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The Stone of the Philosophers by Edward Kelly
The Stone of the Philosophers
Edward Kelly
Though I have already twice suffered chains and imprisonment
in Bohemia, an indignity which has been offered to me in no other
part of the world, yet my mind, remaining unbound, has all this
time exercised itself in the study of that philosophy which is
despised only by the wicked and foolish, but is praised and admired
by the wise. Nay, the saying that none but fools and lawyers
hate and despise Alchemy has passed into a proverb. Furthermore,
as during the preceding three years I have used great labour,
expense, and care in order to discover for your Majesty that
which might afford you much profit and pleasure, so during my
imprisonment - a calamity which has befallen me through the action
of your Majesty - I am utterly incapable of remaining idle. Hence
I have written a treatise, by means of which your imperial mind
may be guided into all the truth of the more ancient philosophy,
whence, as from a lofty eminence, it may contemplate and distinguish
the fertile tracts from the barren and stony wilderness. But
if my teaching displease you, know that you are still altogether
wandering astray from the true scope and aim of this matter,
and are utterly wasting your money, time, labour, and hope. A
familiar acquaintance with the different branches of knowledge
has taught me this one thing, that nothing is more ancient, excellent,
or more desirable than truth, and whoever neglects it must pass
his whole life in the shade. Nevertheless, it always was, and
always will be, the way of mankind to release Barabbas and to
crucify Christ. This I have - for my good, no doubt - experienced
in my own case. I venture to hope, however, that my life and
character will so become known to posterity that I may be counted
among those who have suffered much for the sake of truth. The
full certainty of the present treatise time is powerless to abrogate.
If your Majesty will deign to peruse it at your leisure, you
will easily perceive that my mind is profoundly versed in this
study.
(1) All genuine and judicious philosophers have traced back things
to their first principles, that is to say, those comprehended
in the threefold division of Nature. The generation of animals
they have attributed to a mingling of the male and female in
sexual union; that of vegetables to their own proper seed; while
as the principle of minerals they have assigned earth and viscous
water.
(2) All specific and individual things which fall under a certain
class, obey the general laws and are referable to the first principles
of the class to which they belong.
(3) Thus, every animal is the product of sexual union; every
plant, of its proper seed; every mineral, of the mixture of its
generic earth and water.
(4) Hence, an unchangeable law of Nature regulates the generation
og everything within the limits of its own particular genus.
(5) It follows that, with reference to their origin, animals
are generically distinct from vegetables and minerals; the same
difference exists respectively between vegetables and minerals
and the two other natural kingdoms.
(6) The common and universal matter of these three principles
is called Chaos.
(7) Chaos contains within itself the four elements of all that
is, viz., fire, air, water, and earth, by the mixture and motion
of which the forms of all earthly things are impressed upon their
subjects.
(8) These elements have four qualities: heat, coldness, humidity,
dryness. The first inheres in fire, the second in water, the
third in air, the fourth in earth.
(9) By means of these qualities, the elements act upon each other,
and motion takes place.
(10) Elements either act upon each other, or are acted on, and
are called either active or passive.
(11) Active elements are those which, in a compound, impress
upon the passive a certain specific character, according to the
strength and extent of their motion. These are water and fire.
(12) The passive elements - earth and air - are those which by
their inactive qualities readily receive the impressions of the
aforesaid active elements.
(13) The four elements are distinguished, not only by their activity
and passivity, but also by the priority and posteriority of their
motions.
(14) Priority and posteriority are here predicated either with
references to the position of the whole sphere, or the importance
of the result or aim of the motion.
(15) In space, heavy objects tend downwards, and light objects
upwards; those which are neither light nor heavy hold an intermediate
position.
(16) In this way, even among the passive elements, earth holds
a higher place than air, because it delights more in rest; for
the less motion, the more passivity.
(17) The excellence of result has reference to perfection and
imperfection, the mature being more perfect than the immature.
Now, maturity is altogether due to the heat of fire. Hence fire
holds the highest place among active elements.
(18) Among the passive elements, the first place belongs to that
which is most passive, i.e., which is most quickly and easily
influenced. In a compound, earth is first passively affected,
then air.
(19) Similarly, in every compound, the perfecting element acts
last; for perfection is a transition from immaturity to maturity.
(20) Maturity being caused by heat, cold is the cause of immaturity.
(21) It is clear, then, that the elements, or remote first principles
of animals, vegetables, and minerals, in Chaos, are susceptible
of active movements in fire and water, and of passive movements
in earth and air. Water acts on earth, and transmutes it into
its own nature; fire heats air, and also changes it into its
own likeness.
