Opuscula Alchimica (Paperback)

The Art of Alchemy consists in three things, that is, in our Stone. That is, the free art of the ancients and their successors who are to discover this free art through Science or Practice; or to whomever the Holy Ghost gives it, or upon who He confers it through His illumination; and blessed is he who possesses this free art and applies it wisely for the honor of God and the pressing need of his fellow man.The other kind of alchemy is the Elixir which is prepared, as the ancients taught, according to the hand of the Philosophers. Those who have this and understand it well may also be called blessed.The third kind is the Ixir, and it is also an art of the old and wise masters of the hand, and he who knows how to prepare it, as the fathers prepared it and have left it to us, will likewise rule in this world of joys. The Art of Alchemy has still many more daughters, branches and roots which spring from these three trees of which I have just spoken, such as: Some labor with hard work in the Calcination of the bodies, to wash them and make them pure and clean. Others labor with amalgamationibus: others with albination, cementation, augmentation and rubifacation. Others make Salia of the bodies or the metals. Others make Olea and other works of the bodies in the fire. Others with Aquis fortibus, others of the bodies in the fire. Others with Aquis fortibus, others with salia upon the corpora; and so on, in many different ways. And everything is good if it is done in the right way as the forefathers have taught; but all this is attained only through great effort.