Air Alchemy, the Fabric

More specifically, for the alchemists, the fabric of the air was the moon.

In fact, the “space” between the moon and the earth was called “the air”, while the upper part was called the aether.

The main characteristic of air in Alchemy is to be moved, and woven like a canvas on a loom. For alchemists, air is the place where all alchemical forces meet.

The concept of “continuum” is very important because it truly places all of creation on a symbolic “loom”, where everything is “connected and pulled”. And, as in a loom, there was the concept of “cutting” and “never stopping the weaving”.

The Neoplatonist Iamblichus makes the idea that the air is a swarming of spirits the backbone of his “demonology”, in his view taken from the ancient Egyptians.

The idea of cutting ties with demons by imaginary cutting the surrounding air was typical of medieval Europe, especially among knights.

True. The main characteristic of air in Alchemy is to be moved, and woven like a canvas on a loom. To the point that weaving and singing were almost two symbolic synonyms. The weaving goddesses were also excellent singers.

Stars, Sun and Moon were said to be the leading “movers” of the air.

The fabric of the air is the bearer of the “sparks” swelled into rays by the moon. The place where Quintessence moves most extensively.

The thread can symbolically represent the ray built around a spark, but it can also symbolically represent a sound.

In fact, air can only shake other air, but to reach beings and objects it must communicate with water. Here I do not only mean real water but above all the water principle, that is, what “flows”.

True.

Not only Hephaestus makes breathing statues, but also Athena and Hera. This was the essential difference between the forges of the gods and human artists, however good they were.

That the fumes and vapors tend to follow the south-north axis was known. The physique of the baroque era Robert Boyle wrote that he had been able to establish it from some of his experiments on fumes and vapor molecules.

That the fumes and vapors tend to follow the south-north axis was known. The physique of the baroque era Robert Boyle wrote that he had been able to establish it from some of his experiments on fumes and vapor molecules.

In fact, for the ancients, the north-south axis was also axis of sound from sky to earth, back and forth.

True. For the ancients there were no voids between objects but only a dense continuum.

True. For the ancients, there was air between their eyes and the objects. The farther away the object, the greater the amount of air. So much so that distance could be defined as the volume of air between them.

True. Democritus said: “The air is found shaped like the wax was pressed and compressed”.

True. According to Al-Kindi, the eye itself projects rays onto objects, and the image is formed at the intermediate point. This imprint produced on the air is comparable to the seal mold in wax. See Alchemy & Light, Introduction.

True, not only living beings but also objects even the surrounding air pervades, exhales, and were in phase exchange with each other. See Flow and Reflux.

True. The alchemists had noticed that in the movements of the “philosophical sea” there was a sort of back and forth, which, rather than being compared to the ebb and flow of the tides of the terrestrial seas, had analogies with breathing.

Yes, I think we can define the fabric of the air as the movement of celestial fire. Therefore as a “repeater” of the movement. See also Solar Alchemy.

The main task of the air was to bring spirits to earth, and ultimately to carry spirits everywhere.

Legend has it that Prometheus the Merciful brought the sacred fire to humans by hiding it in a cane, which he agitated incessantly throughout his daring journey. The delivery to dancing satyrs can only strengthen the idea of movement to the point of oscillation.

The back and forth movements of this universal “breath” possesses forms and extensions, movements that the ancients compared to the movements of a weaver at the loom. Air does not build itself but it is built by stellar, solar, lunar, watery, mineral, and other conditions waves of various kinds emitted by bodies of various kinds.

We have spoken of “palaces of the air” or constructions of air. Sound is the space of tones. For the ancients, sound was architecture in itself, while we moderns mean the energy that hits our ears. Sound is as important among musicians as the point is among geometers or the unit, or one, among arithmeticians. We can imagine this architecture as composed of compressions and decompressions.

