The wise varied their maxims and compositions only because they wished them to be understood by men of wisdom and prudence, while the ignorant should remain blind to them; clearly it was for this reason that the wise wrote variously in their books of the stages of the operation. There is but one stage and one path necessary for its mastery. Although all the authorities used different names and maxims, they meant to refer to but one thing, one path and one stage.

-The Book Of Morienus

Although the wise men have varied names and perplext their sayings, yet they allwayes would have us think but of One Thing, one Disposition, one Way, The wise men know this one thing; and, that is one, they have often proved.

-Zoraster's Cave

For conclusion, we are to treat of the manner of projection, which is the accomplishment of the work, the desired and expected joy. The red Elixir turns into a citrine color infinitely, and changes all metals into pure gold. And the white Elixir does infinitely whiten, and brings every metal to perfect whiteness.

-The Mirror Of Alchemy

The above will be the duty of the true physician and sane philosopher. For thus will he be able to preserve our body from corruption, to retard old age, retain florid youth in full vigour, and, if possible, to perpetuate it, at least to preserve it from death and destruction. For we know that, for his sins, man must once die, Job saying: “Seeing his days are determined, the number of his months are with Thee; Thou hast appointed his bounds that he cannot pass”, --- …

-Man, The Best And Most Perfect Of God's Creatures

Whereupon one says, So many colors, so many names. According to the diverse colors appearing in the work, the names likewise were varied by the Philosophers: whereon, in the first operation of our stone, it is called putrifaction, and our stone is made black: whereof one says, When you find it black, know that in that blackness whiteness is hidden, and you must extract the same from his most subtle blackness. But after putrifaction it waxes red, not with a true redn…

-The Mirror Of Alchemy

The Time for perfection of Elixir is at least one year.

-Zoraster's Cave

It is necessary to know this blessed Water, and its preparation, which Water is a hot, fiery, piercing Spirit, the Philosophical Water, and the hidden Key of this Art. For without this all the labour and work of Alchymy is fruitless and frustraneous.

-Hydropyrographum Hermeticum

Know that the neck of the vessel is the head of the Crow which you shalt kill, and thereof shall be brought forth a dove, and after that a phoenix. Be you fortunate or happy the whole science both to the white and to the red with these few words.

-Donum Dei

On fixed bodies fix our Sulphurs twain But first prepare our ferments pure and thin To nourish youth by Quick corrosion And to his Nature bring the Sulphur in. This Sulphur enters Nature by a mean Of his own Water which it doth retain. So in Waters dissolve our Sulphur first That into bodies it may better mix Then into ferment thrice dissolve to dust And by often iteration will our Sulphur fix Boil Air and Mercury not fixed thereon That both may take a fit impressio…

-Certain Chemical Works

The whole knowledge of our Art consists in the discovery of this our sea; any Alchemist who is ignorant of it, is simply wasting his money.

-The Fount Of Chemical Truth

Let him, that by Divine assistance obtaineth his blessed Water, render thanks unto God, for he hath the Key in his hands, wherewith he may open the fast Locks of all Metallick Chests, out of which Gold, Silver, Gems, Honour, Power, and Health are to be had.

-Hydropyrographum Hermeticum

Such being our motives, we can no longer be silent concerning the seed of metals, but declare that it is contained in the ores of metals, as wheat is in the grain; and the sottish folly of alchemists has hindered them from adverting to this, so that they have always sought it in the vulgar metals, which are factitious and not a natural production, therein acting as foolishly as if a man should sow bread and expect corn from it, or from an egg which is boiled hope to…

-On The Philosopher's Stone

God gives you the gift to find the Single One, seek the single vessel, oven and Fire, and let all other things alone. It costs nothing from the beginning to end, except your necessary maintenance, as nourishment and clothing. If you will understand the matter correctly, so also it will cost you little. Therefore I believe, that certainly God is everything in everything, and over everything; that if someone would make known to you, that there are great expenses here …

-Chemical Moonshine

Therefore doth the name remain concealed, for the evils' sake which might thence proceed. All the strange Parables which the Philosophers have spoken mystically, of a Stone, a Moon, a Furnace, a Vessel, all this is Saturn; for you must not put any strange thing unto it, only what comes from it, therefore there is none so poor in this world, which cannot operate and promote this work; for Luna may be easily made of Saturn, in a short time, and in a little longer time…

-A Work Of Saturn

When the matter has stood for the space of forty days 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. Blacknesse once seen, thou mayst be sure a True Conjunction of the principles is made.

-Zoraster's Cave

The Art of Chemistry is not fictitious, not detestable, not base, as today it is falsely called by many, but true, admirable, holy, and well proven. For by natural means seeding out the invisible, impalpable, generative spirit, elsewhere called the Seed of Metals, it so treats the same that it bears fruit similar to itself, etc. Therefore, many philosophers, moved by this argument, have sought that golden seed in gold itself; and having found what they wished, have …

-Man, The Best And Most Perfect Of God's Creatures

There are no other ferments like these here. The ferment of silver is silver, the ferment of gold is gold, therefore don’t look elsewhere! The reason for this is that the two bodies are luminous, they contain the brilliant lights which communicate to the other bodies true redness and whiteness. They are of one nature, similar to that of sulphur, the purest of the matter of this type of stone. Extract then, each kind from its own kind, each family from its own family…

-Compounds Of Compounds

You now possess a precious secret, an infinite treasure. This is why the Philosophers say: Our stone has three colors; it is black at the outset, white in the middle, the end. A Philosopher said: The heat works first on the humidity to produce the blackness, its action on the dry produces the white and on the white produces the red. Thus the whiteness is nothing other than the complete absence of blackness. The white skillfully condensed by the force of the fire pro…

-Compounds Of Compounds

There are four stages of the Stone: (1) to decompose; (2) to wash; (3) to contract; (4) to fix. In the first stage, one separates the natures because without division, without purification, there cannot be a conjunction. During the second stage, the separate elements are washed, purified, and restored to the simple state. In the third, one changes our Sulphur to the mineral of the Sun, of the moon and of the other metals. In the fourth, all the bodies formerly extra…

-Compounds Of Compounds

And therefore the Stone or Medicine of Philosophers, by which this Transmutation is made, ought to have in it self the form of common Gold or Silver. For if it should want that, it could not actually introduce it. Therefore if we labour in that, that common Gold should introduce the form of common Gold into the imperfect Metals, for their perfection, it is altogether necessary, that the common Gold should be made more than perfect; that is, that it aquire more Aurei…

-153 Chymical Aphorisms

We need but one Vessel, one Furnace, one Disposition; which is to be understood, After the preparation of the first Stone.

-Zoraster's Cave

“It must be noted that the material principia of this substance, which nature uses for its action in a marvellous operation, are living silver and sulphur, as has been pointed out. Each of these is of the strongest composition and most uniform substance. They are so closely joined in the smallest parts that no part can be loosed from another when they are resolved. On the contrary, whatever part runs forth is resolved because of the unity of form which the parts hav…

-The True Method For Confecting The Stone Of The Philosophers

But this is the practice. Take it, bruise it, and bring it down diligently by natural contrition, and put it to the fire, and know the propertion of your fire, namely that it is to be no stronger than only to excite the matter, and in a short time even that fire without any opposition of hands, will certainly complete the whole work; for it will putrefy, corrupt, generate, and perfect, and make it to appear in their times the three principal colours, black, white an…

-Epistle On The Mineral Fire

Now I have shown you that this operation is at no great remove from the living things, nor was anything over born or endowed with spirit or growth except for putrefaction and change of appearance. Thus it is that an authority has said that this operation avails nothing until after decay. And again he said that this matter must putrefy before it can be poured or made fluid, without which nothing will be attained.

-The Book Of Morienus

But instead of considering that one only compound is sufficient for the philosopher, you enjoy yourself, stupid chemists, to put several products together, and instead of the philosopher, who boils, with a gentle and solar heat, in a single vessel, a single vapour which thickens slowly, you put one thousand different ingredients together, and instead of God, who made all things from nothing, you debase everything to nothing. Because our science encloses the whole Ma…

-The Light Coming Out Of The Darkness By Its Own

The substance must first become white, and then red; it cannot become red unless it have first become white. So is the Moon first taken and makes, with the white, Elixir, that is, the white of the Moon to the white of Mercury out of bodies comes to the red. Whence our Sages say that the red is hidden in the white, which they do not dare to extract, until the whole substance has become red. When the substance has been subjected to the influence of the Moon, it may th…

-Book Of Alze

That, therefore, this generation and manufacture of gold might be carried on more easily and abundantly, with less expense and yet more profit and utility, the Ancient Sages were compelled to relinquish common gold, and, with the spirit of which we in this place treat, viz., the generating spirit of all creatures, were forced to seek a method of making gold elsewhere; in respect of which they spared neither labour, nor time, nor expense, and a length arrived at one …

-Man, The Best And Most Perfect Of God's Creatures

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 body: For the Anima without its body cannot be held. But such a 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 Un…

-Zoraster's Cave

But when you see that blackness shall appear The bodys then be molten without fear In which Sea Water boiling fort days A Flower of White Salt to the top will rise Most shining white to sight it will appear Congealed by heat our white Stone called Air.

-Certain Chemical Works

Now this one only Matter though it be common is not known by everyone, everyone carries it with them, and only one of a hundred thousand shall know it: you cannot take a step without finding it in your way, for it is without you as well as within you, and yet the number is very small of those who know it: a million seek it and not one finds it.

-The Adventures Of An Unknown Philosopher

This Vegetable Tincture devours the whole substance of the plant, and precipitates only the earthy particles acquired in its vegetation, which no degree of calcination could push to an alkali, without its essential salt. Such is the virtue of our Vegetable Tincture; and if the operation be never so often repeated with different herbs, it loses nothing of its virtue, or quantity or quality, casting up the virtues of whatever herb is immersed, and precipitating the ea…

-On The Philosopher's Stone

Great industry and care must be had, and the Vessels to be used for the cleansing of this Spirit, must be of Glass, and exactly closed, to the end that the Spirit may find no vent nor place to fly through, it being very forward to make its way through any hole it findeth: And if the red Spirit should be gone, the Artist will lose his labour.

