Why would so many scholars and classicists lie? Is the truth that threatening? Have they no shame? Further evidence that our institutions of learning are morally and intellectually bankrupt.
Cannabis in Alchemical Literature: Green Lion, Philosopher's Stone
Three things suffice for the work: a white smoke, which is water; a green Lion, which is the ore of Hermes, and a fetid water... The stone, known from the chapters of books, is white smoke and water.
Michael Maier
Atalanta Fugiens
Of this self-same body, which is the matter of the Stone, three things are chiefly said; that it is a green Lion, a stinking Gum, and a white Fume... Having twelve pounds of Green Lion thus brought into gum, thou mayst believe...
St. Dunstan (pseudo)
Philosophia Maturata
A green Gum called our green Lyon, which Gum dry well, yet beware thou not burn his Flowers nor destroy his greenness.
Sir George Ripley
The Bosome-Book of Sir George Ripley
You will see marvelous signs of this Green Lion, such as could be bought by no treasures of the Roman Leo. Happy he who has found it and learned to use it as a treasure!
Paracelsus
The Treasure of Treasures
Beware therefore of many, and hold thee to one thing. This one thing is naught else but the lyon greene...
Bloomfield's Blossoms
Perfect bodies we naturally calcine with the first, without adding any impure body but one commonly called by philosophers the green lion, and this is the medium for perfectly combining the tinctures of the Sun and Moon.
The Golden Tract
And now it is known in Metallic Mysteries, that at the very Entrance, we meet the enigma of the Lion of Green growth, which we call the Green Lion; which, I pray thee, do not think is so-called, from any other Cause but its Colour.
Aesch Mezareph
This substance the philosophers called immature or unripe gold, or the "Green" Lion... Having said this, because he had proved it, he called the first substance "green lion" and "unripe gold," for so it is.
R.W. Councell
Apollogia Alchymiae
Then the sowing of the field can take place, and you obtain the Mineral Stone, and the Green Lion that imbibes so much of its own spirit.
The Glory of the World
Green Lion, Bird of Hermes, Goose of Hermogenes, two-edged sword in the hand of the Cherub the Tree of Life, etc.; it is our true, secret vessel, and the Garden of the Sages in which our Sun rises and sets.
The Three Treatises of Philalethes
You have then nourished and dissolved the true lion with the blood of the green lion.
The Golden Tripod
Leo Viridis- is the Ore of Hermes... The green is that which is perfect upon the stone, and can easily be made into gold. All growing things are green, as also our stone. It is called a plant. The stone cannot be prepared without green... Gold, according to some opinions.
Martinus Rulandus
Lexicon of Alchemy
I have seen the Green Catholic Lion, and the Blood of the Lion, i.e., the Gold of the Sages, with my own eyes, have touched it with my hands, tasted it with my tongue, smelled it with my nose.
Heinrich Khunrath
I know well this Lyon Greene...
Hunting of the Greene Lyon
Upon the delicate leaves thereof it retaineth for our use that sweet heavenly honey which is called the manna, and, although it be of a gummy, oily, fat, and greasy substance, it is, notwithstanding, unconsumable by any fire.
Rabelais
Gargantua and Pantagruel
This is called the blessed stone; this earth is white and foliated, wherein the Philosophers do sow their gold... The fourth color is Ruddy and Sanguine, which is extracted from the white fire only.
Jean dEspagnet
The Hermetic Arcanum
O how many are the seekers after this gum, and how few there are who find it! Know ye that our gum is stronger than gold, and all those who know it do hold it more honorable than gold... Our gum, therefore, is for Philosophers more precious and more sublime than pearls...
Turba Philosophorum
Our Gold is not vulgar Gold, which is sold by goldsmiths, or anything like it, but it is a certain other substance more precious than Gold itself, whose green and golden Colour doth sufficiently demonstrate its original and Excellence. This Green Gold in its first root is clothed with a foul Garment, which must be separated by dissolving it by help of Mercury of Gold, first extracted out of Gold, and abounding with a bright golden Sulphur; which alone is capable of performing this Solution; because it dissolves nothing but the golden nature of Gold, which is of its own Nature...
But this Golden Mercury is wonderfully intricate to be searched out, and though it be found everywhere, yet it is most difficult to be found, by those who know it not, thought easy to those who know it, and know its Nature exactly. For it is a white and serene, ponderous, Acid and pontic Liquor, of an ethereal Substance, which is sublimed with a most gentle fire, and converted into Air...
