From: "Alice K. Turner" 
Subject: Re: (urth) (whorl): Azoth misc
Date: Tue, 12 Feb 2002 11:30:47 -0500


From Sepia:

> [taken from http://azothgallery.com/azoth_defined.html]
>
>
> AZOTH. In 16 th century portraits painted of Paracelsus, the pommel of his
> sword, upon which rests his hand, bears the inscription "Azoth." From the
> poem set beneath a contemporary newspaper "broadside" published of
> Paracelsus, we may gather that Azoth was the name of a secret medicine, an
> elixir vitae, i.e. infallible remedy or alexipharmakon (~ counter poison),
> he kept hidden within his swords pommel. Azoth is also the secret name of
> Mercurius, extracted from cinnabar, the universal quicksilver medicine
> which comprised the virtues of all other medicines. Hence, it is also the
> name for the "philosophers stone." It is spiritus animatus, the animated
> spirit.
>
> [. . . ]
>
>
> "Concerning the nature of Azoth there is much controversy. Some view it as
> the invisible, eternal fire; others as electricity; still others as
> magnetism. Transcendalists refer to it as the astral light."
>
> Isaac Myer, in a discussion of Ain Soph and Space, says: "The Ain Soph at
> first was filling All and then made an absolute concentration into Itself
> which produced the Abyss, Deep, or Space, the Aveer Qadmon or Primitive
> Air, the Azoth; but this is not considered in the Qabbalah as a perfect
> void or vacuum, a perfectly empty Space, but is thought as the Waters or
> Crystalline Chaotic Sea, in which was a certain degree of Light inferior
> to that by which all the created (worlds and hierarchies) were made." --
> Secret Teachings of the Ages, Page Number: CXVII

Thank you for this--it is particularly interesting to me as I have just
finished reading THE ABYSS, by Margaret Yourcenar, an account of a fictional
16th c. intellectual/astrologer/philosopher named Zeno, who is clearly based
on Paracelsus. I had mildly wondered why the book had that title--it might
have been explained somewhere but if so it went right by me. I have also
recently read THE CHYMICAL WEDDING, by Lindsay Clarke. which is very much up
the same path (though a contemporary novel). so a post like this is a real
pleasure.

-alga



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