To say what Hyle is, is not puerile. Hyle is the primary matter and the Philosopher’s Stone. Azoth is the seed of all metals, when it is extracted from magnesia and Silver.
Hyle is the Beginning of all things, a confused mass and primary matter, which is neither moist nor dry, not earth nor water, not light nor darkness, not air nor fire.
Philosophers’ Mercury is nothing else but a water or fire, both Elements having long been digested together with natural heat, resulting in a dry water, This Mercury is not common, but the Stars in the Firmament by their influence cause it to grow in the earth, the Quintessence of the Stars influencing the terrestrial Quintessence. You can drive them both into a water, and extract them therefrom, and they are to be observed in the Rainbow or Sun’s reflection.
Another Corollary by Conrad Poyselius
Take the strongest red subduer of men (cinnabar, red Mercurial earth) you can obtain, as it comes out of the earth. The Istrian, Candian, Hundraian, or Spanish kinds are the best. Distil the same three times, yet not too quickly, and put aside this thrice distilled spirit. Then of Red Royal Alum put several pounds into a vessel and calcine to blackness or greyness; pound also, and dissolve in warm water. Then extract the water per Alembicum, or evaporate in an open vessel till dry. Calcine again the residue, and again extract until it yields no more salt. Dissolve this salt, and coagulate for the third time until it ceases to yield a residue. Of this oil take one pound, place the same in a Waldburg or Hessian crucible, and set in a blast furnace until it fuses; add more oil if necessary. Allow it to fuse 24 hours in such furnace (if the crucible stand fire so long, even to three days); then take out and place in another crucible; fuse again, a repeat this operation a third time, The result will be a hard, green stone; pound the same, when warm, to pieces, place in a retort, and pour upon the stone of the above thrice distilled spirit three fingers’ breadth. Set it, well closed up, upon hot ashes for three days and nights. Then the Vegetable Spirit, or White Eagle, will extract the Green Lion’s rosy blood, and the superfluity and impurity will remain behind, partly as a scum and partly as a black, stinking oil or pitch. The scum swims upon the Aqua or Spiritus Vitae, and the red blood upon that, like oil upon water. Pour the essentiated spirit into a glass, away from the scum and black residue (weigh the glass first).
The residual Stone can be further dessicated until it have an oily or dry consistency. Use the same for Calculus, Asthma, and other Tartaric diseases. The aforesaid Green Lion’s Blood is the true Philosopher’s Oil, above all aromas, always fixed and unalterable in fire. After remaining in the fire for a whole year it s still undiminished, looking like melted wax, as Geber testifies, saying he had seen nothing stable in fire except the viscous humidity, which is the root of all metals, and the true primary matter of Minerals, Animals, and Vegetables, as you, with God’s help, will yourself experience.
Now, observe, when you have placed your Red Lion in the aforesaid weighed glass, distill the Eagle off in a bath, or over warm ashes. Collect the spirit by itself, putting away the phlegm, and you shall have the Lion’s Blood in the form of a fixed, stable, white salt. The Eagle goes off unwillingly, invisibly taking over the Anima or Soul in form of a sweet volatile salt, losing also its original scent. If you now will continue, and reach the desired goal, by God’s help, take of the residual salt one part, and of the animated spirit three parts. Place in the aforesaid glass, in such a way that the third part of the same remain empty — as described by Poyselius in Splendor Solis. Seal hermetically, and, in God’s Name, place in a vapour bath, giving it such warmth as an egg, or a child in the womb, requires. You will then behold within 40 days how the soul, lying in his spirit, again assumes its body, and is the only medium for the reuniting of body and spirit. When the matter begins to get black, then the conjunction goes on between the two, for this blackness is the body, or fixed salt, the passive thing, dominated by spirit and soul, and can be fused by no force of fire. As Bernhardus says: They wondrously love each other, and, although, in the beginning, the fixed body may be overcome by the spirit and soul, yet it is so strong, and of so incombustible a nature, that they cannot kill it, but when it finds the soul and spirit pressing it so hard, the Lion feels its old strength, and takes away from them the dominion. Before passive with respect to Soul and Spirit, it is now active as regard these, converting them into its own nature, and producing a true and clear substance, called the true, white Magnesia. But every intelligent artist may imagine for himself what various colours must be exhibited before this result is attained, how also it must be brought from one extreme to the other, viz., from white to black, and vice versa, which can only be done in several months. For Bernhardus says: “And I saw black clouds, but they lasted long; and, for the fire’s sake, you must not alter the temperature until necessary, when it shall have coagulated into a grayish, white ash. Hen you may increase the fire until the yellow appears, continuing to augment the temperature until you behold the desired perfect redness”. But it is unnecessary here to state the whole procedure. Read with diligence the Tinctura Physicorum Solis of Poyselius, Raym. Lullius, Bernhardus, Chrysippus, Farriarinus, Chris. Parisiensis, Morienus, Rosarium Majus, The Epistle of Arnold de Villa Nova, Marlinum, the Book of Three Words, the First Part of the Breaking Day (not in print), and the second part thereof (in print), There you will find what is wanting here. Praise God, and succour the poor.
