EGYPTIAN AND GREEK FABLES PART 1
Unveiled & reduced to the same principle,
with
AN EXPLANATION OF THE
HIEROGLYPHS,
AND OF
THE TROJAN WAR:
By Dom Antoine-Joseph Pernety, Benedictine Religious of the Congregation of Saint-Maur.
Populum Fabulis pascebant Sacerdotes Ægyptii; ipsi autem sub nomimbus Deorum patriorum philosophabantur. Orig.li contra Celsum.
1787
FIRST VOLUME.
Table of Books and chapters of the first part.
Preface, p5.
Discourse Preliminary, p 9.
General Principles of Physics, according to the Hermetic Philosophy, p31.
Of the first matter, p 34.
Of Nature, p37.
On light, & its effects, p 39.
On Man, p 40.
On the Elements, p 47.
On Earth, p 49.
On Water, p 50.
On air, p 52.
On Fire , p 53.
On the operations of Nature, p 57.
On the general ways of being of the Mixed, p 59.
On the difference between these three Kingdoms, p 59.
The Mineral, p 59.
The Plant, p 60.
The Animal, p 60.
Of the soul of the Mixed, p 60.
Of the generation & corruption of the Mixed, p 62.
Of the Light, p 64.
Of the conservation of the Mixed, p 68.
Of the radical humidity, p 69.
Harmony of the Universe, p 71.
Movement, p 72.
Treatise on the Hermetic work, p 73.
Philosophical Advice, p 74.
Aphorism of the truth of science, p 75.
The key to the Sciences, p 75.
The Secret, p 76.
The means to reach the Secret, p 76.
The keys to Nature, p 77.
The Metallic Principles, p 77.
The matter of the great work in general, p 78.
Of the names that the ancient Philosophers gave to matter, p 80.
Matter is one & everything, p 82.
The key to the Work, p 85.
Definitions & properties of this Mercury, p 91.
Of the vase of Art, & of that of Nature, p 93.
Names given to this vase by the Ancients, p 93.
On Fire in general, p 95.
On Philosophical Fire, p 96.
Operative principles, p 99.
Operative principles in particular. Calcination, p 101.
Solution, p 102.
Putrefaction, p 102.
Fermentation, p 103.
Demonstrative signs or principles, p 103.
Of the Elixir, p 109.
Practice of the Elixir following d'Espagnet, p 110.
Quintessence, p 110.
Tincture, p 111.
Multiplication, p 112.
Weights in the Work, p 113.
Very instructive general rules, p 114.
Virtues of Medicine, p 117.
Diseases of Metals, p 118.
Times of Stone, p 119.
Conclusion , p 119.
FABLES AND HIEROGLYPHS OF THE EGYPTIANS.
Introduction, p 122.
Chapter I: Hieroglyphs of the Egyptians, p 136.
Chapter II: Gods of Egypt, p 142.
Chapter III: History of Osiris, p 147.
Chapter IV: History of 'Isis, p 158.
Chapter V: History of Horus, p 167.
Chapter VI: History of Typhon, p 170.
Chapter VII: Harpocrates, p 175.
Chapter VIII: Anubis, p 179.
Chapter IX: Canopus, p 182
Section Second: Kings of Egypt and Monuments erected in that country, p 184. Section
Third: Animals revered in Egypt and hieroglyphic plants, p 197.
Chapter I: Of the Ox Apis , p 197.
Chapter II: The Dog & the Wolf, p 204.
Chapter III: The Cat or Ælurus, p 205.
Chapter IV: The Lion, p 206.
Chapter V: The Goat, p 207.
Chapter VI: The the Ichneumon & the Crocodile, p 207.
Chapter VIII: Of Aries, p 209.
Chapter IX: Of the Eagle and the Hawk, p 211.
Chapter X: Of the Ibis, p 213.
Chapter XI: Lotus & Egyptian Bean, p 215.
Chapter XII: Colocasia, p 217.
Chapter XIII: Persea, p 217.
Chapter XIV: Musca or Amusa, p 218.
Section Fourth: Egyptian Colonies, p 221.
Book II: Allegories that have a more palpable relationship with Hermetic Art, p 228.
Chapter I: History of the conquest of the Golden Fleece, p 231.
Chapter II: History of the removal of the Golden Apples from the Garden of the Hesperides, p 260.
Chapter III: History of Atalanta, p 281.
Chapter IV: The Deer with the Golden Horns, p 285.
Chapter V : Midas, p 288.
Chapter VI: From the Golden Age, p 294.
Chapter VII: Golden Rains, p 298.
PREFACE.
Philosophy considered in general originated with the world, because men have always thought, reflected, meditated; at all times the great spectacle of the Universe must have struck them with admiration, and aroused their natural curiosity. Born for society, man has sought the means to live there with pleasure and satisfaction; common sense, humanity, modesty, politeness of manners, love of this society, must therefore have been the objects of his attention. But however admirable, however striking the spectacle of the universe had been for him, whatever advantage he thought he could derive from society, all these things were not himself. Must he not have felt, as he withdrew into himself, that the preservation of his own being was no less an interesting object;& would one think that he had forgotten himself, to care only about what was around him? Subject to so many vicissitudes, subject to so many evils; moreover, made to enjoy all that surrounds him, he has no doubt sought means of preventing or curing these illnesses, in order to preserve for longer a life always ready to escape him. He did not have to meditate much to conceive & convince himself that the principle which constitutes his body & which maintains it, was also the one which should preserve him in his way of being.The natural appetite for food showed him enough of this: but he soon noticed that these foods, as perishable as he was, because of the mixture of the heterogeneous parts which constitute them, carried within them a principle of death with the principle of life. . It was therefore necessary to reason about the beings of the Universe, Can it be doubted that the desire to find a remedy for all the ills which antigen humanity, and to extend, if possible, the prescribed limits to the duration of life, has not been the first object of the ardent researches of the men, & did not form the first Philosophers? Its discovery must have infinitely flattered its inventor, and made him render great thanks to the Divinity for such a signal favour.
It was not enough to have seen this treasure through the envelope which covers it & hides it from the common eyes. To make this fruit the intended use, it was essential to rid it of its rind, and to have it in all its primitive purity. Nature was closely followed; the processes it employs in the formation of individuals, and in their destruction, are watched. Not only was it known that this fruit of life was the basis of all his generations, but that everything finally resolved itself into its own principles.
We therefore began to imitate Nature; & under such a guide could one not succeed? to what extent of knowledge did this discovery not lead?What wonders did we not err in a condition to perform, when we saw Nature as in a mirror, and had her at our orders? This agent, this basis of Nature once known, it was not difficult to employ it according to the circumstances of the times and the requirement of the case. Metals and precious stones entered into the arrangements of society, some by the need we had of them, others for convenience and pleasure. But as the latter acquired a price by their beauty and their brilliance, and became precious by their rarity, one made use of his Philosophical knowledge to multiply them.
But he must have thought at the same time that God not having given this knowledge to all men, he did not want it disclosed without gentleness. It was therefore necessary to involve only a few friends; also Hermes Trimegiste, or thrice great, the first of all philosophers known with distinction, only communicated it to elite people, to people whose prudence and discretion he had experienced. They shared it with others of the same stamp, and this discovery spread throughout the universe. We see the Druids among the Gauls, the Gymnosophists in the Indies, the Magi in Persia, the Chaldeans in Assyria, Homer, Tales, Orpheus, Pythagoras, & several other Greek Philosophers having a conformity of principles, & an almost equal knowledge of nature's rare secrets.But this privileged knowledge always remained confined within a very narrow circle of people, and only rays of this abundant source of light were communicated to the rest of the world. Tales, Orpheus, Pythagoras, & several other Greek Philosophers have a conformity of principles, & an almost equal knowledge of the rare secrets of Nature. But this privileged knowledge always remained confined within a very narrow circle of people, and only rays of this abundant source of light were communicated to the rest of the world. Tales, Orpheus, Pythagoras, & several other Greek Philosophers have a conformity of principles, & an almost equal knowledge of the rare secrets of Nature.But this privileged knowledge always remained confined within a very narrow circle of people, and only rays of this abundant source of light were communicated to the rest of the world. But how can we communicate these admirable secrets from age to age, and at the same time keep them hidden from the public? To do so by oral tradition would have been to risk abolishing even the memory of it; memory is too fragile a piece of furniture to be trusted. Traditions of this kind become obscured as they move away from their source, to the point that it is impossible to disangle the dark chaos, where the object and the matter of these traditions are buried.
Imperfect metals were transmuted into gold and silver, precious stones were made, and the secret of these transmutations was kept with the same scruple as that of the universal panacea, both because one could not reveal one without to make the other known, only because we felt perfectly that it would result from its disclosure, These hieroglyphs, these fables presented to the eyes of the Philosophers, and of those whom they instructed to be initiated into their mysteries, the theory of their priestly Art, and to the other various branches of Philosophy, which the Greeks drew from the Egyptians.
To entrust these secrets to tablets in familiar languages and characters was to expose oneself to seeing them public through the negligence of those who might have lost them, or by the indiscretion of those who might have stolen them. Moreover, it was necessary to remove even the slightest suspicion, if not of the existence, at least of the knowledge of these secrets. There was therefore no other resource than that of hieroglyphs, symbols, allegories, fables, &c. which, being susceptible to several different explanations, could serve to distract, and to instruct some, while others remained in ignorance. This is the decision taken by Hermes, and after him all the Hermetic Philosophers of the world.They amused the People with fables, says Origen, and these fables, with the names of the Gods of the country, served as a veil for their Philosophy. & after him all the Hermetic Philosophers of the world. They amused the People with fables, says Origen, and these fables, with the names of the Gods of the country, served as a veil for their Philosophy. & after him all the Hermetic Philosophers of the world. They amused the People with fables, says Origen, and these fables, with the names of the Gods of the country, served as a veil for their Philosophy. Customs, fashions, characters, sometimes even the way of thinking vary according to the country.
The philosophers of India, those of Europe invented hieroglyphics and fables at their whim, always however for the same object. One wrote on this matter in the course of times, but in an enigmatic system; and these works, although composed in known languages, became as intelligible as the hieroglyphs themselves. The assignment of recalling there ancient fables has led to the discovery of their object; and this is what has induced me to explain them according to their principles. We find them quite developed in their books, when we want to study them with obstinate attention, and when we have enough courage to want to take the trouble to combine them, to bring them together.
They only indicate the material of their Art by its properties, never by the proper name under which it is known. As for the operations required to implement it philosophically, they did not hide them under the seal of impenetrable secrecy; they have made no mystery of the colors or demonstrative signs which follow one another throughout the course of operations. This is what particularly provided them with the material to imagine, to feign the characters of the Gods and Heroes of Fable, and the actions attributed to them; we will judge by the reading of this work. Each chapter is a kind of dissertation, which takes away a lot of its pleasantness, and prevents it from being as amusing as the material seemed to carry it.I did not propose to write fables, but to explain those which are known. We will see in the preliminary discourse the reasons which have determined me to put at the head of the general principles of Physics, and a Treatise on Hermetic Philosophy. It was essential to put the reader in the process and the language of the Philosophers, as soon as I proposed to make him enter into their ideas. He will see there the enigmas, the allegories, the metaphors so their writings abound. If he wants a more detailed explanation, he can have recourse to the Hermetic Mythos Dictionary, which I brought to light at the same time. as soon as I proposed to introduce it into their ideas.
He will see there the enigmas, the allegories, the metaphors so their writings abound.If he wants a more detailed explanation, he can have recourse to the Hermetic Mythos Dictionary, which I brought to light at the same time. as soon as I proposed to introduce it into their ideas. He will see there the enigmas, the allegories, the metaphors so their writings abound. If he wants a more detailed explanation, he can have recourse to the Hermetic Mythos Dictionary, which I brought to light at the same time.
One asks if the Hermetic Philosophy is a science, an art, or a pure being of reason? Prejudice holds for the latter; but the prejudice does not prove it. The reader without prejudice will decide after the thoughtful reading of this Treatise, as he sees fit.One can without shame risk being mistaken with so many scholars, who in all times have combated this prejudice. Would we not have more to blush to fight with contempt the Hermetic Philosophy without knowing it, than to admit the possibility of it, so well founded on reason, and even the existence on the proofs brought back by so many Authors, so good faith is not suspicious? At least one cannot reasonably dispute that the idea of a universal medicine, and that of the transmutation of metals, were flattering enough to fire a man's imagination, and make him give birth to fables to explain what he thought of them.
Orpheus, Homer, & the oldest Authors speak of a medicine that cures all ills;they make mention of it in such a positive manner, that they leave no secret of its existence. This idea has been perpetuated down to us: the circumstances of the fables combine, adjust themselves with the colors, and the operations of which the Philosophers speak, are even explained thereby in a more probable way than in any other. system: what more will we require? No doubt a demonstration; it is up to the Hermetic Philosophers to take this means of convincing the unbelievers; & I am not. & the oldest Authors speak of a medicine that cures all ills; they make mention of it in such a positive manner, that they leave no secret of its existence.This idea has been perpetuated down to us: the circumstances of the fables combine, adjust themselves with the colors, and the operations of which the Philosophers speak, are even explained thereby in a more probable way than in any other. system: what more will we require? No doubt a demonstration; it is up to the Hermetic Philosophers to take this means of convincing the unbelievers; & I am not. & the oldest Authors speak of a medicine that cures all ills; they make mention of it in such a positive manner, that they leave no secret of its existence.This idea has been perpetuated down to us: the circumstances of the fables combine, adjust themselves with the colors, and the operations of which the Philosophers speak, are even explained thereby in a more probable way than in any other. system: what more will we require?
No doubt a demonstration; it is up to the Hermetic Philosophers to take this means of convincing the unbelievers; & I am not. adjust themselves with the colors, and the operations of which the Philosophers speak, are even explained thereby in a more probable manner than in any other system: what more will one require? No doubt a demonstration; it is up to the Hermetic Philosophers to take this means of convincing the unbelievers; & I am not.adjust themselves with the colors, and the operations of which the Philosophers speak, are even explained thereby in a more probable manner than in any other system: what more will one require? No doubt a demonstration; it is up to the Hermetic Philosophers to take this means of convincing the unbelievers; & I am not.
THE EGYPTIAN AND GREEK FABLES
Unveiled & reduced to the same principle, with an explanation of the Hieroglyphs, & of the Trojan War.
PRELIMINARY SPEECH.
The great number of Authors who wrote on the Hieroglyphs of the Egyptians, and on the Fables to which they gave rise, are so contrary to each other, that one can with reason regard their works as new Fables. However well imagined, however well concerted may be, at least in appearance, the systems they have formed, we see the lack of solidity in them at each step we take in them, when we do not allow ourselves to be blinded by prejudice. Some believe they find in it the real history of those remote times, which they call despite this the fabulous times.
Others see in it only principles of morality, and one only has to open one's eyes to see everywhere examples capable of corrupting morals. Others finally, not very satisfied with these explanations, drew theirs from Physics.
Both of them not having succeeded, it is natural to think that the general principle on which they established their systems was never the true principle of these fictions. One was needed, by means of which one could explain everything, down to the smallest circumstances of the facts reported, however bizarre, however incredible, and however contradictory they may seem. This system is not new, and I am very far from wanting to do myself proud of it, I have found it scattered in shreds in various Authors, both ancient and modern, their works are little known or little read, because the science they treat there is the victim of ignorance and prejudice. The greatest grace that we believe we should grant to those who cultivate it, or who defend it, is to regard them as madmen,at least worthy of the Little houses. Formerly they passed for the wisest of men, but reason, although of all times, is not always the mistress; it is forced to succumb under the tyranny of prejudice and fashion.
This system is therefore the work of these so-called madmen, in the eyes of the greatest number of moderns, it is the one that I present to them; but should I not fear that my proofs, based on the words of these madmen, will make my reasonings look like those spoken by Horace?
. . . . . Ifti tabula fore librum
Perfimilem, cujus velut agri fomnia, vana
Fingentur fpecies: ut nec pes, nec caput uni
Reddatur forma.
Art. Poet;
I fully expect not to have the approval of these vast, sublime & penetrating geniuses who embrace everything, who know everything without having learned anything, who dispute everything, & who decide everything knowingly. It is not to such people that one gives lessons; to them properly belongs the name of Sage, much better than to Democritus, Plato, Pythagoras & other Greeks who were in Egypt to breathe the Hermetic air, & drew madness from it so it is in question here. It is not for sages of this stamp that this work is written: this contagious air of Egypt is diffused everywhere;they would run the risk of being infected with it, like the Gebers, the Synesiuses, the Morienses, the Arnaud de Villeneuves, the Raymond Lullies & so many others, good enough to want to give into this Philosophy. Following the example of Diodorus of Sicily, Pliny, Suidas, and a number of other ancients, they would perhaps become credulous enough to regard this science as real, and to speak of it as real.
They could fall into the ridicule of Borrichius, Kunckel, Beccher, Scalh, mad enough to write treatises that prove it and defend it. The authors warn, however, that a science such as this does not want to be treated as clearly as the others, because of the disastrous consequences which could result from it for civil life.
But if the example of these famous men makes some impression on minds free from prejudice, and void of prejudices in this respect, there will doubtless be found some sensible enough to want, like them, to learn from a science, little known in truth, but always cultivated. Proud ignorance and fatuity are the only ones capable of despising and condemning without knowledge of the cause. Not a hundred years ago, the very name of Algebra alienated from the study of this science, and revolted, that of Geometry would have been capable of giving vapors to our little scientific Masters of today. We gradually became familiar with them. The barbarous terms with which they bristle no longer cause fear; they are studied, they are cultivated, honor has replaced repugnance,
The Hermetic Philosophy is still in disgrace, and for that very reason in discredit. It is full of enigmas, and will probably not be rid of these allegorical and barbaric terms for a long time, the true meaning of which so few people understand. The study is all the more difficult because the perpetual metaphors deceive those who imagine they hear the Authors who treat of them, on the first reading they make of them. These To metaphors the Hermetic Philosophers have added Emblems, Hieroglyphs, Fables, & Allegories, & have rendered themselves by this means almost unintelligible to those whom long study & obstinate work have not initiated into their mysteries.
They make a mystery out of it, and a mystery which they study more to obscure than to develop. Also they constantly recommend not to take them literally, to study the laws and processes of nature, to compare the operations they speak of, with his own, to admit only those that the reader will find there. compliant. Ambition and the love of wealth is the only spring that sets in motion almost all those who work to learn the processes of this science; it presents them with mountains of gold in perspective, and a long and solid health to enjoy. What attractions for hearts attached to the goods of this world!
Those who have not wanted to take the trouble to make the necessary efforts to develop them, or who have made them useless, have believed that they have nothing better to do than to hide their ignorance under the shelter of negative of the reality of this science , they affected to have nothing but contempt for it; they treated it as a chimera and as a being of reason. How many Becchers, Hombergs, Boherraves, Geofroys and so many other learned chemists have, by their tireless labors, forced Nature to reveal to them some of its secrets! In spite of all their attention to spy on its processes, to analyze its productions, to catch it in the act, they have almost always failed, because they were the tyrants of this Nature, and not its true imitators.
we hasten, we run to reach this goal, and as we are afraid of not getting there fast enough, we take the first path which seems to lead there more quickly, without wanting to take the trouble to learn enough about it. real way to get there. So we walk, we advance, we believe we are at the end; but as one has walked blind, one finds a precipice there, one falls into it. One then believes to hide the shame of one's fall, by saying that this so-called goal is only a shadow that cannot be embraced; one treats one's guides as perfidious; we finally come to deny even the very possibility of an effect, because we are ignorant of its causes. What!because the greatest Naturalists have lost their vigils and their labors trying to discover what processes Nature employs to form and organize the fetus in its mother's womb, to cause a plant to germinate and grow, to form metals in the earth, would it be graceful to deny the fact?
would one regard as sensible a man whose ignorance would be the basis of his negative? We would not even design to pay the price of the slightest proof to convince him of this. because the greatest Naturalists have lost their vigils and their labors trying to discover what processes Nature employs to form and organize the fetus in its mother's womb, to cause a plant to germinate and grow, to form metals in the earth, would it be graceful to deny the fact?would one regard as sensible a man whose ignorance would be the basis of his negative? We would not even design to pay the price of the slightest proof to convince him of this. because the greatest Naturalists have lost their vigils and their labors trying to discover what processes Nature employs to form and organize the fetus in its mother's womb, to cause a plant to germinate and grow, to form metals in the earth, would it be graceful to deny the fact? would one regard as sensible a man whose ignorance would be the basis of his negative? We would not even design to pay the price of the slightest proof to convince him of this. would it be graceful to deny the fact? would one regard as sensible a man whose ignorance would be the basis of his negative?We would not even design to pay the price of the slightest proof to convince him of this. would it be graceful to deny the fact? would one regard as sensible a man whose ignorance would be the basis of his negative? We would not even design to pay the price of the slightest proof to convince him of this.
But learned people, enlightened & skilful Artists have studied all their lives, & have worked ceaselessly to achieve it, they have died with difficulty: what can we conclude from this? that the thing is not real? No.From about the year 550 after the foundation of Rome, down to our days, the most skilful people had labored to imitate the famous burning mirror of Archimedes, with which he burned the vessels of the Romans in the port of Syracuse. had been able to bring together, the fact was treated as a story invented at will, it was a fable, and the very manufacture of the mirror was impossible. M. de Buffon takes it into his head to take a simpler path than those which had preceded him; he overcomes it, we are surprised, we finally admit that the thing is possible.
Let us therefore conclude with more reason that these scholars, these skilful Artists made too much of their supposed knowledge.Instead of following the straight, simple, and united paths of Nature, they assumed for her subtleties that she never had. The Hermetic Art is, say the Philosophers, a mystery hidden from those who trust too much in their own knowledge: it is a gift from God, who casts a favorable and propitious eye on those who are humble, who fear him, who put their confidence in him, and who, like Solomon, ask him earnestly and perseveringly for this wisdom, which holds health on his right (Proverb. 5. v. 16.), and riches on his left, this wisdom which the Philosophers prefer to all honors, to all the kingdoms of the world, because it is the tree of life to those who possess it (Idib.v.18.
All the Hermetic Philosophers say that although the Great Work is a natural thing, and in its matter, and in its operations, there nevertheless happen things so surprising that they infinitely elevate the spirit of man towards the Author of his being, let them manifest his wisdom and his glory, that they are far above human intelligence, and that only those understand them, to whom God designs to open their eyes. The proof of this is quite evident by the blunders and the lack of success of all those Artists famous in vulgar Chemistry, who, despite their skill in manpower, despite all their pretended science of Nature, have lost their pains, their money, and often their health in the search for this priceless treasure.
Enough enlightened in vulgar chemistry, & educated enough in its processes, but blind in Hermetic chemistry, & trained by usage, they erected sublimatory furnaces (Novum lumen Chemicum. Tract. l.), calcinations, distillatories; they have employed an infinity of vases and crucibles unknown to simple Nature; they called to their aid the fratricide of natural fire, how could they have reunited with such violent methods? They are absolutely remote from those followed by the Hermetic Philosophers.If we are to believe President d'Espagnet (Arcan. Herm, Philosophia; opus. Canone 6. ), "vulgar chemists have hastened imperceptibly to move away from the simple way of Nature, by their sublimations, their distillations, their solutions, their freezings, their coagulations, by their different extractions of spirits and tinctures, and by a number of other operations more subtle than useful.
They fell into errors, which were a continuation of each other, they became the executioners of this Nature. Their too industrious subtlety, far from opening their eyes to the light of truth, to see the ways of Nature, has been an obstacle there, which prevented her from coming to them .The only hope that remains to them is in a faithful guide, who will dissipate the darkness of their spirit, and make them see the sun in all its purity. The Hermetic Philosophers absolutely differ from the ordinary Philosophers or Physicists. The latter have no assured system. They invent new ones every day, & the latest seems to be imagined only to contradict & destroy those that preceded it. Finally, if one rises & establishes itself, it is only on the ruins of its predecessor, & it only subsists until a new one comes to overthrow it, & put itself in its place. Most skilful Artists in vulgar chemistry do not deny the possibility of the Philosopher's stone; the result of a large number of their operations proves it clearly enough.
"With a penetrating genius, a firm and patient mind, an ardent desire for Philosophy, a great knowledge of true Physics, a pure heart, upright morals, a sincere love of God and neighbor, every man, however ignorant If he is in the practice of vulgar chemistry, he can confidently undertake to become a philosopher who imitates nature. "
"If Hermes, the true father of the Philosophers, says the Cosmopolitan (Nov. lum, Chem. Tract. I.), if the subtle Geber, the profound Raymond Lully, & so many other true & famous Chemists returned to earth, our vulgar chemists not only would not want to regard them as their masters, but they would think they would do them many graces and honor to confess them for their disciples .It is true that they would not know how to perform all these distillations, these circulations, these calcinations, these sublimations, in short all these innumerable operations that Chemists have imagined for having misunderstood the books of the Philosophers. All the true Adepts speak in the same tone, and if they speak the truth ,
without taking so much trouble, without using so many vases, without consuming so much coal, without ruining one's purse and one's health, one can work in concert with the Nature, which, aided, will lend itself to the desires of the Artist, and will liberally open its treasures to him.
He will learn from it, not to destroy the bodies it produces, but how, with what it composes them, & what they are resolved into.She will show them this matter, this chaos that the Supreme Being has developed, to form the Universe, they will see Nature as in a mirror, the reflection of which will show them the infinite wisdom of the Creator who directs & leads it in all its operations by a simple and unique way, which makes all the mystery of the great work.
But does this thing called the Philosopher's Stone, Universal Medicine, Golden Medicine, exist in reality as well as in speculation? How, for so many centuries, have so many people, whom Heaven seemed to have favored with a science and a wisdom superior to those of the rest of men, sought it in vain?But on the other hand, so many reliable historians, so many learned men have attested to its existence, and have left enigmatic and allegorical writings the way of doing it, that it is hardly possible to doubt it, when one knows how to adapt these writings to the principles of Nature. What an appearance, indeed, that people who lived in centuries so far apart, & in countries so different in language, & I dare say it, in way of thinking, nevertheless all agree on the same point? What! Egyptians, Arabs, Chinese, Greeks, Jews, Italians, Germans, Americans, French, English, &c.
The Hermetic Philosophers, on the contrary, all agree among themselves: not one contradicts the principles of the other. He who wrote thirty years ago speaks like he who lived two thousand years ago. What is even singular is that they never tire of repeating this axiom which the Church (Vincent de Lerin. Commonit.) adopts as the most infallible mark of truth in what it invites us to believe: Quod unique, quod ab omnibus, & quod femper creditum eft, id firmiffimè credendum puta. See, they said, read, meditate on the things that have been taught in all times, and by all the Philosophers, the truth is contained in the places where they are all in agreement.
would they therefore have agreed without knowing each other, without understanding each other, without having communicated their ideas in particular, to speak and write all in accordance with a chimera, a being of reason? Without taking into account all the works composed on this subject, which history teaches us to have been burned by the orders of Diocletian, who thereby thought to deprive the Egyptians of the means of making gold, & to deprive them of this help to support the war against him, we still have a large enough number left in all the languages of the world, to justify to the incredulous what I have just advanced. The late King's Library preserves a prodigious number of ancient and modern manuscripts, composed for this science in different languages.Michel Maïer said on this subject, in an Epigram found at the beginning of his Treatise, which is entitled Symbola auree, mensae:
Unum opus en prifcis haec ufque ad tempora feclis
Confina diffusis gentibus ora dedit.
Let us read Hermes Egyptian, Abraham, Isaac de Moiros Jews, cited by Avicenna; Democritus, Orpheus, Aristotle (De Secretis Secretorum.), Olympiodorus, Heliodorus (De rebus Chemicis ad Theodofium Imperatorem), Stephen (De magna & sacrâ scientîâ, ad Heraclium Caesarem), & so many other Greeks; Synesius, Theophilus, Abugazal, &c. Africans; Avicenna (De re rectâ. Tractatus ad Assem Philosophum anima artîs.), Rhasis, Geber, Artéphius, Alphidius, Hamuel surnamed Senior, Rosinus, Arabs;Albert the Great (De Alchymiâ. Concordantia Philofophorum. De compositione compositi, &c.) Bernard Trévisan, Basile Valentin, Germans; Alain (Liber Chemiae.) Isaac father & son, Pontanus, Flemish or Dutch; Arnaud de Villeneuve, Nicolas Flamel, Denis Zachaire, Christophe Parisien, Gui de Montanor, d'Espagnet François; Morian, Pierre Bon de Ferrare, the anonymous Author of the Marriage of the Sun & the Moon, Italians. Majorcan Raymond Lully;Roger Bacon (Speculum Achemiae) Hortulain, Jean Dastin, Richard, George Riplée, Thomas Norton, Philalethe & the English or Scottish Cosmopolitan, finally many anonymous Authors (Turba Philofophorum, late Codex veritdtis. Clangor Buccinae. Scala Philofophorum. Aurora confurgens. Ludus puerorum , Thefaurus Philosophiae, etc.) of all countries and various centuries: not a single one will be found which has principles different from the others. Doesn't this conformity of ideas & principles form at least a presumption that what they teach has something real & true? If all the ancient Fables of Homer, Orpheus & the Egyptians are only allegories of this Art,
But if this science has a real object, if this Art has existed, and it is necessary to believe the Philosophers on the admirable things that they bring back from it, why is it so despised, why so decried, why so discredited? Here it is: the practice of this Art has never been clearly taught. All the Authors, both ancient and modern, who deal with it have only done so under the veil of Hieroglyphs, Enigmas, Allegories and Fables, so that those who wanted to study them have commonly taken the lead.
From this was formed a kind of Sect, which, having misunderstood and misexplained the writings of the Philosophers, introduced a new Chemistry, and imagined that there was none real but theirs. Many people became famous in the latter. Each,very skilful according to their principles; the others, extremely skilful in practice, & particularly for the dexterity required for the success of certain operations, united against Hermetic Chemistry, they wrote in a more intelligible way, & more within the reach of everyone. world. They proved their feelings by specious arguments, by dint of often randomly making mixtures of different materials, & working them blind, without knowing what would result from it, they saw monsters born, & the the same chance which had produced them served as the basis and foundation for the principles established in consequence.
The same repeated mixtures, the same repeated work, gave precisely the same result; but they did not pay attention that this result was monstrous,and that it was analogous only to the monstrous productions of Nature, and not to those which result from these processes, when she confines herself to the species particular to each kingdom. Whenever an ass covers a mare, there comes a monstrous animal called a mule; because nature always acts in the same way when you provide it with the same materials, and put it in the same situation to act, either to produce monsters, or to form beings conforming to their particular species. If the mules came to us from some very remote island, where an inviolable secret of their birth was kept, we would certainly be tempted to believe that these animals form a particular species, which multiplies like the others.
We wouldn't suspect they were monsters.We are affected in the same way by the results of almost all Chemical operations, and we take monstrous productions for productions made in the common order of Nature. Of strong that one could say of this species of Chemistry, that it is the science to methodically destroy the mixtures produced by Nature, to form monsters of them, which have about the same appearance & the same properties as the mixtures natural. Was more needed to win the votes of the public? Warned & struck by these deceptive appearances; flooded by subtly reasoned writings, tired by the invectives multiplied against Hermetic Chemistry, unknown even to its aggressors, is it surprising that he despises it? & we take monstrous productions for productions made in the common order of Nature.Of strong that one could say of this species of Chemistry, that it is the science to methodically destroy the mixtures produced by Nature, to form monsters of them, which have about the same appearance & the same properties as the mixtures natural. Was more needed to win the votes of the public?
Warned & struck by these deceptive appearances; flooded by subtly reasoned writings, tired by the invectives multiplied against Hermetic Chemistry, unknown even to its aggressors, is it surprising that he despises it? & we take monstrous productions for productions made in the common order of Nature.Of strong that one could say of this species of Chemistry, that it is the science to methodically destroy the mixtures produced by Nature, to form monsters of them, which have about the same appearance & the same properties as the mixtures natural. Was more needed to win the votes of the public? Warned & struck by these deceptive appearances; flooded by subtly reasoned writings, tired by the invectives multiplied against Hermetic Chemistry, unknown even to its aggressors, is it surprising that he despises it? that it is the science of methodically destroying the mixtures produced by Nature, to form monsters of them, which have about the same appearance and the same properties as the natural mixtures. Was more needed to win the votes of the public?Warned & struck by these deceptive appearances; flooded by subtly reasoned writings, tired by the invectives multiplied against Hermetic Chemistry, unknown even to its aggressors, is it surprising that he despises it? that it is the science of methodically destroying the mixtures produced by Nature, to form monsters of them, which have about the same appearance and the same properties as the natural mixtures.
Was more needed to win the votes of the public? Warned & struck by these deceptive appearances; flooded by subtly reasoned writings, tired by the invectives multiplied against Hermetic Chemistry, unknown even to its aggressors, is it surprising that he despises it?
Basil Valentine (Azot des Philosophes.) compares the Chemists to the Pharisees, who were in honor & authority among the Public, because of their exterior affected with religion & piety. They were, he says, hypocrites attached only to the land and to their interests; but who abused the confidence and credulity of the people, who ordinarily allow themselves to be taken in by appearances, because their sight is not keen enough to penetrate to the bottom of the bark. Let no one imagine, however, that by such a discourse I claim to harm Chemistry nowadays. We have found a way to make it useful, and we cannot over-praise those who make an assiduous study of it.
The curious experiments which most Chemists have made can only satisfy the Public.Medicine derives so many advantages from it, that it would be an enemy of the good of the Peoples to decry it. She also contributed not a little to the conveniences of life, by the methods she gave for perfecting Metallurgy, and some other Arts. Porcelain, earthenware, are fruits of chemistry. It supplies materials for dyes, for glassware, &c. But because its usefulness is recognized, should we conclude that it is the only & true Chemistry? & is it necessary for that to reject & despise Hermetic Chemistry?
It is true that an infinite number of people claim to be Philosophers, and abuse the credulity of fools. But is it the fault of Hermetic science? Don't the Philosophers shout loud enough to be heard by everyone,& to warn him against the snares set for him by these sorts of people? There is not one who does not say that the material of this Art is cheap, and even that it costs nothing, that the fire, to work it, does not cost more, that it is only necessary to a vase, or at most two for the whole course of the work. Let us listen to d'Espagnet (Can. 35.): “Philosophical work requires more time and work than expense, for there is very little left to do for him who has the required material.
Those who demand large sums to carry it out have more confidence in the wealth of others than in the science of this Art.Let him who is a fan of it therefore be on his guard, and let him not fall into the traps set for him by rogues, who are after his purse at the very time that they promise them mountains of gold. They ask the Sun to guide themselves in the operations of this Art, because they see nothing of it. We must therefore not blame Hermetic Chemistry, which is no more responsible for it than probity is for cheating. A stream can be dirty, stinking from the filth it picks up in its course, without its source being any less pure, less beautiful & less limpid.
What still decries Hermetic science are those bastards of vulgar chemistry, commonly known by the names of blowers and seekers of the Philosopher's stone. They are idolaters of the Hermetic Philosophy. All the recipes offered to them are for them so much God, before whom they bend their knees. There are a good number of this sort of people very well instructed in the operations of vulgar chemistry; they even have a lot of skill in their knack, but they are not instructed in the principles of the Hermetic Philosophy, and will never succeed. Others are ignorant even of the very principles of vulgar chemistry, and these are strictly speaking prompters.It is to them that the proverb must be applied:
Alchemia est ars, cujus initium laborare, medium mentiri, finit mendicare. The Philosophers therefore say with reason that this stone is like the center and the source of the virtues, since those who possess it despise all the vanities of the world, stupid glory, ambition, that they do not make more case of gold, only sand & vile dust (Sapient. cap. 7.), & silver is for them only mud. Wisdom alone makes an impression on them, envy, jealousy and other tumultuous passions do not stir up storms in their hearts; they have no other desire than to live according to God, no other satisfaction than to make themselves secretly useful to their neighbor, and to penetrate more and more into the interior of the secrets of Nature.
But they are slaves to human respect; they would not dare to confess publicly that they recognize it as possible, because they fear exposing themselves to the laughter of the ignorant, and of the so-called scholars blinded by prejudice. In public they joke about it like many others, or at least speak of it with so much indifference that one does not even suspect them of regarding it as real, while the attempts they make in private almost all tend looking for him. After spending many years in the midst of their furnaces without having succeeded, their vanity is offended, they are ashamed of having failed, & then seek to compensate themselves for it, or to avenge themselves by speaking ill of the thing so they could not obtain possession.
They were people who had no equals for the theory and practice of chemistry, they had given themselves out as such; they had come it somehow; but by dint of saying it or having it said by others, we believed it like them. That at the end of their days they take it into their heads to decry the Hermetic Philosophy, we will not examine whether they do so wrongly; the reputation they had acquired answers that they have the right to do so, and one would dare not applaud them. Yes, they say, if the thing had been feasible, it could not have escaped the science, the penetration and the skill of such a skilful man. These impressions grow insensibly stronger; a second,not having taken it better than the first, was frustrated of his hope and his pains; he joins his voice to that of the others, he shouts even louder if he can; it makes itself heard, prejudice feeds, we finally come to the point of saying with them that it is a chimera, and what is more, we convince ourselves of this without knowing the cause.
Those to whom experience has proved the contrary, satisfied with their fate, do not envy the applause of ignorant people. Sapientiam & doctrinam ftulti (Prov. c. I.) defcipiunt. Some have written to disabuse him (Beccher, Stalh, M. Potth, M. de Justi in his Memoirs, openly defend it.), he did not want to shake off the yoke of prejudice, they left it at that. . he even shouts louder if he can;it makes itself heard, prejudice feeds, we finally come to the point of saying with them that it is a chimera, and what is more, we convince ourselves of this without knowing the cause. Those to whom experience has proved the contrary, satisfied with their fate, do not envy the applause of ignorant people.
Sapientiam & doctrinam ftulti (Prov. c. I.) defcipiunt. Some have written to disabuse him (Beccher, Stalh, M. Potth, M. de Justi in his Memoirs, openly defend it.), he did not want to shake off the yoke of prejudice, they left it at that. . he even shouts louder if he can; it makes itself heard, prejudice feeds, we finally come to the point of saying with them that it is a chimera, and what is more, we convince ourselves of this without knowing the cause.Those to whom experience has proved the contrary, satisfied with their fate, do not envy the applause of ignorant people. Sapientiam & doctrinam ftulti (Prov. c. I.) defcipiunt. Some have written to disabuse him (Beccher, Stalh, M. Potth, M. de Justi in his Memoirs, openly defend it.), he did not want to shake off the yoke of prejudice, they left it at that. . satisfied with their fate, does not envy the applause of the ignorant people.
Sapientiam & doctrinam ftulti (Prov. c. I.) defcipiunt. Some have written to disabuse him (Beccher, Stalh, M. Potth, M. de Justi in his Memoirs, openly defend it.), he did not want to shake off the yoke of prejudice, they left it at that. . satisfied with their fate, does not envy the applause of the ignorant people.Sapientiam & doctrinam ftulti (Prov. c. I.) defcipiunt. Some have written to disabuse him (Beccher, Stalh, M. Potth, M. de Justi in his Memoirs, openly defend it.), he did not want to shake off the yoke of prejudice, they left it at that. .
But in what does the difference between vulgar chemistry and hermetic chemistry consist? There she is. The first is properly the art of destroying the compounds that Nature has made; & the second is the art of working with Nature to perfect them. The first puts to use the furious and destructive tyrant of Nature: the second uses its mild and benign agent.Hermetic Philosophy takes as the subject matter of its work the secondary or principled principles of things, to lead them to perfection therefore they make susceptible, by ways and processes conforming to those of Nature. Ordinary chemistry takes the mixtures which have already reached the point of their perfection, decomposes them, and destroys them. Those who are curious to see a more extensive parallel of these two Arts, can have recourse to the work that one of the great antagonists of Hermetic Philosophy, the Jesuit Father Kircker, composed, and that Mangée inferred from the first volume of his Library of Curious Chemistry.
The Hermetic Philosophers hardly fail to mark in their works the difference between these two Arts.But the most infallible mark by which we can distinguish an Adept from a Chemist, is that the Adept, according to what all the Philosophers say, takes only one thing, or at most two of the same. nature, a single vase or two at the most, and a single furnace to lead the work to its perfection; the Chemist on the contrary works on all sorts of materials indifferently. It is also the touchstone against which you must test these rogues of prompters, who are after your purse, who ask for gold to make it, and who, instead of a transmutation that they promise you, in fact only translate the gold from your purse into theirs. This remark does not concern less the turners of good faith and probity, who believe they are on the right track, and who deceive others by deceiving themselves.
