BY
JOACHIM POLEMAN
What subject prompted the Author to write this Book
Although God by his immense mercy has delivered into the century in which we are living a very brilliant light in medicine, by means of Jean Baptiste Vanhelmont, to help us all unworthy that we are? we are and relieve the sick, although this light has been seen and cherished by several Doctors, as curious as they are eager for the truth, and to discover this light, they have willingly read and meditated on the writings from Vanhelmont; however many and almost all complain of the obscurity of his books, especially with regard to the preparation of great medicine, and tincture or sulfur, and copper, which they have all judged, and with reason , to be the most necessary thing in the world in medicine.
This is why many, to seek the development of this mystery, have maintained literary businesses, & none has taken the trouble to find this golden arcana, I myself was so sunk in this quagmire, that after having read the books of our Philosopher, not knowing where to find the outcome of these mysteries, I resolved to travel,
This is why, walking tirelessly with danger even of my life, I have been in several different Kingdoms to find the most experienced in this art, and have conferred with them about this great treasure of health, without however having ever been able to find anyone who knew how to dissolve the sulfur of the Philosophers, and draw it from the bonds which hold it so tightly, and without being able to learn from them any route that I can follow, on the contrary, between several quite famous ones that I have seen, most of them, far from knowing how to separate the soul from copper, they did not only know how to separate that from antimony. This is what forced me to take on a new kind of work; & by referring in the opinion of our Philosopher, in his book on the research of sciences, I no longer sought to learn from men, but from the very source of Nature & the Creator through very humble prayers. I read the writings of our Philosopher very assiduously , I paid great attention to understanding not only his words, but also the meaning they contain, and relating them to each other with infinite work, I finally managed to discover the truth.
Like when you yourself have been attacked by an illness; we know better the state of the one who is detained. Thus knowing with what ardor and what impatience, those who act in ignorance or in error, sulfur of the Philosophers, and wish to discover it. I believed that I would do a work worthy of Christian charity, if I communicated to my Brothers what I acquired by the blessing of God with much trouble and expense; and if I showed them the path by which I arrived at this knowledge, so that they could follow the light of this torch, see with their own eyes all these mysteries, accomplish them perfectly, and do good to their neighbor in his illnesses , & that by this means the name of God, great in its wonders, be celebrated, & that all praise & glory returns to the author of all good. So be it.
By what virtue or means The mineral soul of sulfur must be separated from its body.
If we wish to know fundamentally how the soul of hard and coagulated metallic bodies, such as copper, gold, iron, etc. must be separated; we will first have to find out how we can dissolve not only common sulfur, but also mineral sulfurs , which are half-coagulated bodies, so that by this knowledge we can, as if by degrees, climb higher, and reach until the separation of the most fixedly coagulated sulfurs.
Because all metallic sulfurs, minerals being of the same nature, & named by Philosophers the Element of Fire, as being of igneous nature.
It necessarily follows that their dissolution starts from the same foundation & the same source, because they draw their origin from the same nature & essence; as an old man and a child are of a similar substance, except that one is more perfect than the other. If therefore we want to find the means of dissolving the most highly coagulated sulfurs, we must first seek the means of dissolving the least sulfurs. It is this path that I took to seek the truth that I found.
If first we examine and who can dissolve common sulfur, we will find that oil, & everything that is fatty & participating in igneous nature, dissolves sulfur like its fellow, and as being of a fiery substance , making its hidden soul appear to our eyes in the red color of blood.
Which (although very common now and in practice among many) is nevertheless of such great weight, that from this single principle, the dissolution, of all metallic souls, of gold itself, as you will see in the following, takes its origin. This is why, if we want to be among the disciples of the Philosophers, we must look at common sulfur with eyes very different from the eyes of the common man. The only cooking in which it can be so softened by a decoction of oil, that its tincture red interior is drawn out, pleases the vulgar, who can with this oil cure galls and wounds, remedy bruises and injuries. burns, & do some other medical operations; but the curious to deepen the secret knowledge, wants to delve further, and to the bottom of things, and wants to know why of so many different materials which are in the world, there is only the only oil which has the power to gently and naturally dissolve the sulfur, and to reverse its inside out, which the most powerful corrosives do not have the power to do.
If we consider this foundation exactly, we will know that this solution is only made by the relationship between oil and sulfur, and because oil or fat, as igneous materials, seek sulfur, as also an igneous substance; and which is similar to them, that they seize it , that they embrace it, soften it, and dissolve it even in the interior, from its center, which is done by an Empathy, by which each thing loves his fellow, and reciprocally communicate their virtues to each other. Oil is therefore (as igneous humidity) the true foundation & the main source, from which the dissolution of all mineral & metallic sulfurs begins .
minerals, which nature has made a hard coagulation by cooking, & if we want to make the above-mentioned experiment with oil to dissolve them, we will know that it does not have enough force to dissolve the embryonated sulfur of no mineral, of which, however, the dissolution must take place on this example, so that it conforms to the gentle, amicable & fundamental nature; but because the mineral sulfurs are very strongly compressed, and do not obey such a light and weak power, it is absolutely necessary to exalt the virtue of the oleaginous substance in its igneous quality, to multiply it, to make it much more igneous, we will then have a virtue capable of dissolving the sulfurs of minerals as easily as common oil can soften common sulfur even sooner or more quickly.
This exaltation of the qualities and virtues igneous in oils must only be done according to nature, and with what is similar to them, if; we want to work in accordance with nature, not against nature. This is what the lit fire does, which changes by its great igneous power the oleaginous substance into a very igneous salt, which it not only preserves in all its oleaginous and softening virtue, but also exalts it in the same virtue in the - far from anything one can imagine. Because if you throw a wood oilseed in the fire, and you burn it there, the greater part of the oil will be consumed by the fire: (because the flame is only caused by the oil;), but at the same time a large part of the oil of the wood which could not burn immediately because of the impediment caused by the coagulation of the volatile salt which is in the wood, joined to the oil will be changed by the vehement, acrid & powerful ignition , into a very igneous, oleaginous & fixed salt, which is called alkali salt, or lixivious salt, from which laundry is commonly made.
This alkali salt still fully possesses its first property of softening, although it has gone through the strong ignition that it suffered, from the volatile state to that of of fixity, & that it has acquired a greater igneity than it had before.
If you want to know if this igneous salt is still an oleaginous substance, put it in an earthen pot, with a little sulfur and water, boil it a little, and you will see that the sulfur will melt, and will give its tincture , as if it were dissolved in oil; he will even give it more quickly, because this oil changed into salt has acquired much more strength, and its igneous & softening quality is much increased from what it was, this salt still being only oil. This Salt is nothing other than an oil exalted in virtue, which is why the force of dissolving with more vehemence, overcome being only oil.
It has the strength, in this state of exaltation, to divide the parts of the minerals, to separate the soul or the sulfur, and to soften them by dissolution. But, in order for this virtue to act better, more easily and more quickly, we can further exalt the igneous alkali in its igneous quality by joining it with igneous things, which are similar to it, and by this means its igneous quality will be very fortified Among these igneous materials, quicklime does not hold last rank; through strong ignition, it acquires a very great igneous quality, which it can communicate to the alkaline salts by means of fire . This is why take well-clarified lye salt, or salt of tartar, which is by itself very igneous, mix it with quicklime, calcine them together very strongly for a whole day, make a lye, you will have an alkali very increased in igneous quality, which can quickly dissolve the sulfurs of the minerals, and separate the souls from their bodies. You will be able to experience the truth that I put forward about antimony, which is the first of the minerals. Put it exactly into powder, add the above-mentioned igneous salt and a little water, put everything in a warm place for a few days, stir it several times a day and you will see that the sulfur from the antimony will separate by means of your alkali, which it will attract by sympathy, will dissolve it, and they will unite together, after that pour the water by inclination, filter it, and by means of some acrid liquor that you will pour into the water, the sulfur of the antimony will will precipitate at the bottom of an orange color, which will be as burnable as common sulfur. The one who rushes last is always the best.
It is by these two degrees, the first of which is the dissolution of common sulfur by oils, and the second, the separation of embryonated sulfurs by alkalis, that I have surely achieved the separation of metallic sulfurs, because they are of the same substance as minerals; so I have seen by the light of nature, as in a mirror, that the oil does not have the force to separate the sulfurs from the minerals, if it is not exalted to a higher degree of force of the igneous quality; in the same way a much more penetrating fire was required to separate the metallic sulfurs than the minerals, because they are of a tighter coagulation, and more closely linked with their Mercurys than the minerals. I nevertheless knew that because all sulfurs are of the same substance, it was necessary to establish their dissolution on this basis, and that it was only a question of making this igneous salt more penetrating, more softening and stronger, which was to be done by the dissolution of these salts alkalis of the grossness of their bodies, and by reducing them by means of a strong fire into a penetrating spirit, which spirit, not only retained its first power and igneous quality, but became more penetrating and more softening, as if separated from its coarse bonds, to return a spiritual igneous water, & of perfectly softening Sature.
After having acquired this knowledge, I put my hand to work, and succeeded; the metallic sulfur obeyed my volatile igneous spirit, and allowed itself to be separated by its power, as we will say in more detail later. Here is the basis of all these mysteries. It is necessary, for the central dissolution, the liquefaction & softening of common sulfur, oils of embryonated sulfurs, fixed & igneous alkalis, metallic sulfurs, & gold even, alkalis volatilized & annealed in igneous, spiritual & penetrating water.
We should not be surprised by what I say, that this igneous spirit dissolves gold and separates its soul or its red sulfur; because experience has taught me this truth, and confirms it to me every day, despite everything that the profound Cosmopolitan says to the contrary in his Preface on his twelve Treatises, and although many still say today that this is impossible.
The curious reader will learn here why, not only our Philosopher, but many others before him, qualified the sulfur of copper with the worthy title of Sulfur of the Philosophers, and truly recognized it for such. because of the very great virtue with which he is endowed, but also because of the secret & difficult preparation; that it was only the Sages who knew and kept hidden, and which has remained hidden until now, and will always be so for those who love gold more than God himself, although I am now going to speak about it very -clearly; for God is the keeper of his secrets, he does not sow pearls before swine, as says our Philosopher, chapter 14. sect. 9. of his Treatise on Fevers.
I have explained, he said, in a few words a secret which ennobles the Doctor, but it is a great matter to prepare it for the first time. The conduct belongs to him to whom all honor is due, because he reveals the little secrets that the world does not know, and which it despises because it ignores them. This is why do not imagine that it is a game and that it is so easy to acquire the golden tincture of copper, because, not only the menstruum which must pull and take the soul, namely the alkali volatilized, but also the preparation of copper, are mysteries unknown until now, Doctors hear nothing.
1° We first need the copper in vitriol, not in the vulgar way, which has nothing in common here, but by a much more hidden way, as our Philosopher says chapter 8, sect 21. And this vitriolification of the copper is the main preparation, unknown until now.
2°Then it is necessary to distill the vitriol from the copper of the Philosophers, so that all copper passes, and is changed into the form of a green spirit, this work is unusual, & however so recommendable in Basil Valentin & Paracelsus, whom they call this green spirit the third column of all Medicine.
3°Thirdly, we must separate this green spirit from its corrosive, which the only Sages know how to do it, but which is faithfully & clearly taught by our Philosopher in his writings.
4° Having done this, fourthly, the sulfur can be separated by the volatilized alkali. This knot is the most difficult, and our Philosopher does not explain it expressly, but leaves it to be sought and discovered in his writings to the children of God's chosen Philosophers, and I discovered it clearly.
5° It is necessary, fifthly, to fix & coagulate this separated soul; This operation is the simplest and easiest, not for those who have no understanding of our practices, who will have enough difficulty in bringing this precious sulfur to maturity according to nature.
Instruction, on the manner in which the Vitriol of the Philosophers and drawn from Copper should be prepared.
Although in the art of extracting the soul from copper, the pivot, or the greatest difficulty is the volatilized alkali, it is nevertheless not the only one ; because, although you pour it on the calcined copper (which I myself tried in vain) it will never separate the golden soul, the reason being, that the soul of the copper is entwined in the threads of death, & totally reversed by the natural coagulation, & the liquefying ignition which followed it. And it is in this yen that the Cosmopolitan says very well, that the fusion of metals is their death, & ours Philosopher in the Treatise of the Stone chapter 8. sect. 4. In the fusion, all the medicinal product is tightened, sealed and what is more is reversed.
This is why it is very necessary that the soul comes out from outside, and that by this means the molten metal resurrects from death to life; which means that our Philosopher gives to this Sulfur the epithets of resurrected & glorious, as being delivered from all the bonds of the body. From there it appears that this preparation of copper is neither less necessary, nor of less consequence, than the preparation of the igneous spirit itself, to draw out this soul. Which means that it has always been kept secret by the Philosophers, as well as the solvent, until our Philosopher showed us the way, that armoniac salt was necessary for the preparation of copper; this is how he explains himself in his Treatise on the Duumvirate sect.
9. The true and legitimate sulfur, called by the Philosophers, is made from the green spirit of vitriol, which drawn by the strongest expression of fire, by repeated cohobations, and becoming volatile, is fixed and coagulated, which is what salt does vulgar armoniac, which must then be separated by several repeated distillations of the wine spirit.
This effect having to be produced by armoniac salt, you will perhaps imagine that it is necessary to take it, to use it as it is; I was like you in this error, and I removed several times, by sublimation, my copper with armoniac salt, but always in vain, until I examined more deeply and more exactly the words of our Philosopher by which he teaches that the vitriol of copper must not be reduced to a simply volatile spirit, but to very volatile spirit, which makes it necessary that the armoniac salt itself be converted into volatile spirit. For, how could copper become a volatile spirit, if what must operate in it was not itself a volatile spirit?
It is therefore necessary first to distill a very volatile spirit from Armoniac salt, and then with this spirit convert the copper into vitriol, not in the manner that I wanted to do it myself in vain, by sublimating natural blue vitriol with Armoniac Salt & by distilling the spirit; which is as useless as taking copper filings instead of vitriol, or. calcined copper, because the spirit of vitriol, or any other corrosive, which would have produced vitriol by erosion of the copper, not only cannot be used, but is even harmful for this work. So that if someone wanted, to put the doctrine of our Philosopher into practice, to draw the tincture from blue vitriol, whether natural or artificial, it would first be necessary to dissolve this vitriol in water, and precipitate the substance. metal with some Alkali, separate it from its corrosive, so that none remained at all after converting the precipitated and dried lime into a new vitriol with armoniac salt. For there is as great a difference between the vitriol of Philosophers, and that of the vulgar, as there is between white and black, as you will now hear.
On the occasion of what I say, that the armoniac salt must first be changed into volatile spirit, the Reader must not imagine that this must be done in the ordinary way, and known to everyone, and that it it is necessary to distill the armoniac salt with flour, as some do, who, by a very gross error, armoniac, after the distillation of which all the armoniac salt rises into powder, without any alteration of its previous state, having no vegetable, which does not give an acidic spirit, when it is distilled.
This urinous and igneous salt, which is obtained from the salt of tartar, or from some other prepared alkali, is not the spirit that the Philosophers demand either, it is only the least part of the armoniac salt, and the most much of it remains at the bottom; so that it is inappropriate that we call this first salt armoniac, because the name of a thing, when it is composed of two parts, as salt armoniac is, must be taken from the more considerable, because that (as the common proverb says) the name is taken from the largest part of the thing named. This is what experience teaches us every day. For, if we mix a pound of armoniac salt with an alkali, and if from all there rises by sublimation six or seven half ounces of urine salt, and if twenty-four half ounces remain with the alkali at the bottom of the vessel, for then the name of armoniac salt will suit much better the twenty-four half ounces remaining, than the seven which will have risen.
From there the ancients believed the greater part remained ultimately the best, and it is from it that they distilled their volatile spirit for their intention, and experience has taught me learned to do the same thing; because I pointed out that this urinous salt was of no use to me, and that it could never make me appear what the Sages desire.
After therefore that I searched in the greater part, I knew very certainly, that if after the separation of the urine salt which had remained at the bottom with the alkali salt, we distilled this part of more considerable material at a strong fire , we would have a volatile and double spirit, and so volatile, that it would even rise during the distillation of the. bath, & could make other bodies volatile. I call it double, because, when the urinous spirit separated from it , it joined again with the alkali, great fire, that if he is obliged to go up, he removes with it a part of the alkali, because of the connection he has contracted with it, so that he can never pass without it.
In this way we have either a volatile double spirit or a satiated spirit, which is so satisfied in its devouring & corrosive nature with alkali salt, that it no longer seeks to corrode other bodies, nor to insinuate them, because He was as full of alkali salt as suited his corrosive nature. From there this double and very volatile spirit has acquired an admirable nature, and dissolves metallic bodies in a way quite different from other corrosives. Because ordinary corrosives, hungry as they are, seek to devour metals, to satisfy their hunger, they attack them with fury, they tear them to pieces, and attach themselves to them on the outside; but our corrosive double being already satisfied, does not corrode the metals, and does not seek to lodge itself in them like the other corrosives, but it softens them, and does not simply attach itself to them on the outside, it does not does not operate so quickly as the others, but little by little over several days it penetrates even into their interior, spills outward what they have hidden, and as if sealed within by the force and virtue of its double nature, in which the metals sound like the ice in hot water. This is why make sure to make this spirit of armoniac salt, without being frightened by the multitude of works or particular considerations; but consider the end, which by rejoicing, will compensate you for the labors suffered. If you do this work properly , and if you accomplish this point which is the greatest and the main, correctly , the rest will be nothing more than a game.
So take your very volatile mind, pour it on the pure copper filings, digest them for several days in a well-stoppered glass vessel, your metal will dissolve little by little, & your mind will become green as green quackgrass, by the dissolution of the metal. Continue this dissolution with new spirit, Until all the metal is dissolved, then coagulate, and you will have a very green vitriol, which also differs in nature and virtue from vulgar vitriol, as it differs in color. That of the vulgar being blue and that of the Philosophers green. The blue is very bitter and harsh, and the green is sweet like sugar. The first causes very powerful vitriol of vomiting, & the second strengthens the stomach, it induces sleep, soothes all pain , & can be given to children. Finally, it has so many virtues in medicine that one cannot do more. This one is a harsh substance, Fangible, after it has passed through the fire, and it flows in the fire like wax: it is like a resin, and can be cut like an eraser, because its balsamic soul is all turned outwards, and exited by this secret of the corrosive double. Which means that it has a very pleasant aromatic odor, especially if it is dissolved and digested for a few days in the spirit of wine, in which it dissolves completely and very quickly. I will not say the rest of its properties for brevity.