Here Follow Certain Notable Facts Concerning the Philosopher’s Stone
Rebis is making one thing of two. That is, philosophers’ gold and silver — i.e., the Philosopher’s Stone — make a sulphur called philosophers’ sulphur, and the secret of secrets. Gold generates gold, i.e., when Medicine is to be prepared, then it is projected over gold or silver, and it is projected over gold or silver, and it is the required Medicine. Then, the whole is projected over other, imperfect, bodies, and thus like generates like.
Philosophers’ Mercury — i.e., water out of the salt of metals — is none other than a body dissolved in water. Aqua Vitae (Water of Life is the same as Permanent Water, and is a spirit extracted from a body; it is called Aqua Vitae and Quicksilver, and of it are all things are made.
The spirit and soul are extracted from the body. The body was dead. Restore to it its soul! Then will it live and not die eternally, and then from these is made the stone which perfectly coagulates Mercury. The matter of the Stone is Philosophers’ Salt, and Philosophers’ Salt is Sulphur of imperfect metals.
The matter and form of the Stone: The form of the Stone is the same sulphur is the same sulphur of gold or silver reduced to oil, with which the matter is incinerated, as aforesaid.
The Four Degrees in the Regimen of Fire
19. The first degree is that which permits of the hand being held to it, or is a temperature equal to that of a midsummer’s day.
20. The second degree is that which permits the hand begin held to the fire but a short time.
21. The third degree is that which produces no red glow, and causes not wood to carbonize in the heated sand.
22. The fourth degree is that which makes wood carbonize in the heated sand, yet produces not a red glow.
Concerning Salts
Take of Lime of Metals, 1 drachm, and of Aqua Vitae, without phlegm, 4 drachms; cause them to boil gently 48 hours — or place in the Sun six days. After the sediment is deposited, pour of the clear liquid and distill. You will then have Salt of Metals, but not yet fermented; for it must be fermented with Oleum Lunae to whiteness, and with Oleum Solis to redness. Likewise: of all things in the world — after first being reduced to ashes — there can be made a fixed Salt, fixing and really tingeing every metallic body. All salts have the same efficacy as dissolved Mercury. Likewise, Incineration is effected thus: Take a white or red stone, at the same time somewhat congealed and powdered; place over a fire, and, when the said salt is a little heated, add a little of the powder, with sulphur or Oleum Solis and Lunae, continually, until the mixture be a sort of thick honey. Then take of the fire and colour; and thus so with all salts. Salts are softened by dissolution in fire, and then by alternate solution in and recrystallization out of clear water.
Concerning Common Salt for the Purification of Aqua Vitae
Take of Common Salt, prepared by solution and coagulation, and let it be many times dried; pour on it Aqua Vitae, and distill with a strong fire, the more the better, and it will be rectified, dissolving gold. It ought to be distilled with salt at least three or four times.
Also: Pour out common salt, coagulate, and dissolve in common fresh water, repeating this until it be purified, and be obtained in crystalline form. Also: Let Antimony — and the other things not destroyed by combustion in the crucible — be dissolved in spirits of wine and distilled four days. Then extract therefrom the Salt and Oil.
Note: Philosophical Fire — which is called Nature and Soul — can be extracted from all natural things, and is of their nature and condition, because, in earth is earth, in water is water, in air is air, in fire is fire; neither has it causes of corruption nor contrary qualities.
Also: Of every Salt can a Tincture or Elixir be made, because an Elixir can be made of all things in the world, as has been said above, and hence also of Tartar, which Salt is a natural thing.
Also: The Philosopher says: The Spirit enters not except by water, i.e., by Salt Water and the Regimen of fire, because whatever is dissolved out of Salts is done over a gentle fire, and whatever is dissolved by means of Salt Water remains, and is not altered. Hence, if you would be enriched, prepare Common Salt and Alkali, and reduce them into pure, sweet water, which is preparative and incerative water, in which — if thou shalt have decocted the whitened spirits — it will rectify and whiten the same, extinguishing therein all blackness.
