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.
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.
Merélle - Alkymiens Mysterier
[] But what is alchemy actually? The best explanation given, could be the one that stems from the german chemist, doctor and alchemist, J. R. Glauber, who lived in the 17th century. He is no more remembered as an alchemist, but as the chemist that discovered karlsbadersalt, which in our days is called sodiumsulphate. His era had a special name for it, namely sal mirabile Glauberi , Glaubers wonderful salt. For it was effective against even the hardest case of constipation. Glauber discovered it when he worked with a chemical/alchemical process, for he didn’t make a a sharp distinction between chemistry and alchemy. About the Art of Alchemy he has said something very relevant and essential. Following quotation is from a chemic/alchemic work of his, published in Paris 1659:
Alchemy is a thought, an image, a discovery, through which the species of metals go from one natural state to another.
In another work, that also was published in French, Glauber says about the purely chemical side of alchemy:
The ancients have given this art the name alchemy, that is, saltfusion.
[] A researcher by the name Schønbein had noted, that water, that was left to evaporate out in the open air, formed saltpetersour ammonia from the airs nitrogen, hydrogen, and oxygen. Schønbein had moistened some linnen cloths with distilled water and afterwards exposed them to air, so that the water could evaporate slowly. When the cloths had dried, he took them, and soaked them in distilled water. Some substance was now drawn out of the cloths and dissolved in the water. It showed itself to be saltpetersour ammonia, as he called it, with the chemical formula NH4-NO2. The researcher now explains, that what happened was, a socalled “nitrification”. Two nitrogen atoms from the air had joined with four hydrogen atoms in the following way:
2N + 4H = N-NH4.
This again becomes a saltpetersour ammonium salt: NH4-NO2, in that two oxygen atoms attach themselves to the compound. In this way, saltpetersour salts are formed in the ground, says Schønbein. The same takes place in plants, from whose surface a continual evaporation takes place. In this way the plants form the nitrates needed for further growth.
[] There really forms a salt in the water left outside during a fullmoon night. One must remember to use distilled water, and it has to be reduced very slowly. In the bowl is then left a fine white salt, that is watersoluble. The chemist, Schønbein, did not know that the moons light gives the best result. Such an idea would probably have seemed to be both absurd and ridiculous to him, for he was a traditional chemist. The old alchemists had their own explanation for what happened to water and dew that had been exposed to the rays of the moon. The water becomes active they said, and thereby able to dissolve matters. It should be reduced to a fine salt, and this they called “Water that does not wet the hands”. Thereby they ment a dry, water soluble salt.
[] In may, during fullmoon, one spreads out linnen cloths over the dew wet grass. Early the next morning, one wrings the cloth dew out of the cloths into a vessel. Then one needs two pounds of mercury ( [] An old french pound is 489 gram). One then pours a little of the dew water over the the mercury and lets it cook ver a low heat, until the dew has evaporated. Then a new portion of dew is added and further cooked, until it also has evaporated. One continues so, until one has used all the dew. Finally the mercury is poured through a sieve of fine gauze or linnen. When the cloth has dried, some of the mercury has been transmuted into gold and caught in the fabric. One can then continue working with the remaining mercury, when one has collected a new portion of dew. This can be done for a few days, while the full moon is still present.
[] The ammonium ion itself is strange jest of Natures making, for it does not exist in free form. In reality it doesnt exist. If one tries to isolate it, it will decompose into ammonia and hydrogen.
[] From the horns of animals one extracted “hartshorn”, “hjortetakssalt”, “deer antler salt”. [] Chemically speaking, “deer antler salt” is ammoniumbicarbonate, so this salt contains the same mysterious ammonium as the dew from the meadow.
[] The rams mineral is the light green iron sulphate, also called iron vitriol. The bulls mineral is the blue copper sulphate, or copper vitriol. From these two minerals the alchemists produced- as did the chemists- mixtures of strong acids by distilling the minerals with ammonium containing salts, f. x. ammonium chloride or ammonium nitrate. Thereby they got solvents for both gold and silver. For these metalls where to be brought into liquid form, before one could continue with the process. The alchemists made all the acids they needed, themselves, for example nitric acid, hydrochloric acid, and “aqua Regis”.
[] In french books one often comes upon the terms “sel alcali fixe vegetal” And “sel de tartre”. They are about the same salt, namely potash, or potassium carbonate, as it is also called. Concerning “sel de tartre” one might think it is about a salt of wineacid, acidum tartaricum, whose salts are called “tartrates”, but that isnt the case.
[] in the medieval age nitrogen compunds where many things. There could be different nitrates, for example potassium nitrate, sodium nitrate, or ammonium nitrate, and one didn’t always discern between them. Or it could be about dew from the air, which in french scriptures sometimes would be called “salpetre”, sometimes “nitre”. Bu the terms where quite striking, for the dew contained a saltpetersour salt, namely ammoniumnitrit.
[] A good example of an alchemical riddle, that is a hard nut to crack, is the legendary unicorn. In English its called “unicorn” in French its called “licorne”. The unicorn was a horselike, friendly and beautiful animal, that had a long horn on its forehead. At the same time it had a bushy liontail. These two things, the long pointed horn, and the lionlike tail, contain its secret in unison. Firstly, that it posessed a penetrating power, symbolized by its horn. Secondly, that it has a connection to Leo in the “other end”, as shown by its tail. The lion tail is a connection to the metal gold.
The Unicorn is mentioned in greek literature already 400 B.C., and it is told about it, that its horn contains a matter, that neutralized all poisons. Here we have the key to the riddle of the unicorn. At the same time there is a parallel to the horned cattle from Mutus Liber, the silent book of alchemy. In both cases the matter is something that could be extracted from the animals horns. This matter is what we nowadays know as “hartshorn” or ammonium carbonate.
With this salt one can neutralize aqua regis, the strong “poison” that was used to dissolve gold. When the poison is neutralized, the gold is precipitated as a very fine and pure 24 karat gold powder. The same effect can be had with potash, also known as potassium carbonate. Potash has its own fairy tale, Cinderella, and it is one of the finest alchemical fairy tales known.
[] Iron has the atomic number 26. That means that iron contains 26 positive charges, plus just as many negatively charged negative electrons. If iron is to become silver, that has the atomic number 47, protons have to be supplied. Iron lacks 47 minus 26 protons, that is, 21 positive charges in order to become silver, and these must be had from somewhere. It is very likely that these could come from nitrogen, which has the atomic number 7.
[] Everything came to be in a watery element the alchemists say, and therefore all matter must be redissolved in a liquid, if it is to be brought into another form.
[] There is something “prehistoric (or ancient*), dead and spooky about the moons blue white light. This sensation is real enough, for in reality the moon doesn’t shine. It only reflects the light of the sun, and it is a completely different light that is reflected back to earth, for it is polarized. Moonlight vibrates in a different plane than sunlight, and it also has a completely different effect in nature.
[] The moon creates (regulates) the oceans respiration, and we humans still have this respiration in us. The so called (spinalmarrowrespiration) must be a remnant of our connection with the ocean, in a prehistoric age, where we didn’t have lungs. This primary respiration, as it is also called, is a rhythmical pulsation in the (brain-backbone-spinal marrow fluids) closed tubular system, and has a period of about 8-12 BPM (beats per minute), that is, very slow.
[]The great oceans contain tons of silver in an extremely (extraordinarily) high dilution, about 10 milligrams in a ton of seawater. The silver is so finely divided, that it is not economically feasible to ext ract it. But a lot of small animals, that build (snailhouses), conches and shells, do so. The most beautiful of them have violet blue, rosy red, and violet mother of pearl layers, that coat the rough chalk shell in fine layers. The many colours stem from the silver in the ocean water, and likely also from gold, of which there is almost just as much present. Because both these metals will appear with the same violet and rosy red colours in certain compounds. So it is not ordinary metal (anymore), but fine microscopic matters, that these beings have secreted onto the calcium shell with stoic calm, over many years.
