OF THE MATTER OF STONE AND THE FIRE OF THE PHILOSOPHERS

In which consists all the Magisterium

FIRST CHAPTER

The first and remote matter from which the Sages compose their universal medicine, which is their elixir or great work, and the greatest there is in all natural operations, called the Philosopher's Stone, is nothing but a compound made by nature, without the help of art, which contains in itself the four elementary qualities in a temperament of proportional equality, in which subject, it reaches a certain complexion, to pass afterwards to the supreme degree of perfection of art, and of nature, and then is called Divine work .

This matter does not contain only the above four qualities of which it is composed, but in this subject which is simple in its kind, are contained in potency the three kingdoms of nature, mineral, animal, and vegetable. However it draws its origin from the first which is the mineral, then it acquires the others by passing through the operations of nature, but without the aid of art until the third.

Nature draws the subject of this noble substance from the delights and loves of the mineral elements, pushing forth by the action of its universal agent, and which is at the center of everything, a certain unctuous vapor, which contains in itself an admirable sulphurous quality , and meeting on the way a certain virgin earth, loose, subtle, and pure, with which it puts itself together with all its parts, being bound to it, it takes it up with itself, and causing it to rise through certain little channels and vents, to the surface of the earth, it is finally by its lightness and the proper instrument of its nature elevated to the region of the air.

Your first matter is therefore conceived and begotten in the air, and it receives its form, its nourishment, its increase, and its first perfection, and floats hither and thither, through winds, mists and storms, until time complete and necessary to achieve this end, after which time, faithful nature watering and moistening this matter, leaves it in the proper humidity of the air, in the belly of which it is enclosed, and by the naturalness of its intimate and the proper by virtue of the place where it is contained, it is induced to a certain corruption, during which time nature purges it of some superfluity, then being condensed and thickened by the reunion of the parts which had been divided, by resolution it acquires a certain weighty gravity, for which reason, the place no longer being able to hold it, nor support it, he lets it fall.

It is then and immediately at the precise point of this same place, that the prudent artist must know how to take his time so as not to miss this moment, which he must know by an effect of his science, to receive in a vessel prepared for this purpose, this rich present, which nature gives and sends to him, and that he still knows that this moment is not delayed, being only half a quarter of an hour, or a quarter of an hour. hour at most.

For our said matter must be taken before it has fallen, and mingled with anything that is not of its essence, especially since it cannot have communication with things that are not of its nature, which may it be at the same time corrupted, and rendered useless for the work of the magisterium.

These rules being well observed, then this first matter is subject to the power of the artist, which had not yet been, and it is in this one thing that you will find all things, as the Philosophers said, being the unique material of the ancient sages, in which all the treasures of nature are enclosed, which is to be understood after it has passed through the degrees.

and it is of entirely spiritual matter and of a fugitive nature to volatile and inconstant minds, but permanent and fixed to ponderous and solid judgments, to which it communicates itself by its own inclination.

Access to these shops is easy, being open to everyone, the ignorant enter like the scholars, where both sink into the labyrinth of this library, as in an enchanted forest, where almost all do not know nothing, ignorant even of the nature of the trees that make it up. If you can open one of these books, by it you will have a perfect knowledge of what is contained to others, after which there is nothing more to be desired in this mortal world, since you will possess everything until death. immortality, incorruptible medicine. After such a knowledge nothing can be hidden from a noble intelligence, so it would be useless to speak of the mode of operation, especially as in the perfect knowledge of true matter all the rest is contained,

However, there is the characteristic of fire, the knowledge of which could be difficult, and because it is as necessary as matter, being certain that one would be useless without the other; I will tell you on this subject that the philosophical fire is contained in the matter of metals, and know again that in the confused mass, is the quintessence, which is an occult power to those who do not know it, but if you know how to prepare it, it will be manifested to you and you will find what you seek in it.

The learned Raymond Lully said about this, if you ignore our preparations, you will never have the treasure promised to all the elect, and blessed are those who can hear them.

And Mary sister of Moses said on this subject, the preparation is the treasure and the accomplishment and the end of the thing, weigh these words well and try to hear what is above the fire.

