Key to the Great Work or letters of the Sancelrien Tourangeau.

Whoever has the material will soon find a furnace.


To Mrs. LDL B ***.

tdfat


In the first, will be taught where to find the matter of the Sages. In the second, the virtues and marvels of the white and red Elixir, on the three Kingdoms of Nature. In the third, addressed to my Brother, the reality of the great Work will be proven by all that is most positive in sacred and profane history, which it has nursed and will always be the foundation, as well as the first motive of all the Religions of the world. And in the following ones, up to the number of ten, everything that is allowed to be written on this Science, without going beyond the limits prescribed to lead the Elect to the desired goal.

In sale omnia, fine sale nihil.

*

In corinte, and is located in Paris

*

At Cailleau, Printer Bookseller rue Saint Severin .

*

Mr. DCC. LXXVII.

*



Notice

Preliminaries for lovers of spagyric truths.

Dear reader, if you believe the transmutation of possible metals, that you feel so many spirits of the interested parties, firm resolution to be only the temporary depository of the treasures, that God will want to entrust to you, for, by receiving them from one hand, with the other one close as secretly as possible to you, me; it is for you that I write. But if your intentions are to amass treasures for your own use only to satisfy your passions, believe me don't waste your soul leafing through me; for I do not write to instruct the Avaricious but for the elect only.

You don't need to go and look for books other than those I quote, and even if you have progressed in reading the Philosophers, and you are beginning to understand them; the Hermetic Triumph alone should be enough for you. It was Nicolas Flamel who first indicated the first matter to me, and the Triomphe Hermétique made me understand it, as you will see later, so that there is not a single one of the Philosophers whom I cannot explain to the Letter; and I wonder, since it pleased Divine Providence to open my eyes, how I could have taken so many years to use readings, and so long to understand something so easy.,

there not being a single one of the true Philosophers who does not speak clearly, teach the first matter and name it sufficiently to make it understood by some in one way, by others in another, according to the different operations. where she goes. I don't think it's appropriate to justify science with arguments; having read that Arnaud de Villeneuve , philosopher of the first order, could never prove to Raymond Lully , that the transmutation of metals existed, what on the contrary, Raymond Lully , by words to which Arnaud de Villeneuve could not answer, convinced him without reply that metallic transmutation was impossible according to the ordinary course of nature, which Arnaudagreed for the moment and asked for his revenge for the next day at a fixed time. Having agreed with each other and having gone there, Raymond Lully then said to him: Yesterday you justified me by invincible arguments, that metallic transmutation was impossible, and I could not by words tell you. prove otherwise.

Today without speaking to you, I will justify you by effect, which is true. Consequently, and having made before Raymond the transmutation of the base metals into gold and silver, of which Raymond Lully convinced, confessed that this science could not be proved by argument; and he apologized to Arnaud, who inspired about him, taught him the secret, and initiated him almost immediately into all the most secret mysteries, so that he reached one of the first degrees, and never ceased as a saint . Paul, to confess all his life his hardening and his conversion;

Also, if I succeed, as I hope; las is put off by all that I have heard against our divine science, for more than twenty years that I have been reading the Philosophers, I would make some public transmutations in front of the elite of the first Doctors, and works for the embellishment of Paris, so considerable, and bearing the name from which the money will have been taken, that in the future no one will dare to support the impossible Metallic Transmutation, which went against the power of God; for finally in the primitive Creation, did he not say to his creatures, after having blessed them: Go ; grow and multiplyWhat prerogative would vegetables have over metals, for God to have given seed to some and refused it to others?

Are not metals in as great authority and consideration before God as trees? It must therefore be agreed, argues the Cosmopolitan(page. 30), that nothing is without seed; for there is no seed, the thing is dead, having regard to the compounds. The metals therefore received one from nature, where they were produced without seed; if they are without seed, they cannot be perfect, for all things without seed are imperfect. earth sufficient heat to ripen and regenerate themselves, but if that were so, great inconvenience would arise; For all the earth where metals grow would be only metal, where there are stones stones, minerals minerals and would no longer be fit for anything else; man, beast or vegetable, neither living nor growing, among metals,

This is why God did not allow them to be able to regenerate themselves through the great inconvenience that would come from it; but God permitted man to be able, by taking them where Nature ended, to reproduce them on earth; and of dead metals which are, to make living metals of them, and he has given this secret is to some at his good pleasure, who have left us books of it which are not too easy to understand at first sight; but that by dint of reading, rereading, meditating with patience, one sometimes manages to understand its true meaning, not by a tenth or twentieth time, but more often by a thousandth, as happened to me- even without ever completely repelling me, as I will explain later;

for a long time I could quote by heart the main passages reported below, and if I have the happiness to succeed as I hope, and that I give you the details of myself and of what I suffered in other for twenty years, I do not believe that there is anyone thereafter, who was curious to undertake the reading of the Philosophers but those who succeeded (Zachaire and the good Trévisan among others) recounting their work: this encouraged me, always flattering that by dint of patience and continual prayer, I could bend the mercy of God, and that thinking about the use that I would do as my models, I would obtain from his kindness, the same grace that I wish for you, friend Reader; for according to the Cosmopolitan , it would be useful if all the habitable earth were filled with Philosophers.

Read me carefully; no chimera in the head, far from other occupations, less manipulation before hearing the Philosophers, and you will then know that you do not need many things, above all do not use gold, silver, nor mercury, nor minerals whatsoever, salt altrament, borax, vegetables of all kinds and kinds, animals nor anything that can come out of, whether aquatic, bipedal, volatile, crawling, in water, in earth, on earth ; and remember that you need a single living metal, reduced to its first matter which is the sulfur and mercury rebis of the philosophers, and remember again that from a tree is born a tree, from a man a man and of a metal a metal.

And that you only need the seed and not the body of which you can do nothing, if it is not reduced to its first matter, which is its sperm and its semen, as all the philosophers say, which will attract its menstruation according to the power of nature, which is its vessel and the secret fire of the sages. Nothing could be easier to understand; I swear it to you once again, and nothing similarly easier to execute, asBasil Valentin (page. 82.) says it to say goodbye to you at the end of these twelve keys. He who has the material will soon find a furnace, just as he who has flour does not take long to find an oven, and is not much embarrassed to bake bread.

To facilitate you entirely in this beginning and to lead you as by the hand, read with attention the ten following paragraphs and carry out the precepts of them.

§ I.

Woe to him who, to make philosophical silver from gold, will use other matter than sperm and seed gold and silver, which he will draw from a living metal after the to have reduced to his first material, without employing any artificial or elementary fire, other than that secret of nature, which he will place in his vessel as secret to begin his work where nature has finished hers, without being able to deviate of the metallic kingdom, nor make any mixture in any way and nature that it may be, not knowing and even profoundly ignorant of the weights of nature.

§II.

Woe to him who will use gold, silver and vulgar mercury, before having found and their living menses, their natural solvent in which they melt, using the secret vessel of nature, like ice in hot water, and is reduced to their first matter, draws them from the arms of death and makes them alive, otherwise they will find only loss and damage.

§ III.

Woe to him who, to deceive his brothers, brags about knowing how to make stone; but not having the money to work there, will ask in advance for gold, silver or something else of value, and fool whoever listens to him will rely on it.

§ IV.

Woe to him who will use for the making of the work other material than that designated above, the total price of which cannot exceed six pounds in Paris, and in the provinces ten sols to make the first magnet, and who will ask for something for the second material, which costs only the trouble of picking it up and is everywhere.

§ V.

Woe to him who will ask to do the work in its entirety, all inclusive, apart from the time and the food of a single man, more than twenty-four pounds, into which will enter the gold and the silver for the fermentation, of which one bulk of each are more than sufficient, oil and all vessels generally unremarkable.

§ VI.

Woe to him who, knowing or believing he knows the work, will confide his secret without knowing the subject thoroughly, will offer to sell it for gold and silver to the great people of the Earth, he will never succeed.

§VII.

Presumptuous eternal misfortune who, believing they know by my instructions the secret, and how to operate to put an end to it, will forge in their heads chimerical ideas of wealth and possession on earth, who, having obtained from God some gift to heal their brothers, will sell them dearly what he has found free; for he will be upset in his ideas and will never approach the sacred table.


§ VIII.

Woe to you, rich of the earth who, not content with the fortune that God has granted you, desire more considerable, and in the hope of achieving it easily, listen to these coal blowers who make trade and merchandise of you to deceive, and under vain and imaginary promises, dispels your real to run after the fictitious. I charitably warn you that you will be their dupe; and that they will bring you only loss, damage and anguish , and that they only know the art of surprising you.

§IX.

Although these eight paragraphs should be sufficient to open the eyes of the swindlers and their dupes, I must completely shut their mouths for the future with a truth, which they will never be able to answer. Holy Spirit, do not leave me in this difficult case, that just as the dove of fire enlightened the Israelites during the night and the dark cloud, hid them during the day from the pursuits of the army of Pharaoh, as the rod of 'Aaron dispelled and swallowed up the serpents which the false prophets of this king brought forth; so also, O my God!

Grant to your philosophers, what I am going to reveal most secret, on which none until now has dared to write, be impenetrable for those whom you judge will not judge worthy of it; open your eyes to some and close them to these avaricious people, as Elisha closed those of the soldiers of the king of Syria, whom he led into Samaria without knowing where they were going; that I lead them in the same way from precipice to precipice, that they see there only darkness in the strongest light.

On the contrary, enlighten your chosen ones, as you have done since the beginning of the world; that he can keep the secret that you have entrusted to them from age to age, without until now nothing has transpired publicly; that it be preserved, according to your holy will, until towards the end of the world, or by punishment of those of the great sinners who will exist there, you will allow it to be revealed in order to disturb public order, to remove the subordination, and then all being in the same rank of wealth, trouble and confusion will mingle among them, as it happened in the confusion of tongues of the tower of Babel; what you caused to be announced by your prophetNostradamus , whose prophecies and person are despised today, as has always been the custom with regard to those whose writings we do not know. Would report at the end of this letter the prophecy, and he would explain to the letter.

§ X.

Listen, sons of the Sages, to the irrevocable sentence that I am going to pronounce as a last resort, against the pushy and deceitful Sophists, and you, Dupes, lend attentive ears.

