The Twelve Keys of Basil Valentine

The Twelve Keys of Basil Valentine

The Twelve Keys of Basil Valentine (attributed to Basil Valentine, likely 15th-17th century, published 1599) presents the alchemical Great Work through twelve sequential emblems, each representing a specific operation or stage. The keys progress from prima materia through multiplication, offering one of the most systematic and influential alchemical sequences.

The Twelve Keys present a particularly systematic approach to the Great Work, with each key functioning as both an actual laboratory operation and a spiritual-psychological transformation. Basil Valentine's authorship remains disputed—likely a pseudonym for a later compiler. The work shows strong influence from Germanic spagyric and antimony-based alchemy. The keys are often reproduced with varying artistic styles across editions, but the core symbolic program remains consistent. The sequence emphasizes practical operations more explicitly than purely symbolic works, making it a bridge between operative and mystical alchemy.

Additional Elements Often Present:

• Accompanying Verses: Each key includes Latin verses (sometimes German) that provide additional instruction, though deliberately obscure.
• Laboratory Equipment: Many keys show specific apparatus (furnaces, alembics, crucibles) indicating actual operations alongside symbolic meaning.
• Planetary and Metallic Symbols: The keys incorporate symbols of the seven planets/metals, showing their transformation and perfection through the sequence.
• Color Progression: The sequence moves through the traditional color stages—black (keys 1-3), white (keys 4-6), peacock/yellow (keys 7-9), and red (keys 10-12).

First Key: The Wolf Devouring the King

A crowned king is devoured by a ravenous wolf in a forest; the wolf is then burned to ashes and the king recovered. Represents the dissolution of gold (king) by antimony or another regulus (wolf), followed by calcination to recover and purify the solar essence.

Second Key: The Man Between Two Mountains

A naked man stands between two mountains, with a third mountain behind; sometimes shown with compasses or measuring instruments. Depicts the choice between proper and improper paths in the work, the need for balanced proportions between fixed and volatile, masculine and feminine principles.

Third Key: The Dragon and Eagle Battle

A winged dragon and eagle fight in the sky above a landscape with buildings; their combined blood falls into a vessel below. Shows the conflict between volatile (eagle/mercury) and fixed (dragon/sulphur) principles, whose union through violent conjunction produces the philosophical child.

Fourth Key: The Sphere with Sun and Moon

A sphere or orb containing or crowned by sun and moon symbols, often with a central point or cross; sometimes held by a figure. Represents the perfect balance of solar and lunar principles within the sealed vessel, the conjunction achieved and the matter approaching perfection.

Fifth Key: The King in the Bath

A crowned king sits in or emerges from a bath, attended by servants or alone; the bath is heated from below. Depicts the purification through repeated dissolution and distillation, the washing of the philosophical gold in mercurial waters to remove impurities.

Sixth Key: The Man with Two Swords

A man holds two swords or weapons, standing between two principles or vessels; sometimes shown cutting or dividing. Represents the separation (separatio) of pure from impure, volatile from fixed, the skill required to distinguish and preserve the essential from the accidental.

Seventh Key: The Tree Growing from the Vessel

A tree grows from a sealed vessel or flask, bearing sun and moon as fruits or symbols; the roots remain in the vessel. Shows the philosophical tree, the growth of the stone from sealed matter, the development of solar and lunar medicines from a single root.

Eighth Key: The Limbeck or Alembic

A distillation apparatus (alembic or pelican) with matter circulating through repeated cycles; often shown with seven levels or stages. Depicts circulation (circulatio), the repeated distillation and cohobation necessary to purify and exalt the matter through multiple cycles.

Ninth Key: The Three Serpents

Three serpents intertwined or forming a triangle, sometimes crowned or winged; they may be colored (black, white, red) or shown in different poses. Represents the three principles (salt, sulphur, mercury) or the three stages (nigredo, albedo, rubedo) unified in the completed work.

Tenth Key: The Boiling Flask

A sealed round flask on a furnace with matter violently boiling or fermenting inside; vapor rises and condenses. Shows the digestion (digestio) and fermentation stages, the intensification of heat to activate and mature the philosophical matter.

Eleventh Key: The Bird Rising from Flames

A phoenix or eagle rises from a funeral pyre or burning nest; sometimes multiple birds shown in sequence (black crow, white swan, red phoenix). Depicts the final stages of rubedo, the red stone achieved through the self-sacrifice and resurrection of the perfected matter, the immortal medicine born from fire.

Twelfth Key: The King on the Throne with Stone

A crowned king sits enthroned holding the completed philosopher's stone or orb; sometimes surrounded by symbols of all metals and planets. Represents the completion of the Great Work, the stone perfected and capable of infinite multiplication and transmutation, the adept crowned as master.

The Twelve Keys of Basil Valentine (German: Ein kurtz summarischer Tractat, von dem grossen Stein der Uralten lit. 'A Short Summary Tract: Of the Great Stone of the Ancients') is a widely reproduced alchemical book attributed to Basil Valentine. It was first published in 1599 by Johann Thölde

“The first part of the book is a discussion of general alchemical principles and advice about the philosopher's stone. The second half of Ein kurtz summarischer Tractat, under the subtitle "The Twelve Keys", contains twelve short chapters. Each chapter, or "key", is an allegorical description of one step in the process by which the philosopher's stone may be created. With each step, the symbolic names (Deckname, or code name) used to indicate the critical ingredients are changed, just as the ingredients themselves are transformed. The keys are written in such a fashion as to conceal as well as to illuminate: only a knowledgeable reader or alchemical adept was expected to correctly interpret the veiled language of the allegorical text and its related images”

The Twelve Keys of Basil Valentine, as engraved by Matthaeus Merian (1593–1650), and published in the collection Musaeum hermeticum, Francofurti : Apud Hermannum à Sande, 1678

IV. Clavis

The 9th Key

• A crow
• A swan
• A peacock
• An eagle.

“Saturn, who is called the greatest of the planets, is the least useful in our Magistery. Nevertheless, it is the chief Key of the whole Art, howbeit set in the lowest and meanest place.”

“Although by its swift flight it has risen to the loftiest height, far above all other luminaries, its feathers must be clipped, and itself brought down to the lowest place, from whence it may once more be raised by putrefaction, and the quickening caused by putrefaction, by which the black is changed to white, and the white to red, until the glorious colour of the triumphant King has been attained.”

“If the whole world's nature Were seen in one figure, And nothing could be evolved by Art, Nothing wonderful would be found in the Universe, And Nature would have nothing to tell us. For which let us laud and praise God.”