Page 2

Produced by Issue No 2
rubaphilos Salfluěre (The cipher issue)
issue)
copyright © rubaphilos 2012 1. Editorial
I distribute ’the hermět’ entirely 2. General Problems
from a link at my website. 3. V.I.T.R.I.O.L.
http://www.rubaphilos.com/003- 4. Art as Cipher
ezine.htm 5. The Order of Things
I do not distribute by 6. Cover art – text ciphers
subscription. Distribution is
free of charge. I do not mind
anyone distributing this file
themselves, but I
ask that if you
do, then please
do-so with the
original file
left intact, and
with no additions
made to it.
Please include a
source reference
if you quote
from, or
otherwise copy
material from, this document.

-----------------------------------------
Cover art: My version of John Anthony West:
an old Latin copy of the ‘You can teach
Emerald Tablet (My book 1)
----------------------------------------- technique, but
never genius.’
 Page 3

Editorial
Welcome to the second issue of ‘the hermět’.

For the majority of

students of alchemy their
primary source of information
on the subject of our art is
to be found in classic
alchemical literature. At the
same time most of us are
aware that the greater
portion of such texts do not
give up their secrets easily. The old
alchemists employed a number of techniques in
the process of veiling information, and if we
are to have any chance of reaping the benefits
of their written word we first must
understand the nature of these veils.
I have entitled this edition of the hermět
’the cipher issue’, with the intention of,
primarily, discussing some of the main methods
of concealment used in classic alchemical
literature, as well as general problems
related to the difficulty of understanding
 Page 4

what is being said in those old books and

manuscripts.
It seems somewhat unusual that there has
not appeared, in the realm of public and
easily accessible modern alchemical
literature, any works attempting to focus on
explaining the inherent problems with trying
to understand alchemical literature. That
which I have presented here, on this subject,
is really just a collection of rough notes
based on a conversation I had some time ago,
with a friend. So it is intended only to be a
brief introduction, lacking in detail, of the
matter at hand. I hope at some time in the
future to do the subject some real justice by
producing a more substantial work on this
area of interest.
Within the entire body of written and
art-orientated alchemical publications (and
manuscripts), there are a number of problems
that arise that contribute towards the
difficulty of understanding just what it is
that is being explained in such works. There
are some very obvious kinds of cipher
mechanisms in classic alchemical literature,
but there are also some which are not so
widely known. I feel it might prove helpful,
especially to individuals who are relatively
 Page 5

new to the study of alchemy, if I try to round

up and explain here the extent of my
knowledge of this subject - even if only
briefly.
The kinds of cipher I am aware of in
alchemical literature might be categorised in
to four main groups: (1) symbolic pictures, (2)
symbolic terminology, (3) the non-linear
representation of ‘steps’, and (4) plain ciphers
(of the kind also used outside of alchemical
literature). In this edition of ‘The Hermět’ you
will find examples and explanations of each of
these types, as well as some general
information on problems with reading
alchemical literature.
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Article:
General Problems
(With understanding alchemical
literature)

There are a number of non-

cipher category problems
with attempting to
comprehend meaning in
classic alchemical
literature which are
sometimes not easily
recognised by new students
of the subject. It is also a
sad fact that a number of long term and
learned students of alchemy also have trouble
with understanding just how far some of these
problems extend.
The first problem, which I believe is by
far the worst, is found in the reader him or
herself. This problem comes in the form of
the danger of making certain assumptions
about the nature of alchemical literature in
general, and about alchemy itself specifically.
It can often be noticed, when discussing
alchemy with novices, that they are making
all kinds of common and erroneous assumptions
about how much of the truth about alchemy is
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understood by other individuals, and just what

