THE SKY OF THE PHILOSOPHERS

or

RESEARCH BOOK

Paracelsus


ALCHEMICAL SCIENCE AND ESSENCE.

WHAT TO THINK ABOUT ALCHEMY

Book containing the seven rules or canons for the seven known metals




First canon dealing with the nature and property of mercury.

Everything is hidden in everything. One thing remains more hidden than the others, it is the material, visible and mobile vase which contains them. All liquids are found in this vase. This vase, living and material spirit, exists: it contains all the coagulations, all the freezings. We cannot give it a name. It has more strength than all the other heats, it can only be compared to the fire of Gehenna. This slime which is a kind of liquid has nothing in common with things melted by natural fire, congealed or coagulated by natural cold. And these freezings cannot remain intact in this Mercury.


Second canon dealing with the nature and property of tin.

It is obvious that tin takes from the other six metals, nevertheless, it differs from them to the point of constituting a special metal. It does not come from the Quintessence but from the nature of the four elements. Also to bring it into fusion, a slight heat is sufficient, and, to coagulate it, a slight cold. It readily leaps to molten metals. For the more a thing resembles another, the more easily it units with it. Pewter, being closer to gold and silver than to iron and copper, contains above all (it's a way of betting) these first two metals, and it is bigger, stronger, brighter, more amiable. , more sought after, more respected, more true than the other two. The further away a thing is, the less we seek it, because we always prefer what we see.

The closer something is, the more obvious it appears; the further away it is the more problematic it is. You, alchemist, place tin in distant and hidden places where gold and silver lie, place gold and silver in near places where tin lies: gold and silver. money will appear everywhere in the eyes. There are, in fact, several means of transmuting imperfect metals into perfect metals. First, mix one with the other, then separate the pure from the impure: like transmutation to perfect the alchemical work.

Note. — Tin contains more gold than silver.


Canon III dealing with iron and its properties.

Iron owes to the six other metals its great hardness, its weight and the force of its coagulation. On the other hand, he left them the color, the easy liquefaction and the nobility. It is difficult to turn a stupid and vulgar man into a Prince or a King. But, Mars, thanks to his force, acquires sovereignty and seizes the place of the King if he takes care of the pitfalls and does not allow himself to be imprisoned.


Canon IV dealing with copper and its properties.

The six other metals have given copper all its color and a fairly easy liquefaction. It is necessary to produce a few examples so that one understands how fire reveals what is hidden and hides what appears. All that is combustible can be naturally transmuted by fire, change form thanks to it, witnesses lime, ashes, glass, stones, or become an earth from which we can draw a host of metallic bodies. A metal, even when burnt or devoured by rust, can become malleable again thanks to the fire.


Canon fifth dealing with the nature and property of lead.

This is what lead says about its nature: The other six metals have denied me their spirituality, they have given me a corruptible body such as they do not have and do not desire to have. My six brothers are spiritual in nature; also, when I am inflamed, they penetrate my body and perish with me except the gold and the silver which my water washes and makes shine. My spirit is the water that softens the cold and frozen bodies of my brothers. However my body leans towards the earth: of all that I receive I make a single body. I could be very useful if people knew what I contain. The stone of cold is in me, it is water, which allows me to freeze the spirits of the six other metals in the body of a seventh,

There are two kinds of antimony: first, common, black antimony, which purifies liquid gold and has a strong affinity with lead. Next, white antimony, called magnesia or bismuth, which has a great affinity with tin, and which, mixed with the first kind of antimony, increases silver.


Sixth Canon dealing with money and its properties.

Getting silver from lead or iron is no easier than getting silver from mercury, tin, iron, copper or lead. But, it only matters to transmute the imperfect into the perfect. What thorn is the nature of money, it must be known. Otherwise, we cannot make money. Silver is a material body, containing the other six metals in a spiritual state. Because, always, a metal contains the six other metals in the spiritual state. Six metals in the spiritual state persist only in the seventh. And not a metal can exist materially if it does not contain the other six in a spiritual state. The seven metals are well mixed by liquefaction, but from this mixture one cannot draw gold or silver. Because, in this mixture,each metal keeps its nature, whether it is fixed in the fire or whether it is not. Here is an example: mix, as you wish, the seven metals: you will not be able to transmute the five base metals into gold or silver; because, although all the liquids mix in the same mass, each keeps its nature. So much for the material mix. As for the spiritual mixture, know that the spirits cannot separate because they cannot subsist apart from the bodies. Even though in an hour the body would be torn from them a hundred times over, the spirits would acquire nothing nobler than what they have. And one can only transmute a metal into a metal superior to it, one can, for example, only transmute silver into gold which is assuredly the king of metals. This is true:

