The Golden Treatise of Hermes Trismegistus Concerning the Physical Secret of the Philosophers’ Stone, in Seven Sections

Part I, Chapter 3

This chapter gives the full text of the Golden Treatise in its seven sections (I.3 ¶1). Atwood’s own voice is almost entirely in the footnotes. There she glosses the Treatise’s veiled images one by one, leaning mostly on “the Scholiast”, the commentator she calls “our Scholiast” and “the wise Scholiast” (I.3 n9, n11). Her main claim is that every image describes operations on one living subject: a universal spirit hidden in nature and in the inquirer. That spirit is dissolved, purified, joined to itself again and multiplied. The chapter closes with her admission that the Treatise still hides the matter, the vessel and the method (I.3 n71).

Section First: the water, the colours and the Stone

Atwood names three requisites that depend on each other: “study, experience, and the divine benediction” (I.3 n1). Experiment without theory fails (I.3 n2). The “elements” are not bodies. They are to be understood “not corporally but spiritually and wisely” (I.3 n4). The matter must first be “decompounded”, freed of the foreign “images and superfluities” that cling to it (I.3 n4).

The divided Water is the philosophic water, or mercury. It holds “its own good sulfur, or vital flame”, so the whole work comes from this one thing (I.3 n5). “Decoction lessens the matter, but the tincture augments it” (I.3 ¶7). For Atwood these words contain the whole process. First the matter is dissolved and purged until it is almost annihilated and then revives by its own force. Then a “Second Work” perfects the “newly informed embryo” (I.3 n7). The work is “with you and about you” (I.3 ¶8). Atwood takes this to mean that the inquirer seeks Universal Nature within himself: the inner “causal light” must be “drawn forth by art and fixed”, and the outer “sensual spirit of life” made flexible and hidden (I.3 n8).

In Atwood’s gloss, vulture and crow are one Spirit of life, the vulture when it is active and the crow when it is passive. Night stands for putrefaction and day for resurrection (I.3 n12). The Stone hidden “in the caverns of the metals” is, Atwood says, the philosophic matter. The adepts call it “a stone and no stone, spirit, soul, and body” (I.3 ¶10, n13). In its fluid state it is “the sea of the wise” (I.3 n16).

Section Second: the ruling Spirit and the triple nature

Hermes tells the son to fear God. Atwood explains that the magistery comes through “communion with the ruling Spirit of nature”, whose Law must be obeyed (I.3 n19). The operator “shuts himself within”, leaving the senses behind for a higher consciousness (I.3 ¶15, n19). In the note on the redness corrupted with water, the water is “the passive spirit”, the redness “its soul”, and the earth between them their body; the readings cannot tell whether this is the Scholiast or Atwood speaking (I.3 n21).

The masculine and feminine need each other (I.3 ¶22). The adepts call purified sulfur the seed and mercury “the earth of the wise”, but the text leaves the exact match open (I.3 n29). Every nature yields “three from two”: water, oily tincture and faeces. Atwood reads these as agent, patient and offspring, the adepts’ Salt, Sulfur and Mercury, not literal substances (I.3 ¶23, n30). A Dragon lives in all three. It is “the self-willed spirit” that fell into generation and, in practice, the first blackness of the matter (I.3 n31). Radical dissolution exposes “the evil of the original sin”, which must be uncovered before purity can return (I.3 n31). The fire that mediates is the “Perscrutinator”. Atwood links this name to a “Rational Ferment” she will discuss later (I.3 ¶24, n32). The “watery pontic form” that dissolves the elements is “the key of the restoration” (I.3 ¶27). Joined “in consciousness with the central Efficient”, it becomes all-powerful, and only practice can reveal it (I.3 n36).

Section Third: binding, the despised stone, and the son

The matter is bound “with a strong chain” through the affinity of body and spirit. The agent forces the “Protean Hypostasis of Nature” into its true form (I.3 ¶29, n37). The Scholiast says the life in the bodies sleeps until they are dissolved into their “radical source”. After that, the medicine tinges ten, a hundred, then a thousand parts, and gains strength with each dissolution (I.3 n38). The stone “cast forth upon the dunghill” is the “catholic nature”: precious when exalted, despised in common life (I.3 ¶32, n40). “Light or sulfur” is “the seed of gold”. Like grain, it must be planted in its “ethereal vehicle”, and Atwood says the comparison with farming “almost” points out the method (I.3 n40).

The philosophers’ fire is “magical, creative, vital”, unlike common fire (I.3 n41). Quoting “the sage”, Atwood calls blackness, that is putrefaction, the “happy gate” (I.3 n42). The tincture is “blood coagulated”, the “boundary of hearts” (I.3 n42). Atwood ends with the hidden light turned back inward, which she calls “the Hermetic method of Self-Knowledge”. She defers the subject (I.3 n46).

Section Fourth: the speeches of the Stone, Venus and the King

The “seven letters” are the material’s phases “in order of color and qualitative virtue” (I.3 n47). “The whole matter I know to be one only thing” (I.3 ¶38). Hermes hides the vessel, so reason must find it (I.3 n48). “All here is to be understood ethereally” (I.3 n49). Venus personifies “the central light of nature”, a moist spirit, but her light is “transient” without “the masculine tincture” (I.3 n49). The King is “the Rational Efficient”. Held so that it cannot escape “the fiery ordeal”, it turns back on its own life (I.3 n50). Burning the Brazen Body is the death of nature’s “self-willed hypostasis” (I.3 n53). “The destroyers are the renovators” (I.3 ¶44). The art starts and ends in “our Mercury”, which is a Proteus and yet One (I.3 n55).

