CHAPTER VII

HIS magic, therefore, these rites, ceremonies and
exercises, were in the first stages directed to a purging and purification of the lower nature, uniting it thereafter to its various higher counterparts until, having gathered itself together, as it were, having achieved a state of unification of itself, it might attempt the supreme and final operation of at-one-ment or commingling, uniting itself indissolubly with that which is beyond all idea of selfhood. But this latter stage is entirely removed from all human comprehen- sion, even the preceding stage taking place, as we are not surprised to learn, at a very late period, and then only with the exceeding few.
But we are plainly told that there is “ but one linear way throughout” from the purifications upwards, so that we may well make our start here, nearer to earth.
We may, of course, take it as a sine qua non that the aspirant must lead a life as far as possible virtuous and unselfish, but this is merely a necessary condition, for without some assistance the mere abstaining from evil is sufficiently difficult and far from being all that is
required. ‘The very desire to do evil must cease to 60
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exist ; temptations must cease to be temptations if we are to achieve our end. And this is not to be attained by the stern repression of all emotions and feelings, the “rooting out ” that is so much spoken of and so much mistaken; for the emotions are the driving force, without which nothing can be accomplished, and the destruction of them is not for one moment to be contemplated.
Transmutation is what is required, and here we should note that as Friar Bacon—and with him all the others agree—tells us, “‘ Species are not transmuted, but their subject matter rather, therefore the first work is to reduce the body into water, that is into mercury, and this is ane > paar: which is the foundation of the whole art.’
This is so plain and definite a statement, and one that is so often expressed by all the authorities in almost identical terms, that we cannot afford to overlook it, and it would be as well, therefore, to try and ascertain what was meant by this before endeavouring to dis- cover any clue to how it was to be done.
In the Triumphal Chariot of Antimony, Basil Valentine, dealing with the necessity for depriving Antimony of its poisonous nature so that it can never return to it, throws considerable light on the subject. To avoid undue prolixity we shall quote principally from the somewhat abridged translation of A. E. Waite,
condensing even this so as to present essentials only. 61
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And lest his illustration appear to be too “ rustic ”>— to use his own terms—we will first give the reader the remarks of his commentator, Kirchringius, on the passage in question. He says:
‘This first key is the principal part of the whole Art; this opens the first gate, this will also unlock the last, which leads into the palace of the king. Believe not only, but consider and observe. Here you stand in the entrance; if you miss the door, all your course will be error ; all your haste ruin ; and all your wisdom foolishness. He who obtains this key, and knows the method by which to use it, and hath strength to turn the same, will acquire riches, and an open passage into the mysteries of alchemy. Donot despise these remarks. There may be apparent repetition here, but there is nothing superfluous. Return often mentally to them ; read, mark, learn and inwardly digest all that is said. It may be that in this turbid water, which looks so unlikely, you may after all catch your fish. If the excess of light which prevails here should not enable you to see, no amount of obscure alchemistic reading will disperse your inward darkness.”
This is at least encouraging. It is to be hoped that the reader will not find the remarks of Valentine him- self the reverse. He says: ‘‘ Here lies the master key of our whole Art. Antimony, which contains within itself its own vinegar, should be so prepared as to entirely remove its poisonous nature. ‘The preparation of 62
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Antimony or the Key of Antimony, is that by which it is dissolved, opened, divided and separated. In extract- Ing its essence, in vitalizing its Mercury, the process is continued and this Mercury must afterwards be precipitated in the form of a fixed powder.
“The same process may be observed for instance in the brewing of beer ; barley, wheat or other grain must undergo all these processes before it becomes a palat- able beverage. It must first be mashed and dissolved in water. ‘This is Putrefaction or Corruption. Then the water is poured off and the moist grain is left in a warm place till it germinates and sticks together. This _ is Digestion. ‘Thereupon the grains are once more separated from each other, and dried, either in the sun or before the fire. This is Reverberation or Coagu- lation. |
“'The prepared germ is then ground in the mill. This is vegetable calcination. It is afterwards cooked over the fire, and its nobler spirit is mingled with the water in a way which would not have been possible before it was so prepared. ‘This we may call distil- lation. ‘This method of converting water into a fermented beverage by the extraction of the spirit of the grain is unknown to (many and) I have only found a few who understand such Art.
“ Afterwards a new separation takes place by means of Clarification. A little yeast is added, which stirs up
its internal heat and motion, and thus in time the gross 63
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is separated from the subtle and the pure from the impure. ‘The beer thereby becomes of great efficacy ; before this clarification this would not be because such operative spirit was clogged and hindered by its own uncleanness from fulfilling its objects.
