ALCHEMY - TWELVE KEYS - RED AND GREEN LIONS - MULIPLICATION The Eleventh Key of Basil Valentine, from Practica cum Duodecim Clavibus in the Tripus Aureus of Michael Maier, 1618. The curious engraving depicts a process unique to the later stages of the alchemical process, called Multiplication. The newly made Philosopher's Stone (the Lapis) multiplies itself (this it can do a thousand-fold) by absorbing into itself Mercury. During this process, the Stone is dissolved, only to reconstitute itself anew, multiplied. This stage is called the Nourishing of the Red Lion by the blood of the Green Lion (the blood of which is volatile). This 'nourishing' is illustrated in a very literal way, for the Red lion is devouring the Green lion. The identity of Basil Valentine is not known, though he tells us in one of his works that he comes from the Rhineland, and spent some of his youth in England and Belgium. He was a Benedictine monk in the monastery of St. Peter at Erfurt - some records refer to him being in that monastery in 1413. His name is said to be a play on the Greek Basileus (King) and the Latin Valens (Powerful), which is in turn a play on one of the alchemical names for the Lapis, or Stone of the Philosophers, which is the powerful stone of kings, or Kingstone.