Eirenaeus Philalethes
The medicine of the First Order is the preparation of the Stone, which precedes the operation of perfect preparation; and it is properly called the Separation of the Elements, and the purification of each according to the natural requirement.
However, the elements cannot be purified unless you first thoroughly understand their natures and all their impurities: For in the work of the Medicine of the First Order, there are certain impurities that arise partly from their own minerals and partly from the elements themselves, hence preceding the operation of perfect preparation, there is a certain purification of things, which some call Cleansing, some Administration, some Rectification, some Washing, and some Separation. For it separates the purer parts of things from the Impure, so that, with the lighter and purer parts successively, with natural conjunction, our perfect preparation takes place, which is effected by the reduction of the Moist with the dry immediately and immediately after their preparation, otherwise the wet would not embrace the dry, nor the Body the Spirit, if they had not been well washed from their infections by the benefit of the Separation of the Elements, with Calcinings and Distillations, Solutions and Congelations. And Hermes, the prince of this doctrine, hints at this in his secret, when he says, ”Separate the earth from the fire, the subtle from the dense.” For by the separation of the elements and by moderate digestion and calcination, combustible sulfurous substances are burnt and totally annihilated by the fire and the earth, and the body is greatly comminuted and refined by such digestion, and the waters are purified from their impurities with distillations, and subtly transformed into the nature of Air by the lightness of levigation.
Hence, it appears that if the corruptible matter is not separated from the stone by calcinations and distillations, always reducing that which was above to that which was below, it would be impossible to purify it. Thus, it is necessary that after the corruption of our composite stone, it is purified from all its infirmities after its separation through the four elements, before Mercury is united with the Body to begin such preparation, which is the creation or perfect preparation of our stone.
Therefore, it is necessary that the stone be divided by the four elements with calcinations and distillations. And this division is made so that the substance of the stone is clean, and so that the whole composition, (scoriae or dregs being separated), is pure Mercury, which has in it the property of melting and fixing.
And we tell you that this separation of the elements cannot be done without dissolution; nor dissolution without putrefaction, which is the corruption of our stone, through which the Spirit is mixed in the Body, and with its elements, and that is what makes the Volatile, as it appears in their separations: and the aforementioned do not well receive each other unless they have first been thoroughly cleansed. For the Body does not receive the Spirit, nor the Spirit the Body, so that the spiritual becomes corporeal, and the corporeal spiritual, unless they are first perfectly healed from all infirmity: But when they are so, the Body and Spirit embrace each other, and the Spirit the Body, and the bodies are raised in examination, and the spirits are held by the bodies over the Fire.
Therefore dissolve, decoct, digest, and putrefy the elements in their sum to the end, and after each decoction inter them, so that the separated matter is better purified, and becomes Quick Silver in the form of clear Water.
But if you do not divide the stone, that is, the fifth substance through the four elements, know that it naturally cannot be united, nor joined with the dry body, if each of them does not share in the nature of the Fifth Essence: for that fifth Essence is the mixture of all the elements, and their reduction into one pure substance: Therefore, it is necessary that those elements are well purified from their infections.
This is also to be known, that as the body is gross, and the spirit subtle, they cannot be universally mixed unless the body is first subtilized by the spirit through putrefaction, so that the body is equally subtle to the spirit, and then such a mixture is made that the fire does not separate or overcome it if it acts on them continuously for a thousand years, because they are so minutely mixed, that by no skill (after they have once taken hold of each other) can they be separated.
Also know that the aforementioned are so subtly joined together by art and mystical conjunction, that in each body every element exists in potency, although by sight it is not comprehended in it, which is more clearly discerned in their dissolutions than in any other thing.
Likewise, it is to be known that according to the merit of the Matter, Forms are given, as Plato says: And therefore it is not fitting to operate with unprepared things, because the operation is the treasure of completion: If therefore the operation has preceded complete and perfect, the complement will be perfect and complete: if diminished, diminished, and as much as perfection decreases in preparation, so much is expected of diminution in the projection of the work. Therefore see to it, that the elements are perfectly purified from their impurities by levigations and compressions, and then a perfect Operation will come from them.
Further know that the Office of Medicine of the First Order not only revolves around the removal of superfluities but also the addition of deficiencies. For to prepare is to remove superfluities and to supply deficiencies, because heavy things cannot be pushed down unless with the superior of the light, nor light things unless with the inferior of the heavy. Nor can the hot unless of the cold, nor the cold unless of the hot, nor the moist unless of the dry, nor the dry unless of the moist, nor the hard unless of the soft, nor the soft unless of the hard, in any way be tempered or prepared. But when they are suitably wed alternately, a tempered substance is generated from them, which the violence of the fire cannot overcome, nor the foulness of the earth spoil, nor the muddiness of the water condense, nor all contractions overshadow: And this also Hermes hints at the end of his aforementioned Secret when he says: As this world was created, so our stone is created, that is made: This is, just as this sensible world from heavy and light, soft and hard, hot and cold, moist and dry, tied together by a peace of concord by nature, is a perpetual effect: so the stone which I said conquers every subtle thing and penetrates every solid thing is created by our Magistery in the same from the same things over the fire perpetually.
Also know that the preparation of the aforementioned is perfected by the removal of superfluities and the addition of the absent, by the exercise of the four Regimens. The first of these is the Reduction to the nature of fire. The second is Resolution into water. The third is Levigation into earth. The fourth is Compression into Earth. The first is done by Calcining, the second by dissolving, the third by distilling through an Alembic: but the fourth by coagulating or congelating with light fire: And this is their complete preparation: And this also Hermes hints at in his aforementioned Secret, when he says: Gently with great ingenuity it ascends from the Earth to Heaven, and again descends to Earth. For by these words he meant to show the Calcination of bodies and the fixation of spirits with sublimation. And intending to show the solution, he said, The earth is its nurse, that is, Inhumation is its nurse, and revivifier. For by it, things that were first mortified by Calcination, are nourished and revived when reduced to water by washing. Likewise, to show the distillation through an Alembic, he said, The wind carried it in its belly. For when water is distilled through an Alembic, it is first levigated by the wind, that is smoke in the air, and is carried from the lower part of the vessel to the top of the Alembic, although because of the enclosure it returns again into water. Some have considered this distillation in soluble things as sublimation and called it sublimation. Likewise, to show Congelation, he said, Its power is complete if it turns to earth, that is, to Fixation. And to show whatever he had previously expressed in parts, he said, And it will receive the power of the superior and inferior, that is, the Nature of the superior and inferior elements, because although it begins from the lighter, it must nevertheless terminate in the heavier, so that it may have perseverance over the perpetual fire.
Another task of the Medicine of the First Order is to manifest the Occult, and to hide the manifest: That which is in occult is Heat and Dryness; and that which is manifest is Coldness and Moistness. Therefore, it is necessary to hide the manifest, and to make manifest what is hidden. However, that which is in occult, namely Heat and Dryness, is Oil: and that Oil is dry, and that dryness tinges, and nothing else. Also, that which is manifest cold and moist is a watery, burning smoke that corrupts, which corrupts the work and tinges in blackness.
/Also, that cold and moist watery and burning is an airy and volatile body, and in it are Heat, Dryness, Coldness, and Moistness, another virtue in occult and another in manifest, but in the entire mixture it is of the same virtue and nature. Therefore, it is necessary to have proportion between these, so that cold and moist is equal to heat and dryness, so they do not flee from the fire, because between that cold and moist is a warm and dry particle. Therefore, it is necessary that cold and moist receive the heat and dryness that was in occult, so that all become one pure substance: And then friendship is made between cold and moist and heat and dryness, because Heat and Dryness have destroyed the cold, moist, watery, and burning, by the will of God and the regimen of Fire. And thus, this spirit is transformed into a most noble body and does not flee from the fire. And this body is of the nature of the Sun and Fire, and is the most precious Oil of all occult things, and a living tincture and permanent water that always lives and remains, and is a penetrating and coloring spirit, and is the occult tincture, persevering, ingressing, consolidating, multiplying, aggregating, revivifying, which rectifies and illuminates all the dead and makes them rise after coldness and moistness are destroyed, and heat and dryness are manifested, and do not flee from the Fire: Whoever is ignorant of all these things, let him suspend his hand from the work, until he knows them, and when he knows these things, he will rejoice to see his operation completed according to his desire.
And finally, we tell you: That if Calcination, Sublimation, Distillation, Putrefaction, Mortification, Whitening, Rubification, Fusion with Solutions and Congelations were not done in one Vessel, and one Fire, the things could never be prepared or purified naturally from their impurities. But when they are so, you can by art make the conjunction of Male and Female, so that they generate a son of the Fire, who is so much loved by all the Philosophers. And in this conjunction (if you understand me) lies our entire Magistery.
The Theory ends here.
Hermes the great says; Whoever wishes to progress in this divine science must necessarily know the principles of this art. For those who are ignorant of the principles or doubt them will never reach the desired end.
Therefore, so that you do not fall into error in the beginning of the Medicine of the First Order, due to ignorance of the principles of the mineral elements, I wanted to first advise you of this. Beware not to take from the First, nor from the Last, but what is from them; because the first are too simple and the last too gross.
If you require an explanation of this by example, consider: If you intend to make bread, do not take that from which wheat is made, nor the wheat itself, but what is made from the wheat.
Another Example. It is evident that all trees, herbs, and flowers are produced from water and the subtle union of earth. However, if you try to produce a tree or a flower, you do not take the earth or the water, nor even the tree or the flower, but rather that which comes from them, like a shoot or a seed. These, committed to the womb of the common parent earth and nourished by its natural sustenance, called forth by the solar light, emerge in the form of a tree or flower to the surface of the earth in due time. Similarly, our divine art teaches to extract the seed from a more perfect body, which, being infused into the philosophically prepared earth, secretly preserved in its natural seat, and nourished and cooked by due heat, can generate its like in due manner, as a seedbed of virtue.
This divine science can also be likened to the generation of man for this reason. Just as the human seed drawn from all parts of a man potentially possesses the virtues of all parts, and is poured into a natural vessel, which is the womb, where it dies, is nourished, sprouts, and by natural conversion is changed from one thing into another, from state to state, until a man is formed according to his number of days: so the seed of this Magistery, drawn from all parts of the metallic body, having all the virtues of all metals in potency, is placed in a natural vessel; this vessel is Mercury or the Vinegar of the Philosophers, where it dies, is nourished, grows, and by natural preparation is changed from one thing into another, from state to state, until the Philosopher’s Stone is formed, according to its number of days.
These minerals, serving to create the stone and from which the work of the Medicine of the First Order begins, philosophers call Rebis because it consists of two things, namely, from the feminine seed and the masculine seed, that is, from the dissolving spirit and the dissolved body. Hence, Martin says: Rebis is a thing of two, joined, but still one.
This dissolving spirit, or the feminine seed, is one of the principal principles of our Magistery. Therefore, it must be deeply meditated upon, since it is not truly natural quicksilver in its own nature, but something else more apt for new generation, which indeed, besides purity, requires a long and admirable preparation, its homogeneous mineral quality remaining intact and unharmed. For if the dissolving spirit is changed from its fluxibility or Mercuriality, it is prevented from entering our Philosophical work, because it has lost its dissolving nature; or if it is turned into a powder of any kind, it is immediately confused and its intrinsic nature is disproportioned, making it useless and prevented from our Philosophical work. Therefore, every opinion that alters quicksilver before the conjunction of the metallic species with it is false and vain.
This quicksilver (not the vulgar one) is the matter of all metals, and it is like water due to the homogeneity it has with them and receives and assumes the nature of those which adhere to it in cooking, thus it is of a convertible nature, like Celestial Mercury, which is of the same nature as the planet with which it is conjoined in the sky. For example, like simple spring water, which by its nature is cold and moist, if mixed with vegetables, assumes another quality, and in the cooking of the mixed thing assumes and takes on the quality. So, quicksilver, which is the seed in familiar and mixed things, assumes other natures and qualities: if joined to the Sun, it assumes the qualities of the Sun; if to the Moon, the qualities of the Moon; if to Venus, the qualities of Venus; and so on in other metallic species, hence these species must be cooked in it, and Mercury is their water in which by alteration it assumes their changes, and this water contracts its nature from them in similarity to vegetables decocted in simple water. No natural water dissolves metallic species except that which remains in them in matter and form, and that which the metals themselves can re-congeal. Nor does water pertain to bodies in solutions that do not remain with them in congelations, and finally Mercury, which is the seed, is of this kind. Therefore, bodies are not dissolved by water unless it is of their own species and can thicken from the bodies. Nor are bodies nourished for the generation of the same form, unless the same water remains to preserve the species destroyed by our transmutative body through the art of the work. Nor are perfect bodies ever opened, exalted, or multiplied except by similar water.
Whoever therefore dissolves with this divine water, nourishes, and multiplies, will not err, for this nourishing and multiplying (and nothing else in the entire world) is converted into the same species. And just as that water dissolves, nourishes, and multiplies bodies, and conceals them in its womb: so they also congeal it, and what was hard becomes soft, and what was soft, hard, yet the species remains, which are metals and quicksilver. Whoever therefore knows the art and the secret of making the aforementioned divine water, indeed reaches the secret of truth and art, which is to dissolve species and extract natures from natures, which are effectively latent in them. But how can someone find the truth who destroys the moist nature of quicksilver (like fools), who spoil its nature with salts, vitriols, and other corrosives and foreign things, destroy it, and change it into something other than the nature of quicksilver. For they attempt to complete what nature, sagacity, and clemency constructed by violating and destroying it, undoubtedly destroying it for the effect of the work. For if they divide or obstruct the homogeneity of Mercury, it is utterly useless for our Philosophical work, that is, of the metals. They also err who think to extract a limpid transparent water from natural quicksilver and to work many wonders from it. But if they perfect such a water, it would nevertheless be of no use to the work, nor to its nature and proportion, nor could it restore or build our perfect mixed metallic matter: But what it is, take it.
Dissolving Mercury is that by which metals are dissolved naturally, and their spirits are brought from potentiality into actuality. According to this definition, it is demonstrated that the dissolution of metals should not be done except with the aforementioned principle. For whoever dissolves otherwise or with something else dissolves in vain.
Or thus: Dissolving Mercury is that which makes the material of metals most bright and clear, like changing metals, cleansing them, and is that which extracts the latent nature from perfect metals.
Or thus: Dissolving Mercury is a dry vapor, not viscous, of much acidity, very subtle, easily escaping the face of the fire, having great power of penetration and dissolution, dissolving mineral bodies, and in its making and preparation (besides the continuous labor and length of time) is very dangerous. Therefore, beware for your ears, eyes, and nose.
The making of Dissolving Mercury surpasses the greatest secret of nature, and unless it is revealed by divine means, or by the artisans themselves, or shown in the work itself, it can scarcely or never be extracted from books.
If the making of Dissolving Mercury were known to the studious of philosophy, another Mercury of the wise would not be sought, nor another vital metal water and Mercurial, nor another water of the stone, because Dissolving Mercury contains all these in itself.
Dissolving Mercury before legitimate preparation is not the Philosophers’ Mercury, but after preparation it is named the Mercury of the Wise, containing the true method and way of extracting from the dissolved body all metals, and it is the beginning of the Medicine of the Third Order.
Whoever uses natural or sublimated or calcined or precipitated mercury instead of Dissolving Mercury for completing the Philosophers’ work is mistaken and greatly deceived. Natural mercury, before legitimate and philosophical preparation, is remote from the work.
Natural mercury, prepared philosophically, is considered for the Philosophical Menstruum and Dissolving Mercury.
Dissolving Mercury by itself contributes nothing to generation.
Dissolving Mercury arises from and participates in two elements, namely Earth and Water.
Dissolving Mercury is the Earth element, to which a grain of the Sun should be introduced.
Dissolving Mercury corrupts the Sun and resolves it into Mercury, making it volatile.
Dissolving Mercury resolves the Sun into water in its own form, that is, into running Mercury, just as it is itself.
Dissolving Mercury is transformed into the Sun or Moon, hence it can ascend higher, be exalted, and be made equal to all the Mercuries of metals.
Dissolving Mercury attracts the souls of all things to itself, cooks, and captures them.
The doctrine of the Philosophers is predicted, that we must necessarily irritate Nature: Therefore, if Dissolving Mercury is dry, solution is in vain.
The feminine seed of the stone should be taken in a form similar and close to metals, which comes closest to metals.
It is extremely necessary to take the seed of the Philosophical Medicine which resembles Dissolving Mercury.
Dissolving Mercury is the feminine seed and menstruum of all metals, brought to this state by the art of a good operator. For by the operation of the Medicine of the First Order, it receives and passes through the qualities of all metals up to the Sun.
Dissolving Mercury is made equal to all the Mercuries of metals and comes closest to their likeness and nature.
Dissolving Mercury is fixed by the sulfur of imperfect metals and coagulates into imperfect metal, transforming into the same imperfect metallic species by whose sulfur it is coagulated and solidified. If Dissolving Mercury is not animated or lacks a soul, it contributes nothing to any universal or particular work. Therefore, the greatest secret is animated Dissolving Mercury.
The secret of all the secrets of the stone is to know that Dissolving Mercury is the matter and menstruum; the Mercury of perfect metals is the form.
These definitions and properties of Dissolving Mercury are recited not only for easier and clearer mastery of the work but also so that the student of the art may meditate on it, for it almost entirely performs the benefit of the Art and is that one Vessel of the Philosophers in which the whole mastery is completed: of which it is also said: The foliated Sun destroys everything. It dissolves, softens, and takes the soul from the Body: This power is known to be held by no other thing in this world. Know this because it is a great secret.
The principal property of Dissolving Mercury is to dissolve the body naturally without damage or detriment and to cleanse it from corrupting causes, to extract the spirit existing in the body and tinging it, and to reduce metals to themselves by dissolution, to soften their hardness, illuminate metals, separate and remove their darkness and impurity from the purest parts, to raise and exalt metals, reducing them to a sublime nature, to inspire and subtilize while making the solid spiritual. These are the benefits and effects of Dissolving Mercury, extracting the tinging spirit from the body. And it is necessary to have a large quantity of this and to seclude it in a well-sealed vessel and keep it secretly from the cold. This is the intention of Albert the Great, and he calls it humid, dry, fiery. Also, the aim of the aforementioned Mercury is to look to and constrain to the lowest. Note also that Dissolving Mercury has many names, of which only a few are recited here to better understand those later mentioned.
It is called Vinegar, Philosophers’ Vinegar, Field, Aludel, Water, Water of Art, Burning Water, Divine Water, Spring Water, Cleansing Water, Permanent Water, First Water, Simple Water, Bath, Heaven, Prison, Human Eyelid, Sieve, Fridanus, Fume, Humidity, Fire, Artificial Fire, Corrosive Fire, Fire against nature, Humid Fire, Jordan, Liquid, Crude Vegetable Liquid, Moon, Matter, Lunar Matter, First Virtue, Mother, Mercury, Crude Mercury, Dissolving Mercury, Preparing Mercury, First Ministry, First Nature, Fifth Essence, Spirit, Crude Spirit, Spirit of Cooking, Tomb, Mercury Seed, Stygian Water, Stomach of an Ostrich, Vessel, Philosophers’ Vessel, Visitation of the Occult, and Crude Quicksilver simply extracted from the ore: but not the vulgar one sold in pharmacies. Thus far about Mercury or the dissolving spirit.
As for the body, let it suffice at this time to call it by the name of Litharge or body. However, this body is ordered to endure all miseries: For it must pass through fire and water, and be reborn, otherwise, it cannot enter into eternal rest: Its color is brown, somewhat red, and not bright. Also, its work is to be dissolved, exalted, die, and ascend high.
Having obtained these two, namely Spirit and Body, and conjoined them together according to due proportion, another Mercury is made from them: And this is the Mercury about which it is written, ”In Mercury is whatever the wise seek.” The body, from this, soul, and tincturing spirit are drawn. This Mercury is in humid vapor, not oily but viscous, of great acidity, moderately subtle, easily escaping the harshness of the fire, and vanishing in it; possessing the power of dissolving bodies and spirits, with the soul existing in it; and in preparing it there must be diligence and patience, with suitable expectation, whose end is comfort and joy. Let idleness, negligence, and diabolical haste be absent, whose end is damage and sadness. Note that after the aforementioned, namely Spirit and Body, are conjoined, they are always called by one name: yet this one is named by the names of all things in this world. And because of this, many err, partly due to the multiplicity of names, partly especially due to ignorance of the due proportion.
But the most commonly used names in the beginning of the Medicine of the First Order are these. It is called Water, thickened water, our water, second water, Arcane, quicksilver, Good, Good of many names, Chaos, our compound, our confection, consumed body, mixed body, our copper, our brass, Philosophers’ brass; it is also called dung, horse dung, smoke, watery smoke, watery humidity, burning humidity, fire, foreign fire, unnatural fire, stone, mineral stone, one stone, Laton, one matter, mass of metals, menstruum, second menstruum, Mercury, thickened Mercury, ore, our ore, ore of metals, coin, egg, egg of the Philosophers, root, one root, one thing and vile thing. This is also the Mercury in the preparation of which it is prescribed: That it should be greatly sublimed from dry things not suitable for it until it receives a celestial color, which foolish people have hallucinated about natural Mercury: and about which it is warned, to be especially careful in its cleansing from the deprivation of its virtue, lest the active force is stifled in any way. For the seeds of all earthly things do not multiply, nor grow, if their generative power is taken away by some extraneous heat. Finally, this is the Mercury or Stone known in the chapters of books. And from this Mercury some Philosophers begin their books and discourse: Know this because it is a great Secret.
Now that I have recited to you the names of this our admirable compound, if we wish to progress in this Wisdom, we must first compose this admirable mixture or the greatest Secret, and afterward transform it from nature into nature: As Luca says in the Turba; You need nothing but One thing, and this one thing is transformed in each degree of our works into another nature.
Geber also testifies to the same when he says, Our art does not consist in the plurality of things, for it is one matter (that is, metals) in which our mastery consists, to which we add nothing foreign, nor do we subtract except what is removed in its preparation.
Haly the Philosopher also speaks in this sense, saying, The entire artifice of ours is contained in one stone, to which nothing is added or mixed in whole or in part, which is taken into the work by the philosophers and the wise, and the fire is exhaled from it until the work is perfected. Morigenes also affirms the same: For he says, All that is required by the Philosophers is one single thing: having father and mother, created and nourished by them, and being its own father and mother.
Furthermore, the sounder philosopher left it written, That thing which the Philosophers seek is one thing, which they called by the name of all bodies and species: In another place, he says the same, The Philosopher’s Stone is one, which contains in itself all natural preparation and all that is necessary for it.
