A New Light of Alchemy

...[procee]ds, and rejoices in its own end, not otherwise than the Ant in its old age, for whom Nature creates wings in its senescence A reference to the folk belief that ants grow wings when they are about to die; here used as a metaphor for a process reaching its final, most "spiritualized" stage.. Thus, indeed, our own wits have progressed so far, especially in the Philosophical Art Arte Philosophica: A traditional name for alchemy, emphasizing its status as a sacred science rather than just a mechanical craft., or the practice of the Stone original: "lapidis praxi." Referring to the preparation of the Philosopher’s Stone., that we have now almost reached the Iliadus Iliadum: In Paracelsian philosophy, this refers to the ultimate state or the "final limit" of a thing's natural development. itself. For the Art of Chemistry Ars Chymiæ: While "Alchemy" often refers to the theory, "Chemistry" here refers to the experimental and laboratory-based methods. now finds such subtleties that greater ones can hardly be discovered; and it differs from the Art of the ancient Philosophers as much as a Clockmaker original: "Faber Horologiorum." differs from a simple Blacksmith original: "Fabro Ferrario.". And although both work with Iron, nonetheless neither would understand the other's labors, even though both are Masters in their own art.

If the father of Philosophers, Hermes Hermes Trismegistus, the legendary founder of the alchemical tradition. himself, were to come back to life today, along with the subtle-minded Geber An 8th-century figure (Jabir ibn Hayyan) known for his rigorous laboratory methods. and the most profound Raymond Lully Ramon Llull (c. 1232–1315), a major philosopher and mystic to whom many alchemical works were attributed., they would be regarded by our modern Chemists not as Philosophers, but rather as students. They would not know so many of the distillations distillatio: The process of purifying a liquid by heating it into vapor and then cooling it back into a liquid. used today, nor so many circulations circulatio: A process where a substance is continuously distilled in a closed vessel, mimicking the "circulation" of elements in nature., nor so many calcinations calcinatio: Heating a solid to high temperatures to drive off volatile substances or reduce it to a powder., nor so many other innumerable works of Artists which the men of this century have discovered and devised based on their writings. Only one thing is lacking to us: that we might know that...