Secrets of the Adepts - A Bardon Companion

opened in our Water, that the digested seed may be injected into its Matrix: But our Water is
Celestial, not wetting your hands; not common, but almost like Rain: The Body is Gold,
which yieldeth seed: our Luna is not common Silver, which receives the seed of Gold. Tract.
10. Novi Lumin. Saturn taking the Vessel, drew up ten parts of the Water, and presently took
some of the Fruit of the solar Tree, and put it in, and I saw the fruit of the Tree consumed and
resolved as Ice in warm water. This water is to this fruit, as a Woman. The fruit of this Tree
can be putrified in nothing, but in this water only; for no other water can penetrate the pores
of this Apple, but this: and you must know that the solar Tree sprang also out of this Water,
which is extracted from a magnetical virtue out of the Rays of Sol and Luna, and therefore
they have great affinity one with the other. In the Dialogue of Mercury.
Now here we in this Book intend to treat of this Feminine Seed, or dissolving Waters of the
Adepts. Great indeed, yea vast is the Treasure of our Chymy; but altogether inaccessible by
those that have not the Keys thereof; without which the Adepts themselves could neither
dissolve nor coagulate Bodies. If you know not the way of dissolving our Body, it is in vain to
operate, is the Advice of Dionysius Zacharias, pag. 798. Vol. I. Th. Chym. But he that knows
the Art and Secret of Dissolution, has attained to the Secret of the Art, saith Bernhard, pag.
40. Suœ Epistolœ. For this cause it is, saith Parisinus, that the wise men say, To know the
Celestial Water, which reduceth our Body into a Spirit, is the chief Mystery of this Art, in
Eluc. pag. 212. Vol. I. Th. Chym. For without these Menstruums things heterogeneous can
never be perfectly mixed. Coral, though never so finely pulverized, cannot be mixed with the
purest Powder of Pearls: Yea Gold mixeth not with Silver (much less with Bodies less perfect)
though both be melted together; the Particles of each do indeed touch one another in their
extream parts, being in a mass or heap consisting of things heterogeneous, yet they are and
do remain all distinct, unblemished and unaltered in their Figures and Properties, no
otherwise than as a heap composed of Barley and Oats: But in the more secret Chymy there is
no Body, no heterogeneity, but what hath its own peculiar Menstruum, and with which as
being homogeneous to it, it runs into one Concrete, rejoycing in the inseparable Properties of
either. So long therefore as you intend to joyn Metals with Metals, dry things with dry,
without the Menstruums of Diana, so long (to use the Phrase of Espanietus) do you presume
to joyn males together, which is a thing wicked and contrary to Nature. Hearken therefore to
Bernhard, Pag. 757. Vol. I. Th. Chym. Perswading you to leave Stones and all sorts of
Minerals, likewise also Metals alone, though they are the beginning and our matter. Metals
are not only the matter, but are also call’d by Lully, the form of the Stone, yet without these
Menstruums they signifie nothing. The Form, saith he, which is the Efficient Principle,
Former and Transformer of all other Forms of less virtue and power, is described by C, or (C)
(Metals) cannot of it self only be the Magistery of the greater work, etc. Very commodious it
is for that Principle to be known, because hereby the Understanding knows it to be one of the
two Substances, from which our Infant is produced, having in it the condition of a male, from
which proceeds a sperm in the belly of our D. (Menstruum or Dissolvent,) Lul. Dist. 3. Lib.
Ess. Heaven or Mercury (Menstruum) is the fourth Principle signified by D. It is the Cause
and Principle moving C, and (C) from Power to Action, ruling and governing them in its
belly, as the Woman the Infant which she procreates in her Matrix. And in this point knows
the understanding of an Artist, that D (Menstruum) hath action upon C, and (C) ruling,
governing and reducing them into Action, even as the Heavens above do by their motion,
bring things Elementary, into action, And an Artist is to understand that of the two substances,
of which our Stone is compounded, and by which it is generated, this, namely, D, (Dissolvent)
is the more principal. Ibid. In the Book de Medicinis secretis, pag. 336. he goes on; You must
know, saith he, that hitherto I have not told you the most secret thing and matter of the whole
Magistery, which is our incorruptible Quintessence, extracted out of white or red Wine, which
we call Celestial Crown, and Menstruum, after the sublimations, putrefactions, and final
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