October 14, 2020

A Short Catechism Of Alchemy



Q. What is the chief study of a Philosopher?

A. It is the investigation of the operations of Nature.

Q. What is the end of Nature?
A. God, Who is also its beginning.

Q. Whence are all things derived?
A. From one and indivisible Nature.

Q. Into how many regions is Nature separated?
A. Into four palmary regions.

Q. Which are they?
A. The dry, the moist, the warm, and the cold, which are the four elementary qualities, whence all things originate.

Q. How is Nature differentiated?
A. Into male and female.

Q. To what may we compare Nature?
A. To Mercury.

Q. Give a concise definition of Nature.
A. It is not visible, though it operates visibly; for it is simply a volatile spirit, fulfilling its office in bodies, and animated by the universal spirit-the divine breath, the central and universal fire, which vivifies all things that exist.

Q. What should be the qualities possessed by the examiners of Nature?
A. They should be like unto Nature herself. That is to say, they should be truthful, simple, patient, and persevering.

Q. What matters should subsequently engross their attention?
A. The philosophers should most carefully ascertain whether their designs are in harmony with Nature, and of a possible and attainable kind; if they would accomplish by their own power anything that is usually performed by the power of Nature, they must imitate her in every detail.

Q. What method must be followed in order to produce something which shall be developed to a superior degree than Nature herself develops it.
A. The manner of its improvement must be studied, and this is invariably operated by means of a like nature. For example, if it be desired to develop the intrinsic virtue of a given metal beyond its natural condition, the chemist must avail himself of the metallic nature itself, and must be able to discriminate between its male and female differentiations.

Q. Where does the metallic nature store her seeds?
A. In the four elements.

Q. With what materials can the philosopher alone accomplish anything?
A. With the germ of the given matter; this is its elixir or quintessence, more precious by far, and more useful, to the artist, than is Nature herself. Before the philosopher has extracted the seed, or germ, Nature, in his behalf, will be ready to perform her duty.

Q. What is the germ, or seed, of any substance?
A. It is the most subtle and perfect decoction and digestion of the substance itself; or, rather, it is the Balm of Sulphur, which is identical with the Radical Moisture of Metals.

Q. By what is this seed, or germ, engendered?
A. By the four elements, subject to the will of the Supreme Being, and through the direct intervention of the imagination of Nature.

Q. After what manner do the four elements operate?
A. By means of an incessant and uniform motion, each one, according to its quality, depositing its seed in the centre of the earth, where it is subjected to action and digested, and is subsequently expelled in an outward direction by the laws of movement.

Q. What do the philosophers understand by the centre of the earth?
A. A certain void place where nothing may repose, and the existence of which is assumed.

Q. Where, then, do the four elements expel and deposit their seeds?
A. In the ex-centre, or in the margin and circumference of the centre, which, after it has appropriated a portion, casts out the surplus into the region of excrement, scoriae, fire, and formless chaos.

Q. Illustrate this teaching by an example.
A. Take any level table, and set in its centre a vase filled with water; surround the vase with several things of various colours, especially salt, taking care that a proper distance intervenes between them all. Then pour out the water from the vase, and it will flow in streams here and there; one will encounter a substance of a red colour, and will assume a tinge of red; another will pass over the salt, and will contract a saline flavour; for it is certain that water does not modify the places which it traverses, but the diverse characteristics of places change the nature of water. In the same way the seed which is deposited by the four elements at the centre of the earth is subject to a variety of modifications in the places through which it passes, so that every existing substance is produced in the likeness of its channel, and when a seed on its arrival at a certain point encounters pure earth and pure water, a pure substance results, but the contrary in an opposite case.

Q. After what manner do the elements procreate this seed?
A. In order to the complete elucidation of this point, it must be observed that there are two gross and heavy elements and two that are volatile in character. Two, in like manner, are dry and two humid, one out of the four being actually excessively dry, and the other excessively moist. They are also masculine and feminine. Now, each of them has a marked tendency to reproduce its own species within its own sphere. Moreover, they are never in repose, but are perpetually interacting, and each of them separates, of and by itself, the most subtle portion thereof. Their general place of meeting is in the centre, even the centre of the Archeus, that servant of Nature, where coming to mix their several seeds, they agitate and finally expel them to the exterior.

Q. What is the true and the first matter of all metals?
A. The first matter, properly so called, is dual in its essence, or is in itself of a twofold nature; one, nevertheless, cannot create a metal without the concurrence of the other. The first and the palmary essence is an aerial humidity, blended with a warm air, in the form of a fatty water, which adheres to all substances indiscriminately, whether they are pure or impure.

Q. How has this humidity been named by Philosophers?
A. Mercury.

Q. By what is it governed?
A. By the rays of the Sun and Moon.

Q. What is the second matter?
A. The warmth of the earth -otherwise, that dry heat which is termed Sulphur by the Philosophers.

Q. Can the entire material body be converted into seed?
A. Its eight-hundredth part only-that, namely, which is secreted in the centre of the body in question, and may, for example, be seen in a grain of wheat.

Q. Of what use is the bulk of the matter as regards its seed?
A. It is useful as a safeguard against excessive heat, cold, moisture, or aridity, and, in general, all hurtful inclemency, against which it acts as an envelope.

Q. Would those artists who pretend to reduce the whole matter of any body into seed derive any advantage from the process, supposing it were possible to perform it?
A. None; on the contrary, their labour would be wholly unproductive, because nothing that is good can be accomplished by a deviation from natural methods.

Q. What, therefore, should be done?
A. The matter must be effectively separated from its impurities, for there is no metal, how pure soever, which is entirely free from imperfections, though their extent varies. Now all superfluities, cortices, and scoriae must be peeled off and purged out from the matter in order to discover its seed.

Q. What should receive the most careful attention of the Philosopher?
A. Assuredly, the end of Nature, and this is by no means to be looked for in the vulgar metals, because, these having issued already from the hands of the fashioner, it is no longer to be found therein.

Q. For what precise reason?
A. Because the vulgar metals, and chiefly gold, are absolutely dead, while ours, on the contrary, are absolutely living, and possess a soul.

Q. What is the life of metals?
A. It is no other substance than fire, when they are as yet imbedded in the mines.

Q. What is their death?
A. Their life and death are in reality one principle, for they die, as they live, by fire, but their death is from a fire of fusion.

Q. After what manner are metals conceived in the womb of the earth?
A. When the four elements have developed their power or virtue in the centre of the earth, and have deposited their seed, the Archeus of Nature, in the course of a distillatory process, sublimes them superficially by the warmth and energy of the perpetual movement.

Q. Into what does the wind resolve itself when it is distilled through the pores of the earth?
A. It resolves itself into water, whence all things spring; in this state it is merely a humid vapour, out of which there is subsequently evolved the principiated principle of all substances, which also serves as the first matter of the Philosophers.

Q. What then is this principiated principle, which is made use of as the first matter by the Children of Knowledge in the philosophic achievement?
A. It is this identical matter, which, the moment it is conceived, receives a permanent and unchangeable form.

Q. Are Saturn, Jupiter, Mars, Venus, the Sun, the Moon, etc., separately endowed with individual seed?
A. One is common to them all; their differences are to be accounted for by the: locality from which they are derived, not to speak of the fact that Nature completes her work with far greater rapidity in the procreation of silver than in that of gold, and so of the other metals, each in its own proportion.

