Book: Catechism of Higher Chemistry – By Karl von Eckartshausen

This short work by the German mystic Karl von Eckartshausen is a little known jewel in the crown of the western esoteric tradition. Its cryptic aphorisms help the eternal universal light-laws to enfold within us so that they can be seen and understood first hand. 

The original German version that has been used for this 2021 translation can be found in the back. 

 You can download high quality print version (15mb) for non-commercial use only –> Eckhartshausen-print

Catechism of 

Higher Chemistry

Proving the analogy of the truths of nature

with the truths of faith

By a worshiper of Religion and Nature, whose number is 15.

For all those who are capable of light.

A translation from magical characters.

Heliopolis

—

Translated from German
by Douwe Boschma for V.

2021 –  Free for non commercial use only

Question and Answer

Question: Who are you?

Answer:  I am a man who knows the light and who adheres to it.

Question: Who is such a man?

Answer:  He is a man who after recognising the light, is enlightened by it and fully adheres to it, a man who knows and practices everything what the old, authentic light-community always has known and practiced, whether it is written in the book of light or not.

Question: By which sign can we recognise an adherent of the light?

Answer:  By the fact that he knows the sign of the cross in nature, the great symbol of the dividing force, the force that separates the pure from the impure and the perfect from the imperfect, and by the fact that he avoids all false works and the mistakes that are unanimously rejected by the true masters of the authentic light-community.

Question: How is the follower of the light identified?

Answer:  He is identified by the sign of the great cross of nature (+), by the sign of the great separating force and that he speaks and undertakes everything only in the name and according to the attributes of fire, light and spirit, through which he brings everything towards its Amen, towards its completion.

Question: How many chapters has the authentic light-community that any follower needs to know?

Answer:  There are five.

The first is about true conviction and faith and attachment to the light.

The second is about the seven means of attaining the light.

The third is about the 10 light-commandments. 

The fourth is about the knowledge that the creative force is the active force and that the pure form is the receiving form.

The fifth is about the separating art of the light.

Chapter 1

About the attachment to the light

Question: what is the first chapter in the authentic doctrine of the light?

Answer:  It is the adherence to the light and the knowledge of it, because without this adherence and knowledge it is not possible to activate a strength and to accomplish or to perfect anything.

Question: What should every son of the light believe in and what should he follow?

Answer:  He should believe in and follow what the men of light have taught and written in the 12 articles of the authentic light-community.

Question: What are these 12 articles of the authentic  light-community?

Answer:  

1. I follow and believe in a creative fire-force, from which the sky and the earth, the Extensum (the extended) and the Concretum (the concrete), the evanescent and the solid came into existence.
2. I believe in a light that is produced by this fire-force, that is the ruler of the world and the all-mighty force in nature. 
3. I believe that this pure light, that emanates from the fire, is received by the purest spirit and is born from the purest form. 
4. However, it had to suffer in the realm of the impure, to be separated, killed and buried under ground. 
5. This light descends into the innermost part of matter, and after 3 epochs, which will say, after 3 unions of 3 spiritual forces with 3 purified forms, it will arise again and come to life.
6. It rises to the highest perfection as a shining light-power of the all-active fire.
7. And after reaching this highest perfection, it is able to make everything that is dead alive and everything that is imperfect perfect.
8. I believe in and know the light-spirit that emanates from fire and warmth. 
9. I believe in the holy, universal, true light-community and in the communion and connection of those that are receptive for the light.
10. I believe in the eradication of diseases and misery. 
11. I believe in the renewal of our being. 
12. And I believe in the highest bliss of life.

Question: What is the main content of these 12 articles?

Answer:  It consists in the fact that someone capable of light obeys the law of light, which he recognizes and exercises by means of his reasoning and through his will, namely, that there is only one universal force in substance and being. This substance, which is the formative power of all things, is threefold in its development, namely, (1) as the fire-power (which is the creative power), (2) as the light-power (which is the connecting power), and (3) as the spiritual power that emanates from fire and light. This emanating spirit brings everything to perfection, and through its orderly means to the highest form of fulfillment.

Chapter 2

About the seven means of obtaining light

Question: What is the second chapter in the doctrine of the true light-community?

