Augurello, in the Crysopoeia second bookend, introduces the concept of a saffron powder able to transmute every metal giving it the color of a star.
“There is a secret mountain where a fountain spurts, like quicksilver and sovereign. A cavern is open in this site where a virgin dwells and stays. Through a narrow and dreadful path of thick bushes, this celestial virgin uneasily comes, for she has to go up before this entry side; there is a not wide flat space with dark shadowy passages similar to watery rivulets and surrounded by green mossy stones… “
You can find an introduction to Augurello and his Crysopoeia at Augurello and the Art of Making Gold. First Book. The previous part of the second book is Augurello and the Art of Making Gold. Second Book 1. My translation from latin, in italics, is interpretative and summarizing due to the poetically elaborated, and often pointless, writing form.
“Everyone who entered this place leaves detestable human smudge. But at the same time, everyone coming to this place drops the mortal weight and puts on a quick Spirit, pure and light. These qualities are taken through the conduits of this earth, and there a golden Nymph is sitting. She is glittering gold all over. “
In the previous article, Augurello presented the “Emerald” or Flos Coeli ( Flux of the Sky) as a source of Secret Fire, here the allegory of a Virgin does not refute that since it stands for our first impalpable Mercurius out of salts volatilization in preparatory works ( see an Opus Magnum scheme). A more precise wording could be ” Virgin Philosophical Earth” (1). Further down, we will see why the term Virgin was used in ancient times: a superstitious concept of minerals making in the inner of the earth. You must know that this Mercurius is still unmarried and volatile since no man has already duplicated or fixed her (2). The allegory of the cavern is often used in Alchemy to define our first matter, or better, the difficulty of reaching it in the deep of the earth or after exhausting processes. Putrefactive dark stages and vegetative stones are indeed familiar to the concept.
Nevertheless is not infrequent the case in which the cavern term is not to be taken as an allegory but literally as a real physical cavern. In fact, inside a cavern, our Secret Fire/Mercurius tends to be quite “seen” in the form of vapors. The Nymph at the entrance, our Secret Fire/Mercurius, is already our Philosophers Gold (3), since metallic gold is nothing but concentrated Secret Fire. But no alchemist has ever given a rational answer to why metals transmute in gold.
“So, you looking for such great works must go to the Tarvisian mountains (the Alps on the border between Italy and Austria) and those wonderful places. Here the vein is caused by sulfur and quicksilver vapors. So you can take some pure metal; the Spirit is hidden inside and lives silently, loaded with a heavy body whose it waits to be liberated one day and set free in the air escaping its dark prison. And this heavy burden of corporal mass which ores are naturally charged, gets to be light again and can rise to supreme regions and get melted, no matter the original hardness, by this beautiful art which imitates nature and forces this mass to return to its original use. For this reason, the enclosed seed comes out of its thick prison.”
As said before, Augurello partakes in the ancient and superstitious belief that a mineral is composed initially of a natural humid-liquid Mercurius and a dry or oily natural Sulphur. Of course, this is just a chemical credulity. When ancient alchemists stated one had to imitate nature, they intended this separation. Of course, alchemical Mercurius is not the gaseous part of a mineral, and Sulphur is not the only one. This has nothing to do with Secret Fire, which as a matter of fact, Augurello scarcely named.
“Sometimes gold concentrates and receives through its force an augmentation of its seed and perpetual generation, and this seed starts to rise, in the same way as a tree growing from the earth, and little by little gets taller. Is this Spirit to make the gold growing up in its veins? “
We will see in the coming articles that there is a link between the Secret Fire behavior, the Sunlight, and the gold metallic veins’ direction and texture in the deep of the earth. The new concept here is that Secret Fire can “augment” or simply the matter hosting it can be “lightened” in the raw matter and increased in Secret Fire by soaking in the same secret Fire.
“Ancients too much superstitious have overthrown the order of matter and have hidden their knowledge under the melting metals art, so much that is impossible to discover it. Nevertheless, you can go up high mountains and find many Nymphs to guard treasures in secret and obscured sites. Those Nymphs make the golden fleece out of a beautiful ivory pine cone. There to acquire glory, Prince Jason arrives along with all the brave young searching under Heracles and Jason’s guide. One of the two in the sure address of Colchis isle shows you the way to the golden fleece as a starting point you should follow. The other may teach you how many works you have to carry out. It is not such an important matter to know what raw matter to take, but how to make it ready and suitable. This is a great fact; that’s the work and enterprise too. “
Jason and the Argonauts’ myth often defined the wet path or way. Augurello here seems to prefer this path instead of the too much secret melting path. Unrevealed because of its short and too precise proceedings.
