The Newly-Rising Chymical Sun, together with its radiance and sheen,

shows all God-devoted seekers the right path to seek, find, and work the subject and the living/souled matter of the Philosophers’ Stone—and of all things; and indicates where the most necessary points, extracted from the true writings of the philosophers, are to be found.

Compiled by a well-meaning friend and issued for the comfort of all the distressed.

Frankfurt and Leipzig, with

Johann Friedrich Fleischer.

1740.






Translated to English from the book:
Die Neu- auffgehende Chymische Sonne, samt ihrem Glantz und Schein : Weiset alle Gott - ergebene Sucher auff den rechten Pfad, subjectum ac primam materiam Lapidis Philosophorum & omnium rerum zu suchen ... / von einem Treu-meinenden Freunde zusammen getragen

---

Preface.

Honored reader!

Whoever wishes to seek—and to find—something in the true spagyric philosophy and noble alchemy must know that the quintum esse (quintessence) is the true ground and kernel in all creatures, whether of animal, vegetable, or mineral things.

A true chymist also knows how to extract this from all creatures and to bring forth the quint-essence. Whoever does not know this—still less the beginning, origin, and end of metals and stones—will produce nothing fruitful, neither in medicine nor in the transmutatio metallorum.

Man, as a microcosm taken from the great world, is himself the fifth essence, a son of the whole world. Every man, however, eats and drinks his own flesh and blood from our father the elements and the firmament—something which to the foolish sounds inconceivable and seems most unbelievable. Nevertheless it is the holy truth, and among those who know, and among true philosophers in accord with nature, it needs little confirmation. All magi and naturalists know—praise God—that this is a small work from the great Magnalia Dei, and so it is. Only the blind world does not perceive this, so that none trouble themselves to get to the bottom of the truth or to explore the Magnalia Dei.

God made man from an earthy clod—not from that on which we go about with our feet, but from the earthy clod from which Adam was formed was an extract and subtlety of the four elements, composed of seven substances: from hyle (prime matter), 2 from water, 3 from stones and earth, 4 from the clouds of heaven, 5 from the wind, 6 from the sun, 7 from the moon. Yet what God breathed into man as the living breath—spiraculum vitae—was the Spirit of God (GOTTES Geist), who alone can breathe and make living images of God; this spirit of God in man is the other “spirit,” the ruler for man’s use. This spirit of God dwells in the human body only as a guest, just as a guest has his lodging in an inn during his journey.

When a person dies, this inhabitant departs and returns again to the One from whom he came, and must give account to God and be judged according to His image. From this everyone should consider seriously, philosophically, whence his origin is, and that he was created after the image of God—thus he should live in holiness and righteousness, which pleases God, and should live chastely and honorably, and not through Sodomitic sins. Princes and rulers, before the time of the old world, had to bear witness that they were set as lords of their bodies and lives, so that after this life they might render a strict account.

If we consider the machina mundi, we find that it is set in two parts: first, in a visible and tangible, and then in an invisible and intangible part; the spiritual is the body’s invisible part, but the spirit: the corporeal again consists of three pieces, namely of sulphur, mercury, and salt—the form of all, that which is indissoluble and incorruptible, the fifth being. This is the power, virtue, and crown for which every creature is created and ordained.

God, at the very beginning with Adam, as He created him in His image and likeness, wished thereby to has learned that from all creatures one must separate the three principia, know how to distinguish the pure from the impure, and bring forth the quintum essentia.

But whoever desires to prepare the Philosophers’ Stone, to work successfully, and to see a wished-for end, must diligently learn to recognize the one materia or subject of our philosophical Stone and make himself acquainted with it. For he who does not know the matter goes astray, and all labor, time, and expense are in vain. Now Theophrastus says: the materia of our Philosophical Stone is nothing other than a fiery, well-tamed Mercury, which has been extracted by Nature and by Art—that is, prepared in an artificial manner—and the enduring hermaphroditic Adam and the little world. In the Aura Philosophorum he further says: the philosophical Mercury is nothing other than the most secret and hidden greatest body of Sol and Luna—Mercury—and not the common one; therefore the Wise have said that in this our Mercury is everything that the Wise seek.

This Mercury is also called an Orphan in the little book of Alexander of Search; and thus our Mercury is born from a pure virginal Sulphur, like a little child, naked and poor, yet the noblest of all creatures, which GOD Himself has created animam rationalem (with a rational soul). Korndörffer, from Trismosin, says so.

Incredible things are hidden in the metals, provided they are revived in a philosophical way into their first Mercury—not into a running one, as the foolish vagabonds maintain, but into a philosophical seed, in specie germinis suavissimi. From which mineral this is to be obtained, Theophrastus makes quite clear in his Aurora when he says that our Mercury must be extracted and drawn out from the perfect bodies and—NB—out of the powers of the earthly planets; this Hermes affirms, saying:

the Sun and the Moon are the roots of this Art, not bodily gold or silver.

Hamuel, however, says: the Philosophical Stone is a coagulated water in Sun and Moon.

If now we wish to bring forth the quintum esse of Sol and Luna—their Sulphur and Mercury—by the operation of Art and raise it to the highest medicine, then, since this quintessence is shut up in these two bodies (namely the invisible fire and a bound spirit and soul in a closed [state]), we must first free it from its earthly bonds, open what is shut, and bring forth what is hidden. Whoever knows this will fare well.

This must be drawn out through Art, and it can happen only with Nature’s cooperating help. For Nature alone has the key to open and to shut—that is, to join what is like with like and akin. The natural key—soul, body, and spirit—is sufficient for our work; the salts must be opened and kept for medicine.

Thus the body of Sol or Luna must be opened, and only its Sulphur—as spirit and soul, a tinctural essence—be generated; then this extraction can accomplish far mightier and stronger things than otherwise, when the soul still rested in the corporeal Sol and Luna. This extracted anima must straightway receive from earth its seed, the ferment, and by spiritual and natural work much help and assistance, so that it can ferment, enter in, and increase. Through natural labor and industry everything must be dissolved, die, be reborn, and be clarified.

In this manner the quint-essence is brought forth. To those whom God wills to favor and whom He loves, He also gives understanding; it does not happen of itself, by oneself; everyone must ask GOD for enlightenment—everything comes down from above.

Whoever has before his eyes the quintum esse from the two highest luminaries, namely Sun and Moon, will find not only the white fire but also the pure, clear spirit, and will comprehend the body. This is the heavenly, astral, penetrating fire, the spiritus vitae, which can do all and holds all within itself; through this, everything is restored to health.

Therefore the ancient wise men strove after this heavenly jewel, for in this alone are great secrets and revelations hidden; without this spirit and soul nothing can be accomplished.

For our life—health, preservation, and long life—we have need of this soul, this spirit’s sap. It gives our life fiery power; inwardly it subtilizes all things, penetrates the great microcosm, works through all the inner members, destroys what is evil, and preserves what is good. This is the true mediator between God and man, the greatest contemplative help in Nature; it banishes death in itself—no mortality, no corruption—only fire and a living spirit. This the ancients sought, and found, and called it the quintum esse.

Our viscous water dissolves itself, it washes itself, cleanses and sublimates itself; it destroys itself and makes itself imperishable, and is born into a certain astral nature.

This is revealed to all those who are born into this Art by the Spirit—God’s kingdom is disclosed to them at first hand. Yet few become partakers of this treasure.

Our viscous water, which springs from the spirit of salt, can loosen all the earthly bonds of the metals and extract their spiritus and anima—this is our whole art.

Whoever has Bernhardi fontinam (Bernhard’s fountain), can soon warm the King’s bath, lute, purify and cleanse, and make [him] rise to immortal life.

All colors come from the Salt; salt gives the colors, the balsam, and the coagulation. Sulphur gives the body, the substance, and adhesion. Mercury gives the virtues and the arcana. God has predestined it so: the one cannot be without the other. Whoever wishes to know the aeternitas corporum omnium rerum—the permanence of the bodies of all things—must first know the Sulphur. Whoever wishes to know the colors must take them from the Salt. Whoever wishes to know the virtues of all things must probe the hiddenness of Mercury. Thus each has its proper vessel/measure.

Therefore we must proceed by imitating Nature and thoroughly investigating her, and on these grounds of the three philosophical principles consider what is highest; mix homogeneous things, not heterogeneous; abandon false processes and untimely undertakings, and do not run headlong into mockery. First learn to behold Nature rightly and to recognize her; for simile simili gaudet—like rejoices in like—conjoin all things in proper order, to the right quality, magnitude, and weight. Then in Alchymy we shall not be threshing empty straw, but rather at last gather pure wheat, separating the chaff, the husks, and all dross from it, and obtain—by God’s grace, blessing, and help (for without God’s help nothing comes to pass)—the noblest pearls of the selfsame Stone.

This I wish to everyone who loves God and his neighbor with all his heart.

Given at Frankfurt am Main, the 16th of October, 1739.

The Author.

---

Proœmium

Beloved reader!

If there is any art after which people strive more and puzzle most zealously to become its true possessor, then it is truly the true Alchymy. Many speak and chatter about alchymy, yet in truth they do not know what it signifies, is, or is called. The word Alchymia in the Arabic tongue means as much as a fire; but Alchymy is a very secret, hidden fire, known to very few, although it floats daily and constantly before everyone’s eyes. Hence it also happens that most seekers go astray, with the waste of very great expenses and much time.

I will not rehearse what this or that man, another great many—both great and small, rich and poor—have spent indescribable costs and toil, bringing harm and complete ruin upon themselves and others.

If one looks closely and examines all, one will find that, for the most part, the people who have undertaken and are found seeking to make the universal Stone are either those striving after greater goods and riches, or those who have fallen into want of sustenance and think to repair their loss through the noble art of alchymy and thereby become very rich.

Are these not the great follies a seeker of this sort commits? For without knowledge and understanding he undertakes to search for and obtain something which he can in fact never possibly possess.

If you ask such a seeker what he intends to make and to seek, most answer: “a medicine.” Yet in their mind and thoughts they desire the Philosophers’ Stone, with which to make the imperfect metals perfect.

If you ask further—from what, with what, and by what means they hope to obtain the Stone—they reply: they know it well; such-and-such an author has truly written that through and with metals metals are made. Hence they fall into the delusion that one must dissolve gold or silver into the prima materia—that this would be to reduce it into Sulphur, Salt, and Mercury, then put it back together again, and thus prepare the Stone.

But if a possessor of truth tries to instruct such a person in the right truth (as soon as he does so, it is said), they want to draw him away from the right path and lead him into error. The proverb is held to be true: like begets like—gold [begets] gold, but silver [begets] silver; a man [begets] a man; an animal [begets] its like. This not only strikes the ignorant in the eye; it so deprives them of their senses that it is impossible to dissuade him from this conclusion, even if an upright Solon were to demonstrate it to him with all truth and strive to show that everything that lives and moves receives its being and life from above and must have it.

And that the metals in the earth also grow and increase—but not through themselves and their own seed; rather, every seed receives its nourishment, life, growth, and propagation from above, just as man and other animals and vegetables do.

Therefore in our times very few true possessors of the Art are found; and if such a one still exists, he must nevertheless keep himself hidden and reveal himself to hardly any person—because greed and great ambition have blinded every heart and eye, and, believing, so that people are made to believe the possessor of the Art is bound to disclose the truth to them, and that they too are worthy to be possessors of it. Thus it has also happened that some pious men have begun to lose their lives through such feather-brained knaves.

Quite recently a small chymical tract, entitled “Chymischer Mondenschein” (“Chymical Moonshine”), was communicated and presented to the honorable world by a great man. In it the true magnet is plainly set forth and discussed. I do not know whether just about everyone who should get sight of it might not find therein everything he could wish and desire. For in it both the matter and the method of procedure are handled briefly, truthfully, clearly, and intelligibly—so that no author, as long as the world has stood, has written more plainly and fully on this subject. I would wish to become partaker of acquaintance with that man—not that I might know anything more, but to delight in his conversation and friendship.

Nowadays alchymy has come to such a pass that everyone broods over it and plays the botcher. Yet most people make scarcely the least effort to investigate nature and to imitate it. Nature, after all, shows all things through and with the air; but the laboratory workers, by their boiling and bubbling, spoil and drive away everything and by their boiling and bubbling they chase away everything. When they have sought long enough in this way, wasted what remained, and lost it, then they want honorably to turn to something else. Then they realize what Via Veritatis, p. 290, says:

“I write to you the truth, which I desire to answer for before God, and I have no need to fill the world with more lies—there are already more than enough—through ignorant people who, even in the natural works of Nature, have been blind. These have let themselves be led astray by false books and have set to work at sophistical labor, whereby they have squandered their goods and substance, and achieved nothing helpful for the true art, nothing that could serve the natural art. They have remained stuck in a labyrinth; and instead of truth one utterly despairs. These same people have begun to write as if they had well understood the matter or had obtained great advantage; yet they have remained poor bunglers.”

Elsewhere it is said:

“They have dissolved (solvirt) so long that all their money and property have melted and perished; they have sublimed so long that pots and kettles have eaten through up the chimney; they have purified so long that the clothes rotted off their bodies; they have calcined so long that wood and coal themselves have turned to ashes. Such is the benefit and profit of the unwise.”

(p. 147: “Water; Stone of the Wise: …”)

Therefore, leave the sophists and their deceitful works alone; let their various furnaces and vessels be, leave their horse-dung and coal fires—which are of absolutely no use—leave the metals and other such things aside.

NB. Rather, transform the elements into a transformable form: this is the glorious philosophical materia, which the ignorant reject. In substance it is like unto gold, but in essence unlike. NB. Invert the elements, and you will find what you seek.

What Bernard has advised and disadvised before, everyone will easily have to call to mind; and because both counsels have been misused, a new reminder and warning of the same sort must also be accepted. Sendivogius, Basil Valentine, Bernard, and others besides will all approve my opinion—seek the same.

Whether I shall receive even the least thanks from any for directing you seekers, together with all possessors of the truth, away from false, most harmful and ruinous things and subjects, and instead pointing you to the one true immature mineral electrum, is all one to me; for I know for certain that one or another who lets himself be led and guided by the Spirit of God will, in later times, remember my intention most kindly and continue to do so.

I bring nothing new, but only set forth what is old—namely that alone which is needful and true, as all true possessors of the Art confess to have known and held. Whoever is elected by God for this, or will let himself be guided and led by God’s grace—he too will go forward in the Spirit; to him let this be given as a special gift.

With the pseudo-philosophers I have nothing to do; still less am I minded to enter into wrangling and quarrel with them. And though fairness might require that one or another be instructed more clearly and openly, yet I have no desire to accuse this or that author and, as it were, to set myself above them as a destroyer. No—this is not my business; rather the proverb: “Honor to whom honor is due,” shall keep the precedence and remain with those who have been cited and adduced.

This little I would once more offer as a faithful warning to everyone: that he beware of the many and various furnaces and vessels, and that he not seek his aim in things that have already reached their final end—such as all sorts of metals and minerals, animal and vegetable beings, and whatever else may be like unto them—but rather that I have advised each person to imitate Nature.

…wishes to acquaint himself better with the astral nature and its influences.

For our subject is truly a gummy, watery being—as has been set forth in Wasser-/Stein der Weisen, chap. 2; therefore it is called a water of the great sea, a water of life, also the blessed water. Yet it is not a water of the clouds, nor an ordinary spring water, still less an animal, vegetable, mineral, or metallic water; rather it is an airy, pure, noble corpus, the appointed middle between the highest and the lowest, and the most un-earthly and most precious thing under the whole heaven, which is fed by the vapors, mists, and “sweat” of the upper and lower globes. And because it is itself a fire—indeed a universal solar fire—it can also be consumed in a fire.

Avicenna rightly says: it is the soul of the world. The philosophers call it the highest good of the world; it makes the whole earth fruitful.

