First-Preparatory Works, Introduction

The aim of the first preparatory work is to extract the Spiritus Mundi/Secret Fire from the raw materials and prepare the Mercurius/universal dissolvent/Alkahest out of it.

Extracting the Spiritus Mundi from the raw material means volatilizing it at least seven times to “split” or “disorient” the molecular structure.

Apart from the obvious structural changes, Alchemy, unlike spagyrics, acts at the level of electronic orbitals: matter ionizes terribly. See also Differences between Alchemy and Spagyrics and Alchemy and Modern Physics Particles.

Of course Alchemy is much more complex than a simple agitation of electrons and ions. But if one does not understand this first small step one is lost in the ocean of baroque symbolism.

In a general sense, “to dissolve” in Alchemy means “to transmute” the dissolved body into the same nature as the dissolvent.

In a general sense, this statement is correct. But, having to transpose it into the practical language of the alchemists, it is enough for them to obtain as much Mercurius as possible for the continuation of their work.

Absolutely, because alchemists then work using the spiritual part of raw matter as their raw material.

Alchemists do not work with pure “spirits”, but with “spirit envelopes” that can be handled and made large enough to be worked with in the laboratory under even extreme conditions.

By “working in the laboratory under even extreme conditions” alchemists mean subjecting the raw material to repeated changes in state, since it is precisely these treatments that bring out the Mercurius, and “free” the Spiritus Mundi from its corporeal chains.

Interesting question to which alchemists do not have an answer. To tell the truth, this is a question that an alchemist can only ask today with the new discoveries of physics. But, believe me, they still do not ask themselves such complex questions, since most of them are stuck in the Baroque age.

Most alchemists are stuck in the Baroque age because the alchemical literature they refer to is from the Baroque age. And, on the other hand, they cannot be blamed, since the only reliable treatises on Alchemy were written in the Baroque age. The alchemists make an exception for Fulcanelli and Canseliet who, however, wrote in a baroque style (perhaps to appear more reliable to beginners).

Although Fulcanelli said “Alchemy is physics, not chemistry”, physics uses (and is) what we call matter. Alchemy cannot do without this factor.

Not only can there be an alchemical path made of pure principles of physics, but it must necessarily exist and this is confirmed by all the great alchemists. After all, it was Fulcanelli who said “Alchemy is physics, not chemistry”. This search, which has always been veiled, has been called the “Third Way”. However, since it must also be very short, it is also called “Short Art” even if the two things could very well be two separate and distinct paths. See my section Short Art Ars Brevis.

An alchemical path performed only by the human body and its psychic forces it’s just not Alchemy, it’s something else. It should also be borne in mind that, while Mediterranean Alchemy took examples from nature to veil the operations of physics (the sea, the sun, the moon, the earth, the wind), Eastern Alchemy took examples from the human body to explain the same operations.

Strange as it may seem, materials such as gold, that is, almost pure Spiritus Mundi (see Gold & Alchemy), are not among the favorites of alchemists who want to reach the third cooking, in fact golds lacks the necessary “coating”, so important to obtain the “shell” of the alchemical egg (see Third Work). However, alchemists love metals that are not too far from gold on Mendeleev’s scale.

True, alchemists also used humble materials such as non-surface earth, manure, tartar from barrels, carbonates, to which one could add pure clay, soot, saltpetre, urine, sea water, salt, glass, enamels, rain water, puddle water, dew, algae, snow, but also fruit, potatoes, cognac, wine, wine vinegar … and I will surely have forgotten something else. All raw materials already used in ancient iatrochemistry (see Differences between Alchemy and Ancient Ordinary Chemistry)

It’s a fact: alchemists love metals that are close to gold in the scale of energy values ​​of their orbitals, i.e. the Mendeleev scale. It is hard to imagine that the alchemists of an era preceding that of Mendeleev were aware of what an electronic cloud was with its different energy levels. It is useless to ask the reason for this ancient custom if not that it was, in fact, a “tradition” and a very popular path also for iatrochemists. Today we can think that metallurgists looked for alternatives to lead in antimony and bismuth, or tin for silver. It must be said that the veins of sulfur and antimony compounds in nature are never too far from veins of gold, and bismuth can be confused with antimony. Lead was already widely used in cosmetics and ancient domestic pipes were made of this metal. As for tin, this metal was used to make low-cost plates and cutlery until the Baroque era. Besides being a friend of gold, tin, with an easily attainable melting point, was quite used for transmutations (see Transmutation of Metals).