This is that Liquor permanent and Triumphing over all Metals and Stone, the blood of the Green Lion, the Secret Fire...
Christopher Grummet
Sanguis Naturae
Therefore I affirm that the Universal Medicine for bodies is the philosophic gold, after it has been separated and drawn to the highest state of perfection. Our common gold has absolutely nothing in common with the philosophic gold we use to begin our task. In that respect common gold is dead and clearly useless.
Philip a Gabella
Consideratio Brevis
By gold I mean our green gold- not the adored lump, which is dead and ineffectual.
Thomas Vaughan
Aula Lucis
Take the fire, or quicklime, of which the philosophers speak, which grows on trees, for in that God himself burns with divine love.
Gloria Mundi
It appears then that this Stone is a Vegetable, as it were, the sweet Spirit that proceeds from the Bud of the Vine...
Count Bernard Trevisan
Verbum Dismissum
Trust my word, seek the grass that is trefiol. Thou knowest the name, and art wise and cunning if thou findest it.
The Sophic Hydrolith
You ought to know concerning the Quintessence, that it is a matter little and small, lodged and harbored in some Tree, Herb, Stone, or the like...
The Tomb of Semiramis
It contains the fire of Nature, or the Universal Spirit; with Air as its vehicle it contains Water, which must be separated in the beginning of the work, and also earth which remains behind in the form of caput mortuum, where the fire has left it, and is the true Red Earth wherein the fire dwelt for a while. The subject, duly collected, should not be less than eight nor more than sixteen ounces: place it in a china or glazed basin and cover it loosely to keep the dust out.
Sigismond Bacstrom
Rosicrucian Aphorisms and Process
Long have I had in my nostrils the scent of the herb moly which became so celebrated thanks to the poets of old... this herb is entirely chemical. It is said that Odysseus used it to protect himself against the poisons of Circe and the perilous singing of the Sirens. It is also related that Mercury himself found it and that it is an effective antidote to all poisons. It grows plentifully on Mount Cyllene in Arcadia...
Michael Maier
Septimana Philosophica
The peace god of Cyllene had given him a white flower,
Moly the gods name it, and black is the root that holds it.
Ovid
Metamorphoses
Depart from me, thou murky cave of Circe, for I am ashamed,
Belonging as I do to heaven, to eat acorns like a beast.
Rather do I pray to receive from God the soul-healing flower Moly,
The good physic against evil thoughts.
Anthologia Palatina
The most renowned of herbs, on Homer’s testimony, discovered by Mercury as a remedy against all kinds of poisons….
Pseudo-Apuleius
All-heal grows in abundance and best in the rocky ground Psophis, Moly about Pheneos and on Mt. Kyllene… it is used against spells and magic arts.
Theophrastus
In Thrace near the Hebrus there grows a plant which resembles the origanum (wild marjoram); the inhabitants of that country throw the leaves on a brazier and inhale the smoke, which intoxicates them.
Pseudo Plutarch
De Fluvius
I wasn't born on wandering Delos nor out of the waves of the sea nor 'in hollow caves', but on the very Islands of the Fortunate, where everything grows 'unsown, untilled'. Toil, old age and sickness are unknown there. There's no asphodel, mallow, onions, vetch and or any other such worthless stuff to be seen in the fields, but everywhere there's moly, panacea, nepenthe, marjoram, ambrosia, and lotus, roses and violets and hyacinths, and gardens of Adonis to refresh the eye and nose. Born as I was amidst these delights I didn't start life crying, but smiled sweetly at my mother straight away.
Erasmus
Praise of Folly
Our secret fire, that is, our fiery and sulfurous water, which is called Balneum Mariae... This water is a white vapor.
The Secret Book of Artephius
Know the secret fire of the wise, which is the one and sole agent efficient for the opening, subliming, purifying, and disposing of the material.
Letter to the True Disciples of Hermes
Study, then, this fire, for had I myself found it at the first, I should not have erred two hundred times upon the veritable material.
John Pontanus
The Secret Fire
No philosopher has ever openly Revealed this secret fire, and this powerful Agent, which works all the Wonders of the Art.
The Hermetic Triumph
Mercury, i.e. the white flower, can be used and applied to the tinctures of all planets.
The Little Peasant
If you ask whether the substance of our stone be dear, I tell you that the poor possess it as well as the rich.
