The White Work
JOSEPH RICORDEAU
1975
PREFACE
Alchemy captivated me because it is above all a mysticism, an asceticism, an elevation of the soul towards the mysterious beauties of nature and life in general.
Having read around ten of the main works recently published on Hermetic science, I have noted how much divergence reigns within alchemical writings.
Between authors who have not practiced the art of the stove, and those who are philosophers through fire, how great the distance is!
I am curious by nature, and I wanted to check if the hermetic language was a myth as many people believe, from illiterates to the greatest scholars.
For this, there is only one solution: the practice of experiments.
It is deplorable that some scientists treat the issue with contempt and casualness.
And I find them “funny” for wanting to explain alchemy instead of practicing it!
Knowledge, which has a strong smell of sulfur (I have experienced it); can only be acquired through the hands.
You have to struggle with matter to see its spirit shine.
No intellectual escape is possible here. Which obviously explains the small number of “true philosophers by fire”.
Georges Ranque, author of a recent book entitled “The Philosopher's Stone”, seems to me to be a very good example to illustrate my thoughts.
He claims to have put his life at the service of modern technology while cultivating hermetic art through the reading of ancient texts.
Like all chemists, he believes that the “matras” must be filled with known chemicals.
Thus Philosophical Mercury would be composed of antimony trichloride or mercuric chloride, which for me, as for Armand Barbault, is obviously false.
Hermetic language is an imaged, symbolic, almost biblical language.
To understand it, you certainly need inspiration, but above all practice.
Therefore, how can we admit that dozens of so-called scholarly books were written by scientists, certainly, but not adepts!
The student risks going astray while reading such books.
DISSOLUTION - PUTREFACTION
SEPARATION
DISSOLUTION
After many unsuccessful attempts, I dissolved five hundred grams of "vegetable magnesia", the raw material of the great work, finely ground, in a flask containing an acid heated to sixty degrees.
The composition of this spiritual or mercurial water is a secret that no alchemist has revealed. I think I have to follow tradition.
“The secret fire” dissolves naturally and without violence the raw material which then becomes like a blackish and stinking mud.
Thus the dissolution is accomplished.
PUTREFACTION
Everything is then left to ferment in a damp and cold place for forty days.
A dark brown material is deposited at the bottom of the vessel, which is not yet rotten enough (“the blackbird”), which recalls the universal jolt.
The magisterium having to be done when the sun is in exaltation, that is to say when spring begins, it is now necessary to obtain dew which will be used to soak the dissolved matter.
With this astral spirit or "Virgin's milk" I watered the "leafy earth" and let it dry out until it became black, very black.
I then exposed it to the sun to complete the rotting. (A mirror makes it possible to obtain polarized light.)
Here we have arrived at the “Black Work” or “Darkness”, or the raven's head of the first work.
SEPARATION
Before completing the rotting, it is necessary to separate the red citrine mercurial water from the dissolved material.
This orifice water will later be used for the second work: the sublimations, and the final concoction of the third work.
You must therefore prepare a fairly large quantity and keep it in a cold place.
This separation will be done slowly, without fire, with great industry.
When the tilted bottle containing this water no longer contains “black streaks”, the purity is sufficient.
SECOND WORK
THE EAGLES OR SUBLIMATIONS
CALCINATION
We now enter the second work which consists of obtaining the “Rebis”, that is to say the union of two things, namely mercury and sulfur of mineral origin.
The student should know that this is in no way a matter of flowing mercury or ordinary sulfur.
I quickly built a device to sublimate with a glass from an old kerosene lamp and two small terracotta vases. All placed on an electric stove. At the top of the neck, a safety valve must be placed to avoid explosion.
It should be noted that when the material is dry there is no longer any risk (even at high temperatures).
“We have to mount the eagles seven times. »
As I did not know at all how to proceed in this reputedly difficult operation of the work, I heated the “raven's head” or leafy earth to three hundred degrees for five days.
The head not having whitened much, I watered it again with mercurial water then dried it at three hundred degrees for a day.
At the top the material became ash and gray-brown in the center.
To raise the third eagle I repeated the same operation and noticed after dissolving the stone that the liquid on the surface became: “coffee cream”.
I heated it for a day at three hundred degrees and did not obtain a better result.
Note, however, that the neck of the vessel is covered in its wall with a white powder which has a very strong smell of sulfur.
This whiteness is due to “the sending of the two doves”.
