Mutus Liber - The Wordless Book of Alchemical Transmutation - Analysis of Alchemy from 1677

The 1677 Mutus Liber (Silent or Wordless Book) is among the most enduringly enigmatic and popular books of alchemy. Composed in the twilight of alchemical theory and practice, it seems to present a method for producing the Stone of the Philosopher's using Spring Dew gathered and transformed by Masculine and Feminine alchemists. In this episode celebrating Alchemy Day - February 11 - I carefully work through the techniques of the Mutus Liber, explore his historical content and discuss its impact, especially on French occultism.
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#alchemy #philossophersstone #hermeticism #chemistry #occult
Jung's 1677 Mutus Liber - www.e-rara.ch/...
Mutus Liber 1702 - archive.org/de...
McLean - Commentary on the Mutus Liber - 978-0933999909
Barbault - Gold of a Thousand Mornings - archive.org/de...

[@TheEsotericaChannel]

Make Sure to Subscribe & Consider supporting Esoterica by becoming a monthly Patron - www.patreon.com/esotericachannel a one time donation - www.paypal.me/esotericachannel or the Super Thanks - Your support is profoundly appreciated!

[@beepboop204]

in the age of "cluttercore" and "cottagecore" i gotta ask if your background is esotericacore

[@derekstaroba]

👍

[@derekstaroba]

@@beepboop204 hes involved in the silent book 📚📖 and he has a very excellent vocabulary

[@samwalker8200]

Happy belated birthday! And hapoy alchemy day Dr. Sledge

[@mothermagicaofficial]

❤

[@roseopheliashepherd8379]

An almost 40 minute video on a wordless book, this is why we need you Dr Sledge!

[@TheEsotericaChannel]

Picture worth a 40 minute video...at least

[@roseopheliashepherd8379]

@@TheEsotericaChannel happy birthday!

[@ron1313]

@@TheEsotericaChannel Pythagoras supposedly spent 22 years in the temples of Egypt as an initiate in the ancient mysteries. Do we have any writings or literature on what he learned? Thanks for all your work Happy Birthday 🥳

[@ron1313]

​@@TheEsotericaChannel Zosimos seemed to talk about purification & connection with the higherself/Daimones. Where is the instruction manual? Lol 1. "The Treatise on the Vessel of Hermes" In this work, Zosimos emphasizes the need to seek the presence of one's higher self and to confront the demons that lurk within in order to achieve spiritual enlightenment. 2. "On the Letter Omega" - In this work, Zosimos discusses the concept of the daimones, which he sees as the higher self or divine aspect of the soul. He writes: "The daimones are the divine portion of the soul, which is capable of communion with the gods." 3. "The Book of Pictures" - This work is a collection of symbolic images and allegories related to alchemical processes and spiritual transformation. In this work, Zosimos uses images of the daimones as symbols of the higher self or divine aspect of the soul that the alchemist must seek to unite with in order to achieve spiritual enlightenment.

[@seventyseven7815]

As a child at the bus stop before any of the other kids showed up I would drink the morning dew off of large leaves. I knew it was weird but still I enjoyed it. Funny so many years later I'm finding out how serious others take something that I just sipped up for fun.

[@TheEsotericaChannel]

Accidentally alchemy

[@jillswanson8131]

I love that. I would eat rose petals on the way to and home from school. Also, in the canyon we lived in were beautiful prolific pomegranite trees. I and my friends would fill grocery bags full of them wearing old t-shirts and eat from them all afternoon in the late summer. Amazing grace and beauty.

[@craigbryant9925]

I was around 5y.o. when I would collect dew drops from the leaves of nasturtiums, grind it up with the flowers and say I was making potions. Thinking back on that I'm extremely relieved that I was infatuated with a plant that's edible and I really hope that the adults around me would have stepped in if I was playing with toxic plants.

[@ForksandFreaks]

Happy birthday, Dr. Sledge! I hope that your day is full of blessings and joy! It’s well known you love books on treasure magic, but when you bring us your incredible work here on esoterica, your magical scholarly videos makes you the true treasure found therein! Again, happy birthday, and Shabbat shalom!

[@isaacthurell4267]

Yo chemist here. Read it as a manual on how to make some kind of crystal and it makes sense. It would work though what kind of crystal is formed depends on what the rain contains. why dew is collected is not clear to me. Might be to get destilled water at higher pH than rain. Anyway,, difference between alchemy and chemistry are vague at best and in practice they are often the same. All these methods described by the drawings are used today and are ofcourse very old. That said, their laboratory equipment in the paintings are not up to standard! ;)

[@PanSzawu]

Happy Birthday Dr. Sledge. Your content has been most enlightening and frankly helped me recover from a bad spiritual stint by sobering my mind and bringing myself out of the trenches of dogma. Thank you!