(22) The active elements may be called male, while the passive
elements represent the female principle.
(23) Any compound belonging to any of these three kingdoms -
animal, vegetable, mineral - is female in so far as it is earth
and air, and male in so far as it is fire and water.
(24) Only that which has consistency is sensuously perceptible.
Elementary fire and air, being naturally subtle, cannot be seen.
(25) Only two elements, water and earth, are visible, and earth
is called the hiding-place of fire, water the abode of air.
(26) In these two elements we have the broad law of limitation
which divides the male from the female.
(27) The first matter of vegetables is the water and earth hidden
in its seed, these being more water than earth.
(28) The first matter of animals is the mixture of the male and
female sperm, which embodies more moisture than dryness.
(29) The first matter of minerals is a kind of viscous water,
mingled with pure and impure earth.
(30) Impure earth is combustible sulphur, which hinders all fusion,
and superficially matures the water joined to it, as we see in
the minor minerals, marcasite, magnesia, antimony, etc.
(31) Pure earth is that which so unites the smallest parts of
its aforesaid water that they cannot be separated by the fiercest
fire, so that either both remain fixed or are volatilized.
(32) Of this viscous water and fusible earth, or sulphur, is
composed that which is called quicksilver, the first matter of
the metals.
(33) Metals are nothing but Mercury digested by different degrees
of heat.
(34) Different modifications of heat cause, in the metallic compound,
either maturity or immaturity.
(35) The mature is that which has exactly attained all the activities
and properties of fire. Such is gold.
(36) The immature is that which is dominated by the element of
water, and is never acted on by fire. Such are lead, tin, copper,
iron, and silver.
(37) Only one metal, viz., gold, is absolutely perfect and mature.
Hence it is called the perfect male body.
(38) The rest are immature and, therefore, imperfect.
(39) The limit of immaturity is the beginning of maturity; for
the end of the first is the beginning of the last.
(40) Silver is less bounded bu aqueous immaturity than the rest
of the metals, though it may indeed be regarded as to a certain
extent impure, still its water is already covered with the congealing
vesture of its earth, and it thus tends to perfection.
(41) This condition is the reason why silver is everywhere called
by the Sages the perfect female body.
(42) All other metals differ only in the degree of their imperfection,
according as they are more or less bounded by the said immaturity;
nevertheless, all have a certain tendency towards perfection,
though they lack the aforesaid congealing vesture of their earth.
(43) This congealing force is the effect of earthy coldness,
balancing its own proper humidity, and causing fixation in the
fluid matter.
(44) The lesser metals are fusible in a fierce fire, and therefore
lack this perfect congealing force. If they become solid when
cool, this is due to the arrangement of their aforesaid earthy
particles.
(45) According to the different ways in which this viscous water
and pure earth are joined together, so as to produce quicksilver
by coagulation, with the mediation of natural heat, we have different
metals, some of which are called perfect, like gold and silver,
while the rest are regarded as imperfect.
(46) Whoever would imitate Nature in any particular operation
must first be sure that he has the same matter, and, secondly,
that this substance is acted on in a way similar to that of Nature.
For Nature rejoices in natural method, and like purifies like.
(47) Hence they are mistaken who strive to elicit the medicine
for the tinging of metals from animals or vegetables. The tincture
and the metal tinged must belong to the same root or genus; and
as it is the imperfect metals upon which the Philosopher's Stone
is to be projected, it follows that the powder of the Stone must
be essentially Mercury. The Stone is the metallic matter which
changes the forms of imperfect metals into gold, as we may learn
from the first chapter of "The Code of Truth": "The
Philosophical Stone is the metallic matter converting the substances
and forms of imperfect metals"; and all Sages agree that
it can have this effect only by being like them.
(48) That Mercury is the first matter of metals, I will attempt
to prove by the saying of some Sages.
In the Turba Philosophorum, chapter i., we find the following
words: "In the estimation of all Sages, Mercury is the first
principle of all metals."
And a little further on: "As flesh is generated from coagulated
blood, so gold is generated out of coagulated Mercury."
Again, towards the end of the chapter: "All pure and impure
metallic bodies are Mercury, because they are generated from
the same."