[] The greek philosopher Plato, who lived 427-347 BC, was familiar with alchemy through his teacher Socrates. Plato had knowledge of many alchemical processes and has said, that there is gold in (ordinary, common) sea salt, but it remains spiritual until it is precipitated in visible form. This (piece) of information is found in a work (of, from the hand) of J. R. Glauber, that was published in Paris 1659 (Des Navigants pp. 22-23)
Plato's and Glauber's statements are interesting, because we today know that gold and silver form chemical compounds with the element chlorine, of which there is a lot in ocean water, about 19%. Gold also forms compounds with sodium chloride, of which there is a lot in the ocean, and forms an orange yellow compound, sodium gold chloride. All the salts of gold have beautiful red, orange, blue and violet colours, and the same goes for silver salts under certain conditions.
[] The animals that live in shells and conches, suck in seawater and digest the matters, they come in contact with. They thereby absorb the metal salts from the ocean together with the organisms on which they subsist. Little by little, they excrete the fine organic silver and gold complexes, for they cannot utilize them. These violet and rosy/pink coloured matters are totally destroyed, if one treats them as metallic compounds, that can be dissolved in acids.
[] In laboratories and goldsmith workshops, silver items are dissolved with nitric acid. It is done under a so called fume hood, because some very bothersome and toxic nitrous oxide fumes are given of, especially if the temperature is over 16-17 degrees Celsius. The process can become so violent, that the contents flies in the air, and one must then hastily dilute with water. But he problem can be avoided. Silver is a “cold” metal, and belongs to the night and the moons cold light. If one wants to avoid the violent reaction between silver and nitric acid, one must extend the reaction time by lowering the temperature. These two things relate to each other, because at low temperature all natural processes are slowed down.
[] One now puts the silverware, perhaps folded together or broken into pieces, in a glass, it could be an empty jam jar, and places it into a box of sand []. Then one pours nitric acid over it, and not more, than the silverware is just covered. At low temperature there is hardly any nitrous oxides given of, but something is happening in the silver just the same. It takes on a yellowish colour, and sometimes one can smell very faint acid fumes. The process takes time, so one lets the glass sit quite undisturbed for a week or two. At the same time one must assure that solution sits (stands) in a place where it cannot accidentally be toppled over by cats, porcupines, or other animals. Over time the silver is dissolved, and if there is copper in it, the liquid turns blue. One them dilutes with a little water and can take the glass back indoors. One now has a solution consisting of silver nitrate plus a blue copper salt.
The silver nitrate can now be precipitated as white silver chloride, and this is easily done with common table salt, sodium chloride. So much salt is needed as to ensure that all silver is precipitated, that is, salt in excess, and it must be dissolved in water. As the whole now will take up more volume, it is advisable to pour the silver nitrate with its copper content into a large glass bowl, before one proceeds to add concentrated salt water. As soon as the salt water comes in contact with the silver nitrate solution, the liquid turns milky white. It is silver chloride that now precipitates, and it resembles lumpy (sour milk, thick milk). [] One sets the bowl with silver chloride aside and lets it sit for about an hour. Then one can carefully decant the blue copper laden liquid of, that stands above the precipitate.
The blue liquid can be stored in a separate glass and then precipitated as copper later on. This can be done with iron filings, the masculine metal in alchemy. The iron slowly dissolves and a brown powder of metallic copper is precipitated. When it is washed, dried, ad ground to a fine powder, one has an excellent paint pigment. If one adds “purified” gasoline or a binder to this copper powder, it can be used on wood, stucco, gypsum, cast iron and cement (mortar). The paint covers completely and dries fast, and the painted objects take on a beautiful golden bronze colour.
The white precipitate is now rinsed once with water, and then the bowl of silver chloride is set aside with abundant water. Something very strange will now take place. The white silver chloride will, in the course of some hours form coral like formations of snowy white branches, moving from the bottom upwards. The long fine branches sometimes resemble thin icicles with flowers, and they gradually take on a violet sheen. Sometimes they "hang down" from the surface of the liquid as thin needles with rimfrost (“icefeathers”) on them. Here we have an example of silvers cold, moonlike character. Flowers are formed, that resemble the winter nights magic with the growths of nature. The process continues for some hours, and when no more crystals are formed, they all slowly sink down to the bottom of the bowl.
Chemically seen, the crystals form at a certain (acidity level, PH) in the liquid, after the original nitric acid had been diluted with salt water and then washed once with water. [] the PH value [] was between 0,5 and 1,0, still a strong acid, but diluted with water.
The beautiful white coral branches of silver chloride can only be formed if they get time and calm, and one will not get to see them in a modern laboratory, where time is a factor one doesn’t like. When the silver chloride crystals have settled to the bottom of the bowl, one rinses several times with water and set the
precipitate aside in a moist state.
The silver chloride, that was white to begin with, now becomes more and more violet. The colour is as that of forest violets and if the silver chloride is left in the bowl in a moist state, and (s)lightly covered, so it will not be exposed to direct sunlight, the colour will last almost indefinitely. It is this blue violet colour that alchemists call the “soul” of silver. It has though, the moon's changeable nature and is so impressionable, that it can become both rosy coloured and completely red. J. R. Glauber has said the following about silver in a scripture from 1659:
There can be no doubt, that the inner of the moon (silver) contains more colour (tincture) than the sun (gold), because the moon is completely red inside, while the sun is blue, this one should note.(De L’oeuvre Minerale, p. 60). So the blue white silver chloride can become pink and red, and something similar happens in the oceans conches and shells. How they accomplish this nobody seems to know, but we can imitate them (mimic their art) to a certain degree, by using the matters they have at their disposal, and that is (common) salt,
chalk/calcium, silver and a little bit of nitrate.
One begins with a bag of pure white sea salt. A portion of it is poured into an enamelled pot or a heat resistant glass bowl. The salt is then dissolved in lots of boiling water and reduced until a dry salt remains. This is ground and pulverized, where after it is again dissolved in boiling water. The process is repeated several times, and one finally has a fine, light powder, that at the same time has lost the sharp salt taste. – By the way, this product will make a fine base for a great gourmet salt! - The salt is now to be mixed with about half the amount of chalk/calcium flour or with crushed, powdered sea shells. I have tried both, and there doesn’t seem to be any difference in the end product. When these two things are mixed, boiling water is added, until a thin porridge has formed. It is then reduced (cooked in) until its dry. Then one pours a large amount of boiling water over, and lets the mixture rest for a while.
In the meantime one can place a funnel in a bottle or over a bowl. The funnel is to be lined with heavy kitchen “roll” or filter paper. Then the mixture of salt and chalk is poured through the funnel. It is best to let the water slowly flow down the sides of the funnel, to avoid rupturing the bottom of the paper. When the salt water has run through, the paper is set aside, because the chalk isn’t needed anymore.
One then again reduces the salt, and adds a new portion of chalk, again approximately half the amount of the salt. This process is repeated about three times, and one finally has a portion of salt water, that has taken in something or other from the chalk. I is this salt that is now to influence the white or bluish silver chloride.
When the salt water has been reduced to a thin porridge, approx. the same amount of silver chloride is added. These two are mixed and heated until almost dry. It is then left to cool down. Then a very small amount of nitric acid is added. The liquid now fizzles, because there is always a remnant of chalk left, and this gives of carbon dioxide. The silver chloride now becomes deeply violet. This is a strange reaction, and is, as far as I know, not mentioned anywhere else, than in alchemical literature.
The silver chloride is washed once and then poured into a heat resistant bowl. It is then heated to dryness several times, and between each reduction/dryness. boiling water is added (dropwise). The silver chloride will now gradually change colour. Some times pink, some times dark violet or indigo coloured. If one continues heating and adding boiling water, the colour finally turns into a beautiful chocolate brown.
The same colours are to be seen in the sea shells and conches. The largest and oldest of them have had time enough to form both pink, blue, violet, and brown colours, and the latter are usually on the outside of the shell.
