SIMPLIFIED ALCHEMY

Practical course accessible to all


By René SCHWAEBLE

PRACTICAL COURSE OF ALCHEMY

FOREWORD

To my revered Master JK HUYSMANS


All the dictionaries define alchemy as follows, or approximately so: “Chimerical science seeking the Philosopher's Stone and the universal Panacea”. Dictionaries should therefore define medicine: “Chimerical science seeking the cure of corns on the feet”; for, in Alchemy, the Philosopher's Stone takes up no more space than corns on the feet in medicine.

Alchemy is the Science of Life, of Life in the three kingdoms (l), its purpose is to separate the active principle from the inert matter; it is the metaphysics of organic chemistry and inorganic chemistry (2), as Astrology is the metaphysics of astronomy. She studies the causes and principles, the Universal and eternal law of Evolution which imperceptibly changes lead into gold, and perfects Man in spite of himself.

With the animal kingdom, alchemy becomes therapeutic, medicine, it wants to obtain the subtle quintessence of products, their true vital concentration, it dreams of distributing Life, of giving birth to the homunule, prolonging existence thanks to the Panacea ; with the vegetable kingdom, it becomes agriculture, it grafts, it dreams of resurrecting, of arriving at palingenesis; with the mineral kingdom, it becomes chemistry, it dreams of transmuting metals and metalloids. Finally, with the divine reign, alchemy becomes hermeneutic, it teaches how to convert bread and wine to Body and Blood. (Life should be present in the sacrifice of the Mass: it was the Council of Nicaea which decided to content itself with the simulacrum of presence).

As we can see, alchemy always takes care of transferring Life.

There is no magic in alchemy, Man does not order mercury to turn into gold, he can only draw Life from one body to awaken another. Medicine is only aiding to nature, because if nature is not there it has no effect. Nature alone creates sperms.

And the pious alchemist (3) does not dry out in front of his furnaces in search of gold. A learned philosopher, he aspires to the solution of the problem of Unity (Unity of Life, Unity of Matter), a solution which he must not attain, on pain of annihilation — for he cannot equal God, he cannot create , he should only be an instrument — and, knowing that everything is connected, that what is below is like what is above, that Harmony reigns on Earth and in the World, he advances in the knowledge of the Absolute.

And, now, to those who smile at the word "alchemy" I recommend reading L'Alchimie et les Alchimistes by Figuier: they will find there the story of inexplicable transmutations. Besides, our official scholars do not deny; he wrote in this book: The present state of chemistry prevents us from considering as impossible the fact of the transmutation of metals; Dumas in his Lectures on Chemical Philosophy: Experience is not in opposition up to now with the possibility of the transmutation of simple bodies; Berthelot: Considerations drawn from very diverse orders support these views on the possible decomposition of bodies reputed to be simple.

In short, the question does not seem much more advanced than at its beginnings. Today, the brave Tiffereau (4), ninety years old, tells of having made gold in Mexico; Mr. Jollivet-Castelot (5), the very erudite and very pleasant director of the Douai group which, without neglecting medieval traditions, does not disdain the latest advances in official chemistry, claims to have received from a follower the key to the Great Work; an American, Edward Brice, obtained gold and silver by first forming an antimony sulphite, then an iron sulphite, finally a lead sulphite; Strindberg, the illustrious Swedish man of letters, manufactures a little gold by operating on sulphate of iron, potash chromate and potash permanganate whose atomic weights are precisely those of gold; Le Brun de Vilroy claimed to achieve an increase (6) of copper from 90 to 100% by treating sodium phosphate, sodium chloride, copper sulphate and potassium sulphide; another American, Emmens, enriched himself by selling gold extracted from Mexican dollars subjected to a powerful threshing under refrigeration conditions such that the repeated shocks could not produce even a momentary rise in temperature; M. de Rochas prepares allotropic silver. And one will find at the Arts-et-Métiers several patents for the manufacture of precious metals (See, among others, that taken, about thirty years ago, by Mr. Frantz and Doctor Favre),

(As well, there surely exists in Paris a bit of a philosopher's stone! In one of the pillars of the choir of Notre-Dame (8) , Guillaume de Paris, bishop, author of several sculptures of the portal, sealed a provision of Pierre : to find this pillar, just follow the gaze of a crow adorning one of the three doors: the gaze fixes the point where the Stone is hidden.)
This is not the place for a list of the alchemists of this mysterious and attractive Middle Ages nor of their treatises; Albert the Great, Roger Bacon. Saint Thomas Aquinas, Raymond Lully, Arnauld de Villeneuve, Basile Valentin, Paracelsus... The Book of Lights, The Compound of Compounds, Mirror of Alchemy, The Clavicle, the Flower of Flowers, New Light, Marrow of Alchemy , Chariot of the triumph of Antimony, The open entrance to the closed palace of the King... Hoefer, in his History of Chemistry, has drawn up a very complete one.

But what is the cause of the darkness of the alchemical style, why Ripley, for example? Pierre in these terms: It is necessary to begin at sunset, when the Red husband and the White wife unite in the spirit of life to live in love and in tranquility, in the exact proportion of water and earth. From the West advance through the darkness, towards the North; alters and dissolves husband and wife between winter and spring? Should we attribute this obscurity to the fear our people had of passing for witches and being burned as such? But) nothing could accuse them of witchcraft better than this bizarre style! Should it be attributed to the desire not to upset the world by indicating the recipe for the Philosopher's Stone? SO, why write so many books! To the desire to be understood only by their own? But theirs cannot understand them! Intend not to disobey God who revealed the secret to them (9)? But, they strive to unveil it!

I believe, myself, that among those who dabbled in writing treatises on alchemy there were quite a few "humbugists", (the race has not disappeared from it: Some works of Eliphas Lévi are worth the famous Table d 'Hermès), a lot of charlatans, a lot of crooks. But, it is important not to laugh too much at certain expressions, from “devouring lion (10)” for example to “acid”; the unfortunate alchemists did not know the elegant term "tetramethylmela-phenylenediamine"! I have in passing, as you will see, explained many of those expressions which express the deepest thoughts with such charming naivete. Let us read Flamel's Book of Figures, The Book of the Natural Philosophy of Metals by Mr. Bernard Allemand, Count of La Marche Trévisane, nicknamed the good Trévisan, The very excellent pamphlet of the True Natural Philosophy of Metals with an admonishment to avoid the crazy expenses which are made for lack of true Science, by Master Denis Zacaire, a gentleman from Guienne, one will find, in truth, adorable pages; "the fellow Flanel is pleased to know that his dear wife Pernelle is discreet and secretive, Zacaire assures us that it was not a day, even on holidays and Sundays, that the alchemists did not assemble either at the home of one of them or at our -Dame-la-Grande which is the busiest church in Paris to discuss the tasks that had happened in the previous days, he confesses without shame his pecuniary misadventures: If it was profit God knows it, and me too who spent more than thirty crowns... All the increase I received from it was like a diminished pound... Read this passage from Alexandre de la Tourrette: which is the body of man) of such a beautiful and clean structure that there is nothing to complain about: with its necessary vents and registers, as are the mouth, the nose, the ears, the eyes; in order to preserve in this oven a temperate heat and its continual fire, airy, clear and well regulated to carry out all the alchemistic operations there. We also see how this very excellent alchemist our good God has built his oven (which is the body of man) of such a beautiful and clean structure that there is nothing to complain about: with its necessary vents and registers , as are the mouth, nose, ears, eyes; in order to preserve in this oven a temperate heat and its continual fire, airy, clear and well regulated to carry out all the alchemistic operations there. We also see how this very excellent alchemist our good God has built his oven (which is the body of man) of such a beautiful and clean structure that there is nothing to complain about: with its necessary vents and registers , as are the mouth, nose, ears, eyes; in order to preserve in this oven a temperate heat and its continual fire, airy, clear and well regulated to carry out all the alchemistic operations there.

I

MATTER IS ONE, IT EVOLVES — PROOF OF THIS UNITY AND THIS EVOLUTION — CREATION OF SULFUR, NICKEL, NITROGEN.

