The Christ Centred Cosmic Civilisation

Episode 67 - The Alchemist's Quest: Divine Elements, Spiritual Purity, and the Ultimate Transformation

• Paul

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Imagine unlocking the secrets of the universe through the mystical practice of alchemy! Today, we take you on a captivating journey back to the 16th century, where alchemy was not just a pursuit of transforming lead into gold but a quest for divine understanding. From Queen Elizabeth I's trust in John Dee to the patronage of the Holy Roman Emperors in Prague, we uncover the royal fascination with this ancient art. We promise to reveal how alchemy sought to decode the mysteries of creation and its profound spiritual dimensions, including the sevenfold spirit and the divine trinity mirrored in salt, sulfur, and mercury.

What if the key to ultimate wisdom lay in a mystical fifth element? We'll unravel the age-old debate between Aristotle's and Bardaisan's views on the universe's fundamental substances and introduce you to the intriguing concept of quintessence. This isn't just dry theory; we connect it to C.S. Lewis's idea of magic as sophisticated constructs yielding wondrous outcomes, much like Christian sacraments that turn bread and wine into divine encounters. And don't miss our exploration of the magi's 'proper magic' versus harmful practices, emphasizing the profound and sometimes perilous nature of alchemical quests.

Finally, we delve into the spiritual purification required to create the fabled philosopher's stone. The pursuit of this ultimate alchemical achievement ties deeply into Christian faith, drawing parallels with biblical figures like Enoch and Elijah who sought divine alignment and immortality. Through alchemical symbolism in biblical stories, we highlight the necessity of inner purity for achieving outer perfection or even immortality. In our grand metaphor, alchemy represents the transformative journey of Christian redemption, moving from the old self to a new creation through Christ—the ultimate divine alchemist. Join us for an episode that blends history, spirituality, and mystical symbolism into a fascinating narrative.

The theme music is "Wager with Angels" by Nathan Moore

Speaker 1:

Well, welcome to the next episode of the Christ-centered cosmic civilization. And we're thinking about alchemy, still on our way to getting to chemistry. It's interesting, before we plunge into the subject again, a little bit more of the history. A little bit more of the history. It's interesting that Queen Elizabeth I of England she lived from 1533 to 1603. She gave there was a guy called John Dee and she gave him a license to perform alchemy. So in the 16th century, in the time of when you've got sort of the protestant reformation happening around in europe, there is um like out, this alchemical uh, view of the universe is controversial in the sense that some would want some start, were opposing it. But it's interesting. Like elizabeth the first licensed at least one alchemist and then Prague was considered to be the kind of metropolis of alchemy at that time in the 16th century. And the two consecutive emperors, maximilian II, who lived from 1564 to or his emperor anyway 1564 to 76. And then Rudolf II, who's his immediate successor, who's the emperor from 1576 to 1612. Both of them hosted alchemists and tried to gather them together in Prague because they were the emperors of the Holy Roman Empire, and so right at the heart of the Holy Roman Empire at that time, you've got this kind of desire to sponsor alchemy, this alchemical, to sponsor alchemy, this alchemical, because we, like a modern person, would go. Why would they be bothering with a ludicrous view of the universe, didn't they want science? But remember that they do want that, they do want a true understanding of the universe and therefore they wanted to pull together they. They were pulling the alchemist together because they wanted to know what is the universe really like and how can we progress in science and technology. Uh, it's all part of a desire for that, that that was happening. Um, so that's that. That's interesting. We won't I've done too much history in some ways, and there's been complaints about it too much history of alchemy, but I find it fascinating. Let me go. Well, let's, let's push. Uh, we can. We can probably um have pj, probably have PJ for one more episode now, because his voice is giving out a little bit.

