Nature Conquers Nature: Liberating the Spirit from Nature’s Forms
"Nature rejoices in nature, nature conquers nature, nature rules over nature"
This Sophia figure represents the "hidden wisdom of nature" that directs the alchemical process, even when the work appears to go "contra naturam" (against nature) by challenging ingrained habits or conventional understanding. Alchemists believed their opus assisted in liberating the spirit concealed within nature's forms.
This pervasive identification of Nature with Sophia and the Alchemical Queen represents a profound re-sacralization of the material world, elevating matter to a sacred status and portraying it as the realm where the divine feminine is "imprisoned" and requires "rescuing" through the alchemist's work.
For Kabbalists within the alchemical tradition, Sophia was recognized as the Shekinah, the Bride of God, embodying the divine ground of the phenomenal world. This Divine Wisdom, however, was understood to transcend conventional notions of "nature," connecting humanity to a vast, intricate web of planetary and cosmic life, a dimension that modern science is only beginning to explore through concepts like dark matter and the invisible universe.
The feminine archetype has historically been linked to the earth, nature, and the soul—not merely in a personal sense, but as the unseen dimension of reality and the great connecting web of all life. This cosmic matrix was personified across various traditions, from the ancient Great Mother and goddesses like Isis to the Divine Wisdom and Holy Spirit in the Old Testament, and the Cosmic or World Soul in Platonic and Neoplatonic philosophy. During centuries of European culture that suppressed the Feminine, alchemy served as a clandestine vessel for preserving and honoring this disowned divine aspect.
Alchemists reported visions of a cosmic woman, recognizing her as a living force and divine presence that poured out love and illumination upon humanity. Dr. Marie-Louise von Franz noted that alchemy implicitly tasks humanity with rescuing this hidden, feminine aspect of God from its "imprisonment in matter" through their "opus," thereby reuniting her with the manifest, masculine deity.
Wisdom, in memorable alchemical words, directly addresses the alchemists: "Understand ye sons of Wisdom, Protect me, and I will protect thee; give me my due that I may help thee". This message underscores the alchemist's collaborative role and the profound relevance of protecting and serving nature in contemporary times. This perspective suggests that the alchemist's work is not merely about chemical transformation but about participating in a cosmic act of redemption—liberating the divine spark from its material entanglement.