Second-Main Work, the Rotation of Colors

Here we will analyze the humid path because it is recognized as the didactic path, as it is very visual and easily amendable from many errors. The purpose of the second-main work in the humid path is the rotation of the colors from black to white to red and back for a new “living” rotation, a sign that the Mercurius obtained from the previous works is true spiritualized Mercurius. The only one who can alchemically “cook” matter.

The phrase “true spiritualized Mercurius” is in fact redundant at this stage. In the first work the Mercurius was the spiritual part, that is, the product of the volatilization of the raw and fermented matter. In the second work the alchemist works specifically only on Mercurius and with Mercurius. Which becomes the alchemists’ Materia Prima, first matter.

In fact, “true spiritualized Mercurius” implies the transformation of a spark into a ray. See also Solar Alchemy and Alchemy and Modern Physics Particles.

For “empathy“ let’s say it right away: everything that happens in the second work is performed by Mercurius on Mercurius. At the beginning of the second work the Mercurius obtained in the first part of the works must be DIVIDED into several equal parts. In the didactic way the Mercurius obtained is divided at least twenty-two times (seven times three phases is twenty-one, plus one for the philosophical egg).

We can define the second-main work as a long, extravagant and interminable wedding feast in which the Mercurius continues to transmute until it becomes Sulfur. In short, it is a matter of “cooking” and “recooking” the matter in the Mercurius, or, choosing another jargon for another way, “washing” and “rewashing” the transmuting matter in the Mercurius until the matter before the eyes of the alchemist will consider itself “sated”. The wedding feast can be considered concluded with the conception of the embryo that will constitute the philosophical egg in the Third Work.

In the second work, the addition of Mercurius to the matter produces the typical rotation colors, which are three: black, white, and red. Always in that order and with their overtones, that’s to say, and there is grey from black to white and orange from white to red. These are the compulsory colors of the second work. Other colors may vary according to the chosen way and the starting raw matters.

In Alchemy, in the humid path, there are two types of blackness: the dry black of coal (and in this case you have burned everything. That’s to say the aerial parts have fled, and the matter is now useless); and the colloidal black of putrefaction (in this case you just have to wait).

I answer with another question: did white come out of black? I say this because the true Mercurius’ whiteness can only come out of the blackness (not the charred black, though).

I answer with another question: have you worked under sunlight? Or even used sunlight for cooking? Often the premature obtaining of red without having passed through the other colors is caused by cooking in sunlight. The material in this case is unusable.

The Mercurius of the second work, even if made less volatile in the operation of fixation (see First-Preparatory Works Second Part) always suffers from the sunlight and risks deterioration. The second phase works should also be carried out at night, preferably from eleven p.m. onwards until just before dawn (some call them “the ghosts’ hours”). The Mercurius, even if fixed in a saline texture, all the more does not tolerate the daytime sun outside the walls of the house or above the roof.

If in the first work we operated in conditions of pre-beginning of the new moon, we will continue to follow the same rule also in the second work. All the cyclical operations in which Mercury must repeat – wash – cook – marry – give birth to itself occur in cycles of a just waxing moon. It is no coincidence that most religious events are calculated with the addition of the lunar phases.

Precisely like this. So the stars can continue to govern the night sky.

The second work is also called “main” because this is where Alchemy definitively breaks away from iatrochemistry: once the Mercurius is obtained at the end of the First-Preparatory Works, one now works exclusively with the Mercurius and its “doubles” (see Doubles, Resonances, Unions, Births, and Processions).

According to alchemists, the Spirit of Life/Spiritus Mundi/Secret Fire/Mercurius is a different nomenclature for different stages of the same ineffable and undistinguishable substance for every entity, every kingdom of nature. Of course, different nomenclatures refer to different “host” textures and compositions.

If the first work is about the extraction of Mercurius, the second is the extraction of Sulfur. The second work aims to have Sulfur/Soul extracted by Mercurius/Spirit.