Our first material at the beginning of the Work, the antimony of Arthéphius , the viscous humidity of Zachaire , the dry and naturally attract its humidity: this confused mass of light emerging from darkness, where the eyes of the vulgar see only faeces and abominations, this remnant of the chaos of the first matter of the world, this universal dissolvent of Nature, this spirit is which must extract a raw spirit from the dissolved body and once again unite it with vital oil to work miracles in a single thing ;

this vegetal menstruation united with the mineral which must dissolve a third essential menstruation to compose the powder of the philosophers, this spirit of Philalete which resembles metal melted in the fire, this mine of the steel of the Cosmopolitan, this source of the Trévisan Fountain , this humidity according to d' Espagnet with which Nature begins all these generations ; the work of Stone that art must begin where nature ended, that nature which rejoices in its nature, contains nature, and overcomes nature, lastly that quicksilver of Geber, for whose creation he praises and blesses the Lord to have given it a substance and properties, which are found in nothing else, and on the occasion of which Philaleteadds, without him the Alchemists would boast in vain, all their works would do nothing;

all this, I say, which only deals with a single subject under various operations, must begin and cook in the vessel and in the secret fire of nature, without being able to help it in any way by any artificial or elementary fire of whatever kind it may be, either hot water, coal of any kind, clod to burn, lamp, candles, manure, lime and others, without excluding any. The slightest light, were it a single thread of gold, would disturb nature in this first operation, it must remain alone and hidden; and I add again: it is that ten sols are more than sufficient to show whether one is on the true way of obtaining dry water which does not wet the hands.

This is what has ever been said clearer about the first matter, and more instructive for those who wish to have the first knowledge of it, and I swear, on all that is most holy, that I know what I say that I wrote it to the letter; and although I have not yet operated as I agree; I have my guide on that I know what I say that I wrote it to the letter; and although I have not yet operated as I agree; I have my guide on that I know what I say that I wrote it to the letter; and although I have not yet operated as I agree; I have my guide onTrévisan , who, like me knowing the first matter, very skilfully disputed against the Philosophers who had made the Stone; what you can check, (page 385,. I.2.). I can without boasting, but with the grace of God, do the same.

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ELEMENT OF HERMETIC PHILOSOPHY.

First letter.

Madam,


What joy for me, to be able to convince you in writing that I have finally come to know the first material of the Stone of the Sages, where it is taken from, and how to prepare it into an Elixir.

This gift from Heaven, after which I have sighed for so long, was not inspired to me except on Monday, January 1 , at four or five o'clock in the evening. I am all the more satisfied with it, as I no longer have any doubt that you will occupy the seventh place among women Philosophers. Mary , sister of Moses, wrote a very learned little treatise on it; Nicolas Flamel agrees that his wife Pernelle was as capable as he was of perfecting her, having helped them in all her operations.

Cleopatra , Queen of Egypt, possessed it; Thapuntia , Medera and Euthica, one similarly knew; thus Madam, you will be the seventh; Mysterious Number of Philosophers. For more than twenty years I have been busy reading the most accredited Authors. I left everything, I went abroad, I made vows to Heaven, I was not discouraged, and by dint of persevering, knocking at the door, it was opened to me. I am going to give you an exact detail of the passages of the Philosophers which have enlightened me, and to lead you as if by the hand to the desired goal. I will reserve for myself only one word in seven letters to whisper in your ear, not being able to write it, for fear that this Letter should fall into profane hands, who would misuse such a great treasure; for would not the habitable earth be overthrown, if the Avars like the Sages, could make as much gold, silver, diamonds and fine pearls, which they deem appropriate.

This is the only object for which the Sages have been reserved. I cannot refrain from following their example; but if I discovered it through my Readings, tracing my path for you, you will not soon have found it; and working jointly, helping me with your lights, favoring Heaven, otherwise there is nothing to do; arrived at the goal, we will not cease to relieve our brothers in their infirmities, to help them in their needs and leaving this world without regret, we will hope for an eternal beatitude, to which you, like me, do not cease praying to obtain it. tracing my path for you, you will soon find; and working jointly, helping me with your lights, favoring Heaven, otherwise there is nothing to do; arrived at the goal, we will not cease to relieve our brothers in their infirmities, to help them in their needs and leaving this world without regret, we will hope for an eternal beatitude, to which you, like me, do not cease praying to obtain it. tracing my path for you, you will soon find; and working jointly, helping me with your lights, favoring Heaven, otherwise there is nothing to do; arrived at the goal, we will not cease to relieve our brothers in their infirmities, to help them in their needs and leaving this world without regret, we will hope for an eternal beatitude, to which you, like me, do not cease praying to obtain it.

Ask my brother for the four volumes of Bibliothèque Philosophes and my Cosmopolite ; these five volumes contain all my quotations. Read and re-read this letter several times and even try to learn it by heart; fill yourself in the spirit and do not leave it until you have begun to understand it; show me your difficulties, I will smooth them out for you; read about all the Hermetic Triumph , it is the most intelligible and the Author, to whom I have the most obligation, having opened the first door to me.

Tie yourself still to the Trévisan, who only discovered it at the age of sixty-four, after much work and reading. I am the same age; but I never operated, wanting first to hear and reconcile in my mind all the Authors. the Work must begin in March; but my occupations in Paris, too considerable for my fortune to leave him at this time, robs me of all hope for this year and the following! Happy if I can operate in two years!

You will see that the Trévisanwas also two years, knowing the Work without being able to accomplish it. I don't know if I flatter myself; but I believe that I would not have much difficulty in the operation; there is not a single Author that I do not hear; moreover, by that time you may well have made it yourself. What sorrow for my Wife who wanted to consult her Confessor to have his approval to read approved books.

What a heartbreak for my brother, to whom by recognition of all the obligations I have to him, I owed a preference, and who treated Science as pure inventions and false in principle, according to what his Doctor had attested to him. How she grieves for this dying Doctor, ready to leave in the middle of his race, to have erred so rudely,Paracelsus the greatest enemy of this body. May the will of God be done; but if I succeed as I hope, I will not bury this talent, I will make my cures so public that it will not be possible to ever call into question this Science which public notoriety announces from age to age to have been formerly owned in Tours by Monsieur de Beaume, to whom the City has the obligation of public fountains which are one of the main ornaments.

To encourage you even more, Madam, I will immediately send you all the marvels that our Pierre operates on the three Kingdoms of Nature, a work that I had previously sketched out, and that I brought to light. that it was possible for me. I cannot seal you that I never knew what God called me to, and that never man was more inconsistent than I. I went through several states without being able to fix myself there, always happy without ever desiring anything. It seemed to me that I should occupy another place than where I was, filled with desire and immediately satisfied, the next day I thought of new things.

The spirit of self-interest has never dominated me since I have known myself. Always wishing to travel, I had a secret presentiment that it might one day be carried out; for I can thank Heaven for all the graces it has given me, and I can still say, with truth, that I have never desired anything without having finally obtained it. I remember that in my tender youth your husband, his brother and I, a very close neighbor, were almost raised together, we hadAlexis Piedmontois who talks about the Stone; that I bought from them this book which I still have at Tours today and whose articles I have read many times in which it speaks of the sublimation of Mercury.

I came to Paris in 1755 to stay and the first book I bought there was the Works of the Cosmopolitan , Author of great science and of the first reputation; he occupied me alone until 1756 when I bought the first three books of the Library of Philosophers. I was then only swimming in open water and forming many ideas that were destroyed as soon as they were conceived; for I have never been obstinate, when what I thought to be the first matter happened to be rejected by a Philosopher, at once I formed other ideas; but what was my surprise when I came to read one of the passages of the Trevisan (page 349) which expresses itself thus.
Leave alums, vitriol, salt and all attractants, borax, any strong waters, animals, beasts and everything from them that can come out, hair, blood, urine, sperm, flesh, egg, stone and minerals, leave all metals alone; for how many of them is the entrance and that our matter by the sayings of the Philosophers must be composed of quicksilver, and this quicksilver is nothing else than metals, as it appears by Geber and that the metals are nothing but quicksilver congealed by the manner of degree of decoction, yet are they not our Stone while it remains in metallic form; because it is impossible for a matter to have two forms, how can you expect them to be Stone, which is an average form between metal and mercury,
This passage dismayed me in such a way that I was almost three days without drinking, eating or sleeping, I did not at first understand the extent of it, then threw my plan on dew, snow, ice or other matter similar, the flos coeli , the lead iron, &c. I imagined finding there a salt which could decompose metals; I took courage again and it will last until I come across a passage from the Hermetic Triumph (p 254), which says: she marries herself, she gets pregnant herself, she is born of herself, and etc..

No difficulty, I said then, that nothing can be added to the first magnet of the Sages apart from its metallic nature, since it contains in its bosom, or itself attracts celestial influences, what it needs. . Here I am again in pain and bitterness of heart; I looked above in the same author, and I read there (page 250).

Art and mercury and all the other particular substances in which Nature terminates her operations, whether they are perfect or absolutely imperfect, are entirely useless or contrary to our Art.

I then found myself like a person in a wood who has lost his main road and does not know which way to turn his steps.

I took the Cosmopolite , opened it unexpectedly, and read the following (page 38).
Let all the Sons of Science therefore know that it is in vain to seek seed in a cut tree; it must be sought only in those who are green and whole.

This last passage, which overwhelmed me without resources, nevertheless seemed to give me new hope; there is no doubt, I say to myself, that the metals which have suffered the fire of fusion are dead and without action, one must not go into the mines to take them before they are melted down; consequently I had asked in England for lead and tin, and to see to it that it did not get wet; but reading a few days after the Light coming out of darkness , a very excellent and superiorly written work, (page 496), towards the end of the page, I read there:

Hence it comes that the metals which have suffered the fire of fusion remain as dead, because they are deprived of their motor and external.

I was very satisfied with this passage, which did not confirm my idea, and was impatiently awaiting my Mines d'Angleterre; but taking up offices this Author I read there (page 439, last line).

But whatever wretched Chemist may infer from this that the imperfect metals being still in their mine, might well be the subject upon which the art must work; when granted the consequence, it would always be inappropriate for him to undertake to work on them, since we have shown that the mercury vapors from which these imperfect metals were formed, or the places of their birth were impure is contaminated, how then could they give this purity which one asks for the elixir. It belongs only to nature alone to purify them or to this blessed aurific sulphur, that is to say, to the perfect Stone.

Farewell then my poor Mine, fortunately for me that the commission was not made.
I resented this Author very inappropriately; for his opinion was confirmed to me by the Cosmopolite (page 58), where explaining animal, vegetable and mineral nature, he maintains there with just reason, that nothing is produced in Nature without seed; that the metals have in themselves their seed, like the other two kingdoms, and that they can be multiplied like them in their seeds for which to operate, Nature does not have sufficient heat in the earth.

