PHILOSOPHICAL DISCOURSE ON the three Principles, Animal Plant & Mineral.

CLAUDE CHEVALIER

Or The continuation of the Key which opens the doors of the Philosophical Sanctuary

FIRST VOLUME

I will open my mouth, and I will say by parables, the Mysteries of the World. May the Heavens send down the dew, may the clouds drop the rain, may the earth open up, Cover itself with greenery, & manifest the omnipotence & wonders of the Creator of the universe. Psalm 78 & Mat 13 These words of the Prophet King contain great mysteries, which is why they must be meditated on carefully.

FIRST CHAPTER.

Mysteries drawn from the three Kingdoms Plant Animal & Mineral.

We are dealing here with the arcane trine; namely, vegetable, animal & mineral, which three are one & are converted into one: whoever takes one will also take the other; because these three kingdoms convert between them & serve each other reciprocally, from there one can prove that the philosophical Tincture or the elixir is true and possible.

Spagyric alchemy is the separation of the pure from the impure, which is the juice of physical & mineral salt and not of the common: alchemy is the salt called chamus of which the king of Egypt was the he inventor Note: Hermès flourished in the year 2434 The nutritive faculty is the alchemist of all bodies.

All natural and artificial operations are nothing but the coction and separation of all that is pure from the impure.

Every animal of its own nature is an alchemist.

The natural & artificial coction, that is to say the alchemy consists of seven operations, namely calcination, putrefaction, solution, distillation, sublimation, conjunction, fixation.

Calcination is a reduction to lime: lime is ash, ash is a body around which the fire has acted totally.

In the ashes there is something admirable hidden; its substance is earthly and igneous.

The terrestrial substance by a very strong fire is reduced to glass, after the separation made from its igneous substance which is natural to it; & then it becomes infertile: those who know how to fix the aerial substance with this same igneous substance, so that it is permanent there, will believe that it is easy to liquefy, separated from its earth, is the true foundation of generation.

Calcination is the beginning of all the art, provided it is not pushed to the point of vitrification; it does not extinguish the generative & productive virtue which is in the center of whatever is mixed hidden & occult, provided that the salt remains in their ashes in its entirety & not altered.

What made the Philosophers say that the Philosopher's Stone is everywhere, none can live without it; & that the fire itself is the principal part of the stone itself: this is why the stone must be made with much artifice of the stone itself; for the stone, begun by Nature itself, bears abundantly in its bosom this creative fire of its own mother, and older by several centuries. For the mother was produced at the beginning of this invisible spirit, which insinuating itself into the earth of simple minerals, takes the body of the earth itself and clothes itself with it; & by distillation it is separated from it in a species of white smoke, which being separated little by little from its earth, & closed exactly in a glass vessel which receives it, & retained by the water in the pores, is converted into ponderous water until it falls again into the purified earth, & until it is fixed with it by a continual coction, & until it makes the earth noble by its abundant affluence, & changes it into the earth of an astral substance. As is clearly seen, the spirit itself produces the earth, in which it began its mineral operations; and the chemists taking the earth itself, they draw this spirit from it;

thus they produce it from this land; what made the Philosophers say; My mother engendered me, and I, I engendered my mother, although I am her child; because truly the earth never engendered this spirit, but in the contrary; because this spirit comes from God alone who created it; and he then produces all things of himself by means of the elements.

But yet this spirit being brought to light by the Artist, with the force of our elemental fire & by means of the vessels proper for this use, we call it production rather than generation. Note. Where Sendivogius says that the living mercury is older than the mother, i.e. the Stone of the Philosophers. We must understand by this word senior that he is weaker and not older; for he is weaker in his strength than his mother who is strength itself, &.

Thus all mixed seniora sunt, that is to say, are weaker than their mother ; that is to say, this vivifying spirit, which before it is made stone is rightly called stone, since the mineral earth, even impregnated with this spirit, shows in its exterior the form of stone; because the stone even when it is cooked (being of its very raw nature) by the dry spirit, it is made more fruitful, & becomes younger & stronger; & so young that all things of its kind are older & weaker than it, the abundance of this spirit causing youth, & the lack of this spirit causing old age & the weakness that is not found in it.

Note. The duration of life depends on the assembly of this spirit more or less abundant. All metals & stones are long lasting for this same reason, & animals not, because this spirit finds itself embarrassed in the humid volatile radical.

From superfluous moisture comes old age & eventually the death of the living; for old age is a diminution of that celestial spirit which makes us live.

Youth is the abundance of this same spirit: he therefore who by art & by a study so useful to humanity can retain this spirit in the mixture from the beginning of its abundance & bind it strongly to it, then this mixture worked by a skilful hand will make it durable, and will keep for a very long time. Nature itself always tends to perpetuate itself and to make itself durable. Note. In the ashes is hidden the support of life & the vivifying fire that animates us. We do that to fatten the land & make it fertile, there is nothing better than ashes.

It is certain that in the ashes there is more spirit of life than in all other things; I say fixed, because that which is volatile & dispersed in the air is not proper to life, if it is not fixed, & it is fixed when it is drawn from a fixed subject of a magnetic way, & that it is fixed with icelui; & thus one perpetuates the being in the mixed ones.

Note. of the air itself, of which one does not yet know the astonishing things that one can operate pure its means which offers to my eyes a delightful spectacle.

The cedar, the pine, the oak & other similar trees last a very long time, because they have this earthly spirit very abundant & very strong.

The melancholics live longer than others by the strong bond of this spirit free from excrement, the strength of this bond comes from its fixation, and the fixation is stronger in the dry than in the humid.

The spirit of life serves for life & riches; & you have it in things calcined & perfectly cooked & pure; but from these we must also draw the purer & joining it to the fixed & volatile, so that they coagulate together & engender a spirit & an astral body to make mainly the mixtures....

In calcined things is hidden this pure fire of the 'quartenary; that is, the sperm of the four perfectly directed Elements which is the true medicine of generation & renewal; it is nevertheless fixed & coagulated, & if it is not dissolved by a similar volatile & dissolved spirit, it is almost of no use, because it cannot be reduced to action, if it is not is previously reduced to water by a similar and homogeneous volatile spirit.

WE calcine the mixed in general, fixed is separated from what is fixed; we conceive this volatile & purify it, the fixed likewise, & being pure & attenuated we conjoin them together, so that the fixed is dissolved by the soluble, & the soluble is fixed & coagulated by the fixed, that thus it has the virtue to act powerfully, the quantity of the spirit being increased which is the only virtue of acting, for example, from whatever is calcined mixed among the vegetables, draw the pure salt stripped of all earthiness by several lotions, filter it & evaporate it according to the art, until on a very light fire it liquefies like wax; so that it be cast on the earth by day just as one does other seeds,

world which resides in the air, in the earth & in the waters for the generation of all things, it immediately putrefies, it germinates & produces offspring, & the mixture similar to that from which the said salt was drawn. In this way you will be able to restore all the mixed ones & cure them of all their illnesses; for the sperm of the Elements, determined & specified in a certain way that I know, & made astral, ordinarily does all these things. All these Arcana can be done according to the particular process that, sai, which greatly shortens the operation, & by its means oh obtains more surely & with much more ease the pure substance of the pure & very pure quaternary.

When we have once obtained this fifth pure substance, perfectly digested, well united to its homogeneous and coagulated parts, then nature will soon be ready and able to do admirable things from which we can derive the greatest advantages. ...

CHAPTER II.

Of the calcination of plants.

ALL the sublunary things that make the sky mad are included in the ternary number which composes three kingdoms; knowledge, Animal, Vegetable & Mineral. What strength & virtue is not found in the number three, what hidden & mysterious things are contained in this number?

is it the fountain of all the virtues of numbers? that if there were no virtue in this number, why do almost all essential things end with this number, both those which are in heaven and those which are on earth, and certainly it is not without subject; because this one makes & fills all the other numbers, it is composed of one & two.

The first is the principle of numbers, and this is its germ. This is why all things in the universe culminate in & are comprised in this one; which I will not deduce more particularly, since it is known to several people, I will only say that one must believe & know that it is this adorable number in the three divine persons of the Most Holy Trinity, that this, it would be in God, & in fact it is easy to notice that God illustrated all the creatures of this number, & it seems that he printed with his sacred finger this character on all; so that nothing is seen in all this universe which is not marked with the number ide three, this is why one can say that this divine number teaches to believe in the Creator, & is given to us as an assured pledge & eternal, & a kind of alliance of the Creator with creatures which remains indissolubly diffused by all the substance of things.

The calcination of this chapter is not only a reduction in lime; but a separation from our volatile spirit, & permanent which is the same that is in the ashes, which being stripped of all earthiness according to art duly washed & evaporated & rectified by the pure volatile, & delivered from all foreign moisture, & joined & united to it, is reduced to a very powerful act; so that its true calcination is a coagulation & fixation of the volatile spirit & purified fixed point with the equally purified fixed, & a perfect union of these two spirits together: this calcination is the treasure of all the art & with it works miracles and wonders in chemistry....

This calcination must be done with a lot of industry and care. If these are fresh and recent vegetables, full of alimentary juice, they must be pounded and placed in a suitable well-stoppered vessel; they get wet with their own juice & don't confit, & we give them a light & humid heat, so that they putrefy & ferment.

From this putrefied and digested matter, one draws at a very mild heat the igneous aerial spirit, so called because of the subtlety of the substance (true way of making the stone of the Philosophers), then by giving a stronger fire , the aqueous humor which is of no value, rises, then finally giving an even stronger fire, it rises a certain oil which must be rectified & very well purified

Finally the remaining earth must be deanimated of all spirit, & by a very violent fire it must be separated from all excrement, so that it is very pure, & that it flows like wax on a very slow heat, coagulating in the cold, then this igneous aerial spirit, & terrestrial igneous, it must be joined together with its earth, being pure, one & the other to a certain weight & measure, so that by corporifying oneself with this precious earth , these two spirits are cooked together slowly by a gentle and continual fire which is always equal.

It is then necessary to dissolve again the earth with these same spirits so that it has a greater virtue, it is then necessary to coagulate it again, so that these spirits are corporified & are permanent in the fire: then this earth will be even purer, will dissolve & will flow like wax at the slightest heat, & will coagulate in the air & in the cold, & its virtue will always increase when it is dissolved by these spirits, & which she will again coagulate; for virtue depends "totally on coagulation; for spirits are the foundation of all actions, when they are fixed they are permanent in acting; for action is of things present and not of things distant.

there the real way, the most real and the very real, of the smallest expense, very subtle and very laborious, which the Philosophers use to calcine all things, and by calcining them they give them an astral virtue and make them act powerfully and in an admirable manner.

Calcination, therefore, is of two kinds; for when the earth is completely stripped of volatile spirits, and during this time it is purged of all its faeces, then this is called calcination....

When the earth is dissolved by its volatile and fixed spirits, & that after it is frozen & cooked, this is also called calcining.

But this last calcination is more powerful than the previous one, since in this calcination all the spirits are fixed, & in the other they fly away & separate; so that the earth in the last calcination receives life, & in the first death; this same calcination can be done with violent fire by a very prudent artist.

If, however, the vegetables are recent, succulent, by pounding them without puttingrefying them , and putting them in the athanor and in a well-struggled glass curcurbite , we give it a very strong fire, so that all their liquor with all the spirits pass into the container, the joints of which must be well fought, the earth is at the bottom of the retort reduced to ashes or lime, from which ashes or lime one draws this salt flowing like wax & one joins them with one's spirits volatile, which must be artistically extracted from all the liquor of the container, & fix this pure earth as above, otherwise it would be of no use, & would have no virtue for the restoration of the plants, from which they were drawn; because for that they need only calcination; & cannot be calcined until they are fixed, therefore all their perfection consists in perfect fixing & coagulation, which is also called calcination.

Let us now say the mystery of a beautiful flower with which the ladies adorn themselves without knowing its properties, when it has been drawn from this charming flower, as has been said above. It dissolves all the hot affections of the head, it makes you sleep peacefully, comforts nature, good against mania: licantrophy, (it is a kind of melancholy) & therefore surpasses all the other arcana, with the exception of the arcana of real silver or philosophical gold which is known to me.

It also heals all external ailments, such as ulcers, wounds & wounds of any nature whatsoever by applying it above.

By means of this same mystery, one can have fresh and beautiful new flowers every month, because the plant does not strip its leaves in any season, which is a beautiful secret, and being almost dead, it brings them back. & vegetate promptly if watered with water or plant spirit on the root side, I know several other mysteries, they are so powerful, that they can perpetuate the life of man & would perhaps make it too long (any unforeseen accident apart from being murdered & poisoned by a violent poison when one would not have the counter-poison on the spot to guarantee itself, which often happens), without the decree of God who gave us limits that we cannot pass without it. permission.

Note. Those who want to live long in health must feed on fixed spirits, as we have taught, from good foods; if they want to be cured first of all illnesses, let them also use them; for we are healed by the same things that nourish us; life sustains & maintains life & preserves it for many years. Life & health are almost the same thing according to Hypocrates.

CHAPTER III.

Of the Calcination of Animals.

It is very difficult to be able to calcine animals, because they are like plants composed of the same elements and the same matter. ... The matter of the forms is the only subject of our calcination & not of the form.

Hypocrates, in the book of the diet, affirms that all animals, & even man & all other mixtures are composed of fire & water, which two contrary elements mingle together by a means that Hypocrates has hidden. This fire & this water of which man is composed, simply; but a certain one thing in which fire & water have an excellent virtue, which causes this one & only thing to be called fire & water, & this thing alone is the radical humidity with its natural heat, which is the last price of all foods, in which consists only the force of the sperm which is immediately drawn from them, this is why it is called sperm & semen, & to speak more clearly of this sperm, all forms can be drawn by virtue external agents

This only matter or spirit of the world is believed, & to have it pure it is necessary to make use of our calcination; for nature by her force preserves it; but she does cannot free her from excrement, that belongs to art, and not to nature . Art makes use of our calcination & is done more conveniently than any other operation whatsoever, for there are several & all tend to this.

From the blood of the bodies of animals, a sufficient quantity is drawn from one or more bodies; but who are of an equally healthy temperament.... then this blood being drawn & coagulated by the faculty of the outside air, it must be left to dry for some time in the shade, so that the superfluous & watery humidity can be exhaled little by little, which is called first calcination,

Then you will put this material well pulverized in a vessel of distilling glass, that is to say, in a glass still with its capital, fighting the joints well, push this material to a very light ash fire, it will seem first in the form of milk; in the second place , a crystalline salt melting like wax, very volatile, will rise alongside the still, which must be separated and carefully kept apart, so that it does not get lost.

Finally, he rises a very red oil which must be received in a container & first increase the fire as much as possible, so that all the oil can rise; with respect to what remains in the bottom of the still, it it must be calcined until it is reduced to white ashes, then the glass still must be broken; but as this alembic cannot withstand a fire so violent as this calcination requires, for that I advise that as soon as the oil is all mounted, that we remove the black ashes remaining in the alembic and put them in a very strong earthen crucible, & put it for seven days in the glass furnace or other similar, until the ashes have acquired a perfect whiteness.