The Book of Alze
Mark well that which follows: The substance of the Stone of the Philosophers is common: one finds it everywhere...
Albertus Magnus
Compound of Compounds
Whoever wishes to know the method of compounding the medicine ought to begin by seeding and planting it in his own garden...
This kind of precious thing will be found in every house. Nevertheless, ignorant people are not able to recognize it.
Chang Po-Tuan
It is manifest to all men, the poor have more of it (materia prima) than the rich. The good part of it people discard, and the bad part they retain.
Paracelsus
Men have it before their eyes, handle it with their hands, yet know it not, though they constantly tread it under their feet.
Sophic Hydrolith
The work is easy and the medicine is not far away. If the secret is disclosed, it will be so simple that every one may get a good laugh.
Chang Po-Tuan
Indeed, if we were to tell the vulgar herd the ordinary name of our substance, they would look upon our assertion as a daring falsehood. But if they were acquainted with its virtue and efficacy, they would not despise that which is, in reality, the most precious thing in the world.
Gloria Mundi
One ounce thereof is better than fifty pound.
Thomas Norton
There is an Hearbe in India, of pleasaunt smell, but who so commeth to it, feeleth pleasant smart, for there breede in it, a number of small Serpents.
John Lyly
Euphues and His England
The fourth method of awakening [i.e. enlightenment] is through the use of specific herbs. In Sanskrit it is called aushadhi… knowledge of the herbs is a closely guarded secret…
Swami Saraswati
Kundalini Tantra
By means of drugs and incantations one may change bronze into gold. By skilful use of chemical substances, silver may be transformed into gold and gold into silver.
Prafulla Chandra Ray
This stone is of delicate touch, and there is more mildness in its touch than in its substance. Of sweet taste, and its proper nature is aerial.
Khalid said: Tell me of its odor, before and after its confection.
Morienus answered: Before confectioning, its odor is very heavy and foul. I know of no other stone like it nor having its powers. While the four elements are contained in this stone, it being thus like the world in composition, yet no other stone like it in power or nature is to be found in the world, nor has any of the authorities ever performed the operation other than by means of it. And the compositions attempted by those using anything else in this composition will fail utterly and come to nothing. The thing in which the entire accomplishment of this operation consists of the red vapor, the yellow vapor, the white vapor, the green lion, ocher, the impurities of the dead and of the stones, blood, eudica, and foul earth.
Begin in the Creators name, and with his vapor take the whiteness from the white vapor. The whole key to accomplishment of this operation is in the fire, with which the minerals are prepared and the bad spirits held back, and with which the spirit and body are joined.
In answer to you question about the white vapor, or virgins milk, you may know that it is a tincture and spirit of those bodies already dissolved and dead, from which the spirits have been withdrawn. It is the white vapor that flows in the body and removes its darkness, or earthiness, and impurity, uniting the bodies into one and augmenting their waters.
Without the white vapor, there could have been no pure gold nor any profit in it.
The Book of Morienus
All true philosophers agree that the First Matter of metals is a moist vapor...
Anonymous
On the Philosopher's Stone
The philosopher's mercury is an unctuous vapor
R.W. Councell
Apologia Alchymiae
Our true and real Matter is only a vapor... This Green Dragon is the natural Gold of the Philosophers, exceedingly different from the vulgar, which is corporeal and dead... but ours is spiritual, and living... Our Gold is called Natural, because it is not to be made by Art, and since it is known to none, but the true Disciples of Hermes, who understand how to separate it from its original Lump, tis also called Philosophical; and if God had not been so gracious, as to create this first Chaos to our hand, all our Skill and Art in the Construction of the great Elixir would be in vain.
Baron Urbigerus
Aphorismi Urbigerani
There are two vapors: the light and the heavy. They are the steam and the smoke. They are the dry and the moist. The smoke is the dry, the steam is the moist. The smoke is the soul, the steam is the spirit, and it is the moist.
Muhammed Ibn Umayl al-Tamini
Silvery Water, or The Chemical Tables of Senior Zadith
Many who found it were so intoxicated by its fumes that they remained in their place and could no longer raise themselves.
