THE CHEMICAL KABBALAH
by FRANCISCUS KIESER
Treatise without the help of which no one will
ever understand true chemistry or
learn the supreme arcana.
There the true substance and foundation
of all things, natural and supernatural, are explained.
Revealed for their profit and for their pleasure
to all the sons of the doctrine,
By Franciscus Kieser, physician and chemist
of Frankfurt.
In Mulhouse, at Martin Spiessen, in the care
of Johann Spiessen, publisher.
1606.
To the respectful, honorable and very learned Mr. Georgius Schwallenberg, cantor and canon of the Cathedral of Saint Peter in Fritzlar in Hesse, as well as to the honorable and very learned Mr. Balthasar Keyb, doctor of law here, my gracious, dear , good friends and zealous patrons (1).
Honorable, respectful and very educated sir, respectable and very educated doctor, I address to you both immediately and as best I can the expression of my applied and permanent devotion. Know, gracious and powerful patrons, that Philip Theophrastus Paracelsus, philosopher and noble doctor, honorable doctor, confirmed and very learned, wrote that everything must be interpreted and considered in the light of nature and based on the first creation .
This is because the beginning determines the continuation, of which it is the property and nature, and the similar does not create the unlike. The first creation of heaven and earth therefore determines not only from the beginning the form and figures, but also the natural energies. Furthermore, man was created after this universal creation, by the hand of God and in his image. In short: man is the small world, not only by his form and his bodily substance, but also by all of his energies and his capacities, in the same way as the big world.
This is why it takes the name “microcosm”. This means that it shelters all the celestial revolutions, the terrestrial nature, the aqueous qualities, the aerial essence, that it contains the nature of all the fruits of the earth, of the ores, the nature of the waters, all the constellations and the four winds of this world.
There is therefore nothing on earth whose nature and energy man does not possess. Silt so noble, so subtle, so penetrating, with which God created man in his image! Let every man naturally consider that it is from the noblest compound ever possible that God created man, that he formed him in his own image! The great works that are accomplished reveal not only the incomparable nobility of celestial energies, they also reveal that no element, not even the earth, is similar to it, except man. All these great marvels are therefore in man, and man is in every way similar to the great world.
Although man was endowed with such noble virtues before the fall of Adam and Eve, although he possessed all science, all wisdom, all knowledge, it in no way follows that we, his children and his descendants, currently possessed, after the fall, identical illuminations, gifts and qualities.
Many are aware that the Almighty God allowed men to be born in complete nudity, that they inherit no art or wisdom, and that they must wait for grace and the only gift of God. God only gives men of their own free will life; nature decides their health and illness, parents must teach language. Incapable of the slightest art, men must, as they grow, toil, work, a lot, painfully, to learn everything. Now, in this apprenticeship, they must receive an instruction which is not human, because man, as we have said, is initially ignorant.
If they desire to learn, it is God who instructs them, it is in God that they have their first foundation; it is God who communicates to them, who graciously sends them what they need. Now, all things considered, we realize that the Lord God created the earth and the sky, as the means which allows us to acquire what the body must dominate, and which makes man the master of everything, of the fields , meadows, vineyards. It is neither the earth nor the sun which gives him this gift, but it is God, according to his good pleasure and in the good order of his means.
Likewise, it is not from ourselves that we men draw the wisdom of these arts. Certain mediators are also necessary, invisible spirits who act in the same way that the earth bears fruit. It is they, angels or others, who come to us, and who, with their names and with their different aspects, which the philosophers have evoked, teach us and bring us art and wisdom. So the angel comes and says to Mary:
“You are full of grace”. It is the same for Joseph, Daniel, Jacob and others, in the Holy Scriptures, in the Old and in the New Testament: it was by means of angels and spirits that what was taught and revealed to them was God required of them and what He wanted them to do. It is thus manifest that it is in secret that the graces, the gifts and the wisdom that God grants us are communicated to us, and each one keeps the gift that God sent him, a gift which is different for each.
Let us all be content with what God has sent us and appreciate this gift as much as an angelic greeting! How could we cultivate the earth, reign properly over everything it contains, without a light whose profusion instructs us?
Since all our artistic abilities come to us from above, divine gifts and gifts which must serve and benefit man, may these in return serve the praise and honor of God who has graciously distributed them! reign properly over everything it contains, without a light whose profusion instructs us? Since all our artistic abilities come to us from above, divine gifts and gifts which must serve and benefit man, may these in return serve the praise and honor of God who has graciously distributed them! reign properly over everything it contains, without a light whose profusion instructs us? Since all our artistic abilities come to us from above, divine gifts and gifts which must serve and benefit man, may these in return serve the praise and honor of God who has graciously distributed them!
For this reason, having titled this treatise Chemical Kabbalah, we wish to distinguish magic, kabbalah and necromancy, so that these arts are not considered by the ignorant as black and diabolical magic, but so that they are considered wisdom. supreme, for the most perfect of wisdom.
Certainly, we know what true, authentic philosophers are, we know well that number is at the root of natural magic. It is certainly also true that magic is the philosophy of alchemy, and the main part of Kabbalah. But this magic is twofold: one is diabolical, all its annexes and all its appendages make up a truly detestable, cursed operation.
The other, at its foundation, is nothing other than a perfect completion of philosophy, it is called perfect wisdom, supreme wisdom. Among the Persians, the term mage means: interpreter, exegete and lover of divine mysteries. But between the two magical arts, there is a very great difference and dissimilarity: this is explained in detail in his Theophrastic Vademecum by the honorable and learned Mr. Bernard Gabriel Penot of Port Sainte-Marie in Aquitaine (2). Diabolical magic is in fact not only rightly condemned and eliminated by the entire Christian religion, but by all the well-established ordinances of civil power.
He who, in this matter, has a certain knowledge and a certain power usually hides it all the time, so as not to be harmed by it, and he is not a true philosopher, not a lover of quality arts who be concerned. This magic loves the abode of darkness and deserts, and we are not wrong to suspect all these arts which fear the light, because they take their origin from the spirit of darkness. As for the other magic, it is approved and accepted by all wise and intelligent people, of every nation and people, who delight in the divine and celestial mysteries of every nature, who delight in their examination.
It is she, the supreme and most holy philosophy from which sprang from the highest antiquity experience, glory, honor and magnificence of all the high arts, it is she whose research inspired Pythagoras, Democritus, Plato and many others still on long journeys by land and sea. On their return, they spread said wisdom, they drew from it all their mysteries,
While diabolical magic, which we also call necromancy, is incapable of providing, through its art and practice, the slightest glory and the slightest honor, true magic, the noblest foundation of Kabbalah, is this point full of the most ineffable supreme mysteries that its meditation reveals and unveils both the knowledge of the creator God in person and that of all nature.
With the help and assistance of God, it brings to light all the hidden energies throughout the vast world. As the winegrower grafts the vine onto the elm or the espalier, the magician knows how to unite, and so to speak, marry earth and sky, lower and higher energies (3). Magic thus awakens authentic wonder at the spectacle of divine works, wonder which is the certain antecedent of inclination love, faith and hope. Nothing can better promote religion or divine service than the continuous and assiduous consideration and analysis of divine wonders, which divine magic alone allows. So we must sing and say without detours, necessarily:
“Your divine power and magnificence are poured out on heaven and on earth”. This is the instruction that should be given to those who do not want to fully understand the difference between magic and necromancy. that only divine magic allows. So we must sing and say without detours, necessarily: “Your divine power and magnificence are poured out on heaven and on earth”.
This is the instruction that should be given to those who do not want to fully understand the difference between magic and necromancy. that only divine magic allows. So we must sing and say without detours, necessarily: “Your divine power and magnificence are poured out on heaven and on earth”. This is the instruction that should be given to those who do not want to fully understand the difference between magic and necromancy.
Let us now present briefly, but in depth, what the light of Kabbalah and magic can accomplish today as in the past.
Solomon, an enlightened holy man, composes in many places, in his book of Wisdom, proverbs as memorable as they are profound, which clearly prove that he placed in them the basis and foundation of natural magic, of supernatural Kabbalah and of divine theology, that he has scattered and inserted into them the germs and origins of the said marvelous art, thanks to which these extinct mysteries can recover the light.
But the whole foundation is the fear of the Lord, the beginning of Wisdom, because no one pleases God, no one can love him, unless he loves Wisdom, practices it to become a friend of God , she who never ceases to give herself to the holy soul and to make friends and prophets of God. These are the origin and the entire art as we can verify in chapter 7 of the book of Wisdom, when Solomon says: “Simplicity has instructed me, with leniency I communicate my knowledge”.
He also gives the definition of this art, when he says that Wisdom is a light, that the radiance it pours out does not go out, that it is the breath of divine energy, the ray of magnificence of the Almighty, a brilliance of eternal light, unblemished mirror of divine energy and image of his goodness. But said light is nothing other than an invisible fire, eternal light placed alongside God and above all the heavens, energy, power, form, life, virtue and maintenance of all things in the heavens and on earth, eternal movement, not nature, but that which dominates and which generates nature, in short all in all.
