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

The Great Art page 99The radical sulphur cleanses, thickens, fixes into a perfect body the radical mercury, while thesecond sulphur suffocates, absorbs and coagulates it with its own impurities and crudities. One sees aproof of this, in the coagulation of common mercury, made by the vapor of the sulphur of Saturn,distinguished by that of Jupiter.This impure sulphur causes all the difference of the imperfect metals. Therefore the malady of themetals is only accidental; then, there is a remedy to cure them, and this remedy is the PhilosophicalPowder, or Philosophical Stone, called for this reason, Powder of Projection. To use it for the metals,enclose it in a little wax, in proportion to the quantity of metal to be transmuted, and throw it on themercury placed in a crucible on the fire, when the mercury is at the point of smoking. It is necessarythat the other metals be melted and purified. Leave the crucible on the fire until after the detonation,and then draw it out, or let it cool in the fire.Of the times of the Stone“The times of the Stone are indicated” says d’Espagnet, “by the Philosophical and AstronomicalWater. The first White work, must be finished in the house of the moon; the second in the secondhouse of Mercury. The first work in the Red in the second domicile of Venus, and the second or last,in the house of exaltation of Jupiter; for, from him our King must receive his scepter and his crown,ornamented with precious rubies.”Philalethes, (Loco. cit. p. 156), continually advises the Artist to instruct himself well as to theweight, measure, time and fire. He will never succeed if he is ignorant of the five following things,concerning the medicine of the third order.The Philosophers reduce the years to months, the months to weeks, and the weeks to days.Every dry thing drinks up eagerly the moisture of its species.It acts on this humidity after it has imbibed it, with much more force and activity than before.The more Earth and the less Water there is, the more perfect will be the solution. The true, naturalsolution can be made only with things of the same nature and that which dissolves the Moon,dissolves also the Sun.As to the time required for the perfection of the Work, one can conclude nothing, with certainty,from what the Philosophers say, because some, in determining it, do not speak of the time requiredfor the preparation of the agents: others treat only of the Elixir; others confound the two works; thosewho make mention of the work at the Red State, do not speak always of the multiplication; othersspeak only of the work at the White State; others have their own particular meaning. This is why somuch difference is found in works on this subject. One says that twelve years are necessary for theWork, others ten, seven, three, one and a half, fifteen months; sometimes it is a certain number ofweeks. One Philosopher has entitled his work, The work of three days. Another has said that onlyfour are necessary. Pliny, the naturalist, says that Philosophical month consists of forty days. Finally,all is mystery, with the Philosophers.