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A SHORT CATECHISM
OF ALCHEMY
Q. What is the chief study of a Philosopher?
A. It is the investigation of the operations of Nature.
Q. What is the
end of Nature?
A. God, Who is also its beginning.
Q. Whence are all
things derived?
A. From one and indivisible Nature.
Q. Into how many
regions is Nature separated?
A. Into four palmary regions.
Q. Which are they?
A. The dry, the moist, the warm, and the cold, which are the four elementary
qualities, whence all things originate.
Q. How is Nature
differentiated?
A. Into male and female.
Q. To what may
we compare Nature?
A. To Mercury.
Q. Give a concise
definition of Nature.
A. It is not visible, though it operates visibly; for it is simply a volatile
spirit, fulfilling its office in bodies, and animated by the universal spirit-the
divine breath, the central and universal fire, which vivifies all things that
exist.
Q. What should
be the qualities possessed by the examiners of Nature?
A. They should be like unto Nature herself. That is to say, they should be truthful,
simple, patient, and persevering.
Q. What matters
should subsequently engross their attention?
A. The philosophers should most carefully ascertain whether their designs are
in harmony with Nature, and of a possible and attainable kind; if they would
accomplish by their own power anything that is usually performed by the power
of Nature, they must imitate her in every detail.
Q. What method
must be followed in order to produce something which shall be developed to a
superior degree than Nature herself develops it.
A. The manner of its improvement must be studied, and this is invariably operated
by means of a like nature. For example, if it be desired to develop the intrinsic
virtue of a given metal beyond its natural condition, the chemist must avail
himself of the metallic nature itself, and must be able to discriminate between
its male and female differentiations.
Q. Where does the
metallic nature store her seeds?
A. In the four elements.
Q. With what materials
can the philosopher alone accomplish anything?
A. With the germ of the given matter; this is its elixir or quintessence, more
precious by far, and more useful, to the artist, than is Nature herself. Before
the philosopher has extracted the seed, or germ, Nature, in his behalf, will
be ready to perform her duty.
Q. What is the
germ, or seed, of any substance?
A. It is the most subtle and perfect decoction and digestion of the substance
itself; or, rather, it is the Balm of Sulphur, which is identical with the Radical
Moisture of Metals.
Q. By what is this
seed, or germ, engendered?
A. By the four elements, subject to the will of the Supreme Being, and through
the direct intervention of the imagination of Nature.
Q. After what manner
do the four elements operate?
A. By means of an incessant and uniform motion, each one, according to its quality,
depositing its seed in the centre of the earth, where it is subjected to action
and digested, and is subsequently expelled in an outward direction by the laws
of movement.
Q. What do the
philosophers understand by the centre of the earth?
A. A certain void place where nothing may repose, and the existence of which
is assumed.
Q. Where, then,
do the four elements expel and deposit their seeds?
A. In the ex-centre, or in the margin and circumference of the centre, which,
after it has appropriated a portion, casts out the surplus into the region of
excrement, scoriae, fire, and formless chaos.
Q. Illustrate this
teaching by an example.
A. Take any level table, and set in its centre a vase filled with water; surround
the vase with several things of various colours, especially salt, taking care
that a proper distance intervenes between them all. Then pour out the water
from the vase, and it will flow in streams here and there; one will encounter
a substance of a red colour, and will assume a tinge of red; another will pass
over the salt, and will contract a saline flavour; for it is certain that water
does not modify the places which it traverses, but the diverse characteristics
of places change the nature of water. In the same way the seed which is deposited
by the four elements at the centre of the earth is subject to a variety of modifications
in the places through which it passes, so that every existing substance is produced
in the likeness of its channel, and when a seed on its arrival at a certain
point encounters pure earth and pure water, a pure substance results, but the
contrary in an opposite case.
Q. After what manner
do the elements procreate this seed?
A. In order to the complete elucidation of this point, it must be observed that
there are two gross and heavy elements and two that are volatile in character.
Two, in like manner, are dry and two humid, one out of the four being actually
excessively dry, and the other excessively moist. They are also masculine and
feminine. Now, each of them has a marked tendency to reproduce its own species
within its own sphere. Moreover, they are never in repose, but are perpetually
interacting, and each of them separates, of and by itself, the most subtle portion
thereof. Their general place of meeting is in the centre, even the centre of
the Archeus, that servant of Nature, where coming to mix their several seeds,
they agitate and finally expel them to the exterior.
Q. What is the
true and the first matter of all metals?
A. The first matter, properly so called, is dual in its essence, or is in itself
of a twofold nature; one, nevertheless, cannot create a metal without the concurrence
of the other. The first and the palmary essence is an aerial humidity, blended
with a warm air, in the form of a fatty water, which adheres to all substances
indiscriminately, whether they are pure or impure.
