The things that make this work difficult are:
1. The knowledge and care of the hours of parturition, because this is very similar to the human generation, as it has its hours for conception and birth.
2. The managing of the fire, in which those who do not take the necessary precautions often miss and ruin all the construction, a hindrance that you can easily avoid being cautious and careful.
3. The secret which I promptly learned by going directly to its first source. The remaining is easy and not at all unpleasant, except the pungent odor that affects the beginning. The colors are three in number, namely black, white equals that of the snow, and the third that resembles the ruby, although the blending of these three produces others as well (3).
I rather think that this art is so smooth and easy that could be carried out even by one of my peasants completely ignorant in chemistry (assuming I have first say a few words in his ear. Most philosophers imagine and swear that this art is deeper and more difficult than any metaphysics, although the nature walks in this, as in all its other operations, with a straight and simple pace. We have only one matter, one cooking. Th matter, the pot, the oven and the fire are not but the same thing.
“People who neglect the knowledge of themselves and that indulge in pomp and avarice tend to rise to stars and planets, and join them as worthy friends that in their turn all head to their leader, the sun, and after having offered to it the moon as a spouse, they would like to be rewarded with a free access to the huge treasures of the Bridegroom. But one can not expect anything from a dead thing. The common popular idols They need our water with which they sow, and by their fruit delight those who work in the sun. This is however not the goal of a true Philosopher. Those look at the lineage of this Prince of Planets as a fun, and as a first rudiments of their knowledge.”
In this paragraph the author criticizes those who try to get the Secret Fire directly from the astronomical Sun, operation quite impossible indeed.
“He who has acquired a taste for eternity, eagerly want to leave this life to gain the object of his desire, as one who has lived in exile and as a foreigner in distant countries, although free and safe, does not hesitate to return at home.God has equipped us with two deadlines for our days, one accidental and one natural. No mortal, not even a philosopher, can not go above it. For the other we are given the science of magi, to extend it, perhaps, by the favor of the divine will and the removal of obstacles. Our early Fathers and those who lived before the great flooding, as well as various philosophers, did provide some examples. The first of these terms is ordinary and common to all the mortals of this century, it will become clear through the example of a lamp or a candle, which burn as long as the fuse lasts, or until the second term, unless they are turned off by some accidental cause, which would substitute the first term. The candle or lamp of our lives, it would burn so long as its subject or its vital oil is consumed, if it was not turned off by age or by some violent accident, a weak complexion or by intemperance by debauchery and the softness from which numerous diseases, or from some other cause accidental. The science of the wises can against this term, unless, having the best things in front of their eyes, the wise man does not receive from the Creator through prayer, the grace to move out early to go with him.”
There is a new concept here: our Soul is composed by Secret Fire/Sulphur, and can be extracted by another less thick Secret Fire, that’s to say Mercurius/Spirit of Life.
“But to return to our subject, there are many things in the books, which cover three distinct works, that’s to say the animal, vegetable and mineral, and yet the great and the small work, the work of Saturn, the dry and wet path. I don’t mean neither to diminish the authority of so many excellent personages, nor to fight and resist so many oracles. Nevertheless. I doubt very much that, through all these names, they have not meant to designate, in fact, but one and same thing, and not different steps in the operations and so many names but they do look to the same goal. Not hard to believe that many of them, after obtaining the true Mercurius have tried several ways to shorten the work, for the patience of the modern do not extend up to bring this excellent but long work to the last degree of perfection allowed by art and nature. Anyway I have not been persuaded that any of the philosophers has never been able to complete his work by means of any Mercurius other than the stuff of which I spoke above, and through other method than mine, in which only the Nature has hidden the keys of his treasure, and where finally there is nothing superfluous, but in which everything is transformed by means of a constant cooking in a glorious elixir. This is the wet and dry path, and the animal, vegetable and mineral work at the same time.”
A real perfect alchemical work ( after the preparatory stage, of course, in which Secret Fire is extracted and prepared) is performed with and by a single Mercurius, then fixed, then doubled, partitioned, washed and feed by itself and harden by itself (see an Opus Magnum scheme).
“The path of the Wise Men’s Aquarius is perhaps known to me, but I have not ever undertook the work because it is endless and very uncomfortable, and requires the skill of a man accustomed to blow coal. When, in my work I have entrusted my compound, tightly closed, to its fire and oven, I do not need another teacher and guide than the same Nature. It is never idle, always works and tends, step by step, to a new resurrection and the highest perfection. When sometimes the artist was wrong, it just the nature to straighten the error. There is only to regret that it requires such a long time, because you could, in the space of two years, to reach a useful and fruitful rotation. It also requires an artist attentive and free from any other concern, for fear that its negligence or other impediments for business,make lost in a moment the result of many months of work. My distractions caused by public affairs, were due, for example, the fact that in three different occasions I have unsuccessfully started this work, and not been able to accomplish what I have seen by my teacher, and which I had heard and handled with my own hands. If you have more patience, care and leisure, be happy, in a cheerful mood, prey without pause until the end, and you can count on finding the good ruler on earth after God.
That is the Golden Fleece of the Greeks, the Light and the Justice of the Jews, the Shining Star of the Magi, which leads them in the pursuit of knowledge of the Lord of Nature and the uncreated verb.”
In addition to that there is the awareness that Secret Fire is within our body too. It is our Spirit of Life and our Soul. It does compose them. So the search for ourself is the search of Secret Fire within us. Now we can understand what the “unstained Virgin” of nature is: our Mercurius, our Soul and Spirit (4).
To be continued at Clavicule Science Hermétique and Transmutation Tetraktys .
- Scripta Instituti Donneriani Aboensis, Volumes 4-6, Almqvist & Wiksell, 1970 ;
- Bibliotheca Chemica by Ferguson ;
- See also Kamala Jnana, Introduction to a Live Secret , Hortulus Hermeticus, Beware of the Red Laton , Cabala Mineralis or the She Horse on Urine Work part 2 , Artephius, Secret Book and Secret Fire ;
- See also Aiòn, Light & Spirals of Immortality , Michelangelo & the Mumia Skin in Last Judgement ;