it is that those other individuals understand.
It will be noted then, that the most
“I believed that common misunderstanding is that far
virtually everyone
more is known about alchemy in the
else who was a student
of the subject had mainstream, than in fact is known. The
been, or was being, second most common misunderstanding is
trained in the same
that there is a widely accepted
basic understanding
that I was receiving agreement on what alchemy is, and how
from my teacher – or to approach it, even within the compass
at least something of the small amount that is understood
very similar.”
about it. I made the same mistakes when
I first began my study of the hermetic
science. I believed that virtually everyone
else who was a student of the subject had been,
or was being, trained in the same basic
understanding that I was
receiving from my teacher –
or at least something very
similar. Even the assumption
that most people who were
attempting to take their
involvement in alchemy
seriously, had actually been
taught by someone ... and
someone who knew what they
were talking about, was an error. The truth is
that a large portion of people involved with
 Page 8

alchemy have never been formally taught by

anyone, (let alone an expert), and of the
remaining group who have, a large portion
were trained by people who had an inaccurate
view of the subject.
So the first concept to be aware of, when
we consider the problems involved in
understanding alchemy, is that many of the
people we might observe
discussing the subject, or
personally talk to, don’t
have an accurate view of
just what alchemy is. For
this reason any good
teacher will begin by
insisting that no matter
what we are being told
about alchemy, or by who
we are being told it, we
should reserve judgement
and not treat it as fact
until we have the
opportunity to prove or
disprove the ideas
Eliphas Levi’s
presented. Far too much is
symbolic Key to taken for granted simply
the Mysteries. because someone has
insisted it is true, which,
 Page 9

when considering how enigmatic the subject of

alchemy is, is just plainly silly.
Next in line with the issue of the
authenticity of information comes the
understanding that at various times in history
certain persons have made a
veritable cottage industry out
of faking alchemical texts.
Because so many alchemical
texts are produced in a cryptic
fashion, it has not been at all
difficult to gather together,
almost at random, a flock of
nifty and esoteric quotes from
here and there, and then to edit
them together in to a semblance
of something deeply meaningful
and highly mysterious. Then to
find avenues through which to sell copies, on
the promise that they contain some key secret
to success in the Great Work, to any of the
hundreds of dupes who will be found to gather
around the camp fire of alchemical
curiosity. This faking of texts,
deliberate and unintentional, has
been going on for literally
hundreds of years, involving
hundreds if not thousands of texts.
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Nevertheless, over the centuries a good

deal of work has been carried out on
attempting to identify and eliminate obvious
fakes from the canon of respected alchemical
literature. First there are the academics, who
identify fakes on the basis of mistakes of an
empirical kind ... language issues, technical
mistakes, and historical
“It might even be
inaccuracies, etc. Then there are suggested that some of
those texts that were ferreted out these questionable texts
by alchemists themselves, on the have obtained a
reputation of almost
basis of technical errors, cult status within
primarily. But there is no doubt at certain factions of the
all that many old texts, which are alchemical community, on
nothing more than a
also dubious, have remained part of
tradition of insistence
the collection of well known and perpetuated by
respected alchemical works because individuals who have
they are cunning fakes, and have never obtained any
degree of success in the
defied the skill of the academic and instruction they give.”
alchemist alike to ferret them out.
On this note it is equally undoubted that
many students of alchemy study and use as
authoritative text books, certain classic
alchemical works, which, it is taken for
granted, are completely reliable, when in fact
there is not a scrap of evidence upon which to
base such a claim. It might even be suggested
that some of these questionable texts have
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obtained a reputation of almost cult status

within certain factions of the alchemical
community, on nothing more than a tradition
of insistence perpetuated by individuals who
have never obtained any degree of success in
the instruction they give.
When considering a viable approach to the
Great Work of confecting the philosopher’s
stone, (and the text explaining it), we must
begin by asking ourselves: where is the
reasonable argument that it has any value?
Where are the stories of people who have
succeeded in that particular approach? In
every generation there have existed
individuals who have succeeded in the Great
Work, and it is known in many cases what
method they used.
So here is the first layer of difficulty
when studying alchemical literature: that we
must first accept that amongst all the works
we might have access to, that we are going to
be exposed to fakes, and no matter how
respected any individual text might be it
could fall in to this category. Where this
problem is concerned the most immediate
difficultly is the reader himself ... because
experience will demonstrate that when
valueless literature is believed, the fault
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lies firmly in the domain of the reader. All

