THE MAIN SOURCE OF HERMES UNVEILED

Bernard Husson

Article published in issue 62 of the journal Initiation et Science (1964)


The immediate predecessor of Fulcanelli in the line of alchemists who testified by the printed matter of their accession to adeptship, that is to say of their success in the elaboration of the philosopher's stone, is the author of the small opuscule published in 1832 under the title of Hermes unveiled .

In 1834 (1) bibliographers substituted the acronym Ci.

Cyliani's autobiography, which is a real confession, teaches us that he spent a large part of his life reading “almost all the alchemy treatises published before him”. However, of these immense readings, he quotes only two works, whose authors he holds in particular esteem, to the point, he tells us, of incorporating several passages from their writings in the text of Hermes unveiled . We can imagine the interest offered by these two works for the “lover of science” who wants to carefully scrutinize the message “dedicated to posterity” by the only adept who made himself known in the West in the 19th century.

However, the latter does not indicate either the author's name, even if, as it happens, reduced to an initial, an acronym or a pseudonym, nor the title of the two texts he mentions, confining himself to declaring that one is a treatise "printed in Leipsick in 1732", and the other, "a small manuscript found behind a cupboard" by a couple of friends, fond of alchemy, in the first years of the 19th century. He adds that this manuscript reveals the entire operational process, with the exception of matter, fire and the labors of Hercules. It is also these three points which Cyliani, at the end of his preface, leaves the care of disclosing “to God alone”.

Under these conditions, there is no track allowing a direct and selective research of these two texts, and the investigator is reduced to a patient and exhaustive confrontation of the practice of Hermes unveiled with all the previous alchemical treatises, printed or manuscripts, that he will be able to consult, until really flagrant similarities allow him to recognize the two sources whose approach Cyliani seems to have maliciously concealed, so great is the imprecision with which he indicates them.

Indeed, the patient and continual exploration to which we have devoted ourselves for more than ten years, through the sum, still imperfectly inventoried, of European alchemical writings, both printed and unpublished, scattered in Europe, by attaching ourselves especially to those of the XVIIth and XVIIIth centuries, enabled us to note that, until further notice, no alchemical treatise had been printed in Leipzick in 1732.

However, this erroneous indication constitutes a valid element for the identification of this print, which appeared without the author's name, and for the first time only in 1751, in Amsterdam (2). It is, moreover, mentioned by the principal bibliographers.

On the other hand, the other source, which plays a much more important role in the drafting of Hermès unveiled had remained unpublished and completely unknown until now. We have set out, in our work, the reasons which lead us to believe that a copy of this manuscript “found behind a cupboard” was found, under the title Récréations Hermétiques, in a folio in the Library of the Museum of Natural History in Paris, and we have reproduced the text, following Hermès unveiled .

It is followed, in the manuscript of the Museum, by 150 notes or scholia which we have not reproduced, because they are only a paraphrase, or rather a summary of the treatise which precedes them.

They can be found here, with an extract from an unpublished 17th century treatise, the kind communication of which we owe to the kindness of our charitable colleague in Hermès MAS

A few warnings will not be useless for the first fifteen scholia, constituting a kind of preamble to the practical part properly speaking, because they offer no equivalent in the beginning of the Hermetic Recreations .

The assimilation of the "matrix of the world" (alchemical), with the clay "from which one makes the brick" is, if not a trap, at least an artifice of exposition typical of alchemical treatises. The late hermeticist René Buchère, who died in 1914, broke down this word by phonetic cabal as follows: argile or arguron hyle, in Greek, material of money, philosophical money or moon of the philosophers.

