by Beat Krummenacher
Reprinted from Issue 20 of The Stone, May-June, 1997.
The designations 'green lion' or 'verdigris' are found in many alchemical works. From the context, it often emerges that with them is meant the vera prima materia to the philosopher's stone, therefore the true first matter, from which is gained the basis to the philosopher's stone by corresponding processing. This raw material is also often concealed under the household name 'vitriol'. Indeed the semantic fields of these household names vary from author to author, so that often it is difficult to recognize what actually is to be understood by it.
The following remarks should serve to throw light into the darkness of this important alchemical theme. For in reality, one can only work successfully who is able to distinguish these household names from each other in their sophisticated meaning and to theoretically and practically understand them.
Many have understood with vitriol (of the philosophers) the common verdigris. They thought they would not need to cook for long to manufacture the philosopher's stone from it. Only, such practitioners have then cooked longer than they could live, or they have enjoyed from their soup and might have died awfully...
'Verdigris' is a translation from the Latin and originates from 'viride Hispanus', Spanish green. This was the name of an imported inorganic green dye from Spain in the Middle Ages. Then, common synonyms were: Span green, copper green, copper rust, aciniar, viride aeris, flos aeris, fiza, viride prassium and many more. It dealt with green colored copper salts, mostly with basic acetates, also often with sulphates.
Today, one understands with 'verdigris' a poisonous green cover, emerging under the influence of atmospheric oxygen and vinegar fumes on copper or brass, which thus chemically consists of copper acetates. With it the present meaning deviates from the earlier only insignificantly.
The verdigris used in alchemy was often equated with 'vitriol', but has nothing in common with the ordinary verdigris. Was the alchemical vitriol perhaps the 'vitriolum Romanum' of the drugstores? The alchemists often said that their matter is to be gotten cheaply and simply. This salt, the similarly green copper sulphate, had an important significance in the Middle Ages. And because it was often confused with the related verdigris due to its color and characteristics, it is hardly astonishing that many searched for the 'veram primam materiam' in the 'vitriolo Romano'. Is the answer perhaps to be found in the word 'vitriol'?
The present understanding of the household name 'vitriol' unfortunately brings no enlightenment, because one understands with it iron sulphate as a rule, or in further meaning all bivalent metal sulphates. The derivation of the word is taken from the Latin 'vitrum' (glass). One assumes the introduction of the household name 'vitriol' for such greenish salts because crystalline iron vitriol resembles pieces of broken green glass. 'Roman vitriol' (vitriolum Romanum) was mostly especially called this, cohered with it, as this sort counted as the best green one. It was mainly used for dyeing and consisted basically of iron vitriol, to which alum (potassium aluminium sulphate) was often added. Roman vitriol was identified in the pharmacies and in the Frankfurt's fair list of 1582 as pectone, therefore it was gained through the evaporation of naturally occurring vitriol solutions. Besides that, the 'Goslaric vitriol' or 'German vitriol' was also widely used. This contains, besides its main constituent of iron vitriol, still further metal sulphates.
With it the matter becomes always more complicated, as now we already have a whole palette of applicants for the vitriol of the philosophers. Helpful in the search for the mysterious substance is the conscious enclosure 'of the philosophers' by the alchemists. With it they clearly mark that their vitriol is not the vitriol 'of the common', but that 'of the philosophers', thus it surely cannot be identical with 'Roman' or 'Goslaric' vitriol and/or verdigris in any composition. Likewise, it clearly emerges from this, that the Green Lion can not be iron copper vitriol, as Manfred Junius has taught in his courses.
Then,
what was or is the genuine vitriol of the alchemists? We are led more closely to
an understanding by trying to understand the meaning of the word 'vitriol'. 'Vitriolum'
is a contraction of the initial letters of the following Latin sentence: Visita
Interiora Terrae Rectificando Inveniens
Occultum Lapidem Veram Medicinam.
Or in one of the possible translations: "See in the interior of the
purified earth, and you will find the secret stone, the true medicine".
