THE PSALTER OF HERMOPHILE
SENT TO PHILALETHE

JP Joubert de la Salette

1754

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"Diana, Goddess of the Hunt"
Auguste Renoir, 1867



I

All philosophers agree that the work of the sages, which is the composition of stone, can be compared to the creation of the universe.
Indeed, this work of the spirit and of human wisdom, represents very well the work of the spirit and of the divine wisdom which created the world. But there is this difference, that God created all things without needing any subject which served as matter or instruments for his operation, whereas the philosopher needs matter on which he works and fire as the instrument and conductor of his work.

II

Art, which is the monkey of nature, as nature is the monkey of the creator, works on a certain chaos or tenebrous body and first separates the light from the darkness and since it cannot create this matter, it receives it from the hands of nature and its author; and from this matter he composes his great work. From the beginning, the wise artist has no other care than to prepare it with industry, to separate the subtle from the thick and the fire from the earth, and to draw from this chaos a certain mercurial humidity, brilliant and luminous which contains all that he seeks.

III

The elements of stone which are water and fire are contained in this chaos. The fire and this water are the sulfur and the mercury which are the two agents of the stone and the materials necessary to compose the physical stone. These two matters are all things, are everywhere and at all times, but they should not be sought indiscriminately everywhere, even in any sort of subject, because nature has marvelously enveloped them; which has obliged all the philosophers to say and teach that it is necessary to leave all sorts of foreign nature and take the metallic, mineral nature of the male and the female.

IV

This male and this female are the sulfur and the mercury, the agent and the patient, the sun and the moon, the fixed and the volatile, the earth and the water or the sky and the earth contained in the chaos of the sages which is their primitive subject in which they are conjoined together naturally, before the artist put his hands there. But, if he wants to do something with them, he must separate them, purify them and then reunite them with a bond stronger than that which nature had given them. And thus, from one it makes two and from two, one, and by this means, an artificial chaos is composed from which immediately issue the miracles of the world or of art.

V

From the first chaos or primitive subject, created by the hands of nature, art separates and purifies matter and removes by this means all the impurities which are the dark obstacles opposed to the luminous operations of nature. Thus he engenders and brings out of this chaos, Diana and Apollo or else the moon and the sun which are born from Delos, that is to say by the manifestation of hidden things. This is the first operation in which the artist composes quick gold, or the sulfur of the sages and their mercury and their quicksilver and having united them both, he makes them the mercury of the sages whose father and mother are the sun and the moon.

VII

The mercury of the philosophers is the child of sulfur and quicksilver according to the doctrine of the Cosmopolitan and of all the sages. It is this mercury or quicksilver of the philosophers which suffices the artist with fire; and of this mercury alone, one can make a true and good gold to any test. This gold, all of fire and full of life, making it return by a new solution to its chaos and making it come out again, we compose an agent which triumphs over all metallic impurities and we can multiply it ad infinitum, say the sages.

VII

Philosophers often speak of their chaos to which they give various names, according to their design which is to hide their great mysteries from those who are unworthy of them. We call this chaos, says Philalethes, our arsenic, our air, our moon, our magnet, our steel under various considerations. He also says that it is a volatile spirit and an admirable body formed from the blood of the igneous dragon and the juice of the vegetable saturnia, and this chaos is like the mother of metals and a fruitful principle from which one can draw everything that the wise seek and even the sun and the moon, their elixir.

VIII

Chaos is the compound of the wise. Philalethes calls it water, air and fire and mineral earth, because it contains in itself all the elements which must come out of it, all in their rank although we see only two of them, namely earth and water, says the Cosmopolitan. Finally, all must end in the ground, says Hermès. It is this admirable compound of which Arnaud de Villeneuve speaks in his "Letter to the King of Naples" and which he calls the fire and the air of the philosophers or rather of the stone which is the next matter or this air and this fire and which contains a humidity which runs in the fire and which is stone and not stone.

IX

This compound, according to Artephius, and in the "Truth", is corporeal and spiritual, because it partakes of the body and the spirit, that is to say of the most mellow portion of the body and the spirit or of the water, says this author. And Flamel after him calls this compound Cambar, Duenech, but Artephius adds that his own name is permanent water because it neither leaks into the fire nor evaporates from bodies, but embraces and remains inseparable with them. These bodies, he says, are the sun and the moon which are changed into a spiritual quintessence.

X

Philosophers speak variously of this compound. Some say it is made of two things, like Basil Valentine, others want it to be made of three, like Philalethes who teaches that it is an assemblage of three different natures, but of the same origin. Others write that the chaos we speak of is similar to the old chaos which is composed of four elements which begin, says Flamel, to lay down the enmity of the old chaos to make their peace and reconciliation. This is the thought of Artephius and all have spoken the truth about it.

XI

The term chaos is very equivocal, nevertheless it can be taken in various senses, because there is a general chaos, created by God and from which he drew all creatures, that is to say the three kingdoms of nature, animal, vegetable, mineral and each kingdom has its particular and natural chaos which is the sperm of each thing. Thus we have a mineral chaos produced by the hands of nature which contains the two sperms, masculine and feminine, sulfur and mercury, which, united in the same subject, are the first matter on which the artist must work.

XII

The sages have another chaos which they draw from the beginning and which they compose from a subject that nature presents to them, say all the philosophers after Morien, being unable to do anything beyond that, from the beginning of the magisterium, says Basil Valentin. They called this sensible substance, mercurial, sulphurous and saline, made of the union of the three principles, which were put in proportion, by dissolving and coagulating, according to the various operations of nature which art must imitate and according to the disposition of the ordained seed of God.

XIII

Paracelsus agrees with all the philosophers on this subject, which is the matter of art and their famous chaos, when he says that the matter of physical tincture is a certain thing which is composed of three substances by the ministry of Vulcan; and he adds to this, very appropriately, that this compound can be transmuted into a white eagle by the aid of nature, and by the aid of art. Raymond Lully speaks of this chaos when he says that the white grass gathered two smokes and grew in the middle of the two.

XIV

Abbot Synesius, the Cosmopolitan and Philalethes agree with all the others on the subject of this matter, when they place it in the middle of metal and mercury, because it is in fact neither one nor the other and participates in both. It is a chaos or a compound fixed and volatile altogether, it is what the philosophers call hyle or the first water and the first radical humidity which they draw and compose from the first natural and mineral hyle which nature had composed of the elements.

XV

An anonymous, following this thought which is that of all philosophers, says very appropriately that this admirable compound is made by the destruction of bodies, which Artephius had said long before, and the workman, in the doctrine of this ancient philosopher, remarks that as this compound is made by the destruction of bodies, so the water which is the soul, the spirit, the essence of the compound can only be made by the destruction of the compound, in which the souls of the body are linked, says Artephius.

XVI

We have need, says Artephius, only of that soul or middle substance of the dissolved bodies, which is subtle and delicate and which is the beginning, the middle and the end of the work, from which our gold and its wife are produced. It is a subtle and penetrating spirit, a delicate, clean and pure soul, a salt and balm of the stars, says Basile Valentin. It is, says the same, a metallic and mineral substance coming from salt and sulfur and twice born from mercury. It's the top and the bottom that are one and the same thing, as Hermès teaches. That is everything in all things, says Basil Valentin; it is finally the air of the air, says Aristeas.

XVII

The Cosmopolitan, according to Artephius, also calls magnesia, our chaos which is composed, say the philosophers, of body, soul and spirit. Her body is a subtle earth, her soul is the tincture of the sun and the moon, and the spirit is the mineral virtue of the two bodies. This mercurial spirit is the place of the solar soul and the solar body is what gives the fixity which with the moon retains the soul and the spirit. Of these three well united, that is to say of the sun, of the moon and of mercury, our stone is made; but first, a compound must be purified in our water.

XVIII

Purification of this chaos is very necessary says Artephius. It must be done in our moist fire, by means of which we open the doors of justice and from which we draw the mercury of the philosophers from its vitriolic caverns, as Artephius speaks; or else one draws from it this very subtle and very spiritual mercury vapor which takes on the form of water to penetrate the terrestrial bodies and prevent them from combustion.
It is the dissolvent of nature which awakens a dormant internal fire, a very acid menstruation, very suitable for dissolving the body from which it was itself drawn with the doctrine of all the sages.

XIX

All philosophers say that their mercury is enclosed and imprisoned in the chaos of the first mineral chaos that nature presents to them, and that it is drawn and set free by the help of art which comes to help nature and which begins where it ended. She herself gives him her hand and accompanies him everywhere, as the spirits emerge from the slavery of the body and separate themselves from the grossest spirits of matter, which remain at the bottom of the vessel, as Artephius says, and which are incapable of solution and quite useless says this same philosopher.

XX

This mercury, thus freed from the bonds of its first coagulation, contains in itself a double nature, namely an igneous and fixed, and a humid and volatile. The first which is interior to it, is the fixed heart of all things, permanent in fire and very pure son of the sun, itself essential fire, fire of nature, true vehicle of light and the true sulfur of the philosophers. The second nature within him, the purest and most subtle of all spirits, the
quintessence of all the elements, the first matter of all metallic things is the true mercury of the sages.

