What is the Athanor in alchemy? Definition of the alchemical oven or “philosophical oven”. What does the Athanor evoke in Freemasonry?
Definition: The Athanor is the furnace that allows the various operations of the alchemical process to be carried out.
Athanor comes from the Arabic at-tannur, which means “stove”.
The Arabic origin of this word is not surprising. Indeed, Muslims were the main transmitters of alchemical knowledge between East and West around the 10th century. It should be noted that the most famous of alchemical texts, the Emerald Table of Hermes Trismegistus, was handed down to us by the Arabs.
Alchemical ovens appeared in the late Middle Ages and multiplied during the Renaissance, along with the development of alchemy. The stated goal was to transform lead into gold. But the Athanor also has its importance in spiritual alchemy .
Let’s take a look at how the Athanor works and its hidden meaning.
What is the Athanor? Principle of operation.
The purpose of operative alchemy is to transform base metals, especially lead, into noble metals: silver and gold.
There is this idea in alchemy that gold is contained in lead, but in an invisible way because it is amalgamated, agglomerated. Since gold is undetectable at first sight, it will be necessary to carry out, by various successive operations, a separation within matter in order to extract the subtle principles, which will finally have to be reintegrated into the heavy matter to make it noble.
The Athanor is therefore the furnace that makes it possible to carry out this transmutation of metals.
In concrete terms, three methods or types of operations are possible:
- Distillation consists of heating the material in order to extract gases which, when condensed, can be recovered in liquid form, before being coagulated. The Athanor can be likened to a still and the operation is carried out in two stages: heating and cooling,
- Sublimation consists of the same operation, but without going through the water stage: the escaping gases return to solid form when in contact with the cold of the walls of the furnace,
- Alchemical digestion consists of slow cooking in order to achieve a gentle and definitive transmutation.
Alchemical treatises emphasize the importance of working in a closed , perfectly airtight furnace so that no substance can escape, in any form. The loss of the subtle principles (mainly gaseous) would indeed lead to the failure of the operation.
Unfortunately, no alchemist has been able to turn lead into gold. This does not mean, however, that alchemy has failed, nor that Athanor is an absurdity. Indeed, the experiments of the alchemists of the Renaissance hid another objective: the transformation of the alchemist himself.
For alchemy is first and foremost a spiritual quest: the transmutation of metals must be seen as the attempt at a perfection that aims to reach the divine, in other words the Gold in itself.
It is therefore the symbolic and spiritual meaning of the Athanor that will interest us here.
Alchemical oven or philosophical oven?
In spiritual alchemy, the term ” philosophical oven” is used to refer to the Athanor.
Thus the oven no longer has any real existence: it is a mental space in which the transformation of the individual can take place.
The place of experimentation is therefore the individual himself: his body, his psyche, his consciousness .
Here again, the alchemist’s work on himself is done in a vacuum: no one can intervene for him, no answer can come from outside. It is an intimate process, a slow maturation that will allow for a change in psychic state.
This work begins with a dive into oneself: introspection aims at a better knowledge of oneself in order to achieve the first stage, the Work under the table.
The stages of the alchemical process.
Specifically, the alchemical process consists of the following steps:
- The Moonlight work consists in exploring one’s own matter (the Body, equivalent to the Earth) in order to effect a separation within it. This separation consists in delivering the human Spirit (Water) so that it can ascend to the higher principle (Fire, the Soul of the world). In fact, the Body is the element that binds the Spirit: the Body creates desire and attachment, it is the cause of the egocentric, unawakened, deluded individual, prisoner of himself without his even knowing it. The Body creates the illusion of consciousness, preventing true consciousness from manifesting. So that’s what we’ll have to give up.
- The Work of the White consists in a resurrection of the being. Freed from all that drew him downwards, the individual regains his bodily individuality, but this is now spiritualized, perfectly conscious, totally clairvoyant.
- The Red Work consists in definitively reintroducing into the Body (the ashes obtained at the beginning of the process) the subtle principles revealed. It is the birth of a new, deified individual.
We have just described the ” Great Work”, which begins with the stage of distillation: by heating the Athanor, the Fire (mysterious primordial energy) causes the subtle principles (the human Spirit) to evaporate (release), which fall back into Water (the spiritualized Body). Matter (the Body) is nothing but inert ashes. The Red Work evaporates the last traces of Water, so that only Fire and Earth remain, which will come together to create the new being. This is the wet way. The dry process, on the other hand, dispenses with the aqueous step.
