Ariadne's Filet



Ariadne's Filet - Ariadne's net for safe entry into the labyrinth of Hermetic philosophy

To enter with safety into the labyrinth of hermetic philosophy .

Vir impius non cognoscet: et stultus non intelliget haec. Ps 91

Attributed to Hemrich von Batsdorff... and some other

MDCXCV


TABLE.
....
Warning.
Preliminary discourse on the Stone of the Sages.
First chapter. Of the material.
Chapter II. Minerals and Metals.
Chapter III. Of Preparation.
Chapter IV. Fire.
Chapter V. Of Putrefaction.
Chapter VI. White Elixir.
Chapter VII. Red Elixir.
Chapter VIII. Of Multiplication.
Chapter IX. From the Screening.
Chapter X. Of the wonders and virtues of the white Stone on the Animal, the Vegetable and the Mineral.
Chapter XI. Wonders of the Red Stone, more abundant than those of the White Stone.
The Philosophical Furnace.
From the Ecuelle.
From the Philosopher's Egg.
Seals of Hermes.
Of the Lamp.
Luts.
...
WARNING.

I hesitated a long time before resolving to put my hand to the pen to compose this little Treatise, dissuaded from doing it by the same reasons, which have prevented all the Philosophers from teaching their Science otherwise than they left it to us, admitting that they wrote only for the Children of the Art, and not for the Ignorant, nor other people who could have abused it, and that they studied themselves rather to hide it than to want to highlight it: In indeed there are some who have composed several Volumes, each of which contains a good number of Chapters, which are so many veils that they put before the eyes of those who imagine they can penetrate their mysteries, where they have uselessly broken their heads. Even chemists convince themselves that this science is their competence and not that of others,

On which, working, they have made a hundred muddles which have produced nothing but confusion in their minds and useless expense in their Laboratories, because they have taken literally the sayings of the Philosophers who must be explained quite differently: and as there are few people who can, as they should, manifest their sayings and manners of speaking, I have made a Dictionary on purpose which explains very clearly what is the most difficult, in order to satisfy in some way the curious, and to disillusion those who are ruin inconsiderately, wanting to work on a Science which they have never learned, and consequently which they cannot know well nor put to use.

And whatever be seen in the Books of the Sages, so many Chapters with different names, be warned (dear Reader) that it is only to confuse minds, and they say or write the same thing in a hundred different ways, and put at the end of their Volumes, what should be at the beginning, and the end in the middle, and the middle from the second or third leaf. Besides that sometimes what they have said in one place, they revoke it in another, saying that it is not necessary to stop there.

Some say that when they seem to speak most clearly, that is when they are most obscure and least intelligible; this is what has made most men say that as these Books are composed differently from the others, that they are Books made for pleasure, to amuse people with an imaginary Science which has no foundation, and which promises chimerical Treasures. This is why those who cannot understand anything about it, and who do not have a mind penetrating enough to develop the meaning of the words of the Sages, do not name those who cling to it other than mad and visionaries, and close their mouths to those who want to talk about it.

I admit that there is nothing so repulsive as the reading of these Books, to a person who does not understand them, and who does not have the keys to them, but it must also be agreed that those who have them and who hear them, are delighted to see the subtlety of the spirit of the Philosophers to hide their Science, there is not a page, where they do not notice some new trait which fully satisfies them.

As for me, one cannot speak more clearly, more sincerely, more intelligibly, nor with more order, without however stating too clearly some principles, which instead of doing good, would undoubtedly do a lot of harm, if I had declared them otherwise, because this little Work of mine could fall into the hands of several people, who could misuse it to the detriment of their salvation.

Although the whole substance of this little Treatise can be written in less than a hundred words, I have gone into it a great deal, not to set myself up as a Philosopher, especially since I write too clearly for that, and with vulgar terms which I affect against the use of the same Philosophers, but I have done so on purpose, so that nothing is lacking in it all that one can desire, and that those who will read it do not need an interpreter to clear up the difficulties. that might arise in their minds.

It remains to say that the work of the Stone is not great, that the expense is very modest, and that only time is long; wherefore one must lay up a good supply of patience and not be bored, and before beginning, free oneself from the care of all temporal affairs as much as one can.


PRELIMINARY DISCOURSE ON THE STONE OF THE SAGES

The Hermetic Science is so hidden that it is rightly called the Science of Secret Philosophy; the other Sciences are learned by reading the Books, especially since they are composed of ordinary and intelligible terms, but this cannot be understood by reading those of the Philosophers repeated a thousand times, especially since their terms must not be taken literally, but mystically, simitudinally, allegorically, and enigmatically.

However, many people are attached to it, some out of curiosity, others in the hope of finding it useful. Yet if they all just read and try to grasp the meaning of the Books of the Sages, that would be somewhat tolerable, but most consume their possessions, and then those of others, in toiling and seeking what they will never find. In good faith, all these people make me pity for attaching themselves so stubbornly to research with so much expense, and waste of time, and to wanting to do something that they do not know, nor even the least of principles. In all the arts it is necessary to know well, the principles and the means of operating, and this one which is the Art of the arts, they want to undertake it, without knowing neither the beginning, nor the progress,

It is therefore against common sense, for every prudent man must first learn Science, if he can; that is to say, the principles and the means of operating, otherwise it will remain there, without good, and besides that of others. Now I beg those who will read this little Book, to put faith in my words. So I tell them once again, that they will never learn this sublime Science by means of Books, and that it can only be learned by divine revelation; this is why it is called divine art, or else by means of a good and faithful master: and as there are very few to whom God has given this grace, there are also few who teach it, especially since God does not want it to be known to many people, and those who know it must answer to him for the probity of their disciples,

They therefore do not teach it at once as all the other Authors do, but in confusion and without order, mixing up all the parts and different things with different terms, imposing a hundred different names on the same thing, and naming different matters and different subjects with the same name. They give it various names according to the various colors or changes that occur in the progress of the work: when it is black, they call it their bronze; when she passed from blackness to citrinity, their gold; when it came to a third color, the flower of gold; when it has passed further, they call it ferment: and when it is perfectly red, the venom of the Dyers.

The Sages do not make small mouths of it, they frankly admit themselves, that they wrote only for the children of Science: and that when they seem to speak most clearly, it is then that they are the least intelligible and the least credible; it is however to which the ignoramuses and the Sophists are attached who work on Sulphur, Mercury, and Arsenic of the vulgar, and they find nothing. They wrote, they say, only to give to those who have, and to take away from those who have not, as Scripture says:

Habenti dabitur; ab eo autem qui non habet, etiam quod habet auseretur ab eo.

They say that in their Art, one does not speak vulgarly: whence it follows that there is nothing so annoying and disgusting as the reading of their Books, because one cannot understand anything therein without having the proper keys to open the doors of their cabinets, which are three principal in number, besides a few others of lesser importance. These principal ones are, the real material, its preparation, and the diet, which keys, all these Researchers have never found in good Artists, and will not find them, without the two means above.

They therefore taught several diets, although there was only one; they say take this, take that, and nothing must be taken or added; for nature contains in itself all that is necessary, and neither should the vessel which was once sealed and closed be opened, until the Artist has brought his work to its ultimate perfection.

They also often confuse matter with their mercury, speaking of sublimation, they name it variously. They feign various operations, separation and various weights which they call sometimes in one way, sometimes in another. They write many things which they do not do, for example when they speak of the dissolution, distillation, descension, ablution and calcination of the Stone, they make a separate Chapter of each, even though it is only one and the same operation, which they do not do; but Nature alone, with the help of Art.

Some have spoken neither of the beginning nor of the end of the work, and have spoken only of the middle, others have spoken only of the beginning, and others only of the end; are used only to blind the ignorant, put off the wicked, and divert each other from the right path of reaching the desired goal:
And empty not emptying, and intelligent not intelligent .

To do justice to the Sages, let us say, that besides the above reasons, it is not reasonable for them to teach their Science otherwise than they do, especially as it costs them much time, and pain and study, that they pretend by acting thus that those who desire to attain it, buy it at the same price as them, if God wills to allow them to arrive at this great good: this is why they have engaged their, disciples, and those who know it, to keep inviolate ably silence, to be prudent and wise after their example, and to explain themselves only in ambiguous and enigmatic terms; what doing, they will acquire the glorious title of Sages, which they themselves deserved only by that.

They even gave various names to the Stone, according to the various colors which are seen in the work, and even because it contains in itself several things, and that it is composed of the four elements; and again because it has in itself virtues and properties of all things, whether mineral, vegetable and animal, as well as celestial bodies. The envious have again multiplied the number of these names, to deceive and make people wander; but all these envious and those who are not so agree on a name, which is to call him Pierre in his beginning, in his progress, and in his end.

And yet it is by no means a stone either in one or the other state; and to tell the truth ingenuously, it is so only in power and similarity, and not in nature: and all the more so that it remains in the fire, says Arnaud de Villeneuve, all the more it increases in goodness, which other stones or other bodies do not do, because they are burned and consumed there; but on the contrary, the Stone of the Sages melts in the fire and stays there willingly, especially since it is its food and causes its perfection, for this purpose the Philosophers have named everything that persists in the fire a stone. It must still be said a reason why they call it stone, is that on it as on a real stone and solid foundation, they establish their wealth and their fortunes.

The more a thing departs from its principle, the more it departs from its natural perfection: the water of a fountain is very pure in its beginning and issues from the source, but it takes and carries with it silt and mud, following its inclination and flowing into a river. It is thus with all things; there is only the stone which is always perfected, the more it moves away from its origin: for it always loses its perfection and its excellence, in proportion as it retrogrades by the projection which is made of them on imperfect metals, and as it returns towards its principle.

What has caused much confusion and disorder in the Science of Hermes is that the Sophists have been the cause that it has been much decried, having composed a good number of Books full of errors, which they have as much mischievously as falsely attributed to the Philosophers, because after having worked much, they could not make any discovery: and to avenge themselves, thought of this infamous means to tarnish the reputation which they had acquired; and those who have read the books of these Sophists, having wanted to put them into practice, following punctually all that they prescribed, and finally seeing themselves deceived, they said that this Science had nothing true, nor solid, and that it was only an imaginary Science, like a tale made for pleasure, to sustain weak and credulous minds in high hopes; showing us by this that their contempt came only from their ignorance and from the lack of having made good and solid reflections on it, or of having met a master who had the charity to put them on the right path.

Others have read the real Books of the Philosophers a great deal, who have no doubt whatsoever of its possibility, and that there are people who have brought it to its ultimate perfection, and they themselves believe they know it without having yet put their hands to work, because they say that they easily explain the sayings and ways of speaking of the Philosophers; but if they know no more, I think they know nothing, because it is at all impossible to learn Hermetic Science from Books, and if many things of these sorts of Books are explained, they explain them according to their own feeling, and not according to the hidden meaning of the Philosophers, which it is very difficult to discover, without having the three main keys of which we have spoken above,

The work of the Philosopher's Stone is called par excellence the Great Work, and the divine work, especially since men cannot do anything more excellent or greater in nature, both to preserve their health and to enrich themselves; this is why it may justly be called a gift from God, which he gives to whomever he pleases, as he did to Hermes, and to a few others who are few in number; and it is the order of the Providence of God, that so much more a thing is elevated and has of excellence, so much less there are people who are gratified by it; there are only a few elite souls freed from affections for the riches and vanities of the century, who possess this great good, and who relieve the poor of it.

Pauci quos aequus amavit Jupiter, aut ardens evexit ad aethera virtus .

Those of this elevation are so rare that one can say that there are almost none, especially since they do works of a supernatural cause which makes them capable of so great a good, and of making good use of them for his glory and the relief of the poor, for thus they are made the treasurers of divine Providence, to whom God inspires his will to execute them, or presents them with opportunities for doing so; this is why the Sages said: aut sanctum invenit, aut sanctum facit. From which it must be concluded that those who on some occasion learn part or all of this Science, are prevented from succeeding in it by the Angels or by the Demons, especially as they would misuse it and use such great treasures against the intention of God and to the loss of their souls.

It is still called the Divine Work in the part of the regime in which the soul of the stone is joined to its body, because it is done in a moment, and depends on God alone and on the Nature in which God operates, as we shall hereafter say in its place. It still is, especially since it is the form and figure of the admirable works of God towards man, and it contains in itself all the excellent virtues of all that is in the world. Quam admirabilia sunt opera tua Domine, nimis profundae factae sunt cogitationes tuae?

We are therefore convinced that this Science is a gift from God, which he gives to few people, because of its excellence which surpasses human understanding and goes beyond its capacity, although some Philosophers have called it Children's play and women's work; what is to be heard, after the Philosopher's Mercury is made, and extracted from the body in which it is enclosed, which is only to be conducted with the Sun and Moon from one regime to another, and from a coarser quality to a finer and more spiritual one.

The way of doing it, and of this extraction, is also beyond what human understanding could have thought; God gave it to some Philosophers, that they might use it for his glory, and that they might know a spark of his greatness and power, which can do many things above Nature, and indeed would be, as a Virgin giving birth, God becoming man, and other such wonders as the Christian Faith teaches us.

Since the Stone of the Wise is a gift from God, and its diet also, without God's permission Nature and Art cannot make it, but God allows secondary causes to act freely; Nature not being able to do it alone, because she always works simply, and because she has her limited power which she cannot exceed, Art also being unable to do anything by herself, nor to give weights and proportions to things, especially as this goes beyond her strength and her knowledge; but when Nature is united with Art, and they work in concert, it is raised to a perfection so extensive that it passes the imagination, and it acquires an almost infinite power.

And yet it should be known that they can do nothing without the philosopher's Mercury, which is the base and the foundation of all the work, this is why the Sages have particularly studied to hide it; some even did not want to mention it in their Books, others said a word about it in passing and so succinctly that one hardly notices it; there is only one who has made an entire Book of it, but with so much obscurity that only those who know it and know it perfectly can understand what it means; we will speak of it below more clearly than he, for the consolation of the Children of Science. Let's go over now and get right into the Doctrine of the Philosophers, and say...

...That God first created Nature out of nothing by His sheer bounty, goodness and will, into a certain substance which is called Quintessence, in which all Nature is comprised, and of which substance divided into three parts, of the best and purest thereof, the Most High made the Angels, which is the first; of the second the Heavens, the Planets and the Stars; and from the third less pure he made the Lower World.

This is what the Son of Science must understand, not as we have written, but as everything was created together by the will of God, without any sequence of productions, and without any previous matter which regards the succession of the kind; for otherwise it would not be a creation of unity, coming scientifically by creation from nothing into a true substantial entity; that is why you must hear truly and scientifically, and not in a vulgar and common way, because we speak thus in the eyes of Nature. And when all this was done, God formed the first man from the mud of the earth, and made him in his own image and likeness, breathed life into him, and then named him Adam.

It is certain that this first man had all the Sciences infused, and the knowledge of all the Arts from the moment of his creation; he therefore knew all that secondary causes could do in all the stages of nature, that is to say, in the sky, in the air, the sea and the earth, and thus he had the knowledge of minerals and metals, of their origin, of their progress, and of their constitutive end or perfection. Tubalcain was a blacksmith of copper and iron, as the Sacred Text testifies: he lived at the beginning of the World and was the son of Lamech, who was the sixth generation from Adam. Whence it follows that the Sun and the Elements, and in a word Nature, had not made them at that time, as she has done since, especially since she had not yet had the time; but that God had created them himself,

From that time on, minerals and metals were sought in the earth; and the children of Adam multiplying, they separated from each other and made various People and various Nations, and having all but the same Language, they began to have and to speak various languages, when their temerity led them to make the Tower of Babel, from which they withdrew, when they saw that they no longer understood each other, having gone each his way; and having lived in various countries, they made towns in the places they judged the most suitable, where they practiced all kinds of arts and sciences.