To be noted: Prepare Salts; make them liquid and commiscible with bodies, and — if thou wouldst be enriched — prepare especially Sal Alpoli. For its property is to retain volatile things, and hence they are more quickly liquefied and collected. For, whatever has been dissolved out of Salts over a slow fire, should afterwards be distilled over three times with a very slow fire. The residue in the still should be removed and preserved, and the said water be again redistilled until perfectly pure water passes over. In the fifth distillation the water will be pure, and then it is finished, as the Philosopher says. When you obtain water from air, and air from fire, and fire from earth, then you have the whole Art.
From the above it is patent that salt enters not a body, neither are bodies mixed with it, unless the salt be made liquable, nor are those complexionable unless the saltness be purged away. Then will it be an Elixir, a most limpid Condiment, like the Coagulum of Milk. For the dryness of salt is the calcinative and parcher of all bodies and spirits. But the property of water is mild, purifying and rectifying bodies and spirits. Take care, for it is a light sort, that thou mayst collect gold and silver perfectly pure, for it rectifies and perfects whitened spirits.
By boiling thou mayst obtain many things wherewith to coagulate Mercury and change it into perfect silver. Hence the Philosopher: If Quicksilver be joined to its own kind, it will doubtless flee away, but if quick when fleeing, suffering another union with water, it bears fire and hammer.
Praise God in thy soul for what I have said, and praised be God who hath placed His Wisdom in Salt! Work with the same and thou shalt prosper.
Here Follow Some
Philosophical Rules or Canons Concerning the Philosopher’s Stone
What we seek is here or nowhere.
1. Canon: The nearly perfect is easily brought to perfection.
2. Imperfect things by no art can put on perfection, unless first purged from impure Sulphur and earthly grossness, which are mixed with Mercury and Sulphur; then are they accounted a perfect Medicine.
3. It is wholly impossible to render imperfect bodies fixed without the Sulphur and Spirit of the perfect ones.
4. The Philosophers’ Coelum (Heaven) reduces all metals to their primary matter, i.e., to Mercury.
5. Those attempting to reduce metals into Mercury without Coelum Philosophicum, or metallic Aqua Vitae, or Tartar of the same, are greatly deceived, since the impurity out of other solutions swimming in Mercury is perceived by their own eyes.
6. Noting is perfectly fixed, except it be indissolubly joined to a fixed substance.
7. Fusible gold may be mutated, and changed into blood.
8. To render silver stable it must be reduced neither to a powder nor to water — for this would destroy it utterly — but it must of necessity be reduced to Quicksilver.
9. Silver cannot be transmuted into gold (except Physica Tinctura), unless it be reduced to liquid Mercury. The same is to be said of the other metals.
10. Imperfect bodies, as well as silver, are endowed with perfection, and converted into pure gold; and this is done with white or red sulphur by the virtue of a suitable fire.
11. Every imperfect body is brought to perfection by reduction into Mercury, after decoction with sulphurs in an appropriate fire. For out of the same are generated gold and silver; and they are deceived and labour in vain, who try to make gold and silver in any other way.
12. Sulphur of Iron is the best, for thus, joined to Sulphur of Gold, brings forth a certain Medicine.
13. No gold is generated, except it have first been silver.
14. Nature compounds and prepares is minerals by a gradual process: and thus at length from one root it procreates all metals to the last limit of metals, which is gold.
15. Mercury corrupts gold, changing it into Mercury, and rendering it volatile.
16. The Stone is composed of Sulphur and Mercury.
17. If the preparation of Mercuries be not taught by an experienced artificer, it cannot be learnt from books.
18. The preparation of Mercury for the philosophical menstruum is called Morification.
19. The practice of this great work remains our Grand Secret or Arcanum, and unless it be revealed Divinely, or by artificers, or in experiments, it also can never be learnt from books.
20. Sulphur and Mercury are the ingredients of the stone. Hence a knowledge of Mercury is necessary, to select the best Mercury for the speedy perfecting of the Stone.
21. A certain Mercury is latent in every body, but the art of extraction is most difficult.
22. Mercury can only be changed into gold and silver by an abbreviation of the long process.
23. Congealing and fixing necessitate but one and the same operation, in the same vessel, and with the same substance.
24. What congeals and fixes Mercury also colours the same, in one and the same process.
25. There are four degrees of fire to be observed in the process. In the first Mercury dissolves; in the second Sulphur dries up Mercury; in the third and fourth Mercury is fixed.
