One can indeed see how long many have been busy getting their subject to the stage of solution; how much time, expense and power they consume and burn, let alone how long they have worked until they coagulate and fix their conjoined Liquidum into a powder, since some wait whole months and years for a single subject to oblige them (by coagulating etc.), and when the time comes, it is lari fari and nothing (stuff and nonsense).
If then such a man is to be helped and his subject is to be coagulated faster, he should himself carefully consider his subject, and of what constituents and parts it contains, that is, water and spirit. Whether the spirit is concealed in the water in the form of a salt or an oil or a delicate powder or of whatever form it may be, it does not take more water than it requires to form a body or become coagulated and fixed. It lets go of the rest through the power of the fire. This excessive water must also be taken from the spirit by distillation, as Nature shows us in giving water to the thirsty, parched and dried up earth. Of that, the earth absorbs as much as it requires. The rest, however, is drawn off again by the sun and the heat. This an artist should carefully note, but he should not draw the moisture off with a strong fire, only with a gentle fire, in B.M., and he should cohobate this until the earth can stand greater heat. Now it no longer requires moisture, for it must increasingly accept dryness and proceed to coagulation and fixation. Why? How can we tell this is the case? Then the excessive useless part rises up and out, and the seed or spirit thereafter coagulates ever faster. This process is always hindered by the Aqua recolacae, which can only very slowly be transformed into earth.
Some will say however: “How do I recognize that the spirit in the water attaches itself to the fixed body, coagulates and congeals, since as much water goes over as I have poured on?” I admit that I myself have found it hard to acquire that knowledge. But take note of the following:
Water being a vehicle and a visible tangible body in which the spirit or seed lies hidden invisibly, is the sole means of uniting all things by joining them with itself, because all moist, liquid things can more easily be conjoined in their innermost than the dry ones. This water has contained within itself, in a hidden and invisible way, the spirit and seed and its power, and water is a Vehiculum of the spirit. Those waters are either subtle or coarse, depending on whether they have been extended, refined or thickened, and the seed or spirit is volatile or fixed. According to those differences, water takes its character from the seed, and the seed acts differently in different waters.
For example: spirit of wine is a water, vinegar is also a water, oil is also a water, everything volatile is a water, but of like quality as the coagulated or dissolved spirit. The way the spirit works in spirit of wine, it works differently in vinegar, differently in oil, differently in salt, and differently in the acid corrosives.
It is of course obvious in such waters that they are dissolved and in the state of liquidity and still have a rather great amount of moisture. If they were coagulated, they would be dry, and alchemists call the coagulata, “dry things.” Therefore their useless and excessive moisture must be taken from them by distillation, that is, in such a way that the spirit or the sharpness contained in such a humido recolaceo does not go over with the rest but remains and coagulates. The Humidum, however, must go over quite empty, insipid or without any taste, like an empty tasteless Phlegma, without any sharpness. In that way the seed coagulates instantaneously and so fast that the artist is overjoyed by it a thousand times and also becomes a thousand times more eager to take up and practice the alchemical Art, because he perceives truth and is himself guided by it through further contemplation.
Therefore, learn here and ponder this point very carefully, and prefer it to those which would derive advantage from this Art in another way: Water, or the useless part, is by no means the main part in coagulation, but the spirit or the seed contained in the water is that which alone coagulates, concentrates and gets fixed through its own intermediaries. This means that the Volatile coagulates and gets fixed through its own acid or alkaline part. The essential components discard the useless excessive water off themselves and retain for their constitution nothing but what they require to form or preserve a body of an incorruptible Constituent moisture.
They retain such an attracted Humidum so firmly within themselves and together that they flow with it steadily in all fires like wax, without smoke. It may be seen in silica and glass that, when the excessive moisture has been driven out by them to the utmost, they retain no more than they require, that they flow with it in the very highest and strongest degree of heat like oil, without any loss of stability or fixity, as long as they are not pushed back again by Nature or the Art.
