Paul Laffoley, Alchemy_ The Telenomic Process of the Universe, 1973

1973

Medium

Oil, acrylic, ink, and vinyl lettering on canvas

Dimensions

2 × 73 cm

Status

In Gallery Collection

Collect24 Art ID

C24-987170

Subject_ The Alchemical Process. Symbol Evocation_ Traditional Western Magic. Comments_ During the Middle Ages the magical practices of ancient Egypt, Greece, and Rome became codified as alchemy (the power and techniques of universal transformation) with the study of the Qabalah as its energy source. This is a perfect analogy of the way Christianity became the creative extension of Judaism. However alchemy, then at its mature power was considered just another Gnostic heresy, and the personal practice of it as an example of blasphemy. The distinction between magic and religion that was accepted by the medieval world was neatly summed up in 1920 by the synoptic chronicler of the occult, Lewis Spense, when he wrote, "It has been that religion consists of an appeal to the gods, whereas magic is the attempt to force their compliance." This is why alchemy is often called the confused precursor of the modern sciences of chemistry and physics - which it is not. Science appeals to the myth of invariance in nature (the "laws" of nature) in order to euphemize out of existence the gradual hubris as a result of attempting a complete control of nature (never the intent of alchemy). In a certain sense both chemistry and physics could be viewed as failed forms of alchemy. The final paroxysm of tension between thinking and feeling, which spiked at the end of the 19th century, was eloquently recorded by the philosopher/historian Sigried Giedion, in Space, Time, and Architecture_ Growth of a New Tradition (1941-1967). Ostensibly a polemic for modernism in architecture, it became for me, one of the major influences in the current revival of alchemy, because it documents the transforming power of a willful and impassioned vision for a present and future world.