Alchemical Symbols - Deciphered

ALCHEMICAL BIRD SYMBOLS
(Alchemical Operations Symbolized Through Bird Imagery)

©2011_Dorian Taddei

The following is a sequence of operations symbolized by 4 of the 5 bird symbols used in alchemy as depicted in Michael Maier’s emblematic art (Fig.1) from the 12 Keys of Basil Valentine. This is the 9th key plate. CCW from the top:

➡ RAVEN ➡ WHITE SWAN/GOOSE ➡ MALLARD DUCK/PEACOCK ➡ PHOENIX

The 9th Key of Basil Valentine (1618). Michael Maier [Fig1]

In the alchemical traditions of the renaissance, stages in the alchemical process of preparing the Elixir of Life were often depicted using birds as symbols. There are five stages (used to represent the processes used in making the philosopher’s stone), and the last bird represents the desired result.

IIn the alchemical traditions of the renaissance, stages in the alchemical process of preparing the Elixir of Life were often depicted using birds as symbols. There are usually four stages of the Great Work depicted, and the fifth bird symbolizes the work completed.

In the Michael Maier emblematic art above, the fourth stage (represented by the Pelican) is missing. This absence is due to this being a depiction of the 9th Key, the production of the Green Dragon elixir, and therefore the Pelican — a symbol generally used in depicting the processes of Red Dragon (or gold) elixir manufacturing — would not be needed. I explain this further below.

The Pelican can also be used to depict a fourth stage even in the Green Dragon elixir preparation, but Michael Maier appears either not to think it was important to mention this stage, perhaps for the sake of emblematic symmetry, he eliminated it. I have taken the liberty of putting it into the sequential description of operations.

Stage 1: Raven or Crow (Color: black)
The Raven (also symbolized by the Crow) represents the beginning of the great work of alchemy. This was the stage known as Calcination (dry process), the process of whereby ‘prima materia’ ore was oxidized without acids. Calcining raises the temperature or an ore to nearly that of its melting point, but never reaches it.

It was also described in alchemical texts as a blackening (Nigredo) and also the term Putrefaction is used. One might think of Putrefaction as a principle, and Calcination as the means to that end. Calcination (step 1 of the oxidation process, as it was practiced in the absence of strong acid) was often pictured using the imagery of the death’s head (caput mortuum). Some emblematic art depicts this process by showing an alchemist dying within a flask.

In the symbol of the Raven we have the purification of the base prima materia — containing the active ingredient the Sulfur, trapped within the inert mineral Salt — through death and subsequent rebirth. As death among living things facilitates the separation of the spirit from the physical body — so through Putrefaction the Sulfur (the quinta essentia) is freed from the Salt in which it is trapped.

Stage 2: Swan or Goose (Color: white)
The next stage, was symbolized by a Swan of white Goose. In the alchemical traditions this white Swan represents the final separation of the active principle of Sulfur (the quinta essentia) from its alchemical Salt, through the process of Dissolution, which begins with a putrefying fire, then employs some form of acid to complete oxidation, and ends with metal ions in water. This is symbolized in our decipherment of the N Mojave formula for Amrita, with the “Dissolution using Acid” symbol.

Dissolution was a purifying phase of the alchemical process. Powerful mineral acids can be used instead of Calcination using fire (as we use today), but anciently Sal Ammoniac (ammonium chloride) was used as a mild oxidizer to finish the job begun in the Calcination process of the alchemist’s ovens.

Naturally our symbolic bird is a White Swan for it represents the Putrefaction of the alchemist’s solution, and so it is also included under this stage. The black (Nigredo) calcined rock appeared to magically undergo a resurrection, from death (Caput Mortuem) to life, becoming soluble and disappearing. Any residual metallic salts not soluble in water would precipitate generally as a white material.

Especially in ancient times, the Putrified prima materia underwent Dissolution in a solution of sal ammoniac and distilled water. As this ammonia chloride purified the solution containing the alchemical Sulfur, the volatility of sal ammoniac insured that the dissolved ammonia would separate itself from the water as a gas, gracefully rising into the air as a Swan.