Arnold writes thus to the King of Aragon: "Know that the
matter and sperm of all metals are Mercury, digested and thickened
in the womb of the earth; they are digested by sulphureous heat,
and according to the quality and quantity of the sulphur different
metals are generated. Their matter is essentially the same, though
there may be some accidental differences, such as a greater or
less degree of digestion, etc. All things are made of that into
which they may be resolved, e.g., ice or snow, which may be resolved
into water; and so all metals may be resolved into quicksilver;
hence they are made out of quicksilver."
The same view is set forth by Bernard of Trevisa, in his book
on the "Transmutation of Metals": "Similarly,
quicksilver is the substance of all metals; it is as a water
by reason of the homogeneity which it possesses with vegetables
and animals, and it receives the virtues of those things which
adhere to it in decoction." A little further on the same
Trevisan affirms that "Gold is nothing but quicksilver congealed
by its sulphur."
And, in another place, he writes as follows: "The solvent
differs from the soluble only in proportion and degree of digestion,
but not in matter, since Nature has formed the one out of the
other without any addition, even as by a process equally simple
and wonderful she evolves gold out of quicksilver."
Again: "The Sages have it that gold is nothing but quicksilver
perfectly digested in the bowels of the earth, and they have
signified that this is brought about by sulphur, which coagulates
the Mercury, and digests it by its own heat. Hence the Sages
have said that gold is nothing but mature quicksilver."
Such also is the concensus of other authorities. "The Sounding
of the Trumpet" gives forth no uncertain note: "Extract
quicksilver from the bodies, and you have above the ground quicksilver
and sulphur of the same substance of which gold and silver are
made in the earth."
The "Way of Ways" leads to the same conclusion: "Reverend
Father, incline they venerable ears, and understand that quicksilver
is the sperm of all metals, perfect and imperfect, digested in
the bowels of the earth by the heat of sulphur, the variety of
metals being due to the diversity of their sulphur."
We find in the same tract a similar canon: "All metals in
the earth are generated in Mercury, and thus Mercury is the first
matter of metals."
To these words Avicenna signifies his assent in chapter iii.:
"As ice, which by heat is dissolved into water, is clearly
generated out of water, so all metals may be resolved into Mercury,
whence it is clear that they are generated out of it."
This reasoning is confirmed by "The Sounding of the Trumpet":
"Every passive body is reduced to its first matter by operations
contrary to its nature; the first matter is quicksilver, being
itself the oil of all liquid and ductile things."
So also the third chapter of the "Correction of Fools":
"The nature of all fusible things is that of Mercury coagulated
out of a vapour, or the heat of red or white incumbustible sulphur."
In chapter i. of the "Art of Alchemy" we read: "All
Sages agree that the metals are generated from the vapour of
sulphur and quicksilver."
Again, a passage in the Turba Philosophorum runs thus: "It
is certain that every subject derives from that into which it
can be resolved. All metals may be resolved into quicksilver,
hence they were once quicksilver."
If it were worth while, I might adduce hundreds of other
passages from the writings of the Sages, but as they would serve
no good purpose, I will let these suffice.
Those persons make a great mistake who suppose that the thick
water of Antimony, or that viscous substance which is extracted
from sublimed Mercury, or from Mercury and Jupiter dissolved
together in a damp spot, can in any case be the first substance
of metals.
Antimony can never assume metallic qualities, because its water
and moisture are not tempered with dry, subtle, earth, and want,
moreover, that unctuosity which is characteristic of malleable
metals. But, as Chambar well says in the "Code of Truth":
"It is only through jealousy that Sages have called the
Stone Antimony."
In the same way, those who destroy the natural composition of
Mercury, in order to resolve it into a thick or limpid water,
which they call the first matter of metals, fight against Nature
in the dark, like blinded gladiators.
As soon as Mercury loses its specific form, it becomes something
else, which cannot thenceforth mingle with metals in their smallest
parts, and is made void for the work of the Philosophers. Whoever
is taken up with such childish experiments, should listen to
the Sage of Trevisa in his "Transmutation of Metals":
"Who can find truth that destroys the humid nature of Mercury?
Some foolish persons change its specific metallic arrangement,
corrupt its natural humidity by dissolution, and disproportionate
quicksilver from its original mineral quality, which wanted nothing
but purification and simple digestion. By means of salts, vitriol,
and alum, they destroy the seed which Nature has been at pains
to develop. For seed in human and sensitive things is formed
by Nature and not by art, but by art it is united and mixed.
Seed needs no addition, and brooks no diminution. If it is to
produce a new thing of the same genus, it must remain the very
same thing that was formed by Nature. All teaching that changes
Mercury is false and vain, for this is the original sperm of
metals, and its moisture must not be dried up, for otherwise
it will not dissolve. Too much fire will cause a morbid heat,
like that of a fever, and change the passive into active elements,
thus the balance of forces is destroyed, and the whole work marred.
