A smooth and level path, leading directly to the Golden Citadel of Hermes.

To the Most Serene Prince Maximilian Henry, Elector and Prince of Cologne, Duke of both Bavarias, etc.

Trames Facilis & Planus ad Auream Hermetis Arcem recta perducens. Serenissimo Principi Maximiliano Henrico, Electori & Principi Coloniensi utriusque Bavariae Duci, &c.

Translated to English by Mitko Janeski from book:
Jo. Jacobi Mangeti ... Bibliotheca chemica curiosa, seu rerum ad alchemiam pertinentium thesaurus instructissimus: quo non tantum artis auriferae ... verum etiam tractatus omnes virorum ... ad quorum omnium illustrationem additae sunt quamplurimae figurae aeneae. Tomus primus [-secundus]

Written by An Anonymous Philosopher.



Your Most Serene Highness will perhaps wonder that I, anonymous and unknown, dare to inscribe a book with Your August Name without first having obtained permission. The philosophers too will wonder, that I should dare to dedicate a philosophical work to a Prince of the earth, since they forbid all commerce with Princes. Yet from Your Clemency, and from their fairness, I hope for pardon. For I do not assume this license because I wish by my little book to seek the glorious patronage of a Prince, but because in truth I can find in the whole world no one to whom I could more justly inscribe a work of this kind than to Your Most Serene Highness, who alone expresses the image of the Great Hermes, the Prince of Philosophers. For our Hermes was great in royal dignity, great in priesthood and pontificate, great in the knowledge of more abstruse philosophy, and therefore was called Thrice-Great, or Trismegistus.

And shall I not rightly say, Most Serene Prince, that the splendid ornaments of that Excellent Prince belong to you alone among men? For by the eminent splendor of your August Family you equal Kings and Caesars; you alone among Princes unite the divine character of the Priesthood and Pontificate with the honor of noble birth and the highest glory of power. You also, alone among Princes, deem Philosophy — the Queen of the sciences, once held in highest esteem and honor by Kings — worthy of princely study in our age.

Therefore deign, Most Serene Prince, to permit me to dedicate to Your Most Serene Highness this little treatise, which, if Hermes the Great were alive, I would inscribe to him; but now I reverently offer it to Your Most Serene Highness, to you who are not unlike that supreme leader Saturn, adorned with so many titles, and I openly testify, by this singular monument of my devotion, that I am your servant.

Most Serene Prince,
Your Highness’s
Most humble and most devoted servant,
An Anonymous Philosopher.

To the Reader.

Relying on divine auspices, I publish this little Chymical work. I know well that I commit it to a very uncertain fortune, and expose it to the judgment of malignant critics, foolish ignorants, and rigid intellectuals; yet it matters little if misfortune befall it, so that it suffers contempt from some and is deemed useless, after so many writings of excellent men have already been published throughout the world, since one may hope that with others it will perhaps meet with a happier fate.

I am not, I confess, one who imagines that I can please all; and if you, Reader, are nourished and delighted by the vain subtleties of vulgar philosophers, you will not find here a field suited to your inclination. But if the solid teachings of pious cultivators of Hermetic Philosophy, and the sacred mysteries of that divine science, bring you joy, then, with the favor of Heaven, you will here discover what is sufficient to satisfy your desire.

This I say truly, and without ostentation, since although both the more ancient and the more recent authors have declared that they have written with great clarity, yet all of them, compared to the unusual candor which I profess here, are at a vast distance. I have carefully gathered the choicest and most effective sayings of distinguished writers, and those matters which they themselves most obscurely veiled, I have unfolded with as much openness as I was able, so that I might plainly demonstrate the truth to you — if you have eyes to see and ears to hear; that is, if you possess a mind in some measure fit to penetrate the mysteries of the Wise, or rather if by the decree of the Eternal Deity you are destined to enjoy the heavenly gift of these mysteries.

Finally, in this little treatise I have laid open such great secrets, that when I myself re-read it, I was astonished that I had revealed such things; but I believed that this intention, to act thus, was inspired in me by God — not that I, a wretched and most unworthy man, would presume to claim divine inspiration for myself (may God avert such vanity from me).

Since it was so willed by Him, and mercifully arranged perhaps for His own glory, I am persuaded that it was accomplished for me, especially from this consideration: that never did I put pen to paper intending to write, without first most earnestly invoking the aid of the Holy Spirit.

But whatever I have declared of my frankness in uncovering the secrets of the Philosophers, do not think that I have therefore gone so far in solid progress, as if I had cast pearls before swine or lettuces before asses; you must understand that I am thoroughly versed in the rules prescribed by the masters, and that I neither wished nor was able to break them.

If, therefore, you suppose that I have delivered everything to you in a wholly vulgar manner, so that from the first or second reading of this treatise you imagine yourself worthy of being crowned with the laurel of mastery, you are altogether mistaken by the whole breadth of heaven. Do not hope (so long as the race of mortals endures) that this will happen to any man.

Whoever desires to enter into the sacred sanctuaries of this divine art must pray, read, meditate, and labor; and he must most frequently and diligently go through with both eyes and mind the books of the most excellent writers, which I have cited in this little work; and I have purposely omitted to designate the particular places of the citations, so that investigators, by diligently reading them all, might the more accurately apply themselves.

Therefore, Reader, if you wish to gather delightful fruits from this little treatise, which I offer you from the heart, earnestly pray to our God, the Best and Greatest; diligently read the books of the adepts; frequently ponder what you have read; and apply your hand to the work unceasingly. Farewell.

A Simple and Straight Path Leading Directly to the Golden Citadel of Hermes.

The more diligent students of Hermetic Philosophy, who have carefully read the books written by the wise, have undoubtedly observed that a twofold way is set forth for beginners, by which the Golden Citadel of Hermes may be reached: the one exceedingly difficult and arduous, full of labor and expense; the other far easier, simple, more in harmony with nature, and content with moderate costs. The truth of both ways has been affirmed by the Rosarium Philosophorum, Ripley, Cortolassaeus, Basil Valentine, Philalethes, Pantaleon, and others. Philalethes praised the easier way, but described the more difficult one. I, however, approving both, have resolved to disclose the easier path, so far as the sacred laws of this Philosophy permit. O Good and Adorable Jesus, my hope, do not forsake me in this most serious and momentous work, which I undertake under Thy divine auspices.