XXI

We can distinguish four different mercurys, contained in our chaos. The first may be called the mercury of bodies, it is the noblest and most active of all, it is the precious seed of which the tincture of philosophers is made, and without this mercury which God has created, our science and all philosophy, according to the Cosmopolitan, are vain. The second is the bath and the mercury of nature, the vase of the philosophers, the philosophical water, the sperm of the metals in which the seminal point resides. The third is the mercury of the philosophers which is made of the two preceding ones. It is Diana and the salt of metals. The fourth is the non-vulgar common mercury, the air of Aristaeus, that secret fire, the middle substance of water common to all mines.

XXII

In our chaos drawn from nature and composed of natural things, this philosopher notices a fixed point from which by expansion all things are made and then by concentration all things find their rest and a permanent fixity. This is what happened in the first chaos of the world, of which the word of God was the basis and as the fixed and indivisible point from which all creatures emerged and where they must return as to their center. There is also a fixed point in the mineral chaos created by nature and in that which art composes.

XXIII

It is from this fixed point from which came all the metals, their brilliance, and an emanation or visible flow of this light which remains hidden under the bark of their earthly body which casts a shadow on nature, says the Cosmopolitan. But it is invisible because it is a pure spirit engaged in the obscure prison of metals, and because in a frozen metallic body, the spirits do not appear and do not operate until the body is open.

XXIV

The seeds of all things were contained in the ancient chaos that God created, but they were confused, at rest, and motionless, and though the opposites were together, they did not war with each other. The metallic seeds which are in our chaos are confused there, in truth, but they are at peace and await the orders of a skilful artist who says Fiât Lux and who, separating the light from the darkness makes the hidden depth appear, and developing the seminal fixed point, reduces the metallic seeds of power into action and makes the invisible visible, says Basil Valentin.

XXV

The old chaos was all things and was nothing in particular at all. The metallic chaos produced by the hands of nature contains in itself all the metals and is not metal. It contains gold, silver and mercury. Nature began its operations in him. The end was to make a metal out of it, but she was prevented from doing so in her body, as sometimes she stops on the way when, trying to make a perfect metal, she makes an imperfect one; also, often it doesn't do it at all and is content to give us chaos.

XXVI

In this natural metallic chaos are contained the heaven and the earth of the philosophers, but they are neither distinguished nor separated; the top is there like the bottom, and the bottom like the top so that the artist works the miracles of a single thing, says Hermes; the elements being all together and confused without distinction, without action and without order. Everything is there in a certain silence and in a certain darkness which reigns in the limbo of the sages and which forms a true image of death, without any mark of life and fecundity; which does not prevent this Catholic land from being animated and having a hidden life, says Basile Valentin.

XXVII

The general chaos of nature was a damp, dark and dark body. The mineral chaos which contains the metallic seeds is an opaque, terrestrial and tenebrous body, full of fire from which the philosopher, by a hard separation and purification, draws the materials of which he composes an artificial chaos from which he draws all things and even the light and the metallic luminaries; and from them, dissolved by their own menses, he makes another compound, always separating light from darkness by the dissolved spirit of heaven, says Basil Valentine. He accomplishes the philosophical creation of mercury and the stone of the sages, says Philalethes.

XXVIII

The mineral chaos being open, the philosopher having separated the elements, having purified them and then reunited in the form of a viscous water which is the chaos or philosophical compound, he has the happiness of seeing the birth of the sun emerging from the bosom of Thetis, of touching it, washing it, nourishing it, leading it to an age of maturity. The sage sees the darkness before the light, he sees some after the light, he still discovers some who are with the light. He marries in this operation, says Philalethes, the sky and the earth and unites the higher waters with the lower ones.

XXIX

From this chaos, which is our first matter, the sage knows how to draw a visible spirit which is nevertheless incomprehensible, says Basile Valentin. This spirit is the root of life of our bodies, and the mercury of the philosophers from which we industriously prepare the liquor by our art, which we must again make material, lead it by certain means from a very low degree to a degree of sovereign and perfect medicine. For, says this author, from a Body well bound and solid at the beginning, one makes of it a fleeing spirit and from this fleeing spirit, at the end a fixed medicine.

XXX

The body we are talking about and from which we draw this spirit that Basile Valentin calls a golden water without corrosion, is so shapeless that it looks like a real chaos, an abortion and a work of chance. In it is grafted and engraved the essence of the spirit in question, although its features are contemptible, which makes this Catholic material despised and paid a low price by those who do not know its value. But if the ignorant look upon it with contempt, the sages and scholars only esteem it and regard it as the cradle and tomb of their king, says Philalethes.

XXXI

The spirit or mercury of the philosophers, which is drawn from the body in question, is found in common mercury and in all the other metals.
But, it is misleading to look for it there since it is closer and easier in our subject where mercury and sulfur are found with fire and their weight, and in which two serpents kiss only weakly. But nothing can be done without an agent capable of dissolving and vivifying the body, manifesting the hidden depth, unraveling the first chaos, bringing out the light.

XXXII

This light emerges from chaos with the fire with which it is clothed. This extremely subtle fire attaches itself to the air on which it feeds. This air embraces the water, the water unites with the earth and all this gives a new compound, which being corrupted again in the second operation, the water comes out of the earth, the air from the water and the fire or the sulfur of the philosophers comes out of the air. And this fire, which appears in the form of earth, being purified seven times becomes a being which has more force than nature itself has. This spirit is the air of the air of Aristeas, it is the water, the fire and the earth of the chaos of the true philosophers.

XXXIII

These four elementary natures are only one thing taken from the first compound where they were in confusion. They are only after this extraction, a being drawn from the subtle rays of the sun and the moon, and this is the second compound whose fecundity depends on the two active principles, namely the hot and the humid. This compound is called air because it is all volatile and it is the true mercury of the wise. It is a consuming fire and the most active of all agents. It is a thickened air, from which not only all the metals but all the mercury of the metals are engendered.

XXXIV

This unique being composed of four substances, of three or two of which the third is hidden, says Basil Valentine, is the true seal of Hermes of the Cosmopolitan, the doves of Diana of Philalethes.
It is the air which must be fished, according to Aristeas, which must then be cooked, says the Cosmopolitan. It is a single essence which itself accomplishes the great work by means of the graduated fire which is its food and a compound which holds the middle between the metal and the mercury, says Philalethes. It is the philosophical child, born from the coupling of the male and the lively female, who must be nourished with clean milk.

XXXV

This child of the philosophers is at the beginning full of phlegm from which he must be purified, as Flamel says, after the grave. He must be brought back seven different times to his mother who is the white moon, says Hermes. He must be washed, nourished and nursed with the milk of his udders and receive his increase and his strength by imbibitions, says Flamel, and perfected by the flying eagles of Philalethes. These eagles, as he says himself, are made by sublimation and by the addition of true sulfur which sharpens this child with a degree of virtue at each sublimation.

XXXVI

This philosophical sublimation includes all the operations of the sages and this sublimation, in the opinion of Geber, Artephius, Flamel and Philalethes, is nothing else than the exaltation or the dignification of a substance, which is done when from a living and abject state, it is raised to the state of a higher perfection. This does not prevent us from recognizing in our mercury, a movement of ascent in the first work, which is the preparation of the mercury, in which lies all the difficulty; the rest being child's play and the work of a woman.

XXXVII

Sublimation is, according to Geber, the elevation of a dry thing with adherence to the vessel, by means of fire. Few people understood this definition, because it is necessary to know the dry thing, the vessel and the fire. The author of the commentary on the Italian verses of the Franciscan Marc Antonio Chinois, seems embarrassed on this subject.
Here is what is the true feeling of any true philosopher: the dry thing is our magnet, which naturally attracts its vessel which is the wet. For the dry attracts the moist and the moist tempers the dry and unites with it by means of the fire which participates in the nature of both.

XXXVIII

The vase and the dry thing embrace each other with adherence, because nature embraces nature, as it is said in the "Peat" and in Artephius, and because the vessel takes the place of female and the dry thing takes the place of male. One is the sun and the other is the moon. One is the quickgold of the wise and the quicksilver of the wise which are united by the fire which is proper to them, which is of their nature and which is drawn from elsewhere than from our matter. This fire, this vessel and this dry thing are three and are only one. They are all three mercury, sulfur and salt and are all three in the same metallic subject.

XXXIX

This salt, this sulphur, this mercury which are the body, the soul and the spirit, all three emerge from the chaos where they were in confusion, or rather from the sea of ​​philosophers. This is the trident of Neptune, which would not come out of its deep abyss, however, if Aeolus did not cause, by its winds, to excite storms on the sea. It is by means of these mercurial, sulphurous and saline winds that the sea of ​​philosophers is stirred up to the center, and that finally, after the parties are in agreement, Aeolus is married to the beautiful Cyane.