Let us specify, however, that the relationship existing between vulgar clay and "philosophical" clay is of the same nature as that which exists between spring dew, May dew, and "philosophical" dew (this, without speaking of the causal reciprocity existing between these respective analogies) and that this relationship is not only cabalistic (dew giving in Greek rhosis, force, energy, virtue), but also operative and practically observable. Patient work carried out on “common” clay and dew can indeed lead to very interesting results, as shown by Saulx, doctor and hermetist of the Grand Siècle, in his Nouvelles Recherches sur la Santé et les Maladies (Paris, 1722 )


NOTES

(1) The Nouveau Recueil d'Ouvrages anonymes et pseudonymes de M. de Manne, Paris, 1834, attributes Hermès unveiled (page 157, no. 727) to Cyliani, without further comment.


(2) This is the treatise entitled Small Keys to Hermetic Science, noted by a northerner in his spare time , the year 1732, Amsterdam, 1751.



SCOLIA


1st
Everything was water from the beginning: the Universe and everything it contains came out of the Waters.

2nd
Water is a compound of various principles, if it were not, it would not experience fermentation or putrefaction.

3rd
Fermented, rotten and dried up water forms a silt which can be called dry water.

4th
This Silt, this Dry Water, is the clay from which the Colossus of the world was formed.

5th
Clay is an unctuous, gray and heavy Earth from which Brick is made.

6th
The alkalescence and not the grease forms its lubricity, and makes it soapy.

7th
This is what makes it miscible with fatty substances, but not intimately: at the slightest heat, the fat separates.

8th
Clay is therefore not formally an alkali; but he has a quality akin to his nature. He holds the intermediary.

9th
It often passes to the state of chalk or lime, but imperfectly, it retains more or less its original form.

10th
Yellow, red, green soils, etc. are of this nature, but with the addition of mineral tincture.

11th
This Tincture is produced by mutation of a part of the first earth into vitriol of the nature of iron or copper.

12th
The double action of the aerial spirit and the mineral spirit bring about these various mutations.

13th
The Astral, aerial and universal Spirit introduced into this subject, according to its purity, gives it a more or less noble form.

14th
Stone, marble, salts, Crystals and Minerals originate from this Earth.

15th
Clay is the natural and primary matrix of the whole world: the Astral Spirit is its seed.

16th
The Astral Spirit is unequivocally the light of the Sun and of the stars with which the air and the heavens are filled.

17th
In our earth system, the sun is the father of this spirit, the moon is the mother.

18th
The Moon is said to be the mother of the Astral Spirit, because its vivifying Light draws its source from the Sun.

19th
However, all the stars joining their light to it, its true name is the Universal Spirit.

20th
This spirit, which is a fire, must be dissolved by another fire, and become Water.

21st
This Spirit is collected in the great sea of ​​sages which is the air, by means of a magic steel which is of the same nature.

22nd
The central fire contained in all bodies is magic steel.

23rd
This magic word makes you see that it is not real steel, but that it is only called that by comparison.

24th
All living bodies draw air for their nourishment. The animal kingdom is where this attraction takes place most visibly.

25th
As soon as the astral spirit is attracted, it is reduced to water which the sages make their secret fire.

26th
Although all times are specific to this attraction, spring is the most suitable season, then autumn.

27th
At these two epochs, Nature is regenerated, and the air is more charged with this vital spirit.

28th
The Moon being the mother of this spirit, it is only when she shines that she gives it to us.

29th
Therefore, the greater its light, the more abundant that spirit.

30th
The Earth is round, and its motion is from west to east.

31st
The spirit pushed back towards the Poles by this movement, and finding its rest only towards the North, it takes refuge there.

32nd
The North being its homeland, it is in this region of the atmosphere that we must harvest it.

33rd
As soon as the Sun appears on the horizon, it drives out the spirit, one must cease work.

34th
Esau sold his birthright to Jacob for a mess of lentils, so divide his land.

35th
It is necessary to make rain on this earth the dew of the sky, that is to say the spirit, and that it is soaked with it.

36th
May the earth not be watered too much or too little, but may it remain wet.

37th
The amount of moisture the earth can hold is nature's weight. The earth that contains is the vase.