-Hydropyrographum Hermeticum

If metals remain buried long enough in the earth, not only are they consumed by rust, but by long continuance they are even transmuted into natural stones, and there are a great many of these; but this is known to few. For there is found in the earth old stone money of the heathens, printed with their different figures. These coins were originally metallic, but through the transmutation brought about by Nature, they were turned into stone.

-Coelum Philosophorum

The matter being thus prepared, its central fire will be awakened, if it is treated properly, according to the process for extracting quicksilver from its ores, by keeping it in a close heat, which is continued without admission of the crude air, till the radical moisture is elevated in the form of a vapor, and again condensed into a metallic water, analogous to quicksilver. This is the true mercury of the Philosophers, and fit for all their operations in the Hermet…

-On The Philosopher's Stone

The fire is nothing other than the vapor of the Sulphur; the vapor of the Sulphur, well purified and sublimed white and rendered very compact. They purify it by lixiviation, digestion and sublimation. It is necessary, finally, to rectify it by reduction in a manner so as not to have more than one pure substance containing the active, perfectible brother-force of the metal. Behold! We are oin possession of one part of our work.

-Compounds Of Compounds

We have already shewn that our object in adding matured Sulphur to crude Mercury (the same thing in different stages of development), is to shorten and accelerate the natural process.

-The Fount Of Chemical Truth

The first word in this great work is the bodies transmutation into Mercury and this the Philosophers have called a dissolution. And this Artificiall and ingenious dissolveing is the bulwark of this art. Hence saith Rosarey, Unlesse you dissolve the bodies, Your Labor is in vaine. Therefore the dissolving of the Philosophers is not a drinking in but the bodies transmutation into water. Nor is it called a Philosophical dissolving unlesse it becomes cleare as Mercury, …

-Chymical Treatise

By the words which follow: That which is above is also that which is below, he describes the Matter of our Art, which, though one, is divided into two things, the volatile water which rises upward, and the earth which lies at the bottom, and becomes fixed. But when the reunion takes place, the body becomes spirit, and the spirit becomes body, the earth is changed into water and becomes volatile, the water is transmuted into body, and becomes fixed. When bodies becom…

-Glory Of The World

It is to be noted, that the Philosophers have found out divers ways of handling this one thing: but I answer for them all, and briefly conclude, That our Earth doth drink up and fix our Mercury; and that this mercury doth wash and tinge our Earth, and so doth perfect it into the Stone, without any further ferment. For the white Mercury giveth a most perfect Tincture of Luna, and the Red Mercury of Sol: Therefore, when they are fixed in convenient Earths, they make S…

-Philosophia Maturata

If we had no other benefit by this our antimonial water, than that it rendered bodies soft, more subtile, and fluid, according to its own nature, it would be sufficient. But more than that, it brings back bodies to their original of sulphur and mercury, that of them we may afterwards in a little time, in less than an hour's time do that above ground which nature was a thousand years doing underground, in the mines of the earth, which is a work almost miraculous. And…

-The Secret Book Of Artephius

After the first fifty dayes, the caput Corvi shows itself; fromthence in an hundred and fifty the Dove is made; and in another hundred and fifty, the Red is wrought. Till you come up to whiteness, use a Gentle fire.

-Zoraster's Cave

The Sixth Key teaches the Multiplication of the Stone, by the reiteration of the same operation, which consists but in opening and shutting, dissolving and coagulating, imbibing and drying; whereby the virtues of the Stone are infinitely augmentable.

-Six Keys Of Eudoxus

It is sought by many and found by few. It is beheld from afar and found near; for it exists in every thing, in every place, and at all times. It has the powers of all creatures; its action is found in all elements, and the qualities of all things are therein, even in the highest perfection. By virtue of this essence did Adam and the Patriarchs preserve their health and live to an extreme age, some of them also flourishing in great riches. When the philosophers had d…

-The Book Of The Revelations Of Hermes Concerning The Supreme Secret Of The World

The vessel for our stone is but one, in which the whole magistery or elixir is performed and perfected; this is a cucurbit, hose bottom is round like an egg, or an urinal, smooth within, that it may ascend and descend the more easily, covered with a limbeck round and smooth every where, and not very high, and whose bottom is round also like an egg. Its largeness ought to be such, that the medicine or matter may not fill above a fourth part of it, made of strong dura…

-The Root Of The World

To strive after the Matter, which will give me the beautiful Argentum Viva, by means of thine effective division; such would I do, in a well-sealed clean vessel, and put under an oven, which has been surrounded by A Wall: Then thou Nature will know to do the Work further, as it ought: I give honest thanks therefore to Thee, fo all Arts, that thou hast given me, and to make thine Inheritance such a high good. I will follow thy Teachings, that I may acquire this Noble…

-Chemical Moonshine

Take then, in the name of Jesus Christ, our venerable Water of the Philosophers, original Hyle of the Sages; it is the stone that one revealed for you in this treatise. It is the first matter of the perfect body, as you have determined. Put your matter in a furnace, into a clean vessel, clear transparent and round, whose opening you will hermetically seal, so that nothing can escape. Your matter is to be placed on a level bed or surface, slightly hot. You will leave…

-Compounds Of Compounds

Know the propertion of your fire, namely that it is to be no stronger than only to excite the matter.

-Epistle On The Mineral Fire

Although we believe ourselves to have sufficiently unfolded to you in the Fama the nature of our order, wherein we follow the will of our most excellent father, nor can by any be suspected of heresy, nor of any attempt against the commonwealth, we hereby do condemn the East and the West (meaning the Pope and Mahomet) for their blasphemies against our Lord Jesus Christ, and offer to the chief head of the Roman Empire our prayers, secrets, and great treasures of gold.

-Confessio Fraternitatis

The very root of this knowledge is to act with care and perception at the time of composition, avoiding all haste and error, and watching patiently day and night for fixation. It unites and joins all the various substances and properties into one body, it being only necessary to apply to them a gentle heat the long continues at the same degree, neither increasing nor decreasing.

-The Book Of Morienus

Consider you not that, having pondered the gifts which are in you, having measured your understanding in the Word of God, and having weighed the imperfection and inconsistencies of all the arts, you may at length in the future deliberate with us upon their remedy, co-operate in the work of God, and be serviceable to the constitution of your time?

-Confessio Fraternitatis

Some Alchemists fail because they put (common) gold with Mercury in a phial over the fire, and thus sow good seed in barren earth. But gold is not the substance of our Stone in its whole essence, nor yet Mercury. What we want for our work of generation is the seed of gold which is profoundly hidden in our metal. This seed must be received into its own proper womb, and there mingle with the female seed, in order that, being kindly fostered with heat, and fed with its…

-The Fount Of Chemical Truth

Let us take heed; for although Sol and Luna may be subtiliated and mixed with tinctures, and so reduced into lesser tinctures, and Elixirs with mean profit; yet the true way according to the Doctrine of Philosophers, is not in them: for Sol and Luna are two tinctures Principal, red and white, buried in one and the same body, which by nature were never brought to perfect compliment, yet they are separable from their dirty and accidental dross, and afterward according…

-Philosophia Maturata

After the putrefaction, then, and dissolution of these bodies, our bodies also ascend to the top, even to the surface of the dissolving water, in a whiteness of color, which whiteness is life. And in this whiteness, the antimonial and mercurial soul, is by natural compact infused into, and joined with the spirits of sol and luna, which separate the thin from the thick, and the pure from the impure. That is, by lifting up, by little and little, the thin and the pure …

-The Secret Book Of Artephius

“The first method is sublimation, the second descension, the third distillation, the fourth calcination, the fifth solution, the sixth congelation, the seventh fixation, and the eighth iteration. And there are countless others like these. These methods seem different, but they are all really the same. Once the philosophers were looking at matter which was in a vessel, caught the heat of the sun and exhaled or evaporated in the form of a very fine smoke. So it rose t…

-The True Method For Confecting The Stone Of The Philosophers

Hermes, Plato, Aristotle, and the other philosophers, flourishing at different times, who have introduced the Arts, and more especially have explored the secrets of inferior creation, all these have eagerly sought a means whereby man's body might be preserved from decay and become endued with immortality. To them it was answered that there is nothing which might deliver the mortal body from death; but that there is One Thing which may postpone decay, renew youth, an…

-The Book Of The Revelations Of Hermes Concerning The Supreme Secret Of The World

The mercury is also called a naturall root of a high Tree out of which innumerable branches grow, and it’s call’d the knowne stone of the philosophers, and in the Bookes of the Philosophers the first operation. To the perfection of the aforementioned Stone or Elixir belongs a Sublimation or exaltation which must bee brought to purity. And this I shall hereafter without the least covering make manifest. But you must note that this sublimation is nothing lesse than a …

-Chymical Treatise

The second word is that it be purified and filled with its terra; of this speakes Morienus, let the earth bee filled with its water, and let it bee cleansed with it, and when it is purified on both sides it ends the whole art. Aristotle sayes in generall, put the dry to the moist, the dry is the terra, the moist is the water, thus thou hast earth and water each by it self, and the earth is purified with the water, and when they are cleansed one with the other, thou …

-Chymical Treatise

Know it they would eagerly do in the mineral kingdom that which they do in the vegetable. The gardener engrafts upon a stock what fruit he pleases and the philosopher knowing the seed of the metallic kind, shall if he will, engraft gold on an imperfect body. From a wild stock the gardener will make a lovely apple tree; so the philosopher from a mixed metal of a despicable price, if he will, shall make most precious gold. The labourer makes his grain corn grow up bec…

-The Adventures Of An Unknown Philosopher

Elixir doth itself coagulate Formed like an Egg but that his shell is tender From it take nought nor add to his estate Break not the shell for loss of spirits tender But nourish it with heat till at the last Extracted Colours all be gone and past. The Poets hid this Art in fables dark.

