The Instructed Beginner in Chemistry: A Hermetic Epistle

towards the end of the first volume of the Chemical Theater original: "Chym. Theat." and elsewhere, as Lullius also testifies in his Testament of Experiments original: "test. experim." and codex, and almost everywhere. Because it is certain that, if our matter were not fluid and fertilizing, or electric, a wine could never have been made from it. And Lullius, Parisinus, etc., speak of nothing more than the wine, and its quintessence the fifth and purest essence, the burning water, the water of life, and the animating menstruum a solvent used to extract essence, and its tartar-salt. However, it is not common wine that is understood, but the philosophical wine. Therefore, Ripley George Ripley, a prominent 15th-century English alchemist says in his Key to the Golden Gate original: "clavi aur. Portæ": It is a burning water, our water of life, the spirit of our wine, but not of common wine, which the ignorant take for the common water of life. And Lullius adds: that our wine is the first and most distinguished foundation of the art, without which nothing can happen in the mastery of this work.

Therefore, I beg Your Excellency to believe me further, and be certainly assured, believe also

the one who has experienced it, that whenever the envious philosophers authors who hid secrets to keep them from the unworthy speak of metals and minerals, or of their preparations with different things and mixtures, they are speaking of common salt, common vitriol sulfate minerals, saltpeter, sulfur, arsenic, marcasite iron sulfide, bismuth ore original: "Gur bisemutho", strong waters original: "aquis fortibus", usually nitric acid, urine, snow, storm waters original: "aquis tonitrualibus", orpiment original: "auripigmento", an arsenic sulfide mineral, etc., which are commonly known. They have diligently mixed truth with falsehood in these and other deceptive things to confuse the minds of the unwise and to deceive the simple, and thus they trick the inexperienced. As Paracelsus testifies in his Collections of Chemistry original: "congeriis chymiæ", chapters 7 and 8, where he warns us, and Bernard of Trevisan original: "Bernhardus Trevir." and the others confirm. And they have done this so that such a high secret does not fall into the hands of the godless, but that its riddles and Kabbalah secret tradition are only understood by those enlightened by GOD, which are incomprehensible without a master experienced in the art. Therefore, so few Adepts those who have mastered the Great Work are found in the world. For