APERTOIRE

RAYMOND LULLE

Our Sages assure us that there is only one Stone composed only of the four elements, which does not need any strange thing, except what is of her nature.

However, it must first be purged of all the superfluity and its corruptible phlegmatic matter, which is his death and mortifies his spirit, which has the power to revitalize his land. So purge it, and separate the phlegm subtly corruptible, as I would say. Because if all is not well purged, his land will never whiten well, will never be point of marriage between the body and the spirit, and thus this spirit being well purged is then called, the spirit of the Stone, having power to revive his body being dead, having come out of this composed by the preparation. This is why when the body returned from death to life, then it is clear, pure, resplendent, greatly subtle, and clothed in beautiful accoutrements.

Now, know that when this igneous spirit enters his body, and brings him back to life, the philosophers call him Peter benoîte, and the Stone of great price, and of honor, after his resurrection. It means that noble igneous spirit of the aforesaid Peter, who is thus illuminated in the nature of the four elements. Nevertheless, it should not be understood that it is only earth and only water, neither air nor fire, but is a one nature, which contains in itself the nature of the four elements together, otherwise it could not be linked with his land, and therefore, it could not be bleached by the same spirit, if it were not of the same nature. It is why, always take heed, that nature and property of the body, which is in this spirit, is not burned in its preparation by the force of fire, because the spirit could never no longer bleach, nor join with the earth, since the medium is the soul, which participates between death and life, and would separate from the spirit by the force of fire, so that the spirit would remain dead without a soul, and also the soul would move away from him, fleeing to the region of his sphere.

This secret should not be told to the ignorant and playful. Know that there are many who believe in making brandy, and that surely they make water of death because of the combustion. That's why, please keep the measure of the fire in the preparation, so that your work does not is spoiled by too much heat; for if the soul were gone, the spirit could not vivify his body, seeing that he could not give what that it does not have in itself.

Now, the preparation of the aforesaid spirit is done thus: take some best and purest moon juice you can have, a pound or two (in his last will he says that wine is lunar juice) put it in a glass still, adapt a container also of glass, lutes the joints well with well glued triple paper, put it on a stove, make y fire of a luminion, of a ligamine (of a wick) and on such a slow, gentle fire distill, until you see that the clouds appear in the still's yoke, and will then be able to know what the weight of the aerial soul is, and find where it is, when the veins appear it's sign that it is phlegm, and so when phlegm begins to make veins, it is the sign that all the spirit has passed and distilled, which contains in itself all the perfection of life. So then take this distilled spirit, and keep it in a vessel of strong glass, and plug the well with wax white. After that, return a vessel to the still, and receive the second water that will come from it, because in it there will be still said spirit, though not so strong as the first.

Distill this second water until it come nothing but phlegm: what you will know when, the tasty, you will find it as sweet and bland as water common that if it still has some point, continues to distill, until it is flavor and is sweet as pure water. So keep that second water in a vessel of glass, and seals it well with wax like the first.

Then put another container to receive all the phlegm, and distill until none more comes, and then pour out this phlegm, especially since it is he who kills our Pierre precious, which the common people do not know, but we know him.

After that, you will remain at the bottom of the vessel a land black, like molten pitch, which must be calcined. This calcination must not be done in violent fire, as do the sophists, but it is done by his own mind, which prevents it and preserves it from being burned, because its spirit draws the soul from its body, drives out its superfluous phlegm, mortifies his earth and then vivifies it perpetually, you therefore calcine the earth as follows:

take the aforesaid second distilled water, and throw it on the said black earth in his vessel, stir it, and mix well until it is dissolved, for it dissolve immediately, but take care that the smoke does not goes out of the ship, that's why as soon as you have cast water on the said earth, stop the good, because the sulfur is there, which has the power to coagulate our water into laminate crystalline, or in the form of a snow-white powder.

So move the said earth well in its well-closed vessel, until it is dissolved in his mind. That being the case, remove the lid of your vessel, and suddenly put his yoke on it spout from above, fit a glass container, lutes well the joints of the curcurbite and the container, and distilled as I said above, until you see that the veins that spirits make, no longer appear in the head of the glass still. So take away your container and keep them spirits, which are within, in a separate glass vessel, well blocked. Then put the container back in, and distill again to see if there is any spirit, what you will know if you see more veins mixed with drops like tears.

