Contemplative Chromatography

developing the human being as an organ of perception

“[T]heosophy does not have an iconography—itself a science of images… theosophy uses images designed to reveal the transcendence of images.” - Arthur Versluis, Wisdom’s Children

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Picture-forming methods are not just for analysis, but contain within the practice an approach to developing dormant capacities of the entire human being. You could almost say that through the disciplined use of picture-forming methods from soil we develop the inner picture-forming powers of the soul. Picture-forming methods are not about mere fanciful daydreaming but instead, a kind of exact imagination that becomes, with enough practice, as objective as our senses.¹

In some ways, chromatography is a simple concept: soil is dissolved into water, and then the solution is separated into distinct layers on paper. This is a mirror of alchemy in which solve et coagula is witnessed in reverse: first, we draw everything into a single homogenous solution, and then we differentiate the solution as patterns on filter paper.

As a flowing river both carves through rock and leaves behind sediment that tells a story of its past, so does every plant grow as an expression of the conditions of the soil below and a peculiar desire to return to its Source — each according to its kind.

So, too, with circular chromatography, capillary action stimulates the supernatant fluid to rise and coalesce into differentiated layers of deposits. A chromatogram expresses the diverse patterns of enzymatic and otherwise hidden activities from within the innermost invisible heart of the soil. In the chromatogram, we have an objective representation of the life of the soil.

The mind reflects on experience like the moon reflects the sun, which mirrors the solar light radiating from the heart. What is not felt is not noticed, and what is not noticed does not even stand the chance of becoming a normal memory. A “dull” man (or plant) does not register the presence of very real things. Through the heart, experience enters, and through the mind, experiences are retained in the form of concepts. As blind (or closed!) eyes both alike render a lit room dark, so a hardened heart or a darkened mind renders our perceptive abilities dimmed.

What happens in chromatography is not just soil analysis but a preliminary preparatory practice for training the practitioner to meditate. Everything about the precision and cleanliness of the laboratory, the preparation of the sample, and the impregnation of the paper with photoreactive silver nitrate is an external embodied practice of the heart of meditation. As without, so within. As Rudolf Steiner says, “[W]e must reach a point in our technical research when the bench in the laboratory becomes an altar for divine service.”²

It is not a coincidence that we use silver, the metal of the moon and the traditional metal for mirrors, in circular chromatography. We let these sterling images develop in reflected light because all reflected light is like moonlight. Similarly, we develop vague forms of ideas born from experience, and then, with additional time given over to reflecting on these experiences, the meaningful forms develop more tone and detail and become not just vague outlines but organizing thoughts imbued with colorful feelings.

The philosopher Kant famously says, “thoughts without content are empty, intuitions without concepts blind.” In circular chromatography a unifying form without the coloration in a chroma is empty. Conversely, colors without a round form are illegible. Someone without a prepared mind is like paper without photoreactive silver: no amount of experience develops a clear picture if the proper preparation has not been made beforehand.

Sample dissolved in mild alkaline solution (1% NaOH) but without preparation of the paper — no AgNO3. Someone who meditates deeply on sensory input without proper inner preparation produces a vague image with little to no inner revelation.

The imagination is tinged by the tones of what our physical senses perceive. We take in a sensory experience, and it permeates the soul. The clarity of the picture depends on so many things: the balance and even weave of the soul, the consistency of the sample taken, the barometric pressure of the astral environment, and the patience of the observer. Are there any grubby fingerprints marring the image? Do we wish for anything other than to love the image before us? “Adam knew his wife” — living knowledge is generative love that does not ask how something can be analyzed or commodified. If we seek to know the natural world, we must love it intimately and selflessly — even if it means discomfort — because to love means to selflessly will the good of the other.

If an experience is cut short before its inner lesson can be discovered, a dense, muddy shape arises, an unreadable mass. Like swallowing unchewed food, the nutritive value of an experience is not assimilated unless we ruminate on it long enough. The truth is still latent within an undigested amorphous blob, but the premature evaluation of external stimuli renders a unifying spiritual idea undetectable.