Dear Dan
In the passage you refer to, Faivre seems to be talking about alchemy,
specifically the three basic stages of black, white and red. He says 'it is
often implied that transmutation can just as well occur in a portion of
Nature as in the experimenter himself'. On p. 34, he talks about alchemists
taking 'a parcel of matter' back to its 'glorious state before the Fall', an
act he says is identical to magic. Later, he refers to Evola's book on
alchemy, but strangely says that it concerns only spiritual or initiatory
alchemy (implying it does not involve real substances). His book on the
Philosophy of Nature might provide further clues, and he also published a
Cahiers de l'Hermetisme on alchemy.
I'm not sure if this helps...
Christian Kersl
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