The Golden Fleece or Golden Treasure and Art Chamber

Splendor Solis.

SECOND TREATISE

Morienus Morienus was a legendary 7th-century hermit and alchemist, famously the teacher of the Umayyad prince Khalid ibn Yazid. says: you should know that the entire work of this Art results in two aptitudes original: "geschicklichheiten"; referring to specific methods or natural arrangements. that are linked to one another; when one is accomplished, the other begins and completes it, and thus the entire mastery is made perfect. But these do not occur except in their own Matter. To understand this properly, one must first know that Nature, as the Giver, says in its Mercury original: "Mercurij"; the liquid "spirit" or metallic principle of matter. concerning the creation of metals, that it works the metals out of Mercury and Sulphur The "soul" or fiery principle that gives matter its form and color.. This is what Serrarius Likely referring to a medieval authority or commentator on the Alchemia texts. intends in the "Question of Alchemy" The medieval precursor to chemistry, focused on the perfection and transmutation of matter. in the 25th Chapter: That Nature, from the very beginning of natural metals, takes a slimy, heavy water in the fire, mixed with a very white, nimble, and heavy earth. It resolves this into a vapor or mist, and raises it into the veins or crevices of the earth. There it cooks or steams them together, solidifying the moisture and drying it until they are united, so that a substance is formed which is called Quicksilver Mercury in its fluid, metallic state.. This is now the beginning and the very first Matter original: "Materia"; the fundamental substance of all metals. of the metals, as was also mentioned above. Therefore, he speaks again in the 26th Chapter, where he says: Those
= who wish to follow Nature should not take quicksilver alone, but quicksilver and sulphur joined together—not common quicksilver and sulphur, but that which Nature itself has joined together, well-prepared and cooked, in constant fluidity. In such a quicksilver, Nature began with its first operation and ended in a metallic nature; and there it stopped, for it had accomplished its part and left everything else to the Art to complete into a perfect Philosophers' Stone The legendary goal of alchemy: a substance capable of perfecting base metals into gold and healing the human body.. From these words, it is evident to anyone who wishes to proceed correctly in this Art—as all the Philosophers The title given to the ancient and medieval sages of alchemy. say—that they should begin where Nature left off, and should take the sulphur and the quicksilver which Nature has joined together in the very purest form...