A New Light of Alchemy

5Be content, therefore, to possess the three principles from which nature produces everything in and upon earth. You will find these three whole in every thing. By their proper separation and conjunction, nature produces metals and stones in the mineral kingdom; trees, herbs and everything in the vegetable kingdom; and body, spirit and soul in the animal kingdom. This corresponds especially closely to the philosophers' work. Body is earth; spirit is water; soul is fire or the sulphur of gold. Spirit increases the body in quantity, while fire increases it in power. But since spirit exceeds fire in weight, spirit is raised up, overcomes fire and draws it to itself. Thus each grows in power, while earth, the intermediary between them, grows in weight.

5.2Let every investigator of the art therefore determine in his mind which of these three he seeks. Let him come to its aid so that it may overcome its contrary. Afterwards let him add his own weight to nature's weight, supplying nature's deficiency through art. Thus he will overcome his contrary. Under earth I said that earth is merely the receptacle of the others: the subject in which these two, fire and water, contend through air's mediation. If water predominates, it produces temporary, corruptible things; if fire conquers, it produces perpetual, incorruptible things. Consider, then, what you need.