Secrets of the Adepts - A Bardon Companion

of Philosophical Wine and divers things, not only separating Bodies, but also continuing with
them, and altering them with the addition of it self, so as to be no more two, nor again, what
they were before. For out of this Dissolution (the solemn Wedlock, inseparable Union and
Combination of Body and Menstruum) emergeth a new Being, containing the unblemished
Properties of the thing dissolved, and the thing dissolving, not at all separable by Art or
Nature.
These Menstruums I have distinguished into Vegetable and Mineral, not as if the fixt
Vegetable were made of Vegetables only, and the Mineral of Minerals, but every Menstruum,
that hath not manifest acidity, acting without ebullition and motion, is called Vegetable,
though it be made of meer Animals or Minerals by the Spirit of Philosophical Wine. On the
contrary, a Menstruum, becomes Mineral so soon as manifest acidity is mixed either with the
Spirit of Philosophical Wine, or a Vegetable Menstruum; for by adding the acidity, it now
dissolves Bodies with violence and effervescence. I have subdivided both kinds into Simple
and Compound, but not as if the Simple consisted of fewer Ingredients, but because they are
of more simple or less virtue. Simple Menstruums tinge Bodies dissolved in them less but the
Compounded more.
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