Moreover, Arnold in his Epistle to the King of Naples says: The Philosopher’s Stone or our compound is one thing and of one nature, and in it is contained all that is necessary for it, and it also contains that which improves it and completes it.
Hermes also affirms the same with these words: O how admirable is this one thing that has in itself all that is necessary for the completion of the work: And for this reason, this one thing is called the Lesser World, because in it and by it and with it and in it are all metals and all things necessary for our work.
Considering these gravest opinions of the Philosophers, it must necessarily be admitted that the Elixir should be made from not many, but one thing alone. However, this One, which is called Quicksilver, is not one in number (as Ripley states in his scale), but in kind. Just as Male and Female are sufficient to procreate offspring without any addition.
From the above, it can be gathered that our Stone is composed of two things, which suffice for the sought Medicine. Just as an egg composed of two things is one, which suffices for a perfect chick: Some, however, say that a third is added to these two: For just as a man consists of a soul, a body, and a spirit, so too does our Stone: However, the number of two is not increased because of this, for the Tincture is called the Soul; the whole compound is the Body, the Spirit is called the volatile nature before it is fixed or solidified: And for this reason, the Philosophers said three, and these three are one, and in one are three: Body, Spirit, and Soul are one, and all are from one. And if anyone errs from that one in the beginning, he labors in vain.
The Tincture is called the soul, the whole compound is the body, the Spirit is called the volatile nature before it is fixed and solidified. Demogorgon. 401. chap. 523.
Finally understood by the Philosophers that our Stone after composition or conjunction is one thing; and that this one thing according to Luca must be changed from nature into nature, namely, from coldness and humidity into heat and dryness. It remains to see by what means this change is made: Indeed by Putrefaction. And to know how to make it perfectly, we must have knowledge of both Natural and Artificial Principles: For those who are ignorant of the principles will face weariness in the end.
First therefore the natural principle; we say our Matter, or the material cause, is the earth, water, fire, and air under the will of God, that is, the division of time.
Second is Heat, that is, Foreign Fire, which is the instrument moving the matter to putrefaction, and there is no other agent in the world. Hence Alphidius says, Know, son, that the substance acting in this whole world is One, namely, Heat. For if heat is taken away, there is no movement at all. Movement, however, is the act, therefore heat is the artisan of the disposition and the whole work. But since there are many degrees of Heat or Fire: let us see what this is and in what degree it is. And certainly, the fire or heat is the most intense fire, as Maria testifies. The measure of your fire should be as that of the Sun in the days of June and July, and it is called Horse Dung, but it is not, as Alphidius says: It is cooked by fire (that is, foreign), which I will show you, and it is hot and dry in the fourth degree, whose property is to increase dryness, condensing humidity. For just as the heat of horse dung increases cold and moist because of its coldness and moisture which is prohibited. So the strength of hot and dry fire disposes dryness, terminating the humid nature in dry nature. For only that heat is the inspissator of humidity and the perfecter of mixture, and such heat is most necessary in the generation and procreation of natural things. However, no other heat in the world is like this except natural, which is the heat of the Sun in the bowels of the earth.
Having seen the natural principles, let us see the artificial ones. The artificial principles are two main instruments in which this putrefaction is perfected.
The first is the Caraha. The second is Aludel, that is, the Horse’s Belly, in which the matter must be placed. Of which Vincentius says: The solutions of bodies and spirits have many instruments; one is called the Horse’s Belly and consists of two vessels, one of which is the Aludel, in which the matter is placed, and it stands in the furnace and is nourished by the fire from below so that it boils. Avicenna says that these dispositions cannot be made except in a known double vessel, which vessel is the Horse’s Belly above named.
Also, since definition signifies altogether what the thing is: Let us see what putrefaction is, so that we may better understand it. Putrefaction is the substantial corruption of humidity, due to the lack of natural heat, with the foreign artificial heat acting externally.
Note, foreign artificial heat acting externally: For this foreign heat is the instrument acting, superimposed on putrefaction causing humid corruption. But if it is asked in what manner this heat causes putrefaction? We respond: Heat heats the body applied to it, and by heating it makes the humidity evaporate, by which all dry parts were held together, and made one mixed continuous body and one thing. And thus heat corrupts and putrefies the thing itself, because the body which was continuous by reason of humidity, by reason of the same exhaled, becomes discontinuous and no longer persists in the substance of the mixed continuous body, as seen in wood placed in the fire. For the strength of the heat of the fire makes the water and oil evaporate from the wood, by means of which the wood was first a mixed and continuous body, and now, after the separation of the water and oil, ashes and dry parts remain, completely discontinuous and pulverized. And because of this similarity, putrefaction was called ashes by the Philosophers. Hence Hermes correctly says: Do not neglect Quicksilver, for it whitens black ashes, and by the fire of the Wise, the work is done. Therefore, it was also called calcination due to the same similarity. For just as the strength of the fire deprives the stone of its humidity and makes lime from it; so does putrefaction. Hence Parmenides in the Turba. Unless you turn nature, and know its compositions and complexions, and fit blood relative to blood relative, and first to first, you work inappropriately, nor do you achieve anything, because natures with their like natures follow and rejoice in them: They rot and separate because nature directs nature, which destroys it and turns it into dust and reduces it. Therefore, it appears that by putrefaction the body is destroyed and transformed into another substance, just as a stone by calcination. Furthermore, note that by putrefaction, the inspissation of the spirits of waters occurs, by the conversion of cold and moist into heat and dryness, as shown above. Having seen what putrefaction is, and also how it occurs: Let us see the signs by which we can recognize when it is perfect and when not.
The main signs or accidents by which we can understand it to be perfect or not are three: Color, Odor, and Touch. The color should be black, the odor foul, and the touch heavy. Concerning color, Avicenna in his title on Humors says: Heat acting on a humid body first generates blackness. Therefore, the sun was darkened at its rising as Senior says. And this blackness is the beginning of the work, a sign of putrefaction, a certain beginning of commixture, a sign of the dissolution of the body, and the acceptance of one into another. Arnold also says: Indeed when it is blackened, we say it is the key of the work, for it is not done without blackness, for it is the tincture we seek, by which we can dye any body, which was hidden in its brass, just as the soul in the human body. Also, the wise philosopher wonders: Son, make sure you have a black color in the beginning, and then you will be certain that you are putrefying and proceeding on the right path. Raimundus also says: Blackness shows the sign of the first gate to enter our mastery, and without it, nothing is done, for the cause is the fire of nature, which has to create the stone, which cannot be manifested without its body’s putrefaction: and unless it is manifested, it will never be in action by which it can grow and generate. And about the odor of our stone, Morienus says: The odor of our stone is bad and foul and is likened to the odor of tombs. And about its touch, the same Morienus says: The touch of the stone is soft and very heavy. Also, the author of the perfect mastery, Lead, that is, mixed Quicksilver at its height is lead and black silver, cold, dry, earthy, melancholic, shriveled, black, foul-smelling, heavy, and feminine. Therefore, it appears that putrefaction is perfect when it is black, foul-smelling, and heavy. Also, note that black Quicksilver, Calcination, Incineration, Melancholy, Putrefaction, and Pregnancy mean the same thing.
But you may ask what remains calcined after putrefaction? We respond, the perfect essence of our mixed metallic matter, which before putrefaction was in the potency of it, introduced by the proportion of mixed things, that is, the elements, from which it was composed, because such an essence is not destroyed so much that it is annihilated or reduced to nothing, since it is not possible for us to destroy the subject essence and nature, but the quantity and form which gave being to such a mixture, now through putrefaction and accident coming from outside are destroyed and putrefied, which form and quantity it had received from the mixture, these indeed are utterly annihilated. For example. Just as the whole integral, say a house, consists of its integral parts united, and one part being separated from the place it had in the whole, the quantity and form of the whole house are destroyed, yet the stones, wood, and foundations from which the house consisted remain: So too is it in our case. For separating the humidity from the place it had in the elementary mixture, as an integral part in the whole, and this through the heat elevating and separating it from the other parts, the quantity and form of the mixture are annihilated, yet the subject essence of the humidity is not annihilated, nor can it be.
But you may object, contrary experience: For if a pot full of water is applied to the fire, with the heat of the fire prevailing, by gradually exhaling the water itself will be reduced to nothing in the pot, therefore its essence will be annihilated. However, to this objection, we respond that it does not at all conflict with our position, since we are speaking here of the nature of the mixed metallic, which, even if it is calcined as to its total composition, yet it is not entirely destroyed, as we exemplified above with the house: And thus if the pot is covered, so that the vapors cannot exhale, the water itself is not seen to be annihilated, therefore the cavil induced against our intention is not valid, although even according to the intention of the Peripatetic prince (in the first volume of his natural works) an easy escape from the doubt raised is possible, for the matter of the water is not annihilated in that contrary action of the fire, but rather remains. For it does not follow: Nothing remains in the pot; therefore the subject water is annihilated. And then it is said that water has a subtle and rare matter and consequently very penetrable. Also, it has qualities entirely contrary to the qualities of fire, for the heat of fire opposes the coldness of water, and dryness opposes humidity: Therefore, as the heat conquers the coldness, so much the more does it subtilize and rarefy the water, so that it converts it into air, and thus the matter of the water is not at all destroyed, although it assumes the form of air. For air is generated from the heat of Fire and the humidity of Water, and Earth from the dryness of Fire and the coldness of Water. Hence Morienus: There are four elements, of which two are principal, and greatly contrary, like Fire and Water; the other two are generated from these, like Air and Earth. This same thing is most clearly declared by Albertus Magnus in the book Perigeneis: We also see aqueous vapors rising by the power of heat, and being elevated contrary to their nature. For water by its own nature always seeks its place downwards as a heavy thing. And when these reach the place of maximum coldness, where coldness prevails over heat, then by the power of that inspissating coldness they are converted into clouds, into water. And even when the north wind (whose nature is cold and dry) meets the south wind, then if the coldness of the north wind prevails over the heat of the south wind, it is condensed and frozen into clouds, and these are sometimes converted into frost, sometimes into hail, sometimes into snow, and sometimes into ice. From this, it appears that the essence of things cannot be annihilated, but receives conversion, when the nature of one overcomes the nature of the other in the mixture.
Geber says, Our art does not consist in the plurality of things, for it is one matter, in which our mastery consists, to which we add nothing extraneous, nor do we diminish except what is removed in its preparation. This sentiment consists of three parts, namely, What is the one matter? What are the superfluities to be removed? And how should they be removed? With these three known, the sentiment is understood, and with the understanding of it, others of the same kind are easily understood.
But what the one matter is, is shown above in the synonyms. Now let us see what those superfluities are that are to be removed in the preparation? Surely the black, corrupting sulfurs, and burning unctuosities: These and the like are the superfluities that are to be removed in the preparation of the one matter: But you say, how is this removal done? Certainly, First by the Nile of Egypt, that is, with moist water: And afterward with Persia in Secrets, that is, with dry fire. And with putrefactions, sublimations, and distillations in its proper vessel, that is in Aludel, hence Albertus Magnus: If you wish to prepare without sublimations and distillations, you will lose your powders because they will evaporate very quickly.
To this our intention, that saying of Hippocrates in the Aphorisms can be elegantly applied: In the disturbance and vomiting that happen spontaneously, if what ought to be purged is purged, it will be well: if not, the contrary. We transfer this as follows: In the disturbance of the belly, that is, putrefactions that happen in Aludel, and vomitings that happen spontaneously, that is, sublimations and distillations that happen in Caraha, ascending upwards, just as vomit, if what ought to be purged is purged, it is well; if not, it is bad. Therefore, it appears that if we know how to make putrefaction, which is the disturbance of the elements, or cleansing or purifying, and well remove this from that by sublimation and distillation, that is, the pure from the impure, we prepare well, and it will be well for us, if not, the contrary. And note that a fixed part adheres with the dregs, which can never be separated from them by any kind of skill, since it is entirely fixed with them.
But you may ask of what color this one matter should be after the superfluities are removed? Indeed, of white color. Hence Hermes in his Allegory says: Know, seekers of rumors and sons of wisdom; That the Vulture on top of the mountain, stretched out on the peak, cries out in a great voice, saying, I am the white of black, the yellow of white, and the red of yellow, I am truly truthful and do not lie.
Therefore, note the white of black, for we extract the white from the black. Alphidius also testifies to the same, saying: Quicksilver which is extracted from it, that is, the black body, is moist white, cleansed from the crusts, lest the work perishes. The same also about it: Know, Son, that this stone, which is the material or root of the art, about which all the wise have spoken, is Quicksilver; and it is a certain Quicksilver of white color and more shining than a mirror.
Therefore, this white Quicksilver, extracted from the subtlest blackness, is the Philosophical Mercury tinged with its white and red sulfur naturally mixed with it in the ore, moderately prepared, simply perfect, left to the discretion of the Artificer, until perfect completion. And concerning this Quicksilver, the Rosary says: This is our most noble Mercury, for God has never created a better thing under Heaven, except the rational soul. Plato also: This is our material and our secret. And it is the water that whitens the Indian stone as Maria says. This thing is the water that whitens the Indian stone, that is, the Indian: And this water is living water, which is called Mercurial as all affirm. And it is the wise man’s Quicksilver (that is, Quicksilver with white sand purified seven times by fire and water, and coagulated from Quicksilver) about which Hermes said: Keep this coagulated Quicksilver, that is, purified, which is in the innermost chambers where it is coagulated. For this Quicksilver is from the Heart of Saturn, and is the Secret of School, and is called residual earth. Also Solomon: This Quicksilver is like a bride adorned for her husband: to whom power, honor, virtue, and the kingdom’s empire are given in her hand, having a crown on her head adorned with the rays of seven shining stars, and in her clothes is written in golden letters, in Greek, Barbarian, and Latin: I am the only daughter of the wise, entirely unknown to fools. Also Hortulanus: This is our true Mercury extracted from metals, and is well washed and digested: And I swear by God that there is no other Mercury in the universal way except the one already declared, on which our whole philosophy depends. Whoever says otherwise speaks falsely. The same is testified by the Count of Treves, saying: Quicksilver is not found in anything else but in metals. It is also said in the Turba: The beginning of the whole Philosophical work is Whiteness, that is, Quicksilver from Quicksilver: With this done, the one matter is thus prepared so that it can receive our divine conjunction with its body, otherwise not: Whoever hears the words, let him seek. Now we testify by Him, who justifies no ill-perpetrated work, and condemns no rightly and well-performed one, that we have now revealed whatever the Ancients concealed about this wisdom, and the greatest Secret (to those having knowledge and understanding) has been disclosed.
Note that Vinegar, White, Lamb, Immaculate Lamb, Aibatheft, Whiteness, Alborach, Water, Blessed Water, Heavy Water, Talc, Urine and life, Quicksilver, Animated Quicksilver, Coagulated and purified Quicksilver, Silver, Argyrion, Zoticon, Arsenic, Orpiment, Gold, White Gold, Azoch, Baurach, Borax, Ox, Cambar, Caspa, Ceruse, Wax, Chai, Comeriffon, White body, Improper body, Neighboring body, December, E. Electrum, Essence, White Essence, Euphrates, Eve, Fada, Favonius, Foundation of the art, Gem of the Blood, Ginnina, White gum, Hermaphroditus, Hae, Hypostasis, Hyle, Enemy, Insipid, Milk, Virgin’s Milk, Stone, Known stone in chapters, Mineral stone, One stone, Slippery, Moon, Full moon, Magnesia, Mother, One matter of metals, One medicine, Medium dispositive, Menstruum, Western Mercury, Oil, Living oil, Vegetable oil, Egg, Phlegm, Lead, White lead, Point, Root, Root of the Art, One root, One thing of metals, Rebis, Salt, Alkaline salt, Sal Elebrot, Fusible salt, Salt of metals, Soap of the wise, Seb, Afterbirth, Sedina, Old age, Seth, Serinech, Fugitive servant, Left, Companion, Sister, Seed of metals, Spirit, Tin, Sublimate, Juice, Sulfur, White sulfur, Unctuous sulfur, Earth, Fruitful earth, Potential earth, Tevos, Tincar, Vapor, Evening, Wind, Virago, Glass, Pharaoh’s glass or Mannihillabile, twenty-one, Urine, Urine of boys, Anointed, Vulture, Zibach, Ziva and many others signify the same.
Moreover, note that the removal of the Superfluous in the aforementioned opinion of Geber, the words are equivocal: because they also mean that which is superfluous to the work, which is most useful for the work, and for this reason, we call it the Most Useful Superfluous, which, however, must be removed at certain times. Know this, for it is a great Secret.
Useful superfluity is the oil or limosity of the body floating on the menstruum after its dissolution, and it is necessary that the body be converted into oil, for if it is not converted, it will remain solid in itself, and what we seek will not happen, and it will follow the privation of all the principles of this Art.
Knowing by definition what useful superfluity is, to better understand it, let us see its operation through the Philosophers.
The Rosary says: Whoever wants to enter our Rosary and see and have both white and red roses without that vile thing, that is, without the moist black superfluity, with which our referents refer, he is likened to a man who wants to walk without feet, for without that vile thing the precious is never perfected. However, this vile thing the Philosophers have honored and called it Stone and not Stone, and named it by all names.
Genesis first: The divine Spirit moved over the waters (and the beginning of generation from it). The same: A vapor rose from the earth which irrigated its entire soil (I mean its own).
Also, Astanus in the Turba: Take the same black Spirit, seated in the clouds, and with it, destroy and crucify bodies until they are altered to your pleasure.
The same: That Spirit is wholly fiery, and cleansing by its fiery nature, dividing all bodies with their equals.
Also, Hermes: The same black Spirit is the restorer of the soul to its body and the reformer of the whole work, and everything we seek is from it.
Also, Senior in the Epistle of the Sun and Moon: The water I mentioned is a thing descending from Heaven, and the earth with its moisture receives it, and the water of Heaven is retained with the water of the Earth, and the water of the earth, due to its service, and its sand honors it, and the water is gathered into water, and the water will retain the water, and it will be whitened with Albira and Astuna.
The same: That black Spirit is the restorer of the soul to its body, which revives after its death, and through it, there is life after there is no longer Death.
The same: A superior smoke descends to the inferior, and smoke conceives from smoke; nothing is more vile in appearance, and nothing more precious in nature, and God could not create anything more precious.
Up to this point is known what the useful superfluity is and what it does in our work.
Knowing the removal and purification of both useful and useless superfluity is a great secret and known to very few. But whoever understands the following sentences related to this proposition will easily overcome the whole difficulty of this matter. First, as a corollary, I say: That unless you sublimate the Body at the beginning of cooking with a very temperate fire until it becomes a single clear water composed of two things, you do nothing at all. Know, therefore, that the intention of the Philosophers is that the Body which was not water should become a Spiritual water, with the water in which it is. This Water the Philosophers named with many names, and Hermes ordered it to be washed many times so that the blackness of the Sun might be erased which it had received in the dissolution of the body, and that which is dissolved becomes Spiritual and is sublimated upwards. Hence the Philosopher: By light exhalation, the Spirit and the Tincture hidden in the body are called up and carried upward, and when nothing more rises, know that the whole body is dissolved; when you see the water fixed without any ascent, know that the body is dissolved, and then do not care what kind of fire it is. It is better to rule with patience until the Spirit and Body become one; thus the corporeal becomes incorporeal and the incorporeal becomes corporeal.
Conellus the Philosopher on the removal of the superfluous says: When the Philosophers saw the blackness of the water approaching, they knew the Body was partially liquefied, then they ordered to impose their Vessel again and cook until the Stone becomes shining, having a splendor, which seen, you have the greatest Secret. Azinabam the Philosopher says, and Luca in the Crowd: The intention of the Philosophers is that the partially dissolved body in black powder, passes through the water, so that the whole becomes something indivisible: Then the Vapor contains its own matter, water water, just as nature appropriates its own: hence the Philosophers shout, Nature rejoices in nature and delights; Nature overcomes nature; and Nature seeks nature, desires, conceives, and embraces, nourishes, renews, strengthens, and contains, teaching it to fight against fire.
Our Ripley, speaking of these natures, says, That one of these, which remains at the bottom, is Earth, and the other which rises from the Earth is Heaven. He says, Repeat Heaven over the earth so many times until the earth becomes heavenly and spiritual, and Heaven becomes earthly and joins with the earth.
Therefore, you must join two natures, namely, superior and inferior, until you draw the natures to yourself and it becomes a most lucid and clear thing, which shines and is illuminated after it has been accommodated in its great and most excellent perfection.
Also, Alphidius on the removal of the superfluous says thus: Return the Coal to its water to be extinguished in it, and the conception of things will be at the bottom of the vessel, and it will be like a turbid mud, which by (putrefaction) is the beginning of Coagulation.
Dastin the Philosopher also says: If the Latonian Alkebrit is burned, and softness is frequently poured over it, its nature will be changed from bad to better, with God’s help.
Also, Bassen in the Turba: Return the sweat to it which it ejected, and again give it to death, and establish rest for it, being careful not to flee. Luca also in the Crowd testifies the same, saying: Take the cloud that previous smokes commanded, and again impose it on its Vessel, so that the Brodium becomes fattened; and according to the custom, remove it from its blackness, wash it, and with equal fire roast it until it is whitened.
Also, Rasis in the book of the divinity of this thing making mention, orders the oil that has floated to be removed with a sponge so long as nothing more black rises, and above a small cloud will be raised which should be left until its sublimation is firmed, then one small cloud after another should be taken, and submerged in boiling water until all the small clouds are consumed. Know that these small clouds are the oil of sulphur.
Geber wanted to signify the same thing in many places. In the first Book where he talks about the preparation of Sulphur: And in the Book of Investigation, where he discusses the preparation of metals: And in book 2, chapter 8. Under the name of Marcasite, where he has these words: Without ignition, its sulphur is sublimated, always removing what is sublimated from it as often as possible; because they are very subtle fumes, and they need temperate cooking so that they thicken in themselves according to equal proportion.
Albertus Magnus also speaks of this washing in the 3rd book of Minerals, chapter 2. and in the 2nd Treatise, chapter 5.
Albides also the Philosopher about the removal of superfluous things says thus: Take things, (that is, living waters) from their mines, and sublimate them to their higher places, and send them from the top of their mountains, and bring them back to their roots.
Also, Hermes: Gently with great ingenuity it ascends from Earth to Heaven, and again descends to Earth, and receives the power of the superior by sublimating, and of the inferior by descending: this is that the Corporeal becomes spiritual by sublimating, and what is spiritual becomes corporeal by descending.
Also, our Martinus: And if you see something gradually rising upwards with the fire set upon it, you should make it descend again.
Also, Oziambe speaks thus: Break the glass and extract the Stone, and put it in a glass vessel or Boccea and extract the oil and you will find what the Philosophers have handed down to us.
