Superfusion

TRAITE DU FEU ET DU SEL, Blaise de Vigenère, Paris, 1618, p.87

«Therefore a patient man who is willing to cook lead on a regular continuous fire that doesn't exceed its fusion point, i.e., so that the lead remains in fusion and nothing more happens to it, adding to it some portion of quicksilver and sublimated in order to keep it to be calcined and reduced to powder, will at length discover that Flamel didn't speak in a frivolous way when he said that the fixed grain the lead contains in potency, namely gold and silver, would multiply and grow as the fruit grows in a tree.»

ALCHIMIE, Eugène Canseliet, Paris, 1978, p.81

«In a similar way – which is unfortunately unprofitable due to the amount of time and money spent in the process - chiefly consisting in keeping in subfusion the lead evenly placed over the crown of a gas burner, while making sure it doesn't contain the smallest part of the noble metal, we have obtained more than 40 years ago and through the fixed grain developed, isolated and afterwards projected on common quicksilver, a ingot weighing 100g of the most magnificent gold»

INTROITUS AD PHILOSOPHORUM LAPIDEM, Solazaref, p.114

«On a February's Saturday of 1982, around 15:30, before a group of four witnesses, Mr. Canseliet confirms the effectiveness of our transmutation as a result of a Vigenère's particular on lead into finest gold. The proofs of our philosophical and laboratorial claims are available to our disciples, under the condition that they conform to the required traditional attitude.

As for the envious, they will find in our home what they have already guessed from the reading of the first pages of this treatise.»

P.378-381

«Study with great precaution the union of mercury and the three heaviest metals among the seven. Between one fifth and one third of the maximal part of the fusion will be sufficient with the addition of some salt in the 15th part of the total's weight. Analyse the dross and you will understand the method required in order to prepare a metal in order to cruder the Particular upon it.

Your vessel must be conceived according to Art. Its earth must have the same nature of the one discussed in " Du Nettoyage des Ecuries d'Augias ". It must be made thick, then tested under a violent fire and carefully verified so that no crack will show up during the exercise.

Take the part of metal, then mercury, and then salt, ex:

Jupiter: 200g. Mercury: 40g  Double Salt: 16g

First of all, place the metal reduced to fillings on a mortar of cast iron and add its part of salt and then grind. Slowly introduce the weight in mercury, always mixing it up firmly: you shall see the salt absorbing the liquid. Place the mixture on the philosophical egg specially conceived to this purpose. Fill it up with the aid of small iron stick with a flattened head. Grind in the interior the glass paste finely smashed as we have told you on the already mentioned text, in such a way that it equalize. Close the egg and wrap it up with steel string. Place it inside a strong crucible in which in a similar way you have put your powder.

Put it on a gentle fire. The red must not be reached before two or three hours. Cook it once to the yellow colour, two hours. Make sure you have the usual precautions: a chimney pipe that doesn't leak anything into the lab, a strong solid door oven, correctly shut while in operation. In fact, the mixture explodes just once around the 500° C, but this explosion must never happen outside. It must be done inside the shut vessel in such a way that the pressure does not escape, or that just a small amount does. The pressure conditions are of a chief importance and must subsist under heat.

You will see the glass melts and little by little you must add the glass paste until it covers everything up. Right afterwards and once it is completely cooked let it cool down overnight and on the next morning you shall break it free with a hammer.

All you need then is to restart the experiment with different weights, taking in consideration that the phenomenon depends upon the quality of your starting materials. In fact, know that in a certain way what is going on is the same thing you feel inside, which shall teach you a great deal on Philosophy. I spent five years experimenting before I discovered what I now tell you in a few lines, and I had to cook a good hundred of eggs before.

Vile metal: 200 200 200 200 200. Mercury: 20 30 40 50 60. Double salt:1st 1/15. Next 1/10. Next 1/10.

Observe the dregs and you will learn that its Geber's sulphur that stains and blunts the metals.

In the morning and during the next few days, let the obtained material transfuse sleep continuously. If a thick earth flows out in a sticky way, greasy and reddish, then the operation was not according to Art. If nothing suppurates I command you to work the transmuted product through Vigenère's method. Before that, one needs to slowly melt the tablet and let it cool down in the oven, in a gentle way. As soon as the first crystals show up immediately use your calcination capsule with skill and afterwards take out the uncrystallized remains: you can be sure that the metallic spirit is now trapped in the crystal net. It's this stellar tablet one must work through subfusion. Do not be startled if you observe the peacock colours while the crystal cools. The last colour must be fix like a sun, to testify this lineage. Only then the metal becomes alive and breathes again because until now it was to dirty and asleep to have its particular break free.

