Wenceslaw Lavinius chose an evocative title, Treatise of Terrestrial Sky to convert the body into the nature of spirit and spirit into the nature of bodies.
But apart from the initial poetry addressed to that particular subject which alchemists called Secret Fire, Lavinius takes down a more difficult and complex part dedicated to Secret Fire operational features, in a style not different from Tabula Smaragdina.
Roughly: the Secret Fire concept is the foundation of Alchemy: it is an ineffable substance coming from sun and stars, which we collect from metals, because the electronic clouds of metals do contain the same secret fire of the sun. Secret Fire is then “worked” into Mercurius, then Sulphur, then Salt, then Philosophers Stone. More ineffable than the Secret Fire’s texture we normally work we have Spirit of Life and Souls. As you can get, there is a Secret Fire density stairs or scale. Electrons and frequencies are much involved into this concept. Secret Fire in the texture of Mercurius is a magnet to call for Suns and Stars.
Before getting down with Lavinius treatise it could be useful to read a brief summary of a little treatise entitled “ The Rotation of Elements by Master Rodanius” by Joachim Tanckius which we can find in his “Promptuarium Alchemiae” 1614. Tanckius writes: “Solving is to convert the body into the nature of spirit and conversely to coagulate means turning the spirit into the nature of bodies. Nevertheless we read in Turba Philosophorum that great part of the search for truth is nothing else than the dry to be changed into wet. We know that Sun/Fire, or dry, tends to dominate, but Moon/Water, or wet-volatile, tends to solve Sun”. Hence Tanckius supposes the existence of an ephemeral Fire, at least till the perfection degree. He also says the complete rotation of elements actually being just the change of dry into wet, even without the appearance of all the four elements. Sadly i had to give up the translation: not only because the treatise was written in gothic german but moreover because of the prodigious syntax errors. So, understanding just a word out of three, I did really risk be too much interpretative. Nevertheless this little synopsis will help us to enlighten the following enigmatic words of Lavinius.
Back to the Treatise on “Terrestrial Sky” I decided to translate only highlights avoiding the continue repetitions of the same concepts with just different words. The version I chose was taken from “Bibliothèque des philosophes chimiques” Paris 1754, tome 4:
“There is a unique corporal spirit, which Nature has primarily created, and which is common and hidden, which is the precious balm of life…..end and beginning of all creatures, threefold in its nature, since it is Salt, Sulphur and Mercurius,……..”
Lavinius starts introducinga Secret Fire density stairs which, in this case, is purely chemical, that’s to say molecular. Mercurius is the initial volatile, Sulphur the fixed achievement, Salt the final product or most of times the same fixed achievement (1).
“………. or a pure water, which does coagulate on the top, unifies, assembles and moistens all the bottom places, by means of a humid and pinguid dry. It is ready to receive any form and shape. Only Art, by means of nature, can make it visible to our eyes……..”
As the moravian author doesn’t fail to have exposed here above, we have a Secret Fire density stairs also at alchemical level, that’s to say intra-molecular or universe level. Which are called “Waters from Sky”. Do not intend them as rain or dew, but as an impalpable and unknown “entity” sometimes called light. Quick passages of state greatly improved, or magnetize, our Secret Fire crop (2).
“……..It conceals in its belly a huge power and virtue: since it is a thing packed with sky and earth properties. It is an hermaphrodite and gives the growing to everything, indifferently mixing with everything………since it is filled with a subtle and powerful fire descending from the sky it transmits all its potential to terrestrial bodies……it is father of all things, then its belly will get inflated with another vaporous fire and is supplied by the radical humid which comes from mineral water bodies, operation made by its warm fire. This water, which can be coagulated, becomes a pure earth, it is unified with the sky, for this very reason it is given this beautiful name, the terrestrial sky…….”
Believe it or not these Secret Fire densities are revealed in a combination of fixed-volatile already from their stellar voyage to the earth. In fact father is an allegory for fixed, mother for volatile (3). Sky properties are volatile, conversely earth ones are fixed. Secret Fire extracted from bodies attracts the “Waters from Sky”.
“………the Art employs lotions and digestions both by means of water and fire………consequently he/she who does know how to give an use to fire and water can master the Art……….the water is a nurse for all living beings, it is a vapor in the earth, while it is a fire in the sky, threefold in its substance………..metals have these two things in within………these two things unify and tie sky and earth. For this reason these two things are coming from the sky to earth and in the end they will get back to sky…….in the same way the sun gets rid of clouds and illuminates earth, so this spirit separated from its clouds brightens up all which is dark……..I’m father before being son, I impregnate my mother……….it borns an amazing bird, which of its bones, which are my bones, makes a nest flying there without wings it resurrect in dying……finally turned into a king hugely more powerful than the others.”
The Secretum Artis, or secret of the Art, is just how to volatilize Secret Fire out of raw matter, and then to fix it in a more handling fixed form in Mercurius Philosophorum, then to re-volatilize it over and over again to final perfect fixity. At that point the Phoenix (perfect red) will resurrect from its initial chemical salts to became our Philosophers Gold. This head us directly to the circled hexagon and the sex of the Elements. Just to simplify enough.
The phrase word “terrestrial sky” is to indicate a volatile to be made fixed, but as Lavius and Tanckius just suggest, another important operation is to solve the earth or get a celestial earth. Of course we have to reiterate operations till perfection. And here our Universal Dissolvent is indispensable (4). Thus the ultimate concept behind Lavinius treatise is just his title: terrestrial sky is an allegory for corporification. Since is an alchemists duty to made fixed everything was originally volatile.
- See also Basilius Valentinus Salt, Azoth or Philosophers Gold? ;
- See also Cesare Ripa and the Hot Frozen Ouroboros World Machine and Archarion Analysis inside a Mortar ;
- See also Philosophia Reformata, Father Sun and Mother Moon ;
- See also Hortulus Hermeticus, Be Aware of the Red Laton , Pernety, Laton and Putrefaction , Splendor Solis and Children Multiplication , Kamala Jnana, from Black to White ;
- See also Stuart Chevalier, Lessons on Mercurii from Hexagon to Circle ;
- See also Codex Marcianus Ouroboros and Atalanta Fugiens & Coral from Waters ;