Alchemy and Hermetism

The pair microcosm-macrocosm was a central motif in ancient esoterical traditions, like in the Hermetic philosophy. Hermetism was a Gnostic doctrine that according to tradition had its roots in Egyptian mysticism, and constituted one of the building blocks of the Renaissance Neoplatonism. The Neoplatonic view was based on a hierarchical cosmic structure, with the macrocosm divided into body, soul and spirit, which was regarded as the parts of a living organism. The divine soul is the homestead of the Platonic forms, the pure ideas. The feminine world soul, Anima mundi, is everywhere present, and the source of all motion and activity in the macrocosm. The body of the world is matter, and the celestial pictures in the world soul are linked to the bodily matter by the spirit of the world, Spiritus mundi. This link means that the heavenly sphere can influence and modify what is on the earth.

Elementary qualities are the properties of matter, and occult qualities are those that stem from the stars and are transmitted to natural objects by the Spiritus mundi. According to Hermetism "everything above is similar to what is below."
In the Hermetic tradition we also find alchemical conceptions. Alchemy is no doctrine, but rather a set of notions about the essence of transformation. Man is the raw material for the highest mental state, the purpose of man is the process of transformation into this state. Likewise, mercury and sulphur are raw materials for "the gold of the philosopher", or the "stone of the wise". Starting from Nigredo - the black state in the centre of the earth where the metals are asleep - the alchemist passes Albedo, the white state, corresponding to the absolute, undivided light, before he finally reaches Rubedo, the red state, which is the mystery of love and bisexuality. The process of transformation results in a merging of apparent opposites, the final state symbolized by the fusion of the King and the Queen in the alchemical hermaphrodite. In the outer world the process is manifested by the stone of the wise, that makes possible the transformation of non precious metals into gold; on an inner plane a tranformation of the soul has taken place, "the insight into the mystery of transformation is also an insight into the mystery that connects man with God".

Alchemy also has a highly tangible side, it is oriented towards matter and the work with matter. The central alchemical aphorism is "ora, lege, lege, lege, relege, labora et invenies" - pray, read, read, read, reread, work and you shall find (the stone of the wise, the way to gold-making and the highest mental state) [3].

Alchemy is a conglomerate of ancient philosophical notions and those metallurgical insights that were gained in the transition from Stone Age to Bronze Age. The idea of transmutation, the belief that a material can be transformed into something completely different - like gold - probably originates from the discovery of the alloy.
The main part of the Neoplatonic ideas however came from Plato and the Pythagoreans.