Grillot de Givry - The Great Work

Grillot de Givry - The Great Work - Twelve Meditations
Émile-Jules Grillot (1874-1929) Le Grand Oeuvre - XII meditations ur la voie Esoterique de l'Absolu, Paris 1907.
Translation by Adam McLean, 2018.
Grillot de Givry was an early 20th century writer on esotericism, best known for his highly illustrated book 'Witchcraft Magic and Alchemy' originally Le musée des sorcières, images et alchimistes, Paris, librairie de France, 1929. His ideas reflect the intellectual climate of French esotericism at the turn of the century, obviously drawing on Theosophy and related movements. It presents some themes common to 20th century esotericism - the withdrawal from the world, asceticism, severe self-discipline and abstention from all forms of indulgence, the secrecy of the adept, and so on. The book takes a lofty perspective, with the proponent acting in the role of an all-knowing adept, instructing his disciple. It is an idealised envisaging of alchemy as the great work of perfecting the soul.

Introduction

Above us, in the eternal spheres from which Light and Life emanate, reigns the unfathomable and splendid mystery of the Absolute.
The Absolute encloses our being as an involucrum [a protective sheath or covering] and limits the narrow circle of our precise concepts. In all things he has imprinted his common-sense.
Darkness, unknown to those who do not have the science, is only a veil that covers the First Cause, and which rises before the initiates.
Happy is he who has known how to tear the veil before the hour! For the light he already knows will not dazzle him by his unexpected vision.
But let those who have taken pleasure in the non-existant fear, that for them the guardian of the threshold will not be obliged to dismiss it himself!
Then, at the sight of what they had never suspected, of what they had perhaps contemned, they will be destroyed in the depths of the chasm, where, having no more self-consciousness, they lose their being and will not meet again!
O the paucity and the achievement of the learned, at this decisive moment! What regrets they have of acts not accomplished, of projects not executed! How many, unable to repair their omissions and the errors, will have, imperfect, incomplete, impure, to accept their ultimate achievement!
Follow me, my disciple, in the way of the Absolute that I am going to teach you. Follow me, and I promise you that one day you will gird your forehead with the crown of light, the golden diadem of the Sages, reserved for those who, during their lifetime, have accomplished the Work that sums up all work.
Many have heard of the Great Work. A few propose to devote themselves to it, but very few address the issue.
All will say: "Later, when we will have achieved leisure and calmness".
But leisure and calm never come, while the Absolute will claim you without fail, since you emanate from him.
Oh ! Could you, who have already begged for wisdom from many men who did not possess it, pass from this earth without having deciphered the enigma, without having penetrated the inexpressible secret which some of our ancestors knew?
The Great Work! The Great Work! A prestigious term! A dazzling splendour! Some people, in ages gone by, would have contemplated this marvel, would have possessed it in its entirety, and you would leave it, unexplained, in the books!
And in the hereafter, endowed then with the fullness of your perceptive lucidity, you would see the triumphal phalanx of the sages, flooded with a radiant joy, lost in happiness and joy, reveling in the Philosophers' Stone, feed it for eternity and you would have no part in this feast!
And you would hear the pure theories of the Initiates screaming at you like Dante: "Woe to you, improper souls! Never try to see heaven", while they would go away for ever, triumphantly, in the light, and leave you alone, in the midst of the growing darkness, their sinister diazoma [passage dividing the upper from the lower] spreading around you!
May this thought suffice to inspire you with the regret of your neglect of the Magisteryof the Sages.
Would to God that it is not too late, and that you are already too advanced in life to undertake to complete it!
Because, if your seeking asceticism did not begin at the close of adolescence, it is doubtful that you can reach perfection. It is in this sense that Nicholas Valois said: "Spring advances the Work". And Saint Thomas Aquinas: "In the first days, it is important to get up early and see if the vine is in bloom".

Meditation I - The Subject of the Art

Nicholas Valois the alchemist, said: "The Science of the Philosophers is the knowledge of the universal power of things."

