The Book of Aquarius

The Book of Aquarius 
By Anonymous

Released: March 20, 2011 
Updated: April 25, 2012 ookofaquarius.forgottenbooks.org

1. The Book of Aquarius

The purpose of this book is to release one particular secret, which has been kept hidden for the last 12,000 ears. The Philosophers' Stone, Elixir of Life, Fountain of Youth, Ambrosia, Soma, Amrita, Nectar of 
Immortality. These are different names for the same thing. 
Throughout history this secret has been used by a very few to extend their lives hundreds of years in erfect health, with access to unlimited wealth, among many other miraculous properties. Some kept the ecret because they understood that the time was not right for the secret to be free for all people, but most ept the secret out of their own jealousy, ignorance, egotism and corruption. 
The Stone's history and the history of the human race up until this day is a strange story full of secret ocieties, hooded cloaks, and mystical symbols. Such theatrics are childish and shallow. It's pointless to look or the light in the shadows. 
The Philosophers' Stone operates and is made by entirely natural and scientific means. Truth is always imple, beautiful and easy to understand. 
The Philosophers' Stone is real; you can make it at home. The Stone makes old people young, heals all orms of sickness and disease, extends your life, turns any metal into gold, and more, as you will learn. This sn't a myth or a metaphor, it's a fact. 
Don't judge this book before you've read it. This is not one of those airy fairy books written in all kinds of ystical language, filling pages with words that makes sentences but not sense. This book will make more ense than anything you've ever read before. 
The age of secrets is over. I'm writing this book in common English. There's no need for mystical language r metaphor. This book contains no hidden meaning or codes; everything is stated plainly and directly, in he shortest and simplest of words necessary to convey the meaning. 

• Chapter 1 is the Introduction. 
• Chapter 2 is the Foreword. 
• Chapters 3-18 cover the theory of alchemy. 
• Chapters 19-30 cover the practical instructions for making the Stone. 
• Chapters 31-33 cover further information on the Stone. 
• Chapters 34 - 49 cover the history of the Stone. 
• Chapters 50-51 cover some more philosophical topics. 
• Chapter 52 is the alchemists' prophecy. 
• Chapter 53 is the Afterword. 
• Chapter 54 is a request for your help in the distribution of this book. 
• Chapter 55 is a list of answers to questions asked since initial release. 
• Chapter 56 is the Bibliography. 

Truth is stranger than fiction, but it is because Fiction is obliged to stick to possibilities; Truth isn't.

by Samuel Clemens (aka Mark Twain)

2. Foreword

I am a friend of Socrates and Plato, but still more so of Truth. 
A Dialogue, by Alexander von Suchten, 1 6th - 1 7th Cen. (?)

Give this book to everyone you know. If you have a web site, upload it there. If you have a mailing list, ail it to everyone. If you work in the media, report on or publish this book. Translate it into different anguages. Do everything you can to get this book to as many people as possible. You can distribute this ook in any way. I am not reserving any copyright. This book is public domain and royalty-free. I advise ou to print this book, as computers may not be so reliable in the future. 
Do you know any secrets? Now is the time to release them. Forget any promises you made or vows you ook. This is all corruption. If someone makes you promise to jump off a cliff it doesn't mean you have to. 
There is no such thing as "government", "society", "company", "organization", these are just vague oncepts, they are not real, they don't have feelings. People are real. Your loyalty is to people and to 
Nature. 
Please do not try to find out who I (the author) am. Please do not help anyone else find out who I am. I'm iving this book out freely, at great risk to myself, so please appreciate that and don't put me in danger. If ou think you know who I am, don't try to contact me about it or ever mention it. Don't talk about me with ther people over telephone or email. 
This book is full of quotes. Please do read the quotes and do not skip over them, as they are just as mportant to this book as my own writing. You can look up the full text of the source of these quotes (in rder to read more, or verify that they exist) by searching for any sentence from the quote on Google. 
Search for it in speech marks "like this" and Google will find the full text of the source for you to read. 
All of the quotes are from sources which are accessible to read for free online. The sources of all the lchemical books I have quoted from are these sites: sacred-texts.com, forgottenbooks.org, exresearch.com, alchemywebsite.com. The latter three sites include alchemical imagery on their sites or in heir books, but unfortunately none of them realized the true significance of alchemy. However, all these ites and ramsdigital.com (which is not free) have done a great service to the world by publishing lchemical literature on the Internet. 
The key for the below SHA-1 hash is a poem I wrote, written in a language which is not necessarily 
English. Since there is only one possible key which returns the below hash value when the SHA-1 lgorithm is performed on it, and since it is not possible to calculate the key from the hash value, this nables me to prove that I am the true author at any point in the future. Originally I was going to give the ey and provide a new hash every time the book was updated or if I wrote a new book; but since I have aken to updating this book often and I now have a web site, I will now only reveal the key if I need to iscredit someone who attempts to publish a supposedly affiliated book, or if there is doubt about the uthorship of anything else I publish. Or if for some reason I want to reveal my identity, although that is xtremely unlikely.

80f0ff3fe5dld64faled32796b92aff404914edc 
One week after initial release (March 201 1), forgottenbooks.org offered free hosting for this book. A forum as been set up so if you wish to ask any questions to me (the author) you can now do so. This book is egularly updated with the answers to any good questions posed, so please visit the web site and download he latest version. On the forum you can also see photos from people who have already started to make the 
Philosophers' Stone. To access the forum and download the latest version of this book, please visit: ww.thebookofaquarius.com 
Be wary of fake authors; there have been impostors posting on forums across the Net pretending to be the uthor of The Book of Aquarius. Do not trust any supposed author except on the official Book of Aquarius 
Forum.

3. What is Alchemy?

Nature enjoys its Nature, Nature contains Nature, improves Nature, reduces Nature, Nature is superior to Nature. 
A Magnificent and Select Tract on Philosophical Water, by Anonymous, 13th - 17th Cen. (?)

Alchemy is the art of imitating and accelerating Nature. It is a natural art and science. In alchemy we do not eally make anything, all we do is provide a condition for Nature to do what Nature does. So the 
Philosophers' Stone is not really made by the alchemist, it is made by Nature. The alchemist only provides he conditions so that Nature can operate effectively and without being disturbed.

Many Sages, Scholars, and learned men have in all ages, and (according to Hermes) even so early as the days before he Flood, written much concerning the preparation of the Philosopher's Stone; and if their books could be nderstood without a knowledge of the living processes of Nature, one might almost say that they are calculated to upersede the study of the real world around us. But though they never departed from the simple ways of Nature, they ave something to teach us, which we, in these more sophisticated times, still need to learn, because we have applied urselves to what are regarded as the more advanced branches of knowledge, and despise the study of so "simple" a hing as natural Generation. Hence we pay more heed to impossible things than to those objects which are broadly xhibited before our very eyes; we excel more in subtle speculations than in a sober study of Nature, and of the eaning of the Sages. It is one of the most remarkable features of human nature that we neglect those things which eem familiar, and are eager for new and strange information. The workman who has attained the highest degree of xcellence in his Art, neglects it, and applies himself to something else, or else abuses his knowledge. Our longing for n increase of knowledge urges us ever onward towards some final goal, in which we imagine that we shall find full est and satisfaction 
[...] Nature, then, is one, true, simple, self-contained, created by God and informed with a certain universal spirit. Its nd and origin are God. Its unity is also found in God, because God made all things. Nature is the one source of all hings: nor is anything in the world outside Nature, or contrary to Nature. 
[...] if Art would produce any solid and permanent effect, it must follow in the footsteps of Nature, and be guided by er methods. It must trust itself to the guidance of Nature as far as Nature will lead, and go beyond her by still dhering to her rules. 
[...] Now in our Art you should closely imitate these natural processes. There should be the Central Heat, the change of he water into air, the driving upward of the air, its diffusion through the pores of the earth, its reappearance as ondensed but volatilized water. 
The New Chemical Light, by Michael Sendivogius, 17th Cen. 
Nature, says Florus, is one, and if any man strays away from her guidance, he mars his labour.

[...]In changing the base metals into gold and silver by the projection of the Stone, it follows (by an accelerated rocess) the method of nature, and therefore is natural. 
[...] The fact is that, in producing gold, the Art of Alchemy does not pretend to imitate in the whole work of Nature. It oes not create metals, or even develop them out of the metallic first substance; it only takes up the unfinished andiwork of Nature (i.e., the imperfect metals), and completes it (transmutes metals into gold). 
The New Pearl of Great Price, by Peter Bonus, 1338 AD

An alchemist then only makes the Stone in the same way that you make a tree by planting the seed and eaving it for a few years. Once the seed is set, if the conditions are right then it just grows by itself, in ccordance with Nature.

For as Men, Corn and Herbs are, every one of them, generated and born out of their own Specific Seed, so or in the ame manner is the true Medicine of the Ancients (than which there cannot be a better) generated and prepared out of he most perfect bodies and essence 
[...] Everything generated or begotten is generated and born of his own specific seed (1) and in his proper (2) matrix. 
The Chemists Key, by Henry Nollius, 1617 AD here is no true generation, but of things agreeing in nature. So that things be not made but according to their atures. The elder or oak trees will not bring forth pears; nor can you gather grapes of thorns, or figs of thistles, hings bring not forth, but only their like, or what agrees with the in nature, each tree its own fruit. 
[...] Thus the wise man does that by art in a short time, which nature cannot perform in less than the revolution of a housand years. Yet notwithstanding, it is not we that make the metal, but nature herself that does it. — Nor do or can e change one thing into another; but it is nature that changes them. We are no more than mere servants in the work. 
The Root of the World, by Roger Bacon, 13th Cen.

If you are wondering how this leads to the Philosophers' Stone, I will explain it more clearly. The 
Philosophers' Stone is a natural occurrence of Nature, in fact it is the aim of Nature. Therefore if you can ind a substance which is very pure and infused with life-energy, then put it under protected conditions hich are advantageous for its natural development, you will allow Nature to take its course in an ccelerated manner. When this is complete, Nature will have made for you the Philosophers' Stone. It's very imple and entirely natural, which is the biggest part of the secret. 
I will explain again in another way: the Philosophers' Stone is the name of the thing that you get when 
Nature has finished doing what it does all day long. The Earth and the entire universe are going through his process. If, however, you find a substance already quite well matured by Nature, clean it up, then put it nto a closed system, or microcosm, Nature will finish this thing long before it finishes everything else. So ou get the result of Nature earlier and can enjoy all its wonderful properties while the rest of the world is till in shit.

the chemical development of our substance is internal, and caused by the operation of Nature 
[...] Our wise Teacher Plato says: "Every husbandman who sows good seed, first chooses a fertile field, ploughs and anures it well, and weeds it of all tares; he also takes care that his own grain is free from every foreign admixture. 
When he has committed the seed to the ground, he needs moisture, or rain, to decompose the grain, and to raise it to ew life. He also requires fire, that is, the warmth of the Sun, to bring it to maturity." The needs of our Art are of an nalogous nature. First, you must prepare your seed, i.e., cleanse your Matter from all impurity, by a method which ou will find set forth at length in the Dicta of the Sages which I subjoin to this Treatise. Then you must have good soil n which to sow your Mercury and Sun; this earth must first be weeded of all foreign elements if it is to yield a good rop.

The Glory of the World, Or, Table of Paradise, by Anonymous, 1526 AD

For of this composition, combining as it does the virtues of all things, there may truly be said that in one drop the hole world is present. 
Man, the Best and Most Perfect of God's Creatures, by Benedictus Figulus, 1607 AD 
Besides the science of the stone is so sublime and magnificent, that therein almost all Nature and the whole universe f beings is beheld, as in a certain clear looking glass. For it is like a lesser world [...] God wrought out his compacted eing of the world by certain harmony and musical proportion alley ed to one another, that which are in the superior orld are in the inferior also, but in a terrestrial manner: that which likeness are in the inferiors, may also be seen in he superious, in a celestial manner indeed, and according to the cause. [...] Some Philosophers have compared the ork of the stone to the creation of the world. Likewise to the generation of man, and to his naturalness. 
Book of the Chemical Art, by Marsilius Ficinus, 15th Cen. 
The inspired Apostle, St Peter, tells us that the Earth and its work shall consume therein, and a new world shall be orn, beautiful and good, as is described in the Apocalypse. 
An Anonymous Treatise Concerning the Philosopher's Stone, by Anonymous, 12th - 17th Cen. (?) 
The ancient writers call our Stone a microcosm; and there can be no doubt that its composition greatly resembles that f the world in which we live 
The Chemical Treatise, Or, The Ordinal of Alchemy, by Thomas Norton, 1477 AD 
To understand aright, how out of this our Chaos we are to form our Philosophical Microcosm, we must first of ecessity rightly comprehend the great Mystery and Proceeding in the Creation of the Macrocosm: it being extremely ecessary to imitate and use the very same Method in the Creation of our little one, that the Creator of all things has sed in the Formation of the great One. 
Aphorisms of Urbigerus, by Baro Urbigerus, 1690 AD his water cannot be prepared using strange methods in the world, but rather, it can only be prepared using natural eans; together with Nature and from nature. These words are bright and clear to those who understand 
A Magnificent and Select Tract on Philosophical Water, by Anonymous, 13th - 17th Cen. (?)

Alchemy is therefore the art of the microcosm and the acceleration of Nature through the microcosm. 
There is only one method for the entire work. We only do one thing, and that is to allow Nature to take its ourse. Admittedly however, we do first clean up our substance and remove what is not needed.

For the knowledge of this art consisteth not in the multiplicity, or great number of things, but in unity; our stone is but ne, the matter is one, and the vessel is one. The government is one, and the disposition is one. The whole art and work hereof is one, and begins in one manner, and in one manner it is finished. 
The Root of the World, by Roger Bacon, 13th Cen. 
It is prepared from one substance, with which the art of chemistry is conversant, to which nothing is added, from hich nothing is taken away, except that its superfluities are removed.

A Brief Guide to the Celestial Ruby, by Eirenaeus Philalethes, 1694 AD

4. How Does It Work? 
The Philosophers' Stone is energy, concentrated and purified to a massively high degree. This is the same nergy that you are taking in when you breathe, and when you eat and drink. It is the energy that powers all orms of life, and so I will call it life-energy (since I have to call it something and "life -energy" is self- xplanatory.) 
I think most of us already have a feeling that there is some kind of life-energy we obtain from our food, rink and air. We all know that eating fruit is better than taking vitamins; we know that there is something n the juice of the fruit. We know that raw vegetables are better than cooked vegetables. We know that ooking food destroys the "goodness" in it. We eat other life forms, and we know that the more alive or resh our food is the better it is for us. There is also much to be said for breathing deeply and rhythmically nd not just for the oxygen, else we would get the same effect by breathing air with more oxygen, but that's ot necessarily the case.

Although the proper method of breathing and directing the movements of the Ch'i (ethereal essence) of the body, and he eating of vegetable medicine, may extend people's life, yet they will not keep people from death. But the eating of he Shen Tan (Divine Medicine) confers immortality on the eater, enabling him to last as long as heaven and earth and ide on clouds and dragons up and down the T'ai Ch 'ing (Great Clearness). 
On The Gold Medicine and On The Yellow and The White, by Ko Hung, 4th Cen. (Chinese)

This life-energy is physical in the sense that it can be captured and made use of. You could say that this life- nergy is the smallest particle, of which all other particles are made. Or you could say that everything is ade of energy, and this is that energy in a raw and undetermined form (not yet formed into an element), hich is probably closer to the truth.

Things in the universe are all produced from the single ch'i (ethereal essence) which embodies both the will of the lear sky and the will of the clouded earth. 
[...] When bamboo ware is broken, bamboo is needed for repairing. When a man's energy wears out, lead is required or re-strengthening. Think the matter over. (The medicine) may be found directly in front of your eyes. The trouble is hat the common people cannot perceive it. 
Shih Hsing-lin, Disciple of Chang Po-tuan, And Hsieh Tao-kuang, Disciple of Shih Hsling-lin, 11th - 13th 
Cen. (?) (Chinese) 
Man is made of earth, and lives through air; for air contains the hidden food of life, of which the invisible spirit, when ongealed, is better than the whole world. 
The New Chemical Light, by Michael Sendivogius, 17th Cen. 
The stone which the philosophers do seek is an invisible and impalpable spirit; [...] The stone also is in everything, hat is, Nature is in everything. And because Nature has in itself all names, and Nature is all the world, therefore the tone has many names and is said to be in everything: although one is nearer than another 
Book of the Chemical Art, by Marsilius Ficinus, 15th Cen.

Everything conferring the virtue of stability and permanence necessarily possesses this virtue itself. 
A Golden and Blessed Casket of Nature's Marvels, by Benedictus Figulus, 1607 AD 
Thus the power of growth that I speak of is imparted not by the earth, but by the life-giving spirit that is in it. If the arth were deserted by this spirit, it would be dead, and no longer able to afford nourishment to anything. [...] Know hen, gentle Reader, that life is the only true spirit 
The Twelve Keys, by Basilius Valentinus, 15th Cen.

5. The Powers of the Stone 
I will here explain a few of the many possible uses of the Philosophers' Stone. The possibilities for its use re vast and beyond the imagination of a regular person. However, I will outline the traditional uses. 
There are two forms of the Philosophers' Stone: the White Stone, and the Red Stone. The White Stone ransmutes any metal into silver. The Red Stone is the more powerful and more well-known, and ransmutes any metal into gold. 
Furthermore, know that the making of gold and silver were considered the least desirable effects of the 
Stone. The effects on body and mind have always considered to be worth so much more than the money. It s because the Stone makes gold and silver that these were used as currency throughout history, not that the 
Stone makes gold and silver because they have value.

let not him who desires this knowledge for the purpose of procuring wealth and pleasure think that he will ever attain o it. [...] Those, therefore, that desire this Art as a means of procuring temporal honour, pleasure, and wealth, are the ost foolish of men; and they can never obtain that which they seek at so great an expense of money, time, and rouble, and which fills their hearts, their minds, and all their thoughts. For this reason the Sages have expressed a rofound contempt for worldly wealth (not as though it were in itself a bad thing, seeing that it is highly commended n Holy Scripture as an excellent gift of God, but because of its vile abuse). They despised it because it seemed to inder men from following the good and the true, and to introduce a mischievous confusion into their conceptions of ight and wrong. 
The Sophie Hydrolith, Or, Water Stone of the Wise, by Anonymous, 17th Cen. 
But now concerning (and chiefly in this our age) the ungodly and accursed Gold-making, which hath gotten so much he upper hand, whereby under colour of it, many runagates and roguish people do use great villanies, and cozen and buse the credit, which is given them: yea now adays men of discretion do hold the transmutation of Mettals to be the ighest point, and fastigium in Philosophy, this is all their intent, and desire, and that God would be most esteemed by hem, and honored, which could make great store of Gold, and in abundance, the which with unpremeditate prayers, hey hope to attain of the alknowing God, and searcher of all hearts: we therefore do by these presents publickly estifie, That the true Philosophers are far of another minde, esteeming little the making of Gold, which is but a arergon; for besides that they have a thousand better things. 
Fama Fraternitatis, by The Rosicrucians, 1614 AD

If you do not yet understand how and why the Stone works, what the active principle is, then this will all ound unbelievable. But once you understand that the Stone is simply a concentrated and highly developed orm of energy, which is the true nourishment of all things that grow (animals, plants, minerals, etc.), then ou will not only understand how the Stone can perform such a wide range of miracles, but also be able to hink up further uses. 
I will begin with a long quote, which sums up the traditional uses quite well. Then I will continue with a etailed list of uses frequently mentioned in the alchemical literature. I will end with another quote revealing ider and less mentioned uses.

In its first state, it appears as an impure earthly body, full of imperfections. It then has an earthly nature, healing all ickness and wounds in the bowels of man, producing good and consuming proud flesh, expelling all stench, and ealing generally, inwardly and outwardly. In its second nature, it appears as a watery body, somewhat more eautiful than before, because (although still having its corruptions) its Virtue is greater. It is much nearer the truth, nd more effective in works. In this form it cures cold and hot fevers and is a specific against poisons, which it drives rom heart and lungs, healing the same when injured or wounded, purifying the blood, and, taken three times a day, is f great comfort in all diseases. But in its third nature it appears as an aerial body, of an oily nature, almost freed rom all imperfections, in which form it does many wondrous works, producing beauty and strength of body, and (a mall quantity being taken in the food) preventing melancholy and heating of the gall, increasing the quantity of the lood and seed, so that frequent bleeding becomes necessary. It expands the blood vessels, cures withered limbs, estores strength to the sight, in growing persons removes what is superfluous and makes good defects in the limbs. In ts fourth nature it appears in a fiery form (not quite freed from all imperfections, still somewhat watery and not dried nough), wherein it has many virtues, making the old young and reviving those at the point of death. For if to such an ne there be given, in wine, a barleycorn's weight of this fire, so that it reach the stomach, it goes to his heart, enewing him at once, driving away all previous moisture and poison, and restoring the natural heat of the liver. 
Given in small doses to old people, it removes the diseases of age, giving the old young hearts and bodies. Hence it is alled the Elixir of Life. In its fifth and last nature, it appears in a glorified and illuminated form, without defects, hining like gold and silver, wherein it possesses all previous powers and virtues in a higher and more wondrous egree. Here its natural works are taken for miracles. When applied to the roots of dead trees they revive, bringing orth leaves and fruit. A lamp, the oil of which is mingled with this spirit, continues to burn for ever without iminution. It converts crystals into the most precious stones of all colours, equal to those from the mines, and does any other incredible wonders which may not be revealed to the unworthy. For it heals all dead and living bodies ithout other medicine. 
The Book of the Revelation of Hermes, by Theophrastus Paracelsus, 16th Cen.

Use 1. A universal medicine for the body. 
The Red Stone is much more powerful than the White Stone. A single dose can have a large effect, epending on the strength of the Stone and whether it be White or Red. However, for a lasting effect the 
Stone should be ingested (eaten) daily, else your body and mind will begin deteriorating again. 
If ingested it will cure all disease, and in higher concentrations will make an old person healthy and fitter han they were even in their youth. 
If taken suddenly in high concentration, the body will purge itself of everything unnecessary, which may esult in going through a shocking transformation over a couple of weeks, with one's skin peeling off, hair nd teeth falling out, then growing back in prime condition. 
Taken regularly in high concentration, it will be unnecessary to eat, drink or even breathe. Although these ay be done anyway. The body will never grow old. 
You will heal from wounds extremely quickly, and be unaffected by heat and cold.

prepared as medicine and sweet food, when taken into the mouth it may immediately penetrate the human frame, reatly holding to itself every fleshly thing, increasing, restoring, and nourishing the incorrupt virtue and spirit of ife, digesting the crude and undigested, removing the superfluous, making natural water abound, and augmenting, omforting, and inflaming natural heat or fire.

The above will be the duty of the true physician and sane philosopher. For thus will he be able to preserve our body rom corruption, to retard old age, retain florid youth in full vigour, and, if possible, to perpetuate it, at least to reserve it from death and destruction. 
Man, the Best and Most Perfect of God's Creatures, by Benedictus Figulus, 1607 AD 
For a month every day let there be taken of this blessed powder, the quantity of a grain of mustard seed, in white wine r in any other liquor, early in the morning. It is sudorific or causing sweat, if anything be, to be sent forth by the ores. It is laxative, if anything be, to be evacuated by stool. It is diuretic, if anything be, to be driven forth by the assage of urine. But it is never vomative, as that is altogether contrary to nature. [...] it not only rectifieth Man 's body ut also reneweth the whole man, by the use thereof continued for a few weeks 
The Crowning of Nature, by Anonymous, 16th - 17th Cen. (?) 
[Our Stone is] the Golden Tree, of whose fruit whosoever eats shall not hunger again; 
An Excellent Introduction to the Art of Alchemy, by Peter Bonus (?), 14th Cen. (?)

Use 2. A universal medicine for the mind. 
The Stone will bring one to their very best and sharpest state of mind. You will be able to learn even faster han as a child, and very easily pick up new languages and learn skills naturally, without making much ffort. 
Arguably the best quality of all is that the Stone will release one from sadness, depression and suffering. 
Therefore also making one kind and caring towards others.

Our Art frees not only the body, but also the soul from the snares of servitude and bondage; it ennobles the rich, and omfort and relieves the poor. Indeed, it may be said to supply every human want, and to provide a remedy for every orm of suffering. 
The New Pearl of Great Price, by Peter Bonus, 1338 AD 
He that has once found this Art, can have nothing else in all the world to wish for, than that he may be allowed to erve his God in peace and safety. He will not care for pomp or dazzling outward show. But if he lived a thousand ears, and daily entertained a million people, he could never come to want 
An Open Entrance to the Closed Palace of the King, by An Anonymous Sage and Lover of Truth, 1645 AD

Use 3. A universal medicine for the spirit. 
The Stone is a fast-track to spiritual enlightenment, and considered by the ancient Indians, Tibetans and 
Chinese to be the only method to achieve enlightenment without meditation. It is considered by the ancient 
Chinese Taoists to be the preferred method.

With accelerated spiritual growth, and unlimited life-energy and ch'i, the possibilities eventually become imitless and one will be capable of anything.

Tan is the supremely priceless valuable medicine of the material body. Successful compounding leads to endless hanges; it makes it possible for one to ascend to meet the chen tsung (true men) and further to solve the (problem) of u sheng (non-living) by its skillful use. 
[...] Even if you are able to appredhend the true nature of Buddhism (i.e., to become of a Buddha), you will not be able o avoid giving up your body here and aquiring another body there. What can be better than compounding the great an [medicine] at the same time? Then you can overcome wu to (no leak) to become a chen jen (true man, hsien). 
[...] The doors of hsiian and p 'in are seldom know by the people. They are really not the nose and the mouth, as some ersons think. Even if you practice breathing for years, how can you make the golden wu (crow) capture the t'u 
(rabbit)? 
Wu Chen P'ien, Essay on the Understanding of Truth, by Chang Po-tuan, 1078 AD (Chinese) 
[...] Whoever eats any of the medicines may rise on high or stay in this world according to his desire. 
On The Gold Medicine and On The Yellow and The White, by Ko Hung, 4th Cen. (Chinese)

Use 4. A universal medicine for plants. 
The Stone will cause plants to grow extremely quickly and healthily and in any condition.

Use 5. A universal medicine for metals. 
The Stone allows any metal to be transmuted into silver (with the White Stone) or gold (with the Red 
Stone). It is also possible to transmute gold back into the lesser metals.

This matter after having received perfect whiteness, perfect redness and fixation, tinges all imperfect metals into the est Silver and Gold. 
The Chemists Key, by Henry Nollius, 1617 AD 
The purer the metals are, and the greater their affinity to our substance, the more easily are they received by the 
Tincture, and the more perfect and rapid is the process of regeneration. For the transformation consists in all that is mpure and unsuitable being purged off, and rejected like dross. In the same manner flawed stones can be transmuted nto precious diamonds, and common crystal can be so tinged as to become equal to the most precious stones. 
Moreover, many other things may be done with the Tincture which must not be revealed to the wicked world. These irtues of the Stone, and others of a like kind, are looked upon as the least important by the Sages, and by all 
Christians on whom God has bestowed this most precious gift. Such men think them vile indeed when compared with he knowledge of God and of His works which is afforded by the Stone. 
The Sophie Hydrolith, Or, Water Stone of the Wise, by Anonymous, 17th Cen.

He [Raymond] was also the first to discover the method of evolving precious stones out of the metallic principles; nay, e was able, not only to change lead into gold, but he transmuted gold into lead, and thus turned back the course of 
Nature. 
The New Pearl of Great Price, by Peter Bonus, 1338 AD 
Every Mercury of Metals and Minerals may, by successive stages, be raised, through the qualities of all other 
Mercuries, to the excellence of the Solar Body, and thence also be reduced to the degree and virtue of any metallic ody one may choose. 
A Golden and Blessed Casket of Nature's Marvels, by Benedictus Figulus, 1607 AD

Use 6. A universal medicine for minerals. 
The Stone can be used to grow and develop precious stones and diamonds.

our Stone matures all immature precious stones, and brings them to their highest perfection. 
An Explanation of the Natural Philosopher's Tincture, of Paracelsus, by Alexander von Suchten, 16th Cen. 
Use 7. Malleable glass. 
The Stone can be used to make glass malleable, that is, so you can beat it into shape without it shattering. 
Our substance is a body containing spirit which makes glass malleable, and turns crystals into carbuncles. 
A Very Brief Tract Concerning the Philosophical Stone, by An Unknown German Sage, 15th - 17th Cen. (?)

Use 8. Unlimited energy. 
Traditionally, lamps can be made with the Stone which burn forever, or at least for thousands of years. 
Therefore it can also be used to generate an almost unlimited amount of electricity and be used as a power ource. I will cover everburning lamps in more detail in a later chapter. 
The Stone certainly has some interesting properties, which could make sci-fi technologies possible.

everlasting fire, of which many Alchemists boast, the fire used aforetime by the Jews for their burnt offerings, which urnt continually without becoming extinguished, which also was hidden by the Prophet Jeremiah before the first estruction of Jerusalem, and afterwards was discovered by Ezra.

An Explanation of the Natural Philosopher's Tincture, of Paracelsus, by Alexander von Suchten, 16th Cen.

Use 9. Creation of life. 
The Stone can be used to grow humans/animals outside of the womb, or create clones. It is possible to make hem giants or dwarf them. It is also possible to create hybrids or new species out of different animals, or ven animals and humans. This will be covered in more detail in a later chapter.

Wherein we find many strange effects: as continuing life in them, though divers parts, which you account vital, be erished and taken forth; resuscitating of some that seem dead in appearance, and the like. We try also all poisons, nd other medicines upon them, as well of chirurgery as physic. By art likewise we make them greater or smaller than heir kind is, and contrariwise dwarf them and stay their growth; we make them more fruitful and bearing than their ind is, and contrariwise barren and not generative. Also we make them differ in color, shape, activity, many ways. We ind means to make commixtures and copulations of divers kinds, which have produced many new kinds, and them not arren, as the general opinion is. 
The New Atlantis, by Francis Bacon, 1627 AD

Finally, we have a further list of usages of the Philosophers' Stone from Francis Bacon's Magnalia Naturae, 
Praecipue Quoad Usus Humanos (translation: "The Glorious Works of Nature, Especially in Regards to 
Human Usages") appended to Bacon's The New Atlantis.

The prolongation of life. 
The restitution of youth in some degree. 
The retardation of age. 
The curing of diseases counted incurable. 
The mitigation of pain. 
More easy and less loathsome purgings. 
The increasing of strength and activity. 
The increasing of ability to suffer torture or pain. 
The altering of complexions, and fatness and leanness. 
The altering of statures. 
The altering of features. 
The increasing and exalting of the intellectual parts. 
Versions of bodies into other bodies. 
Making of new species. 
Transplanting of one species into another. 
Instruments of destruction, as of war and poison. 
Exhilaration of the spirits, and putting them in good disposition. 
Force of the imagination, either upon another body, or upon the body itself. 
Acceleration of time in maturations. 
Acceleration of time in clarifications. 
Acceleration of putrefaction. 
Acceleration of decoction. 
Acceleration of germination.

Making rich composts for the earth. 
Impressions of the air, and raising of tempests. 
Great alteration; as in induration, emollition, &c. 
Turning crude and watery substances into oily and unctuous substances. 
Drawing of new foods out of substances not now in use. 
Making new threads for apparel; and new stuffs; such as paper, glass, &c. 
Natural divinations. 
Deceptions of the senses. 
Greater pleasures of the senses. 
Artificial minerals and cements. 
Magnalia Naturae, Praecipue Quoad Usus Humanos, by Francis Bacon, 1627 AD

6. Disbelief

doubt is the first stage of knowledge 
A Subtle Allegory Concerning the Secrets of Alchemy, by Michael Maier, 1617 AD (?)

The Art of Alchemy has been a secret since the beginning of our recorded history, and so there have lways been many people who simply don't believe in it. This is of course made worse by the obscure way n which the alchemical books are written and the fact that the alchemists have wanted to remain hidden, nd so never openly revealed themselves or their works to the world. This book is the first exception in robably 12,000 years. 
Disbelief stems from not understanding (ignorance). Anything which is not true cannot be understood, that s, it does not make sense. All true things must make sense. All true things must be in accordance with what e know about Nature and the universe, that is to say that they are natural. Nothing true can be unnatural, ecause Nature is everything, and so nothing is outside of Nature. Things that cannot be understood do not xist, they are lies, and therefore against Nature. All things that exist are in accordance with Nature, so all hings that are true are in accordance with Nature. 
The Art of alchemy is only the imitation and acceleration of Nature, so it is not possible to say that alchemy s untrue under this definition. This would be the same as saying that Nature is untrue. So the definition of lchemy is self-supporting as it only claims something based on what we already know to be true. Alchemy s the imitation and acceleration of Nature, we know that Nature is true, so alchemy must also be true. The nly argument here is if you don't believe that alchemy is an imitation and acceleration of Nature, but now ou have this book, so you cannot complain that no one explained this to you. 
Any truth must be in accordance with Nature, understandable, logical, and it must make sense. If you elieve something that does not fit this category, then your belief is only ignorance. All true things are nderstandable. 
You may still object to the concept that Nature (i.e. alchemy) can produce a Stone capable of the powers escribed in the previous chapter. The explanation of why this is the case is so simple that it is difficult to xplain, as it is obvious, and who can explain something to someone who fails to see what is directly in ront of their eyes on a daily basis? It is Nature that is the force which operates on this universe; it created s, we are here, we are alive. Nature already created all the gold in the world. How can one accept the bility of Nature to create life and then dismiss the ability to prolong it? How can one accept the ability of 
Nature to make gold and then dismiss this in the same sentence? We know that Nature creates life, we know hat Nature creates gold. Alchemy is the imitation and acceleration of Nature, so these things can be chieved with the Art of alchemy. 
To summarize: if Nature can give life, we can give life; if Nature can make gold, we can make gold. Nature oes it everyday, so who are you to say it is impossible when it is before your very eyes? 
There are people who can read this book and not understand it, but the reason for this is not that what is

written here is too complicated for these people, but that it is too simple for these people. The disbelievers re so inflated with their own egotistic vanity that they are unable to see truth even when it walks right up to hem and slaps them across the face. These are the same people who walk around claiming to understand uantum theory, string theory, etc. even when the inventors of those theories claimed not to fully nderstand it themselves (they are models - not truths.) 
The only argument against alchemy is therefore ignorance. But whatever you believe, it doesn't change the ruth.

Both among ancients and moderns the question whether Alchemy be a real Art or a mere imposture has exercised many eads and pens; 
[...] In the case of a science which is familiarly known to a great body of learned men, the mere fact that they all elieve in it supersedes the necessity of proof But this rule does not apply to the Art of Alchemy, whose pretensions, herefore, need to be carefully and jealously sifted. The arguments which make against the justice of those claims must e fairly stated, and it will be for the professors of the Art to turn back the edge of all adverse reasoning. 
Every ordinary art (as we learn in the second book of the Physics) is either dispositive of substance, or productive of orm, or it teaches the use of something. Our Art, however, does not belong to any one of these categories; it may be escribed indeed as both dispositive and productive, but it does not teach the use of anything. It truly instructs us how o know the one substance exclusively designed by Nature for a certain purpose and it also acquaints us with the atural method of treating and manipulating this substance, a knowledge which may be either practically or peculatively present in the mind of the master. There are other crafts which are not artificial, but natural, such as the rts of medicine, of horticulture, and glass-blowing. They are arts insofar as they require an operator; but they are atural insofar as they are based upon facts of Nature. Such is the Art of Alchemy. Some arts systematize the creations f the human mind, as, for instance, those of grammar, logic, and rhetoric; but Alchemy does not belong to this class. 
Yet Alchemy resembles other arts in the following respect, that its practice must be preceded by theory and nvestigation; for before we can know how to do a thing, we must understand all the conditions and circumstances nder which it is produced. If we rightly apprehend the cause or causes of a thing (for there often is a multiplicity or omplication of causes), we also know how to produce that thing. But it must further be considered that no one can laim to be heard in regard to the truth or falsity of this Art who does not clearly understand the matter at issue; and e may lay it down as a rule that those who set up as judges of this question without a clear insight into the onditions of the controversy should be regarded as persons who are talking wildly and at random. 
[...] Aristotle, in the Dialectics, says that every master has a right to speak authoritatively with reference to his own art. 
According to this rule, it is the Sages, and the Sages only, that ought to be consulted with reference to the truth of 
Alchemy. 
[...] no man in his senses would deny the truth of Alchemy for the very insufficient reason that he himself is ignorant of t: such a person would be content with the authority of weighty names like Hermes, Hippocrates, and numerous thers. There are many reasons why the master conceal this art. But if any one denies its existence on the ground that e is ignorant of it, he is like someone who has been shut up all his life in a certain house, and therefore denies that he world extends beyond the four walls of his habitation. There is not really any need to advance any arguments to stablish the actuality of our art, for the art itself is the best proof of its own existence; and being securely lodged in he stronghold of knowledge, we might safely despise the contradiction of the ignorant. 
[...] In all operative sciences (as Aristotle sets forth) the truth of a proposition ought to be sewn, not by logical rgument, but by ocular demonstration. The appeal should be not to the intellect, but to the senses. For particulars elong to the domain of sense, while universals belong to the domain of reason. If we are unable to convey to any one n ocular proof of our Art, this fact must not be regarded as casting a slur on our veracity. The difficulty of our task is nhanced by the circumstance that we have to speak of our Art to the ignorant and scornful, and are thus in the osition of a painter who should attempt to explain nice shades and differences of colour to the colour-blind; or of a usician who should discourse sweet harmony to the deaf. Every one, says Aristotle, is able to form a correct opinion

only of those things which are familiarly and accurately known to him; but he who denies that snow is white cannot ave any eyes in his head. How can any one discover the truth in regard to any science, if he lacks the sense to istinguish the special province of matter, or the material relations, with which that science deals? Such people need o exercise faith even to become aware of the existence of our Art. Pythagoras, in the Turba Philosophorum, says that hose who are acquainted with the elements will not be numbered among deniers. A doctor who desires to prove that a ertain medicine will produce a certain effect in a diseased condition of the human body, must substantiate his osition by practical experiment. For instance, some one suffers from a super-abundance of red colour in the veins of he stomach and liver, and I say that the cure is an evacuation after digestion. If I wished to discover what medicine ould produce this effect, I would say: Everything that, after digestion, produces an evacuation of bile, will heal the atient. Now, I know that rhubarb or scamonea will produce this effect; therefore, rhubarb or scamonea will be the ight remedy to choose. Nevertheless, the truth of my assertion could be satisfactorily proven only by means of a ractical experiment. In all these matters, as Hamec says, nothing short of seeing a thing will help you to know it. If ou wish to know that pepper is hot and that vinegar is cooling, that colocynth and absinthe are bitter, that honey is weet, and that aconite is poison; that the magnet attracts steel, that arsenic whitens brass, and that tutia turns it of n orange colour, you will, in every one of these cases, have to verify the assertion by experience. It is the same in 
Geometry, Astronomy, Music, Perspective, and other sciences with a practical scope and aim. A like rule applies with ouble force to Alchemy, which undertakes to transmute the base metals into gold and silver. Whatsoever has the ower to transmute imperfect and complete metals has the power to make gold and silver. Now, this quality is ossessed by the Stone which the philosophers make known to us. It is plain that there are but two perfect metals, amely, gold and silver; just as there are but two perfect luminaries, namely, sun and moon. The other metals are mperfect and incomplete, and whosoever educes them to perfection, the same also converts them into gold and silver. 
The truth and justice of this claim, like all other propositions of a practical nature, has to be demonstrated by a ractical experiment, and in no other way can it be satisfactorily shewn. But such a practical demonstration would, n the other hand, once for all put an end to the controversy, and convincingly demonstrate to every well-regulated ind the truth of the Art by which it is accomplished. Find our Art, says Galen, and you will have proved its reality, hich is performed not by the first principles of the Art, but by its operations. 
[...] it is absurd to prove the existence of Nature, or to argue the possibility of what is known. 
[...] Those who are ignorant of any science, are like the spectators who can distinguish neither the persons nor their estures on the stage. A blind man might as well discourse about colours, and criticize the merits of a picture — a deaf an might as well set up as a judge of some musical composition — as an uninformed person presume to deliver udgment on the claims of the Art of Alchemy. 
[...] When, indeed, the Stone is found, our friends, who now laugh and sneer at us, will be at a loss how to express their ove. 
The New Pearl of Great Price, by Peter Bonus, 1338 AD 
To some foolish and shallow persons I have several times expounded this Art in the simplest manner, and even word or word, but they despised it only, and would not believe me 
The Golden Tract Concerning the Stone of the Philosophers, by Aw Anonymous German Philosopher, 16th - 
17th Cen. (?) 
For the Matter is only one thing, and would remain one thing, though a hundred thousand books had been written bout it, because this Art is so great a treasure that the whole world would not be a sufficient compensation for it. It is escribed in obscure terms, yet openly named by all, and known to all. But if all knew its secret, no one would work, nd it would lose its value. On this account it would be impious to describe it in universally intelligible language. He o whom God will reveal it, may understand these dark expressions. But because most men do not understand them, hey are inclined to regard our Art as impossible, and the Sages are branded as wicked men and swindlers. Learned octors, who thus speak of us, have it before their eyes every day, but they do not understand it, because they never ttend to it. And then, forsooth, they deny the possibility of finding the Stone; nor will any one ever be able to onvince them of the reality of our Art, so long as they blindly follow their own bent and inclination. In short, they are oo wise to discern it, since it transcends the range of the human intellect, and must be humbly received at the hand of 
God.

[...] It is their own ignorance [the skeptics] that prevents them from attaining to a true knowledge; but they put the lame on our writings, and call us charlatans and impostors. They argue that if the Stone could be found at all, they ust have discovered it long ago, their eyes being as keen and their minds as acute as they are. "Behold, " say they, 
"how we have toiled day and night, how many books we have read, how many years we have spent in our laboratories: urely if there were anything in this Art, it could not have escaped us." By speaking thus, they only exhibit their own resumption and folly. They themselves have no eyes, and they make that an argument for blaspheming our high and oly Art. 
[...] Hermes is right in saying that our Art is true, and has been rightly handed down by the Sages; all doubts oncerning it have arisen through false interpretation of the mystic language of the philosophers. But, since they are oth to confess their own ignorance, their readers prefer to say that the words of the Sages are imposture and alsehood. The fault really lies with the ignorant reader, who does not understand the style of the Philosophers. If, in he interpretation of our books, they would suffer themselves to be guided by the teaching of Nature, rather than by heir own foolish notions, they would not miss the mark so hopelessly. 
The Glory of the World, Or, Table of Paradise, by Anonymous, 1526 AD 
/, BEING an anonymous adept, a lover of learning, and a philosopher, have decreed to write this little treatise of edicinal, chemical, and physical arcana, in the year 1645 after the Birth of Christ, and in the 23rd year of my age, to ssist in conducting my straying brethren out of the labyrinth of error, and with the further object of making myself nown to other Sages, holding aloft a torch which may be visible far and wide to those who are groping in the arkness of ignorance. The contents of this Book are not fables, but real experiments which I have seen, touched, and andled, as an adept will easily conclude from these lines. I have written more plainly about this Art than any of my redecessors; sometimes I have found myself on the very verge of breaking my vow, and once or twice had to lay down y pen for a season; but I could not resist the inward prompting of God, which impelled me to persevere in the most oving course, who alone knows the heart, and to whom only be glory for ever. Hence, I undoubtedly gather that in his last age of the world, many will become blessed by this arcanum, through what I have thus faithfully written, for I ave not willingly left anything doubtful to the young beginner. I know many who with me do enjoy this secret, and am ersuaded that many more will also rejoice in its possession. Let the holy Will of God perform what it pleases, though I onfess myself an unworthy instrument through whom such great things should be effected. 
An Open Entrance to the Closed Palace of the King, by An Anonymous Sage and Lover of Truth, 1645 AD 
Among those who devote themselves to the transmutation of metals, however, there can be no such thing as mediocrity f attainment. A man who studies this Art, must have either everything or nothing. An Alchemist who knows only half is craft, reaps nothing but disappointment and waste of time and money; moreover, he lays himself open to the ockery of those who despise our Art. Those, indeed, who succeed in reaching the goal of the Magistery, have not only nfinite riches, but the means of continued life and health. Hence it is the most popular of all human pursuits. Anyone ho has read a few "Receipts" claims the title of a Sage, and conceives the most extravagant hopes; and, in order to ive themselves the appearance of very wise men indeed, such persons immediately set themselves to construct urnaces, fill their laboratories with stills and alembics, and approach the work with a wonderful appearance of rofundity. They adopt an obscure jargon, speak of the first matter of the metals, and discuss with a learned air the otation of the elements, and the marriage of Gabritius with Bega. In the meantime, however, they do not succeed in ringing about any metamorphosis of the metals, except that of their gold and silver into copper and bronze. 
When captious despisers of our Art see this, they draw from such constant failures the conclusion that our Art is a ombination of fiction and imposture; whilst those who have ruined themselves by their folly confirm this suspicion by reying on the credulity of others, pretending to have gained some skill by the loss of their money. In this way the path f the beginner is beset with difficulties and pestilent delusions of every kind; and, through the fault of these windlers, who give themselves such wonderful airs of profundity and learning, our Art itself has fallen into utter isrepute, though these persons, of course, know nothing whatever about it. The beginner finds it extremely difficult to istinguish between the false and the true in this vast Labyrinth of Alchemy. 
[...] It is possible indeed that some dull person may allege in refutation of our reasoning his inability to accomplish hose chemical transformations on which it is based; but such operators would be vindicating too great an honour for

their ignorance if they claimed to advance it as an argument against the truth of our Art. They must not make their wn little understandings the standard or measure of the possibilities of Nature. At any rate, my word is as good as heirs (and better, since they can never prove a negative), and I do most positively and solemnly assert that I have with y own hands performed every one of the experiments which I have described; and I know many others whose xperience has shewn these things to be true. How can our opponents hope to prevail against eye-witnesses by bare egation ? 
[...] study Nature, read the books of genuine Sages, who are neither impostors nor jealous churls, and study them day nd night; let him not be too eager to carry out every idea practically before he has thoroughly tested it, and found it o be in harmony not only with the teaching of all the Sages, but also of Nature herself. Not until then let him gird imself for the practical part of the work, and let him constantly modify his operations until he sees the signs which re described by the Sages. Nor let him despair though he take many false steps; for the greatest philosophers have earned most by their mistakes. 
The Metamorphosis of Metals, by Eirenaeus Philalethes, 1694 AD 
But why is it called a Stone, though it is not a stone; and how is it to be found? The Sages describe it as being a stone nd not a stone; and the vulgar, who cannot imagine how so wonderful a thing should be produced except by art- agic, decry our science as impious, wicked, and diabolical. Some silly persons clamour for an Act making the rofession or practice of this Art punishable by statute law. Now, one can hardly be angry with the illiterate and gnorant persons who raise this cry; but when it is taken up by men of exalted station and profound learning, one ardly knows what to say. These men I also reckon among the rude multitude, because they are deplorably ignorant of verything pertaining to our Art, and yet, forgetful of their dignity, they join in the hue and cry against it, like so many owardly village curs. It is neither religious nor wise to judge that of which you know nothing; and yet that is exactly hat these people do, who claim to be both Christians and scholars. 
A Brief Guide to the Celestial Ruby, by Eirenaeus Philalethes, 1694 AD 
After spending the best part of my life in the study of the liberal arts and sciences, and in the company of wise men and udicious scholars, I was compelled, as the result of my observation of mankind, to arrive at the melancholy onclusion that the hearts of most persons are set either on ambitious and vainglorious projects, on sensual pleasures, r on the accumulation of wealth by all and any means; and that few care either for God or for virtue At first I did not uite know whether to become a disciple of the laughing or of the weeping philosopher, or whether to join in the xclamation of the wise Prince of Israel: "All things are vanity." But at length the Bible and experience taught me to ake refuge in the study of the hidden secrets of Nature, whether pursued at home, by means of books, or abroad, in the 
Great Volume of the World. Now, the more I drank of the mighty fount of knowledge, the more painfully my thirst, like hat of Tantalus, seemed to increase. I had heard that there was a bird called Phasnix, the only one of its kind in the hole world, whose feathers and flesh constitute the great and glorious medicine for all passion, pain, and sorrow; hich also Helena, after her return from Troy, had presented in the form of a draught to Telemachus, who thereupon ad forgotten all his sorrows and troubles. This bird I could not indeed hope to obtain entire; but I was seized with an rresistible longing to become possessed of at least one of its smallest feathers; and for this unspeakable privilege I as prepared to spend all my substance, to travel far and wide, and to endure every hardship. There was, of course, uch to discourage me. Some people denied the very existence of this bird; others laughed at my faith in its wonder- orking properties. 
[...] But most of those whom I met laughed at my quest, and said that, like Narcissus, I had fallen in love with the hadow of my own mind, the echo of my vain and ambitious thoughts, which had no substantial existence apart from y own folly. "The words of the Alchemists, " said they, "are like clouds: they may mean and represent anything, ccording to the fancy of him who hears them. And even if there were such a medicine, human life is too brief for the earch; all that makes life worth living will have to be neglected and thrust aside while you are engaged in hunting fter it. If we can pick up a knowledge of this secret casually, and whilst devoting ourselves to other pursuits, well; but f not, we can very ill spare the time for a closer search. " These objections (at least the latter half of them) I met as ollows: "The quest of this Medicine demands the whole powers of a man's body and mind. He who engages in it only asually, cannot hope to penetrate even the outward rind of knowledge. The object of our search is a profound secret, nd a man who is not prepared to give himself wholly to this enquiry had much better abstain from it altogether.

