Golden Manuskript

Frater Albertus

The Hermetic Art

The Teaching Concerning Atomic Transmutation

by

VOLPIERRE
1892-1952

Translated into English from a Private Manuscript

by Frater Albertus 1974

Originally Published by Para Publishing Co. Utah.

INTRODUCTION

As recently as 1971 while I was teaching Alchemy in WaIzenhausen, a

beautiful spa in the Canton Appenzell in Switzerland, one of the students
approached and asked: "Have you heard of an Alchemist by the name of
Volpierre?" My answer was in the negative. "His real name was Nikolaus
Burtschell" he continued. "He was born in 1892 and died in 1952 in Mainz on
the river Rhine." Again, I had to reply that at that moment the name did not
ring a bell. He said, "If you are interested in his works I shall be glad to give
you all the information I have about him as I have corresponded with him."
During overseas classes my time is always fully occupied. Even after the late
afternoon periods students often come to me to discuss some question or other.
At that time I could only answer that I would indeed be delighted to have any
information he might have about this present day Alchemist.

The student was delighted with my reply and immediately handed me some
papers with the injunction to please handle them carefully as they were very
valuable to him. Among them was a photograph of a man showing only the
upper part of his body; the head was in repose and very prominently
displayed. It was a picture of Volpierre on his deathbed. Being pressed for
time, I took all the papers he had given me, promised to read them and tell
him my reaction. After reaching my hotel room a cursory glance through the
papers gave me the distinct impression that here was the work of someone who
had really tried alchemical experiments in a different manner. I promised
myself a more thorough perusal of this work as soon as time was available.

Things do not always work out to one's liking and regretfully I had to return
the papers. However, it was agreed that I should receive an exact photostatic
copy. After my return to the U.S.A. the papers, including the original photo
graph mentioned above, arrived. A further investigation of these papers was
delayed due to teaching commitments in the Far East. By this time laboratory
problems had arisen in Europe and I was asked to arrange a stop there. The
student who had given me the Volpierre papers accompanied me to both
Zurich and Stuttgart. He inquired about the manuscript of Volpierre; I had to
admit that nothing had been done. I determined to do some work with the
manuscript on my re turn home. Further investigation proved it to be most
inter esting and revealing. Included with the manuscript was a letter with a
brief sketch by the student, Heinz Fischer-Lichtenthal, of Bavaria, Germany
from which I quote:

"In your book Practical Alchemie in the 20th Century you mentioned several
contemporary individuals who worked in Alchemy. It might interest you that
there were others like G. W. Surya (Georgiewic Waizer.) In 1949 I
corresponded with another practical Alchemist who belonged to a society of
which I also was a member. His name was Nikolaus Burtschell but he used the
alchemistical pseudonym D. L. Volpierre. Gathering all that could be found
about him, I condensed it into a biographical sketch. A manuscript about his
work is in my possession and also the contents of a letter addressed to the
editor of a French periodical written in 1948, wherein he strongly defended
laboratory alchemy."

In his preliminary sketch, An Alchemist of the Twentieth Century he wrote:

"The man I am going to talk about was born in the vicinity of Mainz, where he
grew up in comfortable circumstances and gained an early education, which,
with other endowments was mainly responsible for his ability to read fluently
at the age of five. He was a book worm all his life and metaphysical literature
was his preference; this was based upon the inheritance from his parents of a
treasure of occult experiences. He lived an everyday life but in addition to his
daily routine an age old theme came alive within him - Alchemy. When the
subject of Alchemy came up and he found it necessary to say a word about it,
he used the pseudonym, D. L. Volpierre."

"He was engaged in healing most of his life. One of his specialities was
Chromo Therapy (healing through color and light.) Under his direction,
medications were produced by a pharmaceutical firm with surprising success.
In 1932 he healed several obsessed individuals. In the same year, now forty
years of age, he began his alchemistical activity. from his eleventh year he gave
much thought to a universal tincture and always had the irrevocable
conviction that he would reach this goal. Success was reached after a
comparatively short time with a Great Tincture, which he produced himself,
he also succeeded with several different transmutations."

"In his treatise, The Hermetic Art, Volpierre revealed his attitude toward
Alchemy without transgression. This he sent to Salzburg to the metaphysical
author, W. G. Surya, for an opinion. Surya gave him unstinting recognition
and underlined the correct hermetical laboratory procedure."

"In his Great Work, Volpierre worked primarily with antimony and iron
filings. Avoiding Acids produced synthetically he used only those derived from
natural sources as did those who preceded him centuries ago. In 1935 it was
impossible to obtain proper acids in Germany because of a new law forbidding
the use of raw materials containing arsenic, and especially those containing
sulphur from Sicily. When using the new industrially produced acids his
experiments were unsuccessful. Another goal, to produce a steel-glass, now
became impossible."

His laboratory at St. Inber Saar was destroyed during World War II. From
1943 he lived with his sister in Mainz on the river Rhine helping in her
Naturopathic practice."

"In July of 1950 Volpierre suffered a stroke. Death came early in September
of 1953. (This differs from the two previous statements referring to 1952, RD) He
was buried in the new cemetery in Bischofsheim by Mainz. His former patients
still speak highly of him to this very day."

"Reminiscing, his sister described him enthusiastically as having deep blue

eyes, light blond hair, and wonderfully revealing facial features; his beautiful
soul reflected again and again in his exterior being."

"Volpierre was reluctant to reveal his Alchemistical work and its importance
to mankind which had not relinquished its cruelties. Perhaps specific personal
experiences convinced this evolved soul personality that he could not cope with
the shrewdness and wickedness of the mundane world. A letter written in 1948
in reply to a French magazine article about the transmutation of the elements,
testifies to this. One thing that had emerged in the meantime among
progressively thinking men was a certainty that Alchemy is the sovereign
foundation of all science but is at the same time an art. It remains so at present
and will do so in the future. Freed from its many disguises Alchemy will
become an irrevocable basis for a continued evolution toward a genuinely
modern mankind."
The writer of this introduction was so thoroughly convinced of what Volpierre
had accomplished, and of what he had written in his treatise, The Hermetic
Art, that he was eager to duplicate his work.

He wanted to know how to procure the raw materials and asked if I would
help him to secure them. I agreed. He is still getting things prepared and
underway while in the meantime finding further answers concerning various
manipulations. He is deeply engaged in laboratory Alchemy. We hope to have
a report about his results at a later date when more news is forthcoming from
this writer.

In the meantime we shall let Volpierre speak for himself. - Frater Albertus

THE HERMETIC ART

(A Teaching Concerning Atomic Transmutation)

VOLPIERRE

Motto: What is exalted is simple

These lines serve as factual information and are intended primarily for
those readers who are free from prejudice, have an incorruptible
understanding, are endowed with a sensitive touch and have retained
the fundamentals and simplicity of their comprehension. Writing this I
shall purposely omit archaic expressions of the Alchemists whose
understanding became only partly clear to my understanding while I
was engaged in my self-induced working methods.

At last, this writing shall be a vindication, not to say a complete

jusification, of the Old Masters, who would have preferred contempt,
persecution, even painful death, rather than to reveal their secret
though their bones have long since decayed.

This secret, the formula of how to produce the Philosopher's Stone,

was undoubtedly known in some Masonic Lodges to the Master of the
Chair - as well as to the genuine Alchemists - but it can be safely
assumed that at present not one Lodge in Europe has the formula and
the know-how to procure the little or Great Tincture. The reader will
realize that in my information given herein, I cannot trespass certain
boundaries.
Those to whom the expressions of the Old Masters sound strange and
unlikely should keep in mind that a gifted poet may speak phantasy to
some while to others he proclaims the highest wisdom when
presenting his emotions for the human heart to conceive.

The nature of this writing is not to give absolute directions of how to

proceed with the work. The result will have to speak for itself.

Knowledge and know-how are ever the new poles of polarity in the
unfolding consciousness of man. They emerge out of the innermost
atom of an indestructible faith in God and a sensing of the existence
of a Divine Being. Being is eternal strength and eternal adding upon.
Being is eternally descending and ascending, the eternal change of
life and death, but in such a manner that even that which we call death
and decay is in the fullest sense of the word a transformation, or
rather, a regrouping of matter as a tangible expression in an
imponderable, intangible field of force. Manifested force reveals itself
in nature as an endless expression-in plant, mineral, metal, in a
raindrop or a snowflake, or in animal or man. But what a world of
difference we find between a gentle zephyr and a roaring holocaust,
what a difference between the gentle air in May and the gnashing
madness of a hurricane or a blizzard. Such differences show in
earthquakes, on land or sea, often connected with volcanic eruptions.

Innumerable are the forces that are in essence only the expression of
but one force. For example, note a tree or a flower in growth,
blossoming, ripening and withering when looked upon from such a
point of view. Even so is man, externally corruptive but endowed with
inner strength of different degrees as a natural creature. So also are
the seasons of the year, passing forms within as eternity confined, as
is man's unending cycle of birth and death within a micro and
macrocosm. We find on the one side sprouting life, decay and
transformation, and on the other side continuous change of form and
shape reorganizing again manifold manifestations through but one
energy which is continuously creative and eternal. The initiate knows
of the existence of this energy-the secret Trinity-be it in sunshine or
moonlight, be it in the waters of the earth or heavens-be it in the
joyously creative womb of Mother Earth, or in the dry, moist, cold, or
the warm breath of the wind. To know about these means to be able to
have such powers that serve us and follow the outlined paths of
creation.

The Magnum Opus, the Great or the Royal Work of the Initiates called
Alchemists is in itself not difficult and could be taken care of in a few
sentences. The work involved is so manifold, so full of surprises, that
even so-called proven and established physical laws, enough to fill a
thick book, would not justify themselves. No, wonder that in our time
of "rational" thinking and hurried progress aimed toward
externalization, instead of directing forces toward interiorization, very
few are able to understand the old alchemistical writings, let alone
separate the chaff from the wheat. Many expressions used in the work
and most especially those that should identify some objects can
hardly be understood. Mysterious identifications, such as: Green Lion,
Red Lion, the Coat of the Red Lion, Menstruum, Serpent, Diana,
Phoenix, Lima, Flying Dragon, Virgin's Milk, Echeneu, etc. sound
rather fantastic but close examination reveals an intensively grouped
correctness of expression that will be proven in practical application.

The alchemical novice is liable to be misdirected when reading

intensively, not to say also extremely far fetched literature, dealing
primarily with the procurement of the acid called by the Old Masters
respectively vinegar, alcohol, or wine. The novice, his inner hopes
raised because he believes he has finally found the way to the Great
Work, finds himself in a trap and lost as he discovers in the
continuation of his work that he has fallen deeper and deeper into the
abyss of bitter despair and hopelessness.

As to when to begin the actual work, all literature handed down to us,
as it originated with genuine alchemists, compares as to a hair. Based
upon carefully established observations, considering certain sidereal
constellations arising out of wellfounded calculations, they all fall into
place and need not be considered any further herein. Taken practically
and factually any alchemistical work may be begun at any hour or any
day. However, the end results differ during various constellations,
either quantitatively or qualitatively.

Concerning technical aspects, the modern student has an advantage

over the old Masters from the very beginning. The old Alchemists had
neither gas or electricity as we have today, but were solely dependent
on coal or wood for their fires. These fires were most difficult to
maintain and control. Because of their type of heat the alchemists
were forced to employ various baths for their work. For instance, I
remember the Balneum Mariae and the sandbath required at a certain
stage of the work. The first has become superfluous because it is now
possible to regulate the gas flame exactly. These various baths have
created a fountain of confusion for the alchemistical disciples. Hence
they get caught in their own nets, their enthusiasm diminishes and
finally their efforts end in discouraged abandonment.
Furthermore, the old Masters used vessels made of clay -such as
retorts. When used singly these vessels were called Philosophical
Eggs, with a lid glued to the top in a precarious manner which must
have been quite a feat In those days. In our time we have vessels
made of strong, almost unbreakable glass. Another expression which
novices do not know how to interpret is "woman's and children's
work." This phrase found repeatedly in alchemistical literature simply
refers to the regulation of the fire and of its various degrees of heat as
the work requires. One has to think about the clay retorts filled with
various substances of different specific weights and boiling points
that had to be separated meticulously in the same retort during the
work, offering different resistances under pressure, that even today
with much more sophisticated equipment, requires skill even with an
easy to regulate gas flame. How much more skillful must have been
the regulation of a coal fire!

How much more must our astonishment grow into a marvelous

admiration of the Royal Art of the old Masters, some of whom were
called Imperator, a title justly deserved by their having attained a
rulership over the Opus Magnus.

Each original work of creation is built upon a formative, shaping

activity of three vital principles-male, female, and spiritual. That
official science acknowledges only two principles-male and female-be
they antipodes of complimentary is of no interest to today's
Alchemists because while we are engaged in our work, three
principals appear absolutely clear in the form of fundamentally
different essentials - our Mercury, our Sulphur, and our Salt - without
which no, little or Great Work nor a tinging or a transmutation is
possible. When only two essentials are considered any scientifically
alchemistically conducted experiments will be doomed to failure,
without exception, as has been previously proven. It is important and
necessary for the student of alchemy-and to be taken for granted by
him-that he be mindful of the three reigning principles in the Cosmic,
else he will uselessly sacrifice time, money, physical and mental
strain.

According to the concept of the old Masters which was looked upon
from a purely external point of view, nature was entirely subject to the
male and female principle.

Nature receives her eternal strength from the Cosmos which latter
cannot exist-and this should be especially emphasized-without the
Universal Spirit of the Creator. I shall spare myself to enter into the
differentiation about different active force centers within the Macro
and the Microcosmos. This was done by the old Masters and during
the past five hundred years especially by the one named Paracelsus.

This introduction was necessary even in a limited scope in order to

bring us closer to the thought level of the Masters that weaves itself
like a red thread through the entire work and proves itself by the final
results.

The Opus Magnus has been separated into three parts:

I. Preparation
II. Principal Work
III. Concluding Work

Each section is a masterpiece and has, of course, parallels in the

various realms of Nature, be it in regard to heat, moisture, or dryness,
which give rise to the sprouting growth in the various stages of the
Work, as has already been mentioned by Hermes Trismegistus.

PREPARATION

(The Preparatory Work)

According to the old Masters the earth came forth out of the Chaos, or
the Prima Materia. Our first task therefore is to bring any material
substance with which we are working back into its Chaos, if we use
the alchemist's language, or to dissolve and change it into its first or
chaotic state. The concept of dissolution is here well enough
established. It does not deal with an annihilation but with a certain
degree of dissolvement or rearrangement where the building up of
energy takes place and infuses the entire work with life and forms it;
however, only after the so-called corporeal has been reduced. The
objective or the contents of the entire work can be expressed in one
sentence or guide line of Natural Philosophers, out of which has
evolved their sovereign rulership over matter: solve et coagula!
(separate and unite.) I shall once more draw attention to the great
importance of knowing about the male and the female principles of all
matter to be considered for the Opus Magnus. A great deal of this
knowledge is transmitted to us by way of astrology, a knowledge
which Paracelsus especially emphasizes in his writings. A little
example shall suffice: According to age old laws copper, sulphur and
the number 6 come under the dominion of Venus, just as iron, sodium
chloride (common salt) and the number 9 are related to Mars, and
lead, saltpeter and number 8 are under Saturn, etc. It is now up to, the
disciple of the alchemistical Art to cull from such known and
established facts the proper proportions necessary to reconstruct the
objectives under question. In addition, the degree of heat is of utmost
importance in all three parts. Too much heat will bring failure, since
the subtle penetrating fumes, which the old Masters called by the
meaningful word Spirit, would escape, and for this reason become
useless since the active force has escaped.

The individual stages in this process of preparatory work can be seen

by a continuous change of color. In my work the object I used was
originally of a dark gray, slightly gleaming color, but which became
pitch black, then a bluish black, and then a light gray. Then the color
changed to dark brown, light brown, and then to a very light gray,
almost white. This was followed by bluish white shading changing
over to a transparent ice gray, then into an immaculate white.
Thereafter it became clouded and then was penetrated by a delightful
bright green like a breath, with everything slowly becoming more
subdued until it become of an olive color; still later it changed to a
yellowish green. During this time there showed a completely dark
closed circle a certain distance in from the mass on the bottom of. the
top part of the container about two centimeters wide-a strange
phenomenon as we shall see later. This circle moved slowly closer
and closer in a steady motion and became darker and denser. It
moved with remarkable uniformity and kept the same distance
changing slowly to a blue-black color. It began to penetrate slowly at
the edge of the mass on the bottom, but from the wall of the container,
and was not any deeper than it was wide. At the same time the mass
grew taller from three quarter centimeter to twenty centimeters. The
dark band rested about fifteen to sixteen centimeters distance from
the bottom, about two centimeters into the mass, while the depth of
the circle or ring was about one to two centimeters. After awhile the
dark blue ring got a lighter blue only to become a deeper blue again
several days later, and gave off a beautiful radiance. Blood red lines
began to appear, rising slowly from the bottom, until one day a juice
of ruby or blood red color could be seen-the menstruum. also called
Aqua Fontana, that welled forth all at once from the philosophical
mine. The state of this work the old Masters pointedly called the
Peacock's Tail (Cauda Pavonis.) It is hardly possible to find a more
fitting name. This red juice is also called the Coat of the Red Lion,
since the real Red Lion is concealed thereby, because in the course of
the further degrees of the work he devours various substances, even
different elements. Within this Coat of the Red Lion our Mercury has
his being and is rightfully called Bearer of Light. Menstruum., like
similar alchernistical terms, has a double meaning. At one time, for
instance, through the manipulation of the Master's hand it becomes a
perfectly natural excrement of the Original Chaos called Prima
Materia, calx of metals, greasy earth or matrix. On the other hand. it
becomes a solvent, though not a perfect one. As the work is
continued one will see what relationship this menstruum has. This red
juice or the Aqua Fontana of Paracelsus has to be decanted carefully,
making sure that none of the residue on the bottom comes with it. The
residue is further imbibed with wine or vinegar and oil, also, called
Aqua Forta or Aqua Pluvialis which later also appears in the main
work-though in an essentially different form-until it is completely
dissolved. Herewith the preparatory work is ended. One has to be
careful when touching this fat earth as it is highly corrosive and
should not be mistaken because of its greasy consistency.

The Art of the first part of this work consists of the total destruction of
the substance used, no matter of what natural origin it is, so as to
change nothing and to have only themenstruum. left. It is actually
possible through certain manipulations with certain liquids that have
been namedalcohol, wine, vinegar, or on occasion oil-to obtain a red
juice, which coloration by now is pending between a delicate shiny
raspberry or ruby red out of any metallic substance. The peculiar
thing about this red juice in connection with its own color is a green
sheen that appears on the wall of the glass when the container is
shaken ever so slightly. This green sheen is the symbol of a "growing
strength" which is of decisive importance in the continuance of the
work. Should this juice besides its green lustre, show a brownish
coloration, however slight, the product becomes utterly useless for
any further work. Whoever had the fortune to finish this masterpiece
of the preparatory work can now with confidence go to the main work.

