A New Light of Alchemy

4Each thing multiplies in male and female, as I mentioned in the treatise on the twofold matter. Separation of the sexes creates or produces nothing; their proper conjunction brings forth a new form. It is seeds or seminal matters, therefore, that must be taken, rather than bodies. Take, then, a living male and a living female. Join them together so that between themselves they imagine a seed for bringing forth the fruit of their own nature. Let no mortal believe that he can make the first matter. The first matter of a human being is earth, and no human being can create another from it: God alone knows how. But from the second matter, already created, if it is placed in the proper location, nature’s operation will easily generate the thing whose form the seed possesses. Here the practitioner does nothing except know how to separate the subtle from the thick and put it into the proper vessel. Consider this: as a thing begins, so it ends. From one come two; from two, one; and no further.