Transmutation & Transformation
Another question also relating directly to Hermeticism is that of 'longevity', which has been considered one of the characteristics of the true Rosicrucians and which is spoken of in one form or another in all traditions. This 'longevity', the attainment of which is gencrally regarded as one of the goals of alchemy and as implicit in the very accomplishment of the 'Great Work,' has several significations that must be carefully distinguished from each other, for in reality they are situated on very different levels among the possibilities of the being. The meaning that immediately comes to mind, though it is by no means the most important, is obviously the prolongation of corporeal life; to understand this it is well to refer to the teaching that the length of human life has progressively diminished over the different phases of the cycle of terrestrial humanity, from its origin down to our present age. [2] If that part of the initiatic process relating to the 'lesser mysteries' is understood to cause man to retrace in a way the course of this cycle-as we have already suggested-so as to lead him stage by stage from his present state to the 'primordial state', it must thereby cause him at each stage to acquire all the possibilities of the corresponding state, including the possibility of a life longer than that of an ordinary man of the present day. Whether or not this possibility be cffectively realized is another question, and it is in fact said that he who has
truly become capable of thus prolonging his life generally does not do so unless he has very particular reasons for it, because it is really no longer of any interest to him (just as the transmutations of metals and other effects of this kind hold no interest for the person able to realize them, something related to the same order of possibilities); and indeed he will even find it to his advantage not to tarry at those stages, which are still only preliminary and far removed from the true goal, for the accomplishment of such secondary and contingent results, at whatever degree, can only distract him from the essential.
On the other hand-and this may further contribute to reducing the possibility in question to its due importance-in various traditions it is also said that the duration of corporeal life can in no case exceed a thousand years, it being of little importance moreover whether this number be taken literally or symbolically, for what must be grasped is that this duration is always limited, and that consequently the search for an alleged 'corporeal immortality' can only be perfectly illusory. [3] The reason for this limitation is basically easy enough to understand: every human life constitutes in itself a cycle analogous to that of humanity taken in its entirety, so that time 'shrinks' as it were for each being in the measure that it exhausts the possibilities of the corporeal state; [4] therefore, a moment must necessarily come when time will be contracted, so to speak, to a point, and then the being can literally no longer find in this world any duration in which it can live, so that there is no alternative but to pass on to another state subject to conditions different from those of corporeal existence, even if in reality that state is no more than one of the extra-corporeal modalities of the individual human domain.
This leads us to consider the other meanings of 'longevity', which indeed refer to possibilities other than those of the corporeal state; but in order to understand exactly what is at issue it is first of all necessary to specify clearly the difference between 'transmutation' and 'transformation'. We always take the word 'transformation' in its strictly etymological sense, which is 'passage beyond form'; consequently, the being can be said to be 'transformed' only if it has effectively passed on to a supra-individual state (for every individual state, whatever it may be, is by that very fact formal), so that here it is a case of something of which the realization belongs essentially to the domain of the 'greater mysteries'. As for the body itself, its 'transformation' can be nothing other than its transposition into principial mode; in other words, what can be called the 'transformed' body is strictly speaking the corporeal possibility freed from the restrictive conditions to which it was subject in its existence in individual mode (which like all limitations has only a purely negative character), and necessarily finding itself again, at its own level and in the same way as all the other possibilities, in the total realization of the being. [5] It is evident that this is something that goes beyond any possible conception of 'longevity', for this by very definition implies a duration and consequently cannot, cven at its greatest extent, go beyond 'perpetuity', or cyclical indefinity, whereas what is in question here, pertaining on the contrary to the principial order, belongs by that very fact to eternity, which is one of the essential attributes of that order. With 'transformation' one is therefore beyond all duration and no longer situated in duration of any kind, however indefinitely prolonged one might suppose it to be.
'Transmutation' on the other hand is properly speaking only a change of state within the formal domain that includes the totality
of individual states, or, more simply yet, a change of modality within the individual human domain, which moreover is in fact the only case worth considering. [6] With this 'transmutation' we thus return to the 'lesser mysteries', to which are related those extra-corporeal possibilities the realization of which can be comprised in the term 'longevity', taken now in a sense different from that first considered, which did not apply beyond the corporeal order. Here again are other distinctions to be made according to whether it is a question of just any extensions of the individual human state or of its perfection in the 'primordial state'. To begin with the less elevated possibilities, we will concede at the outset that it is conceivable that, in certain cases and by certain special procedures belonging specifically to Hermeticism or to what corresponds to it in the other traditions (for this is also known in the Hindu and Far-Eastern traditions), the very elements that make up the body can be 'transmuted' and 'subtilized' so as to be transferred to an extra-corporeal modality, where the being can thenceforth exist in conditions that are less narrowly limited than those of the corporeal domain, particularly in respect of duration. In such a case the being may disappear at a given time without leaving behind any trace of its body; in certain circumstances it may also reappear temporarily in the corporeal world by reason of the 'interferences' that exist between this and other modalities of the human state. Many facts that the moderns are naturally quick to qualify as 'legends' but in which there is indeed some reality can be explained in this way. [7] Moreover, one must not see in such a case anything 'transcendent' in the true sense of the word, for this is still only a case of human possibilities of which the realization can be of interest only to a being whom they
enable to fulfill some special 'mission'; outside of this case it would only represent a 'digression' from the initiatic process and a more or less prolonged delay on the path that should normally lead to the restoration of the 'primordial state'.
It remains for us to speak specifically about the possibilities of this 'primordial state'. Since, as we said above, the being that has attained this state is already virtually 'delivered', it can be said that by this very fact it is also virtually 'transformed'; it is of course understood that this 'transformation' cannot be effective, since the being has not yet left the human state, having only integrally realized its perfection. But the possibilities that have been acquired at this point reflect and in a way 'prefigure' those of the truly 'transformed' being, since it is precisely at the center of the human state that the higher states themselves are directly reflected. The being that is established at this point occupies a position that is truly 'central' with respect to all the conditions of the human state, so that without having passed beyond them, it nonetheless dominates them in a certain way instead of being dominated by them, as is ordinarily the case; and this is true with regard to the temporal condition in particular as well as to the spatial condition. [8] From this position the being, if it so desires (and it is quite certain that, at the spiritual degree that it has attained, it will never do so without a profound reason), can transport itself to any place and to any moment in time. [9] As extraordinary as such a possibility may seem, it is nevertheless an immediate consequence of reintegration at the center of the human state; and if true Rosicrucians possess this state of human perfection, the 'longevity' attributed to them can be understood for what it really is, that is to say something even more than the word seems at first to imply, since it is the reflection in the human domain of principial
eternity itself. Moreover, this possibility may very well not manifest itself outwardly in any way during the ordinary course of events, though the being that has acquired it thenceforth possesses it permanently and unalterably, and nothing can take it away; it suffices for the being to retire from the outer world and enter again into itself, whenever necessary, in order once again to find at the center of its own being the true 'fountain of immortality'.