I tell you again that it is not common, it is made by art and is artificial to find, but if you have the knowledge of this fire, you know the matter. These words are short but they should suffice if one is a child of doctrine, especially since if one can achieve knowledge of the subject, all the rest will be easy, because although there are many works, and a number of operations in the mixture of the elements and in the reincrudation, by resolution, condensation and rarefaction of these, which are done by degrees, which is the original way of their transmutation, and the common doctrine by which nature converts them, there is however only one act in general , which is to distill, redistill, dissolve and freeze.

The fortunate doctor Raymond Lully says because of this reiteration, the magisterium is reputed to be ignorant of the work of women and a child's game, like also a monster without head and without tail, so true and certain, that those who know nothing can judge nothing.

It is in this place that you must be warned not to be bored, and not to be stingy with your time and your pains, you will learn it from the same doctor Raymond Lully very clearly when he says and repeats these words; know our preparations well and have great patience in their lengths, because there is no length like that of nature, and our operations are only done by it in the revolution of times, but know also that you do not you will never know all things, if the experience of them is not given to you to know by the lights of natural philosophy, and not by sophistry; take care, therefore, not to decline certain and vain fantastic presumptions which arise in the heads of those who by heterogeneous reasoning do violence to nature,

Train yourself, therefore, in this practice by experience, and with a sufficient theory, the lights of reason will reveal to you all the truths that you seek.

Apply yourself therefore seriously with a solid and deep intention, to the study and the reading of the ancient Philosophers, because their theories will give you beautiful lights, and will form you an admirable way of operating which will be very useful to you, when you will be in practice, to make yourself seen and known the paths which you must follow, and which it will be convenient for you to follow in order to attain the desired goal.

But I warn you that you be careful not to follow the literal meaning of their secrets, especially as it is not the one to be kept, if you do not want to wander heavily and waste your time and your troubles.

This great father of doctrine Raymond Lully, gives you this salutary advice when he says, and so must say allegorically, that the great dragon is of the four elements, but not in the literal sense as it is written, so do not take for real subjects, the things you find in their writings in vulgar terms throughout the work, although the subjects are very common; but penetrate their enigmatic senses, and take the thing which will be designated by their words and innuendos, provided it is suitable for what you desire, which you will know clearly, if you seek curiously to know the nature and origins of things indicated under their allegorical meanings and their paradox, do not therefore stop at the shadows that envelop the truth,

CHAPTER TWO

In this little abbreviation of the matter of stone and fire of the Philosophers, which in the abbreviation includes all that is contained in the books of the sages, who have composed countless volumes of it, although they are a little obscure, it there is no disguise, nothing is hidden or composed there, everything is there in a perfect, pure truth, and in the right sequence of the works of nature according to what she operates in the generation and production of this Divine matter, and in the clearest, most significant, most natural, most proclaimed terms, and most suitable for the thing that can be used to explain this matter without naming it by its vulgar name, and the knowledge of fire is manifest by that of matter, the occult of one being discovered by the manifesto of the other.

If you can remove this little curtain, which is nothing but fine gauze, and the most transparent which the Philosophers have ever used to bend this rich material, and hide it from the unworthy and the ignorant; you will be able to pray, praise and thank the sovereign goodness of God, for having opened your ears and opened your eyes to hear and know the truth, and to receive its lights which it refuses to so many people brought up by fortune, who make an open profession of sacrificing their lives, in search of those favors from which they are refused by this Divine wisdom, especially since this little veil thinner than the canvas of Penelope being penetrated by the lights of the understanding, all the ways in open at the same time and all the secrets of the admirable nature discovered, without any cloud and any reserve,

But to give a little more clarification of everything above, it should be noted that physics is not a small science, nor a small work than that of its work, however many undertake it badly, without taking the trouble to know the main thing about it , and that is why it is so despised, and although it is very true that almost everyone believes it to be false, because all its operators, after having searched well, find only their ruin, the reason for this is that they have not like nature to its center, and that most are in this false belief that only gold is needed, and the common Mercury, to make this rich and sought-after medicine, others think that it is necessary that the salts, and other things which nature has already specified, each to be what it is.

