AtDTDA (12) Everybody Must Get Stone Gravity 339

[Keith]

           robinlandseadel:

           After "Red hair! Freckles, Audition enough O. K.!"

           . . . .crowded with men in black suits and stark white high
           collars, in the tangible glare of noontide that came pushing
           uptown, striking tall highlights from shiny top hats,  
projecting
           shadows that looked almost solid . . . . The women by  
contrast
           were rigged out in lighter colors, ruffles, contrasting  
lapels, hats
           of velvet or straw full of artificial flowers and feathers  
and
           ribbons, broad angled brims throwing faces into girlish
           penumbras as becoming as paint and powder. 337

           . . . . understood that some reverse process had gone on,
           not leavening but condensing to this stone gravity. 336

           And the notion of light descending into matter.

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Of the Ferment, and the Modes, Conditions, Properties, and Conversion  
brought about by it.

     Of the ferment, which is the great secret of our Art, and  
without which it cannot attain its goal, the Sages speak only in the  
very obscurest terms. They seem to use the word in two senses,  
meaning either the elements of the Stone itself, or that which  
perfects and completes the Stone. In the first sense our Stone is the  
leaven of all other metals, and changes them into its own nature ---  
a small piece of leaven leavening a whole lump. As leaven, though of  
the same nature with dough, cannot raise it, until, from being dough,  
it has received a new quality which it did not possess before, so our  
Stone cannot change metals, until it is changed itself, and has added  
to it a certain virtue which it did not possess before. It cannot  
change, or colour, unless it have first itself been changed and  
coloured, as we learn from the Turba Philosophorum. Ordinary leaven  
receives its fermenting power through the digestive virtue of gentle  
and hidden heat; and so our Stone is rendered capable of fermenting,  
converting, and altering metals by means of a certain digestive heat,  
which bring out its potential and latent properties, seeing that  
without heat, as Theophrastus tells us, neither digestion, operation,  
nor motion are possible. The difference between ordinary leaven and  
our ferment is that common leaven loses nothing of its substance in  
the digestive process, while digestion removes from our ferment all  
that is superfluous, impure, and corruptive, as is done by Nature in  
the preparation of gold. It is because our ferment assimilates all  
metals to itself, just as common leaven assimilates to itself the  
whole mass of dough, that it has received this name from the Sages.  
Hence it appears that quicksilver (being of the same substance with  
the metals), when fermented and changed into the same substance as  
the ferment, transmutes into its own nature every fusible substance  
of its own kind, and, as its nature is that of gold, it converts all  
metals into gold.

     It is true the action of this ferment is not quite analogous to  
that of leaven. For leaven changes the whole lump of dough into a  
kind of leaven; but our Stone, instead of converting metals into the  
Tincture, transmutes them only into gold. Our Stone rather changes  
all metals into a kind of intermediate substance, such as is the  
substance of gold, between that which they were before and the  
alternative ferment. The colour, too, of gold is intermediate between  
the blackness of iron, the redness of copper, the livid grey of lead,  
and the whiteness of silver. The degree of digestion which is  
obtained is also intermediate between that of copper and iron on the  
one hand, and that of tin and lead on the other. Its fusibility  
further represents the golden mean, since copper is melted with  
difficulty, iron with more difficulty, while tin and lead are melted  
with the greatest ease, and silver and gold not so readily as the  
latter, but more readily than the former. The same intermediate  
quality of gold is noticeable also in its ring, that of lead and tin  
being dull, and that of silver and gold moderately clear. To this  
middle state all metals are reduced by our Stone. For, though the  
virtue of our Stone is great, yet, on being mixed with common metals,  
its action is slightly affected by their impurity, and does not  
change them quite into its own likeness, but only into gold.

     More difficult is the second sense of the ferment, which is the  
truly philosophical ferment, and wherein is the whole difficulty of  
our Art, for in this sense it signifies that which perfects our  
Stone. The word ferment is derived from a root which denotes seething  
or bubbling, because it makes the dough rise and swell, and has a  
hidden dominant quality which prevails to change the dough into its  
own nature, rectifying and reducing it to a better and nobler state.  
It is composed of divers hidden virtues inherent in one substance. In  
the same way that ferment which is mixed with our quicksilver makes  
it rise and swell, and prevails to assimilate it to its own nature,  
thus exalting it into a nobler condition. In itself quicksilver has  
no active virtue, but if it be mortified together with this ferment  
it remains joined to it forever, and is thenceforward changed into  
the nature of the Sun, the whole being developed into ferment, which  
in turn develops all things into gold.

