The Golden Chain of Homer

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.

Related passages: II.5, II.7.

Central Heat

Central Hitze. The heat assigned to the earth’s interior, which drives vapours upward and cooperates with heat descending from the sun.

Related passages: I.9, II.3.

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.

Related passages: I.19, II.5.

Cohobation

Cohobation Cohobiren. Repeatedly returning a distillate to its residue and distilling again. The word denotes a procedural cycle rather than a single transfer.

Related passages: I.15, II.5.

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.

Related passages: I.2, II.5.

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.

Related passages: I.4, II.5.

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.

Related passages: I.19, II.5.

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.