If this work makes enough impression on the minds to persuade the possibility & the reality of the Hermetic Philosophy, God grant that it also serves to disillusion those who have the mania to spend their goods to blow coal, to raise furnaces, to calcine, to sublimate, to distill, finally to reduce everything to nothing, that is to say, to ashes and smoke. Adepts do not run after gold & silver. Morien gave great proof of this to King Calid. This one having found many books which dealt with Hermetic science, and being unable to include/understand nothing there, made publish that it would give a great reward to that which would explain them to him (Interview of King Calid.).
The lure of this reward led a large number of prompters there.Morien, the Hermit Morien then came out of his desert, attracted not by the promised reward, but by the desire to manifest the power of God, and how admirable he is in his works. He went to find Calid, and asked, like the others, for a suitable place to work, in order to prove by his works the truth of his words. Morien having finished his operations, left the perfect stone in a vase, around which he wrote: Those who themselves have everything they need, need neither reward nor the help of others. He then dislodged without saying a word, and returned to his solitude. Calid having found this vase, & read the writing, felt well what it meant; & after having made the test of the powder, he drove out or put to death all those who had wanted to deceive him.
Hermetic Philosophy is therefore the school of piety and Religion. Those to whom God gives knowledge of it were already pious, or they become so (Flamel Hieroglyphics). All Philosophers begin their works by requiring of those who read them, with the intention of entering the sanctuary of Nature, an upright heart and a God-fearing mind: Jnitium fapientiae, timor Dominii; a compassionate character, to help the poor, a deep humility, and a formal intention to do everything for the glory of the Creator, who hides his secrets from the proud and false sages of the world, to manifest them to the humble (Matth. c.II.).
When our first Father heard the death sentence as pronounced punishment for his disobedience, he heard at the same time the promise of a Liberator who was to save all mankind. All-merciful God would not allow the most beautiful work of his hands to perish absolutely. The same wisdom which had so kindly arranged the remedy for the soul, doubtless did not forget to indicate one against the evils which were to afflict the body.But as all men do not take advantage of the means of salvation which Jesus Christ has merited for us, and which God offers to all, in the same way all men do not know how to use the remedy proper to cure the ills of the body , although the material from which this remedy is made either vile, common, & present to their eyes, that they see it without knowing it, & that they employ it for other uses than, the one that is truly its own (Basile Valentin , Azot des Phil. & Cosmopol.).
This is what proves that it is a gift from God, who favors whoever pleases Him. Vir insipiens non cognoscet, & sulltus non intelliget haec. Although Solomon, the wisest of men, tells us: Altissimus de terra, creavit medicinam: & posuit Deus super terram medicamentum quod sapiens non despiciet (Eccl.c. 38.
It is this matter that God used to manifest his wisdom in the composition of all beings. He animated it with the breath of this spirit, which was carried on the waters, before its omnipotence had unraveled the chaos of the Universe. It is she who is susceptible to all forms, and who has none of her own (Bas. Val.). Also most Philosophers compare the making of their stone to the creation of the Universe.
There was, says Scripture (Genes. c. I.), a confused chaos, from which no individual was distinguished. The terrestrial globe was submerged in the waters: they seemed to contain Heaven, and to contain within them the seeds of all things. There was no light, everything was in darkness.The light appeared, it dissipated them, and the stars were placed in the firmament. The Philosophical work is precisely the same thing. At first it is a dark chaos, everything seems so confused that nothing can be distinguished separately from the principles that make up the matter of the stone. The Heaven of the Philosophers is immersed in the waters, darkness covers its entire surface; the light finally separates from it; the Moon & the Sun manifest themselves, & come to spread joy in the heart of the Artist, & life in matter.
This chaos consists of the dry and the humid. The dry is the earth, the wet is the water. Darkness is the color black, which the Philosophers call black blacker than black itself, nigrum nigro nigrius.It is the Philosophical night, and the palpable darkness. The light in the creation of the world appeared before the Sun, it is this so much desired whiteness of matter which succeeds the color black. The Sun finally appears orange in color, the red of which gradually strengthens to the color red with purple: which complements the first work. When the Egyptians observed this metamorphosis, they took the chance to feign the existence of the Phoenix, which they said was a purple-colored bird, which was reborn from its own ashes. But this absolutely fabulous bird is none other than the stone of the Philosophers, which has reached the color of purple after its putrefaction. What, then, should man's knowledge be?
The Creator then wanted to put the seal on his work: he formed man by kneading him from earth, and from earth that seemed inanimate: he inspired him with a breath of life. What God did then with regard to man, the agent of Nature, whom some call his Archaea (Paracelsus, Van Helmont.), does on earth or Philosophical silt. He works it through his inner action, & animates it in such a way that it begins to live, & to grow stronger day by day until it reaches perfection. Morien (Loc. cit.) having noticed this analogy, explained the making of the Magisterium by a comparison taken from the creation and generation of man.Some even claim that Hermes speaks of the resurrection of the body, in his Pymander, because he concludes it from what he saw happening in the progress of the Magisterium.
The same matter which had been pushed to a certain degree of perfection in the first work, dissolves & putrefies; what we can very well call a death, since our Savior said so of the seed that we sow (Loc. cit. (c) Flamel.) nisi granum frumenti cadens in terram mortuum suerit, ipsum solum manet. In this putrefaction, the Philosophical matter becomes a volatile black earth, more subtle than any other powder. The Adepts even call it corpse when it is in this state, & say that it has the smell of it: no, says Flamel (Flamel.), that the Artist smells a stinking odor, since it is done in a sealed vessel;but he judges that it is such by the analogy of its corruption with that of dead bodies. This powder or ash, which Morien says should not be despised, because it must live again,
Several ancient philosophers enlightened by these admirable effects of Nature concluded with Hermes, from whom they had drawn the principles in Egypt, that there was a new life after death had robbed us of this one. This is what they wanted to prove when they spoke of the resurrection of plants from their own ashes into other plants of the same species. We do not find any who have spoken of God and of man with so much elevation and nobility. He even explains how one can say of men that they are Gods, Ego dixi Dii estis, & filii excelsi omnes, says David, & Hermes (Pymand. c. II.):
"The soul, o Tat, is of God's own essence For God has an essence, and such as it may be, he alone knows himself .as one separates a part from a whole material, but it is like an effusion of it; almost as the brightness of the Sun is not the Sun itself. This soul is a God in men, this is why we say of men that they are Gods, because what properly constitutes humanity's borders on the Divinity. Origen (LI against Celsus) says that the Egyptians amused the people with fables, and that they hid their philosophy under the veil of the names of the gods of the country. Coringius, in spite of all that he has written against Hermetic Philosophy, saw himself compelled by solid proofs to admit that the Priests of Egypt practiced the art of making gold, and that chemistry was there. originated.
is it surprising that enlightened by the Father of lights, he penetrates into the darkest and most hidden recesses of Nature? that he knows their properties, and that he knows how to put them to use? But God is master of distributing his gifts as he pleases. While he was good enough to establish a cure for the diseases that afflict mankind, he did not see fit to make it known to everyone. Morien says accordingly (Entret, de Calid. & de Morien.), "that the Magisterium is none other than the secret of the secrets of the most high, great, wise God & creator of all that exists, & that he- even revealed this secret to his holy Prophets, whose souls he placed in his holy Paradise. ”
If this secret is a gift from God, someone will say, it must doubtless be placed in the class of talents which God entrusts, and which one must not bury. If the Philosophers are such pious, charitable people, why do we see so few good works on their part? A single Nicolas Flamel in France has built & endowed Churches & Hospitals. These monuments still exist today in the middle and in full view of all of Paris.
If there are other Philosophers, why don't they follow such a good example? why don't they heal the sick? why don't they come from the families of honest people overwhelmed by misery? I reply to that, that we do not know all the good that is done in secret.It should not be done by trumpeting it with the left hand, according to the precept of Jesus Christ our Savior, must not know the good that the right does. It was even ignored until after Flamel's death that he was the sole author of these good works. The hieroglyphic figures which he had placed in the Charniers des Saints Innocents presented nothing but pious and conformable to religion. He himself lived in humility, without ostentation, and without giving the least suspicion of the secret of which he was the possessor. Besides, he could have at that time facilities that we haven't had for a long time to do these good works.He himself lived in humility, without ostentation, and without giving the least suspicion of the secret of which he was the possessor.
Besides, he could have at that time facilities that we haven't had for a long time to do these good works. He himself lived in humility, without ostentation, and without giving the least suspicion of the secret of which he was the possessor. Besides, he could have at that time facilities that we haven't had for a long time to do these good works. The examples of the Cosmopolitan and Philalethes are very convincing proof of this. “We are, says the latter (Introit. Apert, c. 13.) as if enveloped in a curse and opprobrium: we cannot quietly enjoy the company of our friends;
Philosophers are not so common as Doctors. They are very few in number. They possess the secret to cure all illnesses, they do not lack the good will to do good to everyone; but this world is so perverse, that it is dangerous for them to do so. They cannot do so without risking their lives. Will they cure someone miraculously? a murmur will be heard among the Doctors and the People, and even those who most doubted the existence of the Philosophical remedy will then suspect it exists. We will follow this man, we will observe his steps, the rumor will spread; misers and ambitious people will pursue him to get his secret. What, then, can he hope for but persecutions or voluntary exile from his country?
whoever discovers us for what we are will want either to extort our secret, or engineer our ruin, if we refuse him. The world is so wicked & so perverse today, self-interest & ambition dominate men so much that all their actions have no other goal. Do we want, like the Apostles, to operate works of mercy? we are repaid evil for good. I have been trying it lately in some remote places. I cured as if by a miracle some dying people abandoned by Doctors, & to avoid persecution, I saw myself obliged more than once in such a case to change my name, my clothes, to have my hair and beard shaved, and to flee under cover of the night”.
To what still more pressing dangers would a Philosopher not expose himself who made the transmutation?although his intention was only to make use of it for a very simple life, and to share it with those who are in need. This finer gold, and more beautiful than common gold, according to what they say about it, will soon be recognized. On this clue alone, the bearer will be suspected, & perhaps of making counterfeit money. What dreadful consequences would a Philosopher charged with such suspicion not have to fear for him? To what still more pressing dangers would a Philosopher not expose himself who made the transmutation? although his intention was only to make use of it for a very simple life, and to share it with those who are in need. This finer gold, and more beautiful than common gold, according to what they say about it, will soon be recognized.On this clue alone, the bearer will be suspected, & perhaps of making counterfeit money.
What dreadful consequences would a Philosopher charged with such suspicion not have to fear for him? To what still more pressing dangers would a Philosopher not expose himself who made the transmutation? although his intention was only to make use of it for a very simple life, and to share it with those who are in need. This finer gold, and more beautiful than common gold, according to what they say about it, will soon be recognized. On this clue alone, the bearer will be suspected, & perhaps of making counterfeit money. What dreadful consequences would a Philosopher charged with such suspicion not have to fear for him?On this clue alone, the bearer will be suspected, & perhaps of making counterfeit money. What dreadful consequences would a Philosopher charged with such suspicion not have to fear for him? On this clue alone, the bearer will be suspected, & perhaps of making counterfeit money.
What dreadful consequences would a Philosopher charged with such suspicion not have to fear for him? Ezra, in your fourth book. chap. 8. put it this way. Quomodo interrogabis terram, & dicet tibit quoniam dabit terram multam magis, unde fiat fictile, parvum autem pulverem unde aurum sit.
I make a good number of Doctors not exercise their profession, as much by sights of interest, as by desire to render service to the Public, but all are not in this case there. Some will rejoice at seeing their neighbor do good, others will be mortified that they are deprived of the opportunity to increase their income. Jealousy would not fail to seize their hearts, and would revenge be slow to set its effects?The Hermetic science is not learned in the schools of Medicine, although one can hardly doubt that Hippocrates knew it, when one carefully weighs the scattered expressions in his works, and the praise he made.
from Democritus to the Abderitans, who regarded this Philosopher as having gone mad, because on his return from Egypt, he distributed to them almost all the patrimony that remained to him, in order to live as a Philosopher in a small country house far from the uproar. This proof, however, would be quite insufficient for the antiquity of the Hermetic science, but there are so many others that one must not have read the ancient authors to deny it.What does (Olymp. 6.) Pindar mean when he says that the greatest of the gods caused a golden snow to fall in the city of Rhode, made by the art of Vulcan? Zosimus Panopolite, Eusebe, & Synesius teach us that this science was long cultivated in Memphis in Egypt. Both quote the works of Hermes.
Plutarch (Theolog. Phyfico Graecor.) says that the ancient Theology of the Greeks and the Barbarians was only a discourse of Physics hidden under the veil of Fables. He even tries to explain it, saying that by Latona they meant the night; by Juno, Earth; by Apollo, the sun; & by Jupiter, heat.He adds shortly after that the Egyptians said that Osiris was the Sun, Isis the Moon, Jupiter the universal spirit diffused in all Nature, & Vulcan the fire, &c. Manetho expands a great deal on this. Philon Juif (Lib. I. de vita Mesis) reports that Moses had learned in Egypt Arithmetic, Geometry, Music, & Symbolic Philosophy, which was never written there except in sacred characters, Astronomy & Mathematics. S. Clement of Alexandria expresses himself in the same terms as Philo, but he adds Medicine & the knowledge of Hieroglyphs, which the Priests taught only to the children of the Kings of the country & to their own. Hermes was the first who taught all these sciences to the Egyptians, following Diodorus of Sicily (Lib. 2. c. I.), & Strabo (Lib. 17.).
Saint Clement of Alexandria gives great praise in his Stromata to six works by Hermes on Medicine. Diodorus of Sicily speaks at length (Antiq. 1. 4. c. 2.) of a secret which the Kings of Egypt had to draw gold from a white marble which was on the borders of their Empire. Strabo (Geogr. 1. 17.) also mentions a black stone from which many mortars were made at Memphis. We will see later in this book, that this black stone, this white marble & this gold were only allegorical, to signify the stone of the Philosophers which had reached the color black, which the same Philosophers called mortar, because matter grinds and dissolves.
White marble was the same material that had reached whiteness, called marble because of its fixity.Gold was the Philosophical gold which draws & is born from this whiteness, or the stone fixed to the red: one will find these more detailed explanations in the course of this work. As for the Arabs, no one doubts that Hermetic Chemistry and vulgarity were always in force among them. Besides that Albusaraius teaches us (Dynastiâ nonâ.) that the Arabs have preserved for us a large number of works of the Chaldeans, Egyptians, and Greeks through the translations they had made of them into their language, we also have the writings of Geber, Avicenna, Abudali, Alphidius, Alchindis & many others on these matters. One can even say that chemistry spread throughout Europe by means of them. Albert the Great, Archbishop of Regensburg, is one of the first known since the Arabs.
Father Kircker, although very angry against Hermetic Philosophy, has himself proved (Oedyp. -Aegypt, T. 2.p.2.) that it was exercised in Egypt. We can also see Diodorus (Antiq. ic 11. ) & Julius Matern. Firmicus (lib. 3.0. i. of Petosiri & Nicepso.) S. Clement of Alexandria (Strom. 1. 6.) expresses himself thus on this subject: We still have forty-two very useful & very required. Thirty-six of these books contain all the Philosophy of the Egyptians; & the other six concerns Medicine in particular: one treats of the construction of the body or anatomy; the second, diseases; the third, instruments; the fourth, medicines; the fifth, eyes; & the sixth, diseases of women.
Homer had traveled in Egypt (Diod. de Sic. 1. I. c. 2.), & had learned many things there in the association he had with the priests of that country. We can even say that it is there that he drew his Fables. He gives ample proof of this in several places in his works, and in particular in his Hymn III. to Mercury, where he says that this God was the first who invented the art of fire. Homer even speaks of Hermes as the author of wealth, and names him accordingly. This is why he says (ibid. v. 249.) that Apollo having gone to find Hermes to get news of the oxen that had been stolen from him, he saw him lying in his dark lair, full of nectar, of ambrosia, gold & silver, & red & white Nymphs' garments. This nectar,
Stephen of Byzantium was so convinced that Hermes was the author of the Chemistry, & had such a great idea of it, that he had no difficulty in naming Egypt itself ErreocumioV, & Vossius (de Idol. ) believed have to correct this word by ErmochmioV. This is no doubt what also prompted Homer to pretend that these Moly & Nepenthes plants, which had so many virtues, came from Egypt. Pliny (Lib.13.c: 2.) testifies to it in these terms; Homerus quidem primus dodrinarum & antiquitatis parens, multus alias in admiratione Circes, gloriam herbarum AEgypto tribuit. Herbas certè AEgyptias à Régis uxore traditas suae Helenae plurimas narrate, ac nobile illud nepenthes, oblivionem tristitiae veniamque afferens, ab Helenâ nuque omnibus mortalibus propinandum.
It is therefore beyond doubt that the Chemical Art of Hermes was known among the Egyptians. It is hardly less certain that the Greeks who traveled in Egypt learned it there, at least some of them, and that having learned it under hieroglyphics, they then taught it under the veil of fables. Eustathius gives us enough of this to hear in his commentary on the Iliad.
The idea of making gold by the help of Art is therefore not new; besides the proofs we have given, Pliny (Lib. 33. c. 4) confirms it by what he reports from Caligula. “The love and the greed that Caius Caligula had for gold, engaged this Prince to work to get it.he therefore cooked, says this Author, a large quantity of orpiment, & indeed succeeded in making excellent gold, but in a small quantity, that there was much more loss than profit”. Caligula therefore knew that one could make gold artificially, so the Hermetic Philosophy was known. “The Philosophers, continue the same Author, explain themselves more willingly & with more energy by a mute discourse, that is to say, by allegorical & enigmatic figures, than by writings; such are, for example, the table of Senior; the allegorical paintings of the Rosary; those of Jewish Abraham, reported by Flamel, and those of Flamel himself.
Among the other works full of science & erudition on Dialectics, Mathematics, Physics, Metaphysics, Theology & Medicine, we find several on Chemistry, one of which bears the title of Alchymia: it has subsequently been stuffed with an infinity of additions and sophistications. The second is titled, from concordantia. Philosophorum, the third, from compositione compositi. He also made a treatise on minerals, at the end of which he puts a particular article on the matter of the Philosophers under the name of Mineral Electrum.
In the first of these Treatises he says: “The desire to instruct myself in Hermetic Chemistry made me travel through many Cities and Provinces, visit learned people to familiarize myself with this science. I have transcribed and studied with great care and attention the books that deal with it, but for a long time I did not recognize what they advance as true. I studied the pros and cons books again, and could derive neither good nor profit from them.
I have met many Canons, both learned and ignorant in Physics, who dabbled in this Art, and who had made enormous expenses in it; in spite of their pains, their labors and their money, they had not succeeded. But all this did not discourage me; I set myself to work; I spent money, I read,I watched; I went from one place to another, and I meditated incessantly on these words of Avicenna; If the thing is, how is it? if it is not, how is it not? So I worked, I studied with perseverance, until I found what I was looking for. I have the obligation to the grace of the Holy Spirit who enlightened me, and not to my knowledge”. He also says in his Treatise on Minerals (Lib. 3. c. I.): "It is not for physicists to determine & judge the transmutation of metallic bodies, & the change from one to the other: this is the fact of the Art, called Alchemy.
This kind of science is very good & very certain, because it learns to know each thing by its own cause;& it is not difficult for him to distinguish from things themselves the accidental parts which are not of his nature”. He then adds in the second chapter of the same book: "The first matter of metals is an unctuous, subtle, incorporated moisture, & strongly mixed with an earthly matter." It is speaking as a Philosopher, and in accordance with what they all say about it, as we will see in the leak.
Arnaud de Villeneuve, Raymond Lully his difficult, & Flamel appeared shortly after; the number increased little by little, and this science spread throughout all the kingdoms of Europe. In the last century we saw the Cosmopolite, d'Espagnet, and the Philalethes, no doubt that there were many others, and that there are still some today;but the number is so small, or they are so hidden, that they cannot be discovered. It is a great proof that they do not seek the glory of the world, or at least that they fear the effects of its perversity. They even stand in silence, both on the side of speech and on the side of writing. It is not that some works on this matter do not appear from time to time; but it is enough to have read & meditated on those of the true Philosophers, to soon realize that they only resemble them in the barbaric terms, and the enigmatic style, but not at all in substance. Their Authors had read good books;they quote them often enough, but they do it so inappropriately, that they clearly prove either that they have not meditated on them, or that they have done so in such a way as to adapt the expressions of the Philosophers to the false ideas.
that prevention had put them in mind with regard to operations & matter, & not by seeking to rectify their ideas on that of the Authors they were reading. These works of false Philosophers are numerous; everyone wanted to get involved in writing, & most of them no doubt to find in the Bookseller's purse a resource that they lacked elsewhere, or at least to make a name for themselves that they certainly don't deserve.An Author once wished that some true Philosopher would have enough charity towards the Public to publish a list of good Authors in this kind of science, in order to deprive a great number of people of the confidence with which they read the bad ones which lead them into error. Olaus Borrichius, Dane, consequently caused to be printed, at the end of the last century, a work which has the title: Conspectus Chymicorum celebriorum. He makes separate articles of each, & says rather cautiously what he thinks of them. It excludes a large number of Authors from the class of true Philosophers: but are all those they give as true really so?
besides, the number is so great that one does not know which ones to choose in preference to others.One must therefore be very embarrassed when one wants to devote oneself to this study. I would therefore prefer to stick to the wise advice of d'Espagnet, which he gives in these terms in his Arcanum Hermeticae Philofophiae opus, can. 9. “He who loves the truth of this science should read few Authors; goal scored in the right corner”. And can.10. “Among the good Authors who treat of this abstract Philosophy, and of this physical secret, those who have spoken of it with the most wit, solidity, and truth are, among the ancients, Hermes (Table d’Emeraude & seven chapters .) & Morien Romain (Entretien du Roi Calid & de Morien.), between the moderns, Raymond Lully, whom I esteem & consider more than all the others, & Bernard, Count of Marche-Trévisanne, known as the good Trévisan (The Philosophy of Metals, & his Letter to Thomas de Boulogne.). What the subtle Raymond Lully omitted, the others did not mention. It is therefore good to read, re-read & meditate seriously on his old will & his codicil, as a legacy of an inestimable price, which he has given us;to these two books we will add the reading of his two practices (Most of the other books by Raymond Lully which are not cited here are more than useless.).
One finds there everything one could desire, particularly the truth of matter, the degrees of fire, the regime by means of which one perfects the work; all things that the Ancients took great pains to hide. No other has spoken so clearly & so faithfully of the hidden causes of things, & of the secret movements of Nature. He said almost nothing about the first and mysterious water of the Philosophers; but what he says about it is very significant”.
“As for this limpid water sought by so many people, & found by so few, although it is present to everyone & he makes use of it.A noble Pole, a witty and learned man, made mention of this water, which is the basis of the work, quite extensively in his Treatises which have the title: Novum lumen, Chemicum; Parabola; Enigma; of sulphide. He spoke of it with such clarity that anyone who asked for more would not be able to be satisfied by others. D' Spaint still requires a great knowledge of physics; & it is for this purpose that I will put an abbreviated treatise following this Discourse which will contain the general principles drawn from the Hermetic Philosophers, which d'Espagnet collected in his Enchyridion. The Hermetic treatise which follows is absolutely necessary to prepare the reader for the understanding of this work.
Of this number are also the emblems of Michel Maïer, who contained therein, & as explained so clearly the mysteries of the Ancients, that it is hardly possible to put the truth before the eyes with more clarity. Such
are the only Authors praised by d'Espagnet, as doubtless sufficient to put to the facts of the Hermetic Philosophy, a man who wants to apply himself to it. He says that one should not be satisfied with reading them once or twice, but six times and more without becoming discouraged;that it must be done with a pure heart & detached from the tiring embarrassments of the century, with a true & firm intention to use the knowledge of this science, only for the glory of God & the utility of the neighbor, so that May God spread his lights and his wisdom in the mind and the heart; because wisdom, as the sage says, will never dwell in a heart impure and stained with sins.
I will add to it the quotations from the Philosophers, to show that they are all in agreement on the same points.
One cannot recommend the study of Physics enough, because there one learns to know the principles which Nature employs in the composition and the formation of the individuals of the three kingdoms animal, vegetable and mineral. Without this knowledge we would work blind, and we would take to form a body, which would only be suitable for forming one of a genus or a species quite different from that which we propose. For man comes from man, the ox from the ox, the plant from his own seed, and the metal from his. Whoever would therefore seek, outside of metallic nature, the art and the means of multiplying or perfecting metals, would certainly be in error. It must, however, be admitted that Nature alone cannot multiply metals, as Hermetic art does.It is true that the metals contain in their center this multiplicative property, but they are apples picked before their maturity, according to what Flamel says.
The perfect (Philosophical) bodies or metals contain this more perfect seed and more abundance; but it is so stubbornly attached to it that only the Hermetic solution can draw it out. He who has the secret of it, has that of the great work, if we are to believe all the Philosophers. To achieve this, it is necessary to know the agents which Nature employs to reduce the mixtures to their principles; because every body is made up of what it naturally resolves into.The principles of Physics detailed below are very suitable to serve as a torch to illuminate the steps of those who wish to enter the well of Democritus, & discover there the truth hidden in the thickest darkness. For this well is none other than the enigmas, the allegories, and the obscurities spread in the works of the Philosophers, who learned from the Egyptians, like Democritus, not to reveal the secrets of wisdom, of which he had been instructed by the successors of the father of true Philosophy.
GENERAL PRINCIPLES OF PHYSICS,
Following the Hermetic Philosophy.
It is not given to all to penetrate to the supplier of the studs of Nature: very few people know the way which leads there. Some impatiens go astray by taking paths which seem to shorten the road; the others almost at every step find crossroads which embarrass them, turn left, & go to Tartarus, instead of holding the right which leads to the Champs Elysees, because they do not have, like Aeneas (Eneid. L 6 .), a Sibyl have a guide. Others, finally, do not think they are making a mistake by following the most beaten and most frequented path. All of them nevertheless realize, after long fatigues, that, far from having reached the goal, they have either missed it, or turned their back on it.
Errors have their source in prejudice, as in the lack of enlightenment and sound instruction. The true road can only be very simple, since there is nothing simpler than the operations of Nature. But although traced by this same Nature, it is little frequented, and even those who pass through it make it a jealous duty to hide their traces with brambles and thorns. We walk there only through the darkness of fables and riddles, it is very difficult not to get lost, if a tutelary Angel does not carry the torch in front of us.
It is therefore necessary to know Nature before setting out to imitate it, and to undertake to perfect what it has left in the way of perfection.The study of Physics gives us this knowledge, not of this Physics of the Schools, which only teaches speculation, and which furnishes the memory only with more obscure terms, and less intelligible than the very thing that one wants. explain. Physics, which claiming to clearly define a body for us, tells us that it is a compound of points or parts, of points which, carried from one place to another, will form lines, these close lines, a surface; hence the extension and the other dimensions. From the union of the parts will result a body, and from their disunion, divisibility ad infinitum, or, if you will, ad infinitum. Finally,so many other reasonings of this kind, little capable of satisfying a mind curious to arrive at a palpable & practical knowledge of the individuals who make up this vast Universe. It is to Chemical Physics that we must have recourse. It is a practical science, founded on a theory, whose experience proves the truth. Aim. this experience is unfortunately so rare that many people take the opportunity to doubt its existence.
In vain have Authors, people of wit, of genius, and very learned in other parts, wanted to invent systems, to represent to us, by a flowery description, the formation and the birth of the world. is embarrassed in whirlwinds, so the too fast movement prevailed: it got lost with them.Its first matter, divided into subtle, branchy and globular matter, has left us only a vain matter for subtle reasoning, without teaching us what the essence of bodies is. Another, no less ingenious, has taken it into his head to subject everything to calculation, and has imagined a reciprocal attraction, which could at most help us to explain the actual movement of bodies, without giving us any light on the principles on which they are based. are composed. He felt very well that it was to revive, under a new name, the occult qualities of the Peripatetics, long since banished from the school; so he spouted his attraction only as a conjecture, which his followers make a point of sustaining as a real thing.
The head of the third, struck by the same blow with which his pretended comet struck the Sun, allowed his ideas to take routes as irregular as those which he fixes for the planets, formed, according to him, of parts separated by this collision of the body. igneous of the Star which presides over the day.
The imaginations of a Telliamed, and those of other similar writers, are daydreams that deserve only contempt or indignation. Finally, all those who have wanted to deviate from what Moses left us in Genesis have lost themselves in their vain reasonings.
Let no one tell us that Moses only wanted to make Christians, and not Philosophers. Taught by the revelation of the very Author of Nature;more very perfectly versed in all the sciences of the Egyptians, the most instructed and the most enlightened in all those that we cultivate, who, better than him, was in a position to teach us something certain about the history of Universe?
His system, it is true, is very fit to make Christians, but is this quality, which most others lack, then incompatible with the truth? Everything there announces the greatness, the omnipotence, and the wisdom of the Creator; but at the same time manifests there to our eyes the creature such as it is. God spoke, & all was done, dixit, & facta sunt (Gen.l.). It was enough for Christians, but it was not enough for Philosophers.Moses adds from where this world was taken, what order it pleased the Supreme Being to put in the formation of each kingdom of Nature. It does more: it declares positively what is the principle of all that exists, and what gives life and movement to each individual. Could he say more in so few words? Would one require of him that he had described the anatomy of all the parts of these individuals?
& when he had done it, would we have relied on him better? We want to examine; we want it, because we doubt: we doubt out of ignorance, and on such a foundation, what system can we build that does not soon fall into ruin?
The Sage could not better designate this species of Architects, these fabricators of systems, than by saying that God delivered the Universe to their vain reasonings (Ecclef. c. 3. v. II. 1. Part.). Let us say better: there is no one versed in the science of Nature, who does not recognize Moses for a man inspired by God, for a great Philosopher, and a true Physicist. He described the creation of the world & of man with as much truth as if he had witnessed it in person.But let's admit at the same time that his writings are so sublime, that they are not accessible to everyone, and that those who fight him do so only because they do not understand him, that darkness they are blinded by their ignorance, and that their systems are nothing but ill-conceived delusions of a head puffed up with vanity, and sick with too much presumption.
Nothing is simpler than physics. Its object, although very complex in the eyes of the ignorant, has only one principle, but divided into parts, some more subtle than others. The different proportions employed in the mixture, the union and the combinations of the more subtle parts with those which are less, form all the individuals of Nature. And as these combinations are almost infinite, so is the number of mixtures.
God is an eternal Being, an infinite unity, the radical principle of everything: his essence is an immense light, his power an omnipotence, his desire a perfect good, his absolute will an accomplished work. To those who would like to know more, there remains only astonishment, admiration, silence, and an impenetrable abyss of glory.
Before the creation, it was as if withdrawn into itself & was self-sufficient. In creation he gave birth, so to speak, and brought to light this great work which he had conceived from all eternity. It developed by a manifest extension of itself, and actually made this ideal world material, as if it wanted to make the image of its Divinity palpable. This is what Hermes wanted us to understand when he said that God changed form;that then the world was manifested & changed into light (Pymand. c. I.). It seems likely that the Ancients heard something approaching, by the birth of Pallas, coming out of the brain of Jupiter with the help of Vulcan or of the light.
No less wise in his combinations than powerful in his operations, the Creator has placed such beautiful order in the organic mass of the Universe, that superior things are mixed without confusion with inferior ones, and become similar by a certain analogy. The extremes are bound very closely by an insensible medium, or a secret knot of this adorable workman, so that everything obeys in concert the direction of the Supreme Moderator, without the link of the different parts being able to be broken except by him who did the assembly.Hermes was therefore right in saying (Tab. Smarag.) that what is below is like what is above, to perfect all the wonderful things that we see.
From the first material.
Some Philosophers have supposed a matter preexisting to the elements, but as they did not know it, they only spoke of it in an obscure and very confused way. Aristotle, who seems to have believed the world to be eternal, nevertheless speaks of a first universal matter, without daring nevertheless to engage in the dark detours of the ideas he had of it. He expressed himself in this respect only in a very ambiguous manner. He regarded it as the principle of all sensible things, & seems to want to insinuate that the elements were formed by a kind of antipathy or repugnance which was between the parts of this matter (De ortu & interitu, 1. 2. cI & 2 .).He would have philosophized better if he had seen only a sympathy and a perfect harmony, since we see no contrariety in the elements themselves, though it is commonly thought that fire is opposed to water. We would not be mistaken, if we paid attention that this supposed opposition comes only from the intention of their qualities, and from the difference in subtlety of their parts, since there is no water without fire.
Thales, Heraclitus, Hesiod looked at water as the first matter of things.Moses appears in Genesis (Gen. I.) to favor this feeling, by giving the names of abyss & water to this first matter, not that he meant water, an element that we drink, but a kind of smoke. , a moist, thick & dark vapour, which condenses more or less afterwards, according to the more or less compact things that the Creator has pleased to form from it. This mist, this immense vapor concentrated, thickened, or became rare in a universal & chaotic water, which thereby became the principle of everything for the present & for flight (Cosmop. Tract.4.).
In its beginning, this water was volatile, like a mist, the condensation made it a more or less fixed matter.But whatever this matter may be, the first principle of things, it was created in darkness too thick and too dark for the human mind to see clearly. the Author of Nature alone knows it, and in vain would theologians and philosophers want to determine what it was.
It is however very likely that this dark abyss, this chaos was an aqueous or humid matter, as if cleaner & more disposed to be attenuated, rarefied, condensed, & serve by these qualities for the construction of the Heavens & the Earth.
Holy Scripture calls this shapeless mass sometimes empty earth, and sometimes water, although it was actually neither one nor the other, but only potentially. It would therefore be permissible to conjecture that it could be more or less like a smoke, or a thick and dark vapour, stupid and motionless, numbed by a kind of cold, and without action; until the same word which created this vapour, infused into it a vivifying spirit, which became visible and palpable by the effects which it produced there.
The separation of the upper waters from the lower ones, of which mention is made in Genesis, seems to have been made by a kind of sublimation of the most subtle parts, and the most tenuous, from those which were less so. , almost as in a distillation where the spirits rise & separate from the heaviest, more earthly parts, & occupy the top of the vase, while the coarser ones remain at the bottom.
This operation could only be done by the help of this luminous spirit which was infused into this mass. For light is an igneous spirit, which, by acting on this vapour, & in it, made some parts heavier by condensing them, & become opaque by their tighter adhesion; this spirit drove them to the lower region, where they preserve the darkness in which they were first buried.
The more tenuous parts, & having become more and more homogeneous by the uniformity of their tenuity & their purity, were raised & pushed towards the upper region, where less condensed they left a freer passage to the light which manifested itself there. in all its glory.
What proves that the tenebrous abyss, chaos, or the first matter of the world, was an aqueous and humid mass, is that, in addition to the reasons that we have related, we have quite a palpable proof of it before our eyes. The essence of water is to flow, to flow as long as the heat animates it & maintains it in its state of fluidity. The continuity of bodies, the adhesion of their parts is due to the aqueous humor. It is like the glue or the solder which unites & binds the elementary parts of the bodies. So long as it is not entirely separated from it, they retain the solidity of their mass.But if the fire comes to heat these bodies beyond the degree necessary for their conservation in their present way of being, it drives out, rarefies this humor, causes it to evaporate, and the body is reduced to powder,
Heat is the means and the instrument that fire employs in its operations; it even produces by its means two effects which seem opposite, but which are very much in conformity with the laws of Nature, and which represent to us what happened in the unraveling of the chaos. By separating the thinnest and most humid part from the most terrestrial, heat rarefies the first and condenses the second. Thus, by the separation of the heterogeneous, the reunion of the homogeneous takes place.
In fact, we only see in the world more or less condensed water. Between the Sky & the Earth, all is smoke, mists, vapors pushed from the center & from the interior of the earth, & raised above its circumference in the part which we call air.
The weakness of the organs of our senses does not allow us to see the subtle vapours, or emanations from the celestial bodies, which we call influences, and mingle with the vapors which sublimate themselves from the sublunar bodies. The eyes of the spirit must come to the aid of the weakness of the eyes of the body.
In short time the bodies sweat a subtle vapor, which manifests itself more clearly in Summer. The air heats up the waters into vapours, pumps them, draws them to itself. When, after a rain, the rays of the Sun shine down on the earth, we see it smoking and exhaling in vapours. These vapors hover in the air in the form of mists, when they do not rise much above the surface of the earth: but when they rise to the middle region, we see them running here and there under the form of clouds. Then they resolve into rain, snow, hail, &c. & fall to return to their origin.
The workman feels it at his great inconvenience when he works with action. Even the idle man experiences it in great heat. The body always perspires, and the sweats which often trickle down the body show this enough.
Those who gave into the hollow ideas of the Rabbis, believed that there had existed, before this first matter, a certain principle older than it, to which they very improperly gave the name of Hylé. It was less a body than an immense shadow, less a thing, than a very dark image of the thing, which one should rather call a tenebrous phantom of Being, a very dark night, and the retreat or the center of darkness, in short , a thing that exists only potentially, and only such that it would be possible for the human mind to imagine it in a dream. But the imagination itself cannot represent it to us otherwise than as a man born blind represents the light of the Sun. These followers of Rabbinism have seen fit to say that God drew from this first principle a dark abyss,informs like the next matter of the elements & of the world. But finally everything together announces to us water as the first material of things.
The spirit of God which was carried on the waters (Gen. I.), was the instrument which the supreme Architect of the world used to give form to the Universe. He instantly shed light, reduced from potency to act the seeds of things previously confused into chaos, & by constant alteration of coagulations & resolutions he sustained all individuals. Spread throughout the mass, it animates each part of it, and by a continual and secret operation it gives movement to each individual, according to the genus and species to which it has determined it. It is properly the soul of the world, and whoever ignores it or denies it, ignores the laws of the Universe.
Of nature.
To this first mover or principle of generation and alteration is joined a second embodied, to which we give the name of Nature. The eye of God, always attentive to his work, is properly nature itself, and the laws he has laid down for its preservation are the causes of everything that takes place in the universe. The Nature which we have just called a second corporified mover, is a secondary Nature, a faithful servant who obeys exactly the orders of his master (Cosmopol. Tract. 2.), or an instrument driven by the hand of an incapable workman.
to be wrong. This Nature or second cause is a universal spirit, which has a vivifying & fertilizing property of the light created in the beginning, & communicated to all the parts of the macrocosm.Zoroaster with Heraclitus called it an igneous spirit, an invisible fire, & the soul of the world. It is of him that Virgil speaks, when he says (Aeneid. 1. 6.): From the beginning a certain igneous spirit was infused in the sky, the earth, and the sea, the moon, and the Titanic or terrestrial stars. (That is, minerals & metals, which have been given the names of planets.). This spirit gives them life and preserves them. Soul spread throughout the body, it gives movement to the whole mass, and to each of its parts. From there came all species of living beings, quadrupeds, birds, fish. This igneous spirit is the principle of their vigor:
its origin is celestial, and it is communicated to them by the seed which produces them.the earth & the sea, the moon, & the Titanian or terrestrial stars (That is to say, the minerals & the metals, to which we gave the names of planets.). This spirit gives them life and preserves them. Soul spread throughout the body, it gives movement to the whole mass, and to each of its parts. From there came all species of living beings, quadrupeds, birds, fish. This igneous spirit is the principle of their vigor: its origin is celestial, and it is communicated to them by the seed which produces them.
the earth & the sea, the moon, & the Titanian or terrestrial stars (That is to say, the minerals & the metals, to which we gave the names of planets.). This spirit gives them life and preserves them.Soul spread throughout the body, it gives movement to the whole mass, and to each of its parts. From there came all species of living beings, quadrupeds, birds, fish. This igneous spirit is the principle of their vigor: its origin is celestial, and it is communicated to them by the seed which produces them. From there came all species of living beings, quadrupeds, birds, fish. This igneous spirit is the principle of their vigor: its origin is celestial, and it is communicated to them by the seed which produces them. From there came all species of living beings, quadrupeds, birds, fish. This igneous spirit is the principle of their vigor: its origin is celestial, and it is communicated to them by the seed which produces them.
The order which reigns in the universe had only a developed series of eternal laws. All the movements of the different parts of its mass depend on it. Nature forms, alters & corrupts unceasingly, & its moderator, present everywhere, continually repairs the alterations of the work.
We can divide the world into three regions, the upper, the middle and the lower. The Hermetic Philosophers give the first the name of intelligible, and say that it is spiritual, immortal or unalterable; it is the most perfect. All movement takes place by rarefaction & condensation (Beccher. Phys. subt.). Heat, effect of sensible or insensible light, is the cause of rarefaction, and cold produces contraction or condensation.
