Vulcan of the alchemists
The Renaissance physician/alchemist Paracelsus introduced the mythological figure of Vulcan as the patron deity of alchemy.
Paracelsus introduction of Vulcan in alchemy
To Paracelsus, Vulcan was synonymous with both the alchemist/physician's manipulation of fire, heating and distilling of nature's properties for medicine, and symbolic of the transforming power and creative potential locked within Man, the greater invisible Man or anthropos, slumbering within.
Alchemy is an art and Vulcan (the governor of fire) is the artist in it: 'He who is Vulcan has the power of the art ... All things have been created in an unfinished state, nothing is finished, but Vulcan must bring all things to their completion. Everything is at first created in its prima materia, its original stuff; whereupon Vulcan comes, and develops it into its final substance ... God created iron but not that which is to be made of it. He enjoined fire, and Vulcan, who is the lord of fire, was to do the rest ... From this it follows that iron must be cleansed of its dross before it can be forged. This process is alchemy; its founder is the smith Vulcan. What is accomplished by fire is alchemy-whether in the furnace or in the kitchen stove. And he who governs fire is Vulcan, even if he be a cook or a man who tends the stove.[1]
Elsewhere, Paracelsus writes:
Nothing has been created as ultima materia — in its final state. Everything is at first created in its prima materia, its original stuff; whereupon Vulcan comes, and by the art of alchemy develops it into its final substance.
- Alchemy is a necessary, indispensable art ... It is an art, and Vulcan is its artist. He who is a Vulcan has mastered this art; he who is not a Vulcan can make no headway in it.
English responses to Paracelsian Alchemy
The Elizabethan essayist and scientist Francis Bacon was however, highly skeptical of alchemy and exclaimed in his The Advancement of Learning (1605):
Abandoning Minerva and wisdom they play court to the sooty smith Vulcan and his pots and pans,
Nevertheless, Paracelsian alchemists such as Gerard Dorn, Jan Baptist van Helmont and the eldest son of John Dee, Arthur Dee each acknowledged the Roman god of forge and furnace as symbolic of the art. Van Helmont specifically described alchemy as Vulcan's art, whilst Arthur Dee (1579 - died Norwich 1651) in his Arca Arcarnum wrote:
Though I am constrained to die and be buried nevertheless Vulcan carefully gives me birth.
The Garden of Cyrus
The Roman god and Paracelsian deity associated with alchemy, is named no less than three times by the scientist and essayist Sir Thomas Browne in his hermetic Discourse, The Garden of Cyrus (1658), firstly in its very opening sentence:
That Vulcan gave arrows unto Apollo and Diana according to gentile theology in the work of the fourth day may pass for no blind apprehension of the creation of the Sun and Moon
Secondly, in its second chapter, within the context of the Classical Greek myth in which Vulcan constructs and casts an invisible network to ensnare his wife Venus in flagrante delicto with her lover Mars. Browne humorously stating:
As for that famous network of Vulcan, which inclosed Mars and Venus, and caused that inextinguishable laugh in heaven; since the gods themselves could not discern it, we shall not pry into it. Although why Vulcan bound them, Neptune loosed them, and Apollo should first discover them, might afford no vulgar mythologie.
The Classical myth of Venus and Mars trapped by Vulcan's cunning invention is also a lesser-known example of the "fixing" and union of the opposites in the alchemical opus.
And finally at the fifth and last chapter, at the very apotheosis of the Discourse, in which Browne names the three factors for determining truth, past authority, reason and empirical experience; Browne's usage of Vulcan here representing the "higher man" who, not unlike the Gnostics, "Man of Light", uses his skills and crafts to aid, enlighten and liberate the Spiritual Man within.
Flat and Flexible truths are beat out by every hammer, but Vulcan and his whole forge sweat to work out Achilles his armour.
Conclusion
In modern times, the Swiss psychologist Carl Jung interpreted Vulcan as one who:
kindles the fiery wheel of the essence in the soul when it 'breaks off' from God; whence come desire and sin, which are the "wrath" of God. ,.[2]
The alchemists' adoption of the mythic figure of Vulcan may be interpreted on several levels. At the lowest scale of interpretation, Vulcan represents the cunning amoral demiurge who blindly gains power over Nature without integrity; this mundane level anticipates the nascent Industrial Revolution beginning in the 18th century. The activities of the extraction of coal from mines to fuel colossal Furnaces to manufacture Steel and Iron on a gigantic scale and the development of the railroad and steam-train throughout Europe and North America are exemplary of Vulcan on a mundane level, and in many ways, the general "business" of the Protestant work ethic, industrialised Western society, is strongly reflected in this archetypal figure of modern technological man, who, divorced from God, forges his own destiny independent of Religion, Divine Love or theological considerations towards a brave new world or utopia.
At a higher level of interpretation Vulcan is transformed to become an inspired apostle, visionary, shaman or artist who is capable of releasing Mankind from his chains of unknowingness and darkness.