Welling - Opus Mago-Cabalisticum Et Theosophicum

Georg von Welling Opus Mago-Cabalisticum et Theosophicum

Including (therein) The Origin, Nature, Characteristics and Usage of Salt, Sulphur and Mercury Described in Three Parts, and Among Several Odd Mathematic, Theosophic, Magic and Mystic Materials, the Production of Metals and Minerals on the Ground of Nature will be Illustrated, including the Main Key (Haupt-Schluessel) to the Work as a Whole, and Various Strange Mago-cabbalistic Figures. In addition, there will be provided: A Treatise on Divine Wisdom and a Special Appendix of a Number of Very Rare and Precious Chemical Ingredients. Third Edition. Frankfurt and Leipzig: the Fleischer Bookstore, 1784 [First Edition: 1735]

This translation is © Arthur Versluis, and may not be reproduced without express written permission. Thomas Achternkamp translated the first passages; the whole was edited by Arthur Versluis.

Contents: In the First Part: Ch. I: On the Origin of Common (gemein) Salt. Ch. II: On the (uranfaenglich) Original World. Ch. III: On the Fall of Lucifer and the Divorce (scheidung) Caused By It; or, the Creation of (the) World. Ch. VI: On the Sabbath, the Completion and Abolition of All Times, the Eternal Silence and Gentle Calm Joy in God’s Eternal Empire. In the Second Part, of Sulphur Ch. I: On the Origin and the Production of the Divine (himmlisch) Sulphur and the Earthly Sulphur. Ch. II: On the Use of Earthly Sulphur. Ch. III: On the Nature, Good and Usage of Divine Sulphur. Ch. IV: Of the State of Man after His Passing-Away (Death) and of the Metamorphoses of his Decomposing Body into the Undecomposable One Having been Created in (the Garden of) Eden; as well as the Nature of the Condemned Undecomposable Bodies from the Principio of Darkness. Ch. V: On the Imprisonment (Einkerkerung) of the Old Snake; as well as of the First Resurrection of the Empire of the Saints. Ch. VI: Of the Release of the Devil from his Prison (Kerker) and His Final Exile (Verstossung), of the Last and Final Trial (Judgement Day), the Other Death, and of the Location of the Hells. Ch. VII: The Vision (Offenbarung) Through Which St. John was shown on the island of Patmos what the Church of Christ Experiences and Will Experience to its End. In the third part, on the Mercury. Ch. I. On the Origin of Divine and Earthly Mercury Ch. II. On the Good and Use of Divine Mercury Ch.III. On the True and Natural Astrology (Astrologia). Ch. IV. On Religion and the Clear Words of the Holy Bible and the True Mago-cabbala That has been Built on Biblical Grounds. Ch. V. On the Reversal (Wiederumkehrung) of Darkness into the Creative Light of its Origins. Ch. VI. On the Invisible Creatures within the Elements. Ch. VII. On the Grandness, Figurativeness and Incomprehensibility of God. Ch. VIII. Explanation of Proverbs VIII.27. Ch. IX. Explanation of Genesis I.6-9. Ch. X. On the Mercury of the Wise, or the Main Key to the Work as a Whole. The Eternal Wisdom: in Which it is Made Mention ... Ch. I. Of the Eternal Wisdom: What and Who She is in itself. Ch. II. Of the Ones Who Love Wisdom: Who and How Blissful They Are. Ch. III. By What Means and in What Way to Achieve Wisdom. The Appendix: A Discourse on the Stone of Wisdom (Stein der Weisen). Alchemical Questions of the Universal (Universali) and the Particular (Paricularibus). PLAEI: Song of the New-born Chymic King.

Georg von Welling Opus Mago-Cabalisticum et Theosophicum The Opus Mago-Cabalisticum et Theosophicum is an important and influential esoteric work that has never been translated into English. Included here are its table of contents, and selections from the first chapter, on salt, and an excerpt from "A Little Tractate on Eternal Wisdom," which was appended to the Opus. The entire Tractate may be found in the forthcoming Wisdom's Book: The Sophia Anthology, edited by Arthur Versluis. The table of contents and the selections from the first chapter were translated chiefly by Thomas Achternkamp, but were edited by Arthur Versluis.Born in Schwaben, Bavaria, in 1652, Georg von Welling worked as director of the Baden-Durlacher Office of Building and Mines until 1723, and died in 1727 in Frankfurt. Welling was primarily known for his book whose short title is Opus Mago-Cabalisticum, [1735] and which influenced numerous subsequent authors, including Goethe, who perused it during his alchemical studies. The title suggests a great deal about the contents, which certainly have as much to do with magic as theosophy, as much to do with Agrippa, elemental spirits, alchemy, and arcane diagrams as with Böhmean cosmology. These selections are included because they influenced George Rapp, founder of the American Harmony Society, as I detail in my article "Western Esotericism and the Harmony Society," in Esoterica I(1999)i: 20-47. - Arthur Versluis 162

FIRST CHAPTER It is astounding how many notions of the origin and of the first creation of salt (that is: of plain kitchen salt, which is the true origin of all other salts as they are referred to) have been coined: and such among scholars as well as among nonscholars, and (I) dare say there are as many opinions as there are as heads about this point, which in fact is not one of the least important, but is, so far as the origins of natural things, the first and most imminent (point) in the scheme of this whole world, and therefore worthwhile to be seriously considered - meaning that one should set