Out of the preceding method of the preparatory work can be

seenespecially in expectation of the end result-what the old Masters
understood as destruction. As is previously mentioned, a change-over
or putrefaction of a corpse, used deliberately as a parallel by the old
Masters because a decaying corpse leaks its own juice or "spits"-an
old alchemistical expression. At times the matter actually gives off a
fetid stinking odor. When the old Masters used the expression, "To
transmute a body into chaos," and knew what was understood thereby
the description of the preparatory work begins to make sense.
However, this should not be confused with a classification, out of the
chaotic realm." The old Masters classified Nature into various realms,
such as:

1. Vegetable
2. Mineral
3. Metal
4. Animal
5. Chaotic
6. Astral

What is meant by these classifications can be clearly seen in the old

literature of the Masters. The old Alchemists held closely to the
concept of but one essential element or substance as a biological,
dynamic unit whose visible fundamental forms manifest as the four
elements. These should not be confused with the elements of
scientific postulation. This principle element was preferably called
Phosphorous which in essence means "carrier of light." This has
given rise to many erroneous concepts of specific hermetic
expressions that led to, wrong conclusions and false judgments. This
is still the case today. There is no need to name such instances
instead let us be satisfied with facts. By the expression Phosphorus
was meant the inner fire or inner light that shines but does not
consume itself. Indeed, after it has become fixed it cannot be melted
nor consumed by any fire. Thus it was correctly named down to its
core. However, how this inner fire was to be obtained and how to hold
on to it was information wisely withheld.

In the following Tabula Smaragdina of the classical alchemist, Hermes

Trismegistus, this phenomenal knowledge about the three parts of the
work has been expressed profoundly and efficiently:

"It is true, certain and without falsehood, that whatever is below is like
that which is above; and that which is above is like that which is
below: to accomplish the one wonderful work. As all things are
derived from the One Only Thing, by the will and by the word of the
One Only One who created it in His Mind, so all things owe their
existence to this Unity by the order of Nature, and can be improved by
Adaptation to that Mind.

"Its Father is the Sun; its Mother is the Moon; the Wind carries it in its
womb; and its nurse is the earth. This Thing is the Father of all perfect
things in the world. Its power is most perfect when it has again been
changed into Earth. Separate the Earth from the Fire, the subtle from
the gross, but carefully and with great judgment and skill.

"It ascends from earth to heaven and descends again, new born, to
the earth, taking unto itself thereby the power of the Above and the
Below. Thus the splendor of the whole world will be thine, and all
darkness shall flee from thee.

"This is the strongest of all powers, the Force of all forces for it
overcometh all subtle things and can penetrate all that is solid. For
thus was the world created, and rare combinations, and wonders of
many kinds are wrought.

"Hence I am called HERMES TRISMEGISTUS, having mastered the

three parts of the wisdom of the whole world. What I have to say about
the masterpiece of the alchemical art, the Solar Work, is now ended."

Aristotle was of the opinion that there were four elements in Nature:
Earth, Water, Fire, and Air and that they penetrate all realms of Nature
in an ever changing pattern, when active life forms are engaged in
their primary function. In this connection I refer again to Hermes
Trismegistus when he said in the above much recited text, "The wind
carried it in his belly." One has to think about the moisture content of
air that can, according to prevailing circumstances, become fog, rain,
snow, or hail in its free region and in its eternal round become water.
In such conditions and in similar occasions occuring in Nature, the
alchemist has to leave any concepts aside that are held by those that
consider chemical elements, as used by scientists, which are contrary
to his alchemistical conception.

In rain water, snow, frost, or for that matter in any moisture in the air,
we find this agens in the form of three essentials least suspected or
even recognized by all of mankind -waiting perhaps for a revival or
rebirth to reveal its magical forces. Who is going to decide when the
time has come and mankind is ready? It was simply impossible for the
old Masters, who called themselves Philosophers of Nature and
learned from Nature, to conceive of a material manifestation without a
soul force. On the contrary, in their opinion concentrated power within
matter was known to them which science today after thousands of
years has belatedly come to recognize. This conviction of the
alchemist urges itself upon the tongue to be proclaimed by all those
who have had such an inner experience. This active power induces
out of decaying foodstuffs high vitamin contents, out of plants its
healing virtues as well as poisons, also it brings forth from flowers
and blossoms sweet smelling marvels as it reveals in visible forms its
strength in various degrees as a never ending supply of all that is
essential, for such is the genuine Art of the Alchemists.

First, it is important to have the proper medium prepared as given

above in the preparatory work, a medium which is possible to bind the
active force to itself, similar to a magnet that attracts iron. According
to an old teaching like will be attracted to its own, or as it says subtle
to subtle, but like forces will repel each other. As the work continues it
will be seen just what peculiar stuff this "menstruum" or Blood of the
Red Lion really is and that this blood, to use a well known word from
our old master Goethe, in a different sense has a right to be called a
"special juice."

THE PRINCIPLE WORK

It speaks for the exalted Art of Alchemy that the old Masters were in a
position to accomplish their Great Work with the most simple and
efficient equipment that was available at the time. In the Principle
Work a retort, also called the Philosophical Egg, was primarily used
by the old Masters. So called Renomier equipment is senseless and
useless.

The retort is filled about three quarters full. One must watch carefully
the degree of fire or heat. The reason for this has been mentioned
previously. During this so called distillation by degree, for which the
old Masters used the athanor, three liquids will appear in succession.
Besides this there will remain in the retort a glass-like powder of a
yellowish white color, but sometimes of a green or light blue shading.
It is noticeable that three entirely different fluids will appear. One is
yellow, two are water clear of which the last shows an oily
consistency, i.e., it flows like an oil, although in the preliminary work
only two, liquids were used as a foundation for the entire process. In
the three distilled liquids of which the second is called phlegm this is
of no use and is poured away. Again we have the male and female
principles. These two agents have been given various names as
yellow and white vinegar, wine, alcohol, root moisture, growing
strength, arsenic, sulphur, salt, etc. The remaining powder is called
dead earth, the magnet, mumia or the corpse to be revived again.
Thereafter it has to be buried in an alchemistical sense or, as others
express it, buried in horse manure. This latter expression is also used
in similar terminology in the preliminary work. One sees an array of
seeming contradictions of formulas and expressions. The real task of
the principle work is, first, the exact completion 'der Scheidekunst' or
art of separation, and thereafter, to revive the dead earth during its
peculiar way of burial when its own seed is implanted and when
grown shows peculiar blossoms and flowers on one stem. Separation
and purification, the mortification with the putrefaction and at the
same time a revivication of the earth, compares to a yearly cycle of
Nature and is also known as a "turning of the wheel of Nature."

The nomenclature of Hermetic Art may prove to be a hard task to

solve by newcomers to alchemy, since hermetic means sealed
airtight. It is a fact that a certain part of the work has to be
accomplished in an airtight container if success is to be had.
Furthermore, the alchemistical Masters knew of a hermetic union
whereby several different ingredients were united or welded into 'one'
unit, as it happened in this work. Even the most exact chemical
analysis will not reveal the three. or to be exact, the four different
substances formerly mentioned.

In its own 'grave', of its own natural substance, the dead earth
receives the Aqua Pluvialis, the rainwater, also known as water of
heaven, and begins under its influence not only slowly to revive, but
also to decay in a certain way. It begins to swell and thickens, runs
when fully absorbed and feels gooey and sticky. During the distillation
an absolutely clear water-the very Aqua Pluvialis, comes over, which
is absolutely tasteless and odorless, and can be drunk without
scruples. During this process, should any fumes arise that were not
noticeable before, the work will then enter into a new phase. It now
becomes necessary to pour the yellow or white vinegar upon the
solidified mass, but with the utmost care and dexterity, otherwise
severe physical damage may occur since this manipulation is not
without danger. When these two wines are brought together they
become a radical solvent and mix under a soft or not so soft hissing
noise into a blood red juice which in a surprisingly short time
dissolves the entire earth. The menstruum has appeared again but
this time *in a purer form as previously and, as the work continues,
becomes even purer and stronger. The so-called phlegm that is
always poured away because of its uselessness for our work, will add
up to a considerable amount, usually one fourth to a third of the third
total amount, whose origin and timing during the separation is
another physiological enigma. Contrary to the separation of the
phlegm, the menstruum does retain its quantum from the beginning to
the end of the principle work!

During the fifth to seventh revolution of the wheel of Nature an

extraordinary phenomena appears. During the process of distillation
when the fluids partly turn into invisible fumes and only condense in
the neck of the retort, suddenly from the bottom of the retort a milky
fluid will rise and begin to move freely at the top of the retort like
clouds during a storm, to finally flow through the neck of the retort
into the receiver. From the moment the liquid begins to rise and
gathers at the top there is just enough time-with the greatest care-to
change the receptacle with a carefully set aside new receptacle to
hold the new separation.

This peculiar liquor is the Virgin's Milk, the Universal Menstruum,

radical solvent, the Flying Dragon also known as Phoenix and Luna. In
this radical solvent all matter of terrestrial origin can be completely
dissolved while retaining their entire essentials and characteristic
virtues, which no other solvent in the entire world can accomplish. A
careful observation will reveal that this Milk is a light liquid, like water,
in which many tiny scales of a silver-white lustre are swimming. This
Milk can be kept indefinitely since the wings of Mercury have been
clipped, as the old Masters used to say. As soon as the tiny scales
called Escheneii or little fish have been separated the possibility of
keeping them indefinitely is gone. Another astounding and unusual
fact is revealed. When these tiny scales are kept in a hermetically
sealed container, they will disappear and leave no residue or
condensation whatsoever. These tiny scales have a strong salty-sweet
taste. Besides when tasted this powder, like the water. leaves a
pleasant warmth in the mouth without being in the least corrosive.
During the continuation of the principal work one surprise follows
another. For instance, in a decisive stage of the work during the
distillation, the yellow vinegar changes its original consistency. It
becomes a clear water leaving a peculiar residue in the retort. This
residue separates into two powders of equal size presenting
themselves in their own way. They rest, as it is said, upon a chair,
separated from each other by a small margin on the bottom of the
glass in a perfect eliptical shape with their points in a north-south
direction. The one powder is white, while the other is yellowish-the
hermetic Salt and Sulphur, showing themselves in an extremely fine
or subtle state as a volatile Salt-Sal Volatile, i.e., quinta essentia -after
we become acquainted with the volatile Mercury.

In the concluding work these must be fixed which means to avoid

evaporation since they as Mars and Venus, like their brother in spirit,
Mercury, did fly away while hermetically sealed in their container.

Thus the principle work is finished. The remaining earth is of no

further use to us, since from it the volatile double mercury has been
leached.

CONCLUSION

The Concluding Work

From the foregoing it can easily be seen that the Opus Magnus
required an enormous measure of observation and concentration, as
well as a deep feeling for the secret workings of Nature and the entire
Cosmic. One should consider that in such a process hundreds,
thousands, ox millions of years of continuous natural phenomena has
been condensed into an average of nine months by the Master's Art,
which strangely enough resembles the ripening of the human embryo,
The hardest work, technically speaking, is the principal part, that of
proper regulation of the gas flame, while remembering the great
difficulties encountered by the old Masters attending their coal or
wood fires.

As difficult and dangerous as the work is, one is tempted to make

comparisons with certain initiation rituals as practiced in some of the
Temples of old Egypt. It is easy to understand the decision of a Master
that under no circumstances would he repeat the work because of the
great dangers involved.

The preparatory work is similar to the principle work of the old

Masters. One particular part is to solve and the other of the following
concluding work is to coagula. Some of the forementioned steps
merge into each other during the preliminary and the principal work,
so that an exact limitation of the various concepts within the work
becomes impossible. Only after the work has been started, and the
proper sequence has been fortunately concluded, will things become
clearer to the alchemistical laboratory worker. Through proper
contemplation one realizes the correct procedures as described in the
Opus Magnus with the individual procedures explained in symbolic
expressions and associated pictures of the old Masters.

The main purpose of the concluding work is the coagulation and

fixation or fastening of the volatile Mercury duplication. With this
fixation the old Masters understood their cementation, placing before
the worker in the laboratory an abundance of riddles and difficulties.
Here, it deals with the Secret and Art of the Alchemists, i.e., the
innermost atom of a tightly enclosed, indissolveable conjunction of
such matter which gives the tincture and quinta essentia its own
characteristic being. This ending crowns the Opus Magnus and thus,
after much trouble and corresponding patience and perseverance, the
final goal is reached.

Depending on the tincture the interplay of color changes during the

concluding work. First the substances in question have to be united in
their "natural weight." After a short period the mass will become
conpletely black and show many blisters. This same thing happens
also during the preparatory work. With a light shining on this black
mass (one will be astounded over its deep dark red color-as a blood-
like glow.)

It is hard to imagine the change in color that takes place and which
differs only from that in the preliminary work through a wonderful
shining pureness and beauty that one is tempted to describe as a
symphony of color. This glowing of color rises to such a state in the
completed lapis or stone, it does not matter whether it be the little or
the big arcanum, it literally glitters; an unmistakable sign that it is the
genuine, true tincture.

Depending on how much tincture is prepared, the stone can, during

its first multiplication, be raised a hundred fold and thereafter to ten
and twenty thousand times its former strength. Through further work
the tincture can be raised to still further increase the power of
multiplication. The limit of the power of multiplication in its
concentration depends on the elements used and their specific
weight. When this limit has been reached this tincture will penetrate
glass and be as hard and dense as the best steel.

It is from here that a historically proven fact is mentioned about a

malleable glass that can be forged, which has defied all efforts of
modern science to rediscover.

The highest known concentration was reached by Pryce of England

with a potency of 1,140,000. With a single gram of his tincture he
brought about an atomic transmutation of 40 kg. Unfortunately this
great Master ended his life by committing suicide because he was
denied membership in a scientific society.

When using hard or quartz glass higher potencies can be obtained

than that which Pryce had reached, but handling such high
concentrations can have some unpleasant conditions as a result.

Since this tincture is not confined to metals but can be used equally
as well upon minerals, plants and animal substances, when the time
has come, it can open avenues of practical application that are
presently unlimited if one considers that within the weight of grams of
this tincture, kilogram weights of matter are stored.

D. L. Volpierre
(Aqa)
1932

ATTITUDE TOWARDS THE ALCHEMISTICAL OPUS

Its contents and procedure, describing how to obtain the quinta essentia by the
great wet way

By Heinz Fischer-Lichtenthal
In the first part of the Great Work (Opus Magnum) consisting of three parts, any
metal carefully dissolved in acid in an artful manner will yield a red juice
(menstruum, Blood of the Red Lion.) In such manner a substance will be
returned to a certain degree to its, primordial condition (chaos), becoming a
useful medium capable of extracting the essential vitality found in all creation
and then being able to retain it,, i.e., such agens that is superior to inherent
atomic power as we understand it presently.

In the second part a 'menstruum universal' (radical solvent, Virgin's Milk,

Flying Dragon) can be obtained from the red juice and its residue through
gradual and repeated distillation wherein all natural essentials can be
dissolved while their inherent characteristics are still retained.

It contains the Flying Mercury in the form of tiny silver colored scales, like salt,
which evaporate quickly when separated from the liquid. Furthermore, from
part of the distillation of the yellow vinegar a residue is obtained. This residue
consists of two powders (volatile salts) which form on the bottom of the glass
container, in the shape of eliptical particles laying next to each other in a north-
south direction. One of them is white (hermetical Salt) and the other of a
yellowish color (hermetical Sulphur.)

The final result is obtained only in the third part when all three mentioned salts
are fixed. This is the 'cementation'.

By joining (cohobation) of such quinta essentia which does not dissolve them,
the final tincture will give to it the desired character and becomes the Great
Tincture. The latter is identical with the Philosopher's Stone.

Begin by mixing one part powdered antimony trisulphide and six parts iron
filings in a five litre (5,000 ml), wide necked, glass bottle with ground joint and
stopper. Evenly cover the bottom by not more than 3/4 cm.

Next, three pourings on the antimony and iron filings must take place
consisting of 3mI of hydrochloric acid and 2mI of sulphuric acid every 24
hours.

Immediately a strong reaction caused by fuming gases makes it imperative that

the container be closed very tightly. No antimony particles must be found
between the ground stopper and the flask opening. It is best to moisten the
stopper with sulphuric acid. Fasten the stopper with some string using two
cork stoppers, one on each side, to tighten the string.

Each time some acid has been poured over the mixture place the glass
container in a sandbath at a temperature of 37o - 38oC. Let the bottle slowly
cool before adding more acid. After the bottle has cooled carefully pour in both
acids very gradually and stopper at once. The glass stopper may be removed
by inserting strong string tightly between the stopper and the neck of the
bottle, then with a uniform jerk on both sides of the stopper, lift it out. Fast
work is essential; none of the fumes must escape. Close the bottle very tightly
each time after more acid is added.
Beginning with the fourth pouring there is a change of proportion when adding
more acid. It is now 6ml. hydrochloric acid and 4 1/2 ml. sulphuric acid which is
to be repeated every fourth day. This schedule must be adhered to no matter
what the contents of the container shows. The temperature must be kept the
same as before, except for the short period when more acid is added. Should
little lumps show or the substance have a tendency to stick too tightly into a
solid mass, use a glass stirring rod and carefully break it up. Be careful not to
break the bottom of the retort. Should the glass show a crack a new vessel
must be used and the work started anew.

The change of color is as follows:

Dark gray, slight sparkle

pitch black to blue-black
dark gray
light gray
dark brown
light brown
very light gray, almost white
a bluish white
gray, like ice
pure white
glowing green
olive-green
yellowish green

Then a dark floating ring, 2cm. thick, ascending, getting heavier and darker,
(blue-black) enters the mass, which has risen from the bottom to a height of 15
or 16 cm. The color changes from dark blue to light blue, deep, dark blue, now
giving off a radiance. Blood red lines begin to rise from the bottom on the side
of the vessel. When after circulating for three or four months the rising red
juice has reached the top of the mass, the process has reached its sign of
development and is concluded.

This juice or tincture can be carefully poured off in any desired quantity. From
now on the acids may be added in the same order as before, but in ten to thirty
fold quantities or even more, depending on the available space in the
container. The mass will dissolve at once.

This solution is kept in special glass bottles for later use. When not enough
containers are available only as much as is needed should be dissolved for the
work at hand. It is surprising how much acid is necessary to completely
dissolve the contents in the glass container.

When shaking the glass container the juice has to show a green lustre. An
additional brown coloration shows that the liquid up to this stage has become
useless.

The red juice is a natural separation from the Original Chaos. It contains the
main element, the 'carrier of light' (Phosphorus-the inner light-fire that burns,
but does not consume itself) which manifests in all four elements. Chaos or
prima materia is the beginning of matter as we know it. Strength is increased
when the corpora is reduced. By too high a heat the fine penetrating fumes
(Spirit) would evaporate.

The preliminaries are the beginning of the work and these should be
commenced if possible during a fortunate trine such as Mercury trine Jupiter,
or trine Venus, or trine the Sun, or a trine with a well aspected Mars.

As much as eighty litres, approximately twenty gallons of the menstruum, has

been obtained out of a five litre bottle, approximately one gallon and a quarter.

A 250ml. retort is filled three quarters full of Dragon's Blood. Begin the
distillation with a small flame and have in readiness three Erlenmeyer 50ml.
flasks. Each liquid will be collected separately. Using a low flame, first, the
yellow vinegar (Hydrochloric acid) comes over, thereafter the phlegm which is
entirely worthless and can be thrown away.

When nothing more comes over by the small flame fine threads, rising from the
bottom to the top, shows on the side of the retort and announces that the
sulphuric acid is about to distill over. The receptacle is changed again and the
heat is raised. Toward the end the bellows or more oxygen will have to be used
to distill the rest of the sulphuric acid. The retort can be glowing red during the
last proecdure. Then let the retort cool and break it.

Remove the remains from the broken retort, grind in a mortar and submit for
three weeks in a dish to the moist air, preferably in a cellar away from any light.
It is hygroscopic and becomes slimy and finally thick like honey. Place this in a
100ml. retort using a small funnel and glass rod. The neck of the retort must be
washed down with the 'Air-water' to be certain that the neck is absolutely
clean.