Q. How is gold formed in the bowels of the earth?
A. When this vapour, of which we have spoken, is sublimed in the centre of the earth, and when it has passed through warm and pure places, where a certain sulphureous grease adheres to the channels, then this vapour, which the Philosophers have denominated their Mercury, becomes adapted and joined to this grease, which it sublimes with itself; from such amalgamation there is produced a certain unctuousness, which, abandoning the vaporous form, assumes that of grease, and is sublimised in other places, which have been cleansed by this preceding vapour, and the earth whereof has consequently been rendered more subtle, pure, and humid; it fills the pores of this earth, is joined thereto, and gold is produced as a result.

Q. How is Saturn engendered?
A. It occurs when the said unctuosity, or grease, passes through places which are totally impure and cold.

Q. How is Venus brought forth?
A. She is produced in localities where the earth itself is pure, but is mingled with impure sulphur.

Q. What power does the vapour, which we have recently mentioned, possess in the centre of the earth?
A. By its continual progress it has the power of perpetually rarefying whatsoever is crude and impure, and of successively attracting to itself all that is pure around it.

Q. What is the seed of the first matter of all things?
A. The first matter of things, that is to say, the matter of principiating principles is begotten by Nature, without the assistance of any other seed; in other words, Nature receives the matter from the elements, whence it subsequently brings forth the seed.

Q. What, absolutely speaking, is therefore the seed of things?
A. The seed in a body is no other thing than a congealed air, or a humid vapour, which is useless except it be dissolved by a warm vapour.

Q. How is the generation of seed comprised in the metallic kingdom?
A. By the artifice of Archeus the four elements, in the first generation of Nature, distil a ponderous vapour of water into the centre of the earth ; this is the seed of metals, and it is called Mercury, not on account of its essence, but because of its fluidity, and the facility with which it will adhere to each and every thing.

Q. Why is this vapour compared to sulphur?
A. Because of its internal heat.

Q. From what species of Mercury are we to conclude that the metals are composed?
A. The reference is exclusively to the Mercury of the Philosophers, and in no sense to the common or vulgar substance, which cannot become a seed, seeing that, like other metals, it already contains its own seed.

Q. What, therefore, must actually be accepted as the subject of our matter?
A. The seed alone, otherwise the fixed grain, and not the whole body, which is differentiated into Sulphur, or living male, and into Mercury, or living female.

Q. What operation must be afterwards performed ?
A. They must be joined together, so that they may form a germ, after which they will proceed to the procreation of a fruit which is conformed to their nature.

Q. What is the part of the artist in this operation?
A. The artist must do nothing but separate that which is subtle from that which is gross.

Q. To what, therefore, is the whole philosophic combination reduced?
A. The development of one into two, and the reduction of two into one, and nothing further.

Q. Whither must we turn for the seed and life of meals and minerals?
A. The seed of minerals is properly the water which exists in the centre
And the heart of the minerals.

Q. How does Nature operate by the help of Art?
A. Every seed, whatsoever its kind, is useless, unless by Nature or Art it is placed in a suitable matrix, where it receives its life by the coction of the germ! and by the congelation of the pure particle, or fixed grain.

Q. How is the seed subsequently nourished and preserved?
A. By the warmth of its body.

Q. What is therefore performed by the artist in the mineral kingdom?
A. He finishes what cannot be finished by Nature on account of the crudity of the air, which has permeated the pores of all bodies by its violence, but on the surface and not in the bowels of the earth.

Q. What correspondence have the metals among themselves?
A. It is necessary for a proper comprehension of the nature of this correspondence to consider the position of the planets, and to pay attention to Saturn, which is the highest of all, and then is succeeded by Jupiter, next by Mars, the Sun, Venus, Mercury, and, lastly, by the Moon. It must be observed that the influential virtues of the planets do not ascend but descend, and experience teaches us that Mars can be easily converted into Venus, not Venus into Mars, which is of a lower sphere. So, also, Jupiter can be easily transmuted into Mercury, because Jupiter is superior to Mercury, the one being second after the firmament, the other second above the earth, and Saturn is highest of all, while the Moon is lowest. The Sun enters into all, but it is never ameliorated by its inferiors. It is clear that there is a large correspondence between Saturn and the Moon, in the middle of which is the Sun; but to all these changes the Philosopher should strive to administer the Sun.

Q. When the Philosophers speak of gold and silver, from which they extract their matter, are we to suppose that they refer to the vulgar gold and silver?
A. By no means; vulgar silver and gold are dead, while those of the Philosophers are full of life.

Q. What is the object of research among the Philosophers?
A. Proficiency in the art of perfecting what Nature has left imperfect in the mineral kingdom, and the attainment of the treasure of the Philosophical Stone.

Q. What is this Stone?
A. The Stone is nothing else than the radical humidity of the elements, perfectly purified and educed into a sovereign fixation, which causes it to perform such great things for health, life being resident exclusively in the humid radical.

Q. In what does the secret of accomplishing this admirable work consist?
A. It consists in knowing how to educe from potentiality into activity the innate warmth, or the fire of Nature, which is enclosed in the centre of the radical humidity.

Q. What are the precautions which must be made use of to guard against failure in the work?
A. Great pains must be taken to eliminate excrements from the matter, and to conserve nothing but the kernel, which contains all the virtue of the compound.

Q. Why does this medicine heal every species of disease?
A. It is not on account of tile variety of its qualities, but simply because it powerfully fortifies the natural warmth, which it gently stimulates, while other physics irritate it by too violent an action.

Q. How can you demonstrate to me the truth of the art in the matter of the tincture?
A. Firstly, its truth is founded on the fact that the physical powder, being composed of the same substance as the metals, namely, quicksilver, has the faculty of combining with these in fusion, one nature easily embracing another which is like itself. Secondly, seeing that the imperfection of the base metals is owing to the crudeness of their quicksilver, and to that alone, the physical powder, which is a ripe and decocted quicksilver, and, in itself a pure fire, can easily communicate to them its own maturity, and can transmute them into its nature, after it has attracted their crude humidity, that is to say, their quicksilver, which is the sole substance that transmutes them, the rest being nothing but scoriae and excrements, which are rejected in projection.

Q. What road should the Philosopher follow that he may attain to the knowledge and execution of the physical work?
A. That precisely which was followed by the Great Architect of the Universe in the creation of the world, by observing how the chaos was evolved.

Q. What was the matter of the chaos?
A. It could be nothing else than a humid vapour, because water alone enters into all created substances, which all finish in a strange term, this term being a proper subject for the impression of all forms.

Q. Give me an example to illustrate what you have just stated.
A. An example may be found in the special productions of composite substances, the seeds of which invariably begin by resolving themselves into a certain humour, which is the chaos of the particular matter, whence issues, by a kind of irradiation, the complete form of the plant. Moreover, it should be observed that Holy Scripture makes no mention of anything except water as the material subject whereupon the Spirit of God brooded, nor of anything except light as the universal form of things.

Q. What profit may the Philosopher derive from these considerations, and what should he especially remark in the method of creation which was pursued by the Supreme Being?
A. In the first place he should observe the matter out of which the world was made; he will see that out of this confused mass, the Sovereign Artist began by extracting light, that this light in the same moment dissolved the darkness which covered the face of the earth, and that it served as the universal form of the matter. He will then easily perceive that in the generation of all composite substances, a species of irradiation takes place, and a separation of light and darkness, wherein Nature is an undeviating copyist of her Creator. The Philosopher will equally understand after what manner, by the action of this light, the empyrean, or firmament which divides the superior and inferior waters, was subsequently produced; how the sky was studded with luminous bodies; and how the necessity for the moon arose, which was owing to the space intervening between the things above and the things below; for the moon is an intermediate torch between the superior and the inferior worlds, receiving the celestial influences and communicating them to the earth. Finally he will understand how the Creator, in the gathering of the waters, produced dry land.

