A Brief Explanation of the Wonderfully Excellent Water Stone of the Wise, Otherwise Called Lapis Philosophorum

Kurtze erklerung deß wunder fürtrefflichsten Wassersteins der Weisen / sonsten Lapis Philosophorum genant.

Chapter Outline

The search for a universal restorative and the limit imposed by death.

Adamic transmission, deliberate concealment and the names of the philosophers.

A warning against fraud and the author’s four-part programme.

From the beginning of the world there have been, in every age, many remarkable people highly enlightened in God, experienced philosophers and wise pagans. They diligently considered the nature and powers of the lower creatures and strove to understand them. Among all the other things they investigated with great desire and labour, they sought to discover whether anything could be found in the realm of nature that might preserve and maintain the earthly human body against destruction and mortality, in lasting life and well-being. For through a special divine influence, and also through the light of nature, they saw and recognised that there must be something secret, extraordinary and wonderful in this world, ordained by Almighty God for the benefit of humankind: something through which everything imperfect, deficient and corrupted in and upon the whole earth could be renewed, restored and brought fully into good order again.

After this eager and diligent investigation, however, they finally discovered and learned that nothing could be found in this world capable of rescuing or freeing the perishable body from death. Death had been imposed as a punishment upon our first parents, Adam and Eve, and could never be separated from any of their descendants. There was only this single thing, itself by nature destructible, ordained by God for human benefit, that could remove corruption, heal all imperfect bodies, cleanse what was old and prolong the short span of life, as in the ancient patriarchs.

Pious and experienced philosophers diligently pursued this wonderful and secret thing until they found it and acquired knowledge of its beneficial use, by which they refreshed and maintained themselves throughout their lives. All the holy patriarchs before them had truly known and possessed this high secret and marvellous thing. Without doubt it must originally have been revealed and shown by God himself to Adam, the great father. The ancient fathers afterwards inherited it from him and through its powers obtained bodily health, long life and great wealth. When the pagans already mentioned also acquired this divine and truly marvellous thing, they recognised and regarded it as a special gift of God and as the highest and most secret art. Yet they also saw that, through God’s providence, it had been revealed to the smaller part of humankind, while it was concealed, and would remain concealed, from the greater part of this world. They therefore always kept it as secret as they could.

Yet so that the art would not wholly die out and be forgotten after their departure, but would be handed down and preserved for posterity, they incorporated it into their books and communicated and bequeathed many excellent instructions and teachings from these writings to their faithful pupils. They nevertheless veiled and concealed all this in such figurative language that even today few people can draw a sound and certain foundation from it. They did this with deliberate purpose: those who possessed this wisdom were to praise God, in whose hand everything rests, all the more for it; when it was revealed to them, they were to give him alone the honour and thanks. It also prevented these noble pearls from being poured out and cast before swine. For if the secret were disclosed to the godless world, people in their greed would desire this one thing alone and ultimately abandon all diligence and work. Disorder and desolation would follow.

Although the philosophers repeatedly mentioned have discussed this supremely excellent art in many different ways, and for the reasons just given have indicated it by many different names, parables and strange, astonishing sophistical words, they have all unanimously intended these varied expressions to point towards one single aim and the one matter belonging to the art. Many seekers, however, have missed this secret matter and gone astray in their pursuit. In every age down to the present, not only ordinary people but many eminent and worldly-wise persons have striven after it. They have sought and desired to obtain it with the greatest diligence, labour and expense, yet never reached it, much less come to possess it. Indeed, most have suffered grievously through it: they have plunged themselves into irrecoverable loss and finally had to abandon and relinquish it amid ridicule and scorn. So that no one should nevertheless fall into fundamental doubt about this secret art, misunderstand it, or follow the godless world in taking it for a fiction and mere illusion, I shall name here the principal authoritative philosophers, together with some of their successors, who truly knew, possessed and enjoyed this art, apart from those mentioned in Holy Scripture. They are:

Hermes Trismegistus, Pythagoras, Bened. Iesu, Alexander the Great, Plato, Theophrastus, Avicenna, Galen, Hippocrates, Lucianus, Longanus, Rasis, Archelaus, Rupescissa, the author of the Rosarium maius, Maria Prophetissa, Dionysius Zacharius, Haly, Morienus, Calid, Constantius, Serapion, Albertus Magnus, Estrod, Arnold of Villanova, Geber, Raymond Lull, Roger Bacon, Alanus, Thomas Aquinas and Marcellus Palingenius; and those who lived in present and more recent times, such as Bernardus, Count Trevisanus, Brother Basilius Valentinus, Philippus Theophrastus and many others. Nor is there any doubt that even today some could be found who, through God’s blessing, possess it and enjoy its benefits daily, although quietly and in secret.

The philosophers just named wrote truthfully and without deception about this high magistery, drawing their proof and knowledge from the true foundation and wellspring of nature. By contrast, many false pseudo-philosophers and cheats are still to be found who falsely boast that they know this art and undertake to practise it. They fraudulently misuse the writings of those philosophers as a cover for their deception, merely fooling people, making them gape and throwing a blue mist before their eyes. Both these deceivers and the people who allow themselves to be drawn in by them should carefully consider and take to heart the following warning.

You alchemists, understand me: In the Greek alphabet There is a letter, just like Π, Which also appears elsewhere. Keep it always well in mind. Do not deceive so many people With the false appearance of your art: Truly, otherwise you will die for it. Again: Beware of gold-makers and alchemists Who distil money out of purses and chests. Watch them closely, and for your life Do not put too much trust in them, Unless you wish to suffer loss And bathe as well in mockery and regret. Follow those who are just, Upright, devout, simple and plain, Who do not boast, yet know their craft: With such people you can readily spin something good. But where are these to be found? Seek them nevertheless: they are dear, And have not turned out very well this year. A single quint of these is worth more Than a hundredweight of the others.

Yet faithful and diligent workers and pupils of this secret philosophical art are still to be found in many places. They would gladly travel towards it by a right and certain road, without further wandering. But the sophistical and worthless rogues already described so trouble and mislead some of them with their noisy bluster and empty claims that many scarcely know whether to go backwards or forwards in the art. I have therefore been unwilling to refrain from publishing and explaining something about it, however little, that is nevertheless sound and true. I rightly acknowledge myself far too insignificant and unworthy to discuss or write about such a secret. Yet by God’s grace I have advanced—without boasting—to a point reached by few, indeed not reached by countless thousands. So that the talent graciously entrusted to an unworthy person by the almighty lord who grants it should not remain buried with me, I shall in all sincerity show these lovers of the art, as far as is fitting for me, a brief, summary account and explanation of the whole art. I shall also indicate an unfailing and indeed the most certain road by which to reach it. Perhaps, if God permits, this may at last open some people’s eyes, turn them from their mistaken convictions and help them out of error onto the right path; and God’s marvellous work may thereby be made more manifest. To make this treatise easier to understand and grasp, it will be divided into four parts.