10 Revealing the True Universal Seed, or Regenerated Chaos: The Spirit or Soul of the World, the Renowned World Spirit

Chapter outline

Rain, dew and related waters are identified as regenerated Chaos and tested by their generative powers.

Putrefaction and distillation make the four elements visible as fractions of one water.

Different proportions of those fractions are said to produce mineral, vegetable and animal forms.

The volatile spirit must acquire a tangible body to act in the earthly realm.

Crystallization reveals nitre and salt, presented in a table of active and receptive correspondences.

Ordinary nitre and salt are accepted when they produce the required effects at equal purity.

Above we said that heaven, air, water and earth, which arose from Chaos, water and spirit, received the command to bring forth a universal seed, or to bring forth and regenerate the former Chaos, for the multiplication, preservation, generation, destruction and regeneration of all things. As demonstrated, they generate this seed through their exhalation. All four drive these vapours together into the air, where the vapour is driven and circulated to and fro until the unceasing arrival of further vapours from above and below thickens it, and through that thickening it finally resolves into water. We commonly call this water dew, rain, snow, sleet, frost or hail. In its ground, however, it is the true seed, true regenerated Chaos, true spirit and soul of the world, from which all substances beneath the moon are born, preserved, destroyed and regenerated. The proof that dew, rain and so forth are regenerated Chaos and the universal seed or world spirit must be this: it must be a water from which everything that arose from primordial Chaos can arise and be born. It must also possess the power and might of containing all four elements—heaven, air, water and earth. If it does, it must necessarily contain everything those four elements comprehend, effect and hold within themselves. We therefore say that every thing must return to and dissolve into that from which it arose.

“What a thing is made from, it dissolves into again; and by that through which it is made, it must be dissolved and reduced to its first matter.” That is: whatever naturally makes a thing must also return it to its nature, dissolve it and break it down. The elements arose from vapour and water, and resolve into vapour and water again—that is, into dew and rain. They proceeded from spirit and water, and through spirit and water they are brought back to spirit and water. That dew and rain are such spirit and water, or such regenerated Chaos as the first, is shown not only by their everyday effect, better known to peasants and gardeners than to city philosophers. Analysis also proves it by bringing forth all four elements. The everyday effect and action of this water show that it is not merely what makes every plant and grass grow and increase: minerals and animals too are born, preserved, destroyed and regenerated from it until the consummation of the age. Animals feed and grow from it because they continually partake of air and use the plants growing from this water to sustain their lives. Plants need no proof: every peasant sees it. Their own chapter will teach that minerals too grow from this water and seed. We have now demonstrated in part theoretically that rain and dew are regenerated universal Chaos, the common universal seed of the great world or macrocosm, its spirit and soul. Through it, what is already born is sustained for its appointed time, then destroyed by it and born from it again. This water continues that manner of working until the end of the world, as we shall demonstrate further in its particular chapter.

Let us now examine this familiar universal seed or regenerated Chaos by analysis, to see what nature it contains. Collect dew or rain, snow, frost or hail, as you please. You can proceed better and more quickly with rainwater, best of all collected during thunder. Catch it in a clean barrel, then filter it through felt so that it contains no dirt from roofs. You will find a bright, clear, transparent, crystalline water with no particular taste, resembling spring water: in sum, beautifully clear water, fit to drink and use like other pure water. Put it in a lukewarm place under a roof, where neither sun nor moon, wind nor rain can reach it. Cover it with a cloth or barrel-head so no dirt falls in, and leave it unmoved for a month. During that time you will see its former nature alter. Through the implanted spirit, this water begins to become lukewarm, though imperceptibly, then warm, and to break down. It begins to putrefy and acquire a bad smell; a turbidity appears in the formerly clear, luminous water. A brown, spongy earth floats up, increases more and more, and finally grows heavy and sinks to the bottom. Here, through the implanted Archeal spirit, you will see the subtle separated from the coarse, the thicker from the thin. The earth it separates is brown, spongy like wool, and greasy, slippery and slimy to the touch. This is the universal Gur.

The lover of the art now visibly sees two things, water and earth, within both of which heaven and air are hidden. Our dim eyes cannot see heaven. Air can be seen when it flies about its sphere as vapour, smoke and mist; here, however, it has resolved into water and is contained in water, as heaven is. The reader now has two visible elements, water and earth. Before, he had volatile water alone; now earth has become visible through the beneficent action of putrefaction or lukewarm digestion. Heaven and air must be sought and brought forth in another manner. Once the rainwater has become turbid, stir everything thoroughly, put it into a copper still, set it in a furnace and heat it from below until it begins to give off vapour. You will see vapour, exhalation, smoke and mist rising from the still. This is air, containing heaven enclosed within it. To capture air and make it into water together with heaven, fit a head and attach a receiver, as brandy distillers do. The vapour condenses in the head and runs in little streams into the receiver as very clear crystalline water. Distil off one quarter of this water. You then have heaven and air together and have separated two elements. Heaven is perceptible through its light and brightness. This water, especially when rectified, shines much more brightly and clearly than before, like crystalline spring water. Its light indicates that it contains a higher power, a heavenly being.

After distilling heaven and air, set them apart and attach another receiver. Continue distilling, taking off all the water until the residue is as thick as melted honey, but do not distil it dry: that would burn the still young, tender, virgin earth, which has not yet attained its fixation. Set this distilled water aside as well; you then have the third element. Cleanly remove what remains in the still, the still very moist earth, put it in a glass dish and dry it thoroughly in the sun until it is dry enough to grind into powder. Then grind it. You now have all the elements separated before your eyes. They must next show themselves to be true elements; otherwise the claim that all sublunary substances are born from them would be false. Let no one imagine constructing heaven—unless he has heavenly revelations enabling him to make stars from this water—or making the meteors, since this water is itself a meteor-born product. Leave that aside. We shall instead see whether this coloured water can generate what is most necessary to us: animals, plants and minerals, from which we draw the greater part of our life, with and through which we live and move and must help one another.

If you wish to generate minerals, take your earth, moisten it a little in a flask, and put it where the sun’s warmth, but not its rays, can reach it. When dry, moisten it again with its own water, but not with its heaven or air. Repeat this moistening and drying as often as you wish; you can make the whole earth mineral. You will find that it becomes heavy and sandy through this moistening and drying. Note: close the flask only with a paper stopper, not tightly, so air can enter. When you see earth become sand, you know it is a mineral: it is neither plant nor animal, therefore mineral. When you have plenty of this sand, take some and assay it as ores are assayed; you will find a trace of silver and gold. If you want a plant from the same earth, take the sun-dried earth, ground to powder as above, and take two parts of its water and one part of heaven and air. Pour them together and moisten the earth as gardeners do, neither too wet nor too dry. Set it in the air, not in the sun, and all sorts of things will grow. If you put a plant’s seed into it, the fruit of that seed will grow from it too. Understand vegetable generation from this.