The Secret Work of the Hermetic Philosophy

63There are four operative means or governances, also called the keys of the work. The first is dissolution or liquefaction; the second, washing; the third, Reduction; the fourth, fixation. Through liquefaction bodies flow back into their ancient matter, cooked things are made crude again, and the coupling of male and female takes place, from which the crow is generated. Finally the stone is separated into the four confused elements; this occurs through the backward movement of the luminaries. Washing teaches how to whiten the crow and create Jupiter from Saturn, which is done by converting body into spirit. Reduction's task is to return the soul to the lifeless stone and nourish it with dewy, spiritual milk until it has attained perfect strength. In both these latter operations the dragon rages against itself and, by devouring its tail, consumes itself entirely and is at last turned into stone. Lastly, the operation of fixation fixes both sulphurs upon their fixed body through the mediation of spirit, the mediator of tinctures. It cooks the ferments through their degrees, ripens the crude, sweetens the bitter, and finally generates and perfects the flowing, penetrating, tinging elixir and raises it to the highest summit of sublimity.