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Chapter 16 Green and Lilac
There are further stages of alchemy that move beyond red to
green and eventually lilac substances. Green has always been at the
centre of alchemical mysteries as a Green Lion. The sixteenth century
treatise Esh M’saref or The Refiners Fire discusses the Green Lion: 919
And it is known in the metallic mysteries that at the very outset
there occurs the enigma of the Lion of the green growth, which
we call the Green Lion, which, I pray you, do not reckon that it is
called for any other reason but its color. For unless your matter
be green, not only in that immediate state before it is reduced to
water, but also after the water of gold is made thereof, you must
remember that you must thus amend your universal dry process.”
The manuscript also notes that the true healer, that is the expert
alchemist, must be as contemptuous of riches as the Prophet Elisha. 920
Michael Maier's Septimana philosophica links the Green Lion to an
alchemical rose: 921
The centre of the rose is green and is emblematical of the Green
Lion.
Basil Valentine also discusses the Green Lion in his Twelve Keys:
This is feeding, the Red Lion with the blood of the Green Dragon.
The Green Lion you know what it is, it's the crude antimony. And
the Red Lion is the Regulus.
His words are mischievously obscuring because the Green Lion is
not crude antimony as he says and the Red Lion is quite apparently not
the Star Regulus of antimony. Though a master of misinformation, Basil
Valentine skillfully left an important clue to those who can see. The
words are you know what it is. Of this, we shall have much more to
discover in Chapter 19.
The Green Dragon exists within the alchemists' flask. It is crucial
in preparing the Green Lion and often compared to the human
characteristic of jealousy. Shakespeare’s Othello says: 922
IAGO O, beware, my lord, of jealousy:
It is the Green-ey’d monster which doth mock
The meat it feeds on.
Minna Antrim (b1861) argues similarly in Naked Truth and
Veiled Allusion that the absence of the Green Dragon means the
alchemical reaction is not working:
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