Apprentice's Alchemy (11)ingles

 

Apprentice's Alchemy (11)

The Mercurial Dragon

Victor. Arturo. Hair. Kings🌹

"I can assure you that whoever tries to decipher literally what the Hermetic philosophers have written, will get lost in the meanders of a labyrinth from which he will never emerge."

(Livre d'Artéphius; Bibl. des Philosophes Chimiques, Paris, 1741)

'Haec Scientia Requerit verum Philosophum non Fatuum' = This Science Requires the True Philosopher not the Fool.'

Fabulous animals have been an integral part of all the rich literatures and stories since the beginning of fascinating tales of the warlike human fauna.

Drakos-Draco-Drakon = the majestic Dragon Serpent.

Mercurial and fecund power that through millennia accompanies in 'Velloncina faena' and arduous journey towards self-realization inside dusty trunks of the inner being.

With striking red eyes and tongue of viperine sparks of draconic fire, it indicates that its magic lies in empowering or experiencing the power of that unspeakable 'something' that potentially underlies the Fountain guarded by the Draconian Serpent.

Dragon-guardian par excellence who always looks hungry.

(In medieval spagyria it is considered so, because of its property of eating all metals)

Three Dragons guard the Square courtyard of the Louvre in Paris.

(Bernard Roger, The Secret Enigmas of Alchemy, p.248)

Or, the Greeks better call their fiery gaze of the spirit = 'derkesthai' = to look or cast fleeting glances.

The eternal cosmological guardian and repeater of the cycle: Cosmogonic Principle is the Uroboros = The ONE THE ALL -, which bites its tail and teaches the cyclical renewal of the Whole.

For some it means the phase of 'nigredo' and changing cycles.

'Draco is Mercury, also de Black Raven, or the Black on the floor. It devours the tail, drinks the Mercury... The Dragon devours the mercury, like a poison, and dies; again, drinks it and is made living.'

(Martin Rulands, A Lexicon of 1612, p.112)

The alchemical operation that proceeds from the One and returns to the One.

The alchemist Dragon Masters master the continuous forms of the alchemical energy flow from the great cyclic and dragon uroboros of the cosmos. It can be a dual symbol where two principles are mixed = sunterren kingdom = serpent-dragon and, aerial principle = Bird of Thoth-Hermes

Similar to the floral reception of the soft and purifying perfume that emanates from the germinal substance of The GOLDEN FLOWER🌹.

Therefore, it is likely that there is an essence of the ALL=Arche-Azoth, flowing between endless spirals and starting point of the WHOLE=Wet, mercurial basic substance trapped in the sphere of sulfurous fire from the mouth of the dragon and Ouroboros.

(Olympiodorus in Codex Marciannus, Library of Venice)

This Ouroboros has been known in manuscripts and papyri since the 16th century B.C.

Guardian Dragon of the Garden of the Hesperides and the alchemical apples of Gold.

The figure of the dragon is one of the first symbols to achieve representation of imperfect matter in the process of being regenerated and transmuted into solar perfection.

(F. Sherwood Taylor, The Alchemists, p.117)

The Mysterium is to succeed in 'suffocating the alchemical Dragon' and the substances of sophical mercury and sulfur.

'Moreover, the serpent was used as a solar emblem, a Phallic emblem, and an emblem of the earth'...

'In alchemy, the dragon, or serpent, is often used as a generative or sexual symbol.'

(John Read, Prelude to Chemistry, p.107)

For the old and wise alchemists, the dragon is associated as a brother or sister of Mercury; Alchemical mercury.

'The dragon's sister is Mercury. As the dragon is matter, metal, body, so his sister is spirit, metallic mercury, soul.' (Sherwood Taylor, The Alchemists, p.119.)

Master Alchemists recommend:

'Unless the head has integrated the Dragon's Tail, All Substance is Nothing.

Take the Dragon's Head; but, beware of the Tail.'

'Le Serpent ou Dragon qui se mord la queue (ouroboros) est plus significatif encore: c'est le symbole de L'oeuvre, qui n'a ni commencement ni fin.'