However, although Fulcanelli and Canseliet followed and described this methods, they also persistently sought a third way (see Short Art Ars Brevis).

Certainly, considering that many modern alchemists compared Mercurius to the electron. See Alchemy and Modern Physics Particles and Before Preparatory Work, Spiritus Mundi.

True. These “magnets” serve to trigger “breathing” with the cosmos. See Before Preparatory Work, Spiritus Mundi, Alchemy & Light, Introduction and Stellar and Planetary Alchemy.

The best magnet for attracting Spiritus Mundi, or Secret Fire from the sky, is the alchemically prepared Mercurius Philosophorum, as it is the densest Secret Fire known artifact (being Alchemy, the science, and art of making Secret Fire condensers).

We have already seen that in Alchemy nothing travels but everything doubles on a scale of density (see Stellar and Planetary Alchemy and Doubles, Resonances, Unions, Seeds, Embryos, Births, and Processions). In Alchemy, it is not uncommon to hear about a less dense Mercurius/Secret Fire/Spirit attracted by a denser one, as opposed to the atmospheric models. I don’t mean the density of raw matter but the density of our ineffable and invisible Spirit. For this reason, the extraction from raw matter is complex and hardworking. The density differentiation theory of Mercurius leads to a whole range of densities, which the ancient astronomers rendered in their astronomical charts with various types of skies (see Stellar and Planetary Alchemy). In the light of this theory, we must however consider that alchemists work in practice and not in abstraction, thus, inevitably, they only have raw materials or artisanal methods at their disposal. For instance, as for the latter, there is the method of common air humidity to be attracted through the rehydration of significantly dried salts. It follows a list of “binary suggestions” for building or finding a good condenser/magnet. Only experience can make us instinctively understand how to proceed. A colloidal substance, like nostoc, tends to be more attractive than a solid. A finely powdered and dispersed mineral powder is more attractive than a bulk ore. The fermented raw matter is more attractive than fresh matter. Nocturnal conditions are more attractive than sunlight. A desert is more attractive than a pluvial forest. The crescent Moon is more attractive than the full Moon. Natural fire is said to be attractive too. The dawn is more attractive than the sunset. Gold is the best attractive among minerals. Running stream water is more attractive than still water. A cavern is more attractive than open conditions. But a roofless house is more attractive than a house with a covering. An underground stream is more attractive than a superficial one. Equinoctial conditions are more attractive than solstitial. Slots are more attractive than wide open spaces. Daily extreme temperature excursions are more attractive than comfortable temperatures. Metal containers are more attractive than glass vessels. Rooms at the top of high towers are more attractive than the ground floor. The high mountain is more attractive than the sea level. An ionized environment is more attractive than a null. The absence of wind is more attractive than windy conditions. The Moon is more attractive than the Sun. Mineral reign is more attractive than plant. A dispersing upward condition is more attractive than a downward-condensing one. A destroyed raw matter is more attractive than an untouched one. A liquid is more attractive than a solid. Salt is more attractive than a bulk mineral. A child is more attractive than an elderly. Our organic liquids are more attractive than the earth. Underground earth is more attractive than surface soil. A corpse is more attractive than a living body. An explosion is more attractive than stillness. The earth away from trees is more attractive than that under trees. A metallic salt is more attractive than a nonmetallic. A noisy place is more attractive than a silent one. A dissolving salt is more attractive than an already dissolved. But a saturated solution is more attractive than an unsaturated one. An aged raw matter is more attractive than fresh new. Dirty is more attractive than clean. A weak acid is more attractive than a strong one. A burned matter is more attractive than a non burned. A substance that underwent entropy is more attractive than a newborn substance. Natural substances are more attractive than artificial ones. An electrical discharge is more attractive than a non-conducting substance. Darkness is more attractive than light. A shelled place is more attractive than an electromagnetically hit place. Two merged substances are more attractive than a single one. Melting metal is more attractive than a solid, and it is also more attractive than an ore. A fume is more attractive than a liquid. It is more attractive what is merging than what is by a long time separated. A small slot is more attractive than a large aperture. What is buried is more attractive than what is on the earth’s surface. Is it more attractive a magnetization during an equinox than a solstice? It is more attractive to the melting snow than the newly felt. It is more attractive to deep water than surface water. Division and reunion are both attractive in the same way. The more attractive hour is an hour before dawn. It is more attractive to the evaporating seawater in a saltern than the salt remaining on the bottom. We are more attractive with long hair than bald. An ion is more attractive than an atom. Rock is more attractive than grass. Magma is more attractive than cooled rock. More attractive is the thunder than the silence. Antarctica is more attractive than French Polynesia. If we wait for the coming of a star beam, a Moonless night is more attractive than a crescent Moon night.