Matter is one, matter evolves. Unit of matter, unit of life.

On a glass dish spread powdered glass in an even layer, sow a few grams, five for example, of watercress seeds, sprinkle them with distilled water, and supply them with carefully filtered air. Incinerate the harvest obtained: in this vegetable ash we find potash, oil, sulphur, and oxides of iron and manganese. Take, now, five grams of seeds similar to those which one sowed, calcine them and analyze them: one finds there much less iron than in the residues produced by the incineration of the harvest. It is a true transmutation of silica.

Plants grown in iron-deprived soil and supplied with carefully filtered air end up containing significant amounts of iron salts. Iron is well formed by the combination of air and water gases with soil materials.

Wheat, sown in sterile sand, produces grains fairly abundant in phosphate, whereas neither the air nor the soil contain traces of phosphoric acid.

In Mexico, gold diggers say, "The thing is not ripe," which means that the ore their pickaxe lands on is being prepared Silver mines may contain gold inside native state; they can also contain gold in its nascent state: in this case, the gold is still in its mother's womb. (Allotropy, see Chap. II). A mine of silver grows, turns into gold; a gold mine does not increase, gold being a dead body (11), that is to say mature, adult, the last degree of metallic evolution, a body which by putrefying will restore iron. (Platinum, which has all the chemical properties of gold, is only white gold, gold whose color is folded inside. See Chapter V).

Take ammonia sulfide; to precipitate the sulfur without gas evolution of hydrogen sulphide, use ordinary oxalic acid in solution, add it drop by drop in order to avoid the acid reaction. The precipitated sulfur always weighs 10 to 15% more than the sulfur contained in the primitive state in the sulfide of ammonia. Where does this excess sulfur come from?

Take fine olive oil, not rancid, and porphyrized red copper (bronze powder); put 10 grams of this copper in a flat-bottomed matrass, and over it pour 70 grams of this oil. Hermetically close the matrass, expose it to the sun and shake it every day. The copper dissolves, giving a green liquor, copper oleate. If you want to take the copper back to its metallic state, the easiest way will be (not to add ammonia, acid or anything else) to resinify the copper oleate and put it in merger. On analysis, it yields copper and nickel. Where does this nickel come from?

Take a wide-mouthed glass jar with a glass stopper and a capsule with a capacity of 20 to 25 cubic centimeters. Put in the capsule 10 cubic centimeters of distilled water and 4.7 to 4.6 milligrams of sulfuric acid SO3, (quantity sufficient to saturate 20 milligrams of ammonia AzO3). Introduce the capsule and its contents into the jar and close hermetically. Expose everything to regular insolation for a fortnight, in the months when the sun rises the most above the horizon. Return the device in the evening; he must not see the rising sun. After sunstroke, remove the capsule, put it under a bell jar in a dark room and dry with sulfuric acid. This does, one finds around the capsule a crown of crystallized ammonia sulphate AzH4 O, SO3 , and at the bottom of the capsule small liquid balls in the spheroidal state AzO4 of a brown red color. These balls will give a weight of 26 milligrams and the sulphate of ammonia 79 milligrams. Total: 105 milligrams. The 79 milligrams of sulphate of ammonia contain 16.7 milligrams of nitrogen, and the 26 milligrams of hypoazotic acid 7.9 milligrams of nitrogen. In all: 24.6 milligrams of nitrogen. Where does this nitrogen come from? The 79 milligrams of sulphate of ammonia contain 16.7 milligrams of nitrogen, and the 26 milligrams of hypoazotic acid 7.9 milligrams of nitrogen. In all: 24.6 milligrams of nitrogen. Where does this nitrogen come from? The 79 milligrams of sulphate of ammonia contain 16.7 milligrams of nitrogen, and the 26 milligrams of hypoazotic acid 7.9 milligrams of nitrogen. In all: 24.6 milligrams of nitrogen. Where does this nitrogen come from?

II

MOLECULAR CONSTITUTION — ISOMERY, ALLOTROPY, MENDELEJEFF'S PROGRESSION — THE FOUR ATOMIC ELEMENTS.
GENESIS — WHAT PHILOSOPHICAL SULFUR, MERCURY, AND SALT ARE.

Matter is one, all bodies are formed of the same material substance. All the compounds of a mass are simple, or, if you prefer, all the bodies are compounds—composed of the same atoms variously grouped. Matter lives, evolves; immerse an incomplete crystal of alum in an appropriate bath, it will repair by a phenomenon of heredity what will have been taken from it and will increase regularly. All the materials are transformed in the earth, ' the great retort, giving rise to metals, to coal and other more or less perfect bodies according to the cooking time (l2) (Atomistic groupings). All the modalities of matter come from molecular groupings.

Like other bodies, the various metals derive from the same atom and increase according to determined laws. They evolve.

The properties of metals and other materials result from the molecular constitution. Many compounds, depending on whether they crystallize in one system or another, acquire different properties without their composition altering or changing. Sulfur has very different properties according to the temperature to which it is exposed and the crystalline form which it is made to assume. And the famous word isomerism explains nothing. We call isomers the bodies which, having an identical composition, enjoy different properties. When isomerism occurs in bodies reputed to be simple, it becomes allotropy. Since every molecule is formed by a group of atoms, these can differ not only in quality and number, but also by the way in which they are juxtaposed in the molecule; AMOR and ROMA are written with the same letters and do not have the same meaning. Fulminic acid has the same composition (carbon, oxygen, nitrogen) as cyanic acid: the first subjected to the lowest rise in temperature detonates violently, the other resists red heat. Here are two isomeric bodies.

Is zinc, brittle at ordinary temperature, the same metal as ductile and malleable zinc between 100 and 150°? Isn't it rather an allotropic body of it? (l3)
All the bodies are polymeric modifications of one and the same element, modifications of more or less long duration.

Mendelejeff arranged simple bodies on a spiral according to the progression of their atomic weights, separating them by distances proportional to the deviation of these weights. Several of the boxes reserved by Mendelejeff for unknown bodies were filled with newly discovered elements, as Neptune met at the place in the sky where he was waiting.

The Verrier. Considering the rays of this web; A spider sees that bodies having the same properties, that is to say constituting the same chemical family, have multiple atomic weights from each other. They are therefore formed from the polymerization of the lightest of them.
Some properties have given, the group of metals.

If under considerable and continuous pressure, at a constant and relatively high temperature, with the action of water charged with metallic salts, we carbonized wood, we would obtain coal. Similarly, one can make gold.

In short, to pass from theory to practice, it is a matter of accomplishing in a short time what Nature does in a much longer interval. The Philosopher's Stone is an agent which, thrown into a metal, produces an atomistic transformation similar to that which organic matter undergoes when fermented by yeast. To transmute lead, for example, into gold is to increase its density and color by one. new atomistic arrangement.

Simple bodies — like compounds — can be reduced to four atomic elements (The atomic element is something ponderable, the atomistic element, energy, is imponderable; an atom of H is made up of three forms of dynamism, heat , electricity, magnetism; in the free state, it becomes interplanetary matter again, movement): hydrogen, oxygen, nitrogen, carbon, which, of course, can be reduced to the single substance moved by the astral light — which it, Moreover, it is by no means necessary to know how to handle since the dark light which composes the atoms can itself become, with the help of our material fire, the mutative agent. Metals are therefore composed in varying proportions of H, O, C and Az (materialized atoms), materials which,

These claimed that the metals (14) are formed of Sulphur, Mercury and Salt (not to be confused with ordinary Sulphur, Mercury and Salt or with philosophical Sulphur, Mercury and Salt, but that can be made philosophical, that is to say living, protein), or, if you prefer, Sulfur or C (secondary atom) which gives them densification, which makes them fixed, Mercury or H (primitive atom) which gives them volatilization, and Salt or O (primitive atom) which resolves Sulfur and Mercury and brings them back to the state of unanalyzable earth (at least for our official chemists), to the state of “simple bodies”; Az is only an agent, the ferment.

