Paracelsus: Coelum Philosophorum, or Book of Vexations · 8 of 14 · tr. Arthur Edward Waite
Section 1h
These and the like, whereof there are some very far-fetched in Alchemy, are mere incumbrances of work; since even if Sol and Luna could be made by them they rather hinder and delay than further one’s purpose.
But it is not from these – to say the truth – that the Art of making Sol and Luna is to be learnt.
So, then, all these things should be passed by, because they have no effect with the five metals, so far as Sol and Luna are concerned.
Someone may ask, What, then, is this short and easy way, which involves no difficulty, and yet whereby Sol and Luna can be made?
Our answer is, this has been fully and openly explained in the Seven Canons.
It would be lost labour should one seek further to instruct one who does not understand these.
It would be impossible to convince such a person that these matters could be so easily understood, but in an occult rather than in an open sense.
THE ART IS THIS: After you have made heaven, or the sphere of Saturn, with its life to run over the earth, place on it all the planets, or such, one or more, as you wish, so that the portion of Luna may be the smallest.
Let all run, until heaven, or Saturn, has entirely disappeared.
Then all those planets will remain dead with their old corruptible bodies, having meanwhile obtained another new, perfect, and incorruptible body.
That body is the spirit of heaven.
From it these planets again receive a body and life, and live as before.
Take this body from the life and the earth.
Keep it.
It is Sol and Luna.
Here you have the Art altogether, clear and entire.
If you do not yet understand it, or are not practised therein, it is well.
It is better that it should be kept concealed, and not made public.
HOW TO CONJURE THE CRYSTAL SO THAT ALL THINGS MAY BE SEEN IN IT.
To conjure is nothing else than to observe anything rightly, to know and to understand what it is.
The crystal is a figure of the air.
Whatever appears in the air, movable or immovable, the same appears also in the speculum or crystal as a wave.
For the air, the water, and the crystal, so far as vision is concerned, are one, like a mirror in which an inverted copy of an object is seen.
CONCERNING THE HEAT OF MERCURY.
Those who think that Mercury is of a moist and cold nature are plainly in error, because it is by its nature in the highest degree warm and moist, which is the cause of its being in a constant state of fluidity.
If it were of a moist and cold nature it would have the appearance of frozen water, and be always hard and solid, so that it would be necessary to liquefy it by the heat of fire, as in the case of the other metals.
But it does not require this, since it has liquidity and flux from its own heat naturally inborn in it, which keeps it in a state of perpetual fluidity and renders it "quick", so that it can neither die, nor be coagulated, nor congealed.
And this is well worth noticing, that the spirits of the seven metals, or as many of them as have been commingled, as soon as they come into the fire, contend with one another, especially Mercury, so that each may put forth its powers and virtues in the endeavour to get the mastery in the way of liquefying and transmuting.
One seizes on the virtue, life, and form of another, and assigns some other nature and form to this one.
So then the spirits or vapours of the metals are stirred up by the heat to operate mutually one upon the other, and transmute from one virtue to another, until perfection and purity are attained.
The transformation of base substance — outer matter or the inner soul — into a purified, perfected, or 'gold' state; the magnum opus as both laboratory practice and spiritual allegory.
The passage explicitly details the transformation of metals into Sol and Luna through fire and spirits.
The Hermetic axiom that the structure of the cosmos is reflected at every scale — 'as above, so below; as within, so without' — making each level a legible map of the others.
The passage explicitly states that air, water, and crystal are 'one' in vision, and the entire system operates on planetary-metal correspondences (Sol=gold, Luna=silver, Saturn's sphere governing the planets), making each level a legible map of the others.
The Stoic and Plotinian doctrine that all parts of the cosmos are bound by hidden affinities, so that a movement in one part resonates through the whole; the metaphysical basis for astrology, magic, and divination.
The spirits of metals 'contend with one another' in fire, 'one seizes on the virtue, life, and form of another,' and the crystal reflects whatever appears in the air—demonstrating hidden affinities and mutual influence binding all parts of the cosmos.
Naturally-existing, non-human intelligences native to a single element — earth, air, fire, or water — rather than the fourfold-composite human nature: Paracelsus's gnomes, sylphs, salamanders, and undines; the Deva Kingdom or fairy kingdom of Western occultism, forming their own parallel kingdom capable of incarnating in or forming relationships with humans. Distinct from artificial_elemental (a manufactured thought-entity deliberately created by a single operator, not a naturally-occurring species) and animism (the general doctrine that nature-places host indwelling spirits, of which this is one specific taxonomic system organised around the four elements rather than locality).
The 'spirits of the seven metals' are described as non-human intelligences with their own agency—they 'contend,' 'seize on the virtue, life, and form of another,' and 'operate mutually one upon the other'—constituting a taxonomic system of elemental spirits organized around the metals.
Esoteric teachings reserved for those ready to receive them; outer meaning conceals an inner liberating truth.
Paracelsus explicitly states the Art 'should be kept concealed, and not made public,' that it is understood 'in an occult rather than in an open sense,' and that it would be 'lost labour' to instruct one who does not already understand the Seven Canons.