ALCHEMY VIDEO SERIES http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=RJ8TNCYtTV4&feature=channel

The alchemical process is a physical process directed and controlled by mental MEANS. It aims at a transformation of the human body. IT AIMS at a transformation of the human body. When this transformation is effected, the adept has a physical vehicle by means of which he is able to exercise unusual powers, among them being the ability to transmute metals. His own body is his laboratory and its organs are the “secret vessels” employed in the work of an alchemist. His own body is his laboratory and its athanors are the body’s “secret Vessels” employed in the work of an alchemist. When this transformation is effected, the adept Has a physical vehicle by means of Which He Is variable to exercise unusual Powers, among them being the ability to transmute metals. Introduction to Tarot, Lesson 10—Paul Foster Case

Revealed Wisdom of the Natural World

Alchemy, a Promethean ambition, was the epitome of creative and transmutative power in the natural world, exploring the boundary between the natural and the artificial. The alchemical art was founded on coherent philosophical and empirical principles. Like the current scientific paradigm, it was based on certain presumptions.

Alchemy was an integral part of St. Germain’s worldview. Astrology was one of its many intellectual tools used to attack practical and intellectual problems. The discipline of alchemy is a quintessential symbol of the human intellect and its ability to decode the secrets of nature. Alchemy presents a paradigm of transmutation, from the leaden to the Gold, from the gross to the subtle, from the raw to the cooked, from the first matter to the philosopher’s stone. Paracelsus called it, “the gentle acceleration of growth through the use of the fire of nature.”

Astrology (a form of divination) and alchemy (an artisanal pursuit concerned with the technologies of minerals and metals) diverge as well as intersect. Alchemy was a coherent body of practices, strongly supported by social institutions. Alchemy was not viewed primarily as a spiritual pursuit, an idea popularized by nineteenth-century occultists, but as a part of natural philosophy, often compared to medicine.

Alchemy really encompassed all chemical technology—everything ranging from the manufacture of pigments for paint to making artificial precious stones. It included the manufacture of so-called “chemical medicines.”Both the quest for natural knowledge and the aspiration to alchemical wisdom played crucial roles in the Scientific Revolution.

Even the seemingly quixotic quest to transmute lead and other base metals into gold was rooted in the 17th-century theory that Aristotle’s four species of matter—earth, water, air, and fire—ultimately consisted of the same base material. As modern quantum physics has shown, at the most miniscule levels, matter is made of interchangeable protons, neutrons, quarks, gluons, and other even more esoteric and mysterious elementary particles. In theory it would be possible, given the proper technology, to make lead become gold. So alchemy was not only grounded solidly in the physical and chemical knowledge of the 17th century—in some ways, it was way ahead of its time.

St. Germain was among those who translated the wildly figurative writings of traditional alchemy into quantitative, carefully reasoned laboratory practice. He spent countless hours attempting to demystify alchemy’s Byzantine mythological terminology. Alchemy involved a number of sophisticated chemical techniques and technologies, including distillation, sublimation, purification, and crystallization.

Alchemists pioneered methods of separating out the more virulent components of minerals to create relatively non-toxic, mineral-based medications. They also invented a wide range of pigments used for painting and dying, pioneered the manufacture of acids, and invented distillation methods used to make “strong waters,” or alcohol.

Alchemy also included the attempt to make the “philosophers’ stone,” thought to be an agent of universal transmutation. It also was viewed as a curative agent that could “cure” metals of their impurities and cure human beings of their illnesses. So it was a sort of universal panacea. Understanding of and power over nature has always been a key element to alchemy.

It also included astronomical aspects and observations for timing experiments in concert with the heavens. The enigmatic language of alchemy promised tremendous control over the natural world. It would allow you to transmute virtually anything into anything else, not just lead into gold. Alchemy was really matter theory. Alchemy was a science which pursued the most basic questions of “What is the Earth? What is all of the universe made up of? What are the components of matter?”

The highest aspect of the Alchemical process, however, has to do with much more than changing one metal into another. This process and the instructions to be followed for its successful completion, have a duality of meaning. The duality references the fact that in addition to Alchemy being the means by which base metal could be changed into gold, it is also, in its higher form, a means of allowing the Alchemist to change, or transform the base person, oneself, into “gold”, meaning that a higher form of Spirituality is reached within oneself.

This higher aspect of the duality, is sometimes called Spiritual Alchemy (as opposed to Physical Alchemy) and it more accurately defines what true Alchemy is really all about rather than involving only the turning of lead into gold. This higher, or Transcendental Alchemy, as it is also called, is the process of a person spending many years, perhaps even a lifetime, working to raise the self to its highest possible Spiritual potential for that incarnation. Many of those who practiced Physical Alchemy, also followed the parallel, yet higher path of Transcendental, or Spiritual Alchemy. Its completion is truly the work of many years, and for a number of dedicated Alchemists, it became the work of their lifetime.

First of all alchemical energies are spiritual energies and you must be cautious that the laboratory is not hostile to these energies. And I think that it is a good thing to make a washing once a moon of the laboratory. This laboratory can be on the physical path but you must concentrate on the fact that you also clean the psychic part (aspect) of the laboratory.

In the laboratory, and that’s where the key of alchemy stays, is created a link between the operation and the alchemist. When this link is properly done the alchemist has direct knowledge of nature, found in no book. When you work in the alchemical lab it’s better to have an oratory and to clean yourself psychically before you begin any physical work. So first put the lab in a good vibration state, and second put the operator in a good vibration state.

And next to this are two kinds of work in the laboratory - say the delicate ones and the others. For the delicate ones which are those where the alchemical life can be endangered, the operator is alone in the laboratory - nobody can work with him in that case.

The maximum would be the couple Nicola and Pernelle, no more. When you work on sensitive products, when these products are prepared that’s when they are in the phase of preparation. Because then they are more sensitive or in intermediate phases we must - according to cases - must see our products do not necessitate incubation, they are put in the oratory (away) from everybody, nobody can see them. If the products need incubation they are put in the incubator and only the alchemist opens it. Particularly the mercuries are very, very delicate products whatever kingdom they belong to. When you prepare alcohol to make a vegetable mercury above 70 alcoholic degrees [RH: that is, 70 percent pure, or 140 proof] only the operator can touch the alcohol - because you must understand - for instance the alcohol that will be used for a mercury - if you put a parasitic load in it you will never be able to extract it. The alcohol (in this case) is only good to wash the dishes. (glassware).

When the products are done - for instance when the stone has been incubated and it’s entirely done - it can be exposed to the public, but it’s much less delicate. As long as the surroundings are O.K. you can show it to familiars.

When you manipulate the mercuries you can have different types of vegetable mercuries. But some rules are to be respected. When you want to extract the vegetable mercury the extraction liquid must contain carbon, hydrogen, and oxygen - otherwise the extraction will be dead. For instance you can extract the vegetables with alcohol, acetone, acetic acid, hexane, but you cannot extract with (carbon tetrachloride or ethylene?) You cannot extract with these because in these are not the elements that can keep the vegetable life. We spoke about the mineral kingdom. In the mineral kingdom only the animated mercury allows extractions.

We have research on extractions of sulfur by mercuries of the metallic kingdoms that are all very dangerous products. When we will have finished our study on the security on these products we will publish those.

You must also be very careful that in the vegetable kingdom the liquid products must not touch metal and particularly aluminum. And next to this — we spoke of it earlier, but I will speak of it again because it’s a very delicate problem — of the loss of the alchemical life. If we consider a living body from an alchemical point of view, the alchemical life is kept by the crystalline network. If you crush the product, you do not free life - because the crystalline network is in the atomic state and it’s impossible to crush down to the atomic state. When the crystal is in powder it’s just as living as when it was in crystals, it’s just an indication. If you melt the crystal, the life is gone, except in certain cases. We will explain now.

If you dissolve the crystal in a liquid - the life is gone unless the liquid is a mercury of the (same) kingdom. If the liquid is a mercury of the (same) kingdom it takes life and eventually it will be possible to transfer it somewhere else. To illustrate this the ancients say that the transmutation stone must be wrapped in wax before it’s used and it must be rapidly dipped in a fusing metal. Then it doesn’t melt before it’s in the metal and its fusion (occurs) in the middle of the metal - it frees its energies there in the metal.

When you take a vegetable stone the interest is to take it with a slightly alcoholic liquid (wine) in order to have it come really fast in your stomach. The stomach liquids destroy the alcoholic structures of the vegetable stone, and if everything is fine the energy is freed next to the solar plexus. And that explains its effects.

Considering special liquids you must take care of - particularly in the vegetable or acetic acid ways - acetic acid. I don’t know where you will go to in alchemy, but I must tell you two things on this acid and on another. When you have a commercial acid usually they are obtained by distilling wood and we don’t really know well the nature of life that’s in it. [RH: Much commercial acetic acid is from wood: pyroligneous acid.]

If you want to be certain of the alchemical quality of this acetic acid you can only extract it (acetic acid) from vinegar, extracted from red wine. There’s no need for distilling, the only concentration possible is done through freezing. It was probably described in the P.O.N. paper (The Stone newsletter) and in the Lessons. A freezing to 25 (degrees) C allows a very rapid separation of the acetic acid - of the vinegar. Since I explained some things from the past, in the ancient texts we don’t know uric acid but there is a difference in the ancient books. The ancients would say the uric acid is a dead acid. That can be done by yourself very easily - when they (ancients) say sea salt acid it’s the living acid - we’ll show you a sample there and have work with the acid used in the butter of antimony. http://www.triad-publishing.com/PON-04.html

 

The energies that are involved with alchemy, were the same as the ones used in operative qabala. So in considering this thing we will see teachings from Germany that are some kind of synthesis between alchemy, qabala, or operative magic and astrology.

• Level 3 (Saturn/Binah); French: Cubique; English: Cubic
• Level 4 (Jupiter/Chesed); French: Quadratique; English: Tetragonal (Quadratic)
• Level 5 (Mars/Geburah); French: Orthorhombique; English: Orthorhombic
• Level 6 (Sun/Tiphereth); French: Monoclinique; English: Monoclinic
• Level 7 (Venus/Netzach); French: Triclinique; English: Triclinic
• Level 8 (Mercury/Hod); French: Rhomboédrique (Trigonal); English: Rhombohedral
• Level 9 (Moon/Yesod); French: Hexagonal; English: Hexagonal

But the so-called astrology for practical reasons in alchemy is set to the planetary genius’s probably. We think that we cannot work at random in alchemy. And we will try to explain how to manipulate properly the alchemical energies. First theory, then practice. For reasons of language we will mix both qabala and alchemy first. Because we have been brought to think during accomplishments and works, that qabala explains some kinds of problems properly and alchemy, others.

