Chapter 1: On the Metallic Tincture.

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Essence original: "Essentus." Likely referring to the essential nature or quintessence of the matter. than that it must serve for the ripening of the lesser ores. It is true that many people have written extensively about this, but so strangely, foolishly, and with so many fables, that I myself—who, praise GOD, know from experience what they intend to describe—cannot truly say for certain who speaks the truth and Four or five certain authors original: "Autores cerci 4. sive 5." who lies, except for four or five authors whom I suspect, due to many circumstances, were possessors of this holy masterpiece. Otherwise, the rest write so generally and use so many lions, snakes, eagles, dragons, foxes, fish, birds, gray wolves, old and young men, Dianas and beautiful virgins, gods and goddesses, planets, dragon-heads and tails, metallic blood and sweat, urine of the moon, and excrement of the sun These colorful terms were alchemical allegories for various chemicals and reactions—for example, the "gray wolf" often represented antimony used to "devour" impurities in gold. that I cannot rightly understand them, nor can I in good conscience explain the truth and proper meaning of them to anyone, because such ways of speaking can be directed toward many different things. Therefore, I wish to name the causes here by their common names, so that anyone familiar with mining The author seeks to use the practical language of miners rather than the obscure riddles of "philosophers." can understand me, especially since I grasped this secret of nature not from

from books or writings, but through GOD and the guidance of a single human being; thus, I am not bound to follow the book-writers in their so-called Philosophical Terms. Nevertheless, no one will learn anything from this if he does not first understand the origin of Universal Mercury In alchemy, "Universal Mercury" is the primeval "watery" spirit or first matter of all metals, not the common liquid mercury found in a thermometer. and how Quicksilver is born from it; for this is the main point. To my knowledge, as long as the world has stood, no more than two persons and masters of this Art have written honestly and sincerely about the true nature of this Universal Mercury before it becomes a metallic water. The few others, though they provide some instruction, only begin to teach about the "mercury-metal" and its minera Mineral ore. when the universal matter has already been so far processed and determined that it exists in a metallic state and appears in the form of a white mineral or the running metal (which the common man calls Mercury). From this, no disciple has been able to become wise or find the true Matter of the Metallic Tincture; instead, they have tormented themselves without fruit in common Mercury or other mineral things which contain something of a mercury-like nature. Many were led by the general terms of the authors to think that the...