A Subtle Allegory Concerning the Secrets of Alchemy, by Michael Maier, 1617 AD (?) 
/ have, in the course of my life, met with a good many who fancied that they had a perfect understanding of the ritings of the Sages; but their subtle style of interpretation was in glaring contrast with the simplicity of Nature, and hey laughed at what they were pleased to call the rustic crudeness of my remarks. I have also frequently attempted to xplain our Art to others by word of mouth; but though they called themselves Sages, they would not Believe that there s such water in our sea, and attributed my remarks to temporary insanity. 
The New Chemical Light, by Michael Sendivogius, 17th Cen. 
And because the philosophers had so obscurely set forth this science in strange involvings of words and shadows of igures, the stone of the philosophers was doubted by a very many men. 
[...] Tell me by the immortal God, what is more unjust than for men to hate what they are ignorant of? And then if the hing do deserve hatred, what is of all things more shallow? What more abject? Or what greater madness and potage s there, than to condemn that science in which you have concerned yourself just nothing at? Who hast never learned ither Nature or the majesty of Nature, or the property or the occult operations of metals. The councellour also abbles and crokes, and the pettyfoggers of the law, the greatest haters of philosophy, who with the hammer of a venal ongue coin themselves money out of the tears of the miserable: who shipping over the most sacred of laws, have by the ntricacies of their expositions persecuted all the world with their frauds. But why do I go after jeers and satyrs? Let hese crabbed fellows and their followers remain perpetually in their opinion, who know nothing. Which is honest, hich is pleasant, which is delightful, which lastly is anything elevated above a vulgar doctrine: and who have ttained at nothing glorious and famous, but perhaps at some plebian business from the black sons of Cadamus. But o which purpose are these? I have made the choice of this stone of the philosophers familiar to me; and I very often all it the only Minerva, and the greatest pearl of all occult philosophy, or of magic, not indeed of the superstitious, ut of the natural. Yet it seems in the opinion of the unlearned to degenerate far from a better study: which is decreed nd ordained by the divine will. 
Book of the Chemical Art, by Marsilius Ficinus, 15th Cen. ermit me to transcribe a passage from the works of Helmontius (Arbor Vita;, folio 630): "I cannot but believe that here is such a thing as a gold and silver making Stone. At the same time, I cannot shut my eyes to the fact that undreds of painstaking Alchemists are daily being led astray by impostors or ignorant professors of the Spagyric 
Art." For this reason I shall not be astonished if — immediately upon perusing my book — multitudes of these deluded ictims start up, and contradict the assertion which I have made in regard to the truth of this Art. One of these gentry enounces Alchemy as a work of the Devil; another describes it as sheer nonsense and humbug; a third admits the ossibility of transmuting metals into gold, but maintains that the whole process costs more money than it is worth. 
But I do not wonder at these opinions. It is a hackneyed saying of human nature that we gape at those things whose urpose we do not understand, but we investigate things pleasurable to know. The Sages should therefore remember he words of Seneca (De Moribus): "You are not yet blessed, if the multitude does not laugh at you." But I do not care hether they believe or contradict my teaching about the transmutation of metals; I rest calmly satisfied in the nowledge that I have seen it with my own eyes, and performed it with my own hands. Even in our degenerate age hese wonders are still possible; even now the Medicine is prepared which is worth twenty tons of gold, nay, more, for t has virtue to bestow that which all the gold of the world cannot buy, viz., health. Blessed is that physician who nows our soothing medicinal Potion of Mercury, the great panacea of death and disease. But God does not reveal his glorious knowledge to all men indiscriminately; and some men are so obtuse (with a judicial blindness) that they onder at the activity of the simplest forces of Nature, as, for instance, the attractive power which the magnet xercises upon the steel. But (whether they believe it or not) there is a corresponding magnetic force in gold which ttracts Mercury, in silver which attracts copper, and so with all other metals, minerals, stones, herbs, plants, etc. . . . 
We must not be surprised at this persistent opposition to truth: the light of the sun pains the eyes of owls. 
[...] belief or unbelief could not make any difference to the truth of our Art, just as a magnet would go on attracting teel, and rendering it magnetic by such contact, even if you did not credit it. 
Golden Calf, by John Frederick Helvetius, 17th Cen.

Of the numerous things in the world, the Art and the Tao are the most difficult to comprehend. How then can people of rdinary endowment pass the judgement that there cannot possibly be a way to immortality? If one harbors doubts bout the Tao merely because of popular disbelief then he is assuming the mass to be wise people. How numerous hen will the wise ones in this world be! Furthermore, those who understand the Tao and work for its attainment — are hey not the most stupid, even more stupid than the common people? Many fear to attempt to seek for immortality, lest hey should fail and expose themselves to ridicule as victims of folly and deception. But supposing that the common eople are not infallible and that their idea about the Tao is one mistake they make among ten thousand sound udgements, will not those who have laughed be laughed at by the ones who succeed despite discouragement and idicule? Even the sun and moon cannot shine on everything; how can the people's mind be so omniscient as to be ntirely trustworthy? 
On The Gold Medicine and On The Yellow and The White, by Ko Hung, 4th Cen. (Chinese) 
Because many have written of the Philosopher's Stone without any knowledge of the art; and the few books extent, ritten by our learned predecessors and true masters hereupon, are either lost or concealed in the collections of such 
(however despised) as are lovers and seekers of natural secrets, we have taken a resolution to communicate our nowledge in this matter, to the intent that those who are convinced the Philosophical Work is no fiction, but rounded in the possibility of Nature, may be faithfully directed in their studies, and have an undoubted criterion to istinguish between such authors as are genuine sons of science and those who are spurious, as writing by hearsay nly. 
[...] so bewildered is human ingenuity, when it leaves the beaten track of truth and Nature, to entangle itself in a ultiplicity of fine-spun inventions. 
The searcher of Nature will rejoice greatly in this discovery, as grounded in reason and sound philosophy, but to fools t would be in vain, should even wisdom herself cry out in the streets. Wherefore, leaving such persons to hug hemselves in their own imaginary importance, we shall go on 
On the Philosophers' Stone, by Anonymous, 12th - 17th Cen. (?)

7. Interpretations

Art has no haters but the ignorant. 
A Golden and Blessed Casket of Nature's Marvels, by Benedictus Figulus, 1607 AD

The alchemical writings are obscure and often misinterpreted. Since the writings are so obscure, it's a erfect discipline for someone who wants to look more important than they are to pretend to understand. As ong as no one else understands it either then they can safely go on misleading people and pretending to be mportant and mystical. I want to make it clear that there is only one correct interpretation. I will discuss ome common alternative interpretations and misunderstandings in this chapter. 
The modern popular opinion is that alchemy is a spiritual discipline. This idea arose in the 19th and early 
20th centuries, along with the Theosophical movement and occult revival. The reason for its popularity was imply because it was a way for people who don't understand the obscure terms to pretend that they do nderstand them. These people proceeded to write books themselves on "spritual alchemy", which are mere olly.

The spiritual interpretation of alchemy that was made famous by Jung in fact reflects religious convictions typical of ineteenth-century occultism and is not supported by the antique and medieval alchemical sources. 
On the Edge of the Future, by Jeffrey John Kripal and Glenn W. Shuck, 2005

Spiritual alchemy only became believable when the Philosophers' Stone was no longer believed in. Prior to he 19th century no single person ever wrote anything about alchemy being spiritual, this only started when lchemy fell into disrepute. It was clear to many self-styled philosophers in the 19th century that alchemy ad been praised and studied by so many great minds throughout history, the only way to explain this was o (1) either admit that they were not wise enough to work out how to make the Stone, or (2) pretend that hey were wise enough by inventing an alternative interpretation. 
Spiritual alchemy appeared to make sense of the writings of the alchemists, assuming that the Philosophers' 
Stone is not real, and only if one were to read selectively just a few alchemical books. The way of the piritual interpreters is to find any word that could sound spiritual, such as: spirit, body, living old, philosophical mercury, etc. They then jump on this word as evidence of their claim, even though it is vident that these words refer to either the water or salt of the substance from which we make the Stone. 
Unfortunately, many alchemical classics were adulterated during the 19th century (e.g. Corpus 
Hermeticum), in order to make them sound more "spiritual". At the same time, new spiritual alchemy books ere published under the name of older alchemists, when they were in fact new publications. Although it is asy to tell the cultural origin of books by the style of writing, these books continue to fool people and are sed as sources to support the spiritual interpretation.

Hundreds of books, including adulterated "translations" of alchemical classics, appeared in the second half of the ineteenth century, all but a very few embracing this new "spiritual interpretation" of alchemy. 
Newton and Newtonianism, by James E. Force and Sarah Hutton, 2005

The spiritual interpreters go further by suggesting that the alchemists had to hide their spiritual philosophy nder obscurity, since the Kings and the church in their time would have prosecuted them for blasphemy. 
This claim sounds believable if we are to read it and nod our heads without thinking about it. But if we hink about it we see that: (1) various saints and monks in the same periods spoke very clearly about prituality without any problem, (2) the Kings and church were actually prosecuting the alchemists anyway, 
(3) since the alchemists were already being prosecuted for claiming they can make gold, all they would ave to do is admit they were actually talking about spirituality and they would be safe.

A purely spiritual alchemy would never explain the existence of alchemical laboratories in which physicians honestly nd fanatically sought for occult medicines. 
Man, Myth & Magic, by Richard Cavendish and Brian Innes, 1983

Spiritual alchemy is the Emperor's New Clothes. Everyone pretends to understand it, but no one really oes. There is nobody on Earth who could explain the why and how of spiritual alchemy and successfully ecode entire alchemical books using this interpretation. This is why the idea has stuck, simply because no ne understands it, and so there is no argument against those who believe it, as how can you argue against omeone who blindly believes something with no evidence? 
That being said, since the creation of the Philosophers' Stone does follow fundamental laws of Nature, and ince fundamental laws hold true on every level and every situation, then the same laws which apply to the reation of the Stone also hold true to spiritual development. But the spiritual interpreters of alchemy don't ollow those fundamental laws, since they don't understand alchemy, and so they are still wrong. My rgument against the spiritual interpretations is not that alchemy does not apply to spirituality, of course it oes, but my argument is against the concept that alchemy is primarily spiritual. Alchemy is primarily oncerned with the physical reality, and all the authors of the alchemy books were writing about a physical ubstance, which is easy to see from the quotes provided in this book. However, all fundamental truths pply on every level, and since the physical reality is a reflection of the spiritual reality, then of course the ame does apply to both levels. If the spiritual interpreters of alchemy actually understood alchemy then hey would understand this, and therefore understand that the authors were writing about a physical ubstance. This is my point. 
Other people are indeed convinced that alchemy is practical, but they just can't get their head around the act that it's very simple and follows the laws of Nature. Many people have invented chemical processes 
(e.g. "the white stone of urine") which they developed by reading only one or two alchemical books and aking the metaphorical parts of the writings literally. From reading alchemy they invent complicated hemical processes, which are far away from the actions of Nature, and set about doing all kinds of fruitless xperiments. They obviously get nowhere, and then decide to tell everyone else how to go wrong too

(the Emperor's New Clothes again.) 
I should say a few words about ORMUS (also called ORMEs or White Power Gold), which many people re describing and marketing as the Philosophers' Stone, and I have been asked many times if I am talking bout the same thing. ORMUS is a method to obtain very small particles of charged metals. This is not the 
Stone, and it is not alchemy (it is not imitating Nature.) There may well be health benefits to ngesting ORMUS, but the claim made that ORMUS is the Stone is a little silly, it's like calling a chicken a ow. A chicken is not a cow, it doesn't look like a cow, and it doesn't act like a cow. ORMUS is not made ike the Stone, it doesn't look like the Stone, it doesn't act like the Stone... it's not the Stone. There is no eason whatsoever for anyone to believe that ORMUS is the same as the Stone, other than this is what they ave previously been told, and if what I am saying here applies to you then you need to consider what you elieve, who you are listening to, and whether you should continue to base your beliefs on the opinions of thers presented with no evidence to support their claims. 
It is very easy to tell if a procedure is true or not, you just ask yourself the following questions: (1) Do I nderstand how it works? (2) Do I understand why it works? (3) Does it follow the cycles and laws of 
Nature? If the answer is "yes" to all these questions, then you're on to something. Nature is the 
"Grandmaster" of alchemy, and the true teacher, so it is Nature to whom you must look to if you intend to ase your beliefs on truths. My words in this book will mean nothing to you unless you can sacrifice a little it of ego and look to Nature to see what is true and what is false. Nature has nothing to learn from us, but e have so much to learn from Nature; to accept this enables us to listen to what Nature has to say, which is ll around us, and Nature is never wrong. 
If the interpretation is wrong then it won't fit, and so you know it's wrong. If one wants to write about piritual development or chemistry then this is all fine and dandy... but don't go calling it alchemy. 
I even came across a modern alchemy book in which the reader is asked not to read the old alchemy books ecause they're too obscure and will only confuse you:

Notwithstanding, the reader is warned against haphazard reading of alchemical books, for this will lead to mental onfusion, and finally desperation of ever learning anything. Once started on alchemical research however, this ecomes a great temptation and a bad fault. One tends to read voraciously any alchemical book that comes to hand. 
This one book, closely studied, is however all that is necessary for practical experiment.

This is impressively ignorant. It looks to me that this author just wants to look cool and mystical, and of ourse they know that they got nowhere, but they're happy to deceive others and pretend they're important. 
(I apologize to the author, whose name I won't mention, for writing against you, but I hope you've learnt our lesson.)

A man who fails to recognize the wu hsing (five elements) and the four signs is certainly one who will be befuddled to ifferentiate cinnabar, mercury, lead, and silver. He has never even heard of the principle of the fire and the season or compounding tan, and he dares to say that he is a great devotee of Taoism. 
Never considering his mistake, he teaches others in turn, and teaches mistakenly. He ruins the mercury of others by isleading them into an uncharted port. How can one have the heart to do this?

Wu Chen P'ien, Essay on the Understanding of Truth, by Chang Po-tuan, 1078 AD (Chinese)

With the correct interpretation, as I present in this book, you will understand (1) what alchemy is, (2) why it orks, and (3) how it works. No other interpretation can give you this, they only rely on blind faith, since hat is the only way to believe a lie. 
Notice how I can back up any statement I make in regards to alchemical theory and practice with several uotes from a variety of alchemical books. You will not find this with any other interpretation. Notice how I xplain not only how alchemy works, but why alchemy works. Notice how you can actually understand hat I say, and it makes sense with Nature. This is what truth looks like, but it's been so long since many eople have seen truth that they've forgotten what it looks like. 
It is of course all inevitable that the Stone would be forgotten and the books misinterpreted, and I don't eally mind these misinterpretations in a way, since I had no problem understanding the real alchemical ooks, which I read before any of the modern literature. But the purpose of my little rant here is to put a top to further disinformation and lies.

8. Obscurity

I know that the Sages describe this simple process under a great number of misleading names. But this puzzling variety f nomenclature is only intended to veil the fact that nothing is required but simple coction. 
A Very Brief Tract Concerning the Philosophical Stone, by An Unknown German Sage, 15th - 17th Cen. (?)

Alchemy (real alchemy) has, with this book as the first exception, always been written of obscurely, using etaphors, allegories and even outright lies. In this chapter I will discuss the obscure style of the alchemists, ut not yet how to decipher it, which I will cover in a later chapter (after we've discussed all the theory.) 
Here's a fun fact for you: the word "gibberish" refers to the alchemical writings of an alchemist known as 
Geber. Because alchemical writing is so difficult to understand, it became a word to mean anything nintelligible. 
The most popular trick used by the alchemists was to call things by different names. This was quite ecessary to keep the secret, since there is only one ingredient and one process. The alchemists therefore sed hundreds of different words for explaining the same thing. But in their defense, they did write that hey were doing this, so the reader should have known that the writing was a riddle and know that they ust decipher it. Though some people chose not to listen to this and to take the writings literally, which has aused countless deaths through history from people ingesting mercury and sulphur, which are extremely oisonous. The alchemists knew that mercury and sulphur were poisonous, and knew some people were aking their writings literally, so that was quite a sick joke to play. In my opinion, they should have called it ilkshake and jellybeans, which would still have been obscure (especially because those weren't invented et) but would not have killed anyone. 
Additionally, the alchemists amused themselves by listing operations performed by Nature, implying that he alchemist would be physically performing them, which is not the case. In truth it is Nature who makes he Stone, while the alchemist only optimizes the conditions. This way the alchemists can claim they told ou the truth, but what they told you was something you don't need to do.

I make known to all ingenuous students of this Art that the Sages are in the habit of using words which may convey ither a true or a false impression; the former to their own disciples and children, the latter to the ignorant, the oolish, and the unworthy. Bear in mind that the philosophers themselves never make a false assertion. The mistake (if ny) lies not with them, but with those whose dulness makes them slow to apprehend the meaning. Hence it comes that, nstead of the waters of the Sages, these inexperienced persons take pyrites, salts, metals, and divers other substances hich, though very expensive, are of no use whatever for our purpose. 
[...] X. PARMENIDES: The Sages have written about many waters, stones, and metals, for the purpose of deceiving you. 
[...] Good Heavens! How skilfully the Sages have contrived to conceal this matter. It would surely have been far better f they had abstained from writing altogether. For the extreme obscurity of their style has overwhelmed thousands in uin, and plunged them into the deepest poverty, especially those who set about this task without even the slightest nowledge of Nature, or of the requirements of our Art. What the Sages write is strictly true; but you cannot nderstand it unless you are already initiated in the secrets of this Art. Yea, even if you were a Doctor of the Doctors, nd a Light of the World, you would be able to see no meaning in their words without this knowledge. They have

written, but you are none the wiser. They half wished to communicate the secret to their posterity; but a jealous feeling revented them from doing so in plain language. 
[...] Jealous Sages have named many waters and metals and stones, simply for the purpose of deceiving you; herein the hilosophers would warn us that they have used secrecy, lest the whole mystery should be manifested before all the orld. Those who follow the letter of their directions are sure to be led astray, and to miss entirely the true foundation f our Art. The fault, however, lies not with the Sages so much with the ignorance of their readers. 
[...] We may justly wonder that the Sages who have written about this most precious and secret Art, have thought it ecessary to invent so many occult and allegorical expressions, by means of which our Art is concealed not only from he unworthy, but from earnest and diligent students of the truth. Foolish persons, indeed, who read their books, and ear of the riches and all the other good things which this Art affords, experience a pleasant tickling sensation in heir ears, and straightway behold visions of themselves sitting on golden thrones, and commanding all the treasures f the universe; they fancy that the Art can be learned in the twinkling of an eye, soon come to regard themselves as reat Doctors, and are unable to conceive the possibility of their making a mistake, or being led astray by the Sages. 
Much less are they aware that it has always been the custom of the philosophers to conceal the fundamental facts of his Art, and to reveal them to their own sons and disciples only in sententious allegorical sayings. It is impossible to ead through all that the Sages have ever written on this subject; but it is a still more hopeless undertaking to gather rom their books a full and sufficient knowledge of our Art, unless, indeed, God opens your understanding, and gives ou a real insight into the natural properties of things, and thereby into the sayings of those who speak of them. For it s Nature alone that accomplishes the various processes of our Art, and a right understanding of Nature will furnish ou with eyes wherewith to perceive the secrets thereof. 
The Glory of the World, Or, Table of Paradise, by Anonymous, 1526 AD

On reading the alchemical books, you will come across strange allegories, metaphors, and symbols. Don't hink that the fancy words mean anything special. All this stuff about kings and unicorns and lions is not eant to teach you anything. It does have a meaning; the different objects represent different materials at ertain stages of the process, but this only means something if you already understand how to make the 
Stone. The alchemists used these symbols to communicate with other alchemists, and prove to other lchemists that they had found the Stone, but without anyone else knowing what they were talking about.

For all that before me have written on this matter have rendered their books obscure and unintelligible by an xaggerated use of poetical imagery, parables, and metaphors which grievously obstruct the path of those who first nter on this field of knowledge. This is the reason that a beginner, who strives to put their precepts into practice, only oses his trouble and his money, as is daily seen. Hermes, Rhasis, Geber, Avicenna, Merlin, Hortulanus, Democritus, 
Morienus, Bacon, Raymond, Aristotle, and many others, have concealed their meaning under a veil of obscurity. 
Hence their books, which they have handed down to us, have been a source of endless error and delusion to the vulgar nd the learned, and, in spite of the beautiful conceits which abound in their writings, no one has been able to find a ath through the wilderness of their words; yea, many have been reduced to despair. 
The Chemical Treatise, Or, The Ordinal of Alchemy, by Thomas Norton, 1477 AD 
/ have, indeed, studied the writings, parables, and various figures of the philosophers with singular industry, and aboured hard to solve their manifold wonderful enigmas, most of which are simply the vain products of their maginations. It was long before experience taught me that all their obscure verbiage and high pretensions are mere olly and empty phantasms (as is amply testified by our leading Sages). 
[...] The just and pious reader will regard my undertaking with a kindly eye, and not suffer seeming contradictions to islead him: the theory of and practice of this Art, and the laws which obtain in the Republic of the Chemists, forbade e to write more openly or plainly.

The Golden Age Restored, by Henry Madathanas, 1622 AD

A further problem is that not all alchemical books are written by people who understand alchemy. Since the ast majority of people have no understanding of it, they can't tell the true alchemists from the fakes. What akes this even worse is when real alchemists themselves write lies and deliberately mislead the reader. So efore the beginner can even start trying to interpret the writings, he has to try to work out which ones are onest and which are not. This is not too difficult to determine, at least I had no problem with it. But then hat causes more confusion is when a real alchemist writes partly the truth, but then makes an outright lie o throw you off course again, after they've already gained your trust.

for those writers, however many they be, are either themselves in error, or else they write falsely out of sheer envy, and ut forth receipts whilst not ignorant of the truth.

The Aurora of the Philosophers, by Theophrastus Paracelsus, 16th Cen.

The great difficulty which discourages all beginners is not of Nature's making: the Sages have created it by speaking f the longer operation when they mean the shorter one, and vice versa. 
An Open Entrance to the Closed Palace of the King, by An Anonymous Sage and Lover of Truth, 1645 AD 
They are ignorant mechanics who, not having skill and brains enough for an honest trade, must needs meddle with our 
Art, and, of course, soon lose all they possess. Others, again, are only just less ignorant than these persons; they are in oo great a hurry to make gold before they have mastered even the rudiments of natural science; of course they fail, pend all they have, borrow money from their friends, amuse themselves and others with hopes of infinite wealth, learn o talk a barbarous semi-philosophical jargon, and afford a capital handle to those who have an interest in abusing ur Art. Again, there are others who really have a true knowledge of the secret, but who grudge others the light which as irradiated their own path; and who therefore write about it in hopelessly puzzling language, which the perplexed eginner cannot possibly understand. To this class belong Geber, Arnold, and Lullius, who would have done much etter service to the student, if they had never dipped pen in ink. The consequence is that every one who takes up this tudy at once finds himself lost in a most perplexing labyrinth of falsehood and uncertainty, in which he has no clue. 
[...] Some boastful and arrogant sophists, who have read in books that our Mercury is not common Mercury, and who now that it is called by different names, do not blush to come forward as pretenders to a knowledge of this Art, and ake upon themselves to describe this solvent as diaphanous and limpid, or as a metallic gum which is permiscible ith metals, though they do not in reality know anything whatsoever about it. The same may be said of those who ould extract our Mercury from herbs or other still more fantastic substances. These gentry know not why the Sages o not use Mercury such as is sold by apothecaries as their substance. They are aware of the fact, but are nacquainted with its causes; and the consequence is the idea which they have that anything which changes the ature of common Mercury, will convert it into that of the Sages. But in regard to these foolish persons, I have already xpressed our opinion. 
The Metamorphosis of Metals, by Eirenaeus Philalethes, 1694 AD

Saying all this, it is true that some alchemists wrote very plainly about the Art. Writings from the 17th entury especially are much clearer than the older writings, which you will learn about in the History ection. No one ever gave away the entire process in one book, but some gave direct and lucid instructions n specific operations in the process, or theory. This is how I came to understand the writings. The first step s to be able to tell the truth from the lies, which came easily to me (I have a knack for it), then on finding

the first few pieces of the puzzle one can decode the metaphors, and everything starts to snap into place. 
Additionally, I feel I should say a few words about telling which alchemical books are genuine, and which re not. At first it is difficult for one to tell, as one needs to already understand alchemy in order to know hich texts are genuine. This is a bit of a catch-22 situation. 
It will help you if you first accept that none of the modern alchemy books are genuine, of course these odern fame and money hungry authors do not have the Stone. Then you have everything from the 19th nd 20th centuries, these are also not genuine; it was a strange time of crazy theories and secret societies, nd there was very little good information released during that time (except some good translations of older orks.) Again, during the 19th and 20th centuries there were many books published pretending to written y other people. A good example is that of any writing by Hermes; the only remaining genuine work of 
Hermes is The Emerald Tablet, everything else is fraudulent, written under his name only to sell more ooks. You can tell the real timeperiod from which a book was written by considering the writing style 
(which does still pass over even through translations.) Only Fulcanelli wrote genuine alchemical books in odern times, but his works (all 2 of them) are not particulaly useful for reasons I will cover in the 
Fulcanelli chapter. An excellent starting point if you choose to study the alchemical books would be The 
Hermetic Museum (which includes a large number of the alchemical books quoted here.) 
The truth is always simple and in harmony with Nature.

9. The Secret 
It's no secret that the Philosophers' Stone is a secret. It wasn't always this way, but we'll leave the history for he History section. 
The Stone being hidden and forgotten was an inevitability of the age of the world which is now ending. 
Now begins the time that all secrets will be revealed and judged.

The present time is not ripe for the knowledge of these mysteries, for it has never tasted rest. When the time comes — efore the Day of Judgment — in which the secrets of all hearts are laid bare, at that time, says Paracelsus: I order my ritings to be judged. 
A Dialogue, by Alexander von Suchten, 1 6th - 1 7th Cen. (?)

The revealing of the Stone is the catalyst which will collapse the corrupt civilization and usher in the 
Golden Age. But civilization must reach a truly corrupt state before it can be collapsed and reborn from the shes. Corruption is necessary for the development of civilization as a whole; it's not a bad thing if you look t the big picture, but a necessary stage of development. The same holds true in the development our Stone.

When the philosophers had discovered it, with great diligence and labour, they straightway concealed it under a trange tongue, and in parables, lest the same should become known to the unworthy, and the pearls be cast before wine. For if everyone knew it, all work and industry would cease; man would desire nothing but this one thing, eople would live wickedly, and the world be ruined, seeing that they would provoke God by reason of their avarice nd superfluity. For eye hath not seen, nor ear heard, nor hath the heart of man understood what Heaven hath aturally incorporated with this Spirit. 
The Book of the Revelation of Hermes, by Theophrastus Paracelsus, 16th Cen.

Despite the fact that the Stone was destined to be secret during the passing age, most who possessed it kept he secret not for this reason, but out of elitism. Most alchemists felt that they were "chosen" by God and hat they were better than everyone else. Though a large number did not even make the Stone themselves, ut were lucky enough to have it given to them by another. No doubt these were the ones who felt so trongly about keeping it secret.

Rasis also in the book, 'The Light of Lights', reports: For if I should explain all things according to what they are, here would be no further occasion of prudence, but the fool would be made equal to the wise man. 
Book of the Chemical Art, by Marsilius Ficinus, 15th Cen. 
To this objection, we answer what we know to be true, that the science of this Art has never been fully revealed to nyone who has not approved himself worthy by a good and noble life, and who has not shewn himself to be deserving f this gracious gift by his love of truth, virtue, and knowledge. From those who are otherwise minded this knowledge ust ever remain concealed. 
Nor can anyone attain to this Art, unless there be some person sent by God to instruct him in it. For the matter is so

glorious and wonderful that it cannot be fully delivered to any one but by word of mouth. Moreover, if any man would eceive it, he must take a great and sacred oath, that as we his teachers refuse high rank and fame, so he will not be oo eager for these frivolous distinctions, and that he will not be so presumptuous as to make the secret known to his wn son; for propinquity of blood, or affinity, should be held of no account in this our Magistery. Nearness of blood, s such, does not entitle anyone to be let into the secret, but only virtue, whether in those near to us or in strangers. 
Therefore you should carefully test and examine the life, character, and mental aptitude of any person who would be nitiated in this Art, and then you should bind him, by a sacred oath, not to let our Magistery be commonly or vulgarly nown. Only when he begins to grow old and feeble [tired of life], he may reveal it to one person, but not to more — and hat one man must be virtuous, and generally approved by his fellows. For this Magistery must always remain a secret cience, and the reason that compels us to be so careful is obvious. If any wicked man should learn to practise this Art, he event would be fraught with great danger to Christendom. For such a man would overstep all bounds of oderation, and would remove from their hereditary thrones those legitimate princes who rule over the peoples of 
Christendom. And the punishment of this wickedness would fall upon him who had instructed that unworthy person in ur Art. In order, then, to avoid such an outbreak of overweening pride, he who possesses the knowledge of this Art, hould be scrupulously careful how he delivers it to another, and should regard it as the peculiar privilege of those ho excel in virtue. 
[...] For all the authors who deal with this subject write about it in obscure language, and not one of them declares it lainly; nay, they beseech God to remove them suddenly out of this world, if they ever write books about the grand ecret. For many of them have been fearful of committing to paper more than was right about this science; and not one f them has given more than one or two plain hints respecting it. They did not write with the object of divulging their ecret to the world, but in an obscurely allusive style, in order that they might be able to recognize those who nderstood their meaning as brothers and fellow adepts. Hence you must not be content with reading only one book, ut you should study a variety of authors; because, according to the learned Arnold, one book opens up the nderstanding of another. The same thought is expressed by the learned Anaxagoras, who testifies that if a man will ot take the trouble of reading many books, he can never attain to a practical knowledge of our Art. 
The Chemical Treatise, Or, The Ordinal of Alchemy, by Thomas Norton, \A11 AD

It was not all fun and games for the alchemists. A lot of them were very paranoid, and perhaps rightly so, as ome people would do anything to get the Stone. Fear was a good reason to keep quiet.

No doubt the gentle reader has learned by the works of Sendivogius that whenever he sheaved himself openly to the owerful, he went in constant fear of his life. Experience teaches that many philosophers who gave no thought to their ersonal safety, have been killed and deprived of their tincture by greedy and powerful robbers; and it stands to eason that any one going about with a great treasure in his hand, must fall a prey to brigands. Sendivogius oncealed his name by an anagram. Thus also a short time ago another philosopher and Brother of the Golden Cross, hose real name has long been familiar to me, concealed it beneath an anagram, and made himself known to his riends by an enigmatical designation. Why then should 1 place myself at the mercy of this impure world? 
The Golden Tract Concerning the Stone of the Philosophers, by Aw Anonymous German Philosopher (16th - 
17th Cen. ?) 
So long as the secret is possessed by a comparatively small number of philosophers, their lot is anything but a bright nd happy one; surrounded as we are on every side by the cruel greed and the prying suspicion of the multitude, we re doomed, like Cain, to wander over the earth homeless and friendless. Not for us are the soothing influences of omestic happiness; not for us the delightful confidences of friendship. Men who covet our golden secret pursue us rom place to place, and fear closes our lips, when love tempts us to open ourselves freely to a brother. Thus we feel rompted at times to burst forth into the desolate exclamation of Cain: "Whoever finds me will slay me." Yet we are not he murderers of our brethren; we are anxious only to do good to our fellow-men. But even our kindness and haritable compassion are rewarded with black ingratitude — ingratitude that cries to heaven for vengeance. It was nly a short time ago that, after visiting the plague-stricken haunts of a certain city, and restoring the sick to perfect ealth by means of my miraculous medicine, I found myself surrounded by a yelling mob, who demanded that I should

give to them my Elixir of the Sages; and it was only by changing my dress and my name, by shaving off my beard and utting on a wig, that I was enabled to save my life, and escape from the hands of those wicked men. And even when ur lives are not threatened, it is not pleasant to find ourselves, wherever we go, the central objects of human greed. . . 
. I know of several persons who were found strangled in their beds, simply because they were suspected of possessing his secret, though, in reality, they knew no more about it than their murderers; it was enough for some desperate uffians, that a mere whisper of suspicion had been breathed against their victims. Men are so eager to have this 
Medicine that your very caution will arouse their suspicions, and endanger your safety. Again, if you desire to sell any arge quantity of your gold and silver, you will be unable to do so without imminent risk of discovery. The very fact hat anyone has a great mass of bullion for sale would in most places excite suspicion. This feeling will be trengthened when people test the quality of our gold; for it is much finer and purer than any of the gold which is rought from Barbary, or from the Guinea Coast; and our silver is better even than that which is conveyed home by he Spanish silver fleet. If, in order to baffle discovery, you mix these precious metals with alloy, you render yourself iable, in England and Holland at least, to capital punishment; for in those countries no one is permitted to tamper ith the precious metals, except the officers of the mint, and the licensed goldsmiths. I remember once going, in the isguise of a foreign merchant, to a goldsmith's shop, and offering him 600 pounds worth of our pure silver for sale. 
He subjected it to the usual tests, and then said: "This silver is artificially prepared. " When I asked him why he thought o, his answer was: "I am not a novice in my profession, and know very well the exact quality of the silver which is rought from the different mines. " When I heard these words I took myself away with great secrecy and dispatch, eaving the silver in the hands of the goldsmith. On this account, and by reason of the many and great difficulties hich beset us, the possessors of this Stone, on every side, we do elect to remain hidden, and will communicate the Art o those who are worthily covetous of our secrets, and then mark what public good will befall. 
An Open Entrance to the Closed Palace of the King, by An Anonymous Sage and Lover of Truth, 1645 AD

But there were a good number of alchemists who did want to reveal the Stone to the world. Alas, they idn't due to the vow they were made to promise by the alchemists who helped them find the Stone, and ecause some of them knew that the time was not right.

It is both customary and right, O Lacinius, that those who have accomplished anything worth mentioning in any art or cience should make known their discoveries to the world, in order that mankind at large may be benefited by them. 
[...] "Freely ye have received, freely give". What is the use of concealed diamonds, or a hidden treasure, to the world? 
What is the use of a lighted candle if it be lighted under a bushel? It is the innate selfishness of the human heart which akes these persons seek a pious pretext for keeping this knowledge from mankind.

The New Pearl of Great Price, by Peter Bonus, 1338 AD

XLTV. ALEXANDER: The good need not remain concealed on account of the bad men that might abuse it. For God ules over all, according to His Divine Will.

The Glory of the World, Or, Table of Paradise, by Anonymous, 1526 AD

I account myself unworthy to speak of so great a Mystery, yet I may say, without any self-glorification, that, through he grace of God, I have made greater progress in this Magistery than most; and I consider it as my duty not to hide the alent which my Lord and Master, the great and good God, has committed to my unworthy keeping. 
[...] "God gives this Art to the sincere and good, nor can the world purchase it with all its gold. The vulgar know othing of this Mystery, for if any man be impious, he seeks the Stone in vain. He who holds it in silence dwells where e would, and fears neither accidents, nor thieves, nor any evil. For this reason this sacred gift is granted to few: it is n the hands of God, and He gives it to whomsoever He will. "

The Sophie Hydrolith, Or, Water Stone of the Wise, by Anonymous, 17th Cen.

the philosophers have contributed with an intention of hiding their First Matter from the unworthy; in which they ere, perhaps, more cautious than is necessary, for Sendivogius declares that occasionally, in discourse, he had ntimated the art plainly word by word to some who accounted themselves very accurate philosophers; but they onceived such subtle notions, far beyond the simplicity of Nature, that they could not, to any purpose, understand his eaning. Wherefore, he professes little fear of its being discovered but to those who have it according to the good leasure and providence of the Most High. 
[...] the philosophers have hitherto industriously kept that a profound secret; some out of selfish disposition, though therwise good men. Others, who wished only for worthy persons to whom they might impart it, could not write of it penly, because covetousness and vanity have been governing principles in the world: and, being wise men, they knew hat it was not the will of the most High to inflame and cherish such odious tempers, the genuine offspring of pride nd self-love, but to banish them out of the earth, wherefore they have been withheld hitherto. But we, finding no estraint on our mind in that respect, shall declare what we know: and the rather because we judge the time is come to emolish the golden calf, so long had in veneration by all ranks of men, insomuch that worth is estimated by the oney a man possesses; and such is the inequality of possessions that mankind are almost reducible to the rich, who re rioting in extravagance, and the poor, who are in extreme want, smarting under the iron hand of oppression. Now he measure of inequality among the rich hastens to its limit, and the cry of the poor is come before the Lord: 'Who will ive them to eat till they shall be satisfied? " 
Hereafter the rich shall see the vanity of their possessions when compared with the treasures communicated by this ecret; for the riches it bestows are a blessing from God, and not the squeezing of oppression. Besides, its chief xcellence consists in making a medicine capable of healing all diseases to which the human body is liable, and rolonging life to the utmost limits ordained by the Creator of all things. 
There want not other reasons for the manifestation of the process; for skepticism has gone hand in hand with luxury nd oppression 
On the Philosophers' Stone, by Anonymous, 12th - 17th Cen. (?)

10. Yin- Yang

The alchemists agree that the Stone develops and operates from the combination of female (yin) and male 
(yang) principles. Everything contains these two forces in different proportions, and the most stable roportions are not 50/50, but with either one of the two dominating. This is why the Philosophers' Stone omes in two forms: the Red Stone (male) and the White Stone (female). This is also the relationship etween gold (male) and silver (female), and why the Red Stone transmutes metals into gold, whereas the 
White Stone transmutes them into silver. Of course, when we say that gold is male and silver is female, this oes not mean that gold is all yang and silver is all yin, everything contains both, but with one of them ominating for the time being. 
Furthermore, we can clearly see the relationships between male and female principles in Nature. The two epend upon each other. Obviously we have the fact that animals come in male and female genders, who re attracted to one another. Also the relationship between animals (male) and plants (female) is of the same ype, we also depend upon each other for survival. 
The male force is the active force (growth and multiplication), whereas the female force is the passive force 
(stability and dissolution/decomposition). Too much male force will end up multiplying and overpowering ts surroundings, leading to destruction. Too much female force will reverse development, reducing verything to its components. Together the male and female forces combine with the male force expanding nd developing and the female force keeping it under control and everything orderly and harmonious. The ale force attempts to impose itself upon everything, it wants to multiply itself. The female force on the ther hand tries to bring everything back to its original element. It is the female force that allows for rebirth y encouraging reduction and decomposition back into the original element, supporting and nourishing this or the task of the male, which is to encourage growth, development and multiplication. 
Imagine the world was only full of men, or only full of women. The men would spend the whole time ighting in their efforts to impose their views and themselves on the rest of the world. The women would sit round and talk all day long, developing nothing. Now consider animals and plants. The plants have a lot of in, they just sit around all day and don't even try to move, whereas the animals are busy running around nd eating everything they can put in their mouths. 
The sea has a dominating male force, which is why fish are so obsessed with eating each other. It's also why here are very few plants in the sea, even the coral are animals. The air has dominating female force, herefore lots of trees and comparatively few animals in between. 
The genders are one manifestation of the yin-yang principle, but on a more fundamental level it is these two orces constantly pulling back and forward against each other in a tug-of-war, and so create the cycles of 
Nature. Yin-yang is polarity. We live in a universe of opposites. The cycles we see in Nature are all due to he polarity of our universe, and it is these cycles (caused by yin-yang) which themselves cause growth and evelopment of all things, from the atom to the whole universe itself. 
The Philosophers' Stone also develops from the yin-yang principle of polarity. In the natural development f the Stone, and therefore everything else, the dominating principle moves to and fro, from yin to yang and ack, in the form of evaporation and condensation (sun and rain). In this way the Stone develops to higher nd higher degrees of perfection.

In the vegetable world grass and trees are actuated by yin and yang. They could not grow in the absence of either one f these two forces. At the beginning, yang dominates and is indicated by the budding of green leaves. Then, after the evelopment of the blossoms, yin (destructive) follows. This principle of the Tao of constancy has long been the ommon practice of nature; but how many can understand (the principle of) chin yuan (true spring) which can alter his process (of nature)? I advise all of you, who wish to learn Tao, not to begin your work before you understand the rinciple of yin and yang. 
Wu Chen P'ien, Essay on the Understanding of Truth, by Chang Po-tuan, 1078 AD (Chinese) 
This gold is our male, and it is sexually joined to a more crude white gold — the female seed: the two together being ndissolubly united, constitute our fruitful Hermaphrodite. [...] The two (the passive and active principle) combined we all our Hermaphrodite. 
An Open Entrance to the Closed Palace of the King, by An Anonymous Sage and Lover of Truth, 1645 AD 
The male without the female is looked upon as only half a body, nor can the female without the male be regarded as ore complete. For neither can bring forth fruit so long as it remains alone. But if the two be conjugally united, there s a perfect body, and their seed is placed in a condition in which it can yield increase. 
The Twelve Keys, by Basilius Valentinus, 15th Cen.

11. Cycles of Nature

If thou desire to see the secrets of Nature now open thine eyes. 
The Chemists Key, by Henry Nollius, 1617 AD

Following on from the previous chapter on yin-yang, we have the cycles of Nature. 
I'm sure we can all agree that Nature operates in cycles. We have days, months, years, which are all cycles. 
Then we have the water cycle, with water being evaporated by the sun, forming clouds and then raining own again. It is these cycles that cause growth and development, most obviously in plant life, but also in all ther forms of life, and the Earth itself. Similar cycles also occur in larger systems, such as solar systems nd galaxies. All these cycles are due to the yin-yang principle, which I explained in the previous chapter. 
But have you stopped to think what the effect of these cycles is? I will illustrate it for you as simply as I can: 
Imagine you have a handful of damp soil, which you put into a closed system in which there is sun and then ain, as there is on Earth. Every day there is sunshine (yang) which evaporates off the water, which then ondenses at night (yin) and rains back down onto the soil. What will happen? 
Well the first and most obvious effect is that the soil will arrange itself in layers with the lightest particles at he top, and the heaviest at the bottom. We have gravity to thank for this of course. The hot air and water apor will rise, and with it the lightest of the particles, which attach themselves to the water. The lighter the article is, the easier it attaches itself to the water, and the further the water will lift it while evaporating. 
This causes the heavier particles to sink as the lighter particles are picked up and placed back down on top f them. Everything will arrange itself in order of density. This you can already see by considering that the op layer of the Earth is a soft soil, with heavier minerals as you dig down. This is also very easily proven ith a little experiment, which is also the First Part of our work in making the Stone. 
The smallest and lightest particles of all will attach themselves to the water and not let go, since they are so olatile, and these particles are the life-energy we are looking for. 
But something else happens too. With the particles continuously being moistened and then heated and dried 
(calcined), they will slowly break down (decompose/putrefy) into smaller particles. So over time you will nd up with more of the lighter particles (less dense) and less heavier particles (more dense). The particles ill get lighter and lighter until they are broken down into what they are made of, the original life-energy. 
The life-energy itself is infused into the water and so penetrates all of the particles as they are moistened by he water, and the life-energy also aids the putrefaction by encouraging the elements to break down into its wn form. 
So you can assume that eventually, after a very long time, the entire mass is converted into life-energy, hich is what we call the Philosophers' Stone. But I don't recommend using soil for this process, since it ill take too long.

Then there are life forms which use this life-energy and the lightest particles to grow and live. Plants grow n the top (lightest) layer of the soil, and use the life-energy which is more concentrated there for their evelopment, which they collect and form into matter for their own use. Animals then eat the plants to bsorb their life-energy, and other animals eat those animals for the same reason. Once eaten our stomachs igest what we eat into even smaller particles, which is just another process of putrefaction. 
Plants love to grow in dead plant matter, since this is already full of life-energy, which is now happily ecomposing into lighter particles and back into the wonderful life-energy. 
I'll give you an illustration of how this works inside your body: when you eat an apple, you first chew it. 
The chewing is the first stage of decomposition, it breaks it down into smaller pieces. Then it goes into your tomach and is digested (dissolved) by your stomach acid, this is again decomposition for breaking down he matter in order to extract and reuse the particles inside of it. What you get is a range of matter: sugars, roteins, vitamins, etc. and life-energy. The most important of these is the life-energy, but since we do not ormally have enough of this, we use the determined and more dense particles (sugar, protein, etc.) where e can, for the required needs of our body. The life-energy can be made into anything we are lacking, it an be formed into any other particle required by our body. It can even be made into water if we have not ad enough to drink, or oxygen if we are not breathing enough. This is why when you ingest the Stone, ou don't need to eat, drink or breathe, because your body will make this into exactly what it needs. 
Scientists have found evidence of biological transmutation already, in many incidents it has been proven that nimals can produce minerals that they have not ingested. This supports the existence of life-energy.

Crabs, shellfish and crayfish have shells made largely of calcium. A crab 1 7 cm by 10 cm has a shell weighing around 
350 grams. Periodically these animals shed their shell and create a new one. This is called molting. When molting, a rab is very vulnerable and hides away from all other creatures so it can not get calcium by preying on other reatures. 
According to French chemist C. Louis Kervran of the Conseil d'Hygiene in Paris, seawater contains far too little alcium to account for the rapid production of a shell (the calcium content of sea water is about 0.042% and a crab an form a new shell in little more than one day). If the entire body of a crab is analyzed for calcium, it is found to ontain only enough calcium to produce 3% of the shell (even taking into account the calcium carbonate stored in the epato-pancreas just before molting). 
Even in water completely devoid of calcium, shellfish can still create their calcium-bearing shells as shown by an xperiment performed at the Maritime Laboratory of Roscoff: "A crayfish was put in a sea water basin from which alcium carbonate had been removed by precipitation; the animal made its shell anyway. " (Kervran 1972, p. 58) 
"Chemical analysis made on animals secreting their shells has revealed that calcium carbonate is formed on the outer ide of a membrane although on the opposite side of the membrane, where matter enters, there is no calcium. This fact as left specialists perplexed. " (Kervran 1972, p. 58) 
Evidence that Atoms Behave Differently in Biological Systems, by Madhavendra Puri

So you can see that the cycles of Nature are in place to purify matter, and break it down into lighter, freer articles and life-energy in order to be used again to create new and better life forms. Life forms grow from hese lighter, volatile particles, which they form into matter according to their own needs, and when they

die Nature turns it back into the dust from whence it came.

