THE BOOK OF THE TWELVE GATES OF ALCHEMY

(Anonymous)

1618

Genealogy of the Mother of the Mercury of the Philosophers

The virtue, the power, and the truth of our Stone in the Art of Alchemy is declared by the ancient Philosophers, hereafter named.

FIRST OF ALL,

ARISTOTLE in the fourth of the Ethics says: That Mercury is the nourishment of the Planets.

SAMARITAN BERAULT says: That the Sun & the Moon occur in Mercury, & after two preparations Mercury died there.

HETHOMEDES says, Yellow is middle between white & red. Mercury & Kibric make reddened fire cooking redness. Sun with Moon & Mercury make Moon.

HERMES says, Mercury rises from earth to heaven, & if goes from heaven to earth, & thus mortifies itself, & receives high & low virtue. His father if is Sun, his mother is the Moon

The HORTULAN said, The art of Alchemy is given without lies; by which Art the Sun is engendered & better than the natural Sun, in all properties.

ORTHOPHALES says, Our stone is a mineral thing, & by art composed of contrary things, pure & subtle parts of Mercury; which parts are hot & moist, cold & dry & these things are contained in Sun & Moon with Mercury & the stone is incoming & fixed, & convert Mercury & the other imperfect bodies into Sun & Moon according to the art of Music.

GEBER says, there is a stone, a Medicine to which we add nothing strange.

ROSARIUS says, Great quantity of Mercury is cause of perfection of metals; & large amount of Kibric is cause for corruption in them. The strong heat gave blackness at the beginning, & slow fire makes whiteness & after whiteness it comes lemon & lemon comes from a lot of white & little red. Citrination is perfect digestion to kick off the black.

PLATO says, That there is white Sulfur in every Moon, & in every Sun there is red Kibric.

AVICENNA says, That one is not on earth Kibric white nor red, except so much only in Sun & Moon; which make the rays to dye other metals into true & pure whiteness & redness. Mercury mingles with Sun and Moon, & is fixed with them. Nothing enters our stone which is not of its nature. Who knows how to dye Mercury with Sun & Moon, he knows the secret of white & vermeil Sulphur.

In white take Mercury & Moon, & in vermeil take Mercury & Sun because all the benefit of art is in them. Don't mix the white with the vermeil, because you would have to. And the beginning of our work is to dissolve our stone in water of Mercury.

TIMOTHEE AFRODITES says, that the means which divides, & which unites the natures & the tinctures, is the water of Mercury, because it is the perfection of all medicines, whether bodily or spiritual. In all metals, no bodies which remain in their own nature, freeze Mercury nor adhere with it & thus Mercury alone does not heal sick bodies, therefore the body must be very subtle & clear, returning to the nature of Mercury, so that the medicine may be of lighter fusion than the body by itself, also it be more fixed than Mercury.

When you want to have medicine for the red, you must elect Sun & for the white, Moon & be dissolved each by itself, with water of Mercury, that is, a weight of Sun & sweet weight of water.

The putrefaction time is forty days. And so much more will the time of putrefaction be prolonged; so much the better, & always in a slow fire.

There are three medicines one for the Sol, the other for the Moon, & the third for, Sol & Moon together.

The medicine of the Sun is fixed in a shorter time, & then after medicine of the Moon & then that of the Sun & the Moon together. If you take the simple medicine, and you start the work again with water of Mercury, if as you do at the beginning, by means of the body, the medicine will be done rather than the first: and in this way the medicine will be multiplied. And know that the tincture of water must agree with the tincture of medicine.

The projection on Mercury is done in this way. Take some of the medicine; & the Amalgamation with Mercury, & then this amalgamation, either thrown on natural Mercury, hot & boiling & sometimes it will be congealed in Sun or in Moon.

POMPEIUS said. Rotten eight parts of Mercury, with two parts of pure Sol, in feverish heat, per 90 days, shaking several times until it is rather dissolved.

The sign of putrefaction is blackness, & then everything & put it in another vessel, first on a slow fire for three natural days & on the ninth day quench the vessel because Mercury in its sublimation carries with it the soul of the Sun & make such fire that the hand can almost touch the vessel, without hurting itself & thus sublime what will be able to sublimate, & then what will be sublimated divide it into nine parts, which you will keep crush each in its vial, in heat of fever; & then grind what remained at the bottom of the vessel & then mix with it one of the nine vials mentioned above & then put on fire for 30 days; because it is the term of each imbibition.

The first sign is by any means whiteness; & that the earth was in no way thirsty; & then yawn the second part, & a therefore it will have more whiteness & then yawn the third part, & in the end will make the earth perfectly white; & then afterwards the color of the earth will not be seen, except as long as only vermeil & until the end you will have taken 150 natural days: the six measuring weights are red, & should they be given & administered one after the other, if like the first three & thus the medicine will begin to blush, little by little, until it is perfectly red. And are the eight months for the eight vials. And must know, that each weight, of the nine vials before said, must be fixed in its land,which thing you will prove by this way: throw a weight of the medicine on a sheet of Venus, or of the Moon, or of Mars which is red in the Fire & if the medicine melts without smoking, & that it is incoming & that it yawns tincture, it is done & if not, continue your operation with fire, until it is such & then, melt a weight of very pure Sol, & then throw on as much of this medicine, & let it cool, & then pulverize everything, & then melt a weight of pure Moon, & throw on it as much of the aforementioned powder & then let it cool, then pulverize everything.