When we look at the text of the Golden Chain of Homer (points to picture on wall) at this picture here, it’s in accordance with the qabala. It says that everything that exists comes from one energy and origin and that this energy originates matter but also consciousness and energy. To speak of this energy we will take the names of qabala. This energy starts with level 1, where it suffers and begins, in successive steps, to coagulates to the level of the density of our world and its level of power.

It automatically condenses to many levels, we have 1-2-3 here (points to chart) and 1-2-3 here, of these we will speak very little. These levels do not concern alchemy or qabala except beginning on #3. We don’t speak of these levels because they have very little influence on the earth work, because they are levels where no space and time occur. The levels consist of alchemy and a bit of chemistry. The job we will be doing will be to consider the nature of these energies of the upper worlds and the upper levels. There is no space or time and energy is unitary.

We start in the kingdom of duality. Little by little with coagulation, appears a denser space/time. From this point on every law of nature by conception has a double aspect + and - etc. This part of energy is invisible. For the ordinary consciousness of man only level ten of coagulation is visible. Whatever process you use in alchemy you will always have to go by steps. All these levels of energy exist in everything, in the mineral, vegetable, and man. [RH: The levels conform to the levels in the tree of life. 1 is the most subtle, 10 the most dense. 1 is Kether, 2 is Chockmah, 3 is Binah. At level 3 the first duality as space/time forms as the primary energy coagulates. 4 is Chesed, 5 is Geburah, 6 is Tiphareth, 7 is Netzach, 8 is Hod, 9 is Yesod, and 10 is Malkuth. Malkuth conforms to “the density of our world and its level of power”.]

To understand what is coming, that will be spoken of Sunday, we will only lightly speak of certain things, because today is a preparation so that you can understand what we will do, then we will go and do it. Every level constitutes what we call an inner world or a level in the universe. In each of these levels there exists things and elements that exist on the earth level. Energy is in degrees and it can match matter and can act on it, even in very subtle states in form. And when man can match his conscious with a level he sees that in each of these worlds he can live consciously, just like in this world; that rocks and animals exist - and that things are very little different from what people are seeing on this level (10). Except that consciousness has to adapt to the space/time at each level which is the biggest problem that we encounter. In fact the real work of alchemy or qabala and the real initiation is to go up the levels of the conscious of man, up one by one, so as to become conscious of these inner worlds. When dealing with alchemy or qabala it’s important to know that the energy comes down always by the same way. It is something you have to remember when you will have complex experiments. Subtle energy in alchemy will be the same way: you will make it come down in the same first way, and in no alchemical experiment can you jump a level. That’s the general aspect of energy. These energies have several aspects we can use in alchemy. If we consider the beginning up here (points to chart level 1) it is the origin from which the matter is being carried , both names - depending on the order and when duality appears the energy takes two aspects. An aspect which the ancients called nitre and an aspect called salt. In texts it’s twice called salt of the sky and salt of the earth, then this energy divides into two - then appears the four elements on which lots of errors have been made and on which we will try to explain a lot of things.

The first (ones) are Air and Fire, they are in fact the spiritual energy that animates things. These are the energies used in alchemy and these energies are totally or nearly totally ignored by the profane sciences. Earth and Water are the energies in the origin of the matter and structure. In alchemical conceptions of principles we consider Fire and Air to form the principle called Sulfur, the principle that animates things. Earth and Water form the principle of Salt - they are the structure of matter.

Between the spiritual and matter is an element called Mercury, it is between the symbols Air and Water. Mercury in every kingdom is the element and junction between spirit and matter. We will pause on the alchemical problem, as here there are delicate things to explain. The names of these elements do not mean their aspects. If we want a relatively correct picture of these elements, we must consider the sunlight. It seems white, and when it comes down through the rain or a prism it’s a new color. The elements are colors of the primary unity and are included in it - there is an order of power in the elements. Fire is the strongest and in every initiatic or alchemistical process - Fire sets things. [RH: The term ‘sets’ is used interchangeably with ‘determines’. This concept appears again in the lecture on ‘Mendeleiev Table of Elements’ and in discussions on ‘The Secret Fire’. It is an important concept in Alchemy.]

The energy goes down by Fire, Air, Water, Earth (Homer chart is reversed for this), these (Earth) elements in man are the body elements. These are the salt - (traditionally?) we have produced a bad note by saying that when we go through death the salt separates from the body. What is said now will be right for man, for the vegetable, for mineral. When the death occurred there was only a transfer of the energy produced (at the time)? This may seem far from real alchemy but we will try to show you by experiment that it is possible to have the elements go up step by step. [RH: Metallic evolution.] In fact what we will say tomorrow, coming up [RH: though the levels] with the elements of matter, brings back the consciousness of the operator on this same level and he will be conscious of this level.

I will now come to a practical aspect. We had a little problem with the 6000 documents. We missed some documents of the alchemical work that will be important to remember, that whatever level we consider we find that in every level there’s a series of things. In every level there is a level of consciousness and density, and space/time, and for our chemical work there are basic elements that have a planet related, symbolically or in reality. For instance here is mercury (points to chart at level 8), a metal, a day of the week - Wednesday - a crystal - orthorhombic (Note: Here Patrice says orthorhombic, however, mercury is rhombohedral) - and also a certain number of plants. And when we will speak on Saturday we will spend time to see what metal of ——-? Back to our chemical work. In manipulating these energies we will talk a lot on the initiatic stones. Because a vegetable stone allows one much more quickly to have contact with inner levels. For instance we think we will be able to let you have an experience or at least a contact on this level (mercury), and we will explain later why we chose this level.

But the vegetable stone only gives temporary experience. To have a definitive experience we must work on the metallic stone. We will explain in detail how we can discover the level(s) of the stones. The stones belonging to the white work will allow one to accomplish contact at these levels (points to chart levels 9 - 8 -7) and the stones that are red allow to initiate these levels (points to same chart, levels 6 - 5- 4 -3), upper levels. We are rather short of time because the program we have for you is long. The consequences of initiation here will be followed (up on?) For us alchemy is a very logical and very —- kind —- and we do not believe in the value of —— because we think that people, as will be explained tomorrow, that people who are not of the proper ‘heart’, who are not real knights will not succeed in alchemy. http://www.triad-publishing.com/PON-01.html

 THE STONE:


According to the “Golden Chain of Homer”, Nature is all there is, including the visible and the invisible world.

Pernety states: “Man is the center in which everything winds up: the Quintessence of the whole Universe is locked up in him.”

There is a Buddhist saying, ” This body, a mere eight hands tall, comprises the world, is the creation of the world, the end of the world and the path that leads to the resolution of the world.”

Philalethes has told us the following, ” Listen, then while I make known the Grand Arcanum of this wonder-working Stone, which at the same time is not a stone, which exists in every man, and may be found in its own place at all times..

What of the many other authers as Jacob Boehme who wrote,
“Therefore, sir, do not trouble and toil yourself in the manner and way you mention,
with any gold and minerals; it is all false. The best in heaven and in the world above

and below must be, ingredient to it, which is far off and nigh at hand. The place is

everywhere where it may be had; but every one is not fitted and prepared for it; neither

doth it cost any money but what is spent upon the time and bodily maintenance; else it

might be prepared with two florins, and less. The world must be made heaven, and

heaven the world ; it is not of earth, stones or metals, yet it is the ground of all metals;

but a, spiritual being, environed with the four elements, which also changeth the four

elements into one ; a doubled mercury, yet not quicksilver or any other mineral or metal.

The work is easy and the art is simple; a boy of ten years might make it; but the wisdom

therein is great and the greatest mystery. Every one must seek it for himself; it behoves

us not to break the seal of God, for a fiery mountain lieth. before it at which I myself

am amazed and must wait whether it be God’s will.”

______23rd Epistle (1649 edition)____

The Hermetic authors have repeated over and over, that the matter of their art is hidden;

that their operations are not manual, not the work of hands, that its elements are invisible

and not recognised by the vulgar. They speak scornfully of the “puffers” and “charcoal

burners” who produce nothing more than smoke and who have been known to have

burned down entire towns with their fires. The true alchemists always had a living sense

of nature. To them their world was inseparable from Gnosticism. With their many formulas,

they have always told us to read between the lines, that their alchemical sulfur represented

the Will. That smoke is the soul separated from the body, ( and this has been seen by many

who practice the inner circulation as vapours and smoke rising within their inner being

and known as the expansion of consciousness) . That the viril strength in the human red blood

is the “arsenic” as was symbolised by Zosimos is also one of the many variety of such

symbols through which the adepts all say the same thing , “Quod ubique, quod ab omnibus

et quod semper”, That which is everywhere, in everything, and eternal.

In his ‘De signatura rerum’, Boehme also reveals to us the axiom upon which this unique

knowledge rests, this tradition that claims for itself universality and primordiality:

“Between Eternal Birth, Resurection from the Fall and the discovery of the

Philosopher’ s Stone, there is no difference.”

There is surely a secret fire hidden in matter, which can be freed and used as a fiery agent for
alchemical purposes. However true this may be, I don’t think this is being argued. The fact is
that the body of man is also matter and that it also is very much infused with the secret fiery agent.
There is no quicker and easier way to work with this agent than through the very secret metaphysical
operations that are in the possession of the one who knows and is ready for such powerful work.
And such work surely does exist and the modus operandi is universally applied. Whatever the manner
in which the Hermetic Philosophers have spoken, to them nature is One and the work is one and the
athenor is one and they all are in accord.

Eudexus has said,
” I have already shewed you that in the principal Operations of the Art, there
are always two Things, one supplies the place of the Male, and the other of the
Female; one is the Body, the other is the Spirit: You must make here the Application
of it, i.e. that in the three Solutions that I mention to you, the Male and the Female,
the Body and the Spirit, are not other but the Body and the Blood, and that these two
Things are of one same Nature, and of same kind; so that the Solution of the Body in
its own Blood, is the Solution of the Male by the Female, and that of the Body by its
Spirit. And this is the order of these three important Solutions.

I for one see much worth and beauty in the lab allegories and the correspondences revealed,
and yes I do believe that the stone does exist on all levels of being. As Marry Ann Atwood
has said, ” The Philosopher’ s Stone is a real entity produced by spiritual generation; it is a
real ens of light; it is both objective and subjective - an actuality as well as a theory.”

The mineral, the vegetal and the animal kingdoms are found in man himself. In his blood
are found all the minerals and metals. In his body is found the vegetable kingdom, and his
body is the animal. He also has a soul and a spirit and he is the microcosm, a universe
complete and whole within which is hidden the mercury of the philosophers. This you
cannot doubt. Potentially we all are the thrice great ruler as the “Trismegistus” .

From- De Transmutatione Metallica, in the section entitled The Interrogations of King Calid,
and the Answers of Morienus in MS Sloane 3697.