If it is called the light of eternity as much as the light of Wisdom, it is because it is light in itself, it is because it conceals hidden within itself the foundations of Wisdom. The energy and power it harbors are indescribable, unfathomable to man, in the same way as divine intimacy. Let us not understand that it is similar to God, because God is its master, but it comes from God who thus manifested his omnipotence, as we see in the Old Testament and in the response given by Moses through said light. Solomon will not have lied: she is a light whose brilliance does not go out, triune although unique. If it is called the light of eternity as much as the light of Wisdom, it is because it is light in itself, it is because it conceals hidden within itself the foundations of Wisdom.
The energy and power it harbors are indescribable, unfathomable to man, in the same way as divine intimacy. Let us not understand that it is similar to God, because God is its master, but it comes from God who thus manifested his omnipotence, as we see in the Old Testament and in the response given by Moses through said light. Solomon will not have lied: she is a light whose brilliance does not go out, triune although unique.
If it is called the light of eternity as much as the light of Wisdom, it is because it is light in itself, it is because it conceals hidden within itself the foundations of Wisdom. The energy and power it harbors are indescribable, unfathomable to man, in the same way as divine intimacy. Let us not understand that it is similar to God, because God is its master, but it comes from God who thus manifested his omnipotence, as we see in the Old Testament and in the response given by Moses through said light. Solomon will not have lied: she is a light whose brilliance does not go out, triune although unique. it is because it conceals hidden within it the foundations of Wisdom.
The energy and power it harbors are indescribable, unfathomable to man, in the same way as divine intimacy. Let us not understand that it is similar to God, because God is its master, but it comes from God who thus manifested his omnipotence, as we see in the Old Testament and in the response given by Moses through said light. Solomon will not have lied: she is a light whose brilliance does not go out, triune although unique. it is because it conceals hidden within it the foundations of Wisdom.
The energy and power it harbors are indescribable, unfathomable to man, in the same way as divine intimacy. Let us not understand that it is similar to God, because God is its master, but it comes from God who thus manifested his omnipotence, as we see in the Old Testament and in the response given by Moses through said light.
Solomon will not have lied: she is a light whose brilliance does not go out, triune although unique. Let us not understand that it is similar to God, because God is its master, but it comes from God who thus manifested his omnipotence, as we see in the Old Testament and in the response given by Moses through said light.
Solomon will not have lied: she is a light whose brilliance does not go out, triune although unique. Let us not understand that it is similar to God, because God is its master, but it comes from God who thus manifested his omnipotence, as we see in the Old Testament and in the response given by Moses through said light.
Solomon will not have lied: she is a light whose brilliance does not go out, triune although unique.
Now he who watches this light shine in all nature, in all creatures, without excepting the humblest of all, whether in the firmament, in the stars, in the air, on earth, in the mountains and valleys , in the creatures of the waters and the sea depths, in the metals and in the minerals, in short in all the visible creatures which contain it, in the words of Solomon: “Lord, your perennial Spirit is in all creatures! ", he therefore who watches it shine and who understands it, bears the title of mage, he is a mage.
His art is called magic, an art to which Paracelsus gave the name of light of nature, another sun which allows the wise to see. It is this light that the wise men of the East seek, in the star which allowed them to recognize the king of the Jews, our redeemer and our eternal savior.
John in the Apocalypse, Aaron, Tobias, David, Daniel, Baruch, Jeremiah and Ezekiel, as well as all the other prophets, without exception possessed and recognized the true light, they were magi, kabbalists and diviners in the same way as Moses . Let us therefore rightly name Kabbalah the key to all hidden mysteries, which allows the revelation and opening of the secrets of the nature of all creatures!
This light is a perennial fire which decides the life, the light, the movement, the energy and the maintenance of the heavens, the planets, the stars and all the elements.
He who recognizes this light, he who perceives it in invisible creatures, angels and invisible spirits, he who can see all the power of angels and who can put it to good use is, for his part, a kabbalist. His art is called Kabbalah, and it is far superior to magic, although the latter is a light as rapid and as sudden as thought, although it penetrates in an instant all minds, whatever their intelligence, their limpidity and their quibbling, as Solomon says: “Wisdom is the quickest of all, it penetrates everything, such is its limpidity”.
This Kabbalistic light was the radiance and light of the breastplate of the high priest, and the Lord God commanded Moses to introduce it into the precious stones. In it we can see the divine council and its will, its gracious government, the entry and exit of men: on them the children of Israel must regulate the entire course of their existence, their entry and their exit.
Just as magic is light and knowledge of all natural things that concern mortal life, Kabbalah has the characteristic of dealing with spiritual things, which concern the soul, and especially the knowledge of our Lord Jesus. -Christ.
Kabbalah in fact reveals the hidden mysteries of Scripture, the mystery of the Messiah, mysteries hidden under the letter of Scripture, divine mysteries which we therefore see in the Kabbalistic light. Just as magic is a knowledge of the natural earthly sky which governs earthly man, because the whole course of man is inscribed in the course of heaven, so Kabbalah is a light of knowledge of the supernatural sky, who governs the blessed, the blessed who are governed by another heaven, the Holy Spirit.
He who lives according to the earthly heaven, subject to its natural influence, leads the life of an unbeliever, he who lives according to the supernatural heaven, and according to the Holy Spirit, leads the life of a Christian. Two influences are therefore exerted, that of heaven and that of God. The one who is governed by divine influence leads the life of a Christian, while the other leads the life of an animal.
Let us indicate another difference between magic and kabbalah. Magic reveals its mysteries through images that must be interpreted, through figures, through characters, through the very laudable art of signature, through the science of signature. Kabbalah also reveals, but its wisdom is hidden in dark words, in proverbs, in enigmas, in profound discourses.
The prophets of Scripture often used the language of Kabbalists. The letter therefore conceals a very secret wisdom, but it is the celerity of the Kabbalistic spirit which reveals everything. This is how the Queen of Arabia tempted Solomon with riddles, with profound formulas: Solomon told her everything, he who held the light of magic and Kabbalah. This is where the difference between the Magi or wise men of Egypt lies, of Chaldea and Persia, and Joseph and Daniel.
If the dream of the cows dreamed by Pharaoh, if the dream of the great statue and that of the tree dreamed by Nebuchadnezzar had been natural dreams, naturally influenced by the earthly sky, the Egyptian, Chaldean and Persian magi could have interpreted them and find them, because magic finds everything that is natural. But because these dreams were supernatural, because they had a higher origin, and because they came from the supernatural heaven, which governs the true Church of God, and the people of God, interpretation and revelation were not within the power of the wise, and, as the prophet Daniel said to the king in the second chapter (2, 7), they could read in the firmament that it was not in their power to reveal to the king the mystery he was pursuing.
Joseph and Daniel were Kabbalists, they possessed a Kabbalistic spirit and light superior to those of all the wise: thus they were able to find the interpretation of forgotten dreams. Kabbalah begins where magic ends, and where Kabbalah ends, theology and the prophetic spirit begin.
Therefore, it is appropriate to distinguish the three lights and the three spirits: magic is natural light and natural spirit. Kabbalah is a supernatural light and spirit, an angelic light. Theology is the light of God, the Holy Spirit. In short: God the Lord speaks to the true theologian through the Holy Spirit, and a true theologian therefore possesses the divine dialogue which addresses him knowingly and in secret. Likewise, nature speaks in all creatures to the magician, by its spiritual signs and by the signature, and the firmament by the influence which is its own. Likewise, Kabbalah is expressed by angelic light and by angelic power, through the mouth of the Kabbalist: it is by this light that God responded to Moses.
We can clearly conclude from this presentation that no one will ever succeed in obtaining the supreme arcana if he has not previously acquired extremely detailed experience of magic and Kabbalah. Indeed, all those who have ever possessed the stone have been magi and kabbalists, which we will sufficiently demonstrate.
I dedicate this work to you in particular, to you, honorable, gracious and powerful sirs and patrons, to you who are also my good friends, respecting a laudable practice and usage, which date from the Ancients, which were then maintained among writers and among the authors of new books, and up to the present day: they consist of dedicating and attributing one's books to famous and quality people, in order to have patrons who protect you from slanderers and quibblers, and in order also to openly demonstrate your gratitude and your availability towards those who bear you multiple marks of friendship.
No doubt it does not suit me to base myself on such an ancient usage. But as I felt on several occasions that you both showed me many favors and many marks of friendship, and that you were inclined to promote my honor and my well-being, I followed the said custom and I I decided to respond, to show you my gratitude and my keen desire to serve you diligently. I therefore decided to print, dedicating and attributing them to you, my little unpublished chemical treatises under the protection and with the reputation of your famous names.
It is primarily because I am sure and aware that you have a particular love for this high art, that you will greatly appreciate the medicines it allows you to prepare, also because these treatises are written in such a way. so that I believe them, in the light of my poor intelligence and my poor experience, founded on the basis of true alchemy.
I am therefore confident and comforted: my humble treatises which nevertheless contain so much and which comment on the writings of ancient philosophers, you will welcome and protect them graciously. But I want to clarify here and also testify that this dedication in no way means - do not interpret it this way - that I nourish the presumption of giving you through their intermediary instruction, teaching and doctrine.
I consider myself too mediocre in this matter to think that these too modest treatises can obtain a similar effect, considering your great experience in the art of chemistry and knowing that you can obtain better and more than in these different treatises that However, given their excellence, we should not reject them. I therefore faithfully recommend you to the gracious goodness of God and I humbly recommend myself to you, to your friendship and to your favors.