Answer:  It is about the sevenfold means to attain the light, that are held as venerable and holy by the light-community.

Question: What are these means?

Answer:  They are visible actions by which an invisible force brings about an inner perfection.

Question: How many are those means?

Answer:  There are seven, and they are analogous with the seven holy sacraments: 

1. The baptism, by water and light. 
2. The confirmation of matter through water and light. 
3. Purification. 
4. Receiving the light from above in essence and substance. 
5. The sanctification and perfection of things. 
6. The oil from above. 
7. The connection of fire and light to a perfect body.

Question: What is the light-baptism?

Answer:  It is the first and most necessary means of connection. By it matter is purified by the water and by the word that is working in the water, through which it (matter) is restored as a light-being, as a new and perfect body.

Question: What is the confirmation?

Answer:  The light-connection is a means of joining. Through it the matter that is prepared above is strengthened by the light-oil and by the spirit that is contained within it and it is made more capable of perfection.

Question: What is the third connecting mean?

Answer:  It is the mean by which light and fire, in their form-aspects of bread and wine, are given their essence, as soon as a real priest of nature knows how to transform these aspects on the altar.

Question: What is the fourth connecting mean?

Answer:  It is the mean by which the light-capable priest of nature purifies light-receptive matter and removes all of the effects of imperfection.

Question: What is the fifth?

Answer:  This is the means of connection by which the pure light-power that is in the form of oil increases its perfect healing powers.

Question: What is the sixth?

Answer:  The sixth one is the one by which matter is sanctified and made receptive for light through seven acting forces.

Question: What is the seventh?

Answer:  This is the perfect connection of light and fire through a mediating being that emanates from light and fire and that brings about the most perfect connect

Chapter 3

About the 10 light-commandments

Question: What is the third chapter of the light-community?

Answer:  The ten light-commandments, of which it is written: If you want to achieve anything, then achieve it by fulfilling the commandments or the law.

Question: What are the 10 light-commandments?

Answer:  They are as follows:

1. There is no more than one matter. 
2. The properties of this matter must be used in  the right order. 
3. Matter completes its daily task in 6 activities in which three forces produce three beings that together rest in the seventh force as in the fullness of their activity. This seventh force is to be kept sacred by you as the light-sabbath.
4. You must honor the light and the fire, as the passive and the active, because fire is masculine while light is feminine. They are the father and the mother of all things. 
5. Don’t rob from the light what gives it life, so that the matter that needs to be exalted won’t die. 
6. Don’t mix your work with what is not of its order. Everything has its time and rotations. It is your duty to unite the scattered forces.
7. Don’t deprive light and fire of their properties. It is the duty of the wise to let them do their work fully. He leaves to everyone his own. 
8. Don’t take any false apparition for true, and don’t take to yourself anything that is impure or foreign and unable to receive the light, so that the art does not give a false testimony. 
9. The spirit emanating from light and fire doesn’t desire anything that is still connected with those other things that haven’t dissolved yet. 
10. Also, this spirit doesn’t desire any matter that is foreign and dissimilar to it.

Question: What is the main content of these light-laws?

Answer:  In it, the light must fully penetrate your matter or substance, so that the fire becomes completely united with the light, and the spirit that emanates from the light and fire completely brings your matter to life. This is the first law. The second law is the same, namely: You should treat every matter that you work on and every other being that you want to bring to perfection in a similar way. The whole science of light and all those who that adhere to it depend on these two main factors.

Question: What are the commandments of the working light-community?

Answer:  There are five: 

First: Keep the resting points in your work sacred, because the light has its Sabbaths and the worker must celebrate them. 

Second: Consecrate matter to the holy sacrifice during these light-celebration-days. Let the water of light separate the pure from the impure and the active from the inactive. 

Third: Abstain in your work from anything that is against the light-laws in forces in effects and in forms and essences of things. These are the four abstinences in the light-school.

Fourth: Look at least once a year for a sensible friend to discuss the progress that you are making and to share with him what it is that hinders you, so that you have support on your path that leads you to perfection.

Fifth: At the times that reason tells you, hold back from opening your heart and to hastily tie yourself to others.

Question: Why should one keep the commandments of the light-community that belong to the true knowers of nature?