This calcination is the second; but it is not yet true calcination, like ours, which is the last; because to reach the true calcination, it is necessary to draw the pure salt, crystalline fondant with a good smell from these ashes calcined to the white above, to dissolve it, to filter it, to evaporate it & to dry it according to the art, which operations it is necessary to reiterate so many times & until the salt has acquired this great purity.

This precious salt is the treasure of animal nature, it is a real and very great remedy when one knows how to prepare it; then it is necessary to purify this volatile & crystalline salt well by sublimating it five times, & each time we will change the lower vessel, where it must be cleaned well before putting the sublimated salt there to resublimate it at a very slow fire & raise it to the upper ship until that it has acquired a very great purity.

It is also necessary to purify the red oil, distilling it again several times, until it is brilliant & clear as a ruby; & that done, put the whole thing on a very soft & continual fire, so that the fire by its continual & long action can fix all three together; so that they no longer form a single body which flows & liquefies in the fire like wax without smoking; (This coction must be done in a hermetically sealed glass vessel according to art.)

Then, as experience testifies, our last animal calcination is accomplished, that is to say, the physical coction of the radical wet animal, which is the last & most essential; for in this consists life & true health, & the healing of all diseases that attack the bodies of all animal nature, & it is the very subtle foundation of life.

In the arcane of blood we find health, and the cure of leprosy or ladrerie; the ancient scholars of Egypt ordered blood baths which was the arcane of blood itself.

Note.The character of the arcane of human blood- among the Egyptians was a sepent that devoured its tail. In the right hand of Saturn this serpent was double, one was winged & the other was wingless, which embraced each other, continuous duration.

The serpent comes out of the earth & lives from the earth & this vivifying spirit is drawn from the earth of whatever mixture it may be, & from its earth also from which it comes out, & from which it is nourished, as it appears by the preceding arcane which makes rejuvenate, in the same way does the spirit of the world, when spring returns. ; The snake is of various colors, mainly green; thus the spirit of the world is of all colors; it is, however, adorned with the color green, being proper and natural to it, and the spirit is life itself and health: the spirit in the aforesaid mystery devours its moisture, like the serpent its tail.

Note. The radical humid is the continual duration of the body, i.e., the fixed spirit, when this moisture of the body was made, the body was made durable, & a very great mystery of the life. Raw flesh; of the snake, without any preparation, is deleterium, that is to say, a deadly poison; but being prepared in a certain way, it is a good remedy for many diseases. . In the arcane we join the volatile spirit to the fixed spirit, so that it becomes a single perpetual and celestial body. The animal, vegetable & mineral mysteries are in the same way & are converted between them but we will speak about this conversion below.

CHAPTER IV.

designated by different names, sometimes they called it alcoholization sometimes trituration; but they do not mean anything other than calcination. Fire is the true mortar of the Philosophers.

Note. The extraction of mercury is hidden in the calcination, it contains all the art, this is why the Philosophers have hidden it in various ways. The character of the calcination differs from that of the mercury of an O, which being put between the lower cross, & the semi-circle of the character of the calcination forms that of the mercury ♀ ☿ By circulating therefore the imperfect becomes perfect, which is the mercury that is hidden in calcination ☿ or lime ♀ All minerals are calcined, so that their moist volatile radical is separated from the fixed one to which is attached as food, & so that one & the other. being separated are purged of all their superfluous impurities, to conjoin them again together being well purged & perfectly pure, & make of them only one fixed body.

But it is necessary to choose the minerals which have their fixed and their volatile in their own bosom; for all do not have it, or if they have them, they do not have them both together, and have one or the other separately; & if they are ever found separated, they cannot be separated without corruption, which requires a profound & learned man,

Note. With the minerals mentioned above, one cannot make the stone of the Philosophers. In the metals one finds there only the land of the Philosophers; but not mercury. The fulminating powder of gold is admirable, it surpasses vulgar gold in virtue. The seed of gold in its fusion flies away, the molten metals are dead, who is the one who will seek the seed in a corpse?

The seed of gold is taken from something other than gold; for it would be useless labor and immense expense. Nature has prepared for us a precious body that we can however have at a low price, it contains the soul & the spirit to vivify the body with gold & silver, by a light coction & the admirable art one makes of it the stone of the Philosophers, by preparing the sulfur of the Philosophers, which is called soul, spirit & body, with which one immediately prepares the admirable arcane of the powder of projection for the transmutation of imperfect metals, into real gold & silver, fine to all tests.

Note. The bodies of the perfect metals are only the matrices in which this seed must be cooked & determined. But all those who attempt to draw the tincture from these metals labor in vain, & with all their operations will never draw from the perfect bodies that body which is called sulphur, soul & spirit; but they only work to achieve, immediately upon dyeing, & in this way they deceive themselves by deceiving others.

Others draw a salt from metals which they say are fusible, of a very powerful virtue and capable of transmuting imperfect metals; but this salt, being deprived of the fixed metallic spirit, has no power for transmutation; because this salt is only a terrestrial part of the earth which must be conjoined & united with the aerial & igneous part of the earth to have a tincture capable of transmutation, & to have a complete work: salt alone drawn from metals, does not is not all that composes it, and is only a part of their composition or of their whole: the metallic salt, moreover, to have drawn metal is not all metallic, but it is augmented with the other salts which they use to draw it.

The true metallic salt must unite with the metal & never separate from it with the intervention of the metallic spirit which unites intimately with the true metallic salt, & expels & drives out the other foreign salts like so much excrement.

If the metals are not calcined by this water called permanent of the metallic spirit which joins it strongly to the salt, we cannot extract from them the true metallic salt, which then being pure can be suitable for transmutation; but what good is all this, you have the same salt in whose body you have drawn this permanent water: it is therefore necessary to work on this matter, & all those who pride themselves on having the true metallic dye are vain & in error if they work without our spirit & our permanent water, I mean in saying that this permanent water & this metallic spirit must be joined with the metallic body, otherwise all would be useless.

Those who work on minerals which are quite volatile will also act without success; because they will never be able to get from here this quicklime, fixed & incombustible, not being there, because they are completely volatile, &... Learn then, you who are the disciples of the art, that all metals & minerals which are composed of a volatile humidity, joined to an impure earth, cannot be calcined by a veritable chemical calcination which is a separation of the volatile moist radical, from the fixed & incombustible radical humidity, which separation cannot take place in the metals and minerals of which we have just spoken, since these two substances joined together are not found in ice, as experience shows us.

It is therefore necessary that these two substances united together be found in the other metals or minerals; but there is a certain mineral among all the others, which particularly has had abundance of these two substances, which makes it called by the Philosophers re bis, bis re, twice one thing, are, two things. It is given several other infinite names among the adepts, it is mainly called the first metallic material of the Philosophers or of the philosopher's stone, the brandy, the poison, the salt of wisdom, the dew, the saltpetre, Roman vitriol, gold, green lion, citrine smoke, soap of the sages, semen of the Philosophers, antimony, red servant, serikon, one thing, the path, vegetable, animal & mineral stone , the sweetness of butter, the tail of the peacock, &... We give an infinity of other names to this mineral to hide it with hay from the ignorant & the unworthy....

Note. This mineral which above all the others abounds in mineral spirit (& which I know perfectly) by my doctrine & my research, the Sophists will not come to know of this precious mineral, & which I will name by its true name in the rest of this book anywhere.

Sapienti fabis - You do it wisely.

I therefore advise children of the art to carry out, while waiting for me to reveal such a great mystery, an exact search for this mineral, and to attempt by experiments to come to a knowledge of these three homogeneous substances. find in this topic alone.

I said above two substances only, because I understood the spirit with the soul, & if I said that there are four of them, I would not lie for that; for there are two substances hidden in the dry and fixed body, namely, the humid radical which flows in water like metal; & the terrestrial dryness, namely, the substance of salt which freezes in the cold, & two others in the volatile humid body.

There is one which contains the spirit which comes out in the distillation in a kind of heavy white smoke, and for this it tends towards the superfluous humidity in the pores, where it insinuates itself and is preserved until by the continual touch of humidity, it passes into humidity, and so it may be preserved for us and for our use.

The other contains the soul which also appears in the distillation in the form of very light white smoke, this is why it does not tend downwards, but well upwards & falls into the container, wetting it everywhere & turning around until it is enclosed in the pores of the spirit, and by a similar way it is reduced to water, which smoke, although white, Morien calls it red, because this smoke reddens the soul. water, & that by a slight coction, with the aid of an aurific earth substance, it is converted into a truly red smoke, that is to say, into a red foliated earth & into coral gold.

There is also in these substances a hidden superfluous excrement, which must be to separate, because it is heterogeneous on account of which it is not included in the number of the aforementioned homogeneous substances, which if you know how to separate them from the body in which they are contained; & being separated & made pure & stripped of all heterogeneous excrement, then fixing them & reducing them in a fixed body, you will then & very certainly obtain all that one can wish for from the mineral kingdom.

I therefore advise you, my dear Readers, to follow this path and not to deviate from it, because I very sincerely desire to oblige those who do in the case of deserving it, it is not permitted to say any further; tearing the veil that covers this great mystery, would make one guilty towards God, which must absolutely be avoided.

Take some of the above-mentioned mineral, put it in a very clean glass vessel, dry it in a very slight heat until all the superfluous moisture is exhaled. I hope that God enlightens you, so that you are able to continue this operation, because it will fulfill your desires. I advise all those who believe that the Stone of the Philosophers can be made with gold, silver, and common mercury, with etchings and metals, and other heterogeneous substances, to change their minds. Let them seek, say our Masters, my mineral body, in it they will find the true water homogeneous with the metals, from which they will draw out the pure metallic center & the gold of the Philosophers & the silver, which bodies do not make fugitives, as the Peat assures; & the same water is the true mercury that Peat calls incorporeal, given that by its rawness it cannot be firm, fixed & permanent in the fire; what seeing by experience, no doubt that mist will fall from the eyes of those who walk in darkness; & if they want to listen to good advice, they will soon hear & understand all the dark Philosophers because all the alchymy is contained in this little body....

The chymic mysteries are hidden in the mercury of the Philosophers; by example, if in the first place in our calcined dissolved, fixed point & raw, purified as much as it can be, we dissolve plants for the use of medicine , the calcined in the moment is fixed from the last calcination , together with the spirits of vegetables which are not fixed; the calcined will have such a great force taken from vegetables that one can still increase it to make remedies which will have a very great virtue.

Having meditated a lot on the three kingdoms, animal, vegetable & mineral, it is not surprising that I have obtained by my work & by my research singular mysteries in all kinds of genres, either for medicine, or for the arts. ;

I dare say, without any presumption, that if scholars even of the first order knew them like me, they would regard these so sublime mysteries as the most extraordinary and even unique things, and of the greatest utility. I will never write a line like this, because the ingratitude and wickedness of certain men have condemned beautiful things to eternal oblivion on my part; as there are children who beat their nurse by sucking their milk, this should serve as an example to those who know them.

I return to my subject by saying that there are very great secrets hidden in the philosophical mercury; & whoever has the good fortune to know them has reason to say: Lord, how great and how admirable are your works!

This is why one can, with philosophical mercury & with admirable artifice , easily increase & multiply the virtues of all plants; so that these same plants from which the spirits are drawn & brought to the arcane by dissolving them & fixing them again, appear dead & ineffective, & one then makes of them a vegetable arcana with the spirits drawn from the salts of the plants; & then it is not our metallic mystery, but that of the plants, provided that you have operated well; so that the spirits of the fixed plants alter the arcane & convert it into its nature & essence.

Just as the plantal & animal arcana, raw & fixed point, is converted into a fixed mineral, provided that the mineral arcana is dissolved & fixed, or coagulated with ice of a firm & fixed coagulation. Witness Raimond Lulle & experience, by mutual love plants make plants, in the living man makes himself the man, & of the man buried in the earth makes himself a plant according to the food he has taken , which the earth sprouts out of man's putrefied flesh, gold has been found in man. And we read in history that a living man had golden teeth, that nature had put in his mouth.

Note. which spirit is divided into three different kingdoms; knowledge, animal, vegetable & mineral, which is what prevents one from having a reciprocal ingredient in the other by corruption, & that it carries with itself its soul, which is the true principle of a transmutation , because the stronger changes , & the weaker is changed.

It should be observed that the food always passes into the nature of the one who eats it, which food, the fixed spirits of the fed convert to its multiplication & in its substance, that is to say, they fix the spirits of the food.

which are not fixed, this is why the arcana being fixed, see that they mingle with our arcane to fix it; they do not convert the arcana into their substance, but on the contrary they convert them into the essence of the arcana, and only serve as food for it, that is very true; but he who has good sense must hear me; because I hear of the spirits, to the virtue of which our arcana is reduced, & we want them to be fixed & made arcana, which arcana to multiply it it is necessary to use the non-fixed spirits dissolved in the minerals, which have a lot of force for that, & which we call arcane mineral....

Note. To prepare duly & properly the aforementioned mysteries, I advise not to use these raw minerals, that is, impure; but spirits that make cooked & sweet & highly purified.

It is true that the coction of these spirits is long & boring to prepare the mysteries of plants & animals, & multiply them by virtue; but according to the ancients who are truthful, it is absolutely necessary to do these mysteries with well-cooked & soft spirits; but to follow a surer way , it is necessary to nourish & multiply each mystery with its similar spirit of its nature & homogeneous; it is thus that one must prepare the mysteries to have the surest effects.

CHAPTER V.

Of putrefaction in general.

Putrefaction, burial, mortification, division of elements is nothing other than the corruption of heterogeneous parts by the help of heat, or a separation of the radical humidity of heterogeneous parts, of the fixed from the radical humidity of what is not fixed, the corruption of heterogeneous parts of this body & mortification by the action of heat, where is the mortification of the parts from which the spirit & the soul are separated by the resolution of the elements; for one cannot separate the raw and infixed spirit from the body, unless the parts are dead and corrupted, like the animal spirit when it separates from the body, the member first dies and is corrupted, and the flesh dead separates from the living.

The parts from which the fixed spirit and the volatile soul are separated, appear dead, and these parts, which being alive, had a brilliant and sparkling color, become black, the spirit enclosed in the body and the soul have nothing. of volatile, when the man is alive; but there is a terrestrial of a certain white slime, which easily prevents the shedding, which though by frequent lotions & calcinations, that is to say, dessications must be separated together with the black & dead parts of this which is brilliant, shining & which flows easily until this earthly fixed, resplendent has reached a very great clarity, which all the Philosophers designate, say that it is necessary to remove the shade of the sun, that is to say, this terrestrial black & this white which is not fusible nor soluble in water.

