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

p. 257

EPILOGUE.

We have sufficiently explained that quicksilver is the first substance of the metals, without which no metal can become perfect, eitherin Nature or in our Art. But we do not yet know where to look for it, and where to find it. This is the great secret of the Sages, which they are always so careful to veil under dark words that scarcely one in many thousands is thought worthy to find the philosophical Mercury. Many things have been written about it; but I will quote the words of one philosopher which I consider as the most helpful: In the beginning, he says, God created the earth plain, simple, rich, and very fertile, without stones, sand, rocks, hills, or valleys ; it is the influences of the planets which have now covered it with stones, rocks, and mountains, and filled it with rare things of various colours, Ze, the ores of the seven metals ; and by these means the earth has entirely lost its original form, and that through the following causes :—

First, the earth which was created rich, great, deep, wide, and broad, was, through the daily operation of the Sun's rays, penetrated to her very centre with a fervent, bubbling, vaporous heat. For the earth in herself is cold and saturated with the moisture of water. Atlength the vapours which were formed in this way in the heart of the earth became so strong and powerful as to seek to force a way out into the open air, and thus, instead of effecting their object, threw up hills and hillocks, or,as it were, bubbles on the face of the earth. And since in those places where mountains were formed the heat of the Sun must have been most powerful, and the earthy moisture rich and most plentiful,it is there that we find the most precious metals. Where the earth remained plain, this steam did not succeed in raising up mountains ; itescaped, and the earth, being deprived of its moisture, was hardened into rocks. Where the earth was poor, soft, and thin, it is now covered with sand and little stones, because it never had much moisture, and, having been deprived of the little it possessed, has now become sandy and dry, and incapable of retaining moisture. No earth was changed into rocks that was not rich, viscous, and well saturated with moisture. For when the heat of the Sun has sucked up

R

its moisture, the richness of the earth still. makes it cohere, although now it has become hard and dry ; and earth that is not yet perfectly hard is even at the present time undergoing a change into hard stones, through the diligent working of Nature. But the steam and the vapours that do not succeed in escaping, remain enclosed in the mountains, and are day by day subjected to the maturing and transmuting influences of the Sun and the planets. Now, if this vaporous moisture become mixed with a pure, subtle, and earthy substance, it is the quicksilver of the Sages; if it be reduced to a fiery and earthy hardness, it becomes the sulphur of the Sages. "This enquiry opens up the way of finding our quicksilver, or first substance of the metals ; but though it be found in great quantities in all mines, it is known only to very few. It is not silver, or gold, or common quicksilver, or any metal, or sulphur. The Sage says: * It is a vaporous substance out of four elements, watery, and pure, and though it is found with all metals, it is not matured in those which are imperfect. Hence it must be sought in the ore, in which we find gold and silver" And when again he says, * If this quicksilver be hardened, it is the sulphur of the Sages," he means that this can only be done by means of gold and silver, which it takes into itself, and by which it is sublimed and coagulated through its own natural gentle coction, under the influence of the Sun's heat, and in its own proper ore.

O heavenly Father, shew this quicksilver
to all whom
'Thou biddest walk in Thy paths!

AUUVERY UBROLEB TRACT

CONCERNING THE

PIIDLOSOPBEPDMCAJI, SJ QNS.

WRITTEN BY AN UNKNOWN GERMAN SAGE,
ABOUT 200 YEARS AGO, AND CALLED THE BOOK OF ALZE,
BUT NOW PUBLISHED FOR THE FIRST TIME.

Da 7 a9
"m E.