Answer:  Because the light-laws or the light-conditions command that man does not only obey what is neces-sary within nature to achieve the given goal, but also what is needed externally to achieve that goal. It is therefore that the fourth commandment of the light is required. Anybody who doesn’t listen to the light-community and who doesn’t respect its good orders and precepts will be seen as a profane and as a man of flesh who doesn’t know the laws of the spirit.

Chapter 4

About the knowledge that the creative force is the active force and that the pure form is the receiving form.

Question: What is the fourth chapter in the creed of the community of the inner light of the true knowers of nature?

Answer:  It is the knowledge of the analogy of the holy Lord’s Prayer and of the holy angelical greeting (Hail Mary), in its purest natural power and form.

Question: What is the analogy?

Answer:  

1. Supreme light-force, who is the divine in nature and that dwells in the inmost of nature like in the heaven, may your attributes and rules be sanctified. 
2. Everything is perfect where you are, so let the kingdom of your knowledge come among your people. 
3. May you be our only will in all our works, o you self-working light-power! And just as you bring about everything in the whole nature you also bring about everything in our works. 
4. Give us from the dew of heaven and from the fat of the earth, and from the fruits of the sun and moon that come from the tree of life. 
5. And forgive us all our errors that we have committed in our works, while we didn’t know you, just as we wish to forgive those that have offended our principles. Don’t abandon us to our self-importance and to our own science, but deliver us from all evil through the completion of your work. 

Amen.

Analogy of the Hail Mary

Hail thee, pure source of self-movement, pure form, capable of receiving light-power! Alone with you the light-power of all things unite. You are the most blissful of all receptive forms and holy is the fruit that you receive, which is the union of the essence of the material of light and of warmth. Pure form, you who gives birth to the most perfect being, rise as the light-power for us, now that we are working, and in the hour that our work is completed.

Question: What is the main content of the whole Lord’s Prayer of the light-children and its analogy within nature?

Answer:  Answer. They pray, through him who is the highest light-power and who is the divine in nature, for the sum of all spiritual and temporal goods, for the salvation of soul and life, and to receive the great work of nature. They pray that God may guide them to wisdom, guard them against errors in their work, and to teach them to be benevolent to men, who are their brothers, so that it may be reached what God has promised to the descendants of Abraham, Isaac and Jacob, which is that God’s covenant with the people will get fulfilled.

Question: Why do the light-finders have also an analogy of the Hail Mary?

Answer:  Because they don’t only admire the great God in the all-effecting power of nature (with which the Christ is analogous), but also because they recognise the majesty of the purest virgin form, with which Mary is analogous, and with which the upper force has united itself to produce that which is most perfect. For just as the Holy Spirit united with Mary to produce the most perfect spirit-man, so the pure nature-spirit unites with the purest matter to produce the most perfect physical form, which is the physical nature-savior who brings all other physical things to perfection. This secret is the secret of the wise. Hence this art can only be understood by those who adhere to the Christ, namely, only the analogies of religion lead us to the highest know-ledge, just as the experiences, that the light-children have, lead them also by analogy to the knowledge of the highest mysteries of faith.

Question: Isn’t it enough for a light-child to know and to recognise everything aforementioned?

Answer:   No! It is not enough, he must also bring these things into practice and demonstrate his know-ledge by his works. It is on this that the science of separation, as it is used by the light-children, is based. This is analogous with Christian justice.

Chapter 5

About the separating art of the light

Question: What is the fifth chapter in the creed of the light-children?

Answer:  It consist of two parts. Namely (1), that a light-follower must, with the mercy from above, which is our Thaw, our +, purify everywhere that is impure, and (2) effect what is good, because the knowledge must correspond with the performance. This means that theory must correspond with practice. It is namely not enough that a light-knower knows the art, but he must also know how to practice it. Knowledge alone doesn’t justify anything when its practice is absent. 

Question: What is the evil that we must avoid the most in our light-science?

Answer:  It is the one that can deprive man of his highest natural good, which is the most perfect in nature.

Question: What are the main sins or mistakes in the work?

Answer:  They are those actions that, after the work and after the application of this treasure, are contrary to the God’s purpose. They are, to be more precise, the following:  

1. Too much exaltation by the fire, 
2. A too strong concentration,
3. Wasting,
4. The excessive frugality of matter,
5. Over-burdening, 
6. Inflammation
7. Cooling down. 