The average is called celestial. It contains the least imperfect bodies & a quantity of spirits (It should be noted that the Philosophers do not understand by these spirits, immaterial spirits or angelic spirits, but only physical spirits, such as the igneous spirit diffused in the universe. Such is also the spirituality of their higher region.). This region being in the middle participates in the upper & lower. It serves as a medium to unite these two extremes, and as a channel through which the vivifying spirits which animate all the parts are constantly communicated within. It is only subject to periodic changes.
The lower or elementary includes all the sublunary bodies. She receives the vivifying spirits from the other two only to return them to them.This is why everything changes there, everything is corrupted, everything dies there; there is no generation that is not preceded by corruption; & no birth, lest death ensue.
Each region is submissive, and depends on that which is superior to it, but they act in concert. The Creator alone has the power to annihilate beings, as he alone had the power to draw them out of nothingness. The laws of Nature do not permit that which bears the character of being or of substance, to be subject to annihilation. Which made Hermes (Pymand.) say that nothing dies in this world, but everything passes from one way of being to another.Every mixture is composed of elements, and is finally resolved in these same elements, by a continual rotation of Nature, as Lucretius said:
Huic accedit uti quicque in sua corpora rursum
Dissolvat natura; neque ad nihilum interimat res.
There were therefore from the beginning two principles, one luminous, approaching very much to spiritual Nature; the other all bodily & dark. The first to be the principle of light, movement & heat: the second as the principle of darkness, numbness & cold (Cosmop. Tract. I.). This one active & masculine, this one passive & feminine. From the first comes the movement for generation in our elementary world, and from the second proceeds the alteration, from which death originated.
All generations, vegetations & accretions are only made by these two means; because these are the first two dispositions with which the bodies were affected. The light spread only through rarefaction; and condensation, which produces the density of bodies, has almost stopped the progress of light, and preserved darkness.
When Moses says that God created the sky & the earth, he seems to have wanted to speak of the two formal & material principles, or active & passive that we have explained, & he does not seem to have meant by the earth, this arid mass which appeared after that the waters had parted. That of which Moses speaks is the material principle of all that exists, and includes the terra-aqueous-aerial globe. The other took its name properly only from its dryness; & to distinguish it from the heap of waters, & vocavit Deus aridam terrant, congrigationesque aquarum maris (Gen. CI).
Air, water & earth are one and the same matter more or less tenuous & subtilized, depending on whether it is more or less rarefied. Air, as nearest to the principle of rarefaction,water comes next,
As the object that I propose in giving these abbreviated principles of Physics, is only to instruct on what can enlighten the amateurs of the Hermetic Philosophy, I will not enter into the detail of the formation of the stars and their movements. .
Of light and its effects.
The light, after having acted on the parts of the dark mass, which were closest to it, and having rarefied them more or less in proportion to their distance, finally penetrated to the center, to animate it in its whole, to fertilize it. , & make it produce everything that the Universe presents to our eyes. It then pleased God to fix its natural source in the Sun, without, however, picking it up entirely there. It seems that God wanted to establish him as the sole dispenser, so that the light created by the one God, uncreated light, could be communicated to creatures by a single person, as if to indicate to us its first origin.
From this luminous torch all others borrow their light and the radiance they reflect on us;because their compact matter produces on us the same effect as a polished spherical mass, or a mirror on which the rays of the Sun fall. We must judge celestial bodies as the Moon, in which the sight alone reveals solidity to us, & a property common to terrestrial bodies of intercepting the rays of the Sun, & of producing shadow, which only suits' with opaque bodies. We must not conclude from this that the Stars and the Planets are not diaphanous bodies; since the clouds, which are only vapors or water, also cast a shadow by intercepting the solar rays.
Some Philosophers have called the Sun the soul of the world, and have supposed it to be placed in the middle of the universe, so that as from a center it would be easier for it to communicate its benign influences everywhere. Before having received them, the earth was as if in a kind of idleness, or as a female without a male. As soon as it was impregnated with it, it immediately produced, not simple plants as before, but animated and living beings, animals of all kinds.
The elements were therefore also the fruit of light; & having all the same principle, how could they, according to popular opinion, have between them antipathy & contrariety? It is from their union that all bodies are formed according to their different species; & their diversity comes only from the more or less of what each element provides for the composition of each mixture.
The first light had sown the seeds of things in the matrices which were proper to each; that of the Sun has fertilized them, and caused them to germinate. Each individual retains within him a spark of this light which reduces the seeds of potency into action. The spirits of living beings are rays of this light, and the soul alone of man is a ray or as it were an emanation of uncreated light. God, this eternal, infinite, incomprehensible light, could he manifest himself to the world otherwise than by light; & is it any wonder if he infused so many beauties & virtues in his image, which he formed himself, & in which he established his throne: In sole posuit cabernae culum suum (Psal.18.).
Of Man.
God in corporifying himself, so to speak, by the creation of the world, did not believe that he was enough to have done such beautiful things, he wanted to put the seal of his Divinity on them, and manifest himself even more perfectly by the man training. He did it for this purpose in his own image and in that of the world. He gave it a soul, a spirit and a body, and from these three things brought together in the same subject, he constituted its humanity.
He composed this body of a silt extracted from the purest substance of all created bodies. He drew his mind from all that was most perfect in Nature, and he gave it a soul by a sort of extension of himself. Hermes is speaking.
The body represents the sublunary world, composed of earth & water;this is why it is composed of dry & wet, or bone, flesh & blood.
The infinitely more subtle spirit, like the middle, holds together the soul and the body, and serves them as a link to unite them, because two extremes can only be joined by a middle. It is he who by his igneous virtue vivifies & moves the body under the guidance of the soul, therefore he is the minister, sometimes rebellious, at his orders, he follows his own whims & his inclination. It represents the firmament, whose constituent parts are infinitely more subtle than those of earth and water. Finally, the soul is the image of God himself, and the torch of man.
The body draws its nourishment from the purest substance of the three kingdoms of Nature, which passes successively from one to the other to end in man, who is its end, its complement, and its epitome. Having been made of earth and water, it can feed itself only in an analogous way, that is to say, of water and earth, and cannot fail to resolve itself there.
The spirit is nourished by the spirit of the Universe, and by the quintessence of all that constitutes it, because it was made of it. Lastly, the soul of man maintains itself in the divine light from which it derives its origin.
The preservation of the body is entrusted to the spirit. He works the coarse foods that we take from plants and animals, in the laboratories practiced in the interior of the body.It separates there the pure from the impure, it keeps & distributes in the vas deferens the quintessence analogous to that of which the body was made, either to increase its volume, or to maintain it, returns & rejects the impure & the heterogeneous by the routes intended for this purpose.
This is the true archaea of Nature, which Van Helmont (Traité des Mal. I. Part.) supposes placed at the orifice of the stomach; but therefore he does not appear to have had a clear idea, since he spoke of it in such a confused manner that he made himself almost unintelligible.
This archaea is an igneous principle, principle of heat, movement & life, which animates the body, & retains its way of being as long as the weakness of its organs allows. It feeds on principles analogous to itself which it constantly attracts through respiration: this is why death succeeds life almost as soon as respiration is intercepted.
The body is by itself a principle of death, analogous to that shapeless, cold and dark mass, from which God formed the world. It represents darkness. The spirit holds & partakes of this matter animated by the spirit of God, who in the beginning was borne on the waters, & who by the light he shed, infused into the mass that heat which gives movement & life to all of nature, and this fertilizing virtue, the principle of generation, which provides each individual with the desire and the means to multiply his species.
Infused into the womb with the very seed which it animates, it works there to form & perfect the abode & lodging which it must inhabit, according to the species. & the quality, of the materials provided, according to the layout of the premises, & the specification of the material. If the materials are of good quality, the building will be more solid, the temperament stronger & more vigorous. If they are bad, the body will be weaker and less able to resist the perpetual assaults that it will have to sustain as long as it remains. If matter is susceptible of a more delicate, more combined and more perfect organization, the mind will do so in such a way that it can subsequently exercise its action with all possible freedom and ease.Then the child who will come from it will be more alert, more lively, & the spirit will manifest in the actions of life with more brilliance & brilliance.
But if something is missing; if the matter is gross and earthly, if this spirit is weak by itself, by its lack of force or quantity, the organs will be defective or vitiated, the spirit will only be able to work in its home weakly; the child will be more or less heavy, stupid. The soul that will be infused there will be no less perfect, but its minister then being able to exercise his functions there only with difficulty, because of the obstacles he encounters at every step, it will not appear with all its splendor, & will not be able to manifest itself as it is.A peasant's hut, even a bourgeois house, would not announce the residence of a King, although a King made his stay there. In vain will he have all the qualities required to reign gloriously; in vain will his Minister be heard and able to second his Sovereign, if the constitution of the State is bad, if they cannot make themselves obeyed, if there is no remedy, the State will not be brilliant, everything will go wrong, everything will language; it will tend to its destruction without it being possible to deny the existence of the Sovereign, or to throw on him the lack of glory and splendor.
We will even render to the King and his Minister the justice that is due to them. or throw on him the lack of glory and splendor.We will even render to the King and his Minister the justice that is due to them. or throw on him the lack of glory and splendor. We will even render to the King and his Minister the justice that is due to them.
We see from this why reason only manifests itself in children at a certain age, and in some rather than others; why, as the organs weaken, reason also seems to weaken. Corpus quod corrumpitur aggravat animan, & terrena inhabitatio deprimit sensum multa, cogitantem (Sap.9.). It takes a certain time for the organs to strengthen and perfect themselves. They finally wear out; they fall into decay and are destroyed. Were the State to be at the highest degree of glory, if it begins to decline, if its breakthrough is inevitable, the King & his Minister with all the attention & all the ability possible, will at most be able to do only from time to time some efforts, which will manifest their talents, but weakly, so as not to be able to stop the ruin of the State.
However little a tempted man withdraws into himself, and does the anatomy of his compound, he will soon recognize therein these three principles of his humanity which are really distinct, but united in a single individual (Nicolas Flamel. Explic . figures, chapter 7. ).
Let the so-called strong minds, the ignorant Materialists, and little accustomed to serious reflection, return in good faith to themselves, and follow this little detail of man step by step, they will soon recognize their bewilderment and the weakness of their principles. They will see there that their ignorance makes them confuse the King with the Minister and the Subjects, the soul with the spirit and the body.Finally that a Prince is responsible for both his own actions and those of his Minister, when the latter does them by his order,
Solomon confounds the error of the Materialists of his time, and teaches us at the same time that they reasoned as madly as those of our day. “They have, he says (Sap. ca), spoken like fools, who think badly, & have said: The time of life is short & boring; we have neither goods nor pleasures to hope for after our death; no one has come back from the other world to teach us what they say happens there, because we were born from nothing, and after our death we will be as if we had not existed; it is a smoke that we breathe, & a spark that gives movement to our heart: this spark once extinguished, our spirit will dissipate in the air, & our body will be no more than ashes & dust... ..
Come then, my friends; let us take advantage of the goods present;enjoy creatures, let us amuse ourselves while we are young...... This is how they thought, & they fell into error, because their passions & the malice of their hearts blinded them. They ignored the firm & stable promises of God; they did not hope for the reward promised to justice, and did not have enough common sense and judgment to recognize the honor and the glory which is reserved for holy and pious souls, since God created man in His image, & made him "inexterminable. " & have not had enough common sense & judgment to recognize the honor & the glory which is reserved for holy & pious souls, since God created man in His image, & made him "inexterminable. "& have not had enough common sense & judgment to recognize the honor & the glory which is reserved for holy & pious souls, since God created man in His image, & made him "inexterminable." »
We clearly see in this chapter the distinction between the spirit and the soul. The first is an igneous vapor, a spark, a fire which gives animal life and movement to the body, and which is dissipated in the air when the organs are destroyed. The soul is the principle of voluntary and thoughtful actions, and survives the destruction of the body, and the dissipation of the spirit.
This chapter therefore determines the meaning of these words of the same Author (Ecclesiast. c. 3. v, 19. & Seq.): "The condition of man is the same as that of" beasts: one and the other breathe, and the death of beasts is the same as that of man. ".
This igneous vapour, this parcel of light therefore animates the body of man and makes all the springs come into play.In vain do we seek the particular place where the soul makes its residence, where it commands as master. It is the particular abode of this spirit that should be sought; but it is useless to want to determine it. All parts of the body are animated; it is widespread everywhere. If the pressure of the pineal gland or of the corpus callosum arrests the action of this spirit, it is not that it dwells there in particular; it is that the springs which the mind employs to set the machine in motion end it mediately or immediately. Their game is hindered by this pressure: & the spirit, although widespread everywhere, can no longer make them act.
The tenuity of this igneous vapor is too great to be perceived by the senses, other than by its effects. Minister of God and of the soul in men, she only flees in animals the impressions and laws which the Creator has imposed on her to animate them, to give them the movement conformable to their species. It becomes everything to everything, and is specified in man and animals, according to their organs. From this comes the conformity which is noticed in a very great number of the actions of men and beasts. God uses it as an instrument through which animals see, taste, smell, hear. He made it under his orders the guide of their actions. He specifies it in each of them, according to the different specification that it pleased him to give to their organs.Hence the difference in their characters,
This spirit, which is ordinarily called instinct, when it is a question of animals, determined & almost absolutely specified in each animal, is not so in man, because that of man is the abstract & the quintessence of all animal spirits.
therefore man does not have a particular character of his own, as every animal has. Every dog is faithful; every lamb is sweet; every lion is bold, enterprising; every cat is treacherous, sensual; but man is all together, faithful, indiscreet, traitor, greedy, sober, gentle, furious, bold, timid, courageous;circumstances or reason always decide what it is at each moment of life, and we never see in any animal those varieties that we find in man, because he alone possesses the seed of it all. Each man would see it develop, and would reduce it from power to act like animals, whenever the occasion presents itself, if this spirit were not subordinated to another substance much superior to his own. The soul, purely spiritual, holds the kidneys: it guides and leads him in all thoughtful actions. Sometimes he does not give him time to give his orders and exercise his sway. It acts on its own; it sets the springs of the body in motion, and man then performs purely animal actions.
Such are those which are called the first movement, and those which one makes without reflection, such as going, coming, eating, when one's head is full of some Serious business which occupies it entirely. whenever the occasion presents itself, if this spirit were not subordinated to another substance very superior to its own. The soul, purely spiritual, holds the kidneys: it guides and leads him in all thoughtful actions. Sometimes he does not give him time to give his orders and exercise his sway. It acts on its own; it sets the springs of the body in motion, and man then performs purely animal actions.Such are those which are called the first movement, and those which one makes without reflection, such as going, coming, eating, when one's head is full of some Serious business which occupies it entirely. whenever the occasion presents itself, if this spirit were not subordinated to another substance very superior to its own.
The soul, purely spiritual, holds the kidneys: it guides and leads him in all thoughtful actions. Sometimes he does not give him time to give his orders and exercise his sway. It acts on its own; it sets the springs of the body in motion, and man then performs purely animal actions.Such are those which are called the first movement, and those which one makes without reflection, such as going, coming, eating, when one's head is full of some Serious matter which occupies it entirely. it guides & leads him in all thoughtful actions. Sometimes he does not give him time to give his orders and exercise his sway.
It acts on its own; it sets the springs of the body in motion, and man then performs purely animal actions. Such are those which are called the first movement, and those which one makes without reflection, such as going, coming, eating, when one's head is full of some Serious business which occupies it entirely. it guides & leads him in all thoughtful actions.Sometimes he does not give him time to give his orders and exercise his sway. It acts on its own; it sets the springs of the body in motion, and man then performs purely animal actions. Such are those which are called the first movement, and those which one makes without reflection, such as going, coming, eating, when one's head is full of some Serious business which occupies it entirely.
The animal always infallibly obeys its natural inclination, because it renders solely to the preservation of its mortal and transient being, in which lies all its happiness and its felicity. But man does not always follow this slope; because, if he is inclined to keep what is mortal in him, he also feels another inclination which leads him to work for the happiness of his immortal part, to which he is very convinced that he owes the preference.
God therefore created man in His image, & formed him as the epitome of all his works, & the most perfect of corporeal beings. It is rightly called Microcosm. It is the center where everything culminates: it contains the quintessence of the whole Universe. It participates in the virtues and properties of all individuals. He has the fixity of metals and minerals, the vegetability of plants, the sensitive faculty of animals, and moreover an intelligent and immortal soul. The Creator has enclosed within himself, as in a Pandora's box, all the gifts and virtues of superior and inferior things. He finishes his work of creation by the formation of man, because it was necessary to create the whole Universe on a large scale, before making it abridged.And as the Supreme Being having no beginning,
May man therefore not dishonor the model of which he is the image. He must think that he was not made to live only according to his animality, but according to his humanity properly speaking. Let him drink, let him eat; but that he prays, that he moderates his passions, that he works for eternal life, it is in this that he will differ from animals, and will be properly man.
The body of man is Subject to alteration & complete dissolution, like other mixtures.The action of heat produces this change in the way of being of all sublunary individuals, because their mass being a compound of coarser parts, less pure, less linked, and more heterogeneous between them than those of the stars or Planets, she is more susceptible to the effects of scarcity.
This alteration is in its progress a true corruption which is done successively, and which by degrees disposes to a new generation, or a new way of being; for the harmony of the Universe consists in a diverse and graduated information of the matter which constitutes it.
This change of forms only happens to the bodies of this lower world. The cause is not, as many have thought, the contrariety or opposition of the qualities of matter, but its own dark and purely passive essence, which, having nothing of itself to give itself a permanent form, is obliged to receive these different and transitory forms from the principle which animates it, always according to the determination that it has pleased God to give to genera and species.
To make up for this original defect of matter, of which the very body of man was formed, God placed Adam in the terrestrial Paradise, so that he could fight & overcome this decay by the use of the fruit of the tree. of life, of which he was deprived in punishment for his disobedience, and condemned to suffer the fate of other individuals whom God did not favor with this Help.
The first matter from which everything was made, that which serves as the basis for all the mixtures seems to have been so melted & identified in them, after it had received its form from the light, that it cannot be separated from it without destroying them .Nature has left us a sample of this confused and shapeless mass, in this dry water, which does not wet, which we see coming out of the mountains, or which is exhaled from some lakes, impregnated with the seed of things, and which evaporates at the slightest heat. This dry water is that which forms the basis of the great work, according to all the Philosophers. Anyone who knows how to marry this completely volatile matter with its male, extract its elements and separate them philosophically, could flatter themselves, says d'Espagnet (Enchirid. Phys restit. can. 49.),
Items.
Nature therefore employed from the beginning only two simple principles, of which all that exists was formed; namely, the passive raw material, & the luminous silver which gave it form. The elements issued from their action, as secondary principles, from the mixture of which was formed a secondary matter, subject to the vicissitudes of generation and corruption.
In vain will one imagine being able, with the aid of the chemical art, to acquire and separate the elements absolutely simple and distinct from each other. The human mind does not even know them. Those to which the vulgar give the name of elements, are not really simple & homogeneous: they are so mixed & united together, that they are inseparable.
The sensible bodies of earth, water, air, which in their spheres are really distinct, are not the first and simple elements which Nature employs in her various generations. They seem to be only the matrix of others. The simple elements are imperceptible & insensible, until their union constitutes a dense matter, which we call body, to which the coarse elements are joined as integral parts. Ex insensibilibus namque omnia consiteare principiis constare (Lucret. lib. 2.). The elements that constitute our globe are too raw, impure & indigestible to form a perfect generation. The chemists and physicists also attribute to them the properties of the true principle elements. These are like the soul of the mixtures, these are only the bodies.
On these principles the ancient Philosophers distinguished the elements into three only, and pretended the Universe was governed by three brothers, children of Saturn, whom they called sons of heaven and earth. The Egyptians, from whom the ancient Greek philosophers had drawn their philosophy, looked upon Vulcan as the father of Saturn, if we are to believe Diodorus of Sicily. This is no doubt the reason which determined them not to set fire to the number of elements.
But as they supposed that the fire of Nature, principle of elementary fire, had its source in Heaven, they gave the empire of it to Jupiter; & as a scepter & distinctive mark, they armed him with a three-pointed thunderbolt, & associated his sister Juno as his wife, whom they pretended to preside over the air.Neptune was formed on the sea, & Pluto On the underworld. The Poets adopted these ideas from the Philosophers, who knowing Nature perfectly, judged proper to distinguish it only into three, persuaded that the accidents, which distinguish the lower region of the air from the upper, did not furnish a sufficient reason to do so. make a real distinction. They only noticed a difference of dry & wet, hot & cold married together; which made them imagine the two sexes in the same element. They only noticed a difference of dry & wet, hot & cold married together; which made them imagine the two sexes in the same element. They only noticed a difference of dry & wet, hot & cold married together;which made them imagine the two sexes in the same element.
Each of the three brothers had a three-pointed scepter as a mark of his empire, and to imply that each element, as we see it, is a compound of the three. They were properly brothers, since they had come from the same principle, sons of heaven and earth, that is to say, the first animated matter, so everything was made.
Pluto is called the God of wealth & the Master of the underworld, because the earth is the source of wealth, & nothing torments men like the thirst for wealth & ambition.
It is no more difficult to apply the rest of the Fable to Physics. Several Authors have practiced on this matter, & have demonstrated that the Ancients only proposed to instruct by the invention of these fables.The Hermetic Philosophers, who pride themselves on being the true disciples and imitators of Nature, made a double application of these principles, seeing in the processes and progress of the great work the operations of Nature, as in a mirror; were no longer distinguished from each other, and explained them in the same way.
They then compared everything that happens in the work to the successive progress of the creation of the Universe, by a certain analogy which they thought they noticed there. Is it surprising that all their fictions had these two things as their object? If we thought about it, we would not find so much ridiculous in their Fables. If they personified everything, it was to make their ideas more tangible;and it would soon be recognized that the ridiculous and licentious actions which they attributed to these pretended Gods were only the operations of Nature, which we see every day without paying enough attention to them. Wanting to explain themselves only by allegories, could they suppose things done differently & by other actors? Doesn't our ignorance in physics give us the foolish privilege of making fun of them, and imputing to them the ridiculousness that they would perhaps easily bring back to us if they were on earth, The analysis of the mixed only gives us the dry, and the humid; whence we must conclude that there are only two sensible elements in the compound of bodies; namely, land & water.But the same experience shows us that the other two are hidden there. The air is too subtle to strike our eyes: hearing & touch are the only senses that demonstrate its existence to us. As for the fire of Nature, it is impossible for art to manifest it otherwise than by its effects.
Of the earth.
The earth is cold by nature, because it; participates more of the first opaque & dark matter. This coldness makes it the heaviest body, as well as the densest; & this density makes it less penetrable to light, which is the principle of heat. She was created in the midst of the waters, with which she is always mingled; & the Creator seems to have made it arid in its surface, only to make it suitable for the stay of plants & animals.
The Creator made the earth spongy, so that air, water & fire would have freer access to it, & than internal fire, which was infused into it by the spirit of God before the formation of the Sun (Cosmop Tract. 4.), could from the center to the surface push through its pores the virtues of the elements, & exhale those humid vapors which corrupt the seeds of things by a slight putrefaction, & prepare them for generation. These seeds thus arranged then receive celestial and vivifying heat, even attract it by a magnetic love; the germ develops, and the seed produces its fruit.
The heat proper to the bosom of the earth is proper only to corruption.Its humidity weakens it, and can produce nothing, if it is not aided by celestial heat, pure and unmixed, which leads to generation, by exciting the action of the internal fire, by developing it, by dilating it. , & drawing it, so to speak, from the center of the seeds, where it is numb & hidden. These two heats, by their homogeneity, work together in the generation and conservation of mixtures.
All coldness is contrary to generation. When a matter is of this nature, it becomes passive, and is proper to it only insofar as it is aided and corrected by a foreign aid. The Author of Nature wanting the earth to be the matrix of the mixtures, consequently warms it continually by the heat of the celestial & central fires, & adds to it the humid nature of water;so that, aided by the two principles of generation, hot & humid, it is not sterile, & becomes the vase where all generations take place (Cosmop. Ibid.). For this reason, the earth is said to contain the other elements.
It can be divided into pure land & impure land. The first is the basis of all mixtures, and produces everything by the mixture of water and the action of fire. The second is like the dress of the first; it enters as an integral part in the composition of individuals. The pure is animated by a fire which vivifies the mixed, & preserves them in their way of being, lover of the time that the cold of the impure does not dominate it, or that it is not too excited & tyrannized. by artificial & elemental fire His fratricide.What is visible in the earth is fixed, and what is invisible is volatile.
Some water.
Water is of a nature of density which holds the medium between that of the air & that of the ground. She is the menstruation of Nature, and the vehicle of seeds. It is a volatile body which seems to flee the attacks of fire, and exhales in vapors at the lightest heat. He is susceptible to all figures, and more changeable than Protheus. Water is a mercury, which sometimes taking the nature of a terra-aqueous body, sometimes that of an aqua-aerial body, attracts and fetches the virtues of superior and inferior things. He becomes by this means the messenger of the Gods & their mediator; it is through him that trade between heaven and earth is maintained.
An unctuous phlegm is spread in the water.(Mem. of the Acad. of Berlin. I Part.); Mr. Eller recognized that very well in his remarks. A water, he says, very purified & very clear of all heterogeneous parts (in the manner of the vulgar chymists) can suffice the vegetation. It furnishes the earth, the basis of the solidity of the plants: it even spreads in it that flammable, oily or resinous part which one finds there.
Let us take a soil, after having been washed and dried in the fire, in which we will be assured that there is no seed of plants; if you expose it to the air in a vase, and if you take care to water it with rainwater, it will produce small plants in large numbers; proof that it is the vehicle of the Seeds.
As water is of a nature closer to the nature of the first matter in the world, it easily becomes its image. The chaos from which it all came was like a vapour, or a wet substance. Similar to a Subtle smoke. The light having rarefied it, the heavens were formed from the most subtilized portion; the air, of that which was a little less so; elemental water, of which was a little coarser; & earth, of the densest, & like faeces (Raymond Lully, Testam, Anc. Théor.). Water, therefore, participating in the nature of the air and the earth, is placed in the middle. Lighter than earth & less light than air, it is always mixed with one another.At the slightest rarefaction it seems to abandon the earth to take on the nature of the air; is it condensed by the slightest cold,
The nature of water is rather humid than cold, because it is rarer & more open to light than is the earth. The water has retained the humidity, raw material & chaos: the earth has retained its coldness.
Dryness is an effect of cold as well as heat, and humidity is the main subject on which heat and cold act. When the latter is lively, it condenses, it dries out the moist; we see it in the snow, the ice, the hail: from there comes the fall of the leaves in autumn.If the cold increases, winter follows, the humidity coagulates in the plants, the pores are tightened, the stem becomes weak for lack of food: they finally dry up. If the winter is harsh, it carries dryness right down to the roots: it attacks the vital humidity, the plants perish. How can we say after that that cold is a quality of water, since it is its enemy, and that Nature does not allow an element to act on itself? We speak, it seems, a little more correctly, when we say that the cold has burned the plants. Cold & hot burn equally, but in a different way; heat by dilating, & cold by tightening the parts of the mixture.
What water presents to us as visible is volatile, its interior is fixed. The air tempers its humidity.What air receives from fire, it communicates to water; this to the ground.
This element can be divided into three parts; the pure, the purest & the very pure (Cosmopol, water); of this the heavens were made; the purest air, and the simply pure remained in its sphere: it is ordinary water, which forms only one same globe with the earth. These two elements united are everything, because they contain the other two: From their union is born a silt, which Nature uses to form all bodies. This silt is the next matter of all generations. It's a kind of chaos where the elements are confused. Our first father was formed of silt, as were all subsequent generations.Sperm and menstruation form a silt, and from this silt an animal.
In the production of plants, the seeds putrefy and change into silt before germinating. It then consolidates & hardens into a vegetable body. In the generation of metals, sulfur & mercury resolve into viscous water, which is a true silt. The decoction coagulates this water, fixes it more or less, and minerals and metals result. In the philosophical work, one first forms a silt of two substances or principles, after having thoroughly purified them. As the four elements are there, the fire preserves the earth from complete submersion & dissolution: the air maintains the fire, the water preserves the earth against the violent attacks of the latter;& thus acting on each other in concert, there results a harmonic whole,
Air.
The air is light, & is not visible, but it contains a matter which corporifies, which becomes fixed. He is of a middle nature between what is above & below him; this is why he easily takes on the qualities of his neighbors. From this come the changes which we experience in the lower region, both from cold and from heat.
The air is the receptacle of the seeds of everything, the sieve of Nature, through which the virtues and influences of other bodies are transmitted to us.
He penetrates everything. It is a very subtle smoke, the proper subject of light & darkness, day & night; a body always full, diaphanous, and the most susceptible to foreign qualities, as the easiest to abandon them.The Philosophers call it spirit when they treat of the great work. It contains the vital spirits of all bodies; it is the food of the fire, of plants and animals, which die when it is taken from them. Nothing would be born in the world without its penetrating and altering force, and nothing can resist its rarefaction.
The Upper region of the air, near the Moon, is pure without being igneous, as has long been taught in the schools, on the opinion of some Elders. Its purity is unsullied by any of the vapors rising from the bass.
The average receives the most subtle sulphurous exhalations, cleared of coarse vapours. They wander there, and light up there from time to time by their movements and the different shocks that they undergo between them.These are the various meteors that we see there.
In the lower region rise and collect the vapors of the earth. They condense there by the cold, and fall back by their own weight. Nature thus rectifies water and purifies it, to make it fit for its generations. This is why we distinguish between upper and lower waters. These are contiguous to the earth, are supported there as on their base, and form only one same globe with it. The upper ones occupy the lower region of the air where they have risen in the form of vapors & clouds, & where they wander according to the winds.
The air is full of it all the time; but they manifest themselves to our sight only in part, when they condense into clouds.It is a continuation of creation. God repaired the waters of the firmament, of those that were below. It should not be surprising that all these waters gathered could cover the entire surface of the earth, & form a universal deluge, since they covered it before God had separated them from it (Gen. ç. 5.). These humid masses which fly over our heads are like travelers who go to collect the riches of all countries, and return to gratify their fatherland with it.
Fire.
Some Ancients placed fire as the fourth element, in the highest region of air, because they regarded it as the lightest and most subtle. But the fire of Nature does not differ from celestial fire; this is why Moses makes no mention of it in Genesis, because he had said that the light was created on the first day.
The fire commonly used is partly natural and partly artificial. The Creator picked up in the Sun an igneous spirit, principle of movement and of a gentle heat, such as Nature needs for her operations. He communicates it to all bodies, and by exciting and developing the fire which is innate to them, he preserves the principle of generation and of life. Each individual participates in it more or less.Who looks in Nature for another element of fire, does not know what the Sun and light are.
It is lodged in the radical humidity, as in the seat which is proper to it. In animals it seems to have established its principal domicile in the heart, which communicates it to all parts, as the Sun does to the whole Universe.
The fire of nature is its first agent. It reduces the seeds of power into action.
As soon as it no longer acts, all apparent movement ceases, and all vital action.
Movement has light as its principle, and movement is the cause of heat. This is why the absence of the Sun and of light have such great effects on bodies.The heat penetrates into the interior of the most opaque and the hardest, and animates the hidden and numb nature there. Light only penetrates diaphanous bodies, and its own is to manifest the sensible accidents of mixtures. The Sun is therefore the first natural & universal agent.
Starting from the Sun, the light strikes the dense bodies, both celestial and terrestrial; it sets their faculties in motion, carries them away, reflects them with it, and spreads them as much in the upper air as in the lower. Air having a disposition to mingle with water and earth, becomes the vehicle of these faculties, and communicates them to the bodies which are formed of them, or which are susceptible to them by the analogy they have with them.It is these faculties that are called influences. Many physicists deny their existence, because they do not know them.
We divide the fire into three, the celestial, the terrestrial or central, and the artificial. The first is the principle of the two others, and is distinguished into universal fire, and particular fire. The universal spread everywhere excites & sets in motion the virtues of the bodies; it warms & preserves the seeds of things infused in our globe, intended to serve as their matrix. It develops particular fire; it mixes the elements, and gives form to matter.
The particular fire is innate, & implanted in each mixture with its seed. He only acts when he is excited;he then does in the part of the Universe what the Sun his father does in the whole.
Wherever there is generation, there is necessarily fire as an efficient cause. The Ancients thought it as we do (Virg. AEneid. 1. 6.). But it is surprising that they admitted a contrariety & an opposition between fire & water, since there is no water without fire, & that they always act in concert in the generations of individuals.
Any slightly clairvoyant eye must, on the contrary, notice a love, a sympathy which makes the conservation of the Universe, the cube of Nature, and the most solid link to unite the elements, and the superior things with the inferior ones.This very love is, so to speak, what one should call Nature, the minister of the Creator, who employs the elements to execute his will, according to the laws he has imposed on him. Everything is done in the world in peace & in union, which cannot be an effect of hatred & contrariety. Nature would not be so similar to herself in the formation of individuals of the same species, if everything in her were not done in concert. We would only see monsters emerging from the heterogeneous seed of fathers who were perpetually hostile and who constantly fought each other. Do we see animals working out of hatred & contrariety to propagate their species? Let us judge the other operations of Nature by this: its laws are simple and uniform.
Let Philosophy therefore stop attributing the alteration, the corruption, the caducity, the decadence of the mixtures to the supposed contrariety between the elements: it is found in the scarcity and the weakness proper to the raw material; for in chaos, Frigida non pugnabant calidis, humentia siccis.
Everything there was cold & damp, qualities that suit the material, like female.
The hot & the dry, masculine & formal qualities, came to it from the light, from which it received the form. So it was only after the retreat of the waters that the land was called arid or dry.
We constantly see that the hot & the dry give shape to everything.A Potter would never succeed in making a vase if the drought did not give his earth a certain degree of bonding and solidity. Is the earth too wet, too soft, is it mud, is it a silt that has no determined shape.
Such was the chaos, before the heat of the light had rarefied it, and caused some of the humidity to evaporate. The parts came together, the silt of chaos divine earth, and an earth of a consistency suitable to serve as matter for the formation of all the mixtures of Nature.
The hot and the dry are therefore only accidental qualities of the first material; she was endowed with it only by receiving her form (Genes. ch. I.). Also, it is not said in Genesis that God found chaos very good, as he assures him of light and other things.The abyss seems to have acquired a degree of perfection only when it began to produce. Confusion, deformity, opaque density, coldness, indigestible dampness, & impotence were its prerogative, qualities which indicate a languid, diseased body, disposed to corruption. It has preserved something of this original and primitive stain, and has infected all the bodies that have come out of it, to be placed in this lower region. This is why all the mixed have a way of being transient,
However opposed light and darkness seem to be, since they have contributed, the one as agent, the other as patient, to the formation of the Universe, they have made in this competition of their contrary qualities, a treaty of almost unalterable peace, which passed into the homogeneous family of the elements, whence followed the peaceful generation of all individuals. Nature delights in combination, & does everything by proportion, weight & measure, & not by contrariety.
Est modus in rebus, sunt certè denique fines,
Quos ultra citraque nequit consister rectum.
Hor. Art. Poet.
Each element has its own one of the qualities we are talking about.The hot, the dry, the cold & the humid are the four wheels which Nature employs to produce the slow, graduated & circular movement which she seems to affect in the formation of all her works.
Fire, its universal agent, is the elemental fire principle. This one feeds on all fatty things, because all fatty things are of a moist & airy nature. Although on the outside it looks dry to us, like sulphur, gunpowder, &c. experience teaches us that this exterior hides a greasy, unctuous, oily moistness, which is dissolved by heat.
Those who imagined that hard bodies such as thunderbolts formed in the air were mistaken if they regarded them as properly terrestrial bodies.It is a matter which belongs to the gross element of water: a fatty, viscous humor, enclosed in the clouds as in a furnace, where it condenses while mixing with sulphurous exhalations, consequently hot & very easy. you ignite. The air which is enclosed therein and too constricted by condensation, becomes rarefied there by the heat, and has the same effect there as gunpowder in a bomb: the vessel bursts, the fire spread in the air. , gets rid of its leaps by movement, produces this light & this noise which often astonishes the most intrepid.
Our artificial & common fire has properties completely contrary to the fire of Nature, although it has it as its father. He is an enemy of every generation; he speaks only of the ruin of bodies; he feeds only on plunder;it reduces everything to ashes, & destroys everything that the other composes. He is a parricide, the greatest enemy of Nature; and if we did not know how to oppose dikes to his fury, he would ravage everything. Is it surprising that the prompters see everything perish in his hands, their goods & their health vanishing in smoke, & an ash useless for any resource?
Mr. Stahl is not the first, as Mr. Pott would have it, to have given reasonable and connected ideas on the substance of the fire which is found in bodies; but he is the first who reasoned about it under the name of Phlogiston. We have seen above the feeling of the Hermetic Philosophers on this subject.It is only necessary to open their books to be convinced that they knew perfectly this agent of Nature; & that Mr. Pott ill-advisedly asserts that the Authors prior to Mr. Stahl were lost in continual obscurities & innumerable contradictions.
Perhaps he speaks only of vulgar chemists and physicists; but in this case he should have made an exception of the Hermetic Chymists, which he no doubt read, and with which he at least so happily met, in his Traite du feu et de la lumière, printed with the French Translation of his Lithogeognosie . Mr. Stahl had studied them with great attention.He furnishes ample proof of this, not only for having reasoned like them on this matter, but by the great number of quotations he makes of it in his Treatise, which has the title: Fundamenta Chemiae dogmaticae & experimentalis. He gives to mercury there the name of dry water, a name which the Hermetic Philosophers give to theirs. Basil Valentine, Philalethes & several others are cited in this regard. He even distinguishes the vulgar Chymistes from the Hermetic Chymistes, (part. ip 114) by naming the first Physici communes, & the Second Chymici alii. In the same part of the same work, pag. 2. he says that Isaac Hollandais, Arnaud de Villeneuve, Raymond Lully, Basile Valentin, Trithème, Paracelse, &c.
Far from despising, like so many others, & rejecting as false what these Authors say, this skilful man is content to speak like them, & says, p. 183. that they expressed themselves by riddles, allegories, &c. to hide their secret from the People, & seem to have affected contradictions only to deceive ignorant Readers. He expands even further on this matter, pag. 219. & following. where he calls the Hermetic ChemistsPhilosophers. One can after such a great man use this denomination. We shall have occasion to speak again of Mr. Pott, when treating of light and its effects.
The proximity of water & land means that they are almost always mixed. The water thins the earth; this thickens the water;it forms silt. If this mixture is exposed to intense heat, each visible element returns to its sphere, and the form of the body is destroyed.
Placed between the earth and the air, water is properly the cause of the revolutions, of the disorder, of the disturbance, of the agitation, and of the reversal that one notices in the air and the earth. It obscures the air with black and dangerous vapors, it floods the earth: it brings corruption into one and the other, and by its abundance or its scarcity, it disturbs the order of the seasons and of Nature. . Finally, it does as much harm as good.
Some Ancients said that the Sun particularly presided over fire, and the Moon over water, because they regarded the Sun as the source of Nature's fire, and the Moon as the principle of humidity. Which made Hippocrates say (Lib. I°. of Dioetâ.) that the elements of fire and water could do everything, because they contained everything.
Of the operations of Nature.
Sublimation, descension & coction are three instruments or ways of operating which Nature employs to perfect her works. By the first, it evacuates the superfluous humidity, which would suffocate the fire, and prevent its action in the earth its matrix.
By descending, it returns to the earth the humidity of which plants or heat have deprived it. Sublimation takes place by the elevation of vapors into the air, where they condense into clouds. The second is done by rain & dew. The fine weather follows the rain, and the rain follows the alternate weather; a continual rain would flood everything, a perpetual fine weather would dry out everything. The rain falls drop by drop, because if poured too abundantly, it would lose everything, like a Gardener who would water his seeds with bucketfuls. This is how Nature distributes its benefits with weight, measure & proportion.
The coction is a digestion of the raw humor instilled into the bosom of the earth, a maturation, and a conversion of this humor into food, by means of its secret fire.
These three operations are so linked together that the end of one is the beginning of the other. The object of sublimation is to convert a heavy thing into a light one; an exhalation in vapours; to attenuate the filthy & impure body, and to strip it of its faeces; to make these vapors take on the virtues & properties of higher things, & finally to rid the earth of a superfluous humor which would pocket its productions.
Scarcely have these vapors been sublimated than they condense into rain, and from the spirituous and invisible that they were, they become, a moment later, a dense and aqueous body, to fall back on the earth, and to imbibe it. celestial nectar with which it was imbued during its stay in the air. As soon as the earth received him,
Each animal, the vile worm is a small world where all these things are done. If man seeks the world outside himself, he will find it everywhere. The Creator has made an infinity of them from the same material; the form alone is different. Humility therefore suits man perfectly, and glory to God alone.
