I set myself up for high expectations with this thread did i? Oh boy... The most difficult part for me will be to pull out all the tidbits of information from various books and articles of which i didn't kept a track so i need to look for them again. I don't know what Dujol was thinking his practice appears to be totally different from Canseliet and Fulcanelli. In the Dwellings of the Philosophers there are clear descriptions of the Dry Path as we know it:
Initiates know that our science, although purely natural and simple, is in no way vulgar; the terms we use, following the masters, are no less so. Please pay attention to them, since we have chosen them with care, with the intention of showing the way, of pointing out the potholes which pit it, thus hoping to enlighten the studious and to divert the blind, the greedy, and the unworthy. Learn, you who already know, that all our purifications are igneous, that all our purifications are made in fire, by fire, and with fire. This is the reason why some authors have described these operations under the chemical title of calcinations, because the matter, long subjected to the action of the flame, yields its impure scorched parts to it. Know also that our rock --- veiled in the form of the dragon --- at first allows a dark, evil-smelling, and poisonous liquid to flow, whose thick volatile smoke is extremely toxic. This water, symbolized by the crow, cannot be washed or whitened except by means of fire. This is what the philosophers gave us to understand when, in their enigmatic style, they recommend that the artist cuts off its head. By these fiery ablutions, the water discharges its black coloration and takes on a white color. The crow, decapitated, gives back its soul and loses its feathers. Thus fire, by its frequent reiterated action on water, forces the latter to better defend its specific qualities by abandoning its superfluities. The water contracts, tightens itself to resist Vulcan’s tyrannical influence; it is nourished by fire which aggregates its pure and homogeneous molecules, and finally it is coagulated into a dense corporeal mass, fiery to the extent that the flame remains powerless to further exalt it. For you, unknown brothers of the mysterious city of the sun, we have formed the resolution of teaching the diverse and successive modes of our purifications. You will be thankful to us, we are certain, to have pointed out to you these reefs of the hermetic sea, against which so many inexperienced Argonauts have been shipwrecked. If you want to possess the griffin --- which is our astral stone --- by tearing it from its arsenical ganque, take two parts of virgin earth, our scaly dragon, and one part of the igneous agent, which is that valiant knight armed with the lance and shield. [*152-1] (Ares), more vigorous than Aries, must be in a lesser quantity. Pulverize and add the fifteenth part of this pure, white, admirable salt, washed and crystallized several times, which you must necessarily know. Intimately mix it; and then, following the example of the painful Passion of Our Lord, crucify it with three iron nails, so that the body dies and can then be resurrected. This done, drive away the coarsest sediments from the corpse; crush and triturate the bones; mix the whole thing on a slow heat with a steel rod. Then throw into this mixture half of this second salt, extracted from the dew that fertilizes the earth in the month of May, and you will obtain a body clearer than the preceding one. Repeat the same technique three times; you will reach the matrix of our mercury, and you will have climbed the first rung of the ladder of the sages. When Jesus resurrected the third day after his death, a luminous angel clothed in white alone occupied the empty sepulcher... However, if it suffices to know the secret substance represented by the dragon in order to discover its antagonist, it is essential to know the means that sages employ in order to limit, to temper the excessive ardor of the belligerents. For want of a necessary mediator --- for which we have never found a symbolic interpretation --- the ignorant experimenter would be exposed to grave dangers. Anxious spectator of the drama which he would have imprudently unleashed, he could neither control its phases nor regulate its fury. Fiery projections, sometimes even brutal explosion of the furnace, would be the sad consequences of his temerity. This is why, aware of our responsibility, we urgently beseech those who do not possess this secret to abstain until then. They will thus avoid the fate of an unfortunate priest of the diocese of Avignon, about which the following notice briefly gives an account (2): "Abbot Chapaty thought to have discovered the philosophers’ stone but, unfortunately for him, the crucible burst asunder, the metal exploded against him, attached itself to his face, arms and clothes; he ran in this way along the Infirmaries Street, dragging himself in the gutters as though possessed, and he perished miserably burnt, like a damned person. 1706". When you perceive a noise resembling that of boiling water in the vessel --- a hollow rumbling of the earth, whose entrails fire is tearing out --- be ready to fight and maintain your composure. You will notice smoke and blue, green and violet flames accompanying a series of quick detonations. Once the effervescence has passed and calm has been restored, you will be able to enjoy a magnificent spectacle. On a sea of fire, solid islands form, float on the surface, moving slowly, taking and leaving an infinity of vivid colors; their surface puffs up, bursts in the center, causing them to resemble tiny volcanoes. Then they disappear, being replaced by pretty green transparent balls revolving quickly, hitting one another, and seeming to chase one another, in the midst of multicolored flames and the iridescent reflection of the incandescent bath..