Yet these fools extract from the lesser minerals corrosive waters,
into which they project the different species of metals, and
thus corrode them.
"The only natural solution is that by which out of the solvent
and the soluble, or male and female, there results a new species.
No water can naturally dissolve metals except that which abides
with them in substance and form, which also the dissolved metals
can again congeal; this is not the case with aqua fortis, seeing
that it only destroys the specific arrangement. Only that water
can rightly dissolve metals which is inseparable from them in
fixation, and such a water is Mercury, but not aqua fortis, or
any thing else which those fools are pleased to call Mercurial
Water." Thus far Trevisan.
Persons who have fallen into this fatal error may also derive
benefit from the teaching of Avicenna on this point: "Quicksilver
is cold and humid, and of it, or with it, God had created all
metals. It is aerial, and becomes volatile by the action of fire,
but when it has withstood the fire a little time, it accomplishes
geat marvels, and is itself only a living spirit of unexampled
potency. It enters and penetrates all bodies, passes through
them, and is their ferment. It is then the White and the Red
Elixir and is an everlasting water, the water of life, the Virgin's
milk, the spring, and that Alum of which whosoever drinks cannot
die, etc. It is the wanton serpent that conceives of its own
seed, and brings forth on the same day. With its poison it destroys
all things. It is volatile, but the wise make it to abide the
fire, and then it transmutes as it has been transmuted, and tinges
as it has been tinged, and coagulates as it has been coagulated.
Therefore is the generation of quicksilver to be preferred before
all minerals; it is found in all ores, and has its sign with
all. Quicksilver is that which saves metals from combustion,
and renders them fusible. It is the Red Tincture which enters
into the most intimate union with metals, because it is of their
own nature, mingles with them indissolubly in all their smallest
parts, and, being homogeneous, naturally adheres to them. Mercury
receives all homogeneous substances, but rejects all that is
heterogeneous, because it delights in its own nature, but recoils
from whatsoever is strange. How foolish, then, to spoil and destroy
that which Nature made the seed of all metallic virtue by elaborate
chemical operations!"
The "Rosary" bids us be particularly careful, lest
in purifying the quicksilver we dissipate its virtue, and impair
its active force. A grain of wheat, or any other seed, will not
grow if its generative virtue be destroyed by excessive external
heat. Therefore, purify your quicksilver by distillation over
a gentle fire.
Says the Sage of Trevisa: "If the quicksilver be robbed
of its due metallic proportion, how can other substances of the
same metallic genus be generated from it? It is a mistake to
suppose that you can work miracles with a clear limpid water
extracted from quicksilver. Even if we could get such a water,
it would not be of use, either as to form or proportion, nor
could it restore or build up a perfect metallic species. For
as soon as the quicksilver is changed from its first nature,
it is rendered unfit for our operation, since it loses its spermatic
and metallic quality. I do, indeed, approve of impure and gross
Mercury being sublimed and purified once or twice with simple
salt, according to the proper method of the Sages, so long as
the fluxibility or radical humour of such Mercury remains unimpaired,
that is to say, so long as its specific mercurial nature is not
destroyed, and so long as its outward appearance does not become
that of a dry powder."
In the "Ladder of the Sages" we are told to beware
of vitrification in the solution of bodies, with the odour and
taste of imperfect substances, and also of the generative virtue
of their form being in any way scorched and destroyed by corrosive
waters.
If you have been trying to do any of these things, you may see
how grievous your mistake has been. For the water of the Sages
adheres to nothing except homogeneous substances. It does not
wet your hands if you touch it, but scorches your skin, and frets
and corrodes every substance with which it comes in contact,
except gold and silver (it would not affect these until they
have been dissipated and dissolved by spirits and strong waters),
and with these it combines most intimately. But the other mixture
is most childish, it is condemned by the concert of the Sages,
and by my own experience.
I now propose to shew that quicksilver is the water with which,
and in which, the solution of the Sages takes place, by putting
before the reader the opinions of many Philosophers living in
different countries and ages.
Says Menalates in the Turba: "Whoever joins quicksilver
to the body of magnesia, and the woman to the man, extracts the
hidden nature by which bodies are coloured. Know that quicksilver
is a consuming fire which mortifies bodies by its contact."