Arnold also in the new light, making mention of this thing, says thus: During the Brown, my Master broke the Vessel and the Stone, and inspected it inside and outside, and found the Brown outside; But inside there was still blackness. He who has ears to hear, let him hear. Also, Norton:
You must work with good advice
When you see Earth above water rise,
For as water bears Earth, which we go on
So will it do in working of our Stone.
Wherefore well springs with strokes soft
Soberly make you must in times oft.
Also, Ripley says, when the Earth is troubled, the Mountains will be transferred into the Sea.
About the number of removals and purifications of the superfluous Dastin in his Rosary says thus: Imbibe and sieve the things, (i.e., Sulphurs) through a spherical sieve washing away the blacknesses seven times, and let all become one clear and limpid water: and as many times as they are imbibed, so many times let them be dried in turns.
Barsenetes in the Crowd testifies the same, saying: And the water is imposed on it seven times until it absorbs all the moisture and receives the imminent power against the battle of fire, and then it is called Rust.
Also, Herizertem the Philosopher in his Monade, says, Extract it and rub it until it is washed from all stench, watery humidity, and burning blackness seven times; finally cook it until it is dried, and turned into dry earth, and beware that the Arcanum does not smoke and flee.
Also, Cerus in the Crowd: Therefore, imbibe the Stone seven times and wash it until it is dissolved, and until the whole body is cleansed from every impurity and becomes earth.
Also, the Persistent Philosopher: Our Body has Hydropic like Naaman the Syrian, leprous, for which it seeks the bath of regeneration seven times in Jordan, to be cleansed from innate passions and corruptions. And thus there are in sum seven decoctions, namely, four in Winter, and then three in Spring, which are assigned through the seven Affixations.
Hermes, however, says: Moisten and crush it for many days, and he commanded to dissolve and coagulate it nine times, which are designated by the nine Eagles. And in each dissolution and coagulation its effect will increase. The same is testified by other very ancient Philosophers (namely by the nine times) whom I believe should be imitated more safely, although after the seventh time, according to the more recent Philosophers, who also taught the truth, the Matter of the Stone is fully putrefied, sublimated, purified, and whitened. And then it is called the perpetual Water, the perennial Water, and the Water of Life; it is also called the fetid Water, because it bears a fetus.
Hence Martinus: It bears with it everything it needs, this fetid Water.
Note that the true meaning of these sentences about the removal of the superfluous is, to understand that those clouds that are elevated above the Vinegar must be propelled to the bottom in one way or another; and this must be done in each cloud that is elevated until they appear to be cleansed and purified. Arcanus the Philosopher to show how those clouds are removed says thus: Go to the Woman washing Clothes; you do likewise. Auro consurgens. p. 244.
Moreover, understand that all those clouds have their modes which they cannot bypass; therefore, a skilled Artist must know the particular times of exhalations and how long each cloud perseveres before beginning the practice; and this will be easily understood in this Treatise, otherwise, they will certainly fly away.
Also note that Water, divine water, elevated water, called water, Cloud water, World water, Sulphurous water, Poisonous water, Golden water, Eagle, Living Silver, Azoch, Staff, Iron staff, Cain, Coal, Alembic top, Raven’s head, Chyle, Corruption, Crown of Victory, Sea bark, black bark, Golden collar, Vessel cover, Deunech, Green deunech, Eudica, Echel, Torch, womb ashes, glass ashes, Horse dung, Flower, air flower, smoke, fiery smoke, Tall man, Helmeted man, Fiery moisture, fiery poison, Fire, foreign fire, Charcoal fire, horse dung fire, unnatural fire, putrefaction fire, Stone, green stone, Liquefaction, Green Lion, mud of the Mastery, black Magnesia, Melancholy, fetid menstruum, Dead impurity, Naptha, Blackness, black ash, Night blackness, Blacker than black, night, Cloud, coin, Oil, Saturn’s oil, Sulphur oil, Iron spatula, Stone spatula, Spit, Moon’s spit, Sublimated, Juice, Sweat, Solar Sweat, Tartar, Tartar, Earth, black earth, Sulphurous earth, Darkness, dark garment, Tint, Vapor, Evening, Wind, Wind of the Belly, Veil, Viper, Vomit, and the most useful superfluous mean the same thing.
Also note, that this most useful superfluous is at first gross, impure, and fugitive because of the sulphur which it meets and is mixed with in the veins of the Earth. But by the operation of Art, which is achieved through frequent repetition of sublimation and distillation, it is renewed, purified, cleansed, cooked, thickened, and coagulated into white and red sulphur (by the Will of God).
And just as the most useful superfluity is removed and cleansed, so also whatever is gross, harmful, and superfluous in our Arcanum is gradually purified, conserved, and sublimated through the aforementioned operations and slow cooking.
Before everything, it should be noted that if our Arcanum does not have in itself what amends it, it is useless. For this reason, the Ancients said that what is amended is one, and diverse natures do not amend, which indeed is true, because only one thing is suitable for itself, which thing should be ruled sparingly: For ignorance of ruling makes many err. Do not care for the plurality of things, nor for those things that the Philosophers put in their books and enigmas, for the nature of truth is one, which the Naturals called one, in whose womb is hidden. We indeed call this hidden thing the Sun, which we honor, because without it our Arcanum is not amended. And yet this Sun is neither seen nor known, nor perceived except by the Wise.
Note that this Sun, which amends our Arcanum, does not by itself alone perfect our Tincture, because it has not yet reached the subtlety to tinge due to its density and grossness. Therefore, necessarily, the Moon is required there, to sublimate the Sun itself, make it rare and volatile, and separate its impurity: Therefore, the Moon is the Mother and the Field in which the solar seed should be sown: And these two, namely, the Sun and the Moon, seed and Field, Father and Mother, Sulphur and Mercury, Agent and Patient, if prepared together, will do a marvelous work, because in one is that which the other does not have; and one amends and improves the other and one by the help of the other is amended and improved. Therefore, every Doctrine that teaches to begin the work with one alone and not with both together is false and vain. Also, note that the said Sun, having been converted into Mercury, remains in the same form for a short time, since the corruption of one is the generation of the other: as the Philosopher testifies first of Generation: and it is impossible for matter to be without some form, first of Physics: hence, when the Agent destroyed the first mixture or proportion of elements, which made our Arcanum be under the first form of mixture, it immediately introduces another. And what is that form in our proposition? Certainly, our mixed Arcanum corrupted, which is called Chyle by the Wise of this art, Saturn, Lead, Jupiter, iron or Copper, because of their blackness and impurity, from which blackness and impurity they should be cleansed. Therefore, the cleansing must be done from that blackness and darkness and thus the Wise believe. For they suffer from extended darkness, but when the dark and pernicious Spirit itself is removed so that neither smell nor color of darkness appears, then the Bodies are illuminated when the Blackness is absent from them because they are clothed with Spirituality and divinity, and the Medicine of life has entered into them, and all the Elements are united in love, and all have become one, in which lies eternity; And the House full of light and divinity is sealed. Hermes testifies the same when he says: This, my son, know, that unless one knows how to draw out the pregnancy, mortify, generate, and vivify the species, introduce light, and cleanse until they are purged by fire, colored, and cleansed from the last stains, or from blackness and Darkness, he does nothing. But if anyone has done this, among mortals he will be the possessor of greater dignity, so that Kings will venerate him.
But you will ask: What is it that produces this blackness? Watery and burning moisture. Hence Rodianus in the book of three words says; Watery and burning moisture is a smoky vapor, of which it is said: Watery and burning moisture corrupts the work and tints it black: but that moisture which produces blackness prevents the white smoke, in the absence of which the Gold of Archimia is not made: as Morienus testifies: Unless the smoke were white, the Gold of Archimia would not be. Also, concerning this, the same: That what you asked about the white smoke, it is necessary to know. The white smoke is the Spirit and soul of those bodies, that is, Veins, whose souls, that is, Metals, or elements we have extracted, and again united them with their bodies. Therefore, that soul having entered its body whitens it and cleanses it from all blackness.
Having thus known what should be cleansed and also the cause of blackness and impurity: let us see by what means this cleansing is done? Certainly by the fire of subtiliation and by levigations and compressions.
Now having seen how this cleansing is done: it remains to see when it is completed: Parmenides in the Crowd teaches this: Know, he says, that if the surface is whitened, its internal parts are whitened: And if the soul whitens the surface of the body, its internal parts are whitened. Also, Lucas: But the living silver being rightly governed whitens every body, and nature converts and disposes nature. Therefore, it is read in the arcane of the arcana that the Arcanum received from the eternal omnipotent Lord should not be made public (to the unworthy) because the Lord should be feared altogether. Yet, in the name of the Holy and Undivided Trinity, take the first material of the art with Air and Fire joined together, and extract the white smoke from them through the Fire of subtiliation in Aludel and Caraha and keep it with utmost diligence lest it evaporate and perish.
But you will ask how this white Smoke is extracted or generated? Certainly through putrefaction and purification: For first the Material is corrupted, and by the heat of the fire, the separation of one burning smoke, which tints it black, is made from the white smoke, which was previously mixed with it in the Primary Matter, under one Mass, and thus it receives one purification by Fire, for it also receives another afterward by our Artifice, namely through calcination, sublimation, subtiliation, distillation, trituration, etc.
Now having seen the extraction of that white smoke, which is done by separating the burning smoke from it, in putrefaction and purification: let us see what should be done next.
Hermes says, when that smoke has been purified and whitened, then it will be fit to be joined with its soul, otherwise not. Hence Morienus says: If anyone extracts the soul, that is, the Silver or gold of God from the bowels of the earth, that is, of our transmutatory body, and makes it ascend upwards, that is, in the purified living silver, and cleanses and whitens it from all blackness and foul smell with even warm water, and then joins it with the body, that is, the oil of glass (first however sublimated and whitened), and mortifies it by the change of place, he will see the greatest marvels in the world.
It should also be known: That in our Arcanum, just as in any body, there are three Dimensions, namely, Height, Width, and Depth, as the Philosopher testifies first of Heaven.
The Height of our Stone at all times and in all work is that of the Body which manifestly appears and first meets our Sight. For example, the body of our Art in its first disposition through putrefaction is black, and thus it appears to our sight, and we say it is cold and moist, as Rodianus affirms: Our Stone in its first disposition is cold and moist, because it is aquatic, and water is cold and moist, and moist water flows. Therefore I swear by the God of Heaven that it is true; And such disposition is called the Height of the Body, or the manifest.
Note that everything manifest (there are many in our Body) has its hidden Contrary.
The Width of our Stone is that disposition by which it is passed to the Depth, which is our medicine. And it is the life of Height and Depth, as a medium between two extremes or contraries, through which one reaches the extreme. And it is said about this, that it is impossible to pass from one extreme to another without a Medium. The Philosopher testifies sixth of Physics: For it has been said above; That our Stone in its Height is of a cold and moist complexion, which if we want to make it pass to the dispositive Medicine, it is necessary that one quality is destroyed in it. It is destroyed however by Calcination, for the cold and moist through calcination is thickened, and its humidity is turned into dryness, and thus there is a passage to the dispositive Medicine, which is warmth and dryness, which is called Width.
However, nature receives coldness from the cold and moist, and dryness from the hot and dry, and it becomes Earth: Then through excessive heat, if any Humidity remains in the Stone, there is a passage to the contrary, destroying coldness, and introducing Heat, which disposition is called Depth, or the hidden of the Stone. And this is well seen in the book of the perfect Mastery in the part called Iron, that is, Sulphur.
Red in its height is Warm, dry, fiery, Choleric, Red, Sharp, Odoriferous, Masculine.
From the aforementioned, you will be able to see how our well-disposed Stone is transubstantiated from disposition to disposition until it assumes the form of perfectly active Gold Tincture.
Furthermore, it should be noted that the major Part of the Wise begins to speak about this red body, like Alphidius about the Minera, who says Red Sulphur. And according to Lucas, Masculine when he says Take Marthek and whiten it, etc. He promulgated the Masculine: and we could bring many other Wise men into the same opinion, whom we omit for brevity’s sake. The reason why almost all began with this red body is that this red body is the beginning of the whole Tincture, and true Tincture is not made without it. Hence Rosinus says, Know that there was no one who said a word in this art wholly unveiled except Hermes. For he says: Know that there is never a tincture except from the red Stone, that is, our Gold with living Silver rubbed together. Also, Geber concerning the essence, that is the substance of Gold says, Gold is created from the most subtle substance of living Silver, and from a small substance of Sulphur (metallic) pure and of red color, fixed, bright, and cleaned by nature, tinging that substance, that is, living Silver.
Note that this red body has many names. It is called Acid, Sharp, Adam, Aduma, Almagra, High, Alzernard, Soul, Aries, Gold, Living Gold, Altered Gold, Cancer, Cadmia, Camereth, Choler, Chibur, Ashes, Tartar ashes, Corfusle, Body, Proper body, Red body, Right hand, Deeb, Dehab, Summer, Filth, Iron, Form, form of Man, Brother, Fruit, Rooster, Gabrius, Gophrith, Grain of Ethiopia, Gum, Red gum, Hageralzarnad, Man, Fire, Fire of Nature, Infinite, Youth, Kibrit Stone, Indian Stone, Indrademus Stone, Lapis Lazuli, Red Stone, Lytargyrium red, Light, Morning, Mars, Marthek, Masculine, Red Magnesia, Metros, Mine, Neusi, Nutus, Mars oil, Incombustible oil, Red oil, Olive, Perpetual Olive, Orient, Father, one part, Petra stellata, Phison, King, Reezon, Residence, Redness, Ruby, Salt, red Salt, Seed, Sericon, Sun, Subsolanus, Sulphur, Red sulphur, Living sulphur, Tamue, Thirteen, Tertius, Red Earth, Theriaca, Thelima, Thion, Thita, Toarch, Vau, Vein, Wine, Virago, Yolk, Red vitriol, Glass, Zaaph, Zahau, Zit, Zumech, Zumelazuli; and by many other names it is called by the Philosophers. These names are not attributed to it according to one reason or proportion.
For the Wise who called it Acid, Sharp, Adam, Summer, Almagra, High, Soul, Aries, Gold, Cancer, Camereth, Choler, Ashes, Tartar ashes, Proper body, Corfusle, Deeb, Dehab, Form, Brother, Fruit, Rooster, Gophrith, Man, Youth, Kibrit, Indian Stone, Light, Morning, Mars, Marthek, Masculine, Metron, Mine, Neusi, Nutus, Olive, Orient, Father, Reezon, Salt of urine, Sun, Tertius, Thion, Wine, glass, and Zaaph, said this because of its altered complexion: for all these are of a warm and dry Complexion when altered. Those who called it Aduma, Red body, Red gum, Red Stone, Red Magnesia, red oil, Redness, Ruby, Sericon, Red sulphur, Red earth, Yolk, Red vitriol, said this because of its red color. Those who named it Iron, Incombustible oil, Mars oil because of its inability to fuse, that is, hard, said this: For when this red body is deprived of superfluous humidity, which made it flow, and it is necessary that a dry body does not flow, therefore they called it Iron; because iron is said to be more fixed than other metals. Thus also this red body is fixed by the deprivation of superfluous humidity, which first made it volatile; now it is necessary to remain fixed. For all volatile bodies are fixed by such deprivation of humidity, which has been called Calcination by many Wise men.
Hence Geber says: Calcination is the purification of a thing through Fire or Pulverization by the deprivation of the humidity of the parts that solidify and cause it to flow. And the cause of the invention of the Calcination of Volatile things is, that the Earth there may be more and better condensed, the remaining earth converted into a red body. Also, Geber concerning this red body, that is Gold says: Gold is the most precious form of metals, and it is the tincture of redness, because it tinges, transforms, and illuminates every body, for it is Alum and the true tincture, and the perfection of the whole divine work, which God grants especially only to the Elect, the Anointed, the Lords of things, and the Wise, and worthy men, liberal and free: To whom be Honor, Praise, and Glory.
Some Philosophers expound in this way so that you may better understand the three dimensions. The extremity of our Stone on one side is Mercury: On the other side is completed Elixir. The middle are imperfect Bodies, or sick ones, some of which are more purified, cooked, and digested than others. Therefore, there are two highest extremities in our Stone, namely, Excessive Crudity, and excessively exquisite Cooking.
These middles, as said above, are Imperfect Bodies or sick ones, which you can preserve and restore to health, and mortify all their sicknesses if you know how to reduce them from Potentiality to Act; and join and disjoin the flowers of the Tree and leaves by solution and coagulation.
First as a Corollary, I say that Nature, in the beginning of its origin, intends to make perfect bodies, but cannot due to Venus, corrupted Mercury mixed, or due to foul earth. Just as a child contracts illness and corruption from the corruption of its mother’s womb by accident, although the sperm was pure, yet the child becomes leprous and impure due to the corrupted womb. And so it is with all imperfect bodies that are corrupted by Venus and foul earth. Proof of this is that all bodies are generated from Mercury and Venus.
Imperfect bodies are called Media, and are Abortive, which do not have the term of their perfection, like those born in menstrual, undigested, and corrupted places, suffer from the disease of Leprosy in their bodies. However, they differ among themselves, according to the greater or lesser distance of one from the other, which they receive in their births, both by nature and by art.
Therefore, after imperfect bodies are extracted from their thickness and converted into a subtle, impalpable Spirit, they can be prepared, subtilized, purified, and improved (with the due fire always operating) by the following methods.
Imperfect bodies, of whatever kind they are, have foreign humidities, and combustible sulphureity, generating blackness in themselves, corrupting the bodies themselves. They also have an impure, foul, and combustible earthiness, too gross, hindering ingress and fusion. These and such are extraneous or superfluous in these aforementioned bodies. And because these extraneous things accidentally come upon these bodies, and not radically, therefore the removal of accidents (as Geber says) is possible. Therefore, it is necessary for us to remove all extraneous accidents from the aforementioned bodies with our Artificial Fire, only the substance of Mercury and Radical Sulphur remaining. And this is the complete preparation and perfect purification and subtilization of imperfect bodies, or of our pure remaining substance.
Another mode of preparation in General is here. First, with proportional fire, all foreign and corrupted humidity in their essence must be elevated, also the subtle and burning superfluity, and this by calcining. Then the whole remaining corrupted substance in their Calx of foreign burning humidity and blackness must be corroded with Water and Fire until the Calx is white, clean, and pure from all the aforementioned corruption.
Amen, Amen I say to you: Unless imperfect bodies are first rectified by repeated reductions to feces and distillations, they have no effectiveness for tinging. Therefore, in all dissolving, fixing, and perfecting, the method must be followed, because the intention, in due manner, completes the thing, namely, that imperfect bodies are duly calcined, subtly washed, softened, imbibed or ground, fertilized, and placed in solution in a due manner until the Artisan sees the material perfectly purified without blemish. This purified material is Sulphur from Sulphur, extracted and subtilized from imperfect bodies, which can be improved by strengthening the prepared elemental virtues in it, and by increasing Heat, Fixation, Weight, Purity, Fusion, and all that pertains to the Complete Elixir.
Imperfect bodies occupy a middle place between prepared Mercury and the Mercury of perfect bodies, but the art of preparing imperfect bodies is very difficult. If it is not understood by what we have revealed in this book, it will never be learned by reading other books.
Imperfect bodies, along with the Moon, are immature, and therefore need to be helped with mature ones so they can be matured.
Imperfect bodies can never be perfected by any art unless they are first purified from foul Sulphur and gross terrestriality.
Imperfect bodies, along with the Moon, are perfected and converted into pure Gold. If they are first reduced to Mercury: And this with white or red Sulphur, by the virtue of the appropriate fire.
Every imperfect body is brought to perfection by reduction into Mercury, then decocting with Sulphurs in the appropriate fire: For from them are generated Silver and Gold, and those who attempt to make Silver and Gold in any other way err and labor in vain.
It is absolutely impossible to make Gold and Silver from the Sulphur of imperfect bodies: For nothing can give more than it has in itself and contains.
It is impossible to make the imperfect perfect and fixed without the spirit and sulfur of perfect bodies. Hence, the philosopher Arficanus said: ”The tincture that grants perfection to the imperfect comes from the source of the Sun and the Moon.”
From these additions, it is evident that imperfect bodies, which do not agree with perfect ones in the part of mature Mercury, cannot make gold and silver, nor perfectly tinge, nor infuse the nature of gold or silver, because nothing can produce what is not contained within itself. Each thing has its own matter from which it is made. Thus, Dastinus says: ”Not everything can be made from everything, but it is determined by what it is made from; because no true generation occurs except from compatible things in nature. Therefore, every species produces its own species, every genus its own genus, and every nature its own natural effect, bearing fruit according to its nature and not in another contrary nature, for everything corresponds to its own kind. This applies to generation: nothing is generated from a human except a human, nor from anything else except its likeness. Therefore, imperfect bodies should not be tinged, but rather those that have the power to tinge. Tinge with perfect bodies, namely with gold and silver, because gold bestows golden and silver bestows silver color and nature. Hence Arnold says: ’He who knows how to tinge Mercury with the Sun and the Moon has reached the Arcanum, which is called the complete Elixir.’ This first (Medicine of the first Order) description, although very brief, reveals many philosophical opinions and many other difficult-to-understand concepts, and also shows what the Medicine itself is: where it begins and to what end it tends. This Medicine is called the long work by Geber, namely 156 in putrefaction and mortification, and 96 in regeneration and vivification. Know this because it is a great secret.”
But because this art is very difficult to understand, we intend to reveal a few secrets about it, namely about Mercury and our Water, about the Body, Spirit, and Soul, and their operations, to the sons of learning. For our Water is the Water we must use in our entire operation, because everything was created from that water. God divided this water when He said and commanded part of the water to become dry land, which He called Earth, and preserved the unconverted water for irrigation and moistening, because dry land does not bear fruit unless it is frequently moistened by its rainfall from above. This is the water Avicenna speaks of in his Treatise, saying, ’Only water by itself does everything, dissolves everything, coagulates everything, destroys everything, without the help of anything else.’
Also, John Dastin speaks of this water in his Rosary, saying, ’Our water must be divided into two parts, one part coagulates the body (with seven imbibitions and coagulations), and the other part putrefies and liquefies (so that the fiery water may be vomited).’
To achieve the greatest secret, we must follow nature in the preparation of our admirable mixture. For as Geber says: ’It acts by itself.’ Therefore, we must know three things: what nature is, how many natures there are, and how nature operates.
According to Aristotle in Book II of Physics, nature is defined as: ’Nature is a principle and cause of motion and rest in that in which it exists primarily and by itself, and not according to an accident.’ Also, according to the author of the Perfect Mastery, natures (or primary qualities) are four, namely heat and dryness as in fire; heat and moisture as in air; moisture and coldness as in water; coldness and dryness as in earth. However, all these mixtures are unequal, and none of them is what we seek. For we seek the equal, which Joannitius says, ’the equal mixture is one when it is said to be a body with balance and health.’