Q. How many heavens can you enumerate?
A. Properly there is one only, which is the firmament that divides the waters from the waters. Nevertheless, three are admitted, of which the first is the space that is above the clouds. In this heaven the waters are rarefied, and fall upon the fixed stars, and it is also in this space that the planets and wandering stars perform their revolutions. The second heaven is the firmament of the fixed stars, while the third is the abode of the supercelestial waters.

Q. Why is the rarefaction of the waters confined to the first heaven?
A. Because it is in the nature of rarefied substances to ascend, and because God, in His eternal laws, has assigned its proper sphere to everything.

Q. Why does each celestial body invariably revolve about an axis?
A. It is by reason of the primeval impetus which it received, and by virtue of the same law which will cause any heavy substance suspended from a thread to turn with the same velocity, if the power which impels its motion be always equal.

Q. Why do the superior waters never descend?
A. Because of their extreme rarefaction. It is for this reason that a skilled chemist can derive more profit from the study of rarefaction than from any other science whatsoever.

Q. What is the matter of the firmament?
A. It is properly air, which is more suitable than water as a medium of light.

Q. After the separation of the waters from the dry earth, what was performed by the Creator to originate generation?
A. He created a certain light which was destined for this office; He placed it in the central fire, and moderated this fire by the humidity of water and by the coldness of earth, so as to keep a check upon its energy and adapt it to His design.

Q. What is the action of this central fire?
A. It continually operates upon the nearest humid matter, which it exalts into vapour; now this vapour is the mercury of Nature and the first matter of the three kingdoms.

Q. How is the sulphur of Nature subsequently formed?
A. By the interaction of the central fire and the mercurial vapour.

Q. How is the salt of the sea produced?
A. By the action of the same fire upon aqueous humidity, when the aerial humidity, which is contained therein, has been exhaled.

Q. What should be done by a truly wise Philosopher when he has once mastered the foundation and the order in the procedure of the Great Architect of the Universe in the construction of all that exists in Nature?
A. He should, as far as may be possible, become a faithful copyist of his Creator. In the physical chaos he should make his chaos such as the original actually was; he should separate the light from the darkness : he should form his firmament for the separation of the waters which are above from the waters which are below, and should successively accomplish, point by point, the entire sequence of the creative act.

Q. With what is this grand and sublime operation performed?
A. With one single corpuscle, or minute body, which, so to speak, contains nothing but faeces, filth, and abominations, but whence a certain tenebrous and mercurial humidity is extracted, which contains in itself all that is required by the Philosopher, because, as a fact, he is in search of nothing hut the true Mercury.

Q. What kind of mercury, therefore, must he make use of in performing the work? 

A. Of a mercury which, as such, is not found on the earth, but is extracted from bodies, yet not from vulgar mercury, as it has been falsely said.

Q. Why is the latter unfitted to the needs of our work?
A. Because the wise artist must take notice that vulgar mercury has an insufficient quantity of sulphur, and he should consequently operate upon a body created by Nature, in which Nature herself has united the sulphur and mercury that it is the work of the artist to separate.

Q. What must he subsequently do?
A. He must purify them and join them anew together.

Q. How do you denominate the body of which we have been speaking?
A. The RUDE STONE, Or Chaos, or Iliaste, or Hyle--that confused mass which is known but universally despised.

Q. As you have told me that Mercury is the one thing which the Philosopher must absolutely understand, will you give me a circumstantial description of it, so as to avoid misconception?
A. In respect of its nature, our Mercury is dual--fixed and volatile; in regard to its motion, it is also dual, for it has a motion of ascent and of descent; by that of descent, it is the influence of plants, by which it stimulates the drooping fire of Nature, and this is its first office previous to congelation. By its ascensional movement, it rises, seeking to be purified, and as this is after congelation, it is considered to be the radical moisture of substances, which, beneath its vile scoriae, still preserves the nobility of its first origin.

Q. How many species of moisture do you suppose to be in each composite thing?
A. There are three--the Elementary, which is properly the vase of the other elements; the Radical, which, accurately speaking, is the oil, or balm, in which the entire virtue of the subject is resident--lastly, the Alimentary, the true natural dissolvent, which draws up the drooping internal fire, causing corruption and blackness by its humidity, and fostering and sustaining the subject.

Q. How many species of Mercury are there known to the Philosophers?
A. The Mercury of the Philosophers may be regarded under four aspects; the first is entitled the Mercury of bodies, which is actually their concealed seed; the second is the Mercury of Nature, which is the Bath or Vase of the Philosophers, otherwise the humid radical; to the third has been applied the designation, Mercury of the Philosophers, because it is found in their laboratory and in their minera. It is the sphere of Saturn; it is the Diana of the Wise; it is the true salt of metals, after the acquisition of which the true philosophic work may be truly said to have begun. In its fourth aspect, it is called Common Mercury, which yet is not that of the Vulgar, but rather is properly the true air of the Philosophers, the true middle substance of water, the true secret and concealed fire, called also common fire, because it is common to all minerae, for it is the substance of metals, and thence do they derive their quantity and quality.

Q. How many operations art comprised in our work?
A. There is one only, which may be resolved into sublimation, and sublimation, according to Geber, is nothing other than the elevation of the dry matter by the mediation of fire, with adherence to its own vase.

Q. What precaution should be taken in reading the Hermetic Philosophers ?
A. Great care, above all, must be observed upon this point, lest what they say upon the subject should be interpreted literally and in accordance with the mere sound of the words: For the letter killeth, but the spirit giveth life.

Q. What books should be read in order to have an acquaintance with our science?
A. Among the ancients, all the works of Hermes should especially be studied; in the next place, a certain book, entitled The Passage of the Red Sea, and another, The Entrance into the Promised Land. Paracelsus also should be read before all among elder writers, and, among other treatises, his Chemical Pathway, or the Manual of Paracelsus, which contains all the mysteries of demonstrative physics and the most arcane Kabbalah. This rare and unique manuscript work exists only in the Vatican Library, but Sendivogius had the good fortune to take a copy of it, which has helped in the illumination of the sages of our order. Secondly, Raymond Lully must be read, and his Vade Mecum above all, his dialogue called the Tree of Life, his testament, and his codicil. There must, however, be a certain precaution exercised in respect to the two last, because, like those of Geber, and also of Arnold de Villanova, they abound in false recipes and futile fictions, which seem to have been inserted with the object of more effectually disguising the truth from the ignorant. In the third place, the Turba Philosophorum which is a collection of ancient authors, contains much that is materially good, though there is much also which is valueless. Among mediaeval writers Zachary, Trevisan, Roger Bacon, and a certain anonymous author, whose book is entitled The Philosophers, should be held especially high in the estimation of the student. Among moderns the most worthy to be prized are John Fabricius, Francois de Nation, and Jean D'Espagnet, who wrote Physics Restored, though, to say the truth, he has imported some false precepts and fallacious opinions into his treatise.

Q. When may the Philosopher venture to undertake the work?
A. When he is, theoretically, able to extract, by means of a crude spirit, a digested spirit out of a body in dissolution, which digested spirit he must again rejoin to the vital oil.

Q. Explain me this theory in a clearer manner.
A. It may be demonstrated more completely in the actual process; the great experiment may be undertaken when the Philosopher, by the medium of a vegetable menstruurn, united to a mineral menstruum, is qualified to dissolve a third essential menstruum, with which menstruums united he must wash the earth, and then exalt it into a celestial quintessence, to compose the sulphureous thunderbolt, which instantaneously penetrates substances and destroys their excrements.

