After publishing Canseliet’s epistolary chronicle with a friend regarding the observations on weight increases and emissions of the musical whistling scale, the time has come to also disclose the antecedent part of the management of cooking, the philosophical egg and the oven. As well as observations on the nature of the “vibrations”.
My translation from L’ Alchimie espliqueé sur ses Textes Classiques, Alchemy explained in his classic texts, chapter 12 The Great Cooking. I decided to put the purely technical part first – technicians don’t like to waste time on philosophy – and then the “philosophical” considerations of the great French alchemist:
Preparation of the Philosophical Egg
No. 8, the first of February 1950
Dear friend,
After the little accident that cracked my top crucible, I came up with the idea of a new arrangement. This led me to rectify two of the crucibles I brought in just a week ago. I always cut off their bottoms, so that I make two slightly truncated conical cylinders on one side, which however I will not fit together in the same way.
I cut the largest (No. 15) exactly according to…
The scholar will continue reading on the upper part of the page that we have photographed (Pl. XXVIII) in the seventeenth notebook of our general correspondence, thus preserved, according to the chronological succession of recipients and in the original form of handwritten minutes, from 1920 until around 1960. Starting from this last year, due to the weight of the commitments, the time duration has no longer allowed us to squander it, for the sequel, in similar frivolities. This, in the estimate, even the most optimistic, of how much we still have if we do not receive the priceless Gift.
The photographed page of the letter continues: “… the request for the normal opening of the smallest (N. 13) which, as you can imagine, was not comfortable. The first, with the opening facing downwards, receives on the cut side, the ordinary opening of the second, which thus turns the sectioned bottom upwards. In the wall of the latter, I no longer make an extremely delicate circular opening, but simply a hollow in the center, on the edge that goes to the other crucible. here’s what you get (see margin figure) Finally it’s done, and the joint in refractory liquid is slowly drying. It remains for me to have the blacksmith make two four-legged iron supports; a larger one, which supports the external equipment (the earth rack); the other higher, which enters the first and goes beyond it thanks to its lower diameter, so as to place the philosopher’s vase at a useful distance, both from the flame of the burner and from the hole for looking.
I believe I have achieved the simplest and most comfortable arrangement, and I am eager to prove it. I’m sure I don’t even need to install a chimney for the outlet hole. As for the pyrometer, you are spoiled for choice; or let it enter from top to bottom, vertically, or from bottom to top, i.e. in the direction of the flame. What do you think about it? I would be happy to receive your comments very quickly. Also, tell me how you install your wash bottles. I imagine, of course, that it is a question of conducting the gas into the water with a tube and supplying it with an outlet with another tube located outside the liquid.
The temperature has changed abruptly and totally and it is spring and the sun is out.
I wish you well, old chap, very fraternally and affectionately”.
No. 12, on Thursday 16 February 1950
Dear friend,
I got back on the 8.30 am bus which, after an hour’s stop in Beauvais, arrives here at noon. I did not stay longer in Paris, where I must return next week, to pick up the props ordered yesterday Wednesday. The day before, Tuesday, I received together your N. 7 of February 8, and your small package containing the sieve cloth. Immediately afterward, I went to the Bastille, and in the rue de Lappe I found a small craftsman who seems to me to have understood very well what I wanted.
As for my under construction equipment, nay I will say, my athanor, your suggestions are very pertinent. The role and importance of the balance, believe me, do not escape me; this, as you yourself will have imagined, must be an overflow (Italian trabocco), due to the double necessity of assembly and precision. The crucible (porcelain or Pyrex glass?) evidently can only be supported above the burner flame by a device introduced from the outside and from top to bottom. Consequently, one of the plates will be replaced by the vase suspended from a resistant metal wire: and the other plate being exactly calibrated, so as to obtain a perfect horizontality.
The column, which supports the needle, will be removed from its case with the drawer, which has become uncomfortable so that the end of the needle hangs over the void.
The new wooden base is placed at a sufficient height so that the hot breath does not reach and does not influence the horizontal piece of the weighing apparatus. I operated the same way, not bad, I gladly confess, in 1948 and I don’t see how another device is possible.
A 10-kilo Roberval, which welcomes everything, up to the burner? But the gas inlet tube would cause uncertainty, not to mention sensitivity, which is already problematic due to the considerable weight!