I spent several years reading; but without being able to understand where the hare was lying, and my mind was so downcast that I had hardly taken a book and read a few lines than I left it at once: however full of my readings and knowing in my mind what that I needed without being able to find it in books, I read in Le Trévisan (page 330) where he says, speaking of the Work in general:

It is so easy that if I told you or showed the art by effect, you could hardly believe it or hear it, so easy it is; but it is a little difficult to hear our words and to know their true tension.

I had previously read in Philalète , volume 5 (page 93), where he says on the same subject, the following words: I swear to you on my faith that if we only said the diet and how it should be done, and there would be even the madman who did not laugh at our art, which several other Authors have confirmed.

Although I would have liked its Authors to have spoken more clearly, in order to hear them more easily and reach the true goal, I made fun of the Trevisan ., when he said that I would find one day that he had spoken too clearly, and that I myself, if I had it, would write more obscurely than he. I looked upon him as a deceiver and an entertainer of readers; but at that very moment I excused him on the ground that this science was a gift from God, which he himself distributes to whom he wills, they can no longer speak uncovered, for fear that this art should fall between the hands of a few wicked people who divulge it as it has been said above, from which inconveniences would come, which God will only allow at the end of the world.

She exists, I'm sure of it, I said to myself; it is sufficiently explained in the books. To understand it, if God allows it, let us therefore have recourse to him, and let us try to bend his mercy. I continued my vows, my prayers to the Eternal Being. Until last Christmas Eve, returning from Midnight Mass, I was excited to re-read my Authors, and as I read them I found myself the most knowledgeable. I have not left the work day and night; for I got through it with only three hours of rest. These three keys of nature, one of gold, one of silver and the other of iron, struck continuously. Good God, I said to myself, if I could only find one of their locks, surely I could discover the others; it is certainly salt, sulfur and mercury; in short, I was forging a thousand and a thousand different ideas in my head. and as I read them I find myself the most instructed.

I have not left the work day and night; for I got through it with only three hours of rest. These three keys of nature, one of gold, one of silver and the other of iron, struck continuously. Good God, I said to myself, if I could only find one of their locks, surely I could discover the others; it is certainly salt, sulfur and mercury; in short, I was forging a thousand and a thousand different ideas in my head. and as I read them I find myself the most instructed. I have not left the work day and night; for I got through it with only three hours of rest. These three keys of nature, one of gold, one of silver and the other of iron, struck continuously. Good God, I said to myself, if I could only find one of their locks, surely I could discover the others; it is certainly salt, sulfur and mercury; in short, I was forging a thousand and a thousand different ideas in my head. if I could only find one of their locks, surely I could discover the others;

it is certainly salt, sulfur and mercury; in short, I was forging a thousand and a thousand different ideas in my head. if I could only find one of their locks, surely I could discover the others; it is certainly salt, sulfur and mercury; in short, I was forging a thousand and a thousand different ideas in my head.
I had never been able to understand anything in Flamel where the Jew Abraham taught the first subject: let's see, I said to myself, this treatise; and as Flamel explains there (page 199): here is what he says:

Because even though he knew how to figure and paint intelligibly, in the 4th and 5th leaves of the Book in question; however no one would have been able to understand it without being very advanced in their late Kabbalah, and without having well studied the Books of the Philosophers.

This is how Jewish Abraham explains next, (page two hundred).

First, on the fourth leaf, he painted a young man with wings at his heels, having a caduceus rod in his hand, twisted by two serpents, with which he struck a helmet covering his head. He seemed to me the Mercury God of the pagans. Against him came running and flying with open wings, a tall Old Man who had a clock strapped to his head, and in his hands a scythe like Death, with which, terrible and furious, he wanted to cut off the feet of Mercury.

On the other side of the fourth page, he painted a beautiful flower on the summit of a very high mountain, which the aquilon shook very harshly. It had the blue stem, the white and red flowers, the leaves shining like fine gold, around which Aquilonian dragons and griffins made their nest and their dwelling.

On the fifth leaf there is a beautiful rosebush in bloom in the middle of a beautiful garden, leaning against an oak tree; at the feet of which bubbled a fountain of very white water, which was about to precipitate into the abysses; nevertheless passing first through the hands of countless peoples who dig in the earth, seeking it; but because they were blind, no one knew it except someone who considered its weight.

On the other page of the fifth page, there was a King with a large cutlass, whom he had soldiers killed in his presence, a great multitude of little Children, whose mothers wept at the feet of the pitiless Gendarmes, and this blood was then after, picked up by other Soldiers, and put in a large vessel, in which the Sun and the Moon of the Sky came to bathe.

This passage has always struck me more and more; and as soon as I got bored in my reading, I read it with taste without it ever putting me off, and each time it provided me with new ideas, without understanding the true meaning, it is the same with another passage from the small peasant, volume IV, (page 190 et seq.).
You will know that whoever comes to the knowledge of its flowers is not called by God, guided by faith and by vocation, even if it happens to him in his research of great sorrows, troubles and afflictions; So that this high science will be of great veneration to him when he possesses it like an expensive purchased treasure.
But since you have reached these places, you will see that God authorizes me to say that from these two flowers comes after their conjunction, and not rather, the first matter of all metals; what is confirmed to you by Trévisanat the end of the second part, where he names these two flowers man in red and white woman; but the Philosophers, for many reasons, have said many things on the subject of this first matter to cover it and its root with a veil, and that they also took care not to discover the second matter, whatever it takes. first that you deal with this second matter which is raw and indigestible, which is however the subject of the Stone; you must draw it as from man and woman, which after the conjunction becomes the raw material which I declare to you here with truth.

A third favorite passage is in the Hermetic Triumph (page 222) which follows:
I declare to you that your consequence is very well drawn, this Philosopher is not the only one who speaks of this kind; in this he agrees with the greatest number of ancients and moderns. Geber, who knew the magisterium perfectly and who used no allegory, treats in all his sum only of metals and minerals of bodies and spirits, and of the manner of preparing them well to do the work. ;

but as philosophical matter is part body and part mind, in one sense it is earthly and in the other entirely celestial, and as some Authors consider it in one sense and treat it as high. another ; this has given rise to the error of a great number of Artists, who under the name of universality, reject all matter which has received a determination from nature, because they do not know how to destroy particular matter in order to separate from it the grain and the germ, which is the pure universal substance which particular matter contains in its bosom, and to which the wise and enlightened Artist, knows how to render absolutely all the universality which is necessary for him by the conjunction which he makes of his germ with the universal material, from which he draws his origin.

Do not be frightened by these singular expressions, our art is cabalistic; you will easily understand these mysteries before you have come to the end of the questions you intend to ask me about the Author you are examining. which is the pure universal substance that particular matter contains in its bosom, and to which the wise and enlightened Artist knows how to render absolutely all the universality which is necessary for him by the conjunction which he makes of his germ with the most universal matter , from which it originates. Do not be frightened by these singular expressions, our art is cabalistic; you will easily understand these mysteries before you have come to the end of the questions you intend to ask me about the Author you are examining.

which is the pure universal substance that particular matter contains in its bosom, and to which the wise and enlightened Artist knows how to render absolutely all the universality which is necessary for him by the conjunction which he makes of his germ with the most universal matter , from which it originates. Do not be frightened by these singular expressions, our art is cabalistic; you will easily understand these mysteries before you have come to the end of the questions you intend to ask me about the Author you are examining. from which it originates. Do not be frightened by these singular expressions, our art is cabalistic; you will easily understand these mysteries before you have come to the end of the questions you intend to ask me about the Author you are examining. from which it originates. Do not be frightened by these singular expressions, our art is cabalistic; you will easily understand these mysteries before you have come to the end of the questions you intend to ask me about the Author you are examining.

Reflecting on these three passages, I nonchalantly closed my third volume and reopened, (page 54) I came across this fourth passage from the twelve keys of Basil Valentine , which bears:

Also, notice that wine has a volatile spirit, for in distilling it, the spirit comes out first and the phlegm last; but being by the continuous heat and turned into vinegar, its spirit is no longer so volatile, for in the distillation of vinegar, the aqueous phlegm rises first to the top of the still, and the spirit last, whatever it may be. the same matter in both, there are nevertheless other qualities in vinegar than in wine, because vinegar is no longer wine, but a rotting of wine, which by the continual heat turned into vinegar, and all those who have been drawn by wine by his spirit and rectified in a circulatory vessel to many other forces and other operations than what is drawn by vinegar; for if one draws the glass of antimony through the wine or through one's spirit, it is too laxative and purges with too much vehemence from above, especially as its poisonous virtue not being overcome and extinguished, it is still imprinted of poison; but if you extract it with distilled vinegar, what will come from it will be of a beautiful color, and then, if extracting the vinegar by the bain-marie, you wash the yellow powder which remains at the bottom, by pouring many times of the common water on it and by withdrawing it as many times and removing all the strength of the vinegar, then a soft powder is made which does not let go of the belly as before,

This powder, put in a humid place, resolves into a liquor, which, without causing any pain, is very sovereign for external diseases: let that suffice.

After reading this last Chapter, I felt completely enlightened. I was beginning to understand the first matter of which Basile Valentin very finely had just given all the preparation under the species of antimony condemned by the Philosophers, I meditated for a while and finished my reading with the following passage from Trévisan .

But if you opposed me to our Stone by saying, just as well she acquires nothing, I tell you that if done; because we reduce it so that in this reduction there is a conjunction of new materials from the same root, and without this reduction cannot be done, but there is addition of the material, so of these two materials one helps to the other to make a nature more worthy than it was when it was all alone apart and also it clearly appears that our reduction is required, for after it the materials take on new forms and virtues, and if puts new nature ; but in such reduction as they say, nor does he put new material into anything they do; for it is nothing else than to cook a matter bare in form without innovating or exalting anything by any acquisition of matter or form, and thus it clearly appears that their reduction is only mad and erroneous fantasies.

