Table of contents hide 1 Alchemy considers dew as a precious liquid from which the universal spirit can be extracted and used as a powerful medicine. 2 The secret fire of water 3 Universal medicine 3.1 By: Alejandro De Pourtales 4 The ancient alchemical art of collecting dew

Alchemy considers dew as a precious liquid from which the universal spirit can be extracted and used as a powerful medicine.

Alchemy is the science of transforming things using the conduit of nature. Rather than transforming metals, alchemists sought to transform themselves according to the principles of universal harmony: the symbolic and symbiotic relationship between heaven and earth.

Among the various techniques used within this great art, dew collection has a privileged place, both for its importance in obtaining a universal medicine and for its poetic refining. It is within what is known as "Spagyria", the "art of separating and joining" or "plant alchemy", which is rooted in the practice of going out to the field, especially in spring, to collect the dew of the dawn of the grass or of certain plants (like the mantle of the virgin or Alchemilla), with the particular influence of the moon.

Alchemy, in its former fortress, is coded with symbols and makes the same nature a living symbol - so that the correspondences emanate a certain energy or a certain influence that can be used to operate changes in the natural world. Metaphors are used to hide secrets but also as a power of connection between meaning and a magnetic action - the articulation of a language that reflects the enchantment of matter. This is the case of dew, also known as "celestial water" or "philosophical silver" and whose power comes from both its natural energy and its symbolic agency.

Since the origin of human philosophy the air has been related to the spirit. The etymology tells us a lot about it, both the word "soul" and the word "spirit" are born from words that mean "breath" or "breath." Also from the Greek heritage we have the word "pneuma" which means "spirit" as well as "air." In Sanskrit the term "akasa" means ether, and it is both space itself and the spirit that permeates space and inherent memory. to space. Also in Hinduism, the vital force or "prana" is identified with the air and is, of course, obtained by breathing. It is part of our collective unconscious to associate the air with the spirit - we also say that creativity occurs as an inspiration - and believe that life somehow reaches the earth from heaven or that the spirit descends on its radiant scale.

Dew in alchemy is the condensation of that celestial spirit. Moisture with cold condenses in drops of water. This transformation, of the humid air that permeates a water drop surface, occurs due to radiation, especially on clear nights where infrared radiation predominates over solar radiation (and in alchemical terms the influence of the moon and stars). This infrared radiation but also of cosmic rays and other ranges of invisible light permeate the atmosphere of the energy of the cosmos, which materializes fleetingly in the dew: an instant that encompasses the light. Perhaps because of this, or because the air has an electric charge, it is aptly said in alchemy that dew carries the "secret fire" and as such is a perfect sphere: the conjunction of opposites, water and fire. The dewdrop, either literally or symbolically, is the pristine incarnation of the spirit, the first visible manifestation of what is unlimited power, in a state in which it still preserves its purity. Reflecting light, dew is a drop of spirit, a transparent lightning or the surface of the sky on a leaf: a microcosmic synthesis of the universe.

Traditionally dew drops are collected in the spring, on nights when the moon moves from crescent to full moon . This, to capture the energy of rebirth that contains dew at this time in reflection of the fertilizing process of nature. The spagyric doctor Yabir Abu Omar, which El País calls "an alchemist in the 21st century, " describes the process of collecting dew, a fundamental product for working his medicine. To pick up the morning dew you leave with mops and glass bottles (clean of chemicals) in a place known as the Alfaguara. "You have to spread large linen canvases on the grasslands of the meadows that will gradually be soaked with dew, " this with great stealth so that the sun does not touch the collected water and alter the lunar properties of the dew. To avoid this, the water is squeezed into the canvases and transferred to double-sealed containers. A good collection can deliver up to 300 kilos of dew whose value is incalculable since in its salts lies “the universal spirit”.