Sulfur/Soul is extracted by reducing raw matters to Mercurius/Spirit. This means a dissolution in our universal dissolvent alkahest/Mercurius. Then a unification of at least two Mercurii through the putrefactive phase. Further, pouring/washing and feeding with the set-aside Mercurius will extract Sulfur from the first black phase of the second work.

No, because all the wedding processes, pouring/washing, and embryo feeding will be done with the Mercurius set aside at the end of the first-preparatory work.

In the path of tartarized wines they should be twenty-two, seven for three phases plus one for the philosophical egg (see Third Work).

Let’s keep seeing this sentence from Dante Alighieri’s Divine Comedy: “E quindi uscimmo a riveder le stelle”, and we went out to see the stars again (Inferno XXXIV, 139). From Inferno, dante Alighieri moves to Purgatorio, Purgatory. For those unfamiliar with the lucubrations of Christian post-mortem punishments, Purgatory is the place where sins can be “washed away”. If Hell symbolically represents the First-Preparatory Works, Introduction, in this new phase the alchemist must instead face the second work with the “washings” of, and through, Mercurius. And, apparently, this phase is “accompanied“ by emanations from the stars.

Because salt, to get ready for the alchemical wedding, must be previously reduced in Mercurius by another Mercurius. So the marriage is a union between at least two Mercurii, and a woman is one of the Mercurius’ key symbols.

Because one will play the role of Sulfur and be dissolved in a proportionally much greater part of Mercurius, and in return, will shake, fix, shape, and give consistency, color, and offspring to Mercurius. But without Mercurius, Sulfur would be dead.

No. Some believe that a single dissolution is enough to free the seed of matter inside. But the real “reincrudation”, or the release of the seed, needs at least another dissolution.

When the couple is lying in blackness, it is Double Mercurius. Hermaphrodite is when the matter comes out of the blackness.

A fact of alchemical life: often, to the alchemical couple, the Secret Fire, a mercurial substance, must be added to unite two parts that need an “incentive”.

The Secret Fire is a Mercurial substance.

When alchemists say “and now let’s add a little of our secret fire” they can mean anything. In this case “ours” means that there is a laboratory secret behind it: it could be a Mercurius previously set aside, it could be a heterogeneous salt, it could be calcined gold. Anyway, we know that after a certain stage only Mercurius can be added to Mercurius.

The appearance of metallic gold on the scene, calcined or in foils, often helped the ancient authors introduce the main work in their treatises. When an author introduces metallic gold, he often supposes that the Alkahest/Dissolvent/Mercurius was previously obtained. Unless he knows some secret ways to disperse gold, such as with nostoc from the sky or other physical way… The reduction of metallic gold in the seed of metals, or “Reincrudation”, through a double dissolution in Mercurius, is an excellent way to prepare a male Mercurius for the alchemical wedding, indicating preparation for the wedding. Metallic gold is just a raw matter very rich in Secret Fire, but it is not indispensable. An alchemist who knows what he/she is doing can add gold even during the second work after the wedding has been celebrated and after the consequent putrefaction has been achieved. Every time gold is added, putrefaction occurs. Some alchemists do that to produce the peacock tail.

For alchemists, “gold” is what contains Mercurius in the greatest part: metallic gold naturally contains a lot of it, but the Mercurius prepared by alchemists contains much more. Ultimately, if calcimated gold is added to Mercurius prepared also from vegetal substances, one has an alchemical “gold” containing an extraordinary quality of Mercurius. See Gold & Alchemy, or Adorn with a Star Ray.

Let us always take as an example the didactic way par excellence, that is the way of tartarized wine. In this case, the Mercurius obtained after various volatilizations is good enough to become a Universal Solvent. But it can be significantly improved by adding calcined or leaf gold to the vegetal Mercurius. See Gold & Alchemy, or Adorn with a Star Ray.

