The Hermetic Museum, Vol. I — trans. A. E. Waite (1893)
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The translator’s English as printed (A. E. Waite). The original-language text is not held; names are romanised as the translator printed them.
The philosopher's *earth," then, is sometimes designated their gold, as the same author testifies: * Know that our ore, which is the gold of the philosophers, is their earth." This "earth" is also called ore, ferment, or tincture ; just as the " water" is called white and flaky *earth" ^ So we read in the " Sounding of the Trumpet ": * Wherefore Hermes says, * Sow your gold in white, flaky earth which by calcination has been made glowing, subtle, and volatile That is to say : Sow gold, 2.e., the soul and quickening virtue, into the white earth, which by preparation has been made white and pure and freed from all Its grossness. "Thus natural gold is not the fermenting matter, but the philosopher's goldis thequickening ferment itself." Again, in the Seventh Step of the * Ladder of the Philosophers " : * Their
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earth is white in which their gold [which is the soul]is sown, and this body is the centre of knowledge, the concentration thereof, and the habitationspf tinctures" Once more: * Therefore Hercules says; 'Solve the body of magnesia which has become white and like the leaves of the bramble. This is the body ; the soul is the esssence which is called the philosopher's gold." (For with water the spirit ascends into the upper air.) * Mix," says Senior, *gold with gold, that is water [mercury] and ashes)" Again, Hermes says: *Sow gold into the white flaky earth." From these expressions, however obscurely worded, it is clear that our gold is not common gold.
But why do the philosophers call their gold now * water," and now *earth"? Do they not contradict themselves, or each other? No; our Sages, in expounding tbe truth, veil it under obscure and allegorical expressions, but nevertheless agree with each other so marvellously that they allseem to speak, as it were, with one mouth. "They do not confound one thing with another, nor do they wish to lead the earnest enquirer astray. They express themselves in mystic phrases to hide the truth from the unworthy and impious, lest they should seem to be casting pearls before s:ine, and giving: the holy thing to be trodden underfoot by these who think only of indulging their lustful desires. But the noble student of our art has been told more than once, not only from what quarter our Stone may be obtained, but also that its substance must be cze, which by the artist's skill may be resolved into two, viz., earth and fire, or mercury and sulphur.
The Sages, then, do well to call their gold earth or water ; for they have a perfect right to term it whatever they like. So they have frequently called their Stone their gold, their superperfect gold, their regenerate gold, and by many other names besides. If any one does not perceive their meaning at the first glance, he must blame his own ignorance, not their jealousy.
The reader now knows that the substance of our Stone is neither animal nor vegetable, and that it does not belong to the minerals or the base metals, but that it must be extracted from gold and silver, and that our gold and silver are not the vulgar, dead gold and silver, but the living gold and silver of the Sages. We must now say something about the mode of solution, as the greatest arcanum of all, and the root of the matter. A solution takes place when we transform a dry thing into a liquid, a hard thing into a soft, a hidden thing into one that is manifest, z.e., when a solid is changed into water ; not, however, the vulgar water (as Parmenides and Agadmon in * The Crowd " teach us: * When some persons hear of the liquefaction, they think a change takes place into the water of the clouds. But if they had read and understood our books, they would know that our water is permanent), but into the water of the Sages, Ze., the elementary substance, as Arnold (Ros. I., cp. ix.) says: * The object of the Sages is to dissolve the Stone into its mercury, or elementary matter" And Avicenna says: * Thou who wouldest attain our object must first endeavour to dissolve and sublime the two luminaries, which is the first stage of the experiment, that they may become quicksilver, ^ Therefore Arnold (Ros. II, cp. ii.) describes the solution as a resolving of bodies, and a preparation ofthe first Matter or Nature. And Richard the Englishman (cp. xviii.) writes thus : * First the Stone must be resolved into its elementary substance [seeing that it is an union of body and spirit], that the two may become one mercurial water." But even as this first solution is the most vital part of our process, so is it also the most difficult, as Eobold Vogelius testifies when he says : * How hard this achievement is can be affirmed by those who have performed it" Bernard of Trevisan, in his book addressed to Thomas of Bononia, says: * He who knows the secret of the sclution is acquainted with the arcanum of the Art, which is, to mingle kinds, and effectually to extract elements from elements which lie hid in them." — The solution must not be made with aqua fortis ; for aqua fortis corrodes and destroys the body which should be only liquefied and improved. The solution does not take place into any water that wets the hands, but into a dry water, which is called both sulphur and mercury, as Zneumo says (Turba): *Unless by resolving it into its elements you extract from the body its marrow, and make it an impalpable spirit, you labour in vain." And Richard the Englishman, following Avicenna, affirms (cp. xi): * The Sages have striven to discover how those sulphurs may be extracted from those more perfect bodies, and how their qualities may be so refined by Art, that that which was not manifest before (although