At that time the trade in men was carried on in good faith, by exchange of one thing for another, and lasted thus until the destruction of Troyes, as Homer assures us; but when bad faith began to creep in among men, and metals also began to become more common, it was thought of to make coinage, and it was Janus who reigned in Italy and who associated with the Kingdom a man named Saturnus, who had come in a ship, and was the first who taught and engraved copper coinage, which represented on one side the effigy of his Head and that of a Ship on the other, the year of the World 2032.

This kind of money lasted until the year 547 of the City of Rome, when gold money was made, which was called Ducat, a Romano Ducatu ; and from then on, in its imitation, they were made throughout the world and of gold and silver, and this currency became common to all Nations: and thus the trade which had always been done by exchange from one thing to another, began to be done with these precious metals, which have since been the price of all things, and the wish, the principle and the goal of the avarice of men; their cupidity made them enter the Mines to extract: they found the other metals there; namely, lead, tin and mercury, which we call imperfect metals, with copper and iron, of which we have spoken before, compared with gold and silver.

As each has his talent and his particular genius, there were from time to time men of spirit, filled with Science and Doctrine, who sought the marvels contained in all beings. Hermes Trimegiste, who lived according to the most common opinion of the time of Ninus in the year 2072, penetrated so deeply into the deep secrets of Nature, that he was called the very great Philosopher, and the Father of Chemical Science and metallic transmutation, and his science has passed from hand to hand down to us, and in all the centuries there have been people who have had this sublime Science, and who have left us particular knowledge of it in their works, but always veiled by a few enigmas. my, types and analogies, for the reasons they deduce to us in their writings,


FIRST CHAPTER.

Of the material.

For this purpose they have particularly studied to hide the material on which they must work in this divine Work, its preparation and the regime of the fire; intelligent men of all professions have sought it throughout the centuries in different subjects, believing, as it is true, that in all mixtures the three natural principles are contained therein; namely, salt, sulfur and mercury: but it is also true that they are so distant that one should not be surprised if these people have never come to the end of their intention.

They took it into their heads to work on animals, on urine, and even on nasty things to name, and they only encountered corruption at the end of their various fanciful operations; and what deceived them was that the Philosophers said that matter was trivial and common, and that we see and touch it every day, and that the poor have as much as the rich: they all say the truth; for by these words they mean the elements, which are the matter which Nature uses to make that of the Stone; but those who do not know how to explain the ways of speaking of the Philosophers, take them in the literal sense, and this is where they are mistaken, because they must be explained quite differently.

It is also necessary to know that there are two matters of the Stone; find out the next one which is the quicksilver; and the remote matter which is water, especially since it was water before being quicksilver. Let all those who look for it in the filth like pigs, whom Pontinus calls sons of beasts, go and hide, if they do not want to expose themselves to being hissed at and stricken from the number of reasonable people; let those who seek it in vegetables, minerals and animals recognize their error, otherwise they will not deserve the name of Philosophers, since they do not know how to reason, or if they do so in any way, it is like the Blind when they speak of colors.

Let them therefore recognize their ignorance; and to cure themselves of it, let them study Nature, and its operations, they will learn in which place is found what they are looking for, which is not in the baseness and in the corruptions; let them know that one should not look for a thing where it is not.

Let them open the eyes of the understanding and consider how Nature has perpetuated, multiplied and increased since the beginning of the World, and always increases by reproducing itself. Let them see, I say how it is done, they will see that each thing bears its seed, the vegetable in each species, as wheat wheat makes wheat, wheat rye makes rye, barley, and so on with other vegetables; likewise man makes man; the dog the dog, and each animal preserves its kind in its seed, and by its seed. So that if you want to make gold and silver by means of Nature aided by art, sow gold and silver in the Garden of the Philosophers, and you will make them by your work, in much less time than nature alone does in the bowels of the earth. Listen to the Poet Augurel:

I n auro Semina sunt auri quam vis abstrusa recedant longius, et nobis multo quaerenda labore.

Take also the seed of the Moon to make the Philosophical marriage so desired and so hidden by the Sages, which is the matter of the Stone all prepared, with the weights and proportions that Nature has put there and united together of herself; and it is what the Sages say, that the human mind cannot conceive, nor can do, and this Philosophical mercury is the earthly Heaven of the Hermetists; and it is to him to whom we must attribute most of what they say in their writings, because without him nothing can be done, and it is he who does almost all the work with the help of art, and the prudence of the Artist; and this seed is not the seed of gold made, but to be made, nor of vulgar gold, but of spiritual and Philosophical gold.

Once again, let these Seekers take the matter where it is, and not in the baseness and corruption, and they remember that it is to sin against common sense, to claim to give perfection to imperfect metals, by things which have less perfection than them, or by things which are of another nature and of another species than the said metals, with which they cannot have connections and perfect union.

Others worked on Minerals, as Marcassites, Aluns, Arsenic, Tuthies, Vitriols, Antimony and the like; some on Mushrooms, others on the dew of the Equinoxes, and others such subjects; but all this has produced them only much trouble, loss of much time, and much useless expense and displeasure. Others more reasonable have worked on metals, but they have used various strong and corrosive waters to dissolve them, without considering that all these waters are destructive, that they spoil, infect and poison metallic substances; and that thus, to build up and to make a work, they employ contrary things, which is also against good sense, and every man who will use corrupting and adustible things, will always be deemed blind in this Science; but it is necessary to use a pure substance, which persists in the fire without combustion.

It is true, according to all the good Authors, that the true matter of the Stone of the Sages, must be of metallic Root: thus all those who work on other matters, and on distant matters, will never do the great work, although the three natural principles are found in all the mixtures, because that is too distant, and that the various preparations which one employs there, destroy and are not in conformity with the simplicity with which Nature works, and makes her operations; which is particularly and expressly ordered to be done by the Philosophers, and that the nearest matter, and which is of the same nature as what we claim to do, should rather be chosen than any other, besides needing not so many preparations and operations, to make such a long and dangerous journey.

To understand this well, it is necessary to know that all metals are made and procreated in the earth by Nature alone, and from one and the same Mercury, which she makes and animates from one and the same Sulphur; but the impediments which it encounters by the paths, which are the impurities of the wombs or veins of the earth through which it pushes its mercury and its sulfur, specify each metal in the earth by a particular Providence of God, who has judged them necessary for various uses for the convenience and utility of men.

This is why they are all called imperfect metals, as if we were saying that they are not made, nor finished in making, but to be perfected, and thus they always desire and await perfection, being on the way to acquire it; what they can only do with the Elixir or the Perfect White or Red Stone, because they are dead the moment they are detached from the Mine; but the Elixir is alive and animates the Mercury of all the metals, being their seed, and makes a kind of resurrection similar to that which is made by various seeds of plants.

The first matter of metals is therefore quicksilver and sulphur, which are not so in their nature, but altered; thus the first matter of the metals is properly an unctuous and moist vapour, which contains in itself the nature of quicksilver and sulphur: whence it follows that anything from which such unctuous vapor may be extracted, similar to that from which the metals are procreated in the earth, may be the matter from which the Elixir or the Medicine which perfects the imperfect metals must be taken; which however cannot be done, if this same thing is not putrefied by a long digestion and decoction, and is not raised to another nature.

Those curious about this Science, having read the Books of the Philosophers and learned that the Stone was mineral, vegetable and animal, have worked on these various subjects, as we have said above. It is true that they call it vegetable when greenness appears, and that they call it animal when the soul is joined to its body and its spirit, because they say that then it is animated; but these Gentlemen did not consider that these terms are said comparatively, because the Stone does not have a life similar to that of plants or animals, but this must be interpreted according to the aforesaid meaning of the Sages; and again that when the Stone is perfect white or red, it is a Medicine, on minerals, plants and animals.

Metals do not grow, precisely because they have no life; they also do not feed themselves, for having only simple being, they cannot produce or engender by themselves; and when they say that the metals are dead, it is a way of speaking which means that they are detached from the Mine where they had a kind of life, or a life in similitude by means of a spirit which attached itself to it and joined it by the exhalations which Nature sent to them from the center of the earth. A curious person can enter the Mines, and there contemplate with attention what is done there, to conceive well the secrets of Nature. There he will see how metals are formed, he will learn there that the diseases of imperfect Metals are nothing but superfluous moisture adhering to Mercury, and a combustible sulfur belonging to the natural and incombustible sulphur, which we have said above to be the impurities of the wombs or veins of the earth; let's say in a nutshell.

...
CHAPTER II.

Minerals and Metals.

Mineral bodies are especially distinguished into two parts; namely in the metallic, that is to say in metals, which are shortly made of mercury, and are called great minerals; as,gold, silver, copper, tin, lead, iron and quicksilver. And in the mineral part which is not made of nearby mercury, but of a distant mercury, such as are the salts, the atraments, alums, vitriols, arsenics, orpiments, antimonies, sulfurs and the like, which are called small minerals, and which because of the remoteness of their mercury, cannot serve as material for the work of the Sages.

The metals are reduced to their liquor or to water, because their matter is water, and a water strongly mixed with an earthly substance, which cannot easily be separated one from the other, except with a very widespread fire, and according as they are more or less mixed and united, and whether they have more or less combustible sulphur, that is to say of purity or impurity; to show that their first matter is quicksilver or mercury, when we want to melt them, they are reduced to the form of mercury; now everything is what it is converted into, like ice by heat, is reduced to water, especially since it was before and soon water before being ice.

The small minerals are not made of a nearby mercury like the metals, but of a distant mercury; and when they are put in the fire, they do not reduce to mercury, that is what they would do if they were in the near future, but there is only their salt; this is why, although they participate in mineral virtue with metals, they cannot by any artifice whatsoever be reduced to metals, being of another nature and species, and not participating with them in their next matter. From which we must conclude that these small minerals cannot be perfectly united with metals, and cannot give any permanent dye, especially since only the same nature and the same species can be perfectly united.

They indeed make a kind of apparent but false union, which separates when given the ordinary test, and thereby we recognize the truth of the axiom: Nihil convenit rei, nisi quod propinquius est ei.. And when one wants to unite two things of different natures and species, one drives out the other naturally, or else nature only produces monsters and falsehoods forbidden by the Laws. And if these strange bodies could give a fixed and permanent tint, they would give their own and not that of the Sun or the Moon, because each thing produces its like; yet this is what the Sophists, the Ignorant and an infinite number of Prompters claim to do against reason and truth, in what they resemble the Bastard Eagles, whose eyes cannot bear the splendor of the Sun.

However, I remain in agreement that the sulfur of imperfect bodies can stop mercury in imperfect bodies, but not in perfect ones; for a thing cannot give what it does not have, which the bastard Philosophers stubbornly claim to be able to do; but any man of common sense, without being a Philosopher, can boldly give the lie to them and make known to them their crass ignorance.

I also admit that the little Minerals can purge and dissolve the metals, and give them an accidental and superficial form to deceive men; but they cannot, as I said above, give them a fixed and permanent one, being unable to unite perfectly with them because they are of different species and different natures. Hermes splits the word, saying that there is no true tincture except of the Sun and the Moon, that is to say of the Sun and the Moon of the Philosophers.

Which manifests the error of the Prompters and the Sophists, and which must make those who have wit and judgment take precautions against these sorts of people, who preach nothing to them other than secrets to enrich themselves, than fixed tinctures on the Moon, and fixations of mercury in the two luminaries, in order to draw money from those who are curious about beautiful things, and in particular from Hermetic Science; but the only means of fixing the mercury of their head, is to treat them with contempt, to oblige them to employ themselves in a profession more honest than that of public affronts. Now I maintain that since there is no true tinting, nor perfect fixation to white or red, except those which are made by means of the Sun and the Moon of the Philosophers; that there is also no secret to making Sun or Moon,

There is a great error among people who imagine they know something in the secrets of Nature, and especially in the metallic, which is that they believe that what is now lead, in a great time will become tin, copper, silver and finally perfect gold, and that what is now gold, has passed through all these degrees: but if they had understood well, as I said before, that it is the impurity of the matrices or veins of the earth which specifies and distinguishes the metals, and that in the course of time nature, always pushing its mercury and its sulfur towards the surface of the earth, cannot do anything else than to make metal of any species whatsoever in the nearby lands what it has already made such and such a metal.

And if it is found in the Mines of lead or other metals, a little gold or silver; it should be known that this is done, because Nature has found such and such a land purer than the rest of the Mine, and thus more disposed by its perfection to receive such a better and more excellent metallic form than the rest of the Mine; and what could give them reason to have such a thought, must today undeceive them, and make them enter into the knowledge and into the feelings of the truth that we have advanced.

I do not deny that the gold made by the art of Secret Philosophy was silver before it became gold, especially since both are under the same subject; but that which was made by Nature is not the same, because of the impediments which are met there which have specified each metal, although they are all issued from the same sulfur and the same mercury. It is true that after having prepared the metals, one can give them dyes which make them appear gold or silver; but they are not yet a blow, fixed dyes neither permanent, nor penetrating their intimate, but only superficial; this is why when they are exposed to the ordinary tests, everything goes up in smoke: thus, one must reject the false, and attach oneself strongly to the truth, always working according to nature, and not otherwise.

Now it is very easy to understand how the Elixir or the perfect stone to white or red, gives and communicates its perfection to imperfect metals, and gives them a fixed and permanent tint, and fixes their volatility, which then resists all tests of whatever nature they may be; this is done because these fixed tinctures have penetrated the intimate and the occult of the imperfect metals, not only by their perfection, but their more than perfection, because the Elixir is well elevated above ordinary perfection by its spiritualization; and if it had only ordinary perfection like vulgar gold, it could communicate to the imperfect only ordinary perfection, even this would be with the loss of its own, as does the mineral gold mixed with an imperfect metal, especially since it has only a simple perfection,

The great extension of perfection of the Elixir is therefore communicated to the imperfect metals, in proportion as it has elevation when it is projected on them, and when they are reduced to mercurial form, that is to say when they are melted, if they are soft metals; but if they are the hard ones, it is only necessary to inflame them and do as will be said hereafter, when we deal with projection. If the soft ones are thus melted, the Elixir projected on them in very small quantity, separates what they have of impurities and is communicated to their pure, which is their mercury and good sulphur, completes giving them the perfect coction which they lack, tints them with an invariable dye, and fixes them perfectly: and if one calls that transmutation of metals, it is speaking improperly; but it is properly and truly purging, fixing,

It is now necessary to know for the perfect understanding of the beginning of the Philosophical work and of the choice of matter, that since all metals are of the quintessence and of the same nature or principle of the perfect metal, from which they differ only in purity and coction, that all metals can serve as matter for our work, when they will have been purged and prepared as it is necessary, that is to say, they will have been reduced to their principle and first matter, which is their mercury.

Many people have been mistaken in working on ordinary mercury, as being of the number of metals, and it seems a material more ready and more convenient than the others; they were mistaken, I say, because it is entirely volatile and nothing is fixed; for the proper and suitable matter for doing the great work must necessarily be partly fixed and partly volatile: and thus the common mercury can only serve to receive the projection of the perfect Elixir, as being of the quintessence, of the nature, and of the number of the metals. It is therefore necessary to draw the mercury from the metal, which is its quintessence, and by this means you will have the next material of the work of the Philosophers, because it is made Philosophical Mercury, that is to say, purged,

Or else you will be as it says in the Book of the Golden Fleece. Our body will first become ashes, then salt, and after by its various operations finally becomes the Philosophical Mercury, that is to say, the metal must be calcined, reduced to salt, and finally worked so that it is made the Philosophical Mercury: whereupon it is necessary to know, that there are only the metallic salts which are proper to the work, and that all the others must be excluded for the reasons above alleged; and especially since they cannot unite perfectly with gold, except for that of sea water, or sea salt.

Although I have above taught you several sure ways to arrive at the perfect Elixir, nevertheless it is not of this matter and this mercury which the Philosophers made use of to do their great work; their matter and their way is much easier and less embarrassing than the preceding ones: and yet, there is only one matter and one path, for they are homogeneous, although they all seem different; the material which the Philosophers have used, although homogeneous with those above, is once again not the same, in which many are greatly mistaken, because the intention of Nature and of Art are very different.

