If you will be obedient to God, I will teach you how to make the Stone from two luminaries (as the old alchemists and their successors themselves made with their hands), without covert words, including the manipulation and its powers, its nature and first essence or substance. For one cannot deprive it of is effect, which nature has put into it or God in his outermost work, and it is done solely in these two lights.
Even if the two lights were lying till Doomsday in the chaos out of which they have come, Nature could not effect this with them, because Nature had infused her outermost power into them. That is why we will immediately bring these two lights out of their nature, a bad nature and form, into a better one. Therefore we must go backwards and separate what was together, what Nature had done, and bring it back into the form it was when Nature first began to act. To bring it into such a form, we must, as far as possible, follow Nature with the Art. Sometimes we must go beyond Nature by separating, rectifying, coagulating, purifying, combining, and incerating the earth, and undertake many other processes which Nature cannot do as she is not impelled to do such works. That is why the material has to be transformed into a better form than Nature has given it.
Then you must know how to draw off silver’s incombustible sulfur, because silver is an imperfect body, cold, moist, and crude, containing much moisture and blackness. It is very earthly, crude, and feminine on account of its coldness. Therefore everybody piles silver upon gold. This is the reason why the combustible sulfur, the earthiness and blackness, has first to be removed from silver. So, take as much silver as you like, refine it on the cupel and laminate it. Then take the sublimated auripigment, the middle material, as has been taught in the work concerning it. Rind it small on a stone with vinegar to the consistency of a paste, coat the silver laminae, dry them in the sun, near a fire or in a room, put them in a crucible, one upon the other till the crucible is full, lute them together, put the matter for 12 hours in a calcinations furnace with a very small fire, so that the silver does not melt, cool it, pound it in an iron mortar or scrape the calcined matter off. If it is not yet calcined enough, calcine it again or till the silver is calcined, grind it on a stone with common distilled water, till the water again runs off clear from the powder. Then dry it in the sun or near the fire and preserve it in a glass. Evaporate the water with which the silver has been washed, refine the faeces on the cupel, and in this way you will not lose anything. File your silver finely, and Rx to one oz of silver take 3j of prepared arsenic. Stratify it, calcine it for 12 or 16 hours, then grind and wash it, as I taught before.
After this, take the silver powder, heat it to redness for 24 or 32 hours, then calcine it for 12 days in which the spirits are calcined, so that it lows red-hot --- but not completely so. When the 12 days are over, let it glow modestly, brown, red, for 3 days, but so that it does not melt. Then cool it, and it is prepared.
For silver has two sicknesses, like other imperfect metals, but its two sicknesses do not go to the inmost root as do those of the other imperfect metals. One sickness is the combustible sulphur, the other is cold and humidity. The first sickness is eliminated with arsenic and washing. Know that the substance of arsenic is so strong that it burns and destroys all bodies. The same is done by auripigment and sulfur; these they are of one nature. Follow Nature with the Art. Sometimes we must go beyond Nature by separating, rectifying, dissolving, coagulating, purifying, combining, and incerating the earth, and undertake many other processes which nature cannot do, as she is not impelled to do such works. That is why the material has to be transformed into a better form than nature has given it.
Then you must know how to draw off silver’s combustible sulfur, because silver is an imperfect body, cold, moist, and coarse, containing much moisture and blackness. It is very earthy, coarse, and feminine on account of its coldness. Therefore everybody piles silver upon gold. This is the reason why the combustible sulfur, the earthiness and blackness have first to be removed from silver. So, take as much silver as you like, refine it on the cupel and laminate it. Then take the sublimated auripigment, the middle material, as has been taught in the work concerning it, grind it small on a stone with vinegar, to the consistency of a paste, coat the silver laminae, dry them in the sun, near the fire, or in a room, put them in a crucible, one upon the other till the crucible is full, lute them together, put the substance for 12 hours in a calcination furnace with a very small fire, so that the silver does not melt. Cool it, pound it in an iron mortar or scrape the cacined matter off, and if it is not yet calcined enough, calcine it again until the silver is calcined. Now grind it on a stone with common water, then wash its blackness off in a lass dish with common distilled water, till the water again runs off clear from the powder. Then dry it in the sun or near the fire and preserve it in a glass. Evaporate the water with which silver has been washed, refine the faeces on the cupel, and in this way you will not lose anything. File your silver small, and Rx to 1 oz of silver, 3j of prepared arsenic; stratify it, calcine it for 12 or 16 hours, then grind and wash it, as I taught before.
After this, take the silver powder, heat it to redness for 24 or 32 hours, then calcine it for 12 days in the furnace in which the spirits are calcined, so that it glows red-hot, but not completely so. When the 12 days are over, let it glow modestly for 3 days, brown, red, but so that it does not melt, and it is prepared.