[]Fulcanelli in his Les Demeures Philosophales, describes how silver can be brought to show, that in its innermost it is completely red. The experiment he mentions is exciting, but treacherous, and it confirms that silver, or Luna as it is called in alchemy, lives up to its name as a shifty, unreliable, treacherous metal. One begins with the white silver chloride. As already stated, it is precipitated in the form of a (cheeselike) heavy precipitate, when one pours a concentrated salt solution onto silver nitrate. Silver chloride is with three times as much ammonium chloride, and (is) placed in a wide necked flask that can withstand heat. The matter may only occupy the bottom of the flask, and over its (mouth, opening) is placed a small bowl of ice cubes.
The mixture is now to be heated, until the ammonium chloride rises up (sublimes?), and settles on the bottom of the bowl, as a white sublimated matter. It is scraped of and dissolved in a bowl of distilled water. One will now see, that on the bottom of the bowl is a (highly red) fine powder. It comes from the silver and has been drawn along with the ammonium chloride. So the inner core of silver is highly red, and J. R. Glauber said the same in his (tract) from 1659.
Fulcanelli says the experiment is (treacherous) and (unreliable) , because the flask often cracks when the heating (sublimation) has taken place for some time. Or it can happen that the silver chloride migrates into the glass (walls), colours them red, where after it disappears into open air. [] The most interesting
thing in connection with the red colour in silver is, that it owes its appearance to the ammonium ion - nature's jester (trickster), that is capable of (a little of) anything. As we have already seen, it can be formed in water that evaporates in the open. This was proven by the Danish researcher Schønbein (in the) last century. According to alchemists the influence from the air is especially powerful at full moon, and it is (all in all) amazing, how much ammonium salt, that can be formed in the water.
This violet colour can by the way be (imitated, copied, reproduced) with ordinary fine and completely pure gold powder, that has been diluted and blended with water, and the same goes for silver chloride. On warmer beaches than ours (Scandinavia) one can find conches with a porcelain like brown and white spotted shiny polished shell. If one looks inside them, one finds that they are violet inside.
[] Chemically speaking potash is identical with potassium carbonate. Earlier one got this matter from the ashes, that were scraped out of the fireplace, when the fire had gone out. In that state it is a grey and (not highly regarded, almost despised) waste matter, that was thrown directly on the compost heap. But the alchemists utter as with one mouth: people should only know what it is they discard. They step on it and count (consider) it for nought. The name Cinderella comes from the word cinders, which means combusted matter from the fireplace. In French she is named Cendrillon , again formed from the word for ashes: cendre. The point (essence) in the tale about Cinderella is, that this girl is the only one, that fits the golden slippers, that are worthy of a future queen. This might at first seem quite fanciful (imaginary) and illogical, but things fall into place, when one knows, that alchemists used potash to precipitate gold in a fine and almost ethereal form. Here the golden slippers enter the picture. Potash is alkaline in aqueos solution.
When it is added to a goldsalt in an acidic solution, the gold will precipitate as a very fine dust, that settles on the bottom of the bowl, in which the solution is. This dust is completely pure 24 karat gold. J. R. Glauber called it “atomized gold”, and one needed to know how to prepare it, if one wanted to produce the Philosophers Stone. Because this product consisted of extremely fine gold particles, so tiny, they could penetrate into all existing matter. The method of using potash to precipitate gold is, as far as l know, completely unknown in our days, and I have not been able to find it mentioned in any of the traditional chemistry books. But the method works, and the gold one gets, is so fine, that it seeps into the even the smallest crack in a glass or ceramic bowl. The bowls surface takes on various colour hues, from red violet to rosy red to purpur. It was this fine gold, that was used to produce the beautiful red and purpur coloured church windows in the medieval age.
[] The first to speak is the Master La Tourbe. He refers to the Greek (wiseman, philosopher) Pythagoras. He had said, that one should find a red matter, that turns white when heated, and then turns red again. This matter was important to get hold of, because it was used to make the tincture, that gave eternal health. The red matter, that Pythagoras mentioned, is a gold salt. Because if one dissolves completely pure gold in royal water, one gets a yellow liquid, that by a very gentle and gradually (rising, increasing) heat changes colour and finally ends as a red powder. [] The red powder, that is produced, can by repeated dissolutions and precipitations (tr. solve et coagula) become completely white. It will turn red again, when heated very gently.
The next speaker in the book discloses something about the liquid, that the original metal is to be dissolved in. He calls the liquid “the permanent sea water”. So it has to be a (chlorinated, contains chlorine) liquid, namely the one, that in earlier times was called “spirit of salt”. This corresponds to (HCL, hydrochloric acid) in our days, and the alchemists produced it from sea salt and clay. When hydrochloric acid and nitric acid are mixed in the proportion three to one, chlorine is released, and if there is gold present, gold chloride will form. This matter varies in colour from yellow over orange to red.
The same speaker tells, that one must carefully reduce the liquid (by, with) a gentle heat, until one has a syrupy, “thick flowing”, very viscous mass, that finally becomes a red powder. He calls the powder for “sunflowers”- Fleurs de soleil . With this name it is revealed that it is about gold.
[] The designation “le Lion vert” contains a clever(subtle, tricky) wordplay, because the adjective “vert”, green, is pronounced in the same manner as the substantive “verre”, which means glass. It comes from the Latin expression “oleum vitri”, which means oil in glass. Pronounced in French “oleum” would sound somewhat like “Lion”. Then the Latin word “vitri” (genitiv of vitrum, glass), became the French word for glass, namely “verre”. Thereby a wordplay arose, because “verre” sounds like “vert”. So the picture of the green lion could have originated as a result of a deliberate manipulation with words, to hide what the process was about. At the same time it fulfilled the medieval urge for graphic instead of scriptural expression.
The Latin designation “oleum vitri” represented the oily liquid, that appeared, after the green Lion, the immature gold, had been dissolved and reduced to “vitriol”. When that had taken place, the Green Lion could become a red powder, which was called the “Red Lion”
[] The Arabic alchemists had at an early stage in history, found out how to the mixture of hydrochloric and nitric acid was to be made. One got the ingredients from the dung of camels and goats. This was full of ammonia and sodium chloride, common salt. When the dung was dried and then ignited, it gave of ammonium chloride, and it collected on the lid of the oven in big cakes. This matter was so highly esteemed, that there was special god- Ammon- for it. He symbolized the value of this ammonium chloride, or Sal Ammoniacum , as it was called in former days. By the way, it was this matter, that we in the chapter about sliver used to bring forth the bright red soul of silver.
When ammonium chloride was distilled together with potassium nitrate- salpeter, sal petri, or sal nitre- as it was called, on got a strong solvent for gold and silver. Now if one lets the vapours from this solvent act on pure gold over a long time, the gold will little by little absorb something from the solvent, which also contains some water. The gold gradually grows heavier. It changes colour and becomes white as a skeleton, then yellow, and finally orange red as poppy flowers. Some alchemists the compare the colour of gold with the red-yellow ring in the narcissus(flower).
What happens chemically speaking, when the gold becomes heavier, is not known. But it is possible, that the weight increase comes from the water vapours in the solvent, perhaps hydrogen.
Because something happens to water, that boils for prolonged periods. Firstly it tastes different, and it probably also has a different chemical composition. At least this is what the now deceased Danish researcher, Dr. Phil. Emil Rasmussen, claims. He says that water that has boiled for a long time contains much more “heavy water” than normal water. Emil Rasmussen has never been accepted by established chemists or physicists. They said his theories were “unscientifically” based.
In 1933 came a book by Emil Rasmussen. Its title was My Atomic Teaching, an exhaustive work on 227 pages. The publisher at that time probably had no idea about, that a Dr. Phil like Emil Rasmussen later would be labelled as an unbelievable fantast by other academics. After My Atomic Teaching came out, it was discreetly kept away from all (centers of higher learning) in the country. Because Emil Rasmussen claims that the physicists have never succeeded in understanding nuclear processes. They have only found a theory that explain the processes they mention. But the theory is false, he maintains.
About water Emil Rasmussen says, among other things, that it is a false doctrine, that water can be (broken) into oxygen and hydrogen. There is water, that neither contains oxygen nor hydrogen, but in their place, one or other element, that is a gas. Pure rainwater is a very composite mixture, made of 15 different water molecules, composed of different gasses, that are neither oxygen nor hydrogen. If one boils this water for many hours or days- and this is what happens in alchemy- one ends up with having a large portion of heavy water. Water that has boiled for a long time, contains some gasses, that chemists and physicists don’t know exist, says Emil Rasmussen. So this means, that the chemical formula for water is not H2O, but a composite of various unknown gasses.