26. Things radically mingled in their minutest parts afterwards become inseparable, like snow mixed with water.
27. Different Simple Substances exposed to putrefaction give different products.
28. It necessarily behooves form and matter to be of the same species.
29. Homogeneous Sulphur is of that Mercurial Nature which produces gold and silver, not in the form in which they are perceived by the eyes, but in which Mercury is dissolved.
30. Without Philosophical Solution of Gold in mercury, there cannot be extracted from gold the certain fixed unctuosity which acts the part of a ferment generating gold and silver, The same is effected by a short method described by Geber.
31. Metals resolved into Mercury are again reduced to their original form by admixture of a small portion of this
32. Coelum, or Tartar of Philosophers, which reduces all metals into Mercury, is metallic philosophers’ Aqua Vitae.
33. Sulphur and mercury consist of the same homogeneous nature.
34. The Philosophers’ Stone is none other than gold and silver endued with a more than perfect tincture and excellence.
35. Gold and silver contain in themselves a superabundance of riches, which — by preparation and digestion — should be changed into a ferment, whereby the mass may be multiplied.
36. The greatest extremities in Mercury are two, viz., exceeding crudeness, and exceedingly exquisite decoction.
37. Philosophers hold it as an axiom that every dry thing quickly drinks up the humidity of its own species.
38. Lime of Silver alterated quickly drinks up its Mercury, the fundament of the minerals of Philosophers.
39. Sulphur is the Soul, Mercury the Matter.
40. Mercury, placed with the sulphur of imperfect bodies, is coagulated into an imperfect body, being transmuted into that imperfect metallic species, the sulphur of which is coagulated and concreted
41. It is wholly impossible to make gold and silver with the sulphur of imperfect bodies. For nothing can excel that which it contains within itself.
42. Mercury is the feminine seed and menstruum of all metals, suitably prepared by the good operator’s Art. For, by the projection of the great work, it receives and transmits the qualities of all metals, even to gold.
43. As Red Tincture is elicited by the ferment of gold alone, Mercury can be animated only by the white ferment of silver.
44. The Philosophers’ work can be carried on without much labour or expense at all times, in every place, and by all, if only the true and sufficient matter be forthcoming.
45. The sulphurs of gold and silver stand the spirits of their species.
46. The sulphurs of gold and silver are the true seeds, feminine or masculine, of the Stone.
47. Everything conferring the virtue of stability and permanence necessarily possesses this virtue itself.
48. The tincture imparting perfecting to the imperfect derives this perfection from the fount of gold and silver.
49. Those are deceived who accept Venus as sulphur.
50. Nothing has been granted by Nature to Venus which answers for the great Spagyric work, or which will serve in the making of gold and silver.
51. Note: Gold converted into Mercury before conjunction with the menstruum, can be neither spirit, nor ferment, nor sulphur, and is good for nothing.
52. The work brought to an end by reiteration cannot again be made hot.
53. In abbreviating the work perfect bodies should be reduced to liquid Mercury and dry water, when they will easily assimilate the ferment.
54. The preparation of Mercury effected by sublimation is the more excellent, and by it (after revivificiation) is amalgamation more easily and better carried out.
55. The Soul cannot impress the Form, except by intervention of the Spirit, which is gold transmuted into Mercury.
56. Mercury receives the form of gold through the medium of the Spirit.
57. Gold resolved into Mercury is Spirit and Soul.
58. Philosophers’ Sulphur, Tincture, Ferment, designate one and the same thing.
59. Common Mercury is the equal of and nearly approaches the Nature and Similitude of all other Mercuries.
60. Ferment renders Mercury heavier.
61. If Common Mercury be not animated, it is unsuitable for philosophical purposes.
62. The Soul is already impressed on Mercury properly mortified.
63. Gold may be prepared in a ferment, so that one part shall animate ten parts of Common Mercury, but this work has no end.
64. Mercury if imperfect bodies holds a middle place between common Mercury and that of perfect bodies; but the art of extraction is most difficult.
65. Since Common Mercury, by projection of the Stone, can be changed into gold and silver, it can be made equal to all Mercuries of the Bodies.