They said & call shadow all that obscures the splendor of the shining body, that is to say, of the sun & the moon. Hence it comes that the Philosophers have ordained putrefaction as being the principle & the foundation of the work, because by means of this putrefaction, the raw spirit & the volatile soul, that is to say, the uncooked mercury is separated from the crude & earthly parts with the help of fire; without which separation it is impossible to bring the physical stone, i.e., that one employs, & what effort that one makes.

The separation of the elements is the purification of the same & the union is a way to perpetuate them. Thus natural death tends to make us have heavenly bliss.

Just as without this pure mineral salt & stripped of all that is heterogeneous to it, & without its spirit we cannot have such a great mystery; thus we cannot enjoy eternal life and its rest without the Apostles of Jesus Christ, who were called by Jesus Christ himself the salt of his earth, and without their doctrine which emanates from the Holy Spirit himself, by whose help & intercession God lovingly gives to men his eternal rest in heaven.

Consider then with the most serious attention what death procures for man; for through it life becomes happier when here below one has taken care to practice good, and what it causes in dying, that is to say, the universal dissolution of one's body, so that by similarity, you can treat the matter from which you wanted to draw the arcana.

By death all mixtures are dissolved in their elements and not simple principles; but in those of which they were immediately assembled & composed, that is to say, in moist & dry, which moist is composed & the dry also; in the humid is hidden the aerial & igneous element, & in the dry the terrestrial & aqueous, from the union of which results the unity of the mixture: this is manifested in all putrefied things, whose firm & hard substance, according to the nature of the mixture, is converted into a soft, moist, viscous & tenacious, which fading little by little, the viscous humidity & the tenacious humor are reduced to a dry and earthly powder, in which things what is pure is called essence, which has the smell of salt & which is the principle and the element, among the chymists, of which each mixture is composed....

Note. From sinful and criminal man there cannot be born a saint, unless God allows it; if man uses an evil, treacherous & detestable, his actions will always be evil & abominable; but if he uses a holy, good & pious spirit, he will act holy & with piety; & in the terrible & last dissolution of the body in which hour all the vanities of the world, the monarchs & their subjects; & in a word, all things are reduced to their kind & return to their primitive origin, the soul will follow the spirit which it will have used to carry out its works & its actions; if she has had the good fortune to use a holy and celestial spirit, she will go to heaven where all the saints are; & if she used an evil & impious spirit, she will fall into the abyss of hell, opposites; for in heaven there is perpetual light, and in the dreadful abysses there is darkness which will be eternal.

By going to heaven one enjoys there in abundance all sorts of goods which will never end; & those who fall into the abyss of hell which is a place of punishment, will be submerged there eternally in a sea of ​​pains, evils & torments. For the little that we reflect, we will not hesitate to choose the right path.

Raimond Lully assures us that any compound can only be perfected by death; for it is she who separates all that is pure in the nature of the mixtures from all that is impure and heterogeneous; this is why when universal judgment the conflagration of the world will happen, which will be a terrible chemical operation, then nature will become pure by this terrible calcination of which it is not possible to form an idea, without siemir, which will make true death & absolute putrefaction of all nature, in which then what will be perfectly pure will be entirely separated from the impure.

The pure will be joined by divine Providence throughout all eternity, & with an indissoluble bond to its fellow man. & to what will be of its kind; & the impure will be thrown into dreadful abysses of necessity of the divine law which is very just; for God is eternal, immutable & incorruptible; but out of his infinite goodness, wanted that his works finally enjoy some eternity & immutability, & that men confess that they depend forever on the Eternal. That if God suffered for several centuries death & corruption in his works, that is to say, to avenge himself for the sin of our first father Adam, the corypheus & the head of all nature; having finally had compassion on pious and just men, making them all worthy of the infinite triumph of his glory, he will separate all the solemn and general calcination, and the conflagration of all the elements. Then the judgment of universal God to come, will join & unite the pure with that which is pure, that is to say, the soul very pure to a very pure body, from which union there will arise a body which will last eternally & will always be happy, & its joy will have no end. After that God will join the impure with the impure, & it will be an ugly body that will be cruelly agitated & tormented eternally; for God will regard it as the chemists regard the faeces and the marc of their dye.

Alchymy therefore gives knowledge of the true God & of the future life, alchymy contributes to making man pious, holy, learned & rich.

CHAPTER VI.

Of the putrefaction of plants.

Nothing seeks its death, the unnatural heat is outside, death is on the contrary; because it drew heat within through food R excrement induces death.

Natural putrefaction takes place in the open air by the spirits which vanish: these spirits and the soul produce, according to Democritus, atonies which, being invisible, are introduced into all things. But the artificial putrefaction takes place in very neat & clear vessels of Glass, in which there is nothing else to the contrary, with the exception of the excrements by which the spirit & the soul are retained & preserved until death. what they pass into an aqueous substance, which being drawn from plants by a very slight heat, can be brought by various distillations to a very great degree of purity, being separated from all that is contrary to it and heterogeneous.

This purification of the soul & of the spirit is their putrefaction, because the parts from which they are separated are dead, which terrestrial & totally fixed parts contain the substance of salt; this is why it is also necessary to purify them of all foreign bodies, which earthly parts are really dead; thus the death & the sin of the mixtures separate, that is to say, the fire & the water, the fire by calcining them, the water by washing them & dissolving only the parts of the salt, until that the salt be of the utmost purity, clear, brilliant, crystalline,

After this operation this vegetable salt will be capable of embracing the aqueous, aerial & igneous substances of the said vegetable, & of forming a fixed & firm body with these same mortified substances, of which four elements we will speak hereafter when we deal with coagulation & of fixation, & we will teach how to unite & conjoin them together.

This putrefaction, or rather coction which precedes true coagulation, is done by cooking, grinding & watering; we teach here only the calcination, the separation & the ablution, as one sees in the manufacture of wine.

Note. In the first place, we trample the ripe grapes with our feet, and we expresses the juice, which is put in barrels to ferment. By this fermentation the spirit of the wine being made aerial, is different from the humid aqueous, although they are mixed together, and it is called salt of tartar which little by little separates and rushes to the bottom of the barrel in small crystalline & shiny leaves, & resists fermentation. This may be called a chemical putrefaction, & The airy spirit or fiery water is drawn from all vegetables by means of fermentation in glass vessels, until after some time the airy spirit is made of a strong & sweet smell, then in the bath: very warm we separate it, water or phlegm; & lastly the oil that needs to be rectified exactly: remains at the bottom of the still the dead earth without spirit & without soul, that is to say, without the humid aerial & without the humid igneous, from which by means of the aqueous humidity, we must draw the terrestrial humidity, that is to say, the salt which must be well purified; as well as the airy humidity, and the igneous humidity, which three, when they are purified separately or jointly, they suffer putrefaction, that is to say, the bodies in which they are hidden, putrefy in the heterogeneous parts; because as regards the airy, igneous and terrestrial humidity, they cannot be subject to this putrefaction, changed among themselves, and that they are reduced to a single body.

But we shall speak of this putrefaction when we deal with coagulation , where we shall see in what way the air humidity &; igneous, the spirit & the soul will be made humid terrestrial, that is to say, salt, body, earth, mother of all the elements in which all things must take root; so that they return to the place from which they came, but not with the same dress, but with another resplendent ethereal after an exact & perfect purification.

This admirable art first kills all things, which being dead it resurrects in its own way, which work is in truth almost divine; this art is truly divine, sublime, and very excellent: for things which have life to be , by chemical operations, are made perpetual and immutable.

The image of the resurrection is found in chemical operations. The resurrection of things is possible, and I cannot disagree with it, which, however, God commands to believe it as supernatural.

The resurrection of man is supernatural, which can only be known & seen by the eyes of faith, because human nature, that is to say, the form does not depend at all on the element in its production. , but it comes from God alone through creation; this is why when it separates from the elements, to which she has been united by divine infusion, her resignation must necessarily be supernatural; but the form of non-reasonable beings can be preserved, in the mixtures the elements are purified, perfected & vegetated; & this new activity is called new life & physical resurrection.

CHAPTER VII.

Of the Putrefaction of Animals

All animals, except man, come from hyle, that is why they are mutable. Hyle is the subtle of all the confusedly mixed elements, which determines the nature of this world, which is the soul of the elements themselves, and it is called the soul of everyone.

The soul of man is different from hyle, it is unalterable, for what reason it unites with the body, no physical reason can be given; all things proceed from God alone; all things, though contrary, can be united together by God alone.

When God himself became man of his own will & through an excessive love for us; then all things were made one. For Jesus Christ has three natures, divine & human, (by which I mean the soul) & elementary, by which I mean the human body; but taking a divine nature , intellectual soul & body, and these three natures constitute all the worlds, the sub-celestial or sub-lunar, the immortal spirit is created; the super-celestial or ideal, by which we designate God, and this is signified by Plato's sacred triangle, from the center of which all things originate, and to which all things return; this is the portrait and image of the Holy Trinity, since nature is triune and has three numbers.

That of God is composed of three persons, that of man is perfected by three principal powers, such as memory, mind and will; & nature is composed of three principles or natures namely, soul, spirit & body, that is to say, sulfur, mercury & salt, or matter , form & power, as the Peripatetics think; of so that divine Providence has made all things in his likeness; & by his grace, he wanted them all to be composed of the ternary number, & as in God the three persons do not differ essentially, being only one in essence; thus what the chymists call in the nature of the elements, soul. mind & body; these three in the substance of the thing are the same thing, and are subtle bodies, full of excrement, because of which the union of their substances is not perpetual. Excrements alone are the cause of death and putrefaction, which being separated, these three substances being again united and conjoined, are once again one. pure, immortal, incorruptible & unalterable thing. The putrefaction of animals is the same as that of vegetables.

All animals have three substances, the union of these makes their compound; to know , soul , spirit & body which to be separated from excrement , it is absolutely necessary that they be putrefied ; but to be putrefied, it is necessary that they be separated, the union then dissolves, the dissolution is separation by means of fire, and in the same way as one does for vegetables, that is to say , by distillation; thus can the souls of the living be distilled, which I maintain without absurdity, I mean for the soul, the humid igneous radical, and for the spirit the humid aerial radical.

An author says that in them the radical humidity is extremely purified, by the use of which the life of men is greatly fortified & death is averted, all diseases are annihilated; for the mysteries also have their soul by which soul that of man is maintained.

The Trimegist. says that the soul maintains & preserves the soul. All the Philosophers, this aerial & lineaged substance, which is found in this humid radical, are called soul, not because it is soul, but because it is principally drawn from this substance, & that by it it is in force, joyful, this is why all the great Philosophers have called it soul, fire & air, & have called this world, animated world, having seen it full of fire: thus says Hypocrates in his book of principles. . .

The ancients confessed that the rational soul was immortal, and believed that the rational soul came into the body from without. The soul of raw plants & animals is a certain degree of perfection of the radical humidity; & the one who receives it more perfect, has a more perfect soul. The ancients knew God through the rational soul. Plato in Ion íimée always speaks enigmatically of God, of the soul & of the world under figures & mathematical numbers, to interpret, would learn the true theology of the immortality of the soul of Christians; because by triangles & pyramids he describes them.

He explains quite clearly God, the soul & the world & the energy of the world, & the whole is included in the same figure in an energetic way; for he represents all these things with equal lines, which proceed from a single indivisible point, that if these lines turn all around they form a perfect circle which can contain on all sides all figures, which a Christian can easily see in God & in the soul too; for this one is unique in itself & similar to itself on all sides.

It is composed of three growling powers, which emanate from this one substance, as well as the one-pointed lines which form the triangle; for just as the point without these lines cannot form the triangle; thus this same single substance without these three substances could not be called soul; the same thing can be said of the world, being this one composed of three substances, of soul, of spirit, and of body; whence it is evident that God, the soul, and the world are each one in three, as the triangle is one in faith, and yet it is triune; & as all the lines depend on the mathematical point & all the figures also, & as the very circle which is the box of the figures comes from the point, thus from this unique radical substance or mercury which is called by all names, all the forms take their origin.

The whole world itself, which contains all things in its bosom, as being the certain & true circle of all things, has been drawn by the creation of a single substance, & all these things have taken their origin from a single other, indivisible, incorruptible, immortal & totally eternal substance, which is God: thus you have the explanation of the sacred triangle of the ancients.

The riddle of the sages must be explained in the same way; namely, from the point, make the triangle, from the triangle make the square, & from the square make the circle, & you will have the magisterium which the Mathematicians say is impossible to do; but it is very easy to do it spagyrically, as we said above when we taught how to draw three substances from one; to know, soul, spirit & body, & of these three, by purification & sublimation, to make four elements, which we reduce to a single substance, as we will say below.

CHAPTER VIII.

From the putrefaction of minerals

BY the word corruption in minerals, we must understand the separation of accidental forms, and not extinction. Others say that minerals cannot be corrupted because of their dryness natural; for moisture, which is the very agent of corruption, cannot dissolve the dryness of certain minerals, & therefore cannot destroy them as we see in salt which can never be corrupted by water, the same thing must be said of all the atraments, salts, alums, vitriols, &...

For such a corruption of the minerals, we do not mean here that it happens to them from outside by humidity, it is that is to say, by the igneous aqueous substance which has been drawn from them, by means of distillation, which substance corrupts the dryness of the minerals & renders them similar to itself.

Note. other stuff; but exalts and sublimes it.

It is necessary to seek and know what is the substance of all metals, which being unknown, we are ignorant of all the arcana that we are looking for; it does not depend on art, but on nature however by the ministry of art.

The chemists who flatter themselves to be able to make gold & all the precious stones, are in error, unless they laughed for this effect at the processes which are very rare, it is rather the work of nature than that of the ordinary man.

It is however true that the Philosopher can dispose of a certain matter which contains within it the metallic spirit of gold, of which by the operation of nature, he will make of it an arcane with which the material of raw & point-fired metals is first cooked until it. become gold, which is nothing but a substance, metallic, perfectly well cooked by the fire of this same substance in the bowels of the earth, pure & full of a pure metallic spirit.

From there it is obvious & visible how much is necessary the knowledge of the substance of the minerals to carry out the operations well. The substance therefore of all the minerals or the matter from which the minerals are immediately formed in the bowels of the earth, is a certain unctuous, sticky & viscous, non-inflammable substance, composed of the pure subtle spirit of each element, & impregnated with the mineral spirit.

In truth, this unctuous substance of the elements; not only is it the first and mediate matter of all minerals; but it is also that of all animals and plants, it takes its determination from the spirits with which it is impregnated. We see every day that plants make animals, and animal plants, when every day they serve each other as food; in this time the spirits proper to the food dissipate , & only remains this unctuous, viscous & sticky substance, & becomes impregnated with the spirits of the thing which is used to nourish, & becomes matter proper to the thing that is nourished; & thus the matter of the last food is the same as that of which we are made & created, of which we are immediately nourished; & this last food or near matter of which we are nourished is this unctuous sticky & viscous as the experiment shows it to us.

