Remove the caput mortuum and calcine it, make a salt from lisciva, purify it by melting, filtering and letting to coagulate, then pour over your over distilled liquor, and let putrefy together for four days and four nights; in this way the salt will melt. Decant this liquor in a clean glass, immerse the glass in the sand in a cool place; some crystals shall form: so you have the vitriolum philosophorum. Get together all these crystals and have then dried. Or do that: put then in vapor balneum to make them to become a liquor, to this liquor join some gold, close them in a phial and make them to go through colors, so you have the lapis medicinalis.
Or, when you have dried the crystals, take them, put them in glass bowl, close well by melting, place it in our scalable oven and make fixed the salt per gradus, by degrees, turning the bowl so what that sublimes remains in the bottom. Repeat this operation many times till all is become fixed. Then take the substance and extract it with over rectified spirit of wine. Decant the liquid and distill again, till a liquid salt will residue. Place this salt in cellar and have it liquified to humid air, or let is as it is, a powder. Grind one pound of this powder together with one dram (1/8 of ounce) of gold calx, close together in a phial, and make them go through colors. With liquor or the powder you can imbibe and improve this salt all the time you want, in this why you have lapis medicinalis which acts on metals.
You can also do as that: take some salmiac (Archarion’s note: antimony chloride) and quicklime (CaO) in equal parts, cement together for four hours, lye from these the salmiac again, make it to coagulate again, and if it weighs 3/4 of pound add to it 1/2 of fresh salmiac and 1/2 pound of quicklime. Get cemented and coagulated again. Cement the coagulated again with an equal quantity ( in weight) of quicklime. After the cementation, extract and get coagulated. Place the coagulated in cellar, so it becomes an oily liquid. Pour this oil on the well ground magnesia and make to digest together in an alembic; the solution becomes green, of a herbal greenish. Decant this green solution and add other fresh oil. Repeat many times till it is no possible to extract anymore. Pour all the extracts together in an alembic, distill some phlegm and place the residue at cool, so crystals form and you have a herbal green vitriolum that the ancient called green lion or green dragon. Get this salt to dry, grind it well, mix together some red greasy earth, with it make some small lumps, have them dried, fill with them a retort and distill vulgari modo, common way, a spiritus , which you will separate again at least three times from caput mortuum.
Then separate the phlegm. But it is better if, once removed the spiritus, taking the caput mortuum, extract from it all the salt, pour over the distilled spiritus and distill some times the spirit by cohobation. However even the caput mortuum is not to be thrown away. So get all the phlegm separated from it, till a beautiful green oil remains in the bottom. On this oil pour the phlegm with the spiritus, or better: before the phlegm have the spiritus separated, pour it on the residual liquor and extract this oil again and again, till your oil becomes black like liquid pitch. In this way you have the chaos of ancient. Then put this pitch in a phial, seal the phial and let it to putrefy at a moderate heat, so the matter shall resolve in a crystalline spirit and a dark red earth. This spiritus is the mercurius philosophorum or columba Dianae. Have it rectified some times making all the phlegm out; with the phlegm extract from the dark earth the sulfur, and after having calcined the residual lye extract even the sal fixum. Then pour the spiritus on the sulfur and the salt in a phial, close it and make all to circulate together, till all is melted and unified. Let the colors to pass in our scalable oven, till the substance is stabilized. So you have a fixed dark red powder. Take this powder, add to it some purified gold and let them to ferment together at fusion heat; so you shall obtain a tincture whose 1 grain of that can transform in gold some 1/2 ounce of imperfect metal. But you must know also the following: take our matter; it is of two species: one is lunar, the other solar (1).
The Lunaria is called magnesia, it is grey and presents every kind of colors like doves neck. The other is grey overall and bright like velvet. They are both heavy. The lunaria – in my opinion – is easier to work with and gets quicker dissolved. So take the last one, grind it well and place in some glass bowls. During springtime when the weather is fine have it to stay outdoor, so the dew can fall inside and above it the moon and stars can shine, but no rain must fall inside; during daytime keep it out of the sun; then nigh-time place outdoor again. Go on like that till your matter will start to melt, and getting green and oily. You can also moisture it adding some fresh dew making it to stay outdoor nigh-time, on daytime indoor in a humid place. Then put this matter into a high alembic, sealed, put it at moderate heat and let putrefy all for four weeks. Then fit a helm with beck, set it with sealing compound and little by little distill the spirit. When this has passed, fit another gathering container and increase the fire so all the phlegm rises; decant the phlegm, so the corpus shall remain completely dry on the bottom of the alembic.