This last passage, joined to the previous one and naturally combined, opened my eyes so much that I no longer had any doubts about where to find the first material which is the sperm and seed of the metals that Nature continually presents to us to unite them. to the magnet arranged by art; to this end, so that, beginning where nature ended, she can follow the last operations with the help of art, and push her work from perfection to more than perfection to gratify the imperfect and perfect metals, which the Nature could not do in the mines, for lack of sufficient heat, just as she cannot separate the spirit from the wine, unless art, putting the wine in a boiler with a certain degree of heat,

If the Artist gave the pip of the grape to work to nature reduced in salt, and made it operate like miracles on weak and spoiled wines: my intention is not so much here Madam, to talk to you about the first matter, I would think it superfluous to move on to operations, especially since I could be mistaken, having never operated, although I once provided a lot of coal, oil and money at Fort l'évêque to an illustrious prisoner who had been released only a short time, who wanted to extract soot from chimneys, then antimony, which is only in the gilded cabinets of Hermès: here is only what I think we should do without giving it to you as a sure rule. Your wine must be drawn three times, it must be purified for thirty days, extract the white wine and the red of the Philosophers from putrefaction, which must be carefully kept apart;

it never spoils when the vessels are well blocked, it is necessary to have a good supply of both of them, in order not to run out of it as did the foolish Virgins, the accomplished eagles of Philaletes. You have to compose your philosophical egg with one part red and three parts white, which makes the Rebisof the Philosophers, their living Mercury, their water which dissolves metals as easily as hot water dissolves ice, their double Mercury, animated this red servant and the white woman who asks for a degree of chicken heat in the egg which is that of nature; the white is done in a bain-marie, the red in the fire of ashes, the accomplished white, we soak up to seven times, and when the stone is in brilliant atoms like the Moon, we stop to take one.

part if one wants to transmute into money; but if you want to push it red, start the imbibitions with red wine, as the Stone is thirsty, you give it to drink with the precaution at the end that you always have to cover the material, because that if the imbibitions were too weak, the fix would not dissolve, and the work of nature in transmuting the Mercury into gold, would immediately arrest what it is essential to notice both in the white and in the red. The Stone is then fermented either with silver, if it is white, or with gold, if it is red water; but for medicine there should be no fermentation, which would degrade the goodness of the Stone for the human body.

A single bulk of gold or silver for fermentation is enough. The projection on silver for gold is the most abundant, silver only needing a little baking to equal it. I will not go into any further detail, reserving myself, as soon as I have had time to operate, to give a precise idea of ​​all the manipulation, and of what one sees in the egg,

Attach your especially Madame, when you begin to understand where to get the first material, to read and reread a hundred times if necessary, the Hermetic Triumph ; for it is to him to whom I have the greatest obligation. He will explain to you, as if to the letter, how to make the metals reputed to be dead alive, metals I compare to a peach pit which would remain eternally in its nature, if art or chance did not put it in the ground deep enough to find its natural menstruation, which in the proper season, aided by celestial influences, forces this nucleus to open to let out from its bosom the germ on one side and the root on the other, which produce a living tree from a nucleus which seemed dead; it is the same for the metals which are not the only ones from Trévisan, which well to consider; put them in their proper soil, nature is one in all things, and from death they seem to you they will soon be alive to pump from the air and from the Earth what they will need to grow, to multiply like the nucleus, and even multiplied rather purify by their more than perfection the imperfect metals.

But a major mistake, which has set me back perhaps many years, is a bad translation that has been made of the Emerald Table of Hermes , which I am very happy to reveal here: I have the the obligation to Trévisan , although the author of the Triomphe Hermétique had similarly corrected it; but I had never paid attention to it, passing all these articles without reading them. Hermes says, or rather makes him say, it is true, without lies certain and very true, and that what is below is like what is above, and what is above is like what is below to make the miracles of one thing. Trevisan says :

It is true dream and very certain that the high is of the nature of the low, and the amount of the descending. Conjoins them by a means and by a disposition.
So you see, Madam, that according to the first Table we should only take one subject, instead of according to the Trevisan, it is necessary to join the top with the bottom, which is the fixed with the volatile, the patient with the agent, the sulfur with the mercury, the husband with the wife, the father with his daughter, the brother with the sister, the uncle with niece, and finally, a male with female; it is true that this female like Eve must have come out of Adam; it is on these articles that a single word that I will whisper in your ear will immediately restore you to the facts as I do; but knowing your penetrating mind, I think I tell you enough to equal me and have no need of my help. There will surely be other people into whose hands these letters will fall, who will not be sorry that I have lain down,Emerald Tables above, satisfactory for a beginner, I took the liberty of composing a third one here:

Draw from chaos your salts, sulfur and mercury, putrefy, make the eagles of Philaletes , form your egg from its yolk and from a white; Cooks, soaks, ferments, multiplies and projects; thus the world was created and drawn from power into act.
You have had knowledge of this Table, I even think that you have the explanation of it, to which I beg you to have no regard; I did not then know the first matter; so that you could go backwards instead of forwards.

In a very short time you will receive the marvels of the Stone on the three kingdoms of which I spoke to you above, it will be a powerful spur, not for you, Madam, but for those who work only for the reward.

I don't think you find it wrong that I make this work public. You just saw in the Cosmopolitanthat there cannot be too many honest people who know the great Work and that it would even be very useful if all virtuous men were instructed in it, just as all the Kings of Egypt and Persia once were ; but all this is in the will of the supreme God who gives it to whomever he thinks fit: happy only that he bestows this grace on each of us; for although I am advanced and even educated, knowing thoroughly the first matter and approaching how it must be drawn from limbo where it is asleep, I would not boast of knowing it until after real transmutations and cures of hopeless diseases, always fearing to resist my brother's repeated advice to give up almost every letter he formerly wrote; for having sent him two too hastily,

I end by making the same prayers to God as Flamel (page 260), Philippe Rouillac(page 234), and promises him if he grants me this grace to use it well for the increase of the Faith, for the benefit of my soul, of the poor in general, of the girls abandoned to marry, and to the increase in the glory of this noble Kingdom at the head of which Providence has just placed a second Solomon, who has chosen as counselors and ministers what there were of the wisest and greatest personages among his people, who to execute his orders and his will, seek only the quickest means, on the one hand to discharge the debts of the State, on the other to reduce the burdens of a people considered too alone, a people who never stop and will never stop making prayers to Heaven for his King, his brothers, the whole Royal family,and such an illustrious assembly whose present and future glory will forever be celebrated in history, as the reign ofNestor or that of the Golden Age. May it please Heaven that I can provide enough to repair the misfortune that has just befallen the former domicile of the Kings; and to accomplish more expeditiously such noble designs, which in all other hands would appear impossible, so that this grateful people might immediately enjoy an execution which is not deferred for lack of funds. As I also end by assuring you of the deep respect with which I will never cease to be,

Madam your very humble and very obedient servant.

The Touraine Sancelrien
Paris this January 23, 1776

PS I was putting what I promised above of Nostradamus prophecies ; I will satisfy it immediately. It is article 30 of the fourth century (page 36).

No more eleven times luna sol will want,
All increase and decrease in degree,
And so low put, that gold have sewn,
After hunger, plague, discovered the secret.


In here is the explanation literally : in the time of Nostradamus, gold was eleven times more valuable than silver; no more eleven times luna sol will want , will mean to be worth ; all raised and lowered in degree , that is to say, the silver will be increased in value and the gold diminished; and so low put that little or one will sew , sew means to care, that is to say, that it will be made so common that they will no longer resent me; after hunger, plague, discovered the secret ;

which means that the secret of transmutation being made public and having no more subordination to it, the end and the plague, plagues of God will follow what will happen at the end of the world, Nostradamuspredicted it long beforehand, which is why all the Philosophers keep such a profound secret until it pleases God that there be no more manual labor on earth, which will happen as soon as the poor who are occupied today, either in cultivating the land, shaping the vineyard, or in other difficult works, will be in gold and silver at the level of the rich person whom he currently makes work, and pays him a fictitious currency a food that this rich person will not be. no longer in a condition to be procured, neither for gold nor for silver. What will become of my brother, all your fellow dignitaries of this noble and distinguished Church, these Canons, Provosts, Beneficiaries, Vicars and your little Chaplains, when these wheat crops, this fat poultry, this fine game and selected fish that come to you today today while sleeping,

Solve hoc vinculum mi frater.


Second letter.

Containing the wonders and virtues of the white and red elixir of the Sages, on the three kingdoms of Nature.


I keep your word, Madam, and as the content hereof is pure speculation, you have only one reading out of curiosity to do, which will not divert you for long from that of my first Letter. , on which I await your response, as well as your feelings on this.

To observe that once instructed in the first matter, the work is no longer for the Philosophers, but a Lady's amusement and a child's game.

You will not be surprised at what our Stone can operate, having already, I believe, read it in the work that I let you delight from, although all these marvels seem to you against nature, however the Philosophers assure that the Stone operates yet more surprising things is that I hope to check with you. Courage, Madam, I hold Jacob's mysterious ladder and I will offer you a hand so sure that you will have nothing to fear to climb it.

I cannot for the present give any instructions, but on the embarrassments which you will be able to meet in your readings, I will satisfy it on the spot. Take your time, and after finishing on my first letter, read carefully what follows, it will be the common reward.

Of the wonders and virtues of our white and red Elixir, on the three kingdoms of Nature.

NOT
Your medicine preserves us from all the dispositions that can happen to us, because surpassing all other remedies in virtue, it cannot only cure diseases that are ordinarily believed to be incurable; but still, it communicates to the person a very good disposition up to a certain number of his descendants, by prolonging to them the ordinary course of life until until the term prescribed by God, which is natural and not accidental death. .

I cannot, on this, give you a more judicious comparison, than that of a perfect or defective candle.

If we come out of a healthy, strong and robust father and mother, the candle will be complete, for the wax and for the wick. If our fathers and mothers are of bad constitution, or one of them, the candle will not smell, either for the wick or for the wax.

This lighted candle, natural death and its entire consummation; but if the wick is badly made, the wax filled with broth, let something fall on the wick and extinguish it, sometimes at the beginning, sometimes in the middle, two-thirds, three-quarters of the remaining candle to burn; here is the accidental death that the bad constitution of our fathers and mothers, or of one of them, gives us, or that we give to ourselves by our debauches, passions or intemperance; we often die at the beginning, at two thirds, at three quarters of our life, of a forced death which I call accidental death, caused by our own fault. Our medicine can repair these faults, and lead us to natural death, but not beyond it.

God has entrusted to those who possess this precious gift, the freedom to be master of life and death, to bind and to loose; he made them, so to speak, demi-gods, to live more than a hundred years, in proportion to their humanity, because there have been these Philosophers who have reached 400 years of age, and they have even gone as far as thousand ; but all do not think so, and those who do not want to prolong their life have the motive that, living in this world of misery, they are deprived of a more pleasant stay; for it is certain that this Science so vividly represents eternal glory, that after having abandoned the vanities of the age, one wishes only to adore God, and after this life, even face to face the Creator in Paradise.