Written in Frankfurt am Main, according to the different calendars, on March 20 or 30, 1606 (4). I therefore faithfully recommend you to the gracious goodness of God and I humbly recommend myself to you, to your friendship and to your favors. Written in Frankfurt am Main, according to the different calendars, on March 20 or 30, 1606 (4). I therefore faithfully recommend you to the gracious goodness of God and I humbly recommend myself to you, to your friendship and to your favors. Written in Frankfurt am Main, according to the different calendars, on March 20 or 30, 1606 (4).
Your friend and devoted Franciscus Kieser, citizen and doctor of the said city.
Hello reader!
Dear and gracious reader, many people know the thickness of the darkness which covered the excellent art of alchemy a century and more ago. Despite the existence of a few works in this area, in fact no one could take advantage of what was, so to speak, a buried treasure, and no one could understand it.
Until the time of the excellent Paracelsus, we did not know its use either: it was Paracelsus who was the first to use it medicinally, in order to remedy human weaknesses.
But the achievements and demonstrations of the said Paracelsus are publicly known, and it is useless for us to repeat ourselves here: God has indeed in recent times marvelously awakened the instruments which allow the total revelation of the mysteries which he had inserted and enclosed in nature.
So that amateurs could acquire more surely and more completely this art which has risen high in the esteem of our contemporaries thanks to all kinds of writers and philosophical treatises, and so that we could expressly notice the gross and numerous errors which were committed there, I wanted to explain and publish for all lovers of the art these different chemical treatises which agree with the best philosophical writings. I thus nourish the consoling and assured hope that my readers will not receive my pain and my labor unfavorably, and that my treatises will be useful to them in the preparation of the stone.
If I feel that the above-mentioned treatises are welcomed and accepted by the gracious reader with a particular inclination, I will shortly publish, if it pleases God, other chemical treatises of the same kind and the same usefulness, without leaving myself in the least hampered by the great contempt which this art incurs on the part of many ignorant people, totally inexperienced in the matter, and which I also incur, also perhaps because of the abuses and incurable deceptions which occur there. mix in vain. I rely on God. In Frankfurt am Main, March 20, 1606, according to the old calendar.
Very exact description of Kabbalah, that is to say in-depth description and demonstration of all natural and supernatural things: how everything was created through the Word Fiat, before being generated, nourished, governed and corrupted through the center of heaven and earth, which is its supra-celestial light and its elusive fire.
First question
First of all, what is the light of Kabbalah, that is to say of nature, as Theophrastus Paracelsus calls it, what is its usefulness - we recognize it immediately, but we do not know its strength -, and what is the meaning of the star and the planets of the sky, which are moved by said light, which set the water in motion and which fertilize the earth by their rays?
Answer :
In all his works, Almighty God represents future phenomena. This is how he cried out, after having created and made heaven and earth, all creatures, plants, foliage, grass, livestock, men: “Grow and multiply. ! " As soon as these words were spoken, the invisible fire began to dominate, to reign, it became capable of producing an impression, while heaven and earth were endowed with an attractive power.
This fire incited nature to carry out the operations implanted in it. Thus the sun, the moon and all the stars must have produced not only a constant brightness, but the driving energy and the seed which allows the existence of everything on earth. Things are designed by the earth which is the matrix; this matrix exerts an attraction, as the magnet attracts iron. And just as the star and the firmament attracted the form, meaning natural light, the earth also attracts the form which comes from the firmament, a form which previously was matter. Let us rightly pay attention to these points!
If God had not spoken these words, all things would have died, the plants would have become corrupted in a short time, the created animals would have died, the sky would have been destroyed, and this high work which makes one feel omnipotence and the wisdom of the supreme God would soon have fallen into ruin.
And although this fire was the first creation, which lives and which lasts eternally, which is imperishable unlike the world, it nevertheless had to obey its creator, to remain immobile at first, not to take care of the nature and other creatures. But as soon as these lofty words had been spoken, this indestructible and life-giving fire penetrated the heart of nature, to exert an impression there, to awaken this impression there.
Then the movement was triggered, an attractive force was incorporated in the sky, in the firmament, in the sidereal star, and the vivifying energy which allows reproduction really advanced in all creatures. Otherwise the sun, the moon and the stars would have died, they would have quickly reached their end. Quickly they were created, quickly they would have withered away, the earth too.
This is the reason why the stars never stop projecting their rays into the firmament, and this is why new aspects constantly appear.
These rays are the life of the firmament, and the soul is that which preserves and protects from destruction.
Now these rays draw their seed, or their supreme essence, from the sun and the moon. This is where the living fire mixes, which metamorphoses and takes on the nature of said seeds. As soon as the seed receives fire, it then takes on great energy which allows it to develop and multiply infinitely in accordance with its kind (5).
After this union with the sky and the firmament, said seed, full of soul, a form coming from the star, soon disperses on the earth, which is the matrix, with such rigor and energy that it splits the earth - in an invisible way - and that it descends until it has reached the center of the earth. This is how all kinds of plants, trees and fruits of different species come and grow, according to the nature that the volatile body, material and spiritual, borrows from the star.
This is how the form is created. As soon as said body arrives on earth, it seeks a matter that serves it, matter in which it multiplies and through which it becomes corporeal. At first, heaven had given him spiritual matter. When fire, which is life, takes shape through the great star, it is then that all kinds of fruits appear, large and small: there is in fact nothing on earth that has not been previously formed by the star and of which the form has not been prepared in this place.
The presence of different fruits depending on the location - this is the question we could ask ourselves - is explained by the existence, well known to astronomers, of the two hemispheres which determine the celestial revolution and which cannot exchange their parts . The stars there are different: gold, so many stars, so many species! The parts of one cannot join those of the other. Thus the roundness of the sky joined to the central and final point of the earth prevents the seed of a star from passing from one hemisphere to the other, from getting there. It must fall where it can, just below her.
You can therefore conclude that a seed which comes from the stars, in India, cannot fall in Sweden, because the said star cannot reach there. Certainly, it is true that men can transport and transplant a plant and a seed to places that the star cannot touch. If there is growth, it comes from the great and inexpressible vegetative multiplication that the spiritual fire conceals. The main thing is that the seed can be digested.
The predilection of certain plants for certain places and their refusal to grow in other places have two causes: either they can acquire the material which is useful to them; either they experience digestion that is too weak or, on the contrary, too strong. Thus a plant which grows in Arabia cannot grow in Germany, because it is in its nature to have a keen digestion. And the converse is true: the plant that grows in Germany cannot grow in Arabia, it would burn there and be destroyed. We therefore see that plants are generated by the stars and that these stars exert their influence: thus men waste away, who are soiled by the stars and who receive venoms from them.
Let us continue to reflect and study how the star governs and generates man.
For men and for animals whose life occurs through conception, the process is different. As soon as the male and the female mate, stars particular to men and animals rise. Their strength is such that it constrains the stars, the stars in turn natural light. Each material then reaches its matrix, and it produces a movement which allows the masculine sperm, the active agent, to mix with the feminine element to work there. This sperm thus produces a man or an animal, depending on the configuration, according to the shape which corresponds to the equivalent shape of the star and the firmament.
Once the body is completed, another intervention occurs, that of the astral body, or body of the firmament, both material and spiritual, and of its life. Man and animal then depend on the position of the stars, as far as their senses and their thoughts are concerned, which allows us to recognize the differences between men and animals; some men have the soul of a dog, of a bear and wolf, certain animal species prevail in ferocity, such as the dog, the wolf or the bear.
This also explains why it happens to a pious father to have a bad son and vice versa. Physiognomy therefore has no reason to exist: we cannot determine the nature of man from his face and the shape of his limbs. Many men do not resemble each other externally, although they have only one thought. It also happens that the second astral intervention which concerns the soul and life of animals has nothing in common with the first, that they are of a different species: this is a common case, it is even the the most common case.
So it happens that many men look sad or angry and have a big face, but they are actually kind and humble. The same goes for animals. Even if the eyes are a subtle tool and if the tongue allows us to know the hearts, it is impossible to sufficiently determine the nature of man, as some dare to fraudulently claim. Men differ according to places, also according to times, in humility and friendliness: everything depends on the stars under which they find themselves and the customs of the country.
There is a mutual concordance. Their mind is comforted by the impression coming from heaven, their will is directed and confirmed, the body itself sometimes suffers its attacks. in humility and kindness: everything depends on the stars under which they find themselves and the customs of the country. There is a mutual concordance. Their mind is comforted by the impression coming from heaven, their will is directed and confirmed, the body itself sometimes suffers its attacks. in humility and kindness: everything depends on the stars under which they find themselves and the customs of the country. There is a mutual concordance. Their mind is comforted by the impression coming from heaven, their will is directed and confirmed, the body itself sometimes suffers its attacks.
We therefore see how the star governs man, how it equally favors and hinders his project. But this only applies to the beastly man who fulfills the wishes of the star.
True men indeed must think that man is higher than all creatures, that God, in the omnipotence of his breath, has placed him above the material body of the firmament, and thirdly that he has received the supreme gift, a soul body, a body endowed with a soul. Through this body, the other two bodies, their spirit and their soul, were revealed to him.
