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Diotimos Library · Esotericism & Spirituality Collection · English Edition

Gerhard Dorn and John French

A Chymical Dictionary

An Expanded Diotimos Lexicon of Paracelsian and Alchemical Language

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A Chymical DictionaryEssatum essentiale

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English Edition · Branch 688 of 740

Essatum essentiale

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A Chymical Dictionary

p. 688

Essatum essentiale

Qualities powers and relations · A Chymical Dictionary

At a Glance

The word. An essential power attributed to vegetable and mineral subjects.

In the book. Corpus locates virtues within a subject; Formæ rerum can mean the virtues of things.

A place to read. The historical definition below, 1650 dictionary, unnumbered definition page 21; facsimile PDF page 349.

Historical Definition

Essatum essentiale is the essential [nature] and power present in vegetables and minerals.

Meaning

The original phrase “the essentiall, and power” is compressed and grammatically awkward. The bracketed nature is an editorial aid to reading that incomplete construction; power and the two stated fields, vegetables and minerals, are explicit in the text. The supplement does not name a separate ingredient or an additional principle.

The term concerns what a subject is said to possess or express, rather than a visible form named by colour or shape. The definition supplies no extraction process under this heading.

Use in the Book

Corpus locates virtues within a subject; Formæ rerum can mean the virtues of things. Essentia quinta adds an account of extraction and purification. Those parallels help readers distinguish a statement about essential efficacy from a statement about how a selected matter is prepared.

Places to Read

Corpus. A body understood as the subject containing a thing’s hidden efficacy.

Essentia quinta. Quintessence described through extraction, purification and claimed incorruptibility.

Formæ rerum. Forms explained through received celestial influences or active virtues.

In This Edition

The grammatical clarification is editorial. The accompanying original wording remains the authority for the source’s compressed form, and no additional doctrine is inferred from it.

Historical source: 1650 dictionary, unnumbered definition page 21; facsimile PDF page 349 — Facsimile

Sources. A Chymicall Dictionary 1650, s.v. Essatum essentiale

See also. Corpus; Essentia quinta; Formæ rerum

688

About This Reading Edition

The complete 706 historical definitions of the 1650 English dictionary, modernised and accompanied by expanded Diotimos commentary, reading routes, 15 textual notes and complete linked indexes.

Historical Text

A Chymicall Dictionary, London 1650, English version associated with John French, based on Gerhard Dorn’s Dictionarium Theophrasti Paracelsi. The containing volume also prints Sendivogius and Paracelsus; neither neighboring work changes this dictionary’s attribution.

About This Edition

Complete 706 definition paragraphs with new introduction, commentary, reading guides and indexes; Diotimos Editions, 2026.

Rights

The historical 1650 English text is in the public domain. New introduction, commentary, reading guides and indexes are © 2026 Diotimos Editions and published with the site owner’s authorization.