too often too much is just accepted as
reliable, without any attempt, at all, of
indulging in some simple research.
After the matter of faked documents, the
problem I believe is the next biggest problem
exclusivity. That is, as we have been told time
and time again by reliable authors, the bulk
of alchemical literature was produced by
Adepts, for Adepts ... and I might add ... or for
their students. Many novices who search for
and study alchemical literature are under the
misconception that simply because such books
are available in public, that their content is
therefore open to anyone who cares to study
“ ... as we have been it. The truth is not so encouraging.
told time and time again The primary reason why so many
by reliable authors, the
bulk of alchemical
alchemical texts are cryptic in
literature was produced nature is that they were
by Adepts, for Adepts deliberately designed to only be
...”
understood by people who have
‘insider knowledge’. This knowledge is
formatted to be either grasped generally by
other Adepts, or is presented in such a way
that only persons who are taught how to
understand it, by someone who had the ‘keys’
from their author, could have any chance at
all of seeing what is actually being described.
 Page 13

The only real solution to this problem is the

right kind of education. The kind of education
that is not given out easily, by those who
have inherited it.
Next in line we
have the problem of
inconsistency,
especially in the
realm of the usage of
the use of technical
terminology. For
anyone who has studied
alchemical literature
it becomes quickly
obvious that the
subject is very
technical in nature.
There are all kinds of
references to lab
equipment, chemicals,
lab operations, and all
kinds of cryptic
technicalities. When
reading this material
we know that the old
Adepts attempted to
conceal all kinds of
information about
 Page 14

these technicalities, in order to make

learning the facts about them difficult. Some
authors employed the technique of simply
being vague about important formation, while
others were outright aggressive in the way
they were being cryptic. Because of this a
deliberately cultivated atmosphere of
confusion hangs over almost all alchemical
literature. So when studying alchemy many
students, especially those who have not been
initiated in to an accurate understanding of
the subject, have to spend a lot of time
guessing at the meanings of various terms
used. This guesswork sometimes partially pays
off when applied in the lab, even though the
understanding of the guesser may not match
the intention of the author. This has happened
a lot and has spawned a good number of
varying schools of thought, when it comes to
defining meaning concerning technical terms,
and their relationships to substances,
equipment and method. There have been, for
example, a number of books published, since
the dawn of modern science, which for a
lexicon of traditional alchemical terms for
substances, with their modern chemical names
next to them. The first and most obvious
mistake made here is that there was some kind
 Page 15

of universally or even generally accepted

system of naming substances by alchemists.
There wasn’t. Almost every author and every
practitioner had a system of naming materials
which he either invented personally, or which
he inherited from someone who had invented
his own system.
At the same time a lot of people
investigating alchemy will enter in to
discussion of alchemical ideas, discussion
which involves the use of technical language,
in the belief that everyone agrees (even if
only roughly), on the meaning of terms,
without ever checking to make sure an
agreement actually exists. Novice students of
alchemy are particularly prevalent in
approaching discussions in this way ...
assuming, and taking for granted, that the
definitions they have personally chosen to
give any particular technical term, or were
taught to give by someone else, is a definition
that is universally understood, and/or
accepted.
Because of the enormous degree of
confusion that exists over the use of
technical alchemical language, virtually every
individual text that we read must be studied
as if it is a single isolated incidence, which
 Page 16

contains a usage of technicalities peculiar to

itself. Almost no two authors use technical
language in the same way; and sometimes two
different books by what we are told is the
same author, will also use technical language
differently.
Sometimes the differences are found
solely in the approach the author has to
hiding information. He may be using a well
understood definition for terms, but the way
in which he veils what he is talking about
may be deliberately fashioned in such a way as
to lead the reader to make mistakes in judging
meaning. This is a very common ruse.
A twist on that theme we might learn,
occurs, when two different authors are talking
about the same path and methods to the Stone,
but they explain the technicalities in quite
different ways, because they learned about
them from very different approaches.
Similarly, two different authors may be
describing two very different paths, but use
the same language, in the same way, causing
the reader to assume that the same method is
being described in both books. This is also
very common, and leads to people placing
various books and their explanations of the
 Page 17

