A New Light of Alchemy

3Take ten parts of air and one part of living gold or living Luna. Put all these into two vessels. First cook this air so that it becomes water, and afterwards not water. If you do not know this and do not know how to cook air, you will undoubtedly go astray, for this is the matter of the ancient philosophers. You must take what exists but is not seen until the practitioner pleases. It is the water of our dew, from which is extracted the philosophers’ salt of stone, through which all things grow and are nourished. Its womb is the centre of Sol or Luna, heavenly as well as earthly. To speak more plainly, it is our magnet, which I called chalybs above. Air generates the magnet; the magnet generates or makes our air appear. Here I have solemnly made the truth manifest to you: ask God to prosper your undertaking. Here too you have the truest explanation of Hermes’ assertion that its father is Sol, its mother Luna, and that the wind carried it in its belly: namely the alkali salt, which the philosophers called armoniac and vegetable salt, concealed in the belly of magnesia. Its operation is this: dissolve the congealed air; in it dissolve a tenth part of gold. Seal this and work with our fire until the air turns into powders. When the salt of the world has been obtained, various colours will appear.