ABSTRACT
The one object that anyone in the world would overlook, the one that would attract no one’s attention, the one that would be instantly cast away like a mouldy orange: that alone would be the key to eternity, spiritual consummation, riches, and everlasting health. The Secret Figures of the Rosicrucians calls materia prima the “greasy fat dew of the ground,” the “womb of the earth,” the “salt of nature,” and finally “the one good thing God has created in this visible world". The materia prima is exquisitely, brilliantly beautiful to the person who can understand it for what it is. In the midst of its rotting pile, it shines at the “true philosopher” with a secret light. The idea that everything begins in squalor and refuse is an old one. There is a wonderful liquid complexity of thoughts that accompany painting, but they are all in, and of, and through the paint.