The primitive HO atoms fixed in the metalloïque form (We call the metalloïque state the dynamic condensation of H, the capture of the astral light, of life, of AZOTH. A body in the metalloïque state is neither male nor female, on analysis it will not reveal any officially cataloged substance. The metalloid state is the passage from the ponderable to the imponderable; a metal oxide superoxygenated to contain 7 elements of O for one of metal — this which is possible — will resolve itself in the form of volatile water), the primitive atoms HO fixed in the metalloid form, we say, give the universal Mercury, the great menstruation which nourishes the universe, which ceaselessly dissolves, amalgamates , triturates the materials of our planet. The two secondary atoms, Az and C,

It is written: The earth was formless and bare, and the waters surrounded it on all sides, and the spirit of God floated on the waters, and darkness covered the face of the deep.

Well, at fiai lux the Az and the C separate from the big HO. The Eternal had not yet given the raw material its form and function. This great HO is the cosmic energy in which the planets bathe, it is universal life, the dark light, the Pantogen. It is Being, it is All (15). At fiat lux the universal Mercury dissociates giving O (the earth) and H (the atmosphere). On this earth the O turned into Az and the H into C; hence the chlorophyll, the plants. Plants were born iodine, chlorine, bromine, fluorine, boron. Then came the metals of animal nature, ammonium and phosphorus. From the putrefaction of the waters came sulphur. Finally, came the hydrocarbon metals and the metals derived from silica.

What is Philosophical Sulfur? the philosophical Mercury? philosophical Salt?

At the time of the conception of the child, the sperm is the vehicle of Sulphur, the father, and the ovum the receptacle of Mercury, the mother; the placenta in which they meet is the philosophical Egg, the waters function as Salt, the maternal womb represents the Athanor, and the arterial and venous circulation the great caloric agent, the dark light. It is therefore necessary, to obtain a metallic increase, to allow a metal to evolve, to place it under certain conditions with the necessary nutrient,” recalling that, according to the predominance of Sulfur (16) or Mercury, the materials are negative or positive; gold, for example, is male, positive, silver negative, female. (The vulgar expressions "male gold, female gold" mean nothing. Likewise "yellow gold, red gold"; there is only one gold, yellow gold; red gold is an alloy).

The names of the bodies don't matter! Let us consider only their atomistic constitution and their system of crystallization.

III

EXPERIMENTS FOR THE CREATION OF GOLD — THE FIXED, THE VOLATILE — DECOMPOSABLE AND INDECOMPOSABLE BODIES — FIXATION AND MUTATION OF THE ELEMENTS.

Take red copper in filings (these processes are only laboratory experiments: do not believe that they will enrich), mix it with grains of crushed pepper and cloves, put the whole in a brazed and well-melted crucible; when the copper is liquid, add the same condiments again until it turns yellow. Then, ingot. The copper is then stainless, but it does not support the cup. It has the chemical qualities of gold, not the physical qualities. Nitric acid does not attack it. It is immature gold, nascent gold.
It is an allotropic copper. It remains to fix this allotropy. For this (17) it will be necessary to provide atomistic elements of O which will make the copper nias dense, and to remove elements of H. The Az will be the agent of the mutation.

Other experience:

Take 100 grams of silver filings and 100 grams of sulphur. Mix everything together, put it in a roasting tin which will be introduced into a muffle oven. Heat lightly at first, agitate the matter frequently to prevent it from sticking, and, when the Sulfur ignites, take care that the matter does not stick to the bottom of the head. Let cool. Take the remaining mass, weigh its weight of sulphur, pulverize everything with a mortar. Put back in the head and roast again. Repeat this operation at least eight times. At the last, heat until dark red to remove excess sulfur.

Take this material, melt it in a crucible with ordinary reducers. Take the ingot, pass it at the start. The dissolved ingot, remove the brown powder remaining at the bottom of the capsule, wash it well. The dry powder, take a cup, put in lead the weight double that of the powder, cup. There remains a yellow button on the cup that cannot be attacked by aqua regia and other acids. It is gold having exceeded the limit of the oxidizability of ordinary gold but retaining its specific weight. It is gold better than vulgar gold, 24 carat gold.

The Fixed is a body whose caloric dynamism is at the ponderable level. If we take this nonderable and if we make it volatile, the substance itself becomes volatile (dissociation) without our being able to find the primitive elements. A fulminate of gold or silver "teased" too abruptly becomes explosive (luminous heat, ballistic power. Light! Crystallized life! the explosive! In alchemical operations one arrives at sudden dissociations, and, if the we do not know how to fix the elements in their nascent state, we enter the series of explosives. All explosives are composed of H, O, Az and C); after the explosion we find no trace of the elements making up the matter of gold or silver: everything has become volatile, no residue, no fixed.

Gold fulminate (ponderable, fixed) contains caloric in a state of physical condensation which, under the force of a sudden movement, releases this heat and volatilizes the constituent elements of gold. Let us put in an iron spoon a little fulminate of gold and expose the whole to a hearth: when the temperature determines the departure of the constituent heat of the fulminate, an explosion takes place, the spoon is pierced. The explosion took place vertically from top to bottom, the volatile fell to the ground. — As for the silver fulminate, it explodes laterally.

Here is an example which will make understand the change of physico-chemical state of the volatile bodies:

Vulgar sulfur, a volatile body, is only a metallic resin whose atomistic composition is C4 H8, density 2 and atomic weight 32. If we extract from this sulfur 4 elements of H, the density reaches 4 and we have selenium whose atomic weight is 79. If, on the contrary, we introduce into sulfur 8 elements of C and 16 of H we have tellurium whose density is 6.258, the atomic composition C12 H24 and the atomic weight 129. These two metals are only mineral hydrocarbons of a volatile nature (like arsenic and antimony which also derive from sulphur) and not fixed like that of philosophical sulphur. From these hydrocarbons a physical and volatile oil can be extracted.

To understand the isomorphy of these mineral hydrocarbons, which are all volatile, let us take lead and selenium in equal weights—or tellurium or arsenic or antimony; these molten bodies will give a metallic sulphide isomorphic to the metallic sulphides obtained with common sulphur. Therefore, these metal sulphides have the property of volatilizing the Fixed and changing its physical and chemical qualities.

Every metallic substance contains within it: 1st, common, volatile, metalloid sulphur; 2° a fixed sulphur, melloic, which is an intermediate state between vulgar sulfur and philosophical Sulfur (it can become philosophical Sulfur); the alchemists called it androgynous.

(This philosophical Sulfur is itself only a carbon in the metalloid state, that is to say living, it is the vulgar sulfur rendered fixed in fire, capable of dyeing. The philosophical Mercury is a hydrogenium fixed, and the Philosophical Salt a fixed oxygenium. These three substances united in the desired proportions give a living compound, the Philosopher's Stone fixes in front of our barometric conditions, the critical point of dissociation no longer existing).

The density of metals depends on the amount of C and O, and the atomic weight is only the consequence. The more a metal is oxygenated and carburized, the denser it is; the more hydrogenated it is, the lighter it is. Mercury (whose atomistic composition ( C12 H24 O16 ) being very hydrogenated is very volatile, is easily distilled - like water. For a metal to become heavier, it must absorb O and keep it at constitutive state (fixed, dark heat), not susceptible to molting For a metal to oxidize, it must lose its volatile, its H elements, it must have H elements available (l8).

If in a decomposable body we remove one or more atomistic elements constituting H, O or others - depending on what we want to obtain - the residue will be an indecomposable body or "simple body" (inorganic chemistry); if to an indecomposable body we add one or more atomistic elements of H, O or others, we will obtain a decomposable, volatile body (organic chemistry). There must be produced in these reactions neither gas evolution nor caloric period; otherwise, the volatile elements that one would have liked to add would go away in the gaseous form of hydrogen, ammonia or carbonic acid - Take, for example, lead - whose atomistic composition is C16 H7 O13; if we remove 3 atomistic elements of H, we will have tallium, (C16 H4 O13), metal denser than lead and whose chlorides, by behaving like the chlorides of silver, do not turn purple in the light. A part of the volatile will thus have been removed and it will have been replaced by a quantity of C in the metallic state.