Speaker 1:

But let's get into the business of alchemy now. What it was for, what could be done with it, why there was this obsession of turning lead to gold. People. If they know about alchemy, they know that. Oh, why did they want to turn? Is it just because they wanted to make money? Um, before you answer that because that's that's to me, some of the most important and fascinating of all let's just we've thought quite a lot about the salt, sulfur, mercury, heavenly but there's also these four others that you've mentioned Fire, water, light and air. First of all, let's just talk to us about how come there are three heavenly, four earthly, seven in total. These numbers feel like they've got biblical significance. What do you want to tell us about that?

Speaker 2:

well, absolutely, you've got um. So I mean the spirit is sevenfold, and then so, like the prophets talk about the sevenfold nature of the spirit. But then you also think you see it when Moses represents a spirit with the candlestick that is sevenfold and then has seven lamps that get created later, that the spirit uses. So that's quite an interesting thing that the lampstand uses like a created thing. So we think the furniture and we've talked about this a bit before when we've talked about the archangels, but it's worth mentioning again just because it's like the spirit particularly likes using creation, using creatures as well, um, for whatever reason. But then, like right at the start of um, the spirits, kind of how the spirit likes to flow the spirit out, we see these seven lamps and we've thought before how they are the seven holy archangels represented.

Speaker 2:

Philo says this, but we see it as well in revelation. You know, the Jesus says the seven angels are the seven lamps, you know, and so we, we see that that. So the spirit is tied to creation in quite a deep way, almost as if the spirit doesn't manifest apart from creatures and creation in some way. Obviously we see times that rules broken you know the baptism and so on. But where the spirit's physical body is seen, it's the. The language luke uses is quite incredible. Um, but the. So, even though spirit does have a body and you know it never uses it, the spirit, like, always, uses creation for some reason. So there is an idea that the sevenfoldness of the spirit then we should expect to see in creation in some way.

Speaker 1:

So that that's quite a key thing yeah, the spirit is like in the tabernacle, the seventh brand, seven branches, that the spirit, that is, if the spirit hovering over creation at the very beginning gives life to all things, this sevenfoldness has a deep connection to the very structure of the universe. And thinking then that if there are these three heavenly elements, heavenly elements, the salt, sulfur, mercury, or, as a modern physicist or al or might say, bosons, quarks and leptons, leptons they might say, but we know like, ultimately in the heaven, right at the center of the highest heaven, there are the three, the three, the father, son and spirit. So, if you want, the really sort of fundamental explanation for the heavens and the earth is found in the three, the father, son and spirit. And then, in this view of the universe, view of the universe, there's this, another three, there's like a, an echo of a three, that um, the salt, the salt, sulfur, mercury, or whatever, the idea of mass um mass motion mass motion and energy.

Speaker 1:

That's it mass motion, motion and energy all of. But I find it fascinating that there's the divine throne, there's the throne on which the Father, son and Spirit are there, manifested in Revelation the Father and the Son, and there's that Spirit manifested in a sevenfold way, but there's the three spirit manifested in a sevenfold way, and so on. But there's the three, but immediately around them are these four living creatures. And the four living creatures occur in the book of Daniel. Ezekiel is my favourite kind of account and presentation of the four living creatures, each of whom has four faces, four living creatures with four faces. So you've got the three at the very centre of reality, surrounded by four living creatures, each of whom has four faces. So the number four seems to be immediately around the three, right, the three who are the Father, son and Spirit, the four living creatures that have these four faces. And the four faces are like human lion, eagle and ox or cherub, yeah, and that's kind of representing the earth and its creatures and so on. But that's interesting, isn't it?

Speaker 1:

In the Bible there's the three and then the four, and in this sort of alchemical view of the universe, there are the three heavenly substances and then there's four, and the four are fire, water, light and air. Now sometimes people think about elements, and they'll sometimes think of the elements as earth, water and fire, but in that one light is earth. What's going on there? What would you say about that? So let's think about it at the end. You're saying that in the classic alchemical view, it's fire, water, light and uh. But sometimes when people think about these elements, they'll go fire, water, earth and uh. But earth and light seem to be interchangeable in these different ways of thinking about the earthly elements or substances. Why is that?