Note, therefore, what he means by ”balance,” namely, the stated natures or qualities, i.e., heat, coldness, and dryness. For when any of these natures does not exceed another, then the body is said to be balanced and equal, because there is as much of one as of the other, according to the proper proportion of qualities required for the body’s constitution.
Also, note that ”balance” is said to be healthy, removed, calcined, separated, purified, disposed, dry, and clean from any cause of corruption. According to Geber, tin is pure white lead, and it has the balance of fixation or density of the two components, namely quicksilver and sulfur (metallic), not in quantity but in quality. Therefore, sulfur does not exceed quicksilver in action, nor does quicksilver exceed sulfur in passivity, since there is an equal proportion of measures in white lead. Hermes also says, ”Sons of the Wise, there are six metals (for quicksilver is not a metal but the matter of metals), of which the chief is gold, the best king and head of them all. Gold itself is incorruptible, free from all excess, most perfect, and most terminated of all other metals, and it rejoices in substance and subsists in fire, neither corrupted by cement nor burned by any burning thing, nor mortified or devoured by green coloring water, because its composition is balanced and terminated, and its nature is directed in heat, moisture, coldness, and dryness. What, then, is superfluous or diminished in gold? Certainly nothing; for if there were (which is denied), there would be a diminution of substance or an excess. As it is in lead and other combustible metals (whose natural mixtures retain great combustible excess), it would be a great inconvenience to strip it of all covering, to be drawn and annihilated, which is absurd to say and false in fact, for gold should not evaporate, as it cannot, unlike other combustible metals. Therefore, let this fantasy be far from the mind of philosophers, that gold can be annihilated in any way. And so the wise have preferred it, magnified it, and said that gold stands in metals as the sun among the stars. By its light and splendor, it germinates all that is changeable and perfects all fruits by the will of God.
What more? If we could reach this, we would have almost everything proportioned according to Socrates, who says, ’Now I have shown you the disposition of white lead, which when born, nothing else is the mastery but the work of women and the game of children.’
Know also: What Nature is According to the Philosopher, and How Multiple by the Author of Perfect Mastery:
It remains to see how Nature operates. Nature operates in many ways, but chiefly by mixture, which the wise have called variously, such as ingress, immersion, conjunction, connection, complexion, composition, and mixture, all meaning the same. For nothing enters, is immersed, joined, connected, embraced, composed, unless it is mixed. Let us then see what mixture is, for by understanding it, all else is understood. According to the Philosopher (first book of Generation), mixture is the union of altered mixable things by minima.
Note ”mixable things,” i.e., elements, for they are the first principles of every mixture, and we cannot know the manifest or occult nature of the mixture itself unless we know how to mix or compose the elements. Hence Hermes says, ”Understand, my son, the science of the four elements, which are set forth in their reasons in their hidden appearance. For their hidden appearance is not exposed or signified unless they are composed, because they are not perfected until they are colored with their colors.”
Also, note ”by minima,” i.e., by indivisibles, for if anything can be divided, it is not minimal, since every part is smaller than its whole. Therefore, it appears that the mixture of elements is by minima, i.e., indivisibles. And that the element is the smallest part of apparent bodies is evident by its definition. For an element is the smallest particle of a body.
To mix mixable things, a prior disposition is required, which is achieved only through motion in every action, not only in mixing.
Motion (or change) is said to be sixfold, according to Aristotle in Categories, namely corruption, generation, increase, decrease, which we call fixation, alteration, and change of place. But omitting others for now, let us choose corruption, which is necessary in every part. It has many subtypes, but one of them, called putrefaction, is relevant to our purpose and will be discussed.
Nature, which never rests, operates by all sorts of motion. First of all, however, by corruption. Here, corruption and putrefaction are equivalent in meaning. Hence Hermes says in his allegory, ”Know that the origin of the artifice is the Head of the Crow, which flies in the darkness of night and the brightness of day without wings. Our bitterness in its blood, when it comes out, is taken as coloring, and pure water from its back. There is no other Head of the Crow but the blackness of night, for just as these are black and obscure in comparison to the day, so the corrupted spirit is compared to the World Spirit, which arises from corruption and is extracted by our artifice.”
Note concerning corruption, because in the operations of nature, there is the corruption of things, but not the dissipation of parts, unless the parts are superfluous and useless for generation, which should be discarded. Hence the artificer prepares or purifies the work, so that operation and digestion may occur better and more clearly. An example is evident in grains: if two grains of wheat are thrown into good soil, one will putrefy and die there, losing its outer form, and nothing of it is dissipated. Rather, in time, it grows into a multitude of fruits. Thus, it is said and done that only the form is corrupted, not the matter. Hence the Lord in the Gospel speaks metaphorically about plants, saying, ’Unless a grain of wheat falls into the ground and dies, it remains alone and unfruitful. But if it dies, it brings forth much fruit.’ But if another grain is thrown into the fire, it will be corrupted in both matter and form, and entirely dissipated, and that corruption is useless for generation. Therefore, in the work of nature, matter is corrupted alteratively and not dissipatively; this alterative corruption hides forms, absolves natures, keeps proportions, and changes colors from beginning to end.
Thus, having seen the ways of operating and the principal way in which nature operates, let us proceed to the rest.
Since, according to Hermes, there are three things to consider in every corruptible matter. First, what is useful, water; second, oil; third, dregs. However, none of these exists distinctly in our admirable mixture, but rather confused and undivided. This mixture is called by some Hyle; hence it is said that God first created the heavens and the earth. God, that is, the Artificer, created, that is, mixed, first the heavens, that is, the rare, and the earth, that is, the dense. We call the heavens, related to our purpose, sublimation, and the earth, the black mixture, and from this earth, He shaped, that is, multiplied Adam, that is, gold; and with Adam, He created the virgin, that is, the tincture, our body sought by many and found by few, in which there are still some essences of corruption that are prohibited. Hence Alphidius says, ”Know, my son, that in the Book is the perfection of books, and the work is most certain for those who reason. I have now entrusted to you what you propose, that is, Adam, and prohibited those things that corrupt the work, that is, the virgin.”
The same says Rodianus when he reduces the embryo. Note, the embryo. For the embryo is a piece of flesh or mass, from which nature forms the fetus in the womb and arranges all its limbs. Likewise, this confused body is a mass or stone from which the entire mastery is completed. Also, it is the matter from which all metals originate. Hence Alphidius says, ”To understand more clearly what I am saying, I want you to know from what matter metals originate. So pay attention. Heavy and viscous water in the bowels of the earth, having no outlet, if it is near metallic sulfur, is converted by heat into quicksilver. Thus, note that viscous water and metallic sulfur are the general matter of all metals.” And this is also stated by Geber, when he defines quicksilver, saying: ”Quicksilver is viscous water thickened by metallic sulfur in the bowels of the Earth, a subtle, white substance of the earth, united by the most moderate heat into a total union by minima, until the moist is tempered by the dry, and the dry by the moist equally.” Thus, note viscous water and the white essence, which we call the particular matter of silver or white lead. Also, note by the most moderate heat, as the perfecting instrument. Also, note the method of perfecting when he says: ”Until the moist is tempered by the dry.” Also, note equally, because in it is the equal mixture of all the elements of quicksilver.
Furthermore, from this confused body, we can assert what is rightly stated by physicians about the nourishment of the human body.
First, it is a mass of pottage, from which chyle is generated in the stomach, and from this chyle, four humors are generated in the liver, namely blood, bile, phlegm, and melancholy. Finally, after proper digestion, the human body is nourished, sustained, and governed. This they also say in other words. Nature first digests in the stomach by whitening. Second, in the liver by reddening. Lastly, in the members by subtilizing, gluing, and perfecting. If you wisely and skillfully apply these things we have mentioned to your operations, you will easily and undoubtedly achieve your goal.
So take dry and moist; and in all things, whether great or small, you must implore divine aid, as Plato instructs in the Timaeus. And let it be done through corruption, generation, augmentation, fixation, alteration, grinding, with change of place, to make one living body, or dry water. This dry water (or rather its purification) is the beginning and key of works according to Alphidius, who says: ”Know, my son, that the treasures have not vanished, but are kept and hidden from the eyes of the uninitiated. I want to give you one key, which I call their signs; if you have reason, you will know the remaining three keys and extract them with your knowledge from it.” This one key is dry water, made through the vessels of the wise, and by the method of corruption. Through this key, the work begins, and by it, the extraction of the remaining three keys and their recognition is achieved.
Note that Air, Tree, Cheese, Companion, Woman, the form of a Woman, Hen, Wood, Line, Middle Heaven, Blood of the Sheep, seven metals, union of spirits, and dry water all signify the same.
Having seen the preparation of our admirable mixture or the Great Secret and also what comes after preparation, let us see its augmentation, which is like the augmentation of the Moon. Just as the Moon begins to be illuminated by the Sun and then its light increases every day until it is fully illuminated, so the aforementioned dry water begins to redden, until it is fully reddened. And Hermes says in his secret, ”The juice of the Wise Vine is extracted in 42 days, its wine is completed in 30 days, thereafter it decreases, and grinding increases, just as the Moon decreases after 15 days and increases after 30, which is the beginning and end.”
This conjunction also happens like the union of body and soul: just as the soul, entering the body, vivifies it, so dry water animates its body. Hence, Alphidius says, Following, with fleeing ones meeting, flight is taken away from both, and truth follows. Nature began to take its counterpart as an enemy, and they continued and contained each other because the soul entered its body (and reddened it).
Thus, the aforementioned dry water, purified and mixed to be augmented, should be placed in the world of Aludel (for no other vessel can sustain the fire), placed in the furnace of generation, and fire should be given so that it may turn into Marthek, that is, wine, without any interruption of fire, for motion must be continuous (as you know) and not interrupted. Therefore, remember all necessary things until everything is completed.
Now, let this brief preface on nature and its operation suffice for you. In the following, we will speak more broadly about what has been said and what remains.
This treatise benefits us and should suffice. To better and more clearly understand the preceding, know that quicksilver, from which our stone originates, is composed of two things, namely body and spirit, male and female, mature and immature, which the philosopher Calid and the king of Albania clearly teach, saying: ”Know that in the beginning of our work, we deal only with two suns, and only two are seen, touched, and enter into the beginning, middle, and end of our mastery.” Hermes testifies the same when he says, ”Its father, that is, of the first composition, is the Sun, and its mother is the Moon.” Morienus speaks in this sense, saying, ”Confidence consists in two things: in the moist to dissolve the dry, in the dry to coagulate the moist: truly in these two, four qualities are contained virtually. In the greater sperm, the more dignified, two more dignified elements are contained by their qualities, namely fire and air. In the other sperm, naturally crude and imperfect, the other two qualities and elements, earth and water, are contained.
Therefore, it is clear from the philosophers that there are only two necessary things in our work, which we mentioned above. However, from one of them alone, no metal can be generated, but from the conjunction of both, in which each helps the other, resulting in a far more dignified matter than they were separately before conjunction. After conjunction, they become one quicksilver, named with one name. Hence Clangor Buccinae: ”When the sperm of Mercury is joined with the earth of the body, the body is dissolved into the water of sperm and they become one.”
Furthermore, in the other, namely the more dignified and mature, there is a soul that must be extracted with the utmost ingenuity; otherwise, nothing will be achieved. Hence Albertus Magnus says: ”Unless the soul departs from its body and ascends to heaven, you will achieve nothing in this art.” Also, Arnoldus: ”The soul of the body, led out of the body, has the power of tinging, which it entrusts to the spirit to preserve. For the spirit, that is, the water of philosophers, is the place or body of the soul, and indeed this spirit is not common.”
When the soul is extracted, it is joined with the crude or immature body and hidden in it, and then the body is altered and changed into another substance or form. For dissolution corrupts the outer form but does not corrupt the matter.
Note, therefore, that by dissolution, the corruption of the outer form occurs. For when the soul is mixed with the body and begins to alter, it becomes black like coal. Hence Hermes says in his allegory: ”Our stone, sought after, has no equal, and is citrine golden, outwardly and inwardly. But when its mixture is altered, it becomes black and dark like coal. When the spirit is taken from it, it is red in color. When the spirit and soul are returned to it, it lives and rejoices, and you see it smiling and cheerful, and free from death. Blessed, therefore, is he whose disposition is such that he kills and vivifies and is omnipotent.” Also, Hermes in the aforementioned place says: ”I am the white of black.” Thus, it appears that the alteration is from blackness to whiteness. And further, this alteration or drying continually makes a conversion into the nature of heat, that is, into redness, which, however, comes from a little whitening. The same is said by Rosinus when he says: ”The art of Marthek is nothing but from tin.” From which it can be understood that there is one disposer of black, white, citrine, and red. And this is what Alphidius says: Know, my son, that in the depths of this sea, pearls of different colors are born, in which the hyacinth of different color ascends and colors bodies, and even Marthek itself by its heat. For when it is hot, it will be red; when it is cold, it will be white. Similarly, it will be of the color and whiteness of the Sun and Moon: and red is heat, and white is cold: Therefore, understand and observe: Note that redness is a sign of heat, and whiteness of cold. Also, note that this alteration or drying is the third operation of the art in the house of Mars, which is the alteration, as Hermes reports: In the third month, Mars operates acting on the matter, which by its heat and dryness divides and separates the mass and arranges the limbs.
Note the limbs. For just as in the womb nature arranges the limbs of the fetus as integral parts of the fetus, so this red body, which is Mars, is an integral part of the whole medicine’s composition. For in every composition that is made, after this body is created or terminated, it always falls as an integral part of the whole composition.
Furthermore, to better understand our methodical explanation, the philosopher Paracelsus says: ”A certain Mercury lies hidden in the body, ready to be extracted without any other preparation; but the art of extraction is extremely difficult.”
Therefore, grind or triturate our brass with gentle fire until the aforementioned Mercury is extracted in the color of blackness, which is a sign of dissolution. For heat acting on the moist body first generates blackness, that is, black powder, which is made from the body and spirit, that is, from water and its proper earth, and from its proper quicksilver and sulfur. The dissolution of the body is the coagulation of the water and its quicksilver, for it is not dissolved unless the spirit is coagulated, nor is the spirit coagulated unless the body is dissolved. Thus, between the dissolution of the body and the coagulation of the spirit, there is no difference in time, nor is it a different work, because each acts on the other in its manner, and this with delay, so that peace may be made between them. Then heat acting on the dry body generates whiteness, and in the white, citrinity, and afterward redness, which can be seen in lead by calcining it. First, it turns into black powder; then into white; then into citrine; and finally into red minium. Similarly, black sulfur, white, citrine, and red will be obtained from one metal’s matter, namely from our brass thoroughly purified, though cooked and digested in a different manner, hence it is said:
Our brass, if you know it, suffices; if you do not know it, nothing else.
So break that brass and remove its blackness by cooking, imbibing, and whitening until it becomes white, then bind it with art. Also, John Dastin in his Rosary says of our brass: ”The more it is cooked, the more it dissolves and blackens, and becomes a more subtle and spiritual powder: second, the more it is cooked, the more it thickens and dries, and becomes of greater whiteness: third, the more it is cooked, the more it colors and reddens, and becomes a more intense red tincture.”
Remember, however, that brass never blackens until fire is extracted from the body through gentle distillations and carried in the belly of Mercury, nor can the fire (being enclosed in the center of its body) manifest itself until the body is opened in black color. And this fire is the property of Mercury which you must preserve with all your might from combustion, lest it be turned into flight by excessive fire and the mastery is lost. However, the fire is not extracted all at once but little by little, gradually and successively, until it is completed in a long time. And for this reason, the ancient philosophers called this fire and these fires, the soul and souls, the flower and flowers, the tincture and tinctures, the blood and bloods, the fat and fats: and what is dissolved always seeks the upper part. Hence Dastin: ”What is spiritual in the vessel ascends upward; what is thick and coarse remains below in the vessel: Therefore, unless you turn everything into spiritual powder, you have not yet ground them. So grind henceforth (successively) cleansing the blackness until they are ground and everything becomes powder. Hence Zinon in the Turba: ”Let our compound be ground until it becomes powder,” and know that it is not powder without continuous and strong grinding and cooking: also Senior: ”Grinding is of no use unless it becomes powder”: also the Interceptor says: ”I did nothing but grind.” Also Calid Minor: ”Fire grinds all things.” And this grinding many times by philosophers is called the stone with the runner, the mortar with the pestle, the vessel with the long neck.
Thus, this is the grinding of cooking or disposition, by which the entire mastery is perfected, which must be done by gentle cooking, moist putrefaction, continuous grinding, but not by hand, according to what Morienus says: ”Unless you perfectly cleanse the impure body, and dry it, nor render it wholly white, nor infuse the soul into it, and remove all its foulness, until after its purification the tincture descends into it, you have directed nothing of this mastery.”
Also, of the same Azoch: that is, Mercury and fire suffice for you in this disposition for the whitening of laton and its perfection. And this disposition is the extraction of water from the earth and the remission of that water upon the earth until the earth putrefies. For this water putrefies and cleanses the earth, which being cleansed, the whole mastery is directed (with God’s help), for it then lacks foulness and all moisture, and is able to receive the tincture.
After our brass has been partially putrefied to perform the spirit and body of nature in the work of nature, which is impossible to achieve unless in the air, that is, through sublimation, then our stone is divided into two principal parts: the upper part, which ascends, and the lower part, which remains fixed at the bottom. Yet these two parts are of one essence and nature, agreeing in virtue. Hence the philosopher says: ”That which is above is like that which is below, and that which is below is like that which is above.” And this division is necessary to perform the miracles of one thing, that is, the generation of the Philosopher’s Stone, so that the two become three, and the four become one, and the two become one. The lower part is the earth, which is called the nurse or ferment, because it nourishes and ferments the whole stone. And the upper part is the water, which is called oil, ointment, or soul, because it vivifies and revives the whole stone. Of this unfixed part, it must be remitted upon the earth, that is, given to the earth to drink until the earth drinks as much as it can of the unfixed part. However, you must know that the earth must be nourished first with a small amount of its water, then with a larger amount; just as in the upbringing of an infant, the older it grows, the more food and warmth it needs. Be careful not to imbibe the earth except gradually and little by little with long grinding after the nourishment of the earth. Therefore, in this work, the weight is always to be noted, lest the work is corrupted by excessive dryness or superfluous moisture. In other words, only decoct as much as the dissolution releases, and dissolve by imbibing as much as the decoction lacks. Therefore, grind the earth many times, gradually imbibe it, and decoct it every eight days. Do not be weary of repeating this work many times, although it is long, because the earth bears no fruit without frequent irrigation, for the earth is dry and very thirsty and therefore readily drinks its moisture and aqueous.
Grinding is not complete until the upper unfixed part and the lower fixed part that remains at the bottom become one and the same body without any division. Do not suspend your hand from the remission of water upon the earth and from the decoction until the earth is dry and white, which whiteness is generated from frequent and dry grinding and decoction. Therefore, if the earth is not white, grind it with its water again, calcine it again, and every time after the calcination of the earth, remit the water temperately upon the earth until the water parts perish, that is, until they are consumed, and until the earth is thoroughly washed, for water and fire wash the earth and completely remove its obscurity. For preparation is always with water, and the quality of the water will determine the clarity of the earth, and the more thorough the washing, the whiter the earth will be.
From the frequent repetition of solution, remission of water, coagulation, imbibition, decoction, inspiration, and grinding, the greater part of the quicksilver’s quality is removed, and the remaining part is similarly removed through repeated sublimation. Thus, through these stages of grinding, remission of water, decoction, irrigation, drying, vivification, and calcination, you have sufficiently purified the black and foul earth and brought it to whiteness by the power of fire and calcination, making it fit to receive fermentation, which is the animation of the stone itself.
Note that burial in manure between imbibitions removes combustion and restores lost moisture. It also helps to better reach the sign of perfect washing, which is the splendor and crystalline serenity without dregs, except possibly white ones.
When you are at work, strive to remember all the signs, that is, all the colors and each one that appears in every decoction, and diligently investigate their causes. Note in every decoction; one decoction, that is, grinding, is not enough for you or the work.
There are three main colors appearing in the work: black, white, and red, which are called the virtues or colors of the soul. Blackness is the first color, which appears first in preparation through putrefaction. Whenever something is lost from blackness step by step, the color always appears less black until perfect whiteness is reached. Perfect whiteness never appears until the corrupting moistures are entirely consumed. When these are consumed, the matter shows itself to be dried. Know this. So, cook the male and the vapor together until each coagulates into dryness, for unless it is dry, different colors will not appear because it will always be black while the moisture dominates. Therefore, with the vessel tightly closed, cook gently until everything turns downwards. Then the dragon devours its own wings, then it emits various colors, moving in many ways and various stages from color to color until it reaches firm whiteness.
Also, Dastinus says that all the colors of the world will appear when the blackening moisture is dried, but do not worry about those colors because they are not true colors. For it often reddens and often turns citrine, often liquefies and coagulates before true whiteness. It also turns green before whiteness and appears livid and violet before whiteness. The peacock’s tail appears before whiteness. This whiteness is always to be expected as the goal you desire to reach in the first work, and it is not varied afterward into any other true color except red. Therefore, in every imbibition, observe how the water coagulates itself and how the composition changes from one color to another. For if you are negligent, you will see none of these colors: and so you will waste your work and oil and will not know in which stage the fire should be moderated except by the colors appearing in the work. Therefore, attend carefully, for the colors will teach you what to do and how long the first, second, and third fire should be continued.
Note that the cause of the diversity of colors is the alteration of our quicksilver by its proper sulfur.
Also, know that although it is often said by philosophers to put the material in its vessel and close it firmly, it is sufficient to put it in once and close it until (by God’s will) you complete the whole mastery. More than this is from evil, because if you put something in repeatedly, the stone will not be converted into whiteness or redness. To conceal the art, they said so.
And certainly, for the generation of a human, seed is never placed in the womb more than once. For if it is placed again, one will destroy the other, either due to the crudity of indigestion, the ingress of air, or the superabundance of material. For this reason, women who expose themselves to many and various men rarely conceive; if they do conceive, they give birth prematurely, because placing crude things with cooked, or indigested with digested, does not nourish the work but kills it. For the fetus is nourished and lives only from that menstrual blood until it is brought into the light. Hence, it appears that we do not need many things for our work, nor does it require great expenses. For the stone is one, the medicine is one, the vessel is one, the regimen is one, and the disposition of the same is one, both for making white and red successively. Therefore, if you have the true material and have disposed of it rightly, you will undoubtedly achieve the desired result. Therefore, be constant in the regimen; wash the earth with water, clean the vessel, close it firmly, avoid wind and smoke, persevere in perseverance, act gently and wisely, avoid heat and all work that is out of measure, do not let the length of cooking, putrefaction, and thickening wear you down. Do not hasten or cease, for there is no corruption and generation of things except by continuous motion, excluded air, and tempered heat.
