De Meditativa Philosophia - On Meditative Philosophy

Written by Gerhard Dorn

Transcription with corrections and translation of the text from Theatrum Chemicum (1659-1661) by Paul Ferguson

On the Meditative Philosophy.

The meditative philosophy involves the voluntary withdrawal {distractio} from the body of a well-composed mind {mens}. Such a process enables the rational soul {animus} to more readily acquire an understanding {cognitio} of the truth.

True meditation also requires the body to be well-disposed, i.e. the body must not be allowed to interfere with the operations of the mind. This disposition can be achieved in two ways: by nature or by artifice.

Even if you have a natural gift for the meditative philosophy you can still enhance it by practice, and if you do not have such a gift at all then you can still acquire what nature has denied to you: this is achieved primarily by the use of reason {ratio}, but ultimately by leading a sober life and by taking spagyric medicines administered either singly or all together.

The mind is said to be well-composed whenever the rational soul is conjoined with the feeling soul {anima} by a bond strong enough to restrain the appetites of the body and the feelings of the heart {cor}.

A body is said to be well-disposed when it is immune to the vices inherent in the various corruptions. In this regard, the greater the extent to which the body's component parts have acquired, either by nature or artifice, a right proportioning {temperatura} the better, for then the body will strive less after those things that are its own and will become more obedient towards the mind. For whatever the body strives for is corrupt, yet the body cannot strive for anything at all except through the faculties of the feeling soul, for that is its driving-force {motrix}. If this drivingforce had remained in an uncorrupted state then, thanks to its pristine nature, it would have been able to apply its motive-power free of any understanding of the concepts of good and evil. Because, however, wickedness {malitia} formerly entered it, it tries to express that wickedness through the body unless, that is, the rational soul resists, for the rational soul proposes nothing except what is good.

The feeling soul is therefore poised between good and evil. It has its own ability to opt for good, yet it cannot do this unaided, but only through the restitution of the good of which it was formerly deprived. It can also opt for wickedness, either on its own initiative or through Evil. This comes about only because the Good allows it to occur, and in no other way. It happens because the feeling soul, attracted by the body, continuously and assiduously resists the attraction of the rational soul whilst the latter is involved in the process of moving exclusively towards the Good.

To make this view of the rational soul and the deductions that follow from it more comprehensible we need to explain why we think that a human being consists of three parts.

It is generally agreed that the terms feeling soul {anima} and spirit {spiritus} can be used interchangeably: indeed we ourselves make no distinction between them except with regard to contingencies {accidentes}. When the feeling soul follows the attraction of the spirit of the Lord and submits to it in an act of self-denial we call it the rational soul, but we can also call it the spirit (after the Divine Spirit to which it clings). If, on the other hand, it resists the Holy Spirit's attempts to impress upon it any evidence of salvation, and the feeling soul and the spirit consequently lose contact with each other and the feeling soul holds fast to itself, then we call it just the feeling soul and nothing else.

We are anxious that our writings should not be understood in any other way, lest by chance some might accuse us of some sort of impiety.

Nothing however could be further from our minds which, indeed, would strive with all their might against being drawn towards anything of the kind.

For us therefore the rational soul is, as it were, the breathing-tube {spiraculum} of eternal life, while the feeling soul is the organ of the rational soul or spirit, just as the body is the organ of the feeling soul.

The life of the body comes into existence through a natural union, just as the life of the feeling soul is spirit which is brought about through a supernatural union. Hence, if the feeling soul, either through agreement {assensus} or combined action {consensus}, has clung to the spirit rather than to the body then the mind will rise, and the inner man, created long ago in the image of God and now re-born, will pass upwards through the breathing-tube of eternal life.

If, on the other hand, the feeling soul clings to its body by being more obedient to it than it is to the spirit, then the outer man is shed and will fall into the infernal pit of those external shadows that are against nature.

In three things also does the rational soul delight: reason {ratio}, understanding {intellectus} and memory {memoria}.

The reason, which is speculative in character, presents an image to the understanding. The understanding then presents this image to the hidden memory for retention. The primordial reason was the perpetual and inviolable ordering of the Eternal Mind, in which man was invited to share as part of the first gift of God, at the same time as he was also invited to share in the understanding and the memory. The memory can, indeed, be said to be the protective treasure-chest in which both the reason and the understanding are contained.

The feeling soul, in its turn, consists of two faculties which we might term 'primary'. These are emotion {motus} and sense {sensus}. Emotion is either natural or brought about by contingency {per accidens}.

Sense concerns the hearing, tasting, seeing, smelling, or touching of something, while perception of that something is achieved through the relevant sense-organ. We call the parts of the body through which the feeling soul perceives the senses the proper organs of those senses. The perception of the senses recalls a notion of past phenomena through a representation, to the memory, of present phenomena.

This is of course something that wild animals have in common with human beings. To the extent that present phenomena are offered to them, so do they turn over these phenomena in their minds using the relevant sense. There is however another root of the memory which is far more excellent than this and which fosters memory and causes it to thrive in perpetuity. It does not function by means of an intermediate representation but only by the sedulous exercise of a never-idle spirit. This continuation of the memory closely supports the cultivation of the reason, and is a faculty granted only to human beings.

We can therefore say that, while sense is possessed by all animals in common, reason is specifically concerned with the understanding. And, indeed, wild animals do not understand what is presented to them beyond the sense-impression, whereas rational animals do. The latter achieve this through a a cognition that is driven by reason and through a sense, with the latter being either an end or a means.

Moreover, in rational animals the rational soul and the body are opposed extremes and contraries, and cannot be joined except through the mediating feeling soul that participates in each of the 'enemies'. But since one of the two extremes is perfect and the other imperfect, then if a movement should begin at the perfect end first then, of necessity, that movement will progress through the middle in order to engage in the perfection of the imperfect extreme, and vice versa.

This is why God created everything in threes, so that they might meet in the One, for He is the author of peace, union, and harmony. Harmony cannot therefore be achieved without the contrariety of at least two things.

Hence two are always enemies until, through the ternary, they meet in the One, and so through the One become friends.

Again, the rational soul is equal to all, but it is not received equally by all. The mind {mens} is neither impartial to all nor equal to all.

Accordingly, very few people have their feeling soul conjoined with their rational soul. There are many whose greatest involvement is, to a greater or lesser extent, with the mind, but most people cultivate the body in the feeling soul, and the feeling soul in the body, and so do not recognise the rational soul or perceive its warnings: in such people there is no mind, and insanity is their lot instead of reason and wisdom.