About these main and deadly sins that kill the spirit it is written: “Those who committed these will not attain what is most perfect in physical nature.”

Question: Which offences, or chemical sins are against the spirit of nature?

Answer:  

1. To build everything, impatiently and without any good sense, on this spirit and to sin against its mercy. 
2. To despair immediately when one doesn’t see its effect very soon. 
3. To resist the knowledge of the chemical truths. 
4. To begrudge other brothers its mercy.
5. To have a hardened heart against the most wholesome exhortations. 
6. To remain in ignorance. 
7. These offences are unforgivable, because they will never be redeemed in the work.

Question: Which offences make heaven cry?

Answer:  

1. To willingly destroy the work. 
2. To desecrate the work. 
3. To abuse it to oppress people.
4. To deprive a co-worker his deserved wage.

Question: What are the chemical sins towards others?

Answer:  

1. To advise someone into a chemical error. 
2. To encourage others to sin. 
3. To agree with someone else’s error. 
4. To give praise to someone else’s error. 
5. To remain silent about someone else’s error. 
6. To overlook someone else’s error. 
7. To partake in someone else’s error. 
8. To defend these errors. 
9. In this way we participate in someone else’s mistakes, as if we had committed them ourselves.
10. In this way we share in other people’s errors as if we had committed them ourselves.

Question: When one is in possession of the work, is it enough then to leave evil and avoid sin?

Answer:  No! One must do good, because God only bestows this grace so that the pardoned man may bring forth ripe fruits of perfection. He should also live righteously and godly before God and people and adorn his high calling with good works.

Question: How many good works are there?

Answer:  There are three.

1. The wise man should always keep his mind focused on God and on wisdom.
2. He should abstain from everything that is not divine and wise.
3. He should control the needs of people, his brothers, everywhere.

Question: What is the use of good deeds?

Answer:  Good deeds exists so that the individual man as well as the whole world may be happy.

Question: What kind of material works of mercy can the wise man perform when he has attained the highest perfection of physical nature? 

1. He can feed the hungry. 
2. Give those that are thirsty to drink.
3. Clothe the naked. 
4. Shelter strangers. 
5. Heal the sick. 
6. Awaken dead matter.

Question: What spiritual works can a wise man perform?

Answer:  

1. He can punish sin. 
2. Teach the ignorant. 
3. Advise the doubtful. 
4. Give comfort to the afflicted. 
5. Bear injustice with patience.

Question: What are the eight chemical blessings?

Answer:  They are those who receive (through the enjoyment and possession of the highest perfection of nature) the supreme natural good, as they are taught by saint John in the Apocalypse, through the revelation of God: 

1. He who has overcome, I will give to eat from the tree of life which is in the paradise of my God.
2. He who has overcome will not be insulted by a second death. 
3. He who has overcome I will give to eat from the hidden heavenly bread and I will give him a white stone on which a new name will be given that no one will understand but he who possess it. 
4. He who has overcome and has kept my work until the end, I will give power over the nations. He will rule the people with an iron rod and he will break them like the vases of a potter. He will possess what I have inherited from the Father and to him I will give a morning star. 
5. He who has overcome will be dressed in white clothes and I will never erase his name from the book of life and I will bear witness publicly in front of my Father and the angels. 
6. He who has overcome will be a column in the temple of my God, and I will write the name of my God on him and the name of the holy city, which is the new Jerusalem, which descends from heaven, and he will know my new name. 
7. He who has overcome I will let sit on my throne like I am sitting on my Father’s throne, because I overcame as well.
8. He who has overcome will be the victor and he will receive through the right of inheritance all that he desires and wishes of me. I will be his God and he will be my son.

Question: What are in this art, the evangelical or celestial advices?

Answer:  There are three: 

1. To stay poor in the middle of richness. 
2. To stay abstinent while we can enjoy everything. 
3. To stay obedient while we can command.

Question: What are the 4 last things?

Answer:  

1. Death, as the dy-off of matter. 
2. The judgment or the separation…
3. of all that is celestial and alive…
4. from all that is terrestrial and dead. 

Think, o man, while you are working, about these four last things and you will never fail in your work!