Sitting around, playing fetch with your cat, thinking about how difficult alchemy is? Don’t beat yourself up too much. You’re not alone. It was just as messed up in the 14th century as it is today.
Petrus Bonus’ New Pearl of Great Price contains a list of ten things that make alchemy difficult. Here’s a plain language summary of these problems which are every bit as true now as they were 700 years ago. Bonus’ text can be found further down the page.
1. Alchemists give you obscure instructions.
2. Today’s alchemists are all doing something different. Some of them must be screwing it up.
3. People don’t got the philosopher’s stone. Fakers give us a bad rap.
4. Alchemists talk crazy talk. Sometimes they don’t use the same crazy-talk as their alchemist friends. You thought there was a secret decoder ring? Sorry tiger.
5. “Get it out of dumps and gutters, or pay a fortune for it, but pay nothing for it, then mix it with nothing, or maybe everything”. There are contradictions in alchemical texts. Maybe we can’t take them literally.
6. ‘Guess what the allegories mean!’: It’s a fun game. Sometimes we lose.
7. Chefs expect recipes that makes sense. Alchemists garnish at the start, preheat
at the end, and stir everywhere in between.
8. Alchemists tell you about using many types of vessels. Then they tell you that
there is only one vessel. What’s not to understand?
9. Alchemy takes nine months… I mean forty days… I mean 7 years…. I mean 12 minutes. What? Wait until spring…. I mean Libra.
10. The starting substance of alchemy (prima materia) is clearly an eagle in a pink dress. My wife says it has a blue hat though. Mark has done it with a mushroom. I wonder what kind of mushroom. Bill uses blood spilled over a glass pyramid. This is getting complicated.
The Remedy: Whiten Latona and tear up your books!
Sitting around, playing fetch with your cat, thinking about how difficult alchemy is? Don’t beat yourself up too much. You’re not alone. It was just as messed up in the 14th century as it is today.
Petrus Bonus’ New Pearl of Great Price1 contains a list of ten things that make alchemy difficult. Here’s a plain language summary of these problems which are every bit as true now as they were 700 years ago. Like your alchemy unbutchered? Bonus’ text is lower down the page.
1. Alchemists give you obscure instructions.
2. Today’s alchemists are all doing something different. Some of them must be screwing it up.
3. People don’t got the philosopher’s stone. Fakers give us a bad rap.
4. Alchemists talk crazy talk. Sometimes they don’t use the same crazy-talk as their alchemist friends. You thought there was a secret decoder ring? Sorry tiger.
5. “Get it out of dumps and gutters, or pay a fortune for it, but pay nothing for it, then mix it with nothing, or maybe everything”. There are contradictions in alchemical texts. Maybe we can’t take them literally.
6. ‘Guess what the allegories mean!’: It’s a fun game. Sometimes we lose.
7. Chefs expect recipes that makes sense. Alchemists garnish at the start, pre-heat at the end, and stir everywhere in between.
8. Alchemists tell you about using many types of vessels. Then they tell you that there is only one vessel. What’s not to understand?
9. Alchemy takes nine months… I mean forty days… I mean 7 years…. I mean 12 minutes. What? Wait until spring…. I mean libra.
10. The starting substance of alchemy (prima materia) is clearly an eagle in a pink dress. My wife says it has a blue hat though. Mark has done it with a mushroom. I wonder what kind of mushroom. Bill uses blood spilled over a glass pyramid. This is getting complicated.
Original Text 1
After Shewing The Two Chief Difficulties Of Alchemy, We Proceed To Exhibit All The Different Modes of These Difficulties.
To one who is acquainted with the scope and meaning of this Art, it is not strange that only few attain to our knowledge; to him the wonder is rather that any man has ever succeeded in discovering its methods.
The First Cause of Difficulty
The achievements of our Art seem miraculous rather than in accordance with the ordinary working of Nature. Hence Sages like Hermes, Barsenus, Rhasis, Rosinus, and others, tell us that it is only by Divine inspiration, or by ocular demonstration, that the student can understand the directions of his teachers. Morienus warns us that whoever would study this Art must know the other sciences, and especially Logic and Dialectic, as the Sages always express themselves in veiled and metaphorical phraseology. Theophilus says that the only way of apprehending the meaning of the Sages is by constant reference to experiment as well as reading [Turba]. He who bends his back over our books (says Barensus), and does not sit at the feet of Nature, will die on the wrong side of the frontier. The first great difficulty, then, is the obscurity of the directions found in the books of the Sages.
Second Cause of Difficulty
The second difficulty consists in the apparent disagreement of those who profess to exercise our Art at the present day. Amongst those persons are observed a great diversity of method, and a considerable variety even in the choice of their substance. The mistakes of some of the professors of Alchemy make men doubt the genuineness of its claims.
Third Cause of Difficulty
Again, there are very few that actually possess the Stone. The pretensions of those who boast that it is in their possession discredit the Art in the eyes of the multitude.
Fourth Cause of Difficulty
The expressions used by the different Masters often appear to be in open contradiction one to another; moreover, they are so obscurely worded that of ten readers each one would understand them in a different sense. Only the most ingenious and clear-sighted men have a chance of finding their way through this pathless thicket of contradictions and obscure metaphors.