Another Sage, in the Turba, says: "Divide the elements by
fire, unite them through the mediation of Mercury, which is the
greatest arcanum, and so the magistery is complete, the whole
difficulty consisting in the solution and conjunction. The solution,
or separation, takes places through the mediation of Mercury,
which first dissolves the bodies, and these are again united
by ferment and Mercury."
Rosinus makes Gold address Mercury as follows: "Dost thou
dispute with me, Mercury? I am the Lord, the Stone which abides
the fire." Says Mercury: "Thou sayest true; but I have
begotten thee, and one part of me quickens many of thee, since
thou art grudging in comparison with me. Whoever will join me
to my brother or sister shall live and rejoice, and make me sufficient
for thee."
In the 5th chapter of the "Book of Three Words," we
read: "I tell thee that in Mercury are the works of the
planets, and all their imaginations in its pages."
Aristotle says that the first mode of preparation is that the
Stone shall become Mercury; he calls Mercury the first body,
which acts on gross substances and changes them into its own
likeness. "If Mercury did nothing else than render bodies
subtle and like itself, it would suffice us."
Senior: "Our Stone, then, is congealed water, that is to
say, Mercury congealed in gold and silver, and, when fixed, resistent
to the fire."
"The Sounding of the Trumpet": "Mercury contains
all that the Sages seek, and destroys all flaky gold. It dissolves,
softens, and extracts the soul from the body."
"The Book on the Art of Alchemy": "The Sages were
first put upon attempting to clothe inferior bodies in the glory
and splendour of the perfect body when they discovered that metals
differ only according to the greater or smaller degree of their
digestion, and are all generated from Mercury, with which they
extracted gold and reduced it to its first nature."
The "Correction of Fools": "Observe that crude
Mercury dissolves bodies and reduces them to their first matter
or nature. Being made of clear water, it always strives to corrode
the crude, and especially that which is nearest to its own nature,
viz., gold and silver." The same book observes: "You
can make use of crude Mercury as follows - to seal up and open
natures, since similar things are helpful one to another."
Once more: "Quicksilver is the root in the Art of Alchemy,
for the Sages say that all metals are of it, and through it,
and in it - it follows that the metals must first be reduced
to Mercury, the matter and sperm of all metals."
Again: "The reason why all metals must be reduced to the
nature of vapour is because we see that all are generated of
quicksilver, though the mediation of which they came into being."
Gratianus: "Purify Laton, i.e., copper(ore), with Mercury,
for Laton is of gold and silver, a compound, yellow, imperfect
body."
"The Sounding of the Trumpet": "Common Mercury
is called a spirit. If you do not resolve the body into Mercury,
with Mercury, you cannot obtain its hidden virtue."
"Art of Alchemy," chapter vi.: "The second part
of the Stone we call living Mercury, which, being living and
crude, is said to dissolve bodies, because it adheres to them
in their innermost being. This is the Stone without which Nature
does nothing."
"Rosary": "Mercury never dies, except with its
brother and sister. When Mercury mortifies the matter of the
Sun and Moon, there remains a matter like ashes."
The Sage of Trevisa: "Add nothing above ground for digesting
and thickening Mercury into the nature of gold or of metals."
Again: "This solution is possible and natural, that is to
say, by Art as handmaid to Nature, and is unique and necessary
in the work; but it is brought about only by quicksilver, in
such proportions as commend themselves to a good workman who
knows the inmost properties of Nature."
"Art of Alchemy": "Who can sufficiently extol
Mercury, for Mercury alone has power to reduce gold to its first
nature?"
From these quotations it is clear what the Sages meant by their
water, and what they thought of this wonderful liquid, viz.,
Mercury, to which they ascribed all power in the Magistery, for
nothing can be perfected outside its own genus. Men digest vegetables,
not in the blood of animals, but in water which is their first
principle, nor are minerals affected by the vegetable liquid.
In the words of the "Sounding of the Trumpet": "The
whole Magistery consists in dividing the elements from the metals,
and purifying them, and in separating the sulphur of Nature from
the metals."
Furthermore, as Hermes says, only homogeneous substances cohere,
and only they can produce offspring after their own kind, i.e.,
if you want a medicine which is to generate metals, its origin
must be metallic, since "species are tinged by their genus,"
as the philosopher testifies.
In short, our Magistery consists in the union of the male and
female, or active and passive, elements through the mediation
of our metallic water and a proper degree of heat. Now, the male
and female are two metallic bodies, and this I will again prove
by irrefragable quotations from the Sages:
Dantius bids us prepare the bodies and dissolve them.