Q. Have those persons a proper acquaintance with Nature who pretend to make use of vulgar gold for seed, and of vulgar mercury for the dissolvent, or the earth in which it should be sown?
A. Assuredly not, because neither the one nor the other possesses the external agent--gold, because it has been deprived of it by decoction, and mercury because it has never had it.

Q. In seeking this auriferous seed elsewhere than in gold itself, is there no danger of producing a species of monster, since one appears to be departing from Nature?
A. It is undoubtedly true that in gold is contained the auriferous seed, and that in a more perfect condition than it is found in any other body; but this does not force us to make use of vulgar gold, for such a seed is equally found in each of the other metals, and is nothing else but that fixed grain which Nature has infused in the first congelation of mercury, all metals having one origin and a common substance, as will be ultimately unveiled to those who become worthy of receiving it by application and assiduous study.

Q. What follows from this doctrine?
A. It follows that, although the seed is more perfect in gold, it may be extracted much more easily from another body than from gold itself, other bodies being more open, that is to say, less digested, and less restricted in their humidity.

Q. Give me an example taken from Nature.
A. Vulgar gold may be likened to a fruit which, having come to a perfect maturity, has been cut off from its tree, and though it contains a most perfect and well-digested seed, notwithstanding, should anyone set it in the ground, with a view to its multiplication, much time, trouble, and attention will be consumed in the development of its vegetative capabilities. On the other hand, if a cutting, or a root, be taken from the same tree, and similarly planted, in a short time, and with no trouble, it will spring up and produce much fruit.

Q. Is it necessary that an amateur of this science should understand the formation of metals in the bowels of the earth if he wishes to complete his work ?
A. So indispensable is such a knowledge that should anyone fail, before all other studies, to apply himself to its attainment, and to imitate Nature point by point therein, he will never succeed in accomplishing anything but what is worthless.

Q. How, then, does Nature deposit metals in the bowels of the earth, and of what does she compose them ?
A. Nature manufactures them all out of sulphur and mercury, and forms them by their double vapour.

Q. What do you mean by this double vapour, and how can metals be formed thereby?
A. In order to a complete understanding of this question, it must first be stated that mercurial vapour is united to sulphureous vapour in a cavernous place which contains a saline water, which serves as their matrix. Thus is formed, firstly, the Vitriol of Nature; secondly, by the commotion of the elements, there is developed out of this Vitriol of Nature a new vapour, which is neither mercurial nor sulphureous, yet is allied to both these natures, and this, passing through places to which the grease of sulphur adheres, is joined therewith, and out of their union a glutinous substance is produced, otherwise, a formless mass, which is permeated by the vapour that fills these cavernous places. By this vapour, acting through the sulphur it contains, are produced the perfect metals, provided that the vapour and the locality are pure. If the locality and the vapour are impure, imperfect metals result. The terms perfection and imperfection have reference to various degrees of concoction.

Q. What is contained in this vapour?
A. A spirit of light and a spirit of fire, of the nature of the celestial bodies, which properly should be considered as the form of the universe.

Q. What does this vapour represent?
A. This vapour, thus impregnated by the universal spirit, represents, in a fairly complete way, the original Chaos, which contained all that was required for the original creation, that is, universal matter and universal form.

Q. And one cannot, notwithstanding, make use of vulgar mercury in the process?
A. No, because vulgar mercury, as already made plain, is devoid of external agent.

Q. Whence comes it that common mercury is without its external agent?
A. Because in the exaltation of the double vapour, the commotion has been so great and searching, that the spirit, or agent, has evaporated, as occurs, with very close similarity, in the fusion of metals. The result is that the unique mercurial part is deprived of its masculine or sulphureous agent, and consequently can never be transmuted into gold by Nature.

Q. How many species of gold are distinguished by the Philosophers?
A. Three sorts :--Astral Gold, Elementary Gold, and Vulgar Gold.

Q. What is astral gold?
A. Astral Gold has its centre in the sun, which communicates it by its rays to all inferior beings. It is an igneous substance, which receives a continual emanation of solar corpuscles that penetrate all things sentient, vegetable, and mineral.

Q. What do you refer to under the term Elementary Gold ?
A. This is the most pure and fixed portion of the elements, and of all that is composed of them. All sublunary beings included in the three kingdoms contain in their inmost centre a precious grain of this elementary gold.

Q. Give me some description of Vulgar Gold ?
A. It is the most beautiful metal of our acquaintance, the best that Nature can produce, as perfect as it is unalterable in itself.

Q. Of what species of gold is the Stone of the Philosophers ?
A. It is of the second species, as being the most pure portion of all the metallic elements after its purification, when it is termed living philosophical gold. A perfect equilibrium and equality of the four elements enter into the Physical Stone, and four things are indispensable for the accomplishment of the work, namely, composition, allocation, mixture, and union, which, once performed according to the rules of art, will beget the lawful Son of the Sun, and the Phoenix which eternally rises out of its own ashes.

Q. What is actually the living gold of the Philosophers?
A. It is exclusively the fire of Mercury, or that igneous virtue, contained in the radical moisture, to which it has already communicated the fixity and the nature of the sulphur, whence it has emanated, the mercurial character of the whole substance of philosophical sulphur permitting it to be alternatively termed mercury.

Q. What other name is also given by the Philosophers to their living gold ?
A. They also term it their living sulphur, and their true fire; they recognize its existence in all bodies, and there is nothing that can subsist without it.

Q. Where must we look for our living gold, our living sulphur, and our true fire ?
A. In the house of Mercury.

Q. By what is this fire nourished?
A. By the air.

Q. Give me a comparative illustration of the power of this fire ?
A. To exemplify the attraction of this interior fire, there is no better comparison than that which is derived from the thunderbolt, which originally is simply a dry, terrestrial exhalation, united to a humid vapour. By exaltation, and by assuming the igneous nature, it acts on the humidity which is inherent to it; this it attracts to itself, transmutes it into its own nature, and then rapidly precipitates itself to the earth, where it is attracted by a fixed nature which is like unto its own.

Q. What should be done by the Philosopher after he has extracted his Mercury ?
A. He should develop it from potentiality into activity.

Q. Cannot Nature perform this of herself?
A. No; because she stops short after the first sublimation, and out of the matter which is thus disposed do the metals engender.

Q. What do the Philosophers understand by their gold and silver?
A. The Philosophers apply to their Sulphur the name of Gold, and to their Mercury the name of Silver.

Q. Whence are they derived?
A. I have already stated that they are derived from a homogeneous body wherein they are found in great abundance, whence also Philosophers know how to extract both by an admirable, and entirely philosophical, process.

Q. When this operation has been duly performed, to what other point of the practice must they next apply themselves?
A. To the confection of the philosophical amalgam, which must be done with great care, but can only be accomplished after the preparation and sublimation of the Mercury.

Q. When should your matter be combined with the living gold?
A. During the period of amalgamation only, that is to say, Sulphur is introduced into it by means of the amalgamation, and thenceforth there is one substance; the process is shortened by the addition of Sulphur, while the tincture at the same time is augmented.

Q. What is contained in the centre of the radical moisture ?
A. It contains and conceals Sulphur, which is covered with a hard rind.

Q. What must be done to apply it to the Great Work?
A. It must be drawn, out of its bonds with consummate skill, and by the method of putrefaction.

Q. Does Nature, in her work in the mines, possess a menstruum which is adapted to the dissolution and liberation of this sulphur?
A. No; because there is no local movement. Could Nature, unassisted, dissolve, putrefy, and purify the metallic body, she would herself provide us with !he Physical Stone, which is Sulphur exalted and increased in virtue.

