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Copied by Peter Smart - M.A. London (circa 1712-1714)
Part 1
Oui vult secreta scire, dedet secreta secrete custodire
Their Excellent Method of Making Medicines of Metals
Also
Their Lawes and Mysteries
The Preface ~
The Contemplative Order of the Rosie Cross have presented to the world Angels, Spirits, Planets and Metals, with the times in Astromancy and Geomancy to prepare and unite them telesmatically. The Water is not extracted by the hands of men, but it is made by nature a Spermatick, Viscous Composition of water, earth, air and fire, all those four natures united in one crystalline, coagulated mass.
By Mercury I understand not Quicksilver, but Saturn philosophical, which devours the Moon and keeps her always in his belly. By Gold I mean the Spermatick Green Gold, not the adored lump which is dead and ineffectual. This is the substance which at present is our study. It is the child of the Sun and Moon, placed between two fires, and in the darkest night receives a light from the stars and retains it. The Angels or Intelligences are attracted by an horrible emptiness and attend the Astrolasme for ever. He hath in him a thick fire by which he captivates the thin Genii. At first the Telesma is neither metal nor matter, neither solid nor fluid, but a substance without all form but what is universal. He is visible and a fume of Mercury, not crude but cocted. This fume utterly destroys the first form of Gold, introducing a second and a more noble one. He hath no certain colour, for Camelion like, he puts on all colours, and there is nothing in the world hath the same figure with him when he is purged from his accidents. He is a water coloured with fire, deep to the sight and, as it were, hollow and he hath something in him that resembles a commotion. In a vaporous heat he opens his belly and discovers an airy heaven, tinged with a milky white light; within this Coelum he hides a little Sun, a most powerful red fire sparkling like a Carbuncle, which is the red Gold of the Rosie Crucians.
That you may know the Rosie Crucian philosophy, endeavour to know God Himself, the worker of all things, and to pass into Him by a whole image of likeness (as by an essential contract and bond), whereby we may be transformed and made as God, as the Lord spake concerning Moses, saying, I have made thee the God of Pharaoh. This is the true Rosie Crucian philosophy of wonderful works, that they understood not, the Key whereof is Intellect. For by how much the higher things we understand, with so much the sublimer virtues are we endowed, and so much greater things do work and the more easily and efficaciously. But an Intellect being included in the corruptible flesh, unless it shall exceed the way of the flesh and obtain a proper nature, cannot be united to those virtues (for like to like) and is, in searching into the Rosie Crucian secrets of God and nature, altogether inefficacious. For it is no easy thing for us to ascend to the Heavens, for how shall he that hath lost himself in mortal dust and ashes find God? How shall he apprehend spiritual things that is swallowed up in flesh and blood? Can man see God and live? What fruit shall a grain of corn bear if it be not first dead; for we must die to the world, to the flesh and to all the senses and to the whole man animal, who would enter into the closest of secrets, not because the body is separated from the Soul, but because the Soul leaves the body, of which death St Paul wrote to the Collossians, Ye are not dead and your life is hid with Christ. And elsewhere he speaks more clearly of himself, I know a man, whether in the body or out of the body I cannot tell, God knows, caught up into the third Heaven, etc. I say by this death, precious in the sight of God, we must die, which happens to few, and not always, for very few whom God loves and are virtuous are made so happy. And first those that are born not of flesh and blood but of God; secondly those that are dignified by the blessed assistance of Angels and Genii, the power of Nature, the influence of the planets and the heavens and the virtues of the figures and Ideas at their birth.
Behold The Rosie Crucian Crowne
This Crown is set with seven Angels, seven Planets, twelve Signs, seven Rulers, twelve Ideas and sixteen Figures.
Observe this harmony. The seven Angels guide the seven Planets, the seven Planets move continuously in the twelve Signs, the seven Rulers run in the twelve Ideas over the face of the Earth, and with the Elements project sixteen Figures. These have their influence upon the seven metals which you must prepare for the Diseases of mankind, as for example, if Mars cause the disease, Venus and Kedemel will cure it and you must make your Medicine of Copper.
If Saturn and Zazel cause the disease, Jupiter and Hismael in Tin prepared will lend you their influence to cure the party. If Saturn cause the disease the Sun and prepared Gold will cure the disease.
Now I will demonstrate in what thing, of what thing or by what thing is the Medicine or Multiplication of Metals to be made. It is even in the nature, of the nature and by the nature of metals, for it is a principle of all philosophers that Nature cannot be bettered but in his own nature.
Trevisan saith: Every Substance hath his own proper and principal seed of which it is made. A pear tree bringeth forth a pear and an apple tree an apple, and God said in the beginning, let everything bring forth his fruit and let the seed be multiplied in itself. And Arnoldus de Villa Nova saith: Every seed is correspondent to his seed and every shrub bringeth forth his proper fruit, according to his kind, for nothing but man is engendered of man, nor of the animals but their like; whereupon Paracelsus concludeth thus: True Alchemy, which only alone teacheth the Art to make Sol and Luna of five metals, will not admit any other receipt because that which is thus (and it is truly spoken): perfect metals are made only of metals, in metals, by metals and with metals for in some metals is Luna and in other metals is Sol. If this be true that in Metals are their seed whereby they may be multiplied, how is it then that the philosophers say their Gold and Silver are not common Gold and Silver, for common Gold and Silver are dead but their Gold and Silver liveth. To this I answer, common Gold and Silver are dead except they be revived by art, i.e., except their seeds, which are naturally included in them, be projected into their natural earth, by which means they are mortified and revived like as the grain of wheat that is dead and unapt to increase, except by art and industry of man it is in due season sown in his kindly earth and there putrefied and again revived and multiplied. For which cause Trevisan hath written that the vulgar bodies that Nature only hath perfected in the mine are dead and cannot perfect the imperfect bodies. But if we take them and reiterate perfection upon them seven, ten or twelve times, then will they tinge infinitely, for then are they entering, tincting and more than perfect and quick in regard of that which they were before.
Paracelsus likewise affirmeth metallic spirits are dead and lie still so that they cannot work, unless by art they are revived, which thing Arnoldus verifies. Gold and Silver, therefore, simple and absolute in their bodily and metallic form, are dead, but by art they are revived and made Gold and Silver of the Philosophers. And they are revived and brought to yield their seed by reducing them into their first matter, which is called prima materia metallorum79, for it is impossible for the species or forms of metals to be transmuted but by reducing them into their first matter.
Now the first matter of metals is Argent vive, i.e., Quicksilver, as all philosophers verify. For the first matter of anything is the self same thing into which it is resolved as snow and ice are resolved into water, which is the proper and first matter, and so metals are dissolved into Argent vive. Therefore Argent vive or Mercury is the first matter of metals. Therefore metals of necessity must be reduced into Mercury and not into cloud water as the philosophers affirm, but into a viscous water which is the first matter of metals, for it is the opinion of Paracelsus, Arnoldus and Trevisan that labour is lost which is spent in the Separation of the elements, for nature will be severed by human distinction, but hath her own separation in itself. Therefore metals should not be reduced into cloud water but into a viscous water.
Albertus Magnus saith the first matter of metals is Argent vive, which is a viscous, incombustible moisture commixed in a strong and wonderful mixture with a subtile earthliness in the mineral caves of the earth, which continually moveth and floweth because successively one part hath rule over another. As the cause of flowing and moving is by moisture bearing the chief rule, so terrestrial dryness bearing chief rule over the action of moisture is the cause it will not stick to that which it toucheth nor moisten it.
Trevisan saith that is the nearest matter of metals whose viscous moisture is mixed with his subtile earthliness.
And Geber saith, we could never yet find anything permanent in the fire but this viscous matter or moisture which is the self same note of all metals, and all the other moistures do easily fly from the fire by evaporation and separation of one element from another, as water by fire, one part going into smoke, another into water, another into earth remaining in the bottom of the vessel; but the viscous moistness that is to say Mercury, is never consumed in it nor separated from his earth nor from any other his element; for either they remain altogether or vanish altogether, so that no part of the weight may perish.
Geber thus describeth the nature of Quicksilver: Argent vive, which the Alchemists call Mercury, is nothing else but a viscous water in the bowels of the earth, of a moist and subtile substance of white earth united altogether by a moist, temperate heat by the least parts, until the moist be temperated by the dry and the dry by the moist, so that being thus both equally united and mixed, neither of them may be separated nor taken from one another by the fire. And in this Argent vive, the mother of all metals, is only the whole perfection, for it hath in its composition sulphury parts dry, the which tinge and colour the whiteness in act and redness in power, and therefore this is the true Sulphur which perfecteth, formeth, coagulateth, coloureth and fixeth by his action. But this incombustible, hidden and unknown Sulphur which is in power in Argent vive, cannot bring itself forth into act but by due decoction, wherefore you may now perceive that neither nature in the veins of the earth nor we above ground, have any other matter to work upon but only pure Mercurial Form wherein Sulphur is enclosed, that is to say fire and air, which indeed is the internal and essential part of the Mercury itself; but it doth not dominate therein but by the means of heat, the which is caused by the reflexion of the fiery sphere which encloseth the air, and also by the continual and equal motion of the heavenly bodies, which do stir so lent an heat as that it can hardly be perceived or imagined. And thus by most perfect decoction, and also by continual proportional digestion in long success of time is introduced in art and made manifest in the end of the operation of Nature that aforesaid unknown and incombustible Sulphur, which is the true form and ferment of Gold. And thus mayest thou see that metalline forms take their original only of pure mercurial substance, the which is the mother of all metals and coupleth and is united with her male, that is with the said Sulphur, the father of metals, the which causeth the diversity of metals according to the different degrees of decoction and alteration caused in Mercury by his own natural heat of inward Sulphur.
The philosophers do agree that there are in the nature and original of metals two sperms or seeds, the one masculine and agent, which they call Sulphur, the other feminine and patient, which they name Mercury; and these two have the natural conjunction and operation one with another in the womb of the earth, whereby they engender metals of diverse form and quality according to the difference and diversity of their degree of digestion and concoction.
Now I will briefly discover the difference between Sulphur and Mercury, and the beginning and natural generation of them, and then show how they have their natural operation, the one with the other, in the bowels of the earth to be made metals perfect and imperfect.
Sulphur is double in every metal save only in Gold, that is to say external, burning and internal, not burning, which latter is of the substantial composition of Argent vive. The Mercury or Quicksilver spoken of is engendered or compounded in the bowels of the earth of clear, viscous water by a most temperate heat, united by the least parts, indissoluble, with an earthly substance, incombustible Sulphur, white, most subtile in art, without the which the substance of Argent vive cannot subsist, which coloureth it naturally with a white colour, but in our magistery it maketh it white and red as we will by governing the nature of it; wherefore Argent vive is the total material cause and total substance of the Philosophers' Medicine, containing in itself that internal Sulphur, being a simple fire, lively, quickening, the which indeed is the true masculine agent that before we spake of, the which, by perfect and due digestion and proportional decoction, congluteth, coloureth, formeth and fixeth his own Argent vive into Gold according to nature and to art in the philosophical medicine. But when that Argent vive is by nature thus fixed and made perfect by most high digestion into Gold only by his own proper and inward Sulphur, which is the true ferment, then the external, combustible Sulphurs cannot enter in nor be mixed with him, but they are parted clear away as the corruptible from the permanent; wherefore they enter not into Gold and therefore cannot be the matter or form, or any part of the matter or form of the Philosophers' Medicine. And thus you may understand the difference between the true Sulphur and Mercury, for when it appeareth simple it is flowing and is called Mercury, and is volatile, carrying or holding his proper incombustible Sulphur or ferment hidden in power. But when in the end of the aforesaid decoction that hidden Sulphur is brought wholly into act, whereby the whole is manifest and doth show the nature of Sulphur, then it is called Sulphur, which doth coagulate, reduce and fix his Argent vive to his proper nature, which is to be made Gold. Wherefore this is the only tincting Sulphur of the philosophers, the which is unknown to thecommon people. But the compound of them is called the Mixed Medicine, perfect and sound, and in the commixtion they are made all one as wax, and so in truth you may now see that these two spermatick matters are of one root, substance and essence, that is to say of the only essence of pure Argent vive. But the diversity of the sundry shapes, forms and bodies of metals, the which is the cause of the perfection or imperfection of them, is according to the diverse and several degrees of alteration caused by their decoction and digestion. For the Mercury, which is Argent vive running in the veins of the earth, conjoineth and is mixed with the aforesaid external Sulphur, and being so mingled and conjoined together by the sundry and different degrees of the decoctions of the internal Sulphur caused by the motions of the heavenly bodies, there is engendered the sundry shapes and forms and bodies of the metals in the entrails of the earth. For first in the first degree of natural operation and digestion, the heat of the internal Sulphur working and somewhat prevailing in the humidity of his Mercury, beginneth somewhat to fix and coagulate the mercurial humour and giveth it the form of Lead. And by further digestion and decoction, the Sulphur yet somewhat more prevailing over his Mercury, the Mercury is somewhat more fixed and receiveth the form of Tin. Then doth the heat dominate more and maketh Copper and then Iron, and further proceeding in their digestion, the internal Sulphur yet more subduing the moisture and cold of his Mercury by a temperate heat, and attaining by his concoction purity and perfection of whiteness, it more firmly fixeth his body and giveth it the form and fixation and tincture of Silver. And now the essence that was in power is brought forth into act, whereby the external, earthly Sulphur, which gave a transitory form to the undigested metals, is almost utterly expoliated and separated by reason of his perfect form introduced by the means of our digestion and proportional decoction.
And yet in the Silver there are some small parts of the external Sulphur, the which are by the last and most temperate, complete digestion of nature wholly and thoroughly expoliated. And then by nature is accomplished the most perfect, simple and pure substantial form of Gold, which Gold in the perfection of his metalline nature is pure fire, digested by the said Sulphur existing in Mercury, whereby his Mercury, that is to say his whole substance, is converted into the nature of his pure Sulphur and made permanent and triumphant in the force and violence of the fire. And by separation of the external Sulphur, the metals are made perfect according to the divers degrees of their decoction, digestion and alteration, wherein they separate themselves from the earthly and combustible Sulphur and attain their true, complete, pure form and fixation.
But whereas the philosophers do seem to set down by degrees first Saturn, then Jupiter, then Luna, then Venus, then Mars and then Sol, they had a further meaning therein which is not to be understood according to the letter; for indeed Venus and Mars are placed after Luna, not that it should be believed that Luna doth turn or go into an imperfect body as Venus and Mars, but in truth they are placed after Luna for two causes, first because of the over great and excessive burning of the filthy and fixed, earthly, external Sulphur, which is joined with their Mercury and is outwardly by too much intemperate and an overgreat, superfluous, drying, combustible heat, coagulated and decocted with the Argent vive to a corruptible body, while the other cause is philosophically to be understood in the order and degrees of the colours96 in the working of the Philosophers' Medicine, which is a similitude and analogy, and this over great quantity of burning, gross, earthly, external Sulphur is the cause of the hard melting of Mars. But so soon as nature by a temperate, complete digestion hath introduced into act the internal, pure Sulphur, then are separated all those external Sulphurs from the Mercury and a perfect form is introduced. An example of this is to be seen in the projection of the Philosophers' Medicine, which, being cast upon imperfect metals molten, doth only by virtue of the most pure, temperate, high and mighty digestion fix and give a true, natural form to the Mercury of the bodies, whereby is expoliated away all external Sulphur and they are perfected into fine Gold. And you must also know that nature doth not always proceed by means of these degrees in passing through the dispositions and paths of the metals, or any one of them, but doth oftentimes engender perfect Sol as the aforesaid beginning by a most temperate and due decoction in the bowels of the earth. The reason hereof, the knowledge of the countries and mines will make manifest unto you.
And thus have I made plain the very operation and work of nature in the earth, as all the philosophers deciphered it. And this operation of nature are we to imitate and follow as near as possible in our art, according to the earnest precepts and prescriptions of all the philosophers in this behalf.
Now I shall show how and in what manner our art must imitate the operation of nature; but first I will resolve, wherefore do the philosophers call Mercury or Quicksilver the First Matter of Metals, when there is another matter or sperm, as we have declared, which must be joined with it before metals can be engendered.
The philosophers do truly call Mercury the First Matter of Metals, being so indeed, for the Sulphur which is the masculine sperm, is of her, and she is the root of him and his coagulation, as Hermes said. And also the same man saith, this water coagulateth when it is congealed and running water is the mother of that which is congealed and coagulated and so it was ever. For which cause the philosophers call the feminine sperm the patient, or matter which suffereth the action of her agent, and taketh the impression of his forms in her substance; and therefore the philosophers said truly that Sulphur giveth the form and beginning of being more than matter, when as that it is his act and matter power and form; for according to the truth of forms, they are named the substance of things, but matter may after another sort be called more the substance in as much as it is the beginning to everything, and from it are extracted all forms.
If, therefore, any man would like to know the form of Gold, he must of necessity know the matter of Gold, the which is Argent vive. It springeth flowing, liquid, flying, bright and suffereth coagulation, and is, therefore, truly called the First Matter of Metals, because all metals have their first matter or substance from her, their mother, the forms of the metals being affected by the moving of the active elements, fiery and airy, of Mercury, that is to say, Sulphur, the which moveth Argent vive, as this proper matter for generation into metals, according to the degrees of his motions.
Now we proceed to apply the operation of an art to the operation of nature, and show what is the first work of art.
Learn to know what is the first work of art by the first work of nature, always provided that it be that first work of nature that art is able to perform. But because the first work of nature was to make the two sperms of nature, which art cannot do, therefore the second work of nature, which is the conjunction of the two sperms in one, must of necessity be the first work of art, and the creation or making of the two sperms must be the only referred to nature, who hath provided and prepared to art the matter that art is to work upon. According to the saying of the philosopher, art of itself cannot create the sperms, but when nature hath created them, then doth art, joined with that natural heat which is in the sperms already created, mix them as the instrument of nature, for it is plain that art doth add neither form, nor matter, nor virtue, but only aiding the thing existing, to bring it to perfection. And again, nature hath created a matter unto art, unto which art neither addeth anything nor taketh anything away, but removeth such things as are superfluous; likewise nature hath provided for us one Stone and one matter and one medicine, unto the which we, by our art, add no foreign thing, nor in any point diminish it, but in removing that which is superfluous in the preparation, and this is done in the purification which is effected by solution. By these words it plainly appeareth that nature hath prepared the matter wherein art is to work, and art by no means can make the same matter; but the only work of art is to cleanse and purify that which nature hath left impure, and make that perfect which nature hath left imperfect, as is verified by this last saying of Arnoldus, and that first of Trevisan.
Now, therefore, it follows that the first work of Art, wherein art doth imitate nature, must of necessity be that which is the second work of nature, viz., as the second work of nature after she had created the sperm was to join these two sperms of nature together, whereby to make the First Matter of Metals, so the first work of art must be to conjoin the sperm of metals together, whereby we must make the First Matter of one pure Medicine, that may bring the impure and imperfect metals into the purity and perfection of nature. And this can no otherwise be done but by reduction of them into their First Matter as is before said, by which means we may have (as Arnoldus saith) the same sperms of the metals above earth that nature did work in under the earth. And this reduction is nothing else but the dissolution in which they are dissolved into the natural Mercury and Sulphur again, but more pure than they were before by reason that they are in their dissolution separated and purified from the fex and impurity of their nature and make more pure and perfect whereby to engender a more pure and perfect matter than nature could do; and for this cause hath the philosopher written this conference in the lamentation of nature between nature and art, 'Without me, which do yield the matter, thou shalt never effect anything, and without thee also, which dost minister unto me, I cannot alone finish this work.'
It is the chiefest and highest secret of the philosophers to know out of which of the metals must we have these sperms. I ought not to disclose the same in plain terms, but in dark speeches and figures as they have done. Notwithstanding, mark that which shall follow and I will discover to thee the secrets of the philosophers in hope that thou wilt hide them in thy heart and commit the papers to the fire. Now first and chiefly thou must call to rememberance the words of the philosophers before named, who say that in some metals is Sol and in some metals Luna. That is to say, in some metals is the masculine sperm and in some is the feminine sperm. In some of the metals is the tincture of Gold and in some of the metals is the tincture of Silver. Some of them are masculine and some are feminine. For that these words are true in their expositions, the words of Hermes do very well prove, who said Red Sol is his father and White Luna his mother. If, therefore, Sol be the father and Luna the mother, and in some of the metals be Sol and in some Luna, what is this but to say that some of the metals are masculine and some of them feminine, or in some of them is the masculine sperm and in some of them is the feminine sperm. Now, therefore, consider which of them are the masculine bodies, and out of which the masculine sperms are to be had, and then we shall more perfectly discern the feminine bodies whence the feminine sperms are to be fetched.
Note that the philosophers do diversly name these two sperms. The masculine they call agent, the Sulphur or rennet, the body or ferment, the poison or flower of Gold, the tincture or inward fire and the form. The feminine sperm they call the patient, Mercury, the Spirit volatile, Argent vive, menstruum, water, azoth and the matter and by many other names they name them both. But this caveat in the discerning of them I give thee for three causes especially. The one is because thou shouldest in reading of the philosophers not mistake any one of them for the other; the second cause, that thou shouldest by these names know which of the metals are masculine by the quality of their names; and the third cause is that thou shouldest thereby gather and understand that the two sperms, being of two several natures and qualities, can by no means be fetched from one body, as divers have misconstrued, no more than both the sperms of man and woman are in man alone. But they are to be had of two substances of one root, as Trevisan, Arnoldus and the rest of the philosophers affirm.
But I will give thee this secret note, that the two sperms must be had out of two several bodies, yea two bodies in one only root, which is the same Hermaphrodite of the philosophers, which they often write of, or their Adam, as in due place shall be disclosed; but in all the reading of the philosophers keep well this caveat in thy mind, of the several names and natures of the two sperms.
But now I shall proceed to prove by the philosophers which are the masculine bodies, and how a question shall arise whether is that which giveth the form or tincture the masculine sperm or the feminine. You need not to doubt that among the metals Sol and Luna are both agents and masculine sperms, for they both give form and tincture severally, the one to the white work, the other to the red work, according to the sayings of the philosophers.
For Arnoldus in his Rosary saith Gold is more precious than all other metals and is the tincture of redness tincting and transforming every body, but Silver is the tincture of whiteness, tincting all other bodies with a perfect whiteness; and therefore he which knoweth to tinct Argent vive with Sol and Luna cometh into the secret. Likewise in another place he saith thus. The first work is to sublime Mercury and to dissolve it, that it may return into the First Matter. Then let the clean bodies be put into this clean Mercury, but mix not the white body with the red, nor the red with the white, but dissolve every one severally apart, because the white water is to whiten and the red water is to make red, therefore mix not the water of the one medicine with the water of the other, because thou shalt greatly err and be blinded if thou do otherwise. By those two sentences of Arnoldus it appeareth not only that Sol and Luna are agents, the one giving form to the red work, the other to the white, but also there is another body that is to be dissolved into Mercury, which is the patient of these two, for as much as those two are to be put into the same; yet it is not the patient to them both together, but each of them severally and assunder, which proveth them plainly to be both masculine and agent, and none of them patient to any other, nor by any means to be mixed one with another, but a third thing to be patient to them both, that is to say the same Mercury or Argent vive that they before spake of where they said that he which knoweth how to tinct Argent vive with Sol and Luna cometh to a secret. Likewise the noble Trevisanus saith, Our medicine is made of two things, being of one essence, to wit of the union mercurially of fixed and not fixed, spiritual and corporeal, cold and moist, hot and dry, and of no other thing can it be made. By those words it is manifest that the two Mercuries whereof our medicine is to be made are both of one root but of contrary qualities; that is to say, the one is Mercury fixed, the other not fixed; the one a corporeal, the other a spiritual; the one hot and dry, the other cold and moist; which several Mercuries are contrary, and contrary matters cannot be included in Sol and Luna. For they, as Agents, are only hot and dry, corporeal and fixed, but they are not, as patients, cold and moist, volatile or spiritual and unfixed, and therefore in them may be the masculine sperm, but in no wise the feminine; and therefore, saith Turba Philosophorum, a tincture proceeding from the fountain of Sol and Luna giveth perfection to imperfect metals, upon which considerations they have also set down this most excellent canon and principle, viz., the secret of all secrets is to know that Mercury is the matter and menstruum, and the matter of perfect bodies is the form. What is this but as who should say, seeing the Mercury drawn from the perfect bodies is the form or agent sperm of our medicine, then Mercury of an imperfect body must needs be the matter or feminine sperm; to the confirmation whereof Paracelsus saith thus: Philosophical Mercury that is of Sol, is in the conjunction compared unto the corporeal spirit of Mercury, as is the husband to his wife whereas they are both one, and the self same root and original, although the body of Sol remains fixed in the fire but the metallic woman unfixed. Notwithstanding that, compared to this, is no otherwise than the seeds to the field or earth.
By these words of Paracelsus it is evident that the difference between the metallic man and the metallic woman is that the metallic man is fixed and the metallic woman unfixed; by which means it is plain that this metallic woman cannot be Silver or the Spirit of Silver, as some do fondly surmise, and as the most do take it, but of some imperfect body that is unfixed. For who is so simple but knoweth that Luna is fixed and permanent in the fire and inseparably united with his pure white Sulphur.
Then it is proved the two perfect bodies are the agents, giving the forms and tinctures, and so, consequently to be the masculine sperm and no less proving that the feminine sperm is to be had from an unfixed body, of which nature neither of them is, and therefore we must yield to the apparent reasons and authority of the philosophers.
I shall now expound by some of the philosophers the saying of Hermes that his father is Sol and Luna his mother.
These words of Hermes, though they be so full of truth and have no deceit in them, yet a great number have been deceived thereby. The cause of their error is because they do not consider the nature of Luna, which they take to be meant of Hermes to be the mother of our matter. For if they did either consider the masculine property of Silver or perused the philosophers touching their construction of this point, they should well perceive that Luna is not the Silver that Hermes meaneth, but a certain unfixed matter or Mercury, of the nature and quality of the Celestial Luna, as in the Canons of the Philosophers appeareth, and in the Turba Philosophorum by these words: It is a thing worthy to be noted that Luna or Silver is not the mother of common Silver, but it is a certain Mercury endued with the nature and quality of the Celestial Moon, which is the same Mercury or woman before spoken of, that is not fixed as Silver is, but is the nature of the Celestial Moon in respect of her moist, unmixed and watery quality, having her fixation, form and tincture of her Sulphur as the Celestial Moon taketh light of the Sun. Therefore out of doubt it must be drawn from a body of the same nature, and not from a body of a contrary quality; for what can be more absurd than to think that an unfixed matter can be in a fixed metal or a fixed nature in an unfixed body. Consequently what can be more evident and manifest, seeing the philosophers do all affirm that the metallic man is fixed and the metallic woman unfixed, than that the fixed sperm must be had of a fixed metal and the unfixed and volatile nature out of an unfixed substance, and, therefore, by no means had from Luna, because of her fixed and masculine nature, which all the philosophers in plain terms confirm to be true, as in their Canons, by a question demanded and answered in this manner. The question amongst wise men is, whether the Mercury of Luna joined with the Mercury of Sol may be had instead of the philosophical menstruum. They answer, Mercury of Luna doth hold the nature of the male or masculine, but two males cannot engender no more than two females. Likewise in another place thus, the Sulphurs Sol and Luna are the two sperms or masculine seeds of the Medicine. And in the Turba thus, metallic Lunes are of a masculine nature. Thus I have proved that the two perfect metals are the two masculine bodies, from which we are to fetch our two masculine sperms or forms or tinctures, i.e., both of the red and white, which, seeing they are fixed and perfect bodies, the form and tincture and agents of our matter, they have sufficient reason of themselves to persuade that they can be no other than the masculine sperms, except we will, contrary to all rule of reason and nature, have one thing both the agent and the patient.
Now I will demonstrate which are the feminine bodies, and out of which the feminine sperms of our matter is to be fetched.
This secret of both these secrets is the greatest and requireth of itself to be kept as secretly in the hearts of all wise men hereafter as it hath been of all ancient philosophers heretofore.
Understand the secret by this Figure 3, which number indeed it doth contain in itself, and is the very figure of the Trinity of the Deity.
First I will show the reasons as the marks and tokens whereby thou shalt understand and know that this is the same feminine body where is the feminine sperm of our blessed matter, which I will prove by the authority of the philosophers in this manner. First the philosophers do all agree that the metallic man in our matter is fixed and the metallic woman unfixed. If, therefore, I prove our matter to be unfixed, it is a great argument and probability that our is the same woman.
The second mark and token whereby she is known is that the philosophers agree that their Mercury or water which reduceth their Gold or Sulphur into his First Matter is the same that abideth and is permanent with it as Trevisanus declareth. There is required in our natural solution the permanency of both, viz., of the water dissolving and of the dissolved body; and in another place, no water dissolveth the metallic essence with a natural reduction but that water which is abiding therein in matter and form, which water also, the metals themselves being dissolved, are able to congeal. And Arnoldus saith, the nature of the dissolved body and the dissolving water is all one, but only that the nature of the body is complete, digested and fixed, but the nature of the water is incomplete, undigested and volatile until it be fixed by the body. And in Paracelsus our woman dissolveth her man and the man fixeth the woman. By these words it is plain that the water which dissolveth the body is the same that is permanent with them, that is to say, the woman or feminine sperm that is to be joined with the man or masculine.
Paracelsus saith plainly, speaking in the person of the figure 3, my spirit is the water, dissolving the congealed bodies of my brethren and Raymund Lullius saith in his Epistle to the King, Our water, you know, is extracted from a certain stinking menstruum, which is compounded of four things, and is stronger than all the water of the world, and it is mortal, whose spirit multiplieth the tincture of the ferment. And in another place he saith, all alchemical Gold is made of corrosives and of an incorruptible quintessence, which is fixed with ferment, but such quintessence is a certain spirit reviving and mortifying the mineral medicine. And Turba Philosophorum saith, take the black spirit and with it dissolve bodies and divide them. Now consider the nature of our figure 3, and judge if this be that water or no. It must needs be the same, for the words fit the nature of our figure 3 and no other of the imperfect bodies but her, for all the philosophers agree that she is earthly, dark, cold and stinking, and Paracelsus nameth her plainly, the water dissolving her brethren.
Consider yet another note or mark whereby she is known, as the ancient and modern philosophers do affirm that their Gold must be sown in his own proper earth, as also in the Turba, let our Gold be sown in his own proper earth.
Arnoldus in his New Light saith, with my own hands, my eyes being witnesses I have made the Elixir that converted Saturn into Sol, which matter truly I have now named, and it is the philosophers Magnesia, out of which they found quicksilver of quicksilver and Sulphur of Sulphur. To construe these words rightly, what is our figure 3 but Mercury of Mercury, and what is our Gold but Sulphur of Sulphur. I will yet impart a greater secret.
It is written by good philosophers and found true infallibly by daily experience, that the figure 3 is never found simple or pure by himself in the mine, but is ever mixed with Gold or Silver, whose grains or seeds in him are plainly to be seen to the eyes; by which means it appeareth that there is no mine of himself, but he is the mine of them and so their very natural earth.
Consider these words following from Flammellus, and thou shalt yet hear a greater secret than these. Mercury being never so little congealed in the veins of the earth, there is straightways fixed in it the grain of Gold which, of the two sperms, do bring forth true springs and branch of Mercury as we may see in the caves of Saturn, wherein there is no mine in any of which the true grain of the fixed may not be contained manifestly, that is the grain of Gold or Silver. For the first congelation of Mercury is the mine of Saturn in which it is put by nature. This may truly be multiplied into his perfections without fail or error, being, notwithstanding, in his Mercury not separated from his mine. For the metal consisting in his mine is Mercury, from which if the grain be separated it will be an unripe apple plucked from his tree, which is altogether destroyed. The fixed grain is the apple and Mercury is the tree; therefore the fruit is not to be separated from the tree, because it cannot elsewhere receive nourishment then from his Mercury. It is as great a folly to put Gold or Silver into Mercury as to fasten an apple again to the tree from whence it was taken. Therefore, that this business might be duly accomplished, the tree together with his fruit must be taken, that again it might be planted, without taking away the fruit, into a more fertile and new soil, which will give more nourishment in one day than the first field would have yielded in an hundred years, for the continual agitation of the winds. Go up, therefore, into the Mountain that thou mayest see the vegetable, Saturnian, royal and mineral herb, for let the juice be taken pure , the feces being cast away, for thereof thou mayest effect the greatest part of thy work. This is the true Mercury of the Philosophers.
Trevisan confirms the matter thus. Our work is made of one root and two substances Mercurial, taken crude, drawn out of the mine clean and pure, conjoined by fire of amity as the matter requireth it, cocted continually until that of two be made one; and in this one, when the two are mixed, the body is made spirit and the spirit is made body. Paracelsus likewise speaking plainly in the name of our figure 3 saith: It would be profitable to the lesser world if he did know or at least believe what lay hid within me, and what I could effect, for he that doth discourse upon the art of Alchemy would more profitably understand that which I can do if he would use that only which is in me, and that which by me may be done. And in another place, under an enigma, he notably discovereth this our blessed matter where he saith: Whatsoever staineth into a white colour hath the nature of life and the power and property of light, which causally effecteth life; and contrariwise, whatsoever staineth into blackness or maketh black hath the nature common with death and the property of darkness and the strong power of death. The coagulation and fixation of such manner of corruption is the earth with her coldness. The house is always dead, but the inhabitant of the same liveth, and if thou canst find forth the example thereof thou hast prevailed.
By these words it appeareth that as the tincture of whiteness is the cause of life, which is the spirit of generation, so the blackness, which is the spirit of corruption, is death; and these two tinctures are in our blessed herb. The natural blackness whereof, that is to say our figure 3, is the spirit of the corruption or mortification, which is the same earth which he here noteth with his coldness. The same dead house within the artificial digestion is the death and mortification and putrefaction of the matter, and our Silver and Gold, which is naturally included in the same, is the tincture in his first artificial operation according to the philosophers, who say there is no Gold, but first was Silver before it was Gold. This tincture of whiteness is the same inhabitant which liveth in the same dead house, according to the saying before, the house is dead but they live which inhabit it; by which means it is plain that this is the same example which he speaketh of when he saith, the example whereof, if thou be able to find out, thou hast thy purpose.
Arnoldus noteth in his Rosary. This we see, that in the calculation of our figure 3, that first it is converted into black powder, next into white, then into a more yellow or red, which words very well discover his enigma written of this matter. Elsewhere he saith thus. The thing that hath both a red head, white foot and black eyes is the materia. Likewise it appeareth by the enigma of Hermes, The falcon is always on top of the mountain crying I am the white of the black and the red of the citron. Now I will show how there is in our figure 3 that which I before spake of; the other thing is to show how it is the Hermaphrodite or Adam of the philosophers.
In our mineral herb is the number of 3 thus. First therein is our figure 3. Secondly there is our Sulphur, i.e., our Gold or Silver which is naturally mixed with him. Thirdly there is the root of these two, that is to say Mercury or Quicksilver, whereof they were engendered, and whereunto they must be reduced, in respect of which trinity in unity it representeth the Figure of the Deity. Now of our Hermaphrodite or Adam therein. What else is our mineral herb but one root of two substances, wherein is both our man or woman, that is to say our Gold is our Man, or sperm masculine, or Silver according to his natural mine, which is also the Sulphur, the tincture, the ferment and form before spoken of, having the perfect and fixed nature of the man, and the two agent elements of fire and air in them, and our woman is our figure 3, i.e., which is the feminine sperm, the patient, the aqua the menstruum, the matter, the Spirit volatile and the undigested or unfixed body, having in her the two patient elements of water and earth.
Thus you see that Sol and Luna are the masculine sperms in our matter or figure 3, which is also the natural woman, water and earth of them both, where by nature they are planted and spring. That is to say the matter of our red work is our figure 3 joined with Sol and the matter of our white work is our figure 3 joined with Luna, which matters are first to be had for more surety and security of art even in nature itself called fex plumbi or Quehaeli Hispanica. And thus dost thou see in our blessed matter, 4. 3. 2. and 1., yea and one only thing according to the words of all philosophers, and that you may not in the least doubt of the truth hereof, I have truly laid it open. The root of the operation of art in the matter shall hereafter be at large declared.
Commending, for this great and gracious mystery and secret of nature, to the Godhead all eternal glory, to Whom it is due.
The Lord illuminate my heart with His light and truth so long as my spirit remains in me, for His light is very delightful and good for the eye of my soul to see by; for so shall the night be enlightened to me as the day, neither shall the clouds shadow it. It shall not be like the light of the Sun by day because it shall not be clouded, nor like the light of the Moon by night, because it shall never be diminished as her light is.
The sun was made to rule the day and not to give light to it only, as appears Gen. i. And the Moon was made to rule the night and not to give light to it only, because she hath no light to give. Also God made the whole Host of Heaven, the fixed stars and planets, and gave them virtues together with the luminaries, but these virtues are not so great as the virtues of the luminaries, neither is the virtue of the Moon so great as the virtue of the Sun, because she borrows her light from the Sun. Also the whole Host of Heaven, that is the fixed stars, move all in the same sphere, and therefore their distance is always the same, but it is not so with the planets, for their course is various and so is their distance the one from the other, and so is their latitude. For some times they are upon the ecliptic, sometimes North from it and sometimes South, sometimes retrograde, sometimes direct, sometimes in conjunction with one another, sometimes in opposition, sometimes in other aspects. The reason of this is because the sphere of one is lower than the sphere of the other and the lower the sphere is, the sooner they make their revolution.
The nearest to the earth of all the planets is the Moon, and therefore
her course is swiftest; and besides her difference in longitude or latitude
there happen other accidents to her, which are not visible to other planets;
for sometimes she increaseth and sometimes decreaseth, and sometimes she
is invisible or faileth in light. The reason why the planets are not seen
horned as the Moon is because their distance is greater from us. All the
planets are seen biggest when they are at their greatest distance from
the Sun, or when they are nearest to the earth according to Copernicus.
Also sometimes the Moon is eclipsed, but not in the same manner as the
Sun, for the Sun never loseth his light but is only shadowed from a particular
people or place by the body of the Moon, but the Moon, eclipsed totally,
loseth her light and the reason is the Sun's light is his own, but the
Moon's is a borrowed light. This being premised, I consider all things
under the Moon universally, whether men, beasts or planets, are changed
and never remain in the same state,
neither are their thoughts and their deeds the same. Take council of
your head and it will certify you of the truth hereof; and they are varied
according to the various course and disposition of the planets. Look upon
your own genesis and you shall find your thoughts moved to choler so often
as the Moon transits the place where the body or aspect of Mars was in
your genesis; and to melancholy when she doth the like to Saturn. The reason
is because the Moon is assimilated to the body of man, whose virtue as
well as her light increaseth and diminisheth, for she brings down the virtue
of the planets to the creatures and to man if he lives upon earth.
The Sun causeth heat and cold, day and night, winter and summer. When he arrives to the house of his honour or exaltation, to wit Aries, then the trees spring, living creatures are comforted, the birds sing, the whole of creation rejoiceth and sicknesses in the body show themselves in their colours. Also when he arrives at his Fall, to wit Libra, the leaves of the trees fall, all creatures are lumpish and mourn like the trees in October. Another notable Rosie Crucian experiment. Usually sick people are something eased from midnight to noon, because the Sun is in the ascending part of the heaven, but they are most troubled when the sun descends, that is from noon to midnight. The course of the Moon is to be observed in many operations both in the sea and the rivers, vegetables, minerals, shellfish, as also in the bones and marrow of men and of all creatures. Also seed sown in the wane of the Moon grows either not at all or to no purpose.
The Rosie Crucians have experiences of many virtues of the stars, and have left them to posterity, and have found the changes and terminations of diseases by the course of the Moon. Wherefore the 7th, 14th, 20th or 21st, 27th, 28th or 29th days of the sickness are called critical days, which cannot be known but by the course of the Moon. But rest not in the number of days, because the Moon is sometimes swifter, sometimes slower. As for such diseases as do not terminate in a month (I mean a lunar month, the time when the Moon moveth round the zodiac, which is in 27 days, some odd hours and minutes), you must judge of these by the course of the Sun.
The day is called critical because the Moon comes to the quartile of the place she was in at the decumbiture, sometimes a day sooner or later.
When she comes to opposition of the place she was in at the day of the decumbiture, she makes a second crisis; the third when she comes to the second quartile, and the fourth when she comes to the place she was in at the decumbiture, and then is the danger.
The reason of the difference of the Moon's motion is the difference of her distance from the earth, for when the centre of her circle is nearest to the centre of the earth, she is swift in motion; and hence it comes to pass that sometimes she moves more than 15 degrees in 24 hours, sometimes less than 12. Therefore if she be swift in motion she comes to her own quartile in six days, if slow, not in seven; therefore must you judge according to the motion of the Moon, and not according to the number of days.
Upon a critical day, if the Moon be well aspected with good planets, it goes well with the sick; if by ill planets it goes ill. You must be resolved in one particular which is, if the crisis depended upon the motion of the Moon and her aspect to the planets, what is the reason if two men be taken sick at one and the same time, that yet the crisis of the one falls out well and not so in the other. I answer, the virtue working is changed according to the diversity of the virtue receiving. For you all know the Sun makes the clay hard and the wax soft; it makes the cloth white and the face black; so then if one be a child whose nature is hot and moist, the other a young man and the third an old man, the crisis works diversely in them all because their ages are different. Secondly the time of year carries a great stroke in this business. If it be in the spring time, diseases are most obnoxious to a child because his nature is hot and moist; a disease works most violently with a choleric man in summer; with a phlegmatic man by reason of age or complexion in winter.