Water contains a ferment, an invigorating spirit, which flows from higher natures to lower ones, so it is impregnated while wandering in the air, and which it then deposits in the bosom of the earth. This ferment is a seed of life, without which man, animals and plants would not live and would not beget. Everything breathes in Nature; & man does not live by bread alone, but by this aerial spirit which he constantly aspires to. Democritus said that all mixtures were composed of aromas, this feeling does not seem far from the truth, when we pay attention to what reason dictates to us, and to what experience demonstrates to us.
God alone, and Nature his minister, know how to make the principle material elements of bodies obey. Art cannot reach there; but the three which result from it, become sensible in the resolution of the mixed ones. The chemists call them sulphur, salt and mercury. These are the principled elements. Mercury is formed by the mixture of water & earth: sulfur, earth & air; condensed salt, air & water. The fire of Nature joins it as a formal principle. Mercury is composed of viscous loam and limpid water. Sulphur, from a very dry, very subtle earth, mixed with the humidity of the air. The salt, finally of a filthy, pontic water, and of a crude air which is embarrassed there.See Beccher's Underground Physics.
This Philosopher has veiled like the others, under this obscure way of explaining himself, the true mixture of the elements, which, to be in conformity with the operations of Nature, must be done intimately, or, as we say, per minima, & actu indivisibilia corpuscula. Otherwise the parties would not make a continuous turn. The mixtures are resolved into a very Subtle vapor by distillation, artificial; & is not Nature a much more skilful worker than the most experienced man? That's all Democritus meant.
Of the general ways of being of the Mixed.
We note three ways of being (Cosmop. Nov. lum. Chem. Tr. 7.), which constitute three genera, or three classes called kingdoms, the animal, the vegetable, and the mineral. Minerals are generated in the earth only, plants have their roots in the earth, and rise in water and air; animals are born in air, water & earth; & air test for all a principle of life.
Whatever difference the Mixts appear to have as to their external forms, they do not differ in principle (Cosmop. Travt. 2.); earth and water serve as the basis for all of them, and air only enters into their composition as an instrument, as does fire. Light acts on air, air on water, water on earth.Water often becomes the instrument of mixing in works of art, but this mixing is only superficial, as we see in bread, brick, &c. There is another intimate mixture that Beccher calls central (Phys. sub. sect. ic 4.). It is that by which the water is so mixed with the earth, that one cannot separate them without destroying the form of the mixture. We will not go into detail about the different degrees of this cohesion, in order to be shorter.
Of the difference between these three Kingdoms.
The Mineral.
We commonly say of minerals that they exist, and not that they live, as we say of animals and plants; although it can be said that metals derive their life in some way from minerals, either because in their generation there is a sort of junction of the male and the female under the names of sulfur and mercury, which by a fermentation, a circulation, & continued cooking, are purified with the help of nature's salt, are cooked & finally form into a mass that we call metal, either because perfect metals contain a principle of life, or innate fire, which has become languid, & as if motionless under the hard bark that encloses it, is hidden there like a treasure, until being set free by a philosophical solution of this bark,
The Vegetal.
A soul or vegetative spirit animates the plants, it is through it that they grow and multiply; but they are deprived of the feeling and movement of animals. Their seeds are hermaphroditic, although Naturalists have noticed both sexes in almost all the plants. The vegetative & incorruptible spirit develops in the fermentation & putrefaction of seeds. When the grain rots in the ground without germinating, this spirit will rejoin its sphere.
The Animal.
Animals have, more than minerals and plants, a sensitive soul, the principle of their life and their movements. They are like the complement of Nature as regards the Sublunary beings. God has distinguished & separated the two sexes in this reign, so that out of two there should come a third. Thus in the most perfect things is manifested more perfectly the image of the Trinity.
Man is the Sovereign Prince of this low world. All his faculties are admirable. The troubles which arise in his mind, his agitations, his worries, are like winds, lightnings, thunders, whirlwinds, and meteors which rise in the great world.His heart, his blood, even his whole body are sometimes shaken by it, but they are like earthquakes, and everything in him proves that he is truly the epitome of the Universe. Wasn't David therefore right to exclaim that God is infinitely wonderful in his works (Psal. 91.6. & 138. 14.)?
Of the soul of the Mixed.
All the perfect mixtures which have life, have a soul, or spirit, and a body. The body is composed of silt, or of earth and water, the soul which gives form to the mixture, is a spark of the fire of Nature, or an imperceptible ray of light, which acts in the mixtures, according to the actual arrangement of matter, & the perfection of the organs specified in each of them. If beasts have a soul, it hardly differs from their spirit except more or less.
The specific forms of the mixed ones, or, if you will, their soul, retain a certain knowledge of their origin. The soul of man is often reflected on the divine light by contemplation. She seems to want to enter this sanctuary accessible to God Alone: she tends there unceasingly, and finally returns there.The souls of animals, emerging from the secret of the Heavens, and from the treasures of the Sun, seem to have a sympathy with this Star, by the different omens of its rising, its setting, the very movement of the heavens, and the changes in temperature of the sky. air, which the movements of the animals announce to us.
Supplied by the air, and almost entirely aerial, the souls of plants grow as long as they can, with the head of their stem upwards, as if in a hurry to return to their homeland.
The rocks, the stones, formed of water and earth, are baked in the earth like a work of pottery, this is why they return to the earth, as if they are part of it. But precious stones and metals are more favored by celestial influences;the former are like tears from Heaven, and frozen celestial dew, which is why the Ancients attributed so many virtues to them.
The Sun & the Stars also seem to have a particular attention for metals, & one would say that Nature leaves it to them to imprint their form. The soul of metals is imprisoned in their matter; the fire of the Philosophers knows how to draw it from it to make it produce a son worthy of the Sun, and an admirable quintessence, which brings Heaven closer to us.
Light is the principle of life, and darkness is that of death. The souls of the mixed form rays of light, and their bodies form abysses of darkness. Everything lives by light, and everything that dies is deprived of it.It is of this principle, to which so little attention is paid, that it is commonly said of a dead man that he has lost the day, the light; & as Saint John says (Evang. cl), light is the life of men.
Each mix has its own knowledge. As for animals, it suffices to reflect on their actions to be convinced. The time to mate which is so well known to them; the just distribution of the parts in the small ones which come from it; the use they make of each limb; the attention and care they give themselves, as much for the food of their young as for their defense; their different affections of pleasure, fear, benevolence towards their masters, their disposition to receive instructions from them;their skill in procuring the necessities of life; their prudence in avoiding what can harm them, and so many other things that an observer can notice, prove that their soul is endowed with a kind of reasoning.
Plants also have a viral faculty, & a way of knowing & foreseeing.
The vital faculties are with them the care of generating their fellows, the multiplicative, nutritive, augmentative, sensitive and other virtues. Their notion manifests itself in the omen of the weather, & the knowledge of the temperature which is favorable for them to germinate & grow their stems. Their strict observations of the changes, like laws of Nature in choosing the aspect of Heaven which is proper to them;in the manner of sinking their roots, of raising their stems, of extending their branches, of developing their leaves, of configuring and coloring their fruits, of transmuting the elements into nourishment, of infusing in their seeds a prolific virtue.
Why do some plants burst only in certain seasons, although they sow themselves by the natural fall of their seeds, or are sown as soon as they are ripe? They therefore have their vegetative principle, and nevertheless they will develop it only in a marked time, unless art provides them with what they would find in the season which is proper to them. Why does a plant sown in bad soil while joining good soil, push its roots on the side of the latter?What teaches an onion planted in the ground, the germ downwards, to direct it towards the air? How ivy, & other plants of such species, do they direct their weak branches towards trees that can support them? Why does the pumpkin stretch its fruit as far as possible towards a vase full of water placed near it? What teaches plants in which we notice both sexes, to place the male commonly near the female, and even quite often inclined towards each other? Admit that all this passes our understanding; that Nature is not blind, and that she is governed by wisdom itself.
Of the Generation & Corruption of the Mixed.
Everything returns to its principle. Each individual is potentially in the material world before coming to light in its individual form, & will return to its time, & to its rank at the same point from which it came out, like the new ones in the sea, to be reborn at their turn (Eccles.1.7.).
This was perhaps how Pythagoras understood his metempsychosis, which we have not understood.
When the mixture dissolves, through the vice of the corruptible elements that compose it, the ethereal part abandons it, and goes to return to its homeland.
There is then a derangement, a disorder and a confusion in the parts of the corpse, by the absence of the one who kept order there.Death and corruption sixteen hold of it, until this matter once again receives the celestial influences which, bringing together the scattered and wandering elements, will make them suitable for a new generation.
This vivifying spirit does not separate from matter during generative putrefaction, because it is not a complete and perfect corruption, like that which produces the destruction of the mixture. It is a combined corruption, and caused by this very spirit, to give matter the form which suits the individual whom it must animate. He is there sometimes in inaction, such as we see him in the seeds; but he is just waiting to be excited.As soon as he is, he puts matter in motion, and the more he acts, the more he acquires new forces until he has finished perfecting the mixture.
Let the Materialists, the ridiculous partisans of chance in the formation of mixtures & their preservation, examine & reflect a little seriously & without prejudice on all that we have said, & then tell me how an imaginary being can be the cause efficiency of something real & so well combined. Let them follow this Nature step by step. Its processes, the means it employs, and what results therefrom. They will see, if they do not want to close their eyes to the light, that the generation of the mixed has a determined time;that everything in the Universe is done by weight and measure, and that there is only an infinite wisdom that can preside over it.
Elements begin generation by putrefaction, like food nutrition. They are resolved into moist nature or first matter; chaos then takes place, and from this chaos the generation. It is therefore with reason that Physicists say that conservation is a continued creation, since the generation of each individual responds analogously to the creation & conservation of the macrocosm. Nature is always similar to itself; it has only one straight path, so it only deviates by insurmountable obstacles, so it makes monsters.
Life is the harmonic result of the union of matter with form, which constitutes the perfection of the individual. Death is the prefix term where the disunion takes place, and the separation of form and matter. One begins to die as soon as this disunion begins, and the dissolution of the mixture is its complement.
Everything that lives, whether vegetable or animal, needs food for its preservation, and these foods are of two kinds.
Plants feed no less on air than on water and earth. The very breasts of this one would soon dry up, if they were not continually watered with ethereal milk. This is what Moses expresses to us perfectly by the terms of the blessing which he gave to the sons of Joseph: De benedictione Domini terra ejus;of pomis cœli & rore underlying abyssal attack; of pomis fructuum Solis & Lunœ; of pomis collium œternorum; of vertice antiquorum montium; & de frugibus terrœ, & de plenitudine ejus, &c. (Deut. 33.)
Would it be only to refresh the heart, that Nature would have taken care to place near it the lungs, these admirable and indefatigable bellows? No, they have a more essential use: it is to inhale & continually transmit to him that ethereal spirit which comes to the aid of vital spirits, & repairs their loss & sometimes multiplies them. This is why we breathe more often when we give ourselves a lot of agitation, because there is then a greater loss of spirits, which Nature seeks to replace.
The Philosophers give the name of spirits, or spiritual natures, not only to beings created without being matter, and which can only be known by the intellect, such as Angels, Demons; but those very which, although material, cannot be perceived by the senses, because of their great tenuity. The pure air or Ether is of this nature, the influences of the celestial bodies, the innate fire, the seminal, vital, vegetable spirits, &c. They are the ministers of Nature, which seem to act on matter only by means of them.
The fire of Nature manifests itself in animals only by the heat which it excites. When it withdraws, death takes its place, the elemental body or corpse remains whole until it begins to resolve.This fire is too weak in plants to become sensitive to the very meaning of sunset.
We do not know what the nature of the common fire is; its matter is so tenuous that it manifests itself only through the other bodies to which it is attached. Coal is not fire, nor wood that burns, nor flame, which is only flaming smoke. It seems to die out & vanish when it lacks food. It must be an effect of light on combustible bodies.
Light.
The origin of light proves to us Its Spiritual nature. Before matter began to receive its form, God formed light; it immediately spread through the material, which served as a wick for its upkeep. The manifestation of light was therefore like the first act that God exercised on matter; the first marriage of the creator with the creature, and that of the spirit with the body.
First diffused everywhere, the light seemed to unite in the Sun, as several rays unite in a point. The light of the Sun is therefore a luminous spirit, attached inseparably to this Star, therefore the rays clothe themselves with parts of the Ether to become sensitive to our eyes. They are streams which flow unceasingly from an inexhaustible source, and which spread over the vast expanse of the whole Universe.
It should not, however, be concluded that these rays are purely spiritual. They corporify with Ether like flame with smoke. Let us provide our homes with perpetually smoky food, we will have a perpetual flame.
The nature of light is to flow constantly; & we have agreed to call rays these defluxes of the Sun mixed with Ether. We must not therefore confuse light with ray, or light with splendor and clarity. Light is the cause, clarity is the effect.
When a lit candle goes out, the igneous & luminous spirit that ignites the wick, is not lost, as is commonly believed. Its action alone disappears when the food fails it, or when it is withdrawn. It spreads in the air, which is the receptacle of light, and of the spiritual natures of the material world.
Just as bodies return, by resolution, to the matter from which they derive their origin; so also the natural forms of individuals return to the universal form, or to the light, which is the life-giving spirit of the Universe. One should not confuse this spirit with the rays of the Sun, since they are only the vehicle. It penetrates to the very center of the earth, when the Sun is not on our horizon.
Light is for us a vivid image of Divinity. Divine love, unable, so to speak, to contain itself within itself, has spread outward from itself and multiplied in creation. Nor does the light confine itself to the luminous body: it spreads, it multiplies, it is, like God, an inexhaustible source of good. It is constantly communicated without any diminution; it even seems to gain new strength through this communication, like a master who teaches his disciples the knowledge he has, without losing it, and even impressing it more deeply on his mind.
This igneous spirit carried in the bodies by the rays is very easily distinguished from them. These are communicated only insofar as they find no opaque bodies in their path which stop their course.This one penetrates even the densest bodies, since one feels the heat on the side of a wall opposite to the side where the rays fall, although they have not been able to penetrate there. This heat remains even after the rays have disappeared with the luminous body.
Any diaphanous body, glass particularly, transmits this igneous & luminous spirit without transmitting the rays: this is why the air which is behind, by furnishing a new body to this spirit, becomes illumined & forms new rays, which spread like the first. Moreover, any diaphanous body, by serving as a medium for transmitting this spirit, finds itself not only enlightened, but becomes luminous; & this increase in clarity manifests itself easily to those who pay a little attention to it.This increase in splendor would not occur if the diaphanous body transmitted the rays as it received them.
Mr. Pott appears to have adopted these ideas of the Hermetic Philosophers on light, in his Essay of Chemical & Physical Observations on the Properties & Effects of Light & Fire. He met perfectly with d'Espagnet, whose feelings I am analyzing here, and who lived almost a century and a half ago. The observations which this learned Professor of Berlin reports, all concur to prove the truth of what we have said hitherto. He calls light the great & marvelous agent of Nature. He says that its substance, because of the tenuity of its parts, cannot be examined by number, by measure, or by weight, that Chemistry cannot exhibit its outward form, because in no substance it can be designed, even less expressed ;that his dignity and his excellence are announced in Holy Scripture, where God calls himself by the name of light and fire: since it is said there that God is a light, that he dwells in the light; that light is his habit; that life is in the light, that he makes his Angels flames of fire, &c. & finally that many people regard the light rather as a spiritual being than as a corporeal substance.
In reflecting on light, the first thing, says this Author, which presents itself to my eyes and to my mind, is the light of the Sun; & I presume that the Sun is the source of all the light in Nature; that all the light enters it as in its circle of revolution, and that from there it is again sent back to our globe.
I do not think, he adds, that the Sun contains a burning, destructive fire, but it contains a luminous substance, pure, simple & concentrated, which illuminates everything.
I regard light as a substance which delights, which animates, and which produces clarity; in a word, I regard it as the first instrument that God put and still puts to work in Nature. From this comes the worship which some Pagans rendered to the Sun; hence the fable of Prometheus who stole fire from heaven to communicate it to the earth.
Mr. Pott, however, does not apparently approve, but does in reality, of the feeling of those who make Ether a vehicle of the matter of light, because they multiply, he says, beings without need.But if light is such a simple being as it admits, can it manifest it otherwise than by some sensible substance? It has the property of very subtly penetrating bodies by its thinness superior to that of air, & by its progressive movement, the fastest one can imagine but it dares not determine if it is due to a spiritual substance. , although it is certain that the motive principle is as old as this substance itself.
Movement, as movement, does not produce light, but manifests it in suitable matters. It shows itself only in mobile bodies, that is to say, in an extremely subtle matter, fine and suitable for precipitous movement, whether this matter flows immediately from the Sun, or from its atmosphere, and whether it penetrates to us; or, what seems, he says, more probable, that the Sun sets in motion these extremely subtle matters, with which our atmosphere is filled.
Here, then, is a vehicle of light, and a vehicle which does not differ from Ether; since this Scientist adds further down: this is therefore also the cause of the movement of the light which acts on our Ether, and which comes to us mainly, and more effectively from the Sun. This vehicle is therefore not, even according to him, a being multiplied without necessity.
He distinguishes fire from light very well, and marks the difference between one and the other; but after having said that light produces clarity, he here confuses the latter with the luminous principle, as may be concluded from the experiments which he reports. I would have concluded that there is a fire & a light which do not burn, that is to say, which do not destroy the bodies to which they adhere; but not that there is light without fire. The lack of distinction between the principle or the cause of the splendor & the clarity, & the effect of this cause is the source of an infinity of errors on this matter.
Perhaps it is only the fault of the Translator who will have used the terms light & clarity interchangeably as synonyms. I would be rather inclined to believe it, since Mr. Pott, immediately after reporting various phenomena of phosphoric matters, rotten wood, luminous worms, calcined & rubbed clay, &c. said, that the matter of light in its purity, or separated from any other body, cannot be seen, that we only treat it surrounded by an envelope, and that we know of its presence only by induction. It is to properly distinguish the light from the brightness which is its effect. With this distinction it is easy to account for an infinity of phenomena very difficult to explain without it.
Heat, although the effect of movement, is as it were identified with it.Light being the principle of fire, the east of movement and heat. This being but a lesser degree of fire, or the motion produced by a more moderate fire, or further removed from the affected body. It is to this movement that water owes its fluidity, since without this cause it becomes ice.
Elemental fire should not therefore be confused with kitchen fire; & observe that the former becomes a burning actual fire only when combined with combustible substances; by itself it gives neither flame nor light. Thus the phlogiston or oily, sulphurous, resinous substance is not the principle of fire, but the matter proper to maintain it, to nourish it and to manifest it.
The reasonings of M. Pott prove that the feeling of d'Espagnet & of the other Hermetic Philosophers on fire & light, is a reasoned feeling, & very much in conformity with the most exact Physico-Chemical observations, since they agree with this Learned Professor of Chemistry in the Academy of Sciences & Belles Lettres of Berlin. These Philosophers therefore knew Nature: & if they did know it, why not rather try to lift the obscure veil under which they have hidden its processes by their enigmatic, allegorical, fabulous speeches, than to despise their reasonings, because they seem intelligible; or to accuse them of ignorance and lies?
On the conservation of Mixed.
The fiery spirit, the vivifying principle, gives life and vigor to mixtures; but this fire would soon consume them, if its activities were not moderated by the aqueous humor which binds them. This humidity circulates perpetually in all. A revolution takes place in the Universe, by means of which some are formed, nourished, even increase in volume, while its evaporation and its absence cause others to dry up and perish.
The whole machine in the world is made up of but one body, all the parts of which are linked by environments which participate in the extremes. This link is hidden, this knot is secret;but it is no less real, and it is by means of it that all these parties lend each other mutual help, since there is a relationship and a real commerce between them. The emissary spirits of the higher natures are & maintain this communication; some leave when others come; these return to their source when these descend from it; the last to come take their place, these leave in their turn, others succeed them; & by this continual ebb & flow, Nature is renewed & maintained. These are the wings of Mercury,
This circular succession of spirits takes place by two means, rarefaction and condensation, which Nature employs to spiritualize bodies and corporify spirits;or, if you like, to attenuate the coarse elements, to open them up, even to elevate them to the subtle nature of spiritual matters, and then make them return to the nature of the coarse and corporeal elements. They constantly experience such metamorphoses. The air furnishes the water with a tenuous ethereal substance which begins to corporify in it; the water communicates it to the earth where it becomes even more corporate. It then becomes food for minerals and plants. In these, it becomes stem, bark, leaves, flowers, fruit; in a word, a corporeal substance, palpable.
In animals, Nature separates the most subtle, the most spiritual from food and drink to turn it into food.It changes, & specifies the purest substance into seed, flesh, bone, &c. & leaves the coarsest & most heterogeneous for excrement. Art imitates Nature in its resolutions & its compositions.
Radical humidity.
The life and preservation of individuals consists in the close union of form and matter. The knot, the bond that forms this union consists in that of the innate fire with the radical humidity. This humidity is the purest portion, the most digested of matter, and like an oil extremely rectified by the stills of Nature. The Seeds of Things contain much of this moist radical, in which a spark of celestial fire feeds; & put in a suitable matrix, it operates, when it is constantly helped, all that is necessary for the generation.
There is something immortal in this radical humidity; the death of the mixed does not cause it to vanish or disappear. It resists even the most violent fire, since it is still found in the ashes of burnt corpses.
Each mixture contains two moist, the one we have just discussed, and an elementary moist, partly aqueous, partly airy. This one yields to the violence of the fire; it flies away in smoke, in vapours, & when it is completely evaporated, the body is no more than ashes, or parts separated from each other.
It is not so with the humid radical; as it constitutes the basis of the mixtures, it faces the tyranny of fire, it suffers martyrdom with insurmountable courage, and remains stubbornly attached to the ashes of the mixture; which clearly indicates its high purity.
Experience has shown Glassmakers, people who are commonly very ignorant in the knowledge of Nature, that this humidity is hidden in the ashes.They have found by dint of fire the Secret of manifesting it as much as the art and violence of artificial fire are capable of. To make the glass, it is necessary to put the ashes in fusion, and there can be no fusion, where there is no humidity.
Without knowing that the salts extracted from the ashes contain the greatest virtue of the mixtures, the laborers burn the stubble and the herbs to increase the fertility of their fields: proof that this radical humidity is inaccessible to the attacks of the fire; that it is the principle of generation, the basis of the mixtures, and that its virtue, its active fire remain numb only until the earth, common matrix of the principles, develops its faculties, which is seen daily in seeds.
This radical balm is the oath of Nature, which spreads throughout the mass of individuals. It is an indelible tincture, which has the property of multiplying, and which penetrates even into the dirtiest excrement, since it is used successfully to manure the land, and increase its fertility, We can rightly conjecture that this base, this root of the mixtures , which survives their destruction, is a part of the first matter, the purest and indestructible portion, marked at the corner of the light from which it received the form. For the marriage of this first matter with its form is indissoluble, and all the elements embodied in individuals derive their origin from it.Indeed, was such a matter not necessary to serve as an incorruptible base, and as a cubic root for corruptible mixtures, in order to be able to be a constant, perpetual, and nevertheless material principle, around which would ceaselessly revolve the vicissitudes and the changes that material beings experience every day?
If it were permitted to carry one's conjectures into the obscurity of the future, could one not say that this unalterable substance is the foundation of the material world, and the leaven of its immortality, by means of which it will subsist even after its death? destruction, after having passed through the tyranny of fire, & having been purged of its original stain, to be renewed & become incorruptible & unalterable throughout all eternity?
It seems that the light has yet operated only on him, and that it has left the rest in darkness; so they always retain a spark of it, which only needs to be excited.
But the inner fire is very different from the wet. It comes from the spirituality of light, and the humid radical is of a middle nature between the extremely subtle and spiritual matter of light, and the coarse, elementary, corporeal matter. It participates in both, & links these two extremes. It is the seal of the visible & palpable treaty of light & darkness & the point of meeting & of commerce inks Heaven & Earth.
We cannot, therefore, mistakenly confuse this radical humidity with the innate fire. This one is the inhabitant, that one the habitation, the abode.It is in all the mixtures the laboratory of Vulcan; the hearth where is preserved this immortal fire, first motor created by all the faculties of the individuals; the universal balm, the most precious elixir of Nature, the perfectly sublimated & worked mercury of life, which Nature distributes by weight & by measure to all the mixed ones. Who will know how to extract this treasure from the heart, & from the hidden center of the productions of this low world, to strip it of the thick, elementary bark which hides it from our eyes, & to pull it out of the dark prison where it is enclosed, & in inaction, will be able to boast of know-how the most precious medicine to relieve the human body.
Of the harmony of the Universe.
The superior and inferior bodies of the world having the same source, and the same matter for principle, have preserved between them a sympathy which causes the purest, the noblest, the strongest, to communicate to those who are less so all the perfection of which they are likely. But when the organs of the mixtures find themselves badly disposed naturally or by accident, this communication is disturbed or impeded, the order established for this commerce is disrupted; the less helped weak weakens, succumbs, and becomes the principle of its own mine, mole ruit suâ.
(Cosmop. Tract. 2.) The four qualities of the elements, cold, hot, dry & moist, are like the harmonic tones of Nature. They are no more contrary to each other than the low tone in music is to the high pitch;but they are different, & as if separated by intervals, or any means that bring the two extremes together. Just as by means of these middle tones one composes a very beautiful harmony, Nature also knows how to combine the qualities of the elements, so that there results a temperament which constitutes that of the mixtures.
Movement.
There is no real and properly speaking rest in Nature (Ibid. Tr. 4.). She cannot remain idle; and if it allowed real rest to succeed movement for a single instant, the whole machine of the Universe would fall into ruin. The movement pulled him out of nowhere; rest would plunge him back into it. What we call rest is only a less accelerated, less sensible movement. The movement is therefore continuous in each part as in the whole. Nature always acts within the mixtures: even corpses are not at rest, since they are corrupted, and corruption cannot take place without movement.
Order and uniformity reign in the manner of moving the machine of the world;but there are various degrees in this movement, which is unequal and different in different and unequal things. Geometry even requires this law of inequality, and it can be said that the celestial bodies have an equal motion in geometric ratio; namely, in view of the difference in their size, their distance and their nature.
We easily perceive in the course of the seasons, that the ways which Nature employs only differ from one another in appearance. During the winter it seems motionless, dead, or at least numb. It is however during this dead season that she prepares, digests, incubates the seeds, and disposes them for generation. She gives birth, so to speak, in the spring;it nourishes & raises in summer, it even ripens certain fruits, it reserves others for the autumn, when they need a longer digestion. At the end of this season, everything becomes obsolete, to be available to a new generation.
Man experiences in this life the changes of these four seasons. His winter is not the time of old age, as is commonly said, it is the one he spends in his mother's womb without action, & as in darkness, because he has not yet enjoyed the benefits of sunlight. Scarcely has it seen the light of day than it begins to grow: it enters its spring, which lasts until it is able to ripen its fruits. His summer then takes over; it fortifies itself, it digests, it cooks the principle of life which must give it to others. When its fruit is ripe, autumn seizes it, it becomes dry, it withers, it leans towards the principle where its nature leads it; he falls there, he dies, he is no more.
From the unequal and varied distance from the Sun proceeds particularly the variety of the seasons. The Philosopher who wants to apply himself to imitating the processes of Nature in the operations of the great work, must meditate on them very seriously.
I will not enter here into the detail of the different movements of the celestial bodies. Moses has almost only explained what concerns the globe we inhabit. He said almost nothing about the other creatures. Doubtless so that human curiosity finds matter for admiration rather than for forming arguments for dispute. However, the disorderly desire to know everything still tyrannizes over the feeble mind of man.He does not know how to conduct himself, and he is mad enough to prescribe to the Creator rules to conduct the Universe. He forges systems, & speaks with such a decisive tone, that one would say that God consulted him to bring the world out of nothingness, & that he suggested to the Creator the laws which preserve the harmony of its general movement & particular. fortunately the reasonings of these so-called Philosophers have no influence on this harmony.
We would have reason to fear consequences as unfortunate for us as those drawn from their principles are ridiculous. Let's calm down: the world will go on as long as it pleases its Author to preserve it. Let's not waste the time of a life as short as ours arguing about things we don't know.Let us apply ourselves rather to seeking the remedy for the evils which overwhelm us; to pray to him who created the medicine of the earth, to make it known to us; and that after having favored ourselves with this admirable knowledge, we use it only for the utility of our neighbour, out of love for the sovereign Being, to whom alone be glory for all ages of ages. We would have reason to fear consequences as unfortunate for us as those drawn from their principles are ridiculous. Let's calm down: the world will go on as long as it pleases its Author to preserve it.
Let's not waste the time of a life as short as ours arguing about things we don't know. Let us apply ourselves rather to seeking the remedy for the evils which overwhelm us;to pray to him who created the medicine of the earth, to make it known to us; and that after having favored ourselves with this admirable knowledge, we use it only for the utility of our neighbour, out of love for the sovereign Being, to whom alone be glory for all ages of ages. We would have reason to fear consequences as unfortunate for us as those drawn from their principles are ridiculous. Let's calm down: the world will go on as long as it pleases its Author to preserve it. Let's not waste the time of a life as short as ours arguing about things we don't know.
Let us apply ourselves rather to seeking the remedy for the evils which overwhelm us; to pray to him who created the medicine of the earth, to make it known to us;and that after having favored ourselves with this admirable knowledge, we use it only for the utility of our neighbour, out of love for the sovereign Being, to whom alone be glory for all ages of ages. the world will go on as long as it pleases its Author to keep it. Let's not waste the time of a life as short as ours arguing about things we don't know. Let us apply ourselves rather to seeking the remedy for the evils which overwhelm us; to pray to him who created the medicine of the earth, to make it known to us; and that after having favored ourselves with this admirable knowledge, we use it only for the utility of our neighbour, out of love for the sovereign Being, to whom alone be glory for all ages of ages.the world will go on as long as it pleases its Author to keep it. Let's not waste the time of a life as short as ours arguing about things we don't know.
Let us apply ourselves rather to seeking the remedy for the evils which overwhelm us; to pray to him who created the medicine of the earth, to make it known to us; and that after having favored ourselves with this admirable knowledge, we use it only for the utility of our neighbour, out of love for the sovereign Being, to whom alone be glory for all ages of ages. to let us know it; and that after having favored ourselves with this admirable knowledge, we use it only for the utility of our neighbour, out of love for the sovereign Being, to whom alone be glory for all ages of ages.to let us know it; and that after having favored ourselves with this admirable knowledge, we use it only for the utility of our neighbour, out of love for the sovereign Being, to whom alone be glory for all ages of ages.
TREATY OF THE HERMETIC WORK.
The source of health & wealth, two bases on which rests the happiness of this life, are the object of this art. He was always a mystery; & those who have dealt with it have always spoken of it as a science, so the practice has something surprising about it, & the result of which is miraculous in itself & in its effects. God, author of Nature, whom the Philosopher proposes to imitate, can alone enlighten and guide the human mind in the search for this inestimable treasure, and in the labyrinth of the operations of this art. Also all these Authors recommend to have recourse to the Creator, and to ask Him for this grace with great fervor and perseverance.
Should we be surprised that the possessors of such a beautiful secret veiled it with the shadows of hieroglyphs, fables, allegories, metaphors, riddles, to deny knowledge of it to ordinary men? They wrote only for those to whom God would design to grant understanding. To decry them, to declaim forcibly against science itself, because useless efforts have been made to obtain it, is base vengeance; it is harming one's own reputation, it is flaunting one's ignorance, and one's powerlessness to achieve it. Let us raise our voice against the prompters, against these coal burners, who, after having been duped by their own ignorance, seek to make other dupes, in good time.
I would gladly join in these sorts of criticisms;I would even like to have a stentorian voice to make myself heard better. But who are those who dabble in speaking & writing against the Hermetic Philosophy? People who don't know about it, we'll bet, right down to the definition; people whose ill humor is excited only by prejudice. I appeal to good faith; that they examine seriously, if they are aware of what they are criticalizing: have they read & re-read twenty times & more, the good Authors who deal with this matter? who among them can flatter himself that he knows the operations and processes of this art? what Oedipus gave them the understanding of his enigmas and his allegories? what is the Sibyl who introduced them into her sanctuary?let them therefore remain within the narrow sphere of their knowledge: ne sutor ultra crepidam.
Or since it is the fashion, let them be allowed to bark after such a great treasure so they despair of possession. Weak consolation, but the only one they have left! And would to God that their cries would be heard by all those who spend their goods inappropriately in the pursuit of this one which escapes them, for lack of knowledge of the simple processes of Nature.
Monsieur de Maupertuis thinks quite otherwise (letters): Under whatever aspect one considers the Philosopher's stone, one cannot, says this famous Academician, prove its impossibility; but its price, it adds, is not enough to balance the little hope of finding it.M. de Justi, Director General of Mines to the Empress Queen of Hungary, proves not only the possibility, but the actual existence, in a speech he gave to the public, and whose arguments are based on his own experience.
Philosophical advice.
Worship God alone; love him with all your heart, and your neighbor as yourself. Always propose to yourself the glory of God as the end of all your actions: invoke him, he will hear you; glorify him, he will exalt you.
Be late in your words & in your actions. Do not lean on your prudence, on your knowledge, nor on the word & wealth of men, especially the Great. Put your trust only in God. Make use of the talent he has entrusted to you. Be stingy with time; it is infinitely short for a man who knows how to use it. Do not put off until tomorrow, which is not yours, a necessary thing that you can do today. Frequented by the good and learned. Man is born to learn; his natural curiosity is a very palpable proof of this, and it is degrading humanity to wallow in idleness and ignorance. The more knowledge a man has, the closer he approaches to the Author of his being, who knows everything.Take advantage, then, of the enlightenment of scholars; receive their instructions gently, & their corrections always in good part. Flee the commerce of the wicked, the multiplicity of affairs, and the quantity of friends.
The Sciences are acquired only by studying, by meditating, and not in dispute. Learn a little at a time: repeat the same study often; the mind can do everything when it is a little, and can do nothing when it is at the same time everything.
Science joined with experience forms true wisdom. We are constrained, in its absence, to have recourse to opinion, to doubt, to conjecture, and to authority.
The subjects of science are God, the great world, & man. Man was made for God, woman for God & man, & other creatures for man & woman (Sap. 9. v. 2. & seq.), so that they might use their occupations, their own preservation, and the glory of their common Author. After all, make sure you are always right with God & your neighbour. Revenge is a weakness in men. Never make any enemies; and if someone wants to hurt you, or has done it to you, you could not better and more nobly avenge yourself than by doing him good.
APHORISM OF THE TRUTH OF SCIENCE.
Two kinds of sciences, and neither. Religion & Physics, that is to say, the Science of God & that of Nature: everything, the rest are only the branches. There are even bastards; but they are rather errors than science.
God gives the first in its perfection to the Saints & to the children of Heaven. It enlightens the mind of man to acquire the second, & the Demon throws clouds there to insinuate the bastards.
Religion comes from Heaven, it is true science, because God, source of all truth, is its author. Physics is the knowledge of Nature; with it the man does surprising things. Mens humana mirabilium effecrix.
The power of man is greater than we can imagine.He can do everything through God, nothing without him, except evil.
The Key to Science.
The first step to wisdom is the fear of God, the second the knowledge of Nature. By it one ascends to the knowledge of its Author (S. Paul. Rom. l. 20.). Nature teaches clairvoyants Hermetic Physics. The long work is always from Nature; it just operates. successively, & always by the same ways to produce the same things. The work of art is less long; he greatly advances the steps of Nature. That of God is done in an instant. Alchemy itself is an operation of Nature, aided by art. It puts in our hands the key to natural magic or physics, and makes us admirable to men, by raising us above the common.
Secret.
The statue of Harpoctates, which had one hand over its mouth, was among the ancient sages the emblem of secrecy, which is strengthened by silence, weakened and vanished by revelation. Jesus Christ our Savior only revealed our mysteries to his disciples, and always spoke to the people in allegories and parables. Vobis datum est noscere mysteria regni cœlorum... sine parabolis non loquebatur eis (Mat. 13. v. II. Mark. 4. v. II. Matth. 13. v. 34. I. Part.).
The Priests among the Egyptians, the Magi among the Persians, the Mecubales and the Cabalists among the Hebrews, the Brahmans in India, the Gymnosophists in Ethiopia, the Orphei, the Homers, the Pythagoras, the Platos, the Porphyries among the Greeks, the Druids among the Westerners spoke of the secret sciences only in riddles and allegories: if they had said what was its real object, there would have been no more mysteries, and the sacred would have been mixed with the profane. .
Means to reach the Secret.
The dispositions to arrive at the secret, are the knowledge of Nature, and of oneself. One can have the first and even the second perfectly only with the help of Alchemy, the love of wisdom, the horror of crime, of lies, the escape of the Cacochymists, the frequentation of the wise, the Invocation of the Holy Spirit, do not add secret after secret, only attach yourself to one thing, because God & Nature delight in unity & simplicity.
Man being the epitome of all Nature, he must learn to know himself as the precise and the shortcut of it. Through its spiritual part, it participates in all immortal creatures; & its material part, to all that is obsolete in the Universe.
Keys to Nature.
Out of all material things ashes are made; from the ashes we make salt, from the salt we separate the water and the mercury, from the mercury we compose an elixir or a quintessence. The body turns into ashes to be cleansed of its combustible parts, into salt to be separated from its earthiness, into water to rot & putrefy, & into spirit to become quintessence.
Salts are therefore the keys to Art and Nature; without their knowledge it is impossible to imitate him in his operations. It is necessary to know their sympathy and their antipathy with the metals and with themselves. There is properly only one salt in nature, but it is divided into three kinds to form the principles of bodies. These three are nitre, tartar & vitriol;all the others are composed of it.
The nitre is made of the first salt by attenuation, subtilization, & purgation of the raw & cold earths which are mixed there. The Sun cooks it, digests it in all its parts, makes the union of the elements there, and impregnates it with seminal virtues, which it then carries with the rain into the earth which is the common matrix.
The Salt of Tartar is this same nitre more cooked, more digested by the heat of the matrix where it had been deposited, because this matrix serves as the furnace of Nature. Plants are thus formed from nitre and tartar. This salt is found wherever the nitre has been deposited, but particularly on the surface of the earth, where dew & rain furnish it abundantly.
Vitriol is the same nitre salt, which having passed through the nature of tartar, becomes mineral salt by longer cooking, and in hotter furnaces. It is found in abundance in the entrails, the concavities and the porosities of the earth, where it meets with a viscous humor which makes it metallic.
Metallic Principles.
From the salts of which we have just spoken, and from their vapors is made the mercury which the ancients called mineral seed. Of this mercury and sulfur, whether pure or impure, are made all the metals in the bowels of the earth and on its surface.
When the elements embodied by their union take the form of saltpetre, tartar and vitriol, the fire of Nature, excited by the solar heat, digests the humidity which the dryness of these salts attracts, and separating the pure from the impure, the salt of the earth, the homogeneous parts of the heterogeneous, it thickens it into quicksilver, then into pure or impure metal, according to the mixture and the quality of the matrix.
The diversity of sulfur and mercury more or less pure, and more or less digested, their union and their different combinations form the numerous family of the mineral kingdom. Stones, marcasites, minerals still differ from each other, depending on the difference in their matrix, & the more or less cooking.
Of the matter of the great work in general.
The Philosophers have, it seems, spoken of matter only to hide it, at least when it was a question of designating it in particular. But when they speak of it in general, they dwell a great deal on its qualities and its properties; they give it all the names of the individuals of the Universe, because they say that it is its principle and its base. “Examine, say the Cosmopolitan (Tract. I.), if what you propose to do is in conformity with what Nature can do.
See what materials she uses, and what vase she uses. If you just want to do what she does, follow her step by step. If you want to do something better, see what can serve that purpose; but always remain in nature of the same kind. If, for example,you want to push a metal beyond the perfection it has received from Nature, you must take your materials from the metallic gender, & always a male & a female. Otherwise you will not succeed. For in vain should you propose to make a metal out of grass, or an animal nature, like a dog or any other beast, you cannot produce a tree…”
This first material is more commonly called sulfur & quicksilver. Raymond Lully (Codicit. c. 9.) names them the two extremes of stone and of all metals. Others say in general that the Sun is its father & the Moon its mother; that she is male & female; that it is composed of four, three, two & one, & all that to hide it. It is found everywhere, on land & sea, in the plains, on the mountains, etc.The same Author says that their matter is unique, & then says that the stone is composed of several individual principles. All these contradictions, however, are only apparent, because they do not speak of matter from a single point of view, but as to its general principles, or to the different states in which it finds itself in operations.