Rhasis: "Change the bodies into water, and the water into
earth: then all is done."
Galienus: "Prepare the bodies, and purify them of the blackness
in which is corruption, till the white becomes white and red,
then dissolve both, etc."
Calid (chapter i.): "If you do not make the bodies subtle,
so that they may be impalpable to touch, you will not gain your
end. If they have not been ground, repeat your operation, and
see that they are ground and subtilized. If you do this, you
will be directed to your desired goal."
Aristotle: "Bodies cannot be changes except by reduction
into their first matter."
Calid (chapter v.): "Similarly, the Sages have commanded
us to dissolve the bodies so that heat adheres to their inmost
parts; then we proceed to coagulation after a second dissolution
with a substance which most nearly approaches them."
Menabadus: "Make bodies not bodies, and incorporeal things
bodies, for this is the whole process by which the hidden virtue
of Nature is extracted."
Ascanius: "The conjunction of the two is like the union
of husband and wife, from whose embrace results golden water."
"Anthology of Secrets": "Wed the red man to the
white woman, and you have the whole Magistery."
"The Sounding of the Trumpet": "There is another
quicksilver and permanent tincture which is extracted from perfect
bodies by dissolution, distillation, sublimation, and subtilization."
Hermes: "Join the male to the female in their own proper
humidity, because there is no birth without union of male and
female."
Plato: "Nature follows a kindred nature, contains it, and
teaches it to resist the fire. Wed the man to the woman, and
you have the whole Magistery."
Avicenna: "Purify husband and wife separately, in order
that they may unite more intimately; for if you do not purify
them, they cannot love each other. By conjunction of the two
natures you get a clear and lucid nature, which, when it ascends,
becomes bright and serviceable."
"Art of Alchemy": "Two bodies provide us with
everything in our water."
Trevisanus: "Only that water which is of the same species,
and can be thickened by bodies, can dissolve bodies."
Hermes: "Let the stones of mixture be taken in the beginning
of the first work, and let them be equally mixed into earth."
"Mirror": "Our Stone must be extracted from the
nature of two bodies, before it can become a perfect Elixir."
Democritus: "You should first dissolve the bodies over white
hot ashes, and not grind them except only with water."
"Rosary" of Arnold: "Extract the Medicine from
the most homogeneous bodies in Nature."
I have thus proved the number of the bodies from which the Elixir
is obtained. I will now shew by quotations what these bodies
are.
"Exposition of the Letter of King Alexander": "In
this art you must wed the Sun and the Moon."
"The Sounding of the Trumpet": "The Sun only heats
the earth and imparts to it his virtue through the mediation
of the Moon, which, of all stars, most readily receives his light
and heat."
"The Correction of Fools": "Sow gold and silver,
and they will yield to your labour a thousandfold, through the
mediation of that thing which alone has what you seek. The Tincture
of gold and silver exhibits the same metallic proportions as
the imperfect metals, because they have a common first matter
in Mercury."
Again: "Tinge with gold and silver, because gold gives the
golden and silver the silver colour and nature. Reject all things
that have not naturally or virtually the power of tinging, as
in them is no fruit, but only waste of money and gnashing of
teeth."
Senior: "I, the Sun, am hot and dry, and thou, the Moon,
art cold and moist; when we are wedded together in a closed chamber,
I will gently steal away thy soul."
Rosinus to Saratant: "From the living water we obtain earth,
a homogeneous dead body, composed of two natures, that of the
Sun and that of the Moon."
Again: "When the Sun, my brother, for the love of me (silver)
pours his sperm (i.e. his solar fatness) into the chamber (i.e.
my Lunar body), namely, when we become one in a strong and complete
complexion and union, the child of our wedded love will be born."
Hermes: "Its humidity is of the empire of the Moon, and
its fatness of the empire of the Sun, and these two are its coagulum
and pure seed."
Astratus says: "Whoever would attain the truth, let him
take the humour of the Sun and the Spirit of the Moon."
Turba Philosophorum: "Both bodies in their perfection should
be taken for the composition of the Elixir, whether orange or
white, for neither becomes liquid without the other."
Again, Gold says: "No one kills me but my sister."
Aristotle: "If I did not see gold and silver, I should certainly
say that Alchemy was not true."
The Sage: "The foundation of our Art is gold and its shadow."
"Art of Alchemy": "We have already said that gold
and silver must be united."
"Rosary": "There is an addition of orange colour
by which the Medicine is perfected from the substance of fixed
sulphur, i.e., both medicines are obtained from gold and silver."