66. Animated Common Mercury is the greatest secret.
67. The Mercuries of all metals, by abbreviation of the work, are changed into gold and silver.
68. A humid and gentle heat is called by the name of Egyptian fire.
69. It is worthy to be noted that Luna is not the mother of common silver, but a certain Mercury endued with the quality of the celestial moon.
70. The Metallic Luna (silver) is of masculine nature.
71. Common Mercury, from cold, assumes the nature of a sterile woman.
72. The Mercuries of semi-minerals bear in their nature a similitude to Luna.
73. All things are produced from Sol and Luna, viz., from two substances.
74. Male and female — i.e., Sol and Mercury — coalesce into one.
75. Common Mercury, without preparation, is unsuitable for the work.
76. Four parts of Mercury and one of Sol — i.e., of the ferment — constitute the true marriage of male and female.
77. The solution is complete when Sol is resolved into mercury.
78. Without putrefaction is no solution perfected.
79. Putrefaction extends and continues even unto whiteness.
80. The great Arcanum is the maturing of the spirit, by which is prepared the menstruum, for in the same is Sol dissolved.
81. Mercury dissolves gold into water of its own form, i.e., into liquid Mercury.
82. Dissolution is the principle of congelation.
83. Gold transmuted into liquid Mercury, remains but a short time in that form.
84. Ferment dessicates Mercury, rendering it heavier and sable.
85. Sol (gold) is called the Philosophers’ Fount.
86. Matter, by force of putrefaction, is converted into pulp or mud, which is the principle of coagulation.
87. The long method is the open secret of Philosophy, but it is a veil and an evasion.
88. There is a certain short method by which the Sulphur is removed from gold and silver, whereby every Mercury is permanently changed into gold and silver.
89. When matter attains blackness of colour, the second degree of heat must be applied.
90. Philosophers’ Laton is the similitude of fire, for that alone perfects and excels all things.
91. Poison and stench are removed by fire, without other addition, and it alone cleanses all things.
92. Fire, by its penetrative and acute virtue, purifies and matures a hundred times more than water.
94. The Spirit is heat.
95. Matter, when brought to whiteness, refuses to be corrupted and destroyed.
96. All corruption of matter is marked by deadly poison.
97. The glass, or vessel, is called the Mother.
98. The virtue of Sulphur is not extensive, except to a certain limit of proportion, neither can it exceed an unlimited weight.
99. The question is to be observed, wherefore Philosophers call the matter of the Stone a Menstruum.
100. Sulphur merits the name of form, but menstruum that of matter.
101. Menstruum represents the small and inferior elements, viz., Earth and Water — Sulphur, the two superior ones, viz., Fire and Air, as the masculine Agent.
102. Thou canst not hatch the chicken by breaking the egg-shell; similarly, thou canst have no result by opening the vessel and exposing the matter to the air.
103. The Calcination, by means of Mercury in a blast furnace, excels others.
104. The Philosophers’ mode of speaking must be diligently noted. By sublimation they mean the dissolution of bodies into Mercury. By the first degree of fire they mean that which the second operation follows, viz., the inspissation (thickening) of Mercury with Sulphur. The third is the fixation of Mercury into a perfect and dissolved body.
105. Infinite is the number of the erring who admit not that Mercury, as regards its form, when mixed with amalgamated chalk of perfect bodies, is the subject and matter of the Stone.
106. White Medicine is brought to perfection in the third degree of fire, which must not be exceeded lest the work — for whiteness — be destroyed.
107. The fourth degree of fire produces a red matter, when appear divers colour.
108. It is necessary that whiteness, no yet brought to highest redness, should remain imperfect, both as regards the white and the red tincture. Therefore it is left dead until it ends in perfect redness.
109. After the fifth degree of perfecting fire, the matter acquires new virtues.
110. The work attains not perfection, unless the medicine have been incerated and rendered fusible like wax.
111. The process of creation is repeated three times on a quantity of the Binary Mercury, which produces the Stone.
112. The inceration of white Medicine is effected with white water or Mercury animated by Luna; but the inceration of Red Tincture with Mercury animated by Sol.
113. After inceration it suffices for the matter to remain in the form of pulp or paste.
114. Repeat the inceration until it stands the perfect test.
115. If the Mercury, by which the Medicine is incerated, escapes as a vapour, the work has failed.
116. Medicine, rightly incerated, explains to thee the enigma of the king returning from the fountain.
117. Sol —when converted into its primary water, or Mercury, by means of Mercury — if it become cold, causes the work to perish.
