Water Alchemy

The water principle may not even correspond to to common water, in fact, in Alchemy, water includes everything that “flows” – for example, the Greek deities were called “those who flow” ((see The Four Alchemical Elements). But we are also talking about ordinary water.

Alchemists did not work with distilled water, they distilled vinegar or wine to obtain stronger substances (rectified), but as for water they even preferred water from ditches, sea water, and puddles. The reason was simple: the salts, or the mucilages, dissolved in “dirty” water were indispensable in Alchemy.

Rain, dew, hail, and snow are “air” as long as they hover in the sky. But once collected, alchemists work with them as aqueous substances.

Philosophical waters can often be influenced by the hydraulic flows of sea waters. Not just any sea, but the ocean or at least a wild river. The ebb and flow of fountains can instead only be defined as hydraulic. In this case, the surrounding air “mixes” with the waters. See Flow and Reflux.

The role of water in Alchemy is to return the spirit to its earth.

For the definition of alchemical “seed” see Doubles, Resonances, Unions, Seeds, Embryos, Births, and Processions. In Paracelsus’ De Mineralibus for the first time someone he talks about the Ultima Materia and how it was born from the element of water. Well, it is quite possible that the metallurgists’ practice of melting minerals and reducing them to an incandescent stream became the reason melting represents the element of water, however, today, an alchemist, speaking of “spirit in water”, might instead imagine the wave-particle properties of the electron.

We could say that, from a symbolic point of view, the fire/bearer of instructions is carried by the water, symbol of everything that flows. This is symbolically known as “Igneous Vapor”. See also Alchemy and Modern Physics Particles and Palingenesis, Seeds in the Wind.

This second case of the union of Water and Fire brings us directly to the symbolic point of view par excellence, that is, the fire/bearer of instructions transported by water, symbol of all that flows. We have already mentioned in Alchemy and Modern Physics Particles, Palingenesis, Seeds in the Wind and Lunar Alchemy how the “spark” contained in each individual must swell with “lunar” elements to become a real ray.

In some alchemical treatises there is open talk of a path with a bucket of sea water or pond water or puddle water or rain water or dew as raw material subjected to the heat of the laboratory fire. This method is also confirmed by the recommendation to understand the hidden mechanism of salt making. See also First-Preparatory Works, Eagle Wings or Volatilization.

Union of the Volatile (Mercurius) with the fixed (Sulfur). Or, said differently, water (in the sense of Mercurius) must be united with fire (in the sense of Sulfur). Or, also, water (in the sense of mobile part) must be united with fire (in the sense of fixed part). Very complicated to understand abstractly, it becomes more intuitive in the case of alchemical works where, necessarily, the fixed parts must be “raised” by a volatile. See First-Preparatory Works, Eagle Wings or Volatilization and Second-Main Work.

Common water and common fire used alternately and wisely to produce effects in the surrounding air. See also Air Alchemy, the Dust and Air Alchemy, the Fabric.

Some secret spring rites inside the temple of Vesta, in Rome, were based on extinguishing the fire with water and then relighting it. The rite was personally performed by the head of the waters in Rome, or Pontifex, inside the temple of Vesta. For further information see Fire Alchemy.

No, ordinary water H2O in Alchemy is not considered a solvent, but in the case of sea water, pond water or puddle water a real raw material. The reason is simple: these are waters that contain salts. See First-Preparatory Works.

Yes, in the iatro-chemistry of the Baroque age even distilled water was a solvent for dilution. An example is Cassius purple. The bizarre thing is that Cassius purple can be used in Alchemy.

When the ancients said that water was the supreme dissolvent, they most likely did not mean, or at least only in some cases, a chemical dissolution, but a theurgic and ritual dissolution. For example, the test of immersing oneself in water (preferably in a cave) without being dissolved or drowned is a supreme test of innocence and truth typical of many cultures, especially Akkadian Sumerian.