Do you now see what difference there is between the vitriol of the Philosophers, and that which is commonly made of copper? It is the same as that which is found between white and black.
great, prays internally in medicine, it will not be less in surgery, because of the balsamic sweetness, which makes it so suitable for healing recent wounds, & dangerous ulcers & incurable tumors, that it puts everyone to shame ointments, balms, oils & plasters.
This is why I am going to teach you a plaster and an ointment, which will amaze you for their virtues and their effectiveness and which will be of great help to you in all kinds of unfortunate accidents.
This is how the plaster is prepared . Take sulfur of antimony made as I taught you above, put it in a vial, pour over it - to the height of several through the fingers of newly made linseed oil, this oil will take on a blood-red tincture, and will be the true balm of sulfur in Surgery; pour this oil into a copper vessel, if you have a pound, add half a pound of exactly pulverized litharge, cook & stir carefully until the litharge is completely dissolved, after which add fat, i.e. man, either of pork, or of goose, or butter according to the need half a pound, & three half ounces of vitriol, sweet copper & as much wax as is necessary, to make everything in consistency of plaster, which because of these great virtues, will rightly bear the name of golden plaster.
Here is the preparation of the Ointment. Take well skimmed honey, eight half ounces of the juice of Plantain leaves of the large species, twenty four half ounces and four half ounces of sweet copper vitriol, cook everything slowly until the thickness of ointment, add half ounce of well-ground saffron, take everything as quickly as possible from the fire, & mix your saffron well, so that it is perfectly incorporated, & your ointment will be made; & if in cases where fats are necessary, you add sulfur balm, you will do better. If you use these two well-prepared remedies properly , you will acquire great glory and profit among the people. abandoned patients, which experience will make you find to be true.
Continuation of the explanation of how to make Copper Vitriol, & the secret of Armoniac Salt.
Although I have sufficiently described everything relating to the preparation of copper vitriol; it may nevertheless happen that everything I have said appears to the Reader partly obscure, and partly impossible, because I spoke of a double and satisfied mind: names that have neither been heard pronounced, nor read in any book, so that one could take what I say for an invention, and imagine that I would want to insult the doctrine of the Philosophers, dissolution of metals, & that I would like to give a false explanation to what they teach. To remove this suspicion, and make the thing clear and palpable to the Reader, in order to simply reveal to him the mystery of this foundation, I will teach him so clearly the Nature and the whole way of armoniac salt, that it will be easy for him to walk on my lights, & to know the truth.
So let no one be shocked that I propose new kinds of spirits, or that I give them new names: because armoniac salt in itself is nothing other than a double and satisfied spirit, & he could not have so much virtue to prepare to open the doors so quickly doors & dissolve metals & minerals, if he were not a double & satisfied spirit, because he does with his double power that it is impossible for a simple corrosive to execute. You will learn through the following mechanics, how armoniac is a double satiated spirit.
If you take the spirit of urine, which however strictly speaking is not a spirit, but an igneous salt: because being rectified and separated from all foreign humidity, it is a volatile and igneous salt, and if you take it pour on vitriol; immediately the corrosive which is in vitriol joins with this salt, and leaves the metallic body to which it was previously united, to seize this igneous salt, because that he enjoys being joined to this salt more than to his own metallic body.
Put this vitriol impregnated with this spirit of urine in a retort on the fire, turn on the heat, you will immediately have a dry, volatile & double salt, which will have no taste of either the spirit of vitriol or of urine, because of the reciprocal action of these two salts on each other. This reciprocal action & reaction, can be very properly called satiation, because one is satisfied by the other, they rest reciprocally in each other & remain together, & the united forces are more great: because from this union of forces comes the great virtue of armoniac salt, for the preparation of metallic bodies. If you examine and taste this double salt properly, you will only find the taste of armoniac salt, and it will have the same virtue in medicine as common armoniac salt .
Everything I have said about the spirit of vitriol and the salt of urine is perfectly suited to common armoniac salt, because it is of the same origin and comes from the same foundation, except that instead of vitriol we takes common salt to do it , and instead of urine salt, common urine itself, without any separation, and other things which, like urine, contain a volatile salt.
All these things are no sooner united together than they act on each other, dried & pushed by the fire, the volatile salt because of its volatile nature is forced to leave, but not being able to rise alone because of its intimate connection with the salt, it delights the spirit with itself, & thus the two rise in one, as a double satiated spirit or spiritual salt. . If you doubt that this is so, prepare spirit of salt, and salt of urine mix them together, so that you cannot find in your mixture any taste of either, but a average flavor between the two. Coagulate this compound, sublimate it, and you will have an armoniac salt, similar to that which is commonly sold: from there you will know that common armoniac salt is nothing other than a double and satiated spirit, or rather a spiritual salt, and because it has a double nature, it prevails above all spirits and common corrosives, because it opens metals so much, that there is no there is no salt that can open them in the same way;
I will give an example at the end of this chapter, in order to make known its power to discover what is most hidden. It is of this salt that Basil Valentin speaks very well. Armoniac salt is not one of the smallest keys to opening metals, this is why the Ancients compared it to a bird, because it can remove with its wings the dye & color of certain metals & minerals , & that he is a proper magisterium for transmutation, because no metal can be transmuted without being prepared. I recommend that you remember this doctrine of Basil Valentin, which I do not report here indifferently and without reason.
Although this demonstration is sufficient to convince you that the name "double & satiated spirit" is appropriate to armoniac salt, and that it is not my invention, but that it is specific to the very substance of salt.
armoniac, although it has not yet been in use; despite this you will undoubtedly make this request to me. If armoniac salt is a double & satiated spirit, why can't it volatilize copper, & why Do we need another double spirit of armoniac salt and an alkali? Here is the answer.
The spirit or rather the urine salt of which armoniac salt is composed is the cause, because the urine salt always retains its nature of salt, and cannot be reduced to true spirit, which means that it always removes with it the spirit of salt, vitriol, or other corrosives which have a true nature of spirit, not in the form of spirit, but each according to its nature in the form of salt, changing by its saline nature these spirits in the form of salt, as long as it is mixed with them: instead of our Philosopher Paracelsus & several others wanting the copper to be volatilized, not in the form of volatile green salt, volatile. Our Philosopher says in the Treatise on the Stone ch. 8. sect. 21, that the fatty liquor of copper must be volatile, & in his Treatise of the Duumvirate, that the green spirit must be very volatile, so that the body of copper can be well prepared to give its tincture, & this is the reason why copper must be thus torn & reduced into small subtle atoms like a spirit; because if it were not thus, we could not have his soul, as our Philosopher expressly says in the place already cited from the Treatise on the Stone sect. 5. We can only have the fire of Venus by its complete (NB) destruction, & only by the volatilization of the mercurial body of said Venus.
This cannot be done. armoniac salt, although we removed with it several times the vitriol of common copper, or the copper in filings, or the Aesutum because it never makes anything more than a dry salt, and not a subtle and penetrating spirit, which is incomparably more subtle to penetrate & open, than the most volatile salt.
Although armoniac salt is not this double spiritual substance, which has the power to operate what the Philosophers ask, and to reduce copper into a subtle, penetrating & volatile spirit, nevertheless because of its nature & its substance it is a double spiritual salt, it gave occasion to Philosophers to seek, find & do, although in a manner different, but found on this basis of composition of salt armoniac another double substance satiated, which is always a very volatile spirit.
They came to the end of it, after having fundamentally considered the parts which enter into the composition of armoniac salt, and knowing that it is a double substance; because they found, as I have already said at length above, that armoniac salt is composed of an igneous and corrosive substance, but because they knew that this igneous part of its nature was not a true spirit, & that it was of no use in changing the copper, as they wished into volatile spirit, they chose in its place an igneous salt, clean to become through distillation a true spirit, and which could never rise in the form of salt, much less change the corrosives that would have been added to it in the form of dry salt, as does urine salt.
The Philosophers, to better discover what they were looking for, considered the virtues and properties of urine salt, whose nature is to kill or satiate all corrosives. It is by this virtue that it precipitates all the metals dissolved by them. corrosive, because he avidly attacks the corrosive, he gets drunk with it and because this means precipitates the metal; & because they found the same & even greater virtue in igneous & fixed alkalis, they considered very suitable for their use, so that as in the preparation of armoniac salt the quality of the urine salt intoxicates the corrosive, in the same way the alkalis could seize the same corrosive and of these two, form a third, namely a double salt, and consequently they could extract a double spirit from it by distillation.
They first distilled the alkalis according to the art at high heat, and they found that they did not rise in the form of volatile salt, but in the form of a subtle spirit, penetrating and of very great virtue in the medicine, that is why they mixed armoniac salt with alkalis; hence it happens that the corrosive is more pleasant with alkalis than with urine salt, , to attach itself to the alkali, from which a new double sated salt was formed, which had neither the taste of corrosive nor of alkali, but a mixed flavor composed of both, which the experience still teaches us every day.
Because therefore both the corrosive and the alkalis are distilled at high heat into true spirit, it necessarily follows that it can only distill a double spirit satiated with this double salt. Because experience teaches us that it produces a very volatile spirit whose property is above all corrosives, which attacks metals only with fury and great noise, corrodes them and attaches itself to them externally seeking to stay there, already satisfied, having in it a double and great virtue, dissolves metals much differently than all the vulgar corrosives, because by its double and volatile virtue, it penetrates even into the center of the smallest atom of metals, and makes it appear outside all their hidden virtues, their color and their tincture which were as if dead, he vivifies them and makes them active.
Perhaps you will tell me, for greater clarification. there being no other corrosive in armoniac salt than a spirit of salt, would it not be enough to first distill the spirit of salt to join it to the alkalis, and in this way we would have a double volatile spirit? ? Here is the answer. It's not without reason, but it is by absolute necessity that the Philosophers retained the use of armoniac salt, because the corrosive in armoniac salt, in relation to its first origin, truly comes from salt; but by the union that it has with the igneous salt of urine, in which one has acted on the other, and the nature of one has changed into that of the other, it has acquired a much better nature than that which it had, from which it seems that they were obliged to retain the use of armoniac salt, and to seek its corrosive there.
I confess to you that after I had learned to know the foundation & the root of armoniac salt, that I let myself go to these thoughts, to be able to help myself, & have tried the spirit of salt, but in vain; for I have never been able to draw a spirit similar to that which comes from armoniac salt, which made me know the reason why the Philosophers have made such a big deal out of armoniac salt; besides that I wanted to see, taste and research all its virtues, and know if by itself alone it would not have more than the spirit of common salt; which made me undertake a lot of work, and carry out many false distillation processes , among which the most detestable is that in which we mix armoniac salt with flour, we distill it and we believe we have a good one.
corrosive: as I have already spoken above about this madness, I will not say anything more about it.
Unable therefore to find this corrosive in all these books filled with processes which promise wonders, nor in any similar writings, I finally found it by examining natural things very carefully, and I should have found it rather because of its simplicity, if I had only attached myself to the simplicity of nature, without following the enigmas of the Writers, from whom we learn many errors and very little truth.
In order therefore to obtain this corrosive, it is necessary to take as a basis that it is first necessary to separate the salt from urine, otherwise it is impossible to have the mind acid, because they are linked together by the stay they have had with each other. We can separate this igneous salt, by joining the alkali to the armoniac salt, by this means it goes away at the slightest fire, which however is not our work, by this means the armoniac joins again to the alkali, mixes with it and gets drunk with it, and can no longer be separated from it alone in its nature; but if it is pushed by the fire according to the art, it removes with it the alkali salt, and is no longer simple in its nature, because the alkali, like the corrosive, has a saline nature, which makes it so strong union & their love so great, that it is impossible to separate them, because of the union of their saline natures, their bonds are indissoluble.
It is why it will be necessary instead of alkalis to take other substances, which will not be of a saline nature, and which however put on the fire with armoniac will be able to retain the corrosive, and drive out the igneous salt; there are several of these subjects , one of which is better than the other: because one retains more corrosive than the other.
Among all these subjects the hematite stone is the best, since it is through it that we retain more of this acid spirit, and in a more excellent way than through any other, as the following mechanics will teach us. Mix armoniac salt exactly with the hematite stone, distill a good part of the igneous salt spirit which will rise S first, corrosive with the hematite stone, which will have dissolved with igneous salt. If you increase the fire, at the end of the distillation a part of the armoniac salt will rise without any change in its nature, but because it has a double power; this is why he removed with him the most subtle virtue, or the flowers of the hematite which gave it a golden color pleasant to the sight.
After distillation, reduce your sublimated material into a subtle powder, throw it into the very well rectified wine spirit, leave it there until I tell you what to do with it, you can use your spirit igneous distilled for the same purposes for which the urine spirit of salt is used common armoniac, because there is no difference between them.
For your acid spirit, you must look for it deep down in the dead head, the spirit in which this corrosive has so insinuated itself and contained itself, that when you expose it to the greatest fires, and push its distillation to any excess, you would not let out a drop; but if you purge this dead head properly, you will get it out very easily even through the sand; this is why to have crushed this dead head exactly into powder, throw it as soon into the spirit of wine, it will immediately take all the corrosive with the subtle parts of hematites, which it had taken care of, & will appear gold in color.
Pour out this spirit of wine by inclination, pour in again, &c & repeat until the spirit of wine no longer draws any tincture. Remove your wine spirit by the bain-marie, and you will find in your cucurbit a salt with a pleasant smell, balsamic, aromatic, and which will be almost entirely similar to saffron.
Put it in a glass retort heated in the wind furnace, distill slowly, and then the corrosive which is in the armoniac salt will pass. Continue your fire until it no longer distills anything. Then strengthen your fire little by little, so you will have beautiful flowers, flowers as light as a feather, the color of gold, reds & other different colors very pleasing to the eye. Be careful , however, not to push your fire too hard at the beginning, because all this must be done without violence: because if you rush you will gain nothing.
After the distillation, wash and remove with your corrosive the flowers which will be attached to the neck of the retort, so that they are collected there. Put everything in a retort, you will then have your clear and white acidic spirit, and endowed with very great virtues, and as different from those of common salt, as the strength of a man is different from that of a child of eight years, what you will learn by experience, & will know why the Philosophers in the preparation of their double spirit, retained the corrosive salt armoniac in preference to the spirit of salt.
Although my intention is to report here only what is likely to give a greater light to the enlightenment which I have treated fundamentally, I cannot however pass in silence the great usefulness of the golden flowers, of which I spoke in the explanation of the excellence of the corrosive of armoniac salt; so that such a precious treasure may serve the needs of the sick. So take your spirit of wine, into which you will have thrown your armoniac salt mounted with your golden flowers, after having poured it by inclination pour it again, & repeat until it no longer takes on the tincture, remove your wine spirit through the bain-marie (NB) because neither ashes nor sand are suitable for this operation, which is what you have to observe carefully, and you will have at the bottom of your cucurbit a salt of such a beautiful color, that you will not be able to get enough of seeing it, it will have a very strong smell like saffron . Join it with the other flowers which remained in the retort, after the rectification of your corrosive spirit. Mix them well together, put them to dissolve in the cellar, and you will have a liquor which will surpass in color beauty the most beautiful gold there is.
Note that at the end of the distillation the drops will be a pale yellow, which should not be mixed with the first, but put them apart, they can be used to cure fevers. Keep the first liquor very carefully aside , because it is an excellent medicine, and of very great use (especially if pills are formed with armonia gum) in dropsy, quartan fever, scurvy, pleurisy, stone, colic, monthly obstructions, hypochondriac melancholy, different diseases of the ventricle, & several other different ailments.
This medicine still has a harmless soporative virtue, because of its golden saffron tincture, & its aromatic smell. Learn from there, the great virtue of armoniac salt, for the transmutation & dissolution of metals, would we believe that the hematite stone contains in such a hard & harsh body such a pleasant odor, if armoniac salt did not discover it to us? Seek therefore & you will find, so that the hidden virtues of Nature may be discovered, & that praise & glory may be given to God our Creator.
Of the distillation of the sweet Vitriol of Copper into green spirit.
After having discovered through the Books that the Philosophers have left us, that a green spirit could be prepared from copper and vitriol , the Curious about the truth did everything they could to to have this green spirit & to enjoy its nature & power: but because they saw that whatever way they went about distilling the vitriol, they did not succeed; they thought that they should not understand the term distilling from the ancients in the ordinary way of distilling, but conjectured that one could only have this greenness by a particular and unknown skill and skill: it This is why they tried in all kinds of ways to achieve their goal.
Between them, some of them , in order to have this greenness, distilled it from the subtle spirit of vitriol from above some plants, until their spirit by repeated cohobation was loaded with the greenness of the herbs, and removed it into the container, and they were very satisfied with the greenness that this spirit had drawn, which however had not. no other virtue than that which the herbs had communicated to him.
The others after noticing that. the greenness of the vitriol did not want to rise, they distilled it per descensum, and imagined while applauding themselves that they had a good encounter when in this way of distilling, it is only a part of the vitriol which descends, and which necessarily makes the humidity green, which the violent vomiting that this false spirit, of vitriol causes, clearly proves, because the. vitriol is still very crude and corporal, whose property is to powerfully induce vomiting.
There were others who, recognizing that this reversed manner of distillation per descendem, was too crude, imagined a very singular philosophy of it, as well as a rare and singular species of vitriol, convinced that they were , that the Philosophers never used either vitriol or common copper, but that they had one of their own, and that only they know; that they made it from the seed of all metals, and that this seed was a species of small round stones, which are found in loam, and that this singular matter of vitriol had to also be distilled in a singular & hidden way.
After this so-called seed was sufficiently watered with the humidity of the air, to allow itself to be dissolved in water, they purged this green liquor of its bodily coarseness through the filter, interpreting that filtration was the true philosophical distillation &c. It is thus that not only did they give a forced explanation to the terms of the Philosophers, but they also falsely praised the matter which they had imagined to be the first matter, or the seed of metals: although in fact it was only the Pyrite, & maintained that it was the material of the vitriol of the Philosophers, certain which teaches us that this. False vitriol of the Philosophers, does not have the quality & property of the true vitriol of the Sages, because it is neither mild nor harmless to cause sleep; but this false vitriol of the Philosophers is crude, violent, bitter & as horrible as vulgar vitriol, actually being one, because it takes its origin like the common one from pyrite.
From here it is obvious that as this philosophical vitriol is, such must also be its distillation, that is to say the filtration which is a vain and frivolous invention, as well as a false interpretation of the words of the Sages. This bad philosophical distillation or filtration, gives greater greenness than distillation, per descendem; because in this one all the vitriol does not pass or descend, but a small part, & in the other all the vitriol descends through the filter, & it is however this crudeness that we want to pass off as a green spirit & singular of Philosophers.