It is the true Magnesia catholica, or sperma mundi, the seed of the whole world, from which all natural things have their origin; it may be compared to a white gum or water. But Theophrastus says: “Now this is the right materia—a water that does not wet; and yet it is an element and a water; all is one thing.”

this single water cannot be without the earth; for it is from the earth, and the earth is the food and nourisher of such a matter. It is spiritual, full of spiritual life; heavenly, earthly, magnetic. It is refreshed by the pure dew of heaven; the earth harbors it and is its mother. From the beginning it has been spirit, air, water, and fire—take hold of this, and unite all into one.

Hermes says: “The sun is the father, the moon the mother; the wind carried it in its belly; the earth is its nurse.”

Sendivogius says: “In the air there is a hidden food of life, which, like the night-dew (but gathered by day), may be called a rare water.” Its incomprehensible and invisible spirit, as soon as it is united or drawn in, works better than the whole world; through fire, water, air, and earth all things have passed, been composed, duly built up, and made fruitful. Theophrastus says further: “The Materia Philosophorum is to be found in water and spirit.”

This materia cannot live without the operative help of heaven, nor can it become fruitful. Indeed, no thing could endure without it: it needs that heavenly, material, operative power of this spirit and salt-spirit without ceasing.

And since every blessing comes down from above, therefore the spirits of life earnestly long after the water; the water after the earth; and after the spirit—so that the two may accomplish their operation, and heaven may conjoin all this.

The water has its dwelling with the earth; the water must also become earth again.
Its extract is a salty substance, a combustible, enduring, fiery oil—the key that unlocks everything and transforms it into its like.

Thus water and earth must be mixed and dwell together; the earthly and the heavenly must mix and agree together. For from the beginning it must become water and spirit; but heaven is the most pure being by itself—its astral, watery, fiery influence works continually day and night. When the water is mixed with the fire, these are brought into accord: it is converted into a spiritual being in which the fiery spirit lies hidden; it dies and is born anew.

The earth also has its sun, its waters, its air, and its ground-essence; for a fairer greenness lies hidden beneath than what is seen above. The philosophers call it the blessed one.

Learn to mix the water with the fire: thereby you will open the seed of the metal; it will devour it, quickly turning it, in flux, into a tincturing powder, into spirit and permanent water to manifest as a permanent [thing], to be converted into water and mercury—a pure spirit and a fixed salt-spirit together with its spiritual earth; in this the whole work and art are contained.

It is drawn from the terra Olympi, cooked in a heavenly manner, and blended into one.

The heavenly fire is clear and pure, wholly astral; not watery, cheerful, cold, but fiery. Therefore one should burn the fire into the cold water.

Our water has its fiery spirit with it; it hovers and proceeds in strong motion according to ordinance and according to the heavenly-astral order of God, day and night, also without end, unwearied, unimpaired in its operative power. From this there results a fruitful earth that brings forth everything.

This earth must then be mixed often with the water of such high clarity and great power, until it becomes neither water nor earth; for it was water, and therefore the water of the earth is regarded as a subtility. Hence it also comes about that, after repeated mingling and long preparation by the power of the water—and with this philosophical earth—a perfect work is achieved. And this is to be well understood: our water is a fixed body, and an earthly-watery and airy being, whose spirit always carries the body upward with itself carries the body ever upward with itself, and again descends, until the one becomes like the other. The anima remains unharmed and rests in place of the corpus—this indeed may greatly gladden the heart.

It is now evident that our Stone is a pure, spiritually extracted salt. It is born of the sun, fair and pure; it is clean and manifest, wholly and purely created. In it dwells the fire that proceeds from the divine essence. The outward part is the greatest poison, but the inward the best good and the highest medicine.

Therefore clarify your earths well, incorporate them purely, purify the anima; then afterward it will bravely receive the seed, make it worthy, and highly qualify it, so that it can be held fast. May God’s Spirit lead and guide us to all good. Amen.

Beloved,

Give careful heed to all these words, for not one of them is idle. Above all, commit your ways to the Lord and hope in Him: “Delight yourself in the Lord, and He will give you the desires of your heart.” Then the dew of heaven will moisten you, and the fatness of the earth will be your portion. Many will read these writings, but without right consideration; upon few will the sun by day or the moon by night truly shine. Many will seek the light, but will not find it; few are chosen for it.

For everything that the Lord God deals out to a person and undertakes with him—be it benefits or punishments—He does it all to this end: that He may turn the person, who has turned away from Him, back to Himself and convert him. But man is foolish and dull like the cattle (Ps. 32), and does not perceive the reason why God shows him great benefits—namely, that by them He would draw him to Himself, so that he should love God; nor does he consider why God chastises him—namely, that He may refer him to Himself and turn him to Him. We will first consider the bodily benefits, then the spiritual and eternal ones.

God has created nothing that does not serve man, whether visible or invisible. The invisible that serve us are the holy angels, whose wisdom, strength, and diligent watch and guardianship over us Holy Scripture praises and reveals in many places—so that many angels must attend to one human, as the history of the patriarch Jacob (Gen. 32) and of Elisha (2 Kings 6) attests.

There also lie in wait many evil spirits against a person to destroy him; but, on the other hand, the holy watchers are appointed by God—how they rejoice over our repentance and conversion is shown in Luke 15. This benefit, because it is invisible and happens in an inestimable manner, many people reckon as small; but someone who does not only look at the visible world but also considers the invisible, understands well that in the invisible realm—where God dwells—there must be far greater lordships, many more peoples and hosts of war, much greater dominions and principalities than in this visible world.

And when God assigns His own servants to be our watchers and guardians—His princes and rulers—you can see what an exceedingly great benefit this is. Just as a prince, traveling through a strange land, has his own servants accompany and protect him so that he not be attacked by some wild beast or by the band of enemies.

Look up at the heaven and see how God has appointed it to be your servant; observe the wonderful course of the sun and moon. Why do they run so unweariedly day and night and never stand still for a moment? (cf. Gen. 1).

Are they not diligent servants of mankind? God Himself has no need of their service, nor of their effect and light; but man does. The sun serves you like an indefatigable servant who rises early every day, bearing light and a fair torch before you. Remember the one Light, which is Christ and His divine Word, which should be the light and lamp of your soul, that you may walk as a child of the Light.

The moon and the night cover you with their shadow, as with a cloak, bring you rest, and let you remain and repose under the shadow of the Most High. (Ps. 91)

The moon is like an inexhaustible maid who draws up the waters and moistens the earth. It is not a little star; it has its own sea; it receives the seas well for the benefit of men and would gladly shine for men.

Behold the air and the winds—how beautifully they make the sky clear; they drive away the clouds and gather the waters together as great vessels and conduits. (Ps. 33) Thereafter they pour them upon the dry earth. It is indeed wonderful that God holds the water in the clouds under the heaven, as in a bottle, and the air must bear it and hold it. And the clouds are nothing else than a moist vapor, which is afterward distilled into drops. (Job 26)

Also the mighty thunder, lightning, and hail serve us, so that we may recognize God’s power therein, pray to God, and thank Him, for He has rescued us in fearful weather. (Psalm 18)

See the many kinds of winds—they govern navigation; and wherever a wind is directed, there the ship goes, like a bird that flies through the air.

…thereby all the quarters and secret places of the world can be visited, so that nothing remains hidden which God has made for man’s good. (Ps. 135)

Behold the many kinds of fish in the sea: they have their seasons and migrations; when they come, they rise to the surface and present themselves as a flock—indeed as thick as the herds upon the field; as if they said: “Lo, now is the harvest of the sea,” seized for men. And it is the same with the birds—when their time is come, they fly to the houses in swarms and show themselves to men.

Behold the earth—the great storehouse and treasure-chamber of God—which gives bread for our food, drugs and clothing, our houses and dwellings, many metals, gold and silver; every land has its flowers. They come forth as if saying: “Here we are!” and bring our gifts and presents; and we render thanks as is fitting for what we have received from our Creator. See also the forest, which is a habitation of the wild; God has given it into men’s hands and set them as lords over it.

If one would count all the bodily benefits of God, it would be as if one tried to recount the welfare of a whole country; for not even the least apple or fruit is…

…it is a benefit of God; let someone try to count it—can it be reckoned? And yet we will not recognize from it the good and beneficent God. (Ps. 65)

Now let us also climb by the ladder of the creatures up to God the Creator and consider the spiritual benefits, whereby the holy Trinity has shown to every person—and especially to man—great grace and kindness. The Father has given us His Son; how should He not also give us all things with Him? (Rom. 8) Has not God the Son given Himself to us, with all that He is and has? (Rom. 5) Therefore God commends His love toward us, in that Christ died for us while we were yet sinners.

Is not the Holy Spirit in us, who enlightens our souls, cleanses, teaches, comforts, adorns, and beautifies them with His gifts? (Rom. 8) He bears witness with our spirit that we are children of God. Therefore let us love and trust Him who first loved us. (pp. 4, 74)

All animals love those by whom they are loved; would you be worse than an animal, and hate your Lover in whose love you live and move, stand and walk, sleep and wake? Just as one must hold that which one wishes to ignite and set aflame in the fire long enough…

…until it begins to burn. So you also must hold your heart long enough to the fire of God’s love until it is kindled and burning in the same—this comes through active contemplation of the benefits of God.

Just as in former times the priests had to ignite the offering with holy fire, so must the eternal High Priest, Jesus Christ, kindle the offering of your heart with the fire of His Holy Spirit. And this holy fire of His love has burned toward us from eternity; for we have been loved in Christ from the foundation of the world. But afterward it was gloriously manifested in the Lord Christ’s birth and incarnation—most especially in His holy suffering and death. Thereby He showed us the highest love, and the flame of His love toward us will never be extinguished to eternity. Do not harbor a cold heart toward this fire; rather may it be kindled and remain united with the love of Christ.

Gen. 1:1. “In the beginning God created heaven and earth; and the earth was waste and void, and the Spirit of God moved upon the face of the waters.”

Behold, seeker, here you find something: open your eyes; yet pray God that He grant you illumination to receive this Spirit and learn to recognize Him.

Cry with Job 38:19: “Where is the way where light dwelleth, and which is the path, what path the light takes? Have you seen the gates of darkness?”

Light is the noblest, most subtle, purest, whitest brightness—splendor and clarity—set apart at creation from the darkness of the great world. When the Creator bade the light shine forth out of the darkness, the world was thereby illumined, gladdened, distinctly known, and revealed as wholly bright and wondrous. Indeed, by it the light of life—according to some—was insinuated into the great world and became, as it were, incorporated into all creatures. From this whiteness and white radiance the highest clarity and diaphaneity were gathered into the globes of the suns, and on the sixth day the light was united to enlighten the day and to rule it (Gen. 1). Therefore God called the light Day.

The moon is likewise a light; through its changing brightness, which it borrows in turn from the sun, we then enjoy its rays and shining, and by it we divide seasons, months, and years. This light or fire—all of it—comes from God.

For the lux superintelligibilis, the “supra-intelligible” light or fire, is in God; the lux intelligibilis, the intelligible light or fire, is in angels and human beings; the lux visibilis, the visible light or fire, is in the suns.

And since God created the light to this end—that through it all creatures in their…

…own outward form, figure, clarity, brightness, and loveliness might be recognized and distinguished—so it follows that there is yet another hidden light and fire in us, through which all the inner forms and figures of all creatures are nourished, fed, preserved, and recognized. And for which this light is appointed, whether it be ever so hidden as it will.

This is the only wisdom of God, which, according to its true nature, is called light—or rather, candor aeternae lucis, a “sheen of the eternal light” (Wisdom 7).

For just as the ignorance that leads to and proceeds from unbelief separates one from the light, so the presence of the lux superintelligibilis—the uncreated light—gathers together and unites, makes perfect, and delivers us from ignorance and error. All who are enlightened by it turn toward what is true, and it brings many manifestations and one pure knowledge, filling me with one single, united light.

From the suns there also shines a deep, intimate, pure, hot, and burning love of God; for whom did God make the sun to be good?—not for Himself; He needs no sun nor created light, because He Himself is the one eternal and uncreated Light. Therefore He created the sun and set it to shine for men; hence God’s love shines out of the suns. In the Revelation of John 1 it shines the face of Him who held the seven stars in His hand shone like the sun; thus on that day the eternal light of Christ will transfigure us, so that the whole body will be illumined like lightning. (cf. Rev. 1; Matt. 6)

Now it is known that the gracious Creator has enclosed a pure and delightful light in all things—as those know who understand natural separation and distinction, and can philosophically divide the purity and cleanness of all things from impurity, uncleanness, and darkness. Thus all things can be naturally clarified into their brightness; for this is the natural transfiguration, and a splendid visible witness of the transfiguration of our bodies on the Last Day, when all uncleanness will be separated from body and soul.

“And God said, Let there be a firmament between the waters, and He called the firmament Heaven.” (Ps. 104 echoes) “Thou dwellest above with waters; Thou ridest upon the clouds as upon a chariot, and walkest upon the wings of the wind.”

Among theologians and philosophers there is much disputing about the matter and substance of heaven; but we hold to what God says: sit expansio inter aquas—“let there be an expanse between the waters.” And in the book of Job it is said: “Thou hast spread out the heaven thin, like a cast mirror.” From this one may well conclude that the hea…

…one may conclude that the expanse between the waters—that is, heaven—must be made out of water; the word shamaim makes this clear.

The order of the elements shows that heaven, as the most exalted, is the purest, subtlest, clearest, most limpid “world” of the great world; or (to say it otherwise) the water and the air, freed from all elemental grossness—a transparent, clear, incorruptible body, which by reason of its purity is not subject to corruption. For it is separated from the lowest things; therefore no corruption or decay can occur in it, and it can never be mingled with uncleanness—this would be contrary to nature, a thing repugnant to Nature.

It is indeed wondrous how Nature governs all things and, by the hand of the Almighty, has set them in the most spacious form of unending roundness: not only that everything is rounded in a circle, but that the broad expanse of air as well as the watery and earthly globe are enclosed and held together. Thus no element may depart from its place. For this cause heaven is called the firmament or the vault. NB. And also so that its influence might be able to reach equally through the round to all the elements.

The earth is black, coarse, thick—so that there is nothing grosser; thereafter look at the water, how much subtler, clearer, finer, and purer it is than the earth—the less earth is mixed with it, the purer it is, so that one can see deeply into it. Behold the air, which is yet again more clarified than the water, so limpid and pure that nothing is seen in it; it is more transparent and more shining than the water.

Consider how unlike the elements are to one another—the earth against the water, the water against the air—how great the difference is according to their substance. Now consider the body of heaven, which is above the air: it is the purest and clearest being; the higher it is raised above us, the more spiritual and powerful it is. This wondrous, pure, clear nature of heaven with all its properties is a glorious witness of God.

The earth is the greatest and heaviest corporeal substance of the great world, separated from the waters and set by the power of God as the center and middle point of the great world—unquestionably as a receptacle and container of heavenly influences—and because of the roundness of the heaven it is indeed set in a round form, to receive the operations of the heaven on all sides; and with the water it makes one globe, and is encompassed by the water. This earth-and-water globe is borne by the power of the air and through the power of the almighty Word of the living, hidden, invisible seed of all its visible growths and fruits.

Here, let us consider how this wonderful structure of the earth, with its ground and foundations, sets before our eyes the omnipotence of God. For first stands the earth—what are its pillars?—the fruitfulness of the earth, says the Psalm.
“You visit the land and water it; the spring of God is full of water. You make the earth very fruitful; you enrich it; you water its furrows; you soften it with showers; you bless its growth; you crown the year with your goodness, and your paths drop fatness. That is: each month it brings forth its own fruits out of the great storehouses of God on the good earth.” (alluding to Ps. 65)

The mountains are God’s treasure chambers, wherein every metal is prepared by Nature. For they are as natural distilling houses, wherein God cooks and shows forth all metallic and mineral things; and enclosed in the mountains are the four elements—fire and vapor, air and steam, water and earth—and the earth in which the metallic things grow are the stones.

