rexresearch.com Alchemy Index
The Rosie Crucian Secrets
Their Excellent Method of Making Medicines of Metals
Also
Their Lawes and Mysteries[ Allegedly ] by
Dr. John DEE
Copied by Peter Smart - M.A. London (circa 1712-1714)
Source: Adam McLean's Alchemy Website @ http://www.levity.com/alchemy/home.html
Adam McLean's Preamble:
The original Mss is of one copy only and is known as: No. 6485 of the Harleian Mss in the London museum. It consists of 501 folios and no title page. The work is in three parts:
1. The alchemical and medical section describing both the Great Work and the preparation of various mineral medicines and some Rosicrucian alchemical philosohy.
2. An alchemical lexicon.
3. A paper on the Laws of the Order.A.E.Waite believes the first part to be an adaption of John Heydon’s Elharvarenua, or Rosicrucian Medicines of the Metals (first published in 1665). The end of part one is included in a letter said to be from Dr. Frederick Helvetius to Dr. John Dee, giving an account of a transmutation by Elias Artista, which famous transmutation happened in 1666, for than 50 years after Dee’s death.
The lexicon which says that it explains the meaning of difficult words in Dee’s writings is filled almost entirely with words Dee never used in his works.
The last part, on the laws of the Rosicrucians, is an adaption of Michael Maiers Themis Aurea, which appeared in 1618.
Because of the questionable value of the letters, the lexicon and the publication elsewhere of Themis Aurea our only interest is in the first part of the manuscript, the Rosicrucian Alchemy. As to whether or not Part 1 was plagiarised E.J Langford Garstin in his edition of the Rosicrucian Secrets points out that there is no real evidence existing as to who plagerised or copied from who, Dee or Heydon? Only about one third of the Rosicrucian Secrets can be accounted for by Heydons work.
Since we first produced or edition Mss Holmes publishing have produced a new edition that we have not seen.
This copy is our first draft and is not complete in that we have as yet only copied that part of the manuscript which we deem most necessary to preserve for our own purposes and for the future, which is roughly half of the book.
Of those portions which we have not included here some is totally useless, a larger part is published elsewhere and the rest is considered but an interesting curiosity with little or no practical value. Nevertheless we do intend completing the transcription of the entire document at some future date.
In order to keep the original work as intact as possible we have made an exact copy including the varieties of spellings and terms used inconsistently throughout.
The original manuscript is loosely attributed to John Dee, it seems for the only reason that his name appears in the margins of the original, yet the contents of some of this work have been attributed in the past to another individual.
It matters little for the work speaks for itself in its practical value.
Frater C.H.A.
January 1997.
Part 1
Oui vult secreta scire, dedet secreta secrete custodire
The Rosie Crucian Secrets
Their Excellent Method of Making Medicines of Metals
Also
Their Lawes and MysteriesThe Preface ~
The Contemplative Order of the Rosie Cross have presented to the world Angels, Spirits, Planets and Metals, with the times in Astromancy and Geomancy to prepare and unite them telesmatically. The Water is not extracted by the hands of men, but it is made by nature a Spermatick, Viscous Composition of water, earth, air and fire, all those four natures united in one crystalline, coagulated mass.
By Mercury I understand not Quicksilver, but Saturn philosophical, which devours the Moon and keeps her always in his belly. By Gold I mean the Spermatick Green Gold, not the adored lump which is dead and ineffectual. This is the substance which at present is our study. It is the child of the Sun and Moon, placed between two fires, and in the darkest night receives a light from the stars and retains it. The Angels or Intelligences are attracted by an horrible emptiness and attend the Astrolasme for ever. He hath in him a thick fire by which he captivates the thin Genii. At first the Telesma is neither metal nor matter, neither solid nor fluid, but a substance without all form but what is universal. He is visible and a fume of Mercury, not crude but cocted. This fume utterly destroys the first form of Gold, introducing a second and a more noble one. He hath no certain colour, for Camelion like, he puts on all colours, and there is nothing in the world hath the same figure with him when he is purged from his accidents. He is a water coloured with fire, deep to the sight and, as it were, hollow and he hath something in him that resembles a commotion. In a vaporous heat he opens his belly and discovers an airy heaven, tinged with a milky white light; within this Coelum he hides a little Sun, a most powerful red fire sparkling like a Carbuncle, which is the red Gold of the Rosie Crucians.
That you may know the Rosie Crucian philosophy, endeavour to know God Himself, the worker of all things, and to pass into Him by a whole image of likeness (as by an essential contract and bond), whereby we may be transformed and made as God, as the Lord spake concerning Moses, saying, I have made thee the God of Pharaoh. This is the true Rosie Crucian philosophy of wonderful works, that they understood not, the Key whereof is Intellect. For by how much the higher things we understand, with so much the sublimer virtues are we endowed, and so much greater things do work and the more easily and efficaciously. But an Intellect being included in the corruptible flesh, unless it shall exceed the way of the flesh and obtain a proper nature, cannot be united to those virtues (for like to like) and is, in searching into the Rosie Crucian secrets of God and nature, altogether inefficacious. For it is no easy thing for us to ascend to the Heavens, for how shall he that hath lost himself in mortal dust and ashes find God? How shall he apprehend spiritual things that is swallowed up in flesh and blood? Can man see God and live? What fruit shall a grain of corn bear if it be not first dead; for we must die to the world, to the flesh and to all the senses and to the whole man animal, who would enter into the closest of secrets, not because the body is separated from the Soul, but because the Soul leaves the body, of which death St Paul wrote to the Collossians, Ye are not dead and your life is hid with Christ. And elsewhere he speaks more clearly of himself, I know a man, whether in the body or out of the body I cannot tell, God knows, caught up into the third Heaven, etc. I say by this death, precious in the sight of God, we must die, which happens to few, and not always, for very few whom God loves and are virtuous are made so happy. And first those that are born not of flesh and blood but of God; secondly those that are dignified by the blessed assistance of Angels and Genii, the power of Nature, the influence of the planets and the heavens and the virtues of the figures and Ideas at their birth.
Behold The Rosie Crucian Crowne
This Crown is set with seven Angels, seven Planets, twelve Signs, seven Rulers, twelve Ideas and sixteen Figures.
Observe this harmony. The seven Angels guide the seven Planets, the seven Planets move continuously in the twelve Signs, the seven Rulers run in the twelve Ideas over the face of the Earth, and with the Elements project sixteen Figures. These have their influence upon the seven metals which you must prepare for the Diseases of mankind, as for example, if Mars cause the disease, Venus and Kedemel will cure it and you must make your Medicine of Copper.
If Saturn and Zazel cause the disease, Jupiter and Hismael in Tin prepared will lend you their influence to cure the party. If Saturn cause the disease the Sun and prepared Gold will cure the disease.
Now I will demonstrate in what thing, of what thing or by what thing is the Medicine or Multiplication of Metals to be made. It is even in the nature, of the nature and by the nature of metals, for it is a principle of all philosophers that Nature cannot be bettered but in his own nature.
Trevisan saith: Every Substance hath his own proper and principal seed of which it is made. A pear tree bringeth forth a pear and an apple tree an apple, and God said in the beginning, let everything bring forth his fruit and let the seed be multiplied in itself. And Arnoldus de Villa Nova saith: Every seed is correspondent to his seed and every shrub bringeth forth his proper fruit, according to his kind, for nothing but man is engendered of man, nor of the animals but their like; whereupon Paracelsus concludeth thus: True Alchemy, which only alone teacheth the Art to make Sol and Luna of five metals, will not admit any other receipt because that which is thus (and it is truly spoken): perfect metals are made only of metals, in metals, by metals and with metals for in some metals is Luna and in other metals is Sol. If this be true that in Metals are their seed whereby they may be multiplied, how is it then that the philosophers say their Gold and Silver are not common Gold and Silver, for common Gold and Silver are dead but their Gold and Silver liveth. To this I answer, common Gold and Silver are dead except they be revived by art, i.e., except their seeds, which are naturally included in them, be projected into their natural earth, by which means they are mortified and revived like as the grain of wheat that is dead and unapt to increase, except by art and industry of man it is in due season sown in his kindly earth and there putrefied and again revived and multiplied. For which cause Trevisan hath written that the vulgar bodies that Nature only hath perfected in the mine are dead and cannot perfect the imperfect bodies. But if we take them and reiterate perfection upon them seven, ten or twelve times, then will they tinge infinitely, for then are they entering, tincting and more than perfect and quick in regard of that which they were before.
Paracelsus likewise affirmeth metallic spirits are dead and lie still so that they cannot work, unless by art they are revived, which thing Arnoldus verifies. Gold and Silver, therefore, simple and absolute in their bodily and metallic form, are dead, but by art they are revived and made Gold and Silver of the Philosophers. And they are revived and brought to yield their seed by reducing them into their first matter, which is called prima materia metallorum79, for it is impossible for the species or forms of metals to be transmuted but by reducing them into their first matter.
Now the first matter of metals is Argent vive, i.e., Quicksilver, as all philosophers verify. For the first matter of anything is the self same thing into which it is resolved as snow and ice are resolved into water, which is the proper and first matter, and so metals are dissolved into Argent vive. Therefore Argent vive or Mercury is the first matter of metals. Therefore metals of necessity must be reduced into Mercury and not into cloud water as the philosophers affirm, but into a viscous water which is the first matter of metals, for it is the opinion of Paracelsus, Arnoldus and Trevisan that labour is lost which is spent in the Separation of the elements, for nature will be severed by human distinction, but hath her own separation in itself. Therefore metals should not be reduced into cloud water but into a viscous water.
Albertus Magnus saith the first matter of metals is Argent vive, which is a viscous, incombustible moisture commixed in a strong and wonderful mixture with a subtile earthliness in the mineral caves of the earth, which continually moveth and floweth because successively one part hath rule over another. As the cause of flowing and moving is by moisture bearing the chief rule, so terrestrial dryness bearing chief rule over the action of moisture is the cause it will not stick to that which it toucheth nor moisten it.
Trevisan saith that is the nearest matter of metals whose viscous moisture is mixed with his subtile earthliness.
And Geber saith, we could never yet find anything permanent in the fire but this viscous matter or moisture which is the self same note of all metals, and all the other moistures do easily fly from the fire by evaporation and separation of one element from another, as water by fire, one part going into smoke, another into water, another into earth remaining in the bottom of the vessel; but the viscous moistness that is to say Mercury, is never consumed in it nor separated from his earth nor from any other his element; for either they remain altogether or vanish altogether, so that no part of the weight may perish.
Geber thus describeth the nature of Quicksilver: Argent vive, which the Alchemists call Mercury, is nothing else but a viscous water in the bowels of the earth, of a moist and subtile substance of white earth united altogether by a moist, temperate heat by the least parts, until the moist be temperated by the dry and the dry by the moist, so that being thus both equally united and mixed, neither of them may be separated nor taken from one another by the fire. And in this Argent vive, the mother of all metals, is only the whole perfection, for it hath in its composition sulphury parts dry, the which tinge and colour the whiteness in act and redness in power, and therefore this is the true Sulphur which perfecteth, formeth, coagulateth, coloureth and fixeth by his action. But this incombustible, hidden and unknown Sulphur which is in power in Argent vive, cannot bring itself forth into act but by due decoction, wherefore you may now perceive that neither nature in the veins of the earth nor we above ground, have any other matter to work upon but only pure Mercurial Form wherein Sulphur is enclosed, that is to say fire and air, which indeed is the internal and essential part of the Mercury itself; but it doth not dominate therein but by the means of heat, the which is caused by the reflexion of the fiery sphere which encloseth the air, and also by the continual and equal motion of the heavenly bodies, which do stir so lent an heat as that it can hardly be perceived or imagined. And thus by most perfect decoction, and also by continual proportional digestion in long success of time is introduced in art and made manifest in the end of the operation of Nature that aforesaid unknown and incombustible Sulphur, which is the true form and ferment of Gold. And thus mayest thou see that metalline forms take their original only of pure mercurial substance, the which is the mother of all metals and coupleth and is united with her male, that is with the said Sulphur, the father of metals, the which causeth the diversity of metals according to the different degrees of decoction and alteration caused in Mercury by his own natural heat of inward Sulphur.
The philosophers do agree that there are in the nature and original of metals two sperms or seeds, the one masculine and agent, which they call Sulphur, the other feminine and patient, which they name Mercury; and these two have the natural conjunction and operation one with another in the womb of the earth, whereby they engender metals of diverse form and quality according to the difference and diversity of their degree of digestion and concoction.
Now I will briefly discover the difference between Sulphur and Mercury, and the beginning and natural generation of them, and then show how they have their natural operation, the one with the other, in the bowels of the earth to be made metals perfect and imperfect.