For silver has two sicknesses, like other imperfect metals, but its two sicknesses do not go to the innermost root as do those of the other imperfect metals. One sickness is the combustible sulfur, the other is cold and humidity. The first sickness is eliminated by arsenic and washing. Know that the substance of arsenic is so coarse that it burns and destroys all bodies. The same is done by auripigment and sulfur. These three are of one nature.
When arsenic and auripigment are disembodied and cleansed of their impurity, density, and wild unfixed spirits, and you take the middle spirit, then with this spirit you will draw away the combustibility of the sulfur of metals by calcining, washing, purging, reiterating. For if the poison in the theriac is not prepared, it will kill men; but when it is prepared, it drives the poison out. Likewise arsenic and auripigment.
Prepare the gold into a most subtle powder, as has been taught in the work on silver, in the following way: Rx, gold and silver prepared, mix them together, rubbing them on a stone with water like painters’ color. Dry it again, reverbarate it on a big cupel, till it swells like a sponge, cool it, take it out, dissolve it in vinegar, distill it in the Balneum, as is said in the work on silver. Then dissolve it again, and continue doing this dissolving and coagulating till no more faeces are left. Now the Work is done about which Dantin says: Open the enclosed, wet it; close what has been opened, and dry it; do likewise with the coldness of Luna, and you will find the warmth of gold, and you will find the coldness of Luna.
Now the material is ready for extracting the Stone. Most of the material of the gold will rise and take with it all the subtle parts of silver. The parts of silver that are coarse, phlegmatic, and feminine remain at the bottom.
Sol alone is subtle and masculine in its parts. When Sol is dissolved and opened, it grows up altogether because of its great subtlety, but Luna stays at the bottom and is not yet ready to grow up on account of its coarseness.
There is therefore a contrary in these two lights; what is the ruin of one is the enhancement of the other, and that is why they belong together in the Work, as you well know.
After this, sublimate this material in the manner taught in the White and the Red. Watch out for the air when you open the glass, so that it does not kill you [Arsine, arsenic hydride].
For this reason allow the vessel to cool down completely. If the spirits went out through the lute during sublimation, or if the head were to break, or the glass or the pot, it would kill you by its subtle poison.
For there is no subtler or hotter, no more violent spirit among all metals than the spirit of Sol. If it were to open in its parts as is Luna or other metals, or if the 4 Elements that are together in Sol were contraries, it would sooner fly from the fire than from some other mineral spirits. But in Sol the Elements are all equal and tempered, and so clean that they are never separated.
Therefore, when Sol is opened, it flies together with others without leaving anything behind, unless something of other metals or baser things were intermixed with it, as there are many who melt other metallic bodies or minerals together with Sol, because everything that comes from minerals likes to dwell with gold and stays with it in a friendly manner, because Sol is the king and master. That is why anyone wishing to make a work with Sol alone must take care not to open Sol so much that the ferment follows it, otherwise one would rise with the other. If that happens, you must add some Sol to the ferment of fresh powder --- if you wish to make the Stone, but it would not serve anything to add red ferment. If it should happen that your Sol were to glow up immediately, it would be better for you to make the White Stone by using Luna. Melt the matter so that you can increate it with the spirit of Sol, and you will doubly benefit.
For you must make the White Stone by the power of Sol, and you must bring your spirit together with the soul, in her own might, of which instruction will be given in other works. You might ask: I believed that Sol had been fixed from the beginning, as it stays on the cupel, also in cement, in antimony, and in the fire --- and if it stayed there flowing till Doomsday, it would not be burnt up. And if it were lying in the earth till the end of the world, would it be corrupted? Sol cannot be corrupted by anything in the world. Sol is simple, that is, in all its parts and Elements are not contraries, and its oil and salt are so united with the 4 Elements, and its Mercury and Sulfur are within so closely intermixed and in such proportion that they are one mature. They are equal in all their parts, so that Sol is nothing but one single thing, and one thing alone, which is not constituted of any other thing. You cannot separate it by anything. Therefore, Sol and Luna are opposed to air.
In regard to the Stone, when you sublimate, bind two glass eyemirrors in front of your eyes and a broad leather over your mouth and nose, into which leather a broad double woolen cloth must be sewn. On the broad cloth put a white sponge with which to tie up your nostrils and mouth. Protect yourselves thus from the air, because Sol and Luna rise invisibly, and the Stone is sublimated till it leaves no more faeces but is as beautiful and white as snow and clear as crystal.
You have now prepared Mercury, and the Sulfur of the Philosophers in all its power and subtlety. Keep all the faeces that have been left behind during sublimation, because you must reverbarate them again. For it is the body of Luna that has not yet glowed up. You are to dissolve the body and the ferment of our Stone in the following way; the body out of the faeces with distilled vinegar --- everything that will dissolve. Then coagulate it, after that reverbarate it for 24 hours with a gentle fire, so that it does not get more than red-hot. Let it cool.
