"Est in Mercurio quicquid quaerit Spagirus." "In Mercury is everything that the alchemist seeks."
“Geber clearly shews that the substance of our Stone cannot exist in imperfect metals; because things that are impure in themselves do not abide the fire which might purify them, while our mercury (on account of its purity) is not in the slightest degree injured by the fire.” - Anonymous. The Golden Tract Concerning The Stone of the Philosophers
"Mercurius stands at the beginning and end of the work: he is the prima materia, the caput corvi, the nigredo; as dragon he devours himself and as dragon he dies, to rise again in the lapis." (Psychology and Alchemy, par. 528)
“Gold is by Art dissolved with Mercury, that the unripe may be holpen by the ripe, and so Art decocting, and Nature perfecting, the Composition is ripened by the favor of Christ.” - Bernard Trevisan The Answer of Bernardus Trevisanus, to the Epistle of Thomas of Bononia
“The seed of metals is what the Sons of Wisdom have called their mercury, to distinguish it from quicksilver, which it nearly resembles, being the radical moisture of metals. This, when judiciously extracted, without corrosives, or fluxing, contains in it a seminal quality whose perfect ripeness is only in gold; in the other metals it is crude, like fruits which are yet green, not being sufficiently digested by the heat of the sun and action of the elements.” - Collectanea Chemica Collectanea Chemica
“I am a poison-filled dragon, omnipresent and accessible to anyone. What I rest on and what rests on me will be found in me by those who search in accordance with the rules of Art. My fire and water destroy and bind; from my body you can take a green lion and a red one. But if you don’t know me properly, then my fire will destroy your five senses. The poison that flows from my nostrils has already brought death to many. So, you must be able to separate the gross from the subtle if you do not want to fall into complete squalor. I give you the powers of masculine and feminine, I give you the powers of heaven and earth. The mysteries of my art must be mastered with courage and generosity if you want to defeat me with the power of fire, for many, very many have already suffered, and all their fortunes and work have gone to waste. I am an egg of nature, known only to the wise, who, with modesty and piety, extract from me a microcosm (which was prepared for all people by the Almighty God, but was given only to a few, while the majority strives for it in vain), so that from my riches they can do good to the poor, Let their souls not become attached to mortal gold. Philosophers call me Mercury; my wife is [philosophical] gold; I am the ancient dragon, existing throughout the entire circle of lands, father and mother, youth and elder, omnipotent and weakest of all, death and resurrection, visible and invisible, hard and soft; I descend underground and rise to heaven, I am the highest and the lowest, the lightest and the heaviest; the natural structure is often distorted in me by color, number, weight and measure; I contain natural light (naturale lumen); I am dark and light; I flow from heaven and from earth; they know me, but I don’t exist at all”; in the sun's rays I shine with all colors and all metals. I am the solar carbuncle, the noblest enlightened earth, with which you can turn copper, iron, tin and lead into gold.” - Aurelia Occulta
"When the alchemist speaks of Mercurius, on the face of it he means quicksilver (mercury), but inwardly he means the world-creating spirit concealed or imprisoned in matter. The dragon is probably the oldest pictoral symbol in alchemy of which we have documentary evidence. It appears as the Ouroboros, the tail-eater, in the Codex Marcianus, which dates from the tenth or eleventh century, together with the legend ‘the One, the All’. Time and again the alchemists reiterate that the opus proceeds from the one and leads back to the one, that it is a sort of circle like a dragon biting its own tail. For this reason the opus was often called circulare (circular) or else rota (the wheel). Mercurius stands at the beginning and end of the work: he is the prima materia, the caput corvi, the nigredo; as dragon he devours himself and as dragon he dies, to rise again in the lapis. He is the play of colours in the cauda pavonis and the division into the four elements. He is the hermaphrodite that was in the beginning, that splits into the classical brother-sister duality and is reunited in the coniunctio, to appear once again at the end in the radiant form of the lumen novum, the stone. He is metallic yet liquid, matter yet spirit, cold yet fiery, poison and yet healing draught - a symbol uniting all the opposites." — Carl Jung, Psychology and Alchemy, Part 3, Chapter 3.1
"O great Mercury of the Philosophers! It is in you that Gold and Silver unite, after being brought from potentiality into act: Mercury all Sun and all Moon; triple Substance in one, and one Substance in three. O admirable thing! Mercury, Sulphur, and Salt show us three Substances in one single Substance." — "Light Emerging from Darkness by Itself", Bibliotheque des philosophes chimiques: tome troisiéme, c. 1741
Mercury is talking about himself: I am the poison-dripping dragon, who is everywhere and can be cheaply had. That upon which I rest, and that which rest upon me, will be found within me by those who pursue their investigations in accordance with the rules of the Art. My water and fire destroy and put together; from my body you may extract the green lion and the red. But if you do not have exact knowledge of me, you will destroy your five senses with my fire. By the philosophers I am named Mercurius. My spouse is the gold; I am the old dragon found everywhere on the globe of the earth, father and mother, young and old, very strong and very weak, death and resurrection, visible and invisible, hard and soft; I descend into the Earth and ascend into the Heavens, I am the highest and the lowest, the lightest and the heaviest. I am dark and light. Often the order of nature is reversed in me. I am known yet do not exist at all. I am the carbuncle of the sun, the most noble purified earth, through which you may change copper, iron, tin and lead into gold. A waxing poison comes from my nose, having brought to death many people. Therefore, with the art, you have to separate the course from the fine, if you don’t wan to delight in poverty. I give you the power of the male and the female, even that of heaven and earth. With bravery and broadness of understanding, the mysteries of my art are to be done, if you want to conquer me with the power of the fire. From which many have suffered in their potential and work. I am the egg of nature, that only the wise man knows, who by piety and modesty let the microcosm arise out of me, what is destined to people by the most high God, but what is given only to a few, while most long for it in vain: that they do well to those in poverty from my treasury and that their soul will not cling to the transitory gold. I am called Mercurius by the Philosphers; my mate is the philosophical gold; I am the old dragon, present everywhere on earth, father and mother, young man and old man, very powerful and very weak, death and rebirth, hard and soft; I descend into the earth and ascend into heaven’ I am the highest and the lowest, the heaviest and the lightest; often the order of nature in color, number , weight and measure is being reversed in me, I contain the light of nature (lumen naturale); I am the dark and the light, I come forth from heaven and earth; I am known but do not exist; all colors radiate in me and all metals by the sun’s rays. I am the solar carbuncle, the most refined, glorified earth, by which you can change copper, iron, tin and lead into gold.