True. In de Secretis Adeptorum sive de usu Spiritus Vini Lulliani Johannes Segerus Weidenfeld published many recipes in which gold was added to plant-based Mercurius to greatly improve it.

I have never heard of “persecutions” by alchemists: they know that they would be “punished” by the chain of immortals if they dared to apply violence to a living being, even more so to another alchemist brother. But it is true that they panicked and Weidenfeld’s book was bought en masse and thus made to disappear from sale. However, some copies remained on the shelves of private libraries. Thus achieving only the opposite effect of generating great curiosity.

True. For instance, in Testamentum Fraternitatis Roseae et Aureae Crucis we can find recipes where Mercurius obtained from urine and blood is improved by calcined or foil gold.

True. Literally, adorn means “to embellish oneself with a jewel or with gold”. See also Gold & Alchemy, or Adorn with a Star Ray and First-Preparatory Works, Eagle Wings or Volatilization.

After adding calcined or foil gold to a Mercurius, it entered a rotation of colors whose first phase was the black of putrefaction.

True. See Gold & Alchemy, Apples to Stop Atalanta.

There are two types of potable gold: that of the ancient iatrochemists and that of the alchemists. See Gold & Alchemy, Potable Gold.

It is secret, in the sense that each method has its “own” laboratory secret. It is fire because the Mercurius pairs are “cooked” only after its addition.

The great alchemists never got confused about these terms, they knew that they were different functions and different purposes. They treated Alchemy as Haute Cuisine: they always knew how to add the right ingredient at the right time for the right purpose. The others behaved like those cooks who slavishly follow the recipes and the written cooking times, without having a clear understanding of what they are doing.

Again, the great alchemists never got confused about these terms. Ferment is certainly an addition on the alchemical couple… but one that often contains calcined gold. Again, often… because if the Secret Fire was confidential, the Ferment wss strictly confidential. Do not expect to find an alchemical treatise that describes it clearly.

Both. In Alchemy, a strong reaction, in the second-main work, means that the matter descends again into black fermentation.

The Secret Fire is the “Water that doesn’t wet Hands”.

If they fall into perfect black, the most “spiritual” part is when Spirit successfully extracts the personal Soul. When Mercurius extracts Sulphur, the process must be carried out in a well-closed container.

Because, from the wedding, the couple will wholly turn into Sulphur. And Mercurius will be added only in little dosage. So the alchemical child and embryo are sulfur, symbolizing the man.

Because everything must be reduced to Mercurius to get married, but after the wedding, the tiny sulfurous seed inside will turn all into Sulfur. In short, it is the Mercurius, and its additions, that will cause the rotation of the colors in the various steps.

Definitely. It will be Mercurius, through its additions, that will produce further and continuous dissolutions and with these the rotation of colors starting from the blackness, a sign of dissolution.

Because alchemists believe that when a body gets destroyed, it releases at first the undifferentiated Spirit of Life/Mercurius/Woman, and just after, by further dissolutions in the same Mercurius, the personal Soul/Sulfur/Man will come out. However, you may find that some authors and some ancient Mediterranean myths swap the terms. This nomenclature isn’t only symbolic but also actual.

It all depends on the quality of Mercurius. If the Mercurius is hosting a great amount of secret fire, in theory, it will be powerful enough to cook the matter it is poured on without heating in mildly warm conditions. Here I don’t mean an exothermic reaction, of course.

Commonly the quality of Mercurius hosted in the matter is relatively poor, so the pouring of Mercurius needs the help of an external source of heat depending on the chosen path and raw matters – in some cases relatively mild, in other cases stronger.

Because, like a newborn baby, the matter tends naturally to “grow”. Although not in size but in weight.

Yes, they are all performed by adding Mercurius and then red sulfur in some dosage.

Yes, because the alchemical child is at the stage of drinking milk from the mercurial mother’s breast.

Every time a color rotation reaches red, the rotation can continue until the final perfect red is achieved. So the less perfect alchemical children are “sacrificed”. And, because of their red color, the sacrificed alchemical children are always of the male sex.

