Part of the Casswiki article series Esoterica
The term thinking with a hammer was first introduced in Mark Hedsel’s book The Zelator:
The alchemists insisted that one should heat the retort many times before making the final distillation. This is an emblem of true thought: one must pass one’s thinking through the furnace many times, to be sure. One should think with a hammer, rather than with a brain, as one shapes our thought from dross matter.’ As though imitating the hammer blows of Vulcan, he tapped his stick on top of the balustrade. ‘Iron, you see. Cast iron. Yet it looks like stone. That is the true Philosopher’s stone, which never appears to be what it is.
We note that Fulcanelli literally means “Little Vulcan”, the smith of the gods.
In FOTCM usage, the term “thinking with a hammer” means approaching the object of thought from all angles. The hammer also implies hammering against one’s beliefs and prejudices, creating internal friction by being critical of the thought process itself.
Thinking with a hammer is, in a sense, the opposite of habitual thinking. Thinking with a hammer means forging new paths and connections as opposed to forcing things to fit within the grooves of existing categories. It is expanding one’s mind to be at the measure of the questions instead of shrinking the questions to fit the mind’s habits. Thinking with a hammer cannot take place in a state of sleep. It needs an application of will and going against one’s internal resistance.