Emil Rasmussen proves his theory on the fact, that all matters crystallize in a very definite form, dependent on its chemical composition. This is as known chemically correct. One can use recrystallization to separate different mixtures, precisely because different matters crystallize differently. Snow crystals, that consist of water, crystallize in many different (shapes, patterns), and there are just as many different (forms of) crystals as there are elements in the crystals. If water only was oxygen and hydrogen, all snow flakes would look alike, claims Emil Rasmussen. He says (p. 57): “Nature itself has taken it upon her to teach the doubters through a clearly visible, self evident mode of teaching , that any child can understand, and which by the way is non refutable.”
[] Chemical textbooks inform us that “ordinary water” contains a minute amount of deuterium, which is a hydrogen isotope. Deuterium is twice as heavy as hydrogen and in ordinary water there is a small amount of this heavy water- D2O, about 1 part in 5000. That means, if one has about 18 grams of water (1 gram mol), there is only 3,6 milligrams of heavy water in it. But of this heavy water there becomes more by boiling, says Emil Rasmussen. After several hours of boiling there is neither oxygen nor hydrogen left, but instead some gasses, that correspond to those we find in stellar nebulas, “dust” in outer space, for example in the nebula of the stellar constellation the Swan.
It could be something similar, that happens in alchemy, because the (water containing) solvent is brought to cook, evaporate and condense again and again for countless hours. The receiver of the heavy water with the unknown gasses are the very fine gold particles, that thereby undergo a transformation. Alchemists call this process “magnetic”, and here lies a proof for, that the gold attracts something from the surrounding vapour, but it happens at a slow pace.
[] The point in alchemy is to get the gold, one starts out with, precipitated in an extremely fine form. This is as said before, done with potash in an aqueous solution. The royal water is only to be just neutralized with the alkaline potash solution. The liquid is neutral, when no more carbon dioxide fizzes of. After some time and after thorough stirring with a glass rod one can add a little acetic acid to remove excess potash. This part of the process is simple common chemistry, apart from using potash to precipitate the gold with. It is not taught in the chemical text books.
Gold can also be precipitated with the matter, that is found in the legendary unicorns hornif one can manage to catch one, for it is very shy. Only a virgin could gain power over it, the myths say. These often contain a truth, and in this case the hidden truth is, that from its horn ammonium bicarbonate could be extracted, also called (“hjortetaksalt”, “deer antler salt”, “hartshorn”). The same salt is to be found in the horns of deer, goats and bulls. That is why these animals are shown on the images from Mutus Liber by Altus, and it is a very important information.
The gold is to be precipitated several times after the motto: Solve et coagula- dissolve and solidify. Then it is to be washed many times and left to stand in diluted(with water) wine spirits, until it gradually turns rosy red. The alchemists relate, that the final process, which is also the last “solve et coagula”, is very lengthy, and that it requires “nesting heat”. Therefore this stage is shown as a hen, that is laying on eggs. The flask is to be hermetically sealed, as it is called after the sage Hermes Trismegistus. And no light may enter the vessel, so one has to find a way of shielding it. This can in practice be done with tin foil (tr.: now a days its aluminium foil ?), that is wrapped around the flask.
The flask itself must be so large, that the gold mass only takes up the bottom of it, because there must be room enough for the vapours, the “bird”, that during the heating begin to ascend. One shouldn’t heat for so long, that one “burns” the gold. The heat should be as a “the sun on a hot august day”, one reads. That would be an august day under warmer straits than the Nordic, and that is a strong heat. The gold will gradually change colour from yellow to red. At the same time the mass becomes more and more compact taking up less and less space. It becomes heavier. It is in this part of the work, that the nature spirit “Mercury”, consciousness, does its tricks and magic arts. What takes place in the flask is unexplainable, but what happens, is what in alchemy is called “the great wedding”, the unification of the king and the queen, that give birth to the Philosophers Stone.
The vapours in the flask give of something to the gold and thereby loose their power. The “bird” drops to the ground and disappears. What takes place, could maybe explained as a nuclear process or a fusion. The alchemist and chemist J. R. Glauber said in the 16th century, that it was a “fusion of salts”. The theory of fusion at room temperature, is, as we know, in strong focus these years. Researchers try to get deuterium atoms to fuse together, by electrolysis of heavy water or ordinary tap water. The two electrodes in the electrolytic cell are platinum and palladium, and it is on the latter, that energy is generated in the from of heat.
Here we have a principle, that resembles what takes place in the alchemical flask. In this there might take place- as an effect of the long heating time- a nuclear fusion, and the alchemists say it happens at “nesting heat”. In reality this heat is more like the temperature of the water that runs through a radiator, around 70-80 degrees Celsius. The energy that is generated, seem to go into developing a completely new product, the Philosophers Stone. It is a heavy, glassy, poppy red matter. It has so much energy, that it can penetrate into metallic elements and transmute them into gold. But the process leading to The Philosophers Stone takes a long time and may not be shortened.
[The translator found a copy of Dr. Emil Rasmussens My Atomic Teaching. It is quite interesting reading it. Gold is not an element, but a composition of other elements. The one element that distinguishes gold from so much else is a gas. Amber consists of only one pure element. He has tables over the compositions and variations of various elements according to his teaching. Most of what we call elements are composed of 4,5,6, or more elements, in Rasmussens view. He lists a number of “new” elements, elements that he has given names.
To make an honest and exhaustive assessment of his rather radical theories, one should read his previous book The Radiations of Elements, as this is the basis for his atomic teaching. Haven’t found this book yet, but the royal library has it. What I deduced was, that he believes that a pure element can only have ONE resonant frequency/vibration. If it has more, it is a composite of elements. Someone with a better knowledge of spectral analysis and the like might have a better foundation for evaluating Dr. Rasmussens work.
In Rasmussens atomic world there are no transmutations possible, only rearrangements of his elements. So, in his view, there would be no alteration of water that boils in a hermetically sealed vessel, unless some of his gasses could penetrate/escape glass. In any case, the main point is that H2O, is a gross simplification of what water is. ]
[] Glauber used clay to produce “spirit of salt”, which in our days corresponds to hydrochloride or chloride vapours in water. Of various reasons he had many of his works published abroad, and one of his most famous works was issued in Amsterdam in 1651. It was Opus Minerale, the work of minerals. It was issued in France in 1659 together with another script, carrying the title La Consolation des Navigants (Consolation of the sailors). This script describes, how “spirit of salt” is manufactured with the aid of clay. It is called “esprit de sel” in the text, because it escapes from the clay in the form of a spirit or vapour, that rises up. Hydrochloride contains the element chlorine, and so does common salt. When this comes into contact with clay, it gives of its chlorine, and this takes place via the following process:
One dissolves a good portion of sea salt in boiling water and reduces it to dryness. The salt is then to be dissolved and reduced again some times. It has then changed consistency and has become soft, and it does not crackle when it is approaching dryness. One then takes a lump of clay, abut thrice as much, as there is salt. The clay is shaped into little balls, the size of a doves egg. These are put in the oven and dried at about 100 degrees centigrade. The balls give of water and become greyish and dry. They are then put in a concentrated watery solution of the salt one has made. When they have soaked up saltwater for about an hour, they are taken up, and put on a piece of paper to drip of.
Now one needs a distillation set up of the type that has a closed (collector, receptacle) above the still flask. Because the vapours that are given of by the salt and clay mixture smell extremely unpleasant and also must not be allowed to escape. One puts the clay balls in the lower flask and pours a little water in the upper one. This water is to absorb the fumes given of by the clay balls. One then begins to heat, and after some time vapours will rise up, that are absorbed by the water in the collector. This water now contains some hydrochloric acid and some hypochlorous acid, which is a weaker acid than the hydrochloric acid. This liquid is to be placed in the lower flask and distilled again, and Glauber suggested, that one should put small crushed flint pieces in the flask to prevent the liquid from boiling. One then heats, and watery vapours will be given of, that are condensed in the upper flask. Thereby the “spirit of salt” is condensed, and one gets a liquid that is the mayor constituent of “royal water”, that is used to dissolve gold. Royal water consists of 3 parts hydrochloric acid and one part nitric acid, and this can be made in similar manner, by using clay and potassium nitrate.