In the dark night of your soul, you sometimes aspired, my disciple, to an immeasurable light that would come, in a far off and unknown day, to illuminate your distress.
You have dreamt a confused vision, of joys, superhuman harmonies, omniscience, and unlimited power.
You have sensed a splendour, after the darkness and the gloomy sadness of chaos where you struggle confusedly.
And here the horizon of your life is turning red, and lets you see something better and more perfect.
Be sure to steer yourself towards this still indecisive glow. Follow it. It is the star of the Magi which rises up for you and which will lead you, if you do not look at it, to the Master of the World.
If you leave this alone, you have characterized yourself by the disorder of ideas and the disorder of actions.
The specific nature of this disorder is the return to yourself.
Re-entry into yourself requires the effort of continuous and lasting will.
The continuous and lasting effort of will requires a rule of life.
The rule of life includes a series of spiritual acts that you must perform scrupulously.
The first norm, which summarizes all the others, is disinterest in the words and deeds of men.
Wrap yourself with indifference as a cloak, that is the key to the magical life. Free yourself from contingencies. Free yourself from all materialism. Lock yourself in your thought and in your science. Be lonely, be true. Build a cell in your own heart.
To accept an obscure life when one is hungry for glory is the pinnacle of alchemical perfection. Thus, rigorously, the Saints accomplished the Great Work.
The ideal that you created for yourself is a kingdom in which you reign as sovereign master. What more do you want?
You are King at the moment the thrones crumble! You are the priest when sacred things are tottering!
Despise the crowd, despise the people, despise the masses. Flee from sinister faces. Only the exception of being alone is worthy of your interest.
The expression of the crowd is significant, only hierarchical. A disciplined army built the occult monument par excellence, the monument that projects no shadow, the Pyramid. The undisciplined crowds only know how to shout and plunder, which is within the reach of all. Do you want to join in simple unity to these? If you renounce the Great Work, the Way of the Absolute will never open for you.
To want to possess the wisdom and at the same time have popular approval, is derisory.
Remember Lao-tzu said "To act is not to act." When the crowd roars and fights outside, you, my Disciple, watch over the athanor of your soul, and do not interfere in the quarrels and struggles.
If you have no trouble ignoring what you think and what you say about yourself, take courage! You have already progressed on the Way of the Absolute.
Reputation is nothing; only the testimony of consciousness matters. What is the point of being a saint if you do not have hermetic peace in your heart?
It is therefore necessary, according to the 'Scala Philosophorum', to begin the work when the Sun is in Aries, and the Moon in Taurus.
Ripley and the Rosary assure us that it takes a year to obtain the Philosopher's Stone in all its stability and firmness. Bernard Trevisan adds seven days.
Understand and ponder these words. Try to develop the latent forces that remain in you. Order your life according to the occult norms. You are the very matter of the Great Work. Make yourself whiter, spiritualise yourself, purify your astrality, get rid of the Cimmerian shadows.
But if you prefer to abandon yourself to chance events, then cry without hope. You will only know failure and disillusionment, and you will never enter the assembly of Philosophers.

Meditation II - Preparation and Purification.

Philalethes said: "Whatever way we treat common mercury, we will never make the philosophical mercury".

If your soul is boorish, it is in vain that you claim the Magistery.
Have you ever felt the need to ascend to heaven, to break out of your worthless matter, to break your chrysalis?
If you do not possess this leaven, this ferment of choice, be convinced that it is useless to undertake anything.
If you are clay, you will remain clay. If you have placed your ideal in the mud, you cannot think of the sublimation, the definitive transmutation, coming out of earthly Gehenna [Hell]. Vulgar man, you will never become a sage.
It is a transcendental alchemy, it is the alchemy of oneself. It is previously necessary to perfect the alchemy of the elements. The nobility of the work, requires the nobility of the worker.
Build the athanor. Prepare the philosophical egg. Arrange the aludel. Separate the subtle from the thick. Collect the gluten tears of the eagle and the blood of the lion. Make that which is occult become manifest. These are the preliminaries of the Work without which you cannot succeed.
Transmutation must take place in your soul. The Stone, in its definitive state, is the Absolute itself. The purifying solvent is the formula of beauty and perfection with which you will adorn your life.
The Magisterium is Sulphur, Salt and Mercury. Thus your sublime soul, which is the true Mercury of the Philosophers, will unite with the Sulphur of divine love, with the salt of mortification and trials.
Coordinate all your actions and all your impressions to form a perfect harmonic set. Strive to acquire extreme clarity in your understanding. Turn away from what is dirtying your view. Do not listen to what pollutes the ears. Exalt in yourself the feeling of the personality, and then endeavor to absorb it into the bosom of the Absolute.
Embrace your soul with alchemical fire, fire that does not burn. I will teach you how to collect it. It will form around you a protective circle, which will isolate you from bad influences.
Beware of wanting to taste the fruits of the mystical life, before having done anything to possess them.
Do not say. O strange paradox: "The Way is too arid, and to overcome the difficulties of the Way you must be a Saint".
But, on the contrary, the Saints only became such because they first knew how to overcome these difficulties. They started like you, with nothing. They have climbed the philosophical ladder, like you, beginning with the first degree.
Do not ask for faith so that you can pray later. Pray first, and faith will flood your soul.
But I have said enough. You should know that you must now form a mystical body, which will replace all your acts in your visible body to usefully use your immaterial forces. And so you will live in beyond the physical. And this is the way.

Meditation III - Philosophical Fire

Jean de Espagnet said: "The regeneration of the world is done by means of the spirit of fire that descends in the form of a water that removes the original stain of matter".

