P.O.N. Seminars 1992

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Theory - The Metallic Work

Lecturer: Jean Dubuis
Translator: Patrice Malézé
Commentary by Russ House is indicated as [RH: ...]

Warning: Safety in Practical Alchemy please read this notice from The Philosophers of Nature

And particularly we will start with the work of Nicolas Flamel. Because we think that in the modern world it is probably the most practical. We didn't say it's the only one, but it's the easiest. The less dangerous. (comment from the side from Yves Arbez). Here Jean makes a jest and says: "If you don't have half a dozen explosions, you're not an alchemist."

We will explain part of the work of the path we are on, but if some are interested we can speak of it Sunday. But the practical works we are going to do now, and the device is what we are going to explain now. We think that the easiest way of the metallic (work) is the way of the animated mercury, and in fact for the animated mercury there are only two paths. One in which Flamel, Paracelsus, Philalethes, ----- etc., all these people with very few differences have made the same way. It's said from this work the only way ---- because it's a very fast way, but very horribly fast (laughs). We will study the safety issues on this, and this is why we are not speaking of it now. This is very dangerous.

This is what we will ---- (start out with?). This is a classical operation. First of all we need a furnace to separate the stibnite from the free sulphur, from the antimony and gangue in the beginning and scoria. We are very lucky people and we have seen that there is very little scoria in the ore. If you don't separate the scoria the crucibles wear, the work is longer, and above all you cannot get the golden seed - it's practically impossible. [RH: Stibnite is an ore, native antimony trisulphide. The ore used in the seminar was from Bolivia and was unusually pure.]

For separating we have made a furnace and we will show you what one can do. The operations are not very hard to do - we will do once ----- and Russ House will charge ten dollars for everybody who wants to work on it (jest) (Russ) It's a royalty from ? (discussion in French).

First of all you crush the stibnite and we will show you the proper dimensions for that. When the stibnite has been crushed you sort it into smaller and smaller pieces, the advantage of this is first of all because melted stibnite falls into purified distilled water, and you can here find some very interesting sulfur in other ---- it comes down in ball size and you don' t have to crush it again.

You will see this in the process of the experiment. Once you have the purified stibnite you melt it and the stibnite is reduced to Regulus. Another advantage of this process: the stibnite is better calibrated in percentage and then the mixtures ---- with the salt is easier to do. Because with the reduction to Regulus, we have to add iron to the stibnite, potassium nitrate and red tartar or sodium potassium tartrate. For beginners it's better not to use red powder [RH: i.e., red tartar], cause red powder will bring you to the first explosion. (Laughs).

For those of you that don't know - with the tartar, stibnite and potassium nitrate you will have a powder, which is gunpowder. At this first pouring [RH: of the molten regulus and the liquified salts into a metal cone for cooling] you absolutely keep the scoria. [RH: the first scoria are nearly black, and consist of iron sulfide mixed with other impurities.] Put them in a glass flask and let them breath the air one month. And there is a very energetic ---- because it's from this scoria that you can get the auric seed purified with the ammonium salt. This auric seed will be useful in a later process.

So we get the martial Regulus. The martial Regulus is a solution of iron and antimony. It's not alloy, so iron must not be put in excess. In the meantime do not use powder, use nails, small nails. For the fusion of the Regulus put simply some nitrate and, for instance, put 12 nails. When the melting is complete, you separate with a hammer the scoria from the Regulus. Examine and count the nails. If you find the twelve nails from the beginning, that means the Regulus is saturated, if the nails are worn or partially disappeared, make another purification with twelve new nails and fill the crucible. After that we melt with one teaspoon full of potassium nitrate. With the hammer we break the form because the successive fusions with potassium nitrate weds them with the life of antimony.[RH: perhaps the translator intended to say 'nails' rather than 'hammer', since the iron breaks the crystalline form of the antimony as seen in the next sentence.]

