane and Nyneave are at Aes Sedai school, where they're working mostly as domestic drudges--until they have a key lesson from Alanna about the "five threads of the One Power." The goal of their training is to learn to harness--"channel"--the One Power.

Is this alchemy? Usually you have the Four Elements coming together to create the One (the One Ring in Lord of the Rings, the Chosen One in Harry Potter, etc., etc.). The Four Elements in alchemy are fire, air, earth, and water, but in the WOT universe a fifth element, spirit, is added. Spirit is also a concept in alchemy, but it generally appears in the trio of soul-spirit-body. So it's not clear what Robert Jordan is going for here.

It's true that in Chinese alchemy there are also five elements, but they are fire, earth, water, metal, and wood. So it doesn't seem as if Jordan is using that model.

The next part of Allana's lesson is to show the novices how to weave the elements of water and earth together to create a filter to purify a muddy glass of water. They can't leave the lesson until they've drunk their, hopefully, clear glass. First, I wonder if it's a coincidence that the two elements they are working with--water and earth--correspond to Mercury/argentvive, the Female Principle of the Work. (Fire and air correspond to Sulphur, the Male Principle.) The Aes Sedai are of course all Female. More important, though, the novices are being taught an essential skill of alchemy, to purify physical matter. A typical medieval alchemist starts with a rock, which he or she subjects to repeated cycles of solve et coagula (dissolve and congeal). In WOT the Aes Sedai achieve purification in a pretty different way, by creating a sieve or filter, which is called a weave. Jordan is being quite inventive here: he preserves the essential alchemical process--purification-- but creates a distinctive process.

Moving on to Moraine and Lan, we see that they remain estranged, Moraine having blocked their bond and Lan's access to her thoughts. Separation is a standard stage in Ripley's Twelve Gates (steps) of the alchemical process. But if that's what Jordan is doing, then we should expect Moraine and Lan to be reunited. As I wrote before, it was very atypical for their Chemical Wedding to have occurred to early in the story--before it began actually--so I'm not sure where Jordan can take their story from here.

Coagulation | The Seventh Phase of Alchemy

The seventh and final phase of alchemy is known as coagulation, in which the alchemist completes the Great Work and creates the Philosopher’s stone.  In laboratory alchemy, this is thought to occur after the process of distillation is completed and the matter congeals into a solid substance.  In personal alchemy, it signifies the completion of the process of solve et coagula, or dissolve and…

View On WordPress

Reading a fragment from my poetic essay “Discurso de transmutación alquímica” at the Literaturhaus Köln. Prose in Spanish, verse in English, subtitles in German.

Se o céu fosse líquido