Manuscript National Library S.XV (Ms 19978 and 19962 and 14789 Book of Diets)
Here begins the true practice of the noble Science of Alchemy. The desired Desire, and the price that no one can prize of all the Philosophers composed, and of the books of the ancients taken and drawn, these in short have abridged, so that to you, dear friend, the argument of truth of the most excellent part of Philosophy, which sum we call the practice of Alchemy, because from the books of the Philosophers like roses from thorns I have pulled it out and torn it, for the thing that is contrary to reason harms truth . For this the men of truth with all things belonging to it, hereby, by clear sermon and by right order, and word for word with all sufficient causes have yawned, with all things which in their books have (been) found be necessary for the work to be accomplished, without putting anything superfluous, or concealing anything belonging to all the said work, for which I pray to Our Lord Jesus Christ that by his grace you will give the spirit of understanding. And for what this book is called true practice of Alchemy. First I will put the definition of Alchemy.
Alchemy is a sealed part of the most necessary natural Philosophy, of which is constituted an art, which is like no other, which art teaches to change all unperfect gems to true perfection, and all diseased human bodies to most noble health, and to transmute all bodies of metals into true sun and true moon by a universal medicinal body to which all particulars of medicine are reduced, which is accomplished and done manually by a secret diet revealed to the children of truth by means of heat such as as Nature desires. Dear friend, it is a science which is called real flower or flower of sapience, by which the human understanding is rectified by force of experience with the eye and rural knowledge, as it is thus that such experience does not can suffer no fantastic probations, but gives way to enter vividly into any other science by showing to the understanding how one can enter into the divine virtues which are many to be concealed, and thus by Nature we understand what is of truth, of which many fools believe let it be nothing. But we have seen it whether it is truth or not, and for that will be secret to man who has known it, because by such science is cast out the understanding of superfluity which is contrary to all truth. And so be it that in strong praise shines friendship, and in known loyalties all reverence blossoms, and to true constants is found loyalty in fruit that is enduring, and for that as I have found friendship and truth in you, I, as a familiar, I will not refuse you to write, as a token of singular love, the secret revealed to the Children of truth seeing the very agreeable fiance you have with me. So as obviously I saw it, and in infallible experience really known. And for this as truth is in the person who experiences desire, to have in Nature, and from here is given and no other can be. So as it is written are the authorities of the Greeks who say keep truth and you will have praise in God and experience in Nature. Otherwise no. Which authority must be exercised in our Latin if we want to have virtue and experience: and for that to you as this son of truth approaches the gift of grace which is pure truth on the foundation of nature, and for that which are things above say, I have known your noble heart, highly elevated in true understanding. Witness the example which I have seen of the truth of your person, and for that nothing else remains, except so much only to declare the righteous way which you must have to obtain the true and pure intention of our mastery. in own work to continue fruitful experience which is secret of nature, incomparable treasure and key, and end of any course of physics. This book will be divided into two main parts. That is, in theory and in practice.
For which treasure to acquire, you, dear friend, must have in yourself, as a man of real understanding, two principal intentions if you want in yourself to obtain the philosophical work which is over the whole course of nature. The first intention here is that you must acquire a natural device by which the mercury can naturally be hardened. The second intention here is to know and know the reason and the effect by which hardens and freezes in intellectual succession according to the nature of the successive alteration which is done in the matter of nature, and so that you understand these two intentions. I answer you in the second say the true Philosophers that quicksilver can never change anything, unless first it is moved apart and transformed from one nature into another, and so as it is transmuted, just so afterwards he transmutes. For when it is dissolved, afterwards it dissolves, and when it is hardened and congealed, afterwards it hardens and congeals. Whereby it appears that the reason why we harden and freeze it is so that afterwards it might harden and freeze and thicken every other quicksilver, not only into a mass of metal, but into perfect medicine, being in the form of a very elixiric powder. heavy. Dear friend, hear, for nothing can be done without knowing the cause, and I have already told you that knowledge of the cause is that mercury is neither transmuted nor congealed except by intention to transmute and congeal, because by him transmuted we transmute in the space of an hour, and without him transmuted we could transmute nothing because transmutation is done only according to reason and force of Nature, and for this, when the nature of mercury is once transmuted, it transmutes all other mercury into the like nature, for which thing it appears, returning to the first intention, as you must acquire within you natural apparatus by which first you may thicken, harden, and congeal the said mercury by knowledge of cause to win such a device to freeze said mercury. I have the whole course of real philosophy discussed by many works and contemplations for the great and strong love of which I was overcome, until I saw in it the right order of Nature and the supplement that she knows give, for she really and clearly showed me the causes by which quicksilver all by it cannot be transmuted by art, just as Nature transmutes it into her own mines, and for this I have known the cause of the truth by which the Philosophers have said that art cannot follow Nature, but indeed resembles it in all things which resemble it can, and if I told you all the causes, too long would be too much. But in conclusion one of the main and real causes is for this because quicksilver presently doesn't contain crumb in it all the right four compound elements. Because our very complete stone is made of all the 4 elements currently composed, because the simple ones in the too small art profit for what too many have simple and long actions of digestions, which the art could not wait by their too big residence nor information of heat outside, one could not give them by art which was good with the requirement of their simplicity. And for this visionary Philosophy that in this point art cannot resemble Nature. For this, because quicksilver, which is the material in which Nature does her actions in the mining of metals, does not contain the four elements within itself, except too simply, and for this she commands us that we do not take it in art. , if not for an element so much only, that is, for the element of water. Now get it, unnatured water. We, who are informed by established reasons of Natural Philosophy, know that for art, first of all, four principal naturally compounded elements are necessary. Namely, fixed earth and fixed fire, and unfixed natural water and air. And it is a trade that this earth and this fire be of the very substance of quicksilver. Because in any other way never would be added to them if they were not of its nature and its matter.
By which thing it appears that as this earth and this fire are fixed and are or must be of the substance of mercury, in firm conclusion must hold that such earth and such fire are nothing else, if not substance of fixed quicksilver, not not that by art has been fixed or purified, but it has been by the craft of Nature's work, in fine gold and fine silver in her own mine in the space of a thousand years. Which device art never can reach, and for this, Pious Philosophy has given us to understand that in addition we take the sun for father and the moon for mother, because they are fixed bodies shining and dyeing, and fire of nature digesting the aforesaid mercury, and congealing and hardening it after the artifice of their subtiliation.
From these two bodies, dear friend, we derive with the aid of the above said unfixed mercury three elements, viz., fixed earth, fixed fire and unfixed air, which bears within it the mercury form, and is called animated mercury in natural color, line from the deepest of the so-called fixed body tops. So we get the four elements. Now hear in what way they take their mutations together, by an example that I will give you so that you are better advised in fact of the dear practice. For no time was a Philosopher better to give her to a child he had as I will give her to you. I therefore tell you that the water as cold and moist nature mixes with the plants and icelle receives another mixtion and proportion. And it is because of the things that are mixed in it, by which things thus mixed it receives in each decoction quality of the mixed thing. Because the whole process of this art does not ventilate, except in certain proportions and compositions and transmutations of quality into another all together, which compositions are made by mixing nature in sign of right order of it with regard to form specific to each proportion and composition, enforcing the instrument of Nature. Thus quicksilver takes on another nature and other qualities by taking on the nature of the bodies with which it is cooked. For if it cooks with gold, nature of gold will set and in nature of gold will turn over and freeze. To which thing answers Philosophy, and says that no moisture is more readily converted into gold or silver than that into which the qualities of gold or silver are sufficiently introduced by dissolution. If as is quicksilver which has been cooked in ice and afterwards drawn from the depths of their belly, and if in Venus or in Jupiter cook it, likewise will it take on the qualities of ice, and consequently in it. nature of them will turn over and freeze. And so with all other metallic species, for things only happen according to their nature, and there is nothing that is (more) a strong thing than Nature. So as Nature cannot mislead her nature, if we want to make gold or silver by Nature, we should cook their species with the said mercury and mix and dissolve. For said mercury is their own mineral water, so as appears by its metallic form. And therein mercury will receive the said bodies mutations and conversions from one nature to another in such a way that after the said water drawn from the body, all their nature in the form of mercury thus as I said by the example of the vegetable things cooked in just water. And so as the nature of the bodies is altered in front of the so-called water of mercury, consequently their color is altered. And inside it will coalesce and amalgamate under a species of mercury, and for this reason one cannot see it until the end of its congealing. And I have already clearly exemplified you for having real understanding as the simple water of rivers is the first matter and nourishment of plants, if it is of all animated and sensitive things. And for this, if any things from here are cooked in it, sometimes will take the virtue and property of its nature, and for this as the water in its beginning is sovereignly cold in nature. However, because of the hot things that are cooked in it, sometimes will work and manifest a third degree heat effect. Item, there is nothing which into substance of flesh is rather converted than this water in which the flesh is perfectly cooked, or things cooked in it are taken, or water by it simply after its decoction is taken and drunk at the measure and proportion of nature. For therefore do not harm, but benefit better and help, which thing did not make the water raw and cold being in its first simplicity, but was very harmful because of its raw coldness which is a mortifying quality.
And for this the water of the flesh after its decoction is not such as it was before, but is its essence at all convertible into the nature of flesh. And by this it takes itself for meat and not for medicine, because without means it is reducible in human essence. Just so in a similar and real way, quicksilver is the first material of all metals. Because thus as the common water of the rivers for reason of simple first and essential and common homogeneity which it has in all the plants and in all the animals receives the virtue of all the things which are cooked in icelle. All thus the mercury receives and attracts the virtue and nature of the bodies of the aforesaid which in it join and mingle in their decoction, and in the essence of them afterwards it returns. And for that as in its beginning the mercury is drawn cold, it can be made hot in a short time and likewise can be made tempered with tempers, but it is by a very subtle and ingenious art.
And to this in the work of Philosophy, we add raw mercury which is raw mercurial spirit so as water bearing the ensign of a species of metal with the bodies then digested, fixed, cooked and tempered by the engine of nature. Namely in gold and silver so that by certain decoctions dissolve in it, which ways I will show you by practice. For as man cannot be engendered but man, nor gold without gold, remains that according to the right of Nature there is nothing to constrain to make generation if not the two sperms which are principles of nature. And yet these two sperms we don't have now. So first we draw them from the sun and the moon by dissolution of their body and subtiliation. Thus, as neither the man nor the woman can add their sperm in coitus so first they are not drawn from the kidneys by dissolutive delectation made by love of a libidinous nature. And so as man and woman suffice their sperm, so gold and silver suffice their sperm, especially when the true seeds are spread and mingled in the chamber of the womb keeping as well as the difference in generational lineage requires. For in the said womb, which is Nature's own vessel to which she transmutes, is made the conjunction and the solution of one and the other union, action, passion by force of heat of nature which is thus like heat of natural woman. And so we proceed in the arts of Philosophy if we want the work to remain without error, in such a way that the female body is naturally dissolved in the water above, called mercury, which actually stands dissolved in its share. And the male alike, keeping the proportion. If as it appears the indagations and secrets of Nature.
This theoretical, dear friend, I give you, so that you have better knowledge of the things which are transmuted by the virtue of the practice which follows. Because at all times it is said that every man is reputed to be a beast who does not know how to give real cause to what really does or wants to do, and for this have the said theory recommended to your understanding, because there was never a Philosopher who yawned it thus as I tell you. do.
Here comes the practice. Dear friend you will take in the name of God two pounds of common water, and icelle will distill by a well untied leather. Then after take an ounce of very fine moonshine refined by ashes, and put it in a vial in small pieces sliced to the size or width of your fingernail. And afterwards you will put all your water inside, and you will cook everything in the bath for two or three natural days. And this is the first disposition of the work.
The second provision is such. You will take your matter in the name of God and set it aside to cool. Then after you will pour everything into a glass or leaded earth dish, and collect with a feather all that you find dead earth above, and put it aside well kept. Afterwards you will have a corridor of medium canvas, that is to say one that is neither too thick nor too thin, and will pour your material through it into another very wide glass dish, and will press it well until everything what can pass water has passed through said corridor. Then after you will have a stone mortar and in it you will put the body which remained in the corridor, and in it you will grind with a wooden pestle as a sauce. And when you see that it will be soft, you will pass what can pass through the corridor, then put it back in the mortar and water it a little with the water that first passed through the leather hairline that I told you above, and water it like dew, then grind it very hard and water it again more and more, as if you wanted to make a sauce, until it is like water. All this sauce has passed through the third corridor, then put it in the said flask with all its water, and smother your flask well with good candied wax and put it back to cook in a bath for three days.
The third disposition is such, that is, that all in all you do so as you did for the second disposition. By first picking up the dead earth, and setting this apart with the other you picked up above. Then after by passing your matter through the middle corridor, and after by crushing the body which is fixed quicksilver, and by watering and putting to cook, just like it is said above for three days. Know, dear friend, that by such decoctions, imbibitions and crushings, the body which is quicksilver fixes very strongly and subjugates within the belly of unfixed mercury in such a way that all its fixed viscosity dissolves in the unfixed mercury and surrenders not fixed. And is this celestial color shaped body water viscosity, so as I will show you when you work. And this water is called fire and brimstone, for it ardent and burns every body so as experience will show you, and dissolves and congeals into radical moisture, and when the body is deprived of such moisture it remains in discontinuous subtle powder, so as will appear after its calcination. So as such dissolutions of water and subtiliation of bodies are done by the benefit of the above said provisions, please be lazy to start over and continue with them until your matter has come to the sign which I will give you which is such. You will take a little body after its expression, and put it on a copper or iron blade over a coal fire. And if you see the body turn black, it's a sign of its nature that it's undercooked. Repeat the before-said arrangements on the said body again until you see it in the form of pale white earth without metallic form and without blackness. So is the radical body well washed by the first washing.
Now follows the second lava, in greater dissolution and subtiliation of the said radical body which is fixed and lunar mercury. For know that such subtleties we do not make, except so that the subtlety and dry fixed mercury can retain and freeze the non-fixed mercury which is at all simple and subtle. Because large bodies in simple, nor simple in large are never well added according to, that is to know if the fixed is not made simple like the other. And this is done by various arrangements and preparations as you will see by experience and degree of heat.
The first disposition of the second washing, solution and subtiliation is such. That is to say that when you have tried from the small that the body turns in white earth, you will take the whole body and put it in a vessel called condamphore made of two pieces, one similar to the other, whose shape I will show you. In this vessel you will put your body after its expression without a water point. After smothering it with good candied wax which is called, the secrets of this Philosophy, but philosophai. Then later you will put it to cook in the bath for two natural days. This decoction here is a kind of desiccation by which, with the help of its reiterations, the body of the whole turns over in the manner of a very subtle powder. And hence the first disposition of the second lava is made. The second arrangement is that you take your vessel with all the matter and put it to cool, and when it is cold, open it. And the moisture that you find sublimated against the lid of the condamphore, you will pick with a clean feather, and set aside. Afterwards you will take the dry body that you will find at the bottom, and put it in a mortar. It is a body which readily breaks. Grind it hard until you see that it will turn over all wet. Then put it back to the said condamphore in a bath for two natural days. And so is made the second disposition of the second lava.
The third disposition is neither more nor less than the second. So do it just as it is said by picking up the humidity that you will find sublimated upstream, and put it with the other by grinding the body until it is made powder which is a little moist. By such decoctions you will find that the body loses its moisture in each decoction and dries up in slow fire. So put it back to cook and dry until it is a subtle ash-colored powder. This is the third disposition of the second lava. The fourth provision is made neither more nor less and like the others already said. By such arrangement will find that the body will be in more dry powder. Thus, dear friend, the fourth arrangement is completed.
Now follows the fifth provision which is done by further dry heat information. You will take the said powder and it will put the said condamphore. And then put it on ashes and give it slow fire simply compost, which I will show you in your practice when you work. For the degrees of fire by virtue of their measure, which works to meet the requirements of nature, do all the work. In such fire you will leave it for a natural day. And this is the fifth provision.
