Page 22 - Book of Crates

bodies resist the fire. If you put back these bodies onto the fire, as soon
as they will have been put back there and the mercury will have mixed
with them, one will have a pure substance, because it will remain with
them.

“The spirits, under the action of a violent heat, emerge from these
bodies, and these bodies become dead, without spirit, since they
underwent volatilisation. If one returns the spirits to the bodies, they
become alive again. It is for this reason that the Ancients said that
copper had a body and a soul. However certain people sought its spirit,
and for this reason they operated on copper, in order to make of it a
strong body, able to tinge and resistant to fire. Those people let
themselves be led astray by [...] when they wanted to transform the
spirits in the body, without the assistance of a body. Nobody, indeed,
ever saw a soul that was fixed in another part than in a body, nor a
body that existed without a soul. The body without soul is incapable of
moving, of generating and of drawing together in a union.

“Know that in a true manner all bodies contain some impurities,
and that the impurities of the three bodies cannot be eliminated,
however much one mixes them to achieve their volatilisation. Fire
cleans them so to speak and eliminates the black part; because a fire
whose heat is directed appropriately, cleans the bodies and purifies
them. It is the fire alone that cleans them, purifies them, improves
them, refines them and makes them become white and red. But it is
appropriate that I indicate to you how many times it is necessary to put
back mercury into the bodies.”

“Tell it to me, I pray you,” I exclaimed.

“The Ancients”, he answered, “Said that the roasting with lead and
sulphur constituted the first form of roasting; the roasting with
mercury, the second. Then they added: put back the strips in the
solution, in order to make the impurities leave from it, that will be the
third operation. Grinding with mercury, will be the fourth. Crushing
with honey and gum, will be the fifth. Crushing with litharge, and with
honey, will be the sixth. Crushing the gold ozza with the urine of
calves, will be the seventh.”

18