COLLECTANEA CHEMICA: Being Certain Select Treatises on Alchemy and Hermetic Medicine Eirenaeus Philalethes, Dr. Francis Anthony, George Starkey, Sir George Ripley, and a Work by an Anonymous Unknown Which is Attributed to Edward Kelly (ed. by A. E. Waite) Alchemical Press (September 1991) ISBN-10: 1558181490 ISBN-13: 978-1558181496

Table of Contents THE SECRET OF THE IMMORTAL LIQUOR ALKAHEST 9 AURUM POTABILE 25 THE TRUE OIL OF SULPHUR 37 THE STONE OF THE PHILOSOPHERS 55 THE BOSOM BOOK OF SIR GEORGE RIPLEY 121 THE PREPARATION OF THE SOPHIC MERCURY 149

[p. 6] [p. 7] Prefatory Note The Hermetic Tracts comprised in this volume are printed from a quarto manuscript (itself a transcript from an older but now untraceable work) belonging to the celebrated collection of the late Mr. Frederick Hockley, who was well known among modern students of the secret sciences, not only for the resources of his Hermetic library, but for his practical acquaintance with many branches of esoteric lore, and for his real or reputed connection with the numerous but unavowed associations which now, as at anterior periods, are supposed to dispense initiation into occult knowledge. While practically the reprint is verbatim, it would have been a needless source of confusion, in a subject which is already sufficiently confused, to have reproduced

[p. 8] the obsolete orthography, the superfluous capitals, the perplexing parentheses, the unnecessary italics, and the chaotic punctuation of the original. These, therefore, have been abandoned in favour of a simpler method. But the flavour of antiquity is sometimes valued for its age rather than its excellence; and partly in deference to this prejudice, there has been no attempt to reconstruct the style of these old writings. Moreover, though somewhat barbarous and entangled, it does not present sufficient difficulties to justify a drastic purgation.

OF THE IMMORTAL LIQUOR CALLED ALKAHEST OR

By EIRENAeUS PHILALETHES.

_____ Communicated to his Friend, a Son of Art, and now Philosopher. By Question and Answer. [p. 10] [p. 11]

THE SECRET OF THE LIQUOR ALKAHEST. 1. Question.--What is the Alkahest? Answer.--It is a Catholic and Universal Menstruum, and, in a word, may be called (Ignis-Aqua) a Fiery Water, an uncompounded and immortal ens, which is penetrative, resolving all things into their first Liquid Matter, nor can anything resist its power, for it acteth without any reaction from the patient, nor doth it suffer from anything but its equal, by which it is brought into subjection; but after it hath dissolved all other things, it remaineth entire in its former nature, and is of the same virtue after a thousand operations as at the first. 2. Q.--Of what substance is it? A.--It is a noble circulated salt, prepared with wonderful art till it answers the

[p. 12] desires of an ingenious artist; yet it is not any corporal salt made liquid by a bare solution, but is a saline spirit which heat cannot coagulate by evaporation of the moisture, but is of a spiritual uniform substance, volatile with a gentle heat, leaving nothing behind it; yet is not this spirit either acid or alkali, but salt. 3. Q.--Which is its equal? A.--If you know the one, you may without difficulty know the other; seek therefore, for the Gods have made Arts the reward of industry. 4. Q.--What is the next matter of the Alkahest? A.--I have told you that it is a salt; the fire surrounded the salt and the water swallowed up the fire, yet overcame it not; so is made the philosopher's fire, of which they speak; the vulgar burn with fire, we with water. 5. Q.--Which is the most noble salt? A.--If you desire to learn this, descend into yourself, for you carry it about with [p. 13] you, as well the salt as its Vulcan, if you are able to discern it. 6. Q.--Which is it, tell me, I pray you? A.--Man's blood out of the body, or man's urine, for the urine is an excrement separated, for the greatest part, from the blood. Each of these give both a volatile and fixed salt; if you know how to collect and prepare it, you will have a most precious Balsam of Life. 7. Q.--Is the property of human urine more noble than the urine of any beast? A.--By many degrees, for though it be an excrement only, yet its salt hath not its like in the whole universal nature.