Take recent flesh anointed & rubbed with its own natural temper, without adding any extraneous thing to it, put it in a tightly stoppered glass vessel & plunge it into boiling water, & hold it there for four hours, & thus cook there so that what was hidden & invisible from the last element in the pores of the flesh, is separated by coction.

substance of yellow color, unctuous, sticky & viscous, not inflammable: whoever will make this experiment will know & will admit with me that the first substance is such as we have depicted it. All things are composed of a single thing & are nourished by a single & same matter which composes them. Stones & animals are made of the same matter, being engendered in man himself by the foods of which man feeds & is made.

But how are the animal and vegetable spirits found in man, as animals and minerals are made of the same matter, otherwise they could not be made; that requires a very profound inquisition. Note. Spirits, of all things in general, make incorruptible, & they preserve all species, & make the atoms of Democritus which flutter & fly everywhere & penetrate imperceptible places; & when they find a matter which is not occupied by other spirits stronger than them in action, they occupy it, impregnate it, & by means of a clean & suitable heat of this conjunction is made, an animal or a mineral such as was the spirit that occupied matter.

This can be done not only in man, but also in the upper, middle and lower regions of the air: hence it is that very often the air has fallen on the earth, with rain & dew, because such spirits had ascended there together with a portion of the most subtle of this unctuous matter.

From this one can say the reason if it is true that mares can be impregnated without coitus, because the spirit of the horse can' be carried to the womb of the mare, being attracted by the womb, in this body dirt & visible from the semen of the horse which is thrown out by coitus, &... therefore all things have one & the same original matter; but by the spirits various things are made , and the spirits of the first matter are created various for the various species, and that by the order and the will of God.

The only spirits do various things, the fixed spirits are found in the earth, and the spirits and the atoms are found in the air of the union and conjunction of which a true generation is made.

The generations therefore of all things are made with this first unctuous matter, composed of the four elements. Let us now explain the composition of this unctuous substance, which the Philosophers claim to be made in this way.

The thickness of the four elements rests in the earth; from there the earth becomes thicker. This thickness of the four elements, we call it unctuous, sticky & viscous substance, flammable point, which substance is digested by the central heat of the own substance, it is then elevated through the pores of the earth, by which elevation it is impregnated with particular spirits; so that several different things are done, according to the diversity of the spirits which give them form. Thus, all the minerals when the mineral spirits occupy this unctuous matter are generated, are not made by the approximation of matter; for then they would not make perfect & homogeneous beings; but gathered together & heterogeneous, like a heap of earth & sand.

The spirits of the world act in this matter, just as the animal spirit acts in the seed; therefore on both sides the generation is equal & for that the living cannot engender a mineral, because the mineral is not made with the igneous & aerial spirits; but by the terrestrial & aqueous; thus the life and the soul which Consists only in the igneous and aerial thickness is not suitable for minerals, nor for the metals which make living in mines in potency, not in act, because of the little substance they have of this viscous fire & air, because their substance can be converted into the substance of the living.

We will talk about the extraction of this substance which is done in seven ways:

1°. by calcination: 2. by putrefaction, of which we have already spoken, fixed point which is drawn from calcination by distillation & by a light coction reduced to fixed, unctuous earth, like the invisible spirit, which together with water passes into a kind of smoke & dry exhalation, & is reduced to water & unctuous moist vapour, which is the next matter of metals; for otherwise one cannot use it, if it does not pass into unctuous vapor, and into heavy water, because of its rapidity in exhaling; for she is a wind & is so called by Hermes, Trismegistus, & because one can hardly hold back & coagulate the wind; the wind ceases in the macrocosm when the water falls on the earth; thus our wind ceases & freezes when our water falls on the earth.

The dragon does not die, except with his brother & his sister, that is to say, he does not freeze & does not pass into vapor or mineral water the spirit which is not fixed which is called wind & dragon flying, if not with the humid, fixed, watery & terrestrial spirit , the hot & fiery spirit during all the time they rest on the earth; then nature rejoices with nature, retains it, binds it & surpasses it: without this therefore volatile spirit, which is called wind & flying dragon & without its earth, that is to say, this unctuous matter of which has been drawn by this wind, putrefaction cannot take place, as we have shown above.

to obtain all the mysteries of chemistry, animals, vegetables and minerals, one only needs this unctuous, fixed, permanent, pure substance, which always has with it the pure and fixed spirits whose substance is also pure; & this substance together with this fixed spirit is found in all things in its last purification of things, which substance alone is the one true treasure of the world; & the other volatile substance which is not fixed is the wind of that which is fixed, the correction, the food; hence it is that they are called brothers; they differ however with regard to volatility & fixity.

I will add that in the mysteries we only ask for the materials unctuous, fixed & easy to liquefy, permanent on fire. Therefore our putrefaction is not necessary in the mysteries, being only proper to delay the operation & their increase which is said to be a reiteration of all the arcana with this spirit which is not fixed; (this objection is excellent & fights for Hermes himself, who fixes the marc with only sperm, &c...) To resolve this objection, I will say that putrefaction is necessary in our mysteries for the ingres & for the last purity of the fixed unctuous matter, which conditions could never obtain the fixed unctuous matter, even if it were calcined for a thousand years in succession, dissolved with very clear water, and if it were evaporated, and again dried, it could not be sublimated, and only in sublimation does it acquire this ingredient or this great penetrating force; & this last purification, that the terrestrial parts which are attached to the unctuous matter cannot. rise above.

We only use putrefaction to make the arcana. are made pure & penetrating, so that by means of it, the spirit, which is not fixed, unites abundantly with unctuous, fixed matter, & that this unfixed spirit thus united with abundance removes & takes away with oneself in the air; the other mind fixed, that is to say, the unctuous matter, & that thus the same matter be stripped & perfectly cleansed of all its faeces & impurities, & that it be made penetrating; because it can only obtain these two qualities in this way alone, I say two qualities, because the non-fixed & volatile spirit needs a great and repeated distillation after its putrefaction, to be stripped of all its excrement , & unctuous matter, that is to say, putrefaction & sublimation, because if they are joined together being impure & unwashed, they can never unite because of the excrement which prevents this union; therefore union consists in putrefaction.

Separate therefore the excrements from both, the pure, unctuous, metallic matter, that is to say, the metallic fixed spirit & its wind, that is to say, the non-fixed volatile spirit of the same unctuous substance, before they are conjoined together; they can be stripped & separated from excrement in various ways.

The unctuous & fixed earth by calcining & washing it several times, & the infixed wind or volatile spirit, by distilling it seven times....

Note. Before distilling them, you have to throw it little by little on your earth, & the other spirit that has been drawn from the earth, you have to maintain it on a gentle heat, until it has dissolved. all the earth on which it will have been thrown & let it be made water, & let the spirit of mercury also be made water, it receives the aqueous body when the water in which it is transported, dissolves the unctuous matter, & thus immediately touch each other; they then easily have a mutual ingres, & a slight external heat maintains them, foments them & helps them so that they penetrate each other more & unite to form only one body; because the material, unctuous too thick, from the too thick & from the too subtle, there is made a medium aqueous substance, which by the chemical operations is stripped of all excrement, in order to add again this new very pure aqueous substance, to the unctuous matter, as pure & very -net, so that they engender together a child who is fire & sulfur by nature which is the non-aqueous substance (the mercury of the Philosophers) but terrestrial & igneous, volatile, similar to gold & silver leaves & of a very easy fusion, melting like wax, very white, resplendent & as brilliant as crystal, appearing rather a crystal than a metallic substance, from which one can immediately compose the stone of the Philosophers, and the mineral arcana, as we will see in the last chapter of this book.

It should be observed that there are four kinds of putrefaction, The first when our volatile spirit is drawn from our unctuous fixed matter by a vehement distillation; & this extraction or distillation is a putrefaction, because as soon as the spirit or the soul is drawn from its matter, the matter in this case is dead according to our method, it is corrupted & appears black.

The second will be, when the extracted volatile spirit, which is called wind, has gone out with the water retained in the pores of the water, and once more it is joined to its earth, so that he receives an aqueous body for his purification, which, when he passes from one being to another, it is absolutely necessary that he putrefy and receive death. For the generation of the one presupposes the putrefaction or corruption of the other, not that this fixed unctuous spirit or matter putrefies or corrupts itself; but a certain aqueous and terrestrial substance which is found in them, whose body is taken by this spirit, and thus passes into ponderous, mineral water, being nevertheless previously wind and air. This putrefaction appears as black as the first; but the first in dry & this one in wet.

The third putrefaction will be when this volatile spirit, perfectly purified is joined with its clean and very pure earth to produce the sulfur of nature, that is to say, the foliated earth; because then this spirit passes from being aqueous, humid & volatile to being igneous, terrestrial volatile, this is why it dies, & the composition appears completely black before this is done as in the preceding ones.

The fourth & last putrefaction of the arcana will be when this igneous, terrestrial volatile spirit changes into an igneous, terrestrial & fixed spirit, no longer being volatile at all; in this putrefaction also appears the color black, this is why the ancients assure that the stone of the Philosophers dies several times before than to acquire all its perfection; for only in this last putrefaction is the work accomplished, and then nature rests; which putrefaction is found in coagulation, & in this only, the elements are truly converted, & the true solution & coagulation takes place; from there comes this precept that the Philosophers gave us, solve & coagulate, dissolve & coagulate, converte elementa, & quod quoeris invents, convert the elements & you will find what you are looking for, Note. All the chemical operations can be understood in a single one , many distinguished chapters are made in time that a single one would suffice to give a clearer understanding, Note. The mysteries of chemistry cannot be taught by words; but they must be taught by experience.

CHAPTER IX.

Of the solution in general.

To dissolve is nothing else than to deliver the radical humidity of all things from the bonds, by which it is retained & coagulated, & to convert it into an aqueous body: hence it is that the chymists by means of the solution have had the fountain of life whose abundant and clear water served them to deliver Diana from all the impure bonds of the coagulation of the quaternary point , as we have said above.

By Diana, we must understand nature; & this nature is our matter unctuous fixed, in which only nature rests, that is why it is called nature.

The unctuous matter of the stone & nature, are in harmony with each other. The unctuous matter is dissolved with its spirit, which is called fire, the thickness & coarseness of the unctuous matter needs the subtlety of the wind, that is, of the spirit; & the subtlety of the spirit needs thickness, so from one & the other, the middle substance is generated to join the tinctures, which is the mineral water with which once again being pure, & the pure unctuous matter also is engendered this son or sulfur of nature of which we will speak when we deal with sublimation.

it can be applied to all corporeal beings, since in all beings we find this fixed unctuous matter, & the spirit & wind of the same substance.

CHAPTER X.

Vegetable solution.

It is necessary to research with care what is, that it is in the plants this unctuous fixed matter, & humid fixed radical, & the spirit or wind which attaches itself to this fixed substance, to be the food of the increase. of this substance & its conservation, & so that with these two fixed substances of the same kind, a true solution is made & accomplished.

It is therefore necessary to seek in the ashes of the plants, what is found substance fixed in them; because everything else is volatile & infix; however, the entire body of the ashes is not our fixed unctuous matter, nor all the rest which flies away in the fire, when the vegetable is burned, & likewise our volatile spirit or wind is necessary to dissolve the unctuous matter.

Our substance is only that which is hidden in the center of the ashes, which is of an igneous & unctuous nature; & what is still of igneous nature in the rest which evaporates, is a spagyric spirit & wind.

But in the center of the ashes there is a certain very pure, clear & crystalline salt which very easily liquefies being in its supreme & last purification, which alone is our unctuous matter & our Diana & nature. For in this salt resides the incorruptible virtue of swarming & germinating plants, as it was almost a recent & mature seed, witness experience, & this virtue has not been burned by the force of calcination, which has made say to the assembly of the Peat, lapis noster ponderosus est solidus incommotus igne, aqua, vento.... Our stone is heavy, solid & permanent in fire, in water, in wind, & It is because of the admirable strength & virtue of this salt or unctuous substance that Jesus Christ, the chief of the Philosophers, & similarly wisdom itself gave its name to the Apostles, saying: your estis sal terra; you are the salt of the earth. The comparison is very just, as will easily be recognized by anyone who carefully considers the admirable virtues of this salt & the faculties of the Apostles, &...

There is found in the body of salt what is unctuous, earthy, viscous & which liquifies easily, & the spirit is found only in the aqueous body, viscous & unctuous & subtle in the vegetables & in the minerals, the water is fiery; but in minerals this fiery water is not generally found in all, except in some, as in lead, tin; & this water is not fiery in certain bodies of minerals because of the viscous, igneous & aerial part. Moreover, she has the property: which causes it to be called ardent water, like the vegetable and animal spirit; but because it is entirely composed of the same substances, of which the fiery spirit is composed in vegetables, and in animals in all their parts, of a very subtle part of the thickness of each element; they are however different between them, according to the power of the thickness of the very-subtle part of the elements, therefore the fiery water is the substance which contains in itself the volatile vegetable spirit.

Salt is the substance which contains the fixed spirit of the same plants; thus the vegetable spirit will be the most subtle part of the salt, the spirit being nothing else than the very subtle volatile part of the thickness of all the elements, that is to say, of the unctuous earth.

By this doctrine, it appears clearly enough, that the chemical solution cannot be made, except when the solvents are of the same substance, & nature of what must be dissolved; & if there be any solvents in the whole nature of things, it is likewise necessary that they should have dissolved spirits of salt , or the finest volatile part of unctuous matter dissolved in water, with which the true solution may be done while maintaining the form.

But you may say that what is the beginning of the coagulation cannot be the beginning of the solution; however salt or this unctuous substance, which resides in the salt, is the beginning of the coagulation, since with the heat it consumes its moisture If coagulates it; therefore the salt and all that is in the substance, will not be the principle or beginning of the solution, since the salt, without this unctuous and fixed matter, will be necessary that it be of the same essence and action.

I answer that salt is a coagulative principle, according to its internal heat, hot & dry, which excels in unctuous & fixed matter; but it is the principle of solution, according to internal heat, hot, humid, which excels in volatile unctuous matter; & although they are of the same essence, they are not yet not of the same action, not having the same acting qualities, which excel in activity.

It is true that they have all the qualities, fixed and volatile matter ; but not in an equal degree, which is why they have various faculties of operating, matter fixes by its dryness & moist heat while consuming coagulates & dries up: volatile matter, by its humidity & heat, softens dry matter & greedy, and by softening it by its power, it dissolves it.

It is therefore constant that salt is the foundation of the solution because of its aerial humidity, which is its spirit, that is to say, its volatile & non-fixed part, from which humid air it abounds more than all sublunary things. If he there are such things in the world which can have the force to dissolve, they have it by means of the dissolved salt or of its spirit, which contain in them materially; the dew principally dissolves, because it contains within itself the spirit of the salt of all things; it renders the whole universal earth fruitful, because it includes the vital spirits of all things, which is an arcane of nature to impregnate fixed matter, &c The dew, then, this soluble force that it has, it undoubtedly holds from the virtue of dissolved spirits, as is fiery water, which is distilled from wine, & such as distilled or undistilled vinegar, & all waters which are called etchings, which are prepared with volatile & infix mineral spirits. Of this one & unique virtue & force, all these waters have the power to dissolve.