In him he cannot only find an eternity, the perfect eternity, he has not only become the possessor of the earth, but also of the sky, of the whole firmament, which he can master and constrain. From now on, all impressions, all complexes, all nativities are reversed, because it is not the stars which are the masters, but the soul body, the Spirit of God (6). May he not only be a name in man, but may he govern according to the will which created him, that is to say according to the will of God who forbids him from doing evil by commanding him to maintain the good! This commandment overthrows the whole of heaven, because it pays no attention to men, in their complexions and in their inclinations.
He hunts everything. If the almighty God had not known that man could resist the star and did not depend on it in all his inclinations, he would not have given a command. He would not have made man master of everything. Everything would have depended on heaven more than on man, and, at the last judgment, no man could have been condemned. Those responsible would rather have been destiny, the star, God himself: This is what needs to be made clear. You do wrong, men, to yourselves, to your fellow men, when you say for example: “I am the son of Venus”.
It is an idolatrous speech, a bestial speech, devoid of intelligence, it is to suppose that the star made you, that it created you. Say on the contrary: "I am a child of the Almighty God, who gave for me his only son, whose blood, bitter suffering and death have delivered me, and who has driven me from the power from the spirit of evil.” Good formula, to give honor to the one who deserved it thanks to you, and who is worthy of it! it is to suppose that the star made you, that it created you.
Say on the contrary: "I am a child of the Almighty God, who gave for me his only son, whose blood, bitter suffering and death have delivered me, and who has driven me from the power from the spirit of evil.” Good formula, to give honor to the one who deserved it thanks to you, and who is worthy of it! it is to suppose that the star made you, that it created you. Say on the contrary: "I am a child of the Almighty God, who gave for me his only son, whose blood, bitter suffering and death have delivered me, and who has driven me from the power from the spirit of evil.” Good formula, to give honor to the one who deserved it thanks to you, and who is worthy of it!
The pagans relied on astronomy, they were slaves to the stars, which they took for gods. But you act and speak like men, not pagans, and like animals without reason! May this serve as a warning to you all so that God will not be moved to make the punishment more severe!
Second question
We could conclude that astronomy is nothing. Should we therefore reject it completely?
Astronomy in itself is a wonderful art that should not only be celebrated, but also held in high esteem, if used properly. But it was falsified, as we said before, because people wanted to make gods out of it. On the other hand, the calculation methods described by Ptolemy have been lost, and current astronomers only use inaccurate, false data.
The sky has in fact been transformed, it has been greatly lowered, its revolution has become slower, more lazy, more indolent, its strength has also considerably diminished (7). Let the connoisseur of the first method use it as a Christian, not as a pagan! Let him use it to examine the times of the year and the aspects, natural disasters also, but let him not try like a pagan to predict wars, revolutions or other events, taking them for sure!
This is false. Such events arise from the divine will, and from the faults or merits of men. It does not matter whether a city or a province has a good ascendancy: if it happens that men there lead an evil life, without God, if they act against God and against his commandments, the punishment does not delay, God sends his rods to calm them.
Take the example of Sodom and Gomorrah: no planet, good or bad, played its role! It was their sin that generated a star that was bad for them, a star that God had to punish. Similar examples are numerous in Holy Scripture. Man must therefore not question the star and its threats: it is God he must consider, God who is his Lord, who preserved Daniel and Joseph, such were his powers. If a man trusts the star and submits to it, he does not only abandon human nature to become an animal. He also creates false idols for himself: he cannot escape the tricks they play on him. As for God, he has many more punishments, so that the folly and ingratitude of men like this will be revealed.
This is what many people want to do with botany by focusing on influences, which is false, which is even a serious error. What does a plant have to do with astronomy and the celestial revolution, as they claim? Consider two plants or two seeds, one in good, fresh soil, well exposed to the sun, the other in dry, lean and shady soil: you will see the first emerge, and not the other, even if they are found at a close distance.
Now astronomy advises us to gather these plants and herbs at certain times, and when the stars form certain aspects. But their growth will always be different: one will grow, the other will decrease. Who tells you that you're in the right era? This is why I speak of falsity and uselessness.
The Ancients understood astronomy well, but it was later heavily falsified. It is true that astronomy has its place when picking simple ones. This is because each thing has its own star, and it is to these stars that we must pay attention. It is at the moment when the ascendant is good, at the moment when the planet from which the seed takes its origin and its exaltation reaches its apogee that said planet or any other creature reaches its supreme degree of quality and power.
It is then that it must be picked and used, but without paying attention to the sky, to summer or to winter, but to the particular summer of the said plant, to its particular sky, to its autumn. particular and in its particular season, in short at the time when the plant reaches its best quality and its supreme degree, by the impulse which animates it.
Here it is, superior astronomy: you recognize the inferior thanks to the superior, which is obvious, when the planet is at its supreme degree of exaltation. You can feel this exaltation thanks to the signature, if you know to which planet the plant is subject.
On the other hand, astronomy has even more important consequences. If we indeed observe the aspects and the exaltation of certain planets and if, under the firmament, we bring together the genera which concern them, whether they are metals, minerals, herbs, gems or precious stones, the stellar rays then penetrate these bodies, whose virtues are increased, and thanks to which almost impossible works are carried out: not only in the domain of the healing of illnesses, which can then take place from invisible way by contact and suggestion alone, but also in the field of magic. Many wonders can then be accomplished and edified by this means.
Now, notice carefully the reason for this action of the planets and stars.
Each material desires a new form, and vice versa. However, as soon as the planets unite, celestial, spiritual, but also material matter aspires to a living form. As it is an attractive nature, the celestial fire on its side attracts life to itself in an instant, and it unites with the said form. Thus the spirit and the soul are mixed and united.
As for the earth, which is the mother, while the sky is the father, it attracts the two bodies instantly, and the two aspects are manifested: it is the origin of plants, minerals and animals. As soon as these rays touch, for example, a wood which has a similar nature, these virtues and these spiritual bodies penetrate said wood, and magical virtues appear.
Now, if you can predict these aspects by astronomy, and if you prepare your metals and your planets, so that they have the species, the nature and the complexions of the said stars, the rays will not go to earth, but they will fall on these bodies, they will penetrate them, which is a marvel of nature. In fact, everyone loves his equal, and on this data, so many wonders can be achieved. The intelligent chemist will make other remarks on this point, which it is not necessary to present here. I will talk about it later, when I feel that you like this book: I will then be more explicit and I will express myself openly to all art lovers.
Thirdly, we have already made the observation that part of the said seed and the rays launched by the stars and by the firmament fell in the center of the earth. Now those who penetrate into the small sphere, meaning into the heart of the tent, those who can go and project themselves so far are purer, more subtle and more spiritual than those who have not been able to reach similar depths. In this case, the earth plays the purgative role of sand for water.
The falsity of the first man brought about the curse of God, which fell on all things: he is like we all are, burdened and surrounded by impurity and feces. When such rays are projected on the earth, the gross spirits which come from the seed of the firmament remain in the earth and on the earth, and all kinds of plants spring from it. Some of it falls on animals, and it is the source of all kinds of diseases.
But it purges itself by crossing the earth, as a corporeal spirit crosses walls. Then it reaches the goal and the center, meaning the heart of the earth, which is maintained and strengthened. This is because the center is greater than the circumference, the circumference comes from the center, all its energy is concentrated in this center, and the energy of this center is then distributed in the circumference. Look at man: it is in his midst that the soul, the spirit, the mental being, the energy and the movement rest.
Likewise, it is in the middle of the seed of the plant that the secret fire and the number which allows reproduction are found. The rest is just the abode that houses said energy. At the same time, it is here, in the earth, that, like the yolk in the egg, the bodily water, the mineral genre reaches its extreme degree of purity and is, as we have said, endowed with the most subtle supreme earthly energies.
But, in this process, the earth and the bodily water - the mineral kind - reaches its extreme degree of purity and is, as we have said, endowed with the most subtle supreme earth energies. But, in this process, the earth and the bodily water have nothing to do with each other, as in the case of the halcyon (8).
The word of reproduction in fact directly reaches bodily water, and God communicates said word to it as much as eternal fire. Said water therefore has its firmament in itself, its movement as well.
Take the example of wheat: weigh a part of this wheat, and, in the quantity you desire, an equivalent part of good soil. Let the wheat reach its full maturity, then reweigh: you will see that the earth has not lost anything in weight, that we have regained the exact previous weight.
This is because wheat has its firmament, its growth, its energy, in itself, energy, firmament, growth which allows it to warm up, to dye itself, to rejuvenate itself, to reinforce its degree of multiplication. The wheat therefore does not lose any of its weight. Metals that grow, in fact, die again. You see men being born, others dying. Many waters come out of the sea, and many also return there. As many things die as new ones are born; those who die deposit their bodies where they are born.
As for the soul, as for the energy, it returns to its origins which attract it again. In short, everyone joins their fellow man! So you feel that this water lacks nothing. As for the feces that it releases, they fall to the earth, they are the form of the earth, and through it, the supreme dye comes out.
When said seed therefore, pure and able to purge, when the mineral form reaches the central point of the earth, the life of minerals and metals is born. A movement of purification is then triggered that the immortal and celestial spirit desires to operate on the mortal and earthly body, in the similarity of materials.