Sulphur is double in every metal save only in Gold, that is to say external, burning and internal, not burning, which latter is of the substantial composition of Argent vive. The Mercury or Quicksilver spoken of is engendered or compounded in the bowels of the earth of clear, viscous water by a most temperate heat, united by the least parts, indissoluble, with an earthly substance, incombustible Sulphur, white, most subtile in art, without the which the substance of Argent vive cannot subsist, which coloureth it naturally with a white colour, but in our magistery it maketh it white and red as we will by governing the nature of it; wherefore Argent vive is the total material cause and total substance of the Philosophers' Medicine, containing in itself that internal Sulphur, being a simple fire, lively, quickening, the which indeed is the true masculine agent that before we spake of, the which, by perfect and due digestion and proportional decoction, congluteth, coloureth, formeth and fixeth his own Argent vive into Gold according to nature and to art in the philosophical medicine. But when that Argent vive is by nature thus fixed and made perfect by most high digestion into Gold only by his own proper and inward Sulphur, which is the true ferment, then the external, combustible Sulphurs cannot enter in nor be mixed with him, but they are parted clear away as the corruptible from the permanent; wherefore they enter not into Gold and therefore cannot be the matter or form, or any part of the matter or form of the Philosophers' Medicine. And thus you may understand the difference between the true Sulphur and Mercury, for when it appeareth simple it is flowing and is called Mercury, and is volatile, carrying or holding his proper incombustible Sulphur or ferment hidden in power. But when in the end of the aforesaid decoction that hidden Sulphur is brought wholly into act, whereby the whole is manifest and doth show the nature of Sulphur, then it is called Sulphur, which doth coagulate, reduce and fix his Argent vive to his proper nature, which is to be made Gold. Wherefore this is the only tincting Sulphur of the philosophers, the which is unknown to thecommon people. But the compound of them is called the Mixed Medicine, perfect and sound, and in the commixtion they are made all one as wax, and so in truth you may now see that these two spermatick matters are of one root, substance and essence, that is to say of the only essence of pure Argent vive. But the diversity of the sundry shapes, forms and bodies of metals, the which is the cause of the perfection or imperfection of them, is according to the diverse and several degrees of alteration caused by their decoction and digestion. For the Mercury, which is Argent vive running in the veins of the earth, conjoineth and is mixed with the aforesaid external Sulphur, and being so mingled and conjoined together by the sundry and different degrees of the decoctions of the internal Sulphur caused by the motions of the heavenly bodies, there is engendered the sundry shapes and forms and bodies of the metals in the entrails of the earth. For first in the first degree of natural operation and digestion, the heat of the internal Sulphur working and somewhat prevailing in the humidity of his Mercury, beginneth somewhat to fix and coagulate the mercurial humour and giveth it the form of Lead. And by further digestion and decoction, the Sulphur yet somewhat more prevailing over his Mercury, the Mercury is somewhat more fixed and receiveth the form of Tin. Then doth the heat dominate more and maketh Copper and then Iron, and further proceeding in their digestion, the internal Sulphur yet more subduing the moisture and cold of his Mercury by a temperate heat, and attaining by his concoction purity and perfection of whiteness, it more firmly fixeth his body and giveth it the form and fixation and tincture of Silver. And now the essence that was in power is brought forth into act, whereby the external, earthly Sulphur, which gave a transitory form to the undigested metals, is almost utterly expoliated and separated by reason of his perfect form introduced by the means of our digestion and proportional decoction.
And yet in the Silver there are some small parts of the external Sulphur, the which are by the last and most temperate, complete digestion of nature wholly and thoroughly expoliated. And then by nature is accomplished the most perfect, simple and pure substantial form of Gold, which Gold in the perfection of his metalline nature is pure fire, digested by the said Sulphur existing in Mercury, whereby his Mercury, that is to say his whole substance, is converted into the nature of his pure Sulphur and made permanent and triumphant in the force and violence of the fire. And by separation of the external Sulphur, the metals are made perfect according to the divers degrees of their decoction, digestion and alteration, wherein they separate themselves from the earthly and combustible Sulphur and attain their true, complete, pure form and fixation.
But whereas the philosophers do seem to set down by degrees first Saturn, then Jupiter, then Luna, then Venus, then Mars and then Sol, they had a further meaning therein which is not to be understood according to the letter; for indeed Venus and Mars are placed after Luna, not that it should be believed that Luna doth turn or go into an imperfect body as Venus and Mars, but in truth they are placed after Luna for two causes, first because of the over great and excessive burning of the filthy and fixed, earthly, external Sulphur, which is joined with their Mercury and is outwardly by too much intemperate and an overgreat, superfluous, drying, combustible heat, coagulated and decocted with the Argent vive to a corruptible body, while the other cause is philosophically to be understood in the order and degrees of the colours96 in the working of the Philosophers' Medicine, which is a similitude and analogy, and this over great quantity of burning, gross, earthly, external Sulphur is the cause of the hard melting of Mars. But so soon as nature by a temperate, complete digestion hath introduced into act the internal, pure Sulphur, then are separated all those external Sulphurs from the Mercury and a perfect form is introduced. An example of this is to be seen in the projection of the Philosophers' Medicine, which, being cast upon imperfect metals molten, doth only by virtue of the most pure, temperate, high and mighty digestion fix and give a true, natural form to the Mercury of the bodies, whereby is expoliated away all external Sulphur and they are perfected into fine Gold. And you must also know that nature doth not always proceed by means of these degrees in passing through the dispositions and paths of the metals, or any one of them, but doth oftentimes engender perfect Sol as the aforesaid beginning by a most temperate and due decoction in the bowels of the earth. The reason hereof, the knowledge of the countries and mines will make manifest unto you.
And thus have I made plain the very operation and work of nature in the earth, as all the philosophers deciphered it. And this operation of nature are we to imitate and follow as near as possible in our art, according to the earnest precepts and prescriptions of all the philosophers in this behalf.
Now I shall show how and in what manner our art must imitate the operation of nature; but first I will resolve, wherefore do the philosophers call Mercury or Quicksilver the First Matter of Metals, when there is another matter or sperm, as we have declared, which must be joined with it before metals can be engendered.
The philosophers do truly call Mercury the First Matter of Metals, being so indeed, for the Sulphur which is the masculine sperm, is of her, and she is the root of him and his coagulation, as Hermes said. And also the same man saith, this water coagulateth when it is congealed and running water is the mother of that which is congealed and coagulated and so it was ever. For which cause the philosophers call the feminine sperm the patient, or matter which suffereth the action of her agent, and taketh the impression of his forms in her substance; and therefore the philosophers said truly that Sulphur giveth the form and beginning of being more than matter, when as that it is his act and matter power and form; for according to the truth of forms, they are named the substance of things, but matter may after another sort be called more the substance in as much as it is the beginning to everything, and from it are extracted all forms.
If, therefore, any man would like to know the form of Gold, he must of necessity know the matter of Gold, the which is Argent vive. It springeth flowing, liquid, flying, bright and suffereth coagulation, and is, therefore, truly called the First Matter of Metals, because all metals have their first matter or substance from her, their mother, the forms of the metals being affected by the moving of the active elements, fiery and airy, of Mercury, that is to say, Sulphur, the which moveth Argent vive, as this proper matter for generation into metals, according to the degrees of his motions.
Now we proceed to apply the operation of an art to the operation of nature, and show what is the first work of art.
Learn to know what is the first work of art by the first work of nature, always provided that it be that first work of nature that art is able to perform. But because the first work of nature was to make the two sperms of nature, which art cannot do, therefore the second work of nature, which is the conjunction of the two sperms in one, must of necessity be the first work of art, and the creation or making of the two sperms must be the only referred to nature, who hath provided and prepared to art the matter that art is to work upon. According to the saying of the philosopher, art of itself cannot create the sperms, but when nature hath created them, then doth art, joined with that natural heat which is in the sperms already created, mix them as the instrument of nature, for it is plain that art doth add neither form, nor matter, nor virtue, but only aiding the thing existing, to bring it to perfection. And again, nature hath created a matter unto art, unto which art neither addeth anything nor taketh anything away, but removeth such things as are superfluous; likewise nature hath provided for us one Stone and one matter and one medicine, unto the which we, by our art, add no foreign thing, nor in any point diminish it, but in removing that which is superfluous in the preparation, and this is done in the purification which is effected by solution. By these words it plainly appeareth that nature hath prepared the matter wherein art is to work, and art by no means can make the same matter; but the only work of art is to cleanse and purify that which nature hath left impure, and make that perfect which nature hath left imperfect, as is verified by this last saying of Arnoldus, and that first of Trevisan.
Now, therefore, it follows that the first work of Art, wherein art doth imitate nature, must of necessity be that which is the second work of nature, viz., as the second work of nature after she had created the sperm was to join these two sperms of nature together, whereby to make the First Matter of Metals, so the first work of art must be to conjoin the sperm of metals together, whereby we must make the First Matter of one pure Medicine, that may bring the impure and imperfect metals into the purity and perfection of nature. And this can no otherwise be done but by reduction of them into their First Matter as is before said, by which means we may have (as Arnoldus saith) the same sperms of the metals above earth that nature did work in under the earth. And this reduction is nothing else but the dissolution in which they are dissolved into the natural Mercury and Sulphur again, but more pure than they were before by reason that they are in their dissolution separated and purified from the fex and impurity of their nature and make more pure and perfect whereby to engender a more pure and perfect matter than nature could do; and for this cause hath the philosopher written this conference in the lamentation of nature between nature and art, 'Without me, which do yield the matter, thou shalt never effect anything, and without thee also, which dost minister unto me, I cannot alone finish this work.'
It is the chiefest and highest secret of the philosophers to know out of which of the metals must we have these sperms. I ought not to disclose the same in plain terms, but in dark speeches and figures as they have done. Notwithstanding, mark that which shall follow and I will discover to thee the secrets of the philosophers in hope that thou wilt hide them in thy heart and commit the papers to the fire. Now first and chiefly thou must call to rememberance the words of the philosophers before named, who say that in some metals is Sol and in some metals Luna. That is to say, in some metals is the masculine sperm and in some is the feminine sperm. In some of the metals is the tincture of Gold and in some of the metals is the tincture of Silver. Some of them are masculine and some are feminine. For that these words are true in their expositions, the words of Hermes do very well prove, who said Red Sol is his father and White Luna his mother. If, therefore, Sol be the father and Luna the mother, and in some of the metals be Sol and in some Luna, what is this but to say that some of the metals are masculine and some of them feminine, or in some of them is the masculine sperm and in some of them is the feminine sperm. Now, therefore, consider which of them are the masculine bodies, and out of which the masculine sperms are to be had, and then we shall more perfectly discern the feminine bodies whence the feminine sperms are to be fetched.
Note that the philosophers do diversly name these two sperms. The masculine they call agent, the Sulphur or rennet, the body or ferment, the poison or flower of Gold, the tincture or inward fire and the form. The feminine sperm they call the patient, Mercury, the Spirit volatile, Argent vive, menstruum, water, azoth and the matter and by many other names they name them both. But this caveat in the discerning of them I give thee for three causes especially. The one is because thou shouldest in reading of the philosophers not mistake any one of them for the other; the second cause, that thou shouldest by these names know which of the metals are masculine by the quality of their names; and the third cause is that thou shouldest thereby gather and understand that the two sperms, being of two several natures and qualities, can by no means be fetched from one body, as divers have misconstrued, no more than both the sperms of man and woman are in man alone. But they are to be had of two substances of one root, as Trevisan, Arnoldus and the rest of the philosophers affirm.
But I will give thee this secret note, that the two sperms must be had out of two several bodies, yea two bodies in one only root, which is the same Hermaphrodite of the philosophers, which they often write of, or their Adam, as in due place shall be disclosed; but in all the reading of the philosophers keep well this caveat in thy mind, of the several names and natures of the two sperms.
But now I shall proceed to prove by the philosophers which are the masculine bodies, and how a question shall arise whether is that which giveth the form or tincture the masculine sperm or the feminine. You need not to doubt that among the metals Sol and Luna are both agents and masculine sperms, for they both give form and tincture severally, the one to the white work, the other to the red work, according to the sayings of the philosophers.