It is from above that you must bring down the philosophical fire that will purify your concepts and your soul.
There is a very great mystery here.
You will only obtain this enigmatic fire by a marvelous effort of will and by ardent demand. These things have the mercy of God, as Basil Valentine says. Pontanus confesses to having erred more than two hundred times. Although he worked on the real matter, he did not know the nature of philosophical fire.
Make sure your hands and your intentions are pure, otherwise this celestial help will be totally refused to you.
It is the astral impulse, the heaven born lightning flash springing from the clouds in the athanor, the link uniting the macrocosm and the microcosm. Without it you can do nothing, and with it you have the strength of all strength.
Zarathustra called him Berezesengh, the fire standing before Ormuzd [Berezeseng in Persian mythology, is one of the five kinds of fire which is distributed in all creations of Ormuzd, even in the earth, in mountains, and in naphtha springs.]
Moses named it, and the Magi have expressed it through the Chaldean relief sculptures, in order to contemplate this effigy.
It is the true Spirit of God which vehemently descends into the Philosopher, and combining with the central fire, that is to say, the inner propensity of his soul towards the Mystery, makes him prophesy and gives him the ability to perform miracles.
Collect yourself, my disciple. You must become the temple of that ardent spirit that works great things.
Remember that the ashes of the Philosophers contain the diadem of their King. Close your soul to external impressions. Lute your athanor with the lute of Wisdom. Do not look out into the darkness, stay in the centre, get as close as possible to the fiery point, lest you be swept away in the churning, in the icy whirlwind of the accursed damnation, seeking whatever it may devour.

Watch out for the mortifying lemurs, the catabolic spirits that roam around you. Look out for the phantoms that lie in wait for you. Invoke the thoughtforms of the group spirit. Warm the bird of Hermes well in your breast.
The Halcyon bird will be born, my Disciple. Rejoice, and if you know how to induce this magnetic current which must be established between you and the higher spheres, you possess the Magistery, and the rest is only a children's game.
See, carved on the right portal of Notre Dame de Paris, the bishop perched on the aludel where sublime, chained in limbo, is the philosophic Mercury.
It teaches you where the sacred fire comes from. The cathedral Chapter, by a secular tradition, kept this door closed all year long, indicating to you that here is the way for those who are special, unknown to the crowd, and reserved for the small number of the elected ones of wisdom.
But it is not permitted to say more on this subject.

Meditation IV - Dissolution

Roger Bacon said: "The body must become spirit and the spirit become a body".

This is the solution of the Work.
To realize it, your own body, engulfed by the philosophical fire, corroded by the fiery water of contrition, must reach such a degree of purity that truly makes itself immaterial.
Then, transfiguring himself as on a tabor [drum], he will become unchangeable. His body will no longer be an impediment to the spiritual life, but on the contrary, like the glorious bodies, he will participate in it and contribute himself, oh prodigy! to the Work.
Corporealise then your mind, that is, project a searching gaze upon that impalpable substance of youself, the mysterious nature of which you may never have thought to know, though, constantly, it accompanies your body.
Carefully study all its hidden mechanism in order to know how to direct it, to be able to preserve its power and to nourish it with the intellectual food that suits it.
You possess, my disciple, an immense treasure of hidden forces which you ignore, considerable and invincible forces are enfolded in you, and surpass all your bodily strength. Learn to use them, to make them obey your will, to make you absolutely master.
And for this you must first remove from your intellect all that is superfluous and obsolete. Embrace vigorously the foliage of your vulgar thoughts. Boldly prune this forest of commonplaces and banalities that may still occupy you. Cut away all that does not represent vigour and strength, as unhealthy vegetation produces only losses of spiritual energy.
Thought is a substance of almost fluidic nature. Once issued, it exists.
Thought is immutable. In the sphere of pure existence it causes an echo that resonates to eternity. So beware of infernal thoughts that you create and that will become fixed to you for your damnation.
Be pure, for it is your virtue itself that you must project into the athanor to animate it. Avoid indifferent acts in themselves. Let your eyes never wander for a moment over objects that are not worthy of your attention. It is a piece of your being that you would lose without ever being able to recover it.
Then, freed from the burden of uselessness, carefully collect what you want to keep alive, and direct them to the Work with vehemence. Observe attentively the colours of the Magistery, and make your least actions converge towards the final goal.
Some will tell you that the miraculous power is acquired and transmitted by a breath, a word muttered kabbalistically in the ear, a reading of a few pages in a grimoire or the making of a magic rod.
Learn, on the contrary, that such a power will be conferred upon you only by a laborious and slow cultivation of mental forces remaining in you in a latent state.
In the higher life it is necessary to abstain by powerfully exalting your will, to effect a true separation of yourself from the physical and external world.
Lift up a wall around you that holds back that which emanates from you towards sensible things. Enclose yourself up in the hermetic citadel from which you will come out one day, invulnerable.
No doubt you are already seeing the light that I have promised you, and are rejoicing.
Patience! think of your incompetence! You are only at the fourth degree of the Way of the Absolute. You have more than half of the way to go, and you can still stumble on the road, and fall.
Some, more skilful than you, have fallen, who almost reached the goal.
Place a finger on your lips, like Harpocrates, and pray, my Disciple, in the silence of your soul.