Distillation is started with a low flame. Steam will form,, condensing in the
neck, and will flow out. When the water has distilled out the steam gets more
dense, like fumes, and the distillation must be stopped. Let the retort cool, then
break it. Remove the contents and grind in a mortar. Place the contents from
the mortar in an evaporating dish, and pour the yellow vinegar over it. There is
no danger in this. Then carefully pour the sulphuric acid slowly through a
funnel. Take care as it may splash.

The two acids combined turn to red and make a loud noise while doing so.
Once again we have the product with which we began. The first part of our
work is completed when the red liquid is poured through a funnel into a 250ml.
retort and provision made for a repetition of the same process.

The described procedure must be repeated four to six times until the Flying
Dragon appears. This can occur during the fifth, sixth, or seventh distillation.
One must be especially careful, because our Phoenix can rise suddenly,
boiling to the top and flowing out. Quick and efficient changing of the receiving
flask is important for this separation.

After Luna has left us, distillation is continued under the same temperature
until next the phlegm-like water distills completely over. Continuing the
distillation by a lower heat than formerly used, the sulphuric acid comes over.
In the remaining water in the retort a peculiar residue forms on the bottom.
Next to each other, but separated from each other, a yellow and white salt will
appear in aneliptical northsouth formation. Both are volatile and can only be
kept in their own water. The same applies to the silver-like scales noticed in the
residue.

In case too much moisture has been distilled off the salts and the liquid is not
sufficient to cover the bottom of the vessel, some of the distillate must be
returned. Without this liquid the volatile Salt and Sulphur would evaporate
within twenty-four hours, but in the absence of light it would take longer.

It is recommended during the distillation either to extend the neck of the retort
with a glass tube for better cooling, or to use a water cooled condenser.

To use the remaining recovered Sulphur again is not recommended!

Formerly the work was conducted solely with natural ingredients. Acids used
by the old Masters with their specific characteristics are now hard to obtain or
unknown today.

From a chemical point of view we consider hydrochloric acid, sulphuric acid

and nitric acid. The latter we can do without for some of the procedures.
Hydrochloric acid and sulphuric acid useable for the work described was
produced by the Chemical Industry in Europe as little as a few decades ago in
a so-called Lead Chamber Process. Raw materials used were native sodium
nitrate from the Alsace in France, native Vitriol (copper sulphate) from the
mines in the Harz Mountains, or Hungary, etc., and red arsenic-sulphur from
Sicily. Common yellow sulphur was found to be useless for producing acid to
be used alchemistically.
 The True Book of the Learned Synesius
A Greek Abbot

Taken out of the

Emperour's Library
Concerning the
Philosopher's Stone

Hac partim ipfe tuo perpendens pectore tecurn, Partim Divum aliquis tibi fuggerat.
Homer

To so great a Mystery who shall Aspire.

London, Printed for Dorman Newman at the Kings Arms in the Poultry. 1678

With a Foreword by Frater Albertus

and
An Introduction by Israel Regardie

PARA PUBLISHERS
P O Box 2225
Custom House Station
San Francisco, California 94126
c 1973

FOREWORD - Frater Albertus

Considering the many books written on Alchemy that appeared during the last three centuries,
one cannot help wondering why so much was written about what was so little understood. It is
safe to say not much that found its way into print come from authentic sources. Most
alchemistical literature is of secondhand or even further handed-down origin and has proven
in its final analysis spurious and very unreliable. In fact most books written on Alchemy are
by alchemists who have taken refuge in other authors whom they quote, or rather, misquote.
This is shown by the fact that what was given as personal alchemistical knowledge could not
be substantiated. It is no wonder that alchemistical books have fallen into such ill-repute,
when from a scientific point no results were forthcoming, and when claims of alchemy are
checked, where the transmutation of baser metals into gold seems to have been the primary
objective.

A cursory paging through such literature certainly arouses much curiosity. Since some authors
speak with so much authority and sincerity one cannot help wondering if there is some truth
to be found in their statements. Adding to the romance of the prevailing times and due to
insufficient scientific knowledge, when compared with our time, the whole picture becomes
tinted with a charm all its own. As the reader pages through such books, the question of the
authenticity of alchemy keeps creeping into his mind. Why should men of renown who
certainly could not be classified as charlatans and mountbanks because of their standing in the
scientific world spend their time and fortune on such elusive and unlikely investigations? This
scientific investigation of alchemy was not confined only to the past. Our own times have also
produced men of character and intellect who refused to cast aside ideas without due
investigation that may seem contrary to established and accepted precepts.

There is no need to emphasize the names of those persons who, for the sake of appearing
knowledgeable, talk about alchemy as if they were experts in the field, but for some reason
unknown even to themselves, cloak in mysterious silence everything that is even remotely
attributed to Alchemy. These are the pseudo-alchemists. They have existed in times past and
are still with us today. About such we have little to say. Their attitude is self-explanatory and
proves only a hinderance to the sincere investigator.

As long as there is something noteworthy to investigate the first objective should be to

remove all that is irrelevant. This is no easy task. Much spurious information has been
integrated into alchemical writings which the reader is often reluctant to delete, whether out of
sheer veneration of the old alchemists or for some other reason. Contrary to the belief of
many, religious scruples are not the only factor. Scientific scruples are at times
overwhelmingly strong. Still there remains this intriguing question: "Is there really something
to Alchemy"? And the more one reads about Alchemy, - especially the practical laboratory
aspects - the more one becomes enthralled by its mystery. It is that which is unknown to us
that keeps us spellbound. Not only the claims but the testimony of those, some of whom have
paid with their lives because it was their most precious possession and they had refused to
divulge their secret to those whom they believed to be unworthy of such knowledge,
challenge the reader.

There is much omitted from the textbooks of the chemist and pharmacist which is to be found
in the annals of the alchemists. Granted, much of such inherited literature with its sometimes
weird and allegorical illustrations and archaic language is outmoded terminology, but this
should not prove to be an impossible obstacle. The mystery about alchemistical results is still
to be proven in our times, and its attached stigma of the mysterious to be removed. The
controversy over alchemy is very unlikely to be satisfied until one of its main claims, i.e. the
transmutation of the baser metals into gold, has been established once and for all. But will this
prove to be the end of the controversy or just the beginning of another era of investigation of
facets not formerly considered in the light of the knowledge brought forth? What about those
who are at present investigating other aspects of laboratory alchemy-let us say even the
medicinal field. Ecology may again take a turn for the better in the light of the knowledge
revealed to us through alchemical investigation. But how can this be accomplished? What are
the procedures to be followed? Who can tell us? Looking around we find few genuine
alchemists who can show us any proof, be it ever so little, of the different approach alchemy
requires to produce alchemistical results. Most literature available on Alchemy refers to those
who wrote centuries ago or at least in the past. One writer cites others to substantiate his own
beliefs grown into inner convictions and a longing for that solitary moment of tangible
manifestation.

Let us suppose this outer manifestation has been accomplished. Then what? Would alchemy
be proven per se? Not at all. Only one aspect would be revealed. Transmutation of a baser
metal into gold would have been established as proof of the validity of Alchemy. If this was
all that alchemy had to reveal it would be most disappointing. What could all the alchemically
produced gold buy? Health and happiness? Certainly not. At most it could help in the removal
of want and help to establish a higher standard of living among the peoples of our earth. It
would appear most unlikely that the only purpose of alchemy is transmutation of baser metals
into gold.

Again we will ask, "Why is so much emphasis placed on metallic transmutation?" A deeper
insight will show that alchemy is a method whereby the inherent potencies in a substance can
be freed and properly used for the betterment of external circumstances of mankind, and also
for the inner unfoldment and progression to a higher level of awareness. When a lesser
substance can be raised to a higher one, or better still, when an impure substance can be
transmuted into a more refined or pure one-as in a coarse metal - it would prove that the
potency found therein can also be applied to the mental elevation of man over his inherent
lower animalistic tendencies. Looked upon in this way, alchemistical literature can prove to
be a valuable contribution to the evolvement of mankind by revealing a superior knowledge at
present very little known and even less understood.

The following treatise by the learned Synesius, a Greek Abbot, is typical of such knowledge
that even in his time was shrouded in obscure language. It is intriguing to find that even in
early historical times profound chemical experiments took place requiring keen minds to
investigate things in a light still unknown to us.

Among the many tracts available to us most date back only about three centuries. By contrast
Synesius is said to have lived about four hundred years A.D. making him one of the earliest
writers who's style is comparatively plain compared with Geber, the Arabian, as well as with
other contemporaries. Some years ago Israel Regardie sent me a copy of "The True Book of
the Learned Synesius, A Greek Abbot, taken out of the Emperors Library, concerning the
Philosopher's Stone." He had written an introduction to the book. Had he not done so it is
questionable whether 1 should have selected this treatise which first appeared in the English
language in 1658 in London, England, for publication.

Israel Regardie's introduction gives a vivid picture of the prevailing times of our author,
provided it is a genuine treatise of Synesius. Regardie states in a point-blank manner: "So far
as 1 am concerned however, it does not matter a rap who really wrote the book. . . . What I am
interested in however, is a purely practical consideration."

To which we add our stamp of approval. - Frater Albertus

INTRODUCTION by lsrael Regardie

Synesius, the author of this text, was born during the fourth century A.D., at Cyrene,
a Greek colony in Africa. His environment was the lurid world of Gnosticism and
NeoPlatonism. Various forms of mystical thought, some outrageous in the fantastic
proportions they reached, were openly flourishing in the intellectual center of the
Western world of that day, Alexandria. It was about 311 B.C. that there Alexander the
Great had founded his colony. Almost immediately the little community had
established a Ptolemaic school of philosophy where the prevailing ideas, modified by
later influences, were essentially Platonic and Aristotelian.

From her founding, the city had been the heir and protector of a stern philosophy.
Gradually she had become rich and commercial, very worldly and very attractive.
Because of her wisely chosen situation on the coast and because of the canal
system by which the product of upper Egypt found an outlet to the sea, the city
became very significant and important. That is, she developed into the port through
which flowed the riches of the Mediterranean cities, of India, and of the fertile granary
of the Nile Valley. Each consignment contributed its toil in commissions and duties to
her merchant princes and to the city government. In consequence, wealth had so
accumulated there that, within one or two hundred years after the date of her
foundation, there had arisen already many famous buildings, including the celebrated
library.

She was a cosmopolitan city. We would have found there many racial divisions, with
many and diverse interests. A large native population crowded certain districts-a
native population which still held to the world of the ancient Egyptian gods and
beliefs. In the northeast, another section was set off as the Jewish quarter, where we
would have seen a motley crowd of Hebrew traders and merchants and scholars. An
unyielding Jellovistic faith struggled with an advancing world for right of continuance.
From the date of the martyrdom of St. Mark, the Christian infiltration had been
making gradually increasing progress both from the numerical and social points of
view. Greeks, Jews, Egyptians and the Christians - each perhaps differing from the
other in many ways, with nevertheless an agreement in one particular at least. They
agreed on the religious particular of the existence of God. Though here, even in this
single agreement, were several important theological differences based on racial
temperament and varying psychological needs.

The craze of the time, possibly a deep and urgent psychological necessity in view of
the insecure nature of social and political life, comparable in many ways to the
present day, was a syncretism. The Pauline attempt of some three hundred years
earlier to wed Greek thought to Jewish messianism by means of an intellectual or
spiritual vision is a particular instance of that tendency. Everywhere, and on every
hand, people were extravagantly undertaking synthetical combinations of all the
existent religions, cults and philosophies. It was a mad, confused world this, just prior
to the ultimate victory of Church authority over independent inspiration and religious
experience, in anticipation of the complete extinction of intellectual effort and spirit
initiative in the Dark Ages.

Synesius was educated in all that characterized NeoPlatonism. It is evident that

some of his writings, the essay De Insomniis for example, were profoundly influenced
by Plotinus. Later however, he evolved to the viewpoint that his personal pagan
philosophy was not necessarily incompatible with Christianity. He was a man of great
determination and many talents, with a robust common sense. Synesius was not in
reality a mystic, even although a strain of mysticism peers out here and there from
his writing. Historically he appears to us rather as of a very positive extraverted
character. The role of philosopher was one which, perhaps in moments of over-
ambition and aspiration, he had imposed upon himself, guided more by personal
predilection than by inherent capacity. It is difficult to imagine that it was one
assigned to him by nature. Such a role, it is evident to us now, rested upon a very
fragile and shallow foundation. As a bishop, he was militant, and a deep patriot. But
he was neither a profound nor an original thinker, as is evidenced by his essays and
letters. The volume The Essays and Hymns of Synesius, edited and introduced by A.
Fitzgerald, and published by the Oxford University Press, is ample proof of this
assumption. He was, in fact, something of a dilettante, a man moderately well-versed
in the culture of his age. The charm of his writing rests in the intimate contact and
sympathy that his writings establish with the reader, rather than in any spontaneity or
originality of thought or expression.

I have written thus far about Synesius and his milieu to convey some slight picture of
the bishop of Ptolemais who is supposed to have been the author of this text. Quite
apart from the intrinsic evidence of the writing which I propose to examine soon, it is
more or less obvious that Synesius of Cyrene, a Christian abbot during the fourth
century, could nbt have been its author. The nature of his very few extant writings as
evidenced by the volumes I have cited above, depict him as of another nature than a
writer on alchemy.

Scholarship maintains that whilst he occasionally wrote in a mystical vein he himself

was no mystic. And this is not difficult to understand. A more or less educated man of
today would unwittingly express himself, should he essay expression in writing, in the
scientific and conventional cliches of our time. This would not necessarily indicate
that this person was a scientist - a logical empiricist. In such of his literary output as
we possess, we clearly may detect the strains of Platonism and NeoPlatonism in
addition to the predominant Christian feeling. He was simply expressing himself in
the ideology and intellectual cliches of his age. But that is to say quite another thing
than that such a man could have been capable of writing alchemical obscurities.

Yet at the same time, another viewpoint is most certainly not impossible. I do not
wish to be a partisan. A critic, above all, must be impartial, weighing such evidence,
large or otherwise, as makes its way into his ken. We know that the jargon of
alchemy is one that has persisted more or less in the same basic form throughout the
centuries. Greek alchemy displays fairly much the same characteristics as later
European alchemy. Chinese texts, au fond, are very similar to those of Byzantium
and of India, of Persia and Arabia. It is not at all impossible that in Alexandria of
Synesius' day were alchemists and alchemical writers. It is not even impossible,
though this we do not definitely know, that he himself had met them and had been
influenced by them. In fact,) it is highly probable that he did. But speculation will tell
us nothing of this, and I must not force the issue. It simply makes it very difficult to
determine the author of the text, if such determination is considered important.
The entire evidence presented makes me feel dubious in accepting Synesius as the
author of The True Book. Actually, the message conveyed by the title itself - that it is
the true book of the abbot, having been taken or stolen out of the Emperor's library -
by the mere fact of its insistence arouses suspicion that all is not well. The emphasis,
it seems to me on psychological grounds, is slightly overdone. It is as though a
psychotic with marked paranoic symptoms were to walk into a psychiatric consulting
room and say, without prompting or justification "Oh no. I was not really being
followed here. I don't actually believe I am being spied upon." Suspicion would
immediately be aroused by such spontaneous and uninvited denial. You would
wonder why it was necessary to give assurance in advance of the absence of
paranoic symptomatology. Likewise here. The title alone would have been enough -
sufficiently interesting or convincing by itself - without having had to add that it had
been taken from the Emperor's library.

There are, furthermore, several references to alchemical authorities of a much later

age. A former colleague of mine, a scholar with a profound and unrivalled knowledge
of alchemical literature and history, does not believe however that such references
necessarily prove the spurious nature of the text. It is his contention that these
alchemical manuscripts may have been privately distributed and circulated for
generations. It may well have been that some overzealous owner of the text in, let us
say, the fourteenth century, interpolated quotations from alchemical writings of his
day in order to buttress up his own belief in the art. In so doing, he failed to recognize
that he had almost completely ruined an authentic text of an earlier age.

Be that as it may, the treatise mentions Geber twice, and Alphidius once. The date of
Geber, the Arabian prince alchemist, is difficult to place. It ranges anywhere from the
sixth to the tenth century. We may therefore hazard a safe guess in the assumption
that he lived about the eighth century. Alphidius dates considerably later. If we accept
the theory that there may have been an original Greek manuscript written by the
abbot Synesius in which several centuries afterwards interpolations were inserted -
and this of course may never be proved - then we are obliged to consider The True
Book of the Learned Synesius as having an origin at the earliest in the thirteenth
century, or it may be a little later. Some may feel inclined to posit the theory that
Synesius was gifted with prevision.

Who the author of this was, we do not really know. His modesty in bestowing the
fruits of his pen and the cloak Of his erudition on a NeoPlatonic abbot defeats us in
our search into origins. But whoever he was, he must have felt that the system he
was attempting to delineate had certain points of contact with that espoused by
Synesius. Otherwise, why should he have taken the trouble to mention Synesius by
name? Why not Plotinus or lamblichus - or any one of the host of celebrities who, so
far as the authority of mere name values is concerned, might have answered to his
purpose equally? Possibly his name was chosen to render the work more acceptable
to those of the Christian faith. Nevertheless, when attempting to widen our
understanding of this treatise, we must remember this allusion to the doctrines of
NeoPlatonism, where we are confronted with fundamental religious doctrines.

So far as the actual text and its bibliography is concerned, there is little to say. In the
year 1678, the first English edition was published in London, as may be seen by the
imprint on the title page reproduced herein. The True Book of Synesius, in that
edition, was inconspicuously tucked away at the back of a much larger and better
known alchemical treatise by Basil Valentine, The Triumphant Chariot of Antimony
with annotations by Theodore Kerkringius, M.D. Prior to this, the most easily
accessible copy of the text was a Latin version, one edition of which was published
from Amsterdam in 1671. The French edition appeared in Paris in the year 1612, in a
volume entitled Traites de la Philosophie, etc. Whether or not there was a Greek
original from which the Latin and French editions were rendered is open to question.
There is so little trustworthy evidence of any kind that one hesitates to express any
opinion. For sooner or later, some of the larger libraries in Europe, in which ancient
manuscripts have resided for long centuries without being poured over and
distributed by inquisitive minds and roaming hands, may be opened to research and
investigation, if they are not previously destroyed by vandals. Possibly then some
sort of original text may come to light. Meanwhile I am inclined to doubt that there is
an original Greek text, for the style and tenor betray quite a late period of expression.

So far as I personally am concerned however, it does not matter a rap who really
wrote the book. This matter may be left to scholars of the future to decide. Why
should we be bothered about abstract problems of this type? What I am interested in
however, is a purely practical consideration. That is to say, is there anything in this
text which is of any importance to us? I claim there is.

I may as well take my stand here at the outset, and express my fundamental
platform. It is my contention that alchemical writing is of a peculiar type. It belongs to
that vast realm of expression which has a close kinship with mythology, religion,
poetry and dreams. In a word, it is material that has issued from the hidden depths of
man's unconscious psyche. Not only so, but I believe that we can learn a very great
deal from it. The alchemists have much to give us.. If we are humble and receptive,
there is much that we may obtain - information by way of a psychological technique
of psychic integration and illumination that make our modern therapeutic systems
look like the dabblings of triflers and dilettantes. So serious am I in this belief, and so
convinced am I from prolonged investigation of this branch of knowledge and its
application above all to my own psychological practice, that I propose to examine this
text of Synesius in terms of the general principles underlying its assumptions.
Whether Synesius wrote it or not, is unimportant. What Synesius or the real author
has said, that for me is significant. It is this inner kernel of value that I have always
sought irrespective of where it was that the search has led me. And here in The True
Book there are discoveries to be made. I should like to share the book with other
minds of equal eagerness and intentness and open earnest heart.
 THE TRUE BOOK
OF THE LEARNED
GREEK ABBOT
SYNESIUS
TAKEN OUT OF THE
EMPEROURS' LIBRARY

Though the Ancient Philosophers have written diversly of this science,

concealing under a multitude of names the true principles of the Art; yet have
they not done it but upon important considerations as we shall hereafter make
appear. And though they are different in their expressions, yet are they not any
way discordant one from another, but ayming all at one end, and speaking of
the same thing, they have thought fit (above all the rest) to name the proper
Agent, by a term, strange, nay sometimes contrary to its nature and qualities.

