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← ExitThe Manly Hall Manuscript Collection, Volume I

Reading language

The First Figure and Preparation

for the formation of the stone, if each number of leaves is reckoned, not as a week, but as a month. Thus the first septenary of pages will be reckoned as a day, since each sublimation requires an entire day; the second septenary of pages as a week, and the third septenary as a month, by multiplication. We have placed the caduceus wand in the first septenary of pages to make known the diversity, rather than the order, of the operation, because that order would be obvious to everyone in the first, hand-drawn figure of the young man.

In the second septenary of pages we have placed a serpent fastened to a cross, and in the third, very small serpents coming out of rivers and scattered throughout a vast, deserted wilderness: to complete the second sublimation of the solar spirit in the second work, and the third in the third work, which is their final and perfect corruption

and generation.

Until now few people have explained the first principles of this most secret art, except the Jews, who left to their successors this cabalistic tradition, drawn with great art and subtlety. Thus scarcely anyone will be able to understand anything of it unless he has made several trials in their cabala and upon the first agents of nature, which are the keys and the gateway to all natural magic and the Christian religion.

The first royal road presented at the entrance to the knowledge of all the sciences of the Egyptians is alchemy. It first discloses nature's most hidden secrets, then leads to magic and Christian cabala. We must therefore begin with nature, then proceed to magic, and find our rest in Christian cabala, for nature will instruct us in chemistry; the angels or some

presiding spirit will teach us magic, and Jesus Christ will teach us Christian cabala. Nature will instruct us by working, angels by speaking to us, and Jesus Christ by communicating himself to us through the grace granted in the sacraments. Like our philosopher, we wish truly to seek out this science of the Jews, to be true philosophers, true astrologers and wise physicians, to win human admiration, deserve familiarity with the angels, and become most dear and pleasing to God.

What, then, is surprising if they have wrapped in so many enigmas and figures that which at once, without affected discourse or studied learning, fully discloses the fables, the hieroglyphic figures of the Egyptians, the theorems of philosophers, the secrets of chemists, the knowledge of physicians, the secrets of natural philosophers, the aspects, oppositions, conjunctions and revolutions of the stars, and, finally, all the mechanical arts?

Let the person who enters this path, then, once he has arrived, beware of assuming from the very beginning

the name and title of astrologer, philosopher, physician and sage. Let him take pride in having a true knowledge through causes, rather than effects, and in being able, through his art and industry, to complete in a short time what costs nature many hundreds and thousands of years in her operations.

What prevents someone with a perfect knowledge of these causes and principles from examining how to make precious stones, pearls and perfect metals, and from discovering an infinity of arts? Few people reach this truth unless their minds are subtle and penetrating. Besides, everything is easy and readily accomplished for the person to whom God has revealed these natural principles. Everything consists in a single thing; once he has acquired it, nothing remains for him to seek, and he needs only the silence of Pythagoras and Hippocrates.

Nevertheless, we wish above all to urge you to understand the fitting together and correspondence of a thing that gives birth to everything you see. For everything is enclosed in this single thing, just as it is enclosed in everything. Whatever, therefore, will be

hidden from you in this thing will undoubtedly be disclosed by another. Thus one thing always discloses another and indicates it, however hidden, in accordance with this thought of Hermes: everything above is like what is below—with this difference, however, that celestial things are upon earth in a terrestrial, rather than celestial, manner, and terrestrial things are in heaven in a celestial, rather than terrestrial, manner.

From this we may conclude that everything in the elemental world is also found in the celestial world; everything in the celestial world is also found in the intelligible world; and everything encountered in the intelligible world is also found in the model, through a harmonious and simple connection, although by fitting together and correspondence. Furthermore, just as the model contains the intelligible and the rational, the rational contains the celestial, and the celestial contains the microcosm or little elemental world, so the celestial world and the planets are contained in the animal kingdom, the animal in the vegetable, the vegetable in the mineral, and the metallic in the world of our

The Flower upon the Mountain

A plant or flowering tree upon a rocky mountain, with surrounding figures and an airborne figure. Scan 47.

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35.Septenaire denotes a group of seven. The author shifts among leaves, days, weeks and months and says explicitly that the figures reveal diversity without disclosing operational order. These changing numerical units are preserved rather than harmonized into a single timetable.

36.The manuscript gives an explicit sequence: natural investigation and alchemy, then magic, then Christian cabala. This authorial hierarchy helps explain why its account of substances also includes spirits, biblical figures and sacramental language.

37.The three modes of instruction are distinguished by the source itself: nature operates, angels speak, and Christ communicates himself sacramentally. Physiciens is rendered 'natural philosophers' to distinguish their study of nature from the physicians named just before them.

38.The argument contrasts knowledge of causes with observation of effects and makes the accelerated work of art depend upon that causal understanding. Its claim of a single thing joins this practical ambition to the recurring demand for secrecy.

39.The above–below maxim alludes to the Emerald Tablet attributed to Hermes Trismegistus. The ensuing distinction between celestial and terrestrial modes is the manuscript's qualification of correspondence, not a denial of difference.

40.Modèle is rendered 'model' here: the author places it above the intelligible, celestial and elemental orders. The second sequence then places celestial, animal, vegetable, mineral and metallic orders within one another. Its repeated terms are retained.