Eggs White and Eggs Red and The Philosopher's Stone

Peter has always tended to regard this woman as something of an upstart. That he has done so perhaps might have had to do with a simmering yet unvoiced resentment that she, a mere woman, was clearly so highly regarded by their beloved rabban Yeshua. Poor Peter; impulsive by nature, at times even hot-headed, and driven by a misplaced and oh-so-human jealousy. Eventually, as inevitably they must with him, his emotions rule his actions and he decides to press the issue and challenge Mary of Magdala, Mary the Magdalene.

Seizing the moment, Peter confronts Mary as she happens to be carrying some freshly-collected eggs in a basket. The confronting challenge is as direct as it is simple: to prove her divine worth Mary must change the pure white eggs in her basket in some dramatic and fundamental way. And there before Peter’s astonished gaze all the white eggs instantly turn a deep and vivid ruby red.

There are several variations of this story, which has been used as a charming explanation as to why we have the custom of painting eggs at Easter. We might wonder whether it was Mary’s own spiritual power that caused the miracle, or whether some aspect of the Divine stepped in to cause the change independently of her own will. Perhaps it matters little which of these two alternatives is correct, because the point of the story remains the same: Peter’s doubts about who had a claim to the Divine spirit were dispelled in that moment.

The symbolism in the story is plain enough: white is used to represent the purity of the Lamb, and red is for the Saviour’s blood shed to redeem us all. This is the accepted version – and the accepted familiar symbolism – of Christianity. But is that really all there is to this story? This post might have ended here, but this story, like all stories that have such an apparently simple appeal, contains profound and unexpected depths.

The story, like so many of these stories which embroider upon scriptural settings, appears to be medieval, and it is a medieval alchemist’s study that we need to visit to continue this more mysterious thread of our story further. The creation of that fabled treasure of legend, the Philosophers’ Stone, included three principal stages. The second of these two, known as the whitening or the albedo, was -if the procedure was followed carefully!- succeeded by the triumphant stage known as the reddening or the rubedo, which was the appearance of the blood-red Stone itself. It need come as no surprise to us to learn that this most precious Stone was symbolised by an egg, and the egg itself was said to contain all the elements united.

The white further represented the alchemist’s mystical ‘philosopher's mercury’ -representing the human soul- and the red the ‘philosopher’s sulphur’ -representing the human spirit-, and it is the constant mingling of these two which caused the treasured Stone to emerge. To possess the Stone was no small achievement, as it was said to confer the power of immortality upon its owner. And in the end, is this not the true message of Easter? Redemption offers eternal life, and Easter is nothing if not a story of redemption.

So perhaps this coming Easter if you happen to be at home or elsewhere painting eggs, you might remember that you are not merely remembering Mary’s miracle, but are also creating a replica of the fabled Philosophers’ Stone! 

Light into Darkness

I have at times found myself fascinated by the attitudes of others to ‘darkness’. So often it seems to be linked to something sinister, even evil, and I wondered why this might be so. 

In most contemporary spiritual and New Age thinking it is light which truly matters, and consideration for darkness in any form might meet only with head-shaking disapproval. Darkness is thought of as being something to be banished, even to be conquered. Light, on the contrary, is something to ‘go towards’, to be sought after, to be ‘worked with’. Within Christian doctrine the emphasis is also upon the desire for light and the striving to ‘ascend’. 

But in Greek myth it is the story of Icarus, who flew with his strapped-on wings too close to the sun only to plummet to earth, which warns us of a too-eager pursuit towards the source of heavenly light and the folly of the ego in its fixation to attain this bliss. His wiser father Daedalus flew the middle way, between darkness and light, and so landed safely back on earth. It is a simple truth that the farther we go in the direction of the light, the longer and larger the shadows become that we cast behind us.

This simple truth has long been known to the mystics, who valued both darkness and light in equal measure. Darkness was itself viewed as a powerful spiritual instrument, perhaps even fuller of creative potential than light itself. In the light we see exactly what is in front of us. But what darkness might contain is limited only by what we can imagine that it contains. It can be full of unknown worlds awaiting discovery – and perhaps it is. In our universe it actually is visible light that is only a fraction of the whole, and darkness easily predominates. At first we might imagine that the universe itself is ‘out of balance’, for should not darkness and light be in equal amounts? 

Eastern tradition speaks of the Paramatma light: that divine light invisible to matter which permeates all things. Surely this invisible light is what provides the balance, for not all things in the universe which provide this perfect cosmic balance need be apparent to our limited senses. Spiritual seekers from many ancient traditions - Celtic, Eastern, Indian, Tibetan and African - have treated the darkness as an instrument for spiritual enlightenment. The literal definition of the word shaman is 'he or she who sees in the dark'. The shaman would say that there is no such thing as darkness: only an incapacity to truly ‘see’.

Western mystics also recognized the importance and the power of darkness. The Gnostics referred to the creator as ‘Dazzling Darkness’, (see my post: Dazzling Darkness) and John of the Cross spoke of "the dark light". The idea of balance is always what lies behind these ideas: neither to concentrate on light at the expense of darkness, nor to become preoccupied with darkness at the expense of light. Spiritually, both are of equal value, and wise Daedalus shows us the course that we should follow. 

Painting: Balance is the Key by Aleister Gray