Meditation V - Conjunction

Brother Basil Valentine said: "And the melodious voice of the King will greatly please the ears of the fiery king, he will kiss him amiably because of the great affection he bears him, and will be rewarded when they both disappear, and the two of them become only one body."

The Great Work is a transcendental ethic.
Now, it is easy for the adept to eliminate from his existence the impediments of superfluous thoughts and unwelcome beings.
But he will encounter serious difficulties, if he will, by obeying the standard of activity and passivity by which the macrocosm is constructed, to restore in himself the Edenic androgyny by the assimilation of another life to his own. Here is the obstacle, the true stumbling block.
It will be in vain, my disciple, that you will perform the preparatory ablutions and put on the robe of holy linen, if your heart is not pure. It is not clothing that will make you worldly and that will hide you from the eye of the Godhead.
There is no loss of psychic forces comparable to that which will provoke in you a multitude of lusts. It is a spell to which Solomon himself could not resist.
Who is pure, certainly can prophesy. It is Paracelsus who teaches this to you, and the word of this master is precious.
Do not walk in the world of unspeakable pleasures. Do not tie the wolf skin garter on your leg. Take care not to light the green candle which directs the woman towards shadowy luxuries. Redeem the incantations and the philters of love, and put on your finger the topaz which restricts lustfulness and which drives away the phantasms of the night. Challenge yourself with the toad of the witch, and do not fall asleep, as did Merlin the Enchanter, in the forest of Broceliande, where Viviane the perfidious will enchain you for centuries.
If you choose a companion, the bond that ties you to it must be indissoluble, since both of you will one day contemplate the Absolute face to face.
With her you have to share the eternal joys. Her thoughts, like yours, must therefore all converge towards the possession of the Absolute.
You can live only with one who walks hand in hand with you on the Way, who seeks with you the thing with three angles, and leads you to the Great Work.
The wife of the alchemist is Pernelle, discreet and learned, bearing on her finger the ring of the sovereign bond, reflecting all the thoughts of the master, and in turn watching the athanor as the hour demands.
If you have chosen badly, take a last look at this mystery which is not intended for you. Fill your eyes with its clarity, and close this book.
You can now leave the Way of the Absolute, which you will never reach. Go unhappily down to Gehenna, with the useless being that you have attached to your flesh, with the empty husk that you drag with you, and return to the path of mediocrity that is now yours, and from which you should never have come out.
But if your companion truly adorns your life, continue with the contemplative progression towards the Absolute.
She must draw on the wonderful, the same fruit as you in these meditations.
But do not forget that her path of perfection, despite the similarities of the final goal, is different from yours, which you will know by carefully studying her microcosmic constitution.
Paracelsus expressly teaches it: "Archeus in man, another thing in women".
It is from you that she must receive initiation, as you receive it from the Divinity. Remember this essential point, and beware of pointing it in a way that is not hers. Place the golden apple in one of her hands and a lit torch in the other.
The fire and menstruation are dissolving, that is the key of the Great Art.
If you know them, then you are in the Royal Way and you will soon see the eternal day, the day that does not end, and has no sunset.

Meditation VI - Putrefaction or Hylation

The Cosmopolitan said: "He who does not go down will not go up".

Here, my disciple, is the trial of trials, the one where evil influences await you, sneering and pallid, hoping to see you stumble and fall back into the outer darkness.
If you resist, the phoenix, succeeding the halcyon, will hatch for you.
The world is not aware of growing superiorities. Therefore, accept the holy habit of suffering the scorn of those who are worth less than you.
Grasp this truth that you will never given justice, if you do not come into the Light.
You must become completely indifferent to the opinion of men, which is easier to put into words than it is to realize.
What does it matter to you to pass in the crowd with an empty sense of unity, when you are aware of your intellectual royalty?
Work according to your conscience, without worrying about the result.
Accept glory as a burden, and do not desire it, if it is not the eternal glory, that of the philosophers, the Absolute.
If you seek human approval, you walk towards darkness, you are of of the path.
If you desire to be recognized as a saint, it is certain that you will never become one.
The miraculous power will come into you when you do not covet it, when you have killed in yourself the ambition to possess it.
So, by using this power that will amaze men, your heart, becoming insensitive, will not be filed with pride.
But what a way to go to get this result!
Annihilate yourself, my disciple, in an abyss of humility. Be small among the small. Become dark. Hide yourself as this disciple of Khoung-Tzu, who drew tears of admiration from his master and made him say, "Oh, how wise he was, Hoei! He was living in a slum at the end of a narrow, abandoned street, and yet that did not change Hoei's serenity. Oh, how wise he was, Hoe!"
Remember this saying: "Patience is the ladder of the Philosophers and humility is the door of their garden".
Humble yourself and you will one day be transfigured, and you will wake up, shining and radiant, embracing the King of Glory, the Oriental King sitting on his throne, as the old masters say, and you will enter the purple sea which is the Magistery of the philosophers.
But remember, you are still only the leprous mercury that killed the Sun of Justice on the effigy of the quaternary!

