The Signature of All Things

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I wrote this on another thread earlier:

The story of Jesus Christ, the Son of God, is believed and interpreted both literally, and as a parable for the salvation of man. Deeper meanings are woven into the historical account (for "those with eyes to see") by the Apostles and the Biblical Patriarchs. If we never look beyond the dogma and rituals, then we are never truly seeking God.

"Seek ye first the Kingdom of God, and all these things shall be added unto thee." When the disciples asked Jesus why He speaks in parables, He says that we should not throw pearls before the swine nor meat for the dogs. Meaning only those who can discern the Truth can be worthy of it.

"Unless a man be born of the Water, and of the Spirit, he cannot enter the Kingdom of Heaven." - John 3:4

That Holy Spirit and Living Water signifies the Wisdom (Sophia) of God in Christ Jesus. The Holy Trinity Unified in Man. The TriUnity.

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The Coelem Philosophorum.


The Preface.


You who are skilled in Alchemy, and as many others as promise yourselves great riches or chiefly desire to make gold and silver, which Alchemy in different ways promises and teaches: equally too, you who willingly undergo toil and vexations, and wish not to be freed from them, until you have attained your rewards, and the fulfillment of the promises made to you: experience teaches this every day, that out of thousands of you not even one accomplishes his desire. Is this a failure of Nature or of Art? I say, no: but it is rather the fault of fate, or of the unskillfulness of the operator.

Since, therefore, the characters of the signs, of the stars and planets of heaven, together with the other names, inverted words, receipts, materials, and instruments, are thoroughly well known to those who are acquainted with this art, it would be altogether superfluous to recur to these same subjects in the present book, although the use of such signs, names, and characters at the proper time is by no means without advantage.

But herein will be noticed another way of treating Alchemy different from the previous method, and deduced by Seven Canons from the sevenfold series of the metals. This, indeed, will not give scope to a pompous parade of words, but, nevertheless, in the consideration of those Canons everything which should be separated from Alchemy will be treated at sufficient length, and, moreover, many secrets of other things are herein contained. Hence, too, many other marvelous speculations, and new operations which frequently differ from the writings and opinions of ancient operators and natural philosophers, but have been discovered and confirmed by full proof and experimentation.

Moreover, in this Art, nothing is more true than this, though it be little known and gains small confidence. All the fault and cause of difficulty in Alchemy, whereby very many persons are reduced to poverty, and others labour in vain, is wholly and solely lack of skill in the operator, and the defect or excess of materials, whether in quantity or quality, whence it ensues that, in the course of operation, things are wasted or reduced to nothing. If the true process shall have been found, the substance itself, while transmuting approaches daily more and more towards perfection. The straight road is easy, but is found by very few.

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Sometimes it may happen that a speculative artist may, by his own eccentricity, think out for himself some new method of Alchemy, be the consequence anything or nothing. He need do nought in order to reduce something into nothing,and again bring back something out of nothing. Yet this proverb of the incredulous is not wholly false. Destruction perfects that which is good: for the good cannot appear on account of that which conceals it. The concealment must be removed that so the good may be able freely to appear in its own brightness. For example, the mountain, the sand, the earth, or the stone in which a metal has grown, is such a concealment. Each one of the visible metals is a concealment of the other six metals.

By the element of fire all that is imperfect is destroyed and taken away, as for instance the five metals, Mercury, Jupiter, Mars,Venus and Saturn. On the other hand, the perfect metals, Sol and Luna, are not consumed in that same fire. They remain in the fire: and at the same time, out of the other imperfect ones which are destroyed, they assume their own body and become visible to the eyes. How, and by what method, this comes about can be gathered from the Seven Canons. Hence it may be learnt what are the nature and property of each metal, what it effects with the other metals, and what are its powers in commixture with them.

But this should be noted in the very first place, that these Seven Canons cannot be perfectly understood by every cursory reader at a first glance or a single reading. An inferior intelligence does not easily perceive occult and abstruse subjects. Each one of these Canons demands no slight discussion. Many persons, puffed up with pride, fancy they can easily comprehend all which this book comprises. Thus they set down its contests as useless and futile, thinking they have something far better of their own, and that therefore they can afford to despise what is herein contained.

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tldr folks

my signature is so whatever you want to call it that in grade school i was given an automatic 'A' in penmanship class and was allowed to do whatever I want while the rest of the class worked on their cursive handwriting.

I cannot tell a Fibbonacci.

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Metamorphosis of Metals.

Chapter 1.

All men who devote their lives to the study of any art, or to any kind of occupation, have before their eyes, as the aim of their efforts, perfection in the thing which they pursue. But only few attain to the goal of their wishes: there are many architects, but few masters of the art of architecture: many students of medicine, but few men like Hippocrates or Galen: many mathematicians, but few proficients like Archimedes: many poets, but few worthy to rank with Homer. Yet, even men who have nothing more than a respectable knowledge of their calling, are capable of being useful to society.

Among those who devote themselves to the transmutation of metals, however, there can be no such thing as mediocrity of attainment. A man who studies this Art, must have either everything or nothing. An Alchemist who knows only half his craft reaps nothing but disappointment and waste of time and money: moreover, he lays himself open to the mockery of those who despise our Art. Those, indeed, who succeed in reaching the goal of our Magistery, have not only infinite riches, but also the means of continued life and health. Hence it is the most popular of human pursuits. Anyone who has read a few 'Receipts' claims the title of a Sage, and conceives the most extravagant hopes: and, in order to give themselves the appearance of very wise men indeed, such persons immediately set themselves to construct furnaces, fill their laboratories with stills and alembics, and approach the work with a wonderful sense of profundity. They adopt an obscure jargon, speak of the first matter of metals, and discuss with a learned air the rotation of the elements, and the marriage of Gabritius with Beya. In the meantime, however, they do not succeed in bringing about any metamorphosis of metals, except that of their gold and silver into copper and bronze.