An Anonymous Treatise on the Philosopher's Stone
Another burned his eyes out, and was thus unable to supervise the calcination and the fixation: or bleared his sight with smoke to such an extent that before he cleared his eyes the nitrogen escaped. Some died of asphyxiation from the smoke. But for the greatest part they did not have enough coal in their bags and were obliged to run about to borrow it elsewhere, while in the meantime their concoction cooled off and was utterly ruined. This was of very frequent, in fact of almost constant, occurrence. Although they did not tolerate anyone among themselves save such as possessed full bags, yet these seemed to have a way of drying up very rapidly, and soon grew empty: they were obliged either to suspend their operations or to run away to borrow.
The Labyrinth of the World and the Paradise of the Heart
These blear'd eyes
Have wak'd to read your several colours, sir,
Of the pale citron, the green lion, the crow,
The peacock's tail, the plumed swan.
Thou has descry'd the flower, the sanguis agni?
Ben Jonson
The Alchemist
They concur in stating that there is a despised and common substance, from which, with little trouble and expense, may be obtained not only the mercury, but also the sulphur and salt, identical with that in silver and gold. This substance is, of course, not named in their practical working, as a recipe; they do not say, “Take so and so.” They say: “Take antimony, or cinnabar, etc.”
Apollogia Alchymiae
The philosophers have called this maid and blessed water by many thousands of different names in their books. They call it heaven, a heavenly water, a heavenly rain, a heavenly thaw, a May thaw, water of Paradise, an aqua fortis and an aquam Regis, a corrosive aquafort, a sharp vinegar and liquor, also Quintam essentiam vini, a waxy green juice, waxy mercurium, green water and Leonem viridis, quicksilver, menstruum or blood. They also call it urine and horse piss, milk and virgin’s milk, water of arsenic, silver, Luna or Lunae water, woman, a female seed, a sulphuric steam and smoke, a fiery, burning spirit, a deathly all-penetrating poison, a dragon, a scorpion which eats its young, a hellish fire of horse dung, a sharp salt, sal armoniacum, a common salt, a lye, a viscous oil, the stomach of an ostrich which eats and digests all things, an eagle, a vulture and hermetic bird, a vessel and Sigillum Hermetis, a melting and calcinating oven, and innumerable other names of animals, birds, plants, waters, juices, milks and blood, etc. They have used all these names and written of it figuratively in their books. They have suggested that such a water is made of these things, with the result that all ignorant people who have searched for it in these things, have not found the desired water.
A Magnificent and Select Tract on the Philosophical Water
Let it be sublimed in an high body and head...
Geber
Search of Perfection
Why write I still all one, ever the same,
And keep invention in a noted weed,
That every word doth almost tell my name,
Shewing their birth and where they did proceed?
William Shakespeare, sonnet 76
Infume my braine, make my soules powers subtile,
Give nimble cadence to my harsher stile:
Inspire me with thy flame, which doth excell
The purest streames of the Castalian well,
That I on thy ascensive wings may flie
By thine ethereall vapours borne on high,
And with thy feathers added to my quill
May pitch thy tents on the Parnassian hill,
Teach me what power thee on earth did place,
What God was bounteous to the humane race,
On what occasion, and by whom it stood,
That the blest world receiv'd so great a good.
Sir John Beaumont
The Metamorphosis of Tobacco
I have (though in a despised weed) procured the good of all men.
Francis Bacon
I have cast fire upon the earth, and see, I watch until it blazes.
Gospel of Thomas
Templar cannabis recipe in Villard Folio: [...]
Loading your book clubs
There was a problem loading your book clubs. Please try again.
Not in a club? Learn more
Join or create book clubs
Choose books together
Track your books
Bring your club to Amazon Book Clubs, start a new book club and invite your friends to join, or find a club that’s right for you for free.
Download the free Kindle app and start reading Kindle books instantly on your smartphone, tablet, or computer - no Kindle device required.
Read instantly on your browser with Kindle for Web.
Using your mobile phone camera - scan the code below and download the Kindle app.
Book recommendations, author interviews, editors' picks, and more. Read it now.
Customers who viewed this item also viewed
Page 1 of 1 Start overPage 1 of 1
About the author
Follow authors to get new release updates, plus improved recommendations.
Top reviews from the United States
There was a problem filtering reviews right now. Please try again later.
Reviewed in the United States on November 28, 2013
Reviewed in the United States on February 15, 2024
Reviewed in the United States on December 22, 2012
Reviewed in the United States on April 17, 2010
Reviewed in the United States on June 3, 2019
Top reviews from other countries
EDUARDO
Changing the mind can be a quantum leap in consciousness for a civilization
Reviewed in Brazil on November 6, 2019