Another decisive reason warns us, that though the Philosophers may preserve their vigor, as in their tender youth, and at the same time retard old age, nevertheless, because the time of their life is prescribed by the Almighty, they are not in no condition, when the time has come, to prolong their days, and to immortalize themselves.

There are many philosophers who have been believed to be dead, and who, however, very long after their supposed death, have been seen alive; they themselves spread the rumor of their death, because being daily in danger of being tormented or of being imprisoned, on the reputation they had of being in possession of the Philosopher's Stone , they changed their name and country, they traveled and still travel today, they will travel incognito, until the last hour of their life, as I would be obliged to do myself, if I was too tormented after possessing this secret.
Leprosy, gout, paralysis, stone, deciduous disease, dropsy, venereal disease, smallpox, and all the accidents that accompany them cannot resist the virtue of this medicine.

It should only be noted that simple diseases are more easily cured than compounds: for example, if the inconvenience had been for a hundred years, it would be completely cured in a month; if it had been for about fifty years, it would be over in a fortnight; if was twenty years, in eight days; seven years in two days; and finally if the disease lasted a year, in one day we would see the cure.
This medicine makes the deaf hear, the blind see, the dumb speak, the lame walk; she can renew the whole man, by making him change his skin, fall out old teeth, nails and white hair, in the place of which she causes new ones to grow, according to the color one desires

Although this elixir cures the most rebellious infirmities for a very few days, it can also cause death, even reduce to ashes a person who takes too much, as some of the Philosophers have unfortunately experienced; because then, by the excessive use they had made of it, it was recognized that the heat of the remedy was superior to that of the stomach hour; but here is how we take it with precaution: we mix one or two grains of our elixir in a vase, with good white wine, which immediately turns yellow; we drink it and regulate the quantity according to the strength and temperament of the patient; that if the Stone had been multiplied once, the grain would have to be mixed with a thousand grains; if it has been multiplied twice with 10,000 grains, and always in the same way, in proportion.
It is prepared even more easily as follows.

Have caused a sheep to swallow a grain of this elixir in some liquor, or a quarter of a grain to a fowl: they kill, four or five hours later, the animal which has suffered the force of the medicine, then they cooks the meat that can be eaten with confidence, and the broth of which can be taken without fear of any danger.
If one mixes this elixir with the ordinary plasters for external diseases, such as ulcers, fistulas, cancers, scrofula, burls, buboes, and generally all kinds of galls, it procures in a very short time a perfect cure, and makes another very special operation is that after the wound is healed, the scar is not noticed, and the skin becomes whiter than snow itself.

For the embellishment of the face, to remove all the scars caused by smallpox, or other accident; it is the real talc oil of the ancients, it rejuvenates and makes the complexion ruddy; if you only spread a drop or two on it, it spreads so much over the whole face that it gives it an extraordinary whiteness; it even keeps the face so fresh that after the death of the person it appears very little changed, for it not only penetrates the skin, but also the skull and all the bones.
It would be to be hoped that the ladies would enjoy this treasure, but it should also not fall into the hands of certain people who could misuse it;

for if it is useful on several occasions, on others it is capable of perverting all nature; indeed, one could imagine that a woman having only scented this elixir, is immediately delivered from the labor of childbirth, with such great ease, that it seems a miracle; it also brings out the fruit, in a few months that it is of its maturity, if one puts some on some plaster, which one has in the suitable place.

A single drop put in this place, and so warms a barren woman, that undoubtedly she becomes pregnant for whatever virtue a man can have; he himself on occasion can use it like the woman, and whatever old and powerful he was, without in any way hurting nature, he would be sure to engender; one more drop of this elixir placed on the temples of a young lady, or on the chin of a young woman, takes on such a sweet odor that when they pass in the street, or enter some house, one smells this odor which lasts near of fifteen days.

This medicine has other even more incredible virtues. When she is at the elixir au blanc, she has so much sympathy with the Ladies, that she can renew and make their bodies as robust and vigorous as they were in their youth, so that they do not appear to have more nineteen years old.

For this effect, one first prepares a bath with several fragrant herbs, which they must rub well, to cleanse it; then they enter a second bath, without herbs; but in which one dissolved, in a pint of spirit of wine, three grains of the white elixir, which one then threw in water; she remains a quarter of an hour in this bath, after which, without wiping herself, they have had a great fire prepared to dry up this precious liquor, she then feels so strong in herself, and their body is rendered so white , that they could not imagine it, without having experienced it.

Our good father Hermès remains in agreement with this operation; but he wants besides these baths, that we take at the same time, for seven consecutive days, internally this elixir, and he adds, if a lady does the same thing every year, she will live exempt from all the diseases to which are subject the other ladies, without feeling any inconvenience, nor preventing her from conceiving, by then using our elixir, as before.

If it is given to a youth of six or seven years old, well constituted of one or the other sex, it will increase their growth in such a way that at eight years of age they will be one and the other. as trained as another child of fifteen; the boy in a state to engender, and the girl to conceive. I would never have finished on the article on the animal kingdom, if I wanted to report here all the marvels that it works there. She is the precious preservative of the plague, of the bad air; and consequently of its coarse mists, which entirely destroy the chest; she prevents a man from getting drunk, she excites the passion of Venus, preserves the wine in her goodness, serves as medicine for him when he is spoiled, drives away all kinds of poisons, and what is most admirable, she makes sing in winter the linnet, the canary,

To keep oneself in perfect health, one can take it at any time, but it is better that it be two equinoxes; for then man renews himself with nature: as far as other operations are concerned, there is no determined season, it is only a question of having perfect powder, to know his goodness, one must mix little by little in the spirit of wine, and there must issue from it ardent golden sparks, and appear in the vase an infinity of color.

We should not be surprised at so many rare virtues, if we examine that the point of view of our elixir is perfection, even the more than perfection of nature, which preserves the four elements, or the three principles in one. due equality, until God permit their destruction, according to his holy will, and his designs upon men.

Because finally, death is nothing other than the destruction and separation of the elements that make up the body from nature, there is no doubt that if we can always maintain a fair temperature, without one principle overcomes the other; the body never died, which would be facilitated by the subtlety and fixity of the substance of this medicine, which because of the abundance of radical humidity, the principle of all things, can put into continual action the heat of the mixed, and particularly that of animals, which makes one say, with reason, that it is a subject worthy of admiration, which performs an infinity of miracles, which are only phenomena of simple nature, but which the ignorant believe be the production of magic, not making reflections, that it is to sacrilege and an impiety attributed to the Devil what is due to the Author of Nature especially since the evil spirit does not operate anything supernatural, it only applies the active things to passives; for he does not even know the future, by a real mark of his ignorance.

With our medicine, we can bring roses four times a year, and so multiply the virtue of the rosebush, which will produce half as many leaves and flowers as usual.

Not only can one also extend the virtue of flowers, trees and vegetables, to make them bear fruit four times a year, they themselves will produce it every month; and far from their strength being diminished, it would be increased a hundredfold; and this, by means of our medicine, which is the terrestrial Sun, constantly spreading its fertile rays, from the center to the circumference, and so fortifying the nature of the Mixts, that they surpass their ordinary state in strength at each production.

The most delicate plants, which find it difficult to grow in climates of a temperature different from that which is natural to them, being watered with elixir, become as virtuous as if they were in their own soil.

This medicine renders all sorts of herbs suitable for seeding and growing in the middle of winter, poisonous plants are even so purified of it, that if one comes to use it then the same evils as they might have been produce before being corrected, they heal the person on the spot; the buttercup of the meadows, named by herbalists, apium risus , kills laughing when one has eaten it; napel is so venomous, and its poison so violent, that there is hardly any counterpoison capable of remedying it, even until then, if one slept in its shade, one would then be so drowsy, that you couldn't get over it, as two shepherds experienced in the Tiburte countryside.

In a word, the cenit , the nightshade , and the mangasbravas of the Indies , have become so pressing, that as soon as one has taken them, one becomes enraged; but if those parts antipathetic to the nature of animals are corrected and tempered by the superior force of our medicine, then they are more specific than would be the remedies drawn from minerals, which must abound in a salt all the more proper to serve as counterpoison, which are derived from arsenic , sandarac , and orpiment .
To correct these plants, we draw the juice of the very plant that we want to make bear fruit, and we dissolve two grains, more or less of our elixir, in a pint of this juice, with which we then water the root of the plant, and because this juice is very similar to the same plant; it is easy to believe that the heat of medicine uniting intimately with that of the simple, it makes them in a very short time contrary to their first nature; as to malignity, by making them produce in a tree fruits better than others of its kind, and if it is a plant, flowers more beautiful than the natural ones, with more agreeable colors, and a stronger odor, so that they can be kept for a long time, being less corruptible than the others.

Some Philosophers have taken pleasure in not only producing grapes in the vine every month, but they put one more grain of the physical powder, dissolved with wine, into the center of the vine root, and it produced leaves and grapes marked with several small spots of gold very pleasant to see, the same pips and were as imprinted as if they had been gilded on purpose.

One can still entirely destroy a seed of its germ, and then one restores it to him in greater quality and quantity; we take, for example, a pound of beans, we boil them, then we let them dry; it is certain that by the degree of fire they will have suffered, the germ will have been entirely destroyed; and consequently, they will be unable to produce, but if one wants to revive and bear fruit the broad beans, one dissolves in the same water which they will have boiled, two grains of medicine, and then one soaks the same broad beans there; they will not fail to become impregnated with the vegetative virtue of which they had been deprived.

Indeed, that one sows the three kinds of broad beans at the same time, and of the same primitive quality; to know, of those which will have been boiled, which he far from profiting from, will rot in a very short time in the earth; that one plants some which is not boiled, they will push according to the heat and the good weather; that one sows those to which one will have restored the lost life, they will take half less time to push than those ordinary, and will bring back to the hundredfold; it would be the same with all grains, if one wanted to take the trouble.

Another singular experience: take a whole plant, and very dry, if you had to powder it with your fingers, like tobacco, let the root soak in a liquor prepared with our elixir, and in four hours time, the plant will begin to green again, as if it had just been pulled out of the ground, and later on it will bear the same flowers and the same seeds that it would have produced before, which will go on to the most perfect maturity.

Palingenesia.