When captious despisers of our Art see this, they draw from such constant failures the conclusion that our Art is a combination of fiction and imposture: whilst those who have ruined themselves by their folly confirm this suspicion by preying on the credulity of others, pretending to have gained some skill in the loss of their money. In this way the path of the beginner is beset with difficulties and pestilent delusions of every kind: and, through the fault of these swindlers, who give themselves such wonderful airs of profundity and learning, our Art itself has fallen into utter disrepute, though these persons, of course, know absolutely nothing whatever about it. The beginner finds it extremely difficult to distinguish between the false and the true in this vast Labyrinth of Alchemy. Bernard of Trevisa warns him to eschew like the plague these persons who hold out so many vain and empty promises: while I have written this treatise for the guidance of the blind and the instruction of the erring. I wish, in the first place, to clear our Art from the slanders which have been cast upon it, then to describe the qualifications of its students and its methods of procedure. After these prefatory explanations, I will gird myself to a description of the Art itself.

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(continued)

Before I say anything else, I would record my most earnest protest against that method of reasoning by that method of reasoning by which deceptions of certain wretched sophists are laid to the charge of this science. The wickedness of some of its lying professors can prove nothing for or against its genuineness. Such a position could be made good only by arguments based on natural relations: but such arguments it is impossible to find. The Light of nature is too bright to be darkened by these obscurists. I hope my Book will show that the Transmutation of Metals, from an imperfect to a perfect state, is a real and true achievement, and that by the co-operation of Nature and Art. The only thing that distinguishes one metal from another, is its degree of maturity, which is, of course, greatest in the most precious metals: the difference between gold and lead is not one of substance, but of digestion: in the baser metal the coction has not been such as to purge out its metallic impurities. If by any means this superfluous impure matter could be organically removed from the baser metals, they would becone gold and silver. So miners tell us that lead has in many cases developed into silver, in the bowels of the earth: and we contend that the same effect has been produced in a much shorter time by means of our Art. It is a fact that the Mercury which is generated in the bowels of the earth, is the common substance of all metals - since this Mercury will enter into combination with any kind of metal - which could not be the case if it were not naturally akin to them all. Mercury is a water that will mix with nothing, that is not of the same nature. By Art, the handmaid of Nature, Mercury can be so successively concocted with all metals, that one and the same under the same colour and flux, may subalternately show and express the true temperature and properties of them all. Moreover, all metals are capable of being resolved into running Mercury - and surely this could not be if it were not their common substance. Again, the Mercury of lead may become that of iron, the Mercury of iron that of copper: while the Mercury of tin may even be transmuted into that of silver and gold - a fact which triumphantly demonstrates the substantial affinity of all the metals. From antimony, too, a good Mercury is obtained, which some of our Artists are able to change into metallic Mercury. It is also a well-established fact, that the Mercury gained from any metallic or mineral body possesses the properties of assimilating common Mercury to its own nature: thus common Mercury may become that of all metals in turn.

Do not these arguments clearly show that there is one Mercury, and that in the various metals it is only differentiated according to their different degrees of digestion or purity? I do not see how these arguments can be answered. It is possible indeed that some dull person may allege in refutation of our reasoning his inability to accomplish those chemical transformations on which it is based: but such operators would be vindicating too great an honour for their ignorance if they claimed to advance it as an argument against the truth of our Art. They must not make their own little understandings the standard or measure of the possibilities of Nature. At any rate, my word is as good as theirs (and better, since they can never prove a negative), and I do most positively and solemnly assert that I have with my own hands performed every one of the experiments, which I have described: and I know many others whose experience has shown these things to be true. How can our opponents hope to prevail against eyewitnesses by bare negation? My testimony is borne out by the experience of such men as Albertus Magnus, Raymond Lully, George Ripley, Nicholas Flamel, Morienus, and a host of others. I confess that the transformations of which I have spoken are not easy to accomplish, but whoever has the Key of our Art can unlock all gates, and has power over all the secrets of Nature. But this Key is possessed only by those who have both a theoretical and practical knowledge of natural processes.

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Ordinal of Alchemy.

All masters that write of this werke,
Have made their bokes to manie men full derke,
In poyses, parables, and in metaphors alsoe,
Which to schollors causeth peine and woe:
Forin their practice wen they would assaye
They leefe their costs, as men see alle daye.
Hermes, Rasis, Geber, and Avicen,
Merlin, Hortolan, Democrit, and Morien,
Bacon and Raymond with many moe
Wrote under coverts and Aristotle alsoe.
For what hereof they wrote clear with their pen,
Their clouded clauses dulled from manie men:
Fro laymen, fro clerkes, and soe fro every man
They hid this art that noe man find it can.
By their bokes thei do shew reasons faire,
Whereby much people are brought to despaire:
Yet Anaxagoras wrote plainest of them all
In his boke of Conversions Naturall:
Of the old fathers that ever I found,
He most discloses of this science the grounde:
Whereof Aristotle had great envy,
And him rebuked unrightfully,
In manie places, as I can well report,
Intending that men should not to him resort,
For he was large of his cunnying and love,
God gave his soul in bliss above:
And such has sowed envious seed,
God forgive them for their mis-deede.

