ON THE PHYSICAL THEORY AND PRACTICE OF THE MAGNUM OPUS.
The physical theory of transmutation is based on the composite character of metals, on their generation in the bowels of the earth, and on the existence in nature of a pure and penetrating matter which applied to any substance exalts and perfects it after its own kind. This matter is called The Light by Eugenius Philalethes and by numerous other writers. In its application to animals, it exalts animals; in its application to vegetables, it exalts vegetables, while metals and minerals, after the same manner, are refined and translated from the worst to the best condition.
All the elements which enter into the composition of metals are identical, but they differ in proportion and in purity. In the metallic kingdom, the object of nature is invariably to create gold. The production of the baser metals is an accident of the process, or the result of an unfavourable environment.
The generation of metals in the earth is a point of great importance, and must be well studied by the amateur, for without this, and the faithful imitation of Nature, he will never achieve anything successful. It is by means of the seed of metals that their generation takes place. Their composite character indicates their transmutable quality. Such transmutation is accomplished by means of the philosophical stone, and this stone is, in fact, the combination of the male and female seeds which beget gold and silver. Now the matters or elements of this stone, and the prima materia above all, are concealed by a multitude of symbols, false and allegorical descriptions, and evasive or deceptive names.
According to Baron Tschoudy, all who have written on the art have concealed the true name of the prima materia because it is the chief key of chemistry. Its discovery is generally declared to be impossible without a special illumination from God, but the sages who receive this divine favour and distinction have occasionally perpetuated its knowledge by the instruction of suitable pupils under the pledge of inviolable secresy. The author of L’Étoile Flamboyante supplies an immense list of the names which have been applied to this mysterious substance under one or other of its phases. “As those that sail between Scylla and Charybdis are in danger on both sides,” says D’Espagnet, “unto no less hazard are they subject, who, pursuing the prey of the golden fleece, are carried between the uncertain rocks of the philosophers’ sulphur and mercury. The more acute, by their constant reading of grave and credible authors, and by the irradiant sun, have attained unto the knowledge of sulphur, but are at a stand in the entrance of the philosophers’ mercury, for writers have twisted it with so many windings and meanders, and involved it with so many equivocal names, that it may be sooner met with by the force of the seeker’s intellect than be found by reason or toil.”
The prima materia has been defined as a fifth element, or quintessence, the material alpha and omega, the soul of the elements, living mercury, regenerated mercury, a metallic soul, &c. It is designated by such allegorical names as the Bird of Hermes, the Virgin’s Son, the Son of the Sun and Moon, the Virgin’s Head, Azoth, &c.
Where it appears to be seriously described the adepts are in continual contradiction, but it is generally allowed to be a substance found everywhere and continually seen and possessed by those who are ignorant of its virtues. “Although some persons,” says Urbiger, “possessed with foolish notions, dream that the first matter is to be found only in some particular places, at such and such times of the year, and by the virtue of a magical magnet, yet we are most certain, according to our divine master, Hermes, that all these suppositions being false, it is to be found everywhere, at all times, and only by our science.”[C]
In similar terms, we are told by the “Commentary on the Ancient War of the Knights,” that the matter of the art, so precious by the excellent gifts wherewith Nature has enriched it, is truly mean with regard to the substances from which it derives its original. “Its price is not above the ability of the poor. Tenpence is more than sufficient to purchase the Matter of the Stone.... The matter is mean, considering the foundation of the art, because it costs very little; it is no less mean if one considers exteriorly that which gives it perfection, since in that regard it costs nothing at all, in as much as all the world has it in its power, says Cosmopolite, so that it is a constant truth that the stone is a thing mean in one sense but most precious in another, and that there are none but fools that despise it, by a just judgment of God.”
