Mirror of Lights.

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...purifies and dissolves more quickly in water, because every earthly lime is more fixed and easier to dissolve than that which has not been calcined Calcination is the process of heating a substance to high temperatures to reduce it to a powder or "lime.". For this reason, it is said that spirits do not enter bodies unless they are purged and hard; hence, soft bodies are calcined. Soft bodies can be moderately heated and easily calcined by the fire of water baths?. Hard bodies can be calcined by a fierce fire.

Solution

Solution is the creation of a liquid from any calcined thing. For there are salts, flowers, and stones of bodies, so that their intensity may become extended? original: "extensum", here meaning spread thin or thinned out into a liquid state and thus they are ready for distillation. Solution is brought about by heat and moisture, or by cold and moisture.

Fermentation

Fermentation is the proper and proportionate mixing and joining of such a quantity of souls and spirits. Just as bread is leavened by a good ferment, so the masses of metals are transubstantiated into gold and ruby through a medicine made from spirits and animals. Wherefore, in the true medicine of the elixir, the name "elixir"—which is both Arabic and Latin—is interpreted as "ferment." The "ruby" refers to the Red Work, the final successful stage of the alchemical process.

Distillation

Distillation is the raising of watery vapors within their vessel. Distillation is divided because some is done without fire and some with fire. Distillation performed with fire is twofold: one is done by raising (as in water made by an alembic An alembic is a classic alchemical still consisting of two vessels connected by a tube.), and the other is by descent (as in water made through a pipe). Indeed, distillation by a pipe is the purification of liquids from their dregs. When the spirit is pure water, it is the "imbibition" The process of a solid absorbing a liquid. of spirits and pure medicines, so that the water contains no dregs, for purified spirits and medicines could otherwise be

infected. That distillation by descent through a pipe is the extension? of pure oil in its own nature.

Coagulation

Coagulation is the reduction of the liquids of a thing to a solid mass through the evacuation of moisture. This process signifies a measured hardening and the release of dissolved medicines from their mixed wateriness. They coagulate in fire by the frequent precipitation of violence upon them through the harshness of the fire; for the harshness of the fire removes their wateriness.

Waxing

Ceratio Ceratio or "waxing" is the process of softening a hard substance until it has a wax-like consistency.
This is done in a long and narrow vessel. Waxing is the softening of non-flowing and non-fluid things, both moist and dry, into a liquid state; this is achieved with fixed oils of sulfur and arsenic, with oil of tartar, and similar known substances.

Medicinal Precepts

Just as in the books of the learned philosophers pertaining to others. These instructional books contain the rules that must be observed in this art.

1

The first is that the craftsman should be cautious and keep these things secret; he should keep his counsel to himself, because if his work were made public, it would be considered a forgery, and he would be left in danger with an unfinished work.

2

The second precept is that the craftsman of this art should have a secret place away from the sight of men, in which there are two rooms—specifically one in which the operator stays to fuse, calcine, dissolve, and distill.

3

The third precept is that he should observe the proper time in which the work is to be done; for fusing, solutions, and distillations are not effective in the winter time. Fusing and calcining, however, can be done at any time.

4

The fourth precept is that the craftsman of this art...