1. The composition of the waters, the movement, the growth, the removal and restitution of the bodily nature, the separation of the mind from the body, and the fixation of the mind on the body ; operations that are not the result of the addition of foreign natures and taken from outside, but which are due to the unique, self-acting nature of a single species, as well as (the use) of hardened and solidified ores and liquid extracts from plant tissue; all this uniform and polychromatic system comprises the multiple and infinitely varied search for all things, the search for nature, subordinated to the lunar influence and the measure of time, which regulate the term and increase according to which nature is transformed.
2. In saying these things I fell asleep; and I saw a priest standing in front of me on the top of a cup-shaped altar. This altar had fifteen steps to climb. The priest was standing there, and I heard a voice from above saying to me: "I have accomplished the task of descending the fifteen steps, walking toward the darkness, and the action of ascending the steps. , going towards the light. It is the priest who renews me, rejecting the thick nature of the body. So ordained priest by necessity, I become a spirit.
Having heard the voice of the one standing on the cup-shaped altar, I asked him who he was. And he, in a thin voice, answered me in these terms: "I am Ion, the priest of the sanctuaries, and I suffered an intolerable violence. Someone came hurriedly in the morning, and he abused me, slaying me with a sword, and dismembering me, following the rules of the suit. He removed all the skin from my head, with the sword he held (in hand); he mingled the bones with the flesh and burned them with the fire of the treatment. This is how I learned, through the transformation of the body, to become spirit. Such is the intolerable violence (which I suffered).
As he was still talking to me, and I forced him to speak to me, his eyes became like blood, and he vomited all his flesh. And I saw him (changed into) little counterfeit man, tearing himself up with his own teeth, and sagging.
3. Filled with fear, I awoke and thought, "Is not this the composition of the waters? not. I was convinced that I had understood correctly; and I fell asleep again. I saw the same altar in the shape of a cup, and at the top, bubbling water, and a lot of people going about it tirelessly. [6] And there was no one whom I could question outside the altar. I go up to the altar to see this show. And I see a little man, a barber whitened by the years, who says to me: "What are you looking at? I replied that I was surprised to see the agitation of the skin and that of the men burned and alive. He answered me in these terms: "This sight that you see is the entrance, and the exit, and the mutation". I asked him again:
What mutation? And he replied: "This is the place of the operation called maceration; for men who want to obtain virtue enter here and become spirits after having fled the body. So I said to him, "And you are a spirit? And he answered me, "Yes a spirit and a guardian of spirits a. During our conversation, the boiling increasing, and the people uttering lamentable cries, I saw a man of copper, holding in his hand a leaden tablet. He told me the following words, looking at the tablet: "I command all who are subject to punishment to be quiet, to each take a tablet of lead, to write with their own hand, and to hold the eyes raised in the air and mouths open, until their harvest be developed ". The act followed the word and the master of the house said to me, "You have contemplated, you have stretched out your neck and you have seen what has been done." I told him that I saw, and he said to me, "The man you see is the man of copper; he is the head of the priests and the sacrificed, the one who vomits his own flesh. Authority has been given to him on this water and on punished people. "
4. After this apparition, I woke up again. I say to him: What is the cause of this vision? Is not this the boiling white and yellow water, the divine water? And I found that I understood correctly. I say that it is beautiful to speak and beautiful to listen, beautiful to give and beautiful to receive, handsome of being poor and beautiful to be rich. Now, how does nature learn to give and to receive? The copper man gives and the liquefied stone receives; the mineral gives and the plant receives; the stars give and the flowers receive; the heaven gives and the earth receives; the thunderbolts give the fire that rises. In the altar in the form of a cup, all things intertwine, and all dissociate: all things unite; all combine; all things are mingled, and all are separated; all things are wet, and all are dried up; all things flourish and all are deflowered. In fact, for each it is by the method, the measure, the exact weighing of the four elements that the intertwining and dissociation of all things is made; no bonding occurs