CHAPTER I.

Of the Vital Purification, commonly called
The Gross Work,

Dii sudoribus vendunt Artes. — Arcanum Ignis AqucR Ee$f>. 6.

"VTEXT to the preliminary aids already noted,
±\ and a sufficient theory to begin with, follows
the Preparation of the Philosophic Subject, which
is performed, says the Monk Basil, by operation of
the Hands, that some real effect may be produced.
Prom preparation arises knowledge, even such as
opens all the fundamentals of Alchenvy and
Medicine. Operation of the hands, continues he,
requires a diligent application of itself, but the
praise of the science consists in experience ; hence
that notable maxim — Physician, heal thyself. But
the difference of these, anatomy (that which is
spiritual) distinguisheth : operation shows thee
how all things may be brought to light and exposed
to sight visibly ; but knowledge, i.e., experience,
reveals the practice and shows further how to proceed,
and that whence the true practitioner is, and is no
other than a confirmation of the previous work :
because the operation of the hands manifests
something that is good, and draws the latent and
hidden nature outwards, and brings it to light
for good. And thus, as in Divine things the wa}^
of the Lord is to be prepared, so also, in these
(spiritual) things, the way has to be opened and
prepared, that no error be made from the right path :
but that progress may be made without deviation
in the direct way to health. — Manual operation
is chiefly required, therefore ; without which,
indeed, ever}^ other operation, like a ship without
ballast, floats and is uncertain. But it is difficult

454 Hermetic Practice.

to express this with a pen ; for more is learned by
once seeing the work done, than can be taught by
the writing of many pages.1

Although the Alchemists have written diffusely
on the Manual Practice, and delivered many Keys,
whereby, as they say, we may enter into the sanc-
tuary of philosophy and open her interior recesses ;
yet the first w&y of approach and shut entrance
to these has not been unfolded, nor would it be
possible, we think, for any one to discover the
Practice from their books alone. For although it
is called a pla}^ of children, and represented as a
very trivial, slight, almost a ridiculous thing, one
linear decoction throughout and dissolution b}T
line, yet neither instinct nor reason would probably
suggest, without instruction, the tractive artifice
now made publicly eas}^ of entrancing the senses
in their own medial light.

But recent observation has proved various means
of effecting this, and determining the natural life to
an intraction of its beams, by the hand or eye of
another mesmerising, or by a passive fixed gaze ;
the virtues of ether and chloroform too are familiar,
and in these days ignorantly preferred to the
former expedients, since their effects are considered
analogous and more easily supplied ; which how-
ever are verj^ different, as proved b}^ the contrari-
ety of their cause. For, whereas the one, over-
coming in light, oxygenates, purifies, and sublimes
the arterial blood, and in proportion the intellectual
powers ; the other contrariwise, b}^ influxion of
darkness, drowns the oxygenating spirit, pro-
strates and confounds the mental powers, and,
further overwhelming, often produces syncope and
death. But we have no space to dwell here on errors
that daily experience promises to remove. The
ancients appear to have been acquainted with
other analogous means and media of curative

1 B. Valentitii Currus Triumphalis Antimonii, sub initio;:
Kirchringrius in Basilio Idem nota.

The Gross Work. 455

repute ; other revolutionary arts, too, by which
the human spirit ma}^ be involuted and converted
to its proper spheres. But to effect this was, as we
have repeatedly shown, a beginning only of the
Hermetic art ; the medium in its natural state is
volatile, immanifest, phantastic, irrational, and
impotent, compared with what it subsequently is
able and by artificial conception suffers itself to
become. The Alchemists, we repeat therefore, did
not remain satisfied with a few passes of the hand,
or any first phenomena whatever, but they pro-
ceeded at once scientifically to purify, depriving
the ether of its wild affections and impressures by a
dissolution of the circulating body in its own blood.
For this is that Brazen Wall celebrated by Anti-
quity, which surrounds our Heaven and must be
scaled, and passed through before any one can
hope to discern the equilibriate felicity of Being
within. — Take the occult Nature, which is our
Brass, says Albertus, and wash it that it may be
pure and clean ; dissolve, distill, sublime, incerate,
calcine, and fix it ; the whole of which is nothing
else than a successive dissolution and coagulation
to make the fixed volatile, and volatile fixed. The
beginning of the whole work is a perfect solution.2
Now, although there are many ways of including
the sensible medium and of unfolding the interior
light temporarily, yet for the Purification we read
but of one way, called by the Adepts Manual ,
and their Linear way, which supersedes all other
from beginning to end of the Dissolution. And,
according to their general testimony, and for other
explicable reasons, we judge that the Hand was
the instrument employed, not only to impart the
Spirit as a natural gift, but by a continual
mechanic trituration, as it were, to dissolve and
ultimately obliterate its innate defects. The
Mercury of philosophers, says Lully, comes not

2 Secret. Tract. Alberti Mag. in fine ; Ars Aurifera, p. 130
and another.

456 Hermetic Practice.

but by help of ingenuity, and the Manual opera-
tions of man. And Vaughan says, Nature is not
moved by theory alone, but by sagacious Handi-
craft and human assistance. — Nature cannot of
herself enter into the dissolution, says the author
of the Filum Ariadne, because she has no Hands. —
The Hand, says Van Helmont, is the instrument
of instruments, which the soul likewise useth, as a
means by which it bears its image into operation.3
We could bring together a multitude of passages
showing the literal application of these, but have
a doubt about the utility, since they would prove
nothing to unbelievers ; and those who are dis-
posed to inquire for themselves, looking to context
and probability, may be readily convinced. We
are less than ever anxious at this late stage of
inquiry to persuade others, or induce trial of the
practice where theoretic power is deficient ; but
leave the incredulous therefore to their incredulity,
until faith has independently established the fact
over their heads. For neither will the prelude
of Hermetic practice be attractive to the idle, but
continual labour is exacted throughout the per-
formance— patient toil, skill, unremitting atten-
tion, in the execution, and a free will to the dis-
cover}^ of error, without discordant slurring or
disguise.

