The Hitler-Bormann Documents

The Hitler-Bormann Documents

February-April 1945


10th February 1945

I have sometimes asked myself whether we were not wrong, in 1940, not to have drawn Spain into the war It would have been too easy for words to do so, for Spam was burning to follow Italy's example and become a member of the Victors' Club.

 But as Spain had really nothing tangible to contribute, I came to the conclusion that her direct intervention was not desirable. It is true that it would have allowed us to occupy Gibraltar. On the other hand, Spain^s entry into the war would certainly have added many kilo- metres to the Atlantic coast-lme which we would have had to defend— from Saint Sebastian to Cadiz. Then there was the further possibility of a renewal of the civil war, fanned by the British.

To sum up, by ensuring that the Iberian peninsula remained neutral Spain has already rendered us the one service in this conflict which she had in her power to render. Having Italy on our backs is a sufficient burden in all conscience; and whatever may be the qualities of the Spanish soldier, Spain herself, in her state of poverty and unpreparedness, would have been a heavy liability rather than an asset.

The easiest thing would have been to occupy Gibraltar with our Commandos and with Franco's connivance, but without any declaration of war on his part. I am convinced that Britain would not have seized this as a pretext for declaring war on Spain. She would have been only too pleased to see Spain continue to remain non-belligerent. And from our own point of view, this would have eliminated all danger of any British landing on the coasts of Portugal.


14th February 1945

 From the purely miUtary point of view, it would have suited us better if it had started sooner. I ought to have se-ized the initiative in 1938 instead of allowing myself to be forced into war in 1939; for war was, in any case, unavoidable. However, you can hardly blame me if the British and the French accepted at Munich every demand I made of them!

Our greatest political blunder has been our treatment of the French. We should never have collaborated with them. It is a policy which has stood them in . good stead and has served us ill. Abetz thought he was being ver> clever when he became the champion of this idea and persuaded us to pursue it. He thought he was two moves ahead of events, whereas in reality he was well behind them. He seemed to think that we were dealing wdth the France of Napoleon, with a nation, that is, which was capable of appreciating the importance and far-reaching effects of a noble gesture. He failed to see what is an obvious fact, namely, that during the last hundred years France has changed completely. She has become a prostitute, and she is now a raddled old strumpet, who has never ceased to swindle and to confound us, and has always left us to foot the bill.

Our obvious course should have been to liberate the working classes and to help the workers of France to implement their own revolution. We should have brushed aside, rudely and without pity, the fossilized bourgeoisie, as devoid of soul as it is denuded of patriotism.

We were equally stupid as regards the French colonies.
Never, at any price, should we have put our money on France and against the peoples subjected to her yoke. On the contrary, we should have helped them to achieve their liberty and, if necessary, should have goaded them into doing so. There was nothing to stop us in 1940 from making a gesture of this sort in the Near East and in North Africa. In actual fact our diplomats instead set about the task of consolidating French power, not only in Syria, but in Tunis, in Algeria and Morocco as well. Our 'gentlemen' obviously preferred to maintain cordial relations with distinguished Frenchmen, rather than with a lot of hirsute revolutionaries, with a chorus of musical comedy officers, whose one idea was to cheat us, rather than with the Arabs, who would have been loyal partners for us. Oh! you needn't think I don't see through the calculations of these Machiavellian professionals! They know their job and they have their traditions ! All they thought about was the dirty trick they were playing on the British, for they were still under the ban of the famous alleged antagonism and rivalry between Britain and France in the colonial field. What I'm saying is perfectly true — they are still living in the reign of Wilhelm II, in the world of Queen Victoria and that of those artful sharpers named Poincare and Delcasse! In actual fact this rivalry has ceased to be of any significance. That it still seems to exist is due lu the fact that there are still some diplomats of the old school in the ranks of our adversaries too. In reality, Britain and France are associates, each of whom is playing his own game with considerable asperity, neither of whom react to any appeal to friendship, but both of whom unite again against a common danger. The Frenchman's deep-seated hatred of the German is something deeper and different. Therein lies a lesson on which we should do well to ponder in the future.

As regards France, there were two courses open to her. Either she could have abandoned her alliance with Britain, in which case she would have been of no interest to us as a potential ally, since we knew that she would also abandon us on the first opportunity; or she could have pretended to make this change of partners, in which case she would have been of even more dubious value to us. On our side, some of the wishful thinking about this country was quite ridiculous. In reahty there was only one possible policy to adopt vis-a-vis France^a policy of rigorous and rigid distrust. I know I was right about France, With prophetic foresight I gave an accurate picture of France in Mein Kampf, And I know perfectly well why, in spite of all the representations that have been made to me, I have seen no reason at all to change fhe opinions I formed twenty years ago.


15th February 1945

No decision which I have had to make during the course of this war was graver than that to attack Russia. I had always maintained that we ought at all costs to avoid waging war on two fronts, and you may rest assured that I pondered long and anxiously over Napoleon and his experiences in Russia. Why, then, you may ask, this war against Russia, and why at the time that I selected?

We had already given up hope of ending the war by means of a successful invasion of Britain. Furthermore that country, under the guidance of its stupid chiefs, would have refused to recognize the hegemony we had set up in Europe as long as there remained on the Continent a Great Power which was fundamentally hostile to the Third Reich. The war, then, would have gone on and on, a war in which, behind the British, the Americans would have played an increasingly active role. The importance of the war potential of the United States, the progress made in armaments — both in our own camp and in that of our enemies, the proximity of the Enghsh coast — all these things combined to make it highly inadvisable for us to become bogged down in a war of long duration. For Time — and it's always Time, you notice — would have been increasingly against us. In order to persuade Britain to pack up, to compel her to make peace, it was essential to rob her of her hope of being able still to confront us, on the Continent itself, with an adversary of a stature equal to our own. We had no choice, we had at all costs to strike the Russian element out of the European balance sheet. We had another reason, equally valid, for our action— the mortal threat that a Russia in being constituted to our existence. For it was absolutely certain that one day or other she would attack us.

Our one and only chance of vanquishing Russia was to take the initiative, for to fight a defensive war against her was not practical. We dared not allow the Red Army the advantage of the terrain, place our Auiobahns at the disposal of its swiftly on-rushing armour, and our railways at the disposal of its troops and its supplies. But if we took the offensive, we could, indeed, defeat the Red Army on its own ground, in the swamps and in the vast and muddy expanses; but in a civUized country we could not have done so. We should simply have been providing it with a spring-board with which to leap upon the whole of Europe and destroy it.

Why 1941? Because, in view of the steadily increasing power of our western enemies, if we were to act at all, we had to do so with the least possible delay. Nor, mind you, was Stalin doing nothing. On two fronts, time was against us. The real question was not, therefore: *Why 22 June 1941 already' but rather: 'Why not earlier still?* But for the difficulties created for us by the Italians and their idiotic campaign in Greece, I should have attacked Russia a few weeks earlier. For us, the main problem was to keep the Russians from moving for as long as possible, and my own personal nightmare was the fear that Stalin might take the initiative before me.

Another reason was that the raw materials which the Russians were withholding were essential to us. In spite of their obligations their rate of delivery decreased steadily, and there was a real danger that they might suddenly cease altogether. If they were not prepared to give us of their own free will the things we had to have, then we had no alternative but to go and take them, in situ and by force. I came to my decision immediately after Molotov's visit to Berlin in November, for it then became clear to me that sooner or later Stalin would abandon us and go over to the enemy. Ought I to have played for time in order that our preparations could have become more complete? No — for by so doing I should have sacrificed the initiative; and again no, because the brief and precarious respite which we might have gained would have cost us very dear. We should have had to submit to the Soviet blackmail with regard to Finland, to Rumania, to Bulgaria and to Turkey. That, of course, was out of the question. The Third Reich, defender and protector of Europe, could not have sacrificed these friendly countries on the altar of Communism. Such behaviour would have been dis-honourable, and Vv'e should have been punished for it. From the moral as well as from the strategic point of view it would have been a miserable gambit. War with Russia had become inevitable, whatever we did; and to postpone it only meant that we should later have to fight under conditions far less favourable.

I therefore decided, as soon as Molotov departed, that I would settle accounts with Russia as soon as fair weather permitted.


17th February 1945

When I pass judgment, objectively and without emotion, on events, I must admit that my unshakeable friendship for Italy and the Duce may well be held to be an error on my part. It is in fact quite obvious that our Italian alliance has been of more service to our enemies than to ourselves. Italian intervention has conferred benefits which are modest in the extreme in comparison with the numerous difficulties to which it has given rise. If, in spite of all our efforts, we fail to win this war, the Itahan alliance will have contributed to our defeat!

The greatest service which Italy could have rendered to us would have been to remain aloof from this conflict. To ensure her abstention, no sacrifices, no presents on our part v/ould have been too great. Had she steadfastly maintained her neutral role, we would have overwhelmed her with our favours. In victory we would have shared with her all the fruits and all the glory. We would have collaborated with all our hearts in the creation of the historic myth of the supremacy of the Italian people, the legitimate sons of the ancient Romans. Indeed, anything would have been preferable to having them as comrades in arms on the field of battle !

Italy's intervention in June 1940, with the sole purpose of aiming a donkey-kick at a French army that was already in process of disintegration, merely had the effect of tarnishing a victory which the vanquished were at the time prepared to accept in a sporting spirit. France recognized that she had been fairly defeated by the armies of the Reich, but she was unwilling to accept defeat at the hands of the Axis.

Our Italian ally has been a source of embarrassment to us everywhere. It was this alliance, for instance, which prevented us from pursuing a revolutionary policy in North Africa. In the nature of things, this territory was becoming an Italian preserve and it was as such that the Duce laid claim to it. Had we been on our own, we could have emancipated the Moslem countries dominated by France; and that would have had enormous repercussions in the Near East, dominated by Britain, and in Egypt* But with our fortunes linked to those of the Italians, the pursuit of such a policy was not possible. All Islam vibrated at the news of our victories. The Egyptians, the Irakis and the whole of the Near East were all ready to rise in revolt. Just think what we could have done to help them, even to incite them, as would have been both our duty and in our own interest ! But the presence of the Italians at our side paralysed us; it created a feeling of malaise among our Islamic friends, who inevitably saw in us accomplices, willing or unwilling, of their oppressors. For the Italians in these parts of the world are more bitterly hated, of course, than either the British or the French. The memories of the barbarous reprisals taken against the Senussi are still vivid. Then again the ridiculous pretensions of the Duce to be regarded as The Sword of Islam evokes the same sneering chuckle now as it did before the war. This title, which is fitting for Mahomed and a great conqueror like Omar, Mussolini caused to be conferred on himself by a few wretched brutes whom he had either bribed or terrorized into doing so. We had a great chance of pursuing a splendid policy with regard to Islam. But we missed the bus, as we missed it on several other occasions, thanks to our loyalty to the Italian alliance!

