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

* Into three the great good is divided, yet it is oze, and highly esteemed by the world. Men have it before their eyes, handle it with.their hands, yet know it not, though they constantly tread it under their feet. It is the greatest wealth, and he who knows the Art may rival the richest."

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p. 79

AN ENIGMA OF THE SAGES,

In which the underlying substance of the Art, called the
Phoenix of the Sages, is found to be thrice threefold.

** [f [ tell you three parts of a thing you have no cause to complain. Seek one of three, and of the three one will be there : for where there is body and soul, there is also Spirit, and there shine salt, sulphur, and mercury. Trust my word, seek the grass that is trefoil. "Thou knowest the name, and art wise and cuning if thou findest it."

ANOTHER ENIGMA.
(Much easier.)

* There is one thing in this world which is found occasionally. It is bluish-grey and green, and, wonderful to say, there is in this thing a red and white colour. It flowslike water, yet it makes not wet ; itis of great weight, and of small. I might give it a thousand names, yet the thousand know it not. It is mean to look upon, yet to the Sage it is precious. He who solves it with the second and condenses it with the third, he has our glorious subject."

YET ANOTHER ENIGMA,.

Everthing contributes to the formation of this Stone. It is conceived below the earth, born in the earth, quickened in heaven, dies in time, obtains eternal glory.

Now when you have the substance indicated (which is in part heavenly, in part earthly, and in its natural state a mere confused chaos without certain name or colour), and know it well (for this knowledge the Sages have always accounted the principal part of this work), then you must give your whole mind to manipulating it in the proper manner. But before doing anything to it with his hands, the student should remember not to begin the preparation of this great and inscrutable arcanum before he knows well the spirit that lurks in it according to its essential qualities and properties. ^ With this spirit," says a certain philosopher, * you should not meddle until you first have a full and exact knowledge of it. For God is marvellous in His works, and He is not mocked. . I could give some instances of men who set about this matter with great levity and were heavily punished by meeting (some of them) with fatal accidents in their laboratories, For this work is no light thing, as many suppose, perhaps, because the Sages have called it child's play. Those to whom God has revealed His secrets may indeed find the experiment simple and easy. But do thou carefully beware of exposing thyself to great danger by unseasonable carelessness. Rather begin thy work with reverent fear and awe and with earnest prayer, and then thou wilt be in little danger."

Now when you have exercised yourself with exceeding diligence in the oratory, the matter being ready to your hand, go into the laboratory, take the substance indicated, and set to work in the following manner.

Above all things you mustlet it be your first object to solve this substance (or first Entity, which the Sages have also called the highest natural good). Then it must be purged of its watery and earthy nature (for at first it appears an earthy, heavy, thick, slimy, and misty body), and all that is thick, nebulous, opaque, and dark in it must be removed, that thus, by a final sublimation, the heart and inner soul contained in it may be separated and reduced to a precious essence.

All this can be accomplished with our Pontic and Catholic water, which in its refluent course irrigates and fertilizes the whole earth, and is sweet, beautiful, clear, limpid, and brighter than gold, silver, carbuncles, or diamonds. "This blessed water is enclosed and contained in our Matter.

Then the extracted Heart, Soul, and Spirit must once more be distilled and condensed into oze by their own proper salt (which in the interior of the substance is first of a. blood-red colour, but then becomes of a bright, clear, and transparent white, and is called by the Sages the Salt of Wisdom). You have thus first, by what is called. the anterior process, separated the pure from the impure, and first rendered the visible invisible, then, again, the invisible visible or palpable (but yet no longer so gross and shapeless as it wasat first), and it is now a bright body with a pleasant, penetrating smell, and withal so subtle and ethereal that if it were not fixed it would evaporate and vanish away. Forthis reason the Sages call it mercurial water, or water of the sun, or mercury of the sun, or mercury of the wise. But