What Is the Prima Materia in Alchemy? The First Matter of the Great Work
The alchemical prima materia, the first matter from which all things are made, the candidate substances in different traditions, and its role in the opus.
The prima materia is the “first matter” of the alchemical tradition — the undifferentiated substance from which all things are made and to which all things can theoretically be reduced. The concept is the foundation of the alchemical theory of matter, and the concept is one of the most debated and most important ideas in the tradition. Identifying the prima materia is the first task of the magnum opus, and the identification determines everything that follows (Principe, The Secrets of Alchemy, 2013, pp. 75-88; Newman, Promethean Ambitions, 2004, pp. 60-90; Holmyard, Alchemy, 1957, pp. 30-50; Kahn, L’Alchimie et a Tradition, 2014). The debate is partly about chemistry and partly about philosophy, and the philosophy is the more interesting half.
The concept
The prima materia is not itself a substance in the ordinary sense, and the strangeness of the concept is part of why the literature is so difficult. The prima materia has no qualities of its own, since the qualities are conferred on it by the elements and principles that combine in it. The prima materia is what remains when everything else has been removed — when the four elements have been stripped away, when the tria prima have been separated, when the form has been dissolved. The prima materia is the pure potentiality of matter, the chaos out of which the cosmos is generated.
The concept of the prima materia is the alchemical counterpart of the Aristotelian concept of hyle, the underlying matter that receives the form. The Aristotelian tradition taught that every substance is a compound of matter and form, and that the matter is the principle of potentiality while the form is the principle of actuality. The alchemists extended this framework to the whole of nature, arguing that the matter of every substance is, at the deepest level, the same matter, and that the differences among substances are differences of form and proportion.
The alchemists inherited the concept from the Greek philosophical tradition, particularly Aristotle and the Stoics, and they gave it a practical significance that the philosophers had not intended. The prima materia is a philosophical concept and a working substance at once — a substance that can be identified, isolated, and used as the starting point of the alchemical work, and the practical claim is what gives the concept its alchemical character.
The candidates
The alchemists disagreed about the identity of the prima materia, and the disagreement is one of the more useful features of the alchemical literature. The disagreement is partly real — different alchemists had different theoretical commitments — and partly deliberate, the deliberate use of coded language to disguise the identity of the working substance. The candidates include:
- Common metals, especially lead, antimony, or mercury, which the alchemists considered to be the most basic of the metallic substances.
- Mineral substances, especially sulfur, or vitriol, which the alchemists considered to be the most basic of the mineral substances.
- Plant substances, especially the “green lion” (often identified as a plant juice or a vitriol solution) that the alchemists associated with the prima materia.
- Animal substances, especially blood, urine, or hair, which the alchemists considered to be the most basic of the animal substances.
- Universal substances, especially water, air, or fire, which the alchemists considered to be the most basic of the elements.
The disagreement about the identity of the prima materia was, in part, a deliberate feature of the alchemical tradition. The alchemists used coded language to disguise the identity of the prima materia, and the apprentice was expected to learn the codes by long study of the literature. The same recipe, read by different alchemists, might call for entirely different substances, and the reading is part of what makes the alchemical literature so difficult.
It is important to be careful about historical identifications, because anachronism is easy. The most common identification in the Western alchemical tradition is with mercury — in the Jabirian and Latin medieval tradition mercury (often with sulfur) is the principle out of which the metals are formed, and is therefore a leading candidate for the prima materia. With the Paracelsian 16th-century development of the full tria prima (mercury, sulfur, and salt), the prima materia was sometimes identified with the tria prima as a whole. The Indian alchemical tradition often identified the prima materia with mercury, and the Chinese alchemical tradition often identified it with lead or cinnabar. The Egyptian alchemical tradition often identified it with the black earth of the Nile, the khēmia that gave alchemy its name. The claim that “the most common identification in the Western alchemical tradition is with mercury, sulfur, or salt — the tria prima” is anachronistic if applied to the pre-Paracelsian period; the tria prima with salt is a 16th-century Paracelsian development (Principe, 2013, pp. 88-95; Newman, 2004, pp. 91-105). The chronology is essential, because the wrong date will produce the wrong reading of the older sources.
The role in the magnum opus
The prima materia is the starting point of the magnum opus, and the identification of the starting point determines the shape of the work. The alchemist who has identified the prima materia subjects it to the operations of the laboratory, and the work of the magnum opus is the progressive refinement of the prima materia through the four color stages to the philosopher’s stone.
The prima materia is, in a sense, both the beginning and the end of the alchemical work. The alchemist begins with the prima materia, subjects it to the operations of the magnum opus, and produces the philosopher’s stone. The philosopher’s stone is, in another sense, the prima materia brought to its perfect form. The alchemist who has produced the stone has recovered the original unity of matter and is in possession of the prima materia in its perfected state. The recovery is the deepest claim of the alchemical tradition, and the claim is what gives the work its religious character.
The prima materia is also the spiritual starting point of the work, and the spiritual dimension is part of what makes the alchemical work more than a laboratory project. The alchemist who is working on the prima materia is also working on the prima materia of the soul, the undifferentiated substance of the self that is the starting point of the spiritual transformation. The alchemical work is the integration of the matter and the soul, the recovery of the original unity of the human being with the cosmos, and the recovery is the most distinctive feature of the alchemical synthesis.
The prima materia and modern chemistry
The concept of the prima materia has been replaced in modern chemistry by the concept of the chemical element, and the replacement is one of the more important breaks between the alchemical and the modern chemical traditions. The modern chemist does not believe that there is a single underlying substance from which all things are made. The modern chemist believes that there are more than one hundred elements, each with its own atomic number and its own properties, and that the differences among substances are differences in the combinations of the elements.
But the modern chemist has, in a meaningful sense, vindicated some of the alchemical intuition, and the vindication is more interesting than the replacement. The modern chemist has shown that matter is unified at the level of the atom, that all atoms are made of the same basic constituents (protons, neutrons, electrons), and that the differences among atoms are differences in the number and arrangement of the basic constituents. The prima materia of the modern chemist is the proton-neutron-electron structure of the atom, and the magnum opus of the modern chemist is the synthesis of the elements in the stars and in the laboratory. The synthesis is the most ambitious piece of chemistry, and the chemistry is, in a real sense, the fulfillment of the alchemical intuition that matter is unified and that the unification has a structure.
The alchemists were wrong about the specific identity of the prima materia, and they were right about the underlying intuition. The rightness is one of the more interesting things the modern reader can take from the alchemical tradition, and the taking is part of the alchemical inheritance.