Remembering “Philalethes”, I tried to make the fourth eagle rise “by submerging the blackish rabid dog with the waters of the flood”.
Practically, because one should not make a world out of hermetic symbols, I took lightly boiled tap water and poured it into the earthenware vase so that it floated on the stone.
By gradually heating it up to four hundred degrees, the next day the crow's head began to turn white.
Looking at the glass of my kerosene lamp I noticed that a halo had formed just above the vase containing the calcined material. (Sunday April 28, 1974.)
Subcitrine in color, it is a symbol of the resurrection of Christ but also of the alchemist who works.
The student will note that the sublimations are carried out just at the first quarter of the “Red Moon” (April twenty-ninth in nineteen seventy-four).
Since the beginning of my work at the furnace, I have always carried out key operations under favorable skies.
In any case, you should know that late autumn and winter are made to dissolve and rot.
The beginning of spring completes the corruption. Then come the sublimations that I describe.
The stone having a vegetative soul, it changed color every day.
Sometimes it blushes a very pure red, sometimes it turns green with a pale citrine green.
In the neck of the ship, the color stabilized at mauve-brown.
FIRST IMBIBITION
When the stone was fixed to very pure silty red-brown, I stopped the external fire to move on to the first imbibition.
I let the material cool a little, then poured virgin solar milk over it, that is to say citrine mercurial water.
A violent crackling sound occurred, and immediately the stone turned purple.
I then resumed the exterior fire, slowly at first, then gradually, up to two hundred and eighty degrees.
When I put the matra glass back, the purple color disappeared to give way to a beautiful golden orange coming from the mercury.
“A golden angel” immediately came to place his halo on the glass, while a white vapor rose to the top of the neck.
The humidity was overcome after an hour and I again raised the fire to four hundred and fifty degrees.
A whiter film formed on the surface while the material became brighter.
I leave experience here for a moment to give some advice.
The temperature should not exceed five hundred degrees above which the material would vitrify by sticking to the vessel.
“The vase of Hermes” must be of suitable dimensions, because without this the work is lost in advance.
The quantity of material heated should not exceed half the contents of a normal sized chicken egg.
Its shape is not very important. Some alchemists cook an egg-shaped matra of good white glass, others a glazed terracotta vase.
The latter is more resistant to heat but it does not allow the colors of the material to be seen.
But let's go back to the experience.
After the false citrine whiteness, a gray blue (Lapis Lazuli) appeared.
After seven days of cooking, the material turned purple then “wine lees”.
One morning, on the twenty-second of May, I accidentally overturned the terracotta crucibles.
Under the violence of the shock, the vase containing the material split and the stone escaped in one piece, like when you unmold a cake.
The impure part was suddenly separated from the pure part, and I was surprised to see that the majority of the stone was made up of brick-red sulfur.
So all I had to do was put the pure part back into the fire in the big crucible. After letting the material cool, I soaked it again with the red citrine mercurial water.
SECOND IMBIBITION
When the stone had quenched its virginal milk, I put it back on low heat overnight.
It became “brown red”, then “ash white” and finally “citrine white”.
I then pushed the fire again to four hundred and eighty degrees, and the material shone more and more. (Temperatures are taken under the crucible.)
More alive than ever, the stone changed color every hour.
It became slightly iridescent, turning purple and green with a softness of yellow.
Then it turns pink around its body with a pinkish color bordering on orange.
It looked like a speckled raspberry, studded with very brilliant mercurial dots.
Here I summarize the colors in order for the first two imbibitions.
First imbibition
1. Violet.
2. Orange and brown.
3. Citrine white.
4. Soft green.
5. Pale blue.
6. Lead color.
7. Pale purple.
8. Wine lees.
9. Brick red.
8 days May 14 to May 22, 1974
Second imbibition
May 22 to May 26.
1. Red brown.
2. Ash white.
3. Citrine white.
4. Iridescence: purple green and yellow.
5. Rosé and orange.
6. Raspberry.
7. Brick red.
4 days
The expression that is best suited to sum up all its colors is provided to us by a member of the Rosé-Croix society: Robert Fludol.
The stone, although mineral, is comparable to a plant, an admirable and pure rose that flowers on the cross.
Crucify in Alchemy means to dissolve and putrefy.
After four days, the material no longer changing color, I judged it appropriate to stop the external fire.
So I let the stone cool, then soaked it with solar virginal milk.
When it had softened, I coagulated it again by heating it overnight at eighty degrees. Then I raised the outside fire again to two hundred and eighty degrees for a day.
