Pernety - A Treatise On The Great Art.pdf - cyjack.com

The Great Art page 62The key of ScienceThe first step to wisdom is the fear of God, the second the knowledge of Nature. By it we ascendeven to the knowledge of her Author, (St Paul, Rom. Ch. I, v.20). Nature teaches to the discerning theHermetic Philosophy. The long work is always Nature’s; she works simply, by degrees, and alwaysby the same means to produce the same result. The work of Art is shorter; it outstrips Nature. Thework of God is done in an instant. Alchemy, properly speaking, is an operation of Nature, aided byArt. It places in our hands the Key of Natural Magic, or Physics, and renders us wonderful to men, byelevating us above the masses.Of SecrecyThe statue of Harpocrates, who had one hand over his mouth, was, among the ancients, the emblemof secrecy, which is strengthened by silence, and becomes weaker and vanishes by revelation. JesusChrist the Saviour, revealed our Mysteries only to His disciples, and spoke always to the peoplethrough allegories and parables, Vobis datum est noscere mysteria regni cœlorum. . . . Sine parabolisnon loquebatur cis, (Matth. Ch. 13, v. II. – Mark ch. IV, v II. – Matth. Ch. 13, v. 34).The Priests, among the Egyptians; the Magii, among the Persians, the Mecubales and Kabbalists,among the Hebrews; the Brahmins, in India; the Gymnosophists in Ethiopia; the Orpheuses, thePythagorases, the Platos, the Porphyrys, among the Greeks; the Druids, among the Western races;have spoken of the Secret Sciences only through enigmas and allegories; if they had stated their trueobject, there would have been no Mysteries and the sacred would have been confounded with theprofane.Of the Means of Arriving at the SecretThe requirements necessary in order to arrive at this Secret, are: the knowledge of Nature and ofone’s self. One may not understand the first perfectly, or even the second, without the aid ofAlchemy. The love of wisdom, the horror of crime, and of falsehood, the avoidance of cacochemists,the association of the wise, the invocation of the Holy Spirit; not to add secret to secret, to attachone’s self only to one thing (because God and Nature delight in unity and simplicity), such are theconditions necessary for obtaining the divine revelation.Man being the epitome of all Nature, must learn to know himself as the summary, the miniature ofNature. By his spiritual part he is allied to all immortal creatures, and by his material part, to all thatwhich is transient in the Universe.Of the Keys of NatureFrom all material things ashes may be made; from ashes one makes Salt, from Salt one separatesWater and Mercury, from Mercury one composes an Elixir, or a quintessence. A body is placed inashes to be cleansed of its combustible parts; in Salt, to be separated from its earthly parts; in Water,to decay and putrefy; and in Spirit to become quintessence.The Salts are the Keys of Art and Nature; without knowledge of them it is impossible to imitate herin her operations. We must know their sympathy and antipathy with the metals and with themselves.