He that neglects the knowledge, being dis-
heartened by the difficulties thereof, shall never
find where the disease lieth, says Crollius, for
these Chemical Secrets will never be fingered by
those slothful or sottish despisers of them, by
reason of their indisposition and unaptness for
Manual operation. As also of the profane, lewd,
and unworthy, there will be little danger of their
apprehending and discerning Divine Mysteries ;
because they want the spirit of Wisdom, and are

3 R. Lullii Theoria et Practica ; Vaughan, Coolum Terra? ;
Le Filet d'Ariadne, circa med. ; Norton, Ordinal, c. iv.
Helmont, Oreatrike, Introd. and cap. c.

The Gross Work. 457

not quick of understanding in these things.4 —
Some indeed, amongst the ignorant and pseudo-
chemists, says Eirenseus, imagine that our work
is a mere recreation and amusement from begin-
ning to end, holding indeed the labour of this
artifice in light account. In the work which they
account so easy, however, we observe they reap an
empty harvest for their idling pains ; we know
next the Divine blessing and a good principle to
begin with, that it is by assiduity and industry that
we accomplish the First Work, Nor is the work so
easy that it should be considered as a mental
recreation either (since a concentrated attention
is necessary), but according to the labour we do
likewise reckon the reward ; as Hermes says —
I spared no labour either of mind or body ; which
also verifies that proverb of Solomon — The desire
of the idle shall cause him to perish. Neither is it
wonderful that so many chemical students were
in former times reduced to poverty, since they
spared labour, but no expense. But, continues the
same author, we, who know the truth, have worked,
and we know beyond doubt that there is no work
more tedious than our First Operation, concerning
which Morien gravely warns King Calid, saying
that many philosophers had been overcome with
the fatigue of this work. Neither would I have
these things understood figuratively, continues he ;
I am not speaking here indeed of the commence-
ment of the Supernatural Work, but of things as
we first find them : and to well dispose the matter,
this truly is a labour and a work.5

The work of philosophers, says Arnold, is to
dissolve the Stone in its own Mercury, that it may
be reduced into its first Matter. — Opus namque
philosophorum, est dissolvere Lapidem in suum
Mercurium, ut in primam reducatur materiam.6

4 Crollius Phil. p. 10.

5 Introit. Apert. cap. viii. ; Morieni de Trans. Metal.

6 Arnold i Rosar, cap. ix. lib. i.

458 Hermetic Practice.

This labour has, by the author of the Hermetic
Secret, Urbigeranus, and some others, been styled
a labour of Hercules. For there is such a mass of
heterogeneous superfluities adhering to our subject,
that nothing short of dissolution can give it rest ;
and, these Adepts say, it will be entirely impossible
to accomplish without the Theor}^ of their Arcanum,
in which they show the medium by which the
Royal Diadem ma}7 be extracted from our Sordid
Subject. And even when this is known, continual
labour is required in the application, lest remaining
in any part, if left alone, before the total solution
of her enigma, the Sphinx should retrieve her
dominion unawares and frustrate the work begun
— Tere, coque, et reitera, et non te taedeat — Grind,
coct, sa}^s the wise author of the Rosarium, and
reiterate your labour and be not weary.7 Work not
to-day and be sorry to-morrow ; but lay sorrow
aside and continue your labour steadfast unto the
end, lest per ad venture God hoodwink and make
open the Light, sa3rs the Spirit to Dr. Dee ; the
labour is equal to the work, and to fight against
the Powers of Darkness requires great force.8 And
let him who would learn, says Van Helmont, buy
coals and fire, and discover those things which
watching successive nights, and expenses, have
afforded to philosophers.9 Kings and powerful
princes have not been ashamed to set their hand
to the work in order to seek out, by their sweat
and labours, the secret of Nature, which they have
faithfully bequeathed.10

Ardua prima via est ; et qua vix mane recentes
Enitantur equi.11

Fresh horses there are verily needed to this
Celestial Ploughshare and laborious assistance for

7 Rosar. cap. iii.

8 Dee's Conversat. sub init.

9 Oreatrike, fol. p. 710.

ir Digby's Lucerna Salis, Dialog.
11 Ovidii Metam. lib. i. 64

The Gross Work. 459

a toil that is incessant, to clear the wasted field
of human life, and harrow it for a more congenial
growth : nor once nor twice ; but many times the
labour must be repeated, as each dying is renewed
into a better life. This the wise poet, in his
Georgics, teaches ; and this recalls to mind the
advice of Norton and his brother Adepts about the
choice of servants, their capacities and qualifica-
tions, which moreover are tried in a double, single
manifold, and triply complicated sense. All the
operators, says Zachary, supply themselves with
three or four, sometimes ten, furnaces or more—
as for solution, sublimation, calcination — and the
matte?' passes through vessels innumerable ; but
not all would avail without a Method in their
distribution ; one would not advance in effect
beyond another, unless the operation were altered ;
there is indeed but one way of working, in one
matter, one linear way throughout, one vessel
uniform throughout, excepting removal. Unicus
operandi modus in unico vase, in unica fornacula,
prseter a motionem, donee decoctio compleatur.12

The Preparing Spirit dissolves the body of Light,
and cleanses it from the corrupting causes, and
extracts a Second Spirit subsisting and tinging
in the bod}^, and reduces the bodies by dissolution
into itself ; and these, says the Adept, are the
advantages of the Spirit preparing its body and
extracting from it the tinging spirit : for this
Argent vive was at first gross, unclean, fugitive,
being mingled with extraneous Sulphurs ; but by
the operation of Art it is cleansed and renewed,
and coagulated by its own internal sulphur, red
and white, and is double ; not viscous, but acidu-
lated, subtle, and very penetrative, resolving the
bodies mineral.

But our evidence runs in advance ; as we re-
mark by the way that this Argent vive, which is
decocted lineally, is generated pontically, as it were
12 Zacharius Opusc. Lucerna Salis, p. 06.

