A New Light of Alchemy

5This is a most genuine example of how nature in earth's depths produces gold, silver and other metals from mercury alone, according to the disposition of the place or womb. Mercury contains its own sulphur, through which it is coagulated into gold unless hindered by an accident, lacking the requisite heat or lacking an enclosed place. Thus the power of animal sulphur congeals mercury into flesh, rather than gold. If such a power existed in the human being, this would happen in all bodies, which it does not. Many such wonders and accidents occur. When writers do not consider them properly, they bring errors upon readers. A good seeker, however, must apply everything to nature's possibilities. If things do not agree with nature, they must be set aside. There is a difference between gold and water, but a smaller one between water and mercury, and the smallest between gold and mercury. For mercury is gold's house, and water is mercury's house. Sulphur, however, is mercury's coagulant. This sulphur is prepared with difficulty, and investigated with still greater difficulty, because the whole secret lies hidden in the philosophers' sulphur, which is also contained within mercury's innermost parts. I shall one day give an account of its preparation—without which it is useless—under salt, the third of the principles. Here I have treated sulphur's power and its origin first.