Would you have another idea?
As for looking, for me it has no other destination than that of its very name, that is, visual control and that’s it, because, as you well know, once the operation is underway, it is unimaginable that one touches, in any way, the philosophical egg.
The small Pyrex vase, particularly, if it stands the test, covered with its mica, exempts me from withdrawals which, on the other hand, I am sure, would cause the death of the compound. If Fulcanelli followed this procedure, before me, it was during an experimental study that I no longer need since it is known that our colors develop in black.
After all, to return to the look, I am of your opinion, that it is not bad that the lateral opening that I will make in the form of an elongated ogive is larger, a bit as you write, a slice of melon.
The sealing of the two crucibles which form the body of the furnace can certainly be eliminated. I made it to give more solidity, in the event that any impact, coming for example from the barrel of the pyrometer, would shake the whole assembly; which, admittedly, seems unlikely, as I will have installed this shaft, thoroughly and once and for all.
What will happen a couple of months later, in May 1950, during the week of weeks, will be truly astonishing. Even if, in the end, the conclusion will not be what Canseliet hoped for.
Comparison with Flamel’s Apparatus and Egg
The philosophical egg attributed to Nicolas Flamel is part of this color engraving from P. Arnauld de la Chevallerie Poitevin edition, Paris, 1621; in which Flamel’s Hieroglyphical Figures, are re-proposed, after having colored them. Canseliet’s caption says “Flamel and Perrenelle receive, together and in humility, the supreme initiation”.
We have Canseliet’s certification that the colors are superbly evocative and indicative of the color rotations. We can note, at the bottom left, the architectural apparatus with the egg inside. The arm holding it is red: in fact, the last putrefaction, and consequent color rotation, will start from the last and supreme red of the second work.
Arnauld de la Chevallerie’s is a colored edition, the original one is colorless.
We have already encountered this image in Piero della Francesca and the Philosophical Pendent Egg, where we find the famous egg hanging under a shell and suspended by a thread.
But let’s see what this little treatise attributed to Flamel says: “ This vessel of earth, in this form, is called by the philosophers, their triple vessel, for within it, there is in the middle a stage or a floor, and upon that a disk or a platter full of lukewarm ashes, within the which is the Philosophical Egg, that is a phial of glass full of confections of art…”.
Flamel speaks of a glass phial, Canseliet of two crucibles, one superimposed on the other. We do not know if Flamel’s phial is hermetically closed (but generally a phial is called such precisely because it is hermetically closed, otherwise it is just a small glass bottle. Canseliet instead reveals that he did not consider it necessary to seal the space between the two crucibles, as “he considered them sufficiently firm in their place, difficult to move”. Thus we learn that it is not sealing so that nothing gets out, but security against any jolts. Canseliet places the egg on the pan of a scale, Flamel on a plate full of lukewarm ashes. Canseliet uses the adjective “hot”, Flamel “tepid/lukewarm”.
Canseliet mentions a suspension by means of steel wire. Flamel suspends two objects held by one hand. It seems to get that Canseliet’s thread is used to replace the pan of the balance with the vessel and keep it horizontal. The two objects suspended by Flamel do not seem to have to take horizontality into account, given that one has too much slack with respect to the other.
Canseliet, although very reticent, mechanically describes an apparatus. Flamel could symbolically describe it. in fact, if we observe the other steps represented in the hieroglyphic figures, they are represented symbolically. And like all symbols, they are analogies.
We know what Canseliet’s thread is for, but what does the Flamel thread represent? Canseliet, although very reticent, mechanically describes an apparatus. Flamel could, instead, symbolically describe it. In fact, if we observe the other steps represented in the hieroglyphic figures, they are all represented symbolically. And like all symbols, they are analogies. Thus, one fails to understand why instead Flamel’s philosophical egg should be taken literally.
What does the Flamel thread represent? For example, the chapel structure of the “oven” is clearly a symbol. In ancient times, the symbol of a prestigious building meant “power”.
See also Canseliet, the Art of Music & Weight to know the succession of events, which took place three months later, in the week of weeks.
See Atorène: Fire and Weights in Canseliet’s Last Cooking for a comprehensive explanation by Canseliet’s apprentice of weights and sounds.