460 Hermetic Practice.

by a reciprocal alternation, distributing its ad-
vanced virtue by hand to hand. — And know, says
Eiremeus, that the exact preparation of the philo-
sophic Eagles may be considered the first degree
of perfection in this Art, in the knowledge of which
there is required also some sagacity of mind. For
do not suppose that this science has become known
to any of us by chance, or by a happ}^ guess of the
imagination ; but we have worked and sweated
daily, and passed many sleepless nights, much
labour and sweating truly we have undergone in
the pursuit of truth. You, therefore, that are but
beginning, as a tyro, in this study, be assured that
nothing can be achieved in the First Operation
without sweating and much labour. In the
Second, however, Nature alone operates, and
without any imposition of hands, by the sole
-assistance of a well-regulated external fire.13

Avicen, in Porta, wrote, if }~e remember,

How ye shoulde proceecle perfection to engender,

Trewry teaching as the pure treuth was,

Comedas ut bibas, et bibas ut comedas ;

Eatt as it drinketh and drink as it doth eate,

And in the meane season, take it a perfect sweate*

Rasis set the dietary and spake some deale far,

Non tamen comedat res festinanter ;

Let not your matters eate over hastilie.

But wisely consume their foode leisureiie.

Hereof the prophet made wondrous mention.

If ye apply it to this intention

Visitasti terrain et inebriasti earn,

Multiplicasti locupletare earn,

Terrain fructiferam in salsuginem

Et terram sine aqua in exitus aquarum.

If I have plenty of meate and drinke.

Men must wake when they desire to winke ;

For it is labor of watch and paines greate,

Alsoe the foode is full costly meate.

Therefore all poore men beware, says Arnolde,

For this Art longeth to greate men of the worlde.

Trust to his words, ye poore men all,

For I am witness, that soe ye finde shall.

13 Introitus Apertus, cap. vii.

The Gross Work. 401

Esto longanimus et sua vis, said he,

For hasty men th' end shall never see.

The length of clensing matters infected

Deceiveth much people for that is unsuspected.

Excess for one half quarter of an hour

May destroy all ; therefore chief succour,

In primum pro quo et ultimum pro quo non

To know the simperings of our Stone,

Till it may no more simper do, nor cease,

And yet long continuance may not cause increase.

Remember that water will bubble and boyle,

But butter must simmer and also oyle ;

And so with long leisure it will waste,

And not with bubbling made in haste.14

Frequent advices are given against haste in the
preparation, lest the centres should be stirred up
before the circumferences are made ready to con-
ceive them ; and we may observe that (Edipus,
he who of yore overcame the Sphinx, was lame
and impotent in his feet, signifying by this
(amongst other abstruse allusions,) that we should
not make too much haste to the solution of her
riddle, lest she should expound herself without a
proper understanding unawares — Alciatus, paint-
ing a dolphin wreathed about an anchor, for an
emblem, wrote these words — Festina Lente—
Make not too much haste — which admonition
applies not only well to the common affairs of life,
but especially to the trituration of the Philosophic
Subject, which ought to be slow, gentle, and
continuous.

Gutta cavat lapidem non vi sed ssepe cadendo.

And therefore the Adepts, again and again,
admonish and caution, lest by too great excitation
the internal agent awakening should cause a
disseveration in the Chaos, and the two Principles
stand up one against the other, before the intended
mastery is secure. — Cause, therefore, wings to be
prepared for the Matter by Juno, Bacchus, and
Vulcan ; but as 3^011 love your Life, says Basil,

14 Ordinal, chap. iv.

462 Hermetic Practice.

permit it not to fly suddenly, rather deliver it to
Mercury, to be instructed by him gradually to
accustom itself to flying ; yea, bind it with a cord,
lest (as a bird got out of its cage and past your
reach) it through ignorance approach too near the
Sun, and like Icarus, having its unproved feathers
burnt, fall headlong into the sea ; but after you
have detained it for its due time, loose its bonds
that it may fly and come to those fortunate Islands
towards which all the sons of Art direct their sight,
and whereunto all Adepts aim to arrive as to their
long-desired and sought for harbour.15 Take the
flying bird, says Hermes, and drown it flying ; and
divide and separate it from its redness, which
holds it in death ; draw it forth and repel it from
itself, that it may live and answer thee not by
flying away indeed to the region above, but truly
by forbearing to fly. For if thou shalt deliver
it out of its prison, after this thou shalt govern it
according to Reason and according to the days
specified ; then it will become a companion to thee,
and by it thou shalt become to be an honoured
Lord. Extract from the ray its shadow and its
obscurity, by which the clouds hang over it and
•corrupt, and keep away the light ; by means of
its constriction also and fiery redness it is burned.
Take, my son, this watery corrupted redness,
which is, as a live coal holding the fire, which if
thou shalt withdraw so often until the redness is
made pure, then it wTill associate with thee, by
whom it was cherished and in whom it rests.16

He that would seek tincture most specious,
Must needly avoid all things wild and vicious ;
Of manifold means each hath his property
To do his office after his degree,
With them hid things be outset
Some that will help, and some that would let.
Who woulde have trew worke may no labour spare,
Neither yet his purse, though he make it full bare ;

15 Kirchringius, in Basilio, Latin, 12 mo. p. 160 ; Eng. 74.
16 Tract. Aur. cap. ii.

The Gross Work. 463

And in the Gross Worke he is furthest behind,
That dayly desireth the end thereof to finde.
If the Gross Worke with all his circumstance
Were done in three years it were a blessed chance.17

This is meant chiefly in reference to the Second
Operation, and the periods are often to be under-
stood metaphorically with respect to the discovery
of the philosophic Salt. Some have met the Light
sooner, some later, and the natural periods are
protracted by faulty conditions from the com-
mencement, by the indisposition of patients, as
by the ignorance of agents, which things also are
more or less implied. Years have been employed
by some in the Preparation, the perplexity of the
records have added to the natural difficulty,
and to others it has never been vouchsafed.
Eirenaeus, mentioning his case as remarkably
favoured, says that in the course of two years and
a half the whole Arcanum was revealed to him. —
I made, says he, not five wrong experiments in it
before I found the true way, although in some
particular turnings of the Encheiresis I erred
often ; yet, so that in my error I knew myself a
master, and in no less than two full years and a
half, of a vulgar ignoramus I became a true Adept,
and have the secret through the goodness of God.18

