From the book
Nine Books on the Nature of Things
Attributed to Paracelsus · Diotimos Editions · 2026
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The quintessence of Sulphur is described as red and transparent like a ruby. Rubinus supplies a visual comparison, not a claim that the preparation is literally a gemstone. The two qualities work together: redness alone does not exhaust the comparison. This is one of several cases in which familiar materials make an alleged preparation imaginable while leaving its asserted transmuting power a separate historical claim.
Places to read
- Book 1 · Generation · Passage 13Latin“coloris rubei & pellucida existit sicut rubinus”