J.J Becher, the Observation of a Decomposing Corpse or the Separation of the Volatile from the Fixed

Becher was tenaciously interested in the mysteries of the soft tissues. He took literally some alchemical axioms on the separation of the volatile from the fixed. To achieve this, he had the courage, and the nerve, to observe and analyze all the degrees of decomposition of a body over the course of a year. In this way, he directly witnessed all the phenomena, which are essentially those of gases and vapors.

Becher concluded that the result of putrefaction is the same as combustion. That is, as both alchemists and natural philosophers say, the volatile parts separate from the fixed ones, leaving behind only a friable earth.

In fact, the corpse Becher observed decomposing was dead. And reintroducing its lost gaseous parts would not have brought it back to life.

When alchemists work with metals, for example, but not exclusively, they should never let the volatile parts escape – and we will see why later. Nevertheless, gases and vapors always escape, look for example at the work of metallurgists. And there remains the earth, which in fact, Becher describes as similar to soil.

It may seem so on the surface, but in reality this earth is well sublimated. The alchemical earth element is certainly not the original earth element, but it encompasses all the elements, because it has passed through all the elements. In fact, the final work can be volatilized extremely easily.

What an alchemist can observe, from his point of view, is that alchemical spirits have a great affinity with fumes and vapors. And in fact, they tend to bind to fumes and vapors, exhibiting similar behaviors, but which in reality have a consistency invisible to us. The point is that the spirit is also contained in the body, that is, even in the part that does not evaporate. Volatile and fixed are merely instruments that the iatrochemists of the Baroque era would have called “chemical”. In reality, their function is to work on the structure of matter. But we will explain this better in the appropriate sections.

On the contrary, in fact, removing form from what has form is child’s play. There is no mastery in it. The initiate’s true coup is not to go, but to return.

Becher was only observing decomposition, exactly what chemists called the separation of the volatile from the fixed. Nigredo, no way. It’s one thing to work with bodily fluids that belong to a living body, but quite another to think of extracting life from a corpse when it’s no longer there. In fact, it seems to me that this is also Becher’s conclusion.

When alchemists speak of bodies, they mean metals, of course. But you persist in reasoning like a chemist who extracts substances to put in a closed vial labeled “Life Spirit of X”.

I speak of substances because Alchemy, no longer being able to directly use physics, employs it through chemistry.

The putrefaction of a body produces gaseous parts, liquid parts and solid parts. Like minerals, on the other hand. The first school of thought prescribes not to let the gaseous parts escape, as this would mean letting the “spirits” escape, just like minerals. The second school of thought instead recommends reducing the body to ashes, because only in its mineral salts would the “spark” of reproduction be preserved. The third sees the perpetual presence of the “spark” only in the bones. Even in this case there is no univocal thought: someone says the femur, someone else the skull.

But all three schools of thought agree in prescribing the individual conservation of what remains, that is, without mixing it with other individualities.