The Athanor: The Furnace of the Philosophers

The athanor - furnace of the philosophers

“Athanor comes from the Arabic word "al-tannur" (oven), the athanor is the furnace used by the alchemists to perfect matter. Built of brick or clay, the athanor usually was shaped like a tower with a domed roof and was designed to keep an even heat over long periods of time. The alchemists considered it an incubator and sometimes referred to it as the "House of the Chick." Symbolically, the athanor is also the human body and the fire of bodily metabolism that fuels our transformation and the ultimate creation of a Second Body of light. The mountain is a symbol for the athanor, since the perfection of the metals takes place under the guise of Nature within mountains. Sometimes a hollow oak tree is used to symbolize the athanor.”

• Alchemy Reference Guide: A Tool for Exploring the Secret Art, Dennis William Hauck

"Then you must have a furnace built, in which you may keep an immortal fire; in it you shall make a heat of sand of the first degree, in which the dew of our compound may be elevated and circulated continually, day and night, without any intermission, etc. And in such a fire the body will die, and the spirit will be renewed; and at length the soul will be glorified and united with a new immortal and incorruptible body.

Thus is made a new Heaven.”

— Eirenæus Philalethes

“In the philosophical furnace – the alchemist’s athanor – matter is processed through dissolution and fixation. The oven is divided into two parts and is two-fold because there is an outer oven that holds a hidden inner athanor. Therein lies its great mystery. The exterior is made of philosophical mortar and bricks that the macrocosmic spirit has joined together through the four elements corresponding to the celestial constellations. In Lambspring’s illustration on the following page, we see how it has various levels and windows that both enable observation of what is happening within and through which we can use the spirit of the air to increase or decrease the fire. When we consider classic illustrations of alchemical furnaces, we see the striking resemblance between the furnace and the alchemist himself. The external aspect of the oven is in fact nothing more than our physical body in which the operations are performed. In order to evoke and shelter the necessary fire and heat, this furnace must be sanctified and made whole.”

• Alchemy – the divine work

"The human body is an alchemical athanor for those who have become familiar with the occult truth, like a pot in which the earthly aspirations by which an ordinary mortal lives are digested and boiled. In the human body, which contains analogues of everything that is present in nature in all its fourfoldness, there is an instrument for the highest purification of the four elements themselves, so that you can gradually achieve a higher state." — Giuliano Kremmerz "Corpus philosophorum totius magiae"

"We will now speak of our Furnace, but it will be very unfortunate for us to report here the secret of our Furnace, which the ancient Philosophers hid so much; for we have depicted in our Books various Furnaces: nevertheless I sincerely declare to you that we only use one Furnace, which is called Athanor, the meaning of which is to be an immortal fire, because it always gives the fire equally and continual in the same degree, vivifying and nourishing our compound from the beginning to the end of our Stone. O children of doctrine, listen to our words, and hear; our Furnace is composed of two parts, they must be well sealed in all the joints of its enclosure; such is the nature of this Furnace; whether the furnace is made large or small, according to the quantity of matter requires a large Furnace, the small one small; it must be made in the manner of a distilling furnace with its lid, that it be well closed and closed; so when the Furnace has been composed with its lid, make sure that there is a ventilator at the bottom, so that the heat of the lighted fire can breathe there; for Furnace this nature of fire requires and demands this only Furnace, and not another; and the closure of the joints of our Furnace is called the Seal of Hermes, as it was known only to the Sages, and is in no place expressed by any of the Philosophers; for it is reserved in Wisdom, especially as it guards it by a common power."

— Elucidation or Clarification of the Will of Raymond Lulle