Another interesting, though necessarily incomplete, tour into preliminary works with Mercury and Bismuth—a dive into a modus operandi not too far from reality.
My translation from Archarion’s La Via della Vera Alchimia, ed. Mediterranee 1994, appendix Testamentum Fraternitatis Roseae et Aureae Crucis from Cod SN 2897 in the Vienna Nationalbibliothek, with the Ms full title Testamentum Der Fraternitet Rosæ et Auræ Crucis, als gewisse Extases oder geheime Operationes, wodurch das Mysterium eröffnet an unsere Kinder der Weisheit göttlicher Magie und englischer Cabbalae. I.W.R. Anno 580.
You can find the previous chapter at Testamentum Fraternitatis Roseae et Aureae Crucis. Part 3.
Chapters three, four, and five. We find “recipes” again and again. They are based on the first opera to open raw matters and get our Mercurius/Columba Dianae/Universal Dissolvent. Complete immersion in baroque age solve et coagula, to sublime-crystallize-liquify. Here the main work on alchemical marriage is just clued by sentences like: ” … take the salt and together with it grind at first a gold calx then the columba Dianae then make them all go through the colors… “.
Additionally, sentences like: “…Then add to it the quantity of fresh mercury needed to have it melted, then get to digest together and distill by cohobation, so you transform circulatum minus in circulatum maius” is important to establish how typical were the alchemical passages among reigns.
Nevertheless, we should read differently “microcosmic and macrocosmic”. In Testamentum Fraternitatis Roseae et Aureae Crucis we already know they mean two necessary salts; one is from human reign.
Third Chapter
How to prepare the very precious stone of the ancient starting from the vulgar mercury and gold. Make it able to remove diseases.
That’s to say, transform this crawling and venomous worm into effective medicine. As you have already heard, you can do it in many ways. But now I want to teach you how to make spiritual and solar this mercurius vivus in an easy way.
This is water that doesn’t wet the hand. Nevertheless, it will never become a tincture if you let it as it is. Thus you have to treat it as follows: go to a grapevine, where you can find a red gold mineral. Take from it 4 pounds and reduce it to powder. Join it to 3 pounds of mercury and mix well in a bowl. Then place them together in a sublimatorium (a vessel to sublime), set the helm and gathering container, and heat with subliming fire; in this way, the mercurius will sublime with the volatile sulfur produced by the red gold mineral. Have the sublimed be ground together with the residual and sublime again. Repeat this operation until the living mercurius is no more visible, but all the mercury has risen as a sublimed. Significantly increase the heat.
Take the sublimed and get it sublimed again for the times necessary to get it transparent. So try to make it live anew with the fixed oil produced by the tartar ( leach of potassium tartar K2CO3, obtained by getting red hot tartar and through the auto dissolution of the residual to the humid air). If it retakes life, you can proceed as follows: take the caput mortuum remaining from the sublimation of the red gold mineral, have it calcined over and over till it becomes a grey powder, then with some vinegar extract the salt, have it clarified with distilled water in order all becomes pure and transparent. Crush this salt with your sublimed and sublime until all the salt sublimes with that. Then check if the living mercury is still visible. If you don’t see it, the mercury has been transformed. If you can see it, you have to sublime it again. Thus take it, crush it, put it in a bowl, and place it in the cellar in a humid room, so it will melt to become liquor. Get the liquor separated from the feces; have it liquefied again. When they are all melted, put them together in a retort, place it in the sand, set a gathering container, and distill till all the humidity has passed and yellow drops do appear; then remove the gathering container, set another, and increase the fire; so a red and yellow oil will rise. So, in the end, you will have to increase the fire significantly.
When anything more passes, extinguish the fire, remove the retort from the sand balneum, break it, take the residue, grind it, put it into another retort, and pour over all the oil and spirit. Distill, and when the spirit has risen, remove the gathering container and put another, in which you will gather the rising blood red and yellow oil. Put all again in a retort and distill once again in this way. Keep the oil in clean glassware; in this way, you have a great treasure. Ancient called it oleum Mercuri.
With this oil, you can do the following: take one dram of gold’s calx, put it in a phial and pour over one ounce of your oil, close the phial, place it in your athanor, and make the substance go through the colors. When it has become fixed, take your tincture, grind it, put it into another phial, and pour over your oil as much as it needs to get a creamy texture. Seal the glass and make the matter go through colors. You can repeat this operation as many times as you like. So you have the lapis mineralis by which – as I taught you – you can take action on mercury, making it a fixed red color powder, and then take action on gold. You can work with bismuth or magnesia if you don’t have some red gold mineral.
Fourth Chapter
How one can prepare the real alkahest or acetum acerrimum starting from vulgar mercury.
Transform it.
That’s to say, transform its white and extract its primum entis, i.e., its quintessence, going in this way: Take 1/2 pound of oleum vitrioli ( Archarion’s note: concentrated sulfuric acid) and 1/2 pound of spiritus salis ( Archarion’s note: acid from common salt) which must be prepared correctly, pour them on one pound of mercury into an alembic, so it gets melted: set a Helm and distill all the humidity in a sand balneum. In the end, increase the fire and sublime. Grind the sublimated together with the residue and sublime again. Take the sublimated and put it in another alembic. Pour over one ounce of oleum vitrioli and one ounce of spiritus salis and distill the phlegm again; then increase the fire and sublime.
