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The Golden Tractate of Hermes Trismegistus
Aureus or the Golden Tractate of Hermes
Section I
Even thus saith Hermes: Through long years I have not ceased
to experiment, neither have I have spared any labour of mind
And this science and art I have obtained by the sole inspiration
of the living God, who judged fit to open them to me His servant,
who has given to rational creatures the power of thinking and
judging aright, forsaking none, or giving to any occasion to
despair. For myself, I had never discovered this matter to anyone
had it not been from fear of the day of judgment, and the perdition
of my soul if I concealed it. It is a debt which I am desirous
to discharge to the Faithful, as the Father of the faithful did
liberally bestow it upon me.
Understand ye, then, 0 Sons Of Wisdom, that the knowledge of
the four elements Or the ancient philosophers was not corporally
or imprudently sought after, which are through patience to be
discovered, according to their causes and their occult operation.
But, their operation is occult, since nothing is done except
the matter be decompounded, and because it is not perfected unless
the colours be thoroughly passed and accomplished. Know then,
that the division that was made upon the water by the ancient
philosophers separates it into four substances; one into two,
and three into one; the third part of which is colour, as it
were-a coagulated moisture; but the second and third waters are
the Weights of the Wise.
Take of the humidity, or moisture, an ounce and a half, and or
the Southern redness, which is the soul of gold, a fourth part,
that is to say, half-an-ounce of the citrine Seyre, in like manner,
half-an-ounce of the Auripigment, half-an-ounce, which are eight;
that is three ounces. And know ye that the vine of the wise is
drawn forth in three, but the wine thereof is not perfected,
until at length thirty be accomplished
Understand the operation, therefore. Decoction lessens the matter,
but the tincture augments it; because Luna in fifteen days is
diminished; and in the third she is augmented. This is the beginning
and the end. Behold, I have declared that which was hidden, since
the work is both with thee and about thee - that which was within
is taken out and fixed, and thou canst have it either in earth
or sea.
Keep, therefore, thy Argent vive, which is prepared in the innermost
chamber in which it is coagulated; for that is the Mercury which
is separated from the residual earth.
He, therefore, who now hears my words, let him search into them;
which are to justify no evil-doer, but to benefit the good; therefore,
I have discovered all things that were before hidden concerning
this knowledge, and disclosed the greatest of all secrets, even
the Intellectual Science.
Know ye, therefore, Children of Wisdom, who enquire concerning
the report thereof, that the vulture standing upon the mountain
crieth out with a loud voice, I am the White of the Black, and
the Red of the White, and the Citrine of the Red, and behold
I speak the very truth.
And know that the chief principle of the art is the Crow, which
is the blackness of the night and clearness of the day, and flies
without wings. From the bitterness existing in the throat the
tincture is taken, the red goes forth from his body, and from
his back is taken a thin water.
Understand, therefore, and accept this gift of God which is hidden
from the thoughtless world. In the caverns of the metals there
is hidden the stone that is venerable, splendid in colour, a
mind sublime, and an open sea. Behold, I have declared it unto
thee; give thanks to God, who teacheth thee this knowledge, for
He in return recompenses the grateful.
Put the matter into a moist fire, therefore, and cause it to
boil in order that its heat may be augmented, which destroys
the siccity of the incombustible nature, until the radix shall
appear; then extract the redness and the light parts, till only
about a third remains
Sons of Science ! For this reason are philosophers said to be
envious, not that they grudged the truth to religious or just
men, or to the wise; but to fools, ignorant and vicious, who
are without self-control and benevolence, least they should
be made powerful and able to perpetrate sinful things. For of
such the philosophers are made accountable to God, and evil men
are not admitted worthy of this wisdom.
Know that this matter I call the stone; but it is also named
the feminine of magnesia or the hen, or the white spittle, or
the volatile milk, the incombustible oil in order that it may
be hidden from the inept and ignorant who are deficient in goodness
and self-control; which I have nevertheless signified to the
wise by one only epithet, viz., the Philosopher's Stone.
Include, therefore, and conserve in this sea, the fire and the
heavenly bird, to the latest moment of his exit. But I deprecate
ye all, Sons of Philosophy, on whom the great gift of this knowledge
being bestowed, if any should undervalue or divulge the power
thereof to the ignorant, or such as are unfit for the knowledge
of this secret. Behold, I have received nothing from any to whom
I have not returned that which had been given me, nor have I
failed to honour him; even in this I have reposed the highest
confidence.
