The Book of Alze ends by vouching for everything it describes, seen "with my own eyes, and performed with my own hands." Two sentences later the account shifts. Hindered by the people he lived with, the author nearly abandoned the work, and it was brought to completion by "a friend, who faithfully executed my instructions". The eyewitness guarantee therefore covers the method and the preparation, not the finished Stone, whose success the author reports at second hand. The claims made just before, of a drop of Elixir tingeing a thousand times its weight and an antidote against leprosy, stand on the friend's result. The tract is candid enough to say so, which is more than its closing flourish would suggest.
The Hermetic Museum, Vol. I — trans. A. E. Waite (1893)
Open to all
The text is shown on its own: no facing layer is held for this issue.
page 131
The translator’s English as printed (A. E. Waite). The original-language text is not held; names are romanised as the translator printed them.
quickens body and soul. The more perfectly our ore is purged, and subjected to coction, the better it becomes, till it is at length condensed into a Stone. But it must be dissolved again, and subjected to a powerful fire, until it looks like burnt blood. If this Stone be added to any substance, it tinges it into gold. The Sages speak of it as a kind of root. Take, they say, the whole virtue of the Tincture, and concentrate it in the Root. If a body which has no earthy elements receive this Tincture, it receives more benefit than less excellent bodies. The Stone overcomes everything to which it is applied, and tinges foreign bodies with its own colour. The dry fire tinges bodies, the air strengthens them, the white water washes away their blackness, and their earth receives the Tincture. Concerning the coction needed for the development of our substance, the Sages have expressed themselves in a great variety of ways. Observe Hermes, who says that it must be repeated again and again, until the red colour at length is obtained. Herein is the stability of the whole work. Afterwards it assumes many, many colours, not including the red, which appears at the end. For the white must precede it. Set to work by the regimen of fire, and triturate. The above mentioned water volatilizes all bodies ; even such as are gross it penetrates until it has assimilated them toits own nature. Know that unless you operate upon bodies until they are destroyed and their soul is extracted, with such you will never tinge any body, for nothing tinges which has not first itself been tinged. If the body be made fluid and burnt, then it bends itself towards its begetter, becoming a subtle Magnesia, and it turns towards the earth, which makes it spiritual and vivifies it. Before the final whiteness of the first stage is attained, the substance turns first of a black, then of an orange, and then of a reddish colour (which, however, is quite different from the final redness of the last stage). "These colours, however, need not trouble you, since they are evanescent and merely transitional.
From what I have said you may gather that our substance is found in the gold which is hidden in Magnesia, and that it is oz thing composed of sulphur from sulphur and mercury from mercury. And as the substance of our Stone is one, so is the method of its preparation. Therefore, do not listen to those r8 ignorant and fraudulent alchemists who speak of many different kinds of sublimation and distillation. Turn a deaf ear to those who say that the substance of our Stone is the powder of the Basilisk. As to the (length of) time required for the preparation, you must begin it in the winter, which is moist, and extract the moisture until the spring, when all things become green, and when our substance, too, should exhibit a variety of colours. In the summer the substance should be reduced to powder by means of a powerful fire. The autumn, the season of ripeness, should witness its maturity,or final redness. About the motions of the stars or planets you need not trouble yourself.: Our substance is a body containing the spirit which makes glass malleable, and turns crystals into carbuncles. One drop of our Elixir, as large as a drop of rain, will suffice to tinge and transmute a body a thousand times as large as itself.
This most noble Remedy was appointed, like all other things, for the use of man, because he is the most glorious of God's creatures, and the lord of the whole earth. It was given to him for the purpose of preserving his youth, expelling disease, preventing suffering, and providing him with all he requires. Our Elixir is better than all the medicinal preparations of Hippocrates, Avicenna, and others. From it may be prepared a potable antidote which has power to cure leprosy. As fire purges and refines metals, so this Remedy restores to the human body its natural heat, expels from it all healthdestroying matter, and fortifes it against every conceivable form of disease. Its virtue is infinitely greater than that of the potable gold dust, which is taken as a preventative among the Gentiles.
Great and wonderful is the potency of the gold that slumbers in Magnesia, both for the purifying of the human system, and for the transmuting of metals. What more shall I say? A]I the things that I have here faithfully described I have seen with my own eyes, and performed with my own hands.
When I was preparing the substance, after discovering the true method, I was so seriously interfered with by the persons with whom I lived that I was almost on the point of giving up the whole thing in despair At length I communicated my discovery to a friend, who faithfully executed my instructions, and brought the work to a successful issue. For which Blessed Gift may God be praised, world without end. Amen.
THE BOOK OF
LAMBSPRING,
A Noble Ancient PAilosopher,
pEMPEOSOPHIPCSOLE STONES
RENDERED INTO LATIN VERSE BY
NICHOLAS BARNAUD DELPHINAS,
Doctor of Medicine, & gealous Student of this Art.
TRAMA AUTE LUI
PUROSIBUACC E.
|I AM CALLED LAMBSPRING, BORN OF A NOBLE FAMILY,