You can perform this operation even with a retort, and eventually increase the fire strength till all the white fogs went past. Remove the matter from the retort, put again in the air for dew to impregnate and slightly moisture it. After four weeks of putrefaction, distill; and repeat the operation for the third time. Then put the residual matter in a glass retort, pour over all the distilled spiritus and let them to digest for some days. Distill two-three times again by cohobation. In the end increase the fire power till all has been past. Pour this spiritus into a phial, close it well, make it to digest in a water balneum for four weeks; then distill the spiritus, at first by moderate fire then by strong fire; decant the phlegm; Have the spiritus rectified over and over till it becomes very beautiful and penetrating, keep with care. Get the residual caput mortuum calcined and extract from it by phlegm a salt. Have the salt purified by melting and coagulating, then pour over your spiritus, close it in a phial and let it to digest in vapor balneum till the salt is dissolved; in this way your liquor universalis is ready (2).
Or: when you have extracted the spiritus from the corpus, take the caput mortuum, put it into a sublimatorium and sublime all that wants to sublime: put away these flores ( flowers, sublimated), after having sublimed them other times alone.These are the columbae Dianae. Take them, or join to the spiritus and distill the whole in a retort by cohobation. From the caput mortuum you should extract the sulfur, nevertheless there is little of it as it has been almost all sublimed, so it doesn’t pay.
If you pour the phlegm on caput mortuum you extract a caput mortuum, which is nonetheless not enough. As to the opera one cannot in any way add any foreign thing, it is far better you let drop this opera and content yourself to calcine the caput mortuum. Then extract the salt, have it calcined, join to the spirit, place them in a cool place and wait for crystals to form. If crystals don’t form add a little spiritual phlegm, just as much as you repute enough. Place it at cool: so crystals do form. Collect all of them, put them into a glass bowl, seal it, place it in our athanor and get them stabilized by making them to rotate; in this way the lapis medicinalis is ready. Now it jus a matter of extraction by pure wine vinegar, as you have already been taught.
Or: pour your liquor over the salt in a phial, seal it and let them to digest for four weeks; in this way the salt will completely melt unifying with the spiritus mercurii and will become a liquor, with which you can operate: But you can also take the crystals, close them into a phial and make them to stay in a vapor balneum till they melt. Even in this way you can obtain the liquor universalis, with which you can operate. During the fixation beautiful colors are produced. Set your gradus ignis, degree of fire, according to those.
Or: take your crystals, grind them well, if they weigh 1/2 pound crush together 1/4 pound of purified mercury, put together in a large glass bowl, seal it, and have them sublimed in a sand balneum. The sublimed of a day can be circulated again , even the day after, till all has become a red powder. Remove the powder and extract by rectified spirit of wine, collect the extracts, have them distilled till a red salt shall residue. make the salt to be liquified in a glass plate: it will turn into an oil; with this oil you can operate as you have been taught.
You can pour the oil on the fresh mercury and distill by cohobation; so also the astrum mercurii, the aster of mercury, will pass.
Nevertheless it is better if you work only with vitriol and prepare with it the lapis medicinalis: As for the dry way, do as following:
take the magnesia and grind well, to it join for every pound 1/4 pound of flour of recently cooked powdered brick. Old bricks uses to contain a salt which is not suitable for this use. Put the whole into a good stone sublimatorium, place it in an oven and fit an helm to sublimatorium. Then for 48 hours heat per gradus, degree by degree, but in the last twelve hours you must increase the fire very much. Frequently change the helm: when it is filled with flores, sublimed, remove it and place another one. Go on like that till all has risen.
