«…In effect, in the Great Work, the Salt will be used from the beginning of work - from the Preparation of the matters - to the Multiplication. Without Salt, there is no Granules; without Salt, no Quintessence; without Salt, the Spirit of God, there is no Great Work. The Salt is the key which will enable us to open the gate of the Temple, it is the perfect and pure, protean matter: water, crystal, dew, renewed water, and vapour, and sperm binding Mercury to the Sulphur, which from beginning to end will lead the Work, regulate it, stimulate it, purify it, and make of this formless and ground, the Philosophers' Stone.»

«This fourth lesson will suppose that the neophyte has found the Vase, the Fire, the Art of Separating the three components.»

«The prudent and astute neophyte will thus start by the separation of the 3 bodies through a Natural way, in order to be able to study and to treat them each separately according to their kind.»

«From the mineral point of view, the astute neophyte will proceed in the same manner. He will place in his double vase well closed his sifted and ground stone, and he will sublimate the mercurial and saline parts, leaving the rough Sulphur in its terrestriality. Naturally, to operate this double sublimation, which will result in the separation of the 3 bodies, the Artist should but only use ways that are natural. He will have above all to take care not to employ any fire against-nature to cause the aforesaid sublimation.»

«...Indeed, in the first scene, that of the Point, what can we see, if not the Mercury and the Salt, such as they appear, at the end of the Preparation, in the balloon attached to the retort where the Separation of the bodies was done, thanks to the power of Salt...»

«The advised neophyte will join together in one vase only the 3 constituents which it will have separated in the precedent phase; then he will cleanse them with the igneous Salt or sacred fire of the Wise. He will control his fire with prudence, and with energy in order to avoid killing the germ of his stone.»

«When the Sage has dosed his vessel: Sulphur, Mercury and Salt (not the vulgar ones), there will be produced a chemical and a caloric reaction which purpose is to unite the 3 elements in nature’s proportions. However, the sage starts from a proportion given by the analysis, of the Sulphur and Mercury, it results that there remains a none amalgamate at the bottom in its vessel.»

«…What occurs in the Athanor at the time when Sulphur and Mercury is being mixed, the Salt will start the initial reaction of the Solve: tearing off itself from the bubbling compote, here that vapour rises in the top of the balloon: the Salt is sublimated, followed by Mercury and finally by Sulphur; and there, in the "sky", the union of the three bodies will be made. Female Mercury will be united with the male force of Sulphur, thanks to the divine spirit - the alchemical Salt. These Granules being born represent in truth the primitive androgyny, having at the same time the whole male and female characteristics, and whose purity was all divine.»

«...It is the Granule, which is born in the top of the balloon. These Granules, at its beginning, is covered only with a thin material film…later, when the granules take weight and falls down in the compote it will be more material.»

«...The Granulation, born in the Light, will bury itself in the compote, which will protect it and enable it to absorb the nourishment which it needs to arrive at maturity, but this granulation will remain, for the moment, hidden to all our glances.»

«...The Granulation, even though hidden in the black of the Earth, is quite alive in spite of appearances. This residue, which will undergo the corruption and the putrefaction, will stain the Granulations, from the very moment of their birth. These dregs that one calls Superfluidities will have to be removed in order to be able to Whiten our born Stone.»

«Having acted according to art, and lead the movement of its fire with more and more energy, the neophyte will see that a new body has been created and that it bathes in blackness and a most putrid vase; he will see floating his running Mercury below its black earth. Then we will be able to say that we are at the Putrefaction stage.»

«We can interpret this passage while thinking of the Granulation, born in the top of the balloon, and which falls back down, being more heavy, in the compote where it will have to undergo the attacks by the Salt. As of this moment, the Oil of Saturn or Quintessence is promised to the Stone: one day, this Oil will become its nourishment, and will communicate to it its force. For the Stone also, the Oil of Saturn is the Universal Medicine. »

«How can we not here remember that the Quintessence, or Hermes' Seal, will appear on the surface of the compote without any human intervention - it is the Stone itself which makes the Universal Medicine.»

«...The Putrefaction, in the Athanor, allows to rise initially an impalpable oil, and which, while going up along the walls of the balloon, produced there, with a little movement, the most beautiful iridisations...time is close where the Quintessence, the only true richness of Wise, will be given to him, in reward of his work. We know it, the Quintessence is red: but, spread out on the walls of the vase, or on any glass blade, it becomes yellow by transparency.»

«On the mineral level, the astute neophyte knows that he will have to Cut off the Crow’s Head, if he wants to see appear the reign of the Vegetable realm.»

«When the invaluable Quintessence was collected by the artist, when the compote was seen loosened, here it is that begins the Vegetative stage, where the matter becomes Green...»

