Hermes: A Journal in Occasional Issues

represented united with the fat of the earth original: "Fett der Erde." In alchemy, this refers to a fertile, oily substance believed to be the "nurturing" component of the soil., (§ 11), whereby their power is uncommonly increased, so that they are called a wounding steel, and, because of their fervent union, are mutually called a magnet Alchemists used the magnet as a metaphor for the attractive force between the "spirit" (the volatile) and the "body" (the fixed)..

In the spring (in the body of Aries The sign of the Ram, marking the start of the astrological year and the time when life force is most active.), the united mercurial power begins especially to fly, because through the cold of winter all the sublimated substances are precipitated as a fine, fatty salt in the womb of the earth, as the thick autumn mists covering the land clearly show. This is the foundational balm original: "Grundbalsam." A term for the universal life-sustaining essence. of all things, a fatty essence, the nourishment of all creatures, the fountain of heat, fiery and moist; therefore, figuratively descending from the Sun (the father) and the Moon (the mother), dry and moist, it has the earth as its nurse. These are direct quotations from the Emerald Tablet of Hermes Trismegistus, describing the lineage of the "One Thing" or Philosopher's Stone. (§ 10.)

Some are so sincere as to clearly name an alkali alongside the fine vapor, depicting the latter as the winged dragon and the former as the wingless dragon, or they show the dragon biting its own tail The Ouroboros, representing the cycle of nature and the union of opposites. to point toward the union of the two substances, with the