The 3 Levels of Alchemy.

Here is exposed, my understanding and vision of Alchemy. IMO, it is better to have a distinction between the methods. One can see clearer at the goals and where he is working, or dabbling.

I'll not speak of Archemy or Spagerics, only Alchemy per se, i.e, => Phi Stone as a goal.

Alchemy as a scale, goes from the bottom, the material world, up to the top, where everthing is closer to nothingness, rarefied things.

And thus we can deduce three levels :

- Pure

- Bastard

- Ersatz

Pure :

Here, only Spiritus Mundi is condensed. Nothing is added.
See for example : The Revelation of Trithemius. In "Potpourri alchemia" pdf in RAMS Dvd. In freench here : http://gallica.bnf.fr/ark:/12148/bpt6k1143539

Bastard :

A mix between Spiritus Mundi and the second "secret hand" as would say a friend, plus a Sulfur, which can be, either material, or "spiritually" attracted.

Salts are used to create a magnet. This is the first level. 

The second one is a coction with the Secret Celestial Fire.

Without knowing the secrets of Spiritus Mundi, no one ever pass this level. And stay at level 3, or Ersatz.

Texts : Hyle und Coayle, Hermetic Recreations, Mutus Liber, Canseliet's/Fulcanelli, Arcana Divina, Chemical Moonshine, Donum Dei, ICH for example. Rain, dew, etc enters this category too, but at the frontier with the ersatz paths, because of the lack of spirit in these Paths.

Ersatz :

Here, no Spiritus Mundi.

Only the Agent will work upon the Patient.

These methods are interesting and the widely known and experimented.

They give you a possible rejuvenation, healing illnesses, transmutations, and other kind of "miracles".

Texts : Flamel, Cosmopolite, Trevisan, Zachaire, Jehan de Meung, Bacstrom's blood way, and everything related to metals only (cinnabar, antimony paths, amalgams, and so on) ...

I'd say that the Alchemical corpus of texts are at :

1% on the pures.

19% on the bastards.

80% on the ersatz.

This clearly shows why some people will never understand a single thing in Alchemy, because without making a clear dinstinction, everything is mixed up, messed up, and then, you get totally lost.


The Pure create it's own magnet, and then the spirit flow down, and in the Bastard, we create the magnet for the Spirit. So we imitate the process. And the Ersatz is just imitating the whole process, with material magnet, material spirit. just a pale copy.

I make a clear distinction between Spiritus Mundi, which is for me a condensed matter from "no where" (apparently) and the "Heaven/second hand", which are already in the matter, and that is just spagerically revealed. Even if the Second hand comes from SM, which is the case for everything in this universe.

The Spirit is everywhere, but IMO, there is a difference nonetheless.