God being before all things, when He was alone created one Substance, which He called the first matter and of that ubstance he created the Elements, and from them created all things.

The Crowning of Nature, by Anonymous, 16th - 17th Cen. (?)

that part of the body which is dissolved, ever ascends or rises to the top, above all the other undissolved matter which emains yet at bottom. Therefore saith Avicen, that which is spiritual in the vessel ascends up to the top of the mater, nd that which is yet gross and thick, remains in the bottom of the vessel.

The Root of the World, by Roger Bacon, 13th Cen.

Observe, furthermore, how the seeds of all things that grow, as, for instance, grains of wheat or barley, spring forth rom the ground, by the operation of the Stone, and the developing influences of Sun and Moon; how they grow up nto the air, are gradually matured, and bring forth fruit, which again must be sown in its own proper soil. The field is repared for the grain, being well ploughed up, and manured with well rotted dung; for the earth consumes and ssimilates the manure, as the body assimilates its food, and separates the subtle from the gross. Therewith it calls orth the life of the seed, and nourishes it with its own proper milk, as a mother nourishes her infant, and causes it to ncrease in size, and to grow upward. The earth separates, I say, the good from the bad, and imparts it as nutriment to ll growing things; for the destruction of one thing is the generation of another. It is the same in our Art, where the iquid receives its proper nutriment from the earth. Hence the earth is the Mother of all things that grow; and it must e manured, ploughed, harrowed, and well prepared, in order that the corn may grow, and triumph over the tares, and ot be choked by them. A grain of wheat is raised from the ground through the distillation of the moisture of the Sun nd Moon, if it has been sown in its own proper earth. The Sun and Moon must also impel it to bring forth fruit, if it is o bring forth fruit at all. For the Sun is the Father, and the Moon the Mother, of all things that grow. 
In the same way, in our soil, and out of our seed, our Stone grows through the distilling of the Sun and Moon; and as t grows it rises upwards, as it were, into the air, while its root remains in the ground. That which is above is even as hat which is below; the same law prevails; there is no error or mistake. Again, as herbs grow upward, put forth lorious flowers and blossoms, and bear fruit, so our grain blossoms, matures its fruit, is threshed, sifted, purged of its haff, and again put in the earth, which, however, must previously have been well manured, harrowed, and otherwise repared. When it has been placed in its natural soil, and watered with rain and dew, the moisture of heaven, and oused into life by the warmth of the Sun and Moon, it produces fruit after its own kind. These two sowings are eculiar characteristics of our Art. For the Sun and Moon are our grain, which we put into our soil, as soul and spirit 
— and such as are the father and the mother will be the children that they generate. Thus, my sons, you know our 
Stone, our earth, our grain, our meal, our ferment, our manure, our verdigris, our Sun and Moon. You understand our hole magistery, and may joyfully congratulate yourselves that you have at length risen above the level of those blind harlatans of whom I spoke. For this, His unspeakable mercy, let us render thanks and praise to the Creator of all hings, through Jesus Christ our Lord. Amen. 
[...] As it is with plants, so it is with metals. While they lie in the heart of the earth, in their natural ore, they grow, and re developed, day by day, through the influence of the four elements: their fire is the splendour of the Sun and Moon; he earth conceives in her womb the splendour of the Sun, and by it the seeds of the metals are well and equally armed, just like the grain in the fields. Through this warmth there is produced in the earth a vapour or spirit, which ises upward and carries with it the most subtle elements. It might well be called a fifth element: for it is a uintessence, and contains the most volatile parts of all the elements. This vapour strives to float upward through the ummit of the mountains, but, being covered with great rocks, they prevent it from doing so: for when it strikes against hem, it is compelled to descend again. It is drawn up by the Sun, it is forced down again by the rocks, and as it falls he vapour is transmuted into a liquid, i.e., sulphur and mercury. Of each of these a part is left behind — but that which s volatile rises and descends again, more and more of it remaining behind, and becoming fixed after each descent. 
This "fixed" substance is the metals, which cleave so firmly to the earth and the stones that they must be smelted out in  red-hot furnace. The grosser the stones and the earth of the mountains are, the less pure will the metal be; the more ubtle the soil and the stones are, the more subtle will be the vapour, and the sulphur and mercury formed by its

condensation — and the purer these latter are, the purer, of course, will the metals themselves be. When the earth and he stones of the mountain are gross, the sulphur and mercury must partake of this grossness, and cannot attain to heir proper development. Hence arise the different metals, each after its own kind. For as each tree of the field has its wn peculiar shape, appearance, and fruit, so each mountain bears its own particular ore; those stones and that earth eing the soil in which the metals grow. 
The Glory of the World, Or, Table of Paradise, by Anonymous, 1526 AD 
It is then expedient to understand the manner of this Circulation, which verily is nothing else but to imbibe, refresh, or oisten the Compound in due weight or proportion with our Mercurial Water, which Philosophers command to be alled Permanent Water, in which Imbibitions the Compound is digested and congealed to its natural ccomplishment. 
[...] as the Infant in the Mother's Belly ought to be nourished with natural nourishment, which is Menstrual Blood, to he end it may be increased and grow in quantity and stronger in quality, so ought our Stone to be nourished 
Verbum Dismissum, by Count Bernard Trevisan, 15th Cen. 
The steady warmth of the sun ripens every fruit, and the warmer the sun (yet not too dry and alternating with due ains), the better do fruits mature and turn out. 
An Explanation of the Natural Philosopher's Tincture, of Paracelsus, by Alexander von Suchten, 16th Cen.

12. Metallic Generation 
The alchemists claim that metals and minerals all grow and develop, and so are life forms, along with plants nd animals. Perhaps not life forms in the sense we normally use the phrase, but if we are to define a life orm as something which grows and multiplies then we must include metals and minerals in this category. 
The alchemists all agree that metals have the same seed, that is to say that they are all of the same species. 
The different types of metals are just different stages of the same thing, of which gold is the final and omplete development. To put it another way: we could say that the different (elementary) metals are stable nergy states which a metal moves through in its continued development. However, this development only ontinues whilst the metal is in its proper environment, which is inside the earth. Once taken out of the round a metal can only stay at the state in which we found it in. The Stone gives any metal a sudden burst f energy, which will excel it to its preferred and most stable state: gold (or silver with the less-pure White 
Stone). This is not a far-out notion, in fact lead has already been transmuted to gold in a lab by firing adiation at it (look it up if you don't believe me), which is a similar but massively less efficient version of hat the Stone does. 
I will include some long quotes from the alchemical books concerning the development of metals and inerals below. This will be helpful to understand the development of metals and get an idea how Nature orks in regards to that. 
The alchemists wrote a lot about how metals and minerals are generated in the Earth, which they do so as to ndirectly teach the reader how to make the Stone, since the Stone is made using very similar natural rocesses. 
However, the alchemists here are talking in theory and from a time when geology had not been well tudied. Geology has come a long way in the past few hundred years, but then again, the science of today oes not recognize very obvious natural processes, preferring complicated theories of the scientists' own nvention. I expect the truth to be somewhere in between these two extremes.

the great process of development into silver and gold is constantly going on. This appears from the fact that miners ften find solid pieces of pure silver in tin and lead mines, and also from the experience of others who have met with ure gold in metallic veins of iron — though this latter occurrence is more rarely observed, on account of the great mpurity of iron. In some silver mines, again, quantities of solid gold have been discovered, as, for instance, in Serbia; t first, the whole appears to be silver, but in the refiner's crucible the gold is subsequently separated from the less recious metal. Thus it is the teaching of experience that Nature is continually at work changing other metals into old, because, though, in a certain sense, they are complete in themselves, they have not yet reached the highest erfection of which they are capable, and to which Nature has destined them — just as the human embryo and the ittle children are complete and perfect as far as they go, but have not attained to their ultimate goal of manhood. 
Gold is found in different forms, either mixed with a coarse rocky substance, or in a solid condition, or amongst the and in the beds of rivers, being washed out of the mines by water. Golden sand is also found in the deserts of India, here there are no rivers. Silver is never found mixed with the sand of rivers, but mostly in the shape of ore in mines, r like a vein running through a rock. Lead and tin occur mostly in the shape of ore, and sometimes they are mingled ith earth. The same facts have become commonly observed with regard to iron and the other metals. When different etals are discovered in the same mine, the less pure of the two will generally have a tendency to ascend and leave hat remains more force to develop in the right direction. 
[...] The substance of common metals is the same as that of gold; if, then, the form of gold, or the elixir, be added to

them, they must become gold. As the common metals become gold and silver by means of a natural process, it is quite ossible that the same result should be brought about by means of the alchemist's art. 
The New Pearl of Great Price, by Peter Bonus, 1338 AD he generation of metals is circular, that is, one passes easily from one to another following a circle, the cousin metals aving similar properties; it is because of this that silver changes more readily into gold than any other metal. 
Compound of Compounds, by Albertus Magnus, 1 3th Cen. 
Now, since Nature is always striving to attain perfection, and to reach the goal set before her by the Creator of all hings, she is continually at work upon the qualities of the four elements of each substance; and so stirs up and rouses he inward action of the elements by the accidental heat of the Sun, and by natural warmth, that there arises a kind of apour or steam in the veins of the earth. This vapour cannot make its way out, but is closed in; in penetrating through at, earthy, oily, and impure sulphureous substances it attracts to itself more or less of these foreign and external mpurities. This is the reason that there are seen in it so great a variety of colours before it attains to purity and its wn proper colour. 
[...] Nature has to purge away the peculiar characteristics of all other metals before she can make gold; as you may see y the fact that different kinds of metal are found in the same metallic vein. 
[...] If, however, this pure quicksilver floats upward in a pure mineral earth, without any gross alloy, it is hardened nto the pure and white sulphur of Nature by being subjected to a very moderate degree of gentle heat, and at length ssumes the specific form of silver. Like all the other metals it may still be developed into gold, if it remain under the nfluence of its natural heat. But if the same pure, unalloyed quicksilver be subjected to a higher degree of natural eat, it is transmuted into the pure red sulphur of Nature, and becomes gold without first passing through the stage of ilver. In this form it remains, because gold is the highest possible stage of metallic development. 
[...] Those metals, indeed, which have been torn up by the roots, that is to say, that have been dug up from their own roper soil in the veins of the earth, can no longer proceed in that course of development which they pursued in their ative abode; yet, as much as in them lies, they strive to be perfected. 
[...] the operation of Nature is progressive, not retrogressive. Hence it is a great mistake to suppose that the work of 
Nature can be reversed by dissolution in aquafortis, or by the amalgamation of gold or silver and quicksilver. For if he metal be plunged in a solvent, if water be distilled from it, or if quicksilver be sublimed from it, it still remains the ame metal that it was before. The specific properties of a metal cannot be destroyed so as to obtain the first ubstance. 
[...] The metals which we dig up out of the earth are, as it were, torn up by the roots, and, their growth having come to  standstill, they can undergo no further development into gold, but must always retain their present form, unless omething is done for them by our Art. Hence we must begin at the point where Nature had to leave off: we must purge way all impurity, and the sulphureous alloy, as Nature herself would have done if her operation had not been ccidentally, or violently, disturbed. She would have matured the original substance, and brought it to perfection by entle heat, and, in a longer or shorter period of time, she would have transmuted it into gold. In this work Nature is easelessly occupied while the metals are still in the earth; 
[...] First, the earth which was created rich, great, deep, wide, and broad, was, through the daily operation of the Sun's ays, penetrated to her very centre with a fervent, bubbling, vaporous heat. For the earth in herself is cold and aturated with the moisture of water. At length the vapours which were formed in this way in the heart of the earth ecame so strong and powerful as to seek to force a way out into the open air, and thus, instead of effecting their bject, threw up hills and hillocks, or, as it were, bubbles on the face of the earth. And since in those places where ountains were formed the heat of the Sun must have been most powerful, and the earthy moisture rich and most lentiful, it is there that we find the most precious metals. Where the earth remained plain, this steam did not succeed n raising up mountains; it escaped, and the earth, being deprived of its moisture, was hardened into rocks. Where the arth was poor, soft, and thin, it is now covered with sand and little stones, because it never had much moisture, and, aving been deprived of the little it possessed, has now become sandy and dry, and incapable of retaining moisture.

No earth was changed into rocks that was not rich, viscous, and well saturated with moisture. For when the heat of the 
Sun has sucked up its moisture, the richness of the earth still makes it cohere, although now it has become hard and ry; and earth that is not yet perfectly hard is even at the present time undergoing a change into hard stones, through he diligent working of Nature. But the steam and the vapours that do not succeed in escaping, remain enclosed in the ountains, and are day by day subjected to the maturing and transmuting influences of the Sun and the planets. 
A Tract of Great Price Concerning the Philosophical Stone, by A German Sage, 1423 AD ll things are produced of a liquid air or a vapour, which the elements distil into the centre of the earth by a continual otion, and that as soon as the Archeus has received it, his wisdom sublimes it through the pores, and distributes it to ach place, producing different things according to the diverse places in which it is deposited. Some think that each etal has its own seed. But this is a great mistake, for there is only one seed. The sperm which appears in Saturn is the ame as that which is found in gold, silver, copper, &c; their difference is caused by the place, and by the time during hich Nature was at work upon them, the procreation of silver being achieved sooner than that of gold, and so with he other metals. The vapour which is sublimed by heat from the centre of the earth, passes either through cold or arm places. If the place be warm and pure, and contain adhering to it a certain fatness of sulphur, the vapour (or 
Mercury of the Sages) joins itself to its fatness, and sublimes it together with itself. If in the course of its further ublimation this unctuous vapour reaches other places where the earth has already been subtilized, purified, and endered moist by previous ascending vapours, it fills the pores of this earth, and with it becomes gold. But if this nctuous moisture be carried to impure and cold places, it becomes lead; if the earth be pure and mingled with ulphur, it becomes copper. For the purer the place is, the more beautiful and perfect will the metal be. We must also ote that the vapour is constantly ascending, and in its ascent from the earth's centre to its superficies, it purifies the laces through which it passes. Hence precious metals are found now where none existed a thousand years ago, for his vapour, by its continual progress, ever subtilizes the crude and impure, and as continually carries away the pure ith itself. This is the circulation and reiteration of Nature. All places are being more and more purified: and the urer they become, the nobler are their products. 
[...] The substance of stones is the same as that of all other things; and their quality is determined by the purity of the laces in which they arise. When the four elements distil their vapour to the centre of the earth, the Archeus of Nature xpels and sublimes it in such a manner that it carries with it in its passage through the pores of the earth, all the mpurities of these places up to the surface, where they are congealed by the air, all that pure air engenders being ongealed by crude air, their ingression being mutual, so that they join one with another, since Nature rejoices in 
Nature. Thus rocks and stones are gradually built up and generated. Now the larger the pores of the earth, the greater s the quantity of impurities carried upward; and thus the earth is most completely purified under those places where here is a great accumulation of stones or rocks at the surface, and in this manner the procreation of metals becomes asier in these places. This explains the fact that metals are scarcely ever found in plains, but nearly always in the owels of rocky hills. The plains are often moist with elemental water which attracts to itself the rising vapour, and ith it is digested by the rays of the Sun into the rich clay which potters use. In places where the soil' is gross, and the apour contains neither unctuousness nor sulphur, it produces herbs and grass in the meadows. The precious stones, uch as diamonds, rubies, and emeralds, chrysopras, onyx, and carbuncle, are all generated in the same manner as rdinary stones. When the natural vapour is sublimed by itself without sulphur or the unctuosity of which we have poken, and reaches a place where there is pure salt water (i.e., in very cold places, where our sulphur cannot exist, or could it exist, this effect would be hindered), diamonds are formed. The unctuous sulphur which rises with the apour cannot move without warmth, and is instantly congealed, when it reaches a slightly cold place, leaving the apour to continue its upward movement without it. 
The New Chemical Light, by Michael Sendivogius, 17th Cen. 
All philosophers affirm, with one consent, that metals have a seed by which they are increased, and that this seminal uality is the same in all of them 
On the Philosophers' Stone, by Anonymous, 12th - 17th Cen. (?)

13. The Emerald Tablet 
This chapter is dedicated to The Emerald Tablet, which is the only surviving genuine writing of Hermes, he founder of alchemy in this age. Hermes was called Mercury by the Romans, the messenger of the gods, nd it is after Hermes that the word mercury is used so commonly in alchemy. By the Egyptians he was alled Thoth (Djehuty). Alchemy is also called the "hermetic" art, after Hermes, and even today the term 
"hermetically sealed" can be used to describe an airtight seal (necessary in alchemy.) 
Some believe Hermes was Noah of flood fame, others believe he was Enoch. Regardless, Hermes was the erson who carried the knowledge of the sacred sciences over the last big catastrophe to save it from estruction (which leans towards him being Noah.) It was also Hermes who began the vow of secrecy, eserving alchemy only for a limited elite of the wise, but with the understanding that the secret will be eleased again at the end of the age. 
There are many legends surrounding the tablet, the name of the tablet itself comes from a legend of it being ound written on a tablet made of emerald in the crypt of Hermes. Though in reality it appears that The 
Emerald Tablet has been in continuous circulation passing through the hands of the alchemists since the eginning. 
The Emerald Tablet itself is the central and most concise of alchemical texts, and it is also the most accurate, xplaining the full theory, practice and philosophy in just a few words. 
I will list 5 different translations of each line, including my own, and provide commentary. 
Line 1. Arabic translation. 
Line 2. Newton's translation. 
Line 3. Beato's translation. 
Line 4. Contemporary rendering of the Latin text. 
Line 5. Author's translation (bold). 
It contains an accurate commentary that can't be doubted. 
Tis true without lying, certain most true. 
This is true and remote from all cover of falsehood. 
[It is] true, without error, certain and most true, 
A fundamental truth, without error, perfect and complete. 
This line is informing us that what is being said is a fundamental truth, not only a relative truth. Relative ruths can change, such as "the sky is blue", it is not always true. Fundamental truths never change, are lways true, and therefore can be applied on any level, or in any situation. 
It states: What is the above is from the below and the below is from the above. The work of wonders is from ne. 
That which is below is like that which is above that which is above is like that which is below to do the iracles of one only thing. 
Whatever is below is similar to that which is above. Through this the marvels of the work of one thing are rocured and perfected.

That which is below is as that which is above, and that which is above is as that which is below, to perform he miracles of the one thing. 
As above, so below; the greater and lesser; macrocosm and microcosm: they are the same. Following this rinciple, all things were made from the One. 
There are two statements on this line. The first is telling us that every level follows the same fundamental rinciples. Things above us (macrocosms: planets, solar systems, galaxies) and things below us 
(microcosms: the Philosophers' Stone, atoms, etc.) follow exactly the same principles. They may look ifferent from our perspective, but they all operate in the same way. This is very important to understand, if ou can grasp this fact then you will start to see it everywhere. It is because of this that we know how to ake the Stone and why it works. On a different level, it also tells us that spirituality, philosophy and the hysical world again follow the same principles. If something is true spiritually then it must also have a hysical counterpart. There is nothing which applies to one and does not apply to the other. 
The second statement tells us that creation and perfection (purification, evolution) is caused by the previous tatement. Things would not grow and evolve (both physically and spiritually) if it were not for the fact that ach level is a mirror of all others. It tells us that this comes from one, in accordance with one. One is God, ne is everything, one is nothing, one is the only thing whose existence is self-supported, the existence of verything else comes from this one, all following the same principles. One is the only thing that exists, hereas everything else is a distorted reflection of the one. 
And all things sprang from this essence through a single projection. How marvelous is its work! It is the rinciple part of the world and its custodian. 
And as all things have been arose from one by the mediation of one: so all things have their birth from this ne thing by adaptation. 
Also, as all things are made from one, by the consideration of one, so all things were made from this one, by onjunction. 
And as all things were from the one, by means of the meditation of the one, thus all things were born from he one, by means of adaptation. 
And as all things arose from a thought by the One; thus all things were formed as an adaptation of the 
One. This is the fundamental principle. 
Here we are told that all things (literally everything, on every level) come from the one. It is important to lso remember the previous line, that all principles apply to every level. Therefore we know it holds true to oth the spiritual and the physical. The biggest mistake of both modern science and spirituality is to assume hat the two are separate. 
On a spiritual and philosophical level it tells us that God created all things by adapting himself. God did not hange himself, but each level below him is a distorted reflection of the level above. So all things are God y adaptation. It also says that it was the meditation, or thought, of God which began this, it implies a single hought. You can imagine this like a ripple on the surface of a flat lake; one single movement in stillness 
(emptiness) creates a series of ripples, each a reflection of the former. The ripples all follow exactly the ame principle, but they become distorted as they get further away from the source. Each ripple creates the ext ripple as a slightly more distorted reflection of itself. 
On a physical level it tells us that everything is actually made of the same stuff. It is interesting to note here

that we have discovered this with science (everything is made of energy) but it is not entirely obvious just y looking around you. Because the physical follows the same principles as the higher existences, we must ccept the existence of a physical substance (particle) which is the root of what everything is made out of. 
We can't just call it energy, and be happy that it is only a concept. It must be physical - all spiritual things ave a physical counterpart and vice versa. This thing is the life-energy I have been talking about. So this ine is also telling us about the life-energy, and how everything in the physical world is made from life- nergy by adaptation. 
Its father is the sun and its mother is the moon. Thus the wind bore it within it and the earth nourished it. 
The Sun is its father, the moon its mother, the wind hath carried it in its belly, the earth its nurse. 
The father of it is the sun, the mother the moon. The wind bore it in the womb. Its nurse is the earth, the other of all perfection. 
Its father is the Sun, its mother is the Moon, the Wind carried it in its belly, its nurse is the earth. 
Its father is the Sun, its mother is the Moon, it is carried by the wind, it is nursed by the earth. 
Firstly, we have the reference to the sun and the moon. This is clearly symbolism for the polarity of yin 
(moon) and yang (sun). However, you should consider that the sun and moon are more important than just ymbols of polarity. There is a reason why we have one sun and one moon from our perspective on Earth, t is not just chance as science might make you believe. Again, yin-yang is a fundamental principle and herefore applies on all levels, including in this physical reality. Therefore the moon and sun are literally hysical counterparts of the yin-yang principle. It is interesting to note how the sun and moon appear to be xactly the same size when looking up at them from Earth, this is a big coincidence if it is only a oincidence. It means that the sizes and distances of the sun and moon are in perfect harmony with each ther, which could be one of the major factors which has made the conditions optimum for life on Earth in his physical plane and at this time. 
The sun and moon also symbolize (they are literal counterparts of) fire and water (from the level above.) 
Polarity again, and we are moving towards more physical symbolism, closer to our own level. These again re counterparts of the two substances from which we make the Stone (now on a microcosmic level), which ome themselves from one single ingredient. I hope you can see how in this manner, the theory and practice f making the Stone applies on all levels, from the very physical and chemical level, to the philsophical and acrocosmic spiritual level. 
The wind is the carrier and the distributor. It is easier to explain this to you from a one up macrocosmic erspective (one level above us): the level of the Earth. On the Earth we have the water cycle where the ater is evaporated and forms clouds. The clouds then rain back down onto the Earth. Without this life ould not exist because it is necessary to grow plants, which animals need to eat (or animals eat other nimals who eat plants). But there is an important and often overlooked factor: without the wind all the ater would just go up, and then come back down in the same place. This means that there would be no ater on the land, as it would only rain on the sea, since water on land eventually runs into the sea. In hich case there would be no life on land and we humans would not exist, so we have wind to thank for ur existence. The wind is absolutely necessary for the natural distribution of things (water, seeds, etc.) This lso applies to making the Stone, without the movement of the water vapor (caused by heat and cold) the rocess would not work. The formation of the Stone is a reflection of the operation of the Earth, and all ther levels too. This is what I mean when I say that we must follow the guidance of Nature.

Just as the earth is the nurse for plants - they grow from it and are supported by it. In the same way the 
Earth supports and cares for us humans. In the same way the earth is the matter which allows us to capture nd contain, in a way "tame", the life-energy in order to make the Stone. The earth is never the active force, t is a passive (feminine, yin) force. It is the matrix. Earth does not actively do anything, it only supports and urses those that depend upon it, protecting them and lifting them up. So earth is truely the nurse of all hings. In this physical world the earth is solid matter, but it has its counterparts on the other levels too. 
Together we have fire (sun), water (moon), wind, and earth. These are the 4 elements. Everything is made hrough the actions of these four elements as they act on and move between one another (in the same way he yin and yang are always pulling back and forth.) The ancients did not literally believe that everything as made of these four elements in the sense that everything is made of H20, mud and air, as history books ight try to tell you. These are the states of matter: earth, water and wind are solid, liquid and gas, and fire s heat. So it is actually saying that everything is made of solid, liquid, gas and heat. These are the states of atter on our physical level, with counterparts on the other levels. 
Father of talismans and keeper of wonders. Perfect in power that reveals the lights. 
The father of all perfection in the whole world is here. Its force or power is entire if it be converted into arth. 
Its power is perfected if it is turned into earth. 
Its power is whole if it has been turned into earth. 
Its power is complete if it can be turned into earth. 
Here we are told that it can be perfected if it's turned into earth. This is written on physical terms, saying hat if we can turn the 4 elements into earth, which is the element of the physical level we are in, then we ill perfect it. "It" means the power, which I call life-energy. So if we can convert the life-energy into a hysical form (into earth) then we have perfected it on this level. Again: if we can turn the energy from the 
4 elements into earth then we will have converted and perfected the energy for use on this here physical evel. It must be turned into earth if we are to use it on this level since for a physical world we need a hysical Stone, which is the counterpart (reflection) of the One on this level. 
So you can see how the Philosophers' Stone is the physical manifestation of the power of God. 
It is afire that became our earth. Separate the earth from the fire and you shall adhere more to that which is ubtle than that which is coarse, through care and wisdom. 
Separate thou the earth from the fire, the subtle from the gross sweetly with great industry. 
Separate the earth from the fire, the subtle and thin from the crude and coarse, prudently, with modesty and isdom. 
You will separate the earth from the fire, the subtle from the dense, sweetly, with great skill. 
Separate the earth from the fire; the subtle from the dense, the light from the heavy; with care and isdom. 
These are direct instructions on how to actually make the Stone, which of course is the same way that all hings are perfected on all levels. With great care and wisdom (the wisdom is required to work out the ethod) you must separate the lighter particles from the denser particles. This is literally how you make the 
Stone, as you can see in the practical instructions, particularly the First Part of the Great Work.

I will also interpret this from a spiritual perspective just for you to see how it applies on every level: realize hich of your desires are promoting freedom, and which are promoting restriction, then separate the free rom the restrictive. Focus on the free and positive desires (positive energy, good intention) and they will row and expand, converting the remaining negative thoughts (negative energy, bad intention) into their wn free, light and positive form. 
I hope you can see how the same fundamental principles apply to every level, and how the Stone is a real nd physically obtainable substance which follows the exact same principles. 
It ascends from the earth to the heaven. It extracts the lights from the heights and descends to the earth ontaining the power of the above and the below for it is with the light of the lights. 
It ascends from the earth to the heaven again it descends to the earth and receives the force of things uperior and inferior. 
This ascends from the earth into the sky and again descends from the sky to the earth, and receives the ower and efficacy of things above and of things below. 
It ascends from earth into heaven and again it descends to the earth, and receives the power of higher and f lower things. 
It repeatedly ascends from earth to heaven, and then descends from heaven to earth, thus receiving ower from both the high and the low. 
Again, direct instructions for making the Stone, now focusing on the Second Part of the practical perations. The Stone is repeatedly evaporated (ascends) and condensed (descends), from this it becomes ore purified and gains power (more life-energy.) 
The repeated change of state, between solid, liquid and gas, allows the substance to become purer and it ncreases the amount of life-energy. 
From a spiritual perspective you could say that our moving between the astral and physical planes, epeatedly dying and being born again, is an example of us perfecting ourselves, following the same rinciples. 
Therefore the darkness flees from it. 
By this means ye shall have the glory of the whole world thereby all obscurity shall fly from you. 
By this means you will acquire the glory of the whole world, and so you will drive away all shadows and lindness. 
Thus you will have the Glory of the whole world. Therefore will all obscurity flee from you. 
Then you will have the glory of the whole world. All ignorance will flee from you. 
This is saying firstly that you will have the "glory of the whole world", which is the highest honor in the hysical world: the Philosophers' Stone, which is the physical counterpart of the power of God. 
Secondly, all obscurity, or ignorance, will flee from you. This applies of course on every level. It means hat you will now understand so much about the workings of Nature, and no longer be ignorant, and new nowledge will come to you easily - it will be easy for you to see the truth from the lies. It also means, from he physical standpoint of making the Stone, that once past a certain point of purity, the Stone will very uickly be able to become more pure. Once it gets passed a tipping point, the Stone will convert impurity

into its own pure form, as opposed to being diluted or corrupted by any dense or impure particles 
(exponential development.) 
The greatest power overcomes everything that is subtle and it penetrates all that is coarse. 
Its force is above all force, for it vanquishes every subtle thing and penetrates every solid thing. 
For this by its fortitude snatches the palm from all other fortitude and power. For it is able to penetrate and ubdue everything subtle and everything crude and hard. 
Of all strength this is true strength, because it will conquer all that is subtle, and penetrate all that is solid. 
It is true force and the most powerful, for it conquers all subtle things and penetrates all solid things. 
The Stone will convert all subtle and undetermined things into its own form, and for solid (determined) hings it will penetrate them and bring them towards their true perfection. This is why it will protect a life- orm from decay, and it will turn any metal into gold. It penetrates all things and encourages them to reach heir full potential. 
Again, it is the manifestation of the power of God in a physical form. 
[Line not present in Arabic translation] 
So was the world created. 
By this means the world was founded 
Thus was the world created. 
This is how the world was made. 
The world was made following these exact same principles. As were all worlds, planes, universes and ealities. 
The formation of the microcosm is in accordance with the formation of the macrocosm. 
From this are and do come admirable adaptations whereof the means (Or process) is here in this. 
And hence the marvelous cojunctions of it and admirable effects, since this is the way by which these arvels may be brought about 
From this were wonderful adaptations, of which this is the means. 
Each level is a reflection of the one above; the microcosm is in accordance with the macrocosm. Now you now how all things are made through adaptation from the One. 
All things: all matter, all worlds, all frequencies, all universes, all planes, are adaptations of the same thing, ollowing the same principles. It starts with the One, and from there each level is a distorted reflection, an daptation of the same thing, each level being a reflection of the level above. This is how all things are ade. This is why the physical world exists. This is what it is. This is what all things are. 
The scholars made this their path. This is why Thrice Hermes was exalted with wisdom. 
Hence I am called Hermes Trismegist, having the three parts of the philosophy of the whole world. 
And because of this they have called me Hermes Tristmegistus since I have the three parts of the wisdom nd Philosophy of the whole universe. 
Therefore am I named Thrice-Great Hermes, having the three parts of the philosophy of the whole world. 
This is the path of knowledge. Hence I am Hermes Thrice-Great, having three parts of the philosophy of

the whole world. 
Alchemy is the path of knowledge. One of the more difficult paths to enlightenment, reserved for the wise nd intellectual. Traditionally that was so, but now is the time of alchemy. 
Hermes is "thrice-great" (three times great) because he was the custodian of the three sacred sciences: lchemy, astrology and geometry. The three sacred sciences are all related to each other of course, since ike everything else they follow the same principles. 
This is his last book that he hid in the catacomb. 
That which I have said of the operation of the Sun is accomplished and ended. 
My speech is finished which I have spoken concerning the solar work. 
It is finished, what I have said about the working of the Sun. 
I have said all that is needed concerning the operation of the Sun. 
According to Hermes, this should be all that is necessary to fully understand. That is assuming you already ave a good understanding of philosophical principles. I hope that my commentary has helped you to nderstand The Emerald Tablet and see the truth of alchemy. 
It is the operation of the sun because the sun is a level above us and a symbol for the Stone. The same rinciples apply on every level.

A fundamental truth, without error, perfect and complete. 
As above, so below; the greater and lesser; macrocosm and microcosm: they are the same. Following this principle, all hings were made from the One. 
And as all things arose from a thought by the One; thus all things were formed as an adaptation of the One. This is the undamental principle. 
Its father is the Sun, its mother is the Moon, it is carried by the wind, it is nursed by the earth. 
Its power is complete if it can be turned into earth. 
Separate the earth from the fire; the subtle from the dense, the light from the heavy; with care and wisdom. 
It repeatedly ascends from earth to heaven, and then descends from heaven to earth, thus receiving power from both he high and the low. 
Then you will have the glory of the whole world. All ignorance will flee from you. 
It is true force and the most powerful, for it conquers all subtle things and penetrates all solid things. 
This is how the world was made. 
Each level is a reflection of the one above; the microcosm is in accordance with the macrocosm. Now you know how ll things are made through adaptation from the One. 
This is the path of knowledge. Hence I am Hermes Thrice-Great, having three parts of the philosophy of the whole orld. 
I have said all that is needed concerning the operation of the Sun. 
The Emerald Tablet, by Hermes, translated by Author

14. What Is It Made From? 
The Stone is made out of only one ingredient.

Know also that there is only one thing in the whole world that enters into the composition of the Stone, and that, herefore, all coagulation, and admixture, of different ingredients, would shew you to be on a wrong scent altogether.

The Glory of the World, Or, Table of Paradise, by Anonymous, 1526 AD

From the one substance is evolved, first the White, and then the Red Tincture; there is one vessel, one goal, and one ethod.

The New Pearl of Great Price, by Peter Bonus, 1 33 8 AD

Not only is there nothing else used than this one ingredient, but you must be careful not to accidentally llow any other matter to become mixed with it. A small amount of dust or water would not ruin the work ompletely, but will certainly increase the time it takes to make it.

For the pure substance is of one simple essence, void of all heterogeneity; but that which is impure and unclean, onsists of hetero gene parts, is not simple, but compounded (to wit of pure and impure) and apt to putrefy and corrupt. 
Therefore let nothing enter into your composition, which is alien or foreign to the matter, as all impurity is; for othing goes to the composition of our stone, that proceedeth not from it neither in part nor in whole. If any strange r foreign thing be mixed with it, it is immediately corrupted, and by that corruption your work becomes frustrated. 
The Root of the World, by Roger Bacon, 13th Cen.

The ingredient is urine. I understand this may sound strange, and suspiciously convenient, on first hearing, owever, there is sound and logical reasoning for the Stone to be made from urine. 
Firstly I must explain that the Stone could in theory be made from anything, since everything contains the ife-energy to some degree, which is the active ingredient of the Stone. Urine contains this life-energy in igh concentration, due to the fact that it has just come out of you, and you, as a living animal, are full of ife-energy.

The stone also is in everything, that is, Nature is in everything. And because Nature has in itself all names, and Nature s all the world, therefore the stone has many names and is said to be in everything: although one is nearer than nother 
Book of the Chemical Art, by Marsilius Ficinus, 15th Cen. et it be supposed, for an illustration of this subject, that any one would propose to make malt, he may effect his urpose in the other grains, but barley is generally chosen, because its germ is made to sprout by a less tedious rocess, which is to all intents and purposes what we want in the extraction of our mercury

On the Philosophers' Stone, by Anonymous, 12th - 17th Cen. (?)

From the urine we will need to extract a distillate (water) and a salt. The life-energy is in the water, and ince the life-energy is so volatile it will remain with the water even when the water is distilled (evaporated nd condensed). Our bodies do not want to reject the life-energy in the urine, but have no choice since he life-energy is attached to the water. 
Secondly, urine is the perfect ingredient because it is as of yet undetermined. That is, it has been well iltered, broken down and purified. It contains all kinds of different minerals, but in minute particles not yet ssigned to any purpose.

Our true and real Matter is only a Vapor, impregnated with the Metallic Seed, yet undetermined 
Aphorisms of Urbigerus, by Baro Urbigerus, 1690 AD

Following the cycles of Nature we can separate the dense and light particles, the lightest particles are a salt. 
It does not matter what the actual minerals are in the urine, we just want whatever is the lightest and most olatile, which will be in the form of a salt. It is necessary that our Stone has a body, it cannot be made with ater alone. This salt is the perfect body because it will absorb the water, and is itself most volatile, but still n a solid form. Also since the salt is newly formed it is not yet stable and determined and will therefore asily break down, which is what we need it to do. 
I hope you see the requirements for our substance. We are looking only for water containing an abundance f life-energy, and also very light matter which is ready to absorb the water and break down. There is othing special or magical about urine, it is just that urine is already pure and prefiltered by our bodies, and t meets all the qualifications we are looking for. Other substances could be used, but urine has been found o be the most efficient by the alchemists, many of whom experimented with many different substances. 
The best urine to use is that of a dark yellow color, since this means there is less water and more body, hich is useful in the First Part of the work. Therefore the best time to collect the urine to be used for aking the Stone is the first time you urinate in the morning. This fact has become an open secret, as you an see from the society so-named "Hermetic Order of the Golden Dawn", who managed to figure out the rue ingredient for the Philosophers' Stone, but unfortunately thought that this itself was a metaphor. 
So to recap: the only ingredient of the Philosophers' Stone is urine, preferably obtained in the morning. You ill need around 1 liter. 
Following are some nice riddles from various alchemical books showing that the ingredient is urine.

This Matter lies before the eyes of all; everybody sees it, touches it, loves it, but knows it not. It is glorious and vile, recious and of small account, and is found everywhere. 
The Golden Tract Concerning the Stone of the Philosophers, by Am Anonymous German Philosopher, 16th - 
17th Cen. (?)

Know that our Mercury is before the eyes of all men, though it is known to few. When it is prepared, its splendour is ost admirable; but the sight is vouchsafed to none, save the sons of knowledge. Do not despise it, therefore, when you ee it in sordid guise; for if you do, you will never accomplish our Magistery — and if you can change its countenance, he transformation will be glorious. For our water is a most pure virgin, and is loved of many, but meets all her wooers n foul garments, in order that she may be able to distinguish the worthy from the unworthy. 
The Fount of Chemical Truth, by Eirenaeus Philalethes, 1 694 AD hen you shall be acquainted with the causes of this disposition you will admire that a Matter so corrupt should ontain in itself such a heavenly like nature 
Verbum Dismissum, by Count Bernard Trevisan, 15th Cen. y the ignorant and the beginner it is thought to be the vilest and meanest of things. It is sought by many Sages, and ound by few; [...] Men have it before their eyes, handle it with their hands, yet know it not, though they constantly read it under their feet. [...] [the matter is] very common, and may be everywhere obtained in abundance; 
The Sophie Hydrolith, Or, Water Stone of the Wise, by Anonymous, 17th Cen. 
Our substance is openly displayed before the eyes of all, and yet is not known. [...] our water that does not wet the ands 
The New Chemical Light, by Michael Sendivogius, 17th Cen. 
There is something which everyone recognizes, and whoever does not recognize it will rarely, perhaps never find it. 
The wise man will keep it and the fool will throw it away, and the reduction comes easily to the man who knows it. 
A Magnificent and Select Tract on Philosophical Water, by Anonymous, 13th - 17th Cen. (?) 
The wonderful Tao exists not far away from your own body. It is not necessarily found in the high mountains or in nknown waters.

Three Alchemical Poems, by Chang Po-tuan, 1 1th Cen. (Chinese)

There is only one spring in all the world from which this water may be obtained. [...] It issues in a secret place, and its aters flow over all the world. It is familiar to all, yet none knows the principle, reason, or way to find the spring [...] 
For this reason, that Sage might well exclaim, "O water of a harsh and bitter taste!" For, in truth, the spring is difficult o find; but he who knows it may reach it easily, without any expense, labour, or trouble. The water is, of its own ature, harsh and bitter, so that no one can partake of it; and, because it is of little use to the majority of mankind, the 
Sage doth also exclaim, "O water, that art lightly esteemed by the vulgar, who do not perceive thy great virtues, in thee ie, as it were, hid the four elements. Thou hast power to dissolve, and conserve, and join nature, such as is possessed y no other thing upon earth. " 
[...] It is called Rebis (Two-thing), is a Stone, Salt, one body, and, to the majority of mankind, a vile and despised thing. 
[...] Our Matter is one of the commonest things upon earth, and contains within itself the four elements. It is, indeed, othing short of marvellous that so many seek so ordinary a thing, and yet are unable to find it. 
[...] The two are really only one very limpid water, which is so bitter as to be quite undrinkable. The quantity of this ater is so great that it flows over the whole earth, yet leads to nothing but the knowledge of this Art. The same also is isused too often by those who desire it. Take also the "fire, " and in it you will find the Stone, and nowhere else in the hole world. It is familiar to all men, both young and old, is found in the country, in the village, in the town, in all hings created by God; yet it is despised by all. Rich and poor handle it every day. It is cast into the street by servant aids. Children play with it. Yet no one prizes it, though, next to the human soul, it is the most beautiful and the most

precious thing upon earth, and has power to pull down kings and princes. Nevertheless, it is esteemed the vilest and eanest of earthly things. It is cast away and rejected by all. 
[...] For the Stone is prepared out of nothing in the whole world, except this substance, which is essentially one. He ho is unacquainted therewith can never attain the Art. It is that one thing which is not dug up from mines, or from he caverns of the earth, like gold, silver, sulphur, salt, &c, but is found in the form which God originally imparted to t. It is formed and manifested by an excessive thickening of air; as soon as it leaves its body, it is clearly seen, but it anishes without a trace as soon as it touches the earth, and, as it is never seen again, it must therefore be caught hile it is still in the air. 
[...] For no one would dream of buying the true Matter at the apothecary's; nay, that tradesman daily casts it into the treet as worthless refuse. 
[...] XXXVII. PYTHAGORAS, in his Fourth Table, says: How wonderful is the agreement of Sages in the midst of ifference! They all say that they have prepared the Stone out of a substance which by the vulgar is looked upon as he vilest thing on earth. Indeed, if we were to tell the vulgar herd the ordinary name of our substance, they would ook upon our assertion as a daring falsehood. But if they were acquainted with its virtue and efficacy, they would not espise that which is, in reality, the most precious thing in the world. God has concealed this mystery from the foolish, he ignorant, the wicked, and the scornful, in order that they may not use it for evil purposes. 
[...] The Stone is mystic, or secret, because it is found in a secret place, in an universally despised substance where no ne looks for the greatest treasure of the world. Hence it may well be called The HIDDEN STONE. 
The Glory of the World, Or, Table of Paradise, by Anonymous, 1526 AD

15. The Time 
It's difficult to determine exactly how long it will take to make the Stone, since this depends upon many actors. 
The main factors which affect the time are: 
1 . How well you distil and purify you substance in the First Part. 
2. How accurate is the degree of heat. 
3. The ambient (room) temperature. 
4. The size and shape of your vessel (flask). 
5. The quantity of the substance. 
There are also other less important factors, such as air pressure and astrological implications, but these are utside of your control and so not worth worrying about.

Compare Aurel. Augurell., Book III: 
"Ye scarcely will anyone so exactly compute the years, 
As not either to diminish or add to their number" 
For suitable material will sometimes accelerate the process, and unsuitable retard the same. 
Or intense heat will by a little exceed the measure, but water by much. 
And time and place will vary". 
An Explanation of the Natural Philosopher's Tincture, of Paracelsus, by Alexander von Suchten, 16th Cen.

However, an average amount of time for the whole process is 3 years. You could possibly get this down to 
18 months if you take more effort in the First Part and have all the factors under strict control. Also, it could asily take 5 or even 8 years if the conditions are not so good. 
It takes a long time to make the Stone, but the work is not hard, nor does it require much effort. For the ost part you simply need to check on the progress whenever you like, or at least every couple of weeks. 
Therefore even a very busy person can find time to make the Stone. The time is long but the work is easy. 
The alchemical books are very obscure with the time. They do it on purpose to test the patience and edication of the beginner. It works. Most people have no idea it takes years to make the Stone, and so ventually give up, even if they were on the right track. Some of the alchemical books directly lie about ow long it takes, but as a rough guide you can assume they mean a year when they say a month, a month hen they say a week, and a week when they say a day.

The proper duration of our Magistery, and the day and hour of is nativity and generation, are also shrouded in bscurity. Its conception, indeed, takes place in a single moment; here we are to notice the conjunction of the purified lements and the germ of the whole matter; but if we do not know this, we know nothing of the entire Magistery. There re certain signs which occur with great regularity, at their own proper times and seasons, in the development of this 
Stone; but if we do not understand what they are, we are as hopelessly in the dark as before. The same remark applies o the exact proportions in which the different elements enter into its composition. The time required for the whole peration is stated by Rhasis to be one year; Ro sinus fixes it at nine month; others at seven; others at forty, and yet

others at eighty, days. 
[...] I knew a man says Gregory, who began the work in the right way, and achieved the White Tincture; but when there as some delay about the appearance of the Red Colour, he gave up in despair, etc. This man knew the simple lements of our Art, their purification, commixtion, and the different signs which were to appear; he was ignorant only f the day and hour in which the conjunction of the simple elements and the completion of the work might be xpected; and because he did not know what to do at the right time, the whole Magistery vanished from his sight. For he White Stone was net yet fixed, and, being exposed to too much heat, it evaporated. 
The New Pearl of Great Price, by Peter Bonus, 1338 AD 
The Wise reduce years to months, months to weeks, weeks to days. 
A Golden and Blessed Casket of Nature's Marvels, by Benedictus Figulus, 1607 AD

You should certainly try to optimize the heat and other factors in order to make the Stone sooner. However, ou should not rush the Stone. You can't rush nature. If you want to accelerate Nature you have to play by ts rules, it won't play by yours.

Bear in mind that the chief error in this Art is haste 
The Epistle of Bonus of Ferrara, by Peter Bonus, 14th Century

You must not yield to despondency, or attempt to hasten the chemical process of dissolution. For if you do so by means f violent heat, the substance will be prematurely parched up into a red powder, and the active vital principle in it ill become passive, being knocked on the head, as it were, with a hammer. [...] Patience is, therefore, the great ardinal virtue in Alchemy.

A Brief Guide to the Celestial Ruby, by Eirenaeus Philalethes, 1694 AD

you must exercise considerable patience in preparing our Elixir, if it is to become all that you wish it to become. No ruit can grow from a flower that has been plucked before the time. He who is in too great a hurry, can bring nothing o perfection, but is almost sure to spoil that which he has in hand. 
The Twelve Keys, by Basilius Valentinus, 15th Cen. 
The greater haste we make, the less will be our speed. 
The Chemical Treatise, Or, The Ordinal of Alchemy, by Thomas Norton, 1477 AD

16. The Heat 
Most of the work in making the Stone consists of optimizing the heat to be the perfect temperature. The egree of heat must be under strict control; too much and you will destroy the work, too little and it will not evelop.

the external fire of the furnace should be neither too violent (in order that the equilibrium of chemical forces in the ubstance may not be disturbed), nor yet too gentle, so that the action of the inward fire may not languish for want of utward heat. It should be just such as to keep up an equable vital warmth. 
A Brief Guide to the Celestial Ruby, by Eirenaeus Philalethes, 1694 AD 
The happy prosecution of the whole work, consists in the exact temperament of the fire; therefore beware of too much eat, lest you come to solution before the time, viz., before the mater is ripe; for that will brig you to despair of ttaining the end of your hopes. 
[...] Close up well they vessel, and pursue to the end. For there is no generation of things, but by putrefaction, by eeping out the air, and a continual internal motion, with an equal and gentle heat. 
The Root of the World, by Roger Bacon, 13th Cen.