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Plunderers, forebear this gift to touch
'Tis awful Pluto's own:
A secret rare this world conceals
To such as you unknown.
Olybius, in this slender vase,
The elements has changed.
Digested with laborius art,
From secret science gained.
With guardian care, two copious urn,
The costly juice confine,
Lest through the ruins of decay,
The lamp should cease to shine.
On the lesser urn were these:

Plunderers, with prying eyes, Away!
What mean you by this curious stay?
Hence with your cunning patron god,
With bonnet winged and magic rod!
Sacred alone to Pluto's name
This mighty art of endless fame!

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Whate'er the Eastern Magi sought,
Or Orpheus sung, or Hermes taught,
Whatever Confucius would inspire,
Or Zoroaster's mystic fire:

The symbols that Pythagoras drew,
The wisdom godlike Plato knew,
What Socrates debating proved
Or Epictetis lived and loved:

The sacred fire of saint and sage,
Thro every clime in every age,
In Boehme wondrous page we view,
Discovered and reveal'd anew.

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Lucerna Solis.

A certain thing is found in the world
Which is also in every thing and in every place.
It is not earth, nor fire, nor air, nor water,
Albeit it wants neither of these things,
Nay it can become to be fire, air, water, and earth:
For it contains all nature in itself purely and sincerely:
It becomes white and red, is hot and cold,
It becomes moist and dry and is diversifiable every way,
The band of Sages only have known it,
And they call it their salt.
It is extracted from their earth:
And has been the ruin of many a fool:
For the common earth is worth nothing here,
Nor the vulgar salt in any manner,
But rather the salt of the world,
Which contains in itself all Life:
Of it is made that medicine
Which will preserve you from all maladies.

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"For is our art not cabalistic and full of mysteries? And you, fool, believe we teach the secret of secrets openly, and understand our words according to the letter: be assured, we are not envious, but he that takes the philosophers' saying according to the outward sense and signification has already lost the clue to Ariadne, and wanders up and down the labyrinth, and it would be of the same benefit to him as if he had thrown his money into the sea." - Artephius

"I would have the candid reader be admonished that he understand my writings, not so much from the outside of my words as from the possibility of nature: let him consider that this Art is for the wise, not for the ignorant: and that the sense of the philosophers is of another nature than to be understood by vaporising Thrasoes, or the letter learned scoffers,or vicious against their own consciences, or ignorant montebanks, who, most unworthily defaming the most commendable art of Alchemy, have with their whites and reds deceived almost the whole world." - Sendivogius

"All things indeed might have been comprehended in a few lines: but we are willing to guide into the knowledge of nature indirectly, by reasons and examples: that thou may knowest what the thing truly is thou shouldst seek after, also that thou might have nature, her light and shadow, discovered unto thee. Be not displeased if thou meetest sometimes with contradictions in my treatises: it being the custom of philosophers to use them: thou hast need of them: if thou understandeth them, thou shalt not find a rose without prickles." - Sendivogius

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The Triumphal Chariot of Antimony.

Though the ancient Philosophers have written diversely of this science, concealing under a multitude of names the true principle of the Art, yet have they not done it but upon important considerations, as we shall hereafter make appear. And though they are different in their expressions, yet are they not any way discordant one from another, but all aiming at one end, and speaking of the same thing, they have thought fit (above all the rest) to name the proper Agent by a term, strange, nay sometimes contrary to its nature and qualities.

Know then, my Son, that almighty God together with the Universe, created two stones, that is to say, the White and the Red, both which are under one and the same subject, and afterwards multiplied in such abundance, that anyone may take as much as he please thereof. The matter of them is of such a kind, that it seems to be a mean between a metal and Mercury, and is partly fixed and partly not fixed, otherwise it could not be a mean between metals and Mercury: and this matter is the instrument whereby our desire is accomplished, if we do but prepare it. Hence, it comes that those who bestow their endeavours in this art without the said Medium, lose their labour, but if they are acquainted with the Medium, they shall find all things feasible and fortunate.

Know then, that this Medium, being aerial, is found among the celestial bodies, and that it is only there are found the Masculine and Feminine gender, (to speak properly) having a constant, strong, fixed, and permanent virtue, of the essence whereof Philosophers have expressed themselves only by similitudes and figures, as I have told you. This they did, so that the science might not be discovered by the ignorant, which if it should once happen, all were lost: but that it be comprehended only by those patient souls, and subtilised understandings, which being sequestered from the soilness of this world, are cleansed from the filth of that terrene dunghill of avarice, whereby the ignorant are chained to the earthiness of this world, which is (without this admirable quintessence) the receptacle of poverty, it being certain, that those divine souls, when they have dived into Democritus' Fountain, that is to say, into the truth of Nature, would soon discover what confusion might happen in all estates and conditions, if everyone could make as much gold as he would himself. Upon this ground was it that they were pleased to speak by figures, types, and analogies, that so they might not be understood except by such as are discreet, religious, and enlightened by divine Wisdom. All which notwithstanding, that have left in their writings a certain method, way and rule, by the assistance whereof, a wise man may comprehend whatever they have written most obscurely and in time arrive at the knowledge of it, though happily wading through some error, praised be God for it. And whereas the vulgar ignorant person ought to submit to these reasons, and consequently adore, what is too great,to enter into his brain, he on the contrary accuses the Philosophers of imposture and impiety, by which means and the scarcity of wise men, the art falls into contempt.

For my part, I tell you, they have always expressed themselves according to certain truth, though very obscurely, and sometimes fabulously, all which I have deciphered in this little treatise, and after such a manner that the earnest desirer of science shall understand what has been mystically delivered by the Philosophers. And yet if he pretends to understand me and know not the nature of the elements and things created, as also our rich Metal, he does but lose his labour: but if he understand the concord and discord of natures, he will by God's assistance arrive to the rest. It is therefore my suit to God, that he who shall understand the present secret may work to the glory and praise of the sacred Divinity.

