“The Mysteries” . . . we generally think of these in relation to the ancient initiatory rites of Greece and Rome; the Eleusinian Mysteries, the Orphic, the Phrygian, the Mithraic, plus the Egyptian, Tibetan, and others. Yet the term could as well be applied to the writings and diagrams of alchemy. Such have been referred to as “obscure idioms”. The Rosarium philosophorum (or, to give it its full name, Rosarium philosophorum. Secunda pars alchimiæ de lapide philosophico vero modo præparando, continens exactam eius scientiæ progressionem. Cum figures rei perfectionem ostendentibus), published in Frankfort in 1550, stated, “Whenever we have spoken openly we have [actually] said nothing. But where we have written something in code and in pictures we have concealed the truth.” (Weinheim edition, 1990)It sounds like double-talk but it reflects exactly what the alchemists did. They presented nothing openly; nothing that could be simply and easily stated and understood. Anything that had that appearance should immediately be suspect. Alchemists kept their secrets locked away in a mish-mash of code names accompanied by illustrations that piled symbols on top of symbols. In Alchemy & Mysticism (Taschen, Köln 1997), Alexander Roob says “By imbuing them with a special hieroglyphic aura, the creators of these pictures sought to suggest the very great age of their art and to acknowledge the source of their wisdom: the patriarch of natural mysticism and alchemy, Hermes Trismegistus.”Hermes Trismegistus was said to have authored many books of alchemical and magical learning. It was after him that alchemy was named the “hermetic” art. Yet he was actually mythical.

Hermes was equated with the Egyptian deity Thoth; the scribe of the gods, inventor of writing and patron of all the arts dependent upon writing, including medicine, astronomy, and magic. The epithet Trismegistos is from the Greek meaning “thrice greatest.” The alchemists – or, as they referred to themselves, the “philosophers” – developed from beginnings in places as diverse as Egypt, India, and China. But alchemical practice really blossomed in the twelfth century, by which time relevant ancient texts had been translated into Latin. The Emerald Tablet and The Book of Alums were two especially notable texts. A wave of alchemy flooded across Europe during the Middle Ages. Even in the Cathedral of Notre Dame, in Paris, there are to be seen carvings of alchemical figures dating from the fourteenth century.

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