Now take the crystalline sublimed, dissolve 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 cellar, put it in a vapor balneum and transform it in a liquor in this way. 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.
But you can go also 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 the quicker you can in a heated and greased form casting. When all is chilled out, separate the wastes dal king, regulus, make it melted again and add a bit of saltpeter, pour again in a hurry as before, 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 by the help of vitriol and common salt) mixed them, put 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 again the butyrum. 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. In this way all shall melt becoming a water. Pour it in a clean alembic, place it in a cold sand, so golden color crystals get formed. take them, put again in the cold the remaining solution, slightly evaporated, and let other crystals to form. Then take all the crystals, grind them well, put in a glass bowl, place it in our scalable athanor and make the content to go through all the colors. Treat again the sublimed in a day till all becomes red and fixed. Then take this red powder, place it into an alembic, pour on an over rectified spirit of wine and extract all the red. Put together the extracted and distill the spiritus again, till a red powder shall residue. Put it into a glass bowl, place it in cellar and wait for it to turn into an oily liquid: pour a pound of this liquor in a retort, add to it 1/2 pound of mercury, let to 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.
Fifth Chapter
Here you will find the ultimate tincture, both for dry and humid way, starting from magnesia or bismuth.
To make you to know all about manipulation, you must know that from the earth one can get a matter by which the ancient prepared their lapis medicinalis, that’s to say the real stone of the ancient. That’s the magnesia, a heavy black mass of insignificant aspect. And the magnesia is nothing more than a mineral the ancient called puch ( Archarion’s note: “our ancient called this matter as puch, but it is not the common stibium, but a heavy grey-black stone, often veined white or even with other beautiful colors” R Abraham Eleazar, Uraltes chymisches Werk. – “Albaon, abackozodi is a heavy black stone that Persians called puch; it is covered with a grey-black garment because it must be unknown to enemies” Writings of Baruch). It contains a great quantity of spiritus mundi or mercurii, or better the real semen metallorum, seed of metals).
If you take this subjectus – per se absque additamento (appendix) – and before placing on the fire you distill vulgari modo, commonly, per retortam, in retort, a liquor, which is very sweet and has prodigious powers, put a small quantity in a little glass vessel and place inside a dry plant or flower with the root, some hours after these shall become green as they were just sprung from the earth. But – even more weird thing – if in the small glass vessel to the plant ( or flower) and to this menstruum you add a bit of salt and make then to stay at moderate warm, after three or four days the plant resumes to grow and take the form of the plant from which the salt has been extracted. But you must not shake the glass, otherwise this thing disappear: if instead you let it be, it can still be seen.
Further in the magnesia the spiritus mundi has become the real semen seu principium metallorum, seed or principle of metals. But if you want to have the other parts, the first method is the following: take some fresh magnesia, freshly up from the hill, grind till powder and filled with it a retort; place the retort in an oven and heat with moderate fire till it becomes liquid. If you heat by first, second and third degree fire you get a spiritus or sweet liquor.