Now remove and dissolve it again with distilled vinegar, coagulate it, reverbarate it for 5 or 6 hours, not letting it become more than red-hot. Allow it to cool, dissolve it again with common water, coagulate it again. Thereafter heat it to a red heat for the duration of 5 or 6 Pater Nosters. Now take it out again and dissolve it in common water until nothing is left behind. If that is not the case, dissolve and coagulate it again till almost all the moisture is evaporated and distilled, then let it cool. When it is cold, should be together, pieces as large as a finger’s length, clear as crystal and white as snow.
This manipulation must be done in glass bowls made for the purpose, standing in a boiling Balneum, and the cask must be covered with a double linen cloth to prevent any dust or impurity from falling into it. Our work must be clean, clean in the extreme, when you prepare your Pretiosa terra and your Corpus, and you prepare the Soul to receive and absorb your ferment in great unity and peace, so that they will nevermore be separated from each other but shall at all times reign with great subtlety and powers.
The Body desires to receive its own Soul and Spirit, while the Soul with the Spirit desire to come down and rest with their own Body, because one cannot be without the other. When they are then together, one in the other as they are supposed to be, held by an immovable and unchangeable button, one nature, one simple thing like the invincible heaven --- then it is the Fifth Essence by which all diseases can be cured and resolved.
There are many ways to make the Stone, but one is more difficult, laborious, and longer than the other, and not all are equally high in the projection. The Stone made with the great ferment is less potent than one made with a prepared body. Consequently, you must make projection after a subtle Work. The Stone must be extracted from Sol and Luna. Both must be Rebus vir. (Aleph), the Red man and the Alba Foemina, the White Woman, if a right union is to occur; because the hot Red Man must act upon the cold White Woman, if you wish to obtain fruit from the union, and a perfect Work is to take place.
For you would be unable to separate anything from a pure simple thing, just as pure water does not turn into anything but pure water, although it may be purified if it contains faeces. You can extract and purify those by various manipulations, and this water is then better than the first, but it remains water, and you cannot make anything else from it.
Thus it is with Sol and Luna if you try to work with each one separately. Sol is Sol and remains Sol. Luna is Luna and remains so, unless you spiritualize it and add it to its own body in order to congeal its own spirit, so as to enable it to make projection upon purified metals in the 3rd Order. It is a simple medicine of the 3rd Order and nothing else.
The Stone must be made from spiritual things that cannot be separated, and from two natures, cold and hot, from snow and light, white and red, gross and subtle, man and woman, so that one acts upon the nature of the other, making the gross subtle, and the subtle gross; the light heavy, the hot cold, the moist dry, and the dry moist. Thus one nature acts upon another until finally all things are turned into one simple nature. Then each thing will be in a better condition and in a better higher form, or also in another substance, then the thing is perfect like an invincible heaven, which is simple. But the earth does not require any moisture, which is given it in abundance by heaven. Likewise with heat and cold.
Everything the earth lacks, heaven can supply in abundance. Nevertheless, heaven is neither cold nor warm, neither moist nor dry, a simple body and perfect in the extreme perfection and quality. Consequently, everything the earth, plants, trees, human beings, and animals requires, is supplied by heaven in abundance. Likewise with heat and cold, and everything else needed by the earth. Heaven can give it abundantly owing to the great powers with which God has invested it by His divine ordination and wonderful omnipotence.
Thus you are to understand that the Stone is a simple medicine of the 3rd Order, because our Stone must have the property which God has invisibly instilled into heaven. Therefore we must infuse into it the same quality of our Philosophical mastery, so that it may have the same quality and mastery that exists in a simple body --- and when it has all this quality and power, only then is it our Stone.
In this way I have taught you how and out of what the Stone is to be made and of what quality it must be before it can be called the Stone.
Now take the body or the earth or the ferment, weigh it, and write it in a book. Put it in such a glass as is illustrated here. Then take 8 parts of ferment, 3 of your sublimation and put it in a small glass. Pour distilled water on the ferment, put on each glass some cut glass fitted to the mouth of the glass, set each in hot Balneum, and it will at once dissolve into clear water. When they are dissolved, pour both water together into a glass, stir well --- they mingle easily --- because they wish to be friends. The man wants his own lady of the house; the lady of the house, her own man; the dry cold earth wants the moisture of the water. Thus one wants to embrace the other and to enter into the other to the inmost root. There is then a perfect mingling --- and yet it is not a perfect mingling, as when there is water mingling with water there is no hindrance, it is done immediately without any delay, for each desires to receive the other on account of the great purity which both have, and one loves the other.
