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

It is necessary, then, to unite body and soul, and to change that which is below into that which is above, Ze, body into spirit, and spirit into body. By this expression you are to understand not that the spirit by itself is changed into a body, or that the body by itself is changed into a spirit, but that both are united, and that the spirit, or water, dissolves, or resuscitates the body, or earth, while the body attracts the spirit, or water ; and that they are thus joined into oze substance, the earth being softened by the water, and the water hardened by the earth—as the boys in the street pour water on dry dust, and knead the whole into one mass. For this reason the Sages call our process child's play, in which the death of one is the life of the other, Ze., in which the hardness of the one is softened by the other, and vzce versa, seeing that the two are nothing but body and spirit originally belonging together. When contemplating this union, the Sage, Hermes, bursts forth into the following exclamation: * Oh, how strong, victorious, and precious is this nature that so unspeakably comforts its supplementary nature ! " This nature is water, which stirs up and quickens the nature of the body. Hence it is said that Adam, or the body, would be dead without Eve, the spirit; for when the water has been distilled from our substance, the body lies dead and barren at the bottom of the alembic, and is described by the Sages as being, after the loss of its spirit, black, poisonous, and deadly. Ifthe body is to be resuscitated, it must be rendered fit for generation by being purged of its blackness and fetid smell, and then its sweat or spirit must be restored to it; the spirit cannot conceive unless the body be allowed to:embrace its Eve, or spirit. Senior says that the higher vapour must be brought back to the lower vapour; the Divine water is the King that descends from heaven, and leads the soul back to its body which is thereby quickened from the dead. "Observe that in the body there is hidden fixed sa2//, which slumbers there just as the male seed slumbered in Adam. — This the spirit, or Eve, attracts, and thus becomes pregnant; that is to say: The seed of the body, which we call fixed salt, is extracted from the body by its 2own water (which has before been separated from it) and is rendered so subtle and volatile that it ascends with the spirit to heaven. Then we say that the fixed has become volatile, that the dead has been revived, and that the body has received life from its spirit. On this account the water is called by some Sages the living water of the man, since it is extracted from the body, or man ; and Lucas enjoins us to take it, and heat it after the fashion of Nature. Other Sages call the body the * black soil," because in it the fixed salt is concealed from view, like the seed in the ground. Others, again, call it the * black raven;" which has in its maw the * white dove" ; and the water which is distilled from the body they call the *virgin's milk," by which the white dove must be brought forth from the black raven. In short, these things are described by the Sages under a great variety of names ; but the meaning of those names is the same. In this fashion the water is embraced by the body, and the seed of the body, or the fixed salt, makes the water pregnant. For the water dissolves the body, and bears upward with it some particles ofthe fixed salt; and the oftener this process is repeated, the thicker does the water become. Hence the repetition of the process is a most important point. Hermes says that when he saw the water gradually grow thicker and harder, he rejoiced, for thereby he knew that he should find what he sought. The water, then, must be poured upon the body, and heated with it, till the body is dissolved, and then again extracted till the body is coagulated. Thus the body must be well broken up, and purified by washing. This process of affusion and extraction must be repeated until all the salt, or potency and efficacy, has been extracted from the body. This is the case when the water becomes white and thick, and, in the cold, hard and solid like ice, while in the heat it melts like butter. Now, when nothing more can be extracted from the body, the residuum must be removed ; for it is the superfluous part of the substance. This is what the Sages mean when they say: In the preparation we remove that which is superfluous; but otherwise our whole Magistery is accomplished with one single substance, nothing being added, and nothing taken away, except that which is really superfluous; for it possesses in abundance all that is needed, namely, the water, or * white, flaky earth, which must be injected into "living 3mercury," that so the transmutation into good and fixed silver may take place. But something much more noble and precious is concealed in this water (fixed salt) which grows and grows like the infarit in the mother's womb. For as the embryo in the matrix, which is first a mere seed, grows, and is gradually transmuted into flesh and blood, Ze, into a thicker substance, till at length the limbs are formed ; so this water grows from the white colour which distinguishes it at first, till it is changed to another colour. (For the embryo,too, is transmuted from the natural colour of the embryo into flesh and blood.) "The substance at length assuming a red colour, may be compared to the forming of the infant's limbs ; it is then that we first see what is to become ofit. When you perceive this final transmutation—the germ of which lay in the substance all along—you may well rejoice; for you have attained the object of your desire.