Ceration is a chemical process, a common practice in alchemy. It is performed by continuously adding a liquid by imbibition to a hard, dry substance while it is heated. Typically, this treatment makes the substance softer, more like molten wax (cera in Latin).[1] Pseudo-Geber's Summa Perfectionis explains that ceration is "the mollification of an hard thing, not fusible unto liquefaction", and stresses the importance of correct humidity in the process.[2]
Antoine-Joseph Pernety's 1787 mytho-Hermetic dictionary defines it somewhat differently as the time when matter passes from black to gray, and then to white. Continuous cooking effects this change.[3] Ceration may be synonymous with similar terms for alchemical burning processes. Incineration, for example is listed by Manly P. Hall.[4]
See also
editReferences
edit- ^ Rulandus, Martinus (1612). "ceration". Lexicon of Alchemy.
- ^ Linden, Stanton J. (2003). The alchemy reader: from Hermes Trismegistus to Isaac Newton. Cambridge University Press. p. 93. ISBN 978-0-521-79662-0.
- ^ Pernety, Antoine-Joseph (1787). Dictionnaire mytho-hermétique, dans lequel on trouvre les allégories fabuleuses des poètes, les métaphores, les énigmes et les termes barbares des philosophes hermétiques expliqués (in French). p. 70.
- ^ Hall, Manly P. (1928). The Secret Teachings of All Ages. Los Angeles: Philosophical Research Society. p. 507. OCLC 1358719.
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