Sometimes this is the white or red tincture (aqua permanens); sometimes the Philosophers' Stone, which, as hermaphrodite, contains both; or again it is the panacea (aurum potabile, elixir vitae), philosophical gold, golden glass (vitrum aureum), malleable glass (vitrum malleabile)

The conceptions of the goal are as vague and various as the individual processes. The lapis philosophorum, for instance, is often the prima materia, or the means of producing the gold; or again it is an altogether mystical being that is sometimes called Deus terrestris, Salvator, or filius macrocosmi, a figure we can only compare with the Gnostic Anthropos, the divine original man (fig. 117)

The anima mundi is characterized by the number 10, which represents perfection (1 + 2 + 3 + 4).Albertus Magnus, Philosophia naturalis (1650)

These composite waters form the philosophical Mercurius from which it must be assumed that the substance, or prima materia itself, consists of composite water. Some [alchemists] put three together, others, only two. For myself two species are sufficient: male and female or brother and sister (fig. 118) . But they also call the simple water poison, quicksilver [argentum vivum] cambar aqua permanens, gum, vinegar, urine, sea-water, dragon and serpent

The two figures are being bitten in the calf by dragons while the lunar water, fertilized by the divine breath, is poured over their heads.Theatrum chemicum Britannicum (1652). Color transcription by Adam McLean.

This account makes one thing very evident: the philosophical water is the Stone or the prima materia itself; but at the same time, it is also its solvent

It can also be shown that fire played the same role as water. Another, no less important, idea is that of the Hermetic vessel (vas Hermetis), typified by the retorts or melting-furnaces that contained the substances to be transformed (fig. 119) . Although an implement, it nevertheless has peculiar connections with the prima materia as well as with the lapis, so it is no mere piece of apparatus

Geber, De alchimia (1529)

For the alchemists the vessel is something truly marvellous: a vas mirabile. Maria Prophetissa (fig. 078) says that the whole secret lies in knowing about the Hermetic vessel. “Unum est vas” (the vessel is one) is emphasized again and again. It must be completely round, in imitation of the spherical cosmos, so that the influence of the stars may contribute to the success of the operation. It is a kind of matrix or uterus from which the filius philosophorum, the miraculous Stone, is to be born (fig. 120) . Hence it is required that the vessel be not only round but egg-shaped (fig. 121) ; (cf. fig. 022)

In the background the union (coniunctio) of upper and lower is symbolized.Maier, Symbola aureae mensae (1617). Color transcription by Adam McLean.

Barchusen, Elementa chemiae (1718)

The homunculus is shown as a “pissing manikin,” an allusion to the urina puerorum (= aqua permanens).“Cabala mineralis” (MS., British Museum)

The “Philosopher's egg” is the alchemical vessel. As filius, Mercurius stands on the sun and the moon, tokens of his dual nature. The birds betoken spiritualization, while the scorching rays of the sun ripen the homunculus in the vessel.Mutus liber (1702)

One naturally thinks of this vessel as a sort of retort or flask; but one soon learns that this is an inadequate conception since the vessel is more a mystical idea, a true symbol like all the main ideas of alchemy. Thus we hear that the vas is the water or aqua permanens, which is none other than the Mercurius of the Philosophers. But not only is it the water, it is also its opposite: fire

As to the course of the process as a whole, the authors are vague and contradictory. Many content themselves with a few summary hints, others make an elaborate list of the various operations. Thus in 1576, Josephus Quercetanus, alchemist, physician, and diplomat, who in France and French Switzerland played a somewhat similar role to that of Paracelsus, established a sequence of twelve operations as follows (fig. 122) :

The operations are shown in the form of the arbor philosophica.Samuel Norton, Mercurius redivivus (1630)

Solutio

Coniunctio

Coagulatio

Sublimatio

Exaltatio

Proiectio

THE FRAMEWORK OF ALCHEMY

Such is, superficially and in the roughest outline, the framework of alchemy as known to us all. From the point of view of our modern knowledge of chemistry it tells us little or nothing, and if we turn to the texts with their hundred and one procedures and recipes left behind by the Middle Ages and antiquity, we shall find relatively few among them with any recognizable meaning for the chemist. He would probably find most of them nonsensical, and furthermore it is certain beyond all doubt that no real tincture or artificial gold was ever produced during the many centuries of earnest endeavour. What then, we may fairly ask, induced the old alchemists to go on labouringor, as they said, “operating”so steadfastly and to write all those treatises on the “divine” art if their whole undertaking was so portentously futile?

TOTALLY CLOSED TO THE ALCHEMISTS

ALCHEMISTS USED THE CHEMICAL

If the alchemist is admittedly using the chemical process only symbolically, then why does he work in a laboratory with crucibles and alembics? And if, as he constantly asserts, he is describing chemical processes, why distort them past recognition with his mythological symbolisms?

This puzzle has proved something of a headache to many an honest and well-meaning student of alchemy. On the one hand the alchemist declares that he is concealing the truth intentionally, so as to prevent wicked or stupid people from gaining possession of the gold and thus precipitating a catastrophe. But, on the other hand, the same author will assure us that the gold he is seeking is notas the stupid supposethe ordinary gold (aurum vulgi), it is the philosophical gold or even the marvellous stone, the lapis invisibilitatis (the stone of invisibility) or the lapis aethereus (the ethereal stone) or finally the unimaginable hermaphroditic rebis (fig. 125) , and he will end up by saying that all recipes whatsoever are to be despised

Mercurius standing on the (round) chaos.Mylius, Philosophia reformata (1622). Color transcription by Adam McLean.