ALCHEMY - MUTUS LIBER, OR SILENT BOOK - PLATE 9. The ninth plate in the series of fifteen. Once more we are shown the familiar world of creation, though benignly blasted with spiritual powers, visible only to the initiate. Below the two luminaries are their creatures, the Lamb of the Sun and the Bull of the Moon (Aries is a Fire sign, Taurus an Earth sign). Between them, arranged ont he ground are six dishes, collecting the transformed dew. The arrangement is in the form of the Pythagorean figure, or Triangle, which is extended by a level in the register below, where the four heads complete the triangular descending sequence of the Pythagorean figure: . . . . . . . . . . This numerology carries into the tradition of the Cabbala, where we learn that the dew from the cosmic Man, the Adam Kadmon, created the lower worlds. In the lower world of the bottom register, the gods (in the form of Mercury) still mingle with mankind. The imagery here is quite simple: the anima of the alchemist pours the collected dew into the receptacle her by her animus conterpart. She then hands the contents to Mercury. We shall discover that this plate is reproduced, in many symbolic details, by Plate 12: the most important symbolic change is in the numerology of the spiritual power, pouring down. in the form of a truncated pyramid, from the skies (see, therefore, Plate 12 of the series). The alchemical masterpiece, Mutus Liber (or Silent Book) first appeared in print during 1677 - probably brought into the light of day by the French alchemist, Jacob Saulat, as a book with 13 plates, which was later increased to one of 15 plates (as in the series available here). The book is almost without words, and such words as appear are rarely what they seem to be, and are certainly susceptible to more than one level of interpretation. *** Local Caption *** The alchemical importance of the images resides in the subtle graphic symbolism. A clear exposition of this symbolism may be found in Adam McLean, A Commentary on the Mutus Liber, 1982.