When no more flores rise, allow the fire to extinguish, put all the flores together into an alembic and sublime over and over. In the end you can also add a silver calx and get sublimed other two times; so they will become very pure and you have a very beautiful columba Dianae. Keep with care. Calcine the residual caput mortuum till becoming a grey powder, or dark red because of the brick’s flour. Pour over a distilled water and extract all the salt. Let the salt putrefy, then take four parts in weight of the salt and two parts of the columba Dianae, grind them up and make them to go through colors. With the columba you can improve your opera, otherwise do the following: take the salt and together with it grind at first a gold calx then the columba Dianae then make them all to go through the colors.
But you can also do as following: if you want to extract the salt you can do it with vinegar.Distill vinegar till a salt shall residue, purify the salt with distilled rainwater. Then take some fresh matter, it is enough 1/2 pound and calcine.
Make sure to not melt it during the calcination.When it has become a grey cinder, take 2 ounces of the cinder and 4 ounces of your salt and melt in crucible till to obtain a vitreous mass. Take 2 ounces of this vitrum and 4 ounces of columba, grind them together, put them in a steady phial, seal it, place it in sand and heat by degrees till all become a steady mass.Remove that mass, grind it till powder together with 2 ounces of columba, put them together inn a phial and go as before. Go on like that till you have consumed all your columba Dianae; so you have the lapis medicinalis fixum. But if starting from that you want to prepare the lapis universalis, liquify gold and when it is melted put 2 ounces of this lapis on 1/2 ounce of gold; melt well, so this too becomes a fragile red mass, whose one grain you can transform in gold 1/2 ounce of imperfect metals.
Summa: with magnesia and liquor universali, liquor of the universe, you can perform your opera starting from microcosmic and vegetal reign too, or even better, from macrocosmic. So – as you see – the Highest provides you many paths. Nevertheless Nature will obey you only if your heart is good. If not , you must before be worth of it, turning you heart to God, your creator, and rely entirely to him. In this way all will be fine. But there is also another path, in which you can start from the red gold mineral.
It follows another method in which one can start from the red gold mineral.
Take 3-4 marks of the red gold mineral, mind to use that containing at least 2-2,5 ounces of silver per pound, as in that there is much semen metallorum. Grind it, put into an alembic, place in warm sand for fourteen days and fourteen nights, then heat per gradus, degree by degree with subliming fire; in this way the sulfur philosophorum will rise adhering to the glass as a delicate and soft white wool crystal. Go on subliming for more days and more nights till no sulfur rises and into the alembic remains only an earth as black as coal. Allow the vessel to chill out and cut to separate the inferior part of the alembic, just a bit over the black matter But do it carefully, since if you shake it too much the sublimed falls to the ground and gets contaminated and all your work is gone. Remove the sulfur, have a little flask of good silver made, with cover. Put into your flores and throw into an alembic. The little flask should contain 2 drams (1/4 of ounce) of sulfur. Place the alembic in sand, heat progressively with subliming fire, so all the gentle and very subtle mercurial soul will pass through the flask’s walls, it will sublime and in it remains only an useless earth. In this way you get a crystal transparent sulfur , and this is the columba Diana, which may be called also mercurius philosophorum. From one mark of red gold mineral you will only get one ounce or even less, depending that the mineral is rich or poor. take this pure sulfur. In any way you want to name it, this is sulfur and also mercurius, because in it they are together. Take what it is remained in the sublimatorium and get it reverberated ( heat it cautiously directly on the flame), as long as it becomes soft and rises as wool; but while reverberating you should be careful to not make it liquid, but soft and subtle like wool. Now, when you see your earth rising like wool – which happens after few hours – remove it, put into an alembic, pour on a strong wine vinegar and extract the salt. Decant the extracted in a clean glass to be well closed. Reverb the earth for the second time ( calcine directly on the flame), pour on the distilled vinegar again and extract. Add the extracted to the previous one and repeat the operation for the third and fourth time, always reverberating the earth and extracting, till you think to have extracted all the salt. Then pour all the solutions in an clean glass alembic and extract all the vinegar, till nothing remains but the salt or 1/4 of the solution. Place the salt in a cool place and wait for the crystals to be formed.
Melt these crystals in distilled water, filter, make to evaporate and wait for other crystals; repeat the operation some other times till the utmost purity.