[@TheEsotericaChannel]

Glad these weird videos could help!

[@bjrockensock]

one thing that has always struck me as odd with alchemy and its parallel with mineral extraction is that often mercury and sulpher or acid are biproducts of industrial processes and the ancients must have polluted a lot of water and soil with their metalurgy. I believe there are contaminated sites from all around the ancient world that still to this day bear the environmental effects of mining and smelting.

[@mikeyates7931]

An interesting idea ; I wonder if this could possibly explain why some areas produce radon

[@catcans]

Well Happy Birthday, Happy Alchemy Day, and Happy Valentine's Day, here's hoping you get the gold!

[@ClassicalGuyx]

Happy birthday Dr. Sledge! Your videos are a blessing to all who study esoteric arts!

[@lovevluv]

You share a birthday with the late great bass god Cliff Burton! This topic was also timely for me. So wild. Cheers!

[@mikesummers-smith4091]

I wonder if William Blake knew this book? Some of the minor symbolism in his engravings is reminiscent. "Sufficiently equivocal terms are indistinguishable from nonsense" is an interesting reworking of Clarke's Third Law.

[@VOCATUS123]

This was absolutely thrice great: clear, concise, and lucid. Happiest of birthday to you brother!

[@Just_Beboy]

Happy birthday! I've recently been going through a huge journey of self-discovery, and after searching for more content on alchemy, I found you! Your channel and your presentation of information is borderline addicting.

[@jillswanson8131]

Thank you so much for this video which feels so complimentary to my journey, while being completely over my head! Voila.

[@crakhaed]

The educational content is top-tier, but your humor is impeccable 😘👌 absolutely love the little jokes in the sidebar captions. Supremely underrated. Thanks for such a thorough breakdown.

[@tarapayne4945]

Happy Happy Joy Joy and Many More! 💜🌺💜🌺💜🌺💜🌺💜

[@danielmcanulty1562]

Very nice! I'm always a sucker for the old alchemical artwork and their interpretations. Endlessly fascinating. Thank you for sharing!

[@sepp_gw]

Happy Birthday! Thanks for another great video!

[@clockworkgnome]

The fact that my favorite KZbin educator and I share a birthday is thoroughly delightful! Happy (early) Birthday Dr. Sledge!

[@TheEsotericaChannel]

Happy early bday!

[@aminrodriguez4707]

A happy birthday to you too, since we share the date.

[@alykathryn]

Best birthday wishes~

[@joshcruz7912]

Happy G day... Cuz you sir are a gangster at what you do!

[@LordRoku-]

Happy Birthday Dr. Sledge and thank you for all the content that you created

[@TheModernHermeticist]

Herpy Burthy!

[@trimbaker1893]

Happy birthday. Glad you are here. right on.

[@evilanno3394]

Happy birthday and thanks for all the great videos

[@brianboyle957]

Happy Birthday!!!! Keep up the Great Work.

[@JRainshadow]

Happy Birthday Doctor, and Happy Alchemy Day to all who celebrate!

[@Tinkering4Time]

Happy Birthday, Dr. Sledge! I plan on celebrating Alchemy Day tomorrow.

[@lalabeauty]

An alchemy graphic novel!

[@DiegoGelmirez]

Happy birthday!

[@SobekLOTFC]

Feliz cumpleanos, Dr Sledge- roll a 20 for initiative on your special day! Enjoy all the exciting stuff going on- great work!

[@Whimsicalbrainpan]

Dr. Sledge, I always appreciate your work but as an artist who is enamored with the esoteric and symbols this blew me away. Thank you so much!

[@joshuasteinberg3304]

Happy Birthday! I hope you have the best day of your life and make all of the transmutations in your life that you seek.

[@yochanan770]

I know I'm a couple days late for this one but that "Bombastic" pun was absolute philosophic Gold!

[@StoneInMySandal]

Happy Birthday Dr. Sledge.

[@MADDMAXXXAMILLION]

Micron gold, recovered from burnt stuff with mercury. Then smelted. They probably realized that gold could be found virtually everywhere, but had no clue they also scored monoatomic gold that gave the overall yield the appearance of multiplying… that - or they figured out how electrons work. I’m still amazed that Pong is just an elaborate light switch.