Nature claims to engender metals, as she really does over a very long time, Art does not claim that; but to do a thing far more excellent than Nature, that is, to do a Medicine, which converts in a short time imperfect bodies into true Moon or true Sun; this is why Art uses other ways and manners and other matter, although nevertheless it imitates Nature in some way, using like her as seed; namely, Nature, of the natural principles and of the four elements, and the art, of the seed of the Philosophical gold: the Art begins to work where Nature has finished its operation, beginning to help her, and making together the mercury of the Sages, which is the first sublimation, exaltation, subtiliation or improvement of the stone,

And when the Philosophers say that it is born in the Air, it is not of the matter made by Nature and of which she makes use, of which they mean to speak, but of that which the Artist makes, which is the Philosophical mercury, which really is born in the Air, and is made by Nature and Art united together, and is also called the matter of the stone, confusing the one with the other; what is done and must be done by repeated destruction by resolving and sublimating, and at the same time that one makes the separation of the pure and the impure, and of the subtle from the thick of matter, and also of the Sun and the Moon; which the Sophists cannot do, but one must be a good Philosopher, to extract properly the powers of Nature, from which there results a marvelous quintessence which contains all the perfections of this Nature.

And although the Philosophers speak only of mercury and sulphur, which are two of the principles of Nature, and that they say nothing of salt, which is the third: it is understood there, especially since it is this which makes the connection of the two others, and it is of this that they mean when they say our earth, or our earthly body. Let us see what the Ancient and Modern Philosophers say about it, and let us begin with the chief and the father of the others; that is to say, by Hermes Trimegiste.

He says that what is above is like what is below, and what is below is like what is above; and that as all things were made of one, so all the magisterium of stone is of one substance and one matter. He means by these hidden terms above and below which are similar to each other, the fixed and the volatile, mercury and sulphur, which are of the same substance, and they only make one compound, which is called Rebis; that is to say, a thing which is made of two homogeneous substances. And this mercury and this sulfur are not the mercury and the sulfur of the vulgar, but the mercury and the sulfur of the Philosophers; and this mercury alone, or this sulfur alone, cannot be the matter of the stone, but rather being united together by the operation of Nature, and not by that of the Artist, nor of Art and Nature united together: and as there is the white stone and the red stone, we must conclude like the learned Abbot Sinesius, that both are under the same subject; and only come from one and the same material.

Artephius begins his Book with the matter of our Work, saying, Antimony is parts of Saturn, and has in every way its nature, and in this Saturnine antimony the Sun and the Moon submerge therein, that is to say, rush into it, join and unite with it, and never appear until after perfect fixation. By these enigmatic terms, he is saying the same thing as Hermes; which I don't explain more on purpose to give you the opportunity to penetrate into his thought yourself, and to help you do so: it is enough to have noted that he is saying the same thing.

The learned Abbot Sinesius wants the material of the stone to be a medium between metal and mercury, which is partly fixed and partly volatile: otherwise, he says, it would not hold the medium between metal and mercury. This one is much clearer and more intelligible, and still says the same thing

Flamel wants it to be two dragons, one of which has wings and the other none; he explains them himself, one being male and the other female; one is fixed and the other volatile; one sulfur and the other mercury, which are not the sulfur and mercury of the vulgar, but those of the Philosophers equally proportioned by Nature alone without the participation of Art, especially as this surpasses the forces of human understanding, in which many are mistaken, who cannot know the required proportions, or use other matter than that of the Philosophers.

Philaletes being the last to write, is also the most intelligible: he says, that there is one thing in the metallic kingdom so excellent for making the Stone of the Sages, that he who knows how to take it at the time of his birth, need not go to much trouble, especially as the Sun and the Moon of the Philosophers are closer there than in the Sun and the Moon of the vulgar: in a word, that is to say, that this is the great secret of the Philosophers, which makes an Elixir much more perfect than that which one can make with anything else; and though the Sages seem to disagree, yet they are in agreement, and all say the same thing under different terms and manners of speaking which are peculiar to them, and who understands one perfectly, can easily explain others; this is what made me put here their words and ways of speaking concerning their subject.

Since all the Sages say the same thing with regard to their matter, and that what I have before advanced of metals and metallic salts is also, and that there is and can be only one matter on which art employs its industry to make it in the end an Elixir, or the Stone of the Philosophers perfect in white or in red; it necessarily follows that all that I have said above, and what the Sages say, is only a homogeneous matter clothed nevertheless with various accidental forms, which subsists in its forms without the destruction of the substantial form and alteration of the substance.

It is very true that Art destroys Mercury from head to toe, and raises it also from head to toe, in a more subtle form of a natural substance than it was before; but this is not properly called destruction, but improvement

The Stone of the Sages is one, its matter is unique, although of several things, and cannot be found in anything else of the World, and there is nothing which approaches it in all this Universe; it is the raw material of all metals; it is a mixture of earth and water animated by the spirit of the quintessence and the influences of Heaven. It is made by Nature without Art having contributed to it: and as Nature always acts simply, Art must imitate it as much as it can, this is why it has prepared it to perfect it in a single way, reducing it to a quintessence so admirable, that in the end it has pushed it to a perfection so extended that it is made a universal Medicine on all Nature, that is to say on the mineral, on the vegetable and on the animal,

This matter is a terrestrial body, it is ponderous, airy, sulphurous, mercurial and aqueous, which contains in itself the nature, the force, the virtue and the perfection of all Metals, and of all beings. Finally, its Root is metallic, which is why it unites perfectly with all metals; it converts the imperfect into the perfect, when it has been raised to the ultimate perfection; which she could not do, if in her hiddenness she did not participate in it.

From this matter are born two Lions or Dragons, one of which has no feathers, and the other has; they are always in action, and never sleep unless they die at the same time, this is why they eat continuously by the care of Hercules, who provides them with everything they need; and these nourishments, of which they do not lack, cause them to acquire ever more vigor, without the need of rest and sleep; and we can say that these two animals watched over the Golden Fleece, which Jason put to sleep by the industry suggested to him by Medea. And although this matter is of two natures, it is nevertheless not hermaphrodite, whatever one may have said, because it is only one homogeneous Nature.

Listen to the Count de la Marche Trévisane: Our Stone, he says, is made of a root and two raw mercurial substances, taken and extracted from the Mine, which being purified and mondified, are joined and pleasantly united by the fire, which cooks them assiduously, according to Nature's will, until two are made one, and this one, made of two, is similar to matter, which Nature uses in the earth at the procreation of metals, notwithstanding all opinions to the contrary, and the diversity of names imposed on it, which does not prevent it from being a single thing.

In this matter, says Zachaire, the whole magisterium is contained, to which we add nothing external, nor from which we also diminish nothing, but only remove in preparation what is superfluous. And care must be taken not to take any material which the Philosophers have used for comparison, as when they say: take white Arsenic, quick Sulphur, and similar things, and if you add something external, that is to say, which is not of the same nature, it will give rise to corrupting and destroying all your work, and depriving you of your desires.

This matter is vile to those who know the Art, in comparison with this great treasure which they possess, as if they did not possess it, having always remained within the limits of their own birth: and in saying that matter is vile, that is not to say of vile price, because it takes its origin from the Sun and the Moon, which are its father and its mother, and the earth its nurse, as Hermes says. This matter is vile and precious at the same time; vile, because it has an earthly body; and precious, because it contains all that is excellent and perfect in all creatures.

Bonus says that matter is composed of body and mind; that the spirit is of a mercurial and volatile nature, and its body of a fixed nature: thus, it is the quicksilver of the Philosophers, and their Sun and their Moon; the union therefore of these two is necessary in this Art, because it is necessary to reduce them to their first matter by the quicksilver of the Philosophers; that is to say, to convert them into a viscous water, which cannot be better done than by the quicksilver of the Sages, which comes to the end easily, and this is not to be understood of the Sun and the Moon, and the mercury of the vulgar, says Rosarius; but of our stone, which contains the nature and properties of these three things; and this reduction into first matter is called the dissolution of the stone, from which we must conclude that the stone is composed of two things; knowledge, of body and mind: the spirit sublimates itself and not the body, if it is not incorporated with the spirit. And this dissolution in water is not properly dissolution, but liquefaction like wax, and like that of salt, which takes place when it is put in the air or in humidity.

This dissolution is done to reduce the body which is terrestrial to its first matter and so that the spirit and the body are inseparably united, are made one, and take on the same color; it is done to reduce the body to the quality of the spirit, and thus the body mixes with the spirit without ever separating from it any more than water with water; therefore the body rises in the beginning with the spirit, and at the end settles down with the body.

It is therefore done to subtilize the bodies with the spirits, and to push them afterwards both to such a great spiritualization that they are all spirit; this is why dissolution is absolutely necessary in order to be able to achieve sublimation, and thus dissolution is the first sublimation of the stone.

It is done finally to extract or draw the soul from its body, which contains the white dye and the red hidden under the white, in order to unite the soul made spiritual with its spirit and that it can give life to its body: this dissolution is done with its water, which is a mercurial water, because the stone is all mercury, and a mercury which naturally contains its own sulfur.

Although the Philosophers have spoken in their writings of the whole work of stone, each has passed over some part of it in silence, or has said only a passing word of it. Bacon expands more than the others on the subject: the Count de la Marche Trévisane, is the only one who spoke a lot about the preparation of which he made an entire book. And Sendivogius dwelt more on the regime of fire than any other philosopher; but in this Book I do not claim to do so, I want to put all the parts of the work as they should be, that is to say without any confusion, and in the order that they should be described and that one can desire without leaving anything behind.

I therefore say that all the work of the stone, is only a perpetual Philosophical and not Chemical sublimation, because the Chemical is only an elevation of the matter at the top of the vessel; but the Philosophical is an improvement and elevation to a higher degree of perfection to which matter is carried, which is always done until the stone has acquired its last perfection, by means of art and nature united together, which always accompany each other.

Now sublimation always presupposes the dissolution of the body, and every body is dissolved by the spirit with which it is mixed, and by it it is made spiritual; and when the body is dissolved, the spirit is coagulated by the same operation, which is divine, supernatural and incomprehensible: whence it must be inferred that what dissolves and what is dissolved are of the same nature, and that if there were any foreign nature, there would not take place a true and physical dissolution of the body and congealment of the spirit.

The first operation is called the extraction of the seed of gold, which is the first sublimation or preparation of the Philosophical mercury; the gold in this seed by means of art acquires the power to multiply, and thus the subject of the matter which the Artist must choose to do his work, and from which he can draw the form of the seed of the stone.

While doing this operation, the glass container must be put in cold water, or else it will have to be refreshed with wet cloths, lest the glass, although double, come to break by the force and violence of the spirits which will enter this container, and condense into a white liquor, thick and ponderous.

And all the more so as Nature engenders all things by the male and the female, and also multiplies them by the same way, and as art must imitate nature: this seed of gold will be the agent and the male, and the mercury will be the female of the same species and origin; one will be dissolving, and the other will be the matter that will be dissolved; one is fixed and the other volatile, and from the union of these two, there is born the child of the Sun so marvelous; and just as man who was created from the earth does not engender his fellow from the earth, but from himself, and as man feeds on the earth, and with this food grows strong, grows and increases: so gold begets gold, and must be nourished with its first substance or most pure matter, and so says Hermes. Its food is the earth.

This first sublimation is also called distillation, because in distilling the water rises to the top of the Philosopher's vessel in species or in the form of smoke; this is why Hermes says: the wind carries him in his belly. By perfect sublimation, the destruction, contrition and pulverization of matter ensues, which is to put into lime by a strong fire, the body which remained at the bottom of the vessel: which is done, so that the bond and the consolidation of the terrestrial and combustible parts be broken and the subtle ones are separated, and that the subtle soul which is the tingent part is more easily extracted from it: the Trevisan names it Elixir, as much as this first degree is to make Philosophical mercury, which he calls clean and pure vegetable mercury, which the Philosophers call non-burning white Sulphur, which is a means of conjoining the sulfurs with the body and mercury; and the Sages say that it joins the tinctures to the bodies, that it is of a fixed nature and arrests the minds.

The sublimation of the Philosophers contains several operations; namely purification, in order to have a pure and clean substance; dissolution, to reduce the whole mass of matter into water; the third, putrefaction or corruption; especially since nothing is done without first corruption preceding, according to the axiom of the Philosophers, corruptio unius est generatio alterius. The ablution, cleansing, bleaching and soaping follows, because everything sordid must be cleansed of all corrupting impurity, this ablution is also called inceration and mondification. The other is coagulation, because this precious water of which we have spoken must be dried up and return to the form of powder from which it had been extracted. Calcination follows, especially as the calcined matter is cleaner and more disposed to sublimation, and is closer to fixation, which several philosophers call fusion. And the last is fixing, which is perfect when the color no longer changes.

All which operations are in sublimation, the volatile parts are raised as in the vessel to be fixed with the fixed body, and so that they may give fusion to the body or larger parts, and defend themselves from vitrification: which justifies what I have before advanced, that all the work of the stone is only a perpetual Philosophical sublimation: and this sublimation, that its fixation, which is raised in its substance, in virtue and in color to a higher perfection

This sublimation contains the dissolution which was made from the beginning, and at the end we make the fixation, which is the perfect coagulation: and consequently, as we say that the work of the stone is a perpetual sublimation, we can also say that it consists only of a perpetual dissolution and coagulation.

...
CHAPTER III.

Of Preparation.

After having spoken so abundantly and so clearly of the matter, let us come to speak of its preparation, which the Sages were so careful to hide, although it is the most difficult thing in all the Art. They did it on purpose, so much so that if by chance, or by the imprudence of someone, a man came to the knowledge of the true matter, not knowing how to prepare it, (which is absolutely necessary) could not achieve the accomplishment of the work: and as many people sin with regard to matter, there are still more who are wanting in the preparation, without which the stone having no movement of itself, cannot be made a perfect Elixir, but must receive it. of art and work.

These preparations, purgations and purifications are not vulgar, but Philosophical; and Artists cannot make them by means contrary to those of nature, and whoever employs them destroys his work, because he must imitate nature and help her, since he must work with her, but not do violence to her; that is to say, to use strong waters to dissolve in the preparation, especially since they are corrosive and corrupt the substance of the bodies; for the more these waters corrode and corrupt them, the more they separate them from the species of metals.

But the dissolutions which are done properly, are done by quicksilver; that is to say, by the water of the Philosophers, which only corrupts the external form of the bodies which are dissolved, but not the substance, since it has in itself a virtuous humidity which dissolves them amicably and without any damage, and which is stronger than fire, since it makes of the body of gold, a pure spirit; what fire cannot do, so says Peat.

The preparation is done and must be done by the repeated destruction by resolving and sublimating, and separating from the stone the pure from the impure, the thick from the subtle, as the Philosopher says, at the same time as one mixes the sulfur and the mercury, the Sun and the Moon together, and without wasting any time for fear of the dissipation of the spirits, without which nothing can be done, having no hands; but it is in the hands of the Artist to whom this operation devolves: which being well done, matter can no longer remain in its species nor in its form, but rather within the genus and in its own, and thus matter is disposed to receive the form of all metals, and is an operation which alone disposes it to the separation of all the parts which compose it.

When the animal has taken food, and it is afterwards digested by natural heat, the separation of the pure and the impure of the said food is done by Nature; the impure and gross is driven out, and the pure and subtle is retained and converted into chyle, which is then distributed to all parts of the body; it is more or less the same in this operation that the Artist performs, because Nature could not perform it, etc.

The principles of the stone are sulfur and mercury, not in their nature, but altered and mingled together, and duly proportioned by nature: so that from their mixture with the two luminaries, there comes a third nature, and which nevertheless perfectly retains the virtues and properties of both: whereupon it should be known, that sulfur and quicksilver are volatile spirits and that quicksilver is more so than sulfur, especially as it follows the fire more, as having more annoyance with it, but the sulfur has in it the virtue of coagulating and fixing; thus the stone has principally quicksilver the property of stealing, and sulfur the power of fixing, which are the two principal foundations which the Philosophers unanimously want the stone or matter of the stone to have, in order to become a perfect Stone.