XL

Neptune has no sooner come out of the center of the sea, than he calms all the winds and makes a general calm with his trident, and then re-enters these humid abysses. This is what Flamel meant in his sixth figure, where he says that our stone is so triumphant in dryness that at first, as soon as the mercury touches it, nature rejoicing in its nature joins it and attracts its humidity to join it to itself by the affixing of the virginal milk of which he speaks in the fourth figure.

XLI

This Neptunian trident, could never leave the philosophical sea, if a windy and vaporous trident had not penetrated the sea to draw this king with triple crown, swimming in waters; it is on this occasion that the philosopher sharpens and excites the passive by the active; that by living principles he raises the dead, as Philalethes says, and that one principle joins hands with another, as the Cosmopolitan says; after which, married and elevated principles are nourished with their own flesh and blood, says the Cosmopolitan and Basil Valentine.

XLII

The dry, embracing the vessel which contains it, having ascended to heaven by philosophical sublimation and the terrestrial salt having become celestial, descends to earth to go and suck the milk of its mother which is the earth which takes care of nourishing the philosophical child, who having taken his food and fattened with this succulent milk, ascends to heaven and by a means ascending at various times and descending in the same way, he takes the virtue of superior and inferior things.

XLIII

Here is the earthly sky of Lavinius which is perfected by its ascents and descents. It is the marriage of heaven and earth on the bed of friendship, according to Philalethes. This is the royal palace that is built and enriched by the ebb and flow of the sea of ​​glass, to lodge the king there, as Basil Valentine speaks, and are the imbibitions of Flamel and the seal of the child in the belly of its mother and of the mother in the belly of the child, according to Démoragoras, Senior and Haly. The mother feeds her child and the child feeds his mother. Thus, they help each other, increase and multiply as Parmenides says.

XLIV

This mother is the moon. The child is the mercury of the sages that is called spitting of the moon in "The Peat". It is this moon that must be brought down from heaven to earth, as Paracelsus says.
This moon being full resembles the sun and carries the sun within it. This mercury is responsible for carrying the tincture of his father and his mother and then, having lost all his feathers, he falls into the sea and then the waters recede, says Basil Valentin. It changes into earth where its strength is complete, says Hermes, which includes three turns of the wheel, says Riplée, and the turns of the hands of Basil Valentin in the first and second work of the whole magisterium.

XLV

This philosophical mercury is nothing other than the teeth of the serpent that the valiant Theseus, says Flamel, will sow in the same land from which will be born soldiers who finally destroy themselves, destroying by opposition, resolved in the same land and will let deserved conquests be carried away. This apposition contains all the operations that the philosophers covered with so many veils, and we see in this occasion the truth of what Flamel teaches, that our stone dissolves, freezes, rots, whitens, kills and vivifies itself. It is the blood of the lion and the glue of the eagle of Paracelsus (Gluten Aquiloe, the glue of the eagle, note of LAT).

XLVI

This lion's blood is found with the glue of the eagle deeply hidden in our subject who is the chosen one of Colchos. They are there naturally as in their own salt which serves them as matrix and mine, as the Cosmopolitan says. They are the true Golden Fleece guarded by bulls throwing fire and flames through the nostrils, on which the beautiful Medea must pour her precious liquor which waters them and puts them to sleep, and by this precious liquor the bulls are drowsy, the Fleece is removed by Jason or rather by this philosophical menstruation, the body is dissolved and the soul freed from the bonds of the body and it is changed into quintessence.

XLVII

This Fleece is the metallic seed that God created and that man must not presume to make, but must draw from the subject where it is. Basil Valentine describes it in these terms: first, he says, the celestial influence, by the will and command of God, descends from above and mingles with the virtues and properties of the stars.
Of these, mixed together, it is formed as a third between terrestrial and celestial. Thus is made the principle of our seed, of these three is made the air, the water, the earth which by means of the well applied fire engender an essence of middle nature, an incomprehensible spirit and a visible body.

XLVIII

This metallic seed is the grain which is necessary for us and which must be sought in a subject where nature has taken it very close to us. This subject, in the opinion of all philosophers, is our brass, our gold, our stone of which Sendivogius, Philalethes, Pythagoras speak. And we will obtain this precious seed, says Basil Valentine, if we so rectify the mercury, the sulfur and the salt that the spirit and the body are united inseparably. All of this is nothing but the key to true philosophy and dry water conjoined with an earthly substance, made of three, two and one.

XLIX

This seed or this grain is drawn from no other subject than that which we have just named our gold, without hyperbole and from this same subject, it can only be killed by dissolution and this dissolution is done by itself or by the subject which is similar or closer to it.
Nature has also provided him with a helper who is of his own flesh and blood. As we teach, the male sperm put in its matrix finds there a solvent of its nature like a magnet which attracts the seed of the sperm which is of its nature and its essence.

I

The dissolution that is necessary for us to have this good grain or seed is very difficult to do, because it can only be done by means of a precious liquor which is golden water and a philosophical menstruation which is of the nature of the grain that we want to draw from our subject by this solvent; and of the very nature of the solvent which one asks for and which one wants to acquire to extract this pure grain; where we can see how our art can follow and imitate nature.

LI

One can notice that in our work, nothing foreign enters into it, because this metallic grain or seed is of the nature of the solvent that an anonymous person calls essential and this essential solvent is of the nature of this metallic magnet that an anonymous person calls mineral menstruation, united to the vegetable and drawn by it like Ganymede by Jupiter. And these two united ones, which he calls essenciel, serve to radically dissolve a body which is gold, without ambiguity and this one dissolved, it appears that one draws a pure spirit from a crud spirit.

LII

This subject where we seek the seed is a philosophical gold and not the vulgar gold and that for two reasons. The first is that vulgar gold does not need filth that needs to be removed to find this grain or this metallic seed since it is completely pure and without any mixture of impurities. The second reason is that vulgar gold is all seed, and if we used it, we would only have to reincrude it, volatilize and spiritualize it, so that it could penetrate bodies and join them in its smallest parts. If the gold had that, it would be the stone.

LIII

Those who have said that it is necessary to look for the metallic seed or the fixed grain in vulgar gold are not far from the truth, however, provided that we hear them with a grain of salt since it is indeed there and that we can find it there by means of a philosophical water in which it melts, like ice in hot water and in which it loses its natural form to take a new one more noble and more excellent. It is then that the hidden treasure is discovered, it is the center revealed.

LIV

The metallic seed we seek in the gold of the sages is a subtle and penetrating mind; it is a pure soul, clean and delicate, reduced to water and salt, and this balm of the stars, which being united make only a mercurial water. Now, this water must be brought to the god Mercury who is his father, to be examined. Then the father marries his daughter, and by this marriage, they are no longer two but one thing, which is called vital or incombustible oil and at the end Mercury throws down his eagle wings and declares war on the god Mars.

LV

Mercury, who is the father of the water that is brought to him to be his bride, embraces her in this quality for the reason that this water is still a mercury and in this way, it seems that one brings mercury to mercury with this difference that the mercury that is brought as a bride is the mercury of the wise who is the mother of all, the Thelema. And the one to whom it is brought is the mercury of bodies, father of all, the Thelema, father, child, brother, wife, of the mercury of the wise. Thus, natures continue and parents marry together.

LVI

In this philosophical marriage, mercury is conjoined with mercury and thus fire is brought to fire, as well as mercury to mercury. We marry fire to fire, because the mercury of the wise carries this fire or sulfur in its bosom. And the mercury of bodies is still full of that sulphurous fire which burns in water; and in this encounter, one nature teaches the other not to fear fire and to become familiar with it. Thus the water which feared the fire, learns to stay with it and the mercury which fled from it becomes its friend.

LVII

The water we are talking about here is the nitrogen which is used to wash the brass and the brass which we have to wash is our subject or our brass or red gold, which has to be whitened by breaking the pounds. This celestial water is drawn from the mountains of Mercury and Venus, by adhesion of the dry to the humid by means of heat, and the heat united with the humid causes a stream of dry and humid hot water to flow. This water is the great worker in our art; it dissolves the hard bodies, steals the thick and purifies the impure like the earth.

LVIII

I said laton or brass because the philosophers have their laton as well as their brass. One says that it is necessary to whiten the laton which is filthy, the other says that it is necessary to wash the earth which is dark and those who have confused these two things contained in this rebis, have not erred less than those who believed that they were two things of a different nature. For, although they are in the subject which is the chaos of art and they are there as male and female and from their seed must issue the son of the sun and the moon by their union
perfect, they are one in essence.

LIX

This rebis or chaos of milk or terrified sky can serve no purpose without the help of fire and nitrogen. But these two which compose the liquor of our art, and which make the vital oil, suffice for it as much to wash and purify it as to make it fruitful by the separation of the two sexes and by their complete reunion, for a very beautiful child comes out of it, after having removed the filth; and this child must be nourished with the blood of its father and the milk of its mother and for then, this blood and this milk mixed together, will take on the color of a golden quintessence.

