If the Philosophers' Stone is in Nature
Before explaining what the Philosophers' Stone is, we must find out if it exists in reality and if it is found in Nature . We find in fact many subtle minds, convinced of being equipped with a superior and penetrating intelligence, who think that there is neither existing nor found in reality something which transmutes all imperfect metals into true gold, and which leads to their conclusion all things which suffer from a defect.
If they had reasoned minds, they would not invent such nonsense. Gold and silver do exist in Nature, they are within everyone's reach and fall before everyone's eyes. Since therefore gold and silver are found in Nature, it is necessary that there exists something from which gold and silver are made; they do not , in fact, constitute a new creation of the creator. supreme of all things, but they are made by nature which draws them from a precise and real material. Now, this material, from which the gold and silver found in nature are made, can be obtained and brought to its conclusion in such a way that, joined with gold, it can by its perfection produce the completion of all imperfect metals . Therefore if, when it is enclosed in the veins of the mountains, this material produces gold by a single and unique natural cooking, what will it do if by the process of a cooking repeated many times in a vase of pure glass, it is completely annealed with gold and acquires supreme perfection, so that it penetrates and reaches the pores of imperfect metals? Will it not completely put this imperfection to flight and chase it far away?
Now this substance, from which gold and silver are produced, is given to us. Thus, thanks to the chemical art, it can be brought to such a perfection that it brings to its completion and its accomplishment the imperfect substance of metals. He is therefore blind, truly blind, and does not have the rational mind, the one which denies the existence of the Philosophers' Stone in reality. If he cannot believe this argument and reason, let him read Hermes Trismegistus. The Arab Geber, other authors, almost infinite in number, who all prove, by other arguments and reasons, that the Philosophers' Stone exists, that they themselves made it and that they had it in their hands . We must believe the authority of such a large number of philosophers. Otherwise, we must count among the number of fools those who cannot remove such absurdities from their minds. Perhaps they would like to be thoroughly instructed in order to possess this art by which they could manufacture gold and silver at will.
Let them consider this, I prayed to them: Heaven would rain gold and pearls sooner than this happened. The gods sell any price of sweat and toil, and in particular this art, the acquisition of which requires the highest degree of work and sweat. We must therefore consider and firmly believe that the Philosophers' Stone exists and is found in Nature, since there is a material and substance from which gold and silver are produced. This matter can be brought to complete perfection and so that the perfection it acquires through art brings to perfection everything that suffers from a defect. Thus, we can conclude that the Philosophers' Stone exists sustainably in Nature.
What the Philosophers' Stone is in Nature
Since the previous chapter, we can reconstruct what the nature of the Philosophers' Stone is. We have in fact affirmed there that it is itself the matter or seed from which gold and silver and other metals exist. But this is too obscure for those who only pay lip service to the chemical art . We must now examine what this material and this metallic seed consist of. In fact, this seed is not seen in metals, so many, not seeing it, deny its existence. In fact, their brains are like an eye: they only believe what they see. But Hermes Trismegistus affirms that metals have a seed, from which they grow. He further affirms, in his Emerald Tablet, that what is above is of the same nature as what is below. Thus, animals and plants, which have the surface of the earth, and which are truly superior beings, have a seed from which they grow.
And therefore, the lower beings that are minerals and metals, seed like higher beings, animals, for example, and plants. It cannot therefore be denied that metals and minerals have a seed from which they would be produced and grow. But what is this seed, and by what process is it produced in nature, this is what we must now investigate. Animal and plant seed in fact comes from the elements and the sky. In the same way, the mineral and metallic sentence also comes from the elements and the sky, in the following way: the sky projects into the elements and in particular into the center of the earth the purest of its rays and influxes.
This is then digested and completely cooked by the natural heat of the center of the earth itself, and then by its own means, until this purest part of Heaven and all the elements forms a body and this body forms a mind. In this way, this substance is transformed for the first time from a spirit into a body, then this body is transformed again into a spirit which, through union and repeated conjunction with its body, finally becomes a spiritual substance possessing some bodily thing.
This substance is nothing other than this fixed body that philosophers call sulfur of nature and which finally, enclosed in the veins of the mountains, once its center is fixed, becomes fixed in metal. If it is pure, it turns into pure gold. If it is impure, it changes into an imperfect metal and the impure metals diversify and are distinguished according to the diversity of its impurity. Such then really is the metallic seed, forged from the celestial flow and the purest substances of the elements. At the same time as it sublimates and circulates through the pores of the earth, it is impregnated with various contaminations. Since it encounters impurity in the impure and soiled pores of the earth, it is from this impurity, as I have indicated, that the various imperfect metals are born, namely lead, tin, quicksilver. silver, iron and copper. But if this pure seed is enclosed in pure rocks, it cooks into gold and silver by its own natural heat and the natural heat of the earth itself.
This metallic seed therefore occupies a central position in the matrices of metals, as in the places where metals are generated. It is truly the stone of philosophers because it is precisely from this pure reality, and which a cooking due to art makes even purer, that is obtained the stone which brings to its perfection everything which suffers from a defect. This is how imperfect metals perfect themselves until they become gold or silver, to the extent that they suffer a similar defect in the chemical Art. This stone is no different, and the substance remains similar in every way to what it is in nature . But men don't know how to use it; they use it excessively where it serves no purpose, but produces bad rather than good .
What is the nature of the body possessed by the Philosophers' Stone, and what clothing does it wear?
This chapter contains the entire art and reveals it to the Sages who know the chemical Lion. Indeed, once we know what the body of our Lion, or Philosophers' Stone, is, everything else is only women's business and children's play: we must cook as long as necessary and have patience and time until the much desired work is completed. If the stone is the quintessence of Heaven and all the elements, it cannot have any other body, nor wear any other clothing than the body and clothing of salt. Indeed, while it is cooked in the center of the earth, this spirit cannot, through this cooking, put on any other garment than salt. Because in this salt, we see all the elements. We see fire because of its heat and the brightness it displays; we see the air because of its porosity and its whiteness; we see water because of its diaphaneity and humidity; we see the earth because of its corporeality and its compact mass; we see the sky because of the remarkable characteristics and properties of the Sun, the Moon and all the stars, so that all the causes which produce the salt itself are enclosed and seen in it. What more could we wish for in such an exceptional subject, which we call the Stone of the Philosophers, although it is not a stone and does not have the nature of a stone? However, it is called Stone, because it melts and liquefies in water, which stones do not do. In fact, they do not liquefy in water, nor dissolve there, but on the contrary harden and grow more and more.
Venus of our stone dwells in the water which hardens the stone material and cooks it in the very midst of the waters. Consequently, our stone, or seed of our metals and quintessence of Heaven and the elements, cannot take on another body or another garment than that of salt. The enormous heat found in such matter produces the body of salt, which is required by nature itself. For since nature must shape and generate everything by itself from its own body and its own mind, this cannot be done by any body other than salt, the latter naturally possessing the ability to produce and generate everything. Other bodies cannot accomplish this without having been reduced to this matter which is the first of all.
Raw material which cannot be reduced into another substance, otherwise we would be in the presence of an infinite progression. But, after all things have been reduced to this first matter, then there are produced from this matter varied and infinite generations, according to the disposition that various agents have given it, generations which order this matter in various ways and produce from 'she all mixed bodies. We must therefore conclude that the stone of the philosophers cannot take on any other body or clothing than salt. It is found and resides everywhere where no generation can take place. And where something is generated, this matter is used in its generation
By what names is the Philosophers' Stone designated
We cannot list all the names by which the Philosophers' Stone is designated; or else it would lead to the creation of an enormous work. It is so true that it is designated and named after everything that exists in nature. I will only indicate the main ones and those which are useful to our art, and I will show and develop the reasons which pushed the Chemical Philosophers to designate the stone by such names.
1 - It is therefore first called the first material of things, because it is truly the first material of all things, and everything that is produced and exists comes from it and is reduced in it by natural putrefaction.
2 - It is also called Microcosm, because it contains all the elements within itself. It contains the Sky as well as all the properties of the Sky and all the elements. It indeed contains within itself the Sky, the sun, the moon and all the stars, which makes philosophers say: our subject alone brings together the Sun, the Moon and all the stars, and thus there are so many remarkable characteristics in this subject that we cannot stop thinking about it. 'to amaze.
3 - It is also called the Eagle stone, because it contains within itself another stone hidden within it. So true is it that it is from itself that the stone of the philosophers is brought to its true and completed state: this is how it finds itself hidden in its own bosom.
4 - It is also called Water of Life. It in fact resurrects our King who was dead, that is to say the gold which really finds death during the usual fusion by which it is extracted from its mine. Indeed, the spirit of this gold disappears during the fusion, and as a result, it loses its life. Once the life has been taken from it, and it has evaporated, gold is said to be dead. And when she returns and clings to him, he is said to regain life and rise from the dead. It is called Water of life because it delivers all men from all their illnesses and prolongs their lives.