Those of all the wandering Philosophers who had the most reason, changed nothing in the meaning of the word our distillation, and truly distilled; but because they could not by any means have this greenness of vitriol, they conjectured that the Philosophers added something to the vitriol of which they did not speak; that's why they have a new maneuver caused nitre and vitriol to be distilled from two separate retorts into the same container, and in this operation these two spirits , acting on each other, appeared as a liqueur or green spirit, which satisfied them. This way is the best of all others, not because of the greenness of this spirit which is only a simple reflection of the mutual action of these two spirits, & a simple external & superficial color, but because of the union of these two minds, which become a subtle mind endowed with a penetrating and attenuating force, which makes it much more quickly effective, and which is not to be despised in epilepsy, but on the contrary very commendable.
No one must follow the example of my ancient ignorance, taking an aversion to this spirit, like strong water, because strong water is made of vitriol and nitre, it is not one, it is is something entirely different: the reason is that it is impossible for the slightest part of the vitriol to be able to change into strong water, because all its virtue and its acidity heat up, as soon as it is joined to the nitre, and is as if chained & bound by the nitre by the ardent love which is between these two subjects. I could say & prove many very solid things, if the desire to abbreviate did not hold me back;
I am only saying that it is impossible for any vitriol to pass into the container, because at the very moment that the vitriol is heated by the nitre, its vitriolic nature is changed. But because this very volatile spirit & this great & shining greenness come from the true essential parts of the spirits of vitriol & nitre, it is of a completely different nature than strong water, which is only a simple acid spirit , this is why this green spirit is not to be despised. I thought I had to explain it in this way and leave the rest of what I had to say to someone in the future.
I will say nothing about the other imaginations, to draw out this green spirit, because I would take too long to tell them. All these errors only come from what those curious about the truth have never known the foundation of double satiated spirits, without which we can never pass copper, & distill it into volatile liquor; that if we had known it, we would have known a long time ago the green spirit, of which I spoke enough in the two previous Chapters.
This corrosive double therefore, after it has changed the copper into sweet vitriol; does not adhere to it externally, like other corrosives; because this is the only reason why all these corrosives are not, and cannot make the copper rise in green spirit, namely that they do not reach to the center, but attack it externally, like spirits starving & devouring, & only attach themselves to it: hence it happens that being pushed to high heat, they are forced to leave their home, the copper remaining in its first state, capable of resuming its first body through fusion; but for the double corrosive, it does not corrode the metal, does not attack it with fury, and attaches even less to the exterior, as we have so often said, but it softens it entirely, and penetrates even into its interior. center, by uniting itself so constantly with the copper, that it cannot even leave it, although pushed by the fire; but because it is a volatile corrosive spirit, it takes away the copper with it in the distillation, like a volatile spirit, a single grain of the metal.
Because if you put a small quantity of it in a crucible on the fire, and if you give it a strong fire for a few hours, all the metal will go up in smoke, so that you will not be left with the slightest trace of it. your vitriol, but put in a retort, it does not pass so easily into the container, because then its condition is different, and it requires a greater fire & several repeated cohobations, as our Philosopher teaches us instead above alleged. The mind having become very volatile by repeated cohobations. Before going up completely, and this requires time, work, patience and prudence, there is no need for haste nor violence.
In this place we must pay attention to the nature of things, to know how we must treat them, so that in the operation each thing has what suits it, and that we act according to nature, which you will learn from this. experience of the things you handle every day; because here no one is allowed to continue his instructions, he must go to the school of Nature , and use the lights of his mind, to handle the subjects of which we speak, and ask God the Heavenly Father for blessing. which is necessary for us, with simplicity & filial humility.
What we have said so far about copper also applies to gold, which is dissolved without any boiling, and like ice in water, in its double and satiated corrosive, because the gold is softened by this corrosive even in its interior parts; this is why gold, after several cohobations, willingly passes into distillation, adorned with different colors, because the tinting spirit where the soul of gold is very exalted in its color & in its tincture by this very powerful corrosive, passing into a more excellent splendor than that of natural gold, which makes it comparable in beauty and splendor to the rising and rising Sun on our Horizon. But because this operation is only a preparation & a certain arrangement of gold & copper, to draw, as we will soon say, their blood-red juice, this does not prevent us from being able to very easily put the copper and gold back into body.
From the separation of the double corrosive from the volatilized copper.
Although the copper, as we said above, has passed into the container in the form of a volatile green spirit, we must not imagine that because the copper is spiritualized, it is so dissolved that it can always remain in this state of spiritual substance, and cannot be separated from its corrosive which is attached to it. Not at all, because although common chemists, as it appears from their books, teach , imprudently boast, and ambitiously glorify themselves of having a true quintessence, or a potable metal, when they have caused it to pass and completely volatilize through several repeated cohobations, from which, deceiving each other, they commit by gentle persuasions the readers of their works, or those who hear them speak, to applaud their thoughts.
I could, to prove what I am saying, report here several processes taken from their books, if it were not for the time and wasted paper. Our Philosopher in the first years of his errors was plunged into this quagmire, falsely convincing himself that he had real potable gold, when he could make it go through the still, by means of some corrosives, and by dint of repeated cohesion, but it was nothing less than what he thought.
Because there are two dissolutions of metal, one gentle and natural, and the other violent. In the first, the metal dissolves so radically that it can never be separated from its solvent, they become one and the same thing in an immutable whole; but it is not so in our violent dissolution, for although it is in appearance a true dissolution, yet experience teaches us that there is as much difference between these two dissolutions as there is between substance & its shadow.
Because we can in the violent dissolution separate entirely by artificial mechanics the dissolved from the solvent, so that if the dissolved were melted over a high heat, it would return to the first state in which it was before its violent dissolution. But in natural dissolution, not only can the dissolved never be separated from the solvent, but on the contrary it acquires through the solvent a much more brilliant and precious state, and of incomparably greater virtue than it was before; whereas through the violent dissolution, the dissolved remains in its first nature & substance, becoming only capable of being subsequently dissolved by the radical natural & essential dissolution.
This knot must necessarily be untied, because most Chemistry Apprentices are held there, imagining that all violent dissolutions are natural, that they enjoy doing them, and do not go any further, believing they have found the truth. , and thus take very little trouble to go beyond, and to learn the art of true and natural dissolution. What made me resolve to explain it nakedly and simply is so that those who seek the truth are no longer deceived by all these fraudulent, vulgar processes full of lies, detailed in the printed books of Chemistry, which are only done at great expense, & through useless work & experiences, but that they begin to see clearly through their own eyes, and not through foreign eyes, that they consider & examine the nature of the things they work on, so that they act only as required. of nature, without adding further faith to these great talkers of Writers, who sing to them such sweet promises, that they avoid the waste of their time, as well as useless work and expenses.
So that the Reader wishing to learn the truth can understand this foundation, I will explain to him by two different dissolutions. I will first offer him a dissolution of copper which is done by a satiated double spirit, taught in the preceding Chapters, in which he saw that the copper metal not only dissolves gently, amicably, little by little without boiling in its double menstruation, but also that it is so united and joined to it, that they can be distilled together into a volatile spirit. Which will appear to an ignorant person to be a natural and inseparable dissolution, because not only does it occur amicably, but it seems to no longer allow the dissolved part to separate from its solvent, because the dissolved apparently follows its solvent, when it rises in the distillation by a mutual agreement of substance & a singular resemblance.
I admit that this operation be subtle, and that it can so fascinate the eyes, not only of Apprentices, but also of those who believe themselves to be the best experienced in the art, that they will have no difficulty in persuading themselves, seeing such a spiritual & volatile metallic vapor, that they have a true quintessence; although experience teaches us that by throwing Mercury into this false quintessence, everything metallic separates from the solvent, and in the fusion fire becomes the same metal it was before its dissolution. From there the Reader realizes that this dissolution is only the shadow of the fundamental & essential, that it is incapable of causing any change or improvement to the metal, unless an ingenious Artist preserves it in its solubility, without letting it regain, as we will say below, its former hardness.
Let the Curious about the truth consider here common sulfur, when it is distilled into oil, and its internal red dye is spilled outward, and let him see how far the oil has delved into its foundation or its base. interior root , how necessarily and closely the dissolved and the solvent are joined together, and are made one of two that they were before, without ever being able to be separated, so that the sulfur is ten times more brilliant and has more precious virtues than before: teach.
Dissolve common sulfur, or combustible sulfur of antimony or some other subjects in the distilled oil, so that the oil becomes thick and tinged with a blood red, put your solution in a retort draw in slowly heat all the oil that can come out white in color, when no more comes out, increase & strengthen the fire a lot , & the last oil will come out loaded with sulfur dissolved in red oil, after which pour back on the residue remained in the retort your first oil came out clear, & cohob until all yours extracted, or the greater part is removed into the container in the form of red dye.
so united the dissolved with the solvent, that they can never separate again, because they love each other with a reciprocal love because of the resemblance of their substances, and are so intimately united, that they cannot separate. are more than the same substance, that either they will rather fly together from the fire, or they will remain fixed there together by a careful turn of the hand. They are not only inseparable and indissoluble, but also the sulfur thus dissolved and volatilized has a much greater virtue for Medicine than before, which we can learn by experience. Although this dissolution of sulfur in oil is not strictly speaking a Philosophical dissolution, but only its foundation & origin, it is nevertheless a sensitive demonstration where we can see, as in a painting, the natural & fundamental dissolution of the Sages, especially if we compare it to the other dissolution, so that by their comparison we knows perfectly the truth of these two different dissolutions. Because although the above-mentioned violent dissolution of copper has some appearance of a true and natural dissolution, because they agree in two things, namely firstly in that the dissolution of the metal takes place gently, amicably and without any boiling, then that the metal readily allows itself to be removed by its solvent, with which it is apparently only a spirit & an inseparable thing; however we can separate them, and in this it appears by these two circumstances that our volatilization of copper is only a violent elevation and not in conformity with nature, like that of sulfur by oil, which is by all conditions true dissolutions, natural & similar to nature.
This is why the above-mentioned dissolution and the volatilized green spirit, and even more so the false oils, spirits or metallic essences of the vulgar Chemists, of Hartman, Penotus, Crollius, Libavius, Agricola, Béguin, Rhennanus, Fabre of Montpellier , Glaubert, Kesler, & several others similar, something else, as our Philosopher calls his first follies on gold:
Only false liquors and false essences, which only have the appearance of essential dissolutions, and are in fact nothing less, because we can make them the same compound, that they were before their dissolution, so that the Curious to seek the truth, would only be confused to amuse themselves with these kinds of false & specious essences. Because we must not stick to the simple volatilization & spiritualization of copper, but this is where we must begin our work, is neither essentially nor naturally dissolved; but only made fit for the following dissolution) which we must, I say, us. ensure in what way we must. draw the soul of the copper by a natural & fundamental dissolution.
This is why I found it very necessary to warn everyone about this volatilization of copper, that one should only pay as much attention to similar dissolutions of metals as possible, because I certainly know that the most are blind, and have fun with a considerable waste of time and money in the search for these false essences in the fear that I am that they will be deceived in their credulity, imagining itself possessing a treasure of health, although it is only the shadow of it, & a false metallic essence, which an Artist can in a few hours reduce to its first state of coarse metal. What the experienced Chemistry & laborious Scrutinizer of .nature.
Zvvelsserus confirms in his writings by saying, that all the metallic essences & tinctures known until now, are nothing other than a dissolution of metallic bodies, and not true separations of tinctures & souls from their bodies.
This research being very necessary, if we want, with the blessing of God, to use the metallic arcana with the hope of a cure.
certain in the most dangerous diseases, we must see how we can have and separate this tincture from the prepared copper, about which we are so passionate. It is necessary above all things to remove from our volatilized copper the large quantity of the corrosive with which it is surrounded, if we want to have its soul free from any foreign mixture, and all the more so since the corrosive has performed the function for which it is intended. it was intended, which is to break the copper into very subtle and very volatile parts, and reduce it to very fine powder.
This separation of the corrosive from the copper must not be done by Mercury or other similar volatile things, which have a greater inclination and affinity for the double corrosive, that the copper itself joins it immediately, & because they are also volatile, they remove in a single distillation all the corrosive, & leave the copper at the bottom in a dead, coarse powder, hardened again & useless. Be careful not to use it in this way, it would be to lose all your work of volatilization, because this powder would be a real common saffron of Venus made by common strong water or aqua regia ; but because the corrosive double has completely overturned the copper, & turned its inside out, & made it suitable, not only to let its soul go, but also that by the virtue of this corrosive the sweet soul of the copper has become shiny, as if by a resuscitative and invigorating medium, and without this medium this soul could not shine, it is necessary in everything to proceed very slowly, and to remove little by little and as if imperceptibly this corrosive from the copper, so that it could remain in its reversal and its sweetness, as well as in its luminous and shining property outside and in its soluble preparation, which we could not do, if we removed this corrosive (by means of which the copper was resurrected from death to life in one go by Mercury or other corrosive, because in this way each atom would once again be chained with its first links, because it would have been all at once in one go impetuously removed its resuscitative corrosive
It will therefore be necessary here to use appropriate means, firstly to remove the corrosive, not in one go and with impetuosity, but little by little amicably and gently; secondly, it will also be necessary that these means do not precipitate the copper, by separating it from its corrosive double, but that they dissolve both the copper and the corrosive at the same time. In this way the copper being maintained in its first soluble nature ( although in each cohobation, there is a dissipation of some parts of the corrosive) it will remain in its first and equal condition or state. The only spirit of wine can achieve this effect; what our Philosopher teaches in formal terms.
The armoniac salt, he says, must then be removed by repeated distillations of the wine spirit. Duumvirate. sect. 9. This is why it is necessary to mix the spirit of very rectified wine with the green spirit of copper, withdraw it gently, rejoin it there, withdraw it again, & often reiterate this cohobation, while never neglecting the warning I give you to operate gently. In this way the corrosive double rises little by little to the top of the still, like a volatile spirit, and leaves the copper which it held enclosed within it, because at each cohobation you will see something of the metal remaining at the bottom, like a subtle powder or scale; but if you do not observe the right moderation that must be maintained in this distillation (which has happened to me sometimes ) and if your fire is too strong, parts of the metal will rise in the still with such a beautiful diversity of colors that you won't be able to get enough of seeing them.
These colors representing a beautiful peacock's tail adhere to the still, unless you distil the double corrosive there, because then they melt there again, and the part of the copper which will be raised by too great a fire , will rush to the bottom of the container, like very light feathers , and will take on the color of the atoms remaining at the bottom of the cucurbite, on which they will have to be put back.
Finally it is necessary to know that the corrosive double abandons its metal or copper, not only because it rises little by little with the spirit of life, but also because the great acrimony of the corrosive is so broken and softened by the spirit of wine, that the corrosive being deprived of its virtue of corrosion, can no longer retain the metal, which you will certainly know, if you put this green spirit in digestion for several months in a row in a sufficient quantity of wine spirit, because then you will see that all the metal which will be spongy and light will gradually fall to the bottom of the vessel, but because this is too boring, through cohobation.
You will become, through these cohobations made sufficiently and properly, possessor of the true saffron of Venus, Mars, Gold, etc. which surpasses in virtues all the saffrons of which the vulgar writers speak in their books, which will never be comparable to ours, whatever preparation they have made for it. All their saffrons are dead bodies, and this one is a resurrected and revivified body, because its soul has gone outside and is in all the fullness of its splendor, which you will be able to notice by the clear splendor that this saffron will give with its colors in the still, if you remove it at too high a heat.
This saffron, with its light or splendor spilled from the inside out, has so many virtues in Medicine, both internally and externally applied in plasters or ointments, that no one could believe it, unless they experience it. I highly recommend it to the Curious Scrutinist of the truth, because he will find more virtues in this Medicine than he could ever imagine. I cannot help but say here why the ancient wise Amateurs of Chemistry called these resurrected & revivified atoms metallic bodies saffron. He who experiences its virtue will also soon know its cause; he will see that this name is given to saffron metals, because of the resemblance they have with saffron, which is the king of plants, because it is called the Aroma of the Philosophers, as Vanhelmont says Treatise on Stone chap 7. sect 14 That the Aroma of the Philosophers is a very safe preservative against stone, because of its golden dye. For as the vegetable saffron induces sleep, soothes pain, powerfully strengthens nature, opens with virtue and force the most dangerous obstructions of the viscera, cures all dysentery, & works all these wonders by the splendor of its soul turned from within outside, which is such a good and prompt help in tumors, ulcers and wounds, that there is no mineral remedy, described in the books of vulgar chemist writers which are comparable to it, of which the Reader will be perfectly convinced by experience.
Nor should we omit here the very excellent virtues of the spirit of wine, which has removed & s is joined with the double corrosive. It has two, one of which comes from the corrosive, which makes it surpass in virtue all other acidic liquors, because of its double virtue, & because it contains in itself the volatile alkali, the other is a excellence of splendor or irradiation, which this double spirit received from the soul of gold. For although not the slightest atom of the golden dye remained with the corrosive, tincture that the spirit of wine appropriated, and that it imprinted itself like a seal which gave it more strength than it had by itself.
This is why take great pride in this spirit of starving wine on all occasions where you need hungry acids, and you will actually experience what it can do, and how much it can do beyond natural heat, and what help it will be to you over all kinds of acidic spirits in common use, & its use will be much safer than before, because its corrosive virtue has been weakened & softened by the spirit of simple wine, & because that it is intimately joined to the spirit of wine, very quickly to the archaeus, and operates very quickly, because the spirit of wine insinuates itself very quickly, with which the force of this starving spirit also passes, and refreshes the spirits irritated by foreign heat and contrary to nature .
How to go about extracting the pure soul or tincture from the saffron of Venus, & how it must be made
After you have put your copper in a condition to be first divided by the volatilized into very small atoms, & reduced by the double volatile power into imperceptible powder, & then delivered again by a gentle & benign way of any corrosive, it will then & not rather suitable for giving its tinting soul, and its celestial virtue has a menstrua, which is a substance similar to this soul, and of a nature as igneous as the tincture of copper. This tincture is pure fire, which is why our Philosopher as well as the other Sages call it the element of fire; this is also why it can only be pulled, separated or dissolved fundamentally by a very volatile substance, penetrating & subtly dividing, which alone has the power by its force & magnetic virtue to eagerly pull its fellow from the hard bonds of the metallic & completed coagulation in copper by Nature, to melt it by its very high heat, to soften it & dissolve it completely & radically right down to the center.
This water or menstruation must be composed in such a way that it cannot touch the copper body, nor wish to dissolve it, that it does not even have the power to do so, but that it only attacks & simply draws the soul or sulfur from the copper. You must look for this humidity in the igneous principle, of which we spoke in the second chapter, namely in the nature of oil, which it will be necessary again by the great force of the fire, and by a skillful turn of the hand to change into igneous salt,
If someone said, this menstruum being such an igneous substance, how could it not draw, by its great force, the soul of the saffron of Venus, of the common Gold and Mars, as well as of the volatilized saffron, Would this save time and expense? I answer that this cannot be done, because the sulfur is linked very closely with the body, by a very strong metallic coagulation, and almost returned inside and died by the fusion fire, in which the body of the metal was melted. & gathered into a body.
