TREATMENT OF THE GERM OF GOLD

This question is so arduous, that in its solution, all true Alchemy depends on it, and there is nothing which rather makes the workmen err, than hearing it badly, or else not agitate properly, especially since he who does not contemplate it with a Lynxian eye (or understanding) as the fundamental basis of the chemical work, he moves away from the straight path, and commits an error in its principle, which
cannot be repaired afterwards, however that may be.

Now, since this great knowledge is necessary in this art, I have deemed it expedient to agitate this question, and to settle it by valid conclusions, and quite sensitive; so let's say with Mercury Trismegistus in his Pimander, that everything in this world, either increasing or decreasing, is moved, and for this cause for life, even the earth (which is moved in movement of alteration, and generation ) is not deprived of this life.

And if we believe in the Platonists, there is a member, however deformed it may be, in this worldly animal, which does not have some gift and property of soul and life, for the soul of the world containing so many virtues seminal, that the ideas of the Divine thought have given to each body, with the particular force and the proper life, according to the virtues of the received ideas, and from which comes the universal life of things, things to swarm and grow by multiplying the individual, to preserve the species.

So if we believe in this great Hermes, he will assure us that God having accomplished the general production of this universe, he cried aloud, pullulate, throw up suckers, grow, multiply, and expand you, all your seeds, all my works; therefore the gold cannot be deprived of life.

It is true that metals, stones, or minerals are not moved by their bodies, because they are not organized into divided and proper members, but it is the inner soul that moves them, by the law of the particular idea; and this notion does not appear in the mixed while he is on his Sabbath.

How (for example) we see that gold pushing itself from the term a quo to that ad
quem, is in perpetual motion, traveling circularly from the imperfect to the perfect metal; but having come to its perfection, and being actually gold, its circuit is completed, the order and the intention of nature being unable to push it to a higher degree, whence it follows that it is in its rest, and no longer moves of itself, but yet it is not deprived of life, this being the substantial form of gold, which lives as much as it does, and cannot perish without the total destruction of the said gold :and therefore this life is immortal to him, and through it, regeneration in spiritual water in fact, to glorify the body after its resurrection.

Which seems to us to be impossible, but if we consider that in all created substances, there is the mortal who always precedes, and the immortal who succeeds him, we will have argued to recognize ourselves, and to believe this regeneration of the now, which is by means of the germ thereof, if he be regenerated into the
aforesaid spiritual water of him who gave him his first life and being, also there is nevertheless only the eye of the intellect that can see this mystery, this being too remote from common sense, especially since gold being composed of a
strong mixing of the elements, the fact that all the elements apart cannot alter it, and subsists in them without any lesion, so that it seems permanent in its being, without being subject to the alterations of its qualities; in which it is
of our opinion that its vegetative soul is dead, seeing that it does no action, nor movement, which can testify that this essential form has life; but if we take gold back to its first general material, and put it back in the womb of her who gave it life, the great flood will not last forty days on earth, which seemed to us to be dead, will pick up the first greenery of its life, and will vegetate sensibly, by means of its germ.

Now I call the germ of gold the prolific seed of it, which can multiply to infinity, under the conservation of the species, the earth being mineral, receiving this title of germ by Moses at the first of the genesis, exempts us
from saying as much of the metal of gold, as also of silver, the seed properly belonging to plants, like sperm to animals.

That if therefore we contemplate gold in its simple first existence, the bodily eye will not see it as alive with a vegetative soul, but we vow with a spiritual eye within its intrinsic, we will contemplate it more efficacious, previous books) existing in act and potency, and we will rightly judge it, true passive matter on the one hand, and active on the other; for the reason that, gold existing gold, there is no doubt that actually it is gold, but on the side of its power, we will find it alterative, and that it can be more than gold in potentia ; and therefore it can be altered notwithstanding its strong composition.

Now it is certain, that the destruction of one form is the generation of another, and that any generation is always more excellent than corruption; hence it follows that if gold is so open (in its pores too compact and tight, to dilate itself) that with the water which gives it life, it comes to be corrupted and rotten, that something higher than gold will be made of it , seeing even that its water is a pure fire, or a quint being as noble, at least in its interior, as gold had it to be in its, this one exciting the motion to him; moreover, if we find true in gold,
and would exactly consider whether it is equivocal or univocal, we would find that there is nothing strange in its composition, and that it cannot be other than 'univocal, call mercurial; and that notwithstanding its corruption, and that the first form be altered, the second, and the succeeding, is not the more decayed in its quality, but it is much improved, and always under the conservation of the kind, of there comes that, so much the more the Stone is opened and tightened in the multiplication, and that it is always dissolved and congealed, it always increases by ten times more, and in quality and in quantity, without for all that the form substance is changed, if not ameliorated, because the substantial form or the vegetative life contained in this substance, always increases in subtlety, agility, and thinness of substance, at every corruption; and matter, by this means, is made fit to contain this form, the whole being done by the external fire (as a necessary agent) and the germ of gold; also, the bodies are not the cause of the food and increase of these, they are the only germs which dilate, blacken, and coagulate; especially as they return to the day of their youth, and regeneration takes place; all this happens that corruptions and generations are nothing but a
circulation, and revolution, as eternal as time, but which proceeds by improving; thence we may infer , that a honey fly is nobler than a dead bull, from which it was born, or that a wasp produced from a dead horse, is also nobler than him.