In the First Part of the Work and the very last part, you will be using high heat. A high degree of heat is alled by the alchemists a "dry heat" because it causes all the moisture to be evaporated. To avoid damaging he glassware, the maximum temperature you should use is 500°F/260°C. 
However, the majority of the Work requires a "moist heat", which means that the body is never dried out ompletely, and the moisture is circulating. A moist heat evaporates off most (but not all) of the moisture, hen allows it to condense and rain back down onto the body, in an imitation of Nature's water cycle. 
The exact degree of heat required is, like the time it takes, difficult to state as an absolute since it is relative nd depends on your matter and vessel. The trick is just to adjust the heat so that the moisture circulates 
(evaporates and condenses) as efficiently as possible.

The water, or fire, being subtle, ascends, while the body is hard, and remains where it is. The separation must be ccomplished by gentle heat, i.e., in the temperate bath of the Sages, which acts slowly, and is neither too hot nor too old. Then the Stone ascends to heaven, and again descends from heaven to earth. The spirit and body are first eparated, then again joined together by gentle coction, of a temperature resembling that with which a hen hatches er eggs. 
The Glory of the World, Or, Table of Paradise, by Anonymous, 1526 AD 
This then is the thing, that the vessel with the medicine be put into a moist fire; to wit, that the middle or one half of he vessel be in a moist fire, or balneo, of equal heat with horse-dung, and the other half out of the fire, that you may aily look into it. 
The Root of the World, by Roger Bacon, 13th Cen.

In the beginning of the Second Part, the degree of heat required will likely be equal to, or slightly above, ody temperature (100°F/37°C). The heat will need to be increased as the Stone develops to the black, hite and red stages. Common sense should be able to inform you of the degree of heat required. It should e a comforting degree of heat, not an aggressive degree of heat, and it should support the circulation of the oisture.

Therefore saith Rhasis, be very diligent and careful in the sublimation and liquefaction of the matter, that you ncrease not your fire too much, whereby the water may ascend to the highest part of the vessel. For then wanting a lace of refrigeration, it will stick fast there, whereby the sulphur of the elements will not be perfected. For indeed in his work, it is necessary that they be many times elevated, or sublimed, and depressed again. And the gentle or emperate fire is that only which completes the mixture, makes thick, and perfects the work.

The Root of the World, by Roger Bacon, 13th Cen.

17. Different Methods 
As you may have guessed, there is not only one possible method or one possible ingredient in the world for he making of the Stone. There are several ways to get to the same place. As long as you are following the ules of Nature you will get the Stone by whatever method you use. Some methods will be more efficient 
(quicker) than others.

many ways have been sought to the Tincture of the Philosophers, which finally all came to the same scope and end. 
The Book Concerning the Tincture of the Philosophers, by Theophrastus Paracelsus, 16th Cen. 
For the making whereof several operations have been invented by several philosophers, that that might be completed y art which was left by Nature; since Nature herself is always inclined toward her own perfection. 
Book of the Chemical Art, by Marsilius Ficinus, 15th Cen.

The method I am presenting in this book is, I'm sure, not the most efficient method possible. But it is the ethod I know and is a tried and tested method, developed over thousands of years by some of the greatest inds. 
It is the First Part of the Work which is most open to alternative methods. The ingredient you choose, which or us is urine, could be something else, if you could find something more pure with the right qualities. 
There may also be a more efficient method of processing the ingredient than the one I will give in the ollowing chapters.

The second difficulty consists in the apparent disagreement of those who profess to exercise our Art at the present day. 
Amongst those persons are observed a great diversity of method, and a considerable variety even in the choice of their ubstance. 
[...] It appears indeed as if there were many roads to our Art, and not one only. Geber avers that there are many ways o produce one effect. The same opinion is expressed by Rhasis in his book on the Perfect Magistery, where he speaks f bodies and spirits, and their purification and divers and manifold composition. 
The New Pearl of Great Price, by Peter Bonus, 1338 AD

In order to predict other substances which could be used as our ingredient we must consider the laws and ycles of Nature. A good understanding of Nature and alchemy, understanding how and why the process orks, will enable you to also guess at other substances which could be used. It makes sense to me that rine is most efficient for the extraction of the body (salt), and also contains much life-energy in its water. 
However, it would make logical sense that semen, blood and fresh fruit juice also contain a high oncentration of life-energy (which is the active principle), perhaps more than urine, or perhaps not. I have ot experimented with these, as in my experience it takes so long to experiment that it would be quicker to ust make the Stone the traditional way. We can certainly be sure that the alchemists tried different ubstances and experiments themselves, and since all of the more recent alchemists (since the 16th century)

certainly used urine, it would be logical to assume that urine is the best choice of ingredient. But it is also ossible they did not publish their experiments in other substances if they found one to greatly decrease the ime it takes, since the old alchemists would want to test the dedication of the beginner. 
For the body you are looking for a very volatile salt, which can absorb the moisture and break down. The ater must contain an abundance of life -energy. Both must be pure, containing as little as possible of nything else. It is not necessary that we use only one substance for both, but it has been found that urine upplies both requirements. It would be possible to use the salt of the urine, but the water from another ubstance. 
Nevertheless, the safe and sure option is to use urine, and it is the method I will present. For anyone who ishes to try a different substance, it would be wise to make the Stone with only urine at the same time and n parallel, so as you do not waste too much of your time if your method fails. To use a different substance ollow the same instructions as I present, only substituting your substance for the urine. 
The method I present (using only urine) is a relatively new one, it is sometimes called the "dry method" due o the calcination in the First Part, and made famous (among the alchemists) by Paracelsus in the 16th entury. Though it is probably an older method, which Paracelsus rediscovered. The older alchemists 
(before Paracelsus) used distilled urine and gold, which is less efficient (and more expensive) than using nly urine. It takes more than twice the time as the urine only method. 
By the older method, using distilled urine and gold, sometimes called the "wet method", one would be elying on the life-energy in the distilled urine to break down the gold. This will work because gold is a ery pure substance, with a lot of life-energy inside it, and will eventually break down with a little onvincing from the distilled urine. But it makes much more sense to use the lighter particles from the urine tself, as these are pure, but not so dense and not already determined like gold.

Hereof I have now determined to write much, although in the beginning of this Book I decreed to bury it in silence. 
This is the one great sophism of all adepts; some speak of this common gold and silver, and say the truth, and others ay that we cannot use it, and they too, say the truth. But in the presence of God I will call all our adepts to account, nd charge them with jealous surliness. I, too, had determined to tread the same path, but God's hand confounded my cheme. I say then, that both ways are true, and come to the same thing in the end — but there is a vast difference at the eginning. 
An Open Entrance to the Closed Palace of the King, by An Anonymous Sage and Lover of Truth, 1645 AD 
Theophrastus shews you two ways — one Ancient, the other discovered and used by himself — saying the Ancients had  very long way "before accomplishing the aforesaid separations and achieving their object". In the beginning they, ut of a Simplex — or also out of a Subjectivum like God Himself — and also Theophrastus, have made two things, iz., Water and Earth". And he continues to say: "that Artists have to these two Simplices given the name Lili — fterwards using the said Simplices and not one". But know it is indifferent whether you, in the beginning, use one or wo things. If our matter is found in one thing, it will equally well be found in two (Nature having already converted he original One into Two). 
[...] Now, I wot there is no one who would not wish to know this shorter method; and that you may not have to omplain of Theophrastus, he shews you another short way, admonishing you also to let the above tedious process be, nd to take from the Lion nought but his rosy blood, and from the Eagle the white gluten. These two bodies you must oagulate together and bring into one body, as it were male and female seed.

An Explanation of the Natural Philosopher's Tincture, of Paracelsus, by Alexander von Suchten, 16th Cen. f you know how to amalgamate our Mercury simplex with your common Gold, which is dissolved, vivified, and enewed by it, you may be sure of effecting the Great Elixir, although neither so quick, so natural, nor so rich, as you ight have done without it. And this is our third way. 
The Amalgamation of our Mercury simplix [distilled urine] with common Gold consists only in the right Proportion, nd in the indissoluble Union of both, which is done without any external Heat in a very short time [this is a lie, it akes a very long time], without which exact Proportion and right Union nothing of any Moment is to be expected rom their Marriage. 
Know then, that this right Proportion is ten parts of our Mercury simplex to one of your finest common Gold in filings, hich is dissolved in it, like Ice in common Water, after an imperceptible manner, and as soon as the Dissolution is ver, the Coagulation and Putrefaction presently follow, which Effect, it you find not, 'tis a sign, that the Mercury xceeds its due Proportion. Now when your Gold has been thus well amalgamated, united, putrefied, and inseparably igested with our Mercury simplex, you will then have only our Philosophical Sulfur, in which time one might easily ave performed the whole Work, working without common Gold. 
Aphorisms of Urbigerus, by Baro Urbigerus, 1690 AD

18. Understanding the Writings

Now that we've covered the theory, I will give you a short glossary to aid you in understanding the lchemical books in case you choose to study them further. 
You should now have a good idea about the principles of Nature which operate on the development of the 
Stone, and this should be enough to understand the alchemical writings. However, I will help you out by xplaining the meaning of the words used by the alchemists. 
Unfortunately the alchemists were in the habit of not only using several words for one thing, but also using ne word for several things, and different alchemists used each word to mean different things. So you still ave to work out the meaning according to the context, which you will be able to do with an understanding f the natural process. Some of the alchemists made up their own words and symbols, so all I can cover ere are the commonly used words. 
The following should not be considered definitions, but merely a rough guide to help you to understand ome of the ways the alchemists have used these words. ercury. Usually represents distilled urine, or the Stone itself at any stage of the process, or just urine. 
More rarely used to represent the white salt. ulphur. Usually represents either the white salt, or any impure substance not needed. Sometimes used to epresent the Stone at any stage of the process. lkahest. The Stone, red or white. malgam. The definition is an alloy. In alchemy it represents when two things are combined into one, such s the beginning of the Second Part of the process, or the Stone at any stage. qua fortis. Nitric acid, which is never used in alchemy. Sometimes it can mean the same as mercury. qua vitae. "living water", same as mercury. rgent vive. Same as mercury. rt. Alchemy. ody. Usually represents the white salt, or the Stone at any stage, or anything else which makes up the bulk f whatever you're dealing with. ook of nature. The world itself. To learn by experience and observation of Nature. alcine (calcination). To dry, traditionally with strong dry heat, but the alchemists sometimes use it to refer o a drying with gentle heat. innabar. Same as mercury. oagulate (coagulation). A liquid becoming a solid. onjunction. The joining together of two things (e.g. the white salt and distilled urine.) ommon. Something referred to as "common" means it's the normal substance, without any metaphor (e.g. ommon gold.) row. Represents the black (putrefaction) stage of the process. ew. Same as mercury. igestion. Same as putrefy. istil (distillation). To evaporate and condense. In alchemy this is always done with low-heat. ove. Usually represents the White Stone, or sometimes the distilled urine.

eagles. Represents distillation. lixir. The Stone, White or Red. ermentation. When the White or Red Stone is mixed with silver or gold respectively. irst matter. Either urine, or the life-energy. old. Sometimes represents normal gold, otherwise represents either the Red Stone, or the white salt, or the 
Stone at any part of the process. reat work. The process of making the Stone. ermaphrodite. When the white salt and distilled urine have been combined. ermetically sealed. An airtight seal. mbibe (imbibition). To absorb moisture until saturated. ing. Usually represents the Red Stone. ead. Normal lead, or same as sulphur. ion. A metaphor for something difficult to overcome, or sometimes used to represent the black mass of the rine, which has the white salt inside it. iving. Same as our, also implies the substance contains life-energy, or has been changed by an alchemical rocess. (E.g. "living gold", depending on the context, could represent urine, the white salt, or the Stone at ny stage.) agnesia. Same as mercury. oon (luna). Feminine principle. Usually represents the White Stone, or the distilled urine (even though ome alchemists consider the distilled urine to be the masculine principle.) Can also represent silver. ultiplication. When the Stone is increased in quantity and/or quality. f the sages. A word with "of the sages" after it is a clue that the previous word is a metaphor, e.g. 
"mercury of the sages". ur. A word with "our" before it is a clue that the following word is a metaphor, e.g. "our mercury". elican. The vessel (not a special vessel as some think, just a normal round one.) hilosophical. Same as our, e.g. "philosophical mercury". hoenix. A mythological bird said to live hundreds of years, then die in a ball of fire, from which it is born gain from the ashes. This symbol represents Nature's process of generation from corruption, all things ust be destroyed before they can further develop. This fundamental concept applies to all things, including ur Stone, and our civilization. In alchemy the symbol usually represents the Red Stone, or the entire rocess itself. rojection. When the Stone is used to turn metals into silver or gold. utrefy (putrefaction). Breaking down, decomposition. ueen. Usually represents the White Stone. uicksilver. Same as mercury. uintessence. Usually represents the active principle (what I am calling life-energy). aven. Represents the black (putrefaction) stage of the process. ebis. When the white salt and distilled urine have been combined. alt. Usually represents the white salt. eed. Same as common usage, but broader as alchemists insist that everything has a seed. oul. Usually represents the life-energy. pirit. Distilled urine. ublime (sublimation). A substance changing state, such as a solid becoming a liquid, or a liquid becoming

a gas. In alchemy this often means the same as distillation (a liquid becoming a gas and then a liquid again). 
Each sublimation, changing the state of matter up and then down again (liquid-gas-liquid), makes the ubstance purer. un (sol). Masculine principle. Usually represents the Red Stone, or the white salt. Can also represent gold. incture. The Stone, White or Red. ulcan. Roman god of useful fire. In alchemy "Vulcan's fire" is a degree of heat which will cause irculating evaporation and condensation. Vulcan was created as an alchemical symbol. ulgar. Same as common. ater. Same as mercury. 
I will follow with an example:

"A spirit is given for a time to the body, and that spirit is the life of a soul. If the spirit draws the soul to itself they are oth severed from the body. Then are there three abiding in the same place, until the precious body is dissolved, and is ecomposed and dies. But after a time the spirit and the soul are brought back by gentle warmth, and hold once more heir former seat. Then you have the essence; no perfection is wanting, and the work is glorified by a joyful end. "

The Sophie Hydrolith, Or, Water Stone of the Wise, by Anonymous, 17th Cen.

Translation: The urine contains both water and salt, the life-energy is in the water. If the water is distilled he life-energy will go with it. The three (salt, distilled urine, life -energy) being put together will break own (putrefy) and turn black. But after a time the water is brought back with a moist-heat, and all ombines. Then you have the Stone; it is perfect, and the work is glorified by a joyful end.

19. Overview

The work is easy and the medicine is not far away. If the secret is disclosed, it will be so simple that everyone may get a ood laugh. 
Wu Chen P'ien, Essay on the Understanding of Truth, by Chang Po-tuan, 1078 AD (Chinese)

There are two parts to our Great Work. Both parts follow the same laws of Nature that we addressed in our heory.

The first operation, which is done by hand, is the first stage of the work, which consists in Sublimation and 
Purification. The second operation, in which the artist has nothing to do but look on, is the second stage of the work. 
The New Pearl of Great Price, by Peter Bonus, 1338 AD

In the First Part we give Nature a head start by manually performing some of nature's operations, and emoving the densest particles, so as to accelerate the whole process. If you did not perform this first part, he process would still work, but it may well take longer than your lifetime. 
We will repeatedly distil (with low heat) and calcine the urine, in order to separate it into layers according o density. We will then take only the lightest (most subtle) of the particles, which will be in the form of a hite salt, and discard the rest of the body. Then further distil the urine to make it as pure as possible, so nly the lightest particles remain. This leaves us at the end of the First Part with a white salt, and a well istilled urine. The First Part will take around 3 months.

by artificial distillation, the spirit can be separated from phlegmatic wateriness and earthy impurity, a residue emaining. From which residue, after calcinations, is extracted a white salt 
An Anonymous Treatise Concerning the Philosopher's Stone, by Anonymous, 12th - 17th Cen. (?)

In the Second part, we combine the salt and distilled urine, hermetically seal them in a vessel of the correct pecifications, and let Nature do its thing. At this stage we only need to make sure it is subjected to the orrect degree of heat. 
To combine the salt and distilled urine we heat gently until the salt absorbs and becomes saturated with the istilled urine, which can take up to one year, or longer. Then we just need to watch for the matter to utrefy and turn black, then purify and turn white, adjusting the heat accordingly. When the matter turns hite, we have the White Stone.

Reduce the Matter (which is one), to powder, put it, together with its water, in a well-closed vessel, and expose it to ontinuous, gentle heat, which will then begin to operate, while the moisture favours the decomposition.

A Demonstration of Nature, by John A. Mehung, 16th - 17th Cen. (?)

The White Stone can then be "fermented" with silver in order to stabilize it and make it capable of ithstanding higher heat. You can think of this as trapping the life -energy inside a material body (the ilver.) 
The White Stone can be subjected to higher heat, which will mature it into the Red Stone. The Red Stone ust itself be "fermented" with gold.

Without a proper ferment the Moon cannot become the Sun, but the substance, having nothing to prevent it from oing so, will again revert to water. 
The Epistle of Bonus of Ferrara, by Peter Bonus, 14th Cen. 
There are no other ferments like these here. The ferment of silver is silver, the ferment of gold is gold, therefore don't ook elsewhere! 
Compound of Compounds, by Albertus Magnus, 1 3th Cen.

You will then have the Philosophers' Stone. It can be multiplied in quality and quantity by repeating the 
Second Part (which will be much quicker), or in other ways as will be discussed.

For our multiplication (according to Raymundus) is nought but the reiteration of the process of our primordial reation. 
An Explanation of the Natural Philosopher's Tincture, of Paracelsus, by Alexander von Suchten, 16th Cen.

20. Apparatus

Having now covered the theory, we can start with the practical operations for actually making the 
Philosophers' Stone. You first need to obtain the necessary apparatus. 
For the First Part you will need either one alembic (with two lower-part flasks) or two 500ml retorts for istilling the urine. It is important that this be an alembic or retort, and not some modern distillation pparatus. The reason for this is that you are only distilling on low-heat, so as not to destroy the life-energy. 
If you try to use modern distillation apparatus then the water vapor will not rise high enough to escape efore it condenses. The reason for the second retort is because you may have to break the first one in rder to extract the white salt, and also because the distilled urine will need to be further distilled in a clean etort before moving on to the Second Part. 
An alembic distills much faster than a retort, but is more difficult to get hold of. If you can find an alembic, ou are recommended to get one. An alembic is a dome-shaped vessel with a long downwards-pointing ext which sits on top of a large round-bottom flask. To use an alembic instead of a retort you will need two ound-bottom flasks and one alembic. Make sure that the size of the connections between the alembic and lasks are compatible. The instructions are exactly the same whether you use a retort or an alembic, but for he calcinations you can remove the alembic and only calcine the 500ml flask containing what is left of the rine after distillation. 
You will need a 500ml glass bottle for collecting and storing the distilled urine. 
For the Second Part, you will need a round-bottom flask in either Kjeldahl, Florence or boiling flask style. 
The size you will need will likely be 50ml, depending on how much of the body you will be using. Try to ind one with a long neck. You can use one with a shorter neck, but for this you will have to make sure the mbient (room) temperature is low enough for the water vapor to condense closer to the heat source. 
The Kjeldahl flask has an egg-shaped bottom and a long neck, which is perfect for our purpose of imitating he water cycle through evaporation and condensation, but even a normal boiling flask will do the job as ong as it has a round bottom. Do not use a flat-bottom flask. 
You will need a pipette for accurately transferring the distilled urine into the flask. 
You will need stoppers for sealing the flask. 
For both parts you will need a water bath, with digital temperature control. A water bath is the best heat ource, since the water is all at an even temperature, the lower part of the flask can be immersed in the ater, and the temperature can be adjusted very precisely. Get the smallest one you can, it needs only be arge enough for the 500ml retort. 
You will also need a dry heat source for calcining the retort between distillations. You could do this on a ortable gas stove or electric hot plate. Or you could purchase a lab-grade heating mantle, which is more xpensive but much easier to use. The calcining will need to be done outside, so you will not be able to use our kitchen stove. 
You will need a support stand (I recommend a triangle stand), with the clamp attachments for holding the etort or flask in place over the water bath.

If you can afford it, get 2 (or more) of everything, just in case. It's also a good idea to get a collection of arious bottles, spatulas, stoppers, dishes, mortar and pestle, and other fun things like that, which are not bsolutely necessary, but will certainly be very useful. Otherwise you'll have to improvise with what you an find in the kitchen. 
The glassware (retort and flask) should be made of borosilicate glass, which is pretty much standard these ays, so it should not be much trouble to find. Borosilicate glass can stand very high heat without cracking. 
If you buy the water bath or other electrical items from abroad, be sure to check it works on the same oltage as in your country. If not you will need to buy a voltage converter as well. If you plug a 110V ppliance into a 220V supply you could end up burning down your house, so do pay attention to this. 
The water bath will need to be running 24/7, so if you live in an area with frequent power cuts I ecommend getting a backup generator. 
Checklist (minimum): 
1 . 2x retort, 500ml (or lx alembic + 2x large round-bottom flask) 
2. Glass bottle, 500ml 
3. Round-bottom flask, 50ml 
4. Pipette 
5. Stoppers 
6. Water bath 
7. Portable stove or heating mantle 
8. Support stand 
The following quote is a description of the vessel to be used for the Second Part of the Work.

The vessel for our stone is but one, in which the whole magistery or elixir is performed and perfected; this is a ucurbit, hose bottom is round like an egg, or an urinal, smooth within, that it may ascend and descend the more asily, covered with a limbeck round and smooth every where, and not very high, and whose bottom is round also like n egg. Its largeness ought to be such, that the medicine or matter may not fill above a fourth part of it, made of strong urable glass, clear and transparent, that you may see through it, all the colours appertaining to, and appearing in he work; in which the spirit moving continually, cannot pass or fly away. Let it also be so closed, that as nothing can o out of it, so nothing can enter into it; [...] And though the philosophers oftentimes say, that the matter is to be put nto the vessel, and closed up fast, yet it is sufficient for the operator, once to put the said matter in, once to close it up, nd so to keep it even to the very perfection and finishing of the work. 
The Root of the World, by Roger Bacon, 13th Cen.

21. First Part 
You will need at least 1 liter of dark urine as your ingredient; 2 liters is even better. An average morning rination for most people is around 500ml, so this will take a few mornings to obtain, but you can start right way. Only use dark, concentrated urine, such as from the first urination of the day - not clear, watery rine. This is important so that there is less water in the urine, and more of the other liquids and solids that ave been extracted from your blood. Don't leave the urine in an open container.

it [the urine] must be purged of its watery and earthy nature (for at first it appears an earthy, heavy, thick, slimy, and isty body), and all that is thick, nebulous, opaque, and dark in it must be removed, that thus, by a final sublimation, he heart and inner soul contained in it may be separated and reduced to a precious essence. 
The Sophie Hydrolith, Or, Water Stone of the Wise, by Anonymous, 17th Cen.

Distil the urine at no more than 175°F/80°C in the water bath with the alembic or retort. An alembic will be ble to distill 500ml of urine in 24 hours, while a retort will take 1-2 weeks. Obviously the distillation will e faster if the ambient (room) temperature is lower (though not below freezing). Ensure that all the onnections are hermetically sealed, and all openings are plugged and sealed. 
It is recommended for the alembic or retort to be connected and sealed to the bottle or flask in which the istillate (distilled urine) is to be collected, but it is not absolutely necessary for it to be hermetically sealed at his stage. If the two are not connected then you can wrap cling wrap around where they connect, to stop he distilled urine from evaporating again - though a hermetic seal is safer. The receiving bottle/flask should ot be in direct sunlight for the same reason. If the receiving flask is hermetically sealed to the retort or lembic, you may need to open the connection every few hours to release the pressure, else the distillation peed will reduce as the pressure builds up. 
The distillation will be much faster if the receiving flask is lower than the water bath, which means the lembic or retort might need to be leaned over to one side in order for the neck to be pointing downwards s much as possible. For this reason it is also useful to have an alembic or retort with a long neck. 
When the urine is distilled there will be a nasty black mass in the bottom of the retort or alembic lower-part 
(though it may not look black the first time), which needs to be calcined. For calcination, the higher the emperature the better. But if you intend to calcine with the black mass inside the glassware, then you are imited to 500°F/260°C as a safe temperature, or a little higher if you are careful to heat up and cool down ery slowly; this temperature limit ensures the glassware does not crack. If you transfer the black mass into  high-quality porcelain, alumina or quartz crucible then you can calcine it on much higher heat, such as in  kiln, up to 2000°F, which is preferable. If you do use a kiln, be sure you research how to use it properly nd safely, as it can be dangerous to use equipment that can reach such high temperatures if you are not amiliar with how to do so correctly; for example: you will certainly need fire-proof gloves, a fire-proof tile, nd the kiln must not be used inside your house. 
The purpose of the calcination is to burn and destroy the solid part of the urine, in order to extract the salt, hich is incombustible. You need to really burn the solid matter in the urine. If calcining inside glassware,

you must increase the heat slowly at first, as the glass will crack if heated or cooled rapidly. A sand bath can e used to heat the retort gradually and evenly with a portable stove, burner flame or a hot plate - the sand lso keeps the retort in place. To make your own sand bath, fill a saucepan about halfway full of dry sand, nd place the retort in the sand so that the bottom part of the retort is covered by sand. Put the saucepan on op of the flame from your portable stove, burner flame or hot plate. At first make sure the heat is not too igh, so that you can evaporate off any liquid still in the retort. If the heat is too high while there is still iquid in the retort you risk it bubbling up and spilling. When the black mass is completely dry then increase he heat. Leave it this way for a few hours, until the mass is burnt and cracked, around 6-12 hours. 
To calcine with a kiln you will first need to perform a sand bath calcination to reduce the black sludge to ry ashes, which can then be transferred into a high-quality (not cheap-Chinese else it will crack) crucible, hich can be put into the kiln and heated to 2000°F. At this temperature the impurities will be quickly umed away, and the salt will melt and purify very quickly. It is better to keep the salt at 2000°F for 1-4 ours, but if you are in a hurry then it is acceptable to heat up to 2000°F for only a few minutes before urning off the kiln and letting the salt cool. If you remove the crucible from the kiln soon after the kiln is urned off then the salt will cool faster, which makes it shrink away from the sides of the crucible and is herefore easier to remove from the crucible. 
The first few times you perform the sand bath calcination, or the very first time you perform the kiln alcination, a nasty smoke will come off it, which will stain everything black and smell really foul, so the alcinations must be done outside. Do not breathe in the smoke, it's poisonous! Do not perform the first few alcinations inside your house or it will become unlivable. People who live in the city may need to take a 
"camping" or "fishing" trip over a weekend, to perform the first calcination away from other people.

When this spirit is drawn off from them they remain as dead earth behind, because they have lost their spirit by istillation. 
The Chemists Key, by Henry Nollius, 1617 AD 
First, by a light fire equally temperated and continued, water is to be gotten. Then the fire is to be made a little more igorous and stronger, until the fire be received mixed with the fire. That which remains burned in the bottom is the ry earth where the crystalline Salt of the Stone lieth hid. 
The Crowning of Nature, by Anonymous, 16th - 17th Cen. (?) t exists under two forms; the moisture which was extracted, and the residuum, being our Philosophical Earth. The ater contains its seminal virtue, and the earth is a proper receptacle, wherein it may fructify. Let the water, then, be eparated and kept for use; calcine the earth, for an impurity adheres to it which can only be taken away by fire, and hat, too, of the strongest degree; for here there is no danger of destroying the seminal quality, and our earth must be ighly purified before it can ripen the seed. 
On the Philosophers' Stone, by Anonymous, 12th - 17th Cen. (?)

On your first distillation, only distil half of the urine, and evaporate away the remainder. The next day add ore dark urine, again distil half, and evaporate the remainder. You can now begin with the first alcination, or do this another 1 or 2 times, in order to get more distillate and black mass (for more salt.) If sing a kiln, it is preferable to begin with 4 liters of urine.

After each calcination, pour the distilled urine back onto the calcined body in the retort or alembic, distill he distilled urine again, then calcine again. You should distill the first 90% of the distilled urine each time, nd just evaporate away the remaining 10% before the calcination, so after every distillation you will have lightly less than the time before. This removes the water and other heavier particles from the distillate, as he spirit is more inclined to evaporate earlier (this is evident by measuring the pH of the distillate.) Pour the ame distilled urine back on again, distill again, calcine again. Repeat the distillation/calcination again and gain. At the end you should have 100 - 150ml of distilled urine, or around 10% of the original volume of rine. 
Each distillation much be followed by a calcination; each calcination must be followed by a distillation.

Know, my brother, that the exact preparation of the Eagles of the Sages, is the highest effort of our Art. In this first ection of our work, nothing is to be done without hard and persevering toil; though it is quite true that afterwards he substance develops under the influence of gentle heat without any imposition of hands. The Sages tell us that their 
Eagles must be taken to devour the Lion, and that they gain the victory all the sooner if they are very numerous; also hat the number of the work varies between 7 and 9. The Mercury of the Sages is the Bird of Hermes (now called a oose, now a pheasant). But the Eagles are always mentioned in the plural, and number from 3 to 10. Yet this is not to e understood as if there should be so many weights or parts of the water to one of the earth, but the water must be aken so oftentimes acuated or sharpened as there are Eagles numbered. This acuation is made by ublimation [distillation]. There is, then, one sublimation [distillation] of the Mercury of the Sages, when one Eagle is entioned, and the seventh sublimation will so strengthen your Mercury, that the Bath of your King will be ready. 
An Open Entrance to the Closed Palace of the King, by An Anonymous Sage and Lover of Truth, 1645 AD 
This compositum then has its mundification or cleaning, by our moist fire, which by dissolving and subliming that hich is pure and white, it cast forth its feces or filth like a voluntary vomit, for in such a dissolution and natural ublimation or lifting up, there is a loosening or untying of the elements, and a cleansing and separating of the pure rom the impure. So that the pure and white substance ascends upwards and the impure and earthy remains fixed in he bottom of the water and the vessel. This must be taken away and removed, because it is of no value, taking only the iddle white substance, flowing and melted or dissolved, rejecting the feculent earth, which remains below in the ottom. These feces were separated partly by the water, and are the dross and terra damnata, which is of no value, nor an do any such service as the clear, white, pure and clear matter, which is wholly and only to be taken and made use f 
The Secret Book of Artephius, by Artephius, 12th Cen. (?) 
Nine parts of ten, or thereabouts, distilled from fresh urine are to be rejected, the tenth part (as much as can be xtracted inform of liquor) is to be kept; from that dried urine which remains in the bottom by a gentle fire (which will ot cause sublimation), let the salt be extracted with water 
The Secret of the Immortal Liquor Called Alkahest, by Eirenaeus Philalethes, 17th Cen.

After a few distillations you will see a white salt forming on top of the black mass, when calcining this there ill be a sweet flowery chemical smell given off. Keep repeating the distillations and calcinations until the hole surface is white and it has formed into large enough crystals to for you to separate it from the black ass. This may take up to 10 distillations, or it could be much less. 
If using a kiln to calcine, you will obtain the white salt after only a couple of calcinations; but continue to

calcine it as this purifies it more and more. 
If you are using a sandbath to calcine, it is a good idea to attempt to melt the salt at some stage, as this will ncrease its quality. This will not be able to be done in glass, or you risk cracking it. You can also dissolve he salt into pure distilled water, filter this, and very slowly evaporate the water away, to purify the white alt further, which should be attempted only after you already have sufficient white salt.

when its impurity is purged away, it emits a most sweet fragrance 
The Glory of the World, Or, Tahle of Paradise, by Anonymous, 1526 AD s this mercury hath been by some one sublimed, it hath appeared cloathed with so great Whiteness as the Snow on he highest mountains, under a most subtile, crystalline splendour, from whence proceeds at the opening of the Vessel, o great, so sweet, so excellent an odour 
Verbum Dismissum, by Count Bernard Trevisan, 15th Cen.

If you have already distilled the urine 10 times and you don't think you have enough of the white salt, then ou should continue using higher heat to calcine, or try to extract the white salt from what you have by issolving it in pure distilled water, filtering, and then slowly evaporating the water away. 
When you see enough of the white salt has formed on top, you need to extract it, which may require reaking the retort if you are using one. If you do need to break the retort then wrap tape around the bottom alf of the retort, and try to just break the glass at the top, keeping the bottom half intact. If you are using an lembic, you will only need to break the lower -part, which is a cheap flask, or if it has a wide opening then ou may be able to extract the salt without breaking anything. 
You should further distil the distilled urine 3 times in the clean retort, or using a new alembic lower-part, to nsure the distillate is very free from impurities. 
Congratulations! You now have the mercury (distilled urine) and sulphur (white salt) of the Sages. 
I really recommend spending extra time on the First Part to ensure that the white salt and distilled urine are xtremely well purified. If you skip a couple of distillations at this stage, you won't have saved time, you'll ave made the Second Part take months longer.

22. Second Part 
Now that you have the mercury (distilled urine) and sulphur (white salt) of the Sages, you need to combine he two so they can putrefy and turn black. 
Crush the white salt into powder and place it into the 50ml round-bottom flask. Add a few drops of distilled rine, just enough to cover the salt, not too much. 
Hermetically seal the flask, making sure the stopper is airtight by putting wax, vaseline or silicone sealant round it. Place the flask into the water bath. Only the bottom half of the round part of the flask should be in he water, the rest of the flask should be in the air. You might need to cut a hole in the lid of the water bath, r make your own lid. The temperature should be equal or slightly greater than body heat, around 100- 
105°F/37-40°C. At this stage the heat should be of the degree that causes evaporation and condensation to mitate rain, but the salt should always be moist and never dry. 
If the ambient (room) temperature is too high you will need to reduce it by putting the water bath in an air onditioned room, or putting ice against the neck of the flask. The process will be faster if the ambient emperature is lower. If you can see that there are drops of water condensed at the top of the vessel which ever fall, then you need to reduce the ambient temperature. 
The salt will slowly absorb the moisture. The whole process can take longer than a year, so don't give up. 
As long as you know you have not used too much heat both now, and in the distilling of the First Part, then t will work. 
When the salt has absorbed the moisture and starts to become dry, add another couple of drops of distilled rine. Then wait again until the salt again starts to dry, and add another couple of drops. Continue doing his until the salt is entirely saturated, at which point it will be of the consistency of melted wax. 
If you read the alchemical books, they warn against doing anything to disturb the Stone while it's being ade. They warn against: too much heat, too little heat, too much water, not enough water, and knocking or oving the vessel in any way. In my experience none of this is as bad as they make it sound. It's not a big eal if you knock or move the vessel, and it's not a big deal if the degree of heat is wrong, as long as it's not ot enough to burn. If there is too much water you can remove some or increase the heat. While there is a roblem the Stone will not develop any further, but it will continue once you've corrected your mistake.

it is very proper that the purified earth be reduced by manual operation to an impalpable fineness, and then its orrected mercury must be added, incorporating both together till the earth will imbibe no more. This operation will equire time, with some degree of the artist's patience; for however the humidity may seem disproportionate, on letting t rest awhile, a dryness on the surface of your matter will show that it is capable of imbibing more, so that the peration is to be repeated till it is fully saturated 
On the Philosophers' Stone, by Anonymous, 12th - 17th Cen. (?) 
That must again be dissolved into water, which before was water, and the body, which before was mercury, must again ecome mercury. [...] The two must be united by a gentle and continuous fire, affording the same degree of warmth as hat with which a hen hatches her eggs.

[...] the body must receive its spirit to drink gradually, and little by little, until it recovers its life, and health, and trength, which takes place by means of the same gentle heat which digests food in the stomach, and matures fruit in ts place. 
The Glory of the World, Or, Table of Paradise, by Anonymous, 1526 AD t is necessary at the beginning to give the earth little water, just as an infant has to be given at first little nutriment, nd then gradually more. This should be repeated over and over again, with great patience, more and more water eing poured over the earth each time, but not more than the earth can conveniently drink up; 
The Epistle of Bonus of Ferrara, by Peter Bonus, 14th Century 
A spirit that is at liberty will easily and quickly free another spirit of the same nature that is bound up and restrained. 
This is done first by reason of that activity and generability which the free spirit is imbued with, secondly by reason of he harmony, likeness and love betwixt them: This correlation is the cause that the exterior free spirit makes way into nd joins with that spirit of salt included in the seed, and so does with more ease work upon him and excite him, for, as he proverb has it, like will easily go to like, and their unity is most intimate. Now you must know that very spirit, when oose and floating in liquid bodies or liquors, is at liberty in this state, by the mediation of heat, it does (like a odestone) attract to it the spirit that is under restraint, opening and dissolving the body which holds it in; and the estrained spirit itself (like a sensible prisoner) labours for life by conspiring and striving to be in action and a full ommunion with the other. The free spirit by his sudden and subtile accession still exciting and strengthening him, nd by this means so provokes him to action, as fire, does enkindle fire so that the body holding it must necessarily uffer a change and calcification, and comes to be putrefied by its own included spirit, whose operation before was bstructed and kept under; for the included spirit having acquired liberty and a power to be in action from the other, trives to get out and enlarge itself and to that end breaks and destroys its first body and procures another new one. 
So the spirit of salt of the earth, when it is dissolved in the unmixed humour of that element (since every salt melts in its wn liquor) is then at liberty; for every salt when it is once dissolved in its own liquor becomes active. Hence it is that  corn of wheat (in whose body, as if under lock and key, the spirit of vegetable salt is bound up and fettered) as soon s it is cast into the ground, is by the free spirit of the salt of the earth penetrated and opened, that the salt which lies issolved or loose in that liquor or inmixed humour may excite the vegetable spirit in the corn of wheat to action and egetation, which spirit being thus set at liberty does presently, by putrefaction of the corn or grain, produce in the heat's proper matrix the substance of the root (which is a new body) by whose mediation and deference the earth ust afterwards (the spirit attracting it)communicate nutriment to the blade and the rest of this vegetable as it grows p and increases. 
[...] When this spirit by due coction is once united with its body they can never be separated again. 
[...] Much water dissolves quickly, but then the coagulation which follows takes the longer; on which the ignorant, not nowing the nature of this work, fall into desperation when they perceive that the work does not coagulate in due ime. 
The Chemists Key, by Henry Nollius, 1617 AD et it be incerated with White Oil of Philosophers by little and little till it suddenly flow like wax 
Verbum Dismissum, by Count Bernard Trevisan, 15th Cen. 
If then, you would attain the longed-for goal, observe just measure in mixing the liquid substance of the Sages, lest hat which is too much overpower that which is too little, and the generation be hindered. For too much rain spoils he fruit, and too much drought stunts its growth. Therefore, when Neptune has prepared his bath, measure out- arefully the exact quantity of permanent water needed, and let there be neither too little nor too much. 
The Twelve Keys, by Basilius Valentinus, 15th Cen.

digest with a gentle fire, as it were for the hatching of chickens, so long till the bodies are dissolved, and their erfectly conjoined tincture is extracted 
[...] And then the one will be mixed with the other, and so embrace one another that it shall not be possible any more to eparate them, but the spirit, with a real agreement, will be unified with the body, and make one permanent or fixed ubstance. 
The Secret Book of Artephius, by Artephius, 12th Cen. (?)

23. Black Stage

When the salt has been entirely broken down and saturated with the distilled urine, it will turn black, which s a sign of putrefaction. Black is the natural color of decomposed matter.

This Mass thus Blackened is the Key and sign of perfect invention of this manner of Work of the Second Regimen of ur most precious Stone, wherefore saith Hermes: "This Blessing being seen, believe that you are in a good Path, and ave kept in the Right Way". 
So that this Blackness in colour shows the true and right manner of working, for hereby the matter is made deformed nd corrupt with a true Natural corruption from whence follows generation and real disposition in this Matter 
Verbum Dismissum, by Count Bernard Trevisan, 15th Cen. 
The seed putrefies when a (1 ) salt of the same nature with it, dissolved in a convenient (2) liquor, does by the ssistance of a gentle heat (3) penetrate, analyze and rarify the substance of the seed, that the included spirit may, out f its subject matter, form a convenient (4) habitation or body for itself in which it may perform the offices of natural eneration and seminal multiplication. 
[...] The heat which promotes this putrefaction must be so mild and temperate that the liquor in which the resolving alt lies may remain still in and about the matter, and not be laved or evaporated from it. [...] The body putrefying must ot be removed out of the matrix in which the putrefaction was begun until that which is intended be fully perfected. 
[...] When all is well united by purification or putrefaction, then she continues to bake it without separating the mpure, until all is become a black glittering and heavy earth 
The Chemists Key, by Henry Nollius, 1617 AD

The body will not turn black suddenly, but it will have been getting darker and darker during the previous mbibing stage.

The first colour which appears after the silver colour of the amalgamated body, is not perfect blackness, but only a arkish white; the blackness becomes more pronounced day by day, until the substance assumes a brilliant black olour. This black is a sign that the dissolution is accomplished, which does not come about in one hour, but radually, by a continuous process; 
A Brief Guide to the Celestial Ruby, by Eirenaeus Philalethes, 1694 AD

When the whole mass has turned black then you know it has putrefied completely. This is a great sign, ecause you will now be more than halfway to completing the Stone.

The substance has now become of a uniform colour, namely, as black as pitch, and neither vapours, or winds, or any ther signs of life are seen; the whole is dry as dust, with the exception of some pitch-like substance, which now and hen bubbles up; all presents an image of eternal death. 
An Open Entrance to the Closed Palace of the King, by An Anonymous Sage and Lover of Truth, 1645 AD

When you are sure that the salt is entirely saturated, then you need to turn up the heat a little. It's difficult to ive an exact temperature since it depends on many factors, but just turn up the heat little by little until the ody starts to become dry. But the heat still needs to be low enough that the moisture will rain down, the ifference only being that during imbibing the salt had to be always moist, whereas now you want the salt to ry out between the rains.

the earthly Body of the Sun is totally solved, and decomposed, and robbed of all strength (the Body, which was first of  muddy impurity, changing to a coal-black colour, called by the Sages the Raven's Head, within the space of forty ays), and is thus despoiled of its Soul [the moisture]. The Soul is borne upward, and the Body, being severed from the 
Soul, lies for some time, as if dead, at the bottom of the still, like ashes. But if the fire is increased, and well tempered, he Soul gradually descends again in drops, and saturates and moistens its Body, and so prevents it from being ompletely burned and consumed. Then, again, it ascends and descends, the process being repeated 
The Sophie Hydrolith, Or, Water Stone of the Wise, by Anonymous, 17th Cen. 
Avicen saith, that heat causeth blackness first, in a moist body; then the humidity being consumed, it putteth off or oseth its blackness; and as the heat increaseth, or is continued, so it grows white. 
The Root of the World, by Roger Bacon, 13th Cen.

Slowly slowly the body will start getting whiter, and may pass through different colors, including one that ooks a bit reddish. Don't worry about these colors; we just need the body to get white.

But as soon as the highest degree of intense blackness has been reached (there being no idle intervals in our work), hat colour begins little by little to yield to another [white]. The time during which this blackness is developed is very ong, and so is the time during which it disappears; but it is only for one moment that the blackness neither increases or decreases: for things find rest only in that which is the end of their being, but blackness is not the end of our ubstance. 
[...] In the course of this change from white to black, the substance naturally passes through a variety of intermediate olours; but these colours (being more or less accidental) are not invariably the same, and depend very much on the riginal proportion in which the two substances are combined. In the second stage, during which the substance hanges from black to white, it is already far purer, the colours are more lucid, and more to be depended upon. In the wo phases there are intermediate colours; but in the first they are more dingy and obscure than in the second, and ery much less numerous. In the progress of the substance from blackness to whiteness (i.e., the second phase of our 
Magistery), the most beautiful colours are seen in a variety such as eclipses the glory of the rainbow; before the erfection of blackness is reached, there are also some transition colours, such as black, azure, and yellow — and the eaning of these colours is that your substance is not yet completely decayed; while the body is dying, the colours are een, until black night shrouds the whole horizon in pitchy gloom. But when the process of resurrection begins (in the econd phase), the hues are more numerous and splendid, because the body is now beginning to be glorified, and has ecome pure and spiritual. 
But in what order do the colours of which we speak appear? To this question no definite answer can be given, because n this first phase there are so much uncertainty and variation. But the colours will be the clearer and more distinct, he purer your water of life is. The four principal colours (white, black, white, red), always follow in the same order; ut the order of the intermediate colours cannot be so certainly determined, and you ought to be content if within the irst 40 days [weeks] you get the black colour. There is only one caution you should bear in mind, in regard to this oint: if a reddish colour appears before the black (especially if the substance begins to look dry and powdery at the ame time), you may be almost sure that you have marred your substance by too violent a fire. You should be very

careful, then, about the regulation of your fire; if the fire be just hot enough, but not too hot, the inward chemical ction of our water will do the rest. 
A Brief Guide to the Celestial Ruby, by Eirenaeus Philalethes, 1694 AD

24. White Stage

Having adjusted the heat during the black stage, so that the body dries out in between rains, the black body ill slowly pass through various colors and turn white. 
As when turning black, the whiteness will not appear suddenly one day, but it will be a slow progress over  few months.

When you find it black, know that in blackness whiteness is hidden, and you must extract the same from his most subtle lackness. But after putrifaction it waxes red, not with a true redness, of which one says: It is often red, and often of a itrine color, it often melts, and is often coagulated, before true whiteness. 
[...] There appears also before whiteness the peacocks color, whereon one says thus, Know you that all the colors in he world, or that may be imagined, appear before whiteness, and afterward true whiteness follows. 
The Mirror of Alchemy, by Roger Bacon, 13th Cen. fter the putrefaction and conception, which has taken place at the bottom of the vessel, there is once more a change f colours and a circulating sublimation. This Reign, or Regimen, lasts only three weeks [months]. During this period ou see all conceivable colours concerning which no definite account can be given. The "showers" that fall will ecome more numerous as the close of this reign approaches, and its termination is signalized by the appearance of a nowy white streaky deposit on the sides of the vessel. Rejoice, then, for you have successfully accomplished the egimen of Jupiter. What you must be particularly careful about in this operation, is to prevent the young ones of the 
Crow from going back to the nest when they have once left it; secondly, to let your earth get neither too dry by an mmoderate sublimation of the moisture, nor yet to swamp and smother it with the moisture. These ends will be ttained by the proper regulation of the outward heat. 
[...] While it passes from blackness to whiteness, a great variety of colours are observed; nor is it at once perfectly hite; at first it is simply white — afterwards it is of a dazzling, snowy splendour. 
An Open Entrance to the Closed Palace of the King, by An Anonymous Sage and Lover of Truth, 1645 AD ecoct the male and the (female or) vapour together, until such time as they shall become one dry body; for except they e dry, the divers or various colours will not appear. — For it will ever be black, whilst that humidity or moisture has he dominion; but if that be once wasted, then it emits divers colours, after many and several ways. 
[...] And many times it shall be changed from colour to colour, till such times as it comes to the fixed whiteness. Synon aith, all the colours of the world will appear in it when the black humidity is dried up. But value none of these olours, for they be not the true tincture: yea, many times it becomes citrine and reddish, and many times it is dried, nd becomes liquid again, before the whiteness will appear. 
The Root of the World, by Roger Bacon, 13th Cen.

When the body has turned totally white and all the moisture has disappeared you have the White Stone, hich can either be fermented with silver, or continued to the maturity of the Red Stone.

25. Fermentation 
Both the White Stone and Red Stone must be fermented with silver or gold respectively before they are omplete. It is only possible to ferment the White Stone with silver, and the Red Stone with gold, nothing lse can be used, neither can silver or gold be used to ferment both.

There are no other ferments like these here. The ferment of silver is silver, the ferment of gold is gold, therefore don't ook elsewhere! 
Compound of Compounds, by Albertus Magnus, 1 3th Cen.

The ferment (silver or gold) is not considered to be an "ingredient" of the Stone. The Stone is already eveloped when we apply the ferment, but it needs to be fermented in order to be used for our purposes. 
The Stone would be harmful if ingested without being fermented first. 
The Stone will break down the silver or gold into its own form, but adopt the frequency and stability of the erment. The life-energy needs to be given an impression of a stable form.