These tears appearing and the veins appearing no more, if not those who make said tears, and still keep apart this second water. Then put the container back to receive some all the water that will distil from it, which will be bland and tasteless like common water, and is but phlegm which is the death of ours Rock. When all the phlegm is out, and the distillation completed, you will find your material softer than before, because the spirit will have attracted the aerial soul of its body, because in this body the soul is contained therein.

You will repeat this operation until you see your charred earth at the bottom of your vessel in black earth, or until by distilling it does not get out of it or come out of it any more phlegm, but that the last water which will be distilled is of as great virtue, and has as much in strength, flavor, and smell like the first. Gold know that in the third distillation, you must put and mix these two spirits on the earth, so many times and until the earth and these spirits, give and have the aforesaid marks, that is to say that the spirits no longer yield phlegm, and that the earth remains charred.

In this chapter lies a very great secret, for it is extraction of the soul from the body, by which the spirit vivifies, as the body mortifies itself by the absence of it. So take away the humor that mortifies the natural heat (it is the phlegm which mortifies it) because it is the heat which is the cause of the generation of ours sulphur, as the Philosophers, because our sulfur cannot be generated without heat. So we draw this heat from death to life, because before she had died in this black sulphur, but now she is lively, and full, clothed in great virtues and power, and has the power to penetrate all parts of his mind, by means of the point and its acuteness, and has the power also to freeze because of its dryness, because every dry thing readily drinks its moisture, and the converts and changes into sulphur, which has after the power of coagulate all quicksilver.

If you therefore consider, my son, this conversion or transmutation, you will find that there is no annoyance in the generation, because every generation must be done through the diversity of its corruption and generation, which are contrary to each other. The corruption that is powerful in this matter, makes it possible to achieve a new generation of perpetual life. This is why the corruption is done by the separation of these elements, and by after their preparation its sulfur is begotten, from which by afterwards you can perfect the medicine of the Secret Stone, by which has influenced such a virtue of sulfur, which must vivify and draw the two opposites, namely the body and the spirit, into substituting and blending the body with the spirit, and congealing and retaining the spirit with the body, and the body with the spirit in permanent fixation. This is what the Philosopher testifies when he says: We cannot pass from the softness of mercury to the hardness of the metal, except by a provision middle ground, or medicine, which participates in both, and by means of this preparation, he has the power to bind together and unite. Leaving you see that three have been made one, so says the Philosopher in the book of trinity, that our precious Stone is composed of three, namely of body, mind, and soul.

Know again, my son, that sometimes the spirit is the medium between body and soul, because the spirit draws the soul from the body mortifying him, and afterward restores his soul, and raises him up, and of this resurrection Hermes said, Take the soul from the body, and sow it in our white leaf, which is volatile, if you want that it loses its great elements, because the soul retains it, so that she cannot run away, when she rises high his heaven and come down to earth, and take and receive all the virtues of body and mind, in such a form, so that it there is nothing that can do anything against her, including death will not even be able to reach or mortify again, because that if she resurrects once, she never dies again. By this you see that a body cannot have eternal life, unless he dies first, because death is the cause of the glorification of the body in eternal life, as the corruption is the cause of new generation of a divine substance. So first mortify the body by corruption, before doing anything else, after leads the little by little for life, until he reaches such a medium of corporeality and spirituality, which we call medium participant of the nature of the two extremities, namely between the body and the spirit, for this reason we say that the spirit is the life of the soul, because it contains the soul in itself. We let us also call this spirit body because of the corporeality palpable and visible of which it is composed, and in which it is collocated, and this is the reason by which this spirit retains in itself of the nature of the body, and also because of these two aforesaid properties. Know that there is a third between the body and soul, which we call medium, which has the to be able to immediately unite them and bind them together, without them can be separated, and thereafter this spirit contains in itself the soul by which the dead body revives. So he is there necessary cause that there is a conjunction between the body and the spirit, by a natural love, and an amicable disposition, for this amicable disposition, and amicable conjunction, is that by which the conjunction of spirit and body comes into nature of the individual body, in which the thickness of the body and the power with all these figures here, which enter first in the substance of the subtle mind, by a so subtle (blank in the manuscript) bodily way, that there can see something other than a spirit only that is form of water, and thus the soul and the thickness of the body are there invisibly together, and then he sees himself as the soul is pulled by the virtue and the thickness of the body, and like the substance of the spirit is taken and arrested by a virtue and quality of the body, and also as the soul is of a nature and thickness of the same body. So when the body is thirsty, then he desires to moisten his dryness, and to drink to restore its moist nature, which it lost so strongly in its calcination. And so then, by this vivifying virtue, he attracts his nature to self, and also attracts its multiplied spirit of its own substance, and exuberant by the nature of his body, which is spread through all the substance of the spirit. And so, this extraction which is made by the love of the above nature, and the because of the conjunction of body and mind.