Great Work in to the same category (of ‘Path’),

when in fact they may be different Paths.
A third problem can be recognised,
commonly, amongst students of alchemy who
were taught (or who from personal
predilection only studied), one particular Path
to the Stone. Often such persons believe that
their Path of preference is the only true way,
or at least the best way. When they then
enter in to the study of various classic
alchemical texts they often spend years
struggling with attempting to reconcile texts
describing other Paths, with the approach they
themselves are most familiar with ... when
often there might be no common ground to be
had at all between the various systems they
are aware of. An opposite twist to this
problem also exists, where a student will
reject a certain text, or a number of them,
because he believes they are unrelated to the
Path he is interested in, while having not the
slightest idea that the text (or texts) explain
the same work, but in a way so different that
it (or they) seem foreign to what he has come
to recognise as indicators of his own approach.
Finally, and this is by far my favourite
problem issue, there is the very common
behaviour of making mistakes in the
 Page 18

understanding of ideas presented in alchemical

literature on the basis of popular and wide
spread customs of belief. These ideas are so
widely discussed, happily accepted and taken
for granted, that to question them in any way
at all invokes a storm of ridicule from anyone
who has, by habit, and virtually for no other
reason than popular agreement, taken such
concepts as the very foundation of their
“There are a large alchemical world view. The
number of core concepts, farthest thing from the minds of
which are looked at as
such persons is that the reason
being important first
principles in alchemical why they continue to fail to
knowledge, which are not gain real alchemical results in
at all based on fact.” their lab work may be because of
their unconditional acceptance of such ideas. (I
know this personally to be an important
factor in discovering the truth. Over the
years I have stumbled upon a number of key
concepts and mechanisms which are essential to
success, but which also are insisted to be
taboo ideas and practices in the mainstream).
It must be made clear, that while it might
be acceptable by some people to insist that
other occult practices cannot be measured and
verified (whether that is true or not), when it
comes to alchemy ‘measurable’ and ‘repeatedly
verifiable’ proof is the backbone it alchemical
 Page 19

practice. We cannot just mix any old bunch of

substances together and insist at the end that
we have the Elixir Vitae, for example. If the
product does not cure all disease, extend
longevity, and awaken the spiritual faculties
... then no matter what it might be, that
product is not the Elixir.
Alchemy is therefore about
exact materials, exact method,
and exact results. In order to
master any work in alchemy
each of these exactitudes must
be understood for each process
involved. To possess each exact
understanding for any
alchemical work, is extremely
rare.
In the same category as
the problem of
misunderstanding principle
concepts, we also find an
aggressive insistence in
rejecting certain kinds of
ideas as being at all possibly associated with,
if not actually key to a proper and productive
understanding of, real alchemy. Many ideas
which will be discovered, by experiment, to be
truths, are roundly rejected by popular
 Page 20

opinion on the sole basis that tradition

insists they are false.
Probably the most common contributor to
the ‘misunderstanding’ (about key ideas),
concept, is the fact that many students of
alchemy prefer to indulge in their study in
relative isolation. Of all occult sciences and
arts alchemy probably has this reputation
more than any other. Even though many
students of alchemy will attend seminars and
workshops, or join organisations which teach
alchemy, or discuss (or lurk and watch
discussion), of the subject on online forums, in
many cases such people will still invent and
foster their own opinions about what is
productive and what is not where alchemy is
concerned. So a great many ideas which
circulate in the alchemical community, and
have been proffered in alchemical texts for
hundreds of years, began as unproven opinion,
and have continued that way for great lengths
of time.
I realised this problem
early in my hermetic journey,
and so quickly set about
trying to find a remedy for
this ‘untried opinion’ problem.
Eventually I decided that the
 Page 21

best way to avoid the frustration and waste of

resources that accompanied this issue, was to
encourage serious students to band together in
to a group, which could then test and validate
or reject any number of important concepts
much faster and more thoroughly than someone
working alone. In this way I believe that only
someone who has been in a position of
teaching, learning and researching, in a
group, systematically could realise the real
benefits of that approach.
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Article:
The Vitriol Cipher
(And other anagrams)