Meditation VII - Sublimation Distillation

Nicolas Flamel said: "This operation is truly a labyrinth, because there are thousands of paths at the same time, besides it is necessary to go to the end of it, precisely in the reverse direction from the beginning."

The affliction is the seed of perfection.
It is truly the menstruation of the Sages. It is the green lion of the philosophers, the pontic water which does not wet the hands, the acetum acerrimum or very sour vinegar by means of which the real milk of the virgin and the elixir for multiplication, is extracted from the raven's head.
You must make every circumstance of your life converge towards the supreme goal, but mainly the daily pains and sufferings. And much will happen to you, for "the disciples of the wise do not find rest in this world," says Rabbi Issacha Baer.
You can draw from them a wonderful part, obtain the aqua regia that corrodes all impurities.
To know how to extract a ferment of perfection from the very difficulties of life, and to transmute them into so many living forces in the hyperphysical plane, is the important alchemy against which nothing prevails. It is the magnificent whitening, Virgil's gold from dung, Paracelsus' the cure of any disease.
Do not utter a murmur when one of your projects is not successful. You will soon understand that it was necessary that it should be so, and that momentary disappointments should prepare you for later unexpected advantages.
Geber teaches that it is almost obligatory for the alchemist to err several times.
Be content then, in adversity, to think, without exacerbation, that your intellectual vision is, at this moment, obscured, and that the way from which you were rejected and that you thought excellent, was not the way. You will soon acquire certainty, and recognize the ever admirable sequence of effects and causes.
Beware, above all, of envying the triumphant ones of the day and the hour. You will hear them, my disciple, mock your asceticism and despise your effort.
"We do not pray", they who speak inanely say. "We do not pray, and yet our business prospers! We blaspheme God, and God does not paralyse our tongue!"
But what does that prove? That their Heavenly Father is good and that they are bad, nothing more than this.
For you, my disciple, pursue with perseverance your interest in the way. Do not get tired. The masters themselves have, several times, had to recommence the Work.
But to understand that no obscure or erotic teaching can replace the slow assimilation of the alchemical doctrine, by a thorough and conscientious study of the books of the masters.
It is only after many years that light will begin to appear for you.
Then, in texts where the layman sees a thing to smile at, you will already perceive subtle connections, milestones guiding you amongst the obscurities of the Way.
Alchemy is not a fleeting thing. It is the work of ones whole life. It is one with the existence of the adept. The possession of the Great Work is the crowning of life. You will only obtain it once, just as you will only live once on earth.
To reach the Absolute at twenty or thirty is therefore illusory. At this age you are only on the way, and you can not give up without losing the hope of ever going back there.
It is therefore gradually that you will discover the truth in the words of the masters. Do not ask to be at the end of the journey before you have traveled the necessary path to reach it. If you are somewhat advanced in the Way, you will recognize that it is impossible to speak more clearly.
But much later, the words, now obscure and incomprehensible, will seem luminous to you if you have not stopped working according to the masters' prescriptions!
You will then smile, knowing how simple the notions which seemed to you so abstruse when you were only a layman, and you will avow that there was no possible explanation, before the personal investigation, to prepare your mind to receive the seeds of truth.
And it is in this sense that it is said that no one can be initiated except by oneself.

Meditation VIII - Coagulation, the changing of colour, the head of the Crow

Blessed Raymond Lull said: "And so, you will have a perpetual treasure that you can increase indefinitely, and by which you will accomplish the work to infinity."