The Philosopher pales from this conjunction to the children of the truth, saying that if the conjunction does not take place between the body and mind, there will never be any conception here, and if it does not made design, there will be no impregnation or pregnancy, and so there will be no generation of children, this way you can see the power of this conjunction. This is why the Philosopher gives to know, that the generation of our Peter is similar to the generation human, for this reason, that when the child is born, he must then feed until it is strong and powerful, against the substance of fire.

But do not consider that you have then finished, where you gotta start cause you haven't seen the secret yet that we keep, to teach it to the children of the truth, which begins now, in the second part of the food and stone food, especially as they are here manifested great transmutations of the Stone, according to his power; because the more the Stone is nourished, the more great great transmutations, then you will see, and several secrets also of admirable things, and powers of nature will be manifested to you, as you you will see visibly before your eyes, but you must not reveal this secret to people of the world; because it is a great grace and gift of God, who reveals to him to whom he pleases.

Now it is necessary in this vivification, it is necessary may the earth recover what it has lost, and may the spirit moist be put back into his dry body, by transmutation natural. But it cannot and must be done by force, but by the engine of nature, and the engine of nature is the place of the generation of ours sulphur, namely in complexion and quality. From all this we see and derive a necessary cause, that it is the spiritual grain, which is the moist and the hot, which must make this change. This is why the Philosophers have seen and considered, that nature alone does all this, when from disposition to disposition it is converted, because by such disposition it makes its transmutation, and thus, also it transmutes and changes the grain in this way, what it must hear of the hot and humid spirit.

By this change and mutation, the Philosophers notice and know, that the earth must be deprived of all its moisture, until it is converted in a dry quality, and after he conclude, that its moisture be returned and converted to its dry place, that is, to its own land, because it is the proper place of generation of our sulphur. which is evident in the fact that this earth before its preparation and calcination, do not does not do that, but it does after it has been calcined, to because its natural warmth was reinforced by the removal of her humidity, which mortified and drowned her absolutely. By subtracting its moisture, i.e. that was taken away from him.

So prepare well, and burn this earth well philosophically, before you sow the seed there that we love so much, and then take this land, put it into a matrass, and throw upon it his spirit the fourth part of what it weighs, for example if the earth weighs four ounces, throw an ounce of spirit in it, then put it in its athanor to the stove, and you will hold it there gently and slowly heat, until said spirit is coagulated in said earth. But know that the body, which was or has been dead, puts on of white clothes, as you will see, if it pleases God, the earth quite white as snow; and then the earth is pregnant with perpetual clarity, which must give birth and bring our child up to date. Because this childbirth ends and ends the work, namely when the spirit freezes in sulphur, which was separated from the earth, and desired in it a splendid clarity, that it might be pure and without corruption, and was above all impurity and corruptibility.

But when the earth is whitened in this way, triturate the well in a glass mortar, or glass plate, until until it is in very loose powder, then put it back in its vessel or curcurbite of glass, covers it with its cover, and the put it back on the stove, give it fire for thirty hours, starting small and increasing by degrees, and you will find the child born and resurrected and mounted clinging to the walls and sides of the vessel, in the form of very white powder and clear as the Moon. keep it good so honorably, because it is ours leafy, and is called spirit of sublimated bodies converted into earth leafy, in which you must sow the soul, which is the tincture with all clarity; for she is the medium of sulfur and arsenic, and of our Peter, who must make peace between the mortal enemies, whom he greatly desires, and from whom this Pierre who will be the aerial spiritual and corporal body. And to cause that, he holds the virtue of both, although he is as perfect as his corporeality, there is none even in operation, since he cannot operate more than the newly born child, until it is nourished, from so that he can and has the power to operate in his power, which will happen according to the strength of his food, that he will have had. Of this opinion, were some that I have seen in the society of King Robert, who made projection of this Peter, as soon as it was made, but having seen that it had not been fed enough to gain strength, and that they found no perfection in it, they found afterwards, the reason and the possibility of its operation, and began to work on this beautiful work, which is the composition of this medicine, and the food of the Stone, and this composition is the second and last part of all the Magisterium.