Q. Can you elucidate this doctrine by an example?
A. By an enlargement of the previous comparison of a fruit, or a seed, which, in the first place, is put into the earth for its solution, and afterwards for its multiplication. Now, the Philosopher, who is in a position to discern what is good seed, extracts it from its centre, consigns it to its proper earth, when it has been well cured and prepared, and therein he rarefies it in such a manner that its prolific virtue is increased and indefinitely multiplied.

Q. In what does the whole secret of the seed consist ?
A. In the true knowledge of its proper earth.

Q. What do you understand by the seed in the work Of the Philosophers ?
A. I understand the interior heat, or the specific spirit, which is enclosed in the humid radical, which, in other words, is the middle substance of living silver, the proper sperm of metals, which contains its own seed.

Q. How do you set free the sulphur from its bonds?
A. By putrefaction.

Q. What is the earth of minerals ?
A. It is their proper menstruum.

Q. What pains must be taken by the Philosopher to extract that part which he requires?
A. He must take great pains to eliminate the fetid vapours and impure sulphurs, after which the seed must be injected.

Q. By what indication may the Artist be assured that he is in the right road at the beginning of his work?
A. When he finds that the dissolvent and the thing dissolved are converted into one form and one matter at the period of dissolution.

Q. How many solutions do you count in the Philosophic Work?
A. There are three. The first solution is that which reduces the crude and metallic body into its elements of sulphur and of living silver; the second is that of the physical body, and the third is the solution of the mineral earth.

Q. How is the metallic body reduced by the first solution into mercury, and then into sulphur?
A. By the secret artificial fire, which is the Burning Star.

Q. How is this operation performed?
A. By extracting from the subject, in the first place, the mercury or vapour of the elements, and, after purification, by using it to liberate the sulphur from its bonds, by corruption, of which blackness is the indication.

Q. How is the second solution performed ?
A. When the physical body is resolved into the two substances previously mentioned, and has acquired the celestial nature.

Q. What is the name which is applied by Philosophers to the Matter during this period?
A, It is called their Physical Chaos, and it is, in fact, the true First Matter, a name which can hardly be applied before the conjunction of the male--which is sulphur--with the female--which is silver.

Q. To what does the third solution refer?
A. It is the humectation of the mineral earth and it is closely bound up with multiplication.

Q. What fire must be made use of in our work ?
A. That fire which is used by Nature.

Q. What is the potency of this fire?
A. It dissolves everything that is in the world, because it is the principle of all dissolution and corruption.

Q. Why is it also termed Mercury ?
A. Because it is in its nature aerial, and a most subtle vapour, which partakes at the same time of sulphur, whence it has contracted some contamination.

Q. Where is this fire concealed ?
A. It is concealed in the subject of art.

Q. Who is it that is familiar with, and can produce, this fire?
A. It is known to the wise, who can both produce it and purify it.

Q. What is the essential potency and characteristic of this fire ?
A. It is excessively dry, and is continually in motion; it seeks only to disintegrate and to educe things from potentiality into actuality; it is that, in a word, which coming upon solid places in mines, circulates in a vaporous form upon the matter, and dissolves it.

Q. How may this fire be most easily distinguished?
A. By the sulphureous excrements in which it is enveloped, and by the saline environment with which it is clothed.

Q. What must be added to this fire so as to accentuate its capacity for incineration in the feminine species?
A. On account of its extreme dryness it requires to be moistened.

Q. How many philosophical fires do you enumerate ?
A. There are in all three--the natural, the unnatural, and the contra-natural.

Q. Explain to me these three species of fires.
A. The natural fire is the masculine fire, or the chief agent; the unnatural is the feminine, which is the dissolvent of Nature, nourishing a white smoke, and assuming that form. This smoke is quickly dissipated, unless much care be exercised, and it is almost incombustible, though by philosophical sublimation it becomes corporeal and resplendent. The contra-natural fire is that which disintegrates compounds and has the power to unbind what has' been bound very closely by Nature.

Q. Where is our matter to be found?
A. It is to be found everywhere, but it must specially be sought in metallic nature, where it is more easily available than elsewhere.

Q. What kind must be preferred before all others ?
A. The most mature, the most appropriate, and the easiest; but care, before all things, must be taken that the metallic essence shall be present, not only potentially but in actuality, and that there is, moreover, a metallic splendour.

Q. Is everything contained in this subject?
A. Yes; but Nature, at the same time, must be assisted, so that the work may be perfected and hastened, and this by the means which are familiar to the higher grades of experiment.

Q. Is this subject exceedingly precious ?
A. It is vile, and originally is without native elegance; should anyone say that it is saleable, it is the species to which they refer, but, fundamentally, it is not saleable, because it is useful in our work alone.

Q. What does our Matter contain?
A. It contains Salt, Sulphur, and Mercury.

Q. What operation is it most important to be able to perform?
A. The successive extraction of the Salt, Sulphur, and Mercury.

Q. How is that done ?
A. By sole and perfect sublimation.

Q. What is in the first place extracted ?
A. Mercury in the form of a white smoke.

Q. What follows?
A. Igneous water, or Sulphur.

Q. What then?
A. Dissolution with purified salt, in the first place volatilising that which is fixed, and afterwards fixing that which is volatile into a precious earth, which is the Vase of the Philosophers, and is wholly perfect.

Q. When must the Philosopher begin his enterprise ?
A. At the moment of daybreak, for his energy must never be relaxed.

Q. When may he take his rest?
A. When the work has come to its perfection.

Q. At what hour is the end of the work ?
A. High noon, that is to say, the moment when the Sun is in its fullest power, and the Son of the Day-Star in its most brilliant splendour.

Q. What is the pass-word of Magnesia?
A. You know whether I can or should answer:--I reserve my speech.

Q. Give me the greeting of the Philosophers.
A. Begin ; I will reply to you.

Q. Are you an apprentice Philosopher?
A. My friends, and the wise, know me.

Q. What is the age of a Philosopher ?
A. From the moment of his researches to that of his discoveries, the Philosopher does not age.

 

A Magnificent and Select Tract on Philosophical Water

Anonymous

Translated from German by C. Banerji
Produced by Restorers of Alchemical Manuscripts Society (1986)
 



Most beloved son, so that I might explain to you, and write as a memorial a concise understanding of the one, true philosopher’s stone, and of how to proceed with its preparation, you must know that this stone is made of and born of two things, namely ex corpore et spiritu, of the male and female seeds, that is, of water of mercury and corpore solis. We can find enough proof of this in the many true writing of the philosophers, and so I will mention many of the writings they left behind. Then it will be seen how the purified mercurius is poured into and dissolved in a spiritual water. The philosophers call this the prima materia of metals. They also call it lunae water, aqua vitae, Q. Essentia, or a fiery and burning liquid liquor. The metals can be dissolved and freed from their hard, stiff bonds in this water, and so return to their first, their original nature, just as the water of mercury has done. This is why the philosophers wrote for us in their books the example of how frozen ice turns to water again when heated, for it was water before its coagulation too. They also say that whenever an object’s origins or principalis might be, it can be returned to that original state in this way. It will become that which it was in the beginning. The philosophers also wrote on the following subject in their books; that the species of metal cannot be turned into gold or silver if they have not first been reduced and returned to their original material. Note carefully, my son, that this reincarnation of the metals is possible only if the prima materia metallorum, or water of mercury, is used. It is not possible, and never will be possible with any other substance in the world. For this water is closest to the nature of the metals, and so it can never be separated or parted from them when the two are mixed. 