It is certain that there is only one principle in all Nature, and that it is so of stone as of other things. It is therefore necessary to know how to distinguish what the Philosophers say of matter in general, from what they say of it in particular. There is also only one fixed spirit, composed of a very pure and incombustible salt, which makes its home in the radical humidity of the mixtures.It is more perfect in gold than in anything else, and the Mercury of the Philosophers alone has the property and the virtue of drawing it out of its prison, of corrupting it and of disposing it for generation. Quicksilver is the principle of volatility, malleability, and minerality; the fixed spirit of gold can do nothing without it. The gold is moistened, reincrusted, volatilized & subjected to putrefaction by the operation of mercury:
Both are philosophical mercury and sulphur. But it is not enough to bring metallic sulfur into the work as left; one is also needed as a sperm or semen of a sulphurous nature, to unite with the seed of mercurial substance.This sulfur & this mercury were wisely represented among the ancients by two serpents, one male & the other female, twisted around the golden rod of Mercury. The goldenrod is the fixed spirit, where they should be tied. They are the same as Juno sent against Hercules, when this hero was still in his cradle.
This sulfur is the soul of bodies, and the principle of the exuberance of their tincture, ordinary mercury is deprived of it; vulgar gold and silver have it only for themselves. The mercury proper to the work must therefore first be impregnated with an invisible sulfur (D'Espagnet, Can. 30.), so that it is more disposed to receive the visible tincture of perfect bodies, and so that it can then communicate it with usury.
Many chemists sweat blood and water to extract tincture from common gold; they imagine that by dint of giving him torture, they will make him disgorge it, and that afterwards they will find the secret of increasing it and multiplying it, but
Spes tandem Agricoles vanis eludit aristis.
Virg. George.
For it is impossible that the solar tincture can be entirely separated from its body. Art cannot undo in this genre what Nature has united so well. If they succeed in extracting a colored and permanent liquor from gold, by the force of the fire or by the corrosion of strong waters, it must be considered only as a portion of the body, but not as its tincture; for what properly constitutes the tincture cannot be separated from the gold.It is this term tinting that deludes most Artists. I still want it to be a tincture, at least they will agree that it is altered by the force of fire, or strong waters, that it cannot be useful for the work, and that it cannot give to volatile bodies the fixity of gold from which it would have been separated. It is for these reasons that d'Espagnet (Can. 34.
Names that the ancient Philosophers gave to matter.
The ancient Philosophers hid the true name of the material of the great work with as much care as the moderns. They spoke of it only through allegories and symbols. The Egyptians represented her in their hieroglyphs in the form of an ox, which was at the same time the symbol of Osiris & Isis, who were supposed to have been brother & sister, husband & wife, one & the other grandsons of Heaven & Earth . Others have given it the name Venus.
They also called her Androgyne, Andromeda, wife of Saturn, daughter of the God Neptune; Latone, Maja, Semele, Leda, Ceres, & Homer honored her more than once with the title of mother of the Gods. She was also known by the names of Rée, flowing earth, fuse, & finally by an infinity of other women's names,according to the different circumstances in which it finds itself in the various and successive operations of the work. They personified it, and each circumstance provided them with a subject for I don't know how many allegorical fables, which they invented as they saw fit: we will see proof of this throughout the course of this work.
The Hermetic Philosopher wants Brass (a name he also pleased to give to their material) to be composed of a crude, volatile, immature gold & silver, & full of blackness during putrefaction, which is called womb of Saturn, from which Venus was engendered . This is why it is regarded as born from the Philosophical sea. The Salt which was produced from it was represented by Cupid, son of Venus and Mercury;because then Venus signified Sulphur, & Quicksilver Mercury, or Philosophical Mercury.
Nicolas Flamel represented the first matter in his hieroglyphic figures under the figure of two Dragons, one winged, the other without wings, to signify, he says (Explicat. des figs, ch. 4.), "the principle fixed, or male, or sulphur; & by the winged one, the volatile principle, or humidity, or female, or quicksilver. They are, he adds, the Sun & the Moon of mercurial source.
These are the Serpents & Dragons that the ancient Egyptians painted encircled, with their heads biting, their tails, to say that they had come out of the same thing, and that it alone was sufficient unto itself, & that in its outline & circulation it perfected itself.These are the Dragons that the ancient Philosopher Poets set to guard without sleep the golden apples of the gardens of the Hesperides Virgins. These are the ones on which Jason, in the adventure of the Golden Fleece, poured the juice prepared by the beautiful Medea; speeches with which the books of the Philosophers are so full, that there is no Philosopher who has not written them since the truthful Hermes Trimegiste, Orpheus, Pythagoras, Artephius, Morienus & the others following me. “
It is these two Serpents sent by Juno, which is the metallic nature, that the strong Hercules, that is to say, the Sage, must strangle in his cradle: I mean conquer & kill, to make them rot, corrupt & spawn at the beginning of his work.These are the two serpents attached around the caduceus of Mercury, with which he exercises his great power, and transfigures himself and changes himself as he pleases. The nTortoise was also among the ancients the symbol of matter, because it bears on its scale a sort of representation of this figure of V Saturn. This is why Venus was sometimes represented (Plutarchus in præceptisconnub.) seated on a Goat, therefore the head like that of Aries, presence more or less this figure M of Mercury, & the right foot leaning on a Tortoise. We also see in a Philosophical emblem an Artist making a sauce for a Turtle with grapes. And a Philosopher questioned what was the matter, answered testudo solis cum pinguedine vitis.
Among the Aborigines the figure V of Saturn was in great veneration; they put it on their medals, on their columns, obelisks, &c. They represented Saturn in the figure of an old man, having however a masculine and vigorous air, who let his urine flow in the form of a jet of water; it was in this water that they made the best part of their medicine and their wealth consist. Others added to it the plant called Molybdnos, or Saturnian plant, so they said that the root was of lead, the stem of silver & the flowers of gold. It is the same mentioned in Homer (Odyss. I. 10. v. 302, & seq.) under the name of Moly. We will talk about it at great length in the explanations that we will give of Aeneas' descent into hell, at the end of this work.
The Greeks also invented an infinity of fables on this occasion, & consequently formed the name of Mercury from MhroV, inguin, & from KaxoV, puer, because the philosophical Mercury is a water, which several Authors, & particularly Raymond Lully (Lib . secretorum & alibi.) called child's urine. Hence also the fable of Orion, engendered from the urine of Jupiter, Neptune & Mercury.
Matter is one and all.
Philosophers, always careful to hide both their matter and their processes, call their matter indiscriminately, this same matter in all the states in which it is found in the course of operations. For this purpose they give it many names in particular which only suits it in general, and never has a mixture had so many names. It is one & all things, they say, because it is the radical principle of all mixtures. It is in all & similar to all, because it is susceptible of all forms, but before it is specified to any species of individuals of the three kingdoms of Nature. When it is specified to the mineral genus, they say that it is similar to gold, because it is its base, principle & mother.
That's why they call it crud gold, volatile gold, immer gold,gold leper. It is analogous to the metals, being the mercury of which they are composed. The spirit of this mercury is so freezing that it is called the father of both precious and vulgar stones. It is the mother who designs them, the humidity which nourishes them, and the matter which makes them.
Minerals are also formed; & as antimony is the Protheus of Chemistry, & the mineral which has the most properties & virtues, Artephius named the matter of the great work, antimony of the parts of Saturn. But although it gives a true mercury, it must not be imagined that this mercury is derived from common antimony, nor that it is common mercury.Philalethes assures us (Introitus apertus, &c.) that in whatever way we treat vulgar mercury, we will never make of it Philosophical mercury. The Cosmopolitan says that this is the true mercury, and that the common mercury is only its bastard brother (Dialog. Mercur. Alkemistae & Naturae.). When the mercury of the Sages is mixed with silver & gold, it is called the electra of the Philosophers, their bronze, their brass, their copper, their steel; & in the operations, their venom, their arsenic, their orpiment, their lead, their brass which must be bleached, Saturn, Jupiter, Mars, Venus, the Moon & the Sun.
This mercury is a fiery water, which has the virtue of dissolving all mixtures, minerals, stones;& everything that other menses or strong waters cannot do, the scythe of the old man Saturn overcomes, which has given it the name of universal solvent.
Paracelsus, speaking of Saturn, expresses himself thus (Coeluro Philosoph. Can, de Saturno.): “It would not be appropriate that we persuade ourselves, even less that we be informed of the properties hidden in the interior of Saturn & all that can be done with it & through it. If the men knew it, all the Alchemists would abandon any other matter to work only on this one. I will finish what I have to say on the matter of the great work, by the exclusion which some Philosophers give to certain matter which the Prompters commonly take to make the golden medicine, or Philosopher's stone.
“I have, says Riplée, made many experiments on all the things that the Philosophers name in their writings, to make gold and silver, and I want to tell you about them. I worked on cinnabar, but it was worth nothing, and on sublimated mercury, which cost me dearly. I have made many sublimations of spirits, ferments, salts of iron, steel & their foam, believing by this means & these materials to succeed in making stone; but I finally saw that I had wasted my time, my expenses and my pains.
However, I followed exactly all that was prescribed to me by the Authors; & I found that all the procedures they taught were false. I then made strong waters, corrosive waters, ardent waters, with which I operated in various ways, but always at a pure loss.I had recourse, after that, to the shells of eggs, to sulphur, to vitriol, which foolish Artists take for the Green Lion of the Philosophers, to arsenic, to orpiment, to sal ammonia, to glass salt, with alkali salt, common salt, rock salt, saltpetre, soda salt, attincar salt, tartar salt, alembro salt; but, believe me, take care of all these matters. Flee reddened imperfect metals, the smell of mercury, sublimated or precipitated mercury, you would be disappointed there like me.
I have experienced everything, the blood, the hair, the soul of Saturn, the marcasites, the oes ustum, the saffron of Mars, the scales and the foam of iron, the litharge, the antimony; all this is not worth a rotten face. I have worked hard to get oil & water for money;I calcined this metal with a prepared salt, and without salt, with brandy; I fired corrosive oils; but all that was useless. I have used oils, milk, wine, rennet, the sperm of the stars which falls on the earth, celandine, Secondines, & an infinity of other things, & I have drawn no benefit from them. I mixed mercury with metals, I reduced them to crystals, imagining myself doing something good, I searched in the very ashes: but, believe me, for God, flee, flee from such nonsense.
I found only one genuine work. » marcasites, oes ustum, saffron from Mars, iron scales & foam, litharge, antimony; all this is not worth a rotten face. I have worked hard to get oil & water for money;I calcined this metal with a prepared salt, and without salt, with brandy; I fired corrosive oils; but all that was useless. I have used oils, milk, wine, rennet, the sperm of the stars which falls on the earth, celandine, Secondines, & an infinity of other things, & I have drawn no benefit from them. I mixed mercury with metals, I reduced them to crystals, imagining myself doing something good, I searched in the very ashes: but, believe me, for God, flee, flee from such nonsense. I found only one genuine work. » marcasites, oes ustum, saffron from Mars, iron scales & foam, litharge, antimony; all this is not worth a rotten face. I have worked hard to get oil & water for money;I calcined this metal with a prepared salt, and without salt, with brandy; I fired corrosive oils; but all that was useless. I have used oils, milk, wine, rennet, the sperm of the stars which falls on the earth, celandine, Secondines, & an infinity of other things, & I have drawn no benefit from them. I mixed mercury with metals, I reduced them to crystals, imagining myself doing something good, I searched in the very ashes: but, believe me, for God, flee, flee from such nonsense. I found only one genuine work. » saffron from Mars, scales & iron foam, litharge, antimony; all this is not worth a rotten face.
I have worked hard to get oil & water for money;I calcined this metal with a prepared salt, and without salt, with brandy; I fired corrosive oils; but all that was useless. I have used oils, milk, wine, rennet, the sperm of the stars which falls on the earth, celandine, Secondines, & an infinity of other things, & I have drawn no benefit from them. I mixed mercury with metals, I reduced them to crystals, imagining myself doing something good, I searched in the very ashes: but, believe me, for God, flee, flee from such nonsense. I found only one genuine work. » saffron from Mars, scales & iron foam, litharge, antimony; all this is not worth a rotten face. I have worked hard to get oil & water for money;I calcined this metal with a prepared salt, and without salt, with brandy; I fired corrosive oils; but all that was useless.
I have used oils, milk, wine, rennet, the sperm of the stars which falls on the earth, celandine, Secondines, & an infinity of other things, & I have drawn no benefit from them. I mixed mercury with metals, I reduced them to crystals, imagining myself doing something good, I searched in the very ashes: but, believe me, for God, flee, flee from such nonsense. I found only one genuine work. » antimony; all this is not worth a rotten face. I have worked hard to get oil & water for money; I calcined this metal with a prepared salt, and without salt, with brandy;I fired corrosive oils; but all that was useless. I have used oils, milk, wine, rennet, the sperm of the stars which falls on the earth, celandine, Secondines, & an infinity of other things, & I have drawn no benefit from them. I mixed mercury with metals, I reduced them to crystals, imagining myself doing something good, I searched in the very ashes: but, believe me, for God, flee, flee from such nonsense.
I found only one genuine work. » antimony; all this is not worth a rotten face. I have worked hard to get oil & water for money; I calcined this metal with a prepared salt, and without salt, with brandy; I fired corrosive oils; but all that was useless.I have used oils, milk, wine, rennet, the sperm of the stars which falls on the earth, celandine, Secondines, & an infinity of other things, & I have drawn no benefit from them. I mixed mercury with metals, I reduced them to crystals, imagining myself doing something good, I searched in the very ashes: but, believe me, for God, flee, flee from such nonsense. I found only one genuine work. » I have worked hard to get oil & water for money; I calcined this metal with a prepared salt, and without salt, with brandy; I fired corrosive oils; but all that was useless.I have used oils, milk, wine, rennet, the sperm of the stars which falls on the earth, celandine, Secondines, & an infinity of other things, & I have drawn no benefit from them.
I mixed mercury with metals, I reduced them to crystals, imagining myself doing something good, I searched in the very ashes: but, believe me, for God, flee, flee from such nonsense. I found only one genuine work. » I have worked hard to get oil & water for money; I calcined this metal with a prepared salt, and without salt, with brandy; I fired corrosive oils; but all that was useless.I have used oils, milk, wine, rennet, the sperm of the stars which falls on the earth, celandine, Secondines, & an infinity of other things, & I have drawn no benefit from them. I mixed mercury with metals, I reduced them to crystals, imagining myself doing something good, I searched in the very ashes: but, believe me, for God, flee, flee from such nonsense.
I found only one genuine work. » the rennet, the sperm of the stars which falls on the earth, the celandine, the Secondines, & an infinity of other things, & I have drawn no benefit from them. I mixed mercury with metals, I reduced them to crystals, imagining myself doing something good, I searched in the very ashes: but, believe me, for God, flee, flee from such nonsense.I found only one genuine work. » the rennet, the sperm of the stars which falls on the earth, the celandine, the Secondines, & an infinity of other things, & I have drawn no benefit from them. I mixed mercury with metals, I reduced them to crystals, imagining myself doing something good, I searched in the very ashes: but, believe me, for God, flee, flee from such nonsense. I found only one genuine work. “ By which I conclude, & believe me.
Leave sophistications & all those who believe in them: flee their sublimations, conjunctions, separations, freezings, preparations, disjunctions, connections, & other deceptions.... profit.
The Trevisan (Philosoph. of Metals) is explained in much the same way. "And thus," he said, "we have seen & known several & infinite workers in these amalgamations & multiplications of white & red, with all the materials that you could imagine, & all the pains, continuations & constancy, that I believe that it is possible; but we never found our gold or our silver multiplied by a third, or by a half, or by any part. And if we have seen so many bleaching & rubifications, recipes, sophistications by so many countries, so much in Rome, Navarre, Spain, Turkey, Greece, Alexandria, Barbary, Persia, Messina; in Rhodes, in France, in Scotland, in the Holy Land & its surroundings; throughout Italy, Germany, England, and almost everyone.But never did we find people needing anything more than sophisticated things & herbal, animal, vegetable & plantable materials, & mineral stones, salts, alums & strong waters, distillations & separations of the elements, & sublimations, calcinations, freezing of quicksilver by grasses , stones, waters, oils, manure, & fire & very strange vessels, & never we found plowing on due matter.
We found a lot of them in those countries that knew stone well, but could never have their acquaintance ......... & I therefore began to read learned books than to work more, thinking well in myself that by man I could not achieve it; therefore if they knew it, they would never want to say it.... so I looked where the books most agreed; so I thought that was the truth;for they can only tell the truth in one thing. And thus I found the truth. For where more they agree, that was the truth; how much one names it in one way, and the other in another; however there is a whole substance in their words.
But I knew that the falsity was in diversity, and not in accordance; because if it were true, they would only put a matter there, a few names & a few figures that they yawn....... And in my God, I believe that those who wrote their books parabolically & figuratively , speaking of hair, urine, Blood, Sperm, herbs, vegetables, animals, plants, & stones & minerals, as are salts, alums & couperose, attramens,vitriols, borax & magnesia, & any stones, & waters, I believe, I say, that once it cost them little, or that they took little pains, or that they are too cruel. ..... For know that no book declares in true words, except by parables, as figure. But man must advise & often revise the possible of what they say, & look at the operations that Nature addresses in Her works. & look at the operations that Nature addresses in Her works. & look at the operations that Nature addresses in Her works. »
And those are silent who go saying & lecturing other sulfur than ours, which is hidden within magnesia (Philosophical), & who want to draw other quicksilver than from the red servant, & other water than ours, which is permanent, which nothing is conjoined except with its nature, and which does not wet something else, if not something which is the proper unity of its nature....”
“Leave alums, vitriols, salts & all attramens, borax, any strong waters, animals, beasts, & all that can come from them; hair, blood, urine, semen, flesh, eggs, stones & all minerals. Leave all metals alone: for how many of them be the entrance, & our matter, by all the sayings of the Philosophers, must be composed of quicksilver;& quicksilver is in other things only metals, as it appears by Geber, by the great Rosary, by the code of all truth by Morien, by Haly, by Calib, by Avicenna, by Bendegid, Esid, Serapion , by Sarne, who made the book called Lilium, by Euclides in his seventieth chapter of the Retractions, & by the Philosopher (Aristotle) in the third of the meteors..... & for this say Aristotle & Democritus in the book of Physics, chapter third of Meteora: make great dear the Alchemists; because they will never change the form of metals, if there is no reduction made to their first matter.... comes only man; volatile than volatile, nor brute beast than brute beast, and that Nature improves only in its own nature, and not in any other. »
What we have just reported from these two Authors is a lesson for prompters. It clearly indicates to them that they are not on the right path, & can at the same time serve as a preservative for those they would like to deceive, because whenever a man promises to make a stone with the materials excluded above, we can conclude that he is either an ignorant, or a rogue, it is also clear by all this reasoning of Trevisan, that the material of the great work must be of mineral & metallic nature; but what is this material in particular? no one says it specifically.
The Key to the Work.
Basil Valentine (Addition to the 12 Keys.) says that whoever has flour will soon make dough, and whoever has dough will soon find an oven to bake it. It is as if he were saying that the Artist who has the real philosophical material, will not be embarrassed to implement it: it is true, if we are to believe the Philosophers, that the making of the work is a very easy thing, and which requires more time and patience than expense; but this should doubtless only be understood in certain circumstances of the work, and when one has reached a certain point. Flamel (Explicat. des figs. hieroglyph.) says, that the preparation of agents is a difficult thing on any other in the world. Augurelle (Chrysop. 1. 2) assures us that it takes a work of Hercules:
Principium velut ostendit, quod sumere possis:
Alter onus quantum subeas. Pingue solum primis extemplo a mensibus anni Fortes invertant Tauri: .... Tune zephyro putris se gleba resolvit. George. i.
It is therefore the solution that is the key to the work. All Philosophers agree on this, and all speak in the same way on this subject. But there are two labors in the work, one to make the stone, the other to make the elixir. We must first begin to prepare the agents; and it is of this preparation that the Philosophers have not spoken, because everything depends on it, and that the second work is, according to them, only children's play and women's amusement.
And d'Espagnet has no difficulty in saying that there is a lot of work to be done (Can. 42.). "In the philosophical sublimation of mercury, or the first preparation, there must be a work of Hercules, because without it Jason would never have dared to undertake the conquest of the Golden Fleece. We must not, however, imagine that this sublimation takes place in the manner of Chemical sublimations, so he was careful to call it Philosophical. He makes it understood by what he says afterwards, that it consists in the dissolution and putrefaction of matter; because this sublimation is nothing other than a separation of the pure from the impure, or a purification of matter, which is of a nature that it can only be sublimated by putrefaction.D'Espagnet accordingly quotes the following words of Virgil. The Poet, he says,
We must not therefore confuse the operations of the second work with those of the first, although Morien (Entretien du Roi Calid.) assures us that the second work, which he calls disposition, is only a repetition of the first. It is to be believed, however, that it is not such a painful and difficult thing, since they do not say a word about it, or speak of it only to hide it. Such as this preparation may be, it is certain that it must begin with the dissolution of matter, although many have given it the name of calcination or sublimation; & since they did not want to talk about it clearly, we can at least draw introductions from the operations of the second arrangement to enlighten us on the operations of the first.
It is first a question of making the philosophical mercury or the solvent with a matter which contains in it two qualities, & which is partly volatile, & partly fixed. What proves that dissolution is necessary is that the Cosmopolitan tells us to look for a material from which we can make water which dissolves gold naturally and without violence. Now a matter can be reduced to water only by dissolution, when we do not employ the distillation of vulgar chemistry, which is excluded from the work.
It is well to remark here that all the terms of vulgar chemistry, which the Philosophers employ in their books, should not be taken in the ordinary sense, but in the philosophical sense.This is why the Philalethes warns us (Enarratio method. trium Gebri niedicin.) that the terms distillation, sublimation, calcination, assation, reverberation, dissolution, descension, coagulation, are but one and the same operation, carried out in the same vase, that is to say, a cooking of matter; we will show the differences hereafter, when we speak of each in particular.
It should also be noted that the demonstrative signs of the work, of which the Philosophers make mention, particularly concern the second work. It will also be observed that the greatest number of Hermetic Authors begin their treatises at this second operation, and that they suppose their mercury and their sulfur already made, that the descriptions they make of them in their riddles, their allegories, their fables, &vs . are almost all taken from what happens in this second disposition of Morien; and that from this come the apparent contradictions which are found in their works, where one says that two matters are necessary, the other only one, the other three, the other four, &c.
Thus, to express himself in accordance with the ideas of the Philosophers,they must therefore be followed step by step; & as I do not want to deviate in any way from their principles, nor from their way of deducing them, I will copy them word for word, so that the reader does not regard the explanations that I will give of the fables, as a pure production of my imagination. Basil Valentin is one of those who makes the most use of it, in his Treatise on the 12 Keys; but he uses them to form his allegories, and not to show what was the intention of their Authors, Flamel on the contrary quotes from time to time some in the direction of their Authors; this is why I will quote it here more often than the others; & this treaty will in the sequel be composed, for the most part, of his own words.so that the Reader does not regard the explanations that I will give of the fables, as a pure production of my imagination.
Basil Valentin is one of those who makes the most use of it, in his Treatise on the 12 Keys; but he uses them to form his allegories, and not to show what was the intention of their Authors, Flamel on the contrary quotes from time to time some in the direction of their Authors; this is why I will quote it here more often than the others; & this treaty will in the sequel be composed, for the most part, of his own words. so that the Reader does not regard the explanations that I will give of the fables, as a pure production of my imagination.
Basil Valentin is one of those who makes the most use of it, in his Treatise on the 12 Keys;but he uses them to form his allegories, and not to show what was the intention of their Authors, Flamel on the contrary quotes from time to time some in the direction of their Authors; this is why I will quote it here more often than the others; & this treaty will in the sequel be composed, for the most part, of his own words. & not to show what was the intention of their Authors, Flamel on the contrary quotes from time to time some in the direction of their Authors; this is why I will quote it here more often than the others; & this treaty will in the sequel be composed, for the most part, of his own words. & not to show what was the intention of their Authors, Flamel on the contrary quotes from time to time some in the direction of their Authors;this is why I will quote it here more often than the others; & this treaty will in the sequel be composed, for the most part, of his own words.
The two Dragons, which he took as the hieroglyphic symbol of matter, are, he says (Loco cit.), "the two Serpents sent by Juno, who is the metallic nature, that the strong Hercules, that is- that is to say , the Sage, must strangle in his cradle: I mean conquer & kill to make them rot, corrupt & spawn at the beginning of his work. This is the key to the work or the announced dissolution; the Serpents, the Dragons, the Chimera , the Sphinx, the Harpies & the other monsters of the fable, which must be killed; & as putrefaction follows death, "Flamel says that they must be made to rot & corrupt. Being thus placed together in the vessel of the sepulchre, they both bite each other cruelly, & by their great poison & furious rage,never let each other from the moment that they have taken each other & seized each other (if the cold does not prevent them) that both of their drooling venom & mortal wounds, are bloodied by all the parts of their body, & finally killing each other, are suffocated in their own venom, which changes them after their death, into living and permanent water. This water is properly the mercury of the Philosophers.
They are, he adds, these two masculine & feminine sperms, described at the beginning of my philosophical summary, which are engendered (says Rasis, Avicenna, & “Jewish Abraham) in the kidneys, entrails, & operations of the four elements. These are the humid radical of the metals, sulfur & quicksilver; not the vulgar ones,druggists; but these are the ones given to us by these two beautiful and dear bodies that we love so much. These two sperm, said Democritus, are not found in the land of the living. Avicenna also says so, but he adds that they collect themselves from the droppings, filth & rottenness of the Sun & the Moon. »
The putrefaction is declared by the following terms: "The cause why I painted these two sperm in the form of Dragons, is because their stench is very strong, as is that of Dragons, & the exhalations which rise in the matrass, are dark, black, blue & yellowish.... The Philosopher never feels this stench, if he does not break his vessels; but only he judges it such by the sight and the change of colors which come from the rotting of its confections. "Let the chemists or blowers who seek the philosopher's stone in their calcinations & their crucibles, judge from these words of Flamel, if their operations are in conformity with his, & if they are right to expose themselves to breathing the vapors of stinking materials & arsenicals on which they operate.
The putrefaction of the matter in the vase is therefore the principle & the cause of the colors which manifest themselves, & the first, somewhat permanent or of duration, which must appear, is the color black, which they simply call black, & of an infinity of other names that we will see below in the course of this work, or in the Dictionary of terms proper to Hermetic Philosophy, which immediately follows it.
This color therefore signifies putrefaction & the generation which follows, & which is given to us by the dissolution of our perfect bodies. These last words indicate that Flamel speaks of the second operation, and not of the first."This dissolution comes from the external heat, which helps, & from the political igneity, & the admirable sour virtue of the poison of our mercury, which puts & resolves into pure dust, even into impalpable powder, what it finds that resists it. . Thus the heat acting on & against the metallic, viscous & oleaginous radical humidity, engenders blackness on the subject. She is that black veil with which Theseus' ship returned victorious from Crete, and which was the cause of her father's death. Therefore the father must die, so that from the ashes of this Phoenix another may be reborn, & let the son be King. ”
The real key to the work is this darkness at the beginning of its operations; & if another red or white color appears before that one, it is a proof that one has not succeeded, or, as the Author says, "one must always wish for this darkness, & certainly which does not sees her during the days of stone , what other color he sees, he misses the magisterium entirely, & can no longer perfect it with this chaos.... real matters, if at the beginning, after having put the confections in the philosophical egg, that is to say, some time after the fire has irritated them, if you do not see this raven's head, black black very black , you have to start over; because this fault is irreparable. Above all one should fear an orange or semi-red color,because if in this beginning you see it in your egg, no doubt you are burning, or have burned the greenness and vivacity of the stone. »
The bluish & yellowish color indicates that the putrefaction & dissolution is not yet complete. Darkness is the true sign of a perfect solution.
Then the matter dissolves into a finer powder, so to speak, than the atoms which fly in the rays of the Sun, and these atoms change permanently into water.the Philosophers have given this dissolution the names of death, destruction & perdition, hell, tartarus, darkness, night, dark jacket, sepulchre, tomb, poisonous water, coal, manure, black earth, black veil, sulphurous earth, melancholy, magnifies black , mud, stinking menstruation, smoke, lampblack, venomous fire, cloud, lead, black lead, lead of the Philosophers, Saturn, black powder, despicable thing, vile thing, seal of Hermes, stinking spirit, sublime spirit, sun eclipsed, or eclipse of the sun & moon, horse dung, corruption, black bark, foam of the sea, cover of the vase, capitals of the still, naphtha, filth of the dead, corpse, oil of Saturn, black blacker than black itself. Finally, they designated it by all the names that can express or designate corruption, dissolution & darkness.
It is she who provided the philosophers with the material for so many allegories on the dead and the tombs. Some have even named it calcination, denudation, separation, trituration, assation, because of the reduction of matters into very fine powder. Others, reduction in first matter, mollification, extraction, commixtion, liquefaction, conversion of the elements, subtilization, division, humation, impastation & distillation.
The other xir, Cimmen shadows, abyss, generation, intrusion, submersion, complexion, conjunction, impregnation.When the heat acts on these materials, they change first into powder, and greasy and sticky water, which rises in vapor to the top of the vase, and descends again in dew or rain, to the bottom of the vase (Artephius.), where it becomes almost like a slightly greasy black broth. This is why it has been called sublimation, & volatilization, ascension & descension. The water then coagulates further becomes like black pitch, which causes it to be called fetid & stinking earth. It gives off an odor of stench, of sepulchers and tombs. Hermes called it the land of leaves.
“But its real name, says Flamel, is brass or laton, which must be whitened.The ancient Sages, he adds, described it under the story of the Serpent of Mars, who had devoured the companions of Cadmus, who killed him by piercing him with his spear against a hollow oak tree. »
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Notes on this oak tree.
But in order to achieve this putrefaction, an agent or solvent analogous to the body which it must dissolve is needed. This is the dissoluble body, called the male seed; the other is the dissolving spirit, called feminine seed. When they are reunited in the vase, the Philosophers give them the name of Rebis; this is why Merlin said:
Res rebis est bina conjuncta, sed tamen una.
Philalethes (Vera confect, lapid. Philosop. p 15. & seq.) speaks thus about this solvent. “This feminine seed is one of the main principles of our magisterium;it is therefore necessary to meditate deeply on it, as on a matter without which one cannot succeed, since although quicksilver, it is not in fact a natural quicksilver in its own nature, but a certain other mercury proper to a new generation, & which , in addition to its purity, requires a long & admirable preparation, which leaves its mineral quality, homogeneous, healthy & safe. For if one takes away from this dissolving spirit its fluidity and its mercuriality, it becomes useless for the philosophical work, because it has thereby lost its dissolving nature; & if it were changed into powder, of whatever species it may be; if it is not of the nature of the dissoluble body, it loses it, it no longer has any relation or proportion with it, and must be rejected from our work.
Those, therefore, think madly and falsely who alter quicksilver, before it is united with the metallic species. For this quicksilver, which is not common, is the material of all metals, and like their water, because of its homogeneity with them. It takes on their nature in its mixture with them, and takes on all their qualities, because it resembles celestial mercury, which becomes similar to the qualities of the planets with which it is in conjunction.
Those , therefore, think madly and falsely who alter quicksilver, before it is united with the metallic species. For this quicksilver, which is not common, is the material of all metals, and like their water, because of its homogeneity with them.It takes on their nature in its mixture with them, and takes on all their qualities, because it resembles celestial mercury, which becomes similar to the qualities of the planets with which it is in conjunction.
Those , therefore, think madly and falsely who alter quicksilver, before it is united with the metallic species. For this quicksilver, which is not common, is the material of all metals, and like their water, because of its homogeneity with them. It takes on their nature in its mixture with them, and takes on all their qualities, because it resembles celestial mercury, which becomes similar to the qualities of the planets with which it is in conjunction. which becomes similar to the qualities of the planets with which it is in conjunction.which becomes similar to the qualities of the planets with which it is in conjunction. No
water can radically and naturally dissolve the metallic species, if it is not of their nature, and if it cannot be congealed with them.
It must pass into the metals like a food which is incorporated with them, and only form one and the same substance. He who therefore removes the moisture from quicksilver with salts, vitriols, or other corrosive things, acts like a madman. Those are no less mistaken, who imagine themselves extracting from natural mercury a limpid and transparent water, with which they can do admirable things. Even if they managed to make that water, it would be worth nothing for the work.
Definitions & properties of this Mercury.
Mercury is a thing that dissolves metals with a natural dissolution, which drives their spirits of power into action.
Mercury is that thing which renders the matter of metals lucid, clear & without shade, that is to say, which cleanses them of their impurities, & draws from the interior of perfect metals their nature & seed which is hidden there. .
Solvent mercury is a dry vapour, in no way viscous, having a great deal of acidity, very subtle, very volatile in fire, having a great property of penetrating and dissolving metals in preparing it; & by doing this dissolution, besides the length of the work, one runs a very great danger, says Philalethes. He therefore recommends preserving his eyes, ears & nose.
The making of this mercury, adds the same Author, is the greatest of Nature's secrets; it can hardly be learned except by revelation from God, or from a friend; for it will almost never be solved by the instructions of the books.
The dissolving mercury is not the mercury of the Philosophers before its preparation, but only apt, and it is the beginning of Medicine of the third order. See what is meant by these medicines, in the attached Dictionary.
Those who, in place of this mercury, employ natural or sublimated mercury, or calcined or precipitated powder, for philosophical work, are seriously mistaken.
The dissolving mercury is an element of the earth, in which it is necessary to sow the grain of gold.It corrupts the Sun, putrefies it, resolves it into mercury, & makes it volatile, & similar to itself. It changes into Sun & Moon, & becomes like the mercury of metals.
He draws souls from bodies outside, removes them and cooks them. This is what gave rise to the ancient Sages, to say that the God Mercury drew souls from living bodies & led them to the Kingdom of Pluto. This is why Homer very often names mercury Argicida.
The dissolving mercury must not be dry, because if it is such, all the Philosophers assure us that it will not be suitable for dissolution, it is therefore necessary to take a feminine seed in a similar form and close to that of the metals. Art makes it the menstruation of metals;& by the operations of the first medicine, or of its imperfect preparation, it passes through all the qualities of the metals, up to those of the Sun. The sulfur of imperfect metals coagulates it, and it takes on the qualities of the metal whose sulfur coagulated it; if the dissolving mercury is not animated, it will be in vain to employ it for the universal work, nor for the particular.
The dissolving mercury is the only vessel of the Philosophers, in which the whole magisterium is accomplished.The Philosophers gave it various names, of which here are the most used, Vinegar, Philosopher's vinegar, field, aludel, water, water of art, fiery water, divine water, fountain water, purifying water, permanent water, first water, simple water , bath, sky, prison, upper eyelid, sieve, smoke, humidity, fire, artificial fire, corroding fire, fire against nature, damp fire, Jordan, liquor, raw vegetable liquor, moon, matter, lunar matter, raw virtue, mother , mercury crud, mercury preparing, prime minister, fugitive servant, nymphs, bacchantes, muses, woman, sea, crud spirit, cooked spirit, sepulchre, mercury sperm, stygian water, ostrich stomach, vase, vase of the Philosophers, inspector of hidden things,
When the conjunction of mercury is made with the dissoluble body, the Philosophers only speak of the two as of one thing;& then they say that the Sages find in mercury everything they need. One should not therefore allow oneself to be deceived by the diversity of names; & to prevent errors of this kind, here are some of the main ones. Thick water, our water, second water, arcane, quicksilver, good, good that has many names, chaos, Hylé, our compost; our making, confused body, mixed body, copper, Æs of the Philosophers, brass, manure, aqueous smoke, burning humidity, foreign fire, unnatural fire, stone, mineral stone, unique stone, unique matter, confused matter of metals, menses, menses second, mining, our mining, metal mining, mercury, thickened mercury, coin, egg, egg of the Philosophers, root, unique root, stone known in the chapters of the books.It is finally with this mixture or mercury that most Authors begin their books and their treatises on the work.
From the vase of Art, and from that of Nature.
Three kinds of matrices, the first is the earth, the universal matrix of the world, the receptacle of the elements, the great vase of Nature, the place where the corruption of seeds takes place, the sepulcher & the living tomb of all creatures. It is in particular the matrix of the vegetable & the mineral.
The second matrix is that of the uterus in the animal; that of birds is the egg; & the only rock, that of gold & silver.
The third, that of metal, is known to few people; the matrix being, with the sperm, the cause of the specification of the metal.
The knowledge of this precious vessel, and of the fixed and saxific spirit implanted in it, was one of the greatest secrets of the cabal of the Egyptians.It was therefore necessary to seek a vessel analogous to that which Nature employs for the formation of metals; a vase which became the matrix of the golden tree of the Philosophers; and no one has found anything better than glass. They have added to it the manner of sealing it, in imitation of Nature, so that none of its principles should exhale. Because, as Raymond Lully says, the composition which is made of the substance of the vapors exhaled, and brought down on the matter which is corrupted, to moisten it, to dissolve it, is putrefaction. This vase must therefore have a shape suitable for facilitating the circulation of spirits,
Names given to this vase by the Ancients.
The Philosophers made sure to include this vase in their allegories, so that one would not have the slightest suspicion as to the idea they had of it. Sometimes it was a tower, sometimes a ship; here a chest; a basket there. Such was the tower of Danae; the chest of Deucalion, & the tomb of Osiris; the basket, the skin of Bacchus & its bottle; the golden amphora or Vase of Vulcan; the cup which Juno presented to Thetis the vessel of Jason, the marsh of Lerna, which was thus called from capsa, loculus; the basket of Erichthonius; the cassette in which Tennis Triodite was locked up with his sister Hémithée; Leda's room, the eggs from which were born Castor, Pollux, Clytemnestra & Helen;the city of Troye; the caves of monsters; the vases which Vulcan presented to Jupiter.
The casket Thetis gave to Achilles, in which we put the bones of Patroclus, and those of his friend. The cup with which Hercules crossed the sea to carry off the oxen of Gerion. The cave of Mount Helicon, which served as the home of the Muses & Phoebus; so many other things finally accommodated to the fables that were being invented about the great work.
The bed where Venus was found with Mars; the skin in which Orion was begotten; the clepsydra or horn of Amalthea, from I hide & water.Finally, the Egyptians understood nothing else by their wells, their sepulchers, their urns, their mausoleums in the form of pyramids. which served as the home of the Muses and Phoebus; so many other things finally accommodated to the fables that were being invented about the great work.
The bed where Venus was found with Mars; the skin in which Orion was begotten; the clepsydra or horn of Amalthea, from I hide & water. Finally, the Egyptians understood nothing else by their wells, their sepulchres, their urns, their mausoleums in the form of pyramids. which served as the home of the Muses and Phoebus; so many other things finally accommodated to the fables that were being invented about the great work.The bed where Venus was found with Mars; the skin in which Orion was begotten; the clepsydra or horn of Amalthea, from I hide & water. Finally, the Egyptians understood nothing else by their wells, their sepulchres, their urns, their mausoleums in the form of pyramids.
But what has further deceived those who have studied Hermetic Philosophy in books is that the vase of Art and that of Nature are not commonly distinguished therein. They speak sometimes of one, sometimes of the other, depending on whether the subject brings them. Without anyone making the distinction. They usually mention a triple vessel. Flamel represented it in his Hieroglyphs, under the figure of a writing desk.“This earthen vessel, in the form of a writing desk in a niche, is called, he says, the triple vessel; because in its middle there is a floor, on which there is a bowl full of warm ashes, in which is placed the Philosophical egg, which is a glass matrass, which you see painted in the form of a writing desk, and which is full of making art, that is to say, of the foam of the Red Sea & the grease of the mercurial wind. But it seems, by his description that he gives of this triple vessel, that he speaks not only of the vase, but of the furnace.
It is absolutely necessary to know the vase & its shape to succeed in the work. As for that of art, it must be of glass, oval in shape;but for that of Nature, the Philosophers tell us that we must be perfectly informed of its quantity and its quality. It is the earth of the stone, or the female, or the matrix in which the seed of the male is received, putrefies & prepares itself for generation. Morien speaks of this one in these terms: “You must know, O good King, that this magisterium is the Secret of the Most Great Secrets of God; he entrusted it & recommended it to his Prophets, whose souls he placed in his paradise. That if the Sages, their successors, had not understood what they had said of the quality of the vessel in which the magisterium is done, they would never have been able to do the work. "This vase, says Philalethes “is an aludel, not of glass, but of earth;it is the receptacle of tinctures; & respectively to the stone, it must contain (the first year of the Chaldeans) twenty-four full measures of Florence, no more, no less.
