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Prefatory Note
Prefatory Note
The following material is of extremely early date, being originally given as a lecture by Wynn Westcott in 1890, well before the foundation of the Second Order. Although Westcott made some interesting points, notably his correlation of the chemical elements with the Qabalistic Tree of Life, he displayed no knowledge of the practice of alchemy as distinct from its theory.
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Nevertheless, at the period in question a number of Golden Dawn initiates, among them the Rev. W. A. Ayton, were engaged in practical alchemical research. A few years later, after the foundation of the Second Order, a document known as Z2 was circulated and a section of this purported to apply the formulae of the Golden Dawn Neophyte ritual to alchemical operations. It is interesting to note that Aleister Crowley denounced both this section of Z2 and that dealing with ceremonial divination as complete rubbish; it is difficult to know on what grounds Crowley based his opinion as his diaries fail to disclose any attempt by him to put these sections into practice.
After the death of Ayton and his co-workers no initiate of the Order seems to have betrayed any interest in alchemy until the 'thirties, when Israel Regardie published his Philosophers Stone-a fairly orthodoxly Jungian interpretation of alchemical writings. A little later the members of a schismatic Temple, Hermanubis, began experimenting with alchemy on the lines of Z2. An alchemical ritual of this type is reproduced in my Ritual Magic in England. In recent years a certain Frater Albertus, who runs an organisation called the Paracelsus Research Society in Salt Lake City, has been engaged in reviving the alchemical tradition in practical form. Frater Albertus, who from his published writings on the Qabalah seems to be within the Golden Dawn tradition, attaches particular importance to the works of Basil Valentine. The former's Handbook of Alchemy has led many occultists into a complete retraction of the Jungian interpretation to which they formerly adhered. 177
