What Matter and Instruments are needful in Alchymy

There is no special need of any thing, excepting a Fire-place, Coals, Bellows, Tongs, Hammer, Crucibles, Test, (treib scherben) and Cupels made of good Beech-ashes. Then put in ♄, ♃, ♂, ☉, Copper, ☿, and Luna. Proceed to the end of ♄. ’Tis very difficult and uncertain to find out Metals and Minerals in the Earth and Stones; yet because all Metals are to be first sought after and digged out of the Earth, this Labour is not to be contemned, but is Praise-worthy. Nor will this lust and desire in digging in Mines sooner cease, than the love of young Men to Maids will fail; and as the Bees are greedy of extracting Honey and Wax out of the Rose, so prone and forward should a Man be, to find out the Minerals in the bowels of the Earth, but without Covetousness; he that is overmuch greedy, receives least, for God doth not fill all men with gold and silver, but with want, dung, dirt, misery, and scarcity. Some men also God bestows a peculiar Intellect upon, and a piercing knowledge of Minerals and Metals; so that they know a far more compendious way of making Sol and Luna without digging in the Mine-pits, and without the Examen or Trying, and Fusion of Minerals. So that ’tis not so altogether necessary to dig in the Earth for native Sol and Luna, but by a certain knowledge it might be made of five Species, (but of Minerals become Metals, which are Imperfect Metals, and are so called) viz. ☿, ♃, ♄, Mars, and Copper: Of some more easily, of othersome more difficultly is Sol and Luna to be had.

Note also, That out of Argent Vive, Lead, ♃, Gold and Silver is easily made; out of ♂ and ☿ difficultly. Nevertheless ’tis possible, but in the beginning and access of Sol and Luna.

Out of Magnesia and Lead comes Luna.

Out of ☿ and Cinnabar ariseth pure Sol.

Likewise an Ingenious man (as I well remember) is able by due attention and preparation so to handle a Metal, as to be able by his ingenuity to do more in the Transmutation of Metals to perfection, and to guide the same better than all the Signs and Planets of Heaven can do. ’Tis also needless to observe the Twelve Signs, and to calculate the motions and Regiment of the Planets, and to observe a time, a day, the hour of this or that luckey or unluckey Planet; such things neither promote nor hinder any thing; they neither hurt nor profit ought in the natural Art of Alchymy: But if thou rightly understandest the art and possibility thereof, then go to work and labour when thou seest it most convenient; but if thou want’st the knowledge and practice thereof, then all the Planets, Stars, and Signs will wholly fail thee. It also comes to pass, that metals lying long in the Earth, are not only changed into Rust, but by a longer staying in the Earth, they return into their Native Stone, of which sort are many found, albeit they are not observed, for there are found stony pieces of Money, of the Gentiles, which were Metal heretofore, and by Corruption were transformed into Stone.

Glaub.] Here we are, in the first place, taught, that for the making of ☉ and ☽ there needs not many Instruments nor Species, but the metals are only to be conjoined, but not by the common separation or washing: For if you should wash all the metals with Lead, yet would there remain no more ☉ and ☽ than was taken at the beginning; the rest will descend with the Lead into the Cupel, and will lie at the top thereof like Scoria; therefore he doth again direct to a spiritual Commixtion and Philosophical Separation. Also he adds, That ’tis an honest, good, and necessary thing to dig up Metals, but that the other is the more excellent, and that deservedly, for it separates Gold and Silver by Art from the more vile metals; for all such as apply their minds to metals, do well know with what dangers, costs, labours, and Cares, they are to be gotten out; but yet ’tis not therefore to be abstained from, especially since we labour by this Rule, of having a fore-known and certain end of our pains and work; the which cannot indeed be done in metallick Mineings, for we are frequently drawn by vain hopes to bestow all our Estates on the Mines; and having spent all in vain labour, we are at last compelled to desist from the Work; but yet if it succeeds well, they yield the more plentiful Returns; and many Chronicles of Metals do testifie, That many Poor men have, by the Benefit of a rich Mine-pit, grown most Rich and Wealthy in a few years space. The finding out of Mines therefore doth wholly consist in Chance and Casualty, where Profit and Loss are equally and alike to be expected: The Work is likewise very chargeable, and can’t be set upon by every body, and therefore ’tis not for ordinary People, who have but little to lose, but for rich Men, who, though they lose much, are notwithstanding able to live, unless happily a Poor man lights upon some Earth or Sand that is very rich in ☉ and ☽, and other Metals, by the washing whereof he may get a livelihood; or else finding a rich Mine, and so betakes himself to a Rich man for his Copartner, such a one as is able to bear the Charges of digging it forth; and this is often done. But yet be it as it will, the thing is full of uncertainty. Whereas this Metallurgy, or Work on Metals, which Paracelsus makes mention of, is to be preferred far before the other, if any one (by the Grace of GOD) attaineth the Art, whereby he may with profit extract the ☉ or ☽ out of the already-digged-up Imperfect metals, which are every where to be sold.

But to return to the business in hand, viz. To illustrate the Writings of Paracelsus, who deserved much of his Country. He names some metals, out of which Gold and Silver may easily be extracted, and others, out of which ’tis difficult to get it, but in both Sol and Luna, is to be added; for ’tis profitable, yea, necessary (the which I have frequently exhorted to) in the extraction of Gold and Silver out of imperfect metals, and is volatile, and may the more commodiously make it corporeal and fixt. Then he adds, That Metals, by a longer stay in the Earth, do die, and return into stones and earth, from whence they had their original. The like happens to Man, and all Creatures; nor is there any thing in the World, how glorious soever it be, but is vain, empty, and perishing, but the Knowledge, Love, and Fear of GOD alone.