A New Light of Alchemy

Treatise XII The Stone and Its Power

1The preceding chapters have said enough about the production of natural things, the elements, first and second matter, bodies and seeds, and their use and power. I have also written down the practice of making the philosophers’ stone. I shall now disclose as much about its power as nature has granted me and experience has revealed. First, however, let me briefly gather the argument of all these chapters, so that the God-fearing reader may grasp my thought and meaning. The matter is this. If anyone doubts the truth of the art, let him read the abundant writings of the most ancient philosophers, verified by reason and experience. As trustworthy witnesses, they should not be denied belief in their own art. If someone will not believe them, we know there is no disputing with a person who denies the principles: the deaf and mute cannot speak. I said that the art is true. What privilege do all other things in this world possess over metals? Why should we unjustly exclude metals alone, by denying them seed, from the supreme Creator’s universal blessing of multiplication, which Scripture declares was implanted and bestowed upon all created things from the world’s foundation? If metals possess seed, who is so foolish as not to believe that they can multiply in their own seed? In its own nature the art of chymistry is true, and nature too is true; but a true practitioner is rare. Nature is one, the art one, but practitioners are many.