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Marrow of Alchemy.

The matter first of metals Mercury
A moisture is which wetteth no hand
Yet flows, and therefore is named water dry,
The vulgar is at every one's command,
But this is not the water we desire,
For in our water is our secret fire.

This Matter while its life it did retain,
Was apt all metals e'en to procreate,
The life when gone, then dead it doth remain
Till a new soul shall It reanimate.
This Matter is to metals all of kin
All which do hide a Mercury within.

He then who knows the parts of Mercury,
And can it superfluities decrease
And with true Sulphur it can vivify:
For dead it is, though, fluent, he with ease,
May gold unlock, and after recongeal
Both to an Essence which all griefs can heal.

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Lo! Here a spring of wealth, a Tree of Life,
No wealth so great, no sickness here is rife,
Here in a map, thou seest the creatures all
Abridged, and reduced to their perfection.
Here thou beholdest in a Subject Small,
From this worlds misery, a full protection.

O Mercury, thou wonder of the world!
How strange thy nature is and how compact!
A body dost possess which doth enfold
A Spirit inexpressible to act,
Our Mysteries: this only we desire,
This is our water, this our secret fire.

For Argent Vive is gold essential
Only unripe, which, if thou canst prepare
By Art, it gives the secret menstrual:
The Mother of our Stone, which is so rare.
Our oil, our unguent, and our marchasite:
Which we do name also our fountain bright.

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O crystal fountain! Which with fourfold spring,
Rubs down the valleys with its pearly drops
Distilling, with which our noble king
Is washed and carried to the mountain tops,
Where he the virtues of the Heavens receive,
Which never after him, when fixed, leaves.

This our May-dew which our earth doth move
To bring forth fruit, which fruit is perfect gold:
This is our Eve, whom Adam doth so love,
That in her arms, his soul, strange to be told,
He doth receive, who erst as dead was seen,
And quickened first appears in colours green.

How this? Even thus, in Saturn there is hid
A soul immortal, which in prison lies.
Untie its fetters, which do it forbid
To sight for it to appear, then shall arise
A Vapour shining, like pearl orient,
Which is our Moon and sparkling Firmament.

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"By such a vital and mysterious process is the First Matter of the adepts said to be generated and produced by an emancipation of the Fontal Source: and this is Diana, and that refulgent Light which eclipses every other light but that of its proper Reason, and strikes the irrational intruder blind. For she is the wholeness of the Fundamental Nature at once personified, the knot and link of all the elements o being, inferior, as well as superior, which she contains within herself. A Light more splendid than the Sun and gold, and more beautiful than the Moon or silver, and more diaphanous than the purist crystal: inasmuch transcendant, says the acute Helvetius, that that most recreant Beauty can never be blotted out from my mind, though it should be rejected by all, and disbelieved by fools and the illiterate. For though our Art is unknown, we do assert, according to experience, that this mystery is to be found: but only with the great Jehovah saturninely placed in the centre of the world. There, within most intimately, the Abyss of the Spagyric artifice is disclosed: there, as in a crystalline diaphaneity, the Miracle of the whole world. There, in that region, no longer fabulous, but by art made natural, is seen the Salamander casting out the ethereal waters, and washing himself in the flames: there the river Numitius, in which Aeneas, bathing, was absolved from his mortality, and by command of Venus was transformed into an immortal god." - Mary Ann Atwood


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(continued)

"There, also, is Eridanus, and that Lydian river Pactolus, transmuted into gold, as soon as Mygdonian Midas had washed himself in the same. Also, as in a beautifully pictured series, there is displayed every mythological antique device: Apollo and the Muses, and Parnassus and the Fountain struck from Pegasus, and the fountain of Narcissus, even Scylla washing in the flood, beneath the fervent rays of the meridian sunbeam: there, too, the blood of Pyramis and Thisbe, which turned the white mulberries into a deeper dye. The blood of Adonis transformed by Venus into an anemone rose: that blood too, of mighty Ajax, out of which sprung the fairest hyacinth flower. There are also the drops of water decocted by Medea, out of which such a verdue sprang up suddenly to cover the bleached earth: and that potion which the enchantress boiled out of so many herbs three days before the full moon, for the healing of Jason, when that hero had grown infirm. The garden of the Hespirides, also, are in Elysium: and here Hippomanes runs the race with Atalanta, and vanquishes by stratagem of the golden fruit. Here, too, magnanimous Hercules, having burnt all his maternal body upon a pile of wood, revives entire and incombustible, as the Phoenix on her pyre, and is changed into the likeness of an immortal god. Such are a very few of the games and choice spectacles which tradition commemorates as instituted by Wisdom, for the benefit of souls emerging from Lethe and Egyptian darkness to the glorious liberty of the Free Will in life. And it is that kindling of Divine Ecstasy, in connection with its Source, that attracts the whole phenomenon of nature to its desire, and works the total miracle of the Hermetic Art, exalts Mind by the understanding of Causes, and confirms it. But in the summary language of the Greek saint (since here it becomes us not to assert): Know, says Synesius, that the Quintessence and hidden thing of our Stone, is nothing else than our viscous celestial and glorious soul, drawn by our magistery out of its mine, which engenders itself and brings itself forth, and that Water is the most sharp vinegar, which makes gold to be a pure spirit - nay it is that Blessed Nature which engenders all things: but by usurpation, separate, in each paricular universally and without return.