5 - It is called Venom, because it kills metals and leads all things to putrefaction, so as to regenerate them and bring them to a better state.
6 - It is also called Spirit, given that it is volatile, that it rises into the Sky, that it makes all metals shine and that it generously gives them life, like a true spirit of life .
7 - It is called the supreme and unique medicine, because it cures all human illnesses as well as metals.
8 - It is called Sky, because such matter is incorruptible like the sky, and acts like the sky on all objects of nature, in an invisible and spiritual way
9 - It is called Cloud. She indeed brings celestial water, rain and dew, from which her own water responds, so that she produces her fruit which is none other than her Mercury.
10 - We call her Rosée. In fact, it falls from the air and it nourishes and fertilizes the water with its germs, so that virgin milk arises and flows from it.
11 - We call him Shadow. It darkens the waters and the elements and causes eclipses of the Sun and Moon.
12 - It is called Moon because it is its natural property to be cold and humid and,
13 - It is called clear star and Lucifer, because in the work it shines brightly morning and evening, which is quite astonishing to see.
14 - It is called Permanent water, metallic water of life, incorruptible leafy water. It persists in water, air and earth and no element can corrupt it.
15 - It is also called fiery water and water of fire. It melts all metals, much more than all coals and flames , and fire itself cannot do better.
16 - It is still called niter and rock salt. It indeed has the properties and qualities and it is obtained in a similar and identical way.
17 - It is also called Laundry, because it cleans and erases metallic impurities and its own; in this way she achieves absolute purity,
18 - She is called Bride, mother, wife, Eve, and she really is. It is from her that in fact our king of royal sons were born.
19 - She is also called pure and immaculate Virgin. She indeed remains pure and chaste, although she gives birth to sons. She suffocates and kills her children as well as her own husband, then she resurrects them to an incorruptible and immortal life.
20 - It is called Virgin's Milk, because its liquid comes out of its earth like milk and hardens in the vessel which receives it into a butter which softens in the heat and hardens in the cold.
21 - It is called Blood, because it blushes like blood. It turns red and contains the spirit of life, like blood.
22 - It is called Bath because it cleanses and purifies our king and makes all metals sweat.
23 - It is called Pomegranate Syrup because of the pleasant sourness which brings joy to all things.
24-It is called very powerful vinegar in that it eats away metals and dissolves them.
25 - It is called Lead because it is a heavy and heavy material and because it blackens like lead.
26 - She is called Venus of nature, in that she ignites and consumes everything, ripens and cooks it.
27-It is called Moon Spit, in that it is expelled from the celestial moon in the form of water, like spittle.
28 - It is called Serpent and Dragon since it swallows and completely devours metals and contains venoms within it.
29 - It is called child's urine and white calf's urine because of its acridness and its considerable stench.
30 - It is called Magnesia, in that it attracts and draws towards itself metals, and in particular the Sun and the Moon, because of their perfection.
31 - It is called Dung, in that it smokes its water, makes it fertile and fertilizes it.
32 - It is called Metallic Essence, and it really is since metallic bodies are produced from it and have their origin from it.
33 - It is called matter of all forms. In fact, it produces them, leads them towards their perfection and preserves them.
34 - It is called Iris because of the many colors that manifest in it as in the iris.
35 - It is called Chaos because all the elements and celestial powers are mixed and confused in it.
It is called and designated by an infinity of other names, which it is not necessary to develop because those which precede are sufficient to illuminate the meaning of all the others and allow the understanding of the Chemical Authors. Indeed, whatever the names they give it or the clothes with which they dress it, they all understand by this this one and only Universal and Catholic material.
If the Philosophers' Stone is sufficient itself, with its earth and its spirit, to achieve supreme perfection
All the chemical Philosophers who have brought the Philosophers ' Stone to its perfection proclaim that there exists in Nature a subject unique who possesses in himself what is necessary to achieve his extreme and absolute perfection. Indeed, nothing foreign or external enters into its composition. For he has in abundance what he needs for his own perfection. However, it is necessary to remove from it the excrements which are its impurities, which do not belong to its nature and until these impurities are separated. Cooking is necessary for it, constant and continuous, so that it acquires extreme perfection. It is not necessary to add the common Sun and Moon to it for it to achieve perfection, because the stone itself has within it the sun and the moon, which are joined within it.
This is why philosophers say this: our Stone cannot be brought to its perfection if the Sun and the Moon are not linked in a single subject, which is found only in it. It is in it, in fact, that the Sun, the Moon and Mercury were naturally linked. They are even inseparable:
its perfection is found in this subject. This is why chemists say and proclaim this: it is in Mercury that what scientists are looking for is found. For in our subject, which is the true mercury, is found all that is necessary for its perfection. In him there are in fact Salt, Sulfur and Mercury, the body, the soul and the spirit. Therefore, it is Triple and unique, because all three constitute a single homogeneous subject. Indeed, what is cold and dry in him is called Salt or body; what in him is hot and igneous, we call Sulfur or soul and what in him is cold and humid, we call Mercury.
But through constant and continual cooking, these three substances are thus transformed into one, that which is cold and moist is transformed into hot and moist, and finally into hot and dry. This is how the elements found in our matter are transformed, mixed and distinct, and they constitute a single igneous and dry element. Thus salt, because it is part of our matter, is transformed into mercury, and mercury is transformed into fixed and permanent sulfur, which leads everything to its perfection: it is the true balm of life. This is why it restores and renews life in all the mixed bodies of nature, not only in metals but also in all animals and plants . Thus, our stone has within itself everything it needs to achieve supreme perfection. There is nothing else to seek or add to it, whether the metal is perfect or imperfect: this will be seen more clearly in the following chapter.
If gold or silver or some other metal is required for our stone to achieve its perfection
It is perfectly true and certain that the metals which are at the heart of our matter, which are even materially linked to it and rooted in they are sufficient for its improvement, as we showed in the previous chapter. Nevertheless, and although metals alone are totally perfect, since they are volatile and are fixed slowly by our cooking, Philosophers advise adding common gold or silver to our stone so that these volatile metals which are contained in it can be fixed more quickly and thus be brought to their completion more quickly. They cannot in fact reach supreme perfection without having were perfectly fixed and could withstand the test of fire.
Neither common gold nor silver are foreign to our stone, since they are of the same nature as those found inside our stone; the latter being perfectly cooked, matured and set. They fix with perfect fixation, cook and mature gold and silver which are not totally cooked or fixed, and which have not reached their total maturation. This is why we add them so that they mature and set more quickly and are therefore brought to fruition more quickly. In fact, the Mercury fixed, cooked and perfectly matured by nature, added to the unfixed, raw and immature Mercury, is more quickly brought to completion and brought to the desired perfection. In the same way, the other principles, which have been perfectly cooked and matured in gold and silver, having reached their supreme degree, lead to their perfection and their completion the principles of the same nature which in our stone, do not are neither cooked nor ripe by the addition of their extreme perfection. So, we conclude by arguing that there is nothing to add to our Stone for it to acquire its supreme and ultimate perfection, except that, for it to complete more quickly and achieve its perfection , vulgar gold or silver must be added to it. Because through their perfection and maturity, they bring to completion the gold and silver that our stone possesses in its most secret and remote Alcoves.
Why is our Stone Triple and One
The Supreme Creator of all things wanted to leave an Image of Himself in this created world and mark one of the creatures with a symbol of His triple and one nature. Every artisan in fact leaves an image of himself in his works. Thus the supreme artisan, while creating the world, wanted to leave creatures an image of himself, so that every Philosopher would see and recognize God himself in every place, exploring and scrutinizing nature. Our Stone is found everywhere, in all the mixed bodies of nature, and everywhere it is Triple and One. Triple, since in it there are Salt, Mercury and Sulfur, and these three bodies constitute a single subject, homogeneous and identical. And in the same way the Stone is One, and so the Trinity and the Unity are found in it, just as in God.
So, in fact, and that from the Father and the Son proceeds the Spirit, likewise in our Stone, by a sort of analogy and symbol, from Sulfur, which takes the place of the Father, proceeds Salt which takes the place of the Son; and from these two bodies proceeds the true Mercury, like the Holy Spirit who sets in motion, warms and preserves all things. This is why Sendivogius, author of The New Light, expresses himself thus:
One gave two, and two gave one Holy Spirit. Thus was the world created and such will be its end. All things, in fact, are transformed into one since they were created from one, and such will be the end of the universe. For all the mixed bodies of nature will be reduced into principles and these principles, which are three, will be transformed into one: such will be the end of this world. We therefore conclude thus: the Philosophers' Stone is Trinitarian and Unitary, and it has the symbol of the Divinity, which is Trinitarian and Unitary.
