From the book
A Chymical Dictionary
Gerhard Dorn and John French · Diotimos Editions · 2026
Browse this book’s lexicon →Orientation
At a Glance
- The wordA medicine’s hidden star explained through a higher and lower correspondence.
- In the bookConstellatio concerns the impression of higher stars or their virtues upon lower bodies.
- A place to readThe historical definition below, 1650 dictionary, unnumbered definition page 26; facsimile PDF page 354.
Historical definition
Ilech magnum is the ascendant or star of a medicine, taken together with it and hidden in it; as higher stars are in the firmament, so lower stars are in a human being.
Meaning
The definition relates a medicine to an ascendant or star hidden within it and taken with it. It then explains the relation through a comparison: higher stars in the firmament correspond to lower stars in a human being. The sentence therefore connects a preparation, a hidden efficacy and the human recipient within one historical account.
The compiler does not identify the star as a separately visible ingredient or say how it is located. The wording instead asks the reader to understand that something described in astral terms accompanies the medicine.
Use in the book
Constellatio concerns the impression of higher stars or their virtues upon lower bodies. Corpora cœlestia Spagyrorum defines astral virtues present in their matter, and Ileidus gives an elemental air that in people is a spirit passing through the members. These comparisons illuminate the language of hidden activity and human correspondences without making every entry a synonym for a medicine’s star.
Places to read
- Ilech magnumRead the complete historical definition and its commentary.
- ConstellatioThe influence of higher stars understood as an impression in lower things.
- Corpora cœlestia SpagyrorumCelestial bodies of the spagyrists understood as astral virtues in matter.
- IleidusElemental air given a human counterpart as a circulating or pervasive spirit.
In this edition
The modernised wording preserves the comparison and its direction. It supplies no additional planetary assignment or rule for preparing a medicine.
Source note
Historical source. 1650 dictionary, unnumbered definition page 26; facsimile PDF page 354 — Facsimile