O
n take our medicine, we dissolve it with the spirit of wine, which we mix with equal parts of distilled water from the same plant that we want to reproduce, we add three large of its own salt ; one puts it in a vase which must not be filled up to the neck; it is then placed in a place, without stirring it, and three days later, a plant is seen to grow there, similar to that from which the water had been distilled and the salt extracted; the plant always remains in this state; but if we move the vase, the form of the plant is destroyed, it nevertheless returns to its first shape, if we leave it to rest for three more days: this is one of the ways of doing palingenesis; nevertheless it is certain that if one had the three principles of a rose, so astralized and separated from their heterogeneous parts, that by a means, uniting between salt, sulfur and mercury, a salt was made which melted at the slightest heat; it is true, I say, that by putting this salt in a vase, one would see inside the entire representation of the rose.

Thomas Aquinas, in the Book entitled Letter of Beings, says that one can, by artifice, accompanied by nature, in the space of an hour, draw from the seed of a cucumber, the leaves, the flowers and the fruits ; to prove it even more, he adds these words: because I saw, while we were at table, to start dinner , we sowed the seed of cucumber, in a prepared ground is watered with a certain water made on purpose, and immediately the seed sprouted, leaves and flowers sprang from it , and then the fruit which was served to us at table , before we were halfway through the meal . (Meal at the Saint Thomas III H. table.)

Raymond Lully, reports that if one takes the value of a grain of millet of this medicine, that one dissolves it in water, and that one then puts it in the heart of a vine, until At the depth of the concavity of a hazelnut, flowers and branches will arise artificially, which he says he did with his own hands in the month of May.

This prepared earth and water are nothing but the first and second magical Heaven; superior and inferior gold, which being both united together, as the principle of all mixtures, are the first being of common gold, in which we find likewise the first being of cucumber and vine, which gives them give such prompt virtue; for then their three principles, active and constitutive, being increased in the supreme degree by the nature of our medicine, and no longer acting on their terrestrial parts, the cucumber and the vine no longer have any difficulty in growing in a very short time. time, because they have all the required heat; than if they remained two or three months to wait for the influences of the elemental sun; the same thing could be done with all other plants, because likewise; that cucumbers can be grown; one could also have at any time, grapes, apples, pears, strawberries, raspberries, melons, peas, and other vegetables and grain of all kinds, as well as pineapples and other foreign fruits, all in their perfect maturity and kindness.

Virtues of our Elixir on Stones.


The changes the stones, both natural and artificial, into precious stones, he removes the stains from the latter, he fixes when he is white all the stones which have the color white, such as diamonds, sapphires, emeralds and daisies; if the stone is green, it makes emeralds of its color, if it is the color of the rainbow, it makes opals, with the yellow powder, that is to say, before 'it becomes red, it is made into yellow stones, such as hyacinths, yellow diamonds, topazes; and finally with red, it is made into carbuncles, rubies and garnets, which surpass in beauty and virtues the oriental stones, and it then rises to such a high degree of perfection that it puts their fellows to shame; we see the experience of it in the crystal that this medicine reduces to a diamond so fine, so dazzling, so brilliant, so heavy, and so fixed, that there are more diamonds than the diamond itself; it is however necessary to notice in this operation the degree of heat; for the crystal would be calcined by a violent fire, which does not happen later, when it is internally penetrated by medicine.

We should make even better use of the crystal that we would have made with white stone, three grains of which poured into a glass of fountain water, make it hard and transparent at the time, like real crystal.

If you want to make pearls from the seed of Orientals, or shells; we take some of their seeds, and we dissolve it in our medicine, which will easily reduce it over a low heat, like thick jellies: it is this jelly that we can form with the hands, and to which we give such shape and size as we want, even if it is like the pearl that we show in the gallery of the Grand Duke of Florence; these pearls are usually made round; to make them, one takes a mold of silver, gilded inside, well polished and separated into two parts, like those of pewter potters.

We form the pearl, we take care to make a small hole in it, so that a golden thread, like a hair, can pass through it; the two halves of the mold are then filled with said paste, with a gold spatula, the gold wire is placed in the middle, the mold is closed, and the wire is passed and ironed to make the pierced beads, after which the mold is opened, the pearl is placed in a golden dish, as well as its lid, without touching it with the hands; it is left to dry in the shade, without any ray of the sun appearing on it. When they have thus all been made, and that they are well dried, they are passed through the gold thread, without touching them, and they are dipped in the spirit of wine, in which one will still have dissolved some elixir, we remove the pearls, and dry them a second time,

Our Stone still has two very surprising virtues; the first with regard to the glass to which it gives all sorts of color internally, such as the windows of the Sainte Chapelle in Paris, and those of the churches of Saint Gatien and Saint-Marin, in the city of Tours; it also makes the glass malleable, similar to the cup that was presented to the Emperor Tiberius; it is only a question of insinuating into it a certain fixed oleaginousness, which it lacks for extension, and uniting it perfectly well in all its parts; so that one could strike and beat this glass on the anvil, like all the metals from which it derives its origin.

Were gold, with its beauty, to be compared with this glass, we would build houses of it which would hardly ever perish, and through which we would see everything that happened outside, without being able to be seen outside. inside, by the way it would be posed.

The second singular quality of our stone or elixir, is that if we dip a cloth or any other combustible material in it, the fire cannot consume it, nor give harm, even if we mix it with Ordinary oil, for the lamp, if it is incorporated with wax, to make torches or candles, they will ignite and burn continuously, without being consumed, particularly if the wick is made with asbestos, feather alum, or gold thread without silk.

Our Stone is dry water that does not wet the hands, a damp fire that does not burn; by means of this small world, we can see everything that is in the big one, we warm up the cold things, cool the hot ones, we moisten the dry ones, we dry the wet ones, we redden the white ones, we whiten the red ones, we soften the hard ones, we harden the soft ones, we melt the frozen ones, we freeze the melted ones, ripened the raw ones, we reincrust the cooked ones, we soften the sour ones, we sour the sweet ones, we clean the dirty ones, we dirty the clean ones; we give life to the dead, we take life away from the living, we increase the small, we reduce the large, we thicken the subtle, we subtilize the thick, we make the sweet salty, and the bitter sweet; and finally one makes volatile what is fixed, and the fixed volatile, by marvelous operations.

With this Stone, the Philosophers see, as in a mirror, all future things; and it is by this divine Science that Moses wrote, that Nostradamus composed his centuries, which the Sage admires in secret, and fools despise publicly, because they do not understand its mysterious and hidden meaning.

It is by this science, and especially by the elixir of red, that the Philosophers have risen above the common run of men, by predicting the future, they are not only content to speak of general things, they clarified particulars. They knew and predicted that there was to be a universal Judgment one day, which would have preceded the consummation of the centuries, that all the dead will be resurrected in their bodies, that during this resurrection, the souls would join it to not be more separated, that the glorified bodies would be of incredible clarity and subtlety, penetrating the most solid things, instead that the reprobate will always be in darkness and obscurity, they will suffer all kinds of martyrdom, by the only thought they will have of the happiness of the elect,

They have recognized what happened, during the creation of the world, and what must happen during its end, by the extinction of the centric fire, by the rupture of the vessel which preserves it in its entirety; vessel that this great God seems to hold in his hand, under the representation that they formerly left to us of a globe: they have again insinuated his infinite in nothingness what has once come out of it, during the consummation of the centuries, will exalt his most holy Majesty, will raise the most pure fire which is in the firmament, above the celestial waters, will give a degree of strength to the central fire, so much so that all the waters will dissolve into air, that the Earth will be calcined by the violence of the fire; so that this fire, after having consumed all that is impure, will steal the waters that he has circulated in the air, and return them to the purified Earth; so that God will be a nobler world than this, where all the elect will dwell, like Adam, our first Father, in the earthly Paradise.

Hermes , first father of the philosophers, long before the divine Moses , did he not tell us; for me if I feared the day of Judgment, and to be damned, for having hidden this Science, I would not have said anything about it, and I would not write to teach it to those who will come after me .

Virgil , in the 4th of these epilogues, interpreting Cube's Sibyl; did he not prophesy the coming of Jesus Christ , with these words: Utima cumoei venit , etc.
Plato , did he not write in his works throughout the Gospel of St. John , In principio erat verbum , to the word, follows homo missus a Deo ; as Saint Augustine relates in his confidences and confessions; although St. John did not write his gospel very long after Plato 's death .

The philosophers, by means of their elixir, can compose different mirrors, as if miraculous, in which one can see what men write and deliberate far from us, for or against the interests, which is very clearly justified in the Old Testament. , in the fourth book of Kings, chapter 6, where Elysium , Prophet Philosophers, and possessor of one of these mirrors, discovered to the king of Israel , the undertakings of the king of Syriaagainst him, even those which this king had not communicated to any of these subjects; let this chapter be read in its entirety, and it will be seen whether this I have written marvels of our elixir, and worthy, or not, of the greatest attention and firm faith; we see there appear terrestrial and compact objects, diaphanous and aerial, as are the elementary spirits, invisible to ordinary men, with their operations and constellations, which is further justified in what Elysée reports, in the same chapter quoted .

It still represents an absent man, as if he were present; when there were several hundred leagues of distance between the two people, they will speak to each other and receive an answer just as intelligibly, as if they were only a few steps apart; in short, they can be written, as you can understand, in the country everything that happens in the others, without sending letters or mail.

They can see there uncovered, and without difficulty, what Heaven and Earth cannot conceive, and by their means, find the Mercury of the Philosophers, and see it as clearly as if they were holding it in their hands; we distinguish its color, which is sapphire, mixed with white.

They can also, by means of their mirrors, see their sulphur, which is of celandine color, a rich treasure of vegetative nature, find it and be able to pick it in such abundance as they wish, without ever risking finding it . the end, and of these two materials, to compose a new mirror which will appear only red, but so filled with fire, that by the least movement or agitation, it would burn and consume, at a certain distance, all that met, also quickly, like fire from thunder, in the same manner as Elijah did to the soldiers of Acab , see the first chapter of the fourth Book of Kings, where is the proof of what I say.

They can make yet another, which represent all that is in the moving and still air, as it is made under the right constellation. We see surprising effects, but natural to those to whom God gives the grace to know its virtue. And finally, a last fiery mirror, equally useful by its concave part than its convex part, this mirror can make the rays of the sun so multiplied, that it can burn and destroy entire cities from afar, consume armies of sea and land. , as it is reported that Archimedes did formerly , on the ships of Metellus , who besieged Syracuse and Procolla , when the Turks wanted to take Constantinople for the first time, which he would never have achieved, if he had not died before the last siege, unless the carving was done by night, without moonlight.

The manipulation of these mirrors is very easy, if one knows how to compose the waters which separate the darkness from the metals, and then to form this metal, of which they are made, of which the ice must preserve a red gold color like blood; one melts the material, one lets it cool until it forms an ice, which one polishes carefully.