For Arnoldus in his Rosary saith Gold is more precious than all other metals and is the tincture of redness tincting and transforming every body, but Silver is the tincture of whiteness, tincting all other bodies with a perfect whiteness; and therefore he which knoweth to tinct Argent vive with Sol and Luna cometh into the secret. Likewise in another place he saith thus. The first work is to sublime Mercury and to dissolve it, that it may return into the First Matter. Then let the clean bodies be put into this clean Mercury, but mix not the white body with the red, nor the red with the white, but dissolve every one severally apart, because the white water is to whiten and the red water is to make red, therefore mix not the water of the one medicine with the water of the other, because thou shalt greatly err and be blinded if thou do otherwise. By those two sentences of Arnoldus it appeareth not only that Sol and Luna are agents, the one giving form to the red work, the other to the white, but also there is another body that is to be dissolved into Mercury, which is the patient of these two, for as much as those two are to be put into the same; yet it is not the patient to them both together, but each of them severally and assunder, which proveth them plainly to be both masculine and agent, and none of them patient to any other, nor by any means to be mixed one with another, but a third thing to be patient to them both, that is to say the same Mercury or Argent vive that they before spake of where they said that he which knoweth how to tinct Argent vive with Sol and Luna cometh to a secret. Likewise the noble Trevisanus saith, Our medicine is made of two things, being of one essence, to wit of the union mercurially of fixed and not fixed, spiritual and corporeal, cold and moist, hot and dry, and of no other thing can it be made. By those words it is manifest that the two Mercuries whereof our medicine is to be made are both of one root but of contrary qualities; that is to say, the one is Mercury fixed, the other not fixed; the one a corporeal, the other a spiritual; the one hot and dry, the other cold and moist; which several Mercuries are contrary, and contrary matters cannot be included in Sol and Luna. For they, as Agents, are only hot and dry, corporeal and fixed, but they are not, as patients, cold and moist, volatile or spiritual and unfixed, and therefore in them may be the masculine sperm, but in no wise the feminine; and therefore, saith Turba Philosophorum, a tincture proceeding from the fountain of Sol and Luna giveth perfection to imperfect metals, upon which considerations they have also set down this most excellent canon and principle, viz., the secret of all secrets is to know that Mercury is the matter and menstruum, and the matter of perfect bodies is the form. What is this but as who should say, seeing the Mercury drawn from the perfect bodies is the form or agent sperm of our medicine, then Mercury of an imperfect body must needs be the matter or feminine sperm; to the confirmation whereof Paracelsus saith thus: Philosophical Mercury that is of Sol, is in the conjunction compared unto the corporeal spirit of Mercury, as is the husband to his wife whereas they are both one, and the self same root and original, although the body of Sol remains fixed in the fire but the metallic woman unfixed. Notwithstanding that, compared to this, is no otherwise than the seeds to the field or earth.
By these words of Paracelsus it is evident that the difference between the metallic man and the metallic woman is that the metallic man is fixed and the metallic woman unfixed; by which means it is plain that this metallic woman cannot be Silver or the Spirit of Silver, as some do fondly surmise, and as the most do take it, but of some imperfect body that is unfixed. For who is so simple but knoweth that Luna is fixed and permanent in the fire and inseparably united with his pure white Sulphur.
Then it is proved the two perfect bodies are the agents, giving the forms and tinctures, and so, consequently to be the masculine sperm and no less proving that the feminine sperm is to be had from an unfixed body, of which nature neither of them is, and therefore we must yield to the apparent reasons and authority of the philosophers.
I shall now expound by some of the philosophers the saying of Hermes that his father is Sol and Luna his mother.
These words of Hermes, though they be so full of truth and have no deceit in them, yet a great number have been deceived thereby. The cause of their error is because they do not consider the nature of Luna, which they take to be meant of Hermes to be the mother of our matter. For if they did either consider the masculine property of Silver or perused the philosophers touching their construction of this point, they should well perceive that Luna is not the Silver that Hermes meaneth, but a certain unfixed matter or Mercury, of the nature and quality of the Celestial Luna, as in the Canons of the Philosophers appeareth, and in the Turba Philosophorum by these words: It is a thing worthy to be noted that Luna or Silver is not the mother of common Silver, but it is a certain Mercury endued with the nature and quality of the Celestial Moon, which is the same Mercury or woman before spoken of, that is not fixed as Silver is, but is the nature of the Celestial Moon in respect of her moist, unmixed and watery quality, having her fixation, form and tincture of her Sulphur as the Celestial Moon taketh light of the Sun. Therefore out of doubt it must be drawn from a body of the same nature, and not from a body of a contrary quality; for what can be more absurd than to think that an unfixed matter can be in a fixed metal or a fixed nature in an unfixed body. Consequently what can be more evident and manifest, seeing the philosophers do all affirm that the metallic man is fixed and the metallic woman unfixed, than that the fixed sperm must be had of a fixed metal and the unfixed and volatile nature out of an unfixed substance, and, therefore, by no means had from Luna, because of her fixed and masculine nature, which all the philosophers in plain terms confirm to be true, as in their Canons, by a question demanded and answered in this manner. The question amongst wise men is, whether the Mercury of Luna joined with the Mercury of Sol may be had instead of the philosophical menstruum. They answer, Mercury of Luna doth hold the nature of the male or masculine, but two males cannot engender no more than two females. Likewise in another place thus, the Sulphurs Sol and Luna are the two sperms or masculine seeds of the Medicine. And in the Turba thus, metallic Lunes are of a masculine nature. Thus I have proved that the two perfect metals are the two masculine bodies, from which we are to fetch our two masculine sperms or forms or tinctures, i.e., both of the red and white, which, seeing they are fixed and perfect bodies, the form and tincture and agents of our matter, they have sufficient reason of themselves to persuade that they can be no other than the masculine sperms, except we will, contrary to all rule of reason and nature, have one thing both the agent and the patient.
Now I will demonstrate which are the feminine bodies, and out of which the feminine sperms of our matter is to be fetched.
This secret of both these secrets is the greatest and requireth of itself to be kept as secretly in the hearts of all wise men hereafter as it hath been of all ancient philosophers heretofore.
Understand the secret by this Figure 3, which number indeed it doth contain in itself, and is the very figure of the Trinity of the Deity.
First I will show the reasons as the marks and tokens whereby thou shalt understand and know that this is the same feminine body where is the feminine sperm of our blessed matter, which I will prove by the authority of the philosophers in this manner. First the philosophers do all agree that the metallic man in our matter is fixed and the metallic woman unfixed. If, therefore, I prove our matter to be unfixed, it is a great argument and probability that our is the same woman.
The second mark and token whereby she is known is that the philosophers agree that their Mercury or water which reduceth their Gold or Sulphur into his First Matter is the same that abideth and is permanent with it as Trevisanus declareth. There is required in our natural solution the permanency of both, viz., of the water dissolving and of the dissolved body; and in another place, no water dissolveth the metallic essence with a natural reduction but that water which is abiding therein in matter and form, which water also, the metals themselves being dissolved, are able to congeal. And Arnoldus saith, the nature of the dissolved body and the dissolving water is all one, but only that the nature of the body is complete, digested and fixed, but the nature of the water is incomplete, undigested and volatile until it be fixed by the body. And in Paracelsus our woman dissolveth her man and the man fixeth the woman. By these words it is plain that the water which dissolveth the body is the same that is permanent with them, that is to say, the woman or feminine sperm that is to be joined with the man or masculine.
Paracelsus saith plainly, speaking in the person of the figure 3, my spirit is the water, dissolving the congealed bodies of my brethren and Raymund Lullius saith in his Epistle to the King, Our water, you know, is extracted from a certain stinking menstruum, which is compounded of four things, and is stronger than all the water of the world, and it is mortal, whose spirit multiplieth the tincture of the ferment. And in another place he saith, all alchemical Gold is made of corrosives and of an incorruptible quintessence, which is fixed with ferment, but such quintessence is a certain spirit reviving and mortifying the mineral medicine. And Turba Philosophorum saith, take the black spirit and with it dissolve bodies and divide them. Now consider the nature of our figure 3, and judge if this be that water or no. It must needs be the same, for the words fit the nature of our figure 3 and no other of the imperfect bodies but her, for all the philosophers agree that she is earthly, dark, cold and stinking, and Paracelsus nameth her plainly, the water dissolving her brethren.
Consider yet another note or mark whereby she is known, as the ancient and modern philosophers do affirm that their Gold must be sown in his own proper earth, as also in the Turba, let our Gold be sown in his own proper earth.
Arnoldus in his New Light saith, with my own hands, my eyes being witnesses I have made the Elixir that converted Saturn into Sol, which matter truly I have now named, and it is the philosophers Magnesia, out of which they found quicksilver of quicksilver and Sulphur of Sulphur. To construe these words rightly, what is our figure 3 but Mercury of Mercury, and what is our Gold but Sulphur of Sulphur. I will yet impart a greater secret.
It is written by good philosophers and found true infallibly by daily experience, that the figure 3 is never found simple or pure by himself in the mine, but is ever mixed with Gold or Silver, whose grains or seeds in him are plainly to be seen to the eyes; by which means it appeareth that there is no mine of himself, but he is the mine of them and so their very natural earth.
Consider these words following from Flammellus, and thou shalt yet hear a greater secret than these. Mercury being never so little congealed in the veins of the earth, there is straightways fixed in it the grain of Gold which, of the two sperms, do bring forth true springs and branch of Mercury as we may see in the caves of Saturn, wherein there is no mine in any of which the true grain of the fixed may not be contained manifestly, that is the grain of Gold or Silver. For the first congelation of Mercury is the mine of Saturn in which it is put by nature. This may truly be multiplied into his perfections without fail or error, being, notwithstanding, in his Mercury not separated from his mine. For the metal consisting in his mine is Mercury, from which if the grain be separated it will be an unripe apple plucked from his tree, which is altogether destroyed. The fixed grain is the apple and Mercury is the tree; therefore the fruit is not to be separated from the tree, because it cannot elsewhere receive nourishment then from his Mercury. It is as great a folly to put Gold or Silver into Mercury as to fasten an apple again to the tree from whence it was taken. Therefore, that this business might be duly accomplished, the tree together with his fruit must be taken, that again it might be planted, without taking away the fruit, into a more fertile and new soil, which will give more nourishment in one day than the first field would have yielded in an hundred years, for the continual agitation of the winds. Go up, therefore, into the Mountain that thou mayest see the vegetable, Saturnian, royal and mineral herb, for let the juice be taken pure , the feces being cast away, for thereof thou mayest effect the greatest part of thy work. This is the true Mercury of the Philosophers.
Trevisan confirms the matter thus. Our work is made of one root and two substances Mercurial, taken crude, drawn out of the mine clean and pure, conjoined by fire of amity as the matter requireth it, cocted continually until that of two be made one; and in this one, when the two are mixed, the body is made spirit and the spirit is made body. Paracelsus likewise speaking plainly in the name of our figure 3 saith: It would be profitable to the lesser world if he did know or at least believe what lay hid within me, and what I could effect, for he that doth discourse upon the art of Alchemy would more profitably understand that which I can do if he would use that only which is in me, and that which by me may be done. And in another place, under an enigma, he notably discovereth this our blessed matter where he saith: Whatsoever staineth into a white colour hath the nature of life and the power and property of light, which causally effecteth life; and contrariwise, whatsoever staineth into blackness or maketh black hath the nature common with death and the property of darkness and the strong power of death. The coagulation and fixation of such manner of corruption is the earth with her coldness. The house is always dead, but the inhabitant of the same liveth, and if thou canst find forth the example thereof thou hast prevailed.
By these words it appeareth that as the tincture of whiteness is the cause of life, which is the spirit of generation, so the blackness, which is the spirit of corruption, is death; and these two tinctures are in our blessed herb. The natural blackness whereof, that is to say our figure 3, is the spirit of the corruption or mortification, which is the same earth which he here noteth with his coldness. The same dead house within the artificial digestion is the death and mortification and putrefaction of the matter, and our Silver and Gold, which is naturally included in the same, is the tincture in his first artificial operation according to the philosophers, who say there is no Gold, but first was Silver before it was Gold. This tincture of whiteness is the same inhabitant which liveth in the same dead house, according to the saying before, the house is dead but they live which inhabit it; by which means it is plain that this is the same example which he speaketh of when he saith, the example whereof, if thou be able to find out, thou hast thy purpose.
Arnoldus noteth in his Rosary. This we see, that in the calculation of our figure 3, that first it is converted into black powder, next into white, then into a more yellow or red, which words very well discover his enigma written of this matter. Elsewhere he saith thus. The thing that hath both a red head, white foot and black eyes is the materia. Likewise it appeareth by the enigma of Hermes, The falcon is always on top of the mountain crying I am the white of the black and the red of the citron. Now I will show how there is in our figure 3 that which I before spake of; the other thing is to show how it is the Hermaphrodite or Adam of the philosophers.
In our mineral herb is the number of 3 thus. First therein is our figure 3. Secondly there is our Sulphur, i.e., our Gold or Silver which is naturally mixed with him. Thirdly there is the root of these two, that is to say Mercury or Quicksilver, whereof they were engendered, and whereunto they must be reduced, in respect of which trinity in unity it representeth the Figure of the Deity. Now of our Hermaphrodite or Adam therein. What else is our mineral herb but one root of two substances, wherein is both our man or woman, that is to say our Gold is our Man, or sperm masculine, or Silver according to his natural mine, which is also the Sulphur, the tincture, the ferment and form before spoken of, having the perfect and fixed nature of the man, and the two agent elements of fire and air in them, and our woman is our figure 3, i.e., which is the feminine sperm, the patient, the aqua the menstruum, the matter, the Spirit volatile and the undigested or unfixed body, having in her the two patient elements of water and earth.
Thus you see that Sol and Luna are the masculine sperms in our matter or figure 3, which is also the natural woman, water and earth of them both, where by nature they are planted and spring. That is to say the matter of our red work is our figure 3 joined with Sol and the matter of our white work is our figure 3 joined with Luna, which matters are first to be had for more surety and security of art even in nature itself called fex plumbi or Quehaeli Hispanica. And thus dost thou see in our blessed matter, 4. 3. 2. and 1., yea and one only thing according to the words of all philosophers, and that you may not in the least doubt of the truth hereof, I have truly laid it open. The root of the operation of art in the matter shall hereafter be at large declared.
