Natural Philosophy of Three Ancient Philosophers: Artephius, Flamel, and Synesius

...on Original: "-rum", completing the word "sublimationum" (of sublimations) from the previous page. which occurs in such a first water, is nothing other than a mortification In alchemy, mortification is the symbolic death of a substance, breaking down its physical form to release its inner essence. of the moist by the dry. Indeed, the moist is coagulated by the dry, because moisture is only contained, limited, and coagulated into a body or into earth by dryness. Therefore, let the hard and dry bodies be placed in our first water in a well-closed vessel, where they should remain until they are dissolved and rise on high; these may then be called a "new body," the white gold of Alchemy, the white stone, the non-burning white sulfur, and the Stone of Paradise—that is, the substance that converts imperfect metals into fine, white silver.

At that point, we also possess all at once the body, the soul, and the spirit. It is said of this spirit and soul that they cannot be extracted from the perfect bodies except through the conjunction of our dissolving water; for it is certain that a fixed thing A "fixed" substance is one that resists the fire and does not evaporate. cannot be raised upward except through conjunction with a volatile thing. Therefore, with the water and the soul acting as mediators, the spirit is extracted from the bodies themselves, and the body is rendered "no-body," because in that instant the spirit, along with the soul of the bodies, ascends upward into the superior part. This is the perfection of the stone and is called sublimation.

This sublimation, says Florentius Cathalanus Likely an authority from the Catalan school of alchemy, which often emphasized the use of "spirits" or volatile agents to transform matter., is achieved through acidic, spiritual, and volatile things which are of a sulfurous and viscous nature; these things dissolve the bodies and cause them to be raised into the air as spirit. And in this sublimation, a certain part of the aforementioned "first water" ascends together with the bodies, joining itself to them, rising and sublimating into a single intermediate substance that holds the nature of both—namely, of the bodies and of the water.

Hence, it is called the "corporeal and spiritual composite," the Heart of Justice, Cambar, Ethelia, Zandarith, and the Good Duenech These are traditional "deck-names" or cryptic synonyms used by medieval alchemists, often derived from Arabic sources, to describe the "Mercury of the Philosophers" in its various stages.. Properly, however, it is named only the permanent water, because it does not flee from the fire, perpetually adhering to the mixed bodies—that is, to the Sun Gold and the Moon Silver. It communicates to them a living, incombustible, and most firm tincture A "tincture" is the concentrated essence capable of "staining" or transforming other metals into gold or silver., more noble and precious than what came before.

From this point, this tincture can flow like oil, piercing and penetrating all things with a marvelous fixation; for this tincture is the spirit, the spirit is the soul, and the soul is the body. In this operation, the body is made spirit, possessing a most subtle nature, and likewise the spirit is incorporated and takes on the nature of the body. Thus, our stone contains body, soul, and spirit.

O Nature, how do you turn the body into spirit? This could not happen if the spirit were not incorporated with the bodies, and the bodies made volatile by the spirit, only to become permanent afterward. Therefore, one has passed into the other, and they are mutually converted through wisdom. O Wisdom, how do you make gold to be volatile and fleeting, even if it were naturally the most fixed of things! O—