Page:Hermetic and Alchemical Writings of Paracelsus Vol I (IA cu31924092287121).djvu/217



O extract Mercury from metallic bodies is nothing else but to resolve them, or to reduce them into their first matter: that is, running Mercury, such, in fact, as it was in the centre of the earth before the generation of the metals, namely, a damp and viscous vapour, containing invisibly within itself natural Mercury and sulphur, the principles of all metals. Such Mercury is of unspeakable power and possesses divine secrets.

The reduction spoken of is made by mercurial water, which was not known to John of Rupescissa, or to others, however they may boast. It must, therefore, be carefully studied and treated with unwearied assiduity. Let the aforesaid mercurial water be thus prepared:—

Take three pounds of Mercury sublimated seven times by Vitriol, Salt-Nitre, and Alum; one pound and a half of Sal ammoniac, clear and white, three times sublimated from salt. Grind these well together, alcoholise them, and sublimate in a sublimatory by means of sand for nine hours. When the mass has cooled, remove the sublimate with a feather, and sublimate with the rest as before. Repeat this operation four times, until it will no longer sublimate, and in the bottom there remains a black mass of fluid like wax. Having cooled this, take it out; grind it again, and imbibe it in a glass dish several times with the prepared water of Sal ammoniac. When it is spontaneously coagulated, imbibe it again and dry it, repeating this process nine or ten times, until it will scarcely coagulate any further. Grind it very small on marble in a damp place, and dissolve it into a beautiful oil, which you must rectify from all its dregs and residuum by distillation in ashes. Carefully preserve this water, for it is by far the chief of all waters. Take eight ounces of it, and put in it plates of the purest gold or silver carefully cleansed, an ounce and a half in weight. Place this in a closed vessel for digestion over hot ashes during a period of eight hours. Then you will see your body at the bottom of the vessel transmuted into a subtle vapour or Mercury. Having made a solution of the whole mercurial water, separate it, by sublimation in an alembic over a slow fire, from its first matter, and keep it carefully in a glass vessel. You will thus have the true Mercury of the body, the use whereof in desperate 2