Commending, for this great and gracious mystery and secret of nature, to the Godhead all eternal glory, to Whom it is due.
The Lord illuminate my heart with His light and truth so long as my spirit remains in me, for His light is very delightful and good for the eye of my soul to see by; for so shall the night be enlightened to me as the day, neither shall the clouds shadow it. It shall not be like the light of the Sun by day because it shall not be clouded, nor like the light of the Moon by night, because it shall never be diminished as her light is.
The sun was made to rule the day and not to give light to it only, as appears Gen. i. And the Moon was made to rule the night and not to give light to it only, because she hath no light to give. Also God made the whole Host of Heaven, the fixed stars and planets, and gave them virtues together with the luminaries, but these virtues are not so great as the virtues of the luminaries, neither is the virtue of the Moon so great as the virtue of the Sun, because she borrows her light from the Sun. Also the whole Host of Heaven, that is the fixed stars, move all in the same sphere, and therefore their distance is always the same, but it is not so with the planets, for their course is various and so is their distance the one from the other, and so is their latitude. For some times they are upon the ecliptic, sometimes North from it and sometimes South, sometimes retrograde, sometimes direct, sometimes in conjunction with one another, sometimes in opposition, sometimes in other aspects. The reason of this is because the sphere of one is lower than the sphere of the other and the lower the sphere is, the sooner they make their revolution.
The nearest to the earth of all the planets is the Moon, and therefore her course is swiftest; and besides her difference in longitude or latitude there happen other accidents to her, which are not visible to other planets; for sometimes she increaseth and sometimes decreaseth, and sometimes she is invisible or faileth in light. The reason why the planets are not seen horned as the Moon is because their distance is greater from us. All the planets are seen biggest when they are at their greatest distance from the Sun, or when they are nearest to the earth according to Copernicus. Also sometimes the Moon is eclipsed, but not in the same manner as the Sun, for the Sun never loseth his light but is only shadowed from a particular people or place by the body of the Moon, but the Moon, eclipsed totally, loseth her light and the reason is the Sun's light is his own, but the Moon's is a borrowed light. This being premised, I consider all things under the Moon universally, whether men, beasts or planets, are changed and never remain in the same state,
neither are their thoughts and their deeds the same. Take council of your head and it will certify you of the truth hereof; and they are varied according to the various course and disposition of the planets. Look upon your own genesis and you shall find your thoughts moved to choler so often as the Moon transits the place where the body or aspect of Mars was in your genesis; and to melancholy when she doth the like to Saturn. The reason is because the Moon is assimilated to the body of man, whose virtue as well as her light increaseth and diminisheth, for she brings down the virtue of the planets to the creatures and to man if he lives upon earth.The Sun causeth heat and cold, day and night, winter and summer. When he arrives to the house of his honour or exaltation, to wit Aries, then the trees spring, living creatures are comforted, the birds sing, the whole of creation rejoiceth and sicknesses in the body show themselves in their colours. Also when he arrives at his Fall, to wit Libra, the leaves of the trees fall, all creatures are lumpish and mourn like the trees in October. Another notable Rosie Crucian experiment. Usually sick people are something eased from midnight to noon, because the Sun is in the ascending part of the heaven, but they are most troubled when the sun descends, that is from noon to midnight. The course of the Moon is to be observed in many operations both in the sea and the rivers, vegetables, minerals, shellfish, as also in the bones and marrow of men and of all creatures. Also seed sown in the wane of the Moon grows either not at all or to no purpose.
The Rosie Crucians have experiences of many virtues of the stars, and have left them to posterity, and have found the changes and terminations of diseases by the course of the Moon. Wherefore the 7th, 14th, 20th or 21st, 27th, 28th or 29th days of the sickness are called critical days, which cannot be known but by the course of the Moon. But rest not in the number of days, because the Moon is sometimes swifter, sometimes slower. As for such diseases as do not terminate in a month (I mean a lunar month, the time when the Moon moveth round the zodiac, which is in 27 days, some odd hours and minutes), you must judge of these by the course of the Sun.
The day is called critical because the Moon comes to the quartile of the place she was in at the decumbiture, sometimes a day sooner or later.
When she comes to opposition of the place she was in at the day of the decumbiture, she makes a second crisis; the third when she comes to the second quartile, and the fourth when she comes to the place she was in at the decumbiture, and then is the danger.
The reason of the difference of the Moon's motion is the difference of her distance from the earth, for when the centre of her circle is nearest to the centre of the earth, she is swift in motion; and hence it comes to pass that sometimes she moves more than 15 degrees in 24 hours, sometimes less than 12. Therefore if she be swift in motion she comes to her own quartile in six days, if slow, not in seven; therefore must you judge according to the motion of the Moon, and not according to the number of days.
Upon a critical day, if the Moon be well aspected with good planets, it goes well with the sick; if by ill planets it goes ill. You must be resolved in one particular which is, if the crisis depended upon the motion of the Moon and her aspect to the planets, what is the reason if two men be taken sick at one and the same time, that yet the crisis of the one falls out well and not so in the other. I answer, the virtue working is changed according to the diversity of the virtue receiving. For you all know the Sun makes the clay hard and the wax soft; it makes the cloth white and the face black; so then if one be a child whose nature is hot and moist, the other a young man and the third an old man, the crisis works diversely in them all because their ages are different. Secondly the time of year carries a great stroke in this business. If it be in the spring time, diseases are most obnoxious to a child because his nature is hot and moist; a disease works most violently with a choleric man in summer; with a phlegmatic man by reason of age or complexion in winter.
If the Moon be strong when she comes to the quartile or opposition of the place she was in at the decumbiture, viz. in her house of exaltation, the sick recovers if she be aspected to no planet.
Judge the like of the Sun in chronical diseases, but judge the contrary if either of them be in detriment or fall. If the Moon be void of course at the beginning of a disease, the sign is neither good nor bad. Look then to the sign ascending at the beginning of a disease and let the Moon alone for a time.
Observe the following directions how to prepare all the seven metals. If Mars cause the disease, Venus helps more than Jupiter, that is a medicine of Venus cures. If Saturn, then Jupiter more than Venus, i.e., prepared Jupiter cures.Whatsoever is said of the Moon in acute diseases will hold as true of the Sun in chronical diseases.
What diseases every planet signifies and the disease that are under the twelve signs, with the parts of the body every planet rules, the cure of those diseases by Rosie Crucian physic, by the seven metalic preparations, shall in his proper place be handled at large.
To unlock this grand Rosie Crucian mystery of the ASTROBOLISMES of metals, the miraculous saphiric medicines of the Sun and Moon, the ASTROBOLISMES of Saturn, Jupiter, Mars, Venus, Mercury.
Seriously consider the system or fabric of this world; it is a certain series a non gradu ad non gradum, from that which is beneath all apprehension to that which is above all apprehension. That which is beneath all degrees of sense is a certain horrible, inexpressible darkness. The magicians call it tenebrae activae, and the effect of it in nature is cold etc. For darkness is vultus frigoris, the complexion, body and matrix of cold, as light is the face, principle and fountain of heat. That which is above all degree of intelligence is a certain infinite, inaccessible fire or light. Dionysius calls it Caligo Divina, because it is invisible and incomprehensible. The Jew styles it Ein, that is nihil or nothing, but in a relative sense or, as the schoolmen express it, quoad nos. In plain terms it is Deitas nuda, sine indumento. The middle substance or chain between these two is that which we commonly call nature. This is the Scala of the great Chaldee which doth reach from the subternatural darkness to the supernatural fire. These middle natures came out of a certain water, which was the sperm or First Matter of the great world. And now we will begin to describe it: capiat qui capere potest.
It is in plain terms Cuton cai Ruton udwr, or rather it is Hcuth, that is Taia cumatwdhs cai to ceisetai ths ghs, an exceedingly soft, moist, fusible, flowing earth, an earth of wax that is capable of all forms and impressions. It is Udramenos ghgeneths, terrae filius aqua mixtus (Son of the Earth mixed with Water), and to speak as the nature of the thing requires, Tewmighs cai ghs gamos. The learned alchemist defines it as qeion argurion zwticon, enwsis twn pneumatun en swma. It is a divine animated mass, of complexion somewhat like Silver, the union of masculine and feminine spirits.
The quintessence of four, the ternary of two and the tetract of one. These are his generations, physical and metaphysical. The thing in itself is a world without form, neither mere power nor perfect action, but a weak virgin substance, a certain soft, prolific Venus, the very love and seed, the mixture and moisture of heaven and earth. This moisture is the mother of all things in the world; and the masculine, sulphureous fire of the earth is their father.
Now the Rosie Crucians, who without controversy were the wisest of people, when they discourse of the generation of metals tell us it is performed in this manner. The Mercury or mineral liquor, they say, is altogether cold and passive, and it lies in certain earthy, subterraneous caverns. But when the Sun ascends in the East his beams and heat, falling on this hemisphere, stir up and fortify the inward heat of the earth. Thus we see in winter weather that the outward heat of the Sun excites the inward, natural warmth of our bodies and cherisheth the blood when it is almost cold and frozen. Now then, the central heat of the earth, being stirred and seconded by the circumferential heat of the Sun, works upon the Mercury and sublimes it in a thin vapour to the top of its cell or cavern. But towards night, when the Sun sets in the West, the heat of the earth --- because of the absence of that great luminary --- grows weak and the cold prevails, so that the vapours of the Mercury, which were formerly sublimed, are now condensed and distil in drops to the bottom of the cavern. But the night being spent, the Sun again comes about to the East and sublimes the moisture as formerly. This sublimation and condensation continue so long till the Mercury takes up the subtle, sulphureous parts of the earth and is incorporated therewith, so that this Sulphur coagulates the Mercury and fixes him at last, that he will not sublime but lies still in a ponderous lump and is concocted to a perfect metal.
Take notice then that our Mercury cannot be coagulated without our Sulphur, for Draco non moritur sine suo compare, the Dragon dieth not apart from his fellow. It is water that dissolves and putrefies earth, and earth that thickens and putrefies water. You must therefore take two principles to produce a third agent, according to that dark receipt of Hali the Arabian. Accipe canem masculum Corascenum et catellam Armeniae: conjunge et parient tibi catulum coloris coeli. Take, saith he, the Corascene dog and the bitch of Armenia. Put them both together and they will bring thee a sky-coloured whelp. This sky-coloured whelp is that sovereign, admired and famous Mercury, known by the name of the philosopher's Mercury. Now for my part I advise thee to take two living Mercuries; plant them in a purified, mineral Saturn; wash them and feed them with water of salt vegetable; and thou shalt see that speech of the Adepts verified: Pariet mater florem germinalem, quem ubere suo viscoso nutriet, et se totam ei in cibum vertet, fovente patre. But the process or receipt is no part of my design, wherefore I will return to the First Matter; and I say it is no kind of water whatsoever. If thou wilt attain to the truth, rely upon my words, for I speak the truth. The mother or First Matter of metals is a certain watery substance, neither very water nor very earth, but a third thing compounded of both and retaining the complexion of neither. To this agrees the learned Valentine in his apposite and genuine description of our sperm. Materia prima, saith he, set aquosa substantia, sicca repeta et nulli materiae comparabilis. The First Matter is a waterish substance found dry, or of such a complexion that wets not the hand, and nothing like to any other matter whatsoever. Another excellent and well-experienced philosopher defines it thus. Est terrena aqua et aquosa terra, in terrae ventre terra commixta, cum qua se commiscet spiritus et coelestis comparabilis. It is, saith he, an earthy water and a watery earth, mingled with earth in the belly of the earth; and the spirit and influences of heaven commix themselves therewith. Indeed it cannot be denied but some authors have named this substance by the names of all ordinary waters, not to deceive the simple but to hide it from the ranting, ill disposed crew. On the contrary, some have expressly and faithfully informed us it is no common water, and especially the reverend Turba. Ignari, said Agadmon, cum audiunt nomen aquae putant aquam nubis esse, quod si libros nostros intelligerent, scirent esse aquam permanentum, quae absque suo compari cum quo facta est unum permanens esse non possit. The ignorant, saith he, when they hear us name water, think it is water of the clouds; but if they understood our books they should know it to be a permanent or fixed water which, without its companion, to which it hath been united, cannot be permanent. The noble and knowing Sendivogius tells us the very same thing. Aqua nostra est aqua coelestis, mon madefaciens manus, non vulgi, sed pluvialis. Our water is a heavenly water, which wets not the hands, not that of common water, but almost, as it were, pluvial. We must therefore consider the several analogies and similitudes of things, or we shall never be able to understand the philosophers.
This water then wets not the hands, which is notion enough to persuade us it can be no common water.