And now, here is the great mystical page, the one that cannot be read and understood by those who are not totally detached from the concern for contingencies and the clatter of human opinions.
Have you removed from your soul all the sensations that could introduce an imbalance, or disturb your astral serenity?
Are you ready enough to start acting effectively in the immaterial world?
So, practice exercising your spiritual and psychic forces. Coagulate them. Give a form to each of your thoughts. Strengthen them by clarifying them, carefully and concretizing them in your mind.
They are numerous, but they escape you because you do not know how to control them.
Take care not to lose any, of allowing this precious power to flow, of spreading it over useless and vain notions.
On the contrary, determine exactly those on which you want to fix your attention. Eliminate and reject all others. Then gather, as into a bundle, your deliberately expressed thoughts and dedicate them by verbally uttering them with energy and will. And in this way you will accomplish great things.
Arnauld de Villeneuve calls this the angle of the Work.
So carefully collect the Pelidor water which is of a nascent green. Turn dead waters into living waters. Prepare the resurrection of the bird of Hermes.
Here especially, you must purify your intentions and your heart. That you direct your will towards the good alone.
Take heed, my disciple, in this stage you are running into very great danger. Any ill-will, that you issue, would turn against you. Do not try to remove the impediments by uttering a curse against those who come to you. It is irrevocable and its sinister wish, once formulated, is always fulfilled.
It is not for such vengeance that power is given to you. Do not go astray. It is the Royal Way, the Way of the Absolute that you are on, and not the dark way.
Cease the unhealthy outbreak of your troubled thought. Do not deal with those who are cursed. Reject becoming consumed with infernal thoughts and morbid cogitations.
It is the sulphur of the philosophers, the sulphur which illuminates every body because it is itself light and tincting, which you avidly search for. Fear that you meet in its place, Asmodeus who seduced Aischa.
But I cannot, my Disciple, reveal to you all the hermetic arcana.
It is enough for me to show you the way that leads to these arcana. It is your will and your intelligence that will complete the Work, with the help of God.

Meditation IX - Fixation

Master Jehan de Meung, in his 'Mirror of Alchemy' said: "Our science is a science of the corporeal, simply composed of one thing and another".

Unique, indeed, is the method by which one seeks and conquers the absolute.
He who is on his way to true perfection rises above Nature, and he who is above Nature can command Nature.
This is how you can work miracles and transmute metals and gems.
Have you understood here, my disciple, the subtle difficulty of the Work?
You will not get the Stone until you have become perfect. And you will never be perfect, if you seek the Stone because of the riches that accompany it. Therefore, when you come to possess the Stone, you will have, by your very perfection, only a total contempt for the material benefits it will lavish upon you.
For you will then be in ecstasy. You will be able to make yourself invisible, evoke the dead and instantly cross the greatest distances. You will live in a highly exalted life that will nourish and subsist on its own, leaving you unharmed by all need and desire.
See, then, how the vulgar are confined to strange sophisms: "If you have the Stone, you will be powerfully rich," they say scoffing, "and you would exult in joy and gladness!"
And others, without faith in their soul and purity in their hearts, opened the books of the alchemists. They manipulated substances, puffed into athanors, calcined mixtures, without understanding that we must spend a long time in the oratory, before we dare to enter the laboratory.
And swollen with vanity, before their terrible failure, they declared the word of the masters misleading and illusory, rather than conceding that they had deceived themselves!
Leave behind the obstructions and ridicules of these ignorant and vain teachers.
They mock the alchemists who died indigent and destitute. But know, my Disciple, that when you possess the Stone, you will literally disdain to make physical gold.
For you will be a saint and you will command the elements.
What emotion, when you reach the threshold of the Infinite. Lost in the supreme contemplation of the Absolute, can you still experience the sight of temporal riches? Would you be perfect if you were still subject to vital necessities, if you had not killed any human desire in you?
This is why Grosparmy asserts that "there were no memories of the possession of the Stone".
This is obvious.
The practice of the stone and the desire for gold are not mixable. To undertake the Great Work in order to enrich oneself would be to go backwards on the Way of the Absolute.
You would then obey an evil instinct, and there must be nothing of this in you. How could you command nature if you had not first mastered yourself?
It is not that you cannot, one day, for some higher motive, attempt the Work in the physical plane, and materially transmute the metals. Several followers, Nicolas Flamel, Jehan Saunier, Zachaire and others, did it, and perhaps you will be forced, though disillusioned with the world, by transcendent obligations.
But remember that another, and not youself, will then use the wealth thus produced that will flow profusely from your athanor.
And he being endowed with a fiery and savage life, brilliant and impetuous like the animals of the forests, but like him, cruel and without soul, sow disorder, terror and misfortune everywhere, until the day he will succumb under the invisible blows of one of your brothers in wisdom, who will have recognized in him an incarnation of the accursed!

Meditation X - Lilium artis, Quintessence, Perfect Elixir

Master Albert the Great, Archbishop of Regensburg said: "Here are hidden inestimable treasures, and no one knows them except those to whom God wants to reveal them."