In this theatre of operations, then, the Italians prevented us from playing our best card, the emancipation of the French subjects and the raising of the standard of revolt in the countries oppressed by the British, Such a policy would have aroused the enthusiasm of the whole of Islam. It is n characteristic of the Moslem world, from the shores of the Atlantic to those of the Pacific, that what affects one, for good or for evil, affects all.

On the moral side, the effects of our policy were doubly disastrous. On the one hand we had wounded, with no advantage to ourselves, the self-esteem of the French, On the other hand this, of itself, compelled us to maintain the domination exercised by the French over their empire, for fear that the contagion might spread to Italian North Africa and that the latter might then also claim its independence. And since all these territories are now occupied by the Anglo-Americans, I am more than justified in saying that this policy of ours was a disaster. Further, this futile policy has allowed those hypocrites, the British, to pose, if you please, as liberators in Syria, in Cyrenaica and in Tripolitania !

From the purely military point of view things have not been much better! Italy's entry into the war at once gave our enemies their first victories, a fact which enabled Churchill to revive the courage of his countrymen and which gave hope to all the Anglophiles all the world over. Even while they proved themselves incapable of maintaining their positions in Abyssinia and Cyrenaica, the Italians had the nerve to throw themselves, without seeking our advice and without even giving us previous warning of their intentions, into a pointless campaign in Greece, The shameful defeats which they suffered caused certain of the Balkan States to regard us with scorn and contempt. Here, and nowhere else, are to be found the causes of Yugoslavia's stiffening attitude and her volte-face in the spring of 1941. This compelled us, contrary to all our plans, to intervene in the Balkans, and that in its turn led to a catastrophic delay in the launching of our attack on Russia. We were compelled to expend some of our best divisions there. And as a net result we were then forced to occupy vast territories in which, but for this stupid show, the presence of any of our troops would have been quite unnecessary. The Balkan States would have been only too pleased, had they been so allowed, to preserve an attitude of benevolent neutrality towards us.

As for our paratroopers I would have preferred to launch them against Gibraltar than against Corinth or Crete! Ah! if only the Italians had remained aloof from this war ! If only they had continued in their state of non-belligerence! In view of the friendship and the common interests that bind us, of what inestimable value to us such an attitude would have been! The Allies themselves would have been delighted, for, although they never held any very high opinion of the martial qualities of Italy, even they never dreamed that she would turn out to be as feeble as she was. They would have considered themselves lucky to see remain neutral such power as they attributed to the Italians. Even so, they could not have afforded to take chances, and they would have been compelled to immobilize considerable forces to meet the danger of an intervention, which was always menacing and v/hich was always possible, if not probable. From our point of view this means that there would have been a considerable number of British troops, immobile and acquiring neither the experience of battle nor the fillip derived from victory — in short, a sort of 'phoney war', and the longer it continued, the greater would be the advantage that we gained from it.

A war that is prolonged is of benefit to a belligerent in that it gives him the opportunities to learn to wage war. I had hoped to conduct this war without giving the enemy the chance of learning anything new in the art of battle. In Poland and Scandinavia, in Holland, Belgium and France I succeeded. Our victories were swift, were achieved with a minimum of casualties on both sides, but were yet suflSciently clear-cut and decisive to lead to the complete defeat of the enemy.

If the war had remained a war conducted by Germany, and not by the Axis, we should have been in a position to attack Russia by 15th May 1941. Doubly strengthened by the fact that our forces had known nothing but decisive and irrefutable victories, we should have been able to conclude the campaign before winter came.

Wc Germans do well to remember that in circumstances such as these it is better for us to play a lone hand. We have everything to lose and nothing to gain by binding ourselves closely with more feeble elements and by choosing into the bargain partners who have given all too frequent proof of their fickleness.


18th February 1945

Japan's entry into the war caused us no misgivings, even though it was obvious that the Japanese had made a present of a cast-iron pretext to Roosevelt for bringing in the United States against us. But Roosevelt, urged on by Jewry, was already quite resolved to go to war and annihilate National Socialism, and he had no need of any pretexts. Such pretexts as were required to overcome the resistance of the isolationists he was quite capable of fabricating for himself. One more little swindle meant nothing to him.

The magnitude of the Pearl Harbour disaster was, I am sure, balm to his soul. It was exactly what he wanted in order to be able to drag his countrymen into a total war and to annihilate the last remnants of opposition in his own country. He had done all in his power to provoke the Japanese, It was only a repetition, on a vaster scale, of the tactics employed with such success by Wilson at the time of the first war : the torpedoing of the Lusitania, provoked with diabolical skill, prepared the Americans psychologically for the entry of their country into the war against Germany. Since the intervention of the United States could not be prevented in 1917, it is obvious that their intervention now, twenty-five years later, was both a logical premise and unavoidable.

It was only in 1915 thai World Jewry decided to place the whole of its resources at the disposal of the Allies. But in our case, Jewry decided as early as 1933, at the very birth of the Third Reich, tacitly to declare war on us. Furthermore the influence wielded by the Jews in the United States has consistently and steadily increased during the last quarter of a century. And since the entry of the United States into the war was quite inevitable, it was a slice of great good fortune for us to have at our side an ally of such great worth as Japan, But it was also a slice of great good fortune for the Jews. It gave them the chance they had so long been seeking to implicate the United States directly in the conflict, and it was a master stroke on their part to have succeeded in dragging the Americans unanimously and enthusiastically into their war. The Americans, mindful of their disillusionment in 1919, were by no means anxious once again to intervene in a Euroixan war.

On the other hand they were more obsessed than ever with the idea of the Yellow Peril. Trying to teach the Jews a trick or two is like carrying coals to Newcastle, and you can be quite sure that all their plans are conceived with Machiavellian astuteness. I myself am quite convinced that in the case we are discussing they took a very long view which envisaged the overthrow by a white Power of the Empire of the Rising Sun, which had risen to the status of a world Power and which had always sternly resisted contamination by the race of Jewry,

For us, Japan will always remain an ally and a friend. This war will teach us to appreciate and respect her more than ever. It will encourage us to draw more tightly the bonds which unite our two countries. It is of course regrettable that the Japanese did not enter the war against Russia and at the same time as ourselves. Had they done so, Stalin's armies would not now be besieging Breslau or squatting in Budapest. We should have liquidated Bolshevism by the time winter came, and Roosevelt would have hesitated to take on adversaries as powerful as our two selves. In the same way I am sorry that Japan did not capture Singapore as early as 1940, immediately after the defeat of France. The United States was then on the eve of a presidential election and would have found it impossible to intervene. That, then, was one of the turning points of the war.


20th February 1945

Taking advantage of the enthusiasm we had aroused in Spain and the shock to which we had subjected Britain, we ought to have attacked Gibraltar in the summer of 1940, immediately after the defeat of France.

At that time, however, the awkward thing was that it would have been difficult to prevent Spain entering into the war on our side — and particularly so as we had failed, a few weeks previously, from preventing Italy from flying to the rescue of our victory.


21st February 1945

The universahsts, the idealists, the Utopians all aim too high. Tiiey give promises of an unattainable paradise, and by doing so they deceive mankind. Whatever label they wear, whether they call themselves Christians, Communists, humanitarians, whether they are merely sincere but stupid or wire-pullers and cynics, they are all makers of slaves. I myself have always kept my eye fixed on a paradise which, in the nature of things, lies well within our reach. I mean an improvement in the lot of the German people.

The National Socialist doctrine, as I have always proclaimed, is not for export. It was conceived for the German people. All the objectives at which it aims are, of necessity, limited—but attainable. It follows, then, that I can put as little credence in the idea of universal peace as in that of universal war.

It was on the eve of Munich that I realized beyond doubt that the enemies of the Third Reich were determined to have our hide at ail costs and that there was no possibility of coming to terms with them. When that arch capitalist bourgeois. Chamberlain, with his deceptive umbrella in his hand, put himself to the trouble of going all the way to the Berghof to discuss matters with that upstart, Hitler, he knew very well that he really intended to wage ruthless war against us. He was quite prepared to tell me anything which he thought might serve to lull my suspicions. His one and only object in undertaking this trip was to gain time. What we ought then to have done was to have struck at once. We ought to have gone to war in 1938. It was the last chance we had of localizing the war.

But they gave way all along the line and, like the poltroons that they are, ceded to all our demands. Under such conditions it was very difficult to seize the initiative and commence hostilities. At Munich we lost a unique opportunity of easily and swiftly winning a war that was in any case inevitable.

Although we were ourselves not fully prepared, we were nevertheless better prepared than the enemy. September 1938 would have been the most favourable date. And what a chance we had to limit the conflict.

We ought then and there to have settled our disputes by force of arms and disregarded the inclination of our opponents to meet all our demands. When we solved the Sudeten question by force we liquidated Czechoslovakia at the same time — and left all the blame squarely on Benes' shoulders. The Munich solution could not have been anything but provisional, for, obviously, we could not tolerate in the heart of Germany an abscess, small though it was, like an independent Czech state. We lanced the abscess in March 1939, but in circumstances that were psychologically less favourable than those which would have obtained had we settled the issue by force in 1938. For in March 1939, for the first time, we put ourselves in the wrong in the eyes of world opinion- No longer were we restricting ourselves to reuniting Germans to the Reich, but were establishing a protectorate over a non-German population.

A war waged in 1938 would have been a swift war — for the emancipation of the Sudeten Germans, the Slovaks, the Hungarians and even of those Poles who were under Czech domination. Great Britain and France taken by surprise and discountenanced by the course of events would have remained passive — particularly in view of the fact that world opinion would have been on our side. Finally, Poland, the main prop of French policy in eastern Europe, would have been at our side. If Great Britain and France had made war on us in these circumstances they would have lost face. In actual fact, I'm quite sure they would not have gone to war; but they would have lost face all the same. Once our arms had spoken, we could have left till later the settlement of the remaining territorial problems in eastern Europe and the Balkans without fear of provoking the intervention of the two Powers, already discredited in the eyes of their proteges. As far as we ourselves were concerned, we should thus have gained the time required to enable us to consolidate our position, and we would have postponed the world war for several years to come. In fact, in these circumstances I doubt very much whether a second world war would, indeed, have been inevitable.

