Sacred Texts Alchemy Index Previous Next
"My Son, that which is born of the Crow is the beginning of this Art. Behold, now I have obscured the matter treated of, by circumlocution, depriving thee of the light. Yet this dissolved, this joined, this nearest and farthest off, I have named to thee. Roast those things, therefore, and boil them in that which comes from the horse's belly for seven, fourteen or twenty-one days. Then will the Dragon eat his own wings and destroy himself. This being done, let it be put into a fiery furnace, which lute diligently, and observe that none of the spirit may escape.
"And know that the periods of the earth are in the water, which let it be as long as until thou puttest the same upon it. This matter being thus melted and burned, take the brain thereof and triturate it in most sharp vinegar, till it becomes obscured. This done, it lives in the putrefaction, let the dark clouds which were in it before it was killed be converted into its own body. Let this process be repeated, as I have described, let it again die, as I before said, and then it lives.
"In the life and death thereof we work with the spirits, for as it dies by the taking away of the spirit, so it lives in the return and is revived and rejoices therein. Being arrived then at this knowledge, that which thou hast been searching for is made apparent in the Affirmation. I have even related to thee the joyful signs, even that which doth fix the body. But these things, and how they attained to the knowledge of this secret, are given by our ancestors in figures and
types. Behold, they are dead. I have opened the riddle, and the book of knowledge is revealed. The hidden things I have uncovered, and have brought together the scattered truths within their boundary, and have conjoined many various forms; even I have associated the spirit. Take it as the gift of God."