ALCHEMIC SYMBOLOGY

«Its traditional name, the stone of the philosophers, is descriptive enough of the body to serve as a useful basis for its identification. It is, indeed, genuinely a stone, for, out of the mine, it shows the external characteristics common to all ores. It is the chaos of the sages, in which the four elements are contained, but in a confused, disorganised manner...»

«It is still called black dragon covered with scales, venomous serpent, daughter of Saturn, and "the most beloved of its children." This primal substance has seen its evolution interrupted by the interposition and penetration of filthy combustible sulphur, which coats its pure mercury, holds it back, and coagulates it. And, though it is entirely volatile, this primitive mercury, materialized by the drying action of the arsenical sulphur, takes the shape of a solid, black, dense, fibrous, brittle, crushable mass rendered, by its lack of utility, vile, abject, and despicable in the eyes of man. Yet, in this subject poor relative of the metal family - the enlightened artist finds everything that he needs to begin and perfect his Great Work, since it is present, say the authors, at the beginning, the middle, and the end of the Work...»

«For this reason they symbolically depicted their matter in its first being as the image of the word which contained in itself the materials of our hermetic globe, or microcosm, assembled without order, without form, without rhythm or measure...»

«Our globe, reflection and mirror of the macrocosm, is therefore nothing but a small part of the primordial Chaos, destined by divine will for elementary renewal in the three kingdoms, but which sets of mysterious circumstances has oriented and directed toward the mineral kingdom...»

«The philosophical matter is therefore of mineral and metallic origin. Hence, one must only seek it in the mineral and metallic root, which says Basile Valentine in the book, the Twelve Keys' book, (designated by gray Wolf) was reserved by the Creator and destined only for regeneration of metals.»

This pure fire, is of the same essence than that of the specific gold' sulphur, but less digested, it is, on the contrary, more abundant than the one of the precious metal. It is for this that it joins more easily to the imperfect minerals' mercury. Philalethes assures us that it meets hidden in the womb of Aries, or lamb, constellation that the Sun travels though in the April month. Finally, that hidden within itself is the magic steel that has ostensibly in its shield the image of the hermetic seal, star of six rays.

It is therefore in this very common matter, that appears to us to be of simple use, that we should seek the mysterious solar fire, subtle salt and spiritual sulphur, celestial light diffuse in the darkness of the body, without which we can do nothing nor replace anything...»

Open Entrance to the Closed Palace of the King, Global Ground, S. Paulo, p 34.

«Then, further seeking this active sulphur, the magicians found it deeply hidden in the Aries' house. The son of Saturn accepted it with avidity, being itself a pure metallic matter, very soft and being close to the first being of metals, completely lacking of the actual sulphur but capable to receive the sulphur. For that reason, it attracts it to itself as a magnet, absorbs and hides it in its bowels. And to perfect this work, the almighty imprints on it his royal seal...»

The sagacious investigator with some knowledge of the Art will easily understand the symbolism because Fulcanelli as much as Philalethes were extremely charitable in the description of the mineral Subject's principal characteristics as also to its metallic Acolyte.

We summarised to the minimum the modus operandi because our intention was to describe symbolically the matters of the dry way up to the Starry Martial Regulus.

The Dry way was described up to the final Remora coccion in the Canseliet's book, Fulcanelli's disciple, L'Alchimie Expliquée Sur Ses Textes Classiques, A Paris Chez Jean-Jacques Pauvert, 1972.