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E. Definition of Terms
1. Alchemy
Redgrove 1922, in the book Alchemy: Ancient and Modern, specifies that Alchemy is generally understood to have been that art whose end is the
transformation of base metals into gold by means something called the Philosopher‟s Stone. Alchemy was both a philosophy and an experimental
science. Considered from the physical standpoint, it was the attempt to demonstrate experimentally on the material plane the validity of a certain
philosophical view of the cosmos. According to the transcendental standpoint, Alchemy was concerned with man‟s soul. Its object was the perfection, not of
material substances, but of man in spiritual sense. pp.1-2
2. Conscience
According to Hitchcock 1857, in the book Remarks upon Alchemy and the Alchemist, in the view he takes of Alchemy, pure conscience or a pure heart is
the key. It is middle, the nature between Soul and Body, and partakes of a heavenly spirit. It expects or will receive life from God and the birth is Love and
Unity. In the same sense, as he cited from writing of Alchemists, it is a preparation for an entrance into high experiences. Thus, the preparation is not
possible without the finding of a pure heart. p.150
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3. Contemplation
According to Hitchcock 1857, contemplation is a look thoughtfully upon what are the circumstances of anything; what the matter; what the form;
whence its operations proceed; whence it is infused and implanted; how generated. It is also how the body of everything may be dissolved, that is,
resolved into the first matter or first essence. How the last matter may be changed into the first, and the first into the last. This contemplates that which is perceived
by Touch and Sight, and hath a nature formed in Time: this considers, how that nature may be helped and perfected by resolution of itself; how everybody may
give forth from itself the good or evil, venom or medicine, latent in it; how destruction and to be cleft or opened are to be handled. In which contemplation
under a right proceeding, without sophistical deceits, the pure may be severed and separated from the impure. pp.109-111
4. Divine love
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