The Hermetic Marriage of Art and Alchemy

Book excerpt: An initiatory and practical guide to creative alchemy • Shares hermetic and alchemical techniques for liberating creative expression and looks at the zodiacal and planetary timing of creative operations • Explains how to work with and transmute alchemical energies for increased levels of insight, intuition, and imaginative expression • Explores the connections between Surrealism and alchemy, as well as the rich and complicated symbolism of alchemical art In this initiatory guide to the Hermetic art of alchemy, artist Marlene Seven Bremner reveals how the alchemical opus, the Great Work, offers a practical means for liberating the authentic creator within and attaining gnosis, or true self-knowledge. Exploring the connections between Surrealism and alchemy, as well as the rich and complicated symbolism of alchemical art, Bremner elucidates how both Surrealism and alchemy seek to unfetter the imagination and dissolve the boundaries between dream and reality, thus reconciling the conscious and unconscious minds. She details how the three principles (salt, sulfur, and mercury), the four elements, and the seven planets interact together and within the self in creative alchemy, and she explains how to work with and transmute these energies for increased levels of insight, intuition, and imaginative expression. The author shares practical Hermetic and alchemical techniques for liberating creative expression and clearing energetic obstructions that prevent us from reaching our higher potential. She also looks at the zodiacal and planetary timing of creative operations. Revealing how the stages of alchemical transmutation are relevant to the creative process, the author shows how the initiate comes to experience for themselves the relationship between consciousness and matter, which is the essence of alchemical teachings. By creating, one transmutes spiritual energies through matter for greater self-knowledge and awakening. Allowing you to truly realize your own creative power, this in-depth guide to creative alchemy shows how the alchemical path attunes the Self to the rhythms of the spheres so that one is naturally creating in time with the seasons and zodiac signs and in harmony with elemental forces and planetary influences