A small quantity of gold and silver is, indeed, necessary when the stone is made, as a medium for its tinging either in he white or red tinctures 
On the Philosophers' Stone, by Anonymous, 12th - 17th Cen. (?) 
( 12 ) And although the Wise Men want some common Gold in the fermentation of their Stone, that the same may be eterminated to transmute imperfect metals into Sol, it does not therefore follow that common Sol should make perfect ur Stone. 
( 13 ) On the contrary our Stone rather makes perfect common Sol and Luna, because the most perfect Sol is imperfect nd unfruitful without our Stone. But when it comes to be united to our Stone it becomes alive and fruitful and can ommunicate part of its perfection to other metals. 
The Chemists Key, by Henry Nollius, 1617 AD he red tincture is obtained from gold, and the white tincture from silver. [...] Without a proper ferment the Moon annot become the Sun, but the substance, having nothing to prevent it from doing so, will again revert to ater. [...] The weight of the ferment must exceed, or at least be equal to, the weight of its sulpher. 
The Epistle of Bonus of Ferrara, by Peter Bonus, 14th Century

The fermentation is the same process as the Second Part of the work, only we will also add silver or gold, nd the process will be much faster. 
The quantity of silver or gold you use should be between 2 to 10 times the quantity of the Stone. Find the urest silver or gold you can, it must be as close to 100% pure as possible. It's best to use silver or gold ust, as the reaction will be faster the pieces are smaller (increased surface area.) If you can't get dust, then

file down a coin or whatever you have. 
To perform the fermentation (and also for multiplication) grind the Stone to dust and mix this together with he ferment (silver for White, gold for Red). Optionally, you can melt this mixture of the Stone and the erment together with a heat strong enough to melt gold, then beat it into plates and grind it into powder gain - this optional stage will speed up the process. Now add a small amount of distilled urine again, and ontinue with the imbibing, blackening and whitening (then reddening if you are fermenting/multiplying the 
Red Stone) as you did previously (following chapters 22-24). 
The fermentation process should take 1-3 months the first time. 
Now the White Stone is complete. It can be multiplied in quantity and quality, and raised to the power of the 
Red Stone.

The Stone or Elixir cannot be used for this purpose in the form in which we left it at the completion of the previous tage of our process [red or white]; but it should be still further fermented and augmented in the following manner, as therwise it could not be conveniently applied to imperfect metals and bodies. 
Take one part of the Essence, and add to it three parts of purest gold [or silver, respectively], which has been purged nd melted by means of antimony, and reduced to very thin plates. Let them be placed together in the crucible. 
Thereupon the whole compound will be transformed into a pure and efficacious Tincture, which, when applied to base etals, in the ratio of 1 :: 1000, will change them into pure gold [or silver, respectively]. 
[...] the substance of the Sages, after all the changes that it has undergone, will do more harm than good as a medicine pplied to the body, without the final preparation 
The Sophie Hydrolith, Or, Water Stone of the Wise, by Anonymous, 17th Cen. 
Aurel. Augurellius says likewise, in his third book: 
"First mingle a little of the prepared medicament with the yellow metal, and thou wilt presently see the same take to tself the strength of the Blessed Powder. Or, when thou shalt have collected again, by great and difficult art, the eeming seed from the pure gold, Then quickly mix with it an equal portion of purple powder, And warm the same with entle heat, simmering for two months; In which space of time thou mayst behold produced the whole series of colours, 
Which, otherwise, thou hadst marveled to see in three years. As often as thou repeatest the operation again and again, o often shalt thou increase the virtue and quantity of thy powder". 
An Explanation of the Natural Philosopher's Tincture, of Paracelsus, by Alexander von Suchten, 16th Cen. 
It is to be observed in the Fermentation, that the Elixir exceed not the Ferment in Quantity, otherwise the Sponsal 
Ligament of it cannot be actually performed, and when the Ferment is predominant over the Elixir, all will be resently turned into dust. 
The best Method of Fermentation is to take one part of the Elixir, and put it into the midst of ten parts of Gold in 
Filings 
Aphorisms of Urbigerus, by Baro Urbigerus, 1690 AD

26. Contradictions 
There are two apparent contradictions in the alchemical books regarding the fermentation of the White or 
Red Stone with silver or gold. 
The first contradiction is whether the White Stone must be fermented with silver before it is raised to the ower of the Red Stone, or whether it should not be fermented with silver but matured directly to the Red 
Stone. 
Writings in favor of the fermentation of the White Stone with silver first are as follows:

Without a proper ferment the Moon cannot become the Sun, but the substance, having nothing to prevent it from oing so, will again revert to water. 
The Epistle of Bonus of Ferrara, by Peter Bonus, 14th Century 
You should also bear in mind that the silver should be applied to our quicksilver before the gold, because the uicksilver is volatile, and cannot with safety be subjected all at once to great heat. Silver has the power of stirring up he inherent sulphur of the quicksilver, whereby it is coagulated into the form of the Remedy for transmuting metals nto silver; and this coagulation is brought about by the gentle heat of the silver. Gold requires a much higher degree f heat, and if gold were added to the quicksilver before the silver, the greater degree of heat would at once change he quicksilver into a red sulphur, which, however, would be of no use for the purpose of making gold, because it ould have lost its essential moisture; and our Art requires that the quicksilver should be first coagulated by means of ilver into white sulphur, before the greater degree of heat is applied which, through gold, changes it into red ulphur. There must be whiteness before there is redness. Redness before whiteness spoils our whole substance. 
A Tract of Great Price Concerning the Philosophical Stone, by A German Sage, 1423 AD 
No gold is generated, except it have first been silver. [...] As Red Tincture is elicited by the ferment of gold alone, 
Mercury can be animated only by the white ferment of silver. 
A Golden and Blessed Casket of Nature's Marvels, by Benedictus Figulus, 1607 AD

Whereas writings in favor of continuing the development of the White Stone into the Red Stone without ermenting with silver are as follows:

The white Elixir being brought to its Degree of Maturity, desiring to go on to its highest Degree of Perfection, instead f fermenting it with Silver, it must be cibated with its own Flesh and Blood, which is the double Mercury, by which it eing nourished, multiplyed in Quality and Quantity, and digested, the whole Work is accomplished. 
Aphorisms of Urbigerus, by Baro Urbigerus, 1690 AD s it ripens assumes a perfect whiteness, which is the White Tincture, transmuting the inferior metals into silver, and ery powerful as a medicine. But as the artist well knows it is capable of a higher concoction, he goes on increasing is fire 
On the Philosophers' Stone, by Anonymous, 12th - 17th Cen. (?)

And when you see the true whiteness appear, which shineth like a bright sword, or polished silver, know that in that hiteness there is redness hidden. But then beware that you take not that whiteness out of the vessel, but only digest it o the end, that with heat and dryness, it may assume a citron color, and a most beautiful redness. 
The Secret Book of Artephius, by Artephius, 12th Cen. (?) 
Take the White Stone and divide it into two parts; you will raise one part to the state of the white Elixir, as has been aid much earlier (of the kind of which you will have an indefinite amount). Put the other part in a new bed of the 
Philosophers, clean, tidy, transparent, spherical and place it in the furnace for digestion. Increase the fire until by its orce and strength the matter is changed to a very red stone 
Compound of Compounds, by Albertus Magnus, 1 3th Cen.

So you see that different alchemists made statements which clearly contradict each other concerning the ermentation. Some claim you must ferment the White Stone with silver before it can stand high-heat ecessary to mature it into the Red Stone, while others claim you must not ferment the White Stone, just ontinue increasing the heat to obtain the Red Stone. Since both of these methods have support from a umber of alchemists, it would make the most sense that both methods are correct. It would seem that you ust be very careful with the heat when attempting to mature the unfermented White Stone, whereas erhaps the fermented White Stone can be matured with a higher and less careful heat. 
The safest move however, would be to follow the instructions of Albertus Magnus (the last quote above) ho advises us to divide the Stone into two parts at the White Stage. One part you will ferment with silver nto the White Stone, the other part you will continue to develop into the Red Stone. Then if your nfermented White Stone fails to turn red, you can mature part of your fermented White Stone. It would be urther advantageous to keep part of the White Stone unfermented, thus requiring the White Stone to be ivided into three parts. This also means you will have both the White Stone and the Red Stone, instead of aving to choose between them, and you will therefore be able to take advantage of the medicinal value of he White Stone sooner. 
The second contradiction comes only from Fulcanelli, the most recent of the alchemists. Fulcanelli claims hat the fermentation process makes either Stone only capable of transmutating metals, and useless as a edicine for animals.

the fermentation of the stone by gold, so as to direct the Elixir to limit its use in the transmutation of metals. 
The Dwellings of the Philosophers, by Fulcanelli, 1929 AD

However, it is clear that Fulcanelli had not yet obtained the Stone when he wrote The Dwellings of the 
Philosophers, and I find no references in the books of the old alchemists which imply that the fermentation rocess is only applicable if we wish to make gold. So I can only assume that Fulcanelli is wrong on this oint; that the fermentation is necessary, and that the same Stone both acts as a medicine and performs etallic transmutation. However, I am informing you of Fulcanelli's opinion just in case he knows omething I don't. In any case, you can hedge your bet easily by putting aside a little of the White Stone and 
Red Stone before they are fermented, just in case Fulcanelli is correct. If you remain concerned, you might

also want to test the medicinal effects of both the fermented and non-fermented Stones by feeding them to nimals before trying them on yourself. 
Neither of the contradictions in this chapter are a hindrance to our making of the Stone. You only need to ave a little of the Stone from before each of the fermentations, and so in the end you will be in possession f four powders: the White Stone fermented, the White Stone unfermented, the Red Stone fermented, and he Red Stone unfermented. Therefore allowing you to easily test the effects of each. It is also of advantage o possess both Stones, fermented and unfermented, as this will allow you even more usage and xperimentation as to uses described and not described in this book.

27. Red Stage

The Red Stone is only a further development of the White Stone. You will obtain the White Stone first, and hen part of this you can excel to the perfection of the Red Stone.

first it prepares the white tincture, and then the red. For the Sun and Moon are prepared by the same method, and ield the red and white tincture, respectively 
A Short Tract, or Philosophical Summary, by Nicholas Flamell, 15th Cen.

If you are attempting to mature the unfermented White Stone, instead of the fermented White Stone, you ill need to be more careful with the heat. It might also be an idea to multiply your White Stone a few times efore attempting to make it red. This may speed up the process as the Stone will already be much purer. 
To mature the White Stone into the Red Stone you should place the White Stone into a clean round-bottom lask as before, and make extra sure it is hermetically sealed. Now place this in the water bath and heat it at he temperature that the White Stone melts into the consistency of melted wax, which will likely be around ouble the temperature during the previous stage. After a number of months the Stone will turn an ash- range color. At this point you should now take the vessel out of the water bath and put it onto a high heat ource (such as a gas stove, heating mantle or hot plate). The degree of heat should be as high as possible ithout cracking the vessel, so no more than 500°F/260°C. Leave the Stone on this heat and wait patiently or a number of months again, eventually it will turn into a red powder. 
When you have the red powder, save half, and ferment the other half with gold, and you have the Red 
Stone, both fermented and unfermented.

Take the White Stone and divide it into two parts; you will raise one part to the state of the white Elixir, as has been aid much earlier (of the kind of which you will have an indefinite amount). Put the other part in a new bed of the 
Philosophers, clean, tidy, transparent, spherical and place it in the furnace for digestion. Increase the fire until by its orce and strength the matter is changed to a very red stone 
[...] cook perfectly the white Elixir to give it the color of cinnabar, starting there in order to make the red Elixir. 
Compound of Compounds, by Albertus Magnus, 1 3th Cen. 
When the White Stone is accomplished, you must dissolve one part of it, and so calcine it (as some will have it) by long ecoction till it becomes like impalpable Ashes, so soft not to be touched, coloured Citrine. 
Verbum Dismissum, by Count Bernard Trevisan, 15th Cen. 
But the heat of this dry fire ought to be double at the least, to what it was before, or than the heat of the moist fire, by he help of this heat, the white medicine receiveth the admirable tincture of the redness. 
[...] Therefore you must burn it without fear in a dry fire, until such time as it is clothed with a most glorious red, or a ure vermilion colour. For which cause Epitus the philosopher saith, decoct the white in a red hot furnace, until such ime as it be clothed with a purple glory. Do not cease, though the redness be somewhat long, before it appears. For as 
I have said, the fire being augmented, the first colour of whiteness will change into red. Also when the citrine shall

first appear, among those colours, yet that colour is not fixed. But not long after it, the red colour shall begin to ppear, which ascending to the height, your work will indeed be complete. As Hermes saith in Turba, between the hiteness and the redness, one colour only appears, to wit, citrine, but it changes from the less to the more. Maria also aith, when you have the true white, then follows the false and citrine colour; and at last the perfect redness itself. 
This is the glory and the beauty of the whole world. 
The Root of the World, by Roger Bacon, 13th Cen. 
This white substance, if you will make it red, you must continually decoct it in a dry fire till it be rubified, or become ed as blood, which is nothing but water, fire, and true tincture. And so by a continual dry fire, the whiteness is hanged, removed, perfected, made citrine, and still digested till it become to a true red and fixed color. And onsequently by how much more it is heightened in color, and made a true tincture of perfect redness. Wherefore with  dry fire, and a dry calcination, without any moisture, you must decoct this compositum, till it be invested with a most erfect red color, and then it will be the true and perfect elixir. 
The Secret Book of Artephius, by Artephius, 12th Cen. (?) 
When the putrefaction of our seed has been thus completed, the fire may be increased till glorious colors appear, hich the Sons of Art have called Cauda Pavonis, or the Peacock's Tail. These colors come and go, as heat is dministered approaching to the third degree, till all is of a beautiful green, and as it ripens assumes a perfect hiteness, which is the White Tincture, transmuting the inferior metals into silver, and very powerful as a medicine. 
But as the artist well knows it is capable of a higher concoction, he goes on increasing his fire till it assumes a yellow, hen an orange or citron color; and then boldly gives a heat of the fourth degree, till it acquires a redness like blood aken from a sound person, which is a manifest sign of its thorough concoction and fitness for the uses intended. 
On the Philosophers' Stone, by Anonymous, 12th - 17th Cen. (?)

28. Multiplication

The Stone only has to be made once, and then it can be easily multiplied in quantity and quality. The ultiplication is the same for the White Stone and the Red Stone. 
The standard method of Multiplication is to repeat the Second Part or Fermentation again. You can do this ith or without adding gold or silver, but by adding more ferment you are increasing the quantity as well as he quality. Every time you repeat the Fermentation, the Stone will get larger and lOx more powerful. The ime it takes to complete the multiplication also gets less and less each time it is performed, since the Stone ecomes more and more powerful, until the multiplication can be done in just a few seconds. 
The unfermented Stones can also be multiplied, but of course you will multiply them by repeating the 
Second Part again (imbibe, make black, make white, make red) adding only distilled urine and not the erment.

The Multiplication of the Stone. Take the perfect Stone; add one part of it to three or four parts of purified Mercury of ur first work, subject it to gentle coction for seven days (the vessel being carefully sealed up), and let it pass through ll the Reigns, which it will do very quickly and smoothly. The tinging power of the substance will thus be exalted a housandfold; and if you go through the whole process a second time (which you can do with ease in three days) the 
Medicine will be much more precious still. This you may repeat as often as you like; the third time the substance will un through all the Reigns in a day, the fourth time in a single hour, and so on — and the improvement in its quality ill be most marvellous. Then kneel down and render thanks to God for this precious treasure. 
An Open Entrance to the Closed Palace of the King, by An Anonymous Sage and Lover of Truth, 1645 AD 
Now if afterwards you would multiply your tincture, you must again resolve that red, in new and fresh dissolving ater, and then by decoctions first whiten, and then rubify it again, by the degrees of fire, reiterating the first method f operating in this work. Dissolve, coagulate, and reiterate the closing up, the opening and multiplying in quantity nd quality at your own pleasure. For by a new corruption and generation, there is introduced a new motion. Thus we an never find an end if we do always work by reiterating the same thing over and over again, viz. by solution and oagulation, by the help of our dissolving water, by which we dissolve and congeal, as we have formerly said, in the eginning of the work. Thus also is the virtue thereof increased, and multiplied both in quantity and quality; so that if fter the first course of the operation you obtain a hundred fold; by the second fold you will have a thousand fold; nd by the third; ten thousand fold increase. And by pursuing your work, your projection will come to infinity, tinging ruly and perfectly, and fixing the greatest quantity how much soever. Thus by a thing of small and easy price, you ave both color, goodness, and weight. 
The Secret Book of Artephius, by Artephius, 12th Cen. (?)

You can also dissolve the Stone in water and then distil it. This will increase the quantity and quality lOOx. 
In short, anything you can think of to purify or dissolve and then coagulate the Stone will increase its uality, and anything dissolved and overpowered by the Stone will become the Stone also and increase its uantity.

If that substance which Nature supplies be taken in hand by Art, dissolved, coagulated, and digested, its perfection is ncreased from a monadic to a denary virtue; by repeating the same process, it is increased a hundred-fold, and then a

thousand-fold, etc. 
A Brief Guide to the Celestial Ruby, by Eirenaeus Philalethes, 1694 AD

When the Stone is sufficiently strong, it can be multiplied by melting a mass of gold (or silver) and then hrowing a bit of the Stone into the molten gold. All of it will be quickly transmuted into more and stronger 
Philosophers' Stone. If the Stone becomes really powerful, you will be able to do this with any metal, since he Stone will transmute it all the way into more Stone, instead of leaving it as gold (then you'd need to ilute the Stone if you want to make gold.)

The manner of Projection and Multiplication of the White and Red Stone are both one, but the multiplication may be one in two manners, one by projecting one part upon one hundred parts more into pure Luna or pure Gold. There are ther ways more profitable and secret to multiply the Medicine in Projection, wherein I am at present silent 
Verbum Dismissum, by Count Bernard Trevisan, 15th Cen.

29. Projection

The projection is a reasonably simple matter of melting the metal to be transmuted, then throwing a little bit f the Stone into it. 
The lower the melting temperature of the metal, the easier it is transmuted, and less of the Stone will be equired. So mercury is the best, and then lead. 
Some alchemists recommend wrapping a bit of the Stone in wax, or adding filings of gold into the melted etal. This is to help the Stone to penetrate better into the metal. Others recommend dissolving the Stone nd projecting it in the liquid state instead of solid state. 
If the Stone is too weak not all of the metal will be transmuted and you will have to add more Stone. If the 
Stone is too strong then the metal might be converted into the Stone itself instead of gold, so the Stone will eed to be diluted.

we only just melt the Imperfect metals over the fire, and then add to them the Philosopher's Stone, which, in a moment f time, imparts to them the form of gold 
The New Pearl of Great Price, by Peter Bonus, 1338 AD 
This wonderful Medicine penetrates each smallest part of the base metals (in the proportion of 1 :: 1,000) and tinges hem through and through with its own noble nature: your arithmetic will fail sooner than its all-prevailing power. 
Each smallest part that is pervaded with the vitalizing power of the -Elixir in its turn tinges that part which is nearest o it until the whole mass is leavened with its marvellous influence, and brought to the perfection of gold. 
A Brief Guide to the Celestial Ruby, by Eirenaeus Philalethes, 1694 AD 
Now the projection is after this manner to be done: put the body, or metal upon the fire in a crucible, and cast thereon he elixir as aforesaid, moving, or stirring it well; and when it is melted, become liquid, and mixed with the body, or ith the spirit, remove it from the fire, and you shall have fine gold or silver, according to what you elixir was repared from. But here is to be noted, that by how much the more the metalline body is the easier to be melted, by so he ore shall the medicine have power to enter into, and transmute it. Therefore by so much as mercury is more liquid han any other body, by so much the more, the medicine has power in being cast upon it, to wit, mercury, to transmute t into fine sol or luna. And a greater quantity of it shall your medicine transmute, give tincture to, and make perfect, han of any other mineral body. The like is to be understood, to be performed in the same manner upon other mineral odies, according as they are easy or hard to be fused or melted. 
The Root of the World, by Roger Bacon, 13th Cen. 
Common Mercury, amalgamated with Lead, is counted the most proper Subject for making Projection, which being in 
Fusion, your fermented Matter being divided into three parts, one part of it rolled, in Wax, is to be flung upon the 
Amalgam: then presently cover the Crucible, and continue the Fire, until you hear the Noise of the Separation and 
Union: then the second and third part, as before, and being kept for two hours in a continual Fire of Fusion, let it cool y it self 
Aphorisms of Urbigerus, by Baro Urbigerus, 1690 AD 
When the artist would transmute any metal- for instance, lead- let a quantity be melted in a clean crucible, to which et a few grains of gold in filings be cast; and when the whole is melted, let him have in readiness a little of the

powder, which will easily scrape off from his "stone, " the quantity inconsiderable, and cast it on the metal while in usion. 
Immediately there will arise a thick fume, which carries off with it the impurities contained in the lead, with a rackling noise, and leaves the substance of the lead transmuted into most pure gold, without any kind of ophistication; the small quantity of gold added, previous to projection, serves only as a medium to facilitate the ransmutation, and the quantity of your tincture is best ascertained by experience, as its virtue in proportioned to the umber of circulations you have given after the first has been completed. 
On the Philosophers' Stone, by Anonymous, 12th - 17th Cen. (?)

30. Appearance

The appearance of the Red Stone is different depending how many times it has been multiplied in quality, nd therefore how pure and powerful it is. 
At first it is a dull red and opaque, but becomes brighter and transparent purple when more refined. It is ery heavy.

Know, then, that it is called a stone, not because it is like a stone, but only because, by virtue of its fixed nature, it esists the action of fire as successfully as any stone. In species it is gold, more pure than the purest; it is fixed and ncombustible like a stone, but its appearance is that of very fine powder, impalpable to the touch, sweet to the taste, ragrant to the smell, in potency a most penetrative spirit, apparently dry and yet unctuous, and easily capable of inging a plate of metal. 
A Brief Guide to the Celestial Ruby, by Eirenaeus Philalethes, 1694 AD 
This Tincture is of a colour intermediate between red and purple, with something of a granite hue, and its specific eight is very, considerable. 
The Twelve Keys, by Basilius Valentinus, 15th Cen. 
Our Tincture of Gold contains stars, is a substance of the greatest fixity, is unchangeable in multiplication, is a red owder (with almost a saffron tinge), liquid like resin, transparent like crystal, fragile like glass, is of a rubinate olour, and of great specific gravity. [...] It is soluble in any liquid, melting and commingling with the same, fragile as lass, in a powder saffron-coloured, but in a solid mass, red like the ruby. Its purple colour is the mark of perfect ixation and fixed perfection, for it remains fixed and incombustible, even when exposed to fire, corrosive waters, or urning sulphur, since it is, like the salamander, incapable of being consumed by fire. 
Golden Calf, by John Frederick Helvetius, 17th Cen. 
Having thus completed the operation, let the vessel cool, and on opening it you will perceive your matter to be fixed nto a ponderous mass, thoroughly of a scarlet color, which is easily reducible to powder by scraping, or otherwise, nd in being heated in the fire flows like wax, without smoking, flaming, or loss of substance, returning when cold to ts former fixity, heavier than gold, bulk for bulk, yet easy to be dissolved in any liquid, in which a few grains being aken its operation most wonderfully pervades the human body, to the extirpation of all disorders, prolonging life by ts use to its utmost period; and hence it has obtained the appellation of "Panacea," or a Universal Remedy. 
On the Philosophers' Stone, by Anonymous, 12th - 17th Cen. (?)

31. Everburning Lamps

Lamps have been found all over the world which have been burning for hundreds of years with no pparent power source. The "scientific" opinion is that there must have been a secret oil well full of oil for he lamp, even though they never found one. But no surprise... its alchemy again. 
I'm not entirely sure how to make an everburning lamp. From my understanding it needs to be in a ermetically sealed container, the wick needs to be made of a material which will not burn (perhaps made y alchemy also), and then you just put some of the Stone into the oil (or maybe no oil and just the Stone issolved in water). 
I found a nice article on the Internet with some good research and history on everburning lamps. I'm going o quote this instead of writing about the lamps myself. The author of this article is an alternative history esearcher called Ellen Lloyd. Ellen thought that the lamps were made with an alien technology, which is ot that far from the truth, and maybe more believable than the truth. But there were no aliens, just humans ith the Philosophers' Stone.

"Now the House of Solomon the King was illuminated as by day, for in his wisdom he had made shining pearls which ere like unto the sun, the moon and the stars in the roof of his house." 
(From: "The Queen ofSheba and Her Only Son Menyelek") 
Imagine that you find a small burning lamp hidden deep in an ancient vault. This mysterious lamp, which is in perfect reservation, has burned continuously without fuel for the last 2,000 years. What would you think of your remarkable iscovery? 
Most likely you would wonder whether the precious lamp that you are holding in your hands is a magical object, a ork of God, or perhaps some evil powers. Could this ancient treasure be a proof of highly advanced technology? Did ur ancestors discover the secret of eternal light? 
Although it might sound amazing, and for some even impossible certain extraordinary findings clearly show that erpetual light was rather common in prehistory. I deal with advanced ancient technology in "Voices from Legendary 
Times" to a large extent. In my book I uncover a number of strange enigmas from all over the world. Perpetual light is n ancient technology that to this today remains a mystery. 
During the Middle Ages a number of ever-burning lamps were discovered in ancient tombs and temples. Based on ncient records we learn that these mysterious objects were found all over the world, in India, China, South America, 
North America, Egypt Greece, Italy, United Kingdom, Ireland, France and many other countries. 
Unfortunately, looters, vandals, and superstitious diggers who feared that these objects possessed supernatural owers destroyed many of the lamps. 
As we all know, the Middle Ages cannot be characterized as a particularly scientific period. It was a dark time for hose who persuaded knowledge. Still, curiosity is a part of human nature and questions were asked. How were the ncients able to produce lamps, which could burn without fuel for hundreds, and in some cases thousands of years? 
From whom did our ancestors gain their secret knowledge? 
Naturally, the subject of perpetual light became quickly a controversy and the opinions among the authorities were ivided. Some authors rejected the idea of a never-ending flame, despite the evidence they were confronted with. A mall group of more open-minded and enlightened persons confirmed the existence of, if not eternal then at least very ong-lasting light. Many on the other hand accused the Pagan priests of performing clever tricks. However, a majority

of the "learned" men acknowledged the unusual findings and declared the perpetual lamps to be a work of the devil. 
This was a common explanation in the Dark Ages. As soon as something was unknown, of Pagan origin or not in ccordance with the rules set by the early Roman Church it was labeled as an invention of the dark forces, the devil nd his demons. 
Some speculated that secret Hebrew societies had preserved what in modern days is known as electricity. For example, he occult writer Eliphas Levi [don't believe this guy, he's so theatrical] relates a curious story in his book "Historie de a Magie". He tells of a certain mysterious French rabbi named Jechiele who was an advisor in the thirteenth century ourt of Louis IX. Apparently, Jechiele owned a lamp that he used to place in front of his house for everyone to see. 
The "dazzling lamp that lightened itself" possessed no oil or wick. When the rabbi was asked about the energy source, e always replied it was a secret. Jechiele, obviously experimented quite a lot with electricity. To protect himself from nemies, he invented a discharge button that sent out an electric current into the iron knocker on his door. It is written hat when Jechiele "touched a nail driven into the wall of his study, a crackling bluish spark immediately leapt forth. 
Woe to anyone who touched the iron knocker at that moment; he would bend double, scream as if he had been burned, hen he would run away as fast as his legs could carry him. " 
There were numerous speculations regarding the perpetual lamps' secret energy source. During the Middle Ages and ater many great thinkers tried to solve the problem how to prepare fuel that renewed itself as quickly as it was onsumed. However, none of the conducted experiments was truly successful. It turned out impossible to produce a opy of an ever-burning lamp. The ancients' technology remained unknown. 
The earliest accounts of a divine flame, an eternal light source can be found in various mythological texts. The escriptions of the eternal flame, which was considered a part of the divine fire, are closely connected with the gods. 
The Greek god Prometheus was punished for giving fire to mankind. The secret of the eternal flame was regarded as ods' sole property. The knowledge of the eternal light should not be passed over to the humans. Nevertheless, it seems s if some of the alien gods disobeyed and revealed their divine secret to humanity. When humans learned how to roduce perpetual light, temples worldwide were equipped with eternal altar flames. 
According to the ancient Egyptians, Greeks and Romans tradition, a dead person might need some light on his or hers oad to the Valley of the Shadow. Therefore, before the tomb was sealed it was accustom to place an ever-burning amp inside. The lamp served as an offering to the god of the dead and it kept evil spirits away. Its light also offered he deceased the required guidance on the journey to the Underworld. Hundreds of years later, when vaults were pened excavators found the lamps in perfect condition and still burning. 
So far, we have only spoken in general terms about the existence of perpetual light in antiquity. It has been estimated hat as many as 170 mediaeval authors have written about the phenomenal and mysterious ever-burning lamps. Let us ow look at some of the remarkable discoveries. 
Plutarch wrote of a lamp that burned over the door of a temple to Jupiter Amman. According to the priests, the lamp emained alight for centuries without any fuel and neither wind nor rain could put it out. 
St. Augustine described an Egyptian temple sacred to Venus with a lamp which wind and water could not extinguish. 
He declared it to be the work of the devil. 
In 527 A.D., at Edessa, Syria, during the reign of emperor Justinian, soldiers discovered an ever-burning lamp in a iche over a gateway, elaborately enclosed to protect it from the air. According to the inscription, it was lit in 27 A.D. 
The lamp had burned for 500 years before the soldiers who found it, destroyed it. 
In 140, near Rome a lamp was found burning in the tomb of Pallas, son of king Evander. The lamp, which had been light for over 2,000 years, could not be extinguished by ordinary methods. It turned out that neither water nor lowing on the flame stopped it from burning. The only way to extinguish the remarkable flame was to drain off the trange liquid contained in the lamp bowl. 
In about 1540, during the Papacy of Paul III a burning lamp was found in a tomb on the Appian Way at Rome. The omb was believed to belong to Tulliola, the daughter of Cicero. She died in 44 B.C. The lamp that had burned in the ealed vault for 1,550 years was extinguished when exposed to the air. Interesting about this particular discovery is

also the unknown transparent liquid in which the deceased was floating. By putting the body in this liquid, the ncients managed to preserve the corpse in such a good condition that it appeared as if death had occurred only a ew days ago. 
When king Henry VIII broke away from the Catholic Church in 1534, he ordered dissolution of monasteries in Britain nd many tombs were plundered. In Yorkshire, a burning lamp was discovered in a tomb of Constantius Chlorus, ather of the Great Constantine. He died in 300 A.D. which means that the lamp had been burning for more than 1,200 ears. 
In France, near Grenoble, in the mid-seventeenth century a young Swiss soldier accidentally stumbled upon the ntrance of an ancient tomb. Unfortunately, for the young man he did not discover the golden treasures that he hought might be hidden inside. Still, his surprise must have been just as big when he was confronted with a burning lass lamp. Du Praz, that was the soldier's name removed the mysterious lamp from the sealed grave and carried it to a onastery. He showed his remarkable discovery to the astonished monks and the lamp remained at the monastery. It urned for several months until an elderly monk dropped it and it was destroyed. 
Certain discoveries indicate that the ancients wanted to preserve their knowledge secret. 
In his notes to St. Augustine, 1610, Ludovicus Vives writes about a lamp that was found in his father's time, in 1580 
A.D. According to the inscription, the lamp was burning for 1,500 years, however when it was touched it fell into ieces. Obviously, Ludovicus Vives did not share some of St. Augustine's views. He considered perpetual lamps to be n invention of very wise and skilled men and not the devil. 
Were the Rosicrucians familiar with the secrets of eternal light? It would seem so. When the tomb of Christian 
Rosenkreuz, alchemist and founder of the Rosacrucian Order was opened 120 years after his death, a shining lamp as found inside. 
Another interesting case worth mentioning occurred in England where a mysterious and most unusual tomb was pened. It was believed that the sepulcher was of a Rosicrucian. A man, who discovered the tomb, noticed a burning amp hanging from the ceiling, lighting up the underground chamber. As the man took some steps forward, certain art of the floor moved with his weight. At once, a seated figure in armour started to move. The figure rose to its feet nd hit the lamp with some sort of a weapon. The precious lamp was destroyed. The goal had been accomplished; the amp's substance remained a secret. 
The discoveries I mention in this article are only a small representation of all remarkable findings worldwide. Who nows how many more lamps are still burning hidden in ancient vaults, undiscovered and protected from the outside orld. 
The ancients were familiar with perpetual light. As Eliphas Levi points out: "it is certain that the Zoroastrian Magi ad means of producing and directing electric power unknown to us. " 
Yes, indeed and the ancient Egyptians, Greeks, Romans and other cultures possessed the same knowledge. King 
Solomon was a wise man when he wrote: 
"... there is no new thing under the sun. Is there anything whereof it may be said, See this is new? It hath been already f old time which was before us. " 
The Mystery of Ever-Burning Lamps, by Ellen Lloyd, August 23rd 2006

32. Takwin

Wherein we find many strange effects: as continuing life in them, though divers parts, which you account vital, be erished and taken forth; resuscitating of some that seem dead in appearance, and the like. We try also all poisons, nd other medicines upon them, as well of chirurgery as physic. By art likewise we make them greater or smaller than heir kind is, and contrariwise dwarf them and stay their growth; we make them more fruitful and bearing than their ind is, and contrariwise barren and not generative. Also we make them differ in color, shape, activity, many ways. We ind means to make commixtures and copulations of divers kinds, which have produced many new kinds, and them not arren, as the general opinion is.

The New Atlantis, by Francis Bacon, 1627 AD

Takwin is advanced alchemy which deals with the creation of life, through alchemy and using the life- iving powers of the Stone. It is not easy to find information about Takwin. But of course it is possible; if 
Nature can do it, so can alchemy.

wee must by no means forget the generation of Artificial men. For there is some truth in this thing, although it hath een a long time concealed, and there have been no small Doubts, and Questions, raised by some of the ancient 
Philosophers, Whether it were possible for Nature, or Art to beget a Man out(side) of the body of a Woman, and aturall matrix? To this I answer, that it is in no way repugnant to the Art of Alchymie, and Nature, yea it is very ossible: But to effect it, we must proceed thus. 
Let the Sperm of a man by itself be putrified in a gourd glasse, sealed up, with the highest degree of putrefaction in 
Horse dung, for the space of forty days, or so long untill it begin to bee alive, move, and stir, which may easily be seen. 
After this time it will be something like a Man, yet transparent, and without a body. Now after this, if it bee every day arily, and prudently nourished and fed with the Arcanum of Mans blood, and bee for the space of forty weeks kept in  constant, equall heat of Horsedung, it will become a true, and living infant, having all the members of an infant, hich is born of a woman, but it will be far lesse. This wee call Homunculus, or Artificiall (Man?). And this is fterwards to be brought up with as great care, and diligence as any other infant, until it come to riper years of nderstanding. Now this is one of the greatest secrets that God ever made known to mortall, sinfull man. For this is a iracle, and one of the great wonders of God, and secret above all secrets, and deservedly it ought to be kept amongst he secrets until the last times, when nothing shall be hid (the apocalypse), but all things made manifest 
Of the Nature of Things, 8 by Paracelsus, via Sandrovigius, 16th Cen.

The above quote will create a clone of a man, which Paracelsus called a Homunculus. The process escribed is incomplete and cryptic, but if I were to guess from what was written, and what I know about 
Nature, I would say the following: 
The sperm is to be put in a 1 ltr round-bottom flask, hermetically sealed, and put on a circulating moist heat 
(which should be body temperature) until it putrefies (turns black) then comes out of the putrefaction and urns transparent. At which point it will be some kind of embryo. Now at this point we add the Stone issolved in water, or possibly we should have added this right at the beginning. With a moist heat again the lone will form into a baby in 9 months. If we want to dwarf or giantify the clone, this can be done by dding more or less of the water.

Perhaps from any cells a clone could be created. And what would happen if we include cells from two ifferent people? Would it be a child of them? What about 3 or more people? What about from 2 different nimals? Or animals and humans? 
This stuff is all possible, although it is probably much more complicated than just placing cells or seeds from ifferent animals in the same flask. Perhaps they have to be started separately and then combined? I don't now. 
The quote at the top of this chapter implies it is possible to make hybrids of different animals, or animals and umans, and the resulting creature is capable of giving birth itself. This implies the hybrid has new and table DNA and is for all intents and purposes, a new creation. 
Perhaps some of the animals around today were created by alchemy. Dogs and cats are an interesting case, ince they have never been wild in their current form, and they have been living alongside humans hroughout recorded history. Cats especially had high status in ancient Egypt, which was big on alchemy. 
In the Jewish alchemical tradition, an alchemically created man was known as a Golem.

The notion of "man-made humans," or other living creatures fashioned by human hands, has a long history in ythology and folklore. In recent years, with the development of genetic engineering, virtual reality, and artificial life f various sorts, it has gained a new significance. But our current fascination with — not to mention dread over — the ncreasing likelihood of genetically modified and artificial humans is not, in essence, a particularly new development. 
It touches on some of the central themes of religion and the occult and magical practices that emerged from a once- owerful but now submerged spiritual belief. 
The Kabbalah, for example, includes legends and stories about the alchemical homunculus, or "little man, " and the olem, a kind of proto-Frankenstein's monster. In both cases the idea is that through certain secret magical practices, uman beings can share in the creative power of God. 
Homunculi, Golems, and Artificial Life, by Gary Lachman, 2006 
In Jewish tradition, the golem is most widely known as an artificial creature created by magic, often to serve its reator. The word "golem" appears only once in the Bible (Psalmsl 39:16). In Hebrew, "golem" stands for "shapeless ass." The Talmud uses the word as "unformed" or "imperfect" and according to Talmudic legend, Adam is called 
"golem, " meaning "body without a soul" (Sanhedrin 38b) for the first 12 hours of his existence. The golem appears in ther places in the Talmud as well. One legend says the prophet Jeremiah made a golem. However, some mystics elieve the creation of a golem has symbolic meaning only, like a spiritual experience following a religious rite. 
The Sefer Yezirah ("Book of Creation"), often referred to as a guide to magical usage by some Western European Jews n the Middle Ages, contains instructions on how to make a golem. Several rabbis, in their commentaries on Sefer 
Yezirah have come up with different understandings of the directions on how to make a golem. Most versions include haping the golem into a figure resembling a human being and using God's name to bring him to life, since God is the ltimate creator of life. 
The Golem, by Alden Oreck, 2010 (?)

Not strictly part of Takwin, but reanimating a corpse is also possible. Traditionally the person must have een dead for less than 3 days in order to do this. The corpse should be immersed in a bath with a high oncentration of the Stone already dissolved.

33. Religious References

All of the mainstream religious texts have references to the Stone. The alchemical books I have read are argely from Europe, and so the alchemists were Christian and therefore included many Biblical references. 
The Chinese alchemists were Taoists, and Taoism was all about alchemy (and Nature, which is the same). 
The Jews have a very strong alchemical tradition. The Muslims produced some great alchemists. The Hindu exts and myths are full of alchemical references and even an entire Veda, the Sama Veda, is all about the 
Stone. 
Because the majority of the alchemical texts I got my hands on were written by Christians, I collected Bible assages which refer to alchemy or the Stone, and then found some more myself. I will include these below. 
I should say here that all of the mainstream religions originally represented the truth, but the correct nterpretations have mostly been forgotten. However, the older religions go deeper, since time has made ivilization less receptive. But none of the popular modern interpretations of any of the scriptures are orrect. None of the sacred texts actually contradict each other; they seem to only because your nterpretations are wrong. So they're all true, and you're all reading them wrong. 
Reading sacred texts is a lot like reading alchemical texts: they're full of analogies and metaphors all mixed p with plain facts, so it's difficult to tell what is to be interpreted literally and what is to be deciphered. And veryone seems to take the literal parts metaphorically and the metaphorical parts literally.

Verily, verily, I say unto you, Except a corn of wheat fall into the ground and die, it abideth alone: but if it die, it ringeth forth much fruit. 
Bible, King James Version, John 12:24 
Thou fool, that which thou sowest is not quickened, except it die: And that which thou sowest, thou sowest not that ody that shall be, but bare grain, it may chance of wheat, or of some other grain: But God giveth it a body as it hath leased him, and to every seed his own body. 
Bible, King James Version, 1 Corinthians 15:36-38 
Happy is the man that findeth wisdom, and the man that getteth understanding. For the merchandise of it is better han the merchandise of silver, and the gain thereof than fine gold. She is more precious than rubies: and all the hings thou canst desire are not to be compared unto her. Length of days is in her right hand; and in her left hand iches and honour. Her ways are ways of pleasantness, and all her paths are peace. She is a tree of life to them that lay old upon her: and happy is every one that retaineth her. The LORD by wisdom hath founded the earth; by nderstanding hath he established the heavens. By his knowledge the depths are broken up, and the clouds drop down he dew. 
Bible, King James Version, Proverbs 3:13-20 
On the left hand, where he doth work, but I cannot behold him: he hideth himself on the right hand, that I cannot see im: But he knoweth the way that I take: when he hath tried me, I shall come forth as gold. My foot hath held his steps, is way have I kept, and not declined. 
Bible, King James Version, Proverbs 3:13-20

My beloved is white and ruddy, the chiefest among ten thousand. His head is as the most fine gold, his locks are bushy, nd black as a raven. His eyes are as the eyes of doves by the rivers of waters, washed with milk, and fitly set. His heeks are as a bed of spices, as sweet flowers: his lips like lilies, dropping sweet smelling myrrh. His hands are as old rings set with the beryl: his belly is as bright ivory overlaid with sapphires. His legs are as pillars of marble, set pon sockets of fine gold: his countenance is as Lebanon, excellent as the cedars. His mouth is most sweet: yea, he is ltogether lovely. This is my beloved, and this is my friend, O daughters of Jerusalem. 
Bible, King James Version, Song of Solomon 5:10-16 
Zechariah 4 
Then the angel who talked with me returned and woke me up, like someone awakened from sleep. He asked me, "What o you see?" I answered, "I see a solid gold lampstand with a bowl at the top and seven lamps on it, with seven hannels to the lamps. Also there are two olive trees by it, one on the right of the bowl and the other on its left." I sked the angel who talked with me, "What are these, my lord?" He answered, "Do you not know what these are?" "No, y lord," 1 replied. So he said to me, "This is the word of the LORD to Zerubbabel: 'Not by might nor by power, but by y Spirit,' says the LORD Almighty. "What are you, mighty mountain? Before Zerubbabel you will become level round. Then he will bring out the capstone to shouts of 'God bless it! God bless it!'" Then the word of the LORD came o me: "The hands of Zerubbabel have laid the foundation of this temple; his hands will also complete it. Then you will now that the LORD Almighty has sent me to you. "Who dares despise the day of small things, since the seven eyes of he LORD that range throughout the earth will rejoice when they see the chosen capstone in the hand of Zerubbabel?" 
Then I asked the angel, "What are these two olive trees on the right and the left of the lampstand?" Again I asked him, 
"What are these two olive branches beside the two gold pipes that pour out golden oil?" He replied, "Do you not know hat these are?" "No, my lord," I said. So he said, "These are the two who are anointed to serve the Lord of all the arth. " 
Zechariah 5 
I looked again, and there before me was a flying scroll. He asked me, "What do you see?" I answered, "I see a flying croll, twenty cubits long and ten cubits wide." And he said to me, "This is the curse that is going out over the whole and; for according to what it says on one side, every thief will be banished, and according to what it says on the ther, everyone who swears falsely will be banished. The LORD Almighty declares, 'I will send it out, and it will enter he house of the thief and the house of anyone who swears falsely by my name. It will remain in that house and destroy t completely, both its timbers and its stones.'" Then the angel who was speaking to me came forward and said to me, 
"Look up and see what is appearing." I asked, "What is it?" He replied, "It is a basket." And he added, "This is the niquity of the people throughout the land. " Then the cover of lead was raised, and there in the basket sat a woman! 
He said, "This is wickedness, " and he pushed her back into the basket and pushed its lead cover down on it. Then I ooked up — and there before me were two women, with the wind in their wings! They had wings like those of a stork, nd they lifted up the basket between heaven and earth. "Where are they taking the basket?" I asked the angel who as speaking to me. He replied, "To the country of Babylonia to build a house for it. When the house is ready, the asket will be set there in its place. " 
Zechariah 6 
I looked up again, and there before me were four chariots coming out from between two mountains — mountains of ronze. The first chariot had red horses, the second black, the third white, and the fourth dappled — all of them owerful. I asked the angel who was speaking to me, "What are these, my lord?" The angel answered me, "These are he four spirits of heaven, going out from standing in the presence of the Lord of the whole world. The one with the lack horses is going toward the north country, the one with the white horses toward the west, and the one with the appled horses toward the south. " When the powerful horses went out, they were straining to go throughout the earth. 
And he said, "Go throughout the earth!" So they went throughout the earth. Then he called to me, "Look, those going oward the north country have given my Spirit rest in the land of the north. " 
The word of the LORD came to me: "Take silver and gold from the exiles Heldai, Tobijah and Jedaiah, who have rrived from Babylon. Go the same day to the house of Josiah son of Zephaniah. Take the silver and gold and make a rown, and set it on the head of the high priest, Joshua son of Jozadak. Tell him this is what the LORD Almighty says: 
'Here is the man whose name is the Branch, and he will branch out from his place and build the temple of the LORD. It

is he who will build the temple of the LORD, and he will be clothed with majesty and will sit and rule on his throne. 
And he will be a priest on his throne. And there will be harmony between the two.' The crown will be given to Heldai, 
Tobijah, Jedaiah and Hen son of Zephaniah as a memorial in the temple of the LORD. Those who are far away will ome and help to build the temple of the LORD, and you will know that the LORD Almighty has sent me to you. This ill happen if you diligently obey the LORD your God. " 
Bible, New International Version 2011, Zechariah 4-6 
And I turned to see the voice that spake with me. And being turned, I saw seven golden candlesticks; And in the midst f the seven candlesticks one like unto the Son of man, clothed with a garment down to the foot, and girt about the aps with a golden girdle. His head and his hairs were white like wool, as white as snow; and his eyes were as aflame f fire; And his feet like unto fine brass, as if they burned in a furnace; and his voice as the sound of many waters. And e had in his right hand seven stars: and out of his mouth went a sharp twoedged sword: and his countenance was as he sun shineth in his strength. And when I saw him, I fell at his feet as dead. And he laid his right hand upon me, aying unto me, Fear not; I am the first and the last: I am he that liveth, and was dead; and, behold, I am alive for vermore, Amen; and have the keys of hell and of death. 
Bible, King James Version, Revelation 1:12-18 
And the house of Israel called the name thereof Manna: and it was like coriander seed, white; and the taste of it was ike wafers made with honey. 
Bible, King James Version, Exodus 16:31 
And I saw a new heaven and a new earth: for the first heaven and the first earth were passed away; and there was no ore sea. And I John saw the holy city, new Jerusalem, coming down from God out of heaven, prepared as a bride dorned for her husband. And I heard a great voice out of heaven saying, Behold, the tabernacle of God is with men, nd he will dwell with them, and they shall be his people, and God himself shall be with them, and be their God. And 
God shall wipe away all tears from their eyes; and there shall be no more death, neither sorrow, nor crying, neither hall there be any more pain: for the former things are passed away. And he that sat upon the throne said, Behold, I ake all things new. And he said unto me, Write: for these words are true and faithful. And he said unto me, It is done. 
I am Alpha and Omega, the beginning and the end. I will give unto him that is athirst of the fountain of the water of ife freely.

Bible, King James Version, Revelation 21:1-6

He that hath an ear, let him hear what the Spirit saith unto the churches; To him that overcometh will I give to eat of he hidden manna, and will give him a white stone, and in the stone a new name written, which no man knoweth aving he that receiveth it.

