Behold this how she laments of separations she narrates salom and good good evening everyone sorry I’m running a bit energetic because I was doing everything it’s so fun and as Pia so warming said it’s no ruse in eight hours and happy spring equinox to everyone and I am so
Happy to be doing this lecture here tonight which is called Sufism and Alchemy allegorical storytelling as the vehicle for esoteric wisdom so first and foremost I have to say my name is Safa mirer and I am a transdisciplinary artist researcher and turist that is a
Fancy word for a t reader and uh I owe my practice of deciphering the imagery the symbolic imagery of the tarot and also translating in a performative way the Poetry the Persian poetry of ran hes to the experiences that I’ve had at this beautiful building the embassy of the
Free mind it is such an honor to be able to give this lecture here I have gained all of the wisdom that I’m about to partake onto you and also my profession through the experiences and the people that I met here so what is about this library that is so amazing and has
Helped me a lot in my journey as an artist and a researcher and that is the study of esotericism esotericism is a new field of study in Academia which tries to look at these traditions and practices of all around the world which are kind of Ault and behind a certain whale this building
And the people who come here and the uh history of the hermetic philosophy program at University of Amsterdam they are trying to decipher and decode the meanings the secret teachings of these Traditions through various methodologies of history of reading texts of finding out the letters the bibliography of
These texts to try to kind of like a detective work understand what these spiritual practices or religious practices meant for the practitioners and if they can mean something for us now today so so I have used this methodology to understand the two aspects of my life
Which is the tarot and the Sufi Persian poetry because they kind of have something in common which is they use symbolic language to talk about something in a discrete way and using the methodologies of esotericism I’ve been able to create this method of using tarot and also being able to understand
What this symbolic suit suy Persian poetry is about so that I can translate it in another language or in a performative way so that brings us all to tonight that what I’m going to talk about tonight which is one aspect of this esoteric practice which is the use
Of allegorical storytelling so the first thing that comes to mind when we’re talking about esotericism is why is it hidden then why is it esoteric so first we can look at hermis trus and his Corpus hermeticum in which he talks about five reasons to keep silent and keep these teachings and
Traditions hidden and these five are profane Minds pollute holy matters profane means someone who does not understand or is not yet ready to understand these teachings so at first when people come in and they have no idea if you partake them this wisdom they will pollute these holy Divine
Matters and secondly we have profane mindes shall do greater Evil by this knowledge because they have not been part of the tradition so of course they’re going to do something that is not very well with it so you have to first be part of the tradition in order
To be worthy of understanding this otherwise you will do evil more evil silence allows the flow of divine Enlightenment this is uh obvious and everybody can understand through meditation you can understand something that’s just one scratch of what it can mean and to utter the ineffable is
Futile there are many things that is difficult to explain I’m sure you’ve all I hope you’ve all been in love and how ineffable it is to be able to tell someone what you feel about them now imagine talking about God of course it cannot be done and finally which is
Against translation the words themselves Are Holy if you read something in Hebrew or in Arabic or in Greek or in Egyptian that her magistus was originally from if you were to translate these teachings into another language you would actually profane the words themselves so you should have kept
Silent but I did not do that and I’m going to translate everything so this is from the Western esoteric Traditions the reasons for keeping silent but in the Eastern or more accurately the Sufi tradition the reason for silent is something else and it’s called h or hush and this is of course
So big and so huge I’m not going to get into it that much but the main thing is really beautifully described by Sheikh Mahmud shabari in his beautiful work Rose Garden Of Secrets gsh Ras in which when he is talking about how truth has different facets and different versions of itself
And no one person can understand the entirety of truth and the best that we can do is Project our understanding into the truth so that we can get a grasp of it and through that he says of it what they say whether less or more merely signifies that which they
Behold so whatever you say about it which is the divine presence you’re just saying what you’re seeing at best if you’re not lying and if you’re not trying to deceit people you’re seeing what you see but other people see other things so the only thing that is
