Alchemy Archives - Maier Files Series Tidbits and Articles-

The Perfect Fifth: The Science and Alchemy of Sound

In The Maier Files, Otto Maier reveals to Rolf that the sequence 4-5-6-8, representing a major chord, holds profound significance. He explains that every note resonates with the one an octave lower and its harmonious tonic, suggesting that sound carries the potential for far-reaching connections—to both ancient knowledge and cosmic forces. This brings us to the ancient and sacred concept of the Perfect Fifth, a sonic interval deeply revered throughout history for its healing and...

The Doppelgänger

In the shadowed corridors of the human psyche, where the esoteric and the mundane converge, lies the enigmatic concept of the Doppelgänger. This mysterious double, often perceived as an ominous omen in folklore, is more than just a spectral twin. It is a reflection of our unredeemed inner nature, a mirror held up to our soul by the forces of the spiritual world. Within the arcane teachings of Otto Maier’s world—a labyrinth of alchemical knowledge,...

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 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...

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 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 (+/-...

Gothic form is living form

Wagner’s mythic medievalism and Teutonic underworldliness was shared by the English Pre-Raphaelite Brotherhood’s embrace of William Blake’s prescient dictum—Gothic form is living form—the largely unacknowledged creed of Victorian architectural revival. Barbaric An adjective that had once meant “barbaric,” “Gothic” had been redeemed by perception of the medieval Catholic Church’s architectural embrace of the divine-maternal, the mysterious, tempting curve: the very essence of art, according to Edmond’s Bailly’s bookshop habitué, art critic, aesthete, monarchist, and Catholic...

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...

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 true matter of the philosopher’s stone

The Stone is everywhere to be found, but nowhere seen. The Stone is also within … Mention of the philosopher’s stone in writing can be found as far back as Cheirokmeta by Zosimos of Panopolis (c. 300 AD). Alchemical writers assign a longer history. Elias Ashmole and the anonymous author of Gloria Mundi (1620) claim that its history goes back to Adam who acquired the knowledge of the stone directly from the biblical God. This...

Grail Knights

In the early 1180s, as the shadow of Saladin lengthened over the Holy Land, a nobleman with Merovingian ancestry, Philip d’Alsace, count of Flanders, commissioned the greatest poet of the age, Chrétien de Troyes, to do a French reworking of a strange tale about a poor knight, the son of a widow, who attains the kingship of the Holy Grail. Philip d’Alsace Philip supposedly found the tale in an ancient Celtic/Germanic chronicle, and wanted Chrétien,...

Dream journeys and the mythical reality

In physics, we speak of energy and its various manifestations, such as electricity, light, heat, etc. The situation in psychology is precisely the same. Here, too, we are dealing primarily with energy . . . with measures of intensity, with greater or lesser quantities. It can appear in various guises. . . . As I worked with my fantasies, I became aware that the unconscious undergoes or produces change. Only after I had familiarized myself...

Episode 9 – Zero Hour

Episode 8 – Sub Rosa

Episode 7 – Otto Maier

Episode 6 – Unternehmen Kelch

Episode 5 – Laurin’s Mill – Laurins Molen

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