King Calid: Give me yet the explanation upon this thing.

Morienus: Why should I use many words unto you? For this thing is extracted
from thee, and thou art its ore; in thee they find it, and, to speak more plainly,
from thee they take it; and when thou hast experienced this, the love and delight
of it will be increased in thee. And thou shalt know that this thing subsists truly
and beyond all doubt.

King Calid: Have you at any time known any other Stone that may be likened
unto this Stone, by whose effect and power this self same thing might be
perpetrated?

Morienus: I have not known any Stone which might be likened to this Stone,
or which may have the effect of it. For in this Stone the Four Elements are
contained, and it is likened to the world and the composition of the world.

Transmute yourselves from dead stones into living philosophical stones.
- Gerhardt Dorn

Best Wishes,
Steve Kalec

 

The winged dragon is a symbol of the spiritualizing of earthly substance.

Here is our new black Son born, and the name of him shall be called Elixir. The black earth and feculent is turned into Argent vive as it was afore and dissolved in the colour of oil, and then it shall be called oil of Philosophers.

The dead dragon undergoes a transmutation. The dead dragon is not an end, but the beginning of the Great Work. From the dead dragon, vapors and volatile substances arise, often seen in alchemical images. In other terms, the earth is partly being transformed into water, it ascends as vapor.

Killing the dragon also refers to a cosmic happening. It is the penetration of the ‘prima materia’ as primal ocean, or primal chaos by the secret fire or the divine spirit. The fiery serpent emanated fire and light into the primal waters. When the dragon-serpent is killed, the original chaos ceased and the process of cosmic evolution started. Another name for the Hermaphrodite is the Rebis which is the final product; the fully actualized divine child birthed from the alchemical, sacred marriage.

8. How the Dragon is Born in Blackness and is Fed with his Mercury and Killeth Himself and is Drowned in the Same and the Water is somewhat made White.

Gold is dissolved that he may be reduced unto his first matter, that is that it may be made truly sulphur and Argent vive. For then we may make most best silver and Gold when it is converted into the matter of them. Therefore it must be so well washed until it be true Sulphur, and Argent Vive, for according to the Philosopher they be the very true matters of metals. Therefore he that can wed a wife, and get her with child and mortify and quicken again the kinds of generations, and can cleanse and bring in light, and to separate the shine thereof from blackness and darkness, shall be of most great dignity. Therefore we conjoining our king crowned to our red children and in an easy fire knitting them together, there shall be conceived and between them engendered a son, For his clouds which were upon him turneth again into his body as they came out. Therefore continue a temperate Balneo or bathe until such time all be dissolved into water impalpable, and that all the tincture come out in the colour of Blackness, which is the sign and token of Dissolution. 

9. Here is the Water Cleansed wholly from Blackness and Remaineth in the Colour of Milk, and many Colours doth Appear in the Blackness.

The dragon here eateth his own wings and showeth forth divers colours by many manner of ways and many times shall be moved from colour unto colour until such time it come unto whiteness, A fierce or a most cruel beast ought not to be fed but when it hath thirst and hunger, and know ye that after three days it hath not, then is the Dragon born, the house of him is darkness and blackness dwelling in all these; Truly death, and Darkness, flyeth this Sea, and the dragon flyeth from the bright beams of the Son which stops the holes, and our dead form shall leave, and the king shall come from the fire, and shall rejoice of his marriage. And hidden things shall appear, and the milk of the virgin shall be made white, and our child now quickened is made a tamer or overcomer of ye fire, and overcoming tincture. (Adam McLean commentary www.rexresearch.com/donumdei/donumdei.htm)

One reason alchemical language is so obscure and contradictory is because it was developed, in part, to describe psychological and physical changes involving states of consciousness that totally defy description. Only a few of these states, such as the “peacock’s tail,” can be deemed objective; hence the impossibility of simple, straightforward terms, and the reluctance to color the reader’s expectations overmuch. The mystical artwork of the alchemists- arguably why their legacy survives- better communicates the truth than do the innumerable tracts on antimony, sulfur, and the like. Often an author will slip just a few valid sentences into a whole manuscript; sometimes even these “by contraries” as one artist observed. “Where we have spoken openly we have said nothing.”

Moreover, a long series of charlatans and honestly deceived impostors have confused things almost beyond recognition. The situation today may be grasped by the fact that a “responsible” scholar like Jean-Pierre Mahe can get away with the cavalier claim, or boast, that “becoming immortal is just a matter of will” - and this in an introduction to his translation of the Definitions of Hermes Trismegistus to Asclepius, a short but important work which states unequivocally: “You do not have the power of becoming immortal.” Mahe also informs us that “the disciple who wants to strengthen his mind should first of all learn to see, or contemplate, God.” Which is at odds, again, with the Definitions: “[God] is not visible, but evident within the visible.” But we may forgive his confusion, since he also says knowledge “consists in believing” and that “reasonable speech” is gained by reading “no longer extant” textbooks.

Mind you, this represents the more serious side of things, appearing in a scholarly volume entitled The Way of Hermes; at the other end, we have clowns like Franz Bardon (The Key to the True Hermetics) advising students to light matches telekinetically. In between lie a variety of literature and organizations arrogating the name of Hermes, usually while doing disservice to it. For example, the self-styled “Three Initiates” are long on philosophy, but completely absent on practice and on God. Waite, while ostensibly serious, can be credulous beyond measure with his powders, projections, and transmutations. There is a mountain of dross.

Here the distinction between Hermetism, or the teachings of the Corpus Hermeticum, and Hermeticism, designating virtually everything else, is helpful, because the Corpus is the primary and authoritative text in the canon, and, in sharp contrast to alchemical books, is completely free of obscurity. It contains a succinct and satisfying spiritual teaching that stresses direct experiential knowledge of God: “This is the only salvation for man: knowledge of God.” This is the simplest, yet narrowest standard in determining the authority of a text which purports to be alchemical. Can it reasonably be inferred that the author knows, or has known, God? “Who can measure the joy of a man when he obtained a knowledge of his Creator?” asks the Casket.

In this respect, the principal authorities - though in many ways polar opposites - are Paracelsus and Francis Bacon. Whatever his faults, Theophrastus was, in Jung’s words, a “spiritual impulse” that really found no direct successor, until Francis, born of the “virgin” Elizabeth, inherited the mantle and used it to produce the Rosicrucian and alchemical manuscripts that flooded Europe in the early 17th century. A Golden and Blessed Casket of Nature’s Marvels (1608), cited above, is a series of Paracelsian treatises describing in candid personal detail Bacon’s rejection of Aristotle and Plato, and his eventual discovery of hermetic philosophy. Because of its importance it is worth quoting at length:

Now, the First is the Common Philosophy of Aristotle, of Plato, and of our own time, which is but a Cagastrian Philosophy, Speculation, and Phantasy, with which, even at the present day, all the Schools are filled, and by which they are befouled, and beloved youth thereby led astray. The same is inane, erroneous, empty chatter; and far removed from the foundation of Truth. Even at the present day it is blasphemously defended, tooth and nail, with all sorts of opinions, ideas, imaginations, and erroneous thoughts of the old heathen (who were held to be Sages), which were accepted as the Truth…

This Philosophy, although, from my youth up, it was earnestly and diligently inculcated, and forced upon me, in the Schools (as unfortunately occurs to others at the present day), yet, by special interposition of the Holy Spirit, it became so suspected by me that I never would, nor could, torture my head, mind, and soul with it, nor persuade my heart that the same was a sacred thing, nor cleave unto it as others did; but, according to my childish judgment, let the matter rest there until, about the year 1587 or 1588, another philosophy came into my hands. At the same time I had, in my own mind, firmly resolved not to remain the least among my fellow scholars, but in due time to graduate in advance of them all.

But it has pleased God otherwise in His Divine Providence, and all sorts of impediments on the part of my superiors hindered the course of my studies, until at last, in 1587-88, the books and writings of Theophrastus, of Roger Bacon, and of M. Isaac the Hollander, fell into my hands….

The dates 1587-88, given twice, are relevant to both the Rosicrucian movement and the Shakespeare authorship question; thus a little later on we read “I turned my attention for some years to poetry.”

Some texts published after Bacon’s death (itself something of a mystery), such as the works of Eugenius Philalethes, most likely owe their origin to him as well. Philalethes abounds with allusions to “noble Verulam” and “that discreet gentleman of the Mancha.” In the Magia Adamacia, Bacon gives his mature assessment of Paracelsus:

“And here without any partiality I shall give my judgment of honest Hohenheim. I find in the rest of his works, and especially where he falls on the Stone, a great many false processes, but his doctrine of it in general is very sound. The truth is he had some pride to the justice of his spleen, and in many places he hath erred of purpose, not caring what bones he threw before the schoolmen, for he was a pilot of Guadalcanar and sailed sometimes in his rio de la recriation.”

Bombastus, it is said, received his knowledge from Sufis in Constantinople. This is not surprising, considering the stream of genuinely gnostic Sufi literature over the years. Furthermore it accords with Christian Rosenkreutz at “Damcar,” which some have Damascus, but which I read Samarkand. Here is what one Rosicrucian- probably Bacon - says:

“It is true indeed, that their Knowledge at first was not purchased by their own Disquisitions, for they received it from the Arabians, amongst whom it remained as the Monument and Legacy of the Children of the East. Nor is this at all improbable, for the Eastern Countries have always been famous for Magical and Secret Societies. Now am I to seek how far you will believe me in this, because I am a Christian; and yet I doubt not but that you will believe a Heathen, because Aristotle was one.”

Sir Richard F. Burton called Sufism the “eastern parent of Freemasonry, ” presumably on the basis of the oft-alleged but rather tenuous Templar-Rosicrucian -Masonic lineage. Though undoubtedly one of history’s great scholars, Burton’s claim is somewhat diminished in credibility by his arrogating the title “Master Sufi” while harboring agnostic reservations, an utter contradiction in terms. At any rate, today Freemasonry (what I know of it) seems heavily ritualistic in the abstract, not really in the concrete as, for example, a Sufi zikr. True gnosis tends to de-emphasize ritual: “There is one way to worship God: be not evil.” Thus the Corpus. It is likely that the Masons possess some true Hermetic technique and 4th- (and possibly 5th-) dimensional facility, but as Gurdjieff said, there is really only self-initiation.

