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unfavorable environment. The Philosopher's Stone is the combination of
the male and female seeds which beget gold. The composition of these is
so veiled by symbolism as to make their identification a matter of
impossibility. Waite, summarizing the alchemical process once the
secret of the stone is unveiled, says: "Given the matter of the stone
and also the necessary vessel, the process which must be then undertaken
to accomplish the `magnum opus' are described with moderate perpicuity.
There is the calcination or purgation of the stone, in which kind is
worked with kind for the space of a philosophical year. There is
dissolution which prepares the way for congelation, and which is
performed during the black state of the mysterious matter. It is
accomplished by water which does not wet the hand. There is the
separation of the subtle and the gross, which is to be performed by
means of heat. In the conjunction which follows, the elements are duly
and scrupulously combined. Putrefaction afterwards takes place.
`Without which pole no seed may multiply.'
"Then, in the subsequent congelation the white colour appears, which
is one of the signs of success. It becomes more pronounced in cibation.
In sublimation the body is spiritualised, the spirit made corporeal,
and again a more glittering whiteness is apparent. Fermentation
afterwards fixes together the alchemical earth and water, and causes the
mystic medicines to flow like wax. The matter is then augmented with
the alchemical spirit of life, and the exaltation of the philosophic
earth is accomplished by the natural rectification of its elements.
When these processes have been successfully completed, the mystic stone
will have passed through the chief stages characterized by different
colours, black, white and red, after which it is capable of infinite
multication, and when projected on mercury, it will absolutely transmute
it, the resulting gold bearing every test. The base metals made use of
must be purified to insure the success of the operation. The process
for the manufacture of silver is essentially similar, but the resources
of the matter are not carried to so high a degree.
"According to the "Commentary on the Ancient War of the Knights" the
transmutations performed by the perfect stone are so absolute that no
trace remains of the original metal. It cannot, however, destroy gold,
nor exalt it into a more perfect metallic substance; it, therefore,
transmutes it into a medicine a thousand times superior to any virtues
which can be extracted from its vulgar state. This medicine becomes a
most potent agent in the exaltation of base metals."
There are not wanting authorities who deny that the transmutations of
metals was the grand object of alchemy, and who infer from the
alchemistical writings that the end of the art was the spiritual
regeneration of man. Mrs. Atwood, author of "A Suggestive Inquiry into
the Hermetic Mystery", and an American writer named Hitchcock are
purhaps the chief protagonists of the belief the by spiritual processes
akin to those of the chemical process of alchemy, the soul of man may be
purified and exalted. But both commit the radical error of stating the
the alchemical writers did not aver that the transmutation of base metal
into gold was their grand end. None of the passages they quote, is
inconsistent with the physical object of alchemy, and in a work, "The
Marrow of Alchemy", stated to be by Eugenius Philaletes, it is laid down
that the real quest is for gold. It is constantly impressed upon the
reader, however, in the perusal of esteemed alchemical works, that only
those who are instructed by God can achieve the grand secret. Others,
again, state that a tyro may possibly stumble upon it, but that unless
he is guided by an adept he has small chance of achieving the grand
arcanum. It will be obvious to the tyro, however, that nothing can ever
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