It is to be imagined that the better foundation
there is laid in theorv from the commencement,
other things being equal, the surer, easier, and
more rapid would be the result ; but from books,
general principles only can be gathered, and in-
struction from particular experience. The working
theory, as we long ago suggested, can be obtained
through the practice only ; for the way develops
itself in the practice by rational inquisition of the
Light within. And this may be a matter of
gratulation to students, whilst adepts are so very
abstruse and envious in their disguises, to learn

17 Norton's Ordinall, cap. iv.

18 Ripley Revived, p. 87.

464 Hermetic Practice.

that the Hermetic Art is not so much the offspring
of natural intelligence as of involved thought.
Ab actionibus procedit speculatio is a famous maxim
of Aristotle's and eminently applies co this
philosophy, where each dicovery opens into a new
field of inquiry, and the fruit of contemplation
is ever more sown in order to bring about the
solution of its proper dilemma in the explanatory
growth of truth.

Not all by reading, nor by long sitting still ;
Nor fond conceit, nor working all by will ;
But, as I said, by grace it is obtained :
Seek grace therefore, let folly be refrained.19

Seek grace ; and, by importunity of reason, seek
for the clue of Truth within the Spirit's life ; if
haply she may find it, or we be able to discover
whether she have it or not — That which analyzes
even must be analyzed ; that, returning analy-
tically, it may resolve the separable Selfhood and
reiterate the same by alternation until it arrives
at the inseparable Unit of Truth. — Liber librum
explicit — And this is the way of rational per-
meation, by the Understanding of Nature, into
her Causal Light.

So shalt thou instant reach the realms assigned
In wondrous ships self -moved, instinct with mind ;
No helm secures their course, no pilot guides ;
Like man intelligent they plough the tides,
Conscious of every coast and every baj^,
That lies beneath the Sun's all-seeing ray ;
And, veiled in clouds impervious to the eye.
Fearless and rapid through the deep they fly -20

And that court of King Alcinous, to which
Ulysses became admitted, is the dominion of
Intellect, which, in the description of these
Phceacian ships, also, is admirably signified ; the
hyperbole, in fact, would be absurd without other
reference, and the well-illumined Taylor has shown,
in his Dissertation, that the whole of the Odyssey

19 See Kelly's Verses in Ashmole's Theatrum.

20 Pope's Homer's Odyssey, lib. viii. 55, &c.

The Gross Work. 465

is an allegory pregnant with latent meaning and
the recondite Wisdom of antiquity.

Here again, then, we observe that it is not from a
moderate study or a few spontaneous revelations
of the Spirit's virtue, or natural instinct, that we
should presume to judge of the Hermetic ]Vlystery ;
since brazen walls and adamantine are between,
and all the breadth of that vast sea to be passed
over before we can hope to set foot upon the
royal coast ; a sea —

Huge, horrid, vast — where scarce in safety sails
The best built ship, tho' Jove inspires the gales.21

Even with these advantages, and after the first
flood-gates and barriers of sense are overpast,
greater obstacles await him, and Herculean labours,
who dares, approaching to the Nether confines, to
make choice of Light. No one may hope, without
toil and perseverance, to obtain it. Wisdom is the
reward of voluntary and arduous research. Per-
seus passed through dangerous encounters, strug-
gling with monstrous Chimeras ; and Theseus
before Ariadne vouchsafed her love and assistance ;
Bacchus, Ulysses, Hercules, and the rest ; Jason,
also, passing through mairy hopes and fears, and
performing dangerous feats and supernatural
labours, before Medea led him to the Field of Mars.

For the Gross Worke is foul in her kinde,
And full of perills as ye shall finde,
No man's wit can him so availe
But that sometimes he shall make a faile :
As well the layman, so shall the clerke,
And all that labor in the gross worke.
Wherefore Anaxagoras said trewly thus —
Nemo prima fronte reperitur discretus.22

They all set forth expectant heroes only in the
beginning, content also with the company of their
rude deserts, and it is satisfactory to learn with
all this prospective discouragement, that —

21 Idem.

22 Ordinal, cap. iv.

466 Hermetic Practice.

He that shall end it once for certaine
Shall never have neede to begin againe.

Much I might write of the Nature of Mynes,
Which in the gross worke be but engines ;
For in this worke find ye nothing shall,
But handle crafte, called Art mechanical,
Wherein a hundred wayes and moe,
Ye may commit a fault as ye therein goe.
Wherefore believe what old Auctors tell ;
Without experience ye may not do well*
Consider all circumstances, and set your deligte
To keep Uniformity of all things requisite ;
Use one manner of vessel in matter and in shape,
Beware of Commixtion that nothing miscape.
And hundredth foultes in speciall
Ye may make under this warning generall.
Nethlesse this doctrine woll suffice
To him that can in practice be wise.
If }^our ministers be witty and trew,
Such shall not need your workes to renew.23

And here we may bethink ourselves how Flamel
learned discretion from his Second Book, and how
Eirenaeus promises a guide, and describes him too
in his Ripley Revived. And, in Vulcan's labours,
says Khunrath, I have worked indefatigably with
no small expense, but, thanks to God, my own
alone ; now in companionship, and now not ; both
happily sometimes, sometimes without success.
But how should he do well who never has done
amiss ? What was wrong taught me what was
right, from day to day one booh throwing light upon
another, I was enabled to interpret them. /
observed what nature taught by the ministry of art.
O thou edifying Cabal of much profit ! O thou
Physico-Chemical Cabal ! how hath she not
advanced me ! Meanwhile, carefully keeping note
of conversations, experiments, and conceptions of
my own as ivell as others : when ye, my contem-
poraries, were idly dozing, I was watching and at
work. Meditating earnestly day and night on
what I had seen and learnt — sitting, standing,
recumbent, by sunshine and moonshine, by banks,

