The Wayfarer

This is, some who use Mercury in chymical works aim for it to be congealed into gold by itself or with other substances. Others use it so that it may be applied to the medicine of the human body alone. Regarding each of these, we shall speak in order in this first chapter, so that it may be foreseen what finally can be made from Mercury, to what end it is useful or not, and what should be expected from it. When philosophers speak of Mercury, they do not always understand this commonly known, flowing, raw, and watery substance, but most often their own Philosophical Mercury, concerning which this inquiry of ours is established. They call it by the names of all things so that it might not be recognized, and they assert that it is extracted from all things for the same reason. Yet, once it is known, it does not frustrate the worker in his hope. Concerning this, it is said: "In Mercury is whatever the wise seek," and "Mercury sublimed nine times is the end of the entire Magisterium Mastery/Great Work."

On the first use of Mercury for gold, into which it is presumed to be congealed.

Gold, into which common or vulgar Mercury is desired by some to be congealed, since it is the most perfect of all metals, the highest apex, and as it were the limit toward which most of them pass by nature or must be led by art, is therefore defined here according to its nature, so far as it suffices for this purpose, and is circumscribed by its properties, both essential and accidental. Geber, in his Summa of Perfection, placed a double definition of it, the first of which is in the third part, chapter 32, as follows: Gold is a metallic, citrine, heavy, mute, shining body, equally digested in the belly of the earth, washed for a very long time with mineral water, extensible under the hammer, fusible, and capable of enduring the examination of the cupel and the cement. The second definition is in the same book, book 2, chapter 5.