If the Moon be strong when she comes to the quartile or opposition of the place she was in at the decumbiture, viz. in her house of exaltation, the sick recovers if she be aspected to no planet.
Judge the like of the Sun in chronical diseases, but judge the contrary
if either of them be in detriment or fall. If the Moon be void of course
at the beginning of a disease, the sign is neither good nor bad. Look then
to the sign ascending at the beginning of a disease and let the Moon alone
for a time.
Observe the following directions how to prepare all the seven metals.
If Mars cause the disease, Venus helps more than Jupiter, that is a medicine
of Venus cures. If Saturn, then Jupiter more than Venus, i.e., prepared
Jupiter cures.
Whatsoever is said of the Moon in acute diseases will hold as true of the Sun in chronical diseases.
What diseases every planet signifies and the disease that are under the twelve signs, with the parts of the body every planet rules, the cure of those diseases by Rosie Crucian physic, by the seven metalic preparations, shall in his proper place be handled at large.
To unlock this grand Rosie Crucian mystery of the ASTROBOLISMES of metals, the miraculous saphiric medicines of the Sun and Moon, the ASTROBOLISMES of Saturn, Jupiter, Mars, Venus, Mercury.
Seriously consider the system or fabric of this world; it is a certain series a non gradu ad non gradum, from that which is beneath all apprehension to that which is above all apprehension. That which is beneath all degrees of sense is a certain horrible, inexpressible darkness. The magicians call it tenebrae activae, and the effect of it in nature is cold etc. For darkness is vultus frigoris, the complexion, body and matrix of cold, as light is the face, principle and fountain of heat. That which is above all degree of intelligence is a certain infinite, inaccessible fire or light. Dionysius calls it Caligo Divina, because it is invisible and incomprehensible. The Jew styles it Ein, that is nihil or nothing, but in a relative sense or, as the schoolmen express it, quoad nos. In plain terms it is Deitas nuda, sine indumento. The middle substance or chain between these two is that which we commonly call nature. This is the Scala of the great Chaldee which doth reach from the subternatural darkness to the supernatural fire. These middle natures came out of a certain water, which was the sperm or First Matter of the great world. And now we will begin to describe it: capiat qui capere potest.
It is in plain terms Cuton cai Ruton udwr, or rather it is Hcuth, that is Taia cumatwdhs cai to ceisetai ths ghs, an exceedingly soft, moist, fusible, flowing earth, an earth of wax that is capable of all forms and impressions. It is Udramenos ghgeneths, terrae filius aqua mixtus (Son of the Earth mixed with Water), and to speak as the nature of the thing requires, Tewmighs cai ghs gamos. The learned alchemist defines it as qeion argurion zwticon, enwsis twn pneumatun en swma. It is a divine animated mass, of complexion somewhat like Silver, the union of masculine and feminine spirits.
The quintessence of four, the ternary of two and the tetract of one. These are his generations, physical and metaphysical. The thing in itself is a world without form, neither mere power nor perfect action, but a weak virgin substance, a certain soft, prolific Venus, the very love and seed, the mixture and moisture of heaven and earth. This moisture is the mother of all things in the world; and the masculine, sulphureous fire of the earth is their father.
Now the Rosie Crucians, who without controversy were the wisest of people, when they discourse of the generation of metals tell us it is performed in this manner. The Mercury or mineral liquor, they say, is altogether cold and passive, and it lies in certain earthy, subterraneous caverns. But when the Sun ascends in the East his beams and heat, falling on this hemisphere, stir up and fortify the inward heat of the earth. Thus we see in winter weather that the outward heat of the Sun excites the inward, natural warmth of our bodies and cherisheth the blood when it is almost cold and frozen. Now then, the central heat of the earth, being stirred and seconded by the circumferential heat of the Sun, works upon the Mercury and sublimes it in a thin vapour to the top of its cell or cavern. But towards night, when the Sun sets in the West, the heat of the earth --- because of the absence of that great luminary --- grows weak and the cold prevails, so that the vapours of the Mercury, which were formerly sublimed, are now condensed and distil in drops to the bottom of the cavern. But the night being spent, the Sun again comes about to the East and sublimes the moisture as formerly. This sublimation and condensation continue so long till the Mercury takes up the subtle, sulphureous parts of the earth and is incorporated therewith, so that this Sulphur coagulates the Mercury and fixes him at last, that he will not sublime but lies still in a ponderous lump and is concocted to a perfect metal.
Take notice then that our Mercury cannot be coagulated without our Sulphur, for Draco non moritur sine suo compare, the Dragon dieth not apart from his fellow. It is water that dissolves and putrefies earth, and earth that thickens and putrefies water. You must therefore take two principles to produce a third agent, according to that dark receipt of Hali the Arabian. Accipe canem masculum Corascenum et catellam Armeniae: conjunge et parient tibi catulum coloris coeli. Take, saith he, the Corascene dog and the bitch of Armenia. Put them both together and they will bring thee a sky-coloured whelp. This sky-coloured whelp is that sovereign, admired and famous Mercury, known by the name of the philosopher's Mercury. Now for my part I advise thee to take two living Mercuries; plant them in a purified, mineral Saturn; wash them and feed them with water of salt vegetable; and thou shalt see that speech of the Adepts verified: Pariet mater florem germinalem, quem ubere suo viscoso nutriet, et se totam ei in cibum vertet, fovente patre. But the process or receipt is no part of my design, wherefore I will return to the First Matter; and I say it is no kind of water whatsoever. If thou wilt attain to the truth, rely upon my words, for I speak the truth. The mother or First Matter of metals is a certain watery substance, neither very water nor very earth, but a third thing compounded of both and retaining the complexion of neither. To this agrees the learned Valentine in his apposite and genuine description of our sperm. Materia prima, saith he, set aquosa substantia, sicca repeta et nulli materiae comparabilis. The First Matter is a waterish substance found dry, or of such a complexion that wets not the hand, and nothing like to any other matter whatsoever. Another excellent and well-experienced philosopher defines it thus. Est terrena aqua et aquosa terra, in terrae ventre terra commixta, cum qua se commiscet spiritus et coelestis comparabilis. It is, saith he, an earthy water and a watery earth, mingled with earth in the belly of the earth; and the spirit and influences of heaven commix themselves therewith. Indeed it cannot be denied but some authors have named this substance by the names of all ordinary waters, not to deceive the simple but to hide it from the ranting, ill disposed crew. On the contrary, some have expressly and faithfully informed us it is no common water, and especially the reverend Turba. Ignari, said Agadmon, cum audiunt nomen aquae putant aquam nubis esse, quod si libros nostros intelligerent, scirent esse aquam permanentum, quae absque suo compari cum quo facta est unum permanens esse non possit. The ignorant, saith he, when they hear us name water, think it is water of the clouds; but if they understood our books they should know it to be a permanent or fixed water which, without its companion, to which it hath been united, cannot be permanent. The noble and knowing Sendivogius tells us the very same thing. Aqua nostra est aqua coelestis, mon madefaciens manus, non vulgi, sed pluvialis. Our water is a heavenly water, which wets not the hands, not that of common water, but almost, as it were, pluvial. We must therefore consider the several analogies and similitudes of things, or we shall never be able to understand the philosophers.
This water then wets not the hands, which is notion enough to persuade us it can be no common water.
It is a metalline, bitter, saltish liquor. It hath a true mineral complexion. Habet, saith Raimund Lullis, speciem solis et lunae, et in tali aqua nobis apparuit, non in aqua fontis aut pluviae. But in another place he describes it more fully. Est aqua sicca, saith he, non aqua nubis aut phlegmatica, sed aqua cholerica, igne calidior. It is a dry water, not water of the clouds or phlegmatic water, but a choleric water, more hot than fire. It is, moreover, greenish to the sight, and the same Lully tells you so. Habet colorem lacertae viridis. It looks, saith he, like a green lizard. But the most prevalent colour in it is a certain inexpressible azure, like the body of heaven in a clear day. It looks in truth like the belly of a snake, especially near the neck, where the scales have a deep blue tincture; and this is why the philosophers call it their serpent or dragon. The predominant element in it is a certain fiery, subtle earth, and from this prevalent part the best philosophers have denominated the whole compound. Paracelsus names it openly but in one place, and he calls it viscum terrae, the slime or viscous part of the earth. Raymund Lully describeth the crisis or constitution of it in these words: Substantia lapidis, nostri, saith he, est tota pinguis, et igne impregnata. The substance of our Stone is altogether fat or viscous and impregnated with fire --- in which respect he calls it elsewhere not water but earth. Capias terrum nostram, saith he, impregnatam a sole, quia lapidem est honoratus, repertus in hospitiis, et est intus inclusum velut magnum secretum et thesaurus incantatus. Take our earth which is impregnated or with child by the sun; for it is our precious Stone which is found in desolate houses, and there is shut up in it a great secret and treasure enchanted. And again, in a certain place, he delivers himself thus: Prima materia, Fili, est terra subtilis sulphurea, et haec nobilis terra dictum est subjectum mercuriale. My son, he saith, the First Matter is a subtle, sulphureous earth, and this noble earth is called a mercurial subject. Know then for certain that this slimy, moist sperm or earth must be dissolved into water, and this is the Water of the Philosophers, not any common water whatsoever. This is the grand secret of the Art, and Lully discovers it with a great deal of honesty and charity. Argentum vivum nostrum, saith he, non est argentum vivum vulgare: imo argentum vivum nostrum est aqua alterius naturae, quae reperiri non potest supra terram, cum in actionem venire non possit per naturam, absque adjutorio ingenii et humanorum manuum operationibus. Our Mercury is not common Mercury or Quicksilver. But our Mercury is a water which cannot be found on earth, for it is not made or manifested by the ordinary course of nature, but by the art and manual operations of man. Seek not then for that in nature which is an effect beyond her ordinary process; you must help her, that she may exceed beyond her common course, or all is to no purpose. In a word, you must make this water before you can find it. In the interim you must permit the philosophers to call their subject or chaos a water, for there is no proper name for it, unless we call it a sperm, which is a watery substance but certainly no water. Let it suffice that you are not cheated, for they tell you what it is and what it is not, which is all that man can do. If I ask you by what name you call the sperm of a chick you will tell me it is the white of an egg, and truly so is the shell as well as the sperm that is within it. But if you call it earth or water you know well enough it is neither; and yet you cannot find a third name. Judge then as you should be judged, for this is the very case of the philosophers. Certainly you must be very unreasonable if you expect that language from men which God hath not given them.
Now that we may confirm this our theory and discourse of the sperm not only by experience but by reason, it is necessary that we consider the qualities and temperament of the sperm. It is then a slimy, slippery, diffusive moisture. But if we consider any perfect products, they are firm, compacted, figurated bodies; and hence it follows they must be made of something that is not firm, not compacted, not figurated, but a weak, quivering, altering substance. Questionless thus it must be, unless we make the sperm to be of the same complexion with the body; and then it must follow that generation is no alteration. Again, it is evident to all the world that nothing is so passive as moisture. The least heat turns water to a vapour and the least cold turns that vapour to water. Now let us consider what degree of heat it is that acts in all generations, for by the agent we may guess at the nature of the patient. We know the sun is so remote from us that the heat of it, as daily experience tells us, is very faint and remiss. I desire then to know what subject there is in all nature that can be altered with such a weak heat but moisture. Certainly none at all; for all hard bodies, as salts, stones and metals, preserve and retain their complexions in the most violent, excessive fires. How then can we expect that they should be altered by a gentle and almost insensible warmth? It is plain then, and that by infallible inference from the proportion and power of the agent, that moisture must needs be the patient. For that degree of heat which nature makes use of in her generations is so remiss and weal it is impossible for it to alter anything but what is moist and waterish. This truth appears in the animal family, where we know well enough that sperms are moist. Indeed in vegetables the seeds are dry, but then nature generates nothing out of them till they are first macerated or moistened with water. And here the Peripaptetic philosophers are quite gone with their pura potentia, that fanatic chaos of the son of Nichomacus.
But I must advise my chemists to beware of any common moisture, for that will never be altered otherwise than to a vapour. See, therefore, that thy moisture be well tempered with earth; otherwise thou hast nothing to dissolve and nothing to coagulate. Remember the practise and magic of the Almighty God in His creation, as it is manifested to thee by Moses. In principio, saith he, creavit Deus coelum et terram. But the original, if it be truly and rationally rendered, speaks thus: In principio Deus miscuit rarum et densum. In the beginning God mingled or tempered together the thin and the thick. For heaven and earth in this text signify the Virgin Mercury and the Virgin Sulphur. This I will prove out of the text itself, and that by the vulgar, received translation, which runs thus: In the beginning God created the heaven and the earth. And the earth was without form and void; and darkness was upon the face of the abyss. And the Spirit of God moved upon the face of the waters. In the first part of this text Moses mentions two created principles, not a perfect world, as we shall prove hereafter, and this he doth in these general terms, heaven and earth. In the latter part of it he describes each of these principles in more particular terms and he begins with the earth. And the earth, saith he, was without form and void. Hence I infer that the earth he speaks of was a mere rudiment or principle of this earth which I now see; for this present earth is neither void nor without form. I conclude then that the Mosaical earth was the Virgin Sulphur, which is an earth without form, for it hath no determined figure. It is a laxative, unstable, incomposed substance, of a porous, empty, crasis, like sponge or soot. In a word, I have seen it, but it impossible to describe it. After this he proceeds to the description of his heaven or second principle in these subsequent words. And the Spirit of God moved upon the face of the waters. Here he calls an abyss and waters what he previously called heaven. It was indeed the heavenly water or chaos, out of which the separated heaven or habitation of the stars was afterwards made. This is very clear from the original, for Hamaim and Hashamaim are the same words like Aqua and Ibi Aqua, and they signify one and the same substance, namely water. The text then being rendered according to the primitive natural truth and the undoubted sense of the author speaks thus: In the beginning --- or, according to the Jerusalem Targum, in wisdom --- God made the water and the earth. And the earth was without form and void; and there was darkness upon the face of the deep. And the Spirit of God moved upon the face of the waters. Here you should observe that God created two principles, earth and water, and of these two He compounded a third, namely the sperm or chaos. Upon the water, or moist part of this sperm, the Spirit of God did move; and, saith the Scripture, there was darkness upon the face of the deep. This is a very great secret; neither is it lawful to publish it expressly and as the nature of the thing requires, but in the magical work it is to be seen, and I have been an eye-witness of it myself.
To conclude: remember that our subject is no common water, but a thick, slimy, fat earth. This earth must be dissolved into water and that water must be coagulated again into earth. This is done by a certain natural agent which the philosophers call their Secret Fire. For if you work with common fire it will dry your sperm and bring it to an unprofitable red dust, of the colour of wild poppy. Their Fire then is the Key of the Art, for it is a natural agent but acts not naturally without the sun. I must confess it is a knotty mystery, but we shall make it plain if you be not very dim and dull. It requires indeed a quick, clear apprehension. Behold our Bramaah and their wonderful mysteries, for by them you may cure all diseases, young or old, but know first our fire and use in the work.
Fire, notwithstanding the diversities of it in this sub-lunary kitchen of the elements, is but one thing from one root. The effects of it are various, according to the distance and nature of the subject wherein it resides, for that makes it vital or violent. It sleeps in most things, as in flints, where it is silent and invisible. It is a kind of perdue, lies close like a spider in the cabinet of his web, to surprise all that comes within his lines. He never appears without his prey in his foot. Where he finds aught that's combustible there he discovers himself; for if we speak properly, he is not generated, but manifested. Some men are of opinion that he breeds nothing but devours all things and is therefore called Ignis quasi ingignens. This is a grammatical whim, for there is nothing in the world generated without fire. What a fine philosopher then was Aristotle, who tells us this agent breeds nothing but his pyrausta, a certain fly which he found in his candle but could never be seen afterwards. Indeed too much heat burns and destroys; and if we ascend to other natures, too much water drowns, too much earth buries and chokes the seed, that it cannot come up. And verily at this rate there is nothing in the world that generates. What an owl was he then that could not distinguish, with all his logic, between excess and measure, between violent and vital degrees of heat, but concluded the fire did breed nothing because it consumed something. But let the mule pass, for so Plato called him, and let us prosecute our Secret Fire. This Fire is at the root and about the root - I mean about the centre --- of all things, both visible and invisible. It is in water, earth and air; it is in minerals, herbs and beasts; it is in men, stars and angels. But originally it is in God Himself; for He is the Fountain of heat and fire, and from Him it is derived to the rest of the creatures in a certain stream or sunshine.
Now the Rosie Crucians afford us but two notions whereby we may know their fire. It is, as they describe it, moist and invisible. Hence they have called it their venter equi and fimus equinus, but this is only by way of analogy, for there is in horse-dung a moist heat but no fire that is visible. Now let us compare the common Vulcan with this philosophical Vesta, that we may see wherein they are different. First, then, the philosopher's fire is moist, and truly so is that of the kitchen too. We see that flames contract and extend themselves; now they are short, now they are long, which cannot be without moisture to maintain the flux and continuity of their parts. I know Aristotle makes the fire to be simply dry, perhaps because the effects of it are so. He did not indeed consider that in all complexions there are other qualities besides the predominant one. Surely then this dry stuff is that element of his wherein he found his pyrausta. But if our natural fire were simply dry the flames of it could not flow and diffuse themselves as they do: they would rather fall to dust or turn, like their fuel, to ashes. The common fire is excessively hot, but moist in a far inferior degree, and therefore destructive, for it preys on the moisture of other things. On the contrary, the warmth and moisture of the magical agent are equal; the one tempers and satisfies the other. It is a humid, tepid fire, or, as we commonly express ourselves, blood-warm. This is their first and greatest difference in relation to our desired effect: we will now consider the second. The kitchen fire, as we all know, is visible, but the philosopher's fire is invisible, and therefore no kitchen fire. This Almadir expressly tells us in these words: Solas radios invisibilis ignis nostri sufficere. Our work, saith he, can be performed by nothing but the invisible beams of our fire. And again: Ignis moster corrosivus est ignis, qui supra mostrum vas nubem obducit, in qua nube radii hujus ignis occulti sunt. Our fire is a corrosive fire which brings a cloud about our glass or vessel, in which cloud the beams of our fire are hidden. To be short: the philosophers call this agent their bath, because it is moist as baths are; but in very truth it is no kind of bath, neither maris nor roris, but a most subtle fire, and purely natural; but the excitation of it is artificial. This excitation or preparation is a very trivial, slight, ridiculous thing. Nevertheless all the secrets of corruption and generation are therein contained. Lastly, I think it just to inform thee that many authors have falsely described this fire, and that of purpose, to seduce their readers. For my own part I have neither added nor diminished. Thou hast here the true, entire secret, in which all the easterns agree, Alfid, Almadir, Belen, Gierberim, Hali, Salmanazar and Zadich, with the three famous Jews, Abraham, Artephius and Kalid. Now I will tell thee how to use it.
Take our two serpents, which are to be found everywhere on the face of the earth. They are a living male and a living female. Tie them both in a love-knot and shut them up in an Arabian Caraha. This is thy first labour, but thy next is more difficult. Thou must encamp against them with the fire of nature, and be sure that thou dost bring thy line about. Circle them in and stop all avenues, that they find no relief. Continue this siege patiently; and they will turn into an ugly black toad, which will be transformed to a horrible devouring Dragon, creeping and weltering in the bottom of her cave, without wings. Touch her not by any means, not so much as with thy hands, for there is not upon this earth such a violent transcendent poison. As thou hast begun so proceed, and this Dragon will turn to a Swan, but more white than the hovering, virgin snow when it is not yet sullied with the earth. Henceforth I will allow thee to fortify thy fire till the Phoenix appears. It is a red bird of a most deep colour, with a shining, fiery hue. Feed this bird with the fire of his father and the ether of his mother; for the first is meat and the second is drink, and without this last he attains not to his full glory. Be sure to understand this secret, for fire feeds not well unless it first be fed. It is of itself dry and choleric; but a proper moisture tempers it, gives it a heavenly complexion and brings it to the desired exaltation. Feed thy bird then as I have told thee, and he will move in his nest and rise like a star of the firmament. Do this and thou hast placed nature in horizonte aeternitatis. Thou hast performed the command of the Kabalist: Fige finem in principio, sicut, flammam prunae conjunctam, quia Dominus superlative unus et non tenet secundum. Unite the end to the beginning, like a flame to a coal; for God, saith he, is superlatively one and He hath no second. Consider then what you seek; you seek an indissoluble, miraculous, transmuting, uniting union; but such a tie cannot be without the First Unity. Creare enim, saith one, atque intrinsecus transmutare absque violentia, munus est proprium duntaxat Primae Potentiae, Primae Sapientiae, Primi Amoris. To create and transmute essentially and naturally, or without any violence, is the only proper office of the first Power, the first Wisdom and the first Love. Without this love the elements will never be married; they will never inwardly and essentially unite, which is the end and perfection of magic. Study then to understand this, and when thou hast performed I will allow thee that test of the Mekkubalim: Intellexisti in sapientiam et sapuisti in intelligentia; statuisti rem super puritates suas, et Creatorem in Throno Suo collocasti.
To close this section, I say it is impossible to generate in the patient without a vital, generating agent. This agent is the philosophical fire, a certain moist, heavenly, invisible heat. But let us hear Raymund Lully describe it: Quando dicimus, saith he, quod lapis per ignem generatur, non vident alium ignem, nec alium credunt, nisi ignem communem; nec aliud Sulphur, nec aliud Argentum Vivum, nisi sit vulgare. Ideo manent decepti per eorum caecas estimationes, inferentes quod causa sumus suae deceptionis et quod dedimus illis intelligere rem unam pro alia. Sed non est verum salva eorum pace, sicut probabimus per illa quae philosophi posuerunt in scriptis. Solem enim appellamus ignem, et vicarium suum vocamus calorem naturalem. Nam illud quod agit calor solis in mineris metallorum per mille annos, ipse calor naturalis facit in una hora supra terram. Nos vero et multi alii vocamus eum Filium Solis, nam primo per solis influentiam fuit generatus per naturam, sive adjutorium scientiae vel artis. When we say the Stone is generated by fire, men neither see, neither do they believe there is any other fire but the common fire, nor any other Sulphur and Mercury but the common Sulphur and Mercury. Thus they are deceived by their own opinions, saying that we are the cause of their error, having made them to mistake one thing for another. But, by their leave, it is not so, as we shall prove by the doctrine of the philosophers. For we call the sun a fire and the natural heat we call his substitute or deputy. For that which the heat of the sun performs in a thousand years in the mines, the heat of nature performs above the earth in one hour. But we and many other philosophers have called this heat the Child of the Sun, for at first it was generated naturally by the influence of the sun without the help of our Art or knowledge. Thus Lully: but one thing I must tell thee, and be sure, Reader, thou dost remember it. This very natural heat must be applied in the just degree and not too much fortified; for the sun itself doth not generate but burn and scorch where it is too hot. Si cum igne magno operatus fueris, saith the same Lully, proprietas nostri spiritus, quae inter vitam et mortem participet, separabit se et anima recedet in regionem sphaerae suae. If thou shalt work with too strong a fire, the propriety of our spirit, which is different as yet to life or death, will separate itself from the body, and the soul will depart to the region of her own sphere.
Take therefore along with thee this short but wholesome advice of the same author: Facis ergo, Fili, quod if loco generationis aut conversionis sit talis potentia coelestis quae possit transformae humidum ex natura terrestri, in formam et speciem transparentem et finissimam. My son, saith he, let the heavenly power or agent be such in a place of generation or mutation that it may alter the spermatick humidity from its earthly complexion to a moist fire, transparent form or species.
See here now the solution of the slimy, fat earth to a transparent, glorious Mercury! This Mercury is the water which we look after, but not any common water whatsoever. There is nothing now behind but that which the philosophers call Secretum Artis, a thing that was never published and without which you will never perform, though you know both fire and matter. An instance hereof we have in Flamel, who knew the Matter well enough and had both fire and furnace painted to him by Abraham the Jew; but notwithstanding he erred for three years because he knew not the secret. Henry Madathan, a most noble philosopher, practised upon the subject for five years together but knew not the right method and therefore found nothing. At last, saith he, Post sextum annum clavis potentiae per arcanam revelationem ab omnipotente Deo mihi concredita est; after the sixth year I was entrusted with the Key of Power by secret revelation from the Almighty God. This Key of Power or third secret was never put to paper by any philosopher whatsoever. Paracelsus indeed hath touched upon it, but so obscurely it is no more to the purpose than if he had said nothing.
And now I have done enough for discovery and regimen of the fire, and more than any one author hath performed. Search it then, for he that finds this fire will attain to the true temperament; he will make a noble, deserving philosopher and, to speak in the phrase of our Spaniard, Dignus erit poni ad mensam duodecim parium.
And now I will teach you how to make the DRAMAAH into Medicine mixed
with the metals. And first
Of Mercury:
The Rosie Crucians describe unto us the Mount of God and his Mystical, philosophical Geomancy, which is nothing else but the highest and purest part of the earth; for from Tetragrammaton He shines upon the Orders and they carry His power to the planets, so you see the superior, secret portion of this element is holy ground; it is the seed plot of the eternal nature. And the Chaos was divided into eight parts; the eight was deadly, but first of the seven; the matter was the body of the lapsed Angels. After light began to appear, the centre was red, an ash colour blush; the circumference blue. The second division green, fiery red and purple. In the third division the centre was fiery, the inferior waters purple and the superior white. The fourth division was azure blush, the Sun and Moon then appearing pale blush. In the fifth division the earth was red and the centre fiery, the waters blush azure, the Sun and Moon ash colour. The sixth division of the earth was a red blush, and centre fiery. The seventh apparition is the immediate vessel and recipient of heaven, whence all minerals have their life and by which the animal monarchy is maintained.
This philosophical black Saturn mortifies and coagulates the invisible Mercury of the Stars and, on the contrary, the Mercury kills and dissolves the Saturn; and out of the corruption of both, the Central and Circumferential Suns disgenerate new bodies, the Green Lion in a blush circle; the Green Lion swallowed to the hinderparts; the virtues in a purple vessel of Nature, half Moon made; the vegetable animal mineral in a blush; calcination of fiery and blue earth; sublimation fiery, airy and azure; solution black, white and azure; the Spirit descends. The masculine and feminine Mercury generated there will appear azure, purple, ash colour, yellow and red. In putrefaction our matter is black and azure; the Spirit descends. In conception our Astrum Solis is a bloody, fiery, spirited earth; the Spirit descends and the superfinals are azure. In impregnation the Astrum Solis ascends from a muddy water and the Spirit with it. In fermentation the black, shabby toad lies sultering in his vessel, and the Spirit in azure descending appears in separation of fire, air, water and earth. The toad lies in the earth black, the earth ash colour, the water green, the air blue, the fire blood-red and the aether a liquid white fire; the Spirit ascends. In conjunction of elements the fire is red, air blue, water green and earth dark ash and the Spirit descends in a clear sky. In separation of earth, fire, air and water, the earth lies in the bottom dark, the fire flaming upon it, breaking through the air to the water, and disposeth itself in conjunction of water in air; the Spirit descends in a clear sky to that blue composition; the air in the water is green, the fire red and the earth ashy. In the separation of fire, water, air in water, earth, the earth is dark, muddy, the air in water blue, the water transparent and the fire flaming red and white, and the Spirit ascends in an azure sky.
In conjunction of air in fire, fire in water, water in air, earth, the earth is dark and heavy, the water in air blue, the fire in water green, the air in fire a blush red; the Spirit descends in a clear sky. In separation air, water, fire in air, earth, the earth is ash colour, fire in air blood red, flaming through the azure water and air; the Spirit ascends. In conjunction fire in air, water in fire, air in water, earth, the earth is black, the air in water is green, the water in fire is like the sunbeams in a mist, the fire above all lies in the air blue, flaming; the Spirit descends. The next separation is flames of fire breaking out in all the elements, the earth only lies of a darker colour. The unnatural fire stands thus, air water, fire earth, the earth covered with a blue flame, the fire ascending to the central colour, water and air; the Spirit descends. The rising of the Rosie Crucians Medicines. The earth cineri coloris, a white star and moon appearing in a star; the power and Spirit ascends in a clear sky. In fermentation a dark star lies in the earth and the Spirit descends to it in a clear sky. In purgation the earth is black and the Spirit descends clear. In this separation there appears water in air, fire in water, turned upwards; below is a blue space, then the earth in fire is red, air in earth ash colour.
In this conjunction of air in fire, water in earth, fire in air, earth in water; the earth in water is dark, the fire in air red, but not violent, the water in earth green, the air in fire blue; the Spirit descends. And in this conjunction of earth in air, water in fire, and fire in earth; here in the bottom the earth is animated with a secret fire, invisible, occult, the water shadows a mild fire, the air in water above these is green and glorious, the earth in air is a bluish white; the Spirit descends.
In this exaltation of the Quintessence the Pelican is in the bottom; next above is azure; then two circles; of the first the upper is blue, the lower a white fire; the next is a green and red sea of fire environing the white matter, and this exaltation of the Quintessence is azure, a globe which in the bottom is divided in four quarters; from the East to the South is blue, from the South to the West green, from the West to the North white, from the North to the East red, and all the upper part of it azure. Above this globe the fire flames upon both sides. In fixation the branches of fire spread both ways round the white and azure globe; this projection is upon a blue and white powder, the perspect in Multiplication runs down the vessel through the azure to the matter in the bottom.
In imbibition the Serpent lies at the bottom of the matter; in sublimation a strong fire drives the azure part to the top; in coagulation the azure binds or weighs down the fire to the bottom; in conjunction the fire star lies in the bottom; in the175 exaltation the double circled fire arises, and in the176 quintessence appears an Angel amidst the ascending globes of fire; and in fixation all is circled with purple and red fire and in the middle stands an Angel in a star, doubled, with his wings spread and holding the glorious Crown of the Rosie Cross in his hands.
1. Of the Preparation of the Gold, Mercury or Argent Vive. 2. Purification.
3. Sublimation. 4. Calcination. 5. Exuberation. 6. Solution. 7. Separation.
8. Conjunction. 9. Putrefaction into Sulphur. 10. Fermentation.
11. Multiplication in virtue. 12. Multiplication in quantity.
1. He that can make the medicine of Argent Vive or Mercury alone is the greatest searcher out of Art and Nature because there is all that in Mercury which wise men seek. For Quicksilver is the Mother and Sperm of all metals and their nearest matter, and it is not only a spirit but a body; it is also a middle nature and also a Sulphur; it is a lingering Mercury; it dieth and riseth again and is fixed with its own proper elements; wherefore it is first necessary that it be purged from its impurities.
2. The Purgation or Purification is on this wise. Grind it upon a marble with a mullet, or a wooden pestle in a wooden mortar, with common salt and a little vinegar sprinkled thereupon till the salt be black; then wash it well with vinegar and dry it easily at the fire or at the sun; then strain it through a double cloth or a new skin of a sheep till it be dry and the vinegar clear taken away and be of a white colour and clear.
3. Grind it upon a marble with a little Mercury Sublimate and let it mortify and incorporate with it; then grind it with its equal weight of Saltpeter and green Copperas till it be like a paste; then put all into a subliming glass and in ashes sublime all the mercury that it be white and clean as snow in the head of the limbeck; sublime it again three times or oftener, and it will be pure Mercury and Sublimate.
4. Put a pound of this Mercury Sublimate into two pounds of common Aqua Fortis by little and little at once till all be dissolved like sugar in wine; then shut the glass and set it in Balneo to dissolve the space of ten days; then distil away the Aqua Fortis in a lent heat in Balneo and the Mercury will remain in the bottom like butter, of a white colour and calcined by Corrosive Water.
5. Put this calcined Mercury into an earthen body with a limbeck and in ashes sublime the whole dissolved substance three times, which will all be very white, and then it is called Mercury Exuberate.
When you have three or four pound of this, receive the third part and fix it by often sublimation till it remain in a hard mass and ascend no more but remain fixed, which is called the Glue of the Eagle or the prepared body permanent and the volatile made fixed, which is to be reserved for the earth of the Stone.
6. Dissolve the other two parts in Balneo or in a cold cellar or put
it in a bladder and hang it over fuming hot water till it be all come to
water.
Take this water thus made and digest it in a Circulatory, well closed,
the space of nine days, then put it in a body with a head and receiver
well luted and in ashes or in Balneo distil the water of a white colour,
or milky white, which is called Lac Virginis, dissolving all metals, and
so you have separated the Spirit of the Stone, which is also called the
lingering Spirit and the white tincture of the white Stone of Mercury.
7. Take the third part which before you reserved and fixed, called the Glue of the Eagle, as much of it as you please, and add thereto equal weight of its Spirit or Lac Virginis and stop up the glass and so you have joined the man and the woman, Mercury with her own earth, the Spirit with the body.
8. Set your Lac Virginis thus joined with his own, each in Balneo to putrefy days and there let it stand unmoved. After 40 days it will be black and it is then called the Head of the Crow; then it will be of a green colour, after that the Peacock's Tail and many false colours, for between this and white it will appear red; but at last you shall see it white and then increase your fire and it will stick to the sides of the glass like fishes eyes, then you have each in the nature of Sulphur.
Take of this Sulphur as much as you please and weigh it and add thereto two parts of the white tincture or Lac Virginis and set it in Balneo to dissolve the space of six days; then distil away the Lac Virginis or tincture, and the Sulphur will remain in the form of liquor, for it is the liquor of the white Sulphur of Mercury which is to be joined with the liquor of the Sulphur of Luna or Silver.
9. The Sulphur of the white luminary, or Silver, or Luna, is made as the other, whereof we shall speak more in the next branch. This liquor of the Sulphur is the Soul, which is joined with the Spirit and body, which quickeneth the whole Stone. The other conjunction before was only the union of the Spirit and the body, but this is a threefold copulation, viz., the uniting of the Soul, Spirit and Body. Add equal weight of these two liquors of Sulphur, that is to say the liquor of the Sulphur of Mercury and of Silver or Luna and close well the glass and set it in ashes till it be white, for it will be all colours again and at last white; and then it is the perfect Stone converting all metals into Silver.
10. This Medicine or Elixir is thus multiplied in virtue. Dissolve it in Lac Virginis and distil it away and dry it and dissolve it again etc. And let it be so often dissolved and dried till it will dry no more but remain an incombustible oil, and is then Elixir of the third order.
11. Take one part of this Elixir and project it upon 100 or 1,000 parts of melted silver (according to the goodness and virtue thereof) and it will turn the Silver into a brittle mass or substance, which beat to a powder in an iron or brass mortar, or upon a marble and project one part of this powder upon 100 parts of Mercury, purged, made hot, and it will be perfect Medicine whereof one part turneth 100 or 1,000 parts of the bodies into good silver. And this way is your Medicine multiplied in quantity. Here followeth the Mercurial Medicine prepared after we have taught you to make the Medicine of the Moon.
12. It remaineth now that we speak of the Medicine of the Elixir of Life, which is called Potable Silver. But although the liquor of Silver may be made potable Silver if it be corroborated before by digestion in Balneo seven days with the Spirit of Wine, and then distil away the Spirit of Wine that the oil of the Silver may remain in the bottom, which may easily be given for medicine, yet the philosophers would have us do otherwise; for they teach us to bring the metals first into their Quintessence before they be taken inwardly, and that there are no other Quintessences but those that are of a Second Nature according to the old saying:
Elixir de te est res secunda
De quo sunt facta corpora munda.
That is to say the four Elements are destroyed and by putrefaction a new body is created and made into a Stone, which is the Quintessence as Lully would have it. But I do boldly and constantly affirm that there is no true Silver or Potable Silver nor Quintessence unless it be first Elixir, and that is done in a quarter of an hour by projection of the Elixir upon Silver or pure Gold, molten, according as the Elixir was red or white. If, therefore, you desire after the first composition of the Elixir to make the Arcanum of Argentum or Aurum Potabile, project the Elixir or Medicine according to his quality or property upon pure Silver or Gold, molten, and then it is made brittle and frangible, and grind it to a powder and take thereof so much as you please and dissolve it in distilled Vinegar (or rather in Spirit of Wine) the space of nine days. Then distil away the Vinegar or Spirit of Wine and that which remaineth in the bottom is the true Medicine, Quintessence, Elixir of Life, Ferment of Ferments and Incombustible Oil converting metals and man's body into perfect health from all diseases of man's body which proceed from Mercury or Luna. And thus is the true Potable Silver made, curing the vertigo, syncope, epilepsy, madness, phrensy, leprosy, etc.
And this is the right way of making the Stone of Mercury alone; but the Elixir cannot be made without the addition of Silver to the white and of Gold to the red.
To each this work, consider eight principles:
1. Luna. 2. Pure Silver. 3. Calcination. 4. Solution. 5. Putrefaction. 6. The Sulphur. 7. The Liquor of the Sulphur. 8. White Ferment.
Hermes saith the Elixir is nothing else but Mercury, Sol and Luna. By Mercury nothing is understood but the Sulphur of Nature, which is called the true Mercury of the philosophers, and that Sulphur gotten by putrefaction by the conjunction of the Spirit and the body of imperfect bodies and metals.
By Sol is meant Gold, by Luna, Silver; both of them are to be joined to imperfect bodies, that is to say, white Sulphur and Red, whence the same Hermes, in his seventh treatise of Sol, saith there happeneth a conjunction of two bodies, and it is necessary in our maistry. And if one of those bodies only were not in our Medicine, it would never by any means give any tincture. Upon which Morienus saith: For the Ferment prepareth the imperfect body and converteth it to its own nature and there is no Ferment but Sol and Luna, that is Gold and Silver. Of which Rosinus saith: Sol and Luna prepared (that is to say their Sulphurs) are the ferments of metals in colour.
But this is made more evident by Raymund in his Apertory, where he saith there is no Ferment except Sol and Luna, for the Ferment of the Medicine to white is Silver and to the red Gold, as the philosophers do demonstrate, because without Ferment there doth proceed neither Gold nor Silver nor anything else that is of its kind or nature, therefore join the Ferment with its Sulphur that it may beget its like, because the Ferment draweth the Sulphur to its own colour and nature also, and weight and sound185, because every like begetteth its like. Because the Ferment, even as Sol, tingeth and changeth his Sulphur into a permanent and piercing Medicine, therefore the philosopher saith: He that knoweth how to tinge Sulphur and Mercury with Sol and Luna shall attain to the greatest secret. And for this reason it is necessary that Sol and Luna be the tincture and ferment thereof.
2. And so also Arnoldus saith in his Rosary, there is no body more noble and pure than Sol or his shadow, that is to say Silver, without which no tingeing Mercury is generated. He that endeavoureth to give colour without this Gold or Silver goeth blindly to work, like an ass to a harp, for Gold giveth a golden and Silver an argentive colour; therefore he that knoweth how to tinge Mercury with Sol and Luna cometh or reacheth to the secret which is called white Sulphur, the best to Silver, which, when it be made red, will be red Sulphur, to Gold best.
3. Take pure Luna, that is to say Silver. That is best which is beaten into leaves; and bring it into calx with Mercury, and it is then called water Silver; then is the Luna well prepared for calcination.
4. When you have your Silver thus prepared, take four or six ounces thereof and put it in double proportions of Lac Virginis mixed with equal quantity of corrosive water to dissolve in an egg glass. After it hath dissolved so much as it can in the cold, set it in Balneo and there let it stand nine days till the whole substance of the silver be dissolved into a green water. Then let the Balneum cool and take it out and put the dissolution into the body and set thereon a head and distil off the water from the matter remaining, which is the oil of Silver, calcined not into a calx but into a liquor, because this Lac Virginis, if it be mixed or joined with common Aqua Fortis or alone without it (as it pleaseth the operator) is so strong that the very Diamond cannot resist it but is dissolved. Therefore this water is called the Water of Hell and is the only miracle of miracles of the world, because it containeth such a fiery nature in itself and propriety of burning of all bodies into liquor, whereas the elemental fire prevaileth no further than to reduce metals into calx or ashes. But to return from whence I digressed, I now come to the third operation.
5. To the end, therefore, that this liquor or oil of Silver may be more perfectly dissolved, and that all the imperfection of adustion may be taken away, which by the ancients is called the corroborating of the least humidity, put the oil or liquor into another egg glass like the former, pour thereupon so much Spirit of Wine above it as shall reach to a depth of four fingers, then close well the glass and set it in Balneo to digest seven or ten days and you shall find the oil or liquor turned into a thin or rare water or oil. Put this water into a still and in Balneo draw away the spirit of wine till none of the Spirit of Wine remain with the Silver dissolved, and thus you have your Silver prepared for putrefaction.
Observe the power of the Moon and her Angel upon Hasmodai, Muriel, Populus, Via and Silver. Practice and prepare after this manner. This Medicine cures all the diseases of the neck and breast etc. It must be Silver purely refined.
Geomancy the Harmony in this Preparation.
6. This liquor of Silver is potable, but not the Quintessence. Put this water into a fit putrefying glass and seal it up and set it to putrefy in Balneo till the time of putrefaction be past, which is about one hundred and fifty days, and when you see the first sign of putrefaction, which is called the head of the Crow, increase your fire a little till all the colours begin to appear and you see it begin to be white.
When you see it white, increase your fire yet more and it will rise up and stick to the sides of the glass, most transparent, like the eyes of fishes, which is Sulphur of Nature or Salt, or the putrefied body of the white luminary, viz., Luna, which yet is not so hard as a body nor so soft as a Spirit, but of a mean hardness between a Spirit and a body, and is called the Philosophers' Mercury and the Key and means of joining Tinctures.