The mind is therefore well-received as often as the body strictly and simultaneously receives the rational soul and the feeling soul as they come together, so that from these three a harmonious and inseparable One is created. But this friendship cannot come about in any other way than through division, without which no union is ever fulfilled. For by its very nature the One is alone, and if it remained alone it would be impossible for it to be joined or united with another. If, however, it must join with another then that other must be divided either from this One or by this One, since there is nothing except this One. And since the individual parts of the One draw their symbolic significance from the One, or are in sympathy with the One, so they readily come together in the One, and the less they do so then the more remote they are from the One, and are clearly separated from it by degrees of decreasing similarity.

That is why the mind must be withdrawn from the body, so as to achieve a union of their respective dwelling-places. Since, for union to occur, both parts must be perfected, a transition must take place from the perfect extreme (which we have mentioned above) via the middle to the imperfect extreme, so that the latter might also be perfected. Through this kind of withdrawal of the mind from the body, which some call the 'voluntary death' {mors voluntaria}, the feeling soul and the rational soul, now conjoined, acquire power and dominion within their body, for when the rational soul was alone it did not have the benefit of a liberated feeling soul, due to the resistance of the medium through which the supernatural transition should have been made. For enemies do not join forces except by means of a withdrawal of either party from the matter that is the cause of discord and through that party's participation with the other party in something that provides scope for reconciliation.

This line of argument of course undermines Judicial Astrology, which teaches that we are all influenced by the dispositions of the stars.

For on no account do the stars have any power over the minds of men (on account of whom the stars were created), given that man is a creature who is by far more important than they are themselves, because such a power cannot make something that is more ignoble into something that is more excellent, even if it tries to.

If, however, human bodies master the feeling soul and reduce it to servitude of the corruptible body then it is undeniable that, since the bodies of the stars are then nobler than the bodies of the human beings, the stars can influence the actions of human beings in those bodies.

In a nutshell: the mind of a wise man will dominate the stars, but that of a fool will not dominate them in any way, but will instead be subject to lower influences and to whatever afflictions might arise. For the wise man who has mastered the mind cultivates it, while the fool, who loves the body in the feeling soul or alternatively the feeling soul in the body, neglects the rational soul. As the word of God says: 'He that loveth his life (i.e. the feeling soul in the body) shall lose it; and he that hateth his life in this world (ditto) shall keep it unto life eternal' (John 12:25).

A person is said to love his feeling soul in the body if he succumbs to all the perverse appetites of that body; similarly, he who does not succumb to those appetites yet is delighted by fantasising about the vanities is regarded as loving the body in his feeling soul.

On the other hand a person is said to hate his feeling soul in the body if he restrains the harmful appetites of that body, and to hate the body in the feeling soul if he immediately drives out and eradicates his vain fantasies.

This is the path to the first union, namely that of the feeling soul with the spirit, and to the achieving of mind, which we may call indifferently the spirit or the feeling soul, for by the use of the one term we do not exclude the application of the other, given the union that has now been made.

It should however be most expressly noted that no union is perfect unless it is inseparable. In no way can the beginnings of the union be rejected just because they do not immediately achieve their effect, but this does not detract from the fact that the mind should still be regarded as more or less unperfected.

Those who have perfected their mind are very few indeed; those who have perfected it to a rudimentary extent are many; but the most numerous are those who have not perfected it at all.

Although not absolutely necessary, a good disposition of the body is also extremely useful for true contemplation, because the body, doubtless as a result of its corrupt nature by which the whole human entity is made mortal, weighs down upon and impedes the feeling soul the most: as a result the feeling soul can only perceive the actions of the spirit to a limited extent.

Some people are by nature more suited than others to undergo such a separation of the mind from the body. Of course, in such people no further corruption (or, at worst, hardly any) is added by contingency to the natural corruption that already exists in their constitution.

Less suited to the process however are those who, in addition to their primordial and accessory corruption, further hinder their reason by their own impudence and grave dissoluteness of life. Like those who allow themselves to be distracted by everyday cares, they neglect those eternal things that lie beyond this world and make excessive use of those things that Nature has given to them only as necessities. Hence, if someone is hindered through an excess of something they cannot be helped except by the removal of that something.

Consequently we use the spagyric art to prepare certain medicines to deal with this problem, for the spagyric is truly a more excellent art than any other. These medicines are separated from their own bodies, but through the natural force of action within their own bodies that Nature has imparted to them (and which they retain after removal of their active part) they can perform that same intention in another body, indeed far more excellently than Nature permitted them to do in their own.

Anything however that is to be found in Nature and which has form and matter always desires to be maximally perfected in its own kind: this innate appetite is the most powerful cause of the perfection of all things.

Since a nature also rejoices and delights in being joined to a nature that is similar to itself, once a mind achieving mastery has been helped by an uncorrupted medicine similar to itself in achieving the right disposition of the body it is compelled to descend into this same nature just as, conversely, the feeling soul was formerly compelled to do after the body, in achieving mastery, had been strengthened by destructive things that are similar to itself.

In case the foregoing should strike anyone as absurd, let me add that every nutriment is changed in the blood into a nutriment of the same complexional nature as itself. An example of this is provided by people who are fed consistently on the flesh of wild animals, for they also tend to become very ferocious. Nature indeed accepts nothing in food except the more subtle part, with the coarse and worthless matter being separated and subsequently expelled in the excrement. Any remaining excrement of the superfluous nutriment is then forced out of the body either through the pores in the form of sweat, through the bladder or nose, or in the form of tears.

This phenomenon moved Paracelsus to remark that each member of the human body has its own stomach in which a nutriment is boiled down, and that in this stomach the superfluous is separated from the essential. If, however, due to the debility of any part of the body, a superfluity of this kind cannot be comfortably ejected then the superfluity – due to poor digestion – bloat, extends or distorts the flesh or bones in the form either of a tumour or an excrescence.

In the spagyric medicines however no coarseness or superfluity is ever left behind, i.e. each part of the body absorbs the whole of this medicine and, without a process of separation, transmutes it into a nature that is similar to itself. Conversely, the medicine imparts a property just like the one that it itself has, i.e. one that is free of corruption and superfluity, for all of it is uncorrupted nature. An uncorrupted nature is the natural balsam of a long life naturally incorporated into any bodies and possessing a nature similar to a spagyric medicine, through which also the bodies' natural or radical heat and humour are maximally preserved from corruption.

If, however, this balsam is deficient then the whole body is made leprous. As the balsam grows stronger through augmentation brought about by extrinsic matter it is expelled in the excrement, because the body has already been corrupted due to the shortage of balsam.

