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Mary Anne Atwood - Hermetic Philosophy and Alchemy57

This document contains several passages from alchemical texts discussing philosophical concepts like the purification and rectification of sulfur (the occult luminous principle of vitalization) through the alchemical process. It references analogies to a hen's egg and references the need to observe nature to better understand how to experiment and cooperate with nature's spirit to regenerate it. A short dialogue is described between Hermes and his son discussing the different "lights" or "sulfurs" in the process. The purified sulfur is described as the generating seed and the mercury is the recreated body of the spirit that conceives the seed.

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194 views1 page

Mary Anne Atwood - Hermetic Philosophy and Alchemy57

This document contains several passages from alchemical texts discussing philosophical concepts like the purification and rectification of sulfur (the occult luminous principle of vitalization) through the alchemical process. It references analogies to a hen's egg and references the need to observe nature to better understand how to experiment and cooperate with nature's spirit to regenerate it. A short dialogue is described between Hermes and his son discussing the different "lights" or "sulfurs" in the process. The purified sulfur is described as the generating seed and the mercury is the recreated body of the spirit that conceives the seed.

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michelez6
Copyright
© Attribution Non-Commercial (BY-NC)
We take content rights seriously. If you suspect this is your content, claim it here.
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triumphed over the miseries of death, and behold him returning in the East, with clouds, in power and

great glory. Here thou mayest rest and wait, and enjoy the glory of thy white elixir; now is the time at hand in which that of the poet is fulfilled. Ne te poeniteat faciem fuligine pingi Adferet haec Phoebi nigra favilla jubar. See Eiraneaeus, Ripley Revived; Vaughan, Lumen de Lumine, etc.; Anthrop. Theomag., and the Scholium. (23) Convert the elements, says Arnold, and you shall have what you desire; that is to say, separate the matter into its essential relationships, and join them again together in harmonious proportion. --- See Arnoldi Speculu sub initio, B. Valentines Stone of Fire, Smagardine Tablet, etc. (24) Hermes alludes here in part to the various manifestations of the spirit in this natural life, and the vegetable growth of it in animal bodies. The occult luminous principle of vitalization he calls sulfur, auripigment, etc., hiding it also under a variety of other covertures. (25) A distinction is here made by our author of the different estates and uses of the philosophic sulfur, or Light, as it becomes developed in the Hermetic work. (26) Hermes divides the matter into four parts, as was before seen, comparing also its vital composition to that of a hens egg, which answers in all respects, excepting the catholicity, to the compound simple of this art. Est avis in mundo sublimior omnibus, ovum Cujus ut inquiras, cura sit una tibi. Albumen luteum cicumdat molle vitellum, Ignito (ceu mos) cautus id ense petas: Vulcano Mars adat opem: pullaster et inde Exortus, ferri victor et ignis erit. See Atalanta Fugiens; Epigramma 8 and the Scholium. (27) The Alchemists uniformly recommend us to observe nature, that from analogy we may be better able to imagine and judge of the proper method of experimenting, and learn to cooperate with her Spirit effectually to regenerate it. For particulars of the Hermetic similitude, see the Scholium. (28) A short dialogue hereupon ensues between Hermes and his son; the father explaining that the distinctions of lights or sulfurs in the process ought not to be indifferently understood, as if they wer all of one quality or idea. For the spirit, though one is essence, is extremely diversified, in its conception, as also according to the degree and order of its rectification by art. (29) The purified sulfur, fixed and incombustible, is the generating seed of the universal nature, according to the adepts; but the mercury (which is the recreated body of the spirit, passive and pure) is sometimes called the earth of the wise, conceiving into itself the same seed by which it is also nourished, digested, perfected, and brought to birth --- that is, to a visible manifestation of its intrinsical virtue and light. But the sons allusion is intimate to the art, and particular. See the Scholium. (30) When, by their strong attracting law, the active and passive relations are conjoined in the Spirit, they become equalized in their progeny; and as the mystical problem of the Trinity includes three in one and one in three --- agent, patient and offspring universal and co-equal; so these three are found to be in all created things imitatively, the paternal, maternal, and proceeding ens of life. And there are the

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