And when this operation is done by means of the art and prudence of the Artist, the mercury and the sulfur being united together and proportioned with the Sun and the Moon, a third nature which proceeds from it is their mercury, to which the Sages have given various names, for they have called it sea water, because there is more water than sea; and that from the igneous nature it acquires subtlety, bitterness and stench. It is called cloud water, but permanent water, especially since vulgar cloud water is not permanent in fire, but flees and exhales, Hermes gives it the name of dragon's tail, because the dragon which is the body or the earth, devours it and drinks it all up, and this dragon is the fixed substance. They call it their golden water and their talc water, because it contains in potency the substance of the two luminaries. Their mineral and corporeal mercury, their animated mercury, the double mercury, the metallic mercury, the essential mercury without which nothing can be done; their water of life, celestial water, their fresh water, antimonial and mercurial water, holy water, poisonous water, stinking water, water of waters, ponderous water, because being metallic, it is heavier than all other waters. They have given him an infinity of other names, not only to hide him from the ignorant and the wicked, but also because of his excellence, and there is not one of these names which does not suit him perfectly. ponderous water, because being metallic, it is heavier than all other waters. They have given him an infinity of other names, not only to hide him from the ignorant and the wicked, but also because of his excellence, and there is not one of these names which does not suit him perfectly. ponderous water, because being metallic, it is heavier than all other waters. They have given him an infinity of other names, not only to hide him from the ignorant and the wicked, but also because of his excellence, and there is not one of these names which does not suit him perfectly.

It contains the four elements in equal proportion, which alter each other in the work; and finally become, notwithstanding their mutual propensity for mutual warfare in such perfect temperament and in such great peace and friendship, that doing but one thing: that thing is a remedy for all ills for the relief of all nature.

But before it has been worked, there is water that does not wet, there is fire that does not burn, there is water that does not fear fire, there is fire that is not extinguished in water, and which remains there without being altered. It is a pleasant solvent for all bodies, not excepting the hardest stones. It dissolves, calcines, sublimates, coagulates and perfects itself. It is the dissolvent and the strong water of the Philosophers; he is a Protheus and a Chameleon, changing into all colors until he has reached the perfect red.

And the reason is that it contains the mercury and the sulfur of the Sages, which are the true solvents of all metals, and that it is not found only in metals. This mercury easily congeals common mercury, but does not fix it; to achieve this, it must be joined with the Sun and the Moon, that is to say, it must be cooked and reduced into a perfect Elixir to white or red, and it does not matter with which it must be joined, that is to say, fixed.

Geber says that this mercury is a nobler gum than daisies and precious stones, and that those who think of doing the work without it, are like those who want to climb to the top of a Tower without a ladder, and who fall on the pavement at the start. This subtilized mercury is called permanent water which resists fire being united with its body, without which it would not be permanent: and the reason why it is permanent is that it is generated in fire, and by fire; and that thus one can say that the fire is its father, although it is only its food.

She is this invigorating humidity of the stone, her life and her resurrection; it dissolves and congeals everything, it is the thing that tints and is tinted invariably, because it is animated by a vivifying heat, this is why its tinting is permanent and cannot be effaced; the Philosophers have sealed the way to do it, because it is the principal key of all the work and of their magisterium: this water is the spirit of the bodies converted into nature of quintessence giving virtue to the stone.

Before the stone is worked, it divides into bodily and spiritual; one comes out of the other, and one makes the other better; one is masculine and the other feminine, the quicksilver of the Philosophers is the radical humidity of the stone, the magnesia is all the compost in which is the aforesaid humidity, which humidity is not like the other humidity which flees the fire, because it consumes them, but this one runs there; in this moisture or stone are the Sun and the Moon in virtue and power, and in the elements in nature: and if they were not in this compost, nothing would be done, and of that would not be made the Sun and the Moon, which are other and better than those of the vulgar, because they are alive, and those of the vulgar are dead.

This water contains in itself all that is necessary for its improvement, and its ultimate perfection, needing only the aid of art, that is to say, of an artificial and proportioned fire: and one can only err in this beginning, that is to say, in the fire, because it is difficult to find its proportion.

Rasis says that when this mercury is born, with him in his womb are born the Sun and the Moon. Finally, there are so many marvels in this mercury that it contains in itself not only all metallic perfection, but also all the perfections of all beings, both superior and inferior; and in a word of all nature, and its animation is the transformation of gold into sperm, and this sperm is only pure spiritual gold.

This mercury contains in itself a fire, which must be fed and nourished with greater fire in the second regime of the stone, and this fire of the second regime must be enclosed by this second; the Philosophers call it proper instrument. This mercury is earth and water, and it is put into the fresh and recent egg with all its blood; that is, with all these spirits; this is why it is necessary to seal that as soon as possible, with the most convenient seal of Hermes, of which will be spoken hereafter, so that it is sublimated and exalted there in the nature of air and fire, as Arnauld de Villeneuve says.

Let chymists therefore seek no more solvents other than this one, which is the true universal solvent, which dissolves all bodies, however hard they may be, gently, pleasantly and without alteration or corrosion of any kind. Let them no longer distil sixty muids of well water to make one, and let the Sophists leave all their wild imaginations to find one suitable for their purposes, and let both of them stop breaking their heads trying to do with various subjects and various drugs.

All their solvents will never be solvents that can radically dissolve bodies without corrosion and alteration. Let them therefore study and seek the means of making this divine dissolvent, which dissolves all bodies so well, however hard they may be, and which dissolves itself, which is this marvelous mercury, which contains in itself all that is perfect in the world, and which is the epitome of the marvels of God: it is corporeal and spiritual, it is spirit and partakes of spiritual natures.

When by a marvelous industry this mercury has been drawn from the place where it was hidden by Nature, although it still has many superfluities, nothing should be separated from it; and those who pretend that there is phlegm or impurities which they say must be separated, are not well enlightened nor skilful people in this Art, the more so as the fire of the Philosophers converts all that into spiritual substance, pure and fixed: what no Philosopher has taught but Pontanus, and those who separate something from it spoil the work, and will not be able to arrive there.

Mireris says the stone is cold and damp in the beginning, and after it is made, hot and dry; that nevertheless there is only one regime with regard to the Artist, which tends to render the stone in its perfection; which could only be done by a perfect digestion, to which one can only arrive by various particular digestions, which produce various effects and several colors: whence it follows, that before it arrives at its perfection, it passes from nature to nature, and from color to color; so that with respect to the intention to come at the end, there is only one regime and one operation; and as for the diversity of natures, there is diversity of operations.

And when the Philosopher says: he ascends to Heaven, that is to say to the top of the egg; and that afterwards it descends to earth, that is to say to the bottom of the vessel. When matter is black, this blackness is called putrefaction; and when it has lost this color, it is called ablution and ceration by some Philosophers. Finally, all the work of stone by means of Nature, is only a continual coction and digestion of the same nature, by a very simple and very easy work, during the progress of which all the Planets show themselves; this is why the stone has been called by the names of the Planets and even by those of the minerals.

Before the Artist begins his work, he must know and know his own material well, and the means of working it properly, he must arm himself with great patience, be vigilant and observe punctually everything that will happen in his vessels, especially since he must settle on what he will see; he will even learn thereby, the marvels that God has placed and hidden in Nature, on which, making solid reflections, he will often have lights, to which he could not have reached, nor even had the slightest hope of being able to acquire them. He must write everything for his consolation, and so that nothing escapes him: and above all, that he lacks nothing of what he needs before beginning his work, of which he will find a state in the article of Fourneau declared below.

Now the true means of bringing the work to a good and due end is to imitate Nature, who by a continual and gentle heat creates quicksilver and sulfur in the earth, without which the Artist would never do anything worthwhile, and those who do otherwise and at their whim, or use the mercury and sulfur of the vulgar, work in vain, because the intention of Nature and the Philosophers is not that; but let their quicksilver and their sulfur be taken.

It is certain that Nature takes a long time to make them; but when it is joined to Art, and art begins where nature has finished its operations, it comes to the end of it in a short time; and as art alone can do nothing without nature, Nature, which has placed weights and proportions in matter, still helps the Artist to perfect what she had begun alone, by working with it and supplying it with its central or internal fire, and the Artist with the proportioned external fire, with vessels nearly the same as those which the same nature ordinarily uses.

But because it is necessary to raise matter to a very extensive perfection, in order to be able to perfect the imperfect metals; it is necessary from time to time to increase the external fire, which is the food of the stone, as it grows stronger, according to the opinion of some Philosophers; we will talk about it thoroughly in the Fire article.

Before finishing this Chapter, I must put here a rare thing of our Philosophical mercury. Everybody knows that it dissolves metals fairly easily, you know the reason for this which has been said above, and why it does not corrode them as all the other solvents do; and if he dissolves them amicably, however hard they may be, with all the more reason he dissolves things that are less compact.

Now if we give it tinsel to dissolve, this tinsel will become in a moment in a very clear boil, which being taken, by a trick of the Art, with a metal brush, and applied to wood, iron or other material, will gild it with a gilding infinitely more beautiful than that which is ordinarily used, and which will even last a lot more advantage, since it does by penetration into the materials, according to the hardness of their bodies, what the commune does only superficially. and by app.

This secret must by meditating on it, make those who will have knowledge of it think well, to invent a hundred beautiful works of which we have never thought of, and this great penetration must be like the base and the foundation.

The dead body is reduced to a black earth which has but little fixed salt or volatile left, and which, however, being crushed and reduced to powder, is capable by its great dryness of powerfully attracting the universal spirit, which uniting with this powder gives it new salts and spirit conforming to its first nature: which is another secret which no Philosopher has ever taught, and which I know by experience; so that one can still find in it a substance which is not to be despised.

The same is true of the materials from which common and vulgar etchings are made, which being exhausted by Art, of all their spirits, still more than once furnish them which in no way yield to the first, when one takes the trouble to do what above. By these examples, we can look for something new in the majority of faeces and dead bodies, materials of which chemistry and ordinary medicine make use. I could add something else, but it will suffice to spur the Curious to work, and to seek various marvels which are as yet unknown to the most learned and best minds.


CHAPTER IV.

Fire.

A fter having amply dealt withof the material of the Stone and of the choice to be made of it, and again of the mercury of the Sages, which are two of the principal keys of the whole work, even refuting some erroneous opinions; it now remains to speak of fire, which is the third and last principal key, which the Philosophers have not taught, except under very obscure and enigmatic terms; let us say that as there are no generations in this world without the Sun, likewise without the fire which is the purest of the elements, and which does not suffer corruption, which the Sages call their Sun, nothing is done and cannot be done in this Art. Without fire matter remains useless in the hand of the Artist, and the Philosopher's mercury is only a chimera which has substance only in his imagination, and which he cannot reduce to action.

Every man has this elementary Sun at his disposal, which he can use at his pleasure, giving him sometimes more and sometimes less heat, in order to regulate the degrees according to his desires, and according to what he judges necessary for the operations which he wants to make succeed; but to find this degree proportionate to the furnace and to the matter which is in the egg, that is what is very difficult.

Arthéphius taught it very obscurely, and Sendivogius spoke of it more than of the other parts of the work, and said more about himself than all the Philosophers put together. When therefore a man does not know how to give the proportion of the fire, he always works in vain and without any fruit; without that, that is to say, without this third key, he can never enter the parterre of the Philosophers, to the door of which all three are attached, but so high that only great men can reach it; and if anyone wanted to cross the walls, he would never fail to kill himself, because of their great height, and the depth of the ground.

Let's move forward and try to have this third key, since we already have the other two, and without it we can't do anything. And to take things from a distance, so that nothing is missing from our instruction, let us say:

That nature can do nothing except in heavy weather, although she can destroy a thing in a little. That in its works it has certain limits which it cannot overstep, and that it also contains within itself all that it needs for its ordinary operations and productions. It certainly engenders metals but not tinctures, although it contains them, and they are hidden in it, but the son of mercury and sulfur is completely filled with them, and it is from him alone that one must hope for fixed and invariable ones.

Nature has a propensity to perfect all her works, but she can only give them a simple perfection by herself, especially since she always acts simply, if the Artist does not lend her her help, and does not act in concert with her. Now the means which Art or the Artist uses to help it, is nothing else than the suitable heat, which is found only in the fire.

The Philosophers have accused several fires in their writings, namely that of horse manure, of the bain-marie, and that of coal, to divert the idiots from the right path, who, taking their statements literally, have used all of them, without having been able to meet anything whatsoever, and without considering that all these great men and these masters of the Art, never speak except by enigmas, metaphors and similarities; for all these heats and these fires which cannot last long in the same degree and the same temperament, must be rejected, especially since it is absolutely necessary that the fire proper to make the coction of mercury and the change of the elements or elementary qualities, one into the other, be a fire equal, continual and approaching that which Nature uses for the procreation of metals.

Now, only the lamp-fire can do this, and have the necessary qualities to do such a beautiful work, which is why it is called the philosophical fire, the secret and generational fire; and indeed, this fire is one of the greatest secrets of the Art.

This lamp-fire cannot be even and continuous, except with great care and difficulty, if the ordinary wick is used; that is to say, of cotton, especially since the Artist would have to keep watch continuously and without intermission, and very often he would have to pull out a lamp, and put it back in the stove at the same time, otherwise it could go out, because the wick, being consumed, forms mushrooms in a short time, which make the fire languish at the beginning, and then smother the fire; which would be an insurmountable and more than Herculean task.

But to relieve the Artist and give him courage, he can exempt himself from all these pains, using the incombustible wick, which is made with Venetian talc, or feather Alum, Asbestos, or rock salt prepared as it should be, and for all work, there will remain only that of not letting his lamp run out of oil: which is easy to do, since this lamp must be one of Cardan's invention, which supplies oil itself. , and which contains more than fire can consume in twenty-four hours.

By this means he will have the freedom to go and get some fresh air, and go about his business, if any has happened to him, without having the slightest concern for his work and his work. And if this fire were not continuous, that is to say, if it were extinguished and matter was cooled, and thus had lacked its ordinary nourishment, the most enlightened Artist in the world could not restore his work by any artifice whatsoever. The reason is, that the stone is begotten in the fire, and by the fire it is its life and its nourishment; and when it is extinguished, the stone dies at the same time, and can no longer be revived; this is why he would be obliged to begin again to make other Philosophical mercury, and also the surplus of the operations which he would have previously made

The Philosophers carefully distinguish between two fires, and say that the matter which is their mercury, has its internal and central fire, and that this fire alone is not sufficient for its perfect coction, but needs the heat of the elemental fire to set in motion the heat of its dull and dull natural fire; this is what the Art or the Artist must administer or provide, not in a courtyard or garden, or any other place exposed to the air, as one is obliged to do in some Chemical operations, because the air often suffers various alterations by excessive cold, by too great an abundance of humidity, or such other qualities, which would doubtless make an impression on this very delicate matter, and thus entirely destroy the work: this is why it is necessary to be covered

And the Philosopher's furnace is the most suitable place for this, it is there that the stone dissolves, calcines, coagulates, whitens, reddens, and conveniently receives its last perfection by the sole operation of fire, which does all its cooking, and all that is necessary for this divine work. You should also not put this stove in a dark place, especially since the Artist must conveniently see everything that happens inside, by means of a few small glass windows that have been made there on purpose.

This fire must be equal, moderate, continuous, and proportionate to the quality of the material, which secret proportion depends on the prudence of the Artist, which a Philosopher says is artificial to find; and which fire, all the Philosophers say should be soft slow and of the first degree. We will teach below various infallible means to meet him; but it is not enough to advance these words on a point of so great importance, without authorizing it by reason and the most sincere testimony of the Philosophers.