The most vulgar element capable of mutating being pure C, let us take C and the volatile (or H), Let us throw them together under such conditions that they cannot escape, and use the luminous heat bringing the Universal AZOTH, which does not fix, but makes H and C ponderable (graphitoid). Here is the fixed and the fixed volatile, the sky and the earth united, here is a ponderable, indecomposable body, a particular hydrocarbon, non-volatile, presenting itself in the metalloid form and indestructible by the atmospheric elements. It is therefore a simple body, and the first of the simple bodies is frozen, chaotic water, the regenerated water of the ancient alchemists.

If we dissolve, for example, ordinary sulphur, a "simple, indecomposable", volatile body, in carbon, a fixed body, we will have a volatile oil, carbon sulphide. When we allow this carbon sulphide to evaporate slowly, the sulfur crystallizes in octahedra, and we have gaseous, volatile carbon — in the opposite direction since it falls, being heavier than air; the fixed has become volatile. This gaseous carbon behaves like hydrogen, burns with a red and blue flame and gives back amorphous carbon. If this amorphous carbon is reduced, a yellow metal is produced which oxidizes rapidly in air. This is the mutation of the elements.
Common sulfur plays the part of oxygen in the mutation of the elements, with equal weight from the point of view of atomic equivalents.

In short, in the fixation of the alchemists it is necessary by way of substitution to displace or extract atomistic elements (add, subtract, balance. fix THE volatile, VOLATILIZE THE fixed) (19) .

IV

THE PHILOSOPHALB STONE. — WET WAY. — MAKING SULFUR, MERCURY, AND PHILOSOPHICAL SALT.

The Philosopher's Stone does not increase metallic matter: it is a powerful reducer, a protein agent, acting by way of substitution of hydrogenated atoms, leaving a fixed residue, vulgar gold, a dead body (dead since it is removed part of its H to replace it with as many equivalents of C).

All metals contain unripe Sulphur, Mercury, Salt; the Stone contains the advanced Sulphur, Mercury, Salt. Let's move on to making the Stone. There are two routes, the wet route and the dry route.

wet way. — It is necessary to obtain the fixed Sulfur which we are going to need to use gold which is the metal containing the most. It is a question of extracting from gold its fixed Sulfur and of obtaining a metallic Mercury to which to conjoin it.

In short, it is a matter of extracting the vital principle from the male and conjoining it with that of the female. First, reduce the gold to lime: for this, take gold in sheets, dissolve it in common mercury, wash and knead until the amalgam is hard and the water comes out clear. Put this amalgam and the acid obtained in a porcelain capsule in the following way: take 1 kilo of nitric acid at 40°, add 300 grams of animal matter without fatty elements (soft, for example); heat until the organic matter is completely dissolved, and filter through the asbestos. It is an oxalic acid whose atomic composition is C4 H2 O9 (whereas ordinary oxalic acid has the composition C2 H2 O4 ). This acid, while not dissolving the gold,

Filter on asbestos. Thus, we opened gold (20). This is wet calcination. Only the Fixed remains.

This lime (the primitive earth) of white color, it is Magnesia, the virgin Earth, the Pelican which will pierce its sides to give Sulfur, menstruation, food of the Ponderable Universal.

Let us take this well-washed auriferous white lime, put it in an oval-shaped matrass with a long neck, pour on this earth a sulphurous (and not sulphurous) oil, of a mineral nature, for nature rejoices in its nature..., sidereal oil, stone oil, petroleum (21), VITRIOL, glass oil (Vitrioleum). This oil applied to vulgar metals, when they have been opened, causes them to evolve, to change atomistic, chemical and physical states. It increases them. This is Basile Valentin's operation. — See The Triumphal Chariot of Antimony (22).

After having stretched the end of the neck of the matrass in order to obtain a long capillary tube which will serve as a valve, let us place the whole in a bath of sand at a temperature not exceeding 80° (fire of digestion) and starting with 30°. Only fill two-thirds full, as the material swells. The pelican pierces its sides, crimson blood escapes. When the oil is sufficiently red, add sulfurous oil, repeat the previous operation until the oil no longer stains. (In the matrass, the material must reach the desired color in less than a month).

Now, it is necessary to proceed to the Sublimation or Separation of the pure and the impure contained in the auriferous lime (which includes only Fixed or absolute dark heat). Open the egg, remove the matter, add it to the colored oil and distil several times through an ordinary filter. Wash off the residue by pouring in new oil until it no longer stains. Then, place the purple liquor in a porcelain dish, and proceed until resinous consistency with slow evaporation (temperature not exceeding 30°). We have thus extracted the Sulfur or the virtuality of the metallic body, that is to say its alkaloid (23). The atomistic composition of philosophical Sulfur, of this resinous gum is C8 H16. The manufacture of Sulfur as we have just indicated requires forty days at least,

Moreover, we have said that all the materials of our planet — and particularly ordinary magnesia, kaolin, talc, fuller's earth, mountain butter or base of Basil Valentine's ferment — contain in proportions varying with their specificity a Sulfur that can be made philosophical. Philosophical Sulfur is not the ferment of this or that metal; the philosophical Sulfur is the animic life arrived at maturity.

The Sulfur obtained, it must be joined to the philosophical Mercury.

This Mercury must possess a dark but nevertheless radiant heat since any dark heat put into action becomes phosphorescent and it will be necessary to put Mercury into action so that it joins with Sulphur. The Mercury must constitute the Volatile in the philosophical Egg (the Volatile which, we have just said, will contain the Fixed, dark heat — heat of constitution).

How to get the Philosophical Mercury? The ancients recommended extracting it from silver; but the operation is delicate and not very productive. We will therefore proceed differently. One takes 100 grams of bismuth in the metallic and porphyrized state, and 300 grams of bichloride of mercury, one mixes the whole, one crushes it on a glass marble with the glass wheel while sprinkling with alcohol. The paste obtained is transformed into trochisques which are dried slowly in an oven on a marble slab. (We would do well to put on rubber gloves and fill our nostrils with carded cotton). Then, these trochesques are placed in a porcelain retort whose capital can be removed at will, and to the neck of which is added a meeting vessel equipped with a matrass dipping in a cooling mixture. The joints lute, one gradually heats up until a pearl of mercury descends into the vessel of encounter. When no more mercury passes, it is heated up to 500° in order to make the rest disappear. Then, we disassemble the device, and we see at the top of the capital crystallized silver flowers that we remove. In the Dance of the Retort there is a caput mortuum which is sprayed with mercury from the matrass by adding 100 gr of bichloride of mercury. We redistill until there are no more Argentine flowers. The waters from the two distillations and the Argentine flowers are introduced into a round-shaped matrass with a long neck, and we put everything in a sand bath, starting with a temperature of 50 to 60° to end with 100°. Every day we turn the matrass around for 15 to 18 days until we obtain clear water with metallic reflections, shining like ordinary mercury (of the same density but with different properties). It is our philosophical Mercury whose atomistic composition is C16 H28. Here is the quicksilver transformed into quicksilver. We have thus made what was fixed volatile in the form of heavy water; it is therefore the operation opposed to that which gives philosophical Sulphur. This Mercury is in no way poisonous, its arsenical part, the impure, having disappeared. The making of the Mercury, as we have just indicated, takes two months. It is now

But how to obtain this Philosophical Salt? This Salt must not contain volatile matter, it must be dead matter, water, which will bring putrefaction, which will be a ferment. It should therefore no longer contain chlorine, which is volatile. Decrepitate a kilo of natural sea salt, introduce it into a crucible, and put the whole thing on a cast iron fire. When the matter is liquid, it is poured into a basin, and covered—quickly to prevent the salt from volatilizing. The melted and cooled product is dissolved in water and filtered. And evaporate to dryness. These operations are repeated until the salt, having lost its water of constitution, fuses like virgin wax, at a temperature of 30°. We thus obtain the philosophical salt, nitre, and not vulgar nitrate of potash, ammonia or soda. Its atomistic composition is C6 H9 O15, its density 4, its atomic weight 59. Here then is oxygen in the metalloïc state. The preparation of Salt as we have just indicated requires three months at the most. For Salt, have crystal matrass; because this Salt dissolves the silica.