Sensible and can make sense is that if you keep silent and you keep that experience to yourself that’s why when we are reading Persian poetry or Sufi poetry in general they always end with the silence they say I SP enough this was just enough of me my objective
Reality to you the rest is up to you but this is inside the tradition and the reasons that they give to keep silent but there is a more broader reason for keeping silent and that is persecution for heresy this is something that we are all so familiar and it was the norm
Until about 100 years ago that if you say weird things that are not Orthodox or they go against the Norms of the society you will be persecuted and punished in the most horrible way we have it the Inquisition in Europe and all of the uh history that you are aware
Of and in Sufi practice specifically we have the character of Mansura Hal Lodge which has become the symbol of the act of uttering something that you should not have said and he was executed what he said was an I am the truth I am God I am God and that concept okay it’s
Something else I’m not going to get into it that much but he was persecuted and of course he was tortured and beheaded and all of that and through all of that process he he continued saying I am God because he said I believe it to be true
And I am going to be reunited with my beloved so get on with it do it faster please out of these reasons for heresy they even though all of these things are happening and they’re trying to communicate these teachings and understandings that they had in their
Traditions they come up with a way of communicating and preserving this knowledge and that is symbolic representation and it is spans around all over the Globe different ways of preserving and communicating these secret teachings in artistic Expressions we have architecture and in in Islam especially because drawing imagery is
Forbidden but in architect architecture is not is allowed and also we have in Western Traditions Freemasons were literal Architects and they would convey their teachings in the buildings that they would create and of course we have literature the most uh thing that we are familiar with and this is a library of
These teachings and we have performance in Sufism we have the verling dervishes the way that they would convey their teachings or let you understand what you what they are experiencing through joining them in this practice and in the western tradition we have ceremonial magic that you perform and finally we have Visual
Arts we have it all around us and in Persian poetry is done in calligraphy which conveys that information as well and one interesting thing about all of these different forms of symbolic representation is that they somehow manifest in alchemy Alchemy has all of these different forms we have
Architecture or sculpture uh they would create Laboratories and devices for their alchemical processes we have literature in which they would talk about what the alchemical process me me in a symbolic way and they had performances the whole process of doing the alchemical process throughout its progression always was believed to be a
Spiritual practice that it elevates your soul through that performative act of actually doing the work and finally we have Visual Arts again all around us the Alchemy being this beautiful combination of having all of these representational Arts as a way to convey way these spiritual or esoteric messages is something that
Is seen in both Islamic traditions of Sufism and also in the western esoteric Traditions before continuing I’m just going to mention a bit about various sides of alchemy that this research could have gone further into but we don’t have time one is the scientific version of what is the history of the
Development of alchemy when it started in Egypt and then went to helenistic Greek and then Islamic world and then Europe and then it turned into chemistry and then it turned into mety and finally yeah it became the science that we know of today and the other version is the Islamic Alchemy which is
The comprehensive understanding of the cosmos which they try to translate the teachings of Islam and combine them with the understandings that they got from the translations of Greek texts of Aristotle and all these other natural philosophers and they created this cosmological understanding of the world in the language of alchemy and that was
The thing that was transferred into Europe and continued as the alchemy that we know in the v esoteric traditions and finally the one that you’re all mostly familiar with is spiritual Alchemy which is the Practical pursuit of Inward and physical transmutation in which the actual Act of trying to transmute copper
Or lead into gold actually transmutes your soul into a Divine Soul or actually heals your body in that practice which is a bit uh proven to be not true in the history of alchemy they were not trying to do that it was something that was added to Alchemy around in the 17th
Century and more toward the 20th century which leads to psychological Alchemy which is the symbolic quiz for spiritual enlightenment which was something that was was kind of kind of hypothesized by psychologists like eliad and also Yung who said this alchemical process that they were trying to do is actually a way