-Certain Chemical Works

He has given to some a singular knowledge of metals and minerals, whereby they have obtained an easier and shorter method of fabricating gold and silver, without digging and smelting them, than they were commonly accustomed to, by extracting them from their primitive bodies. Note, that Sol and Luna can be made easily from Mercury, Saturn, and Jupiter, but from Mars and Venus with difficulty. It is possible to make them, however, but with the addition of Sol and Luna…

-Coelum Philosophorum

Whosoever therefore keeps not this our heat, our fire, our balneum, our invisible and most temperate flame, and of one regimen, and continually burning in one quality and measure within our Glass; I say, whosoever understands not this Dunghill, horsebelly, and moist fire, shall labour in vain, and shall never attain this Science.

-Philosophia Maturata

Once the pure Nymphidic spring water has left the Moon, the latter passes through the water of the Scaolii and undergoes another transformation, where it will remain difficult to work with and virtually insoluble. This has been decreed by the earthly sun, for this process is indeed death by fixing and life by the lightening of the Scaolii. The White Sun also agrees to join with the Moon in the early stages but he undergoes a change towards the end, since the King tu…

-Consideratio Brevis

These are the corporeal Matter, which is evident to us as Fire and Water: These same corporeal Elements are nothing else, but an assistance to the essence of the Elements, by which they may be brought naturally to their highest Degree: For they have called the elemental Fire our Sun, and the Liquid our moon, wherewith the Alchemists and Sophists may deceive, because they never think about the truth of the Matter, but always suppose it must be drawn out of the bodies…

-Chemical Moonshine

Wherefore it appeareth manifestly, that seeing Sol and Luna, are nothing else but Earth, Red and White, wherein a most pure Mercury is fixed and joined by the least parts, that Philosophers (having the same elements) may artificially imitate Nature in her Composition under the Earth, to produce the same effect: for it is certain, that earth may be fermented to Water, so as it be fixed; and water fermented to Earth, if it be perfect and cleansed; and this without the…

-Philosophia Maturata

I am in thee that readest me, this note bear well in mind.

-Certain Chemical Works

Hereafter the rich shall see the vanity of their possessions when compared with the treasures communicated by this secret; for the riches it bestows are a blessing from God, and not the squeezing of oppression. Besides, its chief excellence consists in making a medicine capable of healing all diseases to which the human body is liable, and prolonging life to the utmost limits ordained by the Creator of all things.

-On The Philosopher's Stone

When the elixir is well prepared, it ought to be made liquid, that it may melt as wax upon a plate red fire-hot, or upon coals. Now observe what you do in the white, the same you must do in the red, for the work is all one. The same operation that is in the one, is in the other, as well in multiplication as projection.

-The Root Of The World

White and Red proceed from The same Root without any other Kind intervenient. For it dissolves, and conjoins It selfe, makes it selfe Black and Citrine, white and red, espouses Itselfe, conceives, brings forth, and does all to the perfect end.

-Zoraster's Cave

The whole philosophical work, both in vegetables and minerals, is only a mortifying of the subject, and reviving it again to a more excellent life.

-On The Philosopher's Stone

The heat Dealbant must not be too much, else all is gone. But understand this of the first White after Nutrition.

-Zoraster's Cave

Alchemy therefore, in respect of the Theory, is a Science whereby the Beginnings, Causes, Properties and Passions of all the Metals, are radically known; that those which are imperfect, incompleat, mixt and corrupt, may be transmuted into true Gold.

-153 Chymical Aphorisms

When the Masters speake here and there, they still come to this Noble water. The reason is because that water is a medium between the contrary things, this comes from thence, and it is water and no water, fire and no fire, aire and no aire, earth and no earth. Because then it is and is not, according to its Noble nature it is a right medium betweene the unlimited Elements. This Noble water is the beginning, middle and end of this Noble art, perceive this speech well…

-Chymical Treatise

Blessed Aurora will now henceforth begin to appear, who (after the passing away of the dark Night of Saturn) with her Brightness altogether extinguisheth the shining of the Moon, or the small Sparks of Heavenly Wisdom, which yet remaineth with men, and is a Forerunner of pleasant Phebus, who with his clear and fiery glistering Beams brings forth that blessed Day, long wished for, of many true-hearted; by which Day-light then shall truly be known, and shall be seen a…

-Fama Fraternitatis

Alchemy is the perfect knowledge of whole Nature and Art, about the Kingdom of Metals.

-153 Chymical Aphorisms

In Waters wild shall close be set to working If this my verse be dark unto thy sight And then in scenes it nothing the delight Then in good truth set all thy works apart And trouble not thyself with this our Art For if thou be bit of a pregnant wit Thy humour right for that they plainly show The Mine where Gold and Silver both do grow And eke the way to work and bring to pass As Nature in the mine, so in the Glass; With Equal heat continuing to the end Thy Precious …

-Certain Chemical Works

“It is important to note that the philosophers said that this living silver and this sulphur were one and the same substance. “In fact, it is such a substance that it is only one substance, issuing from one substance, as I have explained elsewhere.” The proof that it is one substance is that they sometimes call living silver sulphur, and sulphur living silver, as well as both at the same time: living silver and sulphur. All the philosophers, in many specific passage…

-The True Method For Confecting The Stone Of The Philosophers

In the first Decoction, when thou art blacking, there will rise from the Earth a certain humidity of Argent vive like a Cloud, and will stick to the upper part of thy vacant Oval by its sides, which thou must let alone untoucht. Turn thy clouds into raine to water thy Earth, and make it fruitful.

-Zoraster's Cave

What is the strongest creature in the whole world, the most conservative, most penetrative, most volatile, the most unalterable and fixed in fire? The thing that fire has not touched is accessible and known to all men, of much superfluity, to be found everywhere, and by all. It is a part of man, begets and is begotten by man, is heavy in weight, soft (or at least not hard) to the touch, not rough, sweet to the taste but of a sharp nature, sweet to the smell but at t…

-Man, The Best And Most Perfect Of God's Creatures

Dear Son, be careful in the work of Putrefaction or Destruction, which is to be performed in a gentle heat.

-Hydropyrographum Hermeticum

There must therefore be such a matter chosen, where in there is Argent-vive, clean, pure, clear, white and red, not fully complete, but equally and proportionably commixt after a due manner with the like Sulphur, and congealed into a solid mass, that by our wisdom and discretion, and by our artificial fire, we may attain unto the uttermost cleanness of it, and the purity of the same, and bring it to that pass, that after the work ended, it might be a thousand thousa…

-The Mirror Of Alchemy

This separation of the pure from the impure is not done with hands, but nature herself does it, and brings it to perfection by a circular operation. It appears then, that this composition is not a work of hands, but a change of the natures; because nature dissolves and joins itself, sublimes and lifts itself up, and grows white, being separated from the feces.

-The Secret Book Of Artephius

It behoves us therefore by this our water to attenuate, alter and soften the perfect bodies, to wit sol and luna, that so they may be mixed other perfect bodies. From whence, if we had no other benefit by this our antimonial water, than that it rendered bodies soft, more subtile, and fluid, according to its own nature, it would be sufficient.

-The Secret Book Of Artephius

Such doth the enemy of human welfare mingle among the good seed, thereby to make the truth more difficult to be believed, which in herself is simple and naked, while falshood is proud, haughty, and coloured with a lustre of seeming godly and humane wisdom.

-Confessio Fraternitatis

Let it be observed, then, that all who have written on the art, from undoubted principles, assert that the genuine process is not expensive; time and fuel, with manual labour, being all allowed for. Besides, the matter to be wrought upon is easy to procure by the consent of all.

-On The Philosopher's Stone

It should not be a coal or a wood fire, but a clear and pellucid heat, like that of the Sun itself—a gentle and even warmth. Growing fruit must not be exposed to too much heat, or else it is withered, and shrivelled up, and is never brought to perfection.

-A Short Tract Or Philosophical Summary

Apply yourself then to know this Secret Fire, which dissolves the Stone naturally and without violence, and makes it dissolve into Water in the great sea of the Wise.

-Six Keys Of Eudoxus

The Liquor Alkahest resolves every visible and tangible body into its first matter, preserving the power of the Seed.

-The Tomb Of Semiramis

From Foeces burnt our mercury we draw Multiplication with which must be Mark well this Secret following Natures Law And many Wonders art thou like to see But first prepare then fix, last multiply, And these three orders follow warily.

-Certain Chemical Works

If you wish to make of it a medicine for unclean metals, you must take it to metals, for a horse makes a horse, etc. Further, then, in order to achieve our purpose, my child should take * dissolved AF, sublimate it 4 or 5 times through vitriol and salt. The more it is sublimated, the greater will its projection be.

-Opus Alchymiae

Nature begins all her Actions from Separation. Mortification is the first step to Separation, and the only way to that End: for, as long as bodies remain in their old Origin, Separaton without putrefaction, or mortification, cannot reach them.

-Zoraster's Cave

Know that the true Tincture can be prepared only out of our ore.

-Book Of Alze

You ought to put on courage, resolution, and constancy, in attempting this great work, lest you err, and be deceived, sometimes following or doing one thing, and then another. For the knowledge of this art consisteth not in the multiplicity, or great number of things, but in unity; our stone is but one, the matter is one, and the vessel is one. The government is one, and the disposition is one. The whole art and work thereof is one, and begins in one manner, and in …

-The Root Of The World

I have said, that who would have the Universal Stone, also must have and know the one true Universal Materia, otherwise he would err, as so many others. One makes no shoes out of Paper, still fewer make houses or walls out of snow. Thus it must and should be something, wherefrom all the three Kingdoms have taken their origin, growth, and continuance. I want to say this once more: It is called our Aqua Mercurii, Spiritus conservator omnium rerum, our electrum mineral…

-Chemical Moonshine

But you must carefully mind, that before this metallic seed be enclosed in a metal, Nature has lodged it in a salt, which is our mine, this salt is a true mineral, that is our mine, and if you will work the Stone, you must first know this common salt, known and unknown; you must open its entrails with a well-tempered cuttle-axe, and you shall see our only mercury, and the true matter of our work. After this seek for no more, it is absolutely impossible to speak more…

-The Adventures Of An Unknown Philosopher

The foliate earth which is our fire will rise Over the head and hang as white as snow Receive this flower that’s honoured of the Wise Dissolve with milk and let the Infant grow Except one part of this be made a Child Your labours lost and you yourself beguiled.