This Salt will serve as food for Sulfur and Mercury in the making of the Stone.

The Philosophical Sulfur has the metallic reflections of the beetle and by transparency appears purple red; it strangely resembles aniline and its derivatives. The philosophical Mercury, limpid, of metallic aspect, gives in the darkness a mauve light; it is fluorescent and the matrass which contains it looks like a Crooks tube; its fluorescent rays have an action on the chloride of silver and singularly modify various metallic oxides. The Philosophical Salt is silvery white in color, it forms small refracting crystals: it is the Excavated Earth of the Sages, the Philosophical Talc, the Alum of Plume de Basil Valentin.

V

STRANGE ATOMISTIC VARIATION — TINT.
THE FOUR MODALITIES OF ENERGY — THE ATHANOR. — DARK HEAT, LUMINOUS HEAT — THE PHILOSOPHICAL EGG.

Sulfur, Mercury and Salt obtained, we arrive at the Conjunction, at the Fixing of the elements, that is to say at the operation which makes them fixed, non-volatile, in fire, incombustible by O. It would be useless, in fact, to directly project philosophical sulfur onto silver, for example, in fusion: one would only obtain a variation of the atomistic and specific weight, the ingot would not have the color of 'gold. However, attacked by nitric acid diluted with water, it would take on a beautiful yellow color and would retain it until its complete dissolution. And if we made the silver go back to the metallic state and melted it again without adding sulfur, the phenomenon would happen again. Lazarus Erken said: When you have joined the metallic sulfur to the metal; vulgar do not believe that the dye is external; the matter remains as an immature metal. Basil Valentin claimed that by taking a certain unripe Sulfur from the sulphides of antimony one would obtain an invisible, interior tincture (it would be in the atom, would not color it), and that to 'make it visible he open gold would have to be added to it, which would increase its coloring power and make it fixed in the fire.

Put 100 grams of sulfur in flower, 100 gr. of pure non-carbonated potash and 100 gr. acid

Azotic in a stoneware or porcelain vase, cover this vase with a plate of glass and expose it to light; after eight days the material swells and makes visible what was invisible, it turns red, liquefies. Continue this putrefaction, stirring from time to time with a glass stirrer, until efflorescences of carbonate of potash and soda appear and on the surface a gray crust of hyposulphite. Dry the substance, put it in the crucible, melt. Take the material out of the crucible, pour pure alcohol over this material, let it digest over a slow fire of 80 to 85°. Alcohol turns red. Decant. Take a silver coin, dip it abruptly in the liquid and wash it in cool water: the coin is dyed superficially.

Evaporate the alcohol until a resin remains, project it on molten silver (after having surrounded it with wax), give a good melting fire, remove the crucible from the fire. When cold, remove the silver pellet. This pellet is dyed internally and not externally: if passed through nitric acid, it appears yellow.

In order to bring about the Conjunction, it is necessary to have recourse to the Athanor or philosophical furnace; one must know the Dry (what is below, the earth, the solid; the type of the Dry is pure C crystallized in the form of hyaline silicate — diamond — or various compounds), the Humid (what is above , air, gas, H), Hot (O, universal oxidizer, fire, radiant matter), Cold (Az, agent, water, liquid) , the four modalities of energy, to bring materials to a maturity that they only naturally acquire thanks to a large number of centuries and to various cosmogonic and geological events.

The athanor is a reverberatory furnace made up of four parts independent of each other and which can be superimposed. The upper part features a dome; it is fitted with a thermometer held in place by a cork stopper. In the second part, perfect cylinder; four circular openings, lined with glass, are pierced, which allow the operation to be watched; it is in this part that the head containing fine sand is housed on which the philosophical Egg will rest (take care to gently push the Egg in until the surface of the material it contains coincides with that of the sand ). The vase containing the sand is either supported by a light grid placed horizontally between the second and third parts of the athanor or held by staples. The third part forms,

The fourth part comprises inside a reversed and full cone, located immediately above the hearth, maintained by staples and leaving around it a circular space which, while going up, is reduced to the thickness of a finger.

The interior of the athanor must be enamelled in bright white or coated with a layer of carbonate of magnesia diluted in a little gelatinous water.

It is necessary to use a lamp having a crown of radiant matter, of zirconium or of magnesia, furnishing chemical rays at low temperature. An ordinary lamp would not give luminous heat since its heat would be stifled by the support of the Egg, not being able, like the radiant heat of the zirconium, to cross the opaque bodies. This is the clibanic fire of which Glauber speaks.

In the lamp we put the following oil: Take a kilo of cold made olive oil, a kilo of decrepitated sea salt, put everything in a retort, put it to digest for 4 or 5 days at 100° maximum . Distill over low heat: a transparent white oil like water comes out. When red veinlets rise at the top of the retort cover, stop the distillation. This white oil burns with a blue flame, it needs very little O, it lasts half the time of ordinary olive oil.

To make the zirconium lamp (see Daubrey's Metallurgical Chemistry, in the chapter on rare metals), take a cotton wick of 7 to 8 strands, soak it in a zirconium solution (zirconium and acetic acid), let dry, prepare the crown, lightly calcine in a blue gas fire as one does for Auer mouthpieces. It is good to have several lamps in order to be able to change them when necessary; as for the crown, one suffices.

The wick is supported by stainless nickel or nickel silver wires.

Of course, the athanor rests on three bricks to allow air to enter.

Dark heat is the heat of constitution of bodies (24); luminous heat is the heat of combination, it aims to capture the universal AZOTH, Life. The hen's egg contains life in a latent state—dark heat, heat of constitution; for this life to manifest, a new external force must be applied, the luminous heat produced by the hen or the artificial incubator. (Besides, the heat of the hen is really a little luminous, as can be observed in dry weather).

Light heat penetrates to the center of the earth as a chemical function—not as radiant or reflective matter: the rays that pass through the earth are violet, ultraviolet, and black. I point out this point to those who deal with astrology (25).

Dark heat and luminous heat represent the two dragons of Nicolas Flamel, the dark heat (red dragon) being contained in the Fixed, and the luminous Heat (blue dragon) in the Volatile.

The installed athanor, it is necessary to take 30 grams of philosophical Sulphur, to porphyrize them in a glass mortar, to add 60 grams of philosophical Mercury to it and to proceed by imbibition while continuing the porphyrization. A thick, opaque paste is obtained. Then, 90 grams of philosophical salt are added. We introduce the whole reduced to a subtle powder in a glass matrass, the Philosophical Egg (of a hard glass and containing no lead - which could make it burst). This glass is obtained by taking non-aluminous quartz and melting in a quicklime crucible) (26). The hermetically sealed egg (the vacuum will have been created beforehand, by heating it for half an hour in water at 100°, and then closing it under the lamp), it is placed in the athanor in such a way that it receives the luminous heat by reflection; without which the AZOTH could not penetrate there.

We start with a temperature of 40°. This heat only serves to induce the dark heat of the compound. The Salamander lives on fire and gets pregnant with it.

At the end of the third day, dark clouds rise and fall or resolve into rain. It is the raven's wing, it is death, it is the Putrefaction during which the Conjunction takes place.

At this time, the temperature must be carefully monitored: the Egg could burst, creating poisonous vapours.

A more or less vivid phosphorescence will be seen, any putrefaction being accompanied by phosphorescence.

Putrefaction—which makes dark heat luminous, the fixed volatile—awakens the sporadic side of metals (27).

Mineral matter possesses infinitely less radiant dark heat than vegetable and animal matter—so that its evolution requires infinitely more time.

VII

THE LITTLE WORK — THE ELIXIR OF LIFE — SPRAY POWDER

In the Philosophical Egg calm is reborn, life returns.

After a month, the material becomes ash gray. Increase the heat by 10°. Pustules appear, colored like the beetle. It is the regime of fermentation, it is the peacock- indicating that the union of male and female is consummated (28), it is the arrival of metallic chlorophyll.