I think so. See Alchemy & Light, Introduction, and Stellar and Planetary Alchemy, the Palace of the Fifth Essence.

For the ancient philosophers, Hyle was the matter still without form and ready to be worked. The alchemists worked in a much more chaotic and pragmatic way, in fact for them the matter to work on should not be only a philosophical concept but a real construction material, or Materia Prima. If in the first preparatory work the raw matter was the “matter to work on”, from the second work the “matter to work on” was precisely the Mercurius, that is the raw material transmuted into Mercurius.

Mercurius was the Roman transposition of the Greek god Hermes. Mercury was chosen precisely because of the centrality of the Olympian deity in Alchemy.

Hermes, the contradictory polymorph is Zeusʼs main servant. When Hermes/Mercury, the “liar” par excellence, turns into the Kingʼs mouth, he cannot lie. He is not the god of alchemists… but Alchemy tout court. If Athena is the goddess of pristine Wisdom, Hermes/Mercury is the context, the assumption, and the element. If we fail to understand the god Mercury, we will never be able to interpret Alchemy. See also What is the Philosophers Stone?.

To get an idea of ​​the the alchemists’ pragmatic way of thinking, it would be enough to know that, at the beginning of the vulgar era, they call “Mercurius” the humid vapors discharging from the earth’s heating, and “Sulfur” the dry fumes.

No, this is a wrong and misleading superstition leading to modern spagyrics. In a very ancient past, chemists did observe that when melted, many minerals divided into fumes/white emulsions and greasy/viscous liquids, so they believed the fume/white emulsion was the Mercurius and the greasy/viscous liquid the sulfur. While the real alchemical Mercurius is the spiritus mundi/secret fire extracted from the salt’s volatilization, and the sulfur is a complex subsequent dissolution-fixation operation through the Mercurius. In the dry metallurgic way, they operate a kind of separation-purification, but they have nothing in common with the idea of primordial Mercurius and Sulfur. See Concordances and Differences between the Humid and Dry Path.

If we multiply this concept with the fact that the alchemical methods of operation are almost limitless in number, we understand how much we must abandon philosophical theory and try to grasp and apply the principles to the raw material. Comparing Alchemy to creative cuisine is an accurate comparison.

They believe that a body that allowed its gaseous parts to fly away was a body that had missed the Spirits of Life. They observed escaping fumes when heating matters. Of course, Mercurius is much more complex than mere fume.

In a few words, the ancient alchemists defined Spirit as everything that could “run away”, even fumes and vapors. At the same time, the Body was everything prevented from running away. They give the name Mercurius/Water to the first one and to the second, Salt/Earth.

Roger Bacon did not divide between spirit and matter, but said that matter exists in two states: spirit and tangible matter. The spirit is active, the tangible matter is passive, cold, and inert. Spirits operate on matter producing most of the processes that we observe in the terrestrial world.

