Sal Lumen and Spiritus Mundi Philosophici

Subject Index

Topics link directly to stable passages in the translation. The Roman numerals identify books; numbered sonnets are indexed in their transmitted order. Subentries distinguish different senses and stages rather than replacing them with one general definition.

Air

Vital necessity and the bearer of celestial forms: I.6 §1; I.6 §3.

The threefold spirit and its begetters in verse: Sonnet II.

Apollo and Asclepius

Medicine transmitted as a guarded inheritance: III §17.

Archee

Author’s marginal definition of the fire or natural heat which digests matter: I.1 §2.

Arnauld de Villeneufve

Philosophical moon, body and seed: I.5 §4.

Permanent water and salt: II.2 §5; sweetening the bitter: II.3 §28.

Art and Nature

Nature originates species which art extends: I.9 §4.

Art’s extension of union and digestion: II.4 §14; divine, natural and artificial triad: Sonnet IV.

Ascent and Descent

Dissolution and renewed coagulation, distinguished from rising to a vessel’s top: II.4 §23.

Religious and natural restorers: Sonnet VIII.

Bacon

Choice of matter in which Nature has begun her first operations: II.4 §15.

Baptism

Water and the fire of the Holy Spirit in the regeneration comparison: II.4 §3; II.4 §9.

Body

Need for a mediator between body and soul: I.2 §1.

Embodiment and its stages: II.1 §1; the limit of bodily longevity: III §12.

Calcination

Purposes, benefits and limits: II.3 §31.

Excessive ignition of crystal and the value of repetition: II.3 §34.

Chaos

Salt dissolved within its limbus and the appearance of earth: II.2 §8.

Separation as the release of form and power: II.3 §30; sap and venom before purification: Sonnet V.

Christ

Mediator sharing the extremes: I.2 §1.

Salvation and the pattern of restoration: II.4 §3; death and renewal: II.4 §10.

Colours

Tincture as life and changes of colour as signs: II.4 §18.

Internal sulphur, Proteus and the sequence through whiteness to redness: II.3 §35; II.3 §36.

Corruption

Change between forms as a generative condition: I.5 §2.

Conflict within bodies and the provision of remedies: II.4 §1; twofold effects in verse: Sonnet V.

Daedalus and Icarus

The middle course, renewed wings and regulated heat: II.4 §22; II.4 §23.

Death

Transformation rather than total annihilation: I.1 §9.

Limits of preservation and the spirit’s departure: III §12; II.4 §13.

Demogorgon

Central progenitor, Iliaste and Archee: I.1 §2.

Fire and coessential moisture: II.1 §6; explanation of the green and rusty mantle: II.4 §29.

Digestion

Moderate continuous heat and the formation of solid bodies: II.1 §7.

Union, fixation and the imitation of Nature: II.4 §14.

Dissolution

Dried moist nature reduced to water by water: II.2 §4.

Modes, filtering and repeated preparation: II.3 §33; ascent through dissolution: II.4 §23.

Distillation

Mountains, summits, roots and the return of water: I.6 §2.

Filtering distinguished from alembic sublimation: II.3 §33.

Dragon

The self-renewing subject as a discerning sign: II.2 §18.

Jason’s watchful guardian, fixing and renewed dissolving: II.4 §33; II.4 §34.

Earth

Mother and nourishing receiver of celestial powers: I.7 §1.

Nature’s private chamber and treasury: III §2; earth-made Heaven: Sonnet VII.

Elements

Participation within one another and convertibility: II.3 §23.

The four qualities in central heat: II.2 §15; fifth essence distinguished from a higher location: III §12.

Embodiment

The spirit’s own bodily form: II.1 §1.

Vapour, mercurial water and mucilage: II.1 §7; powers retained in earth: Sonnet VII.

Errata

Treatise corrections: Treatise errata, first part; Treatise errata, continuation.

Separate poem corrections transmitted in the volume: Poem errata.

Esdras

Reserved books and the preservation of oral knowledge: II.4 §35; Pico’s account: II.4 §36.

Experience

Chymical experience and the perception of principles: Preface §3.

Expected transmutation and asserted medicinal effects: II.2 §9; the nine-vessel trial: II.4 §33.

Fable and Interpretation

Veils that conceal while displaying: II.4 §27.

Mythological figures decoded: II.4 §29; II.4 §31.

Fermentation

Ordinary gold and silver join the invisible prepared subject: I.4 §3.

Medea’s final labour, butter of the Sun and prepared mercury: II.4 §34.

Fire

Mover, vapour and necessary moisture: II.1 §2; II.1 §3.

Removal of combustible impurity: II.3 §25; water and fire in verse: Sonnet VI.

First Matter

Universal source and particular metallic matter: I.4 §4; II.4 §15.

Criticism of destructive reversion from perfected bodies: II.2 §1.

Fixed and Volatile

Vapour above and the fixed part below: I.6 §2.

Simple spirituality distinguished from separable sulphur: II.4 §12; celestial subtlety with earthly fixation: II.4 §23.

Flamel, Nicolas

Winged and wingless dragons as figures of the work: II.4 §12.

Form and Specification

Seminal reasons, attraction and particular species: I.9 §1.

Common substance and differing accidents: II.1 §7; universal separation and distinct forms: II.3 §30.

Gift and Favour

Instruction, patronage and the author’s debt: Dedication §3.

The open cavern and the difficult return: II.4 §26; philosophy’s favours: III §14.

Gold

Natural purity and gradual formation: I.3 §3.

Living and ordinary gold: I.4 §3; further graduation of tincture: II.4 §19.

Hermaphrodite

Universal spirit enclosing all seeds: Sonnet I.