Know then, my Son, that almighty God together with this Universe, created two
Stones, that is to say, the White and the Red, both which are under one and the
same subject, and afterwards multiplied in such abundance, that everyone may
take as much as he please thereof. The matter of thein is of such a kind, that it
seems to be a mean between Metal and Mercury, and is partly fixed and partly
not fixed, otherwise is could not be a mean betwixt Metals and Mercury.; and
this matter is the instrument whereby our desire is accomplished, if we do but
prepare it. Hence it comes that those who bestow their endeavors in this Art
without the said medium, lose their labour, but if they are acquainted with the
Medium, they shall find all things feasible and fortunate. Know then that this
Medium, being aerial, is found among the celestial Bodies, and that it is onely
there are found the Masculine and Feminine Gender, (to speak properly) having
a constant, strong, fixed and permanent Virtue, of the essence whereof (as I
have told thee) Philosophers have expressed themselves only by Similitudes
and Figures. This they did, that the science might not be discovered by the
Ignorant, which if it should once happen, all were lost: but that it might be
comprehended only by those patient souls, and subtilized understandings,
which being sequestred from the soyliness of this world, are cleansed from the
filth of that terrene dunghil of Avarice, whereby the ignorant are chained to the
earthiness of this World, which is (without this admirable quintessence) the
receptacle of poverty; it being certain, that those divine souls, when they have
div'd into Democritus's Fountain, that is to say, into the truth of Nature, would
soon discover what confusion might happen in all estates and conditions, if
everyone could make as much Gold as he would himself * Upon this ground
was it that they were pleased to speak by figures, types, and analogies, that so
they might not be understood but by such as are discreet, religious, and
enlightened by (divine) Wisdome. All which notwithstanding, they have left in
their writings a certain method, way and rule, by the assistance whereof the
wise man may comprehend whatever they have written most obscurely, and in
time arrive at the knowledge of it, though haply wading through some error, as
I have done, praised be God for it. And whereas the Vulgar ignorant person
ought to submit to these reasons, and consequently adore, what is too great,
to enter into his Brain, he on the contrary accuses the Philosophers of
imposture and impiety, by which means, and the scarcity of wise men, the Art
falls into contempt.
But for my part, I tell thee, they have always expressed themselves according
to certain Truth, though very obscure ly, and sometimes fabulously, all which I
have discipher'd in this little Treatise, and after such a manner that the earnest
desirer of Science shall understand what hath been mystically delivered by the
Philosophers. And yet if he pretend to understand me and know not the nature
of the Elements and things created, as also our rich Metal, he doth but lose his
Labour: but if he understand the Concord and Discord of Natures, he will by
God's assistance arrive to the rest? It is therefore my suit to God, that he who
shall understand the present Secret may work to the glory and praise of the
sacred Divinity.

Know then my dear Son, that the ignorant man cannot comprehend the secret
of the Art, because it depends upon the Knowledge of the true Body, which is
hidden from him. Know then, my Son, pure and impure, the clean and unclean
Natures, for there cannot come from any thing that which it hath not. For
things, that are not or have not, cannot give but their own Nature. make use
then of that which is most perfect and nearest in kind, thou shalt meet with,
and it shall suffice. Avoid then that which is mixt, and take the simple, for that
proceeds from the Quintessence. Note that we have two bodies of very great
perfection, full of Mercury: Out of these extract thy Mercury, and of that thou
shalt make the Medicine, called by some Quintessence, which is a Vertue or
Power that is imperishable, permanent, and perpetually victorious, nay it is a
clear Light, which sheds true goodness into every Soul that hath once tasted of
it. It is the knot and link of all the Elements, which it contains in itself, as being
also the Spirit which nourisheth all things, and by the assistance whereof
Nature works in the Universe. It is the force, the beginning and end of the
whole work, and to lay all open to thee in a word, know, that the Quintessence
and the hidden things of our Stone is nothing else than our viscous, celestial
and glorious Soul drawn by our Magistery out of its Mine, which engenders
itself, and that it is not possible for us to make that water by Art, but Nature
alone begets it, and that water is the most sharp Vinegar, which makes Gold to
be a pure spirit, nay it is that blessed Nature which engenders all things, which
through its putrefaction is become a Triunity, and by reason of its Viridity
causes an appearance of diverse colours. And I advise thee, my Son, make no
account of any other things, (as being vain,) labour only for that water, which
burns to blackness, whitens, dissolves and congeals. It is that which putrifies,
and causes germination, and therefore I advise thee, that thou wholly employ
thyself in the decoction of this water, and quarrel not at the expence of time,
otherwise thou shalt have no advantage. Decoct it, gently by little and little,
until it have changed its false colour into a perfect, and have a great care at the
beginning that thou burn not its Flowers and its vivacity, and make not too
much hast to come to an end of thy work. Shut thy Vessel well, that what is
within may not breathe out, and so thou mayst bring it to some effect. And
note, that to dissolve, to calcine, to tinge, to whiten, to renew, to bath, to wash,
to coagulate, to imbibe, to decoct, to fix, to grind, to dry, and to distil, are all
one, and signify no more than to concoct Nature, until such time as it be
perfect. Note further that to extract the soul, or the spirit, or the body, is
nothing else than the above said Calcinations, in regard they signify the
operation of Venus. It is therefore through the fire of the extraction of the soul
that the spirit comes forth gently, understand me. The same may also be said
of the extraction of the soul out of the Body, and the reduction of it afterwards
upon the same Body, until the whole be drawn to a commixtion of all the four
Elements. And so that which is below, is like that which is above, and
consequently there are made therein two luminaries, the one fixt the other not,
whereof the fix'd remains below, and the. volatile above, moving it self
perpetually, until that which is below, which is the male, get upon the female,
and all be fixed, and then issues out an incomparable Luminary. And as in the
beginning, there was onely one, so in this Matter, all proceeds from one and
returns to one, which is called a conversion of the Elements, and to convert the
Elements, is as much as to make the humiddry, and the volatile fixed, that so
that which is thick may be made thin, and weaken the thing that fixeth the rest,
the fixative part of the thing remaining entire. Thus happens the life and death
of the Elements, which composed, germinate and produce, and so one thing
perfects another, and assists it to oppose the Fire.

The True Book

THE PRACTICE

My Son it is necessary that thou work with the Mercury of the Philosophers and the
wise, which is not the Vulgar, nor bath anything of the Vulgar, but, according to them,
is the first Matter, the Soul of the World, the cold Element, the blessed Water, the
Water of the Wise, the Venemous Water, the most sharp Vinegar, the Mineral Water,
the Water of celestial grace, the Virgin Milk, our Mineral and corporeal Mercury. For
this alone perfects both the stones, the White and the Red. Consider what Geber
sayes, that our Art consists not in the multitude of several things, because the
Mercury is but one only thing, that is to say, one only Stone wherein consists the
whole Magistery; to which thou shalt not add any strange thing, save that in the
preparation thereof thou shalt take away from it whatsoever is superfluous, by reason
that in this matter, all things requisite to this Art are contained. And therefore it is very
observable that he saies, we must add nothing that is strange, save the Sun and
Moon for the red and white Tincture, which are not strange (to it) but are its Ferment.
by which the work is accomplished. Lastly, mark my Son, that these Suns and Moons
are not the same with the Vulgar Gold and Silver, for that our Suns and Moons are
better in their nature than the Vulgar Suns and Moons. For our Suns and Moons are
in their nature living, and those of the Vulgar are dead in comparison of ours, which
are existent and permanent in our Stone. Whence thou mayest observe that the
Mercury drawn out of our Bodies, is like the aqueous and common Mercury, and for
that reason enjoys itself and takes pleasure in its like, and is more glad of its
company, as it happens in the simple and compound, which thing hath not been
discovered by the Philosophers in their Books. And the advantage therefore which is
in this Art, lies in the Mercury, Sun and Moon. Diomedes saith, make use of such a
matter as to which thou must not introduce any strange thing, neither pouder nor
water, for that several things do not improve our Stone, and thereby he sufficiently
instructs him, who understands him, that the tincture of our Stone is not drawn from
any thing but the Mercury of the Philosoph ers; which is their principle, their root, and
their great Tree, sprouting forth into boughs and branches.
The First Operation

SUBLIMATION

It is not Vulgar but Philosophical whereby we take away from the Stone whatever is
superfluous, which, in effect is nothing else, but the elevation of the not-fixed part by
fume and vapor, for the fixed part should remain in the bottom, nor would we that one
should be separated from the other, but that they remain and be fixed together. Know
also that he, who shall sublime our Philosophical Mercury (wherein is all the vertue of
our Stone) as it ought to be done, shall perfect the Magistery. This gave Geber
reason to say that all perfection consists in Sublimation, and in this Sublimation all
other operations, that is to say, Distillation, Assation, Destruction, Coagulation,
Putrefaction, Calcination, Fixation, Reduction of the White and Red Tinctures,
procreated and engendered in one furnace and in one Vessel, and this is the ready
way to the final Consummation, whereof the Philosophers have made divers
chapters, purposely to amuse the Ignorant.

Take then in the name of the great God, the venerable matter of the Philosophers,
called the first Hyle of the Sages, which contains the above named Philosophical
Mercury, termed, the first matter of the perfect Body, put it into its Vessel, which must
be clear, diaphanous and round, and closely stopped by the Seal of Seals, and make
it hot in its place, well-prepared, with temperate heat, for the space of a Philosophical
Month, keeping it six weeks and two days in the sweat of Sublimation until it begins
to be putrefyed, to ferment, to be coloured and to be congealed with its metallick
humidity, and be fixed so far, that it do no more ascend in aiery fumous substance,
but remain fixed in the bottom, turned from what it was, and divested of all viscous
humidity, putrefyed and black, which is called the sable Robe, Night, or the
Croweshead. Thus when our stone is in the vessel, and that it mounts up on high in
fume, this is called Sublimation, and when it falls down from on high, Distillation, and
Descension. When it begins to participate of the fumous substance, and to be
putrefyed, and that by reason of the frequent ascent and descent it begins to
coagulate, then it is Putrefaction and devouring Sulphur, and lastly through the want
or privation of the humidity of the radical water is wrought Calcination and Fixation
both at the same time, by decoction alone, in one onely Vessel, as I have already
said. Moreover in this sublimation is wrought the true separation of the Elements, for
in our Sublimation the Elixir is turned from Water into a terrestrial Element dry and
hot, by which operation it is manifest, that the separation of the four Elements in our
Stone is not Vulgar but Philosophical. Hence also is it, that in our Stone there are but
two formal Elements, that is to say, Earth and Water; but the Earth hath in its
grossness, the virtue and drought of Fire; and the Water contains in it self the air with
its humidity. Thus we have in our Stone visibly but two elements, but effectually there
are four. And by this thou maist judge, that the separation of the four Elements is
absolutely physical not vulgar and real, such as the ignorant daily employ themselves
in. Continue therefore its decoction with a gentle fire, until all the black matter
appearing in the superficies be quite dissipated by the Magistery, which blackness is
by the Philosophers called the dark mantle of the Stone, which afterwards becoming
clear is termed the cleansing water oi the earth, or rather the Elixir. And note, that the
blackness which appears is a sign of putrefaction. And the beginning of the
dissolution is a sign of the conjunction of both Natures. And this blackness appears
sometimes in forty dayes, more or less, according to the quantity of the matter, and
the industry of the Operator, which contributes much to the separation of the said
Blackness. Now my Son, by the grace of God thou art acquainted with one Element
of our Stone, which is the black earth, the Raven's head, by some called the obscure
shadow, upon which earth as upon a base all the rest is grounded. This terrestrial
and dry Element, is called, Laton, the Bull, black Dreggs, our Metall, our Mercury.
And thus by the privation of the adust humidity, which is taken away by Philosophical
sublimation, the volatile is fixed, and the moist is made dry and earth; nay, according
to Geber, there is wrought a change of the complexion, as of a cold and humid
Nature, into dry choler; and according to Alphidius, of a liquid into a thick. Whence is
apprehended what the Philosophers mean when they say, that the operation of our
Stone is only a transmutation of Nature and a revolution of Elements. Thou seest
then how that by this incorporation the humid becomes dry, the volatile fixed, the
Spiritual corporeal, the liquid thick, water fire, air earth, and that there happens an
infallible change in their true nature, and a certain circulation of the four Elements.

The Second Operation

DEALBATION: To make White.

It converts our Mercury into the white Stone, and that by decoction only. When the
earth is separated from its water, then must the Vessel be set on the Ashes, as is
usual in a distilling furnace, and the water be distilled by a gentle fire at the
beginning, so that the water come so gently that thou mayst distinctly number as far
as forty names, or pronounce fifty six words, and let this order be observed in all the
distillations of the black earth, and that which is in the bottom of the Vessel, that is,
the Feces remaining to be imbided, with the new water, will be dissolved, which
water will contain three or four parts more than those Feces, that so all may be
dissolved and converted into Mercury and Argent vive. I tell thee that this must be
done so often, that there shall remain nothing but the Murc. For this distillation there
is no time limited, but it is done sooner or later according to the greater or lesser
quantity of the water, proportionably to the quantity of the fire. Then take the earth
which thou shalt have reserved in a Vessel of Glass, with its distilled water, and with
a soft and gentle fire, such as was that of Distillation, or purification, or rather one
somewhat stronger, continue it, till such time as the earth be dry and white, and by
reason of its drought, drunk up all its water. This done, put to it some of the
abovesaid water, and so, as at the beginning, continue on the same decoction, until
that earth is become absolutely white, cleansed and clear, and have drunk all its
water. And note that the said earth will be washed from its blackness by the
decoction, as I have said, because it is easily putrefyed by its own water, and is
cleansed, which is the end of the Magistery, and then be sure to keep that white
earth very carefully. For that is the White Mercury, White Magnesia, Foliated earth.
Then take this white earth rectified as abovesaid, and put it into its vessel upon the
ashes, to a fire of Sublimation, and let it have a very strong fire until all the
coagulated water, which is within, come into the Alembick, and the earth remain in
the bottom well calcined: then hast thou the earth, the water, and the air, and though
the earth have in it the nature of the fire, yet is it not apparent in effect, as thou shalt
see, when by a greater decoction thou shalt make it become red; so that then thou
shalt manifestly see the fire in appearance, and such must be the proceeding in order
to Fermentation of the white earth, that the dead body may be animated and
enlivened, and its vertue be multiplyed to infinity. But note, that the Ferment cannot
enter into the dead body, but by the means of the water, which hath made a contract
and a marriage between the Ferment and the white earth. And know that in all
Fermentation the weight is to be considered.) that so the quantity of the volatile
exceed not the fixed, and that the marriage pass away in fume. For, as Senior sayes,
if thou convert not the earth into water, and the water into fire, there cannot be a
conjunction of the spirit and body. To do this take a Lamen or plate red hot and cast
on it a drop of our Medicine, which penetrating, it shall be of a perfect colour, and will
be a sign of perfection. If it happen it do not tinge, reiterate the dissolution and
coagulation, until it do tinge and penetrate. And note, that seven imbibitions, at the
most, are sufficient, and five at the least, that so the matter may be liquifyed, and
without smoak, and then the matter is perfect as to whiteness, for as much as the
matter sometimes requires a longer time to be fixed, and sometimes is done in a
shorter, according to the quantity of the Medicine. And note that our Medicine from
the creation of our Mercury requires the term of seven months to compass the
whiteness, and, to arrive at the redness, five; which put together make twelve. Of the
Third Operation

RUBIFICATION
Take of the white Medicine, as much as thou wilt, and put it with its Glass upon the
hot ashes, till it becomes as dry as the ashes. Then put to it some water of the Sun,
which thou hast kept purposely for that end, and continue the fire to the second
degree, until it become dry, then put to it again some of the abovesaid water, and so
successively imbibe and dry, until the matter be rubified, and fluxible as wax, and
cover with it the red Lamen, as hath been said, and the matter shall be perfect as to
redness. But note that at every time, thou needst put no more of the water of the Sun
than is barely necessary to cover the body, and this is done that the Elixir sink not
and be drowned, and so the fire must be continued unto dessication, and then must
there be made a second imbibition, and so proceed in order to the perfection of the
Medicine., that is to say, until the force of the digestion of the fire convert it into a very
red pouder, which is the true Hyle of the Philosophers, the bloody Stone, the purple
red Coral, the precious Ruby, red Mercury and the red Tincture.

PROJECTION
The oftner thou shalt dissolve and coagulate it, the more will the Vertue of it be
multiplied to infinity. But note that the medicine is multiplied later by Solution, then by
Fermentation. Wherefore the thing dissolved operates not well, if it be not before
fixed in its ferment. Nevertheless the multiplication of the Medicine by solution is
more abundant than that of the Ferment, by reason there is more subtilization. Yet I
advise thee that in the multiplication thou put one part of the work upon four of the
other, and in a short time there will be made a pouder, all Ferment.

THE EPILOGUE ACCORDING TO HERMES

Thus art thou to separate the earth from the fire, the gross from the subtil gently, with
great Judgment, that is to say, separate the parts that are united to the Furnace, by
the dissolution and separation of the parts, as the earth from the fire, the subtile from
the gross &c., that is to say, the more pure substance of the Stone, until thou hast got
it clean, and free from all spots or filth. And when he saith, it ascends from the earth
up into Heaven and returns again into the earth, there is no more to, be understood
by it than the Sublimation of the Bodies. Further, to explain what distillation is, he
 sayes the Wind carryes it in its belly, that is, when the water is distilled by the
Alembick, where it first ascends by a wind full of Fume and Vapour, and afterwards
returns to the bottom of the Vessel in water again. When he would also express the
congelation of the matter, he says, Its force is absolute, if it be turned into earth, that
is to say, be converted by decoction. And to make a general demonstration of all halt
been said, he sayes, It shall receive both the inferior and Superior force, that is to say
that of the Elements, for as much as, if the Medicine receive the force of the lighter
parts, that is to say, air and fire, it shall also receive that of the more grave and
weighty parts, changing itself into water and earth, to the end, that the Matters being
thus perpetually joined together, may have permanence, durance, constancy, and
stability. Glory be to God.
FINIS.
 Circulatum minus Urbigeranum

OR THE PHILOSOPHICAL ELIXIR OF

VEGETABLES
WITH
The Three certain Ways of Preparing it, fully and clearly set forth
in One and Thirty

APHORISMS

By Baro Urbigerus

A Servant of God in the Kingdom of Nature.

Experto Crede.

LONDON,
Printed for Henry Fairborne, at the Rose
in St. Paul's Church-yard, 1690.

c. 1973 PARA PUBLISHERS

P. 0. BOX 2225
CUSTOM HOUSE STATION
SAN FRANCISCO, CALIFORNIA 94126
 INTRODUCTION

In the "Collectanae Chemicae"* (JAMES ELLIOT & CO., 1983, London,

England) mention is made by the author of the Philosophical Stone about a
treatise written about the "little work, or the preparation of the Herbal Stone
in these words:

"Very few of the true philosophers have touched upon this subject, for it
seemed trifling in respect to the great work, as the process in metals is
generally termed; but there is a modern publication in English, a small thin
duodecimo, without any author's name, having for its title "Aphorismi, seu
Circulus majus et Circulus minus, wherein the whole process is plainly laid
down."

