The Staircase of the Wise - Book 1
The staircase of the wise
barent coenders van helpen
Escalier des Sages
Staircase of the Elders
Preface.
Reader friends.
Since it seems that the World at present is charmed with so great a desire to possess treasures of gold and silver, and that men employ their minds in nothing more zealously than try to acquire great possessions and great wealth, in order to satisfy, if possible, this furious hunger that they have after money, and that they come for that to make little regard, and even to to despise the greater good, which must truly be desired; namely true sapience, which consists in the knowledge of God their Creator, and their First Being, and in that of his creatures, which, although it is highest and most necessary of all, they look askance at, as superfluous, and in such a disdainful way, that when one comes to discover the true Philosophy, one boldly dares to answer:
These kinds of people think of nothing but the very salutary words of Salustre:
Non oportet nos vitam silentio transire veluti pecora, sed studebimus memoriam nostram quam maxime longam essicere.
We must not pass our lives in silence like cattle, but we will endeavor to keep our memory as long as possible.
That is to say: We must not pass life in silence, as are the beasts, but we must study ourselves, to make sure that we are remembered for as long as it is possible.
Having maturely considered this inclination so illicit and perverse, a desire took hold of me to try to stretch the bow of my little mind, to consider, if it would not be possible to approach to a greater goal and to print to my neighbor more elevated thoughts by conceiving a little Philosophy, which did not consist of a great number of fine words, nor of snarky disputes, but which was on the contrary only based simply and succinctly as possible on Geometric demonstrations, and on chemical experiments: Here is why I believed that the title of the staircase of the sages would not be badly suited to this Philosophy, and I would do well to publish it as a Dialogue between François and Vrederic, being the first one who will make his statement based mainly on Theory,and the other on Practice and experiments.
I have judged that the aforesaid title would be rightly given to this Philosophy, because the Ancient Sages, like the father of all Philosophers, Hermes Trimegistus, Moses the Prophet, St. Tomas Aquinas, King Geber, and an infinity of other true Philosophers have taken their steps on this staircase, and that they have obtained from the great God their sciences so incomparable by the indefatigable ascent of it. I will try to follow and pursue faithfully and as much as possible the steps of these Sages, and will divide for this purpose this Treatise into Four Books, which will deliver approximately the ten degrees of ancient sapience, and will reduce each Degree in several paragraphs, since the above Ten Degrees will have their source from these four books as the number of Ten has its origin and its fulfillment from the first four numbers.
For,
1. The first book will deliver, The first being.
2. The second, The two opposites.
3. The third, The four elements.
4. And the fourth, The Three Principles.
The numbers of which, being also put together, likewise make the number ten, as we have just said of the first four numbers.
These are, I say, these ten degrees that the Ancient Sages climbed, and having reached the summit of them, they saw by the games of their understanding, that, as one advances with good order from Unity to to the number ten, as all the numbers are included under this number ten, and that no progress can be made to other numbers besides the number ten, by any other way, than by returning to Unity. Let us likewise ascend by order of the Unity of God or of the First Being of all beings, to the Two Opposites, to the Four Elements, and to the Three Principles, up to the number Ten; that all things are also included under this Number, and that no further progress can be made beyond this number Ten to any being except by the return to Unity, which is the First Being of all, and that thus the highest science,
I will thus endeavor to climb to these Ten degrees of sapience as best as I can and when I have the good fortune to have reached the top of this staircase; to extend my minds and my experiences over the Three Kingdoms of Compounds, which are, the Kingdom of Plants, Animals and Minerals, as from the Center to the circumference; to consider the ten degrees of sapience as far as I can in each Kingdom apart, and to direct my pilgrimage at the end so that I shall have some hope of arriving also at the eternal haven of the Unity of our great God and Creator.
The Reader will be satisfied, if he pleases, by provision, with this First Part of the staircase of the sages until the time that our great God favors me with his graces to produce and accomplish the Second Part, which has also Begun. I beg him that in reading this treatise he should not become too attached to the letter or the bark of the things that I will represent, but that he want to look at the substance and the marrow with an attentive eye, and that he thus enjoys the fruit of this labor presented to him with an open and sincere Heart.
farewell.
Ars Laboriosa Conerteus Humitate Ignea Metalla In
The laborious art of mixing the fiery metals with moisture
The Laborious Art of Converting Fiery Metals with Moisture In
first book
of the
philosophy of the ancients
dealing
with the unity of god of the first being.
and of the first matter of the stone of the philosophers.
dialogue.
between françois and
françois
Beginning to climb
the first degree.
chapter I.
Knowledge of the Creator and creatures. From Unity. Of God. That the ancient Philosophers expressed the Creator and the creatures by characters. As also the letters. That all the letters have their origin from the O and the I Geometric demonstration of this.
My very dear friend: I find you very pensive and in very deep meditation: Peace be with you, and the creator of all things wishes to make you truly rich in peace (Vrederik, that is to say in Flemish Rich in peace) according to your baptismal name given to you in the name of God the Father, the Son and the Holy Spirit.
and the nature of their Creator; Of Two Contrary Qualities; Of the Three Principles; and of the Four Elements: of which, are, with which, and by which all things are made, upheld, governed, and to which they are reduced: and (which is greatly to be pitied) which study themselves for nothing more than to amass money and property, rightly or wrongly, or by any means whatsoever, in order to make oneself great and welcome by that to the impious and to the ignorant of the Divine and Natural sciences, not thinking of nothing less, than to the knowledge of the Creator and of the created Beings, which is the highest science of all sciences, and by which eternal happiness is to be hoped for and acquired: according to the own words of Jesus Christ St. John vs. 17.v.3. This is eternal life,
And according to the very true maxim of the Learned confirming the divine words of our Saviour, by this sense,
Scientia virtutis cultum praecedit, nemo exim fideltrer apperre potest quod ignorat.
Knowledge precedes the worship of virtue, for no one can more faithfully teach what he does not know.
I am obliged to you with such a gracious wish that you have the kindness to repeat to me, and consider myself happy to meet you here, in order to have the opportunity to hold with you a serious and fundamental discussion on this matter which you pleased to begin the highest science of God the Almighty, and his Nature. I promise you that it will be with great probity and sincerity that I will hear you.
I also consider myself very happy with the honor of the meeting, which the good Lord gave me birth to have with you; and since I see that we are more or less of the same genius, of the same inclination, of the same study, and of the same caliber, I will gladly hold a speech with you which is well founded , and even on demonstrations and on Mathematical and Chemical experiments.
The great God of peace be with us through his Holy Spirit! and please send us such influences into our minds, that we may happily perfect our purpose, since we are well-intentioned to bring it to light for its greater glory, for the service of Christianity, and for the eternal salvation of our souls.
I add my wish to yours with as much zeal as can be expressed.
I will therefore, if you please, take the beginning of our speech about myself; but for the sake of knowing, if the great god has also illumined our minds with the light of his grace, so that we are in all about of one mind, I will take the liberty of asking you very first, what is your opinion of the origin of Beings?
You begin your discourse wisely, since there is nothing that does not have a beginning, and everything that is, must necessarily have an origin.
To answer you, therefore, what may be my opinion of the origin of all Beings: I will tell you on this, that the beginning or the origin of all Beings is a Unique Being; and as all numbers take their origins from Unity, so all Beings take their beginnings from a single Being, as well the Supercelestial as the Celestial, both the Supernatural and the Natural or Elemental, or what name that we can name them.
I am of the same feeling with you, but what is called such a One Being from whom all things have their origin?
Such a One Being is called god and is no other than god.
What is this god, and how will you define it according to your knowledge?
You ask me a difficult thing, because to make the Definition of a Being who is infinite and who is All, that is not very possible to do for anyone: I will however express to you my feeling according to the small proportion of my puny spirit, which is such:
God is an infinite Unity, and an eternal Being uncreated of all Beings: a source of all good and all power, who has for his abode all things Supercelestial, Supernatural, Celestial, and Natural, and particularly an inaccessible and very great Light: from which, in which, by which and to which all things have been and will be in all eternity. In a word:
God is all in all.
You will say very well, that god is an Infinite Unity, and an eternal, uncreated and infinite Being of all Beings, and a principle of all power: since the oldest of the Philosophers, namely the Hebrews, expressed the word god by a single letter jod, which is to say: A divine Essence, and a fountain of all virtue and all power: and that they expressed no other word by Unity (as far as I know) than this, and no doubt they did so with this intention, which they wanted to express by such a character, that, as it is not possible to draw any line that does not take its origin from a point, that Likewise, it is impossible that any creature can take the origin of its being except from the Unity of its Creator.
You have gone into this matter quite thoroughly: I also once had speculations on things like this; it seems to me that the Ancients also expressed the Divinity by a simple round Figure, which is a Circle, to signify thereby, that the Divinity is without beginning and without end, as a circle has neither beginning nor end, and that Divinity is the only perfect Being, as the circle is the only most perfect Figure of all Geometric Figures.
I believe it is so as you say: and I do not doubt that they did it for this purpose, and that they did not express the creator alone by a Character, but that they did the same with the greater part of the creatures, and that they proportioned the characters in proportion to the perfection of the creatures.
Assuredly: and what is more, that they even formed the letters for this intention, and that they composed them of straight and curved lines, so that by composition and by conjunction of them they could form words, in order to be able to to express mysteries thereby, and thus make them manifest to those who are indefatigably searching for the wonders of God and His Nature.
My very dear friends, since we are on the subject of Characters, and letters, I cannot help but give you a little account of a speculation that I had, some time ago, when being in my solitude I had directed my meditations on the Divine and Supernatural history of our Savior Jesus Christ, from his conception to his glorious ascension, and what came into my mind after making a curious delineation of these three words:
deus maria jesus.
But since the true Characters and Figures of the Latin letters have become very barbarous, and the true proportion of them is not known to everyone, and so that each one can himself take and make the measurement at the ruler and compass of what we are about to utter, I have not judged it inappropriate to make here the fundamental description of the above-mentioned letters before with their just proportion, begging you, that even though this discourse will make us carry on a little since the center to the Circumference, that you have as much patience as I lay them in good order to serve as instruction for the ignorant, and for an Alphabet of our Philosophy.
Very willingly: I want to hear you, and also to have the opportunity afterwards to produce something of the same.
So please take care, so that you can understand the demonstration that I am going to give you with the compass and the ruler.
We have said above that the Latin letters are composed of regular straight and curved lines, but we have not specified which or how many of these said letters are made of a single straight line, or of a single curved line, nor how many there are which are composed of straight and curved lines all together; nor the speculations there are to take, as I will show you next.
Know, please, that the Latins have given the greatest virtue, and attributed the greatest power to their letter vowels, and that the consonants are properly only assistant and silent letters, and which cannot be pronounced without the assistance of vowels, because you know that the word vocalis has its derivation from the word vox, which is to say voice, and that also the consonant word is composed of the proposition cum and the verb sono, which is to say in French, je rings with.
Now these said vowels being five in number, one of them is a Perfect Circle, namely the O.
One is made of a straight line like the vowel I.
One of two straight lines like the vowels A and E are.
It is to be noted that the vowel O could be taken, with good enough foundation, for a motto, mark or Signature of the First Being, for the reasons above.
The vowel V (U) for a mark or Signature of the two contrary qualities, because of the number of two which one sees here.
The vowel A for a motto of the Three Principles because of the three lines it contains, which constitute an Equilateral Triangle.
And the letters E and I, for a signature of the Four Elements, since their regularly joined lines make appear an Equilatre Quadrangle.
It is also to be noted that the number of all these straight lines of these aforesaid vowels is the correct number of ten, of which number the Ancients made much, and much state as you know.
You do very well to treat so methodically, and that you begin our Philosophical Treatise, of the very origin of the Letters, so that we act thus fundamentally of the great wonders of God, and that we try to give such instruction with the compass and the rule to the ignorant all the same as if your intention was to teach children to write.
It is necessary to undertake it in this way, since the true Philosophy is very very simple, but that it is covered and obscured so much for the present, that it is almost no longer to be known.
You are telling the truth, because the overwhelming amount of Definitions, Divisions, Arguments and so many other obstinate altercations cause such great confusion, and cause so many things to be removed from the Divine, which are so close and as in the Center, to an extent or circumference so great, that they make appear by their subtle distinctions by the delicacy of their languages, that the things, which are really very easy to understand, and so clear to perceive, as the brightness of the very light of the sun , seem so obscure and so far from the truth, that everything is almost covered with obscurity and darkness: 'they cannot show the subtlety of their minds, nor of their wisdom in anything more,than to the subtlety of the disputes and to make all things confused.
It is thus as you say very well: but to return to our subject, and to try to remove the darkness from this luminous center as much as it will be possible for us, and this by means of the little spark that the good Lord has kindled in me by his infinite grace, and to show that a rational creature is bound to imitate and obey the will and commandments of his Creator, who also drove the darkness back from his light to the circumference, when he has made the general creation of the whole Universe, I will try to continue my little enterprise concerning the Mathematical demonstration of the letters and particularly that of the five vowels.
Take a Compass, place one of its feet on the Paper, extend the other foot as far as you see fit and describe a circle, thus you will have the vowel O of which you will be able to see the Figure Num. I.
Cut this letter O (from which you will see that all the other letters originate) down the middle into two equal parts, applying the rule from the circumference through the center, and you will draw the Diameter which is your vowel I See Figure Num. 2.