The Sage: "Whoever knows how to tinge sulphur and quicksilver
has reached the great arcanum. Gold and silver must be in the
Tincture, and also the ferment of the spirit."
"Rosary": "The ferment of the Sun is the sperm
of the man, the ferment of the Moon, the sperm of the woman.
Of both we get a chaste union and a true generation."
"The Sounding of the Trumpet": "You want silver
to subtilize your gold, and make it volatile by removing its
impurity, since the silver has a greater need of the light of
gold. Therefore Hermes, as also Aristotle in his treatise on
Plants, says that gold is its father, and silver its mother;
nothing else is needed for our Stone. Silver is the field in
which the seed of gold is sown." And a little further on:
"In my sister, the Moon, grows your wisdom, and not in any
other of my servants, saith the Lord Sun. I am like seed sown
in good and pure soil, which sprouts and grows and multiplies
and yields great gain to the sower. I, the Sun, give to thee,
the Moon, my beauty, the light of the Sun, when we are united
in our smallest parts." And the Moon says to the Sun: "Thou
hast need of me, as the cock has need of the hen, and I need
thy operation, who art perfect in morals, the father of lights,
a great and mighty lord, hot and dry, and I am the waxing Moon,
cold and moist, but I receive thy nature by our union."
Avicenna: "In order to obtain the red and the white Elixir,
the two bodies must be united. For though gold is the most fixed
and perfect of the metals, yet if it be dissolved into its smallest
parts, it becomes spiritual and volatile, like quicksilver, and
that because of its heat. This tincture, which is without number,
is called the hot male seed. But if silver be dissolved in warm
water, it remains fixed as before, and has little or no tincture,
yet it readily receives the tincture in a temperament of hot
and cold, and is called the cold, dry, female seed. Gold or silver
by themselves are not easily fusible, but a mixture of the two
melts readily, as is well known to goldsmiths. Hence if our Stone
did not contain both gold and silver, it would not be liquid,
and would yield no medicine through any magistery, nor tincture,
for if it yielded tincture it would still have no tinging power."
And a little further on: "Take heed, then, and operate only
on gold, silver, and quicksilver, since all the profit of our
Art is derived from these three."
I may add that crude Mercury is the water which the Sages have
used for the purpose of solution. I have proved that two bodies
must be dissolved, and that they are no other than gold and silver.
Now I will describe the conjunction of these two bodies by means
of the crude Mercury of the Sages.
"The Light of Lights": "Know that it is gold,
silver, and Mercury that whiten and redden within and without.
The Dragon does not die, unless he be killed with his brother
and sister, and it must be not by one, but by both together."
"The Ladder of the Sages": "Others say that a
true body must be added to these two, to strengthen and shorten
the operation."
"Treasury of the Sages": "Our Stone has body,
soul, and spirit, the imperfect body is the body, the ferment
the soul, and the water the spirit."
"The Way of Ways": "The water is called the spirit,
because it gives life to the imperfect and mortified body, and
imparts to it a better form; the ferment is the soul, because
it gives life to the body, and changes it into its own nature."
Again: "The whole Magistery is accomplished with our water,
and of it. For it dissolves the bodies, calcines and reduces
them to earth, transforms them into ashes, whitens and purifies
them, as Morienus says: "Azoth and fire purify Laton, that
is to say, wash it and thoroughly remove its obscurity; Laton
is the impure body, Azoth is quicksilver."
"The Sounding of the Trumpet": "As without the
ferment there is no perfect tincture, as the Sages say, so without
leaven there is no good bread. In our Stone the ferment is like
the soul, which gives life to the dead body through the mediation
of the spirit, or Mercury."
"The Rosary" and Peter of Zalentum say: "If the
ferment, which is the medium of conjunction, be placed in the
beginning, or in the middle, the work is more quickly perfected."
"The Sounding of the Trumpet": "The Elixir of
the Sages is composed of three things, viz., the Lunar, the Solar,
and the Mercurial Stone. In the Lunar Stone is white sulphur,
in the Solar Stone red sulphur, and the Mercurial Stone embraces
both, which is the strength of the whole Magistery."
Eximenus: "The water, with its adjuncts, being placed in
the vessel, preserves them from combustion. The substances being
ground with water, there follows the ascension of the Ethelia
and the imbibition of water is sufficient by itself to complete
the work."
Plato: "Take fixed bodies, join them together, wash the
body in the bodily substance, and let it be strengthened with
the incorporeal body, till you change it into a real body."