Hardly anything is known about this, since it was customary not to reveal
the identity of individuals who were responsible for publishing works of such
controversal nature. The reader should not forget that in Centuries gone
Alchemy was also ridiculed, as in our own days, especially by those whose
knowledge was based mostly on book learning and very little practical
experience. Be it as it may, considerable speculation has been going on as
to who the author of the "Aphorisms" was, or could have been. Since this
treatise was in existence when the Collectanae Chemicae was compiled,
there would have to be a close proximity to the dates of publication. This in
itself would not necessarily prove to be correct, as in the compilation of the
Collectanae Chemica not all writers of the various treatises, which it
contains, did write them at the same time. What is of interest to students of
Alchemy is the fact that not much is available on the little work, or Opus
Minor, as it is called in Latin. On the other hand enormous literary efforts
have been made when it came to the work on metals, or the "Opus Major",
the great work, that described how to make the Philosopher's Stone. Efforts
to explain how to cope with such a delicate undertaking were not always
successful. Too much emphasis was placed on archaic language and weird
illustrations which gave imagination free reign and got lost in the most
impossible realms of speculation. Yet, when it came to get some
instructions on the spagyric herbal work, our authors, - heaven knows for
what reasons - acted just as mysterious. It is safe to say that one of the
plainest methods on how to prepare the stone of the vegetation is given in
the Collectanae Chemica. Nevertheless, it needs some corroboration,
especially since the author thereof mentions this treatise of the "Aphorism",
as being worthy of the attention of alchemistical students and practioners. It
was stressed, rightfully enough, that the process is given by way of
Aphorism with an admonition that, if one knows what the author refers to,
the process described is very plain. All in all there are thirty-one sections.
Each supposedly to give an outline if not concrete directions on how to
produce the opus minor. To locate a copy of these Aphorisms is another
thing, as can be seen since very little is known of its author, and no mention
of any other name is made or even hinted at.

It seems that dame fortune has been good to me through help from above
this would be the language used by former Alchemists - because before me
lies the following, entitled: "APHORISMI." On the inside it says: Licensed
January 13, 1689/90. Rob. Midgley

What follows are some ninety-nine sections, it would not be correct to call
them chapters, because of their brevity, telling the reader by way of
Aphorism how to make the Stone of the Philosophers. The second part of
this treatise is the preparation of the Herbal Stone.

About the Author we do not know anything, except that the name Urbigerani
could be a changing of Urbiger, which would let us assume that he was of
Teutonic origin. To let the reader get a better idea of the man who wrote
this, here follows the exact wording of the title page given above:

To Our DEAR DISCIPLES, Honor'd COADEPTS, And All WELL-WISHERS

To Our HERMETIC ART

"Finding you, dear Sons, who have thro our means attain'd to the true
knowledge of our first Matter, worthy to receive our farther Instructions in
the remainder of the Process, to extirpate all such Ambiguities, as you may
have conceiv'd in our Absence, to facilitate your Labors, and to precaution
you in the bringing your Work to its highest Perfection, We here, according
to your desire, expose to you, and for your Sakes, to the Public, all the most
infallible Rules, necessary for preventing of Errors in this great Undertaking.
And tho you, ever-honor'd Coadepts, could never yet so far prevail on
yourselves, as to come to a Resolution of presenting the World with the full
Practice of this our Art, joined to the Theory, we are nevertheless most
certain, that we shall not receive any Reprimand from you for bringing to
light these our Rules, which we have so penn'd, that even those, who know
not our Person, will not only soon perceive, that all, we have written, is the
real Truth, clearly exhibiting both the Theory and Practice of the whole
Hermetic Art, but also conclude that these Operations must of necessity
have very often pass'd thro our own hands, from our giving such positive
Rules, and infallible Instructions, elucidating all the most obscure and
intricate Enigms of the Philosophers, and warning them of all the Accidents,
that may happen in the working of our Subject: We are, we say, confident,
you neither will, nor can blame us for this: since you will easily discern, that
our Design is purely to instruct our Disciples, and prevent all the Well-
wishers to this most noble Art from being impos'd upon, and cheated, by
any false pretended Adept: to the end that those, who shall from the Divine
Benignity, by the help of these our Aphorisms, or otherwise, have received
the blessed knowledge of our first Matter, which is the very same in all our
three ways of producing the grand Elixir, may thro these our certain Rules
obtain the accomplishment of their Desires.

"Having in our Travels fortuned to meet with some Persons of true

Principles in Philosophy and Religion, we could not but embrace them, and
instruct them towards its farther Perfection, which cannot be attained
without the true knowledge of our Celestial Art, by which comprehending all
the Mystery of Mysteries, we learn also how to serve God in Faith and
Truth. And since we have no Obligation to any living Soul for the
knowledge, we possess, having attained it all by the only Blessing of
Almighty God on our Industry and Expenses: being therefore at more liberty
than those, who receive such a Favor from us, or some other Adept, 'tis our
Determination, whenever, we meet with Persons so qualified, always to do
the same. Wherefore being at present in England, tho we are no Native of
this Kingdom, we think it necessary to set forth these our Aphorisms in the
English Tongue, not in the least doubting, but that the Knowing, minding
only the Sense, will easily pardon any Impropriety, they may find in our
Expressions: and when Providence shall carry us into any other Country,
we, having attained to some competent knowledge of most European
Languages, shall again take care to publish them in the Speech of the
Place, where we shall be, that we may the sooner obtain the effect of our
Desires, which aim at nothing, but the undeceiving of the World by setting
down certain and evident Marks. distinguishing the Worthy from. the
Unworthy, and at the bringing of Men to leave their unnecessary Forms, by
instructing them in the true way of Serving God, being the only means to
render them happy both in this World, and the next."

My assumption that Urbiger could have been German, finds some

additional support, in his statement that he is no Englishman. It is
questionable if the Reader, especially those who are not too familiar with
Alchemistical terminology, could get much from these obscure writings
without some help from those who are actively engaged in the Hermetic
work. As the name indicates, Hermetic means tightly sealed; some help to
breach a tight seal is not unwelcome in such cases as this.

It should be clearly understood that any attempt to shed some light on these
Aphorisms is purely arbitrary. Since everyone has a right to his or her own
interpretation there is no intention or suggestion that my attempt to shed
some help in the form of an attached commentary is the last word. Those
versed in alchemistical lore will know if my attempts are justified. That is
also the reason why I have attached only a very brief commentary to the
vegetable process, and none to the Opus Major. Commentary on the Opus
Major will have to be looked for in some of my other writings. -Frater
Albertus

(101 Aphorisms on the Great Work to be added p7 - 33)

TO ALL TRUE LOVERS OF THE HERMETIC PHILOSOPHY

Having in our Precedent Aphorisms clearly delivered such infallible Rules

and Instructions, as are necessary for producing our Grand Elixir, or
Circulatum Majus, the only real Secret of the true Adepts, commanding in
all the Kingdoms of Nature, which will, we question not, be no less pleasing
to all other lovers of Sciences. than to our Disciples; and being farther
inclined fully to inform them, how to preserve themselves and others in
perfect Health by obviating any Distemper, that may otherwise overcome
them, before they can attain to the Accomplishment of their Desires: We
have thought it convenient to impart likewise to them our three several ways
of making our Vegetable Elixir, or Circulatum minus, which may be
prepared, and brought to its utmost Perfection in the space of a
Philosophical Month by any skilful Artist, who shall comprehend and follow
our certain Directions, laid down in these our subsequent Aphorisms, where
the whole Work is so evidently demonstrated, that none, who is ever so little
versed in Chymistry, can be liable to mistake. Nor do we any way doubt, but
all those, who shall with a sincere and upright Intention peruse these our
plainly-written Aphorisms. will find themselves obliged to bless Almighty
God for his infinite Mercy in having inspired us to open their Eyes, that they
may see, what is requisite for their present Health, and future Happiness,
both which we heartily wish to every one. who, as becomes a true
Philosopher, unfeignedly loves God and his Neighbor.

Circulatum minus Urbigeranum,

Or The
PHILOSOPHICAL ELIXIR
Of
VEGETABLES,
With
THE THREE CERTAIN WAYS OF PREPARING IT.

Our Circulatum minus is only a specificated Elixir, belonging to the

Vegetable Kingdom, by which without any Fire, or farther Preparation of the
Vegetables, we can in a Moment extract their true Essence, containing their
Virtue, Quality, and Property: which is a great Chymical Curiosity,
performing Wonders in the Practice of Physick, and in demonstrating some
Works of Nature.

II

We call it Circulatum, because, tho never so often used in any Extraction, or

Chymical Experiment what-ever, it loses nothing of its Quality, or Property:
which is a Prerogative, pertaining to the Universal Elixir, called also the
Circulatum majus, because it commands in all the three Kingdoms of
Nature; whilst this, being restrained to one only Kingdom, is for that reason
stil.'d Minus.

III

Out of Dianas undetermined Tears, when Apollo has appeared, after the
Separation of the three Elements, Determination, Digestion, and glorious
Resurrection, we can, without the Addition of any other created thing,
prepare this our determined Elixir: Which is the first, noblest, and secretest
way of the Philosophers.

IV
The Determination of our Dianas Tears consists only in their perfect and
indissoluble Union with the fixt Vegetable Earth, philosophically prepared,
purified, and spiritualized: for the love of which they are forced to leave their
first universal undetermined Property, and be clothed with a determined
particular one, which is required to this our Circulatum minus.

Our second way of preparing this our Vegetable Elixir is by a right

Manipulation of a Plant of the noblest Degree, standing by itself, or
supported by others: after the Preparation of which, and its Putrefaction,
Reduction into an Oil, Separation of the three Principles, with their
Purification, Union, and Spiritualization, the whole is to be turned into a
spiritual ever-living Fountain, renewing every Plant, that shall be plunged in
it.

VI

The third and common way is only a Conjunction of a fixt Vegetable Salt
with its own volatil sulphureous Spirit, both to be found ready prepared by
any vulgar Chymist, and since in their Preparation the purest Sulphur,
containing the Soul, has suffered some Detriment by their not being
philosophically manipulated, they cannot be inseparably joined without a
sulphureous Medium, by which the Soul being strengthened, the Body and
Spirit are also through it made capable of a perfect Union.

VII

The proper Medium, requisite for the indissoluble Union of these two
Subjects, is only a sulphureous and bituminous Matter, issuing out of a
Plant, living or dead, which is to be found in several parts of the World, and
is known to all manner of Men, (the Copavian we find to be the best, and
after that the Italian,) by which, after it has been separated from its feculent
parts through our Universal Menstruum, all the Pores and Atoms of the fixt
Vegetable Salt, which is extremely fortified by it, being dilated, it is made
capable of receiving its own Spirit, and uniting itself with it.

VIII

To fortify the Sulphur, and open the Pores of the Salt, no other Method is to
be used, but to imbibe the same with the bituminous Matter in a moderate
digestive Heat, as if one would hatch Chickens, and as the Salt grows dry,
the Imbibitions are to be repeated, until you find it so fully saturated that it
refuses to imbibe any more of the Matter.
 IX

In the Course of Imbibitions the whole Mass is at least nine or ten times a
day to be stirr'd with a Spatula, or some other Instrument of dry Wood, by
which reiterated Motion, the bituminous Matter receives a better ingress into
the Body, and perfects its Operation the sooner.

Great care is to be taken, that in the performance of the lmbibitions, no kind

of Soil or Dust fall into your Matter, for the prevention of which your Vessel
may be kept covered with a Paper, prickt full of holes, or any other suitable
Covering, and that nothing come near it, which has its own internal Sulphur:
for the Pores of the Salt being very much dilated and opened, it may easily
determine it self to any other Subject, and so spoil your Undertaking.

XI

If in three, or four Weeks time at farthest, your fixt Vegetable Salt does not
manifest its full Saturation, it will certainly be in vain for you to go any
farther with it: for you may assure yourself, that you either err in the Notion
of the Salt or of the real sulphureous Medium, or in the Management of the
Imbibitions.

XII

When your Imbibitions are fully performed, your Salt will then be in a
convenient readiness to receive its own Spirit, by which it is made volatil,
spiritual, transparent, and wonderfully penetrating, entring of a sudden into
the Pores and Particles of every Vegetable, and separating in a moment
their true Essence or Elements.

XIII

Altho the Salt is fully prepared for the Reception of its own Spirit, yet unless
you well observe the right Proportion of them (which is, that the volatil
always predominate over the fixt) you will never be able to make any
perfect Union between these two Subjects, contrary in Quality, though not
in Nature.

XIV

Before you begin your Distillations and Cohobations, after the Addition of
the Vegetable Spirit to its own Salt, a Putrefaction of eight or ten days is to
precede, during which time, the sulphureous Spirit, strengthened by the
bituminous Matter, and finding its Salt fit for Conjunction with it, has the
power to enter into its Pores, to facilitate its Volatilization, and Union.

XV

If after six or seven Distillations and Cohobations of the distilled upon the
Remainder, you do not find your Spirit to be extremely sharp, and the
Remainder in the bottom altogether insipid, it will be an evident Sign, that
you fail in the true knowledge of the Vegetable Spirit, which, being
exceeding volatil, has in its Nature power to volatilize its own Body, and
unite itself inseparably with it, finding it capable of its Reception.

XVI

It is to be observed, that in the Progress of your Distillations the

sulphureous Medium do not in the least ascend: for as it is a real Medium,
concurring to unite the Body with the Spirit, before the Spiritualization of the
Body, and without the Concurrence of which no perfect Union of these two
Subjects is to be expected; so on the contrary in the Progress of the Work
its Concurrence would be highly disadvantageous to them both, and totally
subvert your Operation.

XVII

The ascending of the sulphureous Medium, when the Spirit begins to carry
over its own, Body, to unite itself inseparably with it, evidently and certainly
signifies, that you do not regulate your Fire, as you should, and that, instead
of giving a gentle vaporous Heat to facilitate the Union, you give a violent
one to destroy it.

XVIII

When your Salt is brought to its perfect Spiritualization, and real Union with
its own volatile Spirit, then you will have in your power your Circulatum
minus, or Vegetable Elixir, and Menstruum, with which you will be able to
perform wonders in the Vegetable Kingdom, separating in a moment not
only their Principles or Elements, but also at one and the same Operation
the Pure from the Impure.

XIX

If into this your Vegetable Elixir you put any green Vegetable, shred in
pieces, it will in less than half a quarter of an hour without any external Heat
putrify, and precipitate itself into the bottom quite dead, (which is nothing
but the cursed Excremental Earth) and on the Top will swim a yellow Oil,
containing the Salt and Sulphur, and the Elixir will be of the Color of the
Plant, comprehending its Vegetable Spirit: which if it does not, 'tis a sign,
that your Operations have not been Philosophical.

XX

One only drop of this yellowish Oil, given in Distempers according to the
Virtue and Quality, attributed to the Plant, every Morning and Evening in a
Glass of Wine, or any other convenient Vehicle, will infallibly and insensibly
cure those Distempers, and corroborate the vital Spirits, if constantly taken
to purify the Blood in sickly and infectious Times.

XXI

If you put Coral into this Menstruum, you will see an admirable Experiment:
for although its Pores are compacter, than in any other Vegetable; yet it will
on a sudden transmit its internal Spirit into the Menstruum, and sending its
Soul and Body, like a blood-red Oil to the Top, will at last fall to the Bottom
like a grayish Excrement.

XXII

If Myrrh, Aloes, and Saffron, of each an equal Quantity, are put into this
Menstruum, the truest Elixir Proprietatis (as Paracelsus terms it) which is a
most excellent Cordial, and almost of as great Efficacy and Virtue, as the
Universal Elixir itself, in curing all curable Distempers, will presently swim
on the Top, and its Caput Mortuum will separate itself into the Bottom.

XXIII

This Vegetable Menstruum dissolves not only all sorts of Gums, or any
other kind of Substance in the Vegetable Kingdom, but also all sorts of Oils
and Balsams, coming out of Trees, separating their true Essence, by which
you may perform wonderful things both upon living Bodies, and dead ones,
the last of which it preserves forever without opening or any farther
Preparation of them.

XXIV

Though this Menstruum is only specificated upon Vegetables, it will

nevertheless in a moment draw the Tincture out of Metals and Minerals; but
it will not separate all their Principles, not being the appropriated
Menstruum for such Operations; and though such Sulphurs are highly
balsamic for the Lungs and Spleen, yet since our Elixir Proprietatis far
exceeds those praeter natural Preparations, we only give this as a curious
Chymical Experiment.
 XXV

Since this Vegetable Menstruum is eternal, you must observe, that you lose
nothing of its Quantity or Quality in separating of it from the Oil, and Spirit of
the Vegetable, which is done by a gentle Destillation in Balneo aporoso, the
Vessel being very well luted and dried before. The Menstruum, coming over
with the Flegm of the Vegetable, from which it is by a Distillation in Balneo
to be separated for farther uses, leaves the Oil at the Bottom, united with its
own Spirit, which will easily go over in any common Heat, not leaving
anything behind it: which is a Mark of its Spiritualization, Purification, and
Regeneration, that it has received from the Menstruum.

XXVI

Out of this Oil or Essence of your Vegetable so prepared, or by any other

Philosophical way, (as we have mentioned in our second Manner of making
this our Elixir) if you know how to putrify it natually without any Fire, and to
separate all our Principles out of it, purifying and uniting them inseparably
together, being all made spiritual and transparent, you will then have out of
this second Regeneration the greatest Arcanum in the World, as upon
Vegetables, so also upon Minerals and Metals, except Gold and Silver.

XXVII

If this regenerated Essence be determined with our First Matter, it will then
be in a Capacity radically to dissolve all sorts of Metals or Minerals, and
principally Gold, which is imperceptibly dissolved in it, like Ice in common
Water, and can never be separated common Gold again, neither by
Distillation, nor Digestion: out of which, after a Philosophical Digestion,
Separation of the three Principles, with their Purification, Union, Digestion,
and third Regeneration, you may prepare the great Medicine of Medicines,
of equal Virtue and Quality with the Grand Elixir upon human Bodies, and
with our Mercury simplex, upon Metals or Minerals.

XXVIII

The determinating this regenerated Menstruum with our first Matter is to be

performed by its Amalgamation with it, in which the Vegetable Menstruum,
drawing out of it all its Qualities and Properties, and uniting them with its
own, is made capable of the same Virtue and Property, as our Mercury
Simplex, in dissolving and volatilizing every created thing, that shall come
near it.

XXIX
Some are of Opinion, that both the Elixirs may be produc'd out of several
determined things as Human Excrements, May-dew, (which they call also
their Menstruum from above, or Water from the Clouds) etc. as also that the
Grand Elixir may be prepared out of this, or any other Vegetable
regenerated Menstruum; but since we know, that such Menstruums, which
they call their Philosophical Mercury, although they may dissolve and
volatilize Metals, yet cannot meliorate any of them, this Dissolution and
Volatilization being neither natural nor Philosophical, we therefore with good
Reason judge all those Opinions to be only false Suppositions and ill-
grounded and imaginary Notions.

XXX

We with our Divine Master Hermes absolutely affirm, that, Almighty God
having, after he had created all things, commanded every one of them to
procreate out of its own kind, our Elixirs are not to be produced by any of
those sophistical ways, as we have fully made appear in these and our
precedent Aphorisms, in which we have given ample Instructions for the
preparing the Universal Elixir out of our undetermined Matter, and the
specificated one out of the Root of Vegetables.