These plain words, supporting the evidence which has gone before, will leave less doubt, if we yield them credence, with respect to the method and true basis of the Hermetic experiment: reason, aided by a perspicacious imagination, will attain readily to the idea, and research may further assist the faithful to confirm it. We cannot, however, quit a subject, the preliminaries of which are so important to establish, without adverting to certain Kabalistic and other Greek concordances, in the hope that their separate witness may tell favourably toward the development of this Material of Mind." - Mary Ann Atwood

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"Seek our Argent Vive, and you will have all you desire from it: it is a stone and no stone, in which the whole Art consists, spirit, soul, and body: which if thou coagulatest it will be coagulated: and if thou makest it fly, it will fly: for it is volatile, and clear as a tear. And afterwards it is made citrine, then saltish, but without crystals: and no man may touch it with his tongue, for it is a deadly poison. Behold, I have described it to thee: but I have not named it, lest it should become common in the hands of all: nevertheless, I will in a manner name it, and tell thee that if thou sayest it is water, thou dost say truth: and if thou sayest it is not water, thou dost not lie. Be not therefore deceived with manifold descriptions and operations, for it is One Thing to which nothing extraneous is added." - Arnold Villa Nova


"This amongst all great philosophers is magisterial: that our stone is no stone: though with the ignorant this is ridiculous: for who will believe that water can be made a stone, or a stone water, nothing is more different than these two? Yet, in very truth, it is so, for this very permanent water is the stone, but whilst it is water, it is no stone." - Belus

"It is a stone and no stone
In which the whole Art consists:
Nature has made it such,
But has not yet brought it to perfection.
You will not find it on earth,
Since there it has no growth:
It grows only in the caverns of the mountains.
The whole Art depends on it:
For he who has the vapour of this thing,
Has the gilded splendour of the Red Lyon,
The pure and clear Mercury.
And he who knows the red Sulphur that it contains,
Has within his power the whole foundation." - from Lucerna Salis

"Our water is Heavenly, not wetting the hands, not of the vulgar: but almost rain water." - Sendivogius


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"It is a clear Light, which fills with true virtue every mind that has once perceived it: it is the nucleus and bond of all the elements which are contained in it, and the Spirit which nourishes all things, and by means of which Nature operates universally: it is the virtue, true beginning, and end of the whole world: in plain words, the Quintessence is non other than our viscous celestial and glorious soul drawn from its minera by our magistery. But Nature alone engenders it: it is not possible to make it by Art, for to create is proper to God alone: but to make things that are not perceived, but which lie in the shadow to appear, and to take from them their veil, is granted to an intelligent Philosopher by God, through Nature. And this Latex is the sharp vinegar which makes gold a pure spirit, seeing she is even that blessed water that engenders all things. Our Subject is presented to the eyes of the whole world, and it is not known! O our Heaven! O our Water! O our Mercury! O our Salt Nitre, abiding in the sea of the world! O our Vegetable! O our Sulphur, fixed and volatile! O our Caput Mortuum, or dead head, or foeces of our sea! Our water, that wets not the hands: without which nothing grows or is generated in the whole world! And these are the Epithetes of Hermes, his Bird, which is never at rest. It is of small account, yet no body can be without it, and so thou hast discoveted to thee a thing more precious than the whole world: which I plainly tell thee is nothing else than Our sea water, which is congealed in gold and silver, and extracted by the help of our chalybs, or steel, by the Art of Philosophers, in a wonderful manner by the prudent sons of science." - Synesius

"The First Matter is indeed the union of masculine and feminine spirits: the quintessence of four, the ternary of three, and the tetract of one: and that these are his generations, physical and metaphysical. The thing itself is a world without form, a Divine animated mass of complexion like silver, neither mere power nor perfect action, but a weak virgin substance, a certain soft prolific Venus, the very love and seed of Nature, the mixture and moisture of Heaven and Earth." - Vaughan

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"O how wonderful is that thing which has in itself all things which we seek, to which we add nothing different or extract, only in the separation removing superfluities." - Geber

"Nor can one be so stupid as to think
That water of its own accord should cause
Within itself so great a change, and link
Sulphur and Mercury with so firm laws,
Its own dimensions to penetrate
So many times a metal to create.
No, there must be an inner agent granted,
Else would a thing unchanged still remain:
This agent is the form which matter wanted,
While it its proper nature did retain:
This Form is light, the source of central heat,
Which clothed with matter doth a seed beget.
The seed no sooner is produced, but soon
Essays to bring the matter to a change,
On it it stamps its character, which done,
The Matter lives, and that which may seem strange
Co-worketh with the Form t'attain the end
To which the Seed implanteth doth attend." - Norton

"It is a certain tortured water, having suffered alteration by Art, becomes corporified. Thus Nature, by Art, transcends Herself." - The Adept

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"The seed of gold is a fiery form of Light inspissate, and this is the Stone of Fire. Lapis noster, hic est ignis, est igne creatus, et in ignem veritur, et anima ejus in igna moritur." - Democritus

"How that manie men patient and wise,
Found our White Stone with exercise:
After that they were trewly taught,
With great labour, that stone they caught:
But few (saith he) or scarcely one,
In fifteen kingdoms hath our Red Stone.
He whom to seek it availeth right noughte,
Till the white medicine be fully wrought:
Neither Albertus Magnus, the Black Freere,
Neither Freere Bacon his compeere,
Had not of our Red Stone consideration
Him to increase in multiplication." - Norton

"Our great Elixir most high of price,
Our Azot, our Basiliske, and our Adrop.
Some call it also a substance exuberate,
Some call it Mercury of metalline essence,
Some limus derti from his body evacuate,
Some the Eagle flying fro' the north with violence,
Some call it a Toade for his great vehemence,
But few or none at all doe name it in its kinde,
It is a privy quintessence, keepe it well in minde." - Elias Ashmole

"So this science must ever secret be,
The cause thereof is this, as ye may see:
If one evil man had hereof his will,
All Christian peace he might easily spill:
And with his pride he might pull down
Rightful Kings and Princes of renown:
Wherefore the sentence of peril and jeopardy
Upon the teacher resteth dreadfully." - Thomas Aquinas

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Rosarium Philosophorum.