( Manuscript : Ms 2. 250, Fol. 45. Marcelin Berthelot, Les origines de l'Alchimie, Paris, 1885, p.p.58-59, 114)

The old Greek alchemists categorically affirmed:

'Unless the head has integrated the tail, all substance is Nothing.'

Beginning and end of the Cosmos.

One and the same thing. There is no beginning... nor final.

Dragon and alchemical principle, companion of the Magnum Opus.

The wise Master Athanasius Kircher, offers information in his famous calculation table of lunar and solar eclipses with draconic shapes.

(Ars Magna Lucis, Amsterdam, 1671)

The best example where the powerful celestial Dragon between zodiac signs and in its body indicates eclipse phenomena.

In alchemy the dragon is Mercury, philosopher's mercury and mysterious substance that produces the great change in the athanor.

Master Solomon Trismosin adds that Mercury stokes the fire in the flask and it is the same Dragon of the cosmic raw material, who is nourished for the Great Change of the spirit of things and Universal Spirit.

(Salomon Trismosin, Splendor Solis, London, sixteenth century)

Irenaeus Philalethe warns that in order to be accessible to the treasure guarded by the green dragon, we must be, pure as children.

Ouroboros is representative of the cycles and changes, constant movement and transformation in the Magnus opus.

It vibrates constantly between the mercurial fluid and the glowing liquid immersed in the rays of the athanor and alchemical furnace.

This hermaphroditic matter and energetic charges circulate between constant and permanent serpentine = Ouroboros spiral phases; faithfully following burdens and the course of zodiac signs.

Athanor and fire dragon that rigorously follows and pursues the celestial course.

Master Basilio Valentín assigns a symbolic key to each alchemical state to tame the dragon and succeed in suffocating it.

The Astral Seed = (male and female) has and contains the sperm form of the alchemical dragon associated with the birth and opening of a new energy based on the planetary transit.

Sumerian literature teaches about a never-ending struggle between the primordial celestial waters of the Cosmological Ocean.

They open and close periodically by the power of the dragon over the floodgates of the Apsu=Primordial Ocean.

Kur = Dragon that dwells sulphurous in primordial waters, and from which, sparks come from the celestial fire = the AN-BAR.

In Egyptian literature the draconic 'Ker' Ouroboros is crowned with very powerful stones and has wings as elements of Solar resurrection and evident signs of the Elements = fire, air, earth, water and the dragon bites its tail.

(Eleazar, Uraltes chymisches Werk, Leipzig (1760), Part II, nos. 4 and 3. Col. Mellon, Bib. Uni. Yale)

Ker or Aker in the famous Book of Caves = book of the dead in its Egyptian variation – turns out to be the custodian of the entrance to the underworld.

The substance of the dragon is vital substance, milk or juice.

Celestial dew and draconic-Mercurial wet principle, the basic wet substance and basic matter originating from the starting point of the Principle of ALL = Arché.

A. Z. O.T. H.= Green Jade Stone and Dew of Heaven.

Alchemical aqueous primordial substance:

Maternal-Paternal and sphere of the Celestial Fire.

Marie Louise Von Franz announces:

'The word <<divine>> in Greek is theios, which also means sulphur, so that it can be translated as divine water..., or sulphurous water, since sulphur was considered a divine substance.'

It is water, the liquid of the divine substance.

(Marie Louise Von Franz, Alchemy p.148)

It is the ancient Mysterium Coniunctionis, sulphur is an active part and a very important component of the alchemical work.

The Dragon-sulphurous-serpent of life flows between opposing principles and primitive antagonistic forces of the masculine+solar-sulphur and feminine-lunar mercurial.

The basic work of the neophyte alchemist is to search eagerly for that Alchemical-Hermetic Dragon [serpens mercurii], which is raw material and scaly dragon that spawns and destroys itself.

Raw matter representing the alchemist's Solitary Path...

'Get ready, because you will have to travel alone. The Master can only show the way.'

 

The Path is ONE.