Pandulphus: "The fixed water is pure water of life, and
no tinging poison is generated without gold and its shadow. Whoever
tinges the poison of the Sages with the Sun and its shadow, has
attained the highest wisdom."
Again: "Separate the elements with fire, unite them by means
of Mercury, and the Magistery is complete."
Exercit, 14: "The spirit guards the body and preserves it
from fire, the clarified body keeps the spirit from evaporating
over the fire, the body being fixed and the spirit incombustible.
Hence the body cannot be burnt, because the body and spirit are
one through the soul. The soul prevents them from being separated
by the fire. Hence the three together can defy the fire and anything
else in the world."
Rhasis("Book of Lights"): "Our Stone is named
after the creation of the world, being three and yet one. Nowhere
is our Mercury found purer than in gold, silver and common Mercury."
When bodies and spirits are dissolved, they are resolved into
the four elements, which become a firm and fixed substance. But
when they are not both dissolved, there is a particular mixture
which the fire can still separate."
Rosinus: "In our Magistery are a spirit and bodies, whence
it is said: It rejoices being sown in the three associated substances."
Calid: "Prepare the strone bodies with the dissolves humidity,
till either shall be reduced to its subtle form. If you do not
subtilize and grind the bodies till they become impalpable, you
will not find what you seek."
Rosinus: "The Stone consists of body, soul, and spirit,
or water, as the Philosophers say, and is digested in one vessel.
Our whole Magistery is of, and by, our water, which dissolves
the bodies, not into water, but by a true philosophical solution
into the water whence metals are extracted, and is calcined and
reduced to earth. It makes yellow as wax those bodies into whose
nature it is transformed; it substantialises, whitens, and purifies
the Laton, according to the word of Morienus."
Aristotle: "Take your beloved son, and wed him to his sister,
his white sister, in equal marriage, and give them the cup of
love, for it is a food which prompts them to union. All pure
things must be united to pure things, or they will have sons
unlike themselves. Therefore, first of all, even as Avicenna
advises, sublime the Mercury, and purify in it impure bodies.
Then pound and dissolve. Repeat this operation again and again."
Ascanius: "Stir up war between copper and Mercury till they
destroy each other and devour each other. Then the copper coagulates
the quicksilver, the quicksilver congeals the copper, and both
bodies become a powder by means of diligent imbibition and digestion.
Join together the red man and the white woman till they become
Ethelia, that is, quicksilver. Whoever changes them into a spirit
by means of quicksilver, and then makes them red, can tinge every
body."
As to the nature of this copper, Gratianus instructs us in the
following words: "Make Laton white, i.e., whiten copper
with Mercury, because Laton is an orange imperfect body, composed
of gold and silver."
I advise all and sundry to follow my teaching, as to the correctness
of which my quotations from the ancients can leave no doubt,
which also has received further confirmation from my own experiments.
Any deviation from this course leads to deception, except only
the work of Saturn, which must be performed by the subtilization
of principles. The Sages say that homogeneous things only combine
with each other, make each other white and red, and permit of
common generation. The important point is that Mercury should
act upon our earth. This is the union of male and female, of
which the Sages say so much. After the water, or quicksilver,
has once appeared, it grows and increases, because the earth
becomes white, and this is called the impregnation. Then the
ferment is coagulated, i.e., joined to the imperfect prepared
body, till they become one in colour and appearance: this is
termed the birth of our Stone, which the Sages call the King.
Of this substance it is said in the "Art of Alchemy"
that if any one scorches this flower, and separates the elements,
the generative germ is destroyed.
I conclude with the words of Avicenna: "The true principle
of our work is the dissolution of the Stone, because solved bodies
have assumed the nature of spirits, i.e., because their quality
is drier. For the solution of the body is attended with the coagulation
of the spirit. Be patient, therefore, digest, pound, make yellow
as wax, and never be weary of repeating these processes till
they are quite perfect. For things saturated with water are thereby
softened. The more you pound the substance, the more you soften
it, and subtilize its gross parts, till they are thoroughly penetrated
with the spirit and thus dissolved. For by pounding, roasting,
and fire, the tough and viscous parts of bodies are separated."
Finally, I do you to wit, sons of knowledge, that in the work
of the Sages there are three solutions.
The first is that of the crude body.
The second is that of the earth of the Sages.
The third is that which takes place during the augmentation of
the substance. If you diligently consider all that I have said,
this Magistery will become known to you. As for me, how much
I have endured on account of this Art, history will reveal to
future ages.
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