The same authority assures us, with regard to the actual nature of the prima materia, that it is one only and self-same thing, although it is a natural compound of certain substances from one root and of one kind, forming together one whole complete homogeneity. The substances that make up the philosophical compound differ less among themselves than sorrel water differs from lettuce water. Urbiger asserts that the true and real matter is only “a vapour impregnated with the metallic seed, yet undetermined, created by God Almighty, generated by the concurrence and influence of the astrums, contained in the bowels of the earth, as the matrix of all created things.” In conformity with this, one earlier writer, Sir George Ripley, describes the stone as the potential vapour of metals. It is normally invisible, but may be made to manifest as a clear water. So also Philalethes cries in his inspired way:—“Hear me, and I shall disclose the secret, which like a rose has been guarded by thorns, so that few in past times could pull the flower. There is a substance of a metalline species, which looks so cloudy that the universe will have nothing to do with it. Its visible form is vile; it defiles metalline bodies, and no one can readily imagine that the pearly drink of bright Phœbus should spring from thence. Its components are a most pure and tender mercury, a dry incarcerate sulphur, which binds it and restrains fluxation.... Know this subject, it is the sure basis of all our secrets.... To deal plainly, it is the child of Saturn, of mean price and great venom.... It is not malleable, though metalline. Its colour is sable with, with intermixed argent, which mark the sable field with veins of glittering argent.”[D]
The poisonous nature of the stone is much insisted on by numerous philosophers. “Its substance and its vapour are indeed a poison which the philosophers should know how to change into an antidote by preparation and direction.”[E]
No descriptions, supplied ad infinitum by the numberless adepts who were moved by unselfish generosity to expound the arcana of alchemy, for the spiritual, intellectual, and physical enrichment of those who deserved initiation, expose the true nature of the prima materia, while the vas philosophorum in which it is contained and digested is described in contradictory terms, and is by some writers declared a divine secret.
Given the matter of the stone and also the necessary vessel, the processes which must be then undertaken to accomplish the magnum opus are described with moderate perspicuity. There is the Calcination or purgation of the stone, in which kind is worked with kind for the space of a philosophical year. There is Dissolution which prepares the way for congelation, and which is performed during the black state of the mysterious matter. It is accomplished by water which does not wet the hand. There is the Separation of the subtle and the gross, which is to be performed by means of heat. In the Conjunction which follows, the elements are duly and scrupulously combined. Putrefaction afterwards takes place,
“Without which pole no seed may multiply.”
Then in the subsequent Congelation the white colour appears, which is one of the signs of success. It becomes more pronounced in Cibation. In Sublimation the body is spiritualised, the spirit made corporeal, and again a more glittering whiteness is apparent. Fermentation afterwards fixes together the alchemical earth and water, and causes the mystic medicine to flow like wax. The matter is then augmented with the alchemical spirit of life, and the Exaltation of the philosophic earth is accomplished by the natural rectification of its elements. When these processes have been successfully completed, the mystic stone will have passed through three chief stages characterised by different colours, black, white, and red, after which it is capable of infinite multiplication, and when projected on mercury, it will absolutely transmute it, the resulting gold bearing every test. The base metals made use of must be purified to insure the success of the operation. The process for the manufacture of silver is essentially similar, but the resources of the matter are not carried to so high a degree.
According to the “Commentary on the Ancient War of the Knights,” the transmutations performed by the perfect stone are so absolute that no trace remains of the original metal. It cannot, however, destroy gold, nor exalt it into a more perfect metallic substance; it, therefore, transmutes it into a medicine a thousand times superior to any virtues which can be extracted from it in its vulgar state. This medicine becomes a most potent agent in the exaltation of base metals.
Among the incidental properties of the perfect mineral agent is the conversion of flints into precious stones, but the manufacture of gold and of jewels is generally declared to be the least of the philosophical secrets, for the spirit which informs the mysterious prima materia of the great and sublime work can be variously used and adapted to the attainment of absolute perfection in all the “liberal sciences,” the possession of the “whole wisdom of nature, and of things more secret and extraordinary than is the gift of prophecy which Rhasis and Bono assert to be contained in the red stone.”
FOOTNOTES:
[C] Baro Urbigerus—“One Hundred Aphorisms demonstrating the preparation of the Grand Elixir.”
[D] Aphorismi Urbigerani.
[E] Commentary on the “Ancient War of the Knights.”