Direct my pen for Thy glory, and inspire me with those expressions by which to bring necessary light to my Catholic brethren, pious and devoted to Thee, may the necessary light avail to be kindled, for entering upon and happily following the golden way which I show to them for entering upon and happily pursuing the golden way which I show to them. But the impious, and men enslaved to flesh and blood, may be turned aside from this path of truth, of which they are unworthy, and be held fast in perpetual darkness.

Concerning this way Pantaleon, in his Bifolium Metallicum, says: “I say sincerely, that for this mystery only one thing is required, which nevertheless is also manifold. Once that thing is obtained and the method of procedure known, nothing foreign is added, but only the superfluous is removed, and the remainder is committed to the fire.” And a little later, in the section on battle or knightly duel, he says these words: “God has created for us this metallic ore, which we alone receive; we corrupt the hard body, we cast away the superfluous, we select the kernel, and from that poison we prepare an alexipharmacon (antidote).

Indeed, the sayings of Pantaleon and of the equestrian Duel are truly golden, and their efficacy is such that they prevail over entire volumes, and may well be said to suffice, for an ingenious investigator of nature, to penetrate the marvelous secret of secrets. But because this brevity, however vigorous, seems neither to satisfy nor to suffice for all cultivators of the auriferous art, I am pleased to explain the matter somewhat more fully, to bring help to the little ones and the weaker.

Therefore, it must be known as most true, and is taught everywhere by the Rosary of Philosophers, by Ludus puer, by Arnold, Vogel, and other most illustrious philosophers, that our matter — which is said to be both one and manifold — must contain within itself Mercury, the Sun, and the Moon; a truth which Basil Valentine also asserts without doubt (as in Book 3).

And this, indeed, natural reason convinces us of: for if the Philosopher’s Stone, once rightly obtained, is nothing other than gold most highly exalted, and if between it and common gold no other distinction exists except that the Stone surpasses and excels by various degrees of perfection, which it has acquired through abundant and oft-repeated digestion; it follows that for the composition of such a Stone, a threefold nature is absolutely required: namely Mercury, as the material of gold common with other metals; gold itself, as the necessary subject, that it may be exalted and brought to more-than-perfection; and silver, as immature gold, by means of whose whiteness the passage may be made from the blackness of Saturn to the redness of gold.

Moreover, it must be known that in our matter there exist three properties, which the Philosophers call the fetid vapor, the green lion, and the white fume.

This is suggested to us in these words of Riplaeus: Concerning the matter of this Stone three chief things are spoken of: namely, the Green Lion, the Fetid Asa, and the White Fume; yet this is so composed by the Philosophers that they may deceive fools, and those are deluded by the multitude of such names. But you must understand that always and truly one thing only is signified, although by accident and by name three are spoken of; for the Green Lion, the Fetid Asa, and the White Fume are all predicated of one and the same subject, in which they always and entirely lie hidden, until by art they are made manifest.

This is confirmed by Edward Kelley in a certain epistle: Gold and silver, he says, our Sun and Moon, the agent and the patient, are not that which is palpable to the hands, but rather a certain silver-and-golden hermaphroditic water, which, if you extract it by nature from both the perfect and imperfect metallic body, you will have the water of life (which Morienus and others call the White Fume), the fetid Asa, and the Green Lion, in which are contained all colors, etc.

Work diligently, Brother, and apply yourself with care that you may choose for yourself the substance in which you may discover this threefold property; if you attain this, I tell you with Riplaeus, that you hold in your hands the true matter of the Philosophers’ Stone, you have the matter before your very hands; if not, you have lost both time and place.

By the foetid Asa the Philosophers understand the sharp and foul odor arising from our impure body in its first preparation. For although this body may indeed contain a pure heart and a splendid one, and conceal within its center the seed of silver and gold, yet its radical moisture is beset by abundant corruption; pressed beneath a hard and heavy bark, it is almost overwhelmed, infected with foul and putrid heterogeneous sulphur, immersed in a stinking and deadly water and nearly suffocated, and finally plunged into sterile and accursed earth, almost buried. From these strict bonds of impurity, in which it is held fast, when the Philosopher strives by art to liberate it, he is compelled again and again in this laborious work to endure the most foul and vehement stench, altogether similar in some part of the operation to Asa foetida. For this reason the Philosophers have not unfitly given to it the name Asa foetida, and with good cause they declare that before their Stone is prepared it has a grievous odor, and that in the cutting and working of it there is a great and persistent stench.

Nor have the Philosophers without cause called our matter the ‘white smoke,’ for if it be rightly prepared, a snowy vapor is seen to issue forth, which, flowing like a milky stream, spreads abroad as it goes forth, and by pouring itself into the vessel of reception, it obscures the sight with that shining cloud.

This is the Virgin’s Milk, of which the Philosophers have made so many mentions.

This is the lacteous humidity of Pantaleon, under which is contained the metallic mercurial root.

This, finally, is the White Basilisk, a spirit most terrible, not unlike a venom or exhalation, which in his Testament (Book 3) he warns must be distilled from vitriol, and received until it has wholly gone forth; in which wind or spirit the three principles of the Philosophers—namely Salt, Mercury, and Sulphur—are contained, which therefore it is needless to seek elsewhere in precious things.

But by the Green Lion, the Philosophers designate the wondrous strength of their gold, and its vegetative power.

They call their Sun the Lion, because it is strong as a lion; and just as the lion, by its great strength and fortitude, surpasses all other animals, so their Sun surpasses all other minerals and metals by its immense and almost divine power at the greatest distance.

They call it Green because it is green gold, crude, and by its superfluity separated and sundered from its own humidity. And therefore (as a certain Anonymous has said) it is more apt and fitting for the work of regeneration, because its spirits are still free, and are not bound by any external coagulation of bodies, and therefore act more promptly and accelerate the preparation of tincture more swiftly than if the body of gold, as it is vulgarly received, were taken.

And according to all the most approved Philosophers, it is spermatic gold, immature, incomplete by nature, yet abounding with growing spirit and fruitful seed, possessing its entire and perfect vegetative power.

