5 the Anatomy, or Separation, Conjunction, and Regeneration of Chaotic Water Into a Quintessence

Chapter outline

The separation of regenerated Chaos into volatile middle and fixed parts

Rectification of the four elements into twelve degrees

Recombination imbibition and philosophical calcination

The circulation of the spirit through its own earth

The meaning of quintessence and the powers ascribed to the regenerated medicine

Practical qualifications and the relation between universal and particular operations

In the first part we explained nature’s beginning and origin: how everything was born from spirit and water, or from the universal vapour or chaotic water, and divided into the four universal principles or elements; and how, by command of the Most High, these four continually regenerate the divided Chaos, hour by hour, working it into a universal seed of all worldly things for every generation of animals, plants, and minerals. Here we shall set out anatomy generally, beginning in order with regenerated universal chaotic water, or rain. As an example, mirror, and pattern for what follows, we shall divide and separate it into its parts, examine them through Vulcan’s art, and investigate their effects to some extent, since it is impossible to fathom them completely. We shall anatomize, dissolve, resolve, and separate it into volatile, middle, and fixed parts, then conjoin, coagulate, and fix those separated portions again. Everyone may thus see how the most volatile can be made fixed and the fixed volatile, heaven into earth and earth into heaven, volatile into acid and alkali and conversely, producing a concentrated harmony, quintessence, or magistery of the universe. All subsequent subjects—animals, plants, and minerals—must be governed by this example, as children by their mother.

Anatomy of regenerated Chaos, or rainwater. Take rainwater or snow-water, whichever you wish: this is the seed or sperm of the universe, nothing but water and spirit. Collect it in a new wooden cask, filtering it into the cask so that no impurity enters. Set it somewhere neither too warm nor too cold, but lukewarm, and cover it to keep impurities from falling in. Let it stand for one month to putrefy and become foul-smelling; then it is ready for separation. Stir the water well with a stick, put it in a copper still, attach the head and receiver, and gently distil one subtle portion after another over until half has passed. You have separated heaven and air with their subtle waters from their housing or husks. This is the volatile. Acid and alkali, or water and earth, remain in the residue. Continue distilling what remains in the copper still into another receiver until a honey-like thickness remains. What passed over is the element water and a coarse, abundant phlegm that goes before acid and alkali.

Take the honey-thick material from the still and put it in a retort. Apply fire by degrees in sand. First a phlegm comes, then a sharp spirit like vinegar: this is the acid. A thick oil follows and belongs to the acid, for acid is an extended oil and oil a concentrated acid. These can be called partly essential, partly elemental waters, and partly the volatile portions of earth. This water and earth are always together and differ only in volatility and fixity, or in a more liquid or drier consistency. These portions can therefore also be called the more fixed heaven and air, as I distinguished sufficiently in the first part. Let the reader return there and refresh his understanding throughout for this part. When all liquid portions have been distilled off by degrees, a black dead head remains in the retort: a genuine charcoal that can be made to glow like any other charcoal. It is a virginal macrocosmic earth or alkali.

Chaos is now divided into four parts: heaven, air, water, and earth; or into volatile, acid, and alkali; or into a very volatile water, a coarser water, a sour spirit or vinegar, a thick stinking oil, and the charcoal in which alkali lies hidden. Collect these parts and keep each separately as a particular element. Everyone can then see what the seed of the universe is, into which principles it is divided, and what beginning all natural things have. Just as the one simple Chaos is divided and separated into four parts, these can be divided further: each part can again be divided into three through subtle, subtler, and subtlest rectification, as will be explained below.

Take the first distillate, number one, and put it in a long, uncut flask. Fit a suitable head, set it in the water bath, and attach a receiver. Distil through the first and second degrees up to the third. A clear, bright, volatile water passes over: heaven mixed with the subtlest air. Coarser air remains in the flask. Keep these separately; the first rectification is complete. Rectify that heaven a second time in the water bath as before, drawing half off. The water is still subtler, and heaven has become subtler and more volatile. Take this subtle heaven and again distil half off. Heaven is now made most subtle and has a diamond-like brilliance. Also distil once the half left behind, and keep each distillate separately with its label or name. Label the most highly rectified heaven “Heaven, or the subtlest volatile”; call the next one, from which half remained behind, “Heaven, or the subtler volatile”; and the third, left after that, “Heaven, or the subtle volatile.” You have divided heaven into three parts.

