GNOSTICISM was at the Foundation of the ancient alchemical mysteries propaged by the Secret College.

This presenter then invites us to refer to this old movie as illustrative of his point … Enjoy!

THE ALCHEMICAL MEME AND SECRET SOCIETIES

(Excerpted from the book, The Mysteries of the Great Cross of Hendaye Alchemy and the End of Time, ch. 2, by Jay Wiedner [Destiny Books, 2003].)

At the heart of the alchemical mystery lies a secret.  This is no ordinary secret, however, for it is that which cannot be told.  the experience of gnosis.  Ultimately, this inexplicable knowing cannot be conferred or taught in any ordinary manner, only incubated and gestated through a mysterious process known as initiation.  This initiation can come in a number of different ways, usually through someone who already knows, but occasionally it occurs by means of sacred texts and direct insight.

The alchemical gnosis has been transmitted from generation to generation, through thousands of years.  We find the same content experiences of gnosis from the modern samyana experiments at Maharishi University to the Ancient Egyptians. (1)  We find the same content in spontaneous experiences from mystics of all eras.  The secret at the core of alchemy is an ineffable experience of real workings of our local cosmological neighborhood.

So how can one incubate and gestate such an experience?  The answer may lie in the word transmitted.  Modern sociologists have begun to discuss the concept of memes, or complex idea groups — such as monotheism and democracy — that appear to have the ability to replicate themselves.  Memes seem to have other properties as well, such as an unusual psychic component.  The spread of Spiritualism in the nineteenth century is a superb example of a viral-like meme outbreak, and traces of Spiritualism’s meme can be found surviving into the New Age nineties, with its dolphin channeling and near-death experiences.  Hollywood films such as The Sixth Sense are deeply influenced by Spiritualism’s perspective on the afterlife, conveying the meme directly and powerfully to millions of moviegoers.

It helps to think of the secret at the core of alchemy as a very special and sophisticated variety of meme. Like a spore or a seed, the meme has a protective shell that is also attractive to appropriate hosts. In the case of the alchemy meme, that shell is the seductive allure of the transmutation of base metal into gold.  Even if one absorbs the outer shell of the alchemy meme, however, there is no guarantee that the inner core will blossom and the meme become active.  For that to happen, a series of shocks or initiations is required.

The sophistication of the alchemy meme is such that the experience of gnosis at its core can be stimulated only by these shocks.  Therefore, to transmit the idea of complex of the gnosis meme through time requires a series of encounters between those in whom the meme is active and those who have merely been exposed to it.  From this need evolved the idea of priesthoods and then, as religious structures degenerated, mystery schools and secret societies.  We can think of these as incubation devices for spiritual memes.

Through the millennia, the undigested seed of the alchemy meme was jumbled together with other spiritual memes, creating a seemingly endless series of hybrid spiritual expressions masquerading as alchemy.  From its appearance in first-century Alexandria to its modern expressions, however, the secret at the core of the alchemy meme can be traced by its gnostic ineffableness.  The secret protects itself, but in doing so leaves an unmistakable fingerprint.  By following these gnostic fingerprints, we can track the progress of the alchemy meme through history.

EGYPT:   ISIS AND HORUS

The word alchemy, as a name for the substance of the mystery, is both revealing and concealing of the true, initiatory nature of the work.  Al-khem, Arabic for “the black”, refers to the darkness of the unconsciousness, the most prima of all materia, and to the “Black Land” of Egypt.  Thus, the name reveals the starting point of the process and the place where this science attained its fullest expression.  This revelation, however, important as it is, effectively conceals the nature of the transmutation at the heart of the great work.

For three thousand years or more Egypt was the heart of the world.  Much of the knowledge that is the underpinning of Western civilization had its origins in Egypt.  The lenses of Greek and Judeo-Christian “history” distort our modern, essentially European, view of the ancient world.  The Bible gives us an Egypt of powerful pharoahs and pagan magicians, mighty armies, slaves and invasions of chariots out of the south.  Herodotus gives us a travelogue, complete with inventive stories from his guides.  To the Hebrews of the Old Testament, Egypt was the evil of the world from which God had saved them.  To the Greeks, it was an ancient culture to be pillaged for ideas and information.  To understand the origin of alchemy, we must let go of the Hebraic and Greek bias and look clearly at what the remains of the ancient Egyptian culture can tell us.

When we do this, two things immediately jump out at us.  First, the ancient Egyptians were the most scientifically advanced culture on the planet up to the present day, if we have indeed caught up with them; and second — their science, in fact, their entire culture — seems to have been revealed rather than developed.  The Egyptians claimed that their knowledge was derived from the actions of divine forces in what they called the First Time, or Zep Tepi.  A group known as the Heru Shemsu, or Company of Horus — also called the Company of the Wise, the Companions of Horus, and the Followers of the Widow’s Son — passed down the a body of knowledge through the ages.  Each pharoah, down to Roman times, was an Initiate of the Company of Horus and thus privy to this secret knowledge.