Alchemy Archives - Maier Files Series Tidbits and Articles-

The mysterious relic — The Gral

The mysterious relic —which could be at one and the same time a chalice, a book, a stone, or a person— was seen as existing both on the earth and at a remove from it. In the poem The Later Titurel, it hovers above the world, untouched by human hands and supported by angels. In the Perceval of Chrétien de Troyes and the Parzival of Wolfram von Eschenbach, it is kept in a secret chamber...

Imagination and phantasy

When following Otto Maier’s path one will meet somewhere on his/her road, Böhme. Like the contemporary student of the inner world, alchemists were concerned about differentiating imagination from fantasy. They were aware that true imagination possesses a power and depth that fantasy does not possess. Jakob Boehme was one of those who warned against the delusions of fantasy. Struggle for redemption Böhme was a mystic. Although not a practicing alchemist, he used the terminology and symbols...

Goethe the Alchemist

The secret teachings of Goethe. That Johann Wolfgang von Goethe (1749-1832), Germany’s greatest poet, had an interest in the occult and alchemy is clear from Faust. Based on an historical character, the original Faust legend goes back to medieval times and prior to Goethe‘s there were earlier dramatic renditions of the tale, notably Christopher Marlowe’s. Yet it is to Goethe’s Faust (Part I 1808; Part II 1833) that most of us turn when we think...

The Arabic Idris and the Alchemical Mercury

The name of Hermes, whether or not qualified as Trismegistus, henceforth served as guarantee or signature for a host of esoteric books on magic, astrology, medicine, etc., throughout the Middle Ages, and this despite the fact that, with the exception of the Asclepius, the Corpus Hermeticum was unknown. Picatrix At the same time, an inspired imagery unfolded in both Latin and Arabic literature in a succession of “visionary recitals” (as Henry Corbin calls them), constellated...

The Green Fairy’s Secret: Unraveling the Mystical Herb of a Forgotten Monastery

At Maier Files Tidbits, we delve into the enigmatic and the unexplained, where history intertwines with the supernatural. In the remote mountains of Auvergne-Rhône-Alpes, France, amidst the crumbling ruins of an ancient monastery, a peculiar discovery whispers of secrets long buried. A plant, steeped in bitter mystique, grows wild among the stones of Chartreuse de Bonnefoy, a once-thriving Carthusian enclave. Known to some as the harbinger of the “Green Fairy”—a nickname for the infamous absinthe—this...

What is Cosmic Matter? Is outer space not empty?

Physical space may itself be curved, contain antimatter, house a sea of neutrinos, and be related to the invisible realm of the psyche. Nevertheless, physical space is also made up of something else. That something else has been called, for generations, the ether. With the discovery of holography and a new order to the universe, the conceptualization of empty space must be reevaluated. Just as the room you are sitting in contains the electromagnetic energy...

The Philosopher’s Stone appeared in the low countries

At the present time, our materialistic science derides alchemists as misplaced mystics who pursued a dream of finding a chemical compound that might transform base metals into gold. Indeed, they recognize that much scientific breakthrough was achieved through these pursuits, but they throw out out the goal of the alchemists as simply a fanciful or impossible plan and fantasy. However, there exist fascinating incidents, a few so deeply curious that the mind can barely cope...

Laurin ‘s marvels and his enchanted Rose garden

Laurin ‘s marvels. Are you worthy to enter the Rosengarten? King Laurin ’s greatest marvel is his understanding of day and night, which is also that of life and death. Oh, how we would like to possess that knowledge! It is in these terms that men lament, but they need not. As one can always ascend to Laurin ’s marvellous kingdom. In spite of the silk threads which protect it. Still, one must be a...

The great secret of alchemy, Notre Dame de Paris

It was in 1926, in the thick of transformative ferment of the interbellum, that an anonymous volume—issued in a luxury edition of three hundred copies by a small Paris publishing firm known mostly for artistic reprints—rocked the Parisian occult underworld. Its title was Le Mystère des cathédrales (The Mystery of the Cathedrals). The author, “Fulcanelli,” claimed that the great secret of alchemy, the queen of Western occult sciences, was plainly displayed on the walls of...

The money alchemists

The destruction of the worldwide economic order in the wake of World War II encouraged world leaders in 1944 to form a meeting to generate alternatives. This conference, referred to as Bretton Woods, resulted in the development of a new global ﬁxed exchange rate regime with the U.S. dollar playing a central role. Under the Bretton Woods system, an ounce of gold could be bought at a ﬁxed international rate of $35 per ounce (+/-...

Tower at Bollingen

In the Tower at Bollingen it is as if one lived many centuries simultaneously. The place will outlive me, and in its location and style it points backward to things of long ago. There is very little about it to suggest the present. If a man of the sixteenth century were to move into the house, only the kerosene lamp and the matches would be new to him; otherwise, he would know his way about...

The Lost History of Esoteric Writing

Philosophical esotericism —the practice of communicating one’s unorthodox thoughts “between the lines”— was a common practice until the end of the eighteenth century. The famous Encyclopédie of Diderot, for instance, not only discusses this practice in over twenty different articles, but admits to employing it itself. The history of Western thought contains hundreds of such statements by major philosophers testifying to the use of esoteric writing in their own work or others’. Despite this long...

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