Matter brightens, whitens; it is the Virgin's Milk, the Immaculate Virgin, the upright Moon of the Sages, the white Philosopher's Stone, not absolutely fixed.

If you only want to transmute metals into silver, a metal that is still oxidizable, if you only want to accomplish the Little Work, you can open the Egg. All that remains is to mix the Stone thus obtained with silver under the conditions and proportions indicated below for gold.

To have the Stone red, the Stone absolutely fixed, increase the heat to 58°; after about twenty days, the material becomes lemon fauna. Push to 80°; after a fortnight, the material turns red. One more month and it becomes a shiny, transparent red. Soon, it sags and becomes stone or salt. This salt, soluble in alcohol, constitutes what the ancients called the Elixir of life for the three kingdoms.

Do not believe, however, that the universal panacea cures broken legs, destroyed organs, etc. Containing life, which is the same for the three kingdoms, it only communicates a little of this life to the sick who need it; it simply introduces a solar activity into the economy, which has given energy back to the cerebral mass, the regulating organ of physical and chemical life; it is only a tonic, a powerful tonic.

This salt dissolved in alcohol brings life to the three kingdoms: 1° to the mineral kingdom. Take a gram of the liquor, put it on a ferruginous earth or sesqui-oxide of iron. Proceeding by way of coction not exceeding 30°, one will see being born in this sesqui-oxide a metal different from iron. 2° to the vegetable kingdom. Put 1 gram of the liquor on 8 to 10 grams of ordinary earth (earth taken from the fields) calcined without fusion, we will see the birth of plants (first mosses, then ferns, then grasses). The earth having been calcined could not contain germs. — The fakirs enclose a seed of wheat or other in their hands: after a certain time of coction, the plant grows; once out of the hands it dies. Beforehand the hands or the seed have been soaked in the liquor. 3° to the animal kingdom.

Back to the Philosopher's Stone. The egg opened, put chemically pure gold in a coal-brazed crucible; when it is molten, add Philosopher's Stone a third part of the weight of gold, and cover the crucible. The purpose of this operation is to bring gold to the state of ferment or leaven of all metals. In the crucible, the gold on which the Stone has been placed swells, then is reduced to purple-red powder.

It is the powder of projection (which is unanalyzable since it kills, brings to maturity all substances), it is gold that has become the ferment of gold.

In this state it has an action of only 1 in 1,000; One kilo of metal, lead or other, would give only one gram of gold, whatever the quantity of powder used. To multiply its power, take the powder again, return it to the hearth with gold as above; add Stone always as above; the powder thus obtained has an action of 10 in 1,000. At the third operation the action will be 100 out of 1,000, and at the fourth 1,000 out of 1,000.
The powder which contains the fixed elements and the volatile elements (dark heat and luminous heat) — the whole inseparable now — brings to the luminous state, fixes in the fire the dark heat of the metal on which it will have been projected.

To make the projection, coat with this powder the value of a grain of millet in a small sheet of virgin wax (which prevents the atmosphere from oxidizing it), throw this ball on a molten metal; immediately, the metal shines and seems endowed with a movement of rotation on itself. Cover the crucible, close the furnace, raise the temperature, let cool. The pellet has decreased in volume.

VII

ALCHEMISTS AND ALCHEMY.

In Paris there are still the rue Nicolas-Flamel and the rue Pernelle. (There is also Place Maubert — that is to say, Maître Albert) near the Saint-Jacques Tower, and the Municipal Council has no thought of renaming them, probably more respectful of the charming legend of Flamel. and his wife only for the services they rendered to science.

Nicolas Flamel, writer first at the Charnier des Innocents, then at the Church of Saint-Jacques, one day bought for two florins a very old and very large gilt book, made of loose bark, with a cover engraved with strange figures. The book contained three times seven leaves, the seventh without writing, but showing painted a rod, fighting serpents, another crucified serpent, deserts, fountains. And, on the first page, there was written in large letters: "Abraham the Jew, prince, Levite priest, astrologer, and philosopher, to the people of the Jews by the wrath of God dispersed in Gaul." Hi. DI »

The author taught metallic transmutation in common words, warned of everything except the first agent he had painted in figured by very great artifice.

Having this fine book at home, Flamel spent night and day only studying it, understanding very well all the operations it demonstrated, but not knowing with what subject to begin. And when his wife Pernelle saw the book she was just as much in love with it, taking extreme pleasure in contemplating these beautiful engravings of images and portraits had all these figures painted and showed them to several great clerks who never understood more than him. . One, however, Master Anseaulme, says that the first agent was really indicated there, quicksilver, which had to be fixed by long decoction in the very pure blood of young children. This was the cause that, during the long space of twenty-one years, Flamel made a thousand quarrels, not however with blood, which is wicked and ugly. Finally, having lost hope of ever understanding these figures, he made a vow to God and to M. Saint-Jacaques de Gallice to ask for their intervention. So with the consent of Pernelle, carrying with him the extract of icelles, having taken the habit and the bumblebee, he set out, and did so much that he arrived at Montjoye, and then at Saint-Jacques (Santiago in Spain) where with great devotion he fulfills his vow. This done, in Leons on his return, he met a Jewish doctor by birth, and then a Christian, who was very learned in the sublime sciences, called Master Cauches. When Flamel had shown him the figures of his extract, he immediately asked him, delighted with great astonishment and joy, if he had any news of the book from which they were taken (a book which the cabalists believed to be lost forever). And our pilgrim having answered him that he hoped to have good news if someone deciphered these riddles, right away. Master Gauches began to decipher them.

So long ago that by the grace of God and the intercession of the Blessed Virgin Mary and Benedicts Saint Jacques and Jean, Flamel knew what he wanted, that is to say the first principles, not however their first preparation which is something very difficult on all those in the world. But he got it in the end after the long mistakes of three years or so during which time he only studied and worked.

Finally he found what he wanted. The first time he made the projection, it was on mercury, of which he converted half a pound into pure silver, better than that of the mine. It was the 17th of January, a Monday around noon, in her present house, Pernelle alone, the year of the restitution of the human one thousand three hundred and eighty-two.

Flamel and his wife founded and took over more than fourteen hospitals in the city of Paris, built new three chapels, decorated with great donations, and good annuities seven churches with several repairs in their cemeteries, in addition to what they did in Boulogne which is hardly less. Then Flamel had painted on the fourth arch of the cemetery of the innocents, entering by the great door of the rue Saint-Denis and taking the right hand, the truest and most essential marks of art, nevertheless under hieroglyphic veils and coverings, fear to represent two things according to capacity, first the mysteries of our future resurrection at the day of judgment of the good Jesus, and again all the principal and necessary operations of the magisterium of natural philosophy.

This is the true story. Now, whether Flamel was born in Pontoise or Boulogne, in 1330 or 1331, it matters little; let us remember only this: Nicolas Flamel learned from a manuscript how to make gold. To those who would smile I would advise to read the interpretation that he himself gave of his alchemical symbols.

Paracelsus is no less well known than Flamel, although he was not even a "prompter" like him. Paracelsus, despite his assertions, never worked in the laboratory, he only knows theory, more a philosopher, more a thinker than a chemist. He derives his fame rather from his word than from the few pharmaceutical preparations to which his name remains attached.