Take this Diameter of the vowel O which is the said I draw it Horizontally, and form a Triangle below according to the art, of which you will leave the imaginary horizontal line and the other two you will write them with ink, and thus you will find your vowel V (U). See in Figure Num. 3.
The letter A will be formed in this way: make the said Triangle contrary to that of the V, divide the two lines into two equal parts and form a Triangle below, the point of which will end in the Center of the aforementioned vowel O, thus you will have you vowel A. See Figure Num. 4.
The letter E is shaped like this: draw the Diameter of the letter O perpendicularly, divide this Diameter into four equal parts, lay the whole thing horizontally to the right of the bottom of the perpendicular; three parts of it likewise at the top of it, and a part of the center of the same Perpendicular or Diameter, and so will you perfectly form the letter, or vowel E. See Figure Num. 5.
Thus you will find the description of the five fundamental vowels made according to the rules of Geometry.
Touching the other Latin letters they are all formed with the compass and the ruler in the same way, and they also have, like the vowels, their origin from the letter O, and from its Diameter, which is the I, which one each can make the delineation and description on the same foundations, which we have made of the five vowels, judging the time too precious to lay them all down here.
There is also no need to stop any longer at the figuration of the letters, please continue to reveal to me the mysteries that you have promised me to make known to me and to understand the letters of these three words or names.
deus maria jesus.
I am (as you know) a lover of all kinds of fine science and laudable curiosities, which is why I long to hear what you can utter.
I have read the Books of the Ancient Cabalists well, and I have seen, among other things, very strange characters in great quantity in the books of Cornelius Agrippa, by which he has produced prodigious and unheard-of effects, as he says. , and which are for me (I confess my weakness) almost incredible, but I have never heard or read that there is some virtue hidden in the signature of letters, which I strongly desire to hear from your graces.
If you believe that I will produce Characters and grimaces for you like Cornelius Agrippa did, you will be very much mistaken, since my intention is not to bring to light such subtle and artificial things that he has done, my spirit is not subtle enough and my brain too phlegmatic to conceive of such, and even less capable of making them understood and believed by others, which is why I leave them in their being for those who are endowed with a more astral Spirit than mine, and who have greater faith than I; Nor is it my intention to wish to attribute any virtue to the Letters or the Characters, and to make people believe that one should be more and the other less esteemed on account of the difference in their lines: but my simple intention is none other than to try to make my neighbor see,
In the name of god, we will begin by signing the letters that make up the name of god: in Latin deus.
deus in the Greek language is as much to say as, seeing everything, namely deos:
I hope that the all-seeing god will give us the grace to illuminate the games of our mind and our body so much that we will not pass an atom (for speaking thus) which is understood in the letters of his most holy name, without our seeing everything and making demonstrations and interpretations tending to the increase of his greater glory and to the benefit of our neighbour.
The word deus therefore includes in itself a Circle and Six Diameters of the same circle, as I will show you here next.
The straight line of the first letter of the word deus is the Diameter aa. which being divided into two equal parts, at b, and the half-circumference being drawn from one end of it to the other, the letter d will be formed; at which half-circumference aa. the last letter of the same word, namely the letter s, being applied at both ends, you will find the construction of a Perfect Circle cut by its Diameter ac, ad.
You will make on this Diameter, of its length, an intersection e from which you will draw a circle fff. by the two ends of the Diameter aa, and put on it one of the lines of the same letter marked ag. from a to g. and the other line of the same letter marked agh. from the letter g to h. The fourth line namely the low horizontal line of the letter e marked hi, from h to i. The fifth line marked il, which is the perpendicular of the same letter, from i to l. And the sixth line which is composed of the other two lines of the same letter marked lmm. Since l in a. And so you receive, by a single extension of your compass, a perfect Hexagon comprising very perfectly and very regularly all the lines of the letters of the word of our great god, without increasing or decreasing them by a single point. See in Figure Num. 6.
You may notice in the lines of this word, deus que le Center, which is its beginning, denotes and teaches the Unity from which all the Beings of the World have had their source, and incessantly come, and to which they must also return: for when you put a point on the paper, and then see if there is any other way to draw any line, of whatever nature, before you have put the point, you will surely judge it impossible, and as it is very necessary that all lines have their beginning from a point; thus it is necessary that all Beings and all Numbers have their principles of Unity.
But so that you know what a Number is, you will observe, please, that a number is nothing other than a repetition of the Unit, this is what we will take occasion to talk about it elsewhere.
It is therefore quite evident that the point or center, and the circumference or circle, which are found in the description of the above letters, teaching quite clearly, that there is a beginning and an end of all things, for there is no there was nothing rather than one and there will be nothing later than one.
There is a Beginning of all things and everything returns to Unity, there is nothing besides this Unity, and all things that are, desire the same Unity, because everything originated from 'Unity: And for all things to become one thing, it is very necessary that the whole be partakers and sharers of this one; for as all Beings are inclined to return to that One Being from which they sprang, so all things need deprive themselves of multitude.
This is why we attribute here the Circular Unity to god, who, being himself unique and without number, has nevertheless made and created from himself innumerable Beings, and creates and includes them in himself like all the lines, Letters, Numbers, Characters and Figures have their principle and their source from a loyal Point, which is without number, as we have said before.
Let us see at this time that the straight lines of the aforesaid word deus uncover us:
It seems to me that the letter v will not harm our thoughts of the creation of Beings, seeing that the v is composed of two Diameters, and that the number of Two is called by the Ancients the germ of Unity, and Procreation the first: as also, that the great God, having come out of his Unity, created and still creates every day all creatures, by means of his two contrary qualities which are the Dry and the Humid, from which we We will talk, God helping, more fully when we talk about the Creation of Plants, Animals and Minerals.
When we apply the two ends of the aforesaid letter v to the two ends of the Diameter expressed above, we will see the figure of an equilateral Triangle which does not badly represent a Character of the Trinity, and the number Three Principles in all the mixed.
And to discover on this same foundation a Character of the Four Elements; we can conveniently apply the lines of the letter E on the same Diameter of the aforesaid circle, and thus will also present a perfect Quadrangle, which expresses the number of the Four Elements, and in this way will be the: First being represented by the Center and
the Circumference, marked with Number 1.1.1.
The two contrary qualities by the letter v marked 2.2
The three principles by the equilateral triangle marked with 3.3.3.
And the four elements by the quadrangle marked with 4.4.4.4. See Figure Num.7.
The number of the letters of the word deus also gives to know the numbers of the Elements; and that moreover each of these four letters could not badly express a character of a separate Element, of this sort:
The Letter s being bent and formed so that the two ends come to touch each other, representing a Perfect Roundness, which will not ill teach a character of the Element of fire: for as the center of a circle extends all its rays around itself to the circumference: all the same does the sun, which, being spherical, the heart and center of all the world, and the cause of all the fire in it, casts the rays of its light around him at the circumference, and gives to all beings composed of vicars, which are properly the lives within the bodies, places of their residences, from which likewise extend the rays of their fire within their Microcosms from the center to the circumference, as the Sun their father darts them to the circumference of his Macrocosm.
I hear you very willingly: but I ask you to do me the pleasure of giving me a little clarification concerning the center and the circumference of the Macrocosm and the Microcosm, before you advance your speech further, because you know that there is has very different opinions respecting this matter among the Philosophers; tell me your feelings if you please, and then I will tell you mine.
It is true that it could very well be done on this occasion, but since our conversation here is only lines, characters and letters, you will oblige me to allow me to finish what I have started, and to defer what you ask of me, until we enter into the discourse of the scripture of God himself, who are the creatures.
If you think so, you can sue.
The letter d (so it seems to me) does not teach us badly about a character of the Element of Air, because this letter is composed of a Diameter and a semi-circle: because like the roundness of this letter teaches perfection, Spirituality and the activity of Fire, and the straight line, imperfection, corporality and suffering and conceiving matter: so is also Air an Element which is mainly composed of Water extended to the circumference and impregnated with Fire.
It seems to me that the Element of Water, would not be badly expressed by the character of the letter v, because it is composed in such a way, that it contains two Diameters, which unite in bottom in the shape of a wedge, whose two points rising upwards demonstrate the two superior Elements, as the point below teaches the lowest Element, namely the Earth, of which it is composed: and that more is , the curvature of this letter gives to know the property of the flexibility and the fluxibility of the Water: and the angular form of it gives to know that the Water joined with the two superior Elements is an Agent on and inside the Earth, like a wedge, is a proper instrument for splitting any hard material, be it wood, stone or other.
The Signature of the letter e does not hurt so much to go our thoughts to the Element of the Earth, because, as three lines of three different lengths are presented on the perpendicular of it, that the three higher Elements are also of three different qualities, since they are of three different distances, and that they must make their operations and impregnations in the Earth by three different degrees, as we will say more fully in its place.
See how the lines of the letters of the word deus give to know several very remarkable things, and that they still give to notice, that there is a rotation or perpetual conversion, as well of the Elements, as of all the compounds of Nature , as well as Figure Num.8. represents the perfect number of Ten, will teach you very clearly, and whose Geometric description is such: Put a Point on the paper and note it Number 1.
Put one of the feet of your compass on this point, extend its other foot any distance you wish, and mark the point of your distance Number 2.
Make this same compass span a Circle and sign it with Numbers 3.3.
Draw the Diameter of this Circle from Num.2. through the center until it meets the circumference, and note the last end of the Number 4.
Make on this Diameter, the length of it, a cross and mark the middle of it of the Number 5.
Leaving the 'extend your compass of the same distance you describe from Number 5 a circumference by the two goals of the Diameter of the first circle 2. and 4. and mark it from Number 6.6.6.6.6.6.
Put one of the feet of the compass, always the same distance from the Diameter of the first, or the Half diameter of the second circle, on Number 2. and put the other foot of it on the circumference, and mark the first point of the Number 7. The second of the Number 8. The third of the Number 9, and the fourth of the Number 10. Thus have you a very clear demonstration of the perfect Number of Ten, which is procured from the lines of the word deus, by ten different operations of the compass and rule. See in Figure Num. 8.
See here how all numbers, all lines, all Characters and all figures have their origins from Unity: For from one come Two, since twice one is two. Unity makes the center and the number of Two makes the Ray.
From one and two come three, since one and two make three.
As the number Two, namely the Ray, is strong from Unity or from the Centre: and as the number Three comes from Unity and from the number Two, so the circumference of the center and the Ray flows; to which number Three the Unity being added, namely the Radius extended from the center to the circumference, you will find the Number of Four, since Three and one make Four, just as the Center, the Radius, the Circumference and the Diameter is Four in number, just the same as one, one and Two by the Rule of Addition is Four.
And as the first Four numbers of Arithmetic, 1, 2, 3, and 4, being also perpendicularly placed upon each other, according to the aforesaid Rule of Arithmetic, perfect the Perfect Number of Ten.
Thus also arise, and are formed, all sorts of lines and Figures of a Center, of a Radius, of a Circumference, and of a Diameter, and very particularly the regular Hexangular Figure, which takes its beginning from unity , and rises to the perfect number of Ten (as we have said above) where it ceases, since then the perfection of its Figure is accomplished, and it is in a state to multiply its Figure infinitely.
All the same as to this number of Nine, the Unity being added the perfect number of Ten is found: which unit is then a beginning of the multiplication of the prime numbers up to an almost infinite and inexpressible extent, because in addition to the number of Nine there is no simple number anymore.
It is in this way that one goes naturally and demonstratively from Unity to an innumerable Number, from the center to the circumference, and it is in this way that the Creator extends infinitely in his creatures, and that the creatures return to their First Being, from which all things sprang: as a certain Philosopher also very wisely and fundamentally speaks of, saying:
Omnis Naturae consistens linitibus operatio mirandorum ex unitate per binarum in ternarium descendit, non prius tamen quam a quaternario per ordinem graduum in simplicitate consurgat.
Nam cum quator numerare velis, non aliter quam ab unitate scis inchoandum, ut cum dicis: Unum, Duo, Tria, Quator, quae simul sumpa, facinut Decem.
Hoec omnis numeri perfecta consummatio est, qui tunc sit regressus ad unum, et ultra denarium non est numerus simples.
Whoever hujus purae simplicitatis simplici notitia sublimatus est, in omni scientia consummatus erit, perficiet que opera mirande, et stupendos inveniet effectus.
That is to say: The whole operation of the wonders of Nature, which consists of limits or bounds, descends out of Unity by the number of Two to the number Three, not rather, however, than it ascends from the number of Four by an order of degrees in Simplicity: because you know that when you want to count Four, that you must start only from Unity, as when we say. One, Two, Three, Four, which being taken together, is ten.
This is the perfect consumption of any number, because there is then a regression to Unity: and there is no simple number other than the number Ten.
This is the perfect consumption of any number, because there is then a regression to Unity: and there is no simple number besides the number Ten.
Anyone who is sublimated by the simple knowledge of this pure simplicity will be perfectly consummate in all kinds of sciences, he will do works worthy of admiration, and will find prodigious effects.
It is in such a way that it must be understood that the World is created from nothing, and that it will return to nothing, when it is thus the good pleasure of the eternal and uncreated Unity.
Besides the above things you can look at the Figures that follow here, which will serve to confirm our statement.