Take the coarser air left from heaven during rectification and add it to the distilled water-element that passed over as number two in the first separation of Chaos. Put both in a flask in the water bath and distil at the fourth degree. Air rises over, whereas coarse water does not readily rise in a water bath, especially in so tall a flask, but requires ashes and a lower flask. You have distilled air from water. Rectify it too into three parts like heaven, drawing off half each time in the water bath on three occasions, and label it similarly. Call the most highly rectified portion “Air, or the subtlest volatile,” the next “Subtler air,” and the third after the first “Subtle air.” Place them properly in order. Take the water left from the air and put it in a low, but not too low, flask with head and receiver, set in ashes. Distil from the first to the second degree, collecting the subtlest portion separately as the first part. From the second to the third degree distil the second portion of water and keep it separately; from the third to the fourth distil the third, coarsest portion. Water too is now rectified. Call the subtlest “Subtlest water,” the other “Subtler water,” the third “Subtle water,” and set them in order next to the separated and rectified air.

Although I should assign the following liquid portions to the water-element because they are moist and watery, no one will take it amiss that I extend them to earth, since they readily become earthy or can be coagulated. With heaven, air, and water separated and rectified, take earth too and divide it into its parts by rectification. Take number three from the first separation: vinegar or acid with its phlegm, the oil, and the mass burned to charcoal. Powder the charcoal, grind the oil into it, put it in a retort, pour the acid upon it, attach the receiver, and distil the vinegar or acid off in sand at the first degree until reddish drops begin to pass. Then set the vinegar aside and change to another glass. Finally apply the fourth degree for two hours, let the fire go out and the furnace cool, remove the retort, and take out the charcoal or earth. You have rectified earth into its parts too. Call the acid “Subtlest earth,” the oil “Subtler earth,” and the charcoal “Subtle earth,” arranging them in order next to water.

Chaos is now separated and rectified and has passed completely through putrefaction, separation, and rectification or dissolution. It must now proceed to coagulation, fixation, and regeneration into quintessence, or magistery and arcanum. Someone may ask what I intend to do with charcoal, which is ordinarily calcined, reverberated, or burned to ashes and leached for salt, since otherwise charcoal is supposedly useless. I answer: let him be patient until what follows, where I shall explain why I was moved to do this. Coagulation, fixation, and regeneration into quintessence and magistery, or arcanum. By separation you first divided chaotic water indiscriminately into four parts; by rectification you obtained twelve from those four, three from each in order. Take the charcoal, or subtle earth, mix it with its subtler earth in a flask, and add its subtlest earth. You have conjoined the earthly parts. Set this in the water bath through three degrees, increasing the fire degree by degree up to the third or fourth. Fit the head and receiver, so that anything rising passes into the receiver.

Meanwhile the terrestrial body or mass will mix, unite, and come into union. A sign is that crystals form when the glass is lifted from the water bath and set in a cellar. Or, when no sour smell is perceived, this indicates that the mass has coagulated and become fixed. Then set the flask in ashes—the flask should be cut down—and gently draw off the moisture until it becomes entirely dry, without allowing its acid vapours or oil to rise fully. Keep the degree of fire gentle. Many chymists err in governing the degrees of fire, using now too much, now too little. To free the lover of the art from danger or doubt, I shall disclose this too as an incidental matter. Arrange the furnaces with four to six registers. When setting something to distil, first open two or three vents to get the distillation going. Once it runs, close two, leaving the first open as the first degree. Let it continue at that degree as long as it will; when it stops, open the second vent to start it again, continuing until it stops of itself at that degree. Then open the third and let it run until it stops of itself.