Let a lover of the Art consider this: it would be an insurmountable task for an artist, as well as for Nature herself to coagulate all water or all excessive moisture, as much as every Individuum contains, into earth, dry powder or a stone. It can be done, but so slowly that it would be a waste of time for the lover of wisdom and that the greatest age would be short in doing so. Yes, let someone just try and shut some rain or spring water in a phial and set it to coagulate. He may well find some earth, but in half a year or a whole year he will notice little or no decrease in the quantity of the water or its coagulation.
Therefore, we rightly follow Nature which in the animal kingdom does not turn all moisture into animals or animal parts; otherwise animals would not give off any Excrementa urinosa, sudorosa, mucilaginosa and stercorosa. Nor does all moisture stay with plants, or else they would not have any Excrementa resinosa, picea, aquosa, etc. This may be seen in the larger growths, such as trees, especially in the spring, when their barks open because of the excess, and the excessive Humidum drips out in different forms. Likewise, not all moisture remains with minerals and stones during their growth, otherwise not so many rivers, fountains and springs of various compositions would flow out of the mountains. If they all remained with the growth of the subterranean creatures, all the water in the mountains would turn into rock and ore, and none would reach us. Similarly, not all rain, dew, snow etc., is for the growth of creatures, or else the central terrestrial heat and the sun could not sublimate and attract any Vapores, vapors or steams, while they are everyday producing such abundant vapors, and form such abundant dews, rain and snow, and again precipitate them upon the earth. With that, however, Nature wants to show us by macrocosmic impregnation and cohobation that she does not give in one go so much moisture that creatures have enough of it until their perfection. No, but she is constantly cohobating a little, by constant impregnation and desiccation. Nature observes this rule, and we should also observe it and not undertake to coagulate our to-be-dried earth inundated with water. Instead, we should only gently distil the excess from it after impregnation as Nature herself does, and cohobate thus until the earth can take stronger heat. Then it no longer requires any more moisture, for it must increasingly assume a dry state and move toward coagulation and greatest fixation.
By this everybody sees clearly that water is only a cover or a casing of the universal seed or spirit (as has been sufficiently stated above in the first part), but that water itself is not the seed or spirit. Water can therefore not be all coagulated, but the earth demands only that part of the water which is the spirit itself. Nature herself does not desire more than she requires, and if a hundred buckets of water were to be poured upon half an ounce of earth, all the volatile water and Humidum would indeed be removed by distillation and the earth would alone remain. Yet the earth would not coagulate in itself more than it needs to retain, and it would let go of the rest. where does it go? But if the water had also contained earth or fixed parts, it would remain with the earth as its equal.
Thus it is with the seed or universal spirit, as well in universalibus as in specifices and individuis. If this spirit is made fixed, it takes a volatile spirit of its kind and draws it to itself, so as to make it its like and congeal it too. It will discard, however, almost the same amount of excessive water in which the volatile spirit had been hidden. Thus like joins like, and like attracts like, as the saying goes. Natura naturam ambit and amplecitur, natura natura gaudet - Nature embraces Nature and surrounds her, Nature rejoices in Nature. In the same way one disagreeable thing repels another if an enduring unity is to be made thereof.
As long as the tasteless water is present, the seed or spirit cannot be rightly or permanently united in a body, and there will be no immortal union, permanence and fixity. This may be seen in the easily corruptible and dissoluble animals and plants, which have a great excess of Aqua recolacea, and even minerals are likewise not rid of it to the highest degree. As long as the recolacea or the excessive tasteless moisture is not separated from them, they are always subject to mortality or decay, dissolution and change. Animals and plants decay and easily putrefy due to their accumulating excess water, which is a curse, especially if they get more of it from outside, such as rain, snow, water, etc. In the same way, minerals decay, because such moisture is everywhere more or less admixed already in the mineral and also added in other ways.
Let the reader recognize that the water recolacea is the hammer or anvil of the implanted spirit or seed, by means of which it is roused to act, because it can never rest in the water but causes various changes, one after another. But if the spirit coagulates and becomes fixed, and its excessive moisture is thereby taken from it and dried up, as may be seen in minerals, metals, stones and precious stones, glasses, etc., it is lulled, contracted and brought to its highest potency, in which it stays stable and incorruptible until it is again aroused by the same moisture. After this, it endeavors to resolve its coagulated body back into its first nature. Then it returns to its workshop and its tool, by which it changes the generato into a corruptum, until it once more generates something else out of it.