Speaker 2:

Who's behind that. Bar Dyson is the one who gives us the Ah.

Speaker 1:

Bar Dyson it's him again.

Speaker 2:

We do love him.

Speaker 1:

Yeah, and just to help us. Doesn't he live in Edessa, is it? Yeah, Where's?

Speaker 2:

Edessa. Edessa today is in Turkey. Historically, it was considered to be a part of either arabia or syria, and it was ruled over by the arab abgarian kings abgar.

Speaker 1:

Okay, look, we're gonna have to do a full episode of this. So we're thinking about that area of syria really, uh, so if, for a modern in the modern world today, you'd be thinking of syria, yeah right, that's enough. Don't start on bardation, because it's so huge, but it's. But just what does bardation say then? Why is light and earth interchangeable for bardation?

Speaker 2:

so he, he says in the bible, the heaviest thing. So when people talk about earth as an element, they say, oh, it's like heaviness, it's stuff that wants to go. Like you know, they say the heaviest stuff. This is something Aristotle says heaviest stuff is the stuff that wants to go down. So the earth beneath your feet is the heavy stuff, whereas Badaism says no, when you read the Bible, the heaviest stuff is above you, not below you. So the light that we see in all the heavens and everything that is heavy. And so he gives that argument from Scripture and few other sort of people take it up and everything but alchemists know it.

Speaker 1:

Yeah, and that is true, isn't it? Because in the Bible, glory is the light shining. The light, yeah, is light pouring out. So Jesus, in the transfiguration, where they see his glory and they see all this light pouring out. The word the Hebrew word people often know this kabod means weightiness, the heaviness of glory. I think CS Lewis wrote a book called the weight of glory, because glory and light in the bible is, is, is the heaviest thing and that they like the universe as a whole. Its heaviness comes from its light, like and then the bible.

Speaker 2:

When it talks about like grass and dust and stuff like that, it's not as like permanent stuff at all. The Bible talks about the earth as something very passing.

Speaker 1:

Yeah, that's true. Oh no, the earth is very heavy and substantial. The Bible's like, no, it isn't. It's incredibly insubstantial and flimsy and has no solidity, and even mountains shift and move when the divine glory is manifested because, wait, the divine light is so heavy. It just like brushes aside things as flimsy as rocks and kind of what we would say is earth and, as you say, like literally dust, just like blows away in the wind, and the Bible says that this stuff just blows away in the wind, and the bible says that this stuff just blows away in the wind, whereas light can't be blown away or something. It's this heavy thing and just isn't that interesting.

Speaker 1:

The upside downness of the universe. Aristotle with his like we've really, we're really not happy at all with him always trying to simplify that things down to just some one spherical substance kind of thing. But he's always like, yeah, the heaviest, most substantial stuff is downwards and we would shudder. We're like, oh dude, like down is bad, like the underworld of hell and stuff. It's as if he's yearning to go down into hell, whereas, like, of course, bardishan's like whoa, no, honestly, like, flip all that around, you're, you're totally heading in the wrong direction.

Speaker 1:

What is weighty and substantial, is heavenly and the highest heaven is like, is extremely weighty because it's full of light, so, so, brilliant. So fire, water, light, and let's change our understanding of light as not something insubstantial, but something that is heavy, weighty, something that arises because it's heavy and we're like what? Yeah, yeah, it's a totally different way of thinking, brilliant. So those are the seven substances a three and a four. Heavenly, divine, earthly three and four. Now, what's this thing about a fifth element? What's that? Because there was a film made about trying to find a fifth element. Do alchemists want to find a fifth element? And what is that? What is that word? Quintessence? Tell us about that.