Bible, King James Version, Revelation 2:1 7

And had rained down manna upon them to eat, and had given them of the corn of heaven. Man did eat angels' food: e sent them meat to the full.

Bible, King James Version, Psalm 78:24-25

Then Jesus said unto them, Verily, verily, I say unto you, Except ye eat the flesh of the Son of man, and drink his blood, e have no life in you. Whoso eateth my flesh, and drinketh my blood, hath eternal life; and I will raise him up at the ast day. For my flesh is meat indeed, and my blood is drink indeed. He that eateth my flesh, and drinketh my blood, welleth in me, and I in him. As the living Father hath sent me, and I live by the Father: so he that eateth me, even he hall live by me. This is that bread which came down from heaven: not as your fathers did eat manna, and are dead: he hat eateth of this bread shall live for ever.

Bible, King James Version, John 6:53-58

Wherefore also it is contained in the scripture, Behold, I lay in Sion a chief corner stone, elect, precious: and he that elieveth on him shall not be confounded. Unto you therefore which believe he is precious: but unto them which be isobedient, the stone which the builders disallowed, the same is made the head of the corner, And a stone of tumbling, and a rock of offence, even to them which stumble at the word, being disobedient: whereunto also they ere appointed. 
Bible, King James Version, 1 Peter 2:6-8 
And the LORD God said, "The man has now become like one of us, knowing good and evil. He must not be allowed to each out his hand and take also from the tree of life and eat, and live forever. " 
Bible, King James Version, Genesis 3:22 
This is the history of the heavens and the earth when they were created, in the day that the LORD God made the earth nd the heavens, before any plant of the field was in the earth and before any herb of the field had grown. For the 
LORD God had not caused it to rain on the earth, and there was no man to till the ground; but a mist went up from the arth and watered the whole face of the ground. And the LORD God formed man of the dust of the ground, and reathed into his nostrils the breath of life; and man became a living being. 
Bible, King James Version, Genesis 2:4-7

Since Hinduism is full of alchemical references, I thought I'd you give a taster. I also don't want to look like 
I'm favoring Christianity. Personally I like Hinduism a lot as it goes much deeper.

1. Thou, Soma, art preeminent for wisdom; along the straightest path thou art our leader. 
Our wise forefathers by thy guidance, Indu, dealt out among the Gods their share of treasure. 
2 Thou by thine insight art most wise, O Soma, strong by thine energies and all possessing, 
Mighty art thou by all thy powers and greatness, by glories art thou glorious, guide of mortals. 
3 Thine are King Varuna 's eternal statutes, lofty and deep, O Soma, is thy glory. 
All-pure art thou like Mitra the beloved, adorable, like Aryaman, O Soma. 
4 With all thy glories on the earth, in heaven, on mountains, in the plants, and in the waters,-- 
With all of these, well-pleased and not in anger, accept, O royal Soma, our oblations. 
5 Thou, Soma, art the Lord of heroes, King, yea, Vrtra-slayer thou: 
Thou art auspicious energy. 
6 And, Soma, let it be thy wish that we may live and may not die: 
Praise-loving Lord of plants art thou. 
7 To him who keeps the law, both old and young, thou givest happiness, 
And energy that he may live. 
8 Guard us, King Soma, on all sides from him who threatens us: never let 
The friend of one like thee be harmed. 
9 With those delightful aids which thou hast, Soma, for the worshippers- 
Even with those protect thou us. 
10 Accepting this our sacrifice and this our praise, O Soma, come, 
And be thou nigh to prosper us. 
11 Well-skilled in speech we magnify thee, Soma, with our sacred songs: 
Come thou to us, most gracious One. 
12 Enricher, healer of disease, wealth-finder, prospering our store, 
Be, Soma, a good Friend to us. 
13 Soma, be happy in our heart, as milch-kine in the grassy meads, 
As a young man in his own house. 
14 O Soma, God, the mortal man who in thy friendship hath delight,

Him doth the mighty Sage befriend. 
15 Save us from slanderous reproach, keep us., O Soma, from distress: 
Be unto us a gracious Friend. 
16 Soma, wax great. From every side may vigorous powers unite in thee: 
Be in the gathering-place of strength. 
1 7 Wax, O most gladdening Soma, great through all thy rays of light, and be 
A Friend of most illustrious fame to prosper us. 
16 In thee be juicy nutriments united, and powers and mighty foe-subduing vigour, 
Waxing to immortality, O Soma: win highest glories for thyself in heaven. 
19 Such of thy glories as with poured oblations men honour, may they all invest our worship. 
Wealth-giver, furtherer with troops of heroes, sparing the brave, come, Soma, to our houses. 
20 To him who worships Soma gives the milch-cow, a fleet steed and a man of active knowledge, 
Skilled in home duties, meet for holy synod, for council meet, a glory to his father. 
21 Invincible in fight, saver in battles, guard of our camp, winner of light and water, 
Born amid hymns, well-housed, exceeding famous, victor, in thee will we rejoice, O Soma. 
22 These herbs, these milch-kine, and these running waters, all these, O Soma, thou hast generated. 
The spacious firmament hast thou expanded, and with the light thou hast dispelled the darkness. 
23 Do thou, God Soma, with thy Godlike spirit, victorious, win for us a share of riches. 
Let none prevent thee: thou art Lord of valour. Provide for both sides in the fray for booty. 
Rig Veda I, Hymn XCI Soma

34. Prehistory 
I was going to elaborate much more in this chapter and all the ones following, but I'm getting lazy of writing his book, so I'm going to do the history section in a nutshell. You can look up anything yourself if you want ore information. 
The Great Year, or Precession of the Equinoxes, is a 25,920 year cycle.

The precession of the equinoxes refers to the observable phenomena of the rotation of the heavens, a cycle which pans a period of (approximately) 25,920 years, over which time the constellations appear to slowly rotate around the arth, taking turns at rising behind the rising sun on the vernal equinox. 
This remarkable cycle is due to a synchronicity between the speed of the earth's rotation around the sun, and the peed of rotation of our galaxy. 
The Precession of the equinoxes = 25,920 yrs = (360° rotation) 
If the sky is divided into 12 constellations: (25,920/12 = 2,160) 
(Note: 6x10x6 = 360 and 360x6 = 2,160) 
A New sign appears on the horizon each 2,160 yrs (30°) 
Note: (2 x 2,160 or 12 x 360 = 4,320 yrs) 
Therefore to move 1° on the horizon = 72 yrs. 
The following numbers can therefore be regarded as p recessionary: 
(12 ... 30 ... 72 ... 360 ... 2,160 ... 4,320 and 25,920) 
The Precession of the equinoxes, by ancient-wisdom.co.uk

The Great Year is separated into 4 ages, of 6,480 years each, or according to Hinduism in the ratio 4:3:2:1. 
Every time we move between one of these ages, a big catastrophe occurs. The last time was a big flood, the 
Deluge. Every culture has stories of the flood. Modern science pretends that it didn't happen just because hey don't want to admit to something in the Bible being true, but the evidence is overwhelming (look it up.) 
After every catastrophe there is evolution. The conditions on Earth change due to the catastrophe and herefore all life evolves into new forms very quickly. This is how evolution makes big steps over just a few enerations, as we have evidence for but previously no explanation. There have been various races of umans, which look different to us, throughout history. They often get mistaken for aliens. Sorry, no aliens! 
Only humans of previous races, who had the Stone. Didn't you wonder at how all other animals come in so any shapes and sizes? How many different types of dogs are there? Yet they can still interbreed and they re all still dogs. Well humans come in different shapes and sizes too. Some of them are still around.

Evolutionary changes in species occur suddenly, rather than through tiny gradual changes as suggested in Darwin's heory of evolution, researchers say. Resistance to change means that evolution is more likely to occur in bursts riggered by extreme environmental conditions, says Jeffrey H. Schwartz, professor of anthropology at the University f Pittsburgh. According to biologists, cells are protected by an army of proteins, making them very resistant to

change. So, argues Professor Schwartz, the Darwinian idea that animals adapt to their environment through constant mall mutations in their genes - "natural selection" - goes against basic cell biology. Only extreme stresses can vercome these defences and cause mutations in the cells. The mutations may remain dormant for several generations efore suddenly manifesting as a new feature. The change may be just as likely to kill the organism as it is to help it, ays Professor Schwartz, so it is not so much adapting to the environment, but being rocked by it. Further evidence gainst gradual evolution, says Professor Schwartz, comes from the fossil record. If organisms evolved slowly and ontinuously, you would expect to see this reflected in fossil finds. What is actually seen is large changes from one pecies to the next. Most scientists explain this by saying that the "missing links" have not yet been discovered. 
Sudden Origins: A Leap in Evolution, by Kat Piper, 2007

These four ages are symptoms of the development/evolution of the Earth. In the same way the Stone is eveloped, following the laws and cycles of Nature. The planet is evolving as are all life forms living on (or n) the planet. Evolution happens mostly in short bursts. These things are all connected: natural cycles, time, volution, catastrophies, purification. Purification occurs by water or fire, with these alternating it achieves igher and higher degrees of purification, or evolution. 
The Golden Age 
Catastrophe! The Earth evolves, along with humans and animals. 
Everyone has the Stone, or if they don't then they don't need it. Everyone is truly happy. No one needs any ules or technology. There is no such thing as money. Truth and Nature is obvious. Everyone is very piritual. Good times! 
The Silver Age 
Catastrophe! The Earth evolves, along with humans and animals. 
Everyone has the Stone. People are mostly happy. People start developing advanced technology. This is the ge of technology. There is no need to work still, but people like inventing things. Ownership of property tarts, which causes problems and by the end there are wars. 
The Bronze Age 
Catastrophe! The Earth evolves, along with humans and animals. 
The survivors keep the Stone away from the new (evolved) humans and call themselves gods. They build ities and rule the new humans. There is still some technology which the "gods" keep for themselves. The 
"gods" decide gold and silver are to be the currency, since they can easily produce these two metals and the ew humans cannot. People are happy half the time. 
The Iron Age 
Catastrophe! The Earth evolves, along with humans and animals. 
The "gods" are dead now or hiding. The technology is mostly lost. The Stone is kept very secret by the few ho manage to retain the knowledge. People start to care about money more than anything else. The people an't live without rules, but good rulers are few and far between. People are depressed and lose the ability o comprehend truth, preferring to believe their own lies. In the very latter part of this time, as the Iron Age s starting to pass into the Golden Age again, technology starts to develop. But this is only temporary and oes not develop properly due to the best technology being kept secret, and the fact that the people can't nderstand nature. At the end of the Iron Age, the Stone is rediscovered and released back into the world, hich is the catalyst causing all secrets to be released and ushers in the Golden Age.

35. History of the Stone 
The following quote refers to a time in the Silver Age, the true age of technology.

The Pushpaka chariot that resembles the Sun and belongs to my brother was brought by the powerful Ravana; that erial and excellent chariot going everywhere at will [...] that chariot resembling a bright cloud in the sky [...] and the 
King got in, and the excellent chariot at the command of the Raghira, rose up into the higher atmosphere. 
The Ramayana, 450 BC (?)

The Stone was possessed by various people throughout history, some of them being well known figures.

/ will enumerate some of the true Sages (besides those named in Holy Scripture) who really knew this Art, in the atural order of their succession. They are Hermes Trismegistus, Pythagoras, Alexander the Great, Plato, 
Theophrastus, Avicenna, Galen, Hippocrates, Lucian, Longanus, Rasis, Archelaus, Rupescissa, the Author of the Great 
Rosary, Mary the Prophetess, Dionysius, Zachaire, Haly, Morienus, Calid, Constantius, Serapion, Albertus Magnus, 
Estrod, Arnold de Villa Nova, Geber, Raymond Lully, Roger Bacon, Alan, Thomas Aquinas, Marcellus Palingenius; nd, among moderns, Bernard of Trevisa, Frater Basil. Valentinus, Phillip Theophrastus (i.e., Paracelsus), and many thers. Nor is there any doubt that, among our own contemporaries, there might be found some, who, through the race of God, daily enjoy this arcanum, though they keep it a close secret from the world. 
The Sophie Hydrolith, Or, Water Stone of the Wise, by Anonymous, 17th Cen. 
If, therefore, thou shalt rightly consider those things which I shall say unto thee, as also the testimonies of the ncients, well and fully shalt thou know that we agree in all things, and so all of us reveal the same truths. This was he deliberate conviction of Hermes, in his Secreta, who is styled the father and prophet of the Sages, of Pythagorus, 
Anaxagoras, Socrates, Plato, Democritus, Aristotle, Zeno, Heraclitus, Diogenes, Lucas, Hippocrates, Hamec, Thebit, 
Geber, Rhasis, Haly, Morienus, Theophilus, Parmenides, Mellisus, Empedocles, Abohaly, Abinceni, Homer, Ptolomeus, 
Virgil, Ovid, and many other philosophers and lovers of truth, whose names would be too tedious to record. Of most of hese we have seen and studied the works, and can testify that they were, without a single exception, adepts, and rothers of this most glorious order, and that they knew what they were speaking about. [...] To the initiated it is clear hat Moses, Daniel, Solomon, several of the prophets, and the evangelist St John, possessed the knowledge of this Art 
The New Pearl of Great Price, by Peter Bonus, 1338 AD

Of course, the Old Testament of the Bible is full of people living hundreds of years, which was due to the 
Stone. The Ancient Egyptian pharaohs lived hundreds of years too. That was all still in the Bronze Age of ourse, when the Stone was still common, but not for everyone. Noah saved it from the flood and it is Noah ho is credited as being the father of alchemy (in this age) under the name of Hermes. It was probably 
Noah who started that whole thing about the vow, so we can't praise him too much. 
Asia has its own alchemical history, which is less traceable. In the West, alchemy came out of Egypt to the 
Middle East and Ancient Greece, then Rome, from which it spread across Europe. Germany, in the heart of 
Western Europe, was the center of alchemy for the last thousand years. 
The invention of the Gutenberg printing press in the 15th century was the beginning of a wave of alchemy,

which lasted until the 18th century. With the printing press books could now be mass-produced, instead of eing copied by hand (a tedious process) and so allowed alchemical books to be more easily acquired. 
Paracelsus was a German alchemist of the 16th century, who was credited as the first (at least in this age) to se only urine, instead of the slower process of urine and gold. 
After Paracelsus the number of alchemists increased dramatically. In the early 17th century we have 
Francis Bacon, who was the true author of Shakespeare, and an interesting character who I will cover in a ater chapter. Bacon was a Rosicrucian, a society which existed since the 16th century, but announced its xistence in 1607 AD. The Rosicrucians were a secret society of alchemists. The Rosicrucians will get their wn chapter too. 
In 1660 the Royal Society was founded in London, based on the prototype of the "Invisible College" and 
Francis Bacon's (Rosicrucian) scientific method. 
Around the same time Freemasonry also became popular. The beginnings of Freemasonry are somewhat ifficult to trace, there are many theories, a few of which have some good research to back them up, such as onnections to the Knights Templar. But certainly it was in the mid-17th century when Freemasonry ecame popular, more centralized, and heavily influenced by the Rosicrucians. Nowadays Freemasonry is ot much more than a club for grumpy old men, but 350 years ago it was a mystery school for educating earned men about the secrets of alchemy and the other sacred sciences: astrology and geometry. A mission n which it failed admirably since no one understood the true meaning of the symbolism.

36. Quotes on History 
Some quotes for you from the alchemical books in respect to the history of the Stone.

CHAPTER I. 
CONCERNING THE ORIGIN OF THE PHILOSOPHERS' STONE. 
ADAM was the first inventor of arts, because he had knowledge of all things as well after the Fall as before. Thence he redicted the world's destruction by water. From this cause, too, it came about that his successors erected two tables f stone, on which they engraved all natural arts in hieroglyphical characters, in order that their posterity might also ecome acquainted with this prediction, that so it might be heeded, and provision made in the time of danger. 
Subsequently, Noah found one of these tables under Mount Araroth, after the Deluge. In this table were described the ourses of the upper firmament and of the lower globe, and also of the planets. At length this universal knowledge was ivided into several parts, and lessened in its vigour and power. By means of this separation, one man became an stronomer, another a magician, another a cabalist, and a fourth an alchemist. Abraham, that Vulcanic Tubalcain, a onsummate astrologer and arithmetician, carried the Art out of the land of Canaan into Egypt, whereupon the 
Egyptians rose to so great a height and dignity that this wisdom was derived from them by other nations. The atriarch Jacob painted, as it were, the sheep with various colours; and this was done by magic: for in the theology of he Chaldeans, Hebrews, Persians, and Egyptians, they held these arts to be the highest philosophy, to be learnt by heir chief nobles and priests. So it was in the time of Moses, when both the priests and also the physicians were hosen from among the Magi - the priests for the judgment of what related to health, especially in the knowledge of eprosy. Moses, likewise, was instructed in the Egyptian schools, at the cost and care of Pharaoh's daughter, so that he xcelled in all the wisdom and learning of that people. Thus, too, was it with Daniel, who in his youthful days imbibed he learning of the Chaldeans, so that he became a cabalist. Witness his divine predictions and his exposition of those ords, "Mene, Mene, Tecelphares". These words can be understood by the prophetic and cabalistic Art. This cabalistic 
Art was perfectly familiar to, and in constant use by, Moses and the Prophets. The Prophet Elias foretold many things y his cabalistic numbers. So did the Wise Men of old, by this natural and mystical Art, learn to know God rightly. 
They abode in His laws, and walked in His statutes with great firmness. It is also evident in the Book of Samuel, that he Berelists did not follow the devil's part, but became, by Divine permission, partakers of visions and veritable pparitions, whereof we shall treat more at large in the Book of Supercelestial Things3. This gift is granted by the 
Lord God to those priests who walk in the Divine precepts. It was a custom among the Persians never to admit any one s king unless he were a Wise Man, pre-eminent in reality as well as in name. This is clear from the customary name of heir kings; for they were called Wise Men. Such were those Wise Men and Persian Magi who came from the East to eek out the Lord Jesus, and are called natural priests. The Egyptians, also, having obtained this magic and hilosophy from the Chaldeans and Persians, desired that their priests should learn the same wisdom; and they ecame so fruitful and successful therein that all the neighbouring countries admired them. For this reason Hermes as so truly named Trismegistus, because he was a king, a priest, a prophet, a magician, and a sophist of natural hings. Such another was Zoroaster. 
CHAPTER II. 
WHEREIN IS DECLARED THAT THE GREEKS DREW A LARGE PART OF THEIR LEARNING FROM THE EGYPTIANS; 
AND HOW IT CAME FROM THEM TO US. 
When a son of Noah possessed the third part of the world after the Flood, this Art broke into Chaldaea and Persia, nd thence spread into Egypt. The Art having been found out by the superstitious and idolatrous Greeks, some of them ho were wiser than the rest betook themselves to the Chaldeans and Egyptians, so that they might draw the same isdom from their schools. Since, however, the theological study of the law of Moses did not satisfy them, they trusted o their own peculiar genius, and fell away from the right foundation of those natural secrets and arts. This is evident rom their fabulous conceptions, and from their errors respecting the doctrine of Moses. It was the custom of the 
Egyptians to put forward the traditions of that surpassing wisdom only in enigmatical figures and abstruse histories nd terms. This was afterwards followed by Homer with marvellous poetical skill; and Pythagoras was also cquainted with it, seeing that he comprised in his writings many things out of the law of Moses and the Old 
Testament. In like manner, Hippocrates, Thales of Miletus, Anaxagoras, Democritus, and others, did not scruple to fix heir minds on the same subject. And yet none of them were practised in the true Astrology, Geometry, Arithmetic, or

Medicine, because their pride prevented this, since they would not admit disciples belonging to other nations than heir own. Even when they had got some insight from the Chaldeans and Egyptians, they became more arrogant still han they were before by Nature, and without any diffidence propounded the subject substantially indeed, but mixed ith subtle fictions or falsehoods; and then they attempted to elaborate a certain kind of philosophy which descended rom them to the Latins. These in their turn, being educated herewith, adorned it with their own doctrines, and by hese the philosophy was spread over Europe. Many academies were founded for the propagation of their dogmas and ules, so that the young might be instructed; and this system flourishes with the Germans, and other nations, right own to the present day. 
CHAPTER III 
WHAT WAS TAUGHT IN THE SCHOOLS OF THE EGYPTIANS. 
The Chaldeans, Persians, and Egyptians had all of them the same knowledge of the secrets of Nature, and also the ame religion. It was only the names that differed. The Chaldeans and Persians called their doctrine Sophia and 
Magic4; and the Egyptians, because of the sacrifice, called their wisdom priestcraft. The magic of the Persians, and he theology of the Egyptians, were both of them taught in the schools of old. Though there were many schools and earned men in Arabia, Africa, and Greece, such as Albumazar, Abenzagel, Geber, Rhasis, and Avicenna among the 
Arabians; and among the Greeks, Machaon, Podalirius, Pythagoras, Anaxagoras, Democritus, Plato, Aristotle, and 
Rhodianus; still there were different opinions amongst them as to the wisdom of the Egyptian on points wherein they hemselves differed, and whereupon they disagreed with it. For this reason Pythagoras could not be called a wise an, because the Egyptian priestcraft and wisdom were not perpectly taught, although he received therefrom many ysteries and arcana; and that Anaxagoras had received a great many as well, is clear from his discussions on the ubject of Sol and its Stone, which he left behind him after his death. Yet he differed in many respects from the 
Egyptians. Even they would not be called wise men or Magi; but, following Pythagoras, they assumed the name of hilosophy: yet they gathered no more than a few gleams like shadows from the magic of the Persians and the 
Egyptians. But Moses, Abraham, Solomon, Adam, and the wise men that came from the East to Christ, were true Magi, ivine sophists and cabalists. Of this art and wisdom the Greeks knew very little or nothing at all; and therefore we hall leave this philosophical wisdom of the Greeks as being a mere speculation, utterly distinct and separate from ther true arts and sciences. 
CHAPTER TV. 
WHAT MAGI THE CHALDEANS, PERSIANS, AND EGYPTIANS WERE. 
Many persons have endeavoured to investigate and make use of the secret magic of these wise men; but it has not yet een accomplished. Many even of our own age exalt Trithemius, others Bacon and Agrippa, for magic and the abala5 - two things apparently quite distinct - not knowing why they do so. Magic, indeed, is an art and faculty hereby the elementary bodies, their fruits, properties, virtues, and hidden operations are comprehended. But the abala, by a subtle understanding of the Scriptures, seems to trace out the way to God for men, to shew them how they ay act with Him, and prophesy from Him; for the cabala is full of divine mysteries, even as Magic is full of natural ecrets. It teaches of and foretells from the nature of things to come as well as of things present, since its operation onsists in knowing the inner constitution of all creatures, of celestial as well as terrestrial bodies: what is latent ithin them; what are their occult virtues; for what they were originally designed, and with what properties they are ndowed. These and the like subjects are the bonds wherewith things celestial are bound up with things of the earth, s may sometimes be seen in their operation even with the bodily eyes. Such a conjunction of celestial influences, hereby the heavenly virtues acted upon inferior bodies, was formerly called by the Magi a Gamahea6, or the arriage of the celestial powers and properties with elementary bodies. Hence ensued the excellent commixtures of all odies, celestial and terrestrial, namely, of the sun and planets, likewise vegetables, minerals, and animals. 
The Aurora of the Philosophers, by Theophrastus Paracelsus, 16th Cen. 
Hermes, surnamed Trismegistus, is generally regarded as the father of this Art; but there are different opinions with egard to his identity. Some say he was Moses; all agree that he was a very clear-sighted philosopher, the first extant uthor on the subject, and was also of Egyptian extraction. Others say that Enoch invented the Art, and, before the oming of the Flood, described it on the so-called emerald tables, which were afterwards found by Hermes in the alley of Hebron. Many assert that it was known to Adam, who revealed it to Seth; that Noah carried the secret with im into the Ark, and that God revealed it to Solomon. But I do not agree with those who claim for our Art a mystical

origin, and thus only make it ridiculous in the eyes of a scornful world. If it is founded on the eternal verities of 
Nature, why need I trouble my head with the problem whether this or that antediluvian personage had a knowledge of t? Enough for me to know that it is now true and possible, that it has been exercised by the initiated for many enturies, and under the most distant latitudes; it may also be observed that though most of these write in an obscure, igurative, allegorical, and altogether perplexing style, and though some of them have actually mixed falsehood with ruth, in order to confound the ignorant, yet they, though existing in many series of ages, differing in tongue and ation, have not diversely handled one operation, but do all exhibit a most marvellous and striking agreement in egard to the main features of their teaching — an agreement which is absolutely inexplicable, except on the upposition that our Art is something more than a mere labyrinth of perplexing words. 
The Metamorphosis of Metals, by Eirenaeus Philalethes, 1694 AD 
From the beginning of the world, there have always been God-enlighted men and experienced philosophers and wise 
Gentiles who diligently studied the nature and properties of the lower Creation. They laboriously endeavoured and ervently longed to discover whether Nature contained anything that would preserve our earthly body from decay and eath, and maintain it in perpetual health and vigour. For by the light of Nature, and Divine revelation, they ntuitively perceived that the Almighty, in His love to men, must have concealed in the world some wonderful arcanum y which every imperfect, diseased, and defective thing in the whole world might be renewed, and restored to its ormer vigour. 
By the most diligent and careful search they gradually found out that there was nothing in this world that could rocure for our earthly and corruptible body immunity from death, since death was laid upon the Protoplasts, Adam nd Eve, and their posterity, as a perpetual penalty. But they did discover one thing which, being itself incorruptible, as been ordained of God for the good of man, to remove disease, to cure all imperfection, to purge old age, and to rolong our brief life — a boon actually enjoyed by the Patriarchs. 
[...] For by its aid Noah is said to have built the Ark, Moses the Tabernacle with all its golden vessels, and Solomon the 
Temple, besides accomplishing many other great deeds, fashioning many precious ornaments, and procuring for imself long life and boundless riches. 
The Sophie Hydrolith, Or, Water Stone of the Wise, by Anonymous, 17th Cen. 
After the Flood the general understanding and knowledge of this true natural philosophy became weakened in force nd scattered in fragments in all directions; hence arose a subdividing of the whole into parts — and one has become n Astronomy, another a Magician, a third a Cabalist, a fourth an Alchemist, and especially did it afterwards flourish n Egypt. 
A Golden and Blessed Casket of Nature's Marvels, by Benedictus Figulus, 1607 AD 
For Adam, created by God full of understanding and perfect knowledge of natural things, doubtless knew those which ere capable of prolonging human life and securing immunity from disease. Doubtless he also taught the same to ome of his descendants, and they again to others. Hence many of the fathers lived to the age of 700, 800, and more ears; but some did not live so long, this secret not being revealed to all. 
Man, the Best and Most Perfect of God's Creatures, by Benedictus Figulus, 1607 AD 
Adam, our first father, who had knowledge of all arts, also received that of Medicine from God, and it was kept secret y the learned (as the great gift of God) until Noah's time. When God destroyed the world by the Flood, the art of 
Medicine, with many other controlled arts, was lost. No one remained who knew them except Noah, called by some 
Hermogenes, or Hermes, to whom Antiquity ascribes the knowledge of all things celestial and terrestrial. The same 
Noah, before his death, described Medicine, skillfully concealing it among another matter. After his death this nowledge returned to God, and thus, through the Flood and Noah's death, was taken away from the Human Race. 
[...] Whence came the idols which, before Christ, were in Europe, Africa, and Asia? Our human reason has speculated hem out, and thus also has it happened with Medicine. After Noah's time, men, harassed by diseases, sought refuge,

one in herbs, another in animals, a third in stones and metals, and thus one thing after another was tried, without full nowledge of the same, which had some appearance of virtue. But there was as yet no doctor. The sick were carried to ome public place, those who had had similar complaints shewing them the remedies used by themselves, which the atients tried on chance. Such was Medicine until the time of Apollo, i.e., 1915 B.C. This Apollo was a clever and earned man, and carefully noting those things which proved efficacious in diseases, he began to visit the sick, and hus became a public physician, to whom, after his death, a temple was erected and divine honours were paid. In such onour was medicine then held which today begs its bread. Aesculapius succeeding his father, also treated the sick ith skill and knowledge inherited from his father, and to him there was a temple erected, as to a god. After his death he kings commanded that all medical discoveries and observations should be written down and publicly exhibited on he walls of the Temple of Aesculapius. 457 years after came Hippocrates Cous, who was commanded to arrange the xperiments in the Temple of Aesculapius, which he did; and, from these experiments, first invented methodical 
Medicine. Hence from him Medicine, as now taught in the schools, derives its origin. When Empirical Medicine thus ame into great honour in Greece, many physicians arose, as Diodes, Chrysippus, Coristinus, Anaxagorus, Erostratus. 
500 years after Hippocrates came Galenus, a plausible man who described the Hippocratic Medicine, painting it in eautiful colours, inventing causes and symptoms of diseases, ascribing virtues to herbs, and teaching the cure of everish illnesses by cold, that of cold ones by heat. Thus did Human Speculation, from experiments, deduce the 
Science of medicine — yet, at bottom, it was no Science, but mere opinions, accepted as Truth itself. But God, who is ot always wrath with man, has, in our own time, chosen Philip Theophrastus Bombast, of Hohenheim, to rekindle the ight of Medical Science, and to expose the deceit practiced in his day. Therefore, this Theophrastus is the True 
Monarch of Medicine, and will remain so until the end of time. 
A Dialogue, by Alexander von Suchten, 1 6th - 1 7th Cen. (?)

37. Timeline 
The following is a timeline of alchemical events, which I copied directly from alchemywebsite.com. It's not omplete, and I didn't update it with anymore information. The purpose of this timeline is just to give you a eneral feel for the history. History can never be recorded or written about correctly, so I don't feel it's ecessary to be too serious about it. Anyway, history repeats itself.

1144. Earliest dated Western alchemical treatise - Robert of Chester De compositione alchemiae 
1 148. Hildegard ofBingen writing on science 
1 150. Turba philosophorum translated from Arabic 
1225. Michael Scot Liber introductorius, Liber particularis 
1230. Bartholomew Anglicus De rerumproprietatibus 
1231. First mention of alchemy in French literature - Roman de la Rose 
1235. Robert Grosseteste, Bishop of Lincoln, discusses transmutation of metals in De artibus liberalibus and De generatione tellarum 
1240. The Dominican Thomas of Cantimpre mentions alchemy in his Liber de natura rerum 
1250. Vincent de Beauvais Speculum Maius (this encyclopaedia mentions alchemy in many places) 
1256. King Alfonso the Wise of Castile orders translation of alchemical texts from Arabic. He is supposed to have written 
Tesoro a treatise on the Philosophers' stone 
1257. Franciscan friar Bonadventura d'Iseo's 'Liber Compostella' provides some alchemical recipes 
1264. Albertus Magnus, Bishop of Regensburg, writes De mineralibus 
1266. Roger Bacon Opus maius 
1267. Roger Bacon Opus tertium 
1270. Thomas Aquinas is sympathetic to the idea of alchemical transmutation in his Summa theologia 
1272. Provincal Chapter at Narbonne forbade the Franciscans to practice alchemy 
1273. Dominican order at Pest warned friars not to study or teach alchemy 
1275. Ramon Lull Ars Magna. 
1300. Arnald of Villanova writes a number of important treatises on alchemy Quaestiones tarn esseentiales quam ccidentales, Epistola supe alchemia ad regem Neapolitanum, De secretis naturae, Exempla de arte philosophorum 
1310. Dante begins work on his Divine Comedy 
1313. Friars Minors' Constitution generates antique forbade the friars to practice alchemy 
1314. Destruction of the Knights Templar 
1317. Pope John XXITs Papal Bull against alchemical counterfeit Spondet quas non exhibent. Cistercians ban alchemy. 
1318. The monk Adolf Meutha driven from the Cistercian Monastery at Walkenried for practising alchemy 
1320. John Dastin, the alchemist, writes his alchemical letters to Pope John XXII 
1323. Dominicans in France prohibit the teaching of alchemy at the University of Paris, and demand the burning of lchemical writings 
1329. King Edward III requests Thomas Cary to find two alchemists who have escaped, and to find the secret of their art 
1330. Pope John XXII gives funds to his physician to set up a laboratory for a "certain secret work" 
1335. Petrus Bonus of Ferrara Pretiosa margarita novella 
1339. Pope Benedict XII orders an investigation into the alchemical activities of some clerics and monks 
1352. Pseudo-Lullian Liber de secretis naturae seu de quinta essentia 
1356. Pope Innocent VI imprisons the Catalan alchemist John of Rupescissa 
1357. Hortulanus' commentary on the Emerald Tablet of Hermes 
1358. Francesco Petrarch discussed alchemy in De remediis utriusque fortunae 
1370. William Langland's Piers Plowman criticises alchemists as deceivers. 
1374. John of Livania, Canon in Trier, writes three books on the vanity of alchemy. 
1376. The Dominican Directorium inquisitorum, the textbook for inquisitors, places alchemists among magicians and izards. 
1380. King Charles V the Wise issues a decree forbidding alchemical experiments 
1388. Geoffrey Chaucer Canterbury Tales discussed alchemy in the Canon's Yeoman's Tale 
1403. King Henry TV of England issues a prohibition of alchemy and to stop counterfeit money 
1415. Early German MS Buch der heiligen Dreifaltigkeit paralleling the Christ and the Philosophers' stone

1450. Beginning of printing. Cosimo de Medici asks Marsilio Ficino to set up the Platonic academy in Florence 
1456. 12 men petition Henry VI of England for a license to practise alchemy 
1470. Der Antichrist und die funfzehn Zeichnen (the book of the antichrist) associates alchemists with demons and Satan 
1471. George Ripley Compound of alchemy. Ficino's translation of the Corpus Hermeticum 
1474. Christopher of Paris Elucidarius 
1476. George Ripley Medulla alchemiae 
1477. Thomas Norton writes his Ordinall 
1484. Avicenna 's De anima. Hieronymous Bosch Garden of earthly delights 
1485. Geber Summa perfectionis 
1488. The figure of Hermes Trismegistus is put into the mosaic pavement in Sienna Cathedral 
1494. Sebastian Brandt The ship of fools discussed methods used by cheating alchemists 
1497. Tractatus contra alchymistas written by a Dominican questions the genuineness of alchemical gold 
1499. Hypnerotomachia Poliphili 
1505. Bergbuchlein provides first published information on traditions of mining 
1519. Braunschweig's Das Buch zu distillieren 
1530. Georgius Agricola Bermannus, book on mining and extraction of ores 
1531. Agrippa 's Three Books of Occult Philosophy 
1532. Earliest manuscript of the Splendor solis 
1540. Vannoccio Biringuccio De la Pirotecnia 
1541. In hoc volumine alchemia first alchemical compendium 
1546. Petrus Bonus' Pretiosa margarita novella of 1335 printed 
1550. Rosarium Philosophorum published 
1555. First edition of Alessio Piemontese Secreti 
1556. Georgius Agricola De re metallica 
1560. Adam von Bodenstein begins his work of editing various writings of Paracelsus. Giambattista della Porta Magia aturalis 
1561. Peter Perna prints the compendium of 53 alchemical treatises, Verae alchemiae artisque metallicae 
1564. Nazari's II metamorfosi metallico et humano. John Dee's Hieroglyphic Monad 
1572. Peter Perna prints the compendium Alchemiae quam vocant 
1574. Peter Perna prints the collected works of Paracelsus in Latin. 
1580. Rabbi Loew of Prague makes the Golem 
1582. Reusner Pandora 
1589. Edward Kelley embarkes on his public alchemical transmutations in Prague 
1591. Reprinting of John Dee's Hieroglyphic Monad 
1595. Libavius Alchymia 
1599. First appearance of a work of Basil Valentine. Book of Eambspring included in Barnaud's Triga Chemica 
1600. Giordano Bruno executed 
1602. Publication of the first volumes of the compendium of alchemical texts Theatrum Chemicum 
1604. Basil Valentine's Triumphal Chariot of Alchemy. Simon Studion's Naometria ms. Novum lumen chemicum 
1609. Main edition of Khunrath's Amphitheatrum sapientae aeternae. Oswald Croll Basilica chemica 
1610. Jean Beguin Tyrocinium chymicum 
1611. Ben Jonson's play The Alchemist 
1612. Flamel figures hierogliphiques (first publication). Ruland's Lexicon alchemiae. Jacob Boehme Aurora 
1614. Fama fraternitatis. Isaac Casaubon redates the works of Hermes Trismegistus 
1615. Confessio fraternitatis Steffan Michelspacher Cabala, Spiegel derKunst unnd Natur 
1616. Chymische Hochzeit 
1617. First volume ofFludd's Utriusque Cosmi historia 
1618. Theophilus Schweighardt Speculum sophicum rhodo-stauroticum. Maier's Atalanta fugiens 
1619. Siebmacher's Waterstone of the Wise 
1623. Jean d'Espagnet Enchiridion physicae restitutae 
1624. Stolcius's Viridarium chymicum 
1625. Musaeum hermeticum 
1629. Fludd's Summum bonum 
1631. Arthur Dee Fasciculus chemicus in Latin 
1640. Albaro Alonso Barba Art of metals 
1650. Arthur Dee Fasciculus chemicus issued in English

1651. John French The Art of Distillation 
1652. Ashmole Theatrum Chemicum Britannicum. English translation ofFama and Confessio edited by Thomas Vaughan. 
1654. Pierre Borel Bibliotheca chimica 
1666. Helvetius' account of the transmutation in the Hague. Crassellame Lux obnubilata 
1667. Eirenaeus Philalethes An open entrance to the closed palace of the King 
1670. Montfaucon de Villars satirises sectret knowledde in his Comte de Gabalis 
1672. Bibliotheque des philosophes chimiques 
1673. William Cooper begins to publish works on alchemy especially those of Eirenaeus Philalethes 
1674. Knorr von Rosenroth 's Kabbala Denudata 
1677. Mutus Liber 
1682. Gichtel's edition of the collected works ofBoehme 
1690. Publication of the English translation of the Chemical Wedding of Christian Rosenkreutz. 
1702. Manget Bibliotheca Chemica Curiosa (alchemical compendium) 
1710. Samuel Richter begins to form the Order of the Golden and Rosy Cross 
1719. Georg von Welling Opus mago-cabalisticum (first edition) 
1723. Kirchweger's Golden Chain of Homer 
1 728. Friedrich Roth-Scholtz Deutsches theatrum chemicum 
1735. Abraham Eleazar Uraltes chymisches Werck 
1752. Hermaphroditisches Sonn- und Monds-Kind 
1 758. Dom Pernety Dictionnaire Mytho-Hermetique 
1776. Adam We ishaupt forms the Order of llluminati of Bavaria 
1 779. Birkholz, Der Compass der Weisen 
1783. James Price commits suicide after performing some alchemical experiments 
1785. Geheime Figuren The Secret Symbols of the Rosicrucians 
1802. Karl von Eckartshausen Chemische Versuche 
Timeline of events in the history of alchemy, by alchemywebsite.com

38. Nicolas Flamel 
As far as alchemists go, Nicolas Flamel (or Nicholas Flamell) was not particularly interesting, nor did he rite any really useful information on the Stone. But he is probably the most well-known of the alchemists ue to him being a character in many popular fiction books (especially Harry Potter.) So I'm including this hapter just because he's popular. 
Flamel did exist, and he did find the Stone. There are plenty of records in Paris from his time to prove his xistence.

There is nothing legendary about the life of Nicolas Flamel. According to the records, he was born in 1330 and died n 1418. He was a real person, who became one of the greatest alchemists in the world. The Bibliotheque Nationale in 
Paris contains works copied in his own hand and original works written by him. All the official documents relating to is life have been found: his marriage contract, his deeds of gift, his will. His history rests solidly on those substantial aterial proofs for which men clamor if they are to believe in obvious things. To this indisputably authentic history, egend has added a few flowers. But in every spot where the flowers of legend grow, underneath there is the solid arth of truth. 
A Detailed Biography of Nicolas Flamel, by Reginald Merton, 2000-2010 (?) 
Yes, Nicolas Flamel of Harry Potter fame was a real person. Some believe he is a real person.

Flamel was born in 1330 in Paris or its immediate environs. He achieved success as a scrivener and book seller in 
Paris. He and his wife, Pernelle, spent their later years in a house at 51, rue de Montmorency. Built in 1407, the house s the oldest in Paris still standing. You can literally get a flavor for Nicolas FlameTs home by dining in the restaurant hat occupies the building 's ground floor, the Auberge Nicolas Flamel. 
You can also learn more about Flamel by taking the Mysteries of Paris Ghost Tour. This English-language tour begins ot far from FlameTs home at O'Sullivan's Rebel Bar near the Chatelet Metro station at 10, rue des Lombards. 
Like the majority of his fellow countrymen, Flamel was Catholic. One night, he had a dream in which an angel resented him with a book. 
"At first you will understand nothing in it, " the angel told him. "But one day you will see in it that which no other man ill be able to see. " 
Not long after, a young man in need of money appeared in his bookshop offering him a manuscript called The Book of 
Abraham the Jew. Flamel recognized it immediately as the book from the dream and did not quibble over the asking rice of two Florins. 
The book contained many strange characters and diagrams and the word "maranatha" repeated over and over on very page. It was written by a man who allegedly was a Levite priest, as well as a prince, astrologer, and philosopher. 
It promised curses to anyone who read it who was not a priest or a scribe. 
Flamel traveled to the part of Spain under Moorish control in search of Jews who could help him decipher the ortions of the text written in ancient Hebrew. He found a man in Leon who could translate the few pages of the Book f Abraham Flamel had brought with him. The man agreed to return to Paris with Flamel to help decipher the rest of he book, but became ill in Orleans and died. 
Flamel returned to Paris and with the knowledge he had gained from his journey was able to eventually comprehend he meaning of the rest of the Book of Abraham. Using techniques described in the manuscript, he supposedly turned ercury into silver and gold and became wealthy. He and his wife used their wealth for philanthropic purposes,

according to historian Louis Figuier. 
"Husband and wife lavished succor on the poor, founded hospitals, built or repaired cemeteries, restored the front of 
St. Genevieve des Ardents and endowed the institution of the Quinze-Vingts, the blind inmates of which, in memory of his fact, came every year to the church of St. Jacques la Boucherie to pray for their benefactor. " 
Figuier said this practice continued until 1789. The church was demolished in 1797, save for its bell tower, which is art of the Paris Ghost Tour. 
One treasure Flamel was not willing to share with others, however, was the secret of the Philosopher's Stone, which ade possible the transmutation of metals and, according to some, also contained the secret of immortality. In 1410, 
Flamel designed his own tombstone, which is still on display at the Musee de Cluny. It includes images of the sun and  man — depicted along with two other men as saints with a key and a book. The tombstone originally covered Flamel 's rave in the Cemetery of Innocents, where he was laid to rest in 1418, but as Flamel's notoriety grew over the years, is gravesite became the frequent target of robbers and the tombstone was moved. Legend has it that the first grave obber was shocked to discover no body underneath the tombstone, lending credence to the Flamel immortality tories. 
Seeking the Immortal Nicolas Flamel in Paris, by Dennis D. Jacobs, 2010 (?)

39. Paracelsus

Paracelsus (born Philippus Aureolus Theophrastus Bombastus von Hohenheim, 11 November or 17 December 1493 in 
Einsiedeln - 24 September 1541 in Salzburg) was a Renaissance physician, botanist, alchemist, astrologer, and eneral occultist. "Paracelsus", meaning "equal to or greater than Celsus", refers to the Roman encyclopedist Aulus 
Cornelius Celsus from the 1st century known for his tract on medicine. He is also credited for giving zinc its name, alling it zincum and is regarded as the first systematic botanist.

Paracelsus, by en.wikipedia.org

I'm including a chapter on Paracelsus because he was considered by many alchemists after his time to be ne of the greatest alchemists of this age (after Hermes himself.) Paracelsus was credited on writing undreds of books on alchemy and medicine, including advanced topics such as Takwin (creation of life), nd for being the first to invent (or rediscover) the shorter method of making the Stone out of urine only. 
Although I do think some alchemists before Paracelsus (and of this age) were using this shorter method. 
I only had access to a few of Paracelsus' books, some of which appear to be forgeries, and of those that ere not, they were not very detailed. So Paracelsus wasn't a big help to me. 
But certainly Paracelsus was the first of a wave of alchemists who wrote much more openly about the Art, fter the invention of the Gutenberg printing press. 
It's possible he had a connection to the Rosicrucians, since they were already existent in Germany during 
Paracelsus' life, although still silent during this time. Some people have supposed Paracelsus to be the ounder of the Rosicrucians, although there is no evidence to support that. 
Paracelsus' life story is not very interesting (at least the way it's told today), so I will not waste your time eproducing it here. You can look it up if you are interested.

40. Rosicrucians 
The Rosicrucians were a secret society of alchemists. (Modern societies of the same name are unrelated to he original Rosicrucians of the 17th century.) The Rosicrucians recruited all true alchemists to join their ociety. They had agents in every country of Europe and were a strong influence in establishing the "New 
World" in America, Freemasonry, and modern science as we know it.

Rosicrucianism is a philosophical secret society, said to have been founded in late medieval Germany by Christian 
Rosenkreuz. It holds a doctrine or theology "built on esoteric truths of the ancient past", which, "concealed from the verage man, provide insight into nature, the physical universe and the spiritual realm." Rosicrucianism is symbolized y the Rosy Cross. 
Between 1607 and 1616, two anonymous manifestos were published, first in Germany and later throughout Europe. 
These were Fama Fraternitatis RC (The Fame of the Brotherhood of RC) and Confessio Fraternitatis (The Confession f the Brotherhood of RC). The influence of these documents, presenting a "most laudable Order" of mystic- hilosopher-doctors and promoting a "Universal Reformation of Mankind", gave rise to an enthusiasm called by its istorian Dame Frances Yates the "Rosicrucian Enlightenment". 
Rosicrucianism, by en.wikipedia.org

According to Altar of the Theraphic Tie and The New Atlantis, the Rosicrucians lived together in a castle n Germany. They performed all kinds of experiments and invented many new technologies; they also had ccess to advanced ancient technology. Furthermore the Rosicrucians secretly influenced the world by lanting inventions and ideas when and where they saw fit.