The secret fire of water

There is a mysterious relationship in the dew that reflects a secret of alchemy. This spring water that is collected is also the “fire of nature” that cooks the seeds in the earth, giving rise to greenness and imbuting plants with life. About this we can read in the Al-Kemi alchemy blog:

Spray fire can be understood on several levels. First, it is the energy of the rising heat of the Sun [the sun moving towards its own fullness in the solstice]. Second, the dew is the carrier of Nitre, the vital force of the air, which Sendivogius described when he wrote a secret nourishment of life in the air. Paracelsus called this “vital” the Azoth, the aerial Nitre that the Sun transmits to the Earth through the waters of the sky. Paracelsus and other alchemists also connected this Nitre with the most literal physical nitro, commonly called potassium nitrate, present in the dew.

Potassium nitrate is a powerful fertilizer that occurs naturally and is used in chemical fertilizers. Its molecular transformation capacity allows it to release pure oxygen when it is heated: thus the inventor Cornelius Drebbel was able to keep his crew alive in the first submarine in 1620. Truly the Nitre became a in the vital force to cross the chasms.

The Nitre as the dew is air and water about to become earth with a hidden fire? is in a transitory state of great power and subtlety, almost ethereal, the evanescent point between the physical and the non-physical. This is how it provides both a physical and an ethereal fire and gives life to the water it carries, to transfer that life to the earth as well. Nitre's special fire can be transferred to other substances in the laboratory, so the spray is used to revive dead substances and accelerate the force in many operations.

Alchemy, despite having the reputation of pseudoscience, is the source of many of the scientific discoveries of our day que that modern science does not recognize in part because they occurred in more contexts Static and under a language loaded with esoteric symbolism. The Polish alchemist Sendivogius discovered that air was a compound substance that contained a substance life-giving, which was later called oxygen, 170 years before Scheele and Priestly . Sendivogius calls this Nitre Central or Salt Central, a kind of protognical universal matter. Salt, it is important to mention, in alchemy does not refer to salt (sodium chloride), it is a broader acceptance of the three main properties of the universe (which are also philosophical principles). Graphics), salt, sulfur and mercury (or the body, soul and spirit). These substances within all substances (a kind of atoms) are also linked to the elements and are combined or balanced to produce medicines in Spagyria. Sendivogius wrote about Nitre:

The pure salt of the Earth, called nitre, is formed in the boiler. This can then be dissolved and concentrated, purified and rinsed, until it becomes brightly transparent and crystalline. Then it acquires the nitre name of the philosophical earth, our salt, which stands in the sea of ​​the world, WATER THAT DOES NOT WET HANDS, without which nothing in this world can be born or come into existence. So you have in your hands the secret of the Philosophers and the source of spring, or the hiding place of Nature. It is in this spirit that the aforementioned Spirit of Nature and the entire world reside. Both life and health come from this.

In this beautiful description, screened by the art of the philosopher, we can see the impulse shared by the alchemists, to synthesize a universal substance or to obtain the raw material, as if they could sustain a spark or a source of creation itself. A very special jewel, which, however, paradoxically, is more so because it is everywhere: this is the art of concealment of the divine, which for the best hiding penetrates all things, inhabits transparency: like a flame in a drop of water

Universal medicine

Among other interests popularly attributed to alchemists, in addition to finding the philosopher's stone and converting lead into gold, is what is known as the elixir of life and also the fountain of youth . Somehow mock death and the process of degeneration of the body with a balance of the elements, adding mercury, salt, sulfur or looking for the opposite - coniunctio oppositorum -, if you have little water or little fire, resorting to minerals, plants or Even people who have a surplus of this missing element to achieve alchemy in the body's body, solve et coagula . Beyond that alchemy recognized with Hippocrates that "it is more important to know what kind of person has a disease than what type of illness a person has ", there are stories and adventures that mention the search to develop a universal medicine, a panacea or Alkhaest himself, the immortal liquor. The philosopher Eirenaeus Philalethes writes that alkahest can be called "Ignis-Aqua" or flaming water, which has the property of dissolving anything up to the raw material. "It is a noble circulatory salt prepared by wonderful art to respond to the artist's desires" and yet "it is not just any body salt" but "a saline spirit." A salt that is made with the fire of the philosophers, cryptically “the vulgar burns with fire, we with water” (something reminiscent of the last verse of the alchemist's sonnets Wlliam Shakespeare: “love's fire heats water, water cool's not love” ).