«He will Separate thus with art and understanding, with prudence and slowness, the 2 elements which are in his vase; then the Greening will appear, and he will be on the point of treating his Granules...»

«...And we know that, in the Athanor, the Granules hidden in the compote have needed to be awakened and vivified by the Salt. This will be thus poured with care on the earth...and to make it penetrate "to a great depth" the artist will have to use the Fifth fire.»

«...And insists on the fact that the Vegetation is immediately followed by the harvest of the Oil of Saturn - the Athanor stays open.»

«The Fifth Fire made, a last time, circulate the white Salt around of the Granules - and the superfluity, definitively, can be abandoned and reject by the artist.»

«...The Vegetation is terminated, and it is here that the Granulation, coated with the Salt of lime, has taken the white colour of Venus.»

«…These waters represents the seven Salt baths, which will purify the Stone, clean it of its leprosy by the force of the potash and gradually bring it to the pure white, thanks to the lime contained in the Salt, which gradually, little by little will settle on the Granulation, to coat it and to isolate it completely - five complete baths, plus a bath with half the amount at the beginning and another at the end - the Stone will thus arrive at Whiteness...»

«…Having been left with the white Granule. We will now have to remove the Granulation from the balloon - protected by its hardened Salt carapace, it is not likely any more to be deteriorated by the air, and is retouched, very gently by the Quintessence, to dye it. We know it, the Quintessence is red...but as the layer deposited on the Stone' surface is very thin, it will give but, in the first tincture, a yellow colour.»

«...We have thus arrived here at the first tincture of the Quintessence ».

«In effect, for the dying, the artist will have first of all to remove the Stone from the balloon, then, turning it in all directions in his own hand, retouch it with the Mercury's Oil.»

«Thus, at this stage of the Coagulate, the Granule coated with the lime, will, thanks to the very light touches of the Quintessence, see its colour pass from the White to the Yellow, then to Orange. One day, finally, the Granule will have acquired this beautiful dark Red colour, which characterizes the Stone at the end of its cycle.»

«The Artist applied the two last touches of the Quintessence on the Stone, by letting it well dry between each application: from dark Yellow, it passed to the Orange, and now here the Rouge, perfect and pure, and ready to operate the miracle of the transmutation.»

«...Is identified here as the Red Stone: with its death, a new cycle will start, we are at the Multiplication and all the alchemical operations henceforth, from the Solve, will be repeated...»

«In this context, which we can alchemically all place at the beginning of the Multiplication, the Red Stone, having been regrind and reduced in dust, becomes again symbolically the primitive cinnabar, and will have to be treated exactly in the same way.»

«In Athanor, the ground Red Stone will be able to transform but by the grace of the conjoint action of the Salt and the Fifth Fire, which will allow a new sublimation Solve to be started.»

«The first Red Stone, in effect, if it is fixed, did not yet acquire the sufficient force to transmute. To acquire this force, it is necessary to restart again the entire primitive cycle: reground and placed in the Athanor as the Prima materia had been, the stone will be sprinkled with Salt - one part of the two last rations which remain with the artist on the fourteen doses prepared at the beginning ("in principle" - since it is often necessary for more - the Alchemist prepares 14% of Salt, in reference with the total cinnabar weight used: for a stone of one kilo, it thus will foresee 140 grams of Salt, which it will divide, for more convenience, into fourteen times ten grams, and it is thus to multiply, it will use all the two last rations which remain, or 20 grams for one kilo of prima matter at the beginning). This Salt sprinkling, joined with the force of the Fifth fire, will produce the same reaction as the first time: the Salt will sublimate first, followed by Mercury, then by one part of Sulphur only - the remainder, mixed with the impurities, forming the compote. The Granules are born, in the turbulence of the vapours, of the marriage of Sulphur and of Mercury, tied by the Salt, fall down gradually in the compote where they are buried...and the remainder of the Work continues with the path, until the new Stone has a transmutation value like ten times its weight (because such is the coefficient of the force which it will acquire with each Multiplication) the Quintessence produced - more abundant each time- will not be altered Only the quantity increases: the quality was perfect as of the first Stone...»

«Once again, here the great adventure recommences. In the "heaven" of the Athanor, the Red Stone, multiplied once already, ground again, sprinkled with the Salt, will give birth to another Granulation.

«…In the earth matrass (crucible) at the ends of the molten metal, some grains of the projection powder will be thrown, coated with pure beeswax (the passage of the Stone through the fumes of the fusion is enough to hinder the Transmutation, and it is for this that the Alchemist must take this precaution). In an instance, the vile metal is transformed into gold, with the simple contact of the Philosophers' Stone…»

END