Resplendent in glory, my disciple!
I took you to the tenth grade, and on the true Way, you have learned to purify your concepts, to refine your thoughts. The bird of Hermes has now transformed into the pelican, and soon the veil that covers the absolute will rise before you!
You are now, as the universal man in paradise, in the presence of two trees, the tree of Life and the tree of Knowledge.
The first is the spiritual path of mystical contemplation. It is anagogy, ecstasy. The other is the path of reasoning, objection and doubt, the path of sophists and logodaedals [cunning workers].
Choose the one whose fruits you want to collect, and beware of all error.
It is here that leaving the way of the Absolute is particularly dangerous. But to enlighten you in your choice, you should know that all that science teaches us, in thousands of books, you can acquire in a few seconds by mystical illumination, because your mind, being face to face with the Absolute then seizes the key of universal harmony.
And the books will never give this key to you!
It is in vain that you will read all that the masters have written. If you do not own it, you will not understand their language.
Will you be able to triumph over the test of doubt on the threshold? Be careful! your eternal future is engaged in it entirely. If you succumb, you will never see the splendour, and remember that the opportunity to be initiated is unique in life. If you let it escape, it will never be repeated.
Ask the Light for the light itself. You will not get it otherwise.
"Whiten the brass and tear up your books, lest your hearts be torn by worry!" cries the wise Morien.
The books are too numerous, indeed, but it is the energy and the will that most often fail to perfect the stone.
The Great Work! is written everywhere! It is exposed to all eyes, as clearly expressed as is possible without violating the secret of the adepts.
You can read it on the right portal of Notre Dame de Paris and on the tower of Saint-Jacques-la-Boucherie. I found it isagogically drawn on the stained glass of the choir of the Madeleine, in Troyes, and carved in the palace of the alchemist Jacques Coeur, in Bourges.
It is revealed in Milesian letters, in the Greek, and in the Kabbalists. In Benares you will be taught by the formula, "Whiten the brass and tear up your books!" Yes, my Disciple, the whole work is there.
Conquer the Urim and the Thummim. Gather the fruit of the tree of the Gnostic Eden. The jewel is in the Lotus!
Remember this, and the Universe is yours!

Meditation XI - Multiplication

Bernard, Count Trevisan said: "The Mercury of the Philosophers sometimes sublimates itself into a resplendent and coagulated body".

Already, my Disciple, you can reap the fruits of the magistery, if you have skilfully and powerfully exercised your will, according to the standards I have taught you.
The disposition of your mind and your soul will obviously show you this result.
When all the circumstances of your life begin to follow one another according to the expression of your desires, when all difficulties will be miraculously smoothed out before you, when you will see all wills bend before yours, and your enemies will themselves concur unconsciously to the accomplishment of your projects and the realization of your destiny, you will be able to be certain then, to have arrived far ahead on the Way.
And here is the ultimate operation of Hermetic Philosophy, reserved for those who have reached the apex of wisdom, and whom I entrust to your prudence and discretion.
The forces you have acquired remain in you in a latent state, like a hidden treasure. It is the stone in its whiteness, which you obtained by Mercury, Fire and Elixir.
In order to implement these secret forces, we must know and practice the multiplication of the Sages.
When you stand in the midst of your brothers assembled for prayer, their hearts being perfectly contrite and their souls sublimed, and you will judge that the astral atmosphere is saturated with righteous intentions and ardent wills, take hold of these scattered irradiations with fire and energy, and unite them into a single stream which you will direct at your pleasure, and by means of which you will convey the expression of your specially formulated vow.
Thus, all charged with your will power, you will raise up between the earth and the sky, a kind of fluid column which will be animated by a violent gyratory movement, producing the sound of a torrent or an impetuous wind, and which sometimes will become visible by suddenly blazing with a dazzling light.
And then you will see great things being accomplished by yourself, without men knowing your power, nor guessing the splendour of your soul.
Rejoice then, O my Son, to be in your obscurity one of the chosen, one of those who know!
Here you are called to gather the inheritance, to continue in your century, the tradition of those illustrious teachers who have preceded you in the Absolute.
See, my disciple, Geber and Raymond Lull, Arnold of Villenova and Morien, Artephius, and Solomon, and Mary the Prophetess, who contemplate you in their glory.
You possess their secret, the supreme mystery, which they have preciously concealed from the vulgar and the crowd.
Know, then, that you will be worthy of these magnificent and beautiful things.
May they greet you with an initial kiss at your entrance into the Absolute, and may they never reject you as a traitor in the outer darkness.

Meditation XII - Augmentation and Projection

Hermes Trismegistus said: "Come, son of the wise, let us all rejoice together, let our joy rejoice with cries of gladness, for death is consumed: our son reigns, and he is clothed and adorned with his purple."