It is a metalline, bitter, saltish liquor. It hath a true mineral complexion. Habet, saith Raimund Lullis, speciem solis et lunae, et in tali aqua nobis apparuit, non in aqua fontis aut pluviae. But in another place he describes it more fully. Est aqua sicca, saith he, non aqua nubis aut phlegmatica, sed aqua cholerica, igne calidior. It is a dry water, not water of the clouds or phlegmatic water, but a choleric water, more hot than fire. It is, moreover, greenish to the sight, and the same Lully tells you so. Habet colorem lacertae viridis. It looks, saith he, like a green lizard. But the most prevalent colour in it is a certain inexpressible azure, like the body of heaven in a clear day. It looks in truth like the belly of a snake, especially near the neck, where the scales have a deep blue tincture; and this is why the philosophers call it their serpent or dragon. The predominant element in it is a certain fiery, subtle earth, and from this prevalent part the best philosophers have denominated the whole compound. Paracelsus names it openly but in one place, and he calls it viscum terrae, the slime or viscous part of the earth. Raymund Lully describeth the crisis or constitution of it in these words: Substantia lapidis, nostri, saith he, est tota pinguis, et igne impregnata. The substance of our Stone is altogether fat or viscous and impregnated with fire --- in which respect he calls it elsewhere not water but earth. Capias terrum nostram, saith he, impregnatam a sole, quia lapidem est honoratus, repertus in hospitiis, et est intus inclusum velut magnum secretum et thesaurus incantatus. Take our earth which is impregnated or with child by the sun; for it is our precious Stone which is found in desolate houses, and there is shut up in it a great secret and treasure enchanted. And again, in a certain place, he delivers himself thus: Prima materia, Fili, est terra subtilis sulphurea, et haec nobilis terra dictum est subjectum mercuriale. My son, he saith, the First Matter is a subtle, sulphureous earth, and this noble earth is called a mercurial subject. Know then for certain that this slimy, moist sperm or earth must be dissolved into water, and this is the Water of the Philosophers, not any common water whatsoever. This is the grand secret of the Art, and Lully discovers it with a great deal of honesty and charity. Argentum vivum nostrum, saith he, non est argentum vivum vulgare: imo argentum vivum nostrum est aqua alterius naturae, quae reperiri non potest supra terram, cum in actionem venire non possit per naturam, absque adjutorio ingenii et humanorum manuum operationibus. Our Mercury is not common Mercury or Quicksilver. But our Mercury is a water which cannot be found on earth, for it is not made or manifested by the ordinary course of nature, but by the art and manual operations of man. Seek not then for that in nature which is an effect beyond her ordinary process; you must help her, that she may exceed beyond her common course, or all is to no purpose. In a word, you must make this water before you can find it. In the interim you must permit the philosophers to call their subject or chaos a water, for there is no proper name for it, unless we call it a sperm, which is a watery substance but certainly no water. Let it suffice that you are not cheated, for they tell you what it is and what it is not, which is all that man can do. If I ask you by what name you call the sperm of a chick you will tell me it is the white of an egg, and truly so is the shell as well as the sperm that is within it. But if you call it earth or water you know well enough it is neither; and yet you cannot find a third name. Judge then as you should be judged, for this is the very case of the philosophers. Certainly you must be very unreasonable if you expect that language from men which God hath not given them.
Now that we may confirm this our theory and discourse of the sperm not only by experience but by reason, it is necessary that we consider the qualities and temperament of the sperm. It is then a slimy, slippery, diffusive moisture. But if we consider any perfect products, they are firm, compacted, figurated bodies; and hence it follows they must be made of something that is not firm, not compacted, not figurated, but a weak, quivering, altering substance. Questionless thus it must be, unless we make the sperm to be of the same complexion with the body; and then it must follow that generation is no alteration. Again, it is evident to all the world that nothing is so passive as moisture. The least heat turns water to a vapour and the least cold turns that vapour to water. Now let us consider what degree of heat it is that acts in all generations, for by the agent we may guess at the nature of the patient. We know the sun is so remote from us that the heat of it, as daily experience tells us, is very faint and remiss. I desire then to know what subject there is in all nature that can be altered with such a weak heat but moisture. Certainly none at all; for all hard bodies, as salts, stones and metals, preserve and retain their complexions in the most violent, excessive fires. How then can we expect that they should be altered by a gentle and almost insensible warmth? It is plain then, and that by infallible inference from the proportion and power of the agent, that moisture must needs be the patient. For that degree of heat which nature makes use of in her generations is so remiss and weal it is impossible for it to alter anything but what is moist and waterish. This truth appears in the animal family, where we know well enough that sperms are moist. Indeed in vegetables the seeds are dry, but then nature generates nothing out of them till they are first macerated or moistened with water. And here the Peripaptetic philosophers are quite gone with their pura potentia, that fanatic chaos of the son of Nichomacus.
But I must advise my chemists to beware of any common moisture, for that will never be altered otherwise than to a vapour. See, therefore, that thy moisture be well tempered with earth; otherwise thou hast nothing to dissolve and nothing to coagulate. Remember the practise and magic of the Almighty God in His creation, as it is manifested to thee by Moses. In principio, saith he, creavit Deus coelum et terram. But the original, if it be truly and rationally rendered, speaks thus: In principio Deus miscuit rarum et densum. In the beginning God mingled or tempered together the thin and the thick. For heaven and earth in this text signify the Virgin Mercury and the Virgin Sulphur. This I will prove out of the text itself, and that by the vulgar, received translation, which runs thus: In the beginning God created the heaven and the earth. And the earth was without form and void; and darkness was upon the face of the abyss. And the Spirit of God moved upon the face of the waters. In the first part of this text Moses mentions two created principles, not a perfect world, as we shall prove hereafter, and this he doth in these general terms, heaven and earth. In the latter part of it he describes each of these principles in more particular terms and he begins with the earth. And the earth, saith he, was without form and void. Hence I infer that the earth he speaks of was a mere rudiment or principle of this earth which I now see; for this present earth is neither void nor without form. I conclude then that the Mosaical earth was the Virgin Sulphur, which is an earth without form, for it hath no determined figure. It is a laxative, unstable, incomposed substance, of a porous, empty, crasis, like sponge or soot. In a word, I have seen it, but it impossible to describe it. After this he proceeds to the description of his heaven or second principle in these subsequent words. And the Spirit of God moved upon the face of the waters. Here he calls an abyss and waters what he previously called heaven. It was indeed the heavenly water or chaos, out of which the separated heaven or habitation of the stars was afterwards made. This is very clear from the original, for Hamaim and Hashamaim are the same words like Aqua and Ibi Aqua, and they signify one and the same substance, namely water. The text then being rendered according to the primitive natural truth and the undoubted sense of the author speaks thus: In the beginning --- or, according to the Jerusalem Targum, in wisdom --- God made the water and the earth. And the earth was without form and void; and there was darkness upon the face of the deep. And the Spirit of God moved upon the face of the waters. Here you should observe that God created two principles, earth and water, and of these two He compounded a third, namely the sperm or chaos. Upon the water, or moist part of this sperm, the Spirit of God did move; and, saith the Scripture, there was darkness upon the face of the deep. This is a very great secret; neither is it lawful to publish it expressly and as the nature of the thing requires, but in the magical work it is to be seen, and I have been an eye-witness of it myself.
To conclude: remember that our subject is no common water, but a thick, slimy, fat earth. This earth must be dissolved into water and that water must be coagulated again into earth. This is done by a certain natural agent which the philosophers call their Secret Fire. For if you work with common fire it will dry your sperm and bring it to an unprofitable red dust, of the colour of wild poppy. Their Fire then is the Key of the Art, for it is a natural agent but acts not naturally without the sun. I must confess it is a knotty mystery, but we shall make it plain if you be not very dim and dull. It requires indeed a quick, clear apprehension. Behold our Bramaah and their wonderful mysteries, for by them you may cure all diseases, young or old, but know first our fire and use in the work.
Fire, notwithstanding the diversities of it in this sub-lunary kitchen of the elements, is but one thing from one root. The effects of it are various, according to the distance and nature of the subject wherein it resides, for that makes it vital or violent. It sleeps in most things, as in flints, where it is silent and invisible. It is a kind of perdue, lies close like a spider in the cabinet of his web, to surprise all that comes within his lines. He never appears without his prey in his foot. Where he finds aught that's combustible there he discovers himself; for if we speak properly, he is not generated, but manifested. Some men are of opinion that he breeds nothing but devours all things and is therefore called Ignis quasi ingignens. This is a grammatical whim, for there is nothing in the world generated without fire. What a fine philosopher then was Aristotle, who tells us this agent breeds nothing but his pyrausta, a certain fly which he found in his candle but could never be seen afterwards. Indeed too much heat burns and destroys; and if we ascend to other natures, too much water drowns, too much earth buries and chokes the seed, that it cannot come up. And verily at this rate there is nothing in the world that generates. What an owl was he then that could not distinguish, with all his logic, between excess and measure, between violent and vital degrees of heat, but concluded the fire did breed nothing because it consumed something. But let the mule pass, for so Plato called him, and let us prosecute our Secret Fire. This Fire is at the root and about the root - I mean about the centre --- of all things, both visible and invisible. It is in water, earth and air; it is in minerals, herbs and beasts; it is in men, stars and angels. But originally it is in God Himself; for He is the Fountain of heat and fire, and from Him it is derived to the rest of the creatures in a certain stream or sunshine.
Now the Rosie Crucians afford us but two notions whereby we may know their fire. It is, as they describe it, moist and invisible. Hence they have called it their venter equi and fimus equinus, but this is only by way of analogy, for there is in horse-dung a moist heat but no fire that is visible. Now let us compare the common Vulcan with this philosophical Vesta, that we may see wherein they are different. First, then, the philosopher's fire is moist, and truly so is that of the kitchen too. We see that flames contract and extend themselves; now they are short, now they are long, which cannot be without moisture to maintain the flux and continuity of their parts. I know Aristotle makes the fire to be simply dry, perhaps because the effects of it are so. He did not indeed consider that in all complexions there are other qualities besides the predominant one. Surely then this dry stuff is that element of his wherein he found his pyrausta. But if our natural fire were simply dry the flames of it could not flow and diffuse themselves as they do: they would rather fall to dust or turn, like their fuel, to ashes. The common fire is excessively hot, but moist in a far inferior degree, and therefore destructive, for it preys on the moisture of other things. On the contrary, the warmth and moisture of the magical agent are equal; the one tempers and satisfies the other. It is a humid, tepid fire, or, as we commonly express ourselves, blood-warm. This is their first and greatest difference in relation to our desired effect: we will now consider the second. The kitchen fire, as we all know, is visible, but the philosopher's fire is invisible, and therefore no kitchen fire. This Almadir expressly tells us in these words: Solas radios invisibilis ignis nostri sufficere. Our work, saith he, can be performed by nothing but the invisible beams of our fire. And again: Ignis moster corrosivus est ignis, qui supra mostrum vas nubem obducit, in qua nube radii hujus ignis occulti sunt. Our fire is a corrosive fire which brings a cloud about our glass or vessel, in which cloud the beams of our fire are hidden. To be short: the philosophers call this agent their bath, because it is moist as baths are; but in very truth it is no kind of bath, neither maris nor roris, but a most subtle fire, and purely natural; but the excitation of it is artificial. This excitation or preparation is a very trivial, slight, ridiculous thing. Nevertheless all the secrets of corruption and generation are therein contained. Lastly, I think it just to inform thee that many authors have falsely described this fire, and that of purpose, to seduce their readers. For my own part I have neither added nor diminished. Thou hast here the true, entire secret, in which all the easterns agree, Alfid, Almadir, Belen, Gierberim, Hali, Salmanazar and Zadich, with the three famous Jews, Abraham, Artephius and Kalid. Now I will tell thee how to use it.
Take our two serpents, which are to be found everywhere on the face of the earth. They are a living male and a living female. Tie them both in a love-knot and shut them up in an Arabian Caraha. This is thy first labour, but thy next is more difficult. Thou must encamp against them with the fire of nature, and be sure that thou dost bring thy line about. Circle them in and stop all avenues, that they find no relief. Continue this siege patiently; and they will turn into an ugly black toad, which will be transformed to a horrible devouring Dragon, creeping and weltering in the bottom of her cave, without wings. Touch her not by any means, not so much as with thy hands, for there is not upon this earth such a violent transcendent poison. As thou hast begun so proceed, and this Dragon will turn to a Swan, but more white than the hovering, virgin snow when it is not yet sullied with the earth. Henceforth I will allow thee to fortify thy fire till the Phoenix appears. It is a red bird of a most deep colour, with a shining, fiery hue. Feed this bird with the fire of his father and the ether of his mother; for the first is meat and the second is drink, and without this last he attains not to his full glory. Be sure to understand this secret, for fire feeds not well unless it first be fed. It is of itself dry and choleric; but a proper moisture tempers it, gives it a heavenly complexion and brings it to the desired exaltation. Feed thy bird then as I have told thee, and he will move in his nest and rise like a star of the firmament. Do this and thou hast placed nature in horizonte aeternitatis. Thou hast performed the command of the Kabalist: Fige finem in principio, sicut, flammam prunae conjunctam, quia Dominus superlative unus et non tenet secundum. Unite the end to the beginning, like a flame to a coal; for God, saith he, is superlatively one and He hath no second. Consider then what you seek; you seek an indissoluble, miraculous, transmuting, uniting union; but such a tie cannot be without the First Unity. Creare enim, saith one, atque intrinsecus transmutare absque violentia, munus est proprium duntaxat Primae Potentiae, Primae Sapientiae, Primi Amoris. To create and transmute essentially and naturally, or without any violence, is the only proper office of the first Power, the first Wisdom and the first Love. Without this love the elements will never be married; they will never inwardly and essentially unite, which is the end and perfection of magic. Study then to understand this, and when thou hast performed I will allow thee that test of the Mekkubalim: Intellexisti in sapientiam et sapuisti in intelligentia; statuisti rem super puritates suas, et Creatorem in Throno Suo collocasti.