Which qualities it is plain cannot in any way be attributed to common gold:
For, as Hapel says in his Cheiragogia Heliana:
‘In the declination of the Sun, the expiration of its seed is now more for itself than for generating another fruitful Sun.’

According to Mayer, On the Mountains of the Planets, it admits no multiplication of itself, nor generative power, nor has it suitability to produce its like. In which, according to Ripley, the vegetative force of all growth in matter has for the greater part long since been extinguished.

You see therefore, Brother, that our Stone does not require common gold.

It does not require (gold), but something quite different—namely that which, though despised and dismissed by the blinded deceived by falsehoods, is nevertheless esteemed most highly by those who truly search into nature. Therefore, Clopinell says:

My son, I will say but one word:
The Creator who made me knows it,
That the whole work is accomplished
From one single and vile matter.

And Lamspink: In this one vile thing, you will find and accomplish the entire work of philosophy. And Guid. de Monte: Do not empty your purses on account of the great expenses which our art is said to require; for the Stone is one and most vile: we introduce nothing foreign, neither at the beginning nor at the end, but only separate the superfluities in the preparation.

But where, I ask you, do you suppose that this most precious gold, scarcely to be recognized under a base covering, can be found?

Some have advanced to such madness that they traversed the entire vegetable and animal kingdom for the sake of investigating it; but stupendous is their foolishness, and these dull investigators justly incur the wrath of the Philosophers, since they reject sound and sincere counsel, and, having been shown the path of truth by those faithful guides, they yet obstinately attempt to reach wisdom by the way of fools.

But those to whom, in their search into our mysteries, even the smallest spark of light has shone, cannot be ignorant that our nearest and most fitting subject is, with the greatest certainty, a homogeneous oily moisture, unctuous and incombustible.

Therefore Raymond and Ripley said that the unctuous moisture is the matter closely allied to our physical quicksilver.

And Geber, Arnold, Trevisan, Vogel, and others said: “Neither we, nor all the Philosophers, have ever found anything permanent in fire, except the oily moisture, which we see easily evaporate as a watery substance, leaving the dry behind.”

And pray, what agreement of nature can be found between vegetables or animals and our Stone, most fixed, which by its appearance of incombustibility is shown to remain firm, while the least of things yield to the trial of fire and fly off at once.

Thus say the anatomists of animals and plants, with Richard the Englishman, corrector of follies: Every seed must correspond to its own seed, every kind to its own kind, every species to its own species, every nature to its own nature, and by natural power strive for increase, producing fruits according to its own nature. Therefore they hold it for certain that it is equally impossible to generate our Stone from plants or animals, as it is to make a man or a tree from our Stone.

Others, seeking our gold, explore the mineral kingdom: nor can they be called errant among the seekers, since this gold, indeed, contains within itself most excellently the power of all minerals. It is clear, therefore, that no other path to obtain it lies open except through the mineral kingdom. Therefore, those who devote themselves earnestly to investigating mines, and who strive to know perfectly their principles, the diverse ways of generation and mixture, may well hope to reach the summit of their desires, if they conduct their work under the guidance of Nature and Reason, carrying the torch before them.

But how vast is that spacious mineral kingdom! How entangled with the perilous windings of deceitful and sophistical paths! And how greatly it is to be feared by inexperienced novices, lest by an unhappy entrance into such ruinous ways they be turned aside from the straight path of virtue, and miserably slip into destruction—unless a skilled and benevolent guide be at hand, who may extend his hand to those in danger, and faithfully bring back the erring to the easier and more direct path of the Wise.

Philosophers, disputing concerning the mineral kingdom, have distinguished it in three ways.

They divide it into parts: one of which they assign to the lesser, so-called minerals; another to the middle; and a third to the greater, namely the metals.

Those who place the foundation of their hope in the lesser ones greatly delude themselves, and weary both their mind with empty study and their body with labor; for both the wise and experience itself testify that these neither derive their origin from Mercury, nor contain anything of Mercury within them.

This being established, it is without doubt beyond human power to draw from them the subject of our Magistery, for which, according to Avicenna and others, the purest substance of Mercury is required.

And since they do not possess such a Mercurial substance, which is the beginning of our Stone, it follows that they can attain neither to the perfected metals, which are the middle stage of the Stone, nor to the precious tincture of more-than-perfect gold (which is its ultimate goal). As Richard the Englishman, and the author of the Aureus Tractatus de Lapide Philosophorum, rightly argue.

They seem to come a little nearer to the truth, who apply their attention to the middle minerals. Yet, from the entrance of our path, they are still at a great distance, nor has it pleased the supreme giver of all goods to impart to these middle minerals the gift of being able to produce the Mercury of the Philosophers.

In this, indeed, they excel the lesser minerals, in that they do not lack Mercury and Sulphur, the principles of metals and of the Stone; yet in the proportion of these principles and in the manner of their mixture they differ greatly from the metals, and therefore they are neither capable of fusion, nor of enduring the hammer like metals.

Moreover, according to Chortolassaeus, they are deprived of the third of the philosophic principles, namely our Salt, which is absolutely necessary for the Magistery. How then, considering this diversity of their nature from that of metals, could it be possible that they should furnish us the subject of the Stone, which is nothing else than a mercurial, metallic, and homogeneous moisture?

It is clear from this, Brother, that the straight entrance to the Golden Citadel of Hermes is not permitted through lesser nor through middle minerals. Let us now consider whether by means of vulgar Mercury it is possible to penetrate this blessed entrance.

I say with Ripley and with the Author of the Guide to the Celestial Ruby, that common Mercury is the deceiver of all alchemists, and that it is impossible for one who wishes to follow the true path of the wise to attain the desired end by it, even if he should devote his labor to it until his dying day.

For indeed, common quicksilver is of a cruder and colder temperament than that from which our Sun may be generated for us. Its nature, as it were despised by the glorious birth of our royal child, spurned as unworthy a female for that conception, and in the bowels of the earth no proper agent was ever assigned to it, no male was joined with it, with which it might bring about a golden generation, as Zacharias teaches.

Hence it has been most aptly compared by Bonus of Ferrara (Margarita Pretiosa, chap. 25) to an egg deprived of the seed of the cock, and thus entirely unfit for the procreation of the Philosophical Chick.