LI

One can notice that in our work, nothing foreign enters into it, because this metallic grain or seed is of the nature of the solvent that an anonymous person calls essential and this essential solvent is of the nature of this metallic magnet that an anonymous person calls mineral menstruation, united to the vegetable and drawn by it like Ganymede by Jupiter. And these two united ones, which he calls essenciel, serve to radically dissolve a body which is gold, without ambiguity and this one dissolved, it appears that one draws a pure spirit from a crud spirit.

LII

This subject where we seek the seed is a philosophical gold and not the vulgar gold and that for two reasons. The first is that vulgar gold does not need filth that needs to be removed to find this grain or this metallic seed since it is completely pure and without any mixture of impurities. The second reason is that vulgar gold is all seed, and if we used it, we would only have to reincrude it, volatilize and spiritualize it, so that it could penetrate bodies and join them in its smallest parts. If the gold had that, it would be the stone.

LIII

Those who have said that it is necessary to look for the metallic seed or the fixed grain in vulgar gold are not far from the truth, however, provided that we hear them with a grain of salt since it is indeed there and that we can find it there by means of a philosophical water in which it melts, like ice in hot water and in which it loses its natural form to take a new one more noble and more excellent. It is then that the hidden treasure is discovered, it is the center revealed.

LIV

The metallic seed we seek in the gold of the sages is a subtle and penetrating mind; it is a pure soul, clean and delicate, reduced to water and salt, and this balm of the stars, which being united make only a mercurial water. Now, this water must be brought to the god Mercury who is his father, to be examined. Then the father marries his daughter, and by this marriage, they are no longer two but one thing, which is called vital or incombustible oil and at the end Mercury throws down his eagle wings and declares war on the god Mars.

LV

Mercury, who is the father of the water that is brought to him to be his bride, embraces her in this quality for the reason that this water is still a mercury and in this way, it seems that one brings mercury to mercury with this difference that the mercury that is brought as a bride is the mercury of the wise who is the mother of all, the Thelema. And the one to whom it is brought is the mercury of bodies, father of all, the Thelema, father, child, brother, wife, of the mercury of the wise. So natures continue and parents wed
together.

LVI

In this philosophical marriage, mercury is conjoined with mercury and thus fire is brought to fire, as well as mercury to mercury. We marry fire to fire, because the mercury of the wise carries this fire or sulfur in its bosom. And the mercury of bodies is still full of that sulphurous fire which burns in water; and in this encounter, one nature teaches the other not to fear fire and to become familiar with it. Thus the water which feared the fire, learns to stay with it and the mercury which fled from it becomes its friend.

LVII

The water we are talking about here is the nitrogen which is used to wash the brass and the brass which we have to wash is our subject or our brass or red gold, which has to be whitened by breaking the pounds. This celestial water is drawn from the mountains of Mercury and Venus, by adhesion of the dry to the humid by means of heat, and the heat united with the humid causes a stream of dry and humid hot water to flow. This water is the great worker in our art; it dissolves the hard bodies, steals the thick and purifies the impure like the earth.

LVIII

I said laton or brass because the philosophers have their laton as well as their brass. One says that it is necessary to whiten the brass which is filthy, the other says that it is necessary to wash the earth which is dark and those who confused these two things contained in this rebis, have not erred less than those who believed that they were two things of a different nature. Because, although they are in the subject which is the chaos of art and that they are there like male and female and that from their seed must come out the son of the sun and the moon by their perfect union, they are only one in essence.

LIX

This rebis or chaos of milk or terrified sky can serve no purpose without the help of fire and nitrogen. But these two which compose the liquor of our art, and which make the vital oil, suffice for it as much to wash and purify it as to make it fruitful by the separation of the two sexes and by their complete reunion, for a very beautiful child comes out of it, after having removed the filth; and this child must be nourished with the blood of its father and the milk of its mother and for then, this blood and this milk mixed together, will take on the color of a golden quintessence.

LX

We have in this Laton, says a philosopher, two natures married together, one of which has designed the other and by this conception, she converted into male body and the other into a female body, so that one cannot distinguish one from the other by their external clothes although we must separate them to recognize and bring them together to be only inseparable, after having stripped them of all their clothes and having reduced them to natural nudity. It was previously two bodies in one or the androgyne of the sages and
after it is Diane completely naked.

LXI

When Diana is quite naked, Apollo the same, they are easily distinguished and nothing prevents their legitimate conjunction for the procreation of the sun which is their child. But, to awaken their fecundity and make them suitable for generation, it was necessary to animate them by purifying them with the vital oil which is the water of the stone, says a philosopher. It was necessary to divide the coagulated body into two parts to extract from it this vital oil, or this milk intended for the nourishment of the newborn child which contains in itself the two sexes and assembles them in
unity of nature and essence.

LXII

Our brass is red in its beginning. But it is useless to us if the redness does not change to whiteness. If you have it once, it whitens and becomes very valuable, Ensign of Astin. But as this philosopher says with all the others, the first color that appears in our subject is blackness, after which comes whiteness and then is seen the clear and brilliant redness and for then, says the learned Mary, its obscurity having withdrawn, this brass is changed into pure gold and what gives it this whiteness, and this splendor, is our azot.

LXIII

The azot which was formed from the silt which remained after the retreat of the waters of the deluge, like the serpent Python, is vanquished by the arrows of Apollo which are the rays of our sun or by the force of our bronze which finally becomes the master and, doing justice to itself, turns the dryness of the first orange color red. He even takes off the white robe with azot which becomes so changed that it takes on the color and nature of our brass and everything turns red, says the learned Parmenides; and it is the sign that the Lord has had his time and that after time is fixed and incorruptible eternity.

LXIV

Let us learn here from Morien that it is necessary to wash this filthy body which is the brass which must be perfectly dried and bleached and we must infuse it with a soul and remove all its filth so that after the mondification, the white dye enters it. For a body being well purified, the soul enters first into this body; and it never unites with a foreign body or even with its own if it is not pure and clean, for the superfluities which are found in our bodies, although they are not in great quantity, prevent their perfect union.

LXV

The laton is washed only to make it fit to embrace its latona and unite with it in an indissoluble union. But as one carries the fire and the other contains the water, one must well purify one and the other of their natural filth. It is true that they are all found in our androgyne, but as it is a chaos where the elements are rather confounded than they are united, one cannot strongly unite them without purifying them, nor purifying them without separating them, nor separating them without destroying the compound. It is necessary to divide them in part and thus separate the elements.

LXVI

As our stone must be born from this chaos or confused mass in which all the elements are confused, it is necessary to separate the earth from the fire and the subtle from the thick, as our father Hermes says, the subtle rises above with the air and the thick remains at the bottom with the salt. But the earth contains the fire with the salt of glory and the air is with the water. However, we only see land and water. So take away the phlegm of the water and the heaviness of the earth, and the elements will be pure and well united.

LXVII

This union or conjunction of the purified elements is the second operation of the stone which is after the mondification, and the stone is perfect if the soul is fixed in the body. But as this is only the end of the first work, the material is quite perfect and will be bright gold and incombustible sulphur. But it is not tingling and one must turn the wheel for the second and third time, with the same sulfur which serves as ferment, but the first work finished, begins the second where philosophical sublimation is necessary so that the fixed is made volatile and the body spirit.

LXVIII

In the first work which includes several operations, one works only to volatilize the fixed and to fix the volatile, to resuscitate the dead and to kill the living, and its end is when the whole is reduced as if to fixed powder which is pure gold, better than that of the mines. Without him, we cannot have the stone, although he is not the stone. Yet the stone is in him as in his cradle. It is not vulgar gold, for it is purer and is only pure fire in mercury. It can nevertheless be melted down and cut up for common gold, for it is unfailing gold.

LXIX

In the second work which is the multiplication of this gold, the gold is increased in quantity by the addition of new matter and the gold serves as leaven for its own multiplication by a simple digestion of this leaven with flour and metallic water. We make gold and leaven is still used as a mine. Philosophers proceed in another way. They raise their gold or leaven in degrees and increase it so much in quality that it surpasses gold and becomes dyeing and melting. This is called infinitely multiplying stone.

LXX

The metallic water, which revives the gold fixed at the end of the first work, is this vital oil of which an anonymous person speaks and which is united with the essence, the mineral and vegetable water to be as it is, the radical dissolvent of gold. It is this oil of which the philosophers make a good supply so that they do not lack it when needed, as it did to the foolish virgins. This oil is the water of the stone drawn from it in the first operation, says the wise gardener. Without this water, nothing is done in the second work and the first is not done without it. This water is a fire because it carries it and on it is carried the spirit of the
Lord.

LXXI

In this water consists the greatest secret of the sages. We said it was stone water although it is true that it is not stone water in a sense. It is mercurial water, but it is not the mercury of the philosophers. It is rather the mercury of the mercury of nature, the bain-marie of the sages, the moist and secret fire of Artephius, the vase of the philosophers to which the dry thing adheres in sublimation. It is the sperm of metals, the humid radical, the philosophical water of Hermes which suffices with only one thing. This water washes the brass and dissolves the gold perfectly.

