This is the ART

When thou hast put in the Heaven of ♄, and hast made it to flow with its Life in the Earth, then add the Imperfect Metals in a due Weight, viz. ♄, ♃, ♂, ♀, and a little ☽; let them flow so long with the Heaven, until with it they disappear, and having lost their nature and metalline form, are reduced into earth. This metallick earth being yet joined to the heaven of ♄, and compassed wholly round therewith, raise up by the spirit of Heaven, and make it corporeal, and it will receive its former metalline form; but although it be bettered, yet let it be killed three, or four, or five times, and raised up, that the melioration may be greater, and produce in the separation more Sol and Luna. There needs no Tyle, (Muffel) Cupel, Test, (treibs-scherben) Cucurbit, Aqua-fortis, and such like Vessels and Instruments necessary in other Metalline Labours, but ’tis perfectly finished in one only Crucible, in one Furnace, with one only Fire, and in the space of a few hours, from the beginning to the end. And to speak more plainly in this Process, the Sphere of ♄ is the Regulus of ♁, the Life is a whitening Salt, having its operation and motion from the Fire; the Earth is the Crucible. And thus hast thou the whole Process of the Work laid open, the which I have tried above an hundred times in a small quantity; but let the studious Artist, above all things, observe the Fire, of what original, nature, and virtue it is, and the other things will be the more easily understood; for the Wood, the Coals, and such-like burning things, are not the Fire properly, but only its habitation, in which the Fire being occultly dispersed in the Air, is made manifest, visible, and perceptible. Even as the Man is not the Life or Soul, but only the receptacle wherein the Life or Soul, being infused from above, doth lodge: Nor is the man any more a man, but a meer carcass when the soul expires. In like manner Gold ceaseth to be Gold when deprived of its soul, but is volatile, and a Mineral without colour. Whence ’tis evident, that the Goodness of metals consists not in their bodies, but in their souls: On this account ☽ is added to the Imperfect Metals, that it may receive that invisible soul which lies largely diffused throughout their bodies, that it may collect it, make it visible, perceptible, and corporeal, whereby the mixtion of both (viz. of the Luna and the Soul of the Imperfect Metals) being made, it gets the name of ☉. Some body may ask, Whether or no Gold will be produced, if no ☽ be added to the metalline mixture? For answer, There will be ☉ produced, but less in quantity than if Luna were added, because the most tender (and as it were incorporeal) golden soul of the imperfect bodies is not able to quit it self and get out by its own proper force, from so many impurities as ’tis invironed with, without some other help, nor make a new body; ’tis needful and good to administer and lend to it a body wherein it may be contracted, and thereto betake it self, for which the Luna is most fit; the which being by a vivifying Fire radically united with the unclean metals, and well subdued or exercised in the mutual ascension and descension, the purer particles of the Imperfect bodies do come together in this Circulation of the Luna, adhere thereto, are mixed, and become corporeal, the impure corruptible body being left, and a separation made of the good from the bad.

So then, I have now taught perspicuously the Art of extracting Sol and Luna out of all the Imperfect Metals, either apart, or conjoined with or without the addition of the Luna. If therefore thou attainest to the Art, I am glad; if not, thou hast no cause to complain of me, for I have candidly imparted unto thee the meer and naked Truth.