The great French alchemist explains the analogy with the small feline vibrissae and the great ability of the Spiritus Mundi to “pick up” the cosmos vibrations.
Canseliet dedicates these observations as the incipit of his chapter on great cooking. My translation from L’ Alchimie espliqueé sur ses Textes Classiques, Alchemy explained in his classic texts, chapter 12 The Great Cooking.
In the Great Work, the terminal phase, exactly the third work, requires for itself the constant help of the cosmic spirit, more than the other two main parts. Only the artist who, in ceaselessly growing wonder, has reached the threshold of the most difficult operation of the noble art of fire, can have a correct idea of all that is possible for the carrier of the soul, and of what which is undoubtedly the Universal Medicine.
It is the spirit of the cosmos, the Spiritus Mundi of the ancient alchemists, which takes charge of the total conservation of everyone’s thoughts and deeds on earth. We will have time to visit, in this sublunary world, all the unexpected reserves of this immeasurable storehouse. In this regard, the declaration of St. Luke takes on a positive meaning which can only induce sane minds to the most elementary circumspection. Christ warns the philosopher against that execrable leaven which is hypocrisy – quod est hypocrisis:
“But there is nothing hidden, which should not be laid bare, nor invisible, which should not be shown”. Nihil autem opertum est, quod non reveletur, neque absconditum, quod non sciatur (XIl, 2 & 3).
“The strong force of every force” that Hermes indicated in his Tablet, collects and holds the movements and noises of the earth, the gestures, and voices of all beings of Nature; it is the same which endowed the priestly Egypt of the Pharaohs with considerable and ordinarily unexplained means of action. Here the scholar must remember the observation that Fulcanelli made regarding the small domestic feline, usually so calumniated.
“If therefore, brothers, pay attention to what we have said about the “cake of the Kings” and if you know why the Egyptians had deified cats, you will no longer have any reason to doubt the subject you have to choose; its vulgar name will be clearly known to you “. Le Mystère des Cathedrales.
A little later, in his second work, the Master took care to complete his singular piece of information, which the reader will have to put back in its place and review in context:
“It is the cat’s whiskers that have given it its name; no doubt they conceal a profound point of doctrine, and this secret reason has earned the graceful feline the honor of being elevated to the rank of Egyptian deity.”
See also: Canseliet, the Art of Music & Weight; Canseliet & the Details of the Last Cooking; Canseliet and the Color of the Spirit;