The definition of Salt is somewhat later and seems to be introduced by Paracelsus to define the body in which Mercurius and Sulphur must be dwelling. The nomenclature seems to derive from the definition the ancient chemists gave Spirit as everything able to “run away”, so fumes, vapors, and even liquids. At the same time, the Body was everything prevented from running away. To the first one, they gave the name Mercurius/Water, and to the second, the name Salt/Earth.

Spirit is separated from the body through fermentation, volatilization, and sublimation. That’s to say through an extreme dispersion of matter, which in Alchemy is defined as “Millesimare”, or to divide in thousandths.

The practice of fermentation extracts the sky from the body or the spirit of life. Mechanical separation violently separates the spirit of life from the whole body and reduces it to the auras of its constituents. Fermentation does not separate and maintains the entire unity of the aura.

True. We have already seen in Air Alchemy, the Dust why the production of beer was said to be the clearest example of “fixed” air contained in matter (vegetable in this case) and released through fermentation processes, which are alchemical processes par excellence.

Because to extract Mercurius/Spirit, we should not be satisfied with extracting only what is already unstable and readily volatile and is only temporarily imprisoned in the matter. This is a spagyric concept, indeed. In Alchemy, we have to try lifting heavier molecules, even the less spiritual and more material. Since everything (or almost everything) has to sublime, this is called “extreme spiritualization of the raw matter”.

(And consequently, it cannot be used). Because after going through all the processes, they have long lost their gaseous part, that’s to say, the Spirit. Which, once gone, cannot get back by any means.

True. Tartar is the salt of tartaric acid found in rotten fruit in the free state in the form of calcium and potassium salts. Only this natural substance can be dextrorotatory (see Alchemy & Light, Introduction), and dextrorotatory tartaric acid can form two different potassium salts by replacing one or two potassium atoms. The alchemists of the Baroque age could find this potassium bitartrate or potassium hydrogen tartrate on the walls of the barrels in which the fermentation of grapes took place. This salt, called Tartarus Crudus, already contained the principles of volatilization at the origin.

A chemist could say that alkalis made a foundation (base) on which to work to be volatilized with “solvents” (acid) and “lifters” (spirit). The most commonly used alkalis were plant ash, water-soluble metal compounds, lye, potassium acetate, potassium carbonate obtained by leaching cream of tartar, ammonia, potassium carbonate obtained by deflagration with potassium nitrate and cream of tartar.

Leaving aside the excellent magnetization of the raw material, its extreme pulverization, and its alcoholic content, let’s move immediately to the peculiar element of beer fermentation: the presence of fixed air inside it. In fact, beer retains its “original” air which is released only gradually and is heavier than atmospheric air. This peculiarity makes beer a complete raw material.

Cow, horse and camel manure usually contains hippuric acid which readily converts to benzoic acid, one of the most volatile substances available.

For alchemical use, forget about the specimen sitting on a shelf for years. The reason is the same as why the matters out of industrial processes are considered alchemically dead.

For alchemical use, forget about the specimen sitting on a shelf for years. The reason is the same as why the matters out of industrial processes are considered alchemically dead.

No, it depends on where and in what circumstances they were mined.

Until the Baroque age, alchemists, like chemists on the other hand, officially used bodily substances to extract salts and acids that otherwise were difficult to obtain at that time. They preferably used animal materials from children and early adolescents, from animals or from dung and manure.

Another, less official, use was to get the Lapis Medicinalis Microcosmi, which could then be unified with the Lapis Medicinalis Macrocosmi.

Obviously, during classic alchemical laboratory works it is very unlikely that the DNA of blood, urine, feces, and bones can retain its original entirety. In this sense, it would be better for alchemists to directly conserve these substances in vials, as happens with relics.

A DNA is somehow “preserved” and “replicated”, as if it were “called”. The sentence “Lapis Medicinalis Microcosmi is to be unified with the Lapis Medicinalis Macrocosmi” probably hides a practice that goes beyond common baroque age chemistry.

