Speculum Alchemie

1. The principles of all the metals are Salt, Mercury and Sulfur.

2. Mercury, Sulfur, or Salt alone cannot give origin to metals. However, when united, they give birth to diverse mineral metals.

3. Therefore, it is logical that our Philosophical Stone must inevitably have these three principles.

4. Sulfur is the fire of alchemy, Mercury is the spirit of alchemy, and Salt is the mastery of alchemy.

5. In order to elaborate the red elixir and the white elixir, we inevitably need a substance in which Salt, Sulfur, and Mercury are found completely pure and perfect. This is because the impurity and the imperfection of the alloy is again found in the amalgam.

6. However, nothing can be aggregated to the metals except for the substances that are extracted from them. It is logical that a strange substance cannot serve us. Therefore, the crude matter of the Great Work must be found within ourselves.

7. We perfect the substance (the crude matter) according to the art. This substance is the sacred fire of our organic laboratory.

8. This substance, being semi-solid and semi-liquid, has a pure, clear, white and red Mercury, and a similar Sulfur.

9. Moreover, this substance has two types of Salt: one fixed and the other volatile.

10. This crude matter of the Great Work is the semen of our sexual glands.

11. With our science and by means of the fire, we transform this marvelous substance in order for it to be millions of times more perfect at the end of the work.

12. We elaborate the red elixir and the white elixir with this marvelous substance.

"Both white and red spring from a single root." - Arnaldus de Villa Nova (ca. 1240-1311). Paintings are from Donum Dei (17th century)