Hermetic Philosophy and Alchemy - A Bardon Companion

But the King, the ruler, his brethren attesting, saith: I am crowned, and I am adorned with a diadem: I
am clothed with the royal garment, and I bring joy and gladness of heart; for, being chained to the
arms and breast of my mother, and to her substance, I cause my substance to keep together; and I
compose the invisible from the visible, making the occult matter to appear. And everything which the
philosophers have hidden will be generated from us (50).
Hear then these words, and understand them; keep them, and meditate thereon, and seek for nothing
more: Man is generated from the principle of Nature whose inward substance is fleshy, and not from
anything else. Meditate on this letter, and reject superfluities (51).
Thus saith the philosopher: Botri is made from the Citrine, which is extracted out of the Red, and from
nothing else; and if it be citrine and nothing else know it will be thy Wisdom. Be not concerned if thou
art not anxious to make extract from the Red. Behold, I have written to the point, and if ye understand
I have all but opened the thing (52).
Ye Sons of Wisdom! Burn then the Brazen Body with an exceeding great fire; and it will imbue you
with the grace which you seek. And make that which is volatile so that it cannot fly from that which
flies not. And that which rests upon the fire though itself a fiery flame, and that which in the heat of
the boiling fire is corrupted is Cambar (53).
And know ye that the Art of this permanent water is our brass, and the colourings of its tincture and
blackness is then changed into the true red (54).
I declare before God, I have spoken nothing but the truth. The destroyers are the renovators, and hence
the corruption is made manifest in the matter to be renewed, and hence the melioration will appear and
each side is a signal of Art (55).
Section Fifth
My Son, that which is born of the crow is the beginning of this Art. Behold, I have obscured matter
treated of, by circumlocution, depriving it of light. I have termed this dissolved, and this joined, this
nearest I have termed furthest off (56).
Roast those things, therefore, and boil them in that which comes from the horse's belly for seven,
fourteen, or twenty-one days. Then it becomes the Dragon eating his own wings and destroying
himself; this being done, let it be put into a furnace, which lute diligently, and observe that none of the
spirit may escape. And know that the periods of the earth are in the water which is bound until you put
the bath upon it (57).
The matter being thus melted and burned, take the brain thereof and triturate it in most sharp vinegar
till it becomes obscured. This done, it lives in the putrefaction; the dark clouds which were in it before
it died in its own body will be changed. This process being repeated, as I have described; it dies again
as I said, thence it lives (58).
In the life and death thereof we work with the spirits, for as it dies by the taking away of the spirit, so
it lives in the return and is revived and rejoices in them. Being arrived then at this, that which thou hast
been searching for is made apparent. I have even related to thee the joyful signs, that which doth fix its
own body.
But these things, and how they attained to the knowledge of this secret, are given by our ancestors in
figures and types: I have opened the riddle, and the book of knowledge is revealed; the hidden things I
have uncovered and have brought together the scattered truths within their boundary, and have
conjoined many various forms, even I have associated the Spirit. Take it as a gift of God (59).