This, O Son, is the concealed stone of many colours, which is
born and brought forth in one colour; know this and conceal it.
By this, the Almighty favouring, the greatest diseases are escaped,
and every sorrow, distress, and evil and hurtful thing is made
to depart; for it leads from darkness into light, from this desert
wilderness to a secure habitation, and from poverty and straits
to a free and ample fortune.
SECTION II.
MY SON, before all things I admonish thee to fear God, in
whom is the strength of thy undertaking, and the bond of whatsoever
thou meditatest to unloose; whatsoever thou hearest, consider
it rationally. For I hold thee not to be a fool. Lay hold, therefore,
of my instructions and meditate upon them, and so let thy heart
be fitted also to conceive, as if thou wast thyself the author
of that which I now teach. If thou appliest cold to any nature
that is hot, it will not hurt it; in like manner, he who is rational
shuts himself within from the threshold of ignorance; lest supinely
he should be deceived.
Take the flying bird and drown it flying and divide and separate
it from its pollutions, which yet hold it in death; draw it forth,
and repel it from itself, that it may live and answer thee; not
by flying away into the regions above but by truly forbearing
to fly. For if thou shalt deliver it out of its prison, after
this thou shalt govern it according to Reason. and according
to the days that I shall teach thee; then will it become a companion
up to thee, and by it thou wilt become to be an honoured lord.
Extract from the racy its shadow, and from the light its obscurity,
by which the clouds hang over it and keep away the light; by
means of its construction, also, and fiery redness, it is burned
Take, my Son, this redness, corrupted with the water, which is
as a live coal holding the fire, which if thou shalt withdraw
so often until the redness is made pure, then it will associate
with thee, by whom it was cherished, and in whom it rests.
Return, then, O my Son, the coal being extinct in life, upon
the water for thirty days, as I shall note to thee - and henceforth
thou art a crowned king, resting over the fountain and drawing
from thence the Auripigment dry without moisture. And now I have
made the heart of the hearers, hoping in thee, to rejoice even
in their eyes, beholding thee in anticipation of that which thou
possessest.
Observe, then, that the water was first in the air, then in the
earth; restore thou it also to the superiors by its proper windings,
and not foolishly altering it; then to the former spirit, fathered
in its redness, let it be carefully conjoined.
Know, my Son, that the fatness of our earth is sulphur, the auripigment
sirety, and colcothar, which are also sulphur, of which auripigments,
sulphur, and such like, some are more vile than others, in which
there is a diversity, of which kind also) is the fat of gluey
matters, such as are hair, nails, hoofs, and sulphur itself,
and of the brain, which too is auripigment; of the like kind
also are the lions' and cats' claws, which is sirety; the fat
of white bodies, and the fat of the two oriental quicksilvers,
which sulphurs are hunted and retained by the bodies.
I say, moreover, that this sulphur doth tinge and fix, and is
held by the conjunction of the tinctures; oils also tinge, but
fly away, which in the body are contained, which is a conjunction
of fugitives only with sulphurs and albumninous bodies, which
hold also and detain the fugitive ens.
The disposition sought after by the philosophers, O Son, is but
one in our egg; but this, in the hen's egg, is much less to be
found. But lest so much of the Divine Wisdom as is in a hen's
egg should not be distinguished, our composition is, as that
is, from the four elements Adapted and composed. Know, therefore,
that in the hen's egg is the greatest help with respect to the
proximity and relationship of the matter in nature, for in it
there is a spirituality and conjunction of elements, and an earth
which is golden in its tincture. But the Son, enquiring or Hermes,
saith, The sulphurs which are fit for our work, whether are they
celestial or terrestrial ? To whom the Father answers, Certain
of them are heavenly, and some are of the earth.
Then the Son saith, Father, I imagine the heart in the superiors
to be heaven, and in the inferiors earth. But saith Hermes, It
is not so; the masculine truly is the Heaven of the feminine,
and the feminine is the earth of the masculine.
