Sal Lumen and Spiritus Mundi Philosophici

Nor should it seem strange if I have sometimes lent authority to natural and spagyrical operations through certain correspondences they have with the sacred mysteries of Christianity. I have no intention of profaning those mysteries. On the contrary, I mean to celebrate their excellence and make them almost tangible through the evidence of the care with which the eternal author of the world has provided for the salvation of souls and bodies. This moved a certain very learned author to write that true Chymistry, which Paracelsus calls Spagyria, follows the course of the Gospel step by step. Through it, with the aid of fire, all the works and mighty powers of Nature are put to the proof. The ancients themselves intimated these in their old theology, as did the Brahmans and Gymnosophists in their Gymnosophy, and above all the Egyptians. For all the magic of paganism and the poets’ entanglements of fable were, and signified, nothing other than the subject of this entire book. The learned and subtle Bracesco examined this diligently, although the envious Toladanus wrote against him after finding himself disappointed in the trial of the secret which he thought his importunity had wrested from him. He had imagined that Bracesco took the scum of common iron for the mercury of the sages, since he had assured him that it is drawn from something base, of little price, which people throw into the streets. He failed to observe that discreet masters disguise their true matter by giving it the names of all the metals, without any deception: those who know it know very well that it contains all seven together. I would gladly ask them whether they believe the Cosmopolite meant ordinary steel when he said in his riddle that Neptune showed him two hidden mines beneath a rock, one of gold and the other of steel. He is too accomplished a man to have entertained so frivolous a thought. He named his matter in this way because its polished lustre resembles steel. Indeed, it would have been quite unworthy of Bracesco’s reputation as a sage to disclose in a moment a secret for which he had perhaps paid two-thirds of his lifetime.