[]
Alchemy is a thought, an image, a discovery, through which the species of metals go from one natural state to another.
In another work, that also was published in French, Glauber says about the purely chemical side of alchemy:
The ancients have given this art the name alchemy, that is, saltfusion.
[] A researcher by the name Schønbein had noted, that water, that was left to evaporate out in the open air, formed saltpetersour ammonia from the airs nitrogen, hydrogen, and oxygen. Schønbein had moistened some linnen cloths with distilled water and afterwards exposed them to air, so that the water could evaporate slowly. When the cloths had dried, he took them, and soaked them in distilled water. Some substance was now drawn out of the cloths and dissolved in the water. It showed itself to be saltpetersour ammonia, as he called it, with the chemical formula NH4-NO2. The researcher now explains, that what happened was, a socalled “nitrification”. Two nitrogen atoms from the air had joined with four hydrogen atoms in the following way:
2N + 4H = N-NH4.
This again becomes a saltpetersour ammonium salt: NH4-NO2, in that two oxygen atoms attach themselves to the compound. In this way, saltpetersour salts are formed in the ground, says Schønbein. The same takes place in plants, from whose surface a continual evaporation takes place. In this way the plants form the nitrates needed for further growth.
[] There really forms a salt in the water left outside during a fullmoon night. One must remember to use distilled water, and it has to be reduced very slowly. In the bowl is then left a fine white salt, that is watersoluble. The chemist, Schønbein, did not know that the moons light gives the best result. Such an idea would probably have seemed to be both absurd and ridiculous to him, for he was a traditional chemist. The old alchemists had their own explanation for what happened to water and dew that had been exposed to the rays of the moon. The water becomes active they said, and thereby able to dissolve matters. It should be reduced to a fine salt, and this they called “Water that does not wet the hands”. Thereby they ment a dry, water soluble salt.
[] In may, during fullmoon, one spreads out linnen cloths over the dew wet grass. Early the next morning, one wrings the cloth dew out of the cloths into a vessel. Then one needs two pounds of mercury ( [] An old french pound is 489 gram). One then pours a little of the dew water over the the mercury and lets it cook ver a low heat, until the dew has evaporated. Then a new portion of dew is added and further cooked, until it also has evaporated. One continues so, until one has used all the dew. Finally the mercury is poured through a sieve of fine gauze or linnen. When the cloth has dried, some of the mercury has been transmuted into gold and caught in the fabric. One can then continue working with the remaining mercury, when one has collected a new portion of dew. This can be done for a few days, while the full moon is still present.
[] The ammonium ion itself is strange jest of Natures making, for it does not exist in free form. In reality it doesnt exist. If one tries to isolate it, it will decompose into ammonia and hydrogen.
[] From the horns of animals one extracted “hartshorn”, “hjortetakssalt”, “deer antler salt”. [] Chemically speaking, “deer antler salt” is ammoniumbicarbonate, so this salt contains the same mysterious ammonium as the dew from the meadow.
[] The rams mineral is the light green iron sulphate, also called iron vitriol. The bulls mineral is the blue copper sulphate, or copper vitriol. From these two minerals the alchemists produced- as did the chemists- mixtures of strong acids by distilling the minerals with ammonium containing salts, f. x. ammonium chloride or ammonium nitrate. Thereby they got solvents for both gold and silver. For these metalls where to be brought into liquid form, before one could continue with the process. The alchemists made all the acids they needed, themselves, for example nitric acid, hydrochloric acid, and “aqua Regis”.
[] In french books one often comes upon the terms “sel alcali fixe vegetal” And “sel de tartre”. They are about the same salt, namely potash, or potassium carbonate, as it is also called. Concerning “sel de tartre” one might think it is about a salt of wineacid, acidum tartaricum, whose salts are called “tartrates”, but that isnt the case.
[] in the medieval age nitrogen compunds where many things. There could be different nitrates, for example potassium nitrate, sodium nitrate, or ammonium nitrate, and one didn’t always discern between them. Or it could be about dew from the air, which in french scriptures sometimes would be called “salpetre”, sometimes “nitre”. Bu the terms where quite striking, for the dew contained a saltpetersour salt, namely ammoniumnitrit.
[] A good example of an alchemical riddle, that is a hard nut to crack, is the legendary unicorn. In English its called “unicorn” in French its called “licorne”. The unicorn was a horselike, friendly and beautiful animal, that had a long horn on its forehead. At the same time it had a bushy liontail. These two things, the long pointed horn, and the lionlike tail, contain its secret in unison. Firstly, that it posessed a penetrating power, symbolized by its horn. Secondly, that it has a connection to Leo in the “other end”, as shown by its tail. The lion tail is a connection to the metal gold.
The Unicorn is mentioned in greek literature already 400 B.C., and it is told about it, that its horn contains a matter, that neutralized all poisons. Here we have the key to the riddle of the unicorn. At the same time there is a parallel to the horned cattle from Mutus Liber, the silent book of alchemy. In both cases the matter is something that could be extracted from the animals horns. This matter is what we nowadays know as “hartshorn” or ammonium carbonate.
With this salt one can neutralize aqua regis, the strong “poison” that was used to dissolve gold. When the poison is neutralized, the gold is precipitated as a very fine and pure 24 karat gold powder. The same effect can be had with potash, also known as potassium carbonate. Potash has its own fairy tale, Cinderella, and it is one of the finest alchemical fairy tales known.
[] Iron has the atomic number 26. That means that iron contains 26 positive charges, plus just as many negatively charged negative electrons. If iron is to become silver, that has the atomic number 47, protons have to be supplied. Iron lacks 47 minus 26 protons, that is, 21 positive charges in order to become silver, and these must be had from somewhere. It is very likely that these could come from nitrogen, which has the atomic number 7.
[] Everything came to be in a watery element the alchemists say, and therefore all matter must be redissolved in a liquid, if it is to be brought into another form.
[] There is something “prehistoric (or ancient*), dead and spooky about the moons blue white light. This sensation is real enough, for in reality the moon doesn’t shine. It only reflects the light of the sun, and it is a completely different light that is reflected back to earth, for it is polarized. Moonlight vibrates in a different plane than sunlight, and it also has a completely different effect in nature.
[] The moon creates (regulates) the oceans respiration, and we humans still have this respiration in us. The so called (spinalmarrowrespiration) must be a remnant of our connection with the ocean, in a prehistoric age, where we didn’t have lungs. This primary respiration, as it is also called, is a rhythmical pulsation in the (brain-backbone-spinal marrow fluids) closed tubular system, and has a period of about 8-12 BPM (beats per minute), that is, very slow.
[]The great oceans contain tons of silver in an extremely (extraordinarily) high dilution, about 10 milligrams in a ton of seawater. The silver is so finely divided, that it is not economically feasible to ext ract it. But a lot of small animals, that build (snailhouses), conches and shells, do so. The most beautiful of them have violet blue, rosy red, and violet mother of pearl layers, that coat the rough chalk shell in fine layers. The many colours stem from the silver in the ocean water, and likely also from gold, of which there is almost just as much present. Because both these metals will appear with the same violet and rosy red colours in certain compounds. So it is not ordinary metal (anymore), but fine microscopic matters, that these beings have secreted onto the calcium shell with stoic calm, over many years.
[] The greek philosopher Plato, who lived 427-347 BC, was familiar with alchemy through his teacher Socrates. Plato had knowledge of many alchemical processes and has said, that there is gold in (ordinary, common) sea salt, but it remains spiritual until it is precipitated in visible form. This (piece) of information is found in a work (of, from the hand) of J. R. Glauber, that was published in Paris 1659 (Des Navigants pp. 22-23)
Plato's and Glauber's statements are interesting, because we today know that gold and silver form chemical compounds with the element chlorine, of which there is a lot in ocean water, about 19%. Gold also forms compounds with sodium chloride, of which there is a lot in the ocean, and forms an orange yellow compound, sodium gold chloride. All the salts of gold have beautiful red, orange, blue and violet colours, and the same goes for silver salts under certain conditions.
