body For the Anima without its body cannot be held But such an Union must be made by mediation of the Spirit because the Anima cannot have life in the body nor perseverance in it but by the Spirit And such an Union and Conjunction is the end of the Work The Soul must be joyned with the First body whence it was and with no other which if thou dost not thou shalt faile of thy purpose as many Ignorants have done who knew not this Secret Margarita Novella Spirits are fugitive untill such Time as bodyes are joyned with them and help them to fight against the fire and yet those parts agree but little unless with good Operation and Continued labour because the nature of the rwordr Tendent Upwards where the Centre rr the Anima is And who is he of those that have tryed that was able to Conjoyne Two Things that are Diverse whose Centers too are Divers unless after the Conversion shall be transmuted into True Luna less or more according to the Spirituality of the stone And if thou would'st Work with thy Red Stone project it upon Luna Molten and thou shalt finde the purest Sol. Cast thy medicin upon thy Ferment then it is frangible as Glasle Take that frangible masse and cast it upon metals first clear'd and thou shalt have metal of proofe Ripleus Anglus This Secret thou must not be Ignorant of That our Red man and his wife do not Tinge till they are Tinged Evoaldus Would any man by the Physic Stone turn lead into Gold or Silver Then he must first mingle with it the Substance of Lead that both may become one Thing In the same way he must proceed with Tin and Copper Idem pagin 123. The Virtues of the Great Elixir or Astral medicin ECHO XII THIS Chymic-powder whether you call it the Philosophers stone or fulsile Salt Sulphur Elixit or potable Gold has in it a wonderfull power over the Three Divisions of nature the Animal Vegetal and Mineral Kinds Thus first on the Animal Every Animal brute or man it brings to Sanity from every disease within or without All defections from natural Symmetry are reduced by it to Temperament because there is in it a perfect Aequation of Elements separate from their dreggs and all Sulphureous Adustions On the Vegetal It acts wonderfully by Exciting their Genital power in their seasons or out of them to a most florid vegetation In the mineral Every Imperfect metallic body Lead Tin Copper common Argent vive it transformes to Silver or Gold better then the natural in every probat Pretious Stones too the Emerald the Carbuncle the Anthrax or Rubie Chrysoprase Adamant Chrysolite and many others are made by it Rob. Vallensis By long Inquisition Labour and certain Experience we have found one medicin by which that which is hard may be made soft and that which is soft may be made hard that which is fugitive be fixt that which is foul and dark be Illustrated with a wonderfull splendor Geber Arabs Wrincles of the face every litura or spot gray haires it takes away and keeps us in perpetual youth and cheerfulnesse Clangor The Crystallin Lamen cures the most Diseases the Red Elixir all makes a man grow young like the Eagle and has produced the lives of some to above five hundred years Geber Arteph the Jew when he wrote his book affirmes he had lived a thousand and five and twenty years Rogerius Bacho de Artis mirabili potestate By its Ethereal humid oleous fire it gives us youth by its Tincture it transforms the Imperfect to the perfect Mines makes various sorts of pretious stones with the most pretious malleable Glasse Charta Sacer dorum Et Chorus Omnium The way to attain to this Sacred Science ECHO XIII FEar God you that look after this Sacred Skill For that which you seek is not a small Thing but the Treasure of Treasures the Gift of God most Excellent and Admirable Bacaser in Synod Pythag. He that is Idle and Negligent in the Reading of books shall never be prompt in the preparation of Things for one book opens another one speech explicates another and that which in one is Incompleat in another is compleated And how can he that refuses the Theorie apply himselfe to the regular practice Arnaldus in Rosario Follow it with the Instance of labour but first exercise thyself in a diuturnity of Intense Imagination for so thou mayst find the compleat Elixit but without that never at all Idem lib. 2 Rosar Serious Study our Doctors say removes Ignorance and brings the human Intellect up to the knowledge of Every Thing Richardus Anglicus Think not to find out our profound sense by the sound of the letter for he that takes the sound of the words and has not the hidden sense too shall lose his Labour and his Cost Aurora If thou canst Resolve even the least of our Sayings the Greatest cannot be hid from thee Aurora Consurgens prolog All wisdome is from God and was always with him from eternity Whosoever therfore loves wisdome let him seek it and begge it from him for he is the Altitude and profundity of all Science the Treasure of all wisedome because from him in him and by him all things are and without his will nothing can be To whom be glory for evermore Albertus magnus de Alchymia It is impossible that This should beknown unless it be known from God or from a master Rosarium Philosoph pag 230 The Artist must be prudent and of a witt naturally subtile