Johannes Isaac Hollandus

CHAPTER III.

How should one now understand this—that one Sal Armoniacum original Latin: Sal Armoniacum; Sal Ammoniac or Ammonium Chloride, a volatile salt central to alchemical practice. is too hot and the other too cold? You should understand it like this: herbs are unequal; one is cold, the other hot, and yet they both contain Salarmeniac within them. But one Salarmeniac is better than the other; nevertheless, both have the power to "cook" In alchemy, "cooking" or decoction refers to the prolonged application of heat to mature, ripen, or perfect a substance. in this Art, to perform a projection projection The final stage of the Great Work, where the alchemical catalyst is "cast" upon a base metal to transmute it into gold or silver., and to create a "binding"—that is, to unite and mix two contrary things.

It also happens at times that the Salarmeniac is not well-cleansed or purified, and that the untempered original: untemperirte; referring to an imbalance of the four primary qualities: hot, cold, wet, and dry. heat which the herbs possess is not properly "killed" or purged. If one produces the Salarmeniac from such material, that "poisonous heat" is harmful to it, so that the power of the projection is diminished. It is exactly the same with the cold herbs: if some [impurity] remains within them, the projection will be just as much diminished and smaller. This is the difference or the distinction: why a Salmiac made from one species original: Specie; a specific type of botanical or mineral substance. or type of herb does not perform an equal projection.

However, this is the fault of the laborant A laboratory worker or alchemical practitioner. who made the Salmiac, because he did not purify it well and did not distill it over original: übergezogen; likely referring to sublimation, where the salt is heated until it rises as a vapor and solidifies at the top of the vessel, leaving impurities behind. often enough. For whoever wishes to make the Salarmeniac correctly, as it ought to be, must distill it over and again, and yet again, until nothing remains behind and it becomes as white as snow. Then the Salarmeniac is rightly tem-