[] The animals that live in shells and conches, suck in seawater and digest the matters, they come in contact with. They thereby absorb the metal salts from the ocean together with the organisms on which they subsist. Little by little, they excrete the fine organic silver and gold complexes, for they cannot utilize them. These violet and rosy/pink coloured matters are totally destroyed, if one treats them as metallic compounds, that can be dissolved in acids.
[] In laboratories and goldsmith workshops, silver items are dissolved with nitric acid. It is done under a so called fume hood, because some very bothersome and toxic nitrous oxide fumes are given of, especially if the temperature is over 16-17 degrees Celsius. The process can become so violent, that the contents flies in the air, and one must then hastily dilute with water. But he problem can be avoided. Silver is a “cold” metal, and belongs to the night and the moons cold light. If one wants to avoid the violent reaction between silver and nitric acid, one must extend the reaction time by lowering the temperature. These two things relate to each other, because at low temperature all natural processes are slowed down.
[] One now puts the silverware, perhaps folded together or broken into pieces, in a glass, it could be an empty jam jar, and places it into a box of sand []. Then one pours nitric acid over it, and not more, than the silverware is just covered. At low temperature there is hardly any nitrous oxides given of, but something is happening in the silver just the same. It takes on a yellowish colour, and sometimes one can smell very faint acid fumes. The process takes time, so one lets the glass sit quite undisturbed for a week or two. At the same time one must assure that solution sits (stands) in a place where it cannot accidentally be toppled over by cats, porcupines, or other animals. Over time the silver is dissolved, and if there is copper in it, the liquid turns blue. One them dilutes with a little water and can take the glass back indoors. One now has a solution consisting of silver nitrate plus a blue copper salt.
The silver nitrate can now be precipitated as white silver chloride, and this is easily done with common table salt, sodium chloride. So much salt is needed as to ensure that all silver is precipitated, that is, salt in excess, and it must be dissolved in water. As the whole now will take up more volume, it is advisable to pour the silver nitrate with its copper content into a large glass bowl, before one proceeds to add concentrated salt water. As soon as the salt water comes in contact with the silver nitrate solution, the liquid turns milky white. It is silver chloride that now precipitates, and it resembles lumpy (sour milk, thick milk). [] One sets the bowl with silver chloride aside and lets it sit for about an hour. Then one can carefully decant the blue copper laden liquid of, that stands above the precipitate.
The blue liquid can be stored in a separate glass and then precipitated as copper later on. This can be done with iron filings, the masculine metal in alchemy. The iron slowly dissolves and a brown powder of metallic copper is precipitated. When it is washed, dried, ad ground to a fine powder, one has an excellent paint pigment. If one adds “purified” gasoline or a binder to this copper powder, it can be used on wood, stucco, gypsum, cast iron and cement (mortar). The paint covers completely and dries fast, and the painted objects take on a beautiful golden bronze colour.
The white precipitate is now rinsed once with water, and then the bowl of silver chloride is set aside with abundant water. Something very strange will now take place. The white silver chloride will, in the course of some hours form coral like formations of snowy white branches, moving from the bottom upwards. The long fine branches sometimes resemble thin icicles with flowers, and they gradually take on a violet sheen. Sometimes they "hang down" from the surface of the liquid as thin needles with rimfrost (“icefeathers”) on them. Here we have an example of silvers cold, moonlike character. Flowers are formed, that resemble the winter nights magic with the growths of nature. The process continues for some hours, and when no more crystals are formed, they all slowly sink down to the bottom of the bowl.
Chemically seen, the crystals form at a certain (acidity level, PH) in the liquid, after the original nitric acid had been diluted with salt water and then washed once with water. [] the PH value [] was between 0,5 and 1,0, still a strong acid, but diluted with water.
The beautiful white coral branches of silver chloride can only be formed if they get time and calm, and one will not get to see them in a modern laboratory, where time is a factor one doesn’t like. When the silver chloride crystals have settled to the bottom of the bowl, one rinses several times with water and set the
precipitate aside in a moist state.
The silver chloride, that was white to begin with, now becomes more and more violet. The colour is as that of forest violets and if the silver chloride is left in the bowl in a moist state, and (s)lightly covered, so it will not be exposed to direct sunlight, the colour will last almost indefinitely. It is this blue violet colour that alchemists call the “soul” of silver. It has though, the moon's changeable nature and is so impressionable, that it can become both rosy coloured and completely red. J. R. Glauber has said the following about silver in a scripture from 1659:
There can be no doubt, that the inner of the moon (silver) contains more colour (tincture) than the sun (gold), because the moon is completely red inside, while the sun is blue, this one should note.(De L’oeuvre Minerale, p. 60). So the blue white silver chloride can become pink and red, and something similar happens in the oceans conches and shells. How they accomplish this nobody seems to know, but we can imitate them (mimic their art) to a certain degree, by using the matters they have at their disposal, and that is (common) salt,
chalk/calcium, silver and a little bit of nitrate.
One begins with a bag of pure white sea salt. A portion of it is poured into an enamelled pot or a heat resistant glass bowl. The salt is then dissolved in lots of boiling water and reduced until a dry salt remains. This is ground and pulverized, where after it is again dissolved in boiling water. The process is repeated several times, and one finally has a fine, light powder, that at the same time has lost the sharp salt taste. – By the way, this product will make a fine base for a great gourmet salt! - The salt is now to be mixed with about half the amount of chalk/calcium flour or with crushed, powdered sea shells. I have tried both, and there doesn’t seem to be any difference in the end product. When these two things are mixed, boiling water is added, until a thin porridge has formed. It is then reduced (cooked in) until its dry. Then one pours a large amount of boiling water over, and lets the mixture rest for a while.
In the meantime one can place a funnel in a bottle or over a bowl. The funnel is to be lined with heavy kitchen “roll” or filter paper. Then the mixture of salt and chalk is poured through the funnel. It is best to let the water slowly flow down the sides of the funnel, to avoid rupturing the bottom of the paper. When the salt water has run through, the paper is set aside, because the chalk isn’t needed anymore.
One then again reduces the salt, and adds a new portion of chalk, again approximately half the amount of the salt. This process is repeated about three times, and one finally has a portion of salt water, that has taken in something or other from the chalk. I is this salt that is now to influence the white or bluish silver chloride.
When the salt water has been reduced to a thin porridge, approx. the same amount of silver chloride is added. These two are mixed and heated until almost dry. It is then left to cool down. Then a very small amount of nitric acid is added. The liquid now fizzles, because there is always a remnant of chalk left, and this gives of carbon dioxide. The silver chloride now becomes deeply violet. This is a strange reaction, and is, as far as I know, not mentioned anywhere else, than in alchemical literature.
The silver chloride is washed once and then poured into a heat resistant bowl. It is then heated to dryness several times, and between each reduction/dryness. boiling water is added (dropwise). The silver chloride will now gradually change colour. Some times pink, some times dark violet or indigo coloured. If one continues heating and adding boiling water, the colour finally turns into a beautiful chocolate brown.
The same colours are to be seen in the sea shells and conches. The largest and oldest of them have had time enough to form both pink, blue, violet, and brown colours, and the latter are usually on the outside of the shell.
[]Fulcanelli in his Les Demeures Philosophales, describes how silver can be brought to show, that in its innermost it is completely red. The experiment he mentions is exciting, but treacherous, and it confirms that silver, or Luna as it is called in alchemy, lives up to its name as a shifty, unreliable, treacherous metal. One begins with the white silver chloride. As already stated, it is precipitated in the form of a (cheeselike) heavy precipitate, when one pours a concentrated salt solution onto silver nitrate. Silver chloride is with three times as much ammonium chloride, and (is) placed in a wide necked flask that can withstand heat. The matter may only occupy the bottom of the flask, and over its (mouth, opening) is placed a small bowl of ice cubes.