See, my dear, how clearly the letters of the word deus make us understand: the first being; The four elements: and the three principles: and in what way it is necessary to understand that all the Beings came out of a single being.
Besides what I have just told you, it seems to me that I could still make you understand the creation of compounds, and how the creator extended himself into creatures, in another way; and this by the lines of the letters of the word jesus.
When you confer together the lines of the word jesus with that of the letters of the word deus you can see perfectly how the second Person of the Divinity came out of the First, and how it is to be understood that it is reunited with the First. :
Curiously considering the lines of the letters of the word jesus, you will indeed find that they have the same as the word deus contains, and that there is only this difference; that this one has only four, and that one five letters, so that the first and the third letter of the word jesus are made of the first letter of the word deus.
The letter s, which contains the middle of the word jesus (here augmenting and changing the word deus) might here be taken for a Character of the Quintessence: for as the two ends of the letter s, being joined together, make a round figure in the middle of the word jesus, and as it has its origin from the first letter of the word deus, so the son of God is also the perfect Roundness, or the quintessence which came out of the sides of god the father.
As the letters of the word jesus again become the same word with the word deus, when the letter s is joined to the letter i, which remake a d, so is the Son of God the same God, but the procreated Second person of God the father . As it is written:
This is my beloved son, whom I have begotten this day.
I will try to show you, with the ruler and the compass, how this generation could have been done, and this, by making a perfect description of these two aforesaid words.
Take for this purpose a pen, ink, a compass, a ruler and paper, write, according to the aforesaid proportion of the letters, the word deus, and form lines of these letters into a regular hexagon, in this manner:
Draw the line ab of the same length as that of the letter d, or of the letter i of the aforesaid word of jesus, in the manner that we have said above: divide this line into two equal parts, put the one of the feet of your compass on the middle of it, extend the other foot of it to the two ends of this line, and write a half circle ending at the two aforesaid ends, which will form the letter d, here marked by the figure of cc continue your half circle from the line of the letter s, which is in the middle of the word jesus, in the same way: make the length of the line ab on each side of it an equilater Triangle adb. Write from the same extent of your compass out of d the circles ee. Continue from the same extent to carry the foot of said compass from a to f, which here is the bottom line of the letter e, as well of that which is in the word jesus as that of the word deus, put in the same way the perpendicular of these same letters ee on gg. As also the length of the two other crosses of the said letter joined together on hh, and the two lines of the two letters vv, which are included in the same words, on ii and ll. So you see that the lines of the word jesus issue from the same center, from the same radius, from the same circumference, and from the same diameter of the word deus, and that this figure demonstrates by the lines of the letters of which it is composed, in what way can we make a very clear and clear teaching, how it is to be understood as God the Son came out of God the Father, as God the Father and God the Son are one, at the gaze of Divinity, but Two in respect of their persons. See the Figures on the next sheet.
We could well make here a very ample discourse on this subject, but since our intention is none other than to make only of the three aforesaid words, we will see, if it is not possible, to perceive from their lines and signs as also by those of the letters of the word maria, the conception, the nativity, the passion and the death of God the Son.
Having stopped my contemplation on this aforesaid word, I judged it worthy of remark, that the Holy mother of our Savior Jesus Christ called Maria, which is a word which in its derivation from the Latin word Mare, seeing that Maria in Latin is as much to to say that Seas in French, because as the Seas receive the spiritual and astral seeds, being like the matrix of the two generating Elements, which are Fire and Air; of the holy virgin should likewise conceive the spiritual seed of God, and that she should also become pregnant by the Holy Spirit of God the Father, which the curved line of the aforesaid word shows almost on the finger at the middle letter, at namely the r, or the two curved lines (which denote perfection) touch the straight line of it, (which signifies imperfection) in two ways, one that it is as if attached and stopped there, and the other as if emerging; as the Holy Spirit of God the Father penetrated into the Blessed Virgin, and emerged with the most glorious nativity of Jesus Christ.
It is also remarkable that the straight lines of the word maria make twelve in number, and that they are precisely a number as much as are the straight lines of the two aforementioned words deus and jesus altogether.
These said twelve lines being joined in four equilateral Triangles precisely represent the twelve sides of the four planes of a Tetrahedron as it is to be seen in Figure Num. 1.
The six straight lines, of the word jesus as well as of that of deus, are also the six regular and equal corners of the regular body of the tetrahedron, as it is also to be measured by the proportion of their letters, and as it is to see Figure Num. 2.
Besides what I have just said, I considered the letters of the said name in a way, if it would not be possible to teach the composition of its lines, in what way it is to understand that the verb (according to the Gospel of St. John) became flesh: either the Spirit body, or the incorporeal corporeal, and having fixed my speculations puts the four aforementioned Triangles in order and successively, as the lines of the letters of the name maria follow each other, and presupposing that the curved lines express perfection (as we said above) or spirituality, we will see here that the said curved lines of the letter r being bent in roundness, will form a circle, which itself comes to apply inside the third Triangle,which is formed by order of the lines of the said letters, according to the number that they follow each other, as you can see them here following, because starting with the first line of the letter m, you will find that the first three lines of here will give the first Triangle.
That the Fourth line of the same letter, and the two lines of a, which follow it, will give the second Triangle.
That the third Triangle is formed of the last line of this said letter, of the straight line of the letter r, (which naturally turns its curved lines) and of the letter i, which gives the fulfillment to the third Triangle: in such a way that these curved lines being turned in a circle come by themselves to apply within this third Triangle.
And the fourth Triangle is made of the three lines of the last letter a.
So much so that the lines of the five letters of the name maria give, in this way, very clearly to know: in what way the divine nature was to join the human nature, and this in the middle of the womb of the virgin, like the middle of the curved line demonstrates this Geometrically on the middle letter of his name. See Figures Num. 3 and Num. 4.
Let us remark here, my very dear François; that the search for this supernatural conception of the Son of God, which I observed, by this examination of the lines of the virgin name, caused my contemplations to extend to the conception and generation of all compound Beings, and consider, that the conception of them can be understood in the same way as that, seeing that the igneous seed, joined to the air, and spiritual, after it has become corporeal and spermatic, by the conjunction of the Element of Water, it becomes to be sown in the earth, (which is the general nurse of the mixed) and enclosed and nourished by it, until the general operator of nature produces it or a vegetable , or an Animal, or a Mineral in its perfection,
Touching the conjunction of the lines of the letters of the three words above mentioned, deus jesus and maria, consider, please:
Firstly the number of the straight lines of these three words, which is precisely that of the world of all the Latin letters, namely twenty and four; and imagine that it is also by this that our great God makes us known, that we must above all use the letters to express the contemplation of our creator, and the supernatural history of our Mediator and of our Savior Jesus Christ, since it is through this that the eternal and incorruptible treasures of souls are only to be found, and that all the spirits of all the men of the world are not able or sufficient to understand with their spirit, to to retain by their memories, nor to express with their tongues the hundred thousandth part of the wisdom and the inexpressible power and the inexhaustible goods which are comprised therein.
Secondly: that the twenty-four aforesaid lines being divided into six parts, and having formed six perfect squares, on the figure of a Hexagon, you will find such a symmetry and such a correspondence of the said Triangle with the Quadrangle, that they let regularly join and unite together from the very center to such extent of circumference as please; so that the extension of the Unity to the multitude, of these figures, cannot be made by any more regular way, than by this one, because by this way the unity extends infinitely and regularly to the circumference , without committing any confusion of figures, which it is not possible to do by any other kind of figures, since all the other figures, except these, in whatever way one thinks of join them, always cause irregularity and confusion. See the figures that follow here. Num. 1. 2. 3.
Tiercement: that the twenty-four lines of these three words being joined in such a way, that eighteen of them are raised perpendicularly, and six across, between the second and the third line, in the form of a cross, taking the length of each line of the measurement of a foot, this cross will be perhaps of the same size of that of Jesus Christ; and when you apply the curved lines of the said words, the ends of them holding together, to the said cross, you will see the figure of a Serpent hanging from the cross, as Moses had commanded the Jew, of which you will be able to see here the Figure a.
In the fourth place: that the six squares aforesaid being placed in such a way that one of them is in the middle of four others, and that the sixth is applied below the fifth, as it is to be seen in Figure b, you will find then a form of a cross composed of six regular squares, of which the six Planes, being folded together, form the surface of the regular stereometric body of the Cube, in which the two ss of the word jesus being enclosed, so that the two ends are joined together in a circle, the burial of our Lord Jesus Christ could be observed.
For, as the Philosophers assure us, that Gold, (which naturally has the spherical signature) when joined to its salt (to which nature has given the cubic signature) and has been buried therein for its limited time the infernal fire of the Philosophers, that he will come out of it gloriously, and that he will then be a very glorious medicine for his brothers who are the vegetable, animal and mineral kingdom Thus our savior Jesus Christ transformed and glorified his body composed of the Elements by the descension of his Holy Spirit into hell, and by the return of him to his body, that he was able to make his body incorporeal according to his divine good pleasure; in such a way that he was able to transform and that he was able to transmute in the same way, by his Holy Spirit, all whom he pleased, in a way, that however their lives, and after their death, they were able to perform great miracles, as it appeared to the Apostles, whose bones, after their deaths, were even able to resuscitate dead bodies, as the New Testament gives us quantities of examples and history. You can look at the figures below which will confirm what we have just said, the last cubic of which is the one marked with the letter c.
This is what I had to tell you about the numbers, lines and Characters which came into my mind when I paused my meditation a little on the story of our Lord Jesus Christ by looking at the letters of the three words deus jesus and married. I beg you, my very dear, to excuse the simplicity of my style and the punyness of my speech, since my speech until now has been only numbers, lines and letters, I expect something most beautiful of your favor.
chapter II.
That it is God's will that rational creatures seek to know the Creator through creature knowledge. That all creatures come from one God, like all numbers of Unity. Description of Hermès Trimegiste of the creation of the World. Moses of the Creation of the World. That God is often said to be a fire.
I gladly heard you and thank you with all my heart for the trouble you have taken; they are not only lines and letters of which you have discoursed, and which must be considered simply as lines and letters, since you have begun to make a writing of them which demonstrates the great All, not only with the pen, but even with the compass and with the straightedge: Nor can you better stop your thoughts, nor sharpen your mind than with things which tend to the glory of God, and which are useful for the procurement of our eternal salvation; It is also in these things that one must very particularly employ a great deal of pain and labor, since one acquires thereby treasures which do not perish, but which are divine and eternal; It is also the will of the creator, that the men, to whom he had the benignity to give a reasonable soul, besides all his other creatures, learn to know him by the knowledge of the creatures, so that the men who know their Creator well by the knowledge of them, surrender more and more capable of worshiping, serving and praising him: most men (alas!) do not know what God is:
It is a shameful thing to say it, and yet it must be said, since it is the truth; they came from God, they are in God, they subsist through God, they are nothing without God, and they must return to God at the end, since he is their beginning and their end, yet being without beginning and without end, and yet they do not know God: is it not greatly to be pitied that ignorance is so great in the world that among thousands of people there is not sometimes one who knows his God well? , its Creator, or its First Being, and who knows what it must answer, when asked what God is?
How will such people find God since they do not know him? How will they esteem, honor and praise God since they do not know what God is? How can a heavyweight or a peasant mention the Stone of the Philosophers when he doesn't know what it is? Shall not disdain her as worthless? even though it would be purified a thousand times by the fire of purification of the Philosophers, and that it would be worth a hundred thousand millions of Gold? Is it not greatly to be pitied that ignorance is so great in the world that among thousands of people there is not sometimes one who knows his God, his Creator, or his First Being well, and who knows what he must answer when asked what God is? How will such people find God since they do not know him?
How will they esteem, honor and praise God since they do not know what God is? How can a heavyweight or a peasant mention the Stone of the Philosophers when he doesn't know what it is? Shall not disdain her as worthless? even though it would be purified a thousand times by the fire of purification of the Philosophers, and that it would be worth a hundred thousand millions of Gold? Is it not greatly to be pitied that ignorance is so great in the world that among thousands of people there is not sometimes one who knows his God, his Creator, or his First Being well, and who knows what he must answer when asked what God is?
How will such people find God since they do not know him? How will they esteem, honor and praise God since they do not know what God is? How can a heavyweight or a peasant mention the Stone of the Philosophers when he doesn't know what it is? Shall not disdain her as worthless? even though it would be purified a thousand times by the fire of purification of the Philosophers, and that it would be worth a hundred thousand millions of Gold?
that ignorance is so great in the world that among thousands of people there is not sometimes one who knows his God, his Creator, or his First Being well, and who knows what he must answer, when asked what is God? How will such people find God since they do not know him? How will they esteem, honor and praise God since they do not know what God is? How can a heavyweight or a peasant mention the Stone of the Philosophers when he doesn't know what it is? Shall not disdain her as worthless?
even though it would be purified a thousand times by the fire of purification of the Philosophers, and that it would be worth a hundred thousand millions of Gold? that ignorance is so great in the world that among thousands of people there is not sometimes one who knows his God, his Creator, or his First Being well, and who knows what he must answer, when asked what is God? How will such people find God since they do not know him?