The Son then asks, Father, which of these is more worthy than
the other; whether is it the heaven or the earth? Hermes replies,
Both need the help one of the other; for the precepts demand
a medium. But, saith the Son, if thou shalt say that a wise man
governs all mankind? But ordinary men, replies Hermes, are better
for them, because every nature delights in society of its own
kind, and so we find it to be in the life of Wisdom where equals
are conjoined. But what, rejoins the Son, is the mean betwixt
them ? To whom Hermes replies, In everything In nature there
are three from two: the beginning, the middle, and the end. First
the needful water, then the oily tincture, and lastly, the faeces,
or earth, which remains below But the Dragon inhabits in all
these, and his houses are the darkness and blackness that is
in them and by them he ascends into the air, from his rising,
which is their heaven. But whilst the fume remains in them, they
are not immortal. Take away, therefore, the vapour from the water,
and the blackness from the oily tincture, and death from the
faeces; and by dissolution thou shalt possess a triumphant reward,
even that in and by which the possessors live.
Know then, my Son, that the temperate unguent, which is fire,
is the medium between the faeces and the water and is the Perscrutinator
of the water. For the unguents are called sulphurs, because between
fire and oil and this sulphur there is such a chose proximity,
that even as fire burns so does the sulphur also.
All the sciences of the world, O Son are comprehended in this
my hidden Wisdom; and this, and the learning of the Art, consists
in these wonderful hidden elements which it doth discover and
complete. It behoves him, therefore, who would be introduced
to this hidden Wisdom, to free himself from the hidden usurpations
of vice; and to be just, and good, and of a sound reason, ready
at hand to help mankind, of a serene countenance, diligent to
save, and be himself a patient guardian of the arcane secrets
of philosophy.
And this know that except thou understandest how to mortify and
induce generation, to vivify the Spirit, and introduce Light,
until they fight with each other and grow white and freed from
their defilements, rising as it were from blackness and darkness,
thou knowest nothing nor canst perform anything; but if thou
knowest this, thou wilt be of a great dignity so that even kings
themselves shall reverence thee. These secrets, Son, it behoves
thee to conceal from the vulgar and profane world.
Understand, also, that our Stone is from many things, and of
various colours, and composed from four elements which we ought
to divide and dissever in pieces, and segregate, in the veins,
and partly mortifying the same by its proper nature, which is
also in it, to preserve the water and fire dwelling therein,
which is from the four elements and their waters, which contain
its water; this, however, is not water in its true form, but
fire, containing in a pure vessel the ascending waters, lest
the espirits should fly away from the bodies; for by this means
they are made tinging and fixed.
O, blessed watery form, that dissolvest the elements: Now it
behoves us, with this watery soul, to possess ourselves of a
sulphurous form, and to mingle the same with our Acetum. For
when, by the power of the water, the composition is dissolved,
it is the key of the restoration; then darkness and death fly
away from them, and Wisdom proceeds onwards to the fulfillment
of her Law.
SECTION III.
Know my Son, that the philosophers bind up their matter with
a strong chain, that it may contend with the Fire; because the
spirits in the washed bodies desire to dwell therein and to rejoice.
In these habitations they verify themselves and inhabit there,
and the bodies hold them, nor can they be thereafter separated
any more.
The dead elements are revived, the composed bodies tinge and
are altered, and by a wonderful process they are made permanent,
as saith the philosopher.
O, permanent watery Form, creatrix of the royal elements; who,
having with thy brethren and a just government obtained the tincture,
findest rest. Our most precious stone is cast forth upon the
dunghill, and that which is most worthy is made vilest of the
vile. Therefore, it behoves us to mortify two Argent vives together,
both to venerate and be venerated, viz., the Argent vive of Auripigment,
and the oriental Argent vive of Magnesia
O, Nature, the most potent creatrix of Nature, which containest
and separatest natures in a middle principle. The Stone comes
with light, and with light it is generated, and then it generates
and brings forth the black clouds or darkness, which is the mother
of all things.
But when we marry the crowned King to our red daughter, and in
a gentle fire, not hurtful, she doth conceive an excellent and
supernatural son, which permanent life she doth also feed with
a subtle heat, so that he lives at length in our fire.
But when thou shalt send forth thy fire upon the foliated sulphur,
the boundary of hearts doth enter in above, it is washed in the
same, and the purified matter thereof is extracted.
Then is he transformed, and his tincture by help of the fire
remains red, as it were flesh. But our Son, the king begotten,
takes his tincture from the fire, and death even, and darkness,
and the waters flee away.