The first, he understood that each thing contains a soul, an active principle, what we call caloid, he taught that it is necessary to separate the pure from the impure, To obtain the subtle quintessence of the products, their stable vital concentration, that the Alchemy is the Science of Life in the three kingdoms, and that Medicine does not exist without Alchemy and Astrology, which shows that each star signs each animal, each vegetable, each mineral with its special seal, and that everything is connected, corresponds. Philippe Bombast was born in 1491 or 1493, in the village of Maria Einsiedeln (Our Lady of the Hermits – hence the nickname Hermit that Erasmus applied to Paracelsus – in the canton of Schwitz). His father, Guillaume de Hobenheim, a man curious about science and possessing a fine library, practices medicine in this village, and, like everyone else, deals with alchemy. He nicknamed the child "Aureolus." Two-year-old Auroelus was amusing himself, in front of his father's house, pulling the tail of a big pig: the latter, furious, turned around and cut off his two testicles. Hence, perhaps, the contempt that Paracelsus later displays for women. Taught in alchemy and magic by his father, by the famous Trithemius, abbot of Spanheim, by Scheyt, bishop of Sergach, by Mathieu Schlacht, Philippe goes, like the Bohemians, through the cities and the countryside, shooting horoscopes, reading the lines of the hand, selling the secret of the Philosopher's Stone, evoking the dead, singing psalms questioning doctors, jugglers, executioners, barbers, old women, sorcerers. It walks randomly pretends to have visited all of Europe, to have been captured in Russia by the Tartans and led by them to Constantinople, after having pushed on as far as Egypt, for the sole purpose of becoming better acquainted with hermetic science! But, Theophraste Paracelsus (so he calls himself: at that time, already, a doctor to succeed had to astonish the gallery) did not leave Germany, this can be seen from the fanciful descriptions he gives. from other countries! Because he lies, he lies atrociously (and yet he accuses Ariatofe of lying according to the habits of the Greeks, who do not consider lying to be evil!). He invents the craziest stories. for the sole purpose of becoming better acquainted with hermetic science! But, Theophraste Paracelsus (so he calls himself: at that time, already, a doctor to succeed had to astonish the gallery) did not leave Germany, this can be seen from the fanciful descriptions he gives. from other countries! Because he lies, he lies atrociously (and yet he accuses Ariatofe of lying according to the habits of the Greeks, who do not consider lying to be evil!). He invents the craziest stories. for the sole purpose of becoming better acquainted with hermetic science! But, Theophraste Paracelsus (so he calls himself: at that time, already, a doctor to succeed had to astonish the gallery) did not leave Germany, this can be seen from the fanciful descriptions he gives. from other countries! Because he lies, he lies atrociously (and yet he accuses Ariatofe of lying according to the habits of the Greeks, who do not consider lying to be evil!). He invents the craziest stories. he lies atrociously (and yet he accuses Ariatofe of lying according to the habits of the Greeks, who do not consider lying to be evil!). He invents the craziest stories. he lies atrociously (and yet he accuses Ariatofe of lying according to the habits of the Greeks, who do not consider lying to be evil!). He invents the craziest stories.

He stayed for a long time in the Bohemian mines, where Sigismond Fueger de Schwartz taught him mineralogy and metallurgy. He follows the army as a surgeon.

Doctors dreaded mercury and opium: recommended them to him—fortunately, moreover, since, thanks to these substances, he cured leprosy, venereal diseases, scabies, slight dropsies, acute pains! He praises Hippocrates, and curses the Arabs and the scholastic doctors. "Speak to me instead," he cried, "of spagyric doctors." These, at least, are not lazy like the others; they are not dressed in fine velvet, silk or taffeta; they do not wear gold rings on their fingers, nor white gloves. The spagyric physicians patiently await, day and night, the result of their labors. They do not frequent public places; they spend their time in the laboratory. They wear skin breeches, with a skin apron to wipe their hands. They put their fingers in the coals and in the garbage. They are black and smoky like blacksmiths and charcoal burners.

They speak little and do not praise their medicines, knowing well that it is at work that one recognizes the worker, they work constantly in the fire to learn the different degrees of the alchemical art... » Paracelsus swears to cure all illnesses, claims to have restored health to eighteen princes on the point of perishing at the hands of galenist doctors, he promises the possible and the impossible. An resident, perhaps less a liar than a boaster: he convinces himself that what he says is true, gets angry with those who dare to smile. Because he has not always experienced what he advocates, he takes gossip at face value, assimilates them instantly! He hasn't even read, he doesn't even read: ignoring Geber, he proclaims himself the inventor of Philosophical Salt! He tells what goes through his head, mixing empiricism, superstition, routine, saying stupid things and sublime things. And we have to listen to it, approve it, admire it so as not to receive big insults.

He cures Erasmus and Aecolampadius. The latter, in 1527, made him obtain a professorship of medicine and philosophy at the University of Basel. At his first lesson, he piles up all the medical books he finds in the amphitheater and burns them, exclaiming: "Yes, I tell you, the wisp of my neck knows more than you. and your authors; the strings of my shoes are more learned than your Galen and your Avienne, and my beard has more experience than your universities. So follow me, walk behind me, follow me all, I am your king!”

His subversive ideas won him many admirers—and many enemies.

In 1529, thanks to his laudanum, he cured the noble chamoine Liechtenfessins of violent stomach pains, demanded a fee of one hundred louis d'or, agreed price, could not obtain them, sued him; he loses his case, insults the judges, has to leave the city hastily.

And here he is resuming his wanderings, visiting Colmar, Nuremberg, Saint-Gall, Augsburg, Salzburg, where, on September 24, 1541, he dies at the Saint-Etienne hospital, leaving the Bible, the Concordance of the Bible as his sole library. , the New Testament and St. Jerome's Commentaries on the Gospels.

I cannot help writing these monographs from thinking of the two alchemists I know (by "alchemist" I mean the one who does not shrink from the title, who has the courage to assume its traditional oddity), the one, Tiffereau, of whom I spoke in the Foreword, the other, Doctor Jobert.

Don't the stormy travels of Paracelsus remind us of the eventful existence of Tiffereau, of this brave old man always fighting to defend his discovery, for this gold of which he succeeded in manufacturing a few plots in Mexico and which he cannot find?

And isn't the slightly mysterious existence of Flamel reminiscent of that of Doctor Jobert who, a few years ago, in his little laboratory in the rue de Vaugirard, was kind enough, twice, for the first time in the presence of Victorin de Joncière, the illustrious and lamented composer, the second in the presence of Léon Champrenaud, the director of La Voie, one of the most serious and transcendent occult reviews, to make money?

VIII

TRANSMUTATION — OR INCREASE — FACT UNDENIABLE.

We had brought the crucible and lead ourselves. To the lead the doctor added a certain weight of a powder of his composition, and the ingot obtained gave the analysis of an official assayer a weight of silver greater than the weight of the powder.

And yet, some time later, a controversy—very courteous, moreover—arose between Dr. Jobert and Mr. Jules Delassus, the very learned collaborator of the journal L'Hyper chimie, about performed in his presence.

In truth, the experiment had taken place on. minimal quantities of metal, too minimal for the analysis to reveal an appreciable result. And we are convinced that the day when Dr. Jobert will use larger quantities, Mr. Jules Delassus will be able to recognize the veracity of the transmutation or the increase.

In the meantime, here is a recipe from Dr. Jobert, which we have tried and whose results we guarantee.

Transformation of copper into silver.

Take 100 grams of pure copper sulphate, 60 grams of sodium phosphate, 60 grams of sodium chloride.

Dissolve the copper sulphate in a liter of water while hot. Add the sodium chloride. Then, add drop by drop, stirring everything, the sodium phosphate previously dissolved in twice its weight of water. Filter. Take this liquor, add 150 grams of potassium sulphide previously dissolved and filtered. Boil and evaporate until only half the liquor remains. Filter again. Take the liquor and put it in a tall glass vase. Take two blades of well stripped red copper, connect them to any electricity generator with a power of 8 volts. Put the two blades thus connected in the liquor, keeping them about 5 centimeters apart. Pass the current until the liquor is discolored. From red, it must become white. Remove the copper blades. The negative will be charged with a white coating. Put it in a good crucible and melt it. Withdraw the pellet from the crucible, put it to dissolve over a gentle fire in nitric acid, divided by half its weight in water. At the bottom of the capsule, a residue has formed. Filter. Gradually add a solution of sodium chloride to this liquor. The water becomes milky. Leave it to stand, add a little sodium chloride solution to the clear liquor until no more precipitate forms. Leave to stand for at least 4 or 5 days, because precipitation takes a very long time. Decant, filter. Put the residue to dry, and add to it three times its weight of lean lead. Put in a crucible, melt by adding borax, saltpetre and charcoal until the slag is very liquid. Leave the crucible to cool, and pass the button to the dish.