Regarding the mix of blood with metals, in a chemical sense, it is a complex mixture that contains metals and other substances such as colloids, alkalis, and mild acids. But in an alchemical sense because it contains a part of us. Obviously the delicate bits of animality at high temperatures will be lost forever, but not the mineral part, which is the one that keeps imprints of the individual.

The Mercurius of the alchemists transmutes into Mercurius everything it comes in contact with. However, this is the case with perfectly calcined metals placed in Mercurius, even the one of vegetable origin. The raw material still with its natural humidity is merely oxidized by contact with Mercurius, but this is not of great use. In short, there are steps to follow. Mercurius will be discussed in more detail in Second-Main Work.

Quiet conditions are much more preferable, let us remember that sound is “movement”.

It depends on the chosen path, and it is not mandatory to respect a rigid timetable. Of course, every salt is processed separately and about to separate magnetizations. Magnetizations could be endless and countless in some (primarily humid) paths. In other (almost metallurgic dry), they could even be neglected: not only the tremendous stress these salts will be exposed to would make magnetization redundant, but in these paths, the salts must necessarily be as purer as possible.

According to the theory of four Elements, the solving phase would cause the reduction of bodies like Spirits. At the same time, coagulation is the reduction of a Spirit in the nature of bodies.

As in physics, heat conditions may either solve or coagulate, and the same can be said of cold conditions. So heat is not necessarily synonymous with solve, and cold is not necessarily synonymous with coagula. However, the process is needed for state changes.

We can in fact say that under the term “Solve et Coagula” the alchemists also intended the theory of changes of state.

The changes of state of the worked matter are crucial in alchemical works, since from there is the Mercurial source. In simple words, the changes of state influence the electronic clouds. See Alchemy and Modern Physics Particles and Alchemy and Electricity.

The alchemists observed that in some phases, the matter under the action of fire tended to go upwards (therefore to follow nature), while other matters tended to go downwards and follow gravity (therefore to go against nature).

Yes. Perhaps this helps us better understand the fluidity of the Spiritus Mundi, which is called fluid because it is a physical phenomenon in motion produced by sudden state changes.

No, we need at least two salts, and, in some paths, one can even be a product of the first; that’s to say, another crystallization is always based on the first.

Because we have to volatilize the salts and without a substance that helps in the “lifting” operation it is very complicated to operate from a chemical point of view.

Yes, we can use a dissolver to dissolve the fixed and then a “lifter” to volatilize the whole.

True. Natural wine vinegar, heated to boiling or rectified, was often used to “break up” carbonates. Vinegar acid, and especially the distilled vinegar which is indispensable, dissolves carbonates, tartar, and alkalis.

True. Ethyl alcohol obtained from the natural fermentation of fruits or vegetables was known as an excellent lifter by alchemists.

True. Wine vinegar, even if reinforced with distillation, is a very mild acid, and it blends beautifully with volatile substances such as cognac. Having the same origin, they do not repel each other. The mixture is perfect.

True. In melting furnace methods, the vinegar also integrates well with pulverized glass. This was a process also used in the ancient technique of manufacturing enamels.

True. Alchemists soon realized that the dissolved substances produced a kind of “sand” that did not bind with the lifting substance. Therefore, the presence of a third substance that acted as a binder between the two was necessary.

True. In the vast world of aromatic substances, alchemists found excellent binders. See for example an article of mine on the George Starkey method.

True. Let’s think for a moment, what do we need the tartar for? It is the raw material from which Mercurius is extracted. And cognac? Being an extremely volatile substance, cognac serves to help the volatilization of tartar, that is, to produce its maximum dispersion in a controlled environment and thus to extract Mercurius. Well, what about the essential oil? Here you are, the essential oil is the cause of resinous quality. It was chosen on purpose because it is a substance that binds tartar, which in itself is not volatile, to cognac, which in itself has little salt internally, but it is very easy to volatilize. The essential oil binds the tartar and is soluble in the cognac.

True. Alchemists also used soot, ash, coal, brick dust, clay, shellac, powdered animal horns, salt, urine and other poor things to “help” the metallic salts to be better worked.

Yes, it makes sense, considering the different possibilities given by the movements of the philosophical sea. See Flow and Reflux.