profound and excellent in the Ability to Judge He must be learned likwise that what his wit reaches not to that may be supplied by his learning For whosoever aspires to this Science and is not a philosopher is a fool He must be Industrious Laborious and of a Constant mind not precipitant but very patient For all hastiness saies our Geber is from the Devill He must be at his owne election and free not held by other businesses and cares He must have money enough for his practice and books enough for his study Theobald Hogheland And above all he must be jealous over the Secret and keep it severely to himselfe Idem Hogheland I adjure thee by the living God whosoever thou art that hast this book in thy hands that thou offer it not to any of the Unworthy such as are Fools Tyrants Opressors Covetous Proud persons Adulterers soft Amorato's or such whose belly is their God Place thy hope in the Lord God work in his feare to the good of man expecting the blessing from above Jodoc Grever initio Lib. Thou who hast this book hide it in thy bosome discover it to none offer it not to Impious hands for it fully containes in it the very Secretum Secretorum of the Philosophers Such a pretious Jewel as This is not to be cast before Swine Therefore thou that hast the book lay thy hand upon thy mouth that deservedly thou mayst be said to be
than what it has from its proper nature to compleat it selfe No Reduction can be made of those things that Nature perfects into a species or Individuall unlesse first they be corrupted And after Corruption no Generation is made like to the species unlesse perchance there be a Regresse to the Genus Wherefore the Destruction of Gold makes nothing to the Construction or making of it because by its destruction nothing can be made For it being once dead its Substance dyes too and So that out of It no other Argent vive or Metal can be had any more c. That therefore we may expressely and solidly confirm our Sentence and Conclusion concerning the Philosophers Gold from the lower Metalls we will give you evident Testimonies from many eminent Philosophers And first Basilius in his manuscript Declaration of his manual practice writing thus of the Tincture of Sol Thou oughtest to know sayes he that Our Stone is made of Its own proper Essence and that it transmutes Other metals into Gold Which Gold he adds must again be Destroyed and Turn'd into a better Stone Here very evidently as I think he shows That This Gold is first to be made before it can again be destroyed or Turn'd into a better Stone whence likewise in his German poetry neer the beginning he delivers the same Sense O Sol Regis in hoc qui munere fungeris Orbe Luna Genus servat multiplicatque tuum O Sol Thou doest the Office of a King in this World And It is Luna that preserves and multiplyes thy Kind In which he shows that Luna is required to the propagation of Sol as in the following lines when expresly he adds Summè Luna precor ne deseruisse velis me Quum Venus in bivio jam sit ut illa decus Induviasque tuas ipsa induat ut libet Ambo Ex illa compti divitiisque Simul Ditati simus quod Te meminisse subinde Addecet Hoc etenim nunc Tibi linquo Vale. I earnestly pray Thee Good Luna forsake me not when Venus now stands doubting between Two-wayes that She may put upon her self Thy Clothes and beauty and that Both of Us being so made Fine may also be made Rich By her This thou shouldest Think upon This I leave to Thee And farewell So in his following Verses upon Venus he witnesses further saying thus Ejus filium nempe Antimonium c That her Son to wit Antimony does warme and heat the body of Luna that she may be made pregnant and leave behind her a progenie of mighty virtue and vast Encrease meaning our Gold Philosophical But from Basilius more below Now let us come to that most Excellent Author of Twelve Tractates upon the Stone whose Anagram is Qui Divi Lesch Genus Amo that is Michael Sendivogius That Polander whom Oswald Crollius in the preface of his Basilica calls Heliocantharus Borealis The Northern Beetle in whose hands he saw with great admiration and amazement the wonderfull Virtue and Operation of that Tincture commonly call'd the Philosophers Stone Thus therefore Sendivow in the proaem to his Tractates Although there are to be found some Idle fellows which either out of Envy or malice or fear of the detection of their Impostures cry it abroad That the Soul of Gold may be extracted from Gold and so return'd to Another body with vain and pompous Ostentation not without the losse of Time Labour and Cost Let the Sons of Hermes for certain know that their Extraction of Souls as they call it whether from Gold or Silver by any vulgar Alchymistical way is nothing but a meer persuasion which yet is not beleeved by many till at length by Experience the only Sole mistrisse of Truth it s verified to Them to their Losse On the otherside he goes on he that in the Philosophers way can Tinge the least piece of metal with gain or without gain really to the Colour of Sol or Luna permanent in all the probates requisit he I dare very well affirm has Nature's Doors set open to him to search out further and higher Secrets and by the blessing of God to be an Adeptus and attain them These words doe not