It is indeed true that in the very bowels of the earth, from Mercury alone, without any addition, however crude, cold, and undigested, nature produces gold through the very slow decoction of many ages.

From this reason, namely, because Mercury bears within itself a certain small portion of incombustible sulphur, innate to it, by whose aid and virtue it gradually overcomes its crudity and coldness, acquires digestion, and in the course of a very long time at last attains to the royal throne of gold.

But to overcome such crudity and frigidity by so small a heat of sulphur is granted only to nature, while to art it is denied — both on account of the shortness of human life, and for other reasons known to the wise.

Therefore, Arnold in the Rosarium, part 1, says: “If we were to begin with the material in its first natural state, our work would be most long and impossible, and great and infinite expenses would be required to complete it. And when at last, through the most difficult artifice, the stone had been made of the nature of metals, the physical work would not yet have even begun.

From the words of Arnold a sufficient argument is drawn for the condemnation of vulgar mercury, which, being still far removed from the nature of metals and not containing within itself the fixed grain of our gold, it is certain that, in order to bestow upon it a metallic nature and to insert the fixed grain, neither the labor of man nor the life of man would suffice.

Therefore, it is far better and much more reasonable to take a shorter and more expedient path, and to choose for our work a matter already advanced by nature and endowed with the so-called incombustible grain.

This is made clear to us by Mayer in Symbola mensae aureae, book 8, saying: Art does not use the natural process, beginning from the start to the end; for it is permitted to begin where nature has left off, and thus to arrive at the end.

To this agree Albertus, Lullius, Richardus, Sendivogius, and others, stating: That one must begin where the nature of the lower things has ended; there art should commence to proceed, and where nature has left off in metals — namely, in the perfected bodies before our eyes — there the work of art must begin.

Having examined the nature of common Mercury as well as of the lesser and middle minerals, and having shown their unfitness for the generation of our gold, it remains now to investigate the nature of the greater minerals or metals, which constitute the most noble part of the mineral kingdom, and to inquire whether they possess the qualities required for such a generation.

Among metals, some are imperfect, others perfect; no one is ignorant of this. Although the diversity of their nature and essence may seem small, yet all Philosophers agree that one and the same primary matter, one and the same seed, exists in them all, appearing as present. And that the differences perceived by our eyes among them arise only from a greater or lesser degree of their decoction, and from the places in which such seed adheres in the bowels of the earth. Hence the beautiful words of Augurellus:

For indeed one seed by nature clings to all;
Nor is it different from another, save that one
More happily issues forth, while another
Has drawn with it wretched and sordid principles.

And Sendivogius says: There are some who think that Saturn has one kind of seed, gold another, and so consequently the other metals; but these notions are vain. For the seed is one and the same, the same in Saturn as is found in gold, the same in the Moon as in Mars. Only the place in the earth was different, if you rightly understand me, although in the Moon the decline of nature is greater than in the Sun, and so with the others.

Likewise the Philosophers agree not only that all metals have one [common origin], but also that no ore of imperfect metals exists which does not contain within it some particle of a more perfect metal. This particle Flamellus in his Summary of Philosophy calls the fixed grain; Mayer, in On the Mountains of Planets, calls it the embryo of perfection; Vogel calls it the radical moisture of imperfect bodies, and a kind of seed of gold and silver.

Now this little golden portion, however much it may in its own nature strongly resist Vulcan [i.e., fire], yet being immersed in the depth of the impure body, and diffused throughout its entire substance, it comes to pass that when its powers are dissipated, by the violence of fire [it] is forced to yield to the violence; which without doubt it would overcome, if it were able to preserve itself collected and united. And thus, since it is miserably bound together with combustible impurities, suffering itself to be carried away, it shamefully flees along with them, and vanishes into smoke.

Since this is so, seriously consider, Brother, whether it is fitting for you to choose this volatile and fugitive gold as the seed of our most fixed stone. And on this matter, consult the modern tract on the metamorphosis of metals, which, after having said: In all imperfect metals there is a golden seed tending toward perfection, yet hindered in its course by accidental impediment, adds: that in the aforesaid gold this same seed is contained most nearly, triumphing in perfection; and that therefore, to wish to draw forth this seed from imperfect metals will be a labor in vain.

And it is indeed most true that only perfect metals are able to bring forth the golden seed of our stone. Yet I would not wish to deny that from the imperfect metals their Mercury and Sulphur can be extracted, and, thus prepared, may be so disposed that, although they possess but a very small portion, they may afterwards receive a more abundant tincture of gold and silver.

Through these things which we have thus far spoken, we have, I believe, declared quite openly the matter from which the Philosophical Sun’s seed is drawn forth. That you may understand this still more clearly, listen to my words with your ears and engrave them more deeply into your mind.

You are not unaware, I believe, that in Armenia there is situated that blessed mountain, once made famous by the landing of Noah’s Ark. Explore it as soon as you may, and you will find within it a soil soft and fruitful; which, if you dig into it rightly and prudently, you will uncover a hidden little stream. If you can reach its spring, clear and free from any mud, the longed-for seed of gold will immediately appear to you, and the straight path of the wise will be laid open.

But if you still do not understand this discourse, I truly grieve for your sake, that you are unable to behold the light which has been offered to you.

Therefore do not lose heart nor cast away hope, but read the books of the Wise, and turn them over ten and fifty times, as I have done with tireless mind. Always seek nature and its course in their sayings, always follow the concordant judgments of them, and with fervent prayers and sighs humbly entreat OUR MOST GOOD AND GREAT GOD, and implore the aid of the DIVINE MOTHER. If you do these things, and show to the Divine Majesty a heart upright, faithful, religious in guarding our secret, charitable with Christian liberality toward the poor, and turned away from the vain glory of the world: I promise you that you will soon perceive the darkness covering your mind to be scattered, and that in time you will possess the rich Mine of the Philosophers and the precious seed of our Sun.

Do not persuade yourself that this seed can be perceived by common eyes. For it is indeed like an immortal shoot, drawing its origin from heaven, which the divine Maker of all has implanted into our subject, so that by its benefit it may be made fruitful and brought to a second generation, and be rendered fit for perpetual succession. And therefore, since it is of a heavenly and spiritual nature, it does not fall under the eyes and gaze of the vulgar, but lies hidden in its homogeneous water; for in water, nature has established the seat and dwelling of the spirit, and into it has placed the seed of all things as the medium for preserving and propagating the spiritual species.