NB. The ore is the root and seed of the metals.

But the mountains must, by nature, stand high above the earth toward heaven, because the natural infusion and influence of the heaven and the stars has its effect especially in the high mountains in the ripening and generation of the metals. Indeed, experience teaches that the most potent herbs grow on the highest mountains because of the infusion and influence of heaven; and when such herbs are transplanted from high mountains into gardens, they lose their power, for heaven’s influence is withdrawn from them. Thus it is written of Hippocrates that he gathered all the herbs with which he cured on the high mountains.

From this it also comes that certain mountains produce particular effects—internally and externally—according to the influence of heaven. And it is sure that wherever there is some special beneficial virtue and influence of heaven, under such a constellation there lies some mountain that draws it into itself. For this reason the mountains do not lie scattered here and there by chance, as men heap up works and piles of stones, but by the special order and distribution of God the mountains lie beneath a certain influence and operation of heaven. Hence Psalm 104 says that the mountains rise high and the valleys settle themselves in the place which God hath founded for them.

(Isa. 45): “Let the mountains bring peace, and the hills the righteousness of God.”

God moistens the mountains from above, yes, with the lovely dew, which has a peculiar property in the mountains and often falls there—like on Hermon in the land of Judah, which is always full of dew; and on the mountains of Gilboa, upon which Jonathan and Saul fell, there should fall neither dew nor rain for the dishonorable and godless. (2 Sam. 1)

The origin and effect of the dew arise from the womb of the dawn; out of the morning’s belly the dew is born (cf. Ps. 110). The dawn is nothing other than the rays and brightness of the suns, which permeate everything and shimmer through, just as one sees a bright light behind a clear glass filled with bright water. But the effect or benefit of the dew is as the Psalm (104) says: “You make the land full of fruits which you create.” The dew makes the earth very fruitful; it refreshes the withered little flowers that are parched by the sun’s heat so that they droop their heads. Especially the dew of flowers is their joy and life; of other things I will not now speak.

When flowers and dew are joined together, the bees take their honey from it, temper and digest it so that humans can make use of it. Just as once the honey-dew lay upon the leaves like manna, so must men and beasts take their fruits of the earth—and metals and minerals—their life and joy—from heaven.

Rain refreshes the roots; dew the flowers; mist the leaves—and makes even bitter herbs mild, sweet, and pleasant.

In Psalm 133 dear peace is compared to the dew; for blessed are the peacemakers, for they are born of God—like dew from the morning dawn. Therefore we should call upon God day and night, so that, like the dew, the earth may become fruitful again, green and bloom beneath peace. The fountain of God is full of water. (Ps. 65)

Accordingly, God’s creative Word causes the earth to bring forth grass and herbs and fruitful trees; for this you should thank God and pay your vows to the Most High. From the stars we should also learn.

The immense size of the heavenly bodies is a great wonder and witness to the ineffable majesty of God—so that we may become ever more steadfast and certain in our faith. Is it not astonishing that these vast, awe-inspiring great bodies do not hang merely at the edge of the heavens, but run their course there—and what an immeasurable breadth and space there must be for such great bodies must have room for their course—especially since each has its own heaven and circle, its own allotted path in the firmament, which, according to God’s ordinance, it may not overstep, so that none hinders another. Therefore says David: He has made the heavens in good order. This must indeed be a great wisdom—that their great Lord should lead all the stars in their order and proper courses and call them by name. Here lies a great secret; something of it is found in the Revelation of John 8, where a star falls from heaven, and the name of that star is Wormwood.

All the more is it to be wondered at that such great lights have a living motion in themselves; thus by the order of nature they do not stand still for a moment, nor do they ever rest, but continually perform their indescribable movement and work. If it were not so, the whole order of heaven would be disturbed and confused; indeed the stars would then lose their life, if they had no motion, and would be as if dead—like a man who, deprived of the living breath, has no more movement.

No star in the sky rests; each has its movement and imparts its influence to every thing. The sun is finally, a hundred times greater than the earth; yet it runs every day across the heaven from its rising to its setting. From the influence of the stars everyone should know that they are the first treasure-chambers of God the Almighty, from which He marvelously distributes His temporal gifts and goods—both to us humans and then to the great world as well.

Paracelsus holds that in the stars are contained all natural wisdom, art, and skill that a person can invent and practice on earth; hence arise the great artists and natural masters in all kinds of arts and inventions. For Nature drives the minds of such people with intense reflection to devote themselves to the arts, so that God’s work may be made manifest and brought forth—to the honor of God and for the benefit of men.

For thus God has ordered it and placed such natural treasures in the heaven as in His hidden treasuries, so that in His time He may bring all this to day and light through human beings, and distribute the same—to whom, where, how, and when He wills. And in this way—namely, through this marvelous operation and impression—the heavens declare the glory of God, and the firmament proclaims the work of His hands (Ps. 19). Which, he says, happens not only through the greatness of the heaven, and through the order and measured course of the stars, but chiefly through their effects.

Hence come the inventors of things—not that they invent out of themselves, but as instruments through which heaven brings to completion an influence implanted by God and drives the arts out of God’s hidden treasuries into the light, even as a tree brings forth its fruit in its season. So you should understand the stars by their effects, and not otherwise.

They have their appointed time for bringing forth their fruits. Whoever is a good astronomer—who understands the stars more than the mere reckoning art—knows where, how, and when such a “tree” in heaven blossoms and yields its fruit. In this way the heavens declare the glory of God, and the firmament proclaims the work of His hands.

Concerning the influence of heaven, you must know that, whatever is extraordinary, it is not that heaven and the stars do something evil of themselves (as some imagine), but that the wickedness of men causes God to arm the creatures for punishment (cf. Wisdom; also Gen. 7, when God punished the sin of the first humans by the Flood).

And just as God uses the creatures for chastisement, so He also gives and uses the same…

…the same also for the protection, shelter, help, blessing, and salvation of the godly and faithful. In the book of Judges (5:20) it is written: “From heaven they fought; the stars in their courses fought against Sisera.” And by wind and weather Emperor Theodosius struck down his enemies.

As for the natural effects of heaven, everyone should know that the firmament of the great world gives its outward fruits to mankind daily and without ceasing; for all the meteors that later follow—fruits and spices—are born of the stars.

First, the clouds are born of the stars. Sirach 43: “At God’s command they store up His treasures, and the clouds stand like a tent. In His power He has set the clouds.”

At another time they bring forth mist—for by their power and operation it has been drawn up from the earth. Jeremiah 10: “When the Lord makes His voice heard, He causes an abundance of water in the heavens, and He brings up the vapors from the ends of the earth.” Psalm 147 likewise says that He covers the heaven with clouds.

At yet another time the stars, through their marvelous course, bring forth snow: God the Lord makes the snow fall by His command (Sirach 43; Psalm 148).

…as also in Job 37: “He says to the snow, ‘Be upon the earth,’ and it comes quickly; and to the downpour, and it is there in power.”

Then they bring forth cold and frost. “From the south comes the storm; from the north, cold; from the breath of God the frost comes.” (Job 37) — Here, my friend, observe the almightiness of God: at one time the breath of God is fire, a light, a dew; here it becomes a frost.

After this they bring forth ice. “Out of whose womb came the ice? and who has begotten the hoarfrost under the heaven?” (Job 38)

At another time they bring forth hail and snow: “Have you entered the treasures of the snow? or have you seen the storehouses of the hail, which I have prepared for the day of battle and war?” (Job 38)

In its season they bring forth flames of fire and heat, thunder, lightning, and thunderclap. “Can you cause your thunder to sound in the clouds? Can you send forth the lightnings, that they may go and say, ‘Here we are’?” (Job 38) Likewise: “Fire goes before Him and burns up His enemies round about; His lightnings light up the world; the earth sees and trembles; the mountains melt like wax before the Lord, the Lord of all the earth.” (Ps. 97)

“The sun makes it hotter than many furnaces, and burns the mountains and breathes out nothing but heat” (Sirach 43)

In their season they also bring rain, without which the earth cannot grow green; the Lord will open His good treasure, the heavens, to give rain to your land in its season. (Deut. 28)

Here everyone sees that God alone has the key to His treasury and lets it rain when we ask Him for it. (Ps. 147) He alone has numbered the drops of rain. Are there among the heathen any gods that can make rain? Or does the heaven give rain if You do not will it? (Jer. 14) By His wisdom the clouds are broken open, and the clouds drip with dew. (Prov. 3) Who is the father of the rain? Who has numbered the drops of the dew? (Job 38)

“If you walk in My commandments,” I will give you rain in its season, and the land shall yield its produce; the trees of the field shall bear their fruit. (Lev. 26) Therefore let us ask God and fear Him, who gives us early and late rain in its time and faithfully keeps our harvest year by year. (Jer. 5) Can you shut up the water-skins of heaven? (Job 38)

After the rain comes the rainbow. Look upon the rainbow and praise Him who made it: how beautiful it is in its splendor! It encircles the heaven with its clear brightness; the hand of the Most High has made it and spread it out; it shines most beautifully in its clouds (Sirach 43).

The rainbow is God’s witness in the clouds, a sign of grace, a mirror of God’s covenant with mankind and with all living creatures upon the earth (cf. Gen. 9).

Note. In its season they also form for us the dew; the dew gladdens the grass and cools the heat (Sirach). “From the dew the roses bloom, its roots spread about, and its young shoots stretch far” (Hos. 14).

“The heaven has withheld its dew from you, and the earth its produce” (Hag. 1). Mildew is a great punishment; as Haggai 2 says: “I smote you with drought, mildew, and hail in all the work of your hands.” (See also Amos 4.)

In its season they bring forth the wind: “God has weighed the wind and measured the waters with a fixed measure” (Job 28).

“He it is who brings the wind out of its secret places, out of his treasuries” (Ps. 135). And in Revelation 7 we read that John “saw four angels standing at the four corners of the earth, holding back the four winds of the earth, so that no wind might blow on the earth or on the sea or against any tree.”

The four winds each have their own particular name; the east wind comes from the east wind comes from the morning, hot and dry—the wind by which the bed of the Red Sea was laid bare (Exod. 14). “The Lord will bring an east wind up from the desert and will dry up the fountains.”

The south wind comes from midday, warm and moist, pleasant to the philosophers. Job 37: “Do your clothes grow hot when the land is still by the south wind?” And Luke 12: “When you see the south wind blowing, you say, It will soon rain, and so it happens.”

The west wind comes from sunset, cold and moist; in Exod. 10 the Lord raised a very strong west wind, which carried off the locusts and cast them into the sea.

The fourth, the north wind, comes from midnight, cold and dry; when the cold north wind blows, a bright crystal is formed from the water (Sirach 43).

All these are fruits of heaven, which God lets sinful people enjoy daily. I wish that everyone might receive them with thanksgiving and accept them. Then he will also make himself a partaker of the divine blessing promised him by the prophet Hosea, chap. 2, where he says: “I will answer the heavens, and the heavens shall answer the earth; and the earth shall answer with grain, wine, and oil; and they shall answer Israel.”

A wise man heeds this, recognizes God’s grace, goodness, and guidance, and gives to Him alone praise and thanks. For Job says: “Do you discern the track of darkness? Do you know the way where light dwells? Can you bind the bands of the Pleiades, or loose the cords of Orion? Can you bring forth the morning star in its season, or guide the Wagon (Great Bear) over its children? Do you know how the heavens are spread out, or can you master them upon the earth? Can you make the thunder sound in the clouds, send forth the lightnings, and shut up the bottles of heaven?” (cf. Job 38)

Does not God alone say, “Let there be lights in the firmament of heaven to divide day and night, and let them be for signs and for seasons, for days and years”? And God made two great lights—the greater light to rule the day and the lesser light to rule the night. (Genesis 1)

Is it not a wonder that the moon waxes in the evening? By this arrangement God wished to do us sinful humans this good, so that we can order seasons, years, and days accordingly, not to praise above all the goodness and wisdom of God—ah yes!

Each month brings forth its proper fruits from year to year; in particular the month of March is a truly philosophical month, because in that time—after the cold and rough winter—the heaven and the earth begin to grow green, and from the great treasure-chest of God everything we desire and need is brought forth and offered to us in abundance. Therefore we should thank God that He has ordered everything so wisely and for our good. We should not, like blind heathens, idolize the creatures, but give honor to God alone, who lets them appear and shine for our benefit. This God Himself has forbidden, as in Deut. 4, where He says: “Take heed lest you lift up your heart, and when you see the sun and the moon, you worship them; for the Lord God has made them for the service of all peoples under heaven.”

A true philosopher must also here recognize and love the Sun of righteousness, Jesus Christ; this light of grace shines upon all people, and whoever does not recognize it will not truly be able to enjoy and take delight in the fruits of the earthly suns, moons, and stars. Christ Himself testifies to it when He says in John 8: “I am the light of the world; whoever follows me, will not walk in darkness, but will have the light of life.”

What the element of water is has likewise been clearly set before us—together with all its fruits and gifts—in Genesis 1, where God said:

“Let the waters swarm with living, moving creatures, and let birds fly above the earth in the firmament of heaven.” And God said, “Be fruitful and multiply, and fill the waters in the seas.” — Psalm 104: “The sea, so great and wide—there teems innumerable creatures, both great and small.”

Water is a soft, moist, flowing, and nourishing element; distinct from the other elements, and endowed with special gifts for the benefit of humankind. It contains within itself the first matter of all things—seeds, fish, stones, metals, minerals, and salts. It has its appointed places and courses, and brings forth all kinds of produce; its channels extend through the whole globe of the earth, together with waters and rivers, minerals and metals.

In the earth it has its fearsome depths, cavities, and veins, through which it is pressed by the air and the primum mobile. It goes round the whole earth and, according to the course and shining of the moon, brings forth its principles its laws and preservation have been so wondrously and incomprehensibly ordained by God that even the wisest have little understanding of it. Water generates or bears its fruits in the earth, just as the plants of the earth have their seed and root in the ground—yet all of them ripen in the air and through the air.

The earth brings everything forth, and nothing remains hidden in it; rather every seed separates itself from the earth and rises up into the air. Water likewise puts forth its produce—namely metals, minerals, and saline seeds—all from the mother of the element, water. Into another matter, which is the earth, it carries out its full operation and effect; yet its root and power are in the water. Trees and herbs have their roots in the earth, upon and within the earth; but everything is made perfect and complete in its final material form in the air. Thus it happens in the earth chiefly because it grows out of water.

Therefore do not be misled when the philosophers ascribe such “water-fruits”—metals, mineral “twins” (ores), and stones—to the earth; for they are not fruits of the earth, though they grow in it, as Scripture attests, but they have their seed and roots in water.

The earth has been endowed by God with the seeds and powers of trees, herbs, and flowers and grass—these are the fruits of the earth, and no more, as God the Lord said (Genesis 1): “Let the earth bring forth grass and herbs, and fruit-bearing trees.” Consider the difference between the earth’s plants and the metals: each has its own particular origin and element.

All true philosophers know that minerals and metals are of the nature of water, having their first matter or seed in water. Therefore you must learn to distinguish properly the elements together with their fruits, so that the wondrous works of God may be recognized and examined.

Rivers and brooks are a fruit of the element [of water], yet not the element itself; rather, water has its home in the outermost sea, whence all waters come and whither they must return. Thus writes Solomon (Ecclesiastes 1): “All waters flow into the sea, yet the sea is not filled; to the place whence the waters come, thither they return again.” Why the sea tastes salty has its important reasons, which will be explained at another time.

And just as waters, rivers, brooks, and rills are the branches of the element water, so it is with metals and minerals—gold, silver, copper, iron, tin, lead, mercury, precious stones, salt, alum, vitriol, and likewise acid, sweet, cold, and even hot springs, quarries, clefts, and the like—whose distribution throughout the whole earth—come from the element of water. For all these have their seed, first matter, root, and stock in water.

