Symbols ana a

^Philosophic nature!!? iks metaux, BPC, 2.512.

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^Perncry, Dictionnairc, 270.

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" Text in CMA, 3:52; cf. Pemety (Dtcdonnaire, 469): the "Sulfur of the Sages” is "the incombustible, the seed fixed in matter, the true internal agent."

⁷ CAG, 3:47. 373.

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 CMA, 2:28
⁹ Zacharias, Philosophic narurcHc dcs metaux, BPC, 2:513

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^Both me, De signatura, 4, §19; ["Aiks, was da wachst, lebet und wcbet in dicser Weh, das stehet tin Sulphur, und im Sulphur isc der Mcrcurius das Leben. und cks Salz isr im Mercurin das kiblichc Wcscn seines Hunger. ’’—Trans.]

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¹ in one of the Azuth figures that shows a mail in the act of raking upon himself the whole universe, Basil Valentine reveals rhe rrue. "material of the Opus," and another figure in the same document labeled with the familiar command, Visita mteriora terrae recrificando invcnies occult urn lapidcm, gives the explicit correpondences Sun-Fire-Soul, Moon-Spirit, Body-Stone. Cf. also Bernard of Treviso, Parole delaissce {BBC, 2:432), where Sulfur is indicated as the Soul, the. simple element of the Stone (of the human composite) separated from all corporeal burden; also in De pharmaco catliolko (3. §16): "The Philosophers, when speaking of Earth, meant by thar nothing more than the body, and by the body nothing mote than Salt"; and (5. fll): "This [Mercury] invades and penetrates, as spirit, the other two principles, Salt and Sulphur [read body and .soul], which it unites and controls constantly, by natural heat." In the Triomphc Hermettque (BPC, 3:302): "There are three different substances and three principles of all bodies—Salt, Sulphur and Mercury, which are Spirit, Soul and Body.” The same expression is in the Salt trio di Ermotilo. Ct. also Sendivogius (De sulphure, 173): "The body is Earth, the Spirit Water, the Soul is Fire, i.e., the sulfur of Gold.” See also Flamel. Desir desire, §6, and Fernery, Dk donna ire. viii. The texts, as can plainly be seen, ate quite explicit. It would be interesting to know what chose who reduce alchemy to "infantile chemistry" make of such statements.

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^Cf. R. Fludd (Utriusque cosmi historia 2 [Oppenheitn, f6f9] and de Cfivry, 5:204): The earth is represented as the center of the sensible world. The five human senses which are the basis of sensorial perception therefore correspond to it. We might also recall that in a manuscript of the fourteenth century, attributed to Hottulanus. the figura terrae is given by the opposition ot die two directions, V and A that are neutralized in the. sign of the seal of Solomon (see CAM, 1:74).

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^Ct, Zohar, 1,39b, where the statement that "Tire visible is the reflection of the invisible” means that the symbolic "Earth” is rhe visible part of "Heaven,” that is, the visibility of the invisible. Fernety (Fables, 1.-60), defines Earth as "the material principle of everyching that exists," which implies also the physical state of the other three elements as well.

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