Hence it is necessary for the inquirer into our secrets to apply himself with all strength and with his whole heart, so that he may draw forth our homogeneous water, if he wishes to obtain our golden seed.

For this mystical matter is in the water: the whole key of our divine secret consists in it. And if ever some mortal is granted the happiness of obtaining it from God, he may truly proclaim with glory that he possesses the very treasure.

The upper and lower of Hermes; the first and second water of Artephius; the unctuous moisture; the azoth vitriol; and the fetid menstruum of Lully; the celebrated fountain of Trevisanus; the magnet of Basil Valentine; the double steel of Sendivogius; the mean substance of Geber, whose property is not to be burnt, but to defend from burning; the green lion; the stinking azoth; and the white fume of Ripley; the most sharp vinegar; and the pontic water of the Sages, which is drawn forth from the rays of the Sun and Moon, and is congealed in Sun and Moon; but in truth, and at last, the genuine Mercury of the Philosophers, indeed Mercury from Mercury, and Sulphur from Sulphur.

But to master the true preparation of that wondrous Water is no task of small difficulty, but is the work of singular art, and worthy of the laurel of our magistery.

Wherefore Alchindus, in the Speculum Lucis (Book 2, Chapter 1), says: Know, wise men, that the Philosophers have concealed nothing except the beginning and the secret of the Art, which is the most difficult of things; and you signify nothing else than this—that the body must be destroyed and converted into spirit.

And Augurellus, in his Chrysopoeia:
For it is not enough to have found what you must take;
To render the mass workable is the great task.
This is the work, this is the labor, here are exercised
The vain cares of the artificers.

And truly, since our golden spirit, as we have said above, is confined and held in the hard prison of the impure body, and so oppressed that, languishing under its rude weight, it can scarcely sustain life: to draw it forth alive and unharmed from this foul and narrow prison is indeed a matter requiring much labor and sweat. Nor is it possible for any mortal to attain thereto, unless the whole mystery of our solution be most perfectly accomplished.

The solution, the Sages with one voice proclaim, must be numbered among the chief secrets of Hermetic philosophy. Two principal forms of it are chiefly marked out by the cultivators of this divine art for investigation: one they call the earlier or particular solution; the other, the later or universal solution, as may be seen in Richard the Philosopher, the Rosary, and other authors.

The first, which they call so because it precedes another in order, is the reduction of our crude matter into mineral water, that is, into Mercury and Sulphur, or into a viscous humidity.

It is called “particular,” not in the sense in which foolish particularists understand it, as though some particular or sophistical work were required for its perfection; but only because certain particular operations of the art must necessarily precede the universal operation of nature. By these, the mineral form is dissolved, the gross body is attenuated, and the hard shell destroyed, yet in such a way that the radical moisture of our subject is wholly preserved unharmed.

Whoever wishes to learn this solution must apply all his industry to it, so that he may hold under his power a certain hermaphrodite, called Duenoch, whom he must examine, press, and even subject to torture; and thus, though exceedingly taciturn and inclined to silence, he will yield up the truth—provided he be not so grievously tormented that he is forced to give up his life and spirit in the anguish.

It is agreed that the composition of metallic bodies is most strong, and consequently their dissolution is exceedingly difficult.

Wherefore many, considering this, suppose that the work of solution requires the utmost violence, and they think it cannot be accomplished unless with the aid of certain waters, which they call strong or powerful, by which the wretched bodies they touch are cruelly tortured.

But they wander blindly in the path of error, and in no way attain to the mind of the Philosophers. Among them, though some may write that nature more secretly holds her tincture in her body than art reveals, by tormenting and torturing the body, now through water, now through fire—yet from these they elicit only the strong and biting liquors of the vulgar chemists, utterly unfit and useless for this work.

For, as Lullius, Trevisanus, and others testify, such procedures are opposed both to nature and to the intention of the Philosophers: for by the violence of their acrid and corrosive mordacity they gnaw at the bodies, and estrange them from their metallic kind. Thus the solution which seems to be induced by them is far removed from that which nature requires and the Sages proclaim.

Yet it is true that our solution cannot be said to be altogether without force. But the power which we bring to bear upon our body is gentle, helpful, and friendly to nature; and it leads our body not to destruction but to generation, not to perdition but to perfection.

Know therefore, Brother, and hold it as most certain, that this wondrous solution rejects all strong, sharp, and corrosive vulgar waters, and likewise despises the preparation of the so-called royal waters and other similar compositions, which have only the power of dissolving or rather of attenuating. So foreign is this from our art, that there is greater likeness between an Ethiopian and a Dane, than between that sophistical preparation and the true preparation of the Philosophers, as a certain Anonymous rightly observed.

For the Chymic Chaos, that is, our hard metallic body itself, by itself and in itself alone, without any addition of another thing whatsoever, like ice, when dissolved by heat, resolves itself into its own Mercurial moisture or innate water. Yet this cannot easily be understood by the vulgar philosophers, since it cannot be accomplished without most ingenious and almost inscrutable multiplications, requisite for the stirring and preparation of our subject: as is attested by the distinguished disciple of Cortolassius in his Treatise on the Occult Mystery of Nature - Tractatu de Occulto Naturae Mysterio.

To this agrees the celebrated author of the Duellum Equestris, saying: Just as ice, when placed dry upon the fire, is changed into water solely by its color (calor - heat), so it happens in our stone, which needs nothing else but the labor of the artificer and the natural fire.

Such a solution, which I have rightly called wondrous, many philosophers affirm to be made into a “dry water,” and in their own sense they perceive it rightly, nor is it far from the truth.

Yet, to speak plainly, I declare with greater truth that our body is resolved into a Mercurial water wholly moist and liquid, according to the way which we follow and demonstrate.