This is why the secret work of the philosophers is divided into two parts, for in the first they teach to do and to form sulphur, in the second they teach to convert the sulfur in fixed and fluent medicine, as Morigen says, that all our Magisterium must necessarily be done in two creations, and these two reciprocal causes of creations are next to each other in kind, because when the first creation is made and completed, then begins the second creation for the work of medicine, and when this second is completed, the Magisterium is then accomplished.

But know that in the first operation, we purge the matter to create sulfur therefrom, which being prepared, we compose, and create medicine in the second operation, which will have a wonderful virtue, that is why you must first create its sulphur, for without it you will not be able to make a complete and perfect elixir, and when you will have created sulfur, the philosophical work begins, do not do not be bored with feeding, and do not be in a hurry, so do not rush in feeding him, for he who has neither the means nor the patience in this work, and do not consider in our books, the changes and mutations of nature, spoils everything by its impatience and haste; Therefore, have patience, and feed the Stone, as long as you can do projection, and then you will see the wonders of nature. This is the perfection of the secret taught, which is the second part of the creation of the Stone, and the preparation of the matter of which our medicine must be made.

Notes that if the matter of this sulfur is not well prepared, you will never be able to make medicine of it, because it is the order of nature, that a matter which is not prepared, may be due to preparation. So prepare your matter, and separate the subtle from the gross, and the noble from the vile, and so being well prepared she will be the cause of depuration.

Now, in the second part and operation, the Stone will take its color, will fix, and will have to ferment. Gold his ferment, or leaven, for white is silver, for red it is gold, because without leaven neither Sun nor Moon, that is to say neither, gold nor silver, nor anything else that is in his nature. Conjoined therefore the ferment with its sulphur, and then he will be able to engender his like, because the ferment attracts the sulfur to its nature, and to its color, and to its weight, and to its flavor. And each thing engenders its like, ferments it, like conjoined gold, changes its sulfur into medicine permed. This is why the Philosopher says, he who know how to dye sulfur and quicksilver with the Sun and the Moon, arrived, and found a very big secret, therefore, it is seen that the Sun and the Moon are the ferment and the tincture of the spirit, and permanent water, that is, quicksilver. And by this nature the waters must be fixed, and nourished also, and by natural heat, until they have their fixation, and their perfect fusion, and by this scheme is made the conjunction of the Stone with its leaven, until one achieves the accomplishment of his work, which is not not do everything at once, because that is not the intention of the nature, but by copulation and conjunction of a little, then a another bit, and also he makes himself a real uniform medicine by coagulation, and because of this, this copulation is done from subtle parts transmuted, and otherwise shaped and spiritual essences, because a simple one with a big body, and a single with a big one, cannot be conjoined, to because of their annoyance. If the fat in its thick, is not converted by his simple spirit, because then they can mingle together perfectly. The Philosophers declare this, when they say, that the perfect mixtion is a union of comiscible altered bodies, (i.e. they can be mingle) which are joined together indivisibly, and this is here required by obvious reason, because the mixture or union cannot be done without alteration, which is a subtilization of the body, and a reduction of it into spiritual form. And besides, the Philosophers say, that their medicine is perfect, somehow crystalline, and then he sees himself that this lamina is composed of the subtle parts natural, uniformly joined, little by little by artifice and subtlety of nature, because this cannot be done without subtlety and homogeneity of nature. That's why he this matter must become so subtle, that all the equal parts in kind are mixed with the water, which you will be able to see in your intellect, when all this will make one transparent body, and will be reduced to a continuous body, by the conjunction in connection of several parts, without division, discontinuation, and termination in a single thickness and figure transparent in all its parts.

You do not now have a little secret here: but you must know the conjunction of sulfur and ferment in the form homogeneous, illuminates in your body, before you put his soul in it, because otherwise he can never take or hold his mind.

