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About Alchemy

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121 views

Index

About Alchemy

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travellerfellow
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© © All Rights Reserved
We take content rights seriously. If you suspect this is your content, claim it here.
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Glossary

AIR: Vapour, not the atmosphere. The vapour arising from metals.
ALKAHEST: Secret fire.
AMALGAM: Mixture of metals by fusion.
ARGENT VIVE: Philosophers mercury or living silver.
ATHANOR: Oven used by the alchemists, now superseded.
AURUM ALBUM: White gold.
AZOTH: First mixture of metals.
BALNEUM MARIAE: A warm water bath kept at a temperature bearable by a
human being.
CALCINATION: To reduce by heat but not by burning.
CIBATION: The wetting of the dried matter.
COLOUR SEQUENCE: Jet black, white, citrine, blood red.
CONGEALATION: Solidification from liquid.
CONJUNCTlON: Amalgamation of several elements. CUPELLATION: The
metallurgical test for assaying gold, first mentioned by Gerber.
DIGESTION: Concoction for the purpose of extracting the essence from a
substance.
DISSOLUTION: The slow separation of a body into its components in a liquid.
EARTH: Metals are often referred to as earth.
EXALTATION: Raising the power or virtue of the philosophers stone to enable it
to transmute.
FERMENTATION: Adding the required precious metal as a yeast to the
philosophers stone enabling it to transmute base metals into this particular
precious metal.
JUPITER: Planetary name for tin.
LAPIS PHILOSOPHORUM: The philosophers stone, which is of course a powder
and not a stone.
LUNA: The planetary name for silver, often referring to the regulus of antimony
and iron.
MAGNESIA: Sometimes used for loadstone or talc, but by many alchemists
merely applied to mixtures of metals.
MARS: Planetary name for iron.
MENSTRUUM: Any fluid that dissolves a solid, sometimes a catalyst.
MERCURIAL SUBLIMATE: Vapour of metals, not used by the alchemists in its
modern chemical meaning.MERCURY, philosophical: Sophic fire, a brilliant clear
liquid, not ordinary mercury.
MERCURY, vulgar: Common quicksilver.
MULTIPLICATION: Increasing the quality and quantity of the Philosophers
Stone.
OUR FIRE: Secret fire.
PEACOCKS TAIL: The varied colours that arise during the course of the work
which resemble the colours seen when petrol is spilt on a wet surface.
PHILOSOPHERS STONE: The powder with which the transmutation is finally
effected.
PHILOSOPHICAL VITRIOL: Not aqua regis, associated with copper or the
vapour extracted from copper.
PROJECTION: The final work of transmutation into gold or silver.
PUTREFACTION: The first change to be seen, the appearance of blackness.
REBIS: Two metals joined like a regulus with the aid of a catalyst.
RED MAN: Iron, or occasionally gold, or copper.
REGULUS: Two metals mixed in a natural manner, but not by the application of
ordinary fire but by a natural heat bearable by man. SALT: Not ordinary salt, but
part of the nature of metals. SATURN: Planetary name for lead, but to the
alchemists this quite often referred to a black stage rather than the metal lead.

SECRET FIRE: See philosophical mercury.


SEPARATION: To break up into light and heavy parts.
SOL: Gold.
SOPHIC FIRE: See philosophical mercury.
SOPHIC MERCURY: See philosophical mercury.
SUBLIMATION: Extraction by volatilisation or distillation. SULPHUR,
philosophers: That which is extracted from metals which the alchemists claim
was present in all metals in varying quantities, not chemical sulphur.
TRANSMUTATION: The changing of one metal into another.
UNIVERSAL MENSTRUM: See philosophical mercury.
VENUS: Planetary name for copper.
WATER: Refers to philosophers mercury.
WHITE WIFE: A white metal sometimes antimony.

Bibliography
In this book, complete treatises, extracts and quotations are taken from the following books
written by masters of the art of alchemy, mainly from the Middle Ages. Fitted together, these
produce a picture that will clarify much that has never been generally known about alchemy.
Nevertheless, a warning is here given that the serious student should be on guard when reading
any of the undermentioned books and not accept everything he finds as true. Most of these books
may be found by readers in the library of the British Museum. Though there are many thousands
of alchemical treatises spread around the world, the following are recommended as the most
practical.
Ali-Puli, Epistles, 1951.
Anonymous German Alchemist, Hermetic Triumpth, 1723. Artephius, Secret
Book, 1624.
Bacon, Roger, Root of the World (Radix Mundi), 1692.
Hamilton-Jones, J. W., Bacstroms Alchemical Anthology, 1960.
Hermes Trismegistus, The Golden Treatise, 1692.
Kelley, Edward, Book of St. Dunstans (in Alchemical Writings, 1893).
Maier, Michael, Atalanta Fugiens, 1617.
Paracelsus, Theory of Alchemy (in Works, 1894).
Philalethes, Eirenaeus, Marrow of Alchemy, 1654.
Ripley Revived, 1678.
Pontanus, John, Sophic Fire, 1624.
Ripley, George, Twelve Gates (in Opera Omnia Chemica, 1649). Sendivogius,
Michael, A New Light of Alchemy, 1650.
Synesius, The True Book (in Basil Valentines Triumphant Chariot of Antimony,
1678).
Urbigerus, Baro, One Hundred A phorisms, 1690.
Vaughan, Thomas (Eugenius Philalethes), Magical and Alchemical Writings (ed.
A. E. Waite, 1888).

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