Hence a certain author says: The universal way is the water that moistens the hands, known to but few. And Bonus of Ferrara, truly a good and benevolent Philosopher, says: Our quicksilver, when it arises in the magistery, is then terminated in a foreign end on account of its aqueous parts prevailing; if therefore you wish to retain it and cause it to be terminated in its proper end, you must necessarily coagulate it with its own terrestrial parts, and not with those of another. Now its terrestrial parts (as he adds) are our hidden gold, whether called the body, the ferment, or the poison.

From this it may be gathered that those Philosophers did not speak foolishly in their sense, who affirmed that our water, obtained for us by the help of solution, is dry, and does not moisten the hands. For indeed, after coagulation, it is truly dry, and does not wet the fingers of him who touches it.

This is explained by the Venetian, saying: Quicksilver in its arsenical coagulum is a dry water. And by Augustinus Pantheus when he writes: The dry water through the way of purification to be accomplished, by which it is converted into a dry powder and precious ashes, from which is born the Bird of Hermes, the Chick of Hermogenes, and the Phoenix of all the Philosophers.

To the first solution, of which we have already spoken, there succeeds a second, which is the conversion of our physical earth into a Mercurial water.

Now both kinds of solution, although the Philosophers, in order to conceal the truth from the unworthy, have wrapped them in marvelous obscurities, and even so confused them that they seem to be one and the same, yet it is certain that there is a great difference between them, and that in our work they produce altogether different effects.

By the first, through the simple industry of the Artificer, the crude body of our subject is reduced to Mercury, from which it originally arose, without any preceding corruption. By the second, from the Mercury of our physical body, nature working, is produced Mercury and Sulphur from Sulphur, after the body and spirit have undergone putrefaction in warmth and moisture.

Hence the Rosarium Minor says: Bodies, when immersed in Mercury, through fitting putrefaction return into living silver, which they were before.

By this, the grosser superfluities are removed; and by this, the necessary absences are supplied.

By this, the contrary operations of nature must be performed by the artificer, who by going backward marvelously uncovers our subject from what nature had bound, and loosens it as though it were a ball of threads. By this, the artificer attempts nothing contrary to nature, but only lends her a helping hand, sufficiently disposing the matter externally, upon which she herself works inwardly toward its perfection.

This, as we have said and explained again, is the particular; but that which follows is the universal, for it alone truly embraces under itself all the operations of nature required for the completion of our divine work. For the Sages everywhere testify that the whole sum of the magistery is placed in solution and coagulation alone.

"Dissolve and congeal, make the fixed volatile, and the volatile fixed; make the body spiritual and the spirit corporeal in turn; and thus by the grace of God you shall obtain the whole magistery."

Let us hear here, if you please, the author of the Duellum Equestris - Duelli equestris, who sincerely affirms: Our whole Work arises from one thing alone, is perfected in itself, and needs nothing else but solution and coagulation.

“How wondrous is this thing,” he says, “which contains within itself all that we need: it kills itself and revives itself; impregnates itself and brings itself forth; dissolves itself in its own blood, and in the same coagulates itself; from itself it whitens and reddens.”

This is likewise pressed by Dausten in his Rosary, saying: Nature dissolves itself and coagulates itself; it whitens itself and adorns itself with redness; it makes itself yellow and black; it betroths itself and conceives from itself, until it bring the work to its end.

Do not wonder, therefore, Brother, that I have said our second solution embraces under itself all the operations of nature necessary to our divine work. Nor should you think that in this I contradict the Sages, who assert that the perfection of the magistery does not consist in solution only, but also in coagulation. For you must know that whoever makes the true solution, at the same time also makes the true coagulation.

For indeed they unanimously teach—Khalid, son of Jazid, the Scala Philosophorum, Ludus Puerorum, Avicenna, Arnold, Vogel, and all the others—that the solution of the body and the coagulation of the spirit, although they are two, nevertheless have one and the same operation.

For the spirit is not coagulated except with the solution of the body, and likewise the body is not dissolved except with the coagulation of the spirit. And between the solution of the body and the coagulation of the spirit there is no difference of time, nor is it a different work; but since one cannot be without the other, they are one and the same end, one and the same act, and one and the same operation comprehends both.

And just as earth mixed with water is not refined unless at the same time the water is thickened, nor is the water thickened unless the earth is refined, so with much greater reason it happens with respect to our body and spirit, which are altogether homogeneous, and in that homogeneity they are respectively dissolved and coagulated, and joined together so that they can never afterwards be separated—in the same way as it is impossible to separate water mixed with water.

That divine Work of the solution of the body and the coagulation of the spirit, which is completed by the most intimate and radical conjunction of our gold with our Mercury, many believe they can accomplish, by mixing the body of gold with Mercury in various sophistical operations. But all of them, as many as they are, feed themselves rather with vain hope than with truth.

For Raymond says: They are deceived who think that spirits can be joined with bodies in their grossness and diversity of nature, for this cannot be done until they are brought down to one form and equality.

Such a mixture, then, as men attempt, is nothing but a sophistical confusion of two bodies with one another, not a radical and altering conjunction such as the Philosophers require.

This mixture also is a manual operation: but had they read through the books of the Sages, they would have understood that our conjunction is not a manual operation, but a mutation of natures, and a friendly and admirable connection of the cold with the hot, and the moist with the dry.

We have said above that our solution, by which is generated Mercury of Mercury and Sulphur of Sulphur, is accomplished through the putrefaction of body and spirit in warmth and moisture; and we did not say this without reason.

For since body and spirit are united by nature through their least parts, and their elements are bound together by an indissoluble bond, it is impossible to attain to their radical solution and the perfect separation of the elements of which they consist, except by the way of putrefaction.

For putrefaction, as the Corrector Fatuorum and the Rosary of the Philosophers testify, is nothing other than the solution and separation of natures. By it the parts bound together are separated from one another, and each part is divided from the other through the separation and solution of the elements joined together in the generation of Mercury.

If one seeks the division of the parts which nature has united, putrefaction is the way to that division (Vogel).

And just as, according to Democritus, Ferrarius, the Monk, and others: Mixture is the union of mixables or elements through their minima, that is, the indivisibles joined to one another; so putrefaction is the dissolution of the same.

Therefore, whoever desires to accomplish a perfect solution and the Philosophical separation of the elements, let him carefully observe that he must first see blackness, and even a blacker-than-black, appear in his work.

