Adam et Eve
Gravure russe (lubok) de 1792
ROSICRUCIAN APHORISMS AND PROCESS
Sigismund Bacstrom
Médecin, chirurgien et artiste, Sigismund Bacstrom (c.1750 –
1805), d’origine suédoise, était également auteur et traducteur de textes
alchimiques et rosicruciens. Sa traduction en anglais de la Table d’Emeraude, court texte alchimique
contenant les éléments essentiels du Grand Œuvre, est toujours connue et
appréciée du monde ésotérique anglo-saxon; traduction dont la
caractéristique notable est le remplacement d’Hermès Trismégiste par Hiram
(Chiram), l’artisan qui participa à l’édification du premier Temple de
Jérusalem, sous les ordres du roi Salomon.
(Cet Hiram, héros d’une légende maçonnique célèbre, étant d’ailleurs
un équivalent d’Hermès, ainsi que le souligne René Guénon dans son article « Hermès »
paru dans la revue Le Voile d’Isis en
avril 1932, et repris dans le recueil posthume Formes Traditionnelles et Cycles Cosmiques).
Les Rosicrucian
Aphorisms and Process, en leurs quatre premiers points, nous donnent l’une
des clefs essentielles du Grand Œuvre, en toute clarté : l’Aimant qui peut attirer la « lumière
divine » est l’Homme…
Fulcanelli, dans ses Demeures
Philosophales (chapitre « Alchimie et Spagyrie »), évoque l’initiation
de Sigismund Bacstrom, en 1794, à la Société hermétique fondée par le comte de
Chazal. Je vous propose de découvrir le diplôme confirmant cette initiation –
signé par le comte de Chazal – à la suite des Rosicrucian Aphorisms and Process.
L.A.T.
In Nomine Dei
Omnipotentis,
qui nobis elementia
sua tanta Dona largiri voluit!
Cui sit gloria et
laus sempereternus
Amen.
APHORISMI
Operis maximi Antiquorum Sapientium
1. The soul of Man as well as all rational Spirits (the
Angels) consist (according to their primitive Essence) of the Spirit of the
World or Anima Mundi and the power of reasoning. They are Unities and most
simple, and consequently in their very essence immortal.
2. In the Beginning God created the Universal Spirit or the
Universal Agent of Nature, the Soul of the Universe.
This is the first emanation of Divine Light; it is a unity
and immortal, capable of manifesting itself, when moved or agitated, into Light
and Fire. It is multipliable and yet is and remains but one. It is Omnipresent
and yet occupies no visible space or room, except when manifested or multiplied
in its third principle, Fire.
It has the power of becoming material and of returning again
to universality.
This is the subject of the Stone or Medicine of the
Philosophers. The more you take this in its simple, universal, unspecified or
unmarried state, the easier, simpler and greater is your work, but the more
this subject is already specified the more troublesome prolix and expensive is
your process.
3. Our Magnet to attract it (although every subject in
Nature is Magnetical) is Man, and principally Hadamah, the Dust, red earth of
Man, which in the months of March, April and May, the Sun in Aries and Taurus
is abundantly found in the blood of a healthy man; the Spirit of the Universe
during this season residing therein most abundantly, universally and unspecified.
Hadamah signifies the first man Adam or Red Earth, which
appears when the subject is dried up. In Hadamah lies concealed the blood that
precious fluid wherein dwells the Universal Spirit, attracted by inspiration,
and the Dust of the Red Earth, left by itself when the Universal fire nature
quits it.
This Universal Fire is truly Nature.
4. The happy success depends on the subject being good, from
a young man, if possible of a Jovial Temper or Choleric, in good health,
collected in a proper season, which is in March, April and, at farthest, in
May, while the Sun is in Aries and Taurus: best after Northerly winds have
prevailed.
PROCESS
This is the first of all Works, the most simple, the least
expensive, the easiest and the greatest in its effects. There are various works
and different processes, but this is the oldest.