A spagyric medicine therefore differs from the medicines commonly used up to now. Whereas the latter are transferred, together with their bodies and all their corruptions, into the stomach just as food of any kind is boiled down and separated, but in this case not without the greatest disgust and nausea, spagyric medicines are transmuted with the greatest delectation surpassing that of every other concoction and separation [sic] and are transmuted in the stomach into the natural radical moisture, heat and balsam, for the three most powerful parts of the physical body that are analogous to these three things must be nourished and renewed.

Hence it comes about that everyday food and drink are also consumed along with their bodies, since they also have the form of a nutriment, albeit of the elements and not of a medicine. For every element is supported by an element like itself, but everything is harmonised and kept in equilibrium by an aether-like substance, and it is this substance that we try to imitate as closely as possible when making our balsam and its congeners.

For there is in the human body a certain substance similar to the aether which preserves and sustains the other elementary parts of the body.

And so the spirit of the spagyric medicine, conjoined with its feeling soul and separated from its coarse and impure body, is united with that body now purified again through the feeling soul, and so nourishes and renews the mental and indeed spiritual aspects or vital parts to form a substance that is similar to itself, as well as restoring to equilibrium the physical body (albeit corrupted) and, indeed, preserving it from further corruption.

We do not deny that our spagyric medicine is corporeal in nature, but we do say that it becomes spiritualised when, as a Spagyric Physician would say, 'the fixed becomes volatile and the volatile fixed'. For truly the physical body cannot be cured by a more excellent body than the spagyric, nor can the human mind be composed any better than by the spagyric and meditative disposition (after, however, receiving the gift of divine grace).

From the foregoing we must conclude that the meditative philosophy consists of a mastering of the body by means of a mental union. But this first union is not in itself enough to make a wise man, nor can it make a man anything indeed except an intellectual disciple of wisdom. It is the second union of mind and body that produces the wise man, who separates and anticipates that complete and blessed third union with the first unity.

For Almighty God made it so that we are all formed in this way, and that He Himself is One in All. This also helps us understand whence the mind needs to be sought, for the mind is like faith, truly a freely-given gift of God, and so are all the virtues.

It does not follow from this however that you do not need to do any work to acquire such things, for God has no time for the the idle and the slothful. On the contrary, He rejects their orisons as mere blasphemies.

Truly it is a great folly of man to seek bread from God but to be unwilling to plough and to sow, and no less a folly for him to desire and expect to receive the gift of mind but not to do any hard work towards acquiring it.

But surely the greatest folly of all is for anyone to think that he can acquire this gift purely by his own labours without petitioning the grace of God beforehand. God fills the diligent with his benediction provided that they seek salvation, but He does not heed the negligent even if they are entreating him.

We say that someone is truly entreating God when he asks for something not only with his words but also with his heart and with passion. That is why, before dealing with the first degree of the meditative philosophy, I felt that students should be warned of the need to ask for divine assistance, and then of the need to enter, with the utmost diligence, into a state of mind {dispositio} that is susceptible to receiving grace of this kind.

We shall now say more about what that state of mind is.

Grace must be sought from above, from the giver of lights, from Almighty God. And since there are three most powerful parts in this artificial state of mind, namely the spagyric, the moral and the meditative, in this present treatise we have had to approach matters, at every point, in this threefold manner. For it is impossible for a man who leads an evil life to ever possess the treasure-house that is reserved for the Sons of Wisdom, and it hardly makes sense that he should be considered suitable to acquire it or to even inquire about it, much less find it.

In the human body therefore there lies concealed a celestial and natural substance which is known to very few; which itself requires no medicine lying deep within it, but which is itself an uncorrupted medicine.

Unfortunately it is overwhelmed and hindered by the various corruptions of the body that it occupies, which render it less able to perform its actions. However, the Philosophers have learned by a certain divine inspiration that this celestial power and vigour can be freed from its shackles not by a contrary substance (as the heathen teach) but by its likeness. Since this substance can be found either within man or outside him, insofar as it is similar to this substance the sages have concluded that similar things are strengthened by similar things, i.e. by peace rather than by war, and that contraries are repelled by contraries.

For the correct artificial disposition of the body therefore we use a spagyric medicine, which we may use to keep its corruption at bay via the natural digestion (i.e. by expulsion from the body), with Nature herself performing this process through an intrinsically strengthened form. This preparation is made by the spagyric artifice of our physical body, through which we may achieve separation more easily without the obstacle of corrupting factors. In this way the attentive reader may achieve, first from the meditative philosophy and then through spagyric, a most safe transition to the true and adept wisdom.

Now we come to the subject of voluntary division. One the body has been prepared it is easily separated from the remaining parts, since the feeling soul, encouraged by the rational soul, will be denied everything beyond physical necessity. From this separation the first union of the spirit and feeling soul is achieved through the continued study of moral philosophy.

We needed to explain these points to students so that they might understand why we are talking about moral philosophy in the same breath as the spagyric aspects, and juxtaposing physical aspects with meditative ones, and why individual things are compared with things that correspond to them, lest by chance the reader may find himself lost in a maze and unable to embark upon subject-matter that it is so important for him to grasp.

It is therefore the rational soul that invites us to enter upon the first degree of the meditative philosophy, which is concerned with the process of meditation itself. Meditation is defined as the sedulous investigation of the truth and a forgetting of the mundane to the greatest extent possible, as the word of God commands: 'Therefore take no thought, saying, What shall we eat? or, What shall we drink? or, Wherewithal shall we be clothed? (For after all these things do the Gentiles seek:) for your heavenly Father knoweth that ye have need of all these things. But seek ye first the kingdom of God and all these things shall be added unto you' (Matthew 6: 31-34). It is therefore an activity in which you should strictly obey the word of God alone. If, in order to meditate properly we have to set aside certain necessities and exclude them entirely from our rational soul, then how much more must worldly cares and the superfluous contemplation of vanities, which stifle the good seed, be manfully rejected as many times as they arise during meditation, using the words of God that He taught us were the most efficacious in these circumstances: 'Get thee behind me, Satan (Luke 4:8), for I have nothing in common with you, I desire to be wholly of God, to Whom also I have dedicated myself'.