So that although the body is reduced to powder as fine as flour, it cannot nevertheless attract to itself this menstruum of its fellow, because its interior is not spilled out, nor changed from its hard coagulation into a rare, light & spongy body; properties however that the saffron of metals must absolutely have , so that the igneous menstruum attracts to itself the element of fire from the atoms of saffron, which it must essentially dissolve.
These two properties, namely the extraction or eccentricity of the soul, and the spongy rarefaction in which only the preparation of metals consists, are acquired by volatilization which can only be done by double spirits, this which means that the Philosophers have also hidden the preparation of copper, that the extraction & separation of the tincture of its body ; because they knew that one is of very little use without the other, or that the volatilized alkali would produce no good, that saffron would not show its virtue without the volatile alkali, which made them hide & suppress under the seal of silence these two operations.
But so that you can better understand this, and that you can contemplate as in an express image, and know what necessity it is for the extraction of dyes to make minerals and metals light, rare, and volatilize. & in order to convince you that without this preparation we cannot extract their soul, I will expose it to your eyes as in a mirror by an operation on antimony. So take instead of this above-mentioned igneous water or volatilized alkali some distilled oil, and instead of volatile Venus saffron some antimony, pulverize it exactly, and grind it into an impalpable powder; put it in a vial, and pour over the igneous oil to the highest degree, and you will see that the oil and the antimony will remain together in their first state, and without alteration or change. This is how, although you have a very igneous oil, and that in each of the smallest atoms of your precisely pulverized antimony, there are igneous parts which have a very great relationship with the oil igneous capable of extracting them; however, this time it cannot display its great extractive force, although it reaches down to the smallest corpuscles of antimony. The cause of this is that antimony is of a very hard mineral constitution, and that the oil, although very igneous, has no power to dissolve this coagulation, and to attract its like, if the antimony does not is previously prepared, that is to say volatilized, then made rare, spongy & light, that is to say one more time if each atom of antimony is not swollen & made spongy, & its tincture or the principle of the element of fire in him is not made manifest,
So take antimony, sublimate it at a very strong fire, and you will take from this coarse & compact body, the light & rare atoms which will be sublimated into scale, which placed in the igneous oil will communicate to it their soul or their element fire. Because if you pour igneous oil onto the light & volatile atoms of antimony in a flask, if you cook them for a few hours, the igneous oil will seize the igneous principle of antimony, attract it & will basically dissolve it , take on a blood color from the antimony, which it could not do before the preparation of the antimony.
The same happens in the preparation of copper, is suitable for softening, liquefying & dissolving what is in copper similar to its nature, it cannot however overcome it, nor extract it with its very great igneous quality, if the copper is not first overturned, its Interior revealed, its body dissolved from its coagulation by volatilization , put into very small atoms, & changed into a rare & spongy substance, so finally & not rather, the igneous water of the volatile alkali will have the power to draw copper, and to radically dissolve its similar element of fire.
Therefore take your volatile saffron, gold, copper, iron, or other metallic bodies, volatilized alkali, as I am going to teach you, after having stopped it well, let it boil on the sand for six or eight hours. This being done, your volatile igneous spirit will have drawn its similar element of fire from saffron, will have taken it into itself by instinct of its sympathetic nature & will have radically dissolved it by its great and penetrating power. So when you see your igneous water well satisfied and thickened with the tincture of copper, let it cool, and after having poured by inclination what is dissolved, pour other spirit on the residue, in order to make a solution similar to the first, and continue until you can no longer extract anything, and your menstruation does not can take nothing. After having put all your solutions in a vessel , gently remove the spirit which will always serve you for similar uses, and the real potable metal will remain at the bottom of the vessel.
If this process is done on gold, you will have a drinkable gold, if it is on copper, a drinkable copper, which must therefore also be understood for other metals; this tincture is truly a true potable metallic essence, because it is all spirit, all virtue & all light, which cannot by itself be reduced to metal, because it contains nothing corporeal, being all spirit & virtue, as our Philosopher says in the Treatise on Peter chap. 8. sect. 5. The fire or sulfur of Venus can no longer be reduced by itself into metal, because as no sulfur is metal, likewise all metallic Mercury is a true metal. If you are ever the possessor of this tincture, you can be certain of all the forces and virtues that Philosophers attribute in their writings to potable metals.
It must however be observed that in this dissolution, after removing the igneous menstruum, there must remain a little of the said menstruum with the extracted and dissolved tincture, and this because of their similarity in substance; because they have such a great reciprocal action on each other, that one rejoices in his union with the other, coagulate and melt together, so that if this menstruum cooked for a long time with the tincture, it would remain entirely with it, and together become a fixed substance. Because this dissolution is fermentative, which means that one is changed into the substance of the other, and if we can succeed in making only one substance, they can never again be separated. From this, no one must conclude that because a part of the menstruum remains with the dissolved tincture, that it is like other corrosive menstruums, the strongest part of which remains with the dissolved matter, & weaker rises, because and which rises from this one has the same virtue & the same power in its igneous nature, as that which rises last through the alembic; for there are not so many dissimilar and unequal parts in this menstruum as in the corrosives, but it is of an equal and simple substance, and does not suffer any other separation from the dissolved, other than remaining in form of fixed salt, or to ascend with it in volatile spirit. This is why what is drawn from the dissolved after the dissolution, does not suffer any change in its first virtue & power, which it enjoyed before the dissolution.
We should not be surprised that in this operation a part of the solvent remains with the dissolved, their similarity in substance means that the like unites with great avidity with his like; it is by this principal property that we distinguish and differ the natural and essential dissolution from the corrosive, because the. corrosive can always be separated by art from its dissolved, whereas the essential solvent can never be, which means that our philosopher admits in this sense, when speaking of the alkaest liquor, that it is retained by its similar, . & that it is changed into another nature: here are his words in his Treatise on Unknown Action of the regime sect 11 The alkaline liquor perfectly reduces all the palpable bodies of the universe in their first life, without it suffering any change or decrease of his strength, He can only be tamed & changed by his fellow man. Which made the ancient Sages say: Erasure rejoices in erasure, nature surpasses nature and changes it. All nature and all its virtues are witnesses to what I am saying, that each thing seeks to join itself to its fellow, this is what causes growth and increase in vegetable nature.
I do not want to talk about it any longer, it is enough for me to have brought these remarks to your finger on the occasion of the natural dissolution of the soul of copper, which like a real fire prepares a solvent of alkali fire, retains him as his fellow man; & wishes to remain inseparably with him.
This objection could be made to me. The tincture of copper or its element of fire being spilled from the inside out in this well prepared & volatilized saffron, how can it be that we cannot draw & separate this tincture or soul equally well by the fixed alkali, which is very igneous and of a nature similar to this soul, than with the volatilized alkali, and what necessity is there to volatilize the alkali on purpose beforehand, if, being fixed, it can do the same thing. In this way we would save expense, and we would not waste time. Here is how I am going to meet your objection, by saying that the fixed alkali really seems to want, to separate this igneous principle from the copper, which is however not true, For the small part which the fixed alkali separates from the copper saffron is so little as nothing, compared to what remains which it cannot separate, because of the coarseness of this same alkali, which is too corporeal & material, and not spiritual, volatile & penetrating, as it should be. Which means that when you take an alkali so igneous, that it would be capable of burning your tongue like a coal (we can make one from Mars so hot, that it would burn your tongue on the spot like a hot iron) that you would dissolve it in a little water, that you would throw in your prepared and volatile copper saffron, and that you would cook them strongly with the aim of separating the element of fire from your saffron, you would however not be able to overcome it, & you would lose your efforts, because it would always be too coarse & too weak, to dissolve this metallic bond.
If you believe better. succeed by the dry method, by wanting to make a separation in the fire of the alkali that you have mixed well and crushed well with your saffron, it will happen to you that because the fire of your alkali is much strengthened by the external fire, & that it has become much more vigorous than it was before, that your saffron is also much more opened by this fire, & more capable of giving its soul, your alkali will not leave not extract some tincture from saffron, you will however fall into the disadvantage, that your alkali being completely material, it will bring back by its coarse igneous salt your copper in body, of which you will only have a coarse & material copper , which will cause you to lose your job unnecessarily. The small portion of dye that the alkali will have drawn is, I admit, a real sulfur, and a golden dye of copper, because if you rub this alkali with a little humidity on silver, the The silver will be covered with a beautiful gold color, but its quantity is so small and so inconsiderable that it must rather be considered as the shadow of a dye,
It is still necessary to know that even if it were possible to separate all the sulfur from the saffron by this means, that it would at most be only a simple separation, and not an essential dissolution, and a change of the saffron into oil or oil. in dissolved juice, which is done perfectly well, when a part of the natural solvent remains with its dissolved, and is changed by its fluid humidity into juice or humidity, which the igneous alkali cannot operate, because it is not not a spiritual oil, fluid or a spirit, but a coarse and material salt , which can easily be separated from this little sulfur of the copper which it has dissolved: because if we let it melt in water, and we throw something drop of corrosive in this water, then the alkali will join the corrosive, & the little sulfur that has been dissolved will fall to the bottom, & will take the form of powder after drying.
What will become of the precepts of our Philosopher, who wants that after this golden soul is separated from its body, it be coagulated & fixed, & how can it be coagulated & fixed, if it is not changed into humidity by a essential solvent, that is to say so softened that after separation from its body it remains in the form of a penetrating fluid oil, & of a spiritual essence? For this is the true mark that this golden soul emerged essentially and naturally from the depth of its center.
Glory that coarse and material alkalization can never procure, and which is easy to know by this little sulfur descended to the bottom of the vessel, which nevertheless has very beautiful virtues.
It must also be observed that the spirit of wine cannot effect this essential dissolution, when poured onto this alkali made into a subtle powder & charged with some of this soul of copper to extract it with gentle heat, in the view that this tincture extracted from the copper enters the spirit of wine, that it acquires an essential humidity, and that it is changed into penetrating oil. It would be moving away from the goal to want to use it in this way, the spirit of wine does not have this virtue, simple water, since from a pound of the strongest spirit of wine, we cannot have half an ounce of essential salt. How then could such a diffuse or extensive virtue radically soften this concentrated copper substance? There is too much disproportion, we need a concentrated and penetrating spiritual fire, which is all virtue, spirit and life. What could the spirit of wine, which is a spirituous vapor, do here ?
Even if we poured the spirit of wine onto this dyed alkali, put it into digestion, and it took on a red dye, this would not prove that it would be the dye of copper, it would rather come from it. 'alkali from which the spirit of wine would have drawn some subtle atoms which would have given it this color, the truth of which will be recognized by taking igneous alkali, without having used it to extract the tincture from the copper, putting it into digestion in the spirit of wine, because we will also see it dyed red by the dissolution of this igneous alkali which was not used unless it was charged with the souls of the copper; this is why it is an indispensable necessity, if you want to have this noble tincture of the soul of copper to make this material igneous alkali spiritual, volatile, penetrating & active.
Which is not done as most of those who read this work will be able to imagine by the distillations as we distill other salts which we mix with earth, clay or other similar things, to prevent their fusion, & are reduced in spirit at high heat, because the work of such volatilization does not This is not what we mean; for although we can distill the alkali in this way into a volatile spirit, let it even have great virtues through this preparation, so that it surpasses in excellence all other diaphoretic , incisive, resolving, desopilative, maturing & corroborations which are found in the shops of Apothecaries, which those who experience it (and whom I recommend to them) will recognize with admiration and great relief & usefulness of the sick be true. However, this process cannot be used for the resolution and essential extraction of the copper tincture, because the alkali would be too weakened by the distillation in which it would have left the best part of its igneous quality to the earth or clay, with which we would have been obliged to mix it in order to carry out this distillation better and more conveniently, during which the igneous virtue of the alkali, acting on the earth, would have greatly blunted or lost its strength. We can have by this distillation a spirit specific to Medicine, sweet to the taste, but too weak for our uses, for which we must exalt so much alkali, that it preserves its softening igneous virtue, that it becomes stronger and more penetrating, which can only be done by another igneous alkali which is similar to it, which is nevertheless volatile, because what is fixed cannot volatilize another fixed, and that if it were volatile it could not volatilize this fixed alkali, because no one gives what he does not have. This volatile alkali must be made by art and from the same foundation from which the fixed became, that is to say from an oleaginous substance; because true alkali can only be made from an oleaginous principle. This is why we must not move away from the oleaginous principle, volatile alkali.
If you did it at high heat, instead of with a volatile alkali, you would still make it fixed. It is therefore not necessary to act by this violent way, but by the gentle, amiable and suitable to nature. This path & this immutable rule (of which we have spoken above as much as is suitable for our intentions) is always based on the fact that similar loves its similar, attracts it, unites with it and changes it into its own. nature.
If you therefore want to convert your oleaginous substance into alkali, and this by the immutable rules of nature, you must not mix or unite it with anything other than some alkali, and leave them for some time to digest. In this way the quality igneous alkali will act powerfully on the. oleaginous substance made subtle & delicate, & will transmute it; & because this oleaginous substance is of the same nature, property & substance of alkali (because alkali takes its origin from oil) alkali by its igneous force & power changes this oleaginous substance into its nature, & makes of a futile, spiritual & tender oleaginous substance an igneous & saline alkali, without any violence being done to the oleaginous principle, because this is done slowly & quite differently from the way in which oil is converted into alkali by the violence of the fire. Which means that the oleaginous principle is always contained within the same limits of its volatility, this is how you will have this volatile alkali.
But because they are both very strongly linked & united together, it is necessary that when you begin to push your volatile alkali by fire , the fixed one also rises, which is done by the resemblance of their nature, by the force of which one clings to the other, and desires to remain together. Because as first the substance. spiritual oleaginous has been changed by the alkali into its saline and alkali nature, & because of their resemblance, & by their common & suitable natural foundation, in the same way the alkali fixed because of the same resemblance, is in turn volatilized, & obeys the volatile alkali, thus the fixed with the volatile becomes volatile spirit, penetrating & concentrated, all virtue, all fire, all force, all light & all life.
This is the means by which you will be able to learn the necessary things in accordance with our intentions, to overcome the essential dissolution of metallic sulfurs, of which there is no need to say anything more, because our very faithful & very worthy Philosopher has very clearly dealt with it in his books, as well as the very subtle Raymond Lulle, in whose writings we find everything exactly described & circumstantial, which it is very useless to look for elsewhere, or in other Authors; because these two can instruct sufficiently, unless you are by a just judgment of God in a blindness caused by ambition, avarice or voluptuousness, because in this state you will know nothing in the books, which will always be closed & sealed for YOU.
This spiritual fire & this softening essential water has the effect of separating the pure soul from the metallic body; & to dissolve it so well, that it returns to its first matter, until softened down to its center, it becomes a penetrating & spiritual substance or quintessence. Besides that, this spiritual fire by itself and alone has so many virtues in Medicine, because it is ten times more powerful in these virtues than this alkali mixed with earth , & distilled over a strong fire, which nevertheless surpasses other usual medicines as much in virtue as the splendor of the light of the Sun surpasses that of the Moon. It is this spirit of which our Philosopher praises so much, and which he so strongly recommends to faithful Physicians: here are his words worthy of being written in letters of gold in the Treatise on Error, in which the schools are Humorists chap. 1. sect. 89. But what if in illnesses there is something deeper , more hidden, and which resists with more obstinacy? You have to take volatile alkalis which, like soap, clean everything.
marvelous, the only salt of volatilized Tartar can work, because it draws from the blood all its oily dregs, and dissolves all the most stubborn obstructions, which are the source of apostums.
It is true what Paracelsus says of this spirit of salt and its oil, that hardly any remedy will be able to reach as far as this one will go. Our Philosopher also says that alkalis are similar in virtue to the great medicines, that they go by their subtle & penetrating nature up to the fourth digestion: here are his words in the Treatise on the Power of Medicines sect. 65 If fixed alkalis are volatilized they become equal in potency to the great medicines, because they fundamentally carry away by their incisive, resolving and altering virtue, which makes them go as far as the fourth digestion, everything that they encounter stubbornly coagulated in the vessels. This is why it would be very desirable that our Doctors today would allow themselves to be moved by everything that our great Philosopher says about the virtues of volatilized alkalis, and excite the desire to acquire such precious treasures of health, suitable to be administered with joy to the sick. Although there is enough to persuade Physicians to diligently learn how to make this preparation.
They will nevertheless still benefit from two advantages, because they can have not only the essences of metals & of the entire mineral kingdom by volatilized alkalis, as we have explained in the previous chapters, by detailed circumstances & dependencies, but also by this path, as fundamental or first degree, to arrive at the knowledge of the very praiseworthy Universal menstrue of the alkaest liquor, because it is born from this foundation, as our Philosopher assures us in his Treatise on Stone chap. 8. sect. 2. by these Words where he responds to those who wanted to know how one can prepare the element of fire from copper, that the mystery of the alkaline liquor is required.
Since it is therefore the volatile alkalis which do it, consequently it is on their basis that the alkaest liquor is also made; what further confirms my opinion is the valley that our Philosopher put with his own hand in the margin of page 102. of the great Surgery of Paracelsus folio 9 vis-à-vis the preparation of the tincture of the now, where Paracelsus teaches that if we pour the alcohol of wine on the lime of gold, that we will draw out the soul, and on this subject here is the note of our Philosopher. If the salt circulated is not joined to the spirit of wine, the tincture of gold will never be able to pass into this spirit. Volatile alkalis therefore have the same virtue & the same power to extract metallic dyes, which our Philosopher attributes to circulated salt It is a necessary sequence and consequence that they both have only the same foundation, which is why our Philosopher chap. 14. sect. 10. of his Treatise on Fevers, relies so strongly on the authority of Raymond Lulle, possessor of the alkaest liquor, in whose books we find the doctrine of the volatilization of alkalis so well and so described at length, that no Philosopher can go further, which means that I have already recommended to the Curious Inquisitor of Truth, and that I still very faithfully recommend to him the reading of the Books of Raymond Lulle and our Philosopher.
I therefore conclude from all this, as from infallible arguments, that by careful diligent and diligent in volatilizing the alkalis, we can ascend as if by sure degrees, and have access to the mysteries of the alkaest liquor, on which God will excite his elect to work
As the tincture extracted from copper must be brought to perfection, and how it communicates its virtue in the human body,
copper not having received from nature such a great virtue as gold, the process which must be kept in mind its regard for leading it to the end of its perfection, is different from the process of gold, & gold does not need to be perfected after its tincture is separated from its body, because the soul of the gold is quite perfect in itself, the gold having received all its perfection from nature and its cooking before the Artist has worked it.