Q. How has this
humidity been named by Philosophers?
A. Mercury.
Q. By what is it
governed?
A. By the rays of the Sun and Moon.
Q. What is the
second matter?
A. The warmth of the earth -otherwise, that dry heat which is termed Sulphur
by the Philosophers.
Q. Can the entire
material body be converted into seed?
A. Its eight-hundredth part only-that, namely, which is secreted in the centre
of the body in question, and may, for example, be seen in a grain of wheat.
Q. Of what use
is the bulk of the matter as regards its seed?
A. It is useful as a safeguard against excessive heat, cold, moisture, or aridity,
and, in general, all hurtful inclemency, against which it acts as an envelope.
Q. Would those
artists who pretend to reduce the whole matter of any body into seed derive
any advantage from the process, supposing it were possible to perform it?
A. None; on the contrary, their labour would be wholly unproductive, because
nothing that is good can be accomplished by a deviation from natural methods.
Q. What, therefore,
should be done?
A. The matter must be effectively separated from its impurities, for there is
no metal, how pure soever, which is entirely free from imperfections, though
their extent varies. Now all superfluities, cortices, and scoriae must be peeled
off and purged out from the matter in order to discover its seed.
Q. What should
receive the most careful attention of the Philosopher?
A. Assuredly, the end of Nature, and this is by no means to be looked for in
the vulgar metals, because, these having issued already from the hands of the
fashioner, it is no longer to be found therein.
Q. For what precise
reason?
A. Because the vulgar metals, and chiefly gold, are absolutely dead, while ours,
on the contrary, are absolutely living, and possess a soul.
Q. What is the
life of metals?
A. It is no other substance than fire, when they are as yet imbedded in the
mines.
Q. What is their
death?
A. Their life and death are in reality one principle, for they die, as they
live, by fire, but their death is from a fire of fusion.
Q. After what manner
are metals conceived in the womb of the earth?
A. When the four elements have developed their power or virtue in the centre
of the earth, and have deposited their seed, the Archeus of Nature, in the course
of a distillatory process, sublimes them superficially by the warmth and energy
of the perpetual movement.
Q. Into what does
the wind resolve itself when it is distilled through the pores of the earth?
A. It resolves itself into water, whence all things spring; in this state it
is merely a humid vapour, out of which there is subsequently evolved the principiated
principle of all substances, which also serves as the first matter of the Philosophers.
Q. What then is
this principiated principle, which is made use of as the first matter by the
Children of Knowledge in the philosophic achievement?
A. It is this identical matter, which, the moment it is conceived, receives
a permanent and unchangeable form.
Q. Are Saturn,
Jupiter, Mars, Venus, the Sun, the Moon, etc., separately endowed with individual
seed?
A. One is common to them all; their differences are to be accounted for by the:
locality from which they are derived, not to speak of the fact that Nature completes
her work with far greater rapidity in the procreation of silver than in that
of gold, and so of the other metals, each in its own proportion.
Q. How is gold
formed in the bowels of the earth?
A. When this vapour, of which we have spoken, is sublimed in the centre of the
earth, and when it has passed through warm and pure places, where a certain
sulphureous grease adheres to the channels, then this vapour, which the Philosophers
have denominated their Mercury, becomes adapted and joined to this grease, which
it sublimes with itself; from such amalgamation there is produced a certain
unctuousness, which, abandoning the vaporous form, assumes that of grease, and
is sublimised in other places, which have been cleansed by this preceding vapour,
and the earth whereof has consequently been rendered more subtle, pure, and
humid; it fills the pores of this earth, is joined thereto, and gold is produced
as a result.
Q. How is Saturn
engendered?
A. It occurs when the said unctuosity, or grease, passes through places which
are totally impure and cold.
Q. How is Venus
brought forth?
A. She is produced in localities where the earth itself is pure, but is mingled
with impure sulphur.
Q. What power does
the vapour, which we have recently mentioned, possess in the centre of the earth?
A. By its continual progress it has the power of perpetually rarefying whatsoever
is crude and impure, and of successively attracting to itself all that is pure
around it.
Q. What is the
seed of the first matter of all things?
A. The first matter of things, that is to say, the matter of principiating principles
is begotten by Nature, without the assistance of any other seed; in other words,
Nature receives the matter from the elements, whence it subsequently brings
forth the seed.
Q. What, absolutely
speaking, is therefore the seed of things?
A. The seed in a body is no other thing than a congealed air, or a humid vapour,
which is useless except it be dissolved by a warm vapour.
Q. How is the generation
of seed comprised in the metallic kingdom?
A. By the artifice of Archeus the four elements, in the first generation of
Nature, distil a ponderous vapour of water into the centre of the earth ; this
is the seed of metals, and it is called Mercury, not on account of its essence,
but because of its fluidity, and the facility with which it will adhere to each
and every thing.
