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+--- Thread: Alchemical Symbolism in the VMS (/thread-1745.html)
RE: Alchemical Symbolism in the VMS - MarcoP - 19-12-2020
Thank you, Matthias!
You are not allowed to view links. Register or Login to view. (aer, ignis, aqua, terra, lapis) is a decent match for the Voynich hypothetical "five elements" in f77r
RE: Alchemical Symbolism in the VMS - bi3mw - 19-12-2020
Yes Marco, especially interesting is that "lapis" appears as the 5th component. So it does not necessarily have to be "aether" as an element.
RE: Alchemical Symbolism in the VMS - -JKP- - 20-12-2020
It's interesting that lapis is located where many medieval charts place the earth (within a circle of the four elements). Did some of them think of Earth as a big round rock?
RE: Alchemical Symbolism in the VMS - VViews - 20-12-2020
JKP, bi3mw,
The position of Lapis among the four elements can be understood because the philosophers' stone is also known as the Quinta Essentia, quintessence or the fifth essence, which contains the qualities of the other four.
In a way it is distinct from them while also a synthesis of all of them.
RE: Alchemical Symbolism in the VMS - bi3mw - 20-12-2020
Thank you Vviews, I had understood "lapis" so far only on the material level, that is to say
lapis was the final product of the processing of a starting material (materia prima). This product should consist in the end of a substance which can transmute base metals into higher metals but also be used as a universal remedy. So, according to this definition, it is a substance and not an element, but in alchemy it is sometimes called "Quinta Essentia" ( "the five times extracted power of a substance" ).
All this, of course, refers only to the so-called "outer alchemy " not to the inner.
RE: Alchemical Symbolism in the VMS - -JKP- - 20-12-2020
And once again, we have the number five.
RE: Alchemical Symbolism in the VMS - bi3mw - 20-12-2020
Here is an emblem from 1550 for comparison:
Leiden Ms Vossianus Chym Q 61, Sylva philosophorum, Cornelius Petraeus, 1550
The four elements are arranged at the vertices of a square, in the centre of which is the quintessence.
Water is in an antipathy relationship to fire, and the same applies to air and earth; in the remaining relationships between the elements there is a regime of sympathy.
In the first circle is written: 'Chaos, mass of confused form'; in the second: 'Hyle, primordial principle of matter'.
The caption quotes a verse from Genesis (1:26): "And God said, Let us make man in our image and likeness".
RE: Alchemical Symbolism in the VMS - Searcher - 20-12-2020
I have so much to say, but it will be in my latest blog post. I try to write it almost a year and finally try to finish it already few days. I hope it will take two more days, no more.
RE: Alchemical Symbolism in the VMS - R. Sale - 21-12-2020
Lapis Philosophorum
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RE: Alchemical Symbolism in the VMS - bi3mw - 21-12-2020
Thanks R. Sale, this emblem (same source as my example) shows exactly the difference. Depicted is the ( spiritual ) substance Azoth dissolved from the material, from which one wants to crystallize the philosopher's stone. Sol and Luna probably stand for gold and silver here.
P.S.: Practically, according to Johannes de Rupescissa, Azoth could also be the so-called "Mercurial water" (a mercury-vitriol mixture).
The caption quotes a famous passage from the Rosarium Philosophorum: "Make a circle from a man and a woman, make a square from them, and a triangle from the square: make a circle out of this and you will have the philosophers' stone".
Obviously the diagram follows this succession: the order, crucially, is from the outside to the inside.