Therefore take half an ounce of Lune fine, and dissolve it in mercurial water, and it will dissolve into green water, afterwards, separate in the water philosophically (it is to make it evaporate) know that the first form of money is the water, then set aside this earth of the Moon, then divide said water into two parts. And in part of this water, throw a part of your powdered Stone there, and mouth well the vessel where it will be, and put it on gentle heat at the fire, and it will dissolve into clear water, and this water is the water fermentable, in which our Peter ferments, surrenders and relates to the nature of metals. Then divide this clear water into two parts, and freeze one in a vessel or glass matrass over a low, slow heat. Then after take part of a cup of fine silver, and amalgamate it with two parts quicksilver, well cleaned; then if it is amalgamated, weighs one ounce, and puts in it two large of the said Frozen stone, which will be the fourth part of the weight of the amalgam, and triturates well together on a mortar of glass, or on a marble, as long as the same body is made; afterwards, soak your material little by little with the other part of your fermentable water, just as you did in creation of the Stone, that is to say when you made the Stone, making dry one soak before putting on the other. Then put your matter in a vessel or matrass, and feed it, him continuing a low, slow fire. Know here that steam congealed with steam amalgamated Stone with quicksilver, freezes it perfectly in real medicine white, and shiny. However, the more you repeat this operation, the more you will multiply your Stone or medicine, in power and under, so that if the first time, part of your medicine converted one hundred parts of imperfect metal, the second time it will convert a thousand, the third time ten thousand, and so on ad infinitum, reiterating these imbibitions and amalgams. This is why do not neglect this operation of multiplication, because the more it is digested, the stronger it is. let's say now, the fixation of the air which carries in itself the dye. Take the earth of the moon that you have set aside above, and a little of the aforesaid water, which you will put there, then distill everything, and separate the water from it by fire distillation of a point, or of the first degree, until it distills nothing more by this said fire. Then put another container in the mouthpiece of the glass still, then through another degree of fire louder also continued, shoot and receive in, the tune that will be red, or celestial, and everything that can be distill. And when it distills nothing more, put this water or air apart in a glass vessel, stop the good.

Afterwards, take the earth that remained at the bottom of the still, and a little of the aforesaid Pierre, and the tritures together again in a glass mortar, with a pestle of glass, then soak it with the water that was drawn first of this earth, before the air, until it is shaped of paste, then put back to distill, by the still, on the fire of two points, or second degree, because it will distill stronger than before. And the longer the mood takes to separate from the body, all the more so will it be noble, precious, better and powerful; repeat this distillation again, until you pulled the soul from his body, so that he could no longer distill nothing. Then put this distillation with the air which is red, or of celestial color. Then distill once this distillation mixed with the air, all alone apart, and so you you will look, by which you will dye and fix your Stone, as it follows.

Take the quicksilver you coagulated above, by the vapor of the Stone and the body, triturates it on a marble, or in a glass mortar, and reduce it to powder very subtle impalpable, then imbibe it with the above air, little by little, until it is in the shape of a paste. After meal there in a glass vessel or matrass, in a furnace, gentle and slow heat of one degree, continuous (or a small wick, cum uno ligamine, he said) until the air is frozen with the Stone, as you did with the water, in laminate crystalline; and repeat this operation, until it has drank half its weight. Then take some of this crystalline laminate, and put it on a hot copper laminate on fire, and if it melts like wax without smoking, then your medicine and made, and fixed, continue your decoction until that it is founded without smoking.

That done, take some of this medicine, and throw the out of a hundred parts of lead, or tin, or whatever molten metal, or on a hundred parts of quicksilver passed through the buckshot, and hot, that it begins to smoke, and it will convert into very good and perfect money, better than that of mining, which we use and see every day, in all properties.

And when your medicine is multiplied once, you will do the projection, as follows.

Take one part, and throw it on a hundred parts of mercury, or quicksilver, hot, (and first passes through buckshot) when it begins to smoke, and it will convert immediately in medicine. Then throw away some of this second medicine (which is this said mercury converted into medicine) on a hundred parts of other hot mercury, as above, and she will reduce it further in medicine. Then throw part of this third medicine on other hundred parts e hot mercury, as it is said, and she se will convert into real and fine silver.

