Essence and Alchemy by Mandy Aftel Read Free Book Online Page B

in a sense, substances in their most concentrated but least material form, containing the whole nature and perfection of the substances themselves. They possess a compressed vitality, a bioactive power that cannot be measured by chemical analysis but which manifests itself in their potent effect on our emotions and states of consciousness.
    Kirlian photography, discovered by the Russian electrical technician Semyon Kirlian in 1939, is a technique of taking pictures by means of electricity. An object is placed directly on photographic paper or film laid atop a metal plate to which a high-voltage current is applied. This records the energy field that surrounds living organisms, which appears as bright colors or halos surrounding the objects. A photograph of a freshly cut leaf reveals a colorful aura that diminishes over time until the leaf dies. A strong energy field that radiates outward is also visible when pure essential oils are photographed on a blotter strip. The energy field takes distinctive shapes that correspond to people’s descriptions of the scents—heavy, soft, sharp, bright, and so on. The field, which is lacking altogether in photographs of synthetic essences, corresponds to Henri Bergson’s concept of the elan vital—the life force. It is also kin to the quinta essentia, the spark of divinity at the heart of living things that the alchemist, in his never-ending quest, toiled to extract.
    According to A Dictionary of Alchemical Imagery , “In alchemy the prima materia 44 or first matter from which the universe was created is identical with the substance which constitutes the soul in its original pure state.” In alchemy, each essence is of two kinds: sap (or juice) and mystery. The sap is the physical aspect, the scented material itself. The mystery, the perfect part of every composite substance, is informed with its virtue, nature, and essential quality.
    Natural perfumery materials possess both sap and mystery. They are the concentrated essence of the materials from which they are derived,
but they are not reducible to one thing; by their very nature, they are formed from minute traces of various materials, which is why Moroccan rose smells different from Bulgarian rose or Egyptian rose, or, for that matter, why Moroccan rose itself varies discernibly from season to season. In some highly complex essences, such as jasmine, numerous chemical substances, sometimes many hundreds, have been isolated, and still there are many more elements that have not been identified. Synthetics can approximate the dominant qualities of the natural essences, but because of this irreducible complexity, they cannot capture the subtlety or softness of their odors. With all the chemical analysis available, natural substances cannot be pinned down to a formula and replicated in a laboratory. Only nature can create the smell of jasmine at nightfall.
    â€œWhy natural oils?” 45 asks Robert Tisserand in The Art of Aromatherapy. “Why not anything that smells nice, whether it is natural or synthetic? The answer is simply that synthetic or inorganic substances do not contain any ‘life force’; they are not dynamic. Everything is made of chemicals, but organic substances like essential oils have a structure which only Mother Nature can put together. They have a life force, an additional impulse which can only be found in living things.”
    This perception of the power inherent in natural materials is an old one. Marsilio Ficino, the Florentine who, at the request of Cosimo di Medici, founded an academy based on the writings of Plato and alchemical texts, was a great believer in the uplifting and restorative powers of aromas. In his 1489 Book of Life , which sets forth his theory of emotional, physical, and spiritual health, he proposes, “If you have taken 46 the flavors from things no longer living, the odors from dry aromatics, things with no life left in them, and you thought these were