Section Fifth: dying and living by the spirit

The philosophic work begins only “after the dissolution”; everything before it is “the gross work” (I.3 n56). The Scholiast reads Hermes’ boiling as decoction in the Athanor “with a continual fire”, in a vessel sealed so that no vapour escapes (I.3 n57). Hermes states the key plainly: the matter “dies by the taking away of the spirit” and “lives in the return” (I.3 ¶49). The art consists, “summarily”, in “a scientific association of the Spirit” (I.3 n59).

Section Sixth: the hidden unguent and the middle Water

Unguents made from fats, hair and bones are rejected. The true unguent lies hidden “in his own body, as fire in trees and stones” and must be drawn out “without combustion” (I.3 ¶53–54). Atwood’s gloss is that the artist dissolves the spirit’s outer forms “without destroying the continental life” (I.3 n62). Heaven and Earth, “the two invisible poles of the Spirit”, are joined through the Water, “the mercurial quintessence” (I.3 ¶55, n63). The dissolution of the “vital bond” brings the Causal principle “into reminiscence” (I.3 n64).

Section Seventh: gold, the ferment Ixir

Gold, “the ferment Ixir”, gives life to every metallic body (I.3 ¶58). Atwood says this means “living gold”, and that the seven bodies are “inferior spheres of vitality” (I.3 n65). The ferment must come “from a kindred nature”. It whitens, holds the tincture and is “the Key of the philosophers” (I.3 ¶58). In Maria’s account, soul and spirit, “Kibric and Zibeth”, are separated and joined again until they can no longer be broken apart (I.3 n67). The “king’s seal” is “the great Law of Light” (I.3 n69). Atwood asks, as a question, whether the Stone is “Light essentialized … into an immutable magnet” (I.3 n70). She closes by saying the Treatise never shows “whence, when or how the Matter is to be taken” (I.3 n71).

The Work in this chapter

• Subject: “with you and about you” (I.3 ¶8): the Universal Nature within the inquirer (stated). “one only thing” (I.3 ¶38) (stated).
• Agent: the mercury “has, within itself, its own good sulfur” (I.3 n5): the subject carries its own active light (stated). “our fire” is “magical, creative, vital” (I.3 n41) (stated).
• Operator: “study, experience, and the divine benediction” (I.3 n1), together with humility and secrecy (stated). He cannot work “alone” (I.3 n17) (stated, reasons deferred).
• Stages: “Decoction lessens … tincture augments” (I.3 ¶7): dissolution and purgation first, then perfection (stated). Blackness, then white, then red (I.3 n12, n67, ¶43) (stated).
• Principle: dying “by the taking away of the spirit” and living “in the return” (I.3 ¶49) (stated). The whole cycle is repeated, seven times in some accounts (I.3 n6, n40) (stated).
• Impediment: the Dragon, “the self-willed spirit” (I.3 n31) (stated). Belief that only the “common fire” exists (I.3 n41) (stated).
• Result: the multiplying “Universal Ferment” (I.3 ¶60). Perhaps “Light essentialized” (I.3 n70) (interpreted: Atwood poses it as a question).

Terms introduced

• Philosophic water / Mercury: the one subject, which contains its own sulfur (I.3 n5, n55).
• Sulfur: light, the hidden principle of life; “the seed of gold” (I.3 n24, n40).
• Decoction: the first work; dissolves and purges the matter (I.3 n7).
• Vulture / Crow: the Spirit of life, active or passive (I.3 n12).
• Argent vive: the philosophic Mercury, coagulated “in the innermost chamber of life” (I.3 n9).
• Dragon: the self-willed spirit; the first blackness (I.3 n31).
• Perscrutinator: the mediating fire, the secret sulfur (I.3 n32).
• Salt, Sulfur, Mercury: body, spirit and soul of one substance (I.3 n30).
• Catholic nature: the universal subject, despised in common life (I.3 n40).
• Putrefaction: the “gate of blackness” that comes before every new form (I.3 n42).
• Rational Efficient: the King; reason turned back on its own life (I.3 n50).
• Gross work: the preparation that comes before the dissolution (I.3 n56).
• Ixir / ferment: living gold that leavens its own kind (I.3 ¶58, n65).
• King’s seal: “the great Law of Light” (I.3 n69).

Authorities cited

Hermes supplies the main text. The Scholiast is the chief glossator throughout (I.3 n4–n67). Geber is cited on theory (I.3 n2), Norton and Raymond Lully on secrecy (I.3 n15), and Arnold on the stone that is “no stone” (I.3 n13, n23). Democritus supplies Proteus (I.3 n7, n37, n53). Sendivogius gives the three principles and the farming analogy (I.3 n30, n40), Vaughan argues against literal “pot-principles” (I.3 n30), and Eiraneaus gives the sevenfold separation (I.3 n39). Maria is cited on the matter and on Kibric and Zibeth (I.3 n48, n67), and the theosophist on wrath and love (I.3 n69). Unnamed adepts appear throughout (I.3 n22–n70), and Scripture on secrecy and wisdom (I.3 n10, n45, n46). Introitus Apertus, Ripley, Khunrath, Freher and others are bare references.