The ancients knew that the “fabric” of the air was influenced by certain stars, the same ones that made up farmers and lumberjacks calendars. They said that every day was different precisely because every day had different solar, lunar, and stellar conditions that influenced the atmospheric air. Let me give you an example: the star Orion is so strong that when it rises it dethrones the sun in the daytime atmosphere (it is said that the sun no longer rules) as a result the winds raised by the sun calm down. This phenomenon also occurs with the birth of other celestial bodies, for example with the Pleiades, Sirius and Arcturus (not by chance, they were stars of the ancient agricultural calendar). See Flow and Reflux and Stellar and Planetary Alchemy.

There are two moments of the year, called solar moments, in which the sun is the protagonist, namely the equinoxes. The solstices, with the sun at its maximum and minimum, are called stellar moments.

During the equinoxes, the air, through the sun, is said to produce significant dews. See Flow and Reflux and Solar Alchemy.

We have spoken above of decompressions and compressions that make the space of the air and its “palace”. For the ancients, in fact, Apollo himself was responsible for not letting the volume of the palace decay in space. For them, the fact that Apollo had invented music meant that it is removed from any decay.

Because, according to ancient alchemists, the back and forth “transmission” of the “philosophical sea” is, for excellence, performed by the atmospheric air. See Flow and Reflux.

The symbol of the compass rose signifies not only the breath of the world, but its direction or “anchoring” to the “pillars” of the world.

Decibels are basically a measure of the amplitude of a sound, i.e. the pressure fluctuation that the sound produces in the air. At 194 dB, the amplitude corresponds mathematically to the atmospheric pressure, i.e. the air pressure fluctuates between zero and twice the atmospheric pressure. As there is no negative air pressure, there is no louder sound possible. 194 is max decibel for air, 270 is max underwater. Beyond this, it’s a shockwave and is moving faster than air. It’s no longer a sound but a pressure force.

The ancient alchemists never admitted the pressure differential theory but compared the world to an immense alembic, in which the laws of the ascent of liquids were in force. The pressure differential could cause the liquids to rise; perhaps they wanted to ignore it.

The ancients compared the pressure difference that characterizes karst systems to the pressure difference that occurs in a still.

While it is true that an anomaly in atmospheric pressure was noted on the top of the Great Pyramid of Giza, it is not equally true that we know what it was for and how to use it. It remains one of the many mysteries of the pyramids.

First of all, we need to understand what electromagnetic anomaly we are dealing with in the great ocean of waves. But to give an example, in the karst sinkholes a gamma ray anomaly has been measured, in the sense that the sinkholes seem to “devour” gamma rays. However, the great pyramid resembles a sinkhole remains to be demonstrated.

We have spoken of “palaces of the air” or constructions of air. We have already seen that, for the ancients, a king could be defined as king only because he was in the “palace”. It was the palace that gave authority to the king. So not a ruler, but inhabitant of the palace. The air does not build itself but can be moved by stellar, solar, lunar, watery, mineral, and other conditions waves of various kinds emitted by bodies of various kinds. See also Alchemy Resounds.

To define an architecture of air so structured as to form a “palace“, it is necessary to “group” the molecules it is composed of. An alchemical tradition wants the power of air to become an act only when it is “delimited” within a “box”.

One current of thought defines the Olympic deities as aspects of the air and its movements. For example, Hera, Zeus’ wife/sister, was said to be the stirring principle of atmospheric air; Hermes, being nursed by Hera, the main rhythm of the air. And so on, in a chain of cause and effect. Hera is the second mother, or second nurse, of all the Olympians. Except for those who were either born directly from Zeus or directly from the sea. They also represent different types of atmospheric air (seasons, night/day). Aer, Aither or personification of divine entities, Pneuma, breath, place of the νους. Many names for an entire scale of densities and functions that concern air, the space around things, and what pervades and exhales. 

It is intriguing to note how no one was allowed to enter the labyrinth with the body – unless he was an initiate, a figure in ancient times equated to a deceased person. In the Mysteries of Demeter, it was said that both (the initiate and the deceased) would become a thing carried by the wind.

It is known that Apollo recommended a bizarre purification rite that involved hanging from a branch and swinging. Certainly, however, it was a symbolic metaphor.

“Know the celestial phenomena, keeping the intellect suspended and uniting the subtle thought with similar air. Don’t bring the idea back on itself; let it go a little in the air like an insect held by a thread” – Aristophanes, Clouds.