For blackening is the beginning of the work, the sign of putrefaction, the sure mark of commixture, and the token of the solution of the body (Scala Philosophorum, Ludus puerorum, and others).

And when you see blackness appearing on the surface of the water, know for certain that your stone is in part dissolved; as Aristotle says in his Tractatus: And all the strength of this magistery is only after putrefaction; for if it were not putrid, it would return to nothing. So also Morienus, Arnold, and innumerable others affirm.

Finally, if no blackness appears, no whiteness will follow. (Alanus).

Hence let the unhappy artificers, who so miserably allow themselves to be deceived by errors, learn from this: while they extract by distillation from bodies smoke, water, oil, leaving the dregs at the bottom, they think that by this process they have accomplished our separation of the elements, without any preceding putrefaction, and they attempt by these means to correct their vain errors by what we have taught.

But when the Sages speak of the elements, let no one suppose that their words are to be understood of the confused mass of all the elements composing the chemical chaos; since it is well known that not all the elements of our Stone are endowed with equal property for generating the Elixir. Indeed, some of them are altogether superfluous, and even destructive of the work.

Therefore it is expedient for the operator to meditate more deeply, so that he may distinguish the true elements from the false, the Mineral from the Philosophical, and the incorruptible from the corruptible; and, rejecting the latter, accomplish the work with the aid of the former alone.

That noble and singular art of discerning the elements is taught by Raymond Lull in these words: If you wish to take the mineral elements, do not take them; not from the first, because they are too simple, nor from the last, because they are too gross and feculent, but take them from the middle.

And elsewhere he indicates the same, saying: Know that our quicksilver is not common quicksilver, in its whole gross and earthly, muddy and phlegmatic substance, but it consists in the middle of its substance, which must be well preserved and its property defended from the fire.

Therefore, Brother, apply your whole mind to the investigation of these middle elements; and if you can discern them, separate them, and cause them to revolve and be transformed in circular fashion, I congratulate you, together with all the adepts, on having attained to the summit of our divine art.

For all the Philosophers without exception say: Convert the elements, and what you seek you will find.

Now the elements are converted when the moist is made dry, and the volatile fixed.

The moist and volatile are our Mercury; the dry and fixed are our Sulphur.

Our Mercury is the moisture and coldness of our Stone—yet a moisture which has begun little by little to unite itself with fire, as the Way of Truth teaches.

Our Sulphur is the heat and dryness of the same Stone, or the most digested portion of our Mercury, or the pure fire which lies hidden in the belly of Mercury, absorbed beneath its form, and by whose vapor our Mercury is congealed into the Philosophers’ Stone, according to Trevisan, the Tractatus Aureus, Vogel, Lullius, and others.

And how to accomplish that desired coagulation of quicksilver, hear briefly.

When you have taken our Mercury out of the narrow prison in which it is enclosed, and set it free, while it, bound in icy chains, stiffens with cold, supply to it an external fire, which by degrees restores to it the heat it needs, and is suitable for exciting its innate fire.

If you do this with diligent industry, that innate fire, stirred by the kindly action of the external fire, at once awakens, shakes off the stupor in which it was wont to grow dull, and he who suffers thereby acquires an active virtue through his very suffering. And although it be at first very small and weak, yet in time it grows and gains increase, and, strengthened more and more daily by its brotherly aid, it finally becomes wondrously strong.

Moreover, by this means with its powers, it vigorously exerts its active authority upon the Mercury, and also masters its coldness and moisture by its fiery force, and little by little gradually it overcomes and converts [Mercury] into itself, or rather introduces its own heat and dryness into the Mercury.

And thus, by these active qualities uniting with the coldness and moisture of Mercury (which are passive qualities), in equal proportion and balance, from that perfect and indissoluble union of contrary qualities there is born the Golden Tincture of the Philosophers. This, by repeated digestions with the addition of crude Mercury, increases beyond measure, and at length acquires such power that it surpasses the most refined and purified gold by many, indeed by infinite, degrees.

But since we have previously warned that in order to obtain our Mercury one must not take common quicksilver in its whole substance, so here again, as a testimony of our sincerity, we declare that for obtaining our fire of which we have spoken, and by which sulphureous qualities are introduced into our Mercury through the benefit of dissolution, it is not to be done by taking common quicksilver according to its whole nature.

That quicksilver, indeed, which we use, and from which we elicit our fire, is already transformed into Sulphur, as Clangor Buccinae says; and according to Lullius, it has reached the term of digestion, by which it is changed from one nature into another.

And according to the same: A part of its nature has already been altered by the coaction or restriction which its subtle parts have received by the bond of Sulphur.

It is further necessary to signify that especially two degrees of fire are required for the perfection of our work.

This is explained by Augurellus, speaking in his verses of the Artificer:

Know first not to despise the various grades of fire,
For there are many through which it must proceed.
But two chiefly: one is calm, the rival of Nature;
The other belongs to violent art.

By the kindly violence of this [latter] fire the body is broken, the earth is overturned, our pure substance is cleansed from its foul dregs, our Mercury and our Sulphur are freed from prison, and at last the precious seed of our gold is elicited.

Thus Augurellus continues:

Here strives, with immense power of works, to thrust forth the seed,
Bound in wondrous union with the bonds of gold.

But by its gentle and sweet action the cold torpor of Mercury is dispelled, the destructive force of the work removed, and the moisture impeding fixation separated. The dispersed powers of Sulphur are united, eternal peace is established between the hostile qualities, the face of the earth is renewed, and also the longed-for corruption of our matter, which is the necessary beginning of glorious generation, is induced.

Isaac, treating of this, says: Whatever you do, always apply a gentle fire, and thus you will not go astray, although you may arrive somewhat more slowly at the end of the work.

Likewise, the author of the Conjunction of Sun and Moon says: It is better to prolong with moderation than by excess to err irreparably.

And Morienus, Roger Bacon, and others: Let its fire be mild and gentle, which by burning equally may endure.

By this same gentle heat of fire our spiritual ferment is perfected, whose nature you may learn from Bonus of Ferrara and Zacharius.

As for the corporeal ferment, it requires a somewhat stronger degree of fire, which, however, may be moderated or intensified by the Artificer according to his diligence and method of procedure.

