Exaltation
Exaltation is the raising of a substance to a higher degree of purity, power, or perfection, an intensification of its virtues beyond its ordinary state. The term carries both a chemical sense (heightened potency) and a spiritual resonance (elevation). It is the tenth of Ripley's twelve gates, where it is paired with ceration, but it does not feature in Pernety's strict zodiacal list.
Historical Development
Exaltation denotes elevation: bringing a substance to a higher state of purity and potency than it naturally possesses. The word fuses a chemical meaning (concentration of virtue) with a spiritual one (raising up), and so sits at the meeting point of practice and allegory that characterizes much alchemical language.
Exaltation is the tenth of Ripley's twelve gates, where it is joined with ceration. Like conjunction, putrefaction and cibation, it is a Ripley operation that Pernety's zodiacal twelve omits, and it is therefore presented here among the major additional processes rather than under a zodiac sign.
Textual Tradition
Exaltation recurs in the English and Continental traditions that drew on Ripley, and its imagery of ascent and heightening is catalogued in Lyndy Abraham's dictionary and illustrated in Stanton Linden's anthology of sources.
Modern Scholarship
Studies of alchemical language emphasize how terms like exaltation operated on multiple registers at once, a feature modern scholarship is careful to parse rather than flatten into a single meaning. Reading such words demands attention to context, since the same term could name a bench operation or a philosophical aspiration.