Probably the most

well known
alchemical cipher is
the device known as
the V.I.T.R.I.O.L.
cipher, and, in
alchemical circles at
least, the form it is
most widely
recognised in is the
heraldic style device
shown to the left, here. The cipher is a
simple one, and curiously, not hard to
recognise, so it really can’t be said that it
was designed to be concealed. This cipher is
basically an anagram (a sentence, in which the
first letter of each word themselves forms a
word). The anagram is the word VITRIOL itself,
and the sentence it is derived from is the
latin phrase: Visita Interiora Terrae
Rectificando Invenies Occultum Lapidum, which
translated in to English reads : visit the
interior of the purified earth, and there you
will find the hidden stone.
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This term vitriol is

also interesting because it
belongs to a group of
technical terms, commonly
used in classic lab alchemy,
which together form
another more complex
cipher, and separately are
all anagrams. (See the diagram to the right).
As I mentioned, it is curious that this is
a cipher, because it is obvious that it isn’t
really designed to be hidden, like most
ciphers. But the real secret of this anagram,
isn’t in the fact that the sentence from which
it is constructed is a kind of instruction, to
the lab alchemist. The real secret is in the
meaning of both that to which ‘vitriol’ refers,
and exactly what the cipher phrase (the
original sentence), itself means.
Alchemists use the term vitriol in a
number of ways. But as is often the case, the
well known common meanings of technical
terminology often had meanings which were
kept secret. Exoterically vitriol refers to
copper or iron sulphate, a common green
glass-like material from which sulphuric acid
can be distilled. But secretly the term vitriol
was used to refer to a mineral salt which was
 Page 24

the basis of the process used to make the

Philsopher’s Stone (sic: the Great Work).
Because some alchemists didn’t want to name
this substance openly, they used an army of
different terms by which to make reference to
it, (and vitriol was one of those names).
When we look at the sentence from which
the vitriol anagram is derived (visit the
interior of the purified earth, and there you
 Page 25

will find the hidden stone), the term ‘earth’

(terrae) refers to the substance which is
called the crude or gross matter of the Stone.
It is the substance we find in nature which we
use to begin the Great Work. Therefore,
‘inside’ this crude matter is found another
substance which is considered to be The Stone
itself, and this substance is discussed using
the cipher-term ‘vitriol’.
In modern times it has been claimed that
this cipher refers to a truth in spiritual
alchemy: that is, that the true Stone is in the
mind, which is inside the body (earth). While
this might be true in principle, it is
unlikely that the original author of the
cipher had any other intention than a
laboratory one, when confecting this cipher
device.
 Page 26

Article:
Art as a Cipher

One of the things many people love about

the subject of alchemy is that many alchemical
books and texts have lots of interesting,
detailed and deeply symbolic pictures
dispersed through them, or making up the main
feature of the document.
Alchemical artwork is certainly one of
the things I have had a serious interest in
over the years.
 Page 27

All kinds of things have been said, and

claimed, about alchemical artwork. One of the
most common fallacies of this kind is the idea
that alchemical artwork was designed
specifically as a meditation tool, along
similar lines to the mandalas of the Eastern
mystical tradition. While it is certainly true
that the authors of alchemical artwork
intended the pictures in their books to be
contemplated and studied, in order to learn
secrets, the kind of contemplation they had in
mind was far from
mediation.
No matter what else
might have been
intended in the
execution of alchemical
artwork of the classic
era, or what might be
gained from
contemplating such art,
before anything else
alchemical art was
specifically designed to
represent, symbolically, laboratory concepts,
methods and techniques. Secondarily, in some
few cases, alchemical artwork was specifically
designed to represent technical concepts of
 Page 28