- The Theatrum Chemicum, c. 1613
The Spirit Mercury by Carl Gustav Jung
According to the Hermes tradition, Mercury is multifaceted, changeable and deceptive. Dorn speaks of “varius ille Mercurius” (this fickle Mercury), another author calls him “versipellis” (changer of appearance, face-acting). He is duplex, and his main characteristic is duality, duplicity. About Mercury it is said that he “runs around the whole world, enjoying the company of both good and evil alike.” He is “two dragons,” a “twin” (geminus), arising from “two natures” or “two substances.” He is “gigas geminae substantiae” [a giant with a dual essence]. To clarify this expression, the text quotes the 26th chapter of the Gospel of Matthew, which contains the establishing words of the sacrament of the Eucharist: the analogy with Christ is obvious. The two substances of Mercury were thought to be unequal, even opposite to one another: thus, as a dragon he is “winged and wingless”; one parabola says about him: “On this mountain lies an ever-waking dragon, called Panthophthalmos, for he is filled with eyes on both sides, in front and behind, and when he sleeps, some of the eyes are closed, while others remain open.” Mercury is internally distinguished as "ordinary and philosophical"; it consists of "earthy dryness and viscous wetness" Its two elements, earth and water, are passive; the other two, air and fire, are active. He is both good and evil. … Because of Mercury's twin, double-armed nature, it was called a hermaphrodite. Sometimes they said that his body was female and his spirit was male, sometimes vice versa. The Rosarium philosophorum, for example, contains both versions. As "vulgaris" he is the dead male body, but as "our Mercury" he is feminine, spiritual, full of life and life-giving. He was also called husband and wife, bride and groom, or sweetheart and beloved. The opposite natures of Mercury were often designated as Mercurius sensu strictiori and Sulfur (Sulfur): "Mercury proper" is woman, earth and Eve, while Sulfur is man, water and Adam. Dorn calls Mercury “the true hermaphrodite Adam”; in Khunrath he is “conceived from the hermaphrodite seed of the Macrocosm” as “the immaculate offspring of hermaphrodite matter” (chaos, i.e., primordial matter). Milius calls him a “hermaphrodite monster.” As Adam, he is also a microcosm, even “the heart of the microcosm,” or, as it were, carries a microcosm “in itself, and there are also contained the four elements and the quinta essentia, which they call Heaven.” One might think that the term “coelum” denoting Mercury goes back to the “firmamentum” of Paracelsus, but this is not so: it is found even earlier, in John de Rupescissa (XIV century). In relation to Mercury, a synonym for “microcosm” is “homo”, for example, in the expression “philosophical Man of two sexes (ambigui sexus)”. In the very ancient "Dicta Belini" (Belinus or Balinus is a corruption of the name of Apollonius of Tyana) he appears as "the man rising from the river"; most likely this expression should be associated with the vision of Ezra. In "Splendor solis" (XVI century) there is a corresponding illustration. This idea itself probably goes back to the Babylonian Oannes, the teacher of wisdom who “came out of the river.” The name given to Mercury as a “tall man” is quite consistent with such a genealogy. He is called Adam and the microcosm in many texts, but in the forged book of Abraham Judea, Mercury is bluntly called Adam Kadmon. I have already pointed out indisputable evidence that the Gnostic doctrine of Anthropos continues to live in alchemy, and now there is no need for me to specifically go deeper into the discussion of the corresponding aspect of Mercury! At the same time, I must once again emphasize that the idea of Anthropos coincides with the psychological concept of selfhood. Obvious evidence of this, along with alchemy, is provided by the doctrine of Atman and Purusha. Another aspect of Mercury's contradictory duality appears in his description as both an "old man" (senex) and a "youth" (puer). The archaeologically attested senile appearance of Hermes directly brings him closer to Saturn, and in alchemy this relationship plays a very important role. Mercury, indeed, consists of the most extreme opposites; on the one hand, he is certainly related to the Divine, on the other hand, he can be found in sewers, among sewage. Rozin (Arabicized Zosima) even calls it “terminus ani”. In "Bundahishn" Garotman's backside is compared to "a gap in the underworld."