1st. The subject contains fire, air, water and earth, and
requires no addition of any foreign matter, except when introduced into the
metallic department.
It contains the fire of Nature, or the Universal Spirit,
with Air its vehicle it contains Water, which must be separated from it in the
beginning of the work and also earth which remains behind in the form of caput
mortuum, where the fire has left it, and is the true Red Earth wherein the fire
dwelt for a while.
The subject, duly collected, should not be less than eight
nor more than sixteen ounces: place it in a china or glazed basin and cover it
loosely to keep the dust out.
2nd. In five or six hours time the first natural separation
is made: the water is carefully poured off as useless and pernicious.
(This water is called the Waters of the Deluge, which are
not easily dried up.)
The cold subject is placed in a double piece of clean linen
in a clean china basin, in order that the superfluous water may be soaked up or
absorbed by the linen, and that the cake may become dry, in a cool shady place,
free from dust. This superfluous water would retard and hinder putrefaction,
which is the key to regeneration.
3rd. As soon as the Cake is freed from all superfluous
humidity, cut it to pieces with an ivory knife (do not touch it with any metal)
and put it by means of a glass funnel into your Globe Glass.
4th. The globe glass is immediately to be shut with a
stopper made of oak, which fits nicely, in order that the superfluous remaining
humidity (the phlegm) may, during the putrefaction, penetrate and evaporate
through the pores of the oak.
The joining of the neck and the stopper must be luted with
something that is able to resist outward warmth and moisture.
5th. Place your luted globe glass or glasses (for it is most
prudent to work with five or six glasses at once, from as many different good
subjects) in a hogshead or wine pipe, filled two-thirds full with horse dung
already in proper fermentation, so as to show a degree of heat from 120 to 140
or 150 degrees by Fahrenheit's thermometer. The greatest heat is in the middle,
where it is generally from 140 to 150 degrees: less heat is round the staves
where it varies from 90 to 100 and from that to 120 degrees.
Your horse dung must be procured before, as it takes
sometimes five, six or more days before it ferments and gives the necessary
heat. This is soon discovered by the steam arising from it, and by the
thermometer buried in it nine or ten inches deep.
You must have two hogsheads or casks, in order to prepare a
second before the fermenting heat has entirely left the first; which heat
seldom lasts longer than three weeks; as your work must never become cold one
single moment.
You must cover the top with clean straw pretty thick, and
also all round the casks, especially in winter, or the work will be too cold
and your operation will be very much retarded, if not fail.
6th. Your bath thus previously prepared, and your glasses
well luted and varnished all round the joining of the neck and stopper, except
the surface of the oak, bury them in the bath all round the cask, where the
gentlest heat prevails, deep enough that only the upper part of the neck and
stopper, that which is luted, may be in sight or level with the surface of the
bath. If they were buried in the middle in the beginning of the work your
subject would dry up instead of liquefying and putrefying.
7th. Every morning and night take out your glasses and shake
them gently every one, by a circular motion, in order to promote the solution
of the red earth, which is generally effected in two or three weeks time. The
whole earth dissolves into a deep ruby-red liquid, called by us Aqua Permanens
or Chaos.
After this liquefaction is accomplished the glasses are
shaken no more, it being then unnecessary.
8th. In this manner, pursuing this most simple process,
moving your glasses from one cask into the other, as often as your heat ceases,
you must proceed with your horse dung bath during eight or nine months time,
sometimes longer, as the exact time cannot be ascertained by any one (the
philosophers say coque nec desine coquere) taking care never to
suffer your work to become cold, so that the glasses may feel cold, not for one
moment, as in that case your labour would be lost.
The surface of your oak stoppers will turn black and moist
from the penetrating flegm. This causes the stoppers to swell and will burst
the neck of every one of the globe-glasses, if you have not previously secured
those necks with strips of linen pasted round them, and harpsichord wire wound
over the linen, with a varnish over the whole, and with lute where the stopper
joins the upper brim of the neck. This lute may be sealing wax dropped on (all
round) by a burning candle, or rosin, or quick drying varnish, thickened with
filings of iron, or any other good luting that can withstand warmth and
moisture; but take care to keep the bottom of the stopper in sight, by not
covering the neck of the glass quite so low as to hide it.