38th
Water should only be returned to the earth after it has completely dried up.

39th
Wet and dry, make up the natural day.

40th
Each moistening is called cohobation, and each desiccation distillation.

41st
At each imbibition, the central fire retains the spiritual portion of the Secret fire, the phlegm is entirely dissipated.

42nd
Or rather the acid and the Alkali do not conjoin to separate any more, because of the conformity of their Nature.

43rd
As long as the alkali dominates, the reign of dryness lasts: but the predominant acid in its turn causes humidity to reign.

44th
The predominance of acid leads to the dissolution of the body, and brings about fermentation.

45th
This fermentation is only a fight between the acid and the alkali during which they kill each other.

46th
The acid has however overcome the fixed since it has brought it to dissolution; but the fixed has also conquered the volatile spirit which remains without action.

47th
From acid and alkali united an androgynous or hermaphroditic nature is formed.

48th
Fermentation completed, Putrefaction follows, and puts the Seal to the first work.

49th
There were 50 Nereids or goddesses of humidity, 50 daughters of Danaus who married the 50 sons of Aegyptus.

50th
It takes 50 ablutions of the spirit on earth, or 50 marriages of acid and alkali, of heaven with earth, to obtain dissolution.

51st
The alkali, acting as female, overcomes 49 times its male, which is the spirit; but, with the 50th the forces coming to him to miss, it remains joint.

52nd
The ablutions cease as soon as the fermentation occurs. This fire is compared to a bain-marie.

53rd
The heat increasing in putrefaction is compared to that of manure.

54th
It is only in putrefaction that the conjunction is effected. The principles contained in a single substance can no longer be separated, and this is called Hermetic Seal.

55th
From coal which is black we make gray ashes, and from this ashes we get salt by continuation of the fire.

56th
The body blackened by putrefaction becomes gray and is compared to the ashes, then white and is the true salt of nature or the saltpetre of the sages, that is to say the Salt of their stone.

57th
The sages still compare their matter to soap, because apart from its particular properties it is like soap composed of an alkali to which the grease of Sulfur is joined.

58th
In the ashes, say the sages, is enclosed the diadem of our young king; in the remaining earth, after the extraction of salt, is sulphur.

59th
Sulfur manifests in this earth by its coction with our spirit or Secret fire.

60th
The philosophers call, external fire, the administration of the spirit to the body, of acid to Alkali or the excitation produced between salt and humidity.

61st
Geber defines sublimation the elevation by fire of a dry thing with adherence to the vessel, to express the putrefaction and exaltation of the substance, the fire, the dry thing, and the vessel being together the same thing.

62nd
The salt of the sages needs to be exalted to become their mercury. They have nine sublimations.

63rd
The sublimations are done like the first work, by the administration of external fire.

64th
Mercury must be made by Mercury, that is to say, the fire must be of the same substance as the body subjected to work.

65th
For this to be so, it is necessary to dissolve in the spirit part of the salt to make the Imbibitions.

66th
For this purpose, one makes, at each sublimation, two parts of his Salt, one remains dry, and one dissolves the other to soak.

67th
There thus takes place a new dissolution, fermentation and putrefaction all the more prompt as the salt is higher in dignity.

68th
These sublimations, which Philatethes calls his eagles, cannot exceed the number of nine.

69th
At each sublimation of the salt of nature or mercury, it always separates, by means of dissolution, a little earth which must be united with the first.

70th
It is all these lands together that we put with our mind, to have the sulphur.

71st
In this coction, there is neither dissolution, nor fermentation, nor putrefaction to be expected, the body only reddens more and more and arrives at a brown color which is the last.

72nd
To have this Tincture the color of blood which is solar gold, or the very sour vinegar, or spirit of wine of R. Lulle etc. it is necessary to pour on the red earth, the philosophical Mercury to the height of two or three fingers; then it separates gently and floats the mercury like a Quintessence.

