Apprentice's Alchemy (40) Alchemical and Hermetic Moon

 

Apprentice's Alchemy (40)

Alchemical and Hermetic Moon

Victor. Arturo. Cabello. Reyes.

One of the most important symbols within Freemasonry is the Moon.

Considered in many rituals as one of the Greater Lights, its profound significance has not been studied with due attention and dedicated rigor within Masonic investigations.

Lunar symbolism is very old from the perspective of symbolic mythical tradition.

The Moon has come to represent an endless struggle, duality and cyclical antagonism between these two complementary and eternal principles: Sun and Moon.

As is well known, the observation of cosmic events did not escape unnoticed the investigative and magical gaze of primitive man, the moon being one of the clearest objectives of his dedicated and faithful observation.

The changing aspects of her, as queen of the night, initiate him into the inscrutable mystery of being.

Thus, its four seven-day phases were an essential part of the rigorous and strict accounting of sowing and harvesting.

Additionally, the moon is associated with female fertility, with female cycles and menstrual rhythms.

Its relationship to the manifestation of multiple aspects related to procreation, creation and destruction is evident. Mens, the origin of the term month, translates as moon.

Agrippa von Nettesheim states: "... In these twenty-eight stations are concealed many secrets of the ancients, by means of which they prodigiously influenced all things sublunary." (1)

For Michael Maier, the moon was the receptacle or source of the Sun's living water.

Since Paleolithic times, the powerful horns of the celestial cow were associated with the crescent moon and also with the grandiose symbolism of the Great Mother.

As a feminine symbol, the diverse and rich symbolism of the moon is associated directly with waters, fountains, rivers, lakes, oceans and especially, the crescent moon.

In general, its appearance and disappearance, the change of phases and of constantly cyclical forms was the main reason for being considered by the mentality of the oldest societies as an appropriate symbol of renewal, and the most faithful representative of continuous cycles of birth, growth, death and regeneration.

The primitive mentality, said C. G. Jung, does not invent myths, but experiences them.

On the other hand, since Sumerian times, with the moon and its archetypes, it is where femininity, fecundity and nutrition meet.

It is interesting to note that these are beautifully depicted in the rich iconography of many temples and altars.

Apparently, some mother goddesses were mostly moon goddesses.

Such is the Sumerian-Semitic goddess [Nanna-Sin] documented from the third dynasty.

We can add that we find the moon very well evidenced among the Babylonian stelae and cadastral stones demarcating the limits=[Kudurru] of the twelfth century B.C.,

(Babylonian King's Stone of Susa Melisipak II, 1500ª.c. Louvre)

However, it is in Genesis where the Moon is already pointed out to us as the lesser luminary and mistress of the night.

(Genesis 1:16)

Sharing similarities, let us remember at this precise moment, the enormous, sculpted disc of the dismembered Coyolxauhqui, goddess of the Moon, in the Templo Mayor of Mexico City.

Throughout Mesoamerica, there was a tendency to associate the moon with the rabbit.

Shape, which can be clearly evidenced and appreciated between the play of shadows and moonlight.

On the other hand, in extraordinary Maya iconography, a beautiful woman as a lunar goddess frequently appears seated on the crescent moon with a rabbit in her arms.

In Freemasonry, the symbol is introduced fundamentally through the geometry and architecture of the medieval cathedral operative art of Master Sculptors Lapidum Liberorum, widely extending among its spiritual principles the motto of foundation, Ex Uno Omnia.

For Dr. S. Brent Morris: "Freemasons obviously knew "secrets" of geometry and architecture that enable them to build the soaring gothic cathedrals.'' (2)

Also, according to A. G. Mackey: "The adaptation of the moon in the Masonic system as a symbol is analogous, though it can hardly be derived from the use of the same symbol in the ancient religions."

This analogy and adaptation are evidenced within Freemasonry by its various historical and traditional currents.

Operative Art, alchemy and substantially of Hermeticism.

Possibly, many of these elements of the very rich Hermetic symbolism were more formally connected and assimilated with Freemasonry during the sixteenth to the eighteenth century.

Clearly leaving open the enormous possibility of being even earlier.

According to the scholar Ferrer Benimeli, from the end of the eighteenth century (18) a considerable number of Freemasons were active in the Catholic Church as monks or priests.

The symbolic trajectory of the moon in the Order is associated with the educational theme of the Tracing Board.

During the operative period, these symbols were studied by master architects and were captured on the floor with chalk.

Subsequently, cloth= (Master Carpet) cloths were easier to transport and move from Lodge to Lodge.

There is evidence of the moon in them from before the 17th century.

The moon also appears in them on one of the columns of the portico of the Temple.

The symbolic material of the corresponding degree was illustrated.

A large number of symbols that we find in temples and ancient aprons come from the elaborate alchemical knowledge of the scholars and scholars Master Builders, alchemists and Hermetics. (3)

Possibly, many of these symbols were assimilated and introduced by the monks Master architects of the convents, and highly educated priests of the scriptorium.