9th. After liquefaction of the subject, putrefaction takes
place immediately. At first you see veins resembling Mercury running down from
the neck to the permanent ruby water. After those veins or streams are vanished
the Peacock's Tail begins to appear all round the globe, sometimes coloured
like the Rainbow, sometimes purple, green, nay Gold and Silver colours, most
wonderfully beautiful, present themselves.
10th. During putrefaction, which generally lasts 150 days,
sometimes longer, the subject smells through the stopper like a human corpse;
sometimes so strongly as to be smelled all over the house; and the colours
variegate most beautifully.
1lth. After this putrefaction, which is called the
Raven's-head, and which generally lasts 150 days or longer, has continued its
time, the stench diminishes gradually, and the subject becomes a dry brick-red
coloured earth, red earth, or dust, which remains settled at the bottom of the
glass. This must not be moved nor disturbed.
12th. Then sublimation takes place. the Universal Spirit
forsakes the dead body the red earth, ascends and descends invisibly and now
produces general colours of large extent; one day the globe is black, some days
after it becomes olive-green; after that sky-blue and beautiful parrot-green;
then again purple or violet and crimson, mostly in general colours all round
the globe. with beautiful small gold, silver, green and purple spots in the
neck, like a Peacock's Tail or a Rainbow. Sometimes it looks like polished
copper, then like polished steel, and sometimes like bell-metal.
13th. After eight or nine months all appears white or,
rather, like running mercury, of a metallic colour, and the Universal Spirit sublimes
and fixes itself at the bottom of the oak stopper in the neck, and remains
there for three or four weeks, as white as Silver; and is the regenerated
Universal Spirit, corporified in a sweet fusible salt of Nature, above half
fixed.
Below remains a foliated earth of a grey colour, called by
us Terra foliata, which is of no use if you choose to take this white salt or
sublimate out for multiplication, in order to make the White Medicine; but if
you prefer continuing the Digestion, you must by no means open the glass nor
meddle with it.
This white sublimate from one glass will not be more than
three, four, five or six grains at most.
You have now in your possession the Corporified Spirit of
the Universe, the Regenerated Fire of Nature, the Saviour and Regenerator of
matter, or the White Medicine in its first infant state, the Urim or
Regenerated Light. This is already a universal medicine for the animal
creation, but it is to be carried further, to greater perfection.
This sweet salt or sublimate looks like copelled silver, or
like the Moon in the Morning.
Process for the Red Medicine, or Perfected Salt of Nature.
Thummim i.e.. Consummatum est Perfectio.
14th. The glasses are now to be removed to the middle of the
bath and kept there, as the work now requires more heat. (By Fahrenheit's
thermometer the heat in the middle at the depth of 10 or 12 inches is generally
from 130 to 150 degrees.)
Continue the digestion, coque nec desine coquere, renewing
your horse dung every fortnight or three weeks, a few days before your heat
ceases; removing your glasses from one cask into another from time to time as
your heat may require.
Your White Sublimate fixed at the bottom of your stoppers,
will descend again into the red earth and from thence re-ascend, and will pass
through all the former colours several times more, until it fixes itself once
more at the bottom of the stopper (by us called querca domus) and becomes first
of a saffron colour, but in the course of a few weeks more of a fiery-red
colour.
This business from the White to the Red, requires sometimes
three or four months, but the exact time cannot be determined.
Now you are in possession of Thummim, Consummatum est, of
Moses and Aaron.
15th. During the first and second digestion the subject
dries and liquefies several times and undergoes many changes of colours, which
appear all round the globe and in the neck of the glass, and never cease until
the red sublimate is brought to perfection.