Thus vitriol was a code name for the original substance of the philosopher's stone. It should also become understandable with it, that verdigris or common types of vitriol are not the true Vitriol of the Philosophers. This becomes clearer still, if one takes seriously the warnings of fair alchemists, who wrote there among others: "You must take in our work the vitriol of the philosophers, and not the common".
The household name 'vitriol' stands therefore not only synonymously for the Green Lion of the philosophers as a substance, but it is also a symbol for the whole process of the operis magni. This illustrates a copy of the text of the Tabula Smaragdina (Figure 1), stamped among others in: Secret figures of the Rosicrucians of the 16th and 17th century, Altona 1785, p. 17. It concerns a circular emblem, which simplistically reproduces the process to the philosopher's stone, around whose edge the cited Latin sentence winds itself. By the way, it is typical in alchemical works, that the same household name was widely pulled near for different matters or process steps, and conversely an individual matter or process step was illustrated with different names. The alchemists had consciously chosen this action "to forbid the unworthy the access to alchemy", as they said.
Many have thought the alchemists wanting to point to a green salt with vitriol. Thus it only was understandable and obvious to hold verdigris and copper salts, among others, as being the vitriol. The synonymous household name 'green lion' for the Vitriol of the Philosophers points to it also. But this also is misleading. Let us hear what is said about it in Hermes Trismegistus' True Old Natural Way: "The green lion: With green they want to indicate its growth. They call it however allegorically a lion due to its power and intensity, because it is able to kill and to murder everything".
Thus common verdigris or vitriol is not the Vitriol of the Philosophers or their Green Lion, also not the vera prima materia of the alchemists.
In fact, it is still more complicated. For with Vitriol of the Philosophers the alchemists marked - taken literally - not only one important substance for the opus magnum, but their two:
Take a matter out of nature, which the sages have shown you and which is called 'materia remota', 'materia cruda' etc. Thereby, it concerns a mineral which is still quite easily obtained today. Work up this mineral until you arrive at a salt, which is marked as 'first vitriol of the philosophers'. This first dissolution is mostly colorless or easily yellowish. Rarely, it can actually appear greenish- to green-colored, according to the origin of the minerals used. The quite laborious processing steps of the materia remota lead to the purification of the crude earth, thus it is spoken of the 'terra rectificando'.
Then one must see in to the interior of the purified earth. Another formulation of the essential reaction step, which should be indicated with it, is the following: "Sweep the interior to the outside", or more concretely: "Learn to transform the vitriol into a fluid and an oil through the application of fire". One receives as a product an easily volatile, combustible spirit, the so-called 'spirit of philosophical wine'. This is compared to the ordinary spirit of wine, because it owns similar characteristics, however it is called 'philosophical', since it is much more penetrating. Furthermore one receives further reaction products, which often are marked as 'philosophical vinegar'. Basil Valentine in the chapter 'About vinegar' writes of it: "... I however must announce you this, that this is not the vinegar of the philosophers, for our vinegar is another drink. Namely, the matter itself, for the philosopher's stone is made from the azoth of the philosophers, which must be prepared and be brought in a certain order through the common distilled azoth, also the spirit of wine and other waters before".
Thus the processing of the first vitriol leads to the 'spirit of philosophical wine' and the 'philosophical vinegar'. After that, different salts are treated with their help, whereupon the 'second green vitriol of the philosophers' is first gained, often truly in the form of a salt.
The reversal of this second vitriol of the philosophers reveals the concealed nature inside there, in the form of the 'philosophical mercury' and the 'philosophical sulphur'. The mercury appears as a pale to yellowish, often milky clouded fluid (lac virginis), the sulphur as a ruby-red oil, called 'blood of the green lion' or 'our philosophical sulphur'. If one finally has together with it both the material foundations of the great work, so the rest is a pure work of nature and not especially more difficult, even if the following process of the mild boiling in the hermetic vessel after the addition of the silver and/or gold ferment may still last for months. In the end the philosopher's stone will be received as the culmination of the whole work, which additionally is the universal elixir or the true medicine of the philosophers.
Considering the above-mentioned remarks, it will be easier to read the texts of the alchemists in their true light. Each may strike it lucky who seriously searches for the true vitriol of the philosophers!