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." This wonderfulagent is also their pestle, by which they accomplished pounding, grinding, trituration.Eugenius is ironic about theman who in this work "makes his philosophic contrition with a hammer." It is with this mercury they make their"amalgams"; as is mentioned elsewhere.Sericon: "The gold of the wise, boiled and well digested with a fiery water makes Ixer.Red is the sure colour for thegolden matter, and the nature thereof is not sweetness; therefore, we make of them Sericum, i.e., Ixer." Aureus.Crude or partially wrought things are considered to be sour, bitter, poisonous or harmful, dangerous to inhale: andwrought things, the contrary.That which comes out of Ixir is Elixer, i.e., drawn out of water.Azoth:--Bernard Trevisan writes: "Azoth is not raw quicksilver (or argent vive) simply extracted out of the mine, butis that which is extracted by argent vive itself out of the dissolved bodies." "Wherefore if laton be an unclean body itis depurated by such an azoth.and by this laton purified by azoth, we make our medicine.Indeed this azoth ismade of the elixir, because elixir is nothing else but a body resolved into a mercurial water, after which resolution,azoth is extracted out of it, i.e., in animated spirit.And it is called elixir from e which is "out of" and lixis which is"water," because all things are made out of this water, and the elixir is the second part in the philosophic work, asrebis is the first in the same work." Epistle to Thomas of Bononia.It is essential to know and to memorize the order in which the products occur, or it will be impossible to know towhat part of the work the writer refers.As they have mixed up the different stages, this is the only way of sortingthem out; for the writer may have begun his treatise with the preparation of the ferment, using ordinary mercury,then gone to the other stages in any order.But the evident use of common mercury will have biassed the student'smind throughout the treatise.The first stage (or ante first part), viz., the preparation of their crude mercury, and the selection and preparation ofthe base, is omitted.Afterwards the order is Solution, and formation of the Rebis or Sericum or Ixir; the Elixir in thesealed glass separates into the azoth above and the laton below; the azoth descends in dews, or rains, and ultimatelywhitens the laton, without the laying on of hands.The water precedes the oil; the spirit precedes the soul; elixirprecedes azoth; rebis, is the chaos, the viscous humidity, and contains all.In the laton and azoth stage, the green lionhas become a black lion and the volatilized azoth, eagles.These are intermediate stages, the dew or rain is amenstruum, a fire, a sharp vinegar, antimonial saturnine mercurial argent vive.Saturnine, for it comes out ofdarkness; antimonial, because it becomes like fine black minute atoms (like the powdered black variety of antimonytri-sulphide), it splashes all about in the glass; mercurial, for a volatile portion ascends from it.Height, depth, width, altitude, profundity, latitude: the highest altitude is red, the second is white; profundity isblack; latitude is extension in quality and quantity and powder to permeate other things.Whenever a writer speaks ofthe heavenly influences, such as those of the sun and moon; or speaks of sky, clouds, the earth, the sea, it isnecessary to remember that he refers to the things which are in his laboratory.There he has his mountains andvalleys; his heavens, earth and sea; the salt in the center of the earth; his snow on the hill tops.It is only from a substance which is not "determined" in the direction of any one of the seven then known metals,that the alchemist made his rebis.All specificated or determined things are rejected.Thus Urbigerus (Aphorism 28)had no kind of metal in the calx in his retort, neither had he (Aphorism 37) ant "mercury, or any other kind ofmetallic substance" in the distilled fluid in the receiver.This axiom, or sine qua non for it amounts to that is thecenter of the circle, from which a worker cannot err; and radiating out from that center are the determined thingsamongst which students can, and, do, wander for years, without apprehending the center, that broiling, fryingcompany, who call themselves chemists, but are indeed no philosophers." She (nature) had in her bosom two things"not metalline" without doubt one was white and the other red.It is he says necessary to find the Lunaria plantgrowing on the top of India's mountain; this is quite a common symbol, and another writer says: "It is necessary tovisit both the Indies"; all these, and other things occur in Section I.of Lumen de Lumine.Unless one is enthusiastic in a wise and enduring way, the philosophy of alchemy is dreary reading, and isimpatiently abandoned for practical work on immature ideas of the substance, and hazy notions of the working.Inthe philosophic desert is the trial, and also the reward.At the end of Euphrates by Eugenius Philalethes thecommentator S.S.D.D.writes: "I will end as I began, by saying, I have read many alchemical treatises, but never oneof less use to the practical alchemist, than this." Yet the practical man is, in that work, given open and plaininformation as to what he must avoid; the hints on the material are quite as plain as discretion would allow; andthere are no false suggestions [ Pobierz całość w formacie PDF ]