Observe that aerial substance is the cause of the sweetness of all things. Acetum & omphax are the same. vinegar & verjuice are the same thing; consequently the foundation of the whole solution of vegetables consists in the union and marriage of these two substances (which contain the whole form of vegetables) they are placed on a very slight heat in a glass vessel a little long by the collar, it must be closed exactly or sealed hermetically, so that the force of the spirituous substance cannot be exhaled before it is united with the very subtle parts of the unctuous & fixed substance, & until it is reduced to water with them, which is the last & the next food & prolific seed of the plants, from which they are generated & nourished, which water for a greater perfection, it must be put back on a pure, volatile earth, & this volatile earth , it must be reduced to fixed water & pure, bring it to the last & supreme perfection, to have the arcane or the vegetal spirit WE will talk about it more fully below,when we deal with the sublimation & coagulation or fixation of plants.

CHAPTER XI.

From the animal solution.

The animal SPIRIT being more sublime & more subtle, its solution is also more difficult, which can only be done with the spirit of the same nature & the spirit of the animal being nothing other than a certain an ethereal substance, so subtle and sublime, that it can only be perceived by the mind.

We notice the movement of the animal; but we do not see the instrument of this movement. I will add that such an instrument of animal movement is found only in living animals alone; but in their corpses, or in the other external parts, separated from the living ones, one cannot to find & one cannot derive it from there according as experience demonstrates it to us; for the animal semen which is their nutritive and productive part becomes infertile in the instant, because this spirit first vanishes, and consequently the source and the origin of fecundity.

Therefore the extraction of the animal spirit seems impossible; however, because we have said of the calcination and the putrefaction of animals, if we understand it well, we will easily understand that the solution of animals, & the extraction of their spirits is possible to do & very easy to an experienced artist; but not, however, in the same degree of sublimity and subtlety that they do when they are alive.

We mean to extract not only the spirit part; but also the animated, to separate them, to wash them, & being washed to join them together, so that they produce our solution; because in this way the animals, such as they are alive, without their death, they could be calcined, putrefied & dissolved, & we would agree, which nevertheless we did not approve before being able to do .

It is therefore necessary that this spirituous & animated substance be drawn into a much lower degree in which life is in no way there except in energy & power, as life subsists only in the blood & by the foods in a forceful way; from there we must conclude that we can draw our spiritual substance, & animated from the corpse of the animal, & from its nourished parts when it is alive; for these substances are still found after death in the corpses of animals being composed of the elements, as we have already said; for they are such in their last resolution as they were in their first composition.

We said above, that these two bodies, one of which is a terrestrial star, that is to say, a pure body and similar to a star, according to Fernel; & the other an ethereal & aerial body, are found in the first composition of our body & all other things; it must be admitted that these same bodies are similarly in their last resolution, this is why one can say & declare openly & without fear, that there is in all the corpses & even in their ashes an unctuous, fixed & permanent substance .

Note. Each individual therefore has a radical, unctuous, fixed, and non- fixed substance. In all things there is a fiery substance; namely, an unctuous, fixed matter , we find in the ashes of all things, whatever they are, this substance of pure salt, which is hidden in icelles; we find a non-fixed, volatile, spirituous matter, which takes flight in the fire in all things, when the mixtures are burned, which is deficient in the substance & in these evaporations, which is unctuous, oily & flammable.

There is also in these substances a fixed unctuous matter, and an unctuous, non-fixed matter, which. is found in all animals. It is necessary to extract these substances from the animals in the following manner.

Take the recent corpse of any animal whatsoever, which is not corrupted, cut it into very small parts, which you will wet & imbibe with its blood, put the whole thing in a long-necked glass, & having corked it well , digest for eight days over a very slow fire, which time having passed, adapted to this glass vessel (which must be a long-necked cucurbite ) its beaked capital, & draw from it by distillation the superfluous humidity not unctuous, but aqueous, which you will keep apart to draw the fixed salt , as we will discuss below.

This superfluous water being drawn by a very slight heat either from the bain-marie, or ashes, or any other heat, provided that it is very gentle, you will shed new blood of any animal of the same species. on, the matter remaining for three or four times, digesting each time for eight days after having separated the aqueous & superfluous substances, which must be keep apart; because in this way you will draw a copious quantity, as well of spirituous substance as of unctuous fixed substance.

These three infusions being completed, you will come to the distillation of your spirituous substance over a very slow fire, by means of which there will rise in the first place a certain milky and aqueous substance impregnated with a lot of volatile salt, having the taste of salt. , & by mixing it with water or other liquor, makes it like milk, this is why it is necessary to use a very mild & slow heat, so that the spirit does not rise with the water. superfluous, because the spirit being joined together with this water, can no longer be separated from it, this is why they will always rise in the form of a smooth watery milk; & it must rise in the form of very clear salt, as it happens in the middle of the distillation, when all the phlegmatic superfluous water passes.

It is therefore necessary to separate at the beginning as much as possible, this superfluous water, so that it does not join with the spirit, that is to say, with our spiritual substance, and that it keeps it dissolved. perpetually, either cold or hot; it is therefore necessary that our spirituous substance be raised into a kind of very clear salt, transparent and melting like wax, which will attach to the sides of the still, you will pick it up carefully, and you will put in a tightly stoppered glass vessel, so that it does not fly away, until you have drawn from the matter remaining in the still the unctuous fixed matter, which remaining matter, you will draw it from the still. alembic & you will put it in a strong crucible which you will put open on a very strong fire as possible, & you will burn it & calcine it, reducing it to very white ashes, & then you will dissolve these ashes with a good quantity of superfluous water or phlegm that you kept apart above.

You will boil them, cook them, digest them in it to make a very clear & clean lye, which YOU will distill until dryness, or you will make it evaporate; but distillation is preferable to evaporation, because the water which is distilled is preserved, which serves to dissolve again the salt which remains in the still, since it is necessary to filter this solution according to the art , then distill it & you will reiterate this distillation, desiccation, solution & filtration so many times & until you have a very white & very pure salt, melting like wax which you will carefully keep in a well- closed glass vessel , so that it is not attracted to the atoms of the air, until you have stripped the fixed unctuous matter of all the excrement reserved above, repeated seven times, which must be done over a very gentle fire without any addition, each time changing the sublimatory vessel.

The seven sublimations being finished, you will come to union, which will not be the last. You will therefore join your pure substances together, observing that the non-fixed & volatile substance must be ten parts to one of the fixed matter, so that this last fixed matter be overcome by that which is volatile, & be rendered as volatile, & then it will have acquired the last degree of purity.

But in the conjunction of these two substances, our solution of this chapter will appear fixed, seeing that the matter becomes volatile, if the volatile substance is contained in the aqueous humidity after having been purified by distillation (which we will teach in the chapter on distillation), it must be reduced to a fixed substance, until it is stripped of its aqueous humidity, & is contained by the aerial humidity, which alone must, by its action, convert the terrestrial, igneous, fixed humidity, which is this unctuous fixed substance, into the same substance, that is to say, into terrestrial, igneous humidity , volatile; for that it is necessary to make our sublimation, having previously made the solution of this chapter and the following one.

CHAPTER XII.

Of the dissolution of minerals.

All the Philosophers who have spoken of the solution have heard this one solution of minerals, & not the others above of plants & animals, because they only dealt with the elixir of plants & animals, allegorically & relatively to the elixir of minerals, whereas they are made in the same way & of the same root & matter embarrassed & impregnated with various & different spirits, which Morien openly declared to King Calid, who asked him from what matter or mine this one & only thing was drawn, who was the source & foundation of the Philosopher's Stone? He answered him thus: This thing is taken from you, who is also the mine; because we find it in you, and we take it in yourself Hence it is that madmen and fools have sought this one thing, the source of the stone, in women's menstruation, in blood, in urine and in excrement, and they have endeavored to draw it from all. these subjects; but they have labored in vain, & all these have not been able to obtain & possess this thickness of all the elements, of which the human body & all things are composed.

Of this matter alone spoke Morien, which is the true matter of animal stone, not vegetable; for among the Philosophers there are three strong stones, one of which is vegetable, the other animal and the other mineral, and these three stones are only one, that is to say, thickness or spirit of the world of the four elements, that is to say, the seed which being carried from the center of the earth by the central heat & that of the stars , & passing through its pores is impregnated with the spirits, either animal, vegetable & minerals, & in this way is divided into three kinds of mixtures, & these mixtures are also divided into almost an infinity of species, which then are changed into an infinity of individuals, by the diversity & digestion of spirits, like us We will demonstrate this in the chapter on union.

This thickness therefore of the elements is found in the center of whatever the individual, but not in the same way as in his first elementary generation; for it is not found such on the earth, because at the same instant in which the elements each sent their spirit, that is to say, the seed in the earth to be mixed with the thick of the land at the same instant; also certain spirits occupy the same thickness, & begin the generation of the same individual, according to the greater or lesser force of the spirit which occupies it; & when the individuals are corrupted the resolution is not done until the first matter, that is to say, until this thickness of each thing; but the form of the perishing individual introduces into it another alterative degree by its stronger and victorious spirits, which victory cannot be point, if not successively; this is why there is no resolution up to the first matter, that is to say up to this thickness of the three elements, because they remain in the substance itself, which is corrupted, the spirits of the first form being patient & not agents.

It is therefore evident that Morien did not understand that the mineral stone is found in man, except as the thickness of the four elements is found in all beings. Morien passed over the mineral in silence, & declared the animal because of their same radical matter, & saying nothing neither of one & the other, he nevertheless declared them, & he insinuated the arcana to transmute the animal stone into mineral, & the mineral into animal, & he declared & made known the mutual transmutation of all physical stones, as we will see clearly in the chapter on sublimation where we speak of the metempsychosis of the ancients.

When therefore I treat of the solution of metals, I do not mean to speak of the resolution down to the first matter of the four elements which is their thickness, although by the humid radical, I mean this thickness of the elements, I do not mean the first matter of the elements, but rather the first matter of which the thing itself is made and generated; for no mineral, nor all other things, can be reduced to this first thickness of the elements, but in theirs, which being elements , it must be confessed that it may be called the first matter of the elements.

This supposed, let us see now if this first thickness of the elements is fixed or not is in the minerals, in the animals & in the vegetables dressed with the same dress & the same body: we saw above that the thickness of the elements in the fixed animal are hidden in the body in which dominates the thickness of the air & the thickness of the fire, the thick earth & the fixed water, which body is called by the chymists fixed salt; & in plants is hidden in the body,

In minerals, the thickness of earth and water dominates by the thickness of air and fire, for the same reason and just as these even non- fixed thicknesses compose a spiritual substance in animals, in plants & minerals, which being of the same essence with the fixed thickness, it must necessarily contain many of these same thicknesses endowed with this same excellent elementary degree; but yet they are volatile & infix. Therefore the thickness of the elements in minerals, either fixed or volatile, is contained therein and has the same body as that which it has in plants and animals; but this body is not adorned with the same qualities, second qualities; because the thickness of the volatile minerals is acrid & acid, because the thickness of the fire & the air which engender sweetness, is found in very small quantity & diminished.

The thickness of the fixed minerals is bitter & harsh; in animals and plants , it is extremely salty and pungent, and all their fixed matter is the same; & that which is not fixed is sweet & agreeable to the taste. From there it must be concluded that the thickness of minerals requires a longer coction & a more exact purification, if you want it to reach its ultimate perfection & must undergo more examinations than the thickness of animals & vegetables, which has more perfect qualities of its actual coction, which are marks of this very coction.

The ancients indicated & declared this so long coction of minerals by the character of the mineral mercury, which being thus represented ☿. We see in the same figure the character of gold ☉, & that of silver , at the base of which characters 🜘, we put a +, which marks the passion of the coction, that the mercury must undergo before being transmuted into silver or gold, & rest in ice, not being able to be otherwise, & because this cross denotes future & necessary coction & passion, perfect they did not put this cross in the character of the moon , because as soon as the mineral mercury or the thickness of the elements, occupied by the mineral and metallic spirits, has acquired the nature of money, it rests in it; so that though it is transmuted into gold, its passion then is so light & its motion so sweet that it could not be called cross or suffering; but solution of the circle, that is to say, completion or fulfillment of the circle, which is perfected by a slight movement.

Hence it comes that those who calcine silver in a hundred different ways, who dissolve it, who pass it through all imaginable examinations & torments to convert it into gold; not only do they get half the circle wrong, but the whole whole circle, & by working in vain, they waste their time & their money without any resource. If these Artists knew the celestial magic of its character & of all the other metals, as much in the transmutation of the moon as in that of all the other metals in the moon & in the ground, they would never be mistaken; therefore I warn them.

Note. The mutual transmutation of metals is taken from their characters to the character of gold, there is no cross +, but there is a circle O, which is perfect on all sides, like the mineral mercury, which by a coction absolute & circulated has been reduced to the circle where it rests, as being the center of its perfection.

Transmutation is not found by chance or fortuitous event. The Philosophers in truth seek other things a thousand times nobler than gold, & more precious than diamonds, rubies, &... which being found, they have gold at their wish; because to have gold is an easy thing for them than to make bread with leaven, to the bakers who do it with great ease.

The baker, to make the bread, uses pure flour with good water and a suitable mixture; thus you will make gold with pure mercury & by a long coction, that is to say you will cook this substance of raw mercury, which is nothing but raw gold, which finally giving it a last cooking, becomes real gold, as nature does, which cooks it constantly in the bowels of the earth to perfect it & convert it into gold, which long coction of nature you can shorten by a lot, provided you purify the very matter of nature well, & that you strip it of all excrement for the separation of which nature is very long & requires a lot of time; for then the matter being pure, the internal fire of the substance of the metal perfects the coction, which internal fire being aided by another external fire very light & soft, hastens much the coction & the matter being very pure increases its perfection to a greater degree; hence it is that chemical gold is more perfect than that of the mines which nature makes, which is coarser.

Gold made by art is so subtle and so fine, that being mixed with other impure metallic substances, it takes on as much coarseness as is necessary to be reduced to natural gold. By coarseness I mean that thickness of the elements which is made metallic in metals by their spirits, which though it is found in artificial gold or in the tincture of the Philosophers, is not there, however , in such a degree of thickness; but in a more subtle & more pure, & the metals among them do not possess this thickness in the same & similar degree of purity; for otherwise there would be only one metal in the world; this degree therefore is different in them, which causes the species to be different, according to the different degrees of longer or shorter coction; for the metallic spirit attaching itself to their thickness, radically cooks & digests its thickness with its natural heat by separating all that is heterogeneous to it, which heterogeneous things being joined to it prevent the final & perfect coction of the metallic thickness.