I do not, however, deny that this tincture or soul of gold cannot become more perfect, and be pushed to a state of more than perfection; this is not impossible in the art of chemistry, the Books of the Sages prove it, abundantly, of which however I will say nothing now, having only the occasional desire to speak of what our Philosopher says and to demonstrate his simple perfection, with which nature having provided him, there is no need for anything other than administer it as it is to the sick.
It is quite different with regard to copper, neither copper nor its sulfur are fixed; but in a medium: between entirely fixed gold , and completely volatile minerals, which means that the soul extracting copper could be easily dissipated, if it was not handled with skill.
This is why it is necessary to follow the doctrine of our Philosopher, to coagulate this pure & separated soul & fix it & this by the fire which can ripen all imperfect things & make them fixed, this fire must be similar to that of all nature, which in its annual revolution ripens without interruption everything that is not ripe, and cooks it to its greatest perfection. However, it only produces this maturity by degrees, starting with a slow, feeble heat, and then rising to its last degree, to finally complete this perfect cooking. You must do the same thing, you must make your fire conform to the rules of nature, so as not to use too great a fire, otherwise you would burn this precious golden flower so hard that it would not give you the tenth part of its virtue that it could give you, if it were cooked & fixed slowly & gently according to the laws of nature.
So that you can succeed and know more clearly what you must do, so as not to err, pay attention to the words of our Philosopher.
in his Duumvirate sect 9, and you will not easily be mistaken, because he says that one must first coagulate and then fix. You are aware that coagulation requires a much gentler fire than fixation. So take care of these two terms, firstly coagulate slowly, because your matter has become by the igneous humidity of the Philosophical menstruation like an oil, which has not only caused the soul of copper to retrograde to its old essential humidity, this which is called by the Philosophers, reduction into first matter; but still this essential humidity of the golden tincture of copper has taken and keeps in itself some parts of the essential humidity of the volatile alkali salt, as we said above, with which the center of the tincture is so joined & united by the resemblance of the substances of both, that one always wants to be & remain with the other ; This is why it is first necessary to coagulate this precious oil slowly, so that little by little it becomes solid, and finally hardens.
After which it will be necessary to carry out the other word of our Philosopher. (i.e. fix ) This powder is coagulated little by little, to bring it by gradual increase of the fire to a state of fixity, such that it can suffer, without any alteration of its virtues, or change to the detriment of its most natural nature. great force of fire, and finally your business will be done, if your material is worthy of the name of sulfur of the Philosophers, and if it can cure all diseases.
Because as our Philosopher says on page 577. All diseases together yield to the sulfurs of corrected & perfect minerals. You must not, however, hope that your sulfur will cure all diseases, unless it is brought to a state of perfection, which must be done in the above-mentioned manner.
After therefore having led all things to the desired end, you will have a perfect medicine, which not only cures all diseases, is a true panacea, but which achieves its effectiveness in a well-established manner.
different from all medicines, whether plant or animal; because because the sulfurs or the metallic souls are all fire, and they are therefore called by the Philosophers the element of fire in metals and minerals, they operate, as fire operates by its nature by heating and illuminating. This precious tincture of copper operates first by its heat by heating, which means that our Philosopher in his Treatise on the Duumvirate sect 9. calls it the excellent heat, then by illuminating, when it illuminates our spirit of life as ours Philosopher calls Archaeus, to wake him up and warn him to do his duty, provides light, virtue & power.
For although the light of this precious tincture of copper is no longer combustible, as it was in its first origin, as well as that of gold, which were only a combustible sulfur and an extinguishable light, and it no longer illuminates like ignited mineral sulfur, this does not prevent it from being brought by art to a state much more dignified and much higher than its natural state, it does not glow in a very nobler, and much greater, and does not launch from itself its light and its eternal and immutable splendor. For as this light of its nature cannot be surpassed by the common fire, being reached a much more excellent state than it: in the same way also its light is much more excellent, and illuminates much further than the light which goes out, because this light is infinite and permanent The nature of this light, according to the nature of its essence, which being indestructible, is also inconsumptible & indestructible.
This is why, being taken in a potion, the ventricle does not act on it, does not change it in any way, and also receives nothing from it, but only suffers from this tincture heating it and its archaea. , that she enlightens them and throws her rays at them, after which this tincture is returned by the stools, without having suffered the slightest change, weight, nor in its virtue or splendor, and could an infinity of times give the same help to the body, if it were removed from the excrement; what our Philosopher teaches excellently and in a profound and satisfying manner to those who seek the truth, of which I will report an entire, singular and remarkable passage from the Treatise entitled, there is a great virtue in herbs and in stones, in order to that everything being gathered here, there is no need to have recourse to his book. So note this passage carefully, weigh it diligently, because it contains several hidden mysteries.
The radiant mixture of quicksilver must be admired; if quicksilver is macerated in a large quantity of common water, although it does not take or attract to itself the least part of the living silver, and cannot convert it into its nature, however it takes a property from it and not a substance, so much so that this water given in potion kills the worms in the body, in the very places where the potion cannot go, since it immediately changes into urine, & this water becomes even stronger to kill these kinds of animals , if it is made, boil with quicksilver; thus a single ounce of quicksilver can be used to prepare more than a thousand of water, without any alteration either of its weight or of its initial properties.
This is how the Schools of Medicine learn even in spite of themselves, that there are Agents who act without any passion or reaction from the patients, but without tiring or losing any of their strength, nor their weight. Quicksilver acts on the water, imprinting its character on it, without any reaction from the water on it. It is therefore manifest that some medicinal virtue can be transferred, and change its natural subject, to pass into a foreign object, and that this is done by a simple irradiation of the subject, so that although the foreign object receives through irradiation of the viewer this foreign virtue for him, the agent or the viewer nevertheless does not suffer any reduction or loss of its strength or its first weight: because this is done without the quicksilver becoming patient, without it suffering any reduction, change, weakening or alteration.
This example serves here as an argument suitable for exalting the almost infinite virtue of remedies. This example, after an infinity of experiments carried out in different ways on minerals, finally taught me what, perhaps no mortal until me, had yet neither seen nor glimpsed, knowing how the most hidden remedies operate which act on the dormant or irritated archaea, without being dissolved, destroyed, without suffering any penetration, without admitting or receiving anything into them, without mixture, without change, freely, from near & far, by just looking, by irradiation or ejaculation of their forces produced in their midst, without their weight (NB) & their properties being able to be changed.
Which means that these arcana prove by themselves that they approach infinite goodness, by launching, as they do, infinite virtues; which will be the condemnation of Physicians, when on the day of judgment, the poor will complain that they did not heal them, as they could do easily as in passing & without cost. The arcana cannot therefore pass into food, because they remain locked within the limits of their action, being intended for to heal, and not to nourish, they remain remedies and medicines in the body. They begin in the Stomach (which I have proven elsewhere expressly to be the seat of the soul) to exhibit the direct ray of their forces, & their natural virtues, & what God has destined them for, hence finally this Radiant virtue received in the archaea is spread throughout the body, and the health which follows it is eagerly received. So from the application of these universal remedies follow the cures that I said would happen, & should happen in the source of nature , that Paracelsus promised, & that Butler executed in my presence by simple confirmations & applications.
After this knowledge had me engaged in a more exact contemplation, I knew very clearly that there were in the occasional & excremental causes produced garbage which were the cause of particular illnesses. However, I consider these diseases and their remedies in the archaeus either calm or irritated, so that without having any regard for occasional causes, we can effect the cure by the slightest tact, vibration, jaculation, and what is more by the sole irradiation or illumination, provided that the arcana can reach sensitive life in the seat of the soul.
This power is much greater in the sulphurous remedies of minerals, namely in the sulfur of Venus, antimony, and above all in the sulfur of the glaze of Augurel, this Nymph having had no other name until now; because these sulfurs, because they are further removed from human nature than all plants, and because they have been endowed by the Creator with very igneous virtues, fully and constantly resist to prevent the digestive virtue from passing them into food , & to maintain their powers free & in their entirety. The mineral crasis remaining intact, and capable of spreading its rays on the Duumvirate seat of the soul. This is how Diaphoretic Mercury acquires the last period of its energy through the redness of the sulfur mounted with it, & united with the mercurial sulfur of an indissoluble union, because until now the sulfurs acquired under the fire the final perfection of the intention of the Physicians.
I therefore urge the Apprentices to learn to strip the sulfurs of all foreign and virulent virtues, because they contain and hide within them the vital fire capable of quietly leading the archaeus to the desired goal. For there are some sulfurs to which (after they have been corrected & made perfect) all diseases are subject, the plurality of which reduced into one in the archaea is gathered there, as in the hand or closed fist of a man who fights.
It is through this that we saw destruction in the seat of the soul & in the Duumvirate (to the very astonishment of nature) all the cruel defects of dementia, apoplexy, deciduous illness, paralysis, dizziness, asthma, dropsy & phthisis.
This excellent speech develops many mysteries. The first, that the sulfurs of metals and minerals corrected perfected, and led to a perfect fixation, generally cure all diseases, then that they communicate a celestial virtue so great, that it truly has the form of a resplendent light , which lights & illuminates all dark places.
& illuminates the archaeum darkened by diseases; that they ennoble him with the new forces of light that they communicate to him, & that they resurrect him to a new life. It is in this sense that I titled this Treatise Light of Medicine, because I taught there clearly and obviously the way and the means of acquiring this light of health through the writings of our enlightened Doctor, so that anyone will be chosen by God, & born for such an arcana, & thus twice elected, can easily arrive at the discovery of this mystery of nature. The third of the mysteries contained in this text is that these arcana of metallic light, great help that they provide to the archaeum, do not lose the slightest thing of their substance and their weight. Not only do they remain in all their original quantity, but also in all their same qualities or celestial virtues, and they can be used perpetually and without end.
It appears fourthly from this text that the three above-mentioned ineffable & great virtues of the metallic arcana come from the connection & the relationship that these arcana have with eternal & infinite goodness, which is an invisible & celestial essence, that the virtues of these arcana are of a degree nearer to celestial virtue or the light of the world, than all visible things, understandable, temporal & created; what our Philosopher insinuates by these words; which means that these arcana prove by themselves that they approach infinite goodness, etc.
Our Philosopher, through a special light from God, saw from afar the sparks of this divine, natural mystery unknown to us until now. , not however so well and in all the extent of his perfection, as this admirable German Philosopher Jacob Bohem, very enlightened organ of God, who not only in his books of the signature of things, of the three principles, of the great mystery, of the triple life deeply taught this mystery, perfectly explained; but he speaks with so much wisdom about other mysteries of God & of revealed nature that no one can sufficiently admire the perfect knowledge of this very enlightened man in the divine & natural mysteries, which he left us by the command, the will & the instinct of God in his books at number of more than thirty, in which the most hidden mysteries of God are contained , namely what he is in his essence and in his trinity of persons.
That God before creating visible things, had created an eternal nature, from which he had created the Angels, how some of them fell through their pride, and formed for themselves a dwelling in hidden and eternal darkness, how the others remained constantly in the state of their creation, where they are now confirmed.
How God substituted men in the place from which the Angels were excluded, & from which Lucifer & his Angers were expelled, which was the cause that Lucifer seduced by envy & mischievously deceived man. How God, full of mercy, foreseeing these things from all eternity, had resolved to have pity on man fallen by the fraud of Satan, and to help him by his holy essence, and by the inexhaustible. source of his love, to unite with human nature, to destroy thus by human nature united to divine virtue the designs of Satan, and to make man occupy the place of this Angel rebel. How eternal God could unite himself inseparably with human nature; how through this union God gave to the entire human race entry into the Kingdom of Heaven, & how in this way man must be reborn in God, unite with him out of love, & become a child of God, in order to be able to be & remain with him throughout eternity.
He described all these mysteries and others like them, and spoke so deeply and so clearly of the mysteries of extinct nature, of metals and their celestial virtues, of herbs, of animals, of the sun, of the moon and of the stars, of the birth of all external & visible things of all nature, & of the great name of the Stone of the Sages, that there is no lover of truth who should not take a singular pleasure at the sight of so much light, and such a learned explanation of incredible wonders & hidden until now.
I believe that the all-merciful God gave to men in our century, full of infidelity, malice & corruption, this Jacob Bohem, to whom the Scholars after his death gave the title of German Philosopher, & Vanhelmont our Philosopher, as two bright lights, in order to see if the bad Christians of today: these nominal Christians, enemies of the truth of the children of God, on occasion & by means of these two lights of grace, would not want to come out of their blindness to recover their sight , to know God their Creator, to walk in his light, and to bear the fruits of holiness and obedience, before the horrible wrath of the divinity is kindled, and that it devours & consumes these sterile & unfruitful trees: happy is he who recognizes all this, & who obeys the warnings of these two lights, who walks in filial obedience, in order to be a faithful worker & a good dispenser in the work of his Lord, because he will enjoy in this world and in the other the fruit and the reward that God promises us through these two organs. , subsidiary of God in the heart, take for yourself what the trumpet of our century, namely our Philosopher says in his Preface to the treatise of the Unknown Morbific Host sect.9. 10.
I warn, by exhorting the Sages of this world & telling them, that I have not known little by little the ignorance & errors of Physicians, that they have not entered my mind, to have them considered & meditated on one after the other, first considering the false principles by which the schools were mistaken about the assembly of elementary mixtures, about temperament, complexions, morbid bad weather, then moving on to errors " on catarrhs, & finally fell on the search for the roots, causes, quiddity of diseases, & remedies . Certainly no, because if I had only known about it one after the other, I would have imagined that this progress would have been nothing but fantasies and inductions likely to be deceived; but after all of a sudden & all at once, & with a single ray of light, my understanding had understood the ignorance of Doctors, both in the knowledge of the causes of illnesses and of the remedies & their application: I I knew without a doubt that this talent was given to me for the benefit of my neighbor, and that under pain of being rigorously punished, it was necessary to communicate it to schools,
The only tincture of copper is this sulfur so vaunted by Philosophers, that we must only focus on this subject, and that in it alone we must look for this treasure of health. However, this is not so, since the soul of copper is not called Sulfur of the Philosophers for any other prerogative that it has over other metallic bodies, other than because it contributes to a long and healthy life, that he was sought for this by the Philosophers, to riches, to honors, to vain glory and voluptuousness, and did not want to use their precious time in the search for these kinds of rubbish, but only had as their goal in their prayers, in their thoughts and in all their knowledge, than to preserve a mind; care in a healthy body, to convert to their use the virtues with which God has enriched nature, in order to lead a long life in health, & to bring back much fruit, as befits faithful workers in the vineyard of the Lord, what our Philosopher assures in Butler pag. 504. with these words.
Nothing acts with more influence on the humid radical than the first being of copper, and nothing is more benign & capable of providing a long life than the sulfur of vitriol, which is therefore qualified by the title of sulfur of the Philosophers; & in the Duumvirate he says; The sulfur of copper is recommended among all the arcana, to provide a long life, & to chase away the combination of certain diseases, & in the Treatise of the Stone. chap 8. sect. 5. he said; External sulfur as it is separated from copper, not being necessary for the perfect metal, however God having joined it to copper, it is therefore necessary that this sulfur of Venus has as its end the necessity and the need of the ungrateful man , namely a property to cure all infirmities, above all else.
Copper sulfur being therefore called Philosophers' Sulfur, because it contributes to a long and healthy life, and yet this universal medicine can be prepared from other metallic bodies, it necessarily follows that we can also find in all these bodies the Sulfur of the Philosophers, without there being any need to focus on copper alone, for the reason why I only speak in this Treatise of copper alone, and that I have barely made mention of other metallic bodies, c The fact is that by following our Philosopher, who most of the time only talks about the sulfur of copper, I imitated his example. We can nevertheless treat other metallic bodies, such as copper, dissolve them & have their dyes, which after having reached their perfection through perfect maturity, make the dye of Philosophers as well as that of copper. This is why we can use the described way of drawing the soul of copper, to make the analysis of other metallic bodies, without adding anything, because all the processes that could be carried out are contained in this one. this.
However, the Reader must know that by these words, metallic bodies, I do not claim to speak of metals, such as gold, lead, tin & iron , because if it had been my intention, I would not would not be used of these words, metallic bodies, but of these metallic subjects; but I'm talking about these minerals which, although they do not melt, like other metals, must nevertheless be called metallic, because they not only have a fixity equal to that of metals, but also because there are some between them which approach very strong in the fixity of gold. So by these words I mean metallic bodies , all metals & everything. who is of a similar constancy or solidity as them.
Let the Reader not imagine that I am speaking a new and foreign language when I say that in such metallic subjects there is a virtue similar to that which is found in the metals themselves, and almost. similar to that of gold: Let him listen to what Paracelsus says about it, Paracelsus therefore wanting to indicate which subjects apart from common metals contain the first being, which is the true Sulfur of the Philosophers, explains himself thus in the treatise on the separation of natural things pag 906. under the title of the separation of minerals.
We must now speak of the things from which metals grow and are generated, such as the three principles, mercury, sulfur & salt, & other minerals; in which the first being of metals is found , that is to say the spirit of metals, as you see in Marcassites, Granates, Cadmia, red Talc, lasur, etc. & other similar ones, in which we find by the degree of sublimation the first to be gold. You must know of this first being of gold that it is a volatile spirit, which still rests in its volatility, like a child in its mother's womb, which is why Paracelsus elsewhere calls them embryonated sulfurs; this spirit is sometimes similar to a liqueur and an alcohol. Whoever wants to have the first being of some similar body and separate it from it , he must have a great experience in the spagyric art, he must have worked a lot in Chemistry, otherwise he will advance little but for what concerns the separation of minerals, it is necessary to know that several similar things are separated by the degree of separation, the fixed from the volatile, all the volatile & spiritual bodies of the fixed ones, like so many different members , as you have seen the metals. We must proceed in the same way with all other mineral things in all degrees, as the spagyric art teaches. So far it is Paracelsus who is speaking.
It appears clearly from all this that we must observe a single and same process on minerals. (as Paracelsus calls them and I, metallic bodies) not only because of the aforementioned reason, because they are of the same fixity as metals , but also to distinguish them from other volatile minerals, which I am accustomed to 'call minerals, & which I will deal with in the following Chapter. It seems therefore by the words of Paracelsus, that we must observe the same process on minerals or metallic bodies, to have the first being of gold, that is to say to separate the soul, golden, as on the metals, and that this must be done by volatilization as I have faithfully taught above.
Paracelsus still teaches us the subjects in which we find both the first being of gold, which is the Sulfur of the Philosophers, and in metals namely in Marcassites, Granates, Cadmia, Red Talc & Lasur . Experience proves this truth to us, especially in Granates & Red Talc, in which there is a very beautiful hidden dye., there is still other bodies in which there is no less sulfur of the Philosophers than in the preceding ones, such as the magnet, emeril, vitriol, red chalk; but mainly & abundantly in hematite, which is on all sides filled with the first being of gold, which means that when simply put into subtle powder, it; is of singular virtue in medicine.