It is by no means unreasonable to presume that in the breasts of the well-found nations degeneration and love of comfort could well have proved stronger than the congenital hatred they bore us— particularly when it is remembered that they must have reaUzed that all our aspirations were, in reality, orientated eastwards. Our adversaries might even have deluded themselves with the hope that we might perhaps exhaust ourselves in the pursuit of these eastern aspirations of ours. In any event, it would, for them, have been a case of heads I win, tails you lose, since it would have ensured for them maintenance of peace in the west, and at the same time would have allowed them to take advantage of the resultant weakening of Russia, whose growing power had been a source of preoccupation for them, though to a lesser degree than had been our own resurgence.


26th February 1945

In actual fact, my decision to settle the issue with Russia by force of arms was taken as soon as I became convinced that Britain was determined to remain stubborn. Churchilt was quite unable to appreciate the sporting spirit of which I had given proof by refraining from creating an irreparable breach between the British and ourselves. We did, indeed, refrain from annihilating them at Dunkirk. We ought to have been able to make them realize that the acceptance by them of the Germaii hegemony established in Europe, a state of affairs to the implementation of which they had always been opposed, but which I had implemented without any trouble, would bring them inestimable advantages.

Even by the end of July, one month, that is, after the defeat of France, I realized that peace was once again eluding our grasp, A few weeks later I knew that we should not succeed in invading Britain before the advent of the autumnal gales because we had not succeeded in acquiring complete command of the air. In other words, I realized that we should never succeed in invading Britain.

The attitude of the Russians during the summer of 1940, the fact that they had absorbed the Baltic States and Bessarabia while we ourselves were busy in the west left me with no illusions regarding their intentions. And even if I had retained any, Molotov's visit in November would have been sufficient to dissipate them. The proposals which Stalin submitted to me after the return of his Minister did not deceive me. Stalin, that incomparable and imperturbable blackmailer, was trying to gain time in order to consolidate his advanced bases in Finland and the Balkans. He was trying to play cat and mouse with us.

The tragedy, from my point of view, was the fact that I could not attack before 15th May, and if I were to succeed in my first initial onslaught, it was essential that I should not attack later than that date, Stalin, however, could have launched his attack much earlier. Throughout the winter of 1940, and even more so in the spring of 1941, I was haunted by the obsession that the Russians might take the offensive. In the event, the Italian defeats in Albania and in Cyrenaica had roused a minor storm of revolt in the Balkans. Indirectly, they also struck a blow at the belief in our invincibility, that was held by friend and foe alike.

This alone was the cause of Yugoslavians volte-face, an event that compelled us to drag the Balkans into the war; and that was something which at all costs I had desired to avoid. For once we had become involved in that direction we might well have been tempted to go still further ahead. I need hardly say that in the spring of 1941 we could rapidly have liberated the Near East with only a small fraction of the forces which we were about to employ against Russia. But to have removed the necessary forces from their place in our order of battle at that juncture would have been to incur the indirect danger of giving Russia a signal to attack. They would have done so in the summer, or at the latest in the autumn, and under conditions so disastrous from our point of view, that we could never have hoped to win the day.

[] Russia could not stand idly aside and watch the destruction of Great Britain, for in that case, with the United States and Japan cancelling each other out, as it were, the Russians would find themselves face to face with us — and alone. And that would mean without any doubt that, at a time and a place of our choice, the long-outstanding issue between us would be settled in our favour.

If I felt compelled to decide to settle my accounts with Bolshevism by force of arms, and, indeed, arrived at my decision on the very anniversary of the signing of the Moscow pact, I have every right to believe that Stalin had come to the same decision even before he signed the pact.


2nd April 1945

With the defeat of the Reich and pending the emergence of the Asiatic, the African and, perhaps, the South American nationalisms, there will remain in tbe world only two Great Powers capable of confronting each other — the United States and Soviet Russia. The laws of both history and geography will compel these two Powers to a trial of strength, either militaiy or in the fields of economics and ideology. These same laws make it inevitable that both Powers should become enemies of Europe. And it is equally certain that both these Powers will sooner or later find it desirable to seek the support of the sole surviving great nation in Europe, the German people. I say with all the emphasis at my command that the Germans must at all costs avoid playing the role of pawn in either camp.

If North America does not succeed in evolving a doctrine less puerile than the one which at present serves as a kind of moral vade mecum and which is based on lofty but chimerical principles and so-called Christian Science, it is questionable whether it will for long remain a predominantly white continent. It will soon become apparent that this giant with the feet of clay has, after its spectacular rise, just sufficient strength left to bring about its own downfall. And what a fine chance this sudden collapse will offer to the yellow races! From the point of view of both justice and history they will have exactly the same arguments (or lack of arguments) to support their invasion of the American continent as had the Europeans in the sixteenth century. Their vast and undernourished masses will confer on them the sole right that history recognizes— the right of starving people to assuage their hunger — provided always that their claim is well backed by force !

Petri Murien - The Metallic Oils

[] Many techniques, some better than others, enable us to obtain the oils of metals, but one is better than all others. This way is universal for it’s is the way of nature.

First the metal should be taken in its ore such as it comes from the earth, from the mine: but it should be clean and pure. Any metal molten in the violent fire of the forge is a dead metal, or tightened to such an extent that it presents no interest, because its spirit, the delicate vital principle which partakes of its evolution, has partly escaped during the fusion, and has been partly closed in again in its inside.

Once this mineral is cleansed of its earthy or stony gangue, it should be reduced to powder and dissolved into its natural solvent which is the salt of the earth and the spirit of the world, the humid radical of metals from which it issued, the semen of mercury or first mercury, but not the common mercury. When the ore is completely dissolved, in other words, when the dry and hard marcasite becomes a liquid, coloured and clear water, then, by the fecund and fermentative virtues contained in the spirit, this water will ferment and putrefy. The fermentation or the pregnant state is only obtained in natural conditions that are favourable in this respect. During fermentation the matter precipitates into a black mud which swells and thickens under the influence of the mineral leaven; a gaseous release is observed in the form of thousands of little bubbles which rise to the surface. When the putrefaction is complete, the black and stinking earth hardens and fills almost all the space in the flask.

This black earth must then be worked so that it can mature and vegetate, while passing through various colours. In order not to divulge any secret, we shall be content to say that this earth must be prepared in the same way a peasant would prepare it, according to the needs of nature.

Finally we obtain a vitrified metallic resin, hard and breakable but soluble in water. The resins thus obtained are black as tar when they come from iron, antimony, or lead; dark blue when they come from copper; from gold they are saffron-orange, from silver, whiteyellow, from mercury, red-orange, and from tin, yellow-orange. Yet their colours may vary according to the degree of exaltation. Gold for instance can yield an emerald green earth if it is taken out before its time.

Those resins are then placed into a retort and distilled. During the distillation, a diaphanous mercurial spirit, volatile and very penetrating, comes out first, then at the second degree of the fire the sulphurous oil rises, condenses and floats on the spirit. In the retort; a coal remains out of which the fixed salt is extracted, using water. We have thus separated a metal in its three principles, mercury, sulphur, and salt.

If we wish to continue the experiment for the simple joy of knowledge, we can place in a large, well sealed, glass flask the mercurial spirit with its oil, its sulphurous soul, which can no longer blend for the oil always floats on top of the spirit. If this flask is placed in a sand bath at a digestive heat for several weeks an astounding phenomenon is elaborated: large drops of liquid metal, similar to vulgar mercury, precipitate heavily at the bottom, of the flask. This experiment brings us to understand that we have reconstituted the metallic principle after we have separated it. But as the salt, which is the fixing coagulating part, has not been added, we obtain a liquid metal which lacks its solid body.

The metallic oils thus obtained are genuine elixirs. They contain no toxicity for, in metals, that which is toxic is always in their salt. Separated from its salt, a metallic oil does not present any danger for the user, contrary to metallic salts such as gold salts often injected into sick people at hospitals and which often cause severe poisoning.

We should also add that some of the metallic resins we have talked about can be found in nature ready and completely elaborated. But for this to occur, specific exceptional climatic conditions are required, that is, tropical heat during the day and a very humid cold during the night. These extreme climatic conditions enable the rocks to cook, burst, rot, perspire and ooze; the remaining task is to collect the resinous droplets blended with the sand. earth or plants. Certain very rare places, far away in the Himalayas abound in these resins. We could ourselves verify these locations and gather a favourable harvest.

Another method, less universal in its approach, can be used. For example, we can directly work with vulgar, that is, refined metals. They must be calcined to be reduced to ashes without being vitrified. Metallic mercury can be used in this aim, for during digestion it will open the metal and retrograde it. We obtain what is called a metallic chalk (Calx). If the work has been well conducted, these ashes cannot return to their original metallic state.

In India, numerous, widely used techniques allow to calcine all the metals in the cold state by merely using vegetable extracts. These metallic ashes, which are sold in drugstores, can then be directly dissolved in the salt of the earth and in the spirit of the world. After their dissolution, the same phenomenon of fermentation and putrefaction occurs, which enables the soul of the metal thus opened to rise in the solvent. Then the work must be pursued according to the desired results.

Of course, there would be many other ways and techniques for the obtention of metallic oils about which to comment as for example the way of the acetates, which advocates the use of good rectified vinegar as solvent. Moreover this process was very much in practice during the Renaissance. It also enables for excellent results, even though it is more chemical and more complex in its approach.

[] The metallic alchemical oils are very potent tinctures. They are to be absorbed at very small doses and diluted preferably in alcohol. Here is an approximate idea of the proportions of dilution we have successfully experimented with: 1 drop of pure oil for 40 drops of alcohol, that is approximately 2 ml. Shake well to obtain a homogeneous colour, and from this dilution absorb 2 to 3 drops in half a glass of pure water or water containing a little alcohol. It is preferable to take the oils on an empty stomach in the morning for the effect is so energizing that it might be difficult to get to sleep in the evening if they are ingested in the afternoon. Numerous very satisfying tests have proven us the excellency of these oils, they turn out to be very efficient to fight against man's numerous illnesses.