In the end, the alchemical process makes it possible to pass from the deluded man to the free man, from the rough stone to the philosopher’s stone , without there being any addition or disappearance of substance.
The treatment was carried out in a closed cycle: the man was recomposed, transformed from within. He is his own Athanor.
The Athanor: an image of man.
The Athanor is a microcosm , a world in miniature. Externally, it can be seen as the bodily envelope of the individual: his matter. The transformation takes place within matter itself, and gives rise to a confrontation between the immanent principles that constitute it.
In fact, this matter contains within itself Mercury ( principle of life ) which in turn contains Sulphur (higher, solar, “divine” principle).
Initially, matter dominates Mercury and Sulphur. But with the arrival of the alchemical process, the dominant-dominated relationship is reversed: it is now the solar principle that breathes and animates, and the body that opens and ends up submitting.
The cooking fire.
The fire that ensures the rise in temperature and makes the alchemical process possible comes from within: this is the will of the alchemist. This desire for transformation is a sign that the higher principle is already present in man and that he is trying to break through, which translates into an opening of consciousness.
The heat contained in matter is revealed and diffused in matter: it is an unknown force, no doubt made of Love , which presides over the great transformation.
Read also our article on the symbolism of fire.
The risk of a poorly controlled or non-airtight Athanor.
The alchemical literature places a great deal of emphasis on the risk of dissolving matter too quickly or too far advanced, which would lead to losing one’s footing and “losing one’s soul”.
This is tantamount to a reaction in the Athanor that is too strong at the moment of the first stage (the Work in the dark), resulting in an uncontrollable white smoke that would eventually come out of it: the Spirit would escape.
Another mistake would be not to keep the ashes (the inert body): in this case, the spirit (defined as the soul in common parlance) would not be able to reintegrate the body, and life would end there.
Thus, the good alchemist is the one who manages to keep control of his furnace , that is, of himself. It is a question of losing neither one’s Spirit (the subtle) nor one’s Body (the thick).
It is also a question of avoiding taking with us, during the elevation of the Spirit, dross from the decomposition of the Body: in this case, the process would be biased and the transformation would not really be a transformation. The illusion would continue.
It is therefore a question of carrying out an operation in which “nothing is lost, nothing is created and everything is transformed” (Lavoisier).
The Athanor and the Cosmic Egg.
The Athanor can also be seen as the Whole, the unfolded world, the cosmos , or the cosmic egg : it is there that all transformations take place, in a closed environment.
Behind this assertion is the idea that the first principle is included in matter, but that it must reveal itself in order to regain control over matter: it is the union of immanence and transcendence, symbolized by the two intersecting triangles of Solomon’s seal .
It is also the meeting of the Sun and the Moon , or that of Water and Fire . It is a constant struggle of Order against Chaos, knowing that there can be no Order without Chaos and no Chaos without Order .
In alchemy, One-the-All is represented by a circle . Completed by a central point, the circle finds within itself its organizing, conscious principle. There is an image of the cylindrical Athanor, with the fire that animates it in the middle.
Thus the Athanor would be an egg-shaped matrix, in the image of the world itself, which can be seen as a gigantic egg reminiscent of the primordial egg of Orphism (religion of ancient Greece).
The Athanor in Freemasonry.
In Freemasonry, the Athanor can be defined as the space in which the Freemason transforms himself.
This may refer to:
- the cabinet of reflection : it is the test of the Earth, the experience of hermetic death (the Work under the black), the visit of obscure matter (cf. the VITRIOL formula), introspection, the moment of writing the philosophical testament. The symbolism of philosopher’s death is supposed to bring about a transformation of the Spirit and an initiatory rebirth.
- The lodge itself: a closed, sacred, hermetic space, the lodge is the privileged place of letting go, reflection and openness.
The Athanor and the Celtic Cauldron.
Finally, the Athanor evokes Bran’s Celtic cauldron , which has the power to lift up the dead in battle.
The cauldron, the ancestor of the Holy Grail , confers immortality, in the same way that the alchemical process leads man to go beyond his Body to access eternal life.