by Shawn Kirby L.Ac.

“The alchemical operation consists essentially in separating the prima materia, the so-called chaos, into the active principle, the soul, and the passive principle, the body, which were then reunited in personified form in the coniunctio or 'chymical marriage'... the ritual cohabitation of Sol and Luna.”  -  C.G. Jung in Mysterium Coniunctionis

About a year ago I wrote two blogs on Alchemy in the western Hermetic tradition,  Sulfur, Mercury and Salt and Aqua Vitae, the “Water of Life” – Practical Herbal Alchemy Part 2.  The Hermetic traditions, in particular practical herbal alchemy, or Spagyrics, have been interests of mine for many years now.  In this blog I’d like to turn to the Hermetic tradition once again in order to discuss wisdom, as opposed to knowledge, and how wisdom can be cultivated not just in the Hermetic tradition, but in the medical traditions of East Asia which we practice.

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Alchemy and the Hermetic Tradition are based on the following principle laid out in the Emerald Tablet –

Quod est inferius est sicut quod est superius, et quod est superius est sicut quod est inferius, ad perpetranda miracula rei unius

“That which is below is like that which is above, and that which is above is like that which is below to accomplish the miracle of one thing.”

This, of course, is a commentary on the Hermetic principle of the macrocosm and the microcosm being a perfect reflection of one another.  This is not only true of the matter of which our physical bodies are made (modern physics has born this wisdom out, clearly illustrating that we are all made of stardust) but also of divinity, however you choose to view such things.  To the Hermeticist, the statement found in the Book of John, “I and the father are one, he who has seen me has seen the father…” has a special meaning and profound occult significance.

In Hermetic initiation, the beginner works with this principle by studying and working with the four philosophical elements of Air, Fire, Earth and Water.  The practitioner must gain an understanding of these four both in terms of how they manifest externally as well as how they manifest internally – psychology and physicality, theory and praxis.  Not only does the beginner work to recognize the elements both within and without, but ultimately the practitioner must balance these four elements in every aspect of his or her life.

The elements of Air and Earth are a common place to start for the beginner since most people interested in the Hermetic arts (as in the OM world) tend to be very “airy” and are in dire need of becoming more grounded.  Working with Air and Earth is a way of working with pairs of opposing principles, similar to yin and yang or, in Hermetic parlance, the Solar and Lunar paths – Sol et Luna.  Wisdom, like health, comes about when these opposites are in a state of relative balance.

Internally, Air is associated with mental functioning, reading, study, cognition, etc.  Earth is associated with practical experience, the tactile sense, physicality, muscle memory and so forth.  Part of the process of getting more grounded is to balance excessive Air by learning to work with Earth.  This is vitally important to the initiate before any further work is done because, as every beginning student in the Hermetic tradition can tell you, “Air lies”

At first glance, it seems very strange indeed that scholarship and the fruits of the intellect would be less than truthful, but this is very often the case.  An excellent example of how Air can lie is the famous mathematical parlor trick, Zeno’s paradox.  Take a pencil or pen and drop it onto the table in front of you.  You can see the pen bounce and hear it when it smacks the table’s surface.  According to Zeno’s paradox this is impossible and, furthermore, can be “proved” so mathematically.  In order for the pen to reach the table, it must first travel half the distance.  Then it must traverse half of this distance, and so on.  Ultimately, according to the famous mind-bender, the pen should come to a state of infinite rest, never actually reaching the table.  But, obviously, this is not the case, as you can plainly see the pen bouncing off the table every time you drop it.  It takes a mathematician to work through the formula, but a chimp to prove him wrong.  Air lies.

This is why the Hermeticist never remains content with theoretical knowledge or, for that matter, any idea or concept no matter how traditional or important someone else might claim it to be.  An armchair occultist (or practitioner of Oriental medicine) can intellectually absorb all kinds of theories, principles, formulas and the like – but if there is no praxis, no grounded, real-world, experiential confirmation, or physical experience to reinforce this in a practical and/or physical (Earthy) way, then it is dead and useless.  As above so below – there is always a way to experience knowledge that is real.  If you can’t touch it in some way, then it is most likely a phantasm of your airy imagination, the proverbial pie in the sky.

Unifying intellectual ideas with experiential physicality is the beginning of the path to true understanding, of balancing Earth and Air, Sol et Luna.  This was something that I understood, and immediately applied to my studies, when I was a first year OM student.  As we all remember, the very first thing we all studied was yin and yang.  Studying the calligraphy for these two characters, we learned that yin refers to the total qualitative gestalt one can experience on the shady side of a hill, while yang was referred to the same on the sunny side of a hill.  Armed with these etymological facts, (theory) I immediately went out for a hike that afternoon (praxis).  First I went to the shady side of a hill.  I sat there for quite awhile, and drank in, in a grounded, physical and real way, the experience of “yin.”  Next I went to the sunny side of the same hill and did likewise, experiencing “yang.”  I have always been amazed, and rather disappointed, that an instructor never took us on a field trip of this type while I was in school.  Without this kind of experience, the student will have no real-world basis for looking for these qualitative gestalts in their patients.  How can you look for yin vacuity if you have no direct experience of yin?

Bear in mind, when working in this manner, i.e. when working with Earth, we are not collecting more “data” that can be further verbally extrapolated.  Data, intellectualization and logic are Air.  That’s not what this is about.  The all-at-once nature of the qualitative experience of “yin” is something that is non-verbal.  It can be described, but this description is NOT the same as the experience.  This experiential gestalt of yin and yang is a given in Asian culture, something so obvious it’s not even consciously thought about.  But this is not the case for the western student who has to play cultural catch-up and not only see the world with new eyes (theory) but experience the world in a new way (praxis).  It is a huge mistake to take the experiential out of the equation.  Too often we confuse the map with the territory, and starve to death trying to eat the menu.

I constantly see people online discussing some modern Chinese study, or some ancient book, from which they have derived some new and important factoid, not unlike a bunch of magpies fighting over scraps of tinfoil to decorate their nests with.  From a Hermetic point of view, a practitioner who truly understands yin and yang, in every way that these can be truly understood, will be an infinitely more effective practitioner than one who has memorized a hundred textbooks.  No wisdom tradition in the history of humanity has ever defined wisdom as “the manic and compulsive collecting of trivial data and factoids so as to bolster the ego.”  Ultimately, intellectualism and scholarship do not equate with intelligence.  Only a balanced approach can yield true wisdom

Do you have an experiential grasp of point energetics?  Rather than re-reading Deadman, have you actually sat down and touched a point on your own body, or that of a patient or willing partner, and tried to sense or feel the point?  Are you interested in the nature and flavor of a given food or beverage?  Rather than running to a Chinese source book, have you actually sat down and tasted this substance yourself to see what your experience of it is?  This is how you make your education your own, and move from rank amateur to practicing professional.

I will leave you with this quote from the Tibetan tradition, from the venerable Chögyam Trungpa Rinpoche –

“When mind and body are synchronized in your life and practice, there is very little chance for neurosis of any kind to arise.  The basis of neurosis, or even physical discomfort and pain, is mind and body not joining together.  Sometimes the mind is miles away and the body is here.  Or the body is miles away and the mind is here.  The main point of practice is learning to be a proper human being, which is known as being a warrior.  When mind and body are joined together, then you are joining heaven and earth, and you can be a genuine warrior.”  Taken from Smile at Fear: Awakening the True Heart of Bravery