One of the principal reasons is, that the intention of the Art is to make a Medicine which contains in itself the four elementary qualities in a temperament of equality, and consequently that it is necessary to preserve the coldness of water, which must dominate in this beginning; which can only be done by a very slow fire, by a gentle, temperate and continual fire, which can only set Nature in motion, and imperceptibly dry up the superfluous humidity of the water; and if we made a bigger fire, we would consume this coldness so necessary to preserve, and nothing would dissolve or coagulate, because the big fire is the main enemy of coldness, but this soft and moderate fire of the first degree, is the only one suitable to preserve this quality, to dissolve the compost; and finally to make this beautiful work a success.

The second reason is that the stone in its beginning is partly fixed, and partly volatile, and participates more in the volatile than in the fixed, so it is necessary to use a soft and slow fire, to overcome this superabundant volatility little by little, by gently cooking the stone, accustoming it imperceptibly to suffer the fire, which by its nature is dry, and by these qualities dries up its superfluous humidity without altering its coldness so little, and disposes it no longer to fear any fire; from which one can conclude, that by a great fire one would not preserve the coldness, one would burn the very tender flowers of the compost, and the vessel would break by the violence of the subtle and too agitated spirits, which would be forced to make passage, and the whole would be lost without any resource.

All the Philosophers are of the same feeling, that it is necessary to make use of this slow and temperate fire, because there is only that which they have experienced capable of extracting the corrupting humidity without any damage to the qualities of the compost, always recommending not to be bored with the length of the work, and blaming precipitation. The only testimony of Hermes, besides above, should suffice for our conviction, without reporting here those of the other Philosophers; nevertheless I will not fail to do so, so that there will not remain in the minds of those who will read this little work, the slightest doubt of this truth, which I only advanced after being fully convinced of it myself.

Hermes says: Thou shalt separate the earth from the fire, that is, from the spirit which he himself explains, adding the subtle from the thick softly and sweetly, and with great conduct. He could not better express the first degree of the fire, which makes this separation in the Philosophical egg, gently lifting up the subtle, which is the spiritual substance, and leaving the earth at the bottom; which would not happen, if we made a great fire, because the gross or the earthly would rise with the spirit or the subtle, and all would be lost in this confusion for lack of conduct and judgment.

In the Book of Saturn, it is said; that he who governs his work by a long fire can achieve secrecy, especially since doing so, the most delicate qualities of the material are preserved in their entirety, and that the material does not vitrify, but always remains in a state of being dissolved, calcined, etc. Gallicanus, Morienus, Geber, Artephius, and others say the same thing. But it is not enough that this fire be slow and temperate: it must, as I said above, that it still be even and continual, this is what Morien teaches, saying: be careful not to forget any of its days and make your fire be gentle and temperate, and that it always burn equally.

To find this fire, one must consult Nature, which carries out its operations in the earth by the continual and gentle heat of the Sun. We must also take example from the hen which incubates her eggs and hatches them by her heat alone, (in the opinion of Arnauld de Villeneuve) that the Artist should imitate rather than the first, especially since Nature needs several centuries to make metals, because of the too great slowness of the heat she uses, and since the Elixir is reduced in a short time to its ultimate perfection, which only comes from the diversity of heat and coction; this is why Art advances its work much rather than Nature.

This moderate fire and of the first degree, can be found by holding the hand for a long time in the bottom of the bowl, without burning oneself and suffering any injury, or by putting eggs in the bowl where the ashes will be prepared; and if in the time prescribed by Nature, chicks come to hatch, that will be good, and you will have the first degree of the fire which is necessary for you, according to the opinion of this Philosopher: Pullifica concoctione focers non definit donec, etc. And if they do not hatch within the said time, either the fire is too weak, or it is too strong, and will have burned the germ, and will have cooked them; what you will know by breaking them, so it will only be a question of setting this fire on one of these faults.

In the same way, if darkness does not appear in forty or forty-two days, or at most fifty-two, it is a sign that the fire is too weak and that it must be increased, and always continuing this same fire, by its delay you will judge with certainty of the increase which is necessary for it. And when the Philosophers say that the fire is too weak, that matter languishes, it is one of their ways of speaking, which means that the fire must be increased, or otherwise that it will take a long time, like Nature, to reduce its work to the state that one desires. Thus we see that there is no danger in making the fire weak, and that there is some in making it too strong, and that it is better to avoid these two extremes.

Here is another way, which is to first heat the stove and the ashes of the bowl with the fire of some coals, (which must always be done for 24 hours) in which ashes you will have put an empty crucible that you will cover, in the place where the Philosopher's egg must be placed, and in the same way; and after the 24 hours, the coals having been removed, you will introduce the lamp provided with olive oil and lighted with the number of threads of wicks that you will have judged appropriate, and at the same time you will put in the crucible some saturn or lead melted on a small fire in another crucible, so that it is only or simply melted, and that by placing a wisp in it, it is not burned, and covering the said first crucible and the furnace, you will leave it in the lamplight for three days without intermission; and if you see after the said time that the Saturn still remains molten without freezing, your heat is good

However, this is not yet sufficient to be sure, because this heat could perhaps exceed the right proportion that is necessary for you. This is why, to find out for sure, it would be good to put a quantity of small laminae of Saturn in a crucible which you will place in the said ashes, near the other crucible where the molten lead is, cover it in the same way, and leave them there together at this same fire for three astronomical days, which expired, after having opened your vessels; if you see that your sheets are in no way melted by this heat, and that the lead of the other is not frozen, then you are assured of having the first degree and regime of fire which you seek and which is necessary for your work, and to cause in time the putrefaction or corruption of the matter, which takes the color black,

This soft fire of the first degree must last without any change until perfect whiteness, says Morien, because it is proper and necessary to the fixation which is only made in whiteness, especially since from the beginning of the work until then, the volatile reigns and surpasses the fixed, and one can wander and spoil everything, by giving a stronger fire; but when we have reached this color, we can no longer fail, especially since then the sulfur of matter can no longer be burned, and the fixed has overcome the nature of the volatile, since the volatile itself is fixed with its fixed sulfur, without ever being able to be separated from it.

Arnauld de Villeneuve in his Letter written to the King of Naples, wants the fire to be increased to whiteness, but little by little until redness, and from redness still little by little until perfect redness, in accordance with the terms of his Testament: eo, egrediatur e monumento cumregia potestate. And his reason, and that of the Philosophers, is that from then on all minds are fixed and are capable of suffering the fire from which they fled before; and if it had been increased rather, the force and violence of the spirits would undoubtedly have broken the egg to make way for it: besides that the coldness which is one of the elementary qualities which it is necessary to preserve, would have been destroyed, especially since it is not compatible with a strong fire.

There are, however, philosophers who are not of this feeling, and who say: That when the ancient Sages wrote to increase the fire after perfect whiteness, they did not mean that this increase was an extension of heat, but a prolongation of time and work, so much so that this same fire which could lead the work to its perfection and fixation in white, by its continuation, will also be able to push it to perfect red, because by this continuation the stone changes better and more pleasantly from color to color, and from kind to kind; besides that this fire no longer has to fight against any humidity or coldness as before, and that the stone in the state that it is, has in it a more extensive fire than it had before,

We can explain Arnauld's saying, according to this subtle thought, and say that the Sages insinuate us thus; that we must not stop there, and that it would be a notable loss, since we can make the Red Elixir in a short time, which is without comparison much more perfect than the white, because the white contains only three elements; namely water, earth, and air, and that red still contains fire, which is the fourth and purest of all, which completes the elementary wheel and the last change of the elements or elementary qualities one into another, reduced in a perfect temperament of equality, against their mutual and natural inclination to make perpetual war with each other: and if the fire does not enter into the white Elixir, it does not exercise there its last perfection and virtue as it would,

As for me, I give my hands to this charming explanation, and hold that it is safer to continue the same heat, because one cannot err in any way; and that if there is any evil in following this way, it consists only in retardation, as we see happen to the operations of Nature, which are all long on account of the weakness and debility of the heat which aids her to do her work in the bowels of the earth. Nevertheless one can follow Arnauld's sentiment with confidence.

I said before, that if once during the work, the fire was extinguished and the material cooled, one could not by any artifice whatsoever resuscitate or push one's work further, and that one would have to start all over again. I repeat it here on purpose to warn the reader, that if the white Elixir is also cooled, it can no longer be pushed to red, except by retrograding it, that is to say, by dissolving it in new Philosophical mercury, and starting the work over as before, because this is reducing the Elixir to its first matter; it is also true that the work is not so long, because of the qualities and elevations that this Elixir had already acquired by the long previous work: which is a great secret, which I have never read anywhere. There are still other fires of which I do not speak here because they are not necessary for this work, and they would only embarrass the mind; you can see them in my dictionary, they are the natural fire, the unnatural, and the one that is called against nature.

...
CHAPTER V.

Of Putrefaction.

There are Philosophers who divide the work of stone into sublimation, dealbation, rubification: but under each part there are other considerable ones which are included and implied therein; namely, under sublimation, mercury extraction and putrefaction. Under the dealbation, the course of various colors which appear before and after, and the first fixation of the spirits of matter reduced to a white color, which is the first stone. And under the rubification, the last perfection of the second stone which reddens makes appear several colors and various kinds of redness, and finally reddens with an invariable red color; and between these three parts, all the colors that one can imagine are seen various times, until the color of poppy has taken their place,

In putrefaction the black color reigns, which is the earth; in the dealbation, the white; which is air; and in rubification, the color red, which represents fire; these three principal colors of the stone, in which the others are contained, complete the whole operation. the black color, is the sign of corruption and good commixtion of the humid with the terrestrial; the whiteness, the sign of the end of the superfluous humidity, and if one continues the fire, the heat acting the red color is generated.

Putrefaction is the corruption of matter, or of the Philosophical mercury, which is done by slow fire; for strong fire consumes and destroys; the slow fire, on the contrary, is called the fire of generation; but before generation can take place, corruption must necessarily precede; whereupon to do it well, one must know that the longer the time is prolonged, the more excellent it is, and therefore those who precipitate it by increase of fire, do nothing worthwhile, and can never succeed, which is why a Philosopher said: Omnis praecipitation a diabolo.

When one has the degree of fire, and the egg is well sealed with the seal of Hermes, so that nothing breathes, that is to say that no spirits of matter can flee, from the day that one begins to work this matter or this mercury, when it is in the egg, at the end of forty or forty two days, or fifty two at the latest, blackness begins to appear, which is the sure sign that putrefaction is taking place. and that the artist is on the right track. The Philosophers have given it various names, and have called it occident, darkness, eclipse, leprosy, raven's head, death, and the mortification of mercury, to afterwards resuscitate clearer, cleaner, purer, and stronger than before, and thereby it receives and takes the mineral virtue of the Sun and the Moon, which unite therein inseparably,

From this union of male and female of the same nature and of the same species (for in the generation of each thing it is necessary to have its like) follows the ingrossation, or sublimation of light elements; so that this black earth, by the continual circulations which take place in the egg, which always fall back on the dead body, which is called by the Sages, the body, the earth, fixes it, and ferments it: and the part which rises which is the spiritual and the most subtle, they have named it the volatile part, which falling makes of itself the necessary imbibitions and calcinations, and which the more it continues to rise, the more it is subtilized. and the more also it calcines better this body, and this calcination is the purgation of the Stone; and the true sign of perfect calcination is the freezing of mercury, and freezing is a fixation of the minds; so that after a great time; black and filthy as it was, it seems to have been cleaned, purged, purified and soaped, so white is it; this is why the Masters of the Art gave it the names of enemas, purgations, purifications, soaping and ablutions; in the beginning water appeared, for mercury is water; but when this water is thick and the black shows itself, then it is the black earth which shows itself. for mercury is water; but when this water is thick and the black shows itself, then it is the black earth which shows itself. for mercury is water; but when this water is thick and the black shows itself, then it is the black earth which shows itself.

It therefore appears, that by this putrefaction, one makes the separation of the pure and the impure: what Nature could not do, but it is to the Artist to whom this power is devolved: what being well done, the matter can no longer remain in its species, nor in its form, but well within the genus and in its own, and thus the matter is disposed to receive the form of all the metals, and is an operation, which disposes it to the separation of all the parts which compose it, not being permitted to the Artist, nor even to the Angels, to destroy the genre, without the particular permission of God, who so willed it from the beginning and from the creation of all beings.

The necessity of putrefaction is obvious, since without it the work cannot be done, especially since there is no generation of a new form if the first is not corrupted; this is why it must be done in our mercury, because of the imperfections that accompany it, from which it must be freed by various alterations. Now the signs of a true and good putrefaction are a very black or very deep blackness, a stinking, bad and foul odor, called of the Philosophers, toxicum et venenum, which odor is not sensitive to the sense of smell; but only to the understanding; and when it becomes like a very black oil, and as long as this color lasts, it is the female which dominates, ie the volatile.

Blackness is the true putrefaction or natural corruption of the stone, and this corruption is the principle of new generation, and of new form: and by the continuation of heat, the new form is introduced and appears, which is the white color so much desired, which at its beginning is only a small white circle, which Flamel calls capillary whiteness, which increases little by little and insensibly, and finally comes into a very brilliant perfect whiteness, which testifies that the stone is deprived of all superfluous humidity: and when this whiteness appears, it is the sign that the work is approaching its fixation; and when Hermes in his Testament says, all his strength is converted into earth, i.e. fixation.

The Philosophical marriage of male and female, or the union of body and spirit, takes place first during darkness; and when by the operation the spirit spiritualizes itself and volatilizes its body, and the body corporealizes and fixes the spirit which by its nature is volatile: then they are made one, and can never be separated and disunited, being both spiritual and corporeal, but of a spiritualized corporeality.


CHAPTER VI.

White Elixir.

In this blackness, the whiteness is hidden, and between these two colors several others are visible; namely, some redness, the lemon color, and a green color, which greenness is the sign of the beginning of the vegetation of the stone: after this greenness, another redness is seen, and then the true whiteness, in which the true redness is hidden; and between the true whiteness and the true redness, the preceding colors are still seen, but they do not last so long, and various rednesses appear before the true redness, which is poppy-colored.
When the mother has eaten her child; that is to say, when the earth, which is fixed, has drunk up all its water, which is the volatile, a simple whiteness is not enough for the perfection of the white Elixir, especially as the medium may still have blackness; this is why it is necessary to continue the fire until the color citrine, which denotes that all the compost is perfect white: and it is then a new Nature exempt from all earthiness and corrupting sulphurity. This Elixir is called by several names; namely Natural Sulphur, White Sulphur, and Elixir, or White Stone.

A Philosopher says: That at the same time of the dealbation, all the colors of which we have spoken above, are lost and unite in it: and as blackness is the principle of the work and the first color which appears to our eyes, so whiteness is the middle color between blackness and redness; by which mean color, one must necessarily pass to go to citrine, which is perfect digestion: likewise, that whiteness is nothing other than the purgation or cleansing of blackness, which is done by the sole continuation of fire.

At the same time, I say, the soul enters into its body, and the tincture also joins it: this union of the soul with the body is a divine work, because it depends on God alone and on the Nature in which he acts; and this time is that in which Morien says there will be great marvels, which is that of dealbation, in which the soul entering his body fixes it and elevates it into a permanent tincture of white and red; namely, to white in its exterior, and to red in its concealment: and this white Elixir in its manifesto which contains gold in its occult, is the white gold of the Philosophers; and red gold in next power, that is to say in its hidden. And when this white Elixir is projected, it gives the weight of gold to the metals which receive this projection; which would not happen, if the gold were not included under this white substance: this soul which enters his body is the virtue of matter, and the spirit is volatile matter. In the Book of the Seven Seals, this white Elixir is called Ring of gold covered with silver, that is to say the Stone of the Philosophers which in its depths is male and gold, and in its exterior is silver and female.