An example of this is the womb of a woman, which closes immediately after conception, and the fetus is generated and grows by the heat and moisture of the blood. It never receives external breaths until it is born. Thus, our stone remains closed in the vessel until it has drunk its moisture and is perfectly nourished by the heat of the fire, becoming white. Then our stone is born, and external breaths will not harm it unless you proceed to redness. Therefore, it is highly necessary to continue the operation, moderate the fire, exclude the air, and not extract it until whiteness is achieved.
Another example is the egg: if you break the shell of the egg to release the chick before its time, it will never be done rightly. Similarly, if you open the vessel and the material feels the air, you will never achieve anything.
Many philosophers say, and it is true, that the art of alchemy (that is, the art of transmutation of metals) is a natural art and work and that we must imitate nature in the same work. However, before reaching that work and its practice, something must be said about the first materials. Although much has already been narrated in the preceding, a few clearer additions in this place will not be out of place.
I say, therefore, that certain minerals are created solely by nature and not by art. But after they have been created by nature and are in the power of the artificer, nature again either clearly in that preparation which precedes the first philosophical preparation or in the first philosophical work prepares both, so that they may be more suitable for a new generation. Then art divides. And this is what Norton says:
When your materials by preparation
Be made well apt for generation
Then they must be parted in two
Into four elements to make you win.
And after they are divided, they are prepared separately and afterward joined according to the proper proportion. Then (beginning with the first philosophical work) they are again prepared, altered, sublimated, subtilized, and created by nature. Thus, Isidorus the Philosopher says: ”The first dispositions of our stone cannot be induced by any art but are created by nature.”
When they are prepared, altered, sublimated, and created by nature, art again (with nature ceasing or failing) by the natural power existing in the spermatical materials (already created by nature) by joining or fixing or as a minister and helper of nature, assists the imperfect matter to become perfect. It adds nothing to the form, matter, or power but only helps to make and complete what is there and not yet perfect. Hence Clangor: ”Our stone, created by nature, is found and needs nothing else except that the artificer, by helping nature, brings it from imperfection to perfection.” Therefore, nature first produces and creates the matter, which is later assisted by art.
Thus, the first and principal cause of the generation of metals in the work of nature is natural, and the second is artificial. The latter achieves nothing without the former. For it would be useless to have a medicine unless the matter created by nature is present. Therefore, it is evident that each is helped by the other, nature by art, art by nature, and both benefit the work, being nature and art. The difference between nature and art in the works of nature is that nature acts internally, while art acts externally. If you know how to dispose and govern nature externally, it will suffice for itself and you in all things needed until the ultimate end of perfection.
Rasis says that all things beneath the lunar globe are created by the supreme Creator, participating in the four elements, not by sight but by virtue. The aqueous element is the moisture of the water itself. Air is the nature of the air itself. Fire is the virtue it has that burns, calcines, and dissolves. Earth is the dense and gross body itself. Thus, only water and earth are seen and touched by us. The other two are understood within these two.
Hence it follows that all metals existing in the earth are generated from the four elements, just like quicksilver, which is their mother, matter, and root. This quicksilver, when heated, the elements in it move by their proper motion, and natural heat is excited. By this motion, fire and air in the quicksilver are moved and gradually elevated since they are more dignified elements than the water and earth of the same quicksilver. Nevertheless, moisture and coldness dominate in the quicksilver. But because heat and dryness are more dignified elements, they try to overcome the other two, namely coldness and moisture, dominating in the quicksilver. Celestial movements excite other natural heat movements by which the movements of quicksilver are moved, and the four elements of quicksilver, that is, the four qualities, are moved. Afterward, over a long period, the dryness of the quicksilver overcomes one degree of its moisture and coldness and becomes lead. Then it will also overcome another degree and becomes tin. Then the heat of the quicksilver again consumes more of its moisture and coldness and becomes another metal. And so on, gradually, through the others, until in the quicksilver, heat dominates more, and it becomes perfect gold. In this way, the two qualities that previously succumbed to coldness and moisture now prevail, and heat and dryness dominate, which, in their excitation, are sulfur, and the coldness and moisture of the same quicksilver is the quicksilver itself. However, this sulfur is not something separated from the quicksilver but is the heat and dryness that previously did not dominate in the coldness and moisture of the quicksilver. But afterward, being digested, it has dominion over the other two qualities, namely coldness and moisture, and they imprint their virtues. And through these various degrees of decoction and alteration, the diversity of metals is formed.
Lead continually flees from the fire and evaporates for no other reason than that the coldness and moisture of its quicksilver have not yet been altered by the heat and dryness of its sulfur, nor do heat and dryness dominate. For if they did dominate, it would not flee from the fire in any way, because the quicksilver of lead would be pure fire, just as the quicksilver of gold, and it would not flee from the fire, because fire does not repel its own kind, but it rejoices in the fire as in its own kind. Other metals, except the Sun, also flee from the fire because they are still cold and moist, one more than the other, according to the greater or lesser participation in coldness and moisture. They flee (I say) from what is contrary to them and cannot endure it, because every natural thing flees from its contrary and delights in its own kind. Hence, it follows that the Sun is nothing other than pure fire in quicksilver, because it does not retreat from intense fire, while other metals cannot endure fire; but one more than the other, as they more or less approach or retreat from the nature of fire. Thus, you can understand the complexion of metals and their natures.
For sulfur is nothing other than pure fire, that is, heat and dryness hidden in quicksilver, which in minerals, through natural motion and the way of nature, digests the coldness and moisture in quicksilver into various metallic forms, according to the degrees of decoction and alteration, the first form (as stated above) being black lead, foul and etc. The second form is tin, slightly more luminous and so on through the others until it reaches the Sun. Which in the perfection of its metallic nature is pure fire, digested by the sulfur existing in quicksilver. From this, it is clear that this sulfur is not something separate from the substance of quicksilver, nor common sulfur; for if it were, the material of metals would not be homogeneous, which contradicts the assertions of all philosophers, who called such dominant qualities sulfur by similarity because they have an inflammable substance, like sulfur, hot and dry within them. Hence, it is clear that metallic forms are created by nature solely from pure mercurial substance, not from anything else. Hence Geber in his Summa says: ”In the depth of the nature of quicksilver there is sulfur, which cooks and perfects over a long period in the mineral veins of the earth.”
Morienus and Aros speak more clearly about this matter: ”Our sulfur,” they say, ”is not common but fixed, and not volatile of a mercurial nature, and not from any other thing.”
Therefore, we imitate nature most precisely, for in our minerals we have no other matter to work with except pure mercurial substance and form, which can be proven by the best reasons, authorities, and experience. Because where there is quicksilver, there is fixed incombustible sulfur, which perfects our work, without any other substance than pure mercurial substance. Hence nature creates its metals from the heat and dryness of quicksilver, overcoming the coldness and moisture, and they are perfected in no other essence, as is declared in many books of philosophers.
The quality of metals, and the principle of their creation, easily accomplishes this mastery.
Metals are nothing other than quicksilver congealed in the veins of the earth by natural decoction over a long time. Or according to Democritus: ”Metals are vapors that thicken and congeal over time by the virtue of nature in a long period.” And first, quicksilver and sulfur, which are in minerals, coagulate, two elements, namely water and oil, upon which constant decoction with heat and moisture occurs until they are coagulated. And from them, various metals are generated in the earth, whose first matter, however, is one and the same. Thus, all philosophers agree.
But you may say, if all metals are generated from one matter, sulfur, and quicksilver united, whence comes such diversity among metals? Indeed, it comes from the diverse washing of that sulfur, and from the diverse quantity of pure or impure matter, and from the different mineral locations, and from the different accidents that occur, and from the diverse heat that variously digests that one metallic matter. Thus, all philosophers agree.
Hence Albertus Magnus says: ”In the works of nature, I learned by direct observation that from one origin flows a vein, and in one part was gold, and in another part was silver, and so on with the others. However, the first matter was one, but the place of purification of the metal was different. Therefore, the diversity of the place of the metal’s purification produced the diversity according to the species.”
The philosopher Paracelsus says: ”Nature composes and pre-cooks its metals gradually; and thus, from one root only, it generates all metals until the ultimate end of metals, which is gold. Thus, gold is the ultimate end in the generation of metals: hence it is said: ’It is impossible to generate gold unless there was first silver.’”
Silver cannot be transmuted into gold (except by physical tincture) unless it returns to flowing quicksilver: and the same must be said of other metals.
Each metal exceeds the other in greater heat, dryness, decoction, purity, and perfection, which must be prepared and purged from their superfluities without corruption and loss of form, in which the treasure and secret of the stone consist.
Every quicksilver of metals and minerals can be cooked and exalted in successive degrees to the solar body: and thus led to the degree and power of the metallic body to which you desire.
All metals are changed into gold or silver by the abbreviation of the work of quicksilver.
And from these additions, as can be inferred from the preceding, in the generation of metals, each metal in its place makes its own image until the completion of the work: and then our stone is skillfully born, having in it four elements truly united, and the natures of all tinctures according to their degrees of preparation and fire. But to speak more truly, it is naturally born according to all the planets.
First, I admonish you that all those who work outside of Nature are deceived and deceivers, and operate in inappropriate matters: Therefore, I advise you not to engage in work until you know the principles of true nature (once known), then you can work safely. I also want you to know that it is impossible for the needy to philosophize: Therefore, if you do not have your own resources, you cannot obtain what you desire from others (even if you learn many great secrets and are most faithfully promised), and you will not be able to have them to your satisfaction. I say this as an experienced person, and also so that you do not waste your time, labor, and money.
Furthermore, I admonish you not to approach the practice of our divine work until you have thoroughly understood the natures of metals, their generations, weaknesses, and imperfections within the earth. Afterward, deliberate with yourself, and do not begin unless you intend to finish. And if you do not succeed the first time, do not stop; repeat the process two or three times, and even more if necessary, until you perfectly apprehend what you seek. Neither let the labor in vain, nor the expense of materials, deter you from this endeavor, because as (Rasis) says, with persistence you will conquer, and with wisdom you will surpass, and with God’s will, you will achieve what you desire, and you will regain the cost and profit from your labor. You will not need to repeat this work once you have completed it perfectly: But if you stop, exhausted by the labor or terrified by the expenses after the first or second attempt, know that you will incur loss and not gain.
I also say that you cannot reach the benefit of our divine art without prolonged and continuous regulation. Hence Hermes: Patience and delay are necessary in our work. Hastening indeed is from the devil. Likewise, Morienus: All haste in this work should be avoided. Likewise, Rasis: In this business, if the difficulty of the work and the tedious labor make the worker negligent, it deprives him of expected joy, suffocates hope, and destroys effectiveness, hence great care must be taken. Therefore, he who is patient in the regulation and constant in his purpose will enter the art: But he who is not, let him not read the collected sentences of the Philosophers, because reading them will bring him harm. Hence Rasis said: He who works in reading our books and is not entangled in various thoughts, and prays to God, will reign in the kingdom until he dies: For what is sought is not of little value but is the gift of the highest God, therefore long time, patience, and labor are necessary. Art is long, life is short, expenses are not small, as Norton says. For we see in plants, he who grafts trees hopes for fruit in time, and he who sows reaps after months. But minerals last a longer time and are not so quickly or easily corrupted. Therefore, observe and learn: After the materials are made suitable for generation by the preparation that precedes the first philosophical preparation: First compose, then convert the natures, mix, cook, roast, irrigate the earth, wax, grind, whiten, make peace between enemies, and finally tinge. These have many names. The regulation, however, is one, but the decoction is continuous, which the Philosophers have often repeated. If they had known that one decoction and one grinding were sufficient for the work, they would not have reiterated their sayings so much. They did so, however, to ensure that the compound is continuously ground and cooked without interruption, and you do not tire of the time or labor.
The end goal is to fit the complexions and unite the blood relatives with their kin, then grind them multiply, imbue them with decoctions, and cook them until the spirits become impalpable and you see the sought-after thing, clothed in royal garb, turned into Tyrian purple. These words, though dead, contain life for the intelligent: Therefore, read them often and always meditate deeply on them, and, with God’s will, wisdom will come to you, and you will understand the words of the philosophers.
The conversion of natures is nothing other than the circular rotation of the elements. For they are mutually convertible in their suitability, and therefore they are generated, corrupted, and altered to each other. Certainly, our operation is the circular conversion of natures: This is the marvelous and amicable connection of contrary elements (by means of their intermediaries). Hence Aristotle: It is impossible for a transition between contraries except through their intermediaries: Sixth Physics. Therefore, the hot does not convert into the cold except through the moist, which is their medium. Nor is water converted into fire unless it is first converted into air; nor is earth converted into air unless it is first converted into water; for fire and water are contrary elements or extremes; and air and earth are their mediums: Because just as water is immediately below the air, so air is immediately above the fire: Therefore, water is contrary to fire, just as earth is to air, because water and air agree in moistness: Fire and earth in dryness. Earth is immediately changed into fire, just as water into air: But fire and water, air and earth are not rotated unless earth is first converted into water, and air into fire.
Another philosopher says: He who knows how to convert dry into cold, and cold into moist, and moist into hot, and hot into dry, will have the whole mastery.
Therefore, truly join these natures, namely male and female, hot, cold, moist, and dry, and nourish them with living water, so that the natures are altered and converted into other natures, and so that natures appear through natures. For Nature has well ordained that the elements should communicate their qualities circularly, so that circular transmutations should be made from them, and from the circular transmutation of the elements; As earth communicates its dryness to fire, fire its heat to air, air its moisture to water, water its coldness to earth. And earth again communicates its dryness to fire, and thus circularly the matter of earth desires to be under the form of fire, because fire, naturally thirsty, acts upon the earth, and converts the matter of the earth into its form.
The methods of converting natures to each other are four principal ones, namely: Dissolving, Washing, Reducing, and Congealing.
The first method, therefore, is by dissolving, that is, the body must first be dissolved; the second by washing, for it must be washed; the third by reducing, for the moist must be reduced over the dry; the fourth by congealing with a gentle fire. And in these four consists the true conversion of natures.
Moreover, dissolving is dividing, corrupting, and making the matter or first nature.
Washing is burying, distilling, ascending and descending, calcining, correcting natures, and mitigating grossness, and one nature passes unanimously into another, so that they become one substance of one nature.
Reducing is waxing, enriching, or impregnating, subtilizing, and uniting the elements so that one can act upon another: Fire upon earth, earth upon water, water upon air, air upon fire, for they are fluxible and spiritually of one flux and inceration.
Congealing is marrying, resolving, and retaining contrary natures, for they are united, and therefore easily one is retained by the other, which is impossible without solution and washing of the natures.
Therefore, it follows: That solution is the beginning of the whole work: And washing is the mitigation of the natures: For those things that are washed are mitigated: And those things that are mitigated are united, so that in the whole substance it becomes white or red sulphur, not burning.
Moreover, solution converts the stone into its first matter, that is, its water; washing into air; reduction into fire; and congealing into spiritual and tinging earth: Hence Aristotle: When you have water from air, air from fire, and fire from earth, you will have completed the art, because then the four natures of the stone are well and perfectly prepared: Understand it thus:
When the cold conquers the hot, air is turned into water; when the hot conquers the cold, water is turned into air; you have air from fire through the solution, putrefaction, and multiple reduction of the stone, until, well washed by sublimation, it becomes white. Then, with the exalted sun, you have fire from earth through the division of the stone, the distillation of water, and the calcination of the earth. For just as you have water from air by distillation, so you have fire from earth by calcining. And thus, you know that earth imparts its coldness to water; water its moisture to air; air its heat to fire. And just as fire lives by air, and air by the nourishment of water, and water by the nourishment of earth, so our stone lives by all the elements.
Likewise, by solution, Nature works inwardly: by washing outwardly, by reduction above, by congealing below. And all these the master of the work and fire does in one vessel, in four degrees: namely, the four species of color conversion.
To convert the elements in our mastery, first is to make the coarse fine, that is, to make the body spirit, and then from the moist the dry, that is, from water earth: and thus we convert the elements.
Gratianus, the philosopher, on the method of converting the body into spirit, says: Earth is dissolved into water, water into air, and air into fire: and this is the way the body is converted into spirit.
The spirit is converted into the body in this way. The diligent philosopher says: Fire coagulates and becomes air; air coagulates and becomes water; water coagulates and becomes earth. Behold, in one nature the enemies have come together, who, when compressed, that is, coagulated, become friends, and when they rarefy, become enemies, namely, in the conversion of the elements.
If you convert this rule to the contrary, you turn the body into spirit. Therefore, you must refine everything in the earth, that is, spiritualize the earth, that is, make it tinging, and you have completed everything.
Hence Plato says: Know, O crowd, that all density rests in the earth: For the density of fire falls into air. And the density of fire and air into water, and the dense which is united from the density of fire, air, and water, falls into the earth.
He who does not convert the fourth into the sixth cannot convert the sixth into the fourth, nor into the seventh.
The fourth, converted into the sixth by the benefit of raw Mercury, if refrigerated, the work is lost.
The fourth must be imposed on the sixth to dissolve into sulfur: then cook into the Philosopher’s Stone.
The philosophers say that there is no conversion or alteration of any moistness unless there is first an exhalation of the subtler parts from the dry. And this is not done suddenly, but gradually: namely, by the dissolution of one and the drying of the other.
Also, every conversion naturally has its determined mode and time: as the philosopher says: So that some are terminated in a longer, and some in a shorter span of time. For this, three things are necessary, namely, patience, delay, and the fitting of instruments.
Note also that conversion, drying, disposition, mortification, thickening, preparation, and alteration all signify the same in this art. And according to the philosopher, alteration is a change according to quality, made by a certain local permutation of matter: which indeed contains the principal things of this mastery, of which Geber says: The principles of this art are the modes of its operations, by which the artist is applied to this mastery: for through them, this thing which we seek is generated, and brought into actual being. One mode is sublimation: Another is descension: A third is distillation: A fourth is putrefaction: A fifth is calcination: A sixth is congealing: A seventh is fixation: An eighth is ceration and similar things. These modes differ from each other.
The First Mode is Sublimation, When the philosophers saw their body placed in a vessel feeling the sun and heat, it immediately exhales or vaporizes into the form of a very subtle smoke and ascends high into the top of the vessel, they called such an ascent of the matter sublimation. This sublimation, according to Geber, is the elevation of a dry thing by fire, with the adherence of the subtler parts to its vessel. The cause of its invention is the purification of the spirits until the medicine is ennobled by exaltation, which is otherwise impossible. Hence, Alexander the Philosopher says that unless you sublimate the body (mixed with its counterpart) at the beginning of cooking until the whole body is sublimated, and both are turned into clear water, you will not reach the precious work. Also, Agadmon the Philosopher says: if you doubt how the body becomes water, know that the intention of the philosophers is that the body which was not water becomes spiritual water by sublimation with the water in which it is. Because what is spiritual is sublimated upward until the whole becomes one clean water, which, when seen, you have almost the whole mastery.
Then, seeing that the matter which ascended descended to the bottom of the vessel, they called it descension or distillation. This distillation is the separation of the putrefied liquid thing from the sediment of its turbidity. The cause of its invention is the search for pure water, so that the dissolved body, after its water’s resolution, cannot be tainted or corrupted. Therefore, Morienus says: Our entire operation is nothing other than the extraction of water from the earth and the return of this water over the earth until the earth putrefies and purifies with its water, and when purified with the help of the Almighty, the whole mastery is completed.
Still seeing the matter thicken and blacken and emit a bad smell, they called it putrefaction. This putrefaction, according to Joannitius, is the corruption of the mixed substance from the retention of vapors. In our work, if the vapors are dispersed through the air, the substance mixed with matter does not putrefy or corrupt. Therefore, the aludel must be so fitted that it cannot breathe. The cause of its invention is regeneration. Hence Roger Bacon: When natures are corrupted and putrefied, they then generate. Also, Plato: Without corruption, generation cannot occur, hence focus on putrefaction. Also, Ripley in his ladder: know that nothing born or growing, nor animated, exists except after putrefaction: For if it is not putrid, the stone cannot be dissolved: And if not dissolved, it will be reduced to nothing: because when it dies through putrefaction, it resurrects spiritually through regeneration.
Note that putrefaction extends and lasts until whiteness. Also, without putrefaction, no solution is completed. The solution is completed with the sun dissolved into running Mercury. When the sun is dissolved into Mercury, the soul is now in the water, which you diligently wash by ascent, and you will have almost the whole mastery.
Afterward, seeing the black or brown color and the bad smell leave after a long time, and some whiteness appearing like ash color, they called it the first whitening or incineration. This incineration is the imbibition of moisture upon the earth so that it is cleansed from the first stains, like blackness and darkness, through incineration. The cause of its invention is the change of mercury from color to color. Hence Dastin: observe many times how the composition drinks its water, and in each stage of our work, it is altered in colors until it reaches the goal of whiteness, which is the sign of perfection.
Still seeing the earth mixed with water, and the water gradually diminishing because of moderate cooking, and the earth increasing, they said that this was perfect calcination. This calcination is the purification of a thing by fire or its pulverization, from the removal of consolidating and flowing moisture: and the cause of its invention, the calcination of luminaries and quicksilvers together, is so that they may be more and better fixed. Therefore, by removing moisture, what was volatile becomes fixed, and what was soft becomes hard. It is also a transformation from one nature to another, from water to fire according to natural philosophers. It is also the transformation of complexions, from a cold and moist complexion to a hot and dry one; or from phlegmatic to choleric according to physicians. What was spiritual becomes corporeal according to the author of the perfect mastery. It becomes from manifest to hidden, according to Rodian in the book of three words. Hence Hermes says: The earth is calcined with its water, imbibed, and dried with the moderate heat of the sun, and the whole matter is turned into earth. Hence its power is entire if turned into earth.
Then, seeing that the whole matter reduced itself to a solid substance and did not flow, but stood firm, they said that this was perfect congealing. This is the reduction of a liquid thing to a solid substance by the removal of moisture: and the cause of its invention is the hardening of quicksilver; Hence Dastin: He who does not dissolve and coagulate multiple times errs. Therefore, blacken the earth by separating its soul. Then pour water over the earth, drying and whitening the whole, and you will have mastery. Also, Plato: Dissolve our stone and then coagulate it with great care as demonstrated, and you will have almost the whole mastery. Elsewhere he says: Take our stone and place it in a vessel; and roast it with a gentle fire until it breaks, and then cook it with the heat of the sun until it coagulates. And know that the whole mastery is nothing else but making a true solution and a perfect and natural congealing.
