4 How This Universal Seed Was Generated and Born

Chapter outline

The four elements cooperate as active father and receptive mother.

Opposite extremes require an appropriate intermediate.

The sequence heaven–air–water–earth governs both descent and ascent.

Each element itself contains degrees of subtlety and coarseness.

The apparent mixture of nature is resolved into an ordered series through analysis.

An extraction of earth by water illustrates successive mediation and nature’s measure.

Once God had divided the simple Chaos into the fourfold, he immediately imposed on them the command: “Grow and multiply.” Heaven and air are the father, the male, and the agent or active part; water and earth are the mother, the female, and the patient or receptive part. These four, which are nevertheless only two, must stand together and awaken from within themselves, from their centre, a seed as first matter: regenerated chaotic water, or primordial Chaos, for the generation, preservation, destruction and regeneration of all things. They must do so until God melts the mass of the whole world together into one stone. As stated, those that must forge this seed or regenerated Chaos, the world spirit, are four: heaven or fire, air, water and earth. Although these four seem entirely opposed when one extreme is considered against the other, and can never accomplish anything good by working against one another, when they come together in the proper order they accomplish everything the Creator has commanded them. The philosophical axiom must remain true: one cannot pass from one extreme to the other without an intermediate. Every practitioner should mark this very carefully. Thousands upon thousands go astray and fail solely because they neither consider this point properly nor observe it.

Heaven can never become earth without the mediation of water and air, nor can earth become heaven without water and air as intermediates between heaven and earth. Likewise, heaven can scarcely become water without air, and earth cannot become air without the mediation of water. Heaven is subtle, pure, clear and volatile; earth, conversely, is coarse, dark and extremely fixed. These two are opposed in the entirety of their properties. If someone wished to join heaven, as the most volatile, to earth, as the most fixed, and fix them together, he could never accomplish it. At the slightest onset of warmth the most volatile flies off again into its Chaos and leaves the fixed behind. Throughout nature, the most volatile and the most fixed can never be joined or united without their intermediate. A practitioner must keep this continually before his eyes, so that he does not waste material, time and expense. Whoever wishes to turn heaven or fire into earth should therefore first unite it with its intermediate. They will unite at once without conflict because both are subtle in kind. Once they are united, give them water as an intermediate between air and earth: again they unite immediately. Then give it earth. Union will thus take place by descending from the subtlest degree to the subtle, from that to the coarse, and thence to the coarser—not from the subtlest straight to the coarsest, but through suitable intermediate degrees. Conversely, make earth into water by means of water; make this into air, and turn the air into heaven with and through heaven. They are one in their matter and origin, so each must assist the other, and one must be prepared through the other.

It must be so, and this rule of nature cannot be overstepped. Unite heaven with air, air with water, and water with earth. Or reverse the order: unite earth with water, water with air, and air with heaven or fire. Heaven is then turned into earth, and earth into heaven. Heaven is very subtle. Air is also subtle, but one degree coarser than heaven; water is one degree thicker and coarser than air, and earth one degree thicker and coarser than water. One must therefore proceed step by step in nature’s own most beautiful order. Then a rightly concentrated harmony and a true operation producing quintessence arise. All chymical operations must proceed in this way, or little will be accomplished. Someone may object: “Your proposition does not quite fit the case. How can air be only one degree subtler than water, and water one degree subtler than earth, when we see that water is several degrees coarser than air and earth many degrees coarser than water?” To answer this, the practitioner must understand that heaven, like air, water and earth, is divided into its own degrees of subtlety and coarseness, and that these elements are themselves subdivided. The coarsest earth does not immediately mix with thin water, because one earth is coarser and thicker than another. So it is with the others.

Nature therefore follows its particular gradation here, combining the subtlest heaven with the subtler, and that with the subtle. Once united, they flow into the subtlest air, then, after union, into successively thicker air. They then descend into subtle water, from this into thicker water, down to the thickest water. Only then does this mix with subtle earth, until it afterward becomes increasingly thick and coarse and comes together into a stone. But do not imagine these grades standing one above another, each in a separate sphere. No: nature has mixed the thick and thin together, likewise water and air, and has forced fire into them. In the same way she has brought coarse and subtle water together, and likewise air and heaven, so that our eyes can scarcely discern much difference. Only in analysis do we see how the subtle rises from the coarse and can be separated from it. Nature’s operation is beautifully regulated: she does not mingle and throw one together with another, but separates one subtle portion after another. For example, take any earth you wish from a field or meadow. Pour water over it and stir thoroughly, so that water and earth are completely mixed. Then let it stand for a while, so that the water allows the coarse earth to settle and dissolves out only the subtle earth, namely the salt. This immediately unites with the water as a virgin earth.

Once this earth has been drawn out, the water will no longer attack the remaining coarse earth, because it is too weak. You must therefore first make the virgin earth itself into water, with and through water—that is, distil it into a water. This water then has the power once again to separate the remaining subtler earth from the coarser and make it like itself, so that it too becomes water; this in turn attacks what remains behind. Nature works in this manner, both in dissolving and in coagulating, in everything throughout the world: always through suitable intermediate degrees. From this a practitioner should recognize that nature herself observes rule, measure and weight in all she does, and does not mix everything together at random, although it appears so to our eyes and sight. A practitioner must thus bring the outward into the hidden heavenly realm and fathom nature through the work of his hands. Then he will advance from one practical operation to another and grasp wisdom more and more.