Chapter Seven. Of the waters upon and within the earth.

Question. It was established above that rainwater, like other waters, was not changed in itself at the separation. A universal medicine and a tincture for improving metals can therefore be prepared from rainwater as an all-embracing subject. Could the same not also be done with seawater and other waters upon and within the earth?

Answer. I reply briefly. Although it was established above that the waters were not changed in themselves, it was also shown that one was made more transparent, thinner and subtler, and endowed with greater power and effect, than another. They were also assigned different places. Hence the water above heaven is one thing, rainwater another, and seawater and the other waters upon and within the earth, which come from the sea and flow back into it, another. In one, animal nature predominates; in another, vegetable nature; in another again, mineral nature.

Part One showed that in the creation Almighty God assigned the coarser and heavier waters below, towards the centre, and created chiefly animals and plants from them, giving those waters a particular blessing and command to bring such things forth. On the present question I therefore appeal to the example of the emerald cited in the preceding chapter, and also to the following. The princely physician already mentioned further told me how Dr Bier had obtained a fine grain of gold from that same water, besides the transparent mass, and had found it at the bottom of the vessel. Anyone can readily judge that this was bodily gold.

From this it clearly appears that such waters contain only bodily and dead metals and minerals, useless for our art, rather than the spiritual and living ones belonging to it. Moreover, the earth in the depths where those waters arise is wholly mineral. The universal world-spirit, capable of every property, is not idle, but immediately specifies itself in such mineral deposits.

We must further observe that our art requires elements which have not received a particular blessing and command from Almighty God, rather than those which have. Although the latter are likewise universal in themselves, as explained above, and although the blessing and command extend only to animals and plants, those elements are nevertheless particular in their property even within this order, as regards mineral nature. For this reason, and also because of their density, no spiritual and living metals are to be found in them.

The earlier statement that gold obtained from water by art is alive and possesses life must therefore be understood of waters that have received no particular blessing and command from Almighty God, rather than of those other waters. Above all, since the latter are found upon and within the earth, no earth that has hovered above our heads can come from them.

It is indeed true that the spirit repeatedly mentioned cannot be coagulated or fixed without earth. First, however, according to the express and well-intentioned teaching and admonition of Lull and the author of the Opened Philosophical Father’s Heart, the appropriate earth is not the ground we tread beneath our feet, but a philosophical earth—one that, as stated, hovers above our heads. Second, this earth must be freed from every superfluity, entirely pure and without stain.

Then its own earth, the water that does not wet the hands, is again imbibed and fermented with that spirit and its soul, the living gold. It is next made to flow like wax or, in the language of the Opened Philosophical Father’s Heart, washed and bathed with watery fire and fiery water. After the matter becomes gummy, it is cooked to completion with philosophical fire. Its power and virtue thereby increase so greatly that it can not only tincture all imperfect metals into pure gold but also remove every bodily ailment. Whoever has come so far through God’s grace knows for certain that water is heavier than earth.

I wished to note these few things in passing, as a partial supplement to what was said above about the second operation. To return to the subject, I conclude once again, from the reasons so far given and several others, that neither seawater nor other waters upon and within the earth, nor anything else that has ever touched the earth, can provide a universal medicine or an effective tincture for improving metals.

Conversely, it follows with equal certainty that, since living, spiritual and tincturing gold can be obtained from rainwater, according to the repeatedly cited example, rainwater has received no particular blessing and command from Almighty God, as stated in its definition above, and has its residence in the air, beneath the firmament of heaven.

Finally, I also call dew to mind. For the reasons given so far, I do not see how it can be denied the name universal, or why one should dispute, in this or that respect, what Noldius, as reported by Sperling, praises in it. Not to mention that dew bears a closer likeness to the subject of the Hermetic art than rainwater does. Yet it is not my custom to publish mere speculations. I have no experience of this subject, namely dew, comparable to my experience of rainwater and especially—God be thanked—of the subject of the Hermetic art. I shall therefore leave the matter to others.

I cannot avoid mentioning here that ... B. quite wrongly advertises his World-Spirit, Gold of the Breeze and Balsam of the World as a Hermetic medicine. Whether one or another of them comes from dew or from the substance described by Dr Nietardt and likewise called World-Spirit, it is still no Hermetic medicine. His World-Spirit, Gold of the Breeze and Balsam of the World—the last much more a residue than a Hermetic medicine—testify to this themselves, as does his writing entitled Gold of the Breeze.