118. Philosophers, taking matter prepared and concocted by Nature, reduce it to its primary matter, since everything returns to that whence it derives its origin, even as snow is inseparably resolved into water.
119. The Wise reduce years to months, months to weeks, weeks to days.
120. The first decoction of Mercury — which Nature effects — is the sole cause of its simple perfection, beyond which of itself it can rise very little; and it is meet to assist its simplicity by sowing our gold in its proper earth; this is none other than pure Mercury, which Nature has digested a little, and not perfectly.
121. But by this second decoction Mercury becomes multiplied in virtue tenfold beyond its primary nature.
122. But the Stone Mercury is produced by repeated decoctions and mixing with Sol. Therefore, for this cause, man and woman follow twice.
123. By addition of Sol to Mercury it is converted into sulphur, and then by decoction into the Philosopher’s Stone.
124. He who contemplates Philosophers’ mercury but for a few moments, the same neither knows nor understands it.
125. Every Mercury, of whatever origin, exhibits the matter of the Stone, when treated in the right manner.
126. Everything from which Mercury is elicited is a subject of Philosophical Medicine.
127. Those who understand the Philosophers’ Writings literally greatly err when they assert their Mercury to be One.
128. One Mercury exceeds the other in greater heat, dryness, decoction, purity, perfection; it ought to be prepared without corruption or loss of form, and to be purged from superfluities. In this consist the treasure and mystery of the Stone.
129. If the preparation of Common Mercury were known to students of Philosophy, no other Philosophers’ Mercury, nor Metallic Aqua Vitae, nor other Mercurial Water of the Stone, need be sought, since the preparation of Common Mercury includes all these things.
130. Every Mercury of Metals and Minerals may, by successive stages, be raised, through the qualities of all other Mercuries, to the excellence of the Solar Body, and thence also be reduced to the degree and virtue of any metallic body one may choose.
131. Common Mercury, before legitimate preparation, is no Philosophers’ Mercury, but after preparation it is called Mer. Phil., containing within itself the true method and way of extracting Mercury from other metals — it is, as it were, the beginning of the great work.
132. Prepared Common Mercury is held to be Metallic Aqua Vitae.
133. Passive Mercury and Menstruum should on no account lose the external form of Mercury.
134. Those who (for philosophical work), in place of liquid Mercury, use sublimate, or calcined powder, or precipitate, are deceived, and err greatly.
135. Those who — for the perfecting of the philosophical work — resolve Mercury into clear water, err greatly.
136. To compound and make Mercury of limpid water is in the power of Nature alone.
137. In the Great Physical Work it is necessary that crude Mercury resolve Sol into Mercury.
138. If Mercury be reduced into water, it dissolves Sol into water, and, in the work of the Stone, it is highly necessary tat it be dissolved into Mercury.
139. It behooves the Sperma and Menstruum to have servile external forms.
140. According to Philosophers, we should imitate Nature. Were, therefore, Menstruum dry, solution would be hoped for in vain.
141. The seed of the Stone should be in form similar to metals.
142. It is highly necessary to choose that seed of Philosophical medicine which bears Common Mercury.
143. It is the mystery of all mysteries of the Stone to know Mercury to be the matter, menstruum, and form of perfect bodies.
144. Mercury, of itself, brings nothing of moment to gradation.
145. Mercury is the Element of Earth, in which a seed of Sol must be implanted.
146. The seed of gold effects, not only the multiplying of quantity, but also of virtue.
147. Perfected Mercury, for the generation of the work, has need of a female.
148. Each Mercury is derived from, and participates in, two Elements — Crude, from water and earth; decocted, from fire and air.
149. If any one wish to prepare and exalt Mercury into a Metal, let him add a little ferment, whereby it may be raised to the required metallic degree.
150. The highest mystery of the whole Work is the Physical Dissolution into Mercury, and the reduction into primary matter.
151. The dissolution of Sol should be effected by Nature, not by handiwork.
152. Sol, when joined or married to its Mercury, will be in the form of Sol, but the major preparation will be in chalk.
153. It is an open question among Sages whether Mercurius Lunae contained with Mercurius Solis can be obtained in place of philosophical menstruum.
154. Mercurius Lunae has a masculine nature. But two males can generate as little as two females.
155. When eliciting the Elixir, the purest substance of Mercury must be chosen.
156. He who wishes to be employed, let him be employed in the solution and sublimation of the two Luminaries.
157. Gold imparts a golden, silver a silvery color. But he who knows how to colour Mercury with Sol or Luna, the same attains to the Arcanum.