7. But to come to the liquor of the white Luminary. This body being brought into Quintessence is prepared for dissolution like the Sulphur of the imperfect body; but whereas that is done by virtue of the white tincture or Lac Virginis, I rather do it by virtue of the fire natural, which is the Spirit of Wine; and after the drawing away thereof it remaineth in a liquor.
Now this liquor of Luna dissolved is the Quintessence, which then is the liquor of the white luminary and the soul (as Eximandrus saith) quickening the whole Medicine, without which it is dead and will never give form nor colour.
8. Therefore the fourth part of the liquor of the white luminary is to be joined to three parts of the former liquor of the Sulphur of Mercury, and after to be kept in a lent fire of ashes, well closed, till it pass through all colours and at last come to its former colour of whiteness; and so the Medicine is fermented and turned into the white Elixir.
The residue of the foresaid dissolved Sulphur keep diligently, and therewith ferment the white Sulphur of other imperfect bodies or stones into Elixirs, which, when they are thrice dissolved and again congealed and remain in a liquid, then they are called incombustible oils and Elixirs of the third order.
And thus the Medicine is made of Mercury alone as followeth by this
example. Having spoken of the white Medicine it now resteth that we speak
of the making of the Red Elixir, whereof there are two processes, the first
whereof is from the Radix, i.e., the long way; the other an accurtation
that is much shorter and more excellent. And this way the Elixir may be
made in eighty days, and excels all other accurtations; neither is there
found therein any diminution of the virtue, but a plentiful and perfect
fullness of power and virtue, having all the properties which the Elixir
ought to have.
The Operation Under Those Heads
1. Vivum. 2. Sublimation. 3. Calcination. 4. Precipitation. 5. Solution. 6. Fixed Oil. 7. Incertation195. 8. Dessication. 9. Contrition. 10. Fermentation. 11. The Red Elixir. 12. The Third Table.
1. Purgation of Mercury I shall omit because it was spoken of before.
2. The Sublimation is to be done otherwise than in the former work, for that which is called Sublimation here is not done with Vitriol and Saltpeter, but is only the distillation of the Mercury in an earthen body with a limbeck, and that without any additament.
3. When the Mercury is once sublimed in ashes wholly into the head of the limbeck, having a retainer joined thereto, take off the head and with a feather gather the sublimed matter and you shall find your Mercury of a black colour, having lost its fairness, and like a dust or powder sticking to his body.
4. Put it again into the body and sublime it as before, and reiterate this work seven or nine times until you have a sufficient quantity of this powder, a pound or more and this is the Calcination.
5. When you see your Mercury will ascend no more, but remains in the bottom of a black colour, and that it is dead and brought perfectly into calx, let it cool and remove your body into sand till it be turned into a red colour. And this is the perfect Precipitation, to prove which, without the help of any corrosive water, take a little of this powder upon a hot Iron plate. If it fume, dry it longer, if not it is well.
6. Take of this red powder as much as you will dissolve and put thereupon at least his double weight of Lac Virginis and set in Balneo till you see your Lac Virginis stained a yellow or red colour; then filter it from its feces and keep it by itself in a glass well stopped and dry the matter that remaineth in ashes and pour thereon new Lac Virginis and do as before, till you have drawn out all the tincture and your Mercury is dissolved.
7. Put these solutions into a body, luting to a head and in Balneo distil away the Lac Virginis and the red oil precipitate will remain, which is fixed and needeth no distillation, but is the tingeing oil of red Mercury, and the red tincture of the red Medicine of Mercury, and the Soul and Spirit of the Medicine joined as for example.
8. Take part of the white Sulphur reserved in the first Table, and rubify it in ashes till it be red. Then imbibe it with equal weight of the oil of the tincture of this red Mercury and set it to dissolve in Balneo; and when you see it is dissolved into a liquid substance, take it out.
9. Then set it in ashes, or under the fire, to fix till the matter, being dried, remain fusible and fixed, standing in a mean heat, not over-hot, which try upon a hot iron plate; and if it fume not it is well; if it do, increase your fire till it be totally fixed and dry.
10. If this matter be imbibed again with its oil till it drink up as much as it will, and again dissolved in Balneo and then dried in ashes, it will show many colours and lastly appear red. And then it is the Stone, penetrating and fusible, apt for form.
11. Join this imbibed matter (or Medicine) with the fourth part of the liquor or oil of the red Sulphur of Gold or the red Ferment, and dissolve it in Balneo and dry it again; and again dissolve it in a glass hanged in the fume of hot water or Balneum and congest it again till it stand like honey. Then it is the perfect Red Elixir of Mercury.
12. The Multiplication or Augmentation of the virtue and quantity is showed in the preparation before of the White Elixir.
Of Gold Sol
1. The Preparation of Gold, Sol. 2. Purged Gold. 3. Calcination. 4. Solution. 5. Putrefaction. 6. Filius Solis Coelestis. 7. Filia Lunae Coelestis.
1. The Putrefaction or Purgation of Gold is done as the Goldsmiths use to do by melting it with Antimony, that the Gold may remain in the bottom pure and clear from the metals, which they call Regulus.
2. Take 4 or 5 ounces of this refined Gold leaf or filings and dissolve it in Lac Virginis mixed with equal weight of Aqua Fortis, wherein Salt Armoniack sublimed is dissolved, and when it is dissolved into a red liquor, or deep yellow, then it is well calcined.
3. The Solution and Putrefaction is done as before you did with Silver in the preparation of the White Ferment.
4. When you have your white Sulphur of Nature (after Putrefaction) sticking to the sides of the glass, let it cool and take out of the glass and set it in ashes and increase your fire, but not too much, lest your matter vitrify, and let your ashes be no hotter than you can hold your hand therein, and so let it stand till the Sulphur be of a perfect deep red colour. Then have you the red Sulphur of the red luminary as for example -
Observe the Harmony of Geomancy in this Preparation
Behold the power of the Sun and his Angel upon Sorath, Verchiel, Fortuna Major and Minor in Gold and of his Medicine, which, being thus prepared, hath performed incredible, extraordinary cures upon the bodies of Princes and Peers in Europe.
5. If you resolve this red Sulphur in Spirit of Wine or distilled Vinegar into an oil, it is then the liquor of the red luminary and Aurum Potabile curing all infirmities if the Spirit of Wine or Vinegar be distilled from it; but for this work it were better to dissolve it in our red Lac Virginis, distil away the Lac from the Sulphur in ashes, and the Sulphur remaining in an oil is the Ferment of all stones to the red.
6. The Augmentation of this red Elixir in virtue is with his red Tincture as before in the white Tincture. The Augmentation in quantity is by projection upon the body of Gold molten, and that brittle matter of Gold upon Mercury; and if it be powdered, and resolved with Spirit of Wine in an oil, as was said before of Silver, then it is the Quintessence of Gold and the Great Elixir of Life, and the Spiritual Ferment for the transmutation of metals and for the health of man's body.
Although Raymund, writing to the King, was pleased to say that every accurtation diminisheth the perfection, because Medicines which are made by accurtation have less effect of transmutation - which I also assent to with him for a great truth, if the work be begun from the first fountain - yet because this work has its beginnings from those things, which before were brought to a perfect degree of perfection, therefore in this there is no diminution of the perfection.
Therefore it ought to be declared unto thee that if they be both well prepared (and that thou begin with them) thou wilt do a wonderful work without any great labour sooner than if thou should begin with one thing alone. Therefore, my son, begin thy work of two things together as I showed thee in the greater Medicines, when we spoke of the two-fold custody of the actions which are caused by the bodies and spirits. Thus far Raymund. By that which is caused by the bodies and Spirits he means nothing else but Sulphur, willing that we should begin with Sulphur, to which I do so well agree that I begin this my accurtation with this Sulphur alone, and I add no other body to this Elixir, but only the Sulphur of Mercury, alone created of his own body and Spirit.
Take, therefore, two ounces of the white Sulphur described at the beginning of this treatise, and set it in ashes to rubify. In thirty days it will be turned into red Sulphur which when you have done, dissolve that Sulphur in the red Tincture of Mercury; when it is dissolved draw away the Tincture; in the bottom remaineth the Liquor of Sulphur.
To which, if you add a due proportion of the liquor of the red luminary, it will be perfect Ferment, which, if you dissolve and congeal as before is showed, it is then Elixir of very great virtue to the red work, and no man can make a shorter abbreviation in the world; and when the Sulphur of any body is prepared, it may this way very speedily be converted into Elixir by adding the liquor of the Ferment.
Now I will lay down instructions concerning:
1. The Body. 2. The Spirit. 3. The Lion. 4. The Eagle. 5. The Philosophers'
Lead. 6. Antimony. 7. Antimony Mercury. 8. The Glue of the Eagle.
9. Solution of the red Lion into Blood. 10. Solution of the Glue of
the Eagle. 11. Solution of the Blood of the red Lion. 12. Conjunction.
13. Putrefaction. 14. Fermentation. 15. In the Trinity of the Physical
and Alchemical Tincture of the Soul. 16. Is the Unity of the Medicine.
1. Take Antimony, calcined, so much as you please and grind it to a subtile powder; then take twice so much Lac Virginis and put your powder of Antimony therein and set it in Balneo seven days; then put it into a body and set it in sand or ashes till the Lac be turned red, which draw off and pour on more, and so let it stand. When that is coloured red, pour it to the other and thus do till you have drawn out all the Tincture. Set all this water in Balneo or lent ashes to distil with a limbeck, and distil it with a lent fire; and first of all the Lac will ascend, and then you shall see a stupendous miracle because you shall see through the nose of the Limbeck as it were a thousand veins of the liquor of this blessed Mineral to descend in red drops, just like blood, which, when you have got, thou hast a thing whereunto all the treasure in the world is not equal. Now you have the Blood of the Lion according to Rupecissa. I will now speak of the Glue of the Eagle, of which Paracelsus thus saith.
2. Reduce Mercury so far by sublimation till it be a fixed crystal. This is his preparation of Mercury and by his way of reducing it into the Glue of the Eagle; but above all I require that that way be used which is described by me before or that hereafter set down after this.
3. Then, saith the aforesaid author, go on to resolution and coagulation, and I again will give you to observe the same manner of solution showed at first.
4. Now let us come to conjunction. After the solution of these two, take equal weight of them and put them in a vessel well shot.
5. After you have thus joined them together, set your glass in your furnace to putrefy and after the space of certain days. Therefore Paracelsus saith: Then at length and presently after your Lily is made hot in your glass, it appeareth in wonderful manners (or demonstration) blacker than the Crow. After that, in process of time, whiter than the Swan, and then passing by yellow to be more red than blood.
6. This being putrefied and turned into red, is to be taken for the Medicine, and then it is time to be fermented.
7. Of which fermentation Paracelsus thus speaketh: one part thereof is to be projected upon 1,000 parts of molten Gold and then the Medicine is prepared, and this is the fermentation of it. But if the half or one part of the liquor of the Sulphur of Gold before described be added to it, then it would be spiritual Ferment and would be much more penetrating in fortitude and fusible, as Paracelsus doth testify in his Aurora, where he would have us to join the Star of the Sun or the oil of Sol to this Pantarva. And thus the physical, alchemical Tincture is performed in a short time, for curing all manner of infirmities and human diseases (which is also the Great Elixir for metals so courtly concealed by the ancients) which Hermes Trismegistus the Aegyptian, Osces the Graecian, Haly an Arabian and Albertus Magnus a German, with many others have sought and prosecuted, everyone after his own method, and one in one subject another in another, so much desired by the philosophers only for prolongation of life.
8. In this composition Mercury is made a fixed and dissolved body, the Blood or Spirit of the Red Lion is the Ferment or Soul, and so of trinity is made unity, which is called the physical and alchemical tincture, never before that I know of collected or writ in one work, and I had not done this except that otherwise the composition of this blessed Medicine had been soon forgot.
A Shorter Way To Make The Glue Of The Eagle
If you desire to make the Glue of the Eagle in a briefer way, take part of the red precipitate produced as it is taught before in Mercury, and dissolve it in distilled Vinegar and the Vinegar will be coloured into a yellow or delightful golden colour; and after you have distilled away the Vinegar, there will remain in the bottom a white substance of the Mercury fixed and fair, which is to be joined to the oil of the Lion; and this work is much shorter and less laborious.
The Calcination Of Antimony Into The Red Lion
Take Antimony, well ground, so much as you please and melt it in naked fire with Salt Armoniack; and when it is melted, cast it suddenly into a vessel almost full of distilled Vinegar, wherein Salt Armoniack hath been dissolved; and thus melt it and cast it three times. Then pour off the Vinegar from the calx of the Antimony and dry it well and grind it small and dissolve it as before is taught, and so have you the Red Lion of the philosophers' Lead or Antimony.
The Rosie Crucian Medicine Or Elixir Of Copper
I will make plain the 1. Elixir. 2. Conjunction. 3. Separation. 4. The Medicine. 5. Fermentation. 6. The Earth. 7. Spirit Oil, Blood of the Lamb206. 8. Distillation. 9. Resolution. 10. Putrefaction. 11. Solution. 12. Vitriol. 13. Calcination. 14. Copper.
Now many have sought the way of the Mineral Pantarva in Vitriol or green Copperas, but they were altogether deceived, which common Vitriol by the philosophers is called the Green Lion of Fools. But this our noble Red Lion taketh its original from the metallic body of Copper.
Although I am not ignorant how to draw an oil out of Roman Vitriol of a more sweet smell and delightful taste than any balsams if the tincture be taken out of the calcined Vitriol in Spirit of Wine; yet the philosophers' will is to command that it doth consist of a metallic virtue, wherewith the transmutation of metals is to be effected. Therefore they say it is to be made of bodies and not of Spirits, as of Vitriol, Sulphur as well and the like. Whence I find it written in the Philosophers' Turba, and in the first exercitation: But the philosophers' Medicine is a metallic matter, converting substances and forms of imperfect metals, and it is concluded by all the philosophers that the conversion is not made except by its like. Therefore it is necessary that the Presoria be made of a metallic matter, yet if any be made of Spirits; yet it would be better and much more philosophical and more near to a metallic nature to be made of bodies than of Spirits. But if by art the body should be turned into a Spirit, then the same body would be both body and Spirit, and not to be regarded as doubled, but the Medicine might be made of such a body or Spirit. But let me return to our purpose. It being granted that this our Vitriol is such a body according to which Paracelsus testifieth in his Aurora Philosophorum under this enigma or secret of the ancient philosophers:
Visitabis Interiora Terrae Rectificando Invenies Occultum Lapidem Voram Medicinam.
Out of the first letter of every word of this enigma is gathered this word VITRIOLUM, by which is meant that thereof the Medicine is made.
3. Therefore Paracelsus saith the inward parts of the earth are to be visited; not only the earth, which is Vitriol, but the inward parts of the earth. He meaneth the sweetness and redness, because there lieth hid in the inward parts of the Vitriol a subtile, noble and fragrant juice, a pure oil.
4. And this is especially to be noted: the production of this Copper into Vitriol is not to be done neither by calcination of the fire nor distillation of the matter, lest it be deprived of its grossness, which being lost it wants both power and strength.
5. Paracelsus speaks not one word of the preparation of this Vitriol, by whose silence many have erred; therefore I determined to leave him here a little and to prosecute and follow the order of the Table, wherefore I begin with the calcination of the metal. And note that this calcination of Copper is made that it may be turned into Vitriol, and not the calcination of Vitriol made of Copper.
6. Take therefore as much Copper as you please and dissolve it and calcine it in Aqua Fortis to a fair green water; then set it three or four days to digest till the matter be clear, which pour out into a limbeck and in Balneo draw away the corrosive water so that the matter remain dry, for then it is calcined.
7. Then upon every two pound of this calcined matter pour a gallon of distilled Vinegar and lute it up in a glass and set it in Balneo, almost boiling, the space of seven days, when it is cold put it into a limbeck to distil away all the Vinegar in Balneo, and in the bottom of the alembick you shall have your Vitriol very well congealed, far fairer than Roman Vitriol, which is corporeal and metallic Vitriol.
8. Which Vitriol I do not dissolve in rain water like the Paracelsians, but rather with Lac Virginis as before is taught, or in Raymund's Calcination Water; and after its dissolution and perfect digestion, that is to say fifteen days, I put it into a limbeck and in Balneo draw off the Lac Virginis, which being done you shall find an oily water, green and clear, upon which pour the Spirit of Wine; and after it hath been digested seven days, and the Spirit of Wine distilled away in Balneo, you shall find your green water perfectly rectified, made pure, subtile and spiritual, and fit for putrefaction; for if it be not well dissolved and rarefied it will not putrefy.
9. But now I may join with Paracelsus in the manner of putrefaction, I return to him and say with him, commanding to digest in a warm heat in a glass well closed the space of some months, and so long till divers colours appear and be at length red, which showeth the termination of its putrefaction.
But yet in this process this redness is not sufficiently fixed, but is to be more fully purgated from its feces in this manner.
Resolve it or rectify it in distilled Vinegar till the Vinegar be coloured, then filter it from its feces. This is its true tincture and best resolution and rectification, out of which a blessed oil is to be drawn.
This tincture, being thus resolved and rectified is to be put into a body with a limbeck, and in Balneo distil the Vinegar gently away.
10. Then in sand or ashes lift up the Spirit gently and temperately, and when you see a fume ascend into the glass and red drops begin to fall out of the nose of the limbeck into the receiver, then the red oil beginneth to distil. Continue your distillation till all come over. When it is done you shall have the oil in the receiver lifted up and separated from its earth, more delightful and sweet than any balsam or aromatick, without any sharpness at all, which oil is called the Blood of the Lamb208. In the bottom of the body you shall find a white, shining earth, like snow, which keep well from dust, and so you have the clear earth separated from its oil. Take this white earth and put it in a glass viol and put thereto equal weight of the oil or Soul and body209, which will receive it and embrace it in a moment.
But that it may be turned into a Medicine when you have joined these two together, set it into our furnace the space of forty days and you shall have an absolute oil of wonderful perfection, wherewith Mercury and other imperfect metals are turned into Gold as Paracelsus was pleased to say.
11. The Medicine being thus made, I now come to the fermentation, without which it is not possible to give a form to it; neither will I adhere to the opinion of one man alone contrary to all philosophers, that is to say Paracelsus, repugnant to the rest of the philosophers, because they all of them of necessity have decreed to give form to the Medicine by ferment and union, that is to say of an imperfect body, and by how much the ferment is more spiritual the Medicine will be of so much more penetration and transmutation.
12. These things being promised, I do not think it fit that you should proceed to projection upon Mercury instead of fermentation as Paracelsus teacheth, or that the Pantarva should be fermented his way with Gold, either corporeal or spiritual, which Gold will be the foundation of the first projection.
But what do the philosophers command us to do? That projection, that is to say fermentation, be made of a perfect foundation, and that upon imperfect bodies that Medicine may be made with foundation of the Pantarva or Elixir is not commanded except it be only the white or red ferment, in respect of which both Gold and Silver are said to be imperfect bodies. Therefore the Pantarva is to be fermented before it is projected upon the corporeal foundation, or imperfect, that is to say corporeal, Gold.
13. Therefore join this oil to the fourth part of the oil of the Sulphur of Gold, and this is the true fermentation or conversion into the Elixir.
14. Then augment it in virtue by solution and coagulation, and in quantity by projection, first upon its corporeal foundation, that is to say Gold, then that upon purified Mercury and that Medicine upon other bodies which are most fit for projection, that is to say most fusible, as Lead or Tin, which, after they are purified, are most apt by reason of their easy melting.
And thus the inward parts of the earth are visited and by reflection the hidden Medicine is found, the true Medicine out of the Green Lion of the philosophers, and not of fools, and out of corporeal and metallic Vitriol, not terrestrial and mineral Copperas.
The Augmentation And Projection Of The Medicines Of Metals Rosy Crucian
First I will treat of the augmentation of the virtue or quantity of which Raymund saith: The augmentation in quality and goodness is by solution and coagulation of the tincture, that is to say by imbibing it with our Mercury and drying it. But let us hear Arnoldus more attentively. Take one part of your prepared tincture and dissolve it in three parts of our Mercury; then put it in a glass and seal it up and set it in ashes till it be dry and come to a powder; then open the glass and imbibe it again and dry it again; and the oftener you do thus, so much shall you gain more tincture.
And also as it is found in Clangor Buccinae. Dissolve it in the Water of Mercury of which the Medicine was made till it be clear; then congeal it by light decoction and imbibe it with its own oil upon the fire till it flow, by virtue whereof it will be doubled in tincture with all its perfections as you will see in projection, because the weight which was before projected upon a thousand is now to be projected upon ten thousand, and there is no great labour in this multiplication. Again the Medicine is multiplied two manner of ways. By solution of calidity and solution of rarity. By solution of calidity is that you take the Medicine, put it in a glass vessel and bury it in our moist fire seven days or more till the Medicine be dissolved into water without any turbulency.
By solution of rarity, is that you take your glass vessel with your Medicine and hang it in a new brass pot full of water that boileth, and close up the mouth of the pot that the Medicine may dissolve in the vapour of the boiling water. But note that the boiling water must not touch the glass therein the Medicine is to hang above it three fingers, and this solution will be in two or three days. After your Medicine is dissolved, take it from the fire to cool, fix and congeal and be hard and dry. This do often, and how much the more the Medicine be dissolved it will be so much more perfect; and such a solution is the sublimation of the Medicine and its virtual sublimation, which the oftener it is reiterated, so much more abundantly and more parts it tingeth.
Whence Rasis saith the goodness of the multiplication consisteth in the reiteration and fixation of the Medicine, and by how much more this order is repeated, it worketh so much more and is augmented; for so often as you sublime your Medicine and dissolve it, you shall gain so much every time in projection one upon a thousand; and if the first fall upon a thousand, the second upon ten thousand the third upon a hundred thousand, the fourth upon a million and so infinitely. For Morienus the philosopher saith: Know for certain that the oftener our Pantarva is dissolved and congealed, the Spirit and Soul is joined more to the body and is retained by it, and in every time the tincture is multiplied. Whence we thus read in Scala Philosophorum that which also the philosophers say. Dissolve and congeal. So without doubt is understood of the Solution of the body and Soul with the Spirit into water, and congelation makes the Soul and Spirit mix with the body; and if with one solution and simple coagulation the Soul and Spirit would be perfectly joined to the body, the philosophers would not say dissolve again and congeal and again dissolve and congeal, that the tincture of the Pantarva may grow if it could be done with one congelation only.
The Medicine is another way multiplied by fermentation; and the ferment to the white is pure Silver and the ferment to the red is pure Gold. Therefore project one part of the Medicine upon two of the ferment (but I say three parts of the Medicine upon one of the ferment) and all will be Medicine, which put in a glass upon the fire and close it so that no air go in nor out, and keep it there till it be subtiliated as you did with the first Medicine, and one part of the second Medicine will have as much virtue as one part of the first Medicine had. (But here again Clangor Buccinae hath erred, for it should be writ thus: One part of the second Medicine will have as much virtue as ten parts of the first Medicine had.) And thus by solution and fermentation the Medicine may be multiplied infinitely.
We have spoken enough of this multiplication; we now come to the other way of augmentation, which is called corporeal multiplication, and according to Raymund is thus defined: Augmentation is the addition of quantity; whence Avicen writeth: It is hard to project upon a million and to predicate it incontinently. Wherefore I will reveal one great secret unto you; one part is to be mixed with a thousand parts of its nearest in kind (I call that nearest that is the body of the same metal whereof the Medicine was made or perfected). But to return again to Avicen: Close all this firmly in a fit vessel and set it in a furnace of fusion three days till it be wholly joined together, and the manner of the work is thus projected, one part of the aforesaid Medicine upon a hundred parts of molten Gold, and it makes it brittle and will all be Medicine, whereof one part projected on a hundred of any molten metal converteth it to pure Gold; and if you project it upon Silver in like manner, it converteth all bodies into Silver.
In Scala Philosophorum all sorts of projection is set thus down in few words. You must know that first it is said project, that is one upon one hundred etc. Yet it is better to project nunc dimittis upon fundamenta and fundamenta upon verba mea and verba mea upon diligam te domine and diligam te domine upon attendite. This brief enigma is thus expounded; it is nothing else but the words and opinion of the former author concealed under the enigma. Therefore let us repeat the words of the enigma or oracle:
Nunc dimittis super fundamenta,
Fundamenta super verba mea,
Verba mea super diligam te,
Diligam te super attendite.
These are trifles for the hiding and concealing of the perfection of the art, if the expert could be diverted with such simple words, which, though they are at first obscure to the young artist, yet they are thus explained. We therefore begin with the first sentence.
Nunc dimittis super fundamenta
This is here allegorically taken for the last action almost of the work, which is called the Medicine or Pantarva, which Medicine is to be projected upon the ferment, that is to say upon the oil of Sol or Luna, which are the ferments or foundations of the art in spiritual augmentation (as before was said) upon molten Gold or Silver. And that spiritual ferment converted into Medicine is to be projected upon molten Gold and Silver, which are corporeal ferments in corporeal augmentation and the corporeal fundaments of the art upon Quicksilver.
Fundamenta super verba mea
This is spoken also allegorically, because in the adage it is said words are wind, as if a word were nothing else but the motion of the lips and exaltation of the lungs, which no sooner arise from motion but fly away and are turned into air, so likewise Quicksilver or Mercury goeth out of the bodies of the other metals and is so volatile in the fire or heat as words in the air. And therefore Mercury is likened to words upon which the fundaments are to be projected.
Verba mea (viz., Mercury) super diligam te
That is to say upon other metals which have most affinity with Quicksilver and are easy of fusion, as Saturn and Jupiter, that is to say Lead and Tin, which by this concord and love are easily by the penetration and aimiableness of the Medicine converted into Medicine. And one part of this Medicine converteth other parts of metals into Gold and Silver according to the force and power of the Elixir; which other metals, because they are the substance of the former bodies whereof the Medicines were made, they are the attendants of these Medicines whereof the philosopher commandeth that diligam te be projected upon attendite, that the second Medicine, or the last, projected upon metal, especially that whereof the Medicine (that is to say the Pantarva) was made, should turn that metal into Gold or Silver according to the property and quality of the Medicine.
But to put an end to this projection, take it according to the opinion of Arnoldus, gathered out of his thirty-first chapter: Who willeth to project one part of the Elixir upon one hundred of Mercury purged, and all will be Medicine, afterwards project one part of this Medicine last congealed upon one hundred parts of Mercury washed, and all will be Gold or Silver according as the Elixir is white or red. Lastly that I may briefly rehearse the absolute manner or projection. First the Medicine is to be projected upon Gold or Silver molten, then upon Quicksilver purged, so long till it turns it into Medicine, and lastly upon metals most near, that they may be converted into pure Gold or Silver according to the properties and quality of the Medicine.
Because we have said something of the propinquity of metals, that is to say that the Elixir is to projected upon that imperfect body out of which its Mercury and Sulphur was first extracted, therefore it will not be unnecessary to set down one example, that is to say, if the Medicine was made of Mercury, then it is to be projected upon Quicksilver for making Gold or Silver, because Quicksilver is a near body to Mercury, and so of the rest. Yet it is to be noted that all Elixirs may and ought to be projected upon Quicksilver, because Quicksilver is the mother and sperm of all metals; therefore Quicksilver made and turned into Medicine is to be projected upon a body most near to it, which is Lead or Tin, upon which the Medicine is always to be projected, whether white or red, for the making and transmuting of metals; but both the Quicksilver and Lead are first to be purged that they may be purified and deprived of their filth. Enough hath been said before of the purgation and putrefaction of Mercury.
Of The Putrefaction Of Lead
Melt your lead in a crucible, and when it is melted let it stand in the fire a quarter of an hour, and put therein a little Salt Armoniack, and let it stand a while in the fire and stir it well with an iron spatula till all the Salt Armoniack be gone away in fume; then scrape the skin away out of the crucible that is upon the Lead and let it stand to cool and it will be much whiter and fairer. And thus you must purify your Lead or Tin before projection, because no other bodies are so fusible and apt to melt. Wherefore every Elixir ought to be projected upon Quicksilver and upon Lead or Tin for the making or transmuting of metals. But to the end that the manner of projection may be yet more plain, I will set down two rules which must be carefully observed.
The first whereof is that the first Medicine, that is to say the Pantarva, be projected upon the ferment always, three parts of the Medicine upon one of the ferment, and one part of this upon ten or one hundred of pure molten Gold, and one part of this Medicine thus made upon 100 parts of an imperfect body, that is to say of Mercury for Medicine.
The latter is that you must always consider the fortitude and debility of your Medicine, for it is to be projected so often upon Quicksilver as it bringeth it into a brittle Medicine, and when it falleth, then project one part thereof upon Lead or Tin for making transmutation according to the order and form of the Elixir.
These being remembered you may easily conceive the order of augmentation in virtue and quantity. These things being ended, the other three which follow are set down in order because we have spoken before of Aurum Potabile, Argentum Potabile, or potable Gold or Silver. It is therefore necessary after we have made an end of projection to set down another method of the Elixir of Life in the next place, and after speak of its virtue and power as we find it among all the ancient and modern philosophers.
But that we may come at last to the thing intended, observe this manuduction.
You know that no artificer can build, but the earth must be the foundation to his building; for without this groundwork his brick and mortar cannot stand. In the Creation, when God did build, there was no such place to build upon. I ask then, where did He rest His matter and upon what? Certainly He built and founded Nature upon His own supernatural centre. He is in her and through her and with His Eternal Spirit doth He support heaven and earth, as our bodies are supported with our Spirits. This is confirmed by that oracle of the Apostle, Omnia portat verbo virtutis suae, He beareth up all things with the word of His power. From this power is He justly styled, ap irodunamis cai pantadunamis dunamo paos, The infinitely powerful and the all-powerful power-making power.
I say, then, that fire and Spirit are the Pillars of Nature, the props on which the whole fabric rests and without which it could not stand one minute. This fire is the Throne of the Quintessential Light, from whence He dilates himself to generation as we see in the effusion of the sunbeams in the great world. In this dilation of the Light consist the joy or pleasure of the Passive Spirit, and in its contraction His melancholy or sorrow. We see in the great body of Nature that in turbulent weather, when the Sun is shut up and clouded, the air is thick and dull and our own Spirits, by secret compassion with the Spirit of the Air, are dull too. On the contrary, in clear, strong sunshine, the air is quick and then the Spirits of all animals are of the same rarified and active temper.
It is plain, then, that our joys and sorrows proceed from the dilation and contraction of our inward Quintessential Light. This is apparent in despairing lovers, who are subject to a certain violent, extraordinary panting of the heart, a timorous trembling of the pulse, which proceeds from the apprehension and fear of the Spirit in relation to his miscarriage. Notwithstanding he desires to be dilated, as it appears by his pulse or sally wherein he doth discharge himself, but his despair checks him again and brings him to a sudden retreat or contraction. Hence it comes to pass that we are subject to sighs, which are occasioned by the sudden pause of the Spirit. For when he stops, the breath stops, but when he loseth himself to an outward motion, we deliver two or three breaths, that have been formerly omitted, in one long expiration, and this we call a sigh.
This passion hath carried many brave men to sad extremities. It is originally occasioned by the Spirit of the Mistress or affected party, for her Spirit ferments or leavens the Spirit of the lover, so that it desires an union as far as Nature will permit. This makes us resent even smiles and frowns like fortunes and misfortunes. Our thoughts are never at home according to that well grounded observation, Animus est ubi amat, non ubi animat, the Soul dwells not where she lives but where she loves. We are employed in a continual contemplation of the absent beauty; our very joys and woes are in her power; she can set us to what humour she will. This and many more miraculous sympathies proceed from the attractive nature of the fire; it is a Spirit that can do wonders. And now let us see if there be any possibility to come at him. Suppose then we should dilapidate or discompose some artificial building stone by stone; there is no question but we come at last to the earth whereupon it is founded. It is just so in Magick; if we open any natural body and separate all the parts thereof one from another, we shall come at last to the fire, which is the candle and secret Light of God. We shall know the Hidden Intelligence and see the Inexpressible Face, which gives the outward figure to the body. This is the syllogism we should look after, for he that hath once passed the Aquaster enter the fireworld, and sees what is both invisible and incredible to the common man. He shall discover to the eye the miraculous conspiracy between the fire and the Sun. He shall know the secret love of the heaven and earth and the sense of that deep Cabalism, Non est planta hic inferiora cui non est stella firmamento superius, et ferit eam stella, et dicit ei: Cresce. There is not an herb here below, but he hath a star in heaven above, and the star strikes him with her beams and says to him: Grow. He shall know how the fire-Spirit hath his root in the spiritual fire-earth and received from it a secret influx upon which he feeds as herbs feed on that juice and liquor which they receive at their roots from this common earth. This is it which our Saviour tells us, Man lives not by bread alone, but by every word that comes out of the mouth of God. He meant not by ink and paper or the dead letter. It is a mystery, and St. Paul hath partly expounded it. He tells the Arthenians that God made man to the end that he should seek the Lord if haply he might feel after Him and find Him. Here is a strange expression you will say, that a man should feel after God and seek Him with his hands. But he goes on and tells you where you shall find Him. He is not far (saith he) from every one of us, in Him we live and move and have our being. For the better understanding of this place I wish you to read Paracelsus, his Philosophia ad Athenienses. Again, he that enters the centre shall know why all influx of fire descends against the nature of fire, and comes from heaven downwards. He shall also know why the same fire, having found a body, ascends again towards heaven and goes upwards.
To conclude, I say the grand, supreme Mystery of Magic is to multiply the fire and place him in the most serene Aether, which God hath purposely created to qualify the fire. For I would have thee know that this Spirit may be so chafed, and that in most temperate bodies, as to undo thee upon a sudden. This thou mayest guess thyself by the Crnsoceraunos, or Thundering Gold as the chemist calls it. Place him as God hath placed the stars in the condensed Aether of His Chaos, for there he will shine, not burn; he will be vital and calm, not furious and choleric. This, I confess, transcends the common people.
Now I will teach the blessed Pantarva Rosie Crucian, their Aurum Potabile or the Elixir of life and also the way of making malleable glass.
1. Elixir of Life. 2. Gold dissolved. 3. Silver dissolved. 4. Gold melted. 5. Melted Silver. 6. Projection of the Red Medicine. 7. Projection of the White Medicine.
I have now fully discovered to you the principles of our Chaos. In the next place I will show you how you are to use them. You must unite them to a new life and they will be regenerated by water and the Spirit. These two are in all things; they are placed there by God Himself according to that speech of Trismegistus: Unumquodque habet in se semen sua regenerationis. Proceed then patiently but not manually. The work is performed by an invisible artist, for there is a secret incubation of the Spirit of God upon Nature. You must only see that the outward heat fails not, but with the subject itself you have no more to do than the mother hath with the child that is in her womb. The two former principles perform all; the Spirit makes use of the water to purge and wash his body, and he will bring it at last to a celestial, immortal constitution. Do not thou think this is impossible. Remember that in the incarnation of Christ Jesus the quaternarius, or four elements as men call them, were united to their Eternal Unity and Ternarius.
Three and four make seven. This septenary is the true Sabbaoth, the rest into which the creature shall enter. This is the best and greatest manuduction that I can give you. In a word, salvation itself is nothing else but transmutation. Behold (saith the Apostle) I show you a Mystery: we shall not all die, but we shall be changed in a moment, in the twinkling of an eye, at the sound of the last Trumpet. God of His great mercy prepare us for it, that from hard, stubborn flints of this world, we may prove crysolites and jaspers in the new, eternal foundation, that we may ascend from this present distressed Church, which is in captivity with her children, to the free Jerusalem from above, which is the mother of us all.
Hermes, speaking of fermentation, bids us to take the Sun and his shadow. By the shadow he meaneth the Moon, because in respect of dignity, lustre and power she is much more weak and inferior than the Sun. And the Moon followeth the Sun as a shadow doth the body, and is not illuminated except by the light of the Sun. We will first speak of the body, that is to say of Gold, and after come to the shadow, of which Gold it is written in a book of chemical art in this manner: The Rosie Crucian Pantarva is made of Gold alone and only by Nature, and is more sublime than them which the philosophers affirm cureth all infirmities. According to the opinion of this philosopher, I purpose to begin with Gold alone and the Medicine, which is a new and sole nature and ancient and sound Quintessence.
2. But to the end this Gold may be better and more pure, it may be purged two manner of ways, that is to say by Antimony and by dissolution and in corrosive waters with which copper plates are mixed as goldsmiths used to do, which is called Water Gold. When you have thus prepared your gold, project one part of your Red Medicine (or Red Elixir) upon 100 parts thereof, when your Medicine is augmented in virtue and all that weight of molten Gold will be converted into a red, brittle mass, which grind upon a marble to an impalpable powder.
Then dissolve these hundred parts, or so thereof as you please, in distilled Vinegar or in Spirit of Wine, and set it to digest in Balneo the space of a day or two. Then distil the Spirit of Wine in Balneo and in the bottom will remain the fixed and pure oil of the Gold, which is then true Aurum Potabile and spiritual Elixir of Life. If you will give to anyone of this powder presently before it be converted into oil, warm a little white or Rhenish wine and dissolve in either or them so much of the red powder, and the wine so tinctured it will be Aurum Potabile, but it would be better and more penetrating if it were tinctured with the aforesaid oil.
In like manner is the White Medicine to be projected after the purification of the Silver in a corrosive water as is before declared.
And so the melted Silver will be converted into a brittle powder and white mass, which likewise is to be dissolved and turned into oil, and then the white Elixir or Life is made and potable Silver, curing and healing, so far as it is able in human diseases, for it cannot be supposed that the Elixir of Luna hath so great virtue as the Elixir of Sol hath, or Aurum Potabile.
Now whereas among the vulgar and philosophers Gold hath this report, that being in his first disposition that it cureth the leprosy and hath many other virtues, this is not except by its complete digestion, because the excellency of the fire acting in it consumeth all evil humours that are in sick bodies as well in hot as cold causes. But Silver cannot do this because it hath not so much superfluity of fire and is not so much digested and decocted with natural maturity; yet notwithstanding this, it hath a fieriness occultly and virtually in it, but not so fully, because the fire causeth not such elemental qualities as in Gold. And therefore Silver, being in his first disposition, doth not cure leprosy so potently unless it be first digested by art until it have the chief degrees of Gold in all maturity. Wherefore other sick metallic bodies more weakly cure infirmities according as they differ more from them in perfection and maturity. Some differ more, some less, which is by reason of the Sulphur, infected and burning, of which they were made at the beginning in their generation and coagulation, and therefore they cure not, whereas the fire in them is burning, and so infected with the elemental feces and the mixtures of other elemental qualities.
4. Seeing, therefore, that Gold is of such vigour amongst the vulgar, and that being in his first disposition, what wonder is it if it, being brought into Medicine (as is experienced) by art and his virtue being subtiliated by digestion of decoction and purgation of the qualities, but it may then cure more, nay infinite, of all diseases.
It makes an old man young, as our Rosie Crucian Aurum Potabile will do; it preserveth health, strengtheneth nature and expelleth all sickness of the body. It driveth poison away from the heart, it moisteneth the arteries and, briefly, preserveth the whole body sound. The manner of using this Medicine according to all the philosophers is thus: If you will use to eat of this Medicine, then take the weight of two Florence ducats of our Aurum Potabile and one pound of any confection, and eat of that confection the quantity of one dram in the winter. And if you do thus it driveth away all bodily infirmities from what cause soever they proceed, whether hot or cold, and conserveth the health and youth in a man and maketh an old man young and maketh grey hairs to fall; it also presently cureth leprosy and diseases of phlegm, mundifieth the blood; it sharpeneth the sight and all the senses after a most wonderful manner, above all the medicines of the Philosophers.
5. To which purpose we thus find in the Rosary of the philosophers. In this (that is to say in this Aurum Potabile) is completed the precious gift of God, which is the Arcanum of all sciences in the world and the incomparable treasure (for as Plato saith) he that hath the gift of God hath the dominion of the world (that is to say of the Microcosm) because he attaineth to the end of riches and hath broke the bonds of Nature, not only for that he hath power to convert all imperfect metals into pure medicine and preserve both man and animal in perfect health.
To this purpose speaketh Geberhim, Hermes, Arnoldus, Raymundus Lullius, Ripley, Senotus, Augurellus, Aegidius, Valescus, Roger Bacon, Scotus, Laurentius, Venture and divers uncertain authors.
Lastly, I now come to the general consent of all the philosophers and repeat what is found in their writings in the book De Aurora Consurgens and in Clangor Buccinae. It is to be noted that the ancient philosophers have found four principal effects or virtues in the glorious repository of their treasure:
(1) First it is said to cure man's body of all infirmities.
(2) To cure imperfect metals.
(3) Thirdly to transmute base stones into precious gems.
(4) To make glass malleable.
6. Of the first. All philosophers have consented that when the Elixir is perfectly rubified, it doth not only work miracles in solid bodies, but also in man's body, of which there is no doubt; for being taken inwardly it cureth all infirmities. It cureth outwardly by unction. The philosophers also say if it be given to any in water or wine first warmed, it cureth them of the Phrensy, Dropsy and Leprosy and all kinds of fevers are cured by the Tincture, and taketh away whatsoever is in a weak stomach; in bindeth and consumeth the flux of peccant humours being taken fasting; it driveth away the melancholy and sadness of the mind; it cureth the infirmities of the eyes and dryeth up their moisture and blearedness; it helpeth the purblind, red or bloodshot eyes and all other incident diseases are easily cured by the philosophical Medicine of the Rosie Crucians.