XXXI

Out of the true Affection and Charity, we have for all Lovers of Arts, we
advise every one, who shall desire to prepare either of these our Elixirs,
only to follow our Infallible Rules, being the Compendium of the whole
Practice and Theory according to all true Philosophers, and not to mind any
other: for some having delivered things by Hearsay, others from Reading,
and very few from their own Practice, they may easily be imposed upon and
deluded by any Pseudo-chymist or pretended Adept.

Experto Crede.

A POSTSCRIPT,
containing

AN EXPLANATION OF THE FIGURE, PREFIXT TO THE APHORISMI

URBIGERANI.
See Top

Having in our One Hundred and One Aphorisms so perspicuously laid open
all the Difficulties, and so amply taught the compleat Theory and Practice of
the whole Hermetic Mystery, that any ingenious Lover of Chymistry will not
only be enabled to understand the most abstruse writings of the
Philosophers, but also to effect any real Experiment, which is to be
expected in the Progress of our Celestial Art; and yet being apt to believe,
that such, as are not our Disciples, may perhaps meet with some of the
Philosophical Figures, the meaning of which they may not so easily
comprehend, we have judg'd it highly experient, in the Front of this our little
Book to place this our Figure, by which, being a perfect Compendium of all
the Philosophical Emblems, the rest maybe without any great difficulty
understood. Now since this our Figure, mystically representing all our
subjects and Operations, cannot but admit of many and various
Interpretations, all which if we should here set down, our Aphorisms (where
they are already delivered, and of which this would then be a Repetition,)
would be altogether useless and insignificant: we therefore at first
esteemed it very superfluous to give any farther Illustration of it. But our
desire being to do all the good, we can, to the Public, we have on second
Thoughts resolved with our wanted Brevity to deliver the following
Explanation for the better Comprehension both of It and our Aphorisms.
The Tree is a Supporter of the Motto, Virtus unita fortior: which, being to be
read from the side of the Serpent, representing by the Half-Moon on its
Head the Planet, under whose Influence it is born, is to be referred to it
according to its particular Motto, which signifies, that, if you take it alone, it
can do little or nothing in our Art, as wanting the Assistance of others. By
the Green Dragon is to be understood our first undetermined Matter,
comprehending all our Principles, (as is demonstrated by the Half-Moon on
its Head, the Sun in its Body, and the Cross on its Tail,) and denoting by its
Motto, that it can perform the whole work without being joined with any
other created or artificially prepared thing: which is our first way. But this our
Dragon, when copulating with our Serpent, is forced to comply with her,
degrading itself from its undetermined Being for the production of our
second way. Apollo with the Sun on his head, and Diana with the Half-
Moon, embracing each other, shew our third way, and the Continuation of
our first and second. The River, into which they descend, signifies the
State, they must be reduced into, before they can be in a Capacity of being
born again, and before in any of our three ways they can be brought to a
perfect Spiritualization and Union. Apollo and Diana, coming out of the
River in one wonderful Body, Diana having obtained all, represent our
Herculean works, ready finished, and the beginning of their Conjunction,
and by their going to set their foot on firm, ground, where she is to sow the
noble Fruits for the Procreation, is to be understood the Continuation of
their Conjunction, till they are fully united and perfected. In this Scheme
also, as well as in our Aphorisms, are mystically exhibited all the principal
Points of Faith and Religion, comprised in the Volumes of the Old and New
Testament: whence it manifestly appears, that the Contemplation of Nature
truly leads to the Compre hension of those heavenly Verities, by which
alone we can expect to arrive at the Enjoyment of that blessed Immortality,
to which, as to the true and ultimate End of our Creation, all our Endeavors
are to be directed.

Further comment from The Golden Game by Stanislas Klossowski De Rola

Pg.307, note 497.
Aphorismi urbigerani.

'Virtue united is stronger.' (Virtus unita fortior.) The virtue inherent in the
Seed produces the miracle of the Tree. As the acorn becomes the oak, so
does the Stone of the Philosophers grow into the Philosopher's Stone. Nil
sine vobis, 'Naught without you,' says the mercurial Snake with the martial
tail, to his opposite number the winged Dragon with the saturnine tail. Per
Nos omnia, 'Through us, everything,' answers the latter who, being the
symbol of the Materia Prima, contains its future potentialities.

'I am a captive of thy beauty,' whispers Apollo to his sister Diana, indicating
his incestuous designs (and the initial domination of the female in their
tryst). 'I will vanquish thee yet further,' answers Diana, pointing to the rising
Waters of Dissolution. The hieroglyph, which is in the place of an arrow on
her bow, is the symbol of Gaea, the Earth, which indicates the kind of earth
that must be dissolved in their fiery embrace. On the other side of the Tree,
as the waters recede, the Rebis~Hermaphrodite emerges, and his/her lunar
face addresses its alter ego (the Sun): 'Thy Regeneration is in my power.'
The other face gratefully exclaims: 'By thee [living water] I shall live.'

FINISH

Interpretation and Explanation of the Aphorism.

The first paradox we see here is that it says: "by which without any fire" -
this process is to be accomplished. Later on he says that a digestive heat is
necessary.

II

Circulation in this case can mean a maceration, percolation or in our

modern times a soxhlet extraction.

III
The separation of the three elements are meant to be the three essentials
sulphur, salt, and mercury, or its essential ethereal oil, spirit and mineral
residue.

IV

A total separation of these three essentials is stressed, without such

separation nothing can be accomplished as outlined thereafter.

This means one plant only or a mixture of plants may be used. The
preparation begins with putrefaction which means fermentation. Here the
spirit (Alcohol) is freed. From this tincture is distilled the oil or alchemistical
sulphur. The third principal, salt or mineral, is not mentioned, but a vision of
the three is stressed as necessary to get the vitality of the plant or plants
renewed and increased so it can give off from its own vital strength to revive
dying or weak plants.

VI

Here he mentions the salt. This, he says may be obtained from the chemist.
Again we have a seeming paradox, because alchemists state that their
preparations can not be had at the chemist's or apothecary's shop. This is
correct, but here a product devoid of the two essentials sulphur and
mercury is mentioned. This can be had in the chemist's shop and serves its
purpose.

VII

Emphasis is placed on the sulphurous matter which he also calls

bituminous. This refers to the resinous substance which is attached to the
pure alchemical plant sulphur. This can be extracted from the fresh plant as
well as the dried. When the salt has been purified then it is ready to receive
the purified essential oil and purified spirit (alcohol).

VIII

The next process describes how this is done. That which is was called
bituminous is nothing else but the calcined residue of the sulphur, also
known as salt of sulphur. This together with the extracted plant, which also
has been reduced to black ashes - (carbon) is then placed in a retort and
the purified spirit (mercury) and oil (sulphur) are added. In a heat equivalent
to that needed to hatch chicken eggs, it is distilled. Here again, a
discrepancy appears, because it takes a higher degree of heat to distill the
alcohol over than that required to hatch an egg. The answer is very simple,
the process accomplished by creating a vacuum in the retort, which
Alchemists knew how to do without the sophisticated equipment of the
modern chemist.

This distillation to dryness and pouring over of the distillate is repeated until
the bituminous substance (salt) gets lighter every time. When this process
is repeated and it will not take up and hold anymore of the added moisture
of alcohol and oil.

IX

The contents in the retort both prior to and after distillation should be
agitated at least nine or ten times a day to enable a better penetration and
whitening of the substance.

When using a retort for the distillation care should be taken not to get any
foreign matter into it. As the salt gets more subtle it will attract dust or fine
particles, and these are difficult to remove.

XI

If after three or four weeks the salt has not been fully saturated with its
mercury and sulphur, something is wrong. The process should be stopped
and started all over again.

XII

When properly conducted it is supposedly to be a transparent crystalline

substance. My own experience has not shown an absolutely pure
crystalline substance, but an opaque white hard result.

XIII

The quantity of each of the three essentials is of importance. When the salt
will not imbibe any more of mercury and sulphur, Nature has found its own
balance.

XIV

Here, he tells us that in the beginning the salt should be saturated with its
tincture (mercury and sulphur - it is the sulphur that tincts) and stand for
about a week or ten daysto help open the pores of the salt, ie. to dissolve
its soluble substance.
 XV

Care should be taken that none of the volatile spirit is lost. Every bit of it is
needed for the penetration of the salt in the process of repeated cohobation
(bringing together) of spirit and salt.

XVI

The sulphur should not and does not distill over with the spirit but gets more
and more united (alchemical marriage) with the salt.

XVII

He warns of an excessive heat. A sure sign that heat is needed for the
process, whether a waterbath or ashes, both formerly obtained through fire.

XVIII

When this union is properly performed the little circulation has been
accomplished.

XIX

When other plants have been finely cut and placed into the distilled spirit it
will have them fall to the bottom within fifteen minutes as dead earth or terra
damnata, while its essential oil (sulphur) and spirit (mercury) will swim on
top. Thus the essentials are extracted by the power and strength of the
spirit menstruum.

XX

The oil from a finely cut plant macerated in a proper vehicle, either wine or
water - swims on top. One drop of this oil has great medicinal virtue.

XXI

Coral, when put into this menstruum will act the same way, and have its salt
fall to the bottom. but will show a red oil swimming on top.

XXII

An equal mixture of Myrrh, Aloes and Saffron, will give an excellent Elixir,
again swimming on top, while the plant substance goes to the bottom.

XXIII
This menstruum dissolves also gums, oils, and resins from trees.

XXIV

This menstruum is also said to draw out a tincture from metals. He tells us
correctly that it will not dissolve metals as it is not the proper menstruum for
metals. But that it will extract a tincture, has been proven to be correct.

XXV

This menstruum may be regenerated by gentle distillation in a vapor bath.

XXVI

The next is somewhat puzzling because he says something which all

Alchemists deny, namely, that this recovered oil and spirit does work on
minerals and metals, with the exception of Gold and Silver. If he means
only the extrac tion of their tincture, yes, but no transmutation can result
therefrom.

XXVII

Only when this essence is united with the philosophical mercury will it act
upon metals and dissolve them. But not otherwise.

XXVIII

Three different alchemical mercuries are found within Nature, all the
offspring of One Universal Mercury or Spirit. United they can perform what
one alone cannot.

XXIX

He makes a distinction once more between what extracts a tincture and

what dissolves a substance. Not all menstruums are alike, though man can
and does call all of them mercury, or philosophical mercury.

XXX

It is only by Divinely inspired knowledge that these Elixirs can be produced.

XXXI

He exhorts all to stay within the bounds of Nature by Divine decree and
follow the instructions of those who speak from experience to avoid
delusion by pretenders and PseudoAlchemists.
No doubt some concentrated thinking is essential in order to fathom what
these short aphorisms are trying to convey.

Those who have had some experiences in alchemistical laboratory practice

will be pleasantly rewarded by an extra gift in the form of the menstruum he
mentions, that will extract the essentials out of plants, when in the
Collectanae Chemica we are told that the vegetable stone, when properly
prepared, will extract the essentials of any plant when immersed in the
juices of the herb, or the macerated tincture of a plant. It is unfortunate that
more have not written about this important work on plants, because when
this process is mastered it will surely open up greater vista in the
alchemistical domain. Not all who ventured into the herbal work came up
with its final result, the Herbal Stone. This is because too many began
actual work in the laboratory with insufficient theoretical preparation. No
doubt, rash attempts, by following the letter to the last iota, that failed to
materialize expected results, have added oil to the fire, which alchemistical
opponents were only too happy to fan. Undoubtedly, there are unusual
circumstances surrounding alchemistical results. The reason for the results
is not always easy to explain especially why desired results denied to some
are granted to others. The fact remains, however, some are given the
knowledge of how to do the work, while others cannot even see the
meaning. Some are attached to Alchemy with great fascination and cannot
let go. To them Alchemy holds the answer to the mystery of life, while to
others it is but fantasy and imagination. Only he, who has had personal
experiences knows what it is all about. Words alone cannot do justice. One
has to find the answer for oneself. Some help to Neophytes from those who
have already attained alchemistical results, by personal experience, will be
immense help in shortening the time required. When such can be found,
and their assistance obtained it will surely prove to be a great blessing to all
who sincerely seek for an answer to their alchemistical questions.

Frater Albertus
 They Made The Philosophers Stone
by

RICHARD INGALESE

with an introduction by Frater Albertus

© 1973
PARA PUBLISHERS
P.0. BOX 2225
CUSTOM HOUSE STATION
SAN FRANCISCO, CALIFORNIA 94126

INTRODUCTION

" Those interested in metaphysical and esoteric literature are most likely
familiar with the names of Richard and Isabella Ingalese. Their books have
encouraged rnany to delve deeper into what is called "The Mystery of Life."
Among their publications still available today are: "History and Power of
Mind," "The Greater Mysteries," "Astrology and Health," "The Evolution of
God and Man", "Fragments of Truth," and "Occult Philosophy."

Undoubtedly those who have read the books of Richard and Isabella
Ingalese suspected that the contents thereof were an outcome of prolonged
study, but the direction that study was to take was almost unknown. Had it
not been for a public lecture given by Richard Ingalese at the end of the
1920's (he copyrighted this essay in 1928 under his name) we would as yet
be relatively unaware of the goals their studies achieved. As will be seen in
this article, all their mental efforts were aimed at a substantiation of the law
of polarity. It became apparent to them that theory alone without its
counterpart in pracical manifestation, cannot endure for long. Just as body
and mind are a unit animated by spirit, so must theory become animated by
praxis. Even if animation were possible, a body without a mind is
incomplete and could at best be described as an automation. Yet even
here, mind must necessarily control the material manifestation.

The student enters into metaphysics or esotericism by way of theory, which

theory must eventually prove itself in practice. Manifestation can only be
established by practical application of theory through knowledge. The
outcome thereof either proves or disproves the theory. All manifestation is
accomplished by the utilization of Will, which is but another term for "being
alive."
Life is wherever substance exists and wherever life and substance are,
there we find governing mind or consciousness. In other words,
consciousness exists in the atom and electron as well as in the galaxies of
the universe. Understood in this light, the old hermetic axiom "as above so
below, as below so above," takes on a more profound meaning. Since time
immemorial men have tried to find the key which would unlock the mystery
of all existence-not just concerning mankind, but for all substance and non-
substance alike. Therefore subjective and objective have separate
meanings. The forme... dealing with the intangible and the latter with the
tangible. An interplay of the two creates phenomena. Since mind cannot be
separated from the very substance it governs, one cannot exist without the
other.

In the universe there is but one primal substance, no matter how dense,
how coarse, or how subtle and seemingly imperceptible. This primordial first
substance is known as "Chaos." Substance is found in all forms and
manifestations in this state and it is therefore termed "chaotic." Matter is
formed out of this state according to the requirements and specific
circumstances in the ever evolving spiral of evolution. In this way matter is
ever becoming or ever changing and does not remain stationary. This is the
meaning of the words "chaotic condition" and is not to be confused with the
generally accepted definition of disorderliness. Everything in this chaotic
state is according to law and order, but because of its multitudinous
expressions, understanding of the true meaning escapes the finite mind of
man conveying to him the image of a chaotic condition without law and
order. Paradoxically, the reverse is true.

Similarly in the universe there is but one mind or supreme consciousness,

known also as the Oversoul or Overself, etc. Each particle of the "Chaos" is
imbued with a segment of this overall consciousness, or soul essence;
often called, "a spark of the Divine."

There is only one universal life or spirit. All substance is alive-even that
which we call dead. A corpse for example, could not undergo putrefaction
or what man calls disintegration from one state of being to another were this
not the case. The overall consciousness or sum total of a coordinated
being, such as man, may have its dominating composite consciousness
removed and implanted in different forms of substance, but the inherent
consciousness of each cell is still active as a unit. Whenever a unification of
individualized particles of substance occurs, a superior state of
consciousness takes temporary control. In this manner an adeptship is
eventually revealed in a personification evolving through individualized cell
expressions. In the animal world these cellular units of expression are
known by a variety of names from the lowest amoeba to man.
Body, Spirit and Soul are the three essentials in our universe. All esoteric
approaches have as their aim the separation of these into distinct entities.
Whoever cannot separate Body, Spirit and Soul, is not prepared to enter
into the realm of the alchemist. It is here and here only that the reunification
takes place.

To test this theory was the aim of Richard and Isabella Ingalese. Only by so
doing could it be substantiated or refuted. For them Alchemy provided the
only means of verification.

When one reads of the time consumed to achieve demonstrable proof, it

becomes evident that practical application is more difficult than theorizing.
First proper reading material had to be found which would shed light on the
subject and indicate a method of procedure, beginning with theoretical
instruction. Even here complications arose. It was more difficult to find a
competent teacher than at first anticipated as even the theoretical teachings
conflicted. In fact, most of the teachers believed physical laboratory
alchemy to be nonexistent. The subject matter was to be understood in a
spiritual sense only. When questioned, the answers inevitably were that
alchemy was of a mental nature, never to be understood literally or
demonstrated on a practical-physical plane of awareness. The practical
plane found few followers, while the mental had most of the adherents.

If practical alchemy lacked only proof, one may logically question why a
division was necessary. This is exactly where the trouble began. There
were and still are many advocates of mental or spiritual alchemy who after
attempts to find a practical laboratory alchemy came to the inevitable
conclusion that there was none. Why? They confused alchemy with
chemistry! True, the Encyclopedia tells the reader that alchemy was the
forerunner of our present day chemistry, and chemists long ago dispensed
with the silly superstitions embedded in alchemy. For it is a fact that anyone
taking the alchemistical symbolical terms at face value, is doomed to failure.
For example, such terms as Sulphur, Salt and Mercury, are not what their
names imply but are only indicative of symbolic expressions.

Here was the reason for their failure! Failure will continue for all who are not
guided in factual alchemy by competent teachers. It was this instruction that
the Ingalese's lacked. Nowhere is there an indication that either of them had
such a teacher. The two volumes of Paracelsus translated by A. E. Waite
into English, was their theoretical fountainhead. Paracelsus gave practical
advice, but through the printed word only. There was no oral instruction nor
the assistance of practical demonstrations. Every step had to be
concentrated upon, then carefully tested, with failure as an inevitable result
of their first trials. It is not surprising that many years were spent in trial and
error before the first meager results appeared.
In 1911 Richard Ingalese then in his fifty-sixth year and his wife in her forty-
eighth year were, in his words: "determined to put our conception of the
teachings of Paracelus to laboratory tests and commenced our
experiments." It took them nine long years of continuous hard work before
their labors finally met with success and they achieved their goal, namely
the Philosopher's Stone. In the first six of those years they experienced
many failures and heartbreaking disappointments.

Those who have worked in practical alchemy will be somewhat startled if

not disappointed by statements Richard Ingalese made in his lecture. First,
he differentiated between the metallic alchemy and the medicinal, which
later they decided to follow. The question is: "Why did he not test the stone
upon the metals to see if it tinged"? Here would have been sufficient proof
of its medicinal virtue and strength. Secondly, he stated the dose which
both took twice a week, was the size of an uncooked grain of rice. This
would seem an enormously large dose judging from reports of earlier
Alchemists.

In answer to the first question, it would be logical to assume that the test
was probably made upon metals but very wisely not mentioned in the
lecture because of the consequerices such a statement would have
aroused in public. For this reason the question may have been deliberately
avoided and left unanswered. This is only an assumption on my part, and
may be taken by the reader for what it is worth.

The second question is not so obscure. The large dose could possibly have
been due to an insufficient potency of the stone. Ingalese himself says that
in its first state it looked like soft white marble and only after laboring an
additional three years did they complete the red stone which he describes
by saying, "the product was crude." This would seem to indicate that the
stone lacked sufficient maturity to allow a reduction in dosage.