[@Trickybboy]

🎉 Hau'oli La Hanau Dr Sledge ! 🎉

[@karensimon876]

Happy Birthday Dr. Sledge! Blessings to you and your family. 👪

[@VIP-ry6vv]

I've always been interested in alchemy as it relates to modern chemistry. There is always a thought in the back of my mind that they historically didn't have the correct tools or deep enough knowledge. My well wishes on your birthday, thanks for the video.

[@isaacthurell4267]

Chemist here. Chemistry is an extremely broad field of natural science and what alchemy is seems a bit vague. I've looked up a good deal of alchemy and a lot of it is good chemistry for sure. Same techniques or same principle that I use today but with other tools.

[@crakhaed]

@@isaacthurell4267 that is super tight. Kinda wild how it turns out they're connected. I was taught to dismiss alchemy as historical pseudoscience and accept chemistry as empirically based essential fact. It's kinda funny to me, reminds me of astronomy and astrology. Might not be comparable, though. It really does seem like they were laying the groundwork for what would become chemistry in the modern age.

[@isaacthurell4267]

@@crakhaed to be fair, reading alchemic texts are kinda hard and the symbolism is not exactly intuitive. From my perspective it's obvious they are examining the fundamental physical laws of the universe but that's also what I've been studying the last 8 years. And just like us today they are wrong a lot, so expect pseudoscience all the way! ;)

[@idratherstayanonimous7020]

The gold of the alchemist is not physical!

[@thisismyCoolFace]

Instructions unclear, brushing my teeth with mercury.

[@Kharonofstyx]

Happy Birthday!! Always a great job Dr. Sledge.

[@experienceanimation217]

And here I am this morning playing guitar, getting high, and dabbling in hermetic philosophy like it's nothing. Turns out I'm right on track. Happy alchemy day 🧪

[@kiss_the_wind]

happy birthday!!

[@TheAlkhemiaStudio]

Happy birthday Dr. Sledge!!!! 🥳🥳🥳🥳 May you have many many more years to celebrate :) Thank you so much for your hard work in this and all your videos!

[@DaringDan]

I'm just here for the, "Pythagorean Vibes" and to wish the good doctor a happy name day. This was as confusing as it was enlightening. Shalom, homie!

[@xThisThingHerex]

Happy Birthday! wishing you many more if it is your desire

[@JesseP.Watson]

Thank you, this left me day dreaming on the use of symbolism in describing scientific knowledge today. I'm increasingly... bothered by the division of concepts created by their being recorded and explored in exceptionally dry, academic literature which essentially robs them of any wider meaning or connection (fair to say quite intentionally). I'd like to see our sciences translated into the intellectually suggestive, perhaps innovative world of the... visionary (?). I attempted some years ago to create a visual/symbolic representation of our plane of existence as it is currently conceived, from atomic to celestial... This made me wonder about returning to that. I can't help but feel the conception of things through text leaves us poorly equipped to visualise the world and its workings around us - exaggerating specialised focus at the exclusion of more holistic, broad comprehension. Yet, perhaps now with video becoming increasingly dominant, that is set to shift. Aye. Anyway, much obliged for that provocative dollop of incompressibility.l, you've inspired me to make some confounding short films to lose me my subscribers. 🧐

[@Vivec-]

Peace Profound, Dr. Sledge 🌹

[@JerryListener]

This transfixed me for the entire runtime. What a wondrous thing!

[@surferriness]

Yooooo happy Birthday doc Sledge 🙏 To Life!

[@CiviteitRN]

Have a happy birthday Doctor!

[@Fr.O.G.]

The image of the bow appears twice in the Mutus Liber. Once with Apollo (the sun), and then later with a personified moon (silver). I've often wondered if these were timings. The sun in Sagittarius, and later the moon in Sagittarius. But, as with everything else with the Mutus Liber, your guess is as good as mine.

[@RobRandolph80]

So here's something potentially interesting: The mutus liber looks to me like a pathway through the kind of non-dual kabbalah as discussed in the Fountain of Wisdom, Mayin Ha-Chokmah. I'm sure you must have come across David Chaim Smith's work at this point, he knows way more than I do.

[@shawnblake9738]

Happy late birthday Dr. Sledge keep up the great work. love from Chicago 💜

[@MichaelYoder1961]

Happy Birthday, Justin! Have to have my daily fix of Esoterica. Thanks for all your work!

[@brookechang4942]

Happy birthday, Dr. Sledge! Thank you for giving us the gift of this wonderful video.

[@Anders01]

I love the esoteric alchemy pictures. My guess is that that's where the knowledge went which couldn't be described in text out of risk of persecution by the Catholic church. Someone said that people could literally be burned at the stake for revealing that kind of knowledge.

