But living masters too have prescribed bounds and a fixed limit concerning how far, and to whom, they should or may disclose such a secret art, lest they be found to have broken the seal of divine mystery and incurred the curse of all philosophers. It is therefore better to set aside all books and human teachers and look at Nature alone. Consider its wonderful operation, both in producing metals and in bringing forth everything that grows from the earth. Always keep before your eyes its circulation in winter and summer, spring and autumn, day and night, heat and warmth, and reflect upon it. Once you thoroughly know from what and how Nature brings each thing to growth, blossom, fruit and perfection, it will no longer be difficult to set your hands to work in accordance with Nature. From the matter Nature uses in the earth’s hollows to produce different growths, you can put your own intention into effect and accomplish it as you wish.

I therefore ask you, dear brother, not to take it amiss but to understand it for the best when I so entirely reject and despise your earlier work in alchemy, which you still practise daily. I truly do it for your benefit, because I know that no one in the whole world who proceeds with the kind of work in which you are engaged can achieve anything good or attain the genuine transmutation of metals you seek. To repeat myself, you must cease such work and give me a hearing. I write you the true truth, for which I am willing to answer before God, rather than needlessly fill the world with more lies. Far too many have already been written by ignorant people who were themselves blind to the natural works of Nature. They let themselves be misled by false books and became so devoted to sophistical work that they squandered their possessions. They achieved nothing useful for the true art, remained stuck as in a labyrinth, and utterly despaired of the art’s truth.

Afterwards these same people went on to write as though they understood the matter well or had derived great advantage from it, whereas they had become poor bunglers. They dissolved for so long that all their money and possessions melted and vanished. They sublimed for so long that pots and kettles flew up the chimney. They putrefied for so long that the clothes rotted off their bodies, and calcined for so long that all their wood and charcoal turned to ashes. Such, dear brother, is the profit and advantage they gained through their hard toil and labour. Let them once again serve as an example, and abandon such sophistical work. It is not the right path to the true art of alchemy or to the true, natural transmutation of metals. As already stated, it is only a path to sophistry, useful to barbers and bathkeepers in preparing the medicines from which they can make their profit.

You also notice how many ignorant people take up alchemy: cobblers, furriers, tailors, ruined and bankrupt merchants, and brewers. After tormenting themselves ignorantly for several years with bungling operations and finding nothing useful for transmuting metals, they immediately want to be great physicians. With boastful, high-flown words they make a great babble, undertake many great things and presume to cure serious illnesses of which they have no understanding. In their ignorance they give one thing for another, poisons instead of medicines, and thereby put many people into the ground. They must answer for all this before God, who will punish them severely for it unless they desist. But enough of this, since the matter is of little concern to me: the secular authorities will know how to restrain such immoderate, high-flown fellows. I write this only as a warning, so that you may see how incompetently they practise medicine without understanding it. They do the same in the noble art of alchemy. They undertake to pursue the art yet do not understand the smallest drop or point of what metals are, or of what and from what they exist. How can these poor ignorant people accomplish anything good or useful to the matter? It is impossible.

I therefore tell you truly that as long as you lack a proper and thorough knowledge of metallic Nature, it is impossible for you to understand the true art of alchemy or attain true and proper natural transmutation. Understanding must come first, before you can experience these things correctly. Whatever you take up on the path to the true art without understanding is all deceit and sophistry. I have faithfully warned you against this and told you that the paths to deception are many and various, whereas the path to the true and proper art is one alone, requiring neither many kinds of manual operation nor great labour. Dear friend and brother, strive day and night to learn to understand metallic Nature correctly and without error. Then you will be fit for the true art, for you will discover for yourself what the matter is and what the proper work is, and can confidently rely on this. You will then see how much useless work you have done and will marvel at the great blindness in which you were trapped.

Consider carefully, then, what metallic Nature is and for what reasons metals have become metals. Like other created things, they have their own beginning and origin. Just as a child is generated by coction from a man’s seed in the mother’s womb, and a young chick is formed from an egg through the hen’s natural incubation, so metals too have a definite substance from which they are born.