What the diligent inquisitor of the secrets of nature will know by experience, and these are common things in Hamburg that the excellent cures that a certain man named Scot of the dregs of the people and without capacity, carried out with the admiration of the whole City, which however has been poisoned by the envy of bad people to the great regret of everyone, that the Magistrates put a price on the head of the author of such an enormous crime; & this Scot did not use any other remedies than pulverized hematite stone & well ground with fennel oil. What I know about the illustrious Prince of happy memory Auguste Arbaltin, to whom the Author communicated his secret.
This virtue of the hematite stone is still known in several Provinces, even among the populace, so that there are large areas where the use of hematite is so frequent and so esteemed by the people, that it is serves as a panacea for all kinds of illnesses. What I noticed in the Duchy of Borussia, because going one day from my father-in-law's house to the Konigeberg fair, having with me a peasant as my valet, we did not sooner arrive at the fair and at the shop of a merchant who sold sharpening stones, marcasites, hematites, etc. that the peasant begged me earnestly to buy him and give him for his fair one of these red stones, the name of which he said he did not know.
Having asked him what he wanted to do with it, he replied, ha! Sir, if you knew the virtues of this stone, you would esteem it very much, because it is our medicine, when we are sick, we take it in powder form in a little vinegar. Being Back, I asked my father-in-law if it was true that the Peasants used hematite for all their illnesses, he assured me that not only the Peasants of the place used it, but even all those of the district & several miles around.
The signature of hematite alone is proof of its virtue, not indeed when seen externally as it is, but when it is dissolved. Because if you make a strong water of spirit of niter taken from salt (because the common aqua regia made of strong water and armoniac salt dissipates too much,) and dissolve it at a suitable heat of hematite, if on the other hand you dissolve very pure gold in similar water, looking at these two dissolutions one after the other, you will not find any difference in sight , except that the dissolution of the hematite will be of a more beautiful & shiny color in gold flakes, like that of gold itself.
Let the Reader therefore not be surprised by what I say with Paracelsus, that we can find in several subjects other than gold, the first being of gold, or the sulfur of the Philosophers because their great virtues attest, and their natural signatures convince us, although gold holds the first rank, and its tincture is said by the Sages to be eminently the sulfur of the Philosophers, can deny, without seeming unversed & foreign in Chemical Philosophy.
That Philosophers' sulfur can be obtained from volatile minerals.
The Reader will more easily grant me what I said in the previous Chapter, that we can draw the sulfur of the Philosophers from other metallic bodies, which correspond to the fixity of metals themselves, than what I am going to say now; namely, that a similar treasure of health can be derived from purely volatile minerals, such as antimony, chili gold, bismuth & the like. Not only experience, but also the Sages in their books teach us that what I proposed to teach in this Chapter is true. Although my main intention is not to deal here with volatile minerals and the treasure of health which they contain, and the aim of this treatise is only to teach, according to the doctrine of our Philosopher, the manner of extracting sulfur philosophy of copper, and that under the same process we can draw the tincture of life from other metals and metallic bodies.
However, I cannot help saying something about the way in which this treasure of health can also be obtained from minerals, because the sulfur of the Philosophers prepared, both from volatile minerals, and from the most fixed metallic bodies, is in all 'the same nature, property & virtue. In order for this to be even more evident to those who are curious about the truth, it is necessary to know in general that as volatile minerals differ greatly from metallic bodies, the volatiles being open and close to the first essence, and the metallic subjects strongly coagulated by nature , & very strongly linked: these two kinds of subjects being thus very different in qualities, their preparation is also very different. Volatile minerals must not be prepared in the same way as fixed metallic subjects, which must first be freed from their bonds by very powerful corrosives; double, & as if resurrected from death to life, which he is not no need to do for volatile minerals, because they have not yet reached a hard coagulation & dead, but are still volatile, live & active, which means that they must be handled by another process.
We cannot even draw the treasure of medicine from all minerals in the same way but differently, and our Philosopher teaches that we draw it from one in one way, and from the other in another. other way. This is what commits me to what our Philosopher has said about it in his writings, to speak of them separately, and to examine them all in particular. Our Philosopher firstly recommends to us in general, and without any difference all the sulfurs of minerals, when he teaches us that they cure all, or the majority of diseases, after they have been corrected and made perfect, because after they have acquired this perfection, they make it sufficiently known that they are as much the sulfur of the Philosophers as the rest of the metallic bodies, because the nature & essence of the sulfur of the Philosophers consisting of being a panacea, which is by our Philosopher also attributed to mineral sulfurs, it is by obvious consequence that they enjoy the same prerogative & the same dignity as metallic bodies, because they restore health to the human body as well as they do: here are the words of our Philosopher, which I have already cited above in Chapter IX.
However, I consider these diseases from their remedy in the archaeus either calm or irritated, so that without having any regard for occasional causes, we can effect the cure by the slightest tact, vibration, jaculation, and what is more by the only irradiation or illumination, provided that the arcana can reach sensitive life in the seat of the soul. This power is much greater in the sulphurous remedies of minerals, namely in the sulfur of Venus, of Antimony, and especially in the sulfur of the Glaure of Augurelle, this Nymph having had no other name until 'here , &vs. I therefore urge the Apprentices to learn to strip the sulfurs of all foreign and virulent virtues, because they contain and hide within them the vital fire, capable of calmly leading the archaeus to the desired goal.
For there are some sulfurs to which, after they have been corrected and made perfect, all diseases are subject, the plurality of which reduced into one in the archaeum, is gathered there, as in the hand or closed fist of a man who fights. It is through this that we have seen destroyed in the siege, of the soul & in the Duumvirate, to the very astonishment of nature, all the cruel defects of dementia, of apoplexy, of obsolete evil , dizziness, asthma, dropsy & phthisis. Our Philosopher in this above-mentioned text names three Philosophers' sulfurs or tinctures, which like true panaceas, cure all illnesses; the first is that of copper, about which I have spoken sufficiently until now, and which does not strictly speaking concern this Chapter, being among the number of metallic bodies. He says that the second is prepared from the glaze of Augurelle, which he explains in another place, & calls the Metallus primus or Metallus masculus, between the imperfect, which must be understood to be the father of metals, & between the arcana of Paracelsus electra raw mineral, because this mineral has an incombustible sulfur, because it is the King of all mineral sulfurs, of which he also says that we can prepare an excellent tincture for health , which for this is called by Paracelsus the quintessence of the members.& the arcane, dye.
As this mineral is hidden, its nature is known to few, which makes our Philosopher call it by the name of Nymph, instead of its own name, rpn has even more hidden its preparation, by which its sulfur is raised volatile, combustible, fetid & believed in the excellence & dignity of the sulfur of the Philosophers, & possesses this excellence in such a high degree, that after this sulfur of the Philosophers has acquired its great perfection, surpasses the other philosophical sulfurs as much in splendor and excellence as the Sun surpasses the stars; this is why when our Philosopher speaking and recommending these three kinds of tinctures, uses these words (above all) when he speaks of this sulfur. This is why he names the first, citing the arcana of Paracelsus, & expressly says that it is the greatest of all the arcana, here are his terms: Particularly the tincture of lili, of the mineral electre reduced to wine of life, one part of which is the metallum primus & the other the essence of the members.
As for the means of obtaining this precious pearl, and this King of arcana, he says that combustible sulfur, which in burning gives a blue flame, must be the first of all, separated from the mercurial body, which can be done in the manner that I taught above in Chapter II . because as long as the minerals are still volatile and combustible, the process that must be followed to separate their sulfurs is by igneous alkali, after which pouring on this separated sulfur its own corrosive, which is nothing other than the liquor alkaest, as it seems by all circumstances, removes it & cohobers it so many times that the sulfur rises through the alembic like red oil. This operation can only be done by a possessor of the alkaest liquor, why we leave it apart; because he who has the alkaest, does not need my instructions, because he will know thereby how he must go about it, to follow our Author, and for him who does not possess it, it would be difficult lost than maintaining it well throughout.
I will simply talk about the other possible means to everyone, which our Philosopher designates, to obtain this tincture, because he knew well that it is very rare to find people who possess the alkaest liquor, and that however he wanted the virtue of this precious sulfur to be known, he left us this means that all those who are not completely ignorant in it Chemical philosophy, will be able to put into practice. This type of essence nevertheless presupposes that we absolutely necessarily have knowledge of this subject so vaunted as extremely excellent, since we cannot know its excellence and manifest its virtue, if we do not know it. It is in this view that our Philosopher seems to want to instruct us, when he calls this subject raw mineral electre, Metallus primus, & because it is filled with combustible sulfur & because it has a volatile mercury, here are his words Among the imperfect Metallus primus or Metallus masculus, is necessarily coated with metallic inclinations, namely a liquid mercury, fans adhesion to the fingers, & and a sulfur burnable in blue flame, It also gives it a celestial property & virtue, to resist fascinations & remove them. Leaflet:. De injatulatis , sect. 7. Above all, the raw mineral electre of Paracelsus hanging on the neck, delivers those who are persecuted from the foul spirit, which I myself saw, & remember that many were delivered, by taking it as a drink; there is no one who, having hung him on the collar, is not preserved from the spell, or who, being bewitched, is not delivered from it.
What I also experienced myself in the person of my four-month-old son, who having been bewitched by diabolical men, or as our Philosopher speaks, bad people, would not breastfeed for several days, although he was overwhelmed with hunger and thirst, and was already beginning to swell. Remembering the praises that our Philosopher makes of this precious subject, I hung it from the collar up to the region of the heart; he fell asleep for an hour and a half, and being awake, he eagerly took his mother's breast, and returned so quickly to health , that everyone was surprised at such a happy and rapid change.
I believe that many others than me will acquire knowledge of this royal subject, through the description given above of its properties, without there being any need, in favor of those who are worthy, to give it other names. more intelligible, than those of raw mineral electre, father of metals, Metallus primus, because such and similar names sufficiently express what it is, and it would be an insult to describe it more clearly, because these names reveal its entire nature, its essence, its origin & its properties, as by a signature or a seal, printed, so that anyone who cannot thereby learn to know it, is not chosen by God, neither naturally nor fit to become possessor of this arcane, otherwise he would know very easily what the riot of Metallus primus & others like it mean.
This subject being known that Paracelsus calls Red Lion, Basil Valentin Saturn, you must separate its sulfur from its mercurial part, as you did with antimony; because by this means the splendor of the Sun is exactly powdered, it is combined with a very igneous alkali, which is then mixed for half an hour in a mortar, then water is poured on top, to make it pass through. through the filter, after which it is precipitated with an acid, whereupon this extremely excellent sulfur falls to the bottom, which being dried appears yellow in color, catches fire like other sulfur, and gives a blue flame, as our Philosopher says, & his mercurial part remains on the paper, which being dried, is kept for other uses.
Besides this, there is still a way of separating the mercury from this precious sulfur, the mercurial part is sublimated to a suitable fire, and rises on its own, leaving its red companion at the bottom of the vessel. This way of operating is not suitable, because the sulfur remaining at the bottom is changed from its first combustible nature, and fixed by this operation. This method is therefore not suitable, as it is easy to see by the following mechanics of our Philosopher, who wants the sulfur of Metallus primus to be dissolved in cinnamon oil; which cannot be done by the process that I have just described , unless the sulfur remains volatile and combustible, it is why it will be necessary to use the first method of proceeding. So pour cinnamon oil on this combustible sulfur, put it in a flask, cook it until all the oil is of a rich & very red color, pour everything into a retort, distill slowly until that the oil will come out clear; When nothing more comes out, let your retort cool, and you will have at the bottom a red extract, thick like curdled blood which must be kept.
Return your distilled oil to a flask, and if you do not have enough of the first extract, put Metallus primus in your oil, cook it for twelve hours or more, your oil will redden again, and being cooled, put it back in the retort on top of your first extract, distill your oil like the first time, as long as it flows clear. Put your oil again for the third time in a flask on sulfur, cook again, and when it is still colored, put it back on the extract in the retort.
Then place your retort further into the sand, first slowly distill the oil which will come out clear, when no more comes, increase the heat, nevertheless with moderation, fear of doing violence to this precious flower, you will have first a yellow oil, then red, combine all this oil, distill & you will have more yellow & red oil than before.
Repeat this cobobation so often that your oil becomes tinged with so much redness that it cannot be any more, which will be the mark that your oil will no longer be able to take any of your softened sulfur, nor raise anything further by distillation. , and you will be entirely assured of this, when in several cohobations you notice that your oil always remains in its first redness, without in any way increasing. Finally mix this oil with a well-dried, clean and slightly hot alkali, grind everything together for two hours on a slightly heated stone, until it has a consistency of honey. Be careful not to add oil, because all this oil which has not been affected by the alkali, because it is in too large a quantity, cannot be improved. Put your mixture in a small still, digest for a few weeks at slow heat, lest your oil rise, but everything becomes a hard salt, which when heated high will become a red volatile salt, whose properties & virtues will make it 'praise.
We will now speak of the third subject of our Philosopher, that is to say of antimony, and see if it also contains the sulfur of the Philosophers: we can conclude that it contains it in that our Philosopher places it in the rank of the arcana of copper & glaze. To therefore have the sulfur of antimony, one must not use the same means that one uses to perfect glaze, because it has a much nobler origin than antimony; which means that it does not need to be dissolved or softened, other than to make it suitable for communicating its rays and splendor to our archaeus. It is for this great pre-eminence and prerogative, which it has above all mineral sulfurs, that our Philosopher qualifies it as the highest and greatest miracle of nature, but the soul of antimony must be matured & cooked over a clean fire, before rising to such high excellence.
Our Philosopher has not given us all the necessary instructions on how to carry out this practice, and he refers us to Paracelsus, when speaking of this arcane in his Pharmacopoeia & his Modern Dispensary sect. 4p. he says. Paracelsus attempted with applause the correction of the venom of antimony, on the tincture of the lily of antimony by means of its circulated salt.
Besides this our Philosopher gives third place to the philosophical sulfur of antimony among the arcana of Paracelsus when he says.
Thirdly , antimony lili is similarly effective. This is why we must have recourse to the writings of Paracelsus, to know where he teaches the preparation antimony lily; he speaks of it in his great Surgery Book Second, Treatise Third, Chapter V. in these terms. Philosophers have variously treated the subject of antimony, and have prepared it in many ways, without however finding the true one, which has now been discovered, and the art of this preparation deserves to be known by all Physicians, because it is the entrance and the principle of healing of all illnesses such as they may be & if it were in use, so many people would not perish through the fault of Doctors in idea, I must in idea, because they have not no other knowledge or certainty in everything they do than imaginations, which is shameful to true Doctors. Anyone who wants to know must be versed in chemistry, because I do not make this preparation as the Apothecaries do theirs, take antimony reduced to alcohol.
It should be noted here that this conversion of antimony into alcohol is not a simple pulverization, according to the meaning of the words, but it is necessary that the antimony which is naturally compact and heavy, be reduced to light powder and sublimated by fire. , as a result of which there does not remain in the round of the vessel the slightest part of the substance of antimony, which must be reiterated three times, as our Philosopher warns us by his notes in the margin, & Paracelsus himself delivers . j. chap. 6. Treated of long life. Then reverberate your sublimated powder in a closed lamp for a month, and it will first become white & volatile, then yellow, & finally a black red, light & subtle. When it is red and perfectly reverberated, draw in its essence of lili with spirit of wine which you will pour over it to the height of four fingers' breadths.
Note that the witticism of wine, which Paracelsus uses here, is a game, as he did again above in Chapter II. for gold, which I mentioned in Chapter I separation, as was said of gold, and as our Philosopher said in the aforementioned place of his dispensary new sect. 43. Instead of circulated salt, we can use volatilized alkali, because they both come, as I said above, from the same root and the same foundation. If the essence of antimony is dissolved in the spirit of wine, separate it, and keep your spirit of wine: this is the whole preparation of the lily of antimony, which is very excellent for carrying away all that it contains. there is, and everything impure that can be found in man. If you ever find this secret, do not communicate it to any of these Doctors in idea, let us prepare sulfur or the universal medicine of antimony, the virtues of which you can read in Chapter V. of Paracelsus' Surgery.
Although this way of preparing antimony is so good that no better one can be taught, it is nevertheless very difficult and doubtful, because of the circumstance of the lamp; where one can easily make a mistake and spoil everything; This is why I am going to describe to you an easier one, which the Curious about the truth can try, and after that make the one where the street lamp is necessary.
So take pure sulfur separated from antimony, as I taught you in Chapter II, dissolve it with your volatile alkali, cohob as long as your salt rises red as a ruby: this path is much shorter & much safer. This tincture, however, is not of such perfect virtue as that which is made by the street lamp, because it is more matured and better cooked by fire.
This is how anyone who wishes can prepare the essence of sulfur of antimony in the same way, as we have said that one could prepare that of raw electra. By this last means we will have the true balm of sulfur suitable for all internal uses, without there being any other difference than in the virtues.
That we can draw the sulfur of Philosophers from common sulfur, can be compared to the excellence of the sulfur of the Philosophers, it is however not for that reason excluded; for although he only specifically names the sulfur of copper, glaze or raw mineral electra & antimony, yet he implies common sulfur, when he says in general: I therefore exhort the Apprentices to learn to strip the sulfurs of all foreign and virulent virtues, because they contain and hide in them the vital fire, capable of quietly leading the archaeus to the desired goal.
The very experienced Paracelsus teaches that common sulfur is not excluded from these sulfurs, since he places it among the arcana capable of providing a long life, such as those gold, pearls & antimony, as we can see in his book of the long Life book j. chap. 7. where he says as well as in several other places, that sulfur is a balm which preserves everything, & which dyes everything with its tincture , & elevates everything to perfection. He expressly says the same in his book on the transmutation of things, namely that common sulfur has as well as gold the virtue of dyeing the human body in very perfect health: here are his words worthy of being well considered. The tinctures of human bodies by which they achieve great health, by driving out all diseases , by restoring all strength, and by renewing them, are gold, pearls, antimony, sulfur, vitriol & others similar, provided that we reduce them to their mysteries, the preparations of which we teach at length in other books.
He teaches the same thing in his book Renovation & Restoration, saying, the first being drawn from sulfur has so many virtues on the human body, that it renews all radical humors & their circulation. In this book he describes the entire process of the renewal & maturity of sulfur, such as it must be, to operate in the human body a purification, a renewal & perfect restitution of all the forces. It is therefore true that we can draw the sulfur of the Philosophers from common sulfur, which is why it cannot be omitted; but I must teach its preparation, because a universal medicine can be prepared from it, as well as from sulfur, copper and antimony, in proportion to the state or degree of their natural constitution. For although the tincture of copper is a universal remedy, it does not act so excellently as the tincture of the sulfur of Metallus primus; this difference is also between antimony and copper, one being more excellent than the other.