What is the nature of the Mercury of the Philosophers which has in it everything necessary to obtain the Stone of the Philosophers
It is not the vulgar and common Mercury which is usually sold among Merchants, which flows like water and which does not wet the hand, since its dryness prevents it from adhering to what it touches. This dryness retains moisture and blocks it, preventing it from getting wet. Our Mercury, that of all the Philosophers, is different and distinct, it is even opposed to itself. It does not wet the hand, although it is salt and has its origin in a saline spring, being a mixture of loosened water and Earth. This Mercury is, however, of a different quality from that of the vulgar, since ours is hot and humid. He who is vulgar is cold and damp and therefore does not wet. And the more common Mercury is cooked, the more fluid and liquid it remains.
Ours, on the contrary, the more we cook it, the thicker it becomes. The more we cook the vulgar, the more earthy it becomes and transforms into non-fusible and impure earth. Ours, on the contrary, the more we cook it, the more it thickens while it transforms into a melting and fire-resistant salt. We can easily conclude that the Mercury of the Philosophers is in no way the vulgar and that it cannot be drawn from it, but that it is only the humid metallic radical which is found in the Stone of the Philosophers.
Mercury of the Philosophers is nothing other than the humidity of the air mixed with heat; that is to say the humid metallic radical, mixed with heat. It is, in fact, necessarily necessary that this moist be hot, because of the innate Sulfur which is in it, thanks to which it is coagulated and fixed into a perfect metal, if it has been purified and rid of its earthy impurities. We can conclude that the Mercury of the Philosophers is in no way the vulgar Mercury and that it itself possesses everything necessary for the elaboration of the Stone of the Philosophers, since in it resides the sulfur and a fire of a perfectly purified nature, which allows the accomplishment of the work of the Philosophers, according to the testimony of all the Authors.
We will conclude thus: the Mercury of the Philosophers consists of the humid metallic radical, or even the humidity of the air mixed with heat, possessing within itself everything which is necessary for the accomplishment of our work. This is what all the Authors whose authority must be trusted testify. For they themselves have seen and touched all these things of which they speak. This is why we absolutely must not assume or consider that all this is false.
What is the nature of the Sulfur of the Philosophers, which, with Mercury brings our Work to its completion?
We cannot explain what the Mercury of the Philosophers is without at the same time explaining what their Sulfur is. They constitute, in fact, only one and the same subject, and cannot be separated. Indeed , what is hot and igneous in Mercury is Sulfur, while what is humid is Mercury. So much so that Mercury always has within it a heat that is natural and innate to it; heat which, in Mercury, is never separated from this humidity.
Which makes many Philosophers say that Mercury has in it an appropriate native Sulfur which allows its moisture to coagulate into gold. The Sulfur of the Philosophers therefore consists of this hot radical which resides in Mercury and in all things. It is thanks to his action that all things are brought to maturity and to supreme and completed perfection. Hence it is through its one and only Sulfur that the Mercury of the Philosophers reaches maturity and perfection: it then becomes gold brought to its completion. This is why, elixir bringing life and total perfection to all things and metals. But it is not possible that, naturally, cooking transforms it into a liquid and penetrating substance, because under natural conditions, the nature of the vessel in which Mercury melts into gold prevents pure and pure Mercury from being brought to it repeatedly . liquid.
Because the fluidity and the penetrating character only come from Mercury: since it is more liquid and perfectly penetrating, it makes liquid the substance of which it is superabundant. This is why the Chemical Art, during the manufacture of the Philosophers' Stone, adds its Mercury three, four or more times to the coagulated Stone: thus, the abundance of mercury gives the stone its fluidity and its capacity for penetration, to such an extent.
so much so that our Stone finally liquefies into a fixed and fluid oil and never coagulates into a hard and solid substance. It therefore remains that the Sulfur of the Philosophers is the natural heat of Mercury, it never separates from it and it is only through it that Mercury reaches its maturity and perfection and is transformed into gold.
Philosophers' Sulfur as an elixir.
The reason which pushed them to such silence could well be that they themselves did not want to reveal the key to the Art. Our Salt, in fact, is truly the key to Art and without it, neither Sulfur nor Mercury can be brought to light. Salt, in fact, hides them from view, conceals them and holds them captive, as in a prison, to prevent them from showing themselves . This is why Sendivogius reports in his Treatise on Sulfur that salt and sulfur quarrel with each other in a fountain, or around a very pure and limpid fountain, and that they fight each other until the sulfur be hurt by the salt in the fountain. It was not blood that came out of his wounds, as would have been logical, but pure milk which coagulated into butter in the container.
This is the basis of all our work, as Sendivogius indicates very clearly in his Treatise on Sulfur, when he reports that this milk, or butter, transformed into a great river in which Diana herself was swallowed up. The sun wanting to save Diana from shipwreck, Diana dragged the Sun and both were swallowed up in this river where they remained until the moment they rose from the dead. All things which show those who have lynx eyes that this is the starting point for the manufacture of the Stone. The Salt of Philosophers that we seek in this chapter is therefore the supreme key to art.
It is this salt which contains the entire Sky, the Sun and the Moon, all the stars and the elements, which contains them in itself and which is maintained at the same time as Mercury and Sulfur in one and the same body. In fact, what gives body to Mercury and Sulfur or, if you prefer, the humid and hot metallic radical, is salt : both, in fact, are corporified by the Salt itself . Therefore , without Salt, nothing can be done in our art and we cannot succeed in seeing and touching our Mercury and our Sulfur. And he who works in our art without this salt, he shoots arrows with a bow without a string.
Therefore, he who knows how to make this salt, so that our Mercury and our Sulfur show themselves and appear there, knows the basis of the art. It is therefore necessary to study and go through all the books of the ancients in order to first of all know this famous salt and its manufacture. Indeed, without the manufacture of this salt we cannot obtain neither mercury nor sulfur to carry our work to its completion. On the other hand, by manufacturing it, we make them volatile, which are fixed in it. Without this volatility, we cannot obtain Sulfur and Mercury, locked up and imprisoned in salt as in a prison. And if we don't make them volatile, we can't successfully purify them and so we can't get our elixir. Whereas it is only brought to its completion from the purest metallic principles which can only be obtained by its manufacture and by its sublimation. Which will be made perfectly understandable in the next chapter.
and what is painful is the dissolution of our salt.
It actually putrefies with great difficulty, after a long period of work, and we cannot reach the end without putrefaction. It must therefore first be putrefied before dissolving it.
Before carrying out its putrefaction, it must be purified with the greatest care. Purification which takes place by dissolving it in rain or dew water which has been distilled and rectified seven times.
It must be frozen and its solution dried by distillation, and only then manufactured and dried until the supreme degree of transformation into gold is reached. It is then, when it is very pure and freed from all foreign bodies, that it must be dissolved in a very large quantity of its own spirit, which must be distilled seven times so that it too is freed from all its impurities; and one must putrefy this solution by one's own mind in a bath of lukewarm water for forty days or for two or three months, until it putrefies and blackens in this bath.
It is then necessary to distill the matter by retort in the ashes and, on what remains at the bottom, it is necessary to cohere the spirit, until it rises like milk, until it coagulates in the container in a body coagulated by the cold, rendered soluble and liquefied like butter by the heat; it must then be distilled seven times into brand new retorts . And we thus obtain the true and perfect Mercury of the Philosophers which, by constant and continual cooking, can be fixed by itself into fixed and permanent salt, which is the true Elixir.
And if we want to use it for the transformation of metals, we must project it onto the molten gold in the crucible. Thus, this salt penetrates the gold and is transformed into breakable and friable salt, however soluble and liquefiable by very slight heat. And as long as it is impregnated with gold, it transforms the imperfect metals on which it is projected. How and when this is done will be made clear in the following chapter.
At what point in the cooking of our Mercury should the perfect metals be added to it?
Many Chemists are in the habit of adding gold and silver at the start of the cooking of our Mercury , in order to more quickly lead Mercury to the state of fixed, white and red Sulfur. Which for my part I do not disapprove of, but abandoning my reluctance, I take a detour through their advice and their opinion. Indeed, the perfect metals, gold as well as silver.
added and joined and our Mercury, complete its cooking more quickly and lead it to the state of fixed Sulfur, white or red, which is the extreme term of perfection and the ultimate goal of Chemists. However, if the perfect metals are not added or joined to our Mercury, neither at the beginning, nor in the middle, nor the end, our Mercury, under the effect of constant and continual cooking, nevertheless ends up become Sulfur, first white and finally red, which constitutes the best remedy for our health and for the prolongation of human life. Indeed, it drives away all defects and cures all diseases, in animals as well as in plants, even if it is not impregnated with gold and silver.