so much referre to the artifice of Extracting a Tingent Anima by which a way should be laid open to higher Secrets as to the very right Philosophical Gold produced out of the Inferior metals by the Use of which Gold as I shall show out of the Author a way is made to us of higher Things But what he discourses of the Anima of Gold vulgarly Extracted we must know that Anima cannot transmute although It may induce Colour as Paracelsus does witnesse abundantly to us in his book of Minerals Chap. the seventh to these words This is altogether True If the Sulphur of Gold be projected upon Silver it colours it indeed but does not fix it And Basil glances at the same in his Repetition of the Great Stone pag. 113. Rightly therefore Sendivogius in his ninth Tractate of the Commixture of Metals The Chymists sayes he know very well how to transmute Iron to Copper or Venus without Sol But if they could tell he further addes how to administer the Nature of Sol to these mutations they should find the most pretious Treasure of all a Thing more pretious then any is And what Other Thing I beseech you is This than not the Common Gold but Our Gold Philosophical of which the Tincture of Sol the most pretious Treasure may afterwards be prepared wherefore sayes he we are not to be Ignorant what metals are to be put together and conjoyn'd and what nature corresponds to what Then concluding There is sayes he One metal metal he sayes that has the power of Consuming others videlicer by Corroding And why For it is almost sayes he as Their water and almost Their mother Only One Thing videlicet the Radical humidity of Sol and Luna holds out and resists and is meliorated by It. Here he might seem by the letter to speak altogether of the vulgar Saturn But Gold and Silver are not properly made Intrinsically better by vulgar Saturn although they be forinsically purged Therefore thou must take it of another Saturn with which if Gold close eleven times it is brought down to Death and afterwards put into its own matrix namely Mercury it conceives and generates the most excellent fruits But since no other Saturn but the vulgar or That which is made by Transmutation out of the Regulus of Antimony per Coementum as also out of the vulgar Mercury resolved in an Aqua fort is actually metal the words before may not unfitly be referred to the Tincture of the Vitriol of Venus and Mars for this is almost as their water and almost their mother by which the Radical moysture of Sol is indeed meliorated for our reserate prepared Gold is saturated by It and promoted to fixt Tincture as Basil himselfe witnesses because Gold cannot Tinge of Itselfe unlesse Itselfe be first Tinged
it to the bottom of the vessell Hence all the Three viscous principles must be putrified in the philosophers glasse and going on from thence be raised again to a new life by their owne proper body and Salt till they passe into a Regenerat astral fixt and perseverant Essence which by the Initial Crasis of its three principles may be multiplyed and augmented in the space of a month both in its virtue and quantity Thus much briefly of the Tincture of Sol. But as for the Philosophers Stone another way is to be taken for it admitts against the common opinion of a duplicity of prepreparation namely either by Composition of its mineral root Simple with Gold Resolved the way of Basil in his Twelve keyes or by Conjunction of Gold with the Compounded rootes of the mines from which line the Stone of fire prepared out of the Mercury of Antimony and the vitriol of Venus and Mars by their own Sulphur reced es little or nothing at all But of the nature of this I have sayd enough before from which likewise differs not that parabolicall Description de nobili Solis flore not long agoe brought out of the Archivis of some eminent Citty of the Empire which delivers the whole processe very freely although it dazle the Eyes of many pretending Sophisters But out of this compound various particular Tinctures may be had of which I forbear to speak more now But following the mineral root Simple of the Universall Most Universal we say with Basil in the end of his Memorial Table that here there is no need as we taught in the tincture of Sol that Gold should be somuch destroyed that it may be Justified in its Elements and so the first essence of its root be sought and brought forth to the light Nor is it a necessity that That in the compounds should be done for there are some who by an Essence Mercuriall extract the soul of Gold the Gold Itself remaining almost intire by which they exalt their work to such an excellence that a knife being perpendicularly let down into that Tincture of their Stone and taken up so again then only wiped with a little papyr and that papyr cast upon molten Gold although nothing at all seemed to adhere to the knife yet only by the odor of the Tincture they have converted a whole ounce of Lead into perfect Gold in all probates as those have told me that saw it done whose mindes when as before they were much averse from this study became afterwards eager pursuers of the Art But sayes Basil It is every mans part that adheres to this Science and will be in love with so pretious a thing to search diligently after the Golden Magnet