We often meet in the Books of the Sages the terms to kill, to sup the head and the like, which do not mean anything else, except to fix; because in killing an animal with a sword, which is the fire of the Philosophers, its blood issues from its body in which the spirits of its life consist and reside: likewise, when fixing, all the volatility, which represents blood and spirits, no longer appears. This is what Hermes says, in these terms: That the Stone has then the force of superior and inferior things, that is to say of spiritual and bodily things which are united together in fixation. And if this White Elixir has no ingredient or fusion, it must be inserted little by little, or drop by drop with the white oil of the Philosophers, until it flows like wax, of which the best way is that which is done by imbibition in the multiplication, of which we will speak hereafter. When have reached this perfect whiteness, the Philosophers say that they have cut off the mercury feet, because everything is reduced to fixation; and this fixation also cuts off the feet of the volatile of imperfect metals, which will be more fully explained in the Article of the Projection.

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CHAPTER VII.

Red Elixir.

We have said above ,that Nature contains in itself all that is necessary, and that to perfect itself, it only needed the help of Art, which furnishes it with an equal, continual and proportionate fire, with which all the work is done in a single vessel, without it being necessary to open it to the end. By the continuation of this fire, we saw the blackness or the putrefaction and corruption of matter: and by this same continuation without addition of anything, we came to the whiteness and fixation of the spirits with its body which made the perfect White Elixir. In the same way by the prolongation of the fire, what was white and silver, becomes red and perfect gold; that is to say, that the white sulfur of the quicksilver of the Philosophers, becomes their red sulfur and their perfect Elixir to the red, which some call Crocus,

This red Elixir, or Stone of the Philosophers to the red, is that which is the second, and which has acquired its last perfection, when this red does not change any more, and when it has come to the color of the Poppy; and when put in the fire, it melts like wax, that it persists there and does not diminish therein, making neither smoke, nor any noise or sparkle, and that it attaches itself and unites itself inseparably with every burning sheet of metal, and tints it with its tincture, fixes it and gives it its weight and its aureic perfection, and by the same means all its nature and its excellent incorruptibility, in which all the elements are strongly mixed together in it. the others in a temperament of equality, which can no longer suffer from alteration or contrariety.

This redness is called the Root of the ferment of the Sun and of the Moon: firstly of the Moon, because the argent-predominant in the first fixation gave it its white color; and in the second, it is sulfur which predominates by the virtue and impression of fire, which is attributed to the Sun.

The work of the Philosophers, so excellent and so hidden, is therefore completed, on which it is necessary to make some beautiful and solid reflections, and in particular that it was begun by the element earth, which was reduced to water, then water to air, air to fire, and finally fire in fixation, that is to say in earth, and therefore we end where we had begun: this is what the Philosophers mean when they speak of the conversion of the elements into each other. the others, because they symbolize and agree in next matter, which conversion is entirely Philosophical, and very far from that of the Chemists, who make a hundred scrambles without reason or judgment and they claim to separate the elements from each other; which they cannot do perfectly, especially since they are naturally inseparable.

They usually take in all their operations, the opposite of those of the true Philosophers, do they not put gold for the red ferment, and silver for the white ferment: which is contrary to the feeling of the Sages, who want the red and white stone to be under the same subject, and under the same matter. They even leave their work halfway through the operation, to resume it and continue it after a long time, against the true path of reaching the goal, and of the uninterrupted continuation, which the Sages order in imitation of Nature, which always acts without any interruption of time.

This Elixir, either red or white, gives life to the metals which are dead, and which are detached from the Mining, which, animated by the great igneous perfection which it communicates to them, are made capable of communicating their life, and also giving life to other metals which have remained behind by their impurities, and the privation of the life which they had in the bowels of the earth.

he would have prevented it from having fusion; but you give them both by imbibitions and multiplications when you do your work, according to the designs of the Philosophers.

And although I remain in agreement that putting gold to dissolve ferment in the Philosophical mercury, one can make the stone: I say however nothing contrary to what I advanced elsewhere, when I declared that there was only one matter, and only one mode or means of operating, because this mineral gold is homogeneous with the Philosophical gold, although accompanied by many bad qualities and earthiness; and when I blamed the chymists for using mineral gold as a ferment, it is all the more so because they dissolve it in strong waters, which are bad solvents and spoil it, and because they do not have the knowledge of the mercury of the Sages, nor of its matter, by which they can never succeed, even if they would be in the true way of operating.


CHAPTER VIII.

Of Multiplication.

When we reachedAt this perfect red elixir, one must not be discouraged from the long past work, for only half of the work has yet been done, especially since it is in too small a quantity, and by using it for the diseases of imperfect metals, plants, and animals, it would soon be consumed if it were not multiplied, and it would be a pity to start over again, as Flamel did up to three times, a work so long and so boring; this is why it is necessary to add here the means of multiplying it, without wasting so much trouble, and employing as much time as can be spared, so that having always this treasure in abundance, you can never lack it, especially since it can be increased almost infinitely by several multiplications, which increase it notably in quantity and quality: which will be explained hereafter.

Some demi-savants wanted multiplication to be impossible; but if they had properly considered in what way Nature is perpetuated, they would have changed their feelings, for they would have learned that all nascent and growing things are multiplied and increased by their seed, as is manifest with plants and animals, and that it is the same with near metals, which however have this difference with other sublunary beings, that they do not multiply of themselves like them; but that they multiply almost to infinity, when Art has drawn the seed from them, that it first purifies of their earthiness and heterogeneity, and then pushes this seed to such a degree, that it makes prodigious generations, and which surpass the imagination.

The work of multiplication is done in two ways; namely, according to kind and according to number. It is done according to species by retrogradation, by putting Philosophical mercury on half of your powder, so that it is not drowned or covered with it, but only half for the first time, and also for the last or the seventh, or well if you put more, let it be at most two-thirds; the mercury will dissolve this powder or this Elixir which will be in the egg, which will have been sealed with the seal of Hermes, as it was said before, then put to cook on the ashes in the Philosophical furnace, by the fire of the Sages, of the first degree, as it was done from the beginning; because this mercury which is raw, and which has not been cooked, dehydrates the Elixir and reduces it to water like itself, this is what is called retrogradation.

And to lead it or reduce it to the same state of coction and perfection that it was before, it must be baked again and the work started again as the first time; but also the operation will not last so long as the first, and will not be more than five months, because the central fire of the matter which had been brought to perfection, and which is in the egg, is notably increased, and all the colors which were seen in the first operation, will again appear according to their rank and the preceding order, but they will not last so much near.

And when we have again reached the perfect red like the first time, we will begin again as before to put Philosophical mercury in the egg on the Elixir, and we will cook it in the same way and at the same fire; and we will repeat this operation as many times as we want, provided that we always have something to provide, to make mercury: and with each multiplication that we do, the time of the work will always decrease, and finally will be so short, that in less than half a quarter of an hour all the work will be completed, for the aforesaid reason, that the central fire of matter always has more extension.

It is not the whole that the time decreases so notably each time one begins again, but the Elixir also increases, not only in quantity of perfect matter; but still it increases each time in quality, that is to say, that if at the beginning a weight went only over ten; at the first multiplication it will go to a hundred; to the second in a thousand; to the third out of ten thousand; to the fourth out of a hundred thousand, and thus always increases from ten to ten with each multiplication; and continuing, it increases to infinity. From which we must conclude, that if we had been satisfied, when we arrived at the perfect white or red, without doing the multiplications; besides that we would have little Elixir, we would have done ourselves great harm, since the multiplications of the Elixir extend so strongly and are done in such a short time; and by this means,

It should however be observed: That when I said above that one could fill the egg up to half or two-thirds at the most, that this should only be understood, for the first operation; because for the others there would be danger, because of the central and internal fire of the matter which always increases with each multiplication, and could break the glass, for not having enough space or air for the circulations of the spirits; this is why the prudent Artist must regulate this space, in proportion to the extension of the fire of the matter; because the air is one of the keys to the work, without which one cannot succeed, that is to say one of the greatest secrets of the work of the Stone.

But when you have subtracted from your powder at each multiplication, if you had other furnaces, to cook the mercury that you would add to it to dissolve it, you will save a lot of time, and you will make a quantity of Elixir of a prodigious elevation: and when you do not have furnaces as many as you would need, you must put each powder apart in vessels of earth or glass well stoppered and put in a dry place, so that no dust enters there. or filth, nor any moist air; and put on each vessel a writing containing the number of its multiplications, in order to put them all of the same quality and elevation, always beginning with the furthest away, whenever you begin again.

When your multiplications are so extensive that they are done in the space of a miserere, because of their great subtlety, you can diminish a few threads of the wick, especially since then matter does not need so much external fire as in the past, because it has always acquired greater fire as it has been multiplied, and it will suffice for it with a fire so moderate and so weak that it only slightly excite its central fire. And if your matter is so subtle, because of the great number of multiplications, that it penetrates the walls of the vessel, you will have to stop there, and not push it higher: or else put a little of your powder, and drown it with your mercury, always keeping the proportion of leaving empty at least two-thirds of your vessel or egg; what to do,

We have said before what Philosophical sublimation is, and that it is an exaltation to a higher degree of perfection; so that all the first working of the stone up to the perfect red, in this sense, must be called being sublimated by first sublimation; and the other works of stone, or the multiplications, are also sublimations of second, third, fourth, fifth, sixth, and seventh sublimation, etc. the more so as the stone is always raised to a higher perfection by each multiplication.

The other kind of multiplication, which is according to number, is done by projecting a weight on a hundred, and a weight of these hundred on a hundred others; and again the same, and it is always Medicine. But this multiplication of number is only very improperly called multiplication, especially since the state of perfection of the stone decreases instead of increasing, and always decreases in proportion as it moves away from its last sublimation; and this decadence is a simple retrogradation, and not of the nature of the preceding. But the true Philosophical multiplication, is a multiplication in quantity and quality of force and virtue, which arrives at the matter of which we have spoken above.

This Elixir having come in its perfection, is very pure and very subtle; and so much the more it is subtilized by imbibitions and multiplications, so much the heavier it is, the mineral gold is the same which increases its weight in proportion as it is more purified by means of Art. But river gold, does not have a deep auric color, being half white from lack of coction, and only goes up to fourteen carats, and because of this is lighter, and also has more volume than the other.

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CHAPTER IX.

From the Screening.

A fter so much work and so many difficulties overcome, the artist has finally arrived at the joy so longed for, and at harvest time, as some philosophers say. It is up to him to fully enjoy the fruit of his labors and his happiness, using with great prudence the great goods he has in his possession, that is to say with great modesty and discretion, for the glory of God, the good of his Church, and the relief of the poor, God having given them to him on this subject, and to use them for his own salvation, and not for the possessions of honors and vanities of this world.

It is therefore now a question of knowing how one should use this admirable powder, in order to purge the imperfect metals of their leprosy, and convert them into perfect gold, or silver, according to the quality of the powder. This part of the work is called the projection which is done in two ways. The first, reducing the metal into mercurial form, that is to say, by melting the soft metal in a crucible by means of a suitable fire, or hard metals, such as iron and copper, reduced to laminae, and into the form of fire, that is to say, inflamed or ignified.

The projection which is made on soft metals, like lead and tin, is the most excellent way, the most prompt and the most convenient, and is made as follows. One takes one hundred weights of one or the other of these metals, one puts them to melt in a crucible, and being in this state, you will put a weight of the powder in a small piece of paper, and will throw it in the said crucible, in this moment the Elixir melts and penetrates the molten metal until in its intimate, from where it rises a great fire, in which various colors appear; which passed and the fire subsided, after a miserere, you will let the crucible cool, then remove the matter, and you will see the separation that the Elixir has made of the corrupting impurities of the metal; which rejected you will keep the surplus, which is also a Medicine on other metal; this is why you take a weight from the weight of these hundred converted into Medicine, and do as before, and everything is still Medicine, which is frangible like glass, and you always repeat this same operation, until your matter becomes the same color as the purest gold.

It would be very easy to find at the right time the number of weights and the correct proportion that the Elixir would convert of them all at once, without repeating the same operation so many times, but I won't talk about it; because it is not necessary to use this way, especially as there would be too much loss, by the reaction which would be done. And by doing it as above, the powder will convert much more, which is why it is better to operate by degrees. In the same way when one wants to use it in Medicine, for the animal or for the human body, it is necessary to dissolve a grain of Elixir in a spirit suitable to the nature of the disease, as in the spirit of wine, honey, or other: even in water, if it is expedient, in small quantity, that is to say about a glass, then take a little of this glass and put it on another glass,

The first reason is, that if you put so much of it all at once, the Elixir would be drowned, and its virtue would not extend so far, as if you put only a small portion.

The second reason is that the stone has not acquired its great extension and elevation, except successively and from degree to degree, and that it is necessary to use the same ways to make it retrograde without causing it violence and to reduce it well to the proportion required to use it with safety by the mouth or by external application.

Or else, one puts in projection a weight in a thousand of the nearest molten body, and one puts the vessel in the oven at four registers, and it is left there for three astronomical days to mingle well, giving it a small fire at the beginning, and increasing it from time to time and degree by degree according to the Art; which time passed, the vessel is gently allowed to cool, having removed most of the fire, and letting the rest of itself die for lack of nourishment. And when it's all cold, take another thousand weights, melt them down, and take a weight of those thousand that's been converted; it is done in a day, and repeating the same operation again and it is done in an instant, which is a great secret.

Now the closest metal is that which symbolizes more with the Elixir, because it is more easily, more promptly and more perfectly converted, than those which are further from it, and consequently which have less agreement with it, although it perfects them all, but with less extent some than others; the more so as Nature, which is projected onto its own nature, unites itself more promptly and more easily than in another body which is foreign to it.

When one makes the projection on the Moon, the Elixir has a lot of extent, because it approaches perfection, and only lacks a little coction, fixity and color, it repairs all these defects, giving it the weight of gold; but it makes the separation of what this Moon had of impure and of the mixture of other imperfect metals, of which the sulfurs were combustible; but when the projection is made on common or vulgar mercury, well purged with salt and vinegar and passed through the chamois, or else put in a mortar of stone or glass, with pork lard, and the same quantity of turpentine, and there well beaten and mixed, then poured by inclination, it is excellently purged in a short time of all earthiness, and this is, in my opinion, the best and most prompt way of preparing it; for all that is impure remains in this grease, and it comes out of this mortar as beautiful as silver.

When you want to project onto this purged mercury in any of these ways, you have to do it as follows. We put the mercury in a crucible on a few burning coals in order to heat it, and when it simmers or begins to boil and want to flee, it is then that you must project a little of your powder on it, which, feeling the heat, melts at the same time, penetrates the said mercury, and surrounding it on all sides, prevents it from exhaling; and when they have been like this for a quarter of an hour, and all the colors have ceased, removing the fire, you let it cool gently, for then the conversion is done; and mercury's feet and wings have been cut off, since it is fixed, and has lost all its volatility; but in this mercury the Elixir has separated nothing, especially as it has found no impurity and corrupting earthiness, and that it is all of his nature. There are two beautiful reasons why the Elixir separates the pure from the impure of the imperfect metals. The first is that the stone being very pure and perfect, is also all fire, and this fire cannot suffer any impurity and corruption, not even those of the other elements with which it sympathizes. The second is that these impurities are bodies foreign to the pure metallic substance, with which the perfect metals cannot perfectly unite. This reason alone, well supported by experience, should convince of error all those who claim to give imperfect metals tinctures drawn from strange bodies, and which do not agree in kind and species with them. There are two beautiful reasons why the Elixir separates the pure from the impure of the imperfect metals. The first is that the stone being very pure and perfect, is also all fire, and this fire cannot suffer any impurity and corruption, not even those of the other elements with which it sympathizes. The second is that these impurities are bodies foreign to the pure metallic substance, with which the perfect metals cannot perfectly unite. This reason alone, well supported by experience, should convince of error all those who claim to give imperfect metals tinctures drawn from strange bodies, and which do not agree in kind and species with them. There are two beautiful reasons why the Elixir separates the pure from the impure of the imperfect metals. The first is that the stone being very pure and perfect, is also all fire, and this fire cannot suffer any impurity and corruption, not even those of the other elements with which it sympathizes. The second is that these impurities are bodies foreign to the pure metallic substance, with which the perfect metals cannot perfectly unite. This reason alone, well supported by experience, should convince of error all those who claim to give imperfect metals tinctures drawn from strange bodies, and which do not agree in kind and species with them. not even those of the other elements with which he sympathizes. The second is that these impurities are bodies foreign to the pure metallic substance, with which the perfect metals cannot perfectly unite. This reason alone, well supported by experience, should convince of error all those who claim to give imperfect metals tinctures drawn from strange bodies, and which do not agree in kind and species with them. not even those of the other elements with which he sympathizes. The second is that these impurities are bodies foreign to the pure metallic substance, with which the perfect metals cannot perfectly unite. This reason alone, well supported by experience, should convince of error all those who claim to give imperfect metals tinctures drawn from strange bodies, and which do not agree in kind and species with them.