[@aranialawakiro7246]

Amazing. Thank you so much for all the insights. I hope you will be around for a long time.

[@xxalexx16xx]

Happy Birthday!! Thank you so much for the content you provide!

[@gutterhalo]

Thank you so much

[@SammyJ96]

Thank you , Dr. Justin !

[@infohazard3003]

love this channel, very well spoken and thought out commentary. Keep it up please.

[@Siziusmopul]

Ahhhhh one of the few channels i can listen to without getting annoyed by the voice (im autistic and suffer misophonia, its less annoyance, more actual physical pain) thank you for being easy on my ears.

[@comeandsee9643]

Happy Birthday, great work!

[@aaronrobertcattell8859]

window with ropes saying its open ladder for a time a frame

[@morpety]

Thanks

[@divinewildfeminine8402]

Happy happy birthday! I love this content on your channel!

[@SafetHabibovic]

Van harte gefeliciteerd met uw verjaardag

[@robbalink]

Thank you very much for this informative & beautiful video. Bravo! God bless 🎉🤙

[@RyanSeven1111]

I have come to reckon that the 'morning dew' is the precipitate of the previous night's sleep; then returned to for a more conscious access to the unconscious. Or I might just be dreaming.

[@johncollins211]

I have to find some friends so that i can introduce then to Dr sledge.

[@LSTlouie]

Thanks!

[@genghisgalahad8465]

Happy Birthday, Dr. Justin Sledge!!! 🥳🎉🥳 🎉 🪅 🎊!! I hope my coining workshop of your Philosopher's pseudonym in tradition of Paracelsus stands in Community! Mutus Liber, am actually now more particularly intrigued by it! More than I've ever been! Name dropping Thrice Great Hermes! Did you know that Hammer in Hebrew as googled rigorously means "listen and repeat"? Seems apropos to the wealth of esoteric knowledge covered in Esoterica! Alchemical images and artwork are often so evocative and resonant as intended I realize without yet grasping in forefront of mind what they mean but they have an inner logic to them! Thank you for this learning, Dr Justin Sledge! I realize too that Alchemical artwork worked in a milieu where not many were literate or artists were able to hide in plain sight their meaning? Happy Birthday, Dr. Sledge! 😀🪅🥳🎂🧁🥳🪅 Would dew have been seen by ancients as simply appearing out of thin air? Though not thin air...

[@johnnewton8017]

Bravo!

[@robertdjonesauthor]

That was fantastic, thank you Dr Sledge

[@dizzyreverie9412]

HAPPY BIRTHDAY!!! ⭐

[@hechticgaming7193]

Happy birthday brother. Thank you for bring this highly educational content to YT, for (add emphasis) free. Much love your way, and hopefully that think about this helps some of us make it though this little walk that is life.

[@alaskadeafcouncil1886]

Thank you for sharing this info. I am still reeling & will need to re-listen. I’m in awe!😮👍

[@naomiseraphina9718]

A belated, but sincerely wished, Happy Birthday!! to you. I hope that the coming year will be even more filled with triumphs, joys and pleasant discoveries than the one before! Many happy returns! --N

[@ReptilianXHologram]

Do the Splendor Solis next. It is probably the best text on how to make the Philosopher's Stone.

[@ReptilianXHologram]

@@j0hncon5tantine yes

[@aminrodriguez4707]

Hey Dr Sledge, today its also my 52nd birthday, happy birthday to you too!!!!

[@bronaghbatch7132]

🎉Happy Birthday Dr. Sledge🎉

[@deltasyn7434]

I'd like to see a video on Gematria. One book of particular interest is Sepher Sephiroth which does contain Alchemical references. How I discovered this is rather ironic as I was just researching FFVII lore for the character Sephiroth. To my surprise, there are numerological references in the game. Whilst researching these, I came to realize that these also have connections to bible verses, historical events, and Alchemy. FFVII is heavily themed around world religion, so I guess it shouldn't be that much of a surprise. All of that said, my fascination has now shifted to the IRL side of gematria and I would like to understand more about how and why it works.

[@williams.2414]

Dr. Sledge, thank you for this program. I saw the catalogue for an auction in which an unusual copy of the Mutus Liber appeared. It is a hand-drawn copy made circa 1978, probably in France, by an unknown artist. It has an illustrated title page and 14 plates. The artistry lacks the virtuosity of the originals (in my opinion), but I believe all the plates were reproduced. I wonder if copies like that have been a way of sharing information.