This is due to the different characteristics of the salts present in the solutions that are preparing to dissolve them, differences very often due to different harvest periods: for example the “female” was harvested during the spring equinox and the “male” during the autumn equinox.

Traditionally, the best lunar phase for collecting raw material is the full moon. Note that the full moon phase is the moment when the moon is opposite the sun, without degrees of angle.

Mercurius is an indeterminate principle, so it is the same for every raw matter. The Mercurius from the vegetal kingdom seems to contain the less secret fire. But this is not a problem, as a calcined metallic powder dissolved in it can significantly increase the secret fire.

The residual part of a distillation, Caput Mortuum, does contain a lot of secret fire only if you can get it up with so many coobations. In Alchemy, the “work of continuous changes of state” also applies.

This is a poetic expression, anyway; in some paths, the first achieved Mercurius is a weird light shining in the vessel; in others, simply a white color appearing on the top of the black mass. The allegory is valid for both.

Because in specific paths and at a certain point of the black putrefaction, they remove a bit of the superficial part to let the whiteness out.

Once we have achieved the Mercurius, we fix it in Mercurius Philosophorum.

To alchemically dissolve, that’s to say to reduce a raw matter to Mercurius. It can be a strong oxidizer too.

It is the nomenclature difference. Mercurius of Philosophers is Alkahest, indeed: fixed Mercurius.

We have obtained the real alkahest if gold foil or calcined gold dissolved in it soon becomes black. Perfect blackness is the sign of a perfect reduction to Mercurius.

Sulfides.

No, in the first preparatory work, there can be several raw matters.

Of course, there are materials that are not only unnecessary, but actually “imprison” the selected raw material. For example, these are the sulfur salts that often accompany metals in the mine: attracting them on iron nails, to be further eliminated, is the common practice.

The putrefaction as it frees all the spirits within the raw matter. The putrefactive stages in the first work must be performed in well-closed containers.

Two. One for the raw matter and another for the volatilized salts.

Before closing the container, one can add raw matter rich in secret fire.

In the first preparatory work, speaking of Mercurius and Sulfur union is neither correct nor necessary. It is premature and can easily mislead you. This stage is called “preparatory” because the goal is the achievement and fixation of Mercurius. Unless, of course, one means chemical mercury and sulfur in a cinnabar way. And unless one means the use of salt to fix the volatile Mercurius. Sometimes this salt is called sulfur just because it undergoes dissolution.

Above and beyond the known magnetization stage performed by the astronomical sun and moon, as well as that by the symbolical sun and moon through heating-freezing and extraction-condensation, theoretically Mercurius and, consequently, spiritus mundi/secret fire, could neither exist nor work alone. So, a mysterious Sulfur arrives attracted by the Mercurius prepared by the alchemist. This is also known as the “hidden companion”.

It was an imagined alchemical stage in which an invisible fermentation precedes the visible matter. Baroque alchemists used almost incomprehensible words: “The so-called male principle of light and time revolves as a “flaming sword” within the solid crust of the so-called feminine principle, which is the essence of space”. In any case, an alchemical fermentation is always accompanied by the color black.

There are two schools of thought: The first is summed up by Johann Joachim Becher, who, in Physica Subterranea, concludes that the result of putrefaction is the same as combustion, that’s to say to separate volatile parts from fixed and leave behind just friable earth as a residue. He dared to analyze and observe all the degrees of a corpse’s decomposition in a year. He directly witnessed all the phenomena, which were essentially gaseous and vaporous. We know that ancient alchemists gave the utmost importance to fumes and vapors, the dwellings of the alchemical spirits. And we know that alchemical fermentation should be performed in well-closed vessels. The second school of thought states that matter reaches the perfect putrefaction and, consequently, the perfect black when it is utmostly dispersed and dissolved. For example, a fast blackness is achieved when fine powder of gold calcined is added to the Mercurius, even of plant origin. And, of course, into well-closed vessels.

“To be digested” means to reach the alchemical nature. That is, to become like Mercurius, ultimately to become Mercurius.