-Certain Chemical Works

O how many there are that work and never think upon the root, which is the Key to the whole Work: it dissolveth the Bodies readily, it is Father and Mother; it openeth and shutteth, and reduceth Metals into what they have been in the beginning. It dissolveth the Bodies, and coagulateth itself together with them; the Spirit is carried upon the Water, that is, the Power of the Spirit is seen there operating, which is done when the Body is put into the Water. Whereupon…

-Hydropyrographum Hermeticum

Therefore our stone is from one thing only, as is aforesaid, and it is performed by one act or work, with decoction: and by one digestion, or operation, which is the changing of it first to black, then to white, thirdly, to red: and by one projection, by which the whole act and work is finished. From henceforth, let all pseudo-chemist, and their followers, cease from their vain distillations, sublimations, conjunctions, calcinations, dissolutions, contritions, and o…

-The Root Of The World

The whole substance resembles molten pitch, or the aforesaid bituminous substance, bubbling less and less, resting in one entire black substance at the bottom of your glass. This is called the blackness of black, the head of the crow, etc., and is esteemed a desirable stage in our philosophical generation, being the perfect putrefaction of our seed, which will ere long show its vital principle by a glorious manifestation of Seminal Virtue.When the putrefaction of ou…

-On The Philosopher's Stone

And I, Artephius, after I became an adept, and had attained to the true and complete wisdom, by studying the books of the most faithful Hermes, the speaker of truth, was sometimes obscure also as others were. But when I had for the space of a thousand years, or thereabouts, which has now passed over my head, since the time I was born to this day, through the alone goodness of God Almighty, by the use of this wonderful quintessence. When I say for so very long a time…

-The Secret Book Of Artephius

This Chymic-powder, whether you call it the Philosophers stone or susile Salt; Sulphur, Elixir, or potable Gold, has in it a wonderful power over the Three Dimensions 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 Equation of Elements separate from…

-Zoraster's Cave

Though we take this Body just as Nature hath produced it; for all that is necessary, that by Art, which in this point must imitate nature, the same be highly exalted in its perfection, to the end that by the means of that superlative accomplishment, and its superabundant rays, it may be able to perfect and compleat the imperfect Bodies, a to weight, color, substance, yea as to their Mineral root and principles. But it should have remained in that degree, wherein nat…

-Hydropyrographum Hermeticum

Now in answer to your question as to whether this operation has one root or many, know that it has but one, and but one matter and one substance of which and with which alone it is done, nor is anything added to it or subtracted to it. As Hermes said, just as all things come of one, so also is the Great Work done with one thing and one substance.

-The Book Of Morienus

He must needs be insatiable to whom neither poverty, diseases, nor danger can any longer reach, who, as one raised above all men, hath rule over that which loth anguish, afflict, and pain others, yet will give himself again to idle things, will build, make wars, and domineer, because he hath of gold sufficient, and of silver an inexhaustible fountain.

-Confessio Fraternitatis

Putrefaction is made by a most Gentle fire hot and moyst, and no other, so that nothing Ascend. Desponsation and Conception is made by a kind putridnesse in the bottom of the vessel.

-Zoraster's Cave

THE ART IS THIS: After you have made heaven, or the sphere of Saturn, with its life to run over the earth, place on it all the planets, or such, one or more, as you wish, so that the portion of Luna may be the smallest. Let all run, until heaven, or Saturn, has entirely disappeared. Then all those planets will remain dead with their old corruptible bodies, having meanwhile obtained another new, perfect, and incorruptible body. That body is the spirit of heaven. From…

-Coelum Philosophorum

Therefore the Practice of Alchemy in general consisteth of two Operations; to wit, the preparation of the Mercury of Phylosophers; and the Composition of the Elixir or Medicine.

-153 Chymical Aphorisms

One must be bound a year or more to stay by his furnaces, in order to assist the work of Nature: you must take leave of all sort of business and employments, you must keep entirely to yourself, the visit of a friend may be enough to spoil the work in detaining the philosopher at a time when he should not leave it.

-The Adventures Of An Unknown Philosopher

Alchemy is nothing else but the set purpose, intention, and subtle endeavour to transmute the kinds of the metals from one to another.

-Coelum Philosophorum

The property therefore of our water is, that it melts or dissolves gold and silver, and increases their native tincture or color. For it changes their bodies from being corporeal, into a spirituality; and it is in this water which turns the bodies, or corporeal substance into a white vapor, which is a soul which is whiteness itself, subtile, hot and full of fire. This water also called the tinging or blood-color-making stone, being the virtue of the spiritual tinctu…

-The Secret Book Of Artephius

Our water is the fire which causes both death, and, through death, a more glorious life. Whoever discovers it has reached the autumn of his Magistery, as Nature will then (when the pure body has been put into it) perform all the other processes, and carry the substance onward to perfection through all the different regimens.

-The Fount Of Chemical Truth

Dry water from the Philosophers Clouds! Look for it, and be sure to have it, for it is the key to inaccessibles, and those locks that otherwise would keep thee out.

-Zoraster's Cave

When in the work blacknesse appears, know that thou hast found the right way of working. Then rejoice, for God has given thee a very Great and pretious Gift.

-Zoraster's Cave

The Sage tells us that all things were created, and are still generated, from one first substance and consist of the same elementary material; and in this first substance God has appointed the four elements, which represent a common material into which it might perhaps be possible to resolve all things. Its development is brought about by the distillation of the Sun and Moon.

-Glory Of The World

I did this work once myself and found it to be good. The same work can be done in different ways. All these works ended well but there was a great difference in the projection which varied according to the manner in which the works had been undertaken and the Soul, Spirit and Body had been prepared.

-Opus Alchymiae

It sufficeth thee then to put the bodies in the vessel, and into the water once and for all, and to close the vessel well, until a true separation is made. This the obscure artist calls conjunction, sublimation, assation, extraction, putrefaction, ligation, desponsation, subtilization, generation, etc. Now the whole magistery may be perfected, work, as in the generation of man, and of every vegetable; put the seed once into the womb, and shut it up well. Thus you ma…

-The Secret Book Of Artephius

It is a compendium without cost, or with very little.

-Epistle On The Mineral Fire

Therefore you must burn it without fear in a dry fire, until such time as it is clothed with a most glorious red, or a pure vermilion colour. For which cause Epitus the philosopher saith, decoct the white in a red hot furnace, until such time as it be clothed with a purple glory. Do not cease, though the redness be somewhat long, before it appears. For as I have said, the fire being augmented, the first colour of whiteness will change into red. Also when the citrine…

-The Root Of The World

After that with a good water thou must anoint and irrigate the Leaven, and the Leaven is called by the Philosophers a Soul; they call also the prepared body a Leaven, for as a Leaven does make other breade sowre, so does this thing, and I tell thee freely, that there is no other Leaven but Gold and Silver, of necessity must the Leaven bee Leavened in the body, for the Leaven is the Soule of the body, and therefore says Morienus: Unlesse you purify the unclean body, …

-Chymical Treatise

The total Dissolution of no dry Body already dissolved into a Liqour, can be perfected, or a disunion of its Essential parts be made, without its putrefaction. Wherefore this ought to be done to the matter of our Menstruum, for its compleat Depuration, equally as to Gold, for its plusquam perfection; as we have said before. But every moist body is corrupted and putrified in a light or gentile heat. Hence our matter being resolved into a moist, viscous, and unctous S…

-153 Chymical Aphorisms

The work of making our stone is, that the matter be put into its proper vessel, and continually decocted and digested, until such time as it wholly ascends, or sublimes to the top thereof. This is declared in Speculum Philosophorum. The philosophers’ stone is converted from a vile thing, into a precious substance; for the semen solare is cast into the matrix of mercury, by copulation or conjunction, whereby in process of time they be made one. Also, that when it is …

-The Root Of The World

The preparation of this Water, or most noble Juice, (which is the Kings true Bath) the philosophers always held occult, so that Bernard Count Tresne and Neigen, Book 2. said, he had made a vow to God, to Philosophers, and to Equity, not plainly to explain himself to any man, because it is the most secret Arcanum of the whole Work, and is so indeed; for if this Liquor were manifested to every man, Boys would then deride our Wisdom, and Fools would be equal to the Wis…

-The Tomb Of Semiramis

The seed of metals is what the Sons of Wisdom have called their mercury, to distinguish it from quicksilver, which it nearly resembles, being the radical moisture of metals. This, when judiciously extracted, without corrosives, or fluxing, contains in it a seminal quality whose perfect ripeness is only in gold; in the other metals it is crude, like fruits which are yet green, not being sufficiently digested by the heat of the sun and action of the elements.

-On The Philosopher's Stone

With the Water of Paradise bedew the earth now clarified and that Water will again Ascend to heaven, and Descend againe to the Earth to make it fertile, and bring forth White, Citrine, and Flayme Red flowers.

-Zoraster's Cave

The fire of the first Degree, that is of Solution, and Putrefaction, ought to be so weak, that Nothing Ascend of the nature to be Sublimed, and so a gentle fire gives Mercury Ingresse into the body, when with a strong one all is destroyed.

-Zoraster's Cave

Whereby, without doubt, is inferred, that mineral Earth and Water are the Active and Passive matter, as the Philosophers’ Stone. And here hence appears that community between the Poor and Rich, seeing that the Stone may be made of one thing, without visible Sol and Luna. But here by the way, I advertise thee, that betwixt the Elixir and the Stone there is this difference; for the Stone rejoiceth in unity and simplicity, but the Elixir in plurality.

-Philosophia Maturata

Our art is also compared to man making. The first is the deprivation of its chastity, the second is the conception, the third is the being with childe, the fourth is the birth it selfe, and the fifth is the bringing up of the child borne; understand also these words, our Son that comes from the privation of chastity is Mercury, for he is drawn out of a perfect body so there remaines an earth the mother of 4 elements, and when the earth begins to take somewhat in of …

-Chymical Treatise

Let none seek for any other Fire besides this, for it is the Fire of the Wise, the melting Furnace of the Wise, and their Furnace for calcining, subliming, reverberating, dissolving, and performing of Coagulation and Fixation; for this Water dissolveth all Metals, and calcieth them, and melteth itself together with them, both into red and white.