The sixth provision is that you let your vessel cool without removing it from the furnace, and when it is cold you will take your powder and grind it in a mortar. But first you have gathered all the humidity that will be sublimated and set apart by it, because it has another virtue and another power. Keep it well quenched in a glass vial, then put the powder back into the condamphora and put it back on ashes, and make there such a fire, as above told you, which is fire of the first degree. And such a fire must continue for five or six hours, and after all continuously in this same degree will compose the coal fire until it is fire of degree and a half. In such fire will be your matter for the space of sixteen hours. This is the sixth provision.
The seventh disposition here is neither more nor less like the sixth disposition already said, except that the fire is elevated to the second perfect degree. Put therefore your matter at the degree of this heat by a natural day and such is the seventh disposition.
The eighth disposition is similarly like the others already said, except that in this disposition the heat of the fire is raised to the second degree and a half, of which the half degree is continued by flames by a natural light or by more until as long as said powder can no longer sublimate anything.
Now follows the third wash which is made by reversion of reduction in large dissolution to aconsuivir greater subtiliation and solution of said moist radical to which must freeze and harden your quicksilver. You will take in the name of the sovereign creator your calcined body and put it in your mortar and water it with the first water in the manner of dew made by the leather hairline by watering and grinding until everything is well incorporated. Then after again water it and then grind it hard until the water and the body are made one. And then after watering it by greater imbibition. However, let it be temperate, and then grind it hard. And so water and grind it until it is made as a clear sauce, which sauce you shall take, and all that may pass from it by expression you shall pass through the middle hall in a glass dish.
And what cannot pass you will return to grind by incorporating it with the mercury by imbibition in the manner of dew thus as you have already done, by wetting and watering until as long as it is like a clear sauce, it is namely between thick and clear. Then after everything that can pass through the said middle corridor you will pass, and put everything that will pass on the other dish that you have passed on it. And what will remain that cannot pass, go back to grinding, and watering and incorporating as you did. And so you will start again until the whole body has passed through the said middle corridor. And this is done quite lightly and early so understand the said provision. That is to say in two hours or a little more. Then mix all your first simple water with all that has passed, and finally that the simple water continues into the thick water, pass everything through the big corridor two or three times. And then put everything in a very thick glass curcurbite and which is all in one piece with its alembic, and that above the alembic there is a very wide hole to which enters a tight glass neck above it -even, which we call respiral because in it the light and fugitive aerial spirits that are of great attraction are cooled. Said ship I will demonstrate to you in place and time. This-said vessel with all the above-said matter you will later put in a water bath, and have in such a manner disposed by healthy provision the fire that the water will be fervent when you put the vessel in it. That is, ready to boil, for as soon as you can it is necessary to boil it, before the body is discontinued from the metallic water in which it was continued. So make a fire sometimes so that the bath boils. And soon as it will begin to boil leave the fire in this regard, because always afterwards it will boil, but you will know once the degree of the fire. In such well continued decoction will be your matter by eight natural days. Icelle is the first disposition of the third washing, solution and subtiliation.
The second disposition of the third lava is that you will take your vessel, let it cool, and then take a chicken or goose feather that is willing to do so. And through the hole of the still through which enters the respiral you will make flow all that will be sublimated in the gutter of the nose of the still in a subtle way. And that you lose nothing, nor mix anything of what is above with what is below, because everything that is sublimated, it is your job to pick it up and put it aside with what will be sublimated from the first simple water during the time of the assessments, because it is water to reduce and wash the earth. And when you have gathered this, tilt your vessel and let all your material fall through the hole into a glass dish in such a way that none of it gets caught against the vessel by rubbing it well. This loom is of a long and strong and very neat feather, and what will be sublimated in the refrigerator, put it similarly with the sublimated water that above you will have gathered and put aside to reduce well smothered. Then after you will take your material, and it will flow through the medium felt, pressing it, and you will find your body hardened and skilful. For better subtlety put it in the mortar and grind it hard without imbibition, until you see that it appears very moist. So what can pass from here through the middle corridor by pressing, pass aside. And what cannot pass again crush it. And of all in all do not more not less as I said in the previous disposition of the present washing. And grinding and watering and going all through the medium felt and not the big one.
Then put everything in a glass vessel very wisely, and then put your respiral on it and fight it. And now cook it the way I said above. Such is the second provision of the treatise on matter according to the order of the third washing made by art to have subtle matter with regard to the principles of Nature. And for this we do gross things subtle and simple, so that they may promptly obey the acts which are principles of Nature when shall come to generation. And that the qualities without means intercook which have to make works and suffer by mixing and natural composition.
The third arrangement of the matter of the third lava, if done all in all like the second already said, do it because it is only to begin the arrangement again. The fourth disposition similarly is such as is the second and the third already said.
The fifth is done in such a way as the previous ones, neither more nor less. So do it starting over, and don't get bored because all virtue is to have patience in this work well continued by righteous practice. And for this you indoctrinate the Philosopher by these virtues who says: If happened to you that by studying many things, having knowledge, you must practice to remember, and always working in the right way to keep. Virtues you must lend, to your work patience give because the greatest without fail between the virtues is patience. The first error in this work is to hasten too much and for this long residence is raised in this mastery with noble patience without which no man should put himself there, because the bodies in their beginning are of strong composition and for this they have job of long preparation by contrary operation. That is to say that they first calcine philosophically, and then dissolve thus as nature requires and not vulgarly. And in such a way the two luminous bodies are corrupted in sublimation of radical humidity, which is permanent water to fix everything that is not fixed. That is, by elemental retrogression until they have returned to their first nature. Namely, in sulfur and quicksilver by contrary works which are solution and congealing, not vulgal but philosophical and natural. So you can hear that there is nothing secret in this work, if not the way of working, which work is nothing else if not to dispose the matter in its own heat with little graduated difference with regard to Nature. As you will be able to feel by the practice that I give you, the tinctures are ignited by too great a fire and by too strong a movement for which thing to keep you should not give them other heats if not here that I declare to you. Otherwise nothing would do. Willingly give you the reasons, but too much would be long. Hear only to practice thus as I tell you without passing its term, until you have accomplished it through its ordered days. And so Nature will not be able to override its own movements. If by the aid of art and understanding the matter is well arranged on the outside. Nature has therefore marvelously worked within. Continue therefore well these provisions that I give you with regard to Nature until as long as all its movements are perfect. For it is a trade that you continually arrange its material through its days until it has accomplished all its movements. And so will she rest in the form of a perfect elixir. You can have three good patiences as you will see that your matter will always change now to smell, now to color, now to softness, now to hardness, now to one, now to another, of which things you can hear philosophical reasons. Noticeable. You should note that no less than you have worked and practiced in the moon, you can work and practice in the sun by taking the moon as sun. And such water and as much as you put in the moon, put in the sun and (in) such vessel and in such mortar and in such corridor felt, and all the arrangements, and all the washes. And such fires as I told you above as white you will do red, for you can work either one or the other or both, but you must know that the sovereign stone of the Philosophers is made of the two luminary bodies each by itself and in the same furnace, and in such vessels, and by such practice as I said above and as you will see in practice.
Now follows the quarte lava and turns into regime by difference. The first arrangement on the quarte lava is such. You will take the vessel with all the material and put it to cool, and what will be sublimated let it flow with a feather through the gutter of the nose of the still as above have done the above-said provisions and put it with the other sublimated who is his equal. Then after pour all the material that is in the vessel in a glass dish and pour it through the medium felt by strong expression and what will remain to pass grind it hard with a stone mortar and pass doing so as it is said in the first and second disposition of the first wash, that is, up to this point that the whole body has passed through the middle felt and no more. Then after take all the cast material and reflow it another time by the leather hairline by suave expression, and the body that you will find inside the leather, put it inside the condamphore without a water point, and do after all as it is said in the first disposition of the second washing, neither more nor less.
The second disposition on the said fourth lava is neither more nor less and such as is the second disposition of the second lava. So do it just like that, because there is nothing else to do.
The third disposition similarly is done like the third of the second lava. And the fourth as well as the fourth.
Such provisions are only reiterations of decoctions until the body powder cannot sublimate anything by the degree of the action of the heat of the bath, and such is the term of this decoction. So wait for the term since you know it until you have come to it, do not bother arranging the matter by starting over and cooking until you see that the matter has come to the said term. Do not add to it any more great action of heat, nor please come to the end before the time required by Nature, because the information from outside would be too harmful to him and would be of bad understanding contrary to that of Nature. And for this Nature could not have what it lacks of its understanding if the information from outside was not specific to it in the movement of its understanding. For thus, as the Philosopher says, the work of Nature is nothing but a work of understanding. Whereby it appears that the understanding of a good master is equipollent to the understanding of Nature as it helps to inform the heat from outside at will of the working understanding of Nature, and all its matter. And for this says one of the modern philosophers that such a master of natural understanding is thus like a companion of Nature, because as by his real understanding he naturally knows that Nature has its certain time by right measure which must be preserved and kept with regard to the teachings that she demonstrates to him, which said master notably knows so much in his imprint and childbirth as in his nourishment. And so Nature cannot go beyond her own movements, but accomplishes all her graduated means to come to the understanding of her perfection. As therefore you know and have knowledge of the term of Nature by demonstrable ensign, continue her above-said provisions until she has come to the above-said term. And after you will give him other different provisions by information of dry heat.
Now follows the fifth disposition, made by information of dry heat on the fourth lava and is that you put the matter on ashes, just as I said in the chapter of the fifth disposition of the second lava. However, remember that first you have gathered all that will be sublimated by the heat of the bath, and set apart with the other like waters in virtue and in separation. Because all the waters which from the dry body by the bath will be sublimated in their black powder, you must put everything aside in one place and in well-luted vials. And all that will sublimate by ashes put it elsewhere, because it is natural oil and soul. And what you will separate from the simple water by the alembic during the other works similarly set aside everything well fought each to his part. Because each has his strength and his virtue. And each works according to his strength insofar as he is a profession in his nature.
The sixth disposition on the fourth lava of your matter do it like this as I told you in the chapter of the sixth disposition of the second lava neither more nor less.
The seventh arrangement is also similarly made as the seventh of the said second lava, neither more nor less.
The eighth disposition of this lava is done similarly like the eighth disposition of the second lava. So do it no more no less. The term of this last disposition without further repetition is to always continue the fire until everything is sublimated which can sublimate. So continue the well-graded dry fire like I told you in the eighth disposition of the second lava until everything that can eject from its belly is all outside and sublimated above. Thus our medicines are calcined by dissolving, and by calcining are dissolved and strong are subdued. For in any other way they could not be monified. And for this we calcine these and subtleties so that they dissolve better and earlier come into union with these simple things, that is to say with the spirits.
If they did not dissolve, they would never mondify nor ever have fusion or intrusion, for in dissolving they mondify themselves of all sulfuric filth and filthy densities which are wholly foreign to the nature of quicksilver, which only so much has the cause by perfection that we have job. And for this icelles subtleties by calcination so that better dissolve, because simple fixed earth or simplified earlier by dissolution turns over in nature of water than does the large one. The cause why we return it in nature of water, it is so that afterwards because of its subtlety can be incorporated with the spirits and return in air and in fire. Because otherwise the above-called earth could not be converted into air, if first by artifice had not returned to water, as Nature could not on the contrary pass to another end (if) it is not by the virtue of its means. which is water. And for that when the earth is turned into the nature of water, then is it more subtle than it was before, and clearer, and sharper, and more uniform, and more volatile by which qualities it after is converted and is transmuted into a spiritual act of air and fire. So to make such conversions, which are operations of nature, we calcine our medicines so that they are better subdued, and we dissolve them so that they are better mundified, and better are made, and better are based, and that the bodies by the benefit of them can acquire impression, fusion, and intrusion in alteration. However s not mie in vulgar water, but in mercurial water is accomplished.
Question: what and when is the difference which is between vulgal water and this mercurial water in form and in virtue and in lineage?
It is not to be asked of worldly, corporeal and earthly men, but of contemplative men who from their humanity penetrate to the first causes the secrets of Nature in the eye of divine understanding. However, there are few today, and for this real science is lost through lack of understanding. Because jà is what the sovereign leader creator and redeemer formed man so that it is signed of the carate of the eternal beatitude, o of monstrance of lineage to know the truth. However, the watering down of the pregnancy of its earthly and carnal lutous mixture urges the dignity of the spiritual essence so much that the human thought too much darkens herself and muddles by understanding earthly things. And even the friends of this world precipitated in worldliness and lies. And they cannot see the real things of Nature high and deep which are amalgamated the secrets of Nature, and the experiences which are made through it. Dear friend, at all times the truth shines clear celestial and real things, and such include truth, for they are substance of truth. But dark earthly dark things are all lies, which are against all truth. And for these the property of such is never to understand truth, which is divine and worthy essence. Let us therefore use our life in truth if we want to see experience in Nature. If we hold truth close to us, truth will love us. And will give us of its fruit. Otherwise, no.
of greater subtiliation under difference
Afterwards follows the fifth washing to achieve greater purification, solution and subtiliation that is done under another difference of greater accomplishment on the humid radical. And first of the first disposition, you will take in the name of God your dry powder which is fixed mercury and put it in mortar. First collect all that from it will be sublimated by ashes, and set aside well towed, and after subtly you will water the said powder of the first water by imbibition in the manner of dew made by the felt hairline. And subtly water it until it is all well incorporated. And do everything thus as it is said in the chapter of the first disposition of the third washing. Because there is nothing else to do. And this is the first disposition of the fifth wash.
The second disposition of matter on the fifth lava is done neither more nor less as it is said in the chapters of the second disposition of the third lava. And so do it.
The third disposition similarly is done like the third. or the second now before say.
The fourth disposition is made just like I said of the second and the third said above. And the fifth likewise is made thus. However remember that in each decoction of the said dispositions of the fifth lava you subtract half of the time. That is to say that the matter is not in decoction if not four or five natural days in each disposition.
Now follows the sixth disposition which changes all the information of the fifth wash by known difference, made by average heat-be dry. Reserving any other way in which I will declare you being in practice. For the ways of graduated differences change matter and change from matter to other and from good to better to its own alteration without departing from nature. And said provision is made, neither more nor less, as it is said in the chapter of the first provision of the fourth wash, because this does not change yet.
The seventh disposition is similarly made like the second of the fourth lava, it does not yet take difference of information. The sign that tells when you have to change information to matter is when it has lost the mercury species and is in dead powder. So such teaches as a messenger of Nature certifies to you that to Nature you can change the information without prejudice to its property. However if it still had in any form or kind mercurial, continue the above-said provisions to it immediately said until you see that it is dead powder carrying in its belly ardent fire. So take your dead powder and put it in a bath that continuously boils for a whole day without taking it out or putting it in, it's the real difference. And if you want to know for what intention this is done, I will tell you. The intention is to better subdue the body. And the said subtiliation is done by the virtue of this difference too well without passing the means of Nature, because as the body is very subtilized by the above-said provisions in parts moult subtle by Nature purified, until this no decoction, c is so that he takes more mercury than he did in his beginning. And it is for certain measure of retention in mass manner. Thus as appears by weight after the restoration of its humidities, and expressions made by the felt hairline of the thick thing, and flowing from the clearer thing. For several small parts fixed with several small volatile parts assemble and mingle in such a way that what of the volatile is more radically assembled is retained by the fixed. And all of that converts to oil so as the hottest thing in nature. And as long as the body is made more subtle, so much the more associates itself with the depths of the mercury, and the more retains its radicality. And that is the cause why it is growing in mass. So are blind and too amazed the ignorant of gross understanding that when they believe the body to pass through the felt without further repetition, being all the time in the form of running vulgal water, they are too amazed when afterwards they see it in a greater mass than he wasn't in front. Because they ignore the causes. They do not know how to come to their works for what they do not hear them, and believe that it is one, and it is another. And for this they allow everything to be spoiled when they see that the body has not been able to come to their intention, namely in dissolution of vulgal water. They do not believe there is any other dissolution. Not considering the possibility of Nature, which never wills or suffers that its radical humidity can be converted into all cold vulgal water, for that would be against the reason for its radical heat and against the reason for its substantial property. But well incredit in itself subjugating.