True, but Trithemius was seen by his contemporaries as a theoretician and not a practitioner. Anyway see also Air Alchemy.

 True. According to the ancients, the origin of winds and sound was the same. In fact, they had already understood (or it was already a tradition) that sound moved the air by compressing and decompressing it. Do not underestimate the importance of sound in Alchemy (see Alchemy Resounds). 

Mythology tells us that each planet in the solar system corresponded to a different sphere of “music”, from the lowest (Moon) to the highest (Saturn). The earth was called the silent greenhouse, the sun was the conductor of the orchestra for its ability to act as a medium between high and low notes. These were esoteric aspects, which, as the term suggests, should not have been expected to be accessible to everyone.

The goddess Harmony was the “musical” deity beyond the reach of humans.

True. Apart from the hunters goddesses, the other important female divinities were also known for their looms skills. Aphrodite and Athena, for example, were known as skilled weavers and singers, and they loved to accompany the work to the loom with singing. This must not amaze, because looms were considered similar to arpes in their shape. Consequently, the yarns were considered similar to songs and voices. In Greek mythology, weaving and singing were synonymous.

Tabula Smaragdina speak of the “belly” of the air because belly refers to something that has the property of “carrying”.

Assuming that the translation of “passing through the scrutiny of chemistry” for Chymica Vannus is not exact because the Latin vannus is essentially a wooden shovel used by farmers to winnow the wheat in the threshing floor, to separate it from the chaff. So a tool for “making air”, and not a sieve. In fact, we must affirm that the essential, and secret, point is precisely that of “giving a movement of air”. Even better, “leave it to the wind”. Since physical wind is considered an unfavorable condition for alchemical work, we must assume that it is a symbolic wind.

Ba’s journey in and out of the tomb and through the underworld had great religious significance for the ancient Egyptians: During the day, the ba of the deceased was thought to fly out of the tomb and up to heaven, where it could travel about the world. At night, in another context, it would descend with the sun-god into the subterranean realm of the dead, the netherworld, and journey there. Most importantly, the ba was believed to return to the tomb each night and re-enter its corpse. This nightly union of ba and corpse was the principal mechanism by which the corpse of the deceased remained alive, and through which the spiritual life an individual was sustained after death.

The root mn represents the main part of the sacred name of the Egyptian Amoun (correct spelling Amanu), the hidden God (the same word without the determiner “god” simply means “hidden”). It doesn’t even seem strange for a divinity sometimes defined as a gust of air, a wind.

It should be bear in mind, however, that vacuum distillations should not be done during alchemical works. The reason is simple: air is an indispensable alchemical agent during work.

It should be bear in mind, however, that vacuum distillations should not be done during alchemical works. The reason is simple: air is an indispensable alchemical agent during work.

This could be an explanation. Let’s keep in mind, as we saw above, that pressure can be considered an extreme variant of the sonic wave motion. We have seen that, for alchemists, the Sal Naturae reaches the earth in a whole scale of densities, which can be foiund in Before Preparatory Work, Spiritus Mundi.

For the ancients, air and night were not only united but could even generate the underworld, personified by Tartarus. Other Greek myths will then present Tartarus as Night’s brother, but this does not change the substance of the concept. From this it is clear, however, that Air and Night find a privileged path with the underworld. And vice versa.

As already said in Solar Alchemy, the mineral composition of the “deified” stone/rocky objects, which we will call statues, columns, obelisks, tended to expand/reduce their molecular chains with the day/night temperature excursions, often emitting vibrations.

I told you about the wind and the composition of the structure of the material of the statue itself. When we talk about the composition of the statue’s material structure, we’re actually talking about the statue’s “fabric”. Emissions from a rock fabric necessarily influence the “fabric” of the surrounding area.

To the Etruscans, the objects that spun or whirled were divination tools to read the territory. Or, alternatively, the wind could even move them.

In fact, the Egyptians used objects that they believed to contain – or be capable of containing – “divine fabric” as the basis of certain secret rituals that the high priests called “the fabrication of deities”.