A New Light of Alchemy

2My experience has reached this far; I can do no more and have discovered no more. That water must be the world’s menstruum from the sphere of Luna, rectified so many times that it can calcine Sol. Here I wished to disclose everything to you. If you understand my meaning, rather than occasionally fixing upon a syllable, I have revealed everything, especially in the first and second works. Something remains to be said about fire. The first fire, that of the first operation, is a continuous fire of one degree surrounding the matter. The second is natural fire, which digests and fixes the matter. I tell you the truth: if you understand nature, I have disclosed the government of the fire. We must still speak about the vessel. It must be nature’s vessel, and two suffice. The vessel for the first work should be round; in the second work the glass should be a little smaller, in the shape of a vial and an egg. Above all, know that nature has only one fire; differences of place cause the diversity of its operations. Nature likewise has only one vessel, but we use two to shorten the work. The matter is one, but composed of two substances. If you direct your mind toward creating things, first consider things already created. If you cannot understand these, present before your eyes, much less can you understand things yet to be created that you wish to produce. Know that you cannot create anything: that belongs to God alone. But God, through nature, has granted the understanding philosopher the ability to make hidden things lying in shadow appear, and to remove their shadow. Consider, I beg you, the simple water of a cloud. Who would ever believe that it contains everything the world possesses—hard stones, salts, air, earth, and fire—although it appears in itself to be simple water? What shall I say of earth, containing water, fire, salts, and air, yet appearing in itself as bare earth? O wondrous nature, knowing how to produce marvellous fruits from water in earth and supply them with life from air!