The Philosophers spoke of different vessels to deceive the ignorant. They even tried to make it a mystery like everything else. This is why they gave it various names, according to the different denominations which they liked to give to the various states of matter. Thus they mentioned alembic, cucurbite, sublimatory, calcinatory vases, &c. But there is only one vase of the art that d'Espagnet (Can. 112.& siuv.) describes thus: only vase to perfect the two sulfurs; a second is needed for the elixir.The diversity of digestions does not require a change of mud; it is even necessary not to open it, nor change it until the end of the first work. This vase will be of glass, having a round or oval bottom, & a neck long at least a palm, but narrow like that of a bottle; the glass must be equally thick in all its parts, without knots or cracks, so that it can withstand a long and sometimes intense fire. “
The second vase of art will be made of two hollow hemispheres of oak, in which the egg will be placed, to hatch it. Le Trévisan also mentions this oak trunk, in these terms (Philosoph. des Métals. 4. part.): raw, he raised there a hollow of oak sliced in the middle, which keeps the Sun and the shadow from him. »
The third vase, finally, is the furnace which encloses & preserves the two other vases & the matter they contain. Flamel says he could never have divined his form, had not Jewish Abraham depicted it with proportioned fire, in his hieroglyphic figures. Indeed, the Philosophers have included it among their secrets, & have named it Athanor because of the fire that is continually kept up there, although sometimes unequally, because the capacity of the furnace & the quantity of the material require a proportionate fire. As for its construction, we can see what d'Espagnet has to say about it.
Fire in general.
Although we have spoken of fire at some length in the Principles of Physics which precede this treatise, it is appropriate to say a few more words about it, as far as the work is concerned. We know three strong fires, the celestial, the fire of our kitchens, and the central fire.
The first is very pure, simple, & not burning by itself; the second is impure, thick, & burning; the central is pure in itself, but it is mixed & tempered. The first is engineering, & shines without burning; the second is destructive, & burns while shining, instead of generating; the third spawners & sometimes illuminates without burning, & sometimes burns without illuminating. The first is sweet, the second acrid & corrosive;the third is salty & sweet. The first is by itself colorless & odorless; the second, smelly & colorful. according to his food; the third is invisible, although of all colors and all smells. The celestial is known only by its operations; the second by the senses, and the central by its qualities.
The fire is very lively in the animal, stupid & bound in the metal, moderate in the vegetable, boiling & very burning in the mineral vapours.
The celestial fire has for its sphere the ethereal region, whence it makes itself felt even to us. Elemental fire resides on the surface of the earth, and our atmosphere; the central fire is lodged in the center of matter.The latter is tenacious, viscous, glutinous, & is innate in matter; it is digesting, maturing, neither hot nor burning to the touch; it dissipates & consumes very little, because its heat is tempered by the cold.
The celestial fire is sensitive, vital, active in the animal, warmer to the touch, less digestible, and is sensibly exhaled.
The elemental is destructive, incredibly voracious; it hurts the senses, it burns; it digests, cooks, and generates nothing. There is in the animal what Doctors call feverish heat & against nature, it consumes or divides the radical humor of our life.
The celestial passes into the nature of the central fire; it becomes internal, engendering; the second is external & separating; the central is internal, uniting & homogenizing.
The light or the fire of the Sun clothed with the rays of the Ether, concentrated & reverberated on the surface of the earth, takes on the nature of the elementary fire, or of our kitchens. This passes into the nature of celestial fire by dint of expanding, and becomes central by dint of concentrating in matter. We have an example of these three fires in a burning candle; its light in its expression represents celestial fire; its flame the elementary fire, and the wick the central fire.
As the fire of the animal is of an incredible dissipation, of which the greatest is done by insensible transpiration, the Philosophers have studied to seek some means of repairing this loss;& feeling well that this repair could not be done by what is impure & corruptible like the animal itself, they had recourse to a material, where this required heat was abundantly concentrated.
The art of Medicine, being unable to prevent this loss, and ignoring the abbreviated means of repairing it, has contented itself with going to the accidents which destroy our substance, which come either from the defects of the organs, or from the bad weather of the blood. , spirits, moods, of their abundance or scarcity, from which death inevitably follows, if an effective remedy is not brought to it, which the Doctors themselves confess to know only very imperfectly.
Philosophical Fire.
The reason which induced the ancient sages to make a mystery of their vase was the little knowledge that we had in those remote times, of the manufacture of glass. We discovered later how to do it; this is why the Philosophers no longer concealed so much the material and the form of their vase. It is not so with their secret fire; it is a labyrinth from which the most wise could not extricate themselves.
The fire of the Sun cannot be this secret fire; it is interrupted, even; it cannot support a heat that is similar in degree, measure, and duration.Its heat could not penetrate the thickness of the mountains, nor heat the coldness of the marbles and the rocks, which receive the mineral vapors from which gold and silver are formed.
The fire in our kitchens prevents the union of miscibles, and consumes or evaporates the bond of the constituent parts of bodies; he is his tyrant.
The central or inner fire in matter has the property of mixing substances, and of generating; but it cannot be that vaunted Philosophical heat which corrupts metallic seeds; because what is in itself a principle of corruption, can be so of generation only by accident: I say by accident; for the heat which hears is internal and innate to matter, and that which corrupts is external and foreign.
This heat is very different in the generation of the individuals of the three kingdoms. The animal greatly outweighs the plant in activity.
The heat of the vase in the generation of the metal must answer & be proportioned to the quality of the seed, the corruption of which is very difficult. We must therefore conclude that there being no generation without corruption, and no corruption without heat, it is necessary to proportion the heat to the seed that is used for generation.
There are therefore two heats, an external putredinal and an internal vital or generative. The internal fire obeys the heat of the vase until, untied & freed from its prison, it makes itself its master. The putrid heat comes to his aid, it passes into the nature of the vital heat,
It is therefore the vase which administers the heat suitable for corruption, and the seed which furnishes the fire suitable for generation; but as the heat of this vase is not so known for the metal as it is for the animal & the plant, it is necessary to reflect on what we have said of fire in general to find this heat. Nature has so proportionally measured it in her womb as to animals, that it can scarcely be increased or diminished; the matrix in this case is a true Athanor.
As for the heat of the vase for the corruption of the seed of vegetables, it must be very small; the Sun supplies it sufficiently; but it is not the same in Hermetic art.The matrix being of the invention of the Artist, wants a fire artistically invented & proportionate to that which Nature implants in the vase for the generation of mineral matters.
An anonymous Author says that to know the matter of this fire, it suffices to know how the elementary fire takes the form of the celestial fire, & that for its form, the whole secret consists in the form & the structure of the athanor, by by means of which, this fire becomes equal, gentle, continuous, & so proportioned that matter may corrupt, after which the generation of sulfur must take place, which will take dominion for some time, & will govern the rest of the work . This is why the Philosophers say that the female dominates during corruption, and the hot & dry male during generation.
Artephius is one of those who treated the Philosophical fire the longest; & Pontanus admits having been corrected, & recognized his error in reading the treatise of this Philosopher. Here is what he says about it: “Our fire is mineral, it is equal, it is continual, it does not evaporate, if it is not too strongly excited; it partakes of sulphur; it is taken from something other than matter, it destroys everything, it dissolves, freezes & calcines; there is artifice in finding it & doing it; it costs nothing, or at least very little.
Moreover, it is moist, vaporous, digesting, altering, penetrating, subtle, aerial, non-violent, incombustible, or which does not burn, surrounding, containing uniqueness.It is also the fountain of living water, which surrounds & contains the place where the King & Queen bathe and wash. This moist fire suffices in the whole work at the beginning, in the middle, and at the end; because all art consists of this fire. There is still a natural fire, a fire against nature, and an unnatural fire, and which does not burn, finally as a complement there is a hot, dry, humid, cold fire.
think well of what I have just said, and work straight, without using any foreign matter. What the same Author adds next is basically a true explanation of these three fires; but as he calls them fire of lamps, fire of ashes, and the natural play of our water; we can clearly see that he wanted to deceive him;those who want to see a more circumstantial detail of the Philosophical fire, can have recourse to the Testament of Raymond Lully & to his Codicile; d'Espagnet speaks of it just as loudly at length from the 98 Canon to the hundred and eighth.
The other Philosophers have almost only mentioned it to hide it, or have indicated it only by its properties. But when it was a question of allegories or fables, they gave to this fire the names of sword, spear, arrows, javelin, axe, etc. such was the one with which Vulcan struck Jupiter to make him give birth to Pallas; the sword that the same Vulcan gave to Peleus, father of Achilles; the club which he presented to Hercules; the bow that this hero received from Apollo;the scimitar of Perseus; the spear of Bellerophon, &c. It is the fire that Prometheus stole from Heaven; the one that Vulcan used to make the thunderbolts of Jupiter, and the weapons of the Gods, the belt of Venus, the golden throne of the Sovereign of Heaven, &c. Finally, there is the fire of Vesta, maintained so scrupulously in Rome, that the Vestal Virgins to whom the care of maintaining it had been entrusted were punished with death, when by negligence or otherwise they allowed it to be extinguished.
Operating principles.
The preparation consists of four parts. The first is the solution of matter in mercurial water; the second is the preparation of the Mercury of the Philosophers; the third is corruption; the fourth, the generation & creation of Philosophical sulphur. The first is through the mineral seed of the earth; the second volatilizes & spermatizes the bodies; the third makes the separation of substances & their rectification; the fourth units and fixes them, which is the creation of stone.The Philosophers compared the preparation to the creation of the world, which was first a mass, a chaos, an empty, shapeless & dark earth which was nothing in particular, but everything in general, the second is a form of ponderous & viscous water, full of the black spirit of its brimstone; & the third is the figure of the earth which seemed arid after the separation of the waters.
God said, the light was made, it came out of its limbo, and placed itself in the highest region. Then the darkness disappeared before her; chaos & confusion gave way to order, night to day, & so to speak, nothingness to being.
God spoke a second time; the confused elements separated, the lightest lodged at the top, and the heaviest at the bottom;then the earth, freed from its moist abysses, appeared and seemed capable of producing everything.
This separation of water from the earth, where the air found itself and the fire spread, is only a successive change of matter under this double form; what made the Philosophers say, that water is the whole foundation of the work, without which the earth could not be dissolved, rotted, prepared, & that the earth is the body where the humid elements end, freeze, & bury themselves in some way , to resume a more noble life.
A circulation then takes place, the first movement of which sublimates matter by rarefying it, the second lowers it by freezing it; & the whole ends finally in a kind of rest, or rather an internal movement, an insensitive coction of matter.
The first wheel of this rotation of elements, as d'Espagnet calls it, consists in the reduction of matter into water, where generation begins; the eclipse of the Sun & the Moon takes place next. The second is an evacuation of superfluous humidity, & a coagulation of matter in the form of a viscous & metallic earth, the third wheel operates the separation & the rectification of substances; the waters separate him from the waters. Everything is spiritualized or volatilized; the Sun and the Moon resume their brightness, and the light begins to appear on the earth. The fourth is the creation of sulfur.
“By the first digestion, says the Author I have just quoted (Can. 68. & seq.), the body dissolves; the conjunction of the male and the female, and the mixture of their seeds take place, putrefaction succeeds, and the elements are resolved into a homogeneous water. The Sun & the Moon eclipse at the head of the Dragon; & everyone finally returns & re-enters the ancient chaos & the dark abyss. This first digestion takes place, like that of the stomach, by a feeble and peaceful heat, more suitable for corruption than for generation. “
In the Second Digestion, the spirit of God is borne on the waters; the light begins to appear, and the waters separate from the waters;the Moon & the Sun reappear, the elements emerge from chaos to constitute a new world, a new sky, & a new earth. The little crows change their feathers and become doves; the eagle & the lion, unite by an indissoluble bond. “
This regeneration is done by the igneous spirit, which descends in the form of water to wash the matter of its original sin, and bring there the aurific seed, because the water of the Philosophers is a fire. But give your full attention that the separation of the waters be by weight and measure, lest those under the sky flood the earth, or rising in too great a quantity, they leave the earth too dry. & too arid. »
“The third digestion furnishes the nascent earth with a warm milk, and infuses into it all the spiritual virtues of a quintessence which links the soul with the body by means of the spirit. The earth then hides a great treasure within it, & first becomes like the Moon, then the Sun. The first is called earth of the Moon, the second earth of the Sun, & were born to be linked by an indissoluble marriage, because one & the other no longer fear the attacks of fire. »
“The fourth digestion completes all the mysteries of the world; the earth becomes by means of it a precious ferment, which ferments everything into perfect bodies, as leave changes all dough into its nature: it had acquired this property by becoming celestial quintessence.
Its virtue, emanating from the universal spirit of the world, is a panacea or universal medicine for all diseases of creatures which can be cured. The Secret Furnace of the Philosophers will give you this miracle of Art & Nature, by repeating the operations of the first work. The whole Philosophical process consists in the solution of the body & the congealing of the spirit, & everything is done by the same operation.The fixed & the volatile mingle intimately, but this cannot be done if the fixed is not previously volatilized.
One and the other finally embrace each other, and by reduction they become absolutely fixed.
The operative principles, which are also called the keys to the work, or the system, are therefore four in number: the first is solution or liquefaction; the second ablution; the third reduction; & the fourth fixing. By the solution, the bodies return to their first matter, and reincrust themselves by coction. Then the marriage takes place between the male and the female, and the crow is born. The stone is resolved into four elements confused together; heaven & earth unite to bring Saturn into the world.Ablution teaches how to whiten the crow, and to bring Jupiter from Saturn: this is done by changing the body into the spirit. The function of reduction is to restore to the body its spirit which volatilization had taken from it, and then to nourish it with a spiritual milk, in the form of dew, “During these last two operations, says d'Espagnet, the Dragon descended from heaven, becomes furious with itself; it devours its tail, and is swallowed up little by little, until finally it metamorphoses into stone.
Such was the Dragon of which Homer speaks (Iliad. 1. 2. v. 306. & seq.): he is the true image, or the true symbol of these two operations.“While we were assembled under a beautiful plane tree, said Ulysses to the Greeks, and while we were there to make hecatombs, near a fountain which welled up from this tree, a marvelous prodigy appeared. A horrible Dragon whose back was spotted, sent by Jupiter himself, came out from the bottom of the altar, and ran to the plane tree. At the top of this tree were eight little sparrows with their mother who fluttered around them. The Dragon seizes them with fury, & even the mother who mourned the loss of her little ones. After this action the same God who had sent him, made him beautiful, brilliant, and changed him to stone in our astonished eyes. I leave it to the reader to apply it.
Operating principles in particular.
The Calcination.
Ordinary calcination is nothing other than the death and mortification of the mixture, by the separation of the spirit, or of the humidity which binds its parts. It is properly speaking a pulverization by fire, and a reduction of the body into lime, ashes, earth, flowers, etc.
Philosophy is an extraction of substance from water, salt, oil, spirit, & the rest of the earth, & a change of accidents, an alteration of quantity, a corruption of substance, yet so that all these separate things may come together to come a more perfect body. The vulgar calcination is done by the action of the fire of kitchens, or of the concentrated rays of the Sun Philosophy has water for agent, which made the Philosophers say: The Chemists burn with fire, & we burn with water. 'water;
from which we must conclude that vulgar chemistry is as different from Hermetic chemistry as fire is from water.
Solution.
The solution, chemically speaking, is an attenuation or liquefaction of matter in the form of water, oil, spirit or mood. But Philosophy is a reduction of the body to its first matter, or a natural disunion of the parts of the compound, and a coagulation of the spiritual parts. This is why the Philosophers call it a solution of the body & a freezing of the mind. Its effect is to aquefy, dissolve, open, reincrude, decook, & evacuate substances from their earthiness, to decorporate the mixture to reduce it to sperm.
Putrefaction.
Putrefaction is in some way the key to all operations, although it is not properly the first. It reveals to us the interior of the mixture: it is the tool which breaks the bonds of the parts; it makes, as the Philosophers say, the manifest occult. It is the principle of the change of forms, the death of accidents, the first step in generation, the beginning and the end of life; the middle between non-being & being.
The Philosopher wishes it to take place when the dissolved body by a natural resolution is subjected to the action of putridinal heat.Distillation & sublimation were only invented in imitation of those of Nature with regard to the elements, whose inclination or disposition to rarefy & rise, to condense & descend, do all the mixing & productions of Nature.
Distillation differs from sublimation, in that the former is done by the elevation of wet things, which then distil drop by drop, whereas sublimation & elevation of a dry matter attaches itself to the vessel. Both are vulgar.
Distillation & sublimation, philosophically speaking, are a purgation, subtilization, rectification of matter.
Coagulation & fixation are the two great instruments of Nature & Art.
Fermentation.
The leaven is in the work what the leaven is in the manufacture of bread. One cannot make unleavened bread, and one cannot make gold without gold. Gold is therefore the soul & what determines the intrinsic form of the stone. Let us not blush to learn to make gold and silver, as the baker makes bread, which is only a compound of water and kneaded, fermented flour, which does not differ the other only by cooking. In the same way, golden medicine is only a composition of earth and water, that is to say, of sulfur and mercury fermented with gold; but with a re-incrusted gold. For just as one cannot make leave out of baked bread, one cannot make one out of vulgar gold, as long as it remains vulgar gold,
Mercury or mercurial water is that water, sulfur that flour, which by a long fermentation sour and are made leaven, with which gold and silver are made. And as leaven multiplies eternally, & always serves as material to make bread, Philosophical medicine also multiplies, & serves eternally as leaven to make gold.
Demonstrative signs or principles.
The colors which occur to the Philosophical matter during the course of the operations of the work are demonstrative signs, which make known to the Artist that he has proceeded in such a way as to succeed. They follow one another immediately & by order, if this order is disturbed, it is proof that one has operated badly. There are three main colors; the first is the black one, called crow's head, and by many other names which we have mentioned above in the article entitled Clef de l'oeuvre.
The beginning of this darkness indicates that the fire of Nature has begun to operate, and that matter is on the way to solution; when this black color is perfect, so is the solution, and the elements are confused. The grain rots to be ready for generation.“He who does not blacken cannot whiten,” said Artephius; because blackness is the beginning of whiteness, and it is the mark of putrefaction and alteration. Here's how it's done. In the putrefaction which takes place in black water, there first fatty appears a blackness which resembles broth, on which pepper has been thrown. This liquor having then thickened, becomes like a black earth; it whitens by continuing to cook it.... & just as heat acting on moisture produces blackness, which is the first color that appears; in the same way the heat always continuing its action, it produces the whiteness which is the second principal of the work. »
This action of fire on the moist does everything in the work, as it does everything in Nature, for the generation of mixtures. Ovid had said it:
.... Ubi temperiem sumpsere humorque calorque
Conciptunt: & ab his oriuntur cungta duobus.
Metam. 1.I.
The second demonstrative sign or the second main color is white. Hermes (Sept. chap.) says: Know, son of science, that the vulture cries from the top of the mountain, I am the white of the black; because whiteness follows blackness. Morien calls this whiteness white smoke. Alphidius teaches us that this matter or this white smoke is the root of the art, and the quicksilver of the Sages.
During this putrefaction, the Philosophical male or sulfur is confused with the female, so that they no longer form but one and the same body, which the Philosophers call Hermaphrodite: “It is, says Flamel (Loco cit.), the androgyne of the Ancients, the crow's head, & the converted lunatics. In this way, I paint you here that you have two reconciled natures, which can form an embryo in the womb of the vessel, & then give birth to you a very powerful, invincible, & incorruptible King...
Our matter in this state is the Serpent Python, who having taken his being from the corruption of the silt of the earth, must be put to death, & vanquished by the arrows of the God Apollo, by the blond Sun; that is to say, by our fire, equal to that of the Sun.The one who washes or rather those enemas that must be continued with the other half, it is the teeth of this serpent that the Wise operator, the prudent Cadmus, will sow in the same earth, from which will be born soldiers, who will destroy themselves, allowing themselves to be resolved in the same nature of earth.... The envious Philosophers have called this confection, Rebis, & again Numus, Ethelia, Arene, Boritis, Corsusle, Cambar, Albar œres, Duenech, Bauderie, Kukul, Thaburis, Ebisemeth, Ixir, &c. that's what they ordered laundered.
I have spoken long enough of this darkness in the article on operative principles: the reader can have recourse to it. Arene, Boritis, Corsusle, Cambar, Albar œres, Duenech, Bauderie, Kukul, Thaburis, Ebisemeth, Ixir, &c.that's what they ordered laundered. I have spoken long enough of this darkness in the article on operative principles: the reader can have recourse to it. Arene, Boritis, Corsusle, Cambar, Albar œres, Duenech, Bauderie, Kukul, Thaburis, Ebisemeth, Ixir, &c. that's what they ordered laundered. I have spoken long enough of this darkness in the article on operative principles: the reader can have recourse to it.
Philalethes (Narrat. method. p. 36.) assures us that this quicksilver is the true mercury of the Philosophers. “This quicksilver, he says, extracted from this very subtle blackness, is the Philosophical tinging mercury with its white and red sulfur naturally mixed together in their ore. »
The Philosophers have given it among other names the following, White copper, lamb, spotless lamb, aibathest, whiteness, aiborach, holy water, heavy water, talc, animated quicksilver, coagulated mercury, purified mercury, silver, zoticon, arsenic, orpiment, gold, white gold, azoch, baurach, borax, ox, cambar, caspa, white lead, wax, chaia, comerisson, white body, improperly said body, December, E, electra, essence, white essence, Euphrates, Eve , fada, favonius, the foundation of the art, precious stone of givinis, diamond, lime, white gum, hermaphrodite, hœ, hypostasis, hyle, enemy, tasteless, milk, virgin's milk, known stone, mineral stone, unique stone, moon, moon in its plane, white magnesia, alum, mother, single matter of metals, device means, menstruation, mercury in its sunset, oil, living oil, vegetable, egg, phlegm, white lead, point,root, art root, single root, rebis, salt, alkali salt, alerot salt, alembrot salt, fufible salt, nature salt, rock salt, metal salt, sage soap, seb, secondine, sedine, old age, sesh, serinech, fugitive serf, left hand, companion, sister, metals sperm, spirit, tin, sublimated, juice, sulphur, white sulphur, unctuous sulphur, earth, leafy earth, fertile earth, potential earth , field in which gold must be sown, tevos, tincar , vapor, evening star, wind, virago, glass, Pharaoh's glass, twenty-one, children's urine, vulture, zibach, ziva, veil, veil white, narcissus, lily, white rose, charred bone, eggshell, &c.secondine, sedine , old age, sesh, serinech, fugitive serf, left hand, mate, sister, metals sperm, spirit, tin, sublimated, suc, sulphur, white sulphur, unctuous sulphur, earth, leafy earth, fertile earth, earth in power,field in which to sow gold, tevos, tincar, vapor, evening star, wind, virago, glass, Pharaoh's glass, twenty-one, children's urine, vulture, zibach, ziva, veil, white veil, narcissus, lily, white rose, charred bone, eggshell, &c.secondine, sedine, old age, sesh, serinech, fugitive serf, left hand, mate, sister, metals sperm, spirit, tin, sublimated, suc, sulphur, white sulphur, unctuous sulphur, earth, leafy earth, fertile earth, earth in power, field in which to sow gold, tevos, tincar, vapor, evening star, wind, virago, glass, Pharaoh's glass, twenty-one, children's urine, vulture, zibach, ziva, veil, white veil, narcissus, lily, white rose, charred bone, eggshell, &c.vulture, zibach, ziva, veil, white veil, narcissus, lily, white rose, charred bone, eggshell, &c.vulture, zibach, ziva, veil, white narcissus,lily, white rose, charred bone, eggshell, &c.
Artephius says that the whiteness comes from the fact that the soul of the body floats above the water like a white cream; & that the spirits then unite so strongly, that they can no longer flee, because they have lost their volatility.
The great secret of the work is therefore to whiten the brass, and leave all the books there, so as not to be embarrassed by reading them, which could give rise to ideas of some useless and expensive work.
This whiteness is the perfect stone to white; it is a precious body which, when it is fermented and has become an elixir to white, is full of an exuberant tint, which it has the property of communicating to all other metals. The previously volatile spirits are then fixed. The new body resurrects beautiful, white, immortal, victorious. This is why it has been called resurrection, light, day, and all the names that can indicate whiteness, fixity, and incorruptibility.
Flamel represented this color in his Hieroglyphic figures, by a woman surrounded by a white scroll, to show you, he says, "that Rebis will begin to whiten in this same way, whitening first at the extremities all around this white circle. The Philosophers ' Scale (Scala Philosop.) says: The sign of the first part of whiteness, is when one sees a certain small capillary circle; that is to say, passing over the head, which will appear around the material at the sides of the vessel , in color tending towards orange. " As black and white are, so to speak, two extremes, and since two extremes can only be united by a medium, matter, in leaving the color black, does not suddenly become white; the gray color is intermediate, because it participates in both.
The Philosophers, followed by the same Flamel, also represented this whiteness under the figure of a shining naked sword. “When you have whitened, adds the same Author, you have conquered the enchanted Bulls who threw fire and smoke through your nostrils. Hercules cleaned the stable full of filth, rot & blackness. Jason poured the juice on the Dragons of Colchos, & you have in your power the horn of Amalthea, which even though it is only white, can fill you with all the rest of your life, glory, honor & of riches.
To get it, you had to fight valiantly & like a Hercules.Because this Acheloüs, this humid river (which is the darkness, the black water of the Esep river) is endowed with a very powerful force, apart from the fact that it very often changes from one form to another. The Philosophers gave it the name of Jupiter, because it succeeds black, which they called Saturn. This is what made d'Espagnet say that air succeeds water after it has completed its seven revolutions, which Flamel called Inhibitions. Matter, adds d'Espagnet, having fixed itself at the bottom of the vase, Jupiter, after having driven out Saturn, seizes the Kingdom, and takes over its government. At his advent the Philosophical child is formed, nourished in the womb, & finally comes to light with a face beautiful, brilliant, & white as the Moon.
This white matter is therefore a universal remedy for all diseases of the human body.
Finally the third main color is red: it is the complement & the perfection of the stone. This redness is obtained by the sole continuation of the cooking of the material. After the first work, one calls it male sperm, philosophical gold, stone fire, royal crown, son of the Sun, celestial fire miner.
We have already said that most Philosophers begin their treatises of the work with a red-hot stone. Those who read these works cannot pay too much attention to this. Because it is a source of error for them, both because they cannot guess what matter the Philosophers are talking about then, and because of the operations, the proportions of the materials which are in the second work, or the manufacture of the elixir, very different from those of the first.
Although Morien assures us that this second operation is only a repetition of the first, it is good however to notice that what they call fire, air, earth & water in one, are not the same things as those to which they give the same names in the other. Their mercury is called mercury, both in liquid and dry form.Those, for example, who read Alphidius, imagine, when he calls the material of the work, red mining, that it is necessary to seek, for the first beginning of the operations, a red material; some consequently work on cinnabar, others on minium, others on orpiment, others on iron rust; because they do not know that this red mineral is the perfect stone for red, and that Alphidius only begins his work from there. But so that those who read this work, and who want to work, are not deceived, here are a large number of names given to the red stone.Acid, acute, adam, aduma, almagra, altum or high, azernard, soul, ram, gold, bright gold, altered gold, cancer, cadmium, camereth, bile, chibur, ash, ash of tartar, corsuste, body, body proper said, red body, straight, deeb, dehab, summer, iron, form, form of man, brother, fruit, rooster, cockscomb, gabricius, gabrius, gophrith, ethiopia grain, gum, red gum, hageralzarnard, man, fire, nature fire, infinity, youth, hebrit, stone, indian stone, indradem stone, lasule stone, red stone, gold litharge, red litharge, light, morning.Mars, marteck, buck, red magnesia, metros, mining, neusi, Mars oil, incombustible oil, red oil, olive, perpetual olive, orient, father, part, starstone, phison, king, reezon, residence, redness, ruby, salt , red salt, seed, sericon, sun, sulfur, red sulfur, bright sulfur, tamne, third, thirteenth, red earth, theriac, thelima, thion, thita, toarech, vare, vein, blood, poppy, red wine, wine, virago, egg yolk, red vitriol, chalcitis, colchotar, cochineal, glass, zaaph, zahau, zit, zumech, zumelazuli, "If you are curious to push to red, add the element of fire which whiteness lacks: without touching or stirring the vase, but tonifying the fire by degrees, push its action on matter until the occult becomes manifest, the clue will be the color citrine.
But all these names were not given to him for the same reason; the Authors in these different denominations have had regard only to the manner of envisaging it, sometimes in relation to its color, sometimes to its qualities. Those, for example, who have named this matter or stone red, acid, adam, summer, almagra, soul, ram, gold, cancer, camereth, ash of tartar, corusted, deeb, brother, fruit, rooster, youth, kibrit, pierre indrademe, marteck, male, father, sun, third, neusis, olive, thion, glass, zaaph, named her thus only because of the alteration of her complexion.
Those who have had in view only its color have called it red gum, red oil, ruby, sericon, red sulphur, egg yolk, red vitriol, &c. that you imbibe, you will hardly have any black, but rather purple, blue,& the color of the peacock's tail: for our stone is so triumphant in dryness, that as soon as your mercury touches it, nature rejoicing in its nature, join it, & drinks it greedily; & hence the black that comes from humidity can only be shown a little under these violet & blue colors, especially since dryness now absolutely governs... But remember to begin the rubification by affixing the red-orange mercury, but hardly any should be poured in, & only once or twice, depending on what you see: because this operation must be done by dry fire, sublimation & dry calcination.
And truly I am telling you here a secret which you will very rarely find written down. nature , rejoicing in its nature, join it, and drink it greedily;& hence the black that comes from humidity can only be shown a little under these violet & blue colors, especially since dryness now absolutely governs... But remember to begin the rubification by affixing the red-orange mercury, but hardly any should be poured in, & only once or twice, depending on what you see: because this operation must be done by dry fire, sublimation & dry calcination. And truly I am telling you here a secret which you will very rarely find written down. nature , rejoicing in its nature, join it, and drink it greedily;& hence the black that comes from humidity can only be shown a little under these violet & blue colors, especially since dryness now absolutely governs...
But remember to begin the rubification by affixing the red-orange mercury, but hardly any should be poured in, & only once or twice, depending on what you see: because this operation must be done by dry fire, sublimation & dry calcination. And truly I am telling you here a secret which you will very rarely find written down. Now remember to begin the rubification by affixing red-orange mercury, but hardly any should be poured in, and only once or twice, depending on what you see: for this operation must be done by dry fire, sublimation & dry calcination.And truly I am telling you here a secret which you will very rarely find written down. Now remember to begin the rubification by affixing red-orange mercury, but hardly any should be poured in, and only once or twice, depending on what you see: for this operation must be done by dry fire, sublimation & dry calcination. And truly I am telling you here a secret which you will very rarely find written down. »
In this operation the fixed body vanishes; it goes up and down by circulating in the vessel, until the fixed having conquered the volatile, it precipices it to the bottom with it to form only a body of an absolutely fixed nature. What we have reported from Flamel must be understood as the elixir, so we will speak hereafter;but as for the operations of the first work, or of the manner of making Philosophical sulfur, d'Espagnet describes it thus (Lum. 109.): "Choose a red, comatose Dragon, which has lost none of its natural force: then seven or nine virgin Eagles, bold, whose rays of the Sun are not capable of dazzling the eyes: lead them with the Dragon into a clear transparent prison, well closed, & above a hot bath, to excite them in combat.
come to grips; the fight will be long & very painful until the forty-fifth or fiftieth day, when the Eagles will begin to devour the Dragon. As he dies, he will infect the whole prison with his corrupted blood, and with a very black venom, the violence of which the Eagles, unable to resist, will also expire.From the putrefaction of their corpses will be born a crow, which will raise its head little by little; & by the increase of the bath, it will spread its wings, & begin to fly; the wind, the clouds will carry it here and there; tired of being thus tormented, he will try to escape: take care therefore that he finds no way out. Finally washed & whitened by a constant rain, of long duration, & a celestial dew, we will see him metamorphosed into a swan. The birth of the crow will tell you the death of the Dragon. This Philosophical Sulfur is a land of extreme tenuity, igneity and dryness. It contains a very abundant natural fire, which is why it has been called stone fire.
Then govern the fire of the fourth degree always by the required degrees, until by the help of Vulcan, you see red roses hatching which will change into amaranths, the color of blood. But don't stop making fire work with fire, so that you don't see the whole thing reduced to very red and impalpable ashes. »
It has the property of opening, of penetrating the bodies of metals, and of changing them into its own nature: it is therefore called father and masculine seed.
The three colors black, white & red must necessarily follow one another in the order we have described them; but they are not the only ones that show up. They indicate the essential changes which occur in matter: whereas the other colors, almost infinite & similar to those of the rainbow, are only transient & of a very short duration. These are species of vapors which affect the air rather than the earth, which drive each other out, and which dissipate to make room for the three main ones of which we have spoken.
These foreign colors are, however, sometimes signs of a bad regime, and of a badly conducted operation; the repeated darkness is a sure mark of it: for the little crows, says d'Espagnet (Can.66.), should not return to the nest after having left it. Premature redness is also of this number; for it must appear only at the end, as proof of the maturity of the grain, and of the time of the harvest.
From the Elixir.
It is not enough to have arrived at the Philosophical sulfur that we have just described; most of them have been deceived by it, and have abandoned the work in that state, believing that they have pushed it to perfection. Ignorance of the processes of Nature and Art are the cause of this error. In vain would one try to make the projection with this sulfur or red stone. The Philosopher's Stone can only be perfected at the end of the second work, which is called Elixir.
From this first sulfur we make a second, which we can then multiply ad infinitum. We must therefore carefully preserve this first mine of celestial fire for the required use.
The elixir, according to d'Espagnet, is composed of a triple substance; to know, of a metallic water, or philosophically sublimated mercury, white ferment, if one wants to make the elixir with the white, or red ferment for the elixir with the red, & finally of the second sulfur; all according to Philosophical weights & proportions. The elixir must have five qualities, it must be fusible, permanent, penetrating, tinging & multiplying; it draws its tincture and its fixation from the ferment; its fusibility of quicksilver, which serves as a means of uniting the tinctures of ferment and sulfur; & its multiplicative property comes to it from the spirit of the quintessence which it has naturally.
The two perfect metals give a perfect tincture, because they take theirs from the pure sulfur of Nature; we must not therefore look for its leave elsewhere than in these two bodies. So tint your white elixir with the Moon, and the red with the Sun. Mercury first receives this tincture, and then communicates it. Take care not to make a mistake in the mixture of ferments, and do not mistake one for the other, you would lose everything. This second work is done in the same vase, or in a vase similar to the first, in the same furnace, and with the same degrees of fire; but it is much shorter.
The perfection of the elixir consists in the perfect marriage & union of the dry & the humid, so that they are inseparable, & the humid gives the dry the property of being fusible at the slightest heat. We test it by putting a little on a heated copper or iron plate, if it first melts without smoke, we have what we want.
Practice of the following Elixir d'Espagnet.
“Red earth or red ferment three parts, water & air taken together six parts; mix the whole, & grind to make an amalgam, or metallic paste, of the consistency of butter, so that the earth is impalpable, or insensitive to tact; add a part and a half of fire to it, and put the whole in a vase, which you will seal perfectly. Give it a fire of the first degree, for digestion; you will then make the extraction of the elements by the degrees of fire which are proper to them, until they are all reduced to fixed earth.
Matter will become like a shiny, transparent, red stone, and will then be in its perfection. Take it at will, put it in a crucible on a light fire, & soak this part with its red oil,inserting it drop by drop until it melts & flows without smoke. Do not be afraid that your mercury will evaporate, because the earth will drink with pleasure and greed this humor which is of its nature. You then have your perfect elixir. Thank God for the favor he has done you, use it for his glory, and keep it secret.”
The white elixir is made in the same way as the red; but with white ferments, & white oil.
Quintessence.
The quintessence is an extraction of the most spiritual & radical substance of matter; it is done by the separation of the elements which end in a celestial & incorruptible essence released from all heterogeneity. Aristotle calls it a very pure substance, incorporated in certain matter not mixed with accidents.
Heraclitus calls it a celestial essence, which takes the name of the place from which it originates. Paracelsus says it, the being of our centric sky; Pliny, a corporeal essence, nevertheless separated from all materiality, and freed from the commerce of matter. She was accordingly named a spiritual body, or corporeal spirit, made of an Ethereal substance.All these qualities have given it the name of quintessence, that is to say, a fifth substance,
The Philosophical Secret consists in separating the elements from the mixtures, in rectifying them, & by the reunion of their pure, homogeneous & spiritualized parts, to make this quintessence, which contains all their properties, without being subject to their alteration.
The dye.
When the ignorant in the Hermetic Philosophy read the term tincture in the works which treat of this Science, they imagine that it is to be understood only of the color of metals, such as orange for gold, & white for the money. And as it is said in these same works, that sulfur is the principle of tincture; one works to extract this sulfur by forced waters, aqua regia, by calcination and the other operations of vulgar chemistry.
This is not properly the idea of the Philosophers, not only for the operations, but for the tincture taken in itself. The tincture of gold cannot be separated from its body, because it is its soul; & that it could not be extracted without destroying the body; which is not possible with vulgar chemistry,
The tincture, in the Philosophical sense, is the elixir itself, made fixed, fusible, penetrating & tinging, by the corruption & the other operations of which we have spoken. This tinting therefore does not consist in the external color, but in the very substance which gives the tinting with the metallic form. It acts like saffron in water; it penetrates even more than oil does on paper; it mixes intimately like wax with wax, like water with water, because the union is made between two things of the same nature.
It is from this property that it derives that of being an admirable panacea for the diseases of the three kingdoms of Nature;it will seek in them the radical and vital principle, which it rids, by its action, of the heterogeneous which embarrasses it, and hold it in prison; she comes to his aid, & joins him to fight his enemies. They then act in concert, and win a perfect victory. This quintessence expels the impurity of bodies, as fire evaporates the humidity of wood; it preserves health, by giving strength to the principle of life to resist the attacks of disease, and to separate the truly nutritious substance of food from that which is only its vehicle.
The multiplication.
We mean by Philosophical multiplication, an increase in quantity & in qualities, & one & the other beyond anything we can imagine. That of quality is a multiplication of tinting by corruption, volatilization & fixation repeated as many times as the Artist pleases. The second only increases the quantity of the tincture, without increasing its virtues.
The second sulfur multiplies with the same matter of which it was made, by adding to it a small part of the first. According to the weights & measures required. There are nevertheless three ways of carrying out the multiplication if we are to believe d'Espagnet, who describes them as follows. The first is to take one part of the red perfect elixir, which one mixes with nine parts of its red water; we put the vase in the bath, to dissolve the whole in water. After the solution, this water is cooked until it coagulates into a material similar to a ruby; one then inserts this matter in the manner of the elixir; &, from this first operation, medicine acquires ten times more virtues than it had.If we repeat this same process a second time, it will increase by one hundred; a third time of a thousand,
The Second way is to mix the quantity that one wants of elixir with its water while keeping there however the proportions between one & the other, & after having put the whole in a vase of reduction well sealed, to dissolve it in the bath, & follow the whole regime of the second by successively distilling the elements by their own fires, until the whole becomes stone, one then inserts as in the other, & the virtue of the elixir increases by one hundred from the first time, but this way is longer. It is repeated like the first, to increase its strength more and more.
Finally, the third is properly multiplied in quantity.One projects an ounce of the elixir multiplied in quality on one hundred ounces of purified common mercury; this mercury put on a small fire will soon change into an elixir. If one ounce of this new elixir be thrown on one hundred ounces of other purified common mercury, it will become very fine gold. The multiplication of the elixir to the white is done in the same way, by taking the white elixir & its water, instead of the red elixir.
The more we reiterate the multiplication in quality, the more effect it will have in the projection; but not in the third manner of multiplication of which we have spoken; because its strength decreases with each projection.One can, however, push this reiteration only up to the fourth or fifth time, because medicine would then be so active & so fiery that the operations would become instantaneous; since their duration shortens with each reiteration; its virtue, moreover, is great enough on the fourth or fifth time to satisfy the desires of the Artist, since from the first one grain can convert a hundred grains of mercury into gold, on the second thousand, on the third ten thousand, on the fourth hundred thousand, &c. This medicine should be judged like grain, which multiplies each time it is sown.
Weights in the Work.
Nothing is more confused than the weights and proportions required in the Philosophical work. All the Authors speak of them, and not one explains them clearly. One says that one must measure one's fire clibanically (Flamel.); the other geometrically (D'Espagnet & Artéphius.). This one, following the heat of the Sun from spring to autumn; this one, that a feverish heat is needed, &c. But the Trevisan advises us to give a slow & weak fire rather than a strong one, because then we only risk finishing the work later, instead of forcing the fire, we are in obvious danger of losing everything. .