But do not understand this, dear brother, or remain under the suspicion, as the false villains taught you, that mercury and sulphur are the first matter of metals. Neither mercury nor sulphur is found in the veins of the earth where metals grow. They simply invented this to mislead people, calling true elemental fire sulphur and the liquor mercury. In the same way they called elemental fire our Sun and the liquor our Moon, misleading people thereby. They also called them spirit and soul. They gave elemental fire the name soul, and elemental liquor the name spirit, because elemental things are invisible. Soul and spirit are likewise invisible: the soul is an invisible fire, and the spirit an invisible moisture. They called outward, substantial fire and water bodies because they are visible and tangible. Workers understand this to mean metallic bodies, and suppose they are to dissolve them, which is false. They called these things bodies because visible water and fire are perceptible and tangible, whereas elemental water and fire are spiritual and invisible. Do not let the subtle ancients mislead or deceive you. They are ingenious, and unless you guard against them they lead you into snares, directing you to metallic bodies while meaning metallic essence alone.

They teach and direct you to many kinds of matter and substance, although only one true path leads to truth. They teach you many kinds of solution, coagulation, sublimation, calcination and putrefaction which are worthless and which Nature does not use in the veins of the earth where metals grow. Venerable Nature does nothing but cook elemental fire, which is exalted and established through its liquor, changing it from one nature into another by continuous coction. As I told you before, all things are divided into three natures. Although these three natures—vegetable, animal and mineral—differ corporeally, elementally, or in their hidden being, they have sprung from one substance. They all have one root from which they flourish and grow. To mislead people, the ancients called this first matter, or Hyle. It is nothing but hidden elemental fire with its liquor, which the ancients also called radical moisture. In this they spoke rightly, for the liquor is a root of all created things.

This moisture, together with its fire, is divided into different natures in no other way than by the different coctions occurring in Nature, as already stated. One nature has been cooked more thoroughly with its elemental fire through its moisture than another. Vegetable Nature has the lowest degree of coction: its essence burns readily, and ordinary fire readily separates its liquor from its elemental fire. Animal Nature is nearly equal to the former in coction, for its essence also burns readily. Mineral Nature therefore has the highest coction, because metallic liquor has been united more fully and firmly with elemental fire through coction than in the other two natures just named. Metals consequently withstand ordinary fire better than things belonging to vegetable and animal Nature. We can plainly see that metals placed in fire do not give off flames as wood does, because wood’s essence has not been cooked with its liquor as metallic moisture has been cooked with essence. Its liquor’s union with essence was not metallic but simply vegetable, consumed in black smoke. Once the essence has entered Nature’s coction, however, it no longer remains vegetable but becomes metallic, and is then consumed by ordinary fire in white smoke, just as you see imperfect metals give off white smoke when melted in fire. Thus vegetable essence is purified through natural coction and changed from black smoke into white. For this same reason the ancient sages said: you must blacken before whitening, and then whiten before reddening. Reddening is to be understood as making complete and perfect, just as Sol and Luna, the two noble metals, have become perfect through coction. Their essence is wholly united with their liquor, and together they have become pure fire. This is what the ancients call reddening.

I therefore tell you, dear friend and brother: do not let the ancient books, written in such a corrupt manner, confuse you. Simply learn to understand metallic Nature thoroughly, and you will readily understand the ancients’ discourse. You will not gape this way and that with other alchemists who understand the ancients’ sayings—or merely persuade themselves—to mean that one must take a substance, putrefy and dissolve it until the matter becomes black, then wash, calcine and work it until the blackness passes away and it begins to whiten, and then increase the fire and continue calcining or working until the matter becomes red. All this is false. It is no philosophical work, but thoroughly sophistical work. In this way the ignorant interpret all the ancient philosophers’ sayings as a sophistical order of operations. The ancients were quite pleased to see this; indeed, they all spoke so obscurely precisely so that no one could correctly interpret or understand their meaning. They all direct attention to metals and make frequent mention of mercury and sulphur, but all of it is intended to mislead.