Our Mercury possesses, in fact, in itself the celestial life and light, as the purest seed of all the elements thanks to which it accomplishes and executes in the beings of nature quite admirable and extraordinary actions. . Thus, he is the true, unique and absolute consolation of human life, such as no greater can be possessed in this earthly valley. And assuredly, men capable of reflection and judgment should take much more trouble than they do in the pursuit of such a good; but on the contrary, they consider this study useless and vain.
What's more, they judge those who devote all their care to this study and work to be insane and stupid.
But this is not surprising: work in fact is always considered a folly of virtue. We will therefore conclude that in the cooking of our Mercury, the perfect metals, at least the Sun, must be added and mixed at the beginning of its cooking, because in these perfect metals are found the rays which dye the Sulfur white and the red , perfectly matured and perfectly cooked, so that the white sulfur and the red, which are found in our Mercury are led more quickly to their supreme goal. Therefore, those who work in this way do not act falsely and they do not commit any error, but they act and behave completely according to the rules of the art.
If, to obtain our Mercury there are several different operations
According to what the ancient Chemists report, several different operations contribute to the development and completion of our Mercury. And even, pure in it, so that these pure substances mixed together produce our Mercury.
The operations by which they obtain this are sublimations, distillations, calcinations, cohobations, putrefactions, digestions and several others which all form only one operation, which is, of course, nothing other than cooking. There is indeed nothing to do but cook. It is. in fact, by cooking alone, the impurities are separated.
Therefore, let us purify, sublimate, distill and carry out other similar operations until the fire and water which fight each other in Mercury and wage war with each other unite and become friends. Hence this: make peace between your enemies and you will possess the entire Magisterium. To do this, you should not use a very strong fire, but a very weak and gentle one: in fact, it is with a lesser fire that you overcome everything. Because, in the beginning, fire and water associated in Mercury are not yet completely and perfectly united.
This is why a sharp fire separates them , and once separated, they never meet again. This is why we must leave them united so that in return they do not separate. But they must cook together and digest together, so that they are finally united and that they in turn are transformed into bright white fat or perfectly white butter in the vessel which receives them. This is why Flamel says that his ship in which the Philosophers' Stone was located was half full of the grease of the Mercurial wind and the foam of the Red Sea, which means butter when it is impregnated with gold in solution. There are therefore not several different operations to obtain our Mercury, but only one which we call our cooking. It is she who leads our Mercury to its completion, separates its fat, completes it by sublimation and finishes it by distillation, all these operations constituting only cooking.
Mercury, Salt and Sulfur are found as constituents of this fat and butter.
Salt and Sulfur are bound together in our earth; if we separate them and if, by distillation, we collect them in a container and they form butter or fat, all the more so will all the constituents remain bound together in the butter and fat and they will not be able to never be separated. Thus, by collecting our butter, we collect Salt, Sulfur and Mercury. This is why these three bodies are linked to become one, they are coagulated into one body, they become fixed by one constant and continuous cooking and they coagulate more quickly if they are linked to our gum. This is why it is affirmed that our gum coagulates our Milk and that our Milk dissolves our gum and that thus linked together, they end more quickly by becoming Sulfur, either Mercury or Fixed Salt, perfectly fluid, so that it penetrates and introduces itself into imperfect metals and transforms them into gold.
We must therefore conclude that in our butter and in our fat, Mercury, Salt and Sulfur are linked together to form a single body, so that we can never separate them; all the more reason they are always found together Chapter Vulgar silvers are dead because in melting and liquefaction by violent fire they are stripped of the vital spirits by which they actually grow and live while they are and remain in their mines. These Spirits are indeed volatile and escape easily during the liquefaction of metals in fire and by fire. They then only have a Body stripped of this vital Spirit, and which is therefore truly dead. Therefore, it is said that common gold and silver are dead and therefore cannot be used to bring our work to completion unless they are first brought back to life and re-impregnated . of seminal Spirit.
Thus, we must first resuscitate them before using them in our work, which can be easily obtained if these metals are dissolved in our butter or in our fat seven times rectified. Then, indeed, they are again blessed with an abundant spirit and a vital seed, and much more than in their mines. alive, at this moment useful and essential to the accomplishment of our work. Hence it is that the Chemical Philosophers affirm that ordinary Metals should not be retained, since they are dead and that we should only accept our own, which are living and very much alive beings. This can be explained in two ways.
Indeed, the metals that would be inside our butter and our fat are really living beings, and these are the ones that we usually have to accept, as the authors point out. Indeed, it is only from our butter or our fat that our work can be accomplished, and only by prolonged cooking, until our butter produces white and red Sulfur, fixed and permanent , which is our work accomplished and finished in all its parts. Thus we can explain that the metals included in our butter, because they are truly living beings, are accepted to carry our work to its completion. Secondly, we can explain that ordinary metals can be accepted provided that they are, as they say, resurrected from the dead by the dissolution afforded by our butter and our fat. Thus, we see clearly why common metals are called dead and cannot be used to complete our work, and by what means they are resurrected from the dead to be able to be used to complete our work.
If it is in the ashes or in a bath that the putrefaction can take place from which our Butter or our Fat is drawn.
Wet bodies rot with great difficulty in what is hot and dry, while in what is is humid, putrefaction affects them more easily, as we can see every day, by simple experience. In fact, seeds thrown into the ground would have difficulty rotting if they were not frequently wetted and watered by humidity coming down from the sky. It is therefore necessary that it rains frequently, so that the seeds thrown into the ground are watered and thus rot easily; otherwise, they cannot germinate, if they do not rot first; because through putrefaction, they return to their state of raw material.
Thus, the seed locked inside the seeds and seeds is stripped of the material Structure which imprisoned it and it becomes spiritual and volatile. Thus, it germinates and finds itself capable of causing its own growth. The same thing happens in our Mercury and our Earth: if it does not putrefy, its inner seed, locked in its most secret Alcoves, cannot be made spiritual and thus, it cannot achieve its ultimate perfection. Our Mercury must therefore be putrefied in a bath for forty days: in fact, during such a period, our earth dissolves easily and it binds inseparably with its own humidity, so that, subsequently, at the moment when they are driven out by distillation, they find themselves bound together in a single butter, which coagulates in the cold and which melts in the heat.
Mercury is the basis of all art, without which all of Alchemy collapses, as it it is true that in it nothing can be done which could usefully serve the transformation of metals, nor the preservation and prolongation of life without our mercurial butter and fat; in them are, in fact, really contained the light of heaven, all the powers of the planets and the properties of all the elements. Which means that there is as much power and energy in this one and only subject as this world contains in its entirety. This subject must be putrefied until a germ grows and emerges whose effects are admirable and remarkable.
This must actually be done in a bath rather than in ashes , since everything putrefies more and more quickly in what is hot and humid than in what is hot and dry, qualities which prevent putrefaction, or at least delay it.
Of the Ferment of the Philosophers, what it is and what is its nature
The ferment of the Philosophers, white and red sulfur, fixed and immutable, which transforms our volatile stone into its own nature and makes it ferment, is called for this ferment because, in the same way that the ordinary and common ferment transforms the entire mass of bread into its own nature, it transforms the matter and the volatile substance of our Stone into a fixed and immutable nature.
This ferment can, however, be understood in two ways. Or indeed it is the interior or deepest part of our Stone, initially volatile, which is fixed by constant and continuous cooking, and from the moment it has been fixed, it is called ferment: because the rest of the Stone, although volatile, is fixed thanks to the action of this fixed ferment and is transformed into a fixed and immutable substance. So it is really ferment. The other leaven of our stone is taken from common gold or silver. Because as long as they are dissolved by our stone, they are called ferments of our stone because they fix it and make it ferment into their own substance which, being fixed, transforms our volatile Stone into a fixed substance, by cooking constant and continuous. This is how gold and silver are called ferments of our stone, although we do not refuse the name of true ferment to the gold and silver which are inside our Stone in its most hidden part, because they copy the nature of the true ferment and conform to it, since they conform to the nature and characteristics of the gold and silver of the vulgar.
There is therefore no doubt about what the ferment of our stone is and about its nature, since it consists of everything that can fix our Mercury, our Salt and our Sulfur into a fixed and immutable substance. , which flows and melts like butter. This is how the gold and silver of the vulgar can be dissolved by Mercury just like the gold and silver which are found inside our Mercury in its most hidden part and which can be fixed in a fixed and immutable substance by simple constant and continuous cooking; that they possess the same nature and the same characteristics as the gold or silver of the vulgar, and that, consequently, they use the same process to bring our Mercury to its conclusion and complete its elaboration, it is what is indicated in the clearest way possible by all the authors who, guided by reason and chemical art, developed our Stone and were able to successfully complete its manufacture.