Q. Why is this
vapour compared to sulphur?
A. Because of its internal heat.
Q. From what species
of Mercury are we to conclude that the metals are composed?
A. The reference is exclusively to the Mercury of the Philosophers, and in no
sense to the common or vulgar substance, which cannot become a seed, seeing
that, like other metals, it already contains its own seed.
Q. What, therefore,
must actually be accepted as the subject of our matter?
A. The seed alone, otherwise the fixed grain, and not the whole body, which
is differentiated into Sulphur, or living male, and into Mercury, or living
female.
Q. What operation
must be afterwards performed
A. They must be joined together, so that they may form a germ, after which they
will proceed to the procreation of a fruit which is conformed to their nature.
Q. What is the
part of the artist in this operation?
A. The artist must do nothing but separate that which is subtle from that which
is gross.
Q. To what, therefore,
is the whole philosophic combination reduced?
A. The development of one into two, and the reduction of two into one, and nothing
further.
Q. Whither must
we turn for the seed and life of meals and minerals?
A. The seed of minerals is properly the water which exists in the centre
And the heart of the minerals.
Q. How does Nature
operate by the help of Art?
A. Every seed, whatsoever its kind, is useless, unless by Nature or Art it is
placed in a suitable matrix, where it receives its life by the coction of the
germ! and by the congelation of the pure particle, or fixed grain.
Q. How is the seed
subsequently nourished and preserved?
A. By the warmth of its body.
Q. What is therefore
performed by the artist in the mineral kingdom?
A. He finishes what cannot be finished by Nature on account of the crudity of
the air, which has permeated the pores of all bodies by its violence, but on
the surface and not in the bowels of the earth.
Q. What correspondence
have the metals among themselves?
A. It is necessary for a proper comprehension of the nature of this correspondence
to consider the position of the planets, and to pay attention to Saturn, which
is the highest of all, and then is succeeded by Jupiter, next by Mars, the Sun,
Venus, Mercury, and, lastly, by the Moon. It must be observed that the influential
virtues of the planets do not ascend but descend, and experience teaches us
that Mars can be easily converted into Venus, not Venus into Mars, which is
of a lower sphere. So, also, Jupiter can be easily transmuted into Mercury,
because Jupiter is superior to Mercury, the one being second after the firmament,
the other second above the earth, and Saturn is highest of all, while the Moon
is lowest. The Sun enters into all, but it is never ameliorated by its inferiors.
It is clear that there is a large correspondence between Saturn and the Moon,
in the middle of which is the Sun; but to all these changes the Philosopher
should strive to administer the Sun.
Q. When the Philosophers
speak of gold and silver, from which they extract their matter, are we to suppose
that they refer to the vulgar gold and silver?
A. By no means; vulgar silver and gold are dead, while those of the Philosophers
are full of life.
Q. What is the
object of research among the Philosophers?
A. Proficiency in the art of perfecting what Nature has left imperfect in the
mineral kingdom, and the attainment of the treasure of the Philosophical Stone.
Q. What is this
Stone?
A. The Stone is nothing else than the radical humidity of the elements, perfectly
purified and educed into a sovereign fixation, which causes it to perform such
great things for health, life being resident exclusively in the humid radical.
Q. In what does
the secret of accomplishing this admirable work consist?
A. It consists in knowing how to educe from potentiality into activity the innate
warmth, or the fire of Nature, which is enclosed in the centre of the radical
humidity.
Q. What are the
precautions which must be made use of to guard against failure in the work?
A. Great pains must be taken to eliminate excrements from the matter, and to
conserve nothing but the kernel, which contains all the virtue of the compound.
Q. Why does this
medicine heal every species of disease?
A. It is not on account of tile variety of its qualities, but simply because
it powerfully fortifies the natural warmth, which it gently stimulates, while
other physics irritate it by too violent an action.
Q How can you demonstrate
to me the truth of the art in the matter of the tincture?
A. Firstly, its truth is founded on the fact that the physical powder, being
composed of the same substance as the metals, namely, quicksilver, has the faculty
of combining with these in fusion, one nature easily embracing another which
is like itself. Secondly, seeing that the imperfection of the base metals is
owing to the crudeness of their quicksilver, and to that alone, the physical
powder, which is a ripe and decocted quicksilver, and, in itself a pure fire,
can easily communicate to them its own maturity, and can transmute them into
its nature, after it has attracted their crude humidity, that is to say, their
quicksilver, which is the sole substance that transmutes them, the rest being
nothing but scoriae and excrements, which are rejected in projection.
Q. What road should
the Philosopher follow that he may attain to the knowledge and execution of
the physical work?