It comforteth the heart and spiritual parts by taking it inwardly; it mitigateth the pain of the head by anointing the temples therewith; maketh the deaf to hear and succoureth all pains of the ears; it rectifieth the contracted nerves by unction; it restoreth rotten teeth by washing; also all kinds of imposthumes are cured by it, by ointments or emplaisters or injecting the dry powder therein.
It cureth ulcers, wounds, cancers, fistulas, noli me tangere and such like diseases, and generateth new flesh. If it be mixed with corrupt and sour lime it restores it; it expelleth poison, being taken inwardly; it also killeth worms if it be given in powder; it taketh away wrinkles and spots in the face by anointing therewith and maketh the face seem young; it helpeth women in travail being taken inwardly, and bringeth out the dead child by emplaister. It provokes urine and helpeth generation. It preventeth drunkenness, helpeth memory and augmenteth the radical moisture; it strengtheneth nature and also administereth many other good things to the body.
2. Of the second it is written that it transmuteth all imperfect metals in colour, substance, lasting, weight, ductibility, melting, hardness and softness.
3. Of the third, that is to say of transmuting base and ignoble stones into precious.
4. Of the fourth it is writ that it maketh glass malleable by mixture (that is to say, of the powder of the white corporeal Elixir) when the glass is melted.
Thus far Aurora Consurgens and Clangor Buccinae.
Now if you desire to make pure and malleable glass, beware of what glass you make your metal; for you must not take glass of flint, wherewith glass of windows are made, but such as your Venice glass is made of, and that is to be chosen out of the first metal of the glass which hath stood molten in the fire in the glass-maker's furnace the space of a night, and then it will be spots and pure. Therefore take as much of the said glass out of the furnace with your iron rod as you have a desire to convert, and when it is cold weigh it and melt it by itself in a pot; and when it is molten, project your white corporeal Elixir upon it and it will be converted into malleable metal and fit and apt glass for all goldsmith's operations. And thus is glass made malleable and prepared for any use; but if this were done with the red Elixir it would be much more during, for there is nothing more precious.
To perfect the Great Work which all philosophers have concealed, observe my direction which by experience I have found true. To calcine, dissolve and separate the elements. After join them together, putrefy them or reduce them into Sulphur; ferment, project, augment in virtue and quantity. This is the work of the philosophers.
This subject I call Limus Coelestis and the Middle Nature. The philosophers call it the venerable nature, but amongst all pretenders I have not yet found one that could tell me why. This chaos hath in it the four elements, which of themselves are contrary natures, but the wisdom of God hath so placed them with their very order reconciles them.
For example air and earth are adverseries, for one is hot and moist, the other cold and dry. Now to reconcile these two God placed the water between them, which is a middle nature, or of a mean complexion between both extremes. For she is cold and moist, and as she is cold she partakes of the nature of the earth, which is cold and dry; but as she is moist she partakes of the nature of air which is hot and moist. Hence it is that the air and earth, which are contraries in themselves, agree and embrace one another in water, as in a middle nature, which is proportionate to them both and tempers their extremities.
But verily this salvo makes not up the breach; for though the water reconcileth the two elements. like a friendly third, yet she herself fights with a fourth, namely with the fire. For the fire is hot and dry, but the water is cold and moist, which are contraries.
To prevent distemper of the two, God placed the air between them, which is a substance hot and moist; and as it is hot it agrees with the fire, which is hot and dry; but as it is moist it agrees with the water which is cold and moist, so that by mediation of the air the other two extremes, namely fire and water, are made friends and reconciled. Thus you see, as I told you at first, that contrary elements are united by that order and texture wherein the wise God hath placed them. Now I tell you that this agreement of friendship is but partial, a very weak love, cold and skittish; for whereas those principles agree in one quality, they differ in two as you may easily compute. Much need, therefore, have they of a more strong and powerful mediator to confirm and preserve their weak unity; for upon it depends the very eternity and incorruption of the creature. This blessed cement and balsam is the Spirit of the Living God, which some ignorant scribblers have called Quintessence, for this very Spirit is in the Chaos, and, to speak plainly, the fire is His Throne, for in the fire is He seated. This was the reason why the Magi called the First Matter their Venerable Nature and their Blessed Stone. This Blessed Spirit fortifies and perfects that weak disposition which the elements already have to union and pace (for God works with Nature and not against her) and brings them at last to a beauteous, specifical fabric. Now if you will ask me, where is the Soul, or as the schoolmen abuse her, the form, all this while? What doth she do? To this I answer that she is all instrumentals ought to be, subject and obedient to the will of God, expecting the perfection of the body. For it is God that united her to the body and the body to her.
Soul and body are the works of God, the one as well as the other. The Soul is not the artificer of the house, for that which can make a body can also repair it, and hinder death; but the Soul cannot do this, it is the power and wisdom of God. In a word, to say that the Soul formed the body, because she is in the body is to say that the jewel made the cabinet or that the Sun made the world and cherisheth every part thereof. Learn, therefore, to distinguish between Agents and their instruments, for if you attribute that to the creature which belongs to the Creator, you bring yourselves in danger of hell fire, for God is a jealous God and will not give the glory to another.
If thou dost know the First Matter, know also for certain thou hast discovered the Sanctuary of Nature. There is nothing between thee and her treasures but the door; that indeed must be opened. If thy desire lead thee on to the practice, consider well with thyself what manner of man thou art, and what it is that thou wouldst do; for it is no small matter. Thou hast resolved with thyself to be a co-operator with the Spirit of the Living God and to minister to Him in His work of generation. Have a care, therefore, that thou dost not hinder His work; for if thy heat exceeds the natural proportion, thou hast stirred the wrath of the moist natures and they will stand up against the central fire and the central fire against them and there will be a terrible division in the Chaos; but the sweet Spirit of Peace, the true eternal Quintessence, will depart from the elements leaving both them and thee to confusion; neither will He apply Himself to the Matter as long as it is in thy violent, destroying hands.
I will now lay down plain instructions concerning:
1. The Elixir of Saturn. 2. Putrefaction into Sulphur. 3. The Oil, of the Sulphur. 4. Of the Conjunction. 5. Of the Salt. 6. Of Oil of the Spirit. 7. Of Salt of Saturn, which containeth the Oil or Soul of the Menstruum. 8. Of White Mercury. 9. Of Red Water of Paradise. 10. Resolution. 11. Solution. 12. Distillation. 13. Hyle. 14. Purgation. 15. Resolution. 16. Of Sericon. 17. Of the Gum. 18. Of Sericon. 19. Of the Solution. 20. Of Minium Ore. 21. Adrop. 22. Of Calcination. 23. Of Minium. 24. Adrop. 25. Of Red Lead. 26. Of Calcination of Lead. 27. Of Aqua Fortis.
Now see which way the philosophers move. They commend their secret water and I admire the tears of Beata Pulchra. I will tell you truly what she is; she is not any known water whatsoever, but a secret spermatic moisture, or rather the Venus, that yields that moisture. Therefore do not you imagine that she is any crude, phlegmatic, thin water, for she is a fat, thick, slimy humidity. But lest ye should think I am grown jealous and would not trust you with my mistress, Arnoldus de Villa Nova shall speak for me. Hear him. Amplius tibi dico, quod nullo modo invenire potuimus, nec similiter invenire potuerunt philosophi, aliquam rem perseverantem videmus de facili evaporare, arida remanet, et ideo separantur, quia non sunt naturales. Si autem eas humiditates consideremus, quae difficulter separantur ab his quae sunt naturales, non invenimus aliquas nisi unctuosas et vi scosas. I tell thee further (saith he) that we could not possibly find, neither could the philosophers find before us, anything that would persist in the fire, but only the unctuous humidity. A watery humidity, we see, will easily vapour away, and the earth remain behind, and the parts are, therefore, separated, because their composition is not natural. But if we consider those humidities which are hardly separated from those parts which are natural to them, we find not any such but the unctuous, viscous humidities.
This viscous humidity is Water of Silver, which some have called Water of the Moon; but it is Mercury of the Sun and partly of Saturn, for it is extracted from these three metals and without them it can never be made.
Very many have written of Saturn or Lead, but none that I know of have written fully thereof in any particular treatise. Therefore I do not only here set down what I have gathered from them most briefly and truly, but also those things which I have found and proved by my own experience, which I have annexed to them that the work may be absolute and complete.
Of which, as they say, Mary the prophetess, the sister of Moses, in her Books of the Work of Saturn is said to write: Make your water running like the water of the two Zaibeth and fix it upon the Heart of Saturn. And in another place: Marry the Gum with the true Matrimonial Gum and you shall make it like running water; of which process of Mary, George Ripley hath these verses:
Maria mira sonat
Quae nobis talia donat
Gummis cum binis
Fugitivem fugit in imis
Horis in trinis
Tria vinclet fortia finis
Filia plutonis
Confortia jungit Amoris.
The Heart of Saturn, you shall find why is his body white and clear; the work is briefly thus described. That a water be made out of the body of Saturn like the water Zaibeth, and that water fixed upon the Heart of Saturn. The direction for drawing out the water of Zaibeth and the way of making the Heart of Saturn is hereafter at large declared, with reduction of the body of Saturn into his Heart or Salt.
Note the power of Saturn and his Angel upon earth, Cambiel, Hanael, Cancer, Tristitia, and Lead thus prepared for Medicines and Telesmas. You see here the wonderful power of God, how he rules heaven and earth by ten names, ten Sephiroth, ten orders of blessed Souls, ten Angels in their ten Spheres, seven Angels that carry their power to seven planets and the earth; and here we teach you knowledge of the seven metals and the miraculous Medicines of the Rosie Crucians.
Having thus described the work, I now come to the explanation and say that the calcination of the body is two-fold, for the calcination thereof in the shorter work for extracting the Heart of Saturn is done on any wise by Aqua Fortis.
Take eight or ten ounces of Lead in filings and dissolve it in Aqua Fortis in double proportion and justified with Salt Armoniack in an earthen vessel with a narrow neck and set in ashes till it be totally dissolved; and there will remain a white matter in the bottom like grains of white Salt, which is a figure of perfect solution. Then pour your matter that is dissolved in the water into a body and set thereon a limbeck and in Balneo, draw away the corrosive water till there remain a dry substance in the bottom, and so you have the body converted white by calcination with corrosive water out of which the Heart of Saturn is to be drawn.
7. The way to wash away and purge the corrosive water from the body. Pour warm water upon the substance in the limbeck and pour it often off till it have no sharpness at all upon the tongue and then the body is prepared for drawing out the Salt.
8. When your matter is well dried, dissolve it again in distilled Vinegar and distil the Vinegar twice or thrice from it and in the bottom you shall have a lucid, clear and white, shining Salt, which is called the Heart of Saturn.
9. Now I come to the practice of the other greater work, that the verity of the Medicine may be found, of which many have made mention in their books, as Raimundus, who called it the Vegetable, Mineral and Animal Medicine. Geber saith there groweth a Saturnian Herb on the top of a hill or mountain, whose blood, if it be extracted, cureth all infirmities.
10. Ripley writ a whole book called his Practical Compendium, of the practice of the Vegetable Medicine, teaching the manner and form of operation; but because he neither set down the solution plainly nor perfectly, he hath been the cause of much error and hath not only deceived me, but all those that followed him, until after a long time I found a way to dissolve Saturn, so that it could never after by distillation be turned into Lead again, which is the choicest and greatest secret of the Vegetable Medicine.
11. But let us hear the words of Mary the prophetess and Ripley taken from her: The Radix of our Matter is a clear and white body, which putrefieth not but congealeth Mercury or Quicksilver with its odour, makes its water like the running water of the two Zabieth (or Zubech) and fixeth it upon the fixed Heart of Saturn. Which words do most aptly agree with the properties of Lead, for if anyone be shot or wounded with a bullet and the bullet remain in the body, it will never putrefy.
12. And also if Quicksilver be hanged in a pot over the fume of molten Lead, so as the fumes of the Lead touch the Quicksilver, it will congeal it.
13. Thus far of the preparation of Lead. We now come to its denomination. They bid us fix the water of Zabieth upon the fixed body of the Heart of Saturn. Now for the exposition of the body for the name of Saturn. Ripley called it Adrop, of which that is made which the Masters call Sericon, the water of Sericon they call their Menstruum. The two Zabrieths joined together in one water are the two Mercuries, that is to say white and red, contained in one Menstruum, that is to say of the water and oil of the fixed body or Heart of Saturn.
14. Isaacus also writ a treatise of Lead. He worketh chiefly according to the doctrine of Mary the prophetess and laboureth much to fix the earth of Saturn and after to dissolve the body in distilled Vinegar, that by the addition of corroding the sharp things his red oil may be distilled, which he called the Water of Paradise, that he may imbibe his fixed earth therewith: which way is much shorter than Ripley's, but the rubification and fixation of the earth is long and uncertain; wherefore I have both forsaken Isaacus and Ripley in making the earth, instead of which I have given the fixed Heart of Saturn.
15. But that the body may be prepared according to this Table and after my intention and the desire of Ripley, we both will that the pil or Water of Paradise be drawn out of the Gum of Sericon (whose father is Adrop). Sericon is made of red Lead; therefore it is first necessary to show the way of making Minium of Lead. Take the description as followeth and therewith the composition of the Gum of Sericon.
16. Take ten or twelve pounds of Lead and melt it in a great iron vessel as plumbers use to do; and when it is molten, stir it still with an iron spatula till the Lead be turned to powder, which powder will be of a green colour. When you see it thus, take it from the fire and let it get cool and grind that powder upon a marble till it be impalpable, moistening the powder with a little common Vinegar till it be like thick honey, which put into a broad earthen vessel and set it on a trevet over a lent fire to vapour away the Vinegar and dry the powder and it will be of a yellow colour. Grind it again and do as before, till the powder be so red as red Lead, which is called Adrop. And thus is Saturn calcined into red Lead or Minium.
17. Take a pound of red Lead and dissolve it in a gallon of Vinegar and stir it with a stick three or four times in a day. Then take your earthen vessel and set it in Balneo twenty-four hours then let it cool and filter the liquor three times; and when it is clear put it in a bottom and distil away the Vinegar when the Gum of Sericon will remain like thick honey; which set apart and dissolve now more Lead as before for more Gum till you have ten or twelve pound thereof.
18. Now give careful attention, for we now come to the point and period of Ripley's error; for if you put four pounds of this Sericon to distil in a limbeck, and from thence would draw a Menstruum as Ripley teacheth, perhaps you would have scarce one ounce of this oil, and some part of a black earth will remain in the bottom and most of the Gum melted again into Lead, by which you may know that the Sericon is not well dissolved, nor as yet sufficiently prepared that a Chaos may be made thereof fit for distillation because it is not yet well dissolved. Therefore in Isaacus there is found a way, resolving this Gum with distilled Vinegar acuated with calcined Tartar and Salt Armoniack; wherefore, saith he, if thou be wise resolve the Gum. But I like not this acuation of the Vinegar as I may call it. I rather choose to resolve the Sericon in Raymund's Calcination Water, which is a compound water of Vegetable Mercury, or fire natural, with the fire against nature, as Ripley testifieth; and it is more verified by Raymund in his books of Mercury, where he teacheth how to dissolve bodies with his Calcinative Water.
19. I will reveal unto you this water, which is almost unknown. Note, therefore, that the Vegetable Mercury is the Spirit of Wine (instead of which we may sometimes use distilled Vinegar) and that the Fire against Nature is a corrosive water made of Vitriol and Saltpeter.
20. Therefore take which you will, either Spirit of Wine rectified (or Aqua Vitae) or distilled Vinegar four pounds and two pounds of corrosive water and mix them together.
In this water thus compounded, resolve half a pound of Gum of Sericon in a circulatory and set it in Balneo four or five days, and the Gum will be totally dissolved into the form of water or oil of a duskish red colour.
21. Then distil away the water in Balneo and there will remain an oil in the bottom which is the Chaos out of which you may draw a Menstruum containing two elements, and this is the true resolution of the Gum of Sericon. In this water you may resolve so much Gum as you please by reiteration.
22. Take two pound of this Chathodical substance and prepare it for distillation in naked fire or sand, and lift up the clear red oil, wherein both the Spirit and Soul secretly lie hid, which Isaacus calleth the Water of Paradise, which, when you have it, you may rejoice, for you have gone through all the gross work and come to the philosophic work.
Therefore proceed to conjunction and join the white Heart of Saturn with the red oil as it is found in the Rosary, candida succinto jacet uxor nupta marits, that is to say the red Mercury to the Salt if you proceed to the red work.
23. Therefore take four ounces of the Salt or Heart of Saturn and as much of the red oil or Water of Paradise, and seal them up in a philosophers' egg; and so soon as they shall feel the heat of the Balneum, the Salt will dissolve and be made one with the oil so as you shall not know which was the Salt nor which was the oil.
Set your glass in Balneo and there let it stand in an equal degree of fire till all your matter be turned white and stick to the sides of the glass and shine like fishes eyes and then it is white Sulphur of Nature. But if you proceed to the red work, then divide your white Sulphur into equal parts, reserving one part for the white work, and go on with the other part, and in a new glass, well sealed up, set it in ashes till it is turned into a red colour.
24. When your Sulphur is thus converted, imbibe it again with equal weight of its Soul, dissolving and congealing till it remain in an oil and it will congeal no more, but remain fixed and flowing.
This then is to be fermented with the fourth part of the Oil of Gold.
We have set down already before of the augmentation in quantity and quality, therefore it is not necessary to repeat it here.
We will now return to the white Sulphur before reserved, that we may set down the manner of the white work.
When you have your red oil or Soul, if you desire to make the white Elixir, set part of the said oil in a glass in Balneo to digest. Then take it out and put it into a body and in a lent fire distil away the Spirit or white Mercury, which you must try and know whether it arise pure without water or not, as you do when you try the spirit of wine. For if it burn all up it is well; if it do not, rectify it so often till it be without any waterings at all; then have you rectified your Spirit, wherewith dissolve your white Sulphur till it remain fixed and flowing as you did before in the red work. Then ferment it and augment it with the fourth part of the oil of the white Luminary or Luna, as you did the red, and it will be the white Elixir, converting imperfect bodies into perfect Silver.
25. Ripley divided the scope of this work into four operations, whereof the first is the dissolution of the body; the second the extraction of the Menstruum and the separation of the elements; the third is not necessary in our work, because we cast away the earth after every distillation, instead of which we use our Salt or Heart of Saturn; the fourth is that there be a conjunction of our Salt as is before described.
Here Followeth The Accurtation of The Work Of Saturn
The way of extracting Quicksilver out of Saturn found in Isaacus, of which I know how to make a special accurtation with his Water of Paradise, which I gathered partly from the aforesaid writer and others. Ripley made his accurtation with Quicksilver precipitated with Gold and imbibition with corrosive water, which I like not, because the Elixir so made will be the greatest poison, as himself confesseth that it were better for a man to eat the eyes of a Basilisk than taste that Elixir.
26. But because I desire to set down this accurtation of Lead alone with his elements, that no strange body may be added to our Elixir, and also that it may be made a Medicine for all uses, I have found out the way of making it alone with the Mercury of Saturn and his own proper Tincture; for I make a body of one thing, which is a Spirit, and make that Medicine with its own proper Spirit. Read all the philosophers and you shall never find a word of this process, nor none of the ancients will teach how to make the Mercury of Saturn.
Of the Medicine, Elixir, Fermentation, Imbibition, Precipitation, Quicksilver, Saturn, Lead, The Toad
Sir Christopher Heydon saith in a manuscript of his; Levi enim arte norunt Alchemistae Mercurium currentem conficere ex plumbo. The Alchemists know how by an easy art to make current Mercury out of Lead. But what art that was no author of the ancients hath showed unto us. Quaevite, quaevite, saith the first alchemist (so Paracelsus was pleased to say in imitation of him) et invenietis, pulsate et operietur vobis. I tried many experiments, although they were repugnant to doctrine and philosophy; I almost despaired of that art; yet because nothing is difficult to the industrious, by often knocking at last I found it apart, by which means I attained to the art of such a felicity, that is to say of making Quicksilver of Lead. This art revealed is a great secret. The instruments necessary in this work are a furnace, a crucible and a pair of tongs. Let the furnace be filled with coals, whereunto put fire, and when the coals are well burnt, so that they give a clear flame and fire, take your crucible, well annealed so that it break not with the sudden heat, and put therein three ounces of filed Lead, having twelve ounces of Mercury sublimate well ground, and Salt Armoniack six ounces, mixed together, which put upon the filings of Lead in the crucible, and when the fire is strong and glowing hot, take your tongs and presently take up your crucible and put it into the hole in the top of the furnace till you hear a great noise and buzzing; then so soon as you can (lest the Quicksilver fly away with the Spirits) take away the crucible with the matter therein and set it in an earthen dish filled with ashes to cool; and when it is cold, strike the lower part of the crucible so that the matter of the Lead may fall into an earthen dish, and you shall find your Lead converted into Quicksilver.
Take of this Quicksilver so much as you please and put it to precipitate in a round glass, well luted; and set it in ashes to the top of the glass. Yet let us stay here a little while that the understanding may be more enlightened.
Therefore understand that the intention of this work is to fix the Spirit, which may sooner be done with the Spirit of a fixed body, which before was homogeneal with the body, and which of its own nature desireth to join again with its body.
Therefore Nature requireth that she may be helped by art in this work, to which the artist consenting, he administereth thereto the pure and desired metal, which it delighteth to adhere unto, which metal is Gold, which is thus prepared that it be sooner parted by the Quicksilver and stick thereunto.
Take as much pure Gold as you please and dissolve it in Aqua Regis mixed with equal part of Acetum acerrimum or Lac Virginis. Then set it to digest the space of a day; then put your dissolution into an alembick and set it in Balneo. So distil away the water as dry as you can and do thus three times and the third time distil it in ashes that the Salt Armoniack may sublime. Then put distilled Vinegar upon the matter remaining, and after it hath stood three days in Balneo, distil the Vinegar away in ashes that all the substance of the Salt Armoniack may sublime, and do thus three times, always putting in new Vinegar, until the oil of the dissolved Gold remain in the bottom. Then take of your Quicksilver three times so much as your Gold and pour it upon the solution of the Gold that they may mix together and be united. Then put your Quicksilver with the solution in a round glass, stopped only with a piece of cotton, and with a stick put it down every day as it doth ascend; and keep your glass in ashes for a month till your Quicksilver be turned into a red precipitate. Then again dissolve it in new distilled Vinegar till the whole substance of the Quicksilver be dissolved and the Vinegar be coloured into a golden colour; then distil away the Vinegar in ashes and again precipitate the Quicksilver, which is in the bottom of a gold colour, into a red and fixed body, and so have you the Mercury precipitate of Saturn.
It remaineth now that the body be imbibed with its Soul, that thus being from a Spirit reduced into a body it may agin imbibe its Soul that it may be dissolved herewith. Therefore put it into a glass and add thereto equal proportion of its Soul or Water of Paradise, and shut your glass well the space of five days till the body be dissolved with the Soul.
Then dry it in ashes till it penetrate and flow; and when it is dried, try it upon a hot iron plate if it be fixed and melt, if not, imbibe it again with half the weight of its water and do so till you make it fusible and piercing by imbibing and drying. And when it will melt in the fire and penetrate, it is then the Medicine and fit for fermentation. And after the fermentation it will be the Elixir.
Then it is to be augmented and projected as is before declared, and thus the work of Saturn is accurtated, of which George Ripley saith: Adrop is the father of the Medicine, Sericon his brother, Lympha his sister, the earth its mother.
But if you desire to know all the secret of Saturn or Lead, I will set you down one process out of Paracelsus: When you have well prepared the Heart of Saturn, saith he, take two or three ounces of that Heart and grind it small with double the weight of Saltpeter and put it in a subliming glass with a head well luted to sublime, increasing the fire by little and little as long as anything will ascend or sublime. Thus far Paracelsus. Now if you would find this true, Ripley will tell you what you shall do in these words.
When by the violence of the fire in the distillation of the Gum of the Sericon, a certain white matter shall ascend sticking to the head of the limbeck, like ice, keep the matter, which hath the property of Sulphur, not burning, and is fit matter for receiving form. You shall give it form after this manner by rectifying it in ashes; and when it is red Sulphur, give it of its Soul until it pierce and flow, then ferment it.
Here I have delivered unto you all the ways and manners of Saturn which are found in any of the philosophers' books. To the end, therefore, that the work may be completed with a demonstration of this word Plumbum Philosophorum as appears in the Practical Compendium of Ripley, I say that the philosophers' Lead is not taken for Antimony but for Adrop, being converted into the Gum of Sericon.
The influence of Jupiter and his Angel upon Hismael, Advachiel, Aquisitio, Letitia and Tin, by art and nature fitted for man's use. Jupiter followeth Saturn's steps, for he is the offspring of Saturn and naturally born from him.
Presentat Stannum sub quo aliquando Mercurius Sublimatus et Sal Ammoniarum intelligitur. Cineritius ille probus justus Jupiter influentiam suam habet in terrestrem Jovem, qui post preparationem suam, se claro serio suavi cum sale Sulphureque lunari ostentat, et mortalibus virtutes suas presentat. Habet quoque specialem suam influentiam bonus ille Jupiter in Jecur, sanat propterea illud, omnesque affectus qui inde oriuntur.
To Make the Elixir of Iron
Observe in this work 1. Calcination. 2. Solution. 3. Separation. 4. Conjunction. 5. Putrefaction. 6. Sulphur. 7. Fermentation. 8. Elixir.
Mars being most earthly of all the planets or bodies, it is not to be doubted but that it may easily be reduced into a body with little labour and therefore most easily converted into Salt, which is done by Calcination; therefore I will first show his conversion into Salt. Understand therefore that hence ariseth a two-fold consideration, that is to say that it be calcined one way into its body or Salt, the other way that the body be prepared for solution by calcination.
The practice differs but a little, for whether you calcine Iron for its Salt or Menstruum, one only manner of preparation sufficeth.
That is to say, that you take filings of Iron or Steel, as much as you please, and mix these with equal weight of Sulphur in an earthen body with a limbeck well luted thereto; then set it in ashes to sublime till all the Sulphur be sublimed from it; then dissolve the filings which remain in the bottom in Aqua Regis and it will be converted into Salt, which will be cleansed from the said water if you put thereon distilled Vinegar and distil it away. Do thus three times with new Vinegar and you shall have a yellowish-red Salt in the bottom which then is a body to be joined to the Soul, which keep in warm ashes till you use it.
Now for the practice of Iron for dissolution. Take filings of Iron or Steel, so much as you please, and put it in an iron dish filled with Vinegar and set it in the flaming fire the space of three hours; then take it out and let it cool. Reiterate this work four or five times, then calcine it with Sulphur as you did before.
When it is thus calcined, set it to dissolve in a corrosive water by adding equal weight of our Acetum acerrimum, and let it stand till it have dissolved so much as it can in the cold; then set it in hot ashes and let it stand there the space of four or five days. Pour off the water and dry that which is not dissolved, and again calcine it and dissolve it; and when it is dissolved, so as the water be coloured red, pour it out into a body and keep it till you have dissolved as much calcinated Iron as you please.
Then take all your dissolution, and with an alembick distil away the water in Balneo and put distilled Vinegar upon the matter remaining in the bottom and let it stand upon it in Balneo the space of seven days; then take out your glass and filter the dissolution and then again in Balneo distil off the Vinegar and in the bottom will remain a thick oil of Iron or Steel. But if it be not dissolved to your mind, reiterate your solution in Raymund's Calcination Water, but it would be better if it were edulcorated with Aqua Vitae, drawing it away again in in Balneo, and so you have Iron dissolved into a liquor.
Therefore proceed to distillation, that there may be a separation, and distil it in an earthen vessel in a strong fire increasing the fire as much as you can and receive the oil or Soul or red tincture of Mars, separated from the remaining feces by the nose of the limbeck, which oil is the most permanent tincture for colouring Sulphur for the red work or for exaltation of all Elixirs in colour, for it makes it tinge and colour higher.
When you have thus prepared the tincture, then proceed to conjunction
and
work with the Salt before reserved, taking three or four ounces of
the Salt and equal weight of the Soul.
Then seal it up and set it to putrefy in Balneo, and keep it there till it pass through all colours and be white, and then it is Sulphur of Nature.
The nature of Mars and his Angel upon Barzabel, Malchidael, Barchiel, Puer, Rubeus and Iron, with the mixtion of elements. The Medicine must be made when Mars ascends in Aries or Scorpio in the hour of Mars, Puer projected in the Ascendent.
Then take out your glass and set it in ashes in a greater degree of heat till it be red; then dissolving the red Sulphur with its own Soul and again dissolve and fix it; dissolving it in Balneo, fixing it under the fire, and so it is prepared for fermentation.
The fermentation is, as hath often been spoke of before, with the resolved oil of the Sulphur of Gold in a four-fold proportion to the Medicine, that by the addition of the ferment it may be made Elixir transmuting all bodies.
And note that the Elixir of Iron excelleth all other Elixirs, for it rubifieth more and tingeth higher and is better for man's body, for it prevaileth against the spleen, constringeth the belly and cureth wounds; it knitteth broken bones together and stoppeth the superfluous flux of the courses etc.
I Will Now Show The Operation Of The Physical And Alchemical Tincture Of The Red Lion And Glue Of The Eagle
It is chiefly to be remembered how I taught you to dissolve Antimony with our Acetum acerrimum, which may be also well done if you dissolve it in our Calcination Water; and after that Antimony is calcined, which hereafter shall be at large treated of, also of the Glue of the Eagle. You must understand that we attribute no other beginning to this accurtation except that where before we took the Blood of the Red Lion and the Glue of the Eagle when they were both destroyed, we now join them sound and not hurt together, that they, living, may mortify and dissolve themselves, which I have fitly called Corporeal Matrimony or the Union, for in this wedlock they die together that they may be vivified in the Celestial Antimony. It is not to be wondered if this work differ from the other, for this pertaineth to the handling of Spirits, the other way to teacheth the manner of making the Elixir of bodies.
That I may plainly reveal all things unto you, take Antimony well ground, half a pound, and as much Mercury Sublimate likewise well ground, and grind them both together upon a marble till you cannot know them one from the another; then set them in a cold place that the matter dissolving may drop into a glass set underneath, for when the matters are well mixed together, then I say that they will both shortly be dissolved; when the water is perfectly dissolved it will be of a greenish colour and loathsome smell.
Put this water with the thick part within into a glass, and let it stand the space of three days in a fixatory under the fire, and in a short time you shall have your dissolvedness of a brownish black colour, and after, that is to say in the aforesaid time, it will be red, something higher than red Lead.
Dissolve this calcined matter in Raymund's Calcinative Water, and when you have dissolved it all into a red liquor, or deep yellow, then is your matter brought well into its Chaos.
Put this liquor into a fit body with an alembick and receiver, and by distillation separate the red oil or the red Mercury from the white body which remaineth in the earth, and if any matter ascend into the head of the alembick, despise it not, but try if it be fixed; and if it be not fixed enough, sublime it till it be fixed.
Whereunto join equal weight of its Soul, for the Celestial Matrimony, and always leave out the earth in the bottom if you have any sublimate fixed; if not, take the white earth remaining in the bottom, with which proceed as before is said, and join the white body with the Soul. When they are thus joined or married, set them to impregnate and revivify in Balneo till it pass through all colours and at last be converted into red, which then is Medicine.
The manner of fermentation and augmentation, both in quantity, quality and projection, is spoken already.
And thus I have opened many choice secrets of the ancient philosophers, and also have amended many things in them. Their writings were rather published to conceal the art than to make it manifest or teach it. Although it pleaseth Hermes Trismegistus, the first writer of this art, both to say and protest that he had never revealed, taught nor prophesied anything of this art to any, except fearing the Day of Judgement or the damnation of his Soul for shunning the danger thereof, even as he received the gift of faith from the Author of faith, so he left it to the faithful. Yet when you read his writings either in his Smaragdine Tablet or in his Apocaled or his Twelve Golden Gates and shall find nothing plain, what shall ye think of such an author? Believe me, all the ancients have concealed the secret of their preparations in the gross work, although they writ most famously of the philosophic operation; therefore I have used my endeavour to try, for out of their writings I found that the Elixir might be made of the planets or metals, and also of mean minerals, which came near to a metallic nature. Then, reading more, I found a certain method amongst them all, as it were with one consent or voice on this wise.
First and principally that bodies should be made incorporeal, that is to say discorporated or discompounded, which then is called Hyle or Chaos. Secondly that out of the Chaodical substance, which is one thing, three elements should be separated and purified.
Thirdly that the separated and purified elements should be joined, the man and the woman, the body and the Soul, heaven and earth, with infinite other names so called that the ignorant might think they were divers, which only were nothing else but water and Salt, or the Body and Spirit or Soul, that is to say white Mercury and Red, which they joined together that a new and pure body might be created in putrefaction and a Microcosmical infant might be created in imitation of the Creation, that is to say, Sulphur of Nature.
Fourthly that it should be fed with Milk, that is to say that its own proper tincture, and afterwards nourished by fermentation, that it may grow to its perfect strength.
Having learned these I began to practise, and in the practice of every body and Spirit I found divers errors; but reading more and trying more, I at last found the manner and true way of dissolving all bodies, separating and conjoining them, finding the composition of their secret of secrets, that is to say Lac Virginis or Acetum acerrimum, and Raymund's Calcining Water, wherewith I dissolved all bodies at pleasure and perfected the gross work. Wherefore I purposed, contrary to the customs of the philosophers, to reveal the whole work lest I, being envious, should be the author of errors like themselves. Therefore I have added their secrets to my own experiments and inventions, which are plainly and truly writ.
Alchemy revealeth and openeth unto us four other secrets.
The first is the Composition of Pearls, far greater and fairer than natural ones, which cannot be perfectly done without the help of the Elixir.
The second is the manner of making precious stones out of ignoble ones, by the same art as we made malleable glass.
The third is the manner of making artificial Carbuncles in imitation of natural ones, which few or none have spoken of.
The fourth is the manner of making Mineral Amber, of which Paracelsus hath only writ in his Book of Vexations of Philosophers and in the last edition of his work in the sixth book of his Archidoxes; but because they cannot be made without the help of the Elixirs, therefore they deserve a place among the Elixirs, where I shall discover the virtue or rather the vice of making Amber.
The Operation Of Making Pearls Consisteth of These Parts. Viz:
Lac Virginis
Dissolved Pearls
Quicksilver and
The White Elixir.
Take Lac Virginis or Acetum acerrimum, so much as you think sufficient for dissolving the Pearls, as in double proportion to the Pearls, as if there be three ounces of the Pearls let there be six ounces of Lac Virginis, wherein dissolve the Pearls and set the glass in Balneo to digest the space of a day. Then pour out the solution and distil it in Balneo, and in the bottom of the glass you shall find the thick oil of the Pearls, whereunto add so much of your white corporeal Elixir as sufficeth to make the matter like paste, and put thereto equal weight of the pearls of Quicksilver. If the matter be too thin, put more powder of the Elixir; if it be too thick, add more Lac Virginis or Quicksilver, till it be like liver. Grind this mass upon a stone till it be brought to a fit thickness.
Then make it up in what form you please, and therefore it is necessary that you have a pair of brass or iron moulds in readiness (but it would be better if they were of silver) of what form you will, and fill them with the matter while it is soft; then pierce them through with a needle or such like thing, and put as many of them in a glass as you will (but first hang them upon a thread) and close well the glass and bury it with the pearls therein two foot under the earth and let it stand there the space of six months till they be congealed with the cold into a shining and clear substance like natural Margarites. These Pearls made and compounded in this manner are no less than natural ones, but much greater and more excellent by reason of the white Elixir.
The Operation Of The Magistery Of Carbuncles
Carbuncles have their birth and origin in the pits and golden mines of the earth, of the Spirit of Gold and mineral Salt, indurated and corporeal, being decocted and disgested into the hardness of stone by the Archaeus of Nature, as well by the heat of the climate as by the great heat of the Sun; for they arise from the Spirit of the minere of Sol or Gold under the earth, by whose influence they shine as also from whom they are hardened into the nature of the stone; whence the philosopher intendeth and endeavoureth as he can to imitate nature by art and to make and compound artificial Carbuncles above the earth with the same materials which nature formeth them of under the earth; therefore he useth the same principles, operating with the Spirit and Soul of Sol undivided, and the most hard Salt of the earth, whereof Venice glass is made, which two are the material organs. For the manual operation three things are required, that is to say a glass maker furnace, a flaming fire and a crucible.
We now come to the materials, which are two and are to be joined together; the first giveth the form, the other receiveth it. That which giveth the form is the Spirit and Soul of Sol or Gold, joined together in the Red Elixir and is the agent and, as it were, the man. That which receiveth the form is the hardest salt of the earth contained in glass, and is the power of heaven impregnating the earth; the patient is the power of the earth retaining the impression of the heaven.
Having thus demonstrated the theory we now lay the foundations of the
practice, which are two, whereof the first is the preparation of the Elixir,
the other of glass. Therefore your red corporeal Elixir is to dissolved
with the oil or tincture of Mars or Iron, because it has the greatest virtue
above all other bodies, by whose celestial power the earth, that is to
say the glass, is to be brought to the hardness of a stone and converted
into stone. And so the Elixir is prepared for projection upon glass; but
for the preparation of glass there is no more required but that it be made
of the same matter that Venice glass is made of, the composition of which,
if ye know not, take as much Venice glass as you please and weigh it exactly,
upon which to project your Elixir. When you have done so, put your glass
in the crucible to melt, and when it is well molten then take your corporeal
red Elixir dissolved as before (or if you will, undissolved) as much as
sufficeth to tinge the molten glass, and put it tied up in a paper in the
glass, stirring it a little with a rod, and there let it stand the space
of an hour. Then take out the crucible and pour the matter into an ingot,
and it will be malleable but as hard as glass and stone-like to the sight;
and you may either cut it like stone or work it with a hammer. This Carbuncle
stone or metal hath the property of a Carbuncle in shining and glistring
above all natural Carbuncles; and if you touch a Toad or Spider, they presently
die, because it taketh virtue from the Elixir against all poisons. And
if the sick carry this Carbuncle about with him, so that it doth touch
the region of his heart, it taketh away the cardiac passion and diminisheth
the strength of the disease.
Of The Composition Of The Mineral Electrum Of Amber As Well Natural As Artificial And Of The Bell Made Of Amber Used By Trithemius
Having finished these two secrets we now come to the Electrum, but whether it is to be reckoned amongst stones or amongst bodies it may be doubted because in the West Indies it is found writ in Spanish Decads of the virtue thereof, for it is affirmed to be the greatest antidote against all poison and far more noble than Gold; but if it be a metal it must necessarily be the chief and supreme of all metals, for other metals have their origin from Sulphur and Mercury, but this metal consisteth of seven metals and is the best of all those which grow by the Ideas of the earth. For where Gold is taken for the most noble of all metals by reason of its perfect digestion and colour, this hath a greater degree of digestion and colour having a higher colour, that is to say, clear red, approaching nearer to the true colour of the Sun. For as Gold is the Sun of other metals, so this Electrum is to Gold as the heaven is to the Sun, wherein nature, as it were, in heaven hath created certain stars shining with clear beams of a silver colour, showing plain to the eye that it consisteth of red and white metals mixed in the highest degree of digestion.
On the contrary it may be objected:
Object 1. That there are only six metallic bodies, amongst which this is not to be found, therefore it is a rather Spirit than a body.
Also that:
Object 2. The minere of every body or metal is converted into metal by fusion, but the minere of Electrum in melting always remaineth, therefore it is no metal.
Object 3. There is nothing generated in the earth but stones, Spirits, metals or mean minerals. But Electrum is none of these, therefore it seems to be no mineral.
1. To the first objection it is thus answered. We say that it is not apparent out of the books of any of the ancient philosophers that they even dreamed of this natural and mineral Electrum. But more to the purpose: those that are called Spirits which fly from the fire; but the Electrum flieth not from the fire; therefore it is no Spirit as Quicksilver and the rest and also mean minerals.
2. We now come to the next. We grant that the minere of every metal is converted into metal by the fire, which consists of Mercury and Sulphur. This axiom is evident in those metals which are imperfect and fly from the fire either in their minere or in themselves after they be reduced to metal; and also the Gold minere, although before melting it fly from the fire, before the Gold be molten, but is fixed in all probation, therefore it is accounted the worthiest of all metals which consist of Sulphur and Mercury.
3. Now the third. I say that I think it rather is of a stony and metallic nature joined together, by which mixture it differs from a stone and also from a metal; but because it consisteth of Mercury, earthly Salt and Sulphur mixed, therefore it gets unto it a mixed nature of them, so that it is half stone, half metal.
Wherefore it is to be judged that it consisteth of three natures mixed together; that is to say mineral, metallic and stony, and is the best of all those which grow in the Ideas of the earth, for it exceeds mean minerals in fixation and constancy, because they pass away in fume by long melting and vanish to nothing, or else they melt easily in moisture as Salts, etc. But this Electrum or Amber remaineth fixed and constant as well in the fire as water.
It exceeds metals in digestion, colour and dignity. In digestion because it is endowed with the sign of greater and more perfect digestion. For as gold is more yellow by reason of his greater heat and more perfect digestion, so the Electrum, because it hath a higher colour than Gold hath, therefore it is more digested in colour; for as Gold exceeds other metals in colour, so Electrum exceeds Gold; for Gold is yellow but Electrum is red, which is a higher colour than yellow. And as Silver is the Luna of white metals, so Gold is the Sol of red metals: so Electrum is to Gold as the heaven is to Sol in dignity and value. For by how much more Gold is more noble than Silver, so much this Electrum is more noble than Gold.
