Note: The following letters are reprinted with permission.

On the Forbidden Letters - by Hugo Dewasme

Part 1

' It is strange that, as Eleazar says, this earth is mingled with fire.' [Carl Jung]  
' Are we sure that alchemy is completely terrestrial?' [di Pietro]

In the 1990's it was discovered that a universe smaller than ours could not produce the very laws of nature that enable life. In other words: you need a whole lot of universe to 'create' even a speck of life. This does not mean of course that life only exists on earth. It only means it might just exist only here because the vastness of the universe, according to the 1990's, needn't imply life elsewhere. On the contrary: 'There are indeed a lot of stars - at least ten billion billion in the observable universe. But this number, gigantic though it may appear to us, is nevertheless trivially small compared tot the gigantic odds against the random assembly of even a single protein molecule. The universe may be big, but if life formed solely by random agitation in a molecular junkyard, there is scant chance it will have happened twice.' [1998:74]  

At the same time it would be a mistake to 'seek a sharp dividing line between living and non-living systems.'[1998:12] We only know that the 'interatomic forces that form biological molecules are quantum mechanical in nature' [1998:224], in other words, that life was not 'sparked by a molecular maelstrom as such, but - somehow - by the organization of information.' [1998:XVII] 
But where did this information come from?

'To claim that atomic processes include a built-in bias favouring organisms means that the laws of atomic physics effectively contain a blueprint for life. There would be a link between the basic forces that act on atoms, and the final complicated macroscopic product - a functioning organism. But what would be the nature of that link? How can the basic laws of physics 'know' about complex, information-laden identities like living cells.' [1998:236]

Some scientists have turned to the panspermia theory in an attempt to evade these problems of biogenesis. But 'shunting the problem off into outer space does nothing to address the central problem.' [1998:226]

Francis Crick [ http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Francis_Crick  ] and Leslie Orgel 
[ http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Leslie_Orgel  ] went even further suggesting that life was 'sowed on earth' by an advanced alien civilization. They call this hypothesis Directed Panspermia.' [2001:22]

But do we really have to look at outer space to explain alchemical decapitation and chakra's,
and thereby life? Or could Alchemy indeed be terrestrial? We don't know of course. 
But I have this hunch it is. That Mother Earth lives in more ways than is dreamt of in our philosophies.

Part 2 - Quotes & Emblems

1.

'The alchemical process is in detail explained in the Forbidden Letters. Weidner and Bridges are right when they claim the End-Time-connection. But wrong in many ways too.' [Vox.com]

2.

'How can the end of the world, the apocalypse and so on, be connected in any way with turning lead into gold?' [Jay Weidner and Vincent Bridges]

3.

'The language of the alchemist is allegorical. Lead (Pb) (mortal body) is turned into Gold (Au) (immortal body). Lead (Pb) is chosen, because if it breaks, it is silver white for a moment, and then turns black. Decay. Mortality. Gold (Au) is chosen, because nothing can touch Gold. Immortality. In classical alchemy the language is chemical, in biblical alchemy it is agricultural (The parabels of Jesus on the Kingdom within).' [Magnus Strom on the Forbidden Letters]

4.

'In Alchemy an attempt was made at a symbolical integration of evil by localizing the divine drama of redemption in man himself.' [Jung]

5.

'It is not true that Egypt had little if any influence on the formation of Christian ideas. Quite the contrary.' [Jung]

6.

'Jung realized that in its core the Gospel owed more to Egypt, than to Israel, more to Greece even, than to Judea. He knew for instance that Osiris was represented in the form of a crucifix at Philae and wept over by Isis and Nephthys long before Golgotha and that the wine miracle at Cana was the same as the wine miracle in the temple of Dionysus.' [Paulsen]

7.

'This certainly forestalls the marriage of the Lamb at the End of Time, for the androgyne 'has everything it needs' [Senior] and is already a complexio oppositorum. Who is not reminded here of the fragment from the Gospel according to the Egyptians cited by Clement of Alexandria: 'When ye have trampled the garment of shame [inner child being peeled out in the  alchemical phase of ludus puerorum just before the Resurrection/Dewasme], and when the two become one and the male with the female is neither male nor female.' [Jung]

8.

