The First Key is about purification: nothing impure is any use to the work. In Basil Valentine’s riddle a fierce grey wolf devours the body of the king and is then burned to ashes, and the king comes out of the fire set free and pure. In plain words: start by being honest about what is not really you.
What the engraving shows
Basil Valentine’s First Key, from the Musaeum Hermeticum. Photograph: Wellcome Collection, CC BY 4.0; colours added.
The engraving is the riddle in one picture. The king and queen of the work stand in the middle, the grey wolf leaps in from the left past a crucible, and on the right Saturn, the old god of lead, kneels with his scythe by the fire. The text calls the wolf ‘by birth the offspring of ancient Saturn’.
What it teaches
The First Key: purification. A grey wolf devours the king, and is then burned so the king comes out pure. Nothing impure is any use. In plain words: start by being honest about what is not really you.
What the alchemists meant
Readers have long taken the grey wolf for antimony, which was called the wolf of metals. Refiners melted impure gold with it: the other metals were carried off, and the antimony was then burned away, leaving the gold pure. The Twelfth Key itself speaks of ‘the best gold purged and refined with antimony’.
The First Key, in full
Let my friend know that no impure or spotted things are useful for our purpose. For there is nothing in their leprous nature capable of advancing the interests of our Art. There is much more likelihood of that which is in itself good being spoiled by that which is impure. Everything that is obtained from the mines has its value, unless, indeed, it is adulterated. Adulteration, however, spoils its goodness and its efficacy. As the physician purges and cleanses the inward parts of the body, and removes all unhealthy matter by means of his medicines, so our metallic substances must be purified and refined of all foreign matter, in order to ensure the success of our task.
Therefore, our Masters require a pure, immaculate body, that is untainted with any foreign admixture, which admixture is the leprosy of our metals. Let the diadem of the King be of pure gold, and let the Queen that is united to him in wedlock be chaste and immaculate. If you would operate by means of our bodies, take a fierce grey wolf, which, though on account of its name it be subject to the sway of warlike Mars, is by birth the offspring of ancient Saturn, and is found in the valleys and mountains of the world, where he roams about savage with hunger. Cast to him the body of the King, and when he has devoured it, burn him entirely to ashes in a great fire.
By this process the King will be liberated; and when it has been performed thrice the Lion has overcome the wolf, and will find nothing more to devour in him. Thus our Body has been rendered fit for the first stage of our work. Know that this is the only right and legitimate way of purifying our substance: for the Lion purifies himself with the blood of the wolf, and the tincture of its blood agrees most wonderfully with the tincture of the Lion, seeing that the two liquids are closely akin to each other. When the Lion's hunger is appeased, his spirit becomes more powerful than before, and his eyes glitter like the Sun.
His internal essence is now of inestimable value for the removing of all defects, and the healing of all diseases. He is pursued by the ten lepers, who desire to drink his blood; and all that are tormented with any kind of sickness are refreshed with this blood. For whoever drinks of this golden fountain, experiences a renovation of his whole nature, a vanishing of all unhealthy matter, a fresh supply of blood, a strengthening of the heart and of all the vitals, and a permanent bracing of every limb. For it opens all the pores, and through them bears away all that prevents the perfect health of the body, but allows all that is beneficial to remain therein unmolested.
But let my friend be scrupulously careful to preserve the fountain of life limpid and clear. If any strange water be mixed with it, it is spoiled, and becomes positively injurious. If it still retain any of the solvent which has been used for its dissolution, you must carefully purge it off. For no corrosive can be of the least use for the prevention of internal diseases. When a tree is found to bear sour and unwholesome fruit, its branches must be cut off, and scions of better trees grafted upon it. The new branches thereupon become organically united to the trunk; but though nourished with its sap, they thence forward produce good and pleasant fruit.
The King travels through six regions in the heavenly firmament, and in the seventh he fixes his abode. There the royal palace is adorned with golden tapestry. If you understand my meaning, this Key will open the first lock, and push back the first bolt; but if you do not, no spectacles or natural eyesight will enable you to understand what follows. But Lucius Papirius has instructed me not to say any more about this Key.
Basil Valentine, The Twelve Keys (1599), in the English of the Hermetic Museum (1893).
In Lead to Gold
In Lead to Gold, the First Key’s engraving is the plate of Gate 1, Calcination, in the Shadow work part of the path. The whole of the Twelve Keys is in the app’s Library, with a note in plain words on every key.
Last updated October 25, 2026.
Lead to Gold: Shadow Work, on Google Play
The alchemists’ Great Work, made into ten quiet minutes a day: twelve gates, a private journal, and a line of wisdom from the old masters. Free to download, for Android.
What are Basil Valentine’s Twelve Keys?: The Twelve Keys of Basil Valentine (1599): who he was, the twelve engravings, and what each key teaches about the Great Work, in plain words.
What does Basil Valentine’s Second Key mean?: Basil Valentine’s Second Key (1599) explained: Mercury between two swordsmen, the washing of the bride and bridegroom, and the full text in English.
What is calcination in alchemy?: Calcination, stage 1 of the twelve stages of alchemy: burning off what isn’t you. What the alchemists did, and what it means for you.
