Hermes: A Journal in Occasional Issues

Saltpeter The OCR transcription reads "Schriftsteller" (writer), which is a misreading of the archaic German "Salniter" (Saltpeter). In alchemical philosophy, Saltpeter was considered a "miraculous salt" containing the "fire of the world." is light and fire, the power of heaven and earth; the sun rejoices in it, and all things are preserved through it; a fire-spirit bound with a fatty earth original: "fette Erde." This refers to a fertile, mineral-rich substance believed to harbor the "seed" of metals., which can be extracted from many things through a common distillation. But one must know how to draw water from the air, air from fire, and fire from the earth; then the generative water original: "wachsendmachende Wasser," literally "water that makes things grow." is born: the fatty salt, which is so dry that it does not wet the hands, and yet so wet that it is the origin of all moisture. Mercury and Sulfur, the volatile and the fixed, must be brought into One Essence by means of putrefaction original: "Fäulung." In alchemy, this is the stage of decomposition (often called the Nigredo or "Blackness") where the matter dies to its old form to be reborn as something more perfect..

Detailed Definition.

“The true subject,” says Sendivogius Michael Sendivogius (1566–1636) was a renowned Polish alchemist. He claimed that the "First Matter" was a substance everyone saw but few recognized., “floats before the eyes of the whole world.” The philosophical heaven, the philosophical water, the Mercury, the Saltpeter to be found in the philosophical ocean of the world, the water that does not wet the hands, without whi- The text cuts off mid-word; "wel-" is the start of "welches" (which).