Hermetic Triumph - Eudoxus vs Pyrophilus upon the Ancient War of the Knights

[]  the Stone of the first Order, is the Matter of the Philosophers perfectly purified, and reduced into a pure mercurial Substance;

the Stone of the second Order, is the same Matter decocted, digested, and fixed into an incombustible Sulphur;

the Stone of the third Order, is the very same Matter fermented, multiplied, and pushed to the last Perfection of Tincture fixt, permanent, and tinging

the Stone of the Philosophers is the Subject of Philosophy, considered in the state of its first Preparation, in which it is truly a Stone, since it is solid, hard, heavy, brittle, frangible; it is a Body (says Philalethes) because it flows in Fire like a Metal; and yet it is a Spirit, for it is wholly Volatile. It is the Compound and the Stone that contains the Humidity, that runs in the Fire (says Arnoldus in his letter to the King of Naples) it is in this State that it is a middle Substance between a Metal and Mercury (as the Abbot Sinesiusexpresses it) it is in fine in this State, that Geber considers it, where he says in two Places of his Summa, Take our stone, that is to say (saith he,) the Matter of our Stone, just as if he had said, take the Philosopher's Stone, which is the Matter of the Philosophic Stone.

The Philosophick Stone, is therefore the same Stone of the Philosophers; when by the secret Magistery it is exalted to the Perfection of the third Order, transmuting all imperfect Metals into pure Gold or Silver, ACCORDING TO THE NATURE OF THE FERMENT ADJOINED TO IT.


the Work is not made but of one only Thing, of one only and the same Species.

The Matter has no need but to be dissolved, and then coagulated; Mixtion, Conjunction, Fixation, Coagulation, and other like Operations, are made almost of themselves; but Solution is the great Secret of the Art. It is this essential Point that the Philosophers do not reveal. All the Operations of the first Work, or the first Medicine, is nothing (to speak properly) but a continual Solution; so that Calcination, Extraction, Sublimation, Distillation, is but a true Solution of the Matter. Geber taught not the Necessity of Sublimation, but because it not only purifies the Matter from its gross and combustible Parts; but also, because it disposes to Solution, from whence results the Mercurial Humidity, which is the Key of the Work. the principal Operation is to procure the Solution of a Matter hard and dry, coming near to the Nature of a Stone; which, nevertheless, by the Action of the natural Fire, ought to be resolved into a dry Water, as easily as Ice is melted by the least Heat.


-the natural Fire is the principal Key of the Art; it is indeed the great Mystery of the Art, all other Mysteries of this sublime Philosophy depending on the Knowledge of this; it is an potential Fire, that burns not the Hands, but makes its Efficacy appear, being a little exited by the exterior Fire. it is called Lunar Vulcan;

-Artephius has made a more ample Description of it, than any other Philosopher. Pontanus has copied him, and tells us, that he erred two Hundred times, because he knew not this Fire, 'till the had read an understood Artephius; this mysterious Fire is natural, because it is of one same Nature with the philosophick Matter; but nevertheless, the artist prepares them both.

-without it, one meets a full Stop, after the first Step made in the practick Part of the Work.

-this natural Fire is an artificial Invention of the Artist,

-there is but this one sort of Fire in this World able to calcine, dissolve, and sublime the Stone of the Philosophers:

-this Fire is of the Nature of Lime or Calx,

-it is in no sort a Stranger, with regard to the Subject of Philosophy.

-Consider, in fine, also by what means Geber teaches to make the Sublimations require to this Art;

-may the Stars of Venus and horned Diana be propitious to you !!!

-this Fire is not actually hot, but it is a fiery Spirit, introduced into a Subject of one self same Nature with the Stone, and which being moderately excited by the exterior Fire, calcines, dissolves, sublimes the Stone, and resolves it into a dry Water, as Cosmopolite has expressed it.


-from this first Solution, Calcination, or Sublimation, which are here one and the same Thing, there results the Separation of the terrestrial and adustible Parts of the Stone; especially if you follow Geber's Councel touching the Regiment of the Fire in the manner he teaches it, where he treats of the Sublimation of the Bodies, and of Mercury. You ought to hold if for a constant Truth, that there is but this one way in the World, to extract from the Stone its unctuous Humidity, which inseparably contain the Sulphur, and the Mercury of the wise Men.


[] the Metals of the Vulgar, are not the Metals of the Philosophers; for it is evident, that to be such they must be destroyed, and cease to be Metals: And the wise Man wants nothing but the viscus Humidity, which is their first Matter from which the Philosophers make their living Metals by an Artifice, that is a Secret as it is founded upon Principles of Nature

[] the wise Man ought to be perfectly acquainted with Nature in general, and her Operations as well in the Center of the Earth, in the Generation of Minerals and Metals, as upon the Earth in the productive of Vegetables and Animals.

[] the Philosophers themselves call their Stone Dragon and Serpent, infecting all Things with its Venom. Its Substance, and its Vapour, are indeed a Poison, which the Philosopher should know how to change into an Antidote by Preparation and Decoction. The Stone is moreover the Enemy of Metals, since it destroys them, and devours them. Cosmopolite says, there is a Metal, and a Steel, which is as the Water of Metals, which has the Power to consume Metals, that there in nothing but the radical Moisture of the Sun, and of the Moon, that can resist it. But take heed that you do not here confound the Philosopher's Stone, with the Philosophick Stone; because, if the first like a true Dragon destroys and devours the imperfect Metals; yet the second, as a sovereign Medicine, transmutes them into perfect Metals, and makes the perfect more than perfect, and fit to make perfect the imperfect.

[] There is no doubt but Gold possesses great Virtues for the Preservation of Health, and for curing the most dangerous Diseases. {Venus} {Jupiter} {Saturn} and {Mars}, are every Day usefully employed by Physicians, as likewise is {Moon}; because their Solution or Decomposition which manifests their Properties, is easier than that of {Sun}; [] but I tell you in Truth, that without the Knowledge of our Magistery (which only can teach the essential Destruction of {Sun}) 'tis impossible to make the universal Medicine of it; but the wise can make it much more easily with the Gold of Philosophers, than with {Sun} vulgar.

[] it must in its beginning be all Volatile, and by consequence fugitive, for to be depurated from all manner of Terrestreity, and brought from Imperfection to the Perfection that the Magistery gives it in its other States;

[] there are three sorts of {Sun}:

The first is an Astral {Sun}, whose Center is the Sun, who by its Rays communicates it, together with its Light to all the Stars, that are inferior with its Light to all the Stars, that are inferior to him. It is a fiery Substance, and a continual Emanation of little solar Bodies, which by the Motion of the Sun and Stars, being in a perpetual Flux and Reflux, fill the whole Universe; all Things through the Extent of the Heavens, upon the Earth, and in its Bowels are therewith penetrated, we breathe continually this Astral Gold, these solar Particle incessantly penetrate into, and exhale from our Bodies.

The second is an Elementary {Sun}, that is to say, it is the most pure and the most fixt Portion of the Elements, and of all the Substances that are composed of them; so that all the sublunary Beings of the three Genders, contain in their Center a precious Grain of this elementary Gold.

The third is the beautiful Metal, whose unalterable Splendour and Perfection give it a Value, that makes it esteemed by all Men as a sovereign Remedy of all the Ills, and all the Necessities of Life, and as the only Foundation of humane Power and Grandeur;

[] the metallick Gold is not the Gold of the Philosophers, [] but [rather] it is the Stone which hides in its Bosom the true {Sun} of the wise Men, that is to say, the two first Sorts of {Sun}; the Stone being the most pure Portion of the metallick Elements, after the Separation and Purification, which the wise Man has made of it;

it follows, that it is properly the Gold of the second sort; but when this {Sun} perfectly calcined and exalted unto the Cleanness, and to the Whiteness of Snow, has acquired by the Magistery a natural Sympathy with the Astral Gold, of which it is visibly become the true Magnet, it attracts and concenters in it self so great a Quantity of Astral Gold, and of solar Particles, which it receives from the continual Emanation that is made of them from the Center of the Sun, and of the Moon, that it is found in the nearest Disposition to be the living Gold of the Philosophers, infinitely more noble, and more precious than the metallick {Sun}, which is a Body without Soul, and cannot be vivyfied, but by our living Gold, and by the Means of our Magistery.

[] to be fluid, volatile, and not permanent, are qualities as necessary to the Stone in its first State, as are its fixity and permanency when it is in the State of its utmost Perfection; [] the great Secret consists in knowing how to extract the Humidity of the Stone. [] this is indeed the most important Key of the Art. [] Happy then is the Artist who not only knows the Stone, but also can turn it into Water. Which cannot be done by any other means, than by our secret Fire, which calcines, dissolves, and sublimes the Stone.

[] The Sun and Stars are indeed the first Cause of it; they inspire the Stone with that Spirit and Soul that give it Life, and make all its Efficacy. And therefore it is that they are its Father and Mother.

[] the Physical Tincture is composed of a red and incombustible Sulphur, and of a clear and well purified {Mercury}; [] the metallick Humidity of the Stone prepared and purify'd, contains inseparably in its Bosom the Sulphur, and the {Mercury} of the Philosophers; it is by consequence that only thing of one only and self same kind, to which nothing ought to be added; and that the only {Mercury} of the wise Men contains its own Sulphur, my means whereof it coagulates, and fixes it self;

[] it is certain, that Nature stops in her Productions, when she has brought them to their proper State and Perfection; for Example, when from a most clear and most pure mineral Water tinged by some Portion of metallick Sulphur, Nature produces a precious Stone, she stops there, as she likewise does when in the Bowels of the Earth she hath formed {Sun} with mercurial Water, Mother of all Metals, impregnated with a pure solar Sulphur; so that it is not possible to make a Diamond, or a Ruby more precious, than it is in its kind; so neither is it in the Power of the Artist, nay (I will go further,) nor of Nature her self, so push on Gold to a greater Perfection, than what she has given it. It is the Philosopher that can only carry Nature from an undetermined Imperfection, even to a State more than Perfect. It is therefore necessary, that our Magistery produce a plusquam Perfection, which to accomplish, the Sage must begin with a Thing imperfect, which being in the way of Perfection, is found in the natural Disposition to be carried on even to plusquam Perfection, by the help of an Art wholly Divine, which is able to exceed the limited Bounds of Nature; and indeed if our Art could not exalt a Subject to a State of plusquam Perfection, neither could we give Perfection to what is imperfect, and all our Philosophy were vain.

[] if the [Mercury] of the wise Men hath been elevated by Art from an imperfect, to a perfect State, yet this Perfection is not of the Nature of that, whereat Nature stops in the Production of Things, according to the Perfection of their kind, such as is that of [Mercury] vulgar; but on the contrary, the Perfection which the Art gives to the [Mercury] of the wise Men, is but a middle State, a Disposition, and a Power that makes it fit to be carried by the continuance of the Work, unto the state of plusquam Perfection, which gives it the Faculty by the Accomplishment of the Magistery, at last to give Perfection to the imperfect.

[] those that know not the Gold of the Philosophers, may nevertheless find it in common Gold decocted with the Mercury of the Philosophers. Philaletha is of this Sentiment; he assures, that Count Trevisan, Zachary, and Flamel followed this Way, but he adds That it is not the true Way of the wise Men, though it leads to the same End.


