Origins of Medicine, Surgery & Psychotherapy

     “Alchemy, descended from shamanism, is the ancient art and science of elemental transformation. … alchemy grew historically out of the work of shamanic miners, smiths, and metallurgists. They were the masters of fire, who knew how to extract metals from stone, blend them into alloys such as bronze, and make tools, weapons and ornaments. In the archaic and classical period the knowledge of metalworking, because of its obvious connection to power and wealth, was preserved in secrecy and handed down in craftguilds from master to student. Such technical knowledge was regarded as magical by ordinary people, because it seemed to involve inexplicable mastery of natural forces. The crafts of masonry, which uses mineral stones in building, and medicine, which uses mineral and botanical extracts in healing (as well as metal tools in surgery), were parallel and associated secret societies. All three movements developed an esoteric or inner component, concerned with practices of psychic and spiritual self-transformation.
     A popular misconception is that alchemy was solely and futilely concerned with the transmutation of base metals to gold. In actuality, it is clear from alchemical writings that the main focus of most alchemical practitioners was healing and what we would nowadays call psychotherapy: the transmutation of the physical and psychic condition of the human being – starting with oneself. The worldview of the archaic and classical eras was holistic – the physical, psychic, spiritual, and cosmic dimensions of life were seen in their wholeness, not as separate fields.
     … the sacred science of the alchemical tradition came to be revived by two twentieth-century scientists: C.G. Jung, who identified alchemical symbolism as the language of the psyche; and Albert Hofmann, who uncovered a secret link between psyche and matter in the form of mind-expanding substances. Medieval alchemists in the Western tradition called this link the ‘water-stone of the wise,’ blending fluidity and solidity. Buddhist alchemists of the vajrayana school called it the vajra – the ‘lightning-diamond’ – blending luminosity and hardness.
     My suggestion is that the language of alchemy, both Eastern and Western, updated with contemporary scientific concepts, can provide the appropriate paradigm for a worldview that integrates rational science and intuitive wisdom." 
 

        Ralph Metzner. “Ecology of Consciousness. The Alchemy of Personal, Collective, and Planetary Transformation.” Reveal Press, 2017. 
 

“Black Sun”, from Splendor Solis, a German alchemical treatise, 1582