They who desire to have the most true knowledge of the greater science of the philosophic Art, let them diligently peruse this little book and often times read it over and they shall obtain their prosperous and wished desire. Listen to these things, you children of the Ancient Philosophers, I will speak in the highest and loudest voice I can, for I come unto you to open and declare the principal state of human things and the most secret treasure of all the secrets of the whole world. I will not do it feignedly and erroneously but altogether plainly and truly, wherefore use you towards me such devotion of hearing as I shall bring unto you magistery of doctrine and wisdom, for I will show you a true testimony of those things which I have seen with my own eyes and felt with my hands. There are many men too forward as deceitful boasters which after great expense and labours, found out no effect but misery. I will therefore speak plainly and manifestly so that the unskillful, as those that are expert and skillful, shall be able to understand the secret of this mystery. Neither shall any man justly use slanderous and blasphemous words against me, for seeing that the Ancient Philosophers have written so obscurely and confusedly that they are not understood, nor seem to agree together, because diverse men searching after this most precious Art have either been deceived or terrified from their purpose, therefore without all deceit and obscurity, I will plainly set down the true experiment before your eyes, together with the opinions of the Philosophers, serving well for our purpose that the Matter whereof we entreat may be manifest and plainly understood.

First we must note that all men who work beyond Nature are deceivers and work in an unlawful manner. Furthermore, of man nothing is born but man, and of a brute beast nothing but a brute beast, and every like bringeth forth nothing but his like, wherefore he which has not of his own, cannot at his pleasure have another man's. We speak this that no man should let his money go from him. For some men being deceived by letting their money pass from them, and so living in penury, do also endeavour to seduce other men and bring them to like misery. But my counsel is that no man be too forward in this art, in hope to attain some great matter, unless he knows the beginning of true Nature and the regimen thereof, which being known there is not then any need of more things than one, neither doth it require great expenses, because it is one stone, one medicine, one vessel, one regimen, and one disposition, and know this: that it is a most true Art. Furthermore, the Philosophers would never have laboured and studied to express such diversities of colours and the order of them unless they had seen and felt them.

Wherefore again we say this, that all men labouring beyond Nature are deceivers and deceived. Therefore let your exercise and labour be used in Nature because Our Stone is of an Animal, of a Vegetable, and of a Mineral substance. Be thou therefore of one mind and opinion in the work of Nature and presume not to try this thing here and that thing another time, for our Art is not affected with the multitude of things and though the names thereof be diverse and manifold, yet it is always One only thing and of One thing. For that is not brought into Nature which being in it is not of its own Nature, therefore it is necessary that the Agent and Patient be One thing, and the same thing in kind and in general, but in species another and diverse according to Mercury by which the woman is diversified from the man, because although they agree in one kind, yet they have a distinct difference between themselves, as Matter and Form differ, for Matter suffers action but Form works and makes the Matter like itself. Therefore Matter naturally desires form, as the woman does the man, and the fowl does the air, so the body embraceth the spirit more freely that it may come to its perfection.

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"Know this, that God hath not ordained this stone of which this great secret entreateth to be bought for a great price, for it is found out being cast away, and may as well be had of a poor man as of a rich man, that every man may come unto it by reason and knowledge. Argent Vive is not the stone, whereupon Constantinus saith, "Know therefore that Argent Vive is fire and burns bodies more than fire."

We are the beginning and first nature of metals,
Art by us maketh the chief tincture.
There is no fountain nor water like unto me.
I heal and help both the rich and the poor,
But yet I am full of hurtful poison.

The juices of Lunaria, Aqua Vitae, Fifth Essence, Spirit of Wine, Mercury Vegetable, are all One. The juices of Lunaria is made of our wine, which thing is known but to few of our children, and with it is our solution made, and our potable gold is made, that being the mean thereof and cannot be without it." - Alphidius

"Whosoever would come to the knowledge of this Art and is not a Philosopher will prove a fool because this Science is only of the Secrets of Philosophers." - Arnoldus

"This Art is reserved in the power of God and is an enemy to the lay people." - Senior

"Fools understanding the sayings of the Philosophers according to the letter do find out no truth, and they say it is a false science because they have tried it and found nothing, and then they become as men desperate, condemning this science and dispraising the books thereof, and therefore the science maketh small account of them, because our science of the secrets of nature hath no enemy but the ignorant, according to these verses following:

This stone is had in small regard
With men of slender wit
But yet the wise and learned sort
Make great account of it." - Arnoldus

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"Whom it seeke it availeth right nought,
Till the white medicine be fully wrought.
Alsoe both medicines in their beginninge
Have one manner of vessel and workinge,
As well for the White as for the Red,
Till all quick things be made dead:
When vessels and forme of operation
Shall change in matter, figure, and graduation.
But my hearte quaketh, my hand in tremblinge,
When I write of this most selcouth thing,
Hermes brought forth a true sentence and blunte,
When he said, Ignis et Azoth tibi sufficiente." - Norton