There remains again an earth, the Dust or red earth which is
of no further use, being now totally deprived of fire, which is life.
(Admire the simplicity and truth by which the subject and
this primitive dust is plainly declared in the words "The dust or red earth of
Man" as well as the Magnet.)
First Multiplication of the Red Medicine in Quality and Power, by the Metallic radical humidity; and its specification towards Mineral Nature for Transmutation.
16th. There are only three Universal passive fluids or
humidities in Nature. These three, centrally, are very analogous to each other.
For the Animal Kingdom the animal fluid or Blood is
appointed, for the Vegetable Kingdom water, and for the Mineral Mercury, which
is the radical humidity of metals.
Each of these three fluids contains fire, water, earth -
Soul, spirit and body, sulphur, mercury, salt. From each of these fluids, if
properly treated and duly animated by the Universal Spirit a Universal Medicine
may be made.
Now in order to specify towards Metallic Nature, your
Universal regenerated Spirit or Salt, the White or Red Medicine, proceed thus:
17th. Take four parts of the White or the Red Medicine, and
ten parts of highly purified Mercury (best revived from Cinnabar) and make an
amalgam as follows:
Put the very accurately weighed ten parts of Mercury in a
small china tea cup, or in a small smooth crucible, on a gentle charcoal fire,
and let it stand until the Mercury begins to fume. Take it that moment from the
fire (avoid breathing the fumes) and at the same instant add the four parts of
the White or the Red Medicine (previously enveloped in softened wax) to the
just fuming hot Mercury. Stir it with a clean solid glass rod and you will have
an amalgam.
The multiplication is performed according to the table of
Pythagoras [the Tetractys]; the ratio of one side of the equilateral triangle
to the whole figure, thus. That is, 4 parts of the Medicine to 10 parts of the
metallic water.
Process of Digestion with the Metallic Water or Ferment.
18th. This amalgam is put immediately into a small globe
glass, of sufficient strength (the neck previously secured with linen, wire and
varnish to prevent it from bursting), not above 2 inches in diameter, or of
such a capacity that the amalgam may fill no more than one fourth part of the
globe in height. If the globe, however, be a little larger there will no harm:
it is better a little too big than too small.
Secure your glass with an oak stopper, and lute it exactly
as you did before.
19th. Place it in your bath, but now in the middle, where
the greatest heat is, in 140 or 150 degrees. Bury it in the horse dung so deep
that the stopper may be a little under the surface of the bath.
20th. Do not move it except when you are obliged to place it
in the other cask.
By degrees the Universal Medicine unites radically with the
Metallic water, and becomes in two or three months time, if the white sublimate
has been employed, a silver white tinging Medicine, a dry substance extremely
fusible, in one solid mass, after having passed through all the colours: but if
the Red Medicine has been employed it becomes a Red tinging Metallic Medicine,
which looks in the dark like a glowing or fiery coal.
This is the more perfect and multiplied Urim if the White,
Thummim (consummatum est), if the Red Medicine. Aaron wore them both in his
breastplate.
21st. Both these medicines, the White as well as the Red,
when perfectly fixed remain at the bottom of the globe-glass, and must be
carefully separated from the earth or caput mortuum of the Mercury underneath
it, sticking to the bottom of the glass under the medicine. It is necessary to
break off the neck of the glass.
22nd. Both Medicines once multiplied or fermented with the
metallic radical humidity (Mercury) do not require any further fermentation
with gold; but tinge already, after this first multiplication.
One part of the White Medicine tinges 10 parts of mercury,
lead, tin, copper, and iron into pure silver of 16 fine.
One part of the Red Medicine, once multiplied, tinges 10
parts of Mercury, lead, silver, tin, copper and silver into pure gold of 24
carats fine.
The metallic medicines tinge each metal in proportion as
they abound in Mercury, therefore Mercury itself in the greatest quantity, with
very little loss, lead the next with a little more loss; then silver and tin;
tin with more loss than lead; and lastly copper and iron with a great deal of
loss and a large scorification of external metallic sulphur, as these two last
metals contain but a small proportion of Mercury, which is the only metallic
principle that is ameliorated and fixed.