Speaker 2:

So there is something that people kind of notice that when you put these fundamental things together, there seems to be stuff more than the sum of the parts, in a way. And so then it's like, well, there's a reality to these things, there's a complex construct, will do more than just the small things will. How do we explain that? How do we describe the moreness of complexity? Um, and that that is basically quintessence, that there is like a, something constructed and it's also seen as magic, um.

Speaker 2:

Cs lewis understood magic to be, uh, like larger structures doing things that couldn't be understood simply from the simpler parts, so that when you put together two things you know you've got. It would be like if you mix, like water and oil, and if you could mix it together now it just like it does nuclear explosions or something like neither other one could. Um, that's kind of like what magic is um? And so there's a sense in which the universe is supposed to constantly be doing more than the sum of its parts and like god's wanting us to, and the way god has set things up and he, you know, promised that he's given us, like the seven sacraments where, like he promises, all right, you do this something more than the sum of its parts will happen, like marriage, and everyone knows. In marriage, you know, even non-christians can do that and they know there's more than just chemicals going off. There's more than you know. Marriage is more than that. But the other sacraments are like that as well, and so he's given us those promises.

Speaker 1:

It's like kind of in cs lewis's words you know like magic will happen yeah, and we even even just not wanting to distract too much, but when we think about a sacramental view of reality, we will say, if we combine like flour and water and things like this to make bread, and we combine the like grape juice and go put them through a process and things like that and we end up with bread and wine and then handle them in a particular way, he's like saying, oh, we end up with bread and wine and then handle them in a particular way.

Speaker 1:

He's like saying, oh, yeah, something really incredible. I will encounter you and you will feast upon me and participate in the divine nature, participate in the very body and blood of Christ, and all of that way of thinking that physical things have a kind of capacity for ultimate reality, even in the form of sacraments, as we're talking, christians have this kind of like. He's educating us almost Whenever we take Holy Communion, for example, we're being educated that physical things, if used correctly, directly have and in his way and in his blessing, have this capacity to convey infinitely more, infinitely more than we ever realise. And that he's saying well, I want you to have a kind of sacramental view of reality itself that if things are combined and used rightly. There's a massive capacity to share in his life and enjoy this adventure with him in the universe.

Speaker 2:

And we've thought as well, because, like the Bible does you know, we think about the magi. So they do magic in a very good way, and they look at the stars moving and they don't just see balls of gas, they see them combining and a new one appearing, and all of this in such a way that means something new than just the sum of its parts. And because they believe in magic, and and in a proper way, because the archmage daniel had taught them proper magic, it brings them to christ. But of course there are, you know, and we've thought about in our very first one in this series we were doing they're kind of like wrong sorts of magic.

Speaker 2:

And then how, again, like the bible talks about, like you know, drugs and when you use them you could do necromancy and all those evil magics, and and then we think, no, it's just a chemical that just does this. And you know, we could just explain it that way. But I was like you, you say that to yourself and everything, but in fact this is what you can do with it, like it doesn't make sense, with just the sense of its part. There is like a fifth element, right beyond just chemicals, beyond just, you know, these parts of your brains linking up and everything.

Speaker 1:

So what the idea is. The fifth element, then, in this sense, is, is this desire to combine fire, water, light and air, combine those two. There is a way of combining them together such that you end up with this fifth thing that is a perfect combination of the four, and that, that thing, that fifth element, the perfectly combined, uh, grouping or mixing or harmonization of the four, that fifth element is almost like that is what the new creation will be. It's like, say, if all the earthly things can be woven together in a perfect way, that word quintessence, it's like that is perfection. It's the quest for perfection and to bind together what we have in such a way that it's perfect. And that the idea because the concept of the fifth element really is to that the earthly things become all that they can be. It's this idea that if you have this fifth element, you can have immortality, like the philosopher's stone is, is the fifth element a perfectly combined, although that tends to be the heavenly elements.