What is our Dragon that swallows its tail, and what is its nature ?
Our Dragon is our material when it is raw and as it is extracted from the Earth. It is called dragon because of the venom it possesses or locks within itself, because it takes on frightening colors and because it is cold and humid in nature, like the Dragon serpent that inhabits the Forests; and also because it contains in its bowels a very pure fire which makes it spit fire and flame in a frightening way. Our Dragon is winged because the Spirit and the Soul are inseparably linked in it, otherwise it serves no purpose in our art and is even completely useless and without interest; this is why it is essential and necessary that he swallows his tail. His tail, in fact, is his spirit which, if it is inseparably linked to his body, makes his body volatile and, consequently, is absolutely essential to our art.
We call this Spirit the tail of the Dragon because, just as the Dragon drags its tail after it, so this body would drag behind it a humid volatility, so that it penetrates the pores of the entire earth , which it is introduced there and thus the nourishment of all things is brought to each of the bodies formed by mixing the elements. Indeed , this Spirit is the universal nourishment of all things. This is why it must be brought everywhere thanks to its volatile humidity, which we call its tail, because where the Dragon moves and transports itself, there also its tail moves.
It is also said that it swallows its tail because it would swallow its own moisture and transform it into its own substance, so that its body becomes volatile and can thus be more easily diffused through the pores of the earth, to generate all things. Which could not be done if it were fixed and immutable, and always remained at the center of the Earth, fixed and immobile. Our Dragon must therefore swallow its tail and be volatile. And in the same way, this is absolutely essential to the accomplishment of our art and to the completion of all Chemical work
What is our Sea, in which there are two fish
of astonishing corpulence, and what is its nature The noble Lambsprinck explains in his emblems entitled The Philosophers' Stone that two fish of astonishing corpulence were found in the Chemical Sea. What is this sea, what are these fish, what is their nature? These are the questions that investigators of our art must now ask themselves. Otherwise they will remain completely ignorant of what must be accomplished in our art to bring the work to fruition. Our sea. So, it is the body of our matter; in fact, since it has the bitterness of salt when dissolved, it is a true sea which has precisely the bitterness of salt. As for the two fish that swim in it, they are the spirit and the Soul of our body itself, justly be taken, captured, and bound to their bodies, until they form one fixed and volatile body, perfectly purified and freed from impurities by seven times repeated liberation and distillation.
Thus a unique and volatile body would be created which has at its center a hidden nature which disposes it to fixity and permanence and which can easily manifest itself during constant and continuous cooking. From this moment the Chemical work is completed to comfort and preserve our nature for many years and deliver it from all diseases; on the condition of taking a grain of this fixed material in wine or broth every week. We must not use more and more of this remedy which constitutes a very powerful and ardent fire which would consume and destroy our vital fire if we took more than is necessary. A large fire in fact consumes a smaller one: it is therefore necessary to use it with moderation and restraint. This is why there were so many Ancients who shortened their lives with this supreme remedy, because they used it excessively.
Let us therefore conclude that our Sea is our matter or our salt and that the two fish which swim in the sea constitute the Spirit and its soul which must be extracted and purified, so that they are once again linked with the sea or body, and that they constitute one immense sea, volatile and fixed, so that they are delivered from all their waste by distillation and release, and that thus purified, they are cooked until they become fixed and immutable in the face of attacks of fire, even the greatest. If we dissolve the product thus obtained again with the first spirit, make it volatile and again cook and fix it, then it possesses and develops an immense and almost infinite force by which it preserves all mixed natures, comforts them and causes the disappearance of all their defects.
What is the Chemical Hydra with seven Heads, and what is its nature
The ancient Chemists imagined, with many reasons, a hydra which lived in woods and damp places, possessing seven Heads and from which it would grow back many heads if one were cut off. This hydra is nothing other than our matter: it in fact produces seven metals and that is why it is said to have seven heads. And if we cut off just one, would grow back: this is what usually happens in our matter. In fact, if a single metal perishes and rots in this matter, many mixed bodies are reborn. Just as it is usually in damp and dark places that it develops by putrefaction and remains, so it is really in damp and dark places that it develops from our matter. He comes out with seven heads, all of which must be cut off and burned with fire and flame to prevent them from coming back and growing back. Our matter must, in fact, be cooked in the fire until it is transformed into a truly uniform and homogeneous substance, fixed and permanent, having only one Head, gold obviously, which is fixed. and truly permanent.
It never changes into another substance, unless it is dissolved again by a new Spirit; thus the different Heads would return which would have to be destroyed and reduced again into a single Golden Head. This is how the stone develops and its power increases day by day, when its many heads are cut off and a single head is made of gold. It appears in fact, in the cooking of our matter, as many colors as the hydra has heads to be cut and destroyed by fire or cooking so that they are transformed into a single and unique head of gold and into a unique, homogeneous and uniform substance , reproducing the nature of common gold . This is why it resists fire, where it delights and dyes other imperfect metals into true gold, much more eminent than much common gold and much superior to it.
Thus we must conclude that the chemical hydra with the seven heads is nothing other than the matter and substance of our Stone. It is said to have seven heads because it usually produces seven metals. Their distinctive marks and colors cannot be removed or destroyed, and they cannot be reduced to a single head except by fire, just as the heads of the hydra can only be removed by fire and the flame. So, this image and comparison is truly perfect and cannot be better explained than by our previous explanation.
And if this does not suit everyone, let those who are not satisfied explain it by another means and another interpretation, which may suit them. The hydra, in fact, nature and has never been seen in water or on land. But it is an enigma of the Chemists and an obscure fiction by which they hide their mysteries and secrets from beginners, revealing them only to true Philosophers through these fictions, these obscure allegories and these logogryphs
What is this Wife and Woman who kills and massacres all her husbands?
No man has ever seen such a miracle, but it is a pure invention of the Chemists to hide their mercury from ordinary mortals and let the wise see it. Everything that is joined to Mercury, in fact, is destined to die and be killed. Thus, Mercury is the Wife and Wife of chemists who kills and destroys everything.
Indeed, from the moment that plants, animals or minerals and metals have been joined to the Mercury of the chemists, they immediately return to the state of raw material and thus, through Mercury, they are really brought back to a previous state and destroyed. They cannot, in fact, return to the state of raw material if they are not destroyed and consequently delivered to death. Thus, the Mercury of the Chemists unites and joins all things; thus it is truly the Bride who massacres all her spouses since all the bodies joined to her can truly be considered as her spouses: they die and are reduced to their raw material, to the extent that they are killed and massacred. We must therefore conclude that the Wife and wife of the chemists who kills and massacres all her husbands, it is their Mercury which really dissolves and reduces everything into raw material, to the extent that it destroys everything it dissolves and everything to which it relates.
He cannot in fact dissolve bodies without having reduced them to raw material, to the point of killing them, since they are truly destroyed and stripped of their primary form: that is indeed what dying and being killed are. Death, in fact, is the suppression of one form and the introduction of a new one. Three times, four times happy are those who can, through true dissolution, introduce this death into everything and especially into metals: they are in fact reanimated after this death in a life more beautiful than the first and superior to it.
Of the Salamander of the Chemists, what it is and what is its nature
It is an error and an absurdity that the Salamander lives in fire and is preserved there. Indeed, I have seen salamanders for myself in Brittany, where they live in large numbers in old dunghills.
I personally destroyed them with fire and reduced them to ashes. It is true that they do not live or preserve themselves in the fire at all, but that they die there and are completely destroyed, as I was very frequently able to verify in Brittany. As for saying that the Salamander would live in the fire, strengthen itself and grow there, it is an enigma and a fiction invented to hide some secret hidden in nature. All Chemists say that their Salamander lives, strengthens and grows in fire: this is their very secret which they usually hide under the guise of a Salamander.
Their Salamander, in fact, is their Mercury or their Stone which, for its greatest happiness, lives in fire. becomes stronger, grows and improves day by day until it reaches its ultimate perfection. She then does not fear fire and cures all illnesses, those of men as well as those of metals, as well as all the natural imperfections that mixed elements and natural realities can suffer. Thus, the Salamander of the Chemists represents their admirable secret and they can say that it lives in fire. grows and strengthens there since it is only in the fire that it is brought to its completion. Indeed , the Mercury of Chemists can only be brought to completion and developed in fire. Only a well-regulated fire at the appropriate temperature allows the Mercury of the Philosophers to be brought to its completion and matured by simple cooking over moderate heat.