'Through the Great Work of Alchemy certain polarities in the subtle stratum of our body are unified. First that unification takes place in the thalamus, then in the rest of the body too. And once that process is completed from head to toe, such a person is alchemically no more divided (meaning 'neither male nor female'/Dewasme).' [Morley]

9.

'At length the body is compelled to resign itself to, and obey, the union of the two. That is the wondrous transformation of the Philosophers, of body into spirit, and the latter into body, of which there has been left to us by the sages the saying: Make the fixed volatile and the volatile fixed, and in this you have our Magistery.' [Dorn/quoted by Jung]

10.

'It is significant for the whole of alchemy that in Dorn's view a mental union was not the culminating point, but merely the first stage of the procedure [ see section 1 of
http://www.world-mysteries.com/PhilipGardiner/forbidden_letters2.htm  ]. The second stage is reached when the mental union, that is, the unity of spirit and soul, is conjoined with the body.' [Jung]

11.

'The Paris 4 say that the lightbody is forged of the energy represented by the lion, i.e., libido, raw psychic energy. The Egyptian term for the Great Work, Work of the Sun, seems apt enough then, because, as Jung says, in myth 'libido is being symbolized by the sun.' [Forumpost on the Forbidden Letters]

12.

'The direct connection between libido and light.' [Jung]

13.

'The third and last stage of the Work is seen in a union of the will of the Alchemist with the macrocosm. The world is henceforth no longer merely projection. The Alchemist has become everything without losing his individuality. He is the King in Purple Robe. Nothing will be impossible for him. His will is our will, for, as Paracelsus says, 'heaven is man, and man is heaven, and all men one heaven, and heaven only one man.' [John Raven on the Forbidden Letters]

14.

'The Great Work of Alchemy aimed to discover the nature of Spirit and to see face to face the Body of Light that was the foundation of the human body  as well as the 'matter' of the universe.' [Baring and Cashford]

[ Image from The Hermetic Garden ]

15.

'A metaphysical belief that the universe is entirely the creation of one's own mind. Thus, in a sense, the belief that nothing 'exists' outside of one's own mind. [Wikipedia on solipsism/see 14 and 13]

 16.

'On many alchemical emblems we see everyday life depicted in the back. People making war, trading, fishing, dancing. Why is this done? This is the artist pointing out that the public is unaware of the Great Work that is carried out in the body of the alchemist. The everyday life then depicted here in the back is Latter Day life showing Latter Day people going about their Latter Day business.' [J. Bird]

[ Image from Splendor Solis ]

17.  

'And if that stone indeed resides (and where else could it reside?) in the microcosmic or sub-atomic realm, then this would mean it is potentially everywhere, since there is no such thing as distance in the sub-atomic world. That living stone [1 Peter 2:4], the Christ, is also described as the 'prima materia'. Well, let us listen to what it has to say in the Gospel according to Thomas in logon 77. Jesus said, "I am the light that is over all things. I am all: from me all came forth [the prima materia], and to me all attained. Split a piece of wood; I am there [omnipresence]. Lift up the stone, and you will find me there [omnipresence].' [Raven]

   [ Image from Atalanta Fugiens/ stones in the air, in the water, on the road, etc. ]

18. 

'In Dorn's view there is in man an invisible sun, which he identifies with the Archeus. This sun is identical with the sun in the earth.' [Jung]

  [ Image from The Hermetic Garden ]

19.

'It is strange that, as Eleazar says, this earth is mingled with fire.' [Jung]

    [ Image from the Philosophia Reformata/ 'In a cave under a hill are
the Gods of the seven planets. (...) At each corner is a sphere of fire.']

20.

'The Geat Work takes years, perhaps decades.'[Brenn]

21.

'We don't know why there is a period of 14 (!) years between Kundalini (stage one of Alchemy/Dewasme) and the Night of the Soul (stage two/Dewasme).' [Paris]

   [ Image from the Cabinet of Minerals ]

Brugge, Belgium, March 2008.

References

• Davies, Professor Paul, The Fifth Miracle, Penguin Books, London 1998
• Malone, John, Unsolved Mysteries of Science, John Wiley & Sons, Inc., New York 2001