Bloomfield-Moore
"Science admits that nature works with dual force, though at rest she is a unit. "Nature is one eternal cycle." Keely's discoveries prove that the doctrine of the Trinity should be set down as an established canon of science - the Trinity of force. All nature's sympathetic streams - cerebellic, gravital, electric and magnetic - are made up of triple currents. The ancients understood this dogma in a far deeper sense than modern theology has construed it. The great and universal Trinity of cause, motion and matter - or of will, thought and manifestation - was known to the Rosicrucians as prima materia. Paracelsus states that each of these three is also the other two; for, as nothing can possibly exist without cause, matter and energy - that is, spirit, matter and soul (the ultimate cause of existence being that it exists), we may therefore look upon all forms of activity as being the action of the universal or Divine will operating upon and through the ether, as the skilled artificer uses his tools to accomplish his designs; making the comparison in all reverence." [Bloomfield-Moore, More Science] [True Science]
Franz Hartmann
THE FIVE THINGS NECESSARY TO OBSERVE IN THE PRACTICE OF ALCHEMY.
1. To recognize the true PRIMA MATERIA.
It is to be found everywhere; but if you do not find it in your own house, you will find it nowhere. It is a living substance that can be discovered only in places inhabited by man. It is the only substance from which the Philosopher’s Stone can be prepared, and without that substance no genuine silver or gold can be made. In thirty pounds of ordinary mercury, there is usually not more than one pound of the true substance; and a hundred pounds of ordinary sulphur usually contain not more than one pound of that which is useful. It can only be found above the earth, but not below it. It is before everybody’s eyes; no one can live without it; everybody uses it; the poor usually possess more of it than the rich; the ignorant esteem it highly, but the learned ones often throw it away. The children play with it in the street, and yet it is invisible. It can be perceived by the sense of feeling, but it cannot be seen with the material eye.
2. Use for the preparation of the PRIMA MATERIA only the rose-coloured blood of the Red Lion and the pure white gluten of the Eagle.
Let your Will be strong, but without anger, and your Thoughts be pure from that which infects the lower strata of the earth’s atmosphere. Let the fire of the divine Will penetrate deeply within your soul, and elevate your mind to the highest regions of thought.
3. Obtain the sacred Fire.
It is not of man’s making; it cannot be bought, but it is given for nothing to those who deserve it.
4. Then follow Multiplication and Increase, for which purpose weight and measure are necessary.
Weigh all things with the scales of justice, and measure them by the rule of reason.
5. The fifth is the Application, that is to say the Projection upon the metals.
This will be accomplished by nature without artificial aid." [In the pronaos of the temple of wisdom, c. 1890 by Franz Hartmann]
"The "Prima Materia". If we wish to know nature we must learn to know God, and God cannot be known without a knowledge of one's own divine self. The spiritual substance of which external visible nature is an imperfect expression and manifestation, has been called "Prima Materia"; it is the material for the formation of a new heaven and a new earth. It is like "water," or a "crystalline ocean," if compared with our grossly material earth; it is at once fire, water, air, and earth, corporeal in its essence, and nevertheless, incorporeal relatively to our physical forms.
In it as the "Chaos," are contained the germs, or seeds, or "potencies" of all things that ever existed, and of all that ever will exist in the future. It is the soul, or corpus of nature, and by means of the magic fire, it may be extricated from all substances, and be rendered corporeal and visible. It is a unity, and nevertheless a trinity, according to its aspects as Sulphur, Mercury, and Salt. These three are distinct qualities characterising the spirit of light, and nevertheless they are nothing different from the essence of the light, and this light is eternal nature, or the soul of the world.
This primordial matter contains the powers that go to form minerals and metals, vegetables and animals, and everything that breathes; all forms are hidden within its depths, and it is therefore, the true principium or beginning of all things. It is the play and battle ground for all the astral influences that come from the stars and the birthplace of the beings that inhabit the astral plane, not less than of those that are born into the (to us) visible world. It is the womb of eternal nature from which everything that exists is born by the power of the spirit acting within.
From its fertile soil are produced good and evil fruits, wholesome and noxious plants, harmless and poisonous animals, for God is no distinguisher of persons, or favouring any particular individual; each receives its share of life, and will, according to its capacity to receive, and each becomes ultimately that which its character destines it to be." [Franz Hartmann, In the Pronaos of the Temple of Wisdom (1890)]
Thomas Troward
“Because I am what I am, I may be what I will to be. My individuality is one of the modes in which the Infinite expresses itself, and therefore I am myself that very power which I find to be the innermost within of all things.” [Thomas Troward]
Martin Ruland
"Water of Life, Dew, Bride, Spouse, Mother, Eve, Pure and Uncontaminated Virgin, A Spiritual Blood, The Soul and Heaven of the Elements, The Matter of All Forms, Heart of the Sun, Shade of the Sun, Heart and Shade of Gold, Chaos, Venus, Isis, Mother, The Sea, Bird of Hermes, The Woman, Water of Gold, Soul of Saturn, the Earth, Spirit." [Martin Ruland’s Alchemical Lexicon - a list of expressions that various alchemists used to refer to prima materia]
Says Jung in Mysterium Coniunctionis:
“Materia prima in its feminine aspect: it is the moon, the mother of all things, the vessel, it consists of opposites, has a thousand names, …, as Mater Alchimia it is wisdom and teaches wisdom, it contains the elixir of life in potentia and is the mother of the Saviour and of the filius Macrocosmi, it is the earth and the serpent hidden in the earth, the blackness and the dew and the miraculous water which brings together all that is divided.“ (par. 15).
“She is that piece of chaos which is everywhere and yet hidden, she is that vessel of contradictions and many colours – a totality in the form of massa confusa, yet a substance endowed with every quality in which the splendour of the hidden deity can be revealed.“ (par. 422)
“… she personifies that arcane substance, be it dew or the aqua permanens, which unites the hostile elements into one. … The cognomen of Isis was the Black One. … since ancient times she was reputed to possess the elixir of life as well as being adept in sundry magical arts. She was also … rated as a pupil of Hermes, or even his daughter. … She signifies earth, according to Firmicus Maternus, and was equated with Sophia, … the vessel and the matter of good and evil. An inscription invokes her as ‘the One, who art All.‘ She is named the redemptrix. In Athenagoras she is ‘the nature of the Aeon, whence all things grew and by which all things are.‘ (par. 14)
See Also