ThePASubstance
09-20-2008, 08:43 PM
By Michael Miller
Preview
"The connection of the lapis with immortality is attested from very early times. Ostanes (possibly 4th cent. B.C.) speaks of "the Nile stone that has a spirit." The lapis is the panacea, the universal medicine, the alexipharmic, the tincture... It brings riches, power, and health; it cures melancholy and, as the vivus lapis philosophicus, is a symbol of the saviour, the Anthropos, and immortality."
Benedictus Figulus calls the fruit "the golden apple of Hesperides, to be pluck't from the blest philosophic tree," the tree representing the opus and the fruit its results, i.e., the gold of which it is said: "Our gold is not the common gold."
Cassiodorus allegorizes Christ as a "tree cut down in his passion," a parallel to the pine tree of Attis. In the Arabic "Book of Ostanes" there is a description of the arcane substance, or the water, in its various forms, first white, then black, then red, and finally a combustible liquid or a fire which is struck from certain stones in Persia." - Alchemical Studies C. Jung
"The fruits of the philosophical tree drop off, and the tree itself dies and vanishes in the earth. "Afterwards, in accordance with natural conditions, another new tree is there." - "De genealogia mineralium," Theatre. Chem., I (1659) p. 574.
"When the body is dissolved, there will sometimes appear two branches, sometimes three, sometimes more...." (Theatre. Chem., I (1659) p. 147f.)
The salt and the tree can be made in any moist and convenient place."(Gloria Mundi, Mus. herm., p. 216)
Wei Po-yang, the oldest Chinese alchemist known to us (2nd century A.D.), gives an instructive account of the dangerous consequences of making mistakes during the opus. Wei Po-yang gives a graphic description of the physiological and psychic consequences of error: "Gases from food consumed will make noises inside the intestines and stomach... Days and nights will be passed without sleep, moon after moon. The body will then be tired out, giving rise to an appearance of insanity. The hundred pulses will stir and boil so violently as to drive away peace of mind and body. Ghostly things will make their appearance, at which he will marvel even in his sleep. He is then led to rejoice, thinking that he is assured of longevity. But all of a sudden he is seized by an untimely death. A slight error has thus led to a grave disaster."
Christ's tearing of the breast, the wound in his side, and his martyr's death are parallels of the alchemical mortificatio, dismemberment, flaying, etc., and pertain like these to the process of transformation the lapis is put through.
http://www.4shared.com/file/63766508/19434172/The_Pervasive_Arcane_Substance.html
Preview
"The connection of the lapis with immortality is attested from very early times. Ostanes (possibly 4th cent. B.C.) speaks of "the Nile stone that has a spirit." The lapis is the panacea, the universal medicine, the alexipharmic, the tincture... It brings riches, power, and health; it cures melancholy and, as the vivus lapis philosophicus, is a symbol of the saviour, the Anthropos, and immortality."
Benedictus Figulus calls the fruit "the golden apple of Hesperides, to be pluck't from the blest philosophic tree," the tree representing the opus and the fruit its results, i.e., the gold of which it is said: "Our gold is not the common gold."
Cassiodorus allegorizes Christ as a "tree cut down in his passion," a parallel to the pine tree of Attis. In the Arabic "Book of Ostanes" there is a description of the arcane substance, or the water, in its various forms, first white, then black, then red, and finally a combustible liquid or a fire which is struck from certain stones in Persia." - Alchemical Studies C. Jung
"The fruits of the philosophical tree drop off, and the tree itself dies and vanishes in the earth. "Afterwards, in accordance with natural conditions, another new tree is there." - "De genealogia mineralium," Theatre. Chem., I (1659) p. 574.
"When the body is dissolved, there will sometimes appear two branches, sometimes three, sometimes more...." (Theatre. Chem., I (1659) p. 147f.)
The salt and the tree can be made in any moist and convenient place."(Gloria Mundi, Mus. herm., p. 216)
Wei Po-yang, the oldest Chinese alchemist known to us (2nd century A.D.), gives an instructive account of the dangerous consequences of making mistakes during the opus. Wei Po-yang gives a graphic description of the physiological and psychic consequences of error: "Gases from food consumed will make noises inside the intestines and stomach... Days and nights will be passed without sleep, moon after moon. The body will then be tired out, giving rise to an appearance of insanity. The hundred pulses will stir and boil so violently as to drive away peace of mind and body. Ghostly things will make their appearance, at which he will marvel even in his sleep. He is then led to rejoice, thinking that he is assured of longevity. But all of a sudden he is seized by an untimely death. A slight error has thus led to a grave disaster."
Christ's tearing of the breast, the wound in his side, and his martyr's death are parallels of the alchemical mortificatio, dismemberment, flaying, etc., and pertain like these to the process of transformation the lapis is put through.
http://www.4shared.com/file/63766508/19434172/The_Pervasive_Arcane_Substance.html