A. That precisely which was followed by the Great Architect of the Universe
in the creation of the world, by observing how the chaos was evolved.
Q. What was the
matter of the chaos?
A. It could be nothing else than a humid vapour, because water alone enters
into all created substances, which all finish in a strange term, this term being
a proper subject for the impression of all forms.
Q. Give me an example
to illustrate what you have just stated.
A. An example may be found in the special productions of composite substances,
the seeds of which invariably begin by resolving themselves into a certain humour,
which is the chaos of the particular matter, whence issues, by a kind of irradiation,
the complete form of the plant. Moreover, it should be observed that Holy Scripture
makes no mention of anything except water as the material subject whereupon
the Spirit of God brooded, nor of anything except light as the universal form
of things.
Q. What profit
may the Philosopher derive from these considerations, and what should he especially
remark in the method of creation which was pursued by the Supreme Being?
A. In the first place he should observe the matter out of which the world was
made; he will see that out of this confused mass, the Sovereign Artist began
by extracting light, that this light in the same moment dissolved the darkness
which covered the face of the earth, and that it served as the universal form
of the matter. He will then easily perceive that in the generation of all composite
substances, a species of irradiation takes place, and a separation of light
and darkness, wherein Nature is an undeviating copyist of her Creator. The Philosopher
will equally understand after what manner, by the action of this light, the
empyrean, or firmament which divides the superior and inferior waters, was subsequently
produced; how the sky was studded with luminous bodies; and how the necessity
for the moon arose, which was owing to the space intervening between the things
above and the things below; for the moon is an intermediate torch between the
superior and the inferior worlds, receiving the celestial influences and communicating
them to the earth. Finally he will understand how the Creator, in the gathering
of the waters, produced dry land.
Q. How many heavens
can you enumerate?
A. Properly there is one only, which is the firmament that divides the waters
from the waters. Nevertheless, three are admitted, of which the first is the
space that is above the clouds. In this heaven the waters are rarefied, and
fall upon the fixed stars, and it is also in this space that the planets and
wandering stars perform their revolutions. The second heaven is the firmament
of the fixed stars, while the third is the abode of the supercelestial waters.
Q. Why is the rarefaction
of the waters confined to the first heaven?
A. Because it is in the nature of rarefied substances to ascend, and because
God, in His eternal laws, has assigned its proper sphere to everything.
Q. Why does each
celestial body invariably revolve about an axis?
A. It is by reason of the primeval impetus which it received, and by virtue
of the same law which will cause any heavy substance suspended from a thread
to turn with the same velocity, if the power which impels its motion be always
equal.
Q. Why do the superior
waters never descend?
A. Because of their extreme rarefaction. It is for this reason that a skilled
chemist can derive more profit from the study of rarefaction than from any other
science whatsoever.
Q. What is the
matter of the firmament?
A. It is properly air, which is more suitable than water as a medium of light.
Q. After the separation
of the waters from the dry earth, what was performed by the Creator to originate
generation?
A. He created a certain light which was destined for this office; He placed
it in the central fire, and moderated this fire by the humidity of water and
by the coldness of earth, so as to keep a check upon its energy and adapt it
to His design.
Q. What is the
action of this central fire?
A. It continually operates upon the nearest humid matter, which it exalts into
vapour; now this vapour is the mercury of Nature and the first matter of the
three kingdoms.
Q. How is the sulphur
of Nature subsequently formed?
A. By the interaction of the central fire and the mercurial vapour.
Q. How is the salt
of the sea produced?
A. By the action of the same fire upon aqueous humidity, when the aerial humidity,
which is contained therein, has been exhaled.
Q. What should
be done by a truly wise Philosopher when he has once mastered the foundation
and the order in the procedure of the Great Architect of the Universe in the
construction of all that exists in Nature?
A. He should, as far as may be possible, become a faithful copyist of his Creator.
In the physical chaos he should make his chaos such as the original actually
was; he should separate the light from the darkness : he should form his firmament
for the separation of the waters which are above from the waters which are below,
and should successively accomplish, point by point, the entire sequence of the
creative act.
Q. With what is
this grand and sublime operation performed?
A. With one single corpuscle, or minute body, which, so to speak, contains nothing
but faeces, filth, and abominations, but whence a certain tenebrous and mercurial
humidity is extracted, which contains in itself all that is required by the
Philosopher, because, as a fact, he is in search of nothing hut the true Mercury.
Q. What kind of mercury, therefore, must he make use of in performing the work? A. Of a mercury which, as such, is not found on the earth, but is extracted from bodies, yet not from vulgar mercury, as it has been falsely said.
Q. Why is the latter
unfitted to the needs of our work?
A. Because the wise artist must take notice that vulgar mercury has an insufficient
quantity of sulphur, and he should consequently operate upon a body created
by Nature, in which Nature herself has united the sulphur and mercury that it
is the work of the artist to separate.
