The works of the highly experienced and famous chymist, John Rudolph Glauber

by Johann Rudolf Glauber

Because therefore like desires its like, loves, and seeks after it, a poisonous Magnet must not be exposed [to attract] a vital food: For as is the nature of the Magnet, so likewise doth it attract good or evil out of the Air. It is a thing that Husbandmen are well acquainted withall, namely, that Wheat produceth nothing else but Wheat, and from Tares do Tares arise. If the Seed or Magnet be aureous and pure, it will also acquire to it self pure and golden Virtues, and be encreased by them.

The manner of so placing the Magnets, that (by Solutions and Coagulations) they may receive the Astral and vivifying Rays of the Sun, and may render them visible, corporeal, palpable, and durable in the Fire.

You must get made some flat and strong glass Dishes or Platters, in which you must put your Magnet the thickness of half a fingers breadth, and expose it moist to the Sun, that the unprofitable humidity may vanish by evaporation. Which done, (and in the Summer time it will be done in a few hours, especially if there were not too much of the Golden Liquor put into the Dishes) expose the same Dishes, which contain in them the [thus] dried Salt, in the night-time, open to the cold and moist Lunar Beams, that the Salt may by its magnetick virtue associate unto it self from the Air, the Water, which carries in it the universal food of the Air, and consequently may be dissolved. This Solution is to be agen set out in the day-time to the Sun-beams, which will again dry up the unprofitable moisture, and leave in the Salt, that vivifying and golden Seed, which it contracted in the cold Night and Air, together with the humidity, which is void of any virtue. The Salt being freed by the Sun from its superfluous moisture, must be again exposed at Night to the Lunar beams, that it may again imbibe the Astral virtues, and may be agen dissolved in the imbibed water, that, being the next day, as the day afore, exposed to the Sun, it may be animated anew with those same virtues: These exposings by turns [to the Sun and Moon,] must be so long and so often repeated, untill the said Magnet, (after its being dried at the day time in the Sun) will, at the nighttime, hardly admit of any moisture from the Air, and that being dry and put upon a red-hot Plate, it readily melts without fume. For then may it be applied to use, as being a constant and fix Medicament.

This interchangeable Solution and Coagulation must be repeated some hundreds of times, and every Solution and Coagulation is to be accounted for a Philosophical day.

If now in the Summer-season the heat of the Sun be not strong enough in our Countries for the effecting of this operation, the said heat may be concentred by Glasses, or metallick Instruments, and be made more efficacious, that the Coagulation may be ripened [or hastned.] But in defect of such Instruments, and want of the heat of the Sun, which is frequently over-cast with store of Clouds, you may easily forward the Coagulation with our Common Fire, and that too with a more unfailable and speedier operation than that is, wherein the drying up by the Solar heat is always to be waited for. And although this operation, which is performed in the Sun, is to be accounted of as far the better, yet notwithstanding the Sun doth operate together with our Common Fire after an invisible manner, when we cannot make use of the Sun it self. For wheresoever the Air is, there also is to be found the invisible Sun, and the occult virtue and power of life. He that can have the opportunity of using the Sun in this operation, needs not any other Fire. But the using of our Common Fire requireth a peculiar Iron Furnace, whereon the Dishes or Basons are to be placed to dry. But yet the heat must not be underneath, and strike at the bottom of the said Basons, but it must be such as may strike the heat downwards at top of the matter onely, and may gently and by little and little consume the humidity: For else there would be hazard of the Liquors boiling over, and of being lost, if the heat should be placed under the bottom of the Dishes. The Iron Furnace may be made of Iron Plates, resembling Arched work, [or Oven like] and be placed within a Stone Furnace, and have a Door fitted thereunto, that so neither Dust nor Ashes may fly thereinto, and by this way will the Salts be dried in two or three hours time. And now, that you may not need to wait till the night approacheth, you may have a wooden Box or Chest made, and covered over at the top, but pierced full of holes all round about the sides, which (with the Basons placed therein) may in the Winter-season be set abroad to the cold Air, and in the Summer-time may be placed in some moist Cellar, that so the Salts may attract from the Air the food of Life. For in all places of the World doth the Air contain in it (though in one place more plentifully, and better, than in another) that occult faculty and virtue of Life, without which, neither Men nor Animals are able to live. But by how much purer the Air shall be, so much the purer and more excellent is the acquired Medicine. As for the Transmutation of Metals, it matters not much what Air it is that you get, for every sort of Air is fit for this operation. We doe in this place manifest onely the way of fixing it: Now every one knows that a pure and clean Air is better than a gross and an impure one, and that the heat of the Sun is better than the heat of Coles, or of a Lamp.

Thomas Aquinas writes, that God with his Angels cannot want our fire, and therefore is he reproved by Paracelsus, because he saith that God cannot want the Elementary fire. Alas, Good man, he did not so accurately weigh this matter, for this proposition tends onely to this end, namely, to set afore our eyes the purity of the Fire necessary for the Coction of our Medicine. From whence it is sufficiently manifest, that a Medicament will be so much the better, by how much the purer the Fire shall be. For a gross Air begets a gross Blood. But in this operation, the Air is the Meat and Drink of our Golden Salt, but the Water or Phlegm is to be driven away by heat, it being a superfluous Excrement adhering on to that Air. Now in those manifold Solutions and Coagulations, the Magnet doth always retain some good thing, and encreaseth both in weight and virtue, and attaineth a constancy: like as Men and other Animals are encreased with Meat and Drink, and doe grow in stature, and multiply themselves. The whole work therefore of making this kingly Medicament by the help of the secret Solar fire, doth consist in a good, pure, and golden Magnet, and afterwards in a true Solution and Coagulation: Which if it be too speedy and strong, the over-much heat will burn up and consume the attracted food of Life. If therefore a Medium be not used, it so happens, as ’tis wont to be in any Earth that is too moist, and therefore not [capable of] bearing fruit. So that nothing is more necessary than to have a due regard of mediocrity, not onely in the Solution, but in the Coagulation likewise.

And this is that way by which the Solution done in the Air, and the Coagulation made in the Sun, doe reduce the Mercurial water, and the Minerals prepared with Salt into fusile and tinging Stones; which thing the Common fire will never perform in a glass closed up, and without the Air.

Note this, and believe it, and doe it, and thou wilt find what thou hast believed, come to pass.

Supper being ended, and the Drinking-bout over, ’tis time for the Guests to go to Bed, unto whom the custom of some is to present a closing Cup, made of good and profitable Herbs, ’mongst which, such as are more bitter, are for the most part in greatest esteem, because they close up the mouth of the Stomach, and beget a quiet Sleep.

Now to parallel this Custom, I will here set one down, for those that are desirous of such like bitter Potions, and such an one as they may prepare according to their pleasure, and apply to use.