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TREATISE I.

Containing the Practice of the Most Wise King Solomon, on the Stone of the Philosophers.

If you wish that the fixed and the unfixed become fixed to one another, so that they may easily obtain entrance original: "ut facilem fortiantur ingressum", it is necessary to dissolve them more frequently. For without solution, this work cannot be perfectly accomplished, through which the elements are further perfectly separated. For this stone is accomplished through three elements: water, air, and fire. The earth is a root and nourishment for the other elements, the true ferment. The water washes, the air penetrates through, the spirit carries and brings. Thus, understand now our solution: that the spirit or water cleanses the stone of all uncleanness; the air penetrates through to the root; but the fire makes the earth fixed and stable. The water should be given to the thirsty soil in its time. The earth remains fixed in its place, through which the three elements are put together again. For without the elements, no perfect tincture can be prepared. But since in this mixture the elements are still entirely confused and disordered together, and lie hidden, its sharp and inner subtlety—which is quite strong by nature and effect—cannot act while the elements remain hidden within themselves; it gives off a vapor or smoke, which are notably sharp spirits.

From this root, Solomon built the Archam a Paracelsian term for the hidden, internal essence or vital principle, and adorned the Temple in Jerusalem.

In the name of the Most High, take first the most laudable King, who is clear, pure, and surrounded by all virtue, born of the noblest lineage in this world. He wears a crown of the finest and purest gold that can be found in the world, which crown is adorned with three precious stones. This King dwells in the Orient, and his power reaches and divides itself into the Occident, and his wrath begins from the South and terrifies all who dwell in the North. Solution is the beginning of our work original: "Solutio, nostri Operis initium est". No tincture is perfect unless...