inner (psycho-initiatory) alchemical operations

– often while also representing laboratory
processes. But, in the greater number of cases
this artwork, when viewed, is intended to
explain, in a symbolic fashion, actual
processes and substances used in alchemical
laboratory work.
If we take this much for granted, then, we
can safely say that one of the main reasons
why lab work was presented in this way
(instead of in plain text), was for the purpose
of concealing certain ideas. In other words,
this artwork, largely, is a form of cipher.
When it comes to cipher artwork in
alchemy there are many variations on the
basic theme. Some artists preferred to use
everyday scenes, involving people and animals,
as analogies for lab processes. They did this
to make a point that alchemical laboratory
work had a direct relationship with ‘nature’
(real life, in our environment), because the
original alchemists actually learned what
they knew about lab alchemy by observing
processes and systems in nature. Some
alchemical artists preferred to simply, and
symbolically, represent what they
Page 29
 Page 30

actually saw inside their

laboratory flasks. So often
such works show a series
of flasks with all kinds of
things happening inside
them. In this way the
plants, people, animals and
various textures and
colours they drew inside of
flasks all represented
actual chemicals and the
various stages those
chemicals were at, and how
they appeared.
Similarly, some artists liked to hide
laboratory information in pictures in a way
that they would not easily be recognised, such
is in the first capital letter artwork in
pseudo-illuminated texts, or in the artwork
that was common at one period in the
decorative borders at the beginning of
chapters, and in the tiny pictures at the end
of chapters. It was also common to include
complex symbolic information in the
frontispieces of alchemical books.
The one thing that all of these aspects of
alchemical art had in common was that they
were mostly designed to be understood by a
 Page 31

specific target audience, not by just anyone

who happened to find themselves reading them.
Therefore, if you had not received some
instruction from the individual, or school,
who designed the symbolism, and its particular
use, in a picture, or series of
pictures, on the exact meaning
of the symbols, then any
attempt at understanding the
meaning can only begin with
guesswork. Guesswork which the
artwork itself is deliberately
designed, by very cunning
individuals, to foil. Anyone who
has studied any amount of
alchemical art will quickly
realise that whatever secrets
it hides, those secrets were not
meant to be discovered easily.
On this matter it needs to be
repeatedly made clear that the authors of
alchemical books, and artwork, wrote and drew
only for individuals who already understood.
Not for people who were eagerly searching
through texts in the hope of discovering
something of importance.
In order to give an idea of the complexity
of some of the information sometimes hidden
 Page 32

in alchemical artwork, I will explain a plate

from Basil Valentine’s Twelve Gates. In this
plate (below) we see a gentleman standing next
to a small mountain. The symbol of the
mountain has a cut-away section in which we
can see two columns of smoke rising. One
column has the symbol for alchemical Mercury
at its base, the other column has the symbol
for alchemical Sulphur at its base. On the
summit of the mountain we see a tiny man
standing next to a furnace, upon which is a
crucible.

The larger man to the right represents

Basil Valentine himself, and he points at the
 Page 33

mountain because he wants to make it obvious

that it symbolises an important key concept.
In alchemical prose the idea of a mountain
often symbolises the matter from which the
Philosopher’s Stone is made.
So what Basil is pointing to in this
picture is in fact something which is going on
in his laboratory. His ‘mountain’ is in fact
some kind of mineral substance, in a flask.
The little man on the summit of the mountain
symbolises the degree of heat that is required
for the stage in the work that the picture
alludes to. Because he has a furnace with a
crucible on it, we know that the degree of
heat required to act upon this mineral (the
mountain), is the same kind of heat we find in
a very hot furnace. When we apply this kind
of heat to this mineral substance it will
combust, and give off two kinds of smoke,
which are represented by the two columns of
smoke coming from inside the mountain. In
other words, the author of the picture wants
us to understand that inside this mineral are
two kinds of substance, which when heated are
released as two kinds of fume ... which Basil
calls the fume of Mercury and the fume of
Sulphur.
 Page 34