This same difference also occurs between antimony and common sulfur, the tincture of the latter differs so much from the soul or perfect essence of the other, & this degree of difference is as high as antimony was ennobled at its birth by nature, above sulfur, this is what nature & experience teach us. I thought I had to discover this secret for the benefit of the Reader, because it has not been discovered until now, and so that he can learn what its foundation is; for although the sulfur of antimony is no less combustible than common sulfur, and they do not differ in fixity and cooking, they nevertheless differ so much in virtue, that if we gave the sulfur of antimony to a sick person, antimony without other preparation, it would be more effective than common sulfur, when we had it sublimated many times, for which there is no other reason than that nature has given it this pre - eminence above common sulfur, it is for the same reason that copper has greater virtues than antimony.
But someone will tell me that when the sulfur of antimony is drawn and made visible by the alkali, it is in this operation corrected and improved by the igneous quality of the fixed alkali, &. that by this he acquires a nobler virtue than that which nature had given him. To which I reply that it is true that the sulfur of antimony and all other mineral sulfurs become much better, as we will faithfully say later, if they are combined with an igneous alkali, & cooked for a long time in the fire; but in the extraction of sulfur from antimony, the alkali and antimony are simply crushed together, and after having put them in water, a filtration takes place, and at the very moment that we has passed the alkali impregnated with sulfur through the filter, we put on top the acid which separates the sulfur from the alkali, so that at this moment the alkali can neither improve nor mature the antimony sulfur.
If this answer does not satisfy, you should know that there are still other means of extracting the sulfur, without using any alkali, and without anything acting on the sulfur, which will easily rise from the sulfur. antimony, pouring its own vinegar, which, not mixing with any sulfur, joins with the mercurial part of the antimony, thus dissolves and separates the sulfur from the Mercury; from which it rises at a very slow heat to the color of common sulfur, from which it also does not differ in odor, volatility & combustibility , except that if burned, it gives a more beautiful splendor than common sulfur . Although this antimony sulfur is almost similar to common sulfur, and it is not drawn or joined by anything that can improve it, and it is separated from its Mercury which has been drunk with things which are more suitable, it nevertheless surpasses common sulfur so much in excellence, how admirable it is that this difference is so great between them.
This comes from their different origin, nature having given to each of them for the reason of their first seed a greater excellence to one than to the other, from the beginning of their production; which we can see by the mechanics of our Philosopher, where he teaches that we must draw sulfur from antimony which is not different externally from common sulfur, except that it is a little greener, that it is necessary to make a cinnabar with quicksilver , sublimate it seven times, suspend half an ounce of this cinnabar in a barrel full of wine for twenty-four hours, drink for some time every day a spoonful of this wine, and that we will admire the effects which will follow the use of this remedy; that this cinnabar can be used endlessly, and without losing any of its strength for this use, by simply sublimating it again.
If you do not want to believe me, you can try the work that I have just described with common sulfur, and you will see that the effort will not meet your expectations, and that you will be obliged to grant antimony the prerogative of surpassing common sulfur, because of the quantity of excellent virtues which it has from its birth above it, although they appear similar on the outside. This reveals to us a great mystery & a singular knowledge of the mineral kingdom, which no one, as far as I know, having read or heard nothing similar, has until now developed or discovered, which obliges me not to suppress it.
For it is the same with the nature of all metallic and mineral sulfurs as with the nature and property of the stars. Much more mineral sulfurs , are the naive representations, the true images, the children & the productions of the stars; because as the stars are fire & light, so are the sulfurs , & as the stars vivify & cannot do otherwise than to arouse Life, being all light & life, the very source of virtue invigorating, in the same way sulfur cannot act without doing good , warming, illuminating and invigorating. But so that the Curious Seeker of truth understands this mystery well, and that he understands my thoughts, that he knows by the knowledge that divine mercy has been willing to grant me, that all the sulfurs of the entire metallic kingdom mineral, without excluding any, are created from the same substance, namely from the coarsest, thickest & terrestrial lower fire, which is its mother & source. All sulfurs are therefore of the same nature, of the same origin and of the same essence, as all the stars are created of a single & the same celestial substance of subtle fire, so that the nature of all sulfurs, like that of the stars, consists of two properties, namely to heat and to illuminate.
As therefore God Almighty created in the beginning all the stars of the same matter & the same substance, namely of a subtle light, that however he endowed one with more excellence, virtues & splendor that the other ; he did the same thing with metallic and mineral sulfurs; he created them all from the same substance, namely from an igneous, coarse, terrestrial and thick light, of which he nevertheless represented one as more excellent, more powerful in virtues than the other, its excellence, from which it can never escape, even though art has elevated it to its highest perfection, so that no sulfur can give itself more virtue than it had from God in the time of his first training.
As you see that one star surpasses the other in beauty and splendor, so one sulfur surpasses another sulfur; what I demonstrated to you by the difference between antimony sulfur and common sulfur, when I told you that common sulfur can never acquire its same glory & splendor suitable for restoring health, whatever way it is prepared and sublimated, that of the sulfur of antimony.
is between the sulfur of antimony and the sulfur of raw electra, nor knowing that although the sulfur of antimony is in the splendor that God gave it at its creation, more excellent than common sulfur; yet it can never reach the degree of excellence of the sulfur of the electre. This degree of excellence is that by a simple application & suspension on the collar, it removes all kinds of fascinations or spells: perfection that the sulfur of antimony does not have. It is therefore quite obvious that although the three above-mentioned sulfurs are all combustible and volatile, they are nevertheless all three very different, and this because of their birth, by which each was shared in its own & particular splendor, its virtue & its light.
Finally, as you see that among the stars, the noblest and the highest in dignity is the Sun, which it surpasses in splendor, in light and in virtue all the others, and which it is, according to the. doctrine of the very enlightened German Philosopher Jacob Bohem, book of the three principles of the signature of things & the triple life, the root, the origin & the heart of the stars, from which all stars flow; so that in relation to his origin, we can say with Justice that he is the nature of the stars, that he is their King in relation to the pre-eminence of his splendor, as he is in fact.
than any of the other metals & minerals; that is why its celestial tincture holds the first rank among the great arcana of Paracelsus, as our Philosopher reports in his book, and as I indicated in the 63rd previous Chapter, where I showed a little higher what splendor it has.
shines above the sulfur of antimony, which however, according to the words of our Philosopher whose words we have reported, is of such great virtue that there is nothing that surpasses it.
This is why this King of minerals is called by our Philosopher and by Paracelsus the quintessence of all members, because nothing strengthens them more than its royal tincture; that's why again these same two Philosophers call it simply because of its excellence, the arcana of tincture, because nature has placed particularly in this royal subject, and in preference to others, the tincture of life. It is in this sense that our Philosopher calls this King, the greatest among the imperfect & the principal miracle, the greatest & most powerful of nature for long life, in which one must place one's greatest hopes, here is its terms. He is the point and the height of hope; it is the height of the miracles of nature.
However, we should not attribute all these praises to it, before it is reduced to an arcane, matured, cooked and become perfect; it is in this state that it will be on top all the true sulfur of the Philosophers. When the sulfurs of other minerals are brought to a maturity and fixity similar to that in which raw electre is pushed, it is however impossible that they could ever have a splendor and a light as great as it because each sulfur has from its beginning birth its determined excellence, which it is impossible to surpass. This would contradict the will of the Creator, by whose order everything was created, and who wanted this or that sulfur to appear and shine through this or that excellence, in order to manifest the different powers, which otherwise would remain hidden, and the lights of the celestial substance, of which these Sulfurs are images, and from which they take their origin, to make men admire the great multitude of the innumerable virtues of nature, to invite them to publish the glory and praises of our great God, creator of these lights. So you can clearly see the difference between these perfects.
arcana, and that the name sulfur of the Philosophers suits one much better than the other, and that each sulfur has and can acquire its perfection determined by nature, without being able to go beyond. This is why the common sulfur on the occasion of which I am making this detail, can only acquire the perfection that nature has intended for it, which is not so great as that of the others, among which she has the last rank; she is however. a true panacea, as we have seen by the testimony of Paracelsus, & by the mechanics we have reported.
You must know, to obtain this panacea, that common sulfur is a simple substance, which has no mixture with any mercurial body, like other minerals. Its parts being similar and uniform throughout, it does not need any separation or purification, but only its substance being entirely volatile, raw, combustible and partly venomous, it needs to be matured, cooked and brought to perfection, and if by chance she found herself mixed with something foreign,
We can with some reason compare sulfur and the means of maturing it to a piece of raw flesh, which contains a great virtue capable of satisfying and comforting man, but because it is raw, it must be made capable of communicating its virtue to man through cooking; in the same way although sulfur contains a balsamic virtue, it also has a substance contrary and pernicious to our nature, by which if we left it in this state, it would rather be capable of mortifying than of vivifying, which I know from my experience; because more than ten years ago, having fallen backwards as if dead by the poisonous vapor of sulfur, I remained unconscious and deprived of all my senses, both interior and exterior for an hour, I was however, thanks to God, delivered from this accident by a remedy prepared from sulfur.
This is why it is necessary to remove this virulence by cooking and ripening it because we must not simply remove this venom or this death from the sulfur, but we must perfect them, overthrow them and contain them by death, and on the contrary overthrow them. outside its hidden light and splendor, as our philosopher says. Beneath the venom & virulence is hidden the vital fire, which peacefully leads the archaea to the desired goal. This maturity and cooking must be similar to that of a piece of flesh by the heat of the fire alone, and not by corrosive water; which would be useless & harmful, as Chemist Writers teach in their instructions, commentaries, procedures & other books.
These corrosives so corrupt the sulfur that it takes on another nature, but if it is cooked without these corrosives, it retains its natural, balsamic and softening moisture, by means of which it must reveal its splendor, the acidic and softening waters. corrosive substances deprive it of this virtue; because they insinuate themselves into the sulfur, spoil it and change it into a state contrary to its nature, and although such Artists imagine that they would rather ripen the sulfur by this means, they do not take care that they do him great harm by corrupting his nature and making it worse. So imitate nature which acts simply in its works, and which preserves everything in its natural state; which you will clearly recognize by the example of metals and even gold, which was in its origin and in its birth only a true combustible sulfur.
Nature has preserved this sulfur in its natural sweetness, by which although it has acquired the greatest fixity, it has nevertheless retained its natural fluxibility. How did nature achieve this? By the sole fire that she maintains in the interior of her breast, without using any corrosive water, as a quantity Writers teach it today; but it cooks it simply by its heat, }until it has become perfect & fixed. The processes that Paracelsus left us in the arcana of sulfur are entirely similar; we must do the same, we must imitate nature, consider its operations and not seek other disparate ways, by which we engage in works contrary to nature to produce bad fruits.
So if you want to bring melting sulfur and simple common sulfur to perfection, sublimate it once or twice, put it in a flask, cook it by itself, until it no longer dissolves. learn more, be more combustible, but fixed & made perfect; which requires a long time and much care, to prevent the heat from being too great, also this operation is simple, and requires neither painful preparations, nor any precious menstruation, which can be done in a screed by fire alone, it is in this way, and not otherwise, that nature acts in the earth for metals.
But so that you do not get bored of this work which requires a lot of time, and so that you are not in perpetual doubts, if your sulfur can and wants to perfect itself, I will give you clear and certain marks, to assure you of his future perfection, in order that you. May you constantly persevere and bring your work to its end. After having worked on cooking your sulfur for a few weeks, take a little of it, dissolve it in oil, make a similar dissolution apart from a part of the sulfur, such as it was before your work, that this one will make you smell a great stench, and that one an aromatic odor, from which you will know that part of its venom, from which the stench comes, as from its source has been matured & changed, which you will know again by the virtues that this matured sulfur (for a few weeks) will have above all other sulfur flowers; that's why he You will have to constantly persevere until your sulfur is fixed.
Do not be bored by the length of time, only consider the end and the joy that you will have at having acquired such a precious treasure of health, which will only cost you a little coal and a well-regulated fire.
Although this process corresponds perfectly to the way of acting of nature, which simply cooks metals and minerals with its fire, and makes them pass from the state of volatility to that of fixity, so that you will have operated perfectly according to nature, this does not prevent there from still being a better and shorter path to arrive at this goal; because at this point art differs from nature, or rather we can call art everything that begins where nature has finished, and when we can perfect something by a better means.
That which comes from the intelligence and wisdom of man, and by communication of the divine and infinite wisdom, from which flow as from their source the prudence, the wisdom and the almost infinite address of men in exercising the arts, which, both small and great, are nothing other than express images of the infinite & inscrutable virtue & divine wisdom. Which being well considered by man, he cannot sufficiently admire and praise God his creator enough, following the example of David, who says in the psal. 110 the works of God are great, whoever pays attention to them does not fail to want to glorify him; but those who live without making any reflection, who do not meditate like reasonable men from whom so many admirable arts can come, and this divine wisdom so diversified, are similar to brute beasts, who only have the use of these divine gifts, without rising through them to their Creator who is their source.
If we therefore examine whether this above-mentioned path, consistent with nature, cannot be shortened and made more perfect, the experience and daily industry of the Cooks will not fail to come to our aid. They will teach us that although they can mature & cook their meat naturally & simply by fire alone, to make them suitable for the use of man, without any addition of other fire; however, through inventions which play into their brains, as well as into their source, they use means suitable for advancing this maturity and cooking of meat; because if they macerate their meats in vinegar for a few weeks, they will cook in half the time than if they had not been macerated in vinegar;
Let us therefore see if in chemical cooking there is some liquor suitable for macerating the sulfur, and making it suitable for being fixed.
This liquor is neither spirits nor corrosive acids, which have nothing of commuted with sulfur, which not only cannot soften it, but on the contrary as enemies change it and corrupt it, and deprive it of its natural treasure: whereas this preparation of sulfur only tends to preserve it in its natural state, improve it and not corrupt it, nor make it take on a harsh, foreign and dissimilar state to that of its origin.
This is why if we want to achieve the desired goal, and prepare the sulfur, so that it remains in its first quality and nature, after having rejected all the acids and corrosives, we cannot find humidity more suitable for our intention, that which in relation to its foundation is of the same root as sulfur, of the same nature & igneous quality such as the fixed alkalis, which because of their burning & ripening nature, can prepare sulfur, in such a way that the operation will be & easier & shorter ; there are two ways of doing it, two of which the first is to cook your sulfur for a long time in a very igneous alkali and in water, where you will have to carefully consider the basis of this very useful process for you, which is that the more qualities your igneous alkali will have, and the quicker your preparation will be, this is why you apply yourself to preparing very igneous alkalis, and to exalting their igneous qualities. Mars will give you willingly for this purpose its igneous salt; cook your sulfur in similar alkalis , the more you cook them, the better it will be, because you will experience that the more you macerate it, the more effective your medicine will be. before the perfect and final cooking.
After you have prepared your sulfur in the above manner, precipitate it with an acid, and you will have a more excellent sulfur than you could have hoped for before. This is evident by the milk of sulfur of the Vulgar Chemists, which is dissolved only once by an alkali and precipitated, and which nevertheless receives from this light cooking by the igneous quality of the fixed alkali such an exalted virtue, cooking with alkali. We can rightly admire here the negligence of common chemists, in that no one among them has been found until now who has properly examined this foundation, and who has concluded that if sulfur has acquired alkali in such a short time, and by simple cooking such great perfection, and that it has become nobler and more powerful than it was. It necessarily follows that if it was cooked for a long time in this way, that if we exalted alkali in its igneous quality, we could also greatly exalt sulfur in its virtue; but no one so far has considered this. They were content with their milk of sulfur, which they always fact, as their Elders taught them: hence what is most deplorable in chemistry is that the majority of Chemists do not rise higher through their own experiences, and that they only know what is in their books, which they often execute with great difficulty, are plunged in such great darkness of understanding, that they do not ruminate in the least on the things with which they are daily occupied, to know what nature they are, why they are, how, by what way & virtue these things they treat show & execute their power, how one acts on the other, or how we can lead them to their first being and to a better state; but their mind understands nothing of all this, they follow the beaten path of procedures which order them to do this or that, to mix them in this or that way.
If they do not succeed, they carry out other processes, without knowing what they are doing, they do not see through their eyes, but through the eyes of the processes of foreigners, which being mute cannot be heard by chemists . , who know neither how to correct, nor make better, nor add nor diminish; However, they have the presumption to call themselves Philosophers and the lights of the Chemical world. What comes from what the soul of many these workers. , in which God should act with his emanating wisdom, and pour out the treasures of his eternity, is clogged with the thick darkness of earthly filth, the greed of earthly and carnal things, diabolical pride, avarice, of ambition, of an insatiable thirst for gold, which is however only a passing shadow; These are the fantasies with which the minds of these kinds of people are filled and blocked. They satisfy all these desires with an insatiable hunger, as their life shows. How could divine wisdom dwell in such a swine stable , filled with filth and filth, and adorn it with its gifts? pictures?
Their interior and exterior only represent (which we cannot say without pain) the abominable images of the splendor of the Peacock, the avarice of pork and other vices of dogs and oxen, with which they paint and inlay ; but they must be left to the judgment of God, who will put to death such pigs, to substitute in their place faithful Workers, who wish nothing other than to seek and love God the unique and sovereign good, also including in the love of God with which they are filled, the love of their neighbor whom they love with all their hearts, like their own brothers, and communicate widely and cheerfully the gifts that God has given them,
I return to the preparation of sulfur, and to the second way which does not differ from the first with regard to its substance or its foundation, but only in the way of proceeding. We take in this a very igneous alkali which we join with the sulfur, not by means of water like the first, but dry & by itself, which locked together we leave on a small fire , so that nothing of the sulfur arises; which we cannot so much prevent, that sometimes from time to time some parts of the sulfur rise which must be joined to the alkali, because everything which separates from the alkali cannot receive preparation ; Besides, nothing is needed stir, because this second way is very similar to the first.
The more you cement your sulfur in this way, the more excellent and suitable it will be to be fixed. Finally, if you want to separate this sulfur, you must dissolve it with the alkali in water and precipitate it; choose which of these two paths you like. The last, although more painful than the first, is nevertheless the best, and the first is easier, but choose.
