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

"The Hermetic practice is a method of psychological transformation directed by the conscious mind of man. This is the mode of human consciousness personified by the Egyptians as Thoth, by the Greeks as Hermes, and by the Romans as Mercury. Thus it becomes evident that what Bernard of Trevisan means by saying that the operation is performed by the help of Mercury is little more than a paraphrase of what we have quoted from the Katha Upanishad: "It should be grasped by the mind alone. Dissolution is said to be the whole mystery of alchemy because Hermetic practice enables us to control those functions of our bodies which dissolve or break down into their constituent elements, the forms of materials taken from our environment. The laboratory of the alchemist is his own personality. The secret vessels therein are organs in his own physical body, together with their astral and etheric counterparts. The principal piece of alchemical apparatus is a furnace, called an "athanor." Eliphas Levi says, "We are all in possession of the chemical instrument, the great and sole athanor which answers for the separation of the subtle from the gross and the fixed from the volatile. This instrument, complete as the world and precise as mathematics, is represented by the sages under the emblem of the pentagram, or five-pointed star, which is the absolute sign of human intelligence. I will follow the example of the wise by forbearing to name it; it is too easy to guess it." Today there is no need for even the slight concealment which seemed advisable when Levi wrote. The athanor is the human organism. Its name, like many other alchemical terms, is derived from Hebrew. In that language, it is Ath-Ha-Nour, which means "Essence of Fire." Thus Bernard of Trevisan is correct when he says that the Great Work is not performed by means of fire, and so are the other sages who insist that the fire employed by them is "no common fire." It is the essence of fire, manifested as the human organism, which provides us with the instrument for the Great Work. Hence the athanor is defined as a "self-feeding, digesting furnace, in which an equable heat is maintained." Is not this a fairly good description of the human body?" — Esoteric Keys of Alchemy by Paul Foster Case

"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

Illustration allegorically depicts the Athanor as a building housing three flasks representing the principles of Sulfur (mascula), Mercury (foemina), and Salt (corpus). The male and female flasks are interconnected by a tube, while the central vessel sprouts plant stems bearing fruits that symbolize the metals and planets. Surrounded by symbolic figures like a bee, a toad, and crossed bones, the entire structure is crowned by the sign for Mercury and the label prima materia.

“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"

"Man is the self-feeding furnace, the athanor in which the philosopher’s pure gold is ripened. Bring about in yourself the ideal of creation to make your Microcosm conform to the harmony of the Macrocosm, for such is the final objective of the wise man." — Tarot Of The Magicians by Oswald Wirth

"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

The Athanor of the Body

"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"

“This figure is found in the Museum Hermeticum. The athanor and the principal symbolic animals of Hermeticism are shown. This athanor has a somewhat fanciful shape, but its main parts can still be recognized: the tower topped with a dome, the sand bath, and the philosophical egg. The serpent enclosed in the egg represents the material of the stone. The lion is the symbol of fixed Sulfur, the eagle symbolizes the volatile, Mercury. The serpent and the dragon are symbols of Matter. The raven represents the color black, the swan the color white, the peacock the colors of the rainbow, and finally, the phoenix symbolizes the color red."

— Théorie & Symboles Des Alchimistes, c. 1891 by Albert Poisson

"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

"All things are hidden in all things. One of them is the cover of the others, your corporal, external, visible and mobile vessel. All the transformations take place in this vessel. “ - — Coelum philosophorum, Paracelso Imagem: The Secret Book of Wisdom to Live Long and Be Perfectly Rich (O Livro Secreto da Sabedoria sobre Vida Longa e Riqueza Perfeita), ca. 1790