I’ll let LeBreton answer (Les Clefs de la Philosophie Spagyrique, 1722): “The alchemists say that Spirits are originally in the air. Then the spirit of the earth converts this air into water. Then, the spiritual substance that rises from the center of the earth strikes the molecules of water that it encounters, and this produces storms on the sea because of the various refractions that it undergoes, just as it produces winds because of the recoil of the air”. I agree this is a rather convoluted explanation, but I prefer to let an early eighteenth century alchemist reveal, or veil, a topic of primary importance, not only for Alchemy but also for Theurgy.

The alchemists of the Baroque age stated the spirits were hidden in fixed salt, and in this sense, these volatile spirits easily unite with the fixed through its vehicle, what they called the superfluous water. But for the most ancient alchemists, as well as for theurgists, a spirit or a “movement” had already shaken the air and this in turn “shook“ the water when it came into contact with it.

It seems to be understood that if the original movement is in the air, only in water can the phenomenon of “plasticity” occur – whatever that means. Put simply, the “movement” passes to water at a later stage. However, we should understand what the ancients meant by “spirit”. For example, Thales specifically said that Psyche is a driving principle and movement, connected to water.

It was observed that water subjected to heating emitted bubbles of steam, which many identified as fixed air escaping from the watery body, together with salts and spirits. Not only heated water, but also running water emitted “life”. Natural water, running and underground, was believed to contain the most vital and “fiery” parts of the air.

Alchemists said that water heated, or left in the sun, always returned a third of its weight to air. That is, one third of the weight of the water was “fixed” air.

True. The alchemists’ belief was that the water acted as a wash of atmospheric air.

True. For the alchemists, every body had its own peculiar air, water most of all.

True. Because “life” for the alchemists was a spirit that could only hover in the air. Or be locked in the “fixed” air imprisoned in bodies.

True. And it was very difficult to catch it, because once it was caught everything had fled.

Modern chemists would say that the alchemists had mistaken the “vitality” of air and water for ionization from friction.

The alchemists clung to the belief in spirits, modern chemists to ionization. Modern alchemists are somewhere in between and are beginning to attribute to ions and valence electrons in the electronic clouds around the nuclei many of the characteristics of the alchemical Mercurius.

Here we are only making conjectures: if an alchemist defines Mercurius as “water” because it “flows”, it would seem logical for a modern physicist to come to the conclusion that “flowing water” could also symbolically be defined as the movement of electrons in crystals and quartz rocks when stimulated. The conjecture seems to be supported by the fact that the influences of stars and planets are believed by alchemists to be capable of reaching the centre of the earth and then returning to the surface by “reflecting” on the bodies they encounter, especially air and water, but also rocks.

True. In alchemical treatises we find everywhere concepts of washing, cleaning from impurities, hence the libations, or pouring the milk or whitish liquid. Alchemists often call Mercurius “our water”, or even “aquatic liquor” which contains air and life, for two main reasons: the first, because, in the humid paths, Mercurius is characteristically very mobile (see First-Preparatory Works ); the second, because just as ordinary water is spiritually “shaken” by the air so Mercurius communicates spirits to the matter to be worked. Sometimes “our water” is in liquid form, other times in gaseous form. In any case, a substance that can “flows”, “wash”, or “nourish”. See Second-Main Work. 

While both the humid and dry paths are often not parallel lines but rather intersect, the “water” of the dry metallurgical path is a Mercurius that does not flow in an immediate visual way, but in a way that only an expert can distinguish from common metallurgy (see Concordances and Differences between the Humid and Dry Path).

Alchemical Heavy Water is a median substance in which body and spirit are joined together, where operations such as distillation and sublimation are implied.

True. Sometimes the “pouring of water” had the power to “make a deity”, sometimes to simply vivify. It was said symbolically that in this way the “rapidity of the wind” was conferred.