“‘ After this we may bring about another separation by means of Vegetable Sublimation. The spirit, by this process, and by Distillation, is separated in the form of another beverage, or ardent spirits. Here the operative virtue is separated from its body; the spirit is extracted by means of fire, and has deserted its inert and lifeless habitation in which before it was domiciled.
“If such ardent spirit be rectified, you have Exaltation. When this is done and the spirit is several times distilled, it becomes, by being purified from all phlegm and wateriness, twenty times more effective than before, and is volatile and subtle and penetrating.
** Know that these illustrations set forth a grand truth of the highest moment, which I have set forth lest you might be in danger of losing your route at the very outset. (For) Antimony is also likened to a bird which is borne through the air on the wings of the wind, and turns whither it will. The wind or the air here represents the Artist, who can move and impel Antimony whither it pleases him, and place it wherever he likes.”
At the end of the Yriumphal Chariot in the section on the “ Fire Stone” he gives us a brief but 64. |
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plain statement regarding this solution or separation, which causes his commentator, Kirchringius, to exclaim: “ Are you in your right mind, Basilius, so to prostitute the Stone, which has hitherto been so care- fully kept a secret by all the Sages? You have here let out the whole secret.”
The reader may not exactly share Kirchringius’ anxiety—though we cannot but hope that he will— nevertheless here is what Valentine says: ‘‘ But no substance can be of any use in the generation of our Stone without fermentation. From the tangible and formal body we must elicit the spiritual and celestial entity (I hardly know what expression to use in describing it). But to what purpose do I speak, and what do I say? I speak as one who has temporarily lost control over his organs of speech. If an atom of judgment still remained to me, I should not have opened my mouth so wide, and I should have stayed my hand even at the last moment.”
Equally to the point is Lucas in the sixty-seventh Dictum of the Turba Philosophorum when he says: “I testify that the definition of this Art is the lique- faction of the body and the separation of the soul from the body which it penetrates.” And Synesius, when he tells us that ‘‘ The Quintessence is none other than our viscous, celestial and glorious soul, drawn from its minera by our magistery.”
If we might ourselves offer any commentary, we
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would say that the secret is safe enough as far as the vast majority is concerned, for though something may be tolerably obvious by now of what has to be done in this first part of the work, yet it is only, as 1t were, the first half of the first part, and that without any details and without any clue as to how this separation is to be brought about.
The first omission may easily be rectified, for every- where in the literature of this subject we encounter variants on the ancient theme “Solve et Coagula,”’ dissolve and coagulate, volatilise and fix. And these two are but complementary portions of one operation, and are therefore frequently treated of as being one. Indeed, at least in Spiritual Alchemy, the great variety of terms we encounter, such as reverberation, circulation, cohobation, mollification, decension, putre- faction, etc., is merely a repetition of these two processes separately or combined.
This we may see from that saying of the Philosophers quoted by Solomon Trismosin, the reputed teacher of Paracelsus, in his Splendor Solis, where he says in his second treatise, “ Dissolve the thing and sublimate it, and then distil it, coagulate it, make it ascend, make it descend, soak it, dry it, and ever up to an indefinite number of operations, all of which take place at the same time and in the same vessel.”
Compare this with Albertus Magnus, who says:
“Take the occult nature, which is our Brass, and 66
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wash it that it may be pure and clean ; dissolve, distil, sublime, incerate, calcine and fix it; the whole of which is nothing else than a successive dissolution and coagulation to make the fixed volatile and the volatile fixed. ‘The beginning of the whole work is a perfect solution.”” And Synesius, who takes us at the same time a stage further in his description, saying: ‘* Note that to dissolve, to calcine, to tinge, to whiten, to renew, to bathe, to wash, to coagulate, to imbibe, to decoct, to fix, to grind, to dry, and to distil are all one and signify no more than to decoct nature until such time as she be perfected. Note further that to extract the soul or the spirit . . . is nothing else than the afore- said calcinations.... It is through the fire of the extraction of the soul that the spirit comes forth gently ; understand me, the same may be said of the extraction of the soul out of the body, and the reduc- tion of it afterwards upon the same body until... that which is below, being like unto that which is above, there are made manifest two luminaries, the one fixed, the other not ... (And when ultimately) that which is below rises upon that which is above (then) all being substantiated, there issues forth an incomparable Luminary.”
We may therefore, it would seem, conclude this part _ of our investigation by thus amplifying the deduction made at the end of our fourth chapter. Not merely
have we to purify as far as possible the human 67
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spirit, but to make an extraction of it, so that it may, in a measure, literally leave the world of sense, and become that flying volatile of which Hermes speaks. After which we must bring it again into its body, which is to be tinged thereby. But the general consensus of opinion among our authors is that this cannot be in any way effected without prayer, so that it would be as well to see what they have to tell us regarding this before proceeding further. —
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