Some of the best alchemical books are not often mentioned in connection with the subject: Gargantua and Pantagruel and The Labyrinth of the World and the Paradise of the Heart are two cherished classics which are very explicit, especially on the process and stone. Matthew 17, which deals with the Transfiguration, contains a subtle hint: “often he falls into fire, often into water.” Perhaps surprisingly, the earliest symbolic references to the alchemy occur in Gilgamesh and the book of Exodus, both of which feature a plant of immortality, or burning bush, meeting with a brazen serpent. Macevilley notes this motif resurfacing in the Mahabharata, and speculates a shamanic drug plant. Curiously, we see the same set of symbols employed again in the Aphorismi Urbigerani, an alchemical tract published in 1690 but probably composed earlier, again by Bacon:

“Since our subject cannot be called the fiery Serpent of the Philosophers, nor having the power of overcoming any created thing, before it has received such Virtue and Quality from our Green-Dragon, and the Universal Menstrum, by which itself is first overcome, devoured, and buried in their Bowels, out of which being born again, ‘tis made capable of the same…”

This small passage actually says a great deal about alchemy, and it is evident from earlier passages that the “Green-Dragon” signifies cannabis:

“This Green Dragon is the natural Gold of the Philosophers, exceedingly different from the vulgar, which is corporeal and dead, being come to the period of its Perfection according to Nature, and therefore uncapable of generating, unless it be first generated itself by our Mercurial Water; but ours is spiritual, and living, having the generative Faculty in itself, and in its own Nature, and having received the Masculine Quality from the Creator of all things.
Our Gold is called Natural, because it is not to be made by Art, and since it is known to none, but the true Disciples of Hermes, who understand how to separate it from its original Lump, ‘tis also called Philosophical; and if God had not been so gracious, as to create this first Chaos to our hand, all our Skill and Art in the Construction of the great Elixir would be in vain.”

As the long-esteemed Turba says, “The whole work is in the vapor and the sublimation of water.” If this is something of an overstatement, it accords with the Atalanta Fugiens:

“Three things suffice for the work: a white smoke, which is water; a green Lion, which is the ore of Hermes; and a fetid water… the stone, known from the chapters of books, is white smoke and water.”

The Book of Morienus, though probably not so old as it pretends, is still fairly authoritative and has it thus:

“The entire accomplishment of this operation consists of the red vapor, the yellow vapor, the white vapor, the green lion, ocher, the impurities of the dead and of the stones, blood, and foul earth.”

About our “foul earth” it was well said, that “whosoever understands not this dunghill, horsebelly, and moist fire, shall labour in vain, and shall never attain this Science.” Figulus says, “roast and boil it in the warmth of the horse’s belly.” Horsebelly indeed; whence arises all discussion of digestion, bowels, feces and so forth. Here we could speak at length on the properties of water, cannabis, tobacco, tea (green and senna teas notably), coffee, yogurt and kefir, psyllium fiber, alcohol (as a solvent), fasting, sunlight, music and vibration, the Om syllable, the Hu syllable, and other such, but we consider it sufficient to notify the reader of their use. Trial and observation; do not weary, follow nature, balance fire with water, pound, roast, persevere. I am no astrologer, but recently the horsebelly was so bad that I checked the position of the planets and found a strong concentration of Sun, Moon, Mercury, Venus, and Saturn in Virgo (which supposedly corresponds to the bowels), with the moon obstructing the sun, which seemed to make sense. As the moon passed into Libra, things got better and my perseverance was rewarded with an intense mystical event.

From some authors it might be deduced that only during Aries, Taurus, and Gemini can the work be performed; many texts, such as the Hermetic Triumph and the Rosicrucian Aphorisms and Process allude to this either verbally or in imagery. Perhaps spring being the time of generation, is what they had in mind; but sunlight is much more than disinfectant.

Obviously a great many things contribute to the success of our endeavors. We would be remiss in failing to mention extensive, perhaps excessive, experimentation with LSD and DMT (both N,N and 5-MEO varieties). DMT has been shown to help in stimulating the pineal gland. Cubensis and especially panaeolus mushrooms are also an excellent aid. Other studies helpful in developing inner consciousness include (but are certainly not limited to) music, astronomy, sacred geometry, philosophy, literature and poetry, spiritual literature, yoga (bhakti, raja and jnana especially), meditation and and other spiritual techniques or disciplines. I would emphasize study over meditation, but experience in quieting the mind is definitely helpful. David Wilcock has said that the chakras seem to represent different levels of activity of the soul; this, in our experience, approximates the truth better than images of spinning energy-wheels in the body. However, at some point a forceful direction of energy into the head “chakras” must be made. Two features stand out in these higher energy centers: the desire to know God, and the desire to work (what Gurdjieff called “being-partkdolg- duty”).

The sex question is summed up well in the Casket: “Bacon and Raymundus Lullius both testify that unless purification and solution be effected, the menstruum will not be worth a fig.” Or else Philalethes: “I move in the sphere of generation, and fall short of that test of Heraclitus: ‘dry light is best soul.’” We confess, that at times the energy builds to such a degree that one must have recourse to orgasm for release; one author mentions “frequent bleeding” in reference to this. The “menstrual blood of the sordid whore,” which Newman reads “the metalline form of antimony,” actually has a psychological and physiological meaning here. Good luck.

Mention should be made to be wary of 4th-dimensional experiences, because there is a great deal of corruption and nefarious activity still to be cleared here on Earth. As Paul says, “we do not wrestle against flesh and blood, but against principalities, against powers, against the rulers of the darkness of this age, against spiritual hosts of wickedness in the heavenly places.” Concerning the reptilians, the “generation of vipers” of John, the Corpus says:

When the soul which has entered a human body remains evil, it does not taste immortality nor partake of the Supreme Good. Being dragged away it turns back on its journey to the reptiles, and that is the condemnation of the evil soul.

Inevitably challenges and trials will beset the student; as the Turba says, “Woe to you who seek the very great and compensating treasure of God!” The related questions of will and renunciation are relevant here, but can only be addressed individually.

A last word, on the fabled “Emerald Tablet.” Evidently it is in private hands; until it can be produced, we must regard the fantastic legends surrounding it with at least some degree of skepticism. More importantly, its oft-parroted “as above, so below” is a problem the philosopher John Pontanus complains of, and a point on which the Corpus differs in several places: “This is the difference between the like and the unlike, and the inferiority of the unlike compared to the like.” “Evil’s country is the earth, but not the cosmos as some blasphemously affirm.” This is an important point, so I will defer to Bacon:

There are many Platonics — and this last century hath afforded them some apish disciples — who discourse very boldly of the similitudes of inferiors and superiors; but if we thoroughly search their trash it is a pack of small conspiracies. .. It is excellent sport to hear how they crow, being roosted on these pitiful particulars, as if they knew the universal magnet which binds this great frame and moves all the members of it to a mutual compassion. This is an humour much like Don Quixote, who knew Dulcinea but never saw her.

And now, not wishing to rest on my own authority, here is a selection of excerpts conveying the theory and practice of the Hermetic art. Having sold most of my library, I cannot be as thorough as I would like, but hopefully this will help. I should acknowledge Adam Maclean; though we differ on many points, he has done an invaluable service in making many rare texts available online.

Hermetic Philosophy and Process

His deficiency is ignorance, his plenitude is the knowledge of God.

Definitions of Hermes Trismegistus to Asclepius

Knowing God is the aim and goal of all human life.

Vivekananda

This is the only salvation for man: knowledge of God.

Corpus Hermeticum

The Sufi is he who aims, from at first, at reaching God, the Creative Truth.

Al-Hallaj

Released from greed, fear, anger,
absorbed in me and made pure
by the practice of wisdom, many
have attained my own state of being.

Bhagavad-Gita

Then in due order, they ascend to the Father and they surrender themselves to the powers, and becoming the powers they are merged in God. This is the end, the Supreme Good, for those who have had the higher knowledge: to become God.

Corpus Hermeticum

True ecstasy is the conjunction of light with light, when the soul of man meets the Divine Light.

Abdu’l-Qadir Al-Gilani

Knowledge of God has come to us, and therefore ignorance has been banished. Experience of joy has come to us, and therefore, O son, sorrow will flee to those who give place to it.

Corpus Hermeticum

There is not in the world a kind of life more sweet and delightful than that of a continual walk with God. Those only can comprehend it who practice and experience it; yet I do not advise you to do it from that motive.

Brother Lawrence

You too put your best foot forward. If you do not wish to, then follow your fantasies. But if you prefer the secrets of the love of your soul you will sacrifice everything. You will lose what you consider valuable, but you will soon hear the sacramental word “Enter.”

Attar

But the rational soul who wearied herself in seeking - she learned about God. She labored with inquiring, enduring distress in body, wearing out her feet after the evangelists, learning about the Inscrutable One. She found her rising. She came to rest in him who is at rest. She reclined in the bride-chamber. She ate of the banquet for which she had hungered. She partook of the immortal food. She found what she had sought after. She received rest from her labors, while the light that shines forth upon her does not sink.

Authoritative Teaching

It would be the same at the end of the journey,
If you came at night like a broken king,
If you came by day not knowing what you came for,
It would be the same, when you leave the rough road
And turn behind the pig-sty to the dull facade
And the tombstone. And what you thought you came for
Is only a shell, a husk of meaning
From which the purpose breaks only when it is fulfilled
If at all.

Four Quartets

Hermes: Therefore, O Tat, God has given the Word to all men to partake in, but not so with Nous. He was not jealous, for jealousy of any one does not originate from there, but is created in the souls of men who have no Nous.
Tat: Then why, O father, has God not given to everyone a share of Nous?
Hermes: He willed, my son, to set it up as a prize before souls.

Corpus Hermeticum

When one attains the release called the Beautiful, at such a time he knows in truth what Beauty is.

The Samyuta

Those who have attained union have nothing
but the inward eye and the divine lamp-
they have been delivered of signs and roads.

Rumi

Make thine eye single, and thy body will be full of light.

Jesus

Whoever, then, by God’s mercy attains a divine birth is freed from the bodily senses and is made whole by these powers. He knows himself and rejoices.

Corpus Hermeticum

Most assuredly, I say to you, unless one is born again, he cannot see the kingdom of God.

Gospel of John

The light of this knowledge is the gift of God, which by His will He bestoweth upon whom He pleaseth. Let none therefore set himself to the study hereof, until having cleared and purified his heart, he devote himself wholly unto God, and be emptied of all affection and desire unto the impure things of this world.

The Hermetic Arcanum

Tat: In the general lectures, O father, you spoke in riddles about the divine nature without shedding any light. You haven’t revealed anything when you say that nobody can be saved before rebirth. After you had spoken to me when we were crossing the desert, I sought your help and asked to learn the teaching on rebirth, for this, above all, I did not know, and you said: “When you are ready to become a stranger to the world I shall bestow it upon you.” I am ready now and my mind is set firmly against the beguilement of the world.

Corpus Hermeticum

Rather, the kingdom is inside of you, and it is outside of you. When you come to know yourselves, then you will become known, and you will realize that it is you who are the sons of the living father. But if you do not know yourselves, you dwell in poverty and it is you who are that poverty.

