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Short Glossary
These concise definitions explain the vocabulary as it functions in this work. The accompanying references point to representative discussions; the contextual lexicon provides longer treatment of selected terms.
Acid
Acidum. A mediating, sharp principle placed between the volatile and alkaline states. Its meaning must be read from its origin and operation in each passage; the book also treats oils and acids as transformable into one another.
Related passages: I.19, I.20, II.6.
Active Principle
Agens. That which acts upon a receptive subject. Spirit is active through water, while heaven and air form the active side of the elemental relation.
Related passages: I.2, I.4, I.10.
Air
Lufft. The intermediate element between heaven and water. It receives ascending and descending vapours and conveys the influences by which generation continues.
Related passages: I.7.
Alkahest
Alkahest Alka est. The solvent discussed in the final chapter, whose name the author also separates as Alka est. Its explanation belongs to the work’s theory of circulation and sharp mineral acid.
Related passages: II.11.
Alkali
Alcali. The fixed, receptive or bodily principle contrasted with the acid and volatile. Particular alkalis must be distinguished from the book’s universal alkali.
Alkalisation
Alcalisation. A change into an alkaline or fixed condition. In the author’s scheme this can alter how a subject reacts with an acid.
Alteration
Alteration. A change of condition or quality that can prepare a body for further dissolution or regeneration. It need not mean total destruction.
Related passages: II.4.
Anatomy
Anatomia. Examination through the separation and identification of a subject’s principles. The title applies to rainwater, animals, plants and minerals as well as to bodily things generally.
Related passages: II.5, II.7, II.8, II.9.
Anima Mundi
Anima mundi. The soul of the world. The text associates it closely with spiritus mundi while using the vocabulary of soul, spirit and body to distinguish relations and conditions.
Animal Kingdom
Regnum animale Animalia. One of the three terrestrial kingdoms. The book assigns it a relatively volatile character and treats its nutrition, generation, decay and operative analysis.
Related passages: I.13, I.21, II.2, II.7.
Animal Spirit
Spiritus animalis. A spirit associated with animal materials or with the inherited vocabulary of living functions. Its context determines which sense is intended.
Related passages: II.7, II.10.
Antimony
Antimonium. A mineral material placed in the author’s account of imperfect maturation and metallic generation. Historical use does not always specify the same purified substance meant by a modern chemical name.
Aqua Fortis
Aqua fortis Scheide Wasser. A strong mineral dissolving water. The work discusses its preparation and use within a family of corrosive mineral solvents.
Related passages: II.9.
Aqua Regia
Aqua regis Königs Wasser. A mineral dissolving water named for its relation to the royal metal. Its place in the argument concerns the interaction of mineral acids and salts.
Related passages: II.9, II.10.
Arcanum
Arcanum Geheimniß. A secret or specially prepared product whose powers are claimed to exceed those of its unprepared material. Arcanum minerale is associated with sweetening mineral corrosives.
Related passages: II.7, II.10.
Arsenic
Arsenicum. A stage and material in the account of mineral generation and calcination. Linked-circle signs are interpreted from their position in the sequence and the surrounding prose.
Art
Kunst. Human practice guided by knowledge of nature. Its task is to reproduce, assist or accelerate natural operations in an appropriate order.
Related passages: Author’s preface, I.22, II.5.
Artist
Artist Künstler. A practitioner of the operative art. The word includes skill in handling materials and judging processes, not merely artistic production in the modern sense.
Related passages: Author’s preface.
Ash
Asche. The fixed residue remaining after burning, from which alkaline salt can be extracted. The work distinguishes ash from charcoal, which retains an oily or sulphurous component.
Astral Seed
Astralischer Same. Seed described in relation to celestial influence before or during its reception in terrestrial moisture. Astral language does not alone identify a modern astronomical mechanism.
Attraction
Attraction Anziehung. The power by which one thing draws nourishment or another principle to itself. Salt, alkali, roots and mineral matrices are explained through such relationships.
Related passages: I.9, I.22, I.23.
Azoth
Azoth. A traditional alchemical name appearing in the chain diagram beside the vegetable stage. Its function here should be read through that diagram and its explanation.
Related passages: PRE00, PRE03.
Balsam
Balsam balsamisch. A preserving power or condition. The author contrasts the action sustaining a living form with the destructive direction assumed after that preserving activity has departed.
Body
Corpus Cörper Leib. The embodied or fixed subject through which spirit operates. In the three-principle vocabulary it stands in relation to spirit and soul.
