PREFACE

...so that at the first approach it is free for him to reach the height of riches, and to become immediately the possessor of the greatest of all God's gifts in this original: "miseriarum valle"; a traditional religious phrase referring to the world as a place of suffering. valley of miseries. And yet, it frequently happens to the lovers of this Art that after much sweat and heat, instead of the beautiful Rachel they sought, they fall upon the bleary-eyed Leah A biblical metaphor common in alchemy: Rachel represents the successful completion of the Great Work, while Leah represents the preliminary or failed results.; until, resuming their labors and being exhausted again and again by their furnaces and vessels, they finally reach the desired goal, sought through great prayers—that is, by "praying and working" original: "orando & laborando"; a reference to the alchemical motto Ora et Labora.. For indeed, that outcome is more than familiar in other matters of much less importance; and it would certainly not be right for anyone, even one who approaches the "Great Work" Great Work original: "Magnum Opus"; the process of creating the Philosopher's Stone. with "unwashed hands" An idiom meaning to approach a sacred or difficult task without proper preparation or reverence., to achieve his wish at the first attempt.

Nor should our adversaries here thrust upon us the impossibility of transmutation, for which learned men fight throughout the entire course of this Work. For even if we ourselves are unable to demonstrate anything in metals by our own power, and it has not happened that we have seen with our own eyes those transmutations by which gold and silver are made from lead, mercury, and other inferior metallic materials to the great profit of their authors; we have, perhaps, in other things no less stupendous—indeed, I would say much more wonderful—metamorphoses. For if the most refined and highly rectified original: "alcoolisatus"; refers to spirits distilled to their highest purity. spirit of wine can be converted entirely into earth, while preserving the same weight of matter; if the sharpest volatile salts can turn into tasteless water; if the leaves and branches of trees can turn into something stony and rusty A reference to petrification.; indeed, if even—to pass to metals—iron can be converted into copper through a new "insinuation of particles" Likely referring to the "cementation" process where iron placed in copper sulfate solution appears to turn into copper; we now know this is a chemical displacement, but alchemists saw it as transmutation., as we believe is more than proven by both our own and others' experience: Who does not see that there is a smaller distance from lead or mercury to gold, etc., than between the materials just described? Therefore, the possibility of their transmutation and their approach toward one another destroys all the objections which are asserted with great confidence by the attackers of the Tincture In alchemy, the "Tincture" is the substance (often the Stone itself) capable of "staining" or transforming base metals into noble ones., based on the distance between them and the diversity of their particles.

But lest we seem to fight for the aforementioned possibility and the truth of the Stone with reasons alone, and so that we may bring forth histories of the facts for even greater proof in this controversy, we shall now add others—some from our own papers, others sought from elsewhere—besides all those which are cited at length by those most famous men Borrichius, Clauder, Morhof, Sachs, Helvetius, Becher, and others in the first Book of this Library. Johann Jacob Heilmann of the Palatinate has two stories in his Preface to Volume VI of the Theatrum Chemicum, where he disputes so sharply concerning the truth of the Stone. There was, he says, around the year 1603, a certain citizen of Strasbourg named Gustenhover, a goldsmith; he was reported to the Emperor Rudolf II Rudolf II (1552–1612), Holy Roman Emperor and a famous patron of the occult and alchemical arts., a most diligent searcher into the Mystery of Nature, concerning his knowledge of the true Science of Alchemy. The Emperor therefore wished this citizen to be sent to him. The Magistrate imprisoned the citizen so he would not flee—the tower guard was called Bentz—and after holding a council, announced to him that the journey to the Emperor was to be made accompanied by three most distinguished men of the Free Republic of Strasbourg: Doctor Hartlieb the Syndic, Junth the Chief Clerk, and Collefel the Senator. To create a perpetual memory of the event, Gustenhover invited them to his side, equipped with crucibles, bellows, coals, and lead. On the following day, therefore, with the things for transmutation prepared and the lead melted in the crucibles, he handed into the hands of each of them a very small portion of "projection powder" projection The final stage of alchemy where a tiny amount of the Stone is "projected" into molten base metal to transform it. wrapped in paper, and ordered them to throw it separately into the three crucibles. This being done, after a small interval of time, each man's lead musket ball was transmuted into the purest gold. This story was recounted to me in 1647, while I was living in Paris, by Glaferus, the clerk of the "Fifteen Men" and successor to Senator Collefel in marriage, later the Commissioner of the King of Sweden through Alsace, and finally the interpreter for the King of France in the treaty of the Peace of Westphalia; he showed me the ball transmuted into gold. Furthermore, there was a constant rumor that this Gustenhover was indeed a possessor of the golden Tincture, but not its maker skilled in the art, having received it as a gift from a certain Monk whom he had sheltered during a stormy, rainy tempest.

Besides this story, that one is also most worthy of note which Dienheim, Doctor and Professor of Medicine at Freiburg in Breisgau, mentions in a small book on the truth of the Philosophers' Stone, regarding Sidonius the Scot A traveling alchemist also known as Alexander Sethon or "The Cosmopolite.", his companion on a journey from Italy. He faithfully reports that this Scot, after many disputes held on the journey concerning the possibility of the Philosophers' Stone, transmuted lead into gold in his presence in the house of the medical doctor Zwinger at Basel around the year 1603, and that he himself received a part of it as a gift in memory of the event. This Scot, according to the report of Doctor Tolden, later in the year 1604 at Cologne on the Rhine, under the protection of the Magistrate, openly and with an undaunted mind practiced the Tincture for the sake of verifying the Art. Thus far Heilmann; to whose narrative regarding the latter example we add what the most celebrated Georg Wolfgang Wedel has in his Preface to Philaletha’s Eirenaeus Philalethes, a famous anonymous 17th-century alchemist. "Open Entrance to the Closed Palace of the King"—namely, that Theodor Zwinger (the grandson of the one mentioned just now) still preserves that portion of lead converted into true gold by Sidonius, as he himself affirms in his own most curious Investigation of the Magnet.

It would be easy to seek out other stories from here and there, but lest this Preface grow too large, we shall abstain from further transcription of them, contenting ourselves with subjoining two told to us with all their circumstances by most trustworthy men who were eyewitnesses of the same. The first was communicated by the most famous and distinguished Master Gros, a most faithful Minister of the Divine Word while he lived, and a Doctor of Medicine and most successful practitioner, not a little skilled in chemical matters; and it is this: An anonymous Italian man, in the year 1650 if I am not mistaken, arrived at our Geneva, and in the inn which...