Speaker 1:

The philosophers Actually just tell us about the philosopher's stone because, people, when I was reading lots of alchemical text, this desire to produce, sometimes it's called the precious stone, sometimes it's called the stone that is not a stone but it's come to be understood as the philosopher's stone, or really the stone that is the embodiment of wisdom. Like I came across a great quote that says alchemy is the finding of wisdom. That says alchemy is the finding of wisdom. That's what. There's a great quotation from one of the books that just said alchemy is the philosophy, the finding of wisdom.

Speaker 1:

So this idea of the philosopher's stone, it's like it's a stone that embodies wisdom and wisdom. There is how to use, like the difference between wisdom and knowledge. Like knowledge is mere information, wisdom is what to do with that kind of idea, so that the alchemist is, after that, not mere and not a mere description of here's the structure of reality, but it's rather now what can we do with it? And the idea of the philosopher's stone and isaac newton wanted one and he was working at them is to, is to have something that is this perfect what is the philosopher's stone?

Speaker 2:

so one of the key things it does, as we were talking before um about, like the earthly elements and the heavenly principles. So one of the things that the earthly elements need, like the earthly elements need heavenly principles in them to make them do anything. So, as we thought about, uh, you know, like their the ancient conception of it and our modern conception, without those fundamental particles you can't like move, you can't have mass, you can't have any release of energy, and so, like, you can only do anything. So that's what we're thinking Like when we get earthly things to do what they're supposed to do, they can only do anything if they have that spirit. You know, when you put it together, it's spirit. So you can't just have dead things and just keep working at dead things till it becomes a perfect dead thing. It won't be able to do anything, it won't be any good.

Speaker 2:

And so one of the interesting rules about the philosopher's stone is, in order to make one, you need a pure Christian heart, because there's a sense in which your spirit is sick, it's out of alignment. You know you don't have have, you know, the perfect combination of stuff or whatever, and jesus cures that. But if you were to think, oh, I'll just try and perfect my earthly elements while you have spirit sickness. So you would be then conforming your earthly elements to something that's sick, so it will just get sick all over again. So it's a very key thing, like the one of the first thing rules that you've got to have a pure christian heart to begin with, or else you're not going to make it so your like inner life must be pure and then you can then purify your outer life.

Speaker 1:

But if you're merely trying to get immortality on the outer life but your inner life or your unseen life is unaligned, chaotic and so not Christ-like, it's a futile cause. And I did come across that in quite a few of the ancient and medieval alchemical tests where some of them don't even try for immortality. I noticed that in the Indian alchemical test they're saying it's futile, you cannot arrive at it, because there's the idea that the it's almost like they can't imagine. One commentator said we cannot imagine so correcting everything. So they said the best we can hope for is to just alleviate diseases, but you can't arrive at immortality.

Speaker 2:

Because I guess the idea was there is no way to fix the inner and and the outer and loads of uh, christian alchemists like zosimus and so on, say that hermes, uh, the kind of human hermes was, um, uh, what was enoch, you know? And that enoch because enoch's all often considered to be the kind of human Hermes was Enoch.

Speaker 1:

Enoch, because Enoch's often considered to be an alchemical thing. Yes, right, enoch.

Speaker 2:

Okay, brilliant, go on. So then there is that, and obviously he's a very Christ-like guy, and that's why the confusion happens. The same way people got confused about Paul, but there's that idea. And so when he has antediluvian knowledge, really it has to be through Enoch or Noah that you get this and so he does attain earthly or physical immortality, but he does so having first walked with Christ all his life.

Speaker 1:

Ah, so he walks with God and attains the inner harmony, perfection, fully Christ-like, and then he is also then able, or God allows him, to transmute his outer flesh, and so he becomes like a glorified man and is therefore taken up into the heavenly realms, as is Elijah, elijah's, another one who is allowed to do such a thing. So then, in the Elijah story, because he goes through this process of purification in his own life, with fire and so on, and those, the elements, when he goes to Horeb, and there's the, the air and fire and all these things, that's an alchemical process almost. But whatever is the case there, elijah then is also absorbed up. So Enoch is and it's, he's transmuted into a heavenly form and he become.