Consider now what you have learned here, and praise the wisdom and goodness of God, the almighty Creator: because He has made these fruits of the waters in such variety, and because of His loving distribution of them He has prevented great poverty among men. This concerns not only gold and silver, but also all kinds of pearls, agate, amber, and precious stones. These were not created for vanity and display, but for human health and to manifest the wonders of God. (See Job 28; and what the twelve precious stones in the high priest’s garment signify, which the Almighty intended thereby—Exodus 28.)

In how many places does God the Lord give waters and springs! Some are stone-springs (mineral springs), some salt-springs; there are warm waters that carry medicinal powers. Just as the earth yields fruits of every kind—sour, sweet, and bitter—so water also yields its fruits.

Here it is especially to be observed that the sea, and all that is in it, has its order, seasons, and motions appointed by God, just as do all the other elements.

In the heavens are the astra or stars, which have their order and motion—their risings and settings. On earth, all fruits likewise have their order, time, and movement, and they appear in their appointed season; thus the earth is in perpetuo motu, in constant motion, so that by it all fruits come forth. Since God has given and imparted life and motion to every creature, why should He not also have given and imparted it to the sea, which is so great and vast? Whoever has understanding will perceive and believe this when he observes its motion, ebb and flood. The sea has its invisible astra—spirits and powers—just as all the other elements do; through their movement the sea is driven so that it daily ebbs and flows.

And just as God created all the elements out of nothing, and also all kinds of animals—fish and birds—and gave each its life and being, so He also created man in His image, Adam. Into him He breathed a living breath, laid him to sleep, and made for him from his ribs a helper, likewise endowed with a rational living soul. Although much was revealed to Adam in the state of his innocence—for him and his descendants—yet the highest and noblest was again withdrawn through his fall withdrawn and taken away.

Yet there still remains in him and his descendants so much wisdom that they know how to seek out and distinguish the power, form, and nature of each element. God has created us all; by His holy, almighty providence we and all creatures are preserved, nourished, and cared for. In Psalm 65 David says: “Thou hearest prayer; therefore shall all flesh come unto Thee.” And in Psalm 36: “O Lord, Thou savest man and beast.” Yes, God hears and helps all who believe in Him and who call upon Him for His help and blessing; the Spirit of the Lord is always watchful over us; we pray and also receive Him when we diligently seek and desire Him.

Thus David also says in Psalm 104: “When Thou givest to them, they gather; when Thou openest Thy hand, they are filled with good.”

God has a special eye upon His own; without His will not a hair shall fall from their head. He wills to keep and preserve each one in the midst of his enemies; therefore commit thy way unto the Lord. For God is and remains man’s strength and beauty; man is His vessel and instrument of the works, wisdom, and power of God.

Beloved,

Everything that has here been presented in sequence accords with God and with Nature; by His holy will He has been pleased to order all things thus. God would gladly have every person helped—provided that man deals with the creature, that is, with Nature, and not against it.

Now there are thousands who undertake to discover a certain thing by which they might obtain and keep long life, health, and riches. But as many lovers of this art as there are, so many different heads and opinions are found; they are so befogged and darkened by ignorance and blindness that they themselves do not know what they want or what they seek. Many are filled with notions that serve for nothing but to cause harm. Most people cannot procure every sort of book. I wish to extract and communicate what is useful from a few authors only. Yet it is to be lamented that the foolish world strives after wealth and nevertheless squanders its substance, along with its precious time, on useless things. And when such a person ought, in his need, to turn to an honest man who knows how to instruct him in all truth, he doubts that teaching, fusses and pokes about with his dull coals, and would rather throw his efforts to the winds—so that one often hires a chimney–sweep a sweep—yes, rather a sweeper of chimneys—than a wise whole-goose; at the end he admits his errors and would gladly give ten times more, or wish he had given it already. If only he could be led and guided on the right path! But periculum in mora—delay is dangerous. I must confess I myself have shown many the right way; yet for lack of natural understanding and insight these people have remained in blindness. I have seen that God has willed to grant such a one nothing.

---

An Extract on the Origin and Excellence of the Quintessence called Olympus Terrae, which is the sole true materia prima of the philosophers, from Theophrastus’s cabalistic testimonies.

In the name of the holy, undivided Trinity we will begin, to open a heavenly report and a spiritual inquiry: how the only Son of God—by the sole Word from the Father and His eternal Godhead—was born into this world through the most pure and most moist vessel, Mary. All this is ineffable and inscrutable as the Trinity, hidden, has from the beginning existed in the one Godhead.

There follows now this reply, as far as is seemly, and a clear report:

First, God the Father was from eternity: an immortal fire and an eternal light, full of spirit and everlasting brightness—without any beginning and without any end; a sovereign God, who remains from the beginning unto all eternity and works great wonders forever and ever.

Now I will indicate by a similitude: the spirit (ignis) is stronger than the body; yet in life lies the soul, until it penetrates the third and middle thing, which is of an entirely fiery form. And since the spirit in it was so strong in itself, it was enclosed in the divine essence; therefore it was called by the angels a God of all things, a ruling Lord.

This Spirit—fiery, ardent love—was thus hidden in the Godhead, and thus remained without end the governing divine Spirit. And by His powerful, life-giving Word He created the heaven of heavens, the earth, and everything upon and beneath it. (Note: And the Word was GOD Himself—the Spirit who made all this.) Note also: before this, the Spirit of God hovered over the waters.

These sublime matters of all matters shall further to grasp this is far beyond human reason, and one ought not to dispute further about it. For such a great mystery has from eternity to eternity been invisible and incomprehensible; yet by His almighty power He has so ordained it and has revealed Himself to humankind. For the souls of all people Christ gave Himself up, and through Him all created works have been made known—for He bore witness to His omnipotence by great wonders.

And when the Spirit of God hovered over the waters, a separation took place. After this separation God ordered the four elements; then the sun, moon, and stars, and the seven planets. Heaven and earth were created by God’s power; thus the hidden became manifest. It is a secret atrium: the all-wholesome and most blessed essence has come forth—that which has existed from eternity—and has allowed itself to be known through all its wondrous works, both visible and invisible.

From this there have been disclosed perceptible, earthly gifts, to grant the inner being great understanding. Each thing, in the constitution given to it, has shown itself fruitful and useful, and thus continues ever in its power by God’s ordinance. After this, God made mankind last of all and formed him in His image, so that to him…

…is distinguished by its form—set apart from all other things and different from every other thing. You find this clearly described by Moses, the servant of God.

For this same human being He fashioned, and He drew him forth out of the saline quintessence, which was locked up in the Terra Olympi, pure, clean, and clear. Now if this terra is thus called a “salt-spirit,” in which such lofty mysteries lie hidden, then in these matters one must reflect more deeply and inquire more clearly; it is needful and prudent. Yet to write further of it—this would be far too burdensome for a god-fearing worker.

Therefore let us refrain from such hair-splitting in these arcana; let us not brood further on them, lest anyone go astray. Instead I will speak to you of the materia in a natural way, touching only upon such high secrets, and then explain myself further.

To begin, then, with the metals and all minerals: these are found nowhere else than in the mountains and in the earthy realm, where the mineral water is together with its admixture and dwells with it. There they either grow on continually or lie at rest. From there proceed the root together with the materia philosophorum and its inherent power—this materia is to be found in water and in fire.

Now this is the true materia: a water that is not wet, and yet it is the elemental water.
(NB. Hic est nodus gordius—here is the Gordian knot—over which many thousands have broken their heads, and still do so daily, going astray and erring. I believe that, unless a person is taught and shown it by diligent reading of these and other writings that bear witness to the truth—indeed, instinctu divini Dei (by the prompting of the divine God)—or else by a faithful master, it is impossible that anyone should discover or comprehend it on their own.)

When some lover of the art is to lend a little advance to an honest practitioner fallen into need, spirit and unbelief will not allow him to assist the physicians; instead his over-clever understanding and wit lead and drive him into all sorts of useless smearing and stirring, and to bellows and coal-fires—now this, now that “specific” substance must be procured at great expense. Yet even that is not enough: all manner of procedures must then be undertaken with it, the principia separated and then reunited. In this way, and according to his own wish and will, the “universal” is supposed to come forth and be produced. In the end such dabblers learn that all the expense and toil of the laboratory, together with their precious time, have been lost. Such searching has need of a truly fervent, upright heart toward God and of an upright man, and…

…let this person consider how uselessly all that expense was squandered. Help, eternal God—what joy would heart, soul, and mind not feel if only he attained possession of this true Water of the Holy Spirit, and then came to the natural knowledge of the metallic salt! I say it plainly, with a certain friend in mind: whoever wishes to attempt anything in this art—indeed, let him not presume to do the least thing—until the one true [matter] is known to him. If he does not have it and does not know it, then let him honorably make himself known to such a friend from whom he can receive sufficient instruction on how to draw out the subject and employ it. Even if it should cost a large sum of money, he ought not to repent of it; for as soon as he knows the true subject—and the magnet that attracts it—he will immediately recognize that this one thing is the true, unassailable truth. His heart and mind will rejoice greatly, and he will then be calm and prepared to look through all of Nature.

Therefore I advise—and I beg all workers—to cease their useless labors for a time; otherwise it will go with them as was described in the Proemium: they have putrefied and calcined so long that all wood, coals, and other things have turned into dust and ashes, and their very clothes have rotted on their bodies. He who has ears, let him hear: my words are set forth in Christian love and goodwill. It is all one thing that cannot be a water without the earth. My friend and fellow-inquirer, how do you understand this?

It is—and comes—from the earth; the earth is the food, nurse, and preserver of such a matter. It is spiritually full of spiritual life; heavenly, earthly, magnetic. It is refreshed by the pure dew of heaven; the earth harbors it and is its mother. For from the beginning there has been a spirit, an air, a fire, a water; this gathers them all up and encloses everything into one.

Now heaven is crowned with many stars, with sun and moon; this materia likewise cannot live without the working influence of heaven, nor become fruitful; indeed nothing whatever could endure without such heavenly, materially working power—this spirit and salt-spirit unceasingly at work.

For all life is and comes from above, and every life has its different course; therefore every thing has, upon the earth and beneath the earth in the roots of its spheres, its own salt-spirit and its star—so too do metals and minerals, plants and animals…

…animals have it in themselves, and likewise all humans; and every work and creature has its own spirit and its own star. All life comes down from above—this has often been said.

Which spirits and stars, however, serve their natural creatures and truly aid them—this high grace is known to few people. Therefore the “Materia” is known to few and is found by few, because it bears so many names; from this comes more error than good.

Since all blessing and all gifts—indeed grace itself—come down from above, the spirit of life first longs for water; water longs for the earth and for the spirit, that the two together may accomplish their effect; heaven appropriates all this. This happens in a threefold manner—note it well—out of the One Thing, which God from the beginning made wondrous.

Through fire, water, air, and spirit all things have passed—are compounded, duly built, and made fruitful. From that hidden measure there comes forth our “guest of pearl” to the human being to whom it is revealed; and upon whom this signature-star has fallen, that one will obtain this treasure and bring forth its operative power.

We know quite certainly that water has its dwelling with the earth; water, too, must be transformed into earth. Understand this: then from our matter there rises a spiritual, subtle creature. Its extract and product is a salty being, and an incombustible, lasting fiery oil—the key that unlocks all things and turns them into its own likeness.

Thus water and earth must constantly be mixed and dwell together; the earthly and the heavenly must mingle and join—since from the beginning there were water and spirit. Heaven is the purest; it has in itself its astral, fiery, watery soul, which works unceasingly day and night. These two are united: when water is mingled with fire, it is transformed into a spiritual being in which the fiery spirit lies hidden; it dies and is born anew.

The earth also has its sun, its waters, its air, its foundations. Far lovelier greenery lies hidden beneath than what is seen above—grounds which the philosophers call “blessed.” Of this enough has been said. Learn to mix the water with the fire; thereby you will open the seed of the metal, it will devour it, and quickly turn it into a flowing tincture-powder, revealing it as a spirit and a permanent water, and bringing it back to water and to mercury.

Through such “built-up” earths, and by the mingling of spiritual water, such water becomes an earth. When this water is united with the fiery spirit—since it is of a cold nature, lively, and has within itself an ascending cold spirit—it is in truth a subtly extracted salt which, once no spirit can further dissolve it, is made wholly fire-resistant and enduring in its power and virtue.

The ancients could find no other salt or ash that lays open the root of all things as this does. All this is a spiritual substance; it is spiritually veiled, as can be seen with sea-waters. Likewise in urine: when the water is separated from it, poisonous salts remain—these must be thoroughly purged and cleansed of their acridity.

What you find, seek, and behold in the great world is also found in the small world. This is a true likeness and indication of the saline body among the materials cast off by man—and yet it is the best; this is transformed into a spiritual, incombustible magistery. Let this no longer be forgotten, for in it lies the Art and all mastery.

Now it has been said of the Philosophical Work that what is moist and material is brought into clear revelation. There are also two different ways toward this one way happens quite naturally, through various manual operations yet with the same materials; the other path is worked in an artificial, philosophical manner. Yet they all correspond to one another, namely: a pure spirit, a fixed salt-spirit together with its spiritual earths. In this the whole work is contained: it is drawn from the Terra Olympi, brought forth in a heavenly manner and mixed together into one.

The other [thing] is the final astrum of such a matter; this is revealed supernaturally and made known by God alone.

But the heavenly fire is much clearer and wholly astral; not watery, airy, or cold, but fiery. Therefore it is said that one should indeed continue to work with it. With things thus prepared—the fire hidden in the cold water—which is a fine, clear being. For the heavenly [thing] requires no purification; but the philosophical earth does. Through such frequent renewals of these earths and such preparations, everything becomes fruitful.

The heaven of Saturn has a much subtler anima than other saline earths can accomplish. Yet this is the divine center, the matter and mother of a world. And the water has its fiery spirit with it, which hovers there, proceeding in strong motion, according to judgment and according to the heavenly, astral order of God, day and night, eternally without end, endless, imperishable, and inextinguishable in its operative power. Proceed only with this massa, for up to now it has remained to the world entirely waste and desolate, without fruit, dark and void, lying silently unrecognized—hidden from all eyes and hearts and deemed unreasonable. Yet by the gracious will of God, all that is hidden will be revealed in its time.

Now concerning such repeated division and conversion of the natures of the elements, I wish to speak clearly in good spagyric fashion; from this alone the earth becomes wholly fruitful, for it proves its effective aid here very strongly—namely, that one must bring forth from it that which is its own, everything that is the quintessence and the most subtle in such earth. This is to be mixed with the water of such high clarity and great power, so that it again becomes water—for it has been water; therefore the water of the earth is once more rendered suitable for a fluidity. This is said simply and plainly; yet it occurs naturally and wisely through natural, humble considerations, since this nature appears quite lowly—thus it requires no lofty thoughts.

This high mystery, set forth with a closer argument and indicated at length as a testament, has now been sufficiently reported; thus it still happens that often mixed with a lengthy renewal through the power of the water; and with this philosophical earth a perfect work will be achieved. Yet you should persist in the work with the very first things. And this is essential to know: our water is a false body, a volatile spirit, and an airy soul; the spirit continually carries the body upward and then back down again, until the one becomes like the other; but the anima must always remain unharmed, resting in place of the body—this can thereafter greatly gladden the artist. When such a conversion has been completed, and the same things are then employed again with another reiteration, the anima remains impalpable, an entirely invisible spirit.

This is a clearly exalted salt, from which are born a fixed stone and an incombustible oil, highly clarified; this is revealed spiritually, and all of it appears according to its outward form—lowly at first, at last supernatural in the eternal Essence, as it was from the beginning; from this a new fruit will show itself.