“Ignorance may flood you in vain practices and lies. Through careful work, they mix the hot water, which they call “Menstruum”, like the female period ( Augurello names it ” women’s flowers”) because of its smell. And also because from its belly, a new baby is being born. You have to work very hard at little fire since, without hard work, you will never get to anything. But these works tend to vain hopes because they mix various matters, which is against nature. Since nothing is more required than simplicity without inserting too many things apart from the breath of the pure sulfur and the touch of its companion quicksilver coming to rescue. Gold is native to them. When the art shall disaggregate what was joined before, you will see a seed growing up, which you shall need to keep secrets with an incessant fire to be exerted. Your care also requires feeding it properly and with no hurry. So when the right time comes, the baby shapeless borne will show its perfection till the imperfect mass becomes a perfect thing.”
Augurello takes here too much for granted the alchemical axiom never to use more than one ingredient. Our unique ingredient is Secret Fire, but since we cannot work with impalpability, we often have to extract from one thing utilizing other chemicals. Additionally, Sulphur and Mercurius might appear as companions, but they rather are subsequent and follow each other. They are a single thing, and sometimes the same chemical too.
This fruit does grow slowly, mostly at moderate heat. You have to apply a non-excessive warm. That will be the “Balneum Mariae”. The vessel can not be too narrow because this matter can not display its entire power when with little fire after being joined, and in fact, its virtue will cease.
When you are the lucky owner of the powder, you may get it augmented as you want. This excellent celestial powder will display signs in different colors. But if you want to understand the red powder’s value, you must first comprehend that the white and black powder is worth very much. At first, the black color will teach you how to start the work and will open the door of the secret path. The white powder will give you the whole knowledge. The path is here well advanced, and the redness is not so far. This human art also embraces the stars in the sky, so bright and beautiful. “
This powder is the Powder of Projection (4). The colors mentioned by Augurello are the stages of the main Work (5). This Art embraces the stars in the sky either because Secret Fire is a stellar substance or this last tends to act as a magnet for stars (6).
“And each aster of an equal degree can measure the tour of the earth and sea. And the countless sand grains may easily realize the amount. By this art, the human voice may follow the songs of the celestial domain and try to imitate the seven celestial sounds through instruments and human songs.”
This paragraph is intriguing. Indeed Acoustics does play an important role in Alchemy.
“This art will bring you medicines and makes an unfruitful field fertile. To the low world’s eyes, nothing of this art is attributed to the human mind. But without this art, the judicious man prefers not to do anything. Augurello now beseeches Athene-Pallas as the personification of knowledge, being born directly from the head of her father Zeus and loved by Hephaestus, the god of furnaces, to help him in the search for the powder which can promptly transmute every metal in gold. And in the same way, rennet cheese is prevented from its common use by warm water, which makes the vessel full of milk take conformity with another milk; in the same way, the sacred powder, through its quicksilver (living silver), prevents the action of mercury ( silver live), giving it the appearance of gold, of the same color as stars. That of looking at stars does seem the quicksilver primary feature. This powder is above and beyond the perfect gold; it gives the return to a perfection stage. But you must know this powder can augment itself through hard work.”
See also picture number 11 in Cabala Mineralis part 2. Nobody knows why this may happen concerning the transmutation from mercury to gold. Augurello’s idea that the projection powder acts as a rennet is at least strange but compelling. The concept of “Amalgam” is often used (7) in Alchemy.
“A significant part of mercury gets transmuted in pure gold by a tiny part of this powder because this quick Spirit does enter this thick and still body incessantly mixing with its corpuscles. Often the powder cooked and pressed may increase its force, like a grain of saffron can expand color and virtue. Nobody can understand why this happens, but inside this little powder, a great force and power, since inside dwells a seed, is hidden. It is a mystery like a magnet that can attract iron or the sailors looking for the great bear in the night sky.
Inside this powder, the first seed of all metals is beginning to germinate. It is just in the last cooking that metal takes its singular appearance. Augurello notices that metal to be transformed has to be previously reduced to liquid form to melt. All the points are linked together in a single line, that’s why the regimen of fire is so important the strange fact is that when augmented, the powder tends to decrease in volume. Augurello ends this second book assuring the reader that he will lead him safely to the exit thanks to a thread.”
A red thread, I guess.
To be continued at Augurello and the Art of Making Gold. Third Book 1 .
- See also Stuart Chevalier, Lessons on Earth: a Virgin Marriages ;
- See also Atalanta Fugiens and Mercurius Duplicatus ;
- See also Basilius Valentinus, Azoth, Salt or Philosophers Gols? ;
- See also Cabala Mineralis and the She Horse on Urine Work, part 2 ;
- See also Kamala Jnana, Introduction to a Live Secret ;
- See also Cesare Ripa Cesare Ripa: Wheels, Spindles and Celestial Pointers and Introitus Apertus vs Open Entrance. Chap 4 ;
- See also Atalanta Fugiens & the Golden Apples , Ostanes, One Nature etc and Codex Marcianus Ouroboros ;