The Dragon shuns the sunbeams which dart through the crevices,
and our dead son lives; king comes forth from the fire and rejoins
with his spouse, the occult treasures are laid open, and the
virgin's milk is whitened. The Son, already vivified is become
a warrior in the fire and of tincture super-excellent. For this
Son is himself the treasury, even himself bearing the Philosophic
Matter.
Approach, ye Sons of Wisdom, and rejoice; let us now rejoice
together, for the reign of death is finished, and the Son doth
rule. And now he is invested with the red garment, and the scarlet
colour is put on.
SECTION IV.
Understand, then, O Son of Wisdom, what the Stone declares;
Protect me, and I will protect thee; increase my strength that
I may help thee ! My Sol and my beams are most inward and secretly
in me my own Luna, also, my light, exceeding every light, and
my good things are better than all other good things. I give
freely, and reward the intelligent with joy and gladness, glory,
riches, and delights; and them that seek after me I make to know
and understand, and to possess divine things. Behold, that which
the philosophers has concealed is written with seven letters;
for Alpha and Yda follow two; and Sol, in like manner, follows
the book; nevertheless, if thou art willing that he should have
Dominion, observe the Art, and join the son to the daughter of
the water, which, Jupiter and a hidden secret.
Auditor, understand, let us use our Reason; consider all with
the most accurate investigation, which in the contemplative part
I have demonstrated to thee, the whole matter I know to be the
one only thing. But who is he that understands the true investigation
and enquires rationally into this matter? It is not from man,
nor from anything like him or akin to him, nor from the ox or
bullock, and if any creature conjoins with one of another species,
that which is brought forth is neutral from either.
Thus saith Venus: I beget light, nor is the darkness of my nature,
and if my metal be not dried all bodies desire me, for I liquefy
them and wipe away their rust, even I extract their substance.
Nothing therefore is better or more venerable than I, my brother
also being conjoined.
But the King, the ruler, to his brethren, testifying of him,
saith: I am crowned, and I am adorned with a royal diadem: I
am clothed with the royal garment, and I bring Joy and gladness
of heart; for being chained, I caused my substance to lay hold
of, and to rest within the arms and breast of my mother, and
to fasten upon her substance; making that which was invisible
to become visible, and the occult matter to appear. And everything
which the philosophers have hidden is generated by us. Hear,
then, these words, and understand them; keep them, and meditate
thereon, and seek for nothing more. Man in the beginning is generated
of nature, whose inward substance is fleshy, and not from anything
else. Meditate on these plain things, and reject what is superfluous.
Thus saith the philosopher: Botri is made from the citrine which
is extracted out of the Red Root, and from nothing else; and
if it be citrine and nothing else, Wisdom was with thee: it was
not gotten by the care, nor, if it be freed from redness, by
thy study. Behold, I have circumscribed nothing; if thou hast
understanding, there be but few things unopened. Ye Sons of Wisdom
! turn then the Breym Body with an exceeding great fire; and
it will yield gratefully what you desire. And see that you make
that which is volatile, so that it cannot fly, and by means of
that which flies not. And that which yet rests upon the fire,
as it were itself a fiery flame, and that which in the heat of
a boiling fire is corrupted, is cambar.
And know ye that the Art of this permanent water is our brass,
and the colourings of its tincture and blackness is then changed
into the true red.
I declare that, by the help of God I have spoken nothing but
the truth. That which is destroyed is renovated, and hence the
corruption is made manifest in the matter to be renewed, and
hence the melioration will appear, and on either side it is a
signal of Art.
SECTION V.
MY SON, that which is born of the crow is the beginning of
Art. Behold, how I have obscured matter treated of, by circumlocution,
depriving thee of the light. Yet this dissolved, this joined,
this nearest and furtherest off I have named to thee. Roast those
things, therefore, and boil them in that which comes from the
horse's belly for seven, fourteen, or twenty-one days. Then will
the Dragon eat his own wings and destroy himself; this being
done, let it be put into a fiery furnace, which lute diligently,
and observe that none of the spirit may escape.
And know that the periods of the earth are in the water, which
let it be as long as until thou puttest the same upon it. The
matter being thus melted and burned take the brain thereof and
triturate it in most sharp vinegar, till it becomes obscured.
This done, it lives in the putrefaction, let the dark clouds
which were in it before it was killed be converted into its own
body. Let this process be repeated, as I have described, let
it again die, as I before said, and then it lives.