It is now evident that our matter is a pure water, a spirit, a heavenly fire, a purely spiritual, extracted salt. It is born of the sun—fair, pure, clear, and manifest—created wholly clean and pure; within it dwells the fire that of the divine essence proceeds. Outwardly it is the greatest poison, but inwardly the best good and the highest medicine.

Therefore, take careful heed, worker, that you thoroughly clarify your earth and incorporate it in purity; thus purify the anima highly, so that afterward it may worthily receive the seed—make it worthy and highly qualified—and you have won.

Look to the first father and to the spagyric art of Hermes, who speaks thus:
“If you feed my red son with gold, then I am gold; if you feed him with Luna, then I am silver; likewise with Venus, then it becomes Venus.”

The bodies you wish to prepare must first all be purified, and so it goes on with all the other metals; this spirit drives them powerfully upward. In this way countless progeny are produced from a small weight.

If you work outside these rules, you will go astray; for although the first philosophers at the beginning indeed made use of this materia and highest secret and had great knowledge from nature, they did not yet receive the grace to experience this stone’s operation, nor its perfect work or its completion, nor its augmentation; for from this no clear process has been found, and the name of such a matter still remains hidden; they have neither, “anima,” nor “spirit,” nor such “salt” have they called it—just as in former times there were the magi and cabalists, many of whom lived in Chaldea, in Persia and in Egypt, and also elsewhere in Alexandria; all of these confirm the matter and say that you ought to work in this way.

Mark this well: you must seek these spiritual, heavenly things, and you must separate them from the coarse earthly things, strive after the first spiritual things, join them into one, and then proceed—just as the farmer is accustomed to do, who first tills and manures his field and only afterward casts in the seed. There he lets the seed rot and sprout; God so disposes it that no hand need touch it again until it is fully ripe. Thus rain and sun help to act and to work. So it is with our work: it is accomplished by the divine will and by nature’s operative aid.

As for the fire and the coals that we apply to such matter—seek them in our spiritual efficacy, and that is already sufficient. We let the seed rot and putrefy—the red or the white fixed matter; our own work must dissolve this, close it up within itself, bring it to purification, dissolve it, cleanse it, then recombine and cook it until it has become completely fixed, pure, and clear. Concerning this there will be for man to rejoice greatly in. If you work in this wisely and diligently, it will shine clearly; you will happily bring the work to completion. Let this be said to you sufficiently—and taken as a charge.

This has now been said to you enough; I am also duly bound to urge that you act according to the same thread of linen—according to the true straight line—pursue it diligently, and permit yourself nothing else than this, wherever it may lead or guide you. You must faithfully follow this very path. You must artfully draw forth this anima; that is, you must till the right field, seek the natural seed, and learn to recognize the spirit very well and naturally. This seed and spirit you must then put into the earth and into the heaven, divide into two parts so that from them one may again come to be—well mixed and joined together.

Proceed thus with the one part: after you have obtained the seed and cast it into the prepared field, it is necessary to know this—that you do not act ineptly in the matter, as many husbandmen go astray, imagining and agreeing on this and that, mixing the contrary with the good. Therefore they have achieved nothing in the art, because they have known nothing with certainty.

Now follow the teaching of those who have gone this path, practiced the Art, and received grace from God; for by God’s grace I too have experienced this, and therefore I faithfully advise you and plainly disclose it.

As the Ancients intimate—so it should remain—one must not make it common to every workman. I would also warn such people (you will find this in the Turba): you should take nothing more than the rose-colored blood of the Red Eagle, and from the White Eagle the pure “gluten”; these you must mix—this I tell you. After this there follows a third thing, as is proper; do not forget to bring this into one, for without the third no perfect work comes from it.

Mark above all that God created heaven and earth by His eternal Word. But before that there was nothing else than the Spirit of God and the water; the water, however, was separated and, mixed with fire, made clear and one. (N.B.) These two things alone are required for the Work, and nothing more. The third is resolved into these two; they become one thing. For this Work we seek nothing else than soul, spirit, and body—that is, fire and water—together with the earth; with this single matter we have all that is needed.

Since all this lies hidden in the sap of the primum ens and is well shut up, we seek only the One Thing. Yet it is highly necessary that the third [thing] also, in due manner, come to this its own; by means of it you will attain your desired goal and make yourself worthy of the perfect Tincture.

First, you must thoroughly cleanse our matter with water; you must, as earth and spirit, well mingle it with the seed and make them one, bringing forth the noble salt-spirit. For without such a magistery in the salt we accomplish nothing at all—this I tell you. I will further inform you that everything which once, in the beginning, was brought together must remain together and henceforth no longer be separated from one another; for the lower must become like the upper; both parts must come again into one—not remaining behind, but being brought of themselves to perfection.

First, however, it is turned back into that which it was from the beginning; this we must once more seal up into one. This is called working divinely; through His help alone does anything proceed. Concerning this the matter has now been treated most clearly: let him who has ears hear what the Spirit has proclaimed and taught through the Fathers.

For these things are in truth not fables or idle words, but divine and lofty mysteries. Therefore you must preserve the anima—as also what here is called the spirit of salt, which has become an impalpable thing—in a pure, clear form; this you shall join to the other part. Bring in, as said, the right spirit, unite it well and set it in its proper place, which accords with the elemental, spiritual earth— for it can be nothing else. For the matter must be pure, clear, well-mingled and manifest, tempered with water, with fire, air, and cold; so it shall be prepared. With the extracted earths, with every fair and fragrant pleasantness brought lovingly together into one, and, through the powers of the first heaven, generated—clear and clothed with astral virtue: mark this well.

Thus our matter is transformed into a spiritual liquor or substance—plainly so—which water (kept and captured by the north wind) and biblical fire have brought about. All this is closed up in three, and again in new [vessels], and set upon a stage high in the circle of the sun. For by a silky, gentle warmth the hidden thing is revealed; and by the same, as the fire increases, there follows swift boiling, and it is improved, toward the unfin— [text breaks] … of the Stone’s highest perfection, appearing clarified.

Thus, by this all things are now made manifest; for thereafter it is brought forth in the Art into the highest true materia for the Stone, and into a universal, oil-like substance, which is preserved even without earth, and which, ever and always penetrating, becomes in all things more worthy and powerfully endowed with spirit. This is now the perfect fluid Stone.

Yet it must further be known that, in its restoration, this requires and must have an entry of the red, fixed spirit (the animati spiritus). However, no other mixed blending with any foreign thing takes place; it accepts nothing that is not of its own kind. Only the blood of the Sun [i.e., of gold] is lacking to our matter; through this it becomes penetrating and wholly complete; thereafter it brings forth several colors, and thus the work progresses the faster. Our Stone is clothed in black, white, yellow, and red; the fire of gold is its operative aid and highest clarity, and it colors this Stone ruby-red.

Because the beautiful yellow color of itself cannot bring forth the red color, it must then—and duly so, as it must happen at the beginning—arise out of the black color; this becomes the raven’s head, from the white [the peackock] called Mercurius; from it shines forth the most beautiful, clear white color; and, at the highest degree of perfection, it also brings forth the ruby-red color, and it gleams like the clear morning star.
Whoever is happily sustained by God and counted worthy before God should not abuse this blessing, but rather praise and thank God for His highest benefactions. The Spirit of Scripture works ever and always; it awakens souls and cleanses the conscience of the spirit. The spirit is diligent and scarcely ever grows weary, so that good fruits may be built up and the truth made manifest.

Many seek God’s gifts and labor in vain; they grow faint and sullen, and afterward they reproach God’s gifts, as though the Fathers had written falsehoods; thus, like would-be experts, they often go astray in the matter—and so God allows the despisers to be deceived.

Now follows a brief sentence about the matter of the high Tincture, namely that three things dwell in this one: soul, body, and spirit. Soul and spirit are interpenetrating; within them there is a golden Mercurius and a fixed Sulphur—the high Tincture. Color is contained in gold alone; therefore, if soul and spirit inhabit our matter, then Sulphur and Mercurius have been manifested—for fixation and coagulation; the ore is properly opened, also bound and overcome; the fire is concealed within our Stone. This, then, is in the briefest terms the foundation and content of the whole art, in which beginning, means, and end are contained.

Thus victory and triumph are obtained with little struggle, without great toil and labor, begun and completed with very small expense. Only the dissolved (destroyed) gold is the means that gives our Stone its ferment. It is made entirely spiritual and very subtle by a steady, gentle cooking in a vessel that is of its own nature; thereby everything is brought into use and prepared. Our philosophical salt performs all that now belongs to the work—so that it remains steadfast and becomes wholly perfect, becoming so fluid and intimate that fire and water, which are otherwise utterly contrary things, become one substance in this work. For the artist’s hand has reconciled them by God’s will. The pure, purified spirit of Mercury loosens the bonds of bodies better so that they can readily be dissolved.

Saturn says: “My power and strength are outwardly much greater than inwardly; my spirit is hot and fiery. I am calcined, and yet I am a living coagulated water; my hot vapor penetrates all bodies; the gold must surrender to me; I make it volatile, I fix it, and I make the body pure and fire-resistant. My help cannot well be dispensed with; what I grasp I overcome, and I keep it as spoil; I do not regard the impure. In my bath gold and silver are dissolved and completely left [i.e., freed]. I am a crystal, and salt frozen into vinegar; the true conqueror of the metals, their humiliation and their first beginning.”

After the first death, the pure bodies are led into my bath and are thus pure and newly born. From this the treasure of the ancients is revealed; the Fathers have left to all their descendants their writings as a testimony, as a testament; from above it is granted to us—namely the heavenly inheritance. There we should follow what is written, working with nature and not against nature.

This teaches—and the true, single Art teaches—from the one thing alone, which can master all things, in the inward metallic essence, which brings forth its shadow [astrum/aurum]; the outer body is mortal, dies and passes away; the inner remains—this is pure and clean, as soul and spirit. To these we give a new, clear body in which we should seek and work. They have sought and worked their goals in the right matter; yet each one has gone by a shorter and nearer path have gone; some have come to a good end, but some have accomplished nothing. A good beginning brings a good end—let this be enjoined upon you.

Here follows a brief instruction for the Philosophical Work.

Where Nature has ceased, there the Artist must begin to work. Seek the gluten in the common mercury; draw from it its soul and spirit by means of acetum; to this anima give the blood of the sun; hide soul and spirit in the philosophical fiery living water; let it, with gentle warmth, look well around and unite, purify, and pass through all colors until one nature has taken on the other, and bring it to its perfection, until from it there results a stony, ruby-red stone. Thus you have found a heavenly fire and the highest astrum, which works great wonders in human and metallic bodies; this you should now esteem as the greatest treasure. For it is accomplished with one regimen, in one vessel, in one furnace; without any toil or labor from beginning to end, and nothing foreign is used—nothing at all other than the flower of the Red Lion or the White Eagle.

The second (thing) is agreeable to it, and is called Azoth; with this the entire work is accomplished.

The third is the water, our philosophical fire. I tell you in very truth: take no other thing—this is the rule and the sum of all. The true particular shows you the right foundation and the truly shortest path by which gold and silver are opened, broken, and overcome.

This is now contained only in brief rules—not too lofty nor too difficult, but Our anima and spirit, the ancients called the soul of the world, the spirit of life. Just as soul and spirit rule and dwell in the blood and in the life of a person, permeate the substance in all the veins, and move themselves spiritually, so too do the soul and spirit of our matter permeate the mineral forms through their smoke and vapor. By the proper fiery motion the metals are thus dissolved and opened; this is accomplished solely through solution and calcination. The spirit sets the bodies in motion; for, as already stated, the spirit of our matter acts—it destroys and breaks the metallic substance. This spirit dwells in all the elements; it is full of smoke and wind, yet cold and fiery. By some it is called—and held to be of little worth—a bitter a juice, and yet within it the very greatest sweetness lies hidden—that is the anima, the Azoth.

There have been many reflections on this lowly thing and many judgments passed upon it; people seek it in the heights and in the far distance—yet it is near at hand and set in the depths. It works according to God’s order; He has also stretched it forth and brought it to this conclusion. All destroyed bodies are by this single seed strengthened again, highly ennobled, and found to be perfect by this help alone. Its outward form is of a more earthly nature—quite impure. But its spirit and soul are pure, and from them it fashions a new, pure body. Therefore in this work we need no foreign aid, nor many things, but only that which is similar to it and of the same kind.

Thus one nature rejoices in another; they accept each other, and thereby the operation becomes stronger, wholly perfected, and brought into clarity—as all the Fathers testify clearly concerning this matter, and they have spoken the truth, for they were enemies of lying spirits. It is a lofty, heavenly treasure in this thing—such that no human eyes have seen it, nor has any human ear heard of its worth. Few are those who reach such a high knowledge; it has not entered into many hearts or thoughts. God has granted this Spirit such a high power, that it may be endowed with power so the heavenly fire may dwell within it. Who on earth is worthy to receive from the cup of Ezra and Joseph such a heavenly, fiery draught? Only those who love the glory of God—to them this fire has been given.

Earthly reason can never discover it by itself—unless there is purification and separation from the earthly, and a cleaving to the heavenly; such people may attain this lofty knowledge. Yet a person must suffer much for it and endure mockery, be ridiculed by the godless world and hated by it. This heavenly spirit, because of its beautiful fiery clarity, is called by some the Salamander and Sandarac, which is pure and clean.

Thus the spirit or soul may still have its dwelling in its impure vessel; yet it does not remain there. In all things it goes toward what is pure, and seeks its own kind. Call it what you will—it is nothing other than that cold and fiery common spirit and the permanent water (vitriol).

Whoever, through the great heavenly power he has received, in his first spiritual ascent causes the brightness of heaven to shine—as in a sacrifice of atonement—by that…

…the Most Holy and Most High takes great delight in it, as He did in Elijah’s sacrifice.
This fire also enlightens and gladdens a person’s soul and spirit. From it there arises great understanding and lofty wisdom. A person’s life is also anointed like balm and freed from all sadness; health and long life are obtained; the heart is set aright and aligned with the Lord’s will, to do what is commanded of it.

Behold, hide within your Stone the blood of gold; from this your whole work will become heavenly and perfect, for this nature is entirely active—always fruitful for great things and wondrous works. It becomes a pure, clear body—lively, fiery, quick, hot and penetrating—an overcomer of all strong things.

Thus God, through His single Word (that is, the second Person), has fashioned these things for His wondrous works, has placed His best essence in them, and has wished to raise what was in the confused first matter and to sanctify and clarify it divinely. This, then, is one thing and is called the Materia, in whose root the growing power dwells, from which the whole world is held together, mingled with this juice and spirit. Therefore the ancients call it “the Thing” in which all secrets lie enclosed. Holy Scripture also clearly attests this: the prima materia was the salt of the sea, the water over which the Spirit of God hovered.

With this the whole work is now comprised—considered spiritually and bodily—so that the first, constructed building is broken, and from it a new birth again may come to be. Therefore we should remain with the powers that act in Nature; we should not brood further, nor inquire higher, but abide by the rules of the Ancients and be content with this revelation.

Coliculo—this single word contains “all in all”; thus I have understood and explained it. It is the philosophers’ fiery, living water, viscous; it rises up to the mountains and falls down again into the deep valleys. Seek its spring, and you will have power for innumerable great wonders in medicine and in metals. I have taken a rule from Theophrastus, confirmed by the most reliable testimonies, in which it is clearly stated how the inner, heavenly power of the Sun is shut up therein—what heavenly waters are thereby enclosed—powerful over all things and endowed with strength to work miracles. Its sulphur and mercury contribute as its quinta essentia, and with the help of our materia spirituum (that is, of the “soul”)—through the operation of our water’s force—the elixir can be made.

Gold is held in such high esteem because of its inherent tincturing juice, which readily shows itself as a scarlet-red. The very highest medicine is this—though enough can hardly be said of it may be stated plainly. Now it is clearly confessed by the true philosophers that a divine fire is enclosed in the Archeus of the Sun; therefore it will not soon be brought forth, unless it be by the one philosophical key of Saturn, which is of its own nature. This same thing has received such great power that within it lies the force for the dissolution of gold; it is its proper treasure-chamber, the key, and the philosophical vessel in which the fire of the Sun is shut up.

