CHAP. IV.
Of the Process of preparing the Tincture of Natural Things, abbreviated by Paracelsus.
Ancient Spagyrists would not have undergone so prolix a Labour, and made such tedious Reiterations, if they had learned their Work from my School, and in their labour followed the Rules of the same, but would full as well have obtained their end with much less Labour and Charge. At this time, in which Theophrastus Paracelsus, the Monarch of Secrets, comes, is the Season of Invention, which was hid from all Spagyrists before me. Wherefore I only say; Take the Blood of a Rosie colour from the Lyon, and the Gluten from the Eagle, which, after you have joined them together, coagulate according to the old Process. Thus you will have the Tincture of Philosophers, which infinite men have sought, but very few found.
Whether thou wilt or no, Sophister, this Magistery is in Nature, and is a wondrous Work of GOD above Nature, and the most precious Treasure in this Vale of Miseries. If you consider it externally, it appears to be that which transmutes some vile thing into another much more noble than it was before. Yet that Miracle is produced by a Spagyrist, because he had patience, and was not weary, and by the Art of his Preparation did corrupt the vile extrinsecal Body, and from thence raised up another and most precious Essence. If thou hast learned, or knowest any like thing by the light of Aristotle, or from the Rules of Serapio, produce it here, and bring it to light by experience. Now keep the Law of the Schools, as becomes a Lover of Honour, and a Doctor. But if thou knowest nothing, or art able to do nothing, Why dost thou contemn me, as an irrational Helvetian Calf, and accuse me to be a Vagabond Circulator? Art is another Nature, and a peculiar World, as Experience witnesseth and demonstrates against thee and thy Idols. Therefore the Alchymist sometimes compounds certain Simples, which he afterwards, according to his necessity, corrupts, and thence prepares another thing. For so, very often of many, one thing is at length made, which effects more than Nature per se is able to do; as is sufficiently manifest in Gastaynum, where of Saturn Venus is made; in Carynthia, of Venus Luna, and in Hungary, of Luna Sol. Not to mention other Transmutations of Natural things (sufficiently known to Magicians) which bring greater wonders to Light than Ovid speaks of in his Metamorphosis.
But that you may rightly understand me, seek your Lion in the Orient, and your Eagle toward the South, which are to be assumed for this Work. You cannot find better Instruments than Hungary and Histria produce. But if you would deduce that from Unity, through Duality into Trinity, with an equal permutation of either, then you must direct your Journey towards the South, for in Cyprus thou canst not obtain all thou desirest; yet here we must discourse no farther than at present we have declared. Of these Arcanums, which exhibit transmutations, there are many more, although known by few; and should they by the Lord GOD be manifested to any one, the rumour of this Art would not therefore presently break forth, but the Omnipotent, together with it, would give understanding to conceal these; and other things, until the Coming of Elias the Artist, in which time nothing shall be so hid, as not to be revealed. You very clearly see (although there is no need to speak of this here, which may by some be taken in derision) in the fire of Sulphur, is a great Tincture of Gemms, which indeed exalts them more sublimely than Nature per se is able to do. But this Gradation of Metals and Gemms must in this place be omitted by me, because I have very sufficiently writ thereof in my Secrets of Secrets, in The Book, of Vexations of Alchymists, and in other places. As I have begun our Ancestors Process of the Tincture of Natural Things, So I will perfectly conclude the same.