Lastly it exceeds stones in shining and virtue; in shining because these shine by reason of their hardness; so this Electrum showeth many sparks, not by reason of its hardness, but by reason of this completeness. And as the heaven is adorned with stars, so this Electrum is with sparkling, because it hath the clearness and brightness of all metals. And as the heaven containeth all the stars and planets, so this Electrum, which is the heaven of metals, containeth the Sun and Moon and the rest of the planets in itself, Gold and Silver as it were the greater luminaries, the other bodies or metals as the rest of the planets, mean minerals as stars in virtue.
For although many stones have singular properties and virtues, so that some help the sight, others the spleen, some the heart, some stop blood, some hinder abortiveness, some hasten childbirth, some resist poison, yet there is no one found which takes away all infirmities, as Electrum does more than all mean minerals, metals or stones, according to the three-fold conjunction, that is to mineral, metallic and lapifidic.
Therefore, whatsoever others please to think of this natural Electrum, this seemeth most probable to me, that it is not simply a metal, but of a nature exceeding metal; for whereas stones, mean minerals and metals are generated of Salt, Sulphur and Mercury, this Electrum takes his original from stones, minerals and metals. From stones it takes Salt, from minerals Mercury and from Metals Sulphur. These three being brought into one by the Ideas of Nature are its elements, from a greater virtue and power of nature; which elements have formed a higher degree of perfection than in any other stone, mineral or metal, as it were by the command of God, nature should ascribe a crown of virtue and dignity above all minerals.
But however it be, it is taken two manner of ways among the later Magicians and Rosie Crucians, and that is to say, that which is made naturally and artificially. Naturally is that which groweth in the natural Ideas of the earth; the artificial is that which is made by art above the earth in imitation of nature.
Whence Paracelsus, a worthy Master in Magic, seeing fully the nature and the utility of Alchemy, commanding to make the Elixir thereof, when as its natural body cannot anywhere be had, in his Book of the Vexations of Philosophers and the sixth of his Magical Archidoxes, teacheth to compound an Artificial Electrum that the Elixir must be made thereof, as appears more at large in the said books, which I like not at all. He teacheth how to make the Elixir out of Electrum; I contrarily, the Electrum out of Elixir; he would make the Elixir out of the virtue of the Elixir. I leave his way to his own followers, but I desire mine not to weary and vex themselves in such a weak, but in a more strong principle.
I make two kinds of Electrum one way, the first whereof is spiritual, the other corporeal. First of the former. After you have made your red corporeal Elixir by projection, in the same crucible melt one ounce of Lead and likewise another of Tin; and when they are hot, take the crucible from the fire and pass therein one ounce of Silver melted in another crucible. And when these three white metals begin to be cold, take two ounces of Mercury well purged and put these two ounces of Quicksilver upon the molten metal by drops, then increase the fire gently so that too much of the Mercury do not fume away. Then in three other several crucibles melt Iron, Copper and Gold, of each one ounce, which you must have in readiness molten. And first put your molten Gold into the crucible where your four white metals stand molten, and pour upon them the Copper and last of all your Iron, stirring the whole mass with a stick, that is may mix together, and let it stand in a melting heat the space of an hour. Then take all out that it may mix together and let it stand in melting in the crucible and consider well the weight of it and according to the goodness of the Elixir make projection for Medicine. And then you have created and compounded spiritual Electrum of the weight of seven ounces, consisting of seven metals, which metals so converted into Medicine, will be the Elixir of Electrum and an universal Medicine, for you need not after regard upon what body (or metal) you project it. It is also the choicest of Medicine for man's body; for although three or four of all the diseases of the Microcosm were united together, yet they may be cured with this one Medicine. If you dissolve part of this in Spirit of Wine and distil away the same Spirit in Balneo and the oil of the Medicine of Elixir remain in the bottom, you shall have a most noble Rosie Crucian Medicine of Life.
Note that if your Iron melt not well, then dissolve your Electrum in the oil or tincture of Mars, dissolving and congealing until it have imbibed a sufficient quantity.
But if you desire to make corporeal Electrum, when your Medicine beginneth to fail to convert metals any more into Medicine, then in like manner project your Medicine upon your melted metals or bodies and they will be converted into corporeal Electrum, metallic and malleable. Of the abuse of this Electrum Paracelsus writeth that Virgil Hispanus and Trithemius made a diabolical bell of this Artificial Electrum, upon which, when they would invocate Spirits (which they called by a more decent name of Intelligences) they writ the character of what Spirit they desired and at the third ring of the bell the Spirits obeyed their desires so long as they desired to talk with them; and when they would talk no more, they hid the character, and by the reverse ringing of the bell the Spirits departed. This supernatural Magic is altogether infamous and unlawful.
Before I come to the Particularia, or the preparations of the seven metals, I will discover some Arcanums belonging to Vitriol, Sulphur and the Magnet.
There is a subterranean mineral Salt called Vitriol, which for dyeing of cloths and many other uses we cannot want. It is distinguished from other Salts in its sharpness and quality in eating through. The mineral of this Salt is strange and of a very hot and fiery quality as is apparent in its Spirit, the like of which is not found in other Salts. It is white and red and hath an extraordinary medicinal quality. This Salt containeth a combustible Sulphur, which is not in other Salts. Therefore in metalline affairs, touching their transmutation, it performeth more than others. It not only opens some, but helpeth the generation of others by reason of its innate heat. When Vitriol is separated by fire, then its Spirit at first comes in a white form; after that there comes from its earth a Spirit of a red condition. Staying in the earth, the Salt, being united with its expelled Mercury and Sulphur, can sharpen them; the remainder that stayeth behind is a dead earth of no efficacy. Consider well this now kindled Ternary, for as you find in Vitriol's body three distinct things, as Spirit, Oil and Salt, even so you may expect from its own Spirit again (which without the mingling of its oil is driven from its matter) three distinct things as you did formerly from the body of Vitriol, which well deserveth the name of Speculum Sapientiae Physicae. Separate this Spirit of Vitriol as it ought, then that affords again unto you three principles, out of which only, without any addition, since the beginning of the world the Philosophers' Stone hath been made. From that you have to expect again a Spirit of a white form, an oil of a red quality and after these two a crystalline Salt. These three being duly joined in their perfection generate no less than the Philosophers' great Stone, for that white Spirit is merely Philosophers' Mercury and the red oil is the Soul and the Salt is the true Magnetic Body. As from the Spirit of Vitriol is brought to light the red and white tinctures, so from its oil there is made Venus, her tincture, and in the centre they are much distinct assunder, though they dwell in one body. In this knowledge lieth hid an irrecoverable error; worldly wit cannot conceive of it that the Spirit of Vitriol and the remaining oil should be of so great distinction in their virtue. Touching their properties, the Spirit being well dissolved and brought into its three principles, Gold and Silver only can be made of it, and out of its oil only Copper, which will be apparent in a proof made.
The condition of the Spirit of Vitriol and its remaining oil is this, that where there is Copper and Iron, the Solar Seed is not far from it commonly; and again where there is Seed of Gold at hand, Copper and Iron are not far from it, by reason of its attractive magnetic quality and love, which they, as tingeing Spirits in a visible manner continually bear one to another. Therefore Venus and Mars are penetrated and tinged with the superabounding tincture of Gold, and in them there is found much more the root of the red tincture than in Gold itself, unto which there belongeth also the minera of Vitriol, which goeth beyond these in many degrees, because its Spirit is mere Gold and rubedo, a crude, indigested tincture, and in very truth is not found out otherwise.
But this Spirit must be divided into certain distinct parts, as into Spirit, Soul and Body. The Spirit is the Philosophic Water, which, though visibly parted assunder, yet can never be separated radically (because of their unavoidable affinity they bear and have one to another) as it appeareth plainly when afterward they are joined, for the one, in their mixture, embraceth the other, even as a magnet draweth Iron, but in a meliorated essence better than they had before their dissolution. This Spirit (I can prove) is the essence of Vitriol, because this Spirit and oil do differ so much and were never united radically; and because the oil cometh after the Spirit, each can be received apart. This fiery Spirit may rather and more fitly be called an essence, Sulphur and substance of Gold, and it is so, though it lieth lurking in Vitriol as a Spirit.
This golden Water, or Spirit drawn from Vitriol;, contains again a Sulphur and a Magnet; its Sulphur is the anima, an incombustible fire; the Magnet is its own Salt, which in the conjunction attracteth its Sulphur and Mercury, uniteth with the same and are inseparable companions. First in a gentle heat is dissolved the undigested Mercurial Spirit; by this is further extracted after a magnetic way by the Mercurial Spirit; so still the one is a Magnet unto the other, bearing magnetic love one to another, as such things whether the last together with the medium is drawn forth by the first, and are thereby generated and thus take their beginning. In this separation and dissolution the Spirit or Mercury is the first Magnet, showing its magnetic virtue towards the Sulphur and Soul which it, quasi magnes, attracteth. This Spirit, per modem distillationis, being absolved and freed, showeth again its magnetic power towards the Salt, which it attracteth from the dead earth; after the Spirit is separated from it, then the Salt appeareth in its purity. If that process be further followed, and after a true order and measure the conjunction be undertaken and the Spirit and Salt be set together into the philosophic furnace, then it appears again how the heavenly Spirit striveth in a magnetic way to attract its own Salt, for it dissolveth the same within forty days, bringeth it to an uniform water with itself, even as the Salt hath been before its coagulation. In that destruction and dissolution appeareth the highest blackness and eclipse and darkness of the earth that was ever seen. But in the exchange thereof a bright, glittering whiteness appearing, then the case is altered and the dissolved, fluid, waterish Salt turns into a Magnet; for in that dissolution it layeth hold on its own Spirit, which is the Spirit of Mercury, attracteth the same powerfully like a Magnet, hiding it under a form of a dry, clear body, bringing the same by way of uniting into a deep coagulation and firm fixedness by means of a continued fire and the certain degrees thereof.
Note that from all metals, especially from Mars and Venus, which are very hard and almost fixed metals, of each part can be made Vitriol. This is the reduction of a metal into its mineral. For minerals grow to metals and metals were at first minerals, and so minerals are proxima materia of metals, but not prima. From these Vitriols may be made other reductions, namely a Spirit is drawn from them by the virtue of the fire.
This Spirit being driven over, then there is again a reduction of a mineral into its spiritual essence, and each Spirit in its reduction keepeth a metalline property; but this Spirit is not the prima materia.
Of The Sulphur And Ferment Of The Philosophers
I have formerly told you plainly how the Philosophers' Sulphur is made; in loco masculi pour this Spirit upon purged and fined Gold. Let it dissolve and putrefy fourteen days, in Balneo Mariae distil it and pour the water again on the Gold calx, and cohobate this until the Gold pours over with the water; set this again to distil, abstract the water gently, leave a third part of it in the bottom, then set it into a cellar; let it coagulate and crystallise, wash these crystals with distilled water, amalgamate them with Mercury vive, evaporate the Mercury gently, then you have a subtile powder; put it in a glass, lute it, reverberate it for three days and nights, doing it gently; thus is the philosophers' Sulphur well prepared for your work and this is the Purple Mantle or Philosophic Gold; keep it safe in a glass for your conjunction.
Of The Philosophic Vitriol
After the philosophers' Sulphur is made, which in loco masculi is to make the King or man, now you must have the female or wife, which is the Mercury of the Philosophers or the materia prima lapidis, which must be made artificially; for our Azoth is not common Vinegar, but is extracted with the common Azoth, and there is a Salt made of materia prima or Mercury of the Philosophers, which is coagulated in the belly of the earth. When this matter is brought to light it is not clear and it is found everywhere; it is ponderous and hath a scent of a dead body. Take this matter, distil, calcine, sublime and reduce it to ashes, for if an artist want ashes, how can he make a Salt, and he that hath not a metalline Salt, how can he make the philosophers' Mercury?
Therefore if you have calcined the matter, then extract its Salt, rectify it well, let it shoot into the Vitriol, which must be sweet without any corrosiveness or sharpness of Salt. Then you get the philosophers' Vitriol or Philosophic Oil. Make further of it a mercurial water. Thus you have performed an artificial work. This is called the philosophers' Azoth, which purgeth Laton that is not yet washed. For Azoth washeth Laton, as the ancient philosophers have told two or three thousand years agone. For the philosophical Salt or Laton must with its own humidity, or its own mercurial water be purged, dissolved, distilled, attract its Magnet and stay with it. And this is the philosophers' Mercury or Mercurius duplicatus, and it consists of two Spirits, or a Spirit and a water of the Salt of Metals. Then this water beareth the name of Succus Lunaris, Aqua Coelestis, Acetum Philosophorum, Aqua Sulphuris, Aqua Permanens, Aqua Benedicta. Take eight or ten parts of this water and one part of the Ferment or Sulphur of Sol; set it in the philosophers' egg, lute it well; put it in the athanor, into that vaprous yet dry fire; govern it to the appearance of a black, white and red colour; then you get the Philosophers' Stone.
Of The Philosophic Magnet
Hermes, the father of the philosophers, had this art and was the first that wrote of it and prepared the Stone out of Mercury, Sol and Luna of the philosophers, whom some hundred laborators have imitated. I do assure you for a truth that the philosophers' Stone is composed of two bodies; the beginning and ending of it must be with philosophic Mercury.
And this is now prima materia and is coagulated in the entrails of the earth, first into Mercury, then into Lead, then into Tin and Copper, then into Iron, etc. Thus the coagulated Mercury must by art be turned into its prima materia or water, that is mercurial water.
This is a stone and no stone, of which is made a volatile fire in the form of a water, which drowneth and dissolveth its fixed father and its volatile mother. Mettaline Salt is an imperfect body which turneth to philosophic Mercury, that is a permanent or blessed water, and is the philosophers' Magnet, which loveth its philosophic Mars, sucketh unto him and abideth with him. Thus our Sol hath a Magnet also, which Magnet is the first root and matter of our Stone. If you conceive of and understand my saying and what Hermes saith, three things are required for the work; first a volatile or mercurial water, aqua coelestis, then Leo viridis, which is the philosophic Lune, thirdly does Hermetis, Sol or Ferment.
Lastly note philosophers had two ways, a wet one, which I made use of, and a dry one. Herein you must proceed philosophically; you must purge well the philosophers' Mercury and make Mercury with Mercury, adding the philosophic Salt, Ferment or Sulphur of philosophers and then you have firstly the philosophers' magnet, that is the philosophers' Mercury, secondly the metalline Salt or philosophic Salt, thirdly oes Hermetis or philosophic Sulphur.
A Process Upon The Philosophic Work Of Vitriol
Take ten pound of Vitriol dissolved in distilled rain water; being warmed let it stand for a day and a night. At that time many feces were settled. I filtered the matter, evaporated it gently ad cuticulum usque. I set it in a cool place to crystallise. This onshot Vitriol I exiccated, dissolved it again in distilled rain water, let it shoot again, which work I iterated so till the Vitriol got a celestial green colour, having no more any feces about it, and lost all his corrosiveness and was of a very pleasant taste.
This highly putrefied Vitriol, thus crude and not calcined. I put into a coated retort, distilled it in open fire, drove it over in twelve hours space by an exact government of fire in a white fume. When no more of these fumes came and the red corrosive oil began to come, then I let the fire go out. The next morning, all being cold, I took off the receiver, poured the gift in the receiver into a body, and some of the lute being fallen in too, I filtered it and had a fair menstrual water, which had some phlegm because I took that Vitriol uncalcined, which I abstracted in Balneo, not leaving one drop.
I found my Chaos in the bottom of a dark redness, very ponderous, which I poured into a viol, sealed it hermeticê, set it on a three-foot into a wooden globe into a vaprous bath made of water, where I left it so long till all was dissolved. After some weeks it separated into two parts, into a bright, transparent water and into an earth, which settled to the bottom of the glass in the form of a thick, black corrosive like pitch.
I separated the white spirit from it and the fluid black matter I set in again to be dissolved. The white Spirit which was dissolved out of it I separated again. This work I reiterated, leaving nothing in the bottom save a dry, red earth. After that I purged my white Spirit per distillationem very exactly; it was as pure as the tear that falls from the eye. The remaining earth I exiccated under a muffle; it was porous and as dry as dust. On this I poured again my white Spirit and set it in a digestion. This Spirit extracted the Sulphur or philosophic Gold and was tinged of a red yellow. I canted it off from the matter and in a body I abstracted the Spirit from the Sulphur. That Sulphur stayed behind in the form of an oil, very fiery, nothing being like unto its heat, as red as Ruby. The abstracted white Spirit I poured on the earth again, extracted further in Sulphur and put it to the former. After this that corpus terrae looked of a paler colour, which I calcined for some hours under a muffle and put it into a body; on it I poured my white Spirit and extracted its pure, white, fixed Salt. The remaining earth was very porous, and good for nothing, which I flung away; thus these three principles were fully and perfectly separated.
After this I took my astral, clarified Salt, which weighed half an ounce after the weight at Strasbourg in Germany, and of the white Spirit, which weighed four ounces, of Mercury one ounce and a quarter of an ounce. These I divided into two parts, whose quantity was half an ounce and one dram. I put this Salt to one part of the other in a viol and nipped it and set it in digestion; there I saw perfectly how the Salt dissolved itself again in this Spirit, therefore I poured to it the other part, which was half an ounce and one dram. No sooner this was put to it than presently the body, together with the Spirit, turned as black as coal, ascended to the end of the glass, and having no room to go any further, it moved to and fro. Sometimes it settled to the bottom; by and by it rose to the middle; then it rose higher. Thus it moved from the fourth of July to the seventh of August, namely thirty-four days, which wonderful work I beheld with admiration. At last these were united and turned to a black powder staying on the bottom and was dry. Seeing that it was so I increased my fire in one degree, took it out of the wet and set it in ashes; after ten days the matter on the bottom began to look somewhat white, at which I rejoiced heartily. This degree of fire I continued till the matter above and below became as white as the glittering snow. But it was not yet fixed as I discovered upon making trial of it, so I set it in again and increased my fire one degree higher; then the matter began to ascend and descend, moved on high, stayed in the middle of the glass, not touching the bottom of it. This lasted thirty-eight days and nights, and I beheld them as well as formerly, at the thirty days, a variety of colours which I am not able to express.
At last this powder fell to the bottom and became fixed. I made projection with it, putting one grain of it to one and a quarter ounce of Mercury, transmuting the same into very good Lune. Now it was time to restore unto this white tincture her true anima, and imbibe it, to bring it from its whiteness unto redness and to its perfect virtue.
Thereupon I took the third principle, namely the anima, which hitherto I had reserved, (in quantity it was one ounce and one dram) poured it to my reserved Spirit of Mercury, (whose quantity was one ounce and a quarter of an ounce) and drew it over several times per alembicum so that they in the end united together. I then divided them into seven equal parts; one part I poured on my clarified earth or tincture, which greedily embraced its anima, together with its Spirit, and turned to a ruddiness in twelve days and nights, but had no tingeing quality as yet, saving that Mercury vive and Saturn it transmuted into Lune, which Lune at the separating yielded three grains of Gold. I proceeded further with my imbibation and carried all the seven parts of the anima into my tincture; at the fourth imbibation one part of my work tinged ten parts of Copper into Gold; at the fifth imbibation one part tinged an hundred parts; at the sixth it tinged a thousand parts; at the seventh it tinged ten thousand parts. At this time I got of the true Medicine four ounces, half an ounce and one dram.
Of The Preparation Of The Seven Metals. And First Of The Sulphur Of Sol, Whereby Luna Is Tinged Into Good Gold
Take of pure Gold, which is three times cast through Antimony, and of well purged Mercury vive, being pressed through leather, six parts; make of it an Amalgama; to the quantity of this Amalgama grind twice as much of common Sulphur; let it evaporate on a broad pan in a gentle heat under a muffle, stirring it well with an Iron hook; let the fire be modified that the matter do not melt together. This Gold calx must be brought to the colour of a Marigold flower, then it is right. Then take one part of Saltpeter, one part of Sal Armoniack, half a part of grinded pebbles and draw a water from it. Note this water must be drawn warily and exactly; to draw it after the common way will not do; he that is used to chemic preparations knows what he hath to do. And note you must have a strong stone retort, which must be coated, to hold the Spirit closely; its upper part must have a pipe upward of half a span's length; its wideness must bear two fingers breadth; it must be set first in a distilling furnace, which must be open above that the upper pipe may stand out directly; apply a large receiver and lute it well; let your first fire be gentle, then increase it that the retort look glowing hot; put a spoonful of this ground matter in at the pipe suddenly with a wet clout and the Spirits come rushingly into the receiver. These Spirits being settled, then carry in another spoonful; in this manner you proceed till you have distilled all. At last give time to the Spirits to be settled and to turn into water. This water is a hellish, dissolving, strong one, which dissolveth instantly prepared Gold Calx and laminated Gold into a thick solution. This is that water which dissolves not only Gold but bringeth it to a volatility, carrying it over the helmet, whose anima may afterwards be drawn from its torn body.
Note the Spirit of common Salt effecteth the same if drawn in that manner which I shall mention afterwards. If three parts of this Salt Spirit be taken, and one part of Spiritus Nitri, it is stronger than Sal Armoniack water, and is better because it is not so corrosive, dissolveth Gold the sooner, carrieth it over the helmet, and maketh it volatile and fit to part with its Soul. You have your choice to use which you think best and may easier be prepared thus: Take one part of the prepared Gold calx and three parts of the water which you make choice of. Put it into a deep body, lute a helmet of it, set it in warm ashes and let it dissolve; that which is not dissolved, pour three times as much water upon, that all dissolve. Let it cool, separate the feces, put the solution into a body, lute a helmet to it and let it stand in a gentle heat day and night in Balneo Marine. If more feces be settled separate them, digest them again in Balneo nine days and nights, then abstract the water gently to a spissitude like unto an oil in the bottom. This abstracted water must be poured on that spissitude and this must be iterated again and often that it grow weary and weak; remember to lute well at all times. To the oleity on the bottom pour fresh water which was not yet used; digest day and night, firmly closed, then set it in a sand cupel and distil the water from it till it be reduced to a thickness; make the abstracted water warm, put it in a body, lute it, abstract it, iterate this work and make all the Gold come over the helmet.
Note, at the next drawing always the fire must have one degree more. The Gold being come over into the water, abstract the water gently from it in the Balney to the oleity and set the glass into a cool place; there will shoot transparent crystals; these are the Vitriol of Gold. Pour the water from it, distil it again unto an oleity and sat it by for shooting; more crystals will shoot; iterate it as long as any do shoot. Dissolve these crystals in distilled water, put to it of purged Mercury three times as much, shake it about, many colours will appear, an Amalgama falls to the ground and the water cleareth up. Evaporate the Amalgama gently under a muffle, stirring it still with a wire; at last you get a purple coloured powder, scarlet like; it dissolveth in Vinegar into a blood redness. Extract its anima with prepared Spirit of Wine mixed with the Spirit of common Salt, entered together into a sweetness. This tincture of Sol is like a transparent Ruby, leaving a white body behind.
Note that without information you cannot attain unto the Spirit of Salt; if it be not sweet it hath no attractive power; to the attaining hereof observe these following manuals: Take good Spirit of Salt, dephlegmed exactly, driven forth in that manner as ye shall hear anon. Take one part of it, add half a part to it of the best Spirit of Wine, which must not have any phlegm, but be a mere Sulphur of Wine and must be prepared in that manner as I shall tell you anon. Lute a helmet to it, draw it over strongly, leave nothing behind. To the abstracted part put more Spirit of Wine, draw it over somewhat stronger than you did the first time, weigh it, put a third time more Spirit of Wine to it and draw it over again well luted; putrefy this for half a month, or so long as it be sweet, and it is done in Balney very gently. Thus the Spirit of Wine and Salt is prepared, loses its corrosity and is fit for extracting.
Take the Ruby-red prepared Gold powder, put of this prepared Spirit of Salt and Wine so much that it stand two fingers breadth over it, set it in a gentle heat and the Spirit will be red tinged; this Spirit must be canted off. Pour a new Spirit on that which remaineth on the bottom, set it luted into a gentle heat, let it be tinged deeply, then cant it off; this work must be iterated (till) that the body of Sol remain on the bottom like Calx vive, which keep, for therein sticketh more Salt of Gold, which is effectual in ways of Medicine, as shall be showed anon.
Those tinged Spirits put together, abstract them gently in Balneo and there will be left a red subtile powder in the bottom, which is the true tincture animated, or Sulphur of Gold. Dulcify it with distilled rain water and it will be very subtile, tender and fair. Take this extracted Sulphur of Sol as you were taught, and as much of the Sulphur of Mars, as you shall hear anon when I treat of Mars. Grind them together, put it in a pure glass, pour on it so much of Spirit of Mercury --- let it stand over it two fingers breadth --- that the matter may be dissolved; see to it that all dissolve into a Ruby-like Gold water, jointly drive it over, then it is one and were at first of one stem. Keep it well, that nothing of it evaporate; put it in separated Silver calx, being precipitated with pure Salt and afterwards well edulcorated and dried; fix it together in a fiery fixation that it sublime no more; then take it and melt it in a wind-oven; let it stream well; then you have united Bride and Bridegroom and brought them unto Gold of a high degree. Be thankful to God for it as long as you shall live.
I shall hereafter at large set forth how this extracted Soul of Sol may be made potable. I will now set forth how the white solar body shall further be anatomised, and that by art its Mercury vive and its Salt may be obtained. The process of it is thus.
Take the white body of Sol, from which you have drawn its anima, reverberate it gently for half an hour, let it become corporeal, then pour on it well rectified honey-water, which is corrosive and extract its Salt in a gentle heat. It is done in ten days space. The Salt being all extracted, abstract the water from it in Balneo, edulcorate the Salt with iterated distillings with common distilled water, clarify it with Spirits of Wine, then you have Sol auri, of which you shall hear more in its due place and of the good qualities in hath by way of medicine upon man. On the remaining matter pour Spirit of Tartar, of which elsewhere because it belongeth unto medicinals. Digest these for a month's time, drive it through a glass retort into cold water, then you have quick Mercury of Sol; many strive to get it but in vain.
There is one mystery more in Nature, that the white solar body, having once lost its anima, may be tinged again and brought to be pure Gold, which mystery is revealed to very few. I shall briefly declare it, as also about the universal Stone of the Philosophers, how it resteth merely upon the white Spirit of Vitriol, and how that all three principles are found only in this Spirit and how you are to proceed in and to bring each into its certain state and order.
Take the philosophic Sulphur, which in order is the second principle and is extracted with the Spirit of Mercury; pour it on the white body of the King, digest it for a month in a gentle Balny, then fix it in ashes and at last in sand, that the brown powder may appear; then melt it with a fluxing powder made of Saturn; then it will be malleable and fair Gold as it was formerly, in colour and virtue nothing defective. But note, the Salt must not be taken from the Solar body.
There may be prepared yet in another manner a transparent Vitriol from Gold in the following manner.
Take good Aqua Regis made with Sal Armoniack one pound, id est dissolve four ounces Sal Armoniack in Aqua Fortis, then you have a strong Aqua Regis. Distil and rectify it often over the helmet, let no feces remain behind; let all that ascends be transparent. Then take thinly beaten Gold rolls, cast formerly through Antimony, put them into a body, pour on it Aqua Regis, let it dissolve as much as it will or as you can dissolve in it. Having dissolved all the Gold, pour into it some oil of Tartar or Salt of Tartar dissolved in fountain water till it begins to hiss. Having done hissing, then pour in again of the oil. Do it so long till all the dissolved Gold fallen to the bottom and nothing more of it precipitate, and the Aqua Regis clear up. This being done, then cant off the Aqua Regis from the Gold calx, edulcorate it with common water eight, ten or twelve times. The Gold calx being well settled, cant off that water and dry the Gold calx in the air where the Sun doth not shine. Do it not over a fire, for as soon as it feeleth the least heat in kindleth and great damage is done, for it would fly away forcibly that no man could stay it. This powder being ready also, then take strong Vinegar, pour it on, boil it continually, over the fire in a good quantity of Vinegar, still stirring it that it may not stick unto the bottom, for twenty-four hours together, then the fulminating quality is taken from it; be careful you do not endanger yourself; cant off the Vinegar, dulcify the powder, and dry it. This powder may be driven per Alembicum without any corrosive, blood-red, transparent and fair, which is strange and uniteth unwillingly with the Spirit of Wine and by means of coagulation may be brought to a solar body.
Do not speak much of it to the vulgar. If you receive any benefit by my plain and open information, keep these mysteries secret to thy dying day. I will impart unto thee this arcanum also and entrust thee on thy conscience with it.
Take good Spirit of Wine, being brought to the highest degree, let fall into it some drops of Spirit of Tartar; then take thy Gold powder, put to it three times as much of the best and subtilest common Flowers of Sulphur, grind these together, set it on a flat pan under a muffle, give to it a gentle fire, let the Gold powder be in a glowing heat, put it thus glowing into the Spirit of Wine, cant off the Spirit of Wine and dry the powder against a heat. It will be porous being dried. Then add to it again three parts of Flores Sulphurii let them evaporate under a muffle, neal the remaining powder in a strong heat and put it in Spirit of Wine; iterate this work six times and at last this Gold powder will be so soft and porous as firm butter; dry it gently, because it melteth easily. Then take a coated body, which in its hinder part hath a pipe; lute a helmet to it, apply a receiver, set it freely in a strong capel; let your first fire be gentle, then increase it; let the body be almost in a glowing heat, then put in the softened, well dried Gold powder, being made warm, behind at the hollow pipe. Shoot it in nimbly. There come instantly red drops into the helmet. Keep the fire in this degree so long till nothing more ascendeth and no more drops fall into the receiver. Note, in the receiver there must be of the best Spirit of Wine into which the drops of Gold are to fall.
Then take this Spirit of Wine, into which the Gold drops did fall, put it in a pelican, seal it hermeticé and circulate it for a month; it turneth then to a blood red Stone, which melteth in the fire like wax. Beat it small, grind among it lunar calx and melt it. Then you find (as) much good Gold as the Gold powder and the spirit of wine together with the moiety of the added lunar calx did weigh, but one moiety of the lunar calx is not tinged and is as good as it was to be used. If you hit this rightly, then be thankful to God. If not, do not blame me; I could not make it plainer.
Now if you will make this Vitriol, then take the powder formerly made, boiled in Vinegar; pour on it good Spirit of common Salt, mingled with Saltpeter water and the Spirit of Salt of Nitre. This Saltpeter water is made as Aqua Tartaris is made, using Saltpeter. Gold is dissolved in this water, which being done then abstract the water to a thickness and set in a cellar; then there shooteth a pure Vitriol of Sol. The water which stayeth with the Vitriol must be canted off, then distil it again to a spissitude, set it in the cellar and more of the Vitriol will shoot. Iterate this work as long as the Vitriol shooteth. If you are minded to make the Philosophers' Stone out of solar Vitriol, as some fantastic men endeavour in that way, then be first acquainted and ask counsel of thy purse and prepare ten or twelve pounds of this Vitriol, then you may perform the work very well, and the Hungarian Vitriol and others digged out of the mines will permit thee to do it. You may extract from this Vitriol also its Sulphur and Salt with spirit of wine, which is all easy work.
The Particular Of Lune And Of The Extraction Of Its Sulphur And Salts
Take of Calx vive and common Salt and, neal them together in a wind oven; then extract the Salt purely from the Calx with warm water; coagulate it again, put to it an equal quantity of new Calx, neal it, extract the Salt from it, iterate it three times, then is the Salt prepared.
Then take the prepared Lunar Calx, stratify the Calx with prepared Salt in a glass viol, pour strong water on it, made of equal quantities of Vitriol and Saltpeter, abstract the aqua fort from it, iterate this three times, at last drive it strongly, let the matter melt well in the glass, then take it forth and your Lune is transparent and blueish like an Ultramarine. Having brought Lune thus far, then pour on it strong distilled Vinegar and set it in a warm place, the Vinegar is tinged with a transparent blue, like a Saphire and attracteth the tincture of Lune, being separated from the Salt and all which comes from Lune goeth again into the Vinegar, which must be done by edulcoration; then you will find the Sulphur of Lune fair and clear. Take one part of this Sulphur of Lune, one half part of the extracted Sulphur of Sol and six parts of the Spirit of Mercury; join all these in a body, lute it well and set it in a gentle heat in digestion; that liquor will turn to a red-brown colour, having all driven over the helmet, and nothing will stand in the bottom; then pour it on the water remaining of the Silver you drew your Sulphur from, lute it well, set it in ashes for to coagulate and to fix it eleven days and nights, or when you see the lunar body be quite dry, brown and nothing of it doth any more rise or fume; then it will melt quickly with a sudden flux at the fire before the blast; cast it forth; then you will have transmuted the whole substance of Silver into the best, most malleable Gold.
I formerly told you that the Spirit of Salt can destroy Lune, so that a potable Lune can be made of it, of which potable Lune shall hereafter be set forth as to the preparation and the use thereof in medicine.
When you perceive that the Sulphur of Lune is wholly extracted and the Vinegar take no more tincture from her nor the Vinegar doth taste any more of Salt, then dry the remaining calx of Silver, put it into a glass, pour on it corrosive Honey water as you did to the Gold, yet it must be clear and without any feces; set it in warmth for four or five days, extract Lune's Salt, which you may perceive when the water groweth white. The Salt being all out of it, then abstract the Honey water, edulcorate the corrosiveness by distilling and clarify the Salt with Spirit of Wine. The remaining matter must be edulcorated and dried; pour upon it the Spirit of Tartar, digest it for half a month, then proceed as you did with the Gold. Then you have Mercury of Lune. The said Sal of Lune hath excellent virtues upon man's body. The efficacy of its Salt and Sulphur may be learned by the following process.
Take of the sky-coloured Sulphur, which you extracted from Lune and is rectified with Spirit of Wine, put it in a glass, pour on it twice as much of Spirit of Mercury, which is made of the white Spirit of Vitriol. In like manner take of the extracted and clarified Salt of Silver, put to it three times as much of Spirit of Mercury. Lute well both glasses and set them in a gentle Balney for eight days and nights. Look to it that the Sulphur and Salt lose nothing, but keep their quantity as they were driven out of the Silver. Having stood these eight days and nights, then put them together into a glass, seal it Hermeticê, set it in gentle ashes, let all be dissolved and let it be brought again into a clear and white coagulation. At last fix them by the degrees of fire, then the matter will be as white as snow. Thus you have the white tincture, which with the volatile dissolved anima of Sol you may animate, fix, bring to the deepest redness and at last ferment and augment the same ad infinitum, the Spirit of Mercury being added thereunto. And note that upon Gold a process is to be ordered with its Sulphur and Salt.
If you understood how their primum mobile is to be known, then is it needless in this manner and to that purpose to destroy metals; but you may prepare everything from or of the first essence and bring them to their full perfection.
Of The Particulars Of Mars Together With The Extraction Of Its Anima And Salt
Take of red Vitriol oil or oil of Sulphur one part and two parts of ordinary well water. Put these together and dissolve therein filings of Steel. This dissolution must be filtered. Being warmed, let it gently evaporate a third part of it, then set the glass in a cool place and there will shoot crystals as sweet as sugar, which is the true Vitriol of Mars. Cant off that water, let it evaporate more, set it again in a cold place and more crystals will shoot. Neal them gently under a muffle, stirring it still with an Iron wire; then you get a fair, purple coloured powder. On this powder cast distilled Vinegar, extract the anima of Mars in a gentle Balney, abstract again the Vinegar and dulcorate the anima. This is the anima of Mars, which, being added to the Spirit of Mercury and united with the anima of Sol, tingeth Lune into Sol as you heard about the Gold.
Of The Particular Of Venus What Mysteries There Are Hid Therein And Of The Extraction Of Its Sulphur And Salt
Take as much of Venus as you will and make Vitriol of it, after the usual and common practice; or take good Verdigris sold in shops --- it effecteth the same; grind it very small, pour on it good distilled Vinegar and set it in a warmth; the Vinegar will be coloured a transparent green, cant it off and pour on the remaining matter on the bottom new Vinegar; iterate this work as long as the Vinegar taketh out any tincture and the matter of the Verdigris on the bottom lieth very black. Put the tinged Vinegar together, distil the Vinegar from it to a dryness, else a black Vitriol will shoot, thus you get a purified Verdigris. Grind it small, pour on it the juice of immature grapes and let it stand in a gentle heat; this juice maketh the transparent tincture as green as a Smaragd and attracteth the red tincture of Venus, which affords an excellent colour for painters, limners and others for their several uses.
When the juice extracts no more of the tincture, then put all the extraction together, abstract a moiety of this juice gently, set it into a cool place and there shooteth a very fair Vitriol. If you have enough of that, then you have matter enough to reduce the same and to make of it the Philosophers' Stone, in case you should make a doubt to perform this great mystery by any other Vitriol. The common Azoth is not the matter of our Stone, but our Azoth or materia prima is extracted with the common Azoth and with the wine, which is the outpressed juice of unripe grapes, and with other waters also must be prepared. These are the waters wherewith the body of Venus must be broken and be made into Vitriol, which you must observe very well, then you may free yourselves from many troubles and perplexities.
But especially note that it may be done with great profit if you drive forth the red oil of Vitriol and dissolve Mars in it and crystallise the solution as you were told when I treated of Mars. For in this dissolution and coagulation Venus and Mars are united. This Vitriol must be nealed under a muffle unto a pure red powder and must be extracted further with distilled Vinegar as long as there is any redness in it. Then you get the anima of Mars and Venus doubled. Of this doubled virtue, after the addition of the anima of Sol, which you made in the before quoted quantity, take twice as much of Silver Calx and fix it. But note that there must be twice as much of the Spirit of Mercury than there was allowed in that place but in the rest the process is alike. The Salt of Venus must be extracted when the juice taketh no more of the green tincture; then take the remaining matter, dry it, pour Honey Water upon it, then that Salt goeth in that heat for five or six days and clarify it with Spirit of Wine; then is the Salt ready for your Medicine.
Of The Particular Of Saturn Together With The Extraction Of Its Soul And Salt
Saturn, the highest of the Celestial Planets, hath the meanest authority in our Magistery, yet is the chiefest key in the whole art. Saturn is not to be slighted by reason of its external despicable form; if he be wrought in a due process after the philosophers' way, he is able to requite all the labourer's pains bestowed upon him, for the great virtues of it in Medicine for man's health and for meliorating of metals. The preparation of it is thus:
Take red Minium or Ceruse, laminate it thinly, hang these lamens in a large glass filled with strong Vinegar, in which is dissolved a like quantity of the best Sal armoniack, sublimed thrice with common Salt. Stop the glass' mouth very closely that nothing evaporate, set the glass in ashes in a gentle heat, otherwise the Spirits of the Vinegar and Sal armoniack ascend and touch the Saturnal lamens. At the tenth or twelfth day you will spy a subtile Ceruse hanging on those lamens; brush them off with a hare's foot and go on and get enough of this Cerus. Take a quantity of it and put it in a body; pour strong Vinegar on it, which several times hath been rectified and was fortified at the last rectification with a sixteenth part of Spirit of vulgar Salt, dephlegmed and drawn over. Spot the body well, or, which is better, lute a blind head to it, set the body in ashes to be digested, swing it often about and in a few days the Vinegar begins to look yellow and sweet at the first. Iterate three times, it is sufficient.
The remnant of the Ceruse stayeth in the body's bottom, unshapely; filter the tinged Vinegar clearly, that is of a transparent yellowness, put all the tinged Vinegar together, abstract two parts of it in Balneo Mariae, but let the third part stay behind. This third part is of a reasonable rubedo. Set the glass in cold water, then the crystals will shoot off the sooner; being shot, take them out with a wooden spoon and lay them on a paper for to dry; these are as sweet as sugar and are of great energy against inflamed symptoms. Abstract the Vinegar further in Balneo, in which the crystals did shoot, set the distillation aside for the shooting of more crystals and proceed with these as you did formerly.
Now take all these crystals together; they in their appearance are like unto clarified sugar or Saltpeter; beat them in a mortar of glass or Iron, or grind them on a marble unto unpalpableness, reverberate it in a gentle heat to a bloodlike redness. Provided they do not turn to blackness. Having them in a scarlet colour, put them in a glass, pour on them a good Spirit of Juniper abstracted from its oil and rectified several time into a fair, white, bright manner; lute the glass above, set it in a gentle heat and let the Spirit of Juniper be tinged with a transparent redness like blood; then cant it off neatly from the feces into a pure glass, with that proviso that no impure thing run therewith; on the feces pour over the Spirit of Juniper and extract still as long as any Spirit taketh the tincture. Keep the feces; they contain the Salt.
Take all these tinged Spirits together, filter them, abstract them gently in Balneo and there remaineth in the bottom a neat Carnation powder, which is the anima of Saturn. Pour on it rain water, often distilled; distil it strongly several times to get off that which stayed with the Spirit of Juniper, and so this subtile powder will be edulcorated delicately. Keep it in a strong boiling, cant it off, then let it go off neatly. Let it dry gently; for safety's sake reverberate it again gently for its better exiccation; let all impurity evaporate, let it grow cold, put it in a viol, put twice as much of Spirit of Mercury to it, seal it hermeticê; set it in a vaporous bath called the philosophers' fimus equinus, let it stand in the mystical furnace for a month, then the anima of Saturn closeth daily with the Spirit of Mercury and both become inseparable, making up a fair, transparent, deeply tinged, red oil. Look to the government of the fire; be not too high with it, else you put the Spirit of Mercury as a volatile Spirit to betake himself to his wings, forcing him to the breaking of the glass. But if these be well united, then no such fear look for, for one nature embraceth and holdeth up the other.