To close this section, I say it is impossible to generate in the patient without a vital, generating agent. This agent is the philosophical fire, a certain moist, heavenly, invisible heat. But let us hear Raymund Lully describe it: Quando dicimus, saith he, quod lapis per ignem generatur, non vident alium ignem, nec alium credunt, nisi ignem communem; nec aliud Sulphur, nec aliud Argentum Vivum, nisi sit vulgare. Ideo manent decepti per eorum caecas estimationes, inferentes quod causa sumus suae deceptionis et quod dedimus illis intelligere rem unam pro alia. Sed non est verum salva eorum pace, sicut probabimus per illa quae philosophi posuerunt in scriptis. Solem enim appellamus ignem, et vicarium suum vocamus calorem naturalem. Nam illud quod agit calor solis in mineris metallorum per mille annos, ipse calor naturalis facit in una hora supra terram. Nos vero et multi alii vocamus eum Filium Solis, nam primo per solis influentiam fuit generatus per naturam, sive adjutorium scientiae vel artis. When we say the Stone is generated by fire, men neither see, neither do they believe there is any other fire but the common fire, nor any other Sulphur and Mercury but the common Sulphur and Mercury. Thus they are deceived by their own opinions, saying that we are the cause of their error, having made them to mistake one thing for another. But, by their leave, it is not so, as we shall prove by the doctrine of the philosophers. For we call the sun a fire and the natural heat we call his substitute or deputy. For that which the heat of the sun performs in a thousand years in the mines, the heat of nature performs above the earth in one hour. But we and many other philosophers have called this heat the Child of the Sun, for at first it was generated naturally by the influence of the sun without the help of our Art or knowledge. Thus Lully: but one thing I must tell thee, and be sure, Reader, thou dost remember it. This very natural heat must be applied in the just degree and not too much fortified; for the sun itself doth not generate but burn and scorch where it is too hot. Si cum igne magno operatus fueris, saith the same Lully, proprietas nostri spiritus, quae inter vitam et mortem participet, separabit se et anima recedet in regionem sphaerae suae. If thou shalt work with too strong a fire, the propriety of our spirit, which is different as yet to life or death, will separate itself from the body, and the soul will depart to the region of her own sphere.
Take therefore along with thee this short but wholesome advice of the same author: Facis ergo, Fili, quod if loco generationis aut conversionis sit talis potentia coelestis quae possit transformae humidum ex natura terrestri, in formam et speciem transparentem et finissimam. My son, saith he, let the heavenly power or agent be such in a place of generation or mutation that it may alter the spermatick humidity from its earthly complexion to a moist fire, transparent form or species.
See here now the solution of the slimy, fat earth to a transparent, glorious Mercury! This Mercury is the water which we look after, but not any common water whatsoever. There is nothing now behind but that which the philosophers call Secretum Artis, a thing that was never published and without which you will never perform, though you know both fire and matter. An instance hereof we have in Flamel, who knew the Matter well enough and had both fire and furnace painted to him by Abraham the Jew; but notwithstanding he erred for three years because he knew not the secret. Henry Madathan, a most noble philosopher, practised upon the subject for five years together but knew not the right method and therefore found nothing. At last, saith he, Post sextum annum clavis potentiae per arcanam revelationem ab omnipotente Deo mihi concredita est; after the sixth year I was entrusted with the Key of Power by secret revelation from the Almighty God. This Key of Power or third secret was never put to paper by any philosopher whatsoever. Paracelsus indeed hath touched upon it, but so obscurely it is no more to the purpose than if he had said nothing.
And now I have done enough for discovery and regimen of the fire, and more than any one author hath performed. Search it then, for he that finds this fire will attain to the true temperament; he will make a noble, deserving philosopher and, to speak in the phrase of our Spaniard, Dignus erit poni ad mensam duodecim parium.
And now I will teach you how to make the DRAMAAH into Medicine mixed with the metals. And first
Of Mercury:The Rosie Crucians describe unto us the Mount of God and his Mystical, philosophical Geomancy, which is nothing else but the highest and purest part of the earth; for from Tetragrammaton He shines upon the Orders and they carry His power to the planets, so you see the superior, secret portion of this element is holy ground; it is the seed plot of the eternal nature. And the Chaos was divided into eight parts; the eight was deadly, but first of the seven; the matter was the body of the lapsed Angels. After light began to appear, the centre was red, an ash colour blush; the circumference blue. The second division green, fiery red and purple. In the third division the centre was fiery, the inferior waters purple and the superior white. The fourth division was azure blush, the Sun and Moon then appearing pale blush. In the fifth division the earth was red and the centre fiery, the waters blush azure, the Sun and Moon ash colour. The sixth division of the earth was a red blush, and centre fiery. The seventh apparition is the immediate vessel and recipient of heaven, whence all minerals have their life and by which the animal monarchy is maintained.
This philosophical black Saturn mortifies and coagulates the invisible Mercury of the Stars and, on the contrary, the Mercury kills and dissolves the Saturn; and out of the corruption of both, the Central and Circumferential Suns disgenerate new bodies, the Green Lion in a blush circle; the Green Lion swallowed to the hinderparts; the virtues in a purple vessel of Nature, half Moon made; the vegetable animal mineral in a blush; calcination of fiery and blue earth; sublimation fiery, airy and azure; solution black, white and azure; the Spirit descends. The masculine and feminine Mercury generated there will appear azure, purple, ash colour, yellow and red. In putrefaction our matter is black and azure; the Spirit descends. In conception our Astrum Solis is a bloody, fiery, spirited earth; the Spirit descends and the superfinals are azure. In impregnation the Astrum Solis ascends from a muddy water and the Spirit with it. In fermentation the black, shabby toad lies sultering in his vessel, and the Spirit in azure descending appears in separation of fire, air, water and earth. The toad lies in the earth black, the earth ash colour, the water green, the air blue, the fire blood-red and the aether a liquid white fire; the Spirit ascends. In conjunction of elements the fire is red, air blue, water green and earth dark ash and the Spirit descends in a clear sky. In separation of earth, fire, air and water, the earth lies in the bottom dark, the fire flaming upon it, breaking through the air to the water, and disposeth itself in conjunction of water in air; the Spirit descends in a clear sky to that blue composition; the air in the water is green, the fire red and the earth ashy. In the separation of fire, water, air in water, earth, the earth is dark, muddy, the air in water blue, the water transparent and the fire flaming red and white, and the Spirit ascends in an azure sky.
In conjunction of air in fire, fire in water, water in air, earth, the earth is dark and heavy, the water in air blue, the fire in water green, the air in fire a blush red; the Spirit descends in a clear sky. In separation air, water, fire in air, earth, the earth is ash colour, fire in air blood red, flaming through the azure water and air; the Spirit ascends. In conjunction fire in air, water in fire, air in water, earth, the earth is black, the air in water is green, the water in fire is like the sunbeams in a mist, the fire above all lies in the air blue, flaming; the Spirit descends. The next separation is flames of fire breaking out in all the elements, the earth only lies of a darker colour. The unnatural fire stands thus, air water, fire earth, the earth covered with a blue flame, the fire ascending to the central colour, water and air; the Spirit descends. The rising of the Rosie Crucians Medicines. The earth cineri coloris, a white star and moon appearing in a star; the power and Spirit ascends in a clear sky. In fermentation a dark star lies in the earth and the Spirit descends to it in a clear sky. In purgation the earth is black and the Spirit descends clear. In this separation there appears water in air, fire in water, turned upwards; below is a blue space, then the earth in fire is red, air in earth ash colour.
In this conjunction of air in fire, water in earth, fire in air, earth in water; the earth in water is dark, the fire in air red, but not violent, the water in earth green, the air in fire blue; the Spirit descends. And in this conjunction of earth in air, water in fire, and fire in earth; here in the bottom the earth is animated with a secret fire, invisible, occult, the water shadows a mild fire, the air in water above these is green and glorious, the earth in air is a bluish white; the Spirit descends.
In this exaltation of the Quintessence the Pelican is in the bottom; next above is azure; then two circles; of the first the upper is blue, the lower a white fire; the next is a green and red sea of fire environing the white matter, and this exaltation of the Quintessence is azure, a globe which in the bottom is divided in four quarters; from the East to the South is blue, from the South to the West green, from the West to the North white, from the North to the East red, and all the upper part of it azure. Above this globe the fire flames upon both sides. In fixation the branches of fire spread both ways round the white and azure globe; this projection is upon a blue and white powder, the perspect in Multiplication runs down the vessel through the azure to the matter in the bottom.
In imbibition the Serpent lies at the bottom of the matter; in sublimation a strong fire drives the azure part to the top; in coagulation the azure binds or weighs down the fire to the bottom; in conjunction the fire star lies in the bottom; in the175 exaltation the double circled fire arises, and in the176 quintessence appears an Angel amidst the ascending globes of fire; and in fixation all is circled with purple and red fire and in the middle stands an Angel in a star, doubled, with his wings spread and holding the glorious Crown of the Rosie Cross in his hands.
1. Of the Preparation of the Gold, Mercury or Argent Vive. 2. Purification.
3. Sublimation. 4. Calcination. 5. Exuberation. 6. Solution. 7. Separation.
8. Conjunction. 9. Putrefaction into Sulphur. 10. Fermentation.
11. Multiplication in virtue. 12. Multiplication in quantity.1. He that can make the medicine of Argent Vive or Mercury alone is the greatest searcher out of Art and Nature because there is all that in Mercury which wise men seek. For Quicksilver is the Mother and Sperm of all metals and their nearest matter, and it is not only a spirit but a body; it is also a middle nature and also a Sulphur; it is a lingering Mercury; it dieth and riseth again and is fixed with its own proper elements; wherefore it is first necessary that it be purged from its impurities.
2. The Purgation or Purification is on this wise. Grind it upon a marble with a mullet, or a wooden pestle in a wooden mortar, with common salt and a little vinegar sprinkled thereupon till the salt be black; then wash it well with vinegar and dry it easily at the fire or at the sun; then strain it through a double cloth or a new skin of a sheep till it be dry and the vinegar clear taken away and be of a white colour and clear.
3. Grind it upon a marble with a little Mercury Sublimate and let it mortify and incorporate with it; then grind it with its equal weight of Saltpeter and green Copperas till it be like a paste; then put all into a subliming glass and in ashes sublime all the mercury that it be white and clean as snow in the head of the limbeck; sublime it again three times or oftener, and it will be pure Mercury and Sublimate.
4. Put a pound of this Mercury Sublimate into two pounds of common Aqua Fortis by little and little at once till all be dissolved like sugar in wine; then shut the glass and set it in Balneo to dissolve the space of ten days; then distil away the Aqua Fortis in a lent heat in Balneo and the Mercury will remain in the bottom like butter, of a white colour and calcined by Corrosive Water.
5. Put this calcined Mercury into an earthen body with a limbeck and in ashes sublime the whole dissolved substance three times, which will all be very white, and then it is called Mercury Exuberate.
When you have three or four pound of this, receive the third part and fix it by often sublimation till it remain in a hard mass and ascend no more but remain fixed, which is called the Glue of the Eagle or the prepared body permanent and the volatile made fixed, which is to be reserved for the earth of the Stone.
6. Dissolve the other two parts in Balneo or in a cold cellar or put it in a bladder and hang it over fuming hot water till it be all come to water.
Take this water thus made and digest it in a Circulatory, well closed, the space of nine days, then put it in a body with a head and receiver well luted and in ashes or in Balneo distil the water of a white colour, or milky white, which is called Lac Virginis, dissolving all metals, and so you have separated the Spirit of the Stone, which is also called the lingering Spirit and the white tincture of the white Stone of Mercury.7. Take the third part which before you reserved and fixed, called the Glue of the Eagle, as much of it as you please, and add thereto equal weight of its Spirit or Lac Virginis and stop up the glass and so you have joined the man and the woman, Mercury with her own earth, the Spirit with the body.
8. Set your Lac Virginis thus joined with his own, each in Balneo to putrefy days and there let it stand unmoved. After 40 days it will be black and it is then called the Head of the Crow; then it will be of a green colour, after that the Peacock's Tail and many false colours, for between this and white it will appear red; but at last you shall see it white and then increase your fire and it will stick to the sides of the glass like fishes eyes, then you have each in the nature of Sulphur.
Take of this Sulphur as much as you please and weigh it and add thereto two parts of the white tincture or Lac Virginis and set it in Balneo to dissolve the space of six days; then distil away the Lac Virginis or tincture, and the Sulphur will remain in the form of liquor, for it is the liquor of the white Sulphur of Mercury which is to be joined with the liquor of the Sulphur of Luna or Silver.