This spirit attracts matter with desire and desire until it produces its like in it: then, it mixes and unites with this matter at all times. When digestion has been sufficient, a tender sapling emerges which rises, which produces branches, leaves, small flowers, before producing the seed which contains the energy of the entire tree. This seed is the term which allows us to recognize that the tree is ready to reproduce.
Just as we see in botany that as many plants grow as seeds are produced, and that each seed, each form draws from the earth in accordance with its nature a body or matter which serves it - because the earth contains the matter of all things -, likewise all kinds of celestial seeds fall constantly, at all times, into the earth. The aspects of the stars then determine their genders, and the force of the life-giving fire inspires them.
There is no star, however small and modest it may be, however powerless it may be, which does not produce its animals, its plants and its minerals. Thus, if the star is completely mediocre and weak in energy, there are born men without intelligence, crude cattle, bad plants and mediocre minerals. The opposite is also true: it grows,
Also know that this spiritual body, when it is pure, clear, diaphanous, when it comes from the best of stars, seeks in the center of the earth a matter which is also pure, clear and diaphanous and which is similar to it. A subtle, clear and transparent shrub is born, its flowers are subtle and tender, they have the sweetness and delicacy of sap. This flower, after having blossomed, finally closes, to transform itself in accordance with its species, into a clear, transparent and pure seed, from which precious stones are born, whose color and nature depend on the shape. received.
Third question
If this is so, we are entitled to conclude that precious stones can be found everywhere, since the firmament surrounds the entire earth. But this is an error: experience proves that we have no deposits at home, while there are rich deposits elsewhere.
Know in fact that the seed descends especially on hot countries, that it comes only from the planets and a few other stars, and that it is so purged by the high temperature of the sun that it reaches its extreme degree of purity , even before having found its material at the center of the earth. However, the strength of the sun differs depending on the location, while the cold increases with proximity to the pole: in the latter case, the seed cannot be sufficiently clarified.
If this operation, however, is carried out, it is digestion which in turn is not enough: the heat in fact is not constant heat. However, in hot countries, digestion is in accordance with the seed.
This, launched from the sun and the stars, begins by being purged in the aerial sphere, before being purged into the earth, hot too, and of an astral nature. When the seed has therefore gotten rid of all impurity, when it has sought and then found after separation its pure matter, it develops with assiduity. The sun then warms the earth with its constant heat, and allows the growth of stones of the best quality possible.
Those that we find in Germany are therefore in no way comparable to those that come from the east and the south; everything is more noble there than in the west and the north. As you know, Arab gold is much superior to Hungarian gold, and the latter to Rhine gold. This is the case with all fruits: those which come from the East have strengths and virtues superior to the virtues and strengths of the fruits of the West. When the seed has therefore gotten rid of all impurity, when it has sought and then found after separation its pure matter, it develops with assiduity.
The sun then warms the earth with its constant heat, and allows the growth of stones of the best quality possible. Those that we find in Germany are therefore in no way comparable to those that come from the east and the south; everything is more noble there than in the west and the north. As you know, Arab gold is much superior to Hungarian gold, and the latter to Rhine gold. This is the case with all fruits: those which come from the East have strengths and virtues superior to the virtues and strengths of the fruits of the West.
When the seed has therefore gotten rid of all impurity, when it has sought and then found after separation its pure matter, it develops with assiduity. The sun then warms the earth with its constant heat, and allows the growth of stones of the best quality possible.
Those that we find in Germany are therefore in no way comparable to those that come from the east and the south; everything is more noble there than in the west and the north. As you know, Arab gold is much superior to Hungarian gold, and the latter to Rhine gold. This is the case with all fruits: those which come from the East have strengths and virtues superior to the virtues and strengths of the fruits of the West. The sun then warms the earth with its constant heat, and allows the growth of stones of the best quality possible.
Those that we find in Germany are therefore in no way comparable to those that come from the east and the south; everything is more noble there than in the west and the north. As you know, Arab gold is much superior to Hungarian gold, and the latter to Rhine gold. This is the case with all fruits: those which come from the East have strengths and virtues superior to the virtues and strengths of the fruits of the West. The sun then warms the earth with its constant heat, and allows the growth of stones of the best quality possible.
Those that we find in Germany are therefore in no way comparable to those that come from the east and the south; everything is more noble there than in the west and the north. As you know, Arab gold is much superior to Hungarian gold, and the latter to Rhine gold. This is the case with all fruits: those which come from the East have strengths and virtues superior to the virtues and strengths of the fruits of the West.
As you know, Arab gold is much superior to Hungarian gold, and the latter to Rhine gold. This is the case with all fruits: those which come from the East have strengths and virtues superior to the virtues and strengths of the fruits of the West. As you know, Arab gold is much superior to Hungarian gold, and the latter to Rhine gold. This is the case with all fruits: those which come from the East have strengths and virtues superior to the virtues and strengths of the fruits of the West.
It is of course impossible for Hungarian gold to be identical to Arab gold. Its digestion is in fact insufficient, the semen cannot be sufficiently purged and the maturation which follows is not perfect. Now, when the sun is exalted in its own house, when the weather is clear and beautiful, the seed is released at the supreme moment of exaltation, and it purges itself: one part remains in the air, another part on the surface of the earth, a third reaches the very center of the earth. There, it divides again: the most beautiful, best, clearest and least purified part mixes with the material to produce carbuncles.
The lower part also mixes with its material to produce ruby, another lower part, even smaller, generates the finest Arabian gold there is. Thus the diaphanity equals that of all the stars. In turn, a second part creates the sulfurous species, Arabic sulfur, Hungarian sulfur which is said to be the best, and all the other sulfurs that chemists praise: I leave the responsibility for their assertions to them.
The other parts, those which remain on the surface of the earth and in the ground, generate for their part the best and noblest plants that can be found, among which the very noble Akanna (9), with many uses, large plant with red and golden yellow flowers, transparent, oily, well known to barbarian peoples. Gamachi is produced on earth, in stones, in woods, in plants, in uprooted and cut trees (10). In the air, a juicy, sweet plant appears, the Rumani, which you do not know, and which I do not insist on (51).
So you see the force of a single line of stellar rays. When a planet takes on a particular aspect, when it forms a triangle with other planets, when it changes sign, new rays continue to be emitted, and they produce multiple fruits.
At the same time, when the sun forms an aspect with Mars at the moment of its exaltation, carbuncles are born whose luster is redder, but of a dark red, brownish and cloudy rubies, red gold, but impure .
The same goes for other planets: we find in cold countries stones, metals and plants that are absent in hot countries.
This is the case with crystal which needs cold. The purest examples are found in the Nordic countries, even in the fields and on the paths. But its origin is not, as many claim, snow. The crystal comes from mineral water which is generated by Saturn and its cold ascendant. When Saturn is exalted, when the sky is clear and forms an aspect with the moon, it is then that the most beautiful, limpid, purest crystals are generated. When the weather is foggy and Mars intervenes, the crystals are cloudy.
The same goes for other planets, other forms and other formations: it is an inexhaustible subject. This is how sapphires, garnets, corals, pearls and chalcedony are produced: it all depends on the planetary aspects. There is, however, a difference with the Orient. So this is how precious stones are generated. If you want to be an experienced doctor, remember a few points: I won't insist any further, to avoid vagabonds, falsifiers, all those who despise this art. However, let us add one more point: when the seed is pure, in its body, in its matter, in its spirit, but when it is not truly transparent, the crystal which separates from it is rare and in very small quantity. So we find so few precious stones.
This is because heaven does not allow its birth at any time. Precious stones indeed harbor supreme energy. In the carbuncle, in the rubies, the father of all creatures, the fire of heaven reaches, at the end of a simple preparation, an extreme degree of purity and delicacy, and it mingles with the soul of gold. In sapphire, in emerald, in Venus, as long as they can obtain an equivalent material, this fire grows like a tree which produces its branches - these are galleries and deposits -, like a tree which flowers and which flourishes in the ground.
In nitre, in cinnabar, in sulfur, in marcasites, in talc and in cobalt, this flower then achieves purity, delicacy and subtlety, like a sap, like a calcined and diffuse material, whose essence is much nobler than the metal and the seed that will spring from it. in Venus, as long as they can obtain an equivalent material, this fire grows like a tree which produces its branches - these are galleries and deposits -, like a tree which flowers and which blossoms in the earth.
In nitre, in cinnabar, in sulfur, in marcasites, in talc and in cobalt, this flower then achieves purity, delicacy and subtlety, like a sap, like a calcined and diffuse material, whose essence is much nobler than the metal and the seed that will spring from it. in Venus, as long as they can obtain an equivalent material, this fire grows like a tree which produces its branches - these are galleries and deposits -, like a tree which flowers and which blossoms in the earth. In nitre, in cinnabar, in sulfur, in marcasites, in talc and in cobalt, this flower then achieves purity, delicacy and subtlety, like a sap, like a calcined and diffuse material, whose essence is much nobler than the metal and the seed that will spring from it.
In the same way that roses, lavender, aspic and other fragrant flowers give off a better and more pleasant fragrance at the time of flowering, and it is at this time that they produce better and more pleasant scents than when we take the seed, smell it and distill it, so the metallic flower is more pleasant, more remarkable, its powers, its virtues and its energy more powerful than the metal itself.