[] the Stone is the most pure Part of the metallick Elements, and by consequence it is the first Matter of the mineral and metallick Gender, and when this very same Matter has been animated, and made Fruitful by the natural Union that is made of it with the Matter purely universal, it becomes the vegetable Stone, alone capable to produce the great Effects that the Philosophers attribute to the three Medicines of the three Kinds.

[] the Stone is the first Matter of the Metals, and consequently it is Prior to {Sun}, and to all other Metals; and if it derives its Original from them, or if it takes Birth from their Destruction, it does no therefore follow, that it is a Production posterior to Metals; but on the contrary, it is Prior to them, since it is the Matter from whence all Metals have been formed. The Secret of the Art consists in knowing how to extract from Metals this first Matter, or this metallick Germ, which is to vegetate, by the Fecundity of the Philosophic Sea.

[] The Passage of the smaragdine Table of the great Hermes, proves the excellency of the Stone, in that it shows that the Stone is endued with two Natures, i.e., with the Nature of superior Beings, and with that of inferior Beings; and that these two Natures both alike have one only and the same Original; so that we must conclude, that they (being perfectly united in the Stone) compose a third Being of an inexpressible Virtue:

"That which is below, is as that which is on high; and that which in on high, is as that which is below" one reads "To do the miracles of one only Thing. "

But the Latin Original has quite another Sense, for the "quibus", which makes the Connexion of the last Words, with the preceding, signifies, "That by These things (that is to say, by the Union of these two Natures) one does the Miracles of one Thing".

The "to", of which the [common translation] do make Use, destroys the Sense and the Reason of a Passage that of it self is very proper and intelligible.

[] Indeed the superior and inferior Natures are not alike to work Miracles, but it is because they are alike, that one can do by them the Miracles of one only Thing.

[] It weds it self, it is with Child by it self, and it is Born of it self.

The stone weds is self; in as much as in its first Generation, it is Nature alone assisted by Art, that makes the perfect Unison of the two Substances, which give it Being, from which Union there results at the same time the essential Depuration of the Metallick Sulphurand Mercury. An union and Marriage so natural, that the Artist who lends his Hands to it in disposing all things requisite, can give no Demonstration of it by the Rules of Art; since he cannot even so much as well comprehend the Mystery of this Union.

The Stone is with Child by it self; when Art continuing to assist Nature, by mere natural Means, puts the Stone in the Disposition requisite for it, to impregnate it self with the Astral Seed, which renders it fruitful, and gives it the Power of multiplying its kind.

The stone is Born of it self; because after having wedded it self, and after being with Child by it self, Art doing nothing else than to assist Nature, by the continuance of a Heat necessary to Generation, it takes a new Birth form it self, just as the Phoenix is born again from its Ashes; it becomes the Son of the Sun, the universal Medicine of all Things, that have Life, and the true Living Gold of the Philosophers; which by the continuance of the Help of the Art, and the Ministry of the Artist, acquires in a little time the Royal Diadem, and the sovereign Power over all his Brethren.

[] the Stone has a Body, in as much as it is a Substance wholly metallick, which gives it the Ponderosity; it hath a Soul, which is the most pure Substance of the Elements, in which consists its Fixity, and its Permanency; it hath a Spirit, which makes the Union of the Soul with the Body, which [Soul] it acquires particularly from the Influence of the Stars, and is the Vehicle of Tinctures. [] all Things are of it, by it, and in it: the Stone is not only the first Matter of all Beings contained in the mineral and metallick Family, but that it is also united to the universal Matter, from whence all Things have taken Birth

[] some Artists who have imperfectly known the Stone, and also known but a part of the Work, having yet wrought with the Stone, and found means to separate its Spirit, which contains its Tincture, they have succeeded so far as to communicate some Part of it to imperfect Metals, which have Affinity with the Stone, but not having a full Understanding of its Virtues, nor of the manner of working with it, their Labour has not turned to any great Account; and even of these Artists the Number is very small.

[] Without doubt many Artists have the Stone in their Possession; some despise it as a mean Thing, others admire it, because of the Characters, in some sort supernatural, which it carries in its Birth, and yet without knowing its Value. There are, in fine, who are not ignorant of its being the true Subject of Philosophy; but the Operations which the sons of Art are to make upon this noble Subject, are intirely unknown to them; because they are not taught in Books, and because all Philosophers hide this admirable Art which converts the Stone into the Mercury of Philosophers, and which teaches to make the philosophick Stone into the Mercury of Philosophers, and which teaches to make the philosophick Stone of this Mercury. This fist Work is the Secret one, touching which the Sages declare themselves only in Allegories, and by impenetrable Enigma's, or else are wholly silent in it. And this is the great Block at which almost all Artists stumble.

[] the Error of those who have wrought with the Stone, and have not succeeded, proceeds from their not having known the Original, from whence the Tinctures come; for it is generally believed, that Metals and Minerals, and particularly Gold, contain in their Center this Tincture, which is capable to transmute the imperfect Metals.

This source of vivifying Water, Is before the Eyes of all the World, says Cosmopolite, and few Men know it. Gold, Silver, Metals, and Minerals, contain not a Tincture able to multiply to Infinity, there are none but the living Metals of the Philosophers that have obtained from Art and Nature this multiplying Faculty; [] the Heaven, and the Stars, but particularly the Sun and Moon are the Principles of this Fountain of living Water; [] to make this Water to descend from Heaven is truly wonderful; it is in the Stone, which contains the central Water, which is indeed one sole and the same Thing with the celestial Water, but the secret consists in the knowing how to make the Stone become Magnet, to attract, embrace, and unite this Astral Quintessence to it self, so as to make together one sole Essence, perfect and more than perfect, able to give Perfection to the imperfect, after the Accomplishment of the Magistery.

[] the Wife which is proper for the Stone, and which ought to be united to it, is that Fountain of living Water, whose Source altogether Celestial, which hath particularly its Center in the Sun, and in the Moon, produces that clear and precious Stream or Rivulet of the wise Men, which gently slides into the Sea of the Philosophers, which environs all the World; this Divine Fountain is called the Wife of the Stone; some have represented it under the Form of a heavenly nymph; some give it the Name of the chaste Diana, whose Purity and Virginity is not defiled by the spiritual Band that unites it to the Stone: In a word, this magnetick Connexion is the magical marriage of Heaven and Earth; so that the fruitful Source of the physical Tincture, that performs so great Wonders, takes Birth from this altogether mysterious conjugal Union.

[] the Season of the Year, which is the most proper for this Operation [is] the Month of March, and the Spring. Zachary, and other Philosophers say, that they begun the Work at Easter, and that they finished it happily within the Course of the Year. Others are contended with representing the Garden of Hesperides enamelled with Flowers, and particularly with Violets and Primroses, which are the earliest Productions of the Spring. Cosmopolite more ingenious than the rest to indicate, that the Season the most proper for the philosophick Work, is that wherein all living Beings, sensitives and vegetables, appear animated with a new Fire, which carries them reciprocally to Love, and to the Multiplication of their Kinds; he says, that Venus is the Goddess of this charming Isle, wherein he saw naked all the Mysteries of Nature; but to denote more precisely this Season, he says, That there were seen seeding in the Pasture, Rams and Bulls, with two young Shepherds, expressing clearly in this witty Allegory, the three spring Months, by the three celestial Signs, answering to them, viz. Aries, Taurus and Gemini.

[] The Knowledge of the Season proper to begin the Work, is of no little consequence; the fundamental Reason thereof is this. Whereas, the Sage undertakes to perform by our Art, a Thing which is above the ordinary Force of Nature, as to soften a Stone, and to cause a metallick Germ to vegetate; [] Nature from the beginning of the Spring, to renew is self, and to put all the Seeds that are in the Bosom of the Earth into the Motion proper to Vegetation, impregnates all the Air that environs the Earth, with a moveable and fermentatious Spirit, which derives its Original form the Father of Nature; it is properly a subtile Nitre which gives the fertility of the Earth, whereof it is the Soul, and which Cosmopolite calls the Salt-Petre of the Philosophers. It is therefore in this prolifick Season, that the wise Artist, to make his metallick Seed to bud, cultivates it, breaks it, moistens it, waters it with this prolifick Dew, and gives it as much of it to drink as the weight of Nature requires; after this manner the philosophick Germ concentring the Spirit in its Bosom, is animated and vivyfied by it, and acquires the Properties which are Essential to its becoming the vegetable and multiplying Stone.

[] our Mercury or our Stone does indeed take Birth from two Bodies; but it is not the Mixture of two Bodies which produces our Mercury, or out Stone: For Bodies are contraries, and there can be no perfect Union made of them; but our Stone on the contrary is born from the Destruction of two Bodies, which acting one upon another, as the Male and the Female, or as the Body and the Spirit, after a manner no less Natural than Incomprehensible to the Artist, who lends it the requisite Help, do intirely cease to be that which they were before, to bring forth a Production of a miraculous Nature and Original, and which hath all the necessary Dispositions to be carried by Art and Nature, from Perfection to Perfection, to a sovereign Degree, which is above Nature it self.

those two Bodies which destroy themselves, and confound themselves one in the other for the Production of a third Substance, and of whom the one holds the place of Male, and the other Female, in this new Generation, are two Agents, who stripping themselves of their grossest Substance in this Action, change their Nature to bring forth a Son, of an Original more noble, and more illustrious than the Parents that give him Being, and in being Born, he carries visible Marks, that evidently shew, the Heaven presided at his Birth.

our Stone is born many several Times, but in every one of its new Births it still draws its Rise from two Things. [] it espouses a celestial Nymph, to make but one sole and same Thing with her; [] after the Stone hath appeared a new, under terrestrial Form, it must again be Married to a Spouse of its own Blood, so that there are still two Things which produce one [Thing] only of one sole and same Kind; in all the different States of the Stone, the two Things that are united to give it a new Birth, come from one sole and same Thing; [] of one is made two, and of two one, in which all Operations, Natural and Philosophical, are terminated without any Possibility of going further.

[] the first and most important Operation of the Practice of the fist Work, is to reduce into Water that Body, which is our Stone, and this is the most Secret Point of our Mysteries. [] this Water must be vivified and fertilized by an astral Seed, and by a celestial Spirit, wherein resides the whole Efficacy of the physical Tincture: [] one only Thing, whereof the Sage hath need to make all Things, Is no other than the Water and the Spirit of the Body. The Water is the Body, and the Soul of our Subject, and the astral Seed is the Spirit of it; our Matter has a Body, a Soul, and a Spirit.