Related passages: I.2, I.3, I.10.
Calcination
Calcination. Reduction to a friable or altered condition, commonly through heat but also, in the work’s natural examples, through prolonged decay and weathering.
Related passages: II.3, II.4, II.9.
Caput Mortuum
Caput mortuum. The residual dead head remaining after an operation. It may still contain fixed material that the practitioner extracts and prepares further.
Central Heat
Central Hitze. The heat assigned to the earth’s interior, which drives vapours upward and cooperates with heat descending from the sun.
Chaos
Chaos. The primordial condition and, by extension, a regenerated mixture in which principles have not yet taken their determinate individual forms. The work describes recurring regeneration of chaos.
Related passages: I.2, I.3, I.5.
Chaotic Water
Aqua chaotica Chaotisches Wasser. The watery first matter and continually regenerated source of natural production. Rainwater supplies a collected subject through which the universal account is examined.
Related passages: I.2, I.10, II.5.
Charcoal
Kohlen. A burned material that retains an embodied oily or sulphurous principle. Its retention is one reason the author distinguishes it from fully burned ash.
Related passages: II.5.
Circulation
Circulation Circuliren. Movement through ascending and descending conditions or repeated treatment in a vessel. The exact operation depends on whether the subject is the world’s vapours or a particular preparation.
Related passages: I.6, I.9, II.11.
Coagulation
Coagulatio. A process of giving body, density or fixity to a principle. The work insists that the spirit is to be coagulated through its proper media.
Cohobation
Cohobation Cohobiren. Repeatedly returning a distillate to its residue and distilling again. The word denotes a procedural cycle rather than a single transfer.
Common Salt
Sal commune Gemein Saltz. The named salt set beside nitre in the universal account, while also appearing as a particular material in operative passages. Its theoretical role exceeds a bare identification by a modern formula.
Related passages: I.10, I.12, II.6.
Concentration
Concentration. Gathering a power or principle into a more bodily or effective condition. Concentration is linked to fixation but must be distinguished from a modern numerical concentration measurement.
Conjunction
Conjunctio Vereinigung. The reunion of separated principles. Its order and the proportions of the parts are central to the work’s account of regeneration.
Corrosion
Corrosion Corrosiv. The attacking action of a sharp substance upon a body. The book also describes a corrosive as spending or losing that action through its encounter with earth or another receptive material.
Related passages: I.23, II.4, II.10.
Corruption
Corruptio Zerstörung. The dissolution or destruction of an existing form. Within the book’s cycle it can prepare matter for another generation rather than signify absolute annihilation.
Related passages: II.1, II.2, II.3, II.4.
Creator
Schöpffer GOtt. The divine origin of the world and its powers. Natural causes operate within the author’s Christian account of creation and the commands given to created things.
Related passages: I.1, I.2, I.3.
Crystallisation
Crystallen. The appearance or production of crystalline bodies. The author treats the resulting salts as evidence within his theory of embodied principles.
Related passages: I.10, II.5, II.7.
Dew
Thau. Condensed atmospheric moisture associated with the reception of influence and the renewal of chaotic water. It is one of several descending forms named in the chain poem.
Related passages: PRE03, I.5, I.6.
Digestion
Digestio Digeriren. Sustained treatment, often with warmth, through which a material is allowed to develop or undergo a change. The term does not always describe an animal’s digestion.
Dissolution
Solutio Resolutio. Breaking down or opening a body through a suitable medium. The work distinguishes the paths, degrees and solvents appropriate to different subjects.
Related passages: I.4, II.4, II.9.
Distillation
Distillatio Destilliren. Separating or moving a material through vapour and condensation. The order of the portions collected is part of the author’s analysis of principles.
Related passages: I.10, II.5, II.10.
Double Abyss
Abyssus duplicata. The figure of opposed dragons and reciprocal volatile and fixed conditions. Its verse explanation reverses heaven and earth as the two principles act upon one another.
Related passages: PRE00, PRE02.
Dulcification
Dulcificatio. Sweetening or rendering a sharp corrosive mild. The word names a transformation whose means must be determined from the particular process.
Related passages: I.22, II.10.
Earth
Erde Terra. The dense and relatively fixed element, a receptive matrix of influences and a product of the condensation of water. The term can also name the earthy residue of an operation.
Related passages: I.3, I.9, II.5.
Effluence
Effluvium Ausfluß. An outgoing vapour or power, especially one rising from terrestrial things. It is paired with influence descending from above.