How will they esteem, honor and praise God since they do not know what God is? How can a heavyweight or a peasant mention the Stone of the Philosophers when he doesn't know what it is? Shall not disdain her as worthless? even though it would be purified a thousand times by the fire of purification of the Philosophers, and that it would be worth a hundred thousand millions of Gold? when asked what is God? How will such people find God since they do not know him? How will they esteem, honor and praise God since they do not know what God is? How can a heavyweight or a peasant mention the Stone of the Philosophers when he doesn't know what it is?
Shall not disdain her as worthless? even though it would be purified a thousand times by the fire of purification of the Philosophers, and that it would be worth a hundred thousand millions of Gold? when asked what is God? How will such people find God since they do not know him? How will they esteem, honor and praise God since they do not know what God is? How can a heavyweight or a peasant mention the Stone of the Philosophers when he doesn't know what it is? Shall not disdain her as worthless? even though it would be purified a thousand times by the fire of purification of the Philosophers, and that it would be worth a hundred thousand millions of Gold?
will they honor and praise God since they do not know what God is? How can a heavyweight or a peasant mention the Stone of the Philosophers when he doesn't know what it is? Shall not disdain her as worthless? even though it would be purified a thousand times by the fire of purification of the Philosophers, and that it would be worth a hundred thousand millions of Gold? will they honor and praise God since they do not know what God is? How can a heavyweight or a peasant mention the Stone of the Philosophers when he doesn't know what it is? Shall not disdain her as worthless? even though it would be purified a thousand times by the fire of purification of the Philosophers, and that it would be worth a hundred thousand millions of Gold?
It is so as you say, and it was the same a few thousand years ago, for I remember the words of the most ancient of Philosophers, namely Hermes Trimegiste, which he used in his Pimandre, in Chap. 7. with great cordiality to the ignorant, and which I cannot refrain from reciting here.
These lyrics are as follows:
O foolish men who have drunk the wine of ignorance which you cannot endure! But vomit it! Where are you going? Be sober and see with the eyes of the heart: if you cannot do it all, see only you who can, for the perversity of ignorance floats over the whole earth and causes the deplorable soul to be damaged in its body, not suffering not that it approaches the ports of salvation. So do not put yourself in danger to the great flow, but approach the port of safety through contrary waves as much as you can approach.
Seek the guide that teaches you the way that leads to the gate of understanding where the shining light is without any darkness: where no one is drunk, but where everyone lives soberly, and looks with heart at whoever wills. be looked at, because it cannot be heard, pronounced, not seen with the eyes, but with the heart and the mind; You must try to tear the garment of ignorance that you wear, the firmament of malice, the knot of corruption, the tenebrous circuit, living death, sensitive carrion, the sepulcher that we carry with us, the locative thief, he who hates by the things he loves, but who is envious by the things he hates.
Such is the enemy garment which you are covered with, which suffocates yourself, that sight cannot receive, and that having stopped your speculations at the beauty of truth and the Good that lies in it you do not hate wickedness. of her after having penetrated her pitfalls with which she spies on her, making the things which seem to be visible and sensible, insensible, and smothering them with quantity of matter,
My dearest, let us not do so, and be found among a herd of dirt-loving swine, but let us eagerly accept this fine admonition of Hermes, ruminate it well, imitate it piously, and show that we love purity. and that we esteem it beyond all the treasures of the world, since it is strong in purity itself, seeing that God is only Purity himself, and that no impurity is in him: the sun is pure and clear, and darkness can have no place in it, since it is indwelt with the light of God: and the Stone of the Philosophers is pure, since it is composed of the concentrated rays of the sun, and therefore it suffer no impurity near her, but transform everything into purity; let's look for those in particular, and let's try to get to know them,
You speak very well: sed hic labor hoc opus. That is to say, that is where the difficulty lies.
It is quite true: but you also know the proverb, which says: Omnia Dii vendnt laboribus: et labor improbus omnia vincit. That is to say: The Gods sell all things for toil: and let tireless toil surpass all things.
You have well begun to discourse: that as all numbers come out of Unity so that all creatures come from a single God; touching the former you have demonstrated this quite clearly, but it seems to me that the latter must be extended a little further out.
You are right: I expect this from your grace, and do not doubt that you give to all lovers of God, of the nature of God, and of themselves, a very great satisfaction by your support.
In the name of God: I will try to do my best to express and to bring to light what it pleased our great God to communicate by his divine influences to my weak person, who considers me only a little verse of earth, please listen.
I want to hear from you.
My very dear amiable friend: you must know that before there was a beginning of anything, that there was nothing other than God alone, who made and created all things from itself, in itself, by itself, and with itself, which God has no other property, nature, or other will, than to produce all things perfect, after his own image, which is perfection itself: for God spake ( said Moses in Genesis) and it was, and God saw that it was good.
The great God, being all in all, and as if pregnant, let come in public by his Holy Spirit the Light and the Darkness, which are Heaven and Earth, the pure and the impure, (to speak in such a term, since 'in respect of creation there is nothing impure) being combined together; to which the Spirit of God having been extended, as a soul within his body, he separated it, by his divine virtue, into things high and low, subtle and gross, spiritual and corporeal, natural and supernatural, heavenly and supercelestial : for the Holy Spirit of God has made appear first and foremost, in his great whole, the two contrary qualities, namely, Hot and Cold, which were enemies together in gradu intenso, but friends in gradua discount.
These two contrary qualities immediately began to work together, and produced wetness and dryness: From these four came the four Elements; Fire, Air, Water, and Earth: from these came the Three Principles: Sulphur, Mercury or Spirit, and Salt; and all of the above. Of the first Being; Of the Two Contrary Qualities. Of the Four Elements; and of the Three Principles have all the mixed or compound their origin, as well the celestial as the terrestrial, as well the pure as the impure, or the subtle as the gross, as I will give the honor to teach you here then and in good order; doing like you, with justice, my beginning of the First Being, with the intention of trying to clarify, as much as it will be possible for us, the light for the present strongly covered with darkness,
Let us see, my very dear, what Hermes Trimegiste (who lived about a century and a half before Moses, according to Patricius) gives to know of the First Being of the nature of God, and how much desire he had to learn to know what it was of God and of his nature, and to what degree of perfection he was illumined, when he spoke with the Spirit of God, when Poemander (who was the Spirit of God) asked him what desirous to learn and to know, and that he answered: I desire to learn the Beings of the World, to hear their nature, and to know God: Poemander then spoke to him, saying: Understand me again in your mind, and I will teach you what you desire to inquire. Hermes tells him.
When he said this, he transformed his idea, and the whole thing became manifest to me in a moment, and I saw an infinite vision. He became a light, which was very kind and very agreeable; soon after a very sad and awful darkness separated from it and which ended in a curvature in the form of a circle, so much so that it seemed to me that the darkness was transformed into a humid nature being inexpressibly confused, which made come out of it a smoke like fire, and a sad resonance.
A confused voice came out afterwards, which I believed to be the voice of Light.
A holy word ascended afterwards out of the light upon nature, and the pure fire rose up above the moist nature, and it was light, subtle, and of great power.
The Air, which was also light, followed the Spirit, and rose from the Earth and the Water to the fire, as if suspended thereon.
The Earth and the Water remained mixed together, so that the Earth could not be seen because of the Water, and they received the motion of the Spiritual Word which was poured over it.
Poemander then said to me: have you heard this vision, and what it means?
I was talking: I'll think about it.
The Light, I am, the Spirit, your God, who is before moist Nature, who appeared out of the darkness: the Word that shines out of the Spirit: the Son of God.
The Father of all things (the Spirit being Light and life, male and female) procreated man his fellow man, and animated him, who believed to understand with his spirit the power of him who has the place of his residence in the Fire, and it is for this reason that man, besides all the animals, has become of a double composition, namely mortal according to the body, and immortal because of the substantial man.
But man became from life and light to a soul and a Spirit: from life to a soul, and from Light to a Spirit, and he remained so dominating above all the members of the Sensual World. , until the end of the goal, and generating.
Let us listen again to his sanctified sermon: God says he, and the Divinity, and the divine nature, is the glory of all things.
God is the beginning and the Spirit, and the Nature, and the Matter, and the Operation, and the Necessity, and the End, and the Renovation of all things.
For there was infinite darkness over the abyss, and the Water and the subtle intellectual Spirit were as it were hidden within the Chaos.
The Holy Light came, and the Elements separated from the moist nature on the sand, and all the Gods (or Planets) separated the seminal nature.
And while the whole was before without order and without preparation, the light was separated at the height, and the heavy was established on the wet sand: and fire surrounded all this: and when it hung, it was carried from l 'Spirit.
And the sky became visible in seven circles, and the Gods appeared by the Ideas of stars with all the signs of them, and the stars were deified and numbered with the Gods who were among them, and the circumference became surrounded by the air, and was carried by the divine Spirit in a circular course.
The gods produced by their own virtue that which was commanded them: and they were produced four-legged beasts, creeping things, and fowls; all the fertile seeds, herbs, flowers, and green grass held back the seeds of generation itself.
And also the generation of men for the knowledge of the works of God, and for an operative testimony of Nature, and for the multiplication of men, for dominion over all things under heaven, and for the knowledge of Good, and that they grow and multiply in quantity.
As also all the souls in the flesh, and the monstrous semination by means of the circular Gods for the contemplation of Heaven, of the Gods, of the divine works, of the works of Nature, and for signs of good things for the knowledge of the divine power.
As likewise all generations of living flesh, fruits, seeds, and all artificial works, and the things that are diminished will be renewed by necessity.
For all the temperature of the world being renewed by Nature, it is Divinity; since Nature consists in Divinity.
Now, my son, I write these things thus out of love towards men, and out of duty towards God.
For there can be no fairer duty than when one observes Beings, and shows gratitude to the one who made them, to whom I will never fail.
Try to be endowed with probity, since it is he who is the greatest Philosopher, because it is impossible to possess it without Philosophy.
Sacred Scripture, the works of Trimegiste and of all the true Philosophers are well filled with such matters as you utter here, but you do however well to make some account of them so that one can see how much our Philosophy agrees with that ancient.
It is true: for at the beginning of the Old Testament, Moses the Prophet, speaking of the creation of the World in the First Chapter of Genesis, also mentions it in this way: God
created Heaven and Earth in the beginning. And the earth was formless and empty: and darkness was over the deeps, and the Spirit of God was poured out over the waters.
And God said, Let there be light: and there was light.
And God saw that the light was good, and God separated the light from the darkness.
And God called the light day: and the darkness he called Night: then the evening and the morning were made the first day.
Again God said: let there be an expanse between the Waters: and let it divide the Waters with the Waters.
God therefore made the expanse and divided the waters that were under the expanse from those that were on the expanse, and was thus made.
And God called the expanse Heaven: then was made evening and morning the second day.
Then God said, Let the waters which are under the sky be gathered together into one place, and let the dry appear, and so it was done.
And God said, let the earth bring forth greenery, herb procreating seed, and fruitful tree yielding fruit after its kind, which had its seed in itself on the earth, and so was made.
The earth therefore brought forth greenery, grass procreating seed after its kind, and tree yielding fruit, which had its seed in itself after its kind.
And God said, Let there be lights in the expanse of heaven, to divide the night from the day, and be in signs, in seasons, in days and years.
And be for lights in the firmament of heaven, to give light on earth, and so was it done.
God therefore made two great lights, the greater light to rule the day, and the lesser to rule the night, and the stars.
And God put them in the expanse of heaven to shine upon the earth, and to rule day and night, and to separate the light from the darkness: and God saw that it was good.
Then was done evening and morning on the fourth day.
Then God says: let the waters produce reptiles with living souls: and let the birds flutter on the earth towards the expanse of Heaven.
God therefore created great whales, and every moving living creature, which the waters had brought forth after their kind, and every fowl having wings, each after its kind: and God saw that it was good.
So he blessed them, saying: be fruitful and multiply, and fill the waters in the sea: and let the fowl multiply in the land.
Then was done evening and morning on the fifth day.
Besides God said, let the earth bring forth living creature after its kind, cattle and creeping things, and animals of the earth according to their kind, and it was so done.
God therefore made the beast of the earth after its kind, and the cattle after its kind, and all the creeping things of the earth after its kind, and God saw that it was good.
Furthermore God said, Let us make man in our image and after our likeness, and let them have dominion over the fish of the sea, and over the birds of the sky, and over beasts, and over all the earth, and over all reptile that moves on the ground.
God therefore created man in his image, he created them in the image of God, male and female he created them.
And God blessed them, and said unto them, Bring forth fruit, and multiply, and fill the earth, and subdue it: and have lordship over the fishes of the sea, and over the birds of the sky, and over all the beasts that move upon the earth.
And God said, Behold, I have given you every herb bearing seed that is in all the earth, and every tree that has in itself the fruit of a tree bearing seed, that they may be your meat.
Even also to all the animals of the earth, and to all the birds of the sky, and to every moving thing on the earth, which has in itself a living soul, I gave all greenery of grass to eat: and it was so done.
And God saw that all that he had done was good: then it was done in the evening and in the morning on the sixth day.
It is worthy of remark, that Poemander, or the Spirit of God says to Hermes: Who has his residence in the fire.
It is quite true: but you also know what David says on the same subject, speaking of God: Qui tabernaculum suum posuit in Sole. That is to say: Who has placed his tabernacle in the Sun.
And that the Almighty is more often called in Holy Scripture a Light and a Fire, than any other being, and that he is also often compared to them, and this, no doubt, because the nature of light and fire is of itself moving, generating and reconsuming; as Moses mentions in Deuteronomy Chapter: 4th:
The Lord your God is a consuming fire.
