A New Light of Alchemy

5Weigh carefully what I said above: how the four elements distil radical moisture into the earth’s centre, and how the central earthly sun, by its motion, produces and sublimes it to the earth’s surface. I also said that the heavenly sun corresponds to the central sun. The heavenly sun and moon have a special force and power of distilling into the earth through their rays, for heat readily joins heat and salt joins salt. Just as the central sun has its sea and crude, perceptible water, so the heavenly sun has its own sea and subtle, imperceptible water. At the earth’s surface, rays join rays and produce flowers and everything else. When rain occurs, therefore, it receives that power of life from the air and joins it to the earth’s nitrous salt. The earth’s nitrous salt is like calcined tartar, attracting air to itself through its dryness; in it, that air is resolved into water. Such attractive power belongs to the earth’s nitrous salt, which was itself air and is joined to the earth’s fatness. The more abundantly the solar rays then strike, the greater the quantity of nitrous salt produced and, consequently, the greater the crop of grain that grows. This happens day after day. I wished only to hint to the uninstructed at the correspondence of things with one another and the efficacy of sun, moon, and stars. Those who know need no such instruction. Our subject lies before the eyes of the whole world and is not recognised.