Urim and Thummim
A means of divination employed by the ancient Hebrews, and which it was believed consisted of a species of casting lots. Their form and method of use is uncertain, but from passages in the Book of Samuel, it seems probable that (1) they were used to determine guilt and innocence, and (2) that this was done by means of categorical questions, to which the suspected person answered "Yes or No." They appear to have been the prerogative of the priesthood.
Valentine, Basil: This German adept in hermetic philosophy is commonly supposed to have been born at Mayence towards the close of the fourteenth century. As a young man he espoused holy orders, and it is recorded that he entered the Abbey of St. Peter, at Erfurt, and eventually became its Prior; but otherwise very little is known concerning him, and even the date of his death is uncertain. He appears to have been a very modest person, for according to Olaus Borrichius, the author of De Ortu et Progressu Chemiæ, Valentine imprisoned all the manuscripts of his scientific writings inside one of the pillars of the Abbey Church; and there they might have remained for an indefinite period, but a thunderstorm chanced ultimately to dislodge them from their curious hiding-place. It is possible, of course, that this incarceration was not altogether due to modesty on the writer's part, and arose rather from his dreading a visitation from the Inquisition in the event of their discovering his alchemistic proclivities; but be that as it may, Valentine's works certainly mark him as a very shrewd man and a capable scientist. In contradistinction to most analogous mediæval literature, his treatises are not all couched in Latin, some of them being in high Dutch and others in the author's native German; and prominent among those in the latter tongue is The Triumphal Chariot of Antimony, first published at Leipsic in 1624. Herein Valentine exalts antimony as an excellent medicine, while the volume likewise embodies a lengthy metrical treatise on the philosopher's stone, the writer contending that whoso would discover and use this must do charitable deeds, mortify the flesh, and pray without ceasing.
As regards the alchemist's further writings, it behoves to mention his Apocalypsis Chymica, De Microcosmo degue Magno Mundi Mysterio et Medecina Hominis and Practica unà cum duodecim Clavibus et Appendice. All these were originally published in Germany at the beginning of the seventeenth century, and divers passages in them demonstrate that the author understood the distillation of brandy, and was acquainted with the method of obtaining chlorohydric acid from salt-water; while moreover, reverting to his faith in antimony, he has been credited with having been the first to extract this from sulphuret.