Such then is the true Salamander which lives in the fire, develops and increases there, whose blood is the true and universal Medicine. It is thanks to its action that all natural defects are cured; it is even thanks to it that all life is lengthened and extended for very long years. This is what has happened to many men; we can cite in particular Artephius the Philosopher who, thanks to the action of this medicine and by the use of the blood of the Salamander alone, lived for a thousand years; Jean Lévi who, at the time of Charlemagne lived five hundred years and more; the forest guard of the King of France Louis XII who, having found a liqueur buried underground and having smeared his body with it, lived three hundred years free from all illness; and yet another life, named Edward the Englishman, who wanders throughout the world and the whole earth, who says he is five hundred years old and who affirms that for fifty years, I say fifty years, he is renewing himself, losing his old skin, his hair , his teeth, his old nails, and finds an astonishing youthfulness which brings him new strength and all the vigor of young people.
This said for the disdainful minds who find absurd what is quite simply the secret to regaining youth. It is not without meaning, in fact, this passage of Scripture: “Your youth will return like an Eagle”
What about the black beast which is in the woods, which loses its darkness and is adorned with a remarkable whiteness.
Many understand this to refer to ordinary smoke . The smoke, in fact, is hidden in the wood that we take out of the forests to fuel the fire, and this is why the smoke rises in the chimneys. They then say: There is a bird in the forest, covered all in black. If we take something from it, it will turn all white. But they are completely wrong and go astray in every way.
Because the forest of Chemists is their body, from which their Sulfur and Mercury come out. And the “black beast” is this same matter when it decomposes and its body rots. It in fact acquires blackness in putrefaction; then, it acquires extreme whiteness through continuous cooking.
It is indeed the black beast that lives in our forest and remains there; and if we remove the excrement with which it is full, it takes on an admirable whiteness. In fact, while our Mercury and our Sulfur are cooked together in the same firing, they continue their maturation; and as they mature, they acquire perfect colors, including white and red. Therefore , as our matter cooks, it reaches completion and matures.
And as it matures, it becomes adorned with perfect and finished colors, pure white and red; perfect and finished colors that we find in nature, since they last forever and remain in our material, once they have been completely cooked in our fire. So , this black beast in our forest is nothing other than our matter which first blackens while it cooks, then whitens, then reddens. Then it keeps this red coloring.
What the two Lions are among Chemists, one winged, the other without wings and in what consists their transformation into a single Lion
We often find among all Chemists this allegory of their Lion, so called because, like the Lion, he devours everything thrown at him and transforms it into his own substance; this Lion is double, one winged and female, the other wingless and male. From these two Lions, male and female, a single Lion must be made. This is a very great miracle, and no one has ever seen anything like it.
It is an enigma and a very great secret that nature hides in its deepest alcoves. Since this chemical matter has two parts, one fixed and the other volatile. The one that is fixed is the wingless and male Lion, while the one that is volatile is of course the winged and female Chemical Lion. They must be bound together, and by constant and continual cooking they must be united into one fixed material. Thus, one Leo results from two; from these two materials results a single one, fixed and volatile.
And the whole secret of the art consists in making volatile matter a fixed matter with volatile matter. These materials serve no other purpose than to transform each other thanks to fire, to make the volatile matter fixed, then again for this fixed matter to become volatile, then fixed again. So the Lion devours the Lion, the eagle devours the eagle and the bird swallows our bird, and they are transformed into each other. Thus, the Chemical secret is hidden behind numerous animal names and it is through the various manifestations of their reciprocal action that it becomes known only to the wise while it remains hidden for the ignorant and the crowd of men who consider these allegories to be implausible and absurd. However, beneath their envelope and their bark is enclosed the admirable jewel of nature, whose oil is of an admirable nature.
Let us then extract this oil from the three kingdoms of nature and unite it into a whole: there is nothing on earth more powerful and more effective to heal and bring to completion all that suffers. some imperfection in the three kingdoms. Three and four times happy are those who will grasp me, who will understand how it is possible to do it and who will really know how to translate it into action. Indeed, are not easy to do, but they require a proven artisan, a distinguished philosopher, who is out of the ordinary and is not a simple product of schools, but who, starting from nature itself and its anatomy, has become a adept in Physics through numerous works of all kinds. Such a craftsman is truly rare, and he is not found everywhere.
Of the Manufacture of the Stone
Since through the various chapters that we have just written, we have dealt with the Stone and what is linked to it; since we have just depicted it through the various allegories used by Chemists with such clarity that, it seems to me, no one can henceforth think that the Philosophers' Stone does not exist in nature, we are left now to give satisfaction to all and in particular to our Prince FREDERICK, Duke of Holstein, in homage to whom we have ordered and authorized the printing of the Treaty. Our Stone must therefore be produced, as is clear from the opinion of all chemists, from the pure substance of nature.
The pure substance of nature, in fact, is nothing other than that by which nature itself acts in all things and preserves them. What is pure is, in fact, something incorruptible and very effective. It is, therefore, from this that the Philosophers' Stone must be made, since the Stone must preserve everything in nature and can drive out and ward off all kinds of natural defects. Otherwise, the Stone would not exist and would not have to be made from this pure substance of nature and would not have in it this pure substance which acts so effectively. The reason why this pure substance of nature allows the elaboration of the Philosophers' Stone is, in fact, obvious: it must be made from the matter of nature and its incorruptible substance, since it is thanks to the eminent character of its activity that all transmutations can take place .
There exists in nature no substance comparable to the pure substance of nature: it is therefore only from this pure substance that the Philosophers' Stone must be manufactured. What then is this pure substance of nature, by what means and what process can we obtain it, this is what we must now inquire into, so that that, knowing this, it is indeed in nature that we strive to seek and find it. We must not, in fact, seek it outside of nature, otherwise the efforts we expend on such an enterprise would remain in vain.
Of the Pure Substance of Nature, what it is, what its nature is and whether it is multiple
It is from the Pure Substance of Nature that everything is made. And, as I have often said elsewhere in my printed works, the knowledge of all things and of all nature depends on the Pure Substance of Nature. It follows that it is really necessary for the Chemist to know and understand what this pure substance is, what its nature is and whether it is multiple. This Pure Substance of Nature therefore is located at the heart of everything. It was made from the quintessence of the sky and all the elements, as I said in the first chapters of this Treatise. By its rays, Heaven penetrates into the lower elements and its Pure Substance spreads into the lower elements, and in particular into the Center of the Earth.
There, it is cooked, it takes shape in the form of salt, which becomes volatile, it sublimates through the pores of the earth and nourishes all natural beings, plants as well as minerals: it follows that it is found everywhere. This is why this pure substance is triple: animal, vegetable and mineral. It is one , however, beyond these three kingdoms and does not differ in any way, except by a certain way of being because, in substance, it is one and identical. In animals, it is very loose and therefore totally volatile, and therefore combustible and destructible. It is the same in plants, which means that it is also destructible and corruptible.
As for metals, it is perfectly fixed and incorruptible, especially in those which are perfect, while in imperfect metals, it is partly volatile, partly fixed, and this is why it is partly corruptible and partly fixed. and incorruptible. This must be considered with great attention so that we can deduce from which kingdoms of nature we must extract this Pure Substance of Nature which we need. In fact, the Philosophers' Stone is totally incorruptible and therefore it must be taken entirely from the metallic kingdom. It is, in fact, Kingdom that we can find our incorruptible Pure Substance and it is only in this Kingdom that the Pure Substance of the other two Kingdoms is joined.
This is why it is called animal, vegetable and mineral. We therefore conclude: the Pure Substance of Nature is discovered in all the Kingdoms of Nature and mainly in the Mineral and Metallic Kingdom. And it is nothing other than the quintessence of Heaven and all the elements, which is cooked in the center of the earth and from there spreads through the pores of the earth. Thus, it preserves, nourishes and completely develops everything that is capable of development.
What is the preparation which makes it possible to obtain the Pure Mineral and Metallic Substance
It is necessary to collect this Salt of Nature, in which the Spirit of Heaven and all its elements solidifies and is transformed into Salt, and to purify it by numerous repeated dissolutions in distilled dew or rain water .
Once we have this pure and white body that is salt, we must mix it with a pure earth such as, for example, Bol or perfectly calcined Lapis lazuli, in the proportion of three quantities of Earth for only one part of our body. Then you have to place it in a perfectly lubricated glass retort . It must then be distilled in a very strong fire, so that all the spirits come out into the container in the form of very strong, acrid and sour water. This water must then be rectified seven times and freed from elementary aqueous impurities in a bath.
We thus obtain the pure and white spirit of the Metals which must be preserved in perfectly closed glass vials, until we obtain a new and pure body again. It is necessary to mix the spirit in twelve quantities, that is to say, you must take twelve parts of the spirit and only one of the pure body, and you must let them both rot together for forty days. Then one must extract the spirit by distillation until the body is dry and again pour the spirit over the body. This must be repeated many times, until the spirit, thanks to these multiple and repeated cohobations on its body, remains with it and the body is made volatile thanks to the action of its spirit.
