As a matter of fact there is not a great difference between these two fires, since our Secret Fire is always, as far as impalpable and subtle, of a material texture. Either we are talking of a metal’s Soul, or our, or those from Universe.
- Now, let’s try to grasp why the Sun is called father and why he needs mother and nurse for its embryo.
- Sole, Ignis, fonte semen, or Sun, Fire, source of seed;
- Luna, Aquae domina, Sperma, or Moon, master of water, sperm;
- Vento, Aeris hospite, Menstruum, or Wind, host/guest of Air (latin, as italian, doesn’t differentiate hosts and guests), Menstruum;
- Humo, Terrae principe, Lac, or Soil, the most important among earths, Milk;
Kriegsmann here doesn’t lose time and gets abruptly to the point, with the following diagram:
And just above he has said: “…. Naturae imperio manus jungunt socias inferiora ac superiora conferentibus……”, or, very interpretative: Nature ruling is imposed by mixing above and below things. ……..and even higher: ” De Quinta scilicet illa quator elementorum essentia catholica…..”, or they (above ad below) are of course about the four elements making the fifth one, namely the universal essence ( catholicus is latin for universal).
Thus we are before our four elements, so indispensable to extract and fix our Mercurius/Secret Fire, as well as to reunify what is above to what is below. In a density stairs (3). Since the four elements, which can roughly de defined as changes of state, are about the density of our Secret Fire inside the matter, and even outside it. The upper parts designate Souls and Spirits, while the lower the bodies. And that’s also inside a vessel since, according to ancient chemists, vapors, smokes and fumes designate Spirits and Souls (4) which tend to fly away if not fixed in a new body (5). And only by means of Spirits we can extract other Spirits from earth.
So, either inside a vessel or outside, there will be that “fight” to mix all elements together in a final solid new body (6). The same happens outdoor, in the environment called Macrocosm. But our matter, or Sun, is always the same Mercurius/Secret Fire. The product is more and more refined, till our perfect sulphur, or resurrected metal. Or our human resurrection (7).
We can imagine a kind of chain, or family, in which, and by which, father, mother, womb and nurse carry Secret Fire to become Mercurius Philosophorum. But that will be too much poetic. In fact we should give technical names to these four to put then in a hermetic environment. Thus Fire, Air, Water and Earth, instead of Sun, Moon, Wind and Earth to create the alchemical embryo. Ostanes called the four elements as the sources of the Stone. Or better they are the stages of the Stone. Since the Stone is made up by itself, and on itself. In the Emerald Table, Hermes calls the whole operation as the work of a single thing. This symbology might be seen as slightly different from others we have find in this site, and really it is, In fact the Sun-Moon symbology may be as huge and deep as an ocean.
Now we can understand what Hermes means as father, or the most ineffable element: Fire. Then it gets denser in the Air element, to Water and finally Earth. As strange as it may appear, the Moon-Mother doesn’t represent here water but air. Because Water represents everything which can flow, even a wind or a fume, while air is just a denser fire. We can imagine them as the celestial circles of the ancient Ptolemaic system (8).
Kriegsmann tells us that, in Hebraic and in phoenician, the father is seen as cause, while the mother as soil. nevertheless the mother is not Earth, in Tabula Smaragdina, but air. Let’s get back at Kriegsmann’s diagram: The father is compared to seed, the mother as sperm, the wind as menstruum, that’s to say a denser density, and the Earth as milk, that’s to say the child’s food. What does this symbology come from?
Sun, Moon, Wind and Earth are surely our Fire, Air, Water and Earth, or four elements. As we have seen above these four produce the fifth, or Quinta Essentia/Mercurius, since Quinta is the latin for fifth. But we should look outside the vessel, or in the macrocosm, for an explication. And here the engraving on the frontispiece may be really evocative. In fact we will see the picture as a summarize of the entire sky mechanism to make Secret Fire to descend from Sun to Earth.
In the Macrocosm the astronomical Sun is the father of our Secret Fire, but being the element Fire too much subtle, has to ask for rescue to the astronomical Moon, or Mother, or element Air, since it is more dense than Sun, to gather and send it to lower atmospheric layers. In order to reach the astronomical Earth, the Moon has to ask help to wind-rain-snow-dew (9), which representing everything able to flow stand for the element Water, to transport Secret Fire towards the earth, which being the most dense will succeed in restraining a certain amount. The four elements chain brings the Secret Fire to astronomical Earth from astronomical Sun (10).
It is clear that a similar process then creates Mercurius Philosophorum, inside alchemist’s vessel or microcosm. We have seen that the chain takes the structure of a child caring family. With the father-seed, the mother-sperm gathering the seed, the womb-menstruum and finally the earth-breastfeeding milk. Inside the vessel the operation will perform a continue circulation. But these are the operation of a single matter, our Sun, not astronomical this time (11).
Finally we will find that this Sun-Moon symbology is so different from the others found in this site, because it is very ancient. In fact it was carved in Tabula Smaragdina, a document owing to the night of times. This use of Sun-Moon symbols is to be added to those you have already found (12).
The Arnoldus Villanovensis testament in the appendix simply states a necessary further step above and beyond our Tabula Smaragdina. In fact, Hermes or who taking his name, ends his poetry at the achievement of Mercurius Philosophorum. That’s to say at the end of the first preparatory work ( see an Opus Magnum scheme at footnotes) but doesn’t mention the following steps and works with colors transmutation ( 13).
- See also Archarion & the Opus Magnum Scheme ;
- See also Introitus Apertus vs Open Entrance. Chap 4 , Fulcanelli & External Influences , Andrea da Murano: a Painter and the Art of Fire , The Pythagorean Thigh in the Northern Sky ;
- See also Codex Marcianus Ouroboros ;
- See also Symbola Aureae Mensae and the Supreme Purpose and Hortulus Hermeticus and Love Between Fumes ;
- See also Eros, Psyche & the New Alchemical Body ;
- See also Stoll, the Lacinius Translator on Male and Female Elements ;
- See also Michelangelo & the Mumia Skin in Last Judgement , Holbein Dead Christ Builds his Grave ;
- See also Two Stars in a Venetian Geocentric Sky ;
- See also Pietro Perugino and the Lady of the Wind ;
- See also Thesaurus Hermeticum & Dry Pythagorean River , Nuisement and the Sun Resisting Capture ;
- See also Baro Urbigerus & the Circulatum Tree ;
- See also Sun & Moon at the Turn of the First Millennium , Philosophia Reformata, Father Sun & Mother Moon ;
- See also Kamala Jnana, Introduction to a Live Secret , Artephius, Secret Book and Secret Fire ;