And Exodus chapter 3. v.2. and 3:
And the angel of the Lord appeared to him in a flame of fire in the midst of a bush, and he looked, and behold, the bush burned with the fire and the bush was not consumed. Then Moses said: I will turn away now and see this great vision, why the bush does not burn. So the Lord saw that he turned to look, and God called him from the middle of the bush: &c.
Exodus chapter 14. v. 24.
And it came to pass in the morning watch, that the Lord being in the Pillar of fire and cloud, looked upon the camp of the Egyptians, and astonished the said camp of the Egyptians.
Exodus chapter 19. c. 18.
And Mount Sinai was all smoked, yet the Lord came down from it on fire, and the smoke from him ascended like smoke from a furnace, and the whole mountain shook greatly.
Leviticus chapter 10. v. 1. and 2.
The children of Aaron Nadab and Abihu offered strange fire before the Lord, which he had not commanded them: So the fire came out from before the Lord, and devoured them.
Number chapter 6. v. 22, 23, 24.
The Lord spoke to Moses, saying. Speak to Aaron and his sons and say to them thus you will bless the children of Israel, saying to them: The Lord blesses you and looks at you. The Lord make his face shine upon you and be thankful for you.
Everything you report here is very excellent, very plausible and should not be contradicted by anyone, since it is the very words of the Holy Spirit uttered by the Prophet and by the Father of the Philosophers which reveal with enough clarity the darkness of the creation of the World and of the Compound Beings: but it seems to me that the science and handling of the Stone of the Philosophers will not give so little light to minds ignorant of the knowledge of the creator and of the creatures: And since I know very well that you have read a number of Authors who have written it learnedly, who have also certainly possessed it, and that you yourself have spent a lot of time and taken great pains in the cultivation of the Land of the Sages, j I would have much inclination to talk with you about this illustrious subject so raised and so much sought after.
chapter III.
If the science of the Philosopher's Stone is true. Narrative of the Authors who possessed the science of the Stone of the Philosophers. The truth of the science of the Philosopher's Stone taken from the Holy Scriptures.
You know it: I agree; let us therefore make a beginning in so far as the little talent of our knowledge allows it, and descending from the inaccessible Light of God the Creator, let us turn towards the creatures, and yet remaining stopped at Unity, let us talk for a while of the Stone of the Philosophers, of which there has been so much noise in the World, and which has always been, and is still today so much sought after by the greatest and most learned of all the Earth, and let us see if we have just right to dare to say that it is by the science of it that the Ancient Sages ascended, and that the true modern scholars seem to approach the staircase of the sages. Let us therefore first see if it is in conformity with the truth that the Stone of the Wise was in the World, and if it is still there:
I am ready to philosophize with you on this so pure and so illustrious matter; to produce to you what I have read and heard of it, and since it has been several years since I also tirelessly held the hand of the plough, I promise to make you a candid participant in my experiences, and to show that I could always verify my words by effects: if you do the same, there will be hope that our Dialogue will not be useless.
Well, I will no less do the duty of a man of honour, and already desire to know, whether you are on the true way or not, and whether you have wasted and wasted your time and depended in vain upon so much others; but before going so far, let us first see what is the truth of the thing, and what the true Philosophers say about it.
I am happy with it: but let us first agree which authors are acceptable to true Philosophers, and which can subsist for such, then see and consider, what they say of the Philosopher's Stone, and finally in what way our work is consistent with that of the Philosophers.
Very good ; what do you think of:
Hermès Trimegiste?
Of Moses?
From Morienus?
From Calid?
From Plato?
From Pretrus Bonus Ferrariensis?
Of Johannes de Padua?
From Geber?
Of Rafis?
From Hamel?
Of Virgil?
From Ovid?
From Bernardus Comes Trevisanus?
Of Basilius Valentinus?
Of Sendivogius?
From D.Tomas Aquinatus?
D'Arnoldus of villa nova?
From Raimundus Lullius?
D………………………
Stop, please, making a bigger story of authors, because I understand that you have read the good and the true ones: I have also read most of them and still many others beyond, of which the number would be boring to recite here, go on with your point: if you please.
says about it. In secundo septem Tractatuum. Know, my son, that all the sapiences, which are in the World, are subject to this our sapience, because it is acquired and finished in Elements admirably hidden in them. The same: The Book of the Philosophers, I called it to you the key to all good. The same: And so you will have the glory of everyone's clarity. Morienus. This is the science which must be the most sought after among the others since one can arrive by it at another more admirable.
The same: The usefulness of this art is twofold: for it adorns the soul with a very happy rejoicing and delivers the body from poverty and servitude.
This is a lantern of a Sage like a shining light in his life: but the children of nature are tormented in a dark place and are deprived of it.
It is true, without certain lies, and very true: what is above is like what is below, and what is below is like what is above, to consider the wonders of a thing.
Having taken good heed of the things I have told you, and well considered the testimonies of the Ancients, you will know clearly that we are all in agreement, and that it is all true what we say.
10 Ethicorum.
It seems that the opinions of the Sages are consonant. This is why it is not necessary for anyone, who is knowledgeable in natural things, to come to yield that the Art of Alchemy is not true, even though he does not know it, because it is enough to have witnesses such as Isocrates, Hermes and many others.
This science is nobler than all the speculative and practiced sciences (except the law, in which the salvation of the soul is extended by divine revelation) because almost all men who have a purpose to learn anything, in what sciences either, they learn them because of the inclination they have for gold or for silver, since it is through them that one can acquire all kinds of necessities. Since all things which are therefore noble of themselves, are more to be desired and to be chosen, than those which are noble because of some other, or by chance, wherefore, so far as it is, this science surpasses all the others. But this science, one learns it for the love of itself, because gold and silver inside and not outside, and the inquisition of truth is in it.
The same: Many ancient Philosophers affirm and learn, that this art is very true and a follower of nature, and regulating nature in its own matter, to the end, according to nature's intention, which nature alone could never achieve.
The same: The whole operation is natural because of the generation and the mixing, but with regard to the administration it is artificial as it appears in the cooking of meats.
in Novo Lumine.
If there is anyone who doubts the truth of the Art, he has only to read the very abundant writings of the very ancient Philosophers who are verified by reason and by experience: to whom one should not not to derogate from the faith, as from persons who are worthy of faith in their art: if, however, anyone makes it difficult to believe them, we know that there is no arguing against a person who denies the principles.
The same: What prerogative would all things in the world have more than metals? Why do we alone deprive them of the universal blessing of the Creator by the denial of the seed? the metals therefore have a seed, who is so foolish who does not believe that they can be multiplied in their seeds? The Art of Chemistry is true in its nature, nature is also true, but there is rarely a true artist.
The same: Anything that is without seed, in regard to its composition, is imperfect: he who does not believe in this indubitable truth, is not worthy to meddle in inquiring into the secrets of nature: for he nothing is born in the world that is deprived of seed. The seed of the metals is truly and truly put into them.
We always pick up such seed as we have sown, and we receive twice as much, since from a single grain we expect fruit, and then from this fruit there are other fruits to hope for. For I John of Padua, I swear at the last hour of my life, and want to die on it that this so excellent Art is found to be true and true, as it is written here without any deletion, but word for word, by hand. by hand.
In Tractatu de Lapide Philosophico.
I separated the Four Elements from some lower bodies by the help of nature and by artifice, so that I had each apart, namely, Water, Fire and Earth: and I purified each apart from myself as much as I could of their accidents, and this by some secret operation; I added at the end what I had purified, and there came to me an admirable thing, which does not allow itself to be subjugated by any of these inferior Elements. For if it remained always on the fire, it would never burn or transmute or change.
A little of this red stone, thrown on a lot of copper, made very pure gold.
God be blessed, who has given such power to men, that being an imitator of nature, he can change the natural species and that lazy nature does this for a long time.
This work is very true and perfect, yet I have suffered such great labor and so much stench and also such great inconvenience to my body, that I will resolve never to begin this work again, unless I am there. compelled by necessity.
What do you think, my very dear, will these witnesses here be enough to confirm the truth of the science of the Philosophers, or do you like it even more? I could very well satisfy your desire by means of the authority of several hundred other authors who will not be less than those I have just mentioned.
Sir, there is no need for you to take this trouble there, and even though I am quite sure of the truth of the thing, without the allegation of so many brave scholars, I would not find it wrong to stain to verify the science of the Philosopher's Stone by means of Holy Scripture itself.
You wouldn't hurt, if it could.
I don't know if you read in the Exodus of Moses in chapter 28 verse 30 which in my opinion, can very well be applied to the Stone of the Philosophers.
I have read and re-read the Holy Scriptures several times, but I do not know if I have precisely reflected on what you intend to utter.
I will therefore tell you the words which our great God spoke to Moses: Thou shalt put in the breastplate of judgment Urim and Thummin, which shall be upon Aaron's heart, when he comes before the Lord.
Now at this hour, you know, that Urim is as much to say as Lumière in French, and Thummin as much as perfection.
You also know that the First matter or the Menstrue of the Philosophers (of which, in which, by which and with which, according to the saying of the Philosophers, the universal must be made) is a shining matter, to which the true Philosophers also have for this gave the name of Aqua glacialis lucida, which is to say: Glistening icy water: and that the last matter which must come from it is the most perfect Being in all the World, this is also well enough known to all true Philosophers: and when this Urim is produced by nature and by art to the being of Thummin, or to the perfection of the Tincture, it seems to me that my sustained here is not much misled from believe that the Urim and Thummin, which the Almighty commanded Aaron to wear continually on his heart,were the beginning Light and the perfected end of the Philosopher's Stone.
I also believe that you agree with Me that Moses possessed the science of the grand universal.
Let us see what is written in Ezra in the second verse of the eighth chapter, of the Third Book: Just as if you ask the earth, it will tell you, that it produces a lot of earthly matter to make the pots: but to make the but it only gives a small amount of powder, etc.
It is by this that it is to be seen that Gold was made in those old times by a little powder. And pray what powder could it have been other than that of the Philosopher's Stone? in Latin called Pulvis projectionis, and in French Poudre de projection.
My very dear one must not understand that it is spoken here of the powder of the vulgar Earth, but of that which the Earth of metals produces by the conduct of a true artist.
What do we find written about it in the Second Book of Maccabees in the First chapter, verse 18 and following.
V.18. We therefore who want to make the purification of the Temple on the twenty-fifth day of the month of Casleu, we were told that it was necessary to notify you of this, so that you solemnize the day of the feast of tabernacles, and the day of fire alike. , when Nehemiah offered the sacrifices, after he had built the Temple and the Altar.
V.19. For when our fathers were brought into Persia, the Priests who then worshiped God took the Fire from the Altar secretly, and hid it in a valley, where there was a deep dry well: and kept it there, so that the place was unknown to all.
V.20. And when many years had passed, and it pleased God that Nehemiah was sent from the king of Persia, he sent the nephews of those priests who had stirred up the fire, to require him; and as they recited to us, they found no fire, but found swill.
V.21. And commanded them to draw it out, and to bring it unto him: and the priest Nehemiah commanded that the Sacrifices which were on the altar, and the wood, and the things which were put on it, should be sprinkled with this Water.
V.22. And when it was done and the time came, when the sun shone, which was before covered with a cloud: a great fire was kindled so that all marveled.
V.23. And while the sacrifice was burning, all the priests were praying, Jonathan was beginning, and all the others were answering. etc.
And in the following verses:
V.31. And when the sacrifice was all burnt, Nehemiah commanded that the larger Stones should be sprinkled with the remainder of the Water.
V.32. When this was done, the flame was kindled from here: but it was consumed by the light which shone from the altar.
V.33. And when this was manifested, it was reported to the king of Persia, that water had been found in the place where the priests who had been carried away had stirred up the fire, from which Nehemiah and those who were with him had purified the sacrifice.
V.34. And when the king had diligently examined the matter, he surrounded the place with a wall, and made it holy.
V.35. And gave great wealth there and distributed it there.
V.36. And Nehemiah called that place cepthar, which is interpreted Purification: but of many Nepthar.
And in the third chapter of the same Book is mentioned both the Holy Ash and the Holy Fire: for it is said in:
V. 5. Now there was in the same place a tower fifty cubits high full of ashes, which had a machine turning on all sides below in the hall.
V. 6. He who was convicted of sacrilege, or who had committed some other great crime, was thrown by all to death.
V.7. Now it happened that this prevaricator died of such pain, without being buried.
V.8. Which justly happened: for because he had committed many sins at the altar of God, where there was pure fire and ashes, also he himself was condemned to die in ashes.
See, my beloved, if it is not very apparent that this Holy Fire of the altar was not the same as the matter of the Stone of the Philosophers? which, being dried, is capable of kindling in a moment the materials which are easy to conceive the flame, and of causing in a very short time a prodigious fire, like that which is caused by lightning, where this said material does not consume itself, but becomes by the attraction of the air a greasy Water, which is doubtless capable of carrying out all the operations that the Water of the Altar could carry out, of which we will discourse (God helping) more fully when we deal with the Matter of the Stone or the Menstrue of the Philosophers.
