THE GOLDEN TESTAMENT

1672

Although I had not resolved to leave this great secret of the ancient scholars to any man in writing, I nevertheless did it by this affection and love that I have for you, knowing that you would have great difficulty in coming to terms with it otherwise, because life is short, and this art very hidden; but since such a precious pearl is not for swine and such a gift from heaven must be worked with prudence and piety, it is with constancy that I have declared myself to you and that I conjure you with my holy hand and mouth, first to keep this writing faithfully from all those who are wicked, avaricious and vicious, secondly to have no other purpose for it than the glory of God, the creator of light, and the convenience of your poor neighbour. Keep it tight lest my soul accuse you in the day of judgment. I am therefore writing this treatise to you on the place which is destined for me in heaven, just as I found this precious treasure and as I touched it with my fingers. That is why I subscribed it with my own blood, dying at Leyden on March 23, 1672.

Take in the name of God the purest and cleanest sea salt, as it is cooked by the sun; he comes from Spain by sea. Mine was from St.Uby. Let it dry well in some warm place, plunder it very subtly into powder in a marble mortar so that it can dissolve more easily in dew water in the month of May or June when the moon is at its full. Note that when the dew falls with an east or southeast wind, you must have planted pestles one foot in the ground; put on it large panes of glass on which the dew will stick (the panes are exposed when the sun has set and they are removed half an hour after it rises). Then have a glass vase in which you will receive the dew which will be on the said flat glasses, by one of their corners. Do this until you've had enough, for the whole quarter of the full moon is good: at other times the dew is too weak. Then you have to plug the glass well with wax until you need it so that the spirits do not get lost and for this purpose put them in a cold place and not a hot one.

Take some looted salt and throw it into a clean glass where you will have put this dew to dissolve it little by little as much as it can dissolve, which you will know if the last salt remains four days without melting. Then it is a sign that there is enough and the dew has its natural weight like the seed in the womb.

Take this water impregnated with salt at discretion. For me I put in £2; put it in a short-tailed flask about this figure. Fill it and fight skillfully (for me I would leave three-quarters empty) as I will learn to do by applying at the same time to its opening a lid which has precisely the size it needs, which must be done very skillfully so that the spirits subtilized and lively of the dew do not evaporate, because when they are gone the soul of the salt can never be brought back, nor the work succeed in doing well; dry the lut by itself and put the vial in the BM stove as I will show you how to make it rot. Stop it then with good mud, for this purpose, dry the lut of itself and give the medium degree of the fire and leave it, digest 40 or 42 days and you will see the matter turn black, which is a mark of its decay. When it is in this state, put this glass with its material in a wooden bowl in the dry oven; give a low degree of fire and continue this 13 days also.

Then the matter begins to coagulate and become like grayish salt around the glass, and when you notice this do not give any more fire so that it does not dry out too much and let it cool imperceptibly on its own; then put your glass in the stove to rot as before, give the same degree of fire and continue 40 days, and the mass will resolve itself; but you must be careful not to break the lut, and when you put it in the furnace to rot, you must cover the neck with a piece of wood made for the purpose, with a small capital of glass so that the humidity does not spoil it, and when you see that the material begins to blacken put the glass to freeze, and when it is grayish and sticks to the glass, put it for the third time and the fourth to rot, and do as before. and continue this rotting and freezing up to five times, or until you see that your water is clear, crisp and transparent in the resolution and snow-white in the freezing; then it is prepared and becomes fixed salt; but before opening the vial to take it, it must first be dissolved in fine water and then let it cool gently.