Dear friend, this is only a fountain of natural heat which desires to be a long and permanent individual. And for this in nourishment of its heat the art with regard to Nature ordered to him certain humidity of which it nourishes itself so as I will tell you. Whereby it appears that the good master amends it by amending and the bad one destroys it by corrupting by trying to convert it into vulgal water, not understanding whence proceeds the virtue of its retention and increase which comes so much only from its subtiliation. Do not tell the Philosophers that the bodies are subtled only so that they can retain the spirits en masse and with them add and unite. However, the said subtiliation is not made without dissolution. But the said dissolution is not made in vulgal water but in too hot mercurial water which then resolves itself into oil which is radical and natural humid which feeds the above-called heat of the humid radical subtilized by dissolution to the third degree . If as I will show you please Our Lord keeping his creature in place and time. However, returning to the statement of the said difference by which the body takes greater subtiliation, you must know that as the body has reached the above-said degrees of subtiliation, and by virtue of it, incorporated with mercury retains to itself the larger mercurial parts of water which correspond to the subtlety of its degree without any other means. It happens that the said parts of the water retained with the said fixed parts subtilized are cooked in here. And little by little dry up and mingle, and harden and freeze into earthly powder. And the fixed parts become even more subtle, and some are incorporated with others and bind together. Because when the body couples and binds with the spirits which freeze, then they are more subtle until it happens that everything sublimates into vapors in the form of white and dry powder which then freezes the mercury. And so is our dissolution made by way of subtiliation and sublimation only in frozen water which afterwards freezes the unfrozen. Let's see, dear friend, what our solution is, and hear how misguided those ignorant of our mastery who, for lack of understanding which is celestial glory and a divine and worthy thing, believe that our work must at all return to vulgal water. . But it is not so. For metallic nature could not bear it, and they lived a thousand years. But I tell you, dear friend, in faith of proven truth that only from him you steal as much as you can. And divide its parts from each other into contrition and assation, returning the dry with the moist and the moist with the dry. Because so much only to make subtiliation was found the work of such solution. Dear friend, never can the conjunction of bodies with spirits be made until the bodies are subtleted in the manner of spirits. And their subtiliation with the spirits is done by dissolution, contrition and affirmation of them with the spirits. Continue therefore as a man of firm and real will the above-said dispositions by their time, because job is that in their fire everything is mixed by them, keeping them from the ardor of the fire until they are conjoined and kissed with each other. And their copulation and conjunction be in slow heat until in their fire are dried up. And know that one art the other as much as Nature requires. And one unravels the other, and one comforts the other, and teaches him to fight against fire. Thus the elements become lighter by cooking over a slow fire. And return in strange natures, because the body in liquefied water becomes non-liquefied, and the wet becomes thick as it dries. And thus the body is made spirit and the spirit body staining and strong fighting against the fire for which thing, says the Philosopher, if you know how to convert the elements you will find what you ask. And to convert the elements is nothing else, if not to make the wet dry and the dry the wet in the way that I tell you. And making it fixed, because when the body is well linked with the spirits by natural couple, then it is made spirit and at all volatile, which needs to be fixed afterwards as I will tell you in its fixation.
Now, returning to practice, make a key. This key signifies the reception of a stinking liquor in the form of quicksilver particularly treated from the earthly matter, scoriae which comes from the natural earth and radical in its lavations and subtiliations. And milk her as I tell you. And to do this you will take in the name of God this dead earth which I told you that you plucked with a feather and set aside the chapters of the second and consequent provision of the first wash. And here you will put in a carabasse all of glass, which has the entrance as wide, or more, as the bottom, and put the still on it well fought in view of its disposition with its respiral, and put it in the furnace on ashes, and he continue the fire of the first degree on a natural day. Know that from the belly of this evil terrestrial and envenomed beast will throw the above-called liquor in the form of stinking mercury by sublimation.
This liquor which you will find sublimated above against the still you will pick with a hare's foot, because with a feather you could not pick it, because it is too fat and unctuous, and for this it holds too much against the still. Pluck it and set it aside, for by this can be meant the putrefaction of the earth into reduction and freezing. Then after take the earth which has remained black and brown at the bottom of the still because it still holds in its belly another substance which is of fixed mercury and is of the proper nature of the humid radical and will separate by another disposition . Dear friend, you must really hear that the force and property of Nature is such that always draws to her by the universal love which God the Glorious has put in her pieces by similarity of lineage all that is or can be of her own nature. And any other strange thing refuses, because it is not mired by its nature and for this with the nature of the non-fixed. We pull out fixed nature and throw it away and wash it and separate it from all its filth for reason of amorous virtue which is between fixed nature and volatile nature in certain and various dispositions which it has shown to us by consequently taking example with regard to its forces with the help of engine, which we had of understanding adjusted all instrumentally to the possibility of Nature, which provisions I will teach you, but that you have in you not to promulgate the secret which so much is to conceal, because the world would be corrupted by it and afterwards I would be the cause of the damnation of all. I have before God my excuse, because by intention of keeping it secret, here I give you so much only to help you and to do good without the world knowing anything about it. And under such understanding I pray to the sovereign truth that it gives you to see experience of truth by which you can help yourself and not in any other way. Returning to the practice, put the earth that I have told you about, which is against nature, in a mortar, and to draw out the mercurial pure nature which it holds in its belly, water it in the manner of dew with the first water passed through the felt hairline, and grind everything together. So you will see how the water will draw the radical parts which are of its nature, and in them will be incorporated. And the others at all will refuse, for they are not in proportion to its nature nor its clarity. Put more water in it, always by imbibition in the manner of dew while grinding until all that it will have drawn is quite clear. And then separate the water by the untied felt and you will remain of the radical humidity what was in the belly of the said faeces. And repeat this so many times and until you find nothing in the belly of said faeces and radical humidity. Afterwards, throw away these faeces, because they are worth nothing for this, because they are not of the honorable nature of metal, but are at all contrary to it. Thus as by experience it is possible to know the nature of which our medicine is made, as you can inform by double experience. The first is that the aforesaid faeces cannot be added with the quicksilver, nor the quicksilver wants to take them, by demonstrating that they do not participate in anything in its nature. So as by the second experience you can certify yourself. For if you return to the body by descension, now you will see them return to the nature of glass which is outside the nature of metal, of which we only master by purifying it of all garbage and in which nothing else we add. which is strange, neither powder, nor water, nor anything else in the world.
And under this, dear friend, you can hear that our mastery does not require a multitude of things nor many. Follow so much only a nature, a stone, a medicine to which nothing is added which is strange, nor is diminished. Except that the superfluities are removed by drawing all that is of the pure nature of quicksilver thus, as I have told you, are the causes of its nature. Work then and use the noble Nature, because here only is a cause of perfection if, as you will see in your work, it can never be amended except always in its nature. Know (it) certainly. Subtle therefore well icelle and purge of all its refuse thus as I have shown and taught you. And don't be bored if you want to see high and marvelous experience in the way of Nature, which experience is by the rural people of the world reputed for an enchantment.
Noticeable. Here must note as it is noted before. Let all the waters of the sun, as it is said of the moon, both by the bath and by ashes, be each set apart well quenched, for the white waters are for whitening, and the red for reddening. And the lands also each by itself be subtilized, and let the stinking liquor above mentioned be drawn from the slag-soil of the sun apart so as it is said of the moon. And also be drawn the humid radical from the faeces after the distillation of the stinking liquor and set apart in the sun as it is said to the moon, for it is the same practice both in white and in red, but each one be made apart from oneself until the conjunction of the earths as you will see in practice when you are in universal reduction. And of this conjunction must be understood when your work is made on the great stone of the two quicksilver fixed in the same degree, but when the work is made of one of the two bodies so much only either of the sun or of the moon, it does not You don't need any earth conjunctions. But however medicine is too nobler and too better, so much in the projection on lively silver and in transmuting all metals into true perfection of gold and silver, and in giving perfect health to all human bodies, made of the two luminary bodies. that she would not be at all alone through him. You must here compose the principles of Nature to the great work, in such a way and by such measure, you will take in the name of God first to make the principles of Nature three ounces of the earth of the subtilized gold and one ounce of the earth of the moon. And mix everything together on the porphyry by watering them with seventy-two ounces of your water kept before said provisions. And four ounces of stinking liquor. That is to say that the water and the said liquor are red compost by grinding and watering until they are well incorporated with each other and water all drunk and that it is in the manner of dew . Afterwards put the matter in the condamphorus and then in the bath as it is said below in the practice. By making all the ensuing arrangements. And so as you did to red you will do to white. That is, by taking three ounces of the subtlety earth from the moon and one ounce from the sun. And mix them and water them in the manner of dew and grind with the white water and with the white stinking liquor by such weight, by such measure and by such manner as it is said with the red while proceeding to the practice as it is said below After. However if you did not have so much land as it is said above, always return to the weight that I will tell you. Namely, if you only have one ounce of said compost, both red and white, you need eighteen ounces of water. And for each ounce of each compost one ounce of stink liquor. Even red to red and white to white. And grind and water in dew as I said. And if you see while grinding on the porphyry that there protrude from the material any drops of your water, do not put it back with the material, but let them flow out of the marble in a case which will be placed under the porphyry. And so do as it is said until the water is all incorporated with the earth. And then put everything in your ship. And also put in it what is dripped in the said breakage. And if the matter cannot (be) contained in one vessel, put it in several. And do not grind the stinking liquor on the marble, but put it with all the matter in the vessel or in the vessels. And so cook in the bath, always picking what will rise to the mountain. And do not remove your matter until it is hard and feeling with a sharp sharp rod each time you remove what is high above. And when it is in hard mass, take what will be high and put it with the other picked top. Then take your material and put it on the marble and break it up into pieces and grind it down a bit.
And then put it back in the vessel and then in the bath, and so do until the bath cannot sublimate anything. And then put it in the dry fire of ashes, and what will sublimate put aside in another vial. And then grind it and put it back on the said fire, and then pick what will sublimate and put with the other. And so do until nothing of him can sublimate by the said fire of ashes. And then calcine your material at higher heat, and calcined icelle, put the moist on the dry and put it back in bath. And pick again what will rise as it is said above as long as by the bath nothing more can rise, however always picking what rises and set aside as it is said above. And then put it on a dry fire and pick everything that will sublimate by the dry fire and set it aside in another vessel. And so many times repeat the aforementioned works until the materials are all white. And then strengthen the fire as long as the said materials cannot sublimate anything. And then water them each with its water, then put them back in the bath. And you will see that after several imbibitions and decoctions and repeated calcinations that the calcination at the last will last nearly fifteen days, always picking what will rise. And when this long calcination is done, you will each give it its water and put them in a bath. And then you will see that what you wanted to do in a fortnight will be done in less than a day. Because your material will freeze your water so hard that the material will be mass hard in less than a day as the saying is. And then give her more water and then put her back in the bath. And so do until the water is frozen and by the bath nothing can rise. And then on ashes until by said ashes nothing can rise. Then put it in an earthen vessel whose mouth is wider than the bottom and is of very strong earth and very high, and then well glassed, and has a glass lid which will stick to the mouth of the said vessel like an alembic.
And sit your ship on the stove on iron bands. And make a very strong fire of flame as long as all the matter melts by forcing the fire until the matter sublimates in the manner of white flour. So remove the fire and take the said flour and water it with its oil, that is, white to white. And add as much white ferment as there is flour. And then put him in the bath. And what will sublimate set aside. For this water is more animated and more exuberant and closer in nature to metal than was the first. And is properly named Azoth. And then when nothing more can sublimate by the bath put it on ashes by calcining them. And what will sublimate upstream set aside well guarded and suppressed. Because it is precious oil to insert and give fusion to the medicine. And from the lands which will remain at the bottom you will make your conjunction and your great reduction. By watering by measure as it is said below in the seventh wash. And to the red do the same, namely by watering it with its oil with its weight of red ferment. But you must know that the said gold flour which is raised white must be reddened first before you add the ferment to it as it is. And redden it in such a way: you will put it in a glass bowl and put its red water there and mix it until everything is well incorporated.
And then put it on the marble and give it more water until it is neither too soft nor too hard. And then put her in her vessel and set her on ashes. And what will sublimate you will put back on the faeces with other water. And so do until the said flour is all vermilion at the bottom. And then water it as said is of its leaven. And draw the elements both white and red as I said above. And then do your conjunction of the two earths and the great reduction as I wrote above. And this as it is written in the third regime and in the chapter of the seventh lava. Returning to the practice to make the eighth disposition of the fifth lava, you will take all that you have drawn from the womb of evil and unnatural faeces and add it all together with the above-said natural powder, yet all be moist radical and natural by grinding and incorporating everything together without any other moisture until it is all well blended. Then after take the liquory stinking dampness that you have said above, which has drawn from the bad scoriae faeces by sublimation. And icelle all incorporate with the said radical powder by grinding and watering by imbibition in the manner of dew until it is all well incorporated or drunk. Then put the said material thus watered in the well-luted condamphorus, and put it to cook in a bath for two natural days. This is the said eighth disposition.
Now you must note here that if you want the work to shorten, you must carry the provision of the before-said chapter or paragraph of the fourth provision of the second wash by doing it there and not here and continuing on this long decoction as well as I told you in the foregoing present provision. And then continue everything in the way that I will tell you now, which is that you must protrude by transporting yourself from the said fourth disposition of the second lava to the third or to the fourth lava. And shorten your work as much as the time of the provisions that are in here and (in) this (present) rises. However you must know that as much as it takes perfection in the preparation, so much will be the work less in its projection. But always will do no small or great work according to his preparation. So please prepare your stone well, because never belongs to man to work well if not something well prepared. Dear friend, preparation is the treasure of the thing and the mirror of accomplishment. So, if you make perfect preparations for the stone, you will do perfect accomplishment hereafter. Because as much as you deprive it of its preparation, so much it will deprive you of it and its power in projection will be less. For this, says Nature, help me and I will help you, hear and see what I say to you.
Then after, returning to the practice for the ninth disposition of this fifth wash, you will take your above-said matter, and what will be sublimated from it you will pick with a feather and keep it apart. And then grind your material in a mortar. And if you see it in dry powder, put it in a bath a fortnight. And if it were not rightly dry, that is to say that you felt the humidity of quicksilver in it, do not cook it except for two days until it is dried up into a dead powder like bright ash visible in the ray of the sun under the shade. So cook it on a natural day. This is this ninth provision.
The tenth provision of the fifth washing is that you take your matter after the fifteen days, and what will be sublimated pick and set apart with this above well quenched. Then after crush your powder, and if you see that by its subtlety it goes up in smoke, do not crush it any more until it is dry, nor do not remove it from the vessel. But as soon as you have picked what will be sublimated from it, fight back your condamphore. And put it back to cook in a boiling bath for three natural days. And this arrangement will start again until nothing of the powder can sublimate any more by the heat of the bath.
Now follows the sixth lava in difference. And first of all from the first disposition. You will take your powder. And pick all that will be sublimated from it and set apart with its other similar sublimations. Then after you will water your powder by imbibition in the manner of dew made by the felt hairline of the first water once sublimated by oneself. And grind until the water is well incorporated with said powders. And let nothing appear from the said water and be made imbibe very closely, for there is no need for the earth to be revived by too much imbibition and burial. But so much only is said imbibition done so that the earth better empties and discharges itself of all moisture without adustion. Then after put your material in the bath and give it fire not of perfect degree for this time. And he continues on a natural day, and such is this first disposition of this sixth lava.