The reward for this work will however be to understand what is true, as well as what is necessary. The truth, therefore, is Being, something from which nothing can be lacking, to which nothing can be added, and much less something that anything can harm. This alone is the word of God, upon which all our meditation needs to be focussed if we wish to understand all those secrets in heaven and earth that are of use to us and permitted to us. The necessary is everything which we cannot without inconvenience do without, such as food and clothing. The superfluous is whatever is not necessary. The mundane is everything except whatever incites us through the desires of the body, which are prompted and implanted in us by the Devil so that tares and darnel are sown among the good seed. For it is through these that the Devil draws us away, if he can, from the truth of the word of God, lest we persist in those things. But the truth is the highest power and an impregnable fortress with, admittedly, very few champions clinging to it, and under constant siege by countless enemies, with more or less the whole world attacking it with hatred, but ultimately unconquerable because it is defended by the sole and immaculate Lamb. It offers a sure and certain pledge to those who seek sanctuary within it, and is always the safest refuge. This citadel contains that true and secure treasure-chest which has not been eaten away by moths nor broken into by robbers, and which is therefore preserved for all eternity, and which accordingly you can take away with you after death, a time when all the other wealth and riches of the whole wide world will have come to absolutely nothing because they were created from nothing despite being so precious to the common herd, for the animal-man cannot distinguish between that which has been placed before him for his ruination and that which is intended for his salvation.

It is an everlasting store-house of truth therefore, and yet is the most vile thing in the world, greatly scorned, yet not hateful, but loved by the wise above precious stones and gold; the mistress of all, yet rejected by all as an enemy; something that can be discovered everywhere, but which is found by very few, indeed by hardly anyone, although she cries out to everyone as they pass through the streets, 'O come to me all those who seek the way, for I shall lead you onto the true path'. This is that thing that is proclaimed so openly by all the true sages, the thing that conquers all and is never conquered by any other thing, which penetrates every body and every hard heart, which strengthens every faltering heart and makes it strong enough to resist every harsh thing to the greatest extent possible.

She makes herself known to all of us, and yet we do not see her, even though she cries out at the top of her voice, 'I am the way of truth, pass through me everyone, since there is no other way to life than through me, the true entrance, the true passage'. Yet we do not want to hear her. She emits an odour of sweetness but we do not perceive it; from day to day she offers herself to us as delicate flavours in our banquets, yet we do not taste her; charmingly she draws us to salvation, but we are reluctant, and pretend that we do not even feel her tugging at our clothes and so pass her by.

Why? Because we have been made like stones: we have eyes, but do not see; we have ears, but do not hear; we have nostrils, but no odours are perceptible to them; we have mouths and tongues, yet we neither taste nor speak; we have hands, but manipulate nothing; we have feet, but go nowhere with them. O what a wretched race of men which is no more excellent than stones, and is indeed far less fortunate than them, since the latter at least have some excuse for their actions, whereas the former have none! Transmute me (says the Truth) from dead stones into living men and sages, for I am (she says) the true Medicine, correcting and transmuting that which is no more into that which it was before corruption and, much better than that, that which is not into that which it should be. Behold, I am before the gates of your conscience knocking night and day, and yet you do not open up to me, yet I wait quietly, and nor do I withdraw from you in irritation, but patiently suffer your blows, desiring through patience to lead you to the true Medicine by exhortation. Come to me again and again, come I ask you, whichever of you seeks wisdom, and acquire for free and not with gold nor with silver, and even less with your own labour, what is brought out for you voluntarily!

O sonorous, sweet and pleasing voice for the ears of Philosophers! O inexhaustible fountain of riches for those thirsting for truth and justice! O powerful solace for the bruises of the desolate! What more do you seek, O anxious mortals? Why, O wretched ones, do you torment your minds with such infinite cares? What madness is it of yours that disturbs you, when within you and not outside you is everything that you are seeking outside of you instead of within you.

This should be a typical vice of the common herd, for they always condemn their own familiar things while they chase after the strange and bizarre. We however adopt whatever is most familiar to us as being the most appropriate or useful. In fact none of the good that we have comes from ourselves: if we can have anything that is good then we should give quittance for it to Him Who alone is good. If we have anything of evil however then we have usurped it for ourselves from an alien evil through disobedience. Nothing is therefore intrinsically characteristic of man except the evil that he possesses. Whatever good he may have comes from the Good and not from himself, but he receives it from the Good as his own by the latter's contribution: he has therefore merely received it.

That life which is the light of men and which shines within us, albeit darkly as if in the shadows, is not to be sought from outside ourselves but within, and not from ourselves, but from Him Whose it is, He Who is worthy to make His dwelling-place within us as many times as it is granted to us to wish Him to do so. He implanted this light here within us so that, in the light of Him Who dwells in light inaccessible, we might see the light, and in that respect we surpass all His other creatures.

We can conclude from this that we were made in His likeness, because He has given us a scintilla of His own light. The truth therefore must not, strictly speaking, be sought simply within us but in the image of God that is within us.

In other respects therefore we as human beings may do justice to the definition of the truth, for what, I ask, can be added to the One, what exactly is lacking in the One, or can struggle against the one, since nothing truly exists except the One? Who does not know that nothing is perfect except that One, that the One admits neither a diminution in something nor anything superfluous, but abounds in power and virtue and can therefore remedy all deficiencies, and similarly is always superabundant? For what can such a thing ever be except that sole thing that gives to every being that very being, and which does not receive being from any other thing, for that being is everything that can and should be, and is something that nothing can hinder, since there is nothing except that thing? Therefore whatever lies outside the truth does not truly exist, since the sole truth is everything that is the One, i.e. that which truly is.

Falsehood on the other hand is nothing other than what truly is not, since this is nothing except that which is contrary to the true being, and which should not be, nor does it have any existence except through deprivation of the true essence.

Some conclude from the above statements that sin and death are essentially nothing, since they do not proceed from this true being but simply from deprivation of the true essence. Hence sin is the deprivation of the Good which is the efficient cause of death, since death is the deprivation of life, and life is the termination of the Good. From the Good arises the goad of truth, against which the stings of death shall not prevail and against which and to which it is hard for anything to resist, however hard it might be. Whoever wishes to add anything to the truth is therefore forced to substitute the false for the true by a certain dissimulation, and because the truth is clothed in the sole mantle of perfection it does not fear to be seen without a covering. For if our first parent, Adam, had not removed this mantle of justice then he would neither have feared to be seen naked (such as he had never been seen before) nor indeed would he have been naked, but would instead have been clothed and protected by every ornament of truth.

