Quest. What therefore is Luna?
Answ. It is the seventh external, corporeal, material, of the Six metals therein hidden; for alwaies (as it hath been very often said) the Seventh hath the other Six spiritually hidden within it self; neither also can these six be without an external, material metal; nor can any corporeal Metal be without the six spiritual ones and their Essence. If you melt the seven Corporeal Metals, it doth nothing as to making ☉: after mixtion, each as its nature is, remains fixt in the fire, or volatile. For example, mix as well as you can ☿, ♃, ♄, ♂, ♀, ☉ and ☽, it will not therefore follow, that the ☉ and ☽ will transmute the other five, that they become ☉ and ☽: Although they are blown together into one mass, yet each remains in its own state, viz. if you take of the corporeal mixtion; for transmutation consists in the spiritual mixtion and union of Metals, because Spirits admit of no separation and mortification.
Although you kill the Body an hundred times, yet will they alwaies have another Body more noble than the former. And this is the promotion of Metals from one mortification into another; that is, from a more ignoble degree to a higher, that is Luna, and from a better to the best, that is Sol; a most illustrious and royal Metal; ’tis also true, and alwaies will be, which hath been often spoken of before, that alwaies the six metals generate the seventh, and deliver it from themselves into a palpable and visible substance.
Quest. Now, then if it be so, that the Luna, or any other metal, is alwaies caused and produced from the other six, What therefore is its Property and Nature? I answer, Out of ☿, ♃, ♂, ♀, ♄, and ☉, no other metal can be made, but ☽; the reason is, because as to the other six metals, each are indued with two good virtues, which in all make Twelve: these virtues are the Silverish or Lunar Spirit, which in brief understand thus; Silver is compounded into a corporeal Metal, out of the six Spiritual Metals, and their Properties, in number twelve, and is likened to the seven Planets, and the twelve Cœlestial Signs; for the ☽ hath from ☿ the Planet, and ♒, and ♓, a bright white flux and splendor, ☿, ♒, ♓; also ☽ hath from ♃, ♂, and ♉ a white colour, a great constancy against the fire and fixation, ♃, ♂, ♉; from ♂, ♋, and ♈, it hath hardness, a good clangour or sound, ♂, ♋, ♈; from ♀, ♊, ♎, it hath the means of Coagulation and Malleability, ♀, ♊, ♎; from ♄, ♑, ♏, it hath a fixt body with heaviness and gravity, ♄, ♑, ♏; from ☉, ♌, ♍, it hath a sincere purity, and a great constancy, against the violency of the fire, ☉, ♌, ♍.
Thus is briefly explained what is the exaltation and cause of the spirit and body of Silver, with its own compound Nature and Essence.
It must also be known what matter the metallick spirits do take in their first Nativity, when they are carried down into the Earth from the Cœlestial Influences, viz. a vile Dirt or Stone, which the Mine-digger by breaking the body of the metal, destroys and burns in the fire, in which mortification the metalline spirit assumes another body, not fryable, but pure and malleable. Then the Alchymist coming, destroys this metalline body, kills and prepares it by Art, but that metallick corporeal Spirit makes apparently conspicuous, another more noble and much more perfect body, whether it be the Sun or Moon; then both the metallick Spirit and Body being perfectly united, are free and safe from Corruption by the Element of Fire.
Glaub.] Paracelsus in this Sixth Chapter repeats the words which have been oftentimes afore mentioned, viz. That every visible metal is an hider of the other metals which lie spiritually hid within it; withal teaching, that it is impossible for corporeal metals, although melted together never so long, to be meliorated, unless they are first made spiritual; which I have oftentimes demonstrated and shewed to be the very Truth, and the right way to Transmutation.
But he doth not in express words teach the way by which they may be made and rendered Spiritual; nor is it convenient to chew a Morsel, and thrust it into the mouths of the Ignorant.
Now I say, that as touching the spiritualizing of Metals, Paracelsus doth not advise that Metals be dissolved in corrosive Spirits, & digested & destilled over the Helm with it, by often Cohobations. The Spiritualization which he mentions here, is not to be done with Corrosives, for they are rather corrupted by them than perfected, neither in Glasses, but in Crucibles, and that in a few hours, without Corrosives, whereby they are so depurated, and as it were poudered, that they are transparent in and out of the fire, and dissolvable in any water. This is a true spiritualization of metals, and gainful if it hath the said Properties: ’Tis otherwise called by the Philosophers, the first matter of Metals, and at this time known but to few.
Our Laborators now adays know not any metallick spirits, but such, as by the help of peregrine and noxious things, they drive over by an Alembick or Retort; but Experience testifies, that these are wholly useless and unprofitable for Melioration. And although the ancient Philosophers write, Make the fixt volatile, and the volatile fixt, yet they mean not that the metals should be destilled. Which sublimation or destillation they did not meddle with, but all their metallick labours, as Solution, Putrefaction, Destillation Sublimation, Calcination, Inceration, Cohobation, and Fixation, were done in one earthen vessel, without Corrosives; nor did they weary themselves with those ridiculous labours that are done by the means of Glasses. But of this more in another place.