The Instructed Beginner in Chemistry: A Hermetic Epistle

namely vegetable, animal, and mineral, because our water is from animal and vegetable things, and from our mineral growth, etc. Regarding this water, he adds in his book Earth of Earth original: "terra terræ", mention is made in many places of the Holy Scripture, and it is read by the priests at the altar, etc. For this reason, they initially seem to contradict themselves to the inexperienced, because they do not understand the Cabala secret tradition of the Sages. In truth, they do not contradict each other but are all of one opinion. When the Sages speak of mineral growths, or say that our mercury is found in the center of the earth, they mean that in the center of our black earth, or our aforementioned Tartar potassium bitartrate, our mercurial salt and our mineral or sulfur are found. Therefore, Antonius de Abbatia says in his Epistles: our matter is produced from a black earth, or from the blackest black, because our Tartar is coal-black after the first calcination heating to powder. Thus, it is called by Lullius blacker than

black. Others have compared it to scales or iron dross, which is thrown away by blacksmiths, because of the similarity. These are apparent contradictions. The Sages have called this salt by various names according to the colors that change during the work: sometimes lead, antimony, copper, gold, sometimes an unslaked lime and shining marble, sometimes blood, hair, and various other things. Therefore, all the aforementioned things appear in the preparation of this salt under the described metallic reigns, namely the reigns of Jupiter tin, Saturn lead, Sol gold, Luna silver, and Venus copper, etc., according to the different colors, etc. Yet these contradictions are not contradictions when they are so reasonably reconciled and explained. Just as when they speak at times of a dissolvable, stinking menstruum solvent, and sometimes of a dissolving, fragrant menstruum. This is understood because the dissolvable salt, as mentioned, is bitter and stinking. Therefore, some have compared it to the stench of graves and called it assam fœtidam asafetida, a pungent resin,