LXXII

The only thing that suffices for our hermetic water is the virgin earth which contains the four elements. It is our first material, namely a solid body and the beginning of the work, as Basile Valentin says. It is this thing so hidden and so precious of which all our work is made and which perfects itself in itself needing only digestion, without the addition of any foreign thing. This thing is our stone, which only needs the help of the artist. It is this brass which God has created, which one can help, by destroying its crud body and pulling out the good core.

LXXIII

If the dissolution of our body which is the aforesaid brass is necessary, the congealing of the mercurial water tightened in the bonds of the Saturnian stone is not less it and for all the different operations, the putrefaction is absolutely necessary. This putrefaction is done by means of a little heat so that the stone putrefies itself and resolves itself into its first humidity, so that its invisible and tinging spirit, where the spirit of gold is enclosed in the depths of frozen salt, is put outside and that its gross body, being subtilized, is thus indivisibly united with its spirit .

LXXIV

There is no other water under the sky that can dissolve our brass, except very pure and very clear water, which dissolves without corrosion. This water heats itself when it encounters the fire which is homogeneous to it. It is the dissolving and permanent water and the fountain of the rock, of which the philosophers have spoken in various ways. We should not be surprised if this water dissolves the brass, because it is of its nature. For brass is unambiguously gold and this water is golden water which transmutes the body into itself. So that everything becomes water, and then transmuted into body, is body.

LXXV

From our brass comes a water that Aristeas calls permanent water. It is she who governs the body and yet is governed by it. Because she breaks it, she breaks it and the body kills her and causes her to die. She reduces him to water and he reduces her to earth, but they must be mingled together by the fire of friendship. You have to continue this process until everything is red. It is here burnt brass and the flower or leaven of gold and by an astonishing prodigy, this brass is burned by water and washed by fire, and we see in all this, the harmony of the elements
and the agreement of all philosophers.

LXXVI

The philosophers have called the water of which we have just spoken, a serpent biting its tail. But the envious, says Parmenides, have spoken of many kinds of waters, of broths and stones and metals, and whoever understands this doctrine understands what is finest in our art and most difficult in our work and in our materials. But leave all that and take the living water then freeze it in its body and its sulfur which does not burn and everything will be white.

LXXVII

Everything will be white says Parmenides and you will make our nature white. Know, says Aristeus, that the whole secret is the art of laundering. Now this bleaching is a very difficult step, says Flamel. It cannot be done without water, says Artephius. For it is she who washes the brass, it is this water which was shown to Sietus and which this philosopher assures is pure very sour vinegar, which has the power to give white and red color to the black body and clothes it with all the colors that one can imagine, which converts the body into spirit. It is the vinegar of the mountains that defends the body from combustion, because on the fire it burns itself without this vinegar.

LXXVIII

This very sour vinegar is our first water and the vinegar of the mountains, of the sun and the moon, or rather of Mercury and Venus. It is a permanent water, for it constantly remains united with our body or with our bodies of the sun and the moon when it has dissolved them radically. Our body receives from this water a tint of whiteness so special and so dazzling that it throws those who contemplate it in admiration. This white water contains mercury and sulphur. She is sun and moon within, as the body is outside. It whitens our bronze and dissolves the body amicably.

LXXIX

The water that dissolves our body so amicably is a water that can be called the first, although there are several kinds that preceded it, but they are heterogeneous and are not counted in our work. They are not of the number of our homogeneous menses as is our primary white water, dissolutive, which is metallic, mercurial, saturnian, antimonial, as Artephius speaks of it. This water whitens the gold, that is to say our brass, and reduces it to its first matter, which is sulfur and mercury, which shine like a mirror.

LXXX

That sulfur and mercury which remain after the dissolution of the crud body and which shine like well-polished crystal ice, are drawn from that crud body by means of a water or white smoke, inwardly but which is in the beginning covered with darkness, from the abyss; and this darkness is driven away by the spirit of the Lord which moves upon the waters which were created before the arrangement of the parts of chaos, when heaven and earth were made. This first water, dissolving the body, is a clear and dry water, it is a mercury of nature which by dissolving draws the mercury from the body.

LXXXI

This mercury drawn from the crud body is gross. Mixed with this mercury or dissolving water, it composes and makes the double mercury of Trevisan, the compound gold of Philalethes or the rebis of the philosophers or the chicken of Hermogenes or the mercury of the bodies which disposes itself by degrees to become the mercury of the philosophers by means of fire or mercury common to all mines. Now, this double white mercury, of a sparkling whiteness pulled by the first water, becomes red if it is simply with the second water which is very white outside and red inside.

LXXXII

This second water was above in the first, but it was not imbued with celestial fire as it is in the sequel. Thus these two waters differ only in so far as the first dissolves the crud body, washes the laton and volatilizes a heavy mass of its nature, and that mixed with the first water or moist fire, becomes volatile. And the first water, mixed with dry water, is reduced to smoke, clear water and quicklime, which quicklime is full of fire and philosophical sulfur and so it is this second water drawn from the first by means of fire.

LXXXIII

This fire causes that in philosophical sublimation, the dry rises and is perfected by its adherence to the vase. This adhesion makes the dry inseparable from the wet and the fire inseparable from the water. Thus is formed our second water of superior and inferior virtues and it is this water which is the mercury of the sages, the animated mercury which the artist can raise in degrees and push it to the highest perfection, and for this effect one has only to nourish it from the breasts of the earth, which is his mother and to make the son of Hermogenes suckle often, bringing him back to his mother.

LXXXIV

We also bring the mother back to the child when the body, composed of the sun and the moon, the father and the mother, the rooster and the hen, sulfur and mercury by our first water, is brought to the mercury of the philosophers which is the egg of this rooster and this hen, the son of the sun and this moon and the mercury of this sulfur and this mercury. For in their intimate communication, the father and the mother are raised and sublimated in glory, by the virtue of their child, the laton is whitened, fixed and made fusible. So that the child begets his father and his mother and he is older than them.

LXXXV

The mercury of the philosophers engendered his father and his mother and he, is engendered and drawn from the things where he is by means of another mercury raised in degrees and of a water which is pure vinegar, which communicates its acetous quality to his child and his child entering his mother's womb tears his entrails, like a viper and finally, after having sucked his virgin milk, he softens it as we see that common distilled vinegar dissolves steel and lead and by this mixture vinegar it becomes so sweet that it is called virgin milk.

LXXXVI

The whole secret of this vinegar, which Artephius calls antimonial and which one can call Saturnian because of its origin, or mercury because of its congealed spirit, more precious than all the gold in the world, says the Cosmopolitan, consists in knowing how to draw by its means the soft and incombustible quicksilver from the body of magnesia, that is to say by this first water, a second water, living and incombustible water and then knowing how to freeze it with the perfect body of the sun which dissolves in this water, sets like a thick white substance frozen like cream of milk.

LXXXVII

This philosophical mercury or second water, white and congealed like the cream of milk, is drawn by means of a primary water or acrid vinegar and by means of a fresh water or sweet vinegar. The first is male and holds fire that dominates water, the second is female and passive and holds water oppressed by foreign fire. This male is active, this female is passive, they both join and embrace each other to produce the second water which dissolves the compound gold which has been produced by the union of the two, that is to say by our double first water in the sense of Artephius.

LXXXVIII

This body which has been produced or composed by our first water must be resolved or dissolved in the second water, composed of these two as well as the aforesaid body, which would not be resolved there if it were not of the nature of the solvent. But if, instead of the compound, we put in our secondary dissolving water only the body of simple gold, it reduces it well enough to improve the metals, in some way, as Sendivogius says after the author of the "chemical duel." But if we join the male and the female and our water is the helping god, we find the whole secret of the wise.

LXXXIX

The whole secret of the sages consists in this work which Artephius calls whitening the laton or the gold of the philosophers and reducing it to its first matter, that is to say, to white and incombustible sulfur and to fixed quicksilver. It is thus that the humidity ends, that is to say, our body which is gold, is changed in this first dissolving water or sulfur and fixed quicksilver, so that this gold which is a perfect body, is changed by repeating this liquefaction and is reduced to sulfur and fixed quicksilver, receives life and multiplies in its kind, as it happens in other things.

XC

This gold therefore multiplies by means of our water, for the body, which is composed of two bodies which are the sun and the moon or Apollo and Diana, swells in this water, grows in size, rises, grows and receives from this first water its tincture of a surprising whiteness, and whoever knows our hermetic water, and the source from which it comes, knows the Trevisan fountain and the stone from which Moses drew the water which followed the people. He knows how to change the body into medicinal silver which can perfect other imperfect metals because our water carries a great tincture.

XCI

The tincture which is hidden in our water is white and red, although at first it gives only a tincture of whiteness. But like water which dissolves and breaks the body, the first which appears in this dissolution is blackness, a sign of putrefaction. Indeed, it is necessary that the body rot in our water, that having passed through all the colors which mark its infirmity, it takes the fixed white color and then the red of purple which are the
essential marks of a true resurrection, in which triumph the virtue and the germ of our leaven.