Someone might here reproach me that the excrements expelled from the bodies of animals, plants and minerals, which Nature herself expels and discharges by means of her appropriate secretory way, are not Aqua recolacea or a thing without power or substance, but that those waters are still full of the seed or the spirit. Such are the urine of human beings, the Gummata and resins of trees and the various mineral waters from the minerals.
So I reply: (1) Because Nature found them superfluous for maintaining the generated body, she wished to expel them. (2) Because Nature, in accordance with the will of the Creator, does not yet intend to undertake the transformation into the Fifth Essence, as man is able to do through the Art. And (3) Because Nature directs man to the out flowing discharges (urine etc.) without damage to his body, and to diligently seek therein the necessaries of like for his body, so that he does not need to attack the body itself but only its discharge, which is just as full of power and virtue as the body itself.
In the animal realm Nature has given the body the discharges which are especially urine and feces, also perspiration and mucus, stomach and lung, saliva the tears of the eyes, and earwax. In the plant realm, the trickling out Gummata and Liquores, the flowers, seeds, leaves and stalks. And it is not necessary to take an animal’s entire body or to dig up a plant’s root, since the above-mentioned discharges contain just the same powers as the roots.
In the same way, Nature has given man different metals for different purposes, and out of the less expensive metals, poor people can still derive great benefits. Instead of gold, the laboratory workers have gold like marcasites, gold like vitriols; further the gold like iron pyrites, as well as fixed sulphur and an unripe volatile which are found in antimony. In addition, bloodstone (hematite), emery, lodestone (Magnetite) - all of which share in the heart, and courage strengthening solar essence.
Thus it is with all red Astris (the word Astris means literally “star”), iron and copper: instead of their metallic bodies, one should take their offspring and hybrids; and likewise with silver and all white Astris. Just as antimony contains sulphur embryonatum volatile solis (the volatile embryo of the sun), bismuth contains embryonatum lunar volatile (the volatile embryo of the moon). Galmey (calamine), and tutia also contain the fixed lunar sulphur. Is alium neither a silver nor vitriol?
Therefore, the lover of the Art sees that Nature has not provided us with only one subject for the preservation of human nature but with many different ones, and more than we require. Consequently, it is not necessary for us - unless we wish to - to take the subjects and their bodies together with their roots and everything, but their discharges offer us more than enough help, if only we know how to use them properly. Where Nature stops, however, the artist should begin and drive of f the excessive Humidum, as Nature shows us in the mountains and presents us with examples of how we can attain the Quintessence and incorruptible permanence. There She herself forges the most durable bodies, which cannot be consumed, or if so then very slowly, either by water and air, or even by fire. This is what the artist should take to heart, and learn from his grandmother (Nature) Herself, whom most people have up to now neglected, to achieve a long and healthy life.
Now someone might ask, because the Aquas recolaceas are to be distilled off, whether there is no purpose in Nature’s having them, or if they are so devoid of the spirit’s power and virtue that they cannot be used for anything. Further, whether the spirit or seed does not also turn into a recolaceo, or the recolaceum into seed. To answer these questions briefly - because it is not really necessary for the main point and is more a speculative amusement than a useful discourse - I say that the Aqua recolacea can never be totally separated from the spirit or seed and in such a way that it would no longer contain at least some hidden powers or rays of the spirit. On the other hand, it is impossible for the spirit or seed to be separated so totally and perfectly from the Aqua recolacea that no matter how stone-fixed and dry-coagulated it be, it (the spirit or seed) will at all times retain a trace of the water.
Water and spirit are one, as I said above, so that the minutest droplet of water and the infinitesimal mote of dust are altogether filled with spirit, just as the spirit is altogether filled with water. Now someone will say: But that is a contradiction. If water is altogether spirit, there is indeed no superfluous discharge, and if water is altogether spirit, or the spirit is totally water, water is indeed nothing but all seed. That is so, and that is as it must be.