Gospel of Thomas

Tat: O father, you are giving me answers which are impossible and contrived. I would like to make a frank reply to this: I have become a stranger in my father’s family! Do not refuse me, father; I am your true son; tell me fully the way of rebirth.
Hermes: What shall I say, my son? I have only this to tell: I see within me a formless vision born by the mercy of God. I have come out of my former self into an immortal body. I am not now what I was before. For I have been born in Nous. Such a thing is not taught, nor can it be seen by the physical body. So I have no interest in my former physical form, for I am without color and cannot be touched or measured; I am a stranger to these. Now you see me with your eyes, as something you understand through body and sight, but I am not now beheld with these eyes, O son.

Corpus Hermeticum

He who will know our great Power will become invisible, and fire will not be able to consume him. But it will purge and destroy all your possessions.

The Concept of Our Great Power

Those that hold public Honours and Offices or be always busied with private and necessary occupations, let them not strive to attain unto the acme of this Philosophy; for it requireth the whole mans, and being found, it possesseth him, and he being possessed, it debarreth him from all other long and serious employments, for he will esteem other things as strange, and of no value unto him.

The Hermetic Arcanum

If everybody knew it, all work and industry would cease…

Paracelsus

Those seated in knowledge neither please the multitude nor does the multitude please them. They seem to be mad and have become a laughing stock; they are hated and despised and may even be put to death.

Corpus Hermeticum

Jesus said, “Become passers-by.”

Gospel of Thomas

The Sufi is separated from mankind and united with God, as God has said, “And I chose thee for Myself,” that is, He separated him from all others.

Al-Shibli

For, son, it is impossible to be governed by both, by the mortal and the divine. There are two kinds of beings, the embodied and the unembodied, in whom there is the mortal and the divine spirit. Man is left to choose one or the other, if he so wishes. For one cannot choose both at once; when one is diminished, it reveals the power of the other.
Thus this power, the choice of the better, not only happens to be the most glorious for him who chooses, in that it unites man with God, but it also shows reverence to God. The inferior choice has destroyed man.

Corpus Hermeticum

No one can serve two masters; for either he will hate the one and love the other, or else he will be loyal to the one and despise the other. You cannot serve God and mammon.

Gospel of Matthew

To conclude I would have my Reader know, that the Philosophers finding this life subjected to Necessity, and that Necessity was inconsistent with the Nature of the Soul, they did therefore look upon Man, as a Creature originally ordained for some better State than the present, for this was not agreeable with his spirit.

Preface to the Rosicrucian Manifestos

Having thus raised themselves, they see the Supreme Good, and realizing that, they regard their time spent here as a misfortune.

Corpus Hermeticum

The true Sage, though he owns the Stone, does not care to prolong his life.

The New Chemical Light

Therefore I praised the dead who were already dead, more than the living who are still alive. Yet, better than both is he who has never existed, who has not seen the evil work that is done under the sun.

Ecclesiastes

Evil’s country is the earth, but not the cosmos as some blasphemously affirm.

Corpus Hermeticum

There are many Platonics — and this last century hath afforded them some apish disciples — who discourse very boldly of the similitudes of inferiors and superiors; but if we thoroughly search their trash it is a pack of small conspiracies. .. It is excellent sport to hear how they crow, being roosted on these pitiful particulars, as if they knew the universal magnet which binds this great frame and moves all the members of it to a mutual compassion. This is an humour much like Don Quixote, who knew Dulcinea but never saw her.

Coelum Terrae

Let us give up long and useless discourse. We must come to know these two: the created and the Creator, for between them there is no third.

Corpus Hermeticum

Knowledge acquired by external means will never reveal the Truth.

Al-Ghazzali

Their knowledge contents itself with the husk, that is, the futile scanning of the exterior; but does not penetrate the inner kernel which is the all-pervading glory of God.

The Labyrinth of the World and the Paradise of the Heart

For if there were not so many books put forward by ignorant writers, many thousands of persons who at the present moment are hopelessly floundering about in a sea of specious book-learning would have been led by the light of their own unaided intellects to the knowledge of this precious secret; they are prevented, these many years, from seeing the plain truth by a vast mass of printed nonsense which commands their reverence, because they do not understand it.

The Only True Way

I stood as if petrified. For there Bion sat still, Anacharsis strolled about, Thales flew, Hesiod plowed, Plato chased ideas in the air, Homer sand, Aristotle disputed, Pythagoras kept still, Epimenides slept, Archimedes tried to push the earth away, Solon was composing laws and Galen prescriptions, Euclid was measuring the hall, Cleobus was peering into the future, Periander was defining duties, Pittacus was waging war, Bias was begging, Epictetus was serving, Seneca, sitting among tons of gold, was extolling poverty, Socrates was confiding to everybody that he knew nothing, Xenophon, on the contrary, was promising to teach everything to everybody, Diogenes, peering out of his barrel, was deriding all passersby, Timon was cursing all, Democritus was laughing at it all, Heraclitus, on the contrary, was weeping, Zeno was fasting, Epicurus was feasting, while Anaxarchus was holding forth that all these things were only apparent, not real.

The Labyrinth of the World and the Paradise of the Heart

I listened to them for a long time (for I was pleased with their discourse) till I thought that some were talking rather wildly, not in regard to the substance and the method, but as concerns parables, similitudes, etc., which were the figments of Aristotle, Pliny, and others. When I heard these things, I could no longer contain myself, and, like Saul among the prophets, I began to give my opinion, and to refute those futile assertions by arguments drawn from experience and reason. Some of them agreed with me, and began to test my knowledge with many questions. But I was so well grounded that I stood the test to the admiration of all. They all marveled at the soundness of my knowledge, and affirmed with one voice that I should be received into their fellowship. These words filled me with great joy. But they said I could not be their Brother until I knew their Lion, and his internal and external properties.

The Golden Tract

You will see marvelous signs of this Green Lion, such as could be bought by no treasures of the Roman Leo. Happy he who has found it and learned to use it as a treasure!

Paracelsus

Beloved Masters and friends, we, with others, have to complain not a little that, although innumerable devilish philosophers have written about the Universal medicine and the Philosopher’ s Stone, yet both Heathens and Christians have left us true writings, which godless Cacophonists and pseudo-sophists have, for the most part, either wholly kept back or altered.

We have further to complain of those who mutilate and falsify the works of true seekers after natural Wisdom and Art, for I have clearly discovered defects, alterations, and foreign matter in the Triumphal Chariot of Fr. Basilius, and also in the writings of A. von Suchten and Theophrastus. More especially, dear Friends, have we to complain of the devilish cunning way in which the works of Theophrastus have hitherto been suppressed, only a few of which (and those to be reckoned the very worst) having appeared in print… Particularly his theological works (because they annihilate the godless, and do not suit children of this world - belly servers, deceived by the devil), have hitherto been totally suppressed.

But, at the Last Day, before the Judgment Seat of Christ, I, together with all true sons of the doctrine, shall demand an account of them for having stolen, sold, divided, and shut Truth away in boxes, walls, and vaults, and behind locks and bolts.

A Golden and Blessed Casket of Nature’s Marvels

The Lord said, “Whatever is born of truth does not die. Whatever is born of woman dies.”

The Dialogue of the Savior

Since Nous conceives speech in silence, only that speech which comes from silence and Nous is salvation. But speech which comes from speech is only perdition; for by his body man is mortal, but by speech he is immortal.

Definitions of Hermes Trismegistus to Asclepius

Let us pray, my father: I call upon you, who rules over the kingdom of power, whose word comes as a birth of light. And his words are immortal. They are eternal and unchanging.

Discourse on the Eighth and Ninth

God has made the universe, and He has created all that is in it; He has stretched out the heavens and founded the earth. What His heart conceived came to pass straightaway, and when He had spoken His word came to pass, and it shall endure forever.

Egyptian Book of the Dead

Asclepius: Your words are irrefutable, O Trismegistus. So what shall we say is the space in which everything is moved?
Hermes: It is bodiless, Asclepius.
A:But what is the bodiless?
H: Nous, the Word, emerging out of what which is whole, entire and complete; Nous containing itself, unembodied, steadfast, unaffected, and impalpable, itself standing by itself, containing and preserving all beings, whose glories are the Supreme Good, truth, the origin of breath, the origin of soul.
A: What then is God?
H: He is not any one of these, but He is the cause of their existence, the cause and existence of everything and of every individual.

Corpus Hermeticum

Moreover, all that has been made, is visible, but he himself is invisible.

Corpus Hermeticum

No one has seen God at any time.

Gospel of John

Though I am unmanifest, fools
think that I have a form,
unaware of my higher existence,
which is permanent and supreme.

Bhagavad-Gita

For the Supreme Good has no form and leaves no mark. Thus it is like unto itself, but unlike all else. What is unembodied, can never be seen by a body.

Corpus Hermeticum

This is the Supreme Good, this is God. Therefore, do not call anything else good since then you blaspheme, and do not ever call God anything but good, since then again you blaspheme.

Corpus Hermeticum

Jesus said to him, Why callest thou me good? There is none good but one, that is, God.

Gospel of Mark

Nothing evil or shameful can be ascribed to the Creator.

Since God is not the cause of evils, we are to blame, preferring these things to what is good.

There is one way to worship God: be not evil.

Greed, the root of all evil, is the error of man; it is the absence of goodness.

Corpus Hermeticum

The Fear of the Lord is the beginning of our Work, and the end Charity, and love of our Neighbor.

The Tomb of Semiramis

The desire of power in excess caused the angels to fall; the desire of knowledge in excess caused man to fall; but in charity there is no excess, neither can angel or man come in danger by it.

Francis Bacon

Having in our Travels fortuned to meet with some Persons of true Principles in Philosophy and Religion, we could not but embrace them and instruct them towards its farther Perfection, which cannot be attained without the true knowledge of our Celestial Art, by which comprehending all the Mystery of Mysteries, we learn also how to serve God in Faith and Truth. And since we have no Obligation to any living Soul for the knowledge, we possess, having attained it all by the only Blessing of Almighty God on our Industry and Expenses: being therefore at more liberty than those, who receive such a Favor from us, or some other Adept, ‘tis our Determination, whenever, we meet with Persons so qualified, always to do the same. Wherefore being at present in England, though we are no Native of this Kingdom, we think it necessary to set forth these Aphorisms in the English Tongue, not in the least doubting, but that the Knowing, minding only the Sense, will easily pardon any Impropriety, they may find in our Expressions: and when Providence shall carry us into any other Country, we, having attained to some competent knowledge of most European Languages, shall again take care to publish them in the Speech of the Place, where we shall be, that we may the sooner obtain the effect of our Desires, which aim at nothing, but the undeceiving of the World by setting down certain and evident Marks, distinguishing the Worthy from the Unworthy, and at the bringing of Men to leave their unnecessary Forms, by instructing them in the true way of Serving God, being the only means to render them happy both in this World, and the next.

