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rejoice, take this King and stow it preciously aside. If you want to change this blood
into the tincture of the mighty red Elixir, transmuting and tingeing Mercury, the Moon
and any other imperfect metal into the tried and true Sun, let ferment three parts of it
along with one part and a half of very pure gold in the state of fine, very yellow
powder and two parts of solidified Water. Make a perfect mixture by the rules of Art,
until the components are indistinguishable Put it back in its phial over a ripening fire, to
give it perfection. As soon as appears the true sanguine red Stone, then gradually add
the solid Water.

Augment little by little the digestive fire. You will increase its perfection by
reiterating the operation. Each time it is necessary to add the solid Water (that you
have kept) that corresponds to its nature; it multiplies its power to infinity, immutable
in its essence. One part of Elixir perfect to the first degree projected over a hundred
parts of Mercury (washed with vinegar and salt, as you know) put in a crucible over a
light fire, until fumes appear, transmutes them all of a sudden into the true Sun even
better than the natural. The Moon may replace Mercury to the same effect.

For each added degree of perfection of the Elixir, it is the same thing as in the
white Elixir, until at last it tinges to the Sun infinite quantities of Mercury and the
Moon. You now hold a precious Arcanum, an infinite treasure. That is why the
Philosophers assert that: “Our Stone has three colours, it is black at the beginning,
white in the middle and red at the end.” A philosopher also stated: “Heat acting first on
the moist generates blackness, its action on the dry generates whiteness and its action
on the whiteness generates redness. For the whiteness is only the complete deprivation
of blackness. The white strongly condensed by the force of fire generates the red”.
“All you researchers that work the Art”, stated another sage, “whenever you witness
the apparition of whiteness in the vessel, know that the red is hidden in this whiteness.
It must be extracted and for this purpose heat vehemently until the apparition of the
red.”

Let us now give thanks to the sublime and glorious God, Sovereign of Nature, that
created this substance and endowed it with a property that is found in no other body.
This very substance, set over fire, engages war with it and resists it bravely. All the
other bodies flee or are exterminated by the fire. Mark my words, appraise their
mysteries, for in this short treatise I have gathered and explained the innermost secrets
of Alchemy; all is stated plain and simple, without omission, all in brief instructions,
and I bear witness before God that in the books of the Philosophers, there is hardly
anything better to be found. Also do I entreat you, do not confide this treatise to

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