But, after being deprived of the eternal mantle of truth he sought to fashion a false cloak for himself out of the leaves of the trees, by doing which he confessed his error within himself, as he said in the presence of the Lord, 'I was naked' (Genesis 3:10). God took pity on him because he had feared losing the truth through disobedience and had confessed to it. In order to replace the mantle of earthly happiness that had been lost, God decided to freely give him a nuptial garb of eternal glory by means of His own son, Who stated that He was the way of the truth and the life, and manifestly displayed that fact since, through His undeserved death, He removed from all of us the perpetual death with which we should have all deservedly been punished.

See, my brothers, how powerful is the truth! Even towards its enemies, if only they recognised it, it is mild and gentle. Along with Adam we have all sinned, but very few of us, and hardly any indeed, have openly acknowledged our nakedness along with him. Indeed, each one of us desires not just to be seen as more perfect, but actually to be more perfect, even though he is the most imperfect of all and, despite being gaudily cloaked in fine scarlet and purple linen, is actually completely naked.

We inherited this vice from the first appetite of the first parent because our flesh greatly desired, before all else, to know, to understand and to possess by whatever means, fair or foul, and to be honoured as an idol, because the most powerful inclination of man in this world is – as it was also for Adam – that which is most pernicious to him. Nor is there any shortage among us of those who gather around the more degenerate portion that followed the fall of Adam and who, like him, flee the face of the Lord and seek out the hiding-places provided by the exterior shadows.

Such disobedience, since it almost always leads to despair, requires – more than anything – penitence, which turns it back to the light of truth. Moreover, the truth is not subject to any mundane power or fortitude, which means that nothing can stand in its way, since it itself is all true fortitude which overcomes the power of the whole world. But even if the body of a person who possesses the truth is cut into a thousand pieces, that will have been done in vain, and nor does his rational soul suffer: indeed, it rather rejoices in its martyrdom. Finally, the truth is power and potency, but few alas are true adepts of it.

The comrades of truth are justice and piety, which are united by an inseparable bond. Piety is grace come down from heaven: it teaches each of us to truly understand himself. Justice is retribution, and the restitution to each of what is rightfully his. Anyone who truly possesses these virtues is truly the richest of all.

Piety also gives rise to peace and mercy, about which we shall have more to say in its proper place. The rest of this section however will be concerned with our view of necessity.

Certainly we cannot do without food and clothing and so, as we have said above, they are deemed to be necessary, but anyone can do without the delights of rich food and drink, expensive clothes, and all luxury and excess. This is true even of someone who already possesses such things.

Such things are therefore not necessary, and indeed are rather superfluous.

Those who practise philosophical necessity are very few in number, but what can a man not achieve, by fair means or foul, if he refuses to put up with the vulgar (even an unlettered man who does so reluctantly) and who wishes to dispense only with this? Since however the common herd judge everything superficially and according to appearances, and hardly at all in connection with their essences, the truth is rendered hateful, since it comes forth under a distorted husk. Nowadays, therefore, fine clothes, bracelets, necklaces and collars can achieve more than truth and wisdom can. Why is this so surprising? For the highest wisdom has been made to look like stupidity in the eyes of the world, even though this is the very opposite of wisdom, as our Holy Scripture testifies. That truth that we call the Christ and genuine wisdom are upheld and praised by the wise men of the world, since He is not from the world but instead conquers the world.

And yet Barabbas the bandit was chosen in his place, since he was full of worldly vice. Why therefore are we surprised if the world abhors the proponents of the true arts as if they were poison, when the world itself has attacked that very truth?

Those sages who are devoted followers of worldly ways praise the world when they teach that the truth will make you enemies while servility will always make you friends. If at this point they had remained silent for a moment instead of trying to argue that servility had to be taken to extremes as a way of gaining friends then they might have been excused as simply complaining about the hatred of the truth. But instead they seem to be parasitic on ambition rather than on virtue or on the truth that one should freely yield to other people without any hope of gain or other benefit of friendship.

We have addressed these matters here because we need to exclude such alien material from our meditations, for it is nothing other than the Devil's ferment. For in this Iron Age in which we live we find that if anything is brought to light from true meditation and from the indubitable fount of the true philosophy – even truths that might usefully be placed at the service of any Republic – then if it is not in harmony with the false doctrine of the Greeks and the heathens it is rejected with especial vehemence by those who have made themselves drunk on the liquor of those studies which that inane school of the heathen philosophers has delineated.

Tell me, all you who are so wise in judgement, how can it possibly be that a heathen lacking any true light can bring the light of truth to others?

Of course, they have their human and mundane wisdom, but this is considered the greatest folly with God, since it does not come from God, and yet every parent torments his son into mastering it by middle age.

Subsequently, if a such a feigned philosopher finds himself in discussion with a true and meditative wise man he soon falls into abuse, condemning everything that is good and true that he has not heard from the lips of his own teacher, as if nothing could be good and true except that 'truth' that comes from the ignorant heathen.

For the speculative rational soul, aided by the light of truth, can achieve more in one year or even in one moment than the hard and shameless work of a man who seeks the light, without this light, from those who lack all light.

Now we can see what the moral doctrine of the heathen philosophers really is. They argue that the highest good is to live well, and divide 'living well' into the honest and the useful. Winning praise and being ambitious for honours they consider honest, while the acquisition and preservation of wealth – by whatever means, fair or foul, whether by war or by honest toil – they consider useful, since it is obvious that they expect nothing else after death than to have left to posterity certain honours and favours due to their memory and the fame of their actions. And so, partly denying the Resurrection and partly being ignorant of it, these wretches compose a thousand fables, contrary to every truth (regarding which they know nothing) about the destruction of other men and about their own ruin.

In the light of this doctrine the professors of the true arts therefore cannot avoid being hated to the greatest possible extent by those who have managed to acquire standing and honours in various arts and sciences.

Even if experience places the truth before their very eyes then, unless it is corroborated by their own opinions (which have never experienced the truth) it is rejected as falsehood and loudly dismissed as fatuous, with everyone saying that he wants to profess the truth for himself. If anyone rightly expresses detestation of certain empty writers then soon their disciples are threatening them in their universities, or tormenting them, or inflicting upon them the ultimate humiliation, which they call 'riding the donkey'. Meanwhile those same people fail to see that their own greatest solace is to ride daily through the streets on the sodomitical monsters of donkeys, conceived unnaturally and by compulsion through the wickedness of men and against the teachings of God, by Whom such conduct was once prohibited lest the shepherds who looked after various kinds of animals were tempted to have sexual intercourse with them.