The body thus rendered volatile must be imbued with a new spirit until, through multiple and often repeated cohobations, retorte returns it to the container in the form of milky water which the cold hardens into a butter which a moderate and gentle fire melts like butter. This milky water must be rectified seven times with ashes and must be kept in perfectly closed glass vessels; and if it is allowed to cook by itself in a closed vessel, it then sets, through continual cooking, into a fixed and permanent salt, first white, then finally red.
To make this happen and complete more quickly, gold must be added in the proportion of ten or seven parts. Thus, operations are carried out more quickly and the fixing of the product is completed more quickly. We thus obtain the true and legitimate Mercury of the Philosophers, extracted from the metallic and mineral Kingdom alone, which penetrates and dissolves everything with its perfectly loosened substance. Others try to extract this Mercury from the three Kingdoms, by the process which follows
By what process must the Mercury of the Philosophers be extracted from the three Kingdoms
Of the Animal Kingdom, we first extract the volatile Salt from blood, human or otherwise, or human urine, by distillation according to the usual method. From the vegetable kingdom, we commonly obtain the Salt of Tartar, by calcination and solution in Clear Water, until by multiple solutions and drying we obtain a perfectly white Salt of Tartar which we must dissolve in vinegar distilled until he couldn't drink any more vinegar.
Then this Salt, impregnated with spirit of vinegar, or spirit of wine, sublimates and becomes volatile. This volatile salt made perfectly pure must be mixed with animal volatile salt and mineral acid Spirit extracted according to usual use. Thus, these three pure bodies mixed together are transformed into Mercury by circulation and are transformed into Water or Alkaest liquor. This liquor is, in fact, entirely spiritual and it constitutes the pure and resplendent mercury of the three kingdoms which can be used to bring alchemy to its completion. Thus the secret is realized and all the metals are reduced to raw material: so that we see and recognize perfectly what is contained in the heart of metals. Much has been said about this Alkaest liquor by modern chemical authors, but very little by Paracelsus.
He says in fact, that the Alkaest liquor is mercury prepared so that its center is at the surface and the surface of the mercury is at its center. Thus, what is hidden in mercury would be made manifest and what is manifest in this same mercury would become hidden. Thus the hidden elements of mercury are transformed into manifest elements: alchemy seeks nothing else.
Of the liquor Alka is what it is and what are its properties
The new Chemists have said so many important things about this Liqueur that it is really essential that our Serene Prince knows what this Liqueur is, what are its properties and from where we obtain and draw it, so that nothing that is useful for the exercise of Alchemy remains hidden from it. This liquor, therefore, is the pure mercurial metallic spirit, joined to its own natural body and linked to it in such a way that both make one substance, inseparable and indestructible, which destroys all things and reduces them to matter. first.
It is a question of the greatest importance in Alchemy, and difficult to resolve, to know whether the two other substances extracted from the plant and animal kingdom, combined with the mineral substance Mercurielle, would increase its capacity for penetration and its great speed of action . , so that they would seem to complete its perfection. But those who really know our pure mercurial substance extracted and drawn from the mineral kingdom, and who know that it is designated by three names and that it can really be called animal, vegetable and mineral, they will emerge without difficulty from this labyrinth and will see that in the mineral kingdom, the two other kingdoms, the animal, for example, and the vegetable. are so bound together that they cannot be separated, they will see very clearly that our pure metallic mercurial substance has with it the other two mercurial substances, so that it is not necessary to join them again to it to lead it to its perfection.
If there is someone who is not satisfied with this argument, let him obtain the other mercurial substances taken from the animal and vegetable kingdom, purify them and combine them: experience will teach him that these three pure mercurial substances are necessarily linked together to constitute the Alkaest liqueur and lead it to its completion.
We can therefore conclude that the Alkaest liquor is nothing other than the true Mercury of the Philosophers extracted from the mineral kingdom, joined to its pure body so that they can never be separated from each other. But they subsist together in the form of a liquor having the appearance of milk and butter, which penetrates and dissolves everything.
If it is from the simple or compound Alkaest Liqueur that the Philosophers' Stone can be made
There is no doubt that the Philosophers' Stone can and must be made from the Alkaest liqueur, since this Alkaest liqueur does not is nothing other than the Mercury of the Philosophers, which constitutes the main part of our Stone. This Alkaest liqueur presents itself in a double aspect: one simple, the other compound, and yet these two aspects make only one and the same liqueur and they come down to its true essence.
As it is simple, it is prepared from the pure acid of metals and even pure metallic salt and made volatile with its Spirit. And, without having worked a lot in the preparation of this Salt and its Spirit, it would be difficult to reach this secret which is the most important hidden reality of all metallic nature, a source of much fatigue through effort and trouble. that it entails. It takes, in fact, a lot of fatigue and effort to bring it to fruition.
Composed, the Alkaest liqueur is even more difficult to prepare and it is even more difficult to obtain it. It is prepared, in fact, from the acid of minerals and the pure salt of animals and plants. And the Alchemist who did not do significant work to obtain their volatile salts and purify them would never reach our famous secret. As we see, this can be exhibited without difficulty. The fact remains that many points are hidden from view: and if they are not perfectly elucidated as they should be, it is in vain. And the alchemist who did not do important work to obtain their volatile and purified salts would never reach our secret. As we see, this can be explained without difficulty, this does not remove the fact that many points are hidden from view, and if they are not perfectly elucidated as required, in vain we will attack the 'artwork.
however is not and that, on the contrary, is totally true, but this requires an educated and experienced practitioner in all the operations of alchemy. Let us therefore apply ourselves to manufacturing and purifying fixed and alkaline salts and then make such salts fixed and volatile. By the grace of God we will then carry the work to its conclusion not without difficulty but at the cost of great work and persevering and continuous activity. Such things are not done quickly and cannot be brought to ultimate perfection in a short time, but with a long and tiring effort. I endured and suffered much , I sweated and suffered the price before I accomplished this secret work. Then everything that remains to be done is completed and easily completed with simple constant and continuous cooking. This is why operations are called the work of females and the play of boys, which for their completion require only cooking, available time and patience.
That the alkaest liquor reduces everything to raw material without losing any of its effectiveness
Since the alkaest liquor, or the mercury of the philosophers, is the perfectly pure fire of nature, incorruptible and unalterable, it can easily be concluded that he can reduce everything to its raw material. In fact, it perfectly penetrates the parts of all mixtures and separates them from one another until they are reduced to the first fire of nature by means of this natural fire; as air naturally introduces its air and water its water, so certainly fire naturally introduces itself into fire and impregnates them, there is therefore nothing extraordinary in the fact that alka is liquor, which is only fire, penetrates everything and dissolves it without diminishing its power, since this is not weakened by the active forces, this same liquor dissolves and reduces into First Matter, this is why its effectiveness does not is not weakened since then fire is always added to fire; therefore, since fire does not dissociate or weaken, its effectiveness cannot diminish.
The ignorant are surprised by this and cannot understand it, believing that each time it acts it weakens its action and its effectiveness and that its active force ends up disappearing completely. None of this happens in alkaest liquor, increases and, finally, becomes stronger and more powerful.
The reason is obvious, that this liquor is full of the fire of nature and all the true fire of nature is hidden in this liquid and enclosed within it. This is why its effectiveness never diminishes since its fire develops thanks to the fire of what it dissolves.
We can conclude that the alkaline liquor is really a fire, that it does not come from elementary fire, but from the entirely Central and celestial, incorruptible and unalterable fire which penetrates everything and dissolves it in its raw material.
It is the natural and central fire found in all things and which is abundantly concentrated in this akkaest liquor. It is thanks to its action that the effectiveness of the liquor is not reduced, but remains at the same degree.
If the alkaline liquor after reducing the perfect metals to raw material must be separated from the dissolved metals or left with them, so that they cook together towards supreme perfection
In the perfect metals, dissolved and reduced to raw material The alkaline liquor contains everything necessary to bring the Philosophers' Stone to its completion. Now, if someone wishes to remove the liquor alkaest can do so: the dissolution of perfect metals into perfect Stone, or fixed sulfur of the philosophers, will be completed more quickly. So, in fact, the perfect metals are raw there and borrow from the alkaest liquor the fire of nature , which is certainly pure, but raw and without cooking. Hence the need to ripen it and bring it to fruition with cooking until it is perfectly set.
The alkaest liquor is in fact nothing other than fire, but dissolved by the mercurial liquor, it is consequently a raw and unripe fire and there is as much of this liquor as there is raw mercury. This is why it requires a very long cooking time for it to ripen; It follows that those who separate their liquor after it has dissolved the perfect metals do not act imprudently . In fact at this moment the perfect metals in solution are cooked and fixed more quickly than if they had remained linked to the alkaest liquor, since the raw mercury is present in greater quantity when you leave the alkaest joined. quickly.