-Hydropyrographum Hermeticum

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.

-Zoraster's Cave

Our Secret Philosophical Water is compounded of three Natures, and it is like to a Mineral Water, in which our Stone is dissolved, and therein it is terminated, whitened and rubified.

-Raymond Lully's Testament

A small quantity of gold and silver is, indeed, necessary when the stone is made, as a medium for its tinging either in the white or red tinctures, which such pretenders have urged from books of philosophers as a plausible pretence to rob the avaricious both of their time and money; but their pretences are so gross that none can be sufferers in this respect, if they have not justly deserved it.

-On The Philosopher's Stone

You should trouble yourselves neither with the putting together of many things, nor with those things which the Philosophers have set in their books; for the secret of the truth is a single nature, and that has hidden it in its belly, invisibly, and is known only by the sages.

-Chemical Moonshine

For my self with my own hand have experimented all such things to my damage and loss, not believing them to be false before I tried them. Therefore be exhorted my Son, to shun Sophisters, Cheats and Imposters, as much as the grand Imposter the Devil, and avoid them as carefully as a terrible burning Fire, and Poison; for by such Sophistry, and sweetly insinuating false Alchymy, a man runs the hazard of Body and Soul, Reputation and Wealth, yea this Imposture is wors…

-Hydropyrographum Hermeticum

The Phlegm in which is our Sulphur is decocted, which is called Gold, is that in which the humid Air in the substance of Mercury is spiritually intercepted, until its middle part also be condensed into Water, by the means of the Action of Heat of the Body. For the Metallick Body as an active Virtue works like a male, and this because it is proper to it, because its Heat is inclined in a humid, which when it enters into the pores of Cold Mercury it is passive and is …

-Raymond Lully's Testament

Four Elements: Fire, Air, Water, Earth --- from God. Three Beginnings: Sulphur, Salt, Mercury --- from Nature. Two Seeds: Masculine, Feminine --- from the Metals. One Fruit: Tincture --- through Art. Who understands this table correctly Sees how one goes from out of the other. First everything dwells in a 4-fold state The elements everywhere. Out of this the 3 Beginnings spring. Which bring forth two Sexes. Masculine, feminine from Sun and Moon. Out of which grows t…

-Chemical Moonshine

This Stone cures all Leprous people, Plague, and all Diseases which may reign upon Earth, or befall Mankind; this is the true Aurum potable, and the true Quintessence which the Ancients sought; this is that thing whereof the whole Troop of Philosophers speak so wondrously, using all possible skill to conceal it's Name and Operation, as aforesaid. My Child, there are some people who have external Distempers on their Bodies, as Fistulas, Cancers, Wolf, or evil Biles, …

-A Work Of Saturn

Therefore, to resolve common Gold into a humid, unctious and viscous substance, there is required an humid, unctious, and viscous Agent. Not any one, but one that is homogeneous, and of the same Nature with Gold: And moreover, that it be more subtile, more active and spiritual than common Gold; and therefore the first matter of Gold; And moreover, that it be more subtile, more active and spiritual than common Gold; and therefore the first matter of Gold.

-153 Chymical Aphorisms

All you can do is to assist the seed, to put it into good earth, to supply it with heat in order to stir up its own. So Art alone is unable, as well as Nature only, to make our stone; but both conjointly and together do easily compose it. Having given you the mineral you ought to have, it belongs to Art to perfect the rest, to multiply the mineral virtue, to put the matter into a convenient place, to give it some external heat in order to stir up and sweetly call fo…

-The Adventures Of An Unknown Philosopher

The mercury, which is the metallic seed, is attainable from all, and is easier to be extracted from lead, which is confirmed by the true adepts, advising us to seek for the noble child where it lies in a despised form, shut up under the seal of Saturn.

-On The Philosopher's Stone

Our stone is a thing rejected, but found in dunghills, (i.e., in putrefaction, or the matter being putrefied) containing in itself the four elements, over which it triumphs, and is certainly to be perfected by human industry. Digest forty days in igne philosophorum.

-The Root Of The World

It took me 18 months, after I had discovered the spring of our water, to find the method of making it well forth, because I did not know the meaning of the fiery furnace of the Sages. When I discovered it, indeed, the sight which I beheld richly rewarded me for all my pains. I was then suddenly, as by a flash of inspiration, enabled to understand all the secret words and enigmas of the Sages.

-The Fount Of Chemical Truth

Now will I in the name of God make manifest the practice and the very sense of the Philosophers how one shall perfect that Elixir, that is the augmentation of the true tincture and of Silver and Gold only our of the Mercury of the Sages, or the mineral Mercury and in all copper bodies which fall short of perfection, insomuch that they become perfect into a perfect Luna and gold above the naturall, which is not that common Mercury, call’d by the Philosophers prima ma…

-Chymical Treatise

But every seed is useless if it remains as it is, if it does not decay and becomes black; because corruption always precedes generation. It is this way that Nature proceeds in all its operations, and when we want to imitate it, we must also blacken before whitening, without which we will only produce rejects.

-The Light Coming Out Of The Darkness By Its Own

Our dissolving water therefore carries with it a great tincture, and a great melting or dissolving; because that when it feels the vulgar fire, if there be in it the pure and fine bodies of sol or luna, it immediately melts them, and converts them into its white substance such as itself is, and gives to the body color, weight, and tincture. In it also is a power of liquefying or melting all things that can be melted or dissolved; it is a water ponderous, viscous, pr…

-The Secret Book Of Artephius

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 sua propria natura of the Infant’s own nature, and assimilated to it; else there will be no Incorporation. No conversion into Sulphur.

-Zoraster's Cave

Now the reason why gold was found betwixt the teeth of a dead man is this: because in his lifetime mercury had been administered to him, either by unction, turbid, or some other way; and it is the nature of this metal to ascend to the mouth, forming itself an outlet there, to be evacuated with the spittle. If, then, in the time of such treatment, the sick man died, the mercury, not finding an egress, remained in his mouth between his teeth, and the carcass becoming …

-On The Philosopher's Stone

Our Water is a Fire, and our Water is stronger than any Fire, for it reduceth the Body of Gold into a mere Spirit, which the natural Fire is not able to do, though the natural Fire must likewise be had. For then our Water enters into the natural bodies, and changeth itself into the primogenial Water, and afterwards into Earth or Powder, which doth more forcibly burn the Gold than the natural Fire.

-Hydropyrographum Hermeticum

Therefore dear Son, when thou art in thy work, see first thou have the black colour, and then art thou sure thou dost putrefy and proceedest the right way, patience and tarrying be necessary in our work. O Blessed Nature and blessed is thine operation, for of imperfect thou makest perfect with true putrefaction, which is black and obscure. Then after thou shalt make to spring new, and divers things, which thy viridity or green lion makest divers colours appear.

-Donum Dei

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 an 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.

-Zoraster's Cave

What more can I tell you? For this matter comes from you, who are yourself its source, where it is found and whence it is taken, and when you see this, your zeal for it will increase. Consider this, and you will find that it is true.

-The Book Of Morienus

When you have finished the stone, dissolve it in our mercury again, wherein you have previously dissolved a few grains of pure gold. This operation is done without trouble, both substances readily liquefying. Put it into your vessel, as before, and go through the process. There is no danger in the management, but breaking your vessel; and every time it is thus treated its virtues are increased, in a ratio of ten to one hundred, a thousand, ten thousand, etc., both i…

-On The Philosopher's Stone

There is only one thing in the whole world from which our Mercury can be obtained. It is like gold in essence, but different in substance, and if you change its elements you will have what you seek.

-The Fount Of Chemical Truth

Put therefore the perfect bodies of metals, to wit, sol and luna, into our water in a vessel, hermetically sealed, upon a gentle fire, and digest continually, till they are perfectly resolved into a most precious oil. Saith Adfar, digest with a gentle fire, as it were for the hatching of chickens, so long till the bodies are dissolved, and their perfectly conjoined tincture is extracted, mark this well. But it is not extracted all at once, but it is drawn out by lit…

-The Secret Book Of Artephius

It is also a fountain of living water, which circumvolveth and contains the place, in which the king and queen bathe themselves; through the whole work this moist fire is sufficient; in the beginning, middle and end, because in it, the whole of the art does consist. This is the natural fire, which is yet against nature, not natural and which burns not; lastly, this fire is hot, cold, dry, moist; meditate on these things and proceed directly without anything of a for…

-The Secret Book Of Artephius

These words of the Philosophers, my Son, are true, and spoken upon very good ground; for it is impossible for common Gold and Silver, to perfect other Bodies that are imperfect, unless, as taught before, that the Body of Sol and Lune be born anew, or regenerated by the water and Spirit of the prima materia, and thereby a glorious, spiritual, clarified, eternal, subtle, penetrant Body do grow forth, which afterwards hath power to perfect other Bodies which are imperf…

-Hydropyrographum Hermeticum

No corruption, that is, no mutation or passage of one form into another can be made, without the mediation of Putrefaction, (which is the sole mean and way to Generation) nor any putrefaction be had, without some Mercury, or Argent vive, which is the special delator, or conductor of the vegetant faculty, called by the Philosophers, The viridity of Nature.

-Zoraster's Cave

It is Jehovah who, seeing how the world is falling to decay, and near to its end, doth hasten it again to its beginning, inverting the course of Nature, and so what heretofore hath been sought with great pains and dayly labor He doth lay open now to those thinking of no such thing, offering it to the willing and thrusting it on the reluctant, that it may become to the good that which will smooth the troubles of human life and break the violence of unexpected blows o…

-Confessio Fraternitatis

They say it is a black thing: What think you, is it not black? They say, it is a dry water, if Gold and Luna are to be refined upon the test, must it not be done with Saturn? They must be washed and tried with it as a foul garment is made clean with Soap.