The stone darkens slightly, then quickly bleaches to a dirty white.
In the space of a day it completes the color cycle until it reaches weight.
Finally the purple and dark color appeared. The next day the stone was purple.
I stopped cooking there and decided to carry out the fermentation with the “perfect body”.
FERMENTATION
I took ten grams of fine twenty-four carat gold, and twenty grams of red-brown sulfur which I mixed with thirty grams of philosophical mercury.
All put in a bottle heated to sixty degrees.
Almost immediately the gold seemed to dissolve and the liquid turned blood red.
As it dried, the material became darker.
It should be noted that the philosopher's stone in fermentation plays the role of flour, while leaven is gold or the perfect body.
And as all bakers know, you need more flour than leaven; therefore I took one part of gold for two parts of sulfur or stone.
“The bread” that comes out will itself become a new ferment to fertilize a new quantity of matter.
We can therefore multiply the stone infinitely without needing to buy a lot of gold.
Having therefore put the stone to ferment on Saturday the first of June, nineteen hundred and seventy-four, I waited eight days before raising the temperature from one hundred degrees to three hundred.
Immediately the stone became lead colored. Then slightly orange-yellow.
An important sign formed on the sealed lid of the Pyrex: the impeccably drawn, brilliant white crescent moon.
Many alchemists have seen this sign on their ships.
It perhaps means that the work is on the right track. But we can also envisage a much deeper meaning.
D proves that the macrocosm is equal to the microcosm. “Whatever is above is like everything below. »
It’s the Emerald Table that says it.
But this is nevertheless a truth contested by current science, which unfortunately for us is not very far in advance in this area!
Chemically we do not know why the evaporation of a certain hard-heated solid forms a crescent of salt drawn on the lid of the container.
The fact of being able to reproduce on a reduced scale certain phenomena such as: a lunar eclipse, the universal flood and the end of the world, the Milky Way, etc., proves that alchemy above all provides knowledge of matter, total illumination.
All the work done in the laboratory leads to this.
We are therefore far, it is true, from popular opinion which generally believes that the alchemist is a half-sorcerer who only thinks of getting rich.
But back to our fermentation.
On the thirteenth day I raised the temperature to about four hundred degrees.
The surface of the stone became more and more shiny.
Underneath the material was orange-red tending to loamy brown.
On the seventeenth day the orange-red appeared dotted with brilliant mercurial points.
I took a strip of gold buried in the stone to see its reaction to sulfur and heat during this fermentation.
The gold seemed deprived of strength, more dull and allowed itself to be torn like paper.
This experience confirms the alchemical tradition which claims that philosophical mercury is a salt of celestial virtue which extracts the living force from each body.
Finally, around the twentieth day I stopped the fermentation by turning off the outside heat.
Each metal has a body and a soul. The soul is its color and has medicinal properties.
Mercury joined to gold and heated removes the (philosophical) soul.
All that remains afterward is a pale, dull body.
And yet gold is still considered today as a metal unalterable by fire and mineral salts.
THIRD WORK
EXALTATION
DISSOLUTION - DIGESTION - COAGULATION
IMBIBITION
I removed the fermented gold from the sulfur and conscientiously crushed what remained of the stone, sprinkling it with a beautiful citrine red mercurial water.
When the matter was dissolved, I immediately separated the impure part.
I poured philosophical mercury again, so as to float the material, then put everything in a cold and humid place for several days.
An oily, white foam appeared on the surface of the bath.
I slowly heated it again to eighty degrees. The liquid part which was floating above the material was itself transformed into white salt in crystallized plates.
We therefore see that red sulfur, an incombustible material which has reached a certain purity, promotes the coagulation of mercurial water, which itself transforms into sulfur.
The happy alchemist can therefore, with an average quantity of philosophical mercury, multiply his stone in quantity and quality.
Ten for quality, since the fact of opening and closing, dissolving and coagulating, blackening and whitening, gives greater strength to our elixir.
On the fourth day the material became much more pale and leaden.
I increased the temperature to three hundred degrees. I almost got dry blackness.
Adding a little more mercury, I continued the calcination until it turned red-brown. I had the element of fire.
We were in the first quarter of the June moon.
DISSOLUTION
With mercurial water I gradually dissolve the stone until I obtain a blood-red slurry.
I then digested it at low temperature, twice for five days, to dissolve all the material and combine the mercury and sulfur.