The philosophers have also given us explanations of this water in the ‘Turba’ and in other books in which they say the following: Nature enjoys its Nature, Nature contains Nature, improves Nature, reduces Nature, Nature is superior to Nature. This is how we can recognize this blessed water and its preparation: It is a heated, fiery, all-penetrating spiritus, the philosophical water and the hidden key to this art. For without it all alchemical works are useless and in vain. So, my son, you must understand and remember that the whole basis of the philosopher’s stone is this: 

That we can bring about a rebirth of the perfect and whole corpus solis, through the prima materia metallorum, or water of mercury, so that it is reborn through the water and the spirit, just as Christ says: Unless a man has been reborn through the water and the spirit he can never see the Kingdom of God. And so it is with this art. I say to you, my son, unless the corpus solis is sown, it is useless and fruitless, just as Christ says. Unless the grain of wheat falls onto the earth and dies there and rots, then it will bear no fruit. In this way the corpus solis is reborn through the water and the spirit, and immediately a clearer, more astral, eternal and immortal body grows from it, which bears fruit and multiplies like the vegetabilia. On this subject the philosopher Rogerus Baco says: I assure you, thus will the astrum, give of itself to the body of gold which has been clarified in this way, so that it will never lose its riches and its strength until the day of the Last Judgment. For the body is perfect, purified of all other elements and it is beautiful. But unless it is reborn it will never become anything bigger, or clearer, or higher or better. Unless you know and recognize this rebirth from Nature and new birth of metals through the water and the spirit of the prima materia, it is futile to practice this art. For believe me, in all truth, without this all is false, a lie, and useless, and in vain. It is impossible for it to happen in any other way. Because of this the philosophers wrote wonderfully in their books and said that everything bears an image of itself and that man will reap what he sows, and nothing else. In the same way the philosopher Angelicus said: Sow gold and silver so that they can bear fruit by Nature’s means. For this reason, my son, you must search in your work for a corpus other than gold, for all other corpora are stinking and incomplete. And so the philosophers have chosen gold above all other bodies as the most complete thing in the world, as the substance which lights up all other corpora and which pours life into them, while it has a fixed nature, an unburnable nature and a constant root in the fire. Rogerius also says of the body of gold that its nobility and perfection can never be altered, and that gold is the culmination of all natural births, and that nothing in the world is more complete. The philosopher Isaacus Hollandus speaks of the same substance in this way: Our stone can be extracted from nothing other than a perfect corpore, yes, from the most complete one in the world. If it were not a perfect corpus, what sort of stone could we extract from it? The stone must have the power to give life to all dead corpora, to purify all that is impure, to make all that is hard and to make all that is hard soft, and it would be truly impossible to extract such a powerful stone from an incomplete and frail corpore, just as it is also impossible to extract a good and perfect thing from something imperfect and unclean. How many people deceive themselves that such an extraction is possible, but they are always mistaken, and in truth they are great fools. Therefore my son, take care that the red philosophical sulphur is in the gold, as Richardus proved and King Calid said. Our sulphur is no common sulphur, but is fixed from mercurial nature and does not flee the fire. All other philosophers also confirm that their red sulphur is gold.

    But, my son, the philosophers also say in their books that common gold or silver is not their gold or silver. While their gold and silver is alive, common gold and silver are dead, and as such cannot perfect other, incomplete corpora, nor impart their completeness to them. If they had to give away some of their perfection they would remain incomplete themselves, for they would have no more perfection. Now my son, the words of the philosophers are true and founded on fact, for it is impossible for common gold and silver to make other, complete corpora perfect, unless, as I said before, the corpus Solis and Lunae, is reborn through the water and spirit of the prima material and an enlightened spiritual, clarified, eternal, fixed and subtle, all penetrating body grows from this which will purify other perfect corpora and multiply. Therefore the philosophers have said of this: Such works are performed on their stone so that the tincture in it can be improved. This is why it is necessary for this stone to be treated better and more subtly than common gold and silver. The philosopher Berhardus writes on this subject in his book. He says: We take this body just as Nature created it. But it is necessary to make to make it even more perfect using this art (which must still follow the rules of nature) so that it, in its great perfection and with its many rays, can make the imperfect corpora and complete in weight, colour, substance, yes even its mineral origins and principiis. And if it had remained in the sate in which Nature would normally have left it, if it had not been perfected or made superior, how would the period of ten and a half months served us then? Arnoldus speaks on this very subject in his Epistle: In our stone gold and silver are to be found more strongly, invisibly and more maturely in potentia et virtute, for if this were not so, neither gold nor silver in our stone are to be found in great strength and in their essence in their stone, but they are not as visible as common gold or silver. Euclides confirms this in his great ‘Rosario’: Nothing can come from one perfect things, he says, for it is already perfect and complete, just as Nature created it. We find a similar example in bread: When yeast-risen bread can be made from it. So it is too with gold, which is brought by nature over a long period of time to a complete end. It is therefore impossible to perfect other corpora with bad gold, unless the perfect corpus solis is dissolved again, so that it returns to its original substance, and it is turned into a true ferment and tincture through our work and art. On this subject the philosophers say that one can never achieve a good result until the gold and silver are joined together in one corpus. Now, my son, do not read the words literally, but understand the lumen metaphorice, for the philosophers say in their books that Luna is made of cold and wet Nature, and they also give this same definition to mercurio. So, for Lunam, we read mercurius, or water of mercury, or prima materia which is the philosophers luna or Lunae water, as can be read in the wonderful and profound book ‘Clangor Buccinae’.

    And so, my son, you have had a short lesson that this art is useless unless we bring the perfecta corpora back to its original essence by the philosophical fire or by the water of mercury. This original essence is a sulphuric water and not mercurius vivus as the sophists believe. For the original materia metallorum is not mercurius vivus, but a sticky sulphuric steam and a viscous water in which the three principia Sal, Sulphur, and Mercurius are gathered. You must be able to recognize the true and blessed water of mercury or the heavenly supernatural fire in which the corpora are dissolved and melted. For this knowledge is the greatest secret of them all, and it is only found in the power of God, whom we must beg for the secret. Of this the philosopher Rogerius says: God the Almighty created man and set him above Nature and all the animals, although he is natural and nothing more than Nature, apart from the life which God breathed into him. And it is God who is and must be the judge of all the works and their nature. This godly spirit within man forms our feelings and thoughts, just as it does in its own head. The natural spirit found in the first beginnings of Nature many indications on which it could base and found these thoughts.