viz. of the Universal most Universal to know it very well which he shall find in unicâ re unicè in one thing alone and none but that and its root in one only matter wherewith Subtiliated Gold by help of a kindly liquor is to be resolved and with continual fire and in a furnace Philosophical to be excited cherisht so long decocted till it passe into a transparent Stone like a Ruby of which says Basil our potable Gold is made more perfect than it can of Gold Itselfe which ought first to be made Spiritual before potable Gold can be prepared out of it as he has it Chap. the sixt of things Supernatural Chap. the seventh pag 93. For this Caerule or Azurine Spirit which is both in the Saphir and in Luna is the Sulphur and the soul sayes he from whence both Gold and Silver enjoy and excercise their vegetall life Hence Basilius in the Repetition of the Great stone pag. 114 Lunae spiritum spiritui Solis perinde appropriari ait atque viro faeminam c sayes The spirit of Luna is appropriated to the spirit of Sol as a woman to a man both in the Earth where metalls are first generated and then upon it where the metalls are made by Art Then again the white Tincture sayes he is placed in the Magnetic Form of that one onely thing in which likewise is found the first ens of Gold And with words to the same sense after the rectification of the Lunar Tincture described together with the preparation of it he shuts up that Chapter But if thou doest know sayes he the primum Mobile of the mall there needs not somuch of the circulations of compositions quandoquidem opus ex uno perficere potes because thou mayst doe thy worke by one But what this one is we must seeke in the nature of the Mineral kingdom But yet that he might not leave it altogether untoucht upon and so desert his reader in the mid'st of his course he everywhere intimates that it is not far from every one of us For so in his book of Naturalls chap. the 4th pag. the 56 he complains that the sons of men doe not observe but rather contemne that which God has layd before us in nature in which there is a great secret To the same sentence in the end of his Memorial Table The true root sayes he is vile and even visibly exposed to the eyes of the vulgar and yet unknown and if not by a various proofe premonstrated it still lyes hid to a man in the Dark For all the world as Bernhard likewise bears witnesse looks upon it sees it and does not know it So of the great mystery of the lesser world towards the endpag 220. The Materia prima The first matter sayes he is manifest before the eyes of the whole world and yet known to very few and in all places to be found to wit Mercurius Sulphur Sal and Mineral water or Metallic liquor tanquam-centrum as a center â Formâ suâ separata seperated from its from the prima materia or mineral water understand separated and made up of these three Incipients But chiefly in the end of his last chapter de rebus naturalibus Omnia inquit quae post Antimonium Vitriolum Sulphur Magnetem praecipuè dotata sunt praealiis et affinia its ex quibus Aurum et Argentum principium medium et finem suum sortiuntar c. All those things sayes he which after Antimony Vitriol Sulphur and the Magnet are in an eminent manner above others endowed with and nearer a kin to those principles from which Gold and Silver derive their beginning middle and end together with true transmutation and alteration particularly received their virtue force and power ex unare from one thing in which all these are Secretly and Invisibly layd up-till their birth together with all the metalls To which he adds Quae materia manifesta est coram oculis omnium Which matter is manifest before the eyes of all men But because the virtue force and power of It is buryed very deep and so unknown to most it comes about that this Materia is accounted as nothing and by Ignorance thought and reputed utterly insignificant and unfit to the purpose
of the Individual and thou hast found the Truth Greverius We need but one Vessel one Furnace one Disposition which is to be understood After the preparation of the first Stone Flamellus in Democritum Our vessel is a Glasse firmely shut round bellied of a neck strict and long halfe a foot or thereabout This vessel is called an Egge a Sublimatory a Sphear a Sepulcher a Cucurbit c. Laurentius ventura Italus Put thy matter into a Glasse-vessel Round and strong the Orifice strait and sealed that it cannot expire the least fume Scotus de Bufone The Colours When the matter has stood for the space of forty dayes in a moderate heat there will begin to appear above a blacknesse like to pitch which is the Caput Corvi of the Philosophers and the wise men's Mercury Alanus Blacknesse once seen thou mayst be sure a True Conjunction of the principles is made Before the clear Splendent colour comes all the Colours in the world will appear and disappear then thou shalt see an admirable whitenesse that it will seem to thee the True whitenesse and yet it is not so Before the True whitenesse comes thou shalt see all about in the margin of the Glass as it were Oriental pearls in the matter of the Stone glittering like the Eyes of fishes and when thou seest the Matter white as Snow and shining like orientall gemms The white stone is