ALCHEMY - TWELVE KEYS - SECRET FIRE - CIRCLE - SQUARE The Seventh Key of Basil Valentine, from Practica cum Duodecim Clavibus in the Tripus Aureus of Michael Maier, 1618. The sacred Water introduced in the Sixth Key is portrayed in a triangle resting on its base. Such a triangle is a symbol of Fire, so the word and image combine to reveal the union of opposites - of Fire and Water. Below this union is the Sal Philosophorum, or Salt of the Wise. In the containing circle is the word CHAOS. In alchemy, Chaos is not strictly speaking chaotic - it is the prerequisite condition for the insertion of spirit into matter: only with an area of chaos may spirit enter into the material realm. This is the true secret of the central Secret Fire, which has found union with Water. Around the secret fire, which is found in all human beings, revolve the Four Seasons, or the unfoldment of Time in Nature. Truly, this is the Sigillum Hermetis, or Hermetic Seal, in which Triangle, Square and Circle play important symbolic roles. 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.