Know that this is not the only way. It may happen that Providence gives you other lights. The main thing is that you may smell, my practitioner children, the quintessence principle I have been telling you about. Do not forget the precautions like for instance the iron string similar to a piano string, 0.7 to 1mm diameter, etc.

Vigenère's subfusion, unlike the common opinion you will find on same publications is achieved through the powerful catalyst that you know from the dry way, with its silver rays.

Your vessel must be that found on the cave of the ancients. It has a great divulgation. I command you to keep from propagating it. In fact, once you prepared the preceding metal through archymie you can now make it go through its first philosophical operation, that will supply its Particular or first matter of the Stone on Art Brief. Note well that its the whole of the lentils that you must cook on the special vessel with God's wrath, according to a most special regimen in which Summer comes after glacial Winters until the sign gratifies you with the second brief work. Never touch the egg otherwise the Mother would no longer want it.

If you have seen how birds satisfy their thirst in the familiar fountains built by men you will recognize your vessel.

Do not ignore this - and if you did, let that lack of knowledge be fulfilled - what is the highly balanced atmosphere that surrounds the crystals. Know that subfusion gets all of its strength from controlling this atmosphere: this is where the dilemma is. Most workers have stopped here, due to their horizontal psychism. They don't see farther than "open crucible - closed crucible", in order to control this atmosphere and keep the crystallization between the liquid and solid states. They're not willing to sacrifice anything.

Have the chemist potter build you this miniature Athanor, within which your metal shall be cooked.

Put that vessel inside the Athanor, together with a simple closed crucible in which you shall melt the crystallized tablet. As soon as it becomes liquid skilfully take your special vessel out, lean it over and pour the liquor through the unique hole until you have reached the level where birds satisfy their thirst.

Start then the subfusion. You will the be able to observe at will the crystallization without fear of the bath being ruined, because it will be within the proper atmosphere and this because it was brought forth by itself. You shall then learn that the little swimmer is fixed as soon as the visible level of the glacial water clearly lowers, at once and with no apparent reason. You must then fish it out, but this operation I am not going to teach you now.

The liquid-solid crystallization point must be as stable as possible. Your vessel must therefore be so thick that its thermal inertia allows this constancy created by a caloric relation one is able to modulate. On the other hand, a muffler is ideal to even the environment inside your gas Athanor (or coal reverberation oven).

You will see that the regimen lowers as time passes. This is quite normal because the re-crystallizing process is a source of heat, as we told you elsewhere. It is therefore necessary to be careful in not wanting by force to keep an exterior stable regimen. It would be convenient to lower the regimen as the work proceeds, from the point where the image remains the same.

The period - i.e., the experiment duration - can vary according to your skill and your inner purity, reflecting of course the subtlety with which you regenerated the starting metal. When 24 hours have passed it is advisable to pour over the visible bath a special powdered salt in order to avoid the formation of a crust. Regarding this salt, it should be correspond to the simulated temperature of a similar bath in which you have previously prepared the mix of salts where "eutectique" remains between 450° and 550° C, without no quick volatilization. Of course sal tartari will be the less volatile with which you will try step by step to equalize the proportion of one or two acolytes. Be careful that this salt, that is not to be used, as a melting will not transmit the bath its part of inner heat thus possibly disturbing the crystallization. In fact, you should think of it more as enamel than salt, into which borax can enter in its more hydrated but natural form. I agree that is an operating easiness: the ancient ones used certain animal excrements.

I advise you to produce your borax with marine of salt, which is the best turf because it contains great quantities of ammonium sulphate, vitriol of Mars and plaster. One needs to wait for that period of the year when the waters are covered with a salt efflorescence keen to the bright glow-worm. You shall then with the help of a feather extract some of this efflorescence that you shall calcine on a metal crucible. You must extract the salt like in every spagyric operation, to mix it (possibly according its various qualities) with the silicate powder, the vat salt or other. Further more, I tell you that you shall crystallize it again until it looses its smell. The parts to dissolve in water are around twenty five times in weight when cold, while in crepitation a three to one proportion will suffice. It is also required that it will solve in spirit of wine.

Pay great attention to this fix acid, because despite among the weakest when at the temperature of men it is nevertheless stronger than most of them when red-hot.

Nevertheless before using it, immediately after the crystallization process, you shall apply a gentle heat to it in order to extract its water until it completely blooms. Afterwards you shall keep it on a sealed vessel.

It combines with the salifiable bases in such a great proportion that this number must not be ignored. Further more you must know that in our Holy Medicine its philosophical preparation is a powerful sedative.»

END