Adamic earth

English

Etymology

From the spiritual substance said to have formed Adam, the first man, in the kabbalistic tradition; symbolically, the clay of Genesis.

Noun

Adamic earth (uncountable)

1. (alchemy) The primordial substance of corporeal matter, said to be closely related to the philosopher’s stone and symbolically identified as “red earth” or sometimes other substances.

   Synonyms: Adam's earth, Adamic stone

   • 1648, Thomas Vaughan, Anthroposophia Theomagica […]; republished as Arthur Edward Waite, editor, The Works of Thomas Vaughan: Eugenius Philalethes, 1919, page 27:

     This is the Created Aleph, the true Adamic Earth⁵—the basis of every building in heaven and earth. [Waite: ⁵ Terra Adama, the sophic, spiritual earth, of which the first man was made—according to the Zohar. Thereon also the Temple was built in Zion. It is red, veined earth, after the manner of a pomegranate.]

   • 1851, Justus von Liebig, “Letter III”, in Familiar Letters on Chemistry […], 3rd edition, pages 34–5:

     For the preparation of the philosopher’s stone the first requisite was the raw material, the Adamic earth, virgin earth, which is indeed to be found everywhere, but its discovery is dependent on certain conditions known to the initiated alone. “When we have once obtained this,” says Isaacus Hollandus, “the preparation of the stone is only a labour fit for women, or child’s play. […]”

   • 1913 [1860], Éliphas Lévi, translated by Arthur Edward Waite, Magic: A History of Its Rites, Rituals and Mysteries, page 204:

     The end was more arduous and sublime; it was a question of recovering the adamic earth, which is the coagulated blood of the vital earth; and the supreme dream of philosophers was to accomplish the work of Prometheus by imitating the work of God […]

   • 1920, Adventure, volume 25, page 60:

     “The old theory of Adamic Earth is proven true. That earth is Adamic Earth. Earth as it was when God first made the earth in six days—before man was. […] It has power by fermentation to change all baser metals to gold. […]”

See also

• prima materia