The second arrangement is neither more nor less like the first, said of the sixth lava, except that the fire is fortified to the perfect degree absolutely and a little more. Get on with it on a natural day. This arrangement begin again by grinding and watering and calcining, and always by forcing the fire each time and until at the last nothing of it can sublimate, but remains completely dry, empty of all moisture. And when the earth is fixed in pale color deprived of its perfect blackness, repeat the said manner until you see that none of the said powder can evaporate in smoke on an ignified blade of iron, copper or silver. Itel is the term of this lavation and in such a way we separate the oils by lavations of water and desiccations of fire, by which thing it appears that the water like spirit draws the soul from the bodies. And when she draws herself out of the body, she remains wholly united in the spirit for this because it is her own place and her own retinaculum. Hear healthily, because the soul is nothing else but dye dissolved in the spirit, and so like the dye of the dyers which is transferred into the water by dissolution and afterwards inside all the water they put their sheets inside that they want to dye. And then. the water goes away by desiccation and the fixed dye remains with their sheets. because of its oleigenity. So it is with the water of the spirit in which the tincture of the air is carried, for when we return it to the body, first (I) see it in white earth in sheets, and sometimes by action the heat dries up the spiritual water and the soul remains fixed to the body which is the tincture of the water. Thus by the water is drawn the soul of the bodies and in ice. Yet never return until the body is first glorified and well washed in its first simple water, and returns to white leafy earth. So orders Hermès that in such prepared and enfoliated earth you sow the water that you have drawn on it. For that is what will hold it and freeze it, and thicken it into the perfect elixir.
Here begins the third regime of the stone which is called reduction The third rock regime is to reduce moist water on dry land. So that it recovers lost moisture. And for what I noted to you above, that the perfect stone is made of the two perfect bodies and two elements which are dry, hard and stony. That is, fire and earth which agree in dryness. And for this set must be prepared, because they have the same preparation. Conjoin therefore the pregnancy of fire with the earth after the extraction of the air. And prepare them together for shorten time. And so that the mixture of them is good and that the preparation is not confused, and that one can dye the other well, and that they cannot burn on the battle of fire. And for this, it is safest to prepare them together and the soonest. And their preparation is so that they meet greater moisture than they lost in their calcination. That is to know what they had lost, and besides the fiftieth part of them. For the calcined body is discontinued for what in every way it is of its deprived water. And because he is dry and empty and very thirsty, he willingly drinks his moist water and because hereafter follows the conjunction of the two earths with the seventh washing which is universal reduction on the nourishment of the earth . Dear friend you must know before you begin the next said seventh lava which is universal on the nourishment of the earth and the reduction of its universal water, you must do a great secret in nature which I will tell you. That is to know that before you separate your elements you must know that everything weighs.
Now let us take thus that the water and the earth together weigh twelve ounces, and that after the separation and calcination that you have of the white earth one ounce. It has lost eleven ounces in its calcination and is emptied of all its moisture. And also you have to do like red and set each one apart. And then so as I told you before you started said seventh lava you will join your two lands. That is, the pregnancy of the fire with the earth of the moon. And you will water them with white water little by little, so as I will tell you in the said seventh washing until they have drunk what they had lost in the calcination, and besides the fiftieth part of it. Now here must note a great secret about the exuberance and increase of the virtue of water. For after your conjunction of the earths and you have begun to make your reduction, that is to say after the space of six weeks or two months, you must take a little of your matter about the bulk of a weight or less , and put it on the porphyry and drink your white water. And know that wonderfully your water will thicken and fatten up in such a way that you cut it with a knife in pieces so slimy it will be. And then always give it your water, and always it will thicken. And know that the said little one of your matter will increase in nutritive virtue, two pounds of water, if you have it, by watering and grinding. And this water has more virtue to feed your land than it had before. And from this water thus multiplied by virtue you will nourish your earth as well as I will give you by practice throughout the provisions of the seventh lava while keeping measure according to the order of Nature.
And is universal on the nourishment of the earth.
Now follows the seventh washing which is made by reduction in reversion of universal difference. The form of which is craft you mean by separate differences with regard to the nature of each substance. That is, earth, water and air each by her separately. By resorting to actions and passions and that each of the said substances can suffer works according to its nature. And by universal difference having regard to all the universal substance which is of the three above-mentioned natures. And to his work you must give him by right information, made by three various measures of heat according to the property of the nature of each of the said substances. Thus, dear friend, Nature should be understood by elevated understanding. And also both generally and particularly through the knowledge of its substantial differences. For substantial difference is the cause of its effect and of the accidents which are in it. For this please know that in any load must have certain weight, and in any measure, and in each work, task. It therefore appears if it is a profession that the works of nature you have the understanding to know the causes if you want to work right, by arranging the matter and lending information for the intention of Nature. Where the better you will understand Nature, the better you will know the form of her works. And the more properly you hear the forms of his works, the better you work them by way of measure. Hear therefore the work of the present washing in the matter of nature from difference to difference, and in what way is done, because it is a job that you take away its death from the earth and return it to life. Her death is nothing but her pregnancy. This pregnancy you will take from her by dissolution of a difference. And yet it is a trade that you remove the smoke from the water by dissolution of other difference, and from the air its blackness by frequent dissolution. Now I will show you by chapters how you will do them in practice. And note well all that I will tell you, because in this lava solution and congealing are done all together by measure of Nature. You will take in the name of the Sovereign Creator, Glorious God, your land [Note this that if your work is on the large stone you must make the conjunction of the two lands here. And icelles to water as it is said in this present washing. That is to say as much of one as of the other] calcined, and here you will drink the first water sublimated by imbibition in the manner of dew.
And grind it hard until there is no water in it. This imbibition is done too closely by small waterings with regard to the virtue of the earth and what it will have lost in its solution. If therefore you see that in view of its loss the earth could no longer drink water without the loss of its earthly form, small and narrow would water it. And keep as you will, for she palates more than her heat can digest or convert. And all conversion is done in muché place, that is to say inside the belly of the earth. Thus, as the conversion of meat takes place in the stomach and other hot spots, for at all times the digesting heat is in a hot spot which cannot be seen. And illec is changing. However, there is a difference in quality because of attractive virtue, because the mouth attracts the impure and indigestible thing, and the radical virtue the pure and digestible thing. And for this she is compared to the heart which draws its nourishment into the midst of its chamber. And illec perfectly converts it into blood. And then sends it to all the nutrient limbs to keep and soak up their radical and vital moisture. So give the earth little by little to drink, which is a radical body by close imbibition in the manner of dew. And long grinding, because if the water is not well incorporated deep in the earth, nothing is worth it at all. Nor should it ever appear after its crushing. Take care, then, that the heat in which the virtue of your earth is is not suffocated by too much imbibition, for afterwards it could neither digest nor convert so much. And for this you should know that sooner becomes small thing and divided than does too big thing and not divided in quantity. When I say divided, I mean that it is given to him in small, fine portions and closely in dew-like waterings. Because now it is time for the earth to use its powers quite beautifully and to give it virtue little by little. That is, the earth converts water into itself by freezing, not that the water converts the earth into itself by liquefaction, as did the other lavations. If not in a mean way by converting one and the other, namely the earth and the water, for now they are approached to the nature of a mean conversion, for the earth cannot l water moult only by its nature by virtue of the nature of the water which will be transmuted. However the conversion of the water is done in the belly of the earth and the conversion of the earth is done inside the belly of the water by difference caused by having drawn the oil which is not similar to the vulgal. For he is the first brother of mercurial water. And this is the secret preparation of the earth, and is done with such intention that it, by watering, recovers greater moisture than it had lost in its calcination. And for this, as it is very dry and empty of all moisture, it is very thirsty, and for this it willingly drinks when the lost thing is given to it in restoration. But that you keep well that she does not drink excessively. Here is the mirror of the sages in the intention of physics taken for example with regard to nature which sustains us. Benedict be God the Glorious who makes us know, milk and know science from science. And this is the first provision.
The second provision is when you have given the earth enough to drink and in your own way, you will put it in the condamphorus to keep you warm for seven or eight days. So as I will show you in time and place. This information of heat by outside is done to help the natural heat so that by certain movements digests the medium substance of the water which is of air nature, incorporated in the ground and in moist radical frozen and thickened by solving the subtle additive and cremative watery smoke which is in its belly by the deported earth. By letting you know that when said mercurious medium substance is incorporated with the earth before it may escape. So it is made one thing with the other, never one separates from the other, but either at all the middle substance as it comes out mercurious and volatile, flies away with the fixed earth, or the fixed earth dwell at all in all with the volatile thing.
And this is done according to the virtue of one which overcomes the virtue of the other, so as I will show you in time and place. Dear friend, in the digestion of this medium mercury substance. The earth throws out many superfluities, and especially two, one terrestrial and the other phlegmatic, just as man throws out shit and urine by the digestions he makes of the meats he eats. For when the said middle substance thickens and is retained in the belly of the earth, then the natural heat excited by the information of the heat from outside resolves and separates from their said substance an additive and very subtle and venomous watery smoke which was mixed with her. And is done because it is not part of its nature. Few know of this separation for what happens in the secret chambers of Nature. However, dear friend, you can hear it well in view of the example shown to you above. For Nature always draws and retains things from her nature, and the strange refuses. Hear this of the nature more propinque with the things more propinque to her. And for that as the said watery smoke is not proper to its nature. It is what it separates from the said middle substance which it thus retains within itself as a thing more proper to its nature, and more readily reducible. So nature is lightened by nature and the strange separates. And so from the water that is embodied in the earth you will remove the smoke. That is, in a weekly light decoction. Know that in the separation of this too volatile and fleeting watery smoke, the substance of water will convert and thicken into the substance of the aerial body which is the nature of metal. We call it air because it has the complexion of air with regard to the other substances already mentioned. That is to say of the water, and of the earth, and with regard to his works. Because there is nothing that is the cause of perfection, if not this substance because of its very powerful complexion and, as we would say, in its particularities. However, it must be rectified and purified of its darkness in which everything is incorporated according to the rectification and purification that its nature suffers or can suffer. Dear friend, said blackness comes from said corrupting watery smoke which by natural heat resolves. And separates from the before-called substance of water by means of the good information of heat from without exciting the moving and informing virtue which is in the matter of heat and spirit. This blackness leaves the above-called smoke by its faeces in all and by all said thickened airy substance which is transmuted into moist radical. And icelle makes appear by all matter. And are his black faeces of the corrupting unctuous substance partaking in fixion. And for this it separates later from the pure matter in which it is incorporated, because stronger and deeper joins in it by reason of its unctuousness, and consequently of the fixion of its substance cannot be raised at all as does the above-called smoke because of its subtle and volatile substance. What device can be found to separate it from its pure nature, I will tell you. So as my fathers taught me by understandable doctrine regulated by lofty understanding. You must know that the said honorable pure nature is a substance to which God the Glorious has given such property that it cannot be found in substance which is of any other nature. Because the property of said pure nature is so strong by the great symbol that it holds, it in it on all the other mineral things which of all in all overcomes the fire. Ever since she is once thickened by fire can feel overcome. But since it is fixed, it becomes lighter and rests when it can be on fire for a long time.
Thus similarly she does in all fires according to the degree of her fixation or tolerance for which thing like her by the symbol which she holds in nature of metal is made metal, for this only she contains in herself all that we have profession in our control. So as we will state in determining quicksilver. For all other things, as they are combustible, are exterminated by fire. And inflamed faint. Returning therefore to the subject of separating the said black substance which is unctuous corrupting, say the Philosophers:
That it is which has in it two causes of corruption. Namely, a flammable substance because of its unctuousness, and terrestrial starch because of its exterminable fixed substance. For the first corruption it has by its unctuousness, nor does it stand long against the fire, for it is combustible oil. Nor can it hold another substance as it is a combustible and impermanent oil, because not only itself burns and corrupts itself. But in ardent, its same substance corrupts, and ardent any other, and darkens the whole work. For this keep that the property of the pure substance does not ardently. Keep it from combustion by the water which defends it by imbibition. By the other corruption which it bears by its earthly substance, neither it has fusion, nor can it have intrusion. But if it is fixed, sometimes it will delay and defend right fusion. And still fix cannot be if first is charred. And since it was calcined, by artifice of the world, it can never be melted afterwards, because in substance dead earth at all in all turns back into a metallic species. And for this this corruptible substance taken from among the corrupting and corruptible sulphur, which is against the nature of quicksilver, and against perfection. As thus to the separation of icelle said vile substance as it is in it corruptible cannot long last against the fire. Icelle should at all be exterminated and separated from the pure nature of quicksilver which lasts longer against fire. Which thing is not made without a degree of fire assisting pure Nature. And icelle defect of any addition, because the separation of the first unctuous substance is first need to be done when one is at the reduction, with regard to the suffering of pure nature by certain actions of heat by reiteration until as long as by sweat the heat drives away the dirt that covers the face of the dragon in the form of blackness. And by such repeated information the subtle moist unctuous corruptible as it is failing in fire separates from the fixed earthly corruptible substance in the form of very subtle unctuous and stinking vapour. And will remain its fixed substance all exterminated in a fixed earth from which the pure nature of quicksilver never has after treatment, but at all refuses it. For the adherence of it with the pure nature of quicksilver was not there except by reason of its unctuousness which was incorporated with it, which now it has lost. For unctuosity holds a symbol in nature and constitutes the connective means by which various monsters are made. For they take natural conjunctions, the natures which are of various lineages. And who this does not know, he is not in his trial true Philosopher, nor nothing knows of the universal love which is the rarities of every kind. The other fixed earthly substance, as it has no love or connection with the pure nature of quicksilver by reason of its unctuous perdition, we separate it at all from pure nature, and it is by double accident. That is to say as it has lost and as after the thickened and frozen pure nature separates from the fixed terrestrial icelle by sublimation. And by this obviously appears as never said earthly substance can be separated by simple lavation. As all time remains in water its smoothness, similarly appears the form of its dissolution and the terms of it. As at all times we have a profession of radical and fixed humidity, even subtlety to thicken the pure nature of quicksilver, the separation of its corruptible earthiness appears even more. As it is not made crumb by it but by accident and the separation of its unctuousness. As it is done by it and by accident, because quicksilver refuses it. And by her, because she is of an unstable flying nature. And by the said causes can know if rustic man of big understanding can make this magisterium without acquisition or knowledge of cause or demonstrative doctrine. As without the knowledge of the difference of the said substances no man can come to the perfection of our dissolution. For as there are degrees of substantial differences, so there are degrees of differences of heat of fire corresponding to it.
The third disposition, therefore returning to practice, is to separate the unctuous substance which causes darkness into the airy substance of the nature already said.
Must know that its separation is done by other information of greater fire sometimes administered at the requirement of the pure essence of nature after the before-said weekly decoction. And it varies in strength according to the increase of the heat of nature and according to the conversion of the greater meat which it takes. Because, as in the beginning according to the order of nature it only nourishes itself with water little and then in greater quantity, so as for example we provide for the education of the children. Therefore in regard to the amount of his converted substance which was given to him from the water after his weekly decoction gradually, we vary the said information to him out in regard to what said is. For this as there are three main colors, black, white, red. Anytime you see the black, imperfect earth will be and not compile. So reinforce each time said information by strengthening the fire little by little in the calcination until you see the earth all white by the force of the fire. For thus as the heat agent in the unctuous moist engenders blackness by the property of its substance, so the heat agent in the dry matter engenders whiteness according to the property of it. And this is the third disposition by which we remove the darkness from the air.