Because when life is awakened you get a different level of antimony, from here on it crystallizes according to this level. It's the hexagonal (form) and it's the star you can see in the Regulus. And if you listen to the news, it's the star. Because the star here depending on the salt there, the Regulus as a star cannot go further than the white stone. Later on, you want to work on the red stone, once the white stone will be done, you must go on with the basic? -----, melt the antimony with pressure, break what comes out of the form, examine the crystalline network, and you will see in the lecture we will do on crystals that the antimony comes back up level by level.

A good bit of antimony takes the cubic form on level three. Once you have reached the cubic formation, stop all operations. This is the (alchemical gold?). [RH: perhaps 'goal'.] The cubic network is in the lower part of Binah. If you keep going and go up and up, the (transpurity?) will lead surely to an explosion. Then if we want we redistill or recirculate something that has reached this level you can do the white stone. You can stop here or there (points to chart). We will take the operation further: Once you have the Regulus done you mix it with silver. You have here Lunar Regulus. It's done this way because energy cannot be transferred by jumping a level, in other words, animated mercury will have the energy of level 8, Hod or mercury. The transfer is impossible if you don't go through Yesod. In a practical way there is a two and a half or a fourth of silver of white stone in the philosophers sky. [RH: 'Philosophers' Sky' refers to the text 'Coelum Philosophorum' by Ulstadius, not to be confused with the text of the same name by Paracelsus.]

In this occult operation when we heat too much and we stop, there is a great reduction so that there is not enough of the Regulus in the alloy. A practical sign of this is when you're hammering (the hammer is a very useful tool in alchemy) the Lunar Regulus, you must be able to break it with a hammer. If you cannot there is too much silver in it. Now what's not lost, add some Regulus and reflux [RH: melt again] once it's here and there (points to chart) the Martial Lunar Regulus. I may have forgotten something that's not in the program but you may consider in the three realms alchemists consider that life is the same, and in the three elemental kingdoms life is electromagnetic in the mineral, animal, and vegetable kingdoms. And the Martial Regulus has a electromagnetic life. The electric life is assured from antimony and the iron assumes the magnetic (life).

So when you (need?) bring that life here you need the iron - an electromagnetic life - that will allow the Regulus to go further. I'll go over this problem once again because the transfer of energy can be done in alchemy only through (the) liquid state. It is when the ---- that the energy goes from 10 - 9. And anyway you must pass through number 9 because the only way to advance forward in mercury is in a liquid state. You form an amalgam. And normally antimony and mercury will not amalgamate. The Lunar Regulus amalgamates with mercury.You get this. (Jean shows a Lunar Regulus.)

And then the metallic energy is a living matter. Antimony is an immortal - for reasons which will be explained later on. So it's the only metal you can melt and it will not lose its life. Since its life is immortal and it's the only one - it can be transferred in the mercury, so if you distill this amalgam that you see here, you will have an animated mercury.

We will show you this operation - you distill it, the animated mercury and there is life - and we will let the metallic matter re-evolve. Then we come to the animated mercury, better called the sophic mercury or double mercury. There is a little ---- in the kingdom here ----.

Earlier we said that the Regulus must move up step by step in energy. Similarly, we will have to make this step by step energy (transfer). This is what's called the distillation of the eagles. One eagle means the new Lunar Regulus. Already an animated mercury amalgam reaches a certain level. Redistill, at every cycle the life of the mercury raises. It's said ---- from 7 to ten eagles - this is a trick - if you do that it will blow (explode) because the mercury comes to unity. [RH: The life of antimony on level 10 transfers through silver, on level 9, into mercury at level 8. The distillations, or eagles, transfer the life up one level at a time. At some point, they reach the space/time boundary at level 3. Jean explains that further distillation creates an explosion as the matter reaches a state of 'unity'.] If the seven eagles were done properly it will separate the mercury fluid and it will be allowed to animate the (gold?)

The earliest path necessitates to understand and to know qabala (Jean moves to chart). Here we have Malkuth. We have the energy come back to Yesod and Hod (mercury) then we have the animated mercury - We can go through this way (here Jean points along path 31 of Shin) instead of going through number 9. It's the path 31 in qabala, it's the Path of Fire and the experiment on this path is very dangerous.

