Corporeal spirits and spiritual bodies

Use in the book

At pp. 76–772 Khunrath explains that the relevant bodies have already been determined toward silverness or goldness by special formative reasons. They are also substantially dried or coagulated. Calling them spirits does not remove that specification; calling them bodies does not exclude the subtle condition being described.

The following qualification introduces possible mixture with foreign mineral or metallic spirits occurring together in the mountain. Purification and conversion into transparent water still do not make these embryos the true first matter. On p. 78 they are said to have moved already far from the pri-material state and to need reduction through first matter just as mature metals do.

The crossed wording thus resists a simple equation of spirit with universality and body with mere inert matter. In this passage the decisive categories are derivation and specific formative condition, not a binary choice between bodily and spiritual names.

Places to read

1. 1599 p. 76The argument begins by identifying the materials as embryonated metals.
2. 1599 p. 77The crossed formula follows their specification and coagulation; foreign spirits may also be mixed with them.
3. 1599 p. 78Neither subtlety nor clear water restores their pri-material status.

Translation in this edition

The supplied English keeps the two reversed combinations literally. Smoothing them both into “volatile substances” would omit the deliberate interplay of bodily and spiritual language.