Q. What must he
subsequently do?
A. He must purify them and join them anew together.
Q. How do you denominate
the body of which we have been speaking?
A. The RUDE STONE, Or Chaos, or Iliaste, or Hyle--that confused mass which is
known but universally despised.
Q. As you have
told me that Mercury is the one thing which the Philosopher must absolutely
understand, will you give me a circumstantial description of it, so as to avoid
misconception?
A. In respect of its nature, our Mercury is dual--fixed and volatile; in regard
to its motion, it is also dual, for it has a motion of ascent and of descent;
by that of descent, it is the influence of plants, by which it stimulates the
drooping fire of Nature, and this is its first office previous to congelation.
By its ascensional movement, it rises, seeking to be purified, and as this is
after congelation, it is considered to be the radical moisture of substances,
which, beneath its vile scoriae, still preserves the nobility of its first origin.
Q. How many species
of moisture do you suppose to be in each composite thing?
A. There are three--the Elementary, which is properly the vase of the other
elements; the Radical, which, accurately speaking, is the oil, or balm, in which
the entire virtue of the subject is resident--lastly, the Alimentary, the true
natural dissolvent, which draws up the drooping internal fire, causing corruption
and blackness by its humidity, and fostering and sustaining the subject.
Q. How many species
of Mercury are there known to the Philosophers?
A. The Mercury of the Philosophers may be regarded under four aspects; the first
is entitled the Mercury of bodies, which is actually their concealed seed; the
second is the Mercury of Nature, which is the Bath or Vase of the Philosophers,
otherwise the humid radical; to the third has been applied the designation,
Mercury of the Philosophers, because it is found in their laboratory and in
their minera. It is the sphere of Saturn; it is the Diana of the Wise; it is
the true salt of metals, after the acquisition of which the true philosophic
work may be truly said to have begun. In its fourth aspect, it is called Common
Mercury, which yet is not that of the Vulgar, but rather is properly the true
air of the Philosophers, the true middle substance of water, the true secret
and concealed fire, called also common fire, because it is common to all minerae,
for it is the substance of metals, and thence do they derive their quantity
and quality.
Q. How many operations
art comprised in our work?
A. There is one only, which may be resolved into sublimation, and sublimation,
according to Geber, is nothing other than the elevation of the dry matter by
the mediation of fire, with adherence to its own vase.
Q. What precaution
should be taken in reading the Hermetic Philosophers ?
A. Great care, above all, must be observed upon this point, lest what they say
upon the subject should be interpreted literally and in accordance with the
mere sound of the words: For the letter killeth, but the spirit giveth life.
Q. What books should
be read in order to have an acquaintance with our science?
A. Among the ancients, all the works of Hermes should especially be studied;
in the next place, a certain book, entitled The Passage of the Red Sea, and
another, The Entrance into the Promised Land. Paracelsus also should be read
before all among elder writers, and, among other treatises, his Chemical Pathway,
or the Manual of Paracelsus, which contains all the mysteries of demonstrative
physics and the most arcane Kabbalah. This rare and unique manuscript work exists
only in the Vatican Library, but Sendivogius had the good fortune to take a
copy of it, which has helped in the illumination of the sages of our order.
Secondly, Raymond Lully must be read, and his Vade Mecum above all, his dialogue
called the Tree of Life, his testament, and his codicil. There must, however,
be a certain precaution exercised in respect to the two last, because, like
those of Geber, and also of Arnold de Villanova, they abound in false recipes
and futile fictions, which seem to have been inserted with the object of more
effectually disguising the truth from the ignorant. In the third place, the
Turba Philosophorum which is a collection of ancient authors, contains much
that is materially good, though there is much also which is valueless. Among
mediaeval writers Zachary, Trevisan, Roger Bacon, and a certain anonymous author,
whose book is entitled The Philosophers, should be held especially high in the
estimation of the student. Among moderns the most worthy to be prized are John
Fabricius, Francois de Nation, and Jean D'Espagnet, who wrote Physics Restored,
though, to say the truth, he has imported some false precepts and fallacious
opinions into his treatise.
Q. When may the
Philosopher venture to undertake the work?
A. When he is, theoretically, able to extract, by means of a crude spirit, a
digested spirit out of a body in dissolution, which digested spirit he must
again rejoin to the vital oil.
Q. Explain me this
theory in a clearer manner.
A. It may be demonstrated more completely in the actual process; the great experiment
may be undertaken when the Philosopher, by the medium of a vegetable menstruurn,
united to a mineral menstruum, is qualified to dissolve a third essential menstruum,
with which menstruums united he must wash the earth, and then exalt it into
a celestial quintessence, to compose the sulphureous thunderbolt, which instantaneously
penetrates substances and destroys their excrements.