At the beginning of this article there is

a very similar picture, with a woman (Mary
the Alchemist), watching an identical
laboratory operation. But in that picture we
have some additional symbolic detail. We see
the mountain, as before, and the two fumes. We
are shown that these two fumes begin in a
vase (symbolic of a lab flask), as one united
substance. At the top of the picture we see
the two fumes once again uniting and entering
another vase (the receiving flask). In the
middle of the two fumes we see a bunch of
flowers, and flower we know are a common
symbol in alchemy for crystals. Particularly,
mineral sublimates. So the version of this
concept which we see at the start of this
article also tells us that when these two
fumes escape from the ‘mineral’ which is
heated, some of the mineral is also sublimated,
and that sublimate forms crystals on the
inside of the glassware.
From all of this information we can be
quite sure that the process that is explained
in these two pictures is what modern chemists
call Pyrolytic distillation – that is, a
destructive distillation of a substance by
intense heat. This specific technique is one
used in the first key operation in the Work of
 Page 35

Saturn, known today as The Acetate Path to

the Philosopher’s Stone.
 Page 36

Article:
The Order of Things
One of the more common cipher
mechanisms used in alchemical
lab texts involves the
arrangement of passages of
text (when explaining methods
of lab work), or the order of
a series of pictures, out of
their correct sequence.
For example, it might be
suggested that more than one
third of old texts that
explain the process of the
work of producing the Philosopher’s Stone, and
which are not formatted as simple step-by-
step recipes, but include long and rambling
prose, often routinely jumble up the order of
operations described. Off the top of my head
the instance I am most well acquainted with is
the text by ‘Artephius’ known as his ‘Secret
Book’. In that work almost each paragraph
describes one main operation of the Great
Work, and the paragraphs are plainly given in
the wrong order. Another well known example
of this method of enciphering laboratory
 Page 37

information is found in Basil Valentine’s

‘Twelve Gates’. The text is divided in to
twelve sections, and each section has an
engraving attached to it. Valentine has
therefore divided the entire process of the
Great Work in to twelve stages (a common
device). A simple indication that he has
arranged the stages out of sequence is
recognised in the fact that the stage
attributed to ‘death’ or ‘putrefaction’ is not at
the beginning of the work ... and we know from
experience and from traditional instruction,
that the stage of death or putrefaction is the
first in the serious of
processes which makes up the
Great Work.
Valentine’s Twelve Gates
gives us an example of both
out-of-order text description,
and pictorial explanation. One
of my favourite examples of a
presentation of the stages of
the Great Work in pictorial
form, that is run out of
sequence, is the famous
“Rosary of the Philosophers”
(Rosarium Philosophorum).
Page 38
 Page 39

The above diagram shows all of the 20

plates from the original ‘Rosarium’ in the
sequence they were presented in, in the oldest
version of these woodcuts that has survived to
our time. Traditionally these drawings are
published with a text, throughout which the
drawings are dispersed at regular intervals.
The main body of this text is not original to
the drawing-set though, and (all things
considered), the addition of this body of text
is probably an attempt by someone in the
distant past at making money out of the older
drawing set (which they obviously did not
understand). It should be noted, though (just
for the record), that a small portion of the
text that is included with the pictures is
original to those plates. That portion of text
is presented, in the oldest version of this
work, in a font different from the main text.
But this is a digression. Our concern is with
the idea that the order of the pictures in the
Rosarium is no sequential with the operations
in the work they describe.
The original order of the drawings begins
with what I refer to as ‘The Fountain’ plate.
This symbolic picture tells us what Path to
the Great Work we are dealing with in the
Rosarium series, and we need to know that,
 Page 40

first, in order to be
able to tell if the
process described in the
drawings is a real
process, and then, in
what order its various
steps should be
explained.
The fountain is a
diagram of a very
specific alchemic
technique, which the old
alchemists called a dry
distillation. Sometimes
it is also called a
destructive distillation,
and the modern chemistry
term for it is a
pyrolytic distillation. From experience we
know that there is one Path to the Stone
which has this dry distillation as a main
feature of its work, and that is the Path we
today call the Acetate Path, and the old
alchemists called The Work of Saturn or the
work of The Vegetable Stone. (Not to be
confused with the advanced plant work).
So the fountain plate helps us to know
what Path of the Great Work we are looking
 Page 41