Aphorismi Urbigerani

Then many rejoiced that the holy Brotherhood of the Rose had openly and liberally shared its treasures and approaching, bought the wares. All articles put up for sale were enclosed in painted boxes, bearing attractive inscriptions such as: Good Guide to the Large and the Small Cosmos; A Harmony of the Two Worlds; The Christian Cabala; The Case of Nature; The Castle of Primordial Matter; The Divin Magic; The General Tri-Trinity; The Triumphal Pyramid; Hallelujah; and so forth. But the buyers were forbidden to open the boxes. For the efficacy of the secret wisdom was said to be so powerful that it operated by penetration, and would evaporate if the boxes were opened. Nevertheless, some of the more inquisitive could not refrain from opening their boxes and found them entirely empty! Thereupon, they showed them to others, who also opened their boxes and likewise found nothing. Then they raised a cry of “Fraud! Fraud!” and assaulted the dealer with fury. He attempted to pacify them by saying that the most secret part of the mystery consisted in the fact that these things were invisible to all save the sons of science; and since barely one out of a thousand possessed the proper qualifications, he, the dealer, was not to blame.

The Labyrinth of the World and the Paradise of the Heart

For what ye seek is not of small price. Woe unto you who seek the very great and compensating treasure of God!

Turba Philosophorum

Some foolish Operators pretend, that our Great Elixir is to be prepared in a very easie manner, and without any trouble at all, to whom we will with our Master Hermes briefly answer, That such Impostors neither know our Matter, nor the right Preparation of it. Yet we do not deny, but any Healthy Person, of what Age soever he may be, may undergo all our Herculean Labors, necessary to the Performance of it.

Aphorismi Urbigerani

We have in these times many things
Which were invented by the Ancients
Which we admit and experiment with
And readily allow them to pass
Which if rightly looked at
Are hardly to be comprehended by human mind.

Ara Foederis Theraphici

The happy success depends on the subject being good, from a young man, if possible from a Jovial Temper or Choleric, in good health, collected in a proper season…

Rosicrucian Aphorisms and Process

The Hermetic Art consists in the true Manipulation of our undetermined Subject, which before it can be brought to the highest degree of Perfection, must of necessity undergo all our Chemycal Operations.

Aphorismi Urbigerani

If you don’t first hate your body, son, you cannot love your Self. If you love your Self you will have Nous, and having Nous you will partake of knowledge.

Corpus Hermeticum

But truth is so great a thing that we ought not to despise any medium that will conduct us to it.

Michel de Montaigne

In this Pantagruelion have I found so much efficacy and energy, so much completeness and excellency, so much exquisiteness and rarity, and so many admirable effects and operations of a transcendent nature…

Gargantua and Pantagruel

It is the same stone which is able to cure every day whatever illnesses and sorrows there might be.
It is the same stone which can increase the gratitude of mankind and take away all manner of evil.
It is the stone which can make men feel younger and desire to produce new fruit.
It is the same which can, through the Providential Will of God, bring about life where there was death.
It is the same which enables man to walk with angels and converse with spirits.

Arcana Divina

“But where is the stone to be found?”
“It is prepared here,” he answered.
“In these small kettles?” I exclaimed.
“Yes.”

The Labyrinth of the World and the Paradise of the Heart

It is this most famous medicine which philosophers have been wont to call their Stone, or Powder. This is its fount and fundament, and the Medicine whereby Aesculapius raised the dead. This is the herb by which Medea restored Jason to life.

A Golden and Blessed Casket of Nature’s Marvels

Long have I had in my nostrils the scent of the herb moly which became so celebrated thanks to the poets of old… this herb is entirely chemical. It is said that Odysseus used it to protect himself against the poisons of Circe and the perilous singing of the Sirens. It is also related that Mercury himself found it and that it is an effective antidote to all poisons. It grows plentifully on Mount Cyllene in Arcadia…

Septimana Philosophica

You ought to know concerning the quintessence, that it is a matter little and small, lodged and harbored in some Tree, Herb, Stone, or the like…

The Tomb of Semiramis

It appears then that this Stone is a Vegetable, as it were, the sweet spirit that proceeds from the Bud of the Vine joined in the Work, fixed and whitening as is said in the Green Dream, wherein after the Text of Alchemy is very notably described the practice of this Vegetable Stone to those who wisely discern the Truth, which for certain reasons and just cause I forbear to set down here.

Verbum Dismissum

Of this self-same body, which is the matter of the Stone, three things are chiefly said: that it is a green Lion, a stinking Gum, and a white Fume…
Having twelve pounds of Green Lion thus brought into gum, thou mayst believe…

Philosophia Maturata

A green Gum called our green Lyon, which Gum dry well, yet beware thou not burn his Flowers nor destroy his Greenness.

The Bosome-Book of Sir George Ripley

O how many are the seekers after this gum, and how few there are who find it! Know ye that our gum is stronger than gold, and all those who know it do hold it more honorable than gold… Our gum, therefore, is for philosophers more precious and sublime than pearls…

Turba Philosophorum

This is called the blessed stone; this earth is white and foliated, wherein the Philosophers do sow their gold…
The fourth color is Ruddy and Sanguine, which is extracted from the white fire only.

The Hermetic Arcanum

Take the fire, or quicklime, of which the philosophers speak, which grows on trees, for in that God himself burns with divine love.

Gloria Mundi

He looked, and behold, the bush burned with fire, and the bush was not consumed. And Moses said, I will now turn aside, and see this great sight, why the bush is not burnt.

Exodus

Upon the delicate leaves thereof it retaineth for our use that sweet heavenly honey which is called the manna, and, although it be of a gummy, oily, fat and greasy substance, it is, notwithstanding, unconsumable by any fire.

Gargantua and Pantagruel

Fire is a sterile essence, the duration of the immortal bodies and the destruction of the mortal: an infertile substance, in as much (it belongs to) the destructive fire which makes (things) disappear; and the perpetuation of the immortal, since what cannot be consumed by fire is immortal and indestructible, but the mortal can be destroyed by fire.

Definitions of Hermes Trismegistus to Asclepius

But here we speak of natural death philosophically, which is only a natural consumption of moisture and heat, as is demonstrated by a lighted lamp.

A Golden and Blessed Casket of Nature’s Marvels

It contains the fire of Nature, or the Universal Spirit; with Air as its vehicle it contains Water, which must be separated in the beginning of the work, and also earth which remains behind in the form of caput mortuum, where the fire has left it, and is the true Red Earth wherein the fire dwelt for a while. The subject, duly collected, should not be less than eight nor more than sixteen ounces: place it in a china or glazed basin and cover it loosely to keep the dust out.

Rosicrucian Aphorisms and Process

Another burned his eyes out, and was thus unable to supervise the calcination and the fixation: or bleared his sight with smoke to such an extent that before he cleared his eyes the nitrogen escaped. Some died of asphyxiation from the smoke. But for the greatest part they did not have enough coal in their bags and were obliged to run about to borrow it elsewhere, while in the meantime their concoction cooled off and was utterly ruined. This was of very frequent, in fact of almost constant, occurrence. Although they did not tolerate anyone among themselves save such as possessed full bags, yet these seemed to have a way of drying up very rapidly, and soon grew empty: they were obliged either to suspend their operations or to run away to borrow.

The Labyrinth of the World and the Paradise of the Heart

Our secret fire, that is, our fiery and sulfurous water, which is called Balnaeum Mariae… this water is a white vapor.

The Secret Book of Artephius

Know the secret fire of the wise, which is the one and sole agent efficient for the opening, subliming, purifying, and disposing of the material.

Letter to the True Disciples of Hermes

Study, then, this fire, for had I myself found it at the first, I should not have erred two hundred times upon the veritable material.

The Secret Fire

No philosopher has ever openly revealed this secret fire, and this powerful agent, which works all the wonders of the art.

The Hermetic Triumph

Mercury, i.e. the white flower, can be used and applied to the tinctures of all planets.

The Little Peasant

These blear’d eyes
Have wak’d to read your several colours, sir,
Of the pale citron, the green lion, the crow,
The peacock’s tail, the plumed swan.

Thou has descry’d the flower, the sanguis agni?

The Alchemist

You will see marvelous signs of this Green Lion, such as could be bought by no treasures of the Roman Leo. Happy he who has found it and learned to use it as a treasure!

The Treasure of Treasures

Beware therefore of many, and hold thee to one thing; this one thing is naught else but the lyon greene…

Bloomfield’s Blossoms

By gold I mean our green gold- not the adored lump, which is dead and ineffectual.

Aula Lucis

Therefore I affirm that the Universal Medicine for bodies is the philosophic gold… Our common gold has absolutely nothing in common with the philosophic gold we use to begin our task. In that respect common gold is dead and clearly useless.

Consideratio Brevis

“This stone is of a delicate touch, and there is more mildness in its touch than in its substance… of sweet taste, and its proper nature is aerial. “

Khalid said: “Tell me of its odor, before and after its confection.”

“Before confectioning, its odor is very heavy and foul.

“I know of no other stone like it nor having its powers. While the four elements are contained in this stone, it being thus like the world in composition, yet no other stone like it in power or nature is to be found in the world, nor has any of the authorities ever performed the operation other than by means of it. And the compositions attempted by those using anything else in this composition will fail utterly and come to nothing.
“The thing in which the entire accomplishment of this operation consists of the red vapor, the yellow vapor, the white vapor, the green lion, ocher, the impurities of the dead and of the stones, blood, and foul earth.
“Begin in the Creator’s name, and with his vapor take the whiteness from the white vapor.
“The whole key to the accomplishment of this operation is in the fire, with which the minerals are prepared and the bad sprits held back, and with which the spirit and body are joined.
“In answer to your question about the white vapor, or virgin’s milk, you may know that it is a tincture and spirit of those bodies already dissolved and dead, from which the spirits have been withdrawn. It is the white vapor that flows in the body and removes its darkness, or earthiness, and impurity, uniting the bodies into one and augmenting their waters.
“Without the white vapor, there could have been no pure gold nor any profit in it.”

The Book of Morienus

When our Chaos or Celestial Water has purified itself from its own gross and palpable Body, it is called the Heaven of the Philosophers, and the palpable Body the Earth, which is void, empty, and dark: And if our Divine Spirit, which is carried upon the Face of the Waters, did not bring forth out of the palpable Body that precious Metalic Seed, we should never be able by any Art whatsoever to go on any farther with the perfect Creation of our Microcosm according to our intent.

