Aphorismi Urbigerani

Subject Index

These entries link to substantive historical passages and their modern readings. The principal and vegetable sequences are distinguished by their passage references. The frontispiece and postscript are indexed with the complete publication.

Adepts and Coadepts

friends invoked as witnesses; true practice and pretended adepts.

Alkahest

the perpetual menstruum and the attribution to Paracelsus.

Amalgamation

proportion and inseparable union; the common-gold route; the amalgam used for projection.

Andromeda

virgin, dragon and delivering champion; signs of an incomplete deliverance.

Animal Kingdom

a medicine for human bodies; the claimed reach of the great elixir.

Apollo and Diana

Diana’s tears and Apollo’s appearance; embrace, descent and combined body.

Art and Nature

transfiguration and conservation; an artificial subject naturally prepared.

Astrums

generation and astral influence; sympathy and the subject’s sphere; rival magnets rejected.

Balsams and Oils

tree oils and balsams; metallic sulphurs and the vegetable elixir.

Body, Soul and Spirit

earth after the loss of its soul; the sulphurous medium and restored union; the example of coral.

Caput Mortuum

the residue after first distillation; a tincture retained in the residue; magnetic capacity; the dead residue of the elixir of properties.

Chaos

the first chaos as a divine gift; prepared water as philosophical chaos.

Charity and the Reader

teaching disciples and exposing impostors; health, happiness and love of neighbour; the stated charitable motive.

Children’s Play and the Infant

the easy remainder of the work; hunger and nourishment; growth to the great elixir.

Cibation and Imbibition

feeding the work; continued reception of mercury; the matter’s own flesh and blood; saturation of the vegetable salt.

Circulatum, Greater and Lesser

continued efficacy and different kingdoms; restriction to a particular property.

Cohobation

the list of operations; putrefaction before repeated distillation; returning the distillate upon the remainder.

Colours

the virgin’s diverse colours; black, white and red distinguished from incidental colours.

Conjunction and Marriage

the marriage of mercury and common gold; union after the Herculean works; the marriage bond in fermentation; the beginning and completion of conjunction.

Coral

coral included in the vegetable comparison.

Creation

imitating the creation of the great world; heaven, earth and the spirit over waters; generation after its own kind.

Determination

an undetermined intermediate subject; determination by a fixed body; a particular vegetable property; further determination and gold.

Digestion

failed digestion and excessive violence; the claimed duration of the whole work; preparing the clarified earth.

Distillation

separation of water, oil and residue; the first distillation and its warning sign; separating the menstruum for further use.

Earth

the gross body as earth; drying and receiving celestial moisture; earth, magnet and salt; the clarified earth’s readiness.

Elements and Principles

four elements and the fifth essence; three prepared principles; separating the pure from the impure.

Elixir of Properties

the named ingredients and attribution to Paracelsus; comparison with metallic preparations.

Elixirs and Their Scope

animal, mineral and vegetable reach; the specified vegetable elixir; powers and explicit exceptions.

Emblem and Frontispiece

the complete original legends; a compendium admitting many interpretations; the author’s explanation of the figure.

Error and Failure

alternative reasons for failed deliverance; failed separation; excessive feeding; failed saturation.

Expense

the way of the poor; the price claim and its exclusions; the promised contrast between success and disappointment.

Experience and Testimony

the inference from exact rules to personal experience; the claimed kitchen-fire practice; hearsay, reading and practice.

Faith and Religion

service to God and happiness in both worlds; biblical truths, contemplation and immortality.

Fermentation

the white elixir and silver; determination for metals; the warning concerning proportions; the following method.

First Matter

the initial definition; why reversed metals are not first matter; vapour and metallic seed; the first way.

Fixed and Volatile

reciprocal powers of the mercurial water; conflict and inseparable union; different qualities and the right proportion.

Furnace and Vessels

one furnace, one vessel kind and one person; earthen vessel for the earlier labours; the later glass vessel; luting and baths.

Gold, Common and Philosophical

living philosophical gold and common gold; common gold in the third way; exceptions to the exclusion of gold; final determination for metals.

Green Dragon

undetermined and determined conditions; the unaided first way; lunar, solar and cross signs.

Health and Medicine

the medicine of medicines; the author’s professed bodily aim; preserving present health; the historical therapeutic promise.

Heat and Fire

destruction by violent external heat; moderate heat and union; the medium’s ascent as a sign of excessive heat.

Herculean Works

preparation of the three principles; contrast with children’s play; their completion in the emblem.

Hermes

the appeal to a divine master; the universal spirit made earth; generation according to kind.