Then take this oil or dissolved anima of Saturn out of the viol. It is of a gallant fragrancy. Put it into a body, apply a helmet to it, lute it well, drive it over, then Soul and Spirit are united together and fit to transmute Mercury precipitated into Sol.
The precipitation of Mercury is done thus: Take one part of the Spirit of Salt Nitre and three parts of oil of Vitriol; put these together, cast into half a part of quick Mercury, being very well purged, set it in sand, put a reasonable strong fire to it, so that the Spirits may not fly away and let it stand a whole day and night; then abstract all this Spirit, then you find in the bottom a precipitated Mercury, somewhat red. Pour the Spirit on it again, let it stand day and night, abstract it again and then your precipitate is at the highest rubedo; dulcify it with distilled water and let it strongly be exiccated. Then take two parts of this precipitated Mercury, one part of the dissolved Saturnal oil, put these together, set it in ashes and let all be fixed; not one drop must stick anywhere to the glass. Then it must be melted with due additionals of Lead; they close together and afford Gold, which afterward, at the casting through Antimony, may be exalted.
Note that Mercury must not be precipitated unless with pure oil of Vitriol or oil of Venus, with the addition of the Spirit of Salt Nitre. Albeit such Mercury cannot be brought to its highest fixation by way of precipitating but its fixed coagulation is found in Saturn.
Beat the above said Mercury small, grind it on a stone, put it in a viol, pour on it the Saturnal dissolved oil and it entereth instantly, if so be you proceeded aright in the precipitation. Seal the viol hermeticê, fix it in ashes and at the last in sand, to its highest fixation. Then you have bound Mercury with a true knot and brought him into a fixed coagulation, which brought its form and substance into a melioration with an abundance of riches. If you carry it on a white precipitate, then you get only Silver, which holds but little Gold.
One thing more I must tell thee about this process, that there is yet
a better way to deal upon Saturn with more profit. Take two parts of the
above said dissolved oil, or oil of the Saturnal Soul, one part of Astrum
Solis and of Antimonial Sulphur, whose preparation followeth afterwards,
two parts, half as much of Salt of Mars as all those are, weigh them together,
put them into a glass viol and let the third part of it be empty; set them
in together to be fixed, then the Salt of Mars openeth in this compound,
is fermented by it and the matter begins to incline to blackness. For ten
or twelve days it is eclipsed, then the Salt returns to its coagulation,
laying hold in its operation on the whole compound. Coagulate it first
into a deep brown mass, let it stand thus unstirred in a continual heat
and it turneth to a blood-red body? increase the fire that you may see
the Astrum Solis to be predominant, which appeareth in a greenish colour,
like unto a Rainbow; keep this fire continually, let all these colours
vanish and it turneth to a transparent red stone, very ponderous, needless
to be projected upon Mercury, but which tingeth after its perfection and
fixation all white metals into the purest Gold. Then take of the prepared,
fixed, red Stone or of the powder, one part and four parts of the white
metal. First let the metal melt half an hour and let it be well clarified;
then project the powder upon it and let it drive well so that it be entered
into the metal and the metal begin to congeal; then is it transmuted into
Gold. Beat the pot in pieces and take it out; if it hath any slacks drive
them with Saturn, then it is pure and malleable. If you carry it on Lune,
then put more of the powder on it than you do upon Jupiter and Saturn,
as half an ounce of the powder tingeth five ounces of Lune into Sol. Let
this be a miracle. Fool not thy Soul with imparting this mystery unto others
that are unworthy of it. Proceed with Salt of Saturn as you were informed
about Mars and Venus, only note that distilled Vinegar performeth that
which Honey Water did by the others and clarify it with Spirit of Wine.
Of The Particular Of Jupiter With The Extraction Of Its Anima And Salt
Take pumice stones sold in shops, anneal them, quench them in old good wine, neal them again and quench them as you did formerly and let this nealing be iterated a third time; the stronger the wine is you quench withal, the better it is. After that dry them gently; thus are they prepared for that purpose. Pulverise these pumice stones subtilly, then take good Tin, laminate it, stratify it in a cementing way, in a reverberating furnace reverberate this matter for five days and nights in a flaming fire till it draweth the tincture of the metal. Then grind it small, first scraping the Tin lamens; put it in a glass body, pour on it good distilled Vinegar and set it in digestion when the Vinegar draweth the tincture, which is red-yellow. Abstract the Vinegar in Balneo, edulcorate the anima of Jupiter with distilled water, exiccate gently and proceed in the rest as you did with the anima of Saturn, viz., dissolve radically in or with the Spirit of Mercury, drive them over, pour that upon two parts of red Mercury precipitated; being precipitated with this Venerean, sanguine quality, then coagulate and fix; if done successfully you may acknowledge Jupiter's bounty that gave leave to transmute this precipitate into Gold, which will be apparent at their melting. It performeth this also, it transmuteth ten parts of Lune into Gold, if other Sulphurs be added thereunto; force no more upon Jupiter, it is all he is able to do; being of a peaceable disposition he told all what he could do.
The process about this Salt is to extract it with distilled rain water, clarified with Spirit of Wine.
Of The Particular Of Mercury Vive And Of Its Sulphur And Salt
Take of quick Mercury, sublimed several times, half a pound, grind it very small, pour on it a good quantity of sharp Vinegar, boil it on the fire for an hour or upward, stirring the matter with a wooden spatula, then take it from the fire and let it be cold, when the Mercury settleth to the bottom and the Vinegar cleareth up. If it be slow in the clearing, let some drops of Spirit of Vitriol fall into the Vinegar; it doth precipitate the other, for Vitriol precipitateth Mercury Vive, Salt of Tartar precipitateth Sol, Venus and common Salt doth precipitate Lune and Mars does the like to Venus; a lixivium of Beech ashes doth it to Vitriol and Vinegar is for common Sulphur, and Mars for Tartar and Saltpeter for Antimony. Cant off the Vinegar from the precipitate and you will find the Mercury like a pure washed sand. Pour on it Vinegar, iterate this work a third time, then edulcorate the matter and let it dry gently.
Take two ounces of anima of Mars, one ounce of anima of Saturn, one ounce of anima of Jupiter, dissolve these in six ounces of Mercurial Spirit and let all be dissolved; then drive it over, leaving nothing behind and it will be a golden water like a transparent dissolution of Sol; your prepared and edulcorated Mercury must be warmed in a strong viol, pass this warmed water gently upon the other, a hissing will be, stop the viol and then the hissing is gone; then seal it hermeticê, set it in a gentle Balney and in ten days the Mercury is dissolved into a grass-green oil. Set the viol in ashes for a day and a night and rule the fire gently; this green colour then turneth into a yellow oil; in this colour is hid the rubedo; keep it in this fire and let the matter turn to a yellow powder like unto Orpiment; when no more comes over, then set the glass in sand for a day and a night; give a strong fire to it, let the fairest ruby rubedo appear, melt it to a fixedness with a fluxing powder made of Saturn and it comes now to a malleableness; one pound of it containeth two ounces of good Gold, as deep as ever Nature produced any.
An Oil Made Of Mercury And Its Salt
Take quick Mercury, often sublimed and rectified with Calx Vive, put it in a body, dissolve it in a heat in strong nitrous water, and abstract the water from it; the corrosiveness which stayeth there must be extracted with good Vinegar well boiled in it. At last abstract the Vinegar, when the remainder of it must be dulcified with distilled water and then exiccated. Afterward on each pound must be poured one pound of the best Spirit of Wine. Let it stand luted in putrefaction, then drive over what may be driven, first gently, then more strongly. From that which is come over abstract the Spirit of Wine per Balneum and there stayeth behind a fragrant oil, which is Astrum Mercurii, an excellent remedy against venereal diseases.
Seeing the Salt and Astrum of Mercury is of the same medicinal operation, I hold it needful to write of each in particular and will join their operation into one and declare of it in the last part about the Salt of Mercury, because they are of one effect in medicinal operations. Take the made oil or Astrum Mercurri, which by reason of its great heat keeps its own body in a perpetual running, casting it on the next standing earth, from which you formerly drew the oil; set it in a low heat and and the oil draweth its own Salt. That being done, put to it a reasonable quantity of Spirit of Wine and abstract it again; the Salt stayeth behind, dissolved in the fresh Spirit of Wine, being dulcified by cohobation. Then is the Mercurial Salt ready and prepared for the Medicine. Mercury is able to do no more, neither particulariter nor universaliter, because he is far off from philosophers' Mercury, although many are deceived in their fancies to the contrary.
Of The Particular Of Antimony Together With The Extraction Of Its Sulphur And Salt
Take good Hungarian Antimony, pulverise it subtilly to a meal, calcine it over a gentle heat, stirring it still with an Iron wire, and let it be albified and become so that at last it may be able to hold out in a strong fire. Then put it into a melting pot, melt it, cast it forth, turn it to a transparent glass, beat that glass, grind it subtilly, put it in a glass body of a broad, flat bottom, pour on it distilled Vinegar and let it stand luted in a gentle heat for a good while. The Vinegar extracteth the antimonial tincture, which is of a deep redness; abstract the Vinegar and there remaineth a sweet, yellow, subtile powder, which must be edulcorated with distilled water. All acidity must be taken off. Exiccate it, pour on it the best graduated Spirit of Wine and set it in a gentle heat. You have a new extraction, which is fair and yellow; cant it off, pour on other Spirit, let it extract as long as it can, then abstract the Spirit of Wine. Exiccate and you find a tender, deep yellow, subtile powder of an admirable medicinal operation, which is nothing inferior unto potable Sol.
Take two parts of this powder and one part of Solar Sulphur; grind these small, then take three parts of Sulphur of Mars, pour on it six parts of Spirit of Mercury, set it in digestion, well luted, let the Sulphur of Mars be dissolved totally, then carry in a fourth part of the ground matter of the Sulphur of Antimony and of Sol. Lute and digest. Let all be dissolved, then carry in more of your ground Sulphur and proceed as formerly, iterating it so long till all be dissolved; then the matter becomes a thick, brown oil. Drive all over jointly into one, leave nothing behind in the bottom; then pour it on a purely separated Lunary Calx, fix it by degrees of fire, then melt it into a body, separate it with an aqua fort and six times as much more of Sol is precipitated than did enter by weight into the ponderosity of the above compound. The remainder of Lune serveth for such works as you please to put it unto.
The Antimonial tincture being extracted totally from its vitrum, and when no Vinegar takes more hold of any tincture, then exiccate the remaining powder, which is of a black colour; put it into a melting pot, lute it, let it stand in a reasonable heat and all the Sulphurous part burn away; grind the remaining matter, pour on it new distilled Vinegar, extract its Salt, abstract the Vinegar, edulcorate the acidity by cohobation and clarify it so long that the water be white and clear. If you have proceeded well in your manuals, then the lesser time will be required to extract the antimonial Salt as you shall hear of it, whereby you may observe that the antimonial Sulphur is extracted in the following manner and is of the same medicinal operation, but is of a quicker and speedier work, worthy to be observed.
A Short Way To Make Antimonial Sulphur And Salt
Take good Vitriol, common Salt and unslaked Lime, of each one pound, and four ounces of Sal Armoniack. Beat them small, put them in a glass body, pour on it three pounds of common Vinegar and let it stand in digestion, stopped, for a day. Put it afterwards into a retort, apply a receiver to it and distil it as usually an aqua fort is distilled. Take of the off-drawn liquor and of common Salt one pound of each, rectify them once more; let no muddiness come over with it; all must come clear. Then take one pound of pulverised antimonial glass, pour this Spirit on it, lute it well, digest and let all be dissolved. Then abstract the water in Balneo Mariae and there remains in the bottom a black, thick, fluid matter, but somewhat dry. Lay it on a glass table and set it in a cellar and a red oil floweth from it, leaving some feces behind. Coagulate this red oil gently upon ashes, let it be exiccated there, then pour the best Spirit of Wine on it and it extracteth a tincture which is blood-red. Cant off that which is tinged, pour other Spirit of Wine on the remainder and by iteration let all redness be extracted. Thus you have the tincture of antimonial Sulphur, which is of a wonderful medicinal efficacy and is equivalent unto potable gold as you were told before. This black matter which stayed behind after the extraction of the Sulphur must be well exiccated. Extract its snow-white Salt with distilled Vinegar, edulcorate it, clarify it with Spirit of Wine and observe its virtues in medicine.
I have mentioned and demonstrated that all things are made and compounded of three essences, viz., of Mercury, Sulphur and Salt. But know this that the Stone is made of one, two, three, four and five.
Of five, that is the quintessence of its matter; of four are understood the four elements; of three are the three principles of all things; of two, for that is the double mercurial substance; of one, that is the Ens Primum of all things, which flowed from the fiat of the first creation.
Many well-minded artists may be doubtful, by all these sayings, to attain the foundation and discovery thereof. Therefore I shall first very briefly speak of Mercury, secondly of Sulphur, thirdly of Salt; for these are essences of our matter of the Stone.
First know that no common Argent Vive is made of the best metal by the Spagyric Art, but one that is pure, subtile, clear, splendent as a fountain, transparent as crystal, without any impurity. Of this make a water or incombustible oil, for Mercury was at the first water, as all the philosophers agree.
In this mercurial oil dissolve its proper Mercury, out of which the water was made, and precipitate that Mercury with its proper oil; then have you a double mercurial substance. And know that your Gold must be first dissolved in a certain water after its purification and must be reduced into a subtile Calx as hereafter shall be declared at large. And then the said Calx must be sublimed by Spirit of Salt precipitated again and by reverberation reduced into a subtile powder; then its own proper Sulphur will the more easily enter into its own substance and be in amity with it, for they wonderfully love each other. So have you two substances in one and it is called the Mercury of the Philosophers and yet it is but one substance, that is, the first Ferment.
Your Sulphur you must seek in the like metal, then you must know how to extract it out of the body of the metal by purification and destruction of its form and reverberation without any corrosive. Then dissolve this Sulphur in its own proper blood, whereof it was made before its fixation, according to its due weight; then you have nourished and dissolved the true Lion with the blood of the Green Lion; for the fixed blood of the Red Lion is made out of the volatile blood of the Green Lion, therefore are they of one nature. And the volatile blood maketh the fixed blood volatile, and the fixed likewise maketh the volatile blood fixed as it was before its solution. Then set them together in a gentle heat until the whole Sulphur be dissolved; then have you the Second Ferment, nourishing the fixed Sulphur with the volatile as all philosophers agree with me herein. This afterwards is driven over with Spirit of Wine, red as blood, and is called Aurum Potabile, whereof there is no reduction to a body.
Of The Salt of The Philosophers
Salt maketh fixed and volatile according as in its degree it is ordered and prepared. For the Spirit of Salt of Tartar, if it be drawn per se and without addition, maketh all metals volatile by resolution and putrefaction and resolveth them into a true vive or current Mercury, as my practice declares.
Salt of Tartar per se fixeth most firmly, especially if the heat of Calx vive be incorporated with it, for both then have a singular degree of fixing.
So also the vegetable Salt of Wine both fixeth and maketh volatile according to the diverse preparation thereof, as its use requireth, which certainly is a great Mystery of Nature and a wonder of the philosophic Art.
If a man drink Wine and out of his urine a clear Salt be made, that is volatile and maketh other fixed things volatile and carrieth them over the helmet with it, but it fixeth them not, and although the man drink nothing but Wine, out of whose urine the Salt was made, yet it hath another property than the Salt of tartar or of the feces of Wine. For there is made a transmutation in the body of man, so that out of a vegetable, that is out of a Spirit of Wine, an animal Spirit of Salt is made. Horses, by the corroboration of their natural virtue, do transmute oats, hay and such like and convert it into fat and flesh; so doth the bee make honey out of the best of flowers and herbs. So understand of other things. This key and cause consisteth only in putrefaction, from whence such a separation and transmutation taketh its original.
The Spirit of common Salt, which is drawn after a peculiar manner, maketh Gold and Silver volatile; if a small quantity of the Spirit of Dragon be added to it, it dissolveth it and carrieth it over with it per alembicum, as also doth the Eagle with the Dragon's Spirit, which dwelleth in stony places; but if anything be melted with Salt before the Spirit be separated from its body, it fixeth much more than it volatiliseth.
If the Spirit of common Salt be united with Spirit of Wine and both be three times distilled over together, then it waxeth sweet and loseth its acrimony. This prepared Spirit doth not corporeally dissolve Gold; but if it be poured on a prepared Calx of Gold it extracteth its highest tincture and redness, which, if it be rightly done, it reduceth pure and white Luna into the same colour, whereof its body was before it was extracted. Also the old body will again attain its colour by the love of enticing Venus, being descended from the same original, state and blood.
Know also that the Spirit of Salt destroyeth Luna and reduceth it into a spiritual essence, from whence afterwards Luna potabile may be prepared, which Spirit of Luna is appropriated to the Spirit of Sol as man and wife by the copulation and conjunction of the Spirit of Mercury or its oil.
The Spirit lieth in Mercury; seek the tincture in Sulphur and the coagulation in Salt; then have you three matters, which may again produce some perfect thing, that is the Spirit of Gold fermented with its own proper oil. Sulphur is plentifully found in the propriety of most precious Venus, which inflameth the fixed blood gotten of her. The Spirit of the philosophic Salt gives victory to coagulation, although the Spirit of Tartar and Spirit of Urine, together with the true acetum, may do much; for the Spirit of Vinegar is cold and the Spirit of Calx vive is very hot, therefore are they esteemed and found to be of contrary nature. This I faithfully declare. Seek your matter in a metalline substance, make thereof Mercury, which ferment with Mercury; then a Sulphur, which ferment with its proper Sulphur, and with Salt reduce it into order; distil them together and conjoin them all according to their due proportion, then will it become one thing, which before came from one; coagulate and fix it by a continual heat, then multiply and ferment it three times.
The Key of the process discovering the Tincture is thus. When the Medicine and Stone of the philosophers is made and perfectly prepared out of the true Lac Virginis, take thereof one part, of the best and purest Gold, melted and purged by Antimony, three parts and reduce it into as thin plates as possibly you can; put these together into a crucible wherein you use to melt metals. First give a gentle fire for twelve hours, then let it stand three days and nights continually in a melting fire; then are the pure Gold and the Stone made a mere Medicine of a subtile, a spiritual and penetrating quality. For without the ferment of Gold the Stone cannot operate or exercise its tingeing quality, being too subtle and penetrative; but being fermented and united with its like ferment, the prepared tincture obtaineth an ingress in operating upon other bodies. Then take of the prepared ferment one part to a thousand parts of melted metal, if you will tinge it, then know for a very certain truth that it shall be transmuted into good and fixed Gold; for one body embraceth the other, although they be not alike, yet by the force and power added to it, it is made like unto it, like having its origin from its like.
Note well that out of Black Saturn and friendly Jove a Spirit may be extracted, which is afterwards reduced into a sweet oil as its noblest part, which Medicine, particulariter, doth most absolutely take way the nimble, running quality from common Mercury and bringeth him to a melioration.
Having thus attained the matter, nothing remains but that you look well to the fire, that you observe its regimen, for herein is the highest concernment and the end of the work. For our fire is a common fire and our furnace is a common furnace, although some philosophers, to conceal the art, write the contrary. The fire of the lamp with the Spirit of Wine is unprofitable; the expense thereof would be incredible. Fimus Equinus spoileth it, for it cannot perfect the work by the right degree of fire.
Many and various furnaces are not convenient, for in our threefold furnace only the degrees of heat are proportionately observed. And as our furnace is common so is our fire common and as our matter is common, so is our Glass likened to the Globe of the Earth.
Of Mercury
There are several sorts of Mercury. Mercury of animals and vegetables is merely a fume of an incomprehensible being unless it be caught and reduced to an oil; then it is for use. But Mercury of metals is of another condition, as is that also of minerals, though the same, also, may be compared with a fume, yet it is comprehensible and running. One Mercury is better and nobler than the other, for the Solar Mercury is the best of them all. Next unto that is the Lunar Mercury and so forth. There is a difference, also, among Salts and Sulphurs. Among the mineral Salts that carrieth away the bell which is made of Antimony and that Sulphur which is drawn from Vitriol is preferred before all others. Mercury of metals is hot and dry, cold and moist; it containeth the four qualities.
There are medicaments prepared of it of a wonderful efficacy, of several sorts and forms, which is the reason why there is such a variety of virtues therein. In Mercury lieth the highest arcanum for man's health, but it is not to be used crude, but must first be prepared into its essence. It is sublimed with Copper water and is further reduced into an oil. There is an oil made of it per se, without any corrosiveness, which is pleasant and fragrant. Several sorts of oils, with additionals, can be made of it, good for many things. It is prepared also with Gold, being first made into an Amalgama; there is made a precipitate of it in water, wherein it dissolveth green, like unto a Smaragd or Chrysolite. The volatile Mercury serveth for outward use, if a separation is made by some means and if it is brought into a subtile, clear liquor and then to a red-brown powder and its received corrosiveness is separated, then it may do well for other uses.
The mixed Mercury serveth for inward use. Mercury, being purged, is precipitated with the blood of Venus, is well digested with distilled Vinegar, and thus his corroding quality is taken off. Have a care what quantity you minister; if it is given in a true dose, then it does its part very well. But for its operation it is not equally sublimed unto the fixed, its coagulation is found in Saturn, his malleableness is apparent when he is robbed of his life; he containeth his own tincture upon white and red, being brought in his fixed coagulation unto a white body, is tinged again by Vitriol water and being reduced to Gold is graduated by Antimony. Though that bloodthirsty Iron Captain with his spear assaulteth Mercury very much, yet he alone cannot conquer him unless cold Saturn come in to hide him and Jupiter command the peace with his sceptre. Such process being finished, when360 the Angel Gabriel, the Strength of the Lord, and Uriel, the Light of the Lord, hath showed Mercury unto humble Michael, then Raphael can make right use of the highest Medicine.
Of Antimony
It is very difficult to find out all the mysteries that are hid therein. Its virtue is miraculous; its power is great; its colour, hidden therein, is various; its crude body is poisonous; yet its essence is an antidote against poison and is like unto Quicksilver, which ignorant physicians can neither comprehend nor find, but the knowing physician believeth it to be true, having made many experiments with it.
This mineral containeth much of Mercury, much of Sulphur and little of Salt, which is the cause why it is so brittle and appliable; for there is no malleableness in it by reason of the small quantity of Salt. The most amity it beareth unto Saturn is by reason of Mercury, for philosophers' Lead is made out of it and is affected unto Gold by reason of its Sulphur; for it purgeth Gold, leaving no impurity in it. There is an equal operation in it with Gold if well prepared and administered to man medicinally. It flieth out of the fire or keeps firmly in the fire if it be prepared accordingly. Its volatile Spirit is poisonous, purgeth grievously and not without damage unto the body. Its remaining, fixed redness purgeth also, but not in that manner as the former did, provoketh not to stool but seeketh merely the disease whatever it is, penetrateth all the body and the members thereof, suffers no evil to abide there, expels it and brings the body to a better condition. In brief Antimony is the Lord in medicinals. There is made out of it a Regulus out of Tartar and Salt; if at the meeting of Antimony some Iron filings be added, by a manual used there cometh forth a wonderful Star, which philosophers before me called the Signet Star. This Star being several times melted with cold earth Salt, it groweth then yellowish, is of a fiery quality and of a wonderful efficacy. This Salt afterwards affords a liquor, which further is brought to a fixed, incombustible oil, which serveth for several uses.
Besides there are made of common Regulus of Antimony curious flowers, either red or yellow or white, according as the fire hath been governed. These flowers being extracted and the extract, without any addition, per se being driven into an oil, have an admirable efficacy. This extraction may be made also with Vinegar of crude Antimony or of its Regulus, but it requireth a longer time, neither is it so good as the former preparation.
And being reduced into a Philistea there is a glass made of it per se, which if it is extracted also, and then abstracted, there remaineth a powder of incredible operation, which may safely be used after it hath been edulcorated. This powder, being dissolved, healeth wounds, sores etc., causing no pains. This powder being extracted once more with Spirit of Wine, or driven through the helmet with some other matter, affords a sweet oil.
Antimony is melted also with cold earth Salt, dissolved and digested for a time in Spirit of Wine. It then affords a white fixed powder which is effectual against Morbus Gallicus and breaks inward imposthumes. It hath several virtues besides.
There is made an oil also of Antimony, the Flying Dragon being added thereunto, which, being rectified thrice, then it is prepared. Though a cancer were never so bad and the wolf never so biting, yet they, with all their fellows, be they fistulas or old ulcers, must fly and be gone. The little powder of the Flying Dragon prepared with the Lion's Blood, must be administered also, three or four grains for a dose according to the party's age and complexion.
A further process may be made with this oil with the addition of a water made of stone serpents and other necessary spices, not those that are transported from the Indies. This powder is of that efficacy that it radically cureth many chronical diseases. There is made a red oil of Antimony, Calx vive, Sal armoniack and common Sulphur, which hath done great cures in old ulcers; with stone Salt or with common Salt there is forced from Antimony a red oil which is admirable good for outward symptoms.
There is made a sublimate of Antimony with Spirit of Tartar and Salmiac, being digested for a time, which by means of Mars is turned into quick Mercury. This antimonial Mercury hath sought of many but few have gotten it, which is the reason why his praise is not divulged, much less is his operative quantity known. If you know how to precipitate it well, then your arrow will hit the mark to perform great matters; its qualities ought not to be made common knowledge. It is needless to describe its combustible Sulphur, how that is made out of Antimony; it is easy and known; but that which is fixed is a secret and hidden from many. If an oil be made of it in which its own Sulphur be dissolved and these be fixed together, then you have a Medicine of rare qualities, in virtue, operation and ability far beyond vegetables.
Quicksilver being imbibed with Quicksilver melted with Antimony for some hours in a wind oven, the Salt of the remainder being extracted with distilled Vinegar, then you have the philosophers' Salt, which cureth all manner of agues.
There is an acetum made of Antimony, of an acidity as other acetums are; if its own Salt be dissolved in this acetum and distilled over, then this acetum is sharpened, which is an excellent cooler in hot swellings and other inflamed symptoms about wounds, especially if there be made an unguent of it together with anima of Saturn.
There is a quintessence of Antimony, which is the highest Medicine, the noblest and subtilest found in it and it is the fourth part of an Universal Medicine. Let the preparation of it be still a mystery. Its quantity or dose is three grains. There belong four instruments to the making of it; the furnace is the fifth, in which Vulcan dwelleth; the manuals and the government of the fire afford the ordering of it.
Of Copper--water
Copper is a mineral whose Salt is set forth in the highest manner, whose great and good qualities are of the transcendency that reason is not able to comprehend or to conceive of them. It went generally by the name of Copper-water to make the meaning and sense of it plain. And be thus informed that Vitriol containeth two Spirits, a white and a red one; the white is the white Sulphur upon white, the red Spirit is the Red Sulphur upon red.
Observe it diligently. The white Spirit is sour, causeth an appetite and a good digestion in a man's stomach; the red Spirit is yet sourer and is more ponderous than the white; in its distilling a longer fire must be continued because it is more fixed in its degree. Of the white, by distilling with Sulphur of Lune, is made Argentum potabile. In the like manner the Gold, being destroyed in the Spirit of common Salt and made spiritual by distilling and its Sulphur taken away from it and joined with a red Spirit in a due dose, that it may be dissolved and then for a time putrefied in Spirit of Wine, to be further digested and often abstracted that nothing remain in the bottom, then you have made an Aurum potabile of which great volumes have been written, but very few of their processes were right.
Note that the red Spirit must be rectified from its acidity and brought into a sweetness subtily penetrating? of a pleasant taste and sweet fragrancy.
The sweet Sulphur is made of Sulphur of Vitriol, which is combustible like other Sulphur before it is destroyed. For the Sulphur of the philosophers is not combustible. Note this well. The preparation is easy and requireth no great pains nor great expenses to get a combustible Sulphur out of Vitriol. This sweet oil is the essence of Vitriol and is such a Medicine which is worthy the name of the Third Pillar of the Universal Medicine. The Salt is drawn from Colchotar and is dissolved in the red or white oil or in both and is distilled again; if it be fermented with Venus it performeth its office very well, for it affords such a Medicine which at the melting tingeth pure Iron into pure Copper.
Colchotar of Sulphur affords true fundamentals unto the healing of perished wounds, which otherwise are hardly brought to any healing, and such sores which by reason of a long continued white redness will admit of no healing. Colchotar affords an ingress thereunto, setting a new foundation that quality and virtue are not in the Colchotar, but the Spirit, together with the Salt, are the matters which dwell therein.
There is made of Copper and Verdigris a Vitriol of a high degree, which is far spread in its tincture. There is a Vitriol made of Iron also, which is of a strange quality; for Iron and Copper are very nigh kind one to another, belonging together as man and wife. This mystery I would have concealed.
When Vitriol is corroded with Sal Armoniack in its sublimation, there ariseth a combustible Sulphur together with its Mercury, of which there is but little because it hath most of Sulphur. If the same Sulphur be set at liberty again by the Eagle with Spirit of Wine, there can be made a Medicine of it, as I told you before, though there be a nearer way to make combustible Sulphur out of Vitriol, as of its precipitation upon a precedent dissolution by the Salt or Liquor of Tartar, as also by a common lixivium made of Beech-ashes; yet this is the best reason, because the body of Vitriol is better and more opened with the Key of the Eagle. There is not found in its nature either cold or moist quality, but it is of a hot and dry, substantial quality and this is the reason why, by its superabounding calidity, it heateth other things, digesteth them and at last it bringeth them to a full maturity, the fire being continued for a certain time.
Of Common Sulphur
The usual common Sulphur is not so perfectly exalted in its degree and brought into maturity as when it is found in Antimony and Vitriol. There is made of it per se an oil against putrid, stinking wounds, destroying such worms which grow in them, especially if the little Salt in it be dissolved from its Sulphur.
There is made of it a balsam with Sallet oil or oil of Juniper, in like manner with the white Spirit of Turpentine, and it is of a red colour and is made thus. Take Flowers of Sulphur made with Colchotar of Vitriol and digest them for a time in horse-dung. This balsam may safely be used for such that are in a consumption of the lungs, especially if it be rectified several times with Spirit of Wine, drawn over and separated, that it be blood red. This balsam is a preservative against corruption and rottenness.
The quintessence of Sulphur is found in a mineral where a sulphureous flint is generated. Thus let beaten pebbles be put in a glass and on it be poured a strong aqua fort, made of Vitriol and Saltpeter, and let dissolve what may be dissolved, then abstract the water; the remainder must be well dulcified and reverberated to a redness; pour on that Spirit of Wine, extract its tincture and afterwards circulate for a time in the Pelican; let all the essence of Sulphur be separated, it stayeth below the Spirit of Wine like fat Sallet oil, by reason of its ponderousness; its dose of six grains is found to work sufficiently. If you digest in this essence of Sulphur, Myrrh, Aloes and other Spirits, it extracts their virtues and makes them into a balsam, which suffers no flesh or other parts that are subject to putrefaction to fall into rottenness, for which reason the ancients have put this name to it, Balsamus mortuorum. There may be made an oil of it which is found very useful. The Sulphur may be sublimed in a high instrument with a good heat, which sublimation in a long time changeth it into a liquor or oil if left standing in a humid place.
There may be cocted a Liver out of common Sulphur, which is turned into milk, and it may also be changed into a red oil. Many other Medicinals may be made out of Sulphur. Its Flowers, Essence and Oil are preferred before the rest, together with the white and red fixed Cinnabar which are made of it, because in them is found a mighty virtue.
Of Calx Vive
The secrets of Quicklime are known to few men and few there are which attained to a perfect knowledge of its qualities. But though Lime is contemptible, yet there lieth great matters therein and it requireth an understanding master to take out of it what lieth buried in it. By this I mean to expel its pure Spirit, which colaterally stands in affinity with minerals, is able to bind and help to make fixed] the volatile Spirits of minerals, for it is of a fiery essence and heateth, concocteth and bringeth them unto maturity in a short time, when in many years they could not otherwise be brought to it. The gross, earthly body of it doth not do the feat, but its Spirit doth it, which is drawn out of it. This Spirit is of that ability that he bindeth and fixeth other volatile Spirits.
For note, the Spirit dissolveth Occuli cancròrum, dissolveth crystals into a liquor. These two being duly brought into an unity per modum distillationis (I will say nothing now of Diamonds and such-like stones) that water dissolveth and breaketh the stones in the bladder and the gouty Tartar settled into the joints of hands and feet and suffers not any gout to take root in those parts. This is a rare secret. Quick Lime is strengthened and made more fiery and hot by a pure and unsophisticated Spirit of Wine, which is often to be poured on it and abstracted again; then the white Salt of Tartar must be grinded with it, together with its additionals which must be dead and contain nothing, then you will draw a very hellish Spirit, in which great mysteries lie hid.
Of Arsenick
Arsenick is in the kindred of Mercury and Antimony as a bastard in a family may be. Its whole substance is poisonous and volatile, even as the former two; in its external colour to the eye it is white, yellow and red, but inwardly it is adorned with all manner of colours, like to its metals, which it was fain to forsake, being forced thereunto by fire. It is sublimed per se without additions and also in its subliming there are added several other matters as occasion requireth. If it be sublimed with Salt and Mars, then it looks like a transparent crystal, but its poison stayeth still with it, unfit to be joined or added to metals and it hath very little efficacy to transmute any metals.
The subterranean Serpent bindeth it in the union of fire, but cannot quite force it that it might serve for a Medicine for man and beast. If it be further mixed with the Salt of a Vegetable Stone, which is with Tartar, and is made like unto an oil, it is of great efficacy in wounds which are of an hard healing. It can make a coat for deceitful Venus, to trim her handsomely, that the inconsistency of her false heart may be disclosed by her wavering servants, without gain, with her prejudice and damage. When Antimony and Mars are made my companions, saith Arsenick, and I am exalted by then to the top of Olympus, then I afford a Ruby in transparence and colour like unto that which cometh from the Orient and I am not to be esteemed less than it. If I am proved by affliction, then I fall off like a flower which is cut off and withers, therefore nothing can be made of me to fix any metal or tinge it to any profit.
Of Salt Peter
Two elements are predominant in me, as fire and air; the lesser quantity is water and earth. I am fiery, burning and volatile. There is in me a subtile Spirit, I am altogether like unto Mercury, hot in the inside and cold in the outside. I am slippery and very nimble at the expelling of my enemies. My greatest enemy is common Sulphur and yet is he my best friend also, for being purged by him and clarified in the fire, then am I able to allay all heats of the body within and without and am one of the best Medicaments to expel and keep off the poisonous plague.
I am a greater cooler outwardly than Saturn, but my Spirit is more hot than any. I cool and burn according as men will make use of me and according as I am prepared. When metals are to be broken I must be a help, else no victory can be obtained, be the understandings great or small. Before I am destroyed I am a mere ice, but when I am anatomised, then am I an hellish fire.
Of Sal-armoniack
Sal-armoniack is none of the meanest Keys to open metals thereby, therefore the ancients have compared it with a volatile Bird. It must be prepared, else you can do no feats with it, for if it be not prepared it doth more hurt than good unto metals and carrieth them away out of the chimney hole. It can elevate and sublime with its swift wings the tincture of minerals and of some metals to the very mountains, where store of snow is found usually, even at the greatest heat of summer. If it be sublimed with common Salt, then it purgeth and cleareth and may be used safely.
He that supposeth to transmute metals with this Salt, which is so volatile, surely he doth not hit the nail on the head, for it hath no such power; but to destroy the metals and make them fit for transmutation, in that respect it hath sufficient power, for no metal can be transmuted unless it be first prepared thereunto.
Of Tartar
This Salt is not set down in the book of minerals but is generated of a vegetable seed, but its Creator hath put such virtue into it that it beareth a wonderful love and friendship unto metals, making them malleable. It purgeth Lune unto a whiteness and incorporateth into her such additionals which are convenient for her; being digested for a time with minerals or metals and then sublimed and vilified, they all come into a quick Mercury, which to do there is not any vegetable Salt besides it. Many mysteries lie hid in it. It is a good remedy either outwardly or inwardly in Medicine; its Salt being made spiritual and sweet it dissolveth and reaketh the stone in the bladder and dissolveth the coagulated Tartar of the gout settled into the joints or anywhere else besides. Its ordinary Spirit, which is used for the opening of metals, being used and applied outwardly, layeth a foundation for healing such ulcers which admit hardly any healing, as fistulas, cancers, wolves and such-like.
Of Vinegar
In Alchemy and Medicine nothing, almost, can be prepared but Vinegar must set a helping hand to it. In Alchemy it is used to set metals and minerals into putrefaction. It is used also for to extract their essences and tinctures, being first prepared thereunto even as the Spirit of Wine is usual to extract the tinctures from vegetables.
In Physic it deserveth its praise also, for it taketh the pure from the impure and is a separator and taketh from the mineral Medicaments their sharpness and corrosiveness, fixeth that which is volatile and is a great defender against poison. Vinegar is used inwardly also and both men and beasts are benefited thereby. Outwardly it is applied to hot inflammations and swellings for a cooler. Spirit of Wine and Vinegar are of great use both in Alchemy and Physic. Both have their descent from the Urine and are of one substance, but differ in the quality by reason of the putrefaction the Vinegar got there. But this is not the philosophers' Vinegar. Our Vinegar or Acetum is another liquor, namely a matter itself for the Stone of the Philosophers is made out of the Azot of the Philosophers, which must be prepared with ordinary distilled Azot, with Spirit of Wine and with other waters besides and must be reduced unto a certain order.
Note this for a memorandum. If distilled, pure Vinegar be poured upon destroyed Saturn and is kept warm in Mary's Bath, it looseth its acidity altogether and is as sweet as sugar; then abstract two or three parts of that Vinegar, set it in a cellar and then you will find white, transparent stones like unto crystals. These are an excellent cooler and healer of all adust and inflamed symptoms.
If these crystals are reduced into a red oil and poured upon Mercury precipitated by Venus and proceeded in further as it ought; if that I say be done rightly, then neither Sol nor Lune will hinder thee from getting riches.
Of Wine
The true Vegetable Stone is found in Wine, which is the noblest of all vegetables. It containeth three sorts of Salt, three sorts of Mercury and three sorts of Sulphur.
The first Salt sticketh in the wood of the Wine, which, if it be burnt to ashes and a lixivium made of it is able to have its Salt drawn forth, which must be coagulated. This is the first Salt.
The second Salt is found in Tartar, if that be incinerated; then draw
its Salt forth, dissolve and coagulate it several times and let it be sufficiently
clarified.
The third Salt is this. When the Wine is distilled it leaveth feces
behind, which are to be made to powder; its Salt can then be drawn out
with warm water.
Each of these Salts hath a special property. In their centre they stand in a harmony, because they descend from one root.
It hath three sorts of Mercury and three sorts of Sulphur. The first oil is made of the steam, the second oil is made out of crude Tartar, the third is the oil of Wine.
There is a strange property in the Spirit of Wine, for without it there cannot be extracted any true tincture of Sol, nor can there be made without it any true Aurum Potabile; but few men know how a true Spirit of Wine is made, much less can its property be found out wholly. Several ways have been tried to draw and to get the Spirit of Wine without sophistication, as by several instruments and distillings with metalline Serpents and other strange inventions, of sponges, papers and the like. Some caused a rectified Aqua vitae to be frozen in the greatest frost, expecting the phlegm thereof should turn to ice and the spirit thereof to keep liquid, but nothing was done to any purpose.
To Make A True Spirit Of Wine
Take Vinum Adustum and put it into a strong Vessel, which will endure the fire; light it with a match of Brimstone and put quickly a head of Iron or Copper upon it and the true, fiery Spirit will be resolved into a water in the receiver, which must be large. This is the true aerial, fiery Spirit of Wine. It must be subtile, penetrating, without any phlegm, pure, aerial and volatile, so that air in a magnetic quality may attract it; therefore it had need to be kept close in. It is of a penetrating and effectual operation.
There are three which are the noblest creatures in the world; these three have a wonderful affection one to another. Among animals it is man, out of whose Mummy is made an Animal Stone, in which the Microcosm is contained. Among minerals Gold is the noblest, whose fixedness is a sufficient testimony of its noble offspring and kindred. Among vegetables there lieth hid a Vegetable Stone. Man loveth Gold and Wine above all other creatures, which may be beheld with the eyes. Gold loveth Man and Wine, because it lets go its noble part if Spirit of Wine be put to it, being made potable, which giveth strength to Man and prolongeth his life in health. Wine beareth affection to Man also and to Gold, because it easily uniteth with the tincture of Sol, expelleth melancholy and sadness and refresheth and rejoiceth Man's heart. These Stones renew men and beasts, cure leprous metals and cause barreness to become fruitful with a new birth.
The True Preparation Of Aurum Potabile Without Sophistication
First I will describe what is that true and highest Aurum potabile and Universal Medicine. After this in order there followeth another Aurum potabile made of the fixed red Sulphur or Soul of the corporeal Gold, most highly purged, and it is prepared with the conjunction of the Universal Spirit of Mercury. After this there followeth another particular Medicine, which is half an Aurum potabile, showing its efficacy and power in many trials. Then I will add thereunto a description of Aurum potabile, because it traceth the steps of Gold and it showeth wonderfully its great energy and virtues.