The fourth provision here is universal in regard to doctrine. And it is that you will repeat all the three before-said dispositions so many times, each time emphasizing the heat of the third information with regard to what I have said, until the earth is very white. And all the time that it will not be white, do not stop watering it. And in this imbibition grind it hard. And after another time calcine it without doing anything else. For only water and fire wash the earth. And the black darkness that is in here of everything in everything removes from here. And for this its preparation is always done in water. And here is the custody of any adustion. And as the water will be pure, so will the earth be pure. And the more it is prepared, washed and purified, the whiter it will be. Don't forget to grind the dirt. And to water it by long crushings until it is dry. And don't bother repeating this several times. For the earth can never bear fruit without frequent irrigation. And if trituration is good, that is to say that it is continued for a long time until the water is made a body with the earth, it will never benefit you. So keep that you do not stop crushing them and drying them out until the water is dry, and the earth is white. Because the desiccation made by strong crushing and assation makes the earth white. However, keep in mind that you do not water the earth except after it has dried out little by little by long crushing. And to do this, make sure you have a certain weight. So that too great dryness which may come, either by too great assation or too little imbibition. Neither too much moistness which can come by the opposite, that is to say either by too little assation or by too great imbibition can corrupt the work. For it is commanded that you cook your material so much drying as your imbibition requires or so long as its moisture has dried up. And after its drying dissolve so much icelle by watering as its assation may have dried out. However with regard to its dryness, therefore each time any time after its calcination of the earth pour water by tempering neither too much nor too little. For if there is too much, the heat will suffocate and alienate it. And if there is too little, matter will burn. And his property will default which participates in length and breadth and depth. For this keep that you do it quickly by its terms, and not too hastily. That is to say by watering the earth for eight days in eight days by long grindings, and then by cooking it in a bath. And then calcining until it is white. And so by such rules feeds our child. So that he, fed according to the rules, may afterwards regularly work without passing the terms of his nourishment that the art has given him, as does the disciple under the virtue of the discipline he has had from his master. And under this point prove the Philosophers as every man of reason must be regulated by Nature insofar as perfective nature represents to him so understanding to which he must inform and regulate as he must under all the powers of the most sovereign soul in dignity to acquire all perfection. Otherwise if his understanding was not regulated in all his acts, he could never address or inform the other forces of the soul to acquire truth and perfections in all things, if first masterfully were not regulated and informed by the will of man. constant by taking example from the perfection and wisdom of Nature, which by its understanding makes work of understanding.
Now hear under differences why we indoctrinate the nature of mercury by certain manners of feeding under the rules of measure and proportion as far as possible. You must know that, as in all the world, there cannot be found anything more adherent to the natures of metals, nor more amicable in them than quicksilver in its nature does. For this, let's mix it up in these natures. And then let's set it on a slow fire. However, this mixing is done by preparation and subtiliation of the said substances, that is to say fixed and volatile insofar as the volatile can be well retained by the fixed, which retention and fixion is done by loving the nature of the said mercury, and by relieving it. in the heat of the fire by long constancy, and nourishing and increasing its natural heat until so much as it can suffer any fire. And this, however, is done under certain rules so that he informs and can work under the regulated information that art, by the understanding of a good master, will have given him, with regard to his first known nature. For as we intend to freeze quicksilver in small hours, and it is thought to be luteous and phlegmatic, and with all this, lightly flees and flies away from the fire without inflammation and very subtle. For this it is necessary that we have no medicine which sometimes suddenly before it can flee can mingle in it and in the depths of its nature very strongly adhere. And in this case strongly conjoin and amass in small and very subtle parts so that they thicken by retaining (from) its substance as long as only what is of its pure nature according to the most and the least of its property. And that this thing digests it and mondifies it in small time. And that by its fixion it retains and preserves in the fire until we can give it greater heat in view of its suffering to consume and spoil its phlegmatic humidity which is not its perfection. And even more so that she converts him sometimes in a moment into sun and moon. By the benefit of this work, can understand not only the form of the projection but similarly the intention of all the magisterium. And by this is proved that nothing can have greater propriety in the nature of quicksilver than what is of its nature. Therefore all the wise Philosophers determine that in the nature of it we perform the said medicine. And by engine let us lend it the form of medicine, which engines are included under this recapitulation. The intention of which is that you take the fixed white and red mercury, and have it prepared and refined with the nature of the volatile by its engines, until the subtle substance of them together, white however at the moon and red in the sun, may be perfect with the mixture. And what must dye it, which is something more known to its own nature substantially than anything that can be in the world. After this ends the medicine in magisterium. And with all its devices first known and found by settled understanding. Which by its property associates itself more with quicksilver until it melts slightly, and thickens it and converts it into the sun and into the true moon by the philosopher's preparation of it. However this preparation for the most part should be understood in the form of the mixture. Namely, in the proper way in which the mixing takes place. For in the only way to do it takes the form of mixture from which arises the second virtue in our medicine. Item, and by this form of mixing disposes its mixed matter to receive specific form of true elixir from which the third virtue in our medicine is born by certain different causes in the matter of nature, and is accomplishment of the thing. I see that by reiterations it is possible to vary from mixtures to greater virtues with regard to the material principles already refined in a similar way.
The form therefore of the mixing in which you must understand yourself is in the manner of the assembly of the things which are to be mixed together, which is done by way of reduction. Observe the rules which are to the doctrine of the intellective perfection of Nature, for presupposed that in weight and in quantitative measure as much had compost in a mixture as in the other. However in either of the said mingles come the parts of the component under the number of one hundred or more. For the elements may come in one melee in lesser parts, and in the other in greater parts in number. And in the other mingled come the parts of the component under the number of fifty. I may know that the form of gathering or understanding them together varies in both. For varying the proportion of things that can be mixed together is necessary so that the assembly varies by caused difference, and consequently the form. This only in our mastery appears to the good ingenious master by natural experiments, and not to others. By which causes I have said you can understand two reasons if you want, by which you can obtain the form of perfect mixture. The first reason is the elementary and preparatory subtlety of both the fixed and the fickle made together down to their elemental parts of purified nature. This subtiliation and preparation is accomplished by the differences of the three divisions of our magisterium thus as I will show you fully by way of practice in time and place, for by the differences of the first one cannot do for what at the art too little aids Nature, but by the differences of the second too well is done in very noble preparation. And it is by reason of the nature which was prepared for him by the first division. And distinctions of the third division is carried out at all in all. The second reason for obtaining the perfect form of mixing if is the way of bringing together the things which must all mix together. And this manner thus as I demonstrated in the seventh washing by reduction and by composition and by conjunction of very small parts first dissolved and subdued by small imbibitions and incorporations of the wet with the dry, and of the dry with the wet made by long triturations, and weekly decoctions and natural calcinations by several reiterations of imbibitions, contritions, decoctions and calcinations, so that the phlegmatic substance of the mercury separates and the moisture born can be retained while digesting. And cooking by the heat of our sun, until it thickens, so that it, thickened by such information, may afterwards similarly thicken other mercury by virtue of its first rule. For we do not want that thickened to transmute into the form of medicine and thicken all the substance of quicksilver, except so much only the more propincal radical parts, which must be converted into the nature of gold or silver according to the form of his melee. And in this is all the work of the Philosophers in this mastery. For thus as the simple nature of quicksilver in its earth has been by art tamed over the fire with regard to its perfection, and with special rules altered and taught, being in its own nature by certain forms of mixing and division. All so by such way said material taught by assuring and custom in the fire will change and work when afterwards is applied with other raw quicksilver. By retaining and thickening all that he will find in it of his similar nature, and by refusing all that is his phlegmatic and earthly. Seeing perfection in nature which by art is drawn from power in act, the said perfection in its work comes from its property, which said mercurial nature has taken in the manner of the mixture made in its coction thus as above said. In such a way that the operation it does all the time follows the form of its mixture. As therefore the form is in the way of doing and its work depends on it, keep then as you will constitute its form by operation. Nor how will you do it. Nor by what work she can take it. And hear it first.
For if by any of the natural reductions you can mix it in such a way that the greater part of the humidity in its decoction and inspissation can be preserved and fixed with regard to the reason for its subtlety, so much the greater part of the humidity quicksilver to it will pull and thicken, and freeze. This is the fire which thus by artifice is engendered, and is called the natural heat, lieutenant and vicar of the sun. For this because it does in a moment what the heat of the sun does in a thousand years. And know that its humidity is better preserved in its mixture when more is refined and prepared. As you will see in the second division because of its differences with regard to the first division, and in the third even more, with regard to the second and the first.
Universal incident to reform the understanding on the nourishment of stone, and how it is nothing else, if not flowing movement of natural heat.
You must know by knowledge of real understanding that when it happens that the parts of the moist radical continually dry out, aiding in this the heat from outside by resolving all the moisture born, then death to the body ensues. For this because there is no life-giving humidity in it, in which the natural heat warms up. And this manifestly appears in the works of the calcinations according to the plus and the minus. But when it is watered many times, and in small portions divided and mixed, cooking often so much only to resolve the watery smoke and to dry up and thicken its radical moisture, then the natural heat increases and increases, and the fire multiplies. And thus nourishment is nothing but flowing movement of natural heat which has position, of which the ancients say that the animated body is nothing but numbering number, and itself moving. For all-weather compost is of several continued and divided parts which all time nourish, and all time flow. For at all times there is flow and loss for what suits him at all times to give nourishment so that the flow may take place and restoration at all times until it has come to an end. And so it appears that all nourishment is done by ejection and retention of various parts. For the retention at all times is part of the nourishment by reason of the assimilation that they have in nature with the nourished. But the ejection is made of parts dissimilar to nature and contrary to unity. And for this it is necessary that all nourishment carries in itself faeces. However, each part of the nourished is nourished. By the above-said things be declared to you the sublimation of mercury and the separation from its earthly substance, and from its superfluous wateriness which are the dissimilar parts in contrast to the mer-curious middle substance which so many only like parts in proper nature are nurtures and grows and multiplies, anything else strange refusing. And if you want to know what nourishment is made of, I tell you only natural salt and common water. Because the water which is vulgal mercury by its sterility mixes with the dissolved salt of nature so that it is made aromatic and subtle nourishment of which the Philosophers say that I see that other benefit we cannot have from quicksilver. If not, as much as it renders our bodies subtle and orative by transforming them into salt of the nature of metal according to metallic form, enough is enough for us. For this salt, as it is the nature of metal, subdued by dissolution in the belly of the said mercury, helps greatly to make nourishment by reason of its similarity in its own nature, and by the stypticity of its salinity which in the universe decoction by resolution of its subrefluable humidity. acquired and gained sulfuric acuity in heat, and consequently impression restraining and correcting the wateriness which comes to it from digestible nourishment, without injury or separation of the innate dampness. And for this soon as the art has mingled nutrient moisture with the body by dew-like imbibition and long grinding. Afterwards, Nature moved and informed by heat from without moves and informs all its matter and fills the whole body with nutritive vapors in such a way that the superfluities of these vapors which are within, as well as around the surface, are thrown out by resolution made. by the innate heat of the humid radical coagulated with the help of the heat from outside corresponding to it. However first, by attracting spreads from all to all within and drowns the things within that are around him, as well as washing and wiping things. And so when it is wanted to throw out, it demonstrates its superfluity by ejection and black bark, so as belongs with the part of which bark the simple wateriness of quicksilver goes away. And must know that the front-called bark is the superfluity of our vinegar coagulated and exterminated thus as in fuliginosity of unctuous body. And thus in such a way the vehicle of the other nourishment in the matter is separated in which the digestion of the humid radical becomes.
How the two terms must be observed in order to acquire measure in the work of Nature
We have said above that too much imbibition or too much desiccation may well corrupt the work. But little imbibition can't hurt. But let it be administered its opposite, namely desiccation as long as the smallness of the said imbibition requires it. Neither little desiccation can hurt. But likewise let him be given water by imbibition as long as the smallness or portion of his assation requires. And above is said to dry out your material while cooking as much as your dissolution requires. And after its drying dissolve it so much by watering it when it has failed in its assation. Too much and little are very opposite terms of multitude and paucity.
But the excess is at all times outside the latitude of measurement. But little, which is against the term too much, is at all times within the bounds of Nature's measure. And for what is there strong term to praise. Either by watering or by desiccation whereby little imbibition always requires little desiccation. And small desiccation always requires small and close dissolution, but small desiccation. And too great imbibition or little imbibition and too great desiccation as they are terms, extra and contrary remots of the virtuous means, never in iceux measure can be found. For what the too much is at all times the confusion of the little. Thus as the little cannot find a measure in which to rest by the strong sour measure that its opposite gives it as when it can, similarly. And if the two arrangements are all made together so much only by the term too much, that is to say that the imbibition is too strong, and its desiccation similarly too strong. It appears that as such terms transgress the terms of Nature, therein neither measure nor proportion must be sought. And for this say the Philosophers, suef and little by little the earth will water, cook and calcine. However when I say little I say it with regard to the virtue of the earth. The proportion of which little has enough latitude within the terms of Nature's measure. It is less possible to err by a little than by too much. And the sooner the error of the little is corrected than of the too much. For the end of the little imbibition nothing can do in regard to the strong virtue of the earth converting to tempering its drying. But by successive imposition and gentle desiccation soon rectifies itself. And for that as between these two terms is to observe form and manner by which we can come to this virtuous means in which the species of metallic nature must be saved. And thus we must have recourse to the two contrary effects which proceed from the opposite virtue of the two terms above-said by lunatic or eclipsatic operation by proportional-native difference thus as effect of cause. And as effect of cause cannot be well known without cause. First we must list the causes of which I tell you that at all times contrary effects proceed from contrary causes, and the contrariety of one always makes known the diversity and contrariety of its other contrary, being under pure contrariety or under difference of contrariety . And from this last is born difference of concordance by which we come to love of substantial nature in all its accidents, for substantial difference at all times is the cause of the effect of nature and of all the accidents which are in it. Returning therefore to the declaration of the causes so that better can know its effects in all their works which depend on it, knowing that the said terms are taken in this work according to whether variously are contracted, either good, or badly, or moderately. By what appears to know how to contract them is the whole way of working and the whole secret of this art. Let us therefore first say that the term calcination is the cause of desiccation and of corporality and of mortality and of fixion and of deformity and of discontinuity. And of this understand with the latitude of its minus or of its plus according to whether it is contracted by measure or without measure.
For according to what is contracted according to shows itself own effect by which it appears that own work all time demonstrates own work. And however clean work one cannot know nor know without understanding, of which the Philosophers say that so much the more the man works cleanly as much as he must have understanding, by which if we want to have clean work it is advisable for us to have own understanding to regulate the work according to the contrarian or concordant differences with the intention of Nature which is cause of perfection. For proper and due understanding causes proper and due work to be done. And proper and due work causes proper and due virtue to be obtained, from which comes perfection in all things moral and natural. Note this for it is universal doctrine and to save yourselves from the pains of hell. The other term contrary to calcination is burial made by imbibition. And this is the cause of softening the dry thing, of thickening the corporeal thing, of reviving the mortal thing, of making the fixed thing move and fly. To make the heavy thing light, to make the thing deformed and divided uniform and one, and to continue their metallic species by virtue of the nature of the metallic medium. These things are what put and fix to the dead body calefaction and animation which are the cause of bodily life. But that they be done in due manner propinque to the measure of the active principle of nature in the form of means. And that the burials be made with warmth measured and proportionate to the effects of nature, and with complexioned coldness. That is to say that the heats are broken up by the coldnesses, and the coldnesses likewise are broken up by the heats. This mixed act which is between cold and hot puts the souls inside the bodies to temper iceux so that greater virtue can receive greater weapon and greater power to come to greater temper. For as the soul is tempered by its nature, it is its job to temper untempered bodies, and to put itself with works of measure as said is. For but let the works forsworn terms, namely of assessment and imbibition after the weekly decoction be made by way of measure and proportion, which are the virtues which afterwards work the things of nature. Because all the fruit of this art with regard to Nature is only broken down in proportion and composition. As thus our compost has job that it is proportioned, job is that such means you obtain by virtue of works measured with regard to its nature. And when more his works by way of measure are made always looking to the reason of the form of the nature of the medium you want to compose, so much necessarily said nature will represent form of the compost medium by noble proportion in longitude, latitude. And depth participating with quicksilver nature on one side, and on the other with perfect elixir. As therefore this medium be by virtue of its measured works it will show itself formally between dry and humid, and between hot and cold, and between hard and soft, and between fixed and flying. And this comes from measured imbibition and proportionate assation. In such a way do we temper the dry with the moist, and the moist with the dry, and the hot with the cold, and the cold with the hot, and the hard with the soft, and the soft with the hard, and the steering wheel with the fixed one, and the fixed one with the steering wheel. For craft is that each suffers long in his own motion, and takes alteration and change from one another, until they have come to the nature of the said means by the works proportionate to his nature. And in view of the said things you can understand the opposite, namely that if from everything in everything the humid spirit has separated from the body by too strong aration and proportionation, the compost will never turn between soft and hard, nor the dry will not remain soaked by the wet. As before it has separated from it, but will be at all desat-soaked when the term of the assation has been ineptly raised over the term of the right tolerance of moisture which retain and coagulate must with the dry to retain the warmth of nature. As it is cause of life and movement of intrusion, and penetration, and dyeing. Neither the moist can have perseveration nor permanent fixion if it were not coagulated and linked with the nature of the dry. Because the thing dries up as it is a fixed spirit, retains the volatile which cannot escape by any fire whatsoever.