The mystery of this fermentation is not concealed by the Philosophers, nor is it wrapped in obscurity, but is openly declared in plain words by Valentine, Isaac, and others is revealed, nor is it completed without the aid of common silver and gold.

Ripley calls our Stone, once this fermentation is complete, the Elixir; and therefore he says that the Stone delights in simplicity, but the Elixir rejoices in plurality.

And elsewhere he adds that in the beginning our Stone is but one simple and common thing, but before it becomes the perfect Elixir, it is composed of several and diverse things.

Moreover, since in this treatise we have indicated the easy and plain way which leads directly to the Golden Citadel of Hermes, for the sake of fulfilling the task we have undertaken for the glory of God, it pleases us to add some of the weights of the Philosophers to the foregoing, lest we should be thought to have left anything untouched.

Thus it is read in Valentine: Ten are to be borne by men of magnanimity, our heroes. In Sendivogius: Ten parts of air with one of solar fruit are to be taken for our work. In John Despagnet and many others: Seven or nine eagles are to be kept in a strong cage, shut up in prison, and stirred to fight among themselves.

What has been said greatly troubles many novices, who, moved by the authorities of famous writers, weigh and balance vulgar Mercury and Sulphur in the scales, and sometimes, attempting to conform to the prescription of the Philosophers, mix them by weight, commit them to the Philosophical Egg, and in this way believe that they have fully satisfied the intention of the Sages.

But they would act more wisely if they left this weighing and balancing to Nature alone, to which it solely belongs. For the making up of such a weight is not attributed to art, nor to manual operation.

Hence Roger Bacon, in the Speculum Alchimiae, says: They are excused from receiving quicksilver and sulphur as they are in their natural state, because we should have to mix them according to the due proportion—which the human mind does not know.

And most excellently says Laurentius Ventura: Just as nature has two principles—one that holds the nature of the patient, the other of the agent—so also does art. And just as nature joins these two principles together in certain measures and determined weights, so also must art compose them. But since art cannot know the proper weights, it must therefore, as a handmaid, receive them already compounded by nature. There will therefore be one matter, weighed by nature, in which art must work; and that suffices.

The same is aptly declared by Augurellus in these verses:

Nor is it needful to know—though it would be pleasant to know—
What ultimate principles arise for the begetting of things,
Or in what scale they have been received into number and weight.
For not even if you were to gather seeds of corn with diligence
Would you be seeking the true beginnings;
Rather you will entrust the grain itself, pure, to the earth’s bosom,
Exciting only the hidden virtue within, moving itself,
And leave the rest to nature.

The Philosophers also designate another weight as necessary for the Work; of which Avicenna, Aristotle, the Chemists, and others thus speak:

Weight must everywhere be observed, lest excessive dryness or superfluous moisture should corrupt the work in its administration. Therefore, by roasting you should evaporate as much as dissolution has added; and by burying dissolve as much as roasting has diminished; and pour water upon the earth in due measure, neither too much nor too little. For if too much, it will become a sea of confusion; if too little, it will be burned into ashes.

The doctrine of this weight has also perplexed not a few investigators of our art, some of whom, wishing to follow the rule prescribed by the masters, observe it as though it were a law, in order first to prepare the matter, they observe their matter disposed toward dryness or congelation, and then moisten it again with a fresh infusion of liquid, opening their vessel as often as they think such moistening necessary for their matter.

But it is clear that they fall into a deviant and irreparable error.

For Artephius, Dausten, and almost all others say: Close the vessel once, and open it once; whatever more is from evil.

And Ripley: Beware lest you ever open or move the glass from the beginning to the end; if you do otherwise, the work can never ever be perfected.

And just as in the generation of all animals, once the womb of the female is closed, it is never reopened until the emission of birth, so also must it necessarily be in the Philosophical generation of our royal child.

The composition of the weight already mentioned, to speak sincerely, pertains still more to nature than to art, although it must be admitted that for its perfection the labor and diligence of the artificer are indeed very useful; for while nature works inwardly, he supplies external heat, through which the dryness and moisture of the Philosophical matter alternate in due proportion and measure, so that the Stone is neither suffocated by excess of moisture nor consumed by excess of dryness, losing its generative power.

There remains a third weight, which the Philosophers earnestly commend—a weight truly most excellent and deserving of their singular praise and recommendation; for it embraces the true proportion of the Sages and the entire perfection of our Work.

The exceptional composition of this weight consists in the perfect conjunction of the elements; and therefore whoever has advanced in knowledge so far as to purify thoroughly the elements of our Stone by the benefit of digestion, to loosen them in the bosom of our earth, and to bind them together with an indissoluble union.

He who knows this is rightly granted the glory of the true science of the Sages’ weight, nor does anything else remain for him to attempt, except to discern the destined time of that admirable conjunction of the elements, which the Philosophers call divine, so that he may rightly call forth our royal infant when the time comes for him to appear in the light, and nourish him with the succulent substance of our milk; by whose virtue he may gain vigorous strength and grow into a hero most strong and invincible.

These are, Brother, the sacred mysteries of our most hidden art, which we have revealed to you as far as it has been permitted us, if you understand us—that is, if the fates call you.

Here is the EASY AND PLAIN PATH TO THE GOLDEN CITADEL OF HERMES, leading directly, which we have pointed out to you as if with a finger.

If the Higher Powers grant it to you, that with the torch we have lit shining before you, you may enter this pleasant and wealthy path, we ask no other reward of you than that you remember us and ours in your prayers whenever you may, that you keep full faith with our most good and great God, that you reveal to no unworthy mortal the secret entrusted to you by us, and that you use this precious secret wisely—for the glory of God above all, for the help of the needy neighbor, and for the solace of the afflicted.

If you shall do this, divine majesty will favor your counsels, and will more happily fulfill your vows in heaven. But if you should use it otherwise, then the divine gift of our Stone will be withdrawn from you by fate, I know not how, and, God permitting, it will vanish from your hands while you look on in amazement (as I know has happened not long ago to another). Or the offended Deity will afflict you with the gravest misfortunes, or—which is far worse—will consign your unhappy soul to eternal torments for the abuse of the gift granted you.

Choose, Brother, whichever fortune you will, and impress my words deeply upon your mind. Farewell.

The End.