23 Idem.

The Gross Work. 467

in meadows, streams, woods, and mountains.24
And thus we read, in the Hermetical Triumph, how
the Stone of Philosophers, which is a pure petri-
faction of the Spirit, is prepared by those who
trace nature with the assistance of the Lunar
Vulcan ; by which Lunar Vulcan, as we long ago
suggested, is meant the first prepared Subject,
which is also called Diana, and the secret natural
interior Fire of Adepts, and because this same
Lunar Caustic is brought into act by an exterior
excitation. — Sol est Fons totius caloris, Luna
autem Domina Humiditatis. The ethereal humid-
ity nourishes the Solar Light and educates it ; and
this is that Nemean Lion said to be born of her
foam.

With respect to the rule of Investigation, how-
ever, having opened thus much, we would add a
few remarks, for neither is it said to be expedient
to inquire about Ends so much as about things
pertaining to ends, the Artist holding his right
intention from the beginning. This principle
Aristotle, in his Ethics, astutely argues. For
neither, he observes, does a physician consult
whether he shall heal the sick, nor a rhetorician
whether he shall persuade, nor the politician
whether he shall establish an equitable legislation,
nor does any one of remaining characters consult
about the End. But, proposing a certain end, they
consider how and by what Medium it may be
obtained. If also it appears that this end is to be
obtained through many media, they consider
through which of them it may be obtained in the
easiest and best manner. But if through one
medium they consider how it may be accom-
plished, and through what likewise this may be
obtained until they arrive at the First Cause
which is discovered in the last place. For he who
consults, continues the artful moralist, appears to

24

Amph. Sap. Etern. in medio.

468 Hermetic Practice.

investigate and analyze in the above-mentioned
manner, as if he were investigating and analyzing
a diagram.25

Even so, in the Hermetic Inquiry, he who con-
sults, the end being proposed which is not imme-
diately in his power, investigates the Medium by
which he hopes to obtain it ; and if this Medium
be not entirely enlightened, he explores another,
and further till he discovers the first Medium which
is immediately in his power, in the discovery of
which inquiry terminates, and the work, beginning
from thence, passes into accomplishment. That
Medium, therefore, which is last in the analysis
is first in generation, being proved able to the
accomplishment, and of the many called to the
consultation of means few are chosen to proceed
with the Philosophic Work. For philosophers were
not wont to investigate trifles, but they inquired
about such things as tend to purification and the
method of perfecting life. And when things, thus
truly eligible, are the objects of inquiry, the Divine
Will being conciliated, Wisdom runs lovingly by
her own rule to fulfil it ; and hence our deeds and
discourses extend their Hands, as it were, to assist
us in our assent, and Will is the greatest power of
purgation. And when That which from the first
is efficacious returns into its proper Efficient, how
much more will not those strokes, reverberating,
be effectual to overcome ?

Ille pius Cheiron justissimus omnes
Inter Nubigenas et Magni Doctor Achillis.

This is he who, in his double capacity of Power
and Motive in alliance, corrects and educates the
Heroic Fire, tames and directs its illimitable virtue,
and rectifies the Armed Magnet by an infallible
rule. And that Intellect rides through the abyss
of the sensual monarchy, secure in its Ether ; and,
as a ship upon the stormy seas is directed by the

25 Nichomachean Ethics, book iii. cap. iii.

The Gross Work. 469

beacon-light, it follows until integrally related,
when, centre meeting centre, the consciousness
transcends in revolutionary Light.

We know that, in common life, the hands per-
form innumerable offices and image mind about,
by material subjects, in a variety of ways. And
as the mind more easily retains that which the
hand before has noted by its exterior sense ; so,
in Hermetic works, the hand is found best able
to express and impart what the mind has well
premeditated : and thence, from its replenished
members, thought carries itself by voluntary
motion into effect. Such were those JDactyii Idaei,
literally the Fingers of Mount Ida, so renowned
in fable for their medicinal and magic skill, who
worked, it is said, at the foot of the Parnassian
Mountain to exhibit by their incessant fiery
artifice the metallic veins therein imbedded.26 So
Pallas is fabled, by the help of Vulcan, to have
been brought forth from Jove ; for, without the
instrumentality of Motion, which the lame god
personates, the Fabricative Intellect is not born.
But if thereafter it should happen, says the wise
Adept, that Pluto's Palace should be exposed to
any one together with Minerva's Artifice, or if
Vulcan stands together with her at the Altar there,
the Association is ominous.

Coexistunt namque naturalia opera mentali splendore,
Vitifer Ignis,

Centro incitans seipsum lumine resonante.
Fontanum alium, qui Empyreum mundum ducit,
Centrum quo omnes, usque quo forte equales fuerint.27

To instruct the ignorant is no part of the present
object ; but to stimulate the inquiry of such as are
already enlightened, and to advance the faithful in
the pursuit of truth, we conclude with such in-
structions as may be finally needful concerning
this said hyper-physical Gross Work.