And in no thing of nature can such radical fixed spirits be found except in the sun and the moon. And for this by dissolving fixed minds, we coagulate and fix our volatile minds. And so such fixed minds make medicine to convert metals. And on this loudly and colludingly Geber tells the children of truth by actual doctrine. And it is important to note that if by any medicine you want to convert the bodies, it is a job that it is done by the benefit of the permanent fixed spirits with good dissolved ignition, because in such dissolution they gain impression and ingress into the bodies by reason volatile spirits with which they bond. And volatile spirits gain fixion and permanence with tinting and persevering bodies. And in another way they would not remain there, nor in others they would have any interference. And the flying spirit is of such a nature that as much as the fixed spirit is of its own nature of permanent fixation against fire, so much the volatile is fixed with it. For this do we take the fixed minds of the sun and the moon as we want to fix other bodies with right fusion. Hear therefore the dissolution of the said fixed and radical spirits not in the end that everything should be returned to water, but in mediocrity which is made with the retention and coagulation, and the mutation of the volatile spirits with the fixed ones by keeping the measure when you will work which is between too much and too little assation and imbibition.
Why is assation made.
We make the average statement for two reasons. One is so that the suitable and inflammable parts of the corrupting and corruptible unctuous sulfurs loosen and separate themselves from the calcined fixed spirits, which suitable parts by the continuity of them with quicksilver defend themselves in the fire before their calcination. The other cause if is so that the volatile dampness coagulated and bound with the fixed radical dries up from all-phlegmatic dampness, and in the form of lime of metal nature turns over. And not in the form of metal nor in large pieces, but in fine lime. The cause why it freezes into lime is by reason. of the great dry earthiness of fixed spirits intermingled with the substance of said volatile moist in very minute parts. And by reason of such incorporation and intermingling the continuation of said dampness is disturbed, and consequently causes porosity in its lime through which the multiplicative nourishment enters. And by this may be understood that the imbibition must be dry as well as the dry must overcome over the wet. And the quality of the water suffers from the quality of the earth as its substance is to be transmuted into earth. However the earth will be such as will be the nature of the finished water so that the porosity of the fixed earth is not lost by too much continuity of imbibition. For if the calcined parts of the fixed earth were continued in quicksilver, the quicksilver could never end, for the dry quality of the earth which must ride on the wet would be dead. And thus the humidity could not be converted into natural lime, but would coagulate into an imperfect body. Item the strange sulphurity could never fly but would continue inside the belly of quicksilver and defend itself against the fire. Nor could fire ever pass into quicksilver in such a way that it could neither slate nor elevate. Keep therefore that porosity is not lost in matter, so that the said corrupting sulphurity may flee and fly, and the fire which passes through it at all slate and elevate. Thus will make the rare parts of the fixed and the fickle amass all together in such a way that in ashes by discontinuation of rarity will be converted. And in such rarity is the nature lime of the nutrient moist. But note well assation and imbibition. Yet there is another cause why assation must be measured with moisture restoration. And it is to keep the pure nature of slate, and to multiply it. This measure is cause of perfection to make the limes of nature with pourrimens essences of nature, after which pourrimens will immediately see the white scintillations. It teaches shows the earth when it begins to whiten and is vivification of bodies and mortification of spirits. Hear to see facts by measure, because as much as the spirit is mortified so much the body is vivified. Because the mortification of the spirit is the cause of the vivification of the body. Who therefore by measure does not know how to mortify at any time he will not know how to vivify bodies. And who bodies by measure cannot revivify, jà no spirit he will know how to mortify. If therefore you want to know where you will find measure, go to the work of Nature. And if you want to do so as Nature does all the time will take the measure work. Know that the effect is the fruit of the whole course of Philosophy, which only depends on the term of measure with regard to Nature, which measure is difficult to find in all things, and more in some than in others. So it is not for everyone to find in a circle, but only for the geometrically wise and real in nature.
Why is imbibition made.
We similarly do imbibition by measure for two main causes. One is that, as fixed spirits are the cause of the perfection of imperfect bodies and retinaculums, volatiles and ice are mixed with the oxidizing and combustible sulphurities in the root of nature. For this it is appropriate to temper them after their calcination by imbibitions of water so that it keeps them from slate in the root of their nature. And not only fix them, but coagulate them and collect them with them. As they are in small parts mixed with the oxidizers in such a way that one part cannot defend the other by the cause of the discontinuation. The other cause is to separate and dissolve the fixed and united terrestrial substance into the root of pure nature, which in any other way, neither by calcination nor by engine of fire (cannot) be separated or mondiated from the starchy and impure terrestrial substance. , which is fixed by extermination of calcinations and assations. And for this it remains fixed like a vitrificatory black bark. And the other that is of separation we separate by sublimation and elevation of its volatility that it has taken from the volatile living money with which it has amassed and united for reason of natural convenience that it has with it. In another way we could not earth it well nor separate it from it except with such resolution, elevation and ablution of the fixed and volatile parts with such mixing as we have said. For quicksilver always retains all that is of its nature and the strange refuses. And for that when no one will tell you that you cleanse bodies by calcination, mean combustible earthly substance which is not united at the root of its nature. For the substance of the united earth cannot be cleansed by calcination except by the manner which I have said, namely, or with the volatile substance of its quicksilver raising it by sublimation and leaving the earthly substance which is against its nature, or with the medicine made after of such sublimated and dissolved quicksilver with strong and good ignition which can icelle musse. And tempt, seal and convert by the benefit of its great lucidity and resplendence, and convert into gold and silver by its fixation. Or icelle at all in all separates from the mixed by its perfection. Note therefore measure in the work of nature, because with it will obtain all that you will want. Still more must note that as we have two terms at opposite extremities outside the latitude of the measure of the work of Nature, so we have at them two deaths which are two destructions in the matter of Nature. And for this reason they are deaths which come from the quality of such opposite extremes, are not Nature's intention, but are beyond the reason of her understanding. For I see what as dryness and coldness are mortifying qualities no one wants to take from them except as much as touches the measure of his perfection by way of retaining by mortification, and by way of making move and go by vivification of which I tell you that vivification is done by humidity and heat because it is a thing of life and movement. But mortification is done by dryness and coldness, because it is a thing of all debilitation to know better how to know and elect those who work in proportion and to the measure of Nature, and let those who work out of proportion and against the measure of Nature fail. . Let us therefore say by reducing the said terms to confrontation and debilitation that any debilitation comes from too much or from little. That is, too much and too little imbibition and too much and too little calcination. For in these two terms are the extreme mortal qualities. By too great imbibition and flooding of water the natural heat is extinguished by ingesting and the body stiffens and hardens by too great cold beyond proportion. And by too great calcination the heat is lost and the tincture ardent by rarefaction or subtiliation of the radical humidity which of the body dissolves by too much heat beyond proportion, which humidity is subject and proper retinaculum of the natural heat.
And for that if the said moist to which the natural heat has slowed down before being coagulated or held by natural inspiration, you will never have a living body, which life is the noble complexion that the body takes from the said coagulated moist and from the said heat retained within him. And in these two conjoined sets are retained the virtues of the stars which make work the said coagulated matter bearing the sign of a kind of metal. It therefore appears that if such a vivifying moist we want to coagulate with all its complexional heat, as it is fleeting and spiritual, it is our job that in measured heat is to be kept to the requirement of the tolerance of its essence until as long as it is thickens. And by reason of its inspiration it acquires no term by approximation to fixation by which it can little by little suffer elevation of greater fire. As therefore debilitation comes from too much and from little both in imbibition and in calcination, it is demonstrated by its opposites that at all times the measure of them will be a cause of comfort. For which thing you must know that in so many ways you will be able to reinforce the factive virtue of the stone, and when here you can debilitate, for as much when one of the two opposites is said and known, so much is its opposite firmly retained and known. so as we will say in general in the chapter of reinforcement. Speaking therefore of measurement which makes comfort I say that as great dryness and too great humidity are cause of debilitation, measurement of dryer and measurement of humidity will be cause of comfort. Now take the terms which are in latitude of measure. Namely, calcination and imbibition by letting all those on the extremity know that the term calcination which is in latitude of measure according to the plus and the minus opens all time eh debilitation by it, and in comfort by accident. In debilitation by him as purge the thing which naturally ends, as no purgation can be done in radicality without any debilitation or loss of radical humidity. But in comfort it works by accident, as it is within the terms of the measure of nature already said, as when it does to the conservation of its humidity. And to its coagulation and termination without the greatest loss of radicality. Seemingly quite the contrary comurative in nature which participates in difference of concordance and not of contrariety as do the extreme remots which are out of vital measure. The term of imbibition which is in latitude of measure according to more or less works at all times in comfort by him as long as he restores the lost thing. And softens the dry thing, and quickens the dead thing, and strengthens the weak thing, and increases the diminished thing, and tempers the quenched thing and brings it to greater temper. And on fire keep this slate, and many other things done. That comfort which is made by him with measured imbibition works against the above-said debilitation made by him by proportionate calcination. But in debilitation it works by accident, that is, insofar as it works for the construction of the radical humidity which is reduced to comfort by reason of the measure of its imbibition. And so you have in many ways the virtue of your own weakness in many ways to comfort. By calcining your material as much as your imbibition will require, and then by watering so much of it that the calcination may have dried out.
However, beware of too much calcination and too much imbibition. Work therefore only by the terms which you will find in the latitude of measurement. For each of them corresponds to his peer with difference of concordance, from which comes the love of colligence and of all temptation. This difference of concordance if is that as for reason of measured calcination is profession that dryness in the matter all the time has lordship to the reduction of the humid. This is what any time in the work induces debilitation. And approach of the humid at the end of no sign of death, for what such dryness is mortifying quality. But yet by measured calcination can not so much have withered nor mortified as by proportionate imbibition yet more on debilitation and mortification be comforted and quickened into greater life and greater virtue. Thus by such measured qualities do we mortify the spirits. And vivify the bodies by ejections and appositions. Because measured action works by ejection and retention. And by ejection and retention let us mortify them. And imbibition is made by measured apposition. And this apposition works for the revivification and rescussitation of the dead thing. And so with the dead spirits the bodies resuscitate themselves by mortifying the spirits by assation. And by resuscitating the , bodies by imbibition and burial of the dry and dead thing with the. moist and lively and lively thing. As therefore be thus it is appropriate at all times to comfort the mortified spirits in order to revivify the bodies. And they return to the nature of tempered and animated ferments, and the said con-fort and revivification is done by the living nature of the vivifying moist spirits. Necessary thing is that they are strongly exuberated and well animated by heat of natural fat. And in the way of doing this exhuberation there is a multiplication of tincture, because when such a spirit by the body is transmuted, then it begins to increase it in quantity, and to nourish it both materially and formally. And when it appears in this, it infuses itself into the body by successive imbibition like a dew. So quench the consumptive heat of mortified spirits by reviving them. And therefore restores to them their perdition by repairing and increasing and multiplying all their substance, for materially and formally is of their own nature. And for this it is transmuted into the own substance of them. If, therefore, you do not water your earth by apposition in the manner of dew, now by the heat of the fire which is within the dry body, all the dead spirits will merge, and the tinctures will flare up in hasty combustion. So remember to water ice with the dew of summer rain to temper ice with heat. And be done after their desiccations, by contritionfully mingling and incorporating the wet with the dry, the living with the dead, the spirit with the body until they are all made one in the form of dry earth. And cook. Thus the bodies will keep themselves from combustion. And by this must know by real understanding propinque to the reality of wise Nature. That as it spiritual water already said is matter of our stone or mixed compost: you can affirm that it nourishes and increases the spirits before-said according to the way I said. Because the natural heat of the spirits I perceive that thus as natural heat is tempered all the time, has no job of cooling itself. However, as it is intense and very exciting due to the fumes concluded from the compost, it has the benefit of the imbibition of the first water attempering it to the repair of the spirits.
Because the heat is always consummative of the smokes of ice by resolving. And for that if in their own water were not quenched to restore their lost thing, their radical humidity would sometimes flare up with which the natural heat which is the substantial tincture with all its accidents heats up and multiplies. By which thing if the moist radical heats up, sometimes the natural heat which is in it will suffocate and will perish and heat up its substance at all, as there is no substantial airy moisture in which and from which it heats up. can substant or by it multiply. And so all the dye is lost. For this know that all the study of the Philosophers has been imbibitions. For since the matter of sulfur and quicksilver was put in love with wide and due binal dissolution. Namely, first exuberated cibal moisture, and then liquefied and rotten resolved radical in quantity of exuberated moisture collected and sublimated with resolved water first of its own nature, and then purified by separation and rectification of its elemental parts according to the manner of their own differences.
Sometimes with regard to Nature the other said Philosophers heard that to have something of perfection in nature it is appropriate to obtain by way of nourishment by mixing made of small and various parts of the wet and the dry all together mixed in close proportion. And to reinforce the virtue of its earth and fire by virtue of their waters by imbibition with regard to the succession of lineage, which immense virtues are in all matter universally, both elemental and celestial. And for this proportion of form or mixture of the thing that we intend to reduce by sublimation into the form of pure dry sulphur, we make the imbibitions by narrow portion, so that strong digestion is celebrated in the humid and strong conversion of icelui in sec is done. For I know that any virtue which has to convert rather and better and more firmly converts the little divided than does a large and undivided quantity. Because our sulfur has a job that it is more strongly digested than is the metal. For this is it necessary that the consolidation of the suitable virtue is done by close imbibition in the manner of dew. And thus by the things which strengthen the nature of the said sulphur, is aided the natural virtue of it so that by strong digestion induce purity and luminosity in the manner of nature, in such a manner will be done this our preparation and purgation, effect and work of optional and effective nature. And so as own instrument will be orga-nally effect of art. For art does not work as to the effect of the natural preparation. As said preparation is otherwise work of nature. And for this the art cannot do it if not so much only organically disposing and administering, helping and desiccating the matter of nature. And therefore said nature thus as wise and discreet by hearable cure, works for the purgation and preparation of its perfection. Now so that you do not ignore the virtue and power of this honorable nature, you must know that no spiritual form except the soul which is dissolved from bodies which can move its matter which is effect and perfection by movement of generation. And for this first we dissolve the bodies so that after dissolved resolve the matter of their nature by movement of generation. And when they are dissolved we call them souls and virtues and provide by reason of the works which they demonstrate according to the more and less with regard to the natures to which they are converted and transmuted. For the virtues of the said souls are so great powers that they of all in all by reason of their subtle and spiritual mutable substance participate in fixion according to the most and the least moving the deepest of the matter of nature. And here it is very soothing while purifying. And after transmute it everywhere into pure and true forms resembling the said souls, which thing never could do if first by natural mixing did not mingle with the materials of nature to the deepest of them. And for this illec make their movement and transmutation. And so they make natural spirit bodies, and earthly matter forms of celestial nature. These souls we call spirits and forms and celestial virtues and natures. And for this says Fledus in the book of the secret company:
O celestial nature which thus converts all bodies into spirits. For this I tell you that without it there can be no darkness. Neither whiteness nor redness. But through it all perfection is made with the advantage that God has given it of high mutable virtue linked with low fixed virtue. This lofty virtue notwithstanding that it is material in its altitude, vanquishes and discomfits all low things by the cause of its similarity, rarity and subtlety, and acuteness, and everything rare works in everything thick. And this is the honorable nature which transmutes corporeal things into precious forms.