Hosannah! my disciple! You have reached the last detour in the road. You have climbed the ultimate degree of the ladder of perfection.
Put on the stone of his royal mantle. Exult. Rubify yourself!
Behold, you are invested with splendid power. You are in anagogy, in Paradise. You can, at your pleasure, enter into ecstasy, flood your eyes with celestial light, get away from the realm below, in the contemplation of the Absolute.
The demonstration of all mysteries has come to your eyes. Your power is truly unlimited.
Having reached this summit of perfection, you have completely subjected your physical energies to the forces of your soul.
You possess the antidote for all the evils, the universal panacea!
Your life will sustain itself, because you will be able to draw directly from the source of vitality.
Distance and obstacles will no longer exist for you. You will command Nature and the elements. You will see the future and you will interpret consciously.
And you will have thus reconstituted the primordial Edenic state, and this elevated life will be similar, for you, to immortality, which you will enter without a break in continuity or transitory stasis.
This, my disciple, is the resurrection of our King of Glory, who comes to you, bursting with splendour. Remember the masters. They all accomplished the transmutation of the Mercury on Easter Day, to the sound of the bells and happy songs of the Alleluia, that is to say, at the end of the long night during which our King, the paschal victim, died and suffered.
Rejoice in this divine gift given to you on this day!
It is the real carbuncle, the vitriol rubified as the balm of the threefold life, the perfect balsam, which the hand of God himself offers you. It is the morning dew, the nobly distilled quintessence, the boneless fish that swims in the philosophical sea that the alchemists call by a single word - the Universal!
And now you have become the eagle whose gaze is fixed on the Sun.

So I kept my promise and I led you by the hand to the threshold of the Absolute.
If you have gained any profit from reading these pages, give thanks to the Lord, and when you enter into glory, grant, my Disciple, some remembrance to your Master, to him who has indicated to you the true way, which does not deceive, the Royal Way of the Absolute!

I.    The Absolute is the synthesis of universal perfection.
II.   The being who possesses in himself the feeling of perfection, is on the Way of the Absolute.
III. The being who has introduced in himself an element of perfection, walks on the Way of the Absolute.
IV.    The Way of the Absolute leads to absorption in the First Cause.
V.     The First Cause is abstract perfection. It is the Absolute itself.
VI.    The First Cause is one, infinite and eternal.
VII. The being who has exalted in himself the three notions of unity, infinity and eternity, to the point of assimilating them to the exclusion of all others, has become absorbed in the First Cause. He has realized the supreme perfection. He has traveled the Way of the Absolute.
VIII. The reaction of movement to immobility and immobility to movement is manifested in all things perceptible.
IX.   Movement is perfection and immobility [stillness] is perfection.
X.    The First Cause is immutable and it is the universal motor. It is both movement and immobility.
XI.   The destruction in ones being of this duality, the rejection of this binary by the union of these two principles, in imitation of the First Cause, therefore leads to perfection. It is the Way of the Absolute.
XII. The First Cause has apure existence.
XIII. All that departs from the First Cause tends, by successive degrees, towards non-existence.
XIV. What does not tend towards pure existence is not in the Way of the Absolute.
XV.   Everything has in the Absolute its perfect archetype.
XVI.   The restoration of each thing into its true form, following this archetype, constitutes universal redemption.
XVII. To seek the Universal Redeemer is to walk in the Way of the Absolute. It is working effectively at the Great Work.
XVIII. The keys of the Absolute are inscribed in numbers, for they reflect the economy of the First Cause and the plane of pure existence.
XIX. But the Way of the Absolute is not in numbers, because infinity is neither the sum nor the limit of numbers.
XX.   The reduction of all the numbers to the unity must therefore be done before possession of the infinite.
XXI. For unity and infinity are the two names of one and only thing, and the Way of the Absolute is not a true progression, but an asceticism. This is the Great Work that the Philosophers taught.

This is, my Disciple, all the Magistery.
Understand and find the twenty-second key, the mysterious unwritten Tau.
Remember, there is only one work. There are two paths, three regimes, four operations, seven degrees in each of the regimes and twelve celestial houses in which the four operations are accomplished.
The formula of the Stone is thus established. Then the four elements, or Tohu-va-Bohu, locked in the athanor magnetized by the Ruach Elohim, all during a year and seven days.
When you know the spagyric diameter, you will be able to square the philosophical circle. Contemplate unity and its logarithm, infinity and its logarithm, zero and its logarithm, and you possess the Key of the Universe.
So here you are, my Disciple, equipped with the Viaticum [the provisions for your journey] of the Supreme Science.
You have received from the masters the laying on of hands.
Dressed in this priestly anointing, you now set out. Unfortunately, as you return to the misty and dull world of your previous days, it is necessary that you lose yourself again in the crowd of men, that your ears hear, as formerly, the vulgarities, the commonplaces and the blasphemies.
No doubt the singular bitterness of this trial here brings some sadness, but it is easy to triumph over it, for you are the royal priest of ancient wisdom. You carry in your heart a treasure that must comfort you from all earthly pain, a light that must eternally illuminate your life. Your mission places you above all men and your happiness is incomparable, because for you the words of Hermes came true: "What was occult and hidden will become manifest".
And no anguish will be able to seize one to whom the Royal Way of the Absolute has been taught.
Listen to Saint Paul enunciating the great mystery: Patres nostri omnes biberunt de spiritali, consequente eos, petra: Petra autem erat Christus (I Cor X 4) Our Fathers all drank from the spiritual rock that accompanied them, and that rock was Christ.

Paris, 1906, the day of Epiphany.