at. From this we know that the process shown

in the fountain drawing is not the first step
in that work. It is the second step. So we can
recognise immediately that the author has
made use of the ‘out of order’ cipher.
The first step in the work is to make the
substance which in the fountain drawing is
‘distilled’. One of the most well known names
for this starter substance, used by the
Acetate Path Adepts, is The Green Lion. If we
look at the Rosarium series we can see a
symbolic depiction of this concept in plate 18.
So, in fact, plate 18 is the first drawing in
the series.
If we know anything about well known
hermetic iconography, in general, we should
also recognise that plates 10 and 17 are out
of order. Both of these drawings show concepts
which come at the end of the work, since they
are symbols of ‘unification’, or that which
alchemists call the chymical wedding.
This much should be adequate to at least
provide a good argument that the ‘out of
order’ arrangement exists in classic
alchemical texts, and that it is obviously a
way of distorting information, for the purpose
of hiding (enciphering), accurate knowledge.
 Page 42

Article:
The Cover art
‘Text Ciphers’
In Western esoteric
literature in general
the manipulation of
text (the type face or
font) within the body
of the work, to create
a cipher, is not
unknown. But within
the realm of
alchemical
publications this
method is by far the
rarer of the various kinds of cipher used. The
technique of manipulating the typeface, or
characters and words in the body of the text,
though, probably encompasses the largest
number of commonly known literary ciphers.
One of the most common examples of text
manipulation ciphers is to ensure that the
book is edited in such a way that the first
word of each chapter, when read in order,
creates a short sentence.
 Page 43

A slightly more complex version of that

cipher is to run through the text and select
the words you want to use to make up a
sentence, or more than one, and then note the
chapter number, the paragraph number inside
the chapter, and then number of words in to
the paragraph up to the word you want to
pinpoint. For example we might find the
cipher 10.6.23 – which would mean look at the
word in the 10th chapter, 6th paragraph, 23rd
word in the paragraph. In this way the
complete cipher would be a string of triple
numbers giving the co-ordinates for all the
words in the hidden sentence.
In most cases when we read copies of
original Hermetic-alchemical texts we will
notice that the fonts used are uniform. That
is, if we look at all of the letter ‘A’s in the
text they will all look the same (or very
close to the same). Likewise with all the other
letters of the alphabet. So an interesting way
to hide a cipher in a text was to use two
fonts, one which is only slightly different
than the other. In this way the enciphered
content is spelled out in the main body of
text simply by using the alternate font. To
uncover the cipher all we would have to do is
carefully study the text and look for the
 Page 44

variations on the main

font, and list all of the
letters as they appear,
in order.
One of my favourite
old ciphers is a
variation on the two-
font technique. The
printer uses one or two
variations on the main
font. But these
variations, instead of
looking slightly
different, look the same
but are raised above or
below the line of main
text slightly. An
example of this type of cipher is seen in the
following diagram ...
 Page 45

To the unsuspecting reader the above portion

of a Latin version of the Emerald Tablet of
Hermes looks like a common old text, with
slightly rough type-setting. The reader would
probably just accept that in old texts we
would expect the font to not be as neatly
arranged as modern type-setting. So the
individual who is in a position to hide an
enciphered message in the text body can take
advantage of this common issue, and
deliberately raise or lower letters above or
below the level of the main body of text, and
these raised or lowered letters can then be
used to make sentences in the cipher. To read
such a cipher all we need to do is to run a
line above or below each line of text, and
look for the raised or lowered letters, such
as in the4 following example.
 Page 46

When we draw a red line above each line of

text we notice the letters N-E-S-c-H-a-m-a
are raised above the line, spelling the Hebrew
word Neschama.
Similarly numbers that appear in the
normal routine of composition of books can be
manipulated for the purposes of enciphering
information. Page or chapter numbers can be
altered, such as placing them in slightly
different positions on the page, or putting
the wrong number in an order of numbers.
Similarly anagrams can be used to encode
information within the main body of text.
Irregular capitalisation of letters in words
can also be used, taking advantage of a
problem with old texts where printers
commonly used upper and lower case letters
irregularly when they ran out of the letter-
blocks they needed.

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