Benedict be God master and creator of all natures, who from such vile matter, as it is corporeal and corruptible, created so many precious things without any mortality or corruptibility, which is called surrounding heaven, and containing the earth, and all that has loom in spherical and round shape. And a small world compared to the big one because of its integrity, and spirit and soul because of its incorruptible perfection, and the first nature of homogeneous lineages, and forms forms. For earth and flesh become heaven and spirit. If, therefore, the spirit conquers the flesh, the earth will ascend to heaven all sublimated, honored, and granted. Because as said active virtue of said soul or said spirit is transmuted by all its natural matter, it makes it look like it. By making of it corruptible matter incorruptible form. So that by the virtue of such assimilation makes univocal or equivocal effects. And this is property of forms. It is to know at all times to do and work in the matter of nature by movement until it transmutes into a form seeming to it by the incorruptible virtue of its perfection. And from corruptibility brought him to incorruptibility. Item the simple essential nature is the first movement of the sovereign changeable nature, and of the repose after its perfection. For therefore the movement of the sovereign changeable nature rests in itself without any corruption. If in such simple and essential first nature the bodies are first converted and returned by the power of their forms, jà in no time theirs. species we could not transmute. If you want greater knowledge to have of the property of transmuting virtues, look at virtue. animator that God has given to both plants and stones. However as the said virtue was occult to human lineage for this will find them exposed more fully the properties and the virtues of it in the books of the beasts and of the stones and of the plants by virtue of Philosophy. However in this book you will expose them with all its properties by following the nature of our stones with all the transmuting virtues, which nature can never be had with its properties nor see its works actually if first it is not drawn from the sun and the moon by third dissolution.
The first dissolution is done to dissolve the simple virtue of said sun and said moon. It is namely the viscous and sea-curious humidity in which the terrestrial and fixed parts of the sulfuric radical moist are continued and to link it with the raw spirit.
The second dissolution is made by broad dissolution and reduction. of the said root parts fixed, subtilized and parched into subtle powder in their own water, which first was resolved therefrom and bound with raw spirit. And in this water all said bodily parts move universally in the manner of molten or liquefied bodies without making any residence. And this cannot be done by raw mercury for what it lacks in virtue and agent power. This Virtue and Power Agent is the viscosity of bodies which has been resolved in raw mercury which is said to be spirit, and holds the medium between body and spirit. Because the body and the spirit all together are added in this dissolution by reason of the participation and natural affinity that the body and the spirit have with the nature of the said means. And for that as itel means holds within it of the nature of the body and the nature of the mind, add them together in the form of a liquefactive solution. And in this solution is generated the love of nature and the similarity of all the parts in a natural symbol by reason of the universal movement that the said means makes by all the natural parts with the propine power which it holds from the soul. from the body. And similarly the attractive virtue is confirmed and increased by all the parts of the compost. By these virtues acquired the spirit which after the emptiness of the parts of its body made by continued resolution and elemental division returns in body by imbibition in the manner of dew made by way of reduction.
Better makes its movement inside the body and in the deepest, and better transmutes itself by reinforcing the appetitive virtue of all the parts generated by love of similarity of parts in natural and firm union, which virtue draws by reason of its love the nourishment resembling her in virtue and in matter in the midst and in the depths of the chamber of her radicality. And illec in accomplishment transmutes it. And for this such attracting radical is compared to the heart and not to the mouth, because the radical heart draws the most digested and purified. And the mouth draws the indigestible and impure thing. And for this the book says to watch and sleep. May the heart in the middle of its chamber attract nourishment. And illec accomplishes it. And sends it to the limbs through every vein. Note then the virtue and the nature of this first means which thus by its active virtue renders the matter quite homogeneous in liquefaction by dissolution. For in any other way the natural agent could not transmute its matter into reduction if first of all it does not render it completely homogeneous and simple by virtue of its action. And this hear from the above-said agent who even inspires to give and finish in this substantial form that you naturally ask for, namely in the form of a perfect elixir. And by this you can know by real understanding that never the natural matter is transmuted nor converted into its natural perfection if it is not by the natural agent propinque to its nature. For matter in its transmutation at all times receives the works in form by following the nature of the agent from which it takes corruption and transmutation. And for this is it necessary that the passive matter and the active form be wholly of the nature of the specific lineage. However as this cannot enter into the understanding of the vulgals, for this thus as sophists in understanding do the sophistic works, so as do those who work in strange fires and in strange active principles remots of all the species of nature of metal. And even those who in strong vitriolic and seductive waters dissolve bodies, and then form them earthly stones out of all proportion, and of all kinds of all the nature of metals. Because so requires the said active principle that they put in it which is absolutely against the nature of the metal. For he being of another form and of another matter and of another action inspiring so much only to the nature from which he is a part, disproportionates the nature of metal by strange mixture in earthly form. And by the vehement action of adurante heat creams and scorches all that should be nourished by the moist radical, and again it separates the said moist radical from all the latitude of metallic nature, and returns it to the proper nature of the said agent being of another proportion, as according to the truth of nature the property of each agent is to accomplish the matter which it transmutes into the form and species of its own nature. For since the passive matter has received fermentation and assimilation of the active solvent, it is necessary that in its form end according to the right of all nature, nature never suffers the contrary. Namely, that matter, as it is passive, can transmute the active into its nature. So as the active matter makes the passive everything generally, for this if you do not know the nature of our fire working on the species of pure metal, nothing is worth at all. For he as he be put in the latitude of the measure of the most noble and sovereign nature of metal. So long only does he work being in the latitude of measure by specific proportion without passing the terms of his own nature. All so hear from the constrictive cold which is conditionally in the passive matter. Which is not substantially of any foreign or remote matter to the nature of the asset. But he be in form, in virtue and in power as propincal in nature as you can. For whatever passive matter is true and natural, however strange cold there is besides the true condition of the agent by too much apposition, will express so much the radical humidity by induration that all the heat will be suffocated from the active, and will lose its motion at all.
For all the moist has gone away by the great constriction of the cold in which the natural heat was warmed up and nourished by its substance. And by this defect the stone moreover cannot be melted nor liquefied without affixing something hot and humid. If therefore you want to have these two instruments, ask for the male fire which is active principle on all the others in essential form within the belly of the sun, because you will find it without any fault. And the cold that is conditioned to her in nature thus propinces as feminine is within the moist material and nutrimental trait of within the womb of the moon. And of these two living silvers only so much is done all that you ask but that you notice the virtues which transmute and the multiplication of their powers and their forces, which multiplication is done by way of very strong mixing, and not in another way. And strong mixing is never done if all that has been mixed does not sublimate into vapours. So by small and minute parts is made the colligation and mixing without ever separating. And from such inseparable mixing comes virtue which works and transmutes following the reason and the nature of its mixing. So when you want to multiply the virtue that transmutes, you will multiply with a strong mixture of sublimation.
For this of the second dissolution we pass to the third which is done by way of reduction by imbibition of narrow roration to multiply the said virtue and to have it stronger in form and kind of other means which form follows the reason of its mixture. and dissolving in dry steam as a white powder. And in this means is virtue multiplied by third and close mixing and dissolution. And is more strongly transmutation and conversion into other form and forms by reason of approximation to fixation. And if you want to multiply the virtues mentioned above even more, don't bother if you don't start the said three dissolutions again. And as much as you start again the transmuting virtues you will multiply, which is a great secret to Nature. Hear however by affixing new ferments. And all of this is only body subtilized by dissolution, contrition and assation with the spirits. By such subtleties the conjunction of bodies and minds without separation is made. And subtiliation is only dissolution in water and universal union of them and spirits by which thing it appears that like the third dissolution is effect of the two others and principal act of all our mastery. And this cannot be done without the knowledge of the things that contribute to the comfort and debilitation of the said virtues, from which tempering and relaxation can come according to the most and the least comfort and debilitation. This is what we must not ignore. As therefore the stone in its reduction returns in greater dryness which is mortificative quality, do in such a way that the heat infused by the igneous humidity is cooled by the ration of nutrimental humidity. And after its natural heat by too much fire resolve, if not so much only phlegm. Otherwise it will return colder than before, and thus will be permanently dead.
By slow fire, therefore, bind the substance of quicksilver with sulphur, in such a way that from it earthly quality can be returned to the nature of animated air by apposition and reduction of exuberant and sublimated water. And afterwards in kind of fire by reduction of hot and moist oil. By slow fire, do this until it settles little by little by succession of limited works, and fortified heat to the requirement of its essence. And so long as debilitate by measured assation, so much illec must comfort by proportionate imbibition even in greater meat if occupation is with regard to the amount of heat suitable. Do not drink if you do not eat, nor do not eat if you do not drink. As many times as you water it, as many times as you dry it out. The whole intention of this mastery is nothing else if not in these two terms when it comes to the way of working. However, let you first have the waters and the oils well tempered and rectified. For out of their own substance ours is made stone. It is to know lands of iceux sublimated and retained by virtues of the successive means by gear of reduction and mixing, solution and putrefaction. And we make putrefactions with own due heat that first corrupts the moist animated by mixing, and later finishes it in the form and in the nature of which heat is by calef action. And this is done by reason of the evaporation retained in its mixture by reason of the low fixed virtue linked with the high volatile. Keep therefore that such vapor does not fly from its comixtion by strange heat until it is bound with the fixed, for sooner would be lost. For this say the ancient Philosophers that all time putrefaction is when the terminating overcomes the humid terminated by its hot drying. For in the dry is the retentive virtue and in the hot the virtue which ends its wetness. And thus in the thing mixed all the time the dry ends the humid volatile by retaining its vapor against the heat by colligence of fixion and volatility.
Now I will say how the earth is sublimated and whitened.
And so that by several reiterations of imbibitions with strong crushing and frequent assation the greater part of the quantity of mercury is spoiled. It is also necessary that the remanent which it retains of phlegm by reiteration of sublimation be similarly removed. And for this when the earth will have drunk the fiftieth part of it, you must know that when the earth will have drunk the fiftieth part and will have come to the term of perfect whiteness you must let it cool and remove it from the vessel, and put it into a very strong and well glassed earthen curcurbite which has the mouth wider than the bottom. And his still is of very clean glass, as will be shown to you by figure at the end of the book and in this vessel will later be sublimated with the strongest fire that you can. And here you must note and know why the Philosopher said earlier: The reason is such, if you sublimated your tempered clay, the wet would sublimate and the dry would remain at the bottom. And for this the Philosopher commands you that sometimes you make the strongest fire that you can, so that the matter melts suddenly, and the dry retains the moist, and the moist defends the dry, until it rises. in the form of a very white powder. And when you see your land very white as snow and standing like dead powder on the spondilla of the aludel, then you will remove it from the vessel. And again sublimate it without its faeces. Because if you sublimated her with her faeces, you could never dispose of them. The powder that you will find sublimated on the faeces is ash of ashes or ash taken from the sublimated and honored ash. And what remains at the bottom is the ashes of which the underside is vituperated and damned. And is only dregs and bark and obscure blackness of which we have no profession. So make a separation between the clear and the ord. For when it rises as very white snow then is the thing accomplished. You must know that when he says you take it wisely, let him not go up in smoke, that is to say, only when he is sublimated that as soon as you can that you mix the part of the said sulfur from which you want to make elixir to the white with its water and its ferment thus as it is said in the fixation and elixir of composition. Because if you let him grow old he could well lose and spoil. And on the other hand you have to make your red sulfur to red as well as it is said in the next chapter of the composition of red sulfur. So pick it up wisely so it doesn't go up in smoke. For it is the good that we seek, the white leafy earth which coagulates, and the rennet, ashes of ashes, arsenic, and white sulfur which according to Aristotle is the very good thing which the Athenians must take in order that from it money. So work from him to the moon. For it is accomplished and in this way the white, non-fiery sulfur is perfected. You must know that if you perceive that the said faeces hold anything of the honorable average nature, you must water them again with your white water exhuberated and kept by watering and calcining thus as it is said above. And then by sublimating with the strongest fire that you can until what is honorable nature rises like very white snow and when you will find nothing more there throw them out because they are worth nothing.
From the composition of red sulfur to gold.
If therefore you want to have golden sulfur, dissolve your gathered white sulfur above in red water by contrition and imbibition and light decoction. Dissolved him you will coagulate him in stone by way of reduction. Coagulate it again dissolve it in red water. And freeze it again. Thirdly in this same water dissolve it. And then sublimate everything by very slow fire. Now the work of artifice is gilded and digested. For what rises above like dust is white sulphur. And what remains at the bottom below is red sulfur dyed like scarlet, and clear so that from it the alchemists make gold. Know that this sulfur converts quicksilver by artifice into real gold. By the things above said it appears manifestly that the Philosophers have said true which thing fools believe is impossible. That is to say that it is only a stone, a medicine, a mercurial nature, because everything is born from it, a disposition and a work and a vessel to make white and red sulfur together. And for what when you see the said whiteness appearing in the vessel, you must believe that in this whiteness is the mussed redness. You don't have to put said whiteness aside, but always cook until everything is red, like when I get up in the morning and I see that my urine is white and indigestible sometimes I know that I have slept little. And lay back in my bed. And when I have slept long enough my urine turns yellow, which yellowness is nothing but accomplished digestion. These above-said things is the true composition of the non-fiery white and red sulfur which thing by the quarter regimen is accomplished for the perfect elixir to hone any imperfect metal in the real sun and in the real moon. And by this manifestly appears that without this sulfur one cannot accomplish or compose the perfect elixir. Because of its nature it has the property of congealing mercury and fixing and desiccating due to its dryness. Where I told you above that it is necessary to cook until it is all red, that is to say by light decoction until all is fixed red sulfur of which the sign will be when of it nothing will be able to sublimate therefore certainly will be the decoction accomplished.
The fourth diet which is to fix sulfur on the fixed body.
The fourth scheme is to fix the white and red sulfur on the fixed body so that the white sulfur is fixed on silver and the red sulfur on gold. For according to Pithagoras, unless the living silver of the drawn body is coagulated into white sulfur suffering the fire, it cannot direct its way to perfect redness. For this therefore do not work your body in things which you cannot achieve because you would seek a double error. So work wisely and not haphazardly. For without ferment you will have neither sun nor moon, but something else which is not cured by nature if you do not prepare your sulfur with the body from which you prepared it at the beginning. Dear friend, when I tell you that the white sulfur must be fixed on silver and the red on gold, do not mean that it is gold and silver as they are sold. But in doing your work you must have kept lands of gold and silver refined and calcined on which lands you must fix your white sulfur to white and red to red. Conjoin therefore sulfur with the fixed body so that it generates its similar, and is made elixir with all that you will conjoin. For when he is conjoined with the body he will not cease working until he has converted everything. And for that when you want to ferment, mix the sulfur with the body so that everything is fermented. For the ferment restores our sulfur to its nature, and color and flavor in every way. And for the white ferment will be to the white, and the red to the red, as it appears. Because if you had put the silver ferment with the gold sulfur it will bring it back to its nature. But not in its color, and on the contrary. Do not therefore mix the ferment of one sulfur with the other sulfur, because the ferment of gold is gold, and the ferment of silver is silver. And there is no other ferment on earth. For the thing cannot fix which cannot be fixed, nor was it ever fixed. And for this in any fermentation you must note the weight of each so that the sum of the volatile sulfur does not overcome the sum of the fixed body. Otherwise the marriage bond would turn to run away with unfixed mind. And for this, says Plato, if a little of this sulfur is thrown on many a body, hear that the three parts are of the body and one of sulfur, in such a way that there is power over him and he will convert it sometimes into powder which will have the color like the color of the body on which the spirit is thrown. And because sulfur cannot enter bodies except by means of water. As she makes the marriage between sulfur and leaven in any nuptials. First you will put as Avicenna says the earth, because it is aside the leaven. Secondly you will put the water, because it is on the side of the earth. Tiercement you will put the air, because it is aside the water. Fourthly you will put fire, because it is aside the air, however do not put fire in elixir to the white, because it is accomplished of three elements esquels has no fire. But the red of all four is accomplished. Work and nail, dissolve and drown, wash and dry. For water is a means of conjoining the dyes of others. That is, oil and fire. And I will say a word of Philosophy to you. If first you put the oil and then the earth, the oil would be mortified in the earth. Because the water couldn't get in. And if you put the water and then the oil, the oil will stand on the water. And if you put the water and then the earth, the water will be heavier than the earth. So fix the water with the earth so that it is joined to it. Because if one of the four killed, all the others died. If one has more soul than the other, it is worthless. Appropriate then the ferment which is the soul before fermentation so that it may be calcined powder dissolved and hardened. If therefore you do not appropriate your leaven well, mastery is worth nothing. And note that this likewise is nothing other than the subtilization of the ferment by dissolution of the stone in water.