Thus one penetrated the other in the first mingling which took place in clear water. Mix the clear water one with the other, as has been said above, distill it in the Balneum with the receptacle and the alembic well luted, draw the moisture off to dry it to a powder, take it out and congeal it in the secret furnace, as is taught in the White Work. Heat it in the same way, and in a short time you will see that all the material has become black. Then you will know what a perfect union has occurred, and underneath the blackness the whiteness is concealed. If the blackness does not appear in the Work, no perfect union will take place, or fixation between Soul, Spirit, and Body. It holds that together which is the means, the Salt of the Wise, which keeps the Soul, the Body, and the Spirit alive, causing one to enter the other. The salt is still lying in the inmost of the body, because the spirit has not drawn the soul out of the body, where the Salt of nature remains hidden in the deepest of the mixture.
The salt is the medium which keeps spirit, body, and soul together, and the salt lies buried in the deepest of the mixture. How then can the salt be shared with them when it is not drawn out of the deepest of the mixture together with the spirit which would rise along with it? How then could the salt be part of the spirit? The salt has within itself a soul, and that is why it is a medium between body, soul, and spirit, because it must share in them, must keep spirit, soul, and body together with its sharpness, so that one may permeate the other.
If the salt is not extracted from the body by the spirit, carrying the soul in it as it rises, it remains hidden in the deepest of the body. Consequently, the salt must be extracted fro the body with the spirit, containing a soul and a spirit. Together with those it must rise and become one thing with them, if it is to be a medium between the spirit and the body, because the salt contains a soul and a body. It cannot live without a soul belonging to it, and the soul cannot be without the spirit. Therefore the salt must be one thing with the spirit, and the spirit with the soul. That is why the salt is a medium between these two, if they wish to remain together.
Arnoldus de Villanova says that the salt is wonderful, and from these words it is evident that no perfect fixation can be accomplished if the salt is not extracted from the body with the spirit, as is prescribed. They fail each time who make an amalgam with Sol and [?], or with Luna, and Mercury, and try to fix them. It cannot be done at all, because the salt lies in the deepest of Sol and Luna, and it cannot be extracted from the inmost of Sol and Luna by any substance in the world except by their own spirit --- and not by any foreign spirits.
Sol and Luna must therefore be opened and freed in such a way that they let go of their spirit, thus drawing the salt, and with it the soul from the deepest of Sol and Luna, and carrying them upward into heaven, to become one nature with it.
When now body and spirit are prepared with the slat which carries the soul in it, when the soul is purified and reunited with its own purified body, spirit, and slat, there will be a right conjunction, and the whole will become black. Where this is done, blackness should appear. Therefore it is obvious that all amalgamations, fixations, cinnabars, or all other crazy, enticing, fast works are wrong and deceitful (although they appear to be something). You should avoid all of them with their false opinions, and take great care to be enlightened by the philosophy according to the ancients who say on their books that our stone, which is to b extracted, must be made out of one things only and not out of many, nor must anything be added to it, be it small or big. But extract its soul and discard from it everything superfluous, purify its body, add that again to its soul, and it will live forever.
When you see its blackness, you will be sure that its conjunction has taken place. After that, continue with the fire from one degree to another, be it of whatever color it may, as is taught in the White Work. When you see that, remove it, mix it, and test it on a glowing sheet to see if it is fixed and can stand fire. Then take it out and calcine it in the reverbaration furnace for 24 hours with a gentle fire. Let it cool, weigh it, then dissolve it as prescribed. When both are dissolved in clear water, mix them together as said before, draw the moisture off in the Balneum, and congeal it in the secret furnace as before.
Note here that it is not necessary to dissolve the spirit. The Stone gets stronger in every solution and coagulation, and it becomes a hundred times more powerful in projection. It is also the surest ferment for dissolving the spirits, both in clear water. Therefore they must be mixed together dry, because that is a better and surer mixture than mingling water with water, as said above. When the spirit has been fixed with the ferment, it has also to be calcined and coagulated to make the Work as subtle as possible, so that another projection can be made with it afterwards.
Take 4 parts of ferment and 1 part of spirit, mix them. But you must not calcine, dissolve, and coagulate often. The Work would far too soon begin to melt under your hands, so that no calcinations could be done. Therefore, if you wish to make an important Work, and a very subtle one, take much ferment and little spirit. Then you can calcine, dissolve, and coagulate the Work frequently. Whether you add mush or little spirit to the ferment, it takes an equally long time. If you add but a little spirit to the ferment, the Work is fixed. If you add much spirit to the ferment, it will take longer till it begins to congeal. After that, do as prescribed. Take 1 part of spirit to 8 parts of ferment, dissolve, and mix them together, as said above, till the material becomes as liquid that it can no longer be made red-hot or calcined. Then stop and give the spirit in the right amount. When that is done, continue increasing the fire from degree to degree till, with God’s help and praise, you reach the perfect redness.
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