Apprentice's Alchemy(44) Basilio Valentín and the 12 Keys: Explanation of the 12 (part 1)

 

Apprentice's Alchemy(44)

Basilio Valentín and the 12 Keys: Explanation of the 12 (part 1)

Victor. Arturo. Cabello. Reyes.

 ''The idea of using poisons in medicine is a fairly common part of seventeenth-century iatrochemistry, being prominent, for example, in the writings of Basil Valentine (whom Boyle cites in connection with two antimonial processes).''(1)

 (William R. Newman and Lawrence Principe, Alchemy Tried in the Fire, p.229)

For researchers of the new generation of neo-chemists, Basilio Valentín is: ''the fictitious Basil Valentine''= (Jennifer Rampling).

According to the dictionary, fictitious is false, invented and imagined. His existence is not clear to some historians, and, by 1413, his work was not known.

Seen in another way, Basilio Valentín... He did not exist= (Basil Valentine was a false character probably created by Johann Thölde, his first editor).

Thölde,  was a prosperous salt maker from Frankenhausen in Thuringa, and is said to have been Secretary of the Rosicrucian Order.

That "fictitious character" is truly an alchemical-spiritual master who in his Twelve Keys, manages to represent the preparation of the "raw material" of the Philosopher's Stone.

"We still remember vividly, after so many years, the cult of our old master Fulcanelli by Basilio Valentín whom he considered as his True Initiator."

(Eugéne Canseliet, Le Douze Clefs de la Phílosophe, Paris, 1956)

Basil Valentine=Basilius Valentinus (Alsace, c.1390? - 1394)

Alchemist and Prior Benedictine monk of the Abbey and monastery of Erfurt (Prussia).

Its existence is doubted by some researchers. By 1413 his work was unknown.

His name is associated with the pseudonym Basil = king-'basilisk' and snake, 'mighty king'-'valiant king'.

Brave King!

Some researchers categorically affirm that it was Johann Thölde (secretary of the Rosicrucian Order).

(John Read, 1936)

He is said to have written numerous Treatises and alchemical texts which were 'lost'= [21 of them] and which after his death are discovered in a sculpture on the altar and between the pillars of the abbey.

"According to one legend, several decades after his death a column of the cathedral of Erfurt collapsed, and under it appeared the alchemical treatises of the Benedictine, about the existence of which there was only a vague oral tradition."(2)

It is the tradition of the "broken column" that contains handwritten documents. We will look at the 12 Engravings that 'are later than the date on which the master lived' (1599).

It is the master Michael de Sedivogius, who indicates: ''... as this great philosopher, a native of upper Alsace, affirms, our German compatriot Basil Valentine (who lived in my homeland about fifty years ago.''(3)

It is said that he lived in the Monastery of Divino Pedro.

''Basil's writings have been written by Johanne Tholdios...''(4)

(Leibnitz) 

Thanks to Van Helmont, who credits him with having recognized a 'Third Principle' of mineral bodies, along with sulfur and mercury; whom he called = Salt.

The researcher Peter Marshall categorically states that Basil Valentine was a follower of Paracelsus. (5)

The authority on Paracelsus, Sudhoff, was of the opinion that The Triumphal Chariot of Antimony is a forgery (as a pre-Paracelsus book), made for the purpose of discrediting the Paracelsian's.

Of its true author it is worth saying: ''There is no doubt that the author was a practing chemist with an extensive knowledge of medicine and contemporary metallurgical techniques.''(6)

Many of Paracelsus' followers reaffirmed their belief that Basil Valentine was plagiarized by Paracelsus in relation to the three principles = Tria prima. (7)

In his Triumphal Chariot of Antimony, the therapeutic properties of antimony stand out. Precursor of a ''pharmaceutical iatrochemical chemistry of considerable value.

"The virtues of pure vitriol are marvelous; his spirit transforms vulgar mercury into a kind of Panacea, and a true medicine can be made with it against any disease, if one knows what vitriol I am talking about and what mercury."(8)

Note: Chemical vitriol has nothing to do with the vitriol of the Philosophers.

Other works attributed to Basil Valentine are: Treatise of Azoth= (reproduced in Mylius's Philosophia Reformata and Stolcius's Viridarum Chemicum).

The Twelve Keys was published in Germany in 1559 under the title of Zwolff Schlusse, by Johann Tholdius with an edition in 1603.

There is Michael Maier's famous edition, which is added to his Golden Tripod and printed by Lucas Jennis, Frankfurt, 1618.

The work is written in "half German" and Michael Maier's plates were taken from works by Basilio Valentín; reproduced by J.J. Manget in his Bibliotheca Chemica Curiosa of 1702.

The first thing we are going to observe and explain is the image of the hooded monk = Basilio Valentín who, in the habit of a Benedictine monk and wearing a hood, carries in his arms the "Scales", in whose saucers water and fire are balanced; he has a closed book under his arm.

It is a symbol of the quantitative to the qualitative.

Valentine's work is the essence of alchemical spiritual thought and experimental practice where the Gift of God is the foundation of all success in the athanor or furnace.

The principles of the work are: Love of God, Love of Truth, Sensitive Heart without hypocrisy and doing good together with constant prayer and meditation.

Apprentice's Alchemy(44)

Basilio Valentín and the 12 Keys: Explanation of the 12 (part 1)

Victor. Arturo. Cabello. Reyes. 

Bibliography: 

1. William R. Newman and Lawrence Principe, Alchemy Tried in the Fire, p.229. 

2. Jacques Sadoul, The Treasure of the Alchemists, p.72. 

3. Michael Sendivogius, Treatise on Salt, Third Principle of Mineral Things, p.45. 

4. Leibniz, Epistle: 17 June 1690. 

5. Peter Marshall, The Philosopher's Stone, p.431. 

6. Allen G. Debus, The Chemical Philosophy, p.94. 

7. Philip Ball. The Devil's Doctor, p.376. 

8. Le Breton, The Keys to Spagyric Philosophy, Paris, 1772.