"Our magistery is Three, Two, and One -
The Animal, Vegetable, and Mineral Stone.
First, I say, in the name of the Holy Trinity,
Look that thou join in one person Three -
The Fixed, the Variable, and the Fugitive -
Till they together taste death and live.
The first one is the Dragon fell,
That shall the other twaine both slay and quell:
The Sun and Moon shall lose their light,
And in mourning sable, they shall seem dight,
Threescore days long, or neere thereabout:
Then shall Phoebus appear first out,
With strange colours in all the Firmament,
Then our joy is coming and at Hand present,
Then Orient Phoebus in his hemisphere
To us full gloriously shall appear:
Thus he who can work wisely,
Shall attain unto our Magistery." - Bloomfield


"He that would seek Tincture so specious
Must needly avoid all things wild and vicious.
The Philosopher's work doe not begin
Till all things be pure without and within." - Norton

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"The end depends from the beginning: and as the vine draws its sap from the foeculent impure earth, and yields a fluent fruit, which by the fermentative art is turned into wine, spiritualised, and advanced into a more permanent form of being: so in the Hermetic Art, the philosophic matter drawn in part from the heterogenous air and defiled breath of vitality, is purified by successive interchanging of ferments, fretted, dissolved, and rectified into a consummate and immortal Form of Light. But nature halts many times before this before this final rest, at each stage offering the fruits of her conceptive imagination to allure: if the artist be ambitious, however, and a true philosopher, he will accept none of these, but will proceed, sacrificing all the intermediate benefits, again and again torturing her, and, with relentless hands, slaying the first born offspring until the Divine Perfection is attained. For other foundation can no man lay, as says the apostle, than that which is laid, which is Jesus Christ. Now if any man build upon this foundation gold, silver, precious stones, wood, hay, stubble: every man's work shall be made manifest: for the Day shall declare it, because it shall be revealed by Fire: and the Fire shall try every man's work of what sort it is. If any man's work abide which he hath built thereupon, he shall receive a reward. If any man's work shall be burned, he shall suffer loss: but he himself shall be saved, yet so as by Fire. Know ye not that ye are the Temple of God, and that the Spirit of God dwelleth within you? If any man defile the Temple of God, him shall God destroy: for the Temple of God is holy, which Temple ye are.

Thus he who, like Oedipus, is able to solve the Enigma of the Sphinx, in other words, to penetrate rationally the darkened essence of his natural understanding, will, by conversion illuminating its obscurity, cause it to become lucid throughout, and to be no longer what it was before. For Mind is the Key of this Hermetic Enigma, and no sooner does it attain to Self Knowledge, by proper inquiry within, than the Efficient proceeds out wards to image its motive in operation, so that that which before lay in speculation only is carried out in Life. But it is not until the right Motive is discovered, and until the mundification of the Spirit is completed in both kinds, and all things are reduced to a crystalline diaphaneity, that the Philosophic Work has been said truly to being. For, as was before observed, if any permanent confection is made or suffered to take place beforehand, the immature offspring does not abide.

Here then lies the Gordian Knot of the Hermetic Mystery - and who is he that is able to untie it, enquires the Philosopher? - He who knows the Salt and its Solution, knows the Secret of the ancient Sages. What then ought we to be doing, since hands and intellect are here alike incapable, and the truth of this discovery has yet to be put to paper, and for this sufficient reason, that it is proper alone, as Lully says, to God to reveal it: since it is His alone prerogative, and no mortal can communicate it to another unless the Divine Will be with him." - Mary Ann Atwood

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"And it behooves him therefore, who would be introduced to this hidden Wisdom, says Hermes, to quit himself of the usurpations of vice, to be good and just and of a profound reason, ready at hand to help mankind: for these subtle chemical secrets may never be handled by the idle or vicious unbelievers of these matters in which they are only ignorant, who, being destitute of life, defile by an evil imagination the very Spirit that ought to be refined. Omne aurum est aes, sed non omne aes est aurum - and the true physician, according to Crollius (whom Paracelcus called a natural divine) is true, sincere, intelligent, faithful: and being well exercised in the vital analysis of bodies knows that there is no constant quality of any body which is not to be found in the salt, mercury and sulphur thereof. And these three principles of attraction, repulsion and circulation, the universal accord of life, are everywhere and in all.

Or what more shall I say? (asks Morien, emphatically, discoursing with the Arabian monarch about the confection of the Stone, and after showing the distinctive supremacy of man in nature). The thing, O king, is extracted from thee, in the which mineral thou dost even exist: with thee it is found: by thee it is received: and when thou shalt have proved all by the love and light in thee, it will increase: and thou wilt know that I have spoken an enduring truth.

Although few write so clearly to the purpose as those we have selected, yet the more modern class of adepts have in general left hints and suggestions to the same effect: they describe the life of man, as by their Art revealed, to be a pure, naked, and unmingled fire of infinite capability, differing from that of the prone creatures in form, educability, and capacity for melioration in itself. And though it might be supposed, according to the alleged diffusion of the Matter, that, if the Art of separating it were known, it might be taken anywhere (which in part also is true) yet we may consider the object was not simply to obtain the Matter or prove it only, but to improve, perfect, and bring the Causal light to manifestation. And in what our human circulatory system differs and occultly approximates, so that it can be made to comprehend all inferior existences, and supersede nature in her course, may be gathered from this philosophy: and many reasons are given why the most noble subject was chosen, and this only vessel for its elaboration. The foregoing evidence, however, without more defense at present, may help to lead on the inquiry to a more explicit ground." - Mary Ann Atwood

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"Nor may this seem a fable to the wise,
Since all things live according to their kinds:
Their life is light which in them hidden lies,
Discerned by the eyes of soaring minds,
To them discovered is true Nature's map,
By whom produced nothing is by hap.

For she her secret agent doth possess,
Which in the universe is only one,
But is distinct thro' species numberless,
According to their seeds, which God alone
In the beginning did produce, and then
Set them their law, found out by mental men."

