A strange concept to accept is that of the two alchemical lights. Not just one. In Concordantia Chymica Kieser presents those perceptible inside the vessel.
Franz Kieser was a german physician whose very little or nothing is known. He wrote Cabala Chymica, Concordantia Chymica. Azoth Philosoph. Solificatum in 1606. This work is presented as a (pseudo) Van Suchten’s work of numerous sources. We are here examining a woodcut in Concordantia Chymica rendering an unusual kind of apparatus with the title “Duo Lumina”, or two lights, in latin. It would be too simple to be content with thinking the ancients defined the sun and the moon in this way to differentiate them from other stars.
In his book, Kieser gives other images of the alchemical lights, but the one here on the top page seems to be of his work, while the others are taken from other treatises.
This picture is under a chapter taken from Apocalypsi Theophrasti in which Kieser treats some recipes to use metals to “open” other metals. The whole book is in seventeenth-century german with gothic characters. So very difficult to be thoroughly translated. I have had a hard time just understanding the poem introducing the image. This is not an abstract of the previous proceedings. Still, it warns the reader to take the substances examined just as chemical tools or belonging to the four Elements (1), and not to forget the fundamental goal of their works: the Fifth Element.
In its simplest and most material exemplification, our Art is the Art of “open”, or dissolving metals ( in our specific case, silver) to extract the Secret Fire/Mercurius in them. But we know that Alchemy is not finalized to that. It is a sacred Art. The Elements beyond the fourth belong to a world difficult to imagine. Sometimes we call them Spirits, sometimes Lights.
The recipes presented by Kieser are about Mercurius Philosophorum out of metals, as well as improvements for dissolving waters. Kieser mentions Aqua Fortis and not Aqua Regia since he treats the dissolution of Silver/Luna/Moon. This part resembles Van Suchten’s processes on the secrets of Regulus. Kieser here refers to antimony and copper. Specifically to regulus of antimony and spiritus vitrioli. And, here, we arrive at the picture. He compares these two substances to the element Fire. We know that Alchemy is chiefly performed through its Elements rather than the purity of substances, that’s to say, roughly, to the state of matters, which we can quickly identify as water-air, the flowing ones, the Mercurial part. The element Fire is more difficult to grasp: it is the Sulphur. Salt, the union of Mercurius and Sulfur, is Earth (3). Kieser defines sulfurs as the substances involved in antimony and spiritus vetrioli. That’s to say, the element Fire (2).
But, as the disorganized little poem introducing the image announces, there can be something higher than Sulphurs-Fires in our vessels. Something happened when one achieved the “killing” and “hanging” of our Silver/Moon. A process that makes the Moon shine like Sun/Gold, which no Aqua Fortis in the world may dissolve better. Neither “arsenic” antimony, even if more powerful than the sulfur out of spiritus vetrioli can. Something that may fill your bags and sacks ( with money, I suppose).
Metallic gold has always been reputed to contain a considerable amount of Secret Fire and, for this reason, is the king matter to be dissolved, or reduced to First Matter/Mercurius/Seed of Metals, to produce a terrestrial “Light”, or little Star. We know that some paths involve countless processes (see an Opus Magnum Scheme). A little bit comprehensive rendition of what to do with gold can be found in articles on the site (3). We also know that alchemists need Mercurius Philosophorum to perform all that, as well as don’t need metallic gold to accomplish the whole Opus Magnum (4). It is simply a little solar light ocean at hand.
In his poem, Kieser uses the latin verb” figo”, which means hanging using nails. This symbolic imaginary, as we will see in other hermetic images, leads us to the emblem of the Cross. On a cross, our Sulphur is fixed (5) and bound to get above and beyond the fourth element. Indeed the strange arrangement in the picture recalls a Cross. At the same time, the symbol of Mercurius Philosophorum is in the upper Cross center. The symbol of gold is on the way to the upper part. Two crucibles filled with the two Fires’ antimony and copper are irremediably detached on the bottom—no hope for them to reach the upper part.
Franz Kieser in Cabala Chymica, which serves as a theoretic incipit for the recipes in Concordantia Chymica, clearly writes: “In comparison with the Light, the Element Fire is just a water”. And that’s what Kieser has represented in the woodcut. Two Fires and two Lights. The latter is well above and beyond the Element Fire.
Mercurius Philosophorum is the vehicle, inside the vessel, for the Secret Fire obtained by the continuous salt volatilizations. It contains, and is, the light out of the raw matter. The alchemical Light is free from the slavery and oppression of raw matter. Upwards of the terrestrial four Elements, already a celestial matter. The fifth element. The Quinta Essentia.
The metallic Gold is our Sun on the earth. Certainly a raw matter, but the more explicit terrestrial source of light. As alchemists have always considered it. So, inside the vessels, we have two Fires and two Lights. We momentarily lack the celestial light, of course, which is waiting outside the vessel. But these two light sources can be perceived and noticed even by the unlearned.
Silver, chemically dissolved with antimony and copper, will be then dissolved by a Mercurius Philosophorum and destined to become like Gold. And more, like Mercurius Philosophorum (6).
Finally, we must consider the Athanor, which is an essential part of the success of the third work and is often confused with the actual oven of the last cooking, as well as with the astronomical sun. But in reality it is rather an alchemical oven, and an alchemical sun. Alchemists speak of it as if it were an “internal” oven and sun both in terms of matter and the alchemist himself. It was difficult for an ancient alchemist to clarify what Athanor was, but mostly they meant both the Mercurius with which the philosophical egg was treated for the final cooking (mostly a Mercurius set aside in advance) and the Mercurius that makes up the egg.
And furthermore a particular “psychic” condition of the alchemist: at that point of the work he/she had in fact entered into true “communion” with matter.
- See also Kriegsmann: Sun, Moon, Wind and Earth in Tabula Smaragdina ;
- See also Stuart Chevalier, Lessons on Fire ;
- See also A Trouble-Free Sigismund Bacstrom’s Compendium , Atalanta Fugiens and the Golden Apples ;
- See also Basilius Valentinus Azoth, Salt or Philosophers Gold?
- See also Sun & Moon at the Turn of the First Millennium ;
- See also Orthelius Commentary on Maria Prophitissa. Part 1 ;