Question: If silver or any other metal really owes its origin to the six other metals, what is its nature, what are its properties? Answer: from tin, lead, mercury, iron, copper, gold, only silver can be obtained. Six metals each have two remarkable properties, which in all makes twelve properties. These twelve properties form the spirit of money. Silver, in fact, partakes of the spirits of the six other metals and of the two properties of each of these metals. These twelve properties can be compared to the twelve signs of the zodiac. Silver, indeed, takes, on the one hand, from the planet Mercury, and, on the other, from Aquarius and Pisces its ability to liquefy and its brilliance; he takes after Jupiter,of Sagittarius and Taurus its white color and the strength of resistance it opposes to fire. It takes from Mars, Cancer and Aries its hardness and sound. It takes from Venus, Gemini and Libra its ability to coagulate and its malleability. It takes its homogeneity and density from Saturn, Virgo and Capricorn. It takes its purity from the Sun, Leo and Virgo.

It must now be said that these metallic spirits acquire, at the moment when they are born under the celestial influence, a body having the appearance of a base stone, a stone which the craftsmen will make more noble, better, hard and yet malleable in la- crushing it, bringing it into a state of fusion, corrupting it and mortifying it with fire.Alchemy does nothing but corrupt, mortify and artificially prepare such a metallic body. However, this is not the case with gold and silver, which cannot be corrupted by fire and whose body and spirit are one.


Canon seven dealing with the nature and properties of gold.

The spirits of the six metals we have just studied form gold, which is nothing but pure fire. Gold is more beautiful, more yellow, more brilliant, denser, colder than these six metals because it contains all six of them in a frozen state. It merges under the action of fire or under the influence of the planet Mercury, Aquarius and Pisces. It is thus that gold mixes easily with mercury; but, after their common fusion, the heat leaving the gold, and the cold arriving, the five other metals, tin, lead, iron, copper, silver, of which this gold contains the principles, take advantage of it to recoagulate it, to make it become hard and hard again. solid; these five metals, being by their nature especially cold,and mercury not being by its nature hot enough to struggle against the coldness of the five metals, gold can only remain in a state of fusion under the action of natural fire. Also, gold is more of these five metals than mercury alone.

Mercury has nothing special except that it always remains liquid. Also, it can do nothing for the freezing of other metals and in cases where hard bodies are involved; it is useful only in those where liquids are involved. It exudes a hot fluid while appearing dead, cold, and having the nature of hard bodies. If we want to bring the six cold metals into fusion, lead, copper, tin, iron, silver, gold, we must supply them with the heat of fire.As soon as the molten metal has been taken away from the fire, it will refreeze by itself thanks to its cold nature, it will again become hard, immobile. But does mercury, which always remains fluid and alive, owes it to heat or to coldness? Anyone who - claims that mercury owes its life to cold and humidity does not know its nature and is grossly mistaken.

Mercury derives its life not from cold but from its hot and fiery nature. Although alive he is fire; and the cold kills him.

The fire of gold is pure, not alive, but very hard, of a red-yellow color.The five metals, cold, tin, lead, iron, copper, silver owe their qualities to gold, to its coldness their body, to its fire their color, to its dryness their hardness, to its humidity their weight, to its brilliance. their sound. Our fire cannot burn or even corrupt gold. Because, a fire cannot burn another fire, it can only excite it. The fire which descends from the sun on the earth is not such as it appears to us in the sky, nor is it similar to terrestrial fire, it is cold and congealed, it is gold. So our fire cannot consume gold,


Note concerning quick mercury (vulgar mercury).

Everything that dyes white has the nature of life, and has the properties and power of light which is the cause of life, on the contrary, everything that dyes black has the nature of death and has the properties of darkness. Fire, by its heat, breeds life, earth, by its coldness, coagulates. Mercury lives, although inhabiting a dead dwelling: if you understand this, you will triumph.


What to think about freezing mercury.

Wanting to mortify or freeze mercury. then to change it into money, to sublimate it are vain works. To turn mercury into silver there is a shorter and cheaper way. This means is this: you have to take gold and silver, extract the rich sperm and put it in your stomach.


Alchemy recipes.

What should we think of alchemy recipes, of all the vases and instruments? Furnaces, glasses, pots, water, tiles, lime, sulphur, salt, saltpeter, vitriol, borax, black orpiment, white lead, wax, crushed glass, soot, Mars saffron, soap, crystal, chalk, arsenic, antimony, minium, elixir, nitre salt, sal ammonia, magnesia, putrefaction, digestion, tests, solutions, cementations, filtration, reverberation, calcination, amalgamation, and other things with which alchemy books are stuffed: herbs, roots, seed, wood, stones, animals, worms, bone ashes, shells, pitch? These things have nothing to do with alchemy, they are useless, good only to confuse and delay. So I won't talk about it.