The mixture is now to be heated, until the ammonium chloride rises up (sublimes?), and settles on the bottom of the bowl, as a white sublimated matter. It is scraped of and dissolved in a bowl of distilled water. One will now see, that on the bottom of the bowl is a (highly red) fine powder. It comes from the silver and has been drawn along with the ammonium chloride. So the inner core of silver is highly red, and J. R. Glauber said the same in his (tract) from 1659.
Fulcanelli says the experiment is (treacherous) and (unreliable) , because the flask often cracks when the heating (sublimation) has taken place for some time. Or it can happen that the silver chloride migrates into the glass (walls), colours them red, where after it disappears into open air. [] The most interesting
thing in connection with the red colour in silver is, that it owes its appearance to the ammonium ion - nature's jester (trickster), that is capable of (a little of) anything. As we have already seen, it can be formed in water that evaporates in the open. This was proven by the Danish researcher Schønbein (in the) last century. According to alchemists the influence from the air is especially powerful at full moon, and it is (all in all) amazing, how much ammonium salt, that can be formed in the water.
This violet colour can by the way be (imitated, copied, reproduced) with ordinary fine and completely pure gold powder, that has been diluted and blended with water, and the same goes for silver chloride. On warmer beaches than ours (Scandinavia) one can find conches with a porcelain like brown and white spotted shiny polished shell. If one looks inside them, one finds that they are violet inside.
[] Chemically speaking potash is identical with potassium carbonate. Earlier one got this matter from the ashes, that were scraped out of the fireplace, when the fire had gone out. In that state it is a grey and (not highly regarded, almost despised) waste matter, that was thrown directly on the compost heap. But the alchemists utter as with one mouth: people should only know what it is they discard. They step on it and count (consider) it for nought. The name Cinderella comes from the word cinders, which means combusted matter from the fireplace. In French she is named Cendrillon , again formed from the word for ashes: cendre. The point (essence) in the tale about Cinderella is, that this girl is the only one, that fits the golden slippers, that are worthy of a future queen. This might at first seem quite fanciful (imaginary) and illogical, but things fall into place, when one knows, that alchemists used potash to precipitate gold in a fine and almost ethereal form. Here the golden slippers enter the picture. Potash is alkaline in aqueos solution.
When it is added to a goldsalt in an acidic solution, the gold will precipitate as a very fine dust, that settles on the bottom of the bowl, in which the solution is. This dust is completely pure 24 karat gold. J. R. Glauber called it “atomized gold”, and one needed to know how to prepare it, if one wanted to produce the Philosophers Stone. Because this product consisted of extremely fine gold particles, so tiny, they could penetrate into all existing matter. The method of using potash to precipitate gold is, as far as l know, completely unknown in our days, and I have not been able to find it mentioned in any of the traditional chemistry books. But the method works, and the gold one gets, is so fine, that it seeps into the even the smallest crack in a glass or ceramic bowl. The bowls surface takes on various colour hues, from red violet to rosy red to purpur. It was this fine gold, that was used to produce the beautiful red and purpur coloured church windows in the medieval age.
[] The first to speak is the Master La Tourbe. He refers to the Greek (wiseman, philosopher) Pythagoras. He had said, that one should find a red matter, that turns white when heated, and then turns red again. This matter was important to get hold of, because it was used to make the tincture, that gave eternal health. The red matter, that Pythagoras mentioned, is a gold salt. Because if one dissolves completely pure gold in royal water, one gets a yellow liquid, that by a very gentle and gradually (rising, increasing) heat changes colour and finally ends as a red powder. [] The red powder, that is produced, can by repeated dissolutions and precipitations (tr. solve et coagula) become completely white. It will turn red again, when heated very gently.
The next speaker in the book discloses something about the liquid, that the original metal is to be dissolved in. He calls the liquid “the permanent sea water”. So it has to be a (chlorinated, contains chlorine) liquid, namely the one, that in earlier times was called “spirit of salt”. This corresponds to (HCL, hydrochloric acid) in our days, and the alchemists produced it from sea salt and clay. When hydrochloric acid and nitric acid are mixed in the proportion three to one, chlorine is released, and if there is gold present, gold chloride will form. This matter varies in colour from yellow over orange to red.
The same speaker tells, that one must carefully reduce the liquid (by, with) a gentle heat, until one has a syrupy, “thick flowing”, very viscous mass, that finally becomes a red powder. He calls the powder for “sunflowers”- Fleurs de soleil . With this name it is revealed that it is about gold.
[] The designation “le Lion vert” contains a clever(subtle, tricky) wordplay, because the adjective “vert”, green, is pronounced in the same manner as the substantive “verre”, which means glass. It comes from the Latin expression “oleum vitri”, which means oil in glass. Pronounced in French “oleum” would sound somewhat like “Lion”. Then the Latin word “vitri” (genitiv of vitrum, glass), became the French word for glass, namely “verre”. Thereby a wordplay arose, because “verre” sounds like “vert”. So the picture of the green lion could have originated as a result of a deliberate manipulation with words, to hide what the process was about. At the same time it fulfilled the medieval urge for graphic instead of scriptural expression.
The Latin designation “oleum vitri” represented the oily liquid, that appeared, after the green Lion, the immature gold, had been dissolved and reduced to “vitriol”. When that had taken place, the Green Lion could become a red powder, which was called the “Red Lion”
[] The Arabic alchemists had at an early stage in history, found out how to the mixture of hydrochloric and nitric acid was to be made. One got the ingredients from the dung of camels and goats. This was full of ammonia and sodium chloride, common salt. When the dung was dried and then ignited, it gave of ammonium chloride, and it collected on the lid of the oven in big cakes. This matter was so highly esteemed, that there was special god- Ammon- for it. He symbolized the value of this ammonium chloride, or Sal Ammoniacum , as it was called in former days. By the way, it was this matter, that we in the chapter about sliver used to bring forth the bright red soul of silver.
When ammonium chloride was distilled together with potassium nitrate- salpeter, sal petri, or sal nitre- as it was called, on got a strong solvent for gold and silver. Now if one lets the vapours from this solvent act on pure gold over a long time, the gold will little by little absorb something from the solvent, which also contains some water. The gold gradually grows heavier. It changes colour and becomes white as a skeleton, then yellow, and finally orange red as poppy flowers. Some alchemists the compare the colour of gold with the red-yellow ring in the narcissus(flower).
What happens chemically speaking, when the gold becomes heavier, is not known. But it is possible, that the weight increase comes from the water vapours in the solvent, perhaps hydrogen.
Because something happens to water, that boils for prolonged periods. Firstly it tastes different, and it probably also has a different chemical composition. At least this is what the now deceased Danish researcher, Dr. Phil. Emil Rasmussen, claims. He says that water that has boiled for a long time contains much more “heavy water” than normal water. Emil Rasmussen has never been accepted by established chemists or physicists. They said his theories were “unscientifically” based.
In 1933 came a book by Emil Rasmussen. Its title was My Atomic Teaching, an exhaustive work on 227 pages. The publisher at that time probably had no idea about, that a Dr. Phil like Emil Rasmussen later would be labelled as an unbelievable fantast by other academics. After My Atomic Teaching came out, it was discreetly kept away from all (centers of higher learning) in the country. Because Emil Rasmussen claims that the physicists have never succeeded in understanding nuclear processes. They have only found a theory that explain the processes they mention. But the theory is false, he maintains.
About water Emil Rasmussen says, among other things, that it is a false doctrine, that water can be (broken) into oxygen and hydrogen. There is water, that neither contains oxygen nor hydrogen, but in their place, one or other element, that is a gas. Pure rainwater is a very composite mixture, made of 15 different water molecules, composed of different gasses, that are neither oxygen nor hydrogen. If one boils this water for many hours or days- and this is what happens in alchemy- one ends up with having a large portion of heavy water. Water that has boiled for a long time, contains some gasses, that chemists and physicists don’t know exist, says Emil Rasmussen. So this means, that the chemical formula for water is not H2O, but a composite of various unknown gasses.