We then form the physical mirrors, and we give them the rules of the dioptric, it is necessary that all these operations be completed in a short time, so that the resplendent matter which serves to make them represent our marvels, is in its greatest force, and then by testing the mirrors in the sun or in the moon, it makes a very beautiful light.

It is this light which illuminates man in an instant, makes him understand all languages, which makes him penetrate the bottom of the sea, the bowels of the earth, the creation of the world, and parts of the miracles of God, in the order that reigns there; one sees there, as in the page of a book, what the earth contains on its surface, at the distance of the horizon; in a word, those who are happy enough to know how to compose such mirrors, however bad men they were before, however false religion they professed; even if they were the greatest atheists who have yet appeared, they are suddenly changed in their hearts, become completely good people and in the highest virtue.

Besides these mirrors that can be made with this compound metal, we still make the real talismans, rings, seals, images and magic figures of our ancestors; and according to the influences of the planets which served for their composition, they operate various marvels; for then this matter containing in potency and act the virtues of heaven and earth, by the marriage, so to speak, that one makes of celestial signs, with metallic bodies; they operate an infinity of miracles, which will not be believed after experience.

Moreover, one can still, on this metal reddened in the greatest fire, walk boldly, without burning oneself; they are made into bullets and small shot for hunting, which will kill two or three dozen partridges in a single shot, if they were crowded together and, at a short distance, without any of them escaping; swords, sabers, daggers, pikes and knives are made from them, endowed with such great penetrative force that they will pierce the hardest bodies. A man would be invulnerable when he wore only a helmet of this metal, so that musket balls, cannonballs, bombs, grenades, carcasses, and other lethal weapons could never make the slightest bruise to the person ; on the contrary, they would immediately break into a thousand pieces, and the shards sent back to their source,

It is the same with the ornaments of the horses, because if one makes them with this metal bits, queens, and horseshoes, they will be able to gallop in front of a battery of cannons, without fear of being damaged or injured in any way whatsoever.
Of this same metal, at the bottom of kitchen vases, either for drinking or for eating; if one comes to put in poison of any quality and that it is, immediately the vase sweats and drives out several large stains, which one easily recognizes to be the malignity of a poisonous thing, for which one does not would know how to take a better counterpoison than the very matter which will have remained in the vase.

By means of this metal, one can cause storms on the sea, appease them, make calm continue, make reign the winds of East, West, North-East, make generate clouds, dissipate them, make appear the sun , rain, thunder, snow, hail, at all times.
It is also capable of preventing anyone from saying or thinking ill of the wearer, it enlightens it, and makes it satisfy strange spirits; he finally makes him explain and resolve the most equivocal arguments, and the most difficult enigmas, as Solomon did to the Queen of the Sabbath , and Daniel to King Nebuchadnezzar , as well as Joseph to King Pharaoh .

See the story of the prophet Daniel chapter 2 and 4, and for Joseph , in the book of Genesis , chapter 40 and 41.

If you fill a barrel with rainwater, let it stagnate, then separate the clear, azure water from its impurities, expose it to the sun in a wooden vessel, and that we throw in it a drop of our incombustible oil, we see that darkness rises, as during the creation of the universe, which makes Hermes say precisely, in his emerald table, thus the world was created.

After which, if you put two drops, the light separates from the darkness, finally, if you put three, four, five and six drops consecutively, you can clearly see everything that happened in the six days. of creation, which Moses so skillfully detailed for us by God's permission.

This seems so admirable and so incomprehensible, that it is impossible to be able, in writing, to give the circumstances in detail; one would even have difficulty in believing, if I advanced that one sees passing there, as in a procession, all the men of name who possessed the secret since Adam , until the last of today deceased , and that one recognizes them there very distinctly, and the difference of the sex.

We see there what body Adam and Eve had before their fall, that she was the serpent , the tree and the forbidden fruit ; what the earthly paradise is, where it is located; we see there in what body the just will be resuscitated, and what we have received from Adam , what is this flesh and this blood which is born and engendered in us by the Holy Spirit and water ; for we shall not be raised in the body which Adam left us by inheritance, but in flesh and blood regenerated by the Holy Spirit and water , and such a body Jesus Christ our savior ascended into heaven

If we take the seven metals, according to their planets, whose figure we imprint in their proper hour, that we put all these metals in a crucible, and according to the order that these planets hold in the sky, starting by Saturn , that one closes the windows of the room where one makes the operation. we will be surrounded by a celestial flame, which will have been caused by this elixir that we will have poured into the crucible to melt the metals, all that is then in the room, will appear as shiny as the sun: one sees above his head the whole firmament, as it is represented in the Starry Sky, one sees the sun, the moon and the planets, with their same movement that they make all the year; but in the end everything will disappear in a quarter of an hour.

If we take a little more of our stone with rainwater, put the whole thing in a stoppered vase, the third part of which is empty, and put it in a place where it cannot be shaken in any way, we will see in the full moon this water increase so much that the vase will be completely full of it, in the waning of the moon, the water will decrease in proportion, as it had increased, and yet it will will always retain its same weight and quality.

If at each full moon, when it is on our horizon, we retire in particular to a garden, and throw our powder into the rainwater; little by little it will rise exhalations with great force, even in the concavity of the moon, and if one continues each month this operation, there will be no Philosopher who has the knowledge of the Stone of the Sages, of which one does not know the name and the residence; for everyone at the same time will leave his house, the and will turn his eyes towards Heaven and the four parts of the world, he will notice that this work can only be done by a true Philosopher, and having the same science and at the same time of the full moon by similar operations, he will answer to the first Philosophers who, by this means will be known, and he will thus know all those who live under the horizon.

For this subject, the same night which will have been answered by a similar flame, it will be necessary to anoint the temples with our white elixir, to pray God devoutly that he will give us the grace to know the one who will have answered, stopping strongly his imagination in this one desire, he will fall asleep; and when one is awake, one recalls in one's memory what one has seen during the night, and one knows at the same time the name and the residence of all the neighboring Philosophers, and under the horizon; that if they could not be found suddenly, they would take the first steps to come; presumably imagining that the new Philosophers would not yet have the full revelation of the whole secret.

Philosophers make themselves loved by whoever they want, make themselves respected everywhere, appropriate the science of others, can invent machines where a single man in a trade will work and earn more in a day than fifty other men can. would do in the same trade, following the ordinary routes; they have boldness in what they undertake; and in battles they always win the victory, provided, however, that he bears the Stone upon them, which likewise prevents them from being struck by thunder; finally, this elixir makes those who use it with such angelic wisdom, there is nothing in the universe that they do not know, from the cedar of Lebanon , to hyssopfrom on the walls; they still know the virtues and properties of everything there is on earth, and know how to extract from the greatest poison the most salutary medicines.

He who uses our elixir, for nine mornings, and rubs his temples with it, is made so light that he seems to him to be all air, capable of being able to fly, like birds, and to make himself invisible, by his great agility. I won't say anything more, being just to save something for a third letter; I would only respond to what the Sophists oppose, against the miraculous cures that we do.


First argument of the Sophists against universal medicine.

It is impossible, they object, that three particular subjects can be cured by the same remedy; if they differ all three in being, in constitution, in food and medicine; the creatures of the three kingdoms in nature differ in being, constitution, food, and medicine; they cannot therefore be cured by the same remedy.

answer.
I admit that the form of the creatures is different; but it is not the same with matter, because these subjects being drawn from the elements, and there must doubtless return there; it is obvious that the same elements and drugs will serve all three of them equally.

Second argument.
Animals feed in part with plants, and plants also draw their food from animals: thus, what relation to the mineral kingdom had animal and vegetable.

answer.
It is impossible for us to do without salt, which is obtained from minerals, as from the base and foundation of this universe.

Salt is the most purified part of the earth, water and mercury are its most spirituous, and sulfur is the bituminous matter, it gives movement and degree of perfection to the two other principles, which, all three united, compose the metals and the minerals; their nature is the same as that of animals and plants, they all differ only in the species which the Sovereign Creator, in the creation of the world, infused by his holy word into each particular creature, so that it multiplied in its genus and species only.

The metals have more than that of sulfur and mercury; and this is why they have their roots much deeper in the earth than vegetables which abound more in mercury than in salt and sulphur, why they push their pipes, their leaves, their flowers and their fruits into the air, and leave their roots in the earth as the coarsest part.

Finally, the animals which abound more in sulfur than in salt and mercury, participate in a mobile, volatile, terrestrial and aquatic body, because they have a sensitive soul which, after the death of the animal, returns to its sphere.
The hardest bodies therefore participate in material elements, unlike delicate bodies which hold more of the spiritual essence of these same elements.

This must make it clear that the subtle elements must act on the gross, as the purest creatures dominate over those which are less so, in much the same way as minerals are subject to plants, and reciprocally these to animals. , to always have together a suitable relationship, and that the most subtle of the three, that which has the most salt, and the purest, can be used in medicine for the two other kingdoms. Any sensible man will agree on these principles, otherwise if against his own lights he persists in his error, any answer, I would refer him to this passage from Philalete , page 11.They are so hard-headed, that whatever signs and wonders they can see, they will never give up their sophistication, and never get back on the straight and narrow .

I stop here to give the public two works on the first subject which deserve their full attention, and which I think I will be grateful to, as well as some remarks which I have made on the last.

The first serves as a closure to the twelve keys of Basil Valentine , page 70.



From raw material
Of the stone of the philosophers.

A stone is seen, which is sold at a low price,
From her a fleeting fire its origin takes.
Our stone of him is made and composed,
And of white color and adorned with red.
She is Pierre and not Pierre, and the nature in her,
Can alone demonstrate his unparalleled virtue,
To make a clear flowing stream flow out of her,
Into which she will go her suffocating Father,
And then he dead, greedy will graze,
Until his soul in his body will be reborn.
His Mother, who is of a flying nature,
In power be him and in all resemblance,
And in the truth of his reborn Father,
To much more virtue had which had not before.
The Mother of the Sun transcends the years,
In age, for this purpose, by you Vulcan aided.
His Father nevertheless precedes in origin,
By his spiritual Being and divine Essence.
Spirit, Soul and Body are contained in two.
The magisterium comes from one, who alone and one being,
Can assemble the Fixed and the Leaky together.
She is two, she is three, and yet she is only one.
If you are not wise in this, you will hear nothing.
Wash in a bath Adam the first Father,
where bathes Venus, of voluptuousness the Mother,
Of a horrible Dragon this bath was prepared,
When all his virtues and strength he lost,
And as the Genius of Nature so aptly says,
It can only be called the double Mercury.
I am silent, I have finished, I have named Matter,
Happy, thrice happy, who understands this mystery,
Don't let worrying boredom surprise you.
The outcome will show that there is no desire.