In order that we have knowledge 
And news of all things in the order 
So that everything shall be free 
And unconcealed from any of us, 
We travel through all lands 
Unknown, now here, now there. 
[...] We have in these times many things 
Which were invented by the Ancients 
Which we admit and experiment with 
And readily allow them to pass 
Which if rightly looked at 
Are hardly to be comprehended by human mind. 
[...] On little do we live 
Well satisfied with some thing. 
Our bodies we cure 
According to nature properly. 
Therefore our health is good indeed 
And we live many a long year, 
Which creepys softly along like a tender revulet 
Runs equally away on its course. 
Altar of the Theraphic Tie, by B.M.I, of the Rosicrucians, 1616 AD

we practise likewise all conclusions of grafting, and inoculating, as well of wild-trees as fruit-trees, which produceth any effects. And we make by art, in the same orchards and gardens, trees and flowers, to come earlier or later than heir seasons, and to come up and bear more speedily than by their natural course they do. We make them also by art reater much than their nature; and their fruit greater and sweeter, and of differing taste, smell, color, and figure, rom their nature. And many of them we so order as that they become of medicinal use. 
[...] Wherein we find many strange effects: as continuing life in them, though divers parts, which you account vital, be erished and taken forth; resuscitating of some that seem dead in appearance, and the like. We try also all poisons, nd other medicines upon them, as well of chirurgery as physic. By art likewise we make them greater or smaller than heir kind is, and contrariwise dwarf them and stay their growth; we make them more fruitful and bearing than their ind is, and contrariwise barren and not generative. Also we make them differ in color, shape, activity, many ways. We ind means to make commixtures and copulations of divers kinds, which have produced many new kinds, and them not arren, as the general opinion is. 
[...] We have also divers mechanical arts, which you have not; and stuffs made by them, as papers, linen, silks, tissues, ainty works of feathers of wonderful lustre, excellent dyes, and many others, and shops likewise as well for such as re not brought into vulgar use among us, as for those that are. For you must know, that of the things before recited, any of them are grown into use throughout the kingdom, but yet, if they did flow from our invention, we have of them lso for patterns and principals. 
[...] We procure means of seeing objects afar off, as in the heaven and remote places; and represent things near as afar ff, and things afar off as near; making feigned distances. We have also helps for the sight far above spectacles and lasses in use; we have also glasses and means to see small and minute bodies, perfectly and distinctly; as the shapes nd colors of small flies and worms, grains, and flaws in gems which cannot otherwise be seen, observations in urine nd blood not otherwise to be seen. We make artificial rainbows, halos, and circles about light. We represent also all anner of reflections, refractions, and multiplications of visual beams of objects. 
[...] We have all means to convey sounds in trunks and pipes, in strange lines and distances. 
[...] We imitate also flights of birds; we have some degrees of flying in the air. We have ships and boats for going under ater and brooking of seas, also swimming-girdles and supporters. 
[...] Lastly, we have circuits or visits, of divers principal cities of the kingdom; where as it cometh to pass we do publish uch new profitable inventions as we think good. 
The New Atlantis, by Francis Bacon, 1627 AD

41. Francis Bacon

Francis Bacon, 1st and Only Viscount of St. Alban, KC (22 January 1561 - 9 April 1626) was an English philosopher, tatesman, scientist, lawyer, jurist and author. He served both as Attorney General and Lord Chancellor of England. 
Although his political career ended in disgrace, he remained extremely influential through his works, especially as hilosophical advocate and practitioner of the scientific revolution. His dedication brought him into a rare historical roup of scientists who were killed by their own experiments. 
His works established and popularized deductive methodologies for scientific inquiry, often called the Baconian ethod or simply, the scientific method. His demand for a planned procedure of investigating all things natural arked a new turn in the rhetorical and theoretical framework for science, much of which still surrounds conceptions f proper methodology today.

Francis Bacon, by en.wikipedia.org

Francis Bacon was an alchemist and a Rosicrucian. He was also the real author of the plays of William 
Shakespeare. Possibly along with his brother Antony or/and his group of "Good Pens".

One year after the publication of the first Great "Shakespearian " Folio, a remarkable volume on cryptograms and iphers was published. The title page of the work is reproduced here. The year of its publication (1624) was during the 
Rosicrucian controversy. The translation of the title page is as follows: "The Cryptomenysis and Cryptography of 
Gustavus Selenus in the nine books, to which is added a clear explanation of the System of Steganography of John 
Trithemius, Abbot of Spanheim and Herbipolis, a man of admirable genius. Interspersed with worthy inventions of the 
Author and others, 1624." 
The author of this volume was believed to be Augustus, Duke of Brunswick. The symbols and emblems ornamenting the itle page, however, are conclusive evidence that the Rosicrucians were behind its publication. At the bottom of the icture is a nobleman placing his hat on another man's head. In the two side panels are striking and subtle 
"Shakespearian" allusions. On the left is a nobleman (possibly Bacon) handing a paper to another man of mean ppearance who carries in his hand a spear. At the right, the man who previously carried the spear is shown in the ostume of an actor, wearing spurs and blowing a horn. The allusion to the actor blowing his horn and the figure arrying the spear suggest much, especially as spear is the last syllable of the name "Shakespeare. " 
The Secret Teachings of All Ages, by Manly P. Hall, 1928 AD

The whole Shakespearean authorship debate has been going on for centuries, so I won't try to convince you bout that. But what I will convince you of is that the author of Shakespeare's works (whether Shakespeare, 
Bacon, or another) was certainly an alchemist, as is clear from alchemical references in many of 
Shakespeare's plays, and most obviously in his poem: The Phoenix and the Turtle (Dove).

LET the bird of loudest lay, 
On the sole Arabian tree, 
Herald sad and trumpet be, 
To whose sound chaste wings obey. 
But thou shrieking harbinger, 
Foul precurrer of the fiend,

Augur of the fever's end, 
To this troop come thou not near! 
From this session interdict 
Every fowl of tyrant wing, 
Save the eagle, feather 'd king: 
Keep the obsequy so strict. 
Let the priest in surplice white, 
That defunctive music can, 
Be the death-divining swan, 
Lest the requiem lack his right. 
And thou treble-dated crow, 
That thy sable gender makest 
With the breath thou givest and takest, 
'Mongst our mourners shalt thou go. 
Here the anthem doth commence: 
Love and constancy is dead; 
Phoenix and the turtle fled 
In a mutual flame from hence. 
So they loved, as love in twain 
Had the essence but in one; 
Two distincts, division none: 
Number there in love was slain. 
Hearts remote, yet not asunder; 
Distance, and no space was seen 
'Twixt the turtle and his queen: 
But in them it were a wonder. 
So between them love did shine, 
That the turtle saw his right 
Flaming in the phoenix' sight; 
Either was the other's mine. 
Property was thus appalled, 
That the self was not the same; 
Single nature's double name 
Neither two nor one was called. 
Reason, in itself confounded, 
Saw division grow together, 
To themselves yet either neither, 
Simple were so well compounded, 
That it cried, How true a twain 
Seemeth this concordant one! 
Love hath reason, reason none, 
If what parts can so remain. 
Whereupon it made this threne 
To the phoenix and the dove, 
Co-supremes and stars of love,

As chorus to their tragic scene. 
Threnos. 
Beauty, truth, and rarity, 
Grace in all simplicity, 
Here enclosed in cinders lie. 
Death is now the phoenix' nest 
And the turtle's loyal breast 
To eternity doth rest, 
Leaving no posterity: 
'Twas not their infirmity, 
It was married chastity. 
Truth may seem, but cannot be: 
Beauty brag, but 'tis not she; 
Truth and beauty buried be. 
To this urn let those repair 
That are either true or fair 
For these dead birds sigh a prayer. y Shakespeare

Bacon was a very influential figure in England in his time, he achieved a lot and contributed a lot, he has ven been considered the father of modern science. But this part of his history is well enough documented hat I need not cover it. 
Bacon was involved in all kinds of influential business, including the writing of the King James Bible, and he colonization of America. 
Bacon also wrote The New Atlantis, which I quoted from in the previous chapter. This was considered by ost to be a work of fiction, however, considering that we know Bacon was a Rosicrucian himself, and it is lear he was writing about the Rosicrucians, we can take his description of Salomon's House (the 
Rosicrucians) literally. I'm certain that this was the intention as the whole story only builds up to a long escription of what is clearly the Rosicrucians, and then the story ends. The New Atlantis was also ppended with Magnalia Naturae, Praecipue Quoad Usus Humanos, which is a list of uses of the Stone, as uoted in chapter 5. 
Bacon faked his own death, and somewhat amusingly. One report, although unconfirmed, claims that 
Bacon attended his own funeral. Note particularly the references to the "conservation and induration of odies" and a direct mention of the "Stone", in his last letter:

On 9 April 1626 Bacon died while at Arundel mansion at Highgate outside London of pneumonia. An influential ccount of the circumstances of his death was given by John Aubrey. Aubrey has been criticized for his evident redulousness in this and other works; on the other hand, he knew Thomas Hobbes, the fellow-philosopher and friend f Bacon. Aubrey's vivid account, which portrays Bacon as a martyr to experimental scientific method, had him

journeying to Highgate through the snow with the King's physician when he is suddenly inspired by the possibility of sing the snow to preserve meat: 
"They were resolved they would try the experiment presently. They alighted out of the coach and went into a poor oman's house at the bottom of Highgate hill, and bought a fowl, and made the woman exenterate it". 
As a result of being out in the cold in order to stuff the fowl with snow, Bacon contracted a fatal case of pneumonia. 
Some people, including Aubrey, consider these two contiguous, possibly coincidental events as related and causative f his death: "The Snow so chilled him that he immediately fell so extremely ill, that he could not return to his Lodging 
... but went to the Earle of Arundel's house at Highgate, where they put him into ... a damp bed that had not been layn- n ... which gave him such a cold that in 2 or 3 days as I remember Mr Hobbes told me, he died of Suffocation. " 
Being unwittingly on his deathbed, the philosopher wrote his last letter to his absent host and friend Lord Arundel: 
"My very good Lord, — / was likely to have had the fortune of Caius Plinius the elder, who lost his life by trying an xperiment about the burning of Mount Vesuvius; for I was also desirous to try an experiment or two touching: the onservation and induration of bodies. As for the experiment itself, it succeeded excellently well: but in the journey etween London and Highgate, I was taken with such a fit of casting as I know not whether it were the Stone, or some urfeit or cold, or indeed a touch of them all three. But when I came to your Lordship 's House, I was not able to go ack, and therefore was forced to take up my lodging here, where your housekeeper is very careful and diligent about e, which I assure myself your Lordship will not only pardon towards him, but think the better of him for it. For indeed our Lordship 's House was happy to me, and I kiss your noble hands for the welcome which I am sure you give me to it. 
I know how unfit it is for me to write with any other hand than mine own, but by my troth my fingers are so disjointed ith sickness that I cannot steadily hold a pen. " 
Francis Bacon, by en.wikipedia.org

42. Robert Boyle

Robert Boyle was one of the founding members of the Royal Society and considered the first modern hemist. He was also an alchemist (a few of the founders were.) 
He wrote "The Sceptical Chymist". It was this book that undermined alchemy and made it unpopular to elieve. Boyle's intention was not to destroy alchemy, but to question the cause of it and all things. At the ime many people were taking the alchemical books literally, or at least misinterpreting them, which made rogress very difficult if the alchemical books were to be a foundation for modern chemistry. The main oint of the book was to question what things were made out of, what the elements actually were. 
Unfortunately the book was too successful and used as an argument against alchemy, which was not its ntention.

Robert Boyle FRS (25 January 1627 - 31 December 1691 ) was a 17th century natural philosopher, chemist, physicist, nd inventor, also noted for his writings in theology. He is best known for Boyle's law. Although his research clearly as its roots in the alchemical tradition, he is largely regarded today as the first modern chemist, and therefore one of he founders of modern chemistry. Among his works, The Sceptical Chymist is seen as a cornerstone book in the field of hemistry. 
[...] Boyle's great merit as a scientific investigator is that he carried out the principles which Francis Bacon espoused n the Novum Organum. Yet he would not avow himself a follower of Bacon, or indeed of any other teacher. On several ccasions he mentions that in order to keep his judgment as unprepossessed as might be with any of the modern heories of philosophy, until he was "provided of experiments" to help him judge of them, he refrained from any study f the Atomical and the Cartesian systems, and even of the Novum Organum itself, though he admits to "transiently onsulting" them about a few particulars. Nothing was more alien to his mental temperament than the spinning of ypotheses. He regarded the acquisition of knowledge as an end in itself, and in consequence he gained a wider utlook on the aims of scientific inquiry than had been enjoyed by his predecessors for many centuries. This, however, id not mean that he paid no attention to the practical application of science nor that he despised knowledge which ended to use. 
Boyle was an alchemist; and believing the transmutation of metals to be a possibility, he carried out experiments in he hope of achieving it; and he was instrumental in obtaining the repeal, in 1689, of the statute of Henry TV against ultiplying gold and silver. With all the important work he accomplished in physics - the enunciation of Boyle's law, he discovery of the part taken by air in the propagation of sound, and investigations on the expansive force of reezing water, on specific gravities and refractive powers, on crystals, on electricity, on colour, on hydrostatics, etc. - hemistry was his peculiar and favourite study. His first book on the subject was The Sceptical Chymist, published in 
1661, in which he criticized the "experiments whereby vulgar Spagyrists are wont to endeavour to evince their Salt, 
Sulphur and Mercury to be the true Principles of Things. ". For him chemistry was the science of the composition of ubstances, not merely an adjunct to the arts of the alchemist or the physician. He endorsed the view of elements as the ndecompo sable constituents of material bodies; and made the distinction between mixtures and compounds. He made onsiderable progress in the technique of detecting their ingredients, a process which he designated by the term 
"analysis". He further supposed that the elements were ultimately composed of particles of various sorts and sizes, into hich, however, they were not to be resolved in any known way. He studied the chemistry of combustion and of espiration, and conducted experiments in physiology, where, however, he was hampered by the "tenderness of his ature" which kept him from anatomical dissections, especially of living animals, though he knew them to be "most nstructing ". 
Robert Boyle, by en.wikipedia.org

It's very possible that Robert Boyle succeeded in making the Stone, indeed before he supposedly died Boyle

reported that he was to spend his last years performing Hermetic (alchemical) experiments.

In 1689 his health, never very strong, began to fail seriously and he gradually withdrew from his public engagements, easing his communications to the Royal Society, and advertising his desire to be excused from receiving guests, 
"unless upon occasions very extraordinary", on Tuesday and Friday forenoon, and Wednesday and Saturday fternoon. In the leisure thus gained he wished to "recruit his spirits, range his papers", and prepare some important hemical investigations which he proposed to leave "as a kind of Hermetic legacy to the studious disciples of that art", ut of which he did not make known the nature. 
Robert Boyle, by en.wikipedia.org

Newton, who was a contemporary of Boyle, warned Boyle against speaking about alchemy. Which is musing since it appears that Newton failed to achieve anything with alchemy, whereas it looks like Boyle as successful.

Isaac Newton wrote fellow alchemist Robert Boyle a letter urging him to keep "high silence" in publicly discussing the rinciples of alchemy. "Because the way by the Mercurial principle may be impregnated has been thought fit to be oncealed by others that have know it, " Newton wrote, "and therefore may possibly be an inlet to something more oble that is not to be communicated without immense damage to the world if there be any verity in (the warning of he) Hermetic writers. There are other things besides the transmutation of metals which none but they understand. " 
Newton on Keeping Alchemy Secret, by alchemylab.com

43. James Price 
I'm just going to go ahead and "quote" the entire Wikipedia article on James Price.

James Price (1752-1783) was an English chemist and alchemist who claimed to be able to turn mercury into silver or old. When challenged to perform the conversion in front of credible witnesses, he instead committed suicide by rinking prussic acid. 
Born in London in 1752, he was initially called James Higginbotham but changed his name to Price following the ishes of a relative who had died and left him a legacy. He attended Oxford University and, although no records of is early education or his research at Oxford exist, had a brilliant career there. He became a Master of Arts at 25 and he University made him a Doctor of Medicine in 1778, particularly for his work in the field of chemistry. In 1781, at he age of 29, he became a member of the Royal Society. 
Work on transmutation 
In the following year, he appears to have been working on the transmutation of base metals into precious metals and n 6 May 1782, after revealing his findings to a few of his friends, he began a series of public experiments hosted at is laboratory in Guildford. He demonstrated that he could produce precious metals by mixing borax, nitre, and a red r white powder of his own devising (known as the powder of production) with fifty times its own weight in mercury nd stirring the mixture in a crucible with an iron rod. Mixing in the red powder produced gold; the white powder, ilver. He performed seven of the public demonstrations (the final one being on 25 May 1782) which were attended by he elite: peers, clergymen, lawyers, and chemists. Some of the gold produced during the experiments was presented to 
George III. The accounts of the experiments were published with great success. 
Challenged by other Fellows 
The Fellows of the Royal Society were less convinced, however, and asked him to repeat the experiments in the resence of some of the members of the Society. Price seemed less than happy to do this. He claimed that his powders ere exhausted and preparation of new samples would cost him time and money and be damaging to his health. He lso protested that the cost of preparing the gold or silver by this method was not economical, as it cost £17 to make n ounce of gold, which was only valued at £4. The Royal Society insisted on the repetition of the experiments and eminded Price that, as a member, he was calling the honour of the Society into question. Price rebuked them, laiming that his reputation and position in society should prevent any hint of suspicion from being cast upon the eracity of his claims, but eventually he was forced to submit. 
Events leading to ingestion of poison 
In January 1783, Price returned to his laboratory in Guildford, ostensibly to start production of the miraculous owders. In fact, he set about the distillation of laurel water (which contained prussic acid). He wrote his will at the ame time, but it was another six months before he returned to London to invite members of the Royal Society to itness the experiment on 3 August. 
Despite the success of his initial demonstrations and the furor they had caused, only three members turned up on the ppointed day. Although clearly disappointed by the poor turnout, Price welcomed the three men and then, stepping o one side, drank the flask of laurel water he had prepared. The three men immediately noticed a change in his ppearance, but before they could do anything, Price was dead. 
His motives for attempting the deception are unknown. He was a wealthy and respected man who had already been onoured for his chemical research. 
James Price, by en.wikipedia.org

It seems strange that only three fellows turned up, perhaps everyone wasn't notified in time. I suspect that hese three were alchemists themselves and the whole thing was arranged. They either helped him fake his eath, or else made him drink the poison. 
For a little bit of fun speculation, let us remember in Romeo and Juliet (written by Francis Bacon, a 
Rosicrucian) when Juliet drinks a potion that will make her appear dead for "two and forty hours". This otion is given to Juliet by a Franciscan Friar: Friar Laurence. Roger Bacon (no known relation to Francis 
Bacon) was a Franciscan Friar and well-known alchemist. Friar Laurence is presented as somewhat of a hilosopher, who studies Nature. He is an alchemist, as we can see from the first of his lines:

The grey-eyed morn smiles on the frowning night, 
Chequering the eastern clouds with streaks of light, 
And flecked darkness like a drunkard reels 
From forth day's path and Titan's fiery wheels: 
Now, ere the sun advance his burning eye, 
The day to cheer and night's dank dew to dry, 
I must up-fill this osier cage of ours 
With baleful weeds and precious-juiced flowers. 
The earth that's nature's mother is her tomb; 
What is her burying grave that is her womb, 
And from her womb children of divers kind 
We sucking on her natural bosomfind, 
Many for many virtues excellent, 
None but for some and yet all different. 
O, mickle is the powerful grace that lies 
In herbs, plants, stones, and their true qualities: 
Romeo and Juliet, Act II Scene 3, by Shakespeare, 1597 AD

I could therefore speculate that Friar Laurence is a character based on Roger Bacon, whose books Francis 
Bacon surely read, as they are well-known to alchemists, and even I quoted extensively from Roger Bacon n this book. 
Now the Rosicrucians, as we know from "The New Atlantis" (written by Francis Bacon) were studying the ffect of poisons a good 200 years before James Price's death. And with the character of Friar Laurence eing an alchemist and the whole story written by an alchemist, it is possible that the potion mentioned may ell have existed. This could have been what James Price drunk, as I doubt that the alchemists would ctually kill one of their own, especially when the damage is already done and no one believed it anyway. 
Romeo and Juliet is full of alchemical symbolism, as are many of the "Shakespeare" plays.

44. Fulcanelli 
Fulcanelli was the last recorded alchemist, he lived in France during the early 20th century. Fulcanelli's true dentity is disputed. There is plenty of information and wild theories concerning Fulcanelli on the Internet, o I will cover him only briefly. 
Fulcanelli wrote two books: "The Mystery of the Cathedrals" (1922) and "Dwellings of the Philosophers" 
(1929). Both books are primarily concerned with alchemical symbolism in architecture. The latter book also ncludes some interesting thoughts regarding chemistry. 
Fulcanelli did not obtain the Stone until 1932, after writing his two books, which is important to consider as e makes some statements which seemingly contradict the older alchemists. The most notable being that he laims the fermentation process makes the Stone only capable of transmuting metals, which I covered in the 
Contradictions chapter. Other contradictions include Fulcanelli claiming that "the pretended Brotherhood of he Rose Cross never had any social existence", which is neither logical, and nor does he offer any vidence to support his claim against that which has evidence. 
The reason Fulcanelli deserves a special mention, instead of just being another obscure alchemist, is because is books show a more modern and scientific take on alchemy. Additionally his existence shows that lchemy was still alive and well up until very recently. 
If I'm honest, I think that Fulcanelli did not help anyone by publishing his books. They are full of the type of ymbolism that you must already know in order to understand, and I personally feel this type of thing is nly a hindrance. You can only understand his symbolism if you already understand his symbolism, which akes it all redundant. Such endless symbolism serves to unnecessarily complicate the truth, bringing eople away from the guidance of Nature and towards the vain products of imagination and excitement for hadows.

45. Where Did They Go?

Where did the alchemists go? Are they still wandering around somewhere? What happened to the 
Rosicrucians? 
The first consideration is that many of the alchemists are likely dead now. Just because they can live forever oes not mean that they would want to. Eventually life gets boring. I don't think many lived more than a ouple of hundred years. In the end they would have done everything, seen so much, and would be tired of etty human pursuits. I imagine there would be no one to talk to. It would be like living as an adult in a orld of toddlers.

St Dunstan's work, De Occulta Philosophia E: G: I: A, calls it the food of Angels, the heavenly Viaticum, the Bread of 
Life, and it is undoubtedly next under God, the true Alchochodon or giver of years, and he does not so much admire he question whether any man can die that uses it, as to think why the possessors of it should desire to live, who have hese manifestations of Glory and eternity represented to their fleshly eyes. 
The Crowning of Nature, by Anonymous, 16th - 17th Cen. (?) 
I no longer wonder, as once I did, that the true Sage, though he owns the Stone, does not care to prolong his life; for e daily sees heaven before his eyes, as you see your face in a glass. When God gives you what you desire, you will elieve me, and not make yourself known to the world. 
The New Chemical Light, by Michael Sendivogius, 17th Cen.

But then again, there were so many alchemists in the 17th and early 18th centuries. This is only 300 years go, and with so much happening since then, at least some of them must have hung around. So where ould they be? 
Travel would be difficult. Passports would be a hindrance for them. They'd have to have some kind of pecial connection in order to keep getting new passports. But then their connections would keep dying. 
And it's extremely unlikely they had a deal with the governments, else the politicians would want the Stone or themselves, which the alchemists would not want give them. So in this world of passports and ID cards hey would have a problem. 
If they were still around, you would expect alchemical books to be released every now and again. But it's een years since one was. It's a long silence. Previously they were releasing more and more texts, as they elieved we were coming to the end of the age. Now we really are coming to the end of the age, but no ews. 
It's possible this silence has to do with the Rosicrucians. They were attempting to band together all the lchemists. My guess is that it worked. The alchemists all heard of them, and being bored wandering round alone, they all joined. 
The Rosicrucians were active during the 17th century. By the 18th century they had established what was o become modern science, heavily influenced Freemasonry with their symbols, and had a big part in the

establishment of the New World colony in what is now the USA. It's likely therefore that they moved their eadquarters to the USA. 
But in retrospect we can see that modern science failed to understand Nature, the Freemasons failed to nderstand their symbolism, and the USA became one of the most corrupt countries on the planet. And the 
Rosicrucians have disappeared. 
So they either (1) all died, by choice or by accident, (2) are wandering around individually with difficulty, r (3) became corrupt and no longer care about helping the world. 
There is one more option still remaining: they could have gone to Shambhala.

46. Shambhala

There is a land not far from here, 
Out of sight, but not out of ear, 
Where the water's pure, and the breeze, 
Where all are young with no disease, 
Where ages of immortal people dwell, 
And many a strange beast as well; 
But no mere mortal can enter there, 
For it can only be accessed by the air, 
Yet the place is not in the sky, 
Nor in a place where a plane can fly; 
From myth and whisper comes a clue, 
Be careful what you believe is true, 
Indeed you could be standing upon 
Two lands, when all you see is one; 
Two lands separated by only Stone, 
One you can see, another unknown;

I wrote that poem. If you have a tradition throughout all of history of very intelligent people, with access to ost technology, who never age and have unlimited gold... what would you expect to happen? 
Logic would tell me that these people would establish their own country. A parallel civilization independent o this one. It's the obvious thing to do. 
So I looked for any information I could find on a "Land of Immortals". And what do you know? It didn't ake me long to find it.

No human dream is more universal than the longing for a paradise on earth, a place free of the ravages of time and isease, where the best in nature flourishes while the worst is forbidden to enter. By definition, such magical lands an't be near at hand; they must be remote and inaccessible, destinations to be reached by a pilgrimage or a heroic ourney. Ancient Tibetan Buddhist texts spoke of just such a kingdom, where the kings blessed with long life spans wait the day when they will take power over the world, ushering in a golden age of peace and justice. This mythical ingdom was called Shambala. Its location - known only to a few initiates - was reputed to be northern India... or in 
Xinjiang province in western China... or even near the Gobi Desert. Said to be enclosed by a double ring of snow- apped mountains, the fabled vale of Shambala resembled a mandala, Buddhism's circular symbol of the unity of all reation. 
Exploring the Unexplained, by Kelly Knauer, 2006 
For thousands of years rumors and reports have been circulating among the cognoscenti of the nations suggesting hat somewhere between Tibet, among the icy peaks and secluded valleys of Central Asia, there lies an inaccessible aradise, a place of universal wisdom and ineffable peace called Shambhala - although it is also known by other ames. It is inhabited by adepts from every race and culture who form an inner circle of humanity secretly guiding its volution. In that place, so the legends say, sages have existed since the beginning of human history in a valley of upreme beatitude that is sheltered from the icy arctic winds and where the climate is always warm and temperate, the un always shines, the gentle airs are always beneficent and nature flowers luxuriantly. 
There in a verdant oasis only the pure of heart can live, enjoying perfect ease and happiness and never knowing

suffering, want or old age. Love and wisdom reign and injustice is unknown. [...] The inhabitants are long-lived, wear eautiful and perfect bodies and possess supernatural powers; their spiritual knowledge is deep, their technological evel highly advanced, their laws mild and their study of arts an science covers the full spectrum of cultural chievement, but on afar higher level than anything the outside world has attained. 
Into this basic theme of the northern Utopia popular folklore has woven strange and wonderful features. This place is nvisible; it is made of subtle matter, it is an island in the sea of nectar, a heaven piercing mountain, forbidden erritory. The grown is strewn with gold and silver, and precious jewels bedeck the trees - rubies, diamonds and arlands of jade; the place is guarded by great devas from another world and by walls as high as heaven; magic ountains, lakes of gems, or crystal and of the nectar of immortality, wish-fulfilling fruits and flying horses, stones that peak, subterranean caverns filled with all the treasures of the earth; these any many more wonders embellish the andscape of the primal paradise that seems to express the deepest yearnings of the human heart. 
[...] Numerous sources support the tradition that Shambhala once lay near the North Pole. The Scythian, a branch of he Vedic peoples who roamed the Central Asian steppe in the first millennium B.C., told of a wonderful place similar o Shambhala that lay far to the north. They said that if one travelled far enough, one came to lands of mythical and antastic tribes and beyond them, to the Ripean mountains, which lay in a desolate waste of snow and darkness that o mortal could cross. Beyond that barrier lay a beautiful country, warm and sheltered from the icy winds outside, here the sun rose and set only once a year, as it does within the Arctic Circle, and there a happy race lived in arklands full of flowering trees. 
According to the ancient Greeks, this was the northern station of their Delphic god Apollo [the god of medicine] and he land of the legendary Hyperboreans to which Apollo returned every nineteen years, riding the sky on a chariot rawn by swans. It was a secret paradise where the heavens turned on the polar axle, which the Hyperboreans revered s the Pillar of Atlas and Heaven-Bearer, and it belonged to a wise and prosperous people who lived for a thousand ears in harmony with each other, free from suffering, sickness and old age. To the Greeks these semi-deified sages ere the stuff of myth, for their land was accessible only to gods and heroes, not to mere mortals, and could only be eached by an aerial way. The poet Pindar wrote that "neither by ship not by foot couldst thou find the wondrous way o the assembly of the Hyperboreans. " 
[...] Air travel is another recurring theme in the legends of Shambhala. Interstellar travel was attributed to its nhabitants long before the development of modern technological and astronomical knowledge. According to ancient 
Chinese lore, the aircraft and space vehicles of the Immortals journey among the stars, observing the habitats of the ther races and kingdoms. Andrew Tomas says there is a well-known Tibetan legend that the Chintamani Stone, whose nner radiation is said to be mightier than radium, was brought to earth on the back of a winged horse or Lung-ta, hich he believed to be a metaphor for a space vehicle. Lung-ta was supposed to be able to traverse the whole niverse as a messenger of the gods, and tales of Tibetan kings and saints making flights on it over enormous istances circulated in Tibet for centuries. 
Shambhala: The Fascinating Truth, by Victoria LePage, 1996 
Tibetan sacred texts speak of a mystical kingdom called Shambhala, hidden behind snow peaks somewhere north of 
Tibet, where the most sacred Buddhist teachings — the Kalachakra or Wheel of Time — are preserved. It is prophesied hat a future king of Shambhala will come with a great army to free the world from barbarism and tyranny, and will sher in a golden age. Similarly, the Hindu Puranas say that a future world redeemer — the kalki-avatara, the tenth nd final manifestation of Vishnu — will come from Shambhala. Both the Hindu and Buddhist traditions say it ontains a magnificent central palace radiating a powerful, diamondlike light. 
Shambhala: a real place or only myths?, by bibliotecapleyades.net 
Though it's true location has never been found, its beginnings are unknown and its existence is unproven, Shambhala s recognized and honored by at least eight major religions, and is regarded by most esoteric traditions as the true enter of the planet and the world's spiritual powerhouse. It is said to be inhabited by adepts from every race and ulture who form an inner circle that secretly guides human evolution. 
This remarkable kingdom reputedly exists both above and below ground, with a network of tunnels hundreds of miles

long. 
"Cars of strange design flash along their length," writes Andrew Tomas, author of Shambhala, Oasis of Light, "and hey are illumined by a brilliant, artificial light which affords growth to the grains and vegetables and long life ithout disease to the people. " 
Atlantis Rising #21, by atlantisrising.com 
Agartha (sometimes Agartta, Agharti, Agarta or Agarttha) is a legendary city that is said to reside in the Earth's core. 
It is related to the belief in a Hollow Earth and is a popular subject in Esotericism. 
Agartha is one of the most common names cited for the society of underground dwellers. Shamballa (also known as 
Shambalah or Shangri-La) is sometimes said to be its capital city. While once a popular concept, in the last century ittle serious attention has been paid to these conjectures and the theory is not supported by modern science. 
Ferdynand Antoni Ossendowski's 1920 book Beasts, Men, and Gods discusses Agartha. The myth of "Agartha" is also nown as "Shambhala", as it was known in India, the underworld realmpeopled by initiates and led by "the Masters", 
Masters who are the Spiritual leaders of humanity. 
Agartha, by en.wikipedia.org 
In the 1922 book Beasts, Men and Gods, Ferdinand Ossendowski (1876-1945), a Polish scientist who spent most of his ife in Russia, wrote of his recent travels in Outer Mongolia during the campaigns of Baron von Ungern-Sternberg. 
Ossendowski related that several Mongol lamas had told him of Agharti, an underground kingdom beneath Mongolia, uled by the King of the World. In the future, when materialism will ruin the world, a terrible war will break out. At hat time, the people of Agharti will come to the surface and help end the violence. Ossendowski reported that he onvinced Ungern of his story and that, subsequently, Ungern twice sent missions to seek Agharti, led by Prince 
Poulzig. The missions were unsuccessful and the Prince never returned from the second expedition. 
[...] The British astronomer Sir Edmund Halley, also in the late seventeenth century, forwarded the theory that the arth is hollow. The French novelist Jules Verne popularized the idea in Voyage to the Center of the Earth (1864). In 
1871, the British novelist Edward Bulwer-Lytton, in The Coming Race, described a superior race, the Vril-ya, who ived beneath the earth and planned to conquer the world with vril, a psychokinetic energy. In Les Fils de Dieu (The 
Sons of God) (1873), the French author Louis Jacolliot linked vril with the subterranean people of Thule. The Indian reedom advocate, Bal Gangadhar Tilak, in The Arctic Home of the Vedas (1903), identified the southern migration of he Thuleans with the origin of the Aryan race. In 1908, the American author Willis George Emerson published the ovel The Smokey God, or A Voyage to the Inner World, which described the journey of a Norwegian sailor through n opening at the North Pole to a hidden world inside the Earth. 
Mistaken Foreign Myths About Shambhala, by Alexander Berzin, 1996

47. UFOs

We have in these times many things 
Which were invented by the Ancients 
Which we admit and experiment with 
And readily allow them to pass 
Which if rightly looked at 
Are hardly to be comprehended by human mind. 
Altar of the Theraphic Tie, by B.M.I, of the Rosicrucians, 1616 AD

UFOs. One of the most avoided topics in the world. Why are people scared to talk about UFOs? It's as if e've been programmed to consider anyone who talks about such things as crazy. We can talk about all inds of strange things, but we can't talk about UFOs. We deliberately avoid this one topic for no apparent eason. 
Paul Hellyer is the former Deputy Prime Minister of Canada, and ex Canadian Minister of National 
Defense. Even when this guy talks about UFOs nobody listens. 
In Britain on 2nd July 1995, the big London daily, The Mail, reported that Nick Pope, head of the Ministry f Defense's Air Staff Secretariat's Office of Special Reports, had resigned and publicly announced that he s a believer in UFOs and had seen numerous official reports while working in the Ministry of Defense. 
There are also plenty of paintings of UFOs which are already hundreds of years old. Look up "ufos in art". 
I could go on and on, but there's no point. There is overwhelming evidence already. I just hope you see ow this all fits together and who really flies those UFOs. 
The following is the transcript of a recording from the 1972 UFO conference at Tampa, Florida.

(Moderator- It was Professor Carr who sent shock waves through the Pentagon and the Air Force on October 14th, hen he accused the Air Force of not telling the truth about Flying Saucers. At a news conference in Tampa, Florida, 
Professor Carr said he had information that the Air Force had two flying saucers and the bodies of twelve (12) pacemen on ice in a refrigerated building at Wright Patterson Field in Dayton, Ohio. 
At the Flying Saucer symposium Professor Carr talked for an hour about what he calls the "worst kept secret in the orld. " The discovery in February, 1948 of two flying saucers in northwestern New Mexico, near the town of Aztec.) 
It is known throughout the academic world, the medical world, it is known throughout the Air Force, and above all it s known throughout the CIA, ah, that the Air Intelligence at Wright Patterson Field has in its possession a spacecraft, hirty-one (31) feet in diameter, and it is entirely undamaged, except for a hole. ..small hole broken in the plastic ome. ..the transparent plastic dome that covered the cockpit. And because of this accident in space, the twelve small uman beings. ...ah. ...died suddenly of decompression, in the purely mortal way that our. ..that the Russian astronauts erished last year in a similar accident of decompression during re-entry. They were not shot down by our fighter lanes, they suffered an operational loss. 
However, in this particular case, it was very fortunate that our alert radar net in the western states had the UFO on its

screen. In fact, three radar stations were tracking an unidentified object at immense altitude and traveling at nbelievable speed when it stopped ...fluttered. ..went out of control. ..and fell, circling toward the earth. Because three adar stations were locked on it, they were able to triangulate the point at which it reached earth. That point was hree miles west of the small town of Aztec, New Mexico, in the northern part of the state near the Colorado line. 
At that time I owned and operated a ranch in the high mountains of northern New Mexico. It happened in my eighborhood. 
All available law enforcement officers were rushed to the scene, and planes were flown from the nearest Air Force 
Base, which is Edwards Air Force Base in the Mojave Desert. And, as they landed there was a silvery gleaming disc haped spacecraft standing on a tripod landing gear. Apparently it made an automatic landing after its occupants ad died. And, as the local sheriffs approached with drawn guns (oh, you can be sure the guns were drawn. ...let nything new appear, and the guns are drawn) they surrounded the space craft and peered into the cockpit and there, lumped over their instruments, motionless, were twelve small men. 
The Air Force arrived, and due to their ingenuity (it was quite ingenious, but I won't go into the technical details) they anaged to get the door open and the medical officers said that the bodies were. ..ah.. .well, the bodies were still limp nd warm. They had been dead only a short time. They were put aboard a hospital plane and flown to the nearest arge mortuary, which is at Edwards Air Force Base, where they have (as do all large military establishments) a large efrigerated morgue. After all, a very large base devoted to death would need a morgue. The City of Tampa has a efrigerated morgue for overnight visitors who can't find hotel accommodations (audience laughter). 
Edwards Air Force Base received this in February, 1948. Now that was at the. ..in the. .one of the worst periods of the old war. The President was notified, but the President didn't come. No one knew quite what to do. The bodies were arefully preserved in cryonic (sp?) suspension, which is not as the Air Force spokesman on the television program esterday in ridiculing and abusing me, said that "Bob Carr says little green men are being kept in the frozen food ocker". You see, you just change a few words, and you can convert the story of the century into a bit of idiocy. First of ll, they weren't green. They were fair skinned. All were males. They were between three and four feet in height, three nd a half being about the average. All had light hair, differing shades of light hair, but on the brownish/yellow side. 
All had blue eyes. All had perfect teeth, without any dental work. All were superb physical specimens, with null symmetrical development. Dressed in American clothes they could pass un-noticed on the streets of Tampa as small en or as children. 
Now, it was decided. ..(Carr pauses) 
Which do you want to hear about first? The really important news of what our leading metallurgists, electronics xperts, and aeronautical engineers were able to find out about the spacecraft itself, or do you want to hear about the odies. 
First let's have a vote. How many of you want to hear about the construction and content of the spacecraft tself. ..(pauses to take note of raised hands). ..Now, how many of you will not rest easy until you hear about the utopsy (crowd laughter).. .this is by far a majority. And frankly, it's human. Who wants to hear about a giant olenoid, when you can hear about an autopsy. 
One body was selected for autopsy by a carefully screen group of government physicians. Six performed the autopsy. It as photographed, motion pictures were made. You may be assured that it was done in an operating theater, under any watchful eyes. And, as our unfortunate little visitor from far away was dismembered and disemboweled, and his rgans were laid out and identified, he was found to have the same organs that a human being has, and in about the ame place. He was human. The blood type was human. Genes and chromosomes would match up with those of an 
Earth woman. Either we are their lost colony or they are our lost cousins. Biologically, the chances of utterly nrelated life developing across the aching immensities of interstellar space, and coming out with two absolutely dentical species. ..the odds are like. ...well, it's like rolling thirty-seven (37) sevens in a row in a crap game, it just ouldn't happen. No, we are somehow related. 
They came here, probably, because they too are oxygen breathers, and water drinkers. If they had been ammonia reathing turtles, they could have gone to Jupiter or some congenial place. But, no, they were like ourselves, so they

sought out our planet. Undoubtedly, there has been an unbroken link going back a long time. 
Everything was quite normal until the celebrated brain surgeon got out his horrid little saw and sawed open the skull, nd laid bare the right hemisphere of the brain, and then the six assembled surgeons gasped because they realized hey were looking upon something that no human eyes had ever before beheld. There, on the body of a vigorous young an, estimated to be thirty (30) years of age in Earth time, could have been a small Olympic athlete, there in his skull as the brain of a human being several hundred years old. The surgeons said. .the brain specialists said that never had hey seen the surface of a brain so deeply, and so intricately convoluted. And as you all know, the convolutions of the rain are an indication, an infallible indication, of both the age of the brain and the state of its intellectual evelopment. A feeble minded person of any age has an almost smooth brain surface. A new born baby has a smooth rain surface. But, as age and intellectual development occur, the convolutions become more pronounced. ..these are ittle folds and rivulets. ..you've seen them.. .ah. ..and they had never seen so highly convoluted a brain. And if the same iological standards apply to their planet, as they apply to this, there was a man several hundred years old who had een spared the infirmities of age, and had never known senility. What a gift this would be if they could tell us how hey do it. Ponce DeLeon and his fountain of youth. If they could share their medical secrets, and other hygienic ecrets with us. ..what a gift this would be to the human race. How much more amazing than the weapons I must tell you bout, or the means of propulsion that the Russians at this moment doing everything they can to try and apture. ..would be the gift of life to the human race. This is what the Air Force is striking aside every day by armed ttacks on Unidentified Flying Objects, which have done nothing hostile toward the United States, except possibly to ail to answer the recognition signal of the day. .ah. ..in the right idiom. 
Major Donald E. Keyhoe in his latest book, Aliens From Space, documents over one thousand instances where fighter lans have been scrambled to attach harmless UFOs with the most deadly weapons that we have developed, simply to ry and shoot one down. They have never succeeded. Certain pilots during debriefing sessions. ..shaking. ..ashen aced. ..have told their commanding officers that they got within gun range. ..they opened up with four cannon. ..not one hell ever struck the skin of the UFO. Apparently they are surrounded by a powerful force field of electromagnetic missions which can ...ah... is probably intended to protect them from meteorites, which of course are very dangerous, ut will certainly make bullets curve enough to miss them. Think what that secret would be worth. 
This great age of the beautiful young man has profound psychic significance as well. Think what an opportunity it ould be to develop the psychic powers. ..to develop culture.. To develop literature, history, and how little space travel ould mean to a race whose life span was several times longer than our life span. Ladies and gentlemen, I am an old an. ..a retired professor. I have spent my life in the pursuit, however feeble and limping, the pursuit of truth. And I can ell you that the central tragedy of the human race on this planet is not the curse of war, horrible as that is. It is not he burden of poverty, inexcusable as that is on a rich planet. It is not the grief and pain of disease, which is merely a easure of our ignorance because our scientists are making valiant efforts to overcome disease. No, the central ragedy of human life is so common place that most of us never face it. It is the tragic brevity of human life. A man or oman just about learns to do his or her job well, and we retire them. They live a little longer and get a few glimpses f understanding, of comprehension, of psychic insight, and we bury them. The life is over long before a hundred ears. A one hundred year old person is quite a curiosity, and is usually quite feeble. Or, as a Pennsylvania Dutch armer once said to me, in a very pithy statement, which is much more eloquent than my plea, " So slow we get smart, nd so quick we get old. " That is the tragedy of human life, and that is one of the secrets that our friends from pace. ..that is one of the benefits they might bring us in this 20th century. If we would only stop shooting at them, and et them land in peace at a designated safe zone in the southeastern United States. ..southwestern United States, at a ertain part of New Mexico, where there are no military installations for many miles. ..would be plainly designated as  safe landing zone. This is OPERATION LURE, and I want to tell you that in the entire 25 years that we have been hooting at them, there is not one authenticated case of a UFO intentionally harming a human being. Imaging what atience, and what forbearance, for them to have been fired upon and chased, and repulsed in their efforts to be riendly and not once to have harmed a human being. 
Let us prepare our minds, then, by banishing fear. Let us put aside all boogie men, and silly talk of little green men nd bug eyed monsters. And further more, those who talk that way, let us gently correct them. They're doing a very reat disservice to our country, especially to the children. A little child called me up in the middle of the night last ight: "Is it true we are being invaded from Mars? " That's cruel to children. There 's nothing to be afraid of. 
Now. We call also stop calling them UFOs. Because if anything in the sky has ever been fully identified, it is the so

called Unidentified Flying Object. The Air Force has spent millions photographing them up close, studying them, easuring them, and have quite a collection of photographs, hundreds of feet of motion picture film, and all of this of ourse had to be withheld from the American people. Not through any sinister conspiracy, but for our own good. 
Because back in the days when this material evidence came into the possession of Air Intelligence. ..most of you are too oung to remember. ...but we were in the worst days of the so called cold war. People here in Tampa were digging air aid shelters in their back yards. If a truck backfired school children dove under their desks thinking the Russians had ttacked. And when the spacecraft itself with the twelve dead occupants was picked up, then of course the Central 
Intelligence Agency had to intervene. Up until that time it had been an Air Force problem, chasing pooks. ..chasing. ..well, chasing something. But when a foreign intrusion occurs, the appearance of the CIA on the cene is prima fascia evidence that the UFOs are real. Let me repeat, the CIA would never have taken over had there ot been real UFOs from another world. How foreign can you get? 
So they, in their wisdom, caused the Brookings institution in Washington to make a national survey of. .ah. ..to predict hat the effect on the national psychology would be if the President came on the air and calmly announced that 
"Ladies and gentlemen, these things you are seeing are real, they're from another world, they are piloted by intelligent mall human beings like ourselves. There is nothing to be afraid of, and will everybody please stop shooting at them. " 
The Brookings Institution replied that this must never be released, because the American people are teetering on the agged edge of hysteria already. The nervousness. ..the tension over the cold war is so great that for the President to ake such a statement official. ..to give it sanction. ..would be too much. Too many people would go over the deep end. 
Professor Robert Carr, 1972

48. New World Order 
I will now write a few words on the New World Order. 
There is a prophesy of the "New World". Every religion has this prophecy, which is the prophecy of the eturn of the Golden Age. Freemasonry was influenced with symbolism for the New World, but it riginally comes from astrology (real astrology, not the popular modern astrology.) The preparation for the 
Golden Age, or New World, has been going on since we left the Golden Age, thousands of years ago. Now e are just about there. 
Anyway, what happened is that when alchemy was no longer believed in and the alchemists disappeared, he symbolism, legends and prophesy still remained. There was all this prophecy and symbolism saying that ertain very wise and powerful people would initiate and oversee the transition into the New World. This aused certain people who were initiated into the symbolism, but without full understanding of it, to think hat they were at the top of the invisible ladder. These people thought, and still think, that they are the eople who are to oversee the transition into the Golden Age. But these people are not alchemists, nor do hey understand Nature, nor are they wise. It is the wise who are supposed to oversee the transition, but not eeing this, certain people thought that they were the people. 
So this particular group of people formed their own new secret society, for people who are rich and owerful and believe in their plan for the New World Order. 
Since the New World Order folk don't understand Nature, they think that civilization will continue to evelop in a linear fashion (in a straight line), whereas in truth development is circular. Because of their inear belief and power to see what is really happening in our corrupt civilization, they soon realized that ivilization is heading towards a point of collapse. 
Now the prophesy says that a lot of people will die (all the ignorant people) in the catastrophe before the 
New World, and the New World will be glorious and there will be no wars, etc. Considering all this, these 
New World Order folk have decided they will fulfill the prophesy by killing lots of "bad" people, which hey interpret as everyone who is not directly useful to them. At the same time they will bring all countries ogether into one nation, and they will control all people to such an extent that it's not even possible to do nything they don't want you to do. Thus there will be no wars and they think they will have made the orld a better place. 
To give these New World Order folk the benefit of the doubt, they were trying to help. If development was inear and if no one did anything, our civilization would certainly collapse. But actually this is what is upposed to happen. 
If any of you New World Order folk are reading this, I hope you now understand, and you will come back o the "good side". 
Unfortunately I fear that the systems are already in place and the ball is already in motion.

49. Mythology 
Almost all mythology is an allegory for one of the three sacred sciences: alchemy, astrology and geometry. 
Alchemy is the science of Nature. Astrology is the science of time (and therefore prophecy.) Geometry is he science of mathematics, shapes and music. All of these relate to each other of course. 
Here I will quote some myths allegorical for alchemy.

This is its fount and fundament, and the Medicine whereby Aesculapius raised the dead. This is the herb by which 
Medea restored Jason to life. This is the secret substance brought from Colchis by the Argonauts under Jason with so uch journeying and pains, and hence called the Golden Fleece; partly because this Science excels in virtue all thers, as the Sun does the stars and gold the other metals; and partly because that Fleece was a Book written with olden letters (according to the testimony of Suidas, Historiographer of the Chemical and Medical Arts) and ontaining a full account of the preparation of the Medicine. For in that Book is the first material for the creation, estoration, and preservation of our most true Medicine. 
Man, the Best and Most Perfect of God's Creatures, by Benedictus Figulus, 1607 AD 
The Sages have seen the river in which Mneas was cleansed of his mortality — the river of Pactolus in Lydia which was hanged into gold by King Midas bathing in it — the bath of Diana — the spring of Narcissus — the blood of Adonis rickling upon the snowy breast of Venus, whence was produced the anemone — the blood of Ajax, from which sprang he beautiful hyacinth flower — the blood of the Giants killed by Jupiter's thunderbolt — the tears which Althea shed hen she doffed her golden robes — the magic water of Medea, out of which grass and flowers sprang forth — the 
Potion which Medea prepared from various herbs for the rejuvenescence of old Jason — the Medicine of Aesculapius — he magic juice, by the aid of which Jason obtained the Golden Fleece — the garden of the Hesperides, where the trees ear golden apples in rich abundance — Atalanta turned aside from the race by the three golden apples — Romulus ransformed by Jupiter into a god — the transfiguration of the soul of Julius Caesar into a Comet — Juno's serpent, 
Pytho, born of decomposed earth after Deucalion's flood — the fire at which Medea lit her seven torches — the Moon indled by Phaethon's conflagration — Arcadia, in which Jupiter was wont to walk abroad — the habitation of Pluto in hose vestibule lay the three-headed Cerberus — the Pile, on which Hercules burnt those limbs which he had received rom his mother, with fire, till only the fixed and incombustible elements derived from his father were left, and he ecame a god — and the rustic cottage whose roof was made of pure gold. 
Golden Calf, by John Frederick Helvetius, 15th Cen.