I'll give you just a hint: You start with the Butter of Antimony and as the ancients said, dunked it with acid of sea salt called muriatic acid, and when it's alive they say acid of the sea salt. Sea salt acid. The Fire that's included in the sea salt allows us to take path 31. The intermediate is the corrosive sublimate that's one of the best poisons on earth. The advantage of this work is for reasons that will be explained to you. (They) will be detailed, you know that there, right from the beginning. In the butter of antimony way the eagles are not necessary. (Avoid this path) if you're not a very careful chemist. A beginner should not try this path. We are trying to eliminate all dangers, but we have not solved every problem. And when we have the animated mercury, the proper animated mercury, practically all of the work is done. You now have the choice of several starts.

You can make a cinnabar with the animated mercury with native sulfur and nothing else, not a sulfur extracted from whatever salt. When you have done the eagles do not distill the last eagle -- there is another path - it's got the Lunar seed and it can by itself can go to the white work by putting it in the incubator. The only way you can see its work, the amalgam will by itself begin growing trees that will grow up along the sides of the vessel. You see the auric seed, the sophic gold.

We will see ---- under certain conditions - so you do this two ways, you have to make a Venusian Lunar Regulus. And once you have done a proper Lunar Regulus you put 20% powder of copper, and you do the same process as for the Lunar Regulus. This is Nicolas Flamel's work etc. ---- it will be presented by this man there (points to Yves Arbez) and he will give all these operations.

Any questions on this?

Q. Hans Nintzel - "Is antimony associated with Malkuth?."

A. Yes.

Q. ------- Not easily heard. A question about using commercially prepared stibnite or antimony regulus.

A. You will not have the auric seed. You cannot kill antimony. (discussion) I will explain under another aspect why antimony is immortal - another perception. The beginning energy which animates things in fact comes from the Black Suns, (which) we will speak of later.

And it starts by coming down from unity. We will not ---- the mineral kingdom, the vegetable kingdom. Life is kept in the crystalline network, it saturates the cubic network at (level) 3. When it has saturated the cubic matrix it starts falling down from level 4, and it saturates the sephirotic levels. But something must be understood, that it comes down from 3 (Binah), and the aspects of 3 will not be completely eliminated at 4 (Chesed). The energy that remains in 3 or in 4 will be in every level. The energy, little by little acquires the resonance of this level. It goes down, if there is no crystalline network - the metallic energy sets to antimony for reasons that will be explained afterwards. For instance if you melt 7 (copper) you --- copper here - is on the earth level. But it's charged with level 7 copper (Netzach). When you melt it you've destroyed the crystalline network, the energy is set free, (released?), (liberated?), and it returns to its level.

Since it's an invisible work it becomes inaccessible, and from the alchemical point of view the ore is dead. This is why the ancients said that all melted metals are dead. But the antimony here - is accustomed to the energy to the level of the earth - because it is from the metals of the earth. And when you melt it, the energy stays here (earth/ Malkuth). Since in its energy all the colors were in it, we can bring the energy back up again. We can go up level by level.

Q. If melting the metals kills the ore, at what state or point will mercury be destroyed and brought (turned) into liquid?

A. It's dead. It's always dead. It becomes animated because we transfer in it the fixed life of antimony - it's the only metal on which you can work. If you want to have level 8 energy in mercury you can have it in the ore which is cinnabar. For this you take a mercury from the mineral world that's not a mercury and it's something very difficult to work with. That means you can make a cinnabar - if you do this you don't use mercury - you use A mercury. We'll go further with the explanation.

Energy dwells within the crystalline network. This be kept with the mercury of the kingdom, in the vegetable kingdom, the vegetable mercury is an element that must be able to take all these vegetable energies. We will explain this when we will speak of the Mendeleiev table. But the vegetable mercury must have carbon, and oxygen, and nitrogen. The mercury in the metallic work is much more complex because it must have sulfur in it. And if you come to work with something like this it is very dangerous to work with.

Q. Once we have the Regulus and we want to make the lunar starry Regulus, is there a method which requires melting the solar first and adding the Regulus to it as a powder, or is the some other method?.