9. The Sulphur of the white luminary, or Silver, or Luna, is made as the other, whereof we shall speak more in the next branch. This liquor of the Sulphur is the Soul, which is joined with the Spirit and body, which quickeneth the whole Stone. The other conjunction before was only the union of the Spirit and the body, but this is a threefold copulation, viz., the uniting of the Soul, Spirit and Body. Add equal weight of these two liquors of Sulphur, that is to say the liquor of the Sulphur of Mercury and of Silver or Luna and close well the glass and set it in ashes till it be white, for it will be all colours again and at last white; and then it is the perfect Stone converting all metals into Silver.
10. This Medicine or Elixir is thus multiplied in virtue. Dissolve it in Lac Virginis and distil it away and dry it and dissolve it again etc. And let it be so often dissolved and dried till it will dry no more but remain an incombustible oil, and is then Elixir of the third order.
11. Take one part of this Elixir and project it upon 100 or 1,000 parts of melted silver (according to the goodness and virtue thereof) and it will turn the Silver into a brittle mass or substance, which beat to a powder in an iron or brass mortar, or upon a marble and project one part of this powder upon 100 parts of Mercury, purged, made hot, and it will be perfect Medicine whereof one part turneth 100 or 1,000 parts of the bodies into good silver. And this way is your Medicine multiplied in quantity. Here followeth the Mercurial Medicine prepared after we have taught you to make the Medicine of the Moon.
12. It remaineth now that we speak of the Medicine of the Elixir of Life, which is called Potable Silver. But although the liquor of Silver may be made potable Silver if it be corroborated before by digestion in Balneo seven days with the Spirit of Wine, and then distil away the Spirit of Wine that the oil of the Silver may remain in the bottom, which may easily be given for medicine, yet the philosophers would have us do otherwise; for they teach us to bring the metals first into their Quintessence before they be taken inwardly, and that there are no other Quintessences but those that are of a Second Nature according to the old saying:
Elixir de te est res secunda
De quo sunt facta corpora munda.That is to say the four Elements are destroyed and by putrefaction a new body is created and made into a Stone, which is the Quintessence as Lully would have it. But I do boldly and constantly affirm that there is no true Silver or Potable Silver nor Quintessence unless it be first Elixir, and that is done in a quarter of an hour by projection of the Elixir upon Silver or pure Gold, molten, according as the Elixir was red or white. If, therefore, you desire after the first composition of the Elixir to make the Arcanum of Argentum or Aurum Potabile, project the Elixir or Medicine according to his quality or property upon pure Silver or Gold, molten, and then it is made brittle and frangible, and grind it to a powder and take thereof so much as you please and dissolve it in distilled Vinegar (or rather in Spirit of Wine) the space of nine days. Then distil away the Vinegar or Spirit of Wine and that which remaineth in the bottom is the true Medicine, Quintessence, Elixir of Life, Ferment of Ferments and Incombustible Oil converting metals and man's body into perfect health from all diseases of man's body which proceed from Mercury or Luna. And thus is the true Potable Silver made, curing the vertigo, syncope, epilepsy, madness, phrensy, leprosy, etc.
And this is the right way of making the Stone of Mercury alone; but the Elixir cannot be made without the addition of Silver to the white and of Gold to the red.
To each this work, consider eight principles:
1. Luna. 2. Pure Silver. 3. Calcination. 4. Solution. 5. Putrefaction. 6. The Sulphur. 7. The Liquor of the Sulphur. 8. White Ferment.
Hermes saith the Elixir is nothing else but Mercury, Sol and Luna. By Mercury nothing is understood but the Sulphur of Nature, which is called the true Mercury of the philosophers, and that Sulphur gotten by putrefaction by the conjunction of the Spirit and the body of imperfect bodies and metals.
By Sol is meant Gold, by Luna, Silver; both of them are to be joined to imperfect bodies, that is to say, white Sulphur and Red, whence the same Hermes, in his seventh treatise of Sol, saith there happeneth a conjunction of two bodies, and it is necessary in our maistry. And if one of those bodies only were not in our Medicine, it would never by any means give any tincture. Upon which Morienus saith: For the Ferment prepareth the imperfect body and converteth it to its own nature and there is no Ferment but Sol and Luna, that is Gold and Silver. Of which Rosinus saith: Sol and Luna prepared (that is to say their Sulphurs) are the ferments of metals in colour.
But this is made more evident by Raymund in his Apertory, where he saith there is no Ferment except Sol and Luna, for the Ferment of the Medicine to white is Silver and to the red Gold, as the philosophers do demonstrate, because without Ferment there doth proceed neither Gold nor Silver nor anything else that is of its kind or nature, therefore join the Ferment with its Sulphur that it may beget its like, because the Ferment draweth the Sulphur to its own colour and nature also, and weight and sound185, because every like begetteth its like. Because the Ferment, even as Sol, tingeth and changeth his Sulphur into a permanent and piercing Medicine, therefore the philosopher saith: He that knoweth how to tinge Sulphur and Mercury with Sol and Luna shall attain to the greatest secret. And for this reason it is necessary that Sol and Luna be the tincture and ferment thereof.
2. And so also Arnoldus saith in his Rosary, there is no body more noble and pure than Sol or his shadow, that is to say Silver, without which no tingeing Mercury is generated. He that endeavoureth to give colour without this Gold or Silver goeth blindly to work, like an ass to a harp, for Gold giveth a golden and Silver an argentive colour; therefore he that knoweth how to tinge Mercury with Sol and Luna cometh or reacheth to the secret which is called white Sulphur, the best to Silver, which, when it be made red, will be red Sulphur, to Gold best.
3. Take pure Luna, that is to say Silver. That is best which is beaten into leaves; and bring it into calx with Mercury, and it is then called water Silver; then is the Luna well prepared for calcination.
4. When you have your Silver thus prepared, take four or six ounces thereof and put it in double proportions of Lac Virginis mixed with equal quantity of corrosive water to dissolve in an egg glass. After it hath dissolved so much as it can in the cold, set it in Balneo and there let it stand nine days till the whole substance of the silver be dissolved into a green water. Then let the Balneum cool and take it out and put the dissolution into the body and set thereon a head and distil off the water from the matter remaining, which is the oil of Silver, calcined not into a calx but into a liquor, because this Lac Virginis, if it be mixed or joined with common Aqua Fortis or alone without it (as it pleaseth the operator) is so strong that the very Diamond cannot resist it but is dissolved. Therefore this water is called the Water of Hell and is the only miracle of miracles of the world, because it containeth such a fiery nature in itself and propriety of burning of all bodies into liquor, whereas the elemental fire prevaileth no further than to reduce metals into calx or ashes. But to return from whence I digressed, I now come to the third operation.
5. To the end, therefore, that this liquor or oil of Silver may be more perfectly dissolved, and that all the imperfection of adustion may be taken away, which by the ancients is called the corroborating of the least humidity, put the oil or liquor into another egg glass like the former, pour thereupon so much Spirit of Wine above it as shall reach to a depth of four fingers, then close well the glass and set it in Balneo to digest seven or ten days and you shall find the oil or liquor turned into a thin or rare water or oil. Put this water into a still and in Balneo draw away the spirit of wine till none of the Spirit of Wine remain with the Silver dissolved, and thus you have your Silver prepared for putrefaction.
Observe the power of the Moon and her Angel upon Hasmodai, Muriel, Populus, Via and Silver. Practice and prepare after this manner. This Medicine cures all the diseases of the neck and breast etc. It must be Silver purely refined.
Geomancy the Harmony in this Preparation.
6. This liquor of Silver is potable, but not the Quintessence. Put this water into a fit putrefying glass and seal it up and set it to putrefy in Balneo till the time of putrefaction be past, which is about one hundred and fifty days, and when you see the first sign of putrefaction, which is called the head of the Crow, increase your fire a little till all the colours begin to appear and you see it begin to be white.
When you see it white, increase your fire yet more and it will rise up and stick to the sides of the glass, most transparent, like the eyes of fishes, which is Sulphur of Nature or Salt, or the putrefied body of the white luminary, viz., Luna, which yet is not so hard as a body nor so soft as a Spirit, but of a mean hardness between a Spirit and a body, and is called the Philosophers' Mercury and the Key and means of joining Tinctures.
7. But to come to the liquor of the white Luminary. This body being brought into Quintessence is prepared for dissolution like the Sulphur of the imperfect body; but whereas that is done by virtue of the white tincture or Lac Virginis, I rather do it by virtue of the fire natural, which is the Spirit of Wine; and after the drawing away thereof it remaineth in a liquor.
Now this liquor of Luna dissolved is the Quintessence, which then is the liquor of the white luminary and the soul (as Eximandrus saith) quickening the whole Medicine, without which it is dead and will never give form nor colour.
8. Therefore the fourth part of the liquor of the white luminary is to be joined to three parts of the former liquor of the Sulphur of Mercury, and after to be kept in a lent fire of ashes, well closed, till it pass through all colours and at last come to its former colour of whiteness; and so the Medicine is fermented and turned into the white Elixir.
The residue of the foresaid dissolved Sulphur keep diligently, and therewith ferment the white Sulphur of other imperfect bodies or stones into Elixirs, which, when they are thrice dissolved and again congealed and remain in a liquid, then they are called incombustible oils and Elixirs of the third order.
And thus the Medicine is made of Mercury alone as followeth by this example. Having spoken of the white Medicine it now resteth that we speak of the making of the Red Elixir, whereof there are two processes, the first whereof is from the Radix, i.e., the long way; the other an accurtation that is much shorter and more excellent. And this way the Elixir may be made in eighty days, and excels all other accurtations; neither is there found therein any diminution of the virtue, but a plentiful and perfect fullness of power and virtue, having all the properties which the Elixir ought to have.
The Operation Under Those Heads
1. Vivum. 2. Sublimation. 3. Calcination. 4. Precipitation. 5. Solution. 6. Fixed Oil. 7. Incertation195. 8. Dessication. 9. Contrition. 10. Fermentation. 11. The Red Elixir. 12. The Third Table.
1. Purgation of Mercury I shall omit because it was spoken of before.
2. The Sublimation is to be done otherwise than in the former work, for that which is called Sublimation here is not done with Vitriol and Saltpeter, but is only the distillation of the Mercury in an earthen body with a limbeck, and that without any additament.
3. When the Mercury is once sublimed in ashes wholly into the head of the limbeck, having a retainer joined thereto, take off the head and with a feather gather the sublimed matter and you shall find your Mercury of a black colour, having lost its fairness, and like a dust or powder sticking to his body.
4. Put it again into the body and sublime it as before, and reiterate this work seven or nine times until you have a sufficient quantity of this powder, a pound or more and this is the Calcination.
5. When you see your Mercury will ascend no more, but remains in the bottom of a black colour, and that it is dead and brought perfectly into calx, let it cool and remove your body into sand till it be turned into a red colour. And this is the perfect Precipitation, to prove which, without the help of any corrosive water, take a little of this powder upon a hot Iron plate. If it fume, dry it longer, if not it is well.
6. Take of this red powder as much as you will dissolve and put thereupon at least his double weight of Lac Virginis and set in Balneo till you see your Lac Virginis stained a yellow or red colour; then filter it from its feces and keep it by itself in a glass well stopped and dry the matter that remaineth in ashes and pour thereon new Lac Virginis and do as before, till you have drawn out all the tincture and your Mercury is dissolved.
7. Put these solutions into a body, luting to a head and in Balneo distil away the Lac Virginis and the red oil precipitate will remain, which is fixed and needeth no distillation, but is the tingeing oil of red Mercury, and the red tincture of the red Medicine of Mercury, and the Soul and Spirit of the Medicine joined as for example.
8. Take part of the white Sulphur reserved in the first Table, and rubify it in ashes till it be red. Then imbibe it with equal weight of the oil of the tincture of this red Mercury and set it to dissolve in Balneo; and when you see it is dissolved into a liquid substance, take it out.
9. Then set it in ashes, or under the fire, to fix till the matter, being dried, remain fusible and fixed, standing in a mean heat, not over-hot, which try upon a hot iron plate; and if it fume not it is well; if it do, increase your fire till it be totally fixed and dry.
10. If this matter be imbibed again with its oil till it drink up as much as it will, and again dissolved in Balneo and then dried in ashes, it will show many colours and lastly appear red. And then it is the Stone, penetrating and fusible, apt for form.
11. Join this imbibed matter (or Medicine) with the fourth part of the liquor or oil of the red Sulphur of Gold or the red Ferment, and dissolve it in Balneo and dry it again; and again dissolve it in a glass hanged in the fume of hot water or Balneum and congest it again till it stand like honey. Then it is the perfect Red Elixir of Mercury.
12. The Multiplication or Augmentation of the virtue and quantity is showed in the preparation before of the White Elixir.
Of Gold Sol
1. The Preparation of Gold, Sol. 2. Purged Gold. 3. Calcination. 4. Solution. 5. Putrefaction. 6. Filius Solis Coelestis. 7. Filia Lunae Coelestis.