We are not greatly concerned here with the individuals known as Richard
and Isabella Ingalese nor to their whereabouts up to the nineteen thirties
and thereafter. We are, however, interested in the message they gave and
in the alchemical work performed by a married couple. The husband,
Richard Ingalese, attorney at law, found it necessary to give a public
address on Alchemy outlining their combined results in the laboratory, and
then proceeded to publish those findings.

Unfortunately, unlike Volpierre, who died in 1947 in Germany, and who

described in detail the process he had followed, the Ingaleses did not give
specific outlines of the procedures involved. Consequently their steps and
methods cannot be duplicated and verified. Even here, however,
pronounced differences in the procedure are evident and cannot be
overlooked. We plan to publish a translation of the original manuscript of
Volpierre (his nom de plume) in a future issue of the Golden Manuscript
Series. Archibald Cockren, who began in practical alchemy at about the
same time as the Ingaleses, in the somewhat sketchy description in his
book "Alchemy Restored and Rediscovered" gives more details than
revealed by Ingalese in his lecture.

As for now, we can only concur with the final words of Richard Ingalese in
his lecture when he said, "This is our testimony on behalf of Alchemy -
which each person may accept, or reject, according to his conviction."
-Frater Albertus

Top

ALCHEMY

Wherever there is sunshine, there is shadow. Wherever there is the

genuine, there is the imitation; and nowhere, in all history, is it truer than in
regard to Alchemy. Particularly was it noticeable during the Middle Ages.
Then there was a recrudescence of Alchemy; and because there were a
few genuine Occultists that came forward to call the attention of the world to
the ancient art, immediately there sprang up hundreds and hundreds of
pretenders; and this has continued from the time of Paracelsus to the
present. Because of these pretenders I want to talk very plainly tonight
about them in order to save your faith and your pocketbooks.

By faith is meant that as soon as he has a taste of psychism, his mind turns
to the Occult Sciences and then he is in a current of thought that draws to
him both good and bad. I mean, by bad, those people who have studied
Occult Sciences, acquired a smattering of knowledge, and, having failed to
achieve any degree of success, commence to recoup all the financial outlay
they have made from their credulous fellow students.

The destruction of faith is worse than the depletion of the pocketbook; but
students are liable to both when they enter the occult current.

If you find that you are being imposed upon, when with all sincerity you are
devoting your time, thought, and money to study, the shock is so great that
you are too apt to throw the whole thing aside and say, "It is so
honeycombed with dishonesty that I don't wish to have anything to do with
it." That is the destruction of your faith and is a real calamity, because
sometimes several incarnations must pass before you come to the point
where you are once more willing to again make the venture. And so I warn
you of what you may meet in the occult currents.
The Occult Sciences are the hidden sides of the physical sciences.
Everything that has a manifestation in the physical world has a
corresponding manifestation in the metaphysical world. To illustrate, in the
case of Astronomy: If you are studying it from the physical side, you have a
number of theories to account for the origin of planets. You know something
of their chemical constituency, something of their movements and other
incidental matters of that kind. But the occult side of Astronomy would be to
know how the planets came into existence, the cause of their motion, and
the purpose of their being.

The Occultist is not satisfied with theories. He wants facts. He is not content
with the phenomena of life, he wants the noumena, or cause. and therefore
he studies on both sides of all the sciences. When you commence to study
causes, instead of effects, you immediately get into the occult current, and
sooner or later you meet both wise and unwise people. A great many
persons have studied occult books and therefore call themselves Occultists;
but they are only book Occultists quite different from practical Occultists.
The sciences and philosophy are only theories with them, which may be
right, or which may be wrong. They seldom attempt to prove either. These
teachers of book Occultism are doing good work if they do not pretend to
have what they do not possess. If they tell you they have gained knowledge
from the inner side of being, and have only a theory to offer you and that
theory misdirects you, then your faith is shattered.

But there are people in Occultism, as elsewhere, who teach for money only,
and are indifferent to the accuracy of their teaching. But do we not find
much said about such teachers in the Gospels, also?

A short time ago I received a letter from one of the most prominent
astrologers in America, stating that he was compiling a book of occult
formulas. He asked me to subscribe for a copy. I replied, "The price you
charge is remarkably low, only twenty-five dollars a copy. If your formulas
are the results of the laboratory, and not of the library, you may put me
down for a book; but if they are of the library, I don't want it-because
probably I have all the books you have used in your compilation and
perhaps a few more." He was honest enough to write, "It is the result of my
researches in the library." Many persons who did not know the distinction
between library and laboratory paid the price for that book, which was
useless to them.

When in New York, two years ago, I met some of my old students whom I
had not seen for many years. A group of them were studying Alchemy. I
was somewhat amazed and, of course. interested. I asked to meet their
teacher, because, for the first time in the history of the world, laboratory
Alchemy was being taught openly. When they tried to find him, he had
disappeared, but not until he had collected his fees. He had selected for his
pupils those who had studied Occult Philosophy for years and supposedly
knew something. First, he taught them what the books said about the
theories of Alchemy. Then, two nights before he left-not telling them he was
going-he said, "I shall give you the formula for making gold, which is easy to
do; the only difficulty is to dispose of the metal after you get it." And they
were credulous enough to believe it.

He said, I will give you the name of all the elements except one. That is not
permitted to be given out, but I will concentrate upon it and you who are
intuitive will get that name. Then you can go home and make all the gold
you want on your kitchen stove." And they accepted his statement as true.

He charged a large amount of money for his course of lectures; and the
only "Alchemy" he knew was the alchemy of human nature. Of course, a
person with common sense would say, "If this man knows how to make
gold, why is lie going about giving lectures at several hundred dollars a
course, when all he had to do was to use his kitchen stove and make all he
wanted?"

The person who divulged the secret is a promoter of railroads and

accustomed to handle large financial transactions; and yet, he was
credulous enough to accept a floating faker's statement when it came to the
Occult.

A woman who studied with me for a short time-a very short time-before I
ended her studentship, subsequently went to Arabia; and when she
returned, sought people in New York City and in Chicago who were
interested in Occultism-she is operating in Washington now - and said that
while she was in Arabia one of the great Occultists there imparted to her the
knowledge of how to make the "Great Elixir." She offered to sell it for a
considerable sum, claiming that it would restore youth in a few months; and
she made people believe it. Her stay in each city was limited, of course.
The more incredible such statements are, the greater number of people
believe them.

A man came to me a short time ago and said he had a way of making
jewels. I replied, "A great many chemists can do that." He answered, I make
them alchemically. You can't tell them from nature's gems. I want you to put
some money into the manufacture of them." I asked, What is your process?
Just give me an intimation of one of the leading ingredients. Do you use
mercury?" "No," he said. "No mercury." I could but reply, "Then you have
not the knowledge you claim, for the oil of mercury is the basis of all
jewels."
Other people may come to you who are earnest and sincere, but
selfdeceived. I was in the Calkins Chemical Company a few days ago and
was talking with the manager, who said he had just had a funny experience.
A man came in and showed him a mass of melted, colored glass, and said,
'I want five hundred dollars, and, in the course of a month, will make myself
and you wealthy men, for I have found the great art of the Alchemists. I
have learned to transmute mercury into gold."

The manager happened to be a hard-headed business man, more

interested in business than in the Occult, and replied, "How do you do it?"
His visitor answered, 'I take a pound of mercury and go out into the
sunshine, get a certain angle of the sun's rays, let them pass through this
glass and fall upon the mercury, and the action of those rays through this
glass causes the mercury to change its vibrations; and immediately it is
transmuted, before your eyes, into gold." The manager asked, "Have you
two dollars?" The man replied, "Yes." "Then you don't need five hundred
dollars, for I shall be just as friendly to you as you have been to me. I will
sell you a pound of mercury for two dollars. Take it out on the sidewalk and
turn it into gold. That will give you half your capital, buy another pound and
you will have your five hundred dollars."

Twice I have been invited into the foothills near Los Angeles to see men
who had Alchemical laboratories, socalled, who desired to extend their
plants and only wanted a few thousand dollars for that purpose. The first
man had quite an elaborate assayer's outfit and he went through the
process of assaying for gold. He supposed I knew nothing about his
process. After finishing, he took out some gold he previously had put in, and
said, "You see how I make it?" I had to say, "I think you are a first-class
assayer, but not an Alchemist."

Another man had a laboratory and wanted only ten or fifteen thousand
dollars to enlarge his plant. He claimed that by passing a current of
electricity through mercury it would be turned into gold. He said he had
done it, and yet he was collecting money to make gold.

There are other people self-deceived, just as dangerous as those who try to
deceive you. I remember a number of years ago a man came to Chicago
and interested some bankers in his process of transmuting junk into gold.
Some of the precious metal had to be used in the transmuting. As far as I
could learn, there was no accretion of gold. but the bankers thought there
was, and furnished the two hundred and fifty thousand dollars for the
Alchemical Laboratory. Four days after the work was started, the inventor
blew himself and his ,plant to bits. The man was sincere, but had a wrong
theory and knew so little of chemistry, or of Alchemy, that only disaster
could occur.
Forty years ago I first read the "Hermetic and Alchemical Writings of
Paracelsus." Of all the books I have seen on the subject-and I have seen
many-there are no others which contain so much knowledge as those two
volumes. Dr. Waite's collection and translation is the best. Soon after I had
finished reading the two books, a man came to me and said, "I have been
doing some chemical work, and when I cleaned my ovens I found a piece of
gold the size of a silver half-dollar.

I want you and your friends to join me in finding out where that gold came
from. Unfortunately, I don't know. I want money enough to live on until I can
find how it was made." I asked if he had no way of checking up his process.
He answered, No." I suggested the possibility that he had put something
into his oven that had contained gold and when the experiment was finished
the precious metal was left at the bottom. I did not join him, but many of the
students of Occultism did, and lost much money.

Good strong characters who have failed in Alchemy do not defame the art.
Some of the wisest men in the world studied Alchemy and failed. Robert
Boyle, the great chemist, spent much of his time studying Alchemy. He was
one of the founders of the Royal Society in England. He was a strong
character. Finally, at the end of his life, he said he believed in Alchemy,
absolutely, but that he did not have the peculiar type of mind to lead him to
success.

Sir Isaac Newton spent the early part of his life trying to become an
Alchemist; and when he failed, he concluded that he did not have the talent
to gain the knowledge, but believed in it to the end of his life. These men
are of real merit, real scientists, men of character. When the average man
of little stamina and petty mind fails, he turns against the science and either
declares- "There is nothing in it," or, if dishonest, he goes forth to recoup his
losses at the expense of the public.

From the illustrations I have given, you can see readily that the path of the
investigator of the Occult Sciences is beset with dangers from both
wiseacres and conscious frauds. It behooves one, then, to be on guard
constantly when seeking either a teacher or a companion in one's studies.
Always look up the antecedents of a would-be associate. Find out what he
has studied and achieved. No one reaches success in Alchemy who first
did not master other things; for he requires the self-reliance which comes
from many conquests before he has the "will to do"-to persist. If a person
poses as a teacher, ask for some evidence of his knowledge before you
enroll as his student. If he seeks financial aid to prosecute, or to complete,
occult investigations, require some demonstration of his ability in that
direction. No honest man could object to such requirements. A bank would
not lend money to a man to enlarge his business until he had shown his
qualifications to succeed. And above all, remember this, that laboratory
Alchemy is never taught. It is a matter of individual conquest. It is true that
after a student has shown his persistency and evidenced his character
under the trying circumstances that the novice always encounters in
Alchemy, and has acquired even a crude success, then some experienced
ego in the great art will give, from time to time, the younger student some
helpful hints which may aid him in his quest.

It requires a peculiar type of mind to succeed in this master art. I do not

mean a superior mind, necessarily, but one that is tenacious, patient,
intuitive, and insatiate for knowledge. All Alchemists are Occultists, but all
Occultists are not Alchemists, for many students do not care for this study.
Many prefer art, literature, music, sculpture, mathematics, mechanics, or
some other phase of knowledge, and, in time, become masters of their
selected art or science.

We speak of two kinds of Occultists, the practical and the theoretical; so

there are two kinds of Alchemists, the laboratory Alchemist and the library
Alchemist. The latter claim that all Alchemy is symbolical. This theory
originated in 1850 when an English woman published anonymously a book
entitled "A Suggestive Inquiry Concerning the Hermetic Mystery and
Alchemy, Being an Attempt to Recover the Ancient Experiment of Nature."
Soon it was followed in 1865 by another book to the same effect, by a Mr.
Hitchcock, in America, entitled "Remarks on Alchemy and the Alchemists."

These persons have many followers in both countries today. But for untold
thousands of years all Alchemists, both library and laboratory, asserted that
the science was a material one; and history shows that it gave birth to both
chemistry and physics. The history of Alchemy also shows that at different
periods there were men who acquired great fortunes without any other
means of acquisition except Alchemy and who claimed that the wealth
came through their knowledge of how to transmute baser metals into gold.
This, of course, shows that the hermetic art always has been a physical
science in addition to a philosophy. Dr. Waite in his very entertaining book.
"Lives of Alchemistical Philosphers," has given brief biographies of many
historical Alchemists which confirm this statement.

The medieval Alchemists had to phrase all their hermetic writings in

theological terms for self-protection. This, naturally, lead many persons,
who thought in symbols, to believe that Alchemy was mental, or, as they
said, spiritual, rather than material. And such students first study and then
teach Alchemy only as a means of evolutionary unfoldment. A symbolic
mind can use almost' any picture, or symbol, on which to hang any
philosophy; and alchemy lends itself readily to symbolic interpretation by
reason of its inherent nature. One of the most prominent leaders of the
Theosophical Movement in Germany once called on me in Chicago to
discuss metaphysics. He demonstrated his conception of Occultism by
mathematics, starting with a point, then a line, and afterwards, the circle. He
had read extensively and thought deeply, but took this method of
demonstrating his conclusions.

It is such minds that claim all Alchemy is symbolic. These people say they
are studying, or teaching, "spiritual" Alchemy. What is spiritual Alchemy?
Many persons are inclined to say a man, or woman, is spiritual when he, or
she, is very thin. If persons are anaemic, they are particularly spiritual; or if
they adopt certain diets and reduce their weight, they are spiritual, or like a
spirit, or a ghost. Half of the people in the world who use the word spirit, or
spiritual, have no conception of the idea behind it. It does not belong to any
particular cult, or church, or to obeying the "thou shalts" and the "thou shalt
nots." Nor is it subscribing to some particular creed, or adopting some
theological dogma; nor is it reading certain books or participating in certain
ceremonials. Spirit is the Universal Mother God, and spiritual is that which
has the attributes of Spirit. What are the attributes of Spirit? Three, and
three only - Omnipresence, Omniscience, and Omnipotence. An individual
could not be omnipresent, because only Deity, Itself, is that; but a person
may be spiritual just in proportion as he manifests in his life something of
omniscience and omnipotence-something of knowledge and of power. So
when they speak of spiritual Alchemy there is the intimation that it gives
knowledge and power. In this sense they are correct. But as generally used,
that term is intended to convey the idea that Alchemy is never material, but
only philosophical.

The Hermetic Philosophy, or Alchemy, started one hundred and twentyfive

thousand years ago in Lemuria when the Lesser Gods revealed the
knowledge to the most advanced men of that race. It did not commence in
Egypt, as so many persons believe. Before Lemuria sank beneath
thewaters of the Pacific, it was carried by the cream of the Lemurians into
India where it has been practiced, by the few, ever since. But it was
revealed to the elect of the Atlanteans, also, who carried the art with them
into Northern Africa just before Atlantis was submerged, and the Egyptians
were the heirs of this knowledge. As India became decadent, the best of the
race travelled westward and met the custodians of Atlantean knowledge,
where the knowledge of the two races was combined.

When intellectual darkness settled on all the nations, Arabia was the
custodian of the sacred fire that kept some knowledge and wisdom in the
world. It is to Arabia, then, that almost all Alchemists gratefully must look.
This should not be taken to mean that there were no Alchemists outside
that country during the Dark Ages, for there have been solitary ones here
and there. The word Alchemy is from the Arabic, "Al" meaning the, and
"kimia" meaning infusion, or elixir; for the primary purpose of most
Alchemists is not to transmute baser metals into, gold, but to find the Elixir
of Life. In other periods of history, other names were given to the art; but
the inspiration of the great adventure has always been to control sickness
and death, and all who have gained their goal have been rewarded, more or
less, by this power.

Metaphysical, or philosophical, Alchemy, under whatever name it may be

designated, contains certain cardinal principles, the first of which is the unity
of the universe, which is one in essence. It is atomic, primarily, having two
aspects, the consciousness and the material sides, the latter being the
vehicle for the former. Out of this essence came force and substance, mind
and matter, in all their multitudinous manifestations. This primal essence is
represented in the books as mercury; for the Alchemist learned ages and
ages ago, by chemical experiments, that mercury is the mother of all things
and that even life itself is but subconscious mercurial gas in motion.

The second principle of the philosophy is that there is but one purpose in
the universe-to evolve minds out of consciousness. through many forms,
and to develop the minds thus made into higher and still higher grades. At
times this was taught openly, as evolution through reincarnation, and at
other periods this truth was veiled.

The third great principle of Alchemy was, and is, that this is a universe of
cause and effect. If these cardinal principles are accepted, then every claim
of the Alchemist must be admitted to be at least logical. Some leading
modern scientists have been driven, inch by inch, to accept enough of
these basic propositions to no longer scoff at Alchemy, but to appreciate the
pioneers in that field who laid the foundations for much of our present
knowledge.

Empedocles, the Greek philosopher and alchemist, discovered, or

rediscovered, the four elements and named them. Zosimus, the Theban
Alchemist, invented sulphuric acid; and I might go down the entire list, if we
had the time. But it is enough to say that Geber, the Arabian Alchemist, in
the eighth century, wrote a book entitled "Summit of Perfection," in which he
disclosed the chemical knowledge of the Alchemists of his time. In that
book is shown that those men calcinated, boiled, dissolved, precipitated,
sublimated, and coagulated chemical substances. They worked then, as
chemists do now, with gold, mercury, arsenic, sulphur, salts, and acids.
Those Alchemists maintained then, as the ancients did and the modern
ones do, that all metals are compound bodies having their origin in sulphur,
salt, and mercury, in differing proportions. This book became the textbook
in Arabia, and later, in the colleges in Spain dominated by the Arabian
thought and culture. This book, still later, became the textbook on chemistry
for Europe and the world. Alchemy in its esoteric form, then and later, was
conveyed to students only under signs, symbols, and half-truths, leaving to
the patient, intuitive mind the interpretation of the symbols and the piecing
together of the half-truths into a complete science.

Most of the modern scientists, by reason of their childish conceit, are still
unwilling to admit that the ancients actually accomplished their
undertakings; but feel that the moderns will reach the ideals of the ancient
Alchemists. The Occultist must continue to smile at such vanity, knowing,
as he does, that time will justify, not only the philosophy of Occultism, but of
all the Occult Sciences. This is not intended as a sneer at the
accomplishments of the modern scientists, but as a caution to the intelligent
student not to take too seriously the claims of the present-day scientists that
they have all wisdom and success.

Nothing of basic importance has been discovered this century which does
not confirm the fundamental teachings of Occultism. Take, for illustration,
the theory of the electrical nature of matter and the method of its grouping.
It well deserved the Nobel Prize, for it was a physical demonstration of the
old Alchemistical doctrine, As in the Macrocosm, so in the Microcosm."

