TO THE OFFICE OF THE ALCHEMIST
(an open letter)
CONSIDER the rain, O Alchemist, which, after coming from the sky and traveling diverse ways
is wont ever to return to the sky whence it came. Do not the waters of the voidal mages return also
to their source in the realm of non-being? So it is the way of all things to return eternally to their
ultimate source.
At one time non-being was by Being made, and Being poured itself over its first creation, which
was as a land barren, and by its emanations were riven two great streams, the abstract and the
material. There came a point in the courses of these two where they come near to touching, such
that the waters intermingle in the nonbeing between them. This intermingling is all the world
that we can know, and where the waters are most intermingled, from thence come the sons of Man.
And the Source of all Being, having spread abroad all things, draws toward itself all things again,
that its great primordial act of charity may be made complete, perfectly reflected in all it has made.
Thus do we hybrid creatures find ourselves ill at home either in the right-hand realm of the material
nor the left-hand realm of the abstract, but rather are pulled ever upward toward the divine.
How easily we come to believe that this luring, whose origin we cannot know directly, comes
rather from the material or abstract realms by which we are connected to the true source of our
attraction. Then, believing that our natural fulfillment will be found in one stream or another, do
we vainly place one over and against the other, bending the material to serve the abstract, or the
abstract to serve the material. The components of our being thereby become unbalanced,
and our persons disintegrated.
It is thus that we become blinded to beauty, enslaved to ingratitude, shrunken of spirit and
embittered of soul. For following one stream only will carry us away from the wellspring
and further out into nonbeing, and darkness. But, by orienting ourselves toward the divine
and ordering properly within ourselves both the material and the abstract, we become awakened
to beauty, liberated by gratitude, great-spirited and loving souled.
Therefore let the material and the abstract be fully integrated within us, embracing both, in their
right places, as good things, drawing us toward the one good thing, becoming ourselves wholly
integrated persons.
Consider, O Alchemist, if by your many pursuits you resemble more or less that great
end of all things which lies at their center, whose light shines on the righteous and
the wicked, who gives freely to the wise and the profligate, who offers all the abiding
peace that comes to all who know, love and do good.
Sincerely Yours,
James Vursur