23rd After the first multiplication with the metallic water,
the White Medicine is the Urim in its first multiplied state, tinging and
ameliorating the inferior metals into the purest and softest silver. The Red
Medicine once multiplied with the metallic water is the Thummim in its first
multiplied state - the Exalted Universal Medicine striking at the root of every
acute and chronic disease of man and animals, and tinging the mercurial
principle of all the inferior metals and minerals into the purest and softest
gold of 24 carats.
Both medicines are soluble in rectified spirit of wine and
even in water.
Augmentation of the Medicines in Quantity not in Quality nor in Power.
24th. If the White medicine, once multiplied, be melted with
pure silver - one part of the Medicine to four parts of pure refined silver -
the silver becomes a white, brittle, glassy substance. The medicine is in this
way Augmented in quantity only, but not in quality nor in power, as it now
tinges no more than ten parts, in the same manner as before; but you thus
obtain a greater quantity of the same medicine, for Transmutation only.
25th. If the Red Medicine, once multiplied with mercury, be
melted with pure refined gold, 1 part of the Medicine with 4 parts of pure
gold, the gold becomes a brittle, deep orange coloured vitreous substance, and
the Medicine is augmented in quantity, but not in quality nor in power; it
tinges only as before, 1 part tinging ten of inferior metals into most pure
gold, but you have more medicine in quantity.
The White and the Red Medicines thus fermented with silver
or with gold are no longer soluble in Rectified Spirit of Wine, and much less
in water, and therefore are no longer medicinal for the human body or for
animals; on the contrary, they are now highly pernicious, corrosive and
destructive to animal life, and also to vegetable; and they cannot be
multiplied any further by the metallic humidity.
Second Multiplication of the Medicine viz, in Quality, by the metallic waters.
The Second and every subsequent Multiplication of the
medicine, with the metallic water (Mercury) in quality and power, is done
exactly like the first, according to the table of Pythagoras, as has been mentioned
and explained before.
26th. Make your amalgam as before, with the same accuracy
and precaution - 4 parts of medicine to 10 parts of pure Mercury - put your
amalgam in a globe glass, so that three or four parts at least remain empty;
lute the neck with the oak stopper, and bury it again in the middle of your
bath where the greatest heat prevails.
This process will be finished in a much shorter time than
the first; and every subsequent multiplication is sooner accomplished than the
foregoing, because the Multiplied medicine increases wonderfully in fusibility,
the power of penetrating, and fixity, and therefore it is sooner multiplied
than before.
It passes again through all the colours, dies and is
regenerated as before.
This can also be done over a lamp provided your heat is
nicely regulated so as to imitate that necessary, gentle animating heat of
horse dung.
During the first labours of liquefaction and putrefaction,
we prefer the horse dung to the lamp, as the most natural, though divers
philosophers have used divers means.
27th. You will again find your exalted medicine at the
bottom of the globe upon a small caput mortuum or mercurial earth, from which
Earth you must carefully separate your medicine; which is easily done as the
substances are distinct enough.
Now you have the Medicine of the Second Order, more fiery
than the first, and ten times more powerful. One part of this medicine tinges
one hundred parts of the inferior metals into silver or gold, according as you
have employed the white or the red medicine.
28th. This Medicine, infinitely more soluble, more fiery,
more penetrating and powerful, can no longer be administered in substance to
the human body, being too great a fire for our constitution to bear.
The Medicine of the First Order may be administered in
substance, 1/4 of a grain or less for a dose; but we will give you our method
how to dissolve and administer our medicine with safety.
29th. The third, fourth and fifth Multiplication, always
with the pure metallic water or Mercury, is performed exactly in the same
manner as the first and second, but each succeeding multiplication is sooner
performed than the foregoing.