Touching the Holy Ash: it is also very apparent that it was the ash of the Philosophers, since it allows itself to be separated a very fine Earth or Ash from the matter of the Philosophers very similar to the Ash of the woods or peat for the external aspect, which can be procured by iterative circulations of its Elements, of which we will also speak more broadly when we speak of the Four Elements, and especially of the Land of the Philosophers, which can be produced by the Nepthar or Cepthar at a so great purity and such perfection that it is able to do the same wonders as the ashes of the altar.
Even Gold, which is the heaviest of all metals, can be reduced, by this purification or Cepthar, to an ash so fine and so light that it can even swim on water like the common ash, of the same way as Moses undoubtedly pulverized the golden calf which he scattered on the water as it is to be seen in Deuteronomy Chap. 9. V.21 where it is said:
Then I took your sin which you had made, namely the calf, and burned it in the fire, and crushed it by grinding it well until it was fine as powder and cast powder from it to the river that descends the mountain.
It is here to notice, in passing, that it is said: I burned it in the fire, and broke it by grinding it well until it was small.
Moses will no doubt have used the material of the Philosophers to burn the golden calf in the fire, to break it and to grind it; because gold, as you know, does not allow itself to be burned, broken, or crushed fine by any other means than by that of the humid fire of the matter of the Stone, as we will say elsewhere.
Doesn't it seem to you that what we have said here for the confirmation of the truth of the Philosopher's Stone, and that it has been in the world for many centuries, should suffice? I am otherwise ready to verify it for you even more by stories of the true transmutation of metals into gold, which have even happened in the century we are living in: but since it seems to me that what you and I have recited and alleged here amply must suffice for persons who are endowed with a reasonable mind, and who love the search for truth, I shall cease to doubt with so many thousands, whether the Philosophers' Stone was once in the world, and whether the knowledge of it is still there, but will begin to speak with unmistakable assurance of the Stone Matter of the wise.
chapter IV.
Of the Stone Matter of the Ancient Sages. Account of the useless Labor of the author. The author's feeling for the matter of the Philosopher's Stone.
Everything you have reported from the Holy Scriptures is very worthy of note, because it puts the seal on our discourse, those who do not want to be satisfied with all that is said here, they will be able to be satisfied in the way as they see fit. please, we don't care. Let us continue to pursue our intention, and see, what it is of the true Matter of the Stone of the Philosophers and of what it must be prepared.
Well François, what do you think? Be frank and speak frankly.
Speaking to you frankly: I can tell you that I have read several Authors about it, and that I have discussed it with many people of my acquaintance who have also worked for a long time in Chemistry, and have found that they have, as well as I, worked for a long time in vain with the Count of Trévisan and with an infinity of others all wild and without any foundation, and that they made great expense and innumerable foolishness plants, Animals and Minerals, to this hour in one, after in several together; also in common Sulphur, in common Mercury, in common salt, and in an infinity of other particular subjects. But that in the end I have found nothing better than the double Mercury, which is reduced by its father to a Water which the Remora fish always makes cloudy,
You say many things there in a few words, and if you put a few more besides, it would not make it very difficult for you to make me believe that you possess the universal yourself.
No, my very dear, I do not possess this high secret, but what I have just said, and what I will try to utter next, I can do as a man of honor, and even though I consider myself unworthy of this great treasure of the wise, I find myself nevertheless obliged to pursue my enterprise, in the hope that the Holy Spirit will water my plan with its celestial dew! And you, my friends, have you not done things and foolishness as well before you had achieved something good? or do you have nothing worthwhile yet?
No no, I also have something good, but if I told you, that I did not use unspeakable labor and took unbelievable pains in vain, I would spare the truth: and for you show that I don't want to seal anything to you, but that I want to declare everything to you in all sincerity as to the best friend that I have in the world, I will beg you to have the patience to listen to a little how easy I have been to believe the fine words of the impostors, in how many kinds of matters I have been occupied, and how many years I have been seduced: it is very true that it would be impossible for me to tell you everything, since one would write a big book about it, which is not our intention here, I will tell you only a few of them, and will however seal the names of the seducers, even though they deserve to be put in public:however, those who have read their books will recognize them very well.
and after I had worked many years with great care, according to the order of the aforesaid lady, nothing remained but water and silver in the same way as they had been joined. together ; I suggest to all those who have the slightest knowledge, if it were not a very great folly to amuse themselves with things so unfounded, since rainwater has no ingredients in it. money, and that she cannot then make any alteration to it, let alone any amendment.
which transformed in twenty-four hours of time in the cold into a very fine silver cup; which operation I performed twice in succession with my own hands, and notwithstanding that I was then still quite ignorant of chemical operations, I nevertheless had the foresight, that after having seen Mercury coagulated into transparent crystals, that I I weighed them on a scale, and after seeing that these crystals weighed three or four times more than the mercury had weighed before, and that after the melting no more silver came out of them than quicksilver had weighed , I was however still able to know for as much as then, that the thing was not sincere, without having been able to give any fundamental reason for it; which is why I considered him a deceiver, and did not want to deal with him: having thought afterwards of this affair,
The same man also had a secret, of depriving red copper of its redness and whitening it, which he also highly valued; which he was actually doing by throwing a white powder on the red-hot copper, for the copper became white but brittle, and the borax he threw on it came out reddish: but since I noticed that by throwing this powder on copper he was very careful of the smoke it caused, I did not want to have to do with him, judging from that time that the smoke was poisonous, as it really is, since this said powder did not have was something other than arsenic, as I experienced enough afterwards in similar operations.
After this I had to talk for some years (by order of my boss) to a certain old and venerable German Alchemist, who had plowed and experimented a lot in Chemistry, and who also believed that he possessed a number of particulars and universals: but alas ! I found that he knew very little of metallic science. For at the beginning of his conversation he made me work with the spirit of armoniacal salt on atoms of silver, which had to be kept for a long time in digestion over a lamp fire, which was to grade a lot of gold there, but, I I experienced that the spirit of salt armoniac dissolved the copper, which had remained near the silver, in time, and made it a blue solution of dark Sapphire color, and that it left the silver without being graded in any way.
After this beautiful operation made me digest a long time salt spirit on fine silver atoms, and this in fine silver matrass, to prevent the glasses from being broken by the lamp fire; Nothing came of it but a highly fusible silver lime because of the spirits of salt which were concentrated there, but there was no graded gold in it: he decried this lime of argent to be a Lunar Mercury, and attributed to it many virtues, as well for the particular transmutations as for the universal ones, but nothing was found at the reduction but fine silver.
This being successful as before, he had me make several fulmens, to which he added the metals in the form of powder, saying that the souls of the metals would pass by means of these fulminations, and that from them one could fix dyes: I found by examination only very fine metal lime which had passed.
That from thundering gold one could draw the soul by the same method, and that then one had to fix it: but true as before.
That the oil of vitriol digested with tartar should produce a tincture: but vanity.
That by means of strong water cohobed over the hair of men one could obtain a tincture: but O tincture capable of embracing the life of men, and putting them to death by the terrible stench that fools them!
Only oil of sulfur alone could fix a dye.
That by means of the aforesaid Lunar Mercury pretended to be joined to the ashes of tin and cemented with scrapings of copper, the copper was to change into silver containing much gold: but the silver is most by vanished without leaving any appearance gold.
I have done such operations by the hundreds, which were only imaginary, nor in any way founded on the slightest foundations of the metallic art; until, at the end of about sixteen years, a friend who had pity on me, and on my indefatigable labors, cordially presented to me the true Menstrue of the Philosophers which I accepted with joy, and with great token of gratitude.
But before I cease to make you of my vain operations, it is necessary that I still be convenient to you with the narration of an operation or two still, which appeared externally to have some appearance of foundation.
A good royal water distilled over Antimony takes with it through the still a very red Sulfur which should be a dye for metals.
A solution of gold precipitated by a solution of silver made by strong water, and the precipitate being dulcified by common water should give a tincture by digestion.
Quicksilver being digested with potable gold (as he calls it) quicksilver does indeed transmute into very fine gold (as it seems) but I have never won but well lost gold at such operations: It happened to me, among other things, that I had made a good part of this so-called potable gold, which I had put in a porcelain bottle, on which I had applied a long neck of a glass flask ; having poured a good quantity of quicksilver into it, I applied it to the open fire, so that (according to the orders of Monsignor the Philosopher) the quicksilver, rising and falling often, could be fixed in quantity and with good profit: but when I had had the quicksilver sublimated the first time at the Neck of my bottle, it cooled there, and descending in fairly good quantity below on the molten and red potable gold of the fire, on which it was, my porcelain bottle broke into a thousand pieces in astonishment, so that I thus lost my porcelain bottle with my drinkable gold and my quicksilver, not without great peril to my life. The author of this potable gold had it published by a printed book, that he was going to demonstrate this transmutation of quicksilver into gold publicly in Amsterdam, and also did so in the presence of several respectable and dignified persons. study, who had come for this subject from Vienna in Austria, from Frankfurt, from Dresden in Saxony, from Leide, from The Hague, from Amsterdam, and from Friesland, which I could well name by name and nickname, since I I am the eyewitness, and have heard the speeches and the disputes which these Gentlemen made together touching this transmutation of mercury into Gold,
I will stop here to give you any longer discourse on this matter; I only wanted to let you know how many people run blindly to chemistry, how many there are who pass for brave philosophers, and even university professors, who have not the slightest knowledge of the transmutation of metals. : and how many there are who completely spoil themselves and many others with them.
I will tell you at this time my opinion of what material it seems to me that the Stone of the Philosophers must be made, and then I will try to confirm my opinion to you by the authority of a number of very excellent authors.
It is very true what you liked to say about the material of the Stone of the Philosophers; I also know very well that it has its origin in quicksilver, but the greatest difficulty we will have will consist in this, in what way it will be necessary to prepare this quicksilver to make it clean and capable of carrying out all that is said and written.
It is also very well known to me that the Mercury must be washed for several hours of its dirt and its black impurities, that it be dried, amalgamated, distilled, sublimated and prepared in such a way that it may by a loving virtue draw to itself the rays of the Sun and the Moon, and may it make them corporeal before it may deserve the true title of the matter of Stone.
I therefore hold for certain and for an unshakable foundation, that the matter of the Stone, or the menstruation of the Philosophers cannot be made outside the mineral kingdom, nor particularly without quicksilver, and that quicksilver is the only basis, on which all the orders of the columns of all Nature, of the mineral kingdom rest.
We shall speak in due time how this quicksilver can be reduced, by the aid of the two other Principles, namely by sulfur and by salt, into such a state, that the glorious and incorruptible birth of the Stone of the Philosophers must follow by the only circulation and conversion of its own Four Elements without addition of any foreign thing. my friend taught me, and on which I found in conformity with the truth all that the Philosophers wrote of the handling of the matter of the Stone of the Philosophers.
chapter V.
Due is one thing the Stone of the Wise must do, and proven by true authors. Strange names from which the Stone of the Philosophers is named. Confirmation of the authors, that the Stone of the Philosophers is made of a single material, and in a single manner and arrangement. That the Menstrue or the matter of the Stone of the Philosophers comprises in itself the perfect number of Ten.
Very well: I understand as well, that you have not been asleep in your time either, and that you have not spared your hands less than me in blackening them while handling the coals; that you have also troubled enough; and that we remain hitherto quietly in agreement respecting the matter from which the Stone of the Ancient Sages is to be prepared: Let us endeavor at this hour to verify with a large number of irreproachable authors, what we have maintained, and test very first that it must be only one being which contains everything from the beginning to the end.
Let's see what
Hermès Trimegiste in Tabula Smaragdina has to say about it:
Quod est superius est sicut id quod est inferius, et quod inferius sicut id quod superius, ad considerandum miracula rei Unius: et sicut omnes res fuerunt ex uno meditatione unius, sic omnes hæ res creataæ sunt ex una jac re adaptatione. etc.
That is to say: As above is as below, and as below as above, to consider the wonders of one thing, and as all things have been of one by the mediation of one, so all these things are created from this one thing by approval. etc.
Zenior Zadith: in digression authorized ad alia.
Sophismata sapientum dicunt: Res nostra est ex una re: non opinetur aliquis quod sit ex una re, sed ex diversis quæ præparatæ factæ sunt unum.
That is to say: The provident mottoes of the Sages say: Our business is of one thing: Let it be thought not of one thing, but of different things, which prepared are made of one thing.
The same: Est unum quod non moritur quamdiu suerit Mundus, et vivificat quodlibet mortuum, et manifestat colores occultos, et celat manifestos.
That is to say: Of the operation of Tincture: There is one thing which does not die as long as the World lasts, and which quickens all dead things, which makes the hidden colors manifest, and the hidden manifests.
Bernardus.
In re non variant autores, cum illa semper sit unica, sola, et eadem materia et ejusdem semper naturae, in qua nihil ingreditur quod non sit extractum ab ea, et hoc quod ipsi proximum, et de sua natura est.
That is to say: The authors do not vary in the thing, since it is always one, only and the same matter, and always of the same nature, in which nothing enters that is not drawn of her, and what is closest to her and of her nature.
Brother Ferrarius.
Lapis unus est, medicina una in qua totm magisterum consistit, cui non additur res extranca aliqua, neque midnightur nisi quod in preparatione superflua removentur.
That is to say: It is the same Stone, the same medicine in which the whole magisterium consists, to which nothing strange is added, nor anything taken away, except that in the preparation of here we remove superfluous things.