Sir Ernest Rutherford bombarded nitrogen gas with alpha rays of radium
and produced helium. This is transmutation of matter-done differently by the
ancient Alchemists, but, nevertheless, done. So, too, Dr. Adolph Meithe,
followed by Dr. KurIbaum passed electricity through mercurial vapor and
changed a part of it into gold. Professor Nagaoka, of Japan, did the same
thing. In the same year, Arthur Smits and A. Karsen, of Amsterdam,
decomposed lead and turned part of it into gold. Is this not modern
Alchemy? Why should any modern man, scientist or skeptic, presume to
say the ancient Alchemists did not have the knowledge they claimed? Is
there but one way-the electrical-to transmute metals? Paracelsus, in his
books on Alchemy, shows seven different ways to produce the result for
gold alone.

Remember what knowledge the ancient Alchemists admittedly contributed

to the world, and then think how they accomplished their results with crude
appliances and primitive chemical aids; and give them their share of credit,
esteeming them, not as pretenders, but as men of honor and of science
who were able to formulate from experiments the propositions which
modern science confirms.

To be a successful student of laboratory Alchemy, one first must acquire

the philosophy of the subject, and then live that philosophy until it
transmutes one's nature and makes it conform to the ideals of the Occultist.
This is not a very easy thing to do, for such ideals are higher than those of
other cults and creeds, by reason of the very nature of the subject and the
power it confers when success crowns effort.

The Philosopher's Stone is the objective of most students; and when

acquired and intelligently used, it confers physical immortality at will. This
astounding statement is confirmed by my observation; for incredible as it
may appear, I know of one Alchemist more than six hundred years old, and
one whose age is more than four hundred, and another whose age is more
than two hundred years; and all of these look and function as do men in the
prime of life at about forty years. It can be seen from this that if a man's
character is not good, if he is destructive in thought and evil in intent, he
could, in time, through similar natures, organize a hierarchy of evil which,
opposing the good, could delay evolution and limit its constructive harvest.
And so, men of doubtful character are not permitted by Divine Law to
achieve success in the higher realms of Alchemy.

If I had to define Alchemy, I would call it an exposition of nature's

evolutionary processes. For illustration, let us use mercury once more,
because you hear more about that than anything else in Alchemy-unless it
is the making of gold. If you understand one globule of mercury, its nature,
the forces that bind it together, and the chemical essences within it, it will
unlock the entire Universe to you. Mercury is the key of the Universe, and
that is the reason it is so dominant in all books on Alchemy. The man who
breaks down a globule of mercury, to its ultimate, understands how the
world is created. And when he makes the Philosopher's Stone. he becomes
a real creator, for he has made a little world; and the process is identical in
creating a Macrocosm or Universe.

This element is not called mercury always. It had different names in

different languages. In the time of the Arabians it was frequently called
arsenic, which is not the arsenic of medicine, but another name applied to
mercury.

Alchemy is the mother of all sciences because in it is contained the story of

the creation of the world, the story of the matter. the story of mind. Were I
going to picture it, I would call laboratory Alchemy the illustration of the
philosophy of Alchemy. In other words, it is applied Metaphysics.

There are two branches of laboratory Alchemy, the metallurgic and the
medical. The metallurgic pertains, of course, to metals. Primarily, it is the
extracting of metals from ores, then extracting the essences from the
metals and, finally, extracting oils from the essences. Those are the three
steps of analytic, metallurgic Alchemy. After one has succeeded in reducing
and finding out the ultimate nature of a metal, then one can reassemble it.
So that part of the science is both analytical and synthetical. But instead of
recreating the same thing, one may break down the metal and find a
number of different elements and may reassemble some of them to make
something else. Alchemists have had that knowledge for many cycles, and
modern science is just beginning to acquire and apply it.

To illustrate: Modern scientists can make gold, although the United States
Bulletin on the subject, shows that it costs more to make that metal than it is
worth. For a long time chemists thought that gold was an element, but now
they have accepted the alchemical statement that gold is a compound. So,
instead of doing as the modern physicist does, putting mercury into a tube
and passing an enormous amount of electricity through it to get a trace of
gold, the Alchemist breaks down base metals and combines their essences
to make the precious metals in commercial quantities. Modern science
expects to do the same, and many of the brightest minds in all nations are
devoting their lives to experiments along this line.

Professor Edwin Walter Kemmerer, of Princeton, Poland's financial savior,

warns that it is time to face the probability of currency chaos caused by the
discovery of synthetic gold. A few years ago, just after the Great War,
newspapers throughout the world were announcing various discoveries of
methods to manufacture the precious metal; and many nations feared that
the Alchemists of Germany would succeed in making gold in large
quantities that they could pay their war debts with the manufactured, but
depreciated metal.

The chemists of England gave a new turn recently to transmutation when

they asserted that they were trying to change gold into tin and into copper,
because the world's supply of gold seemed unlimited, while that of tin and
of copper would be exhausted within one hundred years. This viewpoint is
characteristic of England, because tin is an English product. But that nation
does not take into consideration that the Andes Mountains of South
America may supply all English deficiency in tin and copper and all other
metals so necessary to the needs of future generations. Or, if our English
chemists would concede for a moment that the Alchemists might have
some knowledge, they would find in Paracelsus' books a process for
transmuting iron into copper.

But nature has her own way of keeping her secrets which she reveals to
those only who serve her in her own way; and so the modern Alchemists
can afford to smile at the efforts of the modern scientists to transmute
metals commercially, knowing that throughout the ages other bright minds
have made similar efforts and failed. In fact, many of the present day
chemists and physicists are in the same egos who in other lives made
unsuccessful efforts in the same direction. And they will not succeed until
they conquer their egotism and imitate nature as the Alchemists do.
It is not only in regard to precious metals that Alchemists flatter nature by
imitation. they break down metals extract their oils, and reassemble their
atoms as semi-precious stones and as jewels and gems. There was not a
crowned head in Europe which did not wear jewels made by Count St.
Germain, for he was liberal with his presents to royalty, with whom he was a
great favorite. The best that modern chemists have been able to do is to
make small synthetic jewels. Every one knows of the synthetic rubies and
emeralds of the present day. Some are very well done and only experts can
detect the false from the true. The modern chemist is less fortunate in
making diamonds, producing only very small ones. The handsomest jewels
in India today were never taken out of the ground; they are the products of
ancient and modern Alchemists.

On this part of Alchemy, the things I have said I know, not from my own
knowledge, but from hearsay-from other Alchemists and from Occult books
and records. Mrs. Ingalese and I, so far, have only taken up the second
branch of laboratory Alchemy - medical Alchemy.

In this connection, I have a word of explanation to offer in behalf of the

nature of this lecture. For forty years Mrs. Ingalese and I have shared with
the world some of our experiences and knowledge through our lectures and
books. We have tried always to keep our personalities in the background,
as our works show. But, the very nature of this lecture and its purpose
require that for once I must break this lifetime rule, for otherwise this lecture
would be useless. My purpose in giving it is to add the testimony of Mrs.
Ingalese and myself to the truth of the claims of the Alchemist as far as our
own experiences have gone. Those learned men have been grossly
maligned during the Nineteenth Century and until the third decade of the
present one. The only concession made now by the wise (?) men of the
present time is that "the theories of the Alchemists were probably correct,
but they, never realized their dreams." And this statement is reiterated in
books, lectures, and classrooms, without the least evidence to support its
later portion. On the contrary, tradition and circumstantial evidence all
confirm the claims of the ancients.

Our experience and our testimony are as follows: For Years we thirsted for
the knowledge of how to cure disease and to prolong life. We knew that a
strong mind in a strong body is essential to this purpose, and therefore we
studied the theories of every prominent school of medicine, and many of
those not prominent. None of these held out fulfillments of our hopes. The
nearest approach to our ideal was the Occult School of Medicine. For seven
years we studied in this School, that being the time required to complete the
course; and we were well rewarded for our efforts, though we were not
taught how to prolong life indefinitely, or how to renew youth. But we were
taught how to cure disease with herbal remedies and with the mind and
Cosmic Forces. To save answering innumerable questions concerning this
School, let me say that Occult Medicine, like all the other Occult Sciences,
is not taught in a school building situated in any particular place, but by
graduates of the system who received their knowledge from an individual
teacher and who transmit, in the manner in which they received them, the
teaching "from mouth to ear."

No one is accepted as a pupil in this School who has not studied Occult
Philosophy for at least a period of seven years, and who has not, in a great
measure, lived what lie has learned. The teacher, alone, is the judge of the
qualifications of a pupil, and comes to him when, from an evolutionary
viewpoint, he is ready to be taught-the life and the mental desire of the pupil
attract the teacher.

Our study of Occultism and of Occult Medicine naturally brought us in

contact with the literature of Alchemy. It was the one system that seemed to
offer our hearts desire. Our other work and our situation in life were such
that we could not essay the Hermetic Art at that time. And so we com
menced to collect manuscripts and books on the subject and to save our
money for the great adventure. This was continued for more than a decade.
We learned all we could about the art, through literature and inquiry; but
during those years, we deferred the attempt to try out the theories
practically. But we made up our minds which branch of the subject we
finally would essay.

We ascertained from the books that it was first requisite to study metallurgic
Alchemy in order to know how to reduce metals for their oils. To illustrate: A
globule of mercury is fluidic. The first thing a metallurgist does is to remove
its metallic covering so as to "fix" its contents. Then the "fixed" portion is
reduced to powder, which, in turn, is again reduced to an essence, and
from that is extracted an oil. This oil is then crystallized, after which it is
ready for Alchemical expeeriments. All this is much easier described than
done, but it was necessary for us to have a definite idea of what we desired
to do to accomplish our purpose, and the works of Paracelsus gave us this
information. Some one has said, You can destroy all other books on
Alchemy, for their knowledge and more is contained in the Alchemical
writings of Paracelsus."

In 1911 we determined to put our conception of the teachings of Paracelsus

to laboratory tests and commenced our experiments. Our quest was the
Philosopher's Stone, and not the transmutation of metals. We had to learn,
however, the analytical side of metallurgic Alchemy, but went no further in
that direction. We never have made gold, nor gems. That is a branch which
is exceedingly interesting; and when we have the leisure, we shall pursue
that part of the art. But we have seen and talked with those who claimed
success in that branch, and, knowing their characters as we do, we have no
reason to question their statements; besides which, modern science
confirms the possibility, and our studies show the probability. But we are not
convinced that the process is profitable. It is a question which looms large
whether the time, money, and incessant labor devoted to this branch of the
work would not produce larger monetary returns in some other field of
endeavor. We are rather inclined to believe they would. But for the sake of
knowledge, we will some day master that branch of the arts.

After we established our laboratory and commenced our experiments, it did

not take us long to find that we had enlisted, not only in a difficult study, but
in a very expensive one; and that our income would be overtaxed to meet
the requirements. It was therefore agreed that I should return to the practice
of law to supplement our resources and that Mrs. Ingalese should pursue
the experiments. There have been women Alchemists in the past who have
assisted their respective husbands in the work, but 1 believe Mrs. Ingalese
was the first women to, take the initiative in the art; and to her goes all the
credit of the pioneer for the four long years of solitary effort and for the final
discovery of how to make the stone. My part was to produce the means to
carry on the work, to consult with my wife and to encourage her in the hours
of disappointment and despair; and, later, first to assist in the work, and
then to relieve her of the toil of bringing her results to perfection.

The essential theory of the Alchemists is that all metals have oils and these
oils are the spirits, or virtues, of the metals. That was the first principle
which confronted us, and, necessarily, it was true or false. The examination
of the text-books on chemistry failed to disclose information on this subject.
Interviews with prominent chemists brought denial of this theory; but I could
not reconcile their denial with the fact that petroleum products seemed to
indicate otherwise. I was told that such products were the results of animals
or vegetable deposits; but learned by later investigation that this theory of
science was incorrect, as is the theory that coal and its oils are derived from
the vegetable world, but we were confronted with the fact that either
chemistry, or Alchemy, was mistaken, and we had to determine the truth for
ourselves.

As oil of gold was one of the four elements of the Philosopher's Stone
according to the books - we naturally commenced to reduce gold. But gold
at two hundred and forty dollars a pound is an expensive thing to
experiment with; and, after a while it dawned on us that the principle would
be the same if we used copper at fifteen cents a pound. So the experiments
were transferred to the cheaper metal.

Three long, weary, heart-breaking years were devoted to the pursuit for the
red oil of copper, with never a ray of light to bless the labor or to encourage
hope. Nothing but dogged determination held us to our purpose. One night,
a telephone message from my wife to come home at once as she had "it"
which to us, of course, meant the oil. All speed limits were broken reaching
home, and Mrs. Ingalese exhibited to me a brown substance that was
hardening fast. She pronounced it the red oil of copper.

At the commencement of our endeavors, we had agreed that we would try

never to deceive ourselves and would not hesitate to say what we honestly
thought, because the easiest thing in the world is to believe what one wants
to believe. Hard as it was, I had to say "That liquid is neither red, nor is it an
oil, but it is greasy." She replied, "When I phoned you, it was a red oil. but it
has hardened and oxidized."

So there was nothing to do but to try again. and after another experiment
she produced the oil of copper. When we had that, we no longer cared what
chemistry taught, nor what chemists believed. The laboratory had told us
that the Alchemists were right.

I closed my office then, resigned from all my clubs. stopped lecturing and
writing and all social duties and pleasures, and devoted my time to work in
the laboratory with my wife. We thought that victory was close at hand, but
found that it was still some years away. The fifth year gave us the oil of
sulphur. but not until we had many fires and explosions and two
asphyxiations. The sixth year produced the oil of mercury, the basis of all
Alchemy. By this time we had sold all our securities and had two mortgages
on our home, but had determined to continue with the work until we met
with success, if it took this life and all subsequent ones. But we had all the
oils required to make the Stone. and. thus encouraged, we tried to
crystallize and fuse them.

In 1917 we succeeded in making the White Stone of the Philosophers. It

looked like soft, white marble, and its effect upon the body was startling. We
dared not try it on ourselves at first. But there was a third member of our
family, a beautiful Angora cat of which we were very fond. We took a vote to
see which of the three should test out that Stone, and the cat, neglecting to
vote, was elected. It survived the first dose, and we repeated it on the two
following days, with the cat becoming more frisky than usual. After that we
tried it ourselves, each taking a dose at the same moment so we would
excarnate together if it should prove fatal. But it proved beneficial and
energized our bodies.

Shortly after that event, the wife of a prominent local physician died; and the
doctor, knowing of our experiments and that the books claimed that such a
Stone, if used within a reasonable time, would raise the dead, asked us to
experiment on the body of his wife. Half an hour had elapsed since her
death and her body was growing cold. A dose of the dissolved White Stone
was put into the mouth of the corpse without perceptible result. Fifteen
minutes afterward a second dose was administered and the heart
commenced to pulsate weakly. Fifteen minutes later a third dose was given
and soon the woman opened her eyes. In the course of a few weeks, the
patient became convalescent, after which she lived seven years.

Encouraged by this success, we redoubled our efforts to make the Red

Stone of the Philosophers, which is the one most mentioned in Alchemical
writings. This effort was continuous from 1917 to 1920, when our quest was
rewarded. True, the product was crude, but it answered to every test of a
newly-made Stone; but it was so crude we were unable to retain the first
dose and had to refine it by months of labor before it became suitable even
for a weak medicine.

Afterwards, we commenced to take the Red Stone regularly twice a week.

The dose, in size, was about as large as an uncooked grain of rice; in Troy
weight, less than half a grain. The dose was very small, yet almost from the
first, the results were wonderful, and, during a series of years, quite
miraculous.

As I have remarked before, nothing is quite so easy as self-deception and

to preclude this possibility, we had a number of friends, including two
physicians, to check the effect of the Stone upon our bodies. For many
months, the symptoms were all subjective, such as renewed strength and
greater endurance. Then the effects were quite patent to an observer; as,
increased circulation of the blood, stronger heart, better color, greater
number of red corpuscles, and other physical manifestations.

There were several elderly people whom we were under obligations to help
in case our search proved successful, and we offered to share the results of
our efforts with them; but, being wisely cautious, they preferred to wait until
we had tried out the Stone for a year. After that, our renewal club was
formed and we all took the magic medicine. We called our group "The
Renewal Club" because the books promised that the Red Stone, if
persistently used for years, would renew and restore the physical body to
the perfection of manhood, or womanhood. Seven years have passed, and
all the mem of the group - except one - are manifesting this truth in their
bodies. The one member excepted was more than eighty years of age
when she commenced the treatment. Her body was diseased. she did not
follow the directions; and she finally died from the action of drugs, given to
her by her dentist, which produced coma-kidney disease being one of her
complications.
At first the action of the medicine upon our group was very slow because
the Stone was weak; but as time passed, its power increased with each
elevation, until in January,1926 it was perfected for medical purposes. Mrs.
Ingalese and I have not done as well as some of the other members of the
group because of the condition we were in when we commenced the
treatment. From 1911 to 1920, though having the knowledge and the
means to keep our bodies healthful we did not use mind or any medicine in
that behalf because, otherwise, we could not have known what effect the
Alchemical products would have on us.

From a physiological viewpoint, those were important years in our lives,

since our bodies had reached an age when strict attention and care were
necessary to prevent quick deterioration. But, even under those conditions,
our bodies now attest the power of the Stone, as all who have known us for
the last two decades can testify.

The books, or manuscripts, claim that the Red Stone of the Philosophers
will cure any illness, and that after one has taken it for five years one cannot
contract any disease. We desired to test the truth of that statement and
tried the Stone on many "incurables." The number of cases cured was
remarkable, but we found it not infallible.

Aside from personal benefit, the one reason we entered upon the great
quest was to know the truth about medical Alchemy, which I would
summarize as follows:

The Alchemists who wrote on the subject usually did so within a period of a
few years after obtaining the Stone. The marvelous work done by it, for
themselves and others, stimulated their enthusiasm and warped their
judgment. A careful observation over a greater number of years and a
larger number of cases would have made them more accurate. These good
men had no intention to deceive, but they spoke, or wrote, too soon.

Mrs. Ingalese and I both know that if the Stone is administered to a young,
or a matured, person in normal health, it will prevent old age; that if given to
a healthy but aged person, it stops further physical deterioration and starts
him backward toward youth. From testimony of creditable witnesses and
corroborative evidence, we believe that such cases reach perfected
manhood and remain there at the will of the possessor of the Stone. So,
physical immortality and perpetual youth are realities, and not dreams.

We know that the Stone restores virility in men at any age, and normal
desire in both sexes. If a woman has recently passed her change of life, it
restores all normal functions of the sex organs. But, if she has long passed
that period, then, childbearing is out of the question.
The Stone is an aid in acute diseases, but cannot be relied upon alone to
cure since its action is too slow. In chronic cases, where there are no
complications and fair vitality, its action is certain in any disease; where
there are complications and low vitality, other aids are advisable. Of course
I am assuming in the foregoing statements that the person using the Stone
also exercises common sense in regard to eating, drinking, sleep and work.
If one disregards all laws of hygiene and misuses mind and body, then one
must take the consequences of one's thoughts and acts; for there is no
vicarious atonement either in medicine or in morals. If a person desires
longevity and youth, he must obey the rules in the Chapter on Immortality in
"The Greater Mysteries."

It was the implicit faith in the power of the Stone to cure all disease, under
every circumstance, that caused their more conservative and wiser brothers
to use all aids to restore health, and then utilize the Stone to perpetuate life,
health, and youth, for centuries.

I have been asked often if it were not the mind, or faith, of the patient which
produced the marvelous results in the cases we have observed. I answer,
"NO," because some of them did not know what they were taking, and
others did not believe in its power but took it as a "forlorn hope."

This is our testimony in behalf of Alchemy and the Alchemists, which each
person may accept, or reject, according to his conviction, until such time as
our bodies, now sixty-five and seventy-three years of age, respectively, by
their youth and vigor, will compel acceptance of our statements.