1. The Putrefaction or Purgation of Gold is done as the Goldsmiths use to do by melting it with Antimony, that the Gold may remain in the bottom pure and clear from the metals, which they call Regulus.
2. Take 4 or 5 ounces of this refined Gold leaf or filings and dissolve it in Lac Virginis mixed with equal weight of Aqua Fortis, wherein Salt Armoniack sublimed is dissolved, and when it is dissolved into a red liquor, or deep yellow, then it is well calcined.
3. The Solution and Putrefaction is done as before you did with Silver in the preparation of the White Ferment.
4. When you have your white Sulphur of Nature (after Putrefaction) sticking to the sides of the glass, let it cool and take out of the glass and set it in ashes and increase your fire, but not too much, lest your matter vitrify, and let your ashes be no hotter than you can hold your hand therein, and so let it stand till the Sulphur be of a perfect deep red colour. Then have you the red Sulphur of the red luminary as for example -
Observe the Harmony of Geomancy in this Preparation
Behold the power of the Sun and his Angel upon Sorath, Verchiel, Fortuna Major and Minor in Gold and of his Medicine, which, being thus prepared, hath performed incredible, extraordinary cures upon the bodies of Princes and Peers in Europe.
5. If you resolve this red Sulphur in Spirit of Wine or distilled Vinegar into an oil, it is then the liquor of the red luminary and Aurum Potabile curing all infirmities if the Spirit of Wine or Vinegar be distilled from it; but for this work it were better to dissolve it in our red Lac Virginis, distil away the Lac from the Sulphur in ashes, and the Sulphur remaining in an oil is the Ferment of all stones to the red.
6. The Augmentation of this red Elixir in virtue is with his red Tincture as before in the white Tincture. The Augmentation in quantity is by projection upon the body of Gold molten, and that brittle matter of Gold upon Mercury; and if it be powdered, and resolved with Spirit of Wine in an oil, as was said before of Silver, then it is the Quintessence of Gold and the Great Elixir of Life, and the Spiritual Ferment for the transmutation of metals and for the health of man's body.
Although Raymund, writing to the King, was pleased to say that every accurtation diminisheth the perfection, because Medicines which are made by accurtation have less effect of transmutation - which I also assent to with him for a great truth, if the work be begun from the first fountain - yet because this work has its beginnings from those things, which before were brought to a perfect degree of perfection, therefore in this there is no diminution of the perfection.
Therefore it ought to be declared unto thee that if they be both well prepared (and that thou begin with them) thou wilt do a wonderful work without any great labour sooner than if thou should begin with one thing alone. Therefore, my son, begin thy work of two things together as I showed thee in the greater Medicines, when we spoke of the two-fold custody of the actions which are caused by the bodies and spirits. Thus far Raymund. By that which is caused by the bodies and Spirits he means nothing else but Sulphur, willing that we should begin with Sulphur, to which I do so well agree that I begin this my accurtation with this Sulphur alone, and I add no other body to this Elixir, but only the Sulphur of Mercury, alone created of his own body and Spirit.
Take, therefore, two ounces of the white Sulphur described at the beginning of this treatise, and set it in ashes to rubify. In thirty days it will be turned into red Sulphur which when you have done, dissolve that Sulphur in the red Tincture of Mercury; when it is dissolved draw away the Tincture; in the bottom remaineth the Liquor of Sulphur.
To which, if you add a due proportion of the liquor of the red luminary, it will be perfect Ferment, which, if you dissolve and congeal as before is showed, it is then Elixir of very great virtue to the red work, and no man can make a shorter abbreviation in the world; and when the Sulphur of any body is prepared, it may this way very speedily be converted into Elixir by adding the liquor of the Ferment.
Now I will lay down instructions concerning:
1. The Body. 2. The Spirit. 3. The Lion. 4. The Eagle. 5. The Philosophers' Lead. 6. Antimony. 7. Antimony Mercury. 8. The Glue of the Eagle.
9. Solution of the red Lion into Blood. 10. Solution of the Glue of the Eagle. 11. Solution of the Blood of the red Lion. 12. Conjunction. 13. Putrefaction. 14. Fermentation. 15. In the Trinity of the Physical and Alchemical Tincture of the Soul. 16. Is the Unity of the Medicine.1. Take Antimony, calcined, so much as you please and grind it to a subtile powder; then take twice so much Lac Virginis and put your powder of Antimony therein and set it in Balneo seven days; then put it into a body and set it in sand or ashes till the Lac be turned red, which draw off and pour on more, and so let it stand. When that is coloured red, pour it to the other and thus do till you have drawn out all the Tincture. Set all this water in Balneo or lent ashes to distil with a limbeck, and distil it with a lent fire; and first of all the Lac will ascend, and then you shall see a stupendous miracle because you shall see through the nose of the Limbeck as it were a thousand veins of the liquor of this blessed Mineral to descend in red drops, just like blood, which, when you have got, thou hast a thing whereunto all the treasure in the world is not equal. Now you have the Blood of the Lion according to Rupecissa. I will now speak of the Glue of the Eagle, of which Paracelsus thus saith.
2. Reduce Mercury so far by sublimation till it be a fixed crystal. This is his preparation of Mercury and by his way of reducing it into the Glue of the Eagle; but above all I require that that way be used which is described by me before or that hereafter set down after this.
3. Then, saith the aforesaid author, go on to resolution and coagulation, and I again will give you to observe the same manner of solution showed at first.
4. Now let us come to conjunction. After the solution of these two, take equal weight of them and put them in a vessel well shot.
5. After you have thus joined them together, set your glass in your furnace to putrefy and after the space of certain days. Therefore Paracelsus saith: Then at length and presently after your Lily is made hot in your glass, it appeareth in wonderful manners (or demonstration) blacker than the Crow. After that, in process of time, whiter than the Swan, and then passing by yellow to be more red than blood.
6. This being putrefied and turned into red, is to be taken for the Medicine, and then it is time to be fermented.
7. Of which fermentation Paracelsus thus speaketh: one part thereof is to be projected upon 1,000 parts of molten Gold and then the Medicine is prepared, and this is the fermentation of it. But if the half or one part of the liquor of the Sulphur of Gold before described be added to it, then it would be spiritual Ferment and would be much more penetrating in fortitude and fusible, as Paracelsus doth testify in his Aurora, where he would have us to join the Star of the Sun or the oil of Sol to this Pantarva. And thus the physical, alchemical Tincture is performed in a short time, for curing all manner of infirmities and human diseases (which is also the Great Elixir for metals so courtly concealed by the ancients) which Hermes Trismegistus the Aegyptian, Osces the Graecian, Haly an Arabian and Albertus Magnus a German, with many others have sought and prosecuted, everyone after his own method, and one in one subject another in another, so much desired by the philosophers only for prolongation of life.
8. In this composition Mercury is made a fixed and dissolved body, the Blood or Spirit of the Red Lion is the Ferment or Soul, and so of trinity is made unity, which is called the physical and alchemical tincture, never before that I know of collected or writ in one work, and I had not done this except that otherwise the composition of this blessed Medicine had been soon forgot.
A Shorter Way To Make The Glue Of The Eagle
If you desire to make the Glue of the Eagle in a briefer way, take part of the red precipitate produced as it is taught before in Mercury, and dissolve it in distilled Vinegar and the Vinegar will be coloured into a yellow or delightful golden colour; and after you have distilled away the Vinegar, there will remain in the bottom a white substance of the Mercury fixed and fair, which is to be joined to the oil of the Lion; and this work is much shorter and less laborious.
The Calcination Of Antimony Into The Red Lion
Take Antimony, well ground, so much as you please and melt it in naked fire with Salt Armoniack; and when it is melted, cast it suddenly into a vessel almost full of distilled Vinegar, wherein Salt Armoniack hath been dissolved; and thus melt it and cast it three times. Then pour off the Vinegar from the calx of the Antimony and dry it well and grind it small and dissolve it as before is taught, and so have you the Red Lion of the philosophers' Lead or Antimony.
The Rosie Crucian Medicine Or Elixir Of Copper
I will make plain the 1. Elixir. 2. Conjunction. 3. Separation. 4. The Medicine. 5. Fermentation. 6. The Earth. 7. Spirit Oil, Blood of the Lamb206. 8. Distillation. 9. Resolution. 10. Putrefaction. 11. Solution. 12. Vitriol. 13. Calcination. 14. Copper.
Now many have sought the way of the Mineral Pantarva in Vitriol or green Copperas, but they were altogether deceived, which common Vitriol by the philosophers is called the Green Lion of Fools. But this our noble Red Lion taketh its original from the metallic body of Copper.
Although I am not ignorant how to draw an oil out of Roman Vitriol of a more sweet smell and delightful taste than any balsams if the tincture be taken out of the calcined Vitriol in Spirit of Wine; yet the philosophers' will is to command that it doth consist of a metallic virtue, wherewith the transmutation of metals is to be effected. Therefore they say it is to be made of bodies and not of Spirits, as of Vitriol, Sulphur as well and the like. Whence I find it written in the Philosophers' Turba, and in the first exercitation: But the philosophers' Medicine is a metallic matter, converting substances and forms of imperfect metals, and it is concluded by all the philosophers that the conversion is not made except by its like. Therefore it is necessary that the Presoria be made of a metallic matter, yet if any be made of Spirits; yet it would be better and much more philosophical and more near to a metallic nature to be made of bodies than of Spirits. But if by art the body should be turned into a Spirit, then the same body would be both body and Spirit, and not to be regarded as doubled, but the Medicine might be made of such a body or Spirit. But let me return to our purpose. It being granted that this our Vitriol is such a body according to which Paracelsus testifieth in his Aurora Philosophorum under this enigma or secret of the ancient philosophers:
Visitabis Interiora Terrae Rectificando Invenies Occultum Lapidem Voram Medicinam.
Out of the first letter of every word of this enigma is gathered this word VITRIOLUM, by which is meant that thereof the Medicine is made.
3. Therefore Paracelsus saith the inward parts of the earth are to be visited; not only the earth, which is Vitriol, but the inward parts of the earth. He meaneth the sweetness and redness, because there lieth hid in the inward parts of the Vitriol a subtile, noble and fragrant juice, a pure oil.
4. And this is especially to be noted: the production of this Copper into Vitriol is not to be done neither by calcination of the fire nor distillation of the matter, lest it be deprived of its grossness, which being lost it wants both power and strength.
5. Paracelsus speaks not one word of the preparation of this Vitriol, by whose silence many have erred; therefore I determined to leave him here a little and to prosecute and follow the order of the Table, wherefore I begin with the calcination of the metal. And note that this calcination of Copper is made that it may be turned into Vitriol, and not the calcination of Vitriol made of Copper.
6. Take therefore as much Copper as you please and dissolve it and calcine it in Aqua Fortis to a fair green water; then set it three or four days to digest till the matter be clear, which pour out into a limbeck and in Balneo draw away the corrosive water so that the matter remain dry, for then it is calcined.
7. Then upon every two pound of this calcined matter pour a gallon of distilled Vinegar and lute it up in a glass and set it in Balneo, almost boiling, the space of seven days, when it is cold put it into a limbeck to distil away all the Vinegar in Balneo, and in the bottom of the alembick you shall have your Vitriol very well congealed, far fairer than Roman Vitriol, which is corporeal and metallic Vitriol.
8. Which Vitriol I do not dissolve in rain water like the Paracelsians, but rather with Lac Virginis as before is taught, or in Raymund's Calcination Water; and after its dissolution and perfect digestion, that is to say fifteen days, I put it into a limbeck and in Balneo draw off the Lac Virginis, which being done you shall find an oily water, green and clear, upon which pour the Spirit of Wine; and after it hath been digested seven days, and the Spirit of Wine distilled away in Balneo, you shall find your green water perfectly rectified, made pure, subtile and spiritual, and fit for putrefaction; for if it be not well dissolved and rarefied it will not putrefy.
9. But now I may join with Paracelsus in the manner of putrefaction, I return to him and say with him, commanding to digest in a warm heat in a glass well closed the space of some months, and so long till divers colours appear and be at length red, which showeth the termination of its putrefaction.
But yet in this process this redness is not sufficiently fixed, but is to be more fully purgated from its feces in this manner.
Resolve it or rectify it in distilled Vinegar till the Vinegar be coloured, then filter it from its feces. This is its true tincture and best resolution and rectification, out of which a blessed oil is to be drawn.
This tincture, being thus resolved and rectified is to be put into a body with a limbeck, and in Balneo distil the Vinegar gently away.
10. Then in sand or ashes lift up the Spirit gently and temperately, and when you see a fume ascend into the glass and red drops begin to fall out of the nose of the limbeck into the receiver, then the red oil beginneth to distil. Continue your distillation till all come over. When it is done you shall have the oil in the receiver lifted up and separated from its earth, more delightful and sweet than any balsam or aromatick, without any sharpness at all, which oil is called the Blood of the Lamb208. In the bottom of the body you shall find a white, shining earth, like snow, which keep well from dust, and so you have the clear earth separated from its oil. Take this white earth and put it in a glass viol and put thereto equal weig