The compound of the mixtures & their life subsists only by the measure & the weight of the elements combined & proportioned in such a way that one does not dominate over the others like a tyrant. If there is too much fire, the germ burns itself; if too much water, the seminal & radical spirit is suffocated, if too much air & earth, the compound will have either too much or too little consistency, and each element will not have its free action.
This difficulty is not, however, so great as it first appears on the first reading of the Philosophers;some warn us (Le Trévisan.) that Nature always has the balance in hand to weigh these elements, and to make her mixtures of them so proportioned, that the mixtures always result from them which she proposes to make, unless it is not hindered in its operations by the defect of the matrix in which it performs its operations, or by that of the seeds which are supplied to it, or finally by other accidents. We even see in vulgar chemistry, that two heterogeneous bodies do not mingle together, or cannot remain united for long, that when water has dissolved a certain quantity of salt, it does not dissolve any more; that the more the bodies have affinity together, the more they seem to seek each other, & leave even those who have the least to reunite with those who have the most.These experiences are known, particularly between minerals & metals.
The Artist of the great work proposes Nature as a model; he must therefore study this Nature in order to be able to imitate it.
But how to find its weights and its combinations? When she wants to do something mixed, she does not call us to her council, nor to her operations, so much to see her constitute materials, as her work in the use she makes of it. The Hermetic Philosophers never tire of advising us to follow Nature; no doubt they know her, since they pride themselves on being her disciples. He would therefore be in their works that one could learn to imitate him.But one (Artephius.) says "it only takes one thing to complete the work, that there is only one stone, one medicine, one vessel, a diet, & only one arrangement or way to successively make the white & the red . Thus , whatever we say, adds the same Author, put this, put that, we do not mean to take more than one thing, put it once in the vessel, and then close it until that the work is perfect & accomplished.... .. that the Artist has nothing else to do than to prepare the material externally as it should, because of itself it does internally all that is necessary to make oneself perfect....so only prepare & arrange matter, & Nature will do all the rest. ”& then close it until the work is perfect & accomplished...... that the Artist has nothing else to do than to prepare the material externally as it should, because of itself even she internally does all that is necessary to make herself perfect ....thus only prepares & arranges matter, & Nature will do all the rest. » & then close it until the work is perfect & accomplished...... that the Artist has nothing else to do than to prepare the material externally as it should, because of itself even she internally does all that is necessary to make herself perfect....thus only prepares & arranges matter, & Nature will do all the rest.
Raymond Lully warns us that this unique thing is not a single thing taken individually, but two things of the same nature,if there are two or more things to mix, it must be done with proportion, weight & measure. We spoke of them in the article on demonstrative signs, under the names of Eagle & Dragon; & we have also given the proportions of materials required for multiplication. We must see from this that the proportions of the materials are not the same in the first and the second work.
Very instructive general rules.
We should almost never take the words of the Philosophers literally, because all their terms have a double meaning, and they affect to use those which are equivocal. Or if they make use of terms known & used in ordinary language (Geber, d'Espagnet, & several others.), the more what they say seems simple, clear & natural, the more one must suspect artifice. . Timeo Danaos, & Dona Ferentes. In the places on the contrary where they seem confused, enveloped, and almost unintelligible, this is what must be studied with more attention. The truth is hidden there.
To better discover this truth, it is necessary to compare them with each other, to make a concordance of their expressions and their sayings, because one sometimes lets slip what another has deliberately omitted (Philalethes.). But in this collection of texts, we must be careful not to confuse what one says of the first preparation with what another says of the third.
Before putting the hand to work, one must have combined everything so much, that one no longer finds in the books of the Philosophers (Zachaire.) anything that one is not in a condition to explain by the operations that we propose to undertake. For this purpose, it is necessary to be sure of the material to be used;to see if it truly has all the qualities and properties by which the Philosophers designate it, since they admit that they have not named it by the name by which it is ordinarily known. It should be observed that this material costs nothing, or very little; that medicine, which the Philalethes (Enarr. Meth. Trium. Gebr. medic.), after Geber, calls medicine of the first order, or the first preparation, is perfected without much expense, in any place, at any time, by all kinds of people,
Nature perfects the mixtures only by things which are of the same nature (Cosmopolite.); one should therefore not take wood to perfect the metal. The animal breeds the animal, the plant produces the plant, and metallic nature metals.The radical principles of the metal are a sulfur & a quicksilver, but not the vulgar ones; these enter as a complement, as even constitute principles, but as combustible, accidental and separable principles from the true radical principle, which is fixed and unalterable. One can see on the matter what I reported about it in his article, in accordance with what the Philosophers say about it.
Any alteration of a mixture is done by dissolving it in water or powder, and it can only be perfected by separating the pure from the impure. Any conversion from one state to another is done by an agent, & in a determined time. Nature acts only successively; the Artist must do the same.
The terms conversion, desiccation, mortification, inspissation, preparation, alteration, mean only the same thing in the Hermetic Art. Sublimation, descension, distillation, putrefaction, calcination, freezing, fixation, ceration, are, as to themselves, different things; but they constitute in the work only one and the same operation continued in the same vessel. The Philosophers only gave all these names to the different things or changes they saw happening in the vessel. When they saw matter exhaling in subtle smoke, and rising to the top of the vase, they named this ascent, sublimation. Seeing then this vapor descends to the bottom of the vase, they called it descension, distillation.Morien says accordingly: our whole operation is to extract water from his land, & to put it back there until the earth rots & purifies itself. When they noticed that this water, mixed with its earth, coagulated or thickened, that it became black and smelly, they said that it was putrefaction, the principle of generation. This putrefaction lasts until the matter has turned white.
This matter being black, is reduced to powder when it begins to turn gray; this appearance of ashes gave birth to the idea of calcination, inceration, incineration, dealbation y & when it reached a great whiteness, they named it perfect calcination. Seeing that matter took on a solid consistency, that it no longer flowed, it formed their freezing, their induration;this is why they said that the whole magisterium consists in dissolving & coagulating naturally.
This same frozen matter, & hardened in such a way that it no longer dissolves in water, made them say, that it had to be dried & fixed; they have therefore given to this pretended operation the names of desiccation, fixation, ceration, because they explain this term from a perfect union of the volatile part with the fixed one in the form of a powder or white stone.
This operation must therefore be regarded as unique, but expressed in different terms. We will also know that all the following expressions also mean only the same thing. Distill in the still, separate the soul from the body; burning; to aquefy, to calcine; create; give to drink; fit together; to feed; to assemble; to correct; sift; cut with pliers; divide; unit the elements; extract them; exalt them; convert them; change them into each other; to cut with the knife, to strike with the sword, the axe, the scimitar; pierce with spear, javelin, the arrow;knockout; crush; bind; unties; to bribe; folly; melt; engender; design; give birth; draw; moist; water; imbibes; impasto; amalgamate; bury; insert; wash; wash with fire; soften; polish; queue; beat with the hammer; mortify; blacken; putrefy; revolve around; circulate; redden; dissolve; sublime; to wash; bury, resuscitate, reverberate, crush; powder; pound in the mortar;to spray on the marble, & so many other similar expressions: all that means to cook by the same regime, until dark red. One must therefore take care not to stir the vase, and to remove it from the fire; for if matter were to cool, all would be lost.
Virtues of Medicine.
It is, according to the saying of all the Philosophers, the source of wealth and health; since with it one can make gold and silver in abundance, and one is cured not only of all the illnesses that can be cured, but that, by its moderate use, one can prevent them. A single grain of this medicine or red elixir, given to paralytics, hydropics, gouts, lepers, will cure them, provided they take the same quantity for a few days only. Epilepsy, colic, colds, inflammations, phrenosis & any other internal disease cannot stand against this principle of life. Some Adepts have said that she gave hearing to the deaf & sight to the blind; that it is an assured remedy against all kinds of eye diseases, all apostemias, ulcers, wounds, cancers, fistula,moli me-tangere, & all diseases of the skin, by dissolving a grain of it in a glass of wine or water, so that external ailments are bathed, that it gradually melts the stone in the bladder; let her drive out all venom & poison by drinking as above.
Raymond Lully (Testam. antiq.) asserts that it is in general a sovereign remedy against all the evils which afflict humanity, from the feet to the head; that it heals them in a day, if they have lasted a month, in twelve days, if they last a year; & in a month, however old they may be.
Arnaud de Villeneuve (Rosari.) says that its effectiveness is infinitely superior to that of all the remedies of Hippocrates, Galen, Alexander, Avicenna & all ordinary Medicine;that it rejoices the heart, gives vigor and strength, preserves youth, and makes old age green again. In general, that it cures all diseases, whether hot or cold, whether lick or moist.
Geber (Summâ.), without enumerating the illnesses that this medicine cures, is content to say that it overcomes all those that ordinary physicians regard as incurable. Let it rejuvenate old age & keep it healthy for many years, even beyond the ordinary course, by only taking the size of a mustard seed two or more times a week on an empty stomach.
Philalethe (Introît. Apert. & enarrat. Method.) adds to this that it cleanses the skin of all caches, wrinkles, &c. ; that she delivers the woman in child labor, were he dead, by holding only the powder in the nose of the mother;& cite Hermès as its guarantor. He claims to have himself pulled from the arms of death many patients abandoned by Doctors. We find the way to use it particularly in the works of Raymond Lully & Arnaud de Villeneuve.
Diseases of Metals.
The first vice of metals comes from the first mixture of principles with quicksilver, and the second is found in the union of sulfur and mercury. The more the elements are purified, the more they are proportionally mixed & homogeneous, the more they have weight, malleability, fusion, extension, fulgidity, & permanent incorruptibility.
There are therefore two kinds of diseases in the metals, the first is called original & incurable, the second comes from the diversity of the sulfur which makes their imperfection & their diseases, namely, the leprosy of Saturn, the jaundice of Venus, the Jupiter's cold, Mercury's dropsy, and Mars' gall.
The dropsy of mercury only happens to it from too much wateriness and rawness which find their cause in the coldness of the matrix where it is generated, and from lack of time to cook. This vice is an original sin therefore all the other metals participate. This coldness, this crudeness, this wateriness can only be cured by the heat & the igneity of a very powerful sulphur.
Besides this disease, the other metals also have that which comes to them from their internal as well as external sulphur. The latter, being only accidental, can easily be separated, because it is not of the first mixture of the elements. It is black, impure, stinking, it does not mix with the radical sulphur, because it is heterogeneous to it.It is not susceptible to a decoction that can make it radical & perfect.
The radical Sulfur purges, thickens, fixes in a perfect body the radical mercury; whereas the second suffocates it, absorbs it, & coagulates it with its own impurities & rawness; it then produces the imperfect metals. We see a proof of this in the coagulation of common mercury produced by the vapor of the sulfur of Saturn, extinguished by that of Jupiter.
This impure sulfur makes all the difference from the imperfect metals. The disease of the metals is therefore only accidental; there is therefore a remedy to cure them, and this remedy is the Philosophical powder, or Philosophical stone, called for this reason powder of projection.Its use is for metals, to enclose it in a little wax in proportion to the quantity of the metal that one wishes to transmute, and to throw it on mercury placed in a crucible on the fire, when the mercury is on the no smoking. The other metals must be smelted & purified. The crucible is left in the fire until after the detonation, and then it is withdrawn, or left to cool in the fire.
Stonetimes.
“The times of the stone are indicated, says d'Espagnet, by Philosophical & Astronomical water. The first blank work must be completed in the house of the Moon, the second in the second house of Mercury. The first works in red, in the second domicile of Venus; & the Second or last, in the house of exaltation of Jupiter; for it is from him that our King must receive his scepter and his crown adorned with precious rubies. Philalethes (Loco cit. p. 156.) never tires of recommending to the Artist to be well informed about weight, the measurement of time and fire ; that he will never succeed if he ignores the following five things about medicine of the third order.
The Philosophers reduce years to months, months to weeks, and weeks to days.
Every dry thing greedily drinks up the moisture of its kind.
It acts on this moisture, after it is soaked with it, with much more force & activity than before.
The more earth there is, and the less water, the more perfect the Solution. The true natural solution can only be made with things of the same nature; & what dissolves the Moon, also dissolves the Sun.
As for the determined time and its duration for the perfection of the work, we cannot conclude anything certain from what the philosophers say about it, because some, in determining it, do not speak of the one that must be employed in the preparation of agents : the others deal only with the elixir;others combine the two works; those who mention the work in red do not always speak of multiplication; others speak only of the white work; others have their particular intention. This is why there is so much difference in the works on this subject. One says it takes twelve years, another ten, seven, three, one and a half, fifteen months; sometimes it is such a number of weeks, a Philosopher has entitled his work: The work of three days. Another said it only needed four. Pliny the Naturalist says that the Philosophical month is forty days. Finally, everything is a mystery in the Philosophers.
Conclusion.
This whole treatise is taken from the Authors; I almost always used their own expressions. I have quoted some of them from time to time, in order to better persuade that I speak there only according to them. When I have not quoted their works, it is because I did not then have them under my hand. One must have noticed a perfect harmony there, although they only speak in riddles and allegories. I had originally intended to relate many features drawn from the twelve Keys of Basil Valentine, because he more often than the others used the allegories of the Gods of the Fable, and they would consequently have had a more immediate with the following treatise; but riddles do not explain riddles; besides, this work is quite common;it is not the same with others.
To understand more easily the explanations that I give in the treatise on Hieroglyphs, it will be known that the Philosophers ordinarily give the name of male or father, to the sulphurous principle, and the name of female to the mercurial principle. The fixed is also male or agent, the volatile is female or parient. The result of the union of the two is the Philosophical child, commonly male, sometimes female, when matter has only reached whiteness, because it does not yet have all the fixity of which it is susceptible; also the Philosophers have named it Moon, Diana; & the red, Sun, Apollo, Phoebus. Mercurial water & volatile earth are always female, often mother, like Ceres, Latona, Semele, Europa, &c.Water is usually designated by the names of girls, Nymphs, Naiads, &c. The internal fire is always masculine, & in action. Impurities are indicated by monsters.
Basil Valentine, whom I quoted above, introduces the Gods of the Fable, or the Planets, as interlocutors, in the abbreviated practice which he gives at the beginning of his Treatise on the Twelve Keys. Here is the stuff.
Dissolved in good gold as Nature infringes it, says this Author, you will find a seed which is the beginning, the middle and the end of the work, from which our gold and his wife are produced; to know, a subtle & penetrating spirit, a delicate soul, clear & pure, & a body or salt which is a balm of the Stars. These three things are united in our mercurial water.We led; this water to the God Mercury her father, who married her; there came an incombustible oil. Mercury threw down his eagle's wings, devoured his dragon's tail & attacked Mars, who took him prisoner, & constituted Vulcan for his Jailer.
Saturn presented himself, and conjured the other gods to avenge him for the evils that Mercury had done him. Jupiter approved of Saturn's complaints, and gave his orders, which were carried out. Mars then appeared with a flaming sword, varied in admirable colors, and gave it to Vulcan so that he might execute the sentence pronounced against Mercury, and reduce the bones of this God to powder.
Diana or the Moon complained that Mercury was holding his brother in prison with him,Vulcan did not listen to his prayer, and did not even yield to that of the beautiful Venus who presented herself with all her charms. But at last the Sun appeared covered with its mantle of purple & in all its brilliance. & did not even go to that of the beautiful Venus who presented herself with all her charms. But at last the Sun appeared covered with its mantle of purple & in all its brilliance. & did not even go to that of the beautiful Venus who presented herself with all her charms. But at last the Sun appeared covered with its mantle of purple & in all its brilliance.
I end this treatise with the same allegory as d'Espagnet. The Golden Fleece is guarded by a three-headed Dragon;the first comes from water, the second from earth, the third from air. These three heads must finally, through operations, unite into one, which will be strong and powerful enough to devour all the other Dragons. Call on God to enlighten you; if he grants you this Golden Fleece, use it only for his glory, the usefulness of your neighbor, and your salvation.
THE FABLES AND HIEROGLYPHS OF THE EGYPTIANS.
BOOKFIRST.
INTRODUCTION.
Everything among the Egyptians had an air of mystery, according to the testimony of Saint Clement of Alexandria (Stromat, 1.). Their houses, their temples, their instruments, the clothes they wore both in the ceremonies of their worship, and in public pomp and celebrations, their very gestures were symbols and representations of something great. They had drawn this taste from the instructions of the greatest man who had ever appeared. He was an Egyptian himself, named Thoth or Phtath by his compatriots, Taut by the Phoenicians (Euseb. 1.1. c. 7.), & Hermes Trimegiste by the Greeks.
Nature seemed to have chosen him for her favourite, & had consequently bestowed on him all the qualities necessary to study & know her perfectly; God had, so to speak,
Seeing the superstition introduced into Egypt, and that it had obscured the ideas which their fathers had given them of God, he thought seriously of preventing idolatry, which threatened to slip imperceptibly into the divine worship. But he clearly felt that it was not appropriate to reveal the too sublime mysteries of Nature and of its Author to a people so little capable of being struck by their greatness, as they were little susceptible of their knowledge. Convinced that sooner or later this people will turn them into abuse, he took it into his head to invent symbols so subtle, and so difficult to understand, that the Sages or the most penetrating geniuses would be the only ones who could see clearly, while ordinary men would only find in it a subject of admiration.
Having, however, intended to transmit his clear and pure ideas to posterity, he did not want to let them guess, without determining their meaning, and without communicating them to a few people. He chose for this purpose a certain number of men whom he recognized as the most suitable to be the depositaries of his secret, and only among those who could aspire to the throne. He established them Priests of the living God, after having gathered them together, and instructed them in all the sciences and the arts, explaining to them what meant; the symbols & hieroglyphics he had imagined.
The Hebrew author of the book which is titled the House of Melchizedek, speaks of Hermes in these terms: “The house of Canaan saw coming out of its bosom a man of consummate wisdom, named Adris or Hermes.He instituted the first of the schools, invented letters and the Mathematical sciences, he taught men the order of time; he gave them laws, he showed them how to live in society, and how to lead a sweet and gracious life, they learned from him the divine worship, and everything that could contribute to making them live happily; so that all those, who after him made themselves recommendable in the arts and sciences, aspired to bear the same name of Adris.
Among the number of these arts and sciences, there was one that he communicated to these Priests only on condition that they would keep it to themselves with an inviolable secret.He obliged them by oath not to divulge it except to those who, after a long trial, would have been found worthy of succeeding them: the Kings even forbade them to reveal it, under pain of their lives. This art was called the Art of the Priests, as we learn from Salamas (De mirabil. nuindi.), from Mahumet Ben Almaschaudi in Gelaldinus. of Ismaël Sciachinicia, & of Gelaldinus himself. Alkandi mentions Hermes in the following terms:
“In the time of Abraham lived in Egypt Hermes or Idris second; may peace be on him; & he was surnamed Trimegiste, because he was Prophet, King & Philosopher. He taught the Art of metals, Alchymy, Astrology, Magic, the science of the Spirits.... Pythagoras, Bentecle (Empedocles), Archelaus the Priest; Socrates, Orator & Philosopher; Plato Political Author, & Aristotle the Logician, drew their science from the writings of Hermes. Eusebius expressly declares, according to Manetho, that Hermes was the teacher of the Hieroglyphs; that he reduced them to order, and revealed them to the priests; that Manetho, High Priest of the Idols, explained them in the Greek language to Ptolemy Philadelphus.These Hieroglyphs were regarded as Sacred; they were kept hidden in the most secret places of the Temples.
The great Secret which the Priests observed, and the high sciences which they professed, made them considered and respected throughout Egypt, both during the long years that they had no communication with foreigners, and after that they had left them freedom of trade. Egypt was always regarded as the seminary of the sciences and the arts. The mystery that the Priests made of it irritated curiosity even more. Pythagoras (S. Clém. d'Alexand 1.1. Strom.), always eager to learn, even consented to suffer circumcision, to be among the initiates.It was indeed flattering for a man to find himself distinguished from the common, not by a secret whose object would have been only chimerical, but by real sciences, which one could not learn without that, but as the wisest laws always find prevaricators,
and as the best instituted things are subject to not always lasting in the same state; the hieroglyphic figures, which were to serve as an unshakable foundation to support the true Religion, and sustain it in all its purity, were an occasion of fall for the ignorant people.The Priests, bound to secrecy as far as certain sciences were concerned, feared to violate it by explaining these Hieroglyphs as to Religion, because they doubtless imagined that there would be common clairvoyant people enough to suspect that these same hieroglyphs served at the same time as a veil for some other mysteries; & that they would finally come to the end of penetrating it.
It was therefore sometimes necessary to deceive them, and these forced explanations turned into abuse. They even added some arbitrary symbols to those Hermes had invented; they fabricated fables which multiplied thereafter, and people gradually got used to regarding as gods the things that were presented to the people only to remind them of the idea of the one and only living God.
It is not surprising that the people gave blindly to such bizarre ideas. Unaccustomed to reflecting on things which do not tend to ruin his interests, or risk his life, he leaves to those who have more leisure the task of thinking and instructing him. The priests hardly reasoned with him except symbolically, and the people took everything literally.
In the beginning he had the ideas he must have had of God and Nature; it is even probable that the greatest number still kept them. Could the Egyptians, who passed for the most witty and enlightened of all men, have given into such gross nonsense, & in puerilities as ridiculous as those attributed to them?One should not even believe it of those among the Greeks who were in Egypt, to become acquainted with these sciences which one learned only by hieroglyphs. If the Priests did not reveal to all of them the Secret of the Priestly Art, at least they did not hide from them what concerned Theology and Physics.
Orpheus metamorphosed, so to speak, in Egypt, and appropriated their ideas and their reasonings, to the point that the hymns, and what they contain, announce rather a Priest of Egypt, than a Greek Poet. He was the first who transported the fables of the Egyptians to Greece; but it is not probable that a man, whom Diodorus of Sicily calls the most learned of the Greeks, recommendable by his mind and his knowledge,wanted to spout these fables in his homeland for realities. The other Poets, Homer, Hesiod, would they have wanted in cold blood to deceive the people, by giving them for real stories, fabricated facts, and actors who never really existed?
A disciple who has become a master, commonly gives his lessons and his instructions in the manner and according to the method in which he has received them. They had been instructed by fables, hieroglyphs, allegories, riddles, they used them in the same way. These were mysteries; they wrote mysteriously. It was not necessary to warn the Readers of this; the less clear-sighted could see it.If we only pay attention to the titles of the works of Eumolpus, Menander,
Melanthius, Iamblichus, Evanthe, and so many others which are filled with fables, we will soon be convinced that they intended to hide the mysteries under the veil of these fictions , and that their writings contain many things which do not manifest themselves at first glance, even upon careful reading.
Iamblichus explains himself thus at the beginning of His work: “The Writers of Egypt thinking that Mercury had invented everything, attributed all their works to him. Mercury presides over wisdom & eloquence; Pythagoras, Plato, Democritus, Eudoxus, & several others went to Egypt to learn by frequenting the Learned Priests of that country.The books of the Assyrians and the Egyptians are filled with the different sciences of Mercury, and the columns present them to the eyes of the public. They are full of profound doctrine; Pythagoras & Plato drew their Philosophy from it. »
The destruction of several cities, and the ruin of almost all of Egypt by Cambyses, King of Persia, dispersed many Priests in neighboring countries, and in Greece. They carried their science there; but they no doubt continued to teach them in the usual way among them, that is to say, mysteriously. Not wanting to lavish them on everyone, they still enveloped them in the darkness of fables and hieroglyphics, so that the common people, seeing, saw nothing, and hearing, understood nothing. All drew from this source; but some only took pure and clean water, while they disturbed it for others, who found only mud in it.
Hence this Source of absurdities which have flooded the earth for so many centuries. These mysteries hidden under so many envelopes, badly understood, never explained, spread in Greece, and from there all over the world. Hermes and the other Sages therefore only presented to the peoples the figures of things as Gods, only to show them one and only God in all things; for he who sees Wisdom (S. Denis l'Aréopag.), the providence and love of God manifested in this world, sees God himself; since all creatures are only mirrors which reflect on us the rays of divine Wisdom. One can see on this the work of M. Paul Ernest Jablonski, where he perfectly justifies the Egyptians for the ridiculous idolatry which is imputed to them (Panthéon AEgyptiorum. Francorurri, 1751.).
This darkness, in the bosom of which idolatry was born, thickened more and more. Most of the Poets, unfamiliar with these mysteries in substance, went even higher on the fables of the Egyptians, and the evil increased until the coming of Jesus Christ our Savior, who undeceived the peoples of the errors in which these fables threw them away. Hermes had foreseen this decadence of the divine cult, and the errors of the fables which were to take its place (In Asclepio.): observed his worship in vain with all the zeal and exactness they owed....
O Egypt! O Egypt! there will remain of your Religion only the fables; they will even become incredible to our descendants; the engraved and sculpted stones will be the only monuments of your piety.”It is certain that Hermes nor the Priests of Egypt did not recognize the majority of the Gods. Read carefully the Hymns of Orpheus, particularly that of Saturn, where he says that this God is widespread in all the parts that make up the Universe, and that he was not begotten; let us reflect On the Asclepius of Hermes, on the words of Parmenides the Pythagorean, on the works of Pythagoras himself, we will find everywhere expressions which manifest their feeling on the unity of a God, principle of everything, without principle itself; & that all the other Gods they mention are only different denominations, either of his attributes, or operations of Nature.Iamblichus alone is capable of convincing us of this, by what he says of the mysteries of the Egyptians, when his disciples asked him what he thought was the first cause and the first principle of everything.
The Egyptians and the Greeks did not always take these hieroglyphs for pure symbols of a single God; the Priests, the Philosophers of Greece, the Magi of Persia, &c. were the only ones who retained this idea; but that of the majority of the Gods was so accredited among the people, that the principles of Wisdom and Philosophy were not always strong enough to overcome the timidity of human weakness in those who could have disillusioned this people, and him. make his mistake known. The Philosophers even appeared in public to adopt the absurdities of the fables, which caused a Priest of Egypt, groaning over the puerile credulity of the Greeks, to say one day to some: The Greeks are children & will always be children (Plato in Timeo .).
This way of expressing God, his attributes, nature, his principles & his operations, was used throughout antiquity & in all countries. We did not believe that it was proper to divulge to the people such lofty and sublime mysteries. The nature of the hieroglyph and the symbol is to lead to the knowledge of one thing, by the representation of another quite different thing. Pythagoras, according to Plutarch (L. de Osir. & Isid.), was so seized with admiration, when he saw the way in which the Priests of Egypt taught the sciences, that he proposed to imitate them, he succeeded if well, that his works are full of ambiguities; & its sentences are veiled under detours, & very mysterious ways of expressing themselves.
Moses,wrote his books in an enigmatic way: "All that is contained in the law of the Hebrews, says this Author, is written in an allegorical or literal sense, by terms which result from some arithmetical calculations, or from some geometric figures of the characters changed, or transposed, or arranged harmonically according to their value . , their smallness, of their opening, &c. ” or of a few geometrical figures of characters changed, or transposed, or arranged harmoniously according to their value.
All this results from the forms of the characters, their junctions, their separations, their inflection, their curvature, their straightness, what they lack, what they have too much, their size, their smallness, of their opening, &c. or of a few geometrical figures of characters changed, or transposed, or arranged harmoniously according to their value. All this results from the forms of the characters, their junctions, their separations, their inflection, their curvature, their straightness, what they lack, what they have too much, their size, their smallness, of their opening, &c. »
Solomon looked upon hieroglyphs, proverbs & riddles as an object worthy of study by a wise man; we can see the praise he gives them in all his works. The Sage will devote himself (Prov. c. I.) to the study of the parables, he will apply himself to interpreting the expressions, sentences & riddles of the ancient Sages. He will penetrate (Abenephi.) into the twists and subtleties of the parables; he will discuss the proverbs to discover there what is most hidden, &c.
The Egyptians did not always express themselves through hieroglyphics or riddles; they did so only when it was a question of speaking of God or of what happened most secretly in the operations of Nature; & the hieroglyphs of one were not always the hieroglyphs of the other. Hermes invented the writing of the Egyptians; we do not agree on the kind of character he first put into use; but we know that there were four kinds: the first (Ecclis. c. 39.) was the characters of vulgar writing, known to everyone, and used in the commerce of life.
The second was only in use among the Sages, to speak of the mysteries of Nature; the third was a mixture of characters & symbols; & the fourth was the sacred character, known to the Priests,who only used it to write about the Divinity & its attributes. We must therefore not confuse all these different ways that the Egyptians had to paint & embodied their pennates. This lack of distinction has caused the errors into which many Antiquaries have fallen, who having only one object in view, explained all the ancient monuments in accordance with this object. Hence the multiplied dissertations made by different Authors who do not agree with each other. It would be necessary, to succeed perfectly, to have models of all these different characters.
What would be written in the Antiquities of a kind of character, would be explained things that were expressed by this character.If he were the first of the Egyptians, one might be sure that the things deduced would regard the commerce of life, history, &c. ; if it was the second, the things of Nature; the fourth concerns God, his worship, or fables. One would not then find oneself in the case of having recourse to conjecture, and of explaining an ancient monument of one thing, while it had quite another object. But the only thing that really remains for us is the fables, as Hermes had foreseen in the Asclepius of Apuleius that we have quoted on this subject.
Any sensible man who wishes in good faith to reflect on the absurdities of fables cannot prevent himself from regarding the gods as imaginary beings; since the Pagan Deities derive their origin from those which the Egyptians had invented. But Orpheus and those who transported these fables to Greece recited them there in the manner and in the sense that they had learned them in Egypt. If in this last country they were imagined only to explain symbolically what happens in Nature, its principles, its processes, its productions, and even some secret operation of an art which would imitate Nature to achieve the same goal, we must unquestionably explain the Greek fables, at least the ancient ones, those divulged by Orpheus, Melampe, Lin, Homer, Hesiod, &c. in the same way,& in accordance with the intention of their Authors, who proposed the Egyptians as a model.
Most of the fabulous works have come down to us, we can make a thoughtful analysis of them, and see if they have not slipped into them some particular features which unmask the object they had in view. All the puerilities, the absurdities which strike in these fables, show that the intention of their Authors was not to speak about the real Divinity.
They had drawn from the works of Hermes, and from frequenting the priests of Egypt, ideas too pure and too exalted of God and of his attributes, to speak of them in a manner apparently so indecent and so ridiculous. When it comes to dealing with the high mysteries of God, they do so with much elevation of ideas, feelings & expressions,as appropriate. There is then no question of incest, adultery, parricides, &c.
They could therefore only have Nature in view; they have personified, in the manner of the Egyptians, the principles it employs, and its operations; they have represented them under different faces, and enveloped under different veils, although they only mean the same thing. They had the skill to mix in lessons of politics, morals, general traits of physics, they sometimes took occasion of a historical fact to form their allegories; but all these things are only accidental, and were not the basis and the object. In vain will we therefore go to great lengths to explain these fabulous hieroglyphs by their means.Those who thought they had to do it through history, were in the need to admit the reality of these Gods, Goddesses, Heroes & Heroines, at least as Kings, Queens, & people whose actions are told.
But the difficulty of arranging everything according to the rules of sound chronology presents an invincible obstacle to their work: it is a labyrinth from which they will never escape. The object of history has always been to propose models of virtues to follow, and examples to form morals; one can hardly think that the Authors of these fables intended this object; since they are filled with so many absurdities, and such licentious traits, that they are infinitely more likely to corrupt morals than to form them.It would therefore be at least as useless to torture oneself to find a moral meaning in them. Heroes & Heroines, at least as Kings, Queens, & people whose actions are told.
But the difficulty of arranging everything according to the rules of sound chronology presents an invincible obstacle to their work: it is a labyrinth from which they will never escape. The object of history has always been to propose models of virtues to follow, and examples to form morals; one can hardly think that the Authors of these fables intended this object; since they are filled with so many absurdities, and such licentious traits, that they are infinitely more likely to corrupt morals than to form them.It would therefore be at least as useless to torture oneself to find a moral meaning in them. Heroes & Heroines, at least as Kings, Queens, & people whose actions are told.
But the difficulty of arranging everything according to the rules of sound chronology presents an invincible obstacle to their work: it is a labyrinth from which they will never escape. The object of history has always been to propose models of virtues to follow, and examples to form morals; one can hardly think that the Authors of these fables intended this object; since they are filled with so many absurdities, and such licentious traits, that they are infinitely more likely to corrupt morals than to form them.It would therefore be at least as useless to torture oneself to find a moral meaning in them. But the difficulty of arranging everything according to the rules of sound chronology presents an invincible obstacle to their work: it is a labyrinth from which they will never escape.
The object of history has always been to propose models of virtues to follow, and examples to form morals; one can hardly think that the Authors of these fables intended this object; since they are filled with so many absurdities, and such licentious traits, that they are infinitely more likely to corrupt morals than to form them. It would therefore be at least as useless to torture oneself to find a moral meaning in them.But the difficulty of arranging everything according to the rules of sound chronology presents an invincible obstacle to their work: it is a labyrinth from which they will never escape.
The object of history has always been to propose models of virtues to follow, and examples to form morals; one can hardly think that the Authors of these fables intended this object; since they are filled with so many absurdities, and such licentious traits, that they are infinitely more likely to corrupt morals than to form them. It would therefore be at least as useless to torture oneself to find a moral meaning in them. The object of history has always been to propose models of virtues to follow, and examples to form morals;one can hardly think that the Authors of these fables intended this object; since they are filled with so many absurdities, and such licentious traits, that they are infinitely more likely to corrupt morals than to form them.
It would therefore be at least as useless to torture oneself to find a moral meaning in them. The object of history has always been to propose models of virtues to follow, and examples to form morals; one can hardly think that the Authors of these fables intended this object; since they are filled with so many absurdities, and such licentious traits, that they are infinitely more likely to corrupt morals than to form them. It would therefore be at least as useless to torture oneself to find a moral meaning in them.
However, we can probably distinguish four kinds of meanings given to these hieroglyphs, as much by the Egyptians as by the Greeks and the other Nations where they were in use. The ignorant, therefore the common people is made up, took the history of the Gods literally, as well as the fables which had been imagined as a result: this is the source of the superstitions to which the people are so inclined. The second class was of those who, feeling well that these stories were only fictions, penetrated into the hidden and mysterious meanings of fables and hieroglyphs, and explained them of the causes, effects and operations of Nature. And as they had acquired a perfect knowledge of it, by the secret instructions which they successively gave to each other,according to those which they had received from Hermes, they operated surprising things by making play the only springs of Nature, of which they proposed to imitate the processes to arrive at the same goal.
These are the effects which formed the object of the priestly Art; this Art on which they bound themselves by oath to keep the secret, and which they were forbidden, under pain of death, to disclose in any way to others than to those they deemed worthy of being initiated in the Priestly Order, from which the Kings were drawn. This Art was none other than that of making a thing which could be the source of happiness & bliss of man in this life, that is to say, the source of health & wealth & wealth.
knowledge of all Nature.This secret if recommended not being able to have other objects. Hermes, in instituting the hieroglyphs, had no intention of introducing idolatry, nor of keeping secret the ideas that one must have of the Divinity, his goal was even to make God known, as the only God, and to prevent the people from worshiping others; he endeavored to make it known in all individuals, by pointing out in each of the traits of divine wisdom. If there be under the shadow of the hieroglyphs some sublime mysteries, it was not so much to hide them from the people, as because these mysteries were not within their reach, and unable to contain them within the limits of a prudent & wise knowledge, he would not fail to misuse the instructions given to them in this respect.The Priests were the only ones to whom this knowledge was entrusted after a test of several years. This secret therefore had to have another object.
Several Ancients have told us that it consisted in the knowledge of what Osiris, Isis, Horus and the other pretended Gods had been; and that it was forbidden, on pain of losing their life, to say that they had been men. But were these Authors sure of what they were saying? & even if what they say were true, this secret would not have as its object God, the mysteries of the Divinity, & his cult; since Hermes, who obliged the Priests to this secret, knew well that Osiris, Isis, &c.were not gods, and had he not given them as such to the priests, he would have instructed in the truth, at the same time as he would have led the people into error. One cannot suspect such a great man of such reprehensible conduct,
The third sense of which these hieroglyphs were susceptible was that of morals or rules of conduct. And finally the fourth was properly that of high wisdom. One explained, by these so-called stories of the Gods, all that was sublime in Religion, in God, and in the Universe. It is there where the Philosophers drew all that they said of the Divinity.
They made no secret of it to those who could understand it. The Greek philosophers were instructed in the association they had with the priests, and there are great proofs of it in all their works. All Authors agree; we even name those from whom these Philosophers took lessons. Eudoxus had, it is said, for master Conopheus of Memphis; Solon, Sonchis of Sais;Pythagoras, Oenupheus of Heliopolis, &c.
But although they had nothing hidden for the majority of these Philosophers, as to what concerned the Divinity, and Philosophy both moral and physical, they did not however teach them all this priestly Art therefore we have spoken. Who says Art, says a practical thing. The knowledge of God is not an art, any more than the knowledge of morality, nor even of Philosophy. The ancient Authors teach us that Hermes taught the Egyptians the Art of metals & Alchemy. Father Kircher himself admits, on the testimony of History and all of Antiquity, that Hermes had veiled the art of making gold under the shadow of enigmas and hieroglyphs;& of the same hieroglyphs which served to deprive the people of the knowledge of the mysteries of God & of Nature.
"He is so constant," says this Author (Oedypus. Egypt. T. II. p. 2. From Alchym. vs. I.), that these first men possessed the art of making gold, either by extracting it from all sorts of materials, or by transmuting metals, that anyone who doubts it, or who wishes to deny it, would show themselves to be perfectly ignorant in history. Priests, Kings & Heads of families were the only ones instructed.This Art was always kept in great Secrecy, and those who possessed it always kept profound silence in this regard, lest the most hidden laboratories and sanctuary of Nature, being revealed to the ignorant people, they should turn this knowledge to the detriment & ruin of the Republic.
The ingenious & prudent Hermès foreseeing this danger which threatened the State, was therefore right to hide this Art of making gold under the same veils & the same hieroglyphic obscurities, therefore he used to hide from the profane people the part of the Philosophy which concerned God , the Angels & the Universe. Father Kircher is not suspect in this article, since he fought the Philosopher's Stone in all the circumstances in which he had occasion to speak of it.It is therefore necessary that the evidence and the force of the truth wrung such confessions from him; without that it is rather difficult to reconcile it with itself.
He says in his Preface on the Alchemy of the Egyptians: "Some Aristarques will undoubtedly rise up against me because I undertake to speak of an Art which many people regard as odious, deceitful, sophisticated, full of deceptions, while many other people have an idea of it as a science which manifests the highest degree of divine & human wisdom. But let him know that having proposed to me to explain, in the capacity of Oedipus, all that the Egyptians veiled under their hieroglyphs, I must deal with this science which they had buried in the same darkness of symbols.
It is not that I approve of it, or that I think that one can derive from this science any utility as to the part which concerns the art of making gold; but because all respectable Antiquity speaks of it, and has transmitted it to us under the seal of an infinity of hieroglyphs and symbolic figures. It is certain that of all the arts and all the sciences which irritate human curiosity, and to which man applies himself, I don't know of any that have been attacked with more force, and that have been better defended.
He reports in the course of the work a large number of testimonies from ancient authors, to prove that this science was known among the Egyptians; that Hermes taught it to the priests;and that it was so honored in that country that it was a crime worthy of death to divulge it to anyone other than the Priests, Kings and Philosophers of Egypt.
The same Author concludes, despite all these testimonies (De Alchym. Ægypt. C.7), that the Egyptians did not know the Philosopher's Stone, and that their hieroglyphs had no object in practice. It is surprising that having taken the trouble to read the Authors who treat of it, to explain by them the Hermetic hieroglyph of which it gives the figure, and that copying them, so to speak, word for word for this purpose, such as are the twelve treatises of the Cosmopolitan, & the Arcanum Hermeticæ Philosophiæ opus of d'Espagnet, &c.
Father Kircher dares to maintain that this figure and the other hieroglyphs do not concern the Philosopher's Stone, which the Authors I have just quoted treat, as they say, ex professo. Since everything these Lovers say concerns the Philosopher's Stone, Fr.Kircher must have employed their reasonings only for this object. “The Egyptians,” he says (Loc. cit.), “did not have in view the practice of this stone; & if they touch something of the preparation of metals, & that they reveal the most secret treasures of minerals; they did not understand for that what the ancient and modern alchemists understand; but they indicated a certain substance of the lower world analogous to the Sun;endowed with excellent virtues, and properties so surprising, that they are far above human intelligence, that is to say, a quintessence hidden in all mixtures, impregnated with the virtue of the spirit universal of the world, that he who, inspired by God & enlightened by his divine lights, would find the means to extract, would become by his means free from all infirmities, & would lead a life full of sweetness & satisfactions. So it was not the Philosopher's Stone they were talking about, but the elixir so I just talked about. »
If what we have just reported from Father Kircher is not precisely the Philosopher's Stone, I don't know what it consists of. If the idea he had of it was not in conformity with that given to us by the Authors, all that he says against it does not concern it.
