Picture number 9. ” Volatilisatio per Liquidum”, or volatilization by liquid. We have already learned that “Washings” cook or produce a change of color, and now is the time for red. Washings have the power to both calcine and volatilize, this time they volatilize and in so doing can extract more Secret Fire. The ultimate purpose of our Works is in fact the utmost extraction of Secret Fire. The method of extraction has always been the same: Solve et Coagula. Volatilize and make fixed. This is how Alchemy works (11). “Sol noster albus, sine mannum impositione ulla, nec vasis, Apertione iterum liquescit, Calore Continuato, cum rariis vaporibus ad cauda pavonis similitudinem, Tunc Son noster albus volatilisatur per liquidum”. Our Sun, without neither handcraft nor device, over and over open the vessel, pour our “Water” and the matter inside gets liquid again, go on with the heat (very likely sand heat), it will scarcely discharge some vapors, it will change many colors till looking like a peacock tail. But here Rabbi Simeon skips a lot of stages: the peacock tail is towards the end of work indeed, in fact, he ends up saying that at that moment our Sun is volatilized by its own liquid. To tell the real truth we have to repeat this operation till the appearance of the peacock tail. Before that, at every repetition, we will get the “Rota” or rotations of colors from black to red ( 12).
Picture number 10. Let’s get back to the passage from white to red. A light pink-orange (like the coming dawn “Aurora Consurgens”) color will announce your red. The whole to do is called now: ” Volatilisatio per fixum” or volatilization by dry. The author here would make this red as being the last red, in fact, it looks like it can not go any further. But why handle the ultimate goal, or perfect red, and skip the first step, or first redness? What’s more, there would be a difference in the “something” to be put inside to push the matter in the vessel to change color or transmute. The real volatilization by means of dryness is the last one when the matter could not go any further. The author in fact says: ” Continuato calore Sol noster volatilis jam factus per liquidum desiccatur est sic corpus lucens, Quasi Aurora Consurgens, Haec est volatilisatio per siccum”.
Picture number 11. The light pink-orange is now over. The redness has finally arrived. “Sulphur Rubeum”, or simply red Sulfur, and Rabbi Simeon goes on referring to it as the last sulfur. “Hac Aurora paulatim Evanescente, consurgit Sun noster in granula pulchrima et rubicundisima, Que sunt Sulfur nostrum rubeum a sophis, Tam desidera sunt, Quod tamen non est finis laborum”. This Aurora ( in the latin sense of dawn) little by little makes our Sun come out as red and gorgeous granules, which are our red and philosophic Sulfur, so much desired, nevertheless, the work is not finished.
Picture number 12. ” Fermentatio Aliis Imbibitio Lapidis” There is another series of imbibitions for the perfection of the Stone, or Lapis, and this is done when we arrive at Red Earth (Adam) or Red Ferment. This new series of pouring is quite different and difficult, it is made drop by drop. In fact, they are called “Imbibitions”, quite a newborn baby to be gently fed. This new earth is very dry and drinks eagerly its humid, which is not the usual mercurial partitions, but a red one. This red can only be fed with another red. ” Sulphur hoc imbibitur novi Mercurii Quinario suis corpus pondere paulatim et paulatim per septem deversas imbibitiones et continuato calore rotata rota naturae, mense uno, transfeunt putrefactio et jam dicta regimina”. This Sulfur is saturated with a new Mercurius five times its body weight (quinarius was a roman coin worth 5 other coins), over and over, during seven different imbibitions or saturations, with continuing heat ( often an increased heat), rotating the wheel of nature, for one month (philosophic month, but every alchemist has here a different interpretation, generally a philosophic month is a day time long, but here it should indicate an established time). There is a putrefactive stage also in this regimen. Of course, for the rule of three, there may be at least three different kinds of imbibitions. And indeed there are.
Picture number 13. “Lapis Philosophorum Medicina Tertii Ordinis“, or Philosophers Stone and Medicine of Third Degree. We are at the end of the third work. “Finito Mense, surgit Rex, omnipotens seu lapis noster, perfecta medecina, tertii ordinis, potens in sui projectione, omnia methalla transmutare. Deo, sit Aeterna laus et Gratiarum aetio incessabilis Amen”. Rabbi Simeon ben Cantara thanked God for him to be before the Philosophers Stone. I don’t know about Philosophers Stone, but here we are at least before the Projection Powder or the powder which can transmute all metals. The month, or established time, has been passed, and our King ( or metallic vulgar gold) is resurrected ( of course the chemical composition of this red powder will be very uncertain). If not our Soul, this saffron powder has at least saved a gold Soul. We have both medicine and a means to get rich. For a naive ancient man all, he wishes to dare to thank God. But there will be a part 3.
Click on a picture to start the gallery.
- See also Kamala Jnana, from Black to White ;
- See also Atalanta Fugiens & the Golden Apples , Atalanta Fugiens & Terra Alba Foliata ;
- See also Sun and Moon at the Turn of the First Millennium , Philosophia Reformata, Father sun and Mother Moon ;
- See also The Puzzling Child in the San Marco Treasure Ecclesiola , Phantom Play’s Tribute to the Raising Benzoin , Glaser and the Unladylike, but Volatile, Salt of Urine , Lancillotti and the Magisterium of Urine on Caput Mortuum ;
- See also Atalanta Fugiens & Mercurius Duplicatus ,
- See also Basilius Valentinus, Salt, Azoth or Philosophers Gold? ;
- See also The Throne Hieroglyph and the Nightly Power of Isis ;
- See also Kamala Jnana, Introduction to a Live Secret ;
- See also Kamala Jnana from Black to White ;
- See also Pietro Perugino & the Black Horned Motherhood ;
- Cesare Ripa & the Hot Frozen Ouroboros World Machine , Wenceslaw Lavinius and the Sky and Earth Properties , Stoll, the Lacinius Translator on Male and Female Elements , Glaser’s Frontispiece ;
- Splendor Solis and Children Multiplication , Codex Marcianus Ouroboros