Christopher of Paris, for instance, says that the chaos (as prima materia) is the work of all-wise nature. Our understanding (intellectus), aided by the “celestial and glowing spirit,” must transform this natural work of artchaosinto the celestial nature of the quintessence, and into the life-giving (vegetabilis) essence of heaven. The precious substance is potentially contained in this chaos as a massa confusa of all the elements rolled into one, and man must diligently apply his mind to it so that “our heaven” may come into reality (ad actum)

A similar idea is to be found in Michael Maier: The sun, by its many millions of revolutions, spins the gold into the earth. Little by little the sun has imprinted its image on the earth, and that image is the gold. The sun is the image of God, the heart is the sun's image in man, just as gold is the sun's image in the earth (also called Deus terrenus), and God is known in the gold. This golden image of God is probably the anima aurea, which, when breathed into common quicksilver, changes it into gold

Ripley is of the opinion that the fire must be extracted from the chaos and made visible. This fire is the Holy Ghost, who unites father and son. He is often represented as a winged old man, i.e., Mercurius in the form of the god of revelation, who is identical with Hermes Trismegistus and, together with the King and the King's Son, forms the alchemical trinity (fig. 179) , (fig. 180) . God wrought this fire in the bowels of the earth, just as he wrought the purging flames of hell, and in this fire God himself glows with divine love

The King and his son, with Hermes sitting between them. (Hermes represents the Spiritus Mercurii).Lambspringk, “Figurae et emblemata,” in Musaeum hermeticum (1678)