     The ferment of which we speak is invisible to the eye, but  
capable of being apprehended by the mind. It is the body which  
retains the soul, and the soul can shew its power only when it is  
united to the body. Therefore, when the Artist sees the white soul  
arise, he should join it to its body in the very same instant; for no  
soul can be retained without its body. This union takes place through  
the mediation of the spirit, for the soul cannot abide in the body  
except through the sprit, which gives permanence to their union, and  
this conjunction is the end of the work. Now, the body is nothing new  
or foreign; only that which was before hidden becomes manifest, and  
vice versa. The body is stronger than soul and spirit, and if we are  
to retain them, we must do so by means of the body, as the Turba and  
Plato agree. Without this hidden spiritual body the Stone can neither  
ferment nor be perfected. Of course, the body, soul, and spirit of  
pure Stone are only different aspect of the same thing, and according  
to these aspects the Sages cal it now by one name, and now by  
another. The soul, says Plato, must be reunited to its own body, or  
else you will fail, because the soul will escape you. And Hermes  
insists that it must be its own original body, and not one of an  
extraneous or alien nature, as attempted by some who are ignorant of  
this Arcanum. Rhasis says that the body is the form, and the spirit  
the matter; and rightly, because as no substance can exist without  
form, which is its real being, so the soul, through the mediation of  
the spirit, cannot be in the Stone except by the body, because its  
being and perfection depend on the body. Hence, the body is their  
bond and form, though they are the same thing. As that which imparts  
its form to the Stone and to gold, is something fixed, and a body,  
while Mercury is that which receives fixation and a form, it follows  
that the body is the form.

     The body, then, is that which is the form, and the ferment, and  
the perfection, and the Tincture of which the Sages are in search. It  
is also the Sol and gold of the philosophers. It is white actually  
and red potentially; while it is white it is still imperfect, but it  
is perfected when it becomes red. The Sun, says Rosinus, is white in  
appearance, and red by development. Anaxagoras teaches that the Sun  
is an ardent red, but the soul to which the Sun is united by the bond  
of the spirit is white, being of the nature of the Moon, and is  
called the quicksilver of the philosophers. Hermes tells us that  
without the Red Stone there can be no true Tincture. The red slave,  
says Rhasis, has wedded a white spouse. We now see the truth of the  
saying that there are two kinds of gold, one white and one red; but  
the one must be in the other. This white gold is, according to  
Rhasis, a neutral body, which is neither in sickness nor in health,  
and it is, of course, quicksilver. Geber says that no metal is  
submerged in it except gold, which is the medium of conjunction  
between the tinctures. That it is the true ferment, Hermes tells us  
in his seventh book, when he says: Note, that the ferment whitens the  
compound, prevents combustion, holds the tincture together, and makes  
them enter each other and remain in union, etc. So also Morienus  
affirms that the ferment of gold is gold, as the ferment of dough is  
dough.

     From these considerations we see clearly how silver and gold are  
of the same nature, and that silver precedes gold, and is predisposed  
to gold, wile gold is hidden in silver, and is extracted from its  
womb. Hence, Senior says that the rising sun is in the waxing moon.  
Know, ye students of this Art, cries Zeno in the Turba Philosophorum,  
that unless you first make it white, you will not be able to make it  
red, because the white potentially contains the red. If there be too  
little gold in the compound, says Dardanus, the Tincture will be  
brilliantly white. Alphidius says: Know that the dealbation must come  
first, for it is the beginning of the whole work, and then the  
rubefaction must follow, which is the perfection of the whole work.  
Since the entire substance, viz., the soul united to the body b the  
spirit, is of the pure nature of gold, it is clear that whatever it  
converts, it must convert into gold. At first, indeed, the whole mass  
is white, because quicksilver predominates; but because gold is  
dominant, though hidden, in it, when it is ferment, the mass in the  
second stage of our Magistery becomes red in the fullness of the  
potential sense, while in the third stage, or the second and last  
decoction, the ferment is actively dominated, and the red colour  
becomes manifest, and possesses the whole substance. Again, we say  
that this ferment is that strong substance which turns everything  
into its own nature. Our ferment is of the same substance of gold;  
gold is of quicksilver, and our design is to produce gold.
   http://www.alchemywebsite.com/new_pearl.html

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COAGULATION (aka Condensation) is the seventh and final operation of  
alchemy.

Chemically, Coagulation is the precipitation or sublimation of the  
purified Ferment from Distillation. In the Arcanum Experiment,  
Coagulation is represented by a compound called Red Pulvis Solaris,  
which is a reddish-orange powder of pure sulfur mixed with the  
therapeutic mercury compound, red mercuric oxide. The name Pulvis  
Solaris means "Powder of the Sun" and the alchemists believed it  
could instantly perfect any substance to which it was added.

Psychologically, Coagulation is first sensed as a new confidence that  
is beyond all things, though many experience it as a Second Body of  
golden coalesced light, a permanent vehicle of consciousness that  
embodies the highest aspirations and evolution of mind. Coagulation  
incarnates and releases the Ultima Materia of the soul, the Astral  
Body, which the alchemists also referred to it as the Greater or  
Philosopher’s Stone. Using this magical Stone, the alchemists  
believed they could exist on all levels of reality.

Physiologically, this stage is marked by the release of the Elixir in  
the blood that rejuvenates the body into a perfect vessel of health.  
A brain ambrosia is said to be released through the interaction of  
light from the phallic-shaped pineal gland and matter from the vulva  
of the pituitary. This heavenly food or viaticum both nourishes and  
energizes the cells without any waste products being produced. These  
physiological and psychological processes create the Second Body, a  
body of solid light that emerges through the Crown or Gold Chakra.

In Society, it is the living wisdom in which everyone exists within  
the same light of evolved consciousness and knowledge of Truth. On  
the Planetary level, Coagulation is a return to the Garden of Eden,  
this time on a higher level in tune with the divine mind.
   http://www.deeptrancenow.com/exc3_coagulation.htm


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