Alchemical Colors and the Great Work: Understanding the Prima Materia

of the operations that the alchemist must perform. The same color can refer to and reappear in various phases of the work, often misleading readers. For example, LeBreton in the Keys of Spagyric Philosophy says: "There are four putrefactions in the Philosophical Work. The first in the first separation, the second in the first conjunction, the third in the second conjunction made by heavy water with its salt; the fourth, finally, in the fixation of sulfur. In each of these putrefactions the black color arrives." However, since there are three main and intimately different stages in the course of the work in which the alchemist finds himself with his matter, most authors have adopted a triple chromatic classification based on the colors black, white and red. In this figure the colors of the four works are associated with the four elements. We close this initial discussion as a premise on the Great Alchemical Work by briefly treating the elements. As far as what interests us, what do these elements mean? They mean that man, all his individual consciousness and also his material body, is nothing but the most exterior product of the combining of a series of spiritual forces that can be experienced as states of consciousness and that the Alchemists called elements. Here's what the Alchemists meant with those hermetic phrases: "The elements (these spiritual forces) are found in metals (what is individuated in man, the organs of man's consciousness) and not the metals in the elements insofar as the seed of metals (the primordial power that has individualized the whole) is not distant from them" De Pharmaco Catholico. The idea underlying the construction of this spiritual body is to evoke these forces in an incorporeal aspect, experience them, traverse them and then spiritually assimilate them so as to thus acquire a spiritual body. Indeed Sentivogio says: "One must extract the metallic soul and, having extracted and purged it, one must again return it to its body, so that a true resurrection of the glorified body occurs" Sentivogio. Here, therefore, we have seen the very simplified scheme of the Great Work, formed by interior and spiritual operations for which one can well say that the laboratory, the furnaces, the alembics, all stand to indicate states of consciousness or realities of an interior character. Now let us try to trace a simple path for the realization of the great work. To begin this work we first of all need the matter of the work, we are faced with the first enigma that is finding the prima materia. The alchemists say they have always hidden this secret and indeed they are not all in agreement about where it can be found. Some maintain that it is unfindable, almost unreachable, Pontano lets us know that he spent twenty years before finding the right prima materia on which to perform operations, others - like Maier - let us know that it is found everywhere: in earth, in heaven, in water etc. (as can be noted from the image reported above) for which finding this matter may not seem difficult. When the alchemists said that matter is found everywhere, they intended however to allude to the fact that everything, in their way of seeing the world, had been constituted starting from this matter. In fact we have seen that for the alchemists everything originates from this Mercury which, informed by spirit, makes every form that it suggests to it appear and specializes, individualizes until it concretizes into objectified beings. However this is not the prima materia that interests us (this Mercury already mixed with metals that is already individuated), in fact Pernety tells us: "all the secret of the work consists in having pure Mercury (that is considered as a principle not yet individuated and not specialized) in the state in which it was before being mixed with any metal", thus making us understand that we need a special matter, obtainable in a state of consciousness different from the ordinary one, which must therefore be found with some operation. To find this prima materia Basilio Valentino suggests to us: "make your gold (the nucleus of consciousness) be retrograded to what it was before (re-crudified, freed from the bonds of matter), then you will find the seed: the beginning, the middle, the end". However in this discourse he does not say how to do to reach this state. In this case the images are more explicit: the image reported above is taken from a writing by Basilio Valentino entitled the twelve keys of philosophy, accompanied by twelve figures the first of which is the one we are seeing. The symbolic object of the key is represented by a king with his queen and the way to obtain it is represented by the two figures below them: a wolf in the middle of fire and above a crucible, and an elderly gentleman with Saturn's scythe and Hephaestus's leg. In general the king and queen can mean many things, but the interpreters of this figure maintain that in this case the king and queen want to indicate two aspects of the matter of the work. Without forcing too much the meaning of the two figures we could say that the king represents the alchemist in full possession of all his faculties. He indeed has in hand a scepter symbol of power and behind him appears a castle sign of the place over which he exercises dominion. The queen, instead, represents the patient, that is the proper matter of the work that will be worked by the alchemist in three phases, as indicated by the fingers of the King's left hand and passing through three colors as indicated by the flowers in the queen's hand. In the other hand the queen holds a peacock feather turned downward, symbol of the aspect of splendor, beauty and perpetual vigil that is still potential (the feather is turned downward) and that will manifest as soon as the work is completed. Under the matter of the work, one sees