Fifth Cause of Difficulty
Another difficulty is the way in which the substance of our Stone is spoken of by the Sages. They call it the vilest and commonest of all things, which is found among the refuse in the street and on the dunghill; yet they add that it cannot be obtained without considerable expense. They seem to say in the same breath that it is the vilest and that it is the most precious of all substances. One man affirms that it is so costly that much gold will not buy it; and, on the other hand, Daucus tells us that we are to beware foolishly spending gold in the pursuit of this Magistery.
Moreover, from what has been said, we can see that all the names of this Stone are fictitious and misleading. This indeed is the constant practice of the Sages, as Rosinus adds, though he makes an exception of Hermes, who says: Know that no true Tincture is obtained except from the Red Stone. But most of the directions which we find in the books of the Sages cause us to mix the true substance with many foreign ingredients, and thus to mar our work. How, then, shall we, by considering their works only superficially, and according to their literal interpretation, fathom the profound knowledge required for the practical operations of this Magistery? If the base metals are to attain the fixed nature of gold, says Rhasis, we shall need much labour, much meditation, much patient study, and constant reference to the works of the Sages to the facts of Nature, which alone can explain them.
Sixth Cause of Difficulty
The tropical expressions and equivocations, the allegories, and metaphors, employed by the Sages, also create a most serious obstacle in the path of the student. Hence investigation, and the practical operations which should be based upon it, are embarrassed at every step with doubt and perplexity of the most tantalizing kind. We must not wonder, therefore, that the students and professors of Alchemy are peculiarly liable to error, since it is often all but impossible to do more than guess at the meaning of the Sages. At times it would almost look as if this Art could be acquired only by the living voice of the Master, or by direct Divine inspiration.
Seventh Cause of Difficulty
Every other science and art is closely reasoned; the different propositions follow each other in their logical order; and each assertion is explained and demonstrated by what has gone before. But in the books of our Sages the only method which prevails is that of chaos; there is everywhere studied obscurity of expression; and all the writers seem to begin, not with first principles, but with that which is quite strange and unknown to the student. The consequence is that one seems to flounder along through these works, with only here and there a glimmering of light, which vanishes as soon as one approaches it more closely. Such is the opinion of Rosinus, Anaxagoras, and other Sages.
Eighth Cause of Difficulty
The way in which the Sages speak of the vessel in which the decoction is to take place, is very perplexing. They give directions for preparing and using many different kinds of vessels, and yet in the same breath they tell us, after the manner of Lilium, that only one vessel is needed for the entire process of decoction! It is true that the words of the Sages about the one invariable vessel become plain as soon as we understand the Art, but to the beginner they must appear very perplexing.
Ninth Cause of Difficulty
The proper duration of our Magistery, and the day and hour of is nativity and generation, are also shrouded in obscurity. Its conception, indeed, takes place in a single moment; here we are to notice the conjunction of the purified elements and the germ of the whole matter; but if we do not know this, we know nothing of the entire Magistery. There are certain signs which occur with great regularity, at their own proper times and seasons, in the development of this Stone; but if we do not understand what they are, we are as hopelessly in the dark as before. The same remark applies to the exact proportions in which the different elements enter into its composition. The time required for the whole operation is stated by Rhasis to be one year; Rosinus fixes it at nine month; others at seven; others at forty, and yet others at eighty, days. Still we know that as the hatching of a chicken is always accomplished in the same period, so a certain number of days or months, and no more, must be required for this work. The difficulty connected with the time also involves the secret of the fire, which is the greatest mystery of the Art. The day when the Stone will be finished may be predicted from certain signs, if they are only known to us, just as the day when an infant will be born may be predicted from the time when it first begins to move in its mother’s womb. These critical periods, however, are nowhere clearly and straightforwardly declared to us; and there is all the more need of care, vigilance, and attention on our part.
Tenth Cause of Difficulty
The Sages appear to vary quite as much in their descriptions of the substance from which this Stone is elaborated. In order to mislead the ignorant and the foolish, some name arsenic, some sulphur, some quicksilver, some blood, some eggs, some hair, some dung, etc., etc. In reality, there is only one substance of our Stone; nothing else upon earth contains it; it is that which is most like gold, and from which gold itself is generated, viz., pure quicksilver, that is, not mixed with anything else, as we shall shew further on. The substance of Alchemy — though called by a perplexing variety of names — is the substance of Nature, and the first substance of metals, from which Nature herself evolves them. Were it otherwise, it would be impossible for Art to imitate Nature.
Aristotle says that the more unity and simplicity of subject-matter and method there are in an art, the more easily it is known; and when we once possess the necessary preliminary knowledge, his words apply with remarkable force to our Art. That Art would be mere child’s play, if the Sages had expounded it as simply and plainly as they might have done. But let us tell ignorant professors of Alchemy that the more complicated and sophisticated their methods, the more hopelessly at variance with the simple and all-prevailing truth of Nature.1.
Petrus Bonus’ Margarita preciosa novella was written around 1330 and later edited by Janus Lacinius in 1546. (Linden) This text has been copied from a portion posted on the Rex Research website. I believe it comes from the A.E. Waite translation (abridged).
Naked Alchemy Projections 