In the life and death thereof we work with the spirits, for as
it dies by the taking away of the spirit, so it lives in the
return and is revived and rejoices therein. Being arrived then
at this knowledge, that which thou hast been searching for is
made in the Affirmation, I have even related to thee the joyful
signs, even that which doth fix the body. But these things, and
how they attained to the knowledge of this secret, are given
by our ancestors in figures and types; behold, they are dead;
I have opened the riddle, and the book of knowledge is revealed,
the hidden things I have uncovered, and have brought together
the scattered truths within their boundary, and have conjoined
many various forms -even I have associated the spirit. Take it
as the gift of God.
SECTION VI.
It behoves thee to give thanks to God who has bestowed liberally
of his bounty to the wise, who delivers us from misery and poverty.
I am tempted and proven with the fullness of his substance and
his probable wonders, and humbly pray God that whilst we live
we may come to him. Remove thence, O Sons of Science, the unguents
which we extract from fats, hair, verdigrease, tragacanth, and
bones, which are written in the books of our fathers. But concerning
the ointments which contain the tincture coagulate the fugitive,
and adorn the sulphurs it behooves us to explain their disposition
more at large ! and to unveil the Form, which is buried and hidden
from other unguents; which is seen in disposition, but dwells
in his own body, as fire in trees and stones, which by the most
subtle art and ingenuity it behoves to extract without burning.
And know that the Heaven is to be joined mediately with the Earth
- but the Form is in a middle nature between tie heaven and earth,
which is our water. But the water holds of all the first place
which goes forth from this stone; but the second is gold; and
the third is gold, only in a mean which is more noble than the
water and the faeces. But in these are the smoke, the blackness
and the death. It behoves us, therefore, to dry away the vapour
from the water, to expel the blackness from the unguent, and
death from the feces, and this by dissolution. By Which means
we attain to the highest philosophy and secret of all hidden
things.
SECTION VII.
Know ye then, O Sons of Science, there are seven bodies, of
which gold is the first, the most perfect, the king of them,
and their head, which neither the earth can corrupt nor fire
devastate, nor the water change, for its complexion is equalised,
and its nature regulated with respect to heat, cold, and moisture;
nor is there anything in it which is superfluous, therefore the
philosophers do buoy up and magnify themselves init saying that
this gold, in relation of other bodies. is, as the sun amongst
the stars, more splendid in Light; and as, by the power of God,
every vegetable and all the fruits of the earth are perfected,
so gold by the same power sustainneth all.
For as dough without a ferment cannot be fermented so when thou
sublimest the body and purifiest it, separating the uncleanness
from it, thou wilt then conjoin and mix them together, and put
in the ferment confecting the earth and water. Then will the
Ixir ferment even as dough doth ferment. Think of this, and see
how the ferment in this case doth change the former natures to
another thing. Observe, also, that there is no ferment otherwise
than from the dough itself.
Observe, moreover, that the ferment whitens the confection and
hinders it from turning, and holds the tincture lest it should
fly, and rejoice the bodies, and makes them intimately to join
and to enter one into another, and this is the key of the philosophers
and the end of their work: and by this science, bodies are meliorated,
and the operation of them, God assisting, is consummate.
But, through negligence and a false opinion of the matter, the
operation may be perverted, as a mass of leaven growing corrupt,
or milk turned with rennet for cheese, and musk among aromatics.
The sure colour of the golden matter for the red, and the nature
thereof, is not sweetness; therefore we make of them sericum
- ie Ixir; and of them we make the enamel of which we have already
without and with the king's seal we have tinged the clay, and
in that have set the colour of heaven, which augments the sight
of them that see.
The Stone, therefore is the most precious gold without spots,
evenly tempered, which neither fire nor air, nor water, nor earth
is able to corrupt for it is the Universal Ferment rectifying
all things in a medium composition, whose complexion is yellow
and a true citrine colour.
The gold of the wise, boiled and well digested with a fiery water,
makes Ixir; for the gold of the wise is more heavy than lead,
which in a temperate composition is a ferment Ixir, and contrariwise,
in our intemperate composition, is the confusion of the whole.
For the work begins from the vegetable, next from the animal,
as in a hen's egg, in which is the greatest help, and our earth
is gold, of all which we make sericum, which is the ferment Ixir.
finis
[ The Translation here used and followed is from that notable
work, "A Suggestive Inquiry into the Hermetic Mystery,"
(London, 1850.) ]
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