It is difficult to say whether the pouring of water was literal or symbolic. In the sense that by “water” one must have meant some other physical phenomenon perhaps not strictly composed of H2O molecules, but still always “flowing”. However, we must not underestimate the “physical” properties of ordinary water. For example, the property of evaporating and thus passing from the liquid to the gaseous state very quickly. See also First-Preparatory Works.

Alchemists cook in their water because their main “stove” is precisely the dissolving and oxidizing property of Mercurius. This is especially seen in the Second-Main Work.

No wonder if, for alchemists, “aerial” and “aqueous/watery” also expressed states of matter. And we know how important changes of state are in alchemical works. See The Four Alchemical Elements.

Die Sonne von Osten’s, 1783: “Hermetic Philosophers say that their Materia is being born like the thunder and leaves behind similar signs”. We immediately note that we are talking about thunder and not lightning, even if the phenomenon is consequential. We talked about thunder as a sound phenomenon in Alchemy Resounds . However, it is precisely the ancient idea of the origin of lightning that is interesting. In this case, I mean to take up the words of Linn Mylls, since they are more understandable from the point of view of modern scientific lexicon: “The Mills Law of Electron Transfer Via Matter State Changes says that when matter changes states (solid to liquid, liquid to solid, liquid to gas, or gas to liquid), there will be a corresponding transfer of electrons. Electro-release condensation is the release of an electron from the outer valance at the point of condensation, and conversely, “electro-nabbed evaporation” is the capture of an electron during evaporation”.

True. Alchemists said that mountains act like stills and drag water from the depths to the surface. Today we would talk about pressure differentials, but it is not the same thing.

Alchemists often do not understand that they are surrounded by a bigger mechanism that they can’t see. They focus only on the small gears.

The ancients knew that the primordial waters were not to be understood in a literal and material sense, but as a functional indication; in fact, one of the effects of the movement of these primordial waters is sound. Indeed, always according to the ancients, these primordial waters were not to be understood as real waters, but rather as a simple murmur.

Even modern science has discovered that water has a very ancient origin, dating back to when the universe was still in formation.

It is said that by ‘primordial waters,’ we must mean nothing other than the rhythm of the passage of time. The water of a river, of a stream, of the ocean, of a pitcher, is originally shaken. And this causes its perpetuity. It cannot be interrupted, nor can it originate in the middle. If this happened, no one could call it water any longer.

Both Thales and Pherecydes of Syros suppose water as the principle of all things, which they call Chaos.

In fact, there are countless myths that tell how the planet is based on immense fish that swim in the primordial waters.

True, and not only in the Mediterranean, but throughout Europe and much of the planet. It’s amazing how one can find running water or karst hypogea under the sacred places of the Mediterranean. Later, even medieval European cathedrals stood above a well of sacred water. However, those sacred wells were for the most part much older than the buildings above them.

There is an almost dichotomous relationship between the Sun and water. In fact, the water used in any alchemical process must be taken before the Sun rises. As it also happens with raw materials.

Avoiding being hit by the Sun is an important aspect, but the determining cause of the underground collection of water is the cycle of the Spiritus Mundi which, because of the Sun, hovers in the air during the day and falls at night, into the earth’s cavities, thanks to the decisive help of the Moon.

According to the ancients, the sacred water had to be drawn before dawn.

Luc Montagnier’s team discovered a new property of DNA: the induction of electromagnetic waves in water dilutions. The result of their experiments was the creation of another DNA out of pure water, which you can find in US2010323391 patent issued to Montagnier Luc and Aissa Jamal. For deeper information on my website see https://www.labyrinthdesigners.org/alchemy-nature/luc-montagnier-water-and-dna-induction-transmission/.

In 1934, Paul E. Dobler was searching for a solution to the problem of divining rods when he bumped into the discovery that the turbulent motion of water generates millions of vortexes, which acted as energy transmitters. In short, Dobler demonstrated the power of these waves to penetrate all physical matter, such as wood, earth, and stones. However, these waves were powerfully absorbed by water, mainly underground watercourses. This radiation is emitted by running water and is primarily impregnated on metal plates.