Its surroundings, leading to destruction. Too much female force will reverse development, reducing

everything to its components. Together the male and female forces combine with the male force expanding

and developing and the female force keeping it under control and everything orderly and harmonious. The

male force attempts to impose itself upon everything, it wants to multiply itself. The female force on the

other hand tries to bring everything back to its original element. It is the female force that allows for rebirth

by encouraging reduction and decomposition back into the original element, supporting and nourishing this

for the task of the male, which is to encourage growth, development and multiplication.

Imagine the world was only full of men, or only full of women. The men would spend the whole time

fighting in their efforts to impose their views and themselves on the rest of the world. The women would sit

around and talk all day long, developing nothing. Now consider animals and plants. The plants have a lot of

yin, they just sit around all day and don't even try to move, whereas the animals are busy running around

and eating everything they can put in their mouths.

The sea has a dominating male force, which is why fish are so obsessed with eating each other. It's also why

there are very few plants in the sea, even the coral are animals. The air has dominating female force,

therefore lots of trees and comparatively few animals in between.

The genders are one manifestation of the yin-yang principle, but on a more fundamental level it is these two

forces constantly pulling back and forward against each other in a tug-of-war, and so create the cycles of

Nature. Yin-yang is polarity. We live in a universe of opposites. The cycles we see in Nature are all due to

the polarity of our universe, and it is these cycles (caused by yin-yang) which themselves cause growth and

development of all things, from the atom to the whole universe itself.

The Philosophers' Stone also develops from the yin-yang principle of polarity. In the natural development

of the Stone, and therefore everything else, the dominating principle moves to and fro, from yin to yang and

back, in the form of evaporation and condensation (sun and rain). In this way the Stone develops to higher

and higher degrees of perfection.

and higher degrees of perfection.

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In the vegetable world grass and trees are actuated by yin and yang. They could not grow in the absence of either one

of these two forces. At the beginning, yang dominates and is indicated by the budding of green leaves. Then, after the

development of the blossoms, yin (destructive) follows. This principle of the Tao of constancy has long been the

common practice of nature; but how many can understand (the principle of) chén yüan (true spring) which can alter

this process (of nature)? I advise all of you, who wish to learn Tao, not to begin your work before you understand the

principle of yin and yang.

Wu Chen P'ien, Essay on the Understanding of Truth, by Chang Po-tuan, 1078 AD (Chinese)

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This gold is our male, and it is sexually joined to a more crude white gold—the female seed: the two together being

indissolubly united, constitute our fruitful Hermaphrodite. [...] The two (the passive and active principle) combined we

call our Hermaphrodite.

An Open Entrance to the Closed Palace of the King, by An Anonymous Sage and Lover of Truth, 1645 AD

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The male without the female is looked upon as only half a body, nor can the female without the male be regarded as

more complete. For neither can bring forth fruit so long as it remains alone. But if the two be conjugally united, there

is a perfect body, and their seed is placed in a condition in which it can yield increase.

The Twelve Keys, by Basilius Valentinus, 15th Cen.

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11. Cycles of Nature

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If thou desire to see the secrets of Nature now open thine eyes.

The Chemists Key, by Henry Nollius, 1617 AD

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Following on from the previous chapter on yin-yang, we have the cycles of Nature.

I'm sure we can all agree that Nature operates in cycles. We have days, months, years, which are all cycles.

Then we have the water cycle, with water being evaporated by the sun, forming clouds and then raining

down again. It is these cycles that cause growth and development, most obviously in plant life, but also in all

other forms of life, and the Earth itself. Similar cycles also occur in larger systems, such as solar systems

and galaxies. All these cycles are due to the yin-yang principle, which I explained in the previous chapter.

But have you stopped to think what the effect of these cycles is? I will illustrate it for you as simply as I can:

Imagine you have a handful of damp soil, which you put into a closed system in which there is sun and then

rain, as there is on Earth. Every day there is sunshine (yang) which evaporates off the water, which then

condenses at night (yin) and rains back down onto the soil. What will happen?

Well the first and most obvious effect is that the soil will arrange itself in layers with the lightest particles at

the top, and the heaviest at the bottom. We have gravity to thank for this of course. The hot air and water

vapor will rise, and with it the lightest of the particles, which attach themselves to the water. The lighter the

particle is, the easier it attaches itself to the water, and the further the water will lift it while evaporating.

This causes the heavier particles to sink as the lighter particles are picked up and placed back down on top

of them. Everything will arrange itself in order of density. This you can already see by considering that the

top layer of the Earth is a soft soil, with heavier minerals as you dig down. This is also very easily proven

with a little experiment, which is also the First Part of our work in making the Stone.

The smallest and lightest particles of all will attach themselves to the water and not let go, since they are so