At the end of five days, I united the two dissolutions;
then heated again slightly higher (eighty degrees), so as to coagulate the material.
I was trying to make the lid of the Pyrex airtight with wax.
After throwing away the black and impure matter.
DIGESTION - COAGULATION
Gradually digestion took place. The fixed flew away with the volatile and the union of the two mercurial and sulphurous principles began to become serious.
We were under the water sign of Cancer, very favorable for this operation.
After about ten days I judged that the material was well prepared, that is to say that the solution was made.
I put the mattress in cold water to obtain the separation of the elements.
The red fixed sulfur settles at the bottom and I separate the oily water which was floating (Orific Mercury). All this around July tenth.
Having then put the matras on a fairly violent fire, around two hundred degrees, the material blackened overnight and became dry and cracked. I had just gotten the raven's head third work.
I then added a little orific mercury and ground everything to obtain a “red-brown” slurry again.
The next day, crystallization was obtained. A potential philosophical gold cactus began to grow in a reddish liquid.
I had finally obtained the royal son more perfect than his parents (the Androgyne).
By gradually increasing the temperature I managed to avoid the explosion, which is incredibly lucky. In fact, many alchemists fail the third work because of the accidental opening of the highly heated matra.
When the material dried, I fed it with virginal milk.
After two days of cooking the volume of the material had doubled.
The philosopher's stone in its final stage looks more like a plant growing in a vase than a metallic and mineral extract.
Finally I had succeeded in attaching life to philosophical mercury.
The crystal emerging from a boiling liquid caused me a deep, mystical joy.
I feared paying dearly for these unforgettable moments with an explosion or the electric heater stopping.
As for the seal of Hermes, I feared nothing, because it consisted of a cork forced into the neck of the matras.
This therefore constituted an elastic closure, not completely waterproof and making it possible to avoid the explosion without the majority of the subtle and regenerative winds escaping.
On the third day, the crystallized stone had quadrupled in volume and appeared like a mountain massif surrounded by sparkling glaciers, later crossed by a source of life water in perpetual movement. (All heated to two hundred degrees.)
This is perhaps what “Philalethes” means when he speaks of the philosophical fountain; fountain of Sal-macis, fountain of Youth, probatic pool.
We also find in Nicolas Flamel's book a passage relating to this experience.
“On the fifth page there was a beautiful flowering rose bush in the middle of a beautiful garden, nestling against a hollow oak, at the feet of which bubbled a fountain of very white water which was about to be thrown into the abysses, nevertheless passing first between the hands of infinite peoples who dug in the ground looking for it: but because they were blind, no one knew it, hardly anyone considering the weight.
This gushing fountain, enclosed in matter, also demonstrates the reality of the theory of the four elements.
Until now I have not yet addressed this problem, so many books having dealt with it very well: from the theoretical point of view only.
As everyone knows, the four elements are: water, air, earth and fire.
Apparently, water and fire are great enemies. In reality,
When I pour virginal milk or red citrine mercurial water, on the solidified stone, normally, if this water did not have "celestial" properties, it should partly evaporate, and leave only mineral salts.
Here, on the contrary, water joins the burning earth, penetrates it, fertilizes it, enlarges it, regenerates it and, by mixing with the air, makes us contemplate this grandiose spectacle of the glaciers that I have described. above. Chemically this operation is impossible.
You simply have to see it to believe it. Certainly, I cannot explain this phenomenon using current science made up of formulas, which, far from making the layman understand, rightly causes him to despair; because man is not only a being endowed with reason, but a sensitive, intuitive heart, capable of understanding at once through illumination a whole set of phenomena that current chemistry with all its proud pretension cannot achieve. nothing to grasp.
Modern scientists, especially from the seventeenth century onwards, deny the miracle, spontaneous generation, and imagine they will one day be able to demonstrate mathematically, clearly, all the phenomena of nature.
Lavoisier, the idol of chemists, should have long ago, if there was wisdom in this world, been debunked and replaced by the much more glorious statue of Nicolas Flamel.
Only, if one day we got there, and this is, I think, impossible (because history is only an eternal beginning), the world would be so disrupted that our so-called consumer society would only be a bad memory.
“All men will be equal when they are immortal” is a Rosicrucian thought which well illustrates my way of seeing things.
In the system, as it is currently based, the powers of this world certainly have an interest in ignoring alchemist theories.
Since the beginning of the world, this has happened invariably.
Some followers having succeeded in finding the secret of gold, they were immediately locked up or prevented from working.
