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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.
[p. 9]
THE SECRET
OF THE
IMMORTAL LIQUOR
CALLED
ALKAHEST
OR
IGNIS-AQUA.
_____
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
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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
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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.
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