The highest and chiefest Aurum potabile which the Lord god hath laid into Nature is the excocted, prepared and fixed substance of our Stone before it is fermented. A higher, greater and more excellent Universal Medicine and Aurum potabile cannot be found nor had in the circumference of the whole world; for it is a heavenly balsam because its first principles and original cometh from heaven, made formal in earth or under ground, and is afterwards, being exactly prepared, brought into a plusquam perfection, of which first principle and nativity of this heavenly substance I have already writ sufficiently.
Now as this excocted and perfect substance is the highest, chiefest and greatest Universal Medicine unto man, even so, on the other side, the same matter, after its fermentation, is a tincture also and the chiefest, greatest and most powerful Universal Medicine upon all metals whatsoever and thereby they may be transmuted into their highest melioration and health, namely into the purest Gold.
This is the first, chiefest and greatest Aurum potabile and Universal Medicine of the whole world, of which alone great volumes could be writ, whose preparation is already written.
Now I will declare the true and full process how a true Aurum potabile is to be made.
How true Aurum potabile is to be had and prepared from Gold, which in the best manner is exactly putrefied. Take the extracted Soul of Gold, drawn forth with the sweet Spirit of common Salt, as I informed you about the Particular of Gold, where the body of Gold appeared very white; abstract the Spirit of Salt from it; edulcorate the anima of Sol ten or twelve times and at last let it be exiccated. Weigh it; pour on it four times as much of Spirit of Mercury; lute it well; set it in the Vaprous bath and putrefy it gently. Let the anima of Sol be quite dissolved and be turned into water or its prima materia. Both will turn into a blood-red liquor, fair and transparent, no Ruby on the earth being comparable unto it.
But note, when the anima of Sol begins to be dissolved and brought into its prima materia, that at the first, on the side round the glass where the matter lieth there will be seen a green circle, on it a blue, then a yellow. Afterwards all the colours of the rainbow join and make appearance, which do but last a little while. The anima of Sol being wholly dissolved into the Mercurial Spirit, and when nothing is seen in the bottom, then pour to it twice as much of the best rectified Spirit of Wine, brought to its highest degree. The glass must be luted exactly. Digest and putrefy gently for twelve or fifteen days together, then abstract per alembicum, when the matter cometh over in a blood-red, transparent colour. This abstracting must be iterated; nothing must be left in the bottom which is corporeal; then you have the true Aurum potabile, which can never be reduced into a body.
But note, the Gold, before its destruction and the extraction of its Soul, must be purged in the highest degree. There is made another Aurum potabile and one that is artificially prepared, which, though it cannot be said or set down in writing to be the full and true potable Gold, yet is it counted more than half an Aurum potabile because it is transcending effectual in many diseases in which Nature might have stood in great doubts. This half Aurum potabile is made in a two-fold manner, where the latter is better and more effectual than the former and asketh more pains and time than the former.
Take this extracted Soul of Gold drawn forth with the sweet Spirit of common Salt, edulcorate it most purely and exactly and at last exiccate it and put it in a spacious viol or body of glass. Pour on it red oil of Vitriol, which was dephlegmed and rectified per retortam that it be transparent, clear and white and you see that it seizeth on the Gold and dissolveth it and is tinged deeply red. Put so much of this oil to it that in it may be dissolved the Sulphur or the Soul of Gold. Let it putrefy in Balneo Mariae and put a reasonable fire to it, that you may see that the Soul of Gold is quite dissolved in the oil of Vitriol. The feces which it hath settled must be separated from it; then put twice as much of the best rectified Spirit of Wine to it, which rectification you shall be further informed of, seal the glass, let no Spirits of Wine evaporate and set it again in putrefaction in the balneum; let it be there for a month, then the sharpness of the Vitriol is mitigated by the Spirit of Wine and loseth its acidity and sharpness and both together make an excellent Medicine; drive both over and let nothing stay behind in the bottom, then you get more than half an Aurum potabile, in form and colour of a deep yellow liquor.
Note that some metals in this manner may be proceeded withal. First a Vitriol may be gotten out of the metal, then a Spirit is further driven from it and joined in this manner with the Soul and dissolved and further digested with Spirit of Wine. All must enter into a Medicine as I formerly said, which Medicines have their special efficacy.
The second way to prepare this half Aurum potabile, which though it be but half an Aurum potabile, yet in virtue and efficacy, is far preferred before the other now spoken of, is done as followeth.
Take the extracted solar Soul spoken of above, put it into a viol and pour on it the extracted philosophic Sulphur, which is the second principle, which is drawn with Spirit of Mercury from the philosophers' earth and Mercury, or Spirit of Mercury, unto an oleity, which now is Sulphur again and must be abstracted gently per modum distillationis.
Of this philosophic Sulphur pour on it as much that the solar Soul may be dissolved. Let it stand in a gentle bath, let the dissolution be made, then pour more of the best Spirit of Wine to it, digest gently, draw these over, let nothing stay behind in the bottom and then you have a Medicine that shall not want above two grains of the right and true Aurum potabile.
Those are the chiefest ways to make the corporeal Aurum potabile. This I close and proceed further with a short but true process how the Silver, which is the next to Gold concerning perfection, is made potable also. This process must be done in the following manner.
Take the sky-coloured Sulphur or Spirit of Lune, which was extracted with distilled Vinegar as I informed you in the particular of Lune, edulcorate it, rectify it with Spirit of Wine, exiccate it, put it in a viol, pour to it three times as much of Spirit of Mercury, which is prepared from the white Spirit of Vitriol as I taught you before, lute the glass firmly, set it in putrefaction in the vaprous bath and let all be dissolved and nothing more see in the bottom. Then put to it an equal quantity of the best Spirit of Wine, set it in digestion for half a month, drive all over, let nothing stay behind and then you have the true potable Luna which in its efficiency is admirable and doth wonders when it is used.
A Description of the Fiery Tartar
Distil of good Wine a Spirit of Wine, rectify it with white calcined
Tartar, let all come over and put that which is distilled over into a viol.
Pour four ounces of well sublimed Sal-armoniack to one quart of Spirit
of wine, set a helmet upon it, set a great receiver into cold water and
drive the volatile Spirits into it gently in Balneo Mariae. Leave but a
little quantity of it behind. Note the alembick must always be cooled with
wet cloths, then the Spirits will be dissolved and turn into a liquor.
Thus is prepared this hot Spirit of Wine.
Of the Salt of Tartar
First you must note that the philosophers' Tartar is not the vulgar Tartar, wherewith the lock is opened, but it is a Salt which cometh from root and is the only mystical Key for all metals and is prepared thus: Make a sharp lixivium of the ashes of Sarments or twigs of the vine, boil away all its moisture and there stayeth behind a ruddy matter, which must be reverberated for three hours in a flaming fire. Stirring it still, let it come to a whiteness, which white matter must be dissolved in distilled rain water; let the feces of its settle and filter and coagulate them in a glass, that the matter in it be dry, which dry matter is the Salt of Tartar from which the true Spirit is driven.
Note. As precious stones have many rare virtues and qualities, so there are many despicable and ignoble stones, which have great virtues, as for example the Limestone, Calx vive, which in men's judgements is held of no great value and lieth contemptibly in obscurity; however there is a mighty virtue and efficacy in it which appeareth if application be made of it to the most heaviest diseases, seeing that its triumphant and transcendent efficacy is almost unknown for the generality; therefore for the good of such which are inquisitive into natural and supernatural mysteries I will discover this mystery concerning Calx vive and show how its Spiritis driven from it, which work, indeed, requireth an expert artist who is well informed aforehand of its preparation.
Take unslaked Lime as much as you will; beat and grind it on a well dried stone to an impalpable powder and put on it so much of Spirit of Wine as the pulverised Calx is able to drink. There must not stand any of that Spirit upon it. Apply a helmet to it and lute it well and put a receiver before it and abstract the Spirit from it gently in Balneo; this abstracting must be iterated eight or ten times. This Spirit of Wine strengtheneth the Spirit of Calx mightily and it is made more fiery hot. Take the remaining Calx out of the body, grind it very small and put to it a tenth part of Salt of Tartar, which is pure, not containing any feces.
As much as this matter weigheth together, add as much of the additional of Salt of Tartar thereunto, namely the remaining matter from which was extracted the Salt of Tartar, and it must be well exiccated. All this must be mingled together and put in a well coated retort. Three parts of the retort must be empty. Lute a great receiver or body to it very strongly. Note that the body into which the retort's nose is put must have a pipe of a finger's breadth unto which may be applied another body and a quantity of Spirit of Wine in it. Then give a gentle fire to it. At first there comes over some of the phlegm, which falls into the first applied body. The phlegm being all come over, then increase the fire and there cometh a white Spirit to the upper part of the body, like unto the white Spirit of Vitriol, which doth not fall among the phlegm but slideth through the pipe into the other body and draweth itself into the Spirit of Wine, embracing the same as one fire doth join with the other. Note that if the Spirit of Calx be not prepared first by the Spirit of Wine and drawn off and on as I told, then he does not so, but falleth among the phlegm where he is quenched and loseth also all his efficacy. Thus difficult a matter is it to search Nature thoroughly, she reserving as she does many things unto herself. This Spirit being fully entered into the Spirit of Wine, then take off the body and put away the phlegm, but keep carefully the Spirit of Wine and Spirit of Calx.
Note both these Spirits are hardly separated because they embrace closely one another and being distilled they come over jointly.
Therefore take these mixed and united Spirits, put them into a jar-glass and kindle it; the Spirit of Wine burneth away, but the Spirit of Calx stayeth in the glass; keep it carefully. This is the great arcanum; few of other Spirits go beyond its efficacy if you know how to make good use of it. This Spirit dissolves occuli cancrorum and the hardest crystals. These three being driven over together and often iterated in that distilling, three drops of that liquor being ministered in warm wine break and dissolve any gravel and stone in man's body, expelling their very roots and not putting the patient to any pain.
This Spirit of Calx at the beginning looks bluish but being gently rectified it looks white, transparent and clear, leaving few feces behind. This Spirit dissolveth the most fixed jewels and precious stones. On the other side he fixeth all volatile Spirits with his transcendent heat.
This Spirit conquereth all manner of podagrical symptoms, be they never so no dose and tartarous; it dissolves them and expels them radically.
Of Vitriol and Its Preparation as also of its Power and Virtue
Take good Hungarian Vitriol, calcine it till it be of a yellowish colour and no higher; grind this calcined Vitriol very small, put it into a distilling vessel with a long neck, well luted, luto sapientiae. Put thereto a large receiver and begin to distil day and night with a very gentle fire, that gives not a stronger heat than the Sun doth in a hot day. Afterwards increase the fire by degrees, forcing at last the Spirits with the strongest fire, till red, visible drops do come over, which work hath taken up three days and nights. This being done take that which is left in the distilling vessel, commonly called Caput Mortuum, and grind it small. Pour on it clean rain water, first distilled, and boil therein the Cholcotar and the Salt of Vitriol will go into the water. The water being settled and clear, filter it that the feces may be separated. Let the water vapour away in some glass vessel till the Salt be dry, then dissolve the Salt again in rain water, first distilled and let it vapour away again to dryness. Repeat this operation the third time and the Salt of Vitriol will be very fair, clean and clear. Put this dry Salt into a crucible of glass and pour on it the above made Spirit of Vitriol; lute the glass luto sapientiae and set it in digestion for some days. This being done, open the glass and put the materials together into a retort of glass and distil them at first gently; and when it ceaseth to drop, increase the fire and force it over till nothing will come more. Let it become cold and then take the Spirit out of the receiver, which must be somewhat large and strong. Put the Spirit into a glass body and rectify it by distillation till it be freed from the phlegm and the matter in the glass body appear to be of a red-brown colour.
Then take the glass body and set it with the said matter in a cellar and there will shoot from it very clear, white, transparent crystals. Put these transparent crystals into a large phial with a very large and long neck and pour on them the first white Spirit of Turpentine and it will boil up and foam; therefore you must be careful and not over hasty in doing this. The crystals will dissolve and the Spirit of Turpentine will grow transparent and as red as blood. This being done, pour on it three times the weight of common Spirit of Wine freed fully from its phlegm, so that it stand two fingers high above it. Then put a little head of glass upon the neck of the phial, luting it well, join it to a receiver and distil very gently the Spirit of Wine in Balneo Mariae and the tincture of Vitriol comes over very pleasantly with the Spirit of Wine and that which is corrosive remains behind with the oily parts of the Spirit of Turpentine. The Spirit of Wine being come with the tincture, put it together into another phial and pour on it some fresh Spirit of Wine and distil again gently in Balneo Mariae as you did before; if any corrosive be come over with the fire it will now stay behind. Repeat this operation the third time and the work is done and perfect. Put this fair, red, transparent Spirit of Vitriol into a Pelican, add to it at once half an ounce of well pulverised Unicorn's horn and let it stand in circulation in a gentle heat a whole month. Then pour it off very clear from the feces and the tincture of Vitriol is prepared for the Medicine, of a very pleasant taste, and is to be used after this manner following, to wit: Let him that is troubled with the falling sickness take half a dram of it in a spoonful of Lillum Convallium water when the fit is coming upon him. Thus let him use it three times and the Medicine will cure him by the help of God. He that is mad and distracted should take it likewise in Wine for the space of eight days and he will have reason to give God thanks for it. Moreover if it be taken in wine it doth resolve any hardness settled in the nerves and if it be constantly used for some time, even the gout itself is consumed and cured thereby.
Likewise it maketh those who are melancholy and troubled with sadness, if it be used as before, very cheerful and light-hearted; it dispelleth all sadness and breedeth good and pure blood. It hath been found very excellent in swimmings and giddiness in the head; it comforteth the brain and preserveth the memory. If it be administered in consumptions of the lungs and any other coughs in the manner aforesaid, it will cure those distempers and is very useful for many other things.
An Addition
Take Sal Armoniack, dissolve a considerable quantity of it in the strongest Vinegar and add to it filings of Copper. Let it putrefy in heat till the filings are all grown friable so that they may be grinded into powder and you will have a yellow powder, which edulcorate well.
Having done so, dry the powder and pour on it the red Aqua Vitae Vitrioli, which hath been distilled over with its proper Salt, so that it cover it all over. Set it thus in heat and the powder of the Copper will be dissolved in the oil, but there must be some fair water be mixed with it. Then draw it off in sand to dryness and the phlegm comes over. The remainder force out of a retort in an open fire and you will find an Oleum Veneris, green and transparent like an Emerald. Put again into this Oleum some of the powder of Copper and it will be dissolved in it. Then coagulate to dryness and you have a powder, half an ounce whereof will transmute a whole pound of Iron, being in flux, into very good Copper.
Of the Sweet Essence of Vitriol
The sweet Essence of Vitriol, whereby many wonderful cures may be wrought, is only prepared out of its Sulphur, which burneth like other Brimstone. To obtain this proceed after this manner. Take of the best Vitriol you can get and dissolve it in fair fountain water; after this take Pot-ashes, such as dyers use for their dyeing and these dissolve likewise in fair fountain water; let it settle well and then pour off the clear from the dregs and add it to the solution of Vitriol and one will enflame the other and cause a separation. For the Sulphur of Vitriol doth separate itself by precipitation. Make a considerable quantity of it and edulcorate it from all impurity. Afterwards dry the same Sulphur, which will burn like other Sulphur, being cast upon glowing coals.
Take now this Sulphur and sublime it by itself without any addition and there will remain some feces, which separate and put away. Then take the Sulphur and grind together with it half its weight of common Salt of Tartar and distil them together through a retort and there will come over a reddish oil. Pour to this oil some distilled Vinegar and there will precipitate a brown powder and the Spirit of Tartar remaineth in the water. Edulcorate the same powder very well, for therein is the treasure to be looked after. This work being done, pour some Spirit of Wine on the said powder and let it circulate in heat for eight days. Thus the excellent sweet Essence of the Sulphur of Vitriol goeth into the Spirit of Wine and swimmeth upon the top, in forma olei, like an oil of cinnamon. Then separate the essence from the Spirit of Wine by means of a separating glass and keep it very carefully for use, it being a great treasure.
The use of this Medicine
This Essence of Sulphur, four grains of it being taken in Balm water, drieth up the bad humours of the blood, strengtheneth and incites men and women to copulation, cleanseth the womb, hindreth the rising of the mother and breedeth good sense for the procreation of children.
The same quantity being taken in parsley water and continued for a fortnight, doth consume all phlegmatic humours of the whole body cures the dropsy radically, drives out the putrefied blood and openeth imposthumes, yea you will find it do wonderful cures if you will be industrious and careful in the preparation thereof; but you must never whilst you live forget God your Creator, to call upon Him for a blessing and to render to Him thanks for all His fatherly benefits He hath bestowed upon you.
The Preparation of the Stone Ignis
Now I will teach you the chiefest preparation of Antimony and the use of it in Medicine. In this Antimony are hidden and found so many wonderful mysteries that there is none too old to learn and to search to find them out. I will instruct you to make some preparations which are also required to other things.
Take pure mineral Antimony, which is brought from Hungary, grind it very small and wash it very clean, that the earth may be separated from it. Take then a pound of it, mix with it as much of fluxing powder and melt it once again and then the Regulus will be clean and pure.
Add to this Regulus its weight of Nitre and melt it down. Pour it out together and beat off the Scoriae and put again to the Regulus its weight of Nitre and melt it.
Repeat this till all is gone into Scoriae, which you must carefully keep; they will burn upon the tongue like fire. This being done, take the matter so gathered, grind it small and edulcorate the Salt-peter from it and there remaineth a brown-yellow powder, which dry and keep; it looketh like grinded glass. Take now a common Regulus of Antimony made with Salt-peter and Tartar, grind it small and put it into a round glass, which must not be too high, and fasten a head to it. Sublime your Regulus in sand by itself without any addition, sweep the sublimate with a feather again into the glass and sublime it again. Repeat this so long till nothing do rise, but the matter remain red and fixed in the bottom. Then take this fixed Antimony and put it upon a stone in a cellar and in time it will be dissolved into water, which distil in Balneo Mariae until the sixth part only of the water do remain in the glass. Set this in a cold place and there will shoot reddish crystals, which dissolve in rain water. Filter it and draw off the phlegm to a thickness, set it to dry as before and the crystals will shoot white and very pure, like unti Salt peter. This is the Salt of Antimony.
Take these crystals and pour upon them pure distilled Vinegar and they will dissolve in the Vinegar. Then distil the Vinegar, the glass being very close luted, forcing at last the Spirits into the Vinegar and then the Vinegar is prepared. Take this Vinegar and pour it in the prepared brown-yellow powder and set it in some warm place and the Vinegar will draw out the tincture of Antimony, altogether red, within half or quarter of an hour. Pour off this extraction together and set it to digest twenty-eight days in Balneo Mariae.
Afterwards distil from it the Vinegar through an Alembick in sand, forcing in the end the oil into another glass, which comes over with many strange and wonderful veins. Rectify this oil in ashes and the rest of the Vinegar, if any be left, will come off and the oil remaineth very sweet and of a pleasant red colour like a Ruby. Thus have you joined the Sulphur with the Salt of Antimony and brought it over like an Aqua Vitae, which keep very carefully. Furthermore take again a common Regulus of Antimony made with Salt-peter and Tartar and beat it to a powder. Then take of strong distilled Vinegar four quarts and a half. Put into it of Sal Armoniack and of Salt of Tartar likewise eight ounces (I shall teach how to make it at the end of the directions). Digest this to the evaporation of the Vinegar and mingle with the Salts three parts of Venice Tripoli and distil the Spirit, which is of a singular nature and property.
Pour this Spirit on the pulverised Regulus of Antimony and having the glass well luted let it stand in digestion sixteen days; then distil the Spirit from the matter to a dryness and grind four times the weight of filings of steel with the same. Put it into a retort and putting thereto a large receiver full of water, distil it, forcing at last with a strong fire, and the Mercury comes over in fumes and is quickened in the water, which is the true Mercury of Antimony.
Take common Spirit of Vitriol, add a little common water to it and put your filings of steel into it. Let it stand till the filings are dissolved, then pour it off clean and put away the feces. Afterwards distil the Spirit in ashes to a thickness and set the glass in a cold place and there will shoot good Vitriol of Iron, which take, and having first vapoured away the phlegm mingle with it three parts of the powder made of burned potsherds of broken pots, put it into a retort, draw off the phlegm first, then force the Spirit with a strong fire into a proper glass, which rectify to the height and there will remain an oil in the bottom. Pour this oil upon the Mercury made before and draw off the phlegm in hot ashes and the tincture of the Aqua vitae remains behind and doth precipitate the Mercury into a fair, high-coloured powder of very great virtues in curing old running sores.
The Conjunction of the Three Principles: Sulphur, Salt, and Mercury of Antimony
Take of this precipitate, well edulcorated with Spirit of Wine, one part and pour on it of the above mentioned sweet oil, three parts, in a phial, so that the phial be not above one half full.
Then seal it hermetically and place it in a philosophical furnace and the precipitate will be dissolved in that continual heat. Open then the glass and continue a strong fire till the matter become a fixed powder and do fix and then the Stone Ignis is prepared of which I have written. This Stone is a particular tincture in men's bodies as well as in those of metals. This may be used in many hard and dangerous distempers. Take of this Stone or particular tincture half an ounce, cast it upon twelve ounces and a half of pure Silver or upon as much Pewter or Lead, let it flow very well for four and twenty hours, then drive it off clean and quart it as tryers and refiners do and you will find in the Silver two ounces and a half of very good Gold and in the Pewter or Lead one ounce upon the cupel.
Another Medicine Made out of Antimony and Mercury and of its Effects in Outward Sores
Take Hungarian Antimony and sublimed Mercury and grind them well together and distil them through an earthen retort, forcing them at last with the strongest fire imaginable and you will obtain an oil, which separate and keep apart. Put away the quick Mercury, if so there be any; and the Cinnabar you will find in the neck of the retort. But as for the Caput Mortuum, grind it small and put it into a new retort and having poured on it the oil, first made warm, distil it again from it. Repeat so often till the Caput Mortuum remain behind like ashes and then your oil is prepared.
After this take so much fresh Antimony as first of all the Caput Mortuum did weigh, grind it small and put on it the oil, first warmed, and so many times distil as before till the oil come over as red as a Ruby and the Caput Mortuum likewise remain like ashes in the bottom of the glass and then the oil is prepared.
The Preparation of the Sublimate for this Work
Take one pound and a half of Hungarian Vitriol, one pound of common Salt and four ounces of Salt-peter; grind this together and put one pound of Quicksilver into the bottom of a glass body; place it in sand so that the sand do not come above the matter in the glass; put a head thereupon and give it a convenient fire and the sublimate will stick to the sides of the glass, which is to be used in your work.
Take the above prepared Aqua vitae and add to eight ounces of it three ounces of Salt-peter water and distil it out of a coated, glass retort and you will have an ounce of the Aqua vitae remain behind fixed. Then put again to the Aqua vitae one ounce of fresh Salt-peter water into a retort and distil as before and there will stay more behind. This addition of fresh Salt-peter water to the Aqua vitae and distillation out of a coated retort, as has been said before, repeat so often till all remains fixed in the retort.
The Salt-Peter Water is Made Thus
Take unburned potsherds grinded small and with three part of the same grind one part of purified Salt-peter. Put into the receiver half a pound of water to one pound of Salt-peter and force the Spirits over into it. That which is fixed with this water, put into a glass body and pour upon it the common Aqua vitae Vitrioli so that it be four fingers high upon it. Then distil it till the matter become dry. Take out this matter and dry it yet more that the rest of those corrosive Spirits may evaporate, then edulcorate it well with Spirit of Wine and the Medicine is prepared.
The Use
Three or four grains of this Medicine being taken in some good treacle for some days cureth the French pox; there be no sore so old and festered but is cured infallibly by it. I have cured with it likewise many spreading, old, running ulcers, as fistulas, cancers, the wolf and the like. The Name of the Lord be praised therefore.
The Preparation of a Medicine out of Common Sulphur
Take common Sulphur and grind it small, then grind with it three parts of calcined Vitriol, put it together into a high cucurbite and sublime it in sand till nothing will sublime more. Take then these flowers, put them into a glass and pour on them a common Aqua vitae Tartari, which hath been dissolved in a cellar, so that it swim on the top of its a hand's breadth. Place it in a convenient heat and the Sulphur will open itself in a few hours and become transparent red like a Ruby. This being done pour off the extraction into another glass and put to it very good distilled Vinegar and the Sulphur falls to the bottom with a great stink.
Pour off the Aqua vitae and edulcorate well the Sulphur and dry it gently. Put this Sulphur again into another glass cucurbite and pour upon it Spirit of Wine, which is prepared with philosophical Tartar, set it in heat for three days and the Spirit of Wine imbibeth again that excellent tincture of the Sulphur. Then pour off the extraction and draw off the Spirit of Wine with a pretty strong fire in sand and there will come over with it a pleasant, sweet smelling Aqua vitae. Having done so, rectify the oil in Balneo Mariae and draw off the Spirit of Wine gently and the Aqua vitae Sulphuris remaineth in the bottom.
The Use of this Medicine
Six or eight drops of this oil being taken in a spoonful of Wine are good for those that are in a consumption. It is good likewise for coughs, openeth the breast and ulcers of the breast, likewise imposthumes. It relieveth against whatsoever may occasion any putrefaction in a man's body if the use of it be continued for some time.
The Preparation of the Tincture of Corals
Take red Corals, break them into pieces and pour on them a common Spirit of Salt and the Corals will be dissolved. This being done, draw off by distillation the Spirit of Salt and edulcorate them well. Then take to one marck of this powder half an ounce of common Sulphur, pulverised, and having mingled it together, reverberate it very gently till all the Sulphur be burned away. Having done so, grind as much Camphor with the Corals and burn the Camphor likewise away. Then edulcorate well the Corals and pour upon them high rectified Spirit of Wine and digest them for eight days and the tincture of the Corals will elevate itself into the Spirit of Wine. Then pour off that which you have extracted and after that draw off the Spirit of Wine from it and there remaineth the tincture of Corals behind in the bottom like a red, fat oil of Olives.
The Use of the Medicine
Six drops of this tincture given in a spoonful of Wine to those that are bereaved of their senses restoreth them again. This tincture comforteth likewise the brain and strengthens the memory, dispelleth sadness and melancholy, makes light-hearted, breedeth good blood and strengtheneth the heart. It is such a noble Medicine for which we are bound indeed to bless Almighty God.
Of the True Solution of Pearls
Take very good Verdigris, grind it small and dissolve it in distilled Vinegar; pour off the clean and throw away the feces. Then distil off the Vinegar out of a glass body to a thickness and put it into a cold place and there will shoot from it a fair Vitriol. Put this Vitriol into another glass and pour on it a high rectified Spirit of Wine and dissolve therein the Vitriol very well. Separate the feces from it and afterwards distil off likewise the Spirit of Wine to a thickness and set it again in a cold place and the Vitriol shooteth again. Put then the Vitriol into a glass body and draw off by distillation the phlegm in Balneo Mariae till the matter becomes dry. Take it out, put it into a glass retort and distil once more with a stronger fire in sand and you will obtain a pleasant Vinegar. Dissolve in this Vinegar as many Pearls as it will dissolve, for this Vinegar worketh very well upon them, dissolveth the substance but not the shells. The Pearls being dissolved, draw off the Vinegar in Balneo Mariae till the Pearls be very dry, then take them out and edulcorate them with Rose-water. Put these Pearls thus prepared into a glass body and pour some Spirit of Wine upon them and digest them in a gentle heat four and twenty hours and there riseth a pleasant liquor from the Pearls which doth mount and swimmeth upon the Spirit of Wine like an Aqua vitae made of Cinnamon. Pour it off together with the Spirit of Wine and keep it.
The Use of this Medicine
Take of this Spirit of Wine half a spoonful so that four or five drops of the oil may go with it. It comforteth the heart, gives strength to the very marrow and bones and cureth swimming in the head and whatsoever may be hurtful to the eyes. It dispelleth rheums in the head and the noise in the ears, openeth the passage to hearing and is, moreover, a most precious treasure in many distempers.
A Certain Cure of the Stone
Recipe. Of common Salt-peter, well purified, one pound and as much of common white Spirit of Vitriol. Pour the Spirit of Vitriol upon the Salt-peter and the Salt-peter will be dissolved together. This being done, distil from thence the Spirit of Vitriol in ashes to a thickness and set it in some cold place and the Salt-peter will shoot again from it. Take two ounces of this Salt-peter and the like quantity of the Salt of Wormwood; pour on them a little of the oil of Sulphur made per campanam so that the Salts may be like a poultice. Mix with it likewise one dram of Anniseed oil and as much of white Amber, adding thereto a pound of Canary sugar and mix all these ingredients very well together. Let him that is tormented with the stone take of this powder every day five or six times as much as will lie upon a point of a knife, twice repeated, and this medicine will work upon the stone and break it and throw it out radically.
Of the Soul or the Sulphur of Lune or the Philosophers' Silver
Take common Salt-peter and quick or unslaked Lime, reverberate them together in a wind furnace with the strongest fire, extract again the Salt-peter with warm rain water and coagulate it to dryness; mingle again with it new quick Lime, reverberate it and extract again; repeat this the third time. This being done take Calx of Silver, being after the dissolution in an Aqua fort prepared, and mix it with prepared Salt-peter; put it into a glass viol, pour on it common Aqua fort such as the goldsmiths use, made of Salt-peter and Vitriol, and draw it off by distillation in hot sand. Pour on it some fresh Aqua fort and having distilled it likewise, repeat it the third time, giving at last a very strong fire, that the matter in the glass may flow very well. Let it cool of itself in the furnace and the Silver will become transparent blue in one piece. Extract this with Vinegar till you can extract no more. Edulcorate that which is extracted with water, that the Salt may be separated from it.
Cohobate Vinegar upon the dry Sulphur till it come over like a Saphire. Reduce the same Silver into small filings and add to it its weight of Sal-armoniack and sublime it in a glass body and the Sal-armoniack carrieth with it the Sulphur of Lune of a very pleasant sky-colour. Put this sublimate into a dish of glass, edulcorate it well with rain water, first distilled, and the Sal-armoniack will be separated. Then dry the Sulphur of Lune, put it into a little body and pour on it good rectified Spirit of Wine and set it twenty-four hours in heat and the Spirit of Wine doth imbibe the Sulphur of Lune, a fine transparent blue, like a Saphire or Ultramarine, and leaveth some few feces behind, which separate from it.
The Use
Five or six drops of this tincture being taken in Wine doth dispel sad and melancholy thoughts. It preventeth unquiet sleep, cureth those as use to rise and wander up and down in the night and likewise that are lunatics and giveth rest to all such as are restless in the night.
The Secret of the Quick or Unslaked Lime
Take good, pure Chalk and burn it in a potter's furnace with a very strong fire to bring it to an exact maturity. Then grind it small upon a warm stone and pour on it, in a glass body, Spirit of Wine made with philosophical Tartar that the Chalk become like a thin poultice.
This being done, distil from thence the phlegm to the dryness of the Chalk, pour fresh Spirit of Wine on it and distil it off again. Repeat this six times, then grind the matter small and lay it on a stone in a cellar to dissolve and there will flow in a few days from it a liquor, which, when you have gathered, put it into a retort of glass and distil it in sand and the phlegm comes over first, which keep apart. After this there cometh a spiritual liquor which is likewise to be kept by itself.
Moreover take crystal stones, pulverise them and grind their weight of live or mineral Sulphur with them. Put then this matter upon a broad, earthen platter, stirring it continually, and burn away the Sulphur from it. Then reverberate it in an open, flaming fire for three hours. This being done, likewise put the matter into a glass and pour the liquor upon it. Take likewise crabs eyes, put them into another glass and pour on them of the same liquor; let it stand pretty hot for fourteen days and nights and there will rise from both a moisture, which pour off together very clean into a little body of glass and rectify it in Balneo Mariae and the liquor remaineth behind. Three grains of which, being taken in wine, have wrought very great and admirable effects. This Medicine cureth likewise radically the stone of the bladder and kidneys, both in men and women.
Take this burned Chalk, pour upon it and then draw from it again several times an Aqua fort made of Vitriol and Salt-peter. Dissolve it afterwards in a cellar. Distil that which is dissolved into an oil with a strong fire. Digest with this oil a Calx of Lune, opened with Aqua fort, for a month. Reduce this Calx by melting down with Salt-peter and Sal armoniack and refine it with Saturn; then separate it and you will have a white, fixed Lune, which lay for a day and a night in an Aqua fort and you have good Gold, which endureth all trials. Laus Deo.
The Preparation of the Great Philosophic Stone
Our Stone is made out of its own proper Essence; for its transmuteth other metals into real and true Gold, which Gold must be prepared and become a better Stone. And though nothing of another nature must be used in the preparation of our Stone, which might obstruct its majestic excellency, yet the preparation of it in the beginning cannot be made without means. But observe that, as you will hear afterwards, all corrosives must be washed away from it and separated, so that our Stone may be severed from all poison and be prepared to be the greatest Medicine. Now I will show the work itself.
Take of the very best Gold you can have, one part; of good Hungarian Antimony, six parts; melt these together upon a fire and pour it out into such a pot as the goldsmiths use; when you have poured it out it becometh a Regulus. This same Regulus must be melted again that the Antimony may be separated from it.
This being done, add to it Mercury and melt it again and cleanse it again. Repeat this the third time and the Gold is purged and purified enough for the beginning of the work. Then beat the Gold very thin as goldsmiths do when they gild and make an amalgam with common Quicksilver, which must be squeezed through a leather. Let the Quicksilver fume away little by little upon a gentle fire, that nothing of it may remain with the Gold and stir it about continually with a small Iron rod and the Gold is become subtile so that its water may the better work upon it and open it.
The Preparation of the Water
Take one part of Salt-peter, well purified, and grind with it the like quantity of Sal-armoniack and half as much of pebbles, very well cleansed and washed. Mingle all these ingredients together and put them into an earthen retort, that the Spirits may not come through and put the same into a distilling furnace. The retort must have a pipe behind and put as large a receiver as you can get to the retort. The receiver must lie in a vessel full of cold water and a wet linen cloth must be put round about it, which you must continually change with another wet cloth. Then again so much matter must be put into the retort at intervals till all is gone into it and then your water is prepared.
Take then of the prepared Calx of Gold one part, put it into a glass body and pour three parts of the above made water upon it and place it in warm ashes and the Gold will dissolve in it; but if it should not altogether be dissolved, pour more fresh water upon it and it will dissolve it all. This being done, pour it out into another glass and let it stand till it become cold and it will let fall some feces, which separate by pouring the water from them to another glass. Set this glass in Balneo Mariae and put a head upon it. Let it stand in heat day and night and more feces will settle, which separate from it as before. Close up your glass very well after you have put on the head and lute another glass to the head and let it stand for fourteen days in a gentle heat that the body may be well opened. This being done, increase the fire and distil off the phlegm to a thickness that it remain in the bottom like an Aqua vitae. That which hath been distilled pour again into the body, having first made it warm, and lute again the head to it and let it stand to digest a day and night. Then draw off the water again by distillation and pour it again warm, upon it. Repeat this so long till the Gold is come over altogether into a low body with a flat bottom. Put this spiritualised solution of Gold again into a glass and pour on it a considerable quantity of rain water, putting thereto three parts of live Mercury to one of Gold but you must squeeze first the Mercury through a leather, and stir it very well together and you will see many wonderful colours. And if you do repeat this, stirring several times, there will fall an Amalgama to the bottom and the water will become clear.
This being done, decant the water and dry gently the Amalgama, which, having edulcorated it very well, put upon a broad, shallow, earthen platter under a cover. Stir it about continually with an Iron wire till all the Quicksilver be fumed away and there will remain upon the earthen platter a very fair powder of a purple colour.
Afterwards You must Prepare your Spirit of Wine with the Philosophical Tartar in the Manner Following:
First you are to know that the Tartar of the philosophers, whereby the lock is unopened, is not like unto common Tartar as many do think; but it is another Salt and springeth from one root and is the only Key to open and to dissolve metals and is prepared as followeth. Take ashes of a vine which hath borne grapes that have yielded good wine; make of them with warm water as strong a lee as possibly can be made. When you have a considerable quantity of this lee, boil it away and coagulate it to a dryness and there remaineth a reddish matter. Put this matter into a reverberating furnace and reverberate it for three days or thereabouts in an open fire, that the flame may play very well upon it and stir it continually till the matter is become white.
Afterwards dissolve this reverberated matter in fountain water and let it settle, pour off the clear liquid and filter it, that all the feces may be separated and coagulate it in a glass body and you will have a pure, white Salt of Tartar from which a true Spirit is drawn.
Take now high rectified Spirit of Wine, fully freed from its phlegm, and put the same into a glass phial with as long a neck as possibly you can get. But first of all put into it your Salt of Tartar and then the Spirit to the supereminency of three fingers. Lute a head to the phial and put thereto another glass, let it stand in a gentle heat, then distil gently off the phlegm, and the Spirit of Tartar is opened by the Spirit of Wine and by reason of their reciprocal, wonderful love it comes over with the Spirit of Wine and is united with it. The remaining feces and some phlegm staying behind with them are to be put away.
This is now the right Spirit of Wine, wherewith you may open that which the lover of Art desireth to know, for it is become penetrant by preparation.
Take now the powder of Gold of a purple colour and having put it into another phial, pour on it your Spirit of Wine. Put it, very close luted, in a gentle heat and it will extract the Sulphur of Gold within twenty-four hours of a high red colour like blood. Having done so so often that it doth not yield any tincture more, pour off the extraction very clear into a little glass body. The remainder is a white Calx. Pour upon this Calx the aforesaid Spirit of Wine and let it stand in putrefaction, having the glass well stopped, for fourteen days and nights and the Spirit of Wine will become of a white colour like milk, which pour off clear and pour upon it fresh Spirit of Wine and let it stand a day and a night longer and it will be coloured again, but not much. Add this to the first and what remaineth do not dry, but leave it in the glass. Put the white extraction into a little body and distil the phlegm from it till it be reduced to a small quantity.
This being done, put the glass in a cellar and there will shoot from it fair and transparent crystals, which having taken out, put the remainder again in a cellar and you will have more crystals, which put together into a body of glass, for it is the Salt of the Philosophers, and pour half the extraction of the Sulphur of Gold upon them and they will dissolve immediately and melt like butter in hot water. And then distil it together out of a glass body in hot ashes and it will come over together in the form of a red oil, which falls to the bottom and the Spirit of Wine swimmeth upon the top, which separate from it.
This (oil) is the true Potable Gold, not reducible into a body, and my Phalaia, whereby I have cured many by the blessing of God, giving but three grains of it in Wine.
The other half of the extraction must be distilled gently in Balneo Mariae to a dryness that the Spirit of Wine may be separated. Pour on it this Oil of Gold or Potable Gold and it taketh the powder in a moment and becomes of a much higher colour than it was before; and this will dissolve in common Spirit of Wine and other Wine as red as a Ruby, which constantly and wonderfully cureth all such distempers of the body as have their origin from within.
Then take that other part of Mercury of Pure Gold which you have kept and pour all this, being its own oil, upon it and distil by an alembick, but not too strongly; and there comes over some phlegm and the oil doth precipitate its own Mercury and becomes white again, the greenness being lost and gone.
This work being done likewise, get a philosophical egg, which the philosophers call their Heaven and you will find two parts of the oil in weight to one part of the precipitated Mercury. Put then the Mercury into a glass and add the oil of Gold to it, so that one part of the glass may be filled and three parts remain empty. Seal it well as Hermes teacheth and put it into the three-fold furnace so that it standeth not hotter than an egg which is under an hen to be hatched, and the matter will begin to putrefy within a month, and doth become very black which, when it doth appear, it is then certain that the matter is open by putrefaction and you may be glad of the happy beginning. Increase now the fire to the second degree and the blackness will vanish away in time and change into many admirable colours. These colours being gone likewise, increase the fire to the third degree and your glass will look like Silver and the rays will become ponderous. Then, increasing the fire to the fourth degree, the fumes will cease by little and little and your glass will shine as if it were beset within with cloth of Gold. Continue this fire and the rays will disappear likewise and there will be no more rays be seen to rise, but you will see your matter lie beneath like a brown oil, which at length being become dry, doth appear like into a Granat, which is both fixed and liquid like wax, penetrant like oil and mighty ponderous.
He that hath obtained this may render thanks to God his Creator, for poverty hath forsaken him, diseases will fly from him and wisdom hath taken possession of him.
Having thus prepared your Medicine, if you intend to multiply it proceed as follows. Take of the prepared powder of Gold of a purple colour, as you have done before, three parts. Add to it of the prepared tincture, one part, in a new Heaven or philosophers' egg. Seal it again hermetically and set it again into the furnace as before and the matter will unite itself and dissolve and be brought to perfection within thirty-one days, which is a month, which otherwise will take up ten months. Thus you may multiply the Medicine in infinitum so that you may perform things which the world will account incredible.
Lastly you must know that this Medicine is a very spiritual and piercing one, which cureth any distempers of this world in all creatures whatsoever. One only grain of it being taken, it penetrateth the whole body like a fume, cleareth out of the body all that is bad and bringeth that that is good in the room of it, reneweth the man and maketh of him, as it were, a new man, which it preserveth without any accidents to his age and the term prefixed by the Most High. Contra mortem remedium non est.
This Medicine, being first fermented with other pure Gold, doth likewise tinge many thousand parts of all other metals into very good Gold as I showed in a former process, whereby such Gold likewise becometh such a penetrant Medicine that one part doth tinge and transmute a thousand parts of other metals, and much more beyond belief, into perfect Gold. God be blessed and praised both now and for ever more. Amen.
