Chemical-Philosophical Treatise on Natural and Supernatural Things

where it is attracted by the stars, by magnetic virtue, out of love, from which it previously emerged and was produced, because it is held by a desire for its own likeness. If, however, this Spirit of Mercury can be seized and rendered corporeal, it is resolved into a body, and passes into pure and clear water, which is the spiritual water and the first Mercurial root of Minerals and Metals; it is spiritual, insensible, incombustible, without any mixture of earthly wateriness, and it is the celestial water, of which very many writings exist. For by this spirit of Mercury, without any corrosive, all Metals can be broken, unlocked, and resolved into the first matter where there is need. This spirit is restorative for men and beasts; like the eagle, it consumes all vices and extends its own age for a very long time. This spirit of Mercury is the principal key to my other works, of which I wrote in the beginning; hence I shall exclaim:

Come, you blessed, that you may be anointed with oil and refreshed with water, embalm your bodies with aromatics, that rot and stench may be averted.

For the celestial water is the beginning, and the oil is the medium, where it does not burn, since it is made from spiritual sulphur. And the balsam-like salt original: "salarius balsamum" is the corporeal [part], which by the benefit of water is united to the oil, about which I will speak more later, if I have handed down and noted certain things about them.

      In order that I may explain the essence, matter, and form of this spirit of Mercury more lengthily, I affirm that its essence is blessed, its matter spiritual, and its form earthly, which must be accepted in a certain incomprehensible way. These are indeed sharp words, and many will call my speech a cabbage cooked twice a common Latin proverb meaning an old story repeated, and strange eloquence begetting strange thoughts, but this is true, they are entirely strange, and hence they will require strange men who can attain the meaning. It does not benefit rustic people to know how to grease their axles, nor does it confer anything upon those who are clearly rude in the art, even if they are most swollen with the persuasion of erudition. He alone seems learned to me who, having taken care of the divine word, searching earthly things with true cognition by judging them through reason, can distinguish darkness from light, with evil separated from good.