Speaker 1:

And then, is it not also because in Enoch there's a lot about angels being transmuted, like joining with earthly women and producing these kind of heroic, giant heroic, not in a good way, but these giant offspring, and that again is a kind of alchemical idea, because that comes up in al good way but in a bad? But these giant offspring, and that again is a kind of alchemical idea because that comes up in alchemical texts, this idea of the Nephilim and these giant people who are a combination of angelic and human and produce this wondrous other thing, and it's not a good thing, but it is an example of a transmutation, yeah, yeah and also of the chaos that they embrace.

Speaker 2:

Yes, go on. Yeah, they abandon their station and uh. So we thought as well before about angels marrying and everything. Uh, because we thought about tolkien's theory that there are, you know, the archangels might be happily married with lots of kids and so on, but they abandon their stations to have earthly women. So they do mix together. It is this Levitical thing we see as well, isn't it, where the chaos before creation is just everything all jumbled up together and they're re-jumbling things in a key way.

Speaker 2:

And there's a bit in Enoch, and it's also in Jubilees, where, like, um, god kind of doesn't quite know what to do with the spirits of Nephilim, because it's like he's made a prison for the uh spirits that abandon their stations and then he's made this other prison for human spirits, and so he's like, well, what do I do with nephesh spirits? Because they don't fit in either group, and so he allows them to become evil spirits that will tempt people to bring out this sin for the sake of salvation. So he gives them that. And one thing I quite like about it is God leaning towards salvation as his go-to, god leaning towards salvation as his go-to. So he's like, oh, we can find a way that these people can be saved and help other people be saved. We'll use that solution instead. That's always how he likes doing things.

Speaker 1:

And that means that in the Gospels there are things like unclean spirits that's not demons, but this category of the spirits of the yeah okay, I've heard I've heard people saying that, that the unclean spirits in the gospels are the nephilim spirits that are are roaming around doing uh mischief yeah yeah, but then specifically for that purpose, so that people don't hide sins in their heart.

Speaker 2:

They will bring it out. And then, if they bring it out, jesus can deal with it, right?

Speaker 1:

So they kind of force people to manifest the rottenness that's inside them. So then it can be confronted. Yeah, wow, that's a thought. Now then, as we come to the end of this period, let I want to, let's do the lead to gold business. Why do alchemists want to turn lead to gold? What's that about? Because they're both similar weights. They seem heavy and they're not that different to each other in one sense, but they're totally different in another. What's going on?

Speaker 2:

so we see gold all throughout heaven, so, like as we thought about bardaishan. So when he was trying to understand the nature of things, he looks to the bible first, so he doesn't assume, like some of the ancient greeks do, that earth is the weighty thing. He's like no, it has to be light, because the bible says so. And then we see gold. This heaviest substance, or one of the heaviest, is up there in heaven and that that's key to his argument, that it's like yeah, the super heavy thing is everywhere in heaven, quite rare to find down here. So it's a heavenly substance.

Speaker 2:

It exists in a realm in which high laster does um, but, but it is an earthly element, isn't it? Or it's created of earthly elements. Gold it seems to be. Obviously it has some mercury, because it is obviously a metallic thing, but in loads of other ways it does seem to be basically of the same stuff we are, but it's totally happy, and god's totally happy, having lots and lots of gold in heaven. So there's that sense in which it is an example of something that its earthly elements are aligned and it has the inspiration of having a high laster, accordance with high laster.

Speaker 1:

That makes it an acceptable substance in the highest heavens so the idea then is gold is something that is like an earthly thing, that is hugely present in the highest heaven and in in the descriptions like ezekiel and revelation.

