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Al kimiya the ground of being.
Alchemy’s basic point of view was grounded in the concept of correspondence. Adepts conceived the universe to be a unitary field or web. The vertical warp was the essence of things and the horizontal weft the substantial nature of things. The tension between these two was thought to be generative. The ultimate goal was the union of spirit and body and the place for the consummation was the psyche or soul.
The chemical elements, sulphur, salt, and quicksilver, often depicted as three dragons, represented unconscious intuition and feeling, vital spirit or will, and the impulse to give form in matter. Marie Louise Von Franz identified these three as “anima, the force of life and instincts; animus, will power and ego; and body.”
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