To this metallic mineral earth is attached a certain soot or blackness which denotes its internal separation, &c. Note. When the metals have been melted, they are no longer capable of this separation by the internal heat, which has vanished in the fusion, and only the metallic substance remains in the same degree of coction as it was in the mine itself. & it can no longer perfect itself; that is to say, with his spirits which are in some way only coagulated in this thickness, and which are not fixed because of the imperfection of the coction unless other spirits come to him from outside. fixed, pure, & perfectly cooked in a very pure metallic thickness, which first penetrates all the imperfect metals & cooks them by its perfect coction, fixes them by its absolute fixation, & purifies them by its purification, & corrects all that it finds crude, infix & impure in them.

This is why it is ridiculous to think that imperfect metals, kept for a long time on the roof of a house and churches, can become gold or silver; a rust may be made which, if it could be preserved with a sufficient quantity of metallic spirits in a vessel of glass, would finally perfect itself and become a perfect metal; but you should not expect to see this change on the roofs, because of the rains, the winds & the storms which dissipate & spoil everything, &...

& remaining there a very long time, being converted by mineral spirits into mineral earth, & then being digested into perfect metals; .& this is the sole cause of transmutation in the imperfect metals.

Those therefore who want to transmute imperfect metals into gold &. in silver must imitate nature in its operations; & by means of the only solution, we can arrive at the distillation & the sublimation of the spirits, & of the unctuous matter of the metals: the excrements are separated by the distillation & the sublimation; but it is not possible to distil the spirituous substance of the metals, nor to sublimate the fixed unctuous matter, because that it is so fixed, that it resists any fire whatsoever; for it is so dry & arid that it cannot be converted into water.

It is therefore necessary to find a means by which one can carry this spirituous and windy substance into the unctuous fixed matter; & that there, being of the same essence, together with the most subtle parts of water, by which, it is carried into the unctuous matter, & the parts the . subtleties of unctuous matter, softens, and is converted into mineral water which is called the Philosophers' mercury, because the Philosophers make it by imitating nature; for nature operates in the same way.

The cold & dry earth which is porous on all sides, retains the air in its pores on all sides, which being full of mineral spirits, because of the coldness of the earth, coagulates with the spirits in the earth, & this earth is carried into the unctuous metallic matter, & dissolves it, & unites so much together, that they never separate from it; & in this way engender the true natural sulfur of incombustible red or white metals, according to the coction, which the mineral earth has suffered, & the unctuous metallic matter, longer or shorter; because the heats depend only on the weather.

In these principles of metals, the aforesaid sulfurs begotten pure in the mining, produce pure metals; if they are not begotten pure, they produce impure metals.

Note. These incombustible metallic sulfurs are not found in mines outside the mineral earth; but they are invisible, and remain hidden in the earth itself, which makes all these mineral earths glistening, because of these sulfurs alone; however these flakes of gold or silver are not this metallic sulfur, but the metallic body of a hard liquefaction, & the sulfur is of a very easy liquefaction, & melts easily because the unfixed metal but only freezes, contains in itself a very large quantity of moisture; this is why it blends easily into the lesser fire like wax.

But in your fixed metals, this metallic humidity being mixed with heterogeneous parts, causes them to fuse with great difficulty. This sulphur, which is the next principle of metals in general, can also be called mercury because of the metallic humidity that it contains in itself, which alone causes mercury to be called metal, and dryness is their sulphur; but because in this body said above, this metallic dryness excels there so much that it congeals in the cold, we give it the sole name of sulphur, although metallic humidity or mercury is also in it, whose name is hidden, whereas its effect is destroyed by the dryness known as sulphur. It is this dryness that we call water that does not wet the hands, in which alone and uniquely we make all that is necessary for the stone consist: because in it is found the humid radical of metals & the natural heat joined together, it only remains to purify & cook it to make this divine work known only to true Philosophers.

I declare that I say this of mercury and metallic sulphur, and I do not speak of this mineral sulphur, combustible, yellow or the color of ashes, which is sold at a low price, and which is very common; I speak of our aforementioned incombustible metallic sulfur which is everywhere, found under such a habit that it appears as metallic mercury or mercury of the Philosophers, which is very different from the common mercury which most use, and consume all their good without any fruit. Believe me, I have always thought, like many others, that one cannot find in the nature of minerals anything better suited to represent the mercury of the Philosophers than the substance of living mercury.

I have worked a lot, and I have learned that the common mercury is very different from that of the Philosophers. Common mercury is a metal & not a principle of metals, & the aqueous substance of the principle of metals predominates in it, & it has very little metallic dryness; that is why , although it is flowing and fluid, it does not however attach itself to the place where it passes, as water does: for this quick mercury being a humid metal, raw and very volatile, being mixed with the spirits. metallic of other drier & fixed metals, it also becomes drier & more fixed, & passes into a metallic nature, from which the fixative mercury or coagulating spirit has been drawn.

Which never happens to the Mercury of the Philosophers, whether raw or cooked, if it is mixed with the spirit of gold. or silver, it does not therefore become gold or silver; but the spirits of these two luminaries pass into substance; & it can never be made gold or silver, internal does not pass totally into gold & silver.

The same can be said of the common sulfur which is combustible, as everyone knows that it is not the sulfur of the Philosophers from which the metals are generated; for they are very different and very contrary to each other. I will here open the interior entrails of this common sulphur, so that its substance may be completely known.

Everyone knows that all things are generated from the fat of the earth, whether metals, or mixtures, or all animals and all plants . There are some kinds of fats; the first is that fixed unctuous substance of all things, produced by the thickness of the four elements; the second is the excrement of that fat or unctuous matter, in which the thickness of the four elements therein not being in equal weight, nor well bound together; this is why the thickness of the fire & the air not being well united & linked with the other thicknesses of the water & the earth, engenders the combustibility in this, second terrestrial grease; but in the first it cannot be done in the same way, because of the just balance of all the elementary spirits, & of all their thicknesses & of their perfect union, by which only union the first fat is incombustible; & by this single union, the second is separated like an excrement from the first, which is divided into three genera; knowledge, animal, vegetable & mineral; & in all these genera is also found this second fat like the excrement of the second. In animals this second fat is called fat, tallow; in minerals it is called sulphur; & in plants, gum or resin: & in these three genera all these fats are inflammable & combustible.

This second fat, is rejected by the unctuous matter, which is the first matter of all things, as we described above, which we called first fat; what experience shows us every day, that all things that use a very abundant food (which is none other thing that this first fat, or is unctuous matter); these things, I say, have a great abundance of this second matter or fat. Trees , for example, produce many gums; the animals have a lot of grease & tallow; the heart in animals is fat, feeding on this inner fat by throwing out excrement.

Hence it is that in all animals this fat, which is between the skin and the flesh, is like an excrement from which all that is useless is converted into filth, sweat, soot, &. but the fat is preserved there as a food & as a useful excrement; because the food, running out, all the parts of the body are restored by this fat; & they suck it, cook it & make it similar to themselves: & during this time the thicknesses of the elements which were not tempered in this fat according to nature, are tempered, & become the last food of the animal, which is not inflammable & combustible as it was before being fat: thus the excrement of food can become real food, provided it is cooked again.

Similarly, common combustible sulfur can be made of metallic sulfur, and the last substance of which metals are made; but nature alone can do this in the mines of the earth, nature can convert the fat of animals into the last nutriment, and this last nutriment into parts by its internal heat.

Let the children of the Art therefore look for another sulfur & another mercury which are totally different from these common & vulgar mineral substances that are sold in the shops, if they want to draw from them the mysteries of chemistry, & that they do not think of being able to draw sulfur, mercury and metals from these bodies, these mysteries by their operations; for, even supposing this to be possible, it is a very difficult work which requires the strength of Hercules and Samson. & that it suits nature rather than art.

Quick mercury is a substance of the most imperfect & crudest metals , & a coagulation of the only volatile part of the most impure metallic mercury that chymists could imagine: & common sulfur is an excrement of metallic sulfur like we have demonstrated this above. We must therefore despise these two subjects & regard them as things useless to the art, & we must look for others which are not excrements of unctuous metallic matter, & which are not yet reduced to metals.

You will find them, I repeat it to you, in mines full and swollen with a metallic spirit, and a fixed metallic substance: spirituous substance, which is called wind & smoke, by a strong distillation, as it was said above; it is necessary to purify & separate from all the excrement, by calcination & a lotion repeated several times, the fixed metallic substance.

Then it is necessary to join these two substances in equal or greater weight, so that they unite together by putrefaction, & that by this union in putrefaction they are dissolved until both are made mineral water, which must also be purified by the distillation of all that is heterogeneous to it, are the principles of metals). We will explain in the following Chapters the method of doing all this. Let us now see how the wind or the metallic or mineral smoke, and the fixed substance, which is very dry, can be reduced to water or mercury. We have said above that the substance of metals is spirituous & volatile or fixed, impregnated with the thickness of the four elements, being therefore in each metallic substance, the thickness of water, air in the air, & thus of each element which has incorporated in its own thickness: that if the elements are convertible between them, by means of their qualities by which they convert between them , as fire passes into fire by means of the aerial heat by means of which it enters into fire; & by the action of the humidity of the air the fire is converted into air, thus the air into water, by means of its humidity, by means of which it has incorporated into the water.

By the action of the coldness of the water, the air is converted into water; likewise water, by means of coldness, penetrates the earth; & by the action of the dryness of the earth, this earth is converted into water & the water into earth: thus, on the contrary, the earth is converted into water, the water into air, the air into fire, by means of their qualities, by which one enters easily into the other, acting then, & converting the contrary qualities by which they differ together.

Thus in our work the thick aqueous collects the water that the air, by its conversion into elementary water had introduced into the pores of its body & at the first distillation passes into the container the air & the elementary water together ; & in their pores is hidden this metallic spirit, until all their thicknesses of the elements which they contain, pass into water, by means of the elementary aqueous humidity, which in distillation comes out together with the spirit of the mineral body, & falls into the container.

By this method this metallic spirit comes out being clothed with an aerial body, although really it contains in itself the bodies of the other elements, but nevertheless much diminished in action & in virtue, by the humid quality of this aerial body enters this elementary water, & it is retained in the pores of the water; the water then by its coldness acts against this air; & when the air suffers & is converted, it is necessary that everything that is found also suffers with it, & is converted: this is why this air & the metallic spirit pass together into water; but because this conversion is not sure & firm, the small part of the very subtle water, is converted again & very easily into air,

The Philosophers imagined that the conversion of the fixed matter of the metallic earth into water was preceded by the action of this water; that is to say, they dilute this earth with the aforesaid water, and put it in a well-closed glass vessel; & by a very slow fire, finally reduce the whole to water, proceeding , as we have said above; that is to say, by sprinkling it often with this water: & thus the metallic spirit is truly converted into water, & it cannot fly away from this water unless the water itself flies away, because he is united to his earth, and the dry earth is converted into water. This water is the very true Mercury of the Philosophers, mineral from which the metallic sulfur is immediately generated with the perfect bodies dissolved in it, as we will say in the following chapter on sublimation.

But before the metallic sulfur can be created, it must be purified extremely in the manner of the Philosophers, & separate from it all that is heterogeneous to it & which prevents the union of the dry with the water, from which union the earth finally converts into air & into fire, which is metallic sulphur, the Philosophers have also expressed it by saying: Convert the elements, & you will have what you seek; convert fire into air, air into water & water into earth, & you will have accomplished the magisterium.

The first conversion is done by calcination, putrefaction, solution, distillation & sublimation; & the last conversion is accomplished by union & by fixation, as will be said below.

CHAPTER XIII.

Distillation in general.

Distillation is an elevation of the thing dissolved above, and a descension of this thing elevated in the form of very pure liquor, by which frequent elevation and descension, the substance of the radical humidity of all things, both spirituous and fixed, is stripped of all faeces & impurities, & is changed into a quasi-astral substance.

be raised to a most sublime degree of perfection in which alone he rests, which method of purifying has been drawn from Nature; for Nature raises the spiritous substance upwards in vapour, exhales it to the middle and supreme region, then returns it to the earth in the form of dew or rainwater or hail, and all which things make of this aerial substance, which little by little is converted into water, and at night into dew which falls on the earth.

This elevation of the spiritual substance is continual, so that finally it becomes celestial, that is to say, completely pure, and the fixed matter stripped of its spirit and soul, putrefies, and while putrefying, all the natural excrements, and thus similarly it becomes pure; then it receives the spirit which falls from the sky, and unites with it, and in this way the generation of all things takes place .

Note. All meteors are made by the spirit substances of all things... The spirit is always abundant in generation, so that the fixed shall not perish... The wind is a restless air. . . The aerial meteors are made of the non-fixed part of the thickness of the elements. The heat of the water of the sea and of the fountains has a relationship with the meteors as far as spiritual matter is concerned. . The spirit substance of the metals in winter is in small quantity in the mining; hence it is that the earth is sterile in winter, because the thicknesses of the elements do not find a free passage to make the universal seed of all things.

The ocean alone is reciprocally agitated, and the Mediterranean sea is not, because it does not abound with waters so thick, so greasy, and so tenacious; this is why in the Mediterranean Sea the spiritual substance of things finds an easy exit from the center of the earth, to sublimate itself in the air by means of the waters of the sea: but in the ocean it is quite the opposite.

Note The spirituous substance which abounds in aqueous thickness, makes hail, rainwater & dew.

If an artist knew how to coagulate a certain oil, that is to say, his very sour vinegar, into very soft and very brilliant crystals by continual coction, he would make of it a very great remedy and an admirable mystery for healing. stubborn illnesses promptly... Nature thus makes sugar & honey... .

Distillation is therefore drawn from Nature, it is her work; from there was formed the character of Leo , containing two circles & a semicircle in the upper part which unites them together, by which form these circles denote the fixed & spiritual substance of things which must obtain perfection by the semi - upper circle, which being the character of the Moon, represents aqueous humidity, by means of which the fixed & spirituous substance is distilled; & one passes into the other, as it appears by this character of ; & thus pass into the celestial Lion, in which only the Sun is exalted in the macrocosm; hence it is that the chymic Sol is also exalted in that many times distilled substance, which is called chymic Leo.

It is with great reason that the Philosophers have given the same character to the distillation , & to the celestial Lion (which is in the chymic Lion, which is water); by the spirituous and fixed substance of things, this water, being distilled, is raised to the supreme degree, as we will say hereafter.

CHAPTER XIV,

From the distillation of plants.

The distillation of plants is the solution of their mercury & the separation of all their excrement, in whatever manner it is done either ascending or descending, whether it is heat by ascensum or descensum; it is necessary to expel the pure parts into vapor, either cold, by expressing the body which contains the dissolved mercury, & the heat of the mercury contributes to the center which is reduced to water, which freezes being without spirits , because also- soon as the body is filled with spirits: it cannot freeze to cold as we see in strong & vigorous wine, provided the vital spirits are retained, otherwise only dyed & phlegm remains tasteless.