XII

Our leaven contains an igneous spirit like quicklime, from which it comes that it penetrates the body by its subtlety, that it warms up with its heat, and that it makes rise the germ which was in the body only in potency and would never have passed into action without the addition of our leaven, whose virtue can multiply to infinity by affixing to it a new matter which takes on the virtue of leaven and becomes as sour as it and even more. And in the end, he makes for himself a powerful medicine which falls on the imperfect which are of his nature and frees them from all their impurities.

XCIII

The purity of our leaven keeps it from intermingling with anything that is not pure and of its mercurial nature, and its subtlety gives it the key to enter the dark prison of metals and the strength to bring its brethren out of obscurity and slavery. For this purpose, it transforms before in several different ways like a lent. He rises to heaven, as if he wanted to climb it, like a new climb. He descends into the earth, as if he wanted to penetrate the abyss and carry Proserpina on his chariot of fire and enrich himself with the riches of Pluto.

XCIV

One could say that this leaven, similar to Vulcan, who having married Venus was kindled by the fire of her lover and only breathed her embraces. But, Jupiter finding him too imperfect, kicked him and threw him from heaven to earth. In falling, he broke a leg and he has remained lame since this fall. It was he who composed that admirable net by which Mars and Venus were caught and surprised on the bed of friendship; It is this Vulcan that Philalethes calls burning, without which the igneous dragon and our magnet can never be united well together.

XCV

The fire with which our Vulcan is aflame was formerly stolen by Prometheus and brought to the earth, which caused that as a punishment for this theft, Prometheus was chained by Vulcan himself on Mount Caucasus, and Jupiter ordered a vulture to gnaw his liver and heart which are always reborn and swarm by the virtue of the same vulture, which allows them the facility to germinate and be reborn after their death, to live a new life, so that the vulture which feasts on the liver and heart of Prometheus devours it only to multiply it incessantly .

XCVI

This rebirth or revification represents to us that of the phoenix which finds life in its death, vivifies itself by itself and emerges more glorious from its ashes. The agent in question here and who is of a marvelous origin in the metallic kingdom, according to the thought of Philalethes, carries and lights the fire on the pyre, similar to that from which he left above. This stake and the phoenix are set on fire together, reduced to ashes from which emerges a bird similar to the first of the same nature, but more noble than it and which grows daily in virtue, until it becomes immortal.

XVII

This phoenix which is reborn from its ashes is the salt of the sages and by this means, their mercury, says Philalethes. It is the salt of glory of Basil Valentine, the salt albrot of Artephius, the double mercury of Trevisan, which is the philosophical embryo and the bird born of Hermogenes. It is dry water, igneous water and universal menstruation or the spirit of the universe. The stone of the wise is satiated with this water which does not wet. She is formed from it in order to produce the virgin's milk which comes out of her womb. She herself is the juice of the moon, she is the spirit and soul of the sun, the bain-marie where the king and queen must bathe.

XCVIII

This salt is the agent of nature which overthrows the compound, destroys it, mortifies it and regenerates it many times. It contains in itself an unnatural fire, the wet fire, the secret, occult and invisible fire. It is the principle of movement and the cause of putrefaction. It is by this solvent that gold is reduced to its first matter, and all philosophers agree that the menstruation which radically dissolves the sun and the moon must preserve their species and remain with them after the dissolution and consequently be of their nature and coagulate themselves with the bodies which have been dissolved and by their virtue.

XCIX

In this dissolution of the body by the spirit, the freezing of the spirit by the body takes place, and the spirit and the body help each other, says Lucas, in this "Peat". The spirit, he says, first breaks the body so that it helps it afterwards; when the body is dead, water it with its milk, and you will see that the body will freeze the spirit and that it will become one of two, three and four. It is then that the dead is vivified and the living dies in this solution and freezing. Thus the philosophers command to kill the living and to vivify the dead and before that, the body and the spirit rot and corrupt together.

VS

There is no perfect leaven, where the spirit and the body do not ferment, sour and heat each other together by means of the internal and corrupting fire and of a hot water which aids and animates the heat of the leaven. This is what happens with our leaven, our water, our body and our spirit. The water in question is the first and even the second. Artephius says leaven is taken from gold which is the body and leaven carries the corrupting spirit; thus the water, the spirit and the body compose or furnish the matter of leaven.

THIS

As we have several leavens according to the degrees of perfection to which they are raised by our art, for nature does not give us any of herself, so we have several waters, several bodies and several mercury. There is however only one perfect leaven, only one body and only one true water which is the mercury of the wise philosophers, which is a true fire. According to Artephius, this fire is sulfur and mercury is sulfur, water and fire. This mercury is therefore the water drawn from the rays of the sun and the moon, says Sendivogius.

CII

This mercury cannot be drawn from the rays of the sun and the moon unless it is double. It cannot be drawn from its vitriolic caverns without taking the place of leaven. It could not take fire and water, sun and moon, body and spirit without being the soul which joins body and spirit, the mediator of fire and water, and it would be wrong for philosophers to give it so many praises if this mercury were not the agent in our art and the universal dissolvent of bodies.

CIII

We need this leaven or mercury for the three dissolutions necessary for the work of the philosophers. The first looks at the crud body to draw from it the spirit separated from its body, which is necessary for us to give life to the dead and to cure illnesses. The second is the solution of gold and silver, which by their union compose the mineral earth. The third dissolution is what is called employment for the multiplication, the first which is spiritual serves for the fermentation of the impure body, the second radical of the pure, and the third multiplicative of the very pure.

CIV

One dissolves the impure body to have the spirit hidden in it and the mercury which dissolves it is the first key which opens the door to the stone. It is this mercury which is prepared by our art and which is composed of base matter and of little price. It is sulphurous and mercurial, hot and cold, dry and humid. It contains the styptic and astringent virtue of metals, of which Basil Valentin speaks, twice born of mercury. This mercury contains a great treasure, namely the spirit of mercury and sulfur: the flower and the spirit of gold; he opens the door of his father's and mother's house and opens the entrance to the king's palace.

resume

From the matter of this first key, art forms a second by adaptation. The first is of all colors, but the second is white like wool and is much more precise than the first. It is she who opens the second door and dissolves the mineral earth in which is hidden the gold of the philosophers, the true sun. She brings it to light in several different forms, sometimes in earth, sometimes in water, and opens all the locks of this royal palace so well that after having opened and closed it on various occasions, she encounters the stone and the elixir of the philosophers.

CVI

The third key is formed from the matter of the first and the second. It is she who is the key that opens not only the cabinet where the stone is, but also the casket of the stone and the stone itself, so that it grows and multiplies in quality and quantity. But each time the stone is opened by this red key, there is a new dissolution and the earth becomes water or fatty and porous broth, and the water becomes earth. There is corruption and each time a new generation and the stone multiplies by ten degrees of quality each time and this up to seven times.

CVII

This multiplication is the last word of the sages, as dissolution is the first, says Flamel. Dissolution is the first foundation or the first step of philosophy and multiplication is its end, except the projection in which there is still a radical dissolution by the separation and exclusion of the impure and by the congealing of the pure grain. Thus dissolution is necessary at the beginning of the work, in the middle and at the end and after the accomplishment of the work by the first, the hard bodies become soft like cream or like heavy gum, says Morien .

CVIII

Others say that by dissolution, the dry bodies are reduced to dry water which does not wet the hands, that is to say, to mercury, then to semen, then to fixed spirit and finally to earth, which is often reduced to water but by dissolution, and returns to earth by congealing, rises and falls and from clarity to clarity is raised to the last period of fixity and fusibility, and as it is necessary for all operations to have dry and dissolving water as the necessary key presented and prepared by the hands of nature. to the artist, many have believed that this solvent or this key was vulgar mercury.

CIX

All authors agree on this point, that ordinary mercury is not our dissolving water, nor our true mercury. The reason is taken from the side of its impurity, which does not allow it to mingle intimately and in the smallest parts, with the pure bodies which must be dissolved, nor consequently to remain with them inseparably after their dissolution. This same impurity which is natural to him does not give him the power to purify the impure that we must purify in their dissolution, because he who must purify others must be pure says Philalethes.

CX

Besides the purity which mercury lacks, it lacks a natural heat which it does not have for being the mercury of the philosophers which radically dissolves gold, which changes into gold, after having changed gold in itself by dissolution. This lack of heat comes from the fact that it is a fruit which has fallen from its tree before its time, to which nature has not added its own agent, but as it has remained impure, cold and indigestible, it needs a washed and incombustible sulfur which art adds to it to ripen, warm and purge it, and without this sulfur art could not perfect mercury.

CXI

This pure and fixed sulfur which perfects the vulgar mercury in the projection where it is transmuted into gold, must be drawn from the things which are of the nature of mercury, otherwise it would not have the power to penetrate it and to unite with it intimately. Because, nature unites only with nature and pushes back all that is foreign to it. Now, the mercury of the philosophers contains that washed and incombustible sulfur by which it is gradually digested and changed into gold and then by a new regeneration, changed and raised into a fixed melting stone, which changes the
vulgar mercury in gold in a moment.