Emil Rasmussen proves his theory on the fact, that all matters crystallize in a very definite form, dependent on its chemical composition. This is as known chemically correct. One can use recrystallization to separate different mixtures, precisely because different matters crystallize differently. Snow crystals, that consist of water, crystallize in many different (shapes, patterns), and there are just as many different (forms of) crystals as there are elements in the crystals. If water only was oxygen and hydrogen, all snow flakes would look alike, claims Emil Rasmussen. He says (p. 57): “Nature itself has taken it upon her to teach the doubters through a clearly visible, self evident mode of teaching , that any child can understand, and which by the way is non refutable.”
[] Chemical textbooks inform us that “ordinary water” contains a minute amount of deuterium, which is a hydrogen isotope. Deuterium is twice as heavy as hydrogen and in ordinary water there is a small amount of this heavy water- D2O, about 1 part in 5000. That means, if one has about 18 grams of water (1 gram mol), there is only 3,6 milligrams of heavy water in it. But of this heavy water there becomes more by boiling, says Emil Rasmussen. After several hours of boiling there is neither oxygen nor hydrogen left, but instead some gasses, that correspond to those we find in stellar nebulas, “dust” in outer space, for example in the nebula of the stellar constellation the Swan.
It could be something similar, that happens in alchemy, because the (water containing) solvent is brought to cook, evaporate and condense again and again for countless hours. The receiver of the heavy water with the unknown gasses are the very fine gold particles, that thereby undergo a transformation. Alchemists call this process “magnetic”, and here lies a proof for, that the gold attracts something from the surrounding vapour, but it happens at a slow pace.
[] The point in alchemy is to get the gold, one starts out with, precipitated in an extremely fine form. This is as said before, done with potash in an aqueous solution. The royal water is only to be just neutralized with the alkaline potash solution. The liquid is neutral, when no more carbon dioxide fizzes of. After some time and after thorough stirring with a glass rod one can add a little acetic acid to remove excess potash. This part of the process is simple common chemistry, apart from using potash to precipitate the gold with. It is not taught in the chemical text books.
Gold can also be precipitated with the matter, that is found in the legendary unicorns hornif one can manage to catch one, for it is very shy. Only a virgin could gain power over it, the myths say. These often contain a truth, and in this case the hidden truth is, that from its horn ammonium bicarbonate could be extracted, also called (“hjortetaksalt”, “deer antler salt”, “hartshorn”). The same salt is to be found in the horns of deer, goats and bulls. That is why these animals are shown on the images from Mutus Liber by Altus, and it is a very important information.
The gold is to be precipitated several times after the motto: Solve et coagula- dissolve and solidify. Then it is to be washed many times and left to stand in diluted(with water) wine spirits, until it gradually turns rosy red. The alchemists relate, that the final process, which is also the last “solve et coagula”, is very lengthy, and that it requires “nesting heat”. Therefore this stage is shown as a hen, that is laying on eggs. The flask is to be hermetically sealed, as it is called after the sage Hermes Trismegistus. And no light may enter the vessel, so one has to find a way of shielding it. This can in practice be done with tin foil (tr.: now a days its aluminium foil ?), that is wrapped around the flask.
The flask itself must be so large, that the gold mass only takes up the bottom of it, because there must be room enough for the vapours, the “bird”, that during the heating begin to ascend. One shouldn’t heat for so long, that one “burns” the gold. The heat should be as a “the sun on a hot august day”, one reads. That would be an august day under warmer straits than the Nordic, and that is a strong heat. The gold will gradually change colour from yellow to red. At the same time the mass becomes more and more compact taking up less and less space. It becomes heavier. It is in this part of the work, that the nature spirit “Mercury”, consciousness, does its tricks and magic arts. What takes place in the flask is unexplainable, but what happens, is what in alchemy is called “the great wedding”, the unification of the king and the queen, that give birth to the Philosophers Stone.
The vapours in the flask give of something to the gold and thereby loose their power. The “bird” drops to the ground and disappears. What takes place, could maybe explained as a nuclear process or a fusion. The alchemist and chemist J. R. Glauber said in the 16th century, that it was a “fusion of salts”. The theory of fusion at room temperature, is, as we know, in strong focus these years. Researchers try to get deuterium atoms to fuse together, by electrolysis of heavy water or ordinary tap water. The two electrodes in the electrolytic cell are platinum and palladium, and it is on the latter, that energy is generated in the from of heat.
Here we have a principle, that resembles what takes place in the alchemical flask. In this there might take place- as an effect of the long heating time- a nuclear fusion, and the alchemists say it happens at “nesting heat”. In reality this heat is more like the temperature of the water that runs through a radiator, around 70-80 degrees Celsius. The energy that is generated, seem to go into developing a completely new product, the Philosophers Stone. It is a heavy, glassy, poppy red matter. It has so much energy, that it can penetrate into metallic elements and transmute them into gold. But the process leading to The Philosophers Stone takes a long time and may not be shortened.
[The translator found a copy of Dr. Emil Rasmussens My Atomic Teaching. It is quite interesting reading it. Gold is not an element, but a composition of other elements. The one element that distinguishes gold from so much else is a gas. Amber consists of only one pure element. He has tables over the compositions and variations of various elements according to his teaching. Most of what we call elements are composed of 4,5,6, or more elements, in Rasmussens view. He lists a number of “new” elements, elements that he has given names.
To make an honest and exhaustive assessment of his rather radical theories, one should read his previous book The Radiations of Elements, as this is the basis for his atomic teaching. Haven’t found this book yet, but the royal library has it. What I deduced was, that he believes that a pure element can only have ONE resonant frequency/vibration. If it has more, it is a composite of elements. Someone with a better knowledge of spectral analysis and the like might have a better foundation for evaluating Dr. Rasmussens work.
In Rasmussens atomic world there are no transmutations possible, only rearrangements of his elements. So, in his view, there would be no alteration of water that boils in a hermetically sealed vessel, unless some of his gasses could penetrate/escape glass. In any case, the main point is that H2O, is a gross simplification of what water is. ]
[] Glauber used clay to produce “spirit of salt”, which in our days corresponds to hydrochloride or chloride vapours in water. Of various reasons he had many of his works published abroad, and one of his most famous works was issued in Amsterdam in 1651. It was Opus Minerale, the work of minerals. It was issued in France in 1659 together with another script, carrying the title La Consolation des Navigants (Consolation of the sailors). This script describes, how “spirit of salt” is manufactured with the aid of clay. It is called “esprit de sel” in the text, because it escapes from the clay in the form of a spirit or vapour, that rises up. Hydrochloride contains the element chlorine, and so does common salt. When this comes into contact with clay, it gives of its chlorine, and this takes place via the following process:
One dissolves a good portion of sea salt in boiling water and reduces it to dryness. The salt is then to be dissolved and reduced again some times. It has then changed consistency and has become soft, and it does not crackle when it is approaching dryness. One then takes a lump of clay, abut thrice as much, as there is salt. The clay is shaped into little balls, the size of a doves egg. These are put in the oven and dried at about 100 degrees centigrade. The balls give of water and become greyish and dry. They are then put in a concentrated watery solution of the salt one has made. When they have soaked up saltwater for about an hour, they are taken up, and put on a piece of paper to drip of.
Now one needs a distillation set up of the type that has a closed (collector, receptacle) above the still flask. Because the vapours that are given of by the salt and clay mixture smell extremely unpleasant and also must not be allowed to escape. One puts the clay balls in the lower flask and pours a little water in the upper one. This water is to absorb the fumes given of by the clay balls. One then begins to heat, and after some time vapours will rise up, that are absorbed by the water in the collector. This water now contains some hydrochloric acid and some hypochlorous acid, which is a weaker acid than the hydrochloric acid. This liquid is to be placed in the lower flask and distilled again, and Glauber suggested, that one should put small crushed flint pieces in the flask to prevent the liquid from boiling. One then heats, and watery vapours will be given of, that are condensed in the upper flask. Thereby the “spirit of salt” is condensed, and one gets a liquid that is the mayor constituent of “royal water”, that is used to dissolve gold. Royal water consists of 3 parts hydrochloric acid and one part nitric acid, and this can be made in similar manner, by using clay and potassium nitrate.
[]
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