From the reduction of water on the elixir to white.
And for this, therefore, you will drink three parts of pure moon, that is to say subtilized and calcined as is said above. And it is the ferment with twice its very clean, white and rectified mercury. By grinding everything together very strongly in a mortar of porphyry until the mercury has drunk the ferment and is made like butter in such a way that nothing can be smelled of the said ferment. Then after you will add to it the above-called white sulfur sublimated and frozen a part. This sulfur is the thing which dries up the mercury in the earth and fixes it by means of the water. Because it makes the marriage between the body and the sulfur and the ferment. And then we give him the oil. And so we give it a metallic and fluent fusion. And so it appears that the oil makes it flow, and the earth causes it to dry up and fix. Item when matter is sublimated after the incineration of its water, then the sulfur by means of the water enters mercury. And entering pierces it and coagulates it and dries it up, and so when the parts of the mercury in no way thicken by fire, never can they rise any more. Returning to the subject, when you have added some of your white sulfur sublimated and congealed by grinding everything together until they are like a body. And then insert it with some of its white water. And sublimate it by forcing under the fire little by little until all that is volatile is sublimated from it. And then let it cool, and pull it out. And what will be brought up alongside the vessel with part of its water put back on its faeces, watering and drying it out until it is like paste. And put it back to sublimate, and thus continually begin again the contrition, imbibition, assation and sublimation, always forcing the fire until twice its water is fixed with the earth and nothing of it can in any way sublimate. And always reduce what rises above on what below remains fixed until everything below is fixed. For the sulfur fixes, that is to say the earth, as it is coagulant and coagulated, that is to say dried up. Naturally coagulates its mercury. And this is done by frequent reiterations of sublimations on its mercury. For no sulfur more quickly freezes quicksilver to profit into which in its substance the said quicksilver is converted as much by nature as by the engine of the art. Like you have for example land and water. For when the water mixes with the earth, the earth drinks it up by its dryness, and thickens it, and makes it like itself by its pregnancy. Because everything that dries naturally desires moisture. And for this it must be of its nature, otherwise with it it would never be incorporated nor would it continue with the parts of the dry so that with the parts of the dry it would be continued. And for this it is necessary that the experimenter of this science fully knows the forces of nature and firmly joins to it, namely Appetitive by which the substance of the stone attracts to itself mercury as much as it needs.
And it is by the elemental virtue that desires to fill what is empty. And for this it is called appetitive or attractive. Retentive by which it retains by reason and elemental power desiring to fill what is empty. Digestive is that which transmutes the retained thing from one disposition to another, like coagulating quicksilver into a substance of sulphur. And then this other quicksilver sulfur. And this virtue comes to him from the fire musse and infixed in the substance of quicksilver. And it is the fire of nature mused and revealed to the children of truth with which they can do in a day what is done by the heat of the sun in a thousand years. For as the rennet of the lamb by its property coagulates the milk into cheese, so this fire by its musky nature coagulates the mercury. But it cannot do it if it is not our magisterium. Expulsive is a virtue by which nature dismisses what is not part of its nature. Because they are opposites. For nature is sufficient for you and for her in all things that she needs in her perfection. How wise and careful she is in the incarnation of her body, that is to say in the continuation of the dry with the moist, which solicitation has no end. It is therefore enough for you to dispose slightly on the outside, because sufficiently it works on the inside to its perfection. The movements of her are to her adherent by a way and by an order. And in a better and more certain way than anyone could think. Said movements are very continuous and uniform, by which the dry is inserted with the wet. And the wet is continued by the dry. And for this to the magisterium of the Philosophers must be preparation. And in patience long operation without hurrying. And nature will not be able to transcend its movements if it is not prevented by any opposite. Because she has a certain time to conceive and give birth, to nourish, to work. And for that when the earth will have conceived it awaits childbirth. And when she has had a child, feed him until he can suffer all the fire. And so you can project it.
Of the reduction of air on the white elixir.
And for this therefore when the water will be with the earth. And fixed in the earth, crush it. And water it like dew with part of its air. And put it to sublimate under fire first slow and then stronger until by continued reiteration of sublimation and continued movement everything is fixed at the bottom. That is, one and a half weight of its air, so one day and one night you will be under heavy fire. The second with the night stronger, and the third day with the night you will fire very hard as out of bed. Thus the air becomes fixed with the water in the earth, for the airy nature rejoices in the aquatic nature. And on the contrary the nature of the earth contains the airy nature. And the airy nature teaches the watery nature to fight against fire. Because when the air meets flee, that is to say the water when the fine is gone. For the bird which has feathers i.e. the water or the spirit is retained from the one which has no feathers i.e. the airy nature below the earth.
From the incineration of the white elixir to the white.
So take some crystalline mine which you will find at the bottom an ounce and Pinch by the last incision by dripping drop by drop in a soft crucible on slow fire, from its above-called white air until it melts like wax without smoking. So test it on the ignited lamina. If melts hastily like wax, then it is embedded. And if it does not reduce it to ceration drop by drop of its white oil until it melts like wax without smoking and this is the commandment of all the Philosophers that when by sublimation you have fixed the very clear part of the earth, that you will begin again the sublimation of the remanent of the non-fixed parts on it, that is to say water and oil until as long as icelle similarly is fixed. And then try on the fire if it will have good fusion, so enough on it started again the sublimation. If not, repeat on it time after time the sublimation of the non-fixed part, until it melts like smokeless wax. So remove it from the fire and let it cool, for it is an accomplished elixir, and of inestimable price, which converts every imperfect body into an infinite moon. Throw from him therefore a weight on a hundred parts of washed mercury and it will be pure moon better than mining and also if you make projection. A weight out of a hundred imperfect bodies will transform them into a very real moon. The manners of the composition of this very real elixir I gave you a complete sermon to which elixir no doubt you can come. So you excite by great solicitation in the manner of the said regimes. And from here without fail you will find the truth which is not made by her nor as some believe by miracle, but by perfected art, and by operation. So work whatever you want. Because besides this advice, I couldn't give you better advice.
Of the manner of composing the elixir of red.
In such a similar way the elixir is made to the red, that is to say to the sun, if for each white thing you put red thing and instead of the ferment of the moon you put ferment of the sun. And the water of mercury be reddened with the fire of the stone, for in every red work nothing enters it except is red. As in any white work, nothing enters it if it is not white. The preparation of the medicine of the non-burning sun is made by the addition of red sulfur by way of fixation and calcination with three parts of its ferment prepared with industry perfectly administered by way of many solutions and sublimations, and by many reiterations until as long as the non-fixed with the fixed is fixed below. For the manner of this fixing and solution is by reiterations of sublimations of the remainder of the unfixed stone with the fixed, con-joining ingeniously by small parts until the fixed rises with the unfixed part, and once again be fixed so that it stands fixed. And by this appears that water makes the body volatile and then fixed. And when three parts of his red water are with him in this way fixed, then be quenched with his red oil by imbibing in the manner of dew and sublimated (so many) times after others with him until all is fixed above. below. That is, three parts as it is said of water. So put it for a day and night in strong fire as it is said to the white so that it better purifies itself and fixes itself with it. Then take some and insert it in a crucible over the fire with its red oil, dripping drop by drop until it melts like smokeless wax. And be done one thing. That is to say the oil with him, that is to say with the elixir. Being and penetrating and deeply dyeing and permanent. Cast therefore a weight of him upon a thousand parts of moon or of washed mercury. And it will be very true sun in any examination much better than that which comes from the mines.
For the gold and silver made by the above-said elixir pass the gold and silver of the said mine in all its properties. And therefore say the Philosophers that their gold and silver are not vulgal gold and silver, for a great adjunction of tincture is added to them. And perseverance in fire by the properties of several operations and of utility in dismissing all diseases.
Of the multiplication of medicines and how multiplication takes place.
If the said medicines when they have been fixed and determined with their oils until they melt as wax you dissolve in white or red mercury until they are made clear water. And then in a light decoction freeze them, and with their oils insert them on the fire until they melt slightly. The virtue of them will be multiplied in the projection. And if it once at least when they are dissolved you distil in a hundred doubles will multiply and increase their virtues. The manner of the multiplication of the said medicines is that you dissolve each species of them singularly in its water by burial. Burial is in its water and without it not. Then separate the elements by distillation. First by receiving the water by distillation, then the oil and the earth will remain at the bottom.
Return the water by sublimations to the earth until it drinks it all up. And let it be fixed with it. Then water it with its oil and its tincture until it is fixed with it and melts like wax. So cast a weight of this medicine on any body you wish. For in a hundred doubles the tincture will be multiplied. And if a part of it first convert of any body a hundred parts, secondly will convert a thousand, a third ten thousand, a quarter thousand thousands, a fifth infinite thousands into true sun and true moon. And for this it should be noted that the more the medicine is dissolved, sublimated and coagulated, so much the better and the more abundantly works. For in each dissolution it acquires ten weights in its projection. Do not therefore be bored in the reiteration of solutions, sublimations and coagulations, for in it the medicine is better digested, united and fixed, and more perfectly works. By this it appears that the reduction in said solution and sublimation is the subtiliation of the first degree. And for this sublimation and solution must be understood by reduction.
How you must understand sublimation and dissolution.
However do not believe that I am saying a solution here so that the elixir of all points will be brought back to water so as at the beginning. But let you steal it as much as you can, and divide its parts into joint fixion, that is, by reducing the moist to the dry, and its dry to the moist, and the gross to the simple. For what therefore the fixative virtue by the mixture of the subtle of the elements is generated. And by the mixing of the subtle parts of the body and the spirit and the conjunction of these virtues is done by dissolution. And by sublimation is fixed, and for subtlety was found the work of solution and not for something else which is done by reduction, for which thing the conjunction of the bodies with the spirits is made with dissolution that is to know from the dry to the moist . And not crumbed with sublimations. And this conjunction must mean reduction. Because the bodies do not need if it is not the subtiliation which is done by reduction so that better join with the spirits that is to know with its own waters. And their subtiliation is in water of dissolution, but this dissolution takes place with the freezing of the spirit. Because dissolution pulls the power stone to effect. For what she makes it at all be subtle. Because when the bodies steal the spirits with them from any point or universally put themselves in union. And never by no whole device can they be separated if as it appears in the reduction and sublimation. For not only is the spirit sublimated by itself, but also the body unites and conjoins with the spirit. And the spirit linked with the body by a subtle device similarly and uniformly sublimates itself as all homogeneous. And also the body is made of subtle nature like the mind. Because the confirmation of the spirits with the bodies is done when the bodies become subtle so that they can retain the spirits. And for that, who will be able to prepare the bodies with the first subtlety will have the end that desires. For in the conjunction of minds with bodies must be the whole intention of the worker. And the conjunction of them with the bodies is made when the bodies are subtleted in the manner of spirits. And the bodies are made subtle like the spirits by contritionful dissolution and assation of the bodies with the spirits. Hear what I have said, for everything is profitable, and there is nothing superfluous in all I say. If you don't hear it, start your lesson or lessons over again so that you hear everything. And bring each chapter to the chapters. And each chapter is a lesson to you. And mingle with each other. Because the intention of one works the intention of the other so that one makes the other heard by often studying. For the plant which is often plowed cannot be deprived of fruit. For therefore see and hear, and accordingly work. For what we have said comes on the line of truth, but let you not be reproached for anything that you have failed, for if you are not disappointed by your ignorance your labor will never be deprived of fruit. And for what if the really written things haven't heard, don't blame me. But indeed your ignorance which is the enemy of science. For you are unfortunate by lack of meaning. Like the one to whom God does not reward any good, nor does he want to open his memory so that he does not hear our words, nor therefore that he has any theory. For by true understanding is acquired theory, without which one cannot have practice. And for this no one can rest lightly in practice from which thought is to be theoretically renounced. The extremes of this theoretical to the first side is to study assiduously according to the sayings of the Philosophers and to hear them. Second practice by which he can make all the experiments he wants. And each bring back power to effect. The means, therefore, to enter into this science is truly theoretical, without which nothing can pass from ignorance to science, that is, to practice. Theoretical therefore is an average disposition by which one passes from one opposite to the other. And so one can say that one acquires right science.
The way to do the projection of the elixir and is multiplication in quantity.
It is a serious thing to fuse a thousand thousand parts together. And for that when you do the projection you will do it that way. Take one hundred parts of washed mercury and put it in a crucible on the fire. And when it begins to boil put one part of your paired elixir as above said on said one hundred parts of washed mercury. Namely mercury from the body drawn, washed and rectified and kept. And everything will be medicine, on other washed mercury. Then throw a part of this congealed medicine on one hundred parts of washed mercury, that is to say of the body drawn as above in a boiling crucible on the fire. And still everything will be medicine. Then throw a part of this recently frozen medicine over a hundred parts of washed mercury. And it will be all gold or silver very good in any event, depending on whether the first elixir will be red or white. Now you have multiplied your primary medicine in quantity or in whole or in part. For from one ounce you have two hundred ounces, but not in such virtue as was the first medicine. If you do not multiply it by dissolving and congealing, for in the way we have said it could multiply in infinite virtue, and afterwards in quantity. And this is the practice of the Rosebush of the Philosophers. Extracted briefly from their books, which has no superfluity. Do not remove anything from it to perfect the imperfect bodies in infinite sun and moon, depending on whether the elixir has been prepared and refined. And also it has effective virtue on all other medicines of medicines and cures all infirmities both in hot and cold diseases. For its occult and subtle nature, it preserves health and strengthens virtue. From the old it makes young and repels all disease from the body, and removes the venom from the heart, and softens the arteries, and dissolves the things contained in the lungs, and the heartbroken heals and consoles. It monifies the blood and purges what is contrary to spiritualities. And when they are clean he keeps them. And if the disease lasts a month he cures it in a day, and that of a year he cures it in twelve days. And if it is very old and of long time it cures it in one month. And for it is mie without cause if this medicine is required on all other medicines, because, who has it, he has the incomparable treasure. Dear friend you have above by practice as the projection is done a weight on hundred of mercury of rectified body. And everything is medicine. And that a weight of the said hundred again upon other hundred parts of the same mercury is all medicine. And then a weight of the above-called medicine thus multiplied if it cherts over a hundred parts of washed mercury it will always multiply. You must know what is this washed mercury on which one projects to convert it into gold or silver.
Know that when you have multiplied your medicine in virtue and in quantity and from here you want to project on mercury you must prepare and wash it in this way. That is, in the way it was said at the beginning of the practice until the second washing until it is purified and washed from all its scoria and black earth. For it is transmuted from cold to heat, and nearer in nature to metal than raw mercury. And of this mercury if you can make it in great abundance in several vials all at once in a bath furnace in the manner which is said in the first wash at the beginning of the practice.
From the recapitulation of all the mastery.
For this therefore that of all diets have dealt with all sufficient causes. It remains in short to recapitulate all the mastery in order to retain it in memory. I therefore say that the whole intention of the whole sovereign work is nothing other than to take the stone known by the above-said chapters. And continue on said stone the work of sublimation of the first degree so that it is mondified and cleaned of all filth. And then afterwards with what is dissolved either subtle the white or red earth until matter comes to the last subtlety. And at last be made volatile. Then afterwards be fixed with the manners of fixing until it remains in the harshness of the fire. And then afterwards the fixed stone with the unfixed part kept by way of sublimation and solution be made volatile. And then fixed. And again the fixed is made volatile. And also again the volatile fixes until it melts like wax. And then alter into infinite sun and moon. And in this is accomplished the very precious secret which is in this world here the greatest secret. And the treasure of all Philosophers.
This present book is and belongs to Nicolas Flamel
of the parish of Saint-Jacques-de-la-Boucherie which
he wrote and bound in his own hand.
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“Therefore the Moon is necessarily required to make the Sun subtle and thin and recede and to secrete its impurities.”
Anonymous
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