Essais chimiques d’eckartshausen

Mineral Kingdom

Diamond and gold are the most noble of the mineral kingdom. Gold is terrestrial matter transmuted into luminous or solar substance. Diamond is - the substance of earth or fire transmuted with the luminous substance.

The efflorescence of metals48 is nothing other than the analysis or the disjunction of the luminous substance and the synthesis or recomposition of the terrestrial substance, id is oxygen.

The metal loses its shine as soon as it loses the luminous substance. At the same time it also loses its expansibility, its aggregative power increases; this results in an increase in weight in the metallic lime. All metallic lime is super-oxygenated earth substance. Oxygenated clay is the basis of broken down iron.





<sup>47 Part of the above belongs to the dry process, another part offers the equivalence in the wet process.

48 That is, oxidation, in the chemical sense. Take in the hermetic sense the “phosphorus” of the following paragraph.</sup>

This is why zinc and iron can be recomposed into metals if their lime is treated with phosphorus, because the phosphorus gives back the luminous matter, disorganizes the zinc earth or 'takes away its oxygen and replaces it by the luminous substance.

All metallic earths are differentiated simply by the quantity of oxygen49 they contain, just as metals are differentiated from one another by the quantity of luminous or solar substance that they absorb. Fulminating gold is golden lime combined very exactly with ammonia. From a given quantity of gold lime we obtain four times more air than with saltpeter. The air released in this way is in the form of nitrogen.

Abstraction on this Experience

When gold is super-oxygenated, it is also calcined, and the luminous substance is released; the release of the luminous substance takes place in the evolution of gas, in the form of nitrogen.

^{49 Vital air. The author, in the use of the two terms, Lebensluft and Sauerstoff consider sometimes the oxygen physical body, sometimes the fire-Water, the manna or philosophical dew, also called mountain vinegar.}

Principles for a Philosophical Work

I

There is only one Thing, one Vase, one Work. This is the fundamental principle of all hermetic art; whoever ceases to consider it will never find the truth.

II

When we know the Thing from which everything comes, we no longer need another; with this Thing we found the vase and the work.

This Thing, this Universal is our , our philosophical dew, which contains the extensive and attractive force, the three principles and the four elements, the Universal of Nature.

The Sages only need their Water, it is their vinegar of nature that liquefies everything. In its state of coagulation, it generates and increases everything; in liquid state, it is called -the flying dragon.

In the solid state, the snake.

The first dominates the volatility, the second, the fixity of the single essence. The dragon is our . The serpent, our Earth.

But the earth is just nature's coagulated vinegar. In this coagulating state, the earth is called dry water. In liquid state, our It is also called Mercury.

To make this vinegar the earth or the Salt, such is the true fixation of the Mercury of the Philosophers50.

The pure vital air found in our vinegar is MATERIA REMOTISSIMA. Vinegar, Materia, Remlota. The Salt, the Materia Proxima.

Vinegar is our , also called the Dew of the Sky, the Fat of the Earth, the gift of the Firstborn in Spirit.

Religious sacrifices are the symbols of this great operation, which first of all requires external rebirth.

Our sacred Wood (hyle, Matter) is placed on the sacrificial altar and ignited by its own heat51.

^{50 Which is, summarily, a condensation of the astral quintessence in the subject made receptive and more stripped to each eagle of its initial specificity and its superfluities. In this genesis, the spirit must unqualify the chaotic waters.}

51. 
    Metaphors expressing the action of internal fire, without prejudice to the other. Here we are at the first work
    

When the flame rises, three phenomena appear. The first is a white smoke which is Mercury.

The second is white and yellow Sulfur, the gold and silver of the Philosophers, their Sol and their Luna52.

Thisthese dissolve into a water which is oure ; this is Mercury.

The whole operation continues with this water53.

Burn our matter under a glass bell, in a porcelain vase; let the ignis and maze flora that arise all around sublimate and then liquefy in a cellar, and in this way you will obtain the vinegar54.

When you have enough, burn our material again in the glass bell and wash the flora with our Water 55.

Put a fairly large quantity of this solution in a circulatory vessel, seal it tightly and simply let it circulate over gentle heat56.

You already know that vinegar gradually consumes all the sulfur, so that the dragon eats its own tail.

Then matter will rise like the morning dew and fall again on the earth. Little by little the volatile will become fixed.

The most beautiful colors will show and eventually all the liquid will coagulate into a mass which is fixed. He is; first white, then it turns red.

This stationary is a great treasure: it contains the forces of nature. It justifies the aphorism of Hermes

What is above is like what is below To produce one Thing.

This one Thing contains all the others and: generates all the forces but its power is greatest when it is transformed into earth; it contains all the treasures of the Universe.