To return to Lavoisier who stupidly exclaimed: “Nothing is lost, nothing is created”, I think he is right but only in the first part of his prophecy, if we can use such a sublime word to such an incredulous man.
I therefore replace his formula with this one which seems much more accurate to me. Nothing is lost, but everything can be created.
But let's return to our cactus, which on the sixth day, had reached five centimeters high.
Obviously, as long as I don't raise the temperature above two hundred degrees, the matter appears black, at least externally.
When the sealed matrass is almost full, I would gradually raise it to whiten.
Unfortunately, I forgot that I needed a fairly large amount of mercurial water to soak the stone through its final development.
So I have to stop the growth and raise the temperature.
On July 19, the top of the stone became much less black.
Taking advantage of the change of sign in the zodiac, I increased the temperature by two hundred and fifty degrees.
Indeed, after cancer (June twenty-first to July twenty-second), we fall under the sign of Leo, the fire of summer.
The vegetation having reached its maximum, matures and perfects itself under the fire of the sun which is aware of its power.
I noticed how long the regime of Saturn (black and unique color) is, in principle forty days, following “Irénée Philalethes”.
However, we must be wary of this philosopher, who appears candid, but in reality is deceitful and a liar.
By July 29, I had reached the Jupiter or Tin diet, which, in principle, only lasts three weeks.
As for the shape of the crystallized material, it is reminiscent of that of a cactus or a cave built on a mountain massif.
Leafing through the little treatise of the very ancient nobleman and philosopher Germain Lampsbrick, I noted with joy that I had reached the twelfth figure:
“Another mountain of India lies in the vase, which the Spirit and the Spirit have climbed. 'Soul, that is to say the son and the leader. »
I only had three figures left to understand, this book includes fifteen.
Obviously the last three seem to me the most difficult to explain, and I will try to talk about the thirteenth figure.
“Here the father devours the son. »
The soul and spirit flow from the body.
The father is the body, the sulfur or the crystallized stone.
The son is the spirit, the tincture or mercury.
The soul is the salt which serves to unite the two principles.
We must understand in plain language:
“Here the body devours the spirit, that is to say that the stone absorbs the mercurial water with which it is imbibed. »
But by the force of the external fire, the soul and the spirit flow from the body.
That is, the real dye, the non-combustible oil, or the more volatile part, flows from the sulfur.
I continue my explanation, with the fourteenth figure in symbolic language:
“Here the father sweats because of the son, at the same time, from the bottom of his heart he prays to God in whose hands were all things who creates and created everything,
God answered his prayers and ordered the father to lie down and sleep.
While he was sleeping. God sent rain from the sky On the lands through the shining stars It soaked and softened the body of the father, Now God! support us so that we attain your grace. »
This fourteenth figure clearly demonstrates my theory on the thirteenth figure.
Once again the hermetic language is easy to understand for an adept, but for an uninitiated it is not the same.
Having weighed the sealed matras, I noted that in two weeks the weight of the stone had increased from twenty grams to forty grams, which represents a considerable increase in density, but in accordance with alchemical tradition.
To return to the colors, we find them as I described them during the “eagles” or sublimations of the second work.
The only difference after this considerable amount of work is that now the matter is much purer, and has the power to grow in volume and density.
I am just reminded of the book by Georges Ranques, where the latter wonders, after a life spent studying ancient texts, how one can “attach life to philosophical mercury”.
Well, I myself, who managed to do it, can't explain it!
Alchemy is above all an initiatory knowledge acquired by the hands.
Nothing intellectual therefore, no traces of chemical formulas, no offense to the scientists, who do not have much chance of succeeding in this field.
Towards the end of July, the hot weather arrived, and wanting, as always, to imitate nature, I pushed the temperature up to three hundred degrees.
A crust of impure material surrounding the crystal had formed and changed from black to “pink yellow”.
On August 1st, the resistance having cut off, I changed the heating system and when I overturned the stone, I saw that it was made up of shiny dirty white crystals inside.
So I was still in Jupiter's regime. By raising the temperature a little further (three hundred and fifty degrees), I changed sublimation and saw the neck of the mattress become covered with a white powder.
Like translucent frost, the angel of whiteness began to radiate from the heart of matter. In truth, never on this globe, other than snow, had I seen anything so mysteriously pale.
Around August 20, I did an imbibition and changed the vase because it was cracked everywhere.