CXII

We can see from what we have just said that Philalethes has told the truth, when he assures us in his metamorphosis that the vulgar mercury and that of the sages are not materially and fundamentally different from each other; for both are dry, mineral water. Let the children of science therefore know, says this philosopher, that matter or vulgar mercury can and must enter in part into the matter of the mercury of the philosophers, so that their matter is homogeneous and that they differ together only according to the greater or lesser degrees of heat.

CXIII

It is therefore certain, to speak in good faith and according to the doctrine of this great philosopher, that if one could remove from the vulgar mercury what it has of sulphurous superfluities adustible, of aquosities, of corrupting earthiness, and if one could give it the heat of incombustible sulphur, that is to say, a spiritual and igneous virtue, the darkness of Saturn being dissipated, one would see this mercury emerging all shining with light and this Mercury would no longer be vulgar. It would be that of the philosophers who all say that being determined as it is, it cannot be our mercury without losing its form.

CXIV

The vulgar mercury is a body, that of the philosophers is a spirit, at least the vulgar mercury is corporeal, dead, and that of the sages is spiritual and living. The vulgar is male and ours is female or at least hermaphroditic. It is a water, the vulgar mercury contains it but it is too enveloped in its body. The mercury of the philosophers is our blessed seed, the vulgar is only the sperm which contains it, but it can only be drawn from it by the dissolution which is done by our mercury and in which it loses its first form to resume a nobler and more excellent form .

CXV

I know well that the vulgar mercury preserving its form of which it is specified, is not the immediate matter of the stone and even if it would be stripped of its form, it cannot be changed into stone that it is not made mercury of the sages, nor mercury of the sages without having been mortified and revived or begotten. It is not so the dissolvent of gold and other metals, that it has not been stripped of all that it has foreign non-metallic and corporeal; but one can say in truth that it is the easiest and the nearest matter or the subject most suitable for philosophical projection.

CXVI

We can also say in favor of the vulgar mercury that it is the soft mountain of which Sendivogius speaks and in which we can easily dig with the agent of the philosophers and find there the living and igneous water or the moist fire that we are looking for, and having found it, do wonders with it. We can also say in its favor that it can be useful to the work if we can remove from it what impurities it has and make up for what it lacks in igneous virtue. He says of himself in a dialogue that he is mercury but that there is another who opens the doors of justice, of which he is the precursor, an admirable symbol of a great mystery.

CXVII

It is a great advantage of vulgar mercury to be the way of its master and the precursor of the mercury of the sages who, according to the great Philalethes, comes to deliver his brothers minerals, metals, plants, animals and all natural bodies, from all their original stains. We always speak in parables and similes, because nature and her science are the source of all mysteries and the symbol of the highest truths. Through them one finds the explanation, the prediction and the manifestations of all that is occult.
Such is the effect of learned wisdom, artist of all things and who perfectly teaches the secret root of marvelous operations, according to the expression of King Solomon, himself as he says, and describes wisdom threefold because it receives three senses mutually and equally representative of each other and we write as this sage wrote.

CXVIII

The philosophers no doubt had this in mind when they said that one must pull air by air, spirit by spirit, take or catch a bird by a bird, as Aristeas speaks. Others said that by a crud spirit, one must extract one which was digestible and cooked. Others have said that a vegetable menstruation, united with the mineral and with a third essential menstruation, were necessary to have the universal solvent or mercury of the philosophers, that is to say that this third mercury needs a precursor like an Elijah.

CXIX

This famous mercury, to which the philosophers have given so much praise, symbolically deserves to have a precious fire which is said to be the spirit of Elia and which prepares the ways of his Lord. The precursor is of the same nature as the Lord, but the latter is infinitely nobler because he was born of a virgin earth and conceived of a celestial spirit, whereas the precursor was conceived in iniquity like the other metallic bodies, although he was subsequently purified and washed in the center of his mother to be made worthy to prepare the ways of the philosophical king.

CXX

This allegorical discourse is taken from the doctrine of the learned Philalethes, our contemporary, and of the famous Sendivogius, who teach that all metallic bodies are all conceived in iniquity and curse in the bosom of a corrupt earth and that even gold, pure as it is, as well as the precursor of which we speak, need the mercury of the philosophers who is conceived of a virgin earth and formed of its most pure blood by a celestial spirit, source of beauty, purity and light; and also, although he is of a corporeal nature, of the nature of others, he purifies them by his virtue.

CXXI

The mercury of the wise is in truth composed of body, soul and spirit. But his body, after having passed through all the operations of art, as through tortures and sufferings, his material body, I say, is completely spiritualized and having been raised in glory, it is of such great virtue, sublimity, light and fixity that it can be completely fixed and illuminates everything and triumphs over everything that is in the metallic kingdom. He separates the light from the darkness that obscures his brothers, slaves of impurity and finally, he is a pure spirit that attracts to itself all that is pure.

CXXII

Whatever nobility we find in our mercury, the seed of which it is made and composed by our art, is not different from that of which all metals are composed; and the metallic bodies, differ from each other only by the more or the less decoction and purity; for the seed is the same, and these superfluities introduced or left in their congealing, are not natural to the metals and have not corrupted their seed, which is a portion of celestial and incorruptible light, which shines in darkness and which is pure in filth.

CXXIII

Gold has the seed. He is even any metallic seed of which he has the brilliance, but he is neither the mercury of the wise, nor the stone. For though it is as pure as either, it has not the subtlety of one nor the subtlety of the other. Gold is dead, but it can resuscitate only by virtue of the mercury of the wise which is its own solvent and the author of its death and its life, which makes it descend into hell and which withdraws it to make it ascend to heaven and give it that subtle fixity which it does not have of its own nature.

CXXIV

There is this difference between the gold and the mercury of the sages, that the first is a work of nature which makes it in the mines without the help of art and the second is the work of art and nature, because it is neither on the ground nor below. It is a child that we can produce by extraction, that is to say by drawing it from the things where it is. Now, it is drawn by artifice from the sulfur and mercury of nature, conjoined together through the intervention of a third party of the same nature and being drawn, it is next to our stone.
CXXV
In a week, says Philalethes, this mercury by simple digestion becomes philosophical gold, which is the matter closest to stone. It is this mercury which suffices by itself with the fire; indeed, he is the fire itself. If there is anyone, he says, in his dialogue, who has seen the hidden fire in my heart, he has known that fire is my true food, and the longer the spirit of my heart eats fire, the fatter it becomes. Thus, the serpent devours his tail and eats himself, and the fire and he are two and one.

CXXVI

The mining of our mercury is nothing other than sulfur and mercury joined together, says the Cosmopolite, because of the two is made one, which is virgin milk, says Arnaud de Villeneuve. This milk is our mercury or white eagle composed of the compound, the air of the air, the quicksilver of the quicksilver, the water drawn from a rock where one sees a mine of gold and steel. We notice here the two principles of the mercury of the philosophers. His father is the sun, raised in degrees by our art, and his mother the white moon, which at the conception of this son disappears with the sun.

CXXVII

Gold and flowing mercury are the material of our work, says Philalethes. If this philosopher spoke otherwise, he would betray his thought and his name. But we can add to his thoughts that the material of the work is mercury alone and that we make this great masterpiece of nature and art and all the miracles that accompany it from a single thing, as Hermes says, that is to say from the mercury of the philosophers which is living gold or embryonated and volatile gold which changes into gold by a little heat but not into stone immediately. But finally, everything that composes it originates from our mercury.

CXXVIII

The gold issuing from our mercury, like the sun from the bosom of Thetis, all bursting with light is called living gold as long as it has not passed through the fire of fusion, which is the death of our aux, says Basil Valentin. Now, this quickgold is all fire, or the real fire of very fixed and very pure gold, balsamic gold, enemy of corruption. It contains in itself salt, sulfur and mercury or rather, it is all salt, all sulfur, all mercury, but in these three principles, it is so in unity and homogeneity that it is unalterable and incorruptible and cannot be
decomposed only by the rays of the sun which is his father.

CXXIX

Bright gold is often referred to as bright sulphur. It is this sulphur, says Sendivogius, to which the philosophers have given the first rank, as to the principal of the principles. It is this first agent who is kept very hidden. It is, however, very common. He is everywhere, they say, and in all things. It is vegetable, animal and mineral. He is the life of all things and a portion of that light which was made the beginning of the world. It is the principle of all colors, of all congealings and of all maturity, and without this quick-sulphur, the radical humidity in vegetables would be quite useless.

CXXX

This sulfur or quick gold may be considered in three states. In the first, it is a pure spirit which is in all things which is their soul, their life and their light. He is like a terrified sky wrapped in all bodies. In the second state, it is mineral, therefore specified in minerals and enclosed in their radical humidity; because it is a fire, it constantly acts on this humidity when it is free to act, and since this humidity is an air, this fire feeds on it in the third state, it is overwhelming, victorious and triumphant over all that resists it.