then perfect Let it cool of Itself Isaacus Flander The Colours are only Three the others that come are called the middle Colours that vanish away But the Black White and Red are Eminent and lasting Scenes Trithemius When in the work blacknesse appears know that thou hast found the right way of working Then rejoyce for God has given thee a very Great and pretious Gift Phoenix pag. 71. In horâ Conjunctionis mirabilia maxima apparent Nam omnes Colores quotquot Excogrtari possunt c. In the hour of Conjunction wonderfull things present themselves apparent to us For all the Colours that can be Imagined appear in the work and the Imperfect body is colour'd with a firm Coloration by mediation of the Ferment Arnaldus in Flore Florum The Time to perfect the physick-work ECHO IX This work cannot be perfected in a little space of Time therefore the Artist must be patient Greverius The shortest Time of the preparation is the Circuit and Revolution of the Greater luminary For the Stone must be kept in the fire till it cannot any more be changed from one nature to another from one Colour to another but become like the Reddest blood running like wax in the fire and yet diminishing nothing at all Laurentius Ventura Italus We take a year for our Expectation for our Calx in lesse Time cannot be made Ripleus The Philosophers seeing a sort of whitenesse come after a long Time of the Colour of Ashes called it Incineration or Dealbation Idem cap 112. In purification there cannot be a determinated Time but in ninety dayes the Red work is completed Variation of Times happens from the quantity of the med'cin and according to the Industry of the Artist Monach. pag. 17. After the first fifty dayes the Caput Corvi shows it self from thence in an hundred and fifty the Dove is made and in another hundred and fifty the Red is wrought Till you come up to whitenesse use a Gentle fire Saturninus When it has stood under an Eclipse for five months and the Darknesse recedes the light supervening Encrease your fire Scala philos Ripleus etiam The Time for perfection of Elixir is at least one year Rosarius pag. 179. Be patient in extracting thy Tincture for haste is the first Error of Art and burns all Anonymus In forty dayes and nights after the True purification of the Stone the work to White is compleat because in the purification there cannot be a Set time but in ninety dayes and nights the work to the Red is perfected Rosarium Vetustum The first Decoction has no certain Time and indeed is somewhat Taedious yet waite upon it and Expect it with joy Many have perisht with haste and affected with Tediousnes given over all Phoenix Liber pretiosissimus The Fermentation of The Stone ECHO X. FErment is made after the Ortus or Birth of the Infant And Ferment is nothing but meat Disposed to a Convertibility into the Essence of the Infant that all may be made of one nature This fermentation Cibal ought to be de suâ propriâ naturâ of the Infant 's own nature and assimilated to it else there will be no Incorporation no conversion into Sulphur Lullius in Codrcrl Ferment must not be of this or that but of Sol or Luna only For we look for nothing but that the Stone be turned into his like and from them is the whole Temperament nor is it Ferment before the Bodyes be turned into their first matter Vogelius pag. 10. Infermentation see that the Summe of the volatil do not exceed the Summe of the fixt otherwise the Sponsal Ligament of the body would be put to flight But if a little of the Sulphur be cast upon much of the body so that it has the dominion over it it soon converts it into Dust the Colour whereof is as the Colour of the body one ounce of the Dust four of the Body Anonymus Incipiens Desiderabile Know that there is no Ferment but Sol Luna Arnaldus in Flore Florum Fermentation is the Animation of the Stone Clauger pag. 46. Of the nature of both and the mutation of their substance He that is able to turne the Soul to a Body and the Body to a Soul and mingle with it Subtile Spirits is able to Tinge every Body Calid Egyptius The Multiplication and Projection of the Tincture ECHO XI IT is impossible to multiply the central salt without Gold But the Sons of Art only know the True seed of Metalls Novum lumen Chymicum Multiplication is either Virtual Such as is made by Alteration by Dissolving and Congealing or Quantitative by Apposition of new Matter Scotus de Bufone The Quantitative is Nothing else but the Augmentation of the Tincture from one pondus ad infinitum So that the Worke is never again to be begunne and this Without the Diminution of its force Incertus Projection upon Metalls No Projection of the Red stone but upon Luna Isaac Flander If thou would'st make Projection upon Jupiter melt it in a Crucibrrr rrd put to one pound of Jupiter one orrce of pure Luna and melt them together then cast on it thy White Tincture and the Jupiter animation of the Stone Clang If Thou put to It but Little of Ferment thou shalt have but little Tincture Dastinus pag. 30. When the stone is liquefied by Decoction it must then be Coagulated But this Coagulation is made with Ferment or with its owne body which is the same thing When the Anima Candida is perfectly risen the Artist must joyn it the same moment with its