The Secret Work of the Hermetic Philosophy

129There are three moistures in the Stone which must be extracted successively: the watery, the airy and the radical. All the operator’s labour and care therefore concern moisture, and no element other than the moist is circulated in the work of the stone. For Earth must first of all be resolved into moisture and liquefied. Of all these, radical moisture, regarded as fire, is the most tenacious, because it is bound to the centre of Nature, from which it is not easily separated. Therefore extract these three moistures gradually and successively through their own wheels, by dissolving and congealing; for the extended wheel, and the entire work, are completed through repeated, alternating reiteration of Dissolution and Congealing.