From the book
A Chymical Dictionary
Gerhard Dorn and John French · Diotimos Editions · 2026
Browse this book’s lexicon →Orientation
At a Glance
- The wordAn inward star associated with a person’s shadow.
- In the bookSpiritus Animalis also relates an inward power to the heavens, while Vmbratiles names astral bodies.
- A place to readThe historical definition below, 1650 dictionary, unnumbered definition page 36; facsimile PDF page 364.
Historical definition
Olympicus spiritus is a star in a person that makes that person yield a shadow of themself.
Meaning
The definition places a star within the human being and attributes a shadow-producing action to it. Both star and shadow belong to the source’s description; the sentence gives no further account of the mechanism or the kind of shadow.
Use in the book
Spiritus Animalis also relates an inward power to the heavens, while Vmbratiles names astral bodies. These articles can orient a reader within the celestial vocabulary without supplying an identity that the present definition does not state.
Imaginatio is also called a star in the human being, but its entry names imagination rather than describing shadow-production. The shared inward-star language is useful precisely because the stated functions differ.
Places to read
- Olympicus spiritusRead the complete historical definition and its commentary.
- Spiritus AnimalisA power of the soul described through likeness to the heavens.
- VmbratilesBodies qualified as astral.
- ImaginatioImagination described through human, celestial and supercelestial relations.
In this edition
The explanation keeps the source’s limited claim visible. It has not been expanded into a modern theory of perception or a particular later account of an astral double.
Source note
Historical source. 1650 dictionary, unnumbered definition page 36; facsimile PDF page 364 — Facsimile