Take the sublimated and get it sublimed alone until it turns like a glass. Then grind it till powder, put it into a glass bowl, place it in the cellar, and wait for it to become oil. Either place it into a high alembic and dissolve it in a good spiritus salis, let them putrefy together for a month, then pour into a quantity of good distilled wine vinegar precisely equal to the spiritus salis previously added;
in this way, a separation will occur, and some feces will drop on the bottom. Decant the clear part and place it in the cellar; so crystals do form. Take these crystals, join with those formed after other evaporations, grind them well, put them in a glass bowl, place them in a sand balneum, and heat them with subliming fire. Place the sublimated into the bowl and repeat this operation till the crystals become red; in this way, you have the lapis medicinalis mercurii (from mercury). Crush well this sublimated, put it into an alembic, pour on an over-rectified spirit of wine, and extract all the red. Separate the spirit of the wine again ( by distillation) till a powder will residue. Place that in a glass bowl and place it in the cellar. Please wait until it becomes an oily liquor, put it in a phial, let it digest for fourteen days and fourteen nights, and eventually distill it into a small retort. But you can do before ( soon from the beginning) to let digest the liquor in them and then to distill, or even better: before letting it digest, add to the liquor, if it weighs a pound, 1/2 pound of pure quicksilver, let to digest together and then distill by cohobation: so you obtain the arcanum primi entis mercurii in liquida substantia i.e., the acetum acerrimum metallum or great circulatum maius, by which you can operate wonders.
With this metallic liquor, you can treat gold more universally; as it opens gold, it frees it from its earth and reduces it to its quintessence. Pour it in a phial, seal it, and let it all go through the colors in our athanor. As you know, here you have the lapis universalis again. With the gold solution, you can make imbibitions and improve your work.
The same thing happened with silver. Here you see again that it is impossible to do anything before everything has been regenerated, that’s to say if it has not become a spiritual stone which you should crush to give the water to heal the seven planets ( Archarion’s note: metals).
So also by this work, you may see what kind of secret substance you can get if you have obtained some crystals from microcosmic, microcosmic, and vegetal reigns and, after having them ground, mix them with mercurius vivus, get the whole sublimed and repeat the operation. The mercury will crystallize; get these steady crystals in a glass sphere transforming the mercury into a red powder, and go on as you have been taught. Now take the crystalline sublimed, dissolve it in the spiritus and azoth from which you have obtained the crystals, do as new crystals can form, and fix them together with the red, so we have again the lapis medicinalis. Dissolve it in pure wine vinegar, distill again as I have taught you, and if you want to let liquefy the residue in the cellar, put it in a vapor balneum and transform it into liquor in this way. Then add the quantity of fresh mercury needed to have it melted, then digest together and distill by cohobation, so you transform circulatum minus in circulatum maius.
But you can also go this way: prepare a regulus antimonii et martis ( Archarion’s note: by melting together antimony sulfide, tartar, a bit of saltpeter, and iron, one part of antimony becomes metallic. An old recipe for the production of the king of fusion, regulus, says: crush till powder two pounds of antimonium crudum, join four ounces of white tartar and make to plenty sweat, or make red hot in a suitable crucible, one pound of well ground iron, then pour over antimonium crudum mixed with tartar; and when all has become liquid add step by step eight ounces of saltpeter. When all has become liquid, pour more quickly in a heated and greased form casting. When all is chilled out, separate the wastes from the regulus, make it melt again, add a bit of saltpeter, pour in a hurry, in a form casting, and separate the wastes. Repeat this operation once again, and your king will be ready. Theoretic Brothers). Take one pound, then take two pounds of mercury sublimed ( which has to be sublimed with the help of vitriol and common salt), mix them, put them together in a retort, and pour over one pound of spiritus salis; let digest together, place the retort in a sand balneum, fit a gathering container and start to distill: in this way shall pass at first a part of the spiritus salis, then a butyrum ( an oil substance which getting chilling out becomes a crystalline mush butter like, or pour over the spiritus salis and distill all the butyrum which is available to pass, take it and put it in another retort together with the caput mortuum, Remove the cinnabar deposited in the retort neck. Place it again in a sand balneum and distill the butyrum again. Also, the spiritus shall pass; take both this and the spirit and place them in an alembic together with the cinnabar or sublimated deposited around the retort neck, add one pound of good spiritus salis, close the alembic and let to putrefy for one month in the vapor balneum.
Pour it in a clean alembic, and place it in the cold sand, so golden color crystals form. Take them, put the remaining solution in the cold, slightly evaporated, and let other crystals form. Then take all the crystals, grind them well, put them in a glass bowl, place them in our scalable athanor, and make the content go through all the colors. In this way, all shall melt, becoming water.
Treat the sublimed again in a day till all becomes red and fixed. Then, place this red powder into an alembic, pour on an over-rectified spirit of wine, and extract all the red. Put together the extract and distill the spiritus again till a red powder shall residue. Put it into a glass bowl, place it in the cellar, and wait for it to turn into an oily liquid: pour a pound of this liquor in a retort, add 1/2 pound of mercury, let it digest together, and distill the liquor. So you have again successfully ended a secret operation by which you can do wonders. This liquor is the real quinta essentia mercurii et antimonii with which you can go as the previous ones. But I want to point at what is hidden inside the magnesia.