26 See Bell's Pantheon, p. 209.

27 Oracula Chaldeor. Mundus, Anima, Natura.

470 Hermetic Practice.

The Second part of the Gross Work is described
by Vaughan as one of the greatest subtleties of
the Art ; Cornelius Agrippa, he observes, knew the
First Preparation, and has clearly discovered it ;
but the difficulty of the Second made him almost
an enemy to his own profession. By the Second
Work we are to understand, therefore, the Solution
of the Philosophic Salt (i.e., the voluntary bond) ;
which is a secret which Agrippa did not rightly
know, as it appears by his practice at Malines,
and as he confesses in the first book of Occult
Philosophy, that he could not increase the trans-
mutative virtue, nor would Natalius teach him
for all his frequent and serious entreaties. This was
it, adds his disciple, that made his necessities so
vigorous and his purse so weak, that I can seldom
find him at full fortune. But in this he is not alone :
Raymond Lully received not this mystery either
from Arnold, but, in his first practices, he followed
the common tedious process which after all is
scarcely profitable. Here he met with a drudgery
almost invincible. .Ripley also laboured for new
inventions to putrify this Red Salt which he
enviously calls his Gold ; and his Art was to
expose it to alternate fits of heat and cold, but in
this he is singular ; Faber is so wise that he will
not understand him. Let us return then to Rav-
mond Lully, who became so great a master that
he performed the Solution in nine days, and this
secret he had from God himself since this is his
profession. — Nos, says he, de prima ilia nigredine a
paucis cognita benignum Spiritum extrahere affect-
antes, pugnam ignis vincentem, et nos victum,
licet sensibus corporis multoties palpavimus, et
oculis propriis ilium vidimus ; Extractionis tamen
ipsius notitiam nos habuimus quacumque scienti-
arum vel arte : ideoque sentiebamus nos adhuc
aliqua rusticitate excaecatos, quia nullo modo earn
oomprehendere valuimus, donee alius Spiritus
prophetic, spirans a Patre Luminum descendit,

The Gross Work. 471

tanquam suos nullatenus deserens, aut a se
postulantibus deficiens, Qui in somniis tantam
claritatem mentis nostrae oculis infulsit ut Illam
intus et extra, remota omni figura, gratis revelare
dignatus est insatiabili bonitate nos reficiendo
demonstrans, ut ad earn implendam disponeremus
corpus ad unam naturalem decoctionem secretam,
qua penitus ordine retrogrado cum pungenti
lancea tota ejus natura in meram nigredinem
visibiliter dissolveretur.28

In the first act of the physico-chemical works,
explains Khunrath, by diverse instruments and
labours and the various artifice of the Hands and
of Fire, from Adrop (which in its proper tongue is
called Saturn, i.e., the Lead of the Wise), our heart
of Saturn, the bonds of coagulation being dex-
terously relaxed, the Green Duenech and the
Vitriol of Venus, which are the true matters of
the Blessed Stone will appear. The Green Lion,
lurking and concealed, is drawn forth from the
Cavern of his Saturnine Hill by attractions and
allurements suitable to his nature. All the blood
copiously flowing from his wounds, by the acute
lance transfixed, is diligently collected ule and lili ;
the mud earth, wet, humid, stagnant, impure, par-
taking of Adam, the First Matter of the creation
of the Greater World of our very selves and of our
potent Stone, is made manifest — the Wine which
the Wise have called the Blood of the Earth,
which likewise is the Red of Lully, so named on
account of its tincture which is the colour of its
virtue, thick, dense, and black, blacker than black,
will then be at hand ; the bond by which the soul
is tied to the body and united together with it into
one substance is relaxed and dissolved. The Spirit
and the Soul by degrees depart from the body and
are separated step by step ; whilst this takes place
the fixed is made volatile, and the impure body

28See the passage quoted in Vaughan's Preface to the Fame
and Confession of the R. C.

472

Hermetic Practice.

(of the Spirit) from day to day is consumed, is
destroj^ed, dies, blackens, and goes to Ashes. These
Ashes, my Son, deem not of little worth ; they
are the diadem of thy body ; in them lies our
pigmy, conquering and subduing giants. In the
Second Operation, which takes place in one circular-
cry stalline vessel justly proportioned to the quality
of its contents, also in one theosophic cabalisti-
cally sealed furnace of Athanor, and by one fire,
the body, spirit and soul, externally washed and
cleansed and purged with the most accurate
diligence and Herculean labours, and again com-
pounded, commingle, rot of themselves and with-
out manual co-operation, by the sole labours of
nature, are dissolved, conjoined, and reunited ;
and thus the fixed becomes volatile wholly ; these
three principles also are of themselves coagulated,
diversifiedly coloured, calcined, and fixed ; and
hence the World arises renovated and new.29

Here then lies the Gordian Knot of the Hermetic
Mystery — and who is he that is able to untie it,
enquires the philosopher ? — Qui scit Salem et
ejus solutionem, scit secretum occultum anti-
quorum philosophorum. — He who knows the Salt
and its solution, knows the secret of the Ancient
Sages. And if it be again asked who ? We have
already named him, and openly ; but this Light
shining everywhere in Darkness, how hardly should
it be comprehensible without Itself ?

Janua clausa est, vah qua? lamentabilis hsec vox ;

Orcina sed frustra pulsabitis ostia pugnis ;

Vestra? namque Manus nequeunt diffingere ferrum.

Wliat then ought we to be doing, since hands and
intellect are here alike incapable, and the truth of
this discovery was never yet put to paper, and for
this sufficient reason, that it is proper alone, as
Lully says, to God to reveal it ; since it is His
alone prerogative, and no mortal can communicate

29 Khunrath> Amphitheai. Sap. Isag. in fig. c.

The Gross Work. 473

it to another unless the Divine Will be with him. —
Not every messenger, says Van Helmont, ap-
proacheth to the mine of Stones ; but he alone ,
who, being loosed from his bonds, has known the
wars, being fitted for his journey, a friend to the
places and who has virtue. They err, therefore,
who ascribe this single combat only to Corrosives ;
to wit, they too much trusting to Second qualities,
as being ill secure, do sleep thereupon, and through
a neglecting of speciflca] qualities, also appro-
priated ones, (which are only extended on their
proper object,) being slighted, they have gone into
Obscurity. For the Ostrich does not digest iron
or little birds flints, through an emulous quality of
corrosion ; but there is a virtue of loosing the
bars and bolts of Tartar. It is convenient to
meditate about this virtue, continues the physician,
and of what I have spoken ; blessed be that God
of Wonders, who hath sometimes converted the
Water into Rocks, and at other times the Rocks
into pools of Water.30 Who then shall ascend into
the Mountain of the Lord, or who shall stand in
His Holy Place ? He that hath clean hands and a
pure heart, who hath not given up his soul unto
vanity nor sworn deceitfully. He shall receive the
blessing from the Lord, and righteousness from
the God of his salvation.