Additional Preparations for a Fuller Declaration of the Same
Spirit of Mercury by Itself or Mercurial Water
Put running Mercury into a retort and put to it a receiver, which must stand in a glass with water in it. Distil then, and the Spirit will precipitate itself and is resolved into a water. Pour out this water and put the Mercury which sticketh to the neck of the retort back again into the retort. Distil and rectify till you have brought and reduced it to a water. This spirit of Mercury cureth almost all distempers and doth extract the essence out of minerals and metals.
A Tincture Both Upon Men and Metals
Take the spiritual Gold of a purple colour, extract its Sulphur with distilled Vinegar and separate the Vinegar again from it that it become a powder. This powder being dissolved in Spirit of Red Mercury, that is Gold, put thereto Salt of Gold and fix it. This is an universal Medicine for sick and diseased bodies of men, likewise it is excellent to exalt metals to the highest degrees.
A Tincture upon White
Calcine Silver with Salt and Quicklime and extract its blue Sulphur, which elevate and rectify with Spirit of Wine that it remain a liquor. Dissolve this in the white Spirit of Vitriol and in the Spirit of mineral Mercury.
I do not understand here the red Mercury, but the common, white, mineral Mercury, or rather that which is extracted out of Vitriol.
Fix it then, and you have an universal Medicine against all distempers and a tincture which doth tinge Lead, Pewter, Mercury and Copper into Silver.
To Make an Ounce of Gold out of Half an Ounce
Take Spirit of Salt, rectify it with Spirit of Wine and it become sweetish. Pour this upon the Spiritual Gold of a purple colour and it will extract only the Soul or Sulphur of the Gold, but doth not touch the body of Gold. The Sulphur of Gold doth graduate Silver into Gold, yet no greater quantity of it than there hath been of Gold. The body of Gold must be as white as Silver. Reduce it upon a cupel with Saturn and a little Copper and the white body of Gold doth recover again its colour and property and becometh good Gold.
To Make Mercury of Gold or the Philosophical Mercury
Take the Gold of a purple colour out of which the Sulphur is already extracted, digest it with the following water for a month, then revive it again by driving it through a retort in the neck whereof are to be laid Iron plates. Drive it into a receiver with some water in it and it runneth together and becometh a Quick Mercury of Gold.
The Water is Made as Followeth
Take Salt of Urine of a young man that drinketh nothing but Wine and likewise Salt of Tartar and Sal-armoniack, and let all this dissolve into a liquor, which rectify with Sprit of Wine that it become very sweet. This is the Arcanum wherewith the body of Gold is reduced into a running Mercury.
To Make the Salt of Gold
Pour Gold three times through Antimony, beat it into thin plates and dissolve them in Aqua Regis. Dissolve likewise Salt of Tartar in Spirit of Wine and draw off the phlegm that it remain like an oil. With this oil precipitate your Gold and separate again the Salt of Tartar from it by ablutions, then reverberate it fourteen days. Pour upon this Calx of Gold distilled Vinegar; let it boil gently a day and night and the Vinegar doth dissolve the Salt of the reverberated Gold. What remaineth in the bottom undissolved must be reverberated again eight days. Then boil it again in new Vinegar (and) put this afterwards to the first solution.
If anything remaineth behind it must be reverberated eight days more till the body is gone into the Vinegar. Then draw off the Vinegar in Balneo Mariae and you have the Salt of Gold in a yellowish powder which cureth all distempers.
Soli Deo Gloria
To Conclude These Preparations with a Brief Discovery of the First Tincture of the First Tincture, Root and Spirit of Metals and Minerals, How They are COnceived, Ripened, Brought Forth, Changed and Augmented.
Of the First Tincture, The Root of Metals
Observe that the tincture which is the root of all metals is a supernatural, flying, fiery Spirit. It hath its sustenance and natural habitation in the earth and water, where it may rest and work. And this Spirit is found in all metals, and more abundant in other metals than Gold; for the Gold is very close, solid and compact by reason of its well digested, ripened and fixed body; therefore it can no more enter into the body than the body doth need. But other metals have not such a fixed body, but their pores are open and dispersed, therefore can the tingeing Spirit abundantly more penetrate and possess them. But because the bodies of other metals are unfixed, the tincture likewise cannot stay with these unfixed bodies, but must go out of them, and it being the case that the tincture of Gold doth in no other metal abound more than in Iron and Copper, as husband and wife, their bodies are destroyed and the tingeing Spirit from thence is expelled, which breedeth much blood in the opened, prepared Gold, and by its feeding doth make it volatile. Therefore when the volatile Gold is filled by its meat and drink, it taketh up its own blood, doth dry it up through its own internal fire with the help and addition of a moist fire and is again a conquest, which doth fix, nay produceth the highest fixedness, so that the Gold becometh a high fixed Medicine and cannot make a body again by reason of the superabundant blood, except there be added to it a superfluous body into which this super abundant fixed blood doth disperse itself, which joined metallic body is penetrated by the exceeding great heat of the fixed blood of the Lion, like fire, is cleansed from all impurity and immediately is ripened to a perfect maturity and fixedness.
I now pass to the birth and to the generation, how the Archeus doth show and pour forth its power and displayeth it, by which all metallic and mineral forms are exposed to the view and are made formal, palpable and corporeal through the mineral, incomprehensible, flying, fiery Spirits.
First you are to know that all the metals and minerals of the earth have one only matter and one only mother, by which they in general altogether have received their conception and perfect bodily birth. And this matter, which cometh from the centre, doth divide itself in the beginning into three parts to produce some corporeal thing and a certain form of every metal. These three parts are fed and nourished by the elements in the earth out of its body till they become perfect. But the matter, which hath its original from the centre, is framed by the Stars, wrought by the elements and formed by that which is terrestrial and is a known matter and the true mother of metals and minerals and is such a matter and mother out of which man himself hath been conceived, born, nourished and made corporeal, and may be altogether compared to the Middle World; for whatsoever is in the Great World, that is known likewise in the Little and whatsoever is in the Little World, that is likewise in the Great. And thus what is in the Great and Little World together, that is found in the Middle World, which joineth the Great and Little Worlds and is a Soul, which doth unite and copulate the Spirit with the body. This Soul is compared to water and is indeed a right true water, yet doth it not wet like other water, but it is an heavenly water, found dry in a metallic, liquid substance, and a soul-like water, which loveth all Spirits and doth unite them with their bodies and bringeth them to a perfect life. Therefore it is certain that the water is a mother of all metals, which, being heated by a warm, aerial fire, as is the Spirit of Sulphur, bringeth life into the terrestrial body through its ripening, wherein the Salt is apparently found, which doth preserve from putrefaction, that nothing may be consumed by corruption. In the beginning and in the birth is wrought first the Quicksilver, which yet lieth open with a subtile coagulation, because there is but little of the Salt communicated to it, whereby it showeth more a spiritual than a corporeal body. Other metals, which are all derived from its essence and have more Salt, which maketh them corporeal, do follow after this. I begin with the Spirit of Mercury.
Of the Spirit of Mercury
All visible and palpable things are made out of the Spirit of Mercury, which is beyond all the terrestrial things of the whole world, and all things are made out of it and have their original from it. For herein is all to be found that can do all that the Artist doth desire to enquire into. It is the principle to work metals, being made a spiritual Essence, which is a mere Air, and flyeth to and fro without wings and is a moving wind, which, after its expulsion out of its habitation by Vulcan, is driven into its Chaos, into which it entereth again and doth resolve itself into the elements, where it is attracted by the Stars after a magnetical manner, out of love, from whence it went forth and was wrought out before, because it desireth to be united again with its like. But when this Spirit of Mercury can be taken and made corporeal, it doth then resolve itself into a body and becometh a clear, fair and transparent water, which is a true spiritual water and the first Mercurial Root of minerals and metals, spiritual, unperceivable, incombustible, without any commixtion of the terrestrial aquosity. It is that heavenly water of which much hath been written. For by the Spirit of Mercury all metals may be, if need requireth, dissolved, opened and without any corrosive reduced or resolved into their first matter. This Spirit reneweth both men and beasts like the Eagle, consumeth whatsoever is bad and produceth a great age to a long life.
To declare further the Essence, matter and form of this Spirit of Mercury, I must tell you that its Essence is Soul-like, its matter spiritual and its form terrestrial, which yet must be understood by some incomprehensible thing.
Touching the beginning of this Spirit of Mercury, this is needless to know because it is of no benefit, nor can it do you any good. But observe that its beginning is supernaturally from Heaven, the Stars and Elements, granted in the beginning of the first Creation to enter further into a terrestrial being. And because this is needless as I have told you, leave that which is heavenly to the Soul and apprehend it by faith. That which is of the Stars, leave likewise alone, because such impressions of the Stars are invisible and incomprehensible. The Elements have already brought forth this Spirit perfect into the World, through the nourishment of it, therefore do not meddle with them either, for no man can make any Element, but the Creator alone; and insist upon thy Spirit already produced, which is both formal and not formal, comprehensible and incomprehensible and yet doth appear visibly, and you have the first matter, out of which are grown all metals and minerals and is one only thing and such a matter which doth unite itself with the Sulphur of Venus or Copper and is coagulated with the Salt of Mars, so that it becometh one body and a perfect Medicine of all metals, not only to generate them in the beginning in the earth, as in the great world, but also by the help of a moist fire to change and transmute them, together with the augmentation, in the little world. Let this not seem strange to you, because the Most High hath thus permitted it and Nature hath wrought it.
But as to how the Archaeus worketh further by the Spirit of Mercury in the earth, you are to understand that after the spiritual seed is framed from above by the impression of the Stars and fed and nourished through the Elements, this seed is changed into and is become a mercurial water: as in the beginning the great world likewise was made of nothing; for the Spirit moved upon the water and thus was this cold, waterish and terrestrial creature revived to life by an heavenly warmth. It was in the great world the power and the operation of the Light of Heaven; in the little world likewise, the power of God and the operation by His Divine and Holy Breath to work in the earth. Furthermore the Almighty did grant and ordain means for performing of the same that the creature might get power to work upon another creature and one might help and promote the other for the forming and perfecting of all the works of the Lord. Thus was granted to the earth an influence to generate by the Luminaries of Heaven and likewise an internal heat to warm and to ripen that which was too cold for the earth by reason of its aquosity. And thus to every creature a peculiar Genius is granted according to its kind, that so there is raised a subtile, sulphureous steam by the starry heaven, not a common, but another, clarified, cleaned and pure steam, separated from others, which doth unite itself with the mercurial substance, by which warm property in a long time the humidity is dried up by little and little and then the Soul-like property, being joined with it, which giveth the body and balsam of maintenance and worketh before too upon the earth by a spiritual and starry influence. Thus happeneth, then, a generation of metals according to the commixtion of the three principles and according as they take in more or less of these three, so the body is formed. If so be the Spirit of Mercury is directed and formed from above upon animals, then there is produced an animal being, but if it seizeth upon vegetables, a vegetable work is brought forth. And if it falls upon minerals, by reason of its infused nature there will spring thence minerals and metals. Nevertheless everyone is differently wrought, the animals by another form by themselves, the vegetables after a manner proper to themselves and the minerals likewise on another fashion, every one after a singular way. Now I shall faithfully discover how this Spirit of Mercury may be had and obtained, the manner how to prepare it, that it may cure diseases and change and alter all metals of the ignoble kind, as they are generated in the little world by a transmutation and augmentation of their seed.
Take, in the Name of the Lord, red mineral Quicksilver which looketh like Cinnabar and the best mineral Gold that can be gotten. Take an equal quantity of them both and grind them together before they have been in any fire; pour upon them an oil of Mercury made by itself out of the common, putrefied and sublimed Quicksilver; digest them for a month and you will have an extraction which is more heavenly then terrestrial. Distil gently this extraction in Balneo Mariae and the phlegm cometh over and the ponderous oil remaineth in the bottom, which taketh up into itself all metals in a moment. Add to this three times the quantity of Spirit of Wine, circulate it in a pelican till it becometh blood-red and hath recovered an incomparable sweetness. Pour off the Spirit of Wine and add to it fresh Spirit of Wine. Repeat this so long till the whole matter be dissolved into an exceeding sweet and ruby coloured, transparent liquor, which mingle afterwards together. Pour it upon white, calcined Tartar and distil it with a strong fire in ashes and the Spirit of Wine remaineth behind with the Tartar, but the Spirit of Mercury cometh over. This Spirit of Mercury being mixed with the Spirit of Sulphur Solis, together with its Salt, whosoever shall bring them over joined and united together, that they may not be separated in infinitum, he will have such work (if so be it doth receive its Ferment in a due measure and prefixed term, with Gold, by a solution, and is brought in its proper maturity to a plusquam perfection) to which nothing may be compared for the preventing of diseases and poverty. This Spirit of Mercury cureth the dropsy, consumption, gout, stone, French pox and all other lasting sores. It is the only Key to make the corporeal Gold potable.
Of the Spirit of Copper
Venus is clothed with a heavenly Sulphur, which doth far exceed the Splendour of the Sun, because there is found much more Sulphur in her than in Gold. But learn what the matter is of the said Sulphur of Gold, which dwelleth and reigneth abundantly in Venus. It is a flying and very hot Spirit, which can search and penetrate all, as also digest, ripen and bring to maturity, namely bring the imperfect metals into the perfect. If you ask how the Spirit of Copper can ripen and bring to perfection other imperfect metals, it being itself, in its body, imperfect and not fixed, I answer that this Spirit cannot have or hold in Copper a fixed body for an habitation; therefore the habitation being burned by the fire the guest goeth out of it likewise and must leave his habitation with impatience, for he dwelleth therein like an hireling. But in the fixed body of Gold he hath a protection that nothing can drive him out without the sentence of a peculiar Judge, because he hath taken possession like an heir and hath taken root in that fixed body so that he cannot be cast out so easily. The tincture which Venus hath obtained is likewise to be found in Mars, yea much more powerful, higher and more excellent for Mars is the husband, Venus the wife. This tincture is likewise to be found in Verdigris and Vitriol as in a mineral. of which a volume might be writ; and in all things there is found a Sulphur which doth burn and yet another Sulphur which doth not burn, which is a wonderful work. The one is white, the other red in the operating birth, but the right and true Sulphur is incombustible, for it is a mere and true Spirit, out of which is prepared an incombustible oil and it is indeed the Sulphur out of which the Sulphur of Gold, out of one and the same root, is made and prepared.
This Sulphur may be very well called and christened the Sulphur of the Wise, because in it is found all wisdom, if you except the Mercurial Spirit, which is to be preferred, and with which it, together with the Salt of Mars must be united through a spiritual copulation and these three may be brought to a correspondency and be exalted into one operation.
This Spiritual Sulphur doth likewise and in the same manner derive its original from the Upper Region, as the Spirit of Mercury doth, but with another form and fashion, whereby the Stars do show a separation in fixed and unfixed, in tinged and not tinged things. The tincture doth consist only in the Spirit of Copper and chiefly of its consort and is a mere steam, stinking and of a very ill scent in the beginning. And this must be resolved in a liquid manner, that the stinking, incombustible oil may be prepared out of it. This oil is easily joined with the Spirit of Mercury and do soon take up all metallic bodies, being first prepared according to the account I formerly declared. Venus hath much Sulphur; she hath been, together with Mars, digested and ripened sooner than any other metals, but because they have had but little help from the inconsistent Mercury, being he had no room left him to work harder, by reason of superabundant Sulphur, they could not receive or obtain a melioration of their unfixed bodies. Now I will discover a mystery to you, that Gold, Venus and Mars have in them one and the same Sulphur, one tincture and the same matter of their tincture, which matter of the tincture is a Spirit, a Mist and a Fume, which hath penetrated and doth penetrate all bodies. If you can bring it into captivity and do accuate it with the Spirit which is found in the Salt of Mars and then do join with the same the Spirit of Mercury according to their weight and do separate them from all impurity, that they become sweet and sweet-smelling, without any corrosive, you have then a Medicine to which nothing in the world may be compared. If you ferment this Medicine with the shining Sun you have made an ingress which is penetrant to work and to transmute all metals.
Lastly take notice that the root of the philosophical Sulphur, which is an heavenly Spirit, together with the root of the spiritual, supernatural Mercury and the principle of the supernatural Salt, is in one and is found in one matter, out of which the Stone, which hath been found before me, is made, and not in many things although the Mercury be drawn by itself by all the philosophers and the Sulphur by itself, besides the Salt apart, that so it may appear that Mercury is found in one and the Sulphur in one and the Salt in one. Notwithstanding all this do I tell you that this is to be understood of the superfluity, which is found most in every one --- and particularly in many ways may be used profitably and prepared to a Medicine and for the transmutation of metals. But the universal, as the greatest treasure of terrestrial knowledge and wisdom and of all the three principles, is one only thing and is found in one only thing and is drawn out of it, which can reduce all metals into one only thing and is the true Spirit of Mercury and the Soul of Sulphur, joined together with the spiritual Salt, enclosed under one heaven and dwelling in one body; and it is the Dragon and the Eagle; it is the King and the Lion; it is the Spirit and the body, which must tinge the body of Gold to be a Medicine, whereby it getteth abundant power to tinge others its consorts.
Concerning the generation of Copper, observe that Copper is generated out of much Brimstone, but its Mercury and Salt are equal in the same, for there is neither more nor less in quantity of one and the other to be found. Now because the Brimstone doth exceed in quantity the Salt and Mercury, there ariseth from thence a great tingeing redness, which great redness hath so possessed the metal that the Mercury could not perfect its fixedness, that a more fixed body might have been produced out of it. You are further to know that the form of Venus' body is of the same condition that a tree is which hath and doth yield abundance of Gum, as in the pine and fir-tree, with other sorts of trees, which Gum is the Sulphur of the tree, which drives out sometimes this Gum at the sides of it by reason of its too great abundance and because it cannot harbour it all. Such a tree now, that is tinged with so much fatness by Nature and the ripening of the elements, burneth and taketh fire immediately; neither is it heavy and it is never so durable as oak and the like hard wood, which is solid and compact and hath not his pores so open as that sort of light wood, that the Brimstone might abundantly reign in it. But therefore hath the oak wood more Mercury and a better Salt than the pine or fir-tree. And such wood is never so much apt to swim upon the water as the fir-tree is, because it is so close, solid and compact that the air in it cannot bear it up. The same is to understood of metals, but especially of Gold, which, by reason of its much fixed and well ripened Quicksilver, hath a most solid, compact, close, fixed and invincible body, to which neither fire nor water, neither air nor any putrefaction of the earth can do any hurt because its pores are closed up and the corrupting power of the elements cannot injure it. Which fixedness and solid and compact conjunction do demonstrate its natural ponderosity, which is not to be found or proved in other metals, which may be discerned not only by weighing it in a pair of scales, but you will find it likewise if you put but a scruple of pure Gold upon a hundred pound weight of Quicksilver, it will fall presently to the bottom, whereas all other ponderous metals laid upon Quicksilver swim upon it and do not sink to the bottom because their pores are more largely extended that the air or wind may pass through them to bear them up.
Concerning the Spirit of Venus or Copper in physick, you are, in fine, to observe that it is found very necessary and wholesome in its virtue and efficacy; not only that Spirit that lieth in primo Ente, but that Spirit likewise which is found in the last matter. Its virtue, power and operation is such that in the rising of the Mother it is to be preferred before any Medicine whatsoever: also against the falling sickness, the dropsy, the stone. If you have a special care of this Spirit of Copper it will work such wonders both inwardly and outwardly as will be accounted of all incredible and supernatural.
To conclude, the Spirit of Copper is a hot Spirit, penetrant and searching, consuming all the bad humours and phlegm both in men and metals and may justly be accounted the Crown of physick. It is very fiery and piercing, incombustible yet spiritual and without form and, therefore, is capable, like a Spirit, to further in particular the ignition, digestion and ripening of things without a form.
Of the Generation of Mars, Its Spirit and Tincture
Mars and Venus have one and the same Spirit and tincture as the Gold and other metals have. Though this Spirit be found in every metal, in some there is a greater, in some a smaller quantity. It is undeniable and confessed of all that there are divers men and divers opinions, although men in the beginning are made out of one first matter and generated and born out of one seed, yet there is a manifold difference of their opinions because the operation of the Stars hath occasioned this and not without a cause. For the influence of the Great World worketh the other (namely the difference of opinions) after itself in the Little World, because all the opinions, nature and thoughts, together with the whole complexion of man, do derive their original from the influence of the Stars of Heaven and do show themselves according to the Planets and Stars, where nothing can withstand nor obstruct such an influence because the generation of their perfection is already performed and brought to a period or finished. For example, a man is naturally inclined to study, one hath a mind in Divinity, another for the study of the Law, the third for Physick, the fourth will be a Philosopher. Besides all this, there are many wits that have a natural inclination for mechanical arts, as one turneth a limner, another a goldsmith, this man a shoemaker, that man a tailor, another a carver and so forth. All this happeneth by the influence of the Stars, whereby the imagination is strengthened and founded supernaturally, wherein it resolveth to continue; as we do find if a man hath once taken up a resolution in his mind and laid a foundation upon it, that no man is able to bring or keep him from it, that he should not so obstinately stand upon it, death only excepted, which at last closeth up all. The same is understood of chemists and Alchemists, who, having got once into the secrets of Nature, do not intend to give them over so easily except they have more exactly searched Nature and wholly absorbed and finished the study thereof, which yet is no easy matter. Thus you are likewise to understand of metals that according as the infusion and imagination happeneth from above, so happeneth the form likewise; although metals are altogether called metals and are indeed metals, yet as you have understood by divers opinions of men, which are altogether men out of one matter, there may be manifold and divers metals, of which one hath got an hot and dry, another a cold and moist, another a mixed complexion and nature. Therefore because the metal of Mars hath before others been ordered by a gross Salt in the greatest quantity in its degree, its body is the hardest, most inflexible, strongest and coarsest which Nature hath thus appropriated to it. It containeth the least part of Mercury and little more it hath of Sulphur but the greatest part of Salt; and from this mixture is sprung its corporeal being and it is thus born into the world with the help of the elements. Its Spirit is an operation equal to other Spirits, but if the true and right Spirit of Iron can be discerned, I assure you one grain of its Spirit or quintessence, taken and administered in Spirit of Wine, comforteth and strengtheneth a man's heart, mind and courage not to fear his enemies. It stirreth up a lion-like heart within to fight Venus' battles. If the conjunction of Mars and Venus doth rightly happen in a certain constellation, they have success, victory and conquest both in love and sorrow, in fight and peace and will continue of one mind though the whole world should bear a spleen and enmity against them. This spirit cureth wonderfully all martial distempers.
This Spirit of Iron, being rightly discerned, hath a secret affinity with the Spirit of Copper, that they may be so joined together that there riseth one only matter from them, of one and the same operation, form, substance and being, which will cure the same distempers and transmute the particulars of metals with profit and honour.
But Iron, together with its virtue, ought properly to be considered in the manner following, that it hath a terrestrial body only in its corporeal form, which body may be used to a great many things, to alter the blood, to outward wounds, to a graduation of Silver and inwardly to the constipation of the body, which yet is not always beneficial to use, neither in a man's body inwardly and outwardly, nor yet as concerning metals, because there is no great advantage to be made per se without the known right means, which do belong to Nature's secret knowledge. Observe one thing more, that the Loadstone and the true Iron are almost of one and the same nature, even as it is according to a divine, spiritual and elemental sense betwixt the body, its Soul and the Chaos out of which the Soul and Spirit are gone; the body is framed last of all out of this composition.
Of the Spirit of Gold
If you are desirous to get this golden Loadstone, your prayers must be rightly made to God in true knowledge, contrition, sorrow and true humility for to know and learn the three different worlds, which are subject to human reason; as there is the super-celestial world, wherein the immortal Soul keepeth its seat and residence beside its first original and is by God's creation the first moving sensibility, or the first moving sensible Soul which of a supernatural being hath wrought to a natural life. And this Soul and this Spirit is the root and the first fountain and the first creature existing in the life of anything and the primum mobile, which hath been so much controverted by learned men. Observe likewise the second celestial world and take good notice of it for therein do reign the Planets and all the heavenly stars have their course, virtue and power in this heaven and do perform therein their service, for which God that placed them there and do work in this their service by their Spirit on both minerals and metals.
Out of these two worlds ariseth yet another different world, where it is found and comprehended what the other two worlds have wrought and produced. Out of the first Super-celestial World is derived the fountain of life and of the Soul; from the second Celestial World doth spring the Light of the Spirit and from the third, the Elemental World, cometh the invincible, heavenly yet sensible fire, by which it digested and ripened that which is comprehensible. These three matters and substances do generate and bring forth the form of metals, among which Gold hath the pre-eminency because the sidereal and elemental operation hath mellowed and ripened the Mercury in this metal the more substantially to a sufficient and perfect maturity. And as the seed of a man doth fall into the womb and toucheth the menstruum which is its earth, and as this seed which goeth out of the man into the woman is wrought in both by the Stars and the elements that it may be quite united and nourished by the earth to a generation, so you are likewise to understand that the Soul of metals is worked upon which is conceived by an unperceivable, invisible, incomprehensible, abstruse and supernatural, celestial composition, as out of water and air, which are formed out of the Chaos and then further digested and ripened by that heavenly, elemental light and fire of the Sun, whereby the Stars do move the powers, when its heat in the inward parts of the earth, as in the womb, is perceived. For by the warming property of the Stars above, the earth is unlocked and opened that the infused Spirit of the same may yield food and nourishment and be enabled to generate something as metals, herbs, trees and beasts, where every one particularly bringeth with it its seed for a further multiplication and augmentation. And as the conception of a man is spiritual and heavenly, whose Soul and Spirit, by nourishment of the earth in the mother's womb, are formally brought up to a perfection, so likewise it is to be observed and understood in every particular of metals and minerals. But this is the true secret of Gold, namely to instruct and teach you by an example and similitude, whereby the possibility of Nature and its mystery is to found in the manner following. It is probably true that the heavenly light of the Sun is of a fiery property and of a fiery being, which the Most High God, as Creator of Heaven and Earth hath granted to it through an heavenly, constant and fixed Sulphureous Spirit for the preservation of its substance, form and body, which creature, through its swiftness is inflamed and set on fire by the air, which inflammation will never be extinguished as long as the motion doth last and the whole created, visible world doth continue and endure, not in the least diminisheth in its power, because there is no combustible matter extant which might be given to it, whose consumption might cause the decay of that great light of heaven. So is Gold by the superior counterpart of its essence thus digested and ripened and is become of such a fixed, invincible nature that nothing at all can hurt it, because the upper fixed Stars have penetrated the lower, that the lower fixed Stars, by reason of their infusion and grant of the upper, need not to give place to their equal because the lower hath received and obtained such a constant fixedness from the upper.
I will add another similitude, according to the manner of philosophers, of the great light of heaven and of that small fire, which, being terrestrial, is here kindled every day and is made to burn before our eyes, because that great light hath a magnetical likeness and an attractive, loving power with that same small fire here upon earth, which is yet without form and impalpable and found only spiritual invincible, insensible and incomprehensible. It is remarkable, as it is proved and demonstrated by experience, that that great light of heaven hath a great love for and beareth an affection and inclination to the little fire, which is terrestrial, by reason of the Spirit whereby both are agitated and preserved from their utter ruin and destruction. For do but consider that as soon as the air, through the great moisture which it hath attracted, conceiveth any corruption, that so through mists and further coagulation and conjunction clouds are generated, the beams of the Sun are hindered and obstructed that the Sun cannot obtain its reflection nor have its due penetrating and searching power; so likewise this little terrestrial fire doth never burn so clear in dark and rainy weather, neither doth it show itself with that gladness in its operation as when the air is fair, pure and clear. The cause is this, for through the obstacle of the moist air the love is hindered that the attractive power, growing sad, cannot exercise its perfect love and operation as it ought to do, for the contrary element, the aquosity, causeth this obstruction. As now the Sun, that heavenly great light, hath a special communion and love with the small terrestrial fire to attract after a magnetic manner, so likewise hath the Sun and Gold a special correspondency and a peculiar attractive power and love together, because the Sun hath wrought the Gold through the three principles, which have their loadstone, and is nearest of all related to the Sun and hath attained to the highest degree, so that the three principles are found most mighty and powerful in the same. Next to it is Gold in its corporeal form, because it is framed out of the three principles, but hath its original and beginning from the heavenly and golden loadstone. This is now the greatest wisdom of this world. In this loadstone is and lieth buried the dissolution and opening of all the minerals and metals, their government as also their matter of the first generation and their power as touching health moreover the coagulation and fixation of metals, together with the operation to cure all diseases. Take a special care of this Key, for it is heavenly, sidereal and elemental, out of which the terrestrial is generated. It is supernatural and natural together and is born out of the Spirit of Mercury, heavenly; out of the Spirit of Sulphur, spiritual; but out of the Spirit of Salt corporeal. Out of this spiritual essence and out of this spiritual matter out of which the Gold first of all is made corporeal into one body, the ancient as well as modern Rosie Crucian philosophers do make potable Gold more substantial than out of Gold itself, which must be made spiritual before the potable Gold can be separated out of it. This Spirit cureth likewise the leprosy and the French pox, as being a super-fixed mercurial essence, dryeth up and consumeth the dropsy and all running, open sores, which have afflicted a long time; comforteth the heart and brain; strengtheneth the memory and breedeth good blood.
Thus can the Soul of Gold reduced into water, the Spiritual Essence of Pearls and the Sulphur of Corals, united in one, do such things which to Nature seem otherwise incredible; but because experience confirmeth this truth it is deservedly a cordial in this mortal life to be preferred justly before all other cordials by reason of its wonderful effects. The preparation thereof is this. Take Spirit of Salt and with it extract the Sulphur of Gold. Separate the Oil of Salt from it and rectify the Sulphur of Gold with Spirit of Wine that it may become pleasant without any corrosiveness. Then take the true Oil of Vitriol, made out of Vitriol of Verdigris, dissolve in it Iron; make again a Vitriol out of it and dissolve it again into an Oil or Spirit, which rectify likewise as before with Spirit of Wine. Put them together and draw off the Spirit of Wine from thence. Dissolve the matter which remaineth dry behind in Spirit of Mercury in a due proportion or weight. Circulate and coagulate it. When it becometh constant and fixed without rising any more, you have then, if you ferment it with prepared Gold, a Medicine to cure diseases and to tinge metals.
Of the Spirit of Silver
The Tincture and Spirit of Silver is of a sky-colour, otherwise it is a waterish Spirit, cold and moist and not so hot in its degree as the Spirit which is found in Gold, Iron or Copper; therefore is Silver more phlegmatic than fiery, although it hath been reduced by fire out of its waterish substance unto a coagulation. In the same manner have the stones likewise received their hardness, fixedness and tincture, as by one and the same influence. In a Diamond is found a fixed and coagulated Mercury, therefore this stone is harder and more fixed than other stones and is not to be broken as they are. In a Ruby is found the tincture of Iron or the Sulphur of Iron. In an Emerald, the tincture of Copper. In a Granite, the soul of Lead. In Pewter is the tincture which is found in the stone called Topasius. Crystal is attributed to common Mercury and in a Saphire is found the tincture and Sulphur of Silver, yet everything in particular, according to its nature and kind, and in metals likewise according to their form and kind. And when the blue colour is separated and taken away from the Saphire, then is its garment gone and its body is white like a diamond. Thus when Gold hath lost its Soul, it yieldeth then a white body and a fixed white body of Gold, which is called Luna fixa by the searching students and novices in this Art.
What hath been said as concerning the stone called Saphire, for your instruction you may apply to the better knowledge of the nature of metals, for this blue Spirit is the Sulphur and Soul out of which Silver hath its life as well in the earth as above the earth by Art, and the white tincture of Silver upon white always, in a magnetical form of that one thing and creature, wherein the primum ens auri likewise is found. This Spirit of Silver alone containeth that which will perfectly cure and dispel the dropsy, even as the Spirit of Gold and of Mercury can radically cure the consumption so that even the centre itself of the said distemper may not be found.
But the Silver is not so provided in its degree with a hot substance and quality in the veins of the earth, but is subjected to a waterish kind, this fault is to be laid upon the Great Light of Heaven, which by reason of its waterish influence hath planted this quality into the Second Creature and into the second Planet of the earth as into Silver. And though Silver doth carry with it a fixed Mercury or fixed Quicksilver, which is born in it, nevertheless it wanted the hot fixed Sulphur, which might have exactly dried up and consumed the phlegm, which is the cause it hath not obtained a compact body, except it be done afterwards by Art of the lesser World. And because the body is not solid and compact, by reason of its waterish substance, hence are its pores not well stopped up nor consolidated, that it might have a due ponderosity and endure a fight with its enemies. Which virtues ought altogether to be found in Gold, if so be it must conquer all its foes and endure all the trials without fault.
You are likewise to understand that the first matter of metals must be observed, studied and found out through the discovery of their last matter, which last matter, as there are the absolute and perfect metals, must be divided and separated that it may appear altogether naked to a man's eyes and then there may be learned and known by such a division what the first matter hath been in the beginning, out of which the last matter is made. Observe diligently this Arcanum.
Take the sky-coloured Sulphur of Silver, which hath been extracted out of Silver and rectified by Spirit of Wine; dissolve it according to its weight in the white Spirit of Vitriol and in the sweet scented Spirit of Mercury and coagulate them together through a fixation of fire and you will get the possession of the White Tincture and its Medicine. But if you know the Primum Mobile it is then needless, because you may bring the thing to perfection out of one.
Of the Soul and Tincture of Pewter
The benign Jupiter is almost of a middle nature amongst all the metals. He is neither too hot nor yet too cold, nor too warm nor too moist. He hath not too much of Mercury nor yet of Salt and of Sulphur there is least of all in him. Pewter is found white in its colour, yet of these three principles one doth exceed the others as it hath been clearly discovered in its division according to the true enquiry into Nature's secrets. Out of this composition and mixture of the three principles is generated and wrought and coagulated into a metal and brought to a maturity of perfection benevolent Jupiter. The Spirit of Jupiter doth protect and preserve from all distempers and diseases incident and hurtful to the liver. Its Spirit is naturally, as for its taste, like unto Honey. Its Mercury being made volatile doth get a venomous quality, for its purgeth vehemently and penetrates with violence. Therefore it is not always good that its unlocked Quicksilver should be thus simply used by itself; but if a correction goeth before, it may be very well used with exceeding great usefulness in those distempers and diseases which are immediately subject to his influence; that is to say, when you have taken away from Zadkiel its venomous volatility and it is placed into a better and more fixed state, which doth resist poison. To conclude, if you do extract out of the benign Jupiter his Salt and Sulphur and make Saturn flow very well together with them, Saturn doth get a fixed body, is purified and becometh clear by them and is a total change and real transmutation of Lead into good Pewter, as you will find it upon a most accurate trial. And though this may seem to you not to be true, yet are you to understand that by reason that the Salt of Jupiter is made more Corporeal only by its Sulphur, it likewise hath received an efficacy and power to penetrate Saturn, as the vilest and most volatile metal, and to bring it to its own substance by making it better and you will really find it to be so.
Of the Spirit of Saturn or Tincture of Lead
Saturn, to generate his metal, which is Lead, is placed in the Upper Heaven, above all the Stars. But in the lower parts of the earth he doth keep the lowest degree. As the uppermost light of Saturn is mounted to the highest altitude of all the lights of Heaven, so likewise in imitation of the same hath Nature given leave and permitted that his children of the Lower Region have retired themselves by Vulcan to those of their quality according as Saturn hath been moved. For the Upper Light is the cause of it and hath generated an unfixed body of Lead through which go and are drawn open pores, that the Air can have its passage through this Saturnine body and bear itself up. But the fire easily worketh upon and consumeth it because the body is not solid and compact by reason of its unfixedness. This is well to be observed by a serious enquirer into all things because there is a vast difference betwixt fixed and unfixed bodies and then the causes of this fixedness and unfixedness. And though Saturn is of a singular ponderosity before other metals, yet will you observe that when they are poured out together after their conjunction in the melting of them, the other metals will always fall to the bottom, as likewise, it happeneth with other metals by pouring them through Antimony. Whereby it doth appear that other metals have a more solid and compact body than Saturn can raise, because it must give place to other metals, make room for them and yield the victory; for it vanisheth away and is consumed together with those unconstant and unfixed metals. For there are the three grossest qualities of the three principles in Saturn and by reason that its Salt is altogether fluid in comparison to other metals and planets, therefore is likewise its body more fluid, inconstant, unfixed and more volatile than any metallic body.
As for how Saturn doth proceed towards his regeneration, you are to know that as common water, through natural cold, by the alteration of the Upper Heaven, is congealed so that it becometh a coagulated ice, so likewise it is demonstrated that Lead is coagulated and made corporeal reason of the great cold which is found in its Salt before any other Salt. The coagulated ice is resolved through warmth and so is the coagulated Lead made fluid by fire. It hath most Mercury in it yet inconstant and volatile; but less of Sulphur and, therefore, according to the small quantity of the same, its cold body cannot be heated; and least of all Salt, but fluid; otherwise the Iron would be more liquid and malleable than Saturn if the Salt alone could impart both the malleableness and fluidity, because Iron doth carry with it more Salt than any other metal. And being there is a difference to be found in these things, you must carefully observe how metals are to be distinguished.
All the philosophers, indeed, besides myself, have writ that the Salt causeth the coagulation and the body of every metal; and this is true; but I shall show by an example how this is to be understood. Alumen plumosum is reputed and probably accounted to be a mere Salt, and herein may be compared to Iron, which Salt of the aforesaid Alumen plumosum is nevertheless found to be as a matter and not liquid as Iron. On the contrary Vitriol doth show itself like Salt in a small quantity, yet liquid and open, and therefore its Salt cannot cause so hard a congelation in its appropriated metal as that other Salt doth. Although all Salts of metals are grown out of one root and one seed, yet there is a difference of their three principles to be observed. As one herb differs from the other, and likewise in men and beasts a difference is found as concerning the original of their qualities and their three principles, where one herb has something more of this, another herb more of that kind, which is likewise to be understood of men and beasts. The Soul of Lead is of a sweet quality, as also the Soul of Jupiter, and yet sweeter, so that as for sweetness there is hardly anything comparable to it, being first highly purified by separation, that the pure being very well severed from the impure there may follow a compleat perfection in the operation. Otherwise the Spirit of Lead is naturally cold and dry, therefore I do advise both men and women not to make too much use of it, for it over cooleth human nature, that their seed cannot perfect or perform its natural operation, nor is it good for the spleen and bladder. It doth attract the phlegmatic quality, which breedeth melancholy in men. For Saturn is a governor and such a melancholy one whereby a man is upheld and strengthened in his melancholy. Therefore if its Spirit be used, one melancholy Spirit doth attract the other, whereby a man's body is freed and released from its infused melancholy. Outwardly is the Soul of Saturn very wholesome in all sores and wounds, whether they be old or green, whether they happen by thrusting, cutting or naturally by means incident, so that hardly any other metal will do the like. It is a cooling thing in all hot and swelled members, but to eat away and to lay a foundation for healing in all corrupt and putrefied sores, which have their issuing forth from within, there the nobel Venus hath the pre-eminency because Copper is hot in its essence to exiccate and dry up, but Lead, on the contrary, is found to be cold in its essence.
That heavenly light of the Sun is much hotter than the light of the Moon, because the moon is much lesser than the Sun, which doth comprehend the eighth part of magnitude in the circle of measuring and dividing. And if the moon should exceed the Sun in this magnitude of the eighth part, as the Sun doth exceed the Moon, then all the fruit and whatsoever groweth upon the earth would be spoiled and there would be continual winter and no summer would be found. But the Eternal Creator hath herein wisely prescribed a certain order and law to His creatures, that the Sun should give light by day and the moon by night and thus be serviceable to all creatures.
Those children which are addicted to the influence of Saturn are melancholy, surly, always murmuring, like old, covetous misers, which do not good to their own bodies and are never satisfied. They use their bodies to hard labour, vex and fret themselves with troublesome thoughts and are very seldom so cheerful as to recreate themselves with other people, neither do they care much for natural love of women although handsome.
To sum up all, Saturn is generated out of little Sulphur, little Salt and much immature and gross Mercury, which Mercury is to be accounted like scum or froth which swimmeth upon the water in comparison to that Mercury which is found in Gold, being of a much hotter degree. Hence it is that the Mercury of Saturn hath not so fresh and so running a life as that which is made out of Gold, because more heat is found in this latter, to which the running life oweth its original. Therefore it is likewise to be observed in the inferior world of the little Vulcan, in the augmentation and transmutation of metals, what description I have given you of these three principles of Saturn concerning their original quality and complexion.
And everyone is to know that no transmutation of any metal can arise from Saturn by reason of its great cold, except the coagulation of Mercury, which can be achieved because the cold Sulphur of Lead can quench and take away the hot, running Spirit of Quicksilver if the process be rightly performed; therefore it is rightly observable that the method be so kept that the theory may agree with the practice and concur in a certain measure and concord. Wherefore you must not altogether reject Saturn, nor vilify and disparage it, for its nature and virtues are but known to a few. For the Stone of the Philosophers hath the first beginning of its heavenly, resplendent tincture only from this metal and by the infusion of this Planet is the Key of Fixedness delivered to it through putrefaction, because that out of the yellow there cannot come any red thing except there be first made at the beginning of the black a white one.
Quote of the Day
“The Body therefore does tinge the Spirit, and the Spirit does penetrate the Body, whereas one Body cannot penetrate another Body, but a subtle Spiritual congealed Substance does penetrate and give Colour to the Body.”
Bernard Trevisan
Treatise of the Philosophers Stone
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