    Through our work and through this spirit in us God-like Adam makes us ready for the destruction of the whole world. And from the lit, burning, fiery spirit of the breath of God, St Peter utters with quiet words that the elements will melt in the heat and the earth and all her works will burn in it, and a new world will be born, and it will be wonderful and precious and good, as is told in the Apocalypsi. And on this subject the philosopher concludes, saying, as we heard from St Peter, that a collapse of all the elements of the world shall occur in the heat of the fire. Take note that in this art too (which reflects nature) here too the fire must do this and perform these acts. Then, my son, turn your thoughts to the water which is burned, destroyed and melted with the corpus solis, which Rogerius confirms is a complete and created world. This too is no common fire, for common fire can neither burn nor destroy gold, but rather it is a supernatural, indestructible fire, the strongest of all fires, yes a hellish fire, the only one which has the power to burn gold, and to free it from its hard and stiff bonds. You must understand and know that this supernatural fire which has such power over gold and other metallic bodies, this fire alone is the spiritual, sulphuric, fiery water of mercury in which the corpus solis is melted and burned, and from this melted and destroyed substance a new world is created and born, a new world which is the heavenly Jerusalem, an eternal, purified, subtle, penetrating and fixed body which can penetrate all other corpora. That is why Rogerius says: It would be like a supernatural fire which will break, dissolve and mix together all the elementa in the world, and then the new work will be reborn from the broken, transitory work of the melted elements and will become an eternal work. Thus has the Holy Trinity also shown us a supernatural fire in the heavenly stone. My son, the philosophers have hidden this supernatural fire in their books and have called it in parabolic speeches by innumerable names. Some of their special names for it are Balneum Mariae, damp horse dung, menstruum, urine, milk, blood, aquam vitae, and such like. Bernhardus says of this fire: Make a vaporous and constant fire which is not too powerful, but subtle, airy, clear and contained, indestructible, all-penetrating and eternal. And he goes on to say more on the subject. In truth, I have told you all about the wisdom of the fire, for this vaporous fire can do everything. For this reason he also says that one must consider his words about the fire often and deeply. A wise man will soon deduce that he must not take these words to mean a common fire, but rather a supernatural fire. Maria Prophetessa also indicates that the element of water melts the corpora and turns them white. Raymundus Lullius writes on the subject of this fire (which he calls menstrum) and its preparation in his ‘Testamento noviss. in codice, in Anima metallorum, Luce Mercuriorum’ and in ‘Libro mercuriorum’ in the book ‘De Secretis Naturae f. de Q. Essentia’ and in the ‘Eluciderio Testamenti’ ch. 4, he says that it is not human, but rather angelic to reveal this heavenly fire, and that to know this is to know the greatest secret of all. He also says, in figurative expressions, that this fire of the wise is composed of horse dung and live calcium, I will explain what is represented by the live calcium elsewhere. I have already explained what is meant by the horse dung, namely that the horse dung is the water prima materia, for that too is warm and damp, just like horse dung, but it is no ordinary horse dung, as many ignorant people think. This is why the philosopher Alanus says: the philosophers have called the damp fire horse dung, in whose dampness the hidden warmth is contained, for it is a characteristic of the fire in a horse’s stomach that it does not destroy the gold, but rather increases it for the sake of its dampness. Alchidonius says: Our medicine is to be hidden in the damp horse dung which is the fire of the wise. Alanus speaks in a similar way. Dear son, take great care with the decomposition or disintegration. The decomposition must occur in a gentle warmth, that is, in a damp horse dung. Similarly, Arnoldus de Villa Nova writes in the ninth chapter that the heat of horse dung should be in the fire. Alphidius too says: It must be cooked and buried in the heat of horse dung, Aristotle too: The earth or the corpus will gain no power unless it is sublimated in horse dung. For this reason Hermes says: cook and bake it in the warmth of a horse’s stomach; and Morienus: if you do not find what you are looking for in the horse dung, then you can count your losses. Arnoldus agrees: You must search for no other fire than this, for this is the fire of the wise, the melting oven of the wise, their calcinating, sublimating, reverberating, dissolving, coagulating and figuring oven, for this water can dissolve and calcinate all metals and melts red and white with them. The ‘Turba’ and ‘Senior’ also speak of this: Our water is a fire and our water is stronger than all fires, for it makes a pure spirit from the corpore of gold which a natural fire cannot do, although natural fire also has something to do with it. For our fire enters into an earth or powder so that the gold burns more greatly than natural fire. Calid too says: In truth, it is a fire which burns and grinds all things.

    But how this philosophical water or fire, which is aqua mercurii, is prepared has been hidden by the philosophers, as Raymundus Lullus writes mysteriously in his works. It is first necessary for the mercury to be purified of its outer dampness and earthliness, but this must not be done with harmful and destructive things which would destroy its noble, fruitful, green and fertile nature. Avicenna, Arnoldus, Geber, Raymundus in codicillo and other philosophers state that mercury is best purified through the sublimation of commonly prepared salt. The sublimate is dried and mixed with Sal Tartari, is ground per retortam, then cut up. This must be done several times. In this way the mercurius will be rid of its outer dampness and foecibus. This purgation, says Bernhardus at the end of his epistle, does not harm the mercurius because the hot water and the salt do not penetrate it. But you must understand my son, that while the mercurius is a uniform and inseparable substance and essence, we cannot completely purify its outer whiteness, for its earthy impurity lies hidden in its innermost depths and it cannot be separated from it by any method of sublimation, how ever many ignorant people have the audacity to suggest this. For this reason the following method must be used. The mercurium vivum purgatum must be freed from the bonds with which Nature ties it so securely to the earth. These bonds must be loosed and it must be returned to its very first essence, namely a sulphuric, spiritual water, without the addition of any foreign bodies in the world, as Rogerius Bacon testifies to under the title ‘De Mercurio’, and as Raymundus also says in the ‘Theorica’ of his testament: Unless it is putrified in this way and dissolved, the menstruum will not be worth a fig. But when the living mercury, purified of all foreign bodies, has been freed of its bonds, and returned to its original water, then we can purify it inwardly and separate the spiritum from the water and its earthliness by distillation. The philosophers have spoken in secret words about the separation, in a way that a hard-headed man would not easily understand. They have written of it mysteriously and in a figurative manner in their description of the distillation of wine that the spirit of wine is mixed with a great deal of water and worldy earthiness. But the dry spiritum, or spirit of wine, can be separated from all phlegmatic moisture and worldy earthliness by artificial distillation. In other words, the whole spiritum is separated from the water o the wine, and the water from the earth. And so the yeast, through whose calcinations its own white salt is extracted, remains. This is married again with the spiritu and distilled again several times until all the sal nitri has then gone into the lid of the distilling vessel with the spiritu. In this way the power of the spiritus is greatly strengthened and heightened by the sal. Truly, the philosophers have given us a remarkable figurative description, which we should also follow in the description of the water of mercury.

    For when the latter has been dissolved, we should do exactly as was done to the wine: By the sublimation of the water (or phlegma) from the spiritu, the spiritum is separated from the earth, the earth is rectified and married again to the spiritu, and they are distilled again and again until both substances are to be found in the lid of the distilling vessel. Of all the philosophers, none has written better and more clearly on this subject than Raymundus Lullius, in his ‘Testamento Novissimo’ and also in his first testament ‘In Libro Mercuriorum, libro Q. Essentia’ in which he explains clearly and at length that after the putrefaction, separation and distillation of the philosophical spirit of wine, the spiritual water is mixed and distilled again with its earth, and they are both put over the alembic together. He also explains that this philosophical wine or mentruum is heightened and strengthened with its own salt. And also you must also understand that this water, menstruum or philosophical spirit of wine dissolves its own corpus or living mercurium into the original essence or water, and is then multiplied ceaselessly through the putrefaction and the distillation. What is said of the extract of this water is confirmed by Arnoldus de Villa Nova when he says: It is a substance full of foul smelling vapours and which contains a gross moisture. From this substance the artist separates the philosophical moisture which is easy to work with and which is as clear as tears. The Q. Essentia lives in is metallic form in this substance. It causes no discomfort to the metals, and the tincture of the whole metal can be gathered in it. For it contains Nature’s Argenti Vivi, and the nature of sulphuris. On the subject of the distillation of this menstruum or water ‘Rosarius Philosophorum’ says that you should take great care that the dishes in which you wish to purify your spirit are made of glass, so that the spirit can find no place to escape through, for it often slips quickly through the holes in dishes. And once the red spirit has escaped all the artist’s work is in vain. The red spirit is what the philosophers call blood and menstruum. So take care with your dishes and with any cracks in your dishes, so that you can catch the dry spirit with its blood in a receptable, without letting its power escape. Store it carefully until you begin to work on it. But seeing the distillation is more important than reading about it, and none can become a Master without having first been a pupil. For this reason take great care over your work. Using a receptacle distill the element at first over a gentle fire, and when it has been distilled off, put it aside and replace it with another receptacle. Make sure all the cracks are tightly sealed so that the spirit cannot escape. Make the fire a little stronger. A dry yellow spiritus will rise into the lid of the distilling vessel. Keep the fire burning steadily for as long as the spirit is yellow. Then, when the alembic begins to turn red, make the fire a little stronger, and keep it at this temperature until the red spirit and the blood have been completely distilled off and are floating in the lid of the distilling vessel like clouds in the sky. As soon as the red spirit is distilled off, the lid will turn white. Stop as soon as this happens. You now have the two elements air and water in the receptacle, and you have separated the right matter.

