Earth Alchemy

Earth is everything that exists, and that can exist, only in the world of the living.

Alchemists knew very well that the earth was not the center of the cosmos. But they also believed that the center of the earth was the receptacle of stellar influences. This made the earth their alchemical “stove”, their athanor, the place where the sidereal Spiritus Mundi was embodied, the place where everything met. Ultimately, the place where everything became “terrestrially adapted”.

The symbol “earth” cannot escape the famous rule of three, according to which each symbol has at least three different meanings. So when alchemists say “earth” they mean planet earth, earth as raw material, the element earth and alchemical salt… and also the philosophers’ stone as the ultimate earth.

True. We have in fact seen how stellar influences descend at night into the earthly cavities and tend to penetrate ever deeper. See Stellar and Planetary Alchemy.

True. This construction is called by alchemists “philosophers’ stone”. The supreme alchemical earth, not because it is made of earth or stone, but because it “repeats” the universe. See also What is the Philosophers Stone? and The Genesis on a Small Scale.

The Big Fish Eats the Little Fish is an effective summary of the alchemical works: 1. this big fish lives in the sea of ​​alchemical waves; 2. it possesses – therefore has swallowed – all the characteristics of the small alchemical “earths” that built it. Ultimately, the supreme alchemical earth, the big fish, can be dissolved and dissolve while being stable. It is the supreme Mercurius that has lost nothing of the characteristics acquired during the various phases of the works.

From an alchemical point of view, air movements, gasses, liquids, colloids and solids seem able to “host” in a stable and non-ephemeral form something that we still can’t understand what it is, but nevertheless exists. Mercurius in its terrestrial state (Mercurius Philosophorum) should be able to dissolve any coarse, rough material it comes into contact with and reduce it to the state of Mercurius. It is called the Earthly Sky.

From the teurgic point of view, the Earth is everything that exists, and that can exist, only in the world of the living.

True. For alchemists the alchemical earth is the fixed salt resulting from the union of sky and earth, air and earth, volatile and fixed. In short, it can no longer be further volatilized.

No, those can be “raw materials” that an alchemist can work with. The alchemist’s earth par excellence is Mercurius, which can emerge from many alchemical paths, and the stellar influences are stored there. But nature is not limited like the alchemist and can truly make any material an alchemical “earth”.

For the human limits of an alchemist, alchemical earth is also synonymous with alchemical salt.

The breaking of the salts brings forth the Mercurius. Once the salts have acquired alchemical capacity, they becomes a “container-repeater” of the Mercurius from the stars. See also First-Preparatory Works Second Part.

Alchemical earth is all that ultimately remains in the alchemist’s hands, all that the alchemist can preserve. The Mercurius made stable, also called Mercurius Philosophorum. See also Second-Main Work.

Water is everything that flows, so also the alchemica earth as it contains Mercurius. See Water Alchemy.

Perhaps earth is not exactly what is meant by the earth element, however many mythologies depict the earth as resting on cosmic oceans or mythological fish.

Yes and no. The alchemical lexicon was based on the visual laboratory effects. All these matters were in fact in progress, or linked together by previous and subsequent phases. Materia/matter was everything stable enough to be used for the next lab phase. But, unfortunately, each alchemical path has its own different appearances and consistencies. Want some advice? Forget about these verbal tricks and move on.

Absolutely. Not only with products of the earth, such as vegetables and minerals, but also with common clay (even kaolin), topsoil, humus, cemetery soil and manure. Only the processes will be different.

“The earth is the fireplace of the world, the celestial fire that has a circular movement. Only the domestic hearth makes the seed of the universe manifest.” – Kleánthēs (330 a.C. circa – 232 a.C. circa)

True. This attribute is consequent to “The earth is the fireplace of the world”.

Vesta/Hestia, the divinity of the primary hearth was represented with waving veils. The fireplace of Vesta was the origin of the winds and vapors rising from the earth. Hephaestus’furnaces were par excellence “smoking.”

In many mythologies, the earth is spoken of as the double of the sky, only with something less. This idea is not alchemical but theurgic, in fact it involves concepts of archetype and “earthly copy”, which Alchemy could get closer with the idea of ​​Macrocosm and Microcosm (see Alchemy and Modern Physics Particles). However, when alchemists speak of “sky” and “earth” in the alchemical processes, from a laboratory view, they mean a more impalpable and ineffable Mercurius (sky) in comparison with an easier to handle and store one (earth). So, no wonder, once the Mercurius is stabilized in Mercurius Philosophorum, the latter is called “terrestrial sky” (see Second-Main Work).

When theurgists speak of “sky” and “earth” they speak of “corporification of spirits”, and the proportions are numerical.

The alchemical earth contains Mercurius, the work of the alchemist, which is also called “emanation of the pole star”. The natural earth always contains Mercurius, but the work of Nature. Both recall the sky, or stellar spiritual part, on earth.

True, from the point of view of oscillations, the hearth was certainly synonymous with “regular oscillation” much more than “free” fire.

I believe it’s true, even if the ancient alchemists could instead have operated on the simple physical features of materials, without subjecting them to work. See also Short Art Ars Brevis.

We can say it, indeed. See Before Preparatory Work, Spiritus Mundi.

First of all, let’s say that the exact translation from Latin is: you will return through dust and not to dust. The first part of the sentence says that man will be (eris, future) dust, not is already dust. This means that a certain powder will contain “something” important for a new “signature”. For further information see Palingenesis, Seeds in the Wind and Before Preparatory Work, Spiritus Mundi.

The ancient rituals of the “fabrication of the gods” involved the manufacturing of objects or the use of objects, or places, or buildings, or anything else (practically everything) in which to house something ethereal (such as parts of the souls of the deceased or parts of the soul of the living).

If we admit that the physics of sound plays a large role in Alchemy then what more suitable than a solid to “store” oscillations? The ancients were obsessed with building tombs, temples, statues and objects that were “carriers or receivers of sound”. See Alchemy Resounds.

If we give the word “land” the meaning of “field”, we can certainly understand earth as a synonym of land.