Albert Poisson misconceives Materia Prima density stairs with matter unity density stairs and leads would-be alchemists into an operative deadlock.
In Theories et Symboles des Achimistes Paris 1891, Poisson cancels the concept of Secret Fire as Materia Prima. Instead, he brings into play the idea of a mass division into extremely tiny particles, which he called “ Seeds of the matter” (note he uses the ancient term “Matter” instead of “Mass”).
Theories et Symboles des Alchimistes, Albert Poissson, Chapter 2:
“The Great Law of Matter Unit is based on Alchemy theory. The matter is one, but it may take various forms and produces new bodies of indefinite number combining with itself. This raw material was still called seed, chaos, and universal substance. Without going into details, Basil Valentine assumes, as a fact, the unity of matter. “All things come from the same seed; all were originally engendered by the same mother” (Triumphal Chariot of Antimony). Sendivogius, better known as the Cosmopolitan, is more explicit in his “Letters” he said:” Christians wish God first created some raw material … and that this matter by way of separation, having been derived from simple bodies, which having then been mixed by way of composition served to do what we see … in creation, there was a kind of subordination, so that all beings have been used by the simplest of principles for the composition of following and other ones. “Sendivogius finally summarizes everything said in these two proposals “Know-how: first, production of a matter that nothing has preceded; second, division of this area into elements and from the composition of the Mixed” (Letter XI). When saying mixed, Sendivogius means any compounded bodies.
Espagnet completes Sendivogius, establishing matter indestructibility; he adds that it can only change form. “ Anything that bears the character of being or substance can not leave the laws of nature; it is not allowed to move to non-being” Therefore, Trismegistus said aptly, in the Pymander, that nothing dies in the world, but that all things come and go ” (Enchiridion phisicæ restitutæ)”
Misinterpreting the term “ Matter” as a mass synonym, Albert Poisson confuses Materia Prima with mass, that’s to say, with Materia Tertia or crude matter, even if infinitely divided. The quotations he makes to rate his claims highly conversely point against them. When Sendivogius speaks about the indestructibility of matter, he means Secret Fire indestructibility, Materia Prima indestructibility, and its medium or means. D’Espagnet:” Our Matter cannot be destroyed; it can only change in form”. By its nature, the Alchemical Spirit of life is ineffable and can give life to another body if extracted from a mixed body.
In contrast, a body unit can only die when extracted from a body. Spirit of life is the so-called “ Mother” or Principle of Life and lacks distinction. The seed is not a polar state of the mother, but Father or Sulphur, that is to say, a mother’s improvement and all seeds being born by the same mother. Hermes in Pymander ( a text probably written in the fifteenth century in Florence to make Alchemy cooperate with catholicism) says, “Nothing dies in the world”, but Poisson is unlikely to realize this sentence is appropriate to spirit, not to bodies. Alchemy’s natural Secret Fire and alchemists’ counterpart Materia Prima, in its double composition of female and male, chaos and seed, causes the Principle of Life to reproduce itself, along with new bodies of indefinite numbers. However, not like little bricks putting one behind another, but strange substances putting in a strange resonance. Females and Males are not here polar states of the same substance, as one can commonly think of. But different phases of the same substances. Alchemy may not be sound science, but it always makes sense.
However, despite Poisson’s opinion, Secret Fire is neither mass nor energy particles. It is something scientifically undetectable yet vegetative (1). Consequently, laboratory processes can be significantly affected by these misconceptions. Consequently, Poisson’s Solve et Coagula will be a mere distillation or sublimation process, as the name easily suggests. To the point, one should be very lucky to get out of Labors of Hercules.
Now an off-topic that is not off at all: “Theories et Symboles des Alchimistes”, cover on the top, has a very close resemblance with the cover of ” The Great Work revealed on behalf of the Children of Light” by Coutan, Amsterdam 1775, on the bottom left. So why young Albert Poisson has reproduced the cover and has not read the book?