On August twenty-second, I finally saw the famous little filaments or white hairs on the edges of the vessel, announcing the end of Jupiter's regime and the beginning of the first whiteness.
So even without taking into account the preparation of mercury, it takes at least fifty days to get rid of the blackness or crow's head.
Having begun on the ninth of July, the first whiteness appears on the twenty-second of August, so the times correspond roughly.
The “filaments” look like a thick cat’s whisker.
This is perhaps what Eugène Canseliet means when he describes the portrait of “Félix Catus”, an Egyptian divinity. (See Alchemy explained by the texts.)
With a little reflection, I see that I would have the white stone towards the end of September (since the regime of silver or the moon only lasts twenty-one days ).
But as it takes three more months to have the red stone, I decide to postpone this last operation until the spring equinox; because winter is not favorable for the final concoction.
Around September 7, the Pyrex glass became slightly iridescent.
The bottom of the crucible became more and more meltable and sank onto the resistance of the furnace.
Let's hope the experience goes well until the end.
Here I open a digression on astrology.
Theoretically, the period between the first quarter and the last is more favorable to coction, due to a greater cosmic influx, than that between the last and the first quarter.
Practically, I cannot say so.
Indeed, the transformation of matter seems just as rapid every day.
The time factor plays the biggest role. The alchemist's greatest quality must obviously be patience.
It would perhaps require highly precise devices and more sustained attention to discern greater activity in mutating matter at the time of full moons and on clear days.
Unlike Barbault, I am not at all worried about astrology, and I do not believe in the medium to guide the artist during the work.
Most alchemists want to obscure their science, so as to create confusion and make it even more difficult for lay people to understand the Hermetic texts.
God save me from such perfidy.
Those who are chosen by providence to carry out the great work will never lack inspiration.
As for impostors who would like to enrich themselves or dominate their neighbors, I do not think they can succeed in their designs.
Let us note My great mystics who succeeded in the elaboration of the stone:
Bernard the good Trévisan, Nicolas Flamel, Irénée Philalèthe, Limojon de Saint-Didier, Lamsbrick Germain, Cycliani, and Fulcanelli.
Around September 10, when nothing suggested it, a white circle like a halo on the forehead of a saint was formed around the stone.
Then filaments broke away from this circle and little by little during cooking invaded the mass which became white and beautiful as snow.
This phenomenon corresponds exactly to what Nicolas Flamel says, having reached the same stage.
“The female has a white scroll-shaped circle around her body, to show you that 'Rebis' will begin to turn white in this manner, first turning white at the ends all around this circle. »
The scale of the philosophers says: the sign of the first perfect whiteness is the manifestation of a certain small capillary circle, that is to say passing over the head which will appear around the material, and sides of the vessel in subcitrine color.
No doubt possible, I have the white stone which I just need to perfect by cooking.
Thus the work of white, the swan or the moon, is accomplished.
The work of darkness is dispelled.
The soul regained its purity by distilling sin;
The senses are defeated and asceticism dominates.
Let us praise the Lord who in his mercy was willing to bring the work to this stage!
I must now reach the purple of glory, reconciling the spirit and your senses.
THE ELIXIR OF LIFE
Towards the end of Jupiter's regime, in my house in Argenteuil, I tried to rejuvenate by swallowing a gain of white sulfur diluted in a glass of aperitif.
Before, I tasted this “salt” of heavenly virtue by putting it on my tongue.
It has the flavor of sea salt, but does not melt with steam.
Broken into small pieces, it shines like a mineral.
When I drank the elixir, towards the evening, in addition to the chills, the vessels and arteries in the region of the heart hurt and I felt slightly excited but nothing more.
But the next day, my right hand began to tingle while the outside of my heart hurt.
Which seems logical to me, because there is always a connection between the heart and circulation.
A heart attack often causes repercussions in one of the limbs.
However, here, I was not really ill, but I became certain that the elixir has an influence on the proper functioning of the heart and arteries.
This poor circulation only lasted one day and was accompanied by a notable drop in appetite.
A few nails on my right hand and right foot hurt at the roots, which had never happened to me before.
I try to be as objective as possible, without exaggerating the power of the elixir.
Now I open a parenthesis:
The stone is not yet finished (I still have a good month left to finish the regime of the moon or philosophical money), the elixir that I prepared and tried therefore has little power in comparison of what he will acquire subsequently.
However, according to the testimony of certain alchemists, the rather violent effects of the red elixir are as follows:
Fever, excitement, loss of hair, nails and teeth. Then push away from it all.