Speaker 1:

There's just tons of gold on the streets of paver gold and all of thing. And the idea then is that in our fallen condition, we are like lead, it's like lead is fallen gold, that, in this view of things, so the two things seem to weigh the same and have a similar kind of softness or whatever, like they're not very, very hard metals and things. And they there's, they kind of have a superficial similarity, and yet one is very, is considered base, and the other is considered like noble and heavenly. And the idea then is it's like we have become lead but we were destined to be gold, and so the goal of transforming lead into gold is not so much a way of making money that would be very silly, really, when what's the point of that? It's rather the ability to transform something that is base to something that is heavenly, has a home, a, a heavenly home, and one thing to notice about it it has properties of the three heavenly principles, so it's more mercurial.

Speaker 2:

Like you can mould gold in your hand, isn't it? You see people scrape off bits so easily. So it is more mercurial. It's more like mercury. It's used in computing and so on. So it has this ability that has Electromagnetism. Yeah, yeah, so it is like that. And then obviously it can have this power in it. So it's more like the heavenly substances. It's like so like how the bible says we'll have heavenly bodies. So we'll still have our bodies, but then it will be made heavenly, it. It will be given high laster added into the mix.

Speaker 1:

So it's like gold has the mass motion energy dimensions. Lead is used to seal things and block things, isn't it? You put like, lead can surround radioactive things to prevent light release, whereas gold is more about release. So I think, yeah, as you're saying, like the Philosopher's Stone is the transformation of your body from mortal to immortal is really that's what the lead to gold's about.

Speaker 1:

Lead to gold is just this kind of example to say, if the alchemist knows how to do that, lead to gold. That is a very simple experiment that would indicate that the alchemist could also transform a mortal body to an immortal body. But, most importantly, the purification of the inner spirit lies behind, because you can't do any of those things unless your body, your spirit, is truly redeemed and purified. So the truly redeemed, sanctified person is the person who might who's like enoch and Elijah in the Bible are then able to, are permitted to transmute mortal bodies into immortal bodies, and then a kind of easy to see manifestation of that will be changing lead to gold. It's like the lead to gold is like, ah, yeah, you could do that, is like, ah, yeah, you could do that, but like that is a simple experiment that is really about immortality and redemption and new creation and we're waiting, like, for christ to come.

Speaker 1:

The ultimate alchemist, the true thrice blessed, one who will perform this transmutation on the whole of the heavens and the earth and bring about resurrection, and the whole creation is yearning to be set free from its bondage to decay and be brought into its quintessence, its full alignment, and everything to be properly aligned and all separations to be perfectly done and maintained. Christ, the true and ultimate divine alchemist, the transmuter, transformer, redeemer, resurrecter, new birther, all of that. He can do so as we come to the end of this and we were going to ask, pj's voice is giving out. Is there anything more to say? Or should we save it for our Bardation episode? Yeah, probably.

Speaker 1:

Okay we'll do that and let me leave you. Let's all have this thought, because we might have, in these three episodes, felt what's going on. This is really weird. I've never thought like this before and I don't think any of it's true, and I'm happy with the Aristotelian view of the universe, or or I think modern science is that's enough for me A sort of just flat materialism. And yeah, ok, whatever. If it's too much for you to cope with or it's unhelpful to you, that's fine. But do take from this this point that we've ended with.

Speaker 1:

Why Christians for thousands of years have been interested in this Is this yearning for new creation, new birth, to put off the old humanity and put on the new humanity. Humanity and put on the new humanity, to put to death the deeds of the body, that which tends to death, and to put on the life of Christ to die to sin and live to righteousness, to sanctification, heading, to glorification and immortality and resurrection. That passion, now you have to be into that. If you're a christian, you might say I can't cope with all this alchemy stuff. That's weird or superstitious. You know, it's whatever. If you can't, that's fine. You, you don't have to have that. But what you do have to have is this thing that, or our christian alchemists and that everything were it were really longing for? And that is this transmutation, transformation, redemption. That's what they're after, the redemption of, of of us and the whole creation.