Anyone who has tried to read an alchemical treatise knows the feeling: the words are clear, the sentences grammatically correct, and yet the meaning slips away. There is talk of a lion devouring the sun, a king drowning, a water that does not wet the hands. Alchemists wrote obscurely on purpose. Understanding why, and with what techniques, is the first step towards learning to read them.
Why conceal
The reasons for the obscurity are various and often add up.
- Protecting knowledge: it was believed that powerful knowledge should not fall into the hands of those who would misuse it or use it only out of greed.
- Selecting the reader: a difficult text discourages the curious and rewards those with patience, study and experience.
- Respecting the ineffable: some experiences cannot be described directly; an image says more than a definition.
- Following tradition: writing in riddles was the style of the genre, inherited from the oldest texts.
Many authors say so openly: they write for the «sons of the art», not for everyone.
The main techniques
Cover names
The most widespread technique is to call a substance by a name that is not its own. Modern scholars refer to these with the German term Decknamen, «cover names». Mercury may be called dragon, serpent, permanent water, fugitive servant; sulphur may become king, lion, sun. To complicate matters, the same name can indicate different substances in different texts, and one substance can have dozens of names.
The dispersion of knowledge
In the tradition of the texts attributed to Jābir ibn Ḥayyān, known in Latin as Geber, there is explicit talk of the «dispersion of knowledge»: the necessary information is distributed across many books, and none contains the complete procedure. Only those who read everything, and compare, can piece the picture together.
Mythological allegory
Many authors, such as Michael Maier, read Greek and Egyptian myths as coded accounts of the Work. The Argonauts' voyage towards the golden fleece, the death and rebirth of Osiris, Atalanta's race become symbolic descriptions of the alchemical stages.
Paradox
Formulas such as «our water does not wet the hands» or «our gold is not common gold» force the reader out of the ordinary meaning of words. The paradox works as a signal: here one must not read literally.
Omissions and deliberate errors
Some authors declare that they have omitted an essential step, or altered the order of operations. Those who follow the text blindly get lost; those with experience recognise the missing point.
The language of the birds
A particular tradition, championed above all in the twentieth century by the French author who signed himself Fulcanelli, is the so-called «language of the birds»: a play of assonances, puns and phonetic breakdowns through which words are said to reveal hidden meanings. Fulcanelli applied it, among other things, to reading the sculptures of Gothic cathedrals in his book on the mystery of the cathedrals, published in 1926. It is an evocative method, to be used with caution, but it shows how language itself is regarded as matter for the Work.
How to learn to read
Reading alchemy does not mean finding a single key that opens every text. It means developing a habit of reading.
- Record the names: keep a notebook in which you log every cover name you meet, with its context.
- Compare several texts: the meaning of a symbol emerges from comparison, not from isolated reading.
- Follow the stages: ask which moment of the Work a passage refers to, whether black, white or red.
- Look at the images: the illustration often clarifies what the text conceals.
- Tolerate ambiguity: some passages remain open, and this is part of their function.
An example
You read: «Take the dragon and make it fight the lion until both die». With the vocabulary of cover names, the dragon indicates the volatile principle and the lion the fixed principle. The sentence therefore describes the meeting of the two opposites, their mutual dissolution and the entry into nigredo. What looked like a fable becomes a precise description.
The value of obscurity
Today we may regard this language as an obstacle, but also as an educational method. By forcing the reader to work, the alchemical text transforms them. The effort of deciphering becomes a small Work in itself: the apparent meaning is dissolved and a deeper meaning is recomposed.
In short
- Alchemists wrote obscurely to protect knowledge, select the reader and respect the ineffable.
- The main techniques are cover names, the dispersion of knowledge, allegory and paradox.
- The «language of the birds» is a reading method based on assonances and wordplay.
- Reading alchemy requires note-taking, comparison and tolerance of ambiguity.