CXXXI

One can still, agreeing with the philosophers, say that the quick gold of the sages can be considered as an agent and as a patient. As agent, it is a spirit which is always in action, which gives movement to all things and which is the principle and promoter of the corruption and generation of compounds. It is a spirit of light always busy driving out darkness and separating the pure from the impure. In this state he is the mercury of the sages, as in the place of his domination where he begins to exercise the acts of the king.

CXXXII

This fire or this sulfur ceases to act when it has consumed its own humidity, if no new one is supplied to it. But if it is given any, it begins its movement again and converts this humidity again into its substance, as much as it can; by completing his movement in the art and on the art of the sages, he converts all his radical moistness into pure gold which is bright but patient gold. Thus, the agent becomes patient; the first matter becomes the second, but the second becomes the first. This mercury which was patient becomes agent and restores their movement to our living gold.

CXXXIII

If the living gold begins its movement again, it works with more vigor than the first time, its term is more noble, because at this second time, the work ends with a more excellent gold than is its grandfather and which is not its father and its mother. For the elixir, which is heaven and earth and incombustible and stinging sulphur, is found perfect at the end of this movement. Thus, gold produces gold from mercury and gold and mercury, the sun and the moon produce stone and are made of it. And we see that things end where they began.

CXXXIV

The philosophers, in common agreement, have rightly said that their living gold is nothing else than the pure fire of mercury, that is to say the most perfect portion of the noble and pure vapor of the elements, or else that fire innate and intrinsic to mercury, namely passively and in potency in the vulgar mercury, actively in action in the mercury of the sages. This bright gold is like an exhalation and the mercury is like the vapor that contains this exhalation. Now, the vapor being consumed by the heat of the exhalation, is changed into a powder which imitates lightning falling on imperfect metals.

CXXXV

This noble vapor of the elements is the radical humidity of nature which is everywhere and in all things, and which is found specified in each and particularly in vulgar mercury, where this radical humidity specified and determined to the metallic nature comes out very abundantly. And no doubt that if nature alone or with the help of art had added to it the innate fire or intrinsic agent, or this exhalation which comes from the male, the vulgar mercury would be the mercury of the philosophers and thus could become gold, and by degrees, auric medicine.

CXXXVI

This fixed sulfur or metallic fire which is in potency in the vulgar mercury is actually in the gold but it is not there in acts or in actions because it is placed under strong barriers which put it under cover from the violence of the elemental fire and nothing can break these barriers but our moist fire. But, to find this living gold, you have to find it (and take it) in your own house, which is the belly of Ariès. This sulfur or quick gold is the only agent capable of stripping common mercury of all its impurities and of digesting what is indigestible and uniting to itself what is pure in it.

CXXXVII

When the mercury, that is to say the humidity and the coldness dominate the heat and the dryness which is the sulphur, it is what is called the mercury of the wise which is cold and humid on the outside and when the hot and the dry dominate the cold and the humidity, it is the gold which holds the mercury in these bonds, under the domination of the sulphur, which having consumed all its radical humidity changes it in itself, namely into gold. Thus, gold is all sulfur and all spirit, it is also all body and all mercury.

CXXXVIII

The philosophers have all recognized two kinds of sulfur or natural agents, one is extreme and serves as an efficient and moving cause outside, the other is an internal cause and as an informing form. The first one having performed its operation withdraws, say Bonus and Zachaire, and for that moment it is the putrefaction of the metal. The second is an ineffable portion of that luminous spirit contained in the seed which is the moist metallic radical and this sulfur is inseparable from its subject which is that same seed or moist radical which has the sperm.

CXXXIX

This luminous spirit contained in the metallic seed which is the humid radical of metals is none other than what is called the new light, the air of the philosophers. It is this same air of which Aristeas speaks, writing to his son; this air, he says, is the principle of everything in his reign. And for this reason, this air is the life and nourishment of the things of which it is the principle; what made all the philosophers say that the air nourishes the innate fire. Thus metallic air inspires life in metallic fire, and furnishes it with nourishment, because it is its principle.

CXL

The air of the philosophers is not the common air, which is the food of the innate fire in all things and kinds of beings. But it is a metallic air which is the food of the fire, of the mineral sulfur, which fire or sulfur is contained in the mercury of the sages. This metallic air is a very subtle essence which takes on the body of a vapor and condenses with the humid metallic radical to serve as food for the mineral fire contained in this oily vapor, which is an aerial essence which can be called spirit or air, and which is the life of everything, and necessary for the work.

CXLI

This vapor necessary for the work of the sages must be sought in metallic bodies, but a golden key is needed, says Aristeas, to open the doors of justice. This air we need is locked away. It can only be drawn out of its prison by means of another homogeneous air which serves as a key. On which, we can say with Philalethes, that this golden key which opens the "Door of the closed palace of the king", is our steel which is, says this philosopher, the true key of the work, without which the fire of the lamp cannot be lit.

CXLII

Our steel is the miner of gold, a very pure spirit, an infernal and secret fire and the miracle of the world. The system of higher virtues in lower ones, says Philalethes; this steel is the light of gold and the magnet from which it comes is the light of steel. But it is certain, says the Cosmopolitan, that our steel engenders our magnet, or at least contributes to its generation, and that our magnet engenders or makes appear our steel, or let us say with less envy, that our air and our magnet are the two principles of our steel, of our mining, of gold and of their light.

CXLIII

This magnet and this air are the first two agents and the two dragons of which Flamel speaks, who guard the Golden Fleece and the entrance to the garden of the Hesperides virgins. He calls them sun and moon, of mercurial source and sulphurous origin, which by continual fire adorn themselves with royal garments to overcome all things metallic, solid, compact, hard, strong, when they are united together and then changed into quintessence which is an extract of water from earth and fire; and it is our steel, or our double mercury of the good Trevisan.

CXLIV

This quintessence is with the fire of the mineral sulphur, the bag of saturnia and the bond of mercury and to make it, it is necessary, from the beginning, to take two serpents and kill them, corrupt them and beget them, says Flamel. It is the dry water which does not wet the hands or it is this virginal milk of Arnaud de Villeneuve, which contains in itself the two male and female sperms, prepared in the kidneys of our elements. It is the humid radical of the metals, the sulfur and the quicksilver of the philosophers, the double mercury, drawn from the corruption of the sun and the moon.

CXLV

This admirable compound contains in itself the water and the mercury of the philosophers, that is to say the four elements. It is neither milk nor mercury, says Abbé Synésius. It is an imperfect thing, says Philalethes. It is the sun and the moon of the sages, says the Cosmopolitan; the son of our magnet and of the fiery dragon who devoured the serpent; secret fire, invisible furnace, first humidity of the sages which results from the destruction of bodies, for indeed, the second and golden water
of Artephius is made from the destruction of the compound as the compound is made from the destruction of very dear bodies.

CXLVI

The destruction of this compound, says the anonymous, is the second key to the work, the mystery of mysteries and the essential point of our science. This is what opens the gates of justice and the prisons of hell, says the Cosmopolitan; it is then that one sees flowing at the foot of the flowery rock, this water so famous among philosophers, which is made, says Basil Valentin, by the combat of two champions who challenge each other. For the eagle alone must not make its nest on the summit of the Alps, but must be joined to it by a cold dragon, whose volatile spirit burns the wings of the eagle.

CXLVII

The igneous heat of the spirit of the dragon melting the snow of the mountains, we have the celestial water in question and in which the king and queen go to bathe, says Artephius; but the earth must receive its lost moisture on which it feeds. It is therefore necessary to reiterate these preparations of water by several distillations so that the earth is often soaked in its mood and this mood as many times drawn in imitation of Euripus, by an admirable ebb and flow. But without fire, there is no water.

CXLVIII

As we cannot draw our aerial water or aquatic air without fire, so we cannot digest or perfect it without fire, which makes Hermes say that fire is the pilot of the great work and Artephius that fire is necessary at the beginning, in the middle, and at the end of our work. Which must mean the fire of putrefaction which is necessary for generation, as Morien says. It is this putrefying fire, which Count Bernard calls manure heat and who knows this fire well, he says, at the conclusion of our Saturn, which is whiteness.

CXLIX

This conclusion of our Saturn which is made by degrees is the "Light coming out of darkness" and this light or whiteness, only comes out by this fire which causes its putrefaction and which is the fire against nature, as Artephius teaches, so necessary for the composition of the magisterium, says Parmenides, because it is necessary to break and corrupt this body, to draw the soul and the spirit from it and in this way, the mondification and ablution of matter is made by fire, says Calid, by this same fire is made the ejection of the refuse of the compound.

CL

The magisterium of the sages begins with fire and ends with fire. This fire is sometimes humid and the bath a bath or hot manure; sometimes it is a hot, damp and cold fire and it is the lamp fire; finally, it is dry, hot and humid, and it is the fire of white ashes or red sand. Our fire warms the fountain of the wise.
In conclusion, this fire is hot, cold, wet and dry or rather, it is a spirit or a quintessence, which is neither hot, nor dry, nor cold, nor moist in itself. God gives it to the wise; may he be praised forever.

END