Q. Have those persons
a proper acquaintance with Nature who pretend to make use of vulgar gold for
seed, and of vulgar mercury for the dissolvent, or the earth in which it should
be sown?
A. Assuredly not, because neither the one nor the other possesses the external
agent--gold, because it has been deprived of it by decoction, and mercury because
it has never had it.
Q. In seeking this
auriferous seed elsewhere than in gold itself, is there no danger of producing
a species of monster, since one appears to be departing from Nature?
A. It is undoubtedly true that in gold is contained the auriferous seed, and
that in a more perfect condition than it is found in any other body; but this
does not force us to make use of vulgar gold, for such a seed is equally found
in each of the other metals, and is nothing else but that fixed grain which
Nature has infused in the first congelation of mercury, all metals having one
origin and a common substance, as will be ultimately unveiled to those who become
worthy of receiving it by application and assiduous study.
Q. What follows
from this doctrine?
A. It follows that, although the seed is more perfect in gold, it may be extracted
much more easily from another body than from gold itself, other bodies being
more open, that is to say, less digested, and less restricted in their humidity.
Q. Give me an example
taken from Nature.
A. Vulgar gold may be likened to a fruit which, having come to a perfect maturity,
has been cut off from its tree, and though it contains a most perfect and well-digested
seed, notwithstanding, should anyone set it in the ground, with a view to its
multiplication, much time, trouble, and attention will be consumed in the development
of its vegetative capabilities. On the other hand, if a cutting, or a root,
be taken from the same tree, and similarly planted, in a short time, and with
no trouble, it will spring up and produce much fruit.
Q. Is it necessary
that an amateur of this science should understand the formation of metals in
the bowels of the earth if he wishes to complete his work ?
A. So indispensable is such a knowledge that should anyone fail, before all
other studies, to apply himself to its attainment, and to imitate Nature point
by point therein, he will never succeed in accomplishing anything but what is
worthless.
Q. How, then, does
Nature deposit metals in the bowels of the earth, and of what does she compose
them ?
A. Nature manufactures them all out of sulphur and mercury, and forms them by
their double vapour.
Q. What do you
mean by this double vapour, and how can metals be formed thereby?
A. In order to a complete understanding of this question, it must first be stated
that mercurial vapour is united to sulphureous vapour in a cavernous place which
contains a saline water, which serves as their matrix. Thus is formed, firstly,
the Vitriol of Nature; secondly, by the commotion of the elements, there is
developed out of this Vitriol of Nature a new vapour, which is neither mercurial
nor sulphureous, yet is allied to both these natures, and this, passing through
places to which the grease of sulphur adheres, is joined therewith, and out
of their union a glutinous substance is produced, otherwise, a formless mass,
which is permeated by the vapour that fills these cavernous places. By this
vapour, acting through the sulphur it contains, are produced the perfect metals,
provided that the vapour and the locality are pure. If the locality and the
vapour are impure, imperfect metals result. The terms perfection and imperfection
have reference to various degrees of concoction.
Q. What is contained
in this vapour?
A. A spirit of light and a spirit of fire, of the nature of the celestial bodies,
which properly should be considered as the form of the universe.
Q. What does this
vapour represent?
A. This vapour, thus impregnated by the universal spirit, represents, in a fairly
complete way, the original Chaos, which contained all that was required for
the original creation, that is, universal matter and universal form.
Q. And one cannot,
notwithstanding, make use of vulgar mercury in the process?
A. No, because vulgar mercury, as already made plain, is devoid of external
agent.
Q. Whence comes
it that common mercury is without its external agent?
A. Because in the exaltation of the double vapour, the commotion has been so
great and searching, that the spirit, or agent, has evaporated, as occurs, with
very close similarity, in the fusion of metals. The result is that the unique
mercurial part is deprived of its masculine or sulphureous agent, and consequently
can never be transmuted into gold by Nature.
Q. How many species
of gold are distinguished by the Philosophers?
A. Three sorts :--Astral Gold, Elementary Gold, and Vulgar Gold.
Q. What is astral
gold?
A. Astral Gold has its centre in the sun, which communicates it by its rays
to all inferior beings. It is an igneous substance, which receives a continual
emanation of solar corpuscles that penetrate all things sentient, vegetable,
and mineral.
Q. What do you
refer to under the term Elementary Gold ?
A. This is the most pure and fixed portion of the elements, and of all that
is composed of them. All sublunary beings included in the three kingdoms contain
in their inmost centre a precious grain of this elementary gold.
Q. Give me some
description of Vulgar Gold ?
A. It is the most beautiful metal of our acquaintance, the best that Nature
can produce, as perfect as it is unalterable in itself.