[] This Matter, so precious by the excellent Gifts, wherewith Nature has enriched it, is truly mean, with regard to the Substances from whence it derives it Original. Their Price is not above the Ability of the Poor. Ten Pence is more than sufficient to purchase the Matter of the Stone. But the Instruments, and the Means that are necessary to pursue the Operations of the Art, require some sort of Expence; which makes Geber say, That the Work is not for the Poor.

[] to attain this End, many Operations are requisite, which tending all but to one and the same Scope, are not in the main considered by the Philosophers, but as one sole and same Operation diversly continued. Fire separates at first the heterogenous Parts, and conjoins the homogeneous Parts of our Stone; the secret Fire produces afterwards the same effect; but more efficaciously in introducing into the matter a fiery Spirit, which opens interiourly the secret Gate which subtilizes and sublimes the pure Parts, separating them from those that are terrestrial and adustible. The Solution which is afterwards made by the Addition of the astral Quintessence, which animates the Stone, makes a third Depuration of it, and Distillation compleats it entirely; thus purifying and subtilizing the Stone by many different Degrees, to which the Philosophers use to give the Names of as many several Operations, and of Conversion of Elements, it is exalted to that Perfection, which is the nighest Disposition to conduct it to plusquam Perfection, by a Regiment proportioned to the final Intention of the Art, that is to say, unto perfect Fixtion. [] to speak properly, there is but one way, as there is but one Intention in the first Work; the Philosophers describe not many ways, but because they consider the different Degrees of Depurations, as so many Operations, and different Ways, with design to conceal this Admirable Art.

[] the Solution of the Body is not made but in its own Blood: in our Art, there is in three different Times, three essential Solutions made, wherein the Body is not dissolved but in its own Blood, and that is in the Beginning, in the Middle, and at the End of the Work. [] in the principal Operations of the Art, there are always two Things, one supplies the place of the Male, and the other of the Female; one is the Body, the other is the Spirit: in the three Solutions, the Male and the Female, the Body and the Spirit, are not other but the Body and the Blood, and these two Things are of one same Nature, and of same kind; so that the Solution of the Body in its own Blood, is the Solution of the Male by the Female, and that of the Body by its Spirit. And this is the order of these three important Solutions.

In vain you would attempt by Fire the true Solution of the Male in the First Operation, you could never succeed in it, without the Conjunction of the Female; it is in their mutual Embraces that they confound and change each other, to produce one whole Homogeneity, different from the them both. You would in vain open and sublime the Body of the Stone, it would be intirely useless to you, unless you made it espouse the Wife which Nature hath designed for it; she is that Spirit, from whence the Body hath drawn its first Original; which Body dissolves therein as Ice does at the Heat of Fire. [] you would attempt in vain to make the perfect Solution of the same Body, if you should not reiterate upon the Affusion of its proper Blood, which is its natural Menstruum, its Wife, and its Spirit altogether, wherewith it so intimately unites, that from thenceforth they become but one sole and same Substance.

[] as the Stone, strictly speaking, does not devour imperfect Metals, but so changes their Nature, that there remains nothing to know by what they were before; so the Stone not being able to destroy Gold, nor to transmute it into a more perfect Metal, transmutes it into a Medicine a thousand Times more perfect than Gold, since it can then transmute a thousand Times as much imperfect Metal, according to the Degree of Perfection that the Stone had receiv'd of the Art.

[] The Stone is a Field which the Wise cultivates, into which Art and Nature have put the Seed, which is to produce its Fruit. And as the four Seasons of the Year are necessary to the perfect Production of Fruits, so the Stone has in like manner its determinated Seasons. Its Winter, during which Gold and Humidity have Dominion in this Earth thus prepared and sowed. Its Spring, wherein the philosophick Seed being warm'd, gives Signs of Vegetation and Increase; its Summer, during which its Fruit ripens, and becomes proper to Multiplication; and its Autumn, in which this Fruit being perfectly ripe, rejoices the Wise that have the good Fortune to gather it.

[] I must here make you observe three Things.

First, That the Sage ought to imitate Nature in the Practice of the Work; and as this wise Worker [viz. Nature] can produce nothing perfect, if its Motion be made violent, so the Artist ought to suffer the Principles of his Matter to act interiourly, by exteriourly administring a Warmth or Heat proportioned to its need,

The second Thing is, that the Knowledge of the four Seasons of the Work, ought to be a Rule, which the Wise should follow in the different Regiments of the Fire, in Proportioning it to catch, according as Nature shows it, who has need of less Heat to put the Trees in Blossom, and to Form the Fruit, than to make them perfectly Ripe.

Thirdly, That though the Work has its four Seasons, so as Nature has, it does not follow, that the Seasons of Art, and of Nature, must precisely Answer to each other, the Summer of the Work may happen without Inconvenience in Nature's Autumn, and its Autumn in her Winter. It suffices, that the Regiment of the Fire, be proportion'd to the Season of the Work, it is in that only, that the great Secret of the Regiment consists, for which I cannot give you a more certain Rule.

Fleischer - Chemical Moonshine

If but a single Christian friend had only revealed to me the meanest spark of the true being, and from thence what is absorbed by animal, vegetable, mineral and lead, flux of the solar-rays, yea! If he had led me and directed me to catch hold of the astral, viscous, fat water, I would be forever obliged to that one []

[] those and other sincerely truthful adepts advise so well what can and may issue forth from mineral, vegetables and animals, because these things were each predestined to a certain nature, thus all things are unable and incapable of bearing something of unlike kind, or of forming out of something of contrary nature; alone our Water, Sun, Moon, and Celestial Dew serves all three kingdoms as a Universal Spirit, and therefore cannot be separated from them, I must and should catch it in the manner to be described, and bring it to effect; also I should be unconcerned in regard to the natural fire, because this Astral Essence would show itself clearly to me []

[] I know not why I had to delay the work until the fourth year; by and by I lacked this or that, by and by my mirror was broken in pieces, by and by I was not able to have the proper vessels.

[] I had a good deal of difficulty with the appearance of the water at the beginning

[] the true subject I doubted even less, for I perceived in Sendivogius’ Tract de Sulphur: Est in aere occultus vitae cibus, quem nos rorem de nocte, di die vero aquam rarefactuam voamus Cujus Spiritus invisibilis coagulatus, melior est quam universa terra [ The food of life is found in the ocult air, our dew of the night, of this true water, rarefied, whose invisible spirit coagulated is better than anything on earth ]

[] Our Matter is a heavenly salt by means of which we (namely the Astral Salt is first extracted out of its slimy fat water and is kept) open (this happens in a free fire, in a crucible) the earthly body (namely Sol or Luna) and during that time the elixir is born, and the Salt out of which the solution is achieved, and also the mineral (namely aqua viscose) out of which this salt is made, are neither costly.

[] This Universal mercury is nothing else than the Astral Salt, which a few call Heavenly; by the ancients, however, it is called the Salt of Metals; not only do all Metals have their beginning and growth from this spirit, but also all animals, vegetables and insects must suffocate and decay if they should be robbed of this solar-lunar moisture, heat, cold, life and motion.

[] It is a corporeal spirit of a spiritual body (that one sees glittering if one looks into the Sun), which certainly is the saltpeter of the wise. It is really a fat, heavy, and juicy earth, which is very useful and very precious, hidden to the ignorant, but quite common to the knowledgeable.

[] One can catch hold of this splendid Matter everywhere, in valleys and level fields, in mountains and caves or galleries, even in one’s own house. It is the dew of heaven, the fatness of the earth, and the esteemed natural saltpeter of the Sages. It is in everything the Quintessence of the viscous earth, out of which Adam was made; briefly, our Matter is a virginal earth, on which the Sun (which is her father) has never shed its rays, (and the Moon is her mother) our virginal earth is really a nurse-mother of the gods, because from her comes forth not only Gold and Silver, but also all other metals, minerals, vegetables, and animals, and take life, breath and air and growth from her []

[] Innumerably many charlatans have written of the primary thing that issues forth from minerals, vegetables, and animals, [] recommending chimney soot, dust, lampblack, spittle, sweat, and many more such fool’s tricks as the Prima Materia of the Philosopher’s Stone. Although each one derives from the prime mover and possesses something therefrom, as much as is needful, their users are not artists'. He is also no artist, who is able to separate such therefrom, and employ it on his behalf; nothing is gained if he drives out this spirit from one of the bodies, through some kind of art or fire-power, in order to catch hold of it and to bind it; Rather, all labour is in vain, the time and expense are lost [].

[] everything that is undertaken in the above three kingdoms causes loss and all manner of useless and impossible things.

[] it is an easy thing to catch and dry up naturally the being of being, the essence and life of everything, the spirit of the world, Microcosmal Mercury, revered by philosophy, Living Spirit, unripe electrum of minerals, and to make therefrom the central salt of philosophers and of metals.

[] It is the same thing that in the beginning was produced by three together, but is only one thing, likewise be engendered and made out of 1st, 2nd, 3rd, 4th, and 5th. Also it is found everywhere in ones and twos, they name is Magnesia Catholicam, Sperm of the World, the Seed of the whole world, out of which all things have their origin; likewise it be of a singularly wondrous birth and form, has an unknowable and unfathomable character and nature, thus neither hot nor dry, like the fire, nor cold and moist like the water, nor cold and dry, like the earth, but a perfect proportion of all elements; it be also of an indestructible body, that may be touched by no elements, which reconciles all of its attributes as an indestructible Quintessence in everything, even as the heavens over the 4 elements and 4 qualities;

likewise it be in outward bodily appearance, figure, shape and form, a stone and yet no stone, rather it compares more to a kind of gum or water; they call it also a water of the great sea, a water of life, yea the purest and most blessed water, it is however no water of the clouds or of a common spring-fount, but rather a thick, sticky and salty one, also after sundry examinations, a dry one, that does not wet the hands, or a dirty water that springs from the salty fatness of the earth.

Likewise a twofold Mercurium and Azoth, which is fed and nourished by the lowest and highest, vapours of the celestial and terrestrial spheres, mist and sweat, which also burns in no fire, because it itself has in it a spark of universal fire of the Light of Nature; in addition a celestial spirit that dissolves all things, with which it was blessed and animated by God from the beginning, which Avicenna calls the Soul of the World, and of which he says:

 Even as the soul exists and moves and exists in all elemental creatures, it is an inseparable union of body and soul, the purest and noblest essence, in which all secrets are concealed, full of wondrous power and virtue; it possesses also a divine strength, power and  virtue, it is that Spirit of the Lord, that fills up the fissures of the earth, and moved upon the face of the waters in the Beginning; it is also called the spirit of truth, hidden to the world, and without the call of the Holy Ghost, or instruction from those that know it, may be neither grasped nor obtained (attained); that is in everything, in every realm according to its degree, but which is only in certain bodies found in perfection.

