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

mercury, the mercury of the philosophers, which in its operation is much more potent than natural mercury, and is useful for working upon simple, perfect, imperfect, cold, and warm metals Now, the Philosophical Stone is good for perfect and imperfect metals, and soon restores and brings them to perfection without any diminution, addition, or real change of any kind. For, apart from perfecting them, it leaves them in the state in which they were before. I do not say that the Sages combine common gold, silver, and mercury for this purpose: this is the method only of ignorant charlatans, who thereby hope to prepare the mercury of the Sages; butthey never succeed in producing this, the real first substance ofthe Stone. If they would obtain it they must go to the seventh mountain, where there is no plain, and from its height they must look down upon the sixth, which they will behold at a great distance. On the summit of that mountain they will find the glorious Regal Herb, which some Sages call a mineral, some a vegetable. The bones they must leave, and only extract its pure juice, which will enable them to do the better part of the work. "This is the true and subtle mercury of the philosophers which you must take. Now, first it prepares the white tincture, and then the red. For the Swz and /7eoz are prepared by the same method, and yield the red and white tincture respectively, and the preparation is so simple that it might be seen to by a woman while she works at her spindle —just as she might set a hen on some eggs, without washing them first, and without any other trouble but that of turning the eggs every day that the chickens may break the shells all the sooner. In like manner, you must not wash your mercury, but only put it with its like (which is fire) into ashes (corresponding to the straw), into one glass vessel (which is the nest) in a suitable alembic (which is the house) — If you do this there will come out a chicken, that will deliver you with its blood from all diseases, and feed you with its flesh, and clothe you with its feathers, and shelter you from the cold. Therefore, I pray and beseech the Creator of all things to grant His grace to all faithful Alchemists, that they may find the chicken, which, through God's unspeakable goodness and mercy, has now been vouchsafed to me. I have written this 2tract for your sakes, to encourage you, and point out to you the right way: I hope and trust that my words will enable you to understand more fully the works of other Sages. Farewell !

di^ , : aS L " M NA us ^ jw Ü , * E 4 , , P " 2 em m Q4. m 3a

» - | P ! : E: E . | E : j - " : 1 ; EL '

ELOVED friend and brother, under the name of this glorious Art there is to be found much false teaching, which is put forward by pseudo-alchemists, whose writings are nothing but imposture and deceit, 3and are yet highly esteemed by people of the simpler sort. These charlatans induce their dupes to waste much money and time on that which can profit them nothing ; for unless a thing be well begun, it can never be brought to a good end. Yet most men, who, nowadays, have devoted themselves to this exalted art of chemistry, are pursuing a wrong course, and are deceivers or deceived. ^ The deceivers are conscious of their own ignorance, and try to veil it under an obscure and allegorical style. "The less they really know, the more pompous and the more unintelligible do their speculations become. But the reader, who is puzzled by their perplexing stylé, may at least comfort himself with the assurance that he knows as much about the matteras the authors. That assurance must serve for a kind of clue to the endless labyrinth of their false sublimations, calcinations, distillations, solutions, coagulations, putrefactions, and corruptions. Nevertheless, we may almost every day see foolish persons spend their whole substance on those absurd experiments, being induced to do so by the aforesaid pseudo-alchemists, who impose on them with a false process, and fanciful perversions of Nature.

With these useless and unnecessary experiments the true Alchemists will have nothing to do. "They follow the method pursued by Nature in the veins of the earth, which is very simple, and includes no solutions, putrefactions, coagulations, or anything of the kind Can Nature, in the heart of the earth, where the metals do grow and receive increase, have anything