This sulfur thus prepared will make you certain of its precious virtues through experience, although it has not yet acquired its great fixity. If you want to work in the first of these two ways, you can separate by water all the combustible sulfurs and easy to separate from the minerals, among which the antimony thus corrected will give you a precious sulfur in Medicine, and of great value in Surgery, without saying anything about what it is worth taken internally. However, you should know here that after having sufficiently cooked your antimony with the alkali that it is poured on top, when it is cooled, a lot of water, because its large mercurial substance which had been dissolved by the igneous quality of the The alkali is separated almost entirely by this lye. Let the solution rest for two days, then filter it , and wash your antimony left on the filter well with plenty of water.
swollen & spongy, & become ten times bigger than it was, in order to strip it of all the salt, & keep it, it will be better for the use of Surgery, than all the other flowers of antimony, ' because of the state of correction that it acquired by means of alkali and its igneous quality. Precipitate with an acid what will have passed through the filter, with this precaution that you will put aside, what will precipitate the first red color, which you will still keep apart from the second precipitation, which will be lemon color, & clean for be taken internally. This first red precipitate is of greater virtue in Surgery than red antimony which has no been dissolved, because one contains very little sulfur and the other contains a lot.
But in order not to stray too far from the goal, you must return to our sulfur which we have prepared in its natural waters or igneous humidity, to then be fixed. Treat it like the first red sulfur, and finish cooking it until perfect fixity, and you will finish it faster than before;
Use it later for your needs, to perform the miracles of nature . However, although this sulfur is by a path conformable to nature, leathered and matured more quickly and more conveniently, the mind of the Curious of the secrets of nature is not yet satisfied, could not mature and perfect this sulfur even further, and by what better means. This question arises on the occasion of the improvement which is made by alkalis, which although gross bodies nevertheless produce so many virtues in. sulfurs by their igneous quality, and which would produce even greater ones, if they were made spiritual, and then added to the sulfurs.
This conclusion is right & based on the forces of nature, & this improvement can be compared to the seasoning of meats. For as a man can eat a dish cooked alone and by himself, to restore his strength; but when this same dish is seasoned with aromas which have the virtue of warming & strengthening, and that being thus prepared for a greater perfection, it acquires more virtues in the same way fixed sulfur, & which by itself has been matured & perfected, is in truth sufficient to strengthen the. feeble nature: but if we add some warming philosophical aroma to it, & if we cook them together, so that this aroma remains inseparably united with the sulfur, as the aroma or seasoning remains in meats, to be eaten with them , it necessarily follows that sulfur fixed in this manner with its seasoning, is of a much greater virtue, than if it were matured alone by itself; what the Curious about the truth will find,
So that you can put this into practice, take your sulfur prepared by igneous alkalis, dissolve it in a spiritual and volatilized alkali then draw on a slow fire all your igneous water, until you see that nothing white wants anymore pass through this slow degree of heat, you will remain at the bottom of the vessel a thick juice, spiritual red and penetrating, which has retained as much of this hot seasoning as is necessary to season this solar fruit. Now cook this sulfur, mature it with prudence and precaution, fearing to drive away your aroma, but so that it remains inseparably united, and that it becomes with the sulfur a perfect elixir.
Observe exactly the regime of the fire, lest you spoil your affair by too much haste, until your two matters have acquired a perfect fixity, which will give you much more joy than the first and simple maturity. Although I can teach you many other preparations of sulfur of a much higher perfection, and which would increase the praise of this sulfur even more. I will remain there until, if it pleases God, I will say more about it some day, &c As this sulfur was naturally a burning fire, and a resplendent light outside, it is no longer now external, but internal & incombustible, it is no longer a fire burning externally, but internally; & as before he burned everything that is combustible, so now; he burns by his power invisible diseases, as fire consumes straw, and as the sulfurs before their cooking glowed externally, they now only glow for illnesses or for the spirits of darkness, which are nothing other than spirits. or properties of the dark bed of death, & the precursors of dark death (which could be demonstrated by all Medicine & all its effects) & transmutes these spirits of darkness into good spirits, such as they were, when the man was healthy.
Thus, such perfect mineral sulfurs are similar to the Sun which shines and heats, and which resurrects what was dead; what also do all the sulfurs fixed in proportion to the properties which they have acquired through the benefit of art.
However, we must not imagine that this Perfect Universal Medicine excludes the use of all other remedies: not at all; because this panacea and others like it look at the origin of the disease, which always comes from some dark quality or property, such as the force of these lights, such as the tincture of gold, copper, antimony and other similar things.
If during this time such a morbific spirit, or such a dark property, has caused some bad effects, or produced some material accident, then our Universal Medicine will not prevent other suitable remedies from being applied to dispel them. , both internal and external, even less will it prevent the use of surgical remedies in ulcers, dislocations, fractures, wounds and the like. This will be easy to understand for those who have understanding and reason. Besides this, although we have universal medicine, we still need caution in administering it. I thought it necessary to give this warning here, because the enemies of truth only speak with derision of similar arcana, saying that God would have created other animals and plants in vain, because the word panacea excludes all environments.
However, it is not in this sense that the Philosophers have used it, their thought is that the root of the disease is removed by such panaceas, and as if cut with a knife, and that the cure must be advanced by suitable remedies, and prevent accidents.
It is also necessary to know here that these kinds of panaceas are of no use for the Stone which grows and is produced in the bladder, 4.9. because the origin of the Stone which is in the bladder is different from that of other diseases, which are all only corrupt, foul and dark spirits or qualities, which exercise their operations on the human body, like virtues of darkness furious, stinging & tormenting, instead of the first origin of the Stone being material, its effects & the evil which cause is also material: namely in that this material substance, rough & harsh is found in a tender & sensitive place , which cannot tolerate anything harsh and foreign, the very quantity of this material substance being more harmful than the quality as it appears by its cure which is the size. For as soon as the bladder is delivered from this body or material substance of the stone, all the pain and trouble it caused ceases, and no one would die of this disease, if the incision was made, in such a way that it does not followed no inflammation to other parts of the body; because this incision is nothing other than a violent separation of what nature wanted to be whole.
Thus the stone causes illness & death, not as an efficient spirit, but as a material & preventing substance; which means that the arcana cannot be of any help in such an effect. For although they can soften & reconcile the irritated archaeus, this reconciliation is not of long duration, because the cause of the pain is always present, and always causes new ones; this is why for the cure of the bladder stone we need remedies which can liquefy, dissipate, soften & reduce to dust this filthy & hard body, so that it can then be removed by the urine; but because the arcana do not have this virtue, and do not reach as far as the place where the stone is, their virtue consists of a luminous property. This knows that their use is excluded for the cure of the bladder stone, whose hard & thick material body cannot be broken by this great luminous power, nor put into powder; but must be taken from the bladder by other remedies, on which we must consult the book that our Philosopher wrote on purpose.
Here then is the whole foundation of the sulfur of the Philosophers according to the doctrine left to us & obscurely & hidden in his writings; our most faithful Philosopher whom I have, in favor of the truth, as clearly revealed & discovered, as one clearly sees his image or likeness in the mirror. For as the face represented in a mirror is very similar to that of the one who looks into it, so here you have a vivid picture of the true quality of the tincture for health, namely that it is its face, its shape & its effects; but as the shadow is not the substance itself, and the face represented in the mirror is very different from the excellence of the face represented, and in the same way although I have developed from all points all the mystery of this sulfur, so that there remains nothing to depict by its own colors, having done it exactly the same, I say, the substance of this mystery proposed and depicted is still very far away, and will not be so easy to acquire or to carry out that it is easy to understand.
There will be not a few people frustrated in their hope, especially those who only consider carnal delights; they will see the shadow depicted, but they will not enjoy the true substance, because they will imagine that it will be permissible for them, after the discovery of such a mystery, to attempt its execution with impunity and at their discretion, according to their ideas, reasonings. , consequences & inductions, in the fashion of today's Chemists, & that they will obtain these mysteries through the hope that their imaginary prudence made them conceive.
Such Artists are on the lookout for processes, like the wolf from the sheep. They will imagine that they cannot miss this secret revealed as clearly and as fundamentally as it is, that we cannot take this prey away from them, nor prevent them from achieving the desired goal, arrived, to satisfy their ambition, nor to be proud like peacocks, parading divine and natural mysteries, to oppress the poor.
But this is not how we ascend to Heaven, nor should we imagine that we will come to the end of the discovery of this mystery in this way. This work is governed by the divine will of God, who blesses and leads to a happy end the works of those whose will he entrusted to be so disposed, that they consider nothing other than the glory of his divine name, & love of neighbor, & who through the actions of their life make known with David, pfal. 119 v. the most purified with Solomon prov. 8. v. 10. Let them love order and discipline, and not money; that they love science more than chosen gold, and buried mines , and wisdom which gives them more pleasure, and which they value more than rubies, because everything that one can wish for is not is in no way comparable to him.
Righteous Jupiter loves such characters, only they can hope for the desired end; what our Philosopher confirms in Chapter XIV. sect. 5. of the Treatise on Fevers,
I have described in a few words a secret which ennobles the Physician, but it is a great matter that, to prepare it for the first time the direction of this work depends on the one to whom all honor is due, because he reveals to the little ones secrets that the world does not know and despises for ignoring them. Any Researcher or Merchant of processes will find the words of our Philosopher to be true, and that it is not a child's game, or a common work of Chemistry, but a thing of the highest consequence. A merchant of processes will realize from the beginning, when he wants to prepare the double minds, that all the work of his past life is vain and useless, and of no use for this operation.
But so that the truly curious about the truth can have a guide, to begin and complete his work, I will suggest to him the path that I took, & by which I fortunately arrived at my goal. What I have to say to him is little; This is because before applying anything to fire that we want to work on in Chemistry, we examine it very carefully according to its nature. From what virtue & cleanliness the subject drew its origin, from what quality it is, what is its operation in relation to other subjects, & that we see in what its internal virtue, its power & its core consists.
If you do not do this, and simply carry out the procedures to the letter, not only will you do nothing, but you are not even chosen by God, and born for this mystery; for God gives to all those he calls to vine of nature the instinct to delve deeper into all the subjects they treat, and to know them down to their foundation. Our Philosopher is an example to us, he who examined very deeply the properties of subjects, of which he left us the truth; The Curious about the truth must have his mind turned in this way; we must seek the truth of each subject in its center, and not in men and in their books. Books and friends can, in truth, serve as a guide for you, but you must draw from yourself the substance and virtue of the subjects that you treat among them. same.
I followed this path myself, as I said at the beginning of this Treatise, so that not finding any truth in men, I applied myself strongly, and made very deep meditations on the subjects that I wanted to treat, which made me find the truth.
This deep and fundamental meditation or introspection of natural things is not such that many who read this little book will imagine that it can be done by your own lights, so that you are allowed to penetrate into your own free will and through your own understanding, the substance or the interior center of some subject, draw through your own senses the knowledge of all its virtues: this is not the true path, but the way for a perverse reason, here is the one that I recommend to you. When your mind is heated with the desire to know the interior virtue and power of some subject, with the view that it serves the honor and praise of the Creator and the true and unsimulated charity of your neighbor, and that it does not could achieve this by its own strength. Your mind with its desires must enter into the inner depths, from which both your mind and its desire, and the subject you want to know, emanate. This bottom & foundation is God praised over all things in all centuries. You must therefore expose your desire to your Creator, and the subject you want to know, humbly pray to him as you you are only blind and ignorant, and that your subject is the creature, which with all its virtues, qualities and powers, take their origin from him, that he deigns to develop them in your mind and insert it into yours soul desiring the truth by the instinct of its holy spirit. If you behave in this way, God will raise up in your mind the same perfect quality that reigns in the subject; you will thus see in your understanding a certain reflection of the virtues which dominate in the subject, & you will actually feel them.
This is how, I say, you will acquire true and certain knowledge, which does not consist of opinion, but of the truth of things.
Our Philosopher, as I already said at the beginning, is the cause by the opinions contained in his book of the research of sciences, that I applied myself to the exercise of this kind of meditation & way of examining, & of discern nature & its bodies. Do the same thing, and you will infallibly come to the knowledge of the truth, for God is faithful, and he who created everything is without fraud, he supports in turn by his word, in which everything is founded like a tree with its roots in Earth. He calls you to him amicably, and by the words of a father to his children, when he says, ask and it will be given because who is the father who gives a stone to his son, instead of bread he asks for? How then can I, who am your heavenly Father, not give all kinds of good things to those who ask me ? This is why so that you can achieve the fulfillment of your wishes all the more easily , and be sure of how you should walk this way, and what you should expect from it.
I am going to tell you some rules from our Philosopher, who have shown me the true path; therefore read with great attention what our Philosopher says in the above-mentioned book, sect. 32.33. I then knew that reason does not make its home in a true understanding, but outside it because the understanding is the immediate seat of truth; because the truth understood is nothing other than a conformity of the understanding with the things themselves, because the understanding knows things as they are; this is why the understanding is verified about things known by the things themselves; since being true of oneself is always true, and the essence of things is truth itself.
It is therefore necessary that the understanding which is brought to bear on them is always directly true. But because imagination with reason is a means of oblique understanding, proceeding only by reasons & discourse, and not by transformation & conformity, it is why this way of reasoning is an abusive and deceptive understanding; but good, right, unity and truth are always in the same way in the understanding because they are there in the point of conformity. But the evil, the diverted, the distorted, the false, the multiplicity are made in several ways by reason in the imaginative. I therefore certainly knew that we should not pay so much attention to reason as we have done so far, and all the more so since it is quite clearly seen that there is reason & speech even in animals. Because that an old Fox is finer than a young one, this only comes from a rational discourse, experimental The Absilles count & in sect. 45. I have known that it is necessary to banish all reason and imagination, as brutal faculties, if we are penetrated to the depths of the desire to arrive at solid knowledge of the truth.
I also knew that the understanding would have to insinuate itself easily, and be gently transformed into the form of the intelligible thing, and that at this point the understanding would become in the moment the intelligible thing itself .
But as the understanding is perfected by the habit of understanding, and nothing is perfected except by what is symbolic of its nature, & become of the same nature, that it was to be done without any work or anxiety, but at rest in a proper light, & in abstraction, deprivation & retrenchment of all other created help, & in sect. 50. I prefer to experiment rather than define this light, whether supernatural, or whether the understanding is ignited by its nature and by itself. What I know for certain is that none of this is done except by a particular grace; this is why whether the understanding is transformed, or whether it is transformed from itself into the likeness of the thing understood, it also needs a very particular divine help, understanding in a form that it has taken in this light, and thus contemplates itself intellectually in this mirror, without any alternative reflection.
It thus knows the conceivable thing in all its being and its properties, because this light of knowledge is not an emanation outside the understanding, but remains internally reflected on the understanding itself, to perfect itself in all truth and perfection. certainty. And sect. 55 56 57. The intelligibility of a thing is only an approach or accession of unity of the understanding & of the intelligible object &c. To clarify this by an example, like the direct ray of light, differs from the same reflected ray; this is why the essence of the object conceived becomes in the light of the understanding a spiritual and essential splendor, it becomes in some way by its return to unity the very intellectual light, which cannot happen with the beasts. This is why our soul, conceiving itself, conceives in some way all other things, for everything is in the soul by the intellectual way, as it is in God by his image or representation, etc.
This is why the soul benefits from the useful knowledge that one can have of the things created in this world, in proportion as it intellectually conceives of herself; because she sees in some way in the light of her knowledge the properties of all things, their essences, their effects, their relationships, their distinctions and their defects. Therefore wherever this knowledge has reached, there withers away all other nobler speculation or help of reason; as true understanding is suppressed where reason dominates.
And sect. 60. I have sufficiently shown previously that the doctrine of Aristotle, on all of nature, was vain and a pure joke; it would be supported even less by the fact of the understanding, whose being and action depend on the soul alone: because we are obliged, as Christians that we are, to believe that our understanding is an immortal spirit, a light & an image of the All. powerful, whose origin surpasses nature, cannot be governed by its rules.
Because his being is a very simple being, immediately & totally & continually dependent on his prototype; so that without a particular grace he cannot understand anything, the object of the understanding being the truth, this is why he does not conceive of a perfect intelligence except by receiving, and he is only patient of what he receives without any action on the object received, nothing being specific to the understanding of what is given to him by grace:
It is more annoying, more servile and lower to act intelligently than to receive passively, because in this passive state one receives the light communicated gratuitously in a higher degree of nobility. Finally, the understanding always changes into the form of the intelligible thing; therefore participating in the indeterminate light, it is perfected without disgust, without difficulty and without labor to conceive and to know & the conceived light shines in action, by the light of the understanding, so that things seem to speak without using words, & the understanding, penetrates them internally, as if they were dissected & opened, Therefore the understanding is perfected by the state in which it is passive and receiving. And sect. 63.
1° For me, I believe above all that only faith and understanding can achieve knowledge of the truth.
2°. That all truth emanates from the first & only truth
3°. That all understanding comes from the unique & infinite understanding
4°. Like all light of the only light.
5°. That the essence of truth differs in no way from the essence of understanding.
6°. That our human understanding is empty, poor & obscure.
7°. That all that he may have of clarity, nobility, fullness, light & truth, is communicated to him as patient & receiving.
8°. ennobled, which he receives more in his passive state from the light which is above all nature.
If therefore the one who is curious about the truth follows and puts into practice this instruction, he will experience that there are no other means of knowing the virtues and the natural properties, than by recalling his senses in the interior and the center of his soul where God makes his home, which being prayed with a filial heart to communicate wisdom and intellectual knowledge of things, will not fail, as being the sovereign good, to communicate himself abundantly to his creature. What I wish with all my heart, both for myself and for the Christian Reader to whom I recommend reading on this subject of the XII. Chapter of the Book of the Soul of Man by Jacob Bohem, where he will find clearer instruction on this, as well as in printed letters.
So I end with the words of our Philosopher in his treatise on Stone, Medicine is a gift from God. He withholds his gifts from those who seek only profit, and who make no reflection on this precept: Be merciful, as your father who is in Heaven is merciful from whom every good and luminous gift descends. Listen to this, Gentlemen Physicians , and think about it carefully in the depths of your heart. This is how God will be favorable to you, not only in this life, but you will still gain at death a treasure of good conscience for eternal life , & you. you will rejoice eternally in having prepared & administered the miracles of nature. Psal. 97, v11
The light rises for the righteous, and joy is for the upright in heart.
Praise and glory to the only God for eternity. So be it.
END
Quote of the Day
“Quick-silver is the Matter of all Metals, and is as it were Water, (in the Analogy betwixt it, and Vegetables or Animals) and receives into it the virtue of those things which in decoction adhere to it, and are throughly mingled with it; which being most cold, may yet in a short time be made most hot: and in the same man∣ner with temperate things may be made temperate, by a most subtle artificial invention. And no Metal adheres better to it than Gold, as you say, and therefore as some think Gold is nothing but Quick-silver, coagulated by the power of Sulphur”
Bernard Trevisan
The Answer of Bernardus Trevisanus, to the Epistle of Thomas of Bononia
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