However, if such a liquor is not separated, there is no harm; but it is then necessary to cook for a longer time so that the perfect metals thus dissolved take on the higher degree of fixation and perfection, they even become fluid more easily in the fire; and it is precisely at the moment when it is easier to make it liquid, that the Stone reaches its supreme perfection, thus in fact penetrates into the most hidden folds of imperfect metals and is introduced more easily since it possesses in abundance mercury which ensures the fluidity of everything, facilitates their fusion and gives them its superiority and excellence; thus a Stone dissolved many times in the alkaest liquor, or mercury of the philosophers, is of superior quality and presents better value than one which has not been dissolved and then coagulated again, since it would not possess as much mercury as this Stone which on various occasions was dissolved and then coagulated again; in fact the repeated coagulations and dissolutions not only increase the Stone in quantity but they also multiply its strength and characteristics, as attested by the authors who have written on what I am arguing. So if the first solution increases its force by cents in the projection, the second increases it by a thousand; thus the poet Aurelio says that the Stone can increase to the point that a single grain projected on an infinite quantity of mercury similar to the ocean, quickly transforms it into gold, assuming that such a large mass can be heated .
It is thanks to its action that the effectiveness of the liquor is never reduced but always remains at the same degree.
That the alkaest liquor possesses in itself the salt, sulfur and mercury of the philosophers
It would be impossible for the alkaest liquor to be able to effect the true and authentic dissolution of metals and reduction of each thing into raw material if it did not possess not in itself the true and authentic metallic principles, that is to say the salt, the sulfur and the mercury perfectly dissolved and spiritualized in it. Otherwise it would not be able to effect this perfect dissolution.
Only the principles of nature perfectly dissolved, united and bound together can produce such a perfect dissolution and reduce everything into raw material; in fact only the raw material can produce such a dissolution or reduction into raw material, since like acts in like. And it is only for this that the raw material can carry out the reduction into raw material. Alkaest liquor is therefore the matter before each thing reduced to liquor and is really for this reason that it has the salt, sulfur and mercury of each thing reduced to liquor.
Thus it reduces everything in salt, sulfur and mercury leaving practically no impurities, since each mixed body is nothing other than salt, sulfur and mercury linked together in the composition of the bodies of the mixtures. This is why you will find practically no impurities in this reduction, the work of alkaest liquor, since everything that goes into the preparation of the mixtures is made up of salt, sulfur and mercury, principles of nature . And since at the origin of the preparation we find nothing other than these salts, we necessarily find only these in the reduction of the preparation, otherwise we would be in the presence of four or more principles; and this is why they do not find impurities in the true reduction.
In other dissolutions and reductions produced by the spirits of salt, there are multiple and abundant discharges which are not, however, true feces but parts of principles which cannot dissolve. And, by not being able to dissolve, they are considered rejections of which the nature is unknown. If these rejects are collected and are thrown into the alkaest liquor, then they truly dissolve and no impurity remains. And even if, in many points, I said that there were feces in the nature and in the composition of the mixtures, it is because then I had not seen the action of the alkaest liquor . So it is certain and certain that the alkaest liquor has in itself the salt, the sulfur and the mercury of the philosophers, thanks to which everything is reduced to raw material and dissolves to the point which does not remain some caput mortum. That's it. At this point it is appropriate to mention the letters of the talented master Fabre that Héliante, after having left him, received in Nurumberg coming from the province of Narbonne.
It is here that it was appropriate to report the Letters of the very talented Master Fabre, which Hélianthe, after having left him, received from Nuremberg, coming from the Province of Narbonne
All Salt, in fact, whether animal, vegetable or mineral, is the spirit of water frozen by the action and energy of sulfur light, what Philosophers ordinarily call heat. This spirit therefore, dunamis and energy of nature, generates by its natural heat the body of Salt from which, subsequently, the sons of Art extract by their art this same spirit which they refine and envelop in a body very delicate and very fine, so that they can, thanks to this very thing, refine the perfect metallic bodies and it is possible for them to transform them into this same spirit. So that, by bringing to light an incredible energy, we can obtain this immense and very powerful force which resides in metals and has been buried there.
If you can extract this golden spirit of nature from the green and blue mineral salt, if you can refine it by sublimation and if you can wrap it in the very fine body of this salt; you will possess the spiritual and all-powerful flower of universal nature, by virtue of which you will be able to obtain the golden flower and the treasure of human life, the only relief from your father.
If I had some at hand, I would gladly offer some to you, but, I do not know by what law of an obscure destiny, these mysteries of nature have been refused to me until now. The perfectly pure salt of vitriol, impregnated with its sublimated acid spirit without any other subtle preparation, constitutes the arcana of your father's illness. The dose is half scrupulous, taken at the end of the morning in well-known spring water; and two hours later, you have to take a excellent broth. Tell Master Capucci, please, the passages and lines of this letter which deal with Art, and transmit to him, I beg you, the letter that I intended for him in a sealed envelope. You will thus keep me attached by the supreme bond of affection. Farewell and hold me in your esteem.
Castelnaudary, October 24, 1642,
Your always and very devoted servant and faithful friend,
PJ FABRE
I was very interested in your Letter, which I received on January 1st for New Year's greetings. I was particularly interested in your friend's work on Vitriol's perfectly pure Physique vinegar. He did not make a mistake in combining it with his own fixed and perfectly pure salt, except perhaps that he did not demonstrate sufficient patience and perseverance. Indeed, these two bodies must be perfectly cooked together, on multiple occasions and for a long time, as required by this so often repeated Axiom of the Philosophers: You must Cook, Cook, Cook and Cook again, without being irritated that it takes a long time . , because it is in the length of cooking that the secret lies.
Hence it is that Morien says that our work consists of nothing other than returning our water to our earth until this earth rots along with the water and they are both purified . , putrefaction and purification which cannot be achieved in a short time. After they have been putrefied and purified, it becomes easy to link them together: they never separate again but they then form a single body which is impregnated, infiltrates and penetrates, and which flows easily. This is the secret. This is why, if your illustrious friend remains patient during the putrefaction and purification of our matter as well as during his marriage, he will certainly come into possession of the secret.
The work of the Philosophers, in fact, consists of nothing other than perfectly whitening and perfectly reddening, which consists of putrefaction and purification. Read the Collection of all the true Philosophers who have written on this subject. You will not find anything more than what I have written to you on this page. For, to know nature, there is nothing else to do than to separate the elements of this matter, purify them, cleanse them of their impurities, unite the purified elements and make them into a single substance. results in the appearance of leafy earth, or the very white sulfur of nature, and the blood of the red lion, from which the true and authentic marriage of the Philosophers takes place.
Once their union has been achieved, nothing is required other than a single and simple cooking, until these two bodies form only one, fixed and permanent, and which, through fire. flows, penetrates and soaks up very easily. Therefore draw the natural Sulfur, as well as its red blood, from your Salt joined to your Spirit, by repeated cohobations and connections , until it gives this Sulfur and this blood. Divide them. gather them together, cook them, fear, praise and love God. Let this be said to a very dear Brother and Friend. Farewell, and have friendship for me.
Done with us on January 9, 1643.
Your faithful servant and friend in all things,
PJ FABRE
Very dear and very learned Friend, I received in March your last Letter written from Nuremberg, in which you complain about the difficulty of the Chemical work from common Vitriol, not without great reasons.
This is because it is a raw and cold body. Know how to correct its rawness and its coldness by the natural heat and the balm of life of the very spirit of rectified wine, and putrefy them both taken together, by a gentle heat: thus extract the true mineral Mercury and the metallic Sulfur, which, distilled seven times and thus purified, constitutes the real key to our solution; it is by this alone that the bowels of the body of metals are opened, whether they are perfect or imperfect, so that through the openings thus made the hidden part of nature is made visible and that which was visible is hidden.
This hidden metallic body is thus made perfectly pure by its own and unique firing, so that it is brought to perfect fixation. This is the true Vinegar of the Philosophers, thanks to which we obtain the hidden nature of lead, but also of other metals, natures which are sulfur and mercury and which, disunited and united after we have purified them, bring the elixir to completion with a single cooking As for me, I must praise this work on the anatomy of metals in which indeed you will see many things, mercury and real salts which, dissolved, will be the real vinegar of philosophers with which you will be able to explore the most hidden parts of metals Goodbye.
Your faithful friend for everything.
Castelnandarv May 24, 1643
PJ Fabre.
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“gold coloreth not, until its internal or hidden spirit is drawn forth out of its bowels by this, our white water, and that it may be made altogether a spiritual substance, a white vapor, a white spirit, and a wonderful soul.”
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