Fourth question
Is this flower the primary essence of which Theophrastus speaks of wonders?
Yes, but the name was misgiven and misapplied. This is because marcasites and cobalt are not the primary essences. What Theophrastus speaks of must in fact be extracted, by sublimation and exaltation.
These are only the beginning of the seed, or the final spiritual essence of metals and minerals. Now the first essence is there, but hidden, it is the ethereal celestial fire, fire which is joined, which is united to its subject, and which must be separated. Now, we must not only act by sublimation, that is to say, obtain the blooming flower of metals and minerals, by separating them from their stems, by tearing them from the chaff, meaning the mountain and other impurities.
It is also necessary, at this very moment, to extract its primary essence, because it is then easier to isolate it, and it is found more easily than in the metal itself. At this stage, in fact, this essence is still soft, tender, diffuse, volatile and pure, whereas, in metal, it is closed on itself, hard, coarse and fixed.
We have said it: it is the same for the rose, for the lavender and others: you can easily extract by exaltation a pleasant taste and flavor and you feel that the way is easy. But if you persist in obtaining the same results, by attacking a seed that is compact and concentrated, at the last material of the roses, you will struggle. for lavender and others: you can easily extract by exaltation a pleasant taste and flavor and you feel that the way is easy.
But if you persist in obtaining the same results, by attacking a seed that is compact and concentrated, at the last material of the roses, you will struggle. for lavender and others: you can easily extract by exaltation a pleasant taste and flavor and you feel that the way is easy. But if you persist in obtaining the same results, by attacking a seed that is compact and concentrated, at the last material of the roses, you will struggle.
This explains that the last material essence of metals harbors great energy. At this point however, the metal is no longer capable of producing a seed. This energy can easily be extracted, but it is difficult to restore it to the metal through any preparation.
After a certain time, the flower closes, it atrophies, it shrinks, it transforms into a body, a body from which the metal comes out. The material seed is a gift from heaven. From now on, nature only fulfills its role: it cannot take the seed any further. This is how metals and minerals are born.
You have now clearly perceived the powers that the star can exercise thanks to its rays. It would now be necessary to describe in detail the powers and possibilities of the art that man has inherited from God, in order to complete your information. I'm not talking about it yet. I have already said more here than all the philosophers, if you reflect on my words acutely and if you continue your meditation.
Know nevertheless that the art of man, which he inherited from God, far surpasses nature; he does not follow her: it is she who is his slave. Man reigns over nature, he accomplishes works that she is incapable of achieving.
This is how man, for example, took possession of the entire world, India, Spain, Italy, etc. He also possesses the entire sky: he can do in the north what nature can only do in the south, in the west what nature can only do in the east, and vice versa.
Man can breed in Norway a plant that grows in India, while the firmament forbids nature from doing so. Man can also imitate the firmament, and prepare the material he wants from stone and wood. He can even produce a marvelous plant, which eclipses the energy, virtue, form and configuration of which nature is capable. In Germany, in Sweden, in Poland, he can prepare Arabian gold, and in Arabia Rhine gold, of which nature is incapable.
The reason for these powers is twofold: on the one hand, God created everything from the One, and he effected the separation from this One. Now God and man have a kinship: man can bring everything back to unity, he can on this basis create a new creature, like the potter, from clay, can do what he wants. On the other hand, God has made man master of everything. He gave him the knowledge of the virtue of all things, and it is a knowledge that he must possess.
We see it for the first man, who gave everything a name that corresponded to its virtue. God also sent to man four spirits who received Wisdom from him, in order to reveal it to the most needy and to those whom he had chosen. The most remarkable was Solomon: he received divine Wisdom through the spirit, but he ultimately misused it. After him come the greatest, Adolphus the Great, known and unknown at the same time (13), then Hermes, and finally Theophrastus Paracelsus, and many others. But everyone had only one teaching.
These then are the powers of art in relation to nature. Let us now look at what is the supreme arcana, let us mean, the stone of the philosophers. You will see how much philosophers start from the goal and the center, how many great books they write, which most of our contemporaries do not understand, while nevertheless taking pains to translate them into German. Let everyone approach, it is there that you will notice the right foundation and that you will achieve a better understanding of other philosophical writings.
Fifth question
What is the philosopher's stone and what is its foundation The philosopher's stone is a microcosm, the fruit of regeneration, in which the perfect being of the upper and lower star is deposited in a center, in a medium. On the one hand, in fact, the stone is extracted from the supreme and invigorating center of the sky, which is its supra-celestial light and its intangible fire, which gives the heavens, the stars, the planets and all the elements life, light, movement, energy, means of subsistence.
On the other hand, it is extracted from the lower center of the earth, the most transparent there is, of perfect purity, bodily water which gives the earth life, energy, action. From these two centers extremely distant from each other, and from which all the energies of the world flow, of these centers assembled and connected by means of art, by the spiritual hermaphrodite and by the celestial diameter, ends up being composed the stone of the Sages, which is soul, spirit and body: the superior and inferior energies of heaven and of the earth are in fact enclosed and contained there.
Also the stone deserves the name of true regenerated microcosm, born a second time, of being more than perfect, which reigns over the whole world and which is rightly, according to its species, the master of the microcosm and of the big world. In short, it is a mystery of the world, the height of which is unparalleled.
His body, his soul and his spirit are only purged and regenerated souls, more than quintessences, extracted from the heart center of the upper and lower worlds, so that the body is a soul or quintessence, however, let the soul and the spirit respect their gender, after having been three times the object of extreme purification, and after having been separated from their incongruous elements.
Thus, his body is the center or soul drawn from the heart of the earth or bodily water, his soul the center of the soul drawn from the supreme and eternal light, while the spirit is the center of the soul, taken from the spirit of the firmament and the star.
If one wants to access these great and high energies, one must resolve the ultimate matter of the stone into its first matter, then lead this to perfection through regeneration. Matter prepared solely by common solution and coagulation is not suitable for this work: in this case it is not a question of regeneration, but only of purgation, which purifies the body by washing it, filtering it so to say, however, that he retains his former being and his former state, and that he always remains subject to corruption and impotence. But for this work, a second particular solution is needed, even a celestial and indestructible water capable of constraining the elements and dominating them, capable of making plants and minerals spring from it like a first matter: this water reaches the innermost center of the heart, it seeks life, its energies allow the separation of other dead members, the passage from power to action, the new vegetation of the body after its death, its vivification, its union with the soul and the spirit, the exaltation of its life and its energies, and, ultimately, its true first perfection.
For when the body is first stripped by the spirit of its soul, before this body and this soul are again purified, then assembled and united again, the body, previously dead, becomes again a regenerated body , a new, invigorating body which is resurrected in full clarity, a body of clarity and immaculate whiteness, a body which is no longer subject to corruption or death, an immortal, soulful body (14),
So regeneration is nothing other than the elimination of corruption, the recovery of indestructibility, the removal of death and the restoration of life, the replacement of elemental energies by celestial energies. : ultimately, the extermination of the evil being and the awakening of the good being, the useful being, even the death and degeneration of the reign of the sterile elements, the life of the powers and the immortal forces and oppressed celestials.
Just as corruption, death and the impure body were the only ones to exercise regime and power in the old natural body, just as they oppressed the soul and the spirit by stripping them of their energies, of even, in the newly born body, prepared by art and clarified, it is to the soul and the spirit, which contain life, that the regime is handed over and is given again. Both then illuminate and ennoble the body, they make it like themselves in magnificence, in dignity, in power and in energy, so that all three exercise their reign in concert while demonstrating and showing their great energies and actions.
Thus the new birth is a new being, spiritual and temperate, a living, spiritual, animic and supracelestial power, an energy which ignores both death and dying, much superior to the old being, a being which is not subject to nature, but which, taking it as a basis, rises above it, so that regeneration also re-establishes new virtues and a new life, an eternal life, a life full of superior energies. In fact: while the body was only languor, grossness, impurity, darkness, while, destructible, it lacked strength and energy, behold, regeneration makes it similar to the soul and the spirit, living and volatile, light and penetrating, pure, subtle and clear, overflowing with energy, much more, immortal, indestructible and full of energy,
Therefore, regeneration is divided into three stages.
It consists first of all in the death of the body, in its resolution into first matter, in its assimilation to this first matter. Then the body begins to vegetate (15), that is to say, to awaken the forces which lie dormant in it, to bring them into action, to produce, although in this generation, it finds itself deprived of his soul and his spirit.
It then consists of a purification of the body, soul and spirit: these are stripped of the exterior, impure and indestructible elements, they receive in return the interior, invisible, hidden, indestructible, pure and celestial elements.
In a third stage, that of conjunction, the pure soul and the pure spirit are again inserted into the pure body, which covers life. All three, united and clarified, reach the same degree of constancy and energy. In two formulas: “Take away his soul and give him back his soul” and “Dissolve and coagulate”, Hermes summarized the entire method which governs philosophical work.
What is the cause of this regeneration?
Because of the terrible fall of Adam, the Lord God cursed the earth, meaning the lower, elemental and corporeal part of the world, and he delivered it to corruption.
