The Alchemy Key.pdf - Veritas File System

tablet and discovered the second pillar.
The Emerald Tablet has been translated many times from Arabic,
Latin, allegedly from Chaldean and Phoenician, from French and even
from a purported Chinese original. Many say it contains the whole of the
alchemists' art. The inset provides a 1680 translation by Sir Isaac
Newton. 737
The Emerald Tablet is still the earliest of all alchemical works in
the West. It first appeared as the Kitab Sirr al-Asar, a book of advice to
kings of eight hundred CE. 738 Johannes Hispalensis translated this book
into Latin about 1140CE. 739
The earliest alchemical text in Chinese is the second or third
century BCE book XXV of Han-Shu in which Li Chao-Kiun tells the Han
dynasty emperor Wu-Ti how to change cinnabar dust into gold. In
142CE, Wei Po-yang wrote the next alchemical Chinese text Ts'an T'ung
Ch'i. It refers to alchemical experiments and using gold to extend life.
The color of emerald green holds a great fascination. The colour
is a kind of optical balm. 740 Pliny said no colour has a more pleasing
appearance. 741 If the Emerald tablet really existed, it was probably rock
crystal dyed emerald with copper sulphates. Diodorus noted that rock
crystal could be baptized in divine fire to create a smaragdos, an artificial
emerald. 742
The Wizard’s emerald city in L Frank Baum's The Wonderful
Wizard of Oz demonstrates its enduring delight. However, it is as well to
remember that the Greeks and Egyptians used the term we translate as
emerald to apply to gem quality emeralds as well as green granite and
green jasper. In medieval times, the emerald table of the Gothic kings of
Spain was made of emerald green glass. 743 Another green glass dish, the
Sacro Catino, is said to have belonged to the Queen of Sheba and been
used at the Last Supper.
Although it is wonderfully romantic to think of the Emerald
Tablet as a sparkling gem, the green color simply symbolizes Wisdom.
The Emerald Tablet is a formula of alchemy and messianic resurrection
theology. It is closely associated with the alchemical Green Lion of the
Philosophers’ Stone.
The discovery of the Corpus Hermeticum inextricably joined such
diverse pursuits as hermetic philosophy, alchemy, industrial chemistry,
glass making and medicine. Furthermore, the clandestine, scientific, antipapal
nature of these liberal arts disintermediated the Church from
scientific pursuit based on inductive and deductive logic, and so
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