The Philosopher's Stone was a substance (not a rock) that the
alchemists sought. It was thought that an underlying spirit linked all
things and gave rise to the dualistic forms universe. Therefore, by
combining different chemicals and substances a secret balance of
dualisms might be discovered, The Philosopher's Stone, that would
contain the essence of the (nondual) divine. That substance would have
transformative power and so the notion that ordinary minerals would be
transformed into gold, the most perfect metal.
"Surely all your dirt will turn into gold." VM, "The Mystery"
However, the popular image of the alchemists as nuts simply trying to
make gold for personal attainment is far off the mark. The true
impetus was metaphysical (this was a time when science and spirit were
not separate) and sought to transform the soul toward oneness and
perfection.
Zosimos, a Gnostic alchemist of the third century: "And all things are
woven together and all things are undone again; all things are mingled
together and all things combine; and all things unite and all things
separate; all things are moistened and all things are dried; and all
things flourish and all things fade in the bowl of the altar. For each
thing comes to pass with method and in fixed measure and by exact
weighing of the four elements. The weaving together of all things and
the undoing of all things and the whole fabric of things cannot come
to pass without method. The method is a natural one, preserving due
order in its inhaling and its exhaling; it brings increase and it
brings decrease. And to sum up: through the harmonies of separating
and combining, and if nothing of the method is neglected, all things
bring forth nature. For nature applied to nature transforms nature.
Such is the order of natural law throughout the whole cosmos, and thus
all things hang together."
In a vision, Zosimos approaches an altar by "descending the fifteen
steps into darkness, and of ascending the steps into light." There he
meets Ion, the priest of the inner sanctuaries, and watches as he
changes "into the opposite of himself...and sank into himself." "Is
this not the composition of the waters?" Zosimos asks himself. The
second occasion of approach to the altar (within which numberless
people are set to boil), he asks an anthroparion about the sight. "The
sight that you see is the entrance, and the exit, and the
transformation. ...Those who seek to obtain the art enter here, and
become spirits by escaping from the body." As Carl Jung says, "Since
alchemy is concerned with a mystery both physical and spiritual, it
need come as no surprise that the...divine water was the alpha and
omega of the process, desperately sought for by the alchemists as the
goal of their desire."
A later account (this is taken from Jung's Alchemical Studies) says:
"And as man is composed of the four elements, so also is the stone,
and so it is [dug] out of man, and you are its ore, namely by working;
and from you it is extracted, namely by division; and in you it
remains inseparably, namely through science." Also, "The whole of
nature converges in man as in a centre, and one participates in the
other, and man has not unjustly concluded that the material of the
philosophical stone may be found everywhere."
A fully realized artistic intent realizes that creation itself emerges
from these waters, and that the artist by standing as the conduit has
become the Stone. Painter Paul Klee: "It is the artist's mission to
penetrate as far as may be toward that secret ground where primal law
feeds growth. Which artist would not wish to dwell at the central
organ of all motion in space-time (be it the brain or the heart of
creation) from which all functions derive their life? In the womb of
nature, in the primal ground of creation, where the secret key to all
things lies hidden? ...Our beating heart drives us downward, far down
to the primal ground."