From Weidenfeld’s Prodromus Libri Secundi [Preview of His Second Book],

London,

1687, Latin

Chapter IV. Will explain the more remote matter of the Art: Oleosum.

If there were no oleosum [oil], the more secret chemistry would be empty and impossible. Nature knows how to use the sun’s rays and apply them to the specific needs of things, but art does not. Here the artist cannot imitate nature. Therefore, the artist needs a more condensed but less pure matter for his work. It is sufficient for him [to know] that oleosum is concentrated light, but covered or clouded over by a most dense darkness. If all this darkness is removed by his art, he is assured to have something not only the same as sunlight in its nature and effect, but also much stronger and more excellent, for it is more concentrated and united. In this chapter will also be shown that there is no difference in the light which is contained in the [various] oleosum.

The light of whale oil is not of less worth than that of cinnamon oil. Cinnamon oil is perhaps not blackened with so much darkness as cod-liver oil, but the artist who purifies cinnamon oil, will with the very same labor and effort, also remove the impurities of the whale oil, even if they were there in greater quantity. In medicine, indeed, I confess that a most fragrant cinnamon oil, philosophically purified, is of greater virtue in its specification than stinking cod-liver oil. However, I will easily prove that in alchemical things, both are of the same purity and subtlety since I shall list more than 80 different oleosa [oils], which have been used by adepts for their works.

The fifth chapter will describe the remote matter of the art: oleosum purified of its external feces.

The fact that oleosum is full of many impurities has been taught in the previous chapter. We now examine what those impurities are so that we know what is to be separated and removed from the oleosum. Nature works day after day and fulfils the will of the Creator by its rarefactions and condensations. By rarefying the bodies, it reduces them into their anterior matter, and by coagulating the element water, it makes it dry and into an Aridum [a dryness or dry body] in accordance to the diverse properties of the applied light.

Here the water is coagulated into herb or wood, there into bone or meat, or into a metallic body. This dry body not only surrounds and covers the light with its opacity, but is dissolved by the oleosum itself and received into a quasi-marriage with the light, and sometimes in such quantity that it could seem a miracle to the inexperienced and unbelieving. Who, if he didn’t know, would believe that in 16 ounces of the brightest turpentine oil are more than 12 ounces of the blackest Aridum? In regard to the light or the remaining oleosum, one will call this aridum feces, but in regard to the water one will call it matter coagulated by the light or seed of turpentine. However it is necessary that this Aridum be separated from the oleosum by means of a particular trick, for by common distillation it is only more tightly condensed, and the light enclosed in it and bound to endless darkness.

In this chapter will also be discussed what the adepts have stated about these feces, or about the Damned Earth, etc. The sixth chapter will describe the next matter of the art: the oleosum purified from its internal impurities.

Whatever way the oleosum is purified from its outer impurities, nevertheless its light remains eclipsed, because its original blemish remains, with which it is afflicted and by which it is made unfit for this work. It must still be mortified and regenerated before it deserves to be called the spirit of philosophical wine, or could become an essence of oleosum by which the other oleosa are reduced into essences. Here will be reported, what the adepts declared about the method and the benefits of regeneration.

The seventh chapter will treat the instrument of purification: the Acidum.

Without Acidity there can not be any separation or purification of the Oleosum from its external and internal impurities. Acidum [acid or acidity] is the mother of our stone, without which even the father, sunlight, is not sufficient. Where the oleosum is named Mercury, there the acidum is named Sulphur, first born male, fire against nature, and fire of Pontanus.

In this chapter will be made manifest whatever the adepts have stated metaphorically on this subject, as well as what they have brought forth about the necessity and the risk of the dissolution, without which there can not be any Spirit of Philosophical Wine.

The eighth chapter will examine the mean and tie that joins the extremes: the radical moisture of the oleosum.

Joining the oleosum to the acidum without destruction of either one or the other or both, is difficult and nearly impossible for the inexperienced.

Therefore the adepts have been forced to look for a certain mean to join the extremes. Unless you know it, all your pain will be in vain. In this present chapter I shall bring forth out of the adepts' writings many great things concerning the necessity, the nature and the weight of this bond.

The ninth chapter will treat the multiple methods of preparation in general.

For art has variously gained increase by various attempts. This artist invented this abbreviation, another invented a different one. Thus, by observation, art achieved the summit of its perfection. In this chapter I shall treat about the rise and progress of the more secret chemistry concerning the production of the spirit of philosophical wine, as well as concerning the reasons why there is a diversity of preparations.

The tenth chapter will explain the first method, which I call the method of Lully, using the analogy of common spirit of wine, by which the spirit of philosophical wine appears to be produced, but indeed is not.

The spirit of philosophical wine, however, is produced out of the digestion of the stinking menstruum, and the stinking menstruum is produced only out of the distillation of a certain artificial gum, which is called Atrop [Porta] or Portal of the work, as has been shown satisfactorily in the book about menstruums. In this chapter will be given a description of this gum Atrop, confirmed and illustrated by the rules, sayings and words of the relevant adepts, which have been compared with each other.