Of elevating their souls which of course was not true they were looking from a mythological and symbolic perspective into the world into the into these works but these are things that other people have worked a lot on and this uh presentation is not going to get into
What we’re going to get into is alchemy as allegory we are just going to see what these artists who were not Alchemists themselves but they used the jargon and the symbology and the imagery of alchemy to convey their messages here we have the basically the starting point
Of alchemy which is Emerald Tablet of hermus magistus and this is my own translation the above is from the below and the below is from the above wondrous work is from a single thing in the same way that all things are from a single Arrangement this little sentence has inspired Alchemists and
Esoterista and spiritualists all throughout the ages for about a thousand years and we still don’t know what it means but it has inspired us to create all of these different things and I think at least 20% of the pictures in this room have elements from these words in them so
When we’re going to talk about alchemy as allegory tonight I’m going to focus on two works the chemical wedding of Christian roen Cs and the MAV manavi or spiritual versus of roomi these two are kind of examples of the western esoteric traditions and the midle Eastern or Islamic esoteric Traditions are going to
Show how these two different practices used allegorical storytelling and alchemical imagery to talk about their practices and their ideas and their beliefs and of course I chose the chemical wedding of Christian Rosen CS because of the whole theme of the night and I’m just going to go really fast
Through the whole thing about the chemical wedding I assume that most of you know what it is but I’m just going to bear with me please just a quick historic run through of who were the rosie crucian a reformist movement that started at the beginning of the 17th
Century by the publication of these three manifestos F fattis confio fattis and the chemical wedding of Christian Rosen CS f means Fame of the fraternity but Peter fora today taught me that rumor is a better word because nobody knew about them and then they just came around so I’m going
To use that and basically these three manifestos were calling on a reform of society in religious sense in political sense in physical sense in all the different senses that was believed to be possible and they published these discret manifestos in order to talk about what kind of Reform they believe
Is right for society and they kind of created this vision of of having this Brotherhood that is hidden and you can join to understand their wisdom as well in the F they talk about the history of their fraternity which was created by Christian Rosen croz who was believed to
Not have existed and it was a fabrication of the creators of these manifestos and how he traveled the world learned all the knowledge of that time and then created this fraternity with hopes of bringing wisdom and and healing to all and in the confessions they talk
About what is their goal what is their ideologies basically what is it that they want to convey they talked about the the the importance of protestant ideologies they talk about the importance of alchemy they talk about the importance of healing the poor and Healing The Sick and helping the poor
And not being that Earthly oriented and finally we have the chemical wedding which is completely different from these two and I will get to it in a bit but before that we have to talk about who were the people who wrote these texts and all three texts were written by Johan Valentine Andre
And it tells a lot about what the retions were actually trying to convey if we look at his life and what influenced him that’s what the study of esotericism does he was a member of the Protestant utopian movement his father was an Alchemist his grandfather was among Martin Luther’s original
Supporters and he himself was a pastor most of his life and all of them combined show that he had a lot of protestant reformist utopian Lutheran ideologies and he had a great knowledge of alchemy and the language and the jargon and the symbology of alchemy and
He used all of this knowledge to create the manifestos and the chemical wedding in order to convey his vision of the right Society or utopian society of course years later he denounced all of that and he said it was not okay I didn’t like that they were not fun but
The influence of this work persists to this day and we are experiencing that and the influence and the inspiration that these texts brought out has created all of these different branches and different orders and the tradition of Rosen CS or that idea of Christian Rosen CS as a figure of combining the wisdoms
From the world persists and lives lives on today so now let’s get into the chemical wedding this is the hardest part of the evening for me because this text is such a huge thing to read and to understand it might take years and not much work has been done on it unfortunately
Basically it is an allegorical tale about Christian Rosen croz at as his olden days and one night he is in his Chambers and he is met or he is visited by this Angel who invites him to the wedding of the king and queen and he goes on this journey into the castle of