We therefore see that the elixir of life, when it is at its maximum power (red stone), can very well cause all the phenomena that I have just listed.
Of course, this is not admitted by official science, but it would be foolish not to consider this hypothesis.
Let us not forget the famous sentence of Teillard de Chardin: “Only the improbable has a chance of being true. »
Our rationalist mind, imbued with Cartesian skepticism, cannot envisage such phenomena, because modern man has lost the sense of intuition, this marvelous shortcut which gives access to truth and beauty.
I also did a test on sixty grams of lead, to see if a grain of “white salt” had as much power as is said.
As it cooled, the metal appeared very shiny and slightly golden.
Inside, the structure looked more like iron or steel than lead.
It became brittle and shiny like a mineral.
To be more certain, I had this piece of lead remelted a second time to see if the shine was superficial as happens when lead is oxidized with potassium salts, a known chemical process.
The shine increased again when the metal cooled for the second time.
I therefore became certain that the white stone has the power to change the structure of metals.
I am therefore in no way putting forward the hypothesis of a transmutation into a precious metal.
Moreover, as all alchemists know, to obtain white projection powder, white sulfur must be fermented with powdered silver.
Obviously, if I succeed in finishing the white stone, I will attempt a real transmutation to silver.
I left the transformed lead in the open air to see if it still oxidized.
Fortunately for me, this was not the case, the piece of metal retained and will retain its silver shine.
It is remarkable to note that, according to alchemical tradition, base metals healed, that is to say having received a hot application of universal medicine, have the appearance of a metal, but impregnated with a luminous essence which eternally protects them from external influences.
So all of this fits together well, I have solid reasons to believe that I am on the right track.
Jacques Bergier claims that alchemical metals are a thousand times more conductors of electricity than others.
Obviously, if it could be manufactured in industrial quantities, this would be of great interest to modern Science.
Let's now move on from the microcosm or macrocosm and talk about the radioactive effects on the operator.
According to tradition, the true goal of the great work is the transformation of the alchemist himself.
The change in structure of the nuclei of heated material generates unknown radiations which are certainly beneficial for the operator.
I must confess that until today, that is to say at the beginning of the regime of the moon, I do not think I have undergone any apparent physical change.
The material is not yet extremely shiny and phosphorescent, I still have to wait another month to really make a judgment on this point.
I don't think that the speed of the development of the great work changes anything, because even an alchemist who takes twenty years to find the stone is only transformed at the end, when the matter radiates as I have already said .
RISKS AND ACCIDENTS IN ALCHEMY
When the layman talks to you about alchemy, nine times out of ten he asks you: “You didn't blow your face off, when was the explosion?” »
Nothing is more irritating than these questions, because if we only saw the negative side of each thing or each activity, there would be plenty of reason to despair, but fortunately for him the man is much more optimistic than that.
However, if the alchemist has other goals that are much more noble than, among others, avoiding blowing his face off, we must sincerely recognize that his science involves risks that are sometimes fatal, it is true, but often easy to avoid.
For my part, in the year since I practiced the art of fire, I have incurred quite a few risks, but thank God my life has never been in danger.
I remember after several months of experiences towards the end of March, tired and discouraged by a dissolution which requires extremely great concentration, a crazy idea came to me, namely: undertake the great coction before the eagles or sublimations.
I took the black and rotten material which I put in a Pyrex sealed tightly with a bottle cap. Then I heated it to three hundred degrees after adding a fairly large quantity of red citrine mercurial water.
The result was not long in coming.
With a terrible hiss, a harbinger of great catastrophes, the container began to rock under the effect of very agitated boiling.
I only had time to rush into the second room to hear “a tremendous gunshot”.
The cork hadn't even popped, but the bottle, the pressure of the gases, had burst into a thousand pieces.
My ceiling was stained with blackish material and looked like a constellation of the greatest importance.
Picasso, in his great form, would certainly have appreciated this masterpiece of rare spontaneity.
It was an opportunity for me to meditate on the little chance I had of succeeding in the great work.
Indeed, after six months of hard work, I only had ten grams of dissolved and rotten material remaining at the bottom of a broken piece of Pyrex.
Trusting in God, I fell asleep and waited until the next day to decide what to do.
But the night really brings advice, because the next day I went back to work and began the calcination.
I had enough mercurial water and managed to successfully continue the rest of the work.
The second accident that almost cost me my sight occurred around mid-July.
