Spiritual Alchemy 18th cent and later

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." Alchemist: O, sir, I know how to purify it very well with vinegarand salt, with nitre and vitriol." Senex: "I tell thee this is not the true purifying of it, neither is this, thus purified, thetrue Mercury: wise men have another Mercury, and another manner of purifying it."Again, Alchemist: "Do tell me if thou art the true Mercury, or if there be another." Mercury: "I am Mercury, butthere is another." And so on, all through the parable.The modern author says: "Those who pretended to know,abused and vilified those who differed from them." The word "pretended" abuses and vilifies those who solemnlyswore that they had done the work; it also begs the whole question.He quotes Madathanas in support of hisstatement, omitting, however, to quote the following pregnant sentence by the same author."To the Most High andAlmighty God, the Creator of this Art, Whom it hath pleased to reveal to me, wretched, sinful man (in answer to myprayer), this most precious knowledge, be eternal praise, glory, honour, and thanksgiving." This alters the standpointto that of an honest man who is indignant with those who defraud others by false methods, knowing them to be falseand futile.In the same partial manner he quotes The Only True Way and omits this sentence: "I myself may notspeak out as plainly as I would, for I am silenced by the vow, which binds all the masters of the Art." One does notneed to be an expert in economics to visualize what would happen if a recipe were given "making this art ascommon as the baking of bread, or the brewing of beer."On page 96 : Op.cit.the author writes: "The story quoted in chap.III., from Michael Sendivogious, illustrates thedifficulty which the alchemists themselves had in understanding what they meant by the term "Mercury"; yet there isperhaps no word more often used by them than that.Some of them evidently took it to mean the substance then, andnow called mercury; the results of this literal interpretation were disastrous; others thought of mercury as asubstance which could be obtained, or, at any rate, might be obtained, by repeatedly distilling ordinary mercury,both alone and when mixed with other substances, etc." Here, again, he makes no distinction between alchemistswho had, or might have, done the work, and who, therefore, knew perfectly well what "their mercury" was, andthose who were groping after the hidden meaning of these adepts.He mentions that Basil Valentine wrote the"Dedicatory Epistle" to the Triumphal Chariot of Antimony.Surely this is written by his commentator TheodoreKerckringius; it is exactly his style, as used in his address "to the Reader" and in the comments throughout the work.Furthermore, these words occur in the Dedicatory Epistle: "Since in the words of Basilius, I have already gained aplace in a higher class."The author of the Story Of Alchemy also says: "The yellow lion was the alchemical symbol of yellow sulphides, thered lion was synonymous with cinnabar, and the green lion meant salts of iron and of copper." Ripley must haveheard, or read, similar remarks nearly 500 years ago, for he says in his Erroneous Experiments: "Also I wrought inSulphur and in Vitriol, which fools do call the Green Lion." Also in Ripley's "Sixth Gate":"The said Menstrua is (I say to thee in counsel) The blood of our Green Lion, and not of Vitriol."Ripley, in his Medulla Alchimiae, contrasts these two Green Lions.All these lions are one in nature though two insubstance; the Green is a very immature or unripe thing, the Yellow is a more matured state of "our Unripe Gold,"the Red Lion is the perfect state, sometimes applied to the philosopher's red stone, but more usually to ordinary gold.Neither of these lions contained common sulphur, nor common mercury, nor any of their derivatives.Neither Hg norS entered into the composition of the Great Stone, as is shown later on.Again: "Black sulphides were called eagles,and sometimes crows." I cannot find it so in my reading."When black sulphide of mercury is strongly heated, a redsublimate is obtained, which has the same composition as the black compound; if the temperature is not kept veryhigh, but little of the red sulphide is produced; the alchemist is directed to urge the fire, "else the black crows will goback to the nest."The application of the production of these sulphides of mercury to the process of the sages is hopelessly wrong.First, they used no mercury and could, therefore, produce no sulphide of mercury; second, they used no sulphur; so,it being absent, could not combine with the mercury which was not present.Thirdly, the essential colours were notblack then red: the black itself was soft, bubbling, plastic substance.The colours are black, azure, blue, iridescent,then white.Scala Philosophorum says: "The sign of the first perfect whiteness is the manifestation of a certain little circle, as ofhair that is passing over the head, which will appear on the sides of the vessels round about the matter in a kind ofcitrine or yellowish colour." This ends in perfect silvery whiteness.This is the White Stone; it is "fermented" with an"oily calx of silver" to produce the elixir which transmutes metals (chiefly copper and iron) into pure silver.TheWhite Stone can, without opening the glass, be rubified by a higher degree of heat into the Red Stone.The attentivestudent also knows that the crow never evoluted into a scarlet bird direct, but first into a dove, or swan [ Pobierz całość w formacie PDF ]

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