without a method. There is a natural method, to blow and suck, to keep the stationary classes, to increase them and to diminish them. When all things, in a word, agree by division and union, without the method being neglected in anything, nature is transformed; for nature, having turned back on itself, is transformed: it is the nature and the bond of virtue in the entire universe. for each it is by the method, by the measure, by the exact weighing of the four elements that the interweaving and dissociation of all things is made; no bonding occurs without a method. There is a natural method, to blow and suck, to keep the stationary classes, to increase them and to diminish them. When all things, in a word, agree by division and union, without the method being neglected in anything, nature is transformed; for nature, having turned back on itself, is transformed: it is the nature and the bond of virtue in the entire universe. for each it is by the method, by the measure, by the exact weighing of the four elements that the interweaving and dissociation of all things is made; no bonding occurs without a method. There is a natural method, to blow and suck, to keep the stationary classes, to increase them and to diminish them. When all things, in a word, agree by division and union, without the method being neglected in anything, nature is transformed; for nature, having turned back on itself, is transformed: it is the nature and the bond of virtue in the entire universe. There is a natural method, to blow and suck, to keep the stationary classes, to increase them and to diminish them. When all things, in a word, agree by division and union, without the method being neglected in anything, nature is transformed; for nature, having turned back on itself, is transformed: it is the nature and the bond of virtue in the entire universe. There is a natural method, to blow and suck, to keep the stationary classes, to increase them and to diminish them. When all things, in a word, agree by division and union, without the method being neglected in anything, nature is transformed; for nature, having turned back on itself, is transformed: it is the nature and the bond of virtue in the entire universe.
5. In short, my friend, build a monolithic temple, like ceruse and alabaster, having no beginning or end in its construction. That there is inside a source of very pure water, sparkling like the sun. Carefully observe which side is the entrance to the temple and take a sword in hand; then look for the entrance, because it is narrow ic place where is the opening. A snake is lying at the entrance, guarding the temple. Get away from him; you will immolate it first; strip him, and taking his flesh and his bones, separate his limbs; then gathering the limbs with the bones, at the entrance of the temple, make a footstool, go up on it, and go in: you will find there what you are looking for. The priest, this copper man, whom you see sitting in the spring, gathering (in him) the color, does not look at him like a man of copper; because he changed the color of his nature and he became a man of money. If you want it, you'll have it soon (as a man).
6. This preamble is an entry destined to manifest to you the flowers of the discourses that will follow (that is) the search for virtues, knowledge, reason, the doctrines of intelligence, the effective methods, the revelations that clarify the secret words. Thus virtue pursues the whole, in its time and with method,
7. What do these words mean: "The triumphant nature of the natures o? And this? At the moment when she is accomplished, she is dizzy?" and even:
o Tightened in research, it takes on the common face of the work of the
All, and it absorbs the proper matter of the species? And this: "then fallen outside (of) her first appearance, she thinks to die o? And this:
"When, speaking a barbarous language, she imitates the one who speaks the Hebrew language; then, defending herself, the unhappy woman becomes lighter by mixing her own limbs. "? And this ! The liquid set is matured by fire
8. Leaning on the clarity of these conceptions of intelligence, transforms nature, and considers multiple matter as one. Does not clearly expose anyone to such property; but be good to yourself, lest, in speaking, you destroy yourself. For silence teaches virtue, it is beautiful to see the mutations of the four metals [lead, copper asem (or silver), tin], changed into perfect gold.
Taking salt, wets the sulfur, so as to bring the mass consistency honeycomb. Chains the strength of one and the other; add rosacea to it, and make it an acid, the first ferment of the color white, taken from the rosacea. With these (substances) you will bring by degrees the tamed copper to the white appearance. Let the fifth method distil, by means of the three sublimated vapors: you will find the expected gold. This is how, by taming the matter, you obtain the unique species, taken from several species.