Furthermore, seeing the aforementioned matter perfectly coagulated and thickened so that it no longer dissolved into water nor into smoke. They said that it was truly fixed because they saw that the same coagulation and thickening due to the greater heat of the cooking came to perfect drying and whitening, and that this whiteness was above all whitenesses; they said that this was perfect ceration. This is the permanent adaptation of those things that flee from fire. The cause of its invention is to perpetuate all tinctures and alterations in another, and not change. Hence Dastin: Then what flees does not fly from what does not flee, even though the fire is raging, because the magnesia, when whitened, does not allow the spirit to flee, nor the shadow of copper to appear. It is indeed fixed white sulfur that tinges, perfects, and converts all bodies into white.
Note that the following words, namely, distill with an alembic, separate the soul from the body, roast, water, calcine, wax, feed, combine, eat, come together, correct, sift, cut with forceps, whiten, dry, distill, divide, unite the elements, extract, exalt, silver, melt, generate, create, cut with a fiery sword, draw, moisten, imbibe, paste, insert, wax, wash, smooth, file, strike with a hammer, mortify, blacken, putrefy, irrigate, rotate, redden, dissolve, sublimate, and grind pertain to the first order of medicine: However, the regulation is one, namely, to cook.
Philosophers have recommended knowing a certain vessel and its form, without which they never reached the goal: This vessel is one, vitreous, thick, wellcooked, and closed all around, one cubit long. Below and above, it is flat without projections, with a slightly concave bottom, with flat walls and a broad head, so that the sublimated material may ascend and descend more freely through it. And it does not serve if it is made of anything other than glass, unless it is similar in substance to it, because only glass is similar to itself, being a lucid and transparent body, without pores, capable of holding volatile spirits so that they are not driven out by the fire, and showing the colors appearing in the work so that the operator does not err in regulation. Other bodies are useless because they are opaque and porous, through which spirits can successively escape into smoke. And because Mercury naturally tends to ascend and not descend, therefore, the joint should be ingeniously and well-fitted, made from melted glass: And the vessel should be closed firmly and continuously so that nothing can enter or leave, because if air or foreign moisture enters, it corrupts the administration. Or if the smoke, from which metal is generated in the earth, finds an open place, it would expire, and no metal would be generated. Therefore, it is also made so that the active does not depart from the passive until it reaches perfect decoction. If its flower comes out and escapes, the whole work is deprived of its effect.
The ancient wise ones would never have reached the perfection of our mastery if they had not found another vessel in which our stone should be placed and its quantity: This vessel is an unglazed aludel, which is an earthen vessel. And the same vessel is the receptacle of all tinctures and should contain (in the first year of the Chaldeans) 24 full Florentine cups: no more, no less. This number of cups (after the feast or conjunction) should be divided into two equal parts, each containing 12 cups. The philosophers also recommended carefully examining the nature of this vessel, as it is almost the root and principle of our mastery: And the same vessel is like the matrix in animals, because in it they generate and are conceived and nourished together. Hence Hortulanus: As in all natural generation, the receptacle of the masculine spirit is required with a certain consonance and similarity to the sperm itself: So in our natural generation, it is necessary to have an appropriate receptacle for its sperm, that is, its tincture, and consonant with a certain similarity to the sperm itself: And this is the Philosophers’ Vessel. Hence Calidius: Unless the vessel of our mastery is suitable, the whole work is destroyed, nor does our stone produce the effect of generation because it does not find a vessel suitable for generation. And Albertus Magnus on the generation of our stone thus: The place is the principle of generation, and the place generates the located thing through the properties of the heavens, which are infused into it by the rays of the stars. Hence Plato: Just as through the movement of the firmament the revolution of the elements is made, by which the subtle bodies are inclined to ascend above, and what is ponderous remains below: so it is in the work of skilled alchemists. Therefore, it is necessary to fortify the vessel through which the whole firmament in its circuit is resolved; for what is sought in our work is what comes from the elements. Also, Hali speaking of our vessel says: Take the egg, that is, the vessel, and strike it with a fiery sword, and receive its soul, for this is its closure. Also, Dastin in his Rosary: Preserve the vessel and its ligature, so that you may be able to preserve the spirit: for the water which was previously in the earth and could not flee, has now returned to the upper part of the vessel from its earth. And thus the earth will bear water by the mediation of fire, which was previously in its body, that is, the earth: And Avicenna says: It must be known that our stone or Mercury is to be placed in a double vessel.
An error not corrected at the beginning, afterward growing to an immense extent, is not easily amended: Therefore, lest we seem to neglect anything in our work, we have thought it necessary to speak of the quantity of coals: for without this, the artist will never achieve his goal. Therefore, the total quantity of coals for three whole years, according to the measure once and now in use among philosophers, will be 84 coals. And the medicine comprehends 64 pounds and one projection upon 100.
The work of the philosophers is compared to the natural year: For just as the natural year is divided into four seasons, so is their work.
The first season is of cold and moist complexion and is called Winter, and it should be regulated by the fire of the first degree, which is described in this verse:
Form the first as if the senses dominated it.
In this first degree of fire, Mercury dissolves its body. Some philosophers affirm this degree is similar to the heat of a hen sitting on its eggs to hatch chicks: Others say it should be like the natural heat digesting food and nourishing the body. Others, like the heat of straw, because this heat is moderate: Others, like the heat of the sun in Aries, because the sun has its beginning and exaltation there, and there it begins to rise moderately and heat. And for this reason, some said we should start with the sun in Aries and the moon staying in Taurus. All these are said to signify moderate heat around the first operation of our stone.
Note that in this first operation of the stone, that is, winter, Mercury is mortified, and the whole work turns into powder, and the earth conceives to be turned into another nature, hence in this decoction it becomes black, because from the mortification of the coarse terrestrial in the moist generates blackness. And this blackness is the color of death, and the eradication of the moist, and lasts four imbibitions and 12 days.
The sign of perfect and complete blackness is the appearance of a small white circle, which appears around the matter by the sides of the vessel.
The second season is of an airy complexion, that is, warm and moist, like their Spring, which is completed by the fire of the second degree, as this verse describes:
The second delights in the water’s nature.
In this second regulation of the fire, sulfur dries the mercury. This heat should not be strong but moderate, because in spring, if the fire exceeds its limit, the tender herbs would suddenly dry up, and the fruits would not be carried at all. Therefore, this heat or fire is likened to the heat of the sun in Taurus running into Gemini.
In this second decoction of the stone, namely in spring, herbs and flowers are produced, and the nature ascends by whitening, because from the constriction of the cold moist in the dry generates whiteness. This whiteness is the color of regeneration and semi-cooking dryness: And since the white is half-cooked, it does not require great heat: And this whiteness lasts for two distillations and 24 days.
Note that when the matter is brought to whiteness, it cannot be corrupted or destroyed.
The sign of the first perfect whiteness, that is, of the whole matter, is the appearance of a small capillary circle of yellowish color, which also appears by the sides of the vessel around the matter.
The third season is of a fiery complexion, that is, warm and dry, and is their Summer, and is finished by the fire of the third degree, as in this verse:
The third exceeds but with patience, it harms.
In this third degree of fire, mercury is fixed; this heat should be strong and is likened to the heat of the sun in Leo; for this is the house of its dignity: Then continue until the stone perfectly reddens, and is clothed with royal garb by the fire. Since the red is completely digested, it requires a strong fire so that everything turns into fire, so that it fears no fire. Then indeed our dragon, in solar fixation, shines, adorned with the virtue of heavenly and earthly rays.
Note that each of these heats should double the other.
Also note that the names multiply according to the variety of colors appearing in the regulations: For in the first regulation, when it is black, it is called earth, ink, mud, and by the names of all black and earthly bodies. Then, when it is whitened, it is called purified water and by the names of all waters, salts, and alum and things having whiteness: After it becomes yellow, it is sublimated and subtilized, it is called air, yellow oil, and by the names of all spiritual and volatile things. Then when it reddens, it is called heaven, red sulfur, gold, carbuncle, and by the names of all things having red beauty both in stones and in animals and plants.
In this third regulation of fire, namely in summer, fruits appear, and it ascends in a fiery chariot to heaven and into the paradise of glory, because then redness appears: Which indeed is the color of incorruptibility and complete digestion: And it remains in every revolution after true whiteness for five decoctions. The sign of perfect and complete redness is fixation over the fire and fusion without fuming.
The fourth season is of a cold and dry complexion and is called Autumn, in which fruits are gathered.
Thus, you must regulate the natures, namely, dissolve in winter, cook in spring, coagulate in summer, and gather fruits in autumn, that is, tinge.
The philosophers’ manner of speaking should be carefully noted. By sublimation, they mean the dissolution of bodies into mercury by the first degree of fire, which is followed by the second operation, which is the thickening of mercury with sulfur by the second degree of fire. The third is the fixation of mercury into a perfect and complete body by the third degree of fire.
Hence it appears that although the action of our stone is one, namely, decoction with natural fire, yet the state of the heat varies triply, as stated above. First, the fire will be moderate and last until blackness, and even until it turns into a certain whiteness. When a certain whiteness appears, the fire is increased gradually until the perfect drying or incineration of the stone. When the stone is dried, the fire is strengthened again until all things receive their due form and perfection. Therefore, the entire regulation consists in the temperature of the fire because the diversity of its regulations is from the diversity of the degrees of fire. Dastin says, In solution, the fire will always be light: In sublimation, moderate: In coagulation, temperate; In whitening, continuous: In reddening, strong and continuous. If you err in these due to ignorance, you will lament the fall and labor. But if you measure the degrees of fire well and direct all operations diligently and cautiously, you will reach the goal with God’s will.
Consider also what the great Rosary adds to this sentiment: Beware (he says) not to hasten your solution (in winter), desiring to complete it before the required time: for this haste is a sign of the deprivation of conjunctions. Therefore, let your fire be warm outside moderately, so that it does not exceed the heat inside, that is, so that the internal heat retains its moisture, which it naturally draws with it, because if the external heat exceeds, then the subtle unctuous moisture mixed with the earthy is driven away by the strong fire and does not remain in the body. Also, the Count of Treviso on Fire: Know, he says, that a cold fire (that is, a very small fire) does not alter or mix things together (therefore it neither helps nor hinders), just as a great fire prevents the motion of either (that is, the mixture). Isaac also says: A great fire destroys the work: But a very small fire never: Also, to this, Mary says, A strong fire hinders conjunction and uselessly tinges white into red. Thus, let your fire be most temperate according to the mode of nature’s degrees, gentle, subtle, airy, enclosed, surrounded, persevering, evaporating, digesting, penetrating, altering, mixing, and excluding cold.
Remember therefore, that in our work, we have a double heat, that of sulfur, that is, of fire, so that one may assist the other: however, it is not external fire, which nature uses from the substance of the matter, although it governs the whole work, because it is not permanent with the quantity or weight of mercury, nor is it added to it. True sulfur, that is, internal heat proportionate, simple, is permanent with the quantity and weight of the matter, because that heat is an integral and essential part of the mercury itself. Also, Aros says; in our entire regulation, mercury and fire are sufficient for you, that is, after the first conjunction. Meditate, therefore, on fire, for it perfects or destroys all things.
The washing of the philosophers is likened to fire. For fire perfects and performs all things.
Fire coagulates the mixture of our stone.
Fire constrains the coldness of the earth and water and reduces them to a better complexion.
Fire washes away the impurities of waters and removes superfluous moisture.
Fire alone changes water and earth from their natures and colors.
Fire, when mixed with the body, vivifies and illuminates it.
Fire is a thing that putrefies and afterward causes new and diverse things to germinate.
Fire closes the pores of mercury, gives weight, fixes and fixes it.
Fire, by its penetrating and sharp virtue, purifies and cleanses a hundred times more than any other thing.
Fire matures the whole compound, subtilizes and reddens it. Venom and stench are removed without any addition by the force of fire, which alone completes all.
Fire changes the quality of our stone and increases its quantity.
Fire disperses evil, preserves and rectifies good, and is like a judge discerning the just from the unjust.
Now, to finish this first-order medicine, I will recite certain secrets, which every artist should know before daring to approach this divine work. Otherwise, he will be like a blind man seeking his only black sheep among a thousand white ones.
Firstly, the artist must know the materials of the first-order medicine; and their true and exquisite preparation: which, when prepared at the very beginning of this medicine: He must also know the true and exquisite proportion of the components, namely, body and spirit: hence Isidore the Philosopher says: Whoever wants to imitate nature in all things must first proportion his weight. For weight is in the first elemental composition and not in any other work. Therefore, composition or conjunction must be done in the first place. Also, Bernard of Treviso: Unless the artist proportionately and adequately proportions the proportions at the beginning of our work, he labors in vain. Also, Rasis in the great book of precepts: Whoever is ignorant of weights, let him not labor in our books, because the philosophers have hidden nothing but weights.
Also, the author of the perfect mastery: Beware not to proceed to compounding or composing before you have found the complete weights of the components, namely, male and female, because according to the perfection of the weights of the components will be the operation of the composition: The reason is, if too much of the masculine, that is, the active, is put in, the female seed would be confounded, and the dissolved body would order unequal qualities in the female, and the material thing would heat beyond proportion and the natures would receive inappropriate drying. If, on the other hand, the female, that is, the passive, abounded out of proportion, the masculine would then be undercooked, and the thing would remain without restitution, nor would one element close the other, as the fixed earth does to water, water to air, air to fire, or vice versa from superior to inferior resolution, which happens in the waxing of the medicine, would be hindered. Nor should the artist be ignorant of the time of composition of this first-order medicine: For all things are created under a certain term and certain disposition by the supreme craftsman: Or as Lull says: Nature has a certain time for thickening and impregnating, and a certain time for bearing, a certain time for nourishing, and finally a certain time for operating: And for all these, let the creation of man be your mirror, as Morienus says. He must also know into how many parts the aforementioned time is to be divided. And the exquisite regulation of each part, as they follow each other in order. And what each part of this divided time denotes. He must also know the figure and capacity of the vessels so that they fit the quantity of the enclosed matter conveniently, otherwise, he labors in vain.
He must also beware throughout the operation of the first medicine, that the vessels are not moved by fire, nor the matter cooled, otherwise, the work is destroyed. Furthermore, he must be in such favor with God that he knows how to move mountains from their place and immerse them in the sea. He must also certainly know (because of the imminent danger) how to prevent the vitrification of the matter, with the odors and flavors of imperfect bodies. He must also know, if the matter adheres to the sides and spines of the vessel, the present remedy for this evil, otherwise, the mastery would perish. Nor should the artist be ignorant of the natural causes of the individual colors. And also, if any color appears outside its order (which God forbid), he must learn before undertaking the work to correct the error, lest the tincture perish by combustion. He must also know the exquisite regulation and degrees of fires, which in this first-order medicine (while we only consider whiteness) are only two. He must also know the certain signs and continuous times and qualities of the individual degrees; for it is most pleasant that nature is governed according to the due course of nature, lest the mastery perish by too much heat or its lack. He must also know the true sign and moment of time when the fire should be removed: For if our compound is governed more than necessary, its light taken from the deep is immediately extinguished, nor will what is sought be made from it: Therefore, the philosophers have ordered this work to be governed not casually but prudently, and with subtle meditation. He must also know those intellectual proportions of this first-order medicine, of which the judge is none other than mind and eye. Knowing all these secrets exquisitely, the ingenious artist will be able to invent many other things with his own skill (with deep meditation applied), which I have deliberately omitted here: And then he will be able to safely proceed to the practice of this divine work.
Furthermore, it must be known that this first-order medicine is completed and perfected with the easiest labor and without great expenses, and it can be done in any place, at any time, and by anyone, provided they have the true and sufficient material.
And to finally conclude: The aim of this first-order medicine is to manifest the hidden and hide the manifest: This is done by cleansing everything inside and out.
And let this suffice for the first-order medicine.
The second-order medicine is the preparation of the stone which immediately follows the first: And it is called our perfect preparation: It is also called fixation, fermentation, creation of the stone, and perfect conjunction of the elements. It is also called by Geber the short work.
By the second-order medicine, therefore, the stone is perfectly prepared, fixed, and fermented. The ferment of the stone is made from pure metal matter, that is, natural sulfur and the vapor of the elements: And the ferment is not until the sun and moon are turned into their first matter. Therefore, it is necessary that the ferment should be made from the sun and the subtlest earth, and without ferment, no tincture is perfect. The ferment of the stone for white is silver; and for red, gold. And without ferment or fermentation, neither the sun nor the moon will be, nor anything else that is of their nature. Therefore, for silver or gold to be made, you must join the ferment with its proper sulfur, white or red, so that it can generate its like, both in nature and in color, because each thing generates its like.
The ferment, like the sun tinges, and changes its sulfur into a permanent and penetrating medicine. Hence Empedocles the philosopher: He who knows how to tinge with ferment and sulfur has reached the greatest secret, called white sulfur.
Tinging is transforming the tinged into its nature and remaining with it without any separation, as in the nature of the fixing, tinging, and tinged.
White sulfur is a body composed of the pure essence of metals, otherwise called quicksilver, brought from potential into act by the mastery of all the principles of the first-order medicine. Note that the philosophers’ elixir is a complete tincture extracted from perfect metallic bodies through the benefit of true solution and perfect and natural coagulation.
Or thus: It is a body composed of the purest and clearest species, and it is an antidote and medicine for all bodies to be cured and purified, both animal and mineral.
The philosophers’ complete elixir is composed of three things, namely, the lunar, solar, and mercurial stone.
In the lunar stone is white sulfur: In the solar stone is red sulfur: And the mercurial stone embraces both natures, white and red. It is the foundation of the entire transmutatory art and the strength of the entire mastery: Hence Rasis: White and red proceed from one root, without the intervention of any other body, that is, from mercury. Also, Geber says; that the lunar and solar stone are the same in essence because both are perfected from mercury alone: And Avicenna says: He who knows how to draw our medicine, that is, our most excellent elixir, from mercury alone, will be the investigator of the most precious work.
But before you undertake this second-order medicine, it is most necessary to know by certain signs the determined time from which it first takes its beginning, which you will easily recognize from the following sentences.
Hermes says: When that smoke becomes black and white, then it is fit to be joined with its soul, that is, the purity of the two luminaries, and with the body, that is, the oil of glass, otherwise not.
King Hali: Take the stone, which has descended to the bottom of the vessel, and wash it with hot fire until its blackness is removed, and its thickness departs, and make the additions of moisture fly from it until it becomes a very white calx, in which there will be no stain. Then indeed the earth is ready and purified to receive the soul.
Bacon: When it is pure, cook it until it becomes like the eyes of fish, the stone is coagulated into roundness: and then its usefulness will be awaited.
In the work of Sorin, sixth distinction: Dissolve and coagulate with white fire until it appears like a naked sword, and make the body white by whitening.
The author of the perfect mastery: When you no longer see any smoke going out through the distillation channel.
Or according to Senior: Until nothing of the tincture remains in the body that does not ascend with the humid spirit, which has wetted them: Then you have perfectly washed the body from its impurities.
Or as it is said in the Lily: When no exhalation of the spirit ascends above.
Or as Norton notes: When it ceases simmering, Then the vulture cries out.
The author of this book: Our lion in our sea is our hydra: It eats its own heads, with its tail, and the head and tail are soul and spirit, and the soul and spirit are created from the mud, and in it are two opposites together, fire, that is, and water, and that animates that, and that kills this: And these joined together in our hydra should be submerged seven times in our sea until the whole sea is dried up: Therefore, diligently putrefy and wash until the colors do not vary but end, and until the matter appears clear, and without impurity, very white.
Note that the sun turned into running mercury is the spirit and soul. Thus far about the signs.
After I have taught you by the signs appearing in the vessel, how you can perfectly know when this second-order medicine first begins: So that you understand it even better, I advise you to carefully consider what follows, which I have added to this place, pertaining only to this second-order medicine.
But first of all, I warn you to frequently revolve this general rule in your mind, and why I have added it.
All Nature naturally desires to be perfected and abhors and flees from destruction. Therefore, it eagerly embraces that which is conducive to its improvement.
But to clarify this further, I think it proper to briefly remind you to what extent the First Order Medicine reaches, namely:
The ultimate goal of the First Order Medicine, that is, the transformation of the cooked and raw, to which the artist naturally tends, is a substance of white sulfur that does not burn, which when transformed, is the first and nearest matter of our Elixir, the first and closest nature, though altered by the heat of its body, namely, with that alteration by which it can more properly and closely receive its form.
Also, in the flowers of the Wise, it is said that the First Order Medicine, which Nature accomplishes (for it is the work of nature), is the sole cause of the simple perfection of the Stone, beyond which it cannot ascend by itself. Thus far the First Order Medicine.
Now let us move on to the Second Order Medicine, which has to inspire, tinge, and ferment the first composition. Hence, the Philosopher Calidius: No one can or ever will be able to tinge white foliated earth except with gold. Therefore, Hermes advises: Sow your gold in the white foliated earth: Sow, that is, join or ferment; gold, that is, the tinging soul or virtue: In the white foliated earth, that is, in the earth prepared properly, white and clean, in which there are no impurities. For if it is not thus prepared, it is not suitable to receive its form or soul, so that they become immortal when joined.
From the above, it is evident that the natural gold is not the matter of the ferment, but rather the philosopher’s gold is the tinging ferment, without which the Second Order Medicine cannot be performed, because it is like the ferment of dough and the rennet in cheese, which coagulates our water, that is, mercury; and it is the bridle of mercury, as Oziambe says. And the disciple of Hermes says that no one congeals mercury with perpetual congelation except in white foliated earth:
Which indeed is the first matter of metals: And the first matter of metals is an unctuous vapor: And the unctuous moisture is the matter of our philosophical mercury; and the substance of its unctuousness is the proper essential matter of sulfur. Also, this white foliated earth is called the Fifth Essence of the earth of metals: And by some philosophers, it is called mercury or natural sulfur: And the natural sulfur is the sublimated spirit of metals converted into foliated earth: And it is necessary that the exuberated spirit be converted into foliated earth, whose whitening is its preparation by sublimation, which is distillation, until it becomes white and clear.
Furthermore, this white foliated earth or the leaves is also that pure, subtle, sulfurous earth, or that mercury upon which nature determined its first operations and left it imperfect. This mercury naturally desires to be perfected, that is, to be united or fixed with its form, so that in its perfection, it is integrated in unity, as any proper matter desires some proper form for the reason and cause of its completion. And the nobler and better the matter, the more it desires a nobler form, and the nobler the form, the more it ennobles its matter: and know for certain, that this perfection or fixation or ennobling cannot happen unless the artist is vigilant and assists nature. For there are certain things that nature cannot do, which must be perfected by art.
