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

The Great Art page 67Paracelsus, in speaking of Saturn, expresses himself thus: “It would not be à propos, that oneshould be instructed concerning the properties concealed in Saturn; and of all that which can be donewith and through him. If it was generally known, all alchemists would abandon every other matter towork only upon this,” (Cœlum Philosph. Can. de Saturno).”I will finish what I have to say concerning the Matter of the Great Work by stating certain materialswhich souffleurs generally use in making the golden medicine or the Philosopher’s Stone, and whichare excluded by some Hermetists. “I have, said Sir Ripley, made many experiments on all the thingswhich Philosophers named in their writings, to make gold and silver, and I wish to recount them toyou. I have worked on cinnabar, but it was worth nothing, and on sublimated mercury which costs memuch. I made many sublimations of spirits, of ferments, of iron salts, of steel, and of their dross,believing by this means and through these matters to succeed in making the Stone; but I saw finallythat I had lost my time, my trouble and my expense. Yet I followed exactly all that which was laiddown by these authors; and I found that all the processes which they taught were false. I then madestrong waters, corrosive waters, ardent waters, with which I worked in different manners, but alwaysto no purpose. I had recourse after this to egg shells, to sulphur, to vitriol, which made artists take forthe Green Lion of the Philosophers, to arsenic, to orpiment, to salammoniac, salt of glass, to alkalisalt, to common salt, to mineral salt, to saltpetre, to salt of soda, to salt attincar, to salt of tartar and tosalt alembrot; but, believe me, be on your guard against all these matters. Flee from the metalsimperfectly rubified, the odor of mercury, sublimated or precipitated mercury, you would be deceivedin them as I have been. I have tried all, the blood, the hair, the soul of Saturn, the marcassites, the œsustum, the saffron of Mars, the scales and the dross of iron, litharge, antimony, all this is not worth arotten fig. I have worked much to obtain the oil and water of silver, I have calcined this metal with aprepared salt, and without salt, with eau-de-vie; I have used the corrosive oils, but all this wasuseless. I have employed the oils, milk, wine, rennet, the sperm of the stars which fall on the earth,celandines, secundines, and an infinity of other things, and I have derived no advantage from them. Ihave mixed mercury with the metals, I have reduced them to crystals, imagining to do somethinggood, I have sought in the ashes even, but believe me, for goodness sake, flee from such foolishness. Ihave found only one true work.”-Bernard Trévisan expresses himself in almost the same manner: “And thus, says he, we have seenand known many workmen in these amalgamations and multiplications in white and red, with allimaginable materials and with all the trouble, perseverance and constancy possible; but never havewe found our gold, or silver multiplied by a third, a half, or any part. And although we havewitnessed so many albifications and rubifications, receipts, sophistications in so many countries, aswell in Rome, Navarre, Spain, Turkey, Greece, Alexandria, Barbary, Persia, Messina, Rhodes,France, Scotland, in Palestine and surrounding countries, as in all Italy, Germany, England andalmost around the world; never have we found people working, except on sophistical materials andmatters, herbal, animal, vegetable and seeds, and mineral stones, salts, alums and strong waters,distillations and separations of the elements and sublimations, calcinations, congelations ofquicksilver by herbs, stones, waters, oils, manures and fire, and strange vessels, and never have wefound people laboring on the right matter. We found indeed in these countries those who knew thePhilosopher’s Stone, but never could we make their acquaintance....And I began then to read booksbefore working more, thinking within myself that through men I could not succeed; for if they knew itthey would never reveal it; . . . thus I looked where their books most agreed; then I thought that heremust be the truth: for they can state truth only in one thing. And thus I found truth. For where theyagreed there was the truth; although one names it in one manner, and another in another; yet it is allone substance in their words. But I knew that falsity was in diversity and not in harmony; for if it wastruth, they would speak only of one matter, whatsoever names and figures they might adopt. . . Andin truth I believe that those who have written their books parabolically and figuratively, in speakingof hair, of blood, of urine, of sperm, of herbs, of vegetables, of animals, of plants and of stones and