[] In sum, such a spiritual substance, that is neither celestial nor infernal, but rather a pleasant clear pure substance, the fixed middle between the lowest and the highest, also the most elect, and most precious under the heavens: It will not be known by those who have no understanding of it, or first begin with consideration of value, for is the meanest of all, and most unesteemed, yea, as a rejected thing; which however is sought by many, but found by few, may be found everywhere, collected and taken, seen by everyone, but its separation known by few.

[] No perfect tincture comes forth except from a true and perfect root, for the beginning of the work is our solution, noting is brought about in the work unless the semen of man conjoins with the femininity of woman. Who is desirous to attain to the treasure of the red lion, that one must be able to draw the Sun out of the mountains, quench the same with its heat with the lion’s blood, thus will the hidden spirit increase in strength; who will now attract to himself the little fish, Echeneis or Remora Echeneis, remora ‘sucking fish’ of Pliny, as Philosophisch Vaterherz says, that one will find, that it turns in a natural manner into a water, and this into earth, which, if properly prepared through the artful secret of the sages, has the strength to dissolve all fixed bodies; to make the fixed volatile, and to purify all diseased bodies

[] I say to you once more, that our Matter is nothing else than the Earth, but not that on which we walk, but that which hovers over our heads; the sages call it their Virgin Earth: It is the element which gives the Earth its origin; briefly to tell: It is the noble earth of the earth of the sages; whose Father is the Sun, and Mother the Moon: It is the fatness of the mineral earth, or noble spiritual and corporeal essence, out of which is made the Mercury of the Sages, the precious salt of nature: it is the true and common Mercury of the Sages, not however of the common folk, namely quicksilver.

[] One can seek and take this precious Matter in the caves, on the plains and in the Mountains, one finds it in all the paces of the inhabited Earth, but one should grasp and take it, before the Sun has had sight of it; Theophrastus says: Who takes not the Moon down from heaven, to make water, and subsequently is able to bring the water into an earth, will never find the correct Matter of the Philosopher’s Stone.

[] In the following passage Hermes testifies plainly and clearly:

In superiori sphaera
Est in medio frontis vena
Quae est regula
Philosophorum prima.

[ In the spheres above, there is in the medial front a vein which is the first rule (matter ?) of the philosophers ]

To advise first how, one finds metals and minerals in no other place but only in the mountains, and in the ground, where the mineral water is found admixed, the root which is found in fire and water together with the Philosophical matter, and it continues to grow or lie quietly, seeking is own proper level. This is the True Materia, that is not wet, that is however an element and a water, and is only one thing, which may not be separated from the earth, for it is from the Earth, the Earth is the nourishment of such material; it is full of spiritual life; celestial, terrestrial, magnetic, it is refreshed by the pure celestial dew, the Earth harbors it and is its mother; it existed from the beginning of the world, this Spirit which attracts air, fire, and water and encloses all in one: The heavens are adorned with many stars, the Sun and Moon: This Materia cannot become fruitful without the heavens’ cooperative help. Also no single thing could live and endure, if it did not unceasingly receive this celestial, Astral, material, cooperative power, this spirit or salt: All life comes down from above, each life as its separate defect in the root of its Spheres, its own salt-spirit, all metals, vegetables and animals meet in the center in agreement.

[] We know, that the water dwells within the earth, the water must also become the earth, and it ascends out of our Materia and becomes a spiritual subtle creature. Its extract and tincture, is a salty essence, an incombustible, abiding fiery oil, the key that unlocks all, and transmutes into its own likeness.

Thus water and earth must dwell continuously mixed together, terrestrial and celestial intermingled, keeping company together with that which must become water and spirit; this is now plain, that our Materia is a pure water, a spirit, a celestial fire, a pure spiritual extracted salt: It is born of the sun, created beautifully pure and clear, containing the indwelling fire, that comes forth out of the Divine essence, that externally is the greatest poison, though internally the highest good and medicine: Firstly, you must well purify our Materia, through water, these two, as the earth and spirit mix well with the seeds, make one  (thing) to bring forth the noble salt-spirit, because without such Magisterium salis we accomplish nothing,

[] everything that has been joined together once in the beginning, should remain together, and henceforth no longer be separable: Because that which is below must become like that which is above, both come into One, and remain, in order to attain perfection; as it became the earth, so must it again become what it was in the beginning, namely water and spirit, which must become locked into one; otherwise it does not take effect

[] It is a fiery living water, the Philosophie viscose, that climbs the mountains and falls down into deep valleys, seek its fountainhead, thus you have the power of to tinge, to work great wonders, in medicines and in the metals: Therein is made clear, that it is the internal great power of the Sun alone, whose fire is the single celestial fire, that has the power to tinge, to work wonders, in medicines and in the metals: Therein is made clear, that it is the internal great power of the Sun alone, whose fire is the single celestial fire, that has the power and might to work great miracles.

[] Now this is taught by the sincere philosophers, that a divine fire is enclosed in the Solar Archaeus, which is only enticed forth by means of the true philosophical key, it is a water and a fiery beam, this works at and resolves all that is hidden, without force and labour; it conveys everything within itself, it is the beginning and the end, a celestial dew, the united Matrix, the quickening growing power, that consumes soul, spirit and body and is regenerated again: Without this sap and rays of the sun, gold’s inhabitant can neither be seen nor captured. It is only a singular essence, a single root, a single universal, that can mingle with all things, and attract to itself that which is of value: If all things did not partake of this, they would be in a state of nothingness (nihilium); Italaii says figuratively: The roots of its Minera be in the air, and the earth in the height, and when it is pulled up by its root, so is heard a frightful sound, and a great fear follows afterward.

Here learn to understand, that when the rays of the Sun reach the volatile damp earth, salt or saltpeter, thence arise lightning and thunder. Therefore one must catch the atoms soon, ere they vanish.

[] Who would follow after the truth should take the sun’s heat, and the froth of the moon. [] If you would take the Sulphur and Argent Vive, each in its natural way, so you must alloy these two, for the right measure and proportion is totally unknown to human understanding, and next cook these substances to a thick jelly. [] The Tincture has been universal from the beginning, as it still moved upon the waters, but afterwards became specified, and from thence to be found in all things of the four Nature-kingdoms, as Astral, Animal, Vegetable, and Mineral, but in particular it is to be found in the Astral kingdom, the best in the sun. [] such a water is to be drawn out of the rays of the Sun and the Moon, in a wonderful manner, by a skillful Master of Art: This rarified Water is a Material compared to the Light, a Forma compared to the Created or Elemental, but it is itself an Astral Substance, and a Tincture of all natural things. How now to make manifest this Water as a celestial Materia and terrestrial Forma, which it was formerly, that stands once again in great secret: One perceives something therefrom, when one handles that Body such that it neither becomes so heavy, nor remains as it was previously; this must be considered well.

[] You need for your vivification to reverberate, fire, and that so hot, that everything flows; but in the end you spoil it if you don’t enter into my smithy in which I forge metals without ceasing within the earth: For in there will you seek the Matter with which I work, and the method of my work.

Think not that I will reveal you my secrets, if you do not seek the growing seed of metals, animals and vegetables: These which are entirely within my Power, one concerning so much the generation, the other so much the nutrition.

[] The Metals have no life, yet still some nourishment to grow, to become green, or to increase; they have no breeding seeds, therefore they also do not procreate their kind they are fashioned in the beginning out of the substance of the 4 Elements, from these I produce them.

[] My Lord, the Creator has commanded me, that I (as his hand-servant) transmute the four Elements from the Universal Materia, through my operation and administration, and bring all mineral forms under a common or Universal form: Likewise I carry through my natural Art the Sun in 24 hours around the circumference of the earth, which never ceases to stir a warmth, through its motion in every element; similarly also the 8 spheres, and the 7 Planets; and their Father the Primum Mobile, with whom all the other spheres travel about.


Now further, the common gold and silver is such a perfect Metal, and all imperfect Metals come forth from the mercury, therefore all Philosophers call it a Mother of the Metals, and it follows therefrom, a twofold metallic substance be in it: Firstly, the substance which enters Luna, and also the Sun, is such a Metal to which others are not similar from this Double Substance (Rebis) is formed the Philosophical mercury, which spiritual essence is in its Body; so soon as the nature of this Mercury is formed from the double Spirit, so he desired to form it perfectly, and make it corporeal, which cannot occur without it. When now this double Spirit rouses, says Flamel, and the double spermatic Seed awakens, so they long to receive their particular Body; then their Mother the Mercury must die; vainglorious alchemists say indeed, that one must and should make perfect and imperfect bodies into a flowing Mercury; that this then be the true Subject of Philosophy: But this is an empty fraud; who however joins together the Sun and Moon through the true Mercury, so this one makes all imperfect Metals perfect.

[] Hermes, in ‘Turba’ indicates its subject: The Subtle airy Dampness, with a watery, and the Watery with an earthy dryness, are thus joined and put together, that they may scarcely or never be parted from one another, and then only with the most subtle understanding of the Artist: He is Blessed! Who possesses such understanding, such to perform.

For without this separation all Alchemists have endeavored fruitlessly, because in this separation or cooking is found such a great and heavy difficulty, and the ignorant one supposes he must bring forth Salt, Sulphur and Mercury, separate, purify, and put together again, but that isn’t it, and still fewer should be: Therefore no one or hardly anyone, of all the Philosophers in the world, can bring it to fruit; therefore no one should boast that he Knows the Stone, that he knows how to separate the abovementioned Humidity and dampness in the Stone, and to separate, that is, to put asunder the remainder, and to make it out of Water, Earth, and Salt.

[]
    1. The Matter should be gathered at the right Time, and scarcely when the ran goes out to pasture: For although such can be gathered at all times, this however is not so powerful or well to have at all times.

    2. This must be well preserved, until Putrefaction.

    3. After this it must be prepared to a natural, and not a Sophistical essence, as the Alchemist knows to perform without hands, or artificial ovens, horsedung, charcoal, or lamp-fire.

    4. The vessel should be thick, firm, well-joined, and have no cracks.

    5. The Seal of Hermes, with which Nature could and may perform its function from the beginning until the End, is to be made loosely, if not, then so the Radicale Humidum should not have enough space and air to be able to throw of the Superfluous and Heterogeneous things; everything should stand still, and putrefy sooner, and is condensed and dried in itself. Each one has their own just and firm Idea, how such could, should, and maybe occur.