By the viscous water it is greatly ennobled, for with it the metal is fastened and compacted; and that same water has the power to open this bond again. It is a water and a fiery ray that works and breaks all that is hidden, without compulsion or violence; it has everything within itself. It is the first and the last—a heavenly dew, the single matrix, the living and ever-growing power—which swallows up soul, body, and spirit, and then makes them worthy again.

Without this sap the indwelling of gold can neither occur nor be captured; this is the fixed red sulphur and its spirit, Mercury. All things proceed from exceedingly potent means—this is the true mother—whence the solution plainly arises: it blackens, it whitens, it yellows, it reddens; all this it does of itself, through its own natural juice.

Now, when such a substance is prepared, the of gold’s fiery tincture has been revealed, the alkaline spirit has great power to rule over it; for the casket of gold is broken open, quite overturned, and lies dead.

Thus it is dissolved and not corrupted; whereas all other waters corrupt and, like the biting etching-waters, tear things apart, here there remains a metallic corpse which can then be reduced again and brought back into a body. Our matter is a twofold Mercury—spirit and water—fiery and cold, full of many virtues, in which soul, spirit, and body dwell. The ancients gave this matter many names: “Paradise-water,” “living mercurial water,” “burning viscous water” (aquam ardentem viscosam). Yet in all the writings their testimony keeps both this name and the preparation concealed. Although the philosophers have uncovered the ground of the whole work, they still keep this name back; they call it a “key,” but they are silent about the way to make the solution. Hence Theophrastus says: because the ancients have kept this name as a secret, it does not befit me to make this name clear, nor to reveal either the preparation or the solution.

I will not be the beginner and count myself a breaker of the philosophers’ oath; yet everything, and the whole matter, comes to this—that after the dissolution of the gold the color of the of the lofty tincture; and together with the “glutin” know how to draw it forth, to loosen its false bonds, and to separate it purely from every defect and cleanse it highly, so that this tincture may shine very pure and clear. Seek the heavenly sulphur and the living water; shut it up in the matter, in a clear vessel, after we have pressed it out from its earthly dregs—just as one presses the spiritual juice from well-ripened blue grapes—so that in the end our mastery may be achieved.

The power of this water lies out in the green meadows; no spring issues bright and clear; clouds in the sky conceal the form of the fair sapphire color. Out of earth and water our matter and Azoth grow; our stone is then duly arrayed with the highest tinctural color, scarlet-red; its ruby redness shines—that is the Stone and the penetrating fire in which all understanding is plainly contained. Thus the ancients did not speak amiss when they said that our tinctural fire is to be compared with the heavenly fire; for the work is divine, more angelic than human. For the sake of its great operative power, God has highly esteemed Fire, Water, and Spirit—making it worthily spiritual, fiery, and penetrating; it is held holy, like unto the angels; for it is a divine, heavenly gift—God is it is the eternal primum ens itself: a divine, consuming fire, full of eternal clarity, wisdom, and truth.

Therefore this blessing is entrusted and revealed to few, for this gift lies solely in the hand of the Lord. He gives it to whom He wills. God has endowed the living Stone with a wondrous power; yet, for the sake of sin and through the fall of Adam and Eve, the brightness of earthly things has been taken away and entirely darkened and hidden—reserved only for the great mystery. Thus everything earthly is perishable and temporal, subject to the earth and to death, and can accomplish nothing of itself. Therefore all souls have needed a single Redeemer; and many—indeed, countless souls in the world—have been tinged and redeemed unto eternal life by His single sacrifice, the outpoured rose-colored blood of Jesus Christ. His tender sacramental body feeds all souls in a spiritual way; those who trust in Him alone will eternally behold God the Lord, the holy Trinity.

Our tincture tinges only temporally the bodies, so that they may be preserved unharmed, and it gives to the imperfect metal of the Sun a very bright luster; but Christ’s tincture tinges souls spiritually unto eternal life. The earthly world, through our tincture who love gold and silver more than God, who press the poor in their need, torment them and cast them into misery. But when the Lord opens His heavenly treasury and entrusts such a gift, we are appointed to distribute it—namely, to help the needy in their distress; this is God’s command and our office. The indwelling man lives from God eternally; the outward man is decaying, a mortal vessel or shell.

I consider that, concerning the Fire and the Tincture of Gold, enough has now been testified and, as regards man’s well-being and God’s final blessing, fully explained. In sum: what the philosophers seek—their labor, their art and mastery, their medicine, their Stone, their matter, and what their ferment is—about all this I hope I have thus far given open and sufficiently clear report. And I am minded that this, our theoretical philosophy of the Philosophers’ Stone—drawn from Theophrastus, Roger [Bacon], and the writings of other philosophers—should here be well concluded for the “son of doctrine.”

To the thrice-great and blessed Spagyrist, Christ Jesus Emmanuel, our Savior—together with the Father and the Holy Spirit—be honor, praise, and immortal glory. Amen.

Appendix
Theophrastus on the Reduction of Metals to the First Matter — Extract

You want to learn from me—although you could discover it yourself—by what ancient process metals can be transformed and brought to a higher state. But that I should send you such a secret, at your request, written on a paper to travel through this wicked world—neither you nor other unlearned people will be taught by any “high school”; such prying ought not be desired.

Yet, for the sake of the faithful service you have rendered me, I will overlook this and satisfy your request. First you must know that the metals must be brought back to their first and their last essence; otherwise all your toil and labor are in vain, useless and fruitless. Understand it thus: all metals were once water—not the water that one boils and drinks, but the philosophers’ water, understand me, mercury, in which all perfect metals again must be driven and brought back behind themselves; then you can cleanse them of their impurity, and the mother can receive her bridegroom—whom the ancients called the sulphur of the philosophers, and father—the other coagulation, with the addition of her calx and spirit, and thus it becomes a higher and better metal than it was before. In this way the final creation is completed, and it is possible in nature, according to this process, truly to make silver, copper, iron, mercury, tin, and lead into good and rightful gold.

Thus the work’s beginning and end are rightly understood and accomplished according to the ancient process—yet it is not given to everyone, but only to those to whom God, out of a special spirit beyond other gifts, wills to reveal and grant it from above by grace and mercy.

We know of no other or nearer way to return the metals to their mercury than what we set down in our little book De putrefactione: namely four salts, which we there call Sallabrum; each is to be brought into a fine clear water or oil, and the four oils or waters are to be poured together in equal weight—then it is what it should be, and is called the Milk of the Ancient Philosophers. Put this into a strong receiver glass and heat it with full strength for the fifth time; the spirits from vitriol and alum, calcined, and good saltpetre in equal weight—this is then called the flying eagle, which with its strength carries the metals upward. Take it down, grind it fine, pour on strong brandy so that it stands a finger’s breadth above the powder, and draw it off very gently with a helm in a balneum Mariae three or four times; thus you have made the metal living, like another mercury, and so the eagle will fly.

When you have tinted the milk of the philosophers with the spirits, as we have shown above, and have prepared the eagle, then pour half a pound of pure melted wax to a finger’s height upon it, set it in a glass oven, and place it into the balneum Mariae, and draw the subtle part off with the spirits into a clear fine oil through the helm until nothing more will rise. Then pour what has been drawn over back again so that it goes down again. Do this so often until they coagulate together—then it is what it should be, namely the salt Borax of the philosophers, of which we write in the little book on the virtue of vitriol, wherein the flying eagle lies hidden with its feathers—that is, the spirits.

Now take some of the calcined metal from the aqua fortis, which you have washed, as much as you wish, and take of the flying eagle as much as there is of the metal, grind the two together fine, put it into a glass, set it days in putrefaction—the longer the better. Then put it into a well-sealed glass flask, set it in sand, and sublimate; thus everything rises together, whatever the metal may be. Do with it as we have shown above, and you will have the first way.

We have set down the other way in the little book De mutatione metallorum & coagulatione Mercurii ex metallis, and also how from metallic mercury the Philosophers’ Stone and the Tincture are drawn.

Take, from the book cited, the sallarbum; take nitre, sal gemmae (rock salt), common salt, and willow-ashes, each in equal quantity; yet dissolve each separately, purge it of its foulness, and make from all a clear, transparent water; coagulate the same again in a clean vessel, and you will find that it takes on another color, a penetrating one that dissolves and also fixes.

Hold such a salt in honor and let it be dear to you, for many secrets lie in it: it makes the volatile and dead spirit living; it makes the hard and brittle soft; it frees it from all incrustations and poisons; it also brings arsenic into its proper figure; and in many excellent operations it brings matters to a good and happy end. Thus it stands in the book indicated, with much praise of these properties.

But whoever, concerning the true philosophical subject whoever is a knower and possessor of it has the one thing, and has no need of those foreign salts; for our Work itself contains the power and virtues of those salts. Since not everyone can at once procure all good authors—and often time and opportunity do not permit it—so that nothing be lacking to the Work, I have borrowed certain things from the testimony of Nature and the “way of truth.” Some may be found who will say that “from such people idle talk makes for good nut-cutting”*; to them I concede that many once believed and suspected that beyond Europe, Asia, and Africa there must still be unknown lands.

But no one wished to venture to demonstrate the possibility until Vespucci the American took the trouble upon himself and made what is true manifest and known to the whole honorable world. In the same way, many fine, short, clear chemical treatises, cited truthfully, have come to light through the public press; yet most of them have been written by the unlearned and the ignorant, and thus are more harmful than useful to the honorable world. I, however, have gathered from and out of their writings only what on all sides, and in the greatest brevity, accords with and sets down the truth; these stand as my witnesses, although the Work itself and will bring to those who seek it sufficient truth, so that they themselves may enjoy its approval.

Nature says: “Ah God! how troubled I am when I look at the human race, which God made after His image as a perfect work, yet which—more than all other creatures—through misuse of time and reason strays so far from me, from Nature, and from my order. I am speaking to you, you fanciful fool who call yourself an alchemical practitioner and a good philosopher; yet you have neither the art nor the proper matter, neither theory nor science, nor knowledge of me. You great bungler! you break glass and burn coals until the fumes drive you mad; you boil alum-salt and orpiment, you melt metal, you build little and great furnaces and use all manner of vessels—yet I am ashamed of your folly, and what is more, you offend me with your stinking sulphur smoke. You suppose that with your fiercely burning fire you can fix quicksilver; but it is only the common volatile, the very thing from which I make metal. Following this path—unless you take another—you achieve nothing, for you do not use my ways rightly and you do not understand my arcanum.”

You would do better to mind your work than to smear, dissolve, and distill so many things, then pile up alembics, cucurbits, “distillations,” and pelicans. You will never in this way make quicksilver (argentum vivum) fixed, and for your “fixation” you think you need a reverberatory fire—so hot that everything runs molten. By such methods you may busy yourself with your work, but in the end you ruin yourself and someone else along with you. You will never find anything of that sort unless you come into my smithy, where I, in the innermost parts of the earth, forge metals without ceasing.

For it is in this Triba Marcia that I work; and you should observe the manner of my work. Consider that I am revealing my secret to you, if you truly seek the growing seed of metals, animals, and plants. All of these are under my power and are kept beneath the earth—one as concerns generation, another as concerns nourishment.

Metals possess only esse (being); plants possess vivere (life); animals possess sensation, which is more than mere growth. I make metals, stones, and pigments from the elements, which I bring into a mixture and first composition in the belly of the earth; therefore do not look for them elsewhere.

Plants have their seed, in which their form is contained.

Likewise the animals give their seed to beget their like; to put it briefly, each does its office without deceit. But you, depraved man, who presume to take on my office, you alone—more than all other creatures—turn aside from me, Nature.

Metals have no life and no nourishment, neither growth nor increase, for they have no generative seed; therefore they do not bring forth their like. In the beginning they are fashioned from the substance of the four elements, and from these I let them come to be. They—and the stones as well—have nothing more than this: stones are brittle, and metals are fusible; after they are melted, however, they should be sound, tough, and able to endure the hammer’s blow. Gold and silver, for their part, attain a great perfection through artful purification; the other metals are the more impure, for their quicksilver is too crude and their earthly sulphur too combustible. Therefore such a metal cannot be purified so long as its matter does not receive a good form; for I order all my works in such wise that each thing brings forth its form according as its matter is pure.

Now if you wish to know whence I take the matter for this, I tell you that I frankly open to you the chamber of my high, subtle secrets, and I bid you seek out the nearest and truest matter from which to make an ore.

NB. I take this from the coffers of my four elements, and it is a primordial seed, or an essential form composed in simplicity, prepared and well ordered for the transmutation of the four into one—that is, a most general or universal, “catholic” thing. Then, by my sweetness and favor, I impart to it a metallic power, from which pure and impure, hard and soft metals arise.

Such matter I draw out of the elements; with my heavens I attract it and, over a long time, lead it from the first matter into the next, into its own proper matter, from which I make my ore. From this there then issue sulphur and living silver (quicksilver), which are turned into metals—not, however, the quicksilver and sulphur you see here, which are of no use in this. For because of their oppositions and unequal qualities they are driven and transmuted out of their own nature into another.

Thus the matter passes through putrefaction and strong corruption, by the privation of its first form, and a new one takes its place; and by natural warmth, which the matter has within itself and which is awakened by the heavens, with a gentle fire—as I know how to make—finally I give it such a form as the matter gladly receives and it draws it to itself.

In this way, privatio formae and matter are my hidden principles and beginnings, received from above; and my Lord the Creator has ordained for me, as His handmaid, to transmute by my operation and governance the universal matter of the four elements, and to bring them under a single universal form of all mineral shapes. Likewise, by my natural art I lead the sun in twenty-four hours around the circuit of the earth; it never ceases, by its motion in each element, to arouse a warmth. In the same manner I guide the eighth sphere, the seven planets and their father, the primum mobile; I draw them all along in their spheres. The latter takes its course toward the west, while the others all do the opposite—some in a long, some in a short time: Saturn traverses its sphere in thirty years, Jupiter in seven, Mars in two; the sun passes through its signs in one year and six hours, Venus in 349 days, Mercury in 339 days.

The moon journeys through the twelve signs in twenty-nine and a half days. From this differing course arise the changes of summer and winter in the elements, and on earth the generation of things—whether this be perceptible, visible, or invisible; without me, whether the heavens and God are or have their place. Thus the heavens act upon all things that are contained beneath the moon and impart their influence to the power of matter; and this [matter] is eager—like a woman toward a man—to receive the form. All the stars in the heavens, though themselves unseen, are assigned to and subjected to the various kinds of matter in different number.

Some are clear, some obscure— which is a wondrous thing— and thus they produce different effects in accordance with their different courses: first above in the heavens, then near the earth according to their virtue in the elements; from there come the species and individuals. One must therefore realize that innumerable, incomparable influences of this sort flow down into the element of earth, although invisibly; and before they descend into the earth they are shut up as hard as rock, so that by degrees they enter with force and penetrate even to the center, in many different ways. Accordingly, in minerals as well there are different generations produced by different impressions; and the lower things follow the higher without error or deviation. Thus the earth is surrounded and adorned by the heavens and receives from them the best influence and substance; therefore each sphere also imparts its virtue, and down to press into the center, it longs.

Note. Through such motion and heat, vapors are generated in the earth which are the prima compositio. The vapor is cold and moist; therefore it condenses again and remains enclosed in the earth. But when it condenses into a cloud it can also become pestilential and warm. Whatever of it is earthly and remains shut up in the earth—I, over a long time, bring forth by means of a sulphur (which is the acting principle) into a living mercury (argentum vivum, which is the passive principle). This is the second mixture, different from the first composition.