Aphorismi Urbigerani

Q: How is gold formed in the bowels of the earth?

A: When this vapour, of which we have spoken, is sublimed in the centre of the earth, and when it has passed through warm and pure places, where a certain sulpherous grease adheres to the channels, then this vapour, which the Philosophers have denominated their Mercury, becomes adapted and joined to this grease, which it sublimes with itself; from such amalgamation there is produced a certain unctuousness, which, abandoning the vaporous form, assumes that of grease, and is sublimised in other places, which have been cleansed by this preceding vapour, and the earth whereof has consequently been rendered more subtle, pure, and humid; it fills the pores of this earth, is joined thereto, and gold is produced as a result.

Alchemical Catechism

Then sublimation takes place, the Universal Spirit forsakes the dead body the red earth, ascends and descends invisibly and now produces general colours of large extent; one day the globe is black, some days after it becomes olive-green; after that sky-blue and beautiful parrot-green; then again purple or violet and crimson, mostly in general colours all round the globe, with beautiful small gold, silver, green, and purple spots in the neck, like a Peacock’s Tail or a Rainbow. Sometimes it looks like polished copper, then like polished steel, and sometimes like bell-metal.

Rosicrucian Aphorisms and Process

Looking about me by this light, I saw an astounding and most wonderful spectacle, beyond the powers of my description. I shall but adumbrate it partly. I saw this world before me as an enormous and immense clock, composed of various visible and invisible parts, but made entirely of glass, transparent and brittle; it exhibited a thousand, nay a thousand thousand larger and smaller rods, wheels, hooks, teeth, and notches, all in motion and oscillation, one within another; some moved noiselessly, others with some friction or grating. In the center was placed the principal, although invisible wheel, from which motion was transmitted in an incomprehensible way to all the rest of the machinery. For the spirit of the wheel was imparted to all the others and dominated them; and although it seemed to me impossible fully to comprehend it, nevertheless I saw plainly and distinctly that it really occurred.

The Labyrinth of the World and the Paradise of the Heart

ALCHEMY GLOSSARY

• Adept:
  A highly experienced chymist, often specifically one who has successfully prepared grand arcana like the philosophers’ stone.
• Alembic:
  A distillation head comprising a dome to collect the vapors rising from a boiling substance (generally held in an attached curcubit) and a gutter and beak to channel the condensed vapors into a receiver. Used in preference to a retort for distilling volatile materials.
• Alkahest:
  A solvent described by Van Helmont that is supposedly able to divide all substances into their component ingredients and then reduce these further into their primordial water.
• Ambergris (or “ambergreece”):
  A fragrant secretion of the sperm whale, used in perfumes.
• Aqua fortis:
  Literally, “strong water,” an acid generally prepared in Newton’s day by distilling saltpeter with oil of vitriol or with vitriol itself. The aqua fortis of commerce was composed primarily of nitric acid.
• Aqua regia:
  Literally, “royal water,” an acid capable of dissolving gold, usually prepared in the early modern period by dissolving sal ammoniac in aqua fortis, and today by mixing a three-to-one ratio of hydrochloric acid and nitric acid.
• Aqua vitae:
  Literally, “water of life”; generally distilled alcohol.
• Arcanum, arcana:
  A secret; literally, “something locked in a chest [arca].”
• Argyropoeia:
  The transmutation of base metals into silver.
• Arsenic:
  In early modern usage, the term arsenic refers to what we call white arsenic or arsenic trioxide.
• Athanor:
  A chemical furnace.
• Aurum horizontale:
  A Helmontian term, defined in the front matter of the Opuscula medica inaudtia as a substance that “is gold in weight, but not yet sufficiently yellow”; cf. Luna fixa.
• Balsamus fuliginis:
  Literally, “balsam of soot,” an arsenic-based salve for wounds.
• Balsamus Samech:
  A Paracelsian medicament prepared by digesting spirit of wine with salt of tartar; the salt (largely potassium carbonate) absorbs water from the spirit of wine (dilute ethanol) and dissolves itself into a thick, slimy liquid.
• Bezoar:
  A quasi-legendary stone with universal curative properties found in the bodies of certain animals. The name is occasionally transferred analogically to other medicinal substances, such as Bezoardicum minerale (mineral bezoar, a precipitate of antimony pentoxide produced by the action of aqua fortis on butter of antimony).
• Blas:
  A Helmontian term, defined in the front matter of the Opuscula as “a power of motion, whether alterative motion or local motion.” In Van Helmont’s cosmos, Blas is a force that causes motion and change.
• Butter of antimony:
  In modern terms, antimony trichloride. Usually prepared in in the seventeenth century by distilling a dry mixture of corrosive sublimate (mercuric chloride) and antimony (antimony trisulphide); the “butter” distills over as a white or yellowish fluid that congeals into a solid of a buttery consistency.
• Calcanthum:
  The residue produced by strongly roasting blue vitriol (copper sulfate); it is composed mostly of copper oxide.
• Calcination:
  A chemical operation involving roasting a substance in an open dish over a hot fire. The product of calcination is referred to as a calx or calcinate.
• Caput mortuum:
  Literally, “dead head”; the nonvolatile residue left over in the bottom of a retort or alembic after distillation.
• Chrysopoeia:
  The transmutation of baser metals into gold.
• Cinnabar:
  A bright red stone, the naturally occurring ore of mercury, chemically mercuric sulfide.
• Circulation:
  In modern terms, refluxing; that is, heating a substance (generally in a sealed vessel) to make it evaporate, recondense, and reevaporate continuously.
• Cohobation:
  A chemical operation wherein a distillate is poured back over the residue and distilled off again. This process may be often repeated.
• Colcothar:
  The residue produced by strongly roasting blue vitriol (copper sulfate); it is composed mostly of copper oxide. The residue from the roasting of iron vitriol (ferrous sulfate) is also called colcothar and is composed of iron oxides.
• Colophony:
  A kind of tree resin, sometimes used for sealing vessels airtight.
• Colostrum:
  A black material of uncertain composition that alchemists sometimes produced by boiling a lixivium of salt of tartar with oil of terebinth.
• Concrete:
  A compound body.
• Crabs’ eyes:
  Calcareous concretions found in the bodies of crayfish, composed mostly of calcium carbonate and used medicinally. The liquor of crabs’ eyes is produced by dissolving these concretions in vinegar.
• Crasis:
  In chymical terms, the crasis of a thing is the totality of its virtues and powers.
• Cucurbit:
  A gourd-shaped flask (oval body with a neck of greater or lesser length). When fitted to an alembic, the two form a distillation apparatus.
• Deckname, Decknamen:
  Literally, a cover name. A term used to hide the identity of a substance or thing; e.g., “hermaphroditical body” for regulis martis.
• Deflagration:
  A chemical operation wherein a material or mixture (generally containing saltpeter) is thrown into a hot crucible, where it inflames like gunpowder.
• Detonation:
  Deflagration.
• Drif:
  A term used by Van Helmont (Ortus medicinae, 1648, 595) for the powerful medicinal substance prepared and used by an Irish chymist named Butler.
• Duelech:
  According to Van Helmont, the material of which bladder and kidney stones are produced.
• Dulcify:
  Literally, “to sweeten”; see Edulcorate.
• Eagle:
  A Deckname used in the Philalethes treatises for a distillation; that is, sophic mercury of seven eagles has been distilled seven times.
• Edulcorate:
  A chemical operation in which salty or sour materials are removed from a product to leave a “sweetened” (generally meaning tasteless in this context) substance. Edulcoration may be carried out by simple washing with water, by repeated distillations of water or spirit of wine, or by other means.
• Egg:
  A digesting flask with an oval (egg-shaped) body and a long neck.
• Elixir:
  Most usually, a synonym for the philosophers’ stone. In some cases, however (for example, the “elixir of volatile salt”), elixir can mean merely a potent medical arcanum.
• Empyreuma (or empyreumatics):
  Burned-smelling materials produced during a distillation.
• Ens primum:
  Literally, “first being”; the most potent and purified essence of a thing.
• Ens veneris:
  Literally, “being of Venus [i.e., copper].” A Helmontian pharmaceutical made by George Starkey and Robert Boyle in the early 1650s. Starkey produced it, at least initially, by subliming a mixture of calcined copper vitriol (colcothar) and sal ammoniac.
• Essential oil:
  The volatile oil isolated by distilling plant materials, generally by steam distillation.
• Essential salt:
  A salt, named by analogy with essential oil, prepared from plant material; it was supposed to contain the crasis of the herb.
• Exantlation:
  Literally, “exhaustion”; a Helmontian term referring to the loss of corrosivity that acids suffer as they act on other substances.
• Feces:
  Residues, either from distillation (e.g., caput mortuum), solution, sublimation, or other purification processes.
• Flowers:
  A sublimate; the term arises from the radiate crystals resembling flowers that are often produced during the sublimation of certain substances. The term “flowers of sulfur” is still used occasionally today to refer to sulfur purified by sublimation.
• Gas:
  A Helmontian term, defined at the start of his Opuscula medica inaudita as “a noncoagulable spirit, such as is belched out from fermenting wine, or likewise that red substance produced when aqua fortis is acting.”
• Gas sulphuris:
  The Gas produced by burning sulfur; in modern terms, sulfur dioxide.
• Gas sylvestris:
  The Gas produced by burning charcoal; in modern terms, carbon dioxide.
• Glaure, or glaure Augurelli:
  A substance mentioned by Giovanni Aurelio Augurello in his 1515 poem Chrysopoeia. Van Helmont mentions it and notes that “this nymph lacks a proper name up to this day” (“Glaure Augurelli, quae Nympha alio nomine proprio caret hactenus”; Ortus medicinae, 1648, “In verbis, herbis et lapidibus est magna virtus,” 577). Indeed, its identity is uncertain, although it has been variously identified as a component of gold, as bismuth, and as other substances.
• Humor:
  A liquid.
• Jove or Jupiter:
  Tin.
• Lili:
  A Paracelsian remedy containing antimony, praised by Van Helmont (Ortus medicinae, 1648 “Arcana Paracelsi,” 790).
• Litharge:
  Calx of lead, or yellow lead oxide, prepared by roasting lead.
• Lixiviate:
  To purify a material by leaching, that is, dissolving the soluble component in hot water and separating it, often by filtering.
• Lixivium:
  The liquid product of leaching.
• Luna:
  Usually silver, but in George Starkey’s terminology, it can also be a Deckname for antimony.
• Lunafaction:
  The making of silver.
• Luna fixa:
  A metal having the weight and chemical properties of gold but lacking its color.
• Lute:
  Either the claylike compound smeared over joints and vessels to seal and protect them or the act of such sealing.
• Mars:
  Usually iron, but to Newton, George Starkey and others in the tradition of Alexander von Suchten it can also mean the male, sulfurous “seed” found in iron, and by extension found in the martial regulus of antimony.
• Mellago:
  Any artificially produced substance with the consistency of honey.
• Menstruum:
  A solvent, often of corrosive character.
• Mercurius vitae:
  Antimony oxychloride; a poisonous and violently emetic white powder made by precipitating butter of antimony with water.
• Mercury, sophic:
  The philosophers’ mercury; the material of which the philosophers’ stone was supposed to be made; also sometimes the “prime matter” of which the world was thought to be composed.
• Mercury, vulgar:
  The Hg of our periodic table.
• Mercury of the metals:
  A hypothetical ingredient of all metals, which supposedly combined with sulfur and sometimes salt to yield the complete metal.
• Minium:
  Red lead oxide, often made by roasting litharge (lead monoxide) in the presence of air.
• Moon:
  See Luna.
• Niter:
  Either saltpeter (potassium nitrate) or “the volatile niter,” a hypothetical component of the atmosphere that formed the respirable part of air and supplied a principle of life to the world.
• Oil of terebinth:
  A wood oil extracted by distillation, either oil of turpentine extracted from pine and other northern evergreens or the oil of the tropical terebinth tree.
• Oil of vitriol:
  See Spirit of vitriol.
• Per deliquium:
  Literally, “by dissolution,” referring to hygroscopic materials (e.g., salt of tartar) that are allowed to dissolve in the humidity of the open air.
• Peroledi:
  A Helmontian (and perhaps Paracelsian) term for the layers of the air.
• Phlegm:
  A term for any watery substance produced or isolated by laboratory operations, especially distillation. The term also refers to one of the four humors in the human body.
• Phlogiston:
  A burning substance, usually associated with sulfur.
• Powder of Vigo:
  A substance associated with the chymist Johannes de Vigo and described in Van Helmont’s De lithiasi.
• Pyrotechny:
  A synonym for chymistry in the Helmontian tradition.
• Rectify:
  To “correct” a substance, usually by purifying or concentrating it by distillation.
• Regulus:
  The metallic component refined from an ore. Most often applied by Newton and other chymists to metallic antimony or alloys thereof.
• Regulus martis:
  Literally, “regulus of Mars,” often called “martial regulus,” the regulus of antimony produced by refining stibnite with iron.
• Regulus stellatus:
  Martial regulus that has been allowed to crystallize slowly under a thick slag, forming a starlike pattern on its surface.
• Retort:
  A vessel for distillation.
• Reverberation:
  The process of high-temperature heating within a domed furnace, which was thought to drive the flames back downward.
• Roche alum:
  The alumen roccae of the medieval alchemists, so called because of its originally Moroccan provenance.
• Sal alkali:
  An alkaline carbonate (rarely hydroxide); in Newton’s day the term was used for both the potassium and sodium salts.
• Sal ammoniac:
  A volatile salt composed mostly of ammonium chloride.
• Sal gemmae:
  Rock salt.
• Salt of tartar:
  A salt produced by calcination of tartar (potassium bitartrate); it is predominantly potassium carbonate.
• Saltpeter:
  See Niter.
• Saturn:
  Usually lead, but in Philalethan chymistry it can also refer to stibnite.
• Scoria:
  Slag.
• Slact:
  Slag.
• Sol:
  Usually gold, but in Philalethan chymistry it can also refer to sulfureous component of metals, especially the sulfur of iron that is transferred to martial regulus of antimony during the latter’s reduction from stibnite.
• Solifaction:
  The making of gold.
• Spagyria:
  A branch of chymistry concerned with the separation of compound bodies into their constituents and their recombination, generally with an eye toward their medicinal use.
• Spirit of vitriol:
  Sulfuric acid, usually made by distilling iron or copper sulfate.
• Spirit of wine:
  Ethanol prepared by the distillation of wine; the spirit of wine of commerce in Newton’s day was about 50 to 70 percent ethanol.
• Stibium:
  Stibnite, the native sulfide ore of antimony.
• Stinking spirit:
  Usually ammonium carbonate in George Starkey’s notebooks.
• Sublimation:
  In modern chemistry, the conversion of a solid to vapor without passing through the liquid phase. In Newton’s day, the term was used more generally to refer both to this and to some distillations.
• Succedaneum:
  A drug or chemical that has been substituted for another, based on similarity of action or properties.
• Sulfur:
  Either the element sulfur of our periodic table or the hypothetical substance that, along with mercury and salt, made up the three Paracelsian principles.
• Sulfur auratum:
  Antimony pentasulfide, a bright yellow compound.
• Sun:
  See Sol.
• Tartar:
  The salt, largely potassium bitartrate, that forms as crystalline deposits in containers of wine, often purified to form “cream of tartar.”
• Terra figulina:
  Literally, “potter’s clay.”
• Touchstone:
  The black stone upon which metals were rubbed to give a streak of characteristic color indicating the type and quality of the metal.
• Urinal:
  A round-bottomed flask traditionally used by physicians for collecting urine samples.
• Venus:
  Usually copper, but in Philalethan chymistry it can also refer to silver as a Deckname.
• Vermilion:
  Cinnabar, mercuric sulfide of a brilliant red color.
• Vitriolated tartar:
  Potassium sulfate, produced by reacting salt of tartar or oil of tartar with spirit of vitriol.
• Vitriol of Mars:
  Iron sulfate.
• Vitriol of Venus:
  Copper sulfate.
• Wormwood:
  A bitter European herb, Artemisia absinthium.