Then open the phial and you will find the matter diminished by about a third or fourth part, but instead of salt water it is a kind of very soft and very penetrating water, a little thick, which is hidden by the Philosophers under singular names, and it is the Mercury of the Philosophers; it is the water of which the sun and the moon are made, for as the sun is said to be its father and the moon its mother, so you will find in this water the power of the two luminaries truly together in their natural properties. If you take 15 or 25 drops of this water, it strengthens the mind; memory, makes wise and gives revelations of great and marvelous things of all the unheard-of and unknown mysteries, of which I dare not speak here any more by the oath I have sworn to God. The time and matter for using this holy water will be revealed to you as soon as you take it, for you will have benign influences as if the sky and all the stars with their forces were working and operating miraculously within you. All the celestial arts and perfections will come to you as in a dream, but the main thing is that you will learn to know perfectly the nature of all creatures, and by all these miracles, Almighty God, most Holy, Creator of Heaven and Earth, like Moses, David and all the other saints, because the wisdom of this living fountain will make him known to you as it did to Solomon and the other brothers of our brotherhood. for you will have benign influences as if the sky and all the stars with their forces were working and operating miraculously in you. All the celestial arts and perfections will come to you as in a dream, but the main thing is that you will learn to know perfectly the nature of all creatures, and by all these miracles, Almighty God, most Holy, Creator of Heaven and Earth, like Moses, David and all the other saints, because the wisdom of this living fountain will make him known to you as it did to Solomon and the other brothers of our brotherhood. for you will have benign influences as if the sky and all the stars with their forces were working and operating miraculously in you. All the celestial arts and perfections will come to you as in a dream, but the main thing is that you will learn to know perfectly the nature of all creatures, and by all these miracles, Almighty God, most Holy, Creator of Heaven and Earth, like Moses, David and all the other saints, because the wisdom of this living fountain will make him known to you as it did to Solomon and the other brothers of our brotherhood.

When you have completed the aforesaid work in the manner which I have just taught it to you, if you wish to push it and proceed to a higher perfection, in order to have its tinting on the metals, listen to this faithful and fruitful advice: red elixir, or silver in a cup for the white, for the process is the same everywhere, and in both this gold or this silver must be beaten into sheets like that of the gilders.

Throw it into the glass to dissolve in this holy water as you did before with the salt, and it will melt like ice in hot water; continue this until you see the gold or silver stay there for 4 days without dissolving; then he received his natural weight; put this solution as before in a round glass; and fill it up to a third of the glass, so that two-thirds are empty, seal hermetically, dry the lut and put afterwards in the furnace of the humidity, make the fire and keep it 40 days in a continual bath; then the sun and the moon will be radically resolved and you will see the greatest darkness in the world. As soon as you notice it, have your stove dry, and heat it to its degree; put there the glass with the matter and give equal degree of fire, ie low and soft during fifteen days; before this term you will see and hear astonishing marvels which surprised me myself, and you will hear a noise and a murmur which is made in the vial, as if it were water and ice breaking and melting, and a thousand different colors will appear to your eyes, and you will see how the world was made and created in its beginning, and what is the origin, the middle and the end of time. After 12 or 15 days of time, the matter will settle down into a very beautiful red powder, but for the moon, of a color like pearl gray. Then the body, the soul and the spirit will be united together, of which the Philosophers spoke. that is to say low and soft for a fortnight; before this term you will see and hear astonishing marvels which surprised me myself, and you will hear a noise and a murmur which is made in the vial, as if it were water and ice breaking and melting, and a thousand different colors will appear to your eyes, and you will see how the world was made and created in its beginning, and what is the origin, the middle and the end of time. After 12 or 15 days of time, the matter will settle down into a very beautiful red powder, but for the moon, of a color like pearl gray. Then the body, the soul and the spirit will be united together, of which the Philosophers spoke. that is to say low and soft for a fortnight; before this term you will see and hear astonishing marvels which surprised me myself, and you will hear a noise and a murmur which is made in the vial, as if it were water and ice breaking and melting, and a thousand different colors will appear to your eyes, and you will see how the world was made and created in its beginning, and what is the origin, the middle and the end of time. After 12 or 15 days of time, the matter will settle down into a very beautiful red powder, but for the moon, of a color like pearl gray. Then the body, the soul and the spirit will be united together, of which the Philosophers spoke. and hear a noise and a murmur that is made in the vial, as if it were water and ice breaking and melting, and a thousand different colors will appear to your eyes, and you will see how the world was made and created in its beginning, and what is the origin, the middle and the end of time. After 12 or 15 days of time, the matter will settle down into a very beautiful red powder, but for the moon, of a color like pearl gray. Then the body, the soul and the spirit will be united together, of which the Philosophers spoke. and hear a noise and a murmur that is made in the vial, as if it were water and ice breaking and melting, and a thousand different colors will appear to your eyes, and you will see how the world was made and created in its beginning, and what is the origin, the middle and the end of time. After 12 or 15 days of time, the matter will settle down into a very beautiful red powder, but for the moon, of a color like pearl gray. Then the body, the soul and the spirit will be united together, of which the Philosophers spoke. middle and end times. After 12 or 15 days of time, the matter will settle down into a very beautiful red powder, but for the moon, of a color like pearl gray. Then the body, the soul and the spirit will be united together, of which the Philosophers spoke. middle and end times. After 12 or 15 days of time, the matter will settle down into a very beautiful red powder, but for the moon, of a color like pearl gray. Then the body, the soul and the spirit will be united together, of which the Philosophers spoke.