    As you will see, you now have the primam materiam metallorum in which corpora can be reduced. For all metals have their origin in water, and water is the root of all metals. That is why they are reduced to water, just as frozen ice becomes water again in the warmth, for it used to be water, before it was frozen. So do not be surprised, for all things on the earth are like this, they all have their origins in water. Oh there are so many of them! But you must not think about their origins. You must work on. This is the key to the whole work, the key which dissolves the corpora at the beginning, it is father and mother, it opens and locks them, and reduces them to that which they were in the beginning. It dissolves the corpora and coagulates with them, the spirit is led to the water, that is, the power of the spirit is seen there taking effect, and this happens when the corpus is placed in the water. On this subject the philosopher says: There is something which everyone recognizes, and whoever does not recognize it will rarely, perhaps never find it. The wise man will keep it and the fool will throw it away, and the reduction comes easily to the man who knows it. But, my son, the greatest secret of all is how to free the stone or mercurium vivum from the natural bonds with which it is bound to the laws of Nature, that is, how to dissolve it and return it to its original water. For if this did not happen, all our work would be in vain, for we could not separate and extract the true spirit or liquid essence which dissolves all corpora. And all the philosophers have kept this dissolution secret, and God the Almighty in His Power has ordered them to do this, and they have cursed and damned the men who have revealed it. For this reason they have spoken only briefly and subtly of the return of this raw body to its original essence, so that it can remain hidden to the ignorant. But you, my son, must understand that this dissolving of the living mercurii to its original state is difficult without knowledge of certain methods, but no sophistic methods can be used, as are used by many coarse ignorant and unknowing fools, who change the mercurium into water using many marvelous arts and believe that it is the true water. They sublimate the mercurium by corrosiva with all sorts of salts and vitriols, whereby the sublimated mercurius draws the spirit of the salts into itself. Then they dissolve the sublimate in water in Balneo or in the cellar or in various other ways. Then they turn it into water using salmiac and herbs, salves or aqua fort, using peculiar apparatus and many sophistic rules, but all of this is mere fantasy, nonsense, useless and in vain. Some of them also think that they can separate certain things from the water of mercury and that it will become the true water which the philosophers desire. The reason for this is simply that they do not heed the words of the philosophers which say quite clearly that it should be mixed with no foreign object on earth. And Bernhardus says in his ‘Epistle’: As soon as the mercurius has been dried out by the salts, alum and aqua fort, it will no longer dissolve. But take note, my dear son, of what I am about to tell you, and of how the philosophers have left an account for those who understand their books, namely, that this water cannot be prepared using strange methods in the world, but rather, it can only be prepared using natural means; together with Nature and from nature. These words are bright and clear to those who understand, so this time I will not explain it openly, but I will write it down in a special little tract, but as a memorial I will add here the following verses:

Take one that is fresh, pure, living, white and clear, 
Tie its hands and feet well 
With the strongest rope you can find 
So that it dries and is choked 
In the House of Putrefaction, 
As Nature has shown us. 
By this same harmonious Nature 
It will be dissolved and it will rise to the original essence. 
It is a living, spiritual spring 
Which flows clearly and brightly from Heaven. 
It eats its own flesh and blood 
In order to multiply.

    Whoever succeeds, with God’s help, in attaining this blessed water should thank God, for he has in his hands the key which will open the closed locks of all metal chests, and can take gold, silver, precious stones, honour, power and good health. This blessed water is called the daughter of Pluto by the philosophers, it has strength and power over all treassures. It is also called the white, pure, tender and unspoiled maid of Beja and without it no birth or blending can occur. For this reason the philosophers have married this tender and pure maid to Gabrico, so that they bear fruit, and when she was joined with Gabricus, he died. Beja swallowed and consumed him in her great love, as Arisleus tells in his ‘Practica’: The spring or Fontina is like a mother to the king, for she draws him to her and kills him. But through her the king is resurrected again and he joins himself fast to her, so that no man can harm him. This is why the philosopher says that Gabricus is more precious and worthy and dear to the world than Beja, but he can bear no fruit alone. The philosophers have called this maid and blessed water by many thousands of different names in their books. They call it heaven, a heavenly water, a heavenly rain, a heavenly thaw, a May thaw, water of Paradise, an aqua fortis and an aquam Regis, a corrosive aquafort, a sharp vinegar and liquor, also Quintam essentiam vini, a waxy green juice, waxy mercurium, green water and Leonem viridis, quicksilver, menstruum or blood. They also call it urine and horse piss, milk and virgin’s milk, water of arsenic, silver, Luna or Lunae water, woman, a female seed, a sulphuric steam and smoke, a fiery, burning spirit, a deathly all-penetrating poison, a dragon, a scorpion which eats its young, a hellish fire of horse dung, a sharp salt, sal armoniacum, a common salt, a lye, a viscous oil, the stomach of an ostrich which eats and digests all things, an eagle, a vulture and hermetic bird, a vessel and Sigillum Hermetis, a melting and calcinating oven, and innumerable other names of animals, birds, plants, waters, juices, milks and blood, etc. 

They have used all these names and written of it figuratively in their books. They have suggested that such a water is made of these things, with the result that all ignorant people who have searched for it in these things, have not found the desired water. You must also know, my son, that it can be made only from mercurio vivo and from no other thing on earth, and the philosophers have given it so many names that ignorant people cannot recognize it. And with that, I end this little tract, written in order that you might understand and learn that without this fire, all work in the world is in vain, all chemical processes are a lie, useless and false. 

The great ‘Rosarius’ says that there is no more than one recipe, and with this one lock all the books of the philosophers a re locked, just as if they were surrounded by a strong wall, and unless you know of, or have the key in your hands, you will never open the lock, or achieve anything fruitful. For the only key to the metal walls and gardens is this water. And this water is the strong aquafort which Isaacus refers to in his own work. He dissolves the corpora with it and uses it to make it spiritual. So note carefully that without this water all is false, all is a lie, in metals and minerals as well as vegetalibus and animalibus. 

You can dissolve, sublimate, distill, calcinate, extract, mix and compose what you will, you can dissolve it in the cellar, in Balneo, in dung, in aqua fortis and in any amount of strong waters which the alchemical processes teach, or which you can think up yourself, you can make oil or water or chalk or powder black, white, yellow and red. You can burn it, pour it in any way and teach the alchemical recipes, you can claim that you can make gold and silver with them. But it is all false, a stinking lie from beginning to end (without the water). 

For I myself --- with my own hands, or I should never have believed it --- I myself have learned this through error and misfortune. Be warned, my son, protect yourself from such sophists in Alchemy and the bragging of all deceitful people, just as you would protect yourself from the tiresome devil and from a terrible, impure and burning fire or poison. For through the sophistry of such cunning and false alchemy a man can bring about the death of his body and soul, his honour and goodness. Such deceit is truly more evil than the devil himself, even if one were to turn a whole principality against such people, everything would still be destroyed and still the lasting truth would not be fund. It is for this reason that you must open your eyes, know and recognize the only key, flee all falsehood, for it is impossible to achieve anything true and useful in any way, other than the way I have described in this little book.

The End.