What makes so many men deceive themselves in this conquest, not knowing the only matter that causes all the wonders, which are done by means of this Divine work, and instead of making an exact search of it, enjoy working on recipes, which various charlatans give them without wanting to take the trouble to read the real authors, who treat them candidly, and without envy, but in truth always a little obscurely, to prevent the bad guys from knowing them.

Out of pity for so much suffering and so many men who waste their time and their goods after it, I have resolved to give some explanations on this subject, in order by them to try to prevent all the losses and the ruin of several who attach themselves inappropriately to this magisterium.

I therefore say that he who shall be called to this magisterium by a secret justice in search of the secrets of nature, must first address himself to the Almighty and beg him earnestly to direct by holy grace his spirit and his understanding, so that he never strays from the straight path, which he must hold on to and wishes his servants to hold on to, humbly asking him for forgiveness for all his faults, be in a strong resolution never to fall back into it, and n to have a stronger passion if it is from God blessed to achieve his designs, than to employ the greater part of his work for the glory and the relief of the poor, widows and orphans.

After that he must have a strong application to study the Philosophers, and go over their sayings several times in his memory, always considering the places where the Philosophers agree in agreeing with each other, where they agree with nature and reason, to weigh and mature all their speeches, and to reflect why and to what end they say the things they say, which often seem unnecessary to be said in the speeches they make on this work, read and reread the same thing several times and thus consider what nature is, because in it all things are contained, but few men can penetrate to this place, because all believe they know it well, and this is what deceives them and what prevents them from deepening to the full knowledge of this science, which is the highest and most true in the world,so I resolved to say something to give some light to the studious of this art.

CHAPTER THREE

I warn you in the first place that the material which the Philosophers use for their work is a unique, simple, common material, which is found everywhere, which the poor can have as well as the rich, and although the Philosophers give it various names , she has only one of her own, but possesses all the others in power, so long only do they say that she is one, two, three, four. They tell the truth because she is male and female, she has Sulfur, Mercury, Salt in her, Fire, Air, Water and Earth, but everything is also only in potency, except for two, which are Sulfur and Mercury, that is to say Fire and Water, which two are also one and the same thing and one and the same matter, because they are so closely united, that they cannot flee one without the other,

I also tell you that it is necessary to extract this matter from 126 perfect Venuses 256 228, which is very true, but in this passage, if you do not have good eyes, you will not see a drop, since the Philosophers name Aquarius Mars 85 Gemini 256 226 pure and clean which nevertheless does not fail to have some heterogeneity in them, nor so abundantly as the others, but nature, their mother, by ordinary circulations being a little helped by art, the hunting of this Mercury, which she gives pure and clean to the philosopher, to be able to operate there as her mother shows her by her admirable operations.

Many imagine that the first matter of the Philosophers is nothing other than the four elements, from which they say, Mercury must be made, and for this purpose they undertake several works on the common metals from which they claim to derive it, and then join them together, and say that this conjunction makes itself their Mercury, and then they operate on it, and after a long time they find that they have lost with their troubles and their money, because that they find nothing of what they claim, they draw (they say) the first by a moderate fire this air. This air is a clear and lucid vapour, afterwards they draw the water by a stronger fire, and by a fire of the third degree they claim to have drawn the fire, having brought out of these imperfect bodies, a certain red water,

I know very well that from the four elements all things have been produced, but it is mediately, and not immediately, especially since their four elements, in order to be the matter that the Philosophers demand, must all be enclosed in a second matter, which afterwards is nearer to production, as Trevisan teaches us very skilfully in his Traite des Métaux, when he compares the formation of man, and do not claim that by your labors and by your art, you can separate, then rejoin the elements, that belongs only to nature alone, as the learned Trevisan has already demonstrated to you above.

Moreover, all the authors forbid you to use common metals for their work, not intending that one should use them for the procedure of this one, which are, as I told you, spiritual and potentially not in deed metals, and in this confirmed in what I have told you above, to pray well to God and to study the authors who all speak the truth and are all in agreement with each other with nature and reason, and so doing you will not waste time or your goods unnecessarily.