Stage 3: Mallard Duck/Peacock (rainbow hued)
The Green Dragon elixirs (the first of two major stages in the production of the lapis philosophorum) were made using dolomitic limestone. Among the metals found in conjunction with Ca (calcium) and Mg (magnesium) in dolomite, are manganese and iron, and additionally, copper (often as malachite, but also as pure copper veins) and zinc can be found as ores in the proximity of dolomite deposits. The alchemist would take the solution of chlorides resulting from the first stages of his process (using Sal Ammoniac), and add to this sodium hydroxide (lye) or potassium hydroxide (potash). As these powerful bases reduced the magnesium ions to hydroxides, other metals present — such as manganese and copper — would pass through numerous oxidation states as well, producing vivid color changes.

These Oxidation stages were symbolized in alchemy by the appropriate imagery of the peacock's tail, or the colors of a mallard (male) duck’s plumage, with their brilliant, iridescent colors. However, in the renaissance in Europe (far from lands where the peacocks symbology was developed — where peacocks were indigenous), alchemists like Michael Maier substituted another bird, the Mallard (or wild drake) duck.

Stage 4 (missing): [COAGULATION & FIXATION] The Pelican (red on white / green & red)
In some examples of alchemical emblematic art the Pelican was shown stabbing its breast with its beak and nourishing its young with its own blood. Blood is universally recognized as that which sustains life. The quinta essentia likewise vitalizes and extends the life of man.

Just as the Pelican stores and carries fish in its pouched bill, so the hydroxide floc becomes the carrier for the quinta essentia. OMMPA di-atoms cannot be combined with other substances and so cannot be precipitated out of solution. Hence, OMMPAs need to be trapped. This is why the Pelican, with its long fluffy white flight feathers, and large throat pouch — used in catching prey and draining water from the scooped up contents before swallowing — represents the de-watering of hydroxide floc after Coagulation.

The bills, pouches and bare facial skin of all species become brightly colored before the breeding season. its was a perfect symbol for the colored oxidation stages (of other metal salts present in the ores used for the alchemical processes) giving way to the white hydroxide floc which holds the alchemical Sulfur (aka quinta essentia) within its sponge-like structure. Hence, this stage of the alchemical process was called Fixation.

Hydroxide floc was often depicted in alchemical emblematic art and is always mistaken for clouds. In the famous Opus Medico Chymicum (1618) by Johann Daniel Mylius, both the Lunar female (Green Dragon) and Solar male (Red Dragon) figures are depicted chained to unusual-looking clouds which form around the geometric center (also containing bird imagery), and do not float in the sky as the other clouds do. These are not clouds, but represent the fluffy cloud-like hydroxide floc.

Engraving made by Matthaus Merian for Opus Medico Chymicum (1618 - Johann Daniel Mylius) [Fig.2]

Stage 5: The Phoenix (Color: gold)
The Phoenix symbolizes the completed alchemical process. At this point the alchemical Sulfur(aka quinta essentia) has become resurrected through flames, just as the Phoenix — a bird who it was said builds a nest which is also its funeral pyre — arises anew from the ashes transformed. There are two stages which now occur simultaneously: PROJECTION and MULTIPLICATION at the elixir vitae stage.

These two processes are combined in the operation called Cohobation. This process is best exemplified in Nature’s creation of metamorphic rock.

Finally, it is the conjoining of all five ‘quinta essentia’ in the process called Coagulation which produces the Philosopher’s Stone.

If we follow the colors on the Mallard from its wings upwards (rising) to its beak, we go from a black (nigredo/putrefaction) to white (dissolution), and then to warm blue through green (oxidation), and thence to yellow and back to white. Hence we see that this series of color stages progresses as follows: white ➡ black ➡ (clear) ➡ blue ➡ green ➡ yellow ➡ white. This process ends once the alchemical Sulfur (quinta essentia) has been freed from the Salt in the Phoenix stage.

Thus we see depicted in these 5 birds, an esoteric shorthand for the basic processes of alchemy: Calcination/Putrefaction ➡ Dissolution ➡ Purification ➡ Fixation, and finally the process of Cohobation (which drives Projection and Multiplication) resulting in Coagulation.

There are other intermediate processes, and these have been recorded in some alchemical treatises. Any list of processes, and the order of operations listed, should be understood to be dependent upon whether the alchemist used a Dry or Wet method of oxidation (or both), and the specifics of selected reagents used. And of course, the methods varied based upon the source mineral being processed. In the IX Key of Basil Valentine Michael Maier gives us only those required to produce the Green Dragon using a combination of Dry and Wet oxidation methods.

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