Will their threats finally silence that truth since, as they argue, it begets hatred in its proponents, and loyalty in those who are obsequious and reticent? God forbid, for a philosopher should die rather than deny the truth. For in every situation in life Christians must always observe the truth as the highest good. Blessed are they to whom heaven grants the gift to persevere in the truth until the very end, which, alas, is the case with so very few. We should therefore ask God to allow us to share in this cultivation of the truth, and in nothing else.

Now that we have spoken about the voluntary separation achieved in the rational soul through meditation we can use the same approach to explain how such separation can also be achieved through spagyrics. To understand this we need to enquire into the truth of all natural things, which lies concealed within their innermost heart. For the true spagyric is the centre of all things that are produced by nature, in which all the virtue and the truth and the power of that thing is concealed, and it is truly the task of the spagyric art to coax those qualities into action. To achieve this, their higher and lower parts must be separated from one another, and then each part re-purified. Finally, there is a reduction to the One (i.e. union), which is achieved through spagyric operations. We therefore need to study the spagyric process.

The first stage towards the spagyric union is division or separation.

The separation is twofold in nature: there is a separation of the elements, i.e. of the pure from the impure, and a truly spagyric second separation of the elemental qualities. The latter has been popularised and will therefore be familiar to everyone. Nature herself however operates through a single mixing process involving just two operations, namely alteration and animation. We shall deal with the individual elements of that process below. First however we shall discuss the separation of the pure from the impure.

In some bodies this separation occurs of its own accord, and in others through a vehicle. Although the celestial essence (which is called the fifth essence, i.e. the quintessence) is present in all bodies that are produced by Nature, the Philosophers say that there is none in which it abounds as much as it does in wine, which is why they have gone to such lengths to give this substance prominence, on account of the easier separation that it entails. Not that this substance is any more excellent when drawn from its own body than when drawn from any other, for the power is universal, and nor is it in any way diverse except in terms of the variety of subjects in which it still inheres, for it always freely returns to its unity. This is one of the great secrets of nature which has enabled the Spagyrics to scale the heights.

Lest we be misled by the term 'wine', we need to understand that there are two kinds: the Wine of the Philosophers and ordinary wine. The Wine of the Philosophers can be extracted from any natural body, whereas ordinary wine is the kind that you buy in wine-shops. With the Wine of the Philosophers you can separate the spirit and the feeling soul from any body, whenever you wish.

Let us explain the Wine of the Philosophers by means of an example.

Make a pile of grains of wheat, barley or winter-wheat {siligo} along with some fountain-water or rainwater, or alternatively macerated with some other substance so that the grains swell. Leave the grains for a few days until they heat up and sprout. Once they have done so, spread them out and leave them until the superfluous humour of water has dried up. Now grind them with a millstone of moderate thickness. Place the resulting flour into a wooden vase and pour boiling water onto it. Now stopper the vase. After the resulting liquor has cooled and settled, use a silk-bag or sackcloth to strain the least turbid part of the liquor from the flour. Finally, add some fresh boiling water to the remaining flour as before. Now strain again.

Repeat this process of pouring and straining as many times as is necessary until you can see that all the substance of the grains has been absorbed into the waters. You can test that this has occurred by tasting the strained liquor and flour. Finally, boil all the strained liquors until, through evaporation, they acquire the consistency of honey. By this process you will have prepared, from grain, the Wine of the Philosophers.

You can prepare it in the same way from all other seeds, even from ones that are too dry to be separated by themselves except by roasting {adustio}. Separation performed in this way is called 'separation through a vehicle'. What is more, through distillation you will separate from this Wine of the Philosophers the feeling soul that rises along with the spirit from its body. You will then sublime the spirit and the feeling soul by a process of this kind as many times as is necessary until it is separated from every phlegm and is thus liberated. To reduce the body, place it in the shade or against a dry fire, with a very violent heat so as to form the driest ashes. Now pour boiling water onto these ashes, and simmer them together until you have a very coarse lye. When the lye has settled through a quite modest inclination, separate from the ashes the clearer part of the liquid, leaving the cloudier part behind. Now prepare some more lye by pouring some freshly-boiled water onto the ashes as before. Add the previouslystrained lye to it, and repeat as many times as is necessary using the various lyes until you perceive that the ashes are no longer coarse. Now pass the lyes through a linen sleeve (which they call a filtrum) to form a very limpid liquor, and then evaporate this using watch-glasses. This will give you our tartar and the sal naturae rerum omnium (salt of the nature of all things). Place this on a marble slab in a moist and cold place. It can resolve into a tartaric liquid.

You will finally have the quintessence extracted from the Wine of the Philosophers, optimally rectified as you have heard, though an uneducated person will only see the strongest kind of unmixed wine {merum}. Now reduce this juice to the greatest simplicity by continuous and assiduous rotation. When the wheel has stopped rotating you will again see the pure separated from the impure floating on the top, transparent and shining, with a most serene ethereal colour. Now separate this from the impure by inclination and serve.

This is the spagyric heaven, which you can adorn with inferior stars just as the real heavens above us are provided with superior ones. Surely, now that we have imitated the natural philosophers, the heathen will respect the fact that we can actually hold heaven and the stars in our hands, or will they deny it as something outside their experience, just like everything else? But it matters little to us what they say or do, for no spite or envy will delay the plan by which we seek to promote all good things and benefit all those who are devoted to the truth.

Let us expand on these points so that we can start to make some progress. You will gather that we have inferior stars, and that in this inferior world each individual is produced, by nature, by a conjunction of those inferior stars and heaven, i.e. through a conjunction of superior and inferior elements. At this point I hear many voices grumbling and saying to us, 'Oh go on, people like you who say that heaven can join itself to the earth are a thing of the past'. But such people can complain as much as they like, for they will certainly be forced to listen to things that are greater and more elevated than even these things are. For heaven is a celestial material and a universal form, which contains within itself all the distinct forms which, however, all proceed from a unique universal form.

From this statement it will readily be deduced that the spagyric art can enable individuals to make a transition into a very broad category {genus} in which one or more special powers can afterwards be implanted into them. In the light of this fact we can therefore easily discover the Universal Medicine, which can remove all corruptions and diseases either specifically, universally or indifferently. Since a medicine of this kind is the unique and yet the most general source of all corruption and is the universally unique fount of all things that introduce, establish and invigorate the power, then who except the mindless would call it into question?

