GOLD – The Metal of the Sun
In gold we see the brilliance of the sun, but other rich colours are also seen in its colloidal solutions, ranging from greenish-blue, through reddish, violet-blue to pure rose—from the gold of a noonday sun to the radiant colours of sunset.
The infinite extension and purity of the solar rays are also evidenced in gold, the most ductile and malleable substance known. Gold can be stretched to an amazing degree without losing its cohesion — one ounce of this metal can be stretched into a wire almost 35 miles long. Or it can be beaten into the translucency of the finest leaf.
THE ‘OCCULT’ GOLD
Not only in alchemy but in other occult traditions we find similar correlations between gold and the sun.
In the Qabala, the sphere of the Sun is called Tiphareth, also described as ‘Beauty.’ This is the center of the Tree of Life, balancing all the other spheres, or sephiroth, which it connects. Tiphareth integrates all of the forces of the universal Tree leading towards synthesis and unity. As the inner light of spiritual consciousness it is called the Mediating Intelligence, bestowing the vision of the harmony of all the forces of nature.
The colours assigned to Tiphareth are golden amber, rich salmon-pink, yellow and rose. The part of the body it rules is the heart. All sun-gods belong here, and symbolic animals such as the phoenix — the Bennu sun-bird of the Egyptians – and the lion, the creative symbol of the midsummer sun, the lion of the gold-continent Africa. Astrologically the sun rules Leo, the zodiac sign of the lion.
The spiritual power and generative energy of the sun are evident in the solar deities of all traditions. The Egyptian god Hera ruled over ‘the entire compass of the great circuit of the sun,’ and was the golden Right Eye of Ra, the solar power worshipped both in Egypt and Polynesia. In the Hindu religious writings the sun was Surya; in classical mythology the sun-gods included Apollo, Helios and Sol, the Babylonian Shamash, and the Persian Mithras. Among the African pantheon Legba is invoked as the Sun-Lord of the Cross-roads.
Columns in honour of the sun were erected in Peru as in other lands where sun worship prevailed, and during the equinoxes and solstices golden thrones were placed upon them to form a seat for the sun to rest on. In the Great Temple of Cuzco, the chief object of worship was a great golden disk representing the sun.
There are sun-goddesses too, such as the Egyptian Hathor ‘the House of Hera,’ the great cat Bast, and the lion-goddess Sekmet who incarnated the creative power of the sun at its height. She transmitted this power to her consort Ptah who was powerless to create the eggs of the world and heavens without her. Likewise, the sun-goddess Amaterasu was the supreme deity in the Shinto religion of Japan, and was incarnated on earth in the body of the emperor. Many other female and male deities share these solar attributes, emphasizing the balance and harmony inherent in the sun’s nature.
THE HEALING GOLD
Because of the sun’s affinity with gold, the solar deities and spirits were often invoked for wealth, such as the Qabalistic spirit Och who presided over solar matters. He was famous for his wisdom, and could change anything into gold. He also perfected the science of medicine, another quality of the solar deities who were often invoked for their aid in healing the body and mind of the sick.
In the old knowledge the sun was analogous to the heart, and curiously most of the gold found in the human body lies in this organ. The ancient sun-worshippers of Peru and Mexico conceived of the solar sphere as the source of all vital life, and they returned this gift of life to the sun by sacrificing animal and human hearts, symbolic of the earthly seat of life.
Alchemically, the heart was considered ‘the organ of intuitive, unitive knowledge, which completely transcends all other faculties of the soul. Just as the sun gives the planets their light, so the light of the heart (seat of the spirit or intellect) illumines all other faculties of the soul.’3
In the living creature the heart is the centre of the circulatory system in the body, and Pelikan describes its function as combining and regulating the polaric tension between the light forces of breath and air and the heaviness of the forces of matter.
‘ ‘Under the influence of gold the blood forces swing strongly back and forth between the sense-nerve and breathing organization and the limb-metabolic system.”
If there is too much gold in the system it becomes a ‘poison for body and soul.’ At the level of society this pathology is seen in the lust and greed for gold and the untold blood and human life spilled in the mad gold rushes. In the organism, an excess of gold primarily attacks the circulation of the blood and the heart, and produces mental states of hopelessness and despondency with a great desire to commit suicide. The creative energy of the sun becomes instead intensely self-destructive. Homeopathic preparations of gold in minute quantities can be used to remedy this dangerous imbalance.
As the heart is the centre of the circulatory system in the body, so the sun is the centre in the greater body of our solar system. Georg Blattmann in his contemporary study on the sun,4 describes our planetary system in terms of a great vortex in its law of movement, with the outer planets circling more slowly on their orbits, while the movement of the inner planets increases in velocity towards the centre.
In the rapid spinning of a vortex a hollow funnel is seen to form boring its way down to the bottom, and in Blattman’s concept of the planetary system as a huge cosmic whirlpool, this suction tube in the middle corresponds to the hollow space in the sun’s centre.
A hollow sun indeed! This is surely a radical departure from conventional scientific theory which describes the sun as a monstrous thermonuclear reactor spewing out deadly radiation; a projection of their own death culture upon the supreme symbol of life.