Having more or less succeeded in avoiding all the accidents, except the one I have just described, and having reached the final phase, I realized that I would not have enough mercurial water to complete the final concoction.
When I had taken some of the partly dissolved raw material, I heated it over a violent fire, around one hundred and sixty degrees.
Five minutes later, the ship began to rock. I wanted to open and remove the cap to avoid explosion due to too much heat and excess potassium nitrate.
Immediately, a jet of boiling oil and acid hit my hands, my forehead and my face.
After careful examination, I noticed a slight burn on the hands and face, but not serious.
I repeat, without fatigue, but who can boast of never being tired?, I could have avoided these two accidents.
Daily concentration in Alchemy leads to great intellectual fatigue.
“It’s a woman’s job and a child’s play.” »
Indeed, you don't need to be physically strong to become an adept.
On the other hand, the imagination works to break,
The only very serious risk in alchemy is that of being killed by the radioactivity emanating from the crucible heated to very high temperatures, in the short process which lasts only four days.
In this method, it is enough to put in the open-air crucible, a metal, gold for example, and philosophical mercury.
The risk of explosion is so great that only superior adepts consider this method.
Apart from this, and the fact that the universal cathar is in no way poisonous, if one inadvertently absorbs it, I see nothing else to say in this chapter.
CONCLUSION
Alchemy is indeed celestial agriculture par excellence.
Moreover, several followers have taken the name:
“Agricola”.
The operator who succeeds in the great work therefore behaves like a conscientious farmer, a high-quality artist, and not like a learned expert in chemistry.
Contrary to what many critics have said:
alchemy was not the vanguard of chemistry. It's more of a parallel science.
On the one hand, we therefore have the modern world, with its gigantic laboratories, its insatiable appetite for efficiency and luxury; his frantic race towards wealth, and his inextinguishable desire for power and domination over his neighbor and the forces of nature.
On the other side, a few wise men with archaic means, living to the rhythm of nature, in tune with the cosmic breath, breathing the bowels of the earth, but flooded with grace and light; mystics burning with a divine fire, in search of the absolute, on the borders of the impossible.
The struggle is unequal and seems to turn to the advantage of the modern world.
Who knows ?
Can't an infinitely small quantity of ferment leaven a considerable quantity of old dough?
When the creator made man in his image, he gave him one priceless thing above all, freedom.
This is the greatest gift a god could give. This freedom should be used by man to continue the work of creation.
On the contrary, nowadays, it defiles the latter, destroys it, suffocates it; like a toad that spits its deadly venom on the most exquisite flowers, it drools on everything that is pure.
In the name of progress, of demagoguery, we kill, pollute, destroy, uproot, lock up, torture, degrade man and nature.
Governments come and go but are similar. The left is clumsy, and the right is eccentric.
Nothing changes, because interest too often prevails over justice.
A protester in our society, the alchemist can restore meaning to life.
By showing that man's interest is not in the conquest of human power and glory, always disappointing, and the fruit of insane pride; but in the acquisition of divine wisdom which illuminates the heart and mind.
Alchemy therefore appears to be a technique of enlightenment.
Nature shows us the path to follow. By wanting to unravel its secrets, the alchemist realizes that he must possess all of its virtues.
Nature is patient, this is a quality that the operator must possess to the highest degree to succeed in the great work.
Nature is pure, chaste and beautiful.
If the soul of the alchemist does not reach its perfections he will not be able to succeed.
Nature is simple and good.
The alchemist must also possess these two qualities to acquire the greatest virtue: humility.
With humility everything is possible.
The soul can flourish, and like a flower in the morning opens its corolla, the heart of the adept will let descend on him the balm of inspiration, essential for understanding the science of sciences, the greatest of all secrets , and see the seven seals of the great book of stone open one by one.
But without the father of enlightenment, reason could never understand the twelve keys of Hermetic philosophy.
One must be chosen by the Almighty to enter the inviolate sanctuary of nature.
This is why those who found the very beautiful stone and resplendent philosopher's gem, a prodigy to the glory of the true god, were inspired and helped by heaven during their labors.
God sends his graces to necessarily good men, because in his infinite wisdom, he cannot reveal such a secret to the wicked and impious.
But the happy follower, freed from earthly constraints, must nonetheless use all his riches with great judgment and help his neighbor if he wants to glorify the Lord in his most holy trinity, which represents the indissoluble and eternal union philosophical sulfur, mercury and salt.