We have more to say on this point. Once the qualities of the elements have been extracted by the method just described from various vegetables, and especially from those that we shall list below, the substance of their fiery quality should only be rectified in the manner in which the Wine of the Philosophers was rectified above. This will ensure that our Mercury will be prepared in the highest exaltation. Yet the mixture can also be given a new heaven made of honey, or greater celandine, flowers of rosemary, mercurialis or red lily, or of human blood, etc., along with a heaven of red or white wine, or of tartar. We can also create a mixture of these substances in a heaven formed from the reduction products, as well as from a mixture of substances simultaneously along with various forms in proportion with the order and practice of the Greater Work, which can then be reduced to a perfected Lesser Work, as discussed below. And so yet another mixture can come about by means of the philosophical key of heaven aided by the artifice of generation. Afterwards, if the perfected Lesser Work is added in proportion with the Greater Work then it might thereby result in a perfected Greater Work, which can propagate its kind in the form of external substances up to five thousand in number.

Because the above matters are scarcely intelligible unless you have a full understanding of the terminology of this Art, we have considered providing definitions in a second and subsequent degree, but first we must deal with the subject of meditative cognition.

Meditative cognition is an indubitable resolution regarding the truth of any formulated opinions, which is arrived at through a certitude acquired by experience.

An opinion is a dubitable presumption of the truth adhering in the rational soul.

Experience is a manifest demonstration of the truth.

Resolution is the laying aside of any doubt.

We cannot become more certain about any doubt except by experiencing it, and nor is there any better way of experiencing it than within ourselves. In the light of this statement we can verify what we said above about the truth, using ourselves as the means of proof. For we said above that piety consists of an understanding of oneself. Such an understanding may therefore help us to shed light on meditative cognition.

For no one can truly understand himself unless he first sees and knows, on the basis of sedulous meditation and an examination of Holy Scripture, what he himself might be; on what being greater than himself he might depend or might have come from; for what purpose he was made and created; and, similarly, by whom, and how. Once he has understood these things there will arise within him that piety to which we have referred which focusses on two subjects: the creator and the creature. For it is impossible for a creature to understand himself perfectly other than through his creator, for nothing ever arises from itself. For who can become more certain of his effect before he has become certain of his cause? Surely every beginning precedes its middle and its end? Is there really anyone who tackles any matter from the end first? But God of course is without a beginning and an end, and exists in and through Himself from all eternity, filled with every glory. And because He was unwilling to possess that glory alone, He decided, in His pure liberality, to allow us to share in Himself and to create us in His own image. This was the first example of His liberality and is a mystery that we should not ignore nor pass over lightly. Yet there is scarcely one person who identifies this secret in his contemplation of the truth. What is clear is that we should never show ourselves to be ungrateful, stupid and ignorant towards the study of the secrets of God through Holy Scripture.

Listen my brothers! Just as we were created from the most vile dirt, from something worthless and despised by all, so because of the prime matter of which we are composed we lean more towards every vile thing than we do towards Him Who once created us, from something vile, as His most worthy creatures, adorned with glory and honour to only a slightly lesser extent than the angels are. Admire with me therefore, O wretched mortals (however many of you might share my view that what I am saying is not beside the point) that the supreme creator of all things chose for Himself the most vile material of all in which to inspire the final and most perfect of his creatures rather than many other and, indeed, all precious things, such as gold, gemstones, and other things of that kind which he ignored for this purpose, all of which however were created on account of this creature, and for his use and convenience.

Because, however, we did not recognise what we are and from Whom we came, we surrounded ourselves with the pride of elation. And because we act in a manner that is completely at odds with God's intentions, there is not one of us who does not look down upon the pauper whom God has chosen, even though he also was made from that same mass from which we have all proceeded. Hence it comes about that God is not an acceptor of the poverty and humility of human beings but a lover thereof, and an enemy of elated pride.

What is more, no one can understand the Creator better than by studying His creatures, for a craftsman is always known from his handiwork. Let us see therefore if there is anyone who can coax out the most worthy from the most vile. Certainly we shall not find anyone who can do so, other than Him Who created both. For there cannot ever have been anyone, and nor could there ever be anyone, who could change water into wine other than Him alone Who created both wine and water. And what He did was even more remarkable than that, for He transmuted earth into a living feeling soul and – the greatest achievement of all – imbued it with a supreme gift of beatitude, in other words with His own image and likeness through which it was given to everyone to be saved who, acknowledging this gift with a gesture of thanks, accepted it willingly.

But what will be given to those who are unwilling to freely accept it?

Nothing, for sure. Therefore such people may have what is theirs, that it might be preserved for them as a place of justice, for to each is his own destiny, which he chooses from the beginning, namely damnation.

Freely given is the gift of eternal salvation to those who receive it with good grace. And so, since we are of both low and high price, any one of us may see which of these he should prefer, for surely the matter is sufficiently clear in itself not to require further elucidation.

It remains for us to consider the purpose for which we might have been created. Almighty God created the first man in His own image and likeness so that he might exist for the glory of God, and be immortal, not fearful, lacking in nothing, always rejoicing in God, and in no way subject to earthly passions. But since man did not understand how great a gift it was that he had been given he defiled it. Although he certainly understood it (because he had been made perfect, coming as he did from God, and was able to reason) yet even so he did not persist in that understanding.

We should therefore reflect upon how much good was promised to us by imparting this understanding to us in a state of simplicity, and how much evil the despising of such a great gift and of the word of God has brought, since it turned a permanently immortal man into a mortal one. For he who dies by the second death dwells eternally in the agony of death, and never ceases to die, which is why it is called the perpetual death, just as that life is called everlasting which we live with God in the eternal, and which we never allow ourselves to live. For since the first parent made all of us, along with him, enemies and rebels against Almighty God, He, being moved by pity, decided, as the creator of peace, to declare a truce with all of us hard-hearted ones. For who will be like a stone; who, when he shall have reflected upon this mystery of divine goodness, shall not be reconciled with his enemy, even though he might have received maximum hurt at his hands? Who then therefore shall act so that neither of the enemies among mortals, neither he who is doing the attacking nor he who is being attacked, wishes to approach the other for reconciliation? Surely they would never act thus from any other cause than that no one understood himself, nor understood God, nor another creature very like himself.

From this we can conclude that no man embraces peace who does not know what peace is. For peace is the root of mercy, and he who does not have peace will not exercise mercy, nor will he even persist until he does have it.