A. In France you can take money (a coin) some of them are alloys between copper and silver, and you have everything from the first time. (Laughs.) If you want to go back to the different levels for every metal, it takes between 100 and 200 grams of silver. And it's no problem if the silver is dead, because it's just a medium. It's life is dead -----. It's called the Dead doves of Diana. We will show you if we have no technical problems. It's a mixture of two dead metals, silver - that's giving its life, and the Regulus that gave its life. But since silver is ------ you put all of this in the crucible at about 800 C with no lid on the crucible and possibly a tube that would bring air to the crucible and it is left open, it [RH: the antimony in the mixture] will form an oxide and transform into white fumes. The silver won't leave. Apparently when no fumes will come over and the silver is in a steel form in a strange way to have the density - the density exceeds (tenfold?). The silver can be used for eagle no. 2 or any other eagle.

This white smoke that comes from the fusion you can keep. It's what Basil Valentine calls the flowers of antimony. But there's not very much use of it, because these flowers are dead considering that life has been taken through the amalgam, it has been poured through mercury. (Patrice: Now Jean has no use for it - it's worthless.)

We will answer a few questions - and afterward we will go have a practical showing of it. This is the auric seed extracted with ammonium chloride (Jean passes it around), a very tough work.

I have tried to do three or four other processes - up to now there is no other process. Up to now, I have not found any better process for extracting the auric seed. For those who have never seen this one - here is a Regulus - that's not quite - there's very little star but it's in between - it's here (Patrice points to chart) at Tiphareth. It's not dangerous to touch it - but you have to wash your hands afterwards, because antimony is relatively toxic.

Q. This man was asking - When you reach the amalgam with copper etc?

A. Copper is another way. There is the Lunar way and there is the Venusian way. (not an alloy - it was an alloy?) Copper melts like sugar in coffee. Always put a lid on the crucible except in the case of ----- antimony evaporates very easily ------ plus the danger of the fumes.

Q. (Question can't be heard.)

A. We won't be able to make an alloy with the P.O.N. furnaces. This gentleman was asking about what not to do in order to not make an alloy. It's no problem because with this kind of furnace we will not be able to make one (alloy).

Copper is relatively very solid. If you take 15 - 20% copper, the value will be + 30% and once it doesn't boil anymore you pour it. For those who have no experience, you must never pour it in the steel form if the nitrate is still glowing over the metal. Everything must be quiet in the crucible - before pouring in the metal form.

Q. What form is the copper. Is it an ore, or powdered metal or what?

A. Patrice: Any kind of form will do. He (Jean) uses electrical wire. If you use a very pure copper of electrical wire.

Q. Regarding the auric seed in the ammonium. Is it done by sublimation of the powder?

A. First of all when you have the deliquescence of the scoria you can filter this or keep it all - if you see the deliquescence it means that the seed is in it. And then you put everything in a frying pan - the seed, the scoria, and the ammonium chloride mixed in the frying pan and a lid on top of it. The frying pan should be made of glass, a glass pan you know - corning ware - you apply heat until the sublimations are done.

Q. (Question can't be heard clearly. It relates to how much antimony is needed to complete the work)

A. It depends on the ratio again. (Jean points to Yves) that's his job.

----- Animated Mercury you must start with at least 500 to 600 grams of mercury to take into account what is lost. It takes two kilos of lunar Regulus. ------ the seed. Two kilos of Regulus when you start - especially the first time when you heat a lot, you lose a lot of antimony.

Q. This is then approximately 10 kilos of starting material ore for each eagle?

A. No - You have 7 eagles done first - you have 10 kilos for all 7 eagles - not the first time. (Laughs.)

Q. Is it necessary to have the star appear in the Regulus?

A. As long as there is no star it's not alive. The life has not been animated in it ------ you have not done the fusions and have not taken a good look, and we have not seen it. A standard 60 degree angle shows you've been over the star.

Q. Is it possible that the star can appear by an undulation of the hammer?

A. This doesn't make any difference; if the level of energy is not there in the antimony you can bang as much as you want and it (the star) won't come.