All this, however, is drawn from the four elements, which I bring into one mass, as I told you before; and I repeat it so often so that you do not go astray and do not rush too soon into practice. After putrefaction, generation occurs. By the inner, unwearied warmth the coldness of the living silver (argentum vivum) is heated until it unites with its sulphur and becomes one. All of this takes place in a single vessel. I take fire, air, and water in their earthly receptacles and let them be in one and the same furnace; then I boil, dissolve, and sublime them—without hammer, tongs, or file; without coal, steam, fire, or a bain-marie; note: and without the sophists’ fire and furnace.

For I have my heavenly fire, which awakens the elemental, once the matter has desired a proper form; thus I now draw forth my argentum vivum (living mercury) from the four elements and from their matter.

Next, this is immediately followed by its near companion, its sulphur, by which it is gradually acidified and its appetite warmed; then the cold becomes warm and the dry becomes moist. Yet note well: the moist does not exist without its dry, nor the dry without its moist; for each retains something of the other in its first being. In the elemental essence this is the spirit and the quinta essentia, from which our child takes its birth. Fire begets and nourishes it in the air; before that it putrefies in the virgin earth; afterward the water brings it forth—that water which we seek, which is the matter from which I begin my operations. One contrary resists the other contrary with force and so strengthens itself that it cannot be removed before it has overcome; thus the patient (thing) is transmuted and stripped of its form through the desire of the matter, which daily draws a new form to itself.

Through my wisdom I govern the primum mobile; my hands are the eight spheres, as my Father has ordained; my hammers are the seven planets, with which I forge such fair works. The materia in which I carry out my work—stones, metals, trees, herbs, rational animals, and in sum all things that the heavens encompass—I take solely from the four elements. The chaos, or hyle, is the first matter; she is the mistress: as the king caresses and gladdens all his court, the knight stands ever ready in his service, and the chamber-maid prepares what is indispensable for her. The more splendid the forma is, the more splendidly do I show myself within it.

And know that I have the power to give being to all the elements, to preserve it, and to awaken a form in the materials. Further mark the three parts into which God in the beginning divided the first matter: from the first and purest part He created the Cherubim, Seraphim, archangels, and all angels; from the second, less pure part He created the heavens and their firmament. But to the third and impure part He assigned the elements with their properties. First, fire—which in excellence precedes the others—He set aloft beneath the moon; it suffers no corruption, but contains within itself the pure portion of the quintessence. After this He made the air, subtle, and it too contains the quintessence—though not so much as is set in the fire.

After this comes the visible then follows the manifest element of water, which contains as much of the fifth essence as it requires; and after water, finally, earth. But this—and indeed all of nature—He created in a single instant; He made the earth thick and dark, yet fruitful, and endowed it with the smallest share of the fifth essence. At the beginning the elements, too, stood only poorly and simply in their spheres.

Thus air is properly warm and moist, though it is assisted by fire. Water is properly cold, yet appropriately moist, the moisture it takes from the air. Earth is properly dry, appropriately cold, taking its cold from the water; because of its great dryness it is near to fire. Fire, however, is the foremost element: it gives life, and by its warmth causes growth.

Now I must also tell you that there is no element that does not pass into another—so that one acts while the other suffers. Fire acts upon air; air upon water; water upon air and earth—whenever fire awakens the operation. Earth is the mother and nourisher of all things: whatever under heaven may fall into putrefaction, and gives her unceasing warmth into her womb, that she nourishes after its birth.

God has given me the power to bring the four elements back again into the fifth essence, which is the first matter. By my art I reduce them; from this come generations, and the species of forms are transferred and contained in the reduced mass. Therefore, if anyone should take the trouble and even torment himself to reduce the elements in this way, he will certainly not bring them into the prima materia without me. For in me alone is the power to transmute the elements and their forms; whoever thinks otherwise deceives himself. For you would never be able to draw to any substance its proper influx, nor to proportion the elements to it, nor to give it a form as the matter requires.

It is I who form the creatures and give them nature, properties, and matter; through my heavenly influences I make perfect works—which are not unjustly regarded as miracles—like the Elixir, of which so many excellent things are praised, whose virtues and qualities I alone have ordained to be seen. Nor is there any art on earth—whatever you may hear—that can accomplish such excellent works as I.

Therefore every sensible person may hold that works or sciences of this kind cannot be attained without understanding of the heavenly works to completion or bring them to fulfilment without their power; everything else is misuse and error. And if anyone wished to presume anything in this matter—whence would he obtain the influxes by which to give such a substance? How would he rightly mingle the elements and be able to proportion them? For no one is able, as Avicenna testifies in his book De viribus cordis, cap. 1, however long he may have studied, to come safely to it. For this secret has been given to me alone and to no other man. By my power I make the imperfect perfect—be it a metal or a human body—I perfect it and make it sound; I give the temperament and reconcile the four elements; I unite contrary things so that they are no longer at odds.

This is the golden chain, adorned like a ring with my heavenly virtues and substantial forms. I perform my work so well that in it all my power shows itself openly, and this so gloriously that otherwise, without me—however rational a man may be—no man and none of his art can achieve it.

So now step forth, you who boast yourself skilful and slander my knowledge, claiming that with charcoal fire and a bain-marie in your furnace you know how to make potable gold (aurum potabile); know that I am horrified at your error, are you not ashamed, when you look at my work, and set against it your clumsy boiling in your dyed flasks and vessels, whereby you waste time and expense? I do not know what to think—whether to think that you deliberately squander time and cost. Take pity on yourself: be silent, look at me, and consider me. Understand me rightly in what I tell you, for I speak no lies.

Take note how glorious gold received its fair form from the heavens, and its good matter from the earth; the same holds for a precious stone such as the ruby or the diamond. As for the matter: it comes from the four elements; but as for the form: in so far as the heavens impart those qualities already contained in the elements, the form is ennobled in the course of time and by purification. Yet this happens through me alone; I am the mistress of the work, and no other person knows the way. For unless the clever fellow knows how to give to things the proper proportion of the elements—how much of fire, water, air, and earth, and whence to take them; also how to mix contrary things in such a way that they no longer draw to themselves more than the substances require; and how to bestow the influx upon such substances and essences—then he will not only iron or lead, he will not be able to make even something of lesser worth. How then should he make gold if he does not open up my treasure? It does not lie in his manipulations or in the power of his art; he must know my art, which is natural and cannot be made by human hands.

Although gold is held before all the world to be the most glorious thing, and everyone seeks his treasure in it, yet it is neither the sickness nor the impurity of the metals, for it transmutes none of them into its own gold; moreover, it cannot make lead so soft that it can be forged, as the Philosophers’ Stone does. Gold alone is simply the best and most perfect among the metals. If you, following my example, can scarcely make a little lead, or a few small grains, or from an herb a fruit—or, still less, an iron—how would you then make that which is far more noble, from which one mints ducats and rose nobles? If you say you do not wish to make gold but only “something alchemical,” then I answer that you speak more foolishly still. Have you not yet understood that I have said my secrets are denied you?

For what nature must accomplish cannot be brought about by a creature; and moreover; for if I have made gold the most perfect among the seven metals, and you do not understand this my work, how dare you presume to make what is so imperfect into perfection, and to exercise the power that I have appointed to transmute it? The whole being of the metals is not gold; for gold is my dearest treasure, which I have given to the earth. Truly, you are in error; and if you do not recognize that this supreme good which you seek—as far as any creature is concerned—is the great secret of nature, whether it be in metals, stones, herbs, or animals, which proceeds from a heavenly virtue (for it heals human beings of all diseases and sustains them), and that by its great power it perfects imperfect metals—this treasure I grant according to my will. And if in itself something is so complete that its like is nowhere to be found, tell me now: must not such a science necessarily come from the highest intelligence? Otherwise no one could make gold; and this is the treasure of all treasures. It is an irreparable error: if you cannot carry ten pounds, how will you carry a hundred? In such a way you will throw away your life. Therefore know this concerning your plan: my son, all my power of being and my knowledge I take very base and simple things from the heavens, and along with them the lowest of the elements; and I work them by means of reductions, fixations, and circulations: I turn the lower into the upper, the false and dry into something moist and warm, and I bring stone and metal back to their natural fruitfulness. This happens through the motion of the heavens; for the elements are ruled by it, and they obey through the disposition of this influence. In this way I govern my matter, and I conduct my nobler works through the heavens.

Do you think, then, that since you have earth and water at hand, and with your fire (and, as you suppose, with your white and red colors) I will let myself be toyed with to satisfy your desire? Do you wish to move the heavens so that they will pour into your daubed-on work? Do you take them for an organ that needs nothing more than to be played with your fingers?

Foolish man! Do you not know that in the movement of the heavens there is a great intelligence, which sends its understanding downward and, by its influence, bestows being upon all things? I beg you: recognize that lofty things come from on high—from me and from God—and do not imagine that artifice work of art could ever be as perfect as the natural work; for it is too bare, an ape that wants to imitate everything at once. Do you think, my son, that your distillations and congelations of your materials in your vessels, or drawing water out of oil, are the right way to follow me? No, my son! You are greatly mistaken; for even if you spend your time with all sorts of mixtures and separations of the elements—of your salt, water, and earth—you will still have accomplished nothing, because you are in error.

Do you want to know why? Your matter would not be able to endure even half an hour of the fire’s heat; everything would go off in smoke or be consumed in the fire. But the matter in which I work proves sound in every trial, however great the fire may be—indeed, it is even improved by the fire.

N.B. Water comes from a dry substance; it does not make wet what it touches; it does not melt, nor does it run back; and its oil is incombustible. Such are my elements in their perfection. Yours are not so—and it is not your office to conduct my Art.

In conclusion I tell you: with your artificial fire you cannot pour in the heavenly heat; therefore you will also, with your water, oil, and earth—your matter cannot bring them together, for they will not admit anything that would give them a true substance. It is a gift of God, given from the heavens to the elements, to one no more than to another, and it is preserved in simple, humble poverty—a thing of which none but I have knowledge, except the one who trusts me and is a true philosopher.

My son, I will tell you one more true saying: the whole work is accomplished from a single small, low, and not overly prepared matter, in a single well-sealed vessel and with a single furnace. Within itself it has everything it needs for perfection, and it is completed by one single regimen of fire.

Consider the begetting of a human being and his perfection; to this I apply all the wisdom God gives me. For you will not make the human form from one matter alone. I form only the body, so subtle that neither Plato nor Aristotle knew much of it: I make the enamel hard and the teeth fit for chewing, the liver and the flesh soft, the nerves cold, the brain moist, the heart—wherein God gives life; then I fill all the veins with blood, so that I to say briefly: from a single quicksilver and an active, masculine sulfur I make a single “motherly vessel,” whose belly is the furnace. It is true that man greatly helps this art only when, by external heat, he gives matter into the matrix or mother; but beyond this he can do nothing more. — Such, then, is the nature of your work.

First choose the proper matter; prepare it well in a tightly sealed vessel, and shut up everything well in your furnace. Then the work must not be delayed long; for you and I must bring it to perfection—you by giving the fire, as the philosophers require.

Know for certain that everything depends on this. Therefore take great care here and attend to the fire that is called Epsilon, Pepin, Pepanin, and Apecin—namely the natural, the contrary-to-nature, and the unnatural fire, and also the one that is not named. Likewise attend to warm, dry, moist, and cold fire; set it rightly.

Without the right matter and the proper fire you will never reach the desired end. I give you the matter; you must bring the form into order. Here I am not speaking of substantial and accidental form, but of the proper shape.

…shape and size of your vessel, and that you make your furnace correctly. Act sensibly, and conduct the work artfully in accordance with Nature.

Help me, and I will help you; as you do to me, so will I do—just as I have done for my other sons, whom I have gladly instructed, and for the reason that they, without reproach, followed father and mother and obeyed my commands.

Thus you may read in the romance of Johannes de Meun, who approved me and reproved the sophists; so also do Villanovanus (Arnald of Villanova), Raimundus, Moyses Romanus, Hermes—whom they call a father and to whom no other is equal—the giver; and others who write of this science, and who have learned by practice that the art is true.

Now then, my son, if you wish to begin the work, no great outlay is needed; it is enough that you be of a free and lively spirit, and in a safe place where no one knows of your work.

Prepare your matter well into a powder in a single vessel, together with its water well sealed; govern it with gentle heat, which will accomplish the operation. Cold, however, brings putrefaction; and because of excessive cold, dryness can therefore do not contradict that quicksilver, through proper commixture, becomes a uniform, homogeneous subject and is thus reduced into the first matter.

Let it now be your true intention to follow the mother of Nature, preserved by reason, with Philosophy as your guide. If you do so, I assure you that you will obtain the matter and bring it to the right end; it does not cost much—only see that you take my beginnings correctly. Observe how I work; note what Aristotle says in Meteorologica III & IV; learn physics; read the book On Generation and Corruption, likewise On the Heavens and the World, wherein you will find the matter fine, pure, and clear. If you do not recognize this, you will surely lose everything. Consult also Albertus Magnus On Minerals and Dr. Tanckii metallurgy. When your eyes have thus been opened, you will find my secrets in the mines and see that all stones grow from the elements—namely, from water.

Learn to know me first, before you call yourself a master; follow me, who am the mother of all creatures that are, and that have an essence—for without the heavens and the elements they do not grow, nor do they have a sensitive soul to receive a soul. To learn such things, you must study philosophy diligently—keep watch and work. If through practice you learn so much that you recognize the virtue and great operation of the heavens, know also the passions of the elements and why they receive such operations; what are the means of corruption, and likewise the causes of putrefaction, nourishment, and generation; and what the essence and substance of the elements are—then you will have knowledge of the Art.

Yet it is otherwise enough to have a keen understanding for contemplating my works; this gift of God has not been granted to all the wise by their learning and their own reason, but to the good-hearted who, following with humility, have obtained it after a long time—what I had hidden—and after patience. Therefore do as I tell you, if you wish to obtain this treasure which the true philosophers also possessed: it is a treasure of such virtue and loftiness that no man between heaven and earth can gain its like by art.

It is a mediating thing between Mercury and metal, which I take, and from which—through your art and my wisdom—such a glorious substance is fashioned.

It is the fine and drinkable gold, the radical moisture; it is the highest medicine, as Solomon describes it (Eccles. 38). God has made it; it is taken from the earth, and the wise man does not despise it.

The qualities of this spirit are four: cold and hot, moist and dry; it softens, preserves, holds together, makes thick or thin, makes subtle; it attracts, repels, and drives away—and great, continual fires do the same.

Three occult qualities:

that it carries off a certain moisture;

that it is particularly related and well-disposed to a certain member (organ);

that it expels and resists poison.

Three further qualities:

it provokes urine;

it promotes the monthly flow—or stops it;

it induces vomiting, softens flesh, and crushes the stone (calculi).

But this most pure spirit is bound neither to hidden nor to manifest operative properties. Now, if one possesses a medicine that begets a human being, increases, nourishes, and preserves him, what reason have I to hope—by uncertain means—that it should thoroughly purge, bring on sweat, cleanse the blood, crush the stone, drive out poison, and still pains?

If I have [a remedy] that preserves and increases everything until its God-appointed goal and end.

Why then should I still ask about heat and cold, about moisture and dryness?—this fiery water lends excellent help to all of them and promotes their growth.

For the sick this spirit serves in the following ailments:
for putrefaction; burning fevers; the “falling sickness” (epilepsy); smallpox and measles; miliary rash; erysipelas and “the whites”; dysentery; vomiting; fainting; apoplexy; diseases of the womb; hectic consumption (wasting disease); to strengthen the aged; for the deranged and the melancholic; disorders of the spleen; sleep [troubles]; abdominal “tearing” pains, colic, ileus; for children’s cramps; fright and startle-fits; women’s labor pains and difficult birth; palpitations; dizziness; headache—in short, wherever strength and preservation are needed, administer daily 3 to 6 spoonfuls.