Now, if you want to make your elixir another way, and more easily, without mixing Peter with the water of money, take of your amalgamation above, and of your stone the fourth part of what the amalgam weighs, grinds them well together, as long as they are made a body, then soak it with water of Moon, little by little, then put it in digestion, and do everything as you did, and as I told you above, to do the Rock. You will still be able, my son, to make and compose your elixir in another way, provided you know how to temper perfectly the conjunction and its properties. take one part and a half of silver water, and dissolved one part of a aforesaid Pierre, and all will be arranged in clear water. After that, throw on two parts of air in this water, then put it in freeze, consolidating the virtue of the Stone, because it must freezes and fixes everything, and separates from the compound the sixth or fourth part of water, by distillation over fire, because that there is more water here, by which the sulfur is put in distillation, (I believe there must be, in dissolution, and that the word distillation is a printer's fault, given the words that follow) and will become the nature of water, against his brimstone power. And so it will appear as matter, to show you that the strongest always defeats the less strong, because he is not rescued. That's why he is necessary for the water to overcome the sulphur, and convert it in dissolution in its nature, because of the resemblance of their matter, and it is also necessary that the sulphur, has after the power to overcome water, and convert it by property of its nature, by freezing, and this conversion is done by natural reason.

Because we certify, and know by experience, that in reinforcing the virtue of the Stone, we give it such aid, which she has afterwards the power to convert water, (and the to dry) who had previously converted her into her likeness (that is to say, who had dissolved it), this is why it is necessary that you know, not only that she is the cause, but also the way in which the virtue of a thing can operate, and comfort. And in this comforting one thing cannot be done, without debilitation of another, as is clearly seen in the dissolution of sulfur.

My son, all dissolution is a debilitation of oneself, hence it is that our Pierre is debilitated by dissolution (i.e., when it dissolves) and so one reinforces the water, so that it can reinforce its virtues, which may overcome the virtues of our debilitated Peter, and the convert into its quality and nature. And by this conversion, which is done by debilitating one, and consolidating the other, makes and acquires our Pierre, and also for obvious reason, the prudent nature makes us see, that the virtue of the Stone being debilitated, can be comforted by the virtue of debilitation of water, and nevertheless strengthens, so that it has the power to convert water into its nature. But he should know, that what is humid in nature, must be reduced into dry nature, and from cold nature must be converted into warm nature. This is why the conversion of the Stone into quicksilver, is nothing but a change and a change from one nature to another. Can't you see that there is many natures, and all this is but one nature, divided into four parts, and each part into its element, and an element cannot be without diminution of its nature, because there is no element which has entirely ss parties; this is why a single element cannot be corrupt, nor engender in itself, because nature there is no swing. That is why, the Philosophers say, that our Magisterium cannot be perfect without the nature of four elements together, and the same nature which causes of homogeneity, separates itself from all that is heterogeneous, because it can be changed into all qualities elementary. Good artists also, consider of this art, that the elements are mere qualities, this is why it have the power to convert matter, and to change a quality into another quality, sometimes dry, from formerly into wet, and so of the others, according as the division of the nature is reinforced or debilitated, by the complexion of four elements.

So much my son, that our Pierre is not made otherwise, than of one pure nature, that every man prudent will be able to know by two means, first, by speculative sapience, that is to say, by a certain moderation of mind and understanding, then by experience joined to a perfect enlightenment. The Philosophers bear witness spiritually of these two means, that is to say give to know these two means, when they say, that ours medicine is one nature, being a subtle substance into which enter the qualities of the elements.

This is why these qualities of the elements, attract to itself more than of what they most abound, and thus the qualities are like the nature of elements, to which they put their forms, which are retained in them, as nature be seen in every generation. The qualities of the elements conduct like a subtle substance, hence it is that the elements are those that give so many virtues to this substance, by which they can penetrate, tint, and make admirable operations, which the common people, the children, and the ignorant, take it for a miracle, and believe that this is done by way of magic, and enchantment, because that their noggin, and their little wit, cannot understand our Magisterium, even though it only happens by nature, by nature, with nature.

My son, if this nature had not been of subtle substance and essential of the elements, could not have been then, nor dominate in substance, and also whether each element, according to its nature, was mineral, this substance too could not to penetrate, nor to have ingested, nor to give color. So because of this property, the fire must predominate in the said substance of the elements, according to the manner, cause, and reason, of this you will find in my will.

Here ends the apertoire of Raymond Lully, who was from the island of Majorca.