I am going to vulgarly reveal to you a secret that no philosopher has ever wanted to say clearly, what I had great difficulty in bringing myself to resolve, what I do to put the errant back on the right path, that is that when the philosopher extracts Mercury from his body, to make in this measure extraction under the male and the female, the four elements, the three principles being together in this one, operating even the extraction by a magnetic attraction which is between them, nature their mother, gives them all this intimacy, to bring them together, without which there would be no production.

This Mercury of the Philosophers therefore has in itself everything it needs for the perfection of the work, it is only a question of knowing how to extract it, and then lead it through a philosophical work, which is none other something to put in a hermetically sealed vessel, as I will explain to you below.

I mean so lucid, so beautiful, so admirable and the colors so vivid, that it is impossible to see so many of them. beautiful in the world, after appear the tails of the birds, which pull the light chariot of the beautiful Juno, it is marvelous to see, and these appearances are quite long and last about thirty-five to forty days, among which colors you see interlacings, flowers, diamonds, and other precious stones, among and especially at the top of the globe of your ship, a crown of pearls finer than those that the east and the west have ever given, the milky way appears as beautiful as it is not in the sky, after which the beautiful luciferous star is seen there, who leads the soon-to-be-finished dawn of the beautiful Diana his mistress, who rests thirty good days and nights in this beautiful and ornate palace,

So everything is done for this first operation, which when completed, as I have just said, Trevisan calls it a fountain, where the king bathes, and all this operation is done by itself, without touching nature with its hands. helped by art, does it all alone without any other help than what I have told you, and this helping art, is nothing else than a soft external fire and approaching as much as possible to the natural , which excites the nature which is enclosed in our Mercury, to do all that I have just said.

This fountain is the first work of the adept, and those which are before in Raymond Lully and the other Philosophers speaking, belong only to nature, which works with all its power with their instruments, which are the four elements and the three principles, and of all together, there is made a confused matter from which in the end it draws our Mercury, which is our nearest matter, to make the said fountain.

After this follows a second work in which the king must be placed in this fountain of which we have just spoken, so that he bathes there, drowns there, dies there, and rises there again, taking a nobler life than he had before. The sages call this second operation junction, marriage, mixtion, nuptials, and other various names, which mean the same thing, it is in this operation that the artist or philosopher join Gabertin with his sister Beya, as Arisleus says in the Peat, which only denote the Sun and Mercury, which they marry together, putting them in a philosophical vessel, where they are the space of nine and a half months, before they are well united and become one and the same body.

and now the Mercury is in the womb of the Sun, which they call the son, so they do not now that a body, a soul, and a spirit, and are at this moment inseparable, and this is still what they mean when they say to revive the dead and kill the living, for the Sun which is without enigma the vulgar, was dead and alive Mercury, now the Sun is alive and dead Mercury no longer appearing, you will find this well explained in the Philalete.and are at this moment inseparable, and this is still what they mean when they say to revive the dead and kill the living, for the Sun, which is without enigma the vulgar, was dead and the Mercury alive, now. the Sun is living and the dead Mercury no longer appearing, you will find this well explained in the Philalete.and are at this moment inseparable, and this is still what they mean when they say to revive the dead and kill the living, for the Sun, which is without enigma the vulgar, was dead and the Mercury alive, now. the Sun is living and the dead Mercury no longer appearing, you will find this well explained in the Philalete.

After this operation, there is a third, called inceration, which lasts five months and a few days. To begin it you will take your vessel, break it, and draw out the Sulfur which is in it, of which you will take a part, of which you will project on molten gold in a crucible which will be in beautiful fusion, and you will take care let the flames devour your Sulfur which apprehends them still somewhat, give it time to do the operation on the said molten gold, and after it is ingot, and you will find your gold brittle as glass, grind it very small, and take from it with your philosophical Mercury, which you will join with the rest of your Sulphur, and put in a vessel as before, on the same fire and in the time that I have marked for you above,

From these elixirs you will make projection on its nearest, which it will reduce everything to powder, from which you will project on the imperfect metals, and it will transmute them into very fine gold, better than that which comes from the mines.