Q. Of what species
of gold is the Stone of the Philosophers ?
A. It is of the second species, as being the most pure portion of all the metallic
elements after its purification, when it is termed living philosophical gold.
A perfect equilibrium and equality of the four elements enter into the Physical
Stone, and four things are indispensable for the accomplishment of the work,
namely, composition, allocation, mixture, and union, which, once performed according
to the rules of art, will beget the lawful Son of the Sun, and the Phoenix which
eternally rises out of its own ashes.
Q. What is actually
the living gold of the Philosophers?
A. It is exclusively the fire of Mercury, or that igneous virtue, contained
in the radical moisture, to which it has already communicated the fixity and
the nature of the sulphur, whence it has emanated, the mercurial character of
the whole substance of philosophical sulphur permitting it to be alternatively
termed mercury.
Q. What other name
is also given by the Philosophers to their living gold ?
A. They also term it their living sulphur, and their true fire; they recognize
its existence in all bodies, and there is nothing that can subsist without it.
Q. Where must we
look for our living gold, our living sulphur, and our true fire ?
A. In the house of Mercury.
Q. By what is this
fire nourished?
A. By the air.
Q. Give me a comparative
illustration of the power of this fire ?
A. To exemplify the attraction of this interior fire, there is no better comparison
than that which is derived from the thunderbolt, which originally is simply
a dry, terrestrial exhalation, united to a humid vapour. By exaltation, and
by assuming the igneous nature, it acts on the humidity which is inherent to
it; this it attracts to itself, transmutes it into its own nature, and then
rapidly precipitates itself to the earth, where it is attracted by a fixed nature
which is like unto its own.
Q. What should
be done by the Philosopher after he has extracted his Mercury ?
A. He should develop it from potentiality into activity.
Q. Cannot Nature
perform this of herself?
A. No; because she stops short after the first sublimation, and out of the matter
which is thus disposed do the metals engender.
Q. What do the
Philosophers understand by their gold and silver?
A. The Philosophers apply to their Sulphur the name of Gold, and to their Mercury
the name of Silver.
Q. Whence are they
derived?
A. I have already stated that they are derived from a homogeneous body wherein
they are found in great abundance, whence also Philosophers know how to extract
both by an admirable, and entirely philosophical, process.
Q. When this operation
has been duly performed, to what other point of the practice must they next
apply themselves?
A. To the confection of the philosophical amalgam, which must be done with great
care, but can only be accomplished after the preparation and sublimation of
the Mercury.
Q. When should
your matter be combined with the living gold?
A. During the period of amalgamation only, that is to say, Sulphur is introduced
into it by means of the amalgamation, and thenceforth there is one substance;
the process is shortened by the addition of Sulphur, while the tincture at the
same time is augmented.
Q. What is contained
in the centre of the radical moisture ?
A. It contains and conceals Sulphur, which is covered with a hard rind.
Q. What must be
done to apply it to the Great Work?
A. It must be drawn, out of its bonds with consummate skill, and by the method
of putrefaction.
Q. Does Nature,
in her work in the mines, possess a menstruum which is adapted to the dissolution
and liberation of this sulphur?
A. No; because there is no local movement. Could Nature, unassisted, dissolve,
putrefy, and purify the metallic body, she would herself provide us with !he
Physical Stone, which is Sulphur exalted and increased in virtue.
Q. Can you elucidate
this doctrine by an example?
A. By an enlargement of the previous comparison of a fruit, or a seed, which,
in the first place, is put into the earth for its solution, and afterwards for
its multiplication. Now, the Philosopher, who is in a position to discern what
is good seed, extracts it from its centre, consigns it to its proper earth,
when it has been well cured and prepared, and therein he rarefies it in such
a manner that its prolific virtue is increased and indefinitely multiplied.
Q. In what does
the whole secret of the seed consist ?
A. In the true knowledge of its proper earth.
Q. What do you
understand by the seed in the work Of the Philosophers ?
A. I understand the interior heat, or the specific spirit, which is enclosed
in the humid radical, which, in other words, is the middle substance of living
silver, the proper sperm of metals, which contains its own seed.
Q. How do you set
free the sulphur from its bonds?
A. By putrefaction.
Q. What is the
earth of minerals ?
A. It is their proper menstruum.
Q. What pains must
be taken by the Philosopher to extract that part which he requires?
A. He must take great pains to eliminate the fetid vapours and impure sulphurs,
after which the seed must be injected.
Q. By what indication
may the Artist be assured that he is in the right road at the beginning of his
work?
A. When he finds that the dissolvent and the thing dissolved are converted into
one form and one matter at the period of dissolution.
Q. How many solutions
do you count in the Philosophic Work?