Dew - which we have already seen is also "the secret fire of nature" - seems to be an important element, at least for some alchemists, to obtain this "saline spirit" with which the marvelous operations of occult science can be performed . In several ways the dew reminds of a divine liquid or a substance that confers divinity or the attributes of the celestial. Picking up the dew - the drop of condensed air, an Indra pearl or an ichor globule - could somehow be a more subtle technique to steal the fire of the gods. Perhaps a form, secretive and secretive, accepted by the Olympians who, despite being long-lived, decide to turn a blind eye, in that twilight hour where relativity and sleep merge. Dew is in many ways analogous to Amrita, Soma and Mana. Aleister Crowley writes:

In Hindu symbolism, the Amrita or dew of immortality, drips constantly on man, but is burned by the dense fire of his appetites. Yogis try to catch and preserve this dew ...

In the Emerald Table, the text attributed to Hermes Trimegisto, according to tradition the father of alchemy, reads: “His father is the Sun, and his mother the Moon, the Wind carried him in his womb, and his nurse is the Earth". Apparently this refers to the universal spirit that the alchemists try to obtain, after matter has become denser, something that we could identify with a concealment of the subtle in the dense. This symbolic journey of the spirit can also be related to the dew process that we can say is the result of the energy of the Sun and the Moon, and is carried by the wind, to the Earth where it receives the minerals.

In his book The Secret Teachings of All Ages, the great commentator of the world esoteria, Manly P. Hall writes ”According to von Welling, universal salt (in the form of water) is a positive cure for all the sufferings of humanity; it is in all things, but in some things it is easier to obtain than in others, especially this is true of the virgin land; it is the universal solvent, the alkahest ”. Von Welling describes the process to obtain “paradisiacal water” or “celestial mercury water”, which requires preparing a slow fire to heat the dew in the laboratory. Georg Von Welling talks about the miraculous operation, in almost psychedelic terms, which means drinking this water, which seems to contain the entire cosmos:

The time and sacred use of this blessed Water will teach you, as soon as you have taken such an influence it will occur as if all the heavens and the stars with their powers were working on you. All the Knowledge and the Secret Arts will be revealed in you in a dream, but the most excellent thing about this is that you will know perfectly all the creatures in their Nature ...

A description of cosmic proportions that surely refers to the fundamental idea of ​​the hermetic philosophy that the entire universe with its stars and galaxies is reflected in the earth, fits even in a drop of dew. A drop of dew is an orb of perfection, pure power in its luminous transparency. A pearl of the universe, little world . A pearl of the necklace that reflects all the pearls in each. ”For the alchemists, the process of individuation represented by the opus was an analogy of the creation of the world, ” wrote Carl Jung. In a way, dew represents an individual form that recapitulates the creation of the world. Again Manly P. Hall:

A small particle of the Philosopher's Stone, if it is poured on the surface of the water, according to an appendix on the universal salt of Herr von Welling, will immediately begin a process of recapitulation in miniature of the history of the universe, since instantaneously tincture -like the spirits of the Elohim- stir over the body of water. A miniature universe is formed which, according to the philosophers, truly arises from water and floats in the air, in which it passes through all levels of cosmic development and finally disintegrates.

Abjini Arráiz

By: Alejandro De Pourtales

Author's Twitter: @alepholo

Source: www.portalterraluz.com

Blog: www.portalterraluz.wordpress.com

The ancient alchemical art of collecting dew