The metals have their mercury which is pure, but they have two sulphurs; one pure, and the other impure, evil, and combustible. So when we make the projection on a metal, the Elixir always attaches itself strongly to what is pure like itself, which is pure mercury and sulfur, and drives out what is not, for the above reasons.

And those who make the projection on the mercury of the metals, do not hurt, but they give themselves a lot of time and useless expense, since the Elixir of itself purges the metals of their heterogeneities, and attaches itself strongly to their mercury and their good sulphur, which by its nature is very fine and very pure; of which pure sulphur, and separated from the burning and impure sulphur, if the Artist made the projection on any metal as on the Moon, he would not give it the aureic color, the weight, the volume and the sound of gold; especially as sulfur alone, nor mercury alone can produce an aureic tincture, but when they are joined and united together, and that they are reduced to their principle, digested according to the Art and pushed to aureic perfection: now this sulfur not having these qualities cannot give such a tincture,

When the projection is made once or twice, as we have said above, it is Medicine, but it is frangible; and when it comes in a state that it is no longer medicine, and that it is still frangible, the secret of removing this frangibility from it is to pass it through the cup without adding lead, especially since it will purify itself well in the space of three hours, and you will have it free from this defect.

With regard to hard metals, when they are reduced to plates or laminates, it is necessary to put them in a fire, which strongly communicates to them its igneous impression, so that they appear only fire; for then a little of your Elixir put on it, converts them perfectly into gold or silver, according to the quality of the Elixir, especially as by means of this strong ignition, the Elixir melts and penetrates these metals, even in their intimate, because their pores are open

This penetration and conversion is done even better, when one dissolves a grain of the Elixir in a spirit such as the spirit of wine, rainwater or dew five or six times rectified, with which one fills a glass and one takes a feather with which one soaks the small end of the fluff of the said liquor, of which fluff one touches lightly in various places the inflamed laminae. It is a surprising marvel to see that in a moment the penetration, conversion, tinting and fixing are done, and these metals much lighter than gold also receive at the same time the weight and volume of gold if the Elixir is red, and all the qualities of silver if the Elixir is white.

It will be objected here, that the Elixir projected in this way on hard and inflamed metals, cannot convert them entirely as they are into perfect gold or silver, according to the quality of the Elixir; the more so as I said before, that when the projection is done on the soft metals, the Elixir makes the separation of the pure and the impure of the said metals reduced in mercurial form, and attaches only to their pure; now the hard metals have some times more impurities than the soft ones, which the Elixir does not separate from the body of the said laminae, and consequently does not entirely convert them, since the impurities remain there, which are foreign bodies with which the Elixir cannot perfectly unite. I answer that it is true that he does not make a separation then, because of their strong union with the earthly body which he cannot destroy; but if they come to be worked and melted or put to the ordinary tests, it is then that the said separation takes place and that the pure detaches itself from the impure with which it cannot have perfect union.

And although I spoke in the projection only of the red Elixir, the same thing is done by the white Elixir, on imperfect metals, which it congeals, tints and fixes in silver, which receives the weight of gold, especially since this white Elixir is white gold, which only lacks the color, or a little coction, because it is composed of only three elements, and the fire which is the fourth has not given it its last. perfection. The ignorant believe that Philosophical congealing, dyeing and fixing are various and different operations; but the Sages only recognize these three things as one and the same Philosophical operation, although there are several in the understanding.

There are plants that freeze mercury; but in the dish, everything goes up in smoke, because the freezing is imperfect, just like that which is done in the coolness of the cellar, and which makes rubies.

There are many people who lack judgment when they claim to perfect imperfect metals by corrupting things, and by those which are of various kinds, and even less perfect than themselves. Let them learn today that metals, even the imperfect ones, neither tint nor fix, but are tinted and fixed, especially since their sulfur lacks coction and is impure; this is why there is only the sulfur of the gold and the silver of the Philosophers, which is able to freeze, dye and fix them perfectly and at the same time, because of their perfect coction and digestion. When I say that there is only the sulfur of the Sun and the Moon, I say the truth, because quicksilver itself has no real metallic tint, neither white nor red, but sulfur, which even has the virtue of digesting,

Now, if imperfect metals cannot tint, with all the more reason the small minerals, which do not agree with metallic Nature, and consequently are foreign bodies. We have often experienced the fixation of Mercury by the spirit of the metallic Moon, but this Moon always diminishes in weight as well as in the spirit which it communicates to Mercury; now if this metallic Moon, which approaches perfection, cannot fix the mercury except by destroying itself, what can all the minerals do together which are distant, and which have no agreement with the metals? And when the Philosophers spoke of the Herbs for fixation, it seems that they only said this metaphorically or comparatively, and that their Lunar is nothing else than the purest substance of their Moon for the white, and of their gold, for the red,

Let us now see what it is to dye, according to the Philosophers, it is to give its nature and its perfection to the thing which is dyed; but if you give any other tincture than that of gold or silver of the Sages, you will tint not in gold or in silver, but in the nature of the tincture, which is neither gold nor silver, and which not being of the nature of the metals, cannot unite perfectly with them, because everything produces and engenders its like: gold not being of the metallic nature, they will not engender metal, but a thing similar to itself, or to its nature, or at most something that will appear to be metal and in fact is not; that is why such dyes go to the fire, and those who make them, to the high road to the gallows.

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CHAPTER X.

On the wonders and virtues of the white stone on animals, plants and minerals.

We taught in the preceding Chapter, the means of making use of the Stone for the Medicine of metals; in this, we must deal with small minerals, plants and animals, where we will again see the elevation or eminent exaltation of the stone on various beautiful subjects, which must be as secret and as hidden as the stone itself, which works so many wonders, as well as the astonishment of the most enlightened minds.

A man who has once done this Work with the above multiplications, has nothing more to desire in this World, if not to have the liberty to use it without fear, towards the subjects of which we have spoken above; because beyond that he must have only contempt for all that is dazzling in the Universe, since he has in his hands the Universal Medicine which thoroughly purges the human and metallic bodies, to the knowledge of which few people have come. This Medicine perfectly cures all diseases of whatever nature, in the three kingdoms of Nature; it strengthens and restores man, however close to death he may be; and finally rejuvenates it by its extreme subtlety and purity which removes all corruption.

The White Elixir does wonders to the diseases of all animals, and particularly to that of women with which they have the most sympathy, as a learned Philosopher says, than with the Red Elixir, taking it dissolved in a suitable potion for the evil; and when one wants to be precautionary against bad air, one takes it on an empty stomach dissolved in the spirit of wine, as we have taught above, and it gives unparalleled strength and vigor to resist all corrupt air, and even the Plague, preserves from many illnesses which are only beginning, because it is the true drinking Moon of the Ancients, of which they have written an infinity of surprising things

Among other things, that if a woman wanted to renew herself, and make her body as vigorous as it was in her youth, having put herself three times in a Bath of fragrant herbs, with which she would have cleansed her body, and dried herself; She would put herself in another foot without herbs, in which we would have put three grains of the white Elixir dissolved in a chopine of wine spirit six times rectified, and having only remained a quarter of an hour in this bath, would come out without wiping, but would go at the same time in front of a big fire, whose heat would dry this precious water on her body, and would make the body that it would make the body and the body. Inae. Hermès even in formal notice agrees, but he wants it to have been taken on an empty stomach for seven consecutive days dissolved in some liquor; and that if the same person does this every year, he will live free from many diseases, and prolong his life for many years without any inconveniences.

This white elixir dissolved in a pint of spirit of wine five or six times rectified, as long as it can be dissolved, is the true Talc oil of the Ancients, which they have always hidden, although they have said so many beautiful things about it, and especially for the decoration of the face, putting on it one or two drops which spread by themselves over the whole face, and give it such a great whiteness that it surprises.

Nowadays, a little peasant girl all burnt up by the heat of the sun to which her birth obliged her to be exposed, after having washed and scrubbed her face well; two ladies qualified to test a liquor which had been sold to them for real talc oil, and which was in fact such, put two drops on her face and continued for three days in succession, after which this little girl seemed so changed and so white that one could hardly recognize her.

Here is yet another very special thing. A lady of my acquaintance, to whom a few drops of this oil had been presented, having used it, as above mentioned, kept her face so beautiful and fresh throughout her life, which was long enough, that after her death she appeared but little changed, for this water or oil had not only penetrated her skin, but had passed to her skull, which after being sixteen years in the earth, was seen to be as beautiful and as white as silver. This Secret would undoubtedly destroy the Proverb, which says: That washing an Ethiopian is a waste of time, because since it passes to the skull, it would whiten it and for this effect cause more than one skin to fall off, or make the whole change without it.

The Philosophers, to hide this Elixir and its use, gave it the name of Talc oil: which forced many people to work on the Stone bearing this name, which really does a few small things, but it is nothing compared to our Elixir, prepared as we have said.
The water prepared like that of the Bath, of which we have spoken, placed at the foot of languid and dying trees, revives them and restores them in a short time, and causes them to bear abundance of flowers and fruits. Plants which are delicate and find it difficult to come into climates of a temperament contrary to that which is natural to them, by being watered, become as vigorous as if they were in their own soil and soil, and ordered by Nature.

One can with this Elixir make metamorphoses and prodigious change on all subjects, as on emery, steel, coral, jasper, porphyry, marble, and quantity of other things, although one does not conceive of any proportion or homogeneity, if not very remote; for who would believe that he was able to change stones, whether natural or artificial, into precious stones, to remove all the stains from those who have them; which he does, however, by immersing them only in the liquor, then hanging them up to dry them in the air and in the sun, and continuing this two or three times; and if it was a fine stone or diamond which had stains, heating it first because of its hardness difficult to penetrate, erases them and makes them of an admirable brilliance, and more beautiful a hundred times than before.

Here is a surprising example: The Sieur Casteleon who lived in the City of Aix, bought a Diamant d'Alençon which he put on the fire, then in a vial in which there was spirit of wine five or six times rectified, in which he had put as much white Elixir as this spirit had been able to dissolve, withdrew it from there when he judged that it had no more heat; he put it back on the fire, and did the same to put it in a flask like the first one, repeated it a third time to put it on the fire, then put it back in the first flask; he then put it on the fire a fourth time, and afterwards plunged it into this second vial: whence having taken it out, he went to sell it as a real fine diamond, of which he got a considerable sum.

The Elixir reduces the crystal to a fine diamond, acting upon it so powerfully, that it not only gives it the luster, weight, and hardness of diamond, but makes it diamond in effect by dipping it several times in the Spirit of wine which would have dissolved the Elixir as above; but it is necessary to observe, not to heat the crystal very much for the first time, lest it calcine; but it is of little advantage in the second, because the liquor which has penetrated it preserves it from this accident; and the third time, you have to blush it very hard, so that it is better penetrated.

This Elixir removes the stains from the Pearls and whitens them with a brighter white than their naturalness, removes the color from those which are yellow, giving them a natural one. He dissolves on a soft fire the seeds of the Pearls, and even the largest, so that being reduced to a paste, an Artist can form them of such size and shape as he pleases, which will not only be fine, but will also have more weight, and a more beautiful water than they had before.

The Elixir renders glass malleable, susceptible to all colors, and capable of extension like metal, depriving it of its frangibility: which makes it more precious beyond comparison than gold itself, which is not diaphanous like glass. Secret which was lost in the time of Tiberius, by the death of the one who presented him with a vessel of this kind of glass, which he tested in his presence with his hammer and a small anvil which he had carried on purpose. A secret that the Sages have kept hidden ever since, for whatever reason.

Finally this Elixir does so many wonders that I would never have done, if I wanted to put here everything that is said and written about it; I will content myself with saying one more particularity of it, which one would find difficult to believe, if a man worthy of faith had not given an authentic testimony, which is, that a linen or other thing penetrable and of combustible matter which will have been soaked in the said water, the fire will not be able to consume it, nor even give it the slightest attack. I leave to think to those who will read this, from where can come to him so many properties, and so many admirable effects.

The same Elixir also heals all external diseases of the body, such as ulcers, cancers, scrofula, blunts, paralysis, wounds, and such other diseases, being dissolved in a suitable liquor, and applied to the disease by means of a cloth soaked in the liquor, or else applied in the form of a plaster, as will be said in the following Article, which is the red Elixir.

Men can also use it very usefully, as well as women in all the diseases that happen to them, of whatever nature, whether external or internal, and all those with which animals are afflicted.


CHAPTER XI.

Wonders of the Red Stone, more abundant than those of the White Stone.

After having amply deduced several marvels from the White Stone, which nevertheless contains only three elements, and which has not yet acquired the ultimate perfection of Nature and Art, especially since it lacks the element of fire, which would make it perfect in all ways, by the temperament of this element with the three others, who live afterwards together in concord and fraternal friendship, notwithstanding their natural contradiction; this is why the red Elixir is very different from the white, towards all the diseases of animals, plants and minerals, having much more force, perfection and extension: also much less is needed for their perfect cure, which it is easy to conceive.

For as all that is scattered in the circumference of a circle, is heaped up in its center in power, namely in a single Sun; in the same way all the medicinal virtues shared with plants, fish, birds, land animals, minerals and precious stones, are collected in our Sun or Elixir, which contains them all, having in itself all the elementary qualities in a perfect temperament, and in an eminent perfection and complete digestion; this is why it can heal all diseases, cold or hot, wet and dry; which the other things cannot do, especially since they each have only a small and very weak share of virtue for a particular disease. I do not repeat here what I said of the white Elixir, to make a comparison with the red; but i will only say, that everything that white does, red does even better, and in less time, for the preceding reasons, and excepts nothing but color to things which must be white, because it is natural to them. And if I must add a few more reasons, it is that although white contains virtually in itself the quality of fire, it does not contain it so perfectly as red, especially since fire has not yet overcome the elemental qualities in it, as it has done in red.

When, therefore, the Red Elixir is accomplished, it is the true drinkable gold of the ancient Philosophers, a thousand times more excellent than that which is made with mineral gold, however purified and refined it may be, especially if it is multiplied seven times, as we have said in its place, making all sorts of cures in less time, and in much less quantity, being dissolved in a liquor suitable for disease, and prepared as we have said of the white Elixir.

Some Physicians forbid giving white or red Elixir for internal diseases of the human body, when one or the other has been multiplied; so much so, they say, as Nature asking only to be helped, its interior and potential fire could well overcome and destroy the archaeum or the central fire of Nature, which only asks for help, by similarity of virtue and substance. But they do not consider that, having been multiplied one and the other, they are not given to the patient, neither in quantity, nor with all their quality, since they must be made to demote by the dissolution that one makes of them in a spirit, or else in a liquor which must be more abundant in one than in the other, and in proportion to its elevation; and even if they were not multiplied, they should be dissolved and proportioned to the strength of the subject and the quality of the disease; but they would have better reason to say that one abstains from using it only when one has used it in projection, even if it is only once, which is true and very remarkable.