It is obviously only a laboratory experiment which will not enrich. But it poses the problem, and we would like it to encourage the curious, curious about science and curious about literature.

END

(l) One begins to realize that the three kingdoms live, evolve. The energy given off by radium is a manifestation of its life. (Don't believe that radium doesn't wear out, doesn't die). Everything lives and gives off perceptible energy in the form of light: Nicolas Flamel called Dragon rouge the dark heat or heat of constitution that can become radiant. The human body emits rays; Paracelsus, in his treatise on the Essence of Nature, said so a few years before M. Charpentier!

(2) There is no inorganic chemistry since the three kingdoms live.

(3) I even have some tenderness for the vulgar "prompter" solely concerned with wealth. The blower evokes the Middle Ages, its maze of black alleys zigzagging at random, alleys with clad windows, floors overflowing one above the other like half-drawn drawers... The blower looks for the Stone in the common salt, sal ammoniac, pine salt, buckwheat salt, metallic rock alum salt, alum. ice, feather alum, marcasite, Virgin's milk, herbal, animal, vegetable, plantable materials, mineral stones, etchings, coperosis, eggs; by separation, elements in athanor and by alembic and pellican, by circulation, decoction, reverberation, ascent and descension, fusion, ignition, rectification, evaporation, conjunction, elevation, sublimation and commixtion, sublimation, calcination, freezing of quicksilver by grasses, stones, oils, manures, fire and very strange vessels, etc., etc. The prompter tries to remove Life from snakes, worms, toads because he thinks that in them it is more intense. And the good prompter who seeks to create Life also seeks to destroy it, he seeks poisons, he seeks microbes, ferments.

(4) Tiffereau wrote: Gold and the transmutation of metals, My travels in Mexico, The art of making gold. Metals are compound bodies. The increase of mineral matter, etc.

(5) Mr. Jollivet-Castelot, president of the Hermetic Society of France, wrote: How one becomes an alchemist, The life and soul of matter, Hylozoism, Unitary chemists. Alchemical science, etc. He edited a journal L'hyperchimie (Rosa-Alchemica).

(6) In this pseudo increase of the metallic matter one can, obtain an increase, but one obtains it only in the pyrophoric state. It's obviously a result, it's open metal, it's the first step. But for this increase to be ponderable it would be necessary to be able to ingot the metal. And that...

(7) The very excellent Opuscule of the true natural philosophy of metals by Denis Zacaire. (Edition of 1612. A. Lyon at Pierre Ringaud, in rue Mercière, at the sign of Fortune) bears in subtitle these words Traictant of the increase of iceux.

(8) Notre-Dame (St-Marcel portal), the St-Jacques tower (sculptures) and the Sainte-Chapelle (stained glass windows) are the last alchemical monuments in Paris. See also, 51 rue de Montmorency, the house that belonged to Nicolas Flamel, formerly called Maison du Grand Pignon: the gable has been replaced by a floor, but we still read on the In. facade: We men and women laborers live on the porch of this house which was made in the year of grace one thousand four hundred and seven, each of us is bound by right to say a pate nostre and a ave Maria every day, praying God that his grace will forgive the poor sinners who have died. Amen.

(9) Whoever reveals this secret is cursed (Arnauld de Villeneuve). I swear on my soul that if you reveal this you will be damned (Raymond Lully).

(10) “Lion” also meant “Philosophical sulfur”

(l1) What is dead is ripe. In (that which is ripe) we find the seed, the seed.

(l2) Time is One of nature's great secrets. Now, modern chemists do not want long experiments. While the alchemists did not fear those that lasted several years.

(13) The density of a body therefore does not vary more than its weight; only the volume varies, and the atomic weight changes. We must consider ductile zinc as a body different from brittle zinc, as a body of different density.

(14) Metal is matter fixed in a crystalline form; the metalloid is not fixed.

(15) Water is made up of two metals, hydrogenium and oxygenium. Air is made up of two metalloids.

(16) The Philosophical Sulfur has been given a collection of names: Sun, King, Male, Lion, etc., etc. Similarly, the Philosophical Mercury: White Moon, Queen, Female, King's Bath, etc., etc.

(17) Here is how one will operate: The copper being rolled into thin sheets, take a well-baked brick urn, pulverize it finely, add to this brick powder a third of the weight of ammonia hydrochloride, mix everything well. Put at the bottom of the crucible a little of this powder, a blade of the copper obtained previously, and thus superimpose several layers (cementation) of 5 millimeters of thickness each one, Until filling the crucible with the 2/3. Take fine sand or crushed glass, add a layer one centimeter thick to the whole. Place the crucible in the glass furnace. Start with a small fire for an hour, increase it successively until everything is melted, heat until the lid of the crucible no longer escapes green vapors. The chlorine is gone. Ammonium made alloy. (Capture of AZOTH. Fixing of nitrogen). Allow the crucible to cool, break it. To take again the sheets of copper, which are friable like glass and of white color: it is the marcasite, of old. Pulverize these laminae, put in three times the weight of silver, and melt. Proceed by the starting method. We see the gold fall in the state of black powder, powder that is put in the dish with lead. Some of the copper turned into gold. Proceed by the starting method. We see the gold fall in the state of black powder, powder that is put in the dish with lead. Some of the copper turned into gold. Proceed by the starting method. We see the gold fall in the state of black powder, powder that is put in the dish with lead. Some of the copper turned into gold.

(18) The more a body is oxygenated and carburized, the more it is colored, the more it approaches the color yellow (example: gold); the more it is hydrogenated, the more it approaches the white color (example: mercury, antimony). What is the true color of silver?

(19) The way in which nature works underground in the procreation of metals is none other than by continual decoction of the true matter of them, which decoction separates the world from the filthy, the pure from the impure, the perfect of the imperfect, by continual evaporation. In the mines where there is a diversity of metals and materials, some coarse, others subtle and pure, the latter are willingly raised to the highest. Our science must therefore begin with sublimation to purify matter.
The philosophers have called the second operation conjunction wdissolution: at the birth of the work the volatile part carries with it the fixed part; it is therefore necessary that the fixed retain the volatile, that the volatile become fixed and the fixed volatile. - Zacaire.

(20) Open, close: hate, love; solve, coagulate; repulsion, attraction; this is the Great Work.

(21) About petroleum, vulgar petroleum, here is a very simple experiment: Mix 500 grams of sulfuric acid and 250 grams of nitric acid, gently pour this mixture into a matrass containing one kilo of petroleum (place the matrass in a bucket of water to prevent overheating). In the liquor thus obtained, dissolve a silver coin. Impossible then to take back the silver, a new metal was formed.

(22) The mixture of this stone oil and open gold produces a greasy, unctuous substance which makes the glass malleable.

One gives to the glass according to the metallic oxides which one adds to this mixture the various colors of the invaluable stones of which one also gives him the purity by the coction.

(23) What remains on the filter we will put it to dry and we will have a black earth, the damned earth, which earth cannot be reduced to the state of a metallic body. It is a violent poison, it is the famous arsenic of the ancients—which must not be confused with our common arsenic.

(24) Radium is analogous to the Mercury of the Philosophers to which Basil Valentin attributes properties that destroy the organic matter that surrounds it; dissolve open metals and bring them to maturity. The radium functions as a cold fire.

(25) Certain alchemists (Artefius, Basil Valentine, Paracelsus, the Cosmopolitan, etc.) assimilated the metals to the planets, explaining the properties of the former by the properties of the latter, using astrological phraseology. See the Dictionary mytho-hermetic of Pernety to the word "Zodiac". See, also, the fourth book of the Magical Archidoxes of Paracelsus.

(26) This glass can be found in Paris, at Poulencq.

(27) Any body that putrefies absorbs O. A metal to which O is supplied oxidizes, corrodes, disappears little by little by combustion, by dry heat, resolves on itself; it is a real putrefaction, it is the dissociation of the atomic elements.

(28) There, a red lion, bold pretender, was married, in a lukewarm bath, with the fleur-de-lis. (Faust. – Goethe