The same: Materia omnium generabilium et corruptibilium est una, nec deversificatur nisi per formas.
That is to say: The matter of all things which are born, and which are subject to corruption, is one, and it is not diversified except by forms.
The same elsewhere: Et una res totum est. That is to say one thing is the whole.
Bernardus.
Per Calib fatis aperte patet in hac arte non esse nisi duas materias spermaticas unius, et ejusdem radicis, substantiæ et essentiæ, scilicet Mercurialis, solius substanciæ viscosæ et siccæ, quæ nulli rei jungitur in hoc Mundo nisi corporibus.
That is to say: It seems rather uncovered by Calib, that there are in this art only two spermatic matters of the same root, namely of a substance and of a Mercurial essence, which is the only viscous and dry substance, which attaches itself to nothing in this world except bodies.
The same: Opus nostrum ex unica radice, et ex duabus sustantiis Mercurialibus, crudi, assumptis et ex minera tractis, puris et mundis, igne conjunctis amicitiæ, ut exigit ipsa materia, assidue coctis, usque dum ex duobus fiat unum, in quo quidem uno corpus spiritus, et iste corpus facta sunt a commixtione.
That is to say: Our work is made of a single root, and of two Mercurial substances, raw, taken and drawn from the mine, joined by the fire of friendship as the matter requires, which are continually cooked , until two become one, yet in this one the body is made spirit, and the spirit body, by commixition.
Sendivogius: in Dialogo.
Scito quod miji unus talis tantum est filius, unus ex septem est, and primus est; ipse quoque omnia est qui unus tantum crat; nihil est, and numerus ejus enteger est; in illo sunt quartet Elementa, qui tamen non est elementumm; Spiritus is qyi tamen corpus habet. etc.
That is to say: Know, that I have only such a son, he is one of the seven, and is the first, he is also all, who was only One; he is nothing, and his number is whole; the four Elements are in him who is however not an Element; it is a spirit which nevertheless has a body. etc.
The same:
Scito etiam pro certo, quod haec scientia non in fortuna, neque casuali inventione, sed in reali scientia locata est, et non nisi haec unica materia est in Mundo, per quam et ex qua præparatur lapis Philosophorum.
That is to say: Know also for certain that this science does not consist in fortune, nor in a casual invention, but that it has its place in a real science, and there is only this Unique matter in the World by which and from which the Stone of the Philosophers is prepared.
Joannes of Padua.
Our Water, when prepared, is called An ever-lasting and persistent Eternal Water, which can only be drawn from One Ray, which is beautiful as the glow of the sun.
The same: Since all metals become visibly transmuted by this artifice into quicksilver, it is a pleasing and evident sign; that all metals were quicksilver.
Petrus Bonus.
Exprese patet Solum Argentum vivum esse perfectium hujus operis, fine alijus sulphuris vel alterius rei commixtione.
That is to say: It appears expressly that quicksilver alone is the perfectant of this work, without the commixture of any sulfur or anything else.
Rasis: in 70. preceptis.
Mercury is the root of a thing, and it alone must be prepared, and from it will come forth a good tincture, a strong impression, and fortitude.
Alphadius.
All the work of the Sages and Philosophers consists in quicksilver alone, for those who came to the science of quicksilver did not know that the perfection of all their work was in quicksilver, of which quicksilver they were ignorant before. the substance.
Geber.
If you can perfect it by quicksilver alone, you will be an investigator of most precious perfection.
Petrus Bonus.
Quicksilver alone is the entire material cause, and all the substance of the Philosopher's Stone.
The same: We must progeny a quicksilver by some very secret and divine artifice, quicksilver alone, and this by means of the action of an external sulfur which is mixed with it from nature.
The same: All perfection consists in quicksilver alone.
Enough of the Unity of the Matter of the Stone of the Philosophers: I will try to make you certain at this time that this unique matter must be a Mercurial Water. Here is the authority of the authors who agree with me.
Bernardus. talk about it like that.
When this nature appears in the form of water, the Philosophers have called it quicksilver, permanent water, lead, moon spittle, tin, etc.
The same: It should be known that our mercurial water is alive, and a burning fire, mortifying and restringing gold more than common fire: and here is why, so much the better that it is mixed, rubbed, and ground with it, so much the more it destroys it, the more it becomes to be attenuated by this igneous living water.
Ex Epistola Eduardi Kellaeri. Angli An. 1587
All the Philosophers conclude together, that the Stone is nothing else but animated quicksilver: but if this quicksilver is not animated, it is not their intention.
Geber.in summa.
We have very exactly examined everything separately, and this with proven reasons: we have never been able to find anything permanent in the fire, that viscous moisture, the only root of all metals, all other moistures flee easily from fire by evaporation and by the separation of one Element from another, as water is made by fire, of which one part goes up in smoke, the other in water, the the other in earth remaining at the bottom of the vase; thus in all the others: because those which are not well united in homogeneity are consumed at the slightest fire, and are separated from their natural composition. But the viscous humidity, namely Mercury, never burns up in him, nor separates from his Earth, nor from any other of his Elements; for either they all remain, or they all go together, lest none of their weight perish.
Arnoldus of Villa Nova.
Let all your study be none other than digesting and cooking the Mercurial substance, and it will make the bodies (which are nothing but a cooked Mercurial substance) worthy according to their dignity.
Morienus & Aros.
Our sulphur, they say, is not a common sulphur, but a fixed and non-volatile sulphur, of the nature of Mercury and not of anything else. We follow very exactly nature, which has no other matter in its mines in which it operates than a pure Mercurial form, as also appears from very good reasoning, authorities and experience: There is fixed and incombustible sulfur in this Mercury, which completes our work without any other substance than a pure Mercurial substance.
Aros & Calib.
The Fire (they say) and the Mercury are sufficient for you in all our work, in the middle and at the end, but it is not so at the beginning: because it is not our Mercury, which is very easy to hear.
Sendivogius: in Dialogo.
The first matter of metals is of two kinds, but one does not create the metal without the other: The First and the main one is the humidity of the air mixed with the heat, this one the Philosophers have it called Mercury, which is ruled by the rays of the Sun and the Moon in the Sea of the Philosophers: the second is the dry heat of the Earth which they called sulphur.
The same. To the 7th treaty.
The Four Elements are dripping, in the first operation of Nature, through the Archaea of Nature, into the center of the Earth a heavy vapor of water, which is called Mercury because of its fluxibility.
The same. to the same treaty.
We do not say that the Mercury of the Philosophers is something common, and that it is openly named, but the matter from which the Philosophers make their sulfur and their Mercury: seeing that the Mercury of the Philosophers is not found of itself on the earth, but it is produced by the art of sulfur and Mercury joined together: it does not come to light, for it is naked but it is marvelously enveloped by Nature.
The same. to the same treaty.
Sulfur and Mercury are the mine of our Quicksilver (conjoined though) which Quicksilver has the power to dissolve metals, to scorch them, and to vivify them, which power it has received from sour sulfur of its own nature.
The same: Vulgar Mercury does not dissolve Gold nor Silver, let it no longer separate behind them, but our Quick Silver dissolves Gold and Silver, and is not separated into two. eternity like water mixed with water.
The same: We say that quicksilver is the First material of this work, and it is really nothing else: all that is added to it has its origin from it.
The same: I holy swear to you that Sulfur is most perfect in Gold and Silver, but easiest in Mercury.
The same: Prepare the quicksilver and the sulfur, and give the glass.
The same: Saturn: The Philosophers have done nothing without quicksilver, in whose kingdom sulfur is already king, and I don't know how to do anything else either.
The same: If you will not sublimate sulfur from sulfur and mercury from mercury, you have not found water, which is the quintessence which is created and distills sulfur and mercury: it will not rise who does not have not come down.
Johannes of Padua.
Our Stone comes from mercury, which is necessary for our work, which is a body, soul and spirit, but which comes and is made from an irreducible, perfect and very pure body.
The same: Our sulfur and mercury are the first matter.
The same: Our resolving water, living mercury, is the poisonous serpent in which our king dissolves and mortifies himself.
The same: The river which runs and passes through the garden of Paradise, and which then divides into four capital rivers to water the tree of life, which is our root, is none other than our Mercurial Water, in which there is much gold which is precious, hear our root, which is surrounded by fine Indian gold.
The same: The capital river, and the first divided Water called Pison, is in comparison our Mercurial Water, because it is the first river from which the other waters and rivers divide, hear the Elements.
The same: Since all metals are visibly changed by artifice into Quicksilver, it is a pleasant and certain sign that all metals have been Quicksilver.
Expositor in Lumine Luminum.
We must not entrust ourselves to the sublimated Mercury, but to that which is calcined after the sublimation: because when the white Mercury of the Philosophers is sublimated it is naturally volatile; but when it is coagulated by its force, it lets itself be calcined, fixed, and retained, and this force is the Gold of the Philosophers, and their key.
Lucas: in Turba Philosophorum.
Take the Quicksilver that came out of the male, and freeze it as usual.
Petrus Bonus.
Nature makes the generation of the bodies of all the metals of quicksilver and sulphur.
The same: Nothing remains attached to the metals except sulfur and quicksilver, and what is of them, since they are of the same nature.
Geber: De Procreation Veneris.
You must study yourself in all your works to overcome quicksilver in mixing.
The same: The consideration of the thing which perfects in the end, is the consideration of the choice of a pure substance of Quicksilver, and it is the means, which originated from matter and is made of 'She.
The same: God bless him, the glorious and the most high be praised, who created him, namely Quicksilver, and who gave him substance and properties of substance, which it is not permitted to any of the things in Nature, that it can be found in them.
The Same: It is that same Quicksilver that surmounts the fire, and is not surmounted by it, but rests amicably in it, being gladly with it.
Morienus.
If the white smoke were not, the pure Gold of chemistry could never be made.
Petrus Bonus.
Sulfur red, luminous, and hidden in quicksilver, since it is the forms of Gold, it tints and transforms all kinds of metals into Gold.
The same: It should be noted that the Philosophers have attributed: Lead to Saturn: Tin to Jupiter: Iron to Mars: Gold to the Sun: Copper to Venus: Silver to the Moon: but that they did not attribute any metal to Mercury, seeing that there are no other metals except the said, which are six in number: namely, which have reached coagulation, together with liquefaction and extension. And that is why the Philosophers returned to matter itself, from which the metals took their origin, since matter itself is their substance, and they all said, that it was Quicksilver, that they have attributed to Mercury: so that being constrained by the truth itself, they have put the matter of the metals of the number of the metals to fill the number of them according to the number of the Planets.
The same: If Gold is to be made from the Elements, it must necessarily go through ordered dissolutions: to know that it is made of it into a Viscous Water pregnant with a very subtle sulphurous Earth, which is Quick silver, but after that, by means of the mixing and the action of external sulphur, it is made in it (quick silver) of Gold, or some other metal, which becomes Gold afterwards.
The same: The first Matter, the closest and closest, and the unambiguous of all metals is Quicksilver, not as it is in its nature, but as it is coagulated by its own agent in minerals. of the earth, namely fusible sulphur, like sulfur itself, it is therefore Matter.
The same: Those therefore who labor in something other than quicksilver with sulfur, as Nature has taught it, they labor in vain.
The same: The fruit of man comes from the sperm as the efficient cause, and from the menses as from Matter. In the same way we also say, that the Gold and the Stone of the Philosophers certainly comes from Sulfur as the efficient cause, and from Quicksilver as from Matter.
The same: Since Gold is thus engendered, nourished, perfected, and accomplished by Nature, quicksilver alone digested of its external sulphur, and at the end stripped of it: The Stone of the Philosophers must therefore be engendered, nourished , perfect and accomplished of the same as Gold, and not of strange things.
The same: He who desires to follow Nature by the Chemical Art, he will not employ his labor on quicksilver alone, namely on vulgar quicksilver, nor on sulfur alone, namely common sulphur, nor with no other things intermixed, but neither to those of Nature, nor even to Quicksilver and Sulfur joined together, which may seem to be admirable: but in that in which they are joined of Nature, since Nature them prepared for the art as a servant. But Nature joins them from the beginning of generation, as she joins butter, cheese and whey in milk, which she digests afterwards and separates them together, and puts them in sequestration: in the same way 'Art.
My beloved François, you almost make our mornings too long, by reciting so many Authors who have written on the Matter of the Philosophers' Stone.
My dear one, it is necessary that I do this, because most people, learned as well as ignorant, not only find it hard to believe that it is in Nature, but even absolutely deny it. its being, and since we have no other intention than to produce things conforming to truth and experience, it is therefore the task of people of good and honor not to stain themselves with lies but to verify their words by the authority of authors and scholars, and who are esteemed such by all who have virtue and knowledge.
but that the Philosophers have understood by this only One and the same matter, and only one and the same handling; so much so that the Art of Alchemy is not only one with regard to Matter, but in any case; so that all the things, which are required in this art, are always reduced to One thing, as to its general kind, which does not accept any diversity: And a certain mark between this Unity and this, is, that all the scholars in this art always understand each other, even though they speak to each other in a very strange way, all the same as if they were speaking the same language, and the same language which does not is known only to them alone, which it could not be if the art were diverse and diversified into several, both affecting the Matter and with regard to the manner of operation and handling: this is why says.
Lilium.
The whole magisterium ends, by a path, by a thing, by a disposition, by an action, or by a way of acting.