What the Sage confirms, saying, that a living dog is better than a dead lion, being very certain that the animated being is more noble than the one that it is not.

We can affirm as much of our gold, which having as it were dead, and enclosed within its heavy, compact, tight and closed mass, is deemed dead at all; but if our water (and his) can expand and open it, then that life seems to rise again and
acts to bring out its vegetative life.

What sensibly we recognize to be true, then that the black color begins to appear in the work, and that the heat acts in the humidity; for it is certain that this
sad color cannot indicate anything other than corruption, and if there is no corruption which does not accept the subsequent generation, it will be obvious that the corrupted gold will regenerate, and take a new generation. , to improve as many times as corruption happens.

It is therefore necessary that there is a certain germ within gold, which, like that of a grain of wheat, can germinate and bear fruit for the preservation of its kind, if it is placed in its own womb.

is hyleal water, and the first being of gold even, and it is this water which burns gold better than fire, and causes it to rot, as being hotter than gold.

Ah! How many people have been disappointed in this art, for not having reflected on the germ of gold? Is it marvelous if we too often see the ignorant peat of the
alchemists of this time wandering, who have not tasted the sacred philosophy only with their lips, since the most learned of antiquity escaped to this place and strayed from the path of knowledge of this germ?

Nevertheless, they knew well that God in his eternal ideas had before time foreseen by infinite sapience, that all that he would create was preserved by an eternal order, individuals of each species are perpetuated during time , for which purpose he gave (as before said) the sperm to the animals, the seed to the plants, the suckers, and the seedling to multiply the trees, and the germ to the metallic and mineral substances; and notwithstanding this knowledge, which was to lead them to the belief that everything engenders its like by a univocal generation.

They got carried away working on matters so far removed from the aurifying principle, that the memory of them horrifies the one who is at the center of this
knowledge.

The confession of Trévisan, Zachaire, and several others, shows in what error they were immersed before this knowledge; who worked on egg whites, herrings, urine, blood, and on an infinity of materials as little capable of aurification, or argentification, as a toad is capable of generating an elephant.

Now since all these people were at fault in their election, and from the first sight they recognized what was the true principle, both active and passive, of our Peter; let us take advantage of their errors, and say that our Peter, although he is almost Divine, he is nevertheless made naturally of natural principles, and it is reasonable to believe that everything like this Sun and man engenders man, the bull another bull, the turkey, another turkey, a fish from other fish, the lettuce, spoke another lettuce seed, and consecutively other things, that thus
gold will beget gold, the money money, the precious stone another according to its kind, and that everything is multiplied in its kind univocally, if the seed, the sperm or the germ, is received in its own womb, and assisted by the external agent,
governed by a doctor of justice who knows how to administer it as the matter requires, and according to the time of its beginning, of the growth, the state, and the decline of the fetus.

By this we will find very easy what seems to us greatly difficult, and which Solomon was right to say in his proverbs, that science was easy to him who hears, and for this cause I gave you to understand in clean and unmasked terms, which depended on the full knowledge of our work, so that you cannot err in the election of your agent and patient.

What until now has not been done by all those who preceded me; also they never proved their science to be real, for the reason that they dared not proceed by certain demonstrations, as one does in other sciences, in which the terms are expressly emphatic; but in this art they have hidden said terms, so as not to discover the truth of science.

And so she remained buried in their writings, which were only for them, and for those who were greatly initiated in the knowledge of the secret, or who enjoyed excellent judgment, a good mind, and 'a sublime imagination, to penetrate within the
sanctuary of nature, and with a spiritual eye, to conceive how everything is reproduced by its like; and these have truly seen the germ of gold, by means of which he could repopulate himself in his mother's womb, and his mother is none other than the water, which watered all the earth of the garden of Eden, before the rain was generated; it's up to say the dew, how much rainwater collected in a
well constellated weather, in a healthy region, in weather not fulgurous or tempestuous, but calm and quiet, and moderately hot, can do the same, as having the
life of the air which fertilizes and enlarges it with the prolific germ that we seek there. This water being so humid and fecundly full of the universal seeds, that we see more benefit to plants, a gentle rain, than if the whole earth were watered with water from a well or a fountain, which sufficiently testifies that this fecundity is given to it.

of the air, which animates it and gives it life, and makes it procreate the three universal seeds, namely, animal, vegetable, and minerals, and that meteors occur as much in the clouds as in the air itself.

Now, from all that is said above, we draw the true teaching of Alchemy, and say, that to aurify and weight one's fellow man, infallibly one needs gold, as to argentify one needs silver, and that without the Sun, the Moon and the Mercury, it is impossible to do anything good, fixed and permanent, in this sacred science; and he who cannot know the germ that gold carries within its intrinsic, with the perfect genesis and elementary composition, is on the way to error, and will only
produce the chimeras that it will give birth to in its mind, but he who knows well the genealogy of the elements, their properties and qualities, both active and passive, and who knows gold intrinsically, will arrive at the desired end, if he
works with the fear of God, and with honor of this one.