The Philosophical Tree

Poisson, Theories et Symboles, 54 Cette figure se trouve en tete du Gloria mundi dans le Museum hermeticum. The rest of this page, an Explication de la planche V, provides a detailed iconographic explanation of the Philosophers Tree. 

Szulakowska, Urszula. The tree of Aristotle images of the Philosophers Stone and their transference in alchemy from the 15th to the early 20th century. Ambix 33, no. 2/3 (Jul/Dec 1986) 53-77. 

Szulakowska, U. The Tree of Aristotle Images of the Philosophers Stone and their Transference in Alchemy from the Fifteenth to the Twentieth Century. Ambix 33 (1988) 53-77. 

CONFORMANCE, or ADAPTABILITY — This is when projection takes place upon a metal in a state of fusion, or reduced into a liquid form, or mercurial form. It is then said that the metal has a similitude with, or is conformed to (in its Nature) the Elixir which is composed of the Mercury of the Sages. The Philosophers also recommend for the work the selection of a matter which has some conformance with the metal, because a bull is not to be produced from a tree nor from a metal. 

EMERALD OF THE PHILOSOPHERS — A name which has been given to the Flos Coeli, and sometimes to the Dew of May and of September. The last is looked upon as masculine because it is more cocted and digested by the warmth of the summer. The other is considered female because it is colder, cruder, and more akin to winter in its quality. Some chemists, understanding these words literally, have imagined that dew was the matter from which the Philosophers extracted their mercury, because they often say in their books that mercury is male and female. So they have deemed that the union of the Dew of May with that of September would constitute that marriage so recommended by true chemists. But they should have noticed that the matter of their mercury must be mineral because the ox will produce but the ox, the apple an apple only, and it is an egregious blunder to suppose that any metal can ever be produced from a tree or a plant. 

The Animalists are barking up the wrong tree as well when they believe that the Materia of the Philosopher s Stone can be found in animal substances (such as Blood, Body Substances or even in the excrements). These Stercorists mess about just as the Vegetablists and the Metal-Toilers in the materia tertia, without any thought that the true Alchemists took only the unspecified materia secunda as their primary material ... 

First, we must look for the prima material, the starting point for Philosophical Mercury. An elusive alchemist called Fulcanelli riddled for us the common name from which Mercury has traditionally been prepared. He says it is an approximation, corresponding to the Oak tree and to the ram. ... 

This view will not be shared by everyone. Some will no doubt dig in their heels and insist that XPi is a brain and that it does have phenomenally identical experiences for the fifteen-minute period, however strange that initially seems. StiU at a minimum, even those philosophers who react in this way should agree that the example raises a serious doubt as to whether any two microphysical duplicates must be alike phenomenally. Thus, the Xenon tree example at least that phenomenal internalism is not a position that is self-evidently tme or one that cannot reasonably be disputed. 

Epstein, S. and Krishnamurthy, RV. 1990 Environmental information in the isotopic record in trees. Philosophical Transactions of the Royal Society London A 330 427-439. 

This copy bound with a work as follows Paracelsus of the transmutation of metals pp. 1-41 Of the genealogy and generation of metals pp. 42-45 Urim and Thummim shewed to be made by Art... pp. 46-71 An appendix of the vertues and use of an excellent essential water made and approved by Stephen Twigge. .. pp. 72-78 The second part of the mumial treatise of Tentzelius being a natural account of the tree of life. .. pp. 79-96 Philosophical and chymical experiments of... Raymund Lully pp. 103-166. (Cf. with Paracelsus entry, item 390.)... 

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