[] Although our Stone holds its Tincture naturally within itself, since it is perfectly created in the body of the magnesia (lode-stone), that is, of the earth; but however it has not the Motive or motion within itself, that a perfect Elixir comes out of it, unless it would be prepared and moved through Art and Effect.

[] You have enough, if you have nourished the material correctly externally. For it can produce sufficient changes in itself toward perfection [] the Cooking of the Stone must occur by the warmth of the Sun.

[] the Year must be divided into 4 Times, and command the Stone to rule after the changings, says Zenon, in Turba: The Year is divided into 4 divisions. First is the winter, cold and moist. 2nd. The Spring, warm and moist. 3rd. The Summer, warm and dry. 4th. The Autumn, cold and dry. In this way one should govern the two natures. From thence says Morienus: Our whole Magisterium is nothing else than a drawing of the water out of the Earth, and that one pours the same over the Earth, or a such operation.

Mundus says: These two, namely man and Wife, father and mother, the rays of the sun and moon made finely whitish in the vessel, and beseech Almighty God Basely, that you see this Stone mixed; then cook it, draw the Soul out of it by degrees, see it the Stone has become black; if it is thus, so has it been done correctly, if not, so govern it with the Judicious Juice, so long until it is covered with the greatest blackness; this is the whole secret.

Naturea: After the Putrefaction occurs the Generation, through the internal incombustible warmth, therewith to heat up the cold of the Argent vive, which suffers so much, that it becomes one with its Sulphur. This is held within a vessel, Fire, Air, and Water: I take these in the earthly vessel and let them remain, in a single oven, then I cook, dissolve and sublimate them, without hammer, tongs or Coal, fumes, fire, and waterbath, and without Sophistical Ovens: For I have my heavenly Fire, which awakens the elemental, according as the Matter desires a suitable Form.

[] The fire bears and nourished it in the air, first of all however it putrefies in the Virgin Earth: Afterward the water comes forth, so we must seek that which is the first Matter, from which I begin Minerals.

[] Mark the three things, into which God in the beginning divided the first matter; from the first and purest part, he fashioned Cherubim and Seraphim, and every angel, from the second not so pure parts, he fashioned the heavens and their issues, from the thirds and impure part the Elements with their properties; Firstly, the Fire, which precedes the others in virtue, this he put into the heights under the moon; it has no Corruption in itself, but rather it has the pure part of the Quintessence: After this he made the subtle Air, and put into it part of the Quintessence also, but not so much as into the Fire: After this followed the visible Element of Water, which has as much of the Fifth Essence, as it has occasion for, after the water finally the Earth: However, such all and the whole of Nature, of which I am the first creature: He created in an instant: The Earth he made thick and opaque, but fruitful; this holds in itself the Least of the Fifth essence.

[] My Son, I would tell you yet a true word, namely that the whole Work is made by a single, ordinary, common, united with itself Matter, in a single well-sealed vessel, and a single oven; it has everything in it, which is necessary for perfection, and is finished by a single Regimen of the Fire.

Firstly, you must take the same oft-mentioned Matter, or Primum Ens, which the Philosophers also call the highest Good of nature; dissolve before all things, and dissolve and purify it from all its Aquosity, and Earthiness, because in the beginning it appears to be an earthly feculent body, a sharp, viscous, slimy, and cloudy-watered thing, also take away from it its dark and thick-clouded treasure, with which it is obscured, thereafter such through further Sublimations, its heat and internal Soul which is hidden in it; divide it and separate it out, that it may be brought into a lovely essence: his happens however, through the great catholic sea-water, which through its swift, even flying ebb and flood, waters the whole circumference of the earth, and makes fruitful, and therefore is so beautiful, sweet, clear, bright, and shining, that it is to be looked upon with admiration. Far higher and more beautiful than gold or silver, or a carbuncle, or diamonds luster; which blessed water also holds together in its aforesaid Matter, namely, The Philosophical Salt of the Wise.

If you now preserve this, it is a good tasting, good smelling salt, subtle, airy sort, that if it should stand in the air, would disappear, unless it is fixed of itself. So you should take the Waters and divide into 2 parts, out of the 2nd part, divide into 3 parts, and carefully preserve them. Coagulate till dry, the first part (or half); when this occurs, imbibe the reserved 1st third part, and coagulate it, till it is again dry; the 2nd 3rd part is also imbibed and coagulated till dry as afore; divide the last remaining 3 rd portion into 7 equal parts, and soak your earth or salt as often as it becomes dry, until the last 7th imbibition and soaking, if it flows on a red-hot piece of metal without smoke, and penetrates, it is good; if not, you must imbibe it with fresh milk so long, until it is fixed and penetrates as oil into leather into the metal; as often as you imbibe your slat, put the glass into the oven, and give it a graduated Fire, that is gentle, continual, airy, moist, whose warmth penetrates like a hen over her eggs. The Philosophical Fire (Fire of the Wise) is not metallic or elemental, but only an essential Fire; it can also be well named Divine. The Philosophical Fire is also called Aqua Mercurii, and in truth, it is the same Fire, which the Israelites used for their burnt offering, as it stands to be read in the 1st Chapter of the other Book of the Maccabees; of colours and other things, it is better to keep silent than to speak, since this only causes difficulty and error, but in the Practice it is not so.

When the Salt of the Wise, or Philosophers’ Stone has gone through its 7 reddenings, and has been fixed, this can be fermented with 3 parts Sol purified by Luna, in a strong crucible in a free fire, for 3 or 4 days in flux, so will the metal not only appear broken, through the acceptance of the Tincture in either Sol or Luna, and whose virtues are multiplied in the body of either Sol or Luna, to transmute other imperfect metals into Sol or Luna, as according whether Sol or Luna was multiplied. It is first tinged, and through  and through itself to tinge others. Thus here the saying applies: ‘Nothing tinges unless it first be tinged’.

The time in which the Stone can be finished, no one can determine, the cautious and mindful know how to perform this work.

[] To speak with brief words, our beginning Subject is neither Bodily nor animal, vegetable, nor mineral, or anything else that can or may come forth from these, but, rather in truth, a pure Astral Essence. For all three Nature-Kingdoms are yea n each, and although each does have as much as it needs of the Universal Spirit; though it is still not capable of imparting it to other bodies.

[] I will tell you this much however, that the rays of the Sun and Moon and Dew must be collected in a clean Jar or Vessel, separated from Rain and dirt, stench, smoke, and also from flying and wandering animals. The ways of attraction are many, but it is as well at home, as in an open place in the wind. As also a most fit and convenient Receptacle.

 In a great Thunderstorm, with storm wind and downpour this Spirit which the Sun has earlier drawn from the Earth (plentiful and in great abundance) is driven up into the air, and then is thrown down into the lowest Region, and gathered in great quantity by both men and plants; thus also with the previously prepared receptacles. In a thunderstorm, if the wind blows from the South, Southeast, or Southwest, it is good; great cold and great heat, give nothing. The dew collected from grass or trees, is already spoiled. The place of capture must not be marshy, have no great mountains, houses or towers or high trees before it, but rather stand open and free; the place should be open, smooth, and even fro South to North; the vessel should stand at least 6 feet over the earth, neither higher nor lower, smoke and fire must not be a hindrance. The Current of air is not to be despised, if such were driven through a narrow space, into a spacious room: Who knows how to arrange this same Modus correctly, will fear no calamity; Receptacle and place must have a harmonious Adaptation and the Spiritus Mercurii should be collected Copiously. Enough of the capture of the Spiritus Mercurii.

When you have 8, 10, 12, 16 ounces, let it putrefy for 40 days in a well closed Alembic or Vial, or however it suits you. After putrefaction, divide your Materia into several parts; take 1 or 2 ounces, and let it dry, draw your material into several parts; take 1 or 2 ounces, and let it dry, draw you’re your Salt out of the Caput Mortuum and add thereto as much Spiritus Mercurii, as there was in the beginning, or a little less. Let it again dry gently; when it has dried, give the Child fresh Milk, out of which originated, half as much as before, then have in store the third Portion, of your whole Spiritus Mercurii; divide it into 7 equal Portions, and soak your Materia seven times, but each time well dried, until the 7th soaking and drying: So then give the tincture its Ferment, either Sol or Luna in a crucible in a strong fire for 3 or 4 days, that the metals stands in flux or continual fusion, and so our heavenly Salt of all metals ennobled and together with either Sol or Luna transmuted to a tincture. When this occurs, take a little of this tincture, wrapped in Wax, projected on imperfect metals, when in fusion, so you will accomplish Miracles.

[] God gives you the gift to find the Single One, seek the single vessel, oven and Fire, and let all other things alone: As various Matters, vessels, Phials, Solvents, bowls, mirrors, dishes, wood, coal, and other fire works. It costs nothing from the beginning to end, except your necessary maintenance, as nourishment and clothing. If you will understand the matter correctly, so also it will cost you little. Therefore I believe, that certainly God is everything in everything, and over everything; that if someone would make known to you, that there are great expenses here and there, that same one is a capital liar and fraud. For the Matter costs absolutely nothing, as that you accordingly work and take pains, mirror, polished dishes, vials and Solvent vessels, one can also have at a low price. A common vessel will perform as well as an expensive one, if only it is not porous or broken. Otherwise you need no expensive costs for the work, not even a Penny. If I should reveal to a Simpleton the Secret Materia and mode of proceeding, I certainly believe he would call me a boaster, clown, and moreover would believe that I build Castles in the Air; and might quite well believe that I have been robbed of my senses. And yet so simple and common are our Materia and method of Operation; so great, so noble, so glorious, so valuable, and so indescribably great are its virtues: For consider, our Universal Subject, is even the Thing, which no thing in the World can do without; it is a vile thing, and yet it is in the particular, viz. our fixed Mature Salt.

[] The General Rules borrowed from Sendivogius, Together with the Verse.

Four Elements: Fire, Air, Water, Earth ---  from God.
Three Beginnings: Sulphur, Salt, Mercury --- from Nature.
Two Seeds: Masculine, Feminine --- from the Metals.
One Fruit: Tincture --- through Art.

Who understands this table correctly
Sees how one goes from out of the other.
First everything dwells in a 4-fold state
The elements everywhere.

Out of this the 3 Beginnings spring.
Which bring forth two Sexes.
Masculine, feminine from Sun and Moon.

Out of which grows the Wise Son:
Who is like nothing else in the world
He surpasses all Kingdoms.