We do not know that ever a philosopher ventured so far as
the Fifth, as we truly believe that so fusible, ingressive and penetrating a
substance, which is actually fire and Light, would run through every glass.
30th The Medicine, whether White or Red, of the First Order,
of the First Multiplication with Mercury, tinges ten times its weight.
The Medicine after the Second Multiplication tinges one
hundred times its weight.
After the Third multiplication one part tinges one thousand
parts.
After the Fourth Multiplication one part tinges ten thousand
parts.
After the Fifth Multiplication one part, one hundred
thousand parts; that is, one single grain would produce 171b 4oz of silver or
gold.
(Who can comprehend the incalculable fire of Nature!
infinitely multipliable!)
Method of safely administering the Medicine to the Human
Body.
31st. Take four ounces of the purest, most highly rectified
Spirit of Wine (not Corn spirit) dissolve therein, without heat, or at most
only in the Sun's heat, one grain of the First, Second or Third multiplied Red
Medicine, and, observing well the colour of the Tincture thus formed, add a
second or a third grain (according to the power of your medicine) and fourth or
fifth, or more, until your Spirit of Wine becomes tinged of a translucent Ruby
colour, like Burgundy Wine - then cease to add any more of the Medicine.
The Medicine of the Third Order will sooner tinge the Spirit
of Wine sufficiently deep than that of the First.
This Heavenly Essence is the Highest and most Universal
Aurum Potabile of the earliest ages.
With this glorious Essence we tinge a pint of Madiera or
Lisbon or good old Rhenish Wine, dropping our Ruby Essence into the White Wine
until the latter become of a deep orange or pale Burgundy, or deep Malaga
colour, and appears so in a two ounce phial.
This medicinal wine may safely and without the least danger
be given to both sexes, and of all ages in every disease whether the disease be
hot or cold, acute or chronic, makes no difference.
A teaspoonful may be given for a dose, once or twice in 24
hours, in dangerous acute, or obstinate chronic diseases, cancers and the like;
but in slight cases one dose only will effect the cure.
32nd. The Red Medicine, thrice multiplied, placed in a glass
globe, with a stopper luted in, and suspended in a room, gives light in the
dark like a fiery coal.
33rd. The White Medicine, after the First Multiplication,
coagulates and fixes a tumbler or glass full of clear water into a rock
crystal. Put grain after another into the water until a disturbance is observed
to take place in the water; then cease, and in half an hour the glass will
break leaving the crystal fixed.
34th. The same White Medicine projected on glass in fusion,
leaves the glass, when cold, perfectly ductile and maleable.
35th. With the Red multiplied Medicine, glass fluxes or
crystals are fixed into diamonds, rubies, emeralds and other precious stones.
Concerning the Globe-glasses.
The glasses are globular digesting glasses, of five, or at
most six, inches in diameter, with a neck five or six inches in length and wide
enough to admit your thumb or at least your middle finger.
You must make stoppers of fine grained, very dry Oak, to fit
nicely into the necks which should be ground in the inside a little way so as
to form a nice round hole for the stopper: the stopper should go into the neck
one inch deep, and should leave one inch above the neck.
The globes for multiplication are about two inches in
diameter, with necks three or four inches long and wide enough to admit a
finger.
All the glasses should be made of considerable strength - at
least one eighth of an inch in substance.
SUPPLEMENT
to the foregoing Aphorisms.
If the globes containing the subjects be three, four or more
times electrified in the beginning, before you put them in the bath; so as to
introduce the Electrical Universal principle, or the Universal Spirit of Nature
into the subject by motion, the same spirit in the subject will be greatly
strengthened, the operation will be accelerated and improved, and you will
obtain an increase of the first White salt or sublimate below the Oak stoppers.
Above I have faithfully communicated our Aphorisms.
London 5th April 1797
Sigismund Bacstrom
M.D. F.R.C.
Diplôme d'initiation délivré à Sigismund Bacstrom le 12 septembre 1794
(Collection Manly Palmer Hall)