There is no true bodily solution without the spirits being previously coagulated and well reduced one in the other and of the other in equal proportion so that the corporeal being becomes like a penetrating spiritual power, and on the contrary the incomprehensible essential power unites with it bodily by fire, because there is such a communication between them, which, like Heaven cooperates in the deepest of the earth and produces all the treasures and riches of the world, which the Philosophers have heard when they say: 0h the admirable sympathy of nature, known to true Philosophers. This powder is already good for splashing on metals in this way: Melt 5 parts of good gold or silver in a crucible, and put a part of your powder which you will incorporate in a little wax. Throw it in and give it a strong fire for an hour. Remove after the crucible and you will find the frangible and calcined gold. Throw in a part in ten of any other molten metal whatsoever: it will certainly change it into sun or moon better than those of the mines, but I advise you nevertheless not to consume the tincture on this except to make a test; because if you put this beautiful red powder to rot once again in the Bath it will change in 25 days into red oil for gold and for silver white verging on blue. If you take any coin or any metal and dip it in this oil, it will change in the moment without spoiling itself in pure gold or silver as I have given you here 4 proofs; but a lot is lost in doing this, which is why it must be done very quickly and skilfully if you want to put it to the test.

As for the use of this oil for the human body, 3 drops taken in water of lemon balm or good Rhine wine cures all diseases of the body in a radical moment, rejuvenates the body as if it were regenerated, drives out all the weaknesses of the limbs, makes hair, teeth and nails grow in less than a month: in a word, it drives out all infirmities and all that is bad outside by a great sweat, mends all that is spoiled and preserves man in continual health until the end of his life which is destined for him by God. If you want to finish this oil to make a stronger projection, put it further to coagulate and harden and it will turn into a red powder more beautiful than a ruby ​​in 12 days with an incredible variety of colors, which will become much redder than before, similar to carbuncles, and for the white whiter on the snow. A part of this powder put on 5 of molten gold or silver after having given high fire for one hour as I have already said will give a powder of which a part on 100 or 150 of other molten metal changes it in the moment into pure gold or silver according to whether one worked.

If you want to increase this medicine, put the powder again for the third time in the bath to dissolve, which is done in 20 days. It will become a beautiful transparent clear in red oil, but for the white, like a transparent crystal, of which one drop does all that we have said, but it must continue to be taken twice a year as I have experienced myself. The powder is too hot and too violent; so use it with caution, for life is at stake.

This last oil, so that we can project it, must coagulate in the dry furnace, & it will appear all sorts of colors and like little animals rising and descending and finally in 8 days the material is at the bottom like a dead body and puts one part out of five of molten gold or silver makes as before a medicine of which one part falls out of 300 and more of imperfect metal.

One can continue to resolve & coagulate in this manner up to four times; after the fourth operation part of this stone will go on 500 other metal; the fifth time it will go to 700. When you have increased and perfected it in this way up to five times,

I pushed it up to the eighth time, but the seventh time it was so subtle that I lost a lot of it in that it subtly evaporated into the air, and on the eighth time it all faded away and filled the air with an odor so sweet and pleasant that it seemed to me that I was in Paradise as my senses were seized, surprised and enchanted by such a charming odor. So I advise you not to push this work further than the sixth time, lest the same happen to you.

I could still write many marvels of this celestial art, know how one can prepare all kinds of precious stones with it, but it would take a great book to make it well known in writing, because this art is infinite and cannot be completely understood by sight.

My purpose, dear son and nephew, has been to lead you with devotion into the mysteries of nature which teaches our science, which I have done faithfully. Begin your work in the name of the Lord as I have done, be secretive and charitable with all your heart, so that everything will succeed in your work, and while you are busy many brothers of our order will go to see you in secret, for I have written to you the truth about the place that God has destined for me in Heaven and by the same Eternal God all that I have found by means of my continual prayers and all possible diligence, which I have seen and handled.

That is why I made this will with my own blood on the last day of my time on my dying bed in Leyden on March 23, 1672.