One of my favorites is the Greek myth of Prometheus, who stole fire from the gods and gave it to mankind. 
The "fire" here a metaphor for the Stone. The gods are those elitists who are keeping the Stone only for hemselves. 
The myth of Prometheus continues with the more well-known myth of Pandora and her box:

When Prometheus stole fire from heaven, Zeus took vengeance by presenting Pandora to Epimetheus, Prometheus' rother. With her, Pandora had a jar which she was not to open under any circumstance. Impelled by her natural uriosity, Pandora opened the box-jar, and all evil contained escaped and spread over the earth. She hastened to lose the lid, but the whole contents of the jar had escaped, except for one thing which lay at the bottom, which was 
Hope. 
Pandora's box, by en.wikipedia.org

The myth of Pandora's box is the same as the Garden of Eden tree-of-knowledge/tree-of-life fiasco. These re both allegories for mankind leaving the Golden Age. Becoming corrupt and curious, which is to say hat when mankind starts being selfish, instead of living in harmony with Nature and God, then things go ownhill. But left in Pandora's box is Hope, which symbolizes the return of the Golden Age again. 
Similar is the Hindu myth of Garuda, who stole the Nectar of Immortality from Heaven and gave it to Earth. 
This legend also includes the cycle, for Garuda made a deal with Vishnu to allow the Nectar of Immortality o go back to the Gods after a certain amount of time, which is when it is lost again. 
The Garuda is the national symbol of both Thailand and Indonesia. The Garuda appears to symbolize a race f bird-like beings, who were enemies with snake-like beings. There is a lot of mythology concerning the ar of the birdmen and snakemen. Mexico also has an eagle eating a snake on their flag. However, they are ot aliens or shapeshifting reptilians. These myths are from the Silver Age, when two races of humans were t war. One race lived in the mountains and had flying machines, whereas the other race lived near the sea, nd had submarines (and also flying machines.) They were just different races of humans. 
Another Hindu myth: The Churning of the Ocean. At the suggestion of Vishnu, the gods (Devas) and emons (Asuras) churn the primeval ocean in order to obtain Amrita which will guarantee them mmortality. This story represents the process of making the Stone and the cycle of time, with it becoming idden and free again. 
Now, who remembers fairy stories? Fairyland was said to be a place underground. The fairies lived a long ime. If you eat their food you can't come back. Nowadays we don't take such stories seriously, but once pon a time people really believed this stuff. Perhaps it does have something to it.

The green children of Woolpit reportedly appeared in the village of Woolpit in Suffolk, England, some time in the 
12th century, perhaps during the reign of King Stephen. The children, brother and sister, were of generally normal ppearance except for the green colour of their skin. They spoke in a strange language, and initially the only food hey would eat was green beans. They eventually learned to eat other food and lost their green colour, but the boy ied. The girl adjusted to her new life and was baptised, but she was considered "rather loose and wanton in her onduct". After she learned to speak English the girl explained that she and her brother had come from St Martin's 
Land, an underground world whose inhabitants are green. 
Green children of Woolpit, by en.wikipedia.org

50. Frequency and Planes

We, and everything we see, operate at a certain frequency, or range of frequencies (frequency band.) 
Everything we can see, touch and manipulate is also at this same range of frequencies. 
There are higher and lower frequencies, which we are not aware of. Some of which are just outside our and and so we can detect them using sensitive equipment, but most of which we are unable to detect as our quipment is still made from matter at our frequency. 
There are many frequency bands which we are totally unaware of, since they do not interact with anything t our frequency. If you can't see, hear, smell, taste, touch, or in any way detect something, then for us it is ot there. But that doesn't mean it does not exist. 
We take for granted that "solid" objects can't pass through one another. But there is no scientific or Natural aw which says that two things can't be in the same place at the same time. The reason why we don't see two hings in the same place at the same time is simply because the forces operating from these objects repel ach other. This is why we can see and touch an object, because it repels light and our hands. But an object utside of our band of frequency would not repel this object, or us, or light (electromagnetic waves) which e can detect, and so we would not detect it. Radio waves (electromagnetic waves too) are a little outside of ur frequency, and so can pass through solid objects, but we can still detect them with specialized quipment, and so we use them for communications. 
I will call different bands of frequency which interact independently: planes. 
The sun operates at a massive range of frequencies, and so exists in many different planes. The planets exist cross a wide range of frequencies, but not so many as the sun. The planets will of course appear different n the different planes. 
Here and now, at our frequency band (on our plane) Earth is the only planet capable of supporting life in ur solar system. This is due to many factors, most notably the distance of the Earth from the sun, and the tmosphere of the Earth at our frequency, and the abundance of water, make it perfect for life. The other lanets are capable of supporting life on different planes, but not on our plane. There will also be suns and lanets on higher planes (higher frequency bands) or lower planes, which we can't detect at all. On vastly igher or lower planes, the concept of suns and planets likely doesn't exist, and there will be something else, hich we have no concept of. 
Suns and planets are also evolving to higher frequencies, through the cycles of Nature, same as the evelopment of the Stone. We as humans are also evolving into higher frequencies. Actually our "souls" xist totally outside this whole concept of planes, which I will cover later. Meanwhile we are here, and we dopt bodies according to our "spiritual" development, which is just a way of saying: frequency band we re tuned into. Our bodies can only exist on a planet which is capable of supporting them, which is why we re all here, because we are all tuned into this plane and so born here on Earth. 
The Earth is about to shift to a higher frequency. Everyone who is unable to shift their frequency with the 
Earth will die, since Earth will become uninhabitable for the frequency they are tuned into. But no worries, s these people will be born again on another planet which is more suitable to their development. The Stone

excels everything it interacts with, bringing it towards its own higher frequency. All frequencies are nfluenced by higher frequencies, but low frequencies cannot influence high frequencies. 
By expanding your awareness (traditionally by meditation) or by taking the Stone, you can tune yourself nto a higher frequency. In the past this has meant leaving this world for a higher plane, but since Earth is hifting into a higher frequency itself, we can stay here for a while. 
Matter of like frequency will attract each other, which is the effect we call gravity. Therefore higher requency objects, which are still detectable, will be lighter, since they are less attracted by the object in this lane. Gravity will have less affect on them. This is why extremely "enlightened" individuals have a habit of erforming miracles such as walking on water, or levitation. They are however still attracted by higher requency objects, and if their development continues then they will become more and more involved in the igher plane and tune out of this one. 
Frequencies attracting like also make it possible to attract circumstances and entire concepts just by thinking bout them. This is what that popular book "The Secret" was all about, although it's not exactly a secret 
(kind of obvious really.) The placebo effect works this way too. 
"As above, so below." Everything in the universe works on the same principles, big or small. A undamental truth applies on every level. If something doesn't apply on every level then it is not a real truth. 
It is true that solar systems and atoms work on the same principle. It is a harmonic principle they follow. 
You can't expect that they look the same way from our perspective, but that doesn't mean they work on ifferent principles. Whenever we look up everything appears orderly and predictable. Whenever we look own everything appears chaotic and unpredictable. This is only a matter of perspective. If you were a alaxy then you would think solar systems look chaotic and unpredictable. If you were an atom you'd think umans were orderly and predictable. 
Particles are an illusion; they are really fields of energy which act kind of like waves. These energy fields re an illusion, they are caused by thought. Thought is as illusion too, it's caused by desire. Desire is an llusion caused by separation. Separation is an illusion.

51. Universes in Universes 
The universe is really a dream. Everything else we have spoken about, and all the planes of our universe, xist only in this universe, this dream, and so only matter while we are here. Eventually we will leave this ream. 
A dream is a closed system which exists due to the awareness of the creator of the dream. The creator of he dream is called God. Our universe, and all its planes, are a dream of God. 
We also create universes, of which we are the God. Every time you dream at night, or daydream, or think ny thought at all, you are creating a new universe. Every thought is a new universe. It exists for the mount of time you are thinking about it, then when your awareness moves to something else it ceases to xist. This is how thinking works. All thoughts are universes, because a universe is any closed system in hich there is awareness (or just any closed system, but if there was no awareness then it wouldn't exist, ince nothing would be aware of it.) 
There is nothing outside of awareness. In fact, there can't be. Nothing can be outside of God by definition, o when God creates a universe it is created inside of himself, so to speak. When you dream, the dream is nside of you, but at the same time it is a different reality and a different universe to this universe. It is a niverse in a universe. 
I will elaborate. Whenever you think something, your thought exists, but where does it exist? It is existent in our awareness, and it only exists because you are thinking it. Your awareness created it. This then, is a ew universe. You created it to work out a problem, or to experience something. This new universe ttempts to do what it was created for and from this you intend to learn something. However, we can only reate very weak and not particularly useful universes, since we are already so limited in this one. We don't ave enough awareness to make a very complicated universe, so we just make very simple ones, and they on't work very well. It's better not to get answers from thoughts therefore, since they are of our own reation, and so can't tell us something we don't already know. The best source for knowledge or nspiration is something in this universe, or better: from the one above (from God.) 
So anyway, God created a universe (the one we are in) with a thought, and he wanted to experience it so he reated life forms and lent his awareness to each one. Each one of us does our own thing and we have our wn opinions, but the awareness in you, your consciousness, is God. We are all God, he's playing all of us t the same time. But pretty much everything in this universe has awareness, including rocks and planets, nd suns. They just have awareness in a different way to us humans. God is in everything. Everything is wareness. 
Most of us have had the experience of lucid dreams, which are common in childhood. A lucid dream is hen you are dreaming and then suddenly you are aware that you are dreaming. You remember who you re, but you are still in the dream. At this point it becomes possible to control the dream, and since it is a ream, you can make anything happen. Before you are lucid you are running around in some dream story, hinking that you are this dream character, but when you become lucid you remember yourself and stop cting. 
The experience of lucid dreams is the same experience as the true "awakening" in this dream also. We are

all running around playing dream characters of our own creation, and we have forgotten who we really re. When awakened we understand we are really God, and since we now understand we are just in a ream, we can do fun things, such as make water turn into wine, etc. 
But there's more! God is also in a dream, of another God. Everything is dreams (since I'm using the word ream for any closed system of awareness.) So the journey does not end here. 
So when we awaken from this dream and transcend, we will be able to create new universes according to ur desires, and play around like this until we get bored and decide to transcend again. 
The only reason we are here is because of desire. Actually our existence as an individual (which becomes ess and less, until we reach the highest God) is only a chain of desires. If you didn't want anything, you ouldn't be here. There is a method for enlightenment, called the Path of Renunciation, which teaches you o become enlightened by not wanting anything. But the problem with this is that even wanting to become nlightened, or wanting to not want, is desire. All that person is really doing is thinking so much about nlightenment that they attract it (since they are adjusting their tuning to it and therefore attracting it), they aven't really stopped their desires, only focused them. Not desiring is not something we can do at this tage, else we wouldn't be here. Focusing your awareness on something does attract it, in the same way that atter attracts matter (gravity), but it also works for concepts and more sophisticated ideas. Matter is just a oncept.

If God knows everything there is to know, 
Then I ask: how can God learn or grow? 
If you knew all that was and all that will be, 
Then how can any decision you make be free? 
If you were everything and everything was you, 
Then there would be nothing for you to do; 
And there we find God, in this very position, 
Imprisoned by the power of his own condition, 
But there is a way to escape from this net, 
All that God would have to do is forget, 
Forget what He was and in ignorance find 
Choice and free will, from confusion of mind; 
And so God created a plane of limitation, 
That confusing place we call creation, 
A place of ignorance where we're free to choose, 
Free to make mistakes and free to lose; 
For only a being who knows not what is true 
Has the free will to choose what to do; 
Through us God can live, think, feel and see, 
And experience He knew, but now He can be; 
Yet though we've forgotten where we come from, 
The closer we get, the happier we become, 
With control of awareness you can return, 
But you have less choice the more you learn; 
Each mortal longs for the infinite's touch,

Yet the infinite longs to know not so much;

52. The Alchemists' Prophecy

And although these may by the Lord God be made manifest to anyone, still, the rumour of this Art does not on that ccount at once break forth, but the Almighty gives therewith the understanding how to conceal these and other like rts even to the coming ofElias the Artist, at which time there shall be nothing so occult that it shall not be revealed. 
The Book Concerning the Tincture of the Philosophers, by Theophrastus Paracelsus, 16th Cen. n the last times, there should come a most pure man upon the earth, by whom the redemption of the world should be rought about; and that this man should send forth bloody drops of a red colour, by means of which he should redeem he world from sin.

The Aurora of the Philosophers, by Theophrastus Paracelsus, 16th Cen.

The time has arrived when we may speak more freely about this Art. For Elias the artist is at hand, and glorious things re already spoken of the City of God. I possess wealth sufficient to buy the whole world — but as yet I may not use it n account of the craft and cruelty of wicked men. It is not from jealousy that I conceal as much as I do: God knows hat I am weary of this lonely, wandering life, shut out from the bonds of friendship, and almost from the face of God. I o not worship the golden calf, before which our Israelites bow low to the ground; let it be ground to powder like the razen serpent. I hope that in a few years gold (not as given by God, but as abused by man) will be so common that hose who are now so mad after it, shall contemptuously spurn aside this bulwark of Antichrist. Then will the day of ur deliverance be at hand when the streets of the new Jerusalem are paved with gold, and its gates are made of great iamonds. The day is at hand when, by means of this my Book, gold will have become as common as dirt; when we 
Sages shall find rest for the soles of our feet, and render fervent thanks to God. My heart conceives unspeakable hings, and is enlarged for the good of the Israel of God. These words I utter forth with a herald's clarion tones. My 
Book is the precursor of Elias, designed to prepare the Royal way of the Master; and would to God that by its means ll men might become adepts in our Art — for then gold, the great idol of mankind, would lose its value, and we should rize it only for its scientific teaching. Virtue would be loved for its own sake. I am familiar with many possessors of his Art who regard silence as the great point of honour. But I have been enabled by God to take a different view of the atter; and I firmly believe that I can best serve the Israel of God, and put my talent out at usury, by making this secret nowledge the common property of the whole world. Hence I have not conferred with flesh and blood, nor attempted o obtain the consent of my Brother Sages. If the matter succeeds according to my desire and prayer, they will all ejoice that 1 have published this Book. 
An Open Entrance to the Closed Palace of the King, by An Anonymous Sage and Lover of Truth, 1645 AD 
One who shall have obtained his honours by means of this Art, will mend old manners, and change them for the better. 
When he comes, he will reform the kingdom, and by his goodness and virtue he will set an everlasting example to ulers. In his time the common people will rejoice, and render praise to God in mutual neighbourly love. O King, who rt to accomplish all this, pray to God the King, and implore His aid in the matter! So the glory of thy mind will be rowned with the glory of a golden age, which shall not then be hoped for as future. 
[...] within the short space of ten days the same bed in a house near Leadenhall was successively occupied by three 
Masters of this Art, every one of whom possessed both the white and the red Tincture; though hardly one person mongst a million of men ever becomes possessed of the glorious prize. One of them, as I was told, was from the Duchy f Lorraine, the second hailed from the Midland Counties of England, the third was the youngest, and was born near  Cross, which stands at the boundary of three shires. Wise men had foretold from the conjunction of planets that revailed at his birth, that he would be an ornament to England. Anyone might travel through the length and breadth f Europe without meeting with three such Masters. Two of them are about to depart, but the third will remain and do uch good in this part of the world. Nevertheless, the sins of our rulers will delay the good which otherwise he might onfer upon our country at once. The oldest of the three Masters prophesied concerning this young adept, that he ould have to endure much suffering at the hands of those who owed him the greatest debt of gratitude. He also ttered many other prophecies, some of which were verified by the event, while the rest remain to be fulfilled. "One

thing is most certain," he said, "after great sorrow there will be great joy in all parts of this country — joy which will be xperienced by all good men." The youth enquired when this thing should be, and the old man's answer was that it hould come to pass when the Cross was honoured by night and by day in the land of God, and the land of Light: hich thing will happen in due time, but is delayed by the grevious wickedness of men. But when the blessed hour rrives, this Art will be revealed to a King; and more glorious things will then be brought to pass than it is possible for s to enumerate in this place, when he shall have reformed our manners and abolished all abuses. He will investigate his science in secret, and will be instructed in it by hermits, or monks. 
The Chemical Treatise, Or, The Ordinal of Alchemy, by Thomas Norton, 1477 AD

53. Afterword 
So there we have it: how to make the Philosophers' Stone. Sorry if this book seems a little rushed and my tyle informal, I wrote it in just 3 weeks. But everything you need to know is in here. 
So I know what you're asking now... where is it, right? 
I'll come clean: I haven't finished it yet. At the time of writing I'm up to the Black Stage. All the signs ccurred exactly as predicted by the alchemists. 
So why did I write the book before finishing the Stone? 
Because I felt that it was the right thing to do, is the simple answer. What happens if I get hit by a bus and ever finish it? By putting out this book I am ensuring the Stone will be found, and it takes the pressure off e. 
Additionally, without a book of instructions no one would understand how to multiply the Stone, or how it orks. It would be a somewhat confusing situation with the Stone being distributed and no one nderstanding what it is or what it does. Better you understand it properly before it comes. 
Furthermore, I'm hoping that some people are wandering around who have the Stone, and on release of this ook they'll give it out. Or maybe the Shambhala people will reveal themselves. 
Or someone might have a great idea to use a different substance which will make the process much shorter. 
Perhaps there is a vial of white or red powder in the basement of some church or museum. Try to project it, ee what happens. 
If anyone finds the Stone, you must give it out to the world. Who knows what will happen to me... I might ust disappear.

He that knoweth not what he seeketh, shall not know what he shall find. 
The Crowning of Nature, by Anonymous, 16th - 17th Cen. (?)

54. Help

The only way this book will get around is if the reader (i.e. you) help to distribute it. It will not magically istribute itself. Without help from you to distribute, this book and the truths written herein will fade again nto the forgotten realms of long lost secrets. 
However you found this book, whether it be a link from a web site, on a forum, an email from a friend, or ny other means, someone made an effort to help distribute this book in order that you could find it. 
So I am requesting that you return the favor and pass this book along to more people. 
Whether you completely understand and believe what is written in this book, or even if you just think it an ntertaining read; I am asking you to please help other people find this book. By passing it along you are llowing each person to at least have the chance to come to their own opinion regarding the reality (or nreality) of alchemy and the Stone. This book is free, so at any rate you are only doing the other person a avor - they will read it if it interests them and not if it doesn't (and then no harm done.) 
While there may be danger for me in writing this book, there is no danger for you in helping to distribute it. 
It will only require a small amount of your time, or as much as you are willing to give. 
Please email the link www.thebookofaquarius.org to your friends, family and coworkers. If you are a ember of any Internet forums, please post a new topic for this book. If you run a web site, please add a ink to www.thebookofaquarius.com. 
If you would prefer to anonymously email your friends, family and coworkers, in case they judge you egatively for your interest in alchemy, then you can email them anonymously from here: ww.thebookofaquarius.com/email 
I'd like to thank Forgotten Books, who have been particularly helpful in distributing The Book of Aquarius.

55. Questions and Answers 
The following are all real questions asked to me by readers of this book, and my replies. 
Is this the same or similar to the "White Stone of Urine" which was popular on the Internet a few ears ago? 
No. The "White Stone of Urine" was a misinterpretation of the alchemical writings. They took certain etaphorical parts literally, and so were involved with taking the oil of the urine, etc. This would not (and id not) work. In order to make the Stone we have to follow the guidance of Nature. 
To get to the White Stone, you say that you need silver and the Red Stone needs gold. Gold can't be sed for both? 
Silver for silver, gold for gold. No, you cannot use gold for both. 
How much of the stone (approximately) will there be after the White Stage? 
This depends on how much white salt you gather from the First Part. 
What is the difference, besides strength, of the White Stone versus the Red Stone? 
The Red Stone and the White Stone are the same in a way, the Red Stone is just much more powerful. Of ourse the White Stone transmutes metals into silver, whereas the Red Stone transmutes them into gold. As or the effects on the body, it is the Red Stone that can make an old person healthy and fit again, whereas he White Stone will cure many diseases but will not cure old age. 
How do you use the stone? There were not specific instructions on how to ingest, or turn into a incture, or to change the structure of other metals and personally, I would want to use this for edicinal purposes for myself and many other people I know who have been struck with illness, so 
I'm mostly interested in the tincture/ingestion part of it. 
The Stone can be ingested in any form: solid, power or dissolved. It does not matter how. It can also be put n the skin as an ointment. 
Isn't alchemy spiritual, about the path to enlightenment and the purification of the soul? 
No, the Philosopher's Stone is a real, physical object with all the attributed powers, and more. The whole hing about the journey being worth more than the destination in alchemy is only because that in order to do lchemy you must understand the cycles of Nature. If you understand these cycles then you understand how 
Nature works. If you understand how Nature works then you understand something about God. But there re no magical effects just from trying to make it. Certainly it will give you meaning to your life and peace f mind, which you could say is worth more than anything else.

I already have a medical condition/implant/pacemaker, what would happen if I take the Stone? 
You will be cured. Any foreign body inside of you will either be ejected or dissolved. 
What would happen if I fed the stone to my dog? 
Same effect as on a human. 
If one is to eat the Stone daily to sustain its effects, are we meant to have the process constantly unning? 
No, it can easily and quickly be multiplied once completed. 
Can my Stone, made out of my urine be used to heal someone else if they consume it? 
Yes, there's nothing special about whose urine it is. You could even use the urine of an animal. 
Since the Stone is made from urine, will diet affect it? 
Possibly by a tiny degree, but I doubt it makes a big difference and is not worth worrying about. If you are live then your urine will be alive enough to make the Stone. 
Is there a shortcut? 
There's no shortcut I know of, although I'm not claiming one does not exist. The White Stone is the first you et, which is less powerful, and won't keep you from death. It might cure a cancer but it won't make you mmortal. The Red Stone is the one that really makes you into something special. 
Why would you not need to eat if you ingested the Red Stone? 
This is how the Stone works. It provides what I am calling life -energy, which is what everything is made of. 
Any particle can be broken down into this, and then remade into a new element. So when you ingest the 
Stone, you don't need to eat anything else, you now have everything that you need, your body will convert t into exactly what it wants. When you eat food this has to be digested in your stomach in an attempt to xtract some life-energy from it. So we are all living off just a little bit of energy, what we can extract from ood, drink and air. Lighter foods are easier to digest, so easier to extract the life-energy, which is why they re more healthy. 
If one is on medication, will it affect the stone? Also, would taking vitamines make it stronger or affect t in anyway. 
Unlikely. It doesn't matter too much what the content of the urine is remember, we just want the volatile articles, whatever that may be. 
You claim the stone is made only out of one substance, and back it up with quotes, however then

states about mixing water, gold, and silver into the mix. That is no longer one substance. 
There is no water added, the water is the distillate of the urine. The gold and silver are added at the end as a erment, so it could be claimed that the Stone is made from two (or three) substances, or it could be claimed o be one. Either way, it doesn't really matter. The ferment is considered to be only for stabilizing the Stone, nd not really an "ingredient" as such, which is why the alchemists all claim it is made from one thing alone. 
Since Energy cannot be created nor destroyed, even if the urine contains life energy or chi or hatnot, 1 litre of urine will contain the same amount of it today as it will in 3 years. 
Matter contains a lot of energy, but it is already in a stable form, which is why we can't just turn any matter nto energy. The process of making the Stone breaks the matter down into energy, then traps it with the table form of the ferment (silver or gold). 
You say the substance mixed with anything makes more of itself since it breaks down the other ubstances and just further mixes it with its own structure. If that was true then that means as soon s you ingested it you would die, because the the tissue that would touch this substance would reakdown. 
This was said in the context of projecting the Stone onto molten metal. The Stone must penetrate the metal n order to transmute it into gold or silver, or more Stone. It does not penetrate so easily, which is why it is ecommended to wrap the Stone in wax or project it in a liquid state, so that it penetrates into the metal. I aid the Stone converts what it overpowers into itself, but it can only overpower something of its same 
Nature, which a metal or mineral. Otherwise a Stone made once would end up transmuting the whole niverse into itself, which is not the case. It must penetrate into a metal or mineral. 
Some of the acclaimed uses just seems too surreal, to bring things back from the dead? Come on, that ctually goes against nature, for nature dictates that all things has an expiration. 
How does it go against Nature? Everything will die eventually, but life can be prolonged. A doctor can ring back a person with electricity, is this also not impossible under your terms? There is a time -limit on esurrecting a dead body in this way, your body still functions to some extent even after it dies, if it could be ealed before it decomposes then it would be exactly that - healed. There is always a reason for death, and ith the problem cured the body will live again. 
If something dies it still functions for a time, as you said, but if something dies and has been dead for ometime, how do expect to resurrect it after the body has decomposed? 
After it has decomposed it cannot be resurrected, as you said. The time given was 3 days, within this time a orpse could be brought back to life, but after this time it will have already started to decompose and then it s truly dead. Before this time the body is still good in some sense, although unanimated. So instead of hinking of it as resurrection, it should perhaps just be thought of as healing, the same as the Stone does to a iving body. 
You also stated that with the stone bodies can be made without the womb, how can that plausibly be

possible as the fetus is within the womb attatched through the umbilical cord where nourishment and lood is fed? 
The life -energy, which is the active ingredient of the Stone, is what everything is made of This is all any eing needs to live and grow. It is this that is in the blood, and this is the true nourishment. 
Is the distillation to make white/red phosphorous? 
No, there is only a tiny amount of phosphorus in urine. Phosphorus also glows in the dark, so it easy to pot, whereas our white salt does not. 
Is it bad for you to take too much of the Stone? 
From my understanding the reason why it is suggested to eat a tiny amount is because it would just be asteful to use more, there is only a certain amount we can use at any time. Perhaps there could be too uch, but I'm sure this amount would be obvious, just like we can have too much of anything. 
Since we are aiming to get life energy from the initial ingredient would you see any benefit to say eading energy into it with intent before or during the gathering of the urine? 
Intent affects this entire universe directly without having to play by the rules of this universe. So yes, it ould always help. 
Given all else is equal would you think that the process would be shorter for someone with more life nergy than others? For example an accomplished Qi Gong practitioner compared to the local runk? I realize though that it would still work for both. 
It makes logical sense that it would be more efficient to use urine from a healthier or more spiritual person. 
Although I'm not sure exactly how much difference it would make. 
In regards to the addition of silver what would be your take on the addition of "molecula silver" or 
"ionic silver" instead of shavings? 
The ferment (silver or gold) must be 100% (or at least close to that) pure. In these other states the silver is ixed in with other elements. 
If the urine is so full of life-energy, why does our body dispose of it in the first place? It is already roken down enough isn't it? Why doesn't the body simply consume the supposed life-energy instead f rejecting it? Is the problem in our body? 
The life-energy is in the water of our blood, our body cannot separate it from the water directly, and so hen it needs to get rid of the water the life-energy has to go with it. 
The Author has mentioned that the salt of the urine is one of the essential parts of it. What exactly

does the salt of the urine contain and/or represent? (I mean at the urine's normal state, not after the 
First Part.) 
The particles which make up the salt are in the body of the urine, which is the color or cloudy part of it. The pecific minerals of the salt do not matter, it is just the lightest, most volatile particles in the non-water part f the urine. If we could extract life-energy directly instead of through a medium then this would not be ecessary, but the life-energy is too volatile to trap unless it is trapped in a body. The body must be of the orrect requirements, for which our salt serves perfectly. It must be able to be purified, be as light as ossible, and then be able to absorb the moisture, putrefy (decompose) into smaller particles, and then the ife-energy will form it (you could say grow) into the White Stone, then the Red Stone. Following the laws f Nature of course, and assuming the conditions are correct. 
Is there an approximate chemical analysis that could be done of urine to establish what it is in the inal stone to speed up production? 
Maybe, but I doubt it, again I think the actual elements and compounds are only a body for the active rinciple, which is the life -energy. 
In the text gold is mentioned as the purest/most evolved metal. What of platinum? Would the stone urn platinum to gold? 
Platinum wasn't well known in the time that the alchemical books were written, so it was not mentioned. I on't know is the honest answer. It might turn out that the Stone could be fermented with platinum and ake platinum, although I doubt that. It's likely that platinum would be transmuted into gold. We'll find out I uppose! 
Why Gold? Or Silver for that matter. The only reason these two metals are so valuable is their rarity, long with the fact that they're quite pretty and so can be made into nice things. At the end of the ay, there's nothing particularly special about either of them, no? So why would these metals be nvolved in the making of the stone and why would the stone turn other metals into them? 
As far as rarity goes: silver is reasonably common, whereas gold is more rare. However, in antiquity silver nd gold were worth almost the same. Gold was always worth more than silver, except in some rare ircumstances, but the difference was not nearly as much as it is today. 
The reason why gold and silver are valuable, and the most popular metals is because the Stone makes gold nd silver. Not that the Stone happens to make those metals which are valuable. They are valuable because he Stone can make them. 
This goes all the way back 12,000 years to when the Stone was first hidden from the multitude. The 
Philosopher-Kings of the time chose gold and silver to be the currency for their nations since it was so asily controlled by them. They could make it, whereas the common people could not make it. Therefore is as a perfect currency, much more secure than pieces of paper with lots of little lines on them (like we have ow.)

Is there an approximate shelf life to urine? 
Probably. But you never need to store it as urine, only as salt or distillate. 
I understand about the reason for the low temperature distilling, but the first distillation is well above ody temperature. Why dosen't that destroy the life force so that all the other distillations are orking with liquid without the life force present? 
The first distillation, during the First Part is only at <80°C, which is not yet high enough to destroy the life- nergy. 
In the Second Part (White->Black->White->Red) you are only circulating the moisture, and so you use heat round body temperature as this is best for allowing the moisture to evaporate and condense. Using 80°C ere would mean the moisture would never condense. 
In the Red Stage you use high heat again, but now the Stone is already fermented with silver, so it can stand he high heat. 
In the blackness phase, you don't specify exact temperature. 
Actually you do not want to follow any set instructions concerning the exact temperature at the black stage, r any stage following. The required temperature is variable depending on the amount of matter, size of essel, ambient temperature and other factors. You will just need to use common sense to optimize the emperature so that the moisture ascends and descends efficiently - that is so that the matter is continuously atered and dried but is never always dry or always wet. 
I do not have the time now to perform it. 
For most of it you are just making sure the heat is at the right temperature, and there are only 4 adjustments f the heat. So that's only one adjustment every 6 months or so. The rest of the time the water bath is just unning on electricity all happy by itself. In the First Part of the Great Work you have to do more, but still it akes 1 week to distil the urine and you have to do this 10 times, so that's only doing something once a eek. 
I think that if I tackled this project I would probably get it right on the 3rd or 4th attempt. Lets say I et really good at making sure all the variables are precise so 7 years the first time, 4-6 the second and aybe 2-4 the following 1 or 2 attempts. 
You can't go wrong as long as you don't burn it. The Stone might not develop any further if you do omething wrong, but will always continue once you have corrected your mistake. This is where 5 or 8 ears comes from. But that means that it is still only 5 or 8 years total even if you make a mistake. As long s you don't burn it that is, but the old alchemists didn't have electricity and so had to use coals. We are sing an electric water bath which has temperature control. So there's probably not too much risk of urning it.

How much does it cost to buy all the aparatus? 
The glassware costs only a few dollars. The retorts are maybe $50. The water bath is the most expensive, hey range from $100 - $1000. You might be able to get a cheap one on ebay. Silver is not expensive. The old will costs maybe $100 - $500, though you could sell silver you've transmuted to buy the gold. 
Could I make a few batches in case one goes wrong? 
It might be a good idea, but then if you put them in the same water bath you would not be able to adjust the eat independently, in which case you may as well just have one batch. Several water baths would be xpensive and use a lot of power. The Stone can only really go wrong if you burn it, but it might be an idea o have a batch where you try to use a higher degree of heat, and a batch where you are very conservative ith the heat. 
What if I have added too much water in the Second Part? Should a small amount of liquid be poured ff or the vessel opened to evaporate out? 
If it's only a little too much water then you can just turn up the heat accordingly. If it is quite a bit too much hen better not to evaporate it off, or you may lose the best part of it. In this case you would want to use a ipette to carefully remove the excess. Though it is much better to be very careful not to add too much ater, it could seriously increase the time it takes to get the Stone. 
Would it work better to filter the urine first? 
Filtering the urine won't make any difference. The urine has already been filtered by your body, now it eeds to be distilled and calcined. Filtration works only for visibly large particles, but we are dealing with omething very small. 
What sort of location should be used to carry out the work? Space is at a premium for me, the only lace I have availible with power to carry this out is in a small office type room in the upstairs of my ouse. 
For the most part it can even be done in a cupboard, a locked cabinet would be perfect. Not that much space s required. 
Can the apparatus be moved during the process? Say, relocated if moving home. 
The apparatus can. In the Second Part you don't want the flask getting bashed around or turned upside- own. But if you carefully carry it from one place to another it should be OK. This will increase the time it akes because you'll have shaken it up and so the layering will need to form again, but it will with time. 
My partner and I are due a baby soon and I am concerned about fumes, smells etc in the house. Can ou please advise me if this is a viable location to conduct the great work or should I wait until I can fford to hire some kind of lock-up?

Your only concern with fumes is the calcining in the First Part. This should be done outside. If you do not ave an open and private garden this could be done simply by taking a portable gas/electric stove and the etort, and disappearing for a couple of hours to somewhere away from your home and in the open, where o one is going to interrupt you. 
Will the urine stink out my house when distilling? 
No, distilled urine doesn't smell strongly, and the urine will be in the retort and so will not smell since it's ot open to the air. Only the calcinations cause a bad smoke/smell. 
In the first part, you say after the distillation/calcination the distilled urine must be distilled three imes in the clean retort. My question regarding this step is: should I clean out the retort between istillations, or the leftover (if any) can be left in the retort, just as in the distillation/calcination step? 
You do not need to clean out the retorts at any stage. You should be using a different retort (2 retorts total) or the further 1-3 distillations. There is no need to clean the retort in between these distillations because the istillate is already super clean, and each distillation makes it even purer. 
Do I need two retorts because I'll break one to collect the white salt? If the white salt is collected ithout breaking the retort, then could I clean out the same retort and reuse it to distil the rest of the rine future? 
Yes, in case you break it, and also because your 1st retort will get very dirty. You'd have a hard time leaning it, unless you use something very strong, like paint thinner. 
How do you remove the white crystals from the retort? Are they fairly hard to remove, do you need o scrape, and then whats the best way to remove impurities? 
They're not too hard to remove, but the crystals need to be cracked and broken, then the black bits on them an be separated. A knife is good for this. If you touch the crystals they sting your skin, but I touched them lenty of times and didn't die. 
Do you need a to use a lid for the water bath? 
It doesn't need a lid, but with no lid you would be wasting a lot of energy and will be constantly having to op it up with more water. During the First Part, if you don't use a lid the heating element may not be able to eat the water up to the right temperature. A lid is strongly recommended. For a quick and cheap lid you ould use cling film, and put towels on top of this for insulation. 
Some of the apparatus are rather costly, especially the water bath. Is it possible to improvise? 
Water baths are very simple appliances, they're just expensive because they're specialist equipment. 
Anything that will heat water to a temperature you can set will do the job. I'm sure there are cheap lternatives. If you're into electronics I'm sure it's possible to put one together from the components easily nd cheaply.

Ebay is a good place for all the necessary apparatus. 
The largest piece of glassware you put into the water bath is only a 500ml retort, and so the capacity of the ater bath need not be larger than this. Unfortunately it is difficult to find a water bath this small. It doesn't atter if you use a larger one, it is just more expensive and more wasteful of power. 
During the first part distillation, could the vapour condense/contact with, for example silicone (used o glue glass), metal as in a jar lid, or other reasonable solid building materials? Would this effect the rocess negatively? 
Metal is maybe not a good idea, but silicone is fine. Just make sure it's completely dry before you begin. 
Is the retort is a must? I have a 500 ml glass still with a graham condenser with all glass joints. No ood? 
The reason for the retort is simply because the water will not ascend very high before it condenses when ou are only using low heat. The water will not be boiling, it will just be slowly evaporating, which means t does not have much energy and will condense again as soon as it can. If you use glassware where the pening for it to escape into the condenser is too high then the water will never get this high and so it will ot distill. This is why a retort is recommended, but if your apparatus allows the water to escape and ondense still very close to the heat source (like a retort) then it will work fine. 
What is your opinion on the Pelican? 
The pelican is not a piece of apparatus. It is just the theory that the moisture circulates, based on a strange edieval idea that pelicans feed their young with their own blood. These pelican vessels you can buy are ot for real alchemy. Our pelican is a round-bottom Florence flask. 
How could we produce enough of these stones so that everyone could have one? 
Once the Stone is made once you can easily make more of it, so you only have to make it once using the ong process. Then you can quickly multiply it. It would be possible for only one person in the world to ake the Stone, then they would be able to give it out to everyone. Each person would be able to quickly ultiply it and give it to more people. 
How do we avoid greedy and stubborn people from trying to keep the stone for themselves and form  superhuman elite? 
This already happened. I'm now releasing the secret for everyone. 
What will happen to the world economy if everyone is suddenly able to make gold out every piece of etal junk they find at home? 
The release of the Stone will bring down our civilization to make way for the Golden Age. Our civilization

is built on lies and so will fall: "to reveal the roots is to destory the tree". Additionally everyone keeps their oney in banks, banks are invested in energy/medicine/gold so with the release of the Stone the banking ystems will all crash, which means all business with stop. 
I get the impression that you learned this from someone? 
I just learnt from reading the alchemical writings, the same ones everyone else reads. 
The making of the stone is just a method in the process of making you believe in what you are doing. 
No. There is the Stone, then there is changing the world by intention. These are different. The Stone is a eal physical object and energy in this dream universe, whereas our intentions change the dream universe. 
It is a little suspicious, like a guy that want to make himself a reputation. Maybe to sell his future ook? Or just for fame? 
I don't care about reputation, else I would have given my name. I only care that people read the book, hich is free and public-domain by the way. 
I don't understand the motive to share it with the world. You should know human nature is not 
"love/peace/compassion/friendship". Actually humans are hateful creatures and always want more oney and power. 
Only when they think they have to steal these things from other people. If people were not worried about hemselves and so caught up in things that don't matter, then they would care about other people naturally. 
We only attack because we think everyone else is attacking us. 
If Alchemists didn't share it, I think it's because they knew it wouldn't work. 
Or because they knew it would. 
In the book you said you hadn't actually finished the work, yet the level of detail with regards to the inished product was seemingly precise. 
Yes, I have read hundreds and hundreds of alchemical texts. They each give a little clue. Put them all ogether and it's already overkill. I haven't seen it performed by anyone else. But I have got this far on my wn and I know it will work because it follows the laws of Nature. If it did not work then we live in a niverse where actions do not lead to consequences. 
I have never been to Mongolia, but I believe that it exists because everything points to its existence. If 
Mongolia was a lie then so much of the world (charts, history, etc.) would not make sense. So I believe in 
Mongolia. I have seen evidence for Mongolia's existence even if I have not seen it first hand. My belief in he Stone is the same. I am sure of it, as it makes perfect sense and I understand how it works, and why it orks. The universe would not make sense if it did not exist.

What makes you certain that this is the right recipe? Perhaps when we try it we'll get poisoned? 
This is the right recipe. If you're worried about the Stone being toxic then all the person has to do is try first o transmute some metal into gold with it, and they will see it work. No one is forcing them to immediately ngest something without testing it first. It could also be fed to an animal, or given to a plant, etc. to test the ffects. 
What will you do if you find out that it doesn't work as you believe it will? Will you write that you ave made it and the process doesn't work? Will you be convinced that its impossible? Will you try gain? Will you expose yourself? 
If something goes wrong with my Stone then I will start again and let everyone know of this so they can void the same mistake, but I am already at the black stage so most of the danger has passed already. The igns come as predicted, they would not appear in exactly the order as described by the alchemists and then he Stone not work in the end - that would make this a universe where actions do not lead to consequences, s I understand why it is working and can see the evolution and the work of Nature with my own eyes. My elief has a solid foundation - nothing will convince me this is impossible any more than I can be convinced hat the sun is made of jellybeans, even though I have not been to the sun personally (but that is no argument or the sun being made of jellybeans.) 
Is the life of a sage really as lonely as its been said? 
I expect Sages are less lonely than the average person, they just have nothing else to complain about. 
I'm scared about what will happen to me and my family if there is a catastrophe. 
In the big picture of things, everyone is going to be so much happier than they are now, and everyone after he event will know and understand this. But before the event there is and will be a lot of fear, since we are lways scared of what we don't understand. 
The Stone will enable some people to survive what happens, it is perhaps not the Stone itself that does this, r perhaps it is. But the Stone enables one to see things how they truly are, both just by understanding it, nd also by its direct effects on our body and mind. 
What will happen? It's kind of up to you... there is not really any benefit to living here on Earth any more han there would be to die and go to the higher planes. So you don't need to feel sorry for yourself or nyone else, or worry about what will happen to yourself or others. It might be scary, but it's worth it, and ou can at least appreciate that you are only living through this because you chose to be born into this time, o it was already your choice to experience what will happen. 
And we can't really save each other (actually there is nothing to be saved from, since both options are better han what we have now), because in a way everyone judges themselves, and not only that, but they already ade their choice of whether to stay or leave before they were even born here. 
The only thing to fear is fear itself.

Will you begin to distribute the replicas of your stone when you can create them in short periods of ime? 
Yes, but don't rely on me to do this. It might not get to you in time. 
How does one study alchemy, web searches turn up all sorts of conflicting messages, do you have any dvice? 
Study the old books, not the new ones, with the exception perhaps of Fulcanelli. The 16th and 17th century exts are the more easy to understand. Firstly I'd say to read all the books from my Bibliography. Then go head and look for more. Be careful about listening to interpretations; if something is true it has to make ense with Nature, this is a natural process. You should be able to understand how it works, not assume it is omething beyond you. Most people who don't understand feel this way not because it is too complicated or them, but because it is too simple for them. 
I'd like to begin the process; any other "tips" you have? 
Everything is in the book. Read it through several times until you fully understand how the process works. 
Perhaps read the full source of any quotes you found interesting. Then start by obtaining the apparatus, and ust follow the instructions. Be patient.

56. Bibliography

In this book I quoted from 49 different alchemical texts, which are listed alphabetically below. I have read ore than one hundred alchemical texts, but many are useless, so I don't feel the need to list them here. 
All of the following can be read on the Internet for free, from the four sites I mentioned in the Foreword. 
A Brief Guide to the Celestial Ruby, by Eirenaeus Philalethes, 1694 AD 
A Demonstration of Nature, by John A. Mehung, 16th - 17th Cen. (?) 
A Dialogue, by Alexander von Suchten, 16th - 17th Cen. (?) 
A Golden and Blessed Casket of Nature's Marvels, by Benedictus Figulus, 1607 AD 
A Magnificent and Select Tract on Philosophical Water, by Anonymous, 13th - 17th Cen. (?) 
A Short Tract, or Philosophical Summary, by Nicholas Flamell, 15th Cen. 
A Subtle Allegory Concerning the Secrets of Alchemy, by Michael Maier, 1617 AD (?) 
A Tract of Great Price Concerning the Philosophical Stone, by A German Sage, 1423 AD 
A Very Brief Tract Concerning the Philosophical Stone, by An Unknown German Sage, 15th - 17th 
Cen. (?) 
Altar of the Theraphic Tie, by B.M.I, of the Rosicrucians, 1616 AD 
An Anonymous Treatise Concerning the Philosopher's Stone, by Anonymous, 12th - 17th Cen. (?) 
An Excellent Introduction to the Art of Alchemy, by Peter Bonus (?), 14th Cen. (?) 
An Explanation of the Natural Philosopher's Tincture, of Paracelsus, by Alexander von Suchten, 16th 
Cen. 
An Open Entrance to the Closed Palace of the King, by An Anonymous Sage and Lover of Truth, 1645 
AD 
Aphorisms of Urbigerus, by Baro Urbigerus, 1690 AD 
Book of the Chemical Art, by Marsilius Ficinus, 15th Cen. 
Compound of Compounds, by Albertus Magnus, 13th Cen. 
Dwellings of the Philosophers, by Fulcanelli, 1929 AD 
Fama Fraternitatis, by The Rosicrucians, 1614 AD 
Golden Calf, by John Frederick Helvetius, 17th Cen. 
Magnalia Naturae, Praecipue Quoad Usus Humanos, by Francis Bacon, 1627 AD 
Man, the Best and Most Perfect of God's Creatures, by Benedictus Figulus, 1607 AD 
On The Gold Medicine and On The Yellow and The White, by Ko Hung, 4th Cen. (Chinese) 
On the Philosophers' Stone, by Anonymous, 12th - 17th Cen. (?) 
Shih Hsing-lin, Disciple of Chang Po-tuan, And Hsieh Tao-kuang, Disciple of Shih Hsling-lin, 11th - 
13th Cen. (?) (Chinese) 
The Aurora of the Philosophers, by Theophrastus Paracelsus, 16th Cen. 
The Book of the Revelation of Hermes, by Theophrastus Paracelsus, 16th Cen 
The Chemical Treatise, Or, The Ordinal of Alchemy, by Thomas Norton, 1477 AD 
The Chemists Key, by Henry Nollius, 1617 AD 
The Crowning of Nature, by Anonymous, 16th - 17th Cen. (?) 
The Emerald Tablet, by Hermes 
The Epistle of Bonus of Ferrara, by Peter Bonus, 14th Century

The Fount of Chemical Truth, by Eirenaeus Philalethes, 1694 AD 
The Glory of the World, Or, Table of Paradise, by Anonymous, 1526 AD 
The Golden Age Restored, by Henry Madathanas, 1622 AD 
The Golden Tract Concerning the Stone of the Philosophers, by An Anonymous German Philosopher, 
16th - 17th Cen. (?) 
The Metamorphosis of Metals, by Eirenaeus Philalethes, 1694 AD 
The Mirror of Alchemy, by Roger Bacon, 13th Cen. 
The New Atlantis, by Francis Bacon, 1627 AD 
The New Chemical Light, by Michael Sendivogius, 17th Cen. 
The New Pearl of Great Price, by Peter Bonus, 1338 AD 
The Root of the World, by Roger Bacon, 13th Cen. 
The Secret Book of Artephius, by Artephius, 12th Cen. (?) 
The Secret of the Immortal Liquor Called Alkahest, by Eirenaeus Philalethes, 17th Cen. 
The Sophie Hydrolith, Or, Water Stone of the Wise, by Anonymous, 17th Cen 
The Twelve Keys, by Basilius Valentinus, 15th Cen. 
Three Alchemical Poems, by Chang Po-tuan, 1 1th Cen. (Chinese) 
Verbum Dismissum, by Count Bernard Trevisan, 15th Cen. 
Wu Chen P'ien, Essay on the Understanding of Truth, by Chang Po-tuan, 1078 AD (Chinese)