The Instructed Beginner in Chemistry: A Hermetic Epistle

Sulphur ferment Sulfur of the leaven has written clearly original: "Sulph. ferm. de tribus principiis omnium rerum" in his work On the Three Principles of All Things: There is only one true operation, outside of which no other is true. Therefore, all those who say that some particular work a limited transmutation of base metal into gold exists outside of this single way and this single natural matter are mistaken and deceptive. It is impossible and foolish to want to produce a branch before having a good tree. It is easier to make the Stone itself than to make something particular, even the simplest thing that might be useful, etc. And further: indeed, many particulars can be made once one possesses our tree, namely the universal root, whose branches can be grafted into different trees, etc. This is also confirmed by Bernhardus à Trevis Bernard of Treviso, a 15th-century Italian alchemist and others.

This same Sendivogius Michael Sendivogius, a famous Polish alchemist adds in his epilogue after the twelve treatises found in his New Light original: "novo lumine", as mentioned above: when you work in the second matter, you will achieve nothing, just as those do who work foolishly outside of our single Universal Salt, except for our sole & luna sun and moon, etc. That is precisely

precisely that double, ensouled salt, which is called our Sun and Moon, our gold and silver, or the corpus solare & lunare solar and lunar body of the Sages. Lullius Ramon Llull and Geber an 8th-century Arabic alchemist testify to this very clearly in Volume 1 of the Curious Chemical Library original: "bibl. Chym. curios." by Johann Jacob Manget. They also add in the Dialogues of Bracceschi of Brescia at the end of page 915: that the Sages in this art have known no other gold and silver, nor understood anything else but this double ensouled salt, etc.

Therefore, I ask, tell me, are the Regulus a metallic heart or mass, the metals, or the mineral growths—even if they were dug out of the earth completely pure and already specified by nature—the third matter or not? These have already been excluded above by Sendivogius. And this same Sendivogius, citing Hermes, adds that this alkaline salt falls down from the belly of the wind onto the earth, frozen together with our Magnesia the primal alchemical earth. Thus, he calls it an air, or a frozen spirit, which is better than the whole earth, and concludes that it is our dew. Therefore.