The king a lot of things happen there there are a lot of Trials there are a lot of different characters that he meets it’s filled with with riddles and allegorical imagery and play Within play and finally after all of that the whole wedding becomes an alchemical process in
And of itself where the bride and the groom are created through that alchemical process and then finally the marriage happens and everybody goes home except Christian Rosen cro because he becomes the gatekeeper of that castle because of the profane act that he did and I’m not going to spoil that
So this whole book has been a topic of debate over the years of what it means and what it tries to convey we’ve had different approaches that people had there were some people who tried to look at it actually alchemically and do the things that the
Book is trying to say there are people who look at it at as an allegory of the spiritual practice but in all probability we will never actually understand what is going on unless you do the work that the rosie crucians were trying for you to do but the main thing
That I’m going to focus on here is the use of alchemy different birds different animals The Lion The all of that in conveying the mysteries of the rosan rosic crucian and this allegorical Tale in out of itself I argue myself that was the influence of Rosicrucianism that was
Created later as a spiritual practice that developed the the secrecy and the symbolic imagery of this text influence people to project their understandings onto it and create meaning and practices and understandings out of it so now the hard part is done I’m happy now we go to the part that you all
Came here for Alchemy in suf m in Sufism it’s a bit different than what we see here or what we experience in the western traditions in Sufism they use alchemy in a really really really really simple way they just use the concept of copper turning into gold with the help of the
Philosopher stone and they actually called this philosopher stone kemia the Alchemy The Elixir that came out was called chemia and this was something that the sufis were really good at they would just take some random thing from society and turn it into a spiritual saying they would do
This with everything when I’m talking about masnavi a bit further I will give you another example that is bit weird but in general sufis in their poetic expression of the experiences that they were having they would use all these different jargons they would use the jargon of of philosophy they would use
The jargon of different languages they would use Sports they would use chess they would use playing cards all of these things to convey the spiritual practices that they were doing and actually the better you were at it the more famous poet you would have become
And here I have a line from s Shiri which actually shows the entirety of the use of alchemy in Sufi poetry guyan they ask who turned your ruby red cheeks pis or yellow the elixir of Love devoured my copper and I became gold I might add to this that having red cheeks
Means that you’re eating well you’re healthy everything is good but if you have yellow face it means that you’re not healthy you’re sick you’re not eating well and they believed as you know of Sufi they were Aesthetics and they belied that if you are healthy and good and everything is fine you are
Attached to the Earth and you are not ready to be one with God and transcend to Beyond so if you were poor and if you were thin and if you were dying it was a good sign and and they changed this imagery into the copper of your face the copper which
Is red is going to become yellow because of the pain and the suffering that you do on the path so that it becomes gold and you ready to be with God and this is the General Vision of how sufis would use alchemy but I’m going to go a bit specific and talk
About a certain aspect that roomi does in his work and the way that he uses Alchemy which can be a beautiful way to explain what Sufism is trying to do so before that I’m just going to quickly say who roomi was Jalin Muhammad Bal known as roomi is the most renowned
Persian Sufi Mystic and poet and one of the biggest figures in Islamic mysticism and also everywhere everybody knows roomi I love that he was born in B now day Afghanistan and because of the invasion of the Mongols he migrated with his family to Kunia nowaday turkey and there he had all of these
Different experiences and became one of the greatest Sufi poets and he created the Mev Sufi order which persists to this day his teachings has influenced Sufism forever and he has created this huge body of work that still not much work on it has been done but I’m going
To talk a little about his version of Sufism because Sufism is such a vast concept we have Sufism of the Indian Sufism of Iran Sufism of West Iran East Iran Sufism of Iraq and then we have this African Sufism and of course we have the Western Sufism that is
Happening right now and they are all different but roomies is based on these three concepts that a Sufi must uphold in order to become one with God we have Sharia or Islamic law we have which is this Sufi wayfaring means to keep going and keep going to the path and then which means
The truth Shar is the Islamic law and it’s a yeah it’s a scary word and as an Iranian we haven’t had much fun with Sharia but it talks about the basic of Islam and when sufis are talking about Sharia means that they are not someone