We do not quote casually, or because the
Scriptural phrase is popular ; but because it is apt,
as seen and proved on the Divine Ground ; where
man indeed may experiment, plough, plant, and
irrigate, but cannot of himself (or in alliance, unless
he dare a deadly sin,) compel the Divine Blessing
without its free accord. — Wisdom was with thee,
says the Hermetic Master ; it was not gotten by
thy care, nor, if it be freed from redness, by thy
study.31 So neither, it is written, is he that planteth
anything, neither he that watereth, but God, that

30 Oreatrike, cap. vi. p. 710.

31 Tract. Aur. cap. iv.

474 Hermetic Practice.

giveth the increase.32 He therefore must be propi-
tiated, not by prayer and supplication alone, but
by faithful and charitable works preparing the way
before Him ; nor would it be thought astonishing,
perhaps, if Antimony should cause a sudden
transpiration, or that an Iron Key should help to
unlock a treasury of fine Gold. Desire leads into
its object by faith immediately ; but mediately,
by just works, that hope is engendered which,
kindling into faith, by ecstacy, penetrates to its
First Source. — Our Antimony, says Basil Valen-
tine, which is fixed, searcheth out fixed diseases
and eradicates them ; which purgers, not fixed,
cannot do ; but they do only carry away some
spoil from diseases ; or they may be compared to
water which, driven by force through a street,
penetrates not the earth itself. Fixed remedies
purge not by the inferior parts, because that is not
the true way of expelling fixed venoms ; and that
way they would not touch the kernel, as it may
be called, or centre of the disease ; but by expelling
sweat, and otherwise, they strike at the very inmost
root of the disease, not contented with a certain
superficial expulsion of filths. Therefore we
admonish all and every one, that all venomous
impurity is totally to be taken away from Anti-
mony, before it can either be called a medicine
truly or administered with safety — in other words,
that all arrogant self-will, sensuality, folly, avarice,
and variability of purpose, all but the one volun-
tary faith to rectify and perfect, be removed from
the mind of him who is to enter into the radical
dissolution of Life. For the weapons of this warfare
are not carnal, as the Apostle teaches, but mighty
through God to the pulling down of strongholds ;
casting down imaginations, and every high thing
that exalteth itself against the Knowledge of God,
and bringing into captivity every thought to the

;Ji 1 Corinth, cap. iii. v. 7.

The Gross Work. 475

obedience of Christ.33 And for this cause, con-
tinues the Monk, the good must be separated from
the evil, the fixed from the unfixed, the medicine
from the venom, with accurate diligence, if we
hope by the use of Antimony to obtain true honour
and true utility ; but Fire only can effect that, and
Vulcan is the sole and only master of all these.
Whatsoever the Vulcan in the Greater Orb leaves
crude and perfects not, that in the Lesser World
must be amended by a certain other Vulcan,
ripening the immature, and cocting the crude b}^
heat, and separating the pure from the impure.
That this is possible, no man will doubt ; for daily
experience teaches the same, and it is very appar-
ent in the corporeal aspect of colours which proceed
from the Fire. For by Separation and Fire, which
perfects its fixation, venomosity is taken away,
and a change is made of the evil into good ; there-
fore Fire is the Separation of Venom from the
Medicine, and of good and evil ; which however
is a thing that none of the physicians either dares
or can truly and fundamentally own or demon-
strate, unless he who hath firmly contracted
friendship with Vulcan, and instituted the Yiery
bath of Love.34

There is one operation of heat, says Vaughan,
whose method is vital and far more mysterious
than all other, and there be but few of that Spirit
that can comprehend it : But because I will not
leave thee without some satisfaction, I advise thee
to take the Moon of the Firmament, which is a
middle Nature, and place her so that every part
of her may be in two elements at one and the same
time ; these elements also must equally attend her
body ; not one further off, nor one nearer than
the other. In the regulation of these there is a
twofold geometry to be observed, natural and
artificial. Flamel also, speaking of the Solar and

33 2 Corinthians, x. 4, 5.

34 Triump. Char, of Antim. Kirchringius, Eng. ed. p. 58.

476 Hermetic Practice.

Lunar Mercury, and the plantation of the one in
the other, gives this instruction. Take them, he
says, and cherish them over a fire in thy Alembic ;
but it must not be a fire of coals, nor of any wood,
but a bright shining fire like the Sun itself, whose
heat must neither be excessive, but always of one
and the same degree.35 Our operation, concludes
Morien, is nothing else but extracting water from
the earth and returning it again, so long and so
often until the earth is completely putrefied ; for
by elevation of the moisture the body is heated and
dried, and by returning it again it is cooled and
moistened ; by the continuation of which succes-
sive operations it is brought to corrupt and to lose
its Form, and for a season to remain dead.3fi
This then is the true intention and manner of
working to supply the right condition for attract-
ing the Divine Seed, by action and re-action raising
successively actives by passives, and, vice-versa^
passives by actives, until the spiritual ability is
complete.

li or what one doth concoct t'other will drive away ;

But if thou canst each work perform apart.

And knowest them afterwards to reconcile,

Then thou art master of a princely Art.

The very success will thy hopes beguile ;

Thou hast all Nature's works ranked on a file,

And all her treasures at command dost keep ;

On thee the Fates will never dare but smile.

No Mystery is now for thee too deep :

Th/ art Nature's darling whether dost wake or sleep.