73rd
When one dissolves with the astral spirit, the salt which is the mercury, it is necessary to put the dissolution in a cool place, the mercury then collects on the surface of the spirit in the form of cream, but it is a salt, or a dry water which, although liquid does not wet the hands.

74th
There remain in the mind two kinds of salts other than mercury: namely, a nitrous salt and a fixed salt.

75th
By subjecting these salts to the work of eagles, and working them one through the other, they both arrive at a perfect mercurial form.

76th
There are two ways to get sulfur; the wet way, and the dry way.

77th
The wet way is the one I have just taught, it is the longest, but the most noble, because of the difficulties overcome.

78th
The dry way, as Flamel and B. Trévisan followed it, leads to the goal, although particular.

79th
It consists of separating the Tincture of common gold with the mercury of the 7th eagle.

80th
We thus gain over time two sublimations of mercury and the entire coction of the earth of the eagles.

81st
When we proceeded by the wet way, it is necessary to reject the ground which remains after the extraction of the Tincture. It is a damned and damaging land.

82nd
Whatever path you follow, you must proceed to the marriage of Sulfur and Mercury.

83rd
It is a New Heavens and a New Earth that you will marry together, and which will produce a new Jerusalem with a very powerful king.

84th
Take some of your Sulfur or Tincture, let it dry, and a soft, pleasant to the touch earth of a brownish red will be formed.

85th
Make your imbibitions with Mercury, as in the first operation, following the weight of Nature.

86th
After 40 Imbibitions which are deemed 40 days the body will dissolve, ferment and rot.

87th
It is these two Tinctures, one red the other white that the Little Peasant calls his two flowers and that others have called Grande and Petit Lunar

88th
It is necessary to bring this red tincture to whiteness by imbibitions with mercury.

89th
These imbibitions must be made in such a way that the earth remains firm, although wet.

90th
Science dwells in principles; but the art consists in knowing how to dissolve and rot.

91st
That one is past master who has reached the degree of putrefaction, because although it is the lowest of the Work, it is reputed to be the highest because of the difficulties it presents in reaching it.

92nd
The main step is taken to arrive at whiteness, which is a sovereign medicine against all sorts of evils.

93rd
It's not that there are still some difficulties to overcome, but they are not insurmountable.

94th
Whiteness is not immediately achieved, it must first be dissolved and blackened.

95th
It must be a radical dissolution, the body must be reduced to its smallest parts although it is not like river water or the like.

96th
It is wrong that some philosophers have spoken of blackening the white, for although the whiteness comes from the blackness, it is nevertheless the red that has whitened it and consequently the same that blackens it.

97
Moreover, this blackness is a tenebrous veil which covers the whiteness as well as the red.

98th
The dissolution is called the Seal of Mercury the bain-marie, the bath of the King. As for the putrefaction of which blackness is the symbol, it is goat or horse manure, and the Seal of Saturn.

99th
Dissolution is taken by some for the first matter of the sages, and putrefaction by others, with regard to the essential and inseparable union of the two substances.

100th
Be that as it may, dissolution is properly the chaos of the sages, in which Heaven and Earth are enclosed, and putrefaction is their matter principle.

101st
It is only after 40 imbibitions that the body dissolves, ferments and rots.

102nd
This first blackness is called Raven's Head, Saturn or Lead of the philosophers.

103rd
As in the 1st labour, we stop administering the external fire when the dissolution is complete.

104th
Matter is guided by its own fire to the circle of whiteness which is the moon of the philosophers, Diana, Latona or the whitened Brass.

105th
The whiteness begins with a capillary circle that extends day by day to the center; but before arriving at whiteness, the matter passes from black to gray which is the intermediate color and which is called the fire of ashes, and the Seal of Jupiter.

106th
The transition from gray to white is marked by the appearance of several colors, among which green dominates: which has given whiteness the name of Green Lion.