Examine the seven cannons. Anyone who does not understand them does not need to go further.This is Art.


From the heat of mercury.

Those who think that mercury is naturally moist and cold are greatly mistaken, because of its nature it is moist and hot; that is why it remains liquid. If by its nature it were damp and cold, it would have the appearance of congealed water, it would always be hard and solid, it would, like other metals, need the heat of fire to enter into fusion; but its own heat suffices to keep it liquid and alive. It should be known that the seven spirits of the metals, when they are subjected together to fire, fight among themselves, taking and giving each other their life, their qualities and their virtues in the desire to conquer, to enter into fusion and to be transmuted. How should mercury be treated to remove its humidity and heat and replace them with cold which can freeze it,consolidate and mortify it? Here's what to do; Leave, for twenty-four hours, in the middle of a vessel filled with lead filings, a silver capsule containing pure mercury. Mercury gives heat to lead and silver (naturally cold metals) and takes away their coldness.

Note that cold (which mercury needs to solidify) is perceived less easily by our senses than heat. However, in mercury one only wants to see coldness, and the Sophists (ignorant talkers) wrongly claim that it is cold and damp by nature.

True alchemy teaches how to make gold and silver with the five imperfect metals. Perfect metals only come from metals, in metals, by metals and with metals.


Means of obtaining minerals.

It is not always easy to dig the ground, although the desire to extract stones from it is as legitimate as the love of the son for his mother. Just as the bee draws honey and wax from roses and flowers, man can draw metal from the earth for his use.

God has indicated to some men the means of extracting gold and silver from certain bodies more easily and more quickly than from the ores from which they are usually extracted. Gold and silver can, indeed, be drawn not only from the mines but also from the five other metals, and more easily from mercury, lead and tin than from iron and copper. They can be obtained from these last two metals by first putting a little into them. Silver comes from magnesia and lead, gold comes from tin and cinnabar.A skilful craftsman will be able, thanks to his zeal and his reflection, to do more for the transmutation of metals than the course of the signs of the zodiac and that of the planets, with which he should not be concerned with any more than aspects, times auspicious or malefic, of the day or of the hour.

If the metals remain long enough in the earth, not only are they eaten away by rust but they are also transmuted into natural stones; few know this. We find, in fact, coins that were once made of metal and that nature has transformed into stones.


What is alchemy.

Alchemy does not propose anything other than to transmute a metal into another better one. It is important to know perfectly the end of the stars and the stones: because, of the stars depends the formation of the stones. Gold and silver are simply celestial dependent stones. The terrestrial globe is nothing but an abject stone, thick, impure, corrupt, which was crushed and recoagulated, and which hovers quietly in the firmament.

It should then be noted that the precious stones which approach the celestial stones or the stars by their perfection, their purity, their beauty, their clarity, their virtues, their incombustibility and their incorruptibility are formed in the earth like other stones.

Also, they have a great affinity with the celestial stones and the stars.

Emerald. It is a green and transparent stone: it is useful to the eyes and to the memory, maintains chastity, is damaged if the wearer does not remain chaste.

Diamond. Crystal causing joy to those who wear it, transparent, the color of very hard iron; it melts, however, in goat's blood. It's never bigger than a nut. Magnetic. It is an iron that attracts iron.

Pearl. The pearl, which is white in color, is not a stone since it is born in marine shells. It is rather a stone diverted from its nature, made more perfect by a transmutation.

Hyacinth. It is a transparent red-yellow stone: there is a flower of the same name which, according to the fables of the poets, was once a man.

Sapphire. It is a stone of the color of the sky and celestial in nature.

Ruby. It shines with a magnificent red color.

Carbuncle. It is a shining solar stone of its own nature like the sun.

Coral. It is a white or red stone, not transparent, having the shape of a tree, born in the sea, of the nature of water and air, very little combustible.

Chalcedony. It is a stone of various colors, neither dark nor transparent, it is a sort of mixture of clouds, the color of hepatitis, the least esteemed of precious stones.

Topaz. This stone shines at night. It is found in the rocks.

Amethyst. It is a stone of the purple color of blood.

Chrysopase.It is a stone which shines at night, and which, during the day, looks like gold.

Crystal. It is a white, transparent stone, similar to ice. The air is cold, transforming certain rocks into crystal.

Here is my conclusion: He who knows the origin and nature of metals knows that metals are nothing but the best part, the spirit of stones, that is to say their oil, their grease. It is to this part that the metals owe their resemblance to the stars.

Let him who seeks metals not linger only on those found in the heart of the mountains. Very often, one finds on the surface of the earth things worth more than those which one finds in the depths, that is to say, those which are further from the sky.Every stone must be carefully examined, whatever aspect it presents. A vulgar and despised flint may be worth more than a cow.


End of the Heaven of the Philosophers