Pardon my plainness, of the Art, thou knowest

It was the fruit of my untame desire

To profit many ; and, without a boast,

No man above my candor shall aspire

My zeal was kindled b}^ Minerva's Fire.37

But for an explanation of the whole difficulty,
adds the same author, in his Open Entrance, attend
to these instructions — Take four parts of our Fiery

35 Ccelum Terra?, p 118 ; Flammelli Summula

36 De Trans. Metal.

37 Eirensens, Ripley Revived, verses in fine

The Gross Work. 477

Dragon, which bears in his belly the Magic Steel,
and conjoin to nine parts" of our Loadstone, that
by a violent concussion they may be reduced into
a mineral water ; reject the superfluous scum
which swims upon it ; leave the Shell and take the
Kernel ; and purge thrice with Salt and with Fire :
which will be easy to do, if Saturn have chanced to
regard his beauty in the glass of Mars. — Hence
comes the Chamelion which is our Chaos, in which
all the Arcana are contained ; not in act as yet,
but in virtue.38 -Non igitur externus solis ccelestis
calor est qui profundum terrae calefacit sed potius
solis terrestris innatus calor ; duplex enim est
calor, unus reverberationis qui externus est, alter
influxionis et penetrationis, qui interims est, de
quo jam loquor, cujus natura est vivificare
augmentare conservare per sustentaculum radi-
calis humoris in hoc igne contenti.39

Which Vulcanic action, to destroy life and to
maintain it, Democritus before all, and as it were
pyrographically, pour trays, as — Drawing the fixed
Brass out bodilv, instructs this Abderite, thou
shalt compose a certain oblong tongue, and placing
it again upon the coals, stir Vulcan into it ; now
irradiating with the Fossil Salt, now with the
incessant Attic Ochre, adorning now the shoulder
and the breast of Paphia till she shall appear more
manifestly beautiful, and, throwing the glaucous
veil aside, shall appear entirety Golden. Perchance
it was when Paris gazed on such a Venus, he did
prefer her both to Juno and Minerva.40

This evidence may suffice for the present occa-
sion, which is to promote inquiry rather than
pursue it. For when the inquirer has learned how
he ought to begin, having increased also his
natural store of inclination and faith by practice in
equal companionship and reciprocal benefaction,

38 Introitus Apertus, cap. vii.

39 Nuysement, Sal Lumen, the Latin of Combachius.

40 In Flammelli Summula, Quae ex Democrito colleguntur.

478 Hermetic Practice.

he will not despair ; and even though the riddle
should appear ever so intricate at first, it will
solve itself at every stage, opening into new
prospects within the veil of life. Labour to know
causes, advises the philosopher ; he that seeks
rationally finds the true end, not otherwise ; for
such a conduct conciliates Minerva, and at her
behest Jove prospers the undertaking. Everything
depends upon the Motive, which is the true
'spiritual ferment ; and according to the virtue of
the fermenting principle is the result obtained.

Sic finis ab origine pendet.

The end depends from the beginning ; and as the
vine draws its sap from the fceculent impure earth,
and yields a fluid fruit, which by the f ermentive art
is turned into wine, spiritualised, and advanced
into a more permanent form of being ; so, in the
Hermetic art, the philosophic matter, drawn in part
from the heterogeneous air and defiled breath of
vitality, is purified by successive interchanging of
ferments, fretted, dissolved, and rectified into a
consummate and immortal Form of Light. But
Nature halts many times before this final rest, at
each stage offering the fruits of her conceptive
imagination to allure ; if the artist be ambitious,
however, and a true philosopher, he will accept of
none of these, but will proceed, sacrificing all the
intermediate benefits, again and again torturing
her, and, with relentless hands, slaying the first-
born offspring until the Divine Perfection is
attained. — For other foundation can no man lay,
as says the Apostle, than that which is laid, which
is Jesus Christ. Now if any man build upon this
foundation gold, silver, precious stones, wood, hay,
stubble ; every man's work shall be made mani-
fest : for the Day shall declare it, because it shall
be revealed by Fire ; and the Fire shall try every
man's work of what sort it is. If any man's work
abide which he hath built thereupon, he shall receive

The Gross Work. 479

a reward. If any man's work shall be burned, he
shall suffer loss : but he himself shall be saved ;
yet so as by Fire. Know ye not that ye are the
Temple of God, and that the Spirit of God dwelleth
in you ? If any man defile the Temple of God,
him shall God destroy ; for the Temple of God is
holy, which Temple ye are.41

It is vain to look in expectation, or believe our-
selves in the hereditary possession, of a treasure,
without so much as opening or suspecting even the
casket in which it is shut up. The common ele-
ments of Nature obscure their Divine Original, and
Chemistry and all our experimental physics drive
it forcibly without the means of Identification. Yet
as the experenced Chemist knows how, by a skilful
application of his art, to analyse the common
elements, and distil them to a high virtue and
strength of refinement, so the Alchemists long since
have taught by a more subtle apparatus and arti-
fice, and tests more cogent than all, to rectify the
Universal Element, and compress its invisible
vapour into a tangible Form. By applying the
proper voluntary corrosive they teach to obliterate
its defilements ; by gentleness to mollify its Durity;
by beneficence to sweeten its acerbity ; by justice
to moderate its intensity, and to irradiate it with
hope, truth, beauty, and universal intellection ;
supplanting the sensual dominion, and rectifying,
until finally, by an actual subversion of the self-
hood, they made their Sublimate sublime.

Thus he who, like CKdipus, is able to solve the
Enigma of the Sphinx ; in other words, to pene-
trate rationally the darkened essence of his natural
understanding, will, by conversion illuminating its
obscurity, cause it to become lucid throughout,
and to be no longer what it was before. — For Mind
is the Key of this Hermetic Enigma, and no sooner
does it attain to Self Knowledge, by proper
inquiry within, than the Efficient proceeds out-
41 I Corinthians, iii. 11—17

480 Hermetic Practice.

wards to image its motive in operation, so that
that which before lay in speculation only is carried
out in Life. But it is not until the right Motive is
discovered, and until the mundification of the
Spirit is completed in both kinds, and all things are
reduced to a crystalline diaphaneit}^, that the
Philosophic Work has been said truly to begin.
For, as was before observed, if any permanent
confection is made or suffered to take place
beforehand, the immature offspring does not abide.

He that would seek Tincture most specious
Must needly avoid all things wild and vicious.
The philosopher's worke doe not begin
Till all things be pure without and within.42

42 Norton's Ordinal, cap iv.

481