[@_4200h]

I fell asleep listening to this last night and had lots of symbolic dreams all silent with me being shown how to explore following visual triggers such as the 'brain maze' one of which was made from a yew hedge. Another was shown to me twice on a tarot card but unlike any tarot I had ever seen. It was all shown to me with imagery and the further into the dream the calmer my mind became at the silence and following esoteric visual cues to their "logical" "conclusion" all while lucid. I was bit zonked out the whole day after that mental gymnastics dream 🤣

[@boyscoutalchemist]

So good, loved this.

[@luna122489]

Woooo❤thank you so much 🎶😭🙏🏻❤️

[@godlysidekick]

“Dew” = “happy crying,” “truth in suffering,” “left hand path”

[@matthewbecker7389]

A very happy birthday to you, good doctor! May this year be full of health and happiness for you and the family. 🍷📖🎈

[@charliebond3543]

Happy birthday 🎉🎉🎉🎉

[@jeannette7243]

Congrats on both festive days!

[@ApoplecticDialectics]

OK, what a feast this video is. "Frustration" is probably the most frequent emotion I feel trying to understand this stuff - it starts with fascination, and then it becomes tantalizing: I have my own theory as to what the Philosopher's Stone really is, and it's something I want more than anything else. But trying to make sense of these texts (I sometimes curse that night I came across Adam McLean's website by mistake. We use the term "rabbit hole" a lot these days, but Dear God...alchemy is the Godzilla of rabbit holes.) I sat there looking at these images on his site, and parts of my brain just started buzzing in this bizarre and uncanny way. Anyway. HOW FRUSTRATING. To need to know, to want to know, exactly what is going on here, and, trying as hard as you can, going, "AAGGGGGGGGGGH!" and throwing the book across the room in frustration. IN ANY CASE, probably unrelated, but perhaps not - as you were talking about dew, I suddenly recalled (I had to look up the verse) Numbers chapter 11, verse 9, in which manna is being discussed: "And when the dew fell upon the camp in the night, the manna fell upon it." IT'S ALL CONNECTED (probably not but) IT IS POTENTIALLY ALL CONNECTED (or my brain wants it to be.) I have observed with some amusement the tension between the Jungians and the traditionalists when it comes to this business, because on one hand I understand how scholars of this are trying *really hard* to view all of this through a Hermetic lens (not simple; we are here on the Internet, all very much products of a post-Hermetic age), and often express irritation at the kind of newer, revisionist ways of looking at this. The Jungians come in for some criticism here but, man, it's EASIER to access Jung. As out there as Jung can be, he is nowhere near as out there as these chymists were. Nowhere near! Disposing with the New Age I can get behind, but man, this is easier via Jung. But as to my earlier point about frustration, Jung is not going to get me *the thing I want.* My entire life is me wrestling with the question: am I looking for a psychologist, or a holy man? Is my problem psychological, philosophical, or religious? A decade ago I come across McLean when I was very much atheist, and thousands of dollars of books on esotericism, mysticism, and magic(k) later, I find myself some kind of Christian. WHAT THE HELL HAPPENED WITH THAT. Thank you for your videos. They put me at ease in the sense that, someone who has studied this deeper than I have is not significantly much closer to truly understanding it. That said if you somehow figure it out and create the Philosopher's Stone I have some really cool-ass Dungeons and Dragons dice I will trade you for it along with any quantity of beer or absinthe or whatever that you can name. So much easier to just accept my worldly position here, all carnal and earthy, and just pray and try to lead a virtuous life, and hope that gets me there on a longer path.

[@TravisLee33]

Happy birthday day.

[@daithi1966]

This reminds me of _The Ninth Gate_ starring Johnny Depp. We need to compare all the plates from the original printing.

[@TheEsotericaChannel]

I think I make that joke a few times

[@daithi1966]

@@TheEsotericaChannel Yes, I posted my comment before watching the whole video, but then I did catch you making the reference in the video as well. I should have known it was coming.

[@johannahidalgo7738]

Happy birthday Dr.Sledge!!! 👍😻

[@andrewraappana320]

Happy Birthday!

[@syndayowasoabogwekoffe9739]

Love your lectures sledge

[@goatz4u]

A pictures worth a thousand words...

[@itachi8822]

Happy belated Dr sledge always enjoy your wrk

[@chompachangas]

Hey Doc, we have the same birthday! Happy birthday to you. May the road rise you meet you and may the hair on your toes never fall out.

[@anglerfish4161]

Happy birthday! Thank you for all the content. You inspired me to go back to university for postgraduate studies in the near future :)

[@nathanielkingsbury6355]

Shavuah tov, and happy birthday!