But a long interval is in between, and all the labours of that Heroic Intellect to be passed through before the rejected Keystone regains her Head place. None but a Philosopher ever achieved this work, or for reasons that are imperative, ever will. The idle and vicious are totally excluded. Nor are the rewards of Wisdom to be won by fools wanting the very principles of melioration in themselves. He only that hath it can impart, and he only hath it who has laboured rationally in the pursuit. As is exemplified in that saying of Esdras: The earth giveth much mould, whereof earthen vessels are made, but little dust that gold cometh of.

"The Path by which to Deity we climb
Is arduous, rough, ineffable, sublime:
And the strong massy gates thro' which we pass,
In our first course, are bound with chains of brass:
Those men, the first who of Egyptian birth,
Drank the fair water of Nilotic earth,
Disclosed by actions infinite this road.
And many paths to God Phoenicians showed:
This road the Assyrians pointed out to view,
And this the Lydians and Chaldeans knew." - Esebius

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"While thro' the middle of life's boisterous waves,
Thy soul robust the deep's deaf tumult braves,
Oft beaming from the god's thy piercing sight,
Beholds in paths oblique a sacred light,
Whence rapt from sense with energy divine,
Before her eye immortal splendours shine,
Whose plenteous rays in darkness most profound,
Thy steps directed and illuminated round.
Nor was the vision like the dreams of sleep,
But seen whilst vigilant you brave the deep:
While from your eyes you shake the gloom of night,
The glorious prospect bursts upon your sight." - Porphyry

There is, say the Alchemists, nothing of an unclean nature that enters into the composition of the Stone, except One thing, which is the instrument moving gold to putrify: and in this respect (for it is the very grave of rational light) it is called by them Typhon, Satan, Aquafoetida, Ignis Gehanna, Mortis Immundities, etc. And because the philosophers are obscure concerning this principle, lest the rational enquirer should be led into troublesome error by their sophistication, we are induced to dwell rather and explain at length, that though impure in the beginning, and manifestly evil, it is nevertheless a necessary ingredient, and when finally brought to the natural Alembic, and returned, it constitutes the force and integral perfection of the Divine Superstructure. And although Sulphur and Mercury, says the Adept, should be already described and known, yet without Salt, no man can attain to this Sacred Science. Hermes, alluding to the same, says: The Dragon dwells in all the threefold nature, and his houses are the darkness and blackness that is in them, and while this fume remains, they are not immortal. But take away the cloud from the water, the blackness from the sulphur, and by dissolution thy shalt obtain a triumphant gift, even that in and by which the possessors live. And although Hermes does not speak of it openly, because the root of this Science is a deadly poison, yet I protest to you, says Maria laconically, that when this poison is resolved into a subtle water, it coagulates our Mercury into most pure silver of all tests. But whilst it remains in the natural state, in the evil of its original conception, no good can come until it is overtaken and resolved.

"Then lyke as sowles after paynes of purgatory
Be brought into Paradyce, where ys joyful lyfe,
Soshall our stone after hys darkness in purgatory
Be purged, and joyned in elements without stryfe
Rejoicing in the beauty and whyteness of his wife
And pass fro' the darknes of purgatory to lyght
Of Paradyce, in whyteness Elixir of great might.
And like as yse to water doth relent,
Whereof congealed it was by violence of great cold,
When Phoebus yt smyteth hys beams influent
Ryght so to water minerall reduced ys our gold,
As wryteth plainly Albert, Raymond and Arnolde
Wyth heat and moisture by Crafte occasionate
Wyth congelation of the Spyrite." - Ripley

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Fantastic book.

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The Book of Lambspring is a Beautiful Spiritual Wisdom which Purifies the Soul of Man.

Mercury (Unicorn, Dragon, Salamander) Purifying the Sulphur (Stag, Knight, Fire) of Salt (Forests, Man).

The Soul is in the Body (Sal/Phur: Sulphur & Salt is together). It is fed with the Spirit, Water, Wisdom, Mercury. Little by little, the Spirit manifests, and the Soul in Man rejoices. The Mercury and Sulphur unified within the Salt by the Salt. The unification of Soul with Spirit occurs in Man by Man with God's help. The TriUnity.

There is both a spiritual and a physical operation. Words and Works. Ora et Labora. The spiritual process is prayer, contemplation, study, and research. "Seek ye first the Kingdom of God, and all these things shall be added unto thee." Eventually, there will come a time when knowledge becomes Wisdom, which grows (slowly at first), but then it increases and multiplies by leaps and bounds. By God's mercy, you will then be led to understand the physical process, for which every soul will walk a different path to find, across many incarnations. But there is only one operation and it is the only operation, in one vessel, one fire, and one water. There are three actual physical things that must be done to achieve the stone (which ultimately is man, purified and sanctified), an easy, natural process. And we are told it can be done in a single lifetime, but only once the proper subject and process has first been found. The Hermetic Art must be researched and meditated upon. The writings of the Alchemists must be unravelled and digested, and the drawings and symbols meditated upon. One book opens another. It is the ultimate puzzle. To overcome death. It takes sacrifice and suffering to subdue the ego, the dark night of the soul, but once you do, You are saved. Soul and Body saved by Spirit. Eternal Life. Lead into Gold. Saturn into Sun through Moon. An antidote for sickness, old age and even death. Life Everlasting. [youtube]This is what the Noble Art promises us.

"There are two fish (Sulphur and Mercury) in our sea" (Salt).

The drawings describe both the spiritual and physical process, if only we had the eyes to see.

The answers lie where the philosophers agree.

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