107th
The wise call these colors Iris, or Peacock Tail.

108th
One compares this work until the whiteness, with the fire of Réverbère.

109th
The whiteness, which we said was the reign of the Moon, is only half a generation. The sages call it leafy earth for two main reasons.

110th
One is that when you look at it closely, it looks like sheets of shiny talcum powder.

111th
Second is that the putrefaction where she has just passed is the symbol of the winter during which the earth is covered with leaves from which a new earth is formed in the spring, which earth is called earth of the leaves.

112th
Since matter cannot go further by its own fire, it is necessary to begin the external fire again.

113th
To prepare in advance for the multiplication, it is necessary to separate the matter in two.

114th
We put one part aside, and we lead the other to the redness, continuing the work.

115th
We therefore resume here the work of imbibitions with mercury, observing the weights of Nature.

116th
Like the first time, the earth must remain whole at the bottom of the vessel.

117th
The matter gradually loses its whiteness and arrives at a green color which is compared to Vitriol, and which is called the Seal of Venus.

118th
By the continuity of the fire, it acquires a saffron yellow color which is the Seal of Mars.

119th
Since matter cannot acquire a greater redness by the same degree of fire, it must be increased.

120th
The fire is increased by soaking the body with stored red mercury.

121st
We continue this way until the material has acquired a brownish red.

122nd
Before arriving at this dark redness, it passes a beautiful color of purple.

123rd
Matter that has reached a very dark reddish brown color is the real fluid Gold of the sages, their sun, their universal medicine.

124th
Except multiplications, there are no more difficulties to overcome.

125th
We have two medicines; one white and the other red to cure any disease.

126th
These two medicines are not only useful to men, but to plants and minerals.

127th
An almost dead tree sprinkled with water in which a single heavy grain of this medicine will be dissolved, will come back to life, will flower, and will bear fruit.

128th
One does with this medicine an infinity of marvels above the natural power.

129th
If you project a grain of white medicine on ten of good silver, the whole will be medicine, one grain of which will transmute 100 of imperfect metals, into silver better than that of the mines.

130th
A grain of red medicine projected on good gold in fusion, will make gold in the same proportion.

131st
To make pearls larger and more beautiful than the natural ones, one only needs to dissolve some with mercury and then mold them.

132nd
In the same way, the weight and the beauty of the Diamond and the precious stones are increased.

133rd
Artificial Rubies, much brighter than the natural ones, are made by adding red dye.

134th
But only God can call bodies from death to life.

135th
The red tincture is the seventh and last Seal of Hermes which belongs to the Sun.

136th
One proceeds to the multiplication with parents of the same blood.

137th
One calls relative of the same blood the white and red dyes of the same operation.

138th
Mercury which has not been coupled with the red tincture is not capable of multiplying.

139th
The white and red medicines of the 1st degree are relatives of the same blood, and can multiply.

140th
It is with this intention that we separate the medicines in two, in the Circles of whiteness and redness.

141st
One proceeds to the first multiplication by taking a part of red dye which one dissolves with the white put in reserve.

142nd
It is necessary beforehand to dissolve the white with the mercury to proceed to the imbibitions.

143rd
We then start the first work again with the same conditions and observing the weight of Nature.

144th
The pure separated from the impure each time shortens the time of the operation by half.

145th
The projection of this second medicine is done on a hundred of silver or gold, as a ferment, and then on a thousand of the imperfect metals.

146th
The weight and virtue of medicine increasing by ten with each multiplication, one ounce, of the ninth, will transmute a million into the very pure metal of gold or silver.

147th
The virtue of this medicine is so great that it can change the face of all sublunary Nature in an instant.

148th
It is so that the wicked do not approach it that the wise keep it so hidden.

149th
After the ninth multiplication medicine can no longer be contained; it flows through glass, like oil through paper.

150th
The whole Work is completed in 150 days, except the multiplications which can lead to two hundred.