The matter in the second work, composed by Mercurius, is already a magnet, becoming more powerful as the work continues. So when we meet the term magnet, we expose the matter to the external influx.

True. But this is a very complex branch of Alchemy.

True, the Babylonian priestess’ sacred waiting on the top of a high tower for a god to come on a moonless night.

In a certain sense, that’s true, but not with the simplistic system of placing the material to be cooked “in the trajectory of solar rays passing through lenses. In fact, many of the images in the baroque texts for working matter by amplifying solar rays are only symbolic to indicate the spiritual intervention of a mysterious external agent. In reality, it is known from experience that matter subjected to strong electromagnetic stress cannot do anything other than burn, in the sense of undergoing a sudden oxidation. This phenomenon of oxidation is often confused with the alchemical rotation of colors from black to white to red, which should be the main purpose of the second-main work. Those who use this system they call “solar”, say they get to red, to Sulfur, in a very short time. Unfortunately, the reverse rotation does not occur, that is, if the matter at some point, after red, becomes black, it is because it is inexorably oxidized and “killed” in its alchemical vitality: the color will block on red or black, being alchemically “dead” and incapable of repeating the colors in at least seven sequences. In some of these illustrations from Baroque treatises, one can also notice lunar or stellar lenses or lenses coming from a “cloud“ in the sky. See Alchemy & Light, Introduction.

Yes, the alchemical child will suffer from loss of appetite and will be fed with tiny doses of red matter.

The last blackness traditionally marks a turning point between the second and third work. It simply means the matter will transform.

We can roughly say that the second work is based on the transmutations of Mercurius.

Sure. Every transmutation of Mercurius, as well as every addition to it, is called by alchemists with different names.

When they say “extract Sulfur from Mercurius”…

To answer we must make an analogy with the world of physics: if the Mercurius is often compared to “movement”, the Sulfur is the function of the “ray”, that’s to say the instruction brought.

Because ripe fruit produces seeds.

True. In fact, Sulfur is used for “insemination” purposes.

True. For alchemists, the soul is the “seed” that, sown in the “spiritual soil”, or life spirit, or Mercurius, can carry the instructions for a new life. An idea that finds analogies with Al-Kindi and the stellar rays (see Stellar and Planetary Alchemy).

Sulfur, or alchemical soul, is used basically for two purposes: for the powder of transmutation, and thus to pass its instructions to another raw metal in smelting (Transmutation of Metals); for the manufacture of the embryo that leads to the philosophical egg (see.

Certainly. Since Sulfur is Mercurius, only at the highest degree of maturity, it changes according to the path chosen.

The Salt, or body, does not appear mysteriously from nowhere during alchemical works, but is obviously a consequence of the “rinds or wastes” in which Mercurius hides. Alchemists are pragmatists.

During the second work, everything that is added (occasionally, it must be said) of heterogeneous becomes in turn Mercurius. Obviously with some waste.

The second main work is all about Mercurius, its divisions, its additions, its transmutations.

In fact, Mercurius is the Spiritus Mundi “transported” to earth. Similarly to Hephaestus, the manufacturing deity of the sacred forges, who “amplifies” the fire of Zeus on earth. Or Vesta, deity of the earthly hearth, who amplifies the fire of the other of the Kings, namely Hera.

From a philosophical point of view – a point of view that also meets the curiosity of a modern physicist – “informing” sounds like “solar spark”, while “travelling” sounds like transformation into a ray. The alchemical point of view, on the other hand, is content with “cooking, so, the embodied spirit of life, the Mercurius, “travels” that is, it continues to transmute. Until it closes in on itself, generally the perfect red, and becomes an alchemical “seed”. The only movement it will make will be to become an embryo. From there, the philosophical egg is built. All this, generally speaking because the alchemists’ nomenclatures were based on their particular laboratory paths, and each path was different. A bit like in the kitchen.