We are not confusing peace with mercy here, for peace is the cause of mercy, just as piety is the cause of peace. If therefore we wish to understand whether we may have peace with God we should examine our conscience beforehand so that we may judge on the evidence whether we are on equally good terms with a given neighbour, whether friend or foe, and are free of feelings of envy or hatred. For should we not consider what mercy the supreme creator of all things showed to that little worm man, the slave of the Devil, by enfolding him in His peace? For He did not expect that he who committed that very sin so that he might be His equal would approach Him to ask for mercy: indeed, He upon whom every injury of ingratitude had been inflicted coaxingly summoned the perpetrator of the crime as he fled from His face and hid himself, refrained from harsher reproof and, on the contrary, promised him a healing of the sickness that the crime had caused, as well as mercy and peace.

O wretched mortals, how much mercy do we expect from God, in the face of Whom we do not acknowledge our misery by our deeds as well as by our words! Whence I ask is mercy ever moved to compassion except as a result of a sincere confession of the crime, through contrition of the heart, made in emendation of one's previous life? However many times we shall not ignore our own misery and that of our brothers but shall provide proportionate compensation for it, having been made richer in all the good things of this world, we should not thereby consider ourselves to be more abundant in eternal wealth than those who are entirely destitute of worldly goods. Whoever among mortals truly reflects upon this point, will he not console his destitute brother by sharing the goods or wealth which have been entrusted to him only for safe-keeping in this world? Give me someone who is reflecting upon what I have just said and I shall show you someone who understands these secrets of God.

And yet it was not just in this way that God wished to show His great love for us: indeed, accusing us with His righteousness (in which indeed no reduction can ever be made, any more than in His mercy) He spared us rather than His own Son, in Whom peace and justice met in a mutual embrace. So why do we ourselves therefore, as fathers and brothers made in Christ, not embrace each other in our turn, since the supreme creator of all things deigned to embrace us, miserable worms that we are, in the form of His Son, and set us, people who had once been made most wretched by their own evil, on our feet again as even more excellent creatures than we were before? For to the extent that they recognise God in the Son, and equally the Son in the Father through the Holy Spirit, and do not resist Him, they also should recognise a brother and not somebody of another kind.

These are the true and indubitable bases of the true philosophy, but since they are not yet understood by all, even though they are heard by many, doubt will still linger in the minds of the relatively undecided as to whether reflecting upon what we have just said will instil in us a love of the truth. For such people the reward of the work will be to discard this ambiguity through and in themselves by experience.

They should proceed in this way: each person should carefully consider within himself what we have just said, after casting out of his mind all worldly cares and other distracting thoughts, and should reflect quite often and with a sincere mind upon the digested thoughts, and so gradually perceive with the eyes of the mind and with the greatest joy some sparks of the divine illumination, which will shine forth more and more brightly with every day that goes by. Then, by persevering in that process of reflection he may see them flare up to form such a great light that, with repeated successes, he will come to understand those things that are necessary for him to know. No longer will he struggle to understand the truth in any way, but will gradually become familiar with the exercise of piety and justice in the manner thus described and will accordingly experience tranquillity of mind. Once he is finally won over by this he will finally come to understand that he will experience a thousand times greater delight in the rational soul than he ever would in the body, for true cognition cannot begin until the feeling soul, after comparing the eternal with the ephemeral, and life with death, chooses to be conjoined with the rational soul, having been drawn to a greater delight of this than of the body.

From this understanding the mind arises, and the voluntary separation of the body is complete: looking back with the feeling soul at the shame and ruination of the body and the excellent and perpetual happiness of the rational soul, the mind desires to be connected by divine inspiration with the rational soul after a complete rejection of the body, so that he seeks only what he understands has been reserved for him by God for His glory and for his own salvation. Finally the body is forced to descend into a union of the mind and the rational soul now united, and to obey them.

This is that admirable transmutation of the Philosophers, a transmutation of the body into spirit and of the spirit into the body, regarding which the Sages have left us the following dictum, 'Make the fixed volatile, and the volatile fixed, for in this way you may have our Magistery'. This dictum should be understood as follows. Make the stubborn body tractable, because through pre-eminence of the rational soul, acting in harmony with the feeling soul, the body becomes most resolute and therefore capable of withstanding any tests. For gold is tried by fire, by which also everything that is not gold is rejected. O most excellent gold of the Philosophers, it is by this that the Sons of Philosophy are enriched, and not with the kind of gold that is hammered! Come therefore all those of you who seek out the treasure-houses with such varied effort, make sure you understand, before you start your searches, the truth of the words, 'The stone which the builders rejected, the same is become the head of the corner' (Matthew 21:42).

It is strange that a person should strive after what is unknown, and seek that of which he does not know the truth, because it obviously cannot promise any hope of what he is seeking. The wise man seeks only what he loves, but he cannot love what he does not understand, otherwise he might be said to be unwise, since truth is born from understanding and from the love of it. In vain therefore do all the investigators of the hidden secrets of nature work, since they are trying to uncover through terrestrial things another way of entering into the powers of those things. Do not try to understand heaven through the earth therefore, but rather seek to understand the powers of the earth through the powers of heaven. For no one rises into that heaven that you are seeking unless He Who descended from the heaven that you are not seeking illuminates him. You are seeking the incorruptible medicine which not only transmutes bodies from corruption into a true equilibrium but also most stubbornly conserves that equilibrium, and you would not have been able to find such a thing anywhere other than in heaven. For heaven, through its power, transmitted through invisible rays meeting from every side in the centre of the earth, penetrates, generates and nurtures all the elements and all that is elemented {elementata}. This foetus retains in itself the nature of each parent, i.e. the elements and heaven, so that in it both parents can be detected both in potentia and in actu. For what except the Stone shall endure in spagyric generation? Learn to understand from within yourself all that is to be found in heaven and earth therefore, not least because all of it was created on your behalf. Do you not know that heaven and the elements were formerly one, and that they were divided from one another by divine artifice, and so begot you and all other things naturally? Once you have mastered this particular point then you cannot fail to grasp the rest of the meditative philosophy.

In every act of generation therefore a separation of this kind must be made, and as I said above it needs to start with you. You must achieve this before you can set sail towards the study of the true philosophy. You will never construct the one thing that you seeking from anything else unless that one thing previously comes into existence from yourself, as you will hear more extensively in the subsequent treatise, De Philosophia chemica ad meditativam comparata. For it is the will of God that the pious pursue the pious work that they seek, and that the perfected perfect something else to which they have devoted themselves. It is the fate of man to reap the evil that he has sown, and nothing else. On the contrary, and what is of greater importance, very often the good seeds of men are converted into tares by their evil behaviour. Act therefore so that you avoid such things, for you want your work to be exactly what you are seeking, i.e. the achievement of spagyric cognition. But first you must understand the individual propositions of this Art before you can acquire a true understanding of it as a whole.