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away the dregs. Let the Acetum be abstracted and let it be again dissolved in common distilled water. This again
must be abstracted, and the sediment distilled with a very strong fire in a glass vessel closely shut. The whole body
of the Antimony will ascend as a very red oil, like the colour of a ruby, and will flow into the receiver, drop by drop,
with a most fragrant smell and a very sweet taste15. This is the supreme arcanum of the philosophers in Antimony,
which they account most highly among the arcana of oils. Then, lastly, let the oil of Sol be made in the following
way: Take of the purest Sol as much as you will, and dissolve it in rectified spirit of wine. Let the spirit be
abstracted several times, and an equal number of times let it be dissolved again. Let the last solution be kept with the
spirit of wine, and circulated for a month. Afterwards let the volatile gold and the spirit of wine be distilled three or
four times by means of an alembic, so that it may flow down into the receiver and be brought to its supreme essence.
To half an ounce of this dissolved gold let one ounce of the Oil of Antimony be added. This oil embraces it in the
heat of the bath, so that it does not easily let it go, even if the spirit of wine be extracted. In this way you will have
the supreme mystery and arcanum of Nature, to which scarcely any equal can be assigned in the nature of things. Let
these two oils in combination be shut up together in a phial after the manner described, hung on a tripod for a
philosophical month, and warmed with a very gentle fire; although, if the fire be regulated in dire proportion this
operation is concluded in thirty-one days, and brought to perfection. By this, Mercury and any other imperfect
metals acquire the perfection of gold.
CHAPTER XV.
CONCERNING THE PROJECTION TO BE MADE BY THE MYSTERY AND ARCANUM OF ANTIMONY.
No precise weight can be assigned in this work of projection, though the tincture itself may be extracted from a
certain subject, in a defined proportion, and with fitting appliances. For instance, that Medicine tinges sometimes
thirty, forty, occasionally even sixty, eighty, or a hundred parts of the imperfect metal. So, then, the whole business
hinges chiefly on the purification of the Medicine and the industry of the operator, and, next, on the greater; or lesser
cleanliness and purity of the imperfect body taken in hand. For instance, one Venus is more pure than another; and
hence it happens that no one fixed weight can be specified in projection. This alone is worth noting, that if the
operator happens to have taken too much of the tincture, he can correct this mistake by adding more of the imperfect
metal. But if there be too much of the subject, so that the powers of the tincture are weakened, this error is easily
remedied by a cineritium, or by cementations, or by ablutions in crude Antimony. There is nothing at this stage
which need delay the operator; only let him put before himself a fact which has been passed over by the
philosophers, and by some studiously veiled, namely, that in projections there must be a revivification, that is to say,
an animation of imperfect bodies nay, so to speak, a spiritualisation; concerning which some have said that their
metals are no common ones, since they live and have a soul.
ANIMATION IS PRODUCED IN THE FOLLOWING WAY.
Take of Venus, wrought into small plates, as much as you will, ten, twenty, or forty pounds. Let these be incrusted
with a pulse made of arsenic and calcined tartar, and calcined in their own vessel for twenty-four hours. Then at
length let the Venus be pulverised, washed, and thoroughly purified. Let the calcination with ablution be repeated
three or four times. In this way it is purged and purified from its thick greenness and from its own impure sulphur.
You will have to be on your guard against calcinations made with common sulphur. For whatever is good in the
metal is spoilt thereby, and what is bad becomes worse. To ten marks of this purged Venus add one of pure Luna.
But in order that the work of the Medicine may be accelerated by projection, and may more easily penetrate the
imperfect body, and drive out all portions which are opposed to the nature of Luna, this is accomplished by means of
a perfect ferment. For the work is defiled by means of an impure Sulphur, so that a cloud is stretched out over the
surface of the transmuted substance, or the metal is mixed with the loppings of the Sulphur and may be cast away
therewith. But if a projection of a red stone is to be made, with a view to a red transmutation, it must first fall on
gold, afterwards on silver, or on some other metal thoroughly purified, as we have directed above. From thence
arises the most perfect gold.
CHAPTER XVI.
CONCERNING THE UNIVERSAL MATTER OF THE PHILOSOPHERS STONE.
After the mortification of vegetables, they are transmuted, by the concurrence of two minerals, such as Sulphur and
Salt, into a mineral nature, so that at length they themselves become perfect minerals. So it is that in the mineral
burrows and caves of the earth, vegetables are found which, in the long succession of time, and by the continuous
heat of sulphur, put off the vegetable nature and assume that of the mineral. This happens, for the most part, where
the appropriate nutriment is taken away from vegetables of this kind, so that they are afterwards compelled to derive
their nourishment from the sulphur and salts of the earth, until what was before vegetable passes over into a perfect
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