One can judge of it, both by what we have said up to now, and by what we will say about it in what follows. The object of the Hermetic Philosophers, ancient or modern, was always to extract from a certain subject, by natural means, that elixir or that quintessence, of which Father Kircher speaks; & to operate, following the laws of Nature, in such a way as to separate it from the heterogeneous parts in which it is enveloped, in order to put it in a condition to act without obstacles,to deliver the three kingdoms of nature from their infirmities; which can hardly be denied is possible; since this universal spirit being the soul of Nature, and the basis of all mixtures, it is perfectly analogous to them, as it is by its effects and its properties with the Sun; this is why the Philosophers say that the Sun is its father, and the Moon its mother.
One should not confuse the Hermetic Philosophers or the true Alchemists with the Souffleurs: these seek to make gold immediately with the matters which they employ; & the others seek to make a quintessence, which can serve as a universal panacea to cure all the infirmities of the human body, & an elixir to transmute imperfect metals into gold.
It is properly the two objects that the Egyptians proposed, according to all the authors, ancient as well as modern. It's this priestly Art so they were making such a great mystery; & which the Philosophers will always keep enveloped in the obscurity of symbols & the darkness of hieroglyphics. They will content themselves with saying with Haled (Comment, in Hermet.): "That there is a radical, primordial, unalterable essence in all mixtures, that it is found in all things and in all places; happy is he who can understand & discover this secret essence, & work it properly! Hermes also says that water is the secret of this thing, & water receives its nourishment from men.Marcunes has no difficulty in ensuring that everything in the world sells for more than this water; because everyone has it, everyone needs it.
Abuamil says, speaking of this water, that it is found everywhere, in the plains, the valleys, on the mountains; among the rich and the poor, among the strong and the weak. Such is the parable of Hermes & the Sages, touching their stone; it is a water, a moist spirit, the knowledge of which Hermes enveloped in the most obscure symbolic figures, and the most difficult to interpret. Hermes also says that water is the secret of this thing, & water receives its nourishment from men. Marcunes has no difficulty in ensuring that everything in the world sells for more than this water;because everyone has it, everyone needs it. Abuamil says, speaking of this water, that it is found everywhere, in the plains, the valleys, on the mountains; among the rich and the poor, among the strong and the weak.
Such is the parable of Hermes & the Sages, touching their stone; it is a water, a moist spirit, the knowledge of which Hermes enveloped in the most obscure symbolic figures, and the most difficult to interpret. Hermes also says that water is the secret of this thing, & water receives its nourishment from men. Marcunes has no difficulty in ensuring that everything in the world sells for more than this water; because everyone has it, everyone needs it.Abuamil says, speaking of this water, that it is found everywhere, in the plains, the valleys, on the mountains; among the rich and the poor, among the strong and the weak. Such is the parable of Hermes & the Sages, touching their stone; it is a water, a moist spirit, the knowledge of which Hermes enveloped in the most obscure symbolic figures, and the most difficult to interpret.
Marcunes has no difficulty in ensuring that everything in the world sells for more than this water; because everyone has it, everyone needs it. Abuamil says, speaking of this water, that it is found everywhere, in the plains, the valleys, on the mountains; among the rich and the poor, among the strong and the weak.Such is the parable of Hermes & the Sages, touching their stone; it is a water, a moist spirit, the knowledge of which Hermes enveloped in the most obscure symbolic figures, and the most difficult to interpret.
Marcunes has no difficulty in ensuring that everything in the world sells for more than this water; because everyone has it, everyone needs it. Abuamil says, speaking of this water, that it is found everywhere, in the plains, the valleys, on the mountains; among the rich and the poor, among the strong and the weak. Such is the parable of Hermes & the Sages, touching their stone; it is a water, a moist spirit, the knowledge of which Hermes enveloped in the most obscure symbolic figures, and the most difficult to interpret.Such is the parable of Hermes & the Sages, touching their stone; it is a water, a moist spirit, the knowledge of which Hermes enveloped in the most obscure symbolic figures, and the most difficult to interpret.
Such is the parable of Hermes & the Sages, touching their stone; it is a water, a moist spirit, the knowledge of which Hermes enveloped in the most obscure symbolic figures, and the most difficult to interpret. »
The matter from which this essence is drawn contains a hidden fire & a moist spirit;it is therefore not surprising that Hermes represented it to us under the hieroglyphic emblem of Osiris, which means hidden fire (Kirch. Œdip. Ægypt. TI p. 176.), & of Isis, which being taken for the Moon, signifies a humid nature.
Diodorus of Sicily confirms this truth, by saying, that the Egyptians who regard Osiris & Isis as Gods, say that they travel the world constantly; that they feed & make everything grow, during the three seasons of the year, Spring, Summer & Winter; & that the nature of these gods contributes infinitely to the generation of animals, because one is igneous & spiritual, the other humid & cold; that the air is common to both; finally that all bodies are engendered by it,Plutarch assures us on his side, that all that the Greeks sing to us & tell us about the Giants, the Titans, the crimes of Saturn, & the other Gods, the fight of Apollo with Python, the races of Bacchus, the researches & travels of Ceres, no different from what concerns Osiris & Isis; and that everything similar that has been invented with enough freedom in the fables that are divulged, must be understood in the same way, as what is observed in the sacred mysteries, and that is said to be a crime to reveal it to the people. of Apollo's combat with Python, of the races of Bacchus, of the researches and travels of Ceres, no different from what concerns Osiris and Isis;and that everything similar that has been invented with enough freedom in the fables that are divulged, must be understood in the same way, as what is observed in the sacred mysteries, and that is said to be a crime to reveal it to the people.
of Apollo's combat with Python, of the races of Bacchus, of the researches and travels of Ceres, no different from what concerns Osiris and Isis; and that everything similar that has been invented with enough freedom in the fables that are divulged, must be understood in the same way, as what is observed in the sacred mysteries, and that is said to be a crime to reveal it to the people.
Everything in Nature being generated from heat and humidity, the Egyptians gave to the united name of Osiris, to the other that of Isis, and said that they were brother and sister, husband and wife. They were always taken for Nature itself, as we shall see later.
When one wishes not to resort to subtleties, it will be easy to discover what the Egyptians, Greeks, &c. heard by their hieroglyphs and their fables. They had so ingeniously imagined them that they hid several things under the same representation, just as they understood only the same thing by various hieroglyphs and various symbols: the names, the figures, the stories themselves were varied; but the background and the object were not different.
We know, and it is only necessary to open the works of the Hermetic Philosophers, to see at first glance that they have in all times not only followed the method of the Egyptians to deal with the Philosopher's Stone, but that they also used the same hieroglyphs & the same fables in whole or in part, depending on how they were affected. The Arabs more closely imitated the Egyptians, because they translated into their language many of the Hermetic & other treatises written in the Egyptian language & style.
The proximity of the country, & consequently the frequentation & the more particular trade of the two Nations can also have contributed a lot to it. This unanimity of ideas, and this uninterrupted use for so many centuries form, if not an unanswerable proof,
I am therefore not the first who had the idea of explaining these hieroglyphs & these fables by the principles, the operations & the result of the great work, also called Philosopher's Stone, & Golden Medicine. We see them spread throughout almost all the works which treat of this mysterious Art. Some chemists have even written treatises along the same lines as me.
Fabri de Castelnaudari gave in the last century something on the labors of Hercules, under the title of Hercules Philochymicus; Jacques Tolle wanted to embrace the whole fable in a small work entitled: Fortuita. It is not surprising that one & the other did not succeed perfectly.The first seems to have read the Hermetic Philosophers, but superficially enough, not to have been able to make a judicious concordance of them, & to penetrate into their true principles. The too stubborn second of the vulgar chymie swore only by Basil Valentin, which he probably did not understand, since he almost always explains it to the letter, although following Olaus Bornchius (Prospect. Chym. Celebr.) , Basil Valentine is one of the most difficult Hermetic Authors to hear, both because of the alterations that have been put in his treatises, and because of the obscure veil of enigmas, ambiguities, and hieroglyphic figures with which he has stuffed them.
All the explanations that I will give are taken from these Authors, or based on their texts & their reasoning;
Michel Maïer has written a large number of books on this subject; one can see the enumeration of it in the Catalog of the Authors Chymists, metallurgists, & Hermetic Philosophers that the Abbé Lenglet du Fresnoy inserted in his history of the Hermetic Philosophy, D'Espagnet considered among other works of Maïer his treatise on the Emblems, because they represent, he says, with enough clarity in the eyes of clairvoyant eyes what is most secret and most hidden in the great work. I have carefully read several of Michel Maïer's treatises, and they have been of such great help to me that the one entitled Arcana Arcanissima has served as a framework for my work, at least for its distribution, because I did not always follow his ideas.
The Hermetic Philosophers who employed the allegories of the fable are at least as obscure as the fable itself, to those who are not Adepts; they shed light on her only enough to make us understand that her mysteries were not mysteries to them. “Remember this well, says Basile Valentin (Traité du Vitriol.): work in such a way that Paris can defend the beautiful and noble Hélène; prevent the city of Troye from being ravaged again by the Greeks; ensure that Priam & Menelaus are no longer at war & in affliction; Hector & Achille will soon agree; they will no longer fight for royal blood; they will then have a Monarchy which they will even leave in peace to all their descendants.
This Author introduces all the principal Gods of the fable into his twelve Keys. Raymond Lully often speaks of Egypt & Ethiopia. One finally employs a fable, the other another; but always allegorically.
they will be so natural that it will be easy to conclude that true Chemistry was the source of the fables, that they contain all their principles and operations, and that in vain do we torture ourselves. to explain them clearly by other means. I don't think everyone agrees; the custom has been introduced of explaining antiquities by history and morality; this usage has even prevailed, and has become accredited to the point that prejudice makes all other applications look like daydreams.
We will look at these from whatever point of view we want, I don't care. I write for those who will want to read me, for those who cannot get out of the labyrinth in which they find themselves engaged,following the systems above, will look here for a thread of Ariadne, which they will certainly find there; for those who, versed in the assiduous reading of the Hermetic Philosophers, are in a better position to pass a sound and disinterested judgment.
They will find there something to fix their wave and indeterminate ideas on the material of the great work, and on the way of working on it. As for those who, blinded by prejudice or by bad reasons, attribute to the Egyptians, the Pythagoras, the Platos, the Socrates and other great men ideas as absurd as those of the plurality of the Gods, I only ask them to reconcile, with this feeling, the idea of the high Wisdom that one notices in all their writings, and that one grants them with reason.
I will refer them to a more serious and more thoughtful reading of their works, to find what had escaped them. I have no intention of striving for the applause of those to whom the Hermetic Philosophy is completely unknown. They could hardly judge of this work except as a blind judge of colors.
FIRST CHAPTER.
Hieroglyphs of the Egyptians.
When we take the fables of Egypt literally, and explain them of the Divinity, nothing is more bizarre, nothing more ridiculous, nothing more extravagant. The Antiquaries have commonly followed this system in their explanations of the monuments which remain to us.
I admit that these are very often marks of superstition, which prevailed among the people in times subsequent to that in which Hermes imagined the hieroglyphs; but to reveal what is obscure in them, it is necessary to go back to their institution, and to make him aware of the intention of those who invented them. Neither the ideas that the people attach to it, nor those that even Greek or Latin authors had of it, although very learned on other things, should serve us as a guide on these occasions.If they only frequented the people, they could only have had popular ideas in this respect.
It must be assured that they had been initiated into the mysteries of Osiris, Isis, &c. & instructed by the Priests to whom the intelligence of these hieroglyphs had been entrusted. Hermes says more than once in his dialogue with Asclepius that God cannot be represented by any figure; that it cannot be given a name, because being alone it does not need a distinctive name; that it has no movement because it is everywhere, that it is finally its own principle, and its father to itself.
There is therefore no appearance that he claimed to represent him by figures, nor to have him worshiped under the names of Osiris, Isis, &c.& instructed by the Priests to whom the intelligence of these hieroglyphs had been entrusted. Hermes says more than once in his dialogue with Asclepius that God cannot be represented by any figure; that it cannot be given a name, because being alone it does not need a distinctive name; that it has no movement because it is everywhere, that it is finally its own principle, and its father to itself.
There is therefore no appearance that he claimed to represent him by figures, nor to have him worshiped under the names of Osiris, Isis, &c. & instructed by the Priests to whom the intelligence of these hieroglyphs had been entrusted. Hermes says more than once in his dialogue with Asclepius that God cannot be represented by any figure;that it cannot be given a name, because being alone it does not need a distinctive name; that it has no movement because it is everywhere, that it is finally its own principle, and its father to itself.
There is therefore no appearance that he claimed to represent him by figures, nor to have him worshiped under the names of Osiris, Isis, &c. it does not need a distinguished name; that it has no movement because it is everywhere, that it is finally its own principle, and its father to itself. There is therefore no appearance that he claimed to represent him by figures, nor to have him worshiped under the names of Osiris, Isis, &c. it does not need a distinguished name;that it has no movement because it is everywhere, that it is finally its own principle, and its father to itself. There is therefore no appearance that he claimed to represent him by figures, nor to have him worshiped under the names of Osiris, Isis, &c.
Several Elders unaware of Hermes' true feelings. and of the Priests his successors, gave occasion to these false ideas, by debiting that the Egyptians said of the Divinity, what they said indeed only of Nature. Hermes, wanting to instruct the Priests he had chosen, told them that there were two principles of things, one good, and the other bad; & if we believe Plutarch, the whole religion of the Egyptians was based on it.
Many other Authors have thought like Plutarch, without examining too much whether this feeling was founded on a popular error, and whether the Priests, charged with instructing the people, really thought thus of the Divinity, or of the principles of the mixed ones, the one principle of life, the other principle of death. On this sentiment of Plutarch, supported by other Authors, Antiquarians have ventured on explanations of several monuments that time has spared, and their ideas have been adopted, because none more truly similar could be found. It is however true that many Antiquaries have enough discretion to admit that they speak in several cases only by conjectures, and that certain monuments can only be explained by guessing (2. p. of T. II. pag 271. Plate 105.).
The first which appears in the Antiquity explained by D. de Montfaucon is an example of this, according to the received system: this scholar warns us that there are many others of this kind in the course of his work. There is however in this monument nothing difficult to hear, and there are very few which present things more naturally. Any man a little versed in Hermetic Science, would have understood it at first glance; & would not have needed to resort to an Oedipus complex, or to conjecture to explain it.
We will judge of this by comparing the explanation given by D. de Montfaucon with the one I will give.“This monument, says our Author, is a sepulchral stone, which was called Ara, which A.” Herennuleius Hermes made for his wife, for himself, for his children, and for his posterity. He himself is represented in the middle of the inscription, sacrificing to the ghosts. On the other side of the stone are two serpents, erect on their tails, facing each other, one of which holds an egg in its mouth, and the other seems to want to take it away.
by comparing the explanation that D. de Montfaucon gave of it, with the one that I will give. “This monument, says our Author, is a sepulchral stone, which was called Ara, which A.” Herennuleius Hermes made for his wife, for himself, for his children, and for his posterity.He himself is represented in the middle of the inscription, sacrificing to the ghosts. On the other side of the stone are two serpents, erect on their tails, facing each other, one of which holds an egg in its mouth, and the other seems to want to take it away.
by comparing the explanation that D. de Montfaucon gave of it, with the one that I will give. “This monument, says our Author, is a sepulchral stone, which was called Ara, which A.” Herennuleius Hermes made for his wife, for himself, for his children, and for his posterity. He himself is represented in the middle of the inscription, sacrificing to the ghosts.On the other side of the stone are two serpents, erect on their tails, facing each other, one of which holds an egg in its mouth, and the other seems to want to take it away.
“ sacrificing to the ghosts. On the other side of the stone are two serpents, erect on their tails, facing each other, one of which holds an egg in its mouth, and the other seems to want to take it away. “ sacrificing to the ghosts. On the other side of the stone are two serpents, erect on their tails, facing each other, one of which holds an egg in its mouth, and the other seems to want to take it away. M.
Fabreti, to whom this monument belonged, had wanted to explain this symbol;but as it did not satisfy D. de Montfaucon, the latter explains it in the following terms. “Before advancing my conjecture on this monument, it should be noted that one finds in Rome & in Italy quantity of these marks of the Egyptian superstitions, which the Romans had adopted.
This is one of the numbers: it is an image whose meaning can only be symbolic. The ancient Egyptians recognized a good principle which had made the world; what they expressed allegorically by a serpent holding an egg in its mouth; this egg signified the created world. This serpent, therefore, which holds the egg in its mouth, will be the good principle which created the world and sustains it. But as the Egyptians admitted two principles, one good, the other bad,it will be necessary to say that the other snake which raised on its tail, is opposed to the first, will be the image of the bad principle which wants to remove the world with the other.
The two serpents of the monument in question represent in truth two principles, but the two principles which Nature employs in the production of individuals: they are called, by analogy, one male and the other female ; such are the two snakes twisted around the caduceus of Mercury, one male & the other female, which are also represented turned against each other, & between their two heads a kind of winged globe that they seem to want to bite.
To put the reader in a position to judge whether my explanation will be more natural than that of D. de Montfaucon, I will give a description of this so-called sepulchral stone. The two snakes are erect on their tail folded in a circle; one holds the egg between his teeth, the other has his head leaning on it, his mouth slightly open, as if he wanted to bite the other, and dispute the egg with him. Both have a roughly square crest.
On the other side of the stone is the figure of a standing man, in a long coat, the sleeves rolled up to the elbow; he holds his right arm outstretched, and a kind of hoop in his hand, in the center of which appears another small circle, or a fist. With his left hand he raises his robe, holding it leaning on his hip.Around this figure are engraved the following words: A Herennuleius Hermès fecit conjugi bene merenti Juliæ LF Latinæ sibi & fuis posterque cor.
It is not necessary to resort to the Religion of the Egyptians to explain this monument. The two principles admitted by the Priests of Egypt should only be understood as the two principles, good and bad, of Nature, which are always mixed in its mixtures, and which contribute to their composition; this is why they said that Osiris & Typhon were brothers, and that the latter always made war on the former.
Osiris was the good principle, or the radical humor, the base of the mixture, & the pure & homogeneous part, Typhon was the bad principle, or the heterogeneous, accidental parts, & the principle of destruction & death, as Osiris was of life & conservation. Latinæ sibi & fu posterque cor.
It is not necessary to resort to the Religion of the Egyptians to explain this monument. The two principles admitted by the Priests of Egypt must be understood only as the two principles, good and bad, of Nature, which are always mixed in its mixtures, and which contribute to their composition; this is why they said that Osiris & Typhon were brothers, and that the latter always made war on the former.Osiris was the good principle, or the radical humor, the base of the mixture, & the pure & homogeneous part, Typhon was the bad principle, or the heterogeneous, accidental parts, & the principle of destruction & death, as Osiris was of life & conservation. Latinæ sibi & fu posterque cor.
It is not necessary to resort to the Religion of the Egyptians to explain this monument. The two principles admitted by the Priests of Egypt should only be understood as the two principles, good and bad, of Nature, which are always mixed in its mixtures, and which contribute to their composition; this is why they said that Osiris & Typhon were brothers, and that the latter always made war on the former.Osiris was the good principle, or the radical humor, the base of the mixture, & the pure & homogeneous part, Typhon was the bad principle, or the heterogeneous, accidental parts, & the principle of destruction & death, as Osiris was of life & conservation.
It is not necessary to resort to the Religion of the Egyptians to explain this monument. The two principles admitted by the Priests of Egypt should only be understood as the two principles, good and bad, of Nature, which are always mixed in its mixtures, and which contribute to their composition; this is why they said that Osiris & Typhon were brothers, and that the latter always made war on the former.Osiris was the good principle, or the radical humor, the base of the mixture, & the pure & homogeneous part, Typhon was the bad principle, or the heterogeneous, accidental parts, & the principle of destruction & death, as Osiris was of life & conservation.
It is not necessary to resort to the Religion of the Egyptians to explain this monument. The two principles admitted by the Priests of Egypt should only be understood as the two principles, good and bad, of Nature, which are always mixed in its mixtures, and which contribute to their composition; this is why they said that Osiris & Typhon were brothers, and that the latter always made war on the former.Osiris was the good principle, or the radical humor, the base of the mixture, & the pure & homogeneous part, Typhon was the bad principle, or the heterogeneous, accidental parts, & the principle of destruction & death, as Osiris was of life & conservation.
The two principles admitted by the Priests of Egypt should only be understood as the two principles, good and bad, of Nature, which are always mixed in its mixtures, and which contribute to their composition; this is why they said that Osiris & Typhon were brothers, and that the latter always made war on the former.
Osiris was the good principle, or the radical humor, the base of the mixture, & the pure & homogeneous part, Typhon was the bad principle, or the heterogeneous, accidental parts, & the principle of destruction & death, as Osiris was of life & conservation. The two principles admitted by the Priests of Egypt must be understood only as the two principles, good and bad, of Nature, which are always mixed in its mixtures, and which contribute to their composition; this is why they said that Osiris & Typhon were brothers, and that the latter always made war on the former.
Osiris was the good principle, or the radical humor, the base of the mixture, & the pure & homogeneous part, Typhon was the bad principle, or the heterogeneous, accidental parts, & the principle of destruction & death, as Osiris was of life & conservation. & that the latter was always making war on the former. Osiris was the good principle, or the radical humor, the base of the mixture, & the pure & homogeneous part, Typhon was the bad principle, or the heterogeneous, accidental parts, & the principle of destruction & death, as Osiris was of life & conservation. & that the latter was always making war on the former.Osiris was the good principle, or the radical humor, the base of the mixture, & the pure & homogeneous part, Typhon was the bad principle, or the heterogeneous, accidental parts, & the principle of destruction & death, as Osiris was of life & conservation.
It is common ground that hieroglyphs originated in Egypt; & the most common opinion regards Hermes as the inventor, although the oldest writers in the history of Egypt teach us nothing absolutely certain about the origin of the characters of writing & science. We do not even find anything positive about the first Kings of the world, which is not open to contradiction.
The square crests of the two serpents of the monument of which we speak, are a symbol of the elements, of which the great & the small world are formed, & the egg is the result of the union of these two principles of Nature. But as in the composition of the mixtures there are pure & homogeneous principles, & impure & heterogeneous principles, there is a kind of enmity between them; the impure always tends to want to corrupt the pure: this is what is seen represented by the snake which seems to want to dispute the egg with the one who is in possession of it. The destruction of individuals is produced only by this mutual combat.
This is what can be said to explain in general this part of the monument of which we are speaking.But its Author doubtless had a less general intention; it is certain that he meant something in particular. Let us bring together all the symbolic parts of this monument: the relationship they have between them will reveal this particular intention to us.
The one who had this monument made is called Herennuleius Hermes, & he wears a long coat like the Philosophers; it is therefore very likely that this Herennuleius was one of those learned men initiated into the Hermetic mysteries; (which is designated by his surname of Hermes), who, as I have said before, being instructed in these mysteries, took the name of Aris or Hermes.He holds in his right hand a kind of hoop, which D. de Montfaucon doubtless took for a patere or cup, and decided as a result of this error, that Herennuleius made a sacrifice to the ghosts; nothing else can designate this action.
This hoop is not a peg; it is the symbolic sign of gold, or of the terrestrial & hermetic Sun, which even vulgar chymists still represent today in this way¤. It is to this face of the monument that we must relate in particular the hieroglyph of the two serpents & the egg, which are on the opposite face, to make a single whole, the result of which consists in this Philosophical gold presented by Herennuleius. So here is how to explain this particular monument.
The two serpents are the two principles of sacerdotal or hermetic art, one male or fire, fixed earth, & sulphur; the other female, volatile & mercurial water, which both contribute to the formation & generation of the Hermetic stone, which the Philosophers called egg & small world, which is composed of the four elements, represented by the two square crests, but of which two only are visible, earth & water. One can also explain the egg of the vase, in which the egg is formed, by the combat of the fixed & the volatile, which finally reunite one & the other, & only form a fixed whole, called Philosophical gold, or Hermetic sun.
It is this gold that Herennuleius shows the viewer as the result of his art.represented its two principles under the symbol of two serpents. There is plenty of evidence of that in this book. The inscription of this monument only teaches us that Herennuleius made this gold as a source of health & wealth, for himself, for his wife whom he loved tenderly, for his children & his posterity.
I have brought this example to show how easy it is to explain the hieroglyphics of certain Egyptian, Greek, etc. landmarks. when they are called back to Hermetic Philosophy, without whose lights they become unintelligible and inexplicable.
I do not claim, however, that one can by means of it explain them all.Although it was the source, the base & the foundation of the hieroglyphics, it was not the object of all the hieroglyphic monuments which remain to us. Most are historical, or represent some features of the fable, often adjusted according to the fantasy of the one who ordered them from the Artist, or that of the Artist himself, who was not initiated into the mysteries of the Egyptians, the Greeks, Romans , &vs. kept only the background, according to the very defective and unenlightened instructions that they had of them; for the rest they followed their taste and their imagination.
............. Pictoribus atque Poëtis
Quidlibet audendi semper flees æqua potestas.
Horat, in Art. Poet.
And Cicero in his Treatise on Natura Deorum, says that the Gods present to us the figures that Painters and Sculptors have pleased to give them.
Nos Deos omnes eâ jade novimus, quâ. Pictores fictoresque voluerunt. Lib. 2 of Nat. Of gold.
We are therefore left with hieroglyphic monuments of all kinds; & those of the Egyptians are usually based on Osiris, Isis, Horus & Typhon, with some features of their fabulous history. Some are disfigured by ignorant Artists, others retain the purity of their invention, when they have been made or conducted by Philosophers, or well-educated persons.
We still have examples of this before our eyes today. A Sculptor makes a group of statues, a Painter makes a painting;both have a determined Subject; but provided that they represent this subject in such a way as to make it recognizable at first glance, and that they keep the costume, as to all that is necessary for the figures and the action, how much is found?
there of Artists who add useless figures to it, & to put it in terms of Art, figures for rent? how many arbitrary and fanciful ornaments do they put there, shells, flowers, sometimes animals, rocks, etc.? ? If educated Artists sometimes fall into this defect, what should we think of the ignorant who often have only a good hand, and a fiery imagination that gives birth to everything they bring to light? Madness to want to put themselves in the head to explain all their productions.
Is there less to write dissertations full of research and scholarship on trifles and very uninteresting things, which are found in many ancient monuments? sometimes animals, rocks, &c. ? If educated Artists sometimes fall into this defect, what should we think of the ignorant who often have only a good hand, and a fiery imagination that gives birth to everything they bring to light? Madness to want to put themselves in the head to explain all their productions.
Is there less to write dissertations full of research and scholarship on trifles and very uninteresting things, which are found in many ancient monuments? sometimes animals, rocks, &c. ?If educated Artists sometimes fall into this defect, what should we think of the ignorant who often have only a good hand, and a fiery imagination that gives birth to everything they bring to light? Madness to want to put themselves in the head to explain all their productions. Is there less to write dissertations full of research and scholarship on trifles and very uninteresting things, which are found in many ancient monuments?
It is not that the scholars of Egypt adopted this sentiment; they knew too well that there was only one God. Moreover, how could they have granted the eternity of Osiris & Isis with the paternity of Saturn or Vulcan, of which, according to them, Osiris & Isis were sons?
Authors have been foolish enough to say that the first men came out of the earth like mushrooms, others have imagined that men had been formed in Egypt, doubtless conjecturing that they came from the earth, as those rats which one sees coming out in great numbers from the crevices of the silt of the Nile, after the Sun has dried up the humidity.
Diodorus of Sicily (LIc 1.), after having traveled most of Europe, Asia & Egypt, confesses that he could not discover anything certain about the first Kings of all these countries. What remains to us most constant are the Egyptian hieroglyphs, as far as writing is concerned; but as regards their Kings, we have only fables. The same Diodorus says (Ch.2.), that the first men worshiped the Sun & the Moon as eternal Gods;which they called the Sun Osiris, and the Moon Isis, which perfectly suits the ideas we are given of the people of Egypt. For us who have learned more certainly from Holy Scripture, what is the only true God of the other Gods; who was the first man, and the land he inhabited, we groan over the vanity of the Egyptians,
All too evident proof that Diodorus was instructed only in popular ideas. The Egyptians meant something quite different by these sons of Saturn; we have innumerable indications which show that the Science of Nature was cultivated in Egypt; that the Hermetic Philosophy was known there and practiced by the Priests and the most ancient Kings of that country; and we no longer doubt that to communicate it to the Sages their successors, without the knowledge of the people, they invented the hieroglyphs taken from animals, men, &c.
We will speak more along these hieroglyphs in the Continuation of this Work.
CHAPTER II
Of the gods of Egypt.
It cannot be doubted that the plurality of the gods was admitted by the people of Egypt. The most ancient Historians even assure us that the Greeks and the other Nations had no other Gods than those of the Egyptians; but under different names. Herodotus (Lib. 2.) counted twelve principal Gods that the Greeks had taken from the Egyptians with their very names, & adds that these last Peoples erected the first altars, & erected temples to the Gods. But it is not less constant that however superstitious this Nation was, one saw there many traces of the true Religion.
Even a considerable part of Egypt, the Thebaid, says Plutarch, recognized no mortal God;but a beginningless & immortal God, who in the language of the country was called Cneph, & according to Strabo Knuphis. What we have reported from Hermes, Iamblichus, &c. proves even more clearly that the mysteries of the Egyptians did not have as their object the gods as God, and their worship as the worship of the Divinity.
Isis & Osiris on which revolves almost all Egyptian Theology, were to collect the feelings of various Authors, both of paganism. Isis, according to them, was Ceres, Juno, the Moon, the Earth, Minerva, Proserpina, Thetis, the mother of the Gods or Cybele, Venus, Diana, Bellona, Hecate, Rhamnusia, Nature itself: in a word, all the Goddesses.
This is what gave rise to call it Myrionyme, or the Goddess of a thousand names.Just as Isis took herself for all the Goddesses, so Osiris was also taken for all the Gods; some say that Osiris was Bacchus; others are the same as Scrapis, the Sun, Pluto, Jupiter, Ammon, Pan: others (Hesychius.) are of Osiris Attis, Adonis, Apis, Titan, Apollo, Phoebus, Mithras, the Ocean, &vs. I will not go into a detail that can be seen in many other Authors.
The misunderstood interpretations of the hieroglyphs invented by the Philosophers & the Priests, have given rise to this multitude of Gods, which Hesiod (Theogon.) makes rise to 30,000. Trimegiste, Iamblichus, Psellus & several others have not determined any the number; but they said that the heavens, the air and the earth were full of them.Maximus of Tire said, speaking of Homer, that this Poet did not recognize any place on earth that did not have its God.
Most of the Pagans even looked upon the Divinity as having both sexes, and called her Hermaphrodite; which made Valerius Soranus say: Psellus & several others have not determined the number; but they said that the heavens, the air and the earth were full of them. Maximus of Tire said, speaking of Homer, that this Poet did not recognize any place on earth that did not have its God.
Most of the Pagans even looked upon the Divinity as having both sexes, and called her Hermaphrodite; which made Valerius Soranus say: Psellus & several others have not determined the number;but they said that the heavens, the air and the earth were full of them. Maximus of Tire said, speaking of Homer, that this Poet did not recognize any place on earth that did not have its God.
Most of the Pagans even looked upon the Divinity as having both sexes, and called her Hermaphrodite; which made Valerius Soranus say: This confusion as much in the names as in the Gods themselves, must convince us that those who invented them, could only have in view Nature, its operations and its productions. And as the great work is one of its most admirable effects, the first who found it having considered its material, its form, the various changes which occurred to it during the operations, its surprising effects;
Jupiter omnipotens, Regum, rerumque Deûmque
Progenitor, genitrixque Deûm, Deus unus & omnis.
& that in all this she participated in some way with the principal parts of the Universe (Majer Arcana Arcaniss) such as the Sun, the Moon, the stars, the fire, the air, the earth, the water, they took the opportunity to give him all these names. Everything that is formed in Nature, being done only by the action of two, one agent, the other patient, which are analogous to the male and the female in animals; the first hot, dry, fiery; the second cold & damp.
The Priests of Egypt personified the matter of their priestly art, & called Osiris, or hidden fire, the active principle which performs the functions of male, & Isis the passive principle which takes the place of female.
They designated one by the Sun, because of the principle of heat and life that this star spreads throughout all Nature; & the other by the Moon, because they regarded it as of a cold & humid nature.
The fixed and the volatile, the hot and the humid being the constituent parts of the mixtures, with certain heterogeneous parts which are always mixed there, and which are the cause of the destruction of individuals, they joined to it a third, to which they gave the name of Typhoon, or bad principle.
Mercury was given as assistant to Osiris & to Isis,to succor them against the enterprises of Typhoon, because Mercury is like the link & the medium which unites the hot & the cold, the humid & the dry, that it is like the knot by means of which the subtle & the thick , the pure & the impure are associated; & that finally there is no conjunction of the Sun with the Moon, without Mercury, neighbor of the Sun, being present there.
Osiris & Isis were therefore regarded as husband & wife, brother & sister, children of Saturn, according to some (Diodor. of Sicily.), son of Coelus according to others (Kirch. p. 179. );Typhon passed only for their uterine brother, because the connection of the homogeneous, unalterable & radical parts with the heterogeneous, impure & accidental parts of the mixed ones takes place in the same womb, or in the bowels of the earth.
All the bad qualities which were attributed to Typhoon reveal to us perfectly what was intended to be signified by him. We will say something more detailed about it later.
These four people, Osiris, Isis, Mercury & Typhon, were among the main & most famous Egyptians, three passed for Gods, & Typhon for an evil spirit. But for Gods of nature of those of which Hermes speaks to Asclepius, I mean gods made artistically by the hand of men.
To these four they added Vulcan, inventor of fire, whom Diodorus makes father of Saturn, because the Philosophical fire is absolutely necessary in the Hermetic work. They also associated them with Pallas or wisdom, prudence & skill in the conduct of the regime for operations. The Ocean, father of the Gods, & Thetis their mother came next with the Nile, that is to say, the water, & finally the Earth, mother of all things; because according to Orpheus, the earth provides us with wealth. Saturn, Jupiter,
Not only things, but their virtues and physical properties became gods in the minds of the people, as we tried to show them their excellence. S. Augustine (De Civit. Dei. 4.), Lactantius, Eusebius & many other Christian & Pagan Authors tell us this in different places; Cicero (L. 2. de Nat. Deor.), Dionysius of Halicarnassus (L. 2. Antiquit, Roman.), think that the variety & multitude of the Gods of Paganism originated in the observations made by the scholars on the properties of the Sky, the essences of the Elements, the influences of the Stars, the virtues of the mixtures, &c. They imagined that there was not a plant, an animal, a metal or a stone specified on earth, which did not have its star, or its dominating genius.
In addition to the Gods therefore we have spoken above, whom Herodotus (L. 2.) calls the great Gods, and whom the Egyptians regarded as celestial according to Diodorus, "they still had, says this Author (LI c. 2.) , geniuses, who were men; but who, during their life, have excelled in wisdom, and have made themselves commendable by their benefits to humanity . others had names of their own.
The Sun, Saturn, Rhea, Jupiter, called Ammon, Juno, Vulcan, Vesta, & finally Mercury. The first was named Sun, as well as the star that enlightens us. But several of their Priests maintained that Vulcan was the inventor of fire;& that this invention have engaged the Egyptians to make him their King. The same Author adds that after Vulcan, Saturn reigned; that he married his sister Rhée; that he was the father of Osiris, Isis, Jupiter & Juno; that these last two obtained the empire of the world by their prudence and their value.
Jupiter & Juno, if we believe Plutarch (De Isid. & Osir.), engendered five Gods, following the five intercalary days of the Egyptians; namely, Osiris, Isis, Typhoon, Apollo & Venus. Osiris was nicknamed Denis, & Isis Ceres. almost all Authors agree that Osiris was brother & husband of Isis, as Jupiter was brother & husband of Juno; but Lactantius & Minutius Felix say he was the son of Isis;Eusebe calls her husband, brother & son.
If it is difficult to reconcile all these qualities & all these titles in the same person, it is no less difficult to explain how, according to the Egyptians, Osiris & Isis contracted marriage in the womb of their mother, & that Isis came out pregnant with Arueris (Manetho, apud Plutar.), or the elder Horus, who passed for their son. In whatever way this fiction may be interpreted, it will always appear extravagant to any man who will only see it through the eyes of Mythologists, who will want to explain it historically, politically or morally: it cannot suit any of these systems; & that of Hermetic Philosophy develops it very clearly, as we shall see later.
The Egyptians, according to the same Plutarch, told many other stories which are marked in the same corner with obscurity and childishness; that Rhée, after knowing Saturn in secret, had next to do with the Sun, then with Mercury; & that she gave birth to Osiris; that one heard at the moment of his birth (Diodorus of Sicily.) a voice which said: The Lord of all is born. The next day Arueris, or Apollo, or Horus the Elder was born. On the third day, Typhon, who did not come into the world by the ordinary means, but by a rib of his mother torn by violence, Isis appeared the fourth, & Nephre the fifth.
Whatever the case with all these fables, Herodotus teaches us that Isis & Osiris were the most respectable Gods of Egypt, & that they were honored in all countries; whereas many others were only in particular Nomes (This word Means the different Prefectures, or the different Governments of Egypt.). What throws a lot of embarrassment & obscurity on their history, is that in times subsequent to those who imagined these Gods, & what is attributed to them, scholars, but little instructed in the intentions & ideas of Mercury Trimegist, looked upon these gods as persons who had once governed Egypt with much wisdom and prudence; & others, as beings immortal in their nature, who had formed the world,
This variety of feelings made them lose sight of the object that the inventor of these fictions had had, who had moreover so buried them in the obscurity & the shadows of the hieroglyphs, that they were unintelligible & inexplicable in their true meaning, for anyone other than the Priests, the only confidants of the secret of the Sacerdotal Art. However credulous the people may be, things must nevertheless be presented to them in a plausible manner. For that, it was a question of fabricating a continuous history: we did it; and what was added to it, which hardly conforms to what commonly happens in Nature, was for the people only a reason for admiration.
This mysterious story, or rather this fiction, subsequently became the foundation of Egyptian Theology, which was hidden under the symbols of these two Divinities, while the Philosophers and Priests saw in it the greatest secrets of Nature. Osiris was for the ignorant the Sun or the Star of the day, & Isis the Moon; the Priests saw in it the two principles of Nature and Hermetic art. The etymologies of these two names even conspired to deceive them.
Some, like Plutarch, claimed that Osiris signified Most Holy; others, with Diodorus, Horus-Apollô, Eusebius, Macrobius, said that he meant, who has many eyes, he who sees clearly; therefore Osiris was taken for the Sun. But the Philosophers saw in the name of this God, the terrestrial Sun,the hidden fire of Nature, the igneous, fixed & radical principle that animates everything. Isis for the common people was only the Ancient or the Moon; for the Priests, she was Nature itself, the material and passive principle of everything.
This is why Apuleius (Metarn. 1. I.) makes this Goddess speak thus: I am Nature, mother of all things, mistress of the Elements, the beginning of the centuries, the Sovereign of the Gods, the Queen of the Manes, &vs. But Herodotus teaches us that the Egyptians also took Isis for Ceres, & believed that Apollo & Diana were her children. He says elsewhere that Apollo & Orus, Diana or Bubastis, & Ceres are not differences from Isis; proof that the secret of the Priests had somewhat leaked out to the public;since, despite this apparent contradiction, it is indeed seen in the Hermetic work, or the mother, the son, the brother & the sister, the husband & the wife are united in the same subject.
This is how the Priests had found the art of veiling their mysteries, either by presenting Osiris as a mortal man, whose story they told, or by saying that he was, not a mortal man, but a star who filled the entire Universe, and Egypt in particular, with so many benefits, through the fertility and abundance it procures. They even knew how to deceive those who, suspecting something mysterious, sought to learn about it, and to penetrate into it.As the theoretical & practical principles of Sacerdotal or Hermetic art could be applied to the general knowledge of Nature & its productions, that this art proposes itself as a model; they gave to these curious people, Physics lessons; & many Greek Philosophers drew their Philosophy from these sorts of instructions.
END OF THE FIRST PART
Les fables égyptiennes et grecques dévoilées et réduites au même principe, avec une explication des hieroglyphes et de la Guerre de Troye - French PDF
Antoine-Joseph Pernety, 1716-1801
1786
Different Version Volume 1 - French PDF