CHAPTER XIIL

Special Instruction concerning the Process of Vitriol FOR the Red Tincture.
Vitriol contains within itself many muddy and viscous imperfections. Therefore its greenness* must be often extracted with water, and rectified until it puts off all the impurities of earth. When all these rectifications are finished, take care above all that the matter shall not be exposed to the sun, for this turns its greenness pale, and at the same time absorbs the arcanum. Let it be kept covered up in a warm stove so that no dust may defile it. Afterwards let it be digested in a closed glass vessel for the space of several months, or until different colours and deep redness shew themselves. Still you must not suppose that by this process the redness is sufficiently fixed. It must, in addition, be cleansed from the interior and accidental defilements of the earth, in the following manner : — It must be rectified with acetum until the earthy defilement is altogether removed, and the dregs are taken away» This is now the true and best rectification of its tincture, from which the blessed oil is to be extracted. From this tincture, which is carefully enclosed in a glass vessel, an alembic afterwards placed on it and luted so that no spirit may escape^ the spirit of this oil must be extracted by distillation over a mild and slow fire- This oil is much pleasanter and sweeter than any aromatic balsam of the drug- sellers, being entirely free from all acridity, t There will subside in the bottom of the cucurbite some very white earthy shining and glittering like snow. This keep, and protect from all dust. This same earth is altogether separated from its redness.
Thereupon follows the greatest arcanum, that is Xo say, the Supercelestial Marriage of the Soul, consummately prepared and washed by the blood of the
• So long as the xiridhy or greenness or vitriol siilnists ther^mt it is of a soft quality and substance. But if h be exoocted so thai it i& deprived of its moisture, it is thereby changed into n hard stone from which ev«o lire can be struck* When the moisture is evaporated from vitriol, the stdphur which it coatains predoounate^ over the saltj and the vitriol turns Tss^.—De Ffstilitate, Tract I.
\ The diAgnmis of vitriol is concerned with it both in Medicine and Alchemy^ In Medicine it is a panunount remedy. In Akhemy it hss many additional purpoft»« The Art of Medicine and Alchemy consists in the preparmtion of vitriol, for it is worthless \n its crude state. It is like unto wood, out of which it is possible to carve anything. Three kinds of oil are extracted from vitriol— a red oil, by distillation in a retort after an alchemistic method, and this is the most acid of all substances, and has also a corrosive quality— also a green and a white oil, distilled from crude vitriol by descension,— /?/ Vttrioh* Nor let it be regarded a& absurd that we assign such great virtues to v-itriol, for therein recides, secret and hidden, a certain peculiar golden forces not corporeal but spiritual, which excellent and admirable virtue exists in greater potency and certainty therein than it docs in gold. When this golden spirit of vitriol is vota* tilized and separated from iu impurities, so that the es'ience alone remains^ it is hka unto potable gold.— /># MotHm Amgmtiumt Mttkodut II,, c i,
62 The Hermetic and Aldumical Writings of Paracelsus.
Iamb, with its own splendid, shining, and purified body. This is the true supercelestial marnage by which life is prolonged to the last and predestined day. In this way, then^ the soul and spirit of the Vitriol » which are its blood, are joined with its purified body, that they may be for eternity inseparable. Take, therefore^ this our foliated earth in a glass phiah Into it pour gradually its own oil. The body will receive and embrace Its soul ; since the body is affected with extreme desire for the soul, and the soul is most perfectly delighted with the embrace of the body. Place this conjunction in a furnace of arcana, and keep it there for forty days. When these have expired you will have a most absolute oil of wondrous perfection, in which Mercury and any other of the imperfect metals are turned into gold.
Now let us turn our attention to its multiplication. Take the corporal Mercur)^, in the proportion of two parts ; pour it over three parts, equal in weight, of the aforesaid oil, and let them remain together for forty days. By this proportion of weight and this order the multiplication becomes infinite.