Richter Feist- Jet Set Gypsies

or quicksilver, also known as mercury,the cold, moist, receptive, female *seed of metals which must be united with the hot, dry, active masculine seed known as *sulphur in order to create the philosopher’s stone. Sulphur has the power to fix and coagulate the volatile spirit while argent vive or mercury has the power to dissolve fixed matter. Nicolas Flamel explained that ‘all metals have been formed out of sulphur and quicksilver, which are the seeds of all metals, the one representing the male, and the other the female principle. These two varieties of seed are, of course, composed of elementary substances; the sulphur, or male seed, being nothing but fire and air … while the quicksilver, or female seed is nothing but earth and water’ (hm, 1: 42). Calid equated sulphur with the ‘form’ and argent vive with the ‘matter’ of metals: ‘all Metals are compounded of Mercury and Sulphur, Matter and Form; Mercury is the Matter, and Sulphur is the Form’(Booke of the Secrets, 126). Argent vive is symbolized by the serpent or dragon, as Mammon points out in Jonson’s The Alchemist: ‘our argent vive, the Dragon’ (2.1.95).

When the matter reaches the albedo it has become pure and spotless. This whitening of the Stone’s body by the *mercurial waters is sometimes called the ‘albification’. Chaucer’s Canon’s Yeoman tells of ‘our fourneys eek of calcinacioun, / And of watres albificacioun’ (Canon’s Yeoman’s Tale, lines 804–5).At this stage the body of the Stone (the *white foliated earth) smells fragrant and has attained to a spiritual state where it is no longer subject to sin or decay.The body has been whitened and spiritualized (i.e. the fixed is volatilized) and the soul has been prepared to receive illumination from the spirit.This is the stage at which the alchemist achieves the white stone and white elixir which has the power to transmute all imperfect metals to silver.The albedo is symbolized by all things pure, white or silver, some of which are: *Luna (the white *queen), the *moon (because the matter has attained the perfect state of receptivity, ready to be imprinted by form), *Diana, the *virgin, *dove, *snow, *swan, *white rose, *white lily, *alabaster, *marble, paradise (the *Elysian fields), *salt, *ash, silver and *white foliated earth. Edward Kelly wrote that the ‘tincture or elixir’ which ‘melts, tinges and coagulates … imperfect metals into pure silver’ is ‘called the Virgin’s milk, the everlasting water, and water of life, because it is as brilliant as white marble; it is also called the white Queen’ (Two excellent Treatises, 142).And Philalethes wrote of the albedo: ‘when by continuance of decoction the colour changeth to white, they call it their Swan, their Dove, their white stone of Paradise, their white Gold, their Alabaster, their Smoak, and in a word whatever is white they do call it by’(rr, 178).The clear moonlight of the albedo leads the adept out of the black night of the soul (the *nigredo) into the dawning of consciousness, heralding the advent of full consciousness symbolized by the midday *sun at the final red stage of the opus, the *rubedo.Thus Benjamin Lock wrote: ‘Before thy matter be perfectly congelate / Into rosynes, gloriously albificate’ (‘His Picklock’, f. 32v).

(Latin, water of life) alcoholic spirits, especially ofthe first distillation; ardent spirits; distilled wine. It is also a name for the catalyst or agent of the opus, philosophical mercury known as *Mercurius, and the *quintessence. Colson’s Philosophia maturata states: ‘first calcine, then putrefie, and dissolve, and fix often with our Aqua vitae; wash and dry, and make a Marriage between the Body and Spirit’ (34). Artephius likewise identifies aqua vitae with the beneficent *’dew of grace’ which washes and whitens the blackened body of the Stone after *putrefaction, leading to the *albedo: ‘This aqua vitae, or water of life, being rightly ordered and disposed with the body, it whitens it, and converts or changes it into its white colour’ (sb, 14) (see Mercurius). Synonyms for aqua vitae are *bath, balneum (or balmy), moist fire, *dunghill, *horsebelly, blood of the *green lion, philosophic mercury. The Philosophia maturata says of philosophic mercury: ‘This is our Fire always equally burning in one measure within the Glass, and not without: This is our Dung-hill, our Aqua vitae, our Balmy, our horse-belly, working and producing many wonders in the most secret Work of Nature’ (32). Calid equated aqua vitae with the alchemical quintessence: ‘This is the true Aqua Vitae of the Philosophers; the true Spirit so many have fought for, and which has been desired of all Wise Men, which is called the Essence, Quintessence, Spirit’ (Booke of the Secrets, 125).

As a personal study to understand the basic construction of regular geometric shapes with only a compass and ruler, I found it hard to remember each step. Animating the process seemed like the best way to document for future reference - Geometric construction by Adam Ploff

Jack Kerouac, The Scripture Of The Golden Eternity (via wordsnquotes)

The Sri Yantra, a geometrical representation of Shakti.

– E. H. Looney

Yantras are not decorative pieces to be hung on the wall or kept in our wallets for prosperity, they are not collection cards to be displayed by spiritual tourists or magical talismans, they are thousands of years of divine intuition that take us on a journey with a specific goal.

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