-A Work Of Saturn

Our Stone also grows out of the foul, stinking Materi in which it is white and clear, just as glass grows out of the foul earth and is also beautiful and clear. Therefore the ancients and wise men write: Our Stone purified itself and separates itself from all uncleanliness. The ignorant ones, who do not understand this, rebuke the ancients for having said this, and believe that it is mercury. And further, our Stone rises above all Faeces and ascends up high, where i…

-Opus Alchymiae

All philosophers affirm, with one consent, that metals have a seed by which they are increased, and that this seminal quality is the same in all of them; but it is perfectly ripened in gold only, where the bond of union is so fixed that it is most difficult to decompound the subject, and procure it for the Philosophical Work. But some, who were adepts in the art, have by painful processes taken gold for their male, and the mercury, which they knew how to extract fro…

-On The Philosopher's Stone

This spirit is the secret, hidden from the beginning yet granted by God to a few holy men for the revealing of these riches to His Glory -- dwelling in fiery form in the air, and leading earth with itself to Heaven, while from its body there flow whole rivers of living water. This spirit flies through the midst of the Heavens like a morning mist, leads its burning fire into the water, and has its shining realm in the Heavens.

-The Book Of The Revelations Of Hermes Concerning The Supreme Secret Of The World

It is chiefly to be understood, That the Ancient Philosophers did often endeavor to compose in a most short time above the Earth, those things, which by Nature, in many years, were perfected under the Earth; viz. To make most perfect and most precious Sol and Luna; wherein they imitated the foresteps of Nature, choosing to themselves most pure Earths; white and Red, which they named their Sol and Luna; joining them together as Nature doth, without repugnance, until …

-Philosophia Maturata

I say to you once more, that our Matter is nothing else than the Earth, but not that on which we walk, but that which hovers over our heads; the sages call it their Virgin Earth: It is the element which gives the Earth its origin; briefly to tell: It is the noble earth of the earth of the sages; whose Father is the Sun, and Mother the Moon: It is the fatness of the mineral earth, or noble spiritual and corporeal essence, out of which is made the Mercury of the Sages…

-Chemical Moonshine

Learn its effects, that is that it has power to make all imperfect metal perfect, and cure diseased bodies. The Stone is therefore a most powerful medicine, both for metals, and for the living. This being so the greatest good to man is the noblest end of the creatures here below: now the greatest good fortune which he is capable of, without reference to grace, is health with riches. From these two as from two fountains, are all the good things derived which he can d…

-The Adventures Of An Unknown Philosopher

By the same way of putrefaction, all Minerals may be altered, and so of every fixed thing (a due matter being added) may be made an Elixir, for our Mercury white and red must be joined with fixed things which want Mercury; and this way the Metalline Bodies may be brought into a metalline form, namely a Vitrified Powder, as also Egg-shells, which when they are perfectly calcined, will endure fire more than Sol; and thereof being well and artificially tinged, Philosop…

-Philosophia Maturata

When freed by art from its terrestrial house and sepulcher, doubtless, like others, sharers of generative virtue, will be able to bring forth fruit by its seed, and thus metal will produce metal and gold generate gold.

-Man, The Best And Most Perfect Of God's Creatures

The operations of this Art, however, involve calcinations, putrefaction, solution, distillation, coagulation, and preparation of the tincture, with the operations of coagulation and putrefaction covering a period of 40-42 days, before the blackness appears, and then solution in 70 days, whereupon it appears white. Coagulation and Fixation occur in 120 days, and thereupon the product becomes completely white, i.e., it is the finished tincture which after 40 days beco…

-The Transmutation Of Base Metals Into Gold & Silver

Wrincles of the face, every litura or spot, gray haires, to takes away, and keeps us in perpetual youth, and cheerfulness.

-Zoraster's Cave

Now let us return to the black matter in its vessel, continually closed. Let this vessel I say, stand continually in the moist fire, till such time as the white colour appears, like to a white moist salt. The colour is called by the philosophers arsenic, and sal armoniac; and some others call it, the thing without which no profit is to be had in the work. But inward whiteness appearing in the work, then is there a perfect conjunction, and copulation, of the bodies i…

-The Root Of The World

Earth White and Red our Chaos doth infold Which we concoct and bring to seed of Gold, Which seed we Mercury and Sulphur call From whence all metals spring both great and small.

-Certain Chemical Works

Our vessel being warily heated at the first for fear of its cracking, an ebullition of the contained matter is brought on, so that the moisture is alternately circulated in white fumes above, and condensed below, which may continue for a month or two, nay longer, increasing the heat gradually to another degree, as your matter discovers a disposition for fixing, by the vapor continuing at longer intervals condensed, and rising in a lesser quantity, of an ash color, o…

-On The Philosopher's Stone

“Johanninus wrote about it: “The elemental mixture is only this one, for its body remains intact even when it is modified.” Note that he speaks about moderation of the four natures–heat, cold, moisture, and dryness. When no one of these natures is greater than any other, the body is rightly called balanced.”

-The True Method For Confecting The Stone Of The Philosophers

Thou needest but one thing, namely Water, and one operation, to wit Decoction, to White and Red, in one vessell, understand of one kind.

-Zoraster's Cave

It is only a stone, namely our Philosophical Solar Water, our one true way, a medicine which adds nothing externally, but nonetheless something is accomplished thereby, for this one removes the superfluities in the preparation; for if something external were to be effected, the work would be immediately disturbed, and nothing that is sought would be obtained therefrom.

-Chemical Moonshine

The first work is the reducing the body into water, that is, into mercury. And this the philosophers called dissolution, which is the foundation of the whole art. This dissolution makes the body of an evident liquidity, and absolute subtility; and this is done by a gentle grinding, and a soft and continued assation or digestion.

-The Root Of The World

Thou hast the Blood of the Green Lyon, called The Secret Water, and most sharp Vinegar, by which all Bodies may be reduced to their first Matter, and purgeth Man’s Body from all Infirmities. This is our Fire always equally burning in one measure within the Glass, and not without: This is our Dung-hill, our Horse-belly, working and producing many Wonders in the most secret Work of Nature: It is also the Examiner of all Bodies dissolved, and not dissolved; a Fire hot …

-Philosophia Maturata

It is to be noted, That the more ancient Philosophers used not common Sol and Luna in this Work, and therefore they said, That their work needed not great Cost and Charges, but that it might be as well performed by the poor, as the Rich.

-Philosophia Maturata

All the Philosophers say that our stone is composed of three things: The Body, the Spirit and the Soul. Now the white Earth is the Body, the ferment is the Soul, which gives it its life, the intermediary water is the Spirit. Reunite these three things in one by marriage, digesting them well over an appropriate stone, so as to unite them in their smallest particles, to form from it a confused chaos. When you have made a single body of all, put it carefully in a speci…

-Compounds Of Compounds

Prepare this substance to dissolve with fire From whence three things at once by heat will rise Of which three pints the Wise men did desire To which they put a Salt congealed like ice And then these four things did distill again Whence Salt with Oil dissolved did rise with rain. Fire natural with Seed of Gold in Oil Remains below which we dry up to dust In out Athanor we continually boil Which dry Clay moisten often times we must For oft we grind, imbibe, bury and …

-Certain Chemical Works

Learn, that without this Fire all the labour of the whole World is merely lost, all Chymical processes false, lying and useless. The great Rosary saith, there is no more than one Receipt; and with this one Lock all the Philosophers Books both particularly and universally are locked up, and walled about, and fenced as it were with a strong Wall; and he that knows not the Key, nor hath it in possession, is not able to open the Lock, nor to obtain Fruit. For this Water…

-Hydropyrographum Hermeticum

The Fifth Key includes the Fermentation of the Stone with the perfect body, to make therof the medicine of the Third order. I will say nothing in particular of the operation of the Third work; except that the Perfect Body is a necessary leaven of Our Paste. And that the Spirit ought to make the union of the paste with the leaven in the same manner as water moistens meal, and dissolves the leaven to compose a fermented paste fit to make bread. So when you shall have …

-Six Keys Of Eudoxus

Morienus says: 'He who has this has all things, and wants no other aid. For in it are all temporal happiness, bodily health, and earthly fortune. It is the spirit of the fifth substance, a Fount of all Joys (beneath the rays of the moon), the Supporter of Heaven and Earth, the Mover of Sea and Wind, the Outpourer of Rain, upholding the strength of all things, an excellent spirit above Heavenly and other spirits, giving Health, Joy, Peace, Love: driving away Hatred a…

-The Book Of The Revelations Of Hermes Concerning The Supreme Secret Of The World

“All this is kept as a great secret of the art, as the following verses show: The five substances are one, in only one vessel, and only one boiling: There is only this one recipe for this one substance. This is the philosophers’ general rule: that a moist substance can thicken only if there has first been an exhalation of very fine particles from it. Also, its thicker particles must first have become finer. This takes place when the moist is stronger than the dry in…

-The True Method For Confecting The Stone Of The Philosophers

You have good cause to wonder at the great variety of ways in which the Sages have expressed the same thing. Nevertheless, their descriptions apply only to one Matter, and their sayings refer only to a single substance.

-Glory Of The World

Forsake all Sophistic Processes, let be their various ovens and vessels; let go their horse-dung, their wood and Coal Fire, such is totally unnecessary; let stand the Metals and others, rather transmute the Elements into an unchangeable form, which is of the magnificent Philosophical Matter, which the ignorant throw away; it is like the substance of Gold, but unlike the Essence: Invert the Elements, so you will find what you seek: I think that you should Sublimate t…

-Chemical Moonshine

Doctor Schweisser, or Helvetius, when he asked the brazier what be the subject of philosophy, and if it were costly, received for an answer: Our Matter is a heavenly salt by means of which we (namely the Astral Salt is first extracted out of its slimy fat water and is kept) open (this happens in a free fire, in a crucible) the earthly body (namely Sol or Luna) and during that time the elixir is born, and the Salt out of which the solution is achieved, and also the m…

-Chemical Moonshine

In the following lines the whole Process is briefly described: THE FIRST STAGE Dissolve your substance, and then let it be decomposed; then let it be distilled, and once more condensed. THE SECOND STAGE Combine two things, decompose them, let them become black. Digest them and change them to white by your skill; at last let the compound change to a deep red, let it be coagulated, and fix it; and you will be a favoured man. If, afterwards, you cause it to ferment, yo…

-The Sophic Hydrolith

By the omnipotent God, and on the salvation of my soul, I here declare to you earnest seekers, in pity to your earnest searching, the whole Philosophical Work, which is only taken from one subject and perfected in one thing.