The second, in Theatrum Chemicum, volume 1, page 28.



Key
Testament Arnaud de Villeneuve, and works of all the sages.

After having purified and exalted by fire the Stone of the Philosophers coming out of the earth, and that it is filled with a very limpid water which increases visibly in less than twelve hours, put it in an oven where the air is dry, and as soon as it has been purified by the vapor of a moderate fire, extract the heterogeneous parts; as soon as it is purged of faeces, it becomes suitable for the work; being thus prepared and ready for use, one draws a virgin salt from its purest parts which one immediately encloses in the philosophical egg; take great care to keep the most even heat for the cooking of the material, which will then pass through several colors, with its companion, until it reaches the white color, which will delight the Artist,

Explanation of the places that seemed to me the most difficult to understand.

Lapis Philosophorum , the Stone of the Philosophers: this first matter, as well as its preparation, and the fire to be used, are the three articles on which the Sages have been most reserved, agreeing that the surplus is only a work of women and child's play. Basil Valentine , in the verses above, designates the first matter and its preparation as much as possible; if we pay serious attention to what he says about it, he is not the only one who qualifies her as Peter: the Hermetic Triumph, page 210, agrees that the first matter we must take is truly Stone in the state of its first preparation, since it is solid , hard , heavy , brittle and crumbly .

He's not the only one they call Peter. Calid , in his secret of Alquimie, page 93, speaks there in this way: it is a Stone city, black and stinking; which costs almost nothing, it is a little heavy , and he finally adds, this is the revelation and opening of the one who seeks it .

The fine Cosmopolitan , in his treatise on salt, page 254, expresses himself thus. It is a stone and not stone: it is called stone by its resemblance; firstly, because its ore is truly Stone at the beginning that it is drawn out of the caverns of the earth, it is a hard and dry matter which can be reduced to small parts, and which can be crushed like a stone. stone .

Secondly, because after the destruction of its form which is but a stinking sulfur which must first be removed from it, and after the destruction over of its parts which had been composed and united together by Nature, it is necessary to reduce it into a single essence, gently digesting them according to nature, into an incombustible Stone, resistant to fire and melting like wax : which it can only do by resuming its universality, as observed by the hermetic triumph reported in my first Letter, page 34.

It is doubtless that this first matter, of this divine and supernatural Stone, that it is said in Moses , eduxit aquam de petra et oleumde saxo durissimo .

Before leaving this Stone, I must not omit here a remark of the greatest consequence for beginners, and which stops them short, as has not happened to me. Philosophers, on purpose to confuse, often call this Stone our matter , as I did in their imitation, page 17 of my first Letter, when I put the word our, I did not understand this matter to the coming out of the earth, as all the Sages agree, among others the hermetic triumph, page 210 ; but when it is perfectly purified and reduced to a pure mercurial substance , then only is it our matter, following the sentiment of the Gazette du petit Paysan, du bon Trévisan, de Zachaire and the universal of all philosophers. In igne perficitur seu exalteur .

The same distinction must be made here on the fire on the first matter. The secret fire, that which the philosophers call our fire, is not that which begins the first work; and on this part, there are great distinctions to be made, I will follow as a guide the good Trévisan, page 377, speaking of the work of the Artists, and how it can help nature: one finds there but only fire is all the art that nature uses, for we cannot do anything else with it ; after having spoken of the extraction of our mercury or first matter, page 379, one reads there,but of this I did not want to say anything, for it is the fire which perfects it or which destroys it; and as Aros say is Calid, in all our work our mercury and fire suffice in the middle and at the end, but in the beginning is it not so, for it is not our mercury that is good for hear .

It would be superfluous to cite other authorities to justify the time that must be called our matter and our fire: what I have said will suffice for him to understand in its natural sense.

I must also observe in passing that there are three kinds of gold, the astral, the elemental and the metallic; that the Mercury of the Philosophers contains all three in potency, without which it would not be possible to put them into action; it is also necessary to pay attention that the mercury of the Sages, when the Philosophers call it our mercury, contains and contains in itself its sulfur and its salt, of which one coagulates it, and the other makes it pass into an elixir. white or red, depending on imbibitions; and that this animated mercury is the first material of the metals which nature uses in mines; and that the wise and enlightened Artist provides him on earth, for, with the help of the secret fire, to make of it living metals which art causes it to bring to a degree of perfection above that which is drawn from the earth; to vivify and perfect on earth what nature has not been able to do on earth for lack of heat.Limpidissimae aquae potu satiatus ad minus horis duodecim undique visibiliter tumens .

Our first operation must put our stone in a condition to fatten itself in less than twelve hours, without it being necessary to add anything to it in any way, under penalty of losing everything; the only attention of the Artist is to put her in a suitable environment where she can fill her virgin breasts with a virginal milk that must be milked with caution and precaution as long as she wants to give it, without, in any way , force it, and make a good supply of this milk so as not to lack it when necessary, both for the work and for imbibitions. Deinde in stupha positus , etc.

I find only two difficulties which deserve attention, and these are: quod confestim is the first, cum compare suo is the second? quod confestim, on the spot, this word refers to the two mercurys that must be put in the egg to make it the animated mercury of the Philosophers, who recommends not to lose the heat that it will have acquired during the whole operation. ; this is why they want that at the very moment that we take him from his mother's breasts, we lock him up. And Zachaire, 503, positively prescribes that the junction of these two mercurys, which is the marriage of heaven and earth, take place at the same instant without bringing any delay; and he claims that the end of this conjunction known, the rest is nothing more than the work of women and children's games, being only needed to cook the two materials already assembled ; which seems clear to me.

With regard to the word with his companion , Arnaud de Villeneuve means by this to speak of the two Mercuries that Zachaire, page 504, names the two materials already assembled .

If we reflect on these two materials which must compose the animated mercury (of which we must keep a good supply of each separately to make the imbibitions) and on what the Philosophers have recommended to do the white with the white mercury, and the red with citrine red mercury; and if we pray in this place to Heaven to be favorable, we will not be very embarrassed about the shape of these two mercury, nor about their weight for the egg.

Flamel , page 146, charitably admonishes the reader to pay the most serious attention to these two mercurys; and that he would have been mistaken without the book of Jewish Abraham: he says that the milk of the Moon is not like the virginal milk of the Sun, that the imbibitions of whiteness demand milk whiter than that of the redness is golden in color; but he stops there without teaching anything.
The Hermetic Triumph, page 310, after having said that from our liquor or virginal milk which we draw from the Stone, we make two mercury, one white, the other red, and that we must take care to make mistakes during imbibitions; that the lunar is the white mercury, and the very sour vinegar the red mercury . On page 312, speaking of the cohobations of mercury on his father, he makes a clear cut, saying: si undecies coit aurum, et cum eo emittit suum semen, et debilitatur sere ad mortem usque concipit chalybs et generat filium patre clariorem ; which is the secret of the two mercurys which must be kept separately, and not confuse their species, during the imbibitions, as I have just observed.

It is from these two mercurys, one male and the other female, that the philosophical egg is composed, which when mixed, becomes the animated mercury of the Philosophers, and to which they have given more than a thousand different names; their weight is one of the male and two of the female.

There remains, in my view, no difficulty to iron out; and everything is sufficiently intelligible in the surplus of Arnaud de Villeneuve's will. Here, Madam, the execution of what I had promised you in my first Letter, and the accomplishment of what you prescribed to me by yours of last August 30: you no longer need another Book because I then certify that you have gathered in a few words all that has been written clearer and more intelligible on the first matter of the Sages, on their different fires, the means of preparing this matter, both to place it in the egg for make the imbibitions, either white or red.

The fermentation being found in Philalète and a number of other true Philosophers, I did not think it appropriate to enlarge this Letter to give you extracts from it which you can, like me, find in the Originals themselves.

I hope, thank Heaven, to finally finish all my business this year, and to carry out what I have promised for the next. Everything is in the hands of God.
I cannot better employ my time in my moments of leisure than by working on my third Letter, as I announce in the frontispiece of the first, I would prove the reality of our Stone by all that sacred history and layman have more accurate. I did not think I could do better than address them to my brother, who is denied the possibility, because he has no view of the effects: I take great pleasure in justifying to him by a natural analysis. that I will give of the mysterious meaning of the first week of Moses; that you shouldn't take everything you read literally; and I hope you will be satisfied with this explanation which I shall give of it, of which until now no one has thought. Although several Philosophers, especially Philaletes, point out the double meaning, without explaining that in relation to the great work only, the Light emerging from the darkness , whose name of the author is unknown, has not, in my opinion, struck at the real goal. As my intention in this respect is only the glory of God, and as I do not intend in any way to touch his worship, but on the contrary to increase it as much as it will be in my power, I will take the liberty, if You allow me, Madam, to send you my manuscript, and I will submit it to your correction before passing it under the eyes of my Censor. I am, with the deepest respect,

Madam your very humble and very obedient servant.

The Touraine Sancelrian .
In Paris, this March 19, 1777.

PS: I finish my previous one with a Centuria of Nostradamus , whose explanation, although natural, did not jump out at the first sight. In fear that one might reproach me, and Nostradamus , that the reported Centuria was the only one, in his Works, which relates to Hermetic Philosophy, I will give a second, which is the 67th of the third century, page 30.

A new sect of Philosophers,
Despising death, gold, honors and riches,
Germain mountains will not be bordering,
To follow them will have support and presses.

It cannot concern the brothers of the Rose Croix, born in Germany itself, and who still make their stay there today, whereas the Hermetic Philosophers, of whom Nostradamus speaks here, must not even be bordering, neighbor of Germany, which are the German mountains designated because Prophet, there is only the one sect of Hermetic Philosophers who despise death, gold, temporal honors and riches: this sect must open the eyes of those who will listen to them, and will see the miraculous cures that they will operate, since they will be supported by a power: what is announced by the words will have support, and each one recognizing the truth of what they will prophesy, will hasten to follow them, and aggregate among them, which is signified by the word and press .

The third that I will report in the Letter that I address to my brother, positively indicates the city of Tours, from which must come a Philosopher who will have great difficulties; but finally will reach the desired goal. The name of his wife is named there except for a Letter which has been separated from it by Nostradamus , to make an Anagram.

END