Q. For those of us that can't get stibnite, we use Sb2S3 and the mercury, can we get the auric seed afterwards? For instance if we were to go to a rock shop and find a chunk ---- could we use that?

A. Well, if you're rich enough you can buy native gold and it's another way of doing it. You can get it from marcasite. Marcasite will do the job.

Q. How much animated mercury will (dissolve) break the gold down?

A. This is his job! (points to Yves Arbez)

Q. How can we see when the Lunar or Venusian Regulus is well done?

A. As for the Martial (Regulus) you get the star, and when you do the lunar ---- I don't know (Patrice's comment) ------. If you don't know that you're on the right path, you take just a bit of your animated mercury, put in the incubator at 90 C during a month. Distill the animated mercury nearly to the end when there's only 15-20 drops left. You try to have a solution or a (test tube?) ---- go to the neighbors backyard - take a torch, with the tube and heat until dry. If you succeeded, there is often gold in the mercury. (Jean draws a test tube) Here on the tube wall there is a red deposit ------ and it means you have the gold. [RH: The joke is that you distill the mercury into the air in a neighbor's yard, not in your own.]

Jean has tried with 150 grams of animated mercury and he got 25 milligrams of gold, estimated. (Laughs.)

Would you like me to repeat it? Just the one statement, because it was confusing. O.K. Out of 150 grams animated mercury he got 25 milligrams, estimated 25 milligrams, of gold, opened gold. The Philosophers Sky (Coelum Philosophorum) says that it's the first matter and to get a stone weighing a kilo is a lot of work. It's not a proper formula, it's just a control (test) to see if you are on the right track.

Q. Did you say that that's (drawing of test tube) a red powder or actually a red gold?

A. No. A red powder, that's deposited on the wall (of the test tube), and to get it you have to put some (aqua regia?). If it were copper you would just pour in some hydrochloric or nitric acid. The nitric acid effects every metal except gold, so you can try it for these ------.

Q. And precipitate that to get the gold?

A. Yes.

Q. In many texts the Regulus is called many things, but one in particular - the salt of nature - is that an accurate description?

A. They offer the name 'Wolf' , the 'Alchemist', many names etc. We don't read anymore, we forgot!

Q. Sorry. Is there any particular reason why it might be called salt or philosophical mercury?

A. This may be found in a closed expo called dry and one for wet. You may speak of it ------ This man (Yves) says you are true (right) in some books they call it salt. (pause).

These are words invented by library alchemists just as doctors make up words for illnesses they cannot cure. (Laughs.)

Very workable and useful, I have come a bit on my own, on the relation between alchemy, energy, and qabala, the energies. And after that I can confirm this same thing. The best book by far on the animated mercury is the manuscript - it is the manuscript called The Book of Abraham the Jew, in which exists a parallel between alchemy and qabala. [RH: this is the Denis Molinier manuscript in the Bibliothèque Nationale of Paris]. And it's entirely clearly put. The second book is the Sky of the Philosophers and the version comes from Nintzel in the United States (Coelum Philosophorum) The Heaven of the Philosophers.

And there is a third book which he (Jean) finds good. The manuscript of John Dee. This exists in a public library in France, we have a copy of it. Three or four people are studying it naturally --- it's a very different book - because it's an operative book on both alchemy and qabala. For instance we see that the element Fire does not fix, he puts this in the cabalistic oratory and on the appropriate day at the appropriate time - calls the planetary genius of this level and gives him the order to charge the product. I have looked at the book, but I am very careful. It gives the way to make 2 or 3 very powerful products - but I think that if you don't have 30 years of qabala and 30 years of alchemy, don't touch it. I'm sorry, it's not clearly written anyway - it's not understandable - I think some elements are clear and some can work on it. --------

Patrice: Jean is the author of the lessons, but, he is tired (laughs) and he doesn't mind repeating what he says, but it gets on his nerves. (Laughs.)

O.K. (Marc Gerald Cibard) Lets make a break - and we will split into three groups so we can give the experiments a try.