A Course on Natural Sciences

Chapter I

General Principles of Physics - Alchemical Physics

Legends concerning the birth of the worlds are quite numerous. This question has always set the human spirit to work, as the various legends that exist the world over bear witness. The literature on the subject is vast and anyone who desires to study the subject in full can refer to it.

However, these poetical and philosophical legends could not satisfy those who wanted palpable proof and those whose scientific disposition urged to mathematical research. As legends increased and centuries elapsed, these researches have ended up in scientific theories that new discoveries - or more precisely the renewal of secular philosophic discoveries - threaten with disuse. At present, the Academies are informed of works that prove the original error of theories recently admitted as true. These new conceptions are naturally thrust aside, for they destroy all the work of the modem and contemporary writers who must now respond by orienting their research in a different direction and renounce an entire part of work and value.

The problem of the origin of things is still insufficiently solved by the atomic constitution of bodies, for it does not give the essence of these bodies or the constitution of Matter.

Some years ago, scholars came to admit that the bodies - which they had previously considered simple - were also decomposable. Subsequently, the theory of atomism, which considered Matter as extended and indivisible substance (Haatan 3e p. 76) was succeeded by the new theory of ions (Archemius), that of electrons (atoms of Bohr) followed, to end up in the theory of quanta of energy (Einstein).

By affinity, atoms group together and form molecules and thus move in Ether. “The exchange of energy between Ether and atomic Matter brings about the most important phenomena of physics and chemistry.”

But, as we have just mentioned, though this theory is not totally rejected, it is subject to modifications, which will undoubtedly be succeeded by a new comprehension that will tend to establish the unity of Matter.

In the meantime, with the support of both legend and science, let us broach the Orphic Tradition so as to explain the great problem of Creation.

We have seen that the scientific world explains Creation by the transmission of Movement in Extent. This is the theory of atomism or, according to another form, the theory of mechanism. The School of Descartes holds that Extent is the essence of Matter and consequently declares that there is neither body without extent, nor extent without body (Haatan p. 46).

The Orphic tradition shows that by their combination, these two theories would be of a less relative truth. In fact, the Orphic Tradition explains Creation as the outcome of the play of two movements: Emotivity and Activity. These two virtues are in a latent state in the Being since, as the Cosmopolitan says, “It must nevertheless be noted that the limit of Nature is God, since He is its principle, for everything ends in the source from which it took its being and its beginning.” (Law of the Circle.)

Let us return to the two movements, that of Emotivity and that of Activity, both of which emanated from the Source of all things. In order to accept their action, we must understand that movement is not always the same and that for the moment we must rise above our physical and material concepts.

Now the first movement, that of Activity or penetration (Tropos) acts by radiation against the second movement, that of Emotivity or envelopment (Pathos). When these two movements meet, a creation is made - that of Substance. By its virtue of penetration, Tropos has created Space (Cartesianism). And by its enveloping movement, Pathos responds to the impact of Tropos and creates Time (movement of mechanism.)

By mutual contribution and without any lapse or stop in their state. SPACE and TIME, produce FORM (combination of the two theories).

As you can very well see, the Orphic tradition explains Creation in response to movement and extent.

Although this first creation does not respond in any way to the one that we discover, it is well known that every impulse given has a repercussion in space, and due to the Resistance put up by Matter, it weakens in penetrations and is transformed into an enveloping movement (apparent Stability).

By its oscillations, the pendulum demonstrates the attraction that is due to weight, but because the mass that constitutes it cannot fully manifest the action of this force, the latter is transformed into another movement, which is that of rotation. (The experiment of Foucault’s Pendulum in the Pantheon can be seen in the Conservatory of Arts and Crafts.) The combination of these two movements - attraction and rotation - can permit us to understand the phenomena of rhabdomancy (the sorcerer’s wand or water-diviners).

This first creation of Substance, this synthesis, was named the Luciferian Creation because it became separate from the Being and was opposed to Its activity.

From the above study, we gather that Movement is the quality of all conscious or unconscious dynamism.

“Movement was the life of the All. And the All was the unique personality of movement”. (Today we call movement, Dynamism, Force, Supreme Force, Universal Conscience, God.)

We mentioned above that in physical and material mode, movement was animated by divers multiple and transformable activities throughout Creation.

Thus, the contact of the two initial movements produced a dynamic knot. This is what we call ‘SUBSTANCE’.

In turn, substance was animated by two movements, one of Resistance - which is the transformation of the movement of Penetration - and one of Compression - which is the transformation of the Enveloping movement.

The opposition put up by the movements of Resistance and Compression to the efforts of the movement of Penetration, changed the latter into a deflagrating force that produced a particular state of Substance: Igneous Nature, the mother of Matter or of the secondary Creation that we know.

We shall study this Igneous Nature in the next chapter.