However, I want to put here a convenient and extraordinary way to use it, without their being able to find fault with it, and to fully satisfy these Gentlemen, who are so scrupulous, when the Remedies come through another channel than theirs, and who would not want to take the trouble that must be taken, as I have taught above; it is to take the weight of a grain of wheat, and make it swallow in a liquor, to an animal; for example to a Calf, or to a Sheep, or else a quarter of a grain to a poultry, and 4 or 5 hours later to kill this animal, which would have suffered the effort of the fire of the stone, if the proportion was not right, and the Sick after such meats are cooked, could use it with confidence, or in broth, or otherwise; this is what I would gladly recommend to those who would only like to use it as a precaution, and even sometimes to those who are ill.

Still it is also necessary to prescribe a means of making use of it for diseases outside. When we have dissolved this Elixir, or the other in a spirit or liquor, we can put a little of it in oils, essences, quintessences, spirits, or any other drugs, medicine, and any other external Medicine, even in wax, or ointments to make plasters, which would in short procure a perfect cure, not only for animals, but also for plants and minerals affected by their ordinary diseases. The Red Elixir instantly converts metals into perfect gold, and makes the separation of all that is superfluous, impure, and of another nature and species than metallic; makes them fixed in a moment, tints them with an invariable color, gives them weight, volume, and the sound of gold; and since it takes very little to convert a lot of metal into its own nature, the Sages have given it the name of ferment, that is to say leaven, by comparison with a little leaven, which ferments a lot of flour reduced to a paste. This Elixir being dissolved in some liquor, as we said when dealing with the White Elixir, can convert into perfect gold all the hard metals reduced to laminae reddened and set ablaze by fire, using the feather, as is amply said in the Article of the Ground Projection. There are Philosophers who say that the quintessence of the Soil is the incombustible oil, of which there was so much noise in the past, and that any fat, oil or wax, in which there will be this liquor in which the Elixir has been dissolved, will always ignite and burn, without being consumed,

The Red Elixir, multiplied or not, (but the multiplied is better) prepared and employed as above, said, converts glass and crystal into fine rubies, carbuncles, emeralds, turquoises, opals, sapphires, topazes, and generally into all sorts of precious stones; this is what Raymond Lully teaches, and even that he makes glass and crystal malleable, giving them the hardness and extension of metal, which cannot be sufficiently estimated: even, for exquisite works in Mathematics.

All these beautiful and marvelous productions of one and the other Pierre, not to mention an infinity of others, should excite people who are out of the ordinary; that is, to curious and judgmental people; an ardent desire to learn the means of doing this work of works, and this secret of the Philosophers, in order to satisfy their curiosity, by Experiments which we have taught, and for the preservation of their health, rather than for the desire to acquire wealth, which every man of spirit and virtue must despise. And to give them reason to have these thoughts, I will tell them as a conclusion to this little work.

That some Philosophers go well beyond all that is said above; for they assert that this Science still contains within itself a more admirable and desirable secret than all the preceding ones; since those who are happy enough to possess it, however wicked they were before, are in an instant and suddenly changed in their morals, and become good people, no longer worrying about all that is of this world, which they despise, with all the satisfactions of the senses, ambitions, vanities and riches, wishing only to unite themselves with God, who is the true wealth, and the sovereign contentment of man, to whom be honor and glory during all eternity. So be it.



END.


The Philosophical Furnace.

You are now fully instructed in the three principal keys; it is now a question of working and putting your hand to work, which you cannot do without having the material ready, a Furnace to prepare it, which is that of Pigré, of calcination, or with four registers a Philosophical egg of a suitable height and size, and proportioned to the bowl where the ashes will be, and the bowl also to the Philosophical Furnace. Now, as the first proportion is that of the Furnace, and all the others depend on it, in order to speak justly of all of them in particular; it is expedient to begin with the Furnace, and to make a just description of it, and even to declare of what material it must be composed, and of what form.

Take so much loam that you have enough to make your Furnace, clean it of all stones and knead it with a mass, before kneading it weigh it first, and write the weight on a paper, lest you make a mistake. Put two ounces of iron filings on every pound of earth, horse dung, and well-chopped wad at discretion; mix everything together, moistening it with urine to bind it well; and when the earth is thus prepared, you will begin the manufacture of your Furnace, as it follows.

On a round plank or board one inch thick and ten inches in diameter; it is necessary to raise the said Furnace, and give it two inches in thickness and twelve in height, to be taken at the bottom within, which will be seven inches in diameter. At four and a half inches there shall be on both sides a round-shaped glass, or eye, one inch in diameter each, answering each other in a straight line. The door to introduce the Lamp will be two inches three lines high, and one inch eight lines wide, which will start from the bottom of the Oven, that is to say from the board.

At nine inches in height, will be fixed at equal distance in triangle three blades of iron, in the walls of the said Furnace, each of the width of approximately one inch, and which will be as much inside, to support the vessel containing the ashes; at the end of each iron blade, there will be a hole in order to ventilate the said vessel pierced with three holes at its edge, of equal distance to the holes of the said blades

On this oven will fit a capital of the same thickness, only, the height of five and a half inches inside; in the middle of which there shall be a hole at the top about eight lines in diameter, to give out the smoke, and shall be that pear-shaped capital as if it had a handle the height of four fingers, for easy putting on and taking off. This capital will be outside about nine to ten inches in height, and this hole should never be blocked, to always leave free the exit of the smoke.

The Furnace thus made must be put in a clean place to dry well, that is to say in a warm place, or in the air during the Summer, in a place where the Sun does not give during the great heat, especially since it would dry too soon, and thus, it could open in some places and become almost useless, or at least this defect should be repaired, but it is better to let it dry gently and at ease.

From the Ecuelle.

The edge of the said vessel or bowl, which some call the Ashtray, will leave all around half an inch of space, without touching the walls of the said Furnace, in order to leave this space free for the smoke of the Lamp. The said vase or vessel, which will be of copper in the shape of a bowl, will only be five inches deep, six at the entrance, and half an inch at the edge; and it will always be better of copper than of any other material, as much as the heat of the fire of the Lamp, will warm the ashes places and that the fire or the heat will be proportioned there better and more conveniently; besides being of this material, it will not be liable to break as if it were of earth, and will not expend so much oil, for the reasons one can imagine.

The ashes.

The Ashes must be of oak wood, if possible, well passed or sieved; then passed several times through boiling water, so that no salt remains; for if any remained, when it would be warmed by the heat of the fire of the Lamp, it would not fail to break the egg, and to spread in the ashes, your material which is very precious, and which must be preserved with great care. It is much better to use the ashes of oak than any other wood because they are softer; wherefore the Philosophers prescribe it thus, saying; that Cadmus, that is to say the Artist, slew the Serpent with his spear against an oak hollow, this way of speaking of the Sages is very easy to explain; for an oak cannot be more hollow than when it is reduced to ashes stripped of its salt.

From the Philosopher's Egg.

The vessel which is to contain the matter of the Sages, when it is prepared for implementation, is named by many names. First, Philosopher's ship, especially since it was invented by the Philosophers. It has been said to be an egg, especially since it is in the shape of an egg. Then sublimatory, because the Stone is sublimated there and raised to a high perfection; then Sieve, especially as the matter being raised by the heat to the top of the vessel and unable to advance any higher, descends drop by drop, like water passing over a sieve; it is called Sphere because it is made in round and Spherical shape. The Green Lion, the true Lion; and finally, Sepulchre, because the Stone is buried and mortified there. And all the work of the Stone is done in this one vessel.

This egg must be buried in the ashes of the bowl, prepared as we have said, and well dried before being placed in this vessel two fingers thick all around the egg, and pressed a little with the hands, so that they do not exceed the height of the matter which is in the said egg, which egg will only be filled to a third, or at most than half of its capacity, when the first or third means of the s are used. seal hermetically so that the circulations have more extent and are done better for fear that the spirits of the matter being subtle, do not break the vessel.

This vessel must be of very strong glass, or double, and capable of enduring fire, as Lectane glass does, especially since an egg of any other material would not be so clean, because being of glass, which is a transparent body, the Artist can see through, through the small windows placed expressly in the Furnace, the colors which will pass, and the changes which will take place there; which is absolutely necessary for his instruction, and so that he governs himself as he deems judicious. The neck of said egg should be about half a foot, with an opening to be able to put the finger in; and if it is longer, it will be necessary to subtract the superfluous, as it will be said below, which egg will first be sealed with the Seal of Hermes, of which here is the figure and the different ways of doing it.

Seals of Hermes.

The first Seal is made by melting the neck of the egg, which is made of glass, for which it is necessary to give the melting fire little by little, placing between the fire and the egg a pierced tile; and when you see that the neck of the vessel begins to bend by the heat which melts it, you must have strong scissors, and cut the neck of this vessel by the place where the glass is as if flowing, this makes a compression which unites the edges of the glass inseparably, or else you can tighten it to a point by twisting the neck of the vessel little by little, but then you must put the small end in the flame of the candle, or of the lamp, so that a small button is formed, which exactly fills a small hole which usually remains at the end of the tortillis, and which is almost imperceptible.

Now, as these kinds of vessels commonly have necks longer than necessary, and it is necessary to cut off a part of them which could be inconvenient, I thought it appropriate to put here the way of making this cutting, without apprehending the nature of the vessel. There are three ways to do this operation, that is to break and break the glass also across.

The first, by applying a hot iron to begin the split or fissure.

The second, by making three turns of a sulfur thread, around the neck of the vessel, if it is large and thick.

And the third, by heating the neck of the vessel by turning it over the flame of the lamp or the candle, if it is small and thin; and when the glass is well heated by one of the said means, it must be wiped, and put on it a few drops of ein the cold, which will make a crack, which must be continued and led to the end, with the wick of an arquebus, by heating the glass and melting on the coal of the wick. There so we never risk the ships.

The second Seal of Hermes, is by putting two eggs on top of each other, and beating or closing them tightly together with molten glass, and as the Glassmakers do, as the second figure demonstrates. By this means, there is plenty of space and air for circulation; that is why one could put more matter in the lower egg, or else in the one below. This way pleases me far more than the first, because the vessels are soon clogged, and thus the restrained spirits of matter, which by the length of the time of the Seal are dissipated, and the work cannot succeed unless they have been preserved and restrained by due diligence, which for this reason is the main and most essential condition.

The third way pleases me even more, and I recommend it rather than the other two, especially since the Seal is made almost in a moment, which is with a glass stopper, which is sealed with the egg by means of molten glass, which is soon ready, or another good suitable lut. I do not say that the egg must be heated in the place by which it is to be sealed, and the cork also, because that is too trivial, and those who know how to work never miss it, because otherwise they would not succeed.

The furnace, the bowl and the Philosophical egg, are the three vessels absolutely necessary for the operation of the great work, recognized and recommended by all the Philosophers, and without which or one of them, one can never succeed. These vessels are very well described in Flamel, but sometimes he gives them only one name, which is that of triple Vessel, although he speaks of each in particular.

Of the Lamp.

The Lamp which must be used is the one invented by Cardan, which supplies oil for a long time, and gives the Artist time to rest when he needs it, without fear that the fire will go out for lack of food, and you must not be satisfied with a single lamp, but you must always have one supernumerary to the number of Furnaces you are operating so that, drawing a lamp from a Furnace, you can introduce another ready lit and supplied with oil, at the same time. By this means the heat of your fire will always be continued in the required equality, provided that the number of the threads of the wick are neither increased nor diminished.

Hook.

It will also be necessary to have a somewhat long instrument, made at the end in the shape of a hook, to cut down the soot which the smoke of the Lamp will have caused to rise, and which will be attached to the bottom of the bowl, which could slow down the degree of the fire, or increase it, so that it would entirely prevent its action and the movement of the matter.

The Scales.

Since all things must be in proportion, and the Artist must conduct his work with great prudence, he must have two pairs of Scales accompanied or matched by their suitable weights, namely one to weigh up to seven pounds, which will be used to weigh the philosophical material of which the solvent is made, and the other, which can weigh from seven or eight ounces to a grain, to know the real amount of solvent that will be made each time it is used. will need, how much will be put in the egg, and finally when the work will be finished and perfect, the weight of the powder which will come out of it, because unless that, it would be to work without order, without knowledge of the cause, without pleasure, and without instruction, and even like blind people; that is to say, it would make the Artist act dazed and stupid,

The Artist having loaned all that is necessary for him to work; that is to say, the matter, all the above proper vessels and utensils, and its supply of olive oil, which is the cleanest, purest, and least smoky; must, before starting his work, have made his stove a fortnight before, a fire of some coals, in order to gently remove all its humidity, and increase this fire from time to time to complete the drying; but if it is perfectly dry, and has already been used for a few operations, the eight-day fire will suffice, and even that which you will be obliged to do, to truly discover the first degree of fire, with which you are obliged to begin.

It will not be unreasonable to teach yet another material suitable for making furnaces of all kinds, and which is used in various operations; and even this matter is easy to make crucibles, especially since the Artist must know how to make them and always have them, because he could find them in places where it would be impossible for him to be able to recover them, if he needed them. I could, however, abstain from putting that in this Book, especially since it is found in all those of the Chymists; but in order not to bother to look for them in booksellers, and to have recourse to them, I have deemed it appropriate to insert them here, and then explain the figures and chemical characters in an engraved table, placed at the end of this little work.

Luts.

This material is usually called Lut, especially since it is used to struggle the vessels that are exposed to violent fire, and to make various furnaces and all kinds of struggle. It is composed of clayey soil, which is not too greasy lest it crack, and which is not also too lean, nor sandy, lest it not have enough bond.

This earth must be soaked with water, in which we will have mixed horse droppings in large quantities, and also chimney soot, so that one and the other communicate with water, a salt which gives the bond and resistance to fire. That if we want to use this mixture to close and fight the vessels of glass and earth that we expose to the open fire, and mainly for the retorts; it will be necessary to add common salt, that is to say sea salt, or dead head of strong water, looted glass and iron flakes, which fall at the bottom of the anvil of the Blacksmiths; and you will have a Lut which will be of such good resistance to fire, that it will be impenetrable to vapours, so far as it serves as retort, when those of glass are melted,

When you have to join ships together, and they're not exposed to open fire. There are three kinds of Luts.

The first is that which is made with egg whites beaten and reduced to water by long stirring, in which one must soak strips of linen, on which one must put quicklime powder made very subtle, then lay a strip of wet linen, powder it, and put another strip of linen. But care must be taken never to mix the quicklime powder with the water of the egg whites, especially since the occult fire of this lime would burn them and harden them, which is an ordinary fault of many Artists.

One can also dip the bladder of pork, and that of beef, in the water of egg whites without using lime, and mainly in the rectification and alcoholization of ardent spirits, which are drawn from fermented things.

The second Lut is that which is made with starch or flour cooked and reduced to porridge with common water, this is enough for him to fight the vessels which do not contain subtle matters.

The third is nothing but paper cut into strips, folded and soaked in water, which is placed around the top of the gourds, both to prevent the capital from breaking the gourd, and to prevent the vapors from exhaling. It is thus that we evaporate and withdraw some menses which cannot be useful for any other operation.

A good Lut is still made, for the cracks in the vessels, and for joining them together, when they must suffer a great violence of fire; there are two kinds.

The first is that which is made with glass reduced to a very subtle powder, karabe or succin and borax which must be soaked with gum arabic muzzle, which will be applied to the joints of the vessels, or to their breaks, and after this will be well dried, it will be necessary to pass a hot iron over it, which will give them a bond and an almost perfect union with the vessels.

That if you adapt the neck of the retort to the receptacle for the distillation of strong waters, and spirits of salts, you must simply take common Lut, and dead head of vitriol, or strong water, with a good handful of sea salt, which must be well kneaded together, with water in which the salt has been dissolved, and plug with this Lut, the space which joins the Receptacle and the retort together, and dry it at a slow heat, so that it does not point of slits; that if it happened to split, care must be taken to close the splits as they occur, because this is of great consequence in preventing the exhalation of volatile spirits.

END.