Who is trying to get a away from the heterodox Islam they are doing everything that a normal Muslim does they just want to do something a bit extra and that is the Sufi V fairy which means walking the path of loving God until you become one with God and
Everything happens between this which is really difficult and that’s exactly the esoteric part of Sufism because you don’t know what happens the main thing that you know what happens is you have a teacher and the teacher tells you what to do but to give you some idea the basically basically what
The idea of T is to annihilate and kill your ego to not have a NS or a self to be nobody and the way that it happens is someone did it and that someone is actually the prophet Muhammad but it’s debatable who actually started it but somebody annihilated their ego and when
You annihilate your ego you see the ego of people so easily you understand what is it about them you see it in their clothes the way that they put makeup what is it about them that makes them them and a Sufi Master would look at you
And be like okay you have to cut your hair and you have to change your pants and you have to cut away your ties with your family and you have to kill your children and you have to not that intense no sorry but you get the idea he
Was so tense the Sufi master that you had to the only way that you could accept him and do what he says was because you loved him and the moment that you would choose to do what the Sufi Master says and do the thing that goes against your ego your ego would go
Away and then you would see the the or the truth and that would connect your soul with the Sufi Master a bit more and then you would be wow this was amazing I want to do it again and this time says now you have to do something even worse
Even more difficult and kill a bigger part of your ego and you would be like are you kidding me this is so hard that’s why it was a wayf fairing because it’s a path and you keep going and you keep going until you actually die so I explained it but now I’m going
To try to explain it the way that roomi did in spiritual verses spiritual versus is this massive beautiful book written by roomi it’s actually six books you can see them I’ve been trying to read it it’s been four years wish me luck I will finish it in two more years and the way
That it structured is really close to the Quran or the Bible or the Torah it’s story after story after story after Story and these stories are all filled with these allegorical themes and all of the teachings of roomi is inside these stories and and this book is actually
Designed or he wrote it in a way that if you read it from start to the end you’re actually traversing the and if you listen to the things that he’s saying and you take him as a shh you will go from to to and it’s exemplified in this verse
As from the Stations of abstinence to Annihilation step by step till God’s Embrace be the culmination it’s a really difficult book to explain but thankfully Professor Alan Williams made this beautiful chart to talk about the framework of room’s principal voices of how roomi talks in the spiritual verses
Masnavi manavi to kind of grab a hold of your soul and wh it around inside this path over and over and over again and the way that it works is something like this first you have roomi as an authorial figure talk says hi hello I’m roomy I’m going to tell you the story
And the story is going to be really good for you so listen to me and then he starts telling a story like some random story about some random thing and it’s not that important but sometimes it’s really important it’s a story from the Bible or story from the Quran or story
From the Hadith of uh the prophet and then after that there are some people inside the story who are talking as well so we have the dialogue phase of the story where different characters of the story are talking and so far you can see there are different voices talking in
This story in this storytelling and you are reading this story and you’re seeing yourself as all these different characters you see yourself as roomy you see yourself as the Storyteller and you see yourself as a different uh characters and inside that he also gives more analogies about what he’s talking
About he just puts the story on hold and talks about this is also reminding me of this other thing and now you have to understand what that other thing is but they’re all about the same thing and when you are so inside the story he brings about the moral questionings of
What this story is trying to say he tells you this is why you should do this and that and that is why you should be doing that and through the moral teachings comes about the spiritual teachings and he says so if you do this like this character in this story and
This other version that it can be you will be able to reach or the truth and he talks about the spiritual essence of what it means to see the truth what it means to be the gold what it means to reach God and then when he reaches that state when he’s
Talking about that he stops himself and he goes hush I shouldn’t say more about this let’s go back to the story and he continues The Narrative again from another narrative and another narrative and it takes you in this warpool of story after Story allegory after allegory where you’re trying to figure