Without regeneration, neither plants, nor minerals, nor animals can recover their first state of happiness and their first energy, their first nature,
Now, given that philosophical regeneration is nothing other than a purgation, a separation of good and bad, and that this regeneration concerns as much the highest part which shelters life and the soul as the spirit, and, ultimately, the body which, compared to the other two, is only dead, what is necessary is firstly, to separate from its corruptible species as well as the soul as the spirit and the body.
In the philosophical work, all three do nothing other than become souls or quintessences, since when the regenerated soul is given a body, whatever it may be - body and soul must indeed understood to maintain a symbolic correspondence, otherwise anyone would come out of anything -, it is always the body that must follow the soul and not the opposite.
The soul in fact contains a life which, in the regenerated soul, is only perenniality, while the old body, in itself, is on the contrary dead: therefore the body must follow the soul. In fact acquiring life, it is transformed, so to speak, into a soul, when we compare it to its former nature (16), in the sense that it can no longer take the name of visible body, in the sense that what there is occult in it which is extracted and sublimated through the intermediary of the spirit. In relation to the common body, it has become, so to speak, a corporeal spirit. The same goes for the regenerated spirit: it is no longer a vulgar spirit, but an indestructible spirit whose nature is soul.
Indeed, in the beginning, when the Lord God created heaven and earth, everything was water, and this water was the first matter. It contained the heavens, the earth, all their army, even the abysses of the earth, and everything was empty, surrounded by darkness, an abyss that lacked energy and life.
For this reason perhaps Democritus was led to decide that atoms, the principles of things, were an aqueous vapor, a smoke, a resolved water. The Spirit of God, fire which was not consumed, fire which was life, fire which maintained life, hovered over this water, but over the best, purest part of this water. God had in fact abandoned the terrestrial abyss, the darkness, the bad, mediocre and dead part by drawing from the earth the only luminous and vital energies to place them in the water: separation which the Spirit of God had effected from the beginning in this solution and putrefaction.
The Spirit of God therefore surrounded only the water, the upper part, the best, the most full of energy, he surrounded it in his all-powerful energy, and he threw back into the abyss and darkness that which lacked energy, which was dead. This solution contained the pure being and life of every creature: so the Spirit of God rightly embraced it, covered it, comforted it, like a hen its chicks, under the wings of its omnipotent fertility, ripening it to increase the perfection of the light of life.
the upper part, the best, the most full of energy, he enclosed in his all-powerful energy, and he threw back towards the abyss and darkness what lacked energy, what was dead. This solution contained the pure being and life of every creature: so the Spirit of God rightly embraced it, covered it, comforted it, like a hen its chicks, under the wings of its omnipotent fertility, ripening it to increase the perfection of the light of life. the upper part, the best, the most full of energy, he enclosed in his all-powerful energy, and he threw back towards the abyss and darkness what lacked energy, what was dead.
This solution contained the pure being and life of every creature: so the Spirit of God rightly embraced it, covered it, comforted it, like a hen its chicks, under the wings of its omnipotent fertility, ripening it to increase the perfection of the light of life.
When everything had been ripened by the Spirit of God into this solution and putrefaction, when everything had hastened to reach the active and perfect stage of life, then the true essential separation followed, in the course of which God, by the order of his all-powerful Word, began to separate from this solution the clearest water, the most subtle of all, the most powerful, greatly purified water which even surpassed all crystalline clarity and all brilliance.
This water, because of its elusive radiance and its ineffable diaphanity, he called light, which can also mean: first water. It is, among all creatures, the perfect energy and operation, indeed a living source of being, and in its effusion everything that is inferior is restored, maintained and refreshed. It is therefore the form and act of all the other lower waters, and it obtained the first place, the highest place, with God.
Under its influence, the energies and movements of the heavens, the stars, all the elements and the lower bodies are maintained.
From this light other separations were produced, each higher than the other, ordered by God, for the creation of angels and souls as well as for the maintenance of the lower world. This light was therefore called the empyrean sky, the life-giving sky, also the higher and invisible world. It is this that Plato undoubtedly designated by his ideas, because, invisible light, it includes the entire visible world and, supreme creature, according to the will of God, it governs and maintains this world.
These separations preceded the second great separation, which saw the triple differentiation, of upper water, intermediate water, lower water. These waters signify the soul, the spirit and the body, and all three are understood in a spiritual and elusive way in the first light or water.
By this separation, on the divine command, the nearest, clearest and most subtle water directly succeeded the water, the first water: it took the neighboring place, until no longer remained than the lower water, the weakest and coarsest, in the lower region, the last water which is the body. These waters, in turn, separated, each on their own side.
The upper water is the invisible crystal sky. Compared to light, it must be considered as a matter. The influences of immortal and invigorating light are imprinted and reproduced there as in wax, they are engraved there as in a model. This water is therefore a mark and an imprint of the light or of the first igneous water, in which the souls of all creatures, who are the second creation of light after the angels, reveal their life and their energies, and in which in parallel, the multiple impressions of said souls take place.
We can also give it the name of soul sky, given that this superior water is a living source, a mother-fountain of souls which are distributed in the lower elementary bodies, different in gifts and degrees. Spiritual water, living water, invisible water, it is ready to flow. The Hebrews gave the heavens the name: igneous waters.
By separation, the intermediate waters were distributed in the visible heavens, in the planetary circles, in the firmament and in the first mobile. It was only afterwards that its own essences were extracted and separated from each sky, meaning the seven planets and the innumerable crowd of other stars. In a third stage, these essences were included again, united and linked to them with their own spheres and movements.
These intermediate waters, these nine visible heavens and their stars have an equally intermediate nature, they indeed have the properties of both soul and spirit, hidden within them in spiritual form. They therefore separate the upper waters and the lower waters, an intermediary established by God, which allows the union of light and the upper waters with the lower bodily water. Without spirit in fact, the soul can never harmonize with the body.
Also the creative impressions of life in the light and the upper waters first join the intermediate waters, the nature of which is both corporeal and spiritual. Buried in these waters is a spiritual body, which ends up spreading into the lower waters, taking on the species and properties of these waters, and which gives them a body identical to its own.
The spirit therefore is an invisible water, which is hidden in the visible water, while the soul is an elusive igneous water, understood in the spirit, that is, in the invisible waters. the soul can never harmonize with the body. Also the creative impressions of life in the light and the upper waters first join the intermediate waters, the nature of which is both corporeal and spiritual. Buried in these waters is a spiritual body, which ends up spreading into the lower waters, taking on the species and properties of these waters, and which gives them a body identical to its own.
The spirit therefore is an invisible water, which is hidden in the visible water, while the soul is an elusive igneous water, understood in the spirit, that is, in the invisible waters. the soul can never harmonize with the body. Also the creative impressions of life in the light and the upper waters first join the intermediate waters, the nature of which is both corporeal and spiritual. Buried in these waters is a spiritual body, which ends up spreading into the lower waters, taking on the species and properties of these waters, and which gives them a body identical to its own.
The spirit therefore is an invisible water, which is hidden in the visible water, while the soul is an elusive igneous water, understood in the spirit, that is, in the invisible waters.
As for the lower water, it is bodily water, divided into four elements, each element itself divided into its plants and its animals. Compared to light, fire is just water. The pure earth therefore found itself in a state of aqueous solution, before its coagulation. It is therefore clear, diaphanous, it shines and nothing stains it; before the Adamic fall, it was even immaculate, full of energy, of life, of soul. However, after corruption it still contains bodily water, pure and strong, even if it currently only has the external appearance of coagulated, impure and dark water. After the fall indeed,
He who knows how to correctly separate and dissociate what is immortal from what is mortal and destructible, restoring the indestructible to its ancient state and being, imitates God who creates the world, and he has won.
1. We therefore conclude that there are three kinds of forms and matters, active and passive, three types, soul, spirit and body, three means, superior, intermediate, inferior, consequently three types of separations and influences .
2. This union must pass through separation, through the elimination of the impure from the pure, that is to say through the dissolution and removal of superfluous matters and forms, impure elements and interior essences .
3. The earth is in a state of solution: it is this earth that must be sought, abandoning the abyss of darkness, the damned earth, uniting the living earth and its only spiritual water.
4. The very superior, the very pure cannot unite with the very inferior, the very impure, without going through the intermediate stage.
5 . Since the best and largest part of the waters is spiritual, has risen and hovers on high, it is appropriate to give our artificial waters a volatile and spiritual status. It is an easy operation, because the Lord God represented in water the beginning and the first matter of the world before taking in order all the purest creatures.
In the beginning, in fact, no impure creature existed, all were good, ie beautiful, lovable, clear, pure, useful, full of energy, life, virtues, fertility, all were related, influenced each other, emanated from each other, which they still do: this is the reason why their transmutation is easy.
This is why the Holy Spirit calls all creatures water, because deep down they are only water. All mixed bodies can therefore be all the more easily constrained, dissolved, purified, united and restored to their original state. Without water, nothing can be purified, nothing can reach its state of first perfection. We have pointed out many kinds of water: let us understand that our work concerns true water, and let us know how to use it.