Alphadius.
You only need one thing, namely Water, and one way of acting, which is to cook, and there is only one vessel, to make the White and the Red all together. .
Morienus.
Although the Sages would change their names and sayings, they nevertheless wanted to hear One same thing, and One disposition, and One path, and whoever seeks another Stone for this Magisterium, he will be compared to a man who tries to mount a staircase without steps.
Yesmudrus.
All names are true, yet they are counterfeit because they are One thing, and One opinion, and One way.
Hercules Rex Sapiens.
This Magisterium proceeds from One single first root, and extends afterwards into many things, and returns again into One.
Morienus.
This thing or this Matter, as well for the White Tincture as for the Red, is only one, and a disposition, and a way, and a vessel, and a term and an end, and a way of operating, and all things are one but which is learned in many and almost an infinity of ways.
The same: All colors change in a disposition, but as the more the fire changes its colors, so many more names do they give it.
Very abundantly: and if there is anyone who might wish to know more, he can take the trouble to look at the authors whom I have just mentioned, he will find complete satisfaction therein: but it seems that a thing must here be made clear, namely, that we here mean not merely by the First Matter the astral seed, or the spiritual and incorporeal seed of the metals, but the corporeal sperm of them, into which the spiritual seed is drawn by the magnetine virtue, and in which it has become, by the spiritual Nitre of the air, to a grayish and thick oil, which appears by day in the heat of the sun like olive oil, and at night like frozen water shining on all sides like polished silver, and which for this reason is called, with justice, Aqua glacialis lucida, which is to say:shiny icy water.
You do well to give this warning here, for our discourse here does not tend to that First Matter, from which the Great God bestowed his womb in the Sun of Heaven at the beginning when he created the Light, from which all mixtures, by means of Air and Water, receive their vegetating and living nature in the Earth; but here we mean such Matter, which, when born, arises and appears in form and form from a thick Water, the color of a Chalcedony or a rain-laden cloud which contains: First: The First
Matter metals, or their astral seed.
Secondly: The Two Opposite qualities: The Wet and the Dry.
Third: The Three Principles: Sulphur, Mercury and Salt.
And in the fourth place: the Four Elements: Fire, Air, Water and Earth, according to the weight of Nature, and the perfect number of ten; and all this in A metallic Water made by Nature.
chapter VI.
Interpretation of the strange names that the Ancient Sages gave to the Stone of the Philosophers. Author's experience touching the Green Lion. The reason why so many kinds of names are given to the Stone of the Philosophers.
It is thus as you say: but before we finish this chapter, we will try to speak a little more clearly about this First Matter, to entertain ourselves a little more in Unity, and to make an interpretation, as succinct as as possible, of the names that the authors, whom you had taken the trouble to allege, who possessed the Stone of the Philosophers, gave to their First Matter, so that you can judge whether I discuss it with good foundation, and in order that all who are lovers of this science may keep themselves from all impostors and deceivers, and may they constantly believe with us, that there can be no other Matter in the World, from which the Gold and the Stone of the Philosophers can be prepared, than that of which we are now discussing.
This Matter is called Chaos by Hesiod, Ovid and others who follow them, and this with very profound reasons: for as Chaos is understood to mean matter raw, confused and bound in a single matter, of which all the mixed had their natural being. So also is this matter in the Mineral Kingdom a Chaos, or raw matter, confused and bound in a single matter, from which Gold and the Stone of the Philosophers have their origin, the other metals becoming by accident Lead, Tin, Iron, Copper and Silver, and in case one could say that a palpable matter can be without color, one could call this matter or Chaos of the Philosophers such, having almost no color, containing yet in it hid all the capital colors, such as black, white, yellow, green, blue,
This matter is also called Chaos, because, even though it is made naturally out of metals, in metals, with metals and by metals, by celestial influences, without any addition of hands, of Fire, of Water, nor from the Earth, no metallic body can ever be seen there nor taken out of it.
It is called by Bernard Comte Trévisan, Fontina: since it is a true Fountain of life, and like all created things, and even the three other Elements cannot exist or subsist without Water: So the same is this a Fountain of life for the three Kingdoms, the vegetable, Animal and Mineral, since it prepares in it a Water of life, namely a Universal Tincture for all that it vegetates and for all that has life.
Aqua Glacialis Lucida: because it appears like shiny ice in the cool of the night, mainly in winter, when it appears so by day as well as by night.
Aqua Viscosa: because it looks like glue anyway, and sticks to metals like glue sticks to woods and other materials that have an affinity with it.
Menstruum Philosophicum: because, as the menstrual blood gives food and maintenance to the fetus until its entire perfection: that thus this menses also makes its child, of which it is pregnant, partaker of its blood and its virtue vegetating until the achievement of its perfection.
Aqua unctuosa: because it sometimes has not only the outward appearance of an ointment, but as an ointment is applied to wounds to soothe and heal them; that thus in the same way this ointment comes to cure the diseased metals, ladres, imperfect and wounded by the imperfect sulphurous mercury, and produces them even until the perfection of Gold, to which Nature has predestined them.
It is called from Sendivogius:
Aqua Pontica et manus non madesaciens: because it cannot be prepared without the common salt of the Sea, nor without the vitriol, which are hidden in the Sea, notwithstanding that they must be washed and clarified from all their impurities by ascension and by descension. She does not wet her hands before her astral impregnation: she does not wet her hands when she appears, by the operation of Nature alone, (without any application of Art or of the hand) like a sandarac gum, juniper, plum or cherry attached to the side of the glass, as I still keep it out of curiosity at home. It does not wet the hands, when the Element of water is separated from them for the most part, suaviter et mago cum ingenio (as Hermes says) that is to say: gently and with great spirit; and that matter has become ponderous and heavy like quicksilver.
Hermes Trimegiste calls it:
Superius et inferieus, because the astral seeds above are conceived from the metallic sperm below, and they have together become a fertile metallic matter, whose father is the Sun, and the mother the Moon, (according to Hermes says) what I mean, in this way: whose father is the Sun or the Astral Fire, and the Mother, the three Elements below, the Air, the Water, and Earth, which are initially hidden and invisible in the womb of Water.
Paracelsus gives it the name Azoth and Green Lion. Azoth is to say a purifying matter; and what purifies metals more than our Matter? seeing that it causes them to return to their mother's womb, and that it helps them, first by Putrefaction, to pass through the color Black, and then afterwards by degrees, through the color White, and through the Red, until the perfection of the dyeing, and this by iterative Solutions and Coagulations.
Touching the Green Lion: I cannot judge otherwise, except that Paracelsus must have prepared this tincture by the addition of Venus, since the color green shows itself very little when one proceeds with the menses alone; and only among the colors of the rainbow, and what confirms my opinion, is an experiment that I took from it; and you, my dear, what do you think?
Without interrupting your interpretations, I will tell you in a few words what happened to me concerning this subject; I intended to prepare the Medicine in two different ways: One by the Menstrua alone, the other by the addition of a few metals and principally by the addition of Venus, of which I had indeed added a full ounce. whole to menstruation: The first has passed through the different degrees of the capital colors, namely through the color Black, through the White, even to the red, but touching the other there has always appeared some greenery near the color Black as well as after the White and the Red, and it still shows itself there, notwithstanding that all matter appears of a gnawing deep color, when it is reduced to the Element of Earth, and this green color appears more particularly when the dew of the sky is brought down on it, but as soon as the Element of Fire begins to predominate again, all the matter immediately becomes again of a deep red color like that of the blood of beef ; I have contributed everything I could to try to separate the green color from matter, to see if it would not be possible to separate something material from it other than the said red powder, which left always join to our moist fire of a red color, but which would not melt into a green color in the element of Water, but it has been impossible for me until now to produce anything else from it what I just said; which seems to me to be an infallible mark, that Venus, as well as the other metals,
This operation revealed to me another thing worthy of remark; that is, when I had reduced all my greenery down to about the amount of a teaspoon, and put the corporeal or earthly matter near the red matter, that this green liquor is so concentrated, that It is quite capable of dyeing five to six pots of rainwater or fountain water, if it is poured into it.
You very wisely instituted this experiment, even though it would only serve to give assurance to those who cannot believe that metals can be reduced to their first matter: and to naively confess the truth to you, I have also been very incredulous than all the other ignoramuses, until I experimented, that a green color does indeed remain for a very long time, but that I have never been able to withdraw a body from it that it has let itself be redissolved. a green color.
It also seems to me, that it appears by this real operation, what Sendivogius comes to say of the destruction of metals:
Qui ita scit destruere metalla ut per amplius non sint matalla, ille ad maximum pervenit arcanum.
That is to say: He who knows how to destroy metals in such a way that they are no longer metals, he has reached the highest of secrets.
And Paracelsus: Facilius est metalla construere quam destruere.
It is easier to build metals than to destroy them.
Basile Valentin: Call our matter. Mercurii Spiritus: because there is nothing to do in our work without the Spirit of Mercury or quicksilver, since it is he who kills and revives, and it is he who completes the work whole from the beginning to the end, and that without it our art is vain. (Hear the spirit of the quicksilver of the Philosophers and not the spirit of the vulgar Mercury.)
Raymundus Lullius calls it: Aqua coelica: and this with very fundamental reasons; because the impression, which is made in this Water, to produce a celestial fruit, came down from Heaven, without which this fruit could never be produced.
Norton Anglus calls this matter Miraculum miraculorum: seeing that greater marvels cannot be done by any thing in the world than by this: for there can hardly be a greater marvel, than when a spiritual thing , impalpable, incomprehensible and invisible comes down from Heaven, and lodges in a body which is composed of the four elements and which reaches, by the Wise conduct of an Artist, a being who is capable of perfecting not only imperfect metals , but to transform them even up to a celestial being.
Le Petit Paysan calls it: The juice of the White Lilies: no doubt because this material is drawn from mineral and metallic salts which are white like the Lily.
From the Peat of the Sages it is named Aqua Lunae; which is to say the Water of the Moon, or Argentum vivum: because the Moon is taken for the mother of humidity, and this matter is a quicksilver, which makes the metals, which are dead, participants of life.
Others call it Acetum acerrium, Lake Virginis, Sapo Sapientum: which is to say: Very sour vinegar; Virgin's milk; Le Savon des Sages, and give it an infinity of other names, which are very easy to understand for those who understand the art, but the ignorant who stop at letters and words do not see a thing;
This is why Lilium says: Nostri Lapidis tot sunt nomina quot res, vel rerum notabilia.
That is to say: Our Stone has so many names that there are things, noteworthy things.
Rosine.
Philisophi millibus millium legionum nomium ipsum nuncupararunt, und homines eo errare secerunt.
That is to say: The Philosophers have named the Stone of the Philosophers many millions of legions of names, from which they have led men astray to seek it.
This is said enough of the material of the Stone of the Philosophers, of the names of it, and also of Unity, and this for the heard in this art: concerning the ignorant, too much has already been said for them, since they cannot or do not want to understand what is said about it, since they rather hate the arts and the sciences than they love them according to the proverb: Ars non habet osorem nisi ignorantem. That is to say: Only the ignorant hate the arts.
It is truly so: and I find it difficult to abstain from recounting to you an encounter or two that I have had, among other things, concerning this subject.
When I was in France I had the honor of accompanying several people of status to help make a very curious chord of viols at the home of a very noble matron who touched the Bass Continuo, where there was among others a great Lady, to whom being asked her judgment of this beautiful harmony, which was highly approved of all the circumstances, she comes to answer that she preferred to hear a hurdy-gurdy with a musette at the assemblies of the villagers than to listen to music with so much patience.
Another dared to maintain that there was no finer music in the world to his taste than the sound of a drum.
Alas! there are so many of this sort of people in the world, that it is not worth while amusing ourselves to cite more examples of them.
You are right, it is better that we continue our discourse by considering the Number Two which the Ancients called: Primium Unitatis germen et prima procratio. That is to say: The first germ or offspring of Unity, and the first procreation.
Very well: we will therefore finish this first book and the first step of the staircase of the sages: and will invoke the Eternal Unity from the innermost of our souls with Ten sighs appropriate to Divine Unity, saying: O Unique God
!
O Simple Unity!
O single Eternity!
O unique wisdom!
O unique principle of all beings!
O Unique uncreated Light!
O All One Power!
O Unique infinite Goodness!
O Unique Creator of the World!
O Unique Father of all created beings!
Through your Unique Divinity let us know our humanity!
By your simple Unity, our multitude!
By your One Eternity, our temporality and our corruptibility.
By your Unique Sapience, our ignorance and our stupidity.
By your Unique Principle of all things, our nullity and the nothingness of all created things.
By your unique uncreated Light, the darknesses and obscurities of all things.
By your unique Almighty our weakness and fragility.
By your infinite and unique Goodness, our perversity and our malignity.
Make us understand that you are the Unique Creator of the Grand Universe and that we are your vile and abject creatures. And that you are the only Father of all created things, and that we are your poor and miserable children whom you have created and make to do your divine will, to learn to know you by the knowledge of your creatures, to adore you, to praise you, to honor you, to thank you, and to serve you, here below temporally as long as it pleases your paternal goodness to leave our souls allied to our spirits and our bodies, and then afterwards eternally, when it is your divine will to untie them together, and then to reunite them, and finally to bring them up into your eternal glory: Please, Lord, enable us for this end,
So be it.