-On The Philosopher's Stone

The quicksilver of the Sages has no power to transmute imperfect metals, until it has absorbed the essential qualities of gold and silver; for in itself it is no metal at all, and if it is to impart the spirit, the colour, and the hardness of gold and silver, it must first receive them itself.

-A Tract Of Great Price Concerning The Philosophical Stone

It is impossible to multiply the central salt without Gold, But the Sons of Art only know the True seed of Metalls.

-Zoraster's Cave

Black colour, which is first and it is the key of the Beginning of the Work. This mass thus Blackened is the Key and sign of perfect invention.

-Verbum Dismissum

To speak with brief words, our beginning Subject is neither Bodily nor animal, vegetable, nor mineral, or anything else that can or may come forth from these, but, rather in truth, a pure Astral Essence. For all three Nature-Kingdoms are yea n each, and although each does have as much as it needs of the Universal Spirit; though it is still not capable of imparting it to other bodies. Men generate Men, seed and vegetables their like: Metals and minerals however have …

-Chemical Moonshine

The fire must be light, mild, and moist, like that of a hen brooding over her eggs, and it must be sustained in such a manner that it will cook without burning the aerial fruits.

-The Words Of Father Aristeus To His Son

It is the hidden Key to open the close Gates of Metals; for it dissolves calcined Metals, it calcines and putrefies the volatile and spiritual, it tingeth into all colours, and is the beginning, middle and end of Tinctures; and is of one nature with Gold.

-The Tomb Of Semiramis

“One should take into account that there are several degrees in the operation of this substance. Lucas says in the Turba: “It does not need several substances, but only one, and that one substance can be changed into another nature in each single degree of any work. The kinds of degrees correspond to the various proportions of elements that can be mixed and that come forth in the operation.” The philosophers named each operation in each degree according to the order…

-The True Method For Confecting The Stone Of The Philosophers

The first principles of revealed religion are demonstrated from the whole process, for the seed of metals is shown in corruption, and raised in incorruption; it is sown a natural body, and raised a spiritual body; it is known to partake of the curse which came upon the earth for man's sake, having in its composition a deadly poison, which can only be separated by regeneration in water and fire; it can, when it is thoroughly purified and exalted, immediately tinge im…

-On The Philosopher's Stone

Though Daphne fly from Phoebus bright, yet shall they both be one, And is you understand this right you have our hidden Stone. For Daphne she is fair and white but volatile is she. Phoebus a fixed God of might and Red as blood is he. Daphne is a Water Nymph and hath of moisture store, Which Phoebus doth consume with heat and drys her very sore. They being dryed into one, of Crystal flood must drink Till they be brought to a White Stone which wash with Virgins milk. …

-Certain Chemical Works

Think not That the Philosophers lye when they say, The whole Magistery is perfected, in one only vessel: when thou hearest them say so, think presently of the Species of the vessel, not of the Individual, and thou hast found the Truth.

-Zoraster's Cave

This must the Artist know if he will find The narrow way that God to Nature gave Is boil, boil, boil if fruit thou seek to have And this by seething doth dissolve congeal. Learn well this lesson if thou wilt prevail And Patience have with thy continuance Lest too sharp fire cause much grievance Yet as the Infant food first is weak But stronger as he grows and learns to speak. So at the first our work has easy fire, And is increased as ripeness doth require.

-Certain Chemical Works

The vessel being well and perfectly closed, and never so much as once opened till the perfection or end of the work; so that you see the vessel is to be kept close, that the spirit may not get out and vanish. Therefore saith Rhasis, keep thy vessel and its junctures close and firm, for the conservation of the spirit. And another saith, close they vessel well, and as you are not to cease from the work, or let it cool, so neither are you to make too much haste, neithe…

-The Root Of The World

It will not be known by those who have no understanding of it, or first begin with consideration of value, for is the meanest of all, and most unesteemed, yea, as a rejected thing; which however is sought by many, but found by few, may be found everywhere, collected and taken, seen by everyone, but its separation known by few.

-Chemical Moonshine

Any one can at pleasure learn this Art in Alchemy, since it is so simple and easy; and by it, in a short time, he could make any quantity of silver and gold. It is tedious to read long descriptions, and everybody wishes to be advised in straightforward words. Do this, then; proceed as follows, and you will have Sol and Luna, by help whereof you will turn out a very rich man. Wait awhile, I beg, while this process is described to you in few words, and keep these word…

-Coelum Philosophorum

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 …

-Coelum Philosophorum

Now this is taught by the sincere philosophers, that a divine fire is enclosed in the Solar Archaeus, which is only enticed forth by means of the true philosophical key, it is a water and a fiery beam, this works at and resolves all that is hidden, without force and labour; it conveys everything within itself, it is the beginning and the end, a celestial dew, the united Matrix, the quickening growing power, that consumes soul, spirit and body and is regenerated agai…

-Chemical Moonshine

So long as it is in its mercury, and not separated from its mineral, it can continue to increase its substance from the substance of its mercury. But if this fixed grain is taken away, and severed from its mercury (or the mineral in which it is found), it can no longer gain in size. It is with this grain as with the green fruit that is formed on a tree when the blossom has been shed. If it is plucked off before it is ripe, it can come to nothing. If it is left on th…

-A Short Tract Or Philosophical Summary

The error therefore of this art, is, not to find the Fire, which turns the whole matter into the true Stone of the Philosophers. Take it then for thy study; for if I had found this fire at first, I had not erred two hundred times in my practice upon the matter: wherefore I wonder not, that so many, and great wits, have not come at the work.

-Epistle On The Mineral Fire

For Hermes said of this Science: Alchemy is a Corporal Science simply composed of one and by one, naturally conjoining things more precious, by knowledge and effect, and converting them by a natural commixtion into a better kind. A certain other said: Alchemy is a Science, teaching how to transform any kind of metal into another: and that by a proper medicine, as it appeared by many Philosophers' Books. Alchemy therefore is a science teaching how to make and compoun…

-The Mirror Of Alchemy

But, my dear Son, observe what now I tell thee, and what information concerning this point the Philosophers left behind them in their Books; viz. that this Water is not to be prepared by any heterogeneous means whatever in the whole World, but only by Nature, with Nature, and out of Nature.

-Hydropyrographum Hermeticum

Do we not see, that in the Mines through the continual heat that is in the mountains thereof, the grossness of water is so decocted and thickened, that in continuance of time it becomes Argent-vive? And that of the fatness of the earth through the same heat and decoction, Sulphur is engendered! And that through the same heat without intermission continued in them, all metals are engendered of them according to their purity and impurity? and that nature does by decoc…

-The Mirror Of Alchemy

Only the seed of gold (and not the whole metal) is useful for our metallic generation. Gold is the Father of our Stone, the substance of our Stone is in gold, but gold is not the substance of our Stone; yet there is that in gold (the sperm) which, by right manipulation, may become our Stone. We extract from gold, by a cunning process, that which is its most highly matured virtue, and this is called, not common, dead, but our living gold. The difference between commo…

-The Fount Of Chemical Truth

Calling God to witness, that as this mercury hath been by some one sublimed, it hath appeared cloathed with so great Whiteness as the Snow on the highest mountains, under a most subtile, crystalline splendour, from whence proceeds at the opening of the Vessel, so great, so sweet, so excellent an odour, as the like is not to be found under the World, and I who speak this know that this most marvelous Whiteness has appeared to my own eyes, and have handled this attenu…

-Verbum Dismissum

Mark well that which follows: The substance of the Stone of the Philosophers is common: one finds it everywhere, it is a viscous water like the Mercury that one extracts from the earth. Our viscous water is found everywhere, even in the Latrines, certain philosophers have said. And, several imbeciles take their words literally, searching for it in the excrements! Nature operates on this matter in raising something from it, its earthy principle, and in uniting someth…

-Compounds Of Compounds

Beware of all Particulars, for Nothing Particular is Universal: It is forever certain, he, who is a possessor of the true Art, does not need to take pains about money for himself, for as he only takes our putrefied Electrum Minerale Immaturum, extracts its salt (it goes quite naturally) lays pure or unfixed metal therein, pours on so much of our milk, that its salt therein can again dissolve itself, so will he see, that water and salt, not only ennoble and increase …

-Chemical Moonshine

Almost the same thing happens with gold. Such a grain attracts to itself the mercury of the lead, and incessantly fixes it into its own mercury, whereby it grows and gradually increases in size. The mercury of perfect or imperfect metals is the parent tree, and the grain (of gold) can be nourished with nothing but this mercury. But as soon as you sever the connection with the parent mercury, that growth of the grain must immediately come to an end; it is as though t…

-A Short Tract Or Philosophical Summary

My Son, I would tell you yet a true word, namely that the whole Work is made by a single, ordinary, common, united with itself Matter, in a single well-sealed vessel, and a single oven; it has everything in it, which is necessary for perfection, and is finished by a single Regimen of the Fire. Who now knows the correct Matter, prepares the same also in a well-sealed vessel, and puts everything properly into its Oven, that one need no longer delay the Work.

-Chemical Moonshine

Then continue the digestion, till it become a white fixed water, for being digested in balneo, it will afterwards become clear, and in the end become like common argent vive, ascending by the spirit above the first water. When there you see bodies dissolved in the first viscous water, then know, that they are turned into a vapor, and the soul is separated from the dead body, and by sublimation, turned into the order of spirits. Whence both of them, with a part of ou…

-The Secret Book Of Artephius

It is impossible by the means of the simple Gold to perfect other Bodies, unless the perfect Body be first dissolved and reduced to its first matter, which done, it is introverted by our Labour and Art, and reduced into a true ferment and tincture.

-Hydropyrographum Hermeticum

An oil first mark, or Water dark, will seem as red as blood, A Salt will fly, and soar on high Quite separate from the flood These 3 in One, we call our Stone, our Chaos which doth hold As we do read, the perfect Seed of Silver and of Gold.