For art in certain things corrects and surpasses nature, just as the infirm nature is helped by the industry of doctors. Also, nature does not make a house, nor does it create an electuary, because it cannot do these things by itself. Therefore, Dastin says: Help what nature omits through art. For nature, or the work of nature, when it perfects the degree it can, it cannot go beyond it. Then the artist, by assisting nature, brings it from imperfection to perfection, as the congregation of philosophers says.
Therefore, in this white foliated earth, we sow gold when we impose the tincture of gold on it: But gold can never perfectly tinge another body more than itself. Hence Aristaeus says, Unless you place gold in gold, you accomplish nothing, and this certainly cannot be done unless perfected by art: Hence the disciple of Hermes says: Nature contains in itself what it needs, but it is not perfected unless moved and operated by art. Also, Raymond says: Although our Stone already naturally contains its tincture, it was perfectly created in the body of Magnesia, that is, in the white foliated earth, simply perfectly created, yet by itself, it does not have motion to become a complete Elixir unless perfected by art and operation. Also, Geber in the operation of the roots: For this reason, the operation is done to enhance the tincture of gold in gold, more than it is in its nature. And also to make the Elixir according to the allegory of the wise, composed of clear species, Condiment, Antidote, and Medicine for curing, purifying, and transforming all bodies into true gold and silver. And these are enough for the Ingenious.
But to better satisfy you, I will also present a few more sentences related solely to the Second Order Medicine, and finally, for the grace of a certain beloved one, I will not refuse to reveal the entire secret of this matter more openly, namely, how our gold should be sown in gold, that is, in its own land. Which is nothing but pure mercury, which either evaporates with its entire substance from the fire, or remains in the fire with its entire substance, standing, tinging, remaining.
Note about Pure Mercury: Pure Mercury is a certain matter or substance proper to quicksilver and sulfur, smoky, and very subtle, generated by our art, very clear and bright, like a tear, in which the spirit of the Fifth Essence hides and resides, that is, the Fifth Metallic Essence: However, this substance is not pure sulfur, nor pure quicksilver, as they are in their nature in their ores, but a part of those, namely, both, which are neither quicksilver nor sulfur, as Geber says. This substance, smoky and volatile in its own substance, is fixed and changed into another nature than that of quicksilver and sulfur, fixed and firm, enduring fire, and not fleeing from it, but persisting in it. Or thus, what was first tempered and coagulated by the heat of its body, is now made solid, fixed, and tinging by our art, mixed with other convenient substances, turned into a flowing, fixing, tinging stone, enduring in the fire.
Also, note that the beginning of this matter, that is, pure mercury, has two principles: the material and the agent. The material is quicksilver and sulfur, or arsenic, which is the same. The agent is heat, which is the instrument moving the material to corruption, and there is no other agent in the world.
Also, note that this pure mercury, upon which nature bases its action and operation, is quicksilver and sulfur reduced or produced to a certain watery, very subtle, very clear, very white, and very pleasant nature, which they call quicksilver: and to a certain earthy, very subtle material of our art, which they call sulfur, which philosophers have wonderfully hidden. This quicksilver and this sulfur are one thing and come from one thing. And that it is one thing is evident because the philosophers call the said quicksilver sulfur, and the said sulfur quicksilver: Hence Atbohali: You should know, investigators of this art, that the foundation of the art, for which many have perished, is one thing. And Averroes says: Nature is venerable: Nature is one that surpasses all: And many such things have philosophers said to show and demonstrate that our pure mercury is one single thing and comes from one thing. And Geber says: It is one stone, one medicine, in which the whole mastery consists.
Also, note that this pure mercury, like any elemental body, has in itself a radical or formal heat, by which it persists, and it is its fixed principle by which it persists and multiplies its seed; and this in gold is its sulfur. In silver, it is its living argentity fixed. In mercury, it is its honored water fixed, which directs the material to the end, form, and proper species.
Also, note that this honored fixative is the preparer of things from beginning to end, and it is that which manifests the tincture in projection, and it is the mediator between contraries, which can never unite unless this honored fixative is present, which passes confusedly through all elements and participates in each of their natures. And unless it were present, the intention of any wise person would be in vain in any root of wisdom. And it is the beginning, the middle, and the end, and makes peace among enemies.
Also, note that this pure mercury is the subtle middle substance of mercury, from which our medicine is made, and from that it must be immediately created, which originates from quicksilver, which is good if it contains the proper fixity or solidity and an equal proportion of the two components, namely, quicksilver and metallic sulfur. Also, note that this pure mercury is the matter Bacon speaks of in his mirror, saying: Choose the matter in which there is pure, clean, clear, white, and red quicksilver not brought to completion, but equally and proportionally mixed in the proper way with such sulfur, and frozen into a solid mass: so that later, with our ingenuity and prudence, and with our artificial fire, we can bring it to its inner cleanliness and purity, and make it such that it (after the completion of the work) is a thousand times a thousand times stronger and more perfect than the simple bodies cooked by natural heat.
Also, note that this pure mercury is the first proximate and closest matter of the stone because it contains the purest nature of the fixative by which it is fixed, and also the pure spiritual nature, the worthy substance of our most noble stone. For there the fixative sulfur is like a temperate heat in the substance of quicksilver, and like the virtue of masculine seed that is in the female seed, and like another generative virtue, and one cannot be fixed without the other, like matter without any form. Also, note that this pure mercury is the middle thing between perfect and imperfect bodies: and that nature itself began in it, this is brought to perfection by art. And if you start working in this mercury where nature left it imperfect, you will find perfection in it and rejoice. Understanding the above, you will grasp wisdom. But to the sentences.
Albertus Magnus says: First, the body must be illuminated before you impose the soul, otherwise, it can never receive or retain the spirit.
For unless the body (through the operations of the first order medicine) is illuminated, that is, purified from corrupting causes, you should not impose the soul, that is, you should not ferment it; because as long as there is any corruption in anything, it cannot endure fire, nor can fire tolerate corruption. Therefore, before you presume to impose the soul, the body must be masterfully cleansed from all its corruptible impurities, until it is the pure element of the first thing: Then it will easily receive the soul, love it, and retain it. This soul indeed lies hidden in the bosom of its proper body. But if the artist does not know the art of imposing the soul in the body (for nature cannot do this), undoubtedly the soul flies away from the fire, taking the body with it to fly, and then the operator’s work will be frustrated and come to nothing.
Theophilus: The intention of philosophers is to mix white or red quicksilver with its own sulfur, and without doubt, it will not flee. Therefore, mix clean quicksilver with clean quicksilver of its own kind: When this is done, you have the greatest secret. Hence it appears that after the said containing and contained are perfectly joined, they become one great secret that surpasses the fire and is not overcome by it, but rests amicably in it, rejoicing because it is of a fiery nature and generated in the fire. If the artist does not know this true, perfect, and ultimate conjunction, there is no point in working: Indeed, if this is unknown, the rest will be useless: No one can learn this from the knowledge of natural causes; hence it is truly called divine and supernatural by the philosophers.
Mary the sister of Moses: Marry gum with true gum, then they become one flesh, that is, after they have been perfectly purified from all dirt.
Then they are commiscible by the smallest particles, and first receive the tinging virtue: Therefore, the artist also makes this marriage to make the true and perfect fixation of the tinging and tinged.
The author of this book: When all things are altered by the principles of the first order medicine, sublimated, subtle, and prepared: Then the artist should join two waters, sulfur and its mercury, soul and body, sun and moon, male and female, two sperms, and (so to speak) quicksilvers, and from these quicksilvers, the pure mercury mentioned above is made, from which the philosophers say their stone is constituted, which the pseudo-philosophers are deluded about natural mercury. This mercury is indeed male and female, and a hermaphrodite monster in the marriage of the soul and body. Therefore, perform the betrothal between the man and the woman, and you will have the mastery: because then the fixed spirit is in the body, and the moon is incorporated into the sun; and mixed by the smallest particles. And so the work is completed.
Take white sulfur, and fix it on its white body, fixed, and cleansed, that is, on silver: and red sulfur on its red body, that is, on gold. Hence Pythagoras in the Turba: Whoever coagulates the quicksilver extracted from the bodies by dissolution, sublimation, and subtilization, with white or red sulfur, enduring all fire, that is, so that it is fixed, has no way to whiteness or redness.
Operate therefore prudently and not casually, because the said sulfur will neither be sun nor moon, nor remain in the essence of the metallic nature unless it is fixed so that it can generate its like, and also become a complete elixir, that is, what composes it.
Plato: When the body has been cleansed, and incorporated with the spirit, and sublimated, then both become an unctuous vapor, stripped of burning substances, a subtle air, of extreme penetration, a soul liberated from vices and impurities, because united with its cleansed body through the spirit, that is, purified mercurial water, it becomes a most pure and incorruptible being.
When therefore the soul (after the first preparation is completed) is joined with its cleansed body, it continues to act on it, penetrating it completely, until it converts the whole into a most pure and incorruptible being. And this conjunction must take place at the very hour of the birth of the stone, as Hali says in the book of secrets: Whoever does not find our stone at the hour of its birth should not expect another in its place. For whoever undertakes our divine work without knowledge of the determined birth hour of it, will never achieve anything in his work except useless labor and the penalties of his ignorance.
Morienus: The secret of this mastery which I have briefly collected here, and presented to you collected, is; That one part of this matter converts a thousand parts of silver into the purest gold. Avicenna confirms the same when he says: It is heavy to cast over a thousand thousand and beyond, and immediately penetrate and transform them: Therefore I will now hand over to you a great and hidden secret: One part must be mixed with a thousand parts of the nearest body: And this whole should be firmly enclosed in one vessel, and suitable: This we explain as follows:
One part must be mixed, that is, fixed, a perfect calcined body: With a thousand parts of the nearest body, that is, with the humid spirit purified from all dirt: and this whole must be firmly enclosed, that is, firmly sealed: In one vessel, that is, its proper body and suitable, that is, cleansed.
Note that what is closest to perfection is easier to bring to perfection: What is the nearest body, and what are the remote bodies; if you do not understand from what we have revealed in this book, read Roger Bacon in his mirror.
Morienus: Let fools seek and err by seeking, for they will not reach perfection until the Sun and Moon (that is, spirit and soul) are converted into one body (that is, into earth combined), which cannot be done before the day of judgment. Therefore note that this medicine, the second order, is also called the Day of Judgment because, due to the perfect conjunction or true marriage, the separation of the elect from the damned also takes place. For the powder ascending from the dregs above is ashes from ashes, and the extracted, sublimated, honored, and chosen earth. But what remains below is the ash of ashes, and the inferior ash is condemned, slag, and the scum of bodies to be cast away, in which there is no life, because it is the lightest powder that vanishes with a slight puff, because it is a corrupt sulfur excluded by nature. And whatever will not be of the pure truth of the elements will be entirely annihilated on that day of judgment: And then the elements (residing above the condemned dregs) will remain clear, pure, fixed, in earth shining like crystal: This earth will not fear fire because it has been made incorruptible.
Senior: When you want to ferment; mix sublimated sulfur with its best-purified body so that the whole becomes ferment because ferment reduces the sulfur of the art or philosophers to its nature, color, and taste in every way, from potentiality to actuality.
For if the sulfur is not sublimated, it will not have the entering substance and penetrating virtue and consequently, it will not be able to compose the true elixir because remaining in its density and corporeality, it will not mix with things by tinging them, nor will it be able to perfectly transmute them into the form of metal. Therefore mix that sulfur, that is, ferment, with its cleansed body so that it can generate its like. If you do not do this, there will be no elixir, nor will it be fixed, nor will it withstand the fire.
Hence it appears (as from the above) that the mixture of the ferment is with the cleansed body, and not with the impure body; because, as Basius says in the perfect mastery: Stones do not receive each other unless they have been most perfectly purified from all their corruptible impurities: that is, until the middle substance of mercury and the body’s sulfur (in the first work) have been perfectly cleansed from their impurities: that is, their conjunction is not possible unless they first become spiritual, that is, by the alteration of both from their virtue and property, that is, by the conversion of their natures, then they will be mixed in every way, that is, by the smallest particles. And when they are thus altered and purified, they should then be fermented because then like will embrace its like, because of the desire for the material adherence of matter and the sulfuric form.
Fermentation is the incorporation of the soul, the restoration of flavor, the inspiration of odor, and the fulfillment of beings. And the reason for its invention is the reduction of the tinging and tinged from potentiality to actuality.
Note that in all fermentation, great care must be taken about the vessels so that they do not break: Know this because it is a great secret.
Ferments are multiple, simple, and compound.
Simple ferments are those to which nothing is added, as are the elements simply taken, like souls extracted from their bodies.
Compound ferments are: When some are mixed with others, like bodies reduced to the nature of sulfur, joined with their oils.
There are also sulfurous ferments of imperfect bodies, which are called middle ferments: but know for certain: that if you do not know how to reduce perfect bodies into mercury and into their first matter, you will not be able to make either simple or compound ferment: and if you do not have these ferments, you cannot bring the stone to its end.
Note that the First Matter is Twofold: One is proximate, the other is remote: The proximate matter is quicksilver, the remote is water because quicksilver was first water and then quicksilver: But the reduction of perfect bodies particularly into mercury and into their first matter, is nothing else but the resolution of perfect and fixed white and red matter; by which resolution the seed is opened for the ingress of one nature into another.
Also, note that the ferments must be most excellently prepared before you approach fermentation.
The preparation of ferments before fermentation is that they must pass through the principal regimes converting our mastery: For it is necessary for you that the powder is first calcined by liquefaction, then the powder dissolved by dissolution: thirdly, the powder well hardened by congelation: fourthly, the powder sublimated by separation.
But in hardening and mortifying consists our secret because without them no simple body can be perfectly fixed. And unless you make the perfect fixation of altered things, there will be no gold or silver as said above.
Also, the ashes of silver in the white work and the ashes of gold in the red work are ferment: And the silver and gold of the philosophers is their water, and their water is the ferment of the body and their bodies are their earth, and the ferment of this divine water is ash because it is the ferment of the ferment. And thus the powder of the ferment is nothing else but silver and gold, without which (completely) the elixir is not made, just as dough without ferment is not fermented because it is the completing of tinctures and spirits.
Therefore, join silver with silver, and gold with gold, that is, water with ash, or ferment with ferment: And then honor our king with his wife coming from the fire crowned with a diadem.
From this, it can be gathered that whatever truth is contained in this second order medicine consists in joining or conjoining the moist with the dry immediately and directly after their preparation. And this is conceded by all philosophers. For the moist, understand the liquid spirit purified from all dirt: and for the dry, understand the pure and calcined body: And indeed, after they are joined, they are never separated by any kind of ingenuity. Unless it is possessed by that from all one, to which it is given, by which they can again be resolved into the first matter and totally corrupted.
Geber confirms the same in the book of examinations, with these words: If the sun and moon are incorporated (by art) together, they are not easily separated because of their proximity of nature, and thus one desires the other, because one is dry and the other is moist. But after one has attained the other, they embrace each other with such a strong bond and contain each other that one cannot easily be separated from the other, because when form is joined with its matter they certainly embrace each other most avidly, and the more perfect perfects the less perfect, and this naturally and amicably, because all nature desires to be perfected and naturally abhors to be destroyed.
Note that Matter and Form must necessarily be of the same species.
Further, this Second Order Medicine concerns that of Hermes. Know (he says) the seekers of rumors and the sons of wisdom, that the vulture on the mountain peak cries out with a loud voice, saying, protect me, and I will protect you: Give me my right so that I may help you. For my sun and my inner rays are within me: The moon, however, is mine, and my light surpasses all light, and my goods are superior to all goods. Nothing better or more venerable in the world can be made than when I am joined with my mother and my breast, for I then make my substance rest and my essence be contained. Hence the enigma:
My mother bore me, and by me, she is begotten.
First, she will rule over me, but thereafter I will rule over her because I became the pursuer of my mother when I began to fly from her. She, however, like a loving mother, nourishes and clearly preserves the son she bore, until I come to a perfect state, that is, to perfect whiteness. About this whiteness, Morienus says: Whoever has whitened the soul and made it ascend and has well preserved the body and removed all obscurity from it, and extracted the bad odor from it, will be able to infuse it into the body. And at the hour of whiteness or conjunction of the stone, the greatest miracles appear, that is, all colors that can be imagined in the world suddenly appear. The diversity of colors only appears in our stone during the conjunction of the soul with the body, as Morienus says: In one only time of fire does it renew various colors in it, and then they are fixed, and come together into one color, namely whiteness. For whiteness is the beginning and foundation of the philosophical work. After that, you cannot go wrong in decoction because after whitening, both the fleeing soul, that is, mercury, turns into non-fleeing earth, and makes it spiritual, clean from earthiness, airy, and subtle, and thus the spirit and soul are not truly united with the body except in the white color.
Then the imperfect body is colored with firm coloring, through the ferment, which is the soul of the imperfect body, and through the spirit, the soul is united and bound with the body together in the color of the ferment, and becomes one with them.
And thus in the imperfect body, the pure is first extracted from the impure, the subtle from the gross, gently with great ingenuity, that is, with appropriate and nourishing heat.
Then it is dried and fixed and becomes dead. Afterwards, however, it is fermented and revived through the ferment which is the soul: and thus the matter remains like ash: And it is called our perfect stone, the round stone, the silver tree, the silver litharge, that is, the blessed philosopher’s stone, the medicine, the white rose, the silver tincture that does not fail, for in its quality, the four elements of the stone are concordantly exalted and fixed.
But when the elements have been thus exalted, subtilized, fixed, and fermented, with their fires successively diligently continued, and with the moderation of the known ignition that nature requires, then make a strong fire well continued for a natural day: On the second natural day, a stronger one: And on the third natural day, even stronger, as is the fire of melting, or almost. And this is the work of three days.
Note that when the elements divided and cleansed have been fixed and fermented: Take a particle of them, the size of barley, and place it on a heated plate, if it flows and tinges the plate with its color inside and outside, and does not emit smoke, it is good. If not, know that some defect has happened in the preparation, either from the shortness of time, or from the weakness of the heat, or from the excessive quantity of volatile spirit, or from its paucity.
But when the work is brought to the point that an oath (as I said a little earlier) is necessary. If the artist is ignorant of the precise time and manner of adjuring, he will remain empty of his purpose, and will see that what has already come, and now gone, and never again will come, will seem marvelous to him. Hence Morienus: See that you do not miss this root, nor seek any change of it: The reason is, if you miss the time of the birth and procreation of the stone, the volatile part carries away the fixed part. Therefore, the operator must be diligent and vigilant not to miss the term and hour of the birth of the stone; but immediately join its proper body, which we call ferment or poison. Hence Hamech: When our material (by nature operating) reaches the term of its simple perfection, it must be joined with its deadly poison, which kills and fixes it. And surely this poison is of very high value, as Hali, Morienus, and all the rest testify.
Otherwise, through this admirable and more than supernatural conjunction, we can by no means ensure that the work remains fixed in the fire. For this conjunction immediately and instantly fixes and hardens, mercury and tinges any properly prepared metal into perfect whiteness or redness according to the quality of the medicine. And about this admirable and divine conjunction, Geber says: If anyone knows how to join and ally quicksilver with bodies, he has found one of the secrets of nature’s secrets, and one way of perfection.
Also, the philosopher Senior says, if you know how to give fire to fire, mercury to mercury, it is enough for you. Elsewhere he says: He who knows how to kill and mortify quicksilver is called master and philosopher in this work. For this is the work that does not reach the artist of stiff neck, because without perfect knowledge of it, quicksilver cannot be fixed and turned into silver or gold. And this is the goal of the whole mastery. Furthermore, this is the perfect preparation of the stone, which cannot be completed without hands.
Note also that to inspire, vivify, sow, impose, send, mix, join, infuse, incorporate, convert, commix, contract marriage, give, betroth, ferment, kill, mortify, congeal, fix, and tinge is one work, of one thing only, in a single vessel. For what congeals and fixes mercury also tinges it, in one and the same practice. And the ultimate scope of this Second Order Medicine is: To reduce the stone into fixed, spiritual, and tinging earth.
And these suffice for the knowledge of the Second Order Medicine.
The Medicine of the Third Order is that preparation of the stone, which is held in the highest esteem by philosophers, and is called Iteration or Multiplication. Hence the philosopher says: The supreme secret of the whole work is the physical dissolution into mercury, and the reduction into the first matter. Philosophers take the matter prepared and cooked by nature and reduce it to the first matter, for whatever thing returns to what it originated from, like snow inseparably dissolves into water. But to fully understand this Third Order Medicine: These five secrets among others are very necessary to know.
The first is that the wise reduce years into months, months into weeks, and these into days.
The second is that philosophers observe as a maxim or axiom that whatever is dry quickly absorbs the moisture of its kind.
The third is that it acts more quickly into its moisture than before.
The fourth is: the more earth there is, the less water there will be. Hence the solution will be done more quickly and better.
The fifth secret is that every solution is made according to suitability: And whatever dissolves the moon also dissolves the sun.
Our dissolution is the resolution of our dry matter into water, and the reason for its invention is to make its intrinsic become extrinsic and suitable for distillation.
The method of making our dissolution is as follows: After our stone is made in fire, and purified from all filth, that is, cleansed from all impurities: Note, that is, after whitening, and the philosophical spiritual washing previously explained to you: Then grind it into very fine powder on a stone, and firmly fix it. Then dissolve it in our celestial vinegar, and it will certainly be dissolved (in its own certain and determined time) into very clear water, almost like spring water: and after the stone has been completely dissolved, then distill by our distillation, as taught in the first order medicine, firmly sealing the mouth of the vessel with the sapient clay, so that our mercury cannot evaporate: And coagulate with moderate heat: and finally calcine in its proper way: and know that in this dissolution of the stone, one part tinges many parts of mercury or any body into true moon or sun, according to how the stone is prepared, and this our dissolution is our secret and the perfection of wisdom.
Note that when we dissolve, we prepare, sublimate, calcine, cleanse, join, compose, and separate simultaneously without interval or space of time.
Also, note that in every physical dissolution you should put three things: The thing that moistens, that which divides, and that which washes: and with these make all dissolutions, that is, washing, distillation, fusion, subtiliation, hardening, ceration, and grinding: Understand here that these things are one in essence, but three in action.
Also, note that in every physical dissolution up to fifteen dissolutions and coagulations, according to the author of the lesser Rosary, incorporation of the dissolved and dissolving should take place, and there the body should become spirit, and the spirit body.
Also, note that in every physical dissolution, three things should be sought with the greatest zeal: weight, measure of time, and fire: which if ignored, you will undoubtedly waste your labor and oil.
