Philosophical Egg

McLean, Adam. Hermetic meditation Number 1. The Philosophic egg or retort. Hermetic J, no. 1 (Autumn 1978) 30. 

Even more to the point of establishing the fact of Duchamp s close knowledge of Poisson s Theories as early as mid-1911 is this author s illustration—in his Planche XIV —of the Alchemical Homunculus put captive within his Philosophical Egg (fig. 5). Poisson s caption tersely explains that this picture was copied from the Liber singularis de Barchusen [i.e.. 

MARRIAGE BETWEEN BROTHER AND SISTER. This Mariage du frere et de la soeur] signifies, according to the terms of Hermetic Science, the mixing of Sulphur and Mercury within the Philosophical Egg. This is the manner they have chosen to employ in order to refer to a copulation of Male and Female Principles [la copulation du male et de la femelle]. 

Finally, we may conclude with the matter of a certain, homunculuslike Child (Enfant), shown by Duchamp in Spring to be strategically put in the center of his symbolic composition and then ptopetly enclosed within the Philosophical Egg. The Mytbo Hermetic Dictionary describes the figute as follows ... 

This engraving is found in the Hermetic Museum and it shows the Athanor [or Furnace of the Alchemists] and the principal symbolic animals belonging to Hermeticism. This particular Athanor has a somewhat fanciful structure but it does include the main parts the [brick-base] tower surmounted by a dome, the sand bath, and the Philosophical Egg. The serpent enclosed within the Egg represents the Matter of the Stone. 

Poisson, Theories, 103 besides cage and prison, other names for alchemists cookers included henhouse, philosophical egg, sepulchre, sphere, and green lion. ... 

MAN AND WOMAN. - Sulphur and Mercury. Naked, gold and silver in an impure state united, conjunction lying in a sepulchre, Sulphur and Mercury in the philosophical egg. 

When once you have captured this Virgin, you can espouse her to Joseph at once, and witness the mystery of creative generation from beginning to end, for our Philosophers Egg has a thin, transparent shell - a glass door in the furnace - which permits of constant and critical observation. 

CONFECTION — A Combination of Several Substances, as, for example, of the Mercury and Sulphur of the Philosophers. Flamel says that the Philosophical Egg is a matrix of glass in the form of an escritoire, and it is full of the confection of art, that is, of the Waters of the Red Sea, and of the Breath of the Mercurial Wind. 

ECHEL — The Matter of the Philosophical Egg when it is in a very black state, or imperfect putrefaction. 

IMPASTATION — When the Matter of the Work succumbs into Putrefaction in the Philosophical Egg, and has become black, it thickens or congeals into the consistency of molten Black Pitch. It is then like a paste or a sediment, and hence the name of the operation. 

WASH — When the Hermetic Philosophers make use of the term To Wash, to describe an operation of their work when the Matter is in the Philosophical Egg, we must not understand that the Matter is to be extracted from the Vase and washed in water or any other liquid, but simply that the grade of the fire is to be maintained or increased, for substances are purified by fire better than by any aqueous substance. Therefore, when the Adepts say When the artist shall behold the blackness floating over the top of the Matter, this blackness is an earth which is fetid, sulphureous, corrupting, and it must be separated from that which is pure by frequent washing in fresh water, till the Matter becomes wholly white, this signifies that the fire must be maintained at the same grade until the whitening of the Matter. 

The golden sap which we received after the exaltation of our stone, our elixir, is also called Lac virginis or Virgin Milk, it will now be placed into the philosophical egg (into a glass Phial) which is then hermetically sealed. Two-thirds of the receptacle must be empty so that the materia can circulate. 

S Now let the Alchemist take the fluid of the distillate and let him perform over it an invocation of the forces of Mercury (planet) to act in the clear fluid, so as to formulate therein the alchemical Mercury, even the Mercury of the philosophers. (The residuum or the dead head is not to be worked with at present, but is to be set apart for future use.) After the invocation of the Alchemic Mercury a certain brilliance should manifest itself in the whole fluid, that is to say, it should not only be clear, but also brilliant and flashing. Now expose it in an hermetic receiver for seven days to the light of the Sun (and when Mercury is in strong harmonious aspects) at the end of which time there should be distinct flashes of light therein. (Or a philosophic egg may be used but the receiver of the Alembic if close-stopped will answer this purpose.)... 

THE seed and its earth being thus prepared, nothing remams but a judicious conjunction of them together for if too much moisture prevails, the philosophical egg may be burst before it can go through the heat necessary for its hatching. To speak... 

Newman, William R. The Philosophers Egg Theory and Practice in the Alchemy of Roger Bacon. Micrologus 3 (1995), pp. 75-101. 

Symbol of the Philosophical Egg, when the King and Queen are enclosed in it (Sulfur and Mercury),... 

As is born at the appointed time, from the union of5w//wrand Mercury of the Wise in the Philosopher s Egg (which the Alchemists still called the Sublimator), the Red Stone , the Chrysoprase is thus born in the Soul of Man, this athanor (or philosophical furnace), whose Heart is the Sublimator (or Philosophical Egg) - Total Illumination, the decisive factor in Reintegration (Fig. 4). 

The Philosophical Egg of the Second Perfection is formed from 8 drachms (28.8ml) of Azoth in a 100ml flask, which should fill the flask to The flask should have a thin narrow neck about six fingers high. The neck of the flask is hermetically sealed with a rubber bung because if something has to move the bung will be forced out. 

---