A. There are three. The first solution is that which reduces the crude and metallic
body into its elements of sulphur and of living silver; the second is that of
the physical body, and the third is the solution of the mineral earth.
Q. How is the metallic
body reduced by the first solution into mercury, and then into sulphur?
A. By the secret artificial fire, which is the Burning Star.
Q. How is this
operation performed?
A. By extracting from the subject, in the first place, the mercury or vapour
of the elements, and, after purification, by using it to liberate the sulphur
from its bonds, by corruption, of which blackness is the indication.
Q. How is the second
solution performed ?
A. When the physical body is resolved into the two substances previously mentioned,
and has acquired the celestial nature.
Q. What is the
name which is applied by Philosophers to the Matter during this period?
A, It is called their Physical Chaos, and it is, in fact, the true First Matter,
a name which can hardly be applied before the conjunction of the male--which
is sulphur--with the female--which is silver.
Q. To what does
the third solution refer?
A. It is the humectation of the mineral earth and it is closely bound up with
multiplication.
Q. What fire must
be made use of in our work ?
A. That fire which is used by Nature.
Q. What is the
potency of this fire?
A. It dissolves everything that is in the world, because it is the principle
of all dissolution and corruption.
Q. Why is it also
termed Mercury ?
A. Because it is in its nature aerial, and a most subtle vapour, which partakes
at the same time of sulphur, whence it has contracted some contamination.
Q. Where is this
fire concealed ?
A. It is concealed in the subject of art.
Q. Who is it that
is familiar with, and can produce, this fire?
A. It is known to the wise, who can both produce it and purify it.
Q. What is the
essential potency and characteristic of this fire ?
A. It is excessively dry, and is continually in motion; it seeks only to disintegrate
and to educe things from potentiality into actuality; it is that, in a word,
which coming upon solid places in mines, circulates in a vaporous form upon
the matter, and dissolves it.
Q. How may this
fire be most easily distinguished?
A. By the sulphureous excrements in which it is enveloped, and by the saline
environment with which it is clothed.
Q. What must be
added to this fire so as to accentuate its capacity for incineration in the
feminine species?
A. On account of its extreme dryness it requires to be moistened.
Q. How many philosophical
fires do you enumerate ?
A. There are in all three--the natural, the unnatural, and the contra-natural.
Q. Explain to me
these three species of fires.
A. The natural fire is the masculine fire, or the chief agent; the unnatural
is the feminine, which is the dissolvent of Nature, nourishing a white smoke,
and assuming that form. This smoke is quickly dissipated, unless much care be
exercised, and it is almost incombustible, though by philosophical sublimation
it becomes corporeal and resplendent. The contra-natural fire is that which
disintegrates compounds and has the power to unbind what has' been bound very
closely by Nature.
Q. Where is our
matter to be found?
A. It is to be found everywhere, but it must specially be sought in metallic
nature, where it is more easily available than elsewhere.
Q. What kind must
be preferred before all others ?
A. The most mature, the most appropriate, and the easiest; but care, before
all things, must be taken that the metallic essence shall be present, not only
potentially but in actuality, and that there is, moreover, a metallic splendour.
Q. Is everything
contained in this subject?
A. Yes; but Nature, at the same time, must be assisted, so that the work may
be perfected and hastened, and this by the means which are familiar to the higher
grades of experiment.
Q. Is this subject
exceedingly precious ?
A. It is vile, and originally is without native elegance; should anyone say
that it is saleable, it is the species to which they refer, but, fundamentally,
it is not saleable, because it is useful in our work alone.
Q. What does our
Matter contain?
A. It contains Salt, Sulphur, and Mercury.
Q. What operation
is it most important to be able to perform?
A. The successive extraction of the Salt, Sulphur, and Mercury.
Q. How is that
done ?
A. By sole and perfect sublimation.
Q. What is in the
first place extracted ?
A. Mercury in the form of a white smoke.
Q. What follows?
A. Igneous water, or Sulphur.
Q. What then?
A. Dissolution with purified salt, in the first place volatilising that which
is fixed, and afterwards fixing that which is volatile into a precious earth,
which is the Vase of the Philosophers, and is wholly perfect.
Q. When must the
Philosopher begin his enterprise ?
A. At the moment of daybreak, for his energy must never be relaxed.
Q. When may he
take his rest?
A. When the work has come to its perfection.
Q. At what hour
is the end of the work ?
A. High noon, that is to say, the moment when the Sun is in its fullest power,
and the Son of the Day-Star in its most brilliant splendour.
Q. What is the
pass-word of Magnesia?
A. You know whether I can or should answer:--I reserve my speech.
Q. Give me the
greeting of the Philosophers.
A. Begin ; I will reply to you.
Q. Are you an apprentice
Philosopher?
A. My friends, and the wise, know me.
Q. What is the age of a Philosopher ?
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