Page 23 - Book of Crates

Then he added: “As for me, I estimate that it is necessary to put
back the bodies in the solution, because the more one puts them there
and the more one leaves them there, the more they acquire beauty and
the faculty to tinge. However it is always necessary to seek the best,
when that is possible. I have just revealed you things which, I fear, will
not be understood by anyone’s intelligence, sagacity and knowledge.

“As for the names that the Ancients gave? As, for example, those
of copper, of silver, of flesh, of molybdochalque, of gold, of flower of
gold, coral of gold, these are the denominations that they created to
designate the elixir. They wanted to indicate each of the colours that the
elixir takes, and they followed until the end the order in which they
occur. Every time that we increased the fluidity of the mixture, a new
colour was determined; to each change of colour, we gave a new name
to the mixture, and its tincting power increased.

“Also the secret books of the philosophers named it initially, lead;
then, when it has been cooked and the black had been extracted of it,
we called it silver; then, when it had been transformed, copper. When
we poured humidity on this product, after the rust appeared we
eliminated the black matter in the rusty part and we saw the yellow
appearing, we gave it then the name of gold. Following the fourth
operation, we called it ferment of gold; following the fifth, gold to the
test; following the sixth, coral of gold (purple gold); finally following
the seventh operation, it is the perfect work, the penetrating tincture.

“All these names are acquired only under the influence of fire, and
it is thanks to this that the operations generate these qualities, that no
tingeing develops with so high a degree, or with such an intensity that
one would not know, without illusion, to seek to obtain differently. If
people knew the necessary power to form the best quality, they would
know that only one matter can give birth to the ten products named by
the Ancients.”

“Show me”, I said to him, “What is this unique matter that
produces the ten?”

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