From this second powder, throw on Moon; as do first on Sol, & do so always, as long as the medicine is pulverizable & it will always be medicine & then this medicine thrown on at least l000 weight of Moon & converts it into very pure Sol. And if you multiply your medicine, by the way above said, a weight will be expensive, on 10000 of Moon. And so as you have opened in vermeil with the Sol, in the same way you will be able to work in the white with Moon & Mercury. The medicine of the Moon is made red, in the manifesto, but nevertheless it is white inside. And if as the medicine of Sol is thrown on the Moon, in the same way the medicine of the Moon is thrown on Venus. The time of each medicine is 10 months, minus 10 days.Each month is 30 days for medicine on Mercury, & on the other diseased metals, namely, Saturn, Jupiter, Venus, & Mars. Putrefy the two luminaries each by itself, as it is said before by 90 days & then mix both together; & so does the marriage of male & female for the great stone & then distills it all together & divides what is distilled into nine parts if as before is said, for the medicine of Sol. For after three imbibitions you will have whiteness; & is each 90 day imbibition. And the other six tending to redness & are ordered three by the yawned way in simple medicine, for as long as each imbibition is 50 days.And if it happens that in the end, when the medicine would be fixed, it was not of good fusion, take two Luminaries, with the weight of our water, & rotten,

The projection of this medicine on Mercury is done in such a way. Take a part of this medicine, & amalgamate it with as much raw Mercury, then heat other raw Mercury, as long as it wants to flee & throw the medicine before said & it will freeze it in real Sol & if everything was frangible, you must amalgamate it again with the other raw Mercury, & then throw it again on another raw Mercury; if is always medicine & this always does, until it is no longer frangible; & as long as the color, & maleation pleases you.

The projection on the other imperfect metals is done in this way: Melt down a weight of fine Sol & as much fine Moon, & then put as much medicine, & throw this medicine on the bodies you want to heal; & if as you do Sol medicine on the Moon, if one chet out of 100. The total time of this medicine is sixteen months, each month 90 days & another 90 days on top.

JULLIUS FERINA said, Take a weight of very pure, & very loose Sol fucilla & twelve weights of Mercury: sink, & make a body of these two, by dissolving the body of the Sol with the Mercury, as long as everything passes through the very loose cloth & then cooks everything in a slow fire for 20 days & be the fire so great that the Mercury does not flee from the Sol: & in each week crushed very well all together; then at the end of the six weeks the matter will be black, & rotten, & congealed in a body: & if it is not thus continue the fire, before said, as long as it is thus & then the crushed whole put it in the fire, because little by little it will whiten, from week to week, in six weeks & in another six weeks it will redden stronger fire, that is to say,at higher heat, that is to say at very high heat & thus the work is done in 90 days, & then throw on an almost red lamina, a small amount of medicine, & if it is melting, colored, & entering without smoke, you have the ferment beyond the stone & a weight melted with as much Sun reddens 1000 weights of Moon, by fusion of fire. And if the medicine happens to be fixed and not melting, grind it, and sprinkle it with water of Mercury, before said, until it drinks its weight, and then put it on the fire from week to week, trying the fusion if it is good. And if you don't mind the prolixity, because the extension is profitable. And know that each cremation is twelve days. And know that seven cremations, & putrefactions make the medicine very strong;because each inceration is worth twelve times more than the one before because if the first time chet out of 10, the second will fetch out of 100 & the third out of 1000.

With Moon & Mercury will you be able to do white medicine on Venus in a similar way.

The conjunction of the solute medicines is done in such a way, because each one is done in slow fire, by 92 days, a weight of Sol & two of Moon & then must be mixed together because such a conjunction is called Marriage of male & female, that is to say, of Sol & Moon, & is the medicine governed by the aforesaid way & its projection is done on Mercury, & on the other imperfect bodies; & converts them into very pure Sol. And know that Compound Medicine contains almost double the time.

SAUBATIUS DE TOLETTE says, who does not dissolve the bodies, he plows in vain. The solution is nothing but to convert them into water, from which they were first begotten, which thing is Mercury. Know therefore that the body is corporeal Mercury & that it is made mercurial water, & is made by water of Mercury: & thus does the incorporeal thing become body; for in the commixtion Mercury becomes body, & thus convert the natures & you will find what you ask for. All our mastery is done with the water of Mercury, because it dissolves the charred bodies, & converts them into earth, & whitens the ashes. The father of our mastery is the Sol, its mother is the Moon, because the Sol is the perfect body & the Moon is the imperfect body.The sperm of them is quick Mercury, which is nourished with milk from the tree by imbibition: several times, make him drink as much as they can. And all things created are the four elements manifestly & because the Philosophers out of friendship with the elements have yawned this science & say that they work from blood, bone, worms, eggs, wine & several other things, but however that they only opened when from a single matter, by distillation, by extracting the four elements, firstly water, air, fire, & then remained at the bottom of the vessel the black & then first returned to the earth earth its water, & then after the air , & then the fire, as long as everything was a body & then of this medicine they threw on the sick bodies which were of their species;for it is certain that man naturally begets man, and so with other beasts,

To multiply the stone or mineral that you know, take three parts of Mercury accoutre by sublimation, as you know, & put them with an appropriate body part, as you know, putting everything inside a matrass, on ashes, on a slow fire, for a day or two & the whole cooled, break the matrass & grind your material inside in a marble, then cook it, inside the vessel you know for 3 days, on a slow fire, having put what above, & mix with the medicine, & stone first made, all in the said said marble mortar; after the three days it must be purged as you know afterwards it must be cooked for another three days, with a little more heat, and on the third it must give up its spirit, as at the first time,then put it back in its ship for another three days, increasing the fire from degree to degree until everything remains at the bottom. This makes you add three parts of water of Mercury, decked out as above & cook them, as before, honoring it with each three days, as before, as you know, & continue until infinity. Or else, take body and spirit in the same number and cook them as before, and the better. Do well, & you will find it to be true.

END .