A New Light of Alchemy

8Many workers sow straw instead of wheat; some sow both. Many throw away what philosophers love; some begin and abandon the work, through their inconstancy. They seek a difficult art but easy labour. Rejecting the best, they sow the worst. Yet as this science is hidden in the preface, so its matter is thrown away at the beginning. I say this art is nothing but the powers of the elements mixed equally: a natural equality of hot, dry, cold and moist; the conjunction of male and female, that male whom the same female bore; that is, the conjunction of fire and the radical moisture of metals.

8.2Considering that the philosophers' mercury contains its own proper good sulphur, purified and cooked by nature to a greater or lesser degree, you can perfect everything from mercury. But if you know how to add your weight to nature's, to double mercury and triple sulphur, the work will reach a good end sooner, then a better one, up to the best. There is, however, only one apparent sulphur and two mercuries, of one root, neither raw nor overcooked, yet purified and dissolved—if you have understood me. There is no need to describe the matter of the philosophers' mercury and their sulphur. No mortal has been able, nor will anyone hereafter be able, to describe it more openly and clearly than the ancient philosophers have described and named it, unless he wishes to become accursed in the art. It is named so commonly that it is not even valued. Seekers therefore turn towards other subtleties instead of remaining in nature's simplicity. I am not saying that the philosophers' mercury is something common and openly named. I mean the matter from which philosophers create their sulphur and mercury. The philosophers' mercury is not found by itself upon earth; it is drawn forth by art from sulphur and mercury joined together. It does not come naked into the light: nature wraps it in wonderful ways.