The King Showing Himself to All the World

Because through the steady, unceasing cooking and putrefaction the process of decay or breaking down the matter through gentle heat, often called the "blackening" stage our true solution dissolving of a solid into a liquid and philosophical dissolution into a water must occur / so the Philosophers referring to alchemists, the "Natural Philosophers" have called it only a single water throughout original: "unicam tantum aquam per totum", or a single, continuous water. For the moisture from the spirit original: "Spiritu" is a water / and the moisture of the souls is an oil original: "Oleum"; therefore it is also said our Stone is an unctuous vapor original: "Vapor unctuosus est Lapis noster" (our Stone is an oily drop.) Thus the soul is a bond of the spirit / just as the spirit in turn is a bond of the soul. Yet still, this bond is to be considered as nothing compared to the bond of nature. Everything must become water / if one wishes to proceed correctly. Dissolve the bodies into our quicksilver, which is the water of the Mastery, and it becomes permanent water original: "Solvite corpora in argentum vivum nostrum, quod est aqua Magisterii, & fit aqua permanens", say the Philosophers, that is: Dissolve the bodies the solid materials in the vessel into our living quicksilver / which is the water of the mystery / so you will receive our permanent water. For just as in the beginning of Creation everything was initially water / and the Spirit of God hovered above the water / so the beginning of our work shall also be a water / that is / our body original: "Corpus" must be brought into a water through solution and dissolution / putre-