On Plant Putrefaction
Aphorism I
Total or substantial putrefaction is the extinction of the mixed’s form.
II
The root cause of this absolute death is none other than the heterogeneity and discordance of the elements.
III
The elements that make up the food of the mixed are not always equally pure; the nature of the mixed confusedly attracts the pure and the impure that its nourishment provides.
IV
The spirit of the world which is internal to the mixed resides immediately in the pure elements. By the force of the particular magnetism which it exerts there, it continually repels the impure, and if it cannot drive them out, it subjects them and suppresses their energy. Still, if it becomes inferior to those in power, it yields to the effort of its adversaries, flees, and the mixture perishes.
V
The pure and the impure fight each other for the opposition of their qualities which, with the continuation of the fight, gradually decreases.
VI
In natural putrefaction the pure gets rid of its excrements more or less according to the conditions of the place where the putrefaction takes place.
VII
The putrefaction that occurs only through nature and without the aid of art never purifies perfectly because the open air, in which it occurs, is a mighty obstacle. But the artificial putrefaction that takes place in closed containers purifies to perfection.
VIII
Artificial putrefaction is done by calcination, washing and distillation.
IX
Calcination, separation, and putrefaction are always united both in the work of nature and art.
X
After the putrefaction, various humidity are separated from the wine, three of which are the body, the spirit and the soul, the fourth is a useless phlegm.
XI
Alchemy kills the mixed and then restores its life.
XII
In this change from death to life, all the essential parts are perfected, and the excreta are separated. Thus the substances proper to and determined by the specific being of the mixed embrace and bind each other more intimately. Thus their magnetism is all the more powerful and more active, the more the spirit of the world that passes through the pores of these elemental substances radiates there with fewer obstacles, and consequently with more speed. This new activity can rightly be called new life or resurrection of the mixed.
XIII
In the period in which the form of the mixed is altered, although the first elemental parts are not at the same time as the operations of the art, it seems that the mixed is dead. But it is not really dead, because the particular forms that reside in the first elementations are not destroyed and all the specific magnetisms that result can still reunite, after the separation of the parts dissimilar to their nature, contributing all together with more potency to a form universal and more perfect than the previous one.