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Book 1 On the Generation of Natural Things
Latin witness: Frankfurt 1605, printed pp. 200–206, SUB Göttingen PPN578052199. Source facsimile: https://gdz.sub.uni-goettingen.de/id/PPN578052199?tify=%7B%22pages%22%3A%5B184%5D%7D
The generation of natural things is twofold.
All natural things have a twofold generation: one occurs naturally without art; the other occurs through art, namely alchemy. Yet in general it could be said that everything is generated naturally from the earth with the help of putrefaction. Putrefaction is the highest stage and the first beginning of generation. Putrefaction itself begins in moist heat. Continuous moist heat produces putrefaction and changes every natural thing from its first form and essence, and likewise from its powers and efficacy, into something else. Just as putrefaction in the stomach changes and reduces all food to dung, so putrefaction in glass outside the stomach changes everything from one form into another, from one essence into another, from one colour into another, from one smell into another, from one virtue into another, from one force into another, from one property into another, and altogether from one quality into another. It is evident, and confirmed by daily experience, that many good things which are wholesome and medicinal become bad, unwholesome and sheer poison after putrefaction. Conversely, many bad, unwholesome, poisonous and harmful things become good after their putrefaction, lose all their harmfulness and become excellent medicines. Putrefaction brings forth great things. We have a fine example in the holy Gospel, where Christ says: Unless a grain of wheat is cast into the field and putrefies, it cannot bear a hundredfold fruit. From this we must understand that many things multiply in putrefaction so as to bear excellent fruit. Putrefaction is the change and death of all things and the destruction of the first essence of every natural thing; from it there emerges for us a regeneration and a new generation a thousand times better, and so forth.
All things are born through putrefaction.
The cause of putrefaction is moist heat.
What the force and nature of putrefaction are.
What putrefaction is.
Putrefaction is the beginning of the generation of things.
Putrefaction is of many kinds.
Since putrefaction is the first stage and beginning of generation, it is absolutely necessary to know it well. There are many kinds of putrefaction: one brings forth its generation differently from another, and one sooner than another. We also said that moisture and heat are the first stage and beginning of putrefaction, which produces everything as a hen produces her eggs. Through and in putrefaction, therefore, every mucilaginous phlegm and material becomes alive, whatever it eventually may be. You see an example in eggs: they contain a mucilaginous moisture which putrefies under any continuous heat and is animated into a living chick, through the hen’s heat or any heat of that kind. In such a degree of fire, eggs can mature in glass and ashes and become living birds. A person can even mature an egg under the armpit and produce a chick as well as a hen.
The artificial generation of chickens.
Something greater must be noted here. If that living bird is burned to powder or ashes in a sealed cucurbit at the third degree of fire, and afterward, still enclosed, is putrefied by the utmost putrefaction of the horse’s belly into a mucilaginous phlegm, that phlegm can then be matured again and thus become a renewed and restored bird: that is, if the phlegm is enclosed once more in its former shell or receptacle. This is to bring the dead to life again through regeneration and clarification, which is a great and profound miracle of nature. By this process all birds can be killed and then made alive, renewed and restored. This is the highest and greatest miracle and mystery of God which God has disclosed to mortal humanity. It must also be understood that humans can be generated in this way without a natural father and mother: not naturally from a woman, but through the art and diligence of an expert spagyrist a human can be born and grow, as will be explained later.