Why the Red Book is Red


In Alchemy, there are many symbolic systems. Often, a practitioner would create his or her own system. These would possess a variety of properties.


The symbols are polyvalent, an understood and accepted fact, so that once a practioner "knew" the basic structure of the alchemical process one could read another's work (often rendered in artwork) without being confounded.


It was also understood that the process is reiterative and in constant flow (why detachment is necessary--one is never "finished") so a reader or viewer would not expect the writer or artist to deliver the information in a sequential manner.


A third property of the systems involves concealment. While the information begged to be shared, it could only be shared in a way that would reveal its content only to one's peers. These were not breadcrumb trails for strangers but rather records maintained for safe-keeping. One writer described the alchemical knowledge as "a secret set afloat across the sea of time." To maintain the secrecy, the writers were incredibly playful. Wonderfully so. But they were playful with such dark images that it hardly resembles play.


Even under the manifold symbolic systems, there are a number of inviolate levels.


--matter going through the opus will alternate between two states of being: coagula et solve, or coagulated and dissolved.


--matter going through the process will move through three states denoted by color: nigredo, albedo, rubedo.


--matter going through the process will move through seven states: calcinatio, dissolutio, separatio, calcinatio, crucifixio, putrefactio, fermentatio (resurrectio).


Ascribe to each of these "states" about 1000 symbols each and you have the complex symbology of any alchemical text, (check out the colors/animals/plants in Book of Revelations in the Bible). But they denote the same process.


The symbolic systems employ animal imagery (often blending species), colors, plants, shapes, objects (tomb, crucible, bedroom) and human figures (the son, the mother, the virgin, the King) to denote various stages in the process.


The color red denotes the final stage of the process. Symbolized as staining with blood, or blood itself, the red dwells hidden within the whiteness of the albedo phase ("know that in whiteness there is redness hidden" --Artephius). "At this union, the supreme chemical wedding, the body is resurrected to eternal life," writes Lyndy Abraham in The Dictionary of Alchemical Imagery.


The Red Book is Jung's Chemical Wedding, so its color is befitting. What's so beautiful and fascinating about alchemy is that every single thing is symbolic. No part of life is left out of its sacred lexicon, down to the color of inks and books.


And just to make thing s little more interesting, Sir Isaac Newton's home was decorated primarily in crimson as well. . .

Comments

Post a Comment

Popular posts from this blog

THANK YOU FOR THE MUSIC: A POEM MADE OF 90 ABBA SONG TITLES

Image
THANK YOU FOR THE MUSIC A POEM WITH 90 TITLES OF ABBA SONGS It's because now my life's as good as an ABBA song. --Muriel’s Wedding Because Love is all there is in this SUMMER NIGHT CITY , Because no one is CASSANDRA on THE DAY BEFORE YOU CAME , Because If it wasn't for the nights, we think that we could take it, Because we expect HAPPY HAWAII and get a MUSICIAN with FUNKY FEET ,  Because THAT’S ME , in the car where the ABBA CD blares strobe light satisfaction, rearview mirror turns mirror ball.  Because I enter a WINNER-TAKES-IT-ALL as the low bass line of ABBA subverts my bottom line, Because  my history falls from the shelf because it's WATERLOO , I couldn't escape if I wanted to, Because we DANCE WHILE THE MUSIC GOES ON in the heart's dopamine disco, Because CHIQUITITA , I’ll tell you what’s wrong, Because I turn that music on and I forget  everything. Because I am 8 again, arms out spinning Disco innocence in ...
Read more

Emailing Mother Theresa: On Losing the Art of Gazing

Image
I sent my first email in 1996. My boyfriend at the time had a computer, and the computer had internet. He sent emails all the time. When I was working on a project with PATH (Program for Appropriate Technology in Health) to develop a salivary ferning microscope that was cost-efficient enough to be distributed to impoverished women in India and Africa, I was asked for my email address. My boyfriend said I could use his.  One afternoon, my colleague at PATH forwarded an email from Mother Theresa. She was giving PATH her approval of the device. Once you get an email from Mother Theresa, there isn't much else to anticipate (Note to the 20000 senders of emails I've received since: you understand). The project got tanked along the way, despite my patchwork re-design that involved a cardboard kaleidescope from a child's birthday party and a 50x magnifying glass. I waited another two years to get my own email address, and another two passed before I started to actually ...
Read more

Gin Bottle Cap Contraception

Image
I am the grand-daughter of World War II prison camp survivors. My grandfather and grandmother met in Buckingham Palace where my grandmother was presented at Court at one of Princess Elizabeth's garden parties. They met later, again, in Hong Kong where my grandfather held a medical office in Kowloon. The attraction was undeniable. They married and enjoyed parties at Shing Moon, my grandmother wearing black burma silk evening gowns and hobnobbing with the British "dirty little foreigners" who enjoyed the high life of the Empire's global reach. She befriended the niece of Emperor Pu Yi and frequently joined her for tea within the labyrinthian compound of The Forbidden City. Theirs was a life of luxury. After the Japanese seized Nanking, my grandparents ignored the warnings and invitations to evacuate sent from the British Crown and moved north. My uncle was born in Swatow, my father in Tongshan. In Tianjin, miles from the unrest and terror of Nanking and Shanghai, the...
Read more