The distillation of the spirituous substance of wine is therefore done cold, and other distillations of plants are also done by means of air; consequently , from the juices of all the herbs one can draw natural and vital heat by means of cold.

Hence it is that the trees and the herbs die in winter, because by the compression of the cold this vital juice and spirits being very subtle is driven into the air, which could be retained by some vessel of glass, and which you could keep for your use. According to r. Lull the heat has all the qualities required to extract the essences of all things.

There are nevertheless several kinds of heat; hence it comes that there is also several kinds of distillations; to extract the essence of Plants, after the putrefaction & the solution of their fixed & spirituous substance, it is necessary to use a very temperate heat, as would be the BM, the lamp fire, or the heat of the sun in summer, similar to that which can be done in the athanor, or secret oven of the Philosophers, which can even be made softer than that of the sun by a knowing Artist, by sparing the coal.

It is therefore very important that the fire, whatever it is, have a gentle and temperate heat, imitating that which Nature uses, which is that which the hen uses to hatch her eggs.

The soul, whether of plants, animals or minerals, in distillation, not permanent, but only congealed in very subtle waters; this is why it is easily converted into wind when given a strong fire, & it does not first become water; & when the very strong heat acts continuously, the vapors are accumulated | by the vapors & by the exhalations, & for then the vessels break, as experience shows us every day in the distillations of the spirits - of - wine & etchings ; this is why the apprentices must take care not to use too strong a fire, which they must avoid in all chemical operations, so as not to seek in the air what must be in the vessel.

For after the fixed matter of vegetables, being then purified, is dissolved by its spirituous substance & reduced to water; in this case it is not fixed, & cannot endure the fire as before, but it flies away with the spirituous substance, & both by this repeated elevation of the distillation are stripped of all that is theirs. heterogeneous, and form but one pure body, having become inseparable by the perfect union which they have contracted together.

The fixed earth has become water & volatile. The faction of heat comes to the victorious end of volatility, & after it is in its last purity, it becomes fixed & permanent in all things; so that also this spirit substance, which in the solution & putrefaction having volatilized the fixed earth in the last distillations, becomes itself a fixed & permanent body with the earth: therefore of this same fire substance or of the spirit substance of the animal, together with their fixed & pure lands, made fixed & permanent, makes for itself a good mystery of nature which is found in greater abundance in certain plants, & especially in the vine & in wine , & we can draw more than all the spirituous substances from animals and vegetables when they have been fixed.

philosophically by long operations which require much care & patience; because it is the only one in which the spirituous & fixed substance is found in abundance, & these two substances are so abundant there, that in a short time they still increase considerably: part of this fixed substance is retained liquid in the wine, & the The other part attaches around the still.

From these substances, therefore, a good philosopher can separate the spirituous substance and the fixed one from the wine, and purify them; by mixing them, afterwards they will unite together in a single body: hence the chymists must examine what this arcana of life is; for life is nothing other than the permanent existence of heat in the radical humidity: then the heat is really permanent & fixed in the humidity of this arcana, so that whoever uses it as food to sustain life, will live longer and much happier & healthy than those who use other common foods which are volatile & infix, & real excrement whose substance being weak & evaporable cannot relieve & fortify the moist radical & protect it from consumption, since this moist radical danger from day to day by its own heat.

This is why it is very necessary to say & to conclude that this vivifying nectar of our body (the humid radical) is spoiled & contaminated by the corruptible food, which being assailed by such an enemy finally succumbs to the pain, weary & weary, having nothing with him that can sustain him & restore his downcast strength, added to this avarice, vain luxury & debauchery, men contribute a great deal to the loss of this precious radical moisture; because they make more of frivolities and accessories to life for which nothing is spared than the basis of life itself, for which often we refuse everything.

Man and everything that lives on earth draw life from the stars, and man neglects them; life emanates from heaven to earth at every moment, & this life is the thickness of the four elements, impregnates itself with the celestial spirit, which by the rays of the stars and the planets impregnates the same thickness, & in this way is made this moist radical supported by the heat of the celestial spirit in all the mixtures, by which alone we live & we die; & so that the matter in our body is separated from all faeces & impurities, nature has formed in it several small vessels, various homes; but nature cannot achieve the purification of this moist radical, such as it should be with its vessels & actions; so that this unfortunate body is afflicted with various diseases by the variety of excrement which remains in the preparation of the wet accidental & alimentary radical, which being accumulated in too great quantity, finally the vivifying heat of the humid radical is extinguished & from-!to death flees.

The Philosophers having thus seen that this moist food which makes us live , was too weak & evaporable because of the watery & less cooked substance with which the matter is filled, which cannot cook & be brought to a perfect form, because from the impotence of its own fire, which day by day increases by this accumulated cold and watery substance.

To obviate this, the Philosophers have sought the art of separating this abundant humidity from the radical humidity itself, & all the other excrements, thus made pure, having endowed it with the vivifying and celestial heat of a stronger portion than in all the other mixtures not contaminated with earthly faeces, nor with the silt of water, nor obscured by the substance of the dark air nor burned by the heat of the fire; but rendered excellent by this pure conjunction of the elements tempered by the virtues of all the stars, by means of a very light and continual fire, they formulated it into a fixed and permanent substance and quite southern, which they have called physical gold in relation to the sympathy & admirable resemblance, which it has with gold, which according to the laws of magical anatomy, & divination by the art of fire physical, the Philosophers have called by various names, as volatile water, hyleal, &c. & by a physical rotation have reduced it to a very white sugar, & by a more perfect coction in very - red sugar; soluble in any kind of liquor, so that our stomach can digest it, & that it can change into our substance, & with its substance warm our humid radical in its coldness, maintain the natural heat & increase it having been diminished by illnesses or other accidents & excesses.

The Philosophers have obtained all this by diligent work & we despise it, hence it is that human misery increases every day by the contempt we make of our chemical mysteries, we take great care to have fun reading or studying a large number of useless books, but learn them by heart to earn our miserable living, we do everything which is: impossible to give oneself a celestial name among men, & one does not care to attach oneself to the preservation of life which is the height of honor & glory , which means that one despise the smoke & fire of true chymists who alone can surely provide the means to preserve it.

We see all the animals bent down to the earth to seek their life from the very earth which is such a good mother, & we all draw the vital juice from the food that the earth gives us with so much liberality, therefore it is necessary that the earth contains in itself all that is useful to us for the support of the life of all animals, & that in this is contained food & the true principle of life, what one can have to lead a vital life, by means of the spagyric art which one cannot praise enough.

Note: Galen & Hypocrates did not know everything, &. only Jupiter engendered Pallas, & he can repress & annihilate her..,.. The center of the earth is life

CHAPTER XV.

Of the distillation of animals.

AFTER the very subtle spirit of animals, which is contained invisibly in their last foods, is changed into liquor by putrefaction & solution, which however before was air, must be elevated by distillation, so that it passes only into an ethereal substance, quite aqueous, I say aqueous & ethereal because of its very great purity & subtlety that it must have, before it can serve for animal work & make the arcana of animals; this is why it is necessary to completely separate all the excrements which prevent its force and its energetic virtue.

Nature does & procures this distillation in all animals in various ways, as appears from the anatomy of ancient & modern bodies. THE animal spirits must therefore be pure and purer than purity itself, so that their life may be happy on all sides.

Thus, to have an animal mystery which can, so to speak, resuscitate the almost dead, it is necessary that its substance, both fixed and spirituous, be of the utmost purity, as it is said above, and as we will say and teach in the following.

By this chapter we teach the manner of distilling the fixed & spirituous substance of animals, which is the same which is used to distill the other things which can be distilled, & all the arcana is contained in the above chapters, c that is to say, that the spirit substance which is air & wind, be made water, & that the fixed substance of the same bodies, which is earth of the nature of salt, by the same operation be made water; it does; the rest is just a seven-day game; & it is necessary to raise them by distillation, so that they are completely stripped of all that is heterogeneous & superfluous to them. The distillation of the animal has no other secret than that of the separation of the pure from the impure, because he who will make this distillation with the calcination of the fixed substance of the animals, & the solution of the spirituous substance of the same & its putrefaction will easily arrive by the vulgar distillation of these things to have all liquid things, , fiery & flammable with a salty & pungent taste because of the spirits of the fixed salt which is dissolved & liquefied in it.

The ancients veiled the secret of this distillation by fables and emblems ; for example, they said that. Ganimede had been taken up to heaven by Jupiter who transformed himself into an eagle to pour nectar to the Gods & be the cupbearer of Jupiter, & of the other Gods.

By the eagle we must understand the spirituous and ethereal humidity; by which the substance fixes things, like another Ganimedes is taken up to heaven, that is to say, passes into rain or ethereal humidity, from which drink or nectar pleasing & vivifying all the gods, that is to say, -say , fixed radicals of all things make watered & recreated; for the spirituous substance of animals is not distilled, and their fixed matter does not become spirituous, except by the nourishment of the fixed matter; for fixed matter cannot be recreated from any other drink than its own which is poured into it as aliment, and aliment cannot nourish unless it is very subtle, so that it may be carried in all the members, & thus nature attenuates & subtilizes the food in the small capillary vessels, cooks it, the filter clarifies it before changing it into living parts? thus it was necessary beforehand to deify Ganimède, Convert therefore, you who are & the children of the art & who wish to instruct yourselves, this dissolved substance, into an ethereal substance, by distilling it seven times, feeding it with it, the very pure fixed matter, which will demonstrate hereafter in the chapter of the union & the coagulation of the aerial substance with the fixed one to join them inseparably.

CHAPTER XVI.

From the distillation of minerals.

NOT ALL minerals need our distillation; for only that which is spirituous & of an evaporable nature in the thickness of the elements needs to be distilled; other vaporable & excremental moistures can really be distilled: purified, they do not. cannot enter into the composition of our mystery, if not insofar as they serve to purify the fixed matter of things, but finally they separate them as foreign and heterogeneous things.

The union & the marriage of the dyes cannot be done without the exact execution of all the spagyric operations quoted above, because there are only three pure & clean dyes with which being very pure is done the true physical union of fixed matter with the volatile & infix.

Note. Nature exerts chemistry in the bowels of the earth in all places with its natural heat, calcines the fixed metallic matter in the middle of the sea; & the metallic fire being very powerful in this laboratory cannot in any way be extinguished by the waters, which cannot prevent its action in the fixed matter, it & operates incessantly, calcining, putrefying, dissolving & distilling, in order to dispose matter to its union.

The places of the earth make the vessels of nature with which she completes operations: the sky itself is her distilling, sublimatory & circulatory capital, by which she purifies the infixed & volatile matter, & in the center of the earth filters through the pores the fixed matter dissolved by elementary water, purifies it & separates it from all that cannot be dissolve, & once again dries up in hot places, evaporating the humidity calcines it, & being calcined it dissolves it by means of the humidity which is generated by the air in the underground places, changing into water.

This fixed matter dissolved in this way, often mixes with the waters of fountains, and communicates to them in an admirable way surprising virtues for the cure of various diseases: experience, which is the mistress of all things, teaches it to us by the faculties of the bath waters & mineral waters.

What makes the virtue of mineral waters is what is dissolved & mixed with it, which is nothing but a natural salt, almost all mineral waters, but it is mixed with several others. This is that fixed matter of all things, having the nature of salt; it is not of a single & simple kind in mineral waters, but it is composed of several kinds, for sometimes these waters have a little bit of raw & not cooked nitre salt, & part of raw vitriol, part of antimony dissolved by sulfur spirits ; & such water purges by the top & by the bottom, because of the raw & not cooked salt which is mixed there; & it cures inveterate diseases because of the spirits of salt, which are not fixed & volatile, that it contains in its interior. There are still a large number.

the forces and the virtues depend on the fixed salt of the unctuous matter of each thing; & not only the minerals communicate their fixed salts to these waters, but also the plants, the animals, & all together, which often putrefy in a single den of the earth; & their fixed salt being purified by the. putrefaction & delivered from the prisons of the mixed, is carried by the thermal waters in their source; for they do not have a single dissolved fixed salt, but have all kinds; & according as this substance of fixed salt is found, the spirit also of this same salt, whether animal, vegetable or mineral, is attracted by its own substance by a magnetic virtue; & in this way spirits with fixed matter often have infixed matter, & they never do it alone, since they cannot persist in mineral waters nor in anything else in fixed matter, & without them they vanish.

Note. The spirit of things cannot be preserved without their fixed matter; hence it is that all things can be perpetuated and renewed.

There are still other kinds of water sources whose virtues depend on the same cause, that is to say, either on the substance of the spirituous and fixed things, or on the fixed only of the same, or on the one & the other fixed & volatile, with igneous & terrestrial excrement. A large number of these abound in arsenical spirits contrary to life; so that the mere exhalation kills all animals.

Such is the cave of Pozzotl in Italy, where there is a fountain, into the source of which if living animals are thrown into it, they are instantly deprived of all feeling & finally of life, if they are not not immediately thrown into another fountain which is close to this one, which has such salutary water that almost dead animals, by throwing them into it, come back to life.

In the Monts-Pyrennées, near the tempestuous lake of Saint-Bartelemy, there is a small fountain; if anyone drinks this water, it is certain that in the space of a quarter of an hour he falls dead, and no remedy has yet been found for such a poison; it is true that nature, like a good mother , has given the remedy against all evils; but not knowing the source of the evil, it is not easy to find the remedy . around this fountain, which grass rots every winter, & its unctuous fixed matter being still occupied by its spirits, is dissolved by the most subtle waters of rain & snow, & it is then carried into the source of the fountain, & with its very subtle venom it poisons the waters, which poison is so subtle, that we have not been able until today to find its antidote which I know.

Note. The people of the country of this fountain would do well to uproot and burn this poisonous grass until they have completely destroyed it.

Now let's talk about that stormy lake that is near that deadly fountain we described above. By throwing a stone into this water of the lake, one excites great tempests, rains, storms, hail and terrible thunders.

The cause of these surprising things cannot be other than a spirituous substance of the minerals hidden in the pores of the water, which is retained by a crust, which the grease of the sulfur has formed on the surface of the waters which prevents its exit; if this crust is not broken, it cannot come out freely; for under this species of crust there is a very abundant spirit of all the minerals which is igneous & ethereal; & this crust being broken by the stone, this spirit comes out with impetuosity & attracts with itself in the air several different & aqueous vapors which are in the water of the lake, which cause the rain, the hail & the thunder.

And from the oily, unctuous & spirituous substance minerals are formed lightnings, lightnings & thunders, by the impetuosity of which the air being struck, the thunder rumbles & makes a great noise, & in this way in the others & in the caves of the earth the spirits accumulate in abundance minerals that often make the earth tremble when shaking it.