Starkey, G. (2004).Alchemical laboratory notebooks and correspondence(W. R. Newman and L. M. Principe, Eds.). Chicago: The University of Chicago Press.

 Only by much searching and mining are gold an diamonds obtainedOnly by much searching and mining are gold an diamonds obtained, and man can find every truth connected with his being if he will dig deep into the mine of his soul. And that he is the maker of his character, the molder of his life, and the builder of his destiny, he may unerringly prove: if he will watch, control, and alter his thoughts, tracing their effects upon himself, upon others, and upon his life and circumstances; if he will link cause and effect by patient practice and investigation, utilizing his every experience, even to the most trivial, as a means of obtaining that knowledge of himself. In this direction, as in no other, is the law absolute that “He that seeketh findeth; and to him that knocketh it shall be opened”; for only by patience, practice, and ceaseless importunity can a man enter the Door of the Temple of Knowledge.

Jung on the dragon in alchemy:

“When the alchemist speaks of Mercurius, on the face of it he means quicksilver (mercury), but inwardly he means the world-creating spirit concealed or imprisoned in matter. The dragon is probably the oldest pictoral symbol in alchemy of which we have documentary evidence. It appears as the Ouroboros, the tail-eater, in the Codex Marcianus, which dates from the tenth or eleventh century, together with the legend ‘the One, the All’. Time and again the alchemists reiterate that the opus proceeds from the one and leads back to the one, that it is a sort of circle like a dragon biting its own tail. For this reason the opus was often called circulare (circular) or else rota (the wheel). Mercurius stands at the beginning and end of the work: he is the prima materia, the caput corvi, the nigredo; as dragon he devours himself and as dragon he dies, to rise again in the lapis. He is the play of colours in the cauda pavonis and the division into the four elements. He is the hermaphrodite that was in the beginning, that splits into the classical brother-sister duality and is reunited in the coniunctio, to appear once again at the end in the radiant form of the lumen novum, the stone. He is metallic yet liquid, matter yet spirit, cold yet fiery, poison and yet healing draught - a symbol uniting all the opposites.” (Part 3, Chapter 3.1).

“Now, all these myth-pictures represent a drama of the human psyche on the further side of consciousness, showing man as both the one to be redeemed and the redeemer. The first formulation is Christian, the second alchemical. In the first case man attributes the need of redemption to himself and leaves the work of redemption, the actual opus, to the autonomous divine figure; in the latter case man takes upon himself the duty of carrying out the redeeming opus, and attributes the state of suffering and consequent need of redemption to the anima mundi imprisoned in matter. In both cases redemption is a work. In Christianity it is the life and death of the God-man which, by a unique sacrifice, bring about the reconciliation of man, who craves redemption and is sunk in materiality, with God. The mystical effect of the God-man’s self-sacrifice extends, broadly speaking, to all men, though it is efficacious only for those who submit through faith or are chosen by divine grace; but in the Pauline acceptance it acts as an apocatastasis and extends also to non-human creation in general, which, in its imperfect state, awaits redemption like the merely natural man.” (Part 3, Chapter 3.3).

“From this point of view, alchemy seems like a continuation of Christian mysticism carried on in the subterranean darkness of the unconscious…. But this unconscious continuation never reached the surface, where the conscious mind could have dealt with it. All that appeared in consciousness were the symbolic symptoms of the unconscious process. Had the alchemist succeeded in forming any concrete idea of his unconscious contents, he would have been obliged to recognize that he had taken the place of Christ - or, to be more exact, that he, regarded not as ego but as self, had taken over the work of redeeming not man but God. He would then have had to recognize not only himself as the equivalent of Christ, but Christ as a symbol of the self. This tremendous conclusion failed to dawn on the medieval mind.” (Part 3, Chapter 5.1).

In alchemical symbolism dragons are associated with fire and the primal chaotic material. In iconography, two dragons are depicted as facing each other. In European and Islamic hermeticism this confrontation is depicted as the serpents of the caduceus. This is the neutralization of opposing tendencies, of alchemical sulfur and mercury. Immanent, undeveloped nature is portrayed as the ouroboros, the dragon biting its tail. Even in the Far East the dragon possesses different aspects, in that it is simultaneously a creature of water, of Earth, of the underworld, and of the shy. This makes it akin to the Quetzalcoatl, the Aztec, plumed serpent.

Symbolism from Carl G. Jung’s Mysterium Coniunctions: Dragon is personification of Sulphur and is by far the male element. Since the dragon is said to impregnate himself by swallowing his tail, then the tail is the male organ and the mouth is the female organ. The dragon consumes its entire body into his head; thus, partaking of his most dangerous and evil nature turning it into the inner fire of Mercury. This evil dragon nature which sulphur shares is frequently called the “dragon’s head” (caput dragonis), which is a “most pernicious poison,” a poisonous vapor breathed out by the flying dragon.

However, the “winged dragon” that stands for quicksilver becomes a poison-breathing monster only after it unites with the “wingless dragon” which corresponds to sulphur. In psychological terms these two dragons represent the opposites; the winged dragon tries to prevent the wingless dragon from flying. They are always in confrontation until the wingless dragon flies, symbolizing the conquering of an obstacle, or obstacles, preventing total individualization. In other words, the winged dragon represents personal obstacles that must be overcome to insure a more-perfect being; thus, leading to the saying: “You conquer the dragon or he will conquer you.”