Out what it’s talking about and what he’s trying to say and through this symbolic interpretation of your soul and your life and the stories you Traverse the path from sh to and finally in now to finish I am going to read the part in spiritual verses that actually
Inspired me to to create this um this presentation and it is actually not the Poetry of M it’s actually the introduction to book five it’s in Pros uh the introduction he talks about it in pros and it’s really a raw use of alchemy and how he uses Alchemy to convey what he’s talking
About and based on everything that I have said tonight I hope you can follow along and I don’t need to explain much more and we can just read this is the fifth book of the poem in rhymed couplets and the spiritual Exposition setting forth that the religious law is like a candle showing
The way unless you gain positions of the candle there is no wayfaring and when you have come unto the way your wayfaring is the path and when you have reached the Journey’s End that is the truth hence it has been said if the truths were manif the religious law would be
Not so what he’s saying the first step in Sufism is that you learn what Islam is saying that you pray five times a day that you fast during Ramadan that you do all these things that would be the candle that shows you the way the same is with esoteric practices in the west
Where Christianity was the main thing and the love of Christ becomes the main thing that they’re all trying to reach and what happens later is something that goes into the esoteric sense this is also what roomi is saying the candle is the religious law and unless you have a
Candle there is no wafering you cannot get on the path and then when you are on the path and you reach the end of the journey which is the truth you don’t need the religious law anymore which was super controversial but that’s for another day as for example when copper becomes gold
Or was gold originally it does not need the Alchemy which is the law nor need it drop itself upon the Elixir which is the path for as has been said it is unseemly to demand a guide after arrival at the goal and blame worthy to discard the
Guide before arrival at the goal in short the the law is like learning the theory of alchemy from a teacher or a book and the path is making use of chemicals and rubbing the copper upon the Elixir and the truth is the transmutation of the copper into
Gold so he here starts to use alchemy to talk about what he means he says Alchemy is the Sharia is the thing that is going to help you along the way and you are the co who wants to become gold but after the copper is turned to gold
Or if it was gold from the beginning it doesn’t need the Alchemy anymore so if you try to learn an Alchemy sorry if you try to learn Alchemy you are trying to learn how to reach the truth but if you reach the truth you don’t need to learn Alchemy
Anymore those who know Alchemy rejoice in in their knowledge of it saying we know the theory of this science and those who practice it rejoice in the practice of it saying we perform wondrous works and those who have experienced the truth rejoice in the truth saying we have become gold and are
Delivered from the theory and practice of alchemy we are God’s freed men each part party is rejoicing in what they have so here you see it goes back to the fact that still none of them will know the truth the only person who knows the truth is the person who’s dead even if
You reach truth if you reach you are still part of this Earthly realm and that’s again another part of the story but what happens here what he tries to show in this verse is that this book is going to show you the alchemical process of before finish I want to say something which
Uh is a bit controversial not controversial I don’t know what to call it um although I have been using the methodology of esotericism to bring about this lecture the experiences that I’ve been having with reading these texts have been quite different and I think that is the most important thing
That is kind of neglected in esoteric practice and also Academia which is what does reading these alchemical books do to you to each of us I’ve had crazy experiences reading the chemical wedding I’ve had crazy experiences reading through me every day every moment of it and the experiences that I’ve had with
My body can never be used in scholarship of understanding what these practices are trying to do and that is what I want to bring to the table as an artist as a researcher and as a chologist and that is the need for a practitioner scholarship research establishing a
Conceptual groundwork on how to bridge the gap between practitioner and scholarship in a methodologically sound manner for the co-production of knowledge in the study of esotericism what we practitioners experience can be turned into sound usable data for scholarships to understand how these practices work we can use the texts that were written
Thousands of years ago or hundreds of years ago but they would still what we can do with that knowledge could only be the knowers the teachers of alchemy but if you want to understand what the alchemical process does we have to be able to transcribe the the practice of
Alchemy of magic of astrology and of Sufism and with them combining them together we might at some point reach truth or thank you very much
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