I do not give you the weights which must be observed in all your work, if you have an ingenious mind and you are chosen by God to possess this Divine work, you will find it in the books of the wise, to speak it does not m It is not permitted to say everything, lest the wicked abuse it.

For the projection weight for transmutation, it depends on the virtue and strength of your elixir.

As for the fires, I know people who want to pass for accustomed to explaining the Philosophers, who say that there is no need for any other fire than that of nature, they are wrong, because the Philosophers speak here truly of a fire of nature , but they also want it to be aided by an external and airy fire, which must be governed like the natural, that is to say, it must be soft, vaporous and airy, Arthephius and many others show you very clearly that it is not difficult to find when one has knowledge of the Mercury of the Philosophers.

About the ovens, I told you something about it, and you will find it explained very well in Flamel, and Basile Valentin tells you that if you have flour, you will very easily find an oven to make your bread.

Do not believe I beg you, without the assistance of the good God who enlightens your understanding, if you do not pray, and read the Philosophers, hear me easily, although I protest to you, that I told you ingenuously the truth of the curious Ambages, but I warn you, as the good Trevisan says, that sapience never enters into a man of bad will, and that no help is given to him, so if you are a traitor to God and to your neighbour, you would not be able to propose and succeed, and I will tell you again that if you have any other feelings than those which are pleasing to our Savior Jesus Christ, you will never know this Divine secret, and if you do not assist with all your heart your neighbor in his necessities, especially since God gives only to those who are willing to do good and not to the wicked,and for this purpose if you ever receive this grace from heaven, that of being one day the possessor of a very great treasure, remember the poor, even before having been favored by it, to try to obtain it and to deserve it, from the hands of the Almighty.

I do not want to omit among several marvels which come from and can be practiced by this Divine stone, to say, what is reported by Jean Poissonnier, goldsmith and bourgeois of Vienna in Austria, tasting the use and the practice of this one for the health, which after having it fortunately, with his associate completed, they made Latin verses of it, here is what he says about it.

In the use of this medicine for health, several great Philosophers after having obtained this blessing, desiring to have perfect health, some have not dared to take more than a quarter of a grain, others more, Others less so, but all of them killed themselves. The secret of using it is not small in medicine, although many imagine that if they had the stone, they would cure all kinds of diseases, which few knew.

There is only one secret way to use it, and that is to take forty grains of it and dissolve it in a pint of white wine, and no other, which will turn red like the same medicine, and it will not common white wine, and no other, must be all in the same glass vase, and let the whole sit for four days and nights, for as it is an oily substance, it does not dissolve easily or quickly in wine. This done add another pint of wine, and so always by degrees, until the wine no longer becomes red, which is the greatest red in the world, still covering the vessel for fear of dust, continue to put in it wine, until it becomes yellowish in color, shiny, and stir occasionally with a sharp wooden stick,and know that this way of making this drinkable gold, is a very big secret, because that a person sick of any disease whatever, takes a spoonful of it every morning, he will recover without purging or vomiting, that if the disease is inveterate, it will take twelve days to heal. It is necessary to use it for all evils, both external and internal, but for external ones, such as ulcers, ringworm, galls, fistulas, and all the others, the evil must be rubbed with the stone itself, which is an undissolved oil , for seven days and nights, whatever the evils are of whatever nature, they will be infallibly cured, and whoever carries the stone on himself, the evil one cannot remain close to him, because it is an incorruptible quintessence, where all the elements are proportional,

This stone has all the qualities to give perfect health and vigor, until it pleases God to recall the soul of the Philosopher, gives perfect knowledge of things if one knows how to use it. , finally all its virtues cannot be known, especially since they are like Divine, this last quality has been known to few people. The white medicine is used only for lunar diseases, such as mania, epilepsy, rage, paralysis, and the like which afflicts the brain, and where it is used in the same way as this which was said above of the red with wine.

Besides above the use for health, it will also be to make all precious stones, and to dye all bodies, to convert all metals into current Mercury, and to make good company, like seeing several manual and marvelous operations, at the beyond all human belief, if we have not seen it.