Certainly, during the eighteenth-century Masonic lodges were established in Benedictine Monasteries.

Albert Pike explains: "By this and many other proofs we know that the symbols of Freemasonry were introduced into it by the Hermetic philosophers of England". (4)

Thus, for example, according to A. G. Mackey: "This Hermes Trismegistus, whose reality of existence is doubtful, was declared by the alchemists to be the founder of their art, whence comes the Hermetic science, and from whence we take it for Freemasonry. (5)

And indeed, let us remember the very important Freemason Elias Ashmole, who called himself Mercuryphilus Anglicus= (English Mercury Lover).

Mercury is the Servus Fugitivus or fugitive deer of the work.

Albert Pike deals extensively with the extraordinary relationship between alchemy and Freemasonry in his monumental work: Morals and Dogma: "The Master of Light and Life, the Sun and the moon, are symbolized in every Lodge by the Master and Wardens...'' (6)

Thus, in the sublime Hermetic and Alchemical tradition we see the foundational precept set forth in the Emerald Tablet; "His father is the Sun, his mother the Moon..."; These symbols have continued to enrich the imagination of adepts and initiates for centuries.

Symbolically, the moon is associated with silver in alchemy.

In Opus Magnum, the lunar principle is feminine and is in constant dialectical struggle – as a polar force – with another solar principle.

In this way, the culminating point of Opus Dei would be the conjunction and fusion of these two antagonistic and complementary principles.

Sun and Moon.

Sulphur (Sun) and Mercury (Moon) have a clear correspondence with the masculine and feminine principles.

"The full moon is the philosopher's water and the root of Science. For the Moon is the sovereign of moisture, the perfect and round stone and the sea, from which I have understood that this (Moon) is the root of this Occult Science," said the Adept.

Water = Humidum Radicale, Sperma Mundi.

Mercury [Arabic, Al-baida = the White] and sulfur, [Arabic, Kibrit = sulfur] come to be the white wife and the red husband, who would culminate Opus, with its final product as Filius Noster or the Red Son of the Sun.

The birthing moon, vibrating in its viscous, moist and mercurial fluid, nourishes and vivifies as it gives light in its "uteric atanor" [Arabic, at-tannur, oven} to the Son of the Sun, since the mother moon reigns over the humidity of the uterus.

For the old alchemist the sage, D. Stolcius von Stolcenberg, alchemy was a unique form of celestial agriculture, and to the fertile matter of the work was added the ferment of solar gold and lunar silver. (7)

Rebis is the double thing and between hermaphrodite bond the two things become ONE.

The masculine and feminine principles = Sun and moon, energetic duality and very powerful "coniunctio" or chemical marriage for the profound essence of Opus Magnum.

Julius Ruska said: "Therefore unite the male son of the red slave with his fragrant wife, and, united, produce Art."

(#8)

And, in fact, they both represent the alchemical marriage between sulphur and mercury, whose fundamental principles of connection produce the figure of the hermaphrodite = Hermes and Aphrodite.

A great energy arises only from the corresponding tension of great oppositions, the incomparable Jung opined.

For Master Robert Fludd, this energetic duality is widely manifested in the Hermetic Platonic tradition.

It is thus purely concentrated in the totality of the coherent system of meanings of the microcosm Man= (Magnum Miraculum) and is clearly manifested among multiple astrological and zodiacal correspondences and correlations with the human body.

Among which, Man is its continuum... virtual mirror. (9)

"What's below is like what's above."

Similia Similibus Curantur... the Star in Man is a wonderful astro-physiological structure in Man, the great Paracelsus prayed more than masterfully. (10)

To conclude, we want to mention that it is a whole Spiritual Structure or Pansophia; Celestial Sophia that begins to be glimpsed from the Portico of the New Temple.

Apprentice's Alchemy (40)

Alchemical and Hermetic Moon

Victor. Arturo. Cabello. Reyes.

Bibliography:

1. Agrippa von Nettesheim: De Occulta Philosophia, 1510.

2. S. Brent Morris: Freemasonry, p. 9: 2006.

3. Albert Gallatin Mackey: Encyclopedia of Freemasonry; Volume III, page 894.

4. Freemasonry, Symbols, Secrets, Significance. W. Kirk MacNulty, pp. 98,114-115,129,144.

5. Albert Pike: "Symbolism of the Blue Degrees of Freemasonry" p.104.

6. Mackey: Encyclopedia p. 771 Volume II.

7. Albert Pike: Moral and Dogma, p.13.

8. D. Stolcius von Stolcenberg, [Viridarium Chymicum, Frankfurt, 1624.

9. Turba Philosophorum: p. 62.

10. Dr. Robert Fludd, A Tale of the Two Cosmos. Dr. Robert Fludd: Utriusque Cosmi, Volume I, Oppenheim, De Bry, 1617-9.