Our multiplication is nothing else but the increase and multiplication of natural heat, which is non-burning sulfur in the matter of quicksilver, when it is certain that quicksilver is the material of metals in which its brightness is fixed. Because metals need only substantial nature: and the substance in which the tincture of sulfur is fixed; it must be of the preserved material from all burning, lovable, and pleasing to all metals. And that said substance is such that it can be fixed without consuming its own proper moisture, and without burning its own substance: and therefore the tincture of sulfur must follow such a substance and be collected in it if you want it to be the tincture of metals: And all this is quicksilver: Therefore it is said that quicksilver with ignition is the cause of multiplication and perfection of all metals. And metals are that from whose spirit every white and red stone is composed; and the spirit of metals is that in which the natures of metals rest, and that spirit by the consideration of the arch-mages is called quicksilver, and that quicksilver is the material of metals in substance, as said above.
If perfect bodies are reduced into flowing mercury and dry water, they cannot be multiplied, for nothing comes from perfect; because it is already perfect as nature and our art has perfected it.
Examples: Fermented and baked bread is perfect in its state or being and has reached its ultimate end, nor can you ferment it further: So it is with silver in the white work, and gold in the red work. Pure silver or gold reduced by the test of fire into a firm and fixed body, and you cannot ferment it further in the opinion of philosophers: Unless you have the first matter of metals, in which silver or gold is dissolved into the first matter, and into miscible elements. Let us take therefore that matter from which gold or silver will be, and by our art bring it into true philosopher’s ferment, and change it ingeniously into perfect matter, or into the form of perfect bodies: And then begin a new operation. Hence many laboring in this way, even philosophically, have been deceived because they leave the work where it should have been begun again. Hence Hermes: Woe to you, sons of doctrine, who hope to gather fruit before it is ripe, and expect to reap before harvest.
Therefore, after you have perfected our white medicine, that is, after the first revolution to complete whiteness: then divide it into two equal parts, one of which you will multiply for white medicine with your carefully reserved water, and thus it will never cease to be. The other part you can also multiply for red medicine. And these two medicines can be multiplied in two ways. The first way by dissolution and repeated coagulation, that is, by corrupting the stone through distillation and putrefaction, and through the conjunction of the elements, and inhumation in the air or in the earth, and by the decoction of air and common fire. And this dissolution is the virtual multiplication of our stone in goodness. For dissolution subtiliates our medicine and brings it to a higher grade. Also, know for certain that the more our stone is dissolved and coagulated, the more the spirit and soul are joined and retained by them, and with each time the tincture is multiplied. However, the dissolved does not work well unless it is first fixed in its ferment.
Secondly, by fermentation and the ferment for white is pure silver; and for red, pure gold: as this fermentation is its multiplication in quantity. For fermentation reduces our medicine to its nature, color, and taste, from potentiality to actuality. For in the white work it whitens and multiplies the medicines, strengthens spirituality, annuls combustion, retains the tincture lest it flee, and makes them enter and join each other, which is the end of the work.
To explain this third order medicine more clearly, take it as follows. It is absolutely necessary that mercury be made from the body, that is, that the fixed becomes volatile with the volatile, that is, with clean mercury.
I will give an example from ice: If ice is placed in simple water, it dissolves in it by heat and returns to its first aqueous substance: And thus the water is tinged with the occult virtue that was in the ice: If, however, the ice is not dissolved by heat into water, it does not unite with the water, but lies in the water, nor does it tinge that water with its virtue, which was previously coagulated in it by the species. Similarly, if the body is not dissolved into mercury with mercury, you cannot extract the occult virtue from it, that is, sulfur digested and cooked by the work of nature in our mineral.
When therefore you have fixed our white medicine the first time by sublimation, then it is reduced over its own proper spirit: So that they are mixed together, and liquefied by the secret of nature in the philosopher’s vessel: For when they have stood for a while in the fire, the stronger of them conquers, converting the whole into a spirit like itself. Then join it with the spirit, and you will be able to generate its like; nor join it with any other to convert to itself, except with that from which it was in the beginning: The reason is, that sulfurs are contained by sulfurs; and moisture with similar moisture. For the spirit converting sulfur into a spirit like itself, both becoming fleeing, and the airy spirit ascending with the air, love each other: Hence Hermes: The wind carried it in its belly, for the generation of our offspring is in the air, and born in the air it wisely is born, for it becomes spiritual. For it ascends from the earth to heaven, and again descends to the earth acquiring the power of the superior and the inferior. Hence Arnold: Our son must be exalted from the earth to the air in the cross; so it must suffer, and then by conjunction enter its glory: To enter its glory, however, is impossible unless you capture it. Capture is to join it with the body from which it was taken from the beginning, for in it it is captured from the fleeing spirit to the subsistence of the body: Therefore join your work with the body to generate its like because nature is only contained in its nature.
Again, when the philosophers saw that what was fixed with the fleeing spirit had become fleeing, they repeatedly reduced it over the body, and thus they placed it in that very thing, so that both could not flee because of their proximate natural compatibility. Surely the soul enters its proper body more quickly than if it were placed in another: If you attempt to place it in another, you will labor in vain, because there is no affinity between darkness and light. Therefore, to the same body from which they extracted the soul, they reduced it again and prepared it together: And the tinging and tinged became one tincture. However, do not think that what tinges and flees is the true tincture of the philosophers, for sulfurs tinge and flee, unless joined with similar mercury. Therefore we command white mercury to be mixed with white mercury, and one fixed white tincture will be made. And know that all operators fail in their purpose if they omit this secret.
Then dissolve it again in mercurial water and sublimate until they become clear water; then dry and fix, finally remove from the fire, and let the whole cool: For peace has been made over Israel, because this medicine in its highest degree is prepared for whiteness, standing, penetrating, tinging, enriching, consolidating, persevering, very quickly flowing, and turning any imperfect body and also quicksilver into the truest silver; Because as Rasih says, Morienus and the Assiduous: The earth as often as it is whitened becomes fixed by the fixity of the moon, and therefore tinges into the moon: But then in the work is the leap of the moon, that is, the sublimation of lunar moisture, and the circle of the sun, because after the extraction of the solar spirit from its body, the earth becomes fixed by the fixity of the sun, and then tinges into the sun. Because as Plato says: Just as every silver contains white sulfur, so every gold contains red sulfur, and such sulfur is not found on earth, as Avicenna says, as in these two bodies. And for this reason, we dissolve these two bodies and prepare them subtly, to have sulfur and mercury from that material on the earth; from which gold and silver were made under the earth. For the shining bodies are those in which tinging rays are present, which tinge other bodies into whiteness and redness true without admixture of another foreign thing. Therefore, silver is the tincture of whiteness, and gold is the tincture of redness, with those bodies, that is, silver and gold, mercury is mixed and fixed with the greatest ingenuity, which does not reach the artist of gross ingenuity.
The red tincture is to be extracted solely by fermenting the Mercury with the Sun’s ferment, just as the white tincture is with the Moon’s ferment. For making the red tincture, it is said that it should be done in the same manner and with similar management in all respects as you did for the whitening, so that it should not start again from the beginning but only be multiplied. For the solution and drying of the body, add only raw Mercury, and no more than you did for the whitening: increase the heat over time.
But unless you first make it white, you cannot make the true red; therefore, it is necessary that it first be white before it becomes red. Just as it is impossible to reach the third stage without passing through the second, so you cannot go from black to yellow or red without first achieving white, because yellowness is composed essentially of much white and a little red. Therefore, whiten the black and redden the white, and you will have the Mastery.
Hence, it should be diligently noted that if pure and clean quicksilver is coagulated by the power of non-burning white sulfur, it will be the best thing that alchemists can receive to make their gold from it. Thus, it is concluded that without non-burning white sulfur, the Philosopher’s Gold cannot be made.
This is because the best sulfur, with its clear redness, cannot become red unless it was first white. Therefore, the philosophers have taught first the composition of white sulfur for silver and then red sulfur for gold, because gold cannot be made unless it was first silver. The white sulfur is obtained from the purest quicksilver, as it alone contains everything we need.
Therefore, the artist must be of steadfast will in the work, not using many things, but only focusing on the complete work; because our art is not perfected in the multitude of things. When the whiteness appears in the vessel and surpasses everything, it is certain that redness is hidden in that whiteness, and then there is no need to remove that whiteness but to cook it until everything becomes red. Indeed, the color of redness is achieved solely through complete digestion. Therefore, only by cooking after the whiteness will you reach redness by continuing the dry fire: for just as the moon, after being full, begins to diminish day by day until nothing appears of it, so the whiteness and illumination of our white body begin to diminish through cooking until all whiteness is reduced, and redness appears through yellowness, which will fully appear if there remains nothing of that watery moisture that brings forth the whiteness: if indeed something remains of that watery moisture, which brings forth the whiteness, then the drying is not complete: dry it therefore until it comes to completion, and then it will be good.
For this, consider also the saying of Hippocrates in the Aphorisms: ”If emptying is to be done, let it be done, it is beneficial, and it will be good: if not, it will be the opposite.” The gloss ”emptying” means drying: Hence Hermes says: ”Put the moisture of the fire itself, and make the fire dwell in the moisture, which by its heat increases the heat of this manifest moisture, and the combustion of hidden dryness, until it is brought to completion: that is, it becomes red.” Also in the flowers of the wise it is said: ”In the end, the king will come forth to you crowned with his red diadem, shining like the sun, clear like a carbuncle, flowing out like a wild beast, enduring in the fire and penetrating.” Dastinus also says: ”Cook the dry with dry fire and dry calcination until it becomes red like cinnabar.” Also concerning the same: ”Burn it, that is, dry it without fear, until it is clothed in the most reddish color, and do not cease from the work, even if the redness is somewhat slow to appear: for just as the first digestion of the stomach makes everything white, so the second of the liver makes everything red: hence it appears that by increasing the fire after the whiteness from the first colors you will have redness, although in the meantime between these colors yellowness will appear, but its color is not stable, because after it the red immediately arises, and when it comes, know that your work is complete, for then you will have the Woman turned into a Man, and all that was incomplete into true perfection: and then our Theriaca is called perfect, the round Stone, the golden Tree, the golden Fleece, the golden Litharge, that is, the Blessed Philosopher’s Stone, the Medicine, the red Rose, the red Elixir or unfailing red Tincture. Then also is fulfilled what the learned philosopher says: ”If the sulfur is pure, clean, and clear with redness, and it has the non-burning simplicity of fire, it will be the best thing that alchemists can receive to make gold from it. This indeed converts quicksilver and any imperfect body into gold.”
Now let us come to the matter itself: Take that part reserved for the red Medicine, and place it in its vessel, that is, in its digestion furnace, and sublime it until it is washed and completely raised.
Note that it is completely raised: if this does not happen, add to it an unfixed quantity of the fixed part, so that the volatile part surpasses the fixed part until it is sufficient for the elevation of the fixed part, neither more nor less, because if there is too much, it will become a sea of confusion, if too little, it will burn to ashes. Therefore, rule everything by measure and weight. When the fixed part begins to be elevated, repeat its elevation time after time until through this elevation and the increase of fire it is turned into the most red Medicine: then finally fix it firmly in the manner of fixation; and know that as many times as the fixed part is elevated and fixed with the non-fixed spirit, it will be multiplied not only in quantity but also in virtue and subtlety of tincture.
Then again join it with raw Mercury, and elevate it by the method known to you until it is again elevated and fixed.
Then by adding new moisture, exalt or elevate, and again fix it. It will then provide easy fusion like wax, for it will liquefy very quickly in the fire and solidify in the air, for the smoke, when it senses the fire, will penetrate the body and the spirit will be bound in the dry, and it will be one clear and red body. And know that the more you exalt or elevate your work, the more it will be worth, and the more weights it will convert. Therefore, do not cease to elevate the work and refine it as much as you can: and certainly the cause of its final liquefaction is the refinement of its parts in the fire: for whatever from its own nature is most dissolved is most refined: therefore what is most dissolved is most refined, and therefore most valuable. And after the Medicine has been dissolved and refined, remove it from the fire to cool, fix, and solidify, or dry it: and thus through these modes of solution, refinement, elevation, repetition, and fixation, you have our most Excellent red Stone fixed, standing, swiftly flowing like water through the bodies, fixed over the battle of fire, dyeing Mercury, and all bodies diminished from perfection into true gold: for the more the Medicine is dissolved, and solidified, the more perfect it will be. And such dissolution is the refinement of the Medicine, and its virtual multiplication, which the more it is repeated, the more abundantly and more parts it will dye. The Medicine is fully multiplied if it is fixed through sublimation to the fourth complete revolution: for then through the composition of the four Elements, the triple regimen, the aspects of the seven Planets, the forms and bodies, through the mutation of the twelve signs, and through a certain singular and ultimate union, you will glorify in the Trinity and unity of God the son: that is, the light of the world, who through the binary perfected this our inferior Astronomy, and adorned the sphere through the four mutations of the year, and after four Monarchies will introduce those who are called and chosen into eternal Rest, praising the unique and unfailing Light, in one Sole Trinity.
The excellence of our multiplication depends on the repetition of solution, sublimation, and perfect fixation of the Medicine. For as many times as you dissolve and sublimate the perfect Medicine, so many times its power will be tenfold in Projection: because in every solution and fixation, it acquires tenfold multiplication: if it first falls on a thousand, the second will fall on ten thousand: the third on a hundred thousand: the fourth on a thousand thousand, and so on to infinity: because the moisture of the perfect Medicine is not terminable.
The cause of all these things is threefold: Goodness, Necessity, and Perfection. Goodness, so that it dyes more abundantly, perfects better, and converts more. Necessity, so that it colors better, fixes better, and generates like itself. Perfection, because the perfect Medicine must convert Mercury into the most perfect gold and silver, according to the quality of the Medicine. The perfect number is tenfold, a hundredfold, and a thousandfold: therefore, from the beginning to the end you will make the projection.
The cause why the complete Medicine can be multiplied infinitely is this. It is like a seed sown in good soil, and like fire in wood, and like moss in good perfumes. For the more it is sown and used, the more it grows. Therefore, in every projection, it is necessary to reserve some part for multiplication, because you will be enriched by it, just as one who has fire will be enriched by fire.
Now we have completed our Medicine in heat and cold, moisture and dryness, equally tempered: hence whatever opposes it will be of the same complexion as that to which it is opposed, so if you put water in it, everything will dissolve in water: if fire, everything will be fire.
And the final goal of this Medicine of the Third Order is to open perfect bodies with the first water, and make them subtle, so that the second water can better enter to do its work: which is to exalt the earth into a wonderful salt by its own attractive power.
The Medicine of the First Order only cleanses and dyes bodies in appearance, because its tincture in the Examination of Ashes recedes.
The Medicine of the Second Order cleanses and dyes bodies not only in appearance but also in essence, because its tincture is fixed: but without utility.
The Medicine of the First Order, or the first degree of preparation, cleanses and purifies our stone from corrupting impurity, and makes it pure and volatile.
The Medicine of the Second Order fixes our stone and we call this the second degree of preparation.
The Medicine of the Third Order, or the third degree of Administration, is to make the fixed stone volatile and the volatile fixed: and this is its Multiplication.
The first degree is the work of Nature: the second of Art. The third of Nature and Art.
The Medicine of the Third Order is twofold, namely, Lunar and Solar: yet it is one in essence and similarly in the mode of operation: and therefore it is called a Unique Medicine by the Ancients. They differ, however, because in the Solar Medicine there is an addition of yellow color, which is caused by the purest essence of fixed sulfur.
The Medicine of the Third Order is called the greater Order, because it requires more sagacity in its administration and perfection, preparation, and longer labor to complete the truth: and therefore this Order’s Medicine is not diversified from the Second Order’s Medicine, except by the most subtle degrees of preparation in its creation, and by the longer duration of labor.
The Medicine of the First Order is called the one work, the Second the middle, and the Third the great work. And this suffices for the difference of all Medicines.
If in this treatise, easier than all others, and by a method different from others, we have clearly, openly, and copiously demonstrated the matter of the Philosopher’s Stone, and also led its management to completion. Nevertheless, to make the whole secret and the greatest gift of God known more clearly and briefly to all who deserve it well, it pleased us to add these numbers 448, 344, 256, 224, without whose understanding the artist will never attain the desired end. Whoever can understand, let him understand. Now we testify by the author of the most precious Stone that whatever the wise have delivered enveloped in their enigmas and the darkness of night, we have now openly revealed. Therefore, if anyone reaches the knowledge and perfection of the invention of this greatest and most marvelous treasure of all, we beseech, adjure, and constrain him by the Most Holy Name of God to guard it inviolably with a sincere and honest mind, lest he cast the bread of the wise to the dogs.
First, we compose, we putrefy the compound, we dissolve the rotted, we divide the dissolved, we cleanse the divided, we unite the cleansed, we separate the united, we distill the separated, we purify the distilled, we fix the purified; and thus the Medicine of the First, Second, and Third Orders is completed.
Plato says: Whoever has this gift of God has the greatest secret of nature, the most precious secret above all price, an incomparable and most precious treasure. Also, the philosopher Herizart says, whoever has this knowledge has an incomparable treasure, and is born under a fortunate constellation in this age, richer with infinite riches than the kings and princes of this world. Hermes also says: Whoever has perfected this art once, if he should live for a thousand thousand years, and nourish four thousand people daily, he would not lack.
This is confirmed by Senior saying: He who has this knowledge, from which the Elixir is made, is as rich as one who has fire, can give fire to whom he wishes, and as much as he wishes without his own loss and danger, because he has reached the end of riches, and has broken the bond of nature: Not only because he has the power to convert all imperfect metals into the purest gold and silver; but more because he preserves man and every animal in the preservation of health. The crystalline plate, which is the white Elixir, if given as much as a mustard seed to one suffering from fever, cures him: even if a leper is purified with the same plate for four seasons, he is cured: and about the red powder the philosopher Rasis says; if given in warm drink to the paralyzed, the frenzied, the dropsical, the gouty, the lepers, they will all be healed after they have sweated. And both the white and red powders heal sciatica in mortal danger: they also heal paralysis: likewise, if either powder is held to the nose during childbirth, it relieves, and it also extracts a dead fetus by applying a plaster, says Hermes. It also erases wrinkles on the face and all blemishes on the face by anointing, and makes the face youthful.
Geber also says: The red Elixir cures all chronic diseases, which doctors have despaired of. And it makes a man rejuvenate like an eagle, and live for 500 years and more, as some philosophers have done, who have used it three times a week as much as a mustard seed.
There is a herb called Saturn from the Canals[Canalibus], from which such Medicine is made.
Some Philosophers say that this Medicine cures all internal ailments by taking it, and heals externally by anointing: Hence, the cardiac passion, chest ailments, colic, jaundice, and St. Giles’s disease with epilepsy, and all kinds of fevers are cured by this Medicine: arthritis also is cured by anointing with it. It dissolves the stone when drunk, and expels any poison when taken. Even arthritis is cured by anointing with it. It frequently alleviates rose gout by anointing, and whatever is in the sick stomach, it removes. It constrains and consumes every harmful flow of humors by drinking or anointing, and dispels all melancholy or mental sadness when taken on an empty stomach. It also dries up all rheumatic flows. It sharpens vision and all senses, and enhances intellect in a miraculous way beyond all other medicines of doctors.
Other wise men say that this medicine restores hearing to the deaf and relieves all pain from ear inflammations. It rectifies stiff nerves by anointing, restores decayed teeth by washing, sweetens foul breath, and restores lost smell. It strengthens the heart and spirits by drinking, alleviates headaches by applying it to the temples, and cures granulation, webs, white spots, and mist in the eyes, as well as cataracts, eyelid conditions, heat, and darkness. All these are easily cured by this medicine. It is also an excellent healer for weak eyes, as it constricts the flow of tears, reduces swelling, alleviates redness, softens the skin or membrane by wiping, and heals eye inflammations.
It also cures all types of abscesses by anointing or plastering: ulcers, wounds, cancer, fistula, ”touch me not” ulcers, anthrax, creeping sores, impetigo, tumors, scabies, itching, and ringworm. Scars are smoothed out so that new flesh regenerates. Corrupted and sour wine, if mixed with it, is repaired. Stones are also dissolved if it is drunk, and it expels all poison by inhaling. Moreover, it demonstrates and administers many other benefits to the human body because this medicine surpasses all other medicines of Hippocrates, Galen, Alexander, Constantine, Avicenna, and all other doctors of the medical art in smell, taste, virtue, and effect.
And it should be noted that this medicine is always to be mixed with apothecary medicines to drive away disease. And it demonstrates and administers many other benefits to the human body because this Medicine surpasses all medicines of Hippocrates, Galen, Alexander, Constantine, Avicenna, and all other doctors of the art of medicine in odor, taste, virtue, and effect. And it should be noted that this Medicine is always to be mixed with the medicine of the apothecary to drive away disease.
Lullius also says that all infirmities generated from the top of the head to the sole of the foot, if they are of one month duration, will be cured in a day, if of one year duration, in twelve days, if from a long time in a month, because just as it cures all metals infected with all infirmities so it also cures human bodies.
Therefore, our Blessed Stone is not unjustly called the greater Tyrian by the philosophers, both for human bodies and metals. Of which Hermes, the father of philosophers, says: If you take our Elixir every day for up to seven days, the hairs on your head will fall off and grow back black. And thus from an old man, you will become young and strong.
Arnold also says that our Stone has an effective virtue, healing all infirmities over all other medicines of doctors: for it gladdens the soul, strengthens virtue, expels all bodily illness, preserves youth, and makes the old man rejuvenate. It does not allow the blood to putrefy, nor phlegm to dominate, nor choler to burn, nor melancholy to rise. Indeed, it purifies the blood beyond measure, purges the rheumatic head from the flux, induces memory, prevents drunkenness, comforts the stomach in its natural heat, diverts poison from the heart, moistens the arteries, dissolves what is in the lungs, and heals ulcers, increases radical moisture, provokes urine, breaks the stone, excites and increases coitus, purges and keeps clean the contents in the spirituals, and restores all bodily members effectively and guards them from harm; and generally heals all both hot and cold, both dry and moist infirmities most tightly over all other medicines of doctors, because it is of an occult and subtle nature. And if the illness is of one month, it heals in one day: if of one year, in 12 days; if ancient from a long time, it will heal in one month. And briefly, it expels all bad humors and induces good ones; it confers love and honor to those who bear it, security and boldness, and in battle, victory.
And this is the proven Medicine of the Philosophers, which may Our Lord Jesus Christ deign to bestow on every faithful and pious seeker, who lives and reigns with the Father and the Holy Spirit as God for infinite ages of ages.
And thus let the explanation of the three medicines of Geber be concluded, which has never before been so clearly handed down.
Quote of the Day
“The philosopher's gold resembles common gold neither in colour nor in substance. That which is extracted from it is the red and white tincture.”
Anonymous
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