The Hermetic Museum, Vol. I — trans. A. E. Waite (1893)

perhaps be possible to resolve all things. Its development is brought about by the distillation of the Sun and Moon. For it is operated upon by the natural heat of the Sun and Moon, which stirs up its internal action, and multiplies each thing after its kind, imparting to the substance a specific form. "The soul, or nutritive principle, is the earth which receives the rays of the Sun and Moon, and therewith feeds her children as with mother's milk. Thus the Sun is the father, the Moon is the mother, the earth the nurse—and in this substance is that which we require. He who can take it and prepare it is truly to be envied. It is separated by the Sun and Moon in the form of a vapour, and collected in the place where it is found. "When Hermes adds that * the air bears it in its womb, the earth is its nurse, the whole world its Father, he means that when the substance of our Stone is dissolved, then the wind bears it in its womb, Ze, the air bears up the substance in the form of water, in which is hid fire, the soul of the Stone ; and fire is the Father of the whole world. Thus, the volatile substance rises upward, while that which remains at the bottom, is the * whole world " (seeing that our Art is compared to a *small world") Hence Hermes calls fire the father of the whole world, because it is the Sun of our Art, and air, Moon, and water ascend from it; the earth is the nurse of the Stone, Ze., when the earth receives the rays of the Sun and Moon, a new body is born, like a new fcetus in the mother's womb. The earth receives and digests the light of Sun and Moon, and imparts food to its foetus day by day, till it becomes great and strong, and puts off its blackness and defilement, and is changed to a different colour. This, * child," which is called *our daughter, represents our Stone, which is born anew of the Sun and Moon, as you may easily see, when the spirit, or the water that ascended, is gradually transmuted into the body, and the body is born anew, and grows and increases in size like the fcetus in the mother's womb. Thus the Stone is generated from the first substance, which contains the four elements; itis brought forth by two things, the body and the spirit; the wind bears it in its womb, for it carries the Stone upward from earth to heaven, and down again from heaven to earth. Thus the Stone receives increase from above and from below, and is born a. second time, just as every 2other fcetus is generated in the maternal womb; as all created things bring forth their young, even so does the air, or wind, bring forth our Stone. When Hermes adds, *Its power, or virtue, is entire, when it is transmuted into earth," he means that when the spirit is transmuted into the body, it receives its full strength and virtue. For as yet the spirit is volatile, and not fixed, or permanent. [fit is to be fixed, we must proceed as the baker does in baking bread. | We must impart only a little of the spirit to the body at a time, just as the baker only puts a little leaven to his meal, and with it leavens the whole lump. The spirit, which is ezz leaven, in like fashion transmutes the whole body into its own substance. Therefore the body must be leavened again and again, until the whole lump is thoroughly pervaded with the power of the leaven. In our Art the body leavens the spirit, and transmutes it into one body, and the spirit leavens the body, and transmutes it into one spirit. And the two, when they have become one, receive power to leaven all things, into which they are injected, with their own virtue.