Nature further says: God has finally entrusted my secrets and gives them to the wise and understanding; although many orators, and those who count themselves great doctors in theology and philosophy, utterly mock [them]. Likewise, physicians deride and despise alchemy; yet they do not recognize me, nor have they learned anything of the art—just as Avicenna and Villanovanus [Arnald of Villanova], and many other great physicians and renowned ancient doctors; only the ignorant—who have not felt the path of the true physicians—speak against them. For the doctors have not wit enough to recognize such a root and noble medicine that heals every illness. Blessed is the person to whom God grants time and life to attain this lofty essence. People like to say he must grow old; the philosophers indeed had it, and in their old age they took delight in it. By this one obtains all goods and great riches. With one ounce—indeed with a single grain—one can remain healthy every day.

Just consider: when a person must lie shut up in a dank, airless hole full of stench, how the vital spirits leave and vanish; but when he comes into the fresh air, how strong it seems to him and how he is refreshed by it! What do you think—how good would it be if he could be brought to enjoy the same continually? Yet in the end every creature must die and be content with God and Nature. It is a strengthener of the heart, more than a golden tincture; it is the Elixir, the Water of Life, in which all works and things are contained.

It is the quicksilver, the sulfur, and—hidden in my treasure—the gold; the incombustible oil of the wise, the constant and flowing salt; the Philosophers’ Stone, which can be found in no way other than by natural art and human science that has help herein. I tell you plainly: as a laboratory worker you cannot complete the work without me, and I, your servant, can accomplish nothing in it without you; but through me and you together you will bring the work to its proper end.

Therefore leave the sophists and their deceitful practices; discard their various furnaces and vessels, their horse-dung heat and charcoal fire—NB: which are of no use whatsoever. Let the metals and other things stand; rather, transform the elements into a changeable form—this is the glorious materia of the philosophers, which the ignorant ruin. In substance it is like gold, though in essence it is unlike it. Invert the elements and you will find what you seek—that is, you must sublime the lower and make the upper the lowest.

So now take living mercury, mixed with its acting sulfur; place it all into a single well-sealed vessel, in a single furnace, which to one third be buried to one third; set it over the philosophers’ fire and take care that it does not fume. Do thus, and trust me. Therefore, I beg you, my son: leave all other species aside; take not the ore, sulfur, or salt from which the ores arise, nor those already corrupted, but single out one thing only—the fiery, watery spirit. I tell you no more; rather, I swear to you by GOD that you must follow me, that is, Nature, and no one else.

The kindly reader is asked to accept all this with thanks, and be assured that—were fraud, deceit, avarice, and persecution not so exceedingly great—perhaps something more would be explained, at which the honorable world would have cause to marvel.

ADJEU.

Supplement

The chemical Sun- and Moon-shine and radiance I present as proof that the pure truth—and the whole work, its beginning, middle, and end—has been described without fault. I wished to add this necessary appendix so that anyone may see with me that nothing of damage has been introduced by some foreign addition, but rather the contrary. I have always been—and desire to be found—an earnest and truthful friend.

Without hesitation I say again: all those act foolishly who proceed only in theory and who begin from a corrupted subject—be it vegetable, animal, mineral, or who seek the Philosophers’ Stone otherwise. Whoever does not know Theophrastus’s “immature mineral electrum,” white and red, and no less what the primum ens of all minerals and metals is, will accomplish nothing.

The subject must, and shall, be a mineral substance from which the Stone is to be made.

An example: like begets like. A flower, according to the nature of its seed, begets a flower; a human being begets a human being; thus metal begets metal. And whoever does not know how to reduce the metals to their prima materia truly labors in vain.

A researcher of nature and of metallurgy must first know whence and from what the metals and minerals arise and are produced—namely, from the inner power and seed of the primum ens. Once he has a tractable understanding of this, he will not fail to gain sufficient knowledge both of the power of natural fire and of daily elaboration, and he will find that one must proceed exactly as dear Nature acts within the earth, in its passages and fissures.

Whoever has a little understanding sees that the sun, by its fiery rays and motes of sunlight, warms and brings forth all things; nevertheless the sun’s fire would dry out and wither everything—as is often seen on high hills where the soil has no moisture and is not refreshed by rain—unless at night the moon mixed its gentle dew and moisture with the earthly dust of the sun upon the soil, the trees, leaves, seeds, and grass, as a tempering.

And although, at the sun’s rising, the dear Sun draws to itself its fiery motes together with the cool, moist dew—both visibly, as a mist-vapor or smoke, and invisibly—this happens for one reason only: that these generative fiery little spirits may anew be multiplied, purified, and strengthened by the airs, so as to perform their office more vigorously and to instill new growth and life into all things. This ascent and descent is in truth the living circulatio naturae, just as blood in the veins of animals; therefore this fiery, moving spirit—of mist, smoke, and vapor—is alone required for their preservation and continuation, and in every single thing remains a necessary and adequate means.

And just as this natural spirit, ever arising from the airs, stirs and furthers growth upon the earth, so likewise it performs its office within the earth, especially in the fissures, mountains, and clefts; for there one sees that Sun, Moon, and stars—indeed all of dear Nature—drive this astral fire (sun-dust and heat, or whatever one will call it), together with its “patient,” cold and moisture, well mixed down to the center, where, mingling with the seeds of the metals and minerals, into the primum ens of the metals; and thereafter, once it has received form and power, it produces that for which Nature and the Air, with their cooperating help, have furnished it and enabled it.

Now when this universal fork-like fire takes on a pure mineral form—or seed, or sulphur and quicksilver—then it likewise specifies a metal or mineral. And it needs, down in the cool earth, in veins and clefts, very long periods to “cook out” the substance it has begun, whereas things shown above the earth can receive the sun’s heat and thus its power. For the matter of the ellipse has its beginning from the four elements, and contrary things have been joined together, in that spirit, mist, and smoke mix at first unevenly with fire and water and are mingled among themselves. Therefore, surely, that they may finally receive a strong union, the elementa must first be digested.

Thus, at the beginning, within the earth, Nature first mixes this with the sulphur and salt of metals and minerals; then it specifies and qualifies it, and soon it assumes for itself substantial, visible and invisible, accidental mineral and metallic forms—indeed through a heavenly, that is, astral cooperating force and aid. This is nothing other than that a metal or mineral must come of it. For into whatever form this spirit is impressed, it produces the shape and nature of whatever form it is printed into and takes that on.

For this is called the prima materia, the primum ens of metals—or of minerals. Whoever does not have a true understanding of this will profit little from it. If this matter, above the earth, reaches an animal or a plant before it reaches and is drawn into the earth, then it receives and brings forth a fruit of the same kind as the form it has received.

No artist is permitted to know or to pry into how the earthly quality has its being with the air, and how it agrees with cold and moisture—this would be contrary to nature. Moisture mixes with the cold, so that a burning fire is quenched; yet by the power of natural fire it is improved. Thus arise all manner of colors—black, white, and red. These are produced by the force of the air and the elements. This spirit does not cease to produce, to act, and to persist until it has reached its appointed time and completion, and can offer its fruit upon the stem for harvest.

Now when the metal has become ripe, it wishes—just like a ripe fruit—to be broken off from its stem and to be taken. Note here that indeed every thing bears its own seed within itself and with itself; and when it is broken off or taken away, and when it is set into fruitful soil, it brings forth a stock like and akin to its own kind, nature, and substance, giving what it has previously received and from which it sprouted and came forth. With the metals, however, the relationship is different: in them the primum ens—life, or the growing power—is mixed in, matured, and disciplined in such a way that even by the greatest force of fire, by art or by craft, it cannot be separated from its metallic body nor wholly parted from it, and is therefore unfit for propagation. And even if it could be separated, the metal would not only lose its metallic form, color, tone and sound, but no artist, whoever he might be, could ever restore it to its former shape and figure.

Only God, the breath (aura), and dear Nature—who create, beget, produce, and preserve all things—can make something out of nothing, and nothing out of something. I will put it plainly: all things—animals, plants, and minerals—each has its own spirit, seed, body, appointed order and time; its acting and suffering, its increase and decrease; its growth and greening, life and dying. When a thing has begun to sprout, to green and to blossom, and afterwards has become ripe, then each wishes to be broken off and gathered in, and to be used up and consumed for the purpose for which it appeared.

Man and all other animals die, decay, and become dust and earth; but the soul returns to the One from whom it was poured out. Metal, however—having won its maturation and multiplication only in a very long span of time—also remains for a long while upon its stock as a ripe birth, in stillness and repose, hoping to be broken off and put to use. But when there is no one willing to gather such fair metallic fruits and make use of them, and since the metal’s primum ens no longer finds anything to propagate into, there often occur exhalations which attack its own body, inflaming it from within.

Flesh and blood take such things in, as a moist, fetid haze—vapor, smoke, and steam. Miners call this an “exhalation,” “mine-fume,” even a poisonous exhalation. When a body or corpus has been left behind—its dwelling and shell deserted—it looks like an empty hornets’ or wasps’ nest. Miners give such poison a special name; from weathered ore the knowledgeable know how to make particular use of this.

The spirit—its life, the primum ens or begetting power—goes off in the form of a mist, a vapor, a smoke (also called mine-fume), looking for another convenient dwelling. If it finds good rock, clefts, and veins there—matter and form—then it joins itself to them joins itself to those (veins), and with them produces and begets, in the course of time, that for which it has found sufficient room, occasion, and forms. Yet whatever finds open space and reaches the free air departs as an invisible fire and spirit.

But that which, shutting itself in, keeps hold of its metallic sulfur and mercury—its fatness and fecundity—and cannot escape or get away, lodges in the passages, fissures, and rocks. Miners call it “mine-fume,” “weather-fume,” achor, or solven. In time it attains the seed, the form or shape of this thing, and thereafter produces the like as well. Many are afraid of this thing because it is a harsh, solid mine-fume; but whoever knows how to make use of it is, and can be, a truly capable man.

All who understand mining must therefore grant me that what is written here is true; for metals likewise have life, sprouting, blossoming, and ripening just like all other things—and consequently they also have withering and death.

And although, as already said, everything under the heavens has a single generative spirit that brings forth all things, nevertheless there is no other difference than this: that this generating spirit of one of each thing its form and seed, and the power to grow and multiply. Yet a notable distinction must be made in examining different things. Vegetables are one thing, animals another; they require a different fire and time for their ripening than do vegetables; and the latter (metals) must have an exceedingly long time for their maturation before they become ripe and perfect.

Therefore great art and skill are needed to reduce them to their primum ens. This cannot be achieved unless the artist knows how to select and augment the primum or prima materia of all metals for this purpose; without it nothing can be thoroughly destroyed nor reduced.

This is the one thing next to the prima materia, the Philosophers’ Stone; whoever does not know or recognize this labors in vain—wasting time, expense, toil, and work.

So that a researcher of nature, before and until he has first learned to recognize and investigate the primum ens, that is, the prima materia, may still obtain the necessary means for his support, I have—out of compassion and Christian charity—wished to communicate the following particulars that can be carried out tolerably well. Whoever attains a true understanding of these matters will, after my death, give me much thanks.

I am not minded—as others in a certain nearby great city are—to auction off some wretched “particular” for several thousand guilders. No: what I do and promise shall be communicated and given to everyone free of charge.

We (I and some associates) had firmly resolved and decided to set up a small fund and to share with others a portion of the blessing God has granted us. So we asked each person to make a small contribution—from his means and inclination—not for us, but (so truly as God lives!) solely to be applied and used for the most needy persons of respectable station. Everyone showed himself very willing and friendly in all other respects—indeed lavish—to pledge this contribution “in deed and in truth”; yet, for none was it agreeable or fitting actually to give it. Once they imagined themselves owners of the Work, they would gladly pay double—or tenfold!

Rather, we were told that, since we had received it by grace and for nothing, we must likewise share it with them for nothing, lest it be said the matter had been bought and sold for money. Each promised to endow “golden mountains.”

Good people fancy that one must believe them as if they were righteous before God and exalted for this purpose; they suppose that, if with a little fragments picked out of Holy Scripture, it could not be lacking to them; one must believe them, and before the time set up a special holy token/sacrament for them and for them alone.

However, after we, through this imposed penance, have learned to recognize each person’s disposition honestly, and that most are anything but followers of Christ—indeed most are to be compared more with unknowing heathens than with children of God—then, dear [reader], banish from your heart long since such pretensions, and let comparisons be no more. For he who would see rightly must first reform himself.

Not through journeys, exertions, scruples, nor yet through much study have I come to this, but rather through my unfeigned inner formation; and I intend to remain in it—and to become so—so long as one does not remain in the truth and is not thoroughly instructed in it. I do not see that I and my friends should be guilty—or would be—of ingratitude and unsteadiness by smearing the mouths, as it were, of the gentlemen who demand revelations. It is written that one should not throw pearls before swine; with this in mind I will in the future take care not to reveal anything before I have found, in someone’s heart, mind, love, and inclination, that he is thoroughly grounded in it, or am at least in the slightest degree aware of something further be allowed to be given; anyone who loves God and his neighbor even a little can content himself with what follows.

Praise GOD.

Particulars.

Take Hungarian antimony ore, which is bright-shining and brittle, like saltpeter scurf; break it into pieces, cement it cum Calce viva S.S.S. (with quicklime, S.S.S.), let the same stand in an iron cementation pot 1 r. a. 1.8. until the antimony is red inside and outside.

No. 1. Likewise take such ore; pulverize it very fine; mix an equal quantity of powdered cream of tartar (Weinstein) with it, and set a Saxon crucible in the fire; when it becomes red-hot, introduce the mixture by spoonfuls, letting it always melt/flow before you add more. When all is in, stir it diligently with glowing steel, and let it stand 2 hours; pour it into a warm ingot mould or iron mortar, let it cool, pulverize it as fine as possible, pour hot water over it, let it run off by filtration into a better vessel; when everything has filtered through, spritz vinegar into the solution; then the sulfur will precipitate to the bottom—edulcorate (wash sweet) and dry it well.

No. 2. Take wine-vinegar, also spirit of wine (alcohol), id est specially dephlegmated, distilled over pure once then draw it off a second time over sublimed sal-ammoniac; the vinegar by a retort—that is No. 3.

The spirit of wine over sublimed sal-ammoniac through a large vial and a small head, rectified fourfold (Benedict’s paper test), thus the spirit of wine is rectified. No. 4.

Aqua regis is as follows.

Take 2 ounces sal-ammoniac and 2 ounces common salt; mix well; sublime so long as anything continues to rise. Set the sublimed sal-ammoniac in glass dishes in the open air—but not in the sun—and let the sal-ammoniac flow into water; then the aqua regis is ready. No. 5.

Now take No. 1. Pour upon it from No. 5 (the prepared aqua regis) two fingers’ breadth in a flat flask. The cemented antimony must be well cleaned and especially finely pulverized. Close the flask well; let it stand for 3 days in gentle digestion; then distill off with repeated cohobation the aqua regis from it until all the aqua regis remains with it; then it is good. No. 6.

From the redistilled vinegar pour three fingers’ breadth over the precipitated matter; let it extract, well stoppered and set on mild sand heat; combine the solutions, distill off the vinegar, dry the sulfur—this is No. 7.

Then cement pale, thin-beaten gold and silver with the cemented and fixed Sulphur Antimonii No. 9 for 15 hours.

The Luna must first be cemented with calx viva (quicklime) for [S.S.S.] hours; after the cementation add cemented Luna to the gold; separate the same—then you will find what you ought, and wish, to find. Seek, ponder the matter; if GOD grants to one or another something from this, then let him be thankful and grateful toward GOD and the needy, and praise quietly to himself; let boasters be boasters.

If a man has nothing, no one gives him anything; but it is a true joy when one is made so fortunate by GOD that one can serve one’s neighbor without one’s own harm.
A hundred thousand are few who are worthy; the selfish, the envious, and insidiatores (slanderers/plotters) are without number; but few devoted to God are to be met with. GOD will give to each what he ought to have. ADIEU.

The AUTHOR.