Spirit of Wine

Use in the book

Page 68 places it among several kinds of preparation media, after the tartar materials and before other bodily and spiritual salts. The governing activities are extraction, dissolution and preparation. The list then turns to the many forms in which silver and gold may be obtained, including coloured liquids and spiritual waters.

The argumentative conclusion arrives on page 70. Such preparations may be costly and excellent medicines in Khunrath’s judgement, yet they are not thereby first matter. Spirit of wine consequently belongs to the practical repertoire he acknowledges, rather than being a hidden exception to his denial.

Its name also cautions against reading every occurrence of spirit metaphysically. In this local phrase, a named preparation material bears the word; elsewhere spirit identifies an essential principle, the soul’s vehicle or the universal Spirit of the World. The senses must be related through their actual contexts, not fused because their English translations share a noun.

The single occurrence is worth an indexed destination because readers often approach the material catalogue looking for an ordinary ingredient that solves the book’s secret. The text supplies no such identification here. Its point is that even varied and effective media do not independently return the specified metal to the universal beginning.

Places to read

1. 1599 p. 68Spirit of wine is included among the media of metallic extraction and preparation.
2. 1599 p. 70The general judgement denies first-matter status to the products of the preceding catalogue.

Translation in this edition

“Spirit of wine” preserves the historical name without specifying a concentration, production method or modern solvent grade. Its conventional familiarity should not be allowed to imply more compositional precision than the source gives.