The philosopher must conform in his philosophical work to this rule and order of the Holy Spirit, he must therefore first realize the true solution of each body, return each body to its first being, let us resolve it in this water, which is its source, which is its origin. But it is not a question of common elemental water, of destructible water, it is a question of intermediate, fertile, indestructible water. This water is the spirit which governs it, the spirit whose being, whose life and whose powers are akin to the higher and lower world, spirit which clothes the nature and the properties as much of light and of the higher waters than of the lower elemental waters, as mediator, intermediary and arbiter, a spirit which is impartial,
Once this solution of the microcosm has rested for a time, once it has been matured by the Spirit of God, who hovers over it and who makes separation possible, it is appropriate in a second stage that the philosophical solution putrefies, that it be governed and altered by its hot and humid spirit, so that said spirit which hovers in it and over it makes the body spiritual and so that the body, the soul and the spirit can separate, dissociate as it agrees.
In a third stage, just as the Lord God undertook the separation which follows the maturation of the waters, just as he divided the waters into four - light, upper waters, intermediate waters, lower waters -, just as the whole world, upper and lower, is included in four main parts, parts which form its foundation and which are the source of all life - thus springs flow from fountains -, in the same way the philosopher must divide his entire work also in four parts, columns carrying its artistic architecture, namely: light, upper waters, lower waters, intermediate waters, separating them, dissociating them.
Light is the form, the being of life, the active energy, the radiance and the flare of the soul, or even the elusive supracelestial fire.
The superior water is matter, the spiritual body of the soul, its seat or its lodging, or even this air imperceptible to the senses of the union of which, under the influence of which the supracelestial essence is born , the soul, the soul which shines, and whose clarity is crystalline.
Intermediate water, for its part, is form in relation to the lower, and matter in relation to the higher. It is the spirit, meaning the body of the soul, just as much as the vital energy, the form and being of the lower bodily water, which it constrains, which it purifies and which it makes spiritual . Thus, this spirit is a living water, the true water of life, which collects the upper light and its crystal water, which therefore ensures the illumination and clarification of the body, of the lower water, finally ensuring the awakening of this dried up and as if dead water, crowning it, clarifying it in the perfection of its energy and splendor.
As for the lower water, it is the body, the true matter, which collects all the higher energies in accordance with its properties, the center that the form eyes, the center that the form desires, the center in which they flow as in a sea the invisible effluvia of all the higher waters, to achieve constancy and fixity.
Because these lower elemental waters had to abandon their first state, after the sin committed by Adam, because they then passed from purity to the greatest impurity, all the lower mixed bodies, their souls and their spirits found themselves veiled , stained to the depths of themselves by the anathema of impurity.
What is now necessary is to remove impurity from the three parts, the soul, the spirit and the body, so that these three parts recover their first state of purity and energy. It is therefore necessary to dismember them, to detach them, to separate them from one another several times, to eliminate their impurities in order to purify them, and before recomposing them individually, before reuniting them, to renew them to their first being, by giving them the splendor with which they were endowed. This is what Moses, the holy Moses calls: to build and maintain paradise.
The fruits that such a body ripens have a hundred aspects, have a thousand aspects, because this body is celestial, spiritual, completely full of soul, nothing other than an extract of luminous energies and of all its waters in their diversity, in short a abyss overflowing with energies. Body in a state of pregnancy, it generates children all as beautiful, each as splendid as the other, but it never interrupts its pregnancy, it never ceases to be on the verge of giving birth, because it has received the seeds, lower and higher, which allow it to multiply without limit, without measure, a body always ready to give, always ready to take, a body in which both heaven and earth are merged.
Thus the stone of the philosophers is a recapitulation, a sum and a condensation of everything that is in the heavens and on earth, not the diameter which separates them, but the perfect compendium of the world, a bottomless pond into which lives are poured, superior and lower, through their channels, through their influences, regenerated microcosm, center, medium placed between the superior and the inferior, true philosophical magnet which attracts into itself double energies, which adheres to the perfection of their essences, in order to illuminate , in order to clarify the other bodies. Finally, the link of the marriage of the celestial man and the earthly woman, united in an indivisible love, blessed with innumerable fertility.
End of Kabbalah.
NOTES.
1. About this Franciscus Kieser, a bourgeois from the good city of Frankfurt-on-the-Main, we know nothing, so to speak, except that he published a Cabala chymica in 16o6. Concordantia chymica. Azot philosophorum sottficatum, three unpublished treatises printed in Mulhouse. The sum is mentioned prominently in Sudhoff's Bibliographia Paracelsica. The second treatise, the Chemical Concordance, is not in fact by Franciscus Kieser, but by the great Paracelsite physician, Alexander von Suchten; the treatise will not be republished until 1680. The third writing is a sum of alchemical recipes whose author is a Silesian trustee, a certain Georgius Clettius, recipes addressed to a doctor from Mainz. Only the first text is by Franciscus Kieser. The text is dedicated to two supposedly experienced alchemists,
Chemical Kabbalah is the most recent of all the texts we present; the easier and less confusing style and language confirm this. Without the depth of the gnosis of the Paracelsian apocrypha, the author knows how to develop an attractive reflection on the cosmogonic and cosmological foundations of alchemy. The speculation is based on Paracelsus, presented in the preface as the philosopher and noble doctor who said that it was necessary to “interpret and consider everything in the light of nature and relying on the first creation”. Magic and Kabbalah are applied sciences of the light of nature.
Franciscus Kieser does not describe the stages of the work for us. Only the last question addresses the subject. The last pages are a true dithyramb to the glory of Art.
The first line of forces celebrates the greatness of man and the dignity of the alchemist. Man does indeed have omnipotence. The alchemist unites heaven and earth like the mage, he knows the light of the angels, like the kabbalist. He deals with the light of grace, like the theologian. The author's confidence in the strength of man and the alchemist is limitless.
The first four questions, drawing on Agrippa, Paracelsus, and Pico di Mirandola, develop cosmological themes. They account for the interaction of invisible igneous energy and the center of the earth through magic and the matrix. In the third question, our author insists on the theme of the star. Alchemy is only the corollary of the astrological theorem. The notion of flowering, also studied in the third question, leads to the elucidation of the first essence, discussed in the fourth question and opposed to the last matter, which is unproductive.
In the last question, magic is exalted in Kabbalah. The stone now concentrates all the energies, lower and higher, of the body and also of the soul. At the center of the presentation, the theological notations specify the four stages of divine emanation and corruption by the fall. While the astrological presentation favored the notion of fire, it is water which dominates in the theogonic presentation. The stone is the “universal compendium”.
At the dawn of the 17th century, almost two decades before the De signature rerum of Jacob Bôhme, a contemporary of Andreae, Khunrath and Maier, the little alchemical writing La Kabbalah Chimique deserves to be rescued from oblivion.
2. A very active Paracelsist, Calvinist who took refuge in Germany, doctor from Frankental in the Palatinate, he died in 1617. His best-known work appeared in 1596 in Magdeburg, the Theophrastisch Vademecum, the great success of which Sudhoff reveals in his Bibliography Paracelsica. Kieser speaks of Bernhardus Gerhardus, while all other sources record: Gabriel.
3. This is the Pic de la Mirandole formula. Pic also distinguishes between good and bad magic.
4. A traditional practice in German texts between approximately 1582 and 1680. In 1582, Pope Gregory XIII replaced the Julian calendar with the Gregorian calendar. To make up for the delay due to an incorrect calculation of the year, he orders that October 5, 15 8 2 would be October 15. The Protestants opposed the shift, the Russians did not give in until 1918 and the Greeks in 1923
5. This entire passage is inspired by The Occult Philosophy of Agrippa von Nettesheim, cf. ed. French, The Hague, 1727, p. 6o sq. Agrippa develops the theory of rays there, p. 81 sq.
6. Cf. the debate initiated in the prologue to Paracelsus' Atronomia Magna, vol. XII, ed. Sudhoff.
7. Allusion to the precession of the equinoxes. The sun passes from one sign of the zodiac to another every 2,000 years. Kieser speaks of the indolence of the sky to explain the phenomenon that Newton will justify.
8. The halcyon (in German: Eyf3vogel) makes its nest on the waves, and for the brood, Zeus decides on a continuous calm of two weeks, on the halcyonian days, after the winter solstice. The halcyon therefore has nothing to do with the earth.
9. Ruland, op. cit., informs us about the Alcanna, or Alcona, a large tree knotty like the cane, of which Avicenna speaks. Some confuse it, says Ruland, with guaiac, the wood of which is used as a remedy against syphilis.
10. These Gamathei, still according to Ruland, are stones in which astral influxes are imprinted.
11.
12. In Latin we read: “Ens primum”. Cf. the five “Entien” in 1 (Paramirum of Paracelsus, ed. Sudhoff, t. I, p. 165 eq. and the “prima matera rerum”, composed of the three principles, ibid., t. XIII, p. 137 . “Ens” distinct from
esse” is traditional in scholastic language, distinction of what is and being, “differentia entis et esse”.
13. Name difficult to spot. CG Jung, op. cit., t. XII, p. 98, n. 30 p. 583 speaks of an alchemist named Senior Adolphus publishing a treatise in Frankfurt in 1613. Shouldn't we read Albertus magnus? But Albert is not unknown 14. Kieser speaks
here of: animalisch. But for him it is a die not of animal. Let us therefore translate by: animic.
15. Vegecieren, to vegetate has a positive meaning here, cf. the French: vegetation
16. Very uncertain reading.