There are also several fountains which change iron into copper; I say that the cause of this transmutation is vitriol, the highest quality of which has been dissolved in water, in the pores of water; & vitriol first changes iron & all other metals in a very long time into copper, because vitriol abounds in the spirituous & fixed substance of Venus; by means of which the iron which is not far from the coction of Venus, the spirit of Venus penetrates it easily, and changes them into vitriol, which having also the metallic spirits, by a strong liquefaction passes rather into copper than into any other metal, because of the spirits of vitriol & its natural inclination to become copper.

Note. I have a particular process for very quickly changing iron into copper of very great beauty, which perfectly imitates gold, with which one can make all sorts of works.

There are also fountains, the water of which, when removed from the said fountain, changes into shining white stone. The cause of this effect is the spirit of salt enclosed in the pores of the water, when it is in the fountain; but when it moves away from the source, & ceasing the influx of salt spirits which is continual in the fountain, all that is spirit flies away & the rest of the dissolved body freezes into stone, like coral & the pearls which, being removed from their center, petrify and become hard. There are also fountains whose waters are inflammable, others which are not combustible, unless some combustible matter is added to them.

The thickness of the spirit of minerals does all these miracles, which is carried from all sides by the pores of the earth to warm & nourish all things, and there by distillations, sublimations, and filtrations, it is entirely stripped of all that is heterogeneous to it, in order to unite it afterwards, being in its ultimate purity, to the fixed matter which is of its nature. It is therefore necessary that the chymisle works in the same way & on this principle, in its operations if it wants to make the mysteries of the minerals, because nature does not work otherwise to achieve it; but because of the slowness of the agents, she cannot perfect her work, that is why she needs art in order to perfect her work. If the Artist wishes to make the aurific mineral arcana, he must follow & imitate nature which is his guide in the composition of gold, not all her efforts to make gold, but rather to have the prolific material of gold from the very case of nature, in which she has hidden it with hay, and which purifies it by distilling it seven times & even more, &c.

When you examine things closely, as I have for a long time, it is indeed a very wonderful thing to see how the fifth substance is hidden in a substance so subtle that you would have to have eagle eyes to see it. , unless she is stripped of her excrement; for before being purified exactly & worked by art, it is a mineral mass, rough & indigestible, of which about a hundred books, hardly can one extract from it a pound of pure spirit, which is called soul, oil, tincture of the Philosophers, & another pound of fixed substance, which after several extractions of the spirit from this mineral body, & several distillations, being dissolved at each distillation with very clear water so that it deposits the faeces, finally it appears very white & melting like wax, after it will have passed through all the colors it will also look beautiful & also dazzling as a carbuncle.

Only these two substances take on the potency of the arcane mineral after they have been purified. The feces of the fixed substance are fixed & insoluble, this is why they separate very easily by dissolving the fixed substance which has the nature of salt, it willingly mixes with water, & in an invisible way, appearing only all those things which are not of salt substance, which cloud the water, and by filtering the clear water we separate them.

This water contains invisibly in its breast the body of this precious salt, which finally by evaporating again the water appears, & by a slight calcination is attenuated more and more, & finally it remains at the bottom of the evaporating vessel of the distillery, dry like melted wax or oil.

several particles of the fixed substance dissolved & spiritualized for reason of which, finally this spiritual substance by a very - slight continual heat is changed into fixed substance & into an absolute & accomplished arcana, which made the Philosophers say, It is in the mercury all that the wise seek. For with mercury alone one can perfect the mineral arcana because of the fixed parts of the fixed substance which it contains dissolved in itself, which although they have been spiritualized, yet in the course of time, they win the victory over the conqueror, who had made them spiritual, binds him & fixes him, but in a long space of time that I do shorten by a very simple operation by means of which one makes a precious mystery.

The spirit substance, otherwise known as mercury, also has its spirituous, watery excrements, and it has many which are of the nature of fountain water and other things, ethereal and igneous, which have a fatty and sulphurous substance. float in the water as oil or fat, when they are boiled, & in distillation when they come out in the container they are converted into a very subtle film, which at the movement & at the slightest agitation of the vessel are reduced as in small sheets, that one must separate exactly; because these atoms make combustibles & sulphurous, & these are mineral excrements, which delay perfection in metals, and these excrements are those which nature separates from the minerals by sublimation, from which excrement is made the combustible sulfur which is commonly sold, which very often rises from the mountains through the pores of the earth in yellowish snow which is called flower of sulfur.

For the sulfur does not depend on any other thing, nor cause whatsoever, except on this fatty, viscous and combustible matter which always accompanies the spirituous matter, incombustible when it is raw, not only in the mineral kind, but also in the animal & vegetable genre.

In the animal, the excrement is fat & tallow; in plants, resin , gum , &. as we said above, & this sulfur in all kinds of arcana must be separated, & it is easy to separate it, because in distillations it always floats in water as oil or a greasy film, which two things can easily be separated by the filter, to completely clarify the water & separate it from these excrements. After the water has been purified & these fatty excrements, & all the rest either terrestrial or aqueous have been separated from it, the spagyric distillation will be accomplished to then carry out the other operations, & in the first place the sublimation, which does not could be done without preceding the distillation, because the body cannot tolerate filthy spirits, nor the spirit an impure body, because both must be very pure, so that they can unite together, and that being well joined, they be raised in the air, so that they can acquire the last degree of perfection.

All the Philosophers have strongly recommended this purity of the body as fixed as it is spirituous, mainly Morien in his book where he deals with the Stone of the Philosophers; it is therefore necessary to apply oneself to distillation, by means of which one obtains the humid heat of the cold, terrestrial, incombustible things, & of the humid & cold things, & it must be separated from the hot & combustible humid, humid incombustible must be stripped, which is the mercury of the Philosophers & the humid volatile radical which being made pure by distillation must be joined to the incombustible dry cold, & which liquefies easily which is the humid fixed radical of the metals, which two being well united, one can accomplish the mineral arcanum which can be made of these only two things which make the hot & the humid with the cold & the dry, by a subtle deposition.

Morien's mix is ​​admirable when he says that Azot & fire are enough.

Azot is this mixture of the radical humidity, which is perpetually nourished by a small, very light fire, up to the last degree of perfection.

This hot, radical, volatile, metallic humidity being excited and fomented, its internal heat, by a very slight external heat, digests the fixed, radical, metallic humidity, cooks it and brings it to its ultimate perfection, not having nothing above in all nature, except the rational soul, it is at last accomplished and perfected by fire alone.

Hence it is that her daughter is called Vulcania, that is to say, daughter of fire , has only one almighty God, worthy to be loved, feared & adored with all his heart, & offer & consecrate all what they possess, as being alone the height of human happiness.

After all, what can man desire more precious here below than the divine knowledge of this marvelous mystery which alone can make truly happy; for all the chimerical goods of the earth, considering them from their true point of view, do more evil than good, and in the only and true Chemistry, we find the solid goods which make us despise the commons.

Happy & a thousand times happy is the man who, devoting himself to the search for the great secrets & mysteries of Chemistry, makes every effort to achieve it; for then, if he is fortunate enough to succeed, he will evidently know the marvels of God in the sublime works of nature, and by prostrating himself at his feet and by adoring him with all his heart, he will despise the fragile goods of this world to work for those who are eternal, and whom God alone can all give his felicity which will then be accomplished; & although ordinary ignoramuses & so-called fine minds treat true chemists so inappropriately as mad & insane, it will still make it no less true that they will then be the most respectable & the most learned of ordinary men, & admired even by the ignorant.

CHAPTER XVII,

On sublimation in general.

Sublimation is a separation of the humid fixed radical from all thing, terrestrial faeces by means of fire, a mixture & union of the white body with the red, of easy fusion, or of the fixed of the radical humid with the volatile, making the volatile exceed, so that it volatilizes the fixed , & fixes it to the volatile so that the volatile is fixed , which is a conversion from one to the other.

All of these definitions mean the same thing. It is necessary to sublimate only what is pure hidden in the mixtures, which pure is always found in lesser quantity, and having much more fixed and permanent virtue, airy and igneous, because of which it has been said: Will rise to the heaven & in the air, so that he may be adorned with his faculties.

The rest that is in the mixed is a muddy earth that must be thrown away as useless, which made Hermes Trimegiste say, in his emerald table: You will separate the earth from the fire, the subtle from the thick, with attention & great care, by which words Hermes explains not sublimation as many imagine it, but the first extraction of our mercury from the earth, that is to say, from this pure fixed, by removing the earthly feces earth, by which alone operation we separate the gross, which is very abundant, from the subtle hermetic.

In the mixtures what is not of the nature of this pure radical humidity cannot sublimate, but rather vitrifies, glassmakers; for when they calcine & melt this ashy mass prepared & put into breads, all the earthly & muddy which is not of the thickness of the elements, which is hidden in the substance of salt, is converted into glass, & the The other thickness of the elements in which it is necessary to look for the necessary pure, is converted into salt, which floats the glass, & it is necessary to separate & collect the oleagenity which floats so that the remainder can be vitrified. It is in truth admirable that this Art, by the sole operation of fire, reduces the qualities of the earth itself, very pure in their being, and that by separation it represents them to our eyes, whereas we could not see only through the eyes of the imagination, & that this Art has revealed to the Philosophers occult secrets which were almost reserved for God alone.

One can conjecture from there what the earth will become after the universal conflagration of this world, & how this conflagration must be done. if some physical reason could be given in the eternal statutes & decrees of God.

From the art of glassware one can therefore predict the state of the earth after the conflagration of the macrocosm or the great world.

Formerly God submerged in the waters almost all the human race t & he preserved the maintenance of life in the earth & on the earth, & the water even did not have the power to suffocate him, separate this spirit of life & carry it elsewhere, causing it to leave its home, which has bound strongly with the earth for the men to Come.

But after the universal conflagration, we will not need this spirit not being alive and germinating on the earth; so that this spirit and its seat, that is to say its form, will be separated by the single fire of the earth, and will be perfectly cooked and fixed, and will be united to the principal parts which compose the whole universe.

The sky, the stars, the elements and the bodies of the blessed will each take the pure and unalterable parts; & having recovered a more abundant spirit of Life, the sky, clarity & will be very brilliant, & because they will then be well cooked & fixed, they will rest perpetually being moved from all sides, just as the heart moves to fix, cook & perfect this spirit of life enclosed in the earth.

Then all movement will cease, because nature will have acquired the perfect end & it will rejoice in this end; for the movement of nature is only for this end, which being acquired, all nature will have perfect rest. The eternal curse will be given to all that is impure & imperfect, & the torment will be perpetual because of the death that man will suffer eternally, which death consists in impurity.

Consequently, alchemy discovers the hidden wonders of all nature, & by certain conjectures that we take from its works, we come to penetrate these mysteries difficult to understand, as from the sublimation of this pure substance, which is found in the center of each mixture, from its coagulation & fixation, we can infer that what this matter is, if it differs in kind from the matter of the subject.

We draw the conclusion from several experiments, that it does not differ, because all that is found in the sky in the mixtures, in their last resolution, has a crystalline brilliance, & the splendor of the stars, & of the planets; because all the mixtures, this pure substance which they contain, in which the virtue and the energy of heaven is imprinted, after a perfect purification, have this substance so brilliant, that it seems rather a piece of heaven, or a small portion of the planets, that a member of the elementary mixed, It must be observed that celestial matter is of the same genus as elementary earth; for example, the carbuncle has something of the splendor of the sun, the diamond of the moon, the emerald of March, the turquoise of Saturn, the crystal of mercury, by the energetic virtue of sympathy.

Thus, all flowers in general, all metals, and even these worms shining, draw their brilliance from the sky. The sky therefore & the earth differ in subtlety , in splendor, in size & thickness.

The sky was created from the finest & purest particle of the first, matter, the elements of the coarsest part of the same matter; God himself gave to the sun the radiance & the light, & the form of this subtle , very abundant & very strong fixed & igneous matter.

To the other planets & stars, he shed no light; having diminished their igneous & ethereal nature & increased the earthly one; this is why there remained to them only a certain weak and lazy power to receive the rays and the light of the sun which makes them brilliant, illuminate the earth which is subject to them, borrowing the light of the sun, otherwise they would burn the whole earth, although with less force, that the sun spreads its rays first on the earth, before passing them through their bodies .

Then neither the coldness of the air & of the lower region, nor the humidity of the water could prevent the heat which would be so great that one could not bear it. The other parts of the sky which do not retain the light of the sun like its eyes, have a very subtle part of the aerial & watery thickness which surpasses the other parts of earth & fire & all as well as the very water. clear from some fountain, rays of the sun, but having introduced them, they spread them without any reverberation.

Gold, swords, weapons & mirrors reflect the light with greater splendor, because their bodies are decorated with earthly qualities, that is, solid & not diaphanous; thus the bodies of the stars & of the planets have a brilliant quality, solid & compact, & are like mirrors attached to the sky which receive the rays of the sun & reverberate them. The heavens are made from the abyss of the earth; God separated the light of the abyss from the darkness, from the light he made the firmament and the sky, and from the darkness he created the elements.

Note. By heaven & earth I mean the abyss, that is to say, the first matter that God first created, in which heaven & earth were mixed up confusedly. The earth was empty & vain, the darkness was on the surface of the abyss, he separated the light from the darkness, then he made the firmament, & he gathered the waters to one thing so that the earth appeared, to which he commanded to germinate & produce fruit.

From there it appears evidently that God first created the sky and the earth, and that there is a certain confused mixture, not separated and distinguished, which then by a necessary consequence separates and distinguishes.

Of the light therefore, which was dormant in the center of the abyss, that is to say, of the purest & most brilliant part of the first summer called light; God made the heavens, which he sublimated above, & drew the spirit from this matter, which he did not harden & fixed in heaven; but he kept it permeable, volatile, and penetrating on all sides, so that the sky, by the help of this spirit, could act on all lower things; & that thus there would be a perpetual commerce of superior things with inferior ones.

About that Hermès Trifmégistre teaches in his Pimandre that the elements and the heavens were taken from the same matter, and that they are of the same nature.

The Philosophers teach this separation roughly when they sublimate the substances of things; for being found in all things subtle and heavy; the subtle is chased up clear & brilliant; & the heavy or material is pushed down, black, obscure, stripped of all celestial light, that is to say, of its subtle, which is always resplendent, & which is their main arcane that all the Philosophers have described enigmatically .

The fable of Antaeus, son of the earth; is nothing other than the sublimation of that pure which is enclosed and hidden in the ashes and in the terrestrial parts of all things: for when Hercules, stronger than him in raising him in the air, the suffocated, & each time he threw him on the ground, he recovered his life & returned to the fight; which is true in the physical sublimations where it is taught that it must be & that the mercury must be raised in the air so that it can die, & be stripped of all earthliness.

Moreover, the Philosopher must be another Hercules born of the Gods, happy, industrious, patient in a tiring, ingenious work: the weight of Chemistry is so heavy & of such a great burden, that it requires the forces of Atlas & those of Hercules, as much of the soul as of the body.