-Certain Chemical Works

Take fresh, pure, quick, white and clear, Tye him hands and heels so near, With a most puissant cord and yoke, That he may be mortified and choked. Reduce him by his like homogeneous Nature, To his first Being, or primogeneous feature, Within the close Chamber or House of Putrefaction, According to Dame Nature’s indication: Then you will have a living spiritual Fountain, Flowing bright and clear from Heaven’s Mountain, Feeding on its proper flesh and blood, Therewit…

-Hydropyrographum Hermeticum

Here is required by how long time the stone is to be turned into blackness and what is the figure of true solution of the stone when blackness appeareth the first time it is figure of putrefaction and solution of the stone, but when it is vanished away and clearly gone it is a sign of the whole putrefaction of the stone and of the dissolution thereof, or else it is demanded if the black clouds endure in the foresaid stone by the space of 40 days, I answer sometimes …

-Donum Dei

And this Water is the strong Aquafort, of which Isaacus in his particular Work is to be understood, wherewithall he dissolveth and spiritualizeth the bodies. And therefore it is very diligently to be noted, that without this Water nothing can be effect in Chemia, and without it all are but falsities and lies, both in Metals and Minerals, as also in Vegetables and Animals.

-Hydropyrographum Hermeticum

Take pure Mercury closely shut up in a silver pixis. Fill a jar with fragments of lead, in the midst of which place the pixis. Let it melt for twenty-four hours, that is, for a natural day. This takes away from Mercury his occult heat, adds an external heat, and contributes the internal coldness of Saturn and Luna (which are both planets of a cold nature), whence and whereby the Mercury is compelled to congeal, consolidate, and harden. True Alchemy which alone, by i…

-Coelum Philosophorum

When, however, spirit, body, and soul are united together, fire cannot turn them into glass, for it is then an elixir that surpasses all elixirs. Then it is a glorified corpus which is perfect. Then it is the indestructible corpus which is perfect. Then it is the indestructible Quintessence, similar to the unconquerable heaven. And when you have thus prepared it, the Stone desires to receive the spirit and the soul. When you have got it to this stage, you have accom…

-Opus Alchymiae

It possesses all previous powers and virtues in a higher and more wondrous degree. Here its natural works are taken for miracles. When applied to the roots of dead trees they revive, bringing forth leaves and fruit. A lamp, the oil of which is mingled with this spirit, continues to burn for ever without diminution. It converts crystals into the most precious stones of all colours, equal to those from the mines, and does many other incredible wonders which may not be…

-The Book Of The Revelations Of Hermes Concerning The Supreme Secret Of The World

If this whole process of Nature, most wonderful in her operations, was not constantly repeated before our eyes, the simple process of vegetation would be equally problematical with that of the philosophers; yet how can the metals increase, nay, how can anything be multiplied without seed? The true artists never pretend to multiply metals without it, and can it be denied that Nature still follows her first appointment? She always fructifies the seed when it is put in…

-On The Philosopher's Stone

Our Stone of Philosophers he doth mea Which Elixir we call, being Mineral And also Vegetable and Animal. In this our Stone consisteth all our skill Using a natural preparation In it is Gold and Silver to his fill Not common but spiritual in action This Gold is Potable and Radical Humidity of Sulphur called the Soul.

-Certain Chemical Works

The fire which I shew you, is water, and, Unless the bodies are subtilized by fire and water, nothing can be done in our Magistery. Thus everything, from beginning to end, is accomplished, not by sophistical operations, but by our Mercury, which, unless it be violently impeded, is kept to the right road by the necessity of arriving at a certain goal.

-The Fount Of Chemical Truth

All that are conversant in this Art, learn from Experience, and all good Authors, That the true matter and subject of this stone, has Gold and Silver in potentiality, and Argent vive naturally, or actually, Which Gold and Silver are much better than those men commonly see and handle, because these are alive and can increase; the other dead: And if this could not be effected, the matter would never be brought to this perfection, which this art promises, which is inde…

-Zoraster's Cave

The living fruit (the real living gold and silver) we must seek on the tree; for only there can it grow, and increase in size, according to the possibilities of its nature. This tree we must transplant, without gathering its fruit, into a better and richer soil, and to a sunnier spot. Then its fruit will receive more nourishment in a single day than it was wont to receive in a hundred years, while it was still in its former sterile soil. I wish you to understand tha…

-A Short Tract Or Philosophical Summary

And know, my Child, for a Truth, that in the whole vegetable work there is no higher nor greater Secret than in Saturn; for we do not find that perfection in Gold which is in Saturn; for internally it is good Gold, herein all Philosophers agree, and it wants nothing else, but that first you remove what is superfluous in it, that is, it's impurity, and make it clean, and then that you turn it's inside outwards, which is it's redness, then will it be good Gold; for Go…

-A Work Of Saturn

Sure sealed up therein concoct thy Gold. For our one thing that is to wit our Stone And by one way which is decoction And in one Vessel do we putrify, Dissolve, Congeal, and Seeth continually. First grows he Black in dissolution Until the end of Putrifaction. That as the moisture doth congeal and dry Gay Orient Colours therein thou shalt espye And afterwards true Whiteness shall appear Like Fishes Eyes or Diamonds shining clear Thus White at last when water yields t…

-Certain Chemical Works

Black, blacker than black we do our Sulphur call When he grows black in calcinations. But divers colours before White do fall And when Citrine and lastly a Carnation It is Blackness doth endure 40 days Forty in Whiteness and 40 the Red wise.

-Certain Chemical Works

And he that might indigitate a certain time, of decoction, he saith, that the dissolution of the body, and coagulation or congelation of the spirit, ought to be done, by an easy decoction in a gentle fire, and a moist putrefaction, for the space of one hundred and forty days.

-The Root Of The World

And do you not know, that the Philosophers call their Stone Arsenick, and a white thing; and they say their Sulphur is incombustible; they call it likewise a red thing, all this is Saturn, in it is Arsenick; for Luna is principally generated of a white Sulphur, as is plainly taught in the Book of Sulphur, and all Arsenick is internally red as Blood, if its' inward part be brought outwards, as is demonstrated in the Book of Colours. Saturn stands almost in the degree…

-A Work Of Saturn

The Quintessence which we seek is therefore a thing ingeniated by divine breath, which by continual ascensions and descensions is separated from the corruptible body of the four Elements; and the reason is, because ht which is a second time, and often sublimed, is more subtle, glorified and separated from the corruption of the four Elements, then when it ascends only once; and so that which is sublimed even to a thousand times, and by continual ascension and decisio…

-The Tomb Of Semiramis

The Art of Alchemy consists in three things, that is, in our Stone. That is, the free art of the ancients and their successors who are to discover this free art through Science or Practice; or to whomever the Holy Ghost gives it, or upon who He confers it through His illumination; and blessed is he who possesses this free art and applies it wisely for the honor of God and the pressing need of his fellow man. The other kind of alchemy is the Elixir which is prepared,…

-Opus Alchymiae

We take a year for our Expectation; for our Calx, in lesse Time, cannot be made.

-Zoraster's Cave

In a multiplicity of things our art is not perfected. For it is one stone, one med’cine in which consists the whole magistery: to which we add nothing extraneous, nor take away any thing; but only, on our preparation that, that which is superfluous.

-Zoraster's Cave

For engendering metal and Elixir eke, The Sulphur as the father it is The Mercury the Woman Menstrue like Art imitating Nature oft in this And in the Work doth Nature overcome There are out Principles both all and some. A double fume doth penetrate our Stone Wherein the Sulphur privily doth lurk And mix itself with Mercury alone And are decocted there by Natures Work Where she converts them to a Metal pure Learn nature’s Secret and then keep it pure. When first the …

-Certain Chemical Works

Yes, matter is unique, it is everywhere, and the poor can have it as well as the rich. It is unknown to everybody, and everybody has it before the eyes; it is despised like mud by the vulgar ignorant, and is sold at a cheap price; but it is precious to the philosopher who knows its real value. It's this matter, disdained so much by the ignorants, that the savants look after with care, because in it is all they can desire. In this matter are together the Sun and the …

-The Light Coming Out Of The Darkness By Its Own

Take our Stone in its coarseness such as it comes out of the minera of man. Understand well what I am saying! Put it into a wide, glass vessel and add the powdered gold leaves. Pour on this some of our Stone, which must be old and well settled and purified. Pour of the Stone, two fingers; width over the gold. Set the vessel with gold and the Stone of summer into the heat of the sun. A white-golden skin or oil will form on top. Remove it carefully with a feather, in …

-Opus Alchymiae

When you have your philosophical Mercury, take two portions of it and one portion of the filings mentioned much earlier. Make an amalgamate of these by cooking them together in a flask that has been well sealed and placed over cinders of a temperate fire. The entire will resolve into mercury. You will therefore want to increase this to infinity, because the amount of the volatile always exceeds the amount of the fixed. It increases indefinitely giving to it its prop…

-Compounds Of Compounds

The Philosophical Fire (Fire of the Wise) is not metallic or elemental, but only an essential Fire; it can also be well named Divine. The Philosophical Fire is also called Aqua Mercurii, and in truth, it is the same Fire, which the Israelites used for their burnt offering, as it stands to be read in the 1st Chapter of the other Book of the Maccabees; of colours and other things, it is better to keep silent than to speak, since this only causes difficulty and error, …

-Chemical Moonshine

The spirit, therefore, by help of the water and the soul, is drawn forth from the bodies themselves, and the body is thereby made spiritual; for that at the same instant of time, the spirit, with the soul of the bodies, ascends on high to the superior part, which is the perfection of the stone and is called sublimation.

-The Secret Book Of Artephius

I John Pontan have travelled over many regions, that I might learn something that was certain concerning the philosophers stone; and, compassing almost the whole world, met with none but impostors, false deceivers, and no philosophers: But studying always, doubting much, and casting every way, at length I found the truth: But